Pimpernel and Rosemary, Baroness Orczy [i have read the book a hundred times .txt] 📗

for him with his own coat, which he had taken off. Then he ran to the priest’s house, which was quite close, and rang the bell until he made someone hear. The priest had been quite kind. He roused his servant, and together⁠—the priest and Anton and the servant⁠—carried the gracious count into the presbytery. But the English milord, who was quite dead, they laid upon the bier in the tiny mortuary chapel which was by the entrance to the churchyard.

The priest had already sent for the village doctor, who had done what he could for the gracious count, but of course, he was ignorant, and, anyhow, Anton was of the opinion that there was nothing that any man could do. But he had been to the station and roused the stationmaster and asked him to telephone to Dr. Zacharias at Cluj. Anton was just going to run back and see if the answer had come through. In the meanwhile he had come over to the hotel to see if he could speak with the gracious lady.

Rosemary had not yet thought of going to bed. For two hours after Jasper went out with Maurus she had sat, unthinking, by the open window. Time for her had ceased to be. She had heard the howling of a dog. At one moment she had heard a shout, and then a weird and prolonged cry. But these sounds conveyed no meaning to her brain. Her thinking powers were atrophied.

Then the barefooted, buxom, very sleepy little maid came to tell her that Anton, the valet of the gracious count at Kis-Imre, desired to speak with her at once. She was fully dressed; she sent for Anton and he told her what he had seen.

Hastily seizing hat and wrap, she went with Anton out of the house and through the village to the priest’s house. The soft, colourless light of dawn lay over the mountain and valley. On ahead the turbulent waters of the stream tossed and played around the projecting boulders, murmuring of the tragedy which had culminated within their bosom. Nearing the priest’s house Rosemary could see the narrow bridge, with its broken parapet⁠—

The priest met her at the gate. The gracious count, he said, had not regained consciousness. He still lived, the doctor said, but life only hung by a thread. Rosemary sat down by Maurus’ bedside and watched that life slowly ebbing away. In the late afternoon Dr. Zacharias came over from Cluj. He only confirmed what the village doctor had said. The spine was broken. It was only a question of hours. He could do nothing, but at Rosemary’s earnest request⁠—or perhaps on the promise of a heavy fee⁠—he agreed to come again in the morning.

Less than an hour after he left, the dying man rallied a little. He opened his eyes, and seeing Rosemary, his face was illumined by a great joy. She bent over him and kissed his forehead. Two tears rolled slowly down his wan cheeks. He murmured something, and she bent her ear till it was quite close to his lips.

“He was a monster,” he murmured. “I heard everything. I had to punish him for the evil he did to my wife and the children. And I have made you free.”

At sunset Maurus Count Imrey passed away into the Unknown.

Then only did Rosemary leave his bedside. Accompanied by the priest, she went to the little mortuary chapel to take a last look at the man who had done her such an infinity of wrong. Now that his stormy life was ended, and his hard features were set in lines of peace, Rosemary felt once more that aching sense of pity for him which so often before had prompted her to forgive. She was able to commend his turbulent soul to God without the slightest thought of hatred or revenge. He had said once that she would never understand; but the infinite pity in her heart was born of an infinite understanding. The man who had atoned for his sins by this tragic death was not wholly responsible for his actions. He was the victim of his temperament: more sinned against, perhaps, than sinning. Who knows? If some other woman had captured his fancy she might have made him happy, found what was strong and fine in him, and all that was cruel would perhaps have been submerged beneath a great wave of love.

XLVIII

Since then, nearly two years! And this was the season of 1924! Wembley! The Rodeo! Royalties from Italy and Denmark and Romania! The Labour Government!

How far, how very far, seemed Transylvania and Sót and the little mortuary chapel wherein Rosemary had gazed for the last time on the enigmatic personality which had once been Jasper Tarkington⁠—her husband.

Even in death he had kept his secret⁠—the secret of the strange dual identity which she had never been able to reconcile one with the other, the cruel, wolfish nature so skillfully hidden beneath the mantle of super-civilization.

Rosemary had not seen Peter since then. After the tragedy at Sót she had at last succeeded, by dint of bribery, in entering into direct communication with the British Consulate at Cluj.

Arrangements for the conveying of Lord Tarkington’s body to England took up some considerable time. She only met Elza in Budapest when she herself was on her way home. Peter had left by then for an unknown destination. He had conveyed Philip and Anna over the frontier. They had soon abandoned the car, fearing pursuit, and in disguise had made their way to the frontier over the mountains. They were young and strong, the hardships were not serious, and the dangers reduced to a minimum once they had reached the lonely mountain passes. It was the planning of the escape that had been so wonderful. Peter Blakeney, disguised as a Romanian officer, and having with him Captain Payson and a young Hungarian cricketer, both dressed as Romanian soldiers, had presented a forged order for the surrender