The Playground of Satan Part 16

"Then in six months we'll get married. I'll tell Vanda." He put out his hand. Ian wrung it and left the room without another word.

VIII

Ian had no morbid intention of brooding over his troubles, sentimental or material. He was going to fight the one as he was already fighting the other, as he struggled against the starvation and disease which threatened the neighborhood, or against the difficulties of plowing and sowing within range of German guns.

He went into his mother's dressing-room that night with the firm intention of forgetting the evening's events as soon as possible, and her greeting helped him.

"What do you think?" she said. "Vanda wants to go to Warsaw and nurse, instead of stopping with us."

He looked at her with tired eyes.

"If she wants to, let her. I expect she's right."

Then he told her the gist of his talk with Joseph. She listened with disapproval. She would never forgive Joseph's successful wooing.

"I think he ought to wait till after the war," was her verdict. "What is the use of their marrying when he has nowhere to live and nothing to live on? Let us hope they will both think better of it once they settle down again."

And there the matter ended, so far as talk went. She had great hopes that her boy would "take to" Minnie. England would be a very good port in the ever growing storm for him. Of herself she did not think at all.

What was left for her if Ruvno went? She busied herself about getting Vanda off, wrote to friends in Warsaw who found a vacancy for her in one of the hospitals which Polish women had started for the Russian wounded.

She would be at least as safe there as in Ruvno and Ian would be all the better when she was away. Her own dreams had once been bent on a match between them. But things had changed since then and she wanted Ian to forget that which he could not win.

So she hastened on the day when the girl was to leave the house for work in Warsaw. Ian must drive her to the station because he had n.o.body left whom he could trust with one of the young, half-broken-in horses that alone remained of his famous stables. One afternoon in November the _bryczka_ stood ready before the front door. It was one he used to use for going round the estate, simple and light, the body of basket-work plaited close and flat, and varnished over. The shafts were longer than one sees in western Europe where roads are better than east of the Vistula; but it went safely over ruts and holes which a closer-harnessed cart would not have taken at all. It was the only vehicle he had left except a heavy closed carriage which needed at least four horses to pull; stables and coach-house had been emptied of their best by several relays of requisitioning commissions.

Vanda, a little pale, slim even in her fur coat, said good-bye to the rest of the family at the front door. The Countess hugged her in silence, not trusting her voice. Who knew what might happen before they met again! Father Constantine gave her his blessing, after much advice about the evils and pitfalls of Warsaw, though his patroness reminded him that she was going to live with an old friend and would be quite safe. Minnie kissed her and wished her good luck, half sorry, half relieved to see her rival leave the field. Joseph was upstairs. They all agreed he had better not be seen by the servants. When his hand was well enough to hold a rein he would ride to Sohaczev at night and take steps to join the Russian army.

Ian helped her to the high seat in front. Martin put her baggage into the s.p.a.ce at the back. Off they went, down the avenue and out into the road, hardened with a sharp frost which had broken up the warm autumn weather.

It would have been hard for them to talk had they felt in the mood for it. The young horse s.h.i.+ed a good deal and demanded all Ian's attention.

He was glad of it. He Had no wish for commonplaces and could not say what was in his heart; so they went on in silence, b.u.mping a good deal over the road, never too good, now cut up with war traffic, Vanda clinging to her seat to save herself from being pitched out when the horse grew more restive than usual, or rattled over a particularly bad stretch of road.

Their way lay through the country which war had so far spared. The heaviest losses lay to the north-west, where the Prussians were trying to break through on their way to Warsaw. A good many trenches had been made here, too, ready for the Russian troops to fall back upon; but there was not that stamp of utter desolation which already lay on the land nearer Plock. They pa.s.sed very few troops or supplies; the day had been fine and transport correspondingly risky. Business on the road began at night. He had an odd fancy that they were going for one of those jaunts he and she had taken many a time before in the same little cart, when he wanted to try a young horse; that the s.p.a.ce behind their seat carried no baggage but a sporting gun and game bag, and she wore no nurse's ap.r.o.n under her coat. It seemed, as she sat by him, sometimes to touch him as the cart jolted her, that recent barriers had never been, that there was neither Joseph, nor war nor ruin, that only the old free comrades.h.i.+p was there, mellowed into love. And he felt that they were boy and girl again, he home from school, she proud and glad to be with him, that they were driving on forever, into eternity, into the steel-blue horizon which stretched ahead of him on the straight, open road, without care or strife, always to be together, forgetful of the world, sufficient to each other, wanting nothing, asking nothing, blended into one mind and one heart, clear and limpid as the afternoon air of the northern autumn.

Never had those versts to the bare wooden station seemed so short. As they pa.s.sed the slatternly town, then the long, poplar-lined avenue, he wondered of what she was thinking, if she regretted the past, would be content to put back the years and live without Joseph, only with him.

But he was far to shy to share his fancy. What was the good? He did not even trust himself to search her face, lest he find there tears for his hated rival, whom she might never see again.

As he pulled up and helped her out, giving the reins to a ragged Jew who replaced the st.u.r.dy ostler of other days, he was relieved to see the Canon, who lived in the town. The good man was full of complaints, and looked to the two young people for sympathy, if not redress.

Rennenkampf's men had looted his poultry yard, he said, stealing half a dozen very fine capons as well.

"They stole them for _him_, Count," he whispered, as they made their way through a crowd of soldiers to the waiting-room, two Jews following with the luggage. "They denied it till I threatened to excommunicate them all, including my housekeeper, who ought to have looked after the fowls better but is no good when she sees a soldier around. I excommunicated the General, too."

"What did he say?" asked Vanda.

"Well, Countess, I'm ashamed to say he roared with laughter," returned the indignant ecclesiastic. "But my housekeeper was so frightened that she spoilt the dinner, which was one good thing, for Rennenkampf had to eat it. I'm going up to Warsaw and I'll complain about it. I sha'n't have a thing left if the men go on like this. But you, Count, can help me up there. You know your way about."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going," he said. "My cousin is. I've come to see her off."

The Canon then asked Vanda a dozen questions about her plans and kept them both busy answering him till the tickets were bought and Ian had found places in the crowded train for them, glad to give her into the priest's care, for he noticed many admiring glances shot at her by a varied collection of Russian officers in the waiting-room.

For one moment they were alone. The Canon found a friend and began to tell him about the capons; the little platform, shadowy even in peace time, with its scanty lamps, was quite dark now except for feeble spots of light that came from the railway carriages, from those candles stuck into lanterns which the railway people thought good enough to travel by.

Ian took courage, and said as he kissed her hand:

"Ruvno is your home. If you don't like Warsaw come back at once."

"Oh, Ianek," she faltered. "Forgive me, for the other night. I was mad.... I didn't know what I was saying."

"There's nothing to forgive," he stammered. Then, impulse flung restraint to the winds; he caught her in his arms, kissed her face, hair, lips, clasped her to him with all his strength, in a delirium of love, longing and remorse. He knew not what words poured forth from the bottom of his soul, nor how long he held her thus: never remembered how she got into the train, how he said good-bye to the Canon and got back to his _bryczka_. He only knew that it was dark as his horse sped homewards, without a glance at things that had made him restive on the way out; that he found calm and strength in the familiar ebon sky, glimmering with silver stars, put this new-born madness from him, checked each recurrent thought of her, fixed his mind savagely on refugees, potatoes, corn and fuel, till the white heat of his pa.s.sion had cooled.

Joseph went away a few days later; thus the last link was snapped, he thought. And they heard no more of him for a long time, except that he finally managed to get a commission in a Cossack regiment, which went to the Carpathians. Vanda wrote to the Countess and the priest, content with messages for Ian; and he did the same in return. She was nursing in the Cadets' College, turned into a military hospital, and said she liked the work. But her aunt detected homesickness in her letters.

When he let a thought dwell on her at all, Ian felt thankful she was not in Ruvno. For in the middle of November they began to live in the cellars. They were in the danger zone for a fortnight. The Prussians took Kosczielna, a few versts off, so that their sh.e.l.ls as well as the Russians' sometimes burst near the house. Ruvno became an inferno of din and the inmates often wondered that it did not crumble about their heads. In their underground retreat they had a certain amount of coal and c.o.ke, so that their quarters though dampish, were not so bad as they might have been. A neighboring village fared worse than they did; not a cottage remained. The villagers dug themselves into the earth and lived like rabbits, elected an elder, whom they obeyed, and who ruled the little community as some of his ancestors must have ruled over as primitive a settlement many hundreds of years before. No sooner had petty officials, in the pay of the Russian government, fled before the roar of German guns than they organized their village life underground in a thoroughly sensible way. Having eaten up the little food which was left after the Prussians looted them in pa.s.sing, they subsisted chiefly on roots and the scanty game yet to be had, and the sparrows and crows.

Ian sent them rations every week, but could not be too liberal because he had his own villages to think of. Their worst plight was that they could hope for neither summer wheat nor potatoes of their own; they had no sooner finished the winter sowings than the Russian soldiers came and dug trenches through their land. They had no seed left, and when Ian gave them some, the rain washed most of it away. So those at Ruvno felt they were not so desperately unlucky after all.

Yet they had their troubles. One night the two armies who have made Poland their battlefield, seemed to have gone mad. For twelve hours there was a ceaseless uproar of heavy artillery, and the earth beneath them shook as if troubled by an endless earthquake. They gathered in one end of the cellars, where Father Constantine had fitted up a rough chapel, and prayed together for their own salvation and the Russians'

victory. Towards morning, when they were chanting a hymn, such a thunderous noise broke over their heads that what had gone before seemed like some childish pastime. The earth rocked as if to swallow them in her entrails. They stopped singing, and waited for death. A woman shrieked, but none could hear her; only the lines of her open mouth and the horror on her face told them what she was doing. Szmul, the Jewish factor, his lank hair disheveled, his arms spread out with distended hands and fingers, rushed in and threw himself on to the ground, rolling in terror and shrieking continually. They had but one lamp for economy's sake, so that their little chapel, like those the early Christians used in Rome, was full of shadows. The Countess and Ian, after one horrified, questioning gaze at the Cross on the little altar, returned to their prayers, like the stout hearts and good Christians they were. She told her beads. Minnie, who had been standing at the back, ran towards Father Constantine with moving lips, but who could hear words when pandemonium was let loose? The peasants hugged their weeping children the closer and prayed for mercy. The priest, for one, felt sure his last hour was come, that G.o.d had summoned them as He had summoned so many thousands during the past few months. And so he said the prayers for the pa.s.sing of souls, holding up the Cross, that all might see this symbol of eternal life.

They did not know how long they stood thus because people lose count of time when on the brink of eternity. But gradually the earth ceased to quiver, the tempest of bursting sh.e.l.ls died down to an occasional boom.

And they knew that the Almighty had seen fit to spare them through another night. Ian was the first to speak.

"They have brought down the house," he said to his mother. She nodded, but said nothing.

"Oh, woe unto Israel! Woe is me," wailed Szmul, squatting on his hams and moaning as the hired mourners at a Jewish funeral. Father Constantine told him to control himself or leave the chapel; and the calmer ones managed to comfort the others. Many peasants who had not cellars large enough for shelter were living down there with them.

Szmul, whose hovel had no cellar at all, brought his numerous family. On the whole, they behaved splendidly during this night of anxiety and fear, when it seemed as if every stone in Ruvno had been brought about their ears.

The bombardment went on for hours; there was nothing to do but wait till it died down; only then could they go up and see what had happened. In days of ordinary activity the sh.e.l.ls fell heaviest between seven at night and eight in the morning; then came a quiet hour when they managed to get some air, clean the cellars and examine damage done to house and village during the night. Between nine and ten, the "orchestra," as they called it, began again and went on till noon, when both Prussians and Russians paused for a meal. If the household was careful to dodge chance sh.e.l.ls they had another two hours of liberty; if the Russians meant to begin before their regular time they let them know by a signal, to which Ian held the secret. The Russians' dinner-hour was Ruvno's busy time. Those peasants who had nothing left to eat came for rations; Ian had every detail of the daily round in clock-work order. The management of a large property like Ruvno, with its twenty farms and sixty square versts of forest land, was good training for him. Each man and woman living in the cellars had an appointed task, and Ian, the Countess, Minnie and Father Constantine saw that it was done. Their great trouble was to keep the cellar refuge in a moderately sanitary condition, because the peasants, none too clean in their houses, had no idea of the danger they ran from infectious diseases. Here, Minnie was invaluable. They escaped fevers; one child died of bronchitis, which was very bad when they took her to the cellar, her parents' cottage and shop having been razed to the ground by a sh.e.l.l. Things were in a worse state down in the village, where Father Constantine and the two ladies had daily fights with filth and ignorance whilst the heavy guns were resting. They could not make the peasants see that they were packed so much closer together, and subject to greater privations, they had to be far more careful than in better days. By one o'clock the rooms and park became dangerous, though they could dodge the sh.e.l.ls between the house and the village till dusk, if they remembered the dead angles. But night fell early, and the rule was for all to answer roll-call in the pa.s.sage between the two main cellars at half-past two. Ian called the names unless busy outside, or in the house; and then the old priest replaced him.

After that the weariness began. Though the family did what they could to keep the fifty refugees--peasants, children and Jews--amused, time hung heavy on their hands. They took down all the furniture they could, and kept their feet warm with carpets. But they used straw for the peasants and Jews because they could burn it when dirty. Father Constantine always said Szmul and his family were the filthiest people he ever saw; it was a trial to have them; but they put up with it, and had to own that the Jew, with his wretched Polish and his funny stories, kept the others amused.

Ian could not give them work that needed a good light, because he had to be careful with oil and sit in semi-darkness most of the evening. But he and the Countess read to them and told them stories; they also sang hymns and Polish patriotic songs, of which they never tired. One or two, who escaped from the ma.s.sacres at Kalisz, told their experiences, and the villagers never tired of listening to that, either. Like children, they loved to hear a story repeated over and over again.

Father Constantine managed to write up his diary, though candles were so precious. As they always kept one small lamp in the chapel he wrote there. It was colder than near the stove, but he had both his fur coats on, besides a pair of felt boots in which he used to hunt when younger.

When his fingers got numbed he blew on them and rubbed them till the blood circulated. Many of the people went there to say their prayers and he would do what he could for them before they left again.

When the Russians and Prussians stopped for breakfast after that dreadful night they all spent in the chapel, Ian called up as many men as there were picks and shovels, took a pick himself and led the way up to the house. He demurred about Father Constantine's going; but he soon settled that. During the night they had decided that they must dig a way into the air through the ruins of the house.

They left the Countess in great anxiety about Ruvno, which had grown gray and mellow in sheltering brave men and beautiful women; and Father Constantine, who was not born there, loved it so dearly that to lose it meant to lose heart and courage. He felt that, going up the steps. And the peasants who followed Ian up were heavy-hearted, too; he and his forebears had always been good masters, generous in the days of serfdom, fair and square with the soccage, and living on their land ten months a year, unless they went to fight for their country.

They reached the stone entry which led from pantry to cellar and looked round. A wintry sun came through a hole in one wall, but the others were unhurt. With a shout of joy Ian threw down his pick and bolted over the debris, through the hole, which had swallowed up the door as well. Father Constantine followed as fast as his joints allowed, helped by Baranski, the village carpenter. They were both beyond the climbing age; so, by the time they reached the courtyard, the others had disappeared. So far, Ruvno looked as though it stood; but they noticed several new holes.

"Where's the tower gone?" cried Ian, pointing westwards. True enough, the tower had vanished; from where they stood it looked clean cut off, but on going nearer they saw that the front floor and part of the stairway remained, a dejected ruin. The falling masonry had struck the west wing. The cellar chapel was right underneath, which accounted for the fearful noise they heard in the night.

"The tower can be rebuilt--but the west wing is done for," he said ruefully.

When Father Constantine saw the tears gather in those clear eyes his own grew dim. The bombardment had destroyed the oldest part of the house, built when the first lord of Ruvno came home from the Crusades; it, and the moat, were all that the centuries had left of the original building.

The rest was added on at various times. But the west wing was Ruvno's pride. Weakened by age, it could not stand the weight of the falling tower, and now lay in hopeless ruins. It housed many relics, too heavy to remove to Warsaw; and they had perished with it.