The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown (6 page)

‘Spanish.’

Kovacs was delighted to the last hair of his moustache. He had always maintained, he boomed, that horses were as human as himself, and there was the proof of it. Spanish was their language.

He shouted for Perico. A lean man, somewhat more golden in complexion than the sun-browned Magyars, left his barrow of hay and lounged over to the group. He answered Kovacs in oddly accented Hungarian out of the corner of his straight horseman’s mouth. Then he addressed Bernardo in Spanish.

‘Yes, from the North,’ Bernardo replied. ‘And you?’

‘From Argentina.’

‘What the devil brought you here?’

‘Because there are people with more money than they know what to do with.’

They went at it with the complete abandon of two exiles. Kalmody had bought three of the best polo ponies in Argentina and their groom with them. Perico had now been two years on the estate, first with a special interpreter, a Spanish-speaking Jew, and then on his own when he had learned some of the language.

‘They treat you well?’

‘Yes, and the horses too. For these Hungarians there is little difference between us.’

Before Perico could develop that double-bladed remark Nepamuk interrupted, disquieted by the fact that there was someone else to whom Bernardo could talk. The Master of the Horse told Nepamuk—so Perico said—to shut up. Mr. Kovacs was a man of one idea at a time and he was listening to the foreign language as if it preserved mysterious secrets of the Tartar past.

‘The old one says that here is your home,’ Perico translated, ‘and I am to teach you to ride.’

A week passed in which Bernardo was easily able to accept his prison without bars. Perico’s lessons put some points of reference into blank space and gave him a sense of live action so that on waking each morning he could ignore the overpowering lushness of his confinement. He was also satisfied with himself, for he had found a sport at which he could be more than competent. His understanding of the animal, mounted or not, was quick and instinctive. All he had to learn was to impress upon it who was boss. That had been very good for his character, old Bernardo said; up to then he had always lent himself rather than commanded.

Perico became an intimate friend, neither of the two having any other. The result of his quick-fire comments was to turn the whole place from the incredible into a human society. Perico’s description of Kalmody fitted the man with whom Bernardo had spent a single evening. He was impulsive, generous and popular when he was on his estate. But that was seldom. Meanwhile servants and tenants were left to
the mercies of middle-class zombies of whom Nepamuk was typical. Their obsession was that the abyss between themselves and the peasants should remain impassable.

Perico’s invective did not extend to Kovacs, whom he admired. Kovacs, he said, was half horse and worthy of any grandee’s carriage. It was a vivid sketch of the old boy’s massive, springy bearing, grey forelock falling over his forehead and yellow teeth in a long face. The Master of the Horse stood no nonsense from Nepamuk, shooing him off when he insisted on attending lessons. The steward need not have worried, for Bernardo never rode outside the park. He still had in his ears Pozharski’s question: are they going to be sensible? The Kalmody palace was exasperating, but a lot better than Bilbao gaol.

He was of course widely known to exist, but Pozharski was right in telling him that a guest of Kalmody had no official being so far as the police were concerned. Nepamuk must have offered them some explanation. Whatever it was—too ardent admiration of Zita or a suspected case of leprosy—it had been accepted. Bernardo’s own story to Perico was that Kalmody had snatched him out of Spain when he was in trouble with the law and had good reason for it. Perico showed no curiosity. Everyone had friends tangled up with politics or the law. One did not discuss the matter till help was required.

Refreshed by open air and the society of the stable block, Bernardo began to hope that the tradition of hospitality which governed the visits of royalty might be extended to his own bedroom as well. The steward was impervious to hints, nor had any Edwardian bit of stuff appeared—apart from a couple of chambermaids whose mischievous eyes and ripe-apricot complexions made him curious as to what the technique should be in dealing with so many voluminous petticoats.

Perico was sympathetic but had no suggestions. The few wives and daughters in the stable cottages were highly respectable, and he himself had had no success at all. There was
a satisfactory whore in the nearest town and a couple of semiprofessionals in a Kalmody village. He was ready to take the risk of fetching one of them over to the hay barn if Bernardo was really desperate and would finance the transaction until his friend was in the money again.

Money was the tactful chain which prevented any break for more liberty. Bernardo had the best of food and wine, horses to ride and every comfort of a rich recluse, but not one penny in his pocket. When he complained to Nepamuk that he ought to be able to hand out some tips, especially to Perico and his valet, the steward replied that he had only to say the word and it would be done. The Kalmodys themselves never had any money when they were at home; they couldn’t be bothered with the stuff.

An exaggeration to keep him quiet, though there might be some truth in it. The steward was their private banker. He kept the cash and issued it against receipt as and when needed.

‘But, Mr. Nepamuk, suppose one of them suddenly brought a girl home and hadn’t any money, what would he do?’ Bernardo asked frankly.

‘Not ’ere, Mr. Brown. Never! One of them summer ’ouses.’

‘Well, wherever it was, he’d want to give her a present. Or would the valet do it?’

‘If ’e was in attendance, Mr. Brown.’

The picture delighted Bernardo. The respectful retainer presumably tucked you up in bed and you left the rest to some form of irrevocable Kalmody credit card.

‘You may ’ave complete confidence in the Count,’ Nepamuk added. ‘’E knows what ’e’s abaht.’

That was vaguely hopeful. Bernardo would have given a lot to see the telegrams and correspondence passing between the Count and Nepamuk. Possibly they were waiting to see how discreet he was before providing further domestic comforts.

One evening after thunder had rolled across from Romania washing the sky a paler blue and the dusted trees a darker
green he rode back to the house with the Master of the Horse. Like a couple of friendly animals they were on the best of terms with no need for any talking beyond exclamations in each other’s language. Kovacs had somewhere picked up most of the words of an infuriated British horseman—tone accurate, vowels all wrong. Bernardo corrected and explained, a forefinger to the sky for ‘God’, a thumb to Kovacs’ ample seat for ‘bugger’. On arrival at the open front door he saw an unusually formal tray of drinks laid out at the far end of the hall. He gestured to Kovacs to hand over the horses and come in. The Master of the Horse was, he understood, grateful and honoured.

Kovacs was an inspired peasant who had risen to groom and from groom to his present dignity. It was always dangerous to drink with him if one had anything to do afterwards, for his cheerful neighings, though remaining formal, invited more and more cordiality. Bernardo, as a result of training in Vizcaya, was able—just—to keep glass for glass with him provided the process was slowed down a little. While hard at it, he vaguely watched through the open double doors the table being laid in the dining room—two places and a lot more silver than usual. For Nepamuk? But Nepamuk took his meals in his apartments. Then was the butler assuming that Kovacs would stay for dinner? That did not seem to conform to the traditions of the house, but no doubt the butler’s experience could be trusted. He slipped out to ask him. If Kovacs was going to be about for the next three hours, consumption of brandy had better be cut down at once.

‘For the master of the Horse, Lajos?’

‘For Madame la Baronne.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘The daughter of the Count.’

‘When is she coming?’

‘She is here.’

And nobody had told him a thing! Arrangements must have gone wrong because his return was much later than
usual. Kovacs had also seen the second place and had no doubt that it was not for him. He patted Bernardo’s shoulder to show that they were equals, bowed to show they were not and cleared off. Bernardo shot upstairs crudely yelling for his valet and found him of course already in his room with a velvet dinner jacket laid out on the bed. A quick bath left him fairly sober—which, strictly speaking, he was not—and he beat the baroness to the hall by three minutes.

She came sailing down the stairs in a long dress of crimson brocade with a high collar; it fitted her as closely as a swim suit and ten times more romantically. Bernardo had been expecting some large, pink-faced noblewoman, either sporting or religious. This astonishing creature with dark brown hair and eyes as near violet as made no difference was in her middle twenties and the most devastatingly poised and finished young woman he had ever set eyes on. At that age he had not, he remembered, had the experience to distinguish between female beauty and female ensemble. He was not sure that he could do it yet.

Alcohol inhibited any inferiority complex. He bowed gallantly over her hand, not kissing it because he was uncertain of Hungarian customs.

‘I must apologise for not being here,’ he said. ‘Nobody told me you were coming.’

‘I didn’t know myself when I would arrive. Just some time. How are you getting on in the Arabian Nights?’ she asked in near perfect English.

Her father must have repeated Bernardo’s impulsive phrase. Perhaps it had amused both of them.

‘Bored, Baroness. But now I think I must have rubbed the lamp without knowing it.’

One up for drinks with Kovacs! She spotted the compliment with merry eyes and immediately drooped long lashes over them, as if Bernardo’s gaze were too fervent. It probably was.

‘What have they told you about me?’ she asked.

‘Nothing at all. Lajos just said you were here, and Nepamuk never warned me.’

‘Oh, Nepamuk! The only bearable thing about him is that he can keep his mouth shut. What did you think of his English?’

‘I wish I spoke Hungarian as well.’

‘Such a polite little prisoner! Do you know that everyone likes you?’

‘No. How can anyone like a ghost which can’t speak to them? I don’t even know your name.’

‘Well, I used to be Magda Kalmody,’ she said. ‘But now I am the Baronin von und zu Pforzheim.’

She pronounced her title in stilted German, underlining her Magyar disrespect for mere Austrian aristocracy.

‘And you know my story?’

‘Only that you were the witness to one of my father’s wilder pot shots in defence of Queen and Country and that he felt you’d be better out of Spain till it all blew over.’

That was one aspect of the truth and simple enough by itself to be convincing. Bernardo did not elaborate it.

‘Something of the sort,’ he admitted.

She took the head of the table with Bernardo on her right. When he had been alone Lajos and a footman were in attendance on him. He now realised that this lavish service was merely the ordinary routine for bachelors. Magda rated full uniform for Lajos—which made him look as if he had just dismounted from a horse on a chilly evening—and an extra footman, plus formal poppings-in and poppings-out of the housekeeper whom Bernardo had seldom seen. She was presumably acting as a jack-in-the-box chaperon.

The first flash of sympathy could not be developed under many eyes so that he was compelled to be on his best behaviour. Excitement helped rather than hindered. It was essential to convince Baroness Magda von What’s-his-name that he was a possible companion before opening up other possibilities.

She questioned him about what he had been doing in Spain. Bernardo promoted himself to shipping manager and launched into his love of the country. No, he didn’t know any of the grandees she mentioned. She replied that they were a stuffy lot and not up-to-date.

‘Everybody knows that the English manufacture their gentlemen, and very well,’ she said.

Bernardo let that pass, allowing it to be thought that some imperial public school was responsible for him. For a few seconds the dreamy detachment of good wine took over and he observed his performance with satisfaction. What the hell
was
responsible? Spain and his mother for manners; the Jesuits for quick reaction and the ability to hold his own in any society; his father for dignity; a year at a Polytechnic for the unimportant skills of earning a business living which any fool could pick up in the course of it.

Over the coffee she exclaimed:

‘All this is such a bore. Give me the twentieth century!’

That was comforting. One was always entitled to be optimistic when young women started to purr about the twentieth century. Certainly she was determined to show her disapproval of the Kalmody style of living. There had been a puzzling impatience in her attitude to the family retainers, which sometimes gave an impression of dislike for the person rather than the system. Bernardo was surprised to discover that the Spanish half of him was on their side.

‘I am a socialist,’ she announced.

Those lovely, flashing eyes, dark blue now rather than violet! He adored her fire and sincerity, though she was the most improbable socialist he had ever come across. Socialists were his dear iron-workers in Baracaldo. Still, they might not be the only kind. Somebody had to deal little by little with all this colossal, wasteful wealth.

Meanwhile this exquisite example of conspicuous consumption—probably dressed by one of those Paris names seen in print and forgotten—had demanded from Lajos her father’s
best cognac. It was the first time Bernardo had seen a woman drink brandy; after sipping his own he could not take his eyes off the brown and gold of hair and glass, and the red brocade provocatively outlining those imperious young breasts.

After dinner the long vistas of the garden beckoned, where the pyramid moon shadows of cypress and Irish yew fell across the gravel walks. Bernardo was now in the delightful state when he would have accepted Eden as plain fact and advised the Almighty—with genial respect—how to run the place. He was aware that Magda liked him but had no idea, being still young enough to suppose that seduction was the prerogative of the male, how to initiate slap-and-tickle with a Kalmody. One couldn’t just grab the flower of Europe and any soft meetings of hands seemed provincial.