Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

“ And as Rosemary felt the sun, the clear, luscious air, the scent of flowers and of distant pines, envelop her as in a warm mantle, there came wafted to her ears the soft strains of that exquisite Hungarian love-song: "There is but one beautiful girl in all the world." The piano now seemed to sing under Peter's delicate touch, and Rosemary paused and stood quite, quite still, letting the music sink into her, yielding to its voluptuous cadence, and allowing her thoughts, her desires, her longings, to soar upwards to that infinity to which music alone can convey the soul on its magic wings. ”

“ Rosemary would have put an arm round her to support her, for she felt that the poor woman was ready to swoon; but mutely and firmly Elza refused to be supported. Her pride would not allow her, even now, to show weakness in sight of these cottages, behind the windows of which the eyes of Roumanian peasants might be on the look-out for her.
"They are outwardly obsequious," she said, as if in answer to a mute remark from Rosemary. "Call me gracious countess and kiss my hand, but at heart they hate us all, and triumph in our humiliation." ”

“ Music, the never-failing expression of emotion in these romantic people, soothed their nerves and uttered the words which would not rise to their lips. Elza sat with Philip's hand in hers. Rosemary, with eyes fixed far away, caught herself gazing on the memory picture of a dark recess in a box in the Albert Hall, with the noise and whirl of a big social function about her, but with complete isolation there in the darkness; and through the deafening noise memory conjured up a man's voice that murmured with passionate earnestness: "It is no use, my dear, thinking that all is over." ”

“ Peter Blakeney gave a harsh, mirthless laugh.
"Dear old Jasper," he said, "even he would laugh to hear you say that. Ambition! There's no room for ambition in the scheme of Jasper's life. How can a man be ambitious when all the beneficent genii of this world presided at his birth, and showered gifts into his lap. It is we, poor devils, who have ambitions—and see them unfulfilled."
"Ambitions which you set above your love, above everything," Rosemary broke in, and turned to look him straight in the eyes. ”

“ It was after the marriage ceremony that the dreamland in which Rosemary had moved these past days became more intangible, more of a spirit-world than before. The brief days in a dreary hotel at Folkestone would have been unendurable but for her state of mind, which almost amounted to semi-consciousness. Then came the weary journey to Budapest, the sleepless night in the train, the awful meals in the crowded, stuffy restaurant-car, the ceaseless rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub of the wheels that bore her away farther—ever farther from that bygone world which had become the might-have-been. ”

“ Only half an hour gone by since Elza had switched oil all the lights, and the whole château was plunged in darkness, and every sound was stilled.
So still! Only the ticking of the clock, and at times the click of the scissors of Fate, ready to cut the thread of two young lives—or more, perhaps—if anything went wrong, if the slightest mistake was made, if any one man proved disloyal—or a liar.
Rosemary shuddered although the night was hot. She could not sit still. At times she felt that she could not breathe. She went out upon the balcony and listened. ”

“ Her youth, her buoyancy of spirits, reasserted themselves, made her envisage life in all its brightest aspects, as it presented itself before her with cornucopia filled to the brim with all that made it worth the living. Work and a noble mate! What more could heart of woman desire? And Rosemary closed her eyes, and in a quickly fleeting dream sighed for the one thing that would have made her life a paradise, and—still dreaming—she felt hot tears of regret trickle slowly down her cheeks.
She woke to feel Jasper's arms around her and his lips kissing away her tears. ”

“ The Imreys have a beautiful château not far from Kolozsvár.
"I am afraid we must call it Cluj now," Jasper interposed with a smile.
"Yes," Rosemary retorted hotly. "Aren't those little pin-pricks damnable? Changing the name of a city that has been Hungarian for centuries, and that has been the centre of some of the most epoch-making movements in Hungarian history. It is mean and petty! You must admit, Jasper," she insisted, "that it is mean and far more galling to a proud, if conquered, nation than other, more tangible deeds of oppression. ”

“ If a thing was worth doing at all, it was worth doing well, and Rosemary had said once that she would like to see him in the dress.
But during that hot afternoon at Lord's, while he dressed, and now inside the crowded, stuffy Albert Hall, Peter did not feel as if he were really alive. He did not feel like a personage in a dream, he only felt that the world as he had seen it since luncheon time, was not a real world. Someone had invented something altogether new in opposition to the Creator, and he, Peter, being no longer alive, was permitted a private view of the novelty. ”

“ Rosemary, who was an exquisite dancer, longed to tread the measure of the csàrdàs, the Hungarian national dance, which begins with a dreamy, languorous slow movement, and then suddenly breaks into a wild, mad whirl, wherein the dancers' eyes glow with excitement, their cheeks burn like fire, and their breath comes and goes through quivering, parted lips. Surely the merriest, maddest, most intoxicating dance devised by a passionate people—probably for the letting off of some inward steam that must find vent in such rapturous movements from time to time, or it would consume them with its glow. ”

“ English sense of justice is reputed to be very keen; your own must tell you that it is hardly fair to bring the battery of your charms as a weapon to break down my sense of duty. I lay, as always, my homage at your feet, but I should be a traitor if, whilst gazing into your adorable eyes, I were to forget what I owe to my country."
Gradually he dropped the irony out of his tone, and his voice became once more mellifluous and tender while he leaned forward, almost touching Rosemary's knees with his, and striving to hold her glance with the challenge of his own. Rosemary shrank back. ”

“ But now Peter was much more like the conventional young English athlete: not very loquacious, very placid, ashamed of showing emotion or excitement, standing about for the most part with his hands in his trousers pockets, contemplating the toes of his boots, and smoking innumerable cigarettes. He had not seemed like this at first. He arrived in the late afternoon, and Rosemary was downstairs in the paved courtyard when the carriage drove in through the gates, with its four spanking greys, shining with lather, for the day had been very hot and the roads were dusty. ”

“ But you know, dear, when one's country is as unfortunate as ours has become, one must do one's utmost to help and serve her, mustn't one?"
"Why, of course," Rosemary assented, puzzled by the girl's strange earnestness, the glow of ardent patriotism that all at once emanated from that drooping, slender figure; "but I don't quite see how you are serving your country by selling groceries in Balog's shop."
"No! no! not by that," Anna went on eagerly. "Oh, I know that I can trust you, Rosemary, and you can't imagine what a relief it is to me to have someone to talk to. ”

“ He had often done that before; he loved to take hold of her face, to feel the soft velvety cheeks against his hands, and Rosemary would turn her pixie eyes to his and in one glance express all the affection, the sincere regard and fervent gratitude which she felt for him. But somehow this time it all seemed different, more intense, almost terrifying. To a sensitive woman a man's passion, if she cannot respond to it, is always terrifying; and, of course, Rosemary's nerves were stretched now almost to breaking point. Else why should she be conscious of a sense of fear? ”

“ All the sweeter, all the more lovable for being tinged with sadness. To Rosemary, Elza Imrey now was a woman; before that she had been just like a child, naively proud of her home, her table, her horses, without a hint of ostentation in her display of the rich gifts the good God had showered upon her. Now Elza's large, prominent blue eyes had become a little dim with constant weeping, and her mouth, when at rest, drooped slightly at the Corners. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rosemary, darling! they are safe!"
Rosemary had remained silent. The whole thing certainly at first glance appeared so easy, so simple that she found herself wondering why she or Jasper—or Peter—had never thought of such a plan. She also wondered why Peter should have spoken of it as a mad plan, and begged her if she had any influence with Elza to dissuade her from it. What had been in his mind when he said that? Of what was he afraid? Spies, of course. But spies, like the poor, were always there, and, after all, Philip and Anna would only be risking what already was forfeit—their lives. ”

“ In the midst of worldly joys, satisfied ambition, hopes for the future and pride in the past, Rosemary Fowkes would to-night have felt desperately lonely and lost in bewilderment before a divided duty—duty to self, duty to Jasper—but for the comfort of prayer, the thought of all that lay beyond this world of ours, a world that is so sordid and petty even at its best. ”

“ You attach too much importance to the Press, my dearest. Roumania 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. ”

“ Elza had not noticed. Elza's mind was no longer here. It was way out upon the dusty road, watching a motor-car travelling at full speed over the frontier away from this land of bondage, to Hungary to freedom. Elza had noticed nothing. Anna and Philip were still laughing and chattering, Maurus muttering curses. No one had noticed anything. Only for Rosemary had the world—her own beautiful world of truth and loyalty—come to an end. Peter had lied. Peter was playing a double game. ”

“ This was the first glimpse that Rosemary had of her since the morning, and the sight of her was a terrible shock; Elza was aged, her hair had lost its lustre, her eyes their colour, her cheeks were the colour of lead, and even her magnificent figure had shrunk. Elza looked an old woman, wide-eyed and scared as if Fate was a tangible being standing perpetually before her with flail upraised, striking, striking incessantly, until the poor, weak shoulders bent under the blows, and the last vestige of youth fled, chased away by pain. ”

“ Rosemary, who felt inexpressibly lonely, was once more conscious of that feeling of gratitude towards him which she had once hoped might be transmuted in days to come into something more ardent than friendship. She had suffered so terribly in her love for the one man who, with all his faults, had come very near to her ideals that she felt a desperate longing to cherish and to cling to the husband whom she had chosen half out of pique, the man on whom she had inflicted so much cruelty by becoming his wife. ”

“ I am far too proud of you to wish to hamper you in any way."
"You have always been the dearest, kindest, most considerate creature on God's earth," Rosemary rejoined, and in her eyes there came a look so soft, so tender, so womanly that the man on whom it fell hardly dared to meet it. "But you are not forgetting, are you, Jasper," she went on earnestly, "that politically we don't always see eye to eye, you and I?"
"So long as we see eye to eye in other things," he said, "what does it matter? When I asked you, my dear, to be my wife, I knew that I would not be mating with a silly doll. ”

“ The whole scene before Rosemary's eyes was one of unrivalled picturesqueness and animation. No town in Europe presents quite so enthralling a spectacle, and one whose charm is still further enhanced by the strains of those half-sad, half-voluptuous Hungarian melodies which come to the ear from out the shadows, or from the passing river boats, gentle as a caress, soothing to nerves and senses by their sweet, melancholy rhythm, or exhilarating when they break into their peculiarly harmonious syncopated cadences. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jasper's gaze was not so much searching her soul as striving to reveal his. Something in him seemed imprisoned, and he was asking her to set that something free. A force, a power, greater even than his love, so great that love itself became its slave. And this Rosemary could not understand. She had experienced something of the same sensation that afternoon in London when he had asked her to marry him before she left for Hungary. ”

“ Rosemary took the papers, and with them Elza's hands, which she raised to her lips. She could not speak for the moment, she could only kiss those soft, white hands, which, with sublime heroism, were sacrificing an idolised son for an abstract idea of humanity and justice.
"Elza," she murmured at last, "have you thought of everything—of Maurus—of Anna's mother?"
"Anna," Elza replied softly, "has linked her fate with Philip's. Her mother is a hard woman, but she would not be a traitor to her own people. ”

“ Philip was very attractive; if there was gipsy blood in his veins it had given him nothing but physical beauty and the highly developed musical talent of that race. He had dark, curly hair, and large mellow eyes, fringed with long lashes that would have been a gift of the gods to a girl. Jasper at first sight pronounced him effeminate, but Rosemary—knowing what she did about him—would not allow this for a moment. How could a boy be called effeminate who staked his life time and again, every time he rode into Cluj with those newspaper articles of his in his pocket? ”

“ The night is young yet, and I am afraid you'll be ill if you don't get a little rest. You've gone through so much!"
"Presently, darling," Elza said quietly. "I dare say I shall drop to sleep, as I am very tired. But not just yet. I would like to stay here a little longer—unless I am bothering you." Then as Rosemary gave her knees an affectionate hug, she went on gently: "I love the smell of flowers in the night, don't you? They smell quite differently to what they do in the daytime." ”

“ Rosemary had listened to him without attempting to interrupt. She even tried hard not to reveal the indignation which she felt. When he had finished speaking, and once more threw himself into a chair, with a sigh of self-satisfaction, she said quite quietly:
"I thought that this morning I had probed the lowest depths to which a man's nature could sink. But God help me! I have seen worse now!"
"That is as it may be, my dear. A man fights for what he treasures with any weapon that comes to his hand." ”

“ Rosemary's thoughts now were with Elza. She pictured to herself the unfortunate woman wrestling with a decision which either way must mean the breaking of her heart. Elza, who outwardly seemed just a soft, futile, pampered doll, with thoughts fixed on her menus and her servants, was a veritable heroine, strong and tenacious, proud without vanity, loving without weakness, the type that represented everything that was finest and best in a woman. ”