Wanda, Vol. 3 (of 3)

by Ouida

'The failure of messages is often caused by the senders of them; the people are extremely careful at Lienz. I do not think the fault lies there. We can, however, only regret the want of due warning, for the reason that we can give no fit or flattering reception of an honoured guest. You come from Paris?'

For the first time a slight sudden flush rose upon Olga Brancka's cheek, callous though she was. She felt the irony and the disdain. She perceived that she had in him an inexorable foe, beyond all allurement and all entreaty.

'I passed by Paris,' she answered, easily enough. 'Of course I had to see my tailors, like everyone else in September. I have been first to Noissetiers, then to London, then to Homburg, then to Russia. I do not know where I have not been since we met. And you good people have been vegetating beneath your forests all that time? I was curious to come and see you in your felicity. Hohenszalrasburg used to be called the vulture's nest; it appears to have become a dove's!'

'I spared a whole family of lammergeier to-day in deference to your forest law,' he said, turning to his wife, whilst to himself he thought what a far worse beast of prey was sitting here, smoothing her glossy feathers in the warmth of his own hearth. She noticed the extreme pallor of his face, the sound of anger and emotion forcibly restrained; she imagined something of what he felt, though she could guess neither its intensity nor its extent. She had done herself violence in meeting with courtesy and tranquillity the woman who now sat between them, but she could not measure or imagine the guilt and the audacity of her.

When, that evening, as twilight came on, she had heard the sound of wheels beneath the terraces, and in a little while had been informed by Hubert that the Countess Brancka had arrived, her first movement had been to refuse to receive her, her next to remember that to one who had been Gela's wife, and now was Stefan Brancka's, the doors of Hohenszalras could not be shut without an open quarrel and scandal, which would regale the world and make feud inevitable between her husband and the whole race of Vàsàrhely. The Vàsàrhely knew the worthlessness of Stefan's wife, but for the honour of their name they would never admit that they did so; they would never fail to defend her. Moreover, hospitality of a high and antique type had always been the first of obligations upon all those whom she descended from and represented. They would not have refused to harbour their worst foe if he had demanded asylum. They would not have turned away sovereign or beggar from their gates. Those days were gone, indeed, but their high and generous temper lived in her. In the brief space in which Hubert, having made the announcement, waited for her commands, she had struggled with her own repugnance and conquered it. She had told herself that to turn Stefan's wife from her doors would be the mere vulgar melodrama of a common and undignified anger. After all she knew nothing; therefore she traversed the house to receive her unasked guest, and gave her welcome without any pretence of cordiality or friendship, but with a perfect and unhesitating politeness void of all offence.

She was thankful that the Princess Ottilie was again in the south of France with her sister-in-law of Lilienhöhe, so that her indignation, her interrogation, and her quick regard were spared to them. Now that her niece was no longer alone, the Princess did not think it her bounden duty to endure these northern winds, blowing from Poland and the Baltic over the old duchy of Austria, which she had at all times so peculiarly detested, though she had been born a thousand miles nearer the Baltic herself.

Olga Brancka had been profuse in her apologies and expressions of regret, but she had at once let her carriage, hired at S. Johann, with its four post-horses changed at Matrey, be taken to the stables, and had gone herself to her old apartments, where in little time her two maids had altered her heavy furs and travelling clothes to the costume of consummate simplicity and elegance in which she now sat, putting forth her small feet in rose satin shoes to the warmth from the great Hirschvogel stove, which, with its burnished and enamelled colour, illumined one side of the white salon.

Sabran and his wife both remained standing, he leaning his arm on the scroll work of the great stove, she playing with the delicate ears of one of the hounds. Madame Brancka alone sat and leaned back in her low seat, quite content; she was aware that she was unwelcome, and that her presence was an embarrassment and worse. But the sense of the wrong and cruel position in which she placed them was sweet and pungent to her; she was refreshed by the very sense of dilemma and of danger which surrounded her. She had her vengeance in her hand, and she would not exhaust it quickly, but tasted its savour with the slow care and patient appetite of the connoisseur in such things. She had a Chinese-like skill in patiently drawing out the prolonged pangs of an ingeniously invented martyrdom.

'Why do you both stand?' she said, looking up at him between her half-closed lids. 'Are you standing to imply to me as we do with monarchs, 'This house is yours whilst you are in it?' I am much obliged, but I should sell it at once if it were really mine. It is a splendid, barbaric solitude, like Taróc. We have not been to Taróc this year. Stefan says Egon lives altogether with his troopers and grows very morose. You hear from him sometimes, I suppose?'

To Sabran it seemed as if her half shut black eyes shot forth actual sparks of fire, as she spoke the name which he could never hear without an inward spasm of fear.