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

her, Rosemary found it quite impossible to get any rest. At first there had been a good deal of clumsy shunting, the engine probably had been detached, the tin-trumpet sounded at intervals, and there was a good deal of shouting; but all these noises ceased presently, and the night seemed peculiarly still. Still, but not restful. Rosemary could not sleep. Fortunately the communicating doors between her compartment and the one which Jasper occupied were closed, so she felt free to fidget, to get up or to lie down as the mood seized her, to turn on the light to read or to meditate, without fear of disturbing him.

She could not help feeling desperately nervous. Jasper, of course, was quite right: there was plenty of time in which to see Elza, and then to send a telegram to London if necessary, so there was nothing in a few hours’ delay to worry about. Nevertheless she, who had always prided herself on independence and level-headedness, felt a strange kind of foreboding⁠—something vague and indefinite that nevertheless was terrifying. She tried to compose herself and could not. She forced herself into quietude, deliberately kept her eyes closed and her body still. It was torture, but she did it because she wanted to feel that she still controlled her nerves, and that she was not giving way to this stupid sense of fear.

And there was no denying it; the fear that beset her was on account of her coming interview with Elza. Maurus’ attitude had been very strange, even abnormal, and it was consequent on a letter from Elza. And Rosemary, though she had not owned it to herself before, felt a growing conviction that Elza’s lofty patriotism had given way at last to mother-love. Confronted with Philip and Anna, who no doubt had youth’s passionate desire to live, with Anna’s mother who was all for conciliating the tyrants, and with Maurus whose reason was threatening to give way, Elza had laid down her arms, had capitulated and decided that her son’s life must be saved at any cost. Perhaps she knew that Rosemary’s articles had fallen into Naniescu’s hands, perhaps she and Peter had actually been in collusion over the theft, perhaps⁠—perhaps⁠—There was no end to conjecture, and no limit to Rosemary’s dread of what the next four-and-twenty hours would bring.

Only now did she realise what it had meant to her to place the final decision into Elza’s hands. With it she had given her professional honour, her very conscience into another woman’s keeping. She had probably only done it because she was so sure of Elza, of Elza’s patriotism and her sense of justice and honour. Poor Elza! Who could blame her for being weak, for being a mother rather than a patriot? She should never have been placed before such a cruel alternative. Self-reproach, the stirrings of conscience helped to aggravate Rosemary’s racking anxiety. She got up in the early dawn, made what sketchy toilet the limited accommodation allowed, and went out into the open. The little station appeared quite deserted; only the two soldiers were still there on duty at the exit door. Rosemary marvelled if they were the same two who had been there during the night. They looked perfectly stolid, unwashed and slouchy in their faded, coarse-looking uniforms and dusty boots and képis.

Rosemary looked up and down the line. The train, consisting of half a dozen coaches, looked derelict without its engine, and there was no guard in sight. She had no eyes for the beautiful scenery around⁠—the narrow valley bordered by densely wooded heights; the mountainside covered with oak and beech that were just beginning to clothe themselves in gold and at the approach of autumn; the turbulent little mountain-stream; the small station nestling amidst gnarled acacia trees; and on the right the quaint Transylvanian village with the hemp-thatched roofs and bunches of golden maize drying in the sun, with its primitive stuccoed church and whitewashed presbytery. Rosemary saw nothing of this; her eyes searched the landscape for the château⁠—now a prison for political offenders⁠—where Philip and Anna were detained⁠—those children whose safety would be paid for perhaps by countless miseries, by worse tyranny and more cruel oppression. But there was no large building in sight, and presently Rosemary caught sight of Jasper, some way up the line, walking toward her in company with a man in very negligee toilet, who probably was the stationmaster.

At sight of Rosemary, Jasper hastened to meet her, while the man kept at a respectful distance.

“What news?” Rosemary cried eagerly.

Jasper appeared dejected. “Not very good I am afraid,” he said. “The stationmaster here tells me that he has been advised that the line will take the whole of the day to clear⁠—probably more.”

“Very well, then,” Rosemary said resolutely, “we must get a car.”

“Impossible, my dear; you can’t get across if the road is blocked.”

“All the roads in Transylvania are not blocked, I imagine,” Rosemary retorted drily. Then she called to the stationmaster: “I want,” she said, “to get to Hódmezö today. Can I get a car anywhere in Sót?”

“But the roads are impassable, gracious lady,” the man exclaimed; “the landslide⁠—”

“Never mind about the landslide. There are other roads in Transylvania besides this one. I can go by a roundabout way, but I can get there somehow if I have a car. Or,” she added impatiently, seeing that the man was looking very dubious, “a conveyance of any sort, I don’t care what it is.”

“Alas! gracious lady, that is just the trouble. The soldiers were here yesterday, and they commandeered all the horses and bullocks in Sót for military purposes. It is so hard,” the man went on, muttering half to himself; “no sooner does a man scrape together a little money and buy an old horse, then the soldiers come down and take it away from him.”

The man was full of apologies and explanations, but somehow Rosemary had the impression that he lied. He rambled on for a while in the same