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

ran quickly through the hall and up the stairs. Before going into her room she called down to him:

“If we use your motor we need not start before eleven o’clock, and there is still a chance of Elza being home before then.”

It was just before dinner that the culminating tragedy occurred. Rosemary was in her room, when she heard loud commotion coming from the hall⁠—harsh, peremptory voices, a word or two from Anton, and then Jasper’s voice raised as if in protest. She opened her door, and to her horror saw a squad of soldiers in the hall, and between them an officer, and a man in civilian clothes who had an official-looking paper in his hand, and was apparently explaining something to Jasper.

“I regret, my lord, but these are my orders,” the man was saying, “and I cannot enter into any discussion with you.”

Jasper tried to protest again. “But surely⁠—” he began. The man, however, cut him short.

“If you like,” he said, “I can allow you to see Count Imrey first, but this order I must deliver into his own hands.”

Rosemary in the meanwhile had run downstairs.

“What is it, Jasper?” she asked quickly.

“An order of eviction,” Jasper replied curtly, “against that wretched Maurus.”

“Whatever does that mean?”

“That he must quit this place within twenty-four hours.”

“Impossible!” she exclaimed hotly.

She turned to the officer and the civilian who had brought this monstrous order.

“The whole thing is a mistake,” she said coolly; “some error in the name. Count Imrey is a loyal subject of the King. There has never been a hint of disloyalty levelled against him.”

The officer in charge gave a curt laugh and shrugged his shoulders, and the civilian said with a sneer:

“They all say that, milady. They are all wonderfully loyal after they have been found out.”

“But General Naniescu himself is a friend of the family. And Lord Tarkington and I can vouch⁠—”

“Pardon, milady,” the civilian broke in coldly. “This affair does not concern you or Lord Tarkington, and the order of eviction is signed on behalf of the present owner of Kis-Imre by His Excellency the Governor himself.”

“On behalf⁠—”

It was Rosemary who spoke, but the sound of her voice might have come out of a grave. She had never been so near to swooning in her life. The walls around her, the woodwork, the stairs, all took on distorted shapes, and moved, round and round and up and down, until everything was a blur through which the faces of the Romanian officer and the civilian stared at her and grinned. “On behalf of the present owner of Kis-Imre!” But that was Peter! Peter! And the world did not totter, the earth did not quake, and engulf all these monstrous crimes, this cruelty and this shame!

Luckily none of the Romanians appeared to have noticed this sudden weakness in her; the civilian was consulting with the officer whether he should allow milord Tarkington to break the awful news to Maurus. Neither raised any objection, and Jasper pronounced himself ready to go. Rosemary turned appealingly to him:

“You will be very patient, Jasper,” she begged, “and very, very gentle?”

“Leave it to me, dear,” he responded; “I’ll do my best.”

When he was gone, Rosemary mechanically asked the officer and his companion to come into the smoking-room and sit down. She offered cigarettes. They made her ceremonious bows, and were as polite and conventional as circumstances demanded. She tried to talk; she even asked questions; but they were diplomatically ignorant of everything except of their duty. They explained that this consisted in seeing Count Imrey personally, and giving the eviction order into his own hands.

“It will kill him,” Rosemary said, with conviction, “or else send him out of his mind.”

Both the men shrugged. They had seen so much of this sort of thing, one of them said, people always threatened to die or to go mad, but nothing of the sort had ever happened.

“Are you quite sure of that?” Rosemary retorted.

Somehow the episode had brought back into the forefront of her consciousness her responsibility with regard to her newspaper articles. Not that conscience had been dormant, but Peter’s infamy had been such an overwhelming shock that every other emotion had slipped away into the background. But now it all came back to her. Those articles of hers if they were published would bring a justification of all this⁠—of these orders of eviction, the sort of thing that men died of, or went mad over out of grief, while officials shrugged their shoulders, having seen it all so often.

A few minutes after Jasper returned and Maurus was with him. At sight of Maurus, Rosemary had risen from her chair as if drawn up by mechanical force, and she remained standing, staring at the man whom she had last seen as a fragile weakling, babbling incoherent words. Maurus had dressed himself with unusual care. It almost seemed as if he had been expecting visitors. Rosemary had never seen him with hair so sleekly brushed, or chin so smooth. The officer and the civilian had risen to greet him, and he went up to them with perfect calm, inquiring politely what they desired to say to him. Rosemary turned a questioning glance on Jasper. He, too, appeared puzzled, and followed Maurus’ every movement as if he dreaded that something would happen presently, and all the man’s self-possession disintegrate in a tempest of fury.

But nothing of the sort happened. Maurus took the order from the civilian, and read it through carefully. Not a muscle of his face twitched, and his hands were perfectly steady. For the moment Rosemary wondered whether this outward calm was not some form of madness.

“I can’t understand it,” she whispered to Jasper, while the three men were engaged together.

“I am just as puzzled as you are,” Jasper replied.

“So long as he is not just putting a terrible strain on himself⁠—in which case the reaction will be frightful.”

Maurus was now taking leave of the officials.

“I quite understand the position,” he said quietly. “If I had bought