E. Werner - Under a Charm. Vol. I

Herr Witold was so exasperated that he dashed the letter to the ground. "There's a thing for a man to read! Cleverly managed of the lady mother, that! She knows as well as I do what a pig-headed fellow Waldemar is, and if she had studied him for years she could not have hit on his weak side better. The mere thought of restraint being placed on him makes him mad. I may move heaven and earth now to keep him; he will go just to show me he can have his own way. What do you say to the business?"

Doctor Fabian seemed sufficiently initiated in the family affairs to look upon the approaching meeting with alarm equal to the Squire's, though proceeding from a far different cause.

"Dear me! dear me!" he said, anxiously. "If Waldemar goes over to C– and behaves in his usual rough, unmannerly fashion, if the Princess sees him so, what will she think of him?"

"Think he has taken after his father, and not after her," was the Squire's emphatic reply. "That is just how she ought to see Waldemar; then it will be made evident to her that he will be no docile instrument to serve her intrigues–for that there are intrigues on foot again, I'd wager my head. Either the princely purse is empty–I fancy it never was too full–or there is some neat little State conspiracy concocting again, and Wilicza lies handy for it, being so close to the frontier."

"But, Herr Witold," remonstrated the Doctor, "why try to widen the unhappy breach in the family, now that the mother gives proof of a conciliatory spirit? Would it not be better to make peace at last?"

"You don't understand, Doctor," said Witold, with a bitterness quite unusual to him. "There is no peace to be made with that woman, unless one surrenders one's own will, and consents to be ruled entirely by her; it was because poor Nordeck would not do so that she led him the life of hell at home. Now, I won't exonerate him altogether. He had some nasty faults, and could make things hard for a woman; but all the troubles came of his taking this Morynska for a wife. Another girl might have led him, might perhaps have changed some things in him; but, for such a task, a little heart would have been needed, and of that article Madam Hedwiga never had much to show. Well, the 'degradation,' as they call it, of her first marriage has been made good by the second. It was only a pity that the Princess Baratowska, with her son and spouse, could not take up her residence at Wilicza. She could never get over that; but luckily the will drew the bolt there, and we have taken care to bring up Waldemar in such a way that he is not likely to undo its work by any act of folly."

"We!" exclaimed the Doctor, much shocked. "Herr Witold, I have given my lessons conscientiously, according to my instructions. I have unfortunately never been able to influence my pupil's mind and character, or …" he hesitated.

"Or he would have been different from what he is," added Witold, laughing. "The youngster suits me as he is, in spite of his wild ways. If you like it better, I have brought him up. If the result does not fit in with the Baratowskis' plots and plans, I shall be right glad; and if my education and their Parisian breeding get fairly by the ears to-morrow, I shall be still better pleased. Then we shall be quits, at least, for that spiteful letter yonder."

With these words the Squire left the room. The Doctor stooped to pick up the letter, which still lay on the floor. He took it up, folded it carefully together, and said, with a profound sigh–

"And one day people will say, 'It was a Dr. Fabian who brought up the young heir.' Oh, just Heaven!"

The domain of Wilicza, to which Waldemar Nordeck was heir, was situated in one of the eastern provinces of the country, and consisted of a vast agglomeration of estates, whereof the central point was the old castle Wilicza, with the lands of the same name. To tell how the late Herr Nordeck obtained possession of this domain, and subsequently won for himself the hand of a Countess Morynska, would be to add a fresh chapter to that tale, so oft repeated in our days, of the fall of ancient families, once rich and influential, and the rise of a middle-class element which, with the wealth, acquires the power that was formerly claimed by the nobility as their exclusive privilege.

Count Morynski and his sister were early left orphans, and lived under the guardianship of their relations. Hedwiga was educated in a convent; on leaving it, she found that her hand was already disposed of. This was assuredly nothing unusual in the noble circles to which she belonged, and the young Countess would have acquiesced unconditionally, had her destined husband been of equal birth with herself–had he been one of her own people; but she had been chosen as the instrument to work out the family plans, which, at all costs, must be carried into execution.

Some few years ago, in the neighbourhood where lay the property of most of the Morynski family, a certain Nordeck had arisen–a German, of low birth, but who had attained to great wealth, and had settled in that part of the country. The condition of the province at that time made it easy for a foreign element to graft itself on the soil, whereas, under ordinary circumstances, every hindrance would have been opposed to it. The after-throes of the last rebellion, which, though it had actually broken out beyond the frontier, had awakened a fellow-feeling throughout the German provinces, made themselves everywhere felt. Half the nobility had fled, or were impoverished by the sacrifices they had been eager to make in the cause of their fatherland; it was, therefore, not difficult for Nordeck to buy up the debt-laden estates at a tithe of their value, and, by degrees, to obtain possession of a domain which insured him a position among the first landed proprietors of the country.

The intruder was, it is true, wanting in breeding, and of most unprepossessing appearance; moreover, it soon became evident that he had neither mind nor character to recommend him. Yet his immense property gave him a weight in the land which was but too speedily recognised, especially as, with determined hostility to all connected with the Polish faction, his influence was invariably thrown into the opposite scale. This may possibly have been his revenge for the fact that the exclusively aristocratic and Slavonic neighbourhood held him at a distance, and treated him with unconcealed, nay, very openly manifested contempt. Whether imprudencies had been committed on the side of the disaffected, or whether the cunning stranger had played the spy on his own account, suffice it to say that he gained an insight into certain party machinations. This made him a most formidable adversary. To secure his goodwill became a necessity of the situation.

The man must be won over at any cost, and it had long been known that such winning over was possible. As a millionaire, he was naturally inaccessible to bribery; his vulnerable point, therefore, was his vanity, which made him look on an alliance with one of the old noble Polish families with a favourable eye. Perhaps the circumstance that, half a century before, Wilicza had been in the possession of the Morynskis directed the choice to the granddaughter of the last proprietor; perhaps no other house was ready to offer up a daughter or a sister, to exact from them the obedience now demanded of the poor dependent orphan. It flattered the rough parvenu to think that the hand of a Countess Morynska was within his grasp. A dowry was no object to him, so he entered into the plan with great zest; and thus, at her first entrance into the world, Hedwiga found herself face to face with a destiny against which her whole being revolted.

Her first step was decidedly to refuse compliance; but what availed the 'no' of a girl of seventeen when opposed to a family resolve dictated by urgent necessity? Commands and threats proving of no effect, recourse was had to persuasion. The young relation was shown the brilliant rôle she would have to play as mistress of Wilicza, the unlimited ascendancy she would assuredly exercise over a man to whose level she stooped so low. Much was said of the satisfaction a Morynska would feel on once more obtaining control over property torn from her ancestors; much, too, of the pressing need existing of converting the dreaded adversary into a ductile tool for the furtherance of their own plans. It was required of her that she should hold Wilicza, and the enormous revenues at the disposal of its master, in the interests of her party–and where compulsion had failed, argument succeeded. The rôle of a poor relation was by no means to the young Countess's taste. She was glowing with ambition. The heart's needs and affections were unknown to her; and when, at sight of her, Nordeck betrayed some fleeting spark of passion, she too believed that her dominion over him would be unbounded. So she yielded, and the marriage took place.