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

standing about half a kilometre away. He had seen the soldier running, and had seen the car drive off. He thought there was another soldier in that car.

By that time a couple of gendarmes were on the scene. They were conducting their own investigations of the case in a casual, perfunctory manner. At first they took no notice of Elza or of Rosemary, talked over their heads in a proper democratic manner; then one of them asked curtly of Elza:

“Did you see the car drive up?”

Elza said: “No!”

“Do you know anything about it?”

Again she replied: “No!”

Whereupon the man queried roughly: “Then what are you doing here?”

Elza’s face flushed a little, but she replied quite courteously: “We all hoped at the castle to hear that the miller’s two sons had arrived safely at Hódmezö, and I thought that this was the car that drove them in the night.”

The man gave a sneer and a shrug of the shoulders.

“You seem mightily concerned,” he said, with a harsh laugh, “about the miller’s sons, to be out of your bed at this hour of the morning.”

He spat on the ground, turned on his heel, and once more addressed the peasants.

“Now, then,” he said, quite genially, “all of you get back to your homes. The Government will see about this affair, and it is no concern of anybody’s. Understood?”

The two gendarmes waved their arms and drove the people out of the inn and away from the door as if they were a flock of sheep. They obeyed without murmur, only with an occasional shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say: “Well, well, these are strange times, to be sure! But it is no concern of ours.”

The gendarmes then went out of the inn. They moved the body of the dead chauffeur into the body of the car; one of them got in beside it, the other took the driver’s seat, and the next moment the mysterious car had disappeared up the village street in the direction of the gendarmerie.

When the last of the crowd had dispersed, Elza rose and, white-faced, wide-eyed, she turned to Rosemary.

“There is nothing more,” she said, “that we can do here. Shall we go home?”

She nodded to the Jew, and, leaning heavily on Rosemary’s arm, she went out into the street. It was past six now, and the village was flooded with sunlight. Elza’s tired, aching eyes blinked as she came out into the open. Rosemary would have put an arm round her to support her, for she felt that the poor woman was ready to swoon; but mutely and firmly Elza refused to be supported. Her pride would not allow her, even now, to show weakness in sight of these cottages, behind the windows of which the eyes of Romanian peasants might be on the lookout for her.

“They are outwardly obsequious,” she said, as if in answer to a mute remark from Rosemary. “Call me gracious countess and kiss my hand, but at heart they hate us all, and triumph in our humiliation.”

Strange, wonderful people! Even at this hour of supreme anxiety and acute distress, pride of caste fought every outward expression of sorrow and conquered in the end. Elza walked through the village with a firm step and head held quite erect. It was only when she was inside the gates of her own home that she spoke, and even then her first thought was for her husband.

“How to break the news to Maurus!” she murmured under her breath. “My God, how to break the news.”

In the hall, where Rosemary saw that they were quite alone, she put her arms round Elza and drew her down into a low-cushioned seat.

“Elza, darling,” she said gently, “have a real cry, it will do you good.”

Elza shook her head.

“It won’t bring Philip back,” she said dully, “nor Anna. Will it?”

Her big, round eyes gazed with pathetic inquiry into Rosemary’s face. She seemed to have some sort of intuition that her English friend could help⁠—that she could do something for Philip, even now. Rosemary, her eyes swimming in tears, slowly shook her head. And with a low moan, Elza buried her face in the cushions, convulsive sobs shook her shoulders, and little cries of pain broke intermittently from her lips. Rosemary made no attempt to touch her. She let her cry on. Perhaps it was for the best. There was nobody about, and tears were sometimes a solace. The quietude, the stoicism of the past two hours, had been unnatural, racking alike to heart, nerves and brain. There was a limit to human endurance, and Elza had reached it at last.

When the worst of the paroxysm was over, Rosemary suggested gently: “Would you like me to break the news to Maurus? I’ll do it most carefully, and I am afraid the strain would be too much for you.”

But already Elza had struggled to her feet. She was wiping her eyes, then breathing on her handkerchief and dabbing them with it.

“No, no, my dear,” she said between the dry, intermittent sobs that still shook her poor weary body, “not on any account. I understand Maurus. I know just what to say. Poor, poor Maurus! He has so little self-control. But I shall know what to say. You go and get your bath now, darling,” she went on, gently disengaging herself from Rosemary’s arms, “and get dressed. It will refresh you. I will do the same before I speak to Maurus. Rosa shall bring your coffee in half an hour. Will that do?”

She forgot nothing, thought of everything⁠—Rosemary’s bath, her breakfast, the guests. Ah, yes, the guests! Rosemary had forgotten all about them. It was long past six now; they would soon be up. All of them wanting breakfast, baths, attention. Elza forgot nothing. Thank God that she had so much to think about!

“You go up, darling,” she said to Rosemary. “I shall be quite all right. Don’t worry about me.”

One or two servants came through the hall, busy with their work. Elza