A World to Win

by Mary Lancaster

  Slowly, his head bent towards me. Amazingly, I felt his lips on my neck, where his fingers had been, and a shudder of purely sensual pleasure ran through me. My arms moved of their own volition to hold him, then fell weakly back to my side. His fair head moved, tracing a line of kisses, warm and sweet and downwards. With a little gasp, I caught his face in my hands, and he straightened, his dark eyes clouded, his cheeks hollow in the pale lamplight. I was so consumed by love that I wanted to weep.

  “No words, Katie?” he whispered, touching my lips with one finger. “Not even a simple yes?”

  I made an effort. “What was the question?”

  He gave a low, warm breath of laughter. “Will you miss me?” he repeated, and his finger moved caressingly from my lips to my chin, sliding slowly down my neck till it was stopped between my breasts by my carelessly laced nightgown. “Will you?”

  I could not move, could not breathe. There were more fingers now, his whole hand moving, caressing, softly closing. I could not even think of being outraged: I melted under his touch, and sensing it, knowing it, his other arm went around me, sweeping down my back and drawing me hard against him. My breath caught, and sighed at the devastating touch of his body. I was lost in delicious weakness.

  “Will you?” he whispered, his lips almost touching mine.

  “Yes...”

  And then his mouth sank on mine in a slow, unbearably sensual kiss, at once infinitely tender and deliberately arousing. Without my knowing it, my arms had gone around him, my hands clinging to his neck, his back, while I gave myself up to the kiss and to my own, naked desire. It had been so long...

  When his lips finally left mine, they were smiling.

  “One truth,” he murmured. “Here is another: you have no idea how much I have wanted this... But you... you won’t live with me, you won’t marry me; sometimes you won’t even speak to me. Yet tonight... tonight you are mine.”

  His fingers were caressing my cheek. My head fell back against his shoulder. I could not deny it. I had always been his, if he had only known it.

  “Why?” he said gently. His eyes were holding mine, and in spite of the wild, barely-controlled passion in him, I could see that he wanted an answer. His finger was lightly tracing my lips. “Is this pity, Katie? Because I’m going away to join the army and you think I might be killed, you will give yourself to me for one night?”

  Bewildered, and yet sensing some truth in the words which I barely comprehended for the longing in me, I gazed up at him dumbly.

  He smiled, a tender, rueful smile. “I don’t want such a gift, Katie, generous as it is. I have no intention of dying, and I don’t want one night of love followed by months of recriminations and misunderstandings. We have had all that already. This time, it should be forever — and you still can’t risk that, can you?”

  I didn’t understand him then. I only sensed his withdrawal, although he still held me in his arms, close against his body. Helpless desire still flared in me, but I could see from his eyes that I was rejected. Humiliation rose quickly; in a moment of blind passion, I had offered myself again to this man as clearly as if I had spoken the words, and I was being refused.

  I tore my eyes free, making sudden, desperate movements to escape him; but oddly, his arms tightened, and this time he would not let me go.

  “Hush now,” he murmured. “Don’t pull away; don’t leave me just yet.”

  “What are you doing?” I whispered brokenly. “What are you...?”

  “Hush.” He laid his warm, rough cheek against mine. “I came to say good-bye, remember?”

  Abruptly, I relaxed against him, and for a long moment we held each other in that strange embrace; and gradually, a kind of peace settled over me. I don’t know which of us it came from, but I think he felt it too.

  At last, he stirred. His lips brushed my cheek, and then he straightened, loosening his hold.

  “And now, I should go.”

  Softly, I touched the shadowed skin under his eyes. “Will you go home first and sleep?”

  “No. I shall ride wildly round the city, practising being a hussar.”

  I smiled, stepping back out of his arms to see him better. “You look the part.”

  “I have plenty of gold braid,” he said lightly. “Unfortunately, no weapons. I must be expected to win those from the enemy.”

  I couldn’t bear to think of that. I picked up the lamp, carrying it with me as we passed back into the hall, and placing it carefully in its proper place. Then I turned to find him watching my face. I moved closer.

  “Lajos?” I breathed. “Will you write to me?”

  His hand lifted to my cheek. “Yes, if you wish it.” I thought he sounded surprised.

  “And you will be careful?”

  He smiled. “I promise.”

  For a fleeting moment, his eyes strayed to my lips. Then quickly he bent and brushed them with his. And that was his good-bye. A second later, he was gone, and I had nothing except the cold air which he had let in to show that he had ever been.

  Slowly, I made my way upstairs to bed. Alone.

  * * * *

  “Do you ever think, Katie,” Katalin said drearily, “that some things are just not meant to be...?”

  We had just heard that General Puchner had declared martial law in Transylvania, and in alliance with the Romanians and Saxons was taking over the country in the name of the Emperor. The implications were not lost on neither of us.

  I sighed helplessly and thought of Lajos on the Austrian border, and waited patiently, yet intensely, for the letter he had promised me.

  Yet when the letter finally came, it was only a light and humorous description of his journey and his early days with Moga’s army.

  “The men in my charge are a motley crew of heroes and villains,” he wrote. “At the moment, fortunately, they stand rather in awe of my name and seem to be immensely proud of me. Of course, we have not yet been in action, so they have not been made aware of my complete military ignorance!

  “We are waiting, apparently, for an invitation from the insurgent Viennese to help them. But only the radicals there are prepared to welcome a foreign, revolutionary army, and our conservative commanders don’t care for such communistic types. The real authorities are afraid to call on us in case, would you believe, that by so doing they offend the Emperor! It would be laughable if there were not people dying in Vienna for the same freedom we have been shouting about since March. And as you know, I have friends there whom I would give much to help...”

  Despite the light-hearted tone he had adopted, his anxiety came through to me, as did his anger against the commanders who would not take the decision to relieve their allies. But it was not until I reread the letter that I realized what was causing my vague dissatisfaction: nowhere was there a reference to our last meeting; he did not say he missed me or looked forward to seeing me again; there was no softer language at all, no endearments save for the standard “My dear Katie” at the beginning. It was as if that last night in Buda-Pest had never been.

  Naturally, pride compelled me to reply in the same vein. I wrote as amusingly as I could, describing life in the capital, telling him, if he did not already know, that Petöfi had joined up too and had been sent to Transylvania on a recruiting trip.

  Then, a week later came news that shattered the buoyant optimism in Buda-Pest. After defeating two Croat armies, I think we had begun to believe ourselves invincible, but we were not. Too late, the Hungarian army had finally marched to Vienna’s rescue, and lost.

  “At a place called Schwechat, just outside Vienna,” István reported, tiredly rubbing his forehead. He was doing all he could to aid Hungary’s efforts to arm, but the price on his conscience was painful to watch. However, I had another, more immediate fear.

  “Were many killed in the battle?” I asked anxiously.

  “About five hundred, they say, killed, wounded or imprisoned. Moga himself was injured.”

  Surely, if Lajos had been among them, Istv
án would have heard. Lajos was a prominent figure in Hungary after all...

  Yet it was several days before I could be free, however temporarily, of the gnawing dread in my stomach. Lajos’s second letter, written in retreat after Schwechat, told me only that he had fought in the battle, though he had come to no harm; but despite its lack of words, I could almost feel his agony for the Viennese he felt he had failed, and I was left with the impression of disenchantment and bitterness.

  * * * *

  One morning, just after I had joined István, Margit and Katalin for breakfast, Mattias came cautiously into the room, looking considerably the worse for wear.

  “Inebriate,” said Katalin, taking in the situation at one glance.

  “Not any more. I eschew the brandy for ever more.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I advised, and he grinned good-naturedly.

  “That reminds me,” he said. “Met that fellow Jókai last night — you know, the writer, Petöfi’s friend.”

  “You should keep better company,” István interrupted irritably.

  “Then you should let me join the army and get out of here, where I can do nothing but avoid my lectures and drink myself to death!” Mattias sat down, holding his head, and eventually rediscovered his point. “Jókai said Lajos Lázár was here but has gone again now.”

  I kept my eyes on my coffee for several seconds before I slowly raised them to Mattias. I wanted to weep with hurt and disappointment.

  “Gone where?” asked Katalin.

  “Transylvania, apparently. He’s been transferred to Bem, who has just been put in charge there. Here, did you know some Pole shot Bem the other night?”

  Josef Bem was our latest recruit, a Polish soldier of fortune and champion of liberalism who had just arrived in the city from Vienna. A larger than life figure, he had instantly become the rage in Buda-Pest, where wild stories about him abounded: it was even said he had escaped from Vienna when it fell, dressed as a female fruit-seller. But I wasn’t interested in Bem, only in Lajos’s neglect. I discovered I was angry too. How dared he treat me as if I were of no account?

  By mid-day, I was in a truly filthy temper which neither Miklós nor Anna had been prepared to risk. As a result, I was in no mood for company and it was with singularly bad grace that I joined the family for luncheon.

  “Oh there you are,” Katalin said vaguely as I came into the room, taking something from her pocket and handing it to me. “This came for you — I meant to give it to you before...”

  Over the letter, our eyes met, and I realized she had been hiding it this morning from István who would have recognized the writing. I took it, smiling with quick gratitude, and stuffed it hastily in my pocket.

  When I finally escaped to my room, I all but tore the letter open with fingers that trembled like those of some schoolgirl receiving her first love letter. Yet no one could have called this a love letter. It was a note from one friend to another; not from the man who had thrown stones at my window and held me in his arms in the dark, early hours of an October morning. He said he had been sent to Buda-Pest with dispatches for the National Defence Committee.

  “I tried to see you at the palace,” he wrote casually, “but you had gone out. In any case, I had very little time, for I had to see Kossuth as well as War Minister Mészáros; and it seems one of the documents I had so gullibly carried was a complaint against me by my Colonel — I had apparently driven him so mad that he wished me to be transferred as far away from him as possible. Naturally, I incline to the belief that the Colonel should transfer instead — preferably into civilian life — but I shan’t bore you with details. The upshot of it all is that I am now bound for Transylvania under the command of a mad Pole called Bem...”

  Not a word about looking for me, beyond that one call. I had to face the fact that Lajos had more important things on his mind. It wasn’t surprising. I just wished it didn’t hurt quite so badly.

  * * * *

  It was the sheer scale of the catastrophe at Mór which caused the absolute silence in the Szelényi Palace. It was I who broke it.

  “What now?” I asked, low-voiced.

  That day, the thirtieth of December, only fifty miles west of Buda-Pest, an army of six thousand, under the command of the radical General Perczel, had been annihilated.

  “Now, Mattias will take you out of the city,” said István. “Go to the estate north of Debrecen, and wait for me there. Who knows? Perhaps we shall be able to go home to Szelényi soon, since Bem seems to be winning back Transylvania.”

  “I won’t go without you,” Elisabeth said unexpectedly, and won a surprised, very tired smile from her husband.

  “You must. There are the children...”

  “Katie can take care of the children. She must go with Margit and Katalin...”

  “No,” István said firmly. “You must all go.”

  “Why won’t you come?” Katalin asked in a small, oddly childish voice.

  “I should be here. When the Austrians come, perhaps I can help salvage something from this mess...”

  A lost cause, I thought with anguish; surely now a lost cause...

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  It seemed the Assembly agreed that Buda-Pest at least was lost, because the next day, after reputedly stormy sessions and fierce, raging arguments, it was decided, despite all past talk of defending the capital to the last man, to evacuate the entire government to Debrecen in the east.

  For us, this certainly solved one problem — István would come with us. We would take the train as far as Szolnok, which was the end of Hungary’s one railway line, and find some other, slower form of transport from there.

  In a mad flurry of activity, we packed only what could be carried by ourselves and the few servants who would accompany us. Then we said good-bye to the Mirányis, who were to stay behind. Mirányi was not compromised in Austrian eyes to the same extent as István, and I believe they thought that with one part of the family on either side of the fence, they could somehow preserve the whole in the end. I found myself wondering if I would ever see Maria’s disapproving face again; but Maria herself was naturally more concerned with the painful parting from her brothers and sisters.

  The children had picked up their elders’ fear, but they were resilient creatures, and by the evening when we set off for the new railway station, they were as excited as they had been about boarding the Danube steam-ship.

  We bade good-bye and good luck to Ferenc and Frau Schmidt, who stood by the door, upright and brave, to wave us off. As the horses pulled us away from the palace gates, I wondered dismally if I would ever see them again. The white faces by the door receded into the darkness; the house itself grew hazy until I realized I was looking through tears. For all that had happened to me here, I knew I had never been happier anywhere, and now I doubted I would ever come back.

  The railway station was full of people crying and complaining, adding considerably to my depression. But there was worse to come: Teréz Meleki suddenly appeared with a maid, a footman and a trunk.

  “There you are!” Elisabeth exclaimed.

  “Indeed I am,” Teréz drawled. “And more to the point, here is Kossuth...”

  Elegant and dignified, with his family about him, the great man entered more as if he were in a triumphal procession than an ignominious retreat. Perhaps it should have been laughable, but it wasn’t. In fact, I noticed something very strange happening.

  With his appearance, every face in the crowded station lightened perceptibly; the dismal complaints died away, and a quite unfounded optimism began to grow. Orders and commands began to fly round the station; the miserable, clinging bundles of people began to split up and spring into activity. Incredibly, someone was soon mixing huge bowls of punch in the middle of the station.

  I could hear Kossuth’s voice saying that this was not the end, but a new beginning, that Hungary would rise again out of her eastern city of Debrecen, and throw the invader from the capital. I almost f
ound myself believing it.

  By then, Kossuth was the centre of our little world, and when I looked at him my spirits lifted in irrational new hope. Someone thrust a glass of punch into my hand, and I realized that all the evacuees, Kossuth and his family, the Lords and Deputies and their families, were all clutching cups and glasses.

  It seemed a pointless, meaningless extravagance, until quite suddenly, I remembered what day it was. It was the thirty-first of December, Hogmanay, New Year’s Eve. A year ago I had danced at the Szelényi ball and flirted with Karl von Avenheim, who was now our enemy, and my only care had been whether or not Lajos loved me. I felt ashamed of the triviality of that, for now a nation had risen in arms to fight for its liberty, its very existence, and young men were dying.

  The clock in the station told me it was nearing midnight. Everyone had their punch now. The noise abated, and Kossuth seemed to tower above his fellows.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said into the silence, raising his glass high. “I give you the new year, and new hope.”

  Solemnly, fervently, we drank to that. Families kissed and embraced, raised their glasses to friends on the other side of the station. If ever they were united, it was in that one simple toast.

  And I, duly embraced, kissed, toasted, accepted as part of that union, felt suddenly and sadly outside it. A grain of loneliness began to grow. I wanted to see my own people again; and my longing for Lajos’s presence became suddenly so fierce that I could imagine him beside me, close to me as I raised my glass, smiling back at Kossuth who could still recognize me despite his new greatness.

  That was the high point of our exodus. From then on, it only got worse. To begin with, we had to wait another three hours to board the train, and then the riotous clamour to find space in the carriages was positively degrading. Despite the Szelényis’ rank, we were pushed and herded along with the rest. Elisabeth and Katalin were flabbergasted, Margit utterly bewildered, though Mattias and István did their best to protect them.