They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [181]
She went over to her, lifted her carefully up and sat her on the bed beside her despite the girl’s resistance. Now this resistance stopped and Regina collapsed into Julie’s lap, once again overcome by a frenzied weeping. Soon the hot rebellious sobbing faded into a more peaceful released sorrow.
Then Laszlo’s mother’s tears also began to flow.
They sat there together for a long time, the older woman rigidly upright, the young girl lying softly in her lap. Julie Ladossa’s hand gently stroked Regina’s hair, smoothly, gently, continuously stroking, stroking … eternally stroking …
At last the woman spoke, just one phrase, in a low voice: ‘Did you love him?’
‘Desperately,’ whispered the girl. ‘Desperately, desperately!’ Then she got up and put her arms round the sad unknown lady who sat beside her, and kissed her. And so they remained, kissing each other’s cheeks with their arms enlaced, the lady in the silken dress and the forlorn girl in her rags.
Together they mourned Laszlo, the mother who had forsaken him and the little girl who had remained faithful unto death.
The bells had just chimed midday when Balint came to find Julie Ladossa and take her back to Kolozsvar.
Her eyes were opened wide as if she were seeing visions. The wrinkles round her mouth seemed even deeper than before.
They had barely passed the Hubertus clubhouse when Julie Ladossa was already asking, ‘What times do the trains leave?’
‘There are three. One leaves soon, at half-past one; the next at six o’clock, and at eleven there is the night express. You can get a sleeper on that.’
‘I’d like to catch the first if it’s possible.’
They got to the station in time.
‘Thank you … for everything! Thank you very much …!’ she said as she stopped at a second-class carriage. Then she shook hands quickly and got in hurriedly as if pursued.
Balint was walking up and down in his room, thinking about Laszlo and of all those past memories that his death had brought back and which had now been buried with him, when his valet came in. It was about five o’clock.
‘Someone has come from the Central Hotel with something for your Lordship. Shall I ask him to come in?’
‘Of course.’
A messenger entered with a long package wrapped in tissue paper.
‘This was brought from one of the flower-shops for Countess Ladossa, my Lord; but she left no address and so the manager told me to bring it round here to your Lordship.’
‘Thank you,’ said Balint. ‘Put it down over there, will you?’ and handed the man a tip.
Flowers? Someone had sent flowers to Julie Ladossa?
He opened the parcel to see if there was any card enclosed so that he could return the gift to the sender.
There was nothing; only five beautiful old-fashioned roses, pale golden-yellow Maréchal Niel. There was no name, no card. Balint had no idea what to do with them. It would have been useless to send them on to Budapest for they would be dead long before they arrived, indeed they were already fully open and starting to wilt.
He carried them over to a table in the corner, meaning to find a vase for them. As he did so a few petals fell to the ground.
It was hardly worthwhile putting them in water.
PART SIX
Chapter One
Gornergrat, 3, 300 metres above sea level.
ON A NARROW RIDGE OF GRANITE there stood a small hotel built of wood on stone foundations. A broad terrace stretched across the front of the building, looking over a deep abyss. All around there was perpetual snow and, directly beneath, glaciers. Beyond these was a further immense valley shaped like a giant cauldron, so deep that from above it seemed almost unreal and the occasional houses as small as grains of rice. Beyond the cauldron was a wall of mountains over which towered the Matterhorn, a solitary peak which shot high in the air with an almost perpendicular rock-face culminating in a narrow granite spike so sharp that it was like some giant claw reaching out to the sky above.
The hotel could only be reached by cable-car. Balint had arrived at midday, called there by Adrienne who had chosen this place because,