The Playground of Satan Part 26

This was another grievance. She exclaimed indignantly:

"To think you have to work like a peasant!"

"I want my crops. And when I've no manager, overseer or bailiff, and very few laborers, what can I do? It's good for me, I'm fit as a fiddle." And he made her feel the muscles on his arms, which were like iron.

"We seem to have become yeoman farmers," she said. "Oh, I'm not complaining for myself."

"Then don't worry about me," he rejoined cheerfully. "After all, we're a lot better off than most of our neighbors."

The wedding was over very quickly. Ian gave Vanda away because there was n.o.body else to do it. She wore a white frock which, oddly enough, he remembered quite well. Less than a year ago he had taken her and the Countess up to Warsaw for some racing, before she went to stay in the Grand Duchy. They had their usual rooms at the Europe, on the quiet side, away from the main street. There was a large sitting-room, with a balcony. The dress had come home at the last moment, whilst the car waited downstairs to take them to the course at Mokotov. She had put it on hastily and called him in from the balcony to look at it. He supposed that was why he remembered it so well. He would have given her a new one for the wedding, had he known she was coming so quickly. She looked very sweet in the old one, though. But his thoughts flew back to the sumptuous outfit he had planned for her, sables he had priced in Warsaw, whither he never returned, except to volunteer for the army; the guests he was to invite, entertaining them as Ruvno could entertain--once. And it had all turned out so differently. There were no guests, no presents, no sables; not even an entire house. Nothing but ruined acres and dead hopes, and a pain in his heart such as he had never felt before.

He could not see her face as the ring was slipped on to her finger. He did not want to. He longed for the whole thing to be over and done with, the blessing bestowed, the healths drunk, the meal at an end, that he could go out into the sun and fresh air, working until bodily fatigue had numbed every other feeling.

Almost immediately after the marriage they sat down to table. He played his part decorously, without betraying himself, with a secret anger at the pain in his soul and determination to kill it. Even Minnie, who watched him closely, could find no fault. He was the lively host of peace days, but the champagne helped him there.

The Canon was in great form. He told all sorts of stories about the time when Rennankampf was lodged in his house and did his duty by food and drink as well. Then he rose to propose a toast. It was in verse.

He had used it at every marriage feast he went to for the past twenty years. Even Vanda, youngest of the party, knew it off by heart; for all the author ever did was to change the names of bride and bridegroom; the body of the verses remained the same. No sooner was he on his feet, however, than they applauded him. Even Father Constantine, rather sleepy after his early rising and the old Tokay, woke up and said: "Bravo!"

"Ladies and gentlemen!" began the Canon, folding his hands over his well-filled soutane and beaming on them all: "Let us now drink to the health of the beautiful bride and gallant bridegroom, who----"

He never got any further. At that moment, Martin approached Joseph and whispered in his ear. The Canon stopped, for he saw a new expression on the bridegroom's face.

"Anything wrong, Count?" he asked anxiously.

Joseph turned to Martin.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite. He is waiting at the door."

"I'm sorry..." He rose. "I'll be back in a moment."

But they all followed him to the door. A Cossack orderly stood there, his horse covered with sweat and he with dust. He saluted Joseph and said in Russian:

"I was to give you this personally----"

And he produced a sealed envelope from one of his high boots.

Joseph tore it open, read the few words typed on a slip of paper inside, and turned white.

"To h.e.l.l with the war!" he cried savagely.

"What is it?" they all cried.

"I must go--at once."

"Oh--not a German advance?" asked Vanda apprehensively.

He crushed the paper in his hand and returned huskily, despair on his face:

"G.o.d knows. The orders are to report at Headquarters immediately. Oh, Vanda, it's Destiny. First the Germans, now the Russians take me from you."

"But you had a week's leave," said the Countess, whilst Vanda and her lover stood side by side, looking at each other in sorrow. "He can't go back on his word."

"It's imperative," said Joseph. Then to the soldier: "What's the news at Headquarters?"

"We're off at once. Galicia, they say." He swung into his saddle.

"I'll get your horse, sir. Time presses." And with a salute which took in them all he went off to the stables.

In less than ten minutes Joseph was off, trotting down the avenue on his fleet horse, the soldier behind him. Farewells, admonitions, promises and good wishes were crowded into that short s.p.a.ce of time. Ian could not forgive himself for his silence in the morning. They were not married an hour before Joseph left. He could have put it off for months, forever perhaps, had he only followed his better sense, instead of letting things slide, with true Slavonic fatalism, he told himself angrily.

But there was no use repining. He left the three women with the priests and returned to his work. He did not attempt to console Vanda, who stood on the steps where her husband had left her, watching him hurry away, waving her hands as he swung out into the road and was lost in the dust and the distance. He noticed that she was very pale, bewildered by the morning's rapid events and emotions, with tears in her eyes. He tried to read her thoughts, but could not.

So life once more returned to its old monotony. Vanda wore her wedding ring. But that was the only outward sign that she was no longer under Ian's guardianship. Letters came to her from Joseph, who wrote of getting leave in the summer. She helped Minnie with the few wounded civilians still left in the house and slipped into her old place again.

Ian seldom spoke to her, avoided her eyes at table where he kept up a general conversation in English, for Minnie's benefit. As spring advanced he found more work to keep mind and body occupied. By dint of getting the most out of himself and the labor still left at his disposal he managed to put enough land under crops to feed Ruvno and its population for two years, and perhaps sell some grain as well. And this gave him as much satisfaction as it would have given any small farmer.

And it made him feel young again to see the land regain some measure of its old prosperous aspect, though many a broad acre was cut up into trenches. Peasants who had escaped to Warsaw during the December campaign now returned, vowing that nothing would induce them to leave home again. True, most of them were obliged to live in trenches or in the open, for their villages existed only in name; but as the warm weather came on this was no great hardship and they felt so glad to get back to the soil that they forgot past troubles and set out to cultivate their fields with the indomitable courage of their race.

XIII

The inmates of Ruvno thought they had witnessed all the wrack and vicissitudes of war; of advancing armies, entrenched armies, foraging armies, looting armies; of wounds, pollution and death. They had yet to see a retreating army.

By July the Russians were in full retreat.

Day and night they went by. Cursing, sweating, bleeding, limping; hungry, thirsty, weary, their eyes aglow with the smouldering fires of rage, disappointment and all the bitterness of recession; without haste, without hope they tramped past, to fall back upon the Nieman, the Pripet and the Dnieper, leaving Poland to the Prussian Antichrist.

At times, some of them stood to give fight, covering the retreat of the armies' bulk. Then, though these battles of despair were far from Ruvno, the ground shook under them, a very earthquake; the few trees left were stript of their leaves till it looked as though winter and not August, were upon them. The Russians had no ammunition; the rumbling and shaking came from their enemies. And this is why there were smouldering fires in the tired soldiers' eyes; it was a nightmare to try and beat off a modern army with lances, rifle-b.u.t.ts and sticks. One morning a lot of soldiers halted in the village. Having exhausted what water there was, for a drought had been added to the peasants' troubles, some sought the house. Ian went out to them. One, a giant with blue eyes, fever-bright and dry, was holding forth to the servants in a frenzy of impotent rage. His uniform was in tatters, his boots a ma.s.s of torn leather, held together G.o.d knows how. His dirty blouse was open to the chest, where the blood had clotted on a stale wound. In his hand was a stout oaken club, which he waved about as he shouted and swore.

"What could I do with this? Tell me, what could I do? A stick to beat off the German swine. Son of a dog, what could I do? Never a rifle since we left the Lakes. My knife gone, too." He meant his bayonet.

"Mother of G.o.d, to think of it! Not a hundred rounds to the whole regiment! But I killed three dog's sons with it!" He wildly struck the air; all fell back in terror of their lives. "See! like this. One!

Two! Three! Smashing in their skulls like I hammer the horseshoes on the anvil at home. Look at their dog's blood on it--look ye, and tremble!"

Father Constantine, who had come out, insisted on dressing his wound, and found two others, only half healed. But he was built like Hercules, this blacksmith from a village of Tula; they could tell he was in a high fever; some men march a couple of days and more in such a state, the kit on their backs, and none the worse for it in the end. For these sons of Rus are hardened from their birth and as strong as the beasts they tend at home. He was indignant with the old priest for bringing out some simple remedies.

"What are you doing, _Pop_?" he shouted. "The surgeon dressed it last night, or last week, I forget when. I tore it off me. How can I bear the feel of rags in this nightmare? I'll go naked to the day of Judgment, by G.o.d I will."

And he proceeded to strip, flinging his ragged garments to right and left, as the wild Cossacks do when they have had too much _vodka_ and dancing. The maids rushed off in horror; but another giant, his comrade, managed to calm him and cover his huge, brawny body, where the muscles stood out as hard as iron under skin white as a woman's; for the Russians of his part are fair. Father Constantine gave him a cooling draught and did what he could for his wounds, which must have smarted terribly under the iodine; but he never groaned. He was lying on his back now, breathing heavily, eyes closed, hands clasping the club with all the strength of fever.

"He'll kill us if he keeps it," observed his comrade, whose head was encased in dirty bandages. "He has been mad with fever since last sunset ... but we can't find room in an ambulance for him and he lays out whenever we try to take it away."

"I'll lay out at all the ministers when I get to Petrograd!" bawled the patient, springing up and upsetting the Father. Worse than that, he sent over the bottle of iodine, too, and they were very short of it.

"Son of a dog, I'll have them all, crush their skulls like walnuts. The war minister first, for sending us sticks instead of guns ... and then the intendant, for these boots." Here he flung one across the yard, where it stuck on to the well-handle. "I'll murder every dog's son of them--by G.o.d, I will, till we clean Russia of thieves and swine."

And so he went on, raving at everybody and everything, till he had shouted himself tired. Then he lay down in the shade of the stables and slept uneasily. Ian wanted to send him to bed, which was the only fit place for him. The officer in charge demurred, said he did not think the man was ill enough to risk being found here by the enemy, who could not be kept off more than a few days. He had orders to retreat with as few losses as possible. When Ian finally gained his point, promising to send him on by the first ambulance that pa.s.sed, the man himself refused to stop behind. He wasn't going to leave his comrades; he didn't trust priests ... this one had burned him with poison and tried to take away his only weapon, so that he would not even be able to crack German skulls when they came up.