They started to mount the winding path to the terrace.
‘That awful wing jutting out there!’ said Balint. ‘It completely spoils the lovely old baroque house.’
‘It was my father-in-law. He did it. Of course it’s hideous, but, you know,’ and Addy lowered her voice even though no one could possibly have overheard what she was saying, ‘you know that he was mad, and later … I’m sure you’ve heard …’ She broke off without saying the words that in that house were taboo.
Balint did know. Many years before he had been told by his mother that Domokos Uzdy had died insane in his own house where his wife had kept him locked away in secret so as not to let the outside world know about it.
‘Yes, I did hear.’
‘That — er — butler … you’ve seen him already, old Maier, was his keeper, his nurse. They brought him from somewhere, I don’t know where, and afterwards, well, he just stayed on.’ For a little while she did not speak, then, with a little dry laugh, she said: ‘He might be needed again some time!’ and the bitterness in her voice made him realize that she was thinking that it would be for her.
When they arrived at the base of the solid Swiss wing a footman was just carrying a tea-tray down the stairs which led from the wooden gallery above.
‘Which room is Count Abady in?’ Adrienne asked the man. Before he could reply a voice was heard coming from a window high above their head. It was Pali Uzdy, saying: ‘My mother has put him in the main guest room upstairs. That’s his room!’ and he laughed meaninglessly before going on: ‘I’ll welcome him, too, of course, but I’m still busy. In the meantime look after him, entertain him, take him for a walk!’ The mirthless laughter went on for a moment above them.
It was disconcerting to hear that disembodied voice coming out of the air above their heads. The invisible presence of Count Uzdy, disquietingly and in some way menacing too, was everywhere around them, next to them, between them …
Adrienne and Balint sat down on a bench at the foot of the vaulted pillars that held up the covered balcony outside the salon. They sat where they could be seen from every angle and they talked of nothing but trivialities, so strongly did they both have the feeling that they were being watched by invisible eyes, and overheard by invisible ears, from every barred window in the fortress wing and from behind every shutter of the great house above.
Dinner was served at eight o’clock in the big dining-room. The table was immense and they were seated far away from each other. The room was lit by paraffin lamps hanging from the ceiling. Countess Clémence made polite conversation when she had to, Adrienne barely spoke, and it was Pali Uzdy who kept everything going and led the talk in the direction he wished. It was the same after dinner in the oval drawing-room. The shutters, of course, remained closed, as they had been in the afternoon, and outside the wind had got up and could be heard howling round the house. Afterwards Balint could not recall what they had talked about: all he could remember was the flickering of the table lamps which had thrown agitated shadows on the high carved plaster of the ceiling and that his host had suggested that Balint should go out after roebuck at dawn with one of the forest guards. The man would call him early, said Pali, and went on: ‘They tell me there are some fine buck in my woods. I don’t know anything about it myself as I don’t shoot game, but if it would give you pleasure I should be very pleased. It’s high time some of them were shot!’
Abady said he had not brought his guns.
‘That doesn’t matter! There’s everything here you could possibly need. A Schonauer? A repeater? Or would you rather try a Mauser?’ Then, seeing that Balint looked puzzled, he said: ‘I do a lot of target shooting. That’s why I only have high precision weapons. We can try that too, tomorrow if you wish … naturally, of course, of course!’
Once again he went into peals of his strange, meaningless laughter until the sides of his long moustaches were pulled apart like two giant inverted commas.
Balint did not really enjoy shooting but thought it would be churlish to refuse.
Dawn was just breaking when Abady was called in the morning. The forest guard took him out past the upper forecourt until, some way further on, they left the road and took to the woods walking a long way between carefully tended parcels of woodland, each marked at the corners with little whitewashed posts bearing boards marked with a number. Balint noticed at once how well-looked-after the Uzdy plantations were and thought that this was how things ought to be in his own forests.
After an hour and a half they emerged from the trees just where the whole of the slope below them had been cleared.
‘Careful now!’ whispered the guard. ‘This is where we’ll find them.’ He moved on silently through the undergrowth at the edge of the trees. Just as he had said, in front of them a small herd of deer were grazing in the centre of the clearing, their reddish fur gleaming dully in the morning sunlight. At last the guard pointed to a fine roebuck that was reaching up to nibble the leaves on a spreading oak tree.
‘Take that one, your Lordship! That’s a fine beast for you!’
It was an easy shot, barely a hundred yards, and the buck fell at once, cleanly killed by Balint’s shot. The man went down the slope to pick up the kill and Balint sat down at the edge of the trees to wait until he returned. Then they started back.
Balint knew that his mother owned some forests somewhere thereabouts and asked the man if he knew where they were.
‘Pity your Lordship didn’t mention it a bit earlier! Just there, where your Lordship shot the buck — across the valley the top of the ridge is the boundary between the Uzdy lands and your Lordship’s. I could have taken you there. It’s on the way to Hunyad when we go on foot.’
They walked briskly on and, at the last crest before the house, they met Adrienne. She looked fresh and blooming with health and good spirits, her generous mouth smiling widely as she inspected Balint’s kill.
‘Poor roebuck!’ she said. ‘But perhaps it’s better to die like that, suddenly, cleanly. He might have been torn to pieces by wolves or caught in some poacher’s snare. Are you tired, AB?’ she asked suddenly. ‘If not, I know a beautiful spot from which one can see into the far, far distance!’
The guard left them to take the buck back to be skinned and they walked, upwards again, into the woods on the opposite side to that from which they had come. The path was narrow and winding and they had hardly taken a hundred paces before they stopped and kissed. After that they kissed and held each other tightly every thirty or so steps until they reached the top and emerged from the trees. In front of them was a superb view over wave after wave of forest until, dominating the whole scene, on a high crest, stood the ruins of the old fortress. Balint noticed none of this, for he was drunk with the nectar of Adrienne’s kisses and with the joy of holding her body tightly pressed to his. They did not sit but remained there for a long time, holding each other as if their very lives depended on it, as if they had both quaffed a potion that rendered them oblivious to everything except each other.