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

she never once succeeded. Elza was avoiding her glance. She meant to say nothing about her plan⁠—this mad plan of which Peter disapproved so thoroughly that he preferred to be out of the way. Did these dear, kind people mistrust her then, because of what the gipsy had said? Or was this reticence merely the natural outcome of a sense of supreme danger that mistrusted everything and everybody?

Rosemary felt the mystery deepening around her. She could not understand Peter.

Sometime after luncheon she found Elza and Anna sitting together in the small brick-built summerhouse at the farther end of the lake. Rosemary had wandered as far as there with a book, anxious as she was to be out of the way. It was hot, and the air was very still, and the scent of tuberoses and heliotrope was almost too heady. In the perennial border a number of hummingbird moths were busy about a bed of sweet sultan; the soft whirring sound of their wings could be heard quite distinctly in the extreme stillness of this late summer’s afternoon. From time to time distant sounds of village life came in quick, short waves to Rosemary’s ear, as well as the sharp click of tools wielded by the gardeners at work somewhere in the park. Close beside the summerhouse one man was busy hand-weeding the path. As Rosemary drew nearer, he looked up for an instant, and then he shuffled rapidly away. In the long, stooping figure, the dirty rags and the dark skin, Rosemary thought that she recognised the gipsy of the previous night. It was just like Elza, she thought, to give the poor wretch work on the estate.

When Rosemary saw Elza and Anna sitting together in the summerhouse, her instinct was to pass discreetly on, with just a hasty, cheery word, but Elza called to her.

“Come and sit here a minute, Rosemary darling,” she said. “Anna and I want to tell you everything.”

Everything! Rosemary without a word stepped into the little pavilion. Anna pulled a wicker chair forward between herself and Elza, and Rosemary sat down, a little anxious, a little fearful, wondering what these dear, enthusiastic hotheads had devised, and how she herself would act when she knew. Elza at once took hold of her hand and fondled it.

“You asked me last night, darling,” she began, “not to give up hope, didn’t you?”

Rosemary nodded acquiescence.

“And I promised that I would not give up faith,” Elza went on quietly. “Well, I have kept my faith all through last night, which was very trying. With the dawn, hope came to me, and after that I once more felt in charity with all the world.”

Rosemary gave Elza’s podgy white hand a tender squeeze. “Dear!” she whispered.

“We have a plan, darling,” Elza said triumphantly. “A splendid plan! Tomorrow night Philip and Anna will be in Hungary, safely out of the way.”

Rosemary had known all along what was coming. She looked at Anna, who gave an excited little nod.

“Tell Rosemary, Aunt Elza,” she said. “All from the beginning. There’s no one in the world you can trust as you can Rosemary.”

“Listen then, darling,” Elza said, speaking quite quietly at first, then allowing excitement to get hold of her voice, making it tremble while she spoke, and husky with eagerness, while her command of the English tongue became less and less pronounced.

“It has all been made possible by this cricket business, for which I thank God and Peter Blakeney. As I told you this morning, Peter’s cricket people are all coming here tomorrow for the ball. They have to be at Hódmezö the following day for the cricket. So they will bring their luggage, and make a start from here after the ball⁠—I suppose about midnight⁠—in three motorcars which the Governor, General Naniescu, has himself placed at their disposition. Hódmezö is, as you know, in Hungary, just the other side of the frontier. It will be about four or five hour’s drive from here, as there is a shortcut⁠—quite a good road⁠—which avoids Cluj. In two of those motorcars the cricket people themselves will go; they are mostly young Romanian officers and men of the better class. General Naniescu has, of course, given them all free passes for the occasion. Fortunately he has also given them passes for four servants to accompany them. These four men will go in the third motor, and they will also go in the motor all the way to Hódmezö. Now two of these servants, whom the local commissary of police has himself chosen and to whom passes have been given, are the two sons of János the miller, who is devoted to us all. His two sons have certainly served in the Romanian army because they were obliged, but they have remained Hungarian at heart and would do anything for me and for Philip.”

Elza paused. Her eager, round eyes searched Rosemary’s face. Rosemary, of course, had already guessed the rest, her own excitement while she listened was as tense as Elza’s. She gripped the white podgy little hand of her friend, and looked from her to Anna⁠—a mute question in every glance.

“You can guess, of course?” Anna said.

Rosemary nodded: “I can guess,” she said, “but do go on.”

“I sent for János early this morning,” Elza went on. “All I had to tell him was that Philip and Anna were in great danger, and must be got out of the country at any cost. He understood! We Hungarians in this occupied territory all understand one another. We understand danger. We live with danger constantly at our door. And János was so clever, so helpful. I only had to outline my plan, he thought out all the details. The mill is about a kilometre from here, the last house in the village; as soon as the first two motors have gone with the cricket people and the Romanian officers, Philip and Anna will at once run round to the mill, and János will give them clothes belonging to his sons.