A Bride of the Plains

by Emmuska Orczy

  The tap-room was low and narrow and dark. Round the once whitewashed walls there were rows of wooden benches with narrow trestle tables in front of them. Opposite the front door, on a larger table, were the bottles of wine and silvorium,[6] the jars of tobacco and black cigars, which a beneficent government licensed Ignácz Goldstein the Jew to sell to the peasantry.

  [6] A highly alcoholic, very raw gin-like spirit distilled from a special kind of plum.

  The little room obtained its daylight mainly from the street-door when it was open, for the one tiny window—on the right as you entered—was not constructed to open, and its dulled glass masked more of daylight than it allowed to filtrate through.

  Opposite the window a narrow door led into a couple of living rooms, the first of which also had direct access to the street.

  The tap-room itself was always crowded and always busy, the benches round the walls were always occupied,[Pg 163] and Klara and her father were never allowed to remain idle for long. She dispensed the wine and the silvorium, and made herself agreeable to the guests. Ignácz saw to the tobacco and the cigars. Village women in Hungary never frequent the public inn: when they do, it is because they have sunk to the lowest depths of degradation: a woman in drink is practically an unknown sight in the land.

  Klara herself, though her ways with the men were as free and easy as those of her type and class usually are, would never have dreamed of drinking with any of them.

  This evening she was unusually busy. While the wedding feast was going on lower down in the village, a certain number of men who liked stronger fare than what is usually provided at a "maiden's farewell" dance, as well as those who had had no claim to be invited, strolled into the tap-room for a draught of silvorium, a gossip with the Jewess, or a game of tarok if any were going.

  Ignácz Goldstein himself was fond of a game. Like most of his race, his habits were strictly sober. As he kept a cool head, he usually won; and his winnings at tarok made a substantial addition to the income which he made by selling spirits and tobacco. Leopold Hirsch, who kept the village grocery store, was also an inveterate player, and, like Goldstein, a very steady winner. But it was not the chance of a successful gamble which brought him so often to the tap-room. For years now he had dangled round Klara's fashionable skirts, and it seemed as if at last his constancy was to be rewarded. While she was younger—and was still of surpassing beauty—she had had wilder flights of ambition than those which would lead her to rule over a village grocery store: during those times she had al[Pg 164]lowed Leopold Hirsch to court her, without giving him more than very cursory encouragement.

  As the years went on, however, and her various admirers from Arad proved undesirous to go to the length of matrimony, she felt more kindly disposed toward Leo, who periodically offered her his heart and hand, and the joint ownership of the village grocery store. She had looked into her little piece of mirror rather more closely of late than she had done hitherto, and had discovered two or three ominous lines round her fine, almond-shaped eyes, and noted that her nose showed of late a more marked tendency to make close acquaintance with her chin.

  Then she began to ponder, and to give the future more serious consideration than she had ever done before. She ticked off on her long, pointed fingers the last bevy of her admirers on whom she might reasonably count: the son of the chemist over in Arad, the tenant of the Kender Road farm, the proprietor of the station cabs, and there were two or three others; but they were certainly falling away, and she had added no new ones to her list these past six months.

  Erös Béla's formally declared engagement to Kapus Elsa had been a very severe blow. She had really reckoned on Béla. He was educated and unconventional, and though he professed the usual anti-Semitic views peculiar to his kind, Klara did not believe that these were very genuine. At any rate, she had reckoned that her fine eyes and provocative ways would tilt successfully against the man's racial prejudices.

  Erös Béla was rich and certainly, up to a point, in love with her. Klara was congratulating herself on the way she was playing her matrimonial cards, when all her hopes were so suddenly dashed to the ground.

  [Pg 165]Béla was going to marry that silly, ignorant peasant girl, and she, Klara, would be left to marry Leopold after all.

  Her anger and humiliation had been very great, and she had battled very persistently and very ably to regain the prize which she had lost. She knew quite well that, but for the fact that she belonged to the alien and despised race, Erös Béla would have been only too happy to marry her. His vanity alone had made him choose Kapus Elsa. He wanted the noted beauty for himself, because the noted beauty had been courted by so many people, and where so many people had failed he was proud to succeed.

  Nor would he have cared to have it said that he had married a Jewess. There is always a certain thought of disgrace attached to such a marriage, whether it has been contracted by peer or peasant, and Erös Béla's one dominating idea in life was to keep the respect and deference of his native village.

  But he had continued his attentions to Klara, and Klara had kept a wonderful hold over his imagination and over his will. She was the one woman who had ever had her will with him—only partially, of course, and not to the extent of forcing him into matrimony—but sufficiently to keep him also dangling round her skirts even though his whole allegiance should have belonged to Elsa.

  The banquet this afternoon had been a veritable triumph. Whatever she had suffered through Béla's final disloyalty to herself, she knew that Kapus Elsa must have suffered all through the banquet. The humiliation of seeing one's bridegroom openly flaunting his admiration for another woman must have been indeed very bitter to bear.

  Not for a moment did Klara Goldstein doubt that the subsequent scene was an act of vengeance against herself on Elsa's part. She judged other women by her own stand[Pg 166]ard, discounted other women's emotions, thoughts, feelings, by her own. She thought it quite natural that Elsa should wish to be revenged, just as she was quite sure that Béla was already meditating some kind of retaliation for the shame which Andor had put upon him and for Elsa's obstinacy and share in the matter.

  She had not spoken to anyone of the little scene which had occurred between the four walls of the little schoolroom: on the contrary she had spoken loudly of both the bridegroom's and the bride's cordiality to her during the banquet.

  "Elsa wanted me to go to the dancing this evening," she said casually, "but I thought you would all miss me. I didn't want this place to be dull just because half the village is enjoying itself somewhere else."

  It had been market day at Arad, and at about five o'clock Klara and her father became very busy. Cattle-dealers and pig-merchants, travellers and pedlars, dropped in for a glass of silvorium and a chat with the good-looking Jewess. More than one bargain, discussed on the marketplace of Arad, was concluded in the stuffy tap-room of Marosfalva.

  "Shall we be honoured by the young Count's presence later on?" someone asked, with a significant nod to Klara.

  Everyone laughed in sympathy; the admiration of the noble young Count for Klara Goldstein was well-known. There was nothing in it, of course; even Klara, vain and ambitious as she was, knew that the bridge which divided the aristocrat from one of her kind and of her race was an impassable one. But she liked the young Count's attentions—she liked the presents he brought her from time to time, and relished the notoriety which this flirtation gave her.

  [Pg 167]She also loved to tease poor Leopold Hirsch. Leo had been passionately in love with her for years; what he must have endured in moral and mental torture during that time through his jealousy and often groundless suspicions no one who did not know him intimately could ever have guessed. These tortures which Klara wantonly inflicted upon the wretched young man had been a constant source of amusement to her. Even now she was delighted because, as luck would have it, he entered the tap-room at the very moment when everyone was chaffing her about the young Count.

  Leopold Hirsch cast a quick
, suspicious glance upon the girl, and his dull olive skin assumed an almost greenish hue. He was not of prepossessing appearance; this he knew himself, and the knowledge helped to keep his jealousy and his suspicion aflame.

  He was short and lean of stature and his head, with its large, bony features, seemed too big for his narrow shoulders to carry. His ginger-coloured hair was lank and scanty; he wore it—after the manner of those of his race in that part of the world—in corkscrew ringlets down each side of his narrow, cadaverous-looking face.

  His eyes were pale and shifty, but every now and then there shot into them a curious gleam of unbridled passion—love, hate or revenge; and then the whole face would light up and compel attention by the revelation of latent power.

  This had happened now when a fellow who sat in the corner by the window made some rough jest about the young Count. Leopold made his way to Klara's side; his thin lips were tightly pressed together, and he had buried his hands in the pockets of his ill-fitting trousers.

  "If that accursed aristocrat comes hanging round here[Pg 168] much more, Klara," he muttered between set teeth, "I'll kill him one of these days."

  "What a fool you are, Leopold!" she said. "Why, yesterday it was Erös Béla you objected to."

  "And I do still," he retorted. "I heard of your conduct at the banquet to-day. It is the talk of the village. One by one these loutish peasants have come into my shop and told me the tale—curse them!—of how the bridegroom had eyes and ears only for you. You seem to forget, Klara," he added, while a thought of menace crept into his voice, "that you are tokened to me now. So don't try and make a fool of me, or . . ."

  "The Lord bless you, my good man," she retorted, with a laugh, "I won't try, I promise you. I wouldn't like to compete with the Almighty, who has done that for you already."

  "Klara . . ." he exclaimed.

  "Oh! be quiet now, Leo," she said impatiently. "Can't you see that my hands are as full as I can manage, without my having to bother about you and your jealous tempers?"

  She elbowed him aside and went to the counter to serve a customer who had just arrived, and more than a quarter of an hour went by before Leopold had the chance of another word with her.

  "You might have a kind word for me to-night, Klara," he said ruefully, as soon as a brief lull in business enabled him to approach the girl.

  "Why specially to-night?" she asked indifferently.

  "Your father must go by the night train to Kecskemét," he said, with seeming irrelevance. "There is that business about the plums."

  "The plums?" she asked, with a frown of puzzlement, "what plums?"

  [Pg 169]"The fruit he bought near Kecskemét. They start gathering at sunrise to-morrow. He must be there the first hour, else he'd get shamefully robbed. He must travel by night."

  "I knew nothing about it," rejoined Klara, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. "Father never tells me when he is going to be away from home."

  "No!" retorted Leopold, with a sneer, "he knows better than to give all your gallants such a brilliant opportunity."

  "Don't be a fool, Leo!" she reiterated with a laugh.

  "I don't give any of them an opportunity, either," resumed the young man, while a curious look of almost animal ferocity crept into his pale face. "Whenever your father has to be away from home during the night, I take up my position outside this house and watch over you until daylight comes and people begin to come and go."

  "Very thoughtful of you, my good Leo," she rejoined dryly, "but you need not give yourself the trouble. I am well able to look after myself."

  "If any man molested you," continued Leopold, speaking very calmly, "I would kill him."

  "Who should molest me, you silly fool? And anyhow, I won't have you spying upon me like that."

  "You must not call it spying, Klara. I love to stand outside this house in the peace and darkness of the night, and to think of you quietly sleeping whilst I am keeping watch over you. You wouldn't call a watchdog a spy, would you?"

  "I know that to-night I shan't sleep a wink," she retorted crossly, "once father has gone. I shall always be thinking of you out there in the dark, watching this house. It will make me nervous."

  "To-night . . ." he began, and then abruptly checked[Pg 170] himself. Once more that quick flash of passion shot through his pale, deep-set eyes. It seemed as if he meant to tell her something, which on second thoughts he decided to keep to himself. Her keen, dark eyes searched his face for a moment or two; she wondered what it was that lurked behind that high, smooth forehead of his and within the depths of that curiously perverted brain.

  Before she had time, however, to question him, Erös Béla made noisy irruption into the room.

  He was greeted with a storm of cheers.

  "Hello, Béla!"

  "Not the bridegroom, surely?"

  "Who would have thought of seeing you here?"

  While Leopold Hirsch muttered audibly:

  "What devil's mischief has brought this fellow here to-day, I wonder?"

  Béla seemed in boisterous good-humour—with somewhat ostentatious hilarity he greeted all his friends, and then ordered some of Ignácz Goldstein's best wine for everybody all round.

  "Bravo, Béla!" came from every side, together with loud applause at this unexpected liberality.

  "It is nice of you not to forget old friends," Klara whispered in his ear, as soon as he succeeded in reaching her side.

  "Whew!" he ejaculated with a sneer, "you have no idea, my good Klara, how I've been boring myself these past two hours. Those loutish peasants have no idea of enjoyment save their eternal gipsy music and their interminable csárdás."

  "For a man of your education, Béla," said Klara, with an insinuating smile, "it must be odiously dull. You would far rather have had a game of cards, wouldn't you now?"

  [Pg 171]"I would far rather have had you at that infernal dance, so as to have had somebody to talk to," he retorted savagely.

  "Oh!" she said demurely, "that would never have done. Elsa must have such a lot to say to you herself. It would not be seemly for me to stand in the way."

  "Elsa, as you know, has that silly csárdás on the brain. She has been dancing ever since six o'clock and has only given me about ten minutes of her company. She seems to belong to-night to every young fool that can dance, rather than to me."

  "Ah well! When you are married you can stop all that, my good Béla. You can forbid your wife to dance the csárdás, you know. I know many men who do it. Then Elsa will learn to appreciate the pleasure of your conversation. Though she is no longer very young, she is still very ignorant. You will have to educate her . . . bring her up to your own level of intelligence and of learning. In the meanwhile, do sit down and drink with those who, like yourself, have come here for an hour or two to break the monotony of perpetual czigány music and dancing."

  She busied herself with drawing the corks of a number of bottles, which she then transferred from the end of the room where she stood to the tables at which sat her customers; she also brought out some fresh glasses. Béla watched her for a moment or two in silence, unconscious of the fact that he, too, was being watched by a pair of pale eyes in which lurked a gleam of jealousy and of hate. Suddenly, as Klara brushed past him carrying bottles and glasses, he took hold of her by the elbow and drew her close to him.

  [Pg 172]"These louts won't stay late to-night, will they?" he whispered in her ear.

  "No, not late," she replied; "they will go on to the barn in time for the supper, you may be sure of that. Why do you ask?"

  "I will have the supper served at ten o'clock," he continued to whisper, "but I'll not sit down to it. Not without you."

  "Don't be foolish, Béla," she retorted. But even as he spoke, a little gleam of satisfaction, of gratified vanity, of anticipatory revenge, shot through her velvety dark eyes.

  "I warned Elsa," he continued sullenly; "I told her that if you were not at the feast, I should not be there either. She has disobeyed me. I must punish her
."

  "So?" she rejoined, with an acid smile. "It is only in order to punish Elsa that you want to sup with me?"

  "Don't be stupid, Klara," he retorted. "I'll come at ten o'clock. Will you have some supper ready for me then? I have two or three bottles of French champagne over at my house—I'll bring them along. Will you be ready for me?"

  "Be silent, Béla," she broke in hurriedly. "Can't you see that that fool Leo is watching us all the time?"

  "Curse, him! What have I got to do with him?" muttered Béla savagely. "You will be ready for me, Klara?"

  "No!" she said decisively. "Better make your peace with Elsa. I'll have none of her leavings. I've had all I wanted out of you to-day—the banquet first and now your coming here. . . . It'll be all over the village presently—and that's all I care about. Have a drink now," she added good-humouredly, "and then go and make your peace with Elsa . . . if you can."

  [Pg 173]She turned abruptly away from him, leaving him to murmur curses under his breath, and went on attending to her customers; nor did he get for the moment another opportunity of speaking with her, for Leopold Hirsch hovered round her for some considerable time after that, and presently, with much noise and pomp and circumstance, no less a personage than the noble young Count himself graced the premises of Ignácz Goldstein the Jew with his august presence.

  * * *

  [Pg 174]

  CHAPTER XIX

  "Now go and fetch the key."

  He belonged to the ancient family of Rákosy, who had owned property on both banks of the Maros for the past eight centuries, and Feri Rákosy, the twentieth-century representative of his mediæval forbears, was a good-looking young fellow of the type so often met with among the upper classes in Hungary: quite something English in appearance—well set-up, well-dressed, well-groomed from the top of his smooth brown hair to the tips of his immaculately-shod feet—in the eyes an expression of habitual boredom, further accentuated by the slight, affected stoop of the shoulders and a few premature lines round the nose and mouth; and about his whole personality that air of high-breeding and of good, pure blood which is one of the chief characteristics of the true Hungarian aristocracy.