Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Once outside she flung herself into her car. ‘Drive!’ she muttered to her driver. ‘Drive!’ and when they reached the main road and he asked where she could only just whisper, ‘Home … home … home …’

Dodo pulled the thick motoring cap tightly down over her hair and put on the heavy thick driving goggles. The rain ran down her face and clouded the lenses — but it was not only this that misted her vision. Inside the goggles tears poured from her eyes until they too seeped down onto her cheeks.

It was as if her eyes and nature both competed to weep over her sorrow.

AT THE BEGINNING of October there was a large family gathering at the manor-house of Mezo-Varjas. Since Countess Miloth had only died six months before‚ in February, this was somewhat unconventional; but it was what Count Akos (known to all as ‘Rattle’) wanted. He had told his youngest daughter, Margit, to summon Adrienne and their cousins, the Laczok girls; and his son Zoltan, who was now at college, to round up some young men because his god-daughter, the child of the Miloth estate overseer, was getting married and it was only right, however he might mourn his wife, that Count Miloth should see that the marriage was properly celebrated by the family.

‘I know the man’s a fool’, shouted old Rattle to his children, ‘and probably a thief as well, but since he’s served us for so long, and the girl is goose enough to take that good-for-nothing son of the Lelbanya chemist, I don’t see what else we can do!’

Margit said nothing. Her brother was not so sensible.

‘Who do you want me to write to, Papa? Who do you want?’ he said.

‘How do I know, you dolt?’ shouted Count Akos. ‘It’s all the same to me. Do you think I care, after losing your mother? Anyone you like! Now get out of here or I’ll hand you one you won’t forget!’ and he aimed a kick at the boy who jumped nimbly out of the way, quite unperturbed by his father’s apparent anger. At the door he turned, smiling, and said, ‘I’ll talk it over with Margit!’

‘Do that, you dimwit!’ growled his father and then stumped off to the stables whistling quietly through his teeth. In a few moments he could be heard shouting again, this time abusing the stable lads. It was what he called ‘keeping order’.

Margit arranged everything just as it should be. Forty-eight hours before the marriage Adrienne arrived with one of the Laczok cousins and the next day they were joined by two of the Alvinczy boys — Adam and Akos, the second son and the youngest — together with Abady and Gazsi Kadacsay.

Abady arrived in his own carriage, as did the Alvinczys who came over from their nearby estate at Magyar-Tohat. Gazsi, as might have been expected, rode over from Kolozsvar. Slung across the pommel of his saddle was a large dead fox, because Gazsi’s latest pastime was to chase after any wild animal he saw on the road, and try to shoot it with a huge double-barrelled shotgun he had had made just for that purpose. Usually he was unsuccessful but, occasionally, as today, he would make a kill.

‘It’s a great sport, my fr-r-riends!’ he cried out on arrival, ‘because you can’t look where the horse is taking you. You’ve got to keep your eyes on the hare or the fox, and follow wherever he goes, no matter where! I’ve had some staggering falls, I can tell you. Once I nearly br-r-roke my neck!’

As he was explaining this to the girls who were standing on the veranda that ran the length of the house, Gazsi held his head sideways tilting his raven’s beak of a nose in a most comical fashion. The girls’ admiration only lasted the fraction of a minute. As Gazsi held up the fox they all let out a scream for a myriad swarm of red fleas were seen jumping about in the fur and falling in a rust-covered heap on the ground below.

Kadacsay was chased away from the house and Count Akos shouted for the servants to bring a broom and sweep away the nuisance. The girls fled indoors.

Away from the house, and holding his unwelcome booty in his hand, Gazsi stood forlorn not knowing what to do. From the windows the girls scolded him for being so thoughtless, but they hardly knew how to do so they were laughing so much and, after all, it was not very serious.

Only one of the Laczok girls had come with Adrienne. This was Ida. If anyone had asked Margit why she had arranged it that way, she would have given no reason. Perhaps she could have, but that was not her way. Why give reasons? Why explain? Margit always knew exactly what she was doing, but telling was another matter.

There was a reason, all the same. One Laczok girl would be quite enough, for it never did to have too many girls. Ida had been chosen because, when Gazsi had had enough to drink, he was always convinced he was in love with her. There was nothing wrong with that and, given the opportunity, he might propose to her. Margit would make sure that there was plenty to drink. Then, of course, this meant that Kadacsay had to be invited too. Of the four Alvinczys two would be enough. Farkas, the eldest, had been ruled out as, since he had elected to Parliament, he had become far too serious; and the third son would only be an embarrassment because, copying Uncle Ambrus, he always got drunk very quickly and then used the most obscene language — and it only needed a glass or two to set him off. The youngest boy, Akos, was necessary as someone was needed who would listen to old Rattle’s oft repeated reminiscences of the past; but Adam’s presence was absolutely vital. Adam had to be there because, as he had for a long time fancied himself in love with Adrienne, who would have nothing to do with him, he used to confide his sorrows to Margit and that, Margit thought, was a step in the right direction. Of course AB would have to be there too. And if one asked why she chose Balint Abady she might have explained it was only correct, as he was the member for Lelbanya, that he should attend the wedding of the Lelbanya chemist’s son. When Margit thought about Balint a tiny secret smile might have been detected on her face; but if anyone had looked at her at such a moment that smile would have vanished, for Margit was nothing if not discreet.

The day of the marriage came and all the guests gathered in the afternoon in the estate overseer’s office where the ceremony was going to be conducted. It had to be there because the little Protestant church in the village had disappeared many years before. The pastor from Lelbanya came over to bless the young couple.

Also from Lelbanya, to act as best man, came the squire himself, the ruined old knight Balazs Borcsey of Lesser- and Greater-Borcse.

This had been brought about after much diplomatic manoeuvring. The original suggestion had been made by the village doctor, the inn-keeper had been in favour and the mayor had managed to organize it. The gift of a cow in calf had clinched the matter and the animal’s upkeep had also been provided for since Borcsey was so poor that otherwise the cow would have died of hunger. Even this would not have sufficed to conquer the pride of the old squire who was puffed up with a sense of his own importance. The decisive point had been the fact that Count Akos Miloth had consented to give the bride away. Though old Borcsey considered that the Miloths were greatly inferior in birth and breeding to the Borcseys of Lesser-and Greater-Borcse, the old man, himself a hero of the 1848 uprising, was told that Rattle had fought by the side of Garibaldi and so could almost be thought of as a comrade-in-arms.

The overseer’s office was small. At one side was a sofa covered with oil-cloth and, between that and the simple painted pine-wood table, the space was entirely taken up by the priest, the young couple, the parents and the two important witnesses, old Borcsey and Count Akos. The other guests remained outside beneath the tile-roofed portico whence, through the open door, the ladies could admire the bride’s white gauze dress, the groom’s new if somewhat oddly cut black coat, and the imposing presence of two such grand witnesses as the local landowner and the old knight. Of the two it was perhaps the latter who made the greatest impression, despite the fact that not one of the chemical formulae invented by the chemist could remove the ancient stains from his coat. Nevertheless he cut an elegant figure in his tight-fitting breeches; and with his long grey hair and waxed moustaches he looked like an engraving of the sixties.