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

there came a telephone message for you from Lord Tarkington.”

“From Jasper?”

“He said he was coming some time in the afternoon.”

“Where was he speaking from?”

“I am not quite sure, and, stupidly enough, I did not ask. When I understood that it was Lord Tarkington speaking I asked if I should send the carriage to meet him at Cluj. But all I heard in reply was: ‘No, no,’ and then we were cut off. These telephone people are so tiresome, they cut one off sometimes in the middle of a conversation. I am so glad, darling,” Elza continued gently, “that Lord Tarkington is coming back. For your sake,” she added, “and also mine.”

After that she rose and gave Rosemary a final kiss.

“I have one or two little things to see to before lunch,” she said, “but I understood from Lord Tarkington that he would not be over before the afternoon.”

And she went off with her bunch of keys jingling in her hand, outwardly quite serene, and presently Rosemary could hear her calling to the servants, giving orders, scolding for something left undone. She was still wonderful, even though the elasticity had gone out of her step; and her back was bent like an old woman’s, her voice had lost its metallic ring, and all the glorious colour had gone out of her hair.

XXVIII

Jasper arrived in the late afternoon, unheeded and unannounced. Elza and Rosemary were in the garden at the time, and he was in the house for over a quarter of an hour before they heard that he had come. Then she and Elza hurried to greet him. He was in the drawing-room waiting patiently. Rosemary thought him looking tired or perhaps travel-stained.

He kissed Elza’s hand first, then his wife’s, no more. But Rosemary knew her Jasper. He could not have kissed her in front of anyone, and Elza for once did not seem surprised at the cold, formal greeting between husband and wife. She asked a few questions: “Will you have something to eat, dear Lord Tarkington?” and “How did you come?”

Jasper gave the required explanations.

He had jumped out of the train at Apahida, which is the next station before Cluj, to get a drink, and whom should he see in the station restaurant but General Naniescu, who had driven out in his motor on some business or other. Hearing that Jasper was on his way to Kis-Imre, he offered to drive him over. It was a kind offer, as Jasper was sick of the train journey. He had only hand-luggage with him, and this he transferred, together with himself, to Naniescu’s motor. And here he was⁠—very glad to be back.

Elza asked him what had become of the luggage, and where the motor was.

Jasper explained that he had put the motor and the chauffeur up at the inn. General Naniescu had only driven in as far as Cluj, and after that had graciously put the motor and chauffeur at his, Tarkington’s, disposal, not only for the day but for as long as he and Rosemary would care to use it. The chauffeur was bringing the luggage over presently and would give it to Anton.

“The car might be very useful,” Jasper went on, turning to his wife, “so I accepted the offer gladly. I thought it kind of old Naniescu.”

Of course, he knew nothing of what had occurred, but even so his mention of Naniescu’s name hurt Rosemary. She had already read failure in her husband’s eyes⁠—complete failure, and all of a sudden she realised how much hope she had built on this mission of Jasper’s, and how it had dwelt at the back of her mind whenever she tried to comfort Elza. Now there was nothing left to hope for, nothing to believe in. Even faith appeared shipwrecked in this new tidal-wave of despair.

Rosemary had always found it difficult to extricate herself from Jasper’s arms once he held her tight, and this he did a few moments later, when, at Elza’s suggestion that Rosemary should see him up to his room, he found himself alone with her. He took her breath away with the suddenness, the almost savage strength of his embrace.

“Jasper!” she murmured once or twice. “Jasper! Please!”

“I was so hungry for you, my Rosemary,” he said. “Ten days⁠—my God, ten days without your kiss!”

He looked her straight between the eyes and whispered huskily:

“I’ve been in hell, little one.”

Rosemary tried to smile: “But why, my dear? We can’t expect to be always, always together, every day for the rest of our natural lives.”

“I don’t know what you expect from life, little one, but I do know that if you send me away from you again, I should not come out of that hell again alive.”

“But I did not send you away, Jasper,” she argued, a little impatient with him because of his wild talk. “Your going to Bucharest was entirely your own idea.”

“And I have lamentably failed,” he muttered with a shrug.

She gave a little gasp that sounded like a sob.

“There was nothing to be done?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“The King?”

“Indifferent. He trusts Naniescu, has confidence in his judgement, and believes in his patriotism and sense of justice.”

“Then there is absolutely nothing to be done,” she reiterated slowly in a dull dream-voice.

She was keying herself up to tell him all that had happened in the past four-and-twenty hours. But she was so tired, almost on the verge of breaking down. She did not think that she would have the strength to go through with the long tale of hope and despair. But Jasper made her sit down on the sofa and arranged a couple of cushions round her head. Then he sat down on a low chair beside her.

“Now tell me, little one,” he said quietly.

“Why, Jasper,” she exclaimed, “how did you guess that there was anything to tell?”

“Don’t I know every line of your adorable face,” he retorted, “every flicker almost of your eyelid? Before I touched your hand I knew that something was