The Pendragon Legend

by Antal Szerb

  People die on days like these.

  Poor Joe, for example. I was feeling very much like this the night he took poison. Or again that morning just before I read in the paper that Jennifer Andrews and her party of holidaymakers had drowned at sea. We never know when our souls will meet their fate (my thoughts: the words are Madach’s).

  Sleep was out of the question, so I considered a walk in the park. But an indefinable fear smothered every impulse.

  Eerie images attract one another. The less you want to think about them, the more they clamour for attention. My mind kept returning to the Earl’s weird animals, the huge axolotls, and their deathly-white, gelatinous bodies cruising among the long-stemmed water plants. Some of them must have died ten times … if one escaped now, and got into my room …

  I switched on the main light and paced up and down.

  The eerie anxiety that filled me was some sort of reaction of nerves inflamed by a day in which too much had happened, more than enough to fill several months.

  This rustling I can hear … must surely be an owl? Strange bird, able to see in the dark, like the Connemarans.

  That call … must be the call of some bird, woken suddenly. If I knew anything at all about birds I might have been able to identify it …

  That sharp crack—a stout branch in the wind?

  Those velvet footsteps … no doubt one of the huge dogs. There are two of them, one called Maxim, the other a St Bernard called Emir. Strange that such large creatures should walk so very quietly.

  And those muffled noises … as though someone were prodding my head with a pole wrapped in sponge … Someone is walking about in the Earl’s room above my head. No doubt he can’t sleep either.

  The moon is like a … like a … but who nowadays could invent a new simile for the moon? The moon is the moon.

  And now this noise, like someone scraping on the masonry. Perhaps the guardian angels of Llanvygan are polishing the walls to make them glow brighter in the morning sun?

  But, Doctor, something really is scraping against the walls!

  Then a horrible, utterly inhuman scream ripped the night to shreds; followed by a muffled thud, somewhere down below, in some unfathomable depth.

  I rushed to the window. Below me, a dark body lay writhing. Above, out on the balcony, someone was standing. Or floating? I really can’t say, the whole scene was so improbable. He was dressed in black—perhaps the millstone ruff was something my imagination added? Or was the entire figure a phantom of the mind, born of that strange night and its charge of secret significance?

  The apparition remained there for a moment, then vanished.

  Then reality returned in a triumphant explosion of noise: the slamming of doors, the pounding of feet, voices questioning loudly on all sides. Down in the garden people were running about with torches.

  I dashed out into the corridor and down the steps to join them. I was again myself. The witching hour was over.

  We stood around the body: the Earl in his dressing gown, looking dishevelled, Osborne in a raincoat; everyone looking altogether strange.

  Someone raised the corpse’s head and turned its face to the light. We recognised it at once. Maloney.

  When someone dies everything becomes clear and simple. Alive, he was full of wiles and sinister intentions hidden behind his fantastical yarns. And here he lay. Having established a suitable alibi by escaping on the motorbike, he had returned, hoping to make his way up the wall and into the Earl’s apartment. He had fallen—or been pushed by unknown hands. When they fall from a height of two storeys, even Connemarans die.

  Once again the Earl was the great commander, soldierly and impersonal, giving orders for the disposal of the body.

  But as it was lifted, I noticed how very oddly the poor chap had fallen. His neck was twisted round and his face turned backwards, the fate of sorcerers in the Divine Comedy.

  As Osborne and I moved slowly away, I overheard the strange eulogy the Earl made over Maloney’s corpse:

  “He was the most amiable assassin I ever met.”

  That night I again heard the clatter of hooves. I never do sleep deeply, but as the hours ticked away the excitements of the previous day kept me in a constant state of tension. Every five minutes I awoke, then threw myself with a great groan back into the nightmare unfolding on the other side of the bed.

  It was at around 3am that I heard the hooves. I ran instantly to the window and saw the rider, with the torch in his hand, galloping towards Pendragon—just as I had on my first night in the castle.

  The Earl was present at breakfast the next morning. He had also invited the Rev Dafyd Jones. Everyone else bore signs of sleeplessness, especially Cynthia. The black rings around her eyes and her extreme paleness against the dark dress made her intensely attractive to me. She was again the legendary Lady of the Castle, hounded by the strange misfortune of her family.

  The Earl told the vicar about the events leading up to Maloney’s death: the deep suspicion he was under, his inability to produce any defence, his escape on the motorbike and secret return by night, his attempt to break into the Earl’s rooms, his fall from the second storey and the horrible manner of his dying. Though no one knew what his religious affiliation was, the Earl ordered an Anglican burial, to take place that very day, and delegated the arrangements to Osborne. No one knew of any family or friends, as Maloney had never mentioned any, and Rogers advised that he had received no letters during his stay at Llanvygan.

  The Earl also repeated his request to me to carry out what we had agreed the day before, and to do so without delay. It then occurred to us that we couldn’t catalogue the Persian codices, as planned, since neither of us knew Persian. We could understand nothing beyond the pictures. He suggested that I should select the five that seemed from their illustrations to be the oldest and most valuable, and take them to London.

  I did this, and packed my bags. We had lunch, and I took my leave of the Earl, promising him that I would return with the manuscript as soon as I could.

  Next came the touching farewell to Cynthia. It was our first parting. Choking with emotion and British reserve, she stammered:

  “I do hope you’ve enjoyed your stay with us … ” And we were both overcome by an embarrassment that conveyed more than eloquence.

  I arrived in London that evening, at my little hotel among the endless rows of similar establishments around the British Museum. Having unpacked, I went down to the dining room to face the compulsory roast beef and the gruesome vegetables that always accompanied it.

  After the meal I sat gloomily stirring an orange liquid and debating whether the inability of the English to make a decent cup of coffee was the result of Puritanical Methodist inhibition, when a hand—the heavy hand of a stone statue—descended on my shoulder.

  I looked up and discovered an old acquaintance standing over me. I felt mildly pleased to see her. It was Lene Kretzsch, who was studying history at Oxford on a Prussian state scholarship. Her vacations were usually spent in London, working in the British Museum, during which time she would stay at my hotel. As a fellow-researcher in the Reading Room I was a sort of colleague, and we were good friends.

  However, I also went in some trepidation of her. If I felt low I would avoid going back to the hotel for supper in case she joined me for a beer afterwards. It wasn’t that she was ugly. On the contrary, she was quite a handsome woman in her own substantial way, and she was always a hit with men. You might even say she was attractive, but she belonged to that class of girl whose stockings have just laddered, or who has just lost a button, or whose blouse has burst open, giving a chap the impression that she was in a state of non-stop physical development.

  The awe she inspired in me was the result of her personality. Lene Kretzsch was Gemütmensch—thoroughly genial—and really just a large lump of kindness and generosity, but at the same time she was a totally modern woman, always two weeks ahead of the latest thinking. She hated sentimentality and romantic slush, and was
a militant advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit—the ‘New Objectivity’.

  This was how our friendship began: I set myself on fire and she put me out. I’d been sitting by the hearth with The Times. I’ve never been able to handle English newspapers—apparently one has to be born with the knack of folding these productions into the microscopic dimensions achieved by the natives—and, as I flicked a page over, the entire room filled with newsprint.

  Just at that moment, it seems, the young bellboy topped up the fire, rather carelessly. The Times burst into flames, and I took on a resemblance to the Burning Bush. The details escape me. All I know is that in a trice Lene was towering over me, stamping on the blazing pages, sousing me with whatever cups of tea were on hand in the room and tugging at my hair in the belief it was being singed. Then she hauled me off to her room, washed me down, stripped me naked and dressed me in some extremely masculine woman’s garment, which was far too big for me anyway—and all before I could murmur my undying gratitude. Then she gave me a thorough scolding for being so inept.

  From that day on Lene could not be persuaded that I was anything other than helpless, hapless, and clumsy, and that I would rapidly come to grief unless someone took charge of me. Which she did.

  Every day she would burst into my room without knocking (what’s the point of knocking, anyway?) and hurl my clothes around the room in order to sew a few buttons back on. She warmed my milk for the night. She sharpened my safety razor. In the Reading Room she would descend on me as I was about to leave, bundle my notes together and tuck my briefcase under my arm. If I didn’t hang on to it very firmly she would carry it back herself.

  The situation got rather worrying until luckily, one specially warm summer’s day, it occurred to her that the heat of London was bad for me, so she packed my bags, booked a ticket for the train and despatched me to Scotland.

  This was not a bad idea. I had a fine time touring round the lochs and did not return until after the start of term, when she was safely back in Oxford. However we still met in the vacations and our friendship continued, though in a less tempestuous form. Fortunately for me, Lene liked to change her protégés on a regular basis.

  This was the other thing about her that shocked me: her boundless and wide-ranging love life. Now I’m no Puritan, and I take the view that everyone’s love life is their own affair. I also realise that Lene’s willingness to give herself was simply part of her larger benevolence and generosity. It was her unprecedented versatility that terrified me.

  For two days she might be seen with a Chinese engineer, then for a week with a Canadian farmer, who made way for a French gigolo, who would himself be replaced by an ageing German classical philologist on tour and a Polish ping-pong champion, simultaneously. And all these lovers, and myself, would be told about all the other lovers, in hair-raising detail and with a total absence of emotion, though she did make occasional reference to das Moralische, which versteht sich von selbst (I never quite discovered where the self-knowledge came in)—but it was all perfectly objective, quite terrifyingly objective.

  And behold, no sooner was I back from Llanvygan than I was again firmly under her wing. After heaping relatively mild abuse on my appearance, she hauled me off for a beer. I never dared compete with the quantity of beer she drank, or the number of cigarettes she smoked. Through a haze of gentle melancholy I sat until closing time observing her epic consumption and listening to her tales: how she had pulled two Oxford athletes out of the river, how she saved a wealthy Scot from moral ruin after he had succumbed to an uncharacteristic fit of generosity, and how she seduced a Professor of Theology who had preserved his innocence until the age of forty-five.

  At this stage I had no idea what impact her militant personality would have on my Welsh adventure. Had there been none, I should not have said so much about her, for I too am a qualified enthusiast of the ‘New Objectivity’ and am not in favour of purely incidental characters. But let’s take things one at a time.

  The next day I set out to execute my commission.

  It was not a difficult one. When I called on the Director he had already received the Earl’s letter. He explained to me, at great length, that it was quite unprecedented in the history of the Museum for an item in its possession to be given away. However, in view of the Earl’s exceptional role as a contributor to the collection … and he waxed lyrical about the treasures the Earl had presented when he had succeeded to the title.

  He then looked over the codices and asked me to bear with him until the evening. By then he hoped to have obtained permission from his superiors to hand over the manuscript, and various oriental specialists would have decided which codex they would want in exchange. I took my leave of him and informed the Earl by telegram that I would return with the manuscript the following day.

  I lunched in a little Italian restaurant in Soho. The only meal I ever took in the hotel was dinner. Two English meals a day would have done for me.

  When I got in, after my short walk, there was a letter waiting for me.

  Dear Doctor

  I’m sure you must have got back by now. Kindly call on me at Grosvenor House.

  Eileen St Claire

  That was one thing I had no desire to do. Since the business of the ring I felt the deepest distrust of her. I was convinced that she was part of the conspiracy against the Earl, and I determined to avoid the whole area around that particular hotel.

  That afternoon I called on one or two friends, then made my way back to the British Museum. Everything was in order, permission had been granted, and the experts had chosen their codex.

  “The Museum is in fact making an excellent exchange,” the Director told me. “Compared with others of its kind, the codex is worth five hundred pounds, while the manuscript is a lot of worthless nonsense, so far as I can judge. But the Earl certainly takes an interest in references to the family. There’s some impossible story in it about one of his ancestors.”

  When I got back to the hotel with the various tomes, the porter gave me a meaningful look.

  “There’s a lady waiting for you in the foyer.”

  I went down and found Eileen St Claire. She was surrounded by elderly ladies from New Zealand, all sitting stiffly at their needlework. Not a word was uttered. They just stared at her with the profound contempt all women feel for a certain sort of beauty.

  She greeted me with a smile, coolly and calmly, as if nothing could be more natural than for her to be waiting there for me. “You simply must have dinner with me,” she said. “It’s most important that I should speak with you.”

  With the awkward manner of a schoolboy I cobbled together a couple of lies. I’m not a good liar. My various appointments with supposed friends must have sounded pretty implausible, and I probably made too many excuses.

  Not for a moment did she go through the motions of believing me. She didn’t even dismiss my excuses as unimportant. She simply continued to insist that I dine with her.

  My resistance gradually weakened. After all, it wasn’t every day I had the chance to dine with such a beautiful woman. And dinner at Grosvenor House would surely be of a different order to the one that threatened me at the hotel. And what could possibly happen? I would tell her only what I thought fit. I might even learn some things I didn’t know.

  The reasons for my reluctance were not, in the first instance, particularly rational. No doubt I was clinging to the superstitious notion that nothing good could come from anything connected with Eileen St Claire because I found her so very beautiful. Such paradoxical taboos lurk at the heart of our desires.

  In the end I gave my consent, by which time I would have been distraught had she changed her mind. I felt an inexpressible longing to see her doing such ordinary things as eating and drinking.

  I took the books up to my room and locked them in the cupboard. As fast as was humanly possible, I changed for the evening, and went back down. She straightened my tie in the foyer.

  One of her Hispanolas was waiting for
us outside, and we glided off to Grosvenor House.

  As soon as we were in the car she asked:

  “So, how did it happen?”

  “Exactly as you read in the papers. He fell from the second floor. Climbing was his passion, and it cost him his life.”

  “That’s horrible. But I don’t believe it. I was with him once in Switzerland. He went up the most impossible rock faces, with the very worst reputations. I can’t imagine him falling from a simple balcony.”

  “It’s happened to others. You climb a hundred rocks with no problem, and fall off the hundred-and-first, which is probably far less dangerous.”

  “It couldn’t have happened to Maloney.”

  “So what do you think did happen?” I asked, somewhat alarmed.

  “He was pushed.”

  “What do you mean? Who could have pushed him?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t point to anyone in particular. But I’ve known the people at Llanvygan a lot longer than you have. You’ve no idea, Doctor, what you’ve got involved in.”

  I had no intention of letting her know that I did: that I was fully aware that she and Maloney were members of a very dark plot. All I wanted was to have dinner with the beautiful woman Eileen St Claire, and not to talk about anything beyond what one usually does talk about with a beautiful woman.

  We arrived at Grosvenor House. I gathered, with a mixture of surprise, pleasure and anxiety, that we were to dine in her private suite.

  The dinner-for-two began as if we had no secrets to exchange but simply wished to pass the evening pleasantly. But it was quite hard work keeping her amused. She gave minimal responses to my contributions and made very few herself. The same cannot be said of me: the fine meal and the wine were already loosening my tongue.

  She ate and drank much as anyone else would; in fact she ate with good appetite and proved a serious drinker. The wine seemed to make her more human. Her voice became a shade more natural and casual, and she looked one in the eye in an almost friendly way—or at least very seductively. Every so often I would put a personal question to her, but she evaded it every time.