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

“Tell the chef,” she said to Anton, “to come and speak to me here. And don’t go into the gracious count’s room until I call you.”

Rosemary lingered in the hall a moment or two longer, until the chef, in immaculate white, tall linen cap in hand, came for his orders. Elza immediately entered into a long conversation with him on the subject of milk rolls for breakfast. And Rosemary at last went slowly up the stairs. Almost without knowing it, she found herself once more in her room, the pretty, old-fashioned room with the huge bedstead and the curtains embroidered in cross-stitch. How pretty it looked, and how peaceful! Through the open window came the sound of birdsong; a blackbird was whistling, a thrush was singing, a hundred sparrows were chirruping, and on the large lily leaves on the ornamental lake a frog was sitting croaking. So peaceful, so still! And, heavens above, what a tragedy within these walls!

For a while Rosemary stood at the open window gazing out upon the beautiful panorama laid out before her, the prim, well-kept garden the flower borders, the shady park, and out, far away, the wooded heights, the forests of oak and pine which the morning sun had just tinted with gold.

And with a sudden impulse Rosemary fell on her knees, just where she was, at the open window, and she stretched out her arms towards the Invisible, the Unattainable, the Almighty, and from her heart there came a cry, forced through her lips by the intensity of despair:

“Oh God! My God! Tell me what to do!”

If Rosemary had been gifted with second sight!

She would have seen at the moment when she, in despair, turned to the great Healer for comfort, General Naniescu and his friend M. de Kervoisin enjoying their petit déjeuner in one of the palatial rooms of the Imrey’s house in Cluj. M. de Kervoisin had arrived the night before. He was the guest of the general, and after a night’s rest was enjoying the company of his host, as well as the luxury of these beautiful apartments so thoughtfully placed at the disposal of the military Governor of Transylvania by the Romanian Government.

M. de Kervoisin was also enjoying the anxieties to which his friend was a prey in his capacity of Governor of this unruly country. There is something in a friend’s troubles that is not altogether displeasing to a philosopher. And M. de Kervoisin was a philosopher. He had come over to give advice to his friend, and the role of adviser in a difficult situation was one which he knew how to fulfil with infinite discretion and supreme tact. Just now, while sipping a cup of most excellent café-au-lait, he listened with every mark of sympathy to Naniescu’s account of the terrible trouble he was having with a certain obstinate lady journalist who would not do what he wanted.

“I have only asked her,” he lamented, “for a few articles to be published in the Times which would put us right with the British and American public; but you know what women are. They never see farther than their noses. And this one, damn her, is like a mule. So far I have not been able to move her.”

He had finished his breakfast, and with a pungent havana between his fingers, was waving his podgy, hairy hands to emphasise his words.

Kervoisin smiled. “And you want those newspaper articles?” he asked. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Naniescu assented. “My Government has become suspicious. They are treating me very badly, you know. They began by giving me a free hand. ‘No more plottings and counter-plottings in Transylvania,’ they said to me when they sent me out here. ‘It is your business to see that things work smoothly out there. How you do it is your affair.’ Well,” the general went on in an aggrieved tone, “you would construe that order into a free hand for me, would you not?”

M. de Kervoisin carefully spread butter on a piece of excellent fresh roll before he answered: “Yes, I think I should.”

“Of course,” Naniescu retorted; “so would anyone. And I was doing very well, too, until that young fool Imrey managed to send his newspaper articles over to England. And at once my Government got restive. You know those articles were pretty hot!”

“Yes, I know. But I always thought you attached too much importance to them. Mon Dieu! Confiscations, perquisitions, arrests and even executions, they are the inevitable consequences of foreign occupation.” And M. de Kervoisin took a little honey with his bread and butter, and poured himself out another cup of coffee. “And you know,” he went on with a shrug, “the British and American public are really very indifferent to what goes on out here. Cluj is such a long way from London or New York. For a time the public is interested, a few are indignant, one or two make a fuss and ask questions in their Parliament, but, after all, you are one of the Allies; you must not be too openly criticised. The man who asks uncomfortable questions in Parliament is rebuked: et puis voilà!”

“I know all that,” Naniescu rejoined with some impatience, “but unfortunately my Government does not think as you do. Their vanity suffers when they are attacked in English newspapers, and then they vent their spleen on me.”

M. de Kervoisin said nothing for a moment or two; then he remarked blandly: “I think I understand the position⁠—now.”

“There is a talk of my resignation,” the general added curtly.

M. de Kervoisin smiled. “And you don’t want to resign?” he asked.

“Of course not. Five thousand sterling a year; it is a fortune in this miserable country; and then there are the perquisites.”

M. de Kervoisin had finished his breakfast. He pushed his cup and plate on one side, and resting both his elbows on the table, looked intently at his friend,