Pimpernel and Rosemary · Chapter 13 (2/2)

“Sacrifice of my convictions. Duty calls me to very insistently in the matter of those young traitors whom you, dear lady, are pleased to refer to as children. I know that I should be doing wrong in giving them the chance of doing more mischief. I know it,” he reiterated emphatically, “with as much certainty as I do the fact that they will not give up trying to do mischief. But⁠—”

He paused and fell to studying with obvious satisfaction Rosemary’s beautiful eager eyes fixed intently upon him.

“But what, Monsieur le Général?” she asked.

“But I am prepared to make the sacrifice of my convictions at your bidding, if you, on the other hand, will do the same at mine.”

Rosemary’s frown deepened. “I don’t think I quite understand,” she said.

“No,” he retorted; “but you will⁠—soon. Let me explain. You, dear lady, have come to Transylvania wrapped in prejudice as in sheet-armour against my unfortunate country. Oh, yes, you have,” he went on blandly, checking with an elegant gesture the cry of protest that had risen to Rosemary’s lips. “I am even prepared to admit that nothing that you have seen in these first few days has tended to pierce that armour of prejudice. Well, well!” and the general sighed again in that affected way of his. “You have one of your wonderful sayings in England that exactly meets this case: ‘East is East,’ you say, ‘and West is West.’ This is the East really, and you Occidentals will never think as we do. But I am wandering from my point, and you, dear lady, are getting impatient. Having admitted everything that you would wish me to admit, I now will come forward with my little proposition⁠—what?”

“If you please,” Rosemary replied coldly.

“The children, as you are pleased to call them,” Naniescu went on with slow deliberation, shedding his affected manner as a useless garment no longer required to conceal his thoughts, “the children have done us an infinity of mischief, in the eyes of the British and American public, by the publication of articles defamatory to our Government; for this they have deserved punishment. Now, I propose to remit that punishment if you will undo the mischief that they have done.”

“I?” Rosemary exclaimed, puzzled. “How?”

“By publishing newspaper articles that will refute those calumnies once and for all,” the general said blandly. Then, as Rosemary recoiled at the suggestion as if she had been struck in the face, he went on cynically: “You are such a brilliant journalist, dear lady, endowed with a vivid imagination. It will be easy for you to do this for the sake of those two young traitors in whom you take such a kindly interest. You may, in your articles, begin by stating the truth, if you like, and say that my Government invited you to come over to Transylvania in order to investigate the alleged acts of tyranny that are supposed to be perpetrated against the minority nationals. Then you will proceed to state that after impartial and exhaustive inquiry you have come to the conclusion that practically all the charges brought against us are unfounded, that with the exception of a few inevitable hardships consequent of foreign occupation, the minority nationals in Transylvania are enjoying the utmost freedom and security under the just laws of an enlightened country. You will⁠—”

But here the flow of the worthy general’s eloquence received a sudden check in the shape of a rippling outburst of laughter from Rosemary. He frowned; not understanding her mood, his knowledge of women being superficial, his thoughts flew to hysteria. He had known a woman once⁠—

As a matter of fact there was something hysterical about Rosemary’s laughter. She checked it as soon as she regained control over herself. It was as well that she could laugh, that her sense of humour, never absent in an Englishwoman of intellect, had at once shown her the folly of giving way to the indignation which had been her first impulse. Frankly she could not see herself as an outraged tragedy queen thundering forth an emphatic “Never!” to the Romanian’s impudent proposals; and when Naniescu marvelled at the strange moods of women and vainly tried to guess what there was in the present situation to make this pretty woman laugh, he little knew that Rosemary was laughing at an imaginary picture of herself, with head thrown back and flaming eyes, and gestures that rivalled those of the general himself in their elegant and expressive sweep.

“You must forgive me, Monsieur le Général,” she said presently, “but your proposition is so funny!”

“Funny, dear lady!” he protested. “Frankly I do not see⁠—”

“No,” she broke in, “you would not.”

“Will you be so gracious as to explain?”

“No,” Rosemary went on lightly, “I don’t think I will. You would not understand⁠—even then.”

“Then,” he said coolly, “there is nothing left for me to do but to take my leave, and to deplore that you should have wasted so much of your valuable time in conversation with a clod.”

He rose, and bowing low, he put out his hand in order to take hers, but Rosemary did not move.

“You cannot go, Monsieur le Général,” she said firmly, “without giving me a definite answer.”

“I have given you a definite answer, dear lady. It is my misfortune that you choose to treat it as ludicrous.”

“But surely you were not serious when you suggested⁠—”

“When I suggested that the mischief wrought by two traitors should be remedied by one who takes an interest in them? What could be more serious?”

“You seriously think,” she insisted, “that I would lend myself to such traffic? that I would put my name to statements which I could not verify, or to others that I should actually believe to be false? Ah ça, Monsieur le Général, where did you get your conception of English women of letters, or of English journalists?”

Naniescu put his fingertips to his breast, then spread out his hands with a broad gesture of protest.

“I was wrong,” he said suavely, “utterly wrong. I admit it. Forgive me, and permit me to take my leave⁠—”

“Monsieur le Général⁠—”

“At your service, dear lady.”

“Young Imrey,” she pleaded, “and Anna Heves!”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I am truly sorry for them,” he said unctuously; “but surely you do not think seriously that I would lend myself to any traffic where the safety of my country is concerned. Ah ça, dear lady,” he went on, not only mocking the very words she had used, but even the inflection of her voice. “Where did you get your conception of a Romanian officer or of a Romanian gentleman?”

“It is you who proposed an infamous traffic,” she retorted, “not I.”

“Pardon me,” he protested. “All that I suggested was that the mischief done should be remedied in the simplest way, before those who had wrought it could hope for pardon. The mischief was done through the public Press; it can only be made good through the public Press, and only through the medium of one as influential as yourself. My suggestion has not met with your approval. Let us say no more about it.”

Before she could prevent it he had taken her hand and raised it to his lips. She snatched it away as if her fingertips had come in contact with something noxious; the indignation which she had tried so hard to keep under control flamed for an instant out of her eyes; and Naniescu, seeing it, gave a soft, guttural laugh.

“I had a suspicion,” he said cynically, “that the situation was not entirely ludicrous. And now,” he went on, “have I your permission to take my leave?”

He bowed once more, hand on breast, heels clicking, and was on the point of turning to go when an impulsive cry from Rosemary brought him to a halt.

“That is not your last word, General Naniescu?”

“Indeed,” he replied with utmost gallantry, “but the last word rests with you, dear lady. I am ever at your service. Only,” he continued very slowly and very deliberately, “let me assure you once and for all that young Imrey and Anna Heves will appear before the military courts on a charge of treason unless a series of articles written in the spirit I have had the honour to outline before you, and bearing your distinguished name, appear in⁠—shall we say the Times?⁠—within the next month. But, just to show you how greatly I value your regard, I will be as lenient as my duty permits. I will even allow those two young traitors to return, temporarily, to their homes. Philip Imrey and Anna Heves will be brought here in the course of a day or two. They will be free, within certain limitations, to move about among their friends. I need not add, dear lady, that you, on the other hand, are absolutely free, without any limitations, to come and go as you choose. On the day that the last of your brilliant articles will have appeared in the Times Imrey and his cousin will receive a free pardon from the Government which they have outraged.”

He paused a moment, then raised one hairy, manicured finger and added with theatrical emphasis:

“But not before.”

Rosemary had listened to his long speech without moving a muscle. She stood straight as a sapling, looking unflinchingly at the man, striving to shame him, yet knowing that in this she would not succeed. There was no room for shame or compunction in that bundle of conceit and depravity.

Fear, too, appeared to be one of the tortuous motives which had suggested this ignominious “either-or.” How far the Romanian Government was a party to the mishandling of Transylvania, Rosemary had not yet had the opportunity of ascertaining.

She strongly suspected Naniescu of having overstretched his powers, and of dreading an exposure at Bucharest more, perhaps, than in London or New York. Now, when he had finished speaking, and while his mellow eyes still rested with gentle mockery upon her, she could not keep back the final taunt which she hoped would sting him as much as his urbanity had stung her.

“What proof have I,” she queried slowly, “that if I fulfil my share of the bargain you will not in the end repudiate yours?”

He smiled, quite undisturbed.

“You mistrust me. It is only natural,” he said unctuously. “But what can I do?”

“Write me a letter,” she replied coldly, “embodying your terms for the release of Philip Imrey and Anna Heves, and your promise to keep to the bargain if I accept those terms.”

“Will that satisfy you?” he asked.

“It would hold you to your word, at any rate. For if it did not⁠—”

He gave his soft, throaty laugh, and a glimmer of satisfaction shot through his eyes.

“You Englishwomen are truly marvellous,” he observed. “So businesslike. Everything in black and white⁠—what?”

“Preferably,” she rejoined drily.

“Well, then, you shall have the letter, dear lady,” he concluded blandly. “And I promise you that I shall so tie myself down to my share of this interesting transaction that you will not hesitate any longer to fulfil yours.”

And the next moment, even while Rosemary turned towards the window in order to look for one brief moment, at any rate, on something clean and pure, Naniescu had gone, softly closing the door behind him and leaving in his wake a faint odour of Havana cigar and eau de cologne, and an atmosphere of intrigue which Rosemary felt to be stifling. She threw open the window and inhaled the clean air right down into her lungs. Her thoughts were still in a whirl. The situation was so impossible that her brain at present rejected it. It could not be. Things like this did not occur. It was not modern. Not twentieth century. Not postwar. Civilised men and women did not have interviews such as she had just had with this smooth-tongued Romanian. There was something medieval about this “either-or,” this impasse to which in very truth there was no issue.

Rosemary now started pacing up and down the room. She was alone and could indulge in this time-tried method of soothing jangled nerves. With both forefingers she tapped her temples, as if to stimulate the work of a jaded brain. Issue? There must be an issue to this impasse. She was a British subject, the wife of an English peer. She could not be bullied into doing things against which her sense of honour rebelled. She could not be made to lend her name to falsehoods, knowing them to be falsehoods. Of course not. Of course not. She could not be compelled. That was a fact. An undisputable, hard, solid fact. What then? Well, then there were Philip and Anna, who would be brought before the military courts on a charge of treason. And the military courts would condemn them⁠—to what? To death? No! No! No! Not to death! Philip and little Anna: children whom she knew and loved! Condemned to death! Shot! like Edith Cavell, or Captain Fryatt! Shot! But that was in war time! Now the world was at peace! The Treaty of Versailles was the millennium that would bring peace on earth, goodwill toward men! Peace! This was peace! Foolish, thoughtless children could not in peace time be shot as traitors!

Tap-tap went Rosemary’s fingers against her temples. Peace, ye gods! Philip and Anna had rendered themselves liable to human justice, and human justice in this half-forgotten corner of God’s earth knew but one law⁠—revenge! Philip and Anna would be condemned⁠—and shot, unless she, Rosemary Tarkington, gained a free pardon for them at the price of truth, honour and the welfare, perhaps, of thousands of innocents.

And as gradually this awful alternative penetrated into the innermost recesses of her brain, the girl looked wildly about her like an animal suddenly fallen into a trap. Her knees all at once gave way under her, and she fell up against the sofa, with arms outspread upon the cushions. With head thrown back, she gazed unseeing up at the ceiling, and this time it was a real hysterical outburst that caused her to laugh and to laugh, until laughter broke into a sob, and burying her face in her hands she burst into a flood of tears.