The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown by Geoffrey Household Read Free Book Online

it difficult?’
    ‘Distasteful rather than difficult. It’s all forgotten now. I just mentioned it in case you find Nepamuk a little truculent. He has his orders, but keep him in his place!’
    Bernardo asked how much Nepamuk knew.
    ‘Only that you got mixed up in some royalist plot in Lequeitio. Good enough for these backwoods, but most unlikely.Zita couldn’t tackle anything more complicated than getting a niece into a nunnery.’
    ‘How long do you think I’ll have to stay?’
    ‘That depends on what goes on in Spain. Are they going to be sensible when they find those two bodies? Leave it all to us and don’t worry. Istvan will look after you when all’s clear.’
    ‘But look here, Mr. Pozharski, I’m not an international criminal!’
    ‘Oh, all the best people are international criminals. Think of poor Bobo! Well, now I’m off. Try the bacon! Best in the world.’
    So that was that. Bernardo for the moment was overwhelmed by depression. These Hungarians were not the ghosts; he was. But it was no use gibbering. Somewhere in this emptiness one must come upon familiar human society.
    His guide through the underworld turned up as soon as Pozharski had driven away. Nepamuk evidently considered that the royalist intriguer would be fascinated by the past glories of the Kalmodys and conducted him round the house with the pomposity and little jokes of a peak-capped courier. Armour. Furred robes. The library. The gold-inlaid chamber pot used by the Emperor Franz Josef. The bedroom of Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales. Bernardo asked what entertainment—beyond boar hunting—had been provided for his Royal and Randy Highness. Nepamuk pretended to be shocked. He said that one did not crudely provide such entertainment; one waited until the gaze of the distinguished guest fell upon a bit of stuff that appealed to him. One also ensured beforehand that the bit of stuff and its parents had no objections which could not be squared by a suitable reward.
    A heavy mausoleum of a house it was: furniture, panelling, tapestries, the lot. But one could imagine it with all the French windows open on a summer morning or every chandelier blazing at night, full of gaiety and the peacockingsof rich and idle youth. Bernardo asked if the Count had no family. Yes, but they were all at Biarritz, and after that would come Paris and Budapest. They would not return till Christmas.
    He felt some sympathy for the Kalmody family’s absences from their too overpowering house; but when at last he was outside in the sun, passing through the Italian garden, the English garden, the avenues and the splendid stands of ornamental timber, he wondered how anyone who could afford such beauty could ever bear to leave it.
    ‘And while they are away you are always in charge, Mr. Nepamuk?’
    ‘Of the business interest, I am. Chancellor of the Exchequer, you might sye.’
    Influenced by Nepamuk’s barrow-boy English, Bernardo wondered how much he managed to slip into his own bank account. Yet when speaking his own Magyar language the steward was invariably cold, dignified and exacting. That much was clear without understanding a word he said. The respect paid to him was extreme. He received it without warmth, and whenever Bernardo genially stopped to talk he felt that the translation of his remarks never reproduced their tone. One couldn’t call the Kalmody employees submissive or servile, but in Nepamuk’s presence they divested themselves of all personality. Possibly the right pigeon-hole in which to place him was as an incorruptible feudal retainer who would stick at nothing to prove his loyalty.
    In the stables, where the steward’s only authority was to sign the cheques, he formally presented Mr. Kovacs, the Master of the ’Orse—a gallant old boy with a grin under his immense moustache who loosed off the few English greetings he knew, asked no questions and patted Bernardo as if he were a promising two-year-old appearing out of the blue by