Push Not the River

by James Conroyd Martin

  “Anna Maria,” her aunt asked, “shall I leave you alone for a bit?”

  Anna turned to detain her. “No, Aunt Stella. What I have to say, you must hear, too. It’s about Antoni.”

  Anna seated herself opposite her aunt and Jan. She wondered whether they would believe her. She wondered if she herself believed that her husband had tried to kill her, had killed two innocent children. Perhaps there was an explanation; perhaps circumstantial evidence had made her draw conclusions that were untrue.

  The story took no more than half an hour’s time. Anna watched the stricken faces of her aunt and Jan. As she spoke and recreated the experience for them, she relived the harrowing nightmare herself.

  A little silence fell over the three when her story was told. The remembering and telling had confirmed her own suspicions anew. But what about Jan and Aunt Stella? Anna studied the faces across from her. Did they believe her?

  “So,” Jan sighed, “the Russian who escaped no doubt reported to Antoni. He must have hoped you were dead, but when he went back to the site he could come to no conclusion. He investigated and stumbled upon the priest.”

  “Dear God in Heaven,” the countess gasped. “Is it possible, Anna Maria? Your husband?”

  “What other explanation might there be, Aunt?”

  The countess could only shake her head.

  “Who could have sent the Poles?” Jan asked.

  “Yes, there is that,” the countess rejoined.

  Anna shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. They were on a mission to rescue me, I’m certain. I thought perhaps one of you might have sent them . . . or Zofia?”

  “Had I known you were in trouble,” Jan said, “I wouldn’t have sent anyone, Anna. I would have gone myself. One day I hope to shake the hand of this Antek.”

  “And I had no clue, dearest. I think I may say the same for Zofia.”

  “Then it is a mystery,” Anna said.

  “Well, what are we to do?” the countess cried. “What if Antoni is to come here?”

  “Oh, he will come here, Aunt,” Anna said. “And I don’t think our wait will be long.”

  “If this is true,” the countess said, “we must bring charges. He must be kept from you, Anna, and he must pay for the lives of those two children. Isn’t that so, Jan?”

  “In a perfect world, yes.”

  “What do you mean?” the countess asked.

  “I mean that all we have here are circumstances, conjectures, nothing else. Anna is the only living witness. And she has been eyewitness to nothing that involves Antoni directly.”

  Anna’s blood chilled. It was as she had feared. Jan was right. There was no real evidence against her husband. Nothing tangible. And now he moved about at will, able to strike when he chose.

  The countess became flushed and agitated at this news, and Anna found herself soothing her. “It’s nothing,” the countess insisted, “just my palpitations. They’ll pass soon enough.”

  Nonetheless, Lutisha was summoned, and the three assisted the countess to her bedchamber.

  “I’d better go now,” Jan said as he and Anna came out from the Countess Gronska’s room.

  Anna felt a familiar emptiness as she walked him toward the door. How she longed for him to turn to her, to hold her. How had it all come to this? Perhaps it would be better never to see him, rather than having to seize the briefest of moments and then part. Always parting.

  He turned then and took her hand. “You know that I would have come, had I known?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “You must do as I ask now, Anna. No matter what, I will stay in the city until Antoni does make his appearance, as he must. You are to have a letter already written—and at first sight of him you are to dispatch it immediately to the Queen’s Head, do you hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am not always there, of course, but I will leave word always as to my whereabouts. If the tavern is closed, have your messenger wake the proprietress who lives above stairs. She has a young son who will get it to me in quick order.”

  Anna nodded.

  “You will ask Zofia about the Poles who came to your aid?”

  “I will.”

  “Be brave.” Jan kissed Anna’s hand. “I should go.”

  “But . . .”

  With the door open, he turned back to her. “What is it, Anna?”

  “But what can you do . . . when Antoni arrives, I mean?”

  Jan’s smile was enigmatic. “I shall confront him.” He turned then and began moving down the stairs to the street.

  “But what does that mean?” Anna called.

  He pretended not to hear.

  Zofia arrived that afternoon, bursting into Anna’s room in an effusive display of surprise and delight. “Why, dear Anna, we thought you dead!” she cried, at last releasing her cousin from a long embrace. “Is it truly you?”

  Anna smiled. “It is.”

  “And the baby?”

  “Fine.”

  “What wonderful news! I’ve just come from the most delightful cruise, though the ship never left its docking. Too much ice still in the river. But it was delicious. Oh, Anna, I’m overwhelmed to find you home and safe. Antoni did not hold out much hope for you. But he found you! How wonderful! Is he here?”

  “Come let’s sit down. I must tell you . . . about Antoni.”

  “What is it?” Zofia asked, seating herself across from her cousin.

  For the second time that day, Anna lived through the story. What the enigmatic Zofia felt as she listened to the details of Anna’s close call and the deaths of the children was impossible for Anna to decipher. However, she was openly skeptical about Anna’s conclusions regarding Antoni’s role in all of it.

  “I find the whole thing improbable, Anna, highly improbable,” she announced at the story’s conclusion.

  “Then you did not send the party of Poles to take me back from the Russians?”

  “I? No, of course not. They may have been highwaymen. Perhaps you misunderstood. Surely Antoni will explain himself when he gets here.”

  “Zofia, should he be allowed into this house, my life is forfeit. Perhaps not immediately, but in time he will find a new way to rid himself of me.”

  “Don’t you think that if you just give yourself over to the marriage and—”

  “No! Even if I gave him my estate at Sochaczew to do with as he wishes, all the cards are on the table now. He has made up his mind that I am a hindrance. You must understand, Zofia. I must convince you. Your mother understands the danger, as does Jan.”

  “Jan?” Zofia’s face bled to white.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s been here?”

  Anna nodded.

  “On whose invitation?”

  “Mine.”

  Zofia gasped. “Why, you little minx! No wonder you want to divest yourself of your husband! Perhaps it is you who wishes to dispose of a spouse. Not even home a day and you have him sniffing around. When will you give up your pipe dream of possessing Jan Stelnicki?”

  “I have no hopes of—”

  “Don’t even try to deny it.” Zofia’s face was reddening now in anger. “And just what does Count Stelnicki think he can do to remedy the situation?”

  “I don’t know what he plans to do.”

  “I suppose you would like it if they dueled and Antoni was killed. Would that solve all your problems, cousin?”

  “I do not wish for— ”

  “You do not have permission to invite Jan Stelnicki into my home. Please remember that.” She started for the door. “Oh, and I’m having company tomorrow night. If it becomes too raucous downstairs, just send me word.” At the door, she turned back and appeared to warm slightly. “Oh, as for Antoni, I will set about my own investigation. Leave it to me should he be guilty.”

  “Zofia?” Anna called.

  “Yes?”

  “Will you send Babette upstairs?”

  “I will.” And she was gone.

>   Anna had the unhappy task of telling Babette the details of her children’s deaths. How is it, she wondered, that Zofia had shown so little emotion at the tragic story of the French children? Where is her heart? If Babette had been telling the truth when she entrusted her children to Anna—that Zofia insisted she give up the children or her position as maid—how could she not realize that the advice she had given Babette led to their deaths?

  Anna thought back to Zofia’s reaction to the mention of Jan. There was emotion enough then! What motivated her to such disdain of Jan? Anna had to admit to herself now that she had deliberately baited Zofia, waiting and watching for her cousin’s reaction to Jan’s name. Does she really think him the one at the pond? Or might it be that she herself loves Jan and wished to scuttle his love for me? Yet, how could that be? She had denied any attraction to him and actively encouraged me to pursue him.

  Anna recognized an irony in that the countess was no longer an obstacle to Anna’s relations to Jan, or so it seemed. It was Zofia now who forbade Jan to come to the house. Anna knew that whatever Zofia’s real motives were, one day she and Zofia would have a terrible confrontation. It was a day to which she did not look forward.

  Babette was a long time in coming. At last, she opened the door with a tentative air and slowly entered. “It is so very good to see you, Madame.”

  “Oh, Babette, it is good to see you.” Anna approached her, kissing her lightly on the cheeks. She cared little about breaking with custom. She had learned that Marzanna knows no classes. “It is good to be home.”

  The pretty French maid stood before her, her lustrous dark hair cascading about her heart-shaped, small-featured face. Anna found it difficult to read her mood.

  “Oh, Babette, I only wish that Louis and little Babette were with me. I’m so sorry for that.”

  Babette smiled slightly. “I am resigned. We heard some weeks ago about the tiny graves that Lord Grawlinski found. Madame must not blame herself. It was I who conscripted them into your service. Whatever happened was God’s will.”

  “Perhaps. Do you wish to know the circumstances?”

  “Of what use could it be, Countess? I think not.”

  “I think you should know,” Anna insisted, motioning for the woman to sit down.

  Babette hesitated but obeyed.

  Anna calmly told her of the truce she had formed with the children and the hopes she had had for them. These were good children in need of firm direction—and—and love. Families would reach their full potential—and the world, too—if only a parent’s eyes sparkled each time they beheld a child.

  Anna wanted Babette to know the full extent of her loss. And she realized, too, on some deeper level, that she wanted to share her own pain and guilt.

  Anna told Babette about the plot on their lives, the poison, the fighting, the burning carriage. By the time she was finished, Babette sat quietly stunned.

  Anna immediately regretted having told the woman everything. What possible good could it do to so break the woman’s heart anew? To go into such detail had been mean-spirited and selfish of her. After all, she and her own child had survived.

  Anna rose now and walked to the alcove that housed her desk. From a drawer, she withdrew some bank notes placed for this occasion, a goodly sum, and brought them to Babette’s accepting hands. “I want you to have this, Babette.”

  The woman nodded soberly and rose to withdraw. “It is exceedingly generous of you, Countess Grawlinska.”

  Anna smiled, thinking that her speech had touched her.

  “Madame should not be so distressed,” Babette said, moving to the door, then turning around. “They were not good children. They had no father. And I think I was not a good mother. Neither were they happy children. I suspect that they sensed they were not . . . how do you say? . . . planned. Maybe, Countess, it is all for the best.”

  Anna could only stare in disbelief at the door as it closed behind the maid. Aunt Stella’s words came back to chill her: Perhaps parents are the least qualified to raise children.

  44

  THE MESSAGE CAME AT DUSK.

  Jan’s hands worked feverishly at saddling his horse, his mind a web of thought and emotion. That the note had come from Countess Stella and not Anna was unsettling. Antoni is home, it read, come at once. Why hadn’t Anna herself written? Had something already happened?

  He mounted now, adjusting the pistol hidden by his waistcoat, and directed the horse out of the carriage house and into the night.

  Anna had said it would not be long before Antoni turned up, and she had been right. Had she been right about everything else? He had believed Anna’s earnest suppositions about her husband, yet in retrospect they seemed like something out of fiction. What kind of man plots to kill his own wife, risking the lives of children in the bargain—the two French children and Anna’s unborn child? Of course, there were such men, men who valued themselves above everything.

  He spurred the horse through muddied streets.

  He was incensed to think anyone would attempt to harm Anna. Since he had met her, she was all he could think of. If it were true, he felt capable of dispatching Grawlinski on the spot. What need was there for a formal duel? What need was there for the slow and haphazard workings of the law? If he could only be certain of Antoni’s malevolent intent for Anna, yes, he would do it. Gladly. But what if Anna had let her judgment become colored by her dislike of the man, her resentment of the arranged marriage, or her love for another?

  A perfect world, he had told the Countess Gronska. In a perfect world, Antoni’s guilt would be proved. But this is not a perfect world, he knew. “To meet an angel, one had to go to heaven,” his own mother had often said. Earthly reality was different. How many guilty go unpunished daily? Would it be so with Antoni?

  Jan pulled on the reins, slowing his horse as he moved into a heavier flow of traffic near the bridge to Praga. His hands were perspiring, he realized. He was nervous.

  His options were twofold and simple on the exterior. He could kill Antoni. Or he could allow Antoni to live. What was it to be? To kill him would make it all so neat. The husband of the woman he loved would be dead and out of the way. In time, she would be free to marry another, himself. But wasn’t it a bit too neat? How would the law see it? What if Antoni were not guilty? Or what if his guilt were never proved? Could he live with himself, having taken the man’s life—and his wife? No, not with any integrity.

  And if Antoni were to live, was there some way he could be prevailed upon to give up his sham of a marriage? Could he be intimidated into releasing Anna? Might he be bought off? Anna’s religious ties, too, were to be considered. As long as Grawlinski lived, she and her church would deem it a marriage. Jan knew divorce was forbidden in the Catholic Church, but in cases where a marriage wasn’t a marriage, might annulment be a possibility? The ways of churches were often inscrutable to him.

  The thundering echo of the horse’s hooves on the wooden bridge seemed to further jumble Jan’s thoughts. He had only minutes now to rethink his options.

  Presently, he arrived at the Gronski townhome. Countess Stella Gronska met Jan at the door, a lamp in her hand. Evidently, she had anticipated his arrival, for he had been about to lift the knocker when she opened the door and motioned him in.

  They moved noiselessly to the open doors of the reception room. Jan could hear a man’s low tones.

  Stepping in, he saw Anna’s face first. She was seated. She looked neither frightened nor angry. Just passive in some vague sort of way. The amber-flecked green eyes were lifeless pools. Antoni was pacing in short steps, never moving far from his wife. He seemed agitated, his voice quietly impassioned.

  It was Anna’s expression—Jan thought it more alarm than relief—that gave away Jan’s presence to Antoni. He turned about, startled at first to see someone not of the household, startled again as he took in just who it was. But by the third beat he had masked his displeasure. “Stelnicki, is it not?” He forced a smile.

  “S
ir!” Jan responded, bringing together the heels of his boots and bowing slightly.

  “Why, Anna Maria,” Antoni cried, “we have a guest!”

  Anna nodded silently.

  The countess remained in the doorway as Jan moved into the room. He had expected Anna to be in tears or raging in accusation. What did this passiveness portend? Were things as she had made them out to be? Or had her mind been changed somehow?

  Anna looked at Jan, nodded expressionlessly.

  Antoni’s gaze went from one to the other. “Ah, you two scarcely act as though you have not seen each other since the Royal Castle. If I’m any judge, I would say you two have met recently, in fact.” Antoni behaved as though Jan and Anna were two children found at some forbidden mischief. “Am I right? It’s true?”

  Jan attempted a polite smile. The man was astute, he thought. “I made an initial visit yesterday to welcome Anna back. I learned only then what she had been through.”

  “Purely a social call?” Antoni asked, the corners of his dark moustache rising. “And only just hours after her arrival in Warsaw? What coincidence!”

  Jan braved it out. “Yes, indeed!”

  “You’ve become a soldier in the interim.”

  “Yes.”

  “Infantry?”

  Jan was well aware Antoni knew better, but he was not going to be baited. He smiled. “Light Cavalry.”

  “You know, my dear Stelnicki, I really should be angry with you. The last time I saw you was the last time I saw my wife. We had—you and I—our words then. Now she and I are happily reunited after so much . . . distress . . . and here you are again. Strange, isn’t it? If I were not in such a relieved and ecstatic frame of mind to find Anna Maria after I had every reason to give her up, I might not find room in my heart to be polite to a rascal like you. But then, she is an easy woman to like, is she not?”

  Anna stared at Antoni as if he had just quoted the Bible, but she did not dispute her husband. She looked back to Jan and said nothing.

  “Yes,” Jan answered. “She is an easy woman to like.”

  “And to love?”

  Jan grew angry. Later he would realize that the truth had angered him so. Of course, he had long ago opened himself to the intensity of his love for her, but to hear Grawlinski speak of it coarsened it. He tried to keep up a cool front. “You could have no better wife, Grawlinski.”