Kane & Abel (1979) (4 page)

Wladek burst into tears.

‘Quiet, boy,’ said the trapper.

‘I will not leave you,’ Wladek said, turning to face his mother, although in truth he wanted to go.

‘Quiet, boy,’ repeated the trapper, this time a little louder.

‘Why not?’ asked the Baron, with compassion in his voice.

‘I will never leave Florcia - never.’

‘Florcia?’ queried the Baron.

‘My eldest daughter, sir,’ interjected the trapper. ‘Don’t concern yourself with her, sir. The boy will do as he is told.’

No one spoke. The Baron remained silent for a moment, while Wladek continued to cry controlled tears. ‘How old is the girl?’ he finally asked.

‘Fourteen,’ replied the trapper.

‘Could she work in the kitchens?’ asked the Baron, relieved to see that Helena Koskiewicz did not look as if she was going to burst into tears as well.

‘Oh, yes, Baron,’ she replied. ‘Florcia can cook, and she can sew and she can …’

‘Good, good, then she can come as well. I shall expect them both tomorrow morning at seven.’

The Baron walked to the door, looked back at the boy and smiled. This time Wladek returned the smile. He had struck his first bargain, and allowed his mother to cling to him after the Baron had left. He heard her whisper, ‘Ah, Matka’s littlest one, what will become of you now?’

Wladek couldn’t wait to find out.

Helena packed for Wladek and Florentyna before going to bed that night, not that it would have taken long to pack the entire family’s possessions. At six the following morning the rest of the family stood by the door and watched them depart for the castle, each holding a paper parcel under one arm. Florentyna, tall and graceful, kept turning to look at them, crying and waving; but Wladek, short and ungainly, never once looked back. Florentyna held firmly on to his hand for the entire journey. Their roles had been reversed: from that day on, she would depend on him.

They were clearly expected by the magnificent manservant in an embroidered suit of green livery covered in golden buttons who answered their timid knock on the great oak door. Both of them had often gazed in admiration at the grey uniforms of the soldiers who guarded the nearby Russian-Polish border, but they had never seen anything so resplendent as this giant towering above them, who they thought must be of overwhelming importance. There was a thick rug in the hall, and Wladek stared at the green-and-red pattern, amazed by its beauty, wondering if he should take off his shoes, and was surprised that when he walked across it, his footsteps made no sound.

The dazzling being conducted them to their bedrooms in the west wing. Separate rooms - how would they ever get to sleep? At least there was a connecting door, so they need never be too far apart, and in fact for many nights they slept together in the same bed.

Once they had unpacked, Florentyna was taken off to the kitchen and Wladek to a playroom in the south wing of the castle where he was introduced to the Baron’s son. Leon Rosnovski was tall for his age, a good-looking boy who was so charming and welcoming that Wladek abandoned his prepared pugnacious attitude within moments of meeting him. Wladek quickly discovered that Leon was a lonely child, with no one to play with except his
niania
, the devoted Lithuanian woman who had breast-fed him and attended to his every need since the premature death of his mother. The sturdy boy who had come out of the forest promised companionship. And at least in one matter they were considered equals.

Leon immediately offered to show Wladek around the castle - every room of which was bigger than the entire cottage. The adventure took the rest of the morning, and Wladek was astounded by the sheer size of the castle, the richness of its furniture and fabrics - and those carpets were in every room. Wladek admitted only to being agreeably impressed. The main part of the building, Leon told him, was early Gothic, as if Wladek was sure to know what
Gothic
meant. He nodded. Next, Leon took his new friend down a stone staircase into the immense cellars, with row upon row of wine bottles covered in dust and cobwebs. But Wladek’s favourite room was the vast dining hall, with its massive pillared vaulting, flagged floor and the largest table he’d ever seen. He stared at the stuffed heads mounted on the walls. Leon told him they were bison, bear, elk, boar and wolverine that his father had shot over the years. Above the fireplace was the Baron’s coat of arms. The Rosnovski family motto read: ‘Fortune favours the brave.’

At twelve, a gong sounded and lunch was served by liveried servants. Wladek ate very little as he watched Leon carefully, trying to memorize which instruments he used in the bewildering array of silver cutlery. After lunch he met his two tutors, who did not welcome him as Leon had done. That evening he climbed up onto the largest bed he had ever seen, and told Florentyna about his adventures. Her disbelieving eyes never once left his face, nor did she even close her mouth, agape with wonder, especially when she heard about the knives and forks.

Lessons began at seven sharp the next morning, before breakfast, and continued throughout the day, with only short breaks for meals. To begin with, Leon was clearly ahead of his new classmate, but Wladek wrestled manfully with his books, and as the weeks passed the gap began to narrow. The two boys’ friendship and rivalry developed at the same pace. The tutors found it hard to treat their two pupils - one the son of a baron, the other the illegitimate son of God knows who - as equals, although they reluctantly conceded to the Baron that he had made the right academic choice. Their uncompromising attitude never worried Wladek, because Leon always treated him as an equal.

The Baron let it be known that he was pleased with the progress the boys were making, and he would often reward Wladek with clothes and toys. Wladek’s initial distant and detached admiration for the Baron quickly developed into respect.

When the time came for Wladek to return to the little cottage in the forest for Christmas he was distressed at having to leave Leon. Despite his initial happiness at seeing his mother, the three short months he’d spent in the Baron’s castle had introduced him to a far more exciting world. He would have rather been a servant at the castle than master at the cottage.

As the holiday dragged on, Wladek felt himself stifled by the little cottage with its one room and overcrowded loft, and dissatisfied by the food dished out in such meagre amounts and eaten with bare hands: no one divided things up into nine portions at the castle. After a few days Wladek longed to return and be with Leon and the Baron. Every afternoon he would walk the six
wiorsta
to the castle and sit and stare at the great walls that surrounded an estate he would not consider entering without permission. Florentyna, who had lived only among the kitchen servants, adjusted more easily to the return to her former simple life, and could not understand that the cottage would never again be home for Wladek.

Jasio was not sure how to treat the six-year-old boy, who was now so well dressed and well spoken, and talked of matters that the father did not begin to understand; nor did he want to. And worse, Wladek seemed to do nothing but waste the entire day reading. Whatever would become of him, the trapper wondered, if he could not swing an axe or trap a rabbit. How could he ever hope to earn an honest living? He too prayed that the holiday would pass quickly.

Helena was proud of Wladek, and at first refused to admit even to herself that a wedge had been driven between him and the rest of the children. But it was not long before it could not be avoided. Playing at soldiers one evening, both Stefan and Franck, generals of opposing armies, refused to have Wladek in their ranks.

‘Why must I always be left out?’ cried Wladek. ‘I want to join in the battle.’

‘Because you are no longer one of us,’ declared Stefan. ‘And in any case, you’re not really our brother.’

There was a long silence before Franck added, ‘Father never wanted you in the first place; only Matka allowed you to stay.’

Wladek looked around the circle of children, searching for Florentyna. ‘What does Stefan mean, I am not your brother?’ he demanded.

Thus Wladek came to learn the manner of his birth, and to understand why he had always felt different from his brothers and sisters. He was secretly pleased to discover that, untouched by the meanness of the trapper’s blood, he came from unknown stock, containing with it the germ of spirit that would make all things possible.

Once the unhappy holiday finally came to an end, Wladek returned to the castle before first light, a reluctant Florentyna following a few paces behind. Leon welcomed him back with open arms; for him, as isolated by the wealth of his father as Wladek was by the poverty of the trapper, it had also been a Christmas with little to celebrate. From that moment the two boys became the closest of friends, and were inseparable.

When the summer holidays came, Leon begged his father to allow Wladek to remain at the castle. The Baron agreed, for he too had grown attached to the trapper’s son. Wladek was overjoyed. He would return to the wooden cottage again only once in his life.

W
ILLIAM
K
ANE
grew quickly, and was considered an adorable child by all who came in contact with him; in the early years of his life these were generally besotted relatives or doting servants.

The top floor of the Kanes’ eighteenth-century house in Louisburg Square had been converted into nursery quarters, crammed with toys. A bedroom and a sitting room had been set aside for the newly acquired nurse. The nursery was far enough away from Richard Kane for him to be unaware of problems such as teething, wet diapers and any irregular and undisciplined cries for more food. First smile, first tooth, first step and first word were all recorded in a family book by William’s mother, along with the progress of his height and weight. Anne was surprised to find that these statistics differed very little from those of any other child with whom she came into contact on Beacon Hill.

The nurse, an import from England, brought the boy up on a regimen that would have gladdened the heart of a Prussian cavalry officer. William’s father would visit him each evening at six o’clock. As he refused to address the child in baby language, he ended up not speaking to him at all; the two merely stared blankly at each other. Sometimes William would grip his father’s index finger, the one with which balance sheets were checked, and Richard would allow himself a smile.

By the end of the first year his routine was slightly modified, and the boy would be brought downstairs to see his father. Richard would sit in his high-backed, maroon leather chair, watching his firstborn weave his way on all fours between the legs of the furniture, reappearing when least expected, which led Richard to observe that he would undoubtedly become a politician. William took his first steps at thirteen months while clinging to the tails of his father’s topcoat. His first word was
Dada
, which pleased everyone, including Grandmother Kane and Grandmother Cabot, who made regular inspections. They did not actually push the perambulator in which William was accompanied around Boston, but they did deign to walk a pace behind the nurse on her Thursday-afternoon outings, glaring at infants with a less disciplined routine. While other children fed the ducks in the public parks, William succeeded in charming the swans by the lake of Mr Jack Gardner’s magnificent Venetian Palace.

After two years had passed, the grandmothers intimated by hint and innuendo that it was high time for another progeny, a sibling for William. Anne obliged them by becoming pregnant, but found herself feeling off-colour as she entered her fourth month. When Anne miscarried after sixteen weeks, Dr MacKenzie did not allow her to become self-indulgent. In his notes he wrote: ‘pre-eclampsia?’, and told her, ‘Mrs Kane, the reason you have not been feeling well is that your blood pressure has been too high, and would probably have become even higher as your pregnancy progressed. I fear doctors haven’t found the cure for high blood pressure yet; in fact, we know very little about the problem, other than that it’s a dangerous condition, particularly for a pregnant woman.’

Anne held back her tears as she considered the implications of a future without more children.

‘Surely it wouldn’t recur if I were to become pregnant again?’ she asked, phrasing her question to dispose the doctor to a favourable reply.

‘Frankly I would be very surprised if it didn’t, Mrs Kane. I am sorry to have to say this, but I would strongly advise you against having another child.’