They Were Found Wanting (76 page)

She said far more than was necessary, and far more than her usual taciturn manner allowed her. She spoke, too, in an affected way, as people who are not used to deception are often apt to do. Finally she added, ‘I might as well have him look at me too, while he is about it!’ and laughed self-consciously as if it were all rather trivial.

The doctor, a small, chubby, merry-looking man, carried on the fiction himself, saying, ‘Of course, why not? When a doctor visits a country village he expects to have to look at everybody. I’m quite used to that. It often happens.’

Then Uzdy spoke up, with a submissiveness Adrienne had never seen before. Stooping slightly, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked first at the doctor and then at his mother. He was like some huge, skinny wolfhound who senses trouble and tries to avoid the inevitable beating by cringing
subdued
at his master’s feet. When he spoke his manner was
strangely
sweet and obsequious. ‘Perhaps the doctor ought to have a look at me too? All right, why not? Let’s do it now, right away. That would be best, wouldn’t it, Mama?’ Then he turned directly to Dr Palkowitz and said, ‘Come along then, down to my room if that suits you. And Adrienne too, of course, if she’ll come. Yes, she too, of course,’

With somewhat exaggerated waving of his arms he gestured them towards the front door and into the house, making the
doctor
go in first. In the corridor he kept Adrienne beside him,
holding
her hand as tightly as if in a vice. The smile never left his face.

Old Maier was waiting for them. To him Uzdy said, ‘Tell them to harness up the other pair of horses in half an hour.’ Then he turned to the doctor and explained, ‘That way you’ll be home by early afternoon. That’d be best, wouldn’t it? We don’t want to take up too much of your valuable time, do we?’

At the angle of the corridor they turned right towards the stair that led to the ground floor. Adrienne would have preferred to turn back there for she hated those stairs which her husband had used every time he came to his wife’s room. The treads creaked and it was a sound to which she never became
accustomed
however often she heard it. And every time she heard it, she shuddered. She herself never used that stairway. But now, as she had given her promise to Uzdy, and as the doctor was with them, she could hardly turn back. Uzdy led them to his room where all the windows were heavily barred, like all the others in that wing of the house because it was there that Uzdy’s mad father had lived out the last years of his life. It was small and unpretentious, furnished only with the bare necessities. A narrow iron bed was set against one wall. Uzdy made the doctor sit down on a chair while he himself sat on the bed, drawing his wife to sit beside him. He was all politeness and humility, and made little bows as he spoke.

‘Here we are! Please sit down! Now, ask your questions – in your own time, of course.’

The doctor gave a embarrassed little cough, and then began nervously, ‘Er-er-well, in her ladyship’s presence. Well, it’s a little unusual.’

He was unable to say more because Uzdy at once interrupted him, at the same time clinging tightly onto his wife’s arm, saying, ‘We have no secrets from each other, do we, Addy? We are
absolutely
one, one! Isn’t that so, Addy? Please start your
examination
, doctor.’

The usual questions followed, about sleep, capacity for work, and even some more intimate matters. Uzdy answered everything calmly and apparently quite satisfactorily. He spoke slowly, seeming to weigh each word carefully, but Adrienne sensed that he had rehearsed it all and wondered if the doctor, who was now meeting Uzdy for the first time, had noticed it too. Next came the testing of the reflexes – knees, eyes, walking about with closed eyes – followed by listening to the heart and lungs with a
stethoscope
. Uzdy went through it all patiently, and only Adrienne noticed how fiercely he looked at the doctor’s hands whenever he touched his head or put the stethoscope to his heart.

The examination was a long one. Finally Dr Palkowitz drew himself up and declared, ‘I congratulate your Lordship. You are in perfect health, a trifle nervous perhaps, but that is quite usual for all intellectual people. I’ll just prescribe a light sedative which you might take for a while. I can’t think of anything else!’

He took out his fountain-pen and swiftly wrote some words on a paper. There was no time for Adrienne, but as the doctor knew he had been called in only to examine her husband, he did not press the matter.

‘The carriage will be ready and waiting,’ said Uzdy. ‘You’d better leave at once so as to catch the train!’ and he led them straight out through the service door, through a store filled with stacks of wood, and into the stables. The carriage was standing ready at the stable doors and the doctor climbed in and sat down. All the time Uzdy kept up a stream of obsequious thanks, saying, ‘I really am most flattered by your visit, honoured indeed! Thank you! Thank you!’

When the carriage had disappeared through the gates of the stable yard, then Uzdy straightened himself up to his full height.

Slowly he and Adrienne walked back to the house.

When they were half-way there Uzdy stopped. His face shone with triumph as he looked down at her and said, ‘I’m most
grateful
, Addy, I really am. Now you’d better go in … go to your own room.’

Adrienne turned and went swiftly into the house. She felt far more at ease and had been reassured by the doctor’s opinion. She was glad to be alone now, for that hour and a half in her
husband’s
room had been an ordeal; and as soon as she had sensed that terrible suppressed excitement rising again in him she had been terrified he might suddenly lose control of himself. It had been a great relief when all had passed off so well. Perhaps there really wasn’t anything seriously wrong after all? But if this were so why, as she was about to enter the house, did he call out after her, ‘Remain in your own room! Don’t move from there, do you understand!’ in almost menacing tones? And why was his face so distorted, with swollen veins, and dark red in colour? Suddenly her composure was shattered by the thought that nothing had changed and that his controlled manner during the doctor’s visit was nothing but a charade. And why should he order her to stay in her room?

Though she did not understand she still did what she was told, though once there she found no peace. She was haunted by that strange transformation she had seen in her husband in the course of a mere hour and a half. What did it mean, that
humbleness
towards the doctor, for humbleness was utterly alien to his character? Also the memory of his terror when he came to seek her out in the wood filled her with pity and anguish. No matter how hard she tried to remain calm, her agitation increased and she felt that some unknown horror was creeping up to take her unawares. Without knowing why, she started to listen for some unusual sound. It was instinctive and lasted perhaps a few
minutes
only, perhaps a bare quarter of an hour. And, as she listened, her heart beat ever louder and louder.

Then, as if in answer to her waiting, there came a long drawn-out howl from some distant part of the house.

Adrienne ran swiftly out into the corridor. There was nobody there, nor anywhere else, it seemed. The castle might have been deserted with no one outside in the courtyard and no one in the halls either. The door to the drawing-room was open and she ran quickly in.

There on the floor, most unexpectedly, she saw her husband lying with old Maier kneeling beside him, trying to loosen his
collar
. An armchair was overturned and beside it was lying a long bare oak-log. Adrienne at once wondered how it had got there from the woodpile in the storeroom. Standing behind the sofa was old Countess Clémence and her face seemed paler even than the ash-grey colour of the wall against which she was leaning. Adrienne took all this in at once, and also that the old butler was saying to her,
‘Bitte
einen
Diener
rufen,
bitte
schnell!
Der
Herr
ist
ohnmächtig
–
Please call for a servant, quickly please! The Master has fainted!’

That old Maier had unconsciously reverted to German meant that he was deeply worried. Adrienne ran out and called the
footman
. Then she ran to the pantry and fetched a glass of water. When she got back to the drawing-room Maier had lifted Uzdy’s head and shoulders onto his lap and the footman had put his arms under Uzdy’s knees. Together they raised him from the floor and started to carry him out.

‘Here’s some water,’ cried Adrienne. ‘Put some on his
forehead
!’ but Maier merely said, ‘Not now. When we get the Master to his room!’

As they carried him out Uzdy’s arms and legs hung down like a broken puppet. Adrienne now saw that his temple was covered in blood.

‘What’s happened? For God’s sake tell me what’s happened?’ she cried, turning to her mother-in-law.

The old woman had remained motionless with closed eyes until Adrienne spoke. Then she slowly opened them, wider and wider as if she were seeing some terrible vision. Then she put back her shoulders and walked stiffly out of the room, closing the door behind her with determined quietness.

It was only later that Maier told her what had happened. He had been cleaning the silver when Count Uzdy came back into the house, on tiptoe, with that oak-log in his hand. Maier had immediately sensed trouble and had tried to intercept his master, but Uzdy had been too quick for him. Countess Clémence had been in the drawing-room waiting for the doctor to make his report to her and sitting at her usual place on the sofa. Her son had rushed at his mother, raising high the oak-log to strike her. Luckily the table had been between them and so Maier had been able to grab his master, catching his wrist in that vice-like grasp taught to male nurses, and tripped him so that he fell to the floor. Maier had learned the technique while working in the lunatic asylum at Graz where he had also been taught that it was almost impossible to subdue a violent patient in the grip of madness and that it was far better not to try to wrestle with them but rather to pin them down when dazed by a fall. All went as he had planned except that Uzdy had hit his head on the heavy wooden back of an armchair, split his temple open and passed out from the resulting concussion. Maier at once thought it best not to attempt to bring him round where he was but to get him quickly back to his own room. If he came to in different surroundings the memory of what had happened would probably fade all the more quickly. Now, as Maier told all this to Adrienne, her
husband
was lying quietly in his own bed with a cold compress on his temple. He was not likely to want to move for the time being; but later it would be different. Count Uzdy would have to be under constant surveillance.

That afternoon Absolon arrived at Almasko and Adrienne at once told him the whole story. Then they held a family council and agreed that someone must always be by the sick man’s
bedside
. Only four people could be relied upon to undertake this vigil, Adrienne, Absolon, Maier and the English nanny. His mother must be kept away from him, for when Maier had told him that Countess Clémence had been enquiring after her son, Uzdy had clenched his fists and such hatred glinted in his look that Maier had had quickly to change the subject. No doubt the sight of his mother would provoke another fit of rage.

Although Countess Clémence had sat with Adrienne and her brother while they discussed what course to take, the decisions were taken by them alone. The old lady sat there without even opening her mouth. Her face seemed as if turned to stone and they were not sure she even heard what they said. Then they decided to send for Dr Kisch and let him advise them what to do next.