The carriage for Anna arrived on the morning of Election Day, February 14th. It was two days early.
Anna spoke a little Russian, but she could understand little of the low dialect of the two men who came to collect her. Yes, she was packed, she told them, insisting also that she didn’t wish to leave for two days, as had been planned.
It must be after Jan’s visit.
Impossible, they said, with a minimum of respect. They were paid to pick her up and return immediately, allowing no time for a stop-over in Warsaw or on the way back. These were gruff, lowborn men, she realized, little acquainted with the ways of gentility.
Zofia and the countess were of little support. She would have to go. She retreated to her room.
Holding back her tears now at the dissolution of her plan, Anna stared at the crystal dove, still debating whether or not to take it on the long and rough journey. Intuition told her to leave it. She packed it away in its box of wood inlay and gave it to the countess for safekeeping. It seemed that, like her dreams, she was always tucking it away.
Her meeting with Jan had been scuttled. She was certain that he would come, only to find her gone. Twenty-four hours were all she would have needed. If only I could see him one more time, she thought, I could make that visit last a lifetime.
But it was not to be. She sat down to pen a second letter to him.
Anna went to the side entrance where the ramshackle carriage stood ready. She had said her goodbye to her aunt when she gave her the box with the crystal dove. She had no desire to say goodbye to Zofia. The letter from Jacob Szraber had arrived only that morning, contradicting her cousin’s contention that Anna’s manor home had been razed. Zofia had lied. Relief and disdain coursed through Anna. She wanted nothing more to do with her. After dealing with Antoni, she would return to Sochaczew as soon as possible.
She was seated within the coach and the two Russians were lashing her luggage to the roof when Babette came running. “Wait, Madame!” she cried. “Oh, please wait!”
Anna looked out to see the maid hurrying down the driveway, her two children in tow.
“Oh, Madame, please—” she said, struggling for breath. “If you would be so kind, I wish you to take Louis and little Babette with you as your little servants. You may have them as long as you wish or until they come of age.”
“What?” Anna’s mouth fell open.
“I know they like you, Countess Anna. You are such a good influence on them! And they so love your stories. Here they merely get underfoot and Mademoiselle Zofia has so little patience with them. She tells me I must send them away or that I must go myself.”
Anna stared in disbelief at the young mother. Were her own flesh and blood of such little value to her? How like Zofia she was, so fully self-absorbed.
Anna trembled to think of the awesome responsibility, but she took the children without a second thought. They were spoiled and unmannered and unloved; Anna hoped to undo some of the damage. Poor little souls. She realized now that Babette had taken her answer for granted because the children’s little satchels were already packed.
The children climbed into the coach and settled into the seat across from her. Anna stared at their little round faces. Until they come of age? What have I gotten myself into now?
As the carriage began to descend the driveway to the street, Anna looked to Zofia’s first-floor window. She was certain that she saw the slightly parted curtains stirring. Was she secretly standing there, watching the departure? Were Zofia’s feelings for her as mixed as her own toward Zofia?
Babette stood in the drive waving and calling adieu to her children. Anna turned back to see Louis and little Babette motionless and dry-eyed.
It began to snow. The carriage moved down to and across the bridge to the city proper, turning left onto the riverfront street.
Well, Anna thought, at least the two unintelligible Russian bears possess the intelligence to understand a bribe when they hear one.
The wheels ground to a halt on the stony earth in front of the Queen’s Head. Momentarily, one of the Russians clumsily helped Anna to alight.
Election Day was a hectic one for Jan Stelnicki.
He was one of a party who were traveling from town to town, sejmik to sejmik, to check on voting irregularities and to bring out any men sympathetic to the cause who had not yet voted. It would be very late before he got back to Warsaw.
The spirit of the patriots was up. They were confident that the Constitution passed the previous year at the Great Sejm would be ratified this day at sejmiks all over Poland, guaranteeing a democracy within Stanisław’s monarchy. With the exception of some greedy, power-hungry, and short-sighted nobles, it would be a grand moment for Poles of all classes when the results were announced, presumably some time in the next two or three days.
What made the hard day an effortless and memorable one for Jan, however, was the letter he carried in his breast pocket. On the morrow he would see Anna. Never mind that it might be the last time for a long while. He would see her. Alone, he hoped.
He could imagine no future after that. Tomorrow was his future.