Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 31

"I beg your pardon--a manor-house just as good as your lordship's own castle."

"This shanty has for a long time disfigured the market-place. In vain has the town-council negotiated with and sued your family in order to have the house pulled down."

"And we have not surrendered it. Quite right. A genuine n.o.bleman never sells property which he has purchased with his blood. It belongs to me, and within my four walls neither Prince nor Diet has the right to command. No, nor you either, my Lord-General."

"My good lady, I never asked you to give me this venerable ruin for nothing. I offered you ten thousand florins for it. For that sum I could have bought up the whole gipsy quarter, though there is no such dilapidated house there as yours."

"Keep your money, sir. I'll not give up my house. My seven-and-seventieth ancestor bought it two centuries ago, and therefore I'll not barter it away. In it I was born; in it died my father and my mother. If it offends your Excellency's eye to look down upon my beggarly house from your splendid mansion, pray look the other way; but at least do not grudge me the poor pleasure of spending the remainder of my days in the room where my poor husband breathed his last sigh; and let me tell you, sir, that I wouldn't take a palace in exchange for it."

The widow's sobs at the recollection of her deceased husband here enabled Banfi to put a word in, and he replied with pa.s.sionate vehemence--

"What I have said shall be done. The masons are already on their way to pull down the house. The ten thousand florins you can have on application to the town-council."

"I don't want them. Throw them to your dogs," cried the woman furiously.

"Am I a peasant that you turn me thus out of my property? Whoever dares to step across my threshold shall be driven out with a broomstick like a cur. I have appealed to the Prince and to the Estates, and there you have the sealed mandate in which the Diet forbids all and sundry to invade my property. I'll nail it upon the gate,--'tis engrossed in a good, legible hand,--and then I'll see who dares to break into my house."

"And I tell you that to-morrow your house will be razed to the ground, even if it be surrounded by armalists, and then the Diet may build you a new one if it is so disposed."

And with that Banfi turned away in high dudgeon, and almost ran into Nalaczi.

The two men greeted each other with constrained politeness; and while Dame Saint Pauli went off cursing, Nalaczi, after drawing a long breath, began in the sweetest of tones--

"His Highness the Prince desires to bring a very unpleasant matter to the notice of your Excellency."

"I am all attention."

"The Turk has thrice this year extorted gifts from us under various pretexts."

"You ought not to give them to him."

"If we don't he will force upon us as Prince the refugee Nicholas Zolyomi, now under the protection of the Porte."

"Let him come! We will kick him out again."

"Bravely spoken! But the Prince, weary of so much discord, and somewhat fearful besides, has resolved to amnesty Zolyomi and allow him to return."

"In G.o.d's name let him do so then!"

"Right, quite right! But your lordship knows very well that Zolyomi's estates are now in your lordship's possession; the Prince therefore finds himself compelled to request your lordship to surrender these estates to the returning Zolyomi, if it would not greatly inconvenience your lordship."

Nalaczi had been a little too curt in the delivery of his message, although he had done his best to sugar it with respectful epithets.

"What!" cried Banfi, stepping back, "do you really suppose that I will give up these estates? The Diet gave them to me with the onerous condition of equipping at my own cost twelve regiments for the defence of the country. That onerous condition I have faithfully fulfilled, and now you fancy that I shall surrender the estates merely because there is to be one fool the more in the land? Preposterous!"

"But if the Prince wishes it!"

"I'll not give them up whoever wishes it."

"And that is the answer I'm to take back?"

"You'll please take back these two words," said Banfi, emphasizing each syllable--"I won't!"

"Your most obedient servant," said Nalaczi, and with an ironical obeisance he turned upon his heel.

"Servus," replied Banfi contemptuously, as if he were throwing a bone to a dog; and then he looked out into the corridor, and seeing some of his va.s.sals waiting there, hat in hand, roughly asked them what they wanted.

When the good people saw that their liege lord was in a villainous humour, they held back, but the steward pushed them in.

"We ought to have brought the t.i.thes," began the oldest peasant, with a whining voice and downcast eyes, "but it was impossible."

"Why?"

"Because we have nothing, my lord. There has been no rain; the crops are a failure; we have not even seed enough to sow our fields. In the village the people are living on chance roots and fungus, and when these are all gone, G.o.d only knows what will become of us."

"Look now," cried Banfi, "another visitation of G.o.d, and yet we must needs have a war to boot! Steward, open at once the demesne granaries, and distribute seed to the va.s.sals, that they may sow their fields. See too that the poor people have enough corn to feed them through the winter."

The poor peasants would have kissed Banfi's hands, but he would not suffer it. A tear stood in his eye.

"For what am I your lord if not to lighten your burdens when you are in need? My stewards will carry out my orders. If my own storehouses fall short, you shall have corn for ready money from Moldavia."

And with that he retired into the adjoining chamber.

Banfi's wife with a beating heart heard his familiar footsteps drawing nearer.

There she sits behind the fragrant jasmines and the quivering mimosas, herself as pale as the jasmine flowers and as tremulous as the mimosas.

Around her is nothing but pomp and splendour. On the walls hang cut Venetian mirrors in gold frames, portraits of kings and princes, the handsomest among which is John Kemeny's, painted while he still held with the Turk and wore close-cropped hair and a long beard in the Turkish fashion, so much affected by the magnates of those days.

On one side of the room is a wardrobe with countless drawers, a masterpiece of art, inlaid with tortoise-sh.e.l.l, lapis lazuli, and mother-of-pearl. In the centre of the room stands a variegated table surmounted by silver candelabra of exquisite workmanship. Within gla.s.s almeries the family treasures are piled up in gorgeous heaps: pocals encrusted with gems; gold-enamelled stags, whose heads can be screwed off and on; large silver filigree flower-baskets, each scarcely heavier than a crown-piece, filled with posies of precious stones of every hue, artistically disposed in dazzling groups, with here and there a b.u.t.terfly poising above them with delicate wings of transparent gold.

Heavy red silk curtains fall down from the lofty windows to the floor, and the window-sills are covered with the most gorgeous of the flowers then in vogue, among which the shining, velvety, amaranthine c.o.c.k's-comb, the liriodendron with its dependent, tulip-like calices, and the mesembryanthemum, with its leaves like dewy pearls, are the most conspicuous.

Of all these flowers only the trembling mimosa and the pale jasmine harmonized with the lady of the house, whose face contrasted so sadly with the gorgeous abode. The tiny, delicate figure seemed almost lost in the lofty arched room. She could not even have moved one of the ma.s.sive morocco arm-chairs, nor have raised one of the huge heavy candlesticks, nor have pulled aside one of the heavy atlas curtains. Everything around her seemed to remind her of her feebleness. Every sound made her nervous, and when the well-known footsteps reached her threshold, all the blood rushed to her face. She was about to leap up when the door opened, and immediately she was as pale again as ever, and incapable of rising from her seat.

Banfi hastened, with expansive joy, towards his trembling wife, who could not for the moment find words to welcome him, seized both her delicate hands, and looked kindly into her dreamy eyes.

"So pretty and yet so sad!"

The lady tried to smile.

"And how sad that smile is too," remarked Banfi, gently embracing the sylph-like lady.

Lady Banfi laid her head on her husband's bosom, threw her arms round his neck, drew down his face to hers, and kissed it.

"That kiss too, how sad it is!"