Antal Szerb: The Pendragon Legend

“Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” she proclaimed, and sat herself down with the smile of someone confident of having contributed her share of witty conversation. Given that it was still summer, I smiled dutifully at the remark. Osborne made no such effort.

“Cheer up, young fella,” the girl said to him, raising her glass; and she sang a little song conveying the same basic idea.

“I’ll do whatever I can,” Osborne solemnly declared.

This Osborne is an idiot, I said to myself. The girl was simply stunning, in the innocent, rosy-cheeked way which, together with the manly British character, is the finest ornament of these islands.

She certainly enlivened me, and she listened in respectful silence to my fumbling compliments — not something Englishmen lavish on their women. With us, if we are even slightly drawn to a woman, we tell her we adore her. An Englishman hopelessly in love will merely observe: “I say, I do rather like you”.

“Come away with me to the Continent,” I urged her in my rapture, stroking her bare arm. “You should live in Fontainebleau and glide three times a day up the crescent staircase of Francis I, trailing your gown behind you. The moment they set eyes on you, the three-hundred-year old carp in the lake will find they are warm-blooded after all. Miss France herself will panic and give birth to twins.”

“You’re a very sweet boy, and you’ve got such an interesting accent. But I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

This cut me to the quick. I am very proud of my English pronunciation. But what could a Connemara lass know of these things? — she spoke some dreadful Irish brogue herself. I left her to amuse herself with Osborne while Maloney and I made serious inroads on the whisky.

By now Maloney was looking, and sounding, rather tipsy.

“Doctor, you’re a hoot. We certainly hit the jackpot when we met. But this Osborne … I’d be so happy if Pat could seduce him. These English aren’t human. Now we Irish … back home in Connemara, at his age I’d already had three sorts of venereal disease. But tell me, dear Doctor, now that we’re such good friends, what’s the real reason for your visit to Llanvygan?”

“The Earl of Gwynedd invited me to pursue my studies in his library.”

“Studies? But you’re already a doctor! Or is there some exam even higher than that? You’re an amazingly clever man.”

“It’s not for an exam … just for the pleasure of it. Some things really interest me.”

“Which you’re going to study there?”

“Exactly.

“And what exactly are you going to study?”

“Most probably the history of the Rosicrucians, with particular reference to Robert Fludd.”

“Who are these Rosicrucians?”

“Rosicrucians? Hm. Have you ever heard of the Freemasons?”

“Yes. People who meet in secret … and I’ve no idea what they get up to.”

“That’s it. The Rosicrucians were different from the Freemasons in that they met in even greater secrecy, and people knew even less about what they did.”

“Fine. But surely you at least know what they did in these meetings?”

“I can tell you in confidence, but you must reveal it to no one.”

“I’ll harness my tongue. Now, out with it!”

“They made gold.”

“Great. I knew all along it was a hoax. What else were they making?”

“Come a bit closer. Homunculi.”

“What’s that?”

“Human beings.”

Maloney roared with laughter and slapped me on the back.

“I’ve always known you were a dirty dog,” he said.

“Idiot. Not that way. They wanted to create human beings scientifically.”

“So, they were impotent.”

We were both thoroughly tipsy, and found the idea hilarious in the extreme. In my hysterics I knocked over the glass in front of me. Maloney immediately sent for another.

“Now tell me, Doctor, how did you get to know the Earl of Gwynedd? He’s very unsociable.”

“I’ve not seen that. I met him at Lady Malmsbury-Croft’s, and he immediately invited me.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I suppose, with all this stuff about alchemy — making gold.”

But I was no longer enjoying the conversation. It was too much like the sort of conversations I remembered from Budapest. I’d lived in England too long. I’d got out of the habit of being quizzed in this way. Interrogated, in fact.

Suddenly I smelt a rat. Drink always brings out one’s basic character, and in me it reinforces my most fundamental trait: suspicion. Wait a minute. What if Maloney was talking advantage of my drunkenness to winkle some private information out of me? True, I hadn’t the faintest idea what sort of secret I might be hiding, but there must have been one. The man on the telephone had also behaved as if I had.

However, I might be able to turn the tables on him. Maloney wasn’t too sober himself: he’d drunk a lot more than I had. Perhaps I could prise out of him what the secret was that he wanted to prise out of me.

With a spontaneous-seeming gesture I knocked my glass over a second time, exploded into a loud drunken laugh and stammered out:

“These glasses … When I grow up I’ll invent one that stays upright. And a bed that automatically produces women.”

I studied him. He was looking at me with unmistakable satisfaction.

“You speak true, oh mighty Chief! The only problem is, it’s all gobbledegook.”

“I? What do you mean?”

“All this miraculous Rosicrucian stuff — it’s a load of old cobblers.”

“Never say that!”

“I know perfectly well that you’re a doctor.”

“Maloney!” I exclaimed. “How did you guess?”

“You’ve only got to look at you. And anyway, you say you’re a doctor. You see … you’re not even denying now that you’re an expert on tropical diseases.”

“Well … that’s true. I’m especially fond of the tsetse fly and sleeping sickness.”

“But even more, of that disease with the long name that the Earl of Gwynedd’s father and William Roscoe died of.”

“Roscoe?”

“Roscoe, Roscoe the millionaire. There’s no point pretending you’ve never heard the name. Let me remind you about him.”

“Please do.”

“I’m talking about the Roscoe who was financial adviser to the old Earl, when the gentleman in question was Governor somewhere in Burma.”

“Ah, you mean the old Roscoe? Of course, of course — my brain is a bit fuddled; it always is when I’m drinking. You mean the Roscoe who, later on … who went on to … ”

“ … to marry the lady who was engaged to the present Earl of Gwynedd.”

“That’s it. Now it all comes back to me. But why aren’t we drinking? Then the poor chap died of the same disease as the old Earl, which was very strange.”

“Extremely strange. Because it was a disease with a very long name, and, for a start, old Roscoe had been back in England for years and years.”

“Yes, true. And yes, that is the reason I’m going to Llanvygan. But for God’s sake don’t tell anyone. But can you just explain this — I’ve never been clear on this one point: what exactly is the link between the Earl of Gwynedd and old Roscoe’s death?”

“Well, it’s not something they’re likely to let you in on. But since you’ve been straight with me, I’ll tell you a secret. Come a bit closer, so Osborne can’t hear.”

“Let’s have it.”

“In his will, Roscoe stipulated that, in the event of his dying an unnatural death, his whole fortune should go to the Earl of Gwynedd and his successors.”

“That’s nonsense, Maloney. They don’t make wills like that in England.”

“It certainly isn’t nonsense. Old Roscoe became obsessed with the idea that his wife wanted to poison him. That’s why he made this secret will.”