They Were Found Wanting (23 page)

The castle of Jablanka had been built round a huge
symmetrical
square courtyard on all four sides of which was a two-storeyed vaulted gallery off which opened all the rooms as in old
monasteries
. And this, indeed, is what it had once been. The
Szent-Gyorgyi
family, who then still lived in the now ruined fortress on the crags above, had had it built for the Pauline monks in the first years of the eighteenth century. In 1780, when the order was dissolved, the Emperor Joseph gave the building back to its
original
founders as they were considered
gut
gesinnt
– well disposed – to the Habsburgs, of course. It was at this time the ancestors of Count Antal decided that the vast monastery would make better living quarters than the medieval fortress and moved in. The monks’ oratory, now the castle chapel, was situated on the first floor directly opposite the main entrance and to this day the wings on each side were known as ‘on the right of the chapel’ or ‘on the left of the chapel’. The reception rooms were all on the first floor on the front of the building, looking south over the plain. The exterior of the great house had been left exactly as it had always been, austere and plainly whitewashed. Inside a few smaller cells had been joined together to make larger rooms and the corridors had been lavishly decorated with the heads of
roebuck
and other game.

Fanny started off from her room which was the furthest from the chapel in the left-hand wing. The next door led to her
bathroom
and after that there was a little staircase. Then followed door after door, each carved from precious woods, inlaid with the sort of elaborate motifs beloved of ecclesiastics. On each door was a little brass frame holding a card with the name of the guest to whom the room had been allocated. After two that were empty Fanny found that the third bore her brother’s name, Wuelffenstein, and after that Abady. Round the corner the first name was Warday’s and then Slawata. After this there was a
double
stair and at its head the monumental doorway which led to the chapel, then more doors which opened on the Szent-Gyorgyi boys’ rooms and that of the young Louis Kollonich. Round the next corner the rooms were family apartments – this was the ‘right of the chapel’ side – and finally, with windows that must be on the eastern
of the building, to Countess
Szent-Gyorgyi’s
own apartments.

Fanny did not go as far as this but turned back.

As she did so she noticed Klara Kollonich’s name on one of the doors. So she did not share a room with her husband, thought Fanny, who wondered for a moment until she remembered that Klara was in the last stages of her pregnancy and that she had heard her hostess say that they would put her in her old room so as to be where her aunts and cousins could look after her
properly
. Nothing very interesting here! thought Fanny and she went back to where she had started and descended the small stair near her room. Here too was a wide corridor hung with antlers and other game trophies, hundreds of them clustered on the white-washed walls.

Fanny walked slowly and cautiously along towards the main staircase, cautiously because she had heard that Count Antal’s smoking-room was to be found somewhere there. She did not have to go far. The second door was open and she saw at once that this was the host’s bedroom. On the vast bed several different sets of shooting clothes had been laid out for the count to choose from, and his valet was now busy putting them back on their hangers. Luckily he was standing with his back to the door and so did not see her looking in. As the second door was the bedroom Fanny at once assumed that the first was probably that of the adjoining bathroom, as on the floor above. Therefore if
Szent-Gyorgyi
wanted to come up to her all he had to do was to slip out of his rooms and up the little stair beside them; and it would be the same if he wanted her to come to him. No one would be likely to notice them. Why! she thought. Nothing would be easier! All she had to do was to be careful while in the corridor for no one could possibly catch sight of her on the little stairway which had walls on both sides. She decided that as soon as she saw him she would suggest coming down that night. That would certainly be the best. Perhaps Antal was afraid of catching cold in the corridors – men were so delicate! – and that perhaps had been why he had not come to her. Fanny’s mouth widened in a
knowing
smile.

The carriage in which Fanny was riding passed Wuelffenstein’s place and arrived next at the place allotted to the elder
Szent-Gyorgyi
boy, Stefi. Here she told the coachman to stop, for further on there were only Imre Warday and Magda, the
daughter
of the house, and finally, at the corner stand, there was Balint Abady.

Also there was another young girl, Lili Illesvary, a young niece of Count Antal who was barely out of the schoolroom. Just turned seventeen, Lili was still chubby with a rounded face and a teenager’s rather plump arms. She was also shy and timid, unsure of herself, as if she knew that she was like a picture that was almost finished but still needed the finishing touches. Her femininity was still a little uncertain. But that she would soon be a beauty no one who saw her could doubt. Her eyes were
exceptionally
large and azure-blue in colour, and the line of her mouth and profile was as finely etched as in a Greek cameo, though the determined chin inherited from her Szent-Gyorgyi grandmother was still partly hidden by baby fat.

Lili had wanted to stay with her cousin at Warday’s stand but they had made her go on to Abady who was alone in the corner.

‘It’s a bore to be too many!’ Magda had said. ‘Go on to the last gun. The ground will be better there too, the beaters will have trodden down a proper path.’ Lili had done as she was told.

‘Can I stay here, with you?’ she asked timidly when she came up to Balint and just smiled shyly when Balint greeted her in a friendly manner, her eyes opening even wider with astonishment at finding herself accepted so naturally in the great grown-up world she was now entering for the first time. Her companion thought: what sweet fresh youthfulness!

At this moment the horns sounded. First at one end of the line of beaters and then at the other and then in the distance from the invisible ends of the two flanks – came the cry: ‘
Vorwä-
ä
-
ä
rts
– forward march! Advance!’

The shoot began. In front of Balint lines of peasant girls, led by Szent-Gyorgyi huntsmen carrying a gun, stamped their feet in a regular rhythm. Behind him was his loader, a man carrying his cartridge-case, and four men with long poles, whose job it was to collect what Balint had shot. On each side of him were the male beaters who were given a stream of orders from the estate’s mounted foresters. ‘
Pomali
!
Rovno
!
– Slowly now! Straight ahead!’, while some distance away the country lanes were filled with a rearguard of farm wagons to carry the day’s bag drawn by enormous
Pinzgau
horses like a baggage train following an army.

And suddenly there were hares everywhere. Some were small, the colour of lightly baked buns, not at all like the hares of Transylvania which gave such sport to the mounted huntsmen at Zsuk. Only city-dwellers think of hares as all being alike. Quite different from the long-legged mountain hares, those of the plain came in all sizes, great and small, and they behaved differently too, from one district to another. In the great plain they ran powerfully before the line of beaters, invisible to the guns for nearly an hour, so that it was only at the end of the drive that they all swarmed together in a rush to escape. Here in the valley of the Vag, on the other hand, they rushed about in front of the advancing beaters and all the guns sounded off from the first steps of the drive.

There always seemed to be at least two or three, and often five or six hares running wildly about no more than a hundred metres in front of the guns. And a charming sight it was. On the beautifully tended fields of rape or young green corn the animals seemed to be dancing, kicking up their tails with every leap they made and sometimes sitting down and apparently gazing
unconcerned
at the fluttering line of the peasant girls’ gaily coloured skirts, before again running forward through the furrows left by the plough. They always kept the same distance, only
occasionally
dashing further away when Stefi or Fredi shot at them from the centre of the advancing guns. The only times the little animals went at full speed was when they found themselves close to the openings at the end of the line and then they ran for their lives. A few there were that waited until the beaters were almost upon them and then, instead of racing forward they would double back and try their luck by darting swiftly through the line. Most of these were females and the order had been given to let them go, at least for the first half-hour. Even Wuelffenstein did not dare attempt a shot as he was walking next to his host. Some of the hares would run in a wide circle only to be shot as they approached the centre, but mostly they would run for the corners and so Abady, at the end of the line, and Warday next to him, were kept busy. Behind them the game collectors walked proudly two by two carrying long poles on their shoulders from which, like tassels, hung ten or fifteen dead hares.

Each huge square field was divided from the next by hedges planted with
gleditschia
trees – the honey-locust – in which
openings
had been left for the guns to pass through. As they did so each had to wait until they had been joined by the beaters who then reformed the line as the horns sounded and there came the order: ‘
Virovnajte
clapci
!
– Line up, lads!’ Then the horns sounded again and they moved relentlessly on.

Balint and little Lili Illesvary had just passed through one of the hedges and entered a field of young clover when with a sudden strident whirring a dense cloud of partridges rose up and flew over them at high speed. They turned away to the left as the wind from the north made them fly at a great height towards the centre of the line.

‘How beautiful they are!’ exclaimed Lili as she gazed up at them.

It was an exceptionally large covey, and they flew straight towards Szent-Gyorgyi who always chose this place as it was here that the late winter partridges always came. With the speed of a hurricane they flew towards him. Four shots were heard, and four little specks, two in front of him and two behind, fell from the sky rolling along the ground from the force of their own velocity.

This happened several times and Abady, who was never more than an average shot himself, was so lost in admiration of his host’s skill that more than one hare found its way safely past him.