The moment that Rosemary came into the room she guessed that Elza
somehow or other had heard the news. She had tears in her big, kind
eyes, but they were tears of emotion, not of sorrow or anxiety.
"Philip is coming home with Anna!" she cried as soon as she caught sight
of Rosemary.
"Who told you?" Rosemary asked.
"General Naniescu sent his captain to tell me. I only knew it five
minutes ago. But oh, my dear, they have been _such_ five minutes!"
Rosemary kissed her with tender affection. She did not feel somehow as
if she could say much.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Elza went on while she put a few finishing touches
to her toilet. "And has not Naniescu been kind? Of course I knew that
they could not do anything to Philip because he has done nothing, and I
don't believe that Anna did anything either. But you know, my dear,
these days some awful mistakes do occur. But," she added lightly, "I
have so often experienced it in life that men are not nearly so cruel as
they are credited to be. One is so apt to pass judgment on insufficient
evidence. Give a man the chance of doing a kind act, that is my motto,
and he will nearly always do it."
Fortunately that Elza was rather fussy for the moment, fidgeting about
the room and obviously trying to calm her nerves, so she did not notice
Rosemary's silent, unresponsive way.
"When do you expect Philip and Anna?" Rosemary said at last.
"This afternoon," Elza exclaimed, and her words rang out like a little
cry of joy. "And you know Maurus is so happy that he has actually gone
down in order to say something civil to Naniescu, who, of course, is
staying for lunch. Well," she added after a moment or two, when she had
gathered up her keys, her rings, her handkerchief, and given a final tap
to her hair, "shall we go down too?"
Without a word Rosemary followed her. She felt as if she must choke.
Elza's happiness was going to be the most severe trial of all during
this terrible month that lay ahead of her.
"Oh, and I was almost forgetting," Elza resumed, while she tripped
lightly along the gallery towards the stairs, "the smaller joy beside
the greater--the greatest one! I have heard from Peter Blakeney."
"From Peter?"
"Yes. He is at Cluj, at the New York. He is over here about some
arrangement he wants to make for a cricket match or something silly of
that sort--you know what Peter is: quite mad about that silly cricket. I
had a letter from him this morning, but when it came I had no thought
for anything except Philip. I must let you read it presently. I don't
really know what he says, but if he is at Cluj we are sure to see him
very soon."
She prattled on as merry as a bird. She seemed twenty years younger all
of a sudden--her step was light and springy, her eyes were bright, her
voice was fresh and clear. Rosemary kept on repeating to herself:
"She need not know for at least three weeks. She need not know, and I
must pretend--pretend--at any cost. She will know soon enough, poor
darling."
And Rosemary did manage to pretend; for the next three hours she was
just an automaton, wound up to play a certain part. To everyone she had
to pretend--to Elza, to Maurus, to that odious Naniescu, and even to
Jasper. The worst of all was pretending to Jasper, for from this she got
no reprieve. Jasper's kind, anxious eyes were on her all the time, and
she would not let him see that she was anxious about Peter. Somehow the
episode about Peter had made everything so much worse. Not that she
harboured the thought for a moment that Peter was intriguing with
Naniescu. That, of course, was out of the question. He had come to
arrange something about a cricket match, and, of course, he had to see
Naniescu about it, get his permission, and so on. There were ten chances
to one that Peter had written to her and told her all about it, and that
his letter had gone astray. No, no, no! There could be no thought of an
intrigue between Peter and these Roumanians; but Rosemary felt that
Jasper thought there was, and was vaguely pitying her because of some
unknown treachery on Peter's part. It was odious!
And with it all Elza's obvious happiness was almost intolerable to
witness, and even Maurus departed from his habitual ill-temper to
exchange facetious remarks with Naniescu. Time seemed leaden-footed. The
interminable luncheon dragged on wearily, as did the hour of coffee and
liqueurs, of endless small talk and constant pretence. But even the
worst moments in life must become things of the past sooner or later,
and when Rosemary began to feel that she could not stand the whole thing
any longer, she found that Naniescu and his officers were actually
taking their leave.
After luncheon Jasper was quite charming. He had thought the whole
matter over, he said, and decided that it was in his power to make a
personal appeal to the King in favour of Philip and Anna. He had
certainly rendered more than one signal service to Roumania during and
after the war, and he thought that in these countries personal influence
counted a great deal. At any rate, there would be no harm in trying, and
he would start for Bucharest immediately. He had spoken about the
proposed journey to Elza and Maurus, alleging official business, and
Elza had already arranged that he should be driven into Cluj in time for
the afternoon express. Rosemary's heart was at once filled with
gratitude; she felt angry with herself for having mistrusted him. She
threw herself whole-heartedly into the preparations for his journey,
lulling her troubled soul with the belief that it would prove to be the
happy issue out of this terrible situation. When it was time for him to
go she wished him God-speed with more fervour and affection than she had
shown him for days.
"Bar accidents," he assured her, "I shall be back in a fortnight. If I
have definite good news to report I will wire. But even if you don't
hear from me, I shall be back, as I say, in fifteen days."
"I shall count the hours until your return," she said.
"And in the meanwhile," he urged with deep earnestness, "you will do
nothing without consulting me."
She smiled at this want of logic, so unlike her methodical husband.
"I could not consult you, dear," she said. "You won't be here."
"No, no, I know," he insisted; "but I want you to promise that you will
leave things as they are until my return. I don't want you to give
anything away to Elza, or to Philip or Anna. Promise me."
"Of course I'll promise," she replied readily. "God knows I don't want
to be the one to break the awful news to them."
"Or to Peter," he added gravely.
"Peter?"
"I want you to promise me--to promise, Rosemary, that you will not speak
of this miserable affair to Peter Blakeney."
Then, as she seemed to hesitate, vaguely puzzled at his desperate
earnestness, he again insisted:
"Promise me, Rosemary, whatever you may hear, whatever you may see,
whatever may be planned by Elza or anybody else, promise me that you
will not speak of it to Peter."
"But, Jasper," she exclaimed, "why? Of course I will promise, if you
wish it, but frankly I don't understand why you insist, so solemnly
too," she added, trying to assume a lightness of heart which she was far
from feeling. Then she went on more gravely: "I could trust Peter as I
would myself."
"You can put it down to nerves," Jasper said, with the ghost of a smile,
"to intuition or foreboding, or merely to jealousy and my wretched
character, to anything you please, my dear one. But promise me! Promise
me that everything in connexion with this miserable affair will remain
just between you and me. Let the others talk, guess, plan. Promise me
that you will never speak of it with Peter. Promise me, or I will throw
up the sponge, remain here to look after you, and let Naniescu do his
worst with the lot of them."
Thus, alternately demanding, entreating, threatening, he extracted the
promise from her, even though her heart cried out against what she felt
was treachery to Peter. Jasper's insistence filled her with a vague
sense of foreboding not unmixed with fear; and yet, the very next
moment, as soon as he had her promise, he became tender, soft, loving,
as if trying to make her forget his solemn earnestness of a while ago.
He took her in his arms and gazed into her eyes with an intensity of
longing which made her own heart ache with self-reproach.
"If God there be," he whispered softly, as if to himself, "it was cruel
of Him to make you so beautiful--and so desirable."
Again his mood had changed. Tenderness had turned into passion, fierce,
almost primeval, and he held her now more like a man defending the
greatest treasure he possessed on God's earth than like a husband taking
affectionate leave of his wife.
"If I should lose you, Rosemary," he murmured, "because of this."
She tried to laugh and to speak flippantly. "Lose me?" she said. "You
have little chance of doing that, my dear, for this or any other cause.
Naniescu has not the power of life and death over me," she added more
seriously.
There was something about Jasper at this moment that she could not
entirely fathom. Twice before she had seen him in these moods of violent
passion akin almost to savagery, when she felt utterly helpless and
absolutely in his power. She had the feeling that when he was in one of
these moods he was capable of any violence against her if she dared to
disobey or resist. Not that Rosemary was afraid; she had never in her
life been afraid of anyone; but she had always been mistress of herself,
and at this moment, held tightly by the man to whom she had sworn love
and fealty, she felt like a slave of olden times in the grip of her
lord.
"You--you will care for me some day, Rosemary?" he asked with passionate
earnestness. "Say that you will some day, when all this--all this is
forgotten, and we are back again in England, free to live our own lives,
free to love. You will care for me then, Rosemary, will you not? For I
could not live beside you for long, feeling all the time that you did
not belong to me with your whole soul. You have such haunting eyes--eyes
such as pixies and fairies have--maddening eyes. I should go crazy
presently if I failed to kindle the love-light in those eyes."
He kissed her eyes, her mouth, her throat. Rosemary would have
struggled, would have screamed if she dared. Fortunately a knock at the
door and the entrance of one of the menservants, who came to fetch
milord's luggage, put an end to a situation which Rosemary found very
difficult to endure. After the man had gone the spell appeared to be
broken. Jasper became once more the courteous, grave man of the world he
had always been. The episode of a moment ago did not seem to have
occurred at all, as far as he was concerned, and while Rosemary felt her
teeth chattering and the palms of her hands were covered with a cold
sweat, Jasper moved about the room and spoke to her about his proposed
journey, his certain return in a fortnight, as if nothing had happened.