Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

‘How can I be of service to your Ladyship?’ he asked in a rich plummy voice.

‘I am looking for Count Gyeroffy’s house. Can you direct me?’

As Bischitz was explaining that Dodo would have to drive on past a little vacant plot, turn off by an abandoned labourer’s cottage and follow the road until, on a small hill … he was interrupted by a little Jewish girl, barefooted, stole shyly up to the car. She was about nine or ten years old, very dirty and unkempt, but she had a most lovely face. Her uncombed hair was thick and lustrous and Titian-red in colour and her eyes were large and black.

‘I’ll show you! I know the way!’ she said eagerly.

Her father turned on her and shouted rudely at her, ‘Regina! Get away with you! You stay where you are. Back to the kitchen!’ and he menaced her with his fist.

By now the car was surrounded by a group of urchins all offering their help. When Dodo put her foot on the accelerator and speeded away they all ran after the car until it was out of sight.

The little lane wound itself up the hill and finally led to a handsome building in the French style. Above substantial foundations the raised ground floor had a long row of tall French windows fitted with square window-panes, most of which were missing or broken. It was clear that no one lived in those rooms. The windows of the first floor projected from a mansard roof.

It was obvious that the house had been the whim of a most individual man. It had been built by Laszlo’s father at the time of his marriage to the artistically-minded Julia Ladossa who greatly admired the French taste. It was truly beautiful, pure in style and so elegant that it would have seemed entirely at home standing somewhere on the banks of the Loire. But for this very reason it looked out of place in Transylvania. ‘Long windows in this climate!’ people had said mockingly. But it had been Julia’s wish, and to Laszlo’s father that was all that mattered.

As it turned out they had never moved into the grand rooms on the ground floor. Beautiful French marble chimneypieces had been fitted but the walls had only been whitewashed because, long before the silken wall-coverings had arrived from Lyon, the lady for whom all this was being prepared got into her carriage and drove away. She had escaped. A week later Mihaly Gyeroffy was found dead in the woods shot by his own gun.

Since then no one, except a sort of guardian, had lived in the house.

Everything had been kept locked and untouched until the day came that Laszlo returned home, ruined by his losses at cards and, as he thought, a social outcast.

‘Would you take a look at the spark plugs? They don’t seem to be working quite right. Oh, yes, and better check the carburettor too, please,’ said Dodo to her chauffeur, who had been sitting beside her. This was her pretended reason for stopping at Kozard.

The man looked a little surprised but Dodo took no notice and went up the steps to where the front door stood open and straight on into the house.

She found herself in a large and beautiful entrance-hall, the unpainted walls stuccoed in the style of Louis XVI. In front of her was a pair of large doors which presumably led to a drawing-room. She was wondering what to do when an untidy elderly man shuffled slowly forwards coming from an unnoticed service door. It was the guardian, Laszlo’s only servant.

‘Where can I find Count Gyeroffy?’ she asked.

‘Upstairs in his room, my Lady, that’s where! You go up there!’ said the man roughly, pointing to a stairway at the end of the hall.

Dodo hesitated for a moment not knowing if she should go up or tell the man to ask Laszlo to come down. But the man shuffled off and disappeared and so Dodo started upstairs herself.

The stairway had no banisters or rails, for the ornate wrought-iron work still lay rusting in heaps beneath the curve of the stair. It had never been installed.

Upstairs there was a long corridor and Dodo would not have known where to go if she had not seen a pair of shabby riding boots near a doorway in front of her. Quickly making up her mind Dodo knocked and went in.

Her guess had been right. Laszlo was indeed there, sitting in an armchair near one of the windows, dressed in a soft open shirt and trousers: he was busy filing his nails. When he saw her he jumped up, saying, ‘You! You here! What’s happened?’

‘Nothing much‚’ said Dodo. ‘I was passing on my way to the Kamuthys near Des and there seemed to be something wrong with the car. So I thought I’d drop in on you while they fix it.’

She blushed a little at her lie but went on lightly, ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, bursting in like this?’ and then laughed to cover her confusion.

‘Not a bit! It was very nice of you. But this room is awful! I’m ashamed you should find me in such disorder,’ said Laszlo, looking around him in distress. Then, suddenly noticing how casually he was dressed, he slipped on a jacket that had been thrown on the floor.

It was true that the room was in a mess. Laszlo’s bed, which was in one corner, was unmade, the covers in a heap on the floor and the pillows none too clean. Next to it on a bedside table was a half-empty bottle of brandy and a dirty glass. Quantities of cigarette ends littered the floor and there were innumerable burn marks on the parquet. The remains of the previous day’s evening meal had been left on a commode which stood between two of the windows, the dishes stacked one on the other and coated with congealed grease.

‘Oh dear‚’ said Dodo laughing. ‘I suppose this is how bachelors always live!’ and she looked round the room indulgently.

It was a large room with three windows on one side. Laszlo’s parents had used it as a sitting room while they were waiting for the main rooms below to be finished and some of their best furniture had been put there. Since Laszlo had moved in the carefully contrived harmony of the room had been spoilt. His father’s ormolu-mounted desk had been pushed aside to make room for the piano that Laszlo had brought from Budapest, and an Empire sofa had been shifted so that a bed could be brought in. An elegant vitrine that had held a valuable collection of porcelain now half covered one window and its place had been taken by a plain white-painted wardrobe. Only the family portraits remained in their places. Alas, not all of them, thought Dodo as she looked round because, right in the middle of the room there was a space where one was missing, a slight rectangular mark on the wall showing where it must have hung. The long shape of the frame was indicated by a cobweb or two which had presumably once attached themselves to the picture and had not been brushed off the tattered wall-paper behind. Everything looked old and dusty. Below where the missing portrait had hung Laszlo had placed the coloured photograph of his father in Hungarian court dress, which he had brought with him from Budapest and now returned to its original place.

For something to say‚ Dodo‚ somewhat rashly‚ asked‚ ‘What used to hang there‚ in the middle?’

Laszlo frowned.

‘They tell me it was the portrait of my mother, allegedly by Cabanel who was well-known in Paris in the eighties. I don’t remember, of course, for I believe my father threw it out of the window when, when my mother left … when …’ and he broke off.

‘Poor Laszlo! Do forgive me for evoking such a sad memory!’ and she put her hand comfortingly on the young man’s arm.