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

no longer keep the excitement out of her voice. Another two or three hours and this terrible suspense would be over. She hardly dared to look at Elza, for she felt the dear creature’s body quivering against hers. The first glance had shown her Elza’s face the colour of ashes, with swollen eyelids and red hectic spots on her cheekbones. But outwardly she was still quite calm, and when together they reached the dew-wet lawn she threw back her head and with obvious delight drank in the sweet morning air.

“It is astonishing,” she said, “that one should be able to sleep when⁠—when things happen like they did tonight.”

“You were dog-tired, Elza, and the air was so wonderfully balmy and soothing. I think,” Rosemary went on gently, “that God sent down a couple of his guardian angels to fan you to sleep with their wings.”

“Perhaps,” Elza assented with a tired smile.

“Do you feel like a walk, as far as the perennial border?”

“Why, yes. I should love it. And we still have hours to kill.”

Already sounds of awakening village life filled the morning with their welcome strains. The fox and the owl were silent, but two cocks gave answer to one another, and from the homesteads and the farms came a lowing and a bleating and a barking, the beasts rousing the humans to activity and calling them to the work of the day.

As Elza’s and Rosemary’s footsteps crunched the gravel of the path, Mufti, the big sheepdog, and Karo, the greyhound, came from nowhere in particular, bounding across the lawn, and threw themselves in the exuberance of their joy upon these two nice humans who had shortened the lonely morning hours for them.

“Let’s go and see the moss-roses,” Rosemary suggested, “and see if they smell as sweet as they did in the night.”

They walked on to the end of the perennial border, where two or three clumps of moss-roses nestled at the foot of a tall crimson Rugosa laden with blossom.

“Dear little things,” Elza said. “They are my favourite flowers. I like them so much better than all those wonderful new roses that get the prizes at the horticultural shows.”

She stooped to inhale the fragrance of the roses, and while she was stooping a faint, very distant whirring sound became audible, which grew in volume every moment. Just for the space of one second Elza did not move; she remained just as she was, stooping and with her face buried in the roses. Then she straightened out her fine figure and grasped Rosemary’s hand.

“The motor,” she said huskily. “Let us go.”

The end of the perennial border where they were was nearly a quarter of a mile away from the house; and then there was the house to get round, the courtyard to cross⁠—The whirring grew louder every moment, then slower, and then it ceased. The car had come to a halt, but not in front of the gates, which were still closed. Rosemary and Elza were in the courtyard with Mufti and Karo jumping about them and getting in the way. The motor was not in sight.

“Down, Mufti! Karo, down!” Elza kept repeating mechanically.

She was rather breathless after that race across the garden. Rosemary ran to the lodge to call Feri, the night-watchman, who had the keys of the gate. He had heard the dogs barking and the voice of the gracious countess, so he was on the doorstep wondering what had brought the ladies out at this hour of the morning.

“Quick, Feri, open the gates!” Rosemary called to him.

It took Feri a few moments to get the keys to unlock the gates. An eternity.

From the direction of the village there had come a loud cry, followed after a few seconds by shouts and the sound of men running. Running and shouting, and now and then another shrill cry.

“Run ahead quickly, Feri,” Rosemary whispered to the watchman. “Quickly, see what it is.”

She held Elza’s hand in the tight clutch, and under her arm. But even so Elza succeeded in breaking free, and while Feri ran on ahead, she did not lag far behind. Past the thick clump of acacias, the village street came in sight. At the end of it, a quarter of a mile away, in front of the inn which was kept by the Jew, a motorcar had come to a halt, and some half-dozen peasants stood round it, gesticulating and arguing. Down the street, from one or two of the cottages, men, women and children came running out to see what was happening, and when they caught sight of the gracious countess and the gracious foreign lady they paused, bewildered. The gracious countess⁠—at this hour in the village! Such a thing had never happened before. The men doffed their hats, the women hastily bobbed a curtsy, the children stood stock-still, finger in mouth, staring. A few, bolder than the rest, ran forward to kiss the ladies’ hands. But Elza hastened on, seeing nothing, heeding nothing, whilst Rosemary kept close by her side. Feri, as he drew near to the inn, shouted to the people to make way. But as soon as he came in close sight of the car he turned and hastened back to Elza. He clasped his hands together and cried:

“Don’t come, gracious countess. Don’t come! It is nothing, nothing, just an accident, a⁠—”

Silently, with lips tightly pressed together, Elza pushed past him, but Rosemary now had once more taken hold of her hand. She held Elza tight, with one arm round her waist and the other clutching her hand. Struggle as she might, Elza could not free herself this time.

The next moment they stood together by the side of the motor. It was a large, rather shabby touring car, painted a dull grey and fitted with leather cushions. It was smothered in dust. There was no one in the back seats, but the innkeeper was just in the act of climbing in beside the chauffeur. The chauffeur appeared to be asleep; he sat like a