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

at the end of the week. You can’t think, Peter, how I miss him when he is away! Perhaps that is why I am looking thin, and why my hands are hot.”

“Perhaps,” Peter assented laconically.

Then somehow the conversation flagged, and all the happy feeling that Rosemary had experienced when Peter first stood near her slipped away from her. She suddenly felt cold, although the evening was so hot that a little while ago she had scarcely been able to breathe. At some little distance behind her Philip’s voice sounded cheerful and homely, and Maurus Imrey’s throaty laugh and Elza’s happy little giggle rang through the sweet-scented evening air. Poor Rosemary shivered.

“Shall we walk on,” she asked, “Or wait for the others?”

“Let’s walk on,” Peter replied; then added in a clumsy, boyish fashion: “Rather!”

They walked on side by side. Rosemary, at a loss what to say next, had thrown out an inquiry about the cricket match. This set Peter talking. All at once he threw off his abrupt, constrained air, and prattled away nineteen to the dozen. The cricket match was going to be a huge success. Didn’t Rosemary think it was a grand idea? Talk about the League of Nations, or whatever the thing was called! In Peter’s opinion, there was nothing like a jolly good cricket or football match to bring people together. Make them understand one another, was Peter’s motto. Of course, all these dagoes over here had got to learn to be proper sports. No sulking if they got beaten. Peter would see to that. Anyhow, the old General What’s-his-name had been a brick. He had helped Peter no end to get the Romanian team together, and had given them all free passes to Hódmezö, where the match would take place. Hódmezö was in Hungary, and old What’s-his-name⁠—meaning Naniescu⁠—said he would rather the Romanian team went to Hungary than that the Hungarian team came over here. Well, Peter didn’t mind which. It was going to be a topping affair. He was going to captain the Romanian team, and Payson was captaining the Hungarians. Did Rosemary know Payson? Jolly chap with a ripping wife⁠—done splendid work in the Air Force during the war. He had something to do with the Military Commission on disarmaments. He was at Budapest now, and Jasper would probably see him while he was there. Payson was coming over to Hódmezö by aeroplane. Wouldn’t that create a sensation. There was a splendid landing ground quite close to Hódmezö fortunately. Payson’s wife was coming with him. She was so keen on flying. Ripping couple, they were! Didn’t Rosemary think so? Oh! and Peter had had telegrams of good wishes from no end of people, and a jolly letter from dear old Plum Warner. Did Rosemary know Plum Warner? There was a cricketer if you like! No one like him, in Peter’s opinion. The science of the man! Well, the dagoes should learn that cricket is the finest game in the world! Didn’t Rosemary agree with him?

Rosemary gave monosyllabic replies whenever Peter gave her the chance of putting in a word. She could not help smiling at his enthusiasm, of course. It was so young, so English, so thoroughly, thoroughly fine! But somehow she could not recapture that lovely feeling of security, that sheer joy in having Peter near her, and she kept asking herself whether it was really Peter who had changed⁠—who had become younger, or she who had grown old. In this youthful athlete with his self-assurance and his slang, she vainly sought the wayward, sometimes moody, always captivating Peter, whose tempestuous lovemaking had once swept her off her feet.

At one moment she tried to lead the conversation into a more serious channel: “How do you think Anna is looking?” she asked abruptly.

“A bit peaky.” Peter replied lightly, “poor little mole! When you go back to England,” he went on more gravely, “you ought to take her with you. It would do her all the good in the world. Take her out of herself, I mean.”

“She wouldn’t come,” Rosemary replied earnestly.

“Don’t you think so?”

“Why, Peter,” she retorted, feeling exasperated with him for this air of indifference even where Anna was concerned, “you know Anna would not come. For one thing,” Rosemary added impulsively, “I don’t suppose she would be allowed to.”

“You mean her mother wouldn’t let her?”

“No,” she replied laconically. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Well, then?” he retorted. Then, as Rosemary, shocked, angry, remained silent, holding her lips tightly pressed together, almost as if she were afraid that words would slip out against her will, Peter shrugged his broad shoulders and rejoined flippantly:

“Oh, I suppose you mean old What’s-his-name⁠—Naniescu⁠—and all that rubbish. I don’t think he would worry much. He has been a brick, letting Anna and Philip out like that. I expect he would just as soon see them both out of the country as not. Jolly good thing it would be for both of them! They would learn some sense, the monkeys!”

He paused and looked round at Rosemary. Then, as she seemed to persist in her silence, he insisted:

“Don’t you agree with me?”

“Perhaps,” she replied, with a weary sigh.

“Anyway, you’ll think it over, won’t you?” Peter went on. “I am sure you could fix it up with old Naniescu. He admires you tremendously, you know.”

It was all wrong, all wrong. Peter used to be so fond of little Anna. “Give her a kiss for me,” were almost the last words he had spoken to Rosemary on the day of her wedding. His own affairs evidently pushed every other consideration into the remotest corner of his brain; and cricket matches were apparently of more importance than the danger which threatened Anna and Philip. Nor had Rosemary any longer the desire to break her promise to Jasper. She no longer wished to speak to Peter about Anna and Philip, or about the horrible alternative which Naniescu had put before her. Peter⁠—this Peter⁠—would not understand. Jasper had not understood either⁠—but he had misunderstood in a different