The Pendragon Legend

by Antal Szerb

  “Let’s have it.”

  “In his will, Roscoe stipulated that, in the event of his dying an unnatural death, his whole fortune should go to the Earl of Gwynedd and his successors.”

  “That’s nonsense, Maloney. They don’t make wills like that in England.”

  “It certainly isn’t nonsense. Old Roscoe became obsessed with the idea that his wife wanted to poison him. That’s why he made this secret will.”

  “And why the Pendragons?”

  “Because he owed everything to the seventeenth Earl. And also, because he’d stolen the man’s fiancée from under his nose he had a bad conscience all his life and he wanted to make amends.”

  “So that’s why the Earl is taking an interest in tropical diseases. He thinks there was something fishy about Roscoe’s illness, and that he has a claim on the estate.”

  “I think so.”

  I had found my bearings. My profound attachment to things out of the ordinary had led me to a great mystery which, who knows, I might be destined to solve—though it rather pained me to think how much I knew about everything but tropical medicine. I sensed that the whole business was intimately connected with the telephone call. Something was afoot. The Parcae were spinning their threads.

  By now Osborne’s conversation with Pat had come to a complete full stop. They were just sitting there, solemnly and in silence. Her face conveyed mild irritation, his total boredom. I got up and went over to the girl, while Maloney started to chat to Osborne.

  “So,” I asked her, “how did you find the honourable gentleman?”

  “Honourable or not, all I can say is that he’s a very odd bloke. I don’t give a toss for titles, but I do expect a man to be polite.”

  “Why, was he rude?”

  “He certainly was. He went on the whole time about some German called Dante who sent people to Hell. And this colleague of mine, called Lais—Dante wrote that she would be floating about in … I really can’t tell you what. Journalists shouldn’t be allowed to write that sort of thing about a nice girl. But that’s the type he mixes with.”

  “I adore nice girls,” I said, taking her hand. “You’re a thoroughly nice girl, I’m a thoroughly nice boy. In this wicked world we should stick together.”

  “Yes, I saw at once that you had a good heart,” she replied. To reinforce this judgement I sat even closer and put my arm around her waist.

  “I’m as true as bread and butter,” I proclaimed with feeling.

  “Yes, I can tell from your eyes you’d be very nice if we got even closer.”

  This emboldened me to kiss her shoulder.

  “I’ve no idea what you would be like close up. We should find out.”

  The rest of my wooing was conducted through actions rather than words. Oh, the miraculous, electric suppleness of these island girls! Only a poem could express the joy of caressing one after midnight.

  But such is my deplorable character that even as I busied myself with these amorous gymnastics I was listening with half an ear to the conversation Maloney was having with Osborne.

  And what I thought I heard shocked me deeply. He appeared to be suggesting that I’d done everything I could to get myself invited to Llangyvan, and had only gone to Lady Malmsbury-Croft’s because I’d known the Earl would be there.

  Meanwhile Pat was busy telling me something, and I lost concentration. They could have been talking about an entirely different matter and, with my usual hypersensitivity, I’d simply been imagining things.

  I pulled away from Pat. She stared at me in astonishment. Everything had begun so well between us.

  But why on earth did Maloney tell that lie? Because he was incapable of telling the truth, or because he just couldn’t understand what people told him? Or was it … that there was a purpose behind it, something to do with the conspiracy my troubled intuition had warned me about?

  For a while Osborne listened to Maloney without interest, then stood up.

  “Sorry, I must be off. See you again at Llanvygan.”

  And without even shaking hands, he vanished like the Cheshire cat. Clearly he couldn’t bear to sit a minute longer beside a woman.

  Maloney went over to another table, leaving me alone with Pat. Forget about Maloney, I thought: I’m going to take this girl home. A philologist is a man, after all. How wonderful her white body would be, at full stretch on a bed. I could spend an hour just gazing at her.

  “Are you fond of music?”

  “Awfully. You should see me dance.”

  “Do you know what? I think we should move on. Come and have a cup of tea at my place. I’ll get the gramophone out and we’ll dance.”

  “The very idea! I’ve only just met you!”

  “That’s no problem. We’ll make up for lost time later.”

  “If you were an Englishman I’d slap your face.”

  “But since I’m not, why not kiss me instead?”

  “There are too many people watching,” she said, encouragingly.

  Everything would have been fine if I’d got up and left just then. I would have had a magnificent night, in London, where the great Casanova endured six weeks of celibacy. But fate decreed that at just that moment I should glance across at Maloney’s table.

  I don’t know whether it was in fact or in my imagination—I can’t always tell them apart—but I had the distinct impression that Maloney was signalling to the girl.

  And suspicion welled up in me even more strongly than before: not ordinary suspicion, it was more like some ecstatic, primeval, almost metaphysical terror. She was clearly working with them. Our chance meeting with her had been prearranged. And if I now took her home, God knows what might happen.

  But what could happen? What was I afraid of? How could anyone be afraid of such a beautiful, delicate creature? I really couldn’t explain my feelings. Murder and robbery I could easily associate with Maloney, but they would have been the very last thing …

  My mind was filled with shadowy, convoluted imaginings, the thought that I was about to become inextricably entangled in the dark enigma that surrounded Llanvygan. The threat over the telephone, the midnight rider, the death of William Roscoe were all bound up in that fear. And the fear was stronger than I was. Fear is a passion.

  “Darling,” I said to Pat, “not this time. I’ve just remembered that my nephew has arrived from the country and will be sleeping in my flat tonight. But all is not lost that is delayed. Promise me we’ll meet again.”

  She gave me a look of undisguised contempt.

  I took my leave of Maloney, arranged to see him the following day, and trudged off home.

  The next morning I was of course deeply upset by what had happened, and I cursed the morbidly suspicious character I had been born with. Where others are made bold and carefree by drink, it just fills me with black bile. But it was too late. I never saw her again.

  Over the next few days I continued my intellectual preparations for the Welsh adventure. I leafed once more through the folios containing Fludd’s literary legacy. I found the Latin text hard going, thickly interspersed as it was with cabbalistic Hebrew, but I don’t think I would have understood much more had it been in Hungarian. As I scribbled my notes the feeling never left me that the Earl would make everything clear.

  From Fludd’s Medicina Catholica I learnt to my surprise that all diseases can be attributed to meteors, winds, the various regions of the earth and the archangels who blow the winds. And furthermore, that the soundest method of understanding a man’s character was through his urine, following the principles of the little-known science of uromancy.

  I read his biography by Archdeacon Craven, and re-read Denis Saurat’s excellent Milton and Christian Materialism, which devotes an extremely interesting chapter to Fludd.

  According to Saurat, the intellectual circle that included Fludd and Milton did not view the soul as independent of the body. As committed Christians they had not a moment’s doubt about its immortality, which forced the conclusion th
at the body too must be immortal. I was reminded of the Pendragons’ motto: ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body.’

  What, I wondered with a dismaying sense of superstitious confusion, would that have meant to people of past centuries, inclined as they were to take things literally? Who knows, they might even have thought that they too would rise from their graves in some not-too-distant future. According to the legend, the night rider did just that, when impelled to deal out justice on behalf of the murdered physician.

  Maloney had cancelled the meeting at which we were to decide on our precise travel arrangements. I had by now more or less assumed I would be travelling alone, when, on the very last day before we were due to leave, he suddenly appeared.

  “Hello, Doc! Well, are we going to Wales?”

  “I certainly am. What about you?”

  “I dithered about it for a couple of days. I got a very tempting invitation to Cuba—they’re going to stage these amazing cockfights, a sort of Olympic Games for cocks. But then I thought, I can’t leave Osborne in the lurch, and I can’t let you wander round this crazy country peering out of your specs. You might even get lost and end up in Scotland, and God preserve you from that!”

  “So, we’re off tomorrow on the one-fifteen.”

  “No, no—that’s what I wanted to tell you. A very kind friend of mine, Mrs St Claire, has offered to drive us to Chester. From there we take the train to Corwen, where Osborne will be waiting for us in his car. Is that alright?”

  By now my attack of distrust had passed, and in fact I had something of a guilty conscience as regards Maloney, so I was happy to accept the offer.

  “I’m very grateful to Mrs St Claire for her kindness. But what sort of person is she? Won’t she mind travelling with a complete stranger?”

  “On the contrary. I told her you’re Hungarian and, would you believe it, she said Hungarians really do exist, and she’s extremely fond of them, because their history is so much like ours, we being the Irish. You never mentioned that. She said she absolutely insisted on meeting you, so you could talk about Hungary. She’s going there in August.”

  The story seemed plausible enough. Maloney’s lies generally involved a greater element of fantasy. We arranged to meet the following day at the Grosvenor House Hotel, where the lady was staying.

  When I arrived, Maloney was waiting for me in the foyer.

  “I wired Osborne yesterday to tell him we were coming, and to be there waiting for us. I’ve just had his reply to say that’s fine. The lady will be down in a jiffy.”

  And indeed, a few minutes later a tall, elegant woman in a motoring jacket approached us with a dazzling smile. Once she was close enough for my myopic vision to take in the striking beauty of her face and form, she seemed strangely familiar, and by the time we had shaken hands and exchanged greetings I had recognised her, and remembered what a remarkable person she was. My heart was beating wildly.

  Three years earlier I had spent the summer at Fontainebleau with my friend Cristofoli, an archaeologist and poet. My poor aunt Anna had recently died and I was flush with money. We were lodging, in great style, at the Hôtel de l’Angleterre et de la France, beside the Park.

  One day Cristofoli, who by the way was the most sensitive creature on earth, became much more animated than usual, and announced that he was in love.

  The object of his favour soon arrived. I had actually seen her in the dining room the previous day. She was always alone. And she really was beautiful, not merely by the uniform standards of the age of film but in her own, highly individual way. She was absolutely distinctive.

  Cristofoli was himself a fine-looking young man and extremely enterprising by nature. He had ascertained that her name was Eileen St Claire, a British subject who had arrived from Paris by car. Nothing more was known about her. She appeared only at meal times, after spending the entire day driving her Hispano through the forest, alone.

  Cristofoli passed the day reciting Petrarch’s sonnets while he waited for evening to arrive. He hoped to introduce himself to her during the ballroom dancing session, but she failed to appear there. That night he slept not a wink, nor did he allow me to, and I began to feel a certain antipathy towards the lady.

  The days that followed were more exciting than a hunt. Cristofoli was resourceful and difficult to shake off. As a poet he felt himself above the usual social conventions. Whenever her car arrived at the hotel he would open the door and help her out. Eileen St Claire would give him a friendly nod and move on without so much as a word. This was done so coolly and so quickly he was unable even to begin reciting the prose poem he had spent so many days devising.

  His last hope was the 14th of July, the national holiday whose cheerful anarchy always brings people together. The entire town was out on the street, dancing, drinking and exchanging familiarities. I was afraid that the lady would keep aloof from this popular event. We were out celebrating, not far from the hotel, and had befriended all the showgirls and coloured people, when suddenly we caught sight of her tall figure.

  In a flash, Cristofoli forced his way through the protesting crowd to present himself before her and, in the heat of the moment, offered her the first thing that came to hand—a cheap toy trumpet.

  “Thank you,” she said, with a smile, and miraculously vanished, like a rabbit from a conjuror’s hat. Cristofoli ripped off his necktie and tore it to shreds.

  His only hope now was to rescue her from some major conflagration, carrying her out of the flames in his mighty arms.

  Then one day she was no longer alone. There was a man at her table, a hideously degenerate-looking man with a distinctly green complexion. He spoke in a low, rapid voice while she listened with a look of exasperation. Cristofoli was beside himself, and calmed down only when he learnt from the head waiter that the man was her doctor. Eileen St Claire and the doctor then spent the afternoon in her suite of rooms.

  “Of course it’s a medical examination,” I told my unhappy friend, in an attempt to cheer him up.

  That night the surprising and inexplicable denouement took place. First, the doctor left on the evening train. What happened next I have had to put together from the few incoherent words Cristofoli let fall.

  He had left the ballroom at around eleven and was on his way up to the room when he met her in the corridor. He stopped in his tracks and just stared at her in silence. In silence, she took him by the hand and led him to her suite.

  I was woken, at five a.m., by his return. His face was glowing with an unearthly happiness and he was quite incapable of conversation. He simply declaimed poetry and wept. I told him to take a sedative and let me get back to sleep.

  In the morning he dressed as fastidiously as a young girl for her first ball. I had been ready half an hour earlier, and by the time he came down for breakfast I had already heard the dreadful news and was at my wits end how to break it to him. In the end, I had to tell him: Eileen St Claire had left earlier that morning.

  We set off at once for Paris. We went to the police, to detective agencies, everywhere. All efforts to trace her were in vain.

  Then Cristofoli’s delicate nerves gave way. I was forced to take him to a sanatorium, where they nursed him for three weeks. Even after his recovery, he was never quite right again. He broke off relations with me, but also with poetry and archaeology. I lost all contact with him, and for many years thought he had committed suicide. Only recently however someone mentioned that they had seen him in Persia, where he was now Minister for Air Transport in the revolutionary government.

  And now here was I, sitting face to face with the same woman. I could hardly feel neutral towards her, and briefly considered whether I should mention that I already knew who she was. But in the end it seemed wiser to say nothing.

  We got into the car, Maloney in the driving seat and the two of us in the back. The memory of Cristofoli served only to deepen the mystery that seemed to surround her like a birthright.

  There was little conversation, and its to
ne was somehow rather distant, without genuine interest. At last the topic that Maloney had mentioned cropped up, and she expounded her views on the similarities between the Hungarians and the Irish.

  “Both nations spent hundreds of years under the oppressive ‘protection’ of a more powerful neighbour. Both showed real greatness when they had to fight against tyranny, and somehow both fell into confusion and lost their way the moment they won their independence.”

  She then spoke of the blighted centuries endured by the Irish, their national martyrs, and Kathleen-ni-Hoolihan, the immortal hag who, in her own ghostly way, symbolised the ghost-haunted land of Ireland.

  She described these beautiful and touching things—which of course I had heard before from Irish patriots—in such a remote and ethereal way it was like a lesson being repeated. I found myself wondering, to my surprise: was there any aspect of life on earth she wouldn’t take as a source of instruction, or a call to duty?

  We took a light lunch at Birmingham, then continued on our way. We had by now exhausted our fund of general topics without establishing any real personal contact. This saddened me, I must admit. I felt it would all be in vain: I would never succeed in penetrating her hinterland.

  We were not far from Chester when she turned to me:

  “I would like to ask you a favour. You’re going to Llanvygan, to the Earl of Gwynedd. The Earl was once a very good friend of mine—perhaps the best I ever had. Later, we became estranged, irrevocably estranged, as the result of a misunderstanding. But I am still very fond of him, and wish him well: from a distance, of course. And now I feel the need to remind him of my existence, after all these years.”

  So! A lyrical confession! But the manner, the tone in which it was delivered, was such as she might have used to tell me her new butler was proving satisfactory. When this woman opened her heart she became even more enigmatic than when she remained silent.

  “I wonder if you would give him this ring? Perhaps you’ll think it odd that I should ask you rather than Maloney, whom I have known all these years … but you know Maloney. He’s a thoroughly nice boy, from an excellent family, but somehow not a person you would trust with a florin. That’s why I’m asking you. I hope you don’t mind.”