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

But, heavens above! what was the right thing now? Rosemary felt sick and faint; the heat and the scent of the tuberoses made her head ache and her eyes smart. Jasper was saying something, but she hardly heard him, and she hardly felt his nearness when he took her hand and pressed it against his lips.

But a moment or two later a curious thing happened.

Jasper had gone out of the room, and Rosemary, leaning against the window frame, was looking out into the approaching storm. She had not heard what Jasper had said just before he kissed her hand; but her mind must have registered it, must have made a kind of record of it, like that of a gramophone, because now some of his words came back to her quite distinctly through the rumblings of distant thunder. She had not heard him then, but she heard him now quite distinctly⁠—every word.

“I have jotted down a few ideas. You, of course, will put them into your own picturesque language. Just a few notes of what Naniescu would like to see in the Times. I thought it would save you the trouble to think. I don’t think that you will find anything glaringly impossible in my suggestions.”

Then he had put something down on the table. Memory had registered a kind of swishing sound. And Rosemary, now turning slowly away from the window, caught sight of that something on the table. Half a dozen loose sheets of paper covered with Jasper’s clear, minute handwriting. Like a sleepwalker Rosemary went to the table and picked up the sheets. The shades of evening were drawing in, and the heavy grey clouds in the sky blotted out the remaining rags of daylight. With the papers in her hand Rosemary went out on the balcony. She had the feeling that while she read she must have the pure, storm-laden air about her. She had not turned away from these notes of Jasper’s in horror. She had not closed her ears to the record of his words. She knew quite well what was written on these sheets of paper, and deliberately she sat down and began to read.

The political and economic situation of Transylvania was stated in these brief notes with remarkable lucidity. Jasper’s clear, unemotional outlook on the administration of the conquered country was set forth without any imagery or attempt at style. Even the obvious bias in favour of the ruling Government was tempered by sound logic and a certain measure of indulgent toleration for the other side. Rosemary read the notes through twice very carefully. She could hear Jasper’s voice in every sentence, feel his presence while she read. Long after she had finished reading she sat there quite still, with the sheets of paper lying on her lap and her hands folded over them. She marvelled whether she was quite sane. Jasper had said at one moment that this terrible impasse might overcloud her brain. Well, perhaps it had done that already, and she could no longer distinguish right from wrong through the clouds.

Evening closed in about her. The garden down below became a blur, through which white, starry flowers blinked up at her, and with their placidity mocked the turmoil which was rending her soul. The thunderclouds were drawing nearer; they hung like lead over the mountains. The pine trees like dark sentinels shivered at times under a sudden gust of wind, and from time to time a pale reflex of distant lightning lit the sky above the valley.

Rosa came presently into the room and turned on the lights; she inquired anxiously whether the gracious lady would not come in, as it was raining already and the storm would be breaking very soon. Then only did Rosemary become conscious that her hair and her dress were wet. Heavy drops, the size of a shilling, were falling, but she had not noticed them before.

She came in and quite mechanically she locked the papers up in her dressing-case. She asked Rosa what the time was, and whether dinner would be at the usual time. Yes, dinner would be at eight o’clock as usual, and it was now past seven. Rosa asked if the gracious lady would like to change her dress.

The rest of the evening was like a dream. Elza presided at dinner and she and Jasper did most of the talking⁠—that is to say, Elza asked innumerable questions to which Jasper gave long replies, with forced cheerfulness. Maurus, it seemed, was better. The doctor was coming again the last thing at night, but the patient was much calmer, had taken some nourishment in the way of milk, and had slept for an hour. Elza, self-possessed, wonderful as usual, lingered over dessert. She poured out coffee, offered liqueur and cigarettes. For her, hospitality and its duties were a religion; she would as soon have neglected them as a devout Catholic would neglect confession. The very fact that they cost her an effort made them all the more imperative and in a way comforting.

At ten o’clock Rosemary found herself once more alone in her room. Jasper had kissed her tenderly when he bade her goodnight. Only when she did find herself alone did Rosemary realize how much she had dreaded this goodnight. She knew that she had no reserve of strength left to stand one of Jasper’s savage outbursts of passion; tonight of all nights she would have gone down under it like the tuberoses below her window under the lashing of the storm.

The rain beat against the windowpanes, terrific crashes of thunder followed one another in close succession, and every few minutes the sky seemed rent right through with blinding flashes of lightning. The heat was nearly intolerable through this almost tropical storm. Rosemary had dismissed Rosa. She undid her hair, which clung damp against her forehead and the back of her neck, and clad only in chemise and