Part 28 (1/2)

'And why not? You're a powerful man ...'

Any attention he might have paid to this critical matter was diverted by a telegram dispatched from Vienna: YOU ARE NEEDED AT YOUR MINISTRY THE EMPEROR AGREES TO YOUR RETURN LUBONSKI.

Rus.h.i.+ng about to pack his belongings for what he suspected might be a long and important stay, he had little time to discuss Jadwiga's problems. 'You'll manage something. Girls always do.'

She asked only one question: 'Are you taking Janko with you?'

'Of course. Someone has to tend the horses.'

'And who will tend me?'

'You'll manage something.'

There were only three cities in Europe in which a man twenty-eight years old who felt his chances slipping away should be in love: Rome, where the proper patronage could always accomplish miracles; London, where there was always a chance to marry money; and Vienna, where the games of love and power were constantly under way. Wiktor Bukowski was allowed one last chance to operate in the imperial city, and he did so masterfully.

Instructing Janko Buk to keep his three horses always at the ready and his Serbian fiacre driver to be at hand almost constantly, he purchased two new suits from a London tailor on the Krntnerstra.s.se and had his tailor refurbish his two Polish national costumes. Thus armed, he laid serious siege to the affections of the American heiress, Miss Marjorie Trilling of Chicago.

He went first to a German-Austrian bank to ascertain what Oscar Trilling's position was in the Chicago commercial world, and found it to be even more dazzling than he had been told: 'The amba.s.sador's family has been engaged in railroads, land, cattle, forests and all other aspects of settling the vast American West. He has only one daughter, a secure position with both the Republican and Democratic leaders.h.i.+ps, and a personal worth estimated at well over nine million dollars American.' It was reasonable to suppose that such a man might bestow at least a third of that fortune on his daughter while he was still alive, and much more at his death. Miss Trilling was an enticing opportunity.

He took her riding in the Prater; he took her to the Burgtheater, where Hedda Gabler was disturbing the citizens, and to A Woman of No Importance, which was delighting them. They visited the great museums, especially ones showing the Breughels and the relics of the Napoleonic wars. And always they attended concerts, listening with respect to the works of Beethoven and Schubert, with curiosity to those of the local wonders Mahler and Bruckner, with condescension to the peasant harmonies of the Czechs Dvorak and Smetana.

When Wiktor asked how Miss Trilling had acquired so much knowledge of music, she resumed an earlier explanation which had been interrupted: 'I attended a distinguished college in America, Oberlin, where music was important.'

'You went to college?' He had never before met a woman who had done so.

'Of course. So did my mother.'

He was not sure that he liked the idea of women attending college, or becoming doctors, while the prospect of their actually playing in orchestras, as Marjorie said she had, was almost repulsive: 'Don't all the men stare without listening to the music?'

'Men always stare,' she said, 'and women appreciate it.'

In return for his courtesies, she introduced him to the social world of the emba.s.sies, inviting him to formal teas at Sacher's Hotel and to informal ones with young men and women from other emba.s.sies who convened at Demel's pastry shop for monstrous deserts, always 'mit Schlag,' the heavy whipped cream from the Vienna countryside. There were dances, receptions, riding exhibitions and occasionally a glimpse of the old emperor, who supervised everything as if he were the burgomaster of a small village.

Wiktor, enchanted by this partic.i.p.ation in a life he had not previously known, became a fas.h.i.+onable host, inviting the emba.s.sy people to Landtmann's or to private rooms at Sacher's, and one morning he told Janko Buk: 'Hire me a carriage to which you can harness our two lesser horses, and find out which is the best road to the hills behind Grinzing.' There, where the Vienna Woods began, he took Marjorie riding, and while Buk fished they engaged in amorous dalliance so prolonged that each partic.i.p.ant realized the attachment had become more than a pa.s.sing adventure.

'I wish I could see the Vistula,' Marjorie said as they drove dreamily homeward.

'You can!' Wiktor cried with real excitement. 'You get aboard a train, go easily to Krakow, and drivers meet you for the ride to Bukowo.'

'I would require a chaperone,' she said.

'Let's find one.'

They drove to 22 Annaga.s.se, where they talked frankly with the countess, who was delighted with the progress of their courts.h.i.+p. 'I will go with you myself and you can stay with me at Gorka. Or it might be even better if your mother accompanied you.' While they waited she dashed off notes to the Lubonski estates at Lwow and Gorka, then wrote a cordial invitation to Marjorie's mother.

Once the Lubonskis decided to do something, they moved with force; next day the count called upon Amba.s.sador Trilling and said: 'I'll vouch for this fellow Bukowski. Known his family for six centuries. Always poor as church mice. Always men of great dignity. And they have the best Arab stud in the empire.'

'What about the revolutionary little pianist? Quite a scandal, you know.'

'I better than most. It was I who called in the secret police ... but only after she was safely away.'

'Was he ... compromised? I mean, with the government?'

'Exactly the kind of hearty escapade a young man with spirit ... Wiktor's first cla.s.s.'

So an excursion to the Austrian portion of Poland was arranged, with Countess Lubonska making the decisions: 'You'll stop first at our estates near Lwow. Then the Potockis who now occupy Lancut will entertain you, after which their people will carry you on to Gorka, where I shall be waiting to receive you. From there it's a little jump to Bukowo and you will have seen the best, except that I shall myself take you on to the town built by my family, Zamosc, the heart of all that's good in Russian Poland.'

Mrs. Trilling, who like her husband had studied Austrian history and geography, said: 'You keep speaking of Lwow. I've never seen it on any map.'

'That's our old Polish name. They call it Lemberg now.'

Departure was set for mid-May, when Galicia would be at its loveliest, but during the last week in April, Wiktor Bukowski, who had every reason to hope that the journey would end with his public engagement to the amba.s.sador's daughter, received a nasty shock. Auntie Bukowska sent him a peremptory letter: The girl Jadwiga is pregnant and threatens to cause immense trouble unless you find some solution. Your proposed plans for a visit at this time would prove disastrous and must be canceled. More important, advise me immediately what I am to do about Jadwiga.

How miserable it was to have built, with great care and planning, a structure of importance, only to watch it come apart because of some trivial accident. Why had he dallied with this servant? Why had he not detected in her forthright and even brazen conversation the seeds of trouble? And what in h.e.l.l to do now?

His rescue came from an unbelievable quarter. The girl Jadwiga, having heard about the master's pa.s.sionate wooing of the American, for all Bukowo was aware of what was happening, had sent a peasant to Vienna with a message for the master's groom. Fortified with this knowledge, Buk walked across the bridge over the Danube Ca.n.a.l and presented himself unannounced in Concordiaplatz.

'I think I might be of help to you, sir.'

'In what way?' the irritated and distracted young man asked.

'In the matter of Jadwiga.' When Wiktor gasped, unable to make any sensible response, Janko pressed on: 'If her condition becomes known, sir, it could bring ruin to your design.'

'What are you speaking of?' Bukowski thundered.

'I've been driving you and the American girl into the woods. Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't know what game you're playing?' Without being invited, he took a chair.

'Who told you to sit in my presence?'

Ignoring the question, Janko continued: 'One word of this, as you know, and the American girl and her parents ...' He made a peasant sign for a bird flying away.

Bukowski was sweating. This oaf had done two things to him by this visit: he had terrified him with a crystal-clear vision of disaster, and he had somehow suggested that it could be avoided. Licking his dry lips, Bukowski poured himself a drink and asked Buk if he would have one, too.

'Please,' the peasant said.

'Now what brings you here? Blackmail? I'll have you shot.'

'Pan Bukowski, don't talk like a d.a.m.ned fool. Obviously I come to help.'

'Thank G.o.d!' the frightened man cried.

'I like you. You've been a good master, and I could never say otherwise.'

'What can we do?'

'Good. Now you're talking like a sensible man. Pan Bukowski, for several years now I've been wanting to marry Jadwiga-'

'You'd marry her?' Wiktor cried, leaping from his chair to pour his savior another drink.

'I would have married her three years ago,' Janko said very slowly.