They Were Found Wanting (Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  While thinking about this Balint was watching Antal Szent-Gyorgyi, who stood, upright and slender, in front of the stuccoed fireplace. Far above him, set in the plaster-work, was a life-sized portrait of his great-grandfather, he who had been palatine to Queen Maria-Theresia. He had been painted with the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece hanging from a heavy gold chain and was wearing a heavily embroidered cloak of purple velvet and on his head was a powdered wig. And suddenly Balint saw that it was the same man who stood there today, in front of the marble and stucco fireplace, dressed in a velvet smoking-jacket, just like any of the other men in the room, but, unlike the others, with the tiny emblem of the Golden Fleece on his watch-chain and that worn not out of pride or vanity but because it was the rule of the Order that it was always to be worn no matter what the dress or occasion. There, below the painted portrait, was the same narrow face, the same proud self-sufficient glance. Even the living man’s greying hair made the similarity the more pronounced. Antal Szent-Gyorgyi was the very archetype of those men of family who had lived for generations close to the throne, who in Hungary had controlled the country’s destiny since the end of the Turkish wars, who had looked empirically at their country’s needs with all the knowledge of what else was happening in Europe, and who yet still remained essentially Hungarian, like Ferenc Szechenyi, Gyorgy Festetics or the Eszterhazys.

  In the meantime Slawata had begun to sound more cheerful.

  ‘Izvolsky‚ of course, came on to Vienna when he left Marienbad, and so we were able to settle the Macedonian question. That little nest of thorns won’t give us any trouble for years to come, I’m glad to say.’

  He was still explaining this reassuring news, while from time to time bowing from his seat towards his host as if he was laying all this confidential information as homage to Count Antal’s patent-leather pumps, when the butler came in, went over to Abady and spoke softly to him.

  ‘Her Ladyship would like to see you in the small drawing-room, my Lord.’

  Countess Elise sat in her usual place between the windows, protected by two silk-covered screens. She lay in an armchair, her feet on a footstool, for there it was a great deal warmer than close to the little onyx-inlaid fireplace. The secret was that close to her chair were two little latticed openings from which a stove outside the room blew gusts of hot air.

  On her left sat Fanny, and near the fireplace was Klara. Balint was shown to a place near his aunt, a strange little low upholstered chair which seemed almost to embrace him as he sank into its cushioned softness. He was facing Klara.

  ‘That’s right, just beside me, my dear Balint! Now tell me about Transylvania and all the dear people there,’ said Countess Elise, taking the young man’s hand and keeping it imprisoned affectionately in her own. A series of questions followed.

  ‘First of all how is your mother? I haven’t seen her for more than a year and a half, since she last passed through Budapest. I suppose she’s now at your beautiful Denestornya? I often went there to visit my uncle Peter, your grandfather. And how is Aunt Lizinka? Is she still rushing about all the time? And dear Countess Gyalakuthy‚ that good-natured Adelma? They tell me her daughter has turned out to be very pretty. And how is Countess Jeno Laczok and her husband? And Ambrus Kendy‚ who used to dance with me? And Sandor Kendy?’

  It was incredible, thought Balint. She knows everybody and still remembers exactly what relation they all are to each other. When Balint recounted the latest news, she would turn to Fanny and Klara and tell little anecdotes of them all, girlhood memories and funny little half-forgotten things so that they too might know something of this – to them – unknown world, of which she was obviously still very fond. And, of course, she often spoke of Szamos-Kozard, the former home of the Gyeroffy girls.

  While he was answering her questions, or listening to her reminiscences, Balint’s eyes would wander to Klara Kollonich. As she sat there near the fireplace in a richly frilled house-gown covered in lace which showed her shoulders like a ball-gown with a deep décolleté, ruffles and ribbons tumbling all around her, her advanced state of pregnancy could hardly be seen. With her beautiful bare white shoulders that sloped ever so slightly, those eyes the colour of the sea, and her fair wavy hair, she was still as enchanting as she had been as an unmarried girl. Only a faint weariness, which one felt rather than saw, gave an indication of her condition. There might, he thought, be just the hint of a tiny wrinkle at the corner of her full lips which spoke of tiredness, or, perhaps, disappointment. And this, thought Balint, is the girl for whom Laszlo threw away everything he had! For whom he gave up music and his studies at the Academy even though his masters had predicted a great future for him; for whom he had plunged into the great social whirl of the capital, which in turn had lured him to the gaming tables and then coldly thrown him out of the world he had wanted to conquer for her sake and left him ruined both morally and materially. As Balint gazed at Klara now his mind went back to the day, three years before at Simonsvasar, the Kollonichs’ great country place, when he had discovered Laszlo’s fatal love and realized, oh so clearly, that his cousin was rushing inevitably to his own destruction. Like a vision he saw Laszlo’s face before him, that face so passionate and impetuous …

  Perhaps it was because of the road down which his reflections had led him that Balint now began to answer his aunt’s questions in a somewhat distracted manner. Whatever the reason, the conversation died and there was a sudden silence as if everybody’s thoughts had suddenly turned to a subject which must not be discussed and a name which could not be mentioned.

  Countess Elise grasped her nephew’s hand more strongly than before as she turned again to him and asked, ‘How is Laci?’ and her voice held a deeper note than was usual for her. There was a catch in it for she was deeply moved.

  Balint was not taken entirely by surprise for he had already sensed that the memory of Laszlo was floating in the air around them, waiting only for the right moment to be expressed in words, challenging the silence and the dying questions, ready to blaze out in open rebellion. At last his name had been spoken, but Balint still answered, slowly and with hesitation, ‘Poor Laszlo, I’m so worried about him. I see him so seldom, almost never, in fact.’

  ‘Tell me, please tell me!’ cried Countess Elise. ‘I know absolutely nothing, and I’ve heard nothing since, since … since it all happened. I’ve written to him twice, once just after – you know … and again last year; but he didn’t answer. And Antal, well, Antal’s so severe about these things. But I love him so much, just the same as always, and I would like to help him if I could.’

  At the first mention of Laszlo’s name Klara had got slowly to her feet. She rose with difficulty and at Countess Elise’s last words she went silently out of the room.

  Fanny Beredy, however, stayed where she was, and this bothered Balint who would have preferred her to leave too. He looked over towards her. The beautiful woman’s long catlike eyes were almost closed but he could just make out between her lashes a little gleam of moisture. She sat quite still, but for one hand that moved up to her throat and touched the string of giant pearls that encircled her bare shoulders, dipped down between her breasts and fell into a pool in her lap, a pool of frozen tears, a fabulous jewel that somehow had a life of its own – and a past. Apart from this faint movement as Fanny caressed her pearls she was as motionless as a puma in a cage, oblivious of her present surroundings as she dreamed of life in a long-lost wilderness.

  Balint had to answer, so he told all he knew about everything that had happened to Laszlo. He told it, perhaps, in a slightly toned-down version, for how could he speak frankly in front of a stranger? Still, he did tell everything and behind the bland phrases it was not difficult to sense the distress, the spiritual hurt. One felt, he said, that Laszlo believed himself to be a pariah and somehow this obsession never got better, only worse. He told them of the financial situation at Szamos-Kozard, which would probably soon have to be put up for auction and then Laszlo would own
nothing, not even the roof over his head. Then Balint remembered his talk with Sandor Kendy who had said that the only solution would be to make Laszlo a ward of court, and so he told them about this too, hoping that maybe Countess Elise would be able to do something on those lines.

  Balint talked for a long time, and when he came to the saddest parts, like the ruin and impending loss of the Szamos-Kozard estate, which of course had been her childhood home, the old lady pressed his hand with a force he would never have believed her to possess. It was clear that she was very much hurt and moved even though she had not been back for more than thirty years.

  ‘I will write to him again,’ she said when Balint had finished his tale. ‘That business of guardianship … I don’t know anything about such things, but perhaps that’s just as well. I’ll recommend it anyhow. I’ll write at once and you’ll take it to him yourself, won’t you?’

  ‘I can’t take it until after Christmas, Aunt Elise, because I have to stay in Budapest until then.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Perhaps things aren’t too urgent, but I still want you to deliver it personally.’ And she got up and went over to her little desk where there was hardly room for the morocco-leather letter-case, so covered was the tiny sécrétaire with little objets d’art and photographs of the countess’s father and mother, husband and children. Once at the desk she sat down and switched on the table lamp.

  Fanny and Balint left the room.

  They walked in silence through the vast library which, in contrast to the cosy luxury of Countess Elise’s friendly little sitting-room, was furnished only with great ecclesiastical oak manuscript chests on which the gilded baroque carving was cold and impartial.

  They had almost reached the doors of the drawing-room when Fanny suddenly stopped. She turned towards Abady, her lips slightly parted and her eyes closed shut. They stood like this for just a moment, but it was a moment of eternity, for Balint, like everyone else, was quite unaware that Fanny and Laszlo had been lovers. So he stood there surprised, expecting at every moment that she would say something; but nothing came, not a sound emerged from her lips. At last two huge tears forced their way through her closed lashes and rolled slowly down her face to her bosom where they joined their sisters petrified into ropes of pearls.

  Slowly Fanny walked into the drawing-room and over to the piano. She opened it and sat down, running her fingers over the notes in soft roulades. Then her host came over and stood near her, suggesting that maybe Countess Beredy would honour them with a few songs, as she had often done on previous evenings.

  ‘Do sing us something! It would be so nice of you,’ he said.

  But she only shook her head, turning her face away, and once more her hands just wandered four or five times over the notes before she jumped up saying, ‘Oh, no! It’s far too late! I for one will now go to bed!’ and as Szent-Gyorgyi bent to kiss her hand, she murmured, with a sad and somewhat ironical smile, ‘You were quite right … what you said about this house. Oh, yes, quite right!’

  Chapter Six

  LATER, when already dressed for bed, Magda and Lili came to see their cousin Klara. This was quite easy as her room was next to theirs, ‘right side of the chapel’, in the family apartments, the same room she had always had as a child. Her aunt had wanted her here, rather than on the other side in the guest rooms next to her husband. Aunt Elise was anxious to have her near her so that she would be able to go to her room and look after her without having to pass along those freezing corridors.

  The two girls slipped out of their adjoining rooms just down from Klara’s. They wore light dressing gowns, and both wanted to have the intimate girls’ gossip for which they had had no opportunity during the day.

  Magda wanted a chance to give rein to her annoyance. For a long time she had kept up a flirtation with Klara’s older brother, Peter; and then this dreadful thing had happened – her father had invited one of her younger half-brothers, Louis, but not Peter.

  Lili came too, partly because she was no longer a child and shouldn’t be treated as if she were, and so, though she was already in bed and half asleep when Magda came in to suggest they visit Klara’s room, she jumped up at once – for wasn’t she grown up and able to stay up if she wished? – and anyhow she felt like a good talk. What about? Well, that didn’t matter; just to talk would be enough, talk a bit, listen a bit. She might learn something… about that Abady, for example. Who was he, always so serious and somehow different – well, different from the others – and how strange he was!’

  So they sat by Klara, Magda on the edge of the bed where Klara sat up supported by a mountain of lacy pillows because she found it easier to breathe that way, and Lili in an armchair at the foot of the bed.

  An alabaster night light spread a filtered glow throughout the room so that the silken wraps of the girls melted into the pink satin which covered the walls, the bed and all the upholstered furniture.

  Magda was pouring out her sorrows without drawing breath.

  ‘It’s really too bad of Papa. He could easily have asked Peter, but he said that it was Louis’s turn since he hadn’t been for years as he had been at Oxford with Tony. I told him that was no reason since Peter was the eldest and anyhow was a far better shot. All Papa said was, all the better then, Louis needs a chance to improve and get in some practice. Then I said, why not make an exception and invite a ninth guest, and all he said to that was that there wasn’t room for nine, only eight! Not room! Here! To which I said, what about that bespectacled booby who doesn’t know anything about anything and Peter would do far better in the corner where a good shot was needed and all Papa replied was that a guest couldn’t be put in a less honourable position! So I said that Peter wasn’t like a guest, he was a near relation and wouldn’t mind anyhow. Isn’t that so, he wouldn’t have minded, would he?’

  She turned, twisting this way and that with little birdlike movements, first to Klara, then to Lili, and then back again to Klara. Of course she only expected a reply from Klara as Lili was too young to know Peter at all well. Klara’s voice was tired and lazy as if she had dragged her thoughts back from somewhere far away.

  ‘Why? I suppose not. It’s all much the same anyhow …’

  ‘You see!’ cried Magda triumphantly. ‘I knew it! Of course he wouldn’t have minded and he was dying to come, I know it, and for my sake, too, of course, but don’t either of you tell that to a soul!’ and she turned to Lili, saying, ‘It’s a secret, you know!’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it! Never! Not to a soul!’ the young girl promised fervently in her deep rather slurred manner of speaking. She was very flattered to be let into something so private and important. Imagine, a family secret!

  ‘And there was no reason to ask Balint. He could easily have been left out as he isn’t even a good shot, not like … like …’ but she faltered, not being able to bring herself to mention Laszlo’s name.

  Klara opened wide her sea-grey eyes and looked angrily at Magda, and it was, perhaps, lucky that Lili interrupted excitedly, ‘Oh, but why leave out Abady? That would have been a pity!’

  ‘And what do you know about such matters, you little brat?’ laughed Szent-Gyorgyi’s daughter. ‘Has he caught your fancy then?’

  The still chubby teenager blushed deeply.

  ‘Oh, no! I only meant …’ but Magda was not listening, she was far too full of her own thoughts.

  ‘And you know I’ve just realized something quite different. Father didn’t ask Peter on purpose. I’d make a bet on it! He didn’t ask Peter because he’s found out there’s something between us. That’s why! And what’s wrong with that? Plenty of people marry their own cousins,’ and she started to count on her fingers some of those she knew who had done just that. She started off with her Viennese friends, because that is where she had come out, ‘Why, there’s Mitz and Trudl, Titi and Momo … and in Budapest there’s Marcsa and Ili, and Marietta – though she married her second cousin. Anyhow it doesn’t matter, the whole thing’s too absurd and
Peter’s not a blood relation anyway, we’re only angeheiratet – connected by marriage – after all’s said and done!’ And now she really went too far, not noticing how ravaged with pain Klara’s expression had become as she plunged into a discussion on love between cousins, gabbling on more and more on the same subject, until suddenly out the words came: ‘And surely you too, Klara, weren’t you in love with …?’ when she realized what she was saying and fell silent.

  In her embarrassment she turned to Lili. ‘And why don’t you say something, instead of just sitting there like a stuffed dummy?’

  ‘What should I say?’ stammered the young girl and blushed again. She blushed, not at what had been said to her but at her own thoughts. She had been thinking about Abady. When they had been together at the shoot, each time that the drive had stopped he had always talked to her; and he had talked as if she were grown-up. She was remembering how his dark-grey eyes turned up slightly at the corners and how he had looked at her in such a natural, friendly and encouraging manner. And how his moustache was lighter than his hair, yes, much lighter. And that afternoon, when they went to see the brood mares, he had talked to her again, saying, ‘I can see that you too love and understand horses! I can see it from the way you stroke their noses.’

  Yes, that’s what he had said – ‘I can see it from the way you stroke their noses!’. Then he had told her that in Transylvania he too owned a stud farm. That had given her extra pleasure because he wanted to talk to her even when he wasn’t obliged to by common manners. Out there in the paddocks it hadn’t been a social duty – and this new acquaintance was a grown man, and she was still almost a child!