‘Of course! She’s my cousin!’ replied Gyeroffy, trying hard to make his smile seem spontaneous. ‘I got a wire this afternoon.’ He then bowed and went to the other end of the terrace where the young people were dancing.
Fanny did not follow, though her eyes never left him. That is good, she thought, let him dance. She would stay where he was, near the buffet, with the older ladies. If Gyeroffy was dancing, no harm could come to him and she would not have to worry until the time came for him to leave. That was when she would have to contrive to be at hand. In the meantime she leaned back in the comfortable garden chair she had chosen, the very picture of a lazy, beautiful society woman, slightly sleepy and apparently giving all her attention to the conversation that was going on around her. No one looking at her half-closed eyes could have guessed how intently she was watching what was happening at the other end of the terrace.
After the uncertainty of waiting for death, the certainty of death itself — that is what Laszlo felt when he that afternoon received Klara’s telegram: ‘AT NOON TODAY I BECAME ENGAGED TO WARDAY. KLARA.’ That was all, and was Klara’s only answer to the letter he had sent to Simonvasar four days before. It had been a bad letter, long and rambling, full of awkward, confused attempts at explaining and excusing himself. It was full of such phrases as ‘I didn’t think it was so serious … please don’t judge me until you know everything … please think about it … after all, it isn’t such a big thing when everything’s considered …’ and full, too, of half-expressed suspicions that Klara had been removed to the country against her will. He used far too many unnecessary words, begging and beseeching her, which, though they might have had their effect if used face to face when she would have been convinced by his sincerity and despair, on paper seemed no more than empty phrases. Had he written simply, just a few words expressing deep humility from the depths of his heart, it might have had some effect. But nothing is more difficult than to write what one does not know how to say; and Laszlo could not even put his feelings into words. To cap it all he made a further mistake. Having no writing paper at home he wrote on National Casino club paper, and the letter heading, itself symbolizing to Klara his gambling and broken promises, screamed up at her before she even began to read.
Laszlo never knew what had really happened; nor did anyone else. On the morning that Papa Louis told his daughter that Laszlo had been gambling before his own eyes — apparently recklessly and for huge sums — Klara begged that they should leave at once for the country. She did this for her own sake so as to have no chance of ever again setting eyes on the man who had so deceived her. Never ever again! She was now prepared to believe him capable of the vilest deception, even of having betrayed her with Countess Beredy — for that story was surely no more than the truth, and no doubt the two of them had discussed her and even laughed about her. No! She never wanted to see him again and decided to raise such a wall between them that a meeting would become impossible.
Laszlo knew none of this, but he sensed most of it, and now the engagement to Warday was the last straw on his load of bitterness and self-reproach. If Klara had married Montorio it would have been bad enough, but at least she would have chosen a famous name and a great fortune, neither of which Laszlo could have provided. But this? Warday? Warday was no better than himself either financially or socially; and so, even if Klara had only accepted him out of anger and disappointment, the fact that the Kollonich clan had approved meant that if he, Laszlo, had not been so stupid and weak, they would in time have accepted him too. He himself, he realized, had been the cause of his own downfall, for he had gambled away his only chance of happiness and, in the midst of all his other reasons for misery, this thought was the most painful.
Now he had nobody, nobody in the entire world. He was completely, utterly alone, and there no longer seemed any reason for living.
It was a hot night and as the concrete terrace was not the best surface for dancing, it was only one o’clock when most of the young people settled down in chairs or on the grass to listen to the gypsy band who were playing old Hungarian songs and modern sentimental ballads, ‘swoon-music’ as these were beginning to be called.
Laszlo sat down with the other young people. From where Fanny was placed he was in profile, but she could see him well. He had pushed his chair slightly back from the group with which he was sitting and did not join in their chatter. Occasionally he would raise a hand to beat time with the music as if he were enjoying it, but Fanny noticed that when one of the waiters offered him a tray of large glasses filled with punch he waved the man away and did not drink. When Fanny saw this her heart missed a beat.
She knew, for she had watched him, just how much Laszlo usually drank and she had decided that once she had made him hers she would get him to give it up. There was something sinister and tragic in the fact that he did not now even try to find solace in wine.
It was as if he knew that that night he was faced with an all-important decision and must keep alive his sorrow so as to have enough strength to exercise judgment on himself. Apart from Fanny’s deep knowledge of men her love for Laszlo gave her an instinctive, almost telepathic understanding of what was going on in his mind. She knew that this night she must stay with him and watch over him.
Some of the older ladies were already beginning to nod with sleep when a few young couples started to demand a csardas. During the slight commotion this caused Fanny saw Gyeroffy get up and move, not in the direction of the dancing but towards the house. She realized he was about to leave and that she must somehow get near the door before he did. Slowly, so as not to attract notice, she rose and left the hostess’s circle and, as she was closer to the house than Laszlo was, she managed to get into the hall before him. When Laszlo came in from the garden she was already standing in front of a mirror apparently adjusting her stole. When he was close to her she turned and spoke to him: ‘Are you leaving, too?’
Laszlo started slightly: he had been too wrapped in his own thoughts to notice her presence.
‘Yes, I’ve had enough.’
‘Then would you help me find a carriage? There’s a hackney stand just close to the house.’
‘Of course!’
Wrapping her head and face in her lace shawl Fanny looked at the young man’s reflection in the mirror. He stood quite close but was looking, not at her, but at an arrangement of artificial flowers that stood on the table beneath the mirror. They were well-made and colourful, but old and dusty; for the Lubianskys had thought it hardly worth-while to spend money on renewing them when the hall was always left in semi-darkness.
‘Look at these! Look, they might be real. From a distance they look like flowers, but close to you can see what they really are: paper, nothing but torn paper!’ and he began to laugh, quietly and bitterly.
Fanny put her hand on his arm and squeezed it sympathetically. ‘Come, my dear, let’s leave now,’ She spoke with almost sisterly compassion.
They left the house and together walked slowly the short distance to Lovolde Square where there was a hackney carriage stand. The pavement was almost in darkness for the thick foliage of the horse-chestnut trees which lined the street cut out most of the light from the street-lamps. This pleased Fanny because it meant that no one would recognize her and when they reached the rank it was she who opened the door of the first carriage, got in and sat down.
‘Come on,’ she said to Laszlo, who obeyed without uttering a word. When he was seated and had closed the door she leant out of the window and called to the driver: ‘Museum Street!’