in Transylvania, I reflected.
“How do you mean to travel?” Charles asked, recalling me to our conversation.
“Cosmina says the railway is complete as far as someplace called Hermannstadt. After that I must go by private carriage for some distance.”
“You do not mean to go alone?”
“I do not see an alternative,” I replied, looking to blunt his disapproval.
He said nothing, but I knew him well enough to know the furrowing of his brow meant he was knitting together a plan of some sort.
“Tell me of the family you mean to stay with,” he instructed.
“Cosmina is a poor relation of the family, a sort of niece I think, to the Countess Dragulescu. The countess paid for her education and there was an expectation that Cosmina would marry her son. He was always from home when we were in school-in Paris, I think. Now his father is dead and he is coming home. The marriage will be settled, and Cosmina wishes me to be there as I am her oldest friend.”
“Why have I never heard you speak of her?”
I shrugged. “We have not seen one another since we left school. I have had only Christmas letters from her. She was never one to correspond.”
“Why has she never come to visit you?”
I made an effort to smother my rising exasperation. Charles would have made an admirable Inquisitor.
“Because she is a poor relation,” I reminded him. “She has not had the money to travel, nor has she had the liberty. She has been caring for her aunt. The countess is something of an invalid, and they lead a very quiet existence at the castle. Cosmina has had little enough pleasure in her life. But she wants me and I mean to be there,” I finished firmly.
Charles paused again and took both of my hands in his. “I know. And I know I cannot stop you, although I would give all the world to keep you here. But you must promise me this, should you have need of me, for any reason, you have only to send for me. I will come.”
I gave his hands a friendly squeeze. “That is kind, Charles. And I promise to send word if I need you. But what could possibly happen to me in Transylvania?”
2
And so it was settled that I was to travel into Transylvania as soon as arrangements could be made. I wrote hastily to Cosmina to accept her invitation and acknowledge the instructions she had provided me for reaching the castle. William concluded the business of disposing of my grandfather’s estate, proudly presenting me with a slightly healthier sum than either of us had expected. It was not an independence, but it was enough to see me through my trip and for some months beyond, so long as I was frugal. Anna helped me to pack, choosing only those few garments and books which would be most suitable for my journey. It was a simple enough task, for I had no finery. My mourning must suffice, augmented with a single black evening gown and a travelling costume of serviceable tweed.
Mindful of the quiet life I must lead in Transylvania, I packed sturdy walking boots and warm tartan shawls, as well as a good supply of paper, pens and ink. Charles managed to find an excellent, if slender, guidebook to the region I must travel into and a neatly penned letter of introduction with a list of his acquaintances in Buda-Pesth and Vienna.
“It is the only service I can offer you,” he told me upon presenting it. “You will have friends, even if they are at some distance removed.”
I thanked him warmly, but in my mind I had already flown from him. For several nights before my departure, I dreamt of Transylvania, dreamt of thick birch forests and mountains echoing to the howling of wolves. It was anticipation of the most delicious sort, and when the morning of my departure came, I did not look back. The train pulled out of the Edinburgh station and I set my face to the east and all of its enchantments.
We passed first through France, and I could not but stare from the window, my book unread upon my lap, mesmerised as the French countryside gave way to the high mountains of Switzerland. We journeyed still further, into Austria, and at last I began to feel Scotland dropping right away, as distant as a memory.
At length we reached Buda-Pesth where the Danube separated the old Turkish houses of Buda from the modern and sparkling Pesth. I longed to explore, but I was awakened early to catch the first train the following morning. At Klausenberg I alighted, now properly in Transylvania, and I heard my first snatches of Roumanian, as well as various German dialects, and Hungarian. Eagerly, I turned to my guidebook.
All Transylvanians are polyglots, it instructed. Roumanians speak their own tongue-to the unfamiliar, it bears a strong resemblance to the Genoese dialect of Italian-and it is a mark of distinction to speak English, for it means one has had the advantage of an English nursemaid in childhood. Most of the natives of this region speak Hungarian and German as well, although a peculiar dialect of each not to be confused with the mother tongues. However, travellers fluent in either language will find it a simple enough matter to converse with natives and, likewise, to make themselves understood.
I leafed through the brief entry on Klausenberg to find a more unsettling passage.
Travellers are advised not to drink the water in Klausenberg as it is unwholesome. The water flows from springs through the graveyards and into the town, its purity contaminated by the dead.
I shivered and closed the book firmly and made my way to the small and serviceable hotel Cosmina had directed me to find. It was the nicest in the whole of Klausenberg, my guidebook assured, and yet it would have rated no better than passable in any great city. The linen was clean, the bed soft and the food perfectly acceptable, although I was careful to avoid the water. I slept deeply and well and was up once more at cockcrow to take my place on the train for the last stage of my journey, the short trip to Hermannstadt and thence by carriage into the Carpathians proper.
Almost as soon as we departed Klausenberg, we passed through the great chasm of Thorda Cleft, a gorge whose honeycombed caverns once sheltered brigands and thieves. But we passed without incident, and from thence the landscape was dull and unremarkable, and it was a long and rather commonplace journey of half a day until we reached Hermannstadt.
Here was a town I should have liked to have explored. The sharply pointed towers and red tiled roofs were so distinctive, so charming, so definably Eastern. Just beyond the town I could see the first soaring peaks of the Carpathians, rising in the distance. Here now was the real Transylvania, I thought, shivering in delight. I wanted to stand quietly upon that platform, but there was no opportunity for reflection. No sooner had I alighted from the train from Klausenberg than I was taken up by the hired coach I had been instructed to find. A driver and a postilion attended to the bags, and inside the conveyance I discovered a handful of other passengers who demonstrated a respectful curiosity, but initiated no conversation. The coach bore us rapidly out of the town of Hermannstadt and up into the Transylvanian Alps.
The countryside was idyllic. I was enchanted with the Roumanian hamlets for the houses were quite different than any I had seen before. There was no prim Scottish thrift to be found here. The eaves were embellished with colourful carvings, and gates were fashioned of iron wrought into fantastic shapes. Even the hay wagons were picturesque, groaning under the weight of the harvest and pulled by horses caparisoned with bell-tied ribbons. Everything seemed as if it had been lifted from a faery tale, and I tried desperately to memorise it all as the late- afternoon sun blazed its golden-red light across the profile of the mountains.
After a long while, the road swung upward into the high mountains, and we moved from the pretty foothills to the bold peaks of the Carpathians. Here the air grew suddenly sharp, and the snug villages disappeared, leaving only great swathes of green-black forests of fir and spruce, occasionally punctured by high shafts of grey stone where a ruined fortress or watchtower still reached to the darkening sky, and it was in this wilderness that we stopped once more, high upon a mountain pass at a small inn. A coach stood waiting, this one a private affair clearly belonging to some person of means, for it was a costly vehicle and emblazoned with an intricate coat of arms. The driver alighted at once and after a moment’s brisk conversation with the driver of the hired coach, took up my boxes and secured them.
