The Cruel Count (Bantam Series No. 28) (7 page)

Presently the Count heard laughter coming from the kitchen, and when Vesta suddenly appeared he said before she could speak:

“Something seems to be amusing you.”

“Our hostess thinks it very funny when I find a bad egg and hold my nose!” she said. “We are getting on extremely well in sign language.”

She held out her hand towards him.

“I want to be quite sure which of these mushrooms which I have found just outside the Inn are edible. I have the feeling that the red ones, although I am not certain, are poisonous.”

“They are indeed!” The Count said. “They are Aminita Muscaria. They grow in pine forests, and even if they did not kill us we should certainly spend a very uncomfortable night.”

“That is what I thought,” Vesta answered. “And these?”

She held out two other mushrooms that were yellow with brown spots on them.

“Those are Suillus Elegans,” the Count said, “and are used a great deal in Katona. In fact they are quite delicious if well cooked.”

“That is a challenge!” Vesta retorted and went back into the kitchen.

It was nearly an hour later before she appeared with a dish in her hands and two plates. She put them down on the table and ran back to the kitchen to fetch two forks.

“I have cleaned them,” she said reassuringly.

She divided the omelette with a spoon and put the larger piece on a plate for the Count

“Eat it quickly,” she said, “while it is hot.”

Her face was flushed from the fire and her fair hair was curling round her forehead. She looked young and very lovely. The Count regarded her for a long moment before he seated himself and put his fork into the omelette.

One mouthful told him that it was in fact delicious. Very light and golden brown on the outside, it contained the mushrooms sliced thin and cooked in goat’s milk before they had been folded into the eggs.

“I congratulate you!” the Count exclaimed. “I had no idea you were so talented.”

“Mama always said we must never ask a servant to do anything we could not do as well ourselves. And actually I enjoy cooking.”

“I cannot imagine the Chef in the Palace will welcome you into his kitchen,” the Count said.

“There may still be opportunities for me to show my skill,” Vesta answered.

She was thinking as she spoke of the riding expeditions which she had planned that she and the Prince would take together. Then she remembered with something like a little stab in her heart, that he would probably not wish to go with her.

She finished her portion of the omelette and taking the empty dish and her plate went back into the kitchen.

When she returned she carried another dish and two warm plates.

“More food?” the Count questioned in surprise.

He had found in a cupboard some bottles of the rough wine which was the habitual drink of the peasants of Katona. He had opened one and now he poured out a glass for Vesta and one for himself.

“I am afraid the menu is somewhat limited,” Vesta smiled, her dimples showing at either side of her mouth, “and I am not certain how your black bread will react to such an English dish as this, but you can try it for yourself.”

She put the dish down on the table. It smelt pleasantly of cheese and the Count helped himself.

Vesta had found in the dirty kitchen not only the black bread which she had expected, but a lump of goat’s cheese which the Inn-Keeper’s wife had obviously made some time ago.

It was very hard, but slicing it finely, adding a few onions which were growing outside and a little goat’s milk, she managed to produce a pale imitation of an English toasted cheese.

She looked at the Count anxiously as he tried the first mouthful.

“Very good!” he said. “I hope one day you will ask me to dinner—when you are doing the cooking!”

“I do not think goat’s cheese toasts very well,” Vesta said critically. “At the same time as I am hungry I must admit I am enjoying it.”

“And so am I,” the Count said in all sincerity, “and I congratulate you, Ma’am. Few women, let alone a Princess, could have produced such an excellent meal at such short notice and with so few ingredients.”

Vesta smiled at him and for the first time forgot her hatred.

“It is kind of you to be so complimentary,” she said. “I must say if we die of food poisoning it will not be my fault. I cannot bear to think what the average guest at this Inn has to put up with.”

“The people of Katona are very clean as a rule,” the Count answered, “but this is such an isolated place that they have few travellers and their usual customers only come in for a drink. In fact this woman’s husband earns most of his money in the woods and the Inn is only a side line.”

“I am sure not many people would wish to eat here,” Vesta said.

“Not unless you were doing the cooking,” the Count answered.

“I wondered what I would do if no-one came for me and I had to stay on at Jeno after my money ran out,” Vesta said. “I thought I might have to work in the orange-groves to pay for my keep, but now I realise I could have obtained a job as a cook. I would like to try to make the egg and lemon sauce that I had on my fish at luncheon.”

“I can see you are very practical,” the Count remarked.

Vesta smiled.

“I wish that were true! Mama is always scolding me for having my head in the clouds.”

“And what do you think about when it is up there?” the Count enquired.

It was dusk outside and the light in the small room with its dirty windows was dim. The fire cast deep shadows and somehow it was easy to talk without feeling antagonistic.

“So many ... things,” Vesta answered.

“Tell me what you were thinking as we rode through the woods today,” the Count suggested.

Vesta knew that, if she told the truth, she would have to say she was thinking most of the time of the Prince. But he was not a subject she wished to discuss with the Count, so she answered quickly:

“When I was looking at the flowers, and I have never seen anything so beautiful, I thought that they must be alive ... just as we ... are.”

She paused and continued, choosing her words carefully.

“So perhaps it is cruel to ... pick them. When we do so and they die, it may be as painful to them as it is to us if we are killed ... or murdered.”

Her voice died away and now she was suddenly apprehensive. How could she have told her secret thoughts to the Count of all people?

She expected him to laugh, and as she waited for him to do so it was like anticipating a physical blow. She could almost feel the pain of it!

Instead he answered quietly.

“Some Buddhists believe that to be the truth—as they will not take life, so they will not pick flowers.”

Vesta’s eyes were alight as she looked at him across the table.

“I imagined that ... only I ... had thought of ... that.”

“I am sure that as people develop spiritually in themselves and grow wiser, they all in their own way discover the same fundamental truths,” the Count replied.

Vesta was silent. She turned over what he had said in her mind and exclaimed:

“That is one of the ... nicest things ... anyone has ever said to me!”

Then as if she felt shy, she rose to her feet.

“I must go and ... help with the ... chicken for ... tomorrow,” she said almost incoherently and sped from the room.

It was a long time before she returned, but the Count could hear voices and laughter coming from the kitchen. Somehow the two women were making themselves mutually understood.

Vesta came back into the room accompanied by the Inn-Keeper’s wife, a lighted taper in her hand.

“She wants to show me the way to my bedroom,” Vesta said to the Count.

“I will bring up the bucket,” he answered and went through the kitchen to fetch it.

When he came back they climbed the steep wooden staircase. The woman went first with the taper, Vesta following her.

“You are honoured,” the Count said as they reached the landing. “Candles are treasured in this part of the world. People go to bed before it is dark.”

“I am very grateful!” Vesta smiled.

There were only two bed-rooms upstairs. They were side by side and the rickety doors did not fit. Vesta followed the woman into the first one and realised why she needed the lighted candle.

There was no glass in the window, which was stuffed with rags and old sacks so there was no light and no air.

A bed-stead of rough unpolished wood stood against one wall, by the other there was a table holding a basin.

There was nothing else, not even a chair, and at a glance Vesta could see that the blankets were not only full of holes but extremely dirty.

The Count poured some of the water into the basin and put the bucket on the floor.

“Good night, Ma’am,” he said politely.

She thought, as he withdrew from the room in the light of the candle, that he was smiling unpleasantly.

She had forgotten her hatred of him while they had been eating the dinner she had cooked. But now it returned with a new force.

She was quite certain he was gloating over the fact that she would never have seen a room that was quite so unpleasant or horrible as this one.

It smelt of dust, dirt and the sweat of those who had used it. She was quite certain there would be fleas in the bed, if nothing worse!

The woman put the candle down on the table.

“Good night,” she said.

She was smiling and she even dropped an awkward curtsey.

“Good night and thank you,” Vesta replied.

The candlelight cast strange shadows on the ceiling. Vesta looked at the bed with horror. Then she crossed the room to the basin and washed her hands and face in the cold water.

It was only when her face was already wet that she looked apprehensively for a towel, and having seen it decided nothing would induce her to use it.

Instead she drew her handkerchief from her pocket and was wiping her face when there came a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she asked nervously.

“I have brought you your things from my saddlebag,” the Count answered. “I thought you must have forgotten them.”

“Oh yes, as a matter of fact I had,” Vesta said. “Thank you for bringing them.”

She opened the door and took the bundle from him.

“Good night, Ma’am,” he said with a little bow, “I hope you sleep well.”

“I hope, Count, you also enjoy a good night,” she replied sweetly.

She shut the door and heard him go into the room next door. She held her little bundle containing her pretty nightgown and brushes closely in her arms.

She had no intention of undressing in this squalor. She was also aware that it was growing cold.

She could hear the Count moving about next door and suddenly she came to a decision. She sat down on the edge of the bed, but fearing the dirt of it would mark the skirt of her riding-habit, she put her black cloak under her.

She waited for what seemed to her a long time until there were no longer any sounds from the next room. Then she slipped off her small kid boots which undid at her ankles, and picking up everything she possessed including her brushes and nightgown she very quietly opened the door.

With her boots in her hand, fearful of every creak of the stairs, she moved as softly as she could down to the front room with the fire.

It was still burning because the Count had put a lot of wood on it. Vesta set down her possessions on one wooden settle and lying on the other covered herself with her black cloak.

It was uncomfortable not to have a pillow and after a moment she rose to put more wood on the fire, moving very quietly in case someone should hear her.

Then she slipped off her smart white braided jacket and rolled it up to make a pillow for her head, and lay down once again.

The seat was hard under her body, but the fire was warm and she suddenly realised she was very tired.

She had been through so much. The worry over her arrival, the agony and fear she had experienced on the ride, her battle, with the Count, had all taken their toll.

She felt her eyelids closing and then almost before she was aware of it she was fast asleep.

A log falling in the fire brought Vesta back through layers of sleep to consciousness.

She opened her eyes and she saw she was not alone.

Sitting on the wooden settle on the other side of the hearth was the Count. He was looking at her and she felt hazily it was perhaps the penetrating look in his dark eyes which had awoken her.

She stared at him for a moment and then drowsily still half asleep she said:

“I ... thought ... you were an ... eagle but you ... saved ... me.”

“An eagle?” he questioned in a deep voice.

“I was ... falling,” she murmured.

Then her eyes closed again and she went back to her dreams.