Why he did this Countess Roza never discovered. She was sure that it was done to tease her, perhaps as a belated revenge for some forgotten offence, and it caused her great annoyance. This was now the third birthday on which the arrival of Kozma’s card had put her in a bad mood.
In the morning her son Balint had arrived from Budapest and until after lunch she was happy and gay. In the afternoon, however, the fateful card arrived and for Countess Roza the brightness faded from the day. As a result she, who was usually too good-natured to permit malicious gossip in her presence, said nothing when her two housekeepers, Mrs Tothy and Mrs Baczo, who always took their lunch with her, started to spice the coffee with ill-natured tales about the Abadys’ friends and neighbours.
Never stopping their knitting the two elderly women sat at each end of a long table, perched on chairs disproportionately small for their short fat bodies, and kept up an unending stream of malevolent calumny. Although they were in the countess’s presence they knitted away and chatted rapidly as if they were talking only to each other. And when they related some exceptionally shocking tale they would stab their needles into their half-finished work as if despatching the culprit in self-righteous virtue. This went on for a long time. Balint listened in silence.
At last it was half-past three and the first callers arrived to offer their congratulations. The two housekeepers rose and discreetly disappeared.
As the afternoon progressed more and more visitors were announced until both the large and small drawing-rooms were filled with people. In the larger room the hostess sat in the usual place in the centre of the sofa. In front of her, grouped around the tea-table, sat the older ladies; the mothers, countesses Gyalakuthy, Kamuthy and Laczok, and with them was the ancient Countess Sarmasaghy, Aunt Lizinka to almost everybody in Transylvania, tiny, shrivelled, amusing and malicious, who talked unceasingly both of politics and of the failings of all her friends and relations, and who was never afraid to use a coarse word, though in a most refined way, if she felt her stories needed emphasis.
Deploring the general wickedness of the world she covered much the same ground as had the two housekeepers an hour or so before. The chief target that afternoon was Adrienne Miloth, wife of Pali Uzdy, who, declared Aunt Lizinka, was an incorrigible flirt who had set her cap at every man in their circle ever since she had come to town for the carnival season.
‘… and she’s not content — oh, dear me, no! — to turn the head of my poor nephew, Pityu Kendy, as she did last year, or of that great dumb Adam Alvinczy — and they are just two among a whole throng of others,’ croaked Aunt Lizinka in her guinea-fowl voice, ‘… so she’s now seduced my other nephew, Ambrus. Of course I haven’t seen it with my own eyes but Ambrus isn’t the sort of man to be satisfied by sweet talk alone. Oh no! I’m sure she’s put more in his mouth than honey-covered words. No doubt of it. Maybe they’re careful but it’s well-known that a stallion like Ambrus doesn’t stop at neighing. And what’s more — and I know it for a fact as my cook told me — that when poor Uzdy’s away Ambrus is always hanging about the house even if no one sees him.’
The other ladies just listened, hardly uttering a word. Even Countess Laczok, whose sister was Adrienne’s mother, did not dare defend her niece since she too had marriageable daughters and was afraid of what Lizinka might start saying about them if she appeared to disagree. Eventually it was Countess Gyalakuthy who tried to put a stop to it.
‘All that’s as it may be,’ she said, ‘but it’s surely over, especially now that Akos Miloth’s wife has got so much worse in that clinic in Vienna. I hear her daughters have all gone to be with her.’
‘They left last week,’ Countess Laczok hastened to reply. ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news.’
Countess Abady’s bulging grey eyes looked round the group from Aunt Lizinka to her son, who was sitting silently among the old ladies. There her glance lingered for a moment before she turned and spoke to the kindly, plump Countess Laczok.
‘I had heard that the poor thing’s not been well for some time.’
‘That’s for sure. And this time it’ll be the end!’ interrupted Aunt Lizinka who was dying to get back to her favourite theme. ‘And what’ll become of poor little Margit Miloth without a mother one can only imagine! Then she’ll only have Adrienne’s example to guide her!’
A new visitor was announced. It was old Daniel Kendy who, in his old-fashioned and slightly worn morning coat, was still an impressive figure. Only his red nose showed how partial he was to the bottle.
He bowed over Countess Abady’s hand.
Balint seized the opportunity to offer Daniel his chair and walked swiftly into the adjoining room, his mouth set in a bitter line from all the innuendo and gossip he had been forced to listen to since lunch.
In the smaller drawing-room were gathered all the girls and young men. The butler and a footman were serving coffee and whipped cream and handing round cakes on crystal plates. Every now and again the Countess’s two housekeepers would bring in more delicacies — Viennese Kuglhopf cake, éclairs and almond pastries — and would put on hurt expressions if everyone did not sample each new dish at least twice. Even so an obsequious, ingratiating smile never left their fat faces.
Balint exchanged a few polite words with each of the guests in turn and was just answering someone’s question when Dodo Gyalakuthy came up to him and touched his arm.
‘AB!’ she said, for Balint was known to everyone in Kolozsvar by his initials. ‘I want to tell you something.’ She spoke urgently and quite loudly for the others were making a lot of noise. ‘Let’s sit somewhere in a corner where we won’t be disturbed.’
Balint led her to two empty armchairs that were at the far end of the room and looked enquiringly at her as they sat down. Now Dodo seemed to hesitate before starting to speak in broken, disjointed phrases.
‘I know it really isn’t any of my business, but still, I think I must tell you … I think it’s my duty to tell you … he, he is your cousin …’ She paused and then, suddenly determined, she turned to face Abady. ‘It’s about Laszlo Gyeroffy!’ Now she spoke fluently and in a down-to-earth manner. She was quite specific and related succinctly what she had picked up from Laszlo during the last few months, and which she had cleverly reconstructed to form a true estimate of the situation. She explained how advantage had been taken of Gyeroffy’s lack of interest and apathy and of his total indifference to worldly matters, and that he had been persuaded to lease his entire property for an absurdly low sum that had been paid in advance and how, as a result, he now had practically nothing to live on. Advantage had been taken of his need and it was absolutely vile, what had been done to him. It was a wretched matter which shouldn’t be tolerated. No! It simply shouldn’t be tolerated!
‘But this is very serious,’ said Balint when Dodo had told her tale. ‘I suspected something of the sort but I didn’t know what was going on as for some time Laszlo has taken care to avoid me. However, if it’s all been done legally and Laszlo accepts it, I don’t see how it can be put right.’