They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [39]
At one moment she said, apropos of nothing, that Aron Kozma was arriving that morning on the eleven-thirty train, and then turned back to listen to Gazsi once more.
Later on, when they went in to lunch, she made the visitor sit at the place of honour on her right, for even though he was not of their class he was a visitor and a stranger while Gazsi, as a distant cousin, was treated as family. She talked mainly to Kozma, asking after all his family, his father and uncles, but especially after his father, of whom she spoke with great warmth and much sympathy.
No one could have told from her manner to the son how angry she had been, year after year, with the father. It had only been once a year and why this was no one knew but she. The truth was that, starting on her fiftieth birthday, Aron Kozma’s father, Boldizsar, had sent her birthday greetings on a postcard and that every year he had mentioned her age for all to see. Before her fiftieth birthday he had never even written a letter of congratulation – nothing until the open postcards when she was fifty – and even she had no idea why he did it. She supposed that it must be revenge for some – by her – forgotten childhood slight but remembered by him for forty-odd years. She had only been thirteen years old when Aron’s grandfather had stopped being the Abadys’ estate superintendent and had moved away from Denestornya. Since then she had never again met Boldizsar or any of his brothers, all her former childhood playmates, and however hard she tried she could not recall any possible occasion when she might have offended one of them. On the contrary she had loved them all, particularly Boldizsar, who was the same age as she and who was her very special friend. It was very annoying not to know the reason why he should so obviously set out to provoke her and yet he did, year after year, and each time it happened it spoilt her day and made her angry. But now there was no sign of all this: today Countess Roza was all smiles.
It was her form of revenge. If the father was malicious she was determined to charm the son so that when he returned home he would recount how charming and gracious she had been, how affectionately she had spoken of his father, and how gay and happy she seemed to be. She had carefully planned her reception of the son so as to show the father how ineffectual his malice had been. When Boldizsar got to hear of how sprightly and youthful she was, despite her age which he never failed to mention so gratuitously, she would have had her revenge; for she was sure it would be a real punishment for him to believe that she hadn’t even noticed his impertinence.
For Countess Roza the game was an easy one, for she was kindly by nature and now she had many happy childhood memories to recall and relate. And while she did so she often looked covertly at the young man’s face, as if searching in his dark-featured Tartar looks for a resemblance to her old playmate.
When they had finished their coffee after lunch the hostess suggested that they should all go down to the lower part of the park to look at the horses which, after the hay had been gathered in the meadows in the mountains, were always brought back to graze at Denestornya.
‘We should start at once,’ she said, and asked Balint to order the horses to be put to an open carriage so that they could do the rounds before it got dark.
‘My dear Mama, it’s only five minutes’ walk. They’re all quite close to the house, just the other side of the millstream.’
‘Never mind that, I’d rather drive. Will you come with me?’ she said to Aron. ‘They could drive us round the park so as to give you some idea of the place as it’s your first visit.’
This offer was also intended as an honour for the visitor, an honour which Countess Roza always