PIMPERNEL AND
ROSEMARY
BY
BARONESS ORCZY
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1925,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII
CHAPTER XLIII
CHAPTER XLIV
CHAPTER XLV
CHAPTER XLVI
CHAPTER XLVII
CHAPTER XLVIII
PIMPERNEL AND ROSEMARY
PROLOGUE
§I
This was in July 1916.
The woman sat alone in the room downstairs, stitching, stitching, by the
flickering light of a small oil-lamp that stood on a ricketty deal table
close beside her. By the side of the lamp there were some half-dozen
khaki tunics, and the woman took up these tunics one by one, looked them
over and patted them and turned them about and about: then she took up
the scissors and undid a portion of the lining. After which she stitched
that portion of the lining up again, but not before she had inserted
something--something that was small and white and crisp and that she
took out from a fold in the bosom of her dress--between the lining and
the cloth.
And this she did to each of the half dozen tunics in turn.
The room was small and bare, the paper hung down from the walls in
strips, but it happened to have a ceiling that had only partially fallen
in during the last bombardment, and so it might be termed a luxurious
room, seeing that there were very few ceilings left in Guillaumet now.
There was no roof to the house, and not a pane of glass anywhere, but as
it was very hot this July, this was really an advantage. Quite a
pleasant draught stirred the tattered curtain that masked the broken
window and fanned the woman's dark, unruly hair about her damp forehead.
She sat in ragged bodice and petticoat, her sleeves tucked up above her
elbows, her bodice open, showing throat and breasts that were not
unshapely.
"You are kind to those English fellows, Alice," a dry, sarcastic voice
said suddenly, close behind her.
The woman gave a start, and the hand that patted and folded the last of
the tunics shook ever so slightly. Her pale, wan face looked almost
ashen in hue in the dim light of the lamp. She turned and looked at the
newcomer, a tall, lean fellow with touzled dark hair and unshaven chin,
who lolled under the lintel of the door, chewing the stump of a cigar
and gazing at her with a kind of indulgently sarcastic expression in his
deep-set eyes. At sight of him she seemed reassured. It was only
Lucien--Lucien the vagrant, the picker-up of unconsidered trifles,
attached as porter to one of the American hospitals somewhere close by.
So everybody round about here understood. But no one ever inquired
further than that; everyone was too busy to trouble about other people's
affairs; and Lucien was useful and willing. Though he had a game leg he
would do anything he was asked--run errands, repair a derelict car,
clean boots, anything. Lucien l'Américain they called him. "The Yank"
the English flying boys from the aerodrome at Guillaumet had nicknamed
him.
And they rather liked the Yank. Though he was as ugly as sin, swarthy,
most days unshaved and dirty, he was very amusing, had a fund of good
stories to relate, and was always ready for a gamble or a bit of fun. He
seemed plentifully supplied with money, too--tips, probably, which he
collected from the French or English officers over at the hospital--and
was very free with it in the way of drinks and cigarettes for the boys.
Latterly his open courtship of Alice Gerbier had caused considerable
amusement in Guillaumet. Alice was a good sort, of course, but so jolly
ugly, and not so young as she once was. It was difficult to imagine any
man wanting to make love to Alice Gerbier. But Lucien l'Américain must
have done it after a fashion of his own, before Alice became his abject
slave, fetching and carrying for him, working her fingers to the bone,
and sitting up half the night sewing shirts and knitting socks for him.
He took it all as a matter of course, and treated her as if she were so
much dirt.
"The only way to treat women," he would remark cynically, whenever his
harshness toward poor Alice roused the indignation of one of the men.
It was a curious courtship, and the boys who were quartered in old
mother Gerbier's house often wondered how it would end. Poor Alice! It
was her one chance. If she lost this undemonstrative admirer of hers she
would never get another. No doubt she felt that, poor thing, for at
times her eyes would look pathetically wistful, when she caught sight of
Lucien making himself agreeable to other women.
Lucien l'Américain lolled into the room and came to a halt close beside
Alice's chair; with the air of a condescending pasha he patted her thin
shoulders.
"You are kinder to these fellows," he said, "than you are to me. Why the
dickens you should work so hard for them I don't know. You look
dog-tired, and it's swelteringly hot to-night. We shall have a storm, I
think."
"The boys were saying they thought a storm was coming on," Alice said in
a tired, toneless voice, "and they were hoping it would soon be over."
"Off as usual in the morning, I suppose," Lucien remarked curtly.
The woman nodded.
"And like a good soul you are putting a few stitches to their clothes,
eh?" the man went on, and jerked a grimy thumb in the direction of the
pile of tunics.
"There's no one else to do it for them," the woman rejoined in the same
toneless, listless voice.
"Rather a futile task," he rejoined drily. "What is a hole more or less
in a tunic? How many of these fellows will come back from their raid
to-morrow do you suppose? Most of these carefully mended tunics will
supplement the meagre wardrobes of our friend Fritz over the way, I'm
thinking."
"Perhaps," the woman assented with a weary sigh.
"How many of them are going to-morrow?" he asked.
"I don't know. All the men in this house are going."
"And how many will come back do you think?"
The woman shuddered and pressed her thin, colourless lips more tightly
together. The Yank gave a harsh laugh and shrugged his lean shoulders.
"These English flying men are very daring," he said lightly; "even Fritz
will admit that much. They'll take the maddest risks! I don't think that
you will see many of these tunics back here at close of day to-morrow."
The woman, however, remained obstinately silent. Whilst Lucien threw
himself into a broken-down armchair that groaned under his weight, she
rose and gathered up the pile of tunics.
"What are you doing with the things?" he asked querulously. "Can't you
sit still for once and talk to me?"
He stretched out a long, muscular arm, succeeded in grabbing her dress,
and drew her with sudden violence towards him. She tried to resist and
to clutch the tunics tightly against her breast, but they fell out of
her arms in a heap on the floor. She would have stooped to pick them up,
but in a moment Lucien had her by the shoulders, forcing her to turn and
to look at him.
"You are kinder to those fellows," he reiterated with his harsh laugh,
"than you are to me. Leave those things alone, I say, and get me
something to drink. What have you got in the house?"
But Alice for once was obstinate. As a rule even an unspoken wish from
Lucien was a law unto her, but this time she wrenched herself free from
his grasp, and getting down on one knee she started picking up the
tunics from the floor. Lucien watched her for a moment or two through
half-closed lids, with an undefinable expression on his lean, swarthy
face, and a strange line, almost of cruelty, around his firm lips.
Apparently he was not accustomed to seeing his whims thwarted, and no
doubt he was impelled by the very human desire to probe his power upon
this fond and foolish woman, for suddenly he jumped up, gave the tunics
that were still on the floor a vigorous kick which sent them flying to
the farthest corner of the room, and roughly grabbed the others which
Alice was hugging to her breast.
"I told you," he said with a savage oath, "to leave those things alone
and to get me a drink."
For the space of a few seconds, Alice still hesitated; she looked up at
him with a pathetic expression of wistfulness and subjection, while she
wiped the palms of her moist hands against her tattered apron. Lucien's
eyes, meeting hers, lost their savage gleam; he looked almost ashamed of
his brutality.
"That's all right, my girl," he said with an indulgent smile. "I didn't
mean to be unkind. Get me a drink, there's a good soul. Where did you
want to put these things?" he added, as he condescended to stoop and
collect the scattered tunics.
Alice's wan face at once beamed with a joy as pathetic as her anxiety
had been just now. She even contrived to smile.
"Never mind about them, Lucien," she said, and with rather jerky
movements she wiped the top of the table with her apron. Then she turned
towards the door: "I'll put the things away presently. I can get you a
bottle of that wine you brought in the other day. Would you like that?"
"Yes, I should," the Yank rejoined. "And then you can come and sit still
for a bit. That eternal stitch-stitching of yours gets on my nerves.
Now," he went on, and, having collected all the tunics, he placed them
back upon the table, "why you wanted to fiddle with these tunics I can't
imagine. They can't have needed mending. Why, they are practically new."
He turned them over one by one: they were as he said, almost
new--beautiful khaki tunics, smart and well-cut, such as the British
government loved to serve out to its magnificent airmen. Then, as Alice
had suddenly come to a halt by the door, he half-turned to her, and
added in his usual harsh, peremptory tone:
"Are you getting me that wine or are you not?" For a few seconds after
Alice had finally left the room Lucien l'Américain remained standing by
the table, his grimy hand upon the pile of tunics, motionless, his eyes
fixed upon the narrow doorway through which Alice had disappeared, his
ear bent, listening to her retreating footsteps. As soon as these had
died away down the stone steps which led to the cellar his whole
attitude changed. He threw the stump of his cigar away and, picking up
one of the tunics, he felt it all over scrupulously--all over, and with
both hands, until in one spot his sensitive fingers felt something that
had a slightly crackling, crisp sound about it when handled.
Whereupon Lucien l'Américain drew a deep breath, and in his deep-set
eyes there came a quick flash of triumph. One by one, more quickly now
and more surely he picked up the tunics and felt each one in turn all
over until his fingers encountered the something crisp and crackling
which appeared hidden between the cloth and the lining, and while he did
so his face, never prepossessing, looked positively hideous; a cruel,
almost animal look distorted it, the lips drew back against the gums,
showing white teeth, sharp and gleaming like those of a wolf.
"That's it, is it?" he muttered once or twice. "Not bad for a woman. Did
she think of it, I wonder."
Suddenly his sharp ears detected the sound of Alice's tired footstep
coming up the cellar stairs. He laid the tunics back upon the table in a
neat pile, then he went to the window, drew the curtain slightly aside
and gave a low, prolonged whistle, which was almost immediately answered
by another from somewhere out in the darkness.
Alice came in, carrying a bottle of wine and a mug. There was a scared
look in her eyes as she entered, and her glance swept quickly, anxiously
round the room first and then over the pile of tunics. Seeing them
neatly folded, she appeared relieved, and set the bottle and mug down
upon the table. She took a corkscrew from the table-drawer and proceeded
to draw the cork, whilst Lucien watched her with a smile round his lips
which the girl hardly dared to interpret. Now he lolled across to her.
His hands were in his pockets. She had succeeded in drawing the cork,
and was pouring the wine into the mug, when with a swift movement
Lucien's arm shot out and closed round her throat, whilst his other hand
was clapped firmly against her mouth.
She had not the time to scream. The bottle of wine fell out of her hand,
crashing on the floor and the wine flowed in a stream along the cracks
of the worm-eaten wood in the direction of the door. Her eyes, dilated
with horror, stared into vacancy, her hands with fingers outspread were
stretched out straight before her. Lucien l'Américain never uttered a
word; he just held her in a grip of iron, smothering any attempt she
might make to scream. Less than twenty seconds went by whilst he held
the woman thus, and she passed from an excess of horror into
semi-consciousness. Then from the outer passage there came the sound of
stealthy footsteps, and the next moment two men dressed in rough peasant
clothes came into the room. Lucien l'Américain motioned to them with a
glance, and silently, almost noiselessly, they closed in around the
woman and in a moment had her secure between them and marched her out of
the room, she going like a sleepwalker with eyes closed and lips tightly
pressed together, her face a reflex of the horror which had Invaded her
soul.
Lucien l'Américain, left alone in the room, took up one of the tunics
and with Alice's scissors he carefully undid a few stitches in the
lining. His deft fingers then groped in the aperture, until they came in
contact with something crisp and crackling, which he drew out and
examined. It was a small sheet of thin paper closely covered with minute
handwriting, and then folded into as small a compass as had been
possible. By the flickering light of the oil-lamp the Yank tried to
decipher some of the writing; his face had become expressionless as
marble. It seemed as if with the unmasking of the woman, his interest in
the event had ceased.
The paper contained information which would have been of enormous
importance to the Germans. Having skimmed the written matter through,
Lucien folded up the paper again and slipped it in a pocket-book, which
he carried next to his skin. After that he took up the tunics one by
one, and still with the aid of Alice's scissors he extracted the same
message which was concealed in the selfsame way between the lining and
the cloth of each tunic, and these also he put away in his pocket-book.
He had only just finished his task when from down the village street
there rose the joyful sound of lusty throats singing "Tipperary!" and a
minute or two later half a dozen boys in khaki made noisy irruption into
the house.
At once there was loud shouting of "Alice! Alice, where art thou? What
ho, my Alice!" And one of the boys started singing "The Roses of
Picardy."
"Hallo, Yank!" came from another of them, who had just caught sight of
Lucien. "What the----have you done with Alice?"
"She'll be back directly," Lucien shouted in response. "I've promised to
meet her, so can't stop. S'long!"
He dashed out of the house, and in a moment the darkness had swallowed
him up.
§2
Three days later. Half an hour after the break of dawn. In a moderately
well-furnished room in the town hall of Lille an elderly man was sitting
over a scanty _petit-déjeuner._ He had an intellectual face, with
high-bred features and sparse grey hair carefully brushed across his
cranium so as to hide the beginnings of baldness. From time to time he
cast eager eyes at the door opposite to where he was sitting or anxious
ones at the clock upon the mantel-shelf.
Suddenly his whole face brightened up with eager expectancy. He had just
perceived the sound of a harsh voice coming from the next room, and
demanding peremptorily to speak with M. de Kervoisin.
A servant entered, but de Kervoisin was too impatient to allow him to
speak.
"Number Ten is it?" he queried sharply, and at once added, "Show him
in."
A tall, ragged, uncouth, unshaved creature sauntered into the room, with
hands in pockets and a chawed cigar stump in the corner of his mouth.
Strangely enough the elegant high-bred M. de Kervoisin received this
extraordinary visitor with the utmost courtesy. He rose to greet him,
shook him warmly by the hand, offered him a chair, coffee, liqueurs,
cigarettes. The newcomer declined everything except the armchair, into
which he threw himself with obvious satisfaction.
"Tired, my friend?" M. de Kervoisin queried amiably.
"Of course," the other replied curtly. "I have been up nearly two
hours."
"The want of sleep," M. de Kervoisin murmured with an engaging smile.
Then he added drily: "And I suppose some emotion . . ."
"Emotion?" the other broke in with a harsh laugh. "None, I assure you,
save what is pleasurable."
"What? To see a woman shot?"
He who went by the strange appellation of Number Ten threw aside the
chawed stump of his cigar, then he carefully selected a cigarette from
M. de Kervoisin's case, and lit it leisurely before he replied:
"Yes, my friend . . . to see a woman shot. Have you never seen a human
creature shot or hung?"
"No, never!" M. de Kervoisin replied with a shudder. "And I hope I never
may."
"It is a thrill well worth experiencing," the other remarked and blew
rings of cigarette smoke through his pursed lips. "Yes," he went on
drily, "well worth experiencing."
"Ah!" M. de Kervoisin rejoined with a sigh, "you English are
astonishing."
"Yes, I dare say we seem so to you," Number Ten retorted. "But we do not
shoot women."
"So I understand. The danger of spies is not quite so acute with you as
it is with us; and this woman was really dangerous."
"She was dangerous because she was so extraordinarily clever. In all my
experience I never came across anything quite so ingenious as the way
she went to work."
"She worked from the British aerodrome, I think you told me, behind
Guillaumet?"
"And calculated that out of every half-dozen English machines that went
up, at least three would come down behind the German lines: so she
inserted all the information she could get in the linings of the
airmen's tunics. A clever idea," Number Ten added thoughtfully, "and in
the end I only discovered the trick by accident."
He smiled, and stared for a second straight out before him, and as he
did so memory brought back vividly the picture of the tumble-down house
at Guillaumet, and Alice Gerbier sitting there, stitching, stitching
with the pile of tunics before her, and he himself--disguised as a
loafer, commonly called Lucien l'Américain, for no particular reason,
as he certainly was not American--hanging round the woman for weeks,
vaguely suspecting at first, then certain, then wondering how the trick
was done, the clever trick whereby so much valuable information was
conveyed to the Germans, information that could only have been obtained
in the neighbourhood of the English aerodrome. And he saw himself, the
spy-tracker, the secret-service agent, carefully setting the trap which
had ensnared so many women ever since the world began, the trap set with
a bait to lure a woman's vanity, and an old maid's passionate longing
for love. And to these memory pictures another now was added, the
picture of Alice Gerbier in the early dawn in the prison yard of Lille,
with her back to the wall, and a handkerchief over her eyes, and a
platoon of soldiers with rifles raised. And gradually as these pictures
passed before his mind's eye, became strangely vivid and then passed by
again, the man's expressive face became hideous in its aspect of
ruthless cruelty. The eyes narrowed till they were mere slits, the lips
curled up over the gums displaying a row of teeth pointed and sharp as
those of a wolf.
A discreet cough from M. de Kervoisin roused him from his meditation.
"You are certainly a prince amongst secret service agents, my friend,"
M. de Kervoisin said suavely. "I don't know what we should do without
you. But Alice Gerbier certainly represents your crowning triumph."
Number Ten gave a harsh laugh.
"It certainly was a thrill," he said coolly, "well worth experiencing."
CHAPTER I
To Peter Blakeney, Rosemary Fowkes' engagement to his friend Tarkington
seemed not only incredible, but impossible. The end of the world! Death!
Annihilation! Hell! Anything!
But it could not be true.
He was playing at Lord's that day; Tarkington told him the news at the
luncheon interval, and Peter had thought for the moment that for once in
his life Tarkington must be drunk. But Tarkington looked just as he
always did--grave, impassive, and wonderfully kind. Indeed, he seemed
specially kind just then. Perhaps he knew. Perhaps Rosemary had told
him. Women were so queer. Perhaps she did tell Tarkington that he,
Peter, had once been fool enough to----
Anyway, Tarkington was sober, and very grave and kind, and he told Peter
in his quiet, unemotional way that he considered himself the happiest
man on God's earth. Of course he was, if Rosemary----But it was
impossible! Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!
That afternoon Peter hit many boundaries, and at the end of play was 148
not out.
In the evening he went to the Five Arts' Ball at the Albert Hall. He
knew that Rosemary would be there; he had designed the dress she would
be wearing, and Tarkington told him, sometime during that afternoon,
that he was taking his fiancée to the ball.
His fiancée! Dear old Tarkington! So kind, so unemotional! Rosemary's
husband presently! Ye gods!
At the Albert Hall ball Peter wore that beautiful Hungarian national
dress that had belonged to his grandfather, a wonderful dress of
semi-barbaric splendour, with the priceless fifteenth-century jewellery
which he had inherited from his mother--the buttons, the sword-belt, the
clasp for the mantle--they had been in the Heves family ever since it
was fashioned by Florentine workmen imported into Hungary by a mediæval
queen. Peter dressed himself with the greatest care. 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.
It appeared to be a very successful novelty. At any rate, the numberless
puppets who raised shrill voices so that Peter might hear what they
said, all declared that this ball was incontestably the most successful
function of the season.
Just as in the real world, Peter thought, where every function is always
incontestably the most successful function of the season.
Other shrill voices declared in Peter's hearing that this function had
been more than usually well-managed. It had been splendidly advertised,
and the tickets had sold like the proverbial hot cakes.
And Peter was quite sure that somewhere in the dead, forgotten world of
long ago he had heard such an expression of opinion over and over again.
Anyway, in this Albert Hall of the newly invented world things were much
as they had been in the old. It was crowded. At one time there was
hardly room enough to move, let alone to dance. Certain contortions of
the body being called dancing, now as then, and certain demoniacal
sounds made on hellish instruments by gentlemen of colour being called
dance music, the floor of the hall, raised to the level of the
lower-tier boxes, was given over to the performance of various gyrations
more or less graceful, whilst Peter looked on, strangely familiar with
this new world of unrealities, which had only been invented a few hours
ago, when Tarkington told him of his engagement to Rosemary Fowkes.
He knew just how it would be!
In to-morrow's issue of the _Morning Star_ or the _Talk of the Town_,
the thousands who gyrated here or who looked on at the gyrations of
others would be referred to as being "also present."
He, Peter Blakeney, the famous cricketer and distinguished V.C., would
be referred to as being "also present," and there would be a photograph
of him with a set grin on his face and his eyes staring out of his head
like those of a lunatic at large, in all the illustrated weeklies. This
was as it should be. It was well worth paying two guineas (supper
included) for the privilege of being referred to as "also present" in
this distinguished company of puppets that included both home and
foreign royalties.
Of course there were others, the select few who would be referred to in
the columns of the _Morning Star_ or the _Talk of the Town_ with
charming familiarity as Lord Algy Fitznoodle, or Miss Baby Tomkins, or
simply as Lady Poots or Lord Tim.
"While I was chatting with Lady Poots, etc."
"Lady Vi Dartmouth, with her beautiful hair shingled, etc., etc."
"The Marchioness of Flint came with her girls, etc."
All of which Peter knew by intuition would be vastly interesting to the
suburban little madams who read the _Talk of the Town_ in this world of
unrealities, and he was willing to leave it at that, well knowing that
the puppets named Miss Baby or Lady Vi would not think of being absent
from the Five Arts' Ball. It was the acme of smartness, of Bohemian
smartness, that is to say: the smartness of Chelsea and fashionable
studios, which is so much smarter than the smartness of Mayfair.
And Peter--a kind of disembodied Peter--watched the throng. Ye gods!
what a motley and a medley!
Polychromatic and kaleidoscopic, iridescent and prismatic, ceaselessly
on the move, mercurial, restless, ever stirring, fluttering fans,
fingering clothes, adjusting coiffures, lapels, frills, hair-ornaments
and feathers! And talking! Talking incessantly, with voices hard and
high-pitched trying to rise above other voices that were harder and
higher of pitch. Dazzling to eye and ear; exciting to nerves and sense,
the atmosphere a mixture of odours: of powders, cosmetics, perfumes,
heat, gas, and a score of other indefinable scents.
The picture quite brilliant; not without touches of unconscious humour:
Marie Antoinette flirting with Robespierre, Russian moujik in familiar
converse with a jewelled Catherine, Queen Elizabeth condescending to
pre-historic man. And then Pierrots, Pierrots everywhere, of every
conceivable motley and shape. Blue Pierrots and yellow Pierrots! white
or black, purple with orange frills, and orange with purple frills,
black skull caps and tall white peaks. Pierrots of satin, and Pierrots
of gingham! Cool and active! Ye gods! how active! Bohemian smartness, it
seems, demanded that its Pierrots should be bright and amusing and
active.
From his point of vantage on the floor of the hall Peter scanned the
semicircle of boxes where sat more puppets, hundreds of them, watching
the thousands down below.
What was the good of them? Peter thought. Why had God made them? What
use were they in this new world which some wanton sprite had fashioned
in opposition to the Creator? They fluttered their fans, they laughed,
they jabbered, and did not seem to know that they, just like Peter, had
become unreal and disembodied at the precise moment when Rosemary Fowkes
promised to become Jasper Tarkington's wife.
And then suddenly the puppets all faded away. The new world ceased to
be, there was no hall, no dancing, no music, no more puppets, no more
Pierrots. There was only Rosemary, and she came up to Peter and said
quite gaily, naturally, in a voice that belonged to the old world, not
the new:
"Won't you ask me to dance, Peter?"
After that--well, dancing permits, necessitates, holding the partner in
one's arm. And Peter danced with Rosemary.