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

“He would, my dear Lord Tarkington,” Naniescu rejoined blandly, “he would. But those devils are so astute. How they manage to smuggle their articles through the post I for one cannot for the life of me make out.”

“Ah,” Rosemary put in with a smile, as quietly ironical as Naniescu’s had been a while ago, “you still carry on a strict censorship, then? You do not believe in liberty of speech or of the Press.”

“We do, dear lady, indeed we do. But unfortunately the English and American Press are so easily captured by sentimentality. Put a case before them of supposed wrong, however preposterous and palpably false, and they will revel in it, print it with capital headlines, and so capture the imagination of their sentimental, unthinking readers that these will no longer listen to the voice of reason or of truth. We are too proud⁠—or perhaps not clever enough⁠—to combat such barefaced propaganda; a strict censorship may be a crude weapon, but it is the only one at our command. What would you? A man who is attacked defends himself as best as he can.”

“But in this case your weapon is failing you?” Jasper queried in his quiet, incisive way. “Whoever sends those articles to England and America is apparently too clever for you.”

“For the moment⁠—yes,” Naniescu admitted. “But,” he went on more lightly and at last rose to take his leave, “I fear my irresponsible prattle is keeping Lady Tarkington away from the rest she so much needs. Dear lady, pray accept my humble homage, and my earnest wish that your stay in our poor country will afford you all the delight that you anticipate.”

He raised Rosemary’s hand to his lips with the same show of gallantry that marked his every action in her presence. Just before he finally released it he looked up with deep earnestness into her eyes:

“Let me once more assure you, dear lady, that as far as you are concerned every word you write will be transmitted in its entirety and with all possible speed to its destination. All that you need do is to send your articles and letters in a sealed packet undercover to me. I give you my word of honour that you will be satisfied.”

Until the moment of her arrival in Cluj, Rosemary had felt nothing but exhilaration whenever she thought of her work and of the good which she proposed to do, thanks to the facilities so magnanimously accorded her by Naniescu. Just for one moment at Budapest, when she first met the handsome Romanian, she had been conscious of a slight feeling of mistrust, an instinctive dislike of the man’s fluent speech and affected gestures. But on reflection she had persuaded herself that this sudden aversion was bound to arise at first contact with those elaborate manners which pass for gallantry in most of the Latin and Slav countries of Europe. The contrast between Naniescu’s exaggerated politeness and Jasper’s unobtrusive consideration had naturally reacted on her sensibilities to the detriment of the Romanian.

Anyway, the sensation soon wore off. She had a very happy time in Budapest. The Paysons were charming; she met several friends, both English and Hungarian, who made her very welcome, and Jasper was, as usual, thoughtfulness itself. The journey across Hungary filled her with that gentle melancholy which those limitless expanses of earth and sky engender in the mind of imaginative people. It was close on harvesting time, and to right and left of the permanent way the great fields of corn stretched out like a sea of ruddy gold to the purple line of the horizon far away. Rosemary loved to gaze on these measureless stretches of country, whereon for mile upon mile nothing showed above the line of waving corn save, at rare intervals, the thatched roof of a tiny homestead peeping from behind a clump of grey-green willow, or an isolated well, with one gaunt arm stretched skywards, around which a herd of young horses had halted for the midday rest. Her eyes followed with loving intensity the winding ribbon of the dust-laden road, bordered by tall, slender poplars or twisted acacia trees, and at intervals the great patches of vivid green amidst the gold, where row upon row of watermelons turned their huge, shimmering carcases to the warmth of the sun.

A faint perfume of heliotrope and mignonette hung in the air, and just for one moment Rosemary’s dreamy gaze caught a glimpse of an exquisite mirage on the far distant horizon⁠—a vision of towers and minarets and of a cool, shady stream painted with fairy brush upon the moisture-laden atmosphere. It was a phantom picture that vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but upon the watcher’s super-sensitive mind it left in its swift transit an impression as of a magic land, a paradise the gates of which had for one brief second been opened by celestial hands, so that she might glimpse the garden of Eden beyond⁠—the world of happiness and of love which for her must ever remain elusive and unattainable.

The arrival at Cluj was dreary and disappointing. From Budapest she herself had telegraphed to the hotel she knew so well, and had sent a letter at the same time asking the proprietor to have a hot supper ready for herself and Lord Tarkington. The hotel appeared unfamiliar when she stepped out of the little cab which had brought them from the station. The smiling hall-porter who used to greet Mrs. Blakeney with respectful familiarity on arrival was no longer there; an out-at-elbows, ill-dressed, unwashed porter took charge of their luggage. The proprietor, he said, was not in the house, and he himself was in charge of the place. He bluntly explained in broken German that under the new management no meals except early morning coffee were served in the hotel, the restaurant being now under separate ownership. The lady and gentleman could get something to eat there, no