Under a Charm. Vol. I

"Not long? Why, it is an eternity!" he cried, vehemently. "You can form no idea of what it costs me to stay behind, and let you set out alone."

"Waldemar, pray …" Wanda interposed in visible distress. He did not heed her, but went on with the same vehemence.

"I promised to wait until we were at Wilicza, but at that time I hoped to travel with you. Now it may be a whole month before we see each other again, and I cannot be silent so long. I cannot know you constantly in Leo's company, unless I have the conviction that you belong to me, to me alone."

The avowal came so suddenly, with such a rush, that the young Countess had no time to ward it off; and, indeed, any attempt of hers to stay this burst of passion would have been in vain. He had seized her hand again, and held it fast, as he had held it that evening on the Beech Holm.

"Do not shrink from me so, Wanda! You must long have known what brings me to this place. I have never been able to hide it, and you have borne with me–you have never repulsed me. I must break silence at last. I know I am not as others are. I know there is little, perhaps nothing, in me to please you; but I can, and will, learn to be different. It is solely and entirely on your account that I have imposed on myself these years at the University. What do I care for study, or for the life out yonder? I care for them nothing at all; but I have seen that I often shock you, that you sometimes laugh at me–and … and you shall not do it any more. Only give me the certainty that you are mine, that I shall not lose you. Wanda, I have been alone ever since I was a child–sadly alone, often. If I have seemed rough and wild to you–you know, dear, I have had no mother, no affection. I could not grow up to be like Leo, who has had both; but I can love, perhaps more ardently and better than he. You are the only creature I have ever loved, and one single word from you will make up to me for all the past. Say the word, Wanda–or give me, at least, hope that I may one day hear it from your lips; but, I entreat of you, do not say no, for I could not, could not bear it."

He was actually on his knees before her; but the young Countess had no thought now of enjoying the triumph she had once desired in her childish presumption and vanity. A dim suspicion had, now and again, crossed her mind that the play was growing more like earnest than she had intended, and that it would not be easy to end it by treating it as a mere joke; but, with the heedlessness of her sixteen years, she had put the thought from her. Now the crisis had come, and she must face it–must reply to this passionate wooer, who would be satisfied by nothing less than a 'yes' or a 'no.' Truly, the wooing was not an alluring one. There was none of that tender romantic halo about it which, to a young girl's imagination, appears all essential. Even through this avowal of his love there ran a touch of that sternness which was inseparable from Waldemar's character; but every word told of stormy, long pent-up emotion–spoke of passion's ardent glow. Now for the first time Wanda saw how earnest he was in this matter of his love; and, with a pang of burning self-reproach, the thought flashed through her mind–what had she done?

"Get up, Waldemar, pray–I entreat of you!" Her voice shook with repressed alarm and anxiety.

"When I hear you say yes, not before!"

"I cannot–not now–do get up!"

He did not obey her; he was still in the same supplicating attitude, when the door leading from the anteroom was unexpectedly opened, and Leo entered.

For one moment the new-comer stood rooted to the spot; then a cry of indignation escaped his lips. "So this is how it is!"

Waldemar had sprung to his feet. His eyes blazed with anger. "What do you want here?" he demanded of his brother, imperiously.

Leo had been pale from agitation, but the tone of this question sent the blood up to his face. With a few rapid strides he stood before Waldemar.

"You seem to think my presence here unnecessary," said he, with flashing eyes. "Yet I of all people can best unriddle to you the scene which has just taken place."

"Leo, do not speak!" cried Wanda, half entreating, half commanding; but, in his jealousy, the young Prince lost sight of every other consideration.

"I will speak," he returned, in his exasperation. "My word only bound me until the wager was won, and I have just seen with my own eyes in whose favour it is decided. How often I have begged of you to make an end of the sport. You knew it wounded me, that it drove me to desperation. You persisted in it, nevertheless. Am I to submit quietly while Waldemar, in his fancied triumph, shows me the door–I, who am witness of how you undertook to bring Waldemar to his knees, come what might? Well, you have succeeded; but at least he shall know the truth!"

At the first word 'wager,' a great shock had passed through Waldemar's frame; now he stood motionless, grasping the back of the chair convulsively, whilst his eyes were turned on the young Countess with a strange expression.

"What–what does this mean?" he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

Wanda drooped her head consciously. There was a struggle in her mind between anger against Leo and shame at her own conduct; while, sharper than either, prevailed a feeling of keen, intense anxiety. She knew now how cruelly the blow would tell! Leo, too, was silent–struck by the sudden change in his brother's countenance; he began also to feel how unjustifiably he had acted in exposing Wanda, and how needful it was for him to stop.

"What does this mean?" repeated Waldemar, suddenly rousing himself from his torpor, and going straight up to the young girl. "Leo speaks of some wager, of some sport of which I have been the object. Answer me, Wanda. I will believe you, and you only. Tell me that it is a lie!"

"So I am a liar in your eyes," broke out Leo; but his brother did not heed him. The young Countess's silence told him enough–he needed no further confirmation; but, with the discovery of the truth, all the savage fierceness of his nature rose up within him, and now that the charm to which he had so long yielded was broken, that fierceness carried him beyond all bounds.

"I will have an answer!" he broke out in a fury. "Have I really only been a plaything for you, an amusement for your caprices? Have you been laughing at me, making a mock of me, while I … You will give me an answer, Wanda–an answer on the spot, or I …"

He did not finish the sentence; but his look and tone were so menacing that Leo stepped before Wanda to protect her. She, too, now drew herself erect, however. The sight of the young man's ungovernable rage had given her back her self-possession.

"I will not allow myself to be questioned in this manner!" she began, and would have added words of proud defiance, when suddenly her eye met Waldemar's, and she stopped. Though his features still worked with passion, there was something in his look which told of the man's unspeakable mental torture at seeing his love scorned and betrayed, the ideal he had worshipped hopelessly and utterly destroyed. But her voice seemed to recall him to his senses. His clenched fists relaxed, and he pressed his lips tightly together, as though resolved that no further word should pass them. His breast heaved convulsively in the mighty effort he was making to restrain his rage. He staggered, and leaned against the chair for support.

"What ails you, Waldemar?" asked Leo in alarm, as, remorse springing up within him, he advanced towards his brother.

Waldemar raised himself, and, waving off Leo, turned to go without uttering a word, but with a face from which every drop of blood had receded.

At this moment the Princess made her appearance, accompanied by Dr. Fabian. The sound of their voices, growing louder and louder, had reached her in her room, and made it clear to her that something unusual was going on in the drawing-room. She came in quickly, and for an instant her entrance was unnoticed. Wanda stood vacillating between defiance and distress; but at this crisis the latter gained the upper hand, and, with the cry of a child confessing a fault and praying to be forgiven, she called to the young man to come back.

"Waldemar!"

He stopped. "Have you anything else to say to me, Countess Morynska?"

The young Countess started. Never before had that tone of frigid, cutting contempt met her ear, and the burning blush which mantled to her face showed how keenly she felt it. But now the Princess barred her son's passage.

"What has happened? Where are you going, Waldemar?"

"Away from here," he answered in a dull low tone, without looking up.

"But explain to me what …"

"I cannot; let me go. I cannot stay!" and, thrusting his mother aside, he rushed out.

"Well, then, I must request of you an explanation of this strange scene," said the Princess, turning to the others. "Stay, Doctor!" she continued, as Dr. Fabian, who up to this time had remained at the door, an anxious spectator, now made as though he would follow his pupil. "There is evidently some misunderstanding here, and I must beg of you to undertake the task of clearing up any mistake existing in my son's mind. By rushing away in that violent manner, he has made it impossible for me to explain matters myself. What has happened? I insist on being told."

Wanda did not respond to this authoritative demand; she threw herself on the sofa, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. Leo, on a sign from his mother, went up to her at the window, and related what had passed. The Princess's mien grew more and more ominously dark at every word he said, and it evidently cost her an effort to preserve her calm demeanour, as she turned to the Doctor at length and said, with much apparent composure–

"It is as I thought–a misunderstanding, nothing more! A foolish jest between my niece and my younger son has given Waldemar cause to feel offended. I beg of you to tell him that I regret it sincerely, but that I expect of him that he will not attach undue importance to the folly of two children." She laid a stress on the last word.

"It would be best for me to go now and look after my pupil," Fabian ventured to remark.

"By all means, do so," assented the lady, desirous now of ridding herself of this innocent but most unwelcome witness of the family quarrel. "Good-bye for the present, Doctor. I shall quite hope to see you back soon in Waldemar's company."

She spoke these last words very graciously, and received the tutor's parting obeisance with a smiling face; but when the door had closed behind him, the Princess stepped in sharply between Wanda and Leo, and on her countenance were written signs of an approaching storm, such as but rarely disturbed the even rule of this severe mother and aunt.

Meanwhile Dr. Fabian had learned from Pawlick that young Herr Nordeck had thrown himself on to his horse and ridden away. There was nothing for it now but to drive off to Altenhof after him, which the Doctor did as speedily as possible. On arriving there, however, he heard that Waldemar had not yet returned. The tutor could not help feeling uneasy at this prolonged absence, which, under ordinary circumstances, he would hardly have remarked. The conclusion of the agitated scene he had witnessed directed his surmises pretty near the truth. The Princess, certainly, had spoken of a misunderstanding only, of a jest which her son had taken amiss; but Waldemar's violent exit, his cutting reply to the young Countess's cry of entreaty–above all, the expression of his face–showed that the matter in question was of a very different nature. Something serious must have occurred that Waldemar, who but a short time before had patiently, in contradiction to his whole character, submitted to Wanda's every whim, should now turn his back on her and hers, and leave his mother's house in a manner which seemed to preclude all idea of return.

The whole afternoon wore away, and still Waldemar did not appear. Dr. Fabian waited and hoped in vain. He was glad that Herr Witold had taken advantage of his two house-mates' absence to drive over to the neighbouring town, from whence he was not expected to return until evening; so that, for the present at least, there was an escape from his inevitable questions.

Hour after hour passed away. Evening came; but neither the inspector who had been over to the forester's house, nor the men coming home from the fields, had seen anything of the young master. The Doctor's anxiety now drove him out of doors. He walked some distance up the road which led to the park, and along which every new-comer must pass. At some distance from this road ran a very broad, deep ditch, which was generally full of water, but was now dried up by the heat of the summer, the great unhewn stones with which the bottom was paved lying exposed to view. From the bridge which spanned it an extensive view could be had of the fields around. It was still quite light out here in the open air–only the woods began to wrap themselves in shade. Dr. Fabian stood on the bridge, not knowing what to do next, and considering whether he should go on farther, or turn back, when at last the figure of a horseman appeared in the distance, coming towards him at a gallop. The Doctor drew a deep breath of relief. He himself did not exactly know what he had feared; but, anyway, his fears had been groundless, and, full of rejoicing at the fact, he hurried along the side of the ditch towards the approaching figure on horseback.

"Thank God you are there, Waldemar!" cried he. "I have been so uneasy about you."

"Why?" he asked, coldly. "Am I a child that I may not be let out of sight?"

In spite of his enforced calm, there was a strange sound in his voice which at once called up afresh the Doctor's hardly appeased anxiety. He now noticed that the horse was completely exhausted. It was covered with foam from head to foot, the white flakes fell from its nostrils, and its chest heaved and panted. The animal had evidently been spurred on and on without rest or respite; but the rider showed no signs of fatigue. He sat firm in the saddle, grasped the reins with an iron grasp, and, instead of turning off aside in the direction of the bridge, made as though he would leap the ditch.

"For God's sake, do not attempt such a mad, rash act!" remonstrated Fabian. "You know Norman never will take the ditch."

"He will take it to-day," declared Waldemar, driving his spurs into the horse's flanks. It reared high in the air, but shied back from the obstacle, feeling, perhaps, that its exhausted strength would fail it at the critical moment.

"But listen, do listen!" entreated the Doctor, in spite of his timidity coming close up to the rearing, plunging animal. "You are requiring what is impossible. The leap will miscarry; and, in your fall, your head will be dashed to pieces on the stones below."

For all reply, Waldemar drove his Norman on anew. "Get out of my way!" he gasped. "I will go over. Out of the way, I say!"