Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

‘You see, I was right! I said he’d gone to ground and we’d have to dig him out,’ said Niki, who loved to use old Hungarian hunting language since the rest of his family, in his view, had become too Germanized.

‘I’m working hard, that’s all. I’m studying.’

‘Nonsense! That’s no excuse! One always passes examinations one way or another,’ said Peter, who then, to show off his use of fashionable English, continued, ‘besides, that’s no reason to “cut” us. Anyhow now we’ve caught you, I’ll tell you why we’ve been looking for you. Our first shoot’s next week. The guests arrive on the 20th, for three days as usual. You’ve got to come!’

Laszlo demurred. He used all the arguments that Balint had rehearsed for him; he couldn’t leave his studies, he said, and he started going into lengthy detail about his work, but his cousins remained unimpressed. To their way of thinking music or any other studies were only of secondary importance. You could pass the time studying, and maybe you could learn something useful, after a fashion, but a pheasant shoot, one of the best in the country and which only lasted three days — to miss that was incomprehensible. Unless there were some other, unspoken reason. It was Niki who gave voice to the only plausible explanation, ‘To be sure, there’s a woman behind this! Don’t deny it, Laszlo. Give us a week and we’ll find out who she is!’

‘You just have to come,’ insisted Peter. ‘It’s unthinkable that you shouldn’t be with us for the first shoot of the season. Papa would be very hurt if you let us down, especially this year when all the important guests are terrible shots! What’s more, with Louis up at Oxford with Toni Szent-Gyorgyi, there’ll be no good shots from the family except for us and Uncle Antal. Balint’s coming but he’s not much use with a gun. The bags will be a disaster without you. We’ve got to net at least two thousand brace, or Father will blame us for a rotten shoot. It’s unthinkable that you should let us down.’

They argued for a long time, the Kollonich cousins asking what sort of a friend and cousin he was who could abandon them just when they needed him most? And in the end Laszlo yielded, as much to his own secret desires as to the entreaties of his cousins. But he insisted that he couldn’t stay a minute more than three days.

As Peter and Niki took their leave they tried to tempt Laszlo into going with them, but Gyeroffy remained firm. He absolutely had to get up in the morning and so, defeated but content, the two cousins took themselves off happy that Laszlo had agreed to come.

When they had gone Laszlo lit the lamps and tried once again to settle to his studies, but the theories of point and counterpoint blurred before his eyes. No matter how hard he tried, he could not concentrate: serious study eluded him. At last he gave up and went over to the gun-case on the chest of drawers. It was a long, smooth case of fine leather with brass corner-guards and a patent lock. The case, with its fine pair of triggerless Purdys inside, had been the unexpectedly lavish Christmas present from his two aunts three years before. On the butt of each gun was a small golden disk engraved with the Gyeroffy arms, and on the outside of the case, embossed on the leather, was his name, with a small spelling mistake: ‘Count Ladislas Gieroffy’.

Laszlo took out one of the guns and, as he put it together, he thought how easily it handled, how beautifully it was made, like a fine clock. He peered through the long gleaming barrels, cocked the gun for the pleasure of hearing that easy, precise click. What a clean sound! After gently handling the gun for some time he dismantled it and put it lovingly back in its case.

Then he went for a long solitary walk along the banks of the Danube.

On the 19th Laszlo travelled to Simonvasar with Balint Abady, who had come to the capital for some political meetings.

They arrived in the late afternoon, after a slow carriage drive which seemed even longer than the ten kilometres from the station to the castle because the road was so bad. The reason for this was that Prince Kollonich was always on such bad terms with whatever government was in power in the county that he rarely ever communicated with the authorities in the county town and then only through his land agent.

The carriage finally entered the forecourt of the castle, turned a half circle round the horseshoe-shaped carriage way, and drew up under the columned entrance. As they entered the house two statuesque footmen helped them out of their fur coats and a third, dressed in the blue tailcoat of the Kollonich livery, led them through the huge library, with its tall cupola-shaped roof, through the vast red drawing-room with its five windows, where some of the younger guests were already assembled, and finally through double doors into the corner saloon where the Princess Agnes always received her guests. This salon was one and a half floors high, like the library through which they had just passed but, unlike the library which was lined with tier upon tier of beautifully bound books, it was decorated with coloured stucco in light relief: all pastel colours, butter-yellow, pale lilac and a mint green simulated marble, all in the purest Empire style, even though the castle, designed by the great architect, Pollak, creator of the National Museum, had only been finished at the end of the sixties.

The princess received the new arrivals with her usual warmth and kindliness. She stroked Laszlo’s head as he bent to kiss her hand. Though she was as ever, extremely gracious, she never made it easy to forget that she was, after all, a very great lady whose every kind word was a gift and to kiss whose hand was a privilege.

She was tall and still beautiful, even though her dark hair was streaked with grey and her once radiantly pink complexion was now touched here and there with tiny dark-brown liver spots. She wore a tea-gown in the English fashion, the neck and sleeves sewn with festoons of old lace which set off her still beautiful hands and arms. Although the garment was loose and flowing she sat so erect that it was obvious that she also wore a tightly-laced corset.

At the princess’s side sat one of the principal guests, Field Marshal Count Kanizsay, who commanded the national cavalry regiments, a heavy old man who had been a hero of the Bosnian occupation. He came from an ancient Hungarian family and was descended from the Kanizsay who fell with Zrinyi at the siege of Szigetvar. His ancestors had played a great part in the wars against the Turks, always serving the Habsburg interests, and in recognition of this service the Kanizsay coat of arms bore the motto Perpetuus in Komarvar and the head of the family was made hereditary military governor of that little Bosnian fortress. In spite of his family’s great national past the old soldier only spoke broken Hungarian, having spent all his life in German-speaking regiments of the Austro-Hungarian army. Although the field marshal had long retired from active service he always wore uniform, a grey tunic with a collar of gold braid, countless medal ribbons and one order, the Maria Theresia Cross, gleaming white on his still powerful chest.

Sitting on the silken sofa on her hostess’s left was the wife of the field marshal, a massive, boring old German lady who was very conscious of her own importance in being related to the Wittelsbachs by a morganatic marriage; and the Countess Lubianszky, who had brought her two pretty daughters with her from Somogy. Opposite them sat the young and beautiful Countess Beredy, the lovely Fanny, who was obliged by her rank to seat herself with the old ladies even though she longed to be in the red salon with the young.