The Playground of Satan

by Beatrice C. Baskerville

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 glass 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 butter to the best meal to be had at railway stations. I had almost forgotten the parcel of butter which he carried to his cure, too; it was firm and fresh and creamy, food fit for the gods, 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 institution. 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 sturdy 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.

The priest held up his hands in mock horror. He was small and rather shrunken. His nose was hooked and his scant hair white. He had seen a good deal of trouble in his day; was in Siberia for five years in his youth for defending his church against a sotnia of Cossacks in 1864, and owed his misshapen ears to frostbite which he got on the terrible journey, made on foot in those days. But these things were a memory, and life was peaceful enough now.

"No, my child," he said. "Think of the packages. By the way, where's the baba? Zosia! where did you put the baba?"

"It's under the seat," said the Countess from the steps. "I saw her put it there. You'd better let Ianek go with you. He'll enjoy it."

"No, no, Countess. Thank you all the same. He'd crush the bread or sit on the butter when we begin to bump about on the bad part of the road. I'll get on by myself. The old horse isn't done yet. Not by a long way. God bless you all. Farewell!"

Making the sign of the cross, he wrapped the yellow dust-cloak round him. Ian gave the word to start and off he went.

The three women strolled over to the chestnuts, glad of the shade that warm morning, and Ian went to where men were busy laying out his new paddock. He gave some directions there, had gone over the stables and was waiting for his horse to be saddled for a visit to some wheat fields, reported damaged by a shower of early-morning hail, when the familiar hoot of his motor made him look up in surprise. He had given the driver orders to wait for the papers from Warsaw, and knew he could not have done it in so short a time. But surprise grew when, as the car drew nearer, he saw Father Constantine's dust-cloak. He waved to them to drive to the stables instead of round by the avenue and the house.

"What has happened?" he asked as they pulled up. "You can't have lost the train. It's not due for an hour yet."