They Were Counted (97 page)

Poor little Dinora was socially ostracized and cut by everyone. She found herself with a mountain of debts, but she somehow managed to survive and remain cheerful, for being possessed of very little brain she never really understood what had happened to her.

 

In every great upheaval there is always someone who comes out a winner: and this time it was Kristof Azbej, Countess Roza Abady’s cunning little man of business.

A few days after the Wickwitz affair had set the town by the ears, Azbej received a telegram from Gyeroffy asking him tersely to come to see him at Kozard.

As Countess Roza was still at Portofino, Azbej was free to do as he wished. He replied that he would obey at once. At the station at Iklod a carriage was waiting for him which took him swiftly to Laszlo’s manor-house at Kozard. As he drove, Azbej had a
careful
look at the fields beside the road: they were loam-rich
meadows
which bordered the river. On arrival an unkempt old man led Azbej into the house. From a small entrance hall a staircase without a hand rail led to the low first-floor rooms under the
sloping
roof. The walls were only whitewashed for the Kozard
manor
-house had not been finished when Laszlo’s father had shot himself and the big reception rooms on the ground floor had not even been plastered for decoration. Laszlo had therefore installed himself upstairs, as his parents had before him. Here everything gave the impression of being temporary, even improvised, the
furniture
placed at random with no attempt at order or convenience. Laszlo’s bed, which stood in one corner of the long room, was
unmade
and the remains of the previous day’s meal were still on a tray together with a half-empty bottle of plum brandy.

When the little hedgehog-like attorney waddled into the room he found Laszlo pacing up and down impatiently. Laszlo stopped briefly to shake hands and then at once started again to walk up and down as he had done for several days.

‘Here I am…’ said the lawyer, and pushing aside a pile of clothes from the chair on which they had been thrown, he sat down without further ceremony, ‘…at your Lordship’s service.’

The young man did not answer at once but continued
marching
up and down the room. Then he stopped and said in a stern voice: ‘I need eighty-six thousand crowns … at once!’

‘Ah,’ said the attorney with a sigh, ‘that is a very large sum, a very large sum indeed!’

‘I know. I’ve tried every way I can think of but I can’t raise it. I don’t understand these things. That is why I sent for you.’

The fat little attorney closed his bulging, prune-shaped eyes.

‘How large is the estate?’ he asked, his lips hardly moving
behind
his untrimmed beard.

‘The cultivated part is eight hundred acres.’

‘Is it mortgaged?’

‘Yes. For sixty thousand.’

‘I see! I see!’ repeated Azbej, seemingly deep in thought. After a long pause he said: ‘When do you need the money?’

‘I’ve told you already. Now! At once!’ cried Gyeroffy. ‘I can’t wait. I can’t stand it any more!’

‘Excuse me. Please…’ said Azbej apologetically. ‘I don’t quite know … if your Lordship would permit me, perhaps I could just have a look round, and then … then maybe I could think up some solution to your Lordship’s problem.’ Bowing obsequiously, he backed out of the room.

In an hour he was back, still bowing as obsequiously as before. He sat down and now the words poured from him.

He was ready to help, he said. His only object, naturally, was to be of service for he was after all only a servant, a servant of the Count’s family and, as Count Gyeroffy was a member of the
Noble
Family he served, therefore, and only because of this and to please the noble Count, he would seek a way to make himself
useful
. Then he recounted all the difficulties there were in raising money, listing the various obstacles and delays there would be in trying to raise such a sum from the banks. Even though this might eventually produce results there were bound to be delays for all the necessary discussions, searches and legal formalities, not to speak of the expenses involved. Some other solution must be sought, either leasing the estate or pre-selling that year’s crops or a part of them. Yet even the whole would not raise the sum needed, and tenants were always reluctant to pay in advance even if an eager tenant could be found at such short notice. This was the sort of thing which could never be done in a hurry and anyway he would never recommend it for he had only his
Lordship’s
best interests at heart. No! That sort of solution could never be hurried, indeed he wouldn’t even consider it!

‘Well then, why are you telling me all this?’ asked Laszlo angrily.

For a few moments Azbej looked at him without expression, seemingly bewildered and helpless. Then, as if he had suddenly seen the light, he opened wide his eyes so that they protruded more than ever and cried: ‘I have it! I’ll do it myself, even though it’ll be a sacrifice! I’ll lease the whole property myself, come what may. I’ll pay you what you need!’

The very same day the contract was drawn up and signed and Azbej became Laszlo’s tenant, paying ten years’ rent in advance. As it was to be paid all at once it was only reasonable – was it not? – that he should set the rent at five crowns an acre. That made forty thousand crowns. For a further fifty thousand crowns or thereabouts he bought all the agricultural machinery, though, as God was his witness it was worth barely half that sum, but he did not care for his only desire was to be of help. The next day he handed Laszlo three savings-bank books from Kolozsvar worth eighty-seven thousand crowns in all and three new banknotes of a thousand crowns each.

‘I am very happy,’ said the little attorney on taking his leave, ‘to be of service to your Lordship in this way. Should your
Lordship
find some other solution at a later date, naturally I will
withdraw
and we can cancel the arrangement.’

In this way Laszlo raised enough to redeem Countess Beredy’s pearls. The next day he went to Budapest by the midday train, thinking that with such a large sum in his pockets it was wiser to travel by day.

A
DRIENNE SAT AT HER DESK
but she was not writing. Instead she looked out over the garden which, though
leafless
was now free of the winter snow, to the rickety wooden bridge over which ten days before Judith had made her escape from the house and which Balint had used each time he came to see her.

He had been there only last night …

Because of Judith, Adrienne had still only been able to see Balint at night. If she so much as heard his name Judith’s face
became
contorted with terror as if it had been he who had been the sole cause of her terrible disappointment. Most of the day the girl would wander about pathetically, answering mechanically any questions put to her. She would only come to life if Balint were mentioned, and then it was as if the sound of his name was a torment to her. Consequently Adrienne could not allow Balint to visit her during the day as long as her sisters remained at the Uzdy villa; and for the moment there was no question of their leaving, for Countess Miloth was still in the sanatorium.

All the same, thought Adrienne, these night visits must stop, and not only because of the risks involved.

Four days before, when Balint had just let himself in through the drawing-room window, Uzdy had arrived unexpectedly from the country. Luckily they had heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs from the courtyard and there had just been time for Balint to slip back into the darkness of the drawing-room and hide himself
behind
the door to Adrienne’s room, holding himself rigidly
motionless
lest the parquet should give a creak under his weight, and for Adrienne to replace the candle on the table by the bed, when Uzdy entered her room still in his hat and travelling coat.

‘You’re still awake? At this hour? Why is that?’ he asked from the door that led from the passage.

‘My sisters have only just left me.’

‘Of course. Yes, of course.’ Uzdy’s little eyes looked around the room, apparently searching for something. His glance fell on the little Browning on the lower shelf of the bedside table.

‘You have a revolver? Since when?’

Adrienne did not answer. With the bedclothes pulled up to her chin she merely stared at him. Uzdy laughed.

‘That’s good! Very clever! Out here, so far from the town,
anybody
could cross the mill stream, a burglar, anybody!’ He walked up and down for a minute or two, taking long strides with his extra-long legs. Then he abruptly stopped by the drawing-room door, opened it and peered into the darkness of the room beyond. He seemed to be listening. It was only for an instant but to Adrienne it seemed like an eternity. Her heart was beating strongly, but she did not move or speak.

Uzdy closed the door.

‘You are right to be prepared,’ he said. ‘Anyone could get in from there. Would you like a wire fence by the river? Or perhaps a wolf-trap? What? A trap, eh? That’d be good, very good! What?’ He laughed again, though for what reason it was not clear. Towering above her, his laughter seemed to come from the ceiling. Still Adrienne said nothing. He went on: ‘Well, I’ll be going now. You just sleep … sleep … sleep.’ He threw his head back and, seemingly even taller than ever, he turned to go. At the door he looked back, and with no expression on his satanic features, said ‘
Au
revoir
!’ and left the room as quickly as he had come.

At noon on the following day Uzdy left again for the country.

That night Abady had come again and told her how he had stood, scarcely daring to breathe, behind the open door and they had both laughed about it regardless of the danger they had been in. Neither of them minded, for neither was afraid for their lives.

But, thought Adrienne, now it was not because of the danger that these stolen meetings would have to stop. What was life? That signified nothing … but there was something else.

On their last night together something had happened that had frightened her. A strange new feeling had flooded over her and filled her woman’s body. She knew not what, but it had frightened her. It was something altogether new, and came
without
warning.

Until now she had always remained calm when Balint was
caressing
her. It had been agreeable, soothing, so soothing that sometimes she had fallen asleep in his arms just like a child. Those hands that stroked her body, that glided so gently over her skin, the lips that strayed from her mouth, always kissing so gently, gently, and then returning to take possession of her lips for longer than before, had given her merely a sense of agreeable languor, so that this unnoticed conquest to which she had yielded more and more territory had not disturbed her and indeed had hardly meant more than when they dined at the same table or danced
together
at the public balls, But last night, as their farewell kiss came to an end, Adrienne had felt overwhelmed by a sudden and unexpected weakness. From somewhere deep inside her there came an altogether new feeling which threatened to overcome any strength she had, to sweep away all control, all will power so that her very bones seemed to melt in the radiance of some magic daze. Somehow she had managed to recover herself sufficiently to push him away, suddenly, almost rudely, saying: ‘Go! Go now!’ It was an order: ‘Go! Go!’

Balint looked down at her for a long time, and she was still not sure whether there had not been just the shadow of a smile upon his face.

‘May I come tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow, yes! But now you must go!’

It was of this that Adrienne was now thinking.

For a long time she pondered, wondering if she should write to tell him not to come any more. Should she write that she did not want to yield to him and become his lover, his mistress? That this was something that she couldn’t, wouldn’t do? Should she tell him all the thoughts that had obsessed her the whole morning, that she had pondered over a hundred times? She did not know how to write such things, and yet she could hardly put him off without giving some reason. Her courageous nature was such that she had always been prepared to face anything, and now what she would have liked most in the world was to open her heart and tell him face to face, when he came to her that evening,
everything
that was in her mind. But for once she was afraid, afraid of herself, afraid that she would not have the strength to resist him and afraid that his searching, caressing hands, his mouth, his eyes, his very presence beside her, would overcome her will and soothe her anxieties as they so often had before until she became bewitched into acquiescence. She was afraid that at this meeting, which she planned to be their last, her sorrow at parting would so shake her determination that now, just when they should part, she would no longer be able to resist him and they would at long last be joined for ever together.

And so she would have to write.

After a long time she took up her pen and started, and when she had started she wrote hurriedly, finding the right words with great difficulty and often scratching them out and starting again. Luncheon was announced long before she had finished, but still she did not move. Margit came into fetch her, but still she did not get up. ‘You go in,’ she said. ‘Sit down, start without me. I’ll join you later, perhaps, but don’t disturb me now!’ And she went on writing, the words pouring from her helter-skelter, just as they came from her heart, muddled, haphazard, desperate.

When she had finished she felt dizzy. Nevertheless she folded the sheets and put them in an envelope and rang for her maid. When the woman came she found Adrienne standing erect,
apparently
quite calm.

‘Please take this at once and be sure that you give it only to him. To nobody else, you understand?’

The elderly, grey-haired Jolan curtsied and left the room and then, and only then did Adrienne dissolve in tears.

 

 

Two days later Balint was back in Portofino. He went there straight from Budapest without stopping except to change trains, hardly noticing the changing landscapes, the continuous
rumbling
of the carriages, the discomfort of two sleepless nights and two endless days. Everything was unreal to him compared with the throbbing of the pain he was feeling and the feverish visions conjured up by his imagination. He knew then that Adrienne had glimpsed something she had never before imagined or
experienced
and that from it she had recoiled in terror.

It was this last troubled look in Adrienne’s eyes that Balint saw most often in his mind as he fled away, back to the Riviera. He read and re-read Adrienne’s letter a hundred times and always he came to the same conclusion, that what he was doing was right and that there was no alternative but to do what she asked of him.