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

dancing and the plans for future parties, and picnics and so on. Rosemary let her prattle on; it was her turn to scrutinise Elza’s face closely. That something was troubling this dear, kind creature was obvious. She was, as it were, gathering her moral forces before she broached something unpleasant that she had come to say. It was no use brusquing the matter, and Rosemary entered into Elza’s plans, discussed the coming dinner-parties, the proposed lists of guests, talked about Anna’s future, and made some remarks about Peter.

This brought the main subject on the tapis.

“Where did you and Peter first see that gipsy?” Elza asked presently.

“He was hiding in the shrubbery,” Rosemary replied, “behind the flower border. I didn’t see him. Peter saw him and pounced upon him, and dragged him out on to the path.”

“Funny he did not just go to the service door and ask for me, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what Peter thought. I am afraid he treated the poor wretch rather roughly.”

“I am sorry he did that,” Elza mused, and thoughtfully stroked Rosemary’s slender fingers between her own. “The man really had a message for me.”

“I know,” Rosemary rejoined; “a letter.”

“No, it wasn’t a letter,” Elza said, and looked Rosemary now straight between the eyes. “You know these gipsies are queer people. They have curious gifts of divination and prophecy. This man⁠—”

She seemed to hesitate, her glance wavered, and once more she started mechanically stroking Rosemary’s hands.

“But the man had a letter for you, Elza dear,” Rosemary insisted. “I saw it in his hand.”

“Oh, that was only a blind; and so was his story about the gentleman on a horse. He told me that he had come all the way from Ujlak to speak with me. Ujlak is where I was born, and my dear brother and Peter’s mother. My sister-in-law lives there still. Anna was born there, and little Marie. It was my father’s home and my grandfather’s before him, and our ancestors’ for many generations. Well, this gipsy came from there.”

“In order to speak with you?”

“So he said.”

“Well, and what did he have to tell you?” Rosemary asked.

“That he had had a vision. My father had appeared before him in a dream, and told him that he must start at once and seek me. He was to tell me that he whom I love best in all the world is in immediate danger of death.”

Rosemary never moved; she was looking straight at Elza. Only when Elza paused, seeming to wait for some word from her, Rosemary said:

“That wretched creature told you that?”

Elza nodded. She went on simply:

“I see by your face, dear, that he told the truth, not only in that, but in what he said was to follow.”

“What was that?”

“He said that the stranger now within our gates knows of this danger, and would confirm what he said. Well, my darling, I only need look at your sweet face to see that that miserable wretch spoke the truth. He was inspired by a dream to come and speak with me. But I would not question him further. Those gipsies often lie, and they will tell you any tale in order to get a few coppers. But I saw your look when I told you what he said, and it is from you that I want the truth. What is the danger that threatens Philip?”

“Elza, darling⁠—” Rosemary murmured.

“I am his mother, you know,” Elza interposed, with her gentle, quiet smile. “I must know. He is all the world to me. And as soon as you knew that something threatened him, you should have told me, my darling.”

Then, as Rosemary was still fighting with herself, alternately praying to God for guidance, and striving to swallow the tears that were choking her, Elza went on quite quietly:

“It is difficult for you, of course,” she said, and patted Rosemary’s cheek like an indulgent mother, “but it would have been better to tell me at first. I have had a very, very happy week since the children came home, but looking back on it now, I don’t think that I was ever quite free from a vague sort of doubt. I was always a little uneasy, and whenever Philip kissed me, I could not help crying.”

Elza had spoken in a curious, dreamy manner, her round blue eyes fixed somewhere on vacant space. But now she seemed to pull herself together, she looked once more at Rosemary, gave her an encouraging smile, and said in a perfectly quiet, matter-of-fact tone:

“Well, now tell me all about it. Philip’s release and Anna’s is only a temporary one. Is that it?”

Rosemary nodded. She could not trust herself to speak. Elza gave a little gasp, but her voice was still quite steady as she went on questioning Rosemary:

“What is the charge against them?”

“Philip wrote certain newspaper articles,” Rosemary replied, and her voice sounded mechanical, like that of an automaton, “which have appeared in the English and American press. Anna used to send those through in the parcels she packed up in Balog’s shop.”

“I knew about those articles,” Elza rejoined simply. “Everybody in Transylvania knew about them, but I did not guess that Philip had anything to do with them, or Anna. Then,” she went on with a little catch in her throat, “it means a charge of treason against the State?”

“Yes!”

“Military tribunal?”

“Yes.”

“And⁠—if they are found guilty⁠—a sentence of death?”

“No! No! No!” And Rosemary was on her knees with her arms round Elza’s shoulders, her tear-stained face turned up to her, protesting vigorously, strenuously, that which she knew was false. But Elza’s big, round eyes were tearless; she looked a little wildly perhaps, but quite kindly into the beautiful face that expressed such a world of love and sympathy. Then, gently but firmly, she disengaged herself from Rosemary’s arms.

“Well now, my dear,” she asked, very quietly, “all this being so, why did Naniescu let those children come home at all? Why should he postpone their trial, their⁠—their punishment?”

Rosemary’s head fell upon her breast.

“I don’t know,” she