Читать книгу: «Under a Charm. Vol. I», страница 5
"And you only tell me this now, today? Why did I not hear of it sooner?"
The Princess's eyes met his gravely and steadily.
"What answer would you have made me if, on our first meeting after our long separation, I had made this communication to you?"
Waldemar looked down; he very well remembered the insulting manner in which he had asked his mother what it was she wanted with him.
"You are mistaken in me," he replied, hastily. "I should never have consented to your seeking help from any one but me. What! I am to be master of Wilicza and allow my mother and brother to live in a state of dependence! You are mistaken in me, mother; I have not deserved such distrust!"
"I was not distrustful of you, my son, but only of that influence which has guided you so far, and may perhaps be your guide even now. I do not even know whether your friends will permit you to offer us an asylum."
Again she pricked him with a goad which never failed in its effect, and which the mother was always ready to apply at the right moment. As usual, it stung the young man's pride into arms.
"I think I have shown you that I can assert my own independence," he replied, shortly. "Now tell me, what am I to do? I am ready for anything."
The Princess felt she was about to hazard a bold stroke, but she went on steadily, straight to her aim.
"We can only accept your help in one form, so that it shall not be made a humiliation to us," said she. "You are master of Wilicza–would it not seem natural that your mother and brother should be your guests in your own house?"
Waldemar started. At the mention of Wilicza, the old suspicion and distrust reared their heads anew. All the warnings he had heard from his guardian against his mother's plans recurred to his memory. The Princess saw this, and parried the danger with masterly skill.
"I only care for the place on account of its being near Rakowicz," she said, indifferently. "From thence I could keep up a constant intercourse with Wanda."
Near Rakowicz! constant intercourse with its inhabitants! That decided the question. The young man's cheeks flushed crimson as he replied–
"Arrange it just as you like. I shall agree to everything. I am not going to stay permanently at Wilicza just at present; but I will take you there, at any rate–and there are long holidays at the University every year."
The Princess held out her hand to him.
"I thank you, Waldemar, in my own name, and in Leo's."
Her thanks were sincerely meant, but there was no warmth or heartiness in them, and Waldemar's reply was equally cool.
"Pray don't, mother; you make me feel ashamed. The thing is settled–and now I can go to the shore at last, I suppose."
He seemed most desirous of escaping, and his mother detained him no longer. She knew too well to whom she owed her victory. Standing at the window, she watched the young man as he strode hastily along the garden walk towards the shore; then, turning to her desk again, she sat down to finish a letter she had been writing to her brother.
The letter was just completed, and the Princess was in the act of sealing it, when Leo made his appearance. He looked almost as heated as his brother had been previously; but, in his case, it was evidently some inner disturbance which sent the blood to his temples. With a frowning brow and lips tightly set, he drew near his mother, who looked up in surprise.
"What is the matter, Leo? Why do you come alone? Did Waldemar not find you and Wanda?"
"Oh, to be sure. He came to us a quarter of an hour ago," said Leo, in an agitated tone.
"And where is he now?"
"He has gone out for a sail with Wanda."
"Alone?"
"Yes, all alone."
"You know very well I do not approve of such doings," said the Princess, much annoyed. "If, now and then, I trust Wanda to you, that is quite a different thing. You have been brought up together, and are therefore entitled to treat each other as brother and sister. Waldemar stands in quite a different relation to her, and moreover–I do not choose that they should thus be left alone together. The boating excursion was planned by you all in common. Why did you not remain with the others?"
"Because I will not always stay where I am not wanted!" exclaimed Leo. "Because it is no pleasure to me to see Waldemar following Wanda about with his eyes, and behaving as if she were the only creature in existence."
The Princess pressed the seal on her letter.
"I have told you before what I think of these foolish fits of jealousy, Leo. Are you beginning with them again already?"
"Mamma!" The young Prince came up to the writing table with flashing eyes. "Do you not see, or will you not see, that Waldemar is in love with your niece–that he worships her?"
"Well, and what do you do?" asked his mother, leaning back in her chair composedly. "Precisely the same, or at least you fancy so. You cannot expect me to take this boyish enthusiasm into serious account? You and Waldemar are just at the age to need an ideal, and Wanda is the only young girl with whom you have been thrown in contact so far. Fortunately, she is still child enough to look on it all as a sort of game, and it is for that reason alone I allow it to go on. If she were to begin to take a more serious view of the matter, I should be obliged to interfere and restrict your intercourse to narrower limits. But, if I know anything of Wanda, the case will not arise. She plays with you both, and laughs at you both. So indulge yet awhile in your romance, young people! It will do your brother no harm to practise a little gallantry. He needs it much, I am sorry to say!"
The smile which accompanied these words was truly insulting to a youthful passion–it said so plainly, 'mere child's play.' Leo restrained his indignation with much difficulty.
"I wish you would talk to Waldemar in that tone of his 'boyish enthusiasm,'" he replied, with suppressed vehemence. "He would not take it so quietly."
"I should not disguise from him, any more than from you, that I look upon the matter as a piece of youthful folly. If, five or six years hence, you speak to me of your love to Wanda, or if Waldemar tells me of his, I shall attach some importance to your feelings. For the present, you can safely play the part of your cousin's faithful knights–always on condition that no disputes arise between you on the subject."
"They have arisen already," declared Leo. "I have just had some very sharp words with Waldemar. That was why I gave up the sail. I won't bear it. He claims Wanda's company and conversation altogether for himself, and I won't stand his imperious, dictatorial ways any longer either. I shall take every opportunity now of letting him see it."
"You will not do that," interrupted his mother. "I am more desirous now than ever that there should be a good understanding between you, for we are going with Waldemar to Wilicza."
"To Wilicza!" cried Leo, in a fury; "and I am to be his guest there–to be under him, perhaps! No, that I will never consent to; I will owe Waldemar nothing. If it costs me my whole future, I'll accept nothing from him!"
The Princess preserved her superior calm, but her brow grew dark as she answered–
"If you are willing to set your whole future at stake for a mere whim, I am still here to watch over your interests. Besides, it is not merely a question of you or of me. There are other and higher considerations which make a sojourn at Wilicza desirable for me, and I have no intention of allowing my plans to be disturbed by your childish jealousy. You know I should never ask of you anything that could compromise your dignity; and you know, too, that I am accustomed to see my will obeyed. I tell you, we are going to Wilicza, and you will treat your brother with the regard and courtesy I show him myself. I require obedience from you, Leo."
The young Prince knew that tone full well. He knew that when his mother assumed it she meant to have her way at any cost; but on this occasion a mighty spur urged him to resistance. If he ventured no reply in words, his face betrayed that he was inclined to rebel in deeds, and that he would hardly condescend so far as to show his brother the required courtesy.
"I will take care that no provocation to these disputes shall arise in future," went on the Princess. "We shall leave this in a week, and when Wanda goes back to her father you will necessarily see less of her. As to this sail, tête-à-tête with Waldemar, of which I altogether disapprove, it shall most decidedly be the last."
So saying, she rang, and, on Pawlick's appearing, gave him the letter to take to the post. It conveyed news to Count Morynski of their intended departure from C–, and informed him that his sister would not at present make a claim on his hospitality, but that the former mistress of Wilicza was about to return to, and take up her residence in, her old home.
CHAPTER VII
The boat containing Waldemar and the young Countess Morynska sailed merrily before the breeze. The sea was rather rough on that day, and the waves broke foaming against the keel of the little vessel as she shot through them, dashing their spray overboard every now and then, a fact which in no way disturbed the two occupants. Waldemar sat at the helm, with the calm of an experienced steersman; and Wanda, who had placed herself opposite him under the shadow of the sail, seemed to find great enjoyment in the quick, bounding motion of the little craft, and in their rapid onward progress.
"Leo will go and complain of us to my aunt," said she, looking back towards the coast, which they had already left at some distance behind them. "He went away in a great rage, and you were very unkind to him, Waldemar."
"I don't like any one else to take the rudder when I am in the boat," he answered, in a curt, authoritative tone.
"And suppose I wanted to have it?" asked Wanda, mischievously.
He made no reply, but stood up at once, and silently offered her his place.
The young Countess laughed.
"Oh no. It was only to see what you would say. There is no pleasure for me in the sail when I have to think of steering all the while."
Without a word, Waldemar again grasped the rudder which had been the nominal subject of dispute between him and Leo, though the real cause of their quarrel lay elsewhere.
"Where are we going?" Wanda began again, after a short pause.
"To the Beech Holm, I think. That was what we had settled."
"Won't it be rather far for to-day?" asked the girl, a little anxiously.
"With the wind in our favour we shall be there in half an hour, and if I work the oars well it will not take us much longer to get back. You wanted to see the sunset from the Beech Holm, you know."
Wanda resisted no further, though a vague feeling of uneasiness came over her. Heretofore Leo had been the constant companion of the young people in their excursions by sea and land; this was the first time they had been out alone together. Young as Wanda was, she would have been no woman not to discover, before Waldemar's second visit was over, what had made him so shy and confused on the first. He was incapable of dissimulation, and his eyes spoke a language all too plain, though he had as yet betrayed himself by no word. He was still more reserved and monosyllabic with Wanda than with the others; but, notwithstanding this, she knew her power over him well enough–knew how to use, and occasionally to misuse it; for to her the whole thing was a sport, and nothing more. It pleased her that she could rule this obstinate, masterful nature with a word, nay, even with a look; it flattered her to feel herself the object of a certainly somewhat mute and eccentric, but yet passionate homage; above all, it delighted her to see how angry Leo grew over the matter. Really to give the preference to his elder brother never once entered her mind. Waldemar's person and manners were to the last degree distasteful to her. She thought his appearance 'horrid;' his lack of courtesy shocked, and his conversation wearied her. Love had not made young Nordeck more amiable. He showed her none of those chivalrous attentions in which Leo, in spite of his youth, was already an adept. He seemed, on the contrary, to yield with reluctance to a charm from which he was unable to escape; yet everything in him bore witness to the irresistible power which this first passion had gained over him.
The Beech Holm must probably one day have been a little islet, as its name would indicate; now it was only a thickly wooded hill, joined to the shore by a narrow strip of land, or rather by a little chain of sandy downs, whereby access could be had to it on foot. Notwithstanding its beauty, the place was but little frequented. It was too secluded and too distant for the brilliant, gaiety-loving visitors of C–, whose excursions were generally made to some of the neighbouring villages along the coast. To-day, as usual, there was no one on the Holm when the boat came to land. Waldemar jumped out, whilst his companion, without waiting for help, sprang lightly on to the white sand, and ran off up the hill.
The Beech Holm well deserved its name. The whole wood, which lined the shore for nearly a mile, showed nowhere so many or such fine trees of this species as were gathered together on this spot of earth. Here mighty old beeches stood, spreading their giant branches far over the green turf, and over the grey, weather-beaten fragments of stone which lay scattered here and there, the relics of heathen times–tradition said of some ancient place of sacrifice. At the landing-place the trees stood back on either side, and the broad, beautiful sea lay as in a frame, its deep-blue plain stretching away far as the eye could reach. No shore, no island obstructed the view, no sail rose on the horizon, nothing but the sea in all its grandeur, and the Beech Holm, lying there so solitary and world-forgotten, it might really have been a little islet lost in mid-ocean.
Wanda had taken off her straw hat with its plain black ribbon, and sat down on one of the moss-grown stones. She still wore half-mourning for the late Prince Baratowski. Her white dress was only relieved by a black knot here and there, and a little black scarf was thrown round her shoulders. This sombre hue on her white garments gave to the girl's appearance a subdued and softened tinge which was not habitual to it. She looked infinitely charming as she sat thus with folded hands, gazing meditatively out over the sea.
Waldemar, who had taken a seat by her side on the enormous root of an old beech, seemed to be of this opinion, for he entertained himself exclusively with looking at her. For him the scenery around existed not. He started as from a dream when Wanda, pointing to her stone seat, said jestingly–"I suppose this is one of your old Runic stones?"
Waldemar shrugged his shoulders. "You must ask my tutor, Dr. Fabian, about that. He is more at home in the first century of our era than in the present. He would give you a learned and lengthy dissertation on Runic stones, dolmens, tumuli, and the like. It would afford him the greatest pleasure."
"Oh no; for goodness' sake!" laughed Wanda; "but, if Dr. Fabian has such an enthusiastic love for antiquity, I wonder he has not instilled a taste for it into you. It seems to me you are quite indifferent on the subject."
The young man's face took a most disdainful expression. "What do I care for all their antiquarian nonsense? The woods and fields interest me for the sport they can give me."
"How prosaic!" cried Wanda, indignantly. "So all your thoughts run on your sport! I dare say here on the Beech Holm you are thinking of the bucks and hares which may be hidden in the coverts."
"No," said Waldemar, slowly. "I am not."
"It would be unpardonable with such a prospect before you. Just look at the evening glow out yonder! The waves seem literally to beam with light."
Waldemar followed the direction of her hand with indifferent eyes.
"Yes; that is where they say Vineta went down."
"What went down?"
"Have not you heard? It is an old sea legend. I thought you knew it."
"No; tell me."
"I am a poor story-teller," said Waldemar, deprecatingly. "Ask our fisher-folk about it. That old boatman yonder would give you a far better and more complete account of it than I can."
"But I want to hear it from you," persisted Wanda. "I will; so go on."
A frown gathered on Waldemar's brow. The command had been too imperative.
"You will?" he repeated, rather sharply.
Wanda saw very well that he was offended; but she relied on her power over him, a power she had often tested during the last few weeks.
"Yes, I will!" she declared, as decidedly as before.
The frown deepened on the young man's face. It was one of those moments when he rose up in rebellion against the charm which held him captive; but suddenly he met the dark eyes, and their look seemed to change the order into an entreaty. It was all over now with his anger and resistance. His brow cleared. He smiled.
"Well, then, I will give it you in my short, prosaic way," said he, with an emphasis on the last words. "Vineta1 was, so the story goes, an old fortified place by the sea, and the capital of an ancient nation. Her dominion extended over all the neighbouring coasts and over the waves, where she ruled supreme. Unparalleled in splendour and greatness, countless treasures flowed in to her from other lands; but pride, presumption, and the sins of her inhabitants brought down the chastisement of Heaven upon her, and she sank, swallowed up by the waves. Our sailors still affirm and vow that yonder, where the coast shelves back so far, the fortress of Vineta lies uninjured at the bottom of the sea. They say that, deep down below in the water, they catch a glimpse at times of towers and cupolas, hear the bells ring, and occasionally, at enchanted hours, the whole fairy city rises out of the depths, and shows itself to some specially favoured beholders. There are plenty of strange mirage effects at sea, and here in the north we have a sort of 'Fata Morgana,' though it comes but seldom …"
"Oh, spare me all these tame explanations!" interrupted Wanda, impatiently. "Who cares for them, when the legend is pretty–and wonderfully pretty this one is, don't you think so?"
"I don't know," replied Waldemar, a little embarrassed. "I never thought about it."
"Have you no feeling for poetry whatever?" cried the young Countess, in despair. "Why, it is perfectly dreadful!"
He looked at her in surprise and some confusion.
"Do you think it so dreadful?"
"Of course I do!"
"No one has ever taught me to understand poetry," said the young man, almost in a tone of apology. "In my uncle's house nobody knows anything about it, and my tutors have never done more than give me dry, formal lessons. I am only just beginning to see that there is such a thing in the world."
The last words were spoken with a certain dreaminess of expression very new to Waldemar. He tossed back the hair which, as usual, had fallen low over his forehead, and leaned his head against the trunk of a beech. Wanda suddenly discovered that the brow so constantly hidden beneath those unkempt light locks was high and remarkably well-shaped. Now that it was free and exposed to view, it seemed really to lend nobility to the plain, irregular face. On the left temple a peculiarly distinct blue vein stood out, marked and salient even in a moment of repose. The young Countess had never noticed it before, hidden, as it generally was, beneath the enormous lion's mane which was always an object of derision to her.
"Do you know, I have just found out something, Waldemar," said she, mischievously.
"Well?" he asked, without changing his position.
"That strange blue vein on your forehead. My aunt has one, too, on the temple, just in the same place and exactly similar, only less strongly marked."
"Really? Well, it is the only thing I have of my mother about me."
"Yes, it is true; you are not in the least like her," said Wanda, candidly, "and Leo is her very image!"
"Leo!" repeated Waldemar, with a singular intonation. "Leo, indeed! That is a very different matter."
Wanda laughed. "Why? Has the younger brother any advantage over the elder in this respect?"
"Why not? He has the advantage of his mother's love. I should think that was enough."
"Waldemar, how can you say so!" put in the young Countess.
"Is the idea new to you?" he said, looking up with a frown. "I should have thought any third person must see how I stand with my mother. She forces herself to be friendly to me–oh yes!–and it must cost her trouble enough at times; but she can't overcome her secret dislike any more than I can mine–so we have nothing to reproach one another with."
Wanda was silent, embarrassed, and greatly surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. Waldemar did not appear to notice this; he went on in a hard voice–
"The Princess Baratowska is, and always will be, a stranger to me. I do not belong to her or to her son. I feel that every time we meet. You have no idea, Wanda, what it costs me to cross that threshold continually, to be constantly with them. It is a positive torture I impose on myself, and I should never have thought I could bear it so patiently."
"But what do you do it for?" asked Wanda, imprudently. "Nobody forces you to come."
He looked at her, and the answer lay in his eyes–shone in them so distinctly that the young girl blushed to her very forehead. That ardent, reproachful gaze spoke all too plainly.
"You do my aunt injustice," she said, speaking quickly, as if to hide her embarrassment. "She must, and does, love her own son."
"Oh, no doubt!" Waldemar's bitterness had now grown quite beyond his control. "I am persuaded that she loves Leo very much, though she is so severe with him; but why should she love me, or I her? I was hardly a year old when I lost father and mother at one stroke. I was torn from my home to be brought up among strangers. When, later on, I came to reflect, to ask questions, I learned that my parents' marriage had been an unhappy one–a misfortune for both of them–and that they had separated in bitter hatred; and I learned, too, how this hatred had survived the grave, and how it exerted an influence on my own life. They told me that my mother had been to blame for all; and yet I heard many an allusion to my father, many an expression used with regard to him, which disturbed my judgment of him also. Where other children are taught to love and respect, suspicion and distrust were instilled into me–and now I cannot get free from them. My uncle has been good to me; he is fond of me in his way, but he could not offer me anything beyond the life he leads himself. You know pretty well what that is–I think every one in my mother's house is well posted up on that subject–and yet, Wanda, you expect me to have some feeling for the poetical!"
He spoke almost resentfully, and yet there was a sort of low, regretful sadness in his words. Wanda looked up at her companion with great astonished eyes. She could hardly recognise him to-day. It was the first time she had ever had any serious conversation with him, the first time he had departed from his shy monosyllabic reserve. The peculiarly cold relations between the mother and son had not escaped her; but she had not believed the latter to be in any way affected by the existing estrangement. He had never alluded to the situation by a word; and now, all at once, he showed himself to be most keenly alive to, and deeply wounded by it. Now, in this hour, there dawned on the girl's mind some dim notion of what Waldemar's youth had been–how empty, lonely, and desolate, and how friendless and neglected the young heir whose riches she had so often heard extolled.
"You wanted to see the sunset," said Waldemar, suddenly changing the subject and speaking in quite a different tone, as he rose and came to her side. "I think we are having a rare one to-day."
And truly the clouds which bordered the horizon were suffused with a crimson glow, and the sun, still radiantly clear, was sinking lower and lower towards the sea, which flashed into a sudden glory at its farewell greeting. A flood of light streamed over its surface, spreading ever wider and wider–only over the spot where Vineta lay deep down at the bottom of the sea, the waves kept their sombre purple, while in their furrows gleamed bright streaks as of liquid gold, and above them thousands of glittering sparks danced and floated.
It must be owned that in the old legends there is a something which lifts them out of the domain of superstition, and even to a denizen of the modern world an hour may come when the old enchanting glamour makes itself felt, quickening the phantasies of the past into actual living realities. Truly, these legends sprang from the hearts of men; and their eternal problems, like their eternal truths, still preserve a strong hold on the human breast. Not to every one, indeed, does the fairy world open its gates, so closely guarded in these our days; but the two now seated on the Beech Holm must have belonged to the elect few, for they distinctly felt the charm which drew them gently but irresistibly within the magic circle, and neither of them had the courage, or the will, forcibly to break the spell.
Over their heads the wind rustled in the branches, louder still ran the murmur and plash of the sea at their feet. Wave upon wave came rolling up, rearing their white foam-crests aloft for an instant, then crashing over on to the shore. It was the old mighty ocean melody, the song of breeze and billow combined, which in its everlasting freshness enthrals every listener's heart. It sings now of dreamy, sunshiny calm, anon of raging storms with their terror and desolation, of restless, endless, surging life–each succeeding wave bringing a new tone of its own, each breath of wind echoing a responsive chord.
Waldemar and his young companion must have well understood this language, for they listened to it in breathless silence; and as they so sat and hearkened, another sound stole on their ears. Up from the very depths of the ocean came the faint chiming of bells, and about their hearts a feeling gathered as of pain and longing, mingled with a dim far-off perception of infinite bliss. From the purple waves yonder rose a shining vision. It floated on the waters, away into the golden glory, and there stood bright and definite, a world of countless, unknown treasures, a picture framed in a magic halo–the old fairy city of Vineta!
The burning edge of the great glowing disc now touched, as it were, the sea beneath it, and sinking ever deeper and deeper, disappeared at last below the horizon. One more flaming, fiery blaze–then the light went out, and the deep red hue still staining the water paled and gradually died away.
Wanda drew a long breath, and passed her hand across her brow.
"The sun is down," she said in a low voice; "we must be thinking of going back."
"Of going back?" repeated Waldemar, as in a dream. "Already?"
The girl rose quickly, as though to escape from some weight of uneasiness. "The daylight will soon be gone now, and we must get back to C– before it grows dusk, or my aunt will never forgive me for coming without her leave."
"I will set that right with my mother," said Waldemar, and he too seemed to speak the indifferent words with an effort; "but if you wish to start …"
"I do wish it, please."
The young man turned to go towards the boat, but all at once he stopped.
"You will be going away soon now, Wanda. In a few days, will you not?"
The question was put in a strangely agitated tone, and the young Countess's voice too had lost its natural ring, as she answered–
"I must go to my father now; he has done without me so long."
"My mother and Leo are going to Wilicza." Waldemar hesitated between the words, as though something caught his breath. "There is some talk of my joining them. May I?"
"Why do you ask me?" said Wanda, with an embarrassment very unusual to her. "It depends entirely upon yourself whether you visit your own property or not."
The young man did not heed the remark. He bent lower over her. His voice faltered, as it seemed, with deep passionate anxiety.
"But I do ask you, Wanda–you alone! May I come to Wilicza?"
"Yes," fell almost involuntarily from Wanda's lips; but in the same moment she started back, frightened at what she had done, for Waldemar seized her hand impetuously, and held it fast, as though it were his for ever and ever. The young Countess felt how he interpreted her 'yes,' and grew confused and troubled. A thrill of sudden alarm shot through her. Waldemar noticed that she drew back.
"Have I been too rough again?" he asked, in a low voice. "You must not be angry with me, Wanda–not to-day. It was only the idea of your going away that I could not bear. Now I know that I may see you again–now I will wait patiently till we are at Wilicza."
She made no reply, and they both went silently down to the boat. Waldemar put up the sail, and settled himself to the oars. With a few powerful strokes he sent the little craft far out to sea. A faint, rosy glimmer still lingered on the waves as the boat glided through them. Neither of the young people spoke during the journey. There was no sound, save the monotonous ripple of the water; the last transient glow died out of the sky, and the early shades of twilight fell over the Beech Holm, as it receded farther and farther into the distance. The sunset dream was over; but that old legend, which had woven its threads, tells us that he who has once looked on the lost Vineta, has once heard the sound of her bells, is pursued all his life by a longing which leaves him no rest until the enchanted city rises before him once more–or draws him down below into the depths.
