Csardas Page 7

  She was conventional enough to know she could not go out and direct the overseers and peasants herself, but she did the next best thing. Her farm manager was no more than a harddriven cypher. At morning, midday, and evening, he reported back to her and was given instructions of what to do next. She made many bad mistakes, but the overwhelming advantage she had over her neighbours was that she was always there and that, although she was possibly not a very good farmer, she was a very good businesswoman and knew to the last piglet just how much she had and where it was.

  She had a small utilitarian house built right in the middle of the farm. She dismissed the majority of her peasants—after the first couple of years, when she realized she was being exploited by nearly all her labour force—and employed seasonal and migrant workers. Her neighbours were horrified but she was still “one of them,” and at first they continued to call and shower her with invitations to balls and picnics and card parties, none of which she could afford to accept. Callers received short courtesies as she was always busy with accounts and matters of the farm, and finally, except for the standard obligations necessary to her rank, she was left alone.

  She kept herself and her sons alive, and by the time it was necessary to educate Felix and Adam she had saved a little money and invested a little more. She had also lost the last of her youth. The gaiety and charm that had symbolized the five years of her marriage had calcified into a brittle, sharp manner and a keen business assessment of every situation with which she was involved. If she still had regrets, she kept them to herself.

  She knew it would be impossible to educate both her sons as gentlemen. Nonetheless they were gentlemen. Their lineage was indisputable, and she was working desperately towards the day when, little by little, she could buy back the things that should have been theirs by right. Felix, the elder, the handsomer, the one like his father, should be given what advantages there were, should be trained to behave and live like a gentleman. She managed to find a distant cousin whose sons were being educated at home by a tutor. For a privately negotiated fee (which was never referred to again by either party) Felix went to live in a manner that his father would have recognized. He learnt the classics, history, literature, how to ride and shoot like a gentleman, how to dance and talk to ladies, how to play cards, and how to wear and use a sword.

  By the time he was of an age to be entered in the military Akademie, his mother had acquired yet a little more money—the result of years of frugality—which she had invested quite wisely. There was enough for his fees and for a small bachelor apartment in Budapest, and also enough to buy back a small section of the land she had been forced to sell.

  Her hopes, alas, were not to be fully realized. Since Felix did not appear to enjoy military life and continually failed every exam, she was obviously wasting her money. The only other career open to a son of the nobility was local administration. A further large sum of money was paid as a bribe, and Felix was given a senior position in the land registration office of the county town. Madame Kaldy was a little disappointed, but on the whole it worked out fairly well. The apartment in town cost less than the one in Budapest, and Felix received a salary, which meant he didn’t require quite such a large allowance from the strained family resources. In addition—as his duties were mostly carried out by a team of underpaid but reasonably efficient clerks—his long absences from the county offices were taken as a natural part of a young nobleman’s behaviour. His sojourns from his office were, more often than not, spent in the company of his mama, whom he loved dearly. She had never refused him anything, and she was strong and resolute and the foundation on which his life rested. Occasionally he visited Budapest but found it had little to offer that his own county town did not. In Budapest he didn’t know so many people, the balls and parties were more impersonal, the girls more demanding. In his own small town everyone knew who he was and liked him. He could sit for a whole morning in the cafés drinking coffee with his friends, and almost every passer-by would be someone he knew, with whom he could smile and bow and exchange pleasantries. The wine was just as good as in Budapest. The girls were friendlier and more relaxed. And in recent years he had sometimes been able to persuade his mama to come and share his apartment for the winter months, for since Adam had taken over the management of the farm, she had begun to emerge slightly from her impecunious isolation.

  Felix, as well as adoring his mama, was also quite fond of his brother. Adam was a good, if dull, old thing, and Felix enjoyed showing him the town when he came up on his monthly visits to buy supplies for the farm. He tried to see that Adam had a good time—took him to the cafés to join the leisurely society there, encouraged him to attend any balls or parties to which he, Felix, had been invited—but Adam was, regrettably, something of a bore and never quite fitted the company he was with. He had no lighthearted conversation and he was awkward and silent in the presence of young women. Felix thought it was all the result of the Calvinist school Adam had attended.

  At the time that Felix had gone to share his cousin’s tutor, Madame Kaldy had decided that Adam would have to be trained to contribute to the maintenance and reinstatement of the family wealth and position. She could afford to raise only one son as a nobleman; the other must work for his living and, indeed, work for the living of them all. Adam, having attended the local elementary school until he was ten years old, had then been sent to the nearest available Gymnasium. The Kaldys were Catholic by birth, and Felix, in the house of his cousin, was taught the niceties and elegances of that religion. Madame Kaldy had hesitated only a little when registering Adam at the Calvinist grammar school but expediency decided her; the Calvinist school could be reached by pony each day, and Adam was needed to help on the farm before and after school. To go to the Catholic Gymnasium meant permanent absence during term time and also extra payment for board. Adam, therefore, from the ages of ten to eighteen, rose at six every morning, supervised milking and the handing out of grain and meal, ensured that the carters were sent on their way, then mounted his pony and rode five miles to school. After school he came home, once more supervised milking, checked the daily tallies, took part in the allocation of the morrow’s tasks, ate his supper, did his homework, and went to bed. During the summer holidays he worked at the harvest: first the grain harvest, then the hay, then the fruit and pepper crop. Felix always came home for short visits in the summer, and occasionally he too, in smooth leather boots and a soft linen shirt, would go out into the fields and toss a few bales up onto a stack. The summers were always good for Adam. When Felix was home their mama was happier. She smiled a lot, was more relaxed, and there was a holiday air about the farm, even though the work was just as hard.

  At eighteen Adam took his Abiturium and passed brilliantly, so brilliantly that the director called on Madame Kaldy and suggested the Imperial Staff College in Vienna or, failing that, the study of law and economics at the university in Budapest. Madame Kaldy listened with icy courtesy, then informed him that her younger son would attend the Agricultural College in Budapest, as already arranged. He was to be boarded with the respectable family of a bank clerk for a minimum fee and the promise of free holidays on the farm for the clerk’s wife and four children. The transaction was mutually agreeable, lasted for three years, and Madame Kaldy never for one moment during those years entertained the idea that Adam also might enjoy a bachelor apartment in the city.

  When he finally returned with his agricultural diploma, she dismissed the farm manager, handed the supervision of the land to Adam, and set about her own financial transactions, which involved cautious investments and the buying back, metre by metre, of the land that once was her husband’s and soon must be Felix’s.

  From her younger son she demanded nothing but diligence and family loyalty. From her elder son she demanded love and also an awareness that the land—this land she had struggled to hold for so long—was Kaldy property, his property. She had his love in abundance; how could he not adore a mama who gave him everything he wanted
? His awareness of the land was sometimes apathetic. Every time she bought back a small patch of forest or meadows, he was supposed to visit and gloat and stride round the boundaries of their increasing estate. Every new innovation that Adam introduced on the farm was supposed to be approved and noted by Felix, although—as he explained to her—he didn’t care at all for soil and pigs and cattle. But he was an easygoing young man who liked to please everyone if he could, and whenever his mama sent for him he came. He listened when she spoke, sometimes rather fiercely, about his land and his cattle and his forests, and then he would say something like “Darling Mama! How hard you have worked for us both. But now you must learn to rest a little, to spend some time with your son who loves you so much. So come now, Mama, drive with me a little, or come to stay with me in town. I would like to take my darling mama to the elegant parties, to the theatre, to the dressmaker and milliner.”

  And Madame Kaldy would, for a moment, look nonplussed and worried; then, as Felix stroked her hand and smiled and told her little jokes and fragments of gossip about the society of the town, she would relax and promise to come and stay with him in the winter.

  So now he was here again—in April; oh, really!—and all because Adam and Mama were excited about a stretch of land which had just been bought back and that Adam was going to plant with a new crop. He had dutifully ridden round the fields, admired the ground, the beet seed, and the new machine that Adam, with his college ideas, was using to sow it. He had spent hours chatting with Mama. He had ridden, with Adam, to the adjoining farms to extend invitations to watch the new machine working. He had read a couple of novels and also the intellectual magazine Nyugat which everyone in Budapest café circles had been talking about for a long time but which he had never found time to study before. He went to sleep over the novels and found he could make nothing of Nyugat, which he dismissed as clever and literary. He was just dozing into a bored but pleasant sleep when he heard the sound of a carriage arriving. There was a soft flurry of chatter on the steps and then—with delight—he heard the crisp tones of Madame Gizelli Racs-Rassay. He pulled on his coat and hurried into the reception-room, and when he saw not only Madame Gizelli (whom he rather liked) but also the enchanting Ferenc girls his welcome was unfeigned and overwhelming.

  “Madame Gizelli!” he cried, bending gracefully over her hand in a warm, eloquent movement. “And Eva and Amalia! How wonderful, how very wonderful. I cannot tell you; the countryside has been so dull. I have missed my friends and our little parties in town. Now we shall be able to make some entertainment—cards, perhaps.” He suddenly noticed that Madame Gizelli was looking very angry, and then he saw Kati hiding behind her cousins. Swiftly he clasped her hand with apologetic charm. “Forgive me, Kati. But in a room so full of charming ladies I must be forgiven for overlooking one of them.”

  Kati flushed, looked awkward, mumbled, “Hullo, Felix,” and then stared at the floor. Her mother tweaked unnecessarily hard at the twisted collar of Kati’s coat.

  “Stand up straight, Kati,” she hissed. “What will Madame Kaldy think if you continue to hunch like a peasant woman?”

  She was unusually harsh, even for Aunt Gizi, and the girls were suddenly horrified to see Kati’s eyes fill with tears. She could not possibly cry now, not in Madame Kaldy’s house! It would be too embarrassing. Amalia hurried over and drew Kati to one side. They sat together on a couch by the window and, while Kati swallowed hard and fought for self-control, Amalia stared out at the yard and the fields.

  It was not the prettiest of farms. The fields were flat and utilitarian. There were fruit trees, but instead of growing in a lush abundance of waste—like their own beautiful Ferenc orchard—they were lined up along the sides of the tracks and looked like rows of tin tacks set round the fields. There was no garden to the farmhouse and the furniture inside was an incongruous mixture of peasant-made objects and beautiful antiques salvaged from Madame Kaldy’s better days.

  Every field and corner of soil that Amalia could see from her window seat was ploughed in geometric lines that stretched into the monotonous distance. She watched the tiny human specks of the peasants labouring over the sowing, saw one of the specks begin to move towards the house, watched it grow and finally turn into Adam Kaldy. She covered Kati’s small, tightly clenched fists with her own hand and whispered, “Look, Kati. Adam is coming,” and, as Kati looked up, insecure, defenceless, she added, “Don’t be upset. I’m sure your mama didn’t mean to be unkind.”

  Kati nodded, unbelieving, and swayed closer to Malie, pressing up against her side as though seeking security from the touch of her cousin’s body. Sometimes it irritated Malie the way Kati, after a kind word or a little offered comfort, would cling to her. Sometimes she wanted to pull away, but she never did. She always managed to remember that Kati had very few gestures of affection offered to her. Her papa gave her only the occasional duty kiss and her mama never touched her unless it was to straighten her clothes or jerk her shoulders back.

  Adam ran up the steps to the door and came into the room. His face was dirty and he smelled of something faintly unpleasant, pigs or cows. He went to shake hands with Eva, then flushed, turned to Aunt Gizi, flushed again, and said, “I’m dirty. Excuse me. I shall wash.”

  When he came back Madame Kaldy—cool, slight, and with thick braids of black hair wound round her head—was presiding over a small table set with teapot, sugar and lemon. Adam took Aunt Gizi’s hand in his, rather too heartily, and nodded brusquely at the three girls. It was hard to believe that he and Felix had hatched from the same nest.

  “How is your mama?” asked Madame Kaldy, handing tea to Eva.

  “She’s... she has a headache this afternoon.”

  Madame Kaldy pursed her lips in disapproval. “I see.” She poured, handed, poured, handed, without seeming to move her body at all. “No doubt when her... headache has gone she will call.” She stared hard at Eva. “You are like your mama. I remember Marta Bogozy. I remember her very well. We were girls together. I remember her when she was so poor she had to wear the same ball gown for every occasion.” Her expressionless eyes ran over Eva’s glossy black hair and the voluptuous tiny figure in the rose-coloured dress. “She wore her clothes too tight as well,” she added coldly.

  Eva sparkled hatred at Madame Kaldy. “My mama had no need of new dresses. She was so beautiful it did not matter what she wore. And now... now she has as many ball gowns as she wishes.” She stared pointedly at Madame Kaldy’s plain grey serge dress, but the older woman had long ago discarded any female vanity and was not hurt by Eva’s gibe.

  “Not all the dresses paid for either, I hear,” she countered dryly.

  Again the atmosphere of the room was charged with disagreeable tension. Eva bit her lip and stared hard at her cup. Aunt Gizi appeared to be gratified. Adam made a slight move towards Eva, stopped, and stood rather lost and out of place holding a teacup in his hand.

  Amalia, with her arm round Kati’s shoulders, was suddenly grateful for their own warm, careless, silly, indulgent mama. Aunt Gizi and Madame Kaldy, two successful, clever women who had the rare gift of making fortunes for their families, also had the gift of deliberately hurting those around them with their astringent tongues and sharp wits. Mama—so foolish, so constantly in debt, so selfish in a thoughtless casual way—would never have said the things that Aunt Gizi and Madame Kaldy had said this afternoon.

  “I wondered... that is—” Adam coughed and began again. “Would Eva and Amalia... would they care to see the farm—the new crop and my seeding machine? The ground is dry and they could walk along the tracks with comfort.”

  “Splendid!” Amalia jumped to her feet and buttoned her coat, relieved to get out of the house for a few moments. Eva immediately recovered from her bout with Madame Kaldy. She tilted her head towards Felix and gazed at him from beneath long dark lashes.

  “Felix,” she commanded lightly, “I demand an instant tour of your estate. I want to see everything. I shall want a full descript
ion of every building and field on the farm.”

  “Eva, my darling girl!” Both his mother and Aunt Gizi frowned. “I hate to lose your regard, but I don’t think I know what every building and field is for!”

  “Then you must make it up,” said Eva gaily. She was on her feet and had somehow manoeuvred Felix to the door. As they left the room Aunt Gizi was propelling Kati after them. “It will do you good to walk, Kati. You have been sitting down all day.” Stubbornly Kati held back, pushing against her mother’s arm until Amalia came and joined her.

  “Come, Kati,” she said quietly, hating Aunt Gizi and wanting to slap Eva for some inexplicable reason.

  Outside they set off across the yard. Felix and Eva were in front, arm in arm, dancing lightly across the ground, bending their heads close and talking in silly affected tones interposed with paroxysms of laughter that echoed across the fields. Adam, with Amalia and Kati, one on each side, stumped solidly behind.

  “They’re so beautiful together, aren’t they?” said Kati without envy. “Like two bright birds skimming over the fields. Do you think they know how beautiful they are?”

  “I’m quite sure Eva does,” said Malie dryly, and then wondered if she was becoming as sour as the two middle-aged women she had just left behind.

  They passed the stables and the granaries and then moved onto the track, the bright dresses of the girls giving life to the brown landscape, Eva’s rose dress most of all. Amalia noticed that Adam didn’t once take his eyes from Eva’s slim darting form, and she felt the same pity for him that she felt for Kati.