Even as Klara paused at the foot of the verandah steps in order to steady herself on her feet, the last filmy veil that hid the face of the moon glided ethereally by. The moon was on the wane, golden and mysterious, and now, as she appeared high in the heaven, surrounded by a halo of prismatic light, she threw a cold radiance on everything around, picking out every tree and cottage with unfailing sharpness and casting black, impenetrable shadows which made the light, by contrast, appear yet more vivid and more clear.
All around leaves and branches rustled with a soft, swishing sound, like the whisperings of ghosts, and from the plains beyond came that long-drawn-out murmur of[Pg 259] myriads of plume-crowned maize as they bent in recurring unison to the caress of the wind.
Klara's eyes peered anxiously round. Quickly she extinguished her lantern, and then remained for a while clinging to the wooden balusters of the verandah, eyes and ears on the alert like a hunted beast. Two belated csikós[7] from a neighbouring village were passing down the main road, singing at the top of their voices, their spurred boots clinking as they walked. Klara did not move till the murmur of the voices and the clinking of metal had died away and no other sound of human creature moving or breathing close by broke the slumbering echoes of the village.
[7] Herdsmen in charge of foals.
Only in the barn, far away, people were singing and laughing and making merry. Klara could hear the gipsy band, the scraping of the fiddles and banging of the czimbalom, followed now and then by one of those outbursts of jollity, of clapping of mugs on wooden tables, of banging of feet and shouts of laughter which characterize all festive gatherings in Hungary.
Cautiously now Klara began to creep along the low wall which supported the balustrade. Her feet made no noise in the soft, sandy earth, her skirts clung closely to her limbs; at every minute sound she started and paused, clinging yet closer to the shadow which enveloped her.
Now she came to the corner. There, just in front of her was the pollarded acacia, behind which the murderer had cowered for an hour—on the watch. The slowly withering leaves trembled in the breeze and their soughing sounded eerie in the night, like the sighs of a departing soul.
Further on, some twenty paces away, was old Rézi's cottage. All was dark and still in and around it. Klara[Pg 260] had just a sufficient power of consciousness left to note this fact with an involuntary little sigh of relief. The murderer had done his work quickly and silently; his victim had uttered no cry that would rouse the old gossip from her sleep.
When Klara at last rounded the second corner of the house and came in full view of the unfenced yard in the rear, she saw that it was flooded with moonlight. For a moment she closed her eyes, for already she had perceived that a dark and compact mass lay on the ground within a few feet of the back door. She wanted strength of purpose and a mighty appeal to her will before she would dare to look again. When she reopened her eyes, she saw that the mass lay absolutely still. She crept forward with trembling limbs and knees that threatened to give way under her at every moment.
Now she no longer thought of herself; there was but little fear of anyone passing by this way and seeing her as she gradually crawled nearer and nearer to that inert mass which lay there on the ground so rigid and silent. Beyond the yard there were only maize-fields, and a tall row of sunflowers closed the place in as with a wall. And not a sound came from old Rézi's cottage.
Klara was quite close to that dark and inert thing at last; she put out her hand and touched it. The man was lying on his face; just as he had fallen, no doubt; with a superhuman effort she gathered up all her strength and lifted those hunched-up shoulders from the ground. Then she gave a smothered cry; the pallid face of Erös Béla was staring sightlessly up at the moon.
Indeed, for the moment the poor girl felt as if she must go mad, as if for ever and ever after this—waking or sleeping—she would see those glassy eyes, the drooping[Pg 261] jaw, that horrible stain which darkened the throat and breast. For a few seconds, which to her seemed an eternity, she remained here, crouching beside the dead body of this unfortunate man, trying in vain in her confused mind to conjecture what had brought Béla here, instead of the young Count, within the reach of Leopold's maniacal jealousy and revenge.
But her brain was too numbed for reasoning and for coherent thought. She had but to accept the facts as they were: that Erös Béla lay here—dead, that Leopold had murdered him, and that she must save herself at all costs from being implicated in this awful, awful crime!
At last she contrived to gather up a sufficiency of strength—both mental and physical—to turn her back upon this terrible scene. She had struggled up to her feet and was turning to go when her foot knocked against something hard, and as—quite mechanically—her eyes searched the ground to see what this something was, she saw that it was the key of the back door, which had evidently escaped from the dead man's hand as he fell.
To stoop for it and pick it up—to run for the back door, which was so close by—to unlock and open it and then to slip through it into the house was but the work of a few seconds—and now here she was once again in her room, like the hunted beast back in its lair—panting, quivering, ready to fall—but safe, at all events.
No one had seen her, of that she felt sure. And now she knew—or thought she knew—exactly what had happened. Lakatos Andor had been to the castle; he had seen my lord and got the key away from him. He wanted to ingratiate himself with my lord and to be able to boast in the future that he had saved my lord's life, but evidently he did mean to have his revenge not only on herself[Pg 262]—Klara—but also on Erös Béla for the humiliation which they had put upon Elsa. It was a cruel and a dastardly trick of revenge, and in her heart Klara had vague hopes already of getting even with Andor one day. But that would come by and by—at some future time—when all this terrible tragedy would have been forgotten.
For the present she must once more think of herself. The key was now a precious possession. She went to hang it up on its accustomed peg. Even Leopold—if he stayed in the village to brazen the whole thing out—could not prove anything with regard to that key. Erös Béla might have been a casual passer-by, strolling about among the maize-fields, not necessarily intent on visiting Klara at dead of night. The key was now safely on its peg; who would dare swear that Erös Béla or anyone else ever had it in his possession?
In fact, the secret rested between five people, of which she—Klara—was one and the dead man another. Well, the latter could tell no tales, and she, of course, would say nothing. Already she had determined—even though her mind was still confused and her faculties still numb—that ignorance would be the safest stronghold behind which she could entrench herself.
There remained Leo himself, the young Count, and, of course, Andor. Which of these three would she have the greatest cause to fear?
There was Leo mad with jealousy, the young Count indifferent, and Andor with curious and tortuous motives in his heart which surely he would not wish to disclose.
She had a sufficiency of presence of mind to go out and fetch the storm-lantern from where she had left it at the foot of the verandah steps. A passer-by who saw her in the act wished her a merry good-night, to which she re[Pg 263]sponded in a steady voice. Then she carefully locked the front door, and finally undressed and went to bed. There was no knowing whether some belated wayfarer might not presently come on the dead man lying there in the yard: and having roused the neighbours, the latter might think of calling on Ignácz Goldstein for spirit or what not. It was not generally known that Ignácz Goldstein was from home, and if people thumped loudly and long at her door, she must appear as if she had just been roused from peaceful sleep.
She felt much more calm and fully alive, above all, to her own danger. That kind of superstitious, unreasoning terror which had assailed her awhile ago had almost entirely left her. She seemed more composed, more sure of herself, now that she had been out in the yard and seen the whole mise en scène of the tragedy, which before that sh
e had only vaguely imagined.
But what she felt that she could not do was to lie here alone in the dark, with only the silvery light of the moon creeping in weirdly through the dulled panes of the tiny window. So she picked up her black skirt, and stuffed it into the narrow window embrasure, until not a ray of light from within could be seen to peep through on the other side. She had placed the storm-lantern in the corner, and this she left alight. It threw a feeble, yellowish glimmer round the room; after a few moments, when her eyes were accustomed to this semi-gloom, she found that she could see every familiar object quite distinctly; even the shadows did not seem impenetrable, nor could ghosts lurk in the unseen portions of the tiny room.
Of course there was no hope of sleep—Klara knew well the moment that she looked on the dead man's face, that she would always see it before her—to the end of her days. She saw it now, quite distinctly—especially when[Pg 264] she closed her eyes; the moonlit yard, the shadow that fell from the tall sunflowers, and the huddled, dark mass on the ground, with the turned-up face and the sightless eyes. But she was not afraid; she only felt bitterly resentful against Andor, who, she firmly believed, had played her an odious trick.
She almost felt sorry for Leopold, who had only sinned because of his great love for her.
* * *
[Pg 265]
CHAPTER XXVIII
"We shall hear of another tragedy by and by."
And so in Marosfalva there was no wedding on the festival day of S. Michael and All Angels; instead of that, on the day following, there was a solemn Mass for the dead in the small village church, which was full to overflowing on that great occasion.
Erös Béla had been found—out in the open—murdered by an unknown hand. Fehér Károly and his brother, who lived down the Fekete Road, had taken a cut across the last maize-field—the one situated immediately behind the inn kept by Ignácz Goldstein, and they had come across Béla's body, lying in the yard, with face upturned and eyes staring up sightlessly at the brilliant blue sky overhead.
It was then close on eight o'clock in the morning. The dancing in the barn had been kept up till then, even though the two most important personages of the festive gathering were not there to join in the fun.
The bridegroom had not been seen since his brief appearance an hour or two before supper, and Elsa had only just sat through the meal, trying to seem cheerful, but obviously hardly able to restrain her tears. After supper, when her partner sought her for the csárdás, she was nowhere to be found. Kapus Irma—appealed to—said that the girl was fussy and full of nerves—for all the world like a born lady. She certainly wasn't very well, had complained of headache, and been allowed by her mother to go home quietly and turn into bed.
[Pg 266]"She has another two jolly days to look forward to," Irma néni had added complacently. "Perhaps it is as well that she should get some rest to-night."
Ah, well! it was a queer wedding, and no mistake! The queerest that had ever been in Marosfalva within memory of man. A bride more prone to tears than to laughter! A bridegroom surly, discontented, and paying marked attentions to the low-down Jewess over at the inn under his future wife's very nose!
It was quite one thing for a man to assert his own independence, and to show his bride at the outset on whose feet the highest-heeled boots would be, but quite another to flout the customs of the countryside and all its proprieties.
When, after supper, good and abundant wine had loosened all tongues, adverse comments on the absent bridegroom flowed pretty freely. This should have been the merriest time of the evening—the merriest time, in fact, of all the three festive days—the time when one was allowed to chaff the bride and to make her blush, to slap the lucky bridegroom on the back and generally to allow full play to that exuberance of spirits which is always bubbling up to the surface out of a Magyar peasant's heart.
No doubt that Béla's conduct had upset Elsa and generally cast a gloom over the festive evening. But the young people were not on that account going to be done out of their dancing; the older ones might sit round and gossip and throw up their hands and sigh, but that was no reason why the gipsies should play a melancholy dirge.
A csárdás it must be, and of the liveliest! And after that another and yet another. Would it not be an awful pity to waste Erös Béla's money, even though he was not here to enjoy its fruits? So dancing was kept up till close on[Pg 267] eight o'clock in the morning—till the sun was high up in the heavens and the bell of the village church tolled for early Mass. Until then the gipsies scraped their fiddles and banged their czimbalom almost uninterruptedly; hundreds of sad and gay folk-songs were sung in chorus in the intervals of dancing the national dance. Cotton petticoats of many hues fluttered, leather boots—both red and black—clinked and stamped until the morning.
Then it was that the merry company at last broke up, and that Fehér Károly and his brother took the short cut behind the inn, and found the bridegroom—at whose expense they had just danced and feasted—lying stark and stiff under the clear September sun.
They informed the mayor, who at once put himself in communication with the gendarmerie of Arad: but long before the police came, the news of the terrible discovery was all over the village, and there was no thought of sleep or rest after that.
Worried to death, perspiring and puzzled, the police officers hastily sent down from Arad had vainly tried to make head or tail of the mass of conflicting accounts which were poured into their ears in a continuous stream of loud-voiced chatter for hours at a stretch: and God only knows what judicial blunders might have been committed before the culprit was finally brought to punishment if the latter had not, once for all, himself delivered over the key of the mystery.
Leopold Hirsch had hanged himself to one of the beams in his own back shop. His assistant found him there—dead—later in the day.
As—by previous arrangement—the whole village was likely to be at Elsa Kapus' wedding, there would not have been much use in keeping the shop open. So the assistant[Pg 268] had been given a holiday, but he came to the shop toward midday, when the whole village was full of the terrible news and half the population out in the street gossiping and commenting on it—marvelling why his employer had not yet been seen outside his doors.
The discovery—which the assistant at once communicated to the police—solved the riddle of Erös Béla's death. With a sigh of relief the police officers adjourned from the mayor's parlour, where they had been holding their preliminary inquiries, to the castle, where it was their duty to report the occurrence to my lord the Count.
At the castle of course everyone was greatly surprised: the noble Countess raised her aristocratic eyebrows and declared her abhorrence of hearing of these horrors. The Count took the opportunity of cursing the peasantry for a quarrelsome, worrying lot, and offered the police officers a snack and a glass of wine. He was hardly sorry for the loss of his bailiff, as Erös Béla had been rather tiresome of late—bumptious and none too sober—and his lordship anyhow had resolved to dispense with his services after he was married. So the death really caused him very little inconvenience.
Young Count Feri knew nothing, of course. He was not likely to allow himself or his name to be mixed up with a village scandal: he shuddered once or twice when the thought flashed through his mind how narrowly he had escaped Erös Béla's fate, and to his credit be it said he had every intention of showing Lakatos Andor—who undoubtedly had saved his life by giving him timely warning—a substantial meed of gratitude.
Of Klara Goldstein little or nothing was seen or heard. The police officers had certainly gone to the inn in the course of the morning and had stayed there close on half[Pg 269] an hour: but as no one had been allowed to go into the tap-room during that time, the occurrences there remained a matter of conjecture. After the officers went away Klara locked the front door after them and remained practically shut up in the house, only going in the evening as far as the post, but refusing to speak to anyone and going past with head ere
ct and a proud, careless air which deceived no one.
"She'll sing her tune in a minor key by and by, when Ignácz Goldstein comes home," said the gossips complacently.
"Those Jews are mighty hard on their daughters," commented the older folk, "if any scandal falls upon them. Ignácz is a hard man and over-ready with his stick."
"I shouldn't be surprised," was the universal conclusion, "if we should hear of another tragedy by and by."
"In any case, Klara can't stay in the village," decided the bevy of young girls who talked the matter over among themselves, and were none too sorry that the smart, handsome Jewess—who had such a way with the men—should be comfortably out of the way.
But everyone went to the Mass for the dead on the day following that which should have been such a merry wedding feast; and everyone joined in the Requiem and prayed fervently for the repose of the soul of the murdered man.
He lay in state in the centre of the aisle, with four tall candles at each corner of the draped catafalque; a few bunches of white and purple asters clumsily tied together by inexperienced hands were laid upon the coffin.
Pater Bonifácius preached a beautiful sermon about the swift and unexpected approach of Death when he is least expected. He also said some very nice things about the[Pg 270] dead man, and there was hardly a dry eye in the church while he spoke.
In the remote corner of a pew, squeezed between a pillar and her mother, Elsa knelt and prayed. Those who watched her—and there were many—declared that not only did she never stop crying for a moment during Mass, but that her eyes were swollen and her cheeks puffy from having cried all the night and all the day before.
After Mass she must have slipped out by the little door which gave on the presbytery garden. It was quite close to the pillar against which she had been leaning, and no doubt the Pater had given her permission to go out that way. From the presbytery garden she could skirt the fields and round the top of the village, and thus get home and give all her friends the slip.
A Bride of the Plains Page 22