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

now entranced. She had never seen anything like it. It did not seem reality at all. It could not be. All these people here were just puppets and they were playacting. They could not have behaved as they did if they had been real.

There were no longer any Romanians there. They were all Hungarians together⁠—just a few of them, all from Transylvania, the wretched, occupied territory, in which everybody was something of a slave, never allowed to forget for an instant that they were the defeated, and that they must submit. All were relatives or else very intimate friends. And after a while they began to notice that Philip and Anna were not there. At first they asked questions. Where were Philip and Anna? Elza said nothing. She only gave an answering look here and there, a quiver of the eyelid and certain setting of the lips. She did not say anything, but it was remarkable how everybody understood.

Rosemary watched every face and knew that they understood. They asked no more questions. They accepted the situation. Philip and Anna had gone. They had to go as countless others, who had to fly at dead of night, get the other side of the frontier as quickly as possible, to escape from military tribunal, chicanery, persecution, or even death.

It was late now, long past midnight. The gipsies had been sent downstairs to get some supper. The mammas and papas declared that it was time to go to bed. The young people thanked dear Aunt Elza for such a happy time, the young men kissed her hand. One or two of the older people whispered: “Good luck!” Others said reassuringly: “Don’t fret, they will be all right.” Never a question about Philip and Anna. Never a comment. They knew. They understood.

Orders were given for the carriages to be ready at nine o’clock the next morning. With the innate delicacy that underlay so much apparent pleasure-loving, they wished to relieve as soon as practicable this house of sorrow from the burden of their presence.

By half-past twelve ballroom, hall, reception-rooms, were all empty. Elza waited downstairs till the last of the servants had gone. Rosemary helped her at the last to put the gold service away in the strong cupboard. It consisted of half a dozen pieces of great artistic beauty and equally great value. Each piece had to be wrapped up in cotton wool and green baize. Elza did it all, and Rosemary could see that her podgy white hands did not tremble, and that she put every piece away with her usual meticulous care. Only when her task was accomplished and there was nothing more to do but switch off the light did Elza’s stoicism give way. She sank into a chair, her head fell back against the cushions, and a leaden tint spread over her cheeks and lips. Rosemary quickly poured some brandy into a glass, and kneeling beside her tried to get her to drink some of it. To please her, Elza sipped a few drops. A wan smile spread over her face.

“Don’t worry about me, Rosemary darling,” she said, “I am quite well.”

She jumped up at once and added: “I must see how poor Maurus is.”

“Come into my room afterwards,” Rosemary suggested, “and rest there on the sofa. I know you won’t sleep.”

“Yes,” Elza replied, “I will come as soon as I can get Maurus to sleep. I think he may get to sleep presently. But I don’t think I shall. You see, we ought to get a telephone message through from Hódmezö the first thing in the morning. Philip and I agreed on a code. If everything is all right he is to give Peter Blakeney’s name and say that the weather is beautiful in Hungary, and every arrangement for the cricket match splendid. After I get that message I shall probably sleep.”

She had toiled up the stairs while she was talking, and Rosemary followed close behind her, ready to catch her if she swooned.

“I won’t say ‘good night’ now,” Elza said when she near her bedroom door. “You go to bed, Rosemary darling, and I will come in presently for a little talk when Maurus is asleep.”

Rosemary went into her room. She undid her hair and slipped into a dressing-gown. It was no use going to bed; she knew she would not be able to go to sleep. It was just a case of waiting. Of watching, of praying, and commending those two young creatures to God. Watching and praying, with eyes fixed upon the hands of the clock, following in imagination every phase of tonights adventures. Every detail. At this hour they would be at the mill, all the actors in the drama which poor Elza had invented. Philip and Anna would be there, changing into peasant’s clothes, and János the miller would be setting out the mugs and the spirit, which would make the Jew’s son and the brother of the Romanian storekeeper blind to the world. Old Emma would be there too, the miller’s wife, the mother of the two boys who were going to risk so much for Philip’s sake and Anna’s Emma would be fussing round with cloth and duster. Grumbling and fussing. Knowing nothing of the drama on which the curtain would ring up in the parlour of her cottage, and in which her two sons would be playing leading roles. János would not have told her. He, the father, had agreed to it all; had even suggested it. But the mother? No! If she knew she would protest. Weep, of course. Weaken the resolution of the two boys who just had to go through with it all.

And now the motor would be drawing up at the mill, and János the miller would ask the company to walk in and have a drink. Even the motor-driver would be persuaded. Just a drop of spirit, as it was a long drive all the way to Hódmezö. Time was moving leaden-footed up here in