The Playground of Satan Part 4

"That might be changed."

He took alarm at this. There was nothing more hateful to his thoughts, just then, than marriage with anybody--but Vanda. And she had deserted him.

"I hope you've not been 'sounding' her, as you call it," he cried in alarm.

"No. Don't be afraid. But bear her in mind. She's a dear girl.

She'll come back to us next year. I'd like to chaperon her to Nice in the winter."

"I'm not going to lose my shooting," he said firmly.

"You could run over there for a week or so. However, there's no hurry.

Let's get Vanda safely settled first." And wisely, she dropped the subject. She knew all about his disappointment, and meant to tell him so one day. Meanwhile she would throw him and Minnie together as much as possible. But there was plenty of time.

The following evening they were finishing dinner when a servant handed Joseph a telegram. Thinking it one of many that had arrived since his engagement, he opened it carelessly.

"Who is it this time?" asked Vanda.

He did not answer, but read the missive twice, his face changing. She took alarm.

"It's bad news?"

He took no notice. She peered over his shoulder. Everybody was waiting for him to speak.

"It's in German," she announced to the expectant table. "Do tell us, Joe."

She put out her hand for the telegram, but he gave it to Ian instead.

She sat down again, looking snubbed.

"Read that," he said. Ian obeyed, aloud, for Vanda's sake, and in English, for Minnie's.

"'The Head of this Military District orders your immediate return, that you may report at headquarters.'" He looked up, puzzled. "It's signed by your manager. What does it mean?"

"Mobilization," answered the Countess promptly. They looked at her in surprise. She was the only member of the household who had read the last batch of papers from Warsaw.

Frowning, Ian reread the telegram. There was silence round the table.

Joseph, like Roman, was a German subject. Eastern Prussia, where he lived, belonged to Poland till Frederick the Great s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the Polish Republic, weakened by internal strife. And ever since that sad day the Prussians have done all they know to hound the Poles off their land. But the owners stood firm from the first, helping one another to keep every acre they possessed from the German colonists, who have their government's backing in money and legislation. It is considered a disgrace for a Pole to sell his land in Prussia or the Grand Duchy of Poland, because Prussian law forbids a Pole to buy it. But a Polish squire or peasant in financial difficulties can always get a more fortunate compatriot to help him, so that he need not sell.

"I've got to go," remarked Joseph gloomily.

Ian's thoughts ran ahead. Joseph would be away for some time; perhaps for months. The wedding would have to be postponed. Meanwhile, he and Vanda would be meeting hourly as in the old days, yet with the difference that she was no longer free. At this moment he did not imagine that Prussia's mobilization could affect his life. The thought that tempted him was that he could undo Joseph's wooing, win her in his absence. Then honor's voice intervened and he put temptation from him.

Another thought came to his aid. He would get his mother to send her to England with Minnie Burton. When Joseph was ready to wed, she could come back. Not till then.

He looked at her. Her face was no longer bright, she gave her lover a long, sad gaze. Then he glanced at Joe over the broad table, handsome with plate and flowers, covered with the remains of a well-served, well-cooked meal. There was nothing supercilious about him now. He was frankly downcast.

"It's for Roman, too," he observed.

"I'll tell him," said Ian. The idea of Roman's going back to Prussia annoyed him. He would not be able to finish the Kuklin business. And he had set his heart on having his wayward, impulsive cousin near by.

They had always been great friends; but since the affair with Vanda he found something very comforting in his company.

Everybody began to talk about the telegram and its probable import.

Newspapers were opened and consulted, only to be thrown aside in disgust. They said so little. Father Constantine and the Countess argued things out according to their ideas of the political situation, whilst Joseph and Vanda had a final talk together. Ian saw his duty was to amuse Minnie Burton, and he did it with thoughts elsewhere. Joseph left the house at two in the morning to catch the night express from Warsaw to Posen. They all waited up with him; their farewells were cheerful. He would soon be back. Meanwhile, he could set the workmen at his house. Ian watched Vanda as they parted. She was sad, but held herself bravely. He liked that. He noticed, too, that Joseph was unusually demonstrative. He knew he ought to be glad of it, for her sake. But it angered him all the same. In a group at the open door they watched the car go down the straight avenue and turn into the road.

On the way Joseph would have to knock up a local petty official and get his pa.s.sport vised. But he saw no difficulties; n.o.body dreamed of war just then, not outside the German Empire. When he had gone they went to bed, sleepy and unconcerned.

Ian motored to Warsaw for lunch. The streets were as deserted as usual at that time of year, except for a sprinkling of troops. But everybody was discussing the possibility of Russia's fighting to help Serbia. How could the big Slav brother leave the weak one to be strangled? He found Roman at the Europe, eating iced soup, and delivered his message.

"What did old Joe do?" he asked. The other told him.

"Went off like a lamb? I thought as much," and he laughed scornfully.

"And you?"

"I'm no friend of the Kaiser's."

"But he may win," and Ian lowered his voice, for a party of Russian officers sat at the next table. "He'll make it pretty awkward for Polish deserters if he does."

At this stage Ian had no more dislike for the Kaiser's army than for the Tsar's. They were both the hereditary enemies of his race. He was glad to think that he, at any rate, could keep aloof from the quarrel. Russia has enough men without taking only sons and had never called him to serve. He was no more obtuse that bright July day than thousands of men in the British Empire, in France, or in Belgium. Perhaps he had a greater respect for Prussia's efficiency and fighting spirit; but this vaguely, as of a fact that could not touch him.

Not so Roman Skarbek. With that odd insight you sometimes find in men who never get the practical hang of life he peered into the future as few, alas, peered then. Ian remembered his words long afterwards, in the warm, humming room, his eyes dim and dreamy with thought.

"He won't win," he said. "At least, not in the end. But he will at first, and let h.e.l.l loose on Europe. He'll apply all the Prussian methods of persecution on other nations that he and his cursed breed have tried on us Poles for the past century. That will send the world against him. _We_ know what Prussianism means; the world doesn't. But it will before he's beaten. What he'll do to me for deserting won't matter. The only deuced thing that matters is to stop Prussianism from spreading all over the world."

"You'll find it awkward here with a German pa.s.sport, if Russia does go to war."

"I've not haunted the _Oaza_ and the club for nothing. I expect I know more influential Russians than you do."

"I wish you would become a Russian subject," said the other, thinking of Kuklin. "I'd help you."

"Thanks awfully. I'll ask you to, if I can't manage it myself."

"Oh, the whole thing will blow over. Why, there's always a scare about this time. The papers made it to have something to write about." And they talked of other things, and of Vanda. Roman asked a dozen questions about her; and he perforce must answer.

He took home the gossip of the town; they talked politics all the evening. Minnie, who had been in St. Petersburg with her elder brother when he was Military Attache to the British Emba.s.sy, told them with confidence born of little knowledge that _if_ the Germans were mad enough to fight, the Russians would be in Berlin by Christmas. Her host, knowing Russian ways better than she, doubted her. Hence came animated talk. Yet none of them seriously thought the storm was near.

Least of all Ian, who tried to cheer Vanda for the temporary loss of her lover by planning a new paddock which must be ready before the wedding.

Never did he feel more secure in his quiet life and snug possession than when, bound for bed, he crossed the large hall, with its vaulted roof painted in Gothic blue with faded gilt stars, and its antler-covered walls. True, there was still a vestige of that uneasy feeling which he unwillingly put down to Vanda. But he had plenty to occupy him till Joe came back; then for a speedy marriage--and oblivion.

III

After much discussion, Father Constantine decided to seek relief for his rheumatism at Ciechocinek, a place which lies nearer the Prussian frontier than Ruvno, on the main line between Warsaw and Berlin. He felt too old to take a long journey abroad, and hated the idea of some fashionable place in Austria or Germany. Ciechocinek was quiet, if primitive, and near at hand. He started off in state a couple of days after Ian's flying visit to Warsaw, in one of Ian's motors, the family at the front door to wish him a pleasant journey. There was as much bustle when the old chaplain went away--which rarely happened--as though the whole household were leaving. Everybody carried something to the car for him; everybody heard over and over again what the two canvas-covered portmanteaux held and knew their owner had packed and unpacked them half-a-dozen times within the week, in the agony of indecision and the search for some necessary garment that had been put at the bottom. Nothing would induce him to let a servant pack them.

Besides the portmanteaux he carried several loose packages; to wit, three long loaves of home-made bread, because any other kind gave him indigestion; a small collection of home-smoked ham, sausage and tongue to take in the evening with his gla.s.s of weak tea (Ciechocinek sausages were all very well, but Father Constantine would sooner have gone without than have eaten them). And, for his morning tea, the housekeeper had packed up a large _baba_ or cake, whose very name makes one's mouth water in days of dark flour and scarce eggs. There was a little basket containing his lunch, for he eschewed restaurant cars and preferred cold chicken and fresh bread and b.u.t.ter to the best meal to be had at railway stations. I had almost forgotten the parcel of b.u.t.ter which he carried to his cure, too; it was firm and fresh and creamy, food fit for the G.o.ds, for he would not eat the watery, saltish rubbish which, so he declared, the hotel-keeper in Ciechocinek provided. At the last moment, when he was in the midst of his good-byes, a maid came hurrying along with a heavy square parcel. It contained linen sheets.

The baths at the cure place, so Father Constantine declared, were frequented by many people whom he thought none too clean. And he had no faith in the attendant's scrubbing. So he had a sheet spread in the bath before it was filled with the muddy substance that drew out his pains. Then there were wraps and pillows and books for the journey, till you would have thought the good old man was to travel for days, instead of hours. Only a generously proportioned Russian railway carriage would have taken so many bundles on the racks. For Father Constantine never trusted his precious portmanteaux to the luggage van.

He was firmly convinced that highway robbers would have learned of his coming, laid wait and robbed him of his baggage whilst he dozed. He invariably counted the sum total of his packets each time the train stopped, when he awoke and glared suspiciously at new-comers. But everybody at Ruvno took his little ways with good humor; he had been there so long that he was an inst.i.tution. They loved his bright eyes and sharp tongue; they knew his heart was in the right place, and knew all his anecdotes so well that they could think of other things whilst he told them, and yet, by force of habit, make the right remark when he had finished. Ian was devoted to him; would never have thought of going off, on his mid-morning round until he had departed. He asked to be allowed to go with him as far as the station; in fact, the priest expected this offer from the st.u.r.dy squire whom he had spanked and taught in by-gone years. But he would never accept it. He disliked being seen off. It looked as though he was no longer capable of buying his own ticket or finding a porter. But the little comedy had to be enacted all the same.

"Father, I'm going to the station," Ian would say on these occasions, when the last package was stowed away and the housekeeper had counted them at least twice.