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

truth she was very much taken aback. Her engagement to Jasper Tarkington was very recent, and up to now he had not once spoken of a definite date for the marriage. She felt herself placed in an awkward position, for the fact that only a few seconds ago she had assured him that there was nothing she would not do for him. And now this request for an immediate marriage. She certainly was not prepared for it. Everything in her urged her to refuse. The memory of that hour in the box at the Albert Hall, her talk with Peter, her realisation that Peter still held her heart, still ruled over her thoughts; everything, in fact, except a sense of gratitude urged her to refuse. And yet she could not⁠—not after what she had said, not after all that Jasper Tarkington had done for her. While all these thoughts were whirling in her brain as she walked along, mechanically now, all the spring gone out of her step, something of the joy of living gone out of her spirits, she vaguely heard Jasper’s quiet, gentle voice.

“You mean so much to me, Rosemary,” he was saying, “that life here in England while you were God knows where, in tribulation, perhaps, perhaps in danger, needing me too, perhaps without knowing it, would be unendurable. I could not do it. I should follow you, anyway, and come as near to you as I dared, yet without the right to look after you as closely as I would wish. Well, my dear, you are far too womanly and kind to inflict such torture upon me. For it would be torture, and I would go under through it all. I don’t know if you quite understand, but⁠—”

There was an unusual vibration in his voice; it seemed as if, for once, passion would get the better of his habitual restraint. Tarkington always spoke slowly and directly, but for once words appeared to be failing him. However, just then they turned into Victoria Street, and the noise and bustle of traffic, his meticulous care of Rosemary while they crossed the road, brought him back to the prosiness of life. Nor did he speak again till they had reached the quietude of Ashley Gardens.

“Will you come up?” Rosemary asked, pausing at the entrance of one of the blocks of flats.

He shook his head.

“I think I would like you to think it all over quietly,” he said. “I want you to remember that when I am asking you to hurry on our marriage, I only do it because I want to have the right to look after you. I won’t interfere with you in any way whatever. I give you my word that as my wife you will be every bit as free as you are now⁠—more so, really, because in that part of Europe a married woman can claim an independence which convention absolutely denies to a girl. In Budapest you will meet people of your own nationality, and of your own set. I could not bear the thought that your loveliness would leave you a ready prey to gossip or malice. There now,” he added, with a self-deprecatory smile, “I have said more than I meant to. My first excuse is that you are more than life to me, and as you are so precious, I foresee dangers where perhaps none exist. My second is that I am pleading for my own happiness⁠—I was almost going to say for my life. You are not like other women, Rosemary; you are above the petty conventions of trousseaux and crowded weddings. As soon as I have your answer I will get the special licence and we’ll be married in your parish church without fuss and ceremony. So think it over, my dear, and let me have your answer as early tomorrow morning as you can. Remember that I shall scarcely live until I have your answer.”

She made no reply; only put out her hand, which he took in his. There was no glove on it, and for a moment it seemed that in spite of passersby, in spite of the conventional atmosphere of this part of London, he would raise that little hand to his lips. His eyes rested on her with a look of passionate desire; so intense was his gaze that suddenly she felt almost afraid. Rosemary had never seen Jasper’s eyes look quite like that. As a rule they were so gentle, sometimes mildly ironical, at others only weary. But now it almost seemed as if, in order to bend her will to his, he was striving to exert some kind of power that was outside himself, as if he had called to his aid forces that would prove more invincible than those that were within him. The spell⁠—it seemed like a spell⁠—only lasted a couple of seconds; the next instant his look had turned to one of infinite tenderness. He patted her hand and reiterated gently:

“Think it over, my dear, when you are alone.”

Instantly she felt the tears gathering in her eyes. His gentleness, his tender care of her, appealed to all that was truly womanly in Rosemary Fowkes. Self-reliant, brilliantly clever, independent in thought and actions as she was, she responded all the more readily to a man’s desire for the right to protect as well as to cherish. Her independence had found its birth in loneliness. Fatherless, motherless in very early life, she had soon enough shaken herself free from any trammels that well-meaning relations desired to put over her actions. Her genius had consolidated her independence, but it had never stifled those vague longings for submission and self-abnegation which are the sublime satisfaction of a true woman’s soul.

After Jasper Tarkington left her, and when she was alone in her flat, Rosemary Fowkes turned to the one thing that had never failed her in the great moments of her life. She turned to prayer. On her knees, and with her heart filled with