Vineta, the Phantom City. E. Werner

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "Uncle Witold, I have had enough of your everlasting commands and prohibitions," cried Waldemar so savagely that his guardian stared at him in open-mouthed wonder. "Am I a schoolboy who must ask permission for every step I take? At twenty-one years of age, have I not a right to decide whether I will go and see my mother? I have already decided. I shall ride over to C– to-morrow morning."

      "Tut! tut! don't be so furious about it," said the old gentleman, more astonished than angry at this sudden outbreak of a fury he could not understand. "Go where you like for all me, but I will have nothing to do with this Polish gentry, I tell you that!"

      Waldemar found refuge in an indignant silence, and ere long, taking his fowling-piece and whistling to his dog to follow him, he left the house. Herr Witold gazed after his ward, shaking his head dubiously, but all at once a new idea seemed to dawn upon him; he took up the letter Waldemar had carelessly flung upon the table, and read it through. His brow grew dark in turn, as he read, and his voice broke out into fury.

      "I thought so!" he exclaimed, striking with his clenched hand upon the table, "this is just like our lady-princess. In half a dozen lines she goads the young fellow on to revolt against me; I now see what all at once made him so defiant. Doctor, just listen to this precious epistle."

      "'My Son: Years have passed since I received a word or sign of life from you,'–('As if she had given him one!' interpolated the reader.)–'I know only through strangers that you are living at Altenhof with your guardian. I am at present in C–, and it will delight me to see you there and introduce you to your brother. I do not really know'–, ('Listen, doctor, now comes the sting')–'I do not really know whether you will be allowed to make this visit, as I am told that, although you have attained your majority, you are still entirely under your guardian's control.'–('Doctor, you yourself can testify how that young scoundrel defies and overreaches us every day.')–'I do not question your willingness to come, but I doubt whether you can obtain the required permission. I have thought best to write to you, and I shall see if you possess independence enough to gratify this wish of your mother, the first she has ever expressed to you, or if you dare not attempt it'–('This dare is underlined.')–'In the former case, I expect you immediately, and close with kindest greetings from your brother and myself.

"'Your   Mother.'"

      Herr Witold was so exasperated that he flung the letter upon the floor. "This is a fine piece of strategy in the princess-mother," he said. "She knows as well as I what a self-willed fellow Waldemar is; and if she had studied him for years, she could not have approached him on a weaker side. The mere thought of compulsion enrages him. I might now move heaven and earth to keep him here, and he would go, merely to prove that he has his own way. What have you to say on the subject?"

      Doctor Fabian seemed fully to understand the family relations, and to regard the approaching interview with an alarm quite equal to that of Herr Witold; but it arose from entirely different reasons. "Heaven help us!" said he, anxiously. "If Waldemar, with his uncultivated manners, goes to C– and appears before the princess, what will she think of him?"

      "She will think that he resembles his father and not her," was the emphatic answer. "And as soon as she sees Waldemar, it will become clear to her that she can make him no pliable tool for her intrigues; for I will wager my head that she has some intrigue on hand. Either the princely purse is empty–I believe it has never been any too full–or a little government conspiracy is on the tapis, and Villica, which lies close to the Polish boundary, is a very convenient place. Heaven only knows what she wants of my boy, but I will find out her plans and open his eyes in season."

      "But, Herr Witold," remonstrated the doctor, "why widen this unfortunate breach in your family just now, when the mother offers her hand in reconciliation? Would it not be better to make peace at last?"

      "You do not understand the situation," replied the guardian, with a bitterness very unusual to him. "No peace can be made with this woman without entire submission to her authority; and because my deceased relative would not yield up his will to hers, he had continual discord in his house. But I do not hold him guiltless; he had serious faults, and made his wife's life very wretched; but this Princess Maryna was no wife for him. Another and a different woman might perhaps have won unbounded influence over him, and have wrought a change in his whole character; but affection alone could have such power, and this woman has never cared for any one but herself. She is by nature heartless and arrogant. Well, she atoned for the supposed humiliation of her first marriage by a second union to a Polish prince, but the one supreme grievance of her life has been her expulsion from Villica, which would have been her widow's dower if Nordeck had not cut her off in his will. He left his entire fortune to Waldemar, and we have educated the lad in such a way that he will not be likely to make a fool of himself."

      "We!" cried the doctor, in consternation. "Herr Witold, I have honestly tried to do my duty to my pupil, but I have not been able to effect the least improvement in his manners. If I had–" He stopped short.

      "They would have been different," added Witold, laughing. "Well, you need have no twinges of conscience about that. The lad suits me perfectly just as he is now. If you prefer to have it so, say that I have educated him; I shall be delighted if he does not prove a suitable instrument for his mother's intriguing plans, and if my training and her Parisian culture are at loggerheads to-morrow, it will delight me still more. This, at least, will be a revenge for that malicious letter."

      With these words, Herr Witold left the room. The doctor picked up the letter from the floor, folded it carefully, and murmured, with a deep sigh,–

      "After all, it will be said that a certain Doctor Fabian educated the young heir. O, righteous heaven!"

      CHAPTER III.

      VILLICA

      Villica, the inheritance of Waldemar Nordeck, was situated in one of the eastern provinces of Germany, and consisted of several large estates whose central point was the old castle of Villica. The manner in which the late Nordeck had come into possession of this estate, and had finally won the hand of the Princess Maryna, affords only a new example of the spectacle so often repeated in our day,–the decline of an old, noble, and once wealthy family, and the rise of a new, plebeian element, with whose wealth comes also the power which once belonged wholly to the aristocracy.

      Count Morynski and his sister had been left orphans in childhood, and had lived under the guardianship of their relatives. Maryna was educated in a convent, and before she left its walls a marriage had been arranged for her. Among noble families this is nothing unusual, and the young countess would have made no protest if the husband chosen for her had been her equal in birth, or a son of her own people. She had, however, been selected as a passive instrument for the carrying out of family plans.

      In the neighborhood where the Morynski family had lived for generations, a certain Nordeck suddenly appeared. He was a German of plebeian birth, but he had amassed great wealth,–enough to acquire large landed possessions in these troublous times, when the old nobility were fugitives or impoverished in consequence of the sacrifices they had made for their country. He had purchased several incumbered estates at half their value, and had all at once become one of the richest proprietors in the country.

      Although the new-comer was a man of narrow culture, rough manners, and questionable morality, his immense possessions gave him very great influence, which he used unscrupulously against the Poles and their cause. Through some secret means this wily stranger gained an insight into certain party schemes, which made him a most dangerous enemy, and his friendship must be won at any price. As the millionnaire could not be approached with a bribe, it was thought best to flatter his vanity by the proposal of a marriage alliance with some noble Polish family. Villica manor had once been in the possession of the Morynski family, and for this reason the now penniless daughter of a once wealthy house was chosen as the sacrifice. The uncouth parvenu, who needed СКАЧАТЬ