Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Every armchair and sofa was covered with a red repp material, as were the innumerable footstools, and each was bordered with heavily patterned black and red ribbon. The walls were covered in the same stuff and the same ribbon had been used as borders for the artificial panels.

On the walls were hung a multitude of family portraits in oils, most of them fairly recent in date and many representing Countess Szent-Gyorgyi’s Transylvanian relations. There was a group of Abadys with her grandfather; there was Balint’s dead father with her uncle, Balint’s grandfather, Count Peter; Gyeroffys, her parents and their children including poor Mihaly, Laszlo’s father, who killed himself; and a double portrait by Barabas of her sister Agnes, later Princess Kollonich, and herself as children. On the many velvet-covered little tables were placed miniatures on tiny stands and many, many photographs of her husband and children at various ages from their infancy to the present day. Everywhere, too, there were vases filled with flowers, and the floor was covered with a thick pile carpet.

Although the little salon was filled to overflowing with all these objects and heavily over-stuffed furniture, it was still warm and harmonious, as cosy and welcoming as a soft all-embracing down-filled nest.

This was where Countess Elise was always to be found, sitting between the windows, from which she was protected by two screens — for she was extremely sensitive to draughts and always caught cold at once if she sat in the other rooms. In autumn and winter she would only emerge at mealtimes or bedtime, returning immediately afterwards to her chosen place. Today she was sitting, not only with her sister-in-law but also with her niece, Klara Kollonich, wife to Imre Warday. Klara was in her sixth month of pregnancy which is why, instead of joining the shooting party, she had lunched quietly at home with her aunts.

As the other guests came in one by one they greeted their hostess, kissed the ladies’ hands, made a few appreciative remarks about the morning’s sport and then strolled through to the adjoining dining-room where they sat down informally at a large table laid with platters of cold meats and hot bread, decanters of sherry and pots of tea. This was a light meal designed just to tide over the guests’ hunger because they had all had a huge, rather late breakfast before setting off for the shoot. After all the walking they had done that morning even this light meal was received with pleasure.

Szent-Gyorgyi alone stayed for some time in the little sitting-room with his wife, telling her in detail everything that had passed that morning, who had been placed where and what they had shot. They chatted together speaking, as well-matched couples do, in a sort of private language of their own that had been developed by years of intimacy and fondness and understanding.

‘But you haven’t told me what you shot? More than all the others, I’m sure?’ she said, interrupting him, but smiling at the same time.

‘Oh, no! I think that Balint on the right got more than I did.’

‘Balint? Pheasants and partridges too? Come on, tell the truth, don’t lie!’

‘Ah well, perhaps not those; but then there are always more birds at the centre, you know,’ and Szent-Gyorgyi gave a little laugh as if mocking his own modesty.

When at last the host went into the dining-room he only took a cup of tea which he started to drink still standing. Imre Warday came over to him and said, ‘Would you allow me to look at your Jersey cows before it gets dark? I’m sure I could learn a lot from seeing how you look after them.’

‘Of course! Naturally!’ said his host and gave orders that someone should telephone to the stables for a carriage and then to the dairy farm to expect a guest.

‘Yesterday the sheep, the day before the Poland-China pigs! Proper little farmer you are!’ called out young Louis Kollonich in careless mockery.

‘And what’s wrong with that?’ answered Warday. ‘It’s quite natural, and nobody but a fool would miss an opportunity to look at the Jablanka farms. It’s rare enough to get a chance to see model farming on this scale; it costs a fortune and few people can afford it.’

‘Of course, that’s true,’ said his host, ‘but, you know, it’s absolutely vital. At the time of the great innovations of Szechenyi…’ and here he started to talk in an impassioned manner unusual for the man who affected to despise all forms of enthusiasm, ‘we started to import thoroughbreds from England, then we experimented with Rambouillet sheep and Simmenthal cattle. Now we must look further afield. All this is much easier on the big estates, easier even than for the State itself. Of course I find it a fascinating hobby as well as being …’ Here he let the sentence trail off with an indefinite gesture of the hand for Antal Szent-Gyorgyi could not bring himself to pronounce the revealing word ‘duty’ and, besides, he found the phrase too pompous.

Countess Beredy looked across the table at Warday. She said nothing, but when he started to get up she too rose from her seat and said, ‘I think I’ll come with you!’

‘Wouldn’t you rather come with the rest of us to see the brood-mares?’ asked Szent-Gyorgyi as he walked with her to the door.

‘No! I would like to see something different!’ said Fanny, smiling as she moved past him. Then, laughing softly, she added, ‘And I did ride with you in the carriage this morning!’ before gliding swiftly out of the room.

Szent-Gyorgyi shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the others.

The Jablanka breeding stables were a sight not to be missed. The buildings themselves were extraordinary and had been designed by Count Antal’s grandfather who had had them built after a model he had seen in England.

They stood in the middle of a great meadow in the park. The central building was higher than the others for it contained, on the ground floor, a large drawing-room furnished in Early Biedermeier style, with parquet floors and a wide-open fireplace. It was lit by long French windows and above was a vast hay loft. All around were blocks of ten loose-boxes, five and five back to back, each the size of a room, with enormous doors split in the middle so that the upper parts could be left open to let the brood mares and their foals get enough air even in the worst of bad weather. From each block of boxes radiated white-painted palisades dividing the great meadow into segments which ended only at the edge of the surrounding woods. In some of these paddocks there grazed a single pedigree mare followed by her foal. These were the dams of famous racehorses, winners of great filly races.

Szent-Gyorgyi showed them round explaining exactly why everything was laid out as it was. As he did so Wuelffenstein knowingly interjected as many sporting phrases as he could, Balint and young Louis gazed at everything with admiration, Slawata pretended an interest he did not feel, and the two girls fondled the muzzles of those mares that were in their boxes and fed them sugar.

From there they went to the paddocks where the recently weaned colts had been placed, and then on to see the two famous stallions that Count Antal had brought from England.

It was a pity, thought Szent-Gyorgyi, that Fanny had not come to see all this. Though he never said so, he was especially proud of his thoroughbreds.

But the beautiful Fanny was far away, driving from farm to farm with Warday in an open carriage. She listened patiently to the explanations and reports of the farm overseers who were eager to show the visitors the milking charts, explain the chemical processes of butter-making, and outline the statistics of percentage yield and cost of transport. Everything produced here was, of course, sent to Vienna. Fanny kept quiet, standing, walking from place to place, turning, stopping again; and again walking on dutifully, always close to Warday, while from time to time she would nod in agreement as if she understood what was being talked about. And always she moved with that peculiar, individual walk, like a cat who placed one little paw directly in front of the other, lightly, in a single line.