“Friends! Ha! I have enemies who treat me better.”
“I said nothing in this article that in any way dishonored your character. In fact, it was highly complimentary.”
“That is not the point. You printed things I believed I was telling you in confidence—”
“You never said any of it was confidential.”
“You truly don’t understand, do you?”
Daniel sighed. He did understand, though it was extremely hard to admit. He had known all along that it was wrong to keep what he was doing a secret from Mariana. And he knew, down deep, that no defense was adequate.
“I’m sorry.” The words were difficult to say, but his friendship with Mariana had come to mean something to him. Maybe it was even more important than his job. “My reasons seemed good at the time. I wanted you to be natural and not to get silly the way people do when they know they are being interviewed. I guess I’d be asking too much if I asked for your forgiveness.”
“Daniel, it’s just not that easy. All along I thought you were interested in me, because of me. Now I find out it was all just because you wanted a story. You never cared about me.” Tears welled up in Mariana’s eyes as the full impact of this realization dawned upon her, and her anger was replaced with an awful hurt. “I suppose that’s why I hardly ever see you these days—you don’t need me now that you have your article finished! Our friendship was never any more to you than an opportunity to learn more to put into print.”
“That’s not true,” said Daniel, but his words sounded as lame and helpless as he felt.
“I doubt I will ever believe anything you say again.” Mariana spun around and, with tears flowing down her face, hurried outside.
Daniel rushed after her, but she had asked the cab to wait. She jumped in, and it pulled away before Daniel could say another word in his defense.
49
Daniel decided to give Mariana some time to cool down before attempting to see her again. He felt sincerely sorry about the whole incident, but he also thought she had overreacted just a bit. Given time she’d come around and find it in her heart to forgive him. It wasn’t as if he had compromised her honor. The article was, in fact, extremely flattering toward her. One particularly moving statement he thought she’d be especially pleased with:
Perhaps only a young woman raised in the bosom of loving and wise adoptive parents could have made the difficult transition from those two completely divergent worlds so easily. Mariana claimed with affection and conviction that the faith of her dear adoptive “Mama” and “Papa” had prepared her for changes that otherwise would have left her confused. But this peasant girl turned countess is the picture of serenity in an ocean of cresting waves.
Serenity, indeed! Yesterday he’d felt as if he’d been hit by a hurricane.
However, when he went to her home the next afternoon, he had complete confidence that all would soon be back to normal—whatever “normal” was supposed to be. He really didn’t know what he expected from their relationship. He wasn’t certain if he was in love with her, but he certainly cared for her and considered her a friend. And he might have thought twice about his actions had he realized she would interpret them as a betrayal of that friendship.
That was the problem . . . sometimes he didn’t think, or at least he tended to act before thinking.
He knocked on her door believing in an hour they’d kiss—so to speak!—and make up. He had no idea at all that within a mere hour another fuse would be ignited between them.
A maid answered the door, took his hat and coat, and ushered him into a parlor. He sat and waited so long that he began to think she was going to be stubborn about the whole thing.
“Just like a woman,” he muttered to himself.
Well, he supposed she did have a right to be a little out-of-sorts. He wasn’t going to try to defend himself, for even he was learning that was not always the wise course where women were concerned. He’d humble himself before her, beg—well, he wouldn’t carry that too far—for her mercy. Then he’d beguile her with his abundant charms, and that would be that.
He was beginning to think she might not come at all, when the door opened and Mariana appeared.
“Daniel,” she said in a dull voice, as if her anger and resentment had been replaced by apathy. “I’m here because I didn’t wish to be rude to you, but I really don’t think we have anything more to say to each other.”
“Mariana, I think you’ve made me suffer enough—”
“I don’t wish to cause you suffering. I just feel as if there is nothing more to say.”
“Well, whatever you wish, that’s not the effect it’s having. I am suffering, and despite how cool you are trying to act, you can’t deny you are also suffering.”
“It is difficult, but the best cure is for us to make a clean break—”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous!”
“I’d expect you to say that. You never have taken me seriously.”
“You are the most thick-headed woman I have ever known!” he exclaimed. All his plans for a hasty reconciliation were beginning to look hopeless.
“Then take advantage of this opportunity to be done with me, Daniel.”
“I don’t want to ‘be done’ with you, doggone it!” He jumped up and strode purposefully to where she stood in the middle of the room. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around so that she was facing him. When she looked away, he touched her chin with his fingers and tried to turn her face toward his. “I meant what I said at your party. I love you. I’m not sure what it all means, but I know I feel about you as I have never felt about another woman.” His words surprised him, even more than when he had spoken words of love to her the night of her coming-out party. Could it be that the prospect of losing her was making him realize just how much she meant to him?
He couldn’t help what he did next. Her face was so close and he could smell the sweet fragrance that always lingered about her like springtime. He wanted somehow to erase the hurt and pain from her countenance. He wanted everything to be the way it used to be between them. He regretted more than ever that he had written—or even thought of—that article.
He slipped his arm around her. His heart was pounding, especially since he knew that at any moment she might break away from him as she had that day in the park. But she didn’t. Encouraged, he leaned closer. Then he let his lips brush hers. For a brief moment he was certain he felt her respond to his kiss.
But the opening of the door put an immediate end to whatever might have come of that moment. The maid, who had knocked twice before entering and thought she’d heard a response, stepped in and was in the midst of announcing her purpose:
“Countess Mariana, you have another caller—”
A new voice cut her off. “Mariana?”
Stephan Alexandrovich quickly took in the scene, saw Mariana still in Daniel’s arms, and drew a logical, if completely incorrect, conclusion.
50
Mariana spun around; shock, dismay, and confusion crossed her countenance. “Stephan, what are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to see what has kept you so busy these days that you have no time for me. And at last I find out!”
“Stephan, you have this all wrong.”
“I must, because I thought we were to be married one day.” Noting Daniel’s complete bewilderment, Stephan addressed Daniel, “You knew nothing of this?” Daniel shook his head dumbly. “At least you can be credited with not knowingly trying to steal a man’s girl. But I can give you no credit, Mariana! I thought better of you than to have the cheek to deceive and betray two men at once.”
Had Mariana not been so completely disconcerted by what was transpiring, she might have seen the irony in Stephan accusing her of the very same offenses she had just leveled at Daniel. But she felt too dizzy and sick to think clearly at all.
To her surprise, Daniel came to her defense. And to his credit, he did not shrink from the big peasant as might have been wi
se, but rather glared up at him in challenge. “Look here! I don’t care what you think Mariana has done, she doesn’t deserve to be spoken of in that manner.”
But Mariana stubbornly refused to soften toward Daniel. She glared at him and retorted, “I can take care of myself.” Then, swinging around, she focused the same fiery expression at Stephan. “And as for you, Stephan Alexandrovich, how dare you speak to me like that! You don’t care a thing about me except to have me around when the mood strikes you for some female company—when you can pull yourself away from secret meetings and exams, and who knows what else.”
At once the terrible curse of feminine tears assailed her, almost obliterating her angry outburst.
Mariana took a fleeting moment to study her two suitors through her tears. She saw in Stephan the young man she had grown up with, played with as a child, given her first kiss to, loved for years, and planned a future with. So much of herself was invested in Stephan, and, even in her present fury, she could still sense within her those emotions intrinsic to that special “first love.”
Yet as her brief look swept past him and paused momentarily on Daniel, entirely new emotions stirred inside her. In Daniel she had found a friend, a person she could talk to and understand as she had never been able to understand Stephan, with all his ramblings of philosophy and politics. She had shared her deepest fears and longings and joys with Daniel.
For better or worse, she instinctively sensed that as Stephan was so much a part of her past, Daniel was wrapped up in the person Mariana was becoming. He seemed suited, somehow, to the blossoming changes transforming her from a simple peasant girl to . . . she wasn’t yet certain into what. But it was very possible these changes would make it futile for her to cling to the past.
Yesterday, before the revelation about the newspaper article and this confrontation with Stephan, she had thought about both her young suitors. She had tried to make some sense of her confused and ambivalent feelings. Perhaps her confusion had something to do with the fact that she was not quite ready to discard the past, while at the same time she wasn’t yet prepared to march boldly into her future. Both lives appealed to her, and she had wondered if she did not love both men. Now she was close to hating them both.
“Well, I never once said I wasn’t going to marry you,” said Stephan defensively.
“You were engaged?” asked Daniel.
“What does that matter?” Stephan said.
“There’s a big difference between talking of marriage and actually becoming engaged.”
“And so that excuses her for behaving like a common hussy—?”
“I said don’t speak about her that way!” They were nose to nose now, Stephan all but dwarfing Daniel.
“Where I come from there are less kind terms for such women.”
“Take that back!” Daniel yelled, then gave Stephan’s shoulder a shove.
“Get your hands off me!” thundered Stephan. He lifted a huge hand and brought it down on Daniel’s shoulder with a staggering blow.
Daniel stumbled back a few steps but stayed on his feet. When he regained his balance, he lunged once more at Stephan without a moment’s hesitation. He had both fists knotted and ready, and swung at Stephan’s head, making firm contact with the peasant’s chin. Stephan proved unmovable. He shook away the blow as if he were a bear swishing away a fly.
But Daniel was too full of cocksureness to know when to quit. He launched another attack, this time with a swift left. Stephan caught Daniel’s left wrist and twisted it back with a painful thrust. Mariana was sure she heard something crack. And Daniel winced; but he nevertheless tried to come back with a right uppercut.
All at once, Mariana came to her senses. She had been shocked that these men were fighting at all, much less in her father’s parlor. What had stunned her even more was Daniel’s tenacious, however futile, defense of her honor—of all things! But Mariana was not the kind of girl to be pleased by two men fighting over her.
“Stop, this instant!” she demanded.
The two adversaries fell apart, but Daniel, panting, had to get in the last word. “You better watch your step around her, Stephan, that’s all!”
Stephan growled back, “She’s my girl! You have no right to tell me what to do!”
“How dare you!” Mariana cried, now irate. “Fighting over me as if I belonged to either of you, or as if I wanted you! All I want is for you to leave me alone, for both of you to just get out of my sight!”
Yesterday, she had worried that she might lose both of them through her vacillation. Now . . . she didn’t care.
Or did she? Stephan had been upset, even jealous, when he saw her with Daniel. And Daniel had bravely defended her. Did they truly care for her? Or were they just two roosters squabbling over their territory?
Daniel, after all, had brazenly betrayed their friendship, had sold her heart for thirty pieces of silver. And how could Stephan truly love her and call her such insulting names?
Well, she didn’t need either of them. There were plenty of eligible young men available to her.
“Oh! You’re both impossible!” Sobbing, she pushed past the two men and hurried from the room.
She rushed past the servants who had gathered just outside the parlor, curious about all the noise. Mariana hoped one of them had the sense to throw both men out on the street.
Daniel and Stephan stared after her, completely bewildered. Daniel started to go to her, but the footman stood in his path.
“I believe the Countess Mariana said she wishes you to leave.”
“But . . . but . . . I can’t leave her like this!” Daniel looked toward the stairs. Her back was just disappearing around a corner.
“She’ll get over it,” said Stephan. “All she needs is a good cry.”
But as much as Mariana believed that he didn’t take her seriously, Daniel truly did. He might have tried to convince himself that he could charm her, that a mere kiss would soothe her feminine flightiness. But over the last months, he had come to respect her and look upon her as more than just a beautiful, empty-headed woman. He believed the hurt and pain he saw in her as she had fled the room were sincere. And he was worried that he would never see her again.
“I don’t think so,” said Daniel.
“Well, then I guess that’s it.”
“What do you mean?”
The persistent footman handed Daniel his hat and coat and with a firm hand directed both men to the door.
After the door had shut behind them, Daniel looked at Stephan and asked again, “What did you mean when you said, ‘That’s it’?”
“I can logically deduce from today’s events that we have lost out.”
“You are giving up?” Daniel was both relieved and astounded that this man, who had apparently once been serious about Mariana—serious enough to have spoken of marriage—was so easily discouraged.
Stephan shrugged. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
“Then it wasn’t true what you said about marrying her?”
Stephan hesitated. He frowned and chewed silently on his lip. He didn’t much like this American capitalist’s questions.
“You mean to say you don’t love her?”
“It’s none of your business!” Stephan snapped peevishly. Who did this fellow think he was, prying into a man’s personal feelings?
“I’m going to keep on seeing her,” Daniel said, almost daring the burly peasant. He’d already forgotten what a formidable adversary Stephan could be.
“Ha! She hates you as much as she thinks she hates me. You don’t have a chance.”
“We’ll see,” said Daniel.
Stephan glared once more at Daniel before he stalked away. Daniel spent the next hour sitting on the doorstep, hoping he’d see Mariana, but with no success. He finally walked home, dejected.
Had he known what a mess that article was going to cause, he would never have written it. But even Daniel could never have guessed its far-reaching effects.
51
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A dingy tavern in a coal mining town in Pennsylvania was not the most pleasant spot to relax in the summer. Hardly a breath of air penetrated the narrow windows, and the stench from a score of unwashed coal miners lingered heavily in the room.
But at least one patron in the tavern had known far worse places in his desperate existence. He knew a public house on Grafsky Lane that would make this dump seem like the Ritz. And nothing on any continent could rival an insane asylum where filth was only one of many horrors.
Indeed, Basil Anickin well knew the dark holes of society. Nineteen years ago he had slipped into one, losing his pursuers as well as himself. He had spent years in the dark underworlds of many countries; he had borne many names and many occupations. Most recently, he had been a labor organizer in the coal fields. He was known by his comrades as Rolf Nagurski, a Polish immigrant. It seemed only natural that he should have wandered back to the cause that had driven him in his youth. And the need in America was nearly as great as it had been in Russia. The miners’ wages had not changed in twenty years, and they lived in squalor, dependent on the company store that owned them body and soul.
As a seasoned veteran of radical agitation and propaganda, Basil had found an immediate welcome among the American labor movement. None of his labor comrades were apt to look too closely into his past, for many of them also had unsavory histories they would just as soon forget. He quickly rose within the circle of leaders. Some may have quaked at his menacing countenance, but when he proved he had the stomach for getting the job done, they knew they had to accept him.
The large and powerful coal-carrying railroad companies that owned most of the mines were a force not to be reckoned with lightly. They had money and political clout—all the miners had was passion and conviction. Basil felt that he somewhat balanced the scales. He was as ruthless as George Baer, president of Reading Railroad, and his passions were as cool and precise as a sharpened knife. He had proved himself many times in the years since he had come to America, most notably during the violent strike against Carnegie’s Homestead steel plant, where he had agitated workers to attack the guards who had been hired to protect strike-breakers. Seven guards were killed, and they were forced into a humiliating surrender. After that had come the Pullman Strike, where the labor unions were not so successful. Their hero and leader, Eugene V. Debs, was arrested, but Basil had managed to slip him a copy of Das Kapital. Within a couple of years Debs had become a confirmed socialist.
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