‘I will write to him again,’ she said when Balint had finished his tale. ‘That business of guardianship … I don’t know anything about such things, but perhaps that’s just as well. I’ll recommend it anyhow. I’ll write at once and you’ll take it to him yourself, won’t you?’
‘I can’t take it until after Christmas, Aunt Elise, because I have to stay in Budapest until then.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Perhaps things aren’t too urgent, but I still want you to deliver it personally.’ And she got up and went over to her little desk where there was hardly room for the morocco-leather letter-case, so covered was the tiny sécrétaire with little objets d’art and photographs of the countess’s father and mother, husband and children. Once at the desk she sat down and switched on the table lamp.
Fanny and Balint left the room.
They walked in silence through the vast library which, in contrast to the cosy luxury of Countess Elise’s friendly little sitting-room, was furnished only with great ecclesiastical oak manuscript chests on which the gilded baroque carving was cold and impartial.
They had almost reached the doors of the drawing-room when Fanny suddenly stopped. She turned towards Abady, her lips slightly parted and her eyes closed shut. They stood like this for just a moment, but it was a moment of eternity, for Balint, like everyone else, was quite unaware that Fanny and Laszlo had been lovers. So he stood there surprised, expecting at every moment that she would say something; but nothing came, not a sound emerged from her lips. At last two huge tears forced their way through her closed lashes and rolled slowly down her face to her bosom where they joined their sisters petrified into ropes of pearls.
Slowly Fanny walked into the drawing-room and over to the piano. She opened it and sat down, running her fingers over the notes in soft roulades. Then her host came over and stood near her, suggesting that maybe Countess Beredy would honour them with a few songs, as she had often done on previous evenings.
‘Do sing us something! It would be so nice of you,’ he said.
But she only shook her head, turning her face away, and once more her hands just wandered four or five times over the notes before she jumped up saying, ‘Oh, no! It’s far too late! I for one will now go to bed!’ and as Szent-Gyorgyi bent to kiss her hand, she murmured, with a sad and somewhat ironical smile, ‘You were quite right … what you said about this house. Oh, yes, quite right!’
Chapter Six
LATER, when already dressed for bed, Magda and Lili came to see their cousin Klara. This was quite easy as her room was next to theirs, ‘right side of the chapel’, in the family apartments, the same room she had always had as a child. Her aunt had wanted her here, rather than on the other side in the guest rooms next to her husband. Aunt Elise was anxious to have her near her so that she would be able to go to her room and look after her without having to pass along those freezing corridors.
The two girls slipped out of their adjoining rooms just down from Klara’s. They wore light dressing gowns, and both wanted to have the intimate girls’ gossip for which they had had no opportunity during the day.
Magda wanted a chance to give rein to her annoyance. For a long time she had kept up a flirtation with Klara’s older brother, Peter; and then this dreadful thing had happened — her father had invited one of her younger half-brothers, Louis, but not Peter.
Lili came too, partly because she was no longer a child and shouldn’t be treated as if she were, and so, though she was already in bed and half asleep when Magda came in to suggest they visit Klara’s room, she jumped up at once — for wasn’t she grown up and able to stay up if she wished? — and anyhow she felt like a good talk. What about? Well, that didn’t matter; just to talk would be enough, talk a bit, listen a bit. She might learn something… about that Abady, for example. Who was he, always so serious and somehow different — well, different from the others — and how strange he was!’
So they sat by Klara, Magda on the edge of the bed where Klara sat up supported by a mountain of lacy pillows because she found it easier to breathe that way, and Lili in an armchair at the foot of the bed.
An alabaster night light spread a filtered glow throughout the room so that the silken wraps of the girls melted into the pink satin which covered the walls, the bed and all the upholstered furniture.
Magda was pouring out her sorrows without drawing breath.
‘It’s really too bad of Papa. He could easily have asked Peter, but he said that it was Louis’s turn since he hadn’t been for years as he had been at Oxford with Tony. I told him that was no reason since Peter was the eldest and anyhow was a far better shot. All Papa said was, all the better then, Louis needs a chance to improve and get in some practice. Then I said, why not make an exception and invite a ninth guest, and all he said to that was that there wasn’t room for nine, only eight! Not room! Here! To which I said, what about that bespectacled booby who doesn’t know anything about anything and Peter would do far better in the corner where a good shot was needed and all Papa replied was that a guest couldn’t be put in a less honourable position! So I said that Peter wasn’t like a guest, he was a near relation and wouldn’t mind anyhow. Isn’t that so, he wouldn’t have minded, would he?’
She turned, twisting this way and that with little birdlike movements, first to Klara, then to Lili, and then back again to Klara. Of course she only expected a reply from Klara as Lili was too young to know Peter at all well. Klara’s voice was tired and lazy as if she had dragged her thoughts back from somewhere far away.
‘Why? I suppose not. It’s all much the same anyhow …’
‘You see!’ cried Magda triumphantly. ‘I knew it! Of course he wouldn’t have minded and he was dying to come, I know it, and for my sake, too, of course, but don’t either of you tell that to a soul!’ and she turned to Lili, saying, ‘It’s a secret, you know!’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it! Never! Not to a soul!’ the young girl promised fervently in her deep rather slurred manner of speaking. She was very flattered to be let into something so private and important. Imagine, a family secret!
‘And there was no reason to ask Balint. He could easily have been left out as he isn’t even a good shot, not like … like …’ but she faltered, not being able to bring herself to mention Laszlo’s name.
Klara opened wide her sea-grey eyes and looked angrily at Magda, and it was, perhaps, lucky that Lili interrupted excitedly, ‘Oh, but why leave out Abady? That would have been a pity!’
‘And what do you know about such matters, you little brat?’ laughed Szent-Gyorgyi’s daughter. ‘Has he caught your fancy then?’
The still chubby teenager blushed deeply.
‘Oh, no! I only meant …’ but Magda was not listening, she was far too full of her own thoughts.
‘And you know I’ve just realized something quite different. Father didn’t ask Peter on purpose. I’d make a bet on it! He didn’t ask Peter because he’s found out there’s something between us. That’s why! And what’s wrong with that? Plenty of people marry their own cousins,’ and she started to count on her fingers some of those she knew who had done just that. She started off with her Viennese friends, because that is where she had come out, ‘Why, there’s Mitz and Trudl, Titi and Momo … and in Budapest there’s Marcsa and Ili, and Marietta — though she married her second cousin. Anyhow it doesn’t matter, the whole thing’s too absurd and Peter’s not a blood relation anyway, we’re only angeheiratet — connected by marriage — after all’s said and done!’ And now she really went too far, not noticing how ravaged with pain Klara’s expression had become as she plunged into a discussion on love between cousins, gabbling on more and more on the same subject, until suddenly out the words came: ‘And surely you too, Klara, weren’t you in love with …?’ when she realized what she was saying and fell silent.