CHAPTER XXI
THE NOBLE LADY
It was an anxious morning. Most of the night, neither Bideskúty nor the Countess Irma had slept: each lay awake thinking of what the coming, eventful day would bring.
“I wish we had told her all,” sighed Bideskúty mentally, as he despatched Jankó off on the momentous message, which was to bring the strange suitor to the noble house.
“It is better so!” was the self-satisfied conclusion, arrived at by the Countess Irma, as she turned over her daughter’s ribbons and sashes, to decide which would be most suitable to wear, on the important occasion.
And, now, it was close upon midday, and the lord of Bideskút was nervously pacing up and down his smoking-room, unable to sit still, or even to smoke his favourite pipe, awaiting anxiously, and dreading the first interview: speculating on the probable attitude of his daughter, the possible scene.
He had had a very hard task, in explaining to his wife the cruel necessity which would force their only child, the last descendant of those chieftains who had helped to place King Mátyás on the throne, into the arms of a peasant—the grandson of a serf. Countess Irma was a woman of the world. The horror of so preposterous a mésalliance, struck her at first with terrible force; but, when she found herself placed between the two alternatives, of facing complete penury in a provincial town, with one maid to cook the daily meal, and a tax-collector thundering weekly at the door, and that of seeing her daughter, the wife of a man infinitely beneath her in the social scale, but whose wealth was large enough, to restore to Bideskút all its former splendour, she chose what she considered the lesser evil.
The idea that any selfishness was mixed up in this choice, would have seemed to Countess Irma utterly preposterous. Marriage, in her eyes, was as much a business contract, as the buying and selling of land or wheat, and of far too serious a moment, to be swayed by any question of sentiment. That the young peasant’s one desire, (now that he had had the temerity to become passing rich), was to own a noble wife, was too obvious a fact to be much wondered at, and the idea that Ilonka might have hidden ideals, unbeknown to her mother, was in itself an impossibility.
Countess Irma had never heard of marriage in connection with any sentiment. Ruin had, with truly plebeian want of discrimination, knocked and been admitted within the aristocratic walls of Bideskút. A certain marriage—preposterous, monstrous, true, yet perfectly feasible—presented itself as a means of averting a catastrophe, which was a hundredfold more hideous, and more monstrous; Countess Irma thought—as her husband had done—of future generations, of duty to posterity, of a great name, which for five hundred years had added lustre to the history of a warlike country, now threatened with extinction and ruin,—her duty appeared clear to her,—she felt she was making a sacrifice, nerved herself to the task, and unflinchingly fulfilled it. Her daughter was asked of her. She gave her daughter, trusting that she could keep her well under her wing, for at least eleven months out of the twelve, during which Ilonka might fancy herself a grass-widow, living with her parents. That the peasant husband would ever dare to assert his rights, to keep his wife under his lowly roof, never entered Countess Irma’s head. She was convinced that her decision was for her daughter’s and her husband’s happiness; fully convinced that she was acting unselfishly in the matter; doing what was right. Bideskúty, humiliated, heart-broken, harassed by his wife’s reproaches, had left the child’s future in her mother’s hands.
“Let her have a free choice,” he had begged half remorsefully.
But Countess Irma called his hesitation, “sentimental folly!”
“Leave her to me,” she said, “and for God’s sake do not interfere. You have proved yourself utterly incapable of conducting your own affairs. This one at least I mean to carry through.”
What passed between mother and daughter Bideskúty never knew. The interview lasted over two hours, late one night, and, when at last Countess Irma came to bed, she said:
“You can send for the peasant to-morrow. The sooner the marriage ceremony is gone through, the better.”
Bideskúty longed to ask many questions. In his heart he had a deep love for and pride in the lovely child.
“Remember, Gyuri, I have not told Ilonka, why this marriage is necessary. Thank God I have brought her up to obey her parents, without question and without argument.”
“I will not have her unhappy …” protested Bideskúty.
“My dear Gyuri, what nonsense you talk. Of course she is not unhappy. Why should she be? She knows nothing of the man, she cannot dislike him, therefore how can she be unhappy?”
This was unanswerable logic apparently. Bideskuty sighed, but he trusted to his wife’s judgment. He fully believed that women understood one another, and he had never been allowed a say, in the bringing-up of his daughter.
And Kemény András had been sent for. He was expected every moment. Bideskúty was hideously nervous; anxiously he scanned his wife’s face, she sat rigid and erect, in the middle of the room, working at some knitting, with irritating persistency. Close by the window, her hands lying idly in her lap, her face turned away from her parents, sat Ilonka. Bideskúty, who had expected, and dreaded a pathetic feminine scene, with tears, and prayers, felt quite relieved to see his daughter quiet and serene.
He certainly thought her strangely altered, since last night. She seemed somehow, to have grown more stately, and decidedly older. Her eyes were tearless, but they had a curious look in them, as if they were looking far, very far away, and all the pink colour had left her cheeks. But the Countess Irma had said that the child was not unhappy. She certainly had made no protest, and seemed quite calmly to be awaiting her future husband. No doubt natural, girlish coyness, excitement, curiosity had made her cheeks pale, and given that far-off strange look to her eyes.
The sound of horses’ hoofs up the acacia drive. … Bideskúty wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead: his nervousness was quite painful; even Countess Irma’s hands trembled as she held her knitting; soon the sound of voices, the opening and shutting of doors, a heavy firm tread on the flagstones of the hall and passages, preceded by Jankó’s lighter step. … Ilonka, alone, where she sat, had not stirred; her hands, which lay idly in her lap, had not trembled, only her eyes were norw fixed, large and glowing, on the door before her. …
Then, Jankó threw it open, and, immediately behind him, the tall picturesque figure of the peasant suitor, in all the barbaric splendour of his national attire, stood out against the massive dark oak frame of the door. His great height, his broad, powerful shoulders, the dignity of his presence, seemed still further enhanced by the great mantle of sheepskin, gorgeously embroidered in many coloured designs by Etelka’s loving hands, which hung from his shoulders to his feet, by his broad belt covered with massive silver bosses, and by the full white lawn sleeves and trousers, a very masterpiece of exquisite fineness, and delicate embroidery. His face was very pale, and his eyes—dark, burning, magnetic—had travelled swiftly round the room, till they had caught sight of the frail figure by the window. … he seemed almost as in a trance; half dazed he walked into the room, and stooped to kiss the hand which the noble Countess had deigned to extend towards him.
My lord had said “Isten hozta!” (God has brought you) and now was talking in disjointed sentences of lands and floods, of rain and sunshine. András scarcely heard; he tried to answer intelligibly, forced himself not to look towards the window, where the Countess stood talking to his fairy vision, who seemed so strangely white and fragile.
Then, suddenly the Countess beckoned to him; he hardly had the strength to walk; he passed his hand across his eyes, for his vision was getting dim.
The graceful white form had risen. A pair of blue eyes, large, burning, terrified, were fixed upon him as he advanced.
“Ilonka, my child, this is Kemény András of Kisfalu, who has your father’s and my consent to express his love for you, and to ask you to become his wife.”
The voice sounded as if it were far away. A roar like that of the flooded Tarna filled his ears, all his senses seemed concentrated in one of gazing at his dream.
“Give him your hand, Ilonka.”
Mechanically, obediently, a tiny white hand was stretched towards him, and András stooped very low, and tremblingly took it in his own. A look of infinite yearning, and tenderness was in his eyes, a look of appeal, infinitely touching and pathetic in the powerful, rugged face; that look but begged for a look, a responsive gaze from those blue eyes, which stared so strangely, so vacantly, as if he, in his humility, his love, his adoration, was far away from her.
Tenderly he raised the tiny cold hand to his lips, and sought to warm it into response by one long passionate kiss. … A slight tremor seemed to shake her, and she tried to snatch her hand away from his. He longed to speak to her, but great sobs choked his throat; nervously he held the tiny hand imprisoned in his own, and with longing gaze tried to look into those blue eyes, which stared so vacantly, so strangely afar.
Joy, ah, well, it was a great joy, a joy so infinite, so complete, that his heart well-nigh broke under it, and the pain of it, seemed more than he could bear.
My lord came up to speak to him; the Countess also said a few words: both meant to be kind, no doubt, but their voices jarred upon András’ nerves, forcibly breaking the enchanting spell, and dragging him back to earth. The tiny hand had escaped; he was forced to turn towards Bideskúty, who led him to the further end of the room, to talk of business matters. How long he stayed, or what he said, András did not know. The talk of business, the formalities, the discussion of the marriage plans sickened and enervated him. He longed to take that fragile being in his arms, and, on Csillag’s back ride away with her across the puszta.
She had not spoken once. The whole thing seemed strangely unreal to András; the voices of my lord, and of the lady his wife, sounded in a weird confusion in his ears; even his vision had grown troubled, so long and so earnestly had he gazed in the one direction. The Countess said something about the month of May, and the best time for the wedding; András replied to that, no doubt, for my lady rose soon after, and said some very condescending words. But after that it was all darkness, dreary and blank, for the seat in the window was empty.
The lord of Bideskút had become silent. András thought he might take his leave. He longed to be alone, to ride across the plain, to feel Csillag’s hoofs thundering beneath him, to leave the castle behind, where the air seemed to have grown stifling, and where strange spectres of evil foreboding seemed to dance a hideous dance of death before him.
Bideskúty accompanied him to the door. With his own hands, he handed up to András the stirrup-cup, of rich Hungarian wine. Jankó stood wondering at the gate, and, nearly fell over backwards, when he heard my lord say: “God be with you, my son!” adding immediately: “Your place will be laid for you, at the midday meal on Sunday.”