Only he would be able to protect them if their mistress, or even he himself, somehow got wind of what they had been up to for so long; and so they worked it out that, if they paid their court well and pleased him and somehow earned his approval, then he would be less inclined to start looking into how they had run the kitchens and stillrooms and asking why the bills for butcher’s meat, sugar, coffee and cooking fat had been so high.
It was true that since his return the young master had shown no sign of being interested in anything, let alone such awkward matters as household expenses. When Azbej had first left and Balint had come home nearly everyone employed at Denestornya had one great fear. The estate foremen, the farming tenants and many others had all been guilty of persistent falsification of their accounts which Azbej had overlooked because, if he protected them, they in turn would say nothing about his own even more profitable thieving: now they were all scared to death that Count Balint would at once put his nose into everything. But it hadn’t happened: Count Balint did nothing. It was the same with the administration of the forest holdings in which he had formerly taken such a deep personal interest. He came, he went. He had looked around and dealt without joy with whatever was put in front of him. He had made a few enquiries, but had initiated nothing new and indeed treated everything with the same listless indifference.
While at home at Denestornya Balint, as he never had before, went to bed late and got up late. For days on end he would hardly leave the house, not even to go out riding, but would sit for hours reading some book or other.
But from the day he returned to find his mother with her beloved horses in the horseshoe court, all was different. At dawn the next morning he rode out with Simon Jäger and jumped all the fences in the paddock. At midday it was with happiness in his voice that he told his mother that for the first time that year he himself had heard the fallow deer calling in that thicket in the park they called Magyaros; and then he told her that he wanted to go to Zsuk for the hunting and wondered if she would let him have three of their good hunters.
‘But of course I will,’ she cried, delighted. ‘You don’t have to ask! Do whatever you like! Take whichever you like! They’re all yours, you know!’
This was no more than Balint had expected. He had known exactly what his mother would say, almost word for word, yet he knew she would have been offended if he had omitted to ask. To play the fairy godmother, to give presents, hand over precious possessions, particularly to her son, was for the Countess Roza one of the great pleasures in life. It was a part she liked to play, and yet it was not really a part as in the theatre but a genuine side of her character. That is how she felt; and the fact of being asked was as important to her as the giving. Had she not been asked, it would have been taken as an affront to her natural goodness and as an unjustified liberty; for no one must ever forget that everything was hers and that everything depended on her wishes.
Balint went on to mention that Baron Gazsi would shortly be paying them a visit and also that he would like to invite over the young Aron Kozma as he wanted to discuss Co-operative matters with him.
Countess Roza looked up at her son with interest.
‘Which Kozma is that?’ she asked. ‘Does he come from the prairie lands?’ and, when Balint confirmed that that was so, she went on: ‘What sort of age is he? What was his father’s name?’
‘He is the eldest son of Boldizsar, and he has his own land near Teke,’ said Balint, who went on to explain what advanced and successful landowners the Kozmas had become and how both generations, the fathers’ and sons’, had all turned out to be serious and hard-working and progressive.
The old lady appeared to be paying attention to everything Balint told her, but when she spoke it was obvious that she was really only interested in the first thing he had said.
‘So this one is Boldizsar’s eldest boy, is he? Boldizsar was the middle one of five brothers and they all grew up here, at Denestornya. Their father was our agent when I was a child, and I knew them all well and used to play with the younger ones. Well! Well! Well! Invite him, do!’ She paused for a moment and then went on, with a little smile at her own private memories, saying, ‘Invite him, but tell him to wire and say when he is coming. I’ll need to have the heating put on in the guest rooms in plenty of time.’
‘It isn’t cold yet, Mama.’
‘It doesn’t signify. The weather might change any day and … it is better to know in advance.’
It did not occur to Balint that his mother had had no such qualms when told of Gazsi’s visit.
FIVE DAYS LATER GAZSI ARRIVED, riding his thoroughbred mare Honeydew, who was now so changed that it was hard to believe that it was the same animal who a couple of years before, had been the terror of all the jockeys on the track. Now she seemed as quiet as the old spotted farm donkey, though it was true that she allowed no one but Gazsi on her back.
‘I had to r-r-ride over,’ said Gazsi apologetically, ‘because Honeydew needed the work. Actually I would far rather have dr-r-riven and then I could have brought a suitcase with me. But no one else can even walk this beast and only the other day, when I went to my sister’s, she kicked the young stable-boy in the belly. It’s r-r-real slavery, looking after this one,’ he said as he dismounted in the horseshoe court, and he bent his head sideways and looked plaintively at Balint as he always did when making a tragi-comedy of whatever he was doing. This time, however, Balint sensed that he was not joking for he seemed unusually serious and went on to say something quite out of the usual for him: he spoke of his clothes.
‘I know I oughtn’t to pr-r-resent myself to Aunt Roza looking like this,’ he said, ‘so scr-r-ruffy and unkempt, but I have brought something to change into in my saddle-bag. But you can’t get much in, I’m afraid.’
‘Really, Gazsi,’ said Balint, ‘that doesn’t matter for you! Why, my mother’s quite used to receiving you booted and spurred.’
‘Of course, of course! Who would expect anything else from a peasant like me?’ and he sounded so bitter that Balint instantly regretted speaking as he had.
As it happened the saddle-bag produced a sort of dinner-jacket which had been made by a tailor in Torda. Though his shirt was wrinkled and his collar worn, when he presented himself at the dinner table, Gazsi looked tolerably presentable, indeed almost European. He had obviously made an effort to look civilized, hopeless though his case might be, and he wore an unusually serious air.
Later that evening, when the two young men had drunk tea and eaten some stewed apples with Countess Roza in her little first-floor drawing-room, Balint escorted his guest back through the huge empty dining-hall and down the stairs to the ground floor.
1 comment