How gardens could betray their creators, reflected Adrienne as she thought back to the one at Almasko where Uzdy would not allow a single flower, and where the lawns were so carefully cut and weeded that not even a daisy dared open its petals!
‘Excuse me, my Lady. Tea is on the table,’ said a voice behind her.
It was Marisko, who gestured to the table where the meal had been laid. It was a feast, with a splendid Kuglhopf cake, biscuits and hot scones in covered silver dishes, and several kinds of cold meats. Next to the teapot was a large jug of coffee, with some buffalo milk; for though Absolon himself drank only china tea Marisko had thought that perhaps this unknown lady might prefer coffee. She offered Adrienne a chair. ‘Please to sit, my Lady.’
Adrienne sat down but did not eat. ‘I’ll wait for my uncle,’ she said.
‘Don’t do that, my Lady,’ said the housekeeper. ‘You see the Master is telephoning to someone and it may take some time. He would be very angry with me if I didn’t make you start without him,’ she added with an indulgent maternal smile. She pronounced the word ‘Master’ as if it were written in capital letters.
Adrienne, when she heard that Absolon drank tea, chose coffee, for she realized that it had been made specially for her and would otherwise be wasted. Marisko stood at a slight distance, leaning silently against the door-post. Her rounded peasant’s body was well-formed and was set off by the simple grey bodice and skirt worn by the prosperous countrywomen of the district. She looked kind and sympathetic. Adrienne liked her at once and, as she knew that Marisko had been her uncle’s mistress for many, many years, she wished to be friendly and so started to chat with her. At first she just praised the cakes and then the wonderful display of spring flowers beneath the terrace. Marisko had answered all Adrienne’s questions briefly and with a correct smile, but it was clearly only out of politeness.
‘And who looks after the garden?’ asked Adrienne. ‘I’ve rarely seen anything so pretty, and so well laid-out.’
‘Ah, my Lady, that’s one of my jobs,’ and Adrienne’s obvious appreciation softened her hitherto somewhat reserved manner and she became quite talkative.
She had learned about gardening, she said, from an old man of eighty who had worked all his life as gardener at Borbathjo but who had been retired for years when she first arrived. She loved the work, especially as the Master, though he’d never say so, was very fond of flowers. She’d found the gardens, oh, very neglected, almost abandoned, but she’d soon put a stop to that, she couldn’t stand such neglect and laziness … and then suddenly she fell silent, alarmed at the thought that she might be stepping out of her place. Silence, she thought, was more appropriate for housekeepers.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ suggested Adrienne. ‘It would be much less, less awkward … for us both,’
‘Oh, no! Not for the world! I really could not, my lady. I’m not used … I could never get used to that!’
Marisko spoke nothing but the truth. She never sat when meals were served, not even when alone with her master. She would bring in the tea, serve it and leave the room. At lunch-time or dinner she would stand by the sideboard like a butler of the old school and keep an eye on the footmen who served the meal. She herself never ate with Absolon but retired to the kitchen when he had finished. When everything had been washed up and put in its proper place by the cook and the maids, then and only then, and also if there were no visitors, would she rejoin her master and sit with him quietly and diligently getting on with some embroidery, crochet-work, knitting or even just doing the mending. This was how the countrywomen behaved, as she remembered from her childhood in her father’s house.
If Absolon was in the mood and felt like talking she would answer most eagerly; and she loved to listen, time and again, to all his traveller’s tales. Even so she would never start a conversation, not even about how the estate was run, though it had been she who organized everything so efficiently and who gave the farm manager his instructions. All this she did with care and intelligence, which was just as well as old Absolon knew nothing of such matters and never bothered his head about them. Perhaps he imagined that there was not much to be done as the Borbathjo property was comparatively small — only a few hundred acres — and because his fortune all came from the husbanding of the Absolon forests, which was done by a qualified manager.
Marisko disappeared as soon as Absolon came back.
The sun began to set, sinking behind the distant mountain peaks. A golden glow spread over the landscape and the light fleecy clouds were tinged with pink in the pale-green sky. The shadows on the nearby hillside glowed yellow as if lit by some hidden fire and even the whitewashed walls of the veranda turned deep orange.
A cold breeze got up, as it always did here at the foot of the Gorgeny mountains when the sun went down, and the spring evenings were surprisingly cool.
‘We’d better go in now,’ said Absolon. ‘It isn’t good to stay too long out of doors!’ He said this only out of concern for his niece. With his iron constitution he could have stayed there until midnight without coming to any harm.
Inside the house the rooms were ablaze with light, for Absolon had ordered that all the gas-lamps and chandeliers should always be lit at dusk. In this way he resembled those nomadic chieftains who would live for months in the desert in the greatest simplicity but when they came to Samarkand, or Peking, or Isfahan, and settled there, had to be surrounded by every luxury the age provided.
Absolon’s house too showed the same oriental taste. The walls were whitewashed and the age-old wide floorboards scoured until the knots stood out. But they were covered with the rarest of Eastern carpets, some of them made of silk and interwoven with golden threads. Divans were strewn with silken fabrics from Bokhara and cushions covered with Chinese embroidery, each one a miracle of skill and beauty. Absolon rarely sat on them himself, though he did occasionally lie down and take a brief nap there on sultry afternoons in summer.
His favourite seat was an ordinary bentwood Thonet armchair whose air of practical simplicity seemed quite out of place among all that sophisticated luxury; but then Absolon was concerned only with comfort and not with impressing visitors with the purity of his taste.
The walls of the large drawing-room, under the baroque plaster scrolls on the ceiling, were hung with more hunting trophies. These were the best in his collection, unlike the massed legion out on the entrance portico. What hung here were real treasures and some were so rare or so exceptionally large that their equal was nowhere else to be found, though Absolon had never bothered to advertise the fact; these were his private solace, not symbols of achievement to dazzle the world.
There were the heads of three gigantic mountain-goats from Kuen-Lun, a mountain ram from the high Pamir plateau, some weirdly-shaped yaks’ horns, and the stuffed neck and head of a wild camel which was already slightly moth-eaten. These bizarre trophies were placed sparsely on the white walls of the great room. Two other objects stood out, perhaps because they were not also the harvest of far-flung hunting forays.
One was a small and now faded photograph. ‘This,’ said Absolon, ‘was Przewalski, the famous Asian explorer, and standing next to him in Tartar dress, that’s me. A Russian officer took us together in Kotan. It’s one of my most treasured souvenirs.’
The other object was more spectacular. It was an exceptionally long sword, beautifully wrought and decorated. It was hung horizontally above a sofa in the middle of the wall. Adrienne had exclaimed with astonishment when she first saw it.