by Basil Copper
When he sat down he found his glass had already been refilled. His eyes sought Countess Sylva’s over the rim of the goblet.
‘This could become a habit.’
She smiled, revealing the fine, strong teeth with the slightly pronounced sharpness which seemed to be a characteristic of the whole family. The orchestra had recommenced its labours, giving the company a waltz this time, and Coleridge savoured the wine on his tongue. It was an orange amber in colour, and he found it fresh, elegant, and sweet.
His eyes swept round the company. Something of the dark oppression which had been stealing over him seemed to have lifted, but it was only momentary, he knew. It was something more subtle than the natural gloom cast over Lugos by the wolf-attacks and the deaths of several of the villagers. Something which seemed to have soaked into the stones of this old Castle and to have permeated the very fabric.
The discussion had ranged far and wide over the matter, of course; the attacked villager was recovering well, the doctor had said. But these dark subjects had been dispelled temporarily by the present pleasant gathering, and they had nothing to do with the Homolky family as such or the luxurious quarters of the Castle they occupied. They were more concerned with the gloomier, older, and more austere parts of the Castle which Coleridge had already glimpsed: damp, echoing corridors where, presumably, the servants hurried about their errands; cheerless flights of stairs; and dusty, secluded corners such as the closetlike passage where Nadia had guided him with the oil lamp.
It was there, in neglected, forgotten crevices of such a vast edifice that remote, atavistic forces held sway and an imaginative man such as himself could imagine gibbering fear in the night.
For the first time he realised something of the strain a sensitive girl like Nadia Homolky could undergo in such an atmosphere – an atmosphere slowly darkening under the subtle pressure of the fear that obviously overhung Lugos, of the menace of the wolves, and now of something even more sinister and disturbing. The vivid image of the firelight flickering on the eye-sockets of the wolf-heads on the firedogs came unbidden to his mind.
He snapped his attention away from these sombre imaginings, thinking forward to the time when his colleague would come to him to say that his microscope had discovered something quite harmless in the sample Coleridge had submitted. A burst of laughter finally cut through his musings and restored him to normality. The Count was discussing with some of his guests the possibilities of their afternoon’s entertainment.
The Fair proper did not begin for two days, but the consensus of opinion seemed to be that it would be a pleasant and relatively short outing for the party to walk down to Lugos and visit the gypsies in their encampments. There would be stalls and sideshows, and, said Homolky, braziers and bonfires would make a comparatively warm enclave for the entertainment of his guests. He had, in fact, already despatched a messenger to make sure the gypsies knew they were coming.
‘Supposing they do not wish to entertain us,’ said Abercrombie, the bearded Scot, his teeth gleaming in the depths of his hairy smile.
The Count looked at him mockingly. He had changed into a dark grey formal suit, and he appeared both elegant and distinguished as he raised his glass in a silent salute to the company.
‘They are gypsies, Doctor,’ he said slowly. ‘They are there to wheedle money from the inhabitants of Lugos. They will entertain us all right, have no fear.’
Menlow shot Coleridge a fleeting glance. He was seated almost opposite at the long table. He tapped his breast pocket significantly. Coleridge felt relief. He knew his colleague would ascend to his room after lunch to begin the tests he had asked for. He was placing an absurd importance on something so relatively simple, but it would be good to know the girl’s fears were ill-based.
The Count was on his feet, glass in hand. His eyes raked the room, resting on each person at table in turn.
‘I would like to propose another toast now,’ he said. ‘That perhaps would have been drunk earlier in normal households but which we at Castle Homolky habitually offer toward the end of the meal.’
His glance rested affectionately on his mother, then to his daughter, and passed on to his wife. Everyone was rising. Homolky raised his glass to a dim portrait that hung in a place of honour beneath that portion of the gallery in which the musicians sat. They were silent, but after the Count had given his toast they broke into a solemn tune during which everyone remained standing.
‘The Emperor!’ the Count said.
All those at table raised their glasses and drank, and there was an awkward silence for a few moments after the last strains of the anthem had died away. Then the company resumed its seats, and there came the scrambling noise of chairs being shifted on the parquet and the jumble of conversation resumed.
The leader of the small group of musicians, after a reassuring glance from the Count, nodded, and the thin, syrupy strains of a popular waltz began. Coleridge sat back, his darker thoughts now obscured and overlaid by the cheerful surroundings and the excellence of the lunch.
He cast a glance at one of the tall windows near the end of the gallery. The sky was overcast, but it did not appear to be snowing. Somehow he did not relish setting forth from the comfort of the Castle into such bleak surroundings for the second time that day. It was probably a reaction after his uncomfortable journey. Only yesterday, and yet already it seemed years removed.
He bent his head to hear what his hostess was saying. To his surprise she was asking about Raglan. His attentions to her daughter had obviously not passed unnoticed, and again he felt awkward and embarrassed. He gave his colleague mild praise; a neutral report, in fact. It was not his place to assess Raglan’s qualities or qualifications as a companion for the Count’s daughter.
Countess Sylva must have sensed this, for she hesitated and her delicately diplomatic questions ceased. Coleridge hoped he had not given her offence. He felt himself to be somehow poised on the pinnacle of an edifice which was slowly crumbling beneath him. He was too sensitive, really; there was no reason to feel that, but their gathering at Lugos, rather than being an interval of pleasurable scholarship, was starting to generate a tension which was far from what the professor had intended when he had organised it.
He would feel more at ease once he had received Menlow’s report. There must be some plausible explanation for Nadia Homolky’s experience of the previous night, though Coleridge could not for the moment assign some convincing reason.
To his relief he saw Menlow rise from his seat and, passing along the room, stoop for a few moments’ colloquy with his host. He received smiling assent for his absence from table, and a few moments later his tall, gaunt form had passed through the far door. It was the prelude to the general breakup of the lunch-party, and everyone drifted into a smaller and less grand side-room scattered with comfortable velvet-covered divans where coffee and liqueurs were served to the replete guests.
During a lull in the conversation Coleridge found the Count at his elbow. He raised his glass in answer to the Count’s salutation, feeling momentarily refreshed, his mind poised on the edge of contentment.
‘To the gypsies!’ Homolky said mockingly. ‘You will find the experience interesting, Professor.’
CHAPTER 13: IN THE GYPSY CAMP
A keen wind stung Coleridge’s face, bringing tears to his eyes, while the smoke and flame from the bonfires warmed his body at the same time. Barbaric music filled his ears, and his sight was dazzled by the light of flares striking back from tarnished mirrors and giltwork on the tawdry stalls set about like a maze on this dark winter afternoon.
The Count had not exaggerated. It was interesting, to say the least, but Coleridge was vaguely aware that the Gypsy Fair represented a dangerous combination. Mingling with the food and drink he had consumed, the brilliance of the lights and the vividness of the music had a dizzy and intoxicating effect
on the brain, while the alternation of extreme heat and bitter cold was an invitation to pneumonia.
He would have to be careful. The intoxication came partly from Nadia Homolky, whose arm was twined in his intimately; she nestled into the warmth of his fur coat as she pressed closely to his side, and once again Coleridge was uncomfortably conscious of the dangerously erotic aura emanating from both the younger ladies of the Homolky household.
Now she was brushing against him through their thick clothing as they threaded among the booths, her face alive with mischief and her golden hair caught carelessly in beneath her fur cap.
‘Is this what you expected, Professor?’
‘I am not quite sure to what you refer,’ he answered drily, hoping that Raglan or the girl’s parents were not in the vicinity. Probably he was reading too much into her attitude; she had been naturally anxious to enlist his services after her terrifying experience, and her carefree manner toward him might well be nothing more than a young girl’s trusting nature. At the same time he must be careful not to arouse young Raglan’s jealousy through Nadia Homolky’s casual coquetry.
They were interrupted by the same roaring noise that Coleridge had heard that morning when descending the narrow path to the waterfall. The girl looked at him excitedly.
‘Wild animals, Professor! Don’t you find it absolutely absorbing?’
Coleridge shook his head. There was a grim irony in her words of which she was apparently unaware.
‘I would have thought you had had enough of wild animals for the moment, Miss Homolky,’ he said gently.
He bit his lip with vexation at his carelessly uttered words, because the girl drew in her breath and her eyes were again clouded with fear as they had been that morning. Once more the shadows seemed to close in momentarily, and the lights and wild music of the fairground appeared faint and far away.
‘Forgive me,’ he said quickly, before the girl could speak.
She drew closer to him as though his proximity gave her comfort and protection from danger.
‘There is nothing to forgive, Professor. I am still a child in some ways, I am afraid. And fairs and such gatherings are an exciting contrast to our somewhat quiet life here in Lugos.’
Her eyes were sparkling now.
‘They remind me of the days when I was small and Father used to take me to concerts and fairs and outings in Pest.’
Her gaze was wide and distant as she spoke, and to Coleridge it seemed as though she saw not the crude booths and the teeming life of the peasants about them, but the gracious salons and ballrooms of the capital.
She laughed then as she caught her companion’s glance.
‘And the zoo,’ she said, squeezing his arm. ‘We have a wonderful zoo in Pest. We must visit it sometime.’
Coleridge was again slightly embarrassed by the intimacy of the girl’s manner and her assumption that they might together visit the capital on some future occasion. He drew her over to one side where a savage-looking group of Magyars were doing a fire-eating act, breathing great streaks of flame high into the air.
Then the rumbling roar with which he was becoming familiar again sounded, and the girl cast an apprehensive glance over her shoulder.
‘It is only the bear,’ Coleridge said quickly. ‘I saw it on my way through the village last night.’
‘Poor beast,’ the girl murmured sympathetically.
They had come to a sort of clearing in the middle of the booths where a large crowd of people, mostly peasants, but including some of the better-dressed and more prosperous tradespeople, had formed a large circle. Coleridge realised the word must have spread about Lugos very quickly that the Fair was open, since the Count had made his request only an hour or two before. That probably accounted for the makeshift condition of some of the sideshows, because the crude wooden platforms showed signs of hasty erection in some cases and a number of stalls had their canvas awnings pinned up temporarily on wooden battens. Coleridge guessed that the gypsies, above all people, were anxious to earn some money while it was there and that they obviously led a very insecure existence.
The huge brown bear, its eyes dark and unfathomable, was balanced on a large wooden ball which its sharp claws gripped clumsily as it slowly rotated. The animal travelled cautiously over the rough ground, occasionally bowing its head as though acknowledging the smattering of applause which greeted its prowess.
A dull chinking noise came from the heavy metal chain which linked the leather collar round the beast’s neck with the wrist of its trainer, a tall, heavily bearded man who appeared, from his richer clothing and proud bearing, to be the chief of the gypsy band, or at least one of its principal leaders.
The bear got down from the ball at last, having traversed the complete circle, and with a squeal of pleasure seized the juicy turnip its master proffered. It squatted on its haunches in the light of the flares, sinking its sharp teeth into the vegetable, which it held between its massive forepaws.
Its keeper, wild eyes flashing and gold earrings jangling, came round the crowd with his fur hat held out to make a collection. Coleridge saw with amusement that many of the crowd were edging away now that the entertainment was over, but the huge gypsy’s face darkened with anger and he spat curses at those meaner members of his audience who continued to retreat, this time with alarm and fright.
But Nadia Homolky had darted forward, reaching for her small leather purse. With a disarming smile she counted out some coins into the man’s huge palm, and at once his angry manner dissolved into ingratiating cupidity. He bowed low over her hand, breaking into a flood of excited sentences which the girl answered in his own language.
She returned to Coleridge, her features flushed and amused, her eyes dancing in the light of the flares and lamps.
‘You have a way with the savage, I see,’ Coleridge said. ‘Both of the human and the four-legged variety.’
Nadia Homolky laughed, pressing closer to Coleridge’s side.
‘Come and have your fortune told,’ she said mockingly. ‘It will be interesting to see what fate has in store for us.’
And she dragged the unwilling savant forward to where a broken-toothed crone beckoned at the entrance to one of the most lurid-looking booths which was decorated with primitively painted signs of the zodiac.
It was getting toward dusk now, and Coleridge’s face was buffeted by the wind, chill and bitter after the warmth of the fairground. He pulled away from the girl, seeing Raglan deep in conversation with the Count and his wife a little way behind them. He guessed that the pair were monopolising the young man, either temporarily to separate him from their daughter or to find out a little more about him from his conversation.
Coleridge would have been diverted had he not felt himself in a somewhat anomalous position with regard to Nadia Homolky. She had been vivacious and unconstrained in her manner while they were at the Fair. It had been an interesting experience, but the professor realised, somewhat to his annoyance, that most of it had passed in a blur.
Normally he would have taken careful notes and absorbed all the atmosphere and folkloric implications of these hard, wild, and proud folk who carried on their ancient traditions with an absolute contempt for what passed for modern civilised standards.
It was not only the problems of Lugos and the girl, but also the girl herself with her rich, vibrant personality, that disturbed Coleridge’s settled bachelor ideas. Now, he examined her covertly as they walked, their boots crunching in the heaped snow at the side of the road, the icy ruts glittering like steel beneath the faint oil lamps which illuminated the streets of Lugos.
Preserving a deep silence, they walked back across the bridge where his sled had passed Captain Rakosi and his cavalry troop the previous evening. The girl’s eyes were on his face, and she again had the troubled look.
‘You have not y
et heard anything, of course?’
Coleridge knew what she meant without being told.
‘It is too early,’ he said cautiously. ‘I have asked Dr. Menlow to analyse that material. He is carrying out the tests now. I am hoping he will have some information for me by the time we return to the Castle.’
The girl seemed relieved, but still she persisted.
‘And then what?’
Coleridge put his hand under the girl’s elbow and helped her to jump up onto the narrow pavement inside the bridge parapet as a heavy farm cart approached, the two great horses reeking steam through the nostrils, the creaking of the wheels in the ruts making conversation difficult. The heavily muffled driver, who actually had ice gleaming on his moustache, must have been one of the Count’s estate workers, for he gave the girl a respectful salute.
‘We must take things as we find them, my dear young lady,’ Coleridge said, answering her question. ‘We can do nothing until we have some precise data.’
She nodded vigorously, as though the idea were new to her.
‘You are right,’ she said decisively.
There were heavy footsteps on the icy road behind them, sharp above the distant music of the fairground. The couple turned to find a huge bearded figure.
‘Forgive the intrusion,’ said a jovial voice, ‘but you must not expect to monopolise Miss Homolky during the entire Congress.’
Coleridge smiled. It was Dr. Duncan Abercrombie, the Scottish medical man who had gained quite a reputation for his papers on vampirism in the Middle Ages, with special reference to medical aspects of the phenomena.
‘You are perfectly correct,’ said Coleridge.