Pimpernel and Rosemary · Chapter 28 (1/2)

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 amiss. After that I was sure.”

“Dear,” she murmured, and nestled her hand in his. Wasn’t Jasper wonderful too? With his marvellous understanding and that utterly selfless love for her, who, alas! gave so little in return. He bent his head and pressed his lips upon her wrist.

“You guessed right,” she said. “Something is very much amiss.”

Then she told him everything. He listened to the whole tale without a comment, and even after she had finished speaking he sat in silence with her hand held between his own, only bending his head now and again in order to kiss her wrist.

“There’s nothing to be done!” she reiterated, with a pitiable little catch in her voice.

And after awhile he said quite quietly and deliberately:

“The only thing to be done, my dear, is to comply with Naniescu’s wish.”

But against this she at once exclaimed, hot with indignation, and he went on with a sigh: “I know, I know. You are such a sweet, enthusiastic creature, and you have embraced the cause of these good people wholeheartedly, injudiciously. I don’t want to influence you, of course⁠—”

“You promised me that you would not,” she retorted.

“I know! I know! You would not be the adorable creature that you are if you were not unreasonable sometimes. But⁠—I put it to you⁠—what harm would you do in writing the articles that Naniescu wants?”

This question roused Rosemary’s indignation once more.

“How can you ask?” she queried. “To begin with I should alienate from these wretched people over here all the sympathy which Philip Imrey’s articles have aroused for them abroad. Never again after that could any friend raise a voice on their behalf. Naniescu or his kind would have a free hand. He knows that well enough. Not only he, but all the waverers, all the selfish and the indifferent could in the future point to the Times and say: ‘Hardship! Nonsense! Why, here was an independent lady journalist⁠—and a woman at that⁠—with every opportunity for getting at the truth, and she writes at full length to tell the entire world that the administration in Transylvania is a model of equity and benevolence.’ And mothers like Elza would cry in vain because their sons had been torn from them, families would be sent into exile, fathers, brothers murdered, oppression, confiscation, outrage would go unpunished, all because one woman had been too great a coward to smother sentiment under the mantle of justice.”

Jasper had not uttered a word, hardly made a sign, while Rosemary spoke her impassioned tirade. Only from time to time his dark eyes flashed with a glance of admiration on his beautiful wife, who, with flaming cheeks and slightly dishevelled hair, looked perhaps more desirable in her indignation than she had ever done in repose.

When she paused for want of breath he slowly shook his head.

“And do you really think, my darling,” he said softly, “that you can permanently influence English and American opinion by a few newspaper articles, even if these are written by a well-known person like yourself? Dear heart, in order to do that you would have to go at your subject hammer and tongs, never allow one article to be forgotten before you write another; you must be at your subject all the time if you want to create an impression⁠—hammer away at the newspaper-reading public until its stupid wooden head is saturated with the stuff you give it. Naniescu thinks a great deal of these articles which he wants you to write. Well, in my opinion their effect would last just one week after the last of them has appeared. After that some philanthropist or other will have his say on the maladministration of Transylvania, and you are not bound to refute that again, are you? But in the meanwhile Philip and Anna will be comfortably out of the country, and even Elza and Maurus will have settled down somewhere in Hungary to await better times; you will have saved the lives of two young things whom you love, and spared these good people here a terrible sorrow.”

While Jasper spoke Rosemary could not do anything but stare at him. His sophistry amazed her. That there was a modicum of common sense in his argument was not to be gainsaid, but that the suggestion of such bargaining with truth and honour should come from Jasper, her husband, horrified Rosemary and revolted her. And men often accused women of a feeble sense of honour! From the first Rosemary had turned away from Naniescu’s proposal as from something unclean. She had never dwelt on it, not for a moment. Even this morning, when first she felt herself sinking into an abyss of despair, she had not dwelt on that. But Jasper had not only dwelt on it; he had weighed its possibilities, the “for” and “against” which, with unanswerable logic and not a little sarcasm, he had just put before her. And even now, when she could not keep the look of horror out of her eyes, he only smiled, quite kindly and indulgently, as if she were just an obstinate child who had to be coaxed into reason; and when indignation kept her dumb he patted her hand and said gently:

“You will think over it, I am sure!” Then he rose and started pacing up and down the room, as was his custom when he was irritated or worried, with his head thrust forward and his hands clasped behind his back.

“You will think over it,” he murmured again.

“Never!” she retorted hotly.

“You have another fifteen days before you.”

“Never!” she reiterated firmly.

He looked at her for a moment or two with an indefinable smile on his lean, dark face, then he shrugged his shoulders.

“How much longer can you stand the mother’s tears,” he asked, “and the father’s despair?”

“Elza, if she knew,” Rosemary rejoined, with an obstinate toss of her head, “would be the first to wish me to stand firm.”

“Try her!” Jasper retorted laconically. Then as Rosemary, reproachful, indignant, made no attempt to reply, he went on with harsh insistence: “Have you tried her? Does she know that the life of her son is entirely and absolutely in your hands?”

Rosemary shook her head.

“No!” she murmured.

Jasper gave a harsh laugh. “Then,” he said, “I can only repeat what I said just now. Go and tell Elza everything, the see if her arguments will be different form mine!”

“Jasper!” Rosemary exclaimed, flushed with bitterness and resentment.

He paused in his restless walk, looked at her for a moment or two, and then resumed his seat beside her. For an instant it seemed as if he wanted to take her hand, or put his arms round her, but whether she divined this wish or no, certain it is that she made a slight movement, a drawing back away from him. A curious flash, like a veritable volcano of hidden fires, shot through the man’s deep, dark eyes, and, as if to control his own movements, he clasped his hands tightly together between his knees. Strangely enough, when he next spoke his voice was full of tenderness and almost of humility.

“I am sorry, dear,” he said gently, “if I hurt you. God knows that I would rather be broken to pieces on a rack than do that. But things have come to a pass,” he went on more harshly, “where my duty⁠—and my right⁠—as your natural friend and protector command me to get you out of this impasse before all this damnable business has affected your health, or, God help us! clouded your brain.”

“The impasse, as you very justly call it, Jasper,” she riposted, “will not cloud my brain, so long as you do not seek to make right seem wrong and wrong right.”

Then suddenly he dropped on one knee close beside her; before she could prevent him his two hands had closed upon hers, and he looked up into her face with a glance full of love and entreaty, whilst every tone of harshness went out of his voice.

“But child, child,” he urged, “don’t you see, can’t you understand, that it is you who make right seem wrong? What good will you do, by letting those two wretched young idiots suffer the extreme penalty for their folly? Will you ever afterwards know one moment’s peace? Won’t you forever be haunted by the ghosts of those whom you could so easily have saved? Won’t your ears ring forever with the wholehearted curses of these wretched people, who will look upon you as the murderer of their son? And, honestly, my dear, your articles in the Times won’t do more than flatter the vanity of Naniescu. Those people in England and America who have really studied the question won’t think any the better of Romanian rule or misrule in Transylvania because a lady journalist⁠—eminent, I grant you⁠—chooses to tell them that everything is for the best in the best possible occupied world. Think of all those articles in the Times on the subject of the French occupation in the Ruhr and their misrule in the Palatinate⁠—did it prevent the very readers of that same paper from joining the League of the Friends of France and proclaiming at the top of their voices their belief in the unselfish aims of M. Poincaré? You attach too much importance to the Press, my dearest. Romania and Transylvania are very, very far away from Clapham and Ealing. People don’t trouble their heads much what goes on there. A few do, but they are the ones who will stick to their opinions whatever you may say.”

Unable to free them, Rosemary had yielded her hands passively to Jasper’s clasp. She lay back with her head resting upon the cushions, her eyes obstinately evading his glance and fixed upon the ceiling, as if vainly seeking up there for some hidden writing that in a few terse words would tell her what to do. Jasper thus holding her captive by her hands made her feel like an imprisoned soul bruising itself against the bars of an unseen cage. She felt fettered, compelled, unable to see, to visualise that rigid code of honour which had ruled her actions until now. Jasper had talked at great length; she had never heard him talk so long and so earnestly and with such unanswerable logic. And Rosemary, who up to this hour had seen her line of action before her, crystal-clear, was suddenly assailed with doubts, more torturing than any mental agony which she had suffered before. Doubt⁠—awful, hideous, torturing doubt. How could she fight that sinister monster “compromise” if the one man whom she could trust tilted on its side? She had never dreamed of such a possibility. And now, suddenly, Jasper had made such a thing possible⁠—worse, imperative!

Rosemary felt her eyes filling with tears. She was so tired and could not argue. She dreaded argument lest she should give in. It was all so utterly, utterly hopeless. Jasper was out of sympathy with her, and Peter⁠—Peter⁠—

She must unconsciously have murmured the name, for all of a sudden Jasper jumped to his feet with a loud curse.

“If you mention that devils’ name⁠—” he began. Then once more he started on his restless pacing, with lips firmly set almost as if he were afraid that words would come tumbling out of them against his will.

“Jasper!” Rosemary exclaimed, “why do you hate Peter so?”

“Hate him?” Jasper retorted harshly. “Does one hate a snake⁠—or a worm?”

“That is unjust,” she riposted, “and untrue. You forced a promise from me not to confide in Peter. But I wish to God I had spoken to him, asked for his help. Peter half belongs to these people; he would have helped us if he had known.”

But Jasper only threw his head back and broke into a harsh, sardonic laugh: