They Were Divided (10 page)

Knowing her son so well Countess Roza thought it would be better not to insist any more. One more question, however, she did ask. She wanted to know if he had seen any of their friends at the theatre, and so learned that Margit Miloth and her husband had been in the Gyalakuthy box next to the Abadys’ and, though Balint said nothing about Adrienne, his manner was suddenly so awkward and constrained that his mother quickly decided to change the subject, not bringing the matter up again, and then only with great circumspection, until they were seated at dinner that evening.

She reached the subject in the most roundabout manner, as was her way. First of all she talked about the hunting at Zsuk. Then she asked which families had brought out debutante girls that season, and asked if the autumn social life in Kolozsvar was as lively and amusing as it usually was when the hunt season began. She wanted to know who had opened their town houses and who was going to give balls and dinners; and in this way she eventually arrived at her destination, which was to ask about the Prefect’s supper party. Now she discovered her first important fact: Balint had had a headache and had not attended. He had
been sorry to miss the occasion for he would have liked to have met the diva and seen so many of their friends, but it had been a rotten sort of migraine and he hadn’t felt up to it, admitting for the first time that he hadn’t even stayed until the end of the
performance
. Perhaps, he said, thinking no doubt that it was quite an adequate excuse, he had been rather vague about it when they had discussed his doings over tea that afternoon.

In fact the inadequacy of the excuse was just what Countess Roza wanted to hear, for it immediately gave her a clue as to what had really happened. It was clear to her now that her son had met someone at the theatre, and it was for this person’s sake that he had left early and for whom he had failed to go to the party. It could only have been Adrienne; and Countess Roza knew it as surely as if he had spelled it out.

For a moment her old anger flared up once again. That woman! That accursed woman! But then her wrath dissolved again almost as quickly as it had appeared.

For twelve long, miserable months after she had forbidden Balint to come home to Denestornya, Countess Abady had sat alone in her great house; and even after her son had been allowed back he had been so gloomy, so distracted, so totally uninterested in everything in which he had formerly taken such pleasure and so listless, that it had been like living with a ghost. Every time that she had looked at her son’s weary face her heart had
constricted
and, though she never for a moment thought that she had acted in anything but his best interests – and, of course, to
preserve
the family’s prestige and honour – it had been a daily
sorrow
to see him so heartbroken. Only now, this very day, had he been his old self again, young and cheerful and filled with hope and the joy of being alive. She hadn’t seen him like that for so long, oh, so long; and her joy and thankfulness for his being restored to his old self prevented her from analysing the reasons too carefully lest they should be too difficult to accept. Nor for a moment did she question the rightness of her royal decree –
however
arrogant and tyrannical it might have been – but she now realized that since he could never marry that woman, since he could never bring her to enjoy the Abady house and inheritance, what did it matter if by seeing her he could be made happy once more? Of course it would mean that a proper acceptable
marriage
for him would now be put off for a few more years, but she could accept that as the price for once more seeing peace and
happiness
in his face.

It only took her a moment to think this out and accept the situation for what it was and so she quickly stopped asking any more awkward questions. Without appearing to have noticed her son’s hesitation and embarrassment she switched smoothly to less controversial subjects.

‘Tell me about those two daughters of Laszlo Gyeroffy’s old guardian, Stanislo. Do they have red-blonde hair like their father’s famous wig? And the second Kamuthy girl – I suppose those are the new ones this year – is she as roly-poly as her brother or is she like her elder sister?’ Balint, now alive and unconstrained again, did his best to imitate those moonfaced, simple-minded girls and was so successful that Countess Roza roared with
laughter
and even called upon the two fat housekeepers who sat in silence at the end of the table to do the same and agree with her delighted applause.

‘Yes, indeed!’ said one, and the other echoed, ‘Indeed, yes!’

Recently these two had tried their best to ingratiate themselves with Balint. Their old ally and supporter, the rascally lawyer Azbej who for so long had managed Countess Abady’s affairs, was no longer there since he had not long before resigned from acting as her agent. The little lawyer was no fool and, as soon as Countess Roza had made peace with her son, he realized that if he were not very careful the young master would soon find out many things Azbej would rather remained hidden; and that he would then be called to account without mercy. It was better, he thought, to go before this could happen and so, during the
previous
winter, he had made the journey to Abbazia where the
mistress
was spending the cold season and told her that family matters of his own obliged him to leave her service. The
explanation
he gave was that, with the principal motive of doing a service to the Countess’s noble family, he had bought Laszlo Gyeroffy’s estate of Szamos-Kozard (which, of course, no one else would have bought) and to do so he had used his wife’s money. Now he would have to give up everything else in order to be free to run the place. Of course it had all been done only to serve the interests of the Gracious Countess’s most illustrious family. He took with him a sheaf of impressive-looking accounts and a carefully worded dispensation which only required the Gracious Countess’s signature. This obtained he went on his way and the Gracious Countess herself had said how sorry she was to see him go.

With Azbej’s departure Mrs Baczo and Mrs Tothy at once
lost that precious ally with whose protection they had been enabled to lord it over Countess Roza’s household. They knew that the other servants detested them both, knowing what
advantages
they had gained from their privileged position and how much they had been able to profit by it. Now they needed a new protector, and both thought they could do no better than to get the young master on their side. Only he would be able to protect them if their mistress, or even he himself, somehow got wind of what they had been up to for so long; and so they worked it out that, if they paid their court well and pleased him and somehow earned his approval, then he would be less inclined to start
looking
into how they had run the kitchens and stillrooms and asking why the bills for butcher’s meat, sugar, coffee and cooking fat had been so high.

It was true that since his return the young master had shown no sign of being interested in anything, let alone such awkward matters as household expenses. When Azbej had first left and Balint had come home nearly everyone employed at Denestornya had one great fear. The estate foremen, the farming tenants and many others had all been guilty of persistent falsification of their accounts which Azbej had overlooked because, if he protected them, they in turn would say nothing about his own even more profitable thieving: now they were all scared to death that Count Balint would at once put his nose into everything. But it hadn’t happened: Count Balint did nothing. It was the same with the administration of the forest holdings in which he had formerly taken such a deep personal interest. He came, he went. He had looked around and dealt without joy with whatever was put in front of him. He had made a few enquiries, but had initiated nothing new and indeed treated everything with the same listless indifference.

While at home at Denestornya Balint, as he never had before, went to bed late and got up late. For days on end he would hardly leave the house, not even to go out riding, but would sit for hours reading some book or other.

But from the day he returned to find his mother with her beloved horses in the horseshoe court, all was different. At dawn the next morning he rode out with Simon Jäger and jumped all the fences in the paddock. At midday it was with happiness in his voice that he told his mother that for the first time that year he himself had heard the fallow deer calling in that thicket in the park they called Magyaros; and then he told her that he wanted
to go to Zsuk for the hunting and wondered if she would let him have three of their good hunters.

‘But of course I will,’ she cried, delighted. ‘You don’t have to ask! Do whatever you like! Take whichever you like! They’re all yours, you know!’

This was no more than Balint had expected. He had known exactly what his mother would say, almost word for word, yet he knew she would have been offended if he had omitted to ask. To play the fairy godmother, to give presents, hand over precious possessions, particularly to her son, was for the Countess Roza one of the great pleasures in life. It was a part she liked to play, and yet it was not really a part as in the theatre but a genuine side of her character. That is how she felt; and the fact of being asked was as important to her as the giving. Had she not been asked, it would have been taken as an affront to her natural goodness and as an unjustified liberty; for no one must ever forget that
everything
was hers and that everything depended on her wishes.

Balint went on to mention that Baron Gazsi would shortly be paying them a visit and also that he would like to invite over the young Aron Kozma as he wanted to discuss Co-operative matters with him.

Countess Roza looked up at her son with interest.

‘Which Kozma is that?’ she asked. ‘Does he come from the prairie lands?’ and, when Balint confirmed that that was so, she went on: ‘What sort of age is he? What was his father’s name?’

‘He is the eldest son of Boldizsar, and he has his own land near Teke,’ said Balint, who went on to explain what advanced and successful landowners the Kozmas had become and how both generations, the fathers’ and sons’, had all turned out to be serious and hard-working and progressive.

The old lady appeared to be paying attention to everything Balint told her, but when she spoke it was obvious that she was really only interested in the first thing he had said.

‘So this one is Boldizsar’s eldest boy, is he? Boldizsar was the middle one of five brothers and they all grew up here, at Denestornya. Their father was our agent when I was a child, and I knew them all well and used to play with the younger ones. Well! Well! Well! Invite him, do!’ She paused for a moment and then went on, with a little smile at her own private memories,
saying
, ‘Invite him, but tell him to wire and say when he is coming. I’ll need to have the heating put on in the guest rooms in plenty of time.’

‘It isn’t cold yet, Mama.’

‘It doesn’t signify. The weather might change any day and … it is better to know in advance.’

It did not occur to Balint that his mother had had no such qualms when told of Gazsi’s visit.

F
IVE DAYS LATER GAZSI ARRIVED
, riding his
thoroughbred
mare Honeydew, who was now so changed that it was hard to believe that it was the same animal who a couple of years before, had been the terror of all the jockeys on the track. Now she seemed as quiet as the old spotted farm donkey, though it was true that she allowed no one but Gazsi on her back.

‘I had to r-r-ride over,’ said Gazsi apologetically, ‘because Honeydew needed the work. Actually I would far rather have
dr-r
-riven and then I could have brought a suitcase with me. But no one else can even walk this beast and only the other day, when I went to my sister’s, she kicked the young stable-boy in the belly. It’s r-r-real slavery, looking after this one,’ he said as he
dismounted
in the horseshoe court, and he bent his head sideways and looked plaintively at Balint as he always did when making a tragi-comedy of whatever he was doing. This time, however, Balint sensed that he was not joking for he seemed unusually
serious
and went on to say something quite out of the usual for him: he spoke of his clothes.

‘I know I oughtn’t to pr-r-resent myself to Aunt Roza looking like this,’ he said, ‘so scr-r-ruffy and unkempt, but I have brought something to change into in my saddle-bag. But you can’t get much in, I’m afraid.’

‘Really, Gazsi,’ said Balint, ‘that doesn’t matter for you! Why, my mother’s quite used to receiving you booted and spurred.’

‘Of course, of course! Who would expect anything else from a peasant like me?’ and he sounded so bitter that Balint instantly regretted speaking as he had.

As it happened the saddle-bag produced a sort of dinner-jacket which had been made by a tailor in Torda. Though his shirt was wrinkled and his collar worn, when he presented himself at the dinner table, Gazsi looked tolerably presentable, indeed almost
European. He had obviously made an effort to look civilized, hopeless though his case might be, and he wore an unusually
serious
air.

Later that evening, when the two young men had drunk tea and eaten some stewed apples with Countess Roza in her little
first-floor
drawing-room, Balint escorted his guest back through the huge empty dining-hall and down the stairs to the ground floor. They did not speak, for Balint had already noticed how unusually silent and preoccupied his guest had been, both at dinner and afterwards. It is true that he had told a number of amusing tales, in his usual wry, self-mocking humourous way; how he fell into the water while chasing an otter and how the beast just sat on the shore laughing at him; about the guard-dog at a vineyard who was tethered by a long wire and how he had stood still while the dog ran circles around him until it was he who was tethered – and then the dog had bitten him; and several others of the same sort, all clownishly acted out for the amusement of his hosts. Even so Abady sensed that he was going through the motions of being his normal self while his heart was not really in it. He had noticed that each time Gazsi paused for a moment a slight frown appeared on his forehead, suggesting that the same dark thought had once more taken possession of him. Balint wondered what on earth could be the matter and became increasingly worried,
waiting
for his guest to tell him what it was. At last he did. When they reached the foot of the stairs, Gazsi turned aside and said, ‘I’d like to talk something over with you. Can we …?’ and stopped.

‘Better come to me,’ said Balint. ‘The servants will soon be round to take away the lamps as my mother doesn’t like to keep them up late. I’ll give you a candle to get back to your room.’ They turned and crossed the entrance hall, and as they did so they could see the lights on the floor above going out, one after the other, until finally one solitary glimmer could be seen moving slowly along until it too disappeared behind an arch and was seen no more.

Soon the two young men were seated facing each other at the table in Balint’s circular ground-floor room in the castle’s
north-west
tower. A small reading lamp cast a glow between them, but the rest of the room was in darkness.

Kadacsay hesitated for a moment before starting to speak. Looking now more than ever like a raven with his beak tilted slightly to one side, he seemed to be looking hard at the armrest of
his chair as if he would get inspiration from it. Then, speaking slowly with long pauses between each phrase as if to underline that he was choosing his words with extra care, he said, ‘I have just made my will … Yes, my will. It seemed the r-r-right thing to do … now … and that is why I came to see you, to ask … to ask you to agr-r-ree to be my executor-r-r …’

Balint found this sinister and upsetting. The fate of his own father flashed through his mind, for Count Tamas Abady had developed cancer when he was hardly older than Gazsi was today, and had died within a few months. Had this happened to his friend? Was this why he had seemed so sad and preoccupied? So, trying to hide his concern, he interrupted Gazsi, saying, ‘You’re not ill, Gazsi? If anything is worrying you I hope you’ve seen a doctor?’

‘No, no! I’m all r-r-right … as good as ever-r-r, I just thought it seemed sensible to … to be pr-r-repared, to be r-r-ready … just in case … in plenty of time …’

Then he went on to tell Balint exactly how all his affairs stood and that he had settled everything with his sister when he had been over to see her a few days before. He explained all about what his property brought in, with detailed facts and figures, and told Balint that he had settled all those small debts he had incurred when still in the hussars so that all that now remained was the disposal of his family inheritance.

‘For Heaven’s sake, what makes you think of death when you’re still so young and healthy?’ broke in Balint again, now somewhat irritated by such gloomy thoughts when he himself felt so happy.

‘Does everything have to have a reason?’ asked the other, and smiled quizzically. ‘Perhaps one day my darling Honeydew will go a little cr-r-razy again, throw me and then r-r-roll all over me? Who knows, she killed a jockey like that once! R-r-rather a
suitable
durned up at Denestornya, the Coeath for me, don’t you think? After all, everyone knows I only know about horses. Anyhow, why be frightened of death? Didn’t Schopenhauer say something about it being only our will to live which makes us scared of death and that it was a purely animal reaction? Or perhaps I’ve got it wr-r-rong …?’ and he waved his hand in a gesture of mock dejection before laughing briefly. Then, far more seriously, he went on to tell Balint that he had decided to leave everything he could to his sister’s two sons on one
condition
. That was that each of them, before he came into his
inheritance
, must spend at least two years at some university abroad,
in England or in France, and that it would be Balint’s
responsibility
to choose where. If they didn’t agree they were to get nothing. ‘I’m determined,’ he said, ‘that they shan’t turn out to be useless fools like me!’

Touched by what he was hearing, Balint listened hard to
everything
that Gazsi had to say; and all the time he was thinking how tormented his old friend must have been, and how for years he must have lived with this inner turmoil and so now was doing the only thing he could to provide for his nephews what he had yearned for in vain for himself. Later he would remember one or two especially poignant things that Gazsi had said about himself, about his unfulfilled hunger for knowledge and self-
understanding
, and how this hunger had led him to grab eagerly at any book he could lay his hands on, especially those on history and the modern school of German philosophy. In this way, it seemed, he had tried hard to compensate for years spent only in the saddle and in playing the fool.

‘Of course I’ll do what you ask,’ said Balint. ‘I’m flattered that you should have that sort of faith in me. All the same it’s not very likely that I’ll have to put my oar in. You’ll probably live for years and send the boys to England yourself… and any others who are not yet born!’

Gazsi got up, laughing as he said, ‘Even Habakkuk got a r-
r-rude
answer when he asked the Lord about the future!’ and, so as to cover his deep emotion at Balint’s ready acceptance, he laughed loudly at his own irreverence. Then he took Balint’s hand, wrung it warmly, holding it in his for a little longer than usual, in the way that one does when saying goodbye.

At eight o’clock the following morning they went out riding; not before, because at that time of year the dawn was invariably
followed
by a thick fog on the flat land beside the Aranyos which was where Balint wanted to go to try out the young horses. Since Gazsi had brought Honeydew, who had been ridden in several first class flat races, they were only going to try short distances so that the novices from the Denestornya stable could keep up with the experienced thoroughbred mare.

Five horses had been saddled and were waiting for them in the horseshoe court. Apart from Honeydew, there were Csinos and Ivy with Balint’s own saddles, and Menyet and Csalma with the stable lads. All four were very much alike, tall bay mares, about sixteen hands, with long elegant necks, wide shoulders and
‘a lot of ground under them’. The only difference between them was that one was a shade darker and one a shade lighter than the others, and if Honeydew with her fine bones and pulled-up belly like a greyhound had not been in sight – she was being held slightly apart from the others in case she should take it into her head to start kicking out – they too might have been taken for English thoroughbreds with those unmistakable lines of the true racehorse.

The little band of riders walked slowly out through the great gates of the courtyard, Balint and Gazsi side by side in the lead – though Gazsi prudently held Honeydew a pace or two behind because the mare was already beginning to put her ears back and he needed to be careful to control her uncertain temper – while Simon Jäger and two stable lads followed a couple of lengths behind them. The hoofbeats echoed loudly as they rode under the wide arch.

After crossing the bridge that spanned the former moat they turned left towards the river. Below them most of the wide valley was still covered in wave after wave of thin mist, so diaphanous that it might have been made from the torn remnants of some giant shawl of soft cotton. It spread over the whole plain far beyond the junction with the Maros and, wherever the sun’s rays had been strongest, glimpses could be caught of the trees and meadows beneath. In some places, where the plantations were thickest, the park could clearly be seen, but in others thin wisps of early mist still clung to the tips of the tallest poplars until the tiny patches of autumn leaves looked like golden coins suspended in the air. The little band rode down through the bright
contrasting
colours of the separate groups of birch, pine and maple until, after describing a wide arc, they found themselves where the lingering morning mist reduced all colours to pastel. Although by now one could see some distance ahead it was like looking through milky glass, as in a dream landscape where everything appeared to be at an infinite distance.

They rode over a little bridge, beneath which the river seemed to be giving off wisps of steamy vapour. A kingfisher darted past them with a startled cry, its sapphire-blue plumage drawing a sharp line just above the surface of the water for an instant before it vanished into the deep vegetation beside the river.

‘It’ll soon be winter if that one has arrived,’ remarked Kadacsay in a whisper: and then again they did not speak.

The horses’ hooves made hardly a sound on the soft turf. The
landscape before them seemed more and more unreal with tall groups of Austrian pines looking like black islands in a white sea. When they were quite close to the woods in which they would soon be engulfed those orange-coloured rays of the sun that had succeeded in penetrating the mist above cast a pale dove-grey haze over the silver foliage of the poplars and gave a rosy tint to the dense leaves of the undergrowth. It was as if Nature were blushing as she was undressed by the sun.