Pimpernel and Rosemary by Baroness Orczy (ebook reader 7 inch TXT) 📕

her heart cried out against what she felt was treachery to Peter. Jasper’s insistence filled her with a vague sense of foreboding not unmixed with fear; and yet, the very next moment, as soon as he had her promise, he became tender, soft, loving, as if trying to make her forget his solemn earnestness of a while ago. He took her in his arms and gazed into her eyes with an intensity of longing which made her own heart ache with self-reproach.

“If God there be,” he whispered softly, as if to himself, “it was cruel of Him to make you so beautiful⁠—and so desirable.”

Again his mood had changed. Tenderness had turned into passion, fierce, almost primeval, and he held her now more like a man defending the greatest treasure he possessed on God’s earth than like a husband taking affectionate leave of his wife.

“If I should lose you, Rosemary,” he murmured, “because of this.”

She tried to laugh and to speak flippantly. “Lose me?” she said. “You have little chance of doing that, my dear, for this or any other cause. Naniescu has not the power of life and death over me,” she added more seriously.

There was something about Jasper at this moment that she could not entirely fathom. Twice before she had seen him in these moods of violent passion akin almost to savagery, when she felt utterly helpless and absolutely in his power. She had the feeling that when he was in one of these moods he was capable of any violence against her if she dared to disobey or resist. Not that Rosemary was afraid; she had never in her life been afraid of anyone; but she had always been mistress of herself, and at this moment, held tightly by the man to whom she had sworn love and fealty, she felt like a slave of olden times in the grip of her lord.

“You⁠—you will care for me some day, Rosemary?” he asked with passionate earnestness. “Say that you will some day, when all this⁠—all this is forgotten, and we are back again in England, free to live our own lives, free to love. You will care for me then, Rosemary, will you not? For I could not live beside you for long, feeling all the time that you did not belong to me with your whole soul. You have such haunting eyes⁠—eyes such as pixies and fairies have⁠—maddening eyes. I should go crazy presently if I failed to kindle the love-light in those eyes.”

He kissed her eyes, her mouth, her throat. Rosemary would have struggled, would have screamed if she dared. Fortunately a knock at the door and the entrance of one of the menservants, who came to fetch milord’s luggage, put an end to a situation which Rosemary found very difficult to endure. After the man had gone the spell appeared to be broken. Jasper became once more the courteous, grave man of the world he had always been. The episode of a moment ago did not seem to have occurred at all, as far as he was concerned, and while Rosemary felt her teeth chattering and the palms of her hands were covered with a cold sweat, Jasper moved about the room and spoke to her about his proposed journey, his certain return in a fortnight, as if nothing had happened.

XVI

The carriage which took Jasper to Cluj brought back Philip and Anna. After that the house was full of animation, like a beehive in May. Rosemary only saw the two young people for a moment. She felt a stranger in this family gathering, and her heart was so heavy that she soon found a pretext for going up to her room. Later on she pleaded a headache. Kind and hospitable as were these dear people, Rosemary felt that they must wish to be alone amongst themselves after the terrible time they had all gone through. They would have so much to talk over that the presence of a stranger, even so welcome an one as Rosemary Tarkington, must of necessity be irksome. It was clear to her from the first that Philip and Anna knew little, if anything, of the conditions attached to their release. Philip talked lightly of their being under surveillance for a time, and then added quite gaily that he would gladly lead the life of a hermit in Kis-Imre and never go outside the gates until the present clouds blew over. He gave himself up wholly to the joy of watching his mother’s happiness and seeing her dear eyes beaming on her returned boy. Altogether he was more like a schoolboy who by a fluke has escaped punishment than a man conscious of a deadly peril that had not ceased to threaten him.

They all sat up talking late into the evening, and when Rosemary found herself at last alone in her room, trying to think things out before she went to bed, little Anna came up to her. The child looked hollow-eyed and grave; the joy that had been on her face when she first found herself in this second home of hers had all gone. She looked old, wan and tired out.

Rosemary put out her arms, and Anna ran up to her and snuggled up close to her, just like a child. For a long time she was quite silent, with her head against her friend’s shoulder, her little thin hands held in Rosemary’s kind, firm grasp. Now and again a hot tear would fall on Rosemary’s hands. Anna was crying quietly to herself, and Rosemary waited until the girl was calm enough to speak.

“I don’t understand the whole thing, Rosemary,” were the first words that Anna spoke.

“What is it you don’t understand, dear?” Rosemary asked.

“It is not like them to be lenient, is it?” the girl retorted, looking up with quick, eager inquiry into her friend’s face.

“Oh, in this case,” Rosemary rejoined vaguely, “you are both so young!”

Anna shook her head vigorously.

“That wouldn’t