A World to Win Read online

Now, finally arriving at Szelényi Castle, Zsuzsa and I stumbled out of the coach carrying a child each. Miklós didn’t look very substantial, but he weighed an awful lot that night.

  I remember passing through a doorway, and liveried menservants taking the children from us. I can see now, as clearly as then, the vast, stone hall, eerie in the candlelight, and the enormous marble staircase reaching out of it. Zsuzsa and I were both silent as we trudged up in the wake of our noisy, cheerful employers. I didn’t think I was capable of speech — or even of thought, which was no state in which to make the acquaintance of old Count Szelényi.

  I heard István say, “Father,” and involuntarily I looked up. Through the figures ahead, and the shadows, I could see a tall, frail-looking old man, bent with age or illness or both, embracing his vigorous son. My foot faltered, and I felt Zsuzsa’s steadying hand on my arm. We climbed on.

  At the top of the staircase I stopped, because I couldn’t get past the people being formally greeted by the old Count. As Baroness Meleki was introduced, I became aware that Zsuzsa had slipped by and was gone. I stayed, because I didn’t know where else I could go, and took the opportunity to study the old Count.

  I had waited so long to meet him, I no longer knew what I expected. His body was indeed frail, but even in the poor light I could see the fierce, hard life in his eyes, under drawn, bushy white brows; and the voice which so courteously welcomed the Baroness was very far from feeble.

  It was a tall, soldierly man who first noticed my presence — oddly enough since until then I had been entirely unaware of his. He took a step towards me with a faint, shy smile.

  “You look lost among all this commotion! Allow me to introduce myself — Karl von Avenheim, Colonel...”

  “How do you do,” I murmured mechanically, but his attention to me had drawn that of the old Count.

  “Who’s this?” he demanded. “István, where are your manners?”

  István turned with some surprise to me, and then back to his father. “It’s our new governess. Peter! Show Miss Kettles to her chamber at once — her...”

  But the end of his order was quite lost in the roar of the old man which made everyone jump. “What? I will not have that name spoken in this house!” he thundered, after which there was a short, amazed silence.

  Then István spoke, at his coolest and driest. “That is unfortunate, sir, since we shall then have to find some other way of addressing the lady. Peter, if you please.”

  I found a liveried manservant before me, and followed him rather blindly. As the talk started up again behind me, I heard Maria say, “What on Earth is the matter with her name? Come, let’s get out of this draughty hall...”

  I glanced back over my shoulder. I was sure the old Count was staring after me. I was glad.

  * * * *

  I woke to the sound of shutters being thrown back, and to bright sunshine on my face. I could hear the singing of birds, the distant voices of men talking, and somewhere closer, the whine of a dog. The pain in my head was quite gone.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw a maid tip-toeing out of the room. I struggled to sit up. “What time is it?” I asked, and the girl jumped, whirling to face me with a startled, half-frightened countenance.

  “Eight o’clock, Miss. There’s coffee and toast by the bed, but I didn’t like to wake you.”

  “Oh thank you,” I said, reaching at once for the reviving brew.

  “Will that be all, Miss?” she asked and scuttled out almost before I had replied.

  Terror is not normally one of the emotions I inspire in people. I was almost intrigued, until I realized that her fear was not aroused by me at all, but by the terrible old man who couldn’t abide the sound of my name.

  Washed and dressed, I chose to finish the last of my toast while admiring the view from the window — it looked on to the stable yard, but to the left, beyond it, I could see clearly to the hills. I found myself sighing with unreasonable contentment.

  Below me, the stable boys were calling to each other while they worked, brushing down the horses, clearing out the stalls. They were Magyar peasants — I could tell that now from their appearance and dress. As I watched, Mattias Szelényi strode into the yard with a cheerful greeting, going at once to the skittish chestnut peering over the stall door.

  Mattias had been my most unexpected informant on the journey. During my first sensible discussion with him — conducted on the porch of a very modest inn one evening after dinner — I had learned that although it was part of the Hungarian Crown, Transylvania was governed separately. It had its own Diet which met in Kolozsvár, and where all the resident races were represented — all, that is, apart from the Romanians, despite being the majority. I could see how someone normally as placid as Captain Zarescu might be so incensed by this injustice.

  I had another thought too. “So which Diet is your brother involved in?” I had asked. “I assumed it was the one in Pressburg.”

  “Both. We have lands in Hungary too, and István is quite revoltingly wealthy in his own right.”

  I cast him a quizzical glance. “You don’t approve of wealth?”

  He grinned. “I do if it’s mine. But seriously, I believe those like us who have so much land, also have a duty to improve the lot of the peasants who live on it. Besides, we’ll never have a modern, thriving economy until we get rid of the feudal system and drag ourselves into the nineteenth century.”

  I found I liked Mattias, now I had discovered him to be something more than the careless, hedonistic student I had once imagined. In fact, I was ridiculously comfortable among these people I had come to hurt...

  * * * *

  We did our best, the Enemy and I, but that first day at Szelényi, our hearts just were not in the serious business of education. The sun was shining too enticingly. They wanted to be outside or with their grandfather, or both; I was consumed with the desire to explore, both outside and in.

  Somehow we got through until lunch, which was served in the schoolroom; but while the children ate obediently, their eyes kept straying to the window — I know because I was looking all too often in the same direction.

  Fortunately, we had a visitor, a thin, untidily fluttering lady of uncertain age who slid into the room with a smile that was both warm and fearful of rejection. However, I had never yet seen my charges reject anyone, and this newcomer was no exception. They spilled out of their seats with loud cries of “Aunt Margit! Aunt Margit!” and cast themselves into her delighted arms.

  After a tactful moment, I stood up with the vague but benevolent intention of preserving their aunt from suffocation, but her eyes met mine over their bouncing heads, and she smiled at me, the same timid, almost dog-like smile I had seen when she first came in.

  “Miss Kettles,” she said breathlessly, “How nice to meet you! I’m Margit Szelényi...”

  I prised the children off her and sent them sternly back to their food. “How do you do?” I said at last. “I’m sorry: I find their affections quite uncontrollable sometimes!”

  Margit’s eyes searched mine, back and forwards from one to the other, and I found I was holding my breath, waiting for the recognition that must surely come now. She was after all Sofia Szelényi’s full sister. But she only twittered, “Yes indeed. Isn’t it nice?” and dragged her hand haphazardly through her wispy, grey hair. “And are you comfortable, dear? Do you like your position?”

  “Why, yes thank you, I do...”

  “So glad. Oh dear, please don’t let me disturb your lunch. I’ll sit with you a while, if I may...”

  She duly did. Somewhat dazed, I agreed with her that the roads in Transylvania were appalling, and that we all must be tired, and then the children told her all about their doings in Buda-Pest.

  “Goodness,” she said once to me, “you have been busy.”

  “Their minds are very active,” I said by way of explanation.

  “Yes indeed. So are their little bodies... It quite exhausts me! But of course you are... How old are
you, dear?”

  My lip twitched. “Twenty-seven,” I answered gravely.

  She nodded. “Yes indeed — and you have such a nice name... it’s one of our best family names, you know, Katherine...”

  “Will you take us riding this afternoon, Aunt Margit?” Anna interrupted, surreptitiously purloining a morsel from her brother’s plate. I put it back.

  “Oh bless you, no. I don’t ride much now. My arthritis, you know... But perhaps you could take Miss Kettles out and show her around? With Mark, of course...”

  “Oh yes!” cried Miklós. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Miss Katie?”

  “I would,” I confessed, although I hadn’t ridden for years, not since my father had been minister of a small church in Perthshire. I turned to Margit. “Should I ask their parents’ permission, do you think?”

  Margit looked surprised, then I thought she almost preened. It seemed her opinion was not often sought. “I should just go,” she whispered. “Even my brother would not want them studying all day on their first day back...”

  Accordingly, while Margit scuttled back into the bowels of the castle, we put the books away and sallied forth to the stables.

  * * * *

  Szelényi was joyously beautiful. Situated high in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, it just bordered on the spectacular. The castle itself, an impressive building dating back to mediaeval times, stood at the top of the highest hill for miles around, looking down on forests and farmlands and vineyards, and a scattering of villages all owned by Count Szelényi.

  With Mark, the Head Groom, and the children as guides, I was shown the glories of the scenery and led past fields which seemed to be farmed in strips by several different tenants. Harvesting had begun. I saw men — and some women — working in the fields, sweating under the blazing sun. They were mainly Magyars and Szekelys, a related race peculiar to Transylvania. None of them looked terribly prosperous, and some looked positively miserable to my searching eyes, as they bent their bare backs to the toil. Sometimes I saw them pause in the distance and watch us; if they were close enough, they touched their foreheads, and the children waved, much as they did to anyone else they knew.

  Yet the eyes which observed us were not friendly: some were shielded or stolid; some were almost glitteringly hard, though whether this came from hatred or from the difficulty of their lives — or both — I could not tell. They greeted Mark amiably enough, but I remember feeling glad that I was with the children and not with their parents.

  This was one aspect of the country my mother had never mentioned: the poverty, the alienation. I supposed it would have seemed normal to her as it did to the other Szelényis. Briefly, I thought of Lajos and the young men in the Pilvax: if it was normal to them too, at least they knew it was not right...

  Surreptitiously, almost nervously, I kept a weather eye out for Lajos as we rode. For some reason, I was afraid to come across him here, to see him in his peasant role, as if he would be somehow altered by his surroundings. But then, wasn’t he already changed in my eyes? My idealistic, slightly dangerous friend had become merely Teréz Meleki’s low-born lover.

  * * * *

  Visitors arrived at the castle the next day. I knew because I saw them from the schoolroom window; a handsome young couple, talking and laughing in the formal garden with István and Katalin. As I watched Elisabeth and Mattias coming out to join them, Miklós said behind me, “That’s Baron Acsády, our neighbour. And his sister. She’s called Ruth.”

  I looked at him, contemplating a reproof. Guessing this, he grinned at me, quite unabashed.

  “I’ve finished,” he claimed. I went to see for myself.

  It was with some relief that I abandoned the children to Zsuzsa later in the afternoon, for I was now so determined to explore the castle that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Making the most of my brief liberty, I set out with something of the same euphoria I had felt in Vienna the day I had bought my new bonnet, for I had already discovered the castle’s régime to contrast quite unfavourably with the laissez-faire attitude prevailing in Pest.

  The trouble was, the old Count kept to traditional customs which meant that the whole household dined together — family, secretaries, stewards, governesses, even the village priest — thus severely curtailing my liberty.

  If my mother could have seen me last night, dining in the ancestral hall...! It was, in fact, a daunting place to eat: huge, high-ceilinged and full of shadows and draughts, even on such a warm, summer evening. Like the rest of the castle, it was furnished with massive seventeenth century tables and cabinets, the walls hung with rather ancient looking tapestries and even more forbidding portraits of long-dead Szelényis.

  I had sat appropriately near the foot of the table, beside the priest, Father Ránoczy, a youngish man with a startlingly sardonic glint in his keen eyes. Opposite us had been the steward, who said little, but smiled too much.

  I suppose, on the whole, it had been a jolly meal, with Katalin and Mattias keeping up an amusing barrage of banter, while Teréz Meleki flirted genteelly with her elderly host. István had been suave and erudite, his wife decorative and bored, but it had been Margit Szelényi who had drawn most of my attention: positively twittering in a flurry of half-finished sentences, she had jumped visibly whenever her father spoke to her, which he seemed to do only to deride her or to order her to be silent. My dislike of the old man grew.

  Naturally he had never so much as glanced at the governess while we ate, though as we left the dining room, and parted for the evening in the hallway, he did honour me with a ferocious frown, as if he had just recalled my obnoxious name.

  The memory of that made me smile now, as I closed the door on a huge library which far outshone the one in the Pest house. Moving on, I found places as diverse as a still-room and a billiard-room, from which I quickly retreated in fear of being discovered there by a stray Szelényi. Various servants I encountered in the castle’s long corridors looked at me a little curiously, but none questioned me. As a result I felt somewhat inhibited about asking for directions when I inevitably became lost, and went on until I found myself in a dark little passage which came to a dead end. Fortunately, my eyes eventually discovered this end to be a door. Without much hope, I tugged the handle — and to my surprise, it flew open, flooding me with low, evening sunlight.

  I stepped outside, into the same stable yard I could see from my window. So, at least I was no longer lost! However, before I could congratulate myself too much, I realized I was being observed with amazement by Mark and a group of stable lads crouched together in the middle of the yard. They had been examining something on the ground which now, since my unexpected arrival, appeared to hold only the attention of one man with his back to me.

  Mark said something, and then this man too glanced round, his eyes screwed up against the direct sun. With inexplicable shock, I recognized Lajos Lázár.

  He was dressed as most of the peasants were, in faded black trousers and a loose, white shirt, open at the throat. The familiar half-smile dawned on his lips as he looked up at me without apparent surprise.

  “Hallo,” he said casually, and rose smoothly to his feet. “Were you looking for me?”

  “No,” I managed to say uncompromisingly. “Just looking.”

  Mark too was standing now, and I saw that the object of their attention had been a small, black puppy of decidedly mixed parentage. It danced after Lajos, eventually skidding to a halt by my feet and scratching itself vigorously with one hind leg, after which it launched itself at me, barking out its instant affection — or at least curiosity — in a small, high-pitched canine voice.

  My smile was quite involuntary as I bent to pet the dog. It tried to lick me and scratch itself at the same time, without losing its balance. I laughed.

  “Is he yours?” I asked as Lajos’s shadow fell over me.

  “No, he’s Mark’s.”

  I glanced up. Mark materialized beside Lajos, woodenly explaining. “The pu
p’s got an itchy skin ailment — I asked Lajos to bring me up some ointment for him.” And he passed me with a nod, heading into one of the out-buildings.

  I straightened, shifting my gaze from Mark’s broad back to Lajos’s watchful eyes. “So, you are an apothecary as well?” I said, lightly mocking.

  “That’s my mother’s skill. I’m merely the messenger. How are you?” Unlike most people, Lajos asked that question as if he was genuinely interested in the answer. I smiled, unreasonably glad to see him again.

  But then it struck me that the ointment for the pup was just an excuse for him to be at the castle, that he was really here to see Baroness Meleki. I could live with that, since I had to, but I had no intention of being used to carry messages between them, so, with sudden alarm that he might ask me to do so, I moved away, saying hastily and a little incoherently, “Don’t let me detain you — I’m sure you are very busy...”

  But he was walking beside me across the yard, his loose, easy strides keeping pace with my urgent steps. “It’s you who seem to be in a hurry,” he observed.

  “Oh no, I was just exploring the castle,” I murmured, feeling foolish. I slowed, glancing up to meet his half-amused gaze. His lips parted to speak, but before he could, a boy rushed into the yard shouting, “They’re coming back!” and Mark reappeared at the door of the outbuilding just in front of us.

  “Lajos, you’d better clear out now,” he warned, “or lie low in here — that’s the family almost back from their ride.”

  “Why, are they going to arrest me on sight?” Lajos asked humorously.

  “No, but that ass Acsády’s with them—” He glanced at me, “Begging your pardon.”

  “Beg Acsády’s,” I suggested, “but I shan’t tell.”

  Mark almost grinned. “The thing is, he doesn’t care for Lajos.”

  “He’s not alone,” Lajos added. “But in this case, neither does Lajos care for him. Still, I don’t want a fight, so I’ll take myself off.”

  “Good,” said Mark, going back inside.

  Lajos lifted his hand in careless farewell, strolling away across the yard. But it seemed he was too late. Already I could hear the clatter of horses’ hooves, the sound of cheerful voices and laughter. A moment later, the party rode into view, and instinctively I moved backwards into the doorway after Mark.