Flora Mackintosh and The Hungarian Affair

by Anna Reader

  The pair gathered their things and left the car nestled behind a hawthorn hedge. Bertie strode off towards the common at a yomping pace. “She’s just over here,” he called over his shoulder. Flora crossed the road and strolled after him, enjoying the feeling of the bright winter sunshine on her skin and the pleasant anticipation of adventure. A cluster of children were trying to fly a kite in the distance, and the treeless green plain stretched out before her; the perfect runway she thought to herself, ever the pragmatist. Flora watched Bertie as he marched across the still-frozen soil, and quietly pondered the new facts she had gleaned during their drive. The revelation about the Navy immediately made sense to her – his particular brand of restless energy tallied with her notion of a former serviceman looking for excitement. It also justified her instinctive sense of faith in him; her father had served in the High Seas Fleet after all, and as far as she was concerned there was nothing as trustworthy as a sailor.

  Bestirring herself from this quiet reflection, Flora’s eyes widened as Bertie swept away a sheet of green tarpaulin to reveal a bright red, single-engine aeroplane. She didn’t know quite how it could have taken her so long to spy the bulge in the middle of this open expanse and yet there it was, with “Cynthia-Rose I” emblazoned along its side in swirling black letters. “What sort of a fellow leaves a plane on Wimbledon Common?” she thought to herself in astonishment. “One wonders what he’s got stashed in Hyde Park.”

  “Here she is,” Bertie said proudly, stroking one of her curved wings with affection and dropping to his haunches to inspect the underbelly. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

  Flora was moved to agree with this statement, and walked towards the pretty aircraft with a distinct spring in her step, as her shock gradually abated. “I say – this beats the night ferry.”

  “Rather,” Bertie agreed whole-heartedly, stowing the small suitcase and hamper in the seat to the rear and leaping up into his pilot’s seat to make ready for take-off. As he fiddled with the assortment of dials and buttons, Flora pulled a leather flying cap out of her bag, a pair of tan leather gloves and a large pair of goggles: Beatrice had collected a remarkable array of paraphernalia during her endless travelling, and Flora had found these particularly useful items when rummaging through the camphor wood chest in the hall earlier that morning (shortly before she had been guided forcefully towards a large plateful of kedgeree by her mother’s faithful housekeeper).

  “Well, don’t you look the thing!” Bertie exclaimed with an appreciative laugh, as Flora donned her accessories and hauled herself up into the passenger seat. “Are you quite sure you haven’t done this before, Flora? You seem remarkably well prepared.”

  “I like to be prepared in all things, Bertie,” Flora replied, peering at him through her goggles and arranging her chestnut curls around the edges of her cap. “Could there be anything worse than being stranded on a station without a book? Or to find oneself with stacks of tonic and no gin? No - the readiness is all,” she announced with resolution.

  “I’m not entirely sure that that’s the accepted scholarship regarding the Bard’s immortal words,” Bertie ventured, pulling a neat little hip-flask from the pocket of his leather jacket, “but I think you may be on to something.” He offered the flask to Flora, who brought it to her nose for identification.

  “Bruichladdich,” she said appreciatively, the familiar smell warming her to her toes. (Teddy Fortesque may have been on course to fail Collections, but at least he could take pride in the first class training he had imparted to Alice and her friends through his exquisite contraband.)

  “You have an excellent nose,” Bertie replied, much impressed. “I never fly without offering a libation to the gods first,” he added, gesturing to the skies with his own gloved hand. Flora was entirely in sympathy with this sentiment, and the pair toasted their imminent journey with a moment’s solemnity before Bertie returned the hip-flask to his pocket and flicked the switch for the engine.

  Jumping down from the small plane and then with a strong sweep of his arm, Bertie spun the propeller and brought Cynthia-Rose to life; the aircraft juddered as she cleared her pipes and prepared for flight. Bertie hauled himself back into his seat, gave Flora the thumbs up, and drove inexorably towards the kite-flyers. After two hundred yards of coasting across the uneven grass Cynthia-Rose launched herself into the air, swooping above the delighted children and sending their kite swirling upwards in the backdraught. Flora, who despite her pertinent accessorising had never been in an aircraft before, looked around her in wonder. The people below them grew smaller as they climbed, and the shrubby grass on Wimbledon Common turned into a table-cloth spread across the southern corner of the city. The cold air stung her cheeks and made Pongo’s scarf dance about her neck, and Flora felt her stomach fizz with delight every time she was brave enough to stare down over the side. It was a clear day, cold and bright, and it felt like no time before they were over open country.

  Bertie looked back and, through a series of elaborate hand gestures, managed to ask Flora to open the hamper. Reaching down to the wicker case by her feet she undid the clasp and lifted the lid, only to be greeted by a bottle of Champagne De Castelnau, two glasses and a large pork-pie. If she had been her mother, she might have clapped her hands in delight. As it was she smiled brightly up at her pilot, popped the cork from the bottle and, after some extremely careful pouring, managed to hand him a frothing glass of wine.

  “Delicious!” she shouted as loudly as she could into his ear. This was, she thought to herself contentedly, considerably better than double Latin.

  Bertie knocked back the first glass of fizz and handed it back to his passenger for a refresher. “Have you been to Hungary before?” he shouted, that deep English voice rising above the wind.

  “I was born there,” Flora managed to tell him through a combination of careful annunciation and cradling an imaginary infant. “But I haven’t been back for many years. Not since my father died.”

  Bertie nodded in understanding, and glanced back at the nose of the plane to check that they were still flying in the right sort of direction. Flora carved off a hunk of pork pie (heaven to discover the eggs nestled in its core, she thought) and passed it forwards. It was either excessively comforting or rather alarming to think that this young man was happy to fly towards France with a glass in one hand and a slice of meat pie in the other, leaving his knees to do any steering - but he seemed to know what he was doing, and the clouds were passing them at a serene pace. She was also fairly sure she hadn’t seen him stow any parachutes, she realised as she refilled her own glass; however if Bruichladdich wasn’t enough to appease the heavens then what, she wondered, at her most existential, was the point of it all.

  “Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux!” she cried out to the clouds before taking a large sip from her glass and slipping a portion of hard-boiled egg into her mouth.

  Bertie thought that he could hear his cargo saying something about cabbages, and toasted the strange sentiment with an unimpeachable sense of fun.

  The English Channel slipped away beneath them, and Flora leant back in her seat and gazed up at the sky. Apart from the sound of the engine, the world was completely still: no voices; no bells governing each portion of her day; no clashing hockey-sticks or bellowing mistresses. Absolute bliss.

  “We’re making good time,” Bertie shouted over his shoulder after adjusting their course slightly, “we should be there while it’s still light.”

  Flora half-wondered what Bertie intended to do once they’d landed; she didn’t suppose that she would be able to offer much by way of hospitality, and she certainly hadn’t planned on having a plus one during her investigations into her uncle’s death. Still, he didn’t seem like a clinging sort of fellow, and although she couldn’t remember the dimensions of the family seat she imagined that it must at least have a stray sofa the poor man could sleep on for the night.

  Idly helping herself to another glass of champagne, it suddenly occ
urred to her that he hadn’t consulted a map or a compass for the duration of their journey. If Beatrice’s romantic descriptions were anything to go by then Szentendre was hardly what one would call a backwater, however it struck her as rather peculiar that a flâneur should have such a sound grasp of Eastern European geography. Not for the first time, Flora suspected that there was far more to Bertie Cavendish than he was letting on.

  “I say, Bertie,” Flora began, leaning forwards to speak in his ear, “how on earth do you know the way to Szentendre?”

  Bertie glanced at her over his shoulder and grinned, the sun ricocheting off his white teeth and barley-blond hair. “I was an airmail pilot for a time,” he explained, his voice just rising above the roar of the wind. “I’ve delivered post all over the continent.”

  “Good lord, how old are you?” Flora asked, peering at her companion through her goggles. It didn’t seem entirely possible that a man without even the slightest hint of a wrinkle could have had such a plethora of experiences.

  Bertie simply smiled at her and turned his eyes back to their invisible path.

  The clouds cleared, and as she looked down Flora observed a world in miniature. Grassy fields; russet trees; and muddy tracks surrounded the neat farms nestled amongst the hills. Streams cut their way through the hibernating land and roads wound around it, giving passage to the occasional tractor but otherwise sitting in sleepy contentment. There were few towns and even fewer people, and Flora had the distinct feeling that she was in fact Odysseus, drifting on the crest of a wave between strange and foreign worlds. They were, Flora realised, following a wide grey river as it snaked through the countryside beneath them, passing over the towns and cities which sprung up along its banks. It could only have been the Danube, and she gazed down upon it greedily, eager to remember every detail.

  Flora was not of a romantic disposition and rarely evinced marked enthusiasm of any kind, yet this river had featured particularly prominently in the mythologies of her early childhood and she was finding it almost impossible to maintain her usual standard of sophisticated detachment. Her father had learned to sail on this river; her parents had spent their honeymoon drifting upon it in Laszlo’s yacht; and her mother had passed the first idyllic year of their marriage trying to capture its mysteries in oil-paint. Indeed if Beatrice was to be believed, Flora understood that she had even been christened on the banks of the river in Szentendre – although that all sounded a little too Old Testament to Flora’s sceptical ear, and she had her suspicions that that particular anecdote was the product of the absinthe she and her mother had been drinking when the revelation had been shared.

  “Not long now,” Bertie cried, “keep your eyes peeled for a landing spot.”

  The aircraft drifted gracefully back down to earth, and Flora drew a cigarette from her bag and tucked it between her lips in preparation their imminent landing. As a mark of the increasing friendship she felt for Bertie, Flora even popped a spare in the corner of her mouth in case he should want one; an honour which, to date, she had only ever bestowed upon Alice. Flora peeked over the side of the plane and watched with interest as the town below grew in size. Houses swelled from their pin-head beginnings; the cobbled streets filled with small people; and the lush fields grew into handkerchiefs, then pillow-cases, then recognisable farmland surrounding the town.

  “This will suit us very nicely,” Bertie announced, as the aircraft dropped smoothly into a field to the south of the town and taxied under the cover of overhanging trees.

  “Beautifully done,” Flora commended as Bertie killed the engine and looked back at her with a broad smile on his face, ruddy from the effect of the wind. The pair sat there in companionable silence, enjoying their cigarettes and the stillness in the air now that the propeller was no longer whirring away in front of them.

  “We should be about a mile outside of Szentendre by my calculations,” Bertie said, jumping down into the long grass and helping Flora with her dismount, “which means that we’ll be in time for an afternoon coffee and slice of Dobosh if we walk briskly.”

  “Now, Bertie,” Flora said, removing her hat and goggles and drawing a comb through her flattened curls as her escort retrieved their bags, “it really was extremely good of you to bring me all this way, but I’m afraid that I shan’t be able to offer you much in the way of hospitality. I hardly know what I shall find up at the castle - at best I suspect that it shall be eggs for supper and unaired sheets to sleep on. You’re more than welcome to stay this evening, of course, but I shall have to get to work tomorrow.”

  “My dear girl,” Bertie said, “say no more. I should like to see you safely to the castle, if you don’t mind – I’m afraid my Pater promoted Arthurian standards of chivalry – but I’m certain that there will be an inn with accommodation in town. It has been an absolute joy to have a chance to take Cynthia-Rose for a spin, and that’s quite enough for me.”

  “I must say,” Flora replied, as the pair made their way out of the field and towards the nearest road, “that it is so....comfortable travelling with you. You seem to know just what to say.”

  Bertie laughed at that and offered Flora his arm. “Now then,” he said, looking up at the sun to get his bearings, “let’s find this castle of yours.”

  Bertie and Flora made their way up the winding road towards Szentendre as the sun began to set behind them. They were passed by a solitary farmer with a horse and cart who tipped his hat when Flora wished him a “good afternoon” in flawless Hungarian, but otherwise they were quite alone in their pleasantly bucolic scene, and looked for all the world like a young couple returning from a bracing wintry picnic. Bertie’s calculations were perfectly accurate, and they soon found themselves walking across cobbled streets and past apricot-coloured houses. The baroque cross stood proudly in the middle of the main square, and people bustled about them as the scene began to slip from afternoon to evening. As they made their way into the town, Flora spotted a middle-aged woman in a red head-scarf sweeping the step outside a bakery, and wandered across to her.

  “Excuse me, madam,” Flora said, enjoying the feeling of the Hungarian words in her mouth and trying to erase the traces of her immaculate English accent, “I wonder if you could tell me the way to the Medveczkys’ castle?”

  The woman looked up at the exquisite girl standing before her, and narrowed her almond-shaped eyes as she tried to place her. “Do I know you?” she asked, leaning on the broom handle. She was a slim woman with a pretty face; an excellent advertisement for her bread, Flora thought.

  “I haven’t been here for many years, so I suspect not,” Flora replied with a slight smile. “You may have known my father, Lazslo Medveczky, or my uncle Antal? I am Anasztázia Medveczky.”

  The woman’s mouth fell open and she stared at Flora in astonishment. “Well I never,” she said after a moment. “Victor!” she shouted, turning around and looking into the shop, “Victor, come out here!”

  “You seem to have caused something of a stir,” Bertie said into Flora’s right ear, as the baker emerged out of his shop.

  “What is it?” Victor said crossly, marching towards his wife.

  “This is Lazslo Medveczky’s daughter,” the woman said, confident that her words would have the desired effect on her irritable spouse, “Anasztázia.”

  The baker pulled off his cap and scratched his balding crown, whistling between his teeth and looking down at Flora. “Is it now,” he said eventually, obviously much taken by this revelation. “Well, I’ll be.”

  “She’s looking for the castle,” the woman said, planting her hands on her hips.

  The baker grunted, and continued to stare.

  “You tell that uncle of yours that he owes us fifty pengö,” the woman said to Flora now, wagging a small finger at her. “He’s a devil when it comes to settling his tab.”

  “I’ll be sure to do so,” Flora said smoothly, wondering where on earth her uncle could have shuffled off this mortal coil if the locals hadn’t got wind of
it. “So, the castle....” she prompted, looking hopefully at the pair.

  “You can’t miss it,” Victor said, replacing his cap and folding his burly, floury fore-arms. “Follow the road out of town, take the first path on your right and walk about half a mile.”

  “I don’t know what sort of state you’ll find it in, mind,” Victor’s lady wife warned them, pursing her lips and patting the bun which was beginning to escape from her head-scarf. “That uncle of yours hasn’t been in town for weeks now, and from what I hear the housekeeper has turned to drink. Again.”

  “In which case, we’d best make sure we have provisions before we set off,” Flora said brightly, not in the least deterred by this announcement; in fact she was rather comforted to hear that the castle was unlikely to be dry. “I wonder if you might have a loaf of bread we could purchase? Dear Uncle Antal always says that you make the finest bread this side of Paris, and it would be such a treat to have some for our supper.”

  “Well,” the baker’s wife said, flushing with pleasure and bustling her husband inside with the broom, “it is true that my husband has a god-given talent. I’m sure we can find something – can’t we, Victor?”

  The baker had ceased his ogling in order to march back into his shop, intent on finding his astute young customer a prize loaf. He returned within seconds, clutching to his chest a golden brown disc in the manner of a proud father.

  “I can see my uncle didn’t exaggerate your talents,” Flora said, extemporising wildly, “I can’t remember when I’ve seen such tempting bread.” She accepted the loaf from the elated baker, and smiled sweetly. “I’m afraid that I have no money with me, but I shall be back tomorrow if you wouldn’t mind waiting?”

  “Not in the least,” the baker replied magnanimously, conveniently forgetting that Flora was the near relation of one of his least reliable customers.