impossible. But the winter could not last forever, she urged, with a
little shiver. And it really was quite easy to keep warm if one went for
a brisk walk in the morning. To prove this she put on the new furs which
Joseph had bought her, and which were very becoming to her delicate
coloring, and set out full of energy. She usually went to the Saski
Gardens, the avenues of which were daily swept and kept clear of snow;
and as often as not, she accidentally met Prince Martin Bukaty there.
Sometimes she crossed the bridge to Praga, and occasionally turned her
steps down the Bednarska to the side of the river which was blocked
by ice now, wintry and desolate. The sand-workers were still laboring,
though navigation was, of course, at a stand-still.
Netty never saw Kosmaroff, however, who had gone as suddenly as he
came--had gone out of her life as abruptly as he burst into it, leaving
only the memory of that high-water mark of emotion to which he had
raised her. Leaving also that blankest of all blanks in the feminine
heart, an unsatisfied curiosity. She could not understand Kosmaroff,
any more than she could understand Cartoner. And it was natural that she
should, in consequence, give much thought to them both. There was,
she felt, something in both alike which she had not got at, and she
naturally wanted to get at it. It might be a sorrow, and her kind heart
drew her attention to any hidden thought that might be a sorrow. She
might be able to alleviate it. At any rate, being a woman, she, no
doubt, wanted to stir it up, as it were, and see what the result would
be.
Prince Martin was quite different. He was comparatively easy to
understand. She knew the symptoms well. She was so unfortunate. So many
people had fallen in love with her, through no fault of her own. Indeed,
no one could regret it more than she did. She did not, of course, say
these things to her aunt, Julie, or to that dear old blind stupid, her
uncle, who never saw or understood anything, and was entirely absorbed
in his cigars and his newspapers. She said them to herself--and, no
doubt, found herself quite easy to convince--as other people do.
Prince Martin was very gay and light-hearted, too. If he was in love, he
was gayly, frankly, openly in love, and she hoped that it would be all
right--whatever that might mean. In the mean time, of course, she could
not help it if she was always meeting him when she went for her walk
in the Saski Gardens. There was nowhere else to walk, and it was to be
supposed that he was passing that way by accident. Or if he had found
out her hours and came there on purpose she really could not help it.
Deulin came and went during the winter. He seemed to have business now
at Cracow, now at St. Petersburg. He was a bad correspondent, and talked
much about himself, without ever saying much; which is quite a
different thing. He had the happy gift of imparting a wealth of useless
information. When in Warsaw he busied himself on behalf of the ladies,
and went so far as to take Miss Mangles for a drive in his sleigh. To
Netty he showed a hundred attentions.
“I cannot understand,” she said, “why everybody is so kind to me.”
“It is because you are so kind to everybody,” he answered, with that air
of appearing to mean more than he said, which he seemed to reserve for
Netty.
“I do not understand Mr. Deulin,” said Netty to her uncle one day. “Why
does he stay here? What is he doing here?”
And Joseph P. Mangles merely stuck his chin forward, and said in his
deepest tones:
“You had better ask him!”
“But he would not tell me.”
“No.”
“And Mr. Cartoner,” continued Netty, “I understood he was coming back,
but he does not seem to come. No one seems to know. It is so difficult
to get information about the merest trifles. Not that I care, of course,
who comes and who goes.”
“Course not,” said Mangles.
After a pause, Netty looked up again from her work.
“Uncle,” she said, “I was wondering if there was anything wrong in
Warsaw.”
“What made you wonder that?”
“I do not know. It feels, sometimes, as if there were something wrong.
Mr. Cartoner went away so suddenly. The people in the streets are so
odd and quiet. And down stairs in the restaurant, at dinner, I see
them exchange glances when the Russian officers come into the room. I
distrust the quietness of the people, and--uncle--Mr. Deulin's gayety--I
distrust that, too. And then, you; you so often ask us to go away and
leave you here alone.”
Mangles laughed, curtly, and folded his newspaper.
“Because it is a dull hole,” he said, “that is why I want you to go
away. It has got on your nerves. It is because you have not lived in a
conquered country before. All conquered countries are like that.”
Which was a very long explanation for Joseph Mangles to make. And he
never again proposed that Netty and her aunt should go to Nice. But
Netty's curiosity was not satisfied, and she knew that Deulin would
answer no question seriously. Why did not Kosmaroff come back? Why did
Cartoner stay away? As soon as etiquette allowed, she called at the
Bukaty Palace. She made an excuse in some illustrated English and
American magazines which might interest the Princess Wanda. But there
was no one at home. She understood from the servant, who spoke a little
German, that they had gone to their country house, a few miles from
Warsaw.
The next morning Netty went for a walk in the Saski Gardens. The weather
had changed suddenly. It was quite mild and springlike. At last the grip
of winter seemed to be slackening. There were others in the gardens who
held their faces up to the sky, and breathed in the softer air with
a sort of expectancy; who seemed to wonder if the winter had really
broken, or if this should only be a false hope. It was one of the first
days in March--a month wherein all nature slowly stirs after her long
sleep, and men pull themselves together to new endeavor. The majority
of great events in the world's history have taken place in the spring
months. Is not the Ides of March written large in the story of this
planet?
Netty had not been many minutes in the gardens when Prince Martin came
to her. He had laid aside his fur coat for a lighter cloak of English
make, which made him look thinner. His face, too, was thin and spare,
like the face of a man who is working hard at work or sport. But he was
gay and light-hearted as ever. Neither did he make any disguise of his
admiration for Netty.
“It is three days,” he said, “since I have seen you. And it seems like
three years.”
Which is the sort of remark that can only be ignored by the discreet.
Besides, Prince Martin did not go so far as to state why the three days
had been so tedious. It might be for some other reason altogether.
“My uncle has been pressing us to go away,” said Netty, “to the south of
France, to Nice, but----”
“But what?”
“Well,” answered Netty, after a pause, “you see for yourself--we have
not gone.”
“It is a very selfish hope--but I hope you will stay,” said Prince
Martin. He looked down at her, and the thought of her possible departure
caught him like a vise. He was a person of impulse, and (which is
not usual) his impulse was as often towards good as towards evil. She
looked, besides looking pretty, rather small and frail, and dependent at
that moment, and all the chivalry of his nature was aroused. It was
only natural that he should think that she had all the qualities he knew
Wanda to possess, and, of course, in an infinitely higher degree. Which
is the difference between one's own sister and another person's. She was
good, and frank, and open. The idea of concealment between himself and
her was to be treated with scorn.
“I will tell you,” he said, “if at any time there is any reason why you
cannot stay.”
“But why should there be any reason--” she began, and a quick movement
that he made to look round and see who was in sight, who might be within
hearing, made her stop.
“Oh! I do not want you to tell me anything. I do not want to know,” she
said hurriedly. Which was the absolute truth; for politics bored her
horribly.
He looked at her with a laugh, and only loved her all the more, for
persisting in her ignorance of those matters which are always better
left to men.
“I almost missed,” he said gayly, “an excellent opportunity of holding
my tongue.”
“Only----” began Netty, as if in continuation of her protest against
being told anything.
“Only what?”
“Only--be careful,” she said, with downcast eyes. And, of course, that
brought him, figuratively, to her feet. He vowed he would be careful, if
it was for her sake. If she would only say that it was for her sake. And
at the moment he really meant it. He was as honest as the day. But
he did not know, perhaps, that the best sort of men are those who
persistently and repeatedly break their word in one respect. For they
will vow to a woman never to run into danger, to be careful, to be
cowards. And when the danger is there, and the woman is not--their vow
is writ in water.
Netty tried to stop him. She was very much distressed. She almost had
tears in her eyes, but not quite. She put her gloved hands over her ears
to stop them, but did not quite succeed in shutting out his voice. The
gloves were backed with a dark, fine fur, which made her cheeks look
delicate and soft as a peach.
“I will not hear you,” she said. “I will not. I will not.”
Then he seemed to recollect something, and he stopped short.
“No,” he said; “you are quite right. I have no business to ask you to
hear me. I have nothing to offer you. I am poor. At any moment I may be
an outlaw. But at any moment I may have more to offer you. Things may go
well, and then I should be in a very different position.”
Netty looked away from him, and seemed to be trying to think. Or,
perhaps, she was only putting together recollections which had all been
thought out before. She could be a princess. She remembered that. She
had only been in Europe six months, and here was a prince at her feet.
But there were terrible drawbacks. Warsaw was one of them, and poverty,
that greatest of all drawbacks, was the other.
“I can tell you nothing now,” he said. “But soon, before the summer,
there may be great changes in Poland.”
Then his own natural instinct told him that position, or poverty, wealth
or success, had nothing to do with the cause he was pleading. He did not
even know whether Netty was rich or poor, and he certainly did not care.
“What did you mean,” he asked, “when you said 'Be careful'? What did you
mean--tell me?”
His gay, blue eyes were serious enough now. They were alight with an
honest and good love. Never of a cold and calculating habit, he was
reckless of observation. He did not care who saw. He would have taken
her hands and forced her to face him had she not held them behind her
back. She was singularly calm and self-possessed. People who appear
nervous often rise to the occasion.
“I do not know what I meant,” she said; “I do not know. You must not ask
me. It slipped out when I was not thinking. Oh! please be generous, and
do not ask me.”
By some instinct she had leaped to the right mark. She had asked a
Bukaty to be generous.
“Some day,” he said, “I will ask you.”
And he walked with her to the gate of the gardens in silence.
XXVII
A SACRIFICE
Though the fine weather did not last, it was a promise of better things,
like the letter that precedes a welcome friend. After it the air seemed
warmer, though snow fell again, and the thermometer went below zero.
Wanda and her father did not return to Warsaw as they had intended.
So long as the frost holds, the country is endurable; nay, it is better
than the towns on those great plains of eastern Europe; but when the
thaw comes, and each small depression is a puddle, every low-lying field
a pond, and whole plains become lakes, few remain in the villages who
can set their feet upon the pavement. The early spring, so closely
associated in most minds with the song of birds and the budding of green
things, is in Poland and Russia a period of waiting for the water to
drain off the flat land; a time to look to one's thickest top-boots in
these countries, where men and women are booted to the knee, and every
third house displays the shoemaker's sign upon its door-post.
The Bukatys' country-house, like all else that the past had left
them, was insignificant. In olden days it had been a farm, one of the
smallest, used once or twice during the winter as a shooting-lodge; for
it stood in the midst of vast forests. It was not really ancient, for
it had been built in the days of Sobieski, when that rough warrior and
parvenu king built himself the house in the valley of the Vistula,
where he saw all his greatness vanish, and ended his days in that grim
solitude which is the inheritance of master-minds. The hand of the
French architect is to be detected even in this farm; for Poland,
more frankly and consciously than the rest of the world, drew all her
inspiration and her art from France. Did not France once send her a
king? Was not Sobieski's wife a Frenchwoman, who, moreover, ruled that
great fighter with her little finger, stronger than any rod of iron? If
ever a Frenchman was artificially made from other racial materials, he
was the last king of Poland, Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski.
Built on raised ground, the farm-house was of stone. It had been a
plain, square building; but in the days of Poniatowski some attempt
had been made at ornamentation in the French style. A pavilion had been
built in the garden amid the pine-trees. A sun-dial had been placed on
the lawn, which was now no longer a lawn, but had lapsed again into a
meadow. The cows had polished the sun-dial with their rough sides,
while the passage of cold winters and wet springs had left the plaster
ornamentation mossy and broken.
Here, amid a simple people, the Bukatys spent a portion of the year.
They usually came in the winter, because it was in the winter they were
needed. The feudal spirit, which was strong in the old prince and
weaker in his children, has two sides to it; but its enemies have only
remembered one. The prince took it as a matter of course that it was his
duty to care for his peasants, and relieve as far as lay in his power
the distress which came upon them annually with the regularity of the
recurring seasons. With a long winter and a wet spring, with a heavy
taxation, and a standing bill at the village shop kept by a Jew, and the
village inn kept by another, these peasants never had any money. And
so far as human foresight can perceive, there seems to be no reason why
they ever should.
By some chain of reasoning, which assuredly had a flaw in it, the prince
seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that he was put into the world
to help his peasants, and those who were now no longer his serfs. And,
though he spoke to them as if they were of a different creation and
not his equals--as the French Revolution set about to prove, but only
succeeded in proving the contrary--he cared for their bodies as he would
have cared for a troop of sheep. He only saw that they were hungry, and
he fed them. Wanda only saw that there were among them sick who could
not pay for a doctor, and could not have gone to the expense of obeying
his orders had they called one in. She only saw that there were mothers
who had to work in the fields, while their children died of infantine
and comparatively simple complaints at home, because their rightful
nurse could not spare the time to nurse them. It was no wonder that the
roof of the farm-house leaked, and that the cows were invited to feed
upon the front lawn.
Clad in a sheepskin coat, with great jack-boots flapping above his
knees, the prince spent all his days on horseback, riding from house
to house, giving a little money and a good deal of sound and practical
advice, listening to the old, old stories of undrained land and poor
crops, of bad seed and broken tools; and cheering the tellers with his
great laugh and some small witticism. For they are a gay people, these
Poles, through it all. “Ils sont legers, actifs, insouciants,” said
Napoleon, that keenest searcher of the human heart, who knew them a
hundred years ago when their troubles were comparatively fresh. And it
is an odd thing that adversity rarely breaks a man's spirit, but often
strengthens it.
Wanda sometimes rode, but usually went on foot, and had more than enough
work to fill the days now growing longer and lighter. She, like her
father, was brisk and cheerful in her well-being--like him, she was
intolerant of anything that savored of laziness or lack of spirit. They
liked the simple life and the freedom from the restraint that hung round
their daily existence in Warsaw. But the old man watched the weather,
and longed to be about larger business, which alone could satisfy the
restless spirit of activity handed down to him by the forefathers who
had stirred all Europe, and spoken fearlessly to kings.
Wanda was not sorry when the thaw gave way to renewed frost. The snow
lay thickly on the ground, and weighed down the branches of the pines.
In the stillness which brooded over the land during day and night alike
the only sound they ever heard was the sharp crack of a branch breaking
beneath its burden. They had lived in this still world of snow and
forest for some weeks, and had seen and heard nothing of men.
“This frost cannot last,” said the prince. “The spring must come soon,
and then we shall have to go back to the world and its business.”
But the world and its business thereof did not wait until the brief
frost was over. It came to them that same night. For Kosmaroff was
essentially of the active world, and carried with him wherever he went
the spirit of unrest.
He arrived on foot soon after nine o'clock. He was going on to Warsaw on
foot the same night, he announced, before the greetings were over.
“And you have had nothing to eat,” said Wanda, glancing at his spare,
weather-beaten face. He was the impersonation of hardness and activity;
a man in excellent physical training, inured to cold and every hardship.
He had simply opened the front door and walked in, throwing his rough
sheepskin coat aside in the outer hall. The snow was on his boots
nearly to the knee. The ice hung from his mustache and glistened on his
eyebrows. He held his coarse blue handkerchief in his hand, and wiped
his face from time to time as the ice melted.
“No,” he answered, “I have had nothing to eat. But the servants do not
know I am here. I saw the lights in their windows at the other end of
the house. I would rather go hungry than let them know that I am here.”
“You will not go hungry from this house,” said the prince, with his
rather fierce laugh.
“I will get you what you want,” said Wanda, lighting a candle. “There
are no servants, however, so you need not think of that. There are only
the farmer and his wife--and my maid, who is English, and silent.”
So, before telling his news, Kosmaroff sat down and ate, while Wanda
waited on him, and Prince Bukaty poured out wine for this rough man in
the homespun clothing and heavy boots of the Vistula raftsman, who yet
had the manner of a gentleman and that quiet air of self-possession in
all societies which is not to be learned in schools nor yet acquired at
any academy.
“When you have finished,” said Wanda, “you can talk of your affairs. I
shall leave you to yourselves.”
“Oh, there is not much to say,” answered Kosmaroff. “I have done no good
on my journey. Things make no progress.”
“You expect too much,” said the prince. He had helped himself to a glass
of wine, and fingered the glass reflectively as he spoke. “You expect
the world to move more quickly than it can. It is old and heavy,
remember that. I have a fellow-feeling for it, with my two sticks.
You would never make a diplomatist. I have heard of negotiations going
forward for five years, and then falling through, after all.”
Kosmaroff smiled, his odd, one-sided smile, and cut himself a piece of
bread. There was a faint suggestion of the river-side in his manner at
table. This was a man into whose life the ceremony of sit-down meals had
never entered largely. He ate because he was hungry--not, as many do, to
pass the time.
“One thing I came to tell you I can tell you now,” he said. “In fact, it
is better that the princess should hear it; for in a way it concerns her
also. But, please, do not stand,” he added, turning to her. “I have
all I want. It is kind of you to wait on me as if I were a king--or a
beggar.”
His laugh had rather a cruel ring in it as he continued his meal.
“It is,” he said, after a pause, “about that Englishman, Cartoner.”
Wanda turned slowly, and resumed the chair she had quitted on
Kosmaroff's sudden appearance at the door.
“Yes,” she said, in a steady voice.
“He knows more than it is safe to know--safe for us--or for himself. One
evening I could have put him out of the way, and it is a pity, perhaps,
that it was not done. In a cause like ours, which affects the lives and
happiness of millions, we should not pause to think of the life of one.
This does not come into my sphere, and I have no immediate concern in
it----” He stopped, and looked at the prince.
“But I have also no power,” he added, “over those whose affair it
is--you understand that. This comes under the hand of those who study
the attitude of the European powers, our--well, I suppose I may say--our
foreign office. It is their affair to know what powers are friendly to
us--they were all friendly to us thirty years ago, in words--and who are
our enemies. It is also their affair to find out how much the
foreign powers know. It seems they must know something. It seems that
Cartoner--knows everything. So it is reported in Cracow.”
The prince shrugged his shoulders, and gave a short laugh.
“In Cracow,” he said, “they are all words.”
“There are certain men, it appears,” continued Kosmaroff, “in the
service of the governments--in one service it is called 'foreign
affairs,' in another the 'secret service'--whose mission it is to find
themselves where things are stirring, to be at the seat of war. They
are, in jest, called the Vultures. It is a French jest, as you would
conclude. And the Vultures have been congregating at Warsaw. Therefore,
the powers know something. At Cracow, it is said--I ask your pardon
for repeating it--that they know, and that Cartoner knows what he
knows--through the Bukatys.”
The prince's lips moved beneath his mustache, but he did not speak.
Wanda, who was seated near the fire, had turned in her chair, and was
looking at Kosmaroff over her shoulder with steady eyes. She was not
taken by surprise. It was Cartoner himself who had foreseen this, and
had warned her. There was deep down in her heart, even at this moment,
a thrill of pride in the thought that her lover was a cleverer man than
any she had had to do with. And, oddly enough, the next words Kosmaroff
spoke made her his friend for the rest of her life.
“I have nothing against him. I know nothing of him, except that he is a
brave man. It happens that I know that,” he said. “He knows as well as
I do that his life is unsafe in this country, and yet, before I left
London I heard--for we have friends everywhere--that he had got his
passport for Russia again. It is to be presumed that he is coming back,
so you must be prepared. In case anything should happen to confirm these
suspicions that come to us from Cracow, you know that I have no control
over certain members of the party. If it was thought that you or Martin
had betrayed anything--”
“I or Martin would be assassinated,” said the prince with his loud
laugh. “I know that. I have long known that we are going back to the
methods of the sixties--suspicion and assassination. It has always been
the ruin of Poland--that method.”
“But you have no feelings with regard to this man?” asked Kosmaroff,
sharply, looking from father to daughter, with a keen sidelong
glance, as if the suspicion that had come from Cracow had not left him
untouched.
“None whatever,” answered the prince. “He is a mere passing
acquaintance. He must be allowed to pass. We will drop him--you can tell
your friends--it will not be much of a sacrifice compared to some that
have been made for Poland.”
Wanda glanced at her father. Did he mean anything?
“You know what they are,” broke in Kosmaroff's eager voice. “They see
a mountain in every molehill. Martin was seen at Alexandrowo with
Cartoner. Wanda was seen speaking to him at the Mokotow. He is known to
have called on you at your hotel in London.”
“It is a question of dropping his acquaintance, my friend,” said the
prince, “and I tell you, he shall be dropped.”
“It is more than that,” answered Kosmaroff, half sullenly.