The Tightening String

by Ann Bridge

  After tea Margit asked the Eynshams if they would care to drive to one of the villages on the estate? ‘I must take some medicine to an old woman who is sick – the Morvens so kindly brought it down.’ David thought he would rest and look at some papers; Rosina went. A light waggonette was drawn up at the front door, with four white Arab horses – so much nicer than a car, Rosina thought. The village, only a few miles away, was typically Hungarian: all the houses set end on to the street, not facing it, and surrounded by gardens bright with flowers; under the deep eaves red peppers hung like crimson fingers against the white walls; huge yellow gourds were ripening on the roofs. The interior of the house where the old woman lived with her daughter and son-in-law fascinated Mrs Eynsham, who had never before penetrated into a Hungarian peasant’s home. The floor was of earth, but trodden dark and smooth and as hard, almost, as parquet, and covered with arabesques scrawled in white chalk – these, Margit told her, were renewed every day, after the floor had been wiped over with a damp cloth. ‘And you see’ her hostess added practically, ‘here there is no home for bugs. Bugs live between the cracks in wooden floors; but if no wood, no bugs! Americans think it so low to have floors made of earth; but in Haarlem and in the Bronx there are often bugs, no?’

  ‘I daresay; there certainly are in Whitechapel and Bethnal Green.’ But Rosina was comparing the riches, here, with the interiors of crofters’ cottages in the Highlands, or the dreary little houses in the older part of Oxford; let alone the bungalows in which so many of the English working-classes lived – the cheap ‘suite’ of an undersized sofa and two arm-chairs, the fumed oak table, the general , mass-produced hideousness. Here hand-made walnut chairs stood round a big solid table; beautiful eathenware, patterned in local designs, hung from hooks on the walls; at the further end of the room a bed was piled with seven goose-down quilts, its sheets of hand-woven linen heavily embroidered in red. Everything was the direct product of honest local craftsmanship; nothing had been produced in bulk for profit, but made on the spot for daily use – hence, inescapably, it was beautiful.

  Some time after the medicines had been handed over to the daughter – while the old lady sat, dignified and talking politely in an upright chair – they took their leave. Two village boys had been holding the Arabs’ restless heads; the lovely creatures bounded forward when released, up the long dusty village street – Rosina commented on the well-kept gardens on either side.

  ‘Yes, they love their gardens; and they keep their plots so well, too.’

  ‘Plots?’

  ‘Oh yes, each house has a plot, half a hectare about, to grow their own vegetables in, and sun-flowers for oil, and poppies for their bread.’ (This did not puzzle Rosina, who already knew how good bread sprinkled with poppy-seed tasted; she also knew that all peasants who worked for a ‘Magna’ got their supply of bread-grains from their employers as part of their wages.)

  Up by the whitewashed church they turned and started to drive back, but halfway down the street Margit checked the horses with an exclamation of dismay. ‘Oh dear, we are too late! Here come the animals.’ She pulled in to the side of the road and called to another couple of boys to hold the horses’ heads. In the distance a cloud of dust appeared, golden in the evening light, from which as it drew nearer came a loud noise of squealing and lowing. Scores and scores of the leggy Hungarian pigs came galloping along, small parties peeling off and turning in smartly at the gateway of the house where they belonged; after them, more soberly, cows and calves, who did likewise; bringing up the rear, white under the golden cloud of dust, a flock of geese stepped sedately, pausing to bite at the roadside grass, and being chivvied on by a girl with fair plaits who tapped them with a long willow wand to direct their progress.

  ‘Where are they all coming from?’ Rosina asked, amused.

  ‘Oh, they have been out grazing all day. Ernest gives them the grazing free, of course, and pays the wages of the cowherd and swineherd.’

  ‘Good gracious!’ Again Rosina was thinking of small Highland crofts, and of the conditions under which English agricultural labourers worked. ‘How many animals does Ernest feed free, for goodness sake?’

  ‘Each house may graze five cows and their calves; but for pigs, not more than forty. The geese no one counts, of course; they do not eat much.’

  ‘My dear Margit, they do! And foul the land frightfully into the bargain.’

  ‘So? Well anyhow, Ernest doesn’t pay the goose-girl’ Margit said laughing, as they drove off again through the cloud of dust which still hung over the road.

  Dressing for dinner that evening, Rosina noticed a curious thing. Rather than ring for a housemaid – though there were bells at Terenzcer – she asked David if he would fasten her dress, and stood before the tall cheval-glass while he tugged at the zip, grumbling that she had been putting on weight; once or twice he let go, and shook his hands impatiently. When he did this, in the glass she saw the palms of his hands more clearly than one usually does see the palms of anyone’s hands, and was struck by the fact that the outer bottom corner of each, opposite the ball of the thumb, was bright pink. She considered asking him about this odd phenomenon, but decided not to – David hated being questioned; she soon forgot about it.

  Margit Erdöszy was fond of David, and he of her; next day she took him for a drive in the Bakony, again in a waggonette with white Arabs. Rosina stayed behind to write to prisoners’ relations acknowledging their cheques and promising to send parcels; outside the window Lucilla, Endre, Erszi and a young cousin of Margit’s played desultory tennis, and then sat in the shade – looking up from her writing now and again Rosina observed that Lucilla, however elegantly, was flirting with the pale young man in a way which troubled her. She decided to speak to her daughter. But then before lunch David came in, happy and enthusiastic as he seldom was except about natural objects – Margit had known exactly where to go along the grassy rides; more than once they had caught glimpses of stags, and had visited two of the muddy wallows in which the wild boar cooled and cleansed themselves – one old brute, snorting and grunting, had heaved his great bulk up out of the slough and lumbered off dripping under their very eyes. In the afternoon everyone but David and the German went off to ride, and in the evening the young people danced to the gramophone, when the flirtation was more marked than ever – there was no convenient opportunity to speak to Lucilla. Oh well, tomorrow.

  Tomorrow was Sunday, and Mrs Eynsham, who had a thoroughly Scottish feeling about keeping up some form of religious observance on the Sabbath, accompanied her host and hostess to Mass at ten, as did Gina Morven and Erszi Erdsozy; Count Endre said he had been at eight, which nobody believed. The village church was only a short distance from the house; Count Ernest and his party installed themselves in the large family pew, at one side of the chancel and raised a foot or so above it, so that the occupants had a good view of the whole congregation. This completely filled the church: many of the men, in dark sober Sunday cloth, stood at the back, while all the children were congregated in the chancel itself – the little kneeling figures in their bright costumes made it as gay as a flower-bed. The prettiest sight imaginable, Rosina thought, watching the little sun-browned hands fingering their rosaries, their small dark or tow-blonde heads devoutly bent.

  The service, with no sermon, ended unusually soon; the priest, Count Ernest told his guests as they walked back to the house, had explained that he must hurry away to take Extreme Unction to a dying man – ‘They have to work hard, our priests’ he said. As he spoke he opened a small door leading into the garden, and stood aside to usher Mrs Eynsham through it – there, in an arbour, she saw Count Endre holding Lucilla’s hands and kissing them in turns; Lucilla was making faces at him.

  Both were too well-bred to do anything so awkward as to spring apart. Lucilla stood perfectly still; Count Endre dropped her left hand and raised the other to his lips, rather formally; then he walked over with casual ease towards the party coming in by the garden door. How much the others
had seen Mrs Eynsham couldn’t know, but when Lucilla also joined them she said, equally casually – ‘Darling, come and help me to stamp my letters; there are such masses.’

  Up in the big bedroom Rosina threw off her hat, and began to run a comb through her hair in front of the looking-glass – she wanted to gain time.

  ‘Whatever you want to say, do please say it’ Lucilla said, in a curious uneven voice – looking round her Mother saw that the child was almost shaking with nerves.

  ‘I really don’t know what to say’ Rosina said frankly, putting down the comb. ‘I should like to say something that you would find sensible, and a help, if I could. What would you say, in my place?’

  At that the nervous tension broke. Lucilla first laughed, then began to cry; and went on laughing and crying.

  ‘Oh Mummy, you are a devil! No, in a way you’re rather angelic. Only – I wonder if you can possibly understand? It’s just because I’m so frantic about Hamish, shut up and lousy and half-starved, that I simply must have some distraction – man-distraction, don’t you see? I mean, what other is there? She paused.’ Anyhow Endre’s simply a clown; I like Hugo muck better’ she added inconsequently.

  While Mrs Eynsham was wondering if she did understand, and what, if anything, to say next, there came a tap on the door – Lucilla hurriedly escaped into the bathroom. It was Margit Erdoszy, come to suggest that they should all drive to the pool and have a swim before luncheon. ‘Your husband says he will come.’

  ‘Yes, we’d love to, Margit dear,’ Rosina said rather distractedly.

  ‘In about ten minutes, then.’ Her hostess closed the door again.

  Even that brief interruption had enabled Mrs Eynsham to know what she wanted to say to her daughter, and when that young woman emerged from the bathroom she said it at once.

  ‘I trust you, Lucilla – and if you are sure you can trust yourself, that’s all right, at least where Endre is concerned. I’m not so sure about Hugo, though.’

  Lucilla had seated herself at the dressing-table, and was using her Mother’s cream and powder to restore her face. She surprised her parent by saying – ‘D’you remember what you said when you were giving me a pep-talk about sex, before my Confirmation?’

  ‘No – I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Well I remember, because I thought it made sense. You said people had come to have such a bogus idea of female ‘virtue’, as a wretched sort of wilting flower that had to be protected at all costs; whereas really the word came from the Latin virtus, strength, and that one should be ready to take almost any risks, provided one had a sense of responsibility for the other person – that was the one important thing.’

  ‘Good gracious!’ Parents are always astonished when their children recall, let alone quote, heavy advice given in the past. ‘Fancy your remembering! Well, I daresay I did – it’s what I believe, anyhow.’ The thought of Sir Hugh flicked, unbidden, into her mind as she spoke.

  ‘Well I haven’t ever forgotten, and I shan’t forget – about Hamish, or about Hugo either.’ She got up and gave her Mother a quick kiss. ‘You funny pretty Mummy! You still have your problems, don’t you? I must go and get my swim-suit.’ She ran off, leaving Mrs Eynsham aghast at the perspicacity of youth.

  Chapter 6

  As the party was assembling in the hall the telephone rang. Margit Erdöszy went into her little morning-room to take the call; she came out looking pleased.

  ‘It was Anna Dolinsky. She asked if they could bring their house-party over to swim, and come back for drinks before lunch.’

  ‘What did you say?’ her husband asked, with a rather disturbed glance in Mrs Eynsham’s direction.

  ‘Oh, but of course Yes! Isn’t it nice?’ Margit said innocently. ‘She is so gay’ she added, turning to her principal guest. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  ‘She has her own sense of humour’ Rosina replied equably. But when she was seated beside her host on the box of the first waggonette he said in a low voice – ‘I am sorry about this. Margit is rather une tête folle; she cannot remember to be discreet socially.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry, Ernest. Anna is rather fun, really. So long as you don’t let her try to drown any of us today!’ She had already realised that the Balaton episode must have become public property, probably through Anna’s own lively tongue.

  ‘Nothing untoward shall happen, I assure you’ the Count said, as earnest as his name.

  The pool where one bathed at Terenczer was not in the least like a swimming-pool in the commonly accepted sense of the word – a thing all cement, with paved walks surrounding it. Here was a small lake on the edge of the forest, with huge oak trees overhanging its further end; where the carriages drew up on a gravelled space with the usual bathing-hut it was open and sunny, the grassy banks covered with wild flowers. Rosina Eynsham had had a dress made of the same material as her bathing-suit, and – partly with the rather futile idea of creating an impression, especially on Anna Dolinsky – stood smoking and chatting till that lady and her party drove up; then, after greetings and introductions, she simply unbuttoned her frock and threw it over a bush, before taking a header into the lake.

  In fact she did create an impression on Countess Anna.

  ‘Aber! This I never saw before’ she said to Margit.’ How clever. ‘David Eynsham grinned – however contemptuous he might be about his wife to her face, like all husbands he liked to see her scoring off another woman.

  Soon the lake was full of swimming figures – men’s heads, sleek and dripping, and the variously-coloured bathing-caps of the women; there was laughter and splashing. All this rather bored David Eynsham; he swam off a little way up the lake, and amused himself by climbing out and doing running dives from the shore, over and over again. It was Count Endre who first noticed what happened. He had left the pool and was standing on the bank, sunning himself and smoking, and chatting with Countess Dolinsky, who lay floating in the water at his feet. ‘You can’t dive as well as Mr Eynsham’ he mocked her.’ Come up and watch.’ The pretty woman took his outstretched hand, sprang up, and stood beside him.

  ‘Yes, that was a beautiful dive’ she said, as the Englishman’s lean fragile body took the water so cleanly and smoothly that there was hardly a splash. But when David Eynsham surfaced, instead of swimming back to the shore, he put both hands to his chest, and then began rather feebly to struggle towards the bank, gasping; suddenly, as Count Endre watched, puzzled, he went under. Anna Dolinsky had turned away to speak to the German; she swung round sharply as the Count exclaimed – ‘Jesus Maria! He has a cramp!’

  ‘Who? Eynsham?’ Without another word she dived in and swam off up the lake. Count Endre called to his cousin that something was wrong – ‘Are there blankets? Get them out’ – and then swam after her. Rosina, who had been keeping a wary eye on Countess Anna, overheard part of this, and scrambled hastily up the bank. ‘Where’s David?’ she asked her host, who had also climbed out by some wooden steps. ‘He was diving in up there a moment ago; but now I can’t see him.’

  ‘I know nothing – excuse me, I send for blankets.’ He gave orders to a groom and one of the waggonettes went racing off along the forest road, the hooves of the four Arabs raising the dust in clouds. Rosina looked up the lake again – Countess Anna had reached the spot where David had been diving. Suddenly she submerged – a thing only experienced swimmers can do from the surface of the water; there was splashing, and then she appeared again, with David’s head beside hers. By now Count Endre had come up with her; he took Eynsham’s body in his arms, turned on his back, and swam swiftly, towing his inert burden, back to the steps. ‘Give a hand’ he called to Count Dolinsky; between then they lifted Eynsham up onto the bank, and laid him down.

  By this time all the party had collected on the shore, in astonished dismay. Gina Morven stepped forward.

  ‘Do not let him lie! – lift him up! If he sink-a, his lungs are full of water – take his feet, and hold up upright-a.’ Since no one else had any other ideas, this
was done, and a certain amount of water gushed from Eynshan’s mouth.

  ‘Somesing to lie him on, now –’ Gina said, continuing to give orders as briskly as a sergeant-major. ‘Zis!’ She snatched a bath-robe of Turkish towelling off the shoulders of the astonished German professor, and spread it on the gravel – ‘Lay him on zis. Now’ she said to Count Endre, ‘you work-a his arms up and down, so – and I press-a his sides.’ She showed the Hungarian the precise movements for reviving the partly drowned, combining them with her own rhythmic pressure on the ribs to bring air back into the sodden lungs. The rest of the party stood round, watching the white face, the closed eyes, the gaping mouth.

  ‘Move-a! He want air!’ Gina said, panting a little with effort – applying effective pressure to a man’s ribs is quite hard work. They moved aside. ‘Rosina, can you do zis, if I show you? We take-a in turns.’

  ‘Yes’ Rosina said. She came and knelt on the harsh gravel beside her husband, and began to repeat Gina’s movements. ‘So? That right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I think we ought to get a doctor’ Rosina said, pressing away. ‘Where is the nearest good one?’

  ‘I know! I go’ Anna Dolinsky said. ‘At Szekesféhervàr – it is not so far!’ And abandoning her house-party she threw a bath-robe over her bikini and drove off in one of the Dolinsky cars.

  Reviving the half-drowned is a slow and arduous business. Count Dolinsky relieved Endre Erdöszy with the arm movements at intervals; Gina and Rosina took turns at the pressure on the ribs. At last – just as the carriage returned and a groom hurried over with an armful of blankets – David Eynsham opened his eyes; he gulped up a mouthful of lake-water. Gina, like lightning, raised him in her arms. ‘Be sick, David’ she urged – he was, bringing up more water and the remains of his breakfast. She wiped him down with the unhappy German’s bath-robe; then with Count Endre and Rosina’s help he was wrapped in blankets. ‘Now, brandy!’ Gina commanded.