Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

Tamas Abady, a sensible man blessed with the gift of clear sight, had known what was the matter and how long he had to live. In the few months left to him he had concentrated all his time and declining energies to preparing Roza for their parting and for the tasks she would inherit when he died. Knowing his wife so well he took care that his wishes were expressed as definite instructions to be followed to the letter. Young Balint, as soon as he reached the age of ten, was to be sent to school in Vienna at the Theresianum; he was then to study law and, upon obtaining his degree, was to enter the Diplomatic Service. Tamas, conscious of the dangers to an only child brought up in a household of women, wanted to be sure that his son would grow up independent, travelled and experienced, and so be well equipped, when the time came, to decide his own future.

After discussing his ideas with his father, old Count Peter whose knowledge of the world was of immense help to him, Tamas wrote down in a large notebook everything that his wife was to do for their son and also exactly how she was to run the Abady estates. He had made a great point of Roza promising that she would run the property herself and not put it in the hands of estate managers. He wanted her to make her own decisions. He also wanted to give her something useful to do which would occupy so much of her time that it would help lighten the burden of sorrow after his death.

Count Tamas’s instinct had been right. After the first few months of deep mourning the Countess Roza set about her new responsibilities with heroic dedication. She began by reading closely the book of instructions and very soon she had it by heart. This book became her bible, the holy writ which her beloved husband had ordered from the World Beyond. And if her adoration of his memory at times bordered on the morbid, the responsibilities he had imposed upon her saved her reason.

In her great house she led the life of a hermit. At first she would not see even her own close relations. She wanted no guests. She would live only to carry out her husband’s sacred orders. Gradually she lost touch with all her friends; and neighbours, knowing they were not welcome, stopped calling. While her father-in-law lived he would bring his guests up to see her at the castle, but after his death she saw no one. This was something which her husband, in all his wisdom had not foreseen, and it had its ill effects. The countess by nature was generous and good-hearted, but she needed the company of people with she could talk and who would, in return, talk to her. She needed, too, people whom she could help and to whom she could be of service and play Lady Bountiful. Soon there appeared those who recognized not only this but also the fact that Countess Roza was susceptible to flattery, and who gradually began to insinuate themselves into the castle’s service so that they could take advantage of the solitary countess’s weaknesses.

The first was an unscrupulous lawyer, Kristof Azbej, with whom Countess Roza had made contact when she had been to Torda for some trivial lawsuit. He soon discovered how she could best be manipulated. He started by praising her late husband, and went on, apparently reluctantly, to allow the countess to force him to admit that he was poor because he only accepted briefs from the righteous, even if they could not afford to pay him. The widowed countess, impressed, used his services, without noticing that lawyer Azbej gave them even though she could afford to pay. She felt sorry for him and little by little allowed him more and more power and responsibility in the management of her affairs, until in the end, in all but name, the simple Mr Azbej became Agent for the Abady estates — a title he was careful never to use in her presence.

Gradually he made himself indispensable — principally by dint of revealing to her abuses she would never have discovered for herself (‘The noble Countess will understand that I would never have mentioned it were it not that …’) to the point at which she suggested he should always be near at hand to devote himself to her service. After her father-in-law died, she offered him rooms in the house at Denestornya where Count Peter had lived.

In much the same way, two women insinuated themselves into the countess’ confidence and after a while they came permanently to live with her in the castle in the summer and in the town house in Kolozsvar when she moved there in the winter. They were Mrs Tothy, widow of a Protestant sexton, and Mrs Baczo, whose origins were more obscure but who was rumoured once to have been a cook in Des. These two, whether at Denestornya or Kolozsvar, would sit with the countess, take their meals with her and talk to her over their needlework. They also assumed responsibility for certain household tasks — Mrs Tothy supervised the laundries and made lavender water, while Mrs Baczo took charge of the kitchens and made all the preserves; she made them very well.

However their principle function was to listen to everything their mistress said and to agree that she was right. They were also the bearers of gossip on whom their mistress relied for all information of that sort both from inside and outside the castle walls. This they did faithfully with one reservation; they never gossiped about each other or about Mr Azbej, who in turn always supported the two women. Together they formed a kind of triumvirate who between them shared the rule of the Abady estates. Just as the women controlled everything in the house and in the orchards and kitchen gardens, so Azbej ruled the farms and forests. As might be expected this alliance brought advantages to all three. The one domain over which they had no power and in whose rule the countess never consulted anyone’s opinion but her own was the stables and the stud-farm.

The day Balint returned home he had coffee with his mother in her sitting-room. The countess sat on a sofa behind a long table and, one at each end, sat the two ladies on upright chairs which they always chose instead of more comfortable fauteuils to show that they knew their place. They were so alike that Balint was never quite sure which was which. Both were thick, fleshy women with olive complexions and dark hair and tiny sharp eyes sunk in the fat of pendulous cheeks. Their appearance showed how they thrived on the rich food of Transylvania. Each time he returned after a long absence Balint had to relearn that the only way to be sure which was which was to remember that the widow Tothy had three double chins while the Baczo had only two. Now, as Balint came into his mother’s room he found them both doing crochet work, sitting bolt upright and working at exactly the same speed. In front of his mother, but untouched, was a large Chinese lacquer bowl which served her for a work-basket. The countess made Balint sit beside her on the long sofa. She gazed at him fondly with her slightly bulging eyes and, took his hand in her pudgy little fingers.

‘Tell me everything! Where have you been? What have you been doing?’

Balint first told her all about the shooting party at Simonvasar, who was there and who was not there. Then he recounted the political events in Budapest. He tried to tell her everything but she, never talking her eyes off his face and constantly pressing his hands as if to reassure herself that it was really he, never really grasped whether he was talking about his cousins or telling about the rows in the House. That this was so was made perfectly clear as her occasional interjections only concerned his health: ‘Are you sure you didn’t catch cold? Are you well?’

‘You’ll stay on a bit now, won’t you? You won’t leave us too soon. It will soon be Carnival, and there are some very pretty girls around.’