She smiled now, her head lifting to meet his gaze. “At last we agree on something.”
He laughed.
Anna sensed her little victory a hollow one. Was he laughing at her? She turned away. “It’s well past time for me to return to the house, so if you’ll excuse me—”
In one quick movement the stranger swung down from the black stallion.
Anna felt fear rise again. She took a cautious step backward.
“Oh, but we haven’t met yet,” he was saying. “Allow me to detain you but a moment longer. I am Jan Stelnicki.” He bowed, stood erect, gazed down at Anna. The dark gray trousers tucked into high black boots, white silk shirt, and red sash around the waist made for an impeccable appearance. His costume was a mix of western and Polish influence, but that he wore no hat was neither western nor Polish.
Anna nodded, lifting her eyes to take in his considerable height. “Well, since you seem to already know my identity, there’s little else to say.” She persisted in her petulant tone even while her mind was seeking its own course. Despite the missing hat and familiar manner, his nobility was evident in his speech and bearing. Once he stood in the shade of the great oak, she took in the aristocratic and masculine features chiseled under a mane of wavy yellow-gold, the laughing smile above a dimpled chin, and those dark blue eyes. Some current at her core stirred: something profound and alien. No man should be so beautiful.
“Lady Anna,” he was saying in a voice almost intimate, “may I offer my sincerest condolences? I was saddened to hear of your parents’ deaths.”
“Thank you, Lord Stelnicki.”
The mourning which for months had consumed her life took on a strangely distant quality now. Her impatience with the stranger was giving way involuntarily to a dichotomous mix of caution and attraction. She watched the motion of his mouth, the porcelain flash of teeth. He wore no moustache. This, too, ran against the Polish mode of the day. There was a mesmerizing presence about him and a strength, not merely physical strength—though he possessed that, too—but a force that came from deep within and resonated in his gaze, in his voice.
“Will you be staying with the Gronski family long?” he asked.
Her immediate response was to tell him that it was of no concern to him, but she took just a moment too long to formulate the reply and her annoyance dissipated. She heard herself telling him that she would be staying with the Gronskis for some time and that, yes, they were treating her very well. While he turned to tether his horse to a wiry branch jutting from the thick tree trunk, he continued his questioning, asking why they had not previously met. Studying him at his task, Anna replied that she had been to visit her aunt and uncle twice several years before. He took studies at the University then, it seemed. When he turned to face her, Anna averted her eyes, politely asking where. In Kraków, he responded, then two years in Paris.
Anna feigned nonchalance. She had never been to Kraków, but she had been to Warsaw—not often, even though her home was so near Poland’s capital. Paris, however, seemed worlds away. Paris was the City of Light: the quintessence of European culture. She longed to see it. Now, of course, the unrest there made it quite unsafe. . . . How old is he? she wondered. Twenty-two? Twenty-three?
“I am glad that you will be staying,” he was saying. “I trust that I will be allowed to show you the sights here at Halicz. Our Harvest Home will be concluding with much celebration . . .”
Her mind a blur, Anna watched as the young man went on speaking of the local autumn customs. What emboldened him to speak to her as though he had known her all his life? She absently fingered the dark lace at her throat. The voice was so warm, so musical, the eyes inviting as a lake in August. Still, she wondered at his sincerity. Did sincerity and boldness coexist? “Lord Stelnicki,” she managed when he took a breath, “I am afraid that such festivities are out of the question for me for some little while yet.”
“Of course. Forgive me.” He bowed from the waist. “But once you are out of mourning there will be many winter gatherings to which we shall look forward—parties, sleigh rides, and—”
Anna interrupted, smiling indulgently. “Oh, I’m afraid that in a few weeks my aunt and uncle will shut up the house. We are to winter in Warsaw.”
“Of course. For the moment I forgot the Gronski custom. Why, were you staying, I would personally organize a kulig. Our joyrides are well-known around here and no Halicz manor home turns away a sleigh party!”
“At least,” Anna laughed, “until the master’s vodka reserve has been drained!”
“I expect so.” Lord Stelnicki laughed, too. Then he let out a great sigh and his face fell with an exaggerated disappointment. “Ah, winter will not be such a happy prospect for me.”
He was so glibly forward that Anna could only stare. This comment, certainly, was insincere.
But the mocking attitude vanished suddenly and he brightened. The blue eyes held Anna’s. “Time is the world’s landlord and he may be friend or foe. May he be our friend, Lady Anna Maria.”
Anna had never heard this saying before, but she knew his meaning and she felt her face burn. His forwardness unnerved her. No man, and certainly no stranger, had ever behaved toward her with such familiarity. Her throat, already dry, tightened as she sought a diversionary tactic. “Do you not winter in the city, Lord Stelnicki?”
“You must call me Jan. Please.”
She longed to extinguish that expectant smile. Did this man ever meet with resistance? Even as she thought this, she found herself nodding in acquiescence. Silently, she promised herself to ignore the request.
He was satisfied, nonetheless, and told her that in years past he had spent December and January in Kraków—where his father lived now—but that he enjoyed the country far more. Yes, he assured her, even in winter, admitting himself to be an odd sort. His mother, it seemed, had died some years before and he assured Anna from experience that Time would help to heal the hurt.
Despite his forwardness and her own awkwardness, Anna was surprised by some interior part of her which sought to prolong the conversation, but having been reminded of her mourning, Duty, not Time, prompted her to insist that she return to the house.
“Very well, then,” he said, “I’ll lead my horse to the Gronski home, if you would care to ride?”
“Oh, no!”
“You do ride?”
“Of course, but I did come out for the walk, you see. Otherwise, I would have ridden out myself. I look forward to walking back.” The words had spilled out in a rush, but he seemed satisfied with her excuse.
“Well, Lady Anna Maria,” he said, bowing, “I welcome you to Halicz and look forward to our next meeting. I hope that one day soon we will ride together. The countryside is breathtaking. When do you put off your mourning?”
“In three weeks’ time.” His deep voice was no longer alien and startling. It was somehow a lyrical voice she had not known but had held always within her, like some ancestral song, primal yet soothing. Is his interest as keen as it seems, she wondered, or am I too vulnerable in my grief? Or merely too easily snared by my own imagination? What stupid and easily-caught bird was it that Polonius had compared Ophelia to? A woodcock, that was it. Is that what I am? Her heart was quickening nonetheless. He wanted to see her again. The thought was at once exciting and unnerving.
“Forgive me for disturbing you today,” Lord Stelnicki was saying. “It was just that from the distance I took you for Zofia and so I rode over. I will make a point of calling on the Gronski family in exactly three weeks. What is it? Why, Lady Anna, I do believe that you’re blushing!”
Anna inwardly cursed him for pointing out her embarrassment. She forced out a little laugh. “It is funny, I should think. I have never been mistaken for my beautiful cousin, I can assure you. I could only wish for such beauty.”
“Why, Anna—it’s only fair now that I address you so—you have little reason for such wishing.” He mounted his black steed. The leather creaked as he settled into the sadd
le with the grace and ease of one who has ridden all of his life.
Once again Anna found herself staring up at him.
“Look!” he said, gesturing in a sweeping motion. “See the two meadow flowers, the yellow and the violet? One is as different from the other as day from night. Yet who will say that one is more beautiful? Oh, a fool might. But only a fool.” The saddle groaned again as he leaned over, motioning her nearer, as if to impart some great secret. “But do you know what may determine the desirability of one over the other?” He spoke with a great earnestness.
The intense eyes held Anna’s, and she could only shake her head in mute response.
“The fragrance!”
The playful, widening smile, set against a complexion colored by the sun, revealed the even white teeth. Suddenly, he drew up on the reins, and as the animal reared, he waved and turned the horse into the wind. Anna stood close enough that she felt the earth tremble when the horse’s forelegs came down. She took a stumbling step backward, feeling a quick breeze made by the swish of the animal’s tail.
As the horse thundered off, Jan Stelnicki called out his goodbye.
Her lips apart as if to speak, she stood and stared until the figure crested the hill and fell from sight.
Anna’s legs quaked. She felt as one abandoned by the enemy on a battlefield. The man was incorrigible: insufferably confident, proud, strutting. He caused defenses within her to rise like drawbridges. And he was toying with her to the last. Yellow and violet flowers, indeed. You are a scoundrel and a rogue, Jan Stelnicki!
And yet she was drawn to him. For a short while, her life had been filled with something other than death and darkness and mourning. Anna sank now to the ground, the stiff satin skirt billowing up around her like a great black cushion.
The world went on as it had before he arrived. The leaves were continuing their circuitous movement. A butterfly fluttered among the meadow flowers. A tiny sparrow sat appraisingly upon a nearby branch.
The meeting with Jan Stelnicki played out again in her mind. She tried to make sense of her feelings. Of course, he is strikingly handsome, she conceded. There was something else about him, too, a special manly grace or energy that accounted for an immediate and deep attraction. A simple meeting, and yet Anna felt that somehow her life had changed. Was this to be the kind of mythical romance of which she read, dreamt, invented?
Doubt ran close behind and she scoffed at the notion: I will not be some easily-snared woodcock. I am too old for such a wishful and girlish infatuation.
But her mind grasped and held to one thought, one memory. Anna’s mother often had told her that she herself had known she would marry Anna’s father from the very first meeting. And she had, despite the concerns of her parents and offers from other wealthier and higher-placed nobles.
She had known! It is possible. Anna’s heart surged at the thought. Might it be so with me?
Her mind was not through playing devil’s advocate, however, conjuring up myriad reservations and fears. Maybe Jan Stelnicki is less than sincere, she thought. Maybe he is merely taking advantage of his looks and charm. To what end? Perhaps he has long been skilled in the arts of seduction. Perhaps it is only his ego. . . .
But there was something deeper—some mysterious link—which attracted Anna and gave profound meaning to what seemed a happenstance encounter, a link that the blacksmith of the gods, Hephaestos himself, might have forged.
Anna sat, her eyes alert now, suddenly aware that the meadow about her teemed with color and movement and warmth and life. This experience of intense attraction she savored for the first time in her life. She drank it in like a fine French wine and it lifted both her body and mind to a strangely ethereal plane.
Rainless clouds came and went. The sun slowly moved over her. Anna stood at last, and the movement stirred the little sparrow from its perch. With purposeful steps she set out in the direction of the Gronski home.
Perhaps she was to have a future, after all. If the endings of myths might be changed, why not the ending to her story?
A gusty wind began to blow, catching the folds of her black skirt as it might a sail, pushing her along.
Anna laughed to herself as she broke into a run. She was thinking about his expression that Time was the world’s landlord. She would conscript Time as friend rather than foe. “After all,” she said aloud, “it will take time to learn how to ride a horse!”
2
HERE, AT HAWTHORN HOUSE, THE Gronski manor home, no one would forbid her to ride. Not like at home. Anna went directly to her bedchamber on the second floor. After washing and changing for supper, she walked to the massive old dresser and tugged at the bottom drawer. She lifted from it a carved wooden box with delicate inlay, a work of art fashioned by the artisans of the Tatra Mountains. Carefully, she placed it on the dresser top and lifted the lid.
Even away from the window, the translucent object shone brightly against the red velvet lining. Anna removed it from the box and placed it on the black marble. She turned it first this way, then that way, somehow dissatisfied. It was only just before her mother died that she had learned its secret. How strange that this beautiful but lifeless object kept her from riding horses. The sight of the dove had never failed to please her, yet the familiar serenity was absent today.
She had told Jan Stelnicki that she could ride. She had never lied before and found it unsettling. No good could come of it.
No matter, she resolved after some moments, Zofia will teach me how. And one day I shall go riding with Jan.
It was the first time she had thought of the stranger on a first-name basis. She looked up into the mirror to find her expression an odd combination of surprise and pleasure, as if in his absence some intimacy had been established between them.
She left the crystal dove on the dresser, certain that the maid would not dare touch it, and went downstairs to seek out Zofia.
Anna found her cousin sitting with her mother in the small parlor that led to the Count and Countess’ antechamber and bedroom. Her buoyancy would not allow her to sit. Thoughtlessly and with a childlike abandon, she poured out the news of the meeting with Lord Jan Stelnicki. Zofia expressed the keenest interest, and Anna forgot for the moment that Countess Stella Gronska was even present. When the story was told, however, Anna saw that her aunt’s face had bled to white and the expressive brown eyes widened now in horror. “Do you mean, Anna, that you met Jan Stelnicki in some field? You were alone?”
“No,” Zofia joked before Anna could reply, “Anna told you: Jan was there. Well, cousin, what do you think? Is he not handsome?”
“Oh, yes,” Anna replied softly, “and charming.”
“And one day,” Zofia said, “he will be Count Jan Stelnicki,”
“Count or not, his behavior is unheard of,” the countess protested. “The boldness! There was no introduction and no chaperone. And he had not the decency to wear a hat.”
“Oh, Mother,” Zofia said, “don’t excite yourself so. You’ll bring on your heart palpitations. This is a new day.”
“That I should live to see it!”
A maid appeared now to announce supper.
Anna had no appetite; she was suddenly as spiritless as a willow tree jilted by the breeze. At her heart’s core, she herself had thought the meeting improper. Why had she not, then, anticipated her aunt’s response? How stupidly impulsive to blurt out everything as she had! What a little fool I am, she thought. I must learn to think before I speak.
Walking to the countess’ chair, Anna knelt and reached out to touch her hand. “Oh, please don’t hold his forwardness against him, Aunt. He approached me only because from the distance he thought me to be Zofia.”
“And where was I?” Zofia intoned. “If only I had known the fields were ripe with men!”
“Zofia!”
Zofia pulled a face. “You are too serious, Mother!”
“Not as serious as your father should he hear such scandalous talk.” The countess took Anna’s ha
nd in hers and softened her tone. “Perhaps you do not realize the impropriety of such an occurrence, my child. In any event, your parents would not have approved, Anna. Jan Stelnicki, though a good friend and neighbor, is not a Catholic but an adherent to the Arian heresy.”
“His father is an Arian, Mother,” Zofia said. “Jan has little interest in religion.”
The Countess Gronska’s lips tightened like a purse drawn closed. “The difference between a heretic and a heathen is thin, Zofia, and one I will not argue.” She stood abruptly, drawing Anna also to her feet. “We will go into supper now.” Although she had to look up into Anna’s face, there was no questioning the older woman’s resolve. “Anna Maria, I must forbid you to venture beyond the outer buildings on your own. Be certain that not a word of this—this meeting—reaches your uncle’s ears. He’s called men out to duel over less. And understand me well, Anna: under no circumstances are you to see Jan Stelnicki again.”
For all appearances, supper was cordial. Anna conversed with her aunt, uncle, and cousin, answering questions, smiling and even laughing a little. But her mind and emotions were working on a different level. She remembered a baby bird with a broken wing she had once found. Her father made for it a little splint, and Anna lovingly nursed it, anticipating the day it would experience its first flight. But one morning she discovered that despite their efforts and its own tiny will to live, it had died during the night.
By the time supper was finished, Anna was, as she had been so many years before, inconsolable.
3
ZOFIA SAT AT HER WHITE French vanity table with its painted design, absently running the hairbrush through her dark, lustrous hair. She had removed a mask of makeup, so that her expression was stark in its seriousness. She sighed deeply at her reflection. There was nothing to do but confront Anna and put an end to her childish infatuation.
But how to handle it? She continued to brush, staring, as if entranced by her own reflection. Her mind struck two options. She might douse Anna’s interest by merely supporting her mother’s opinion regarding Jan’s religion, or lack of it. Anna was too simple and timid a soul to go against the whole family.
Push Not the River Page 3
