What puzzled Rosemary was the gipsy. What was the mystery of that
vagabond found lurking in the park at nightfall with a revolver in his
belt? What connexion had he with the eyes that had watched Rosemary the
night that she was talking with little Anna? And how had he come in
possession of the inner history of Philip's and Anna's temporary
release?
There was a mystery here. Somewhere. A disquieting, a terrifying
mystery, not altogether to be accounted for by the spy system or other
secret organization of the Roumanian Government.
All night Rosemary struggled with the puzzle. All night she wrestled
with herself for the right to break her promise to Jasper and to lay all
the facts of the case before Peter. She wanted to do this before
Jasper's return, and, anyway, he must release her--he must--from that
promise which placed her in a false and disloyal position towards Peter.
When Rosemary fell asleep the dawn was breaking, and she had almost made
up her mind to tell Peter everything.
But the next morning when she went downstairs she found the whole house
in a turmoil. Servants rushing to and fro, Elza in close conversation
with the chef, Maurus shouting contradictory orders across the galleried
hall. Peter was in the drawing-room playing a jazz tune this time, and
Philip and Anna were fox-trotting, infusing even in this ugly so-called
dance some of their own native grace.
As soon as Rosemary appeared she was greeted with regular war-whoops of
delight. In a moment she was drawn into the whirlpool of excitement.
Philip and Anna dragged her to the sofa, and they and Maurus and Elza
all talked to her at once, while Peter, with the inevitable cigarette in
the corner of his mouth, continued to pound away at the jazz tune.
From the deafening hubbub of conversation Rosemary gathered, in the
first instance, that the gipsy band from Bonczhida were coming over the
next day, and the gipsies of Bonczhida were the finest in Transylvania.
Then that the Keletys were driving over from Hajdu, and the Fejérs from
Henger; that perhaps Aunt Charlotte would come too and bring Marie; that
the Keletys were bringing the Poltys, and the Fejérs having the Kékesy
boys staying with them would of course bring them along. They reckoned
that there would be ten or a dozen couples to dance, and with the mammas
and papas they would be thirty to supper. They expected most of the
guests to arrive in time for luncheon, and in the afternoon they could
have some tennis; then in the evening they would have a ball to which
the officers from the garrison at Cluj had already been invited, and
they had accepted by telephone. Among them were those who were going to
play cricket with the Hungarians at Hódmezö under Peter's direction.
At this marvellous statement Peter came to a pause in the music with a
crashing chord, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and throwing up his
hands, exclaimed:
"Going to play cricket with the Hungarians under Peter's direction! Oh,
blessed people! Ye ghosts of Fitzgerald, Pycroft, and of Lillywhite, do
ye hear them and writhe up there in Heaven?"
Then he struck up the "March of the Men of Harlech."
"If anyone says anything more about cricket," he said solemnly, "I shall
force them to play with warped bats and golf-balls on a ploughed field."
Not a trace of anxiety or even preoccupation on any of those dear,
beaming faces. Elza was as excited as any of them, worried to death
because the carp they had got out of the lake for this evening's supper
were not really fat.
"They're no bigger than a good-sized goldfish," she said to Rosemary
with a note of real tragedy in her voice, and her blue eyes at once
looked anxious and troubled, as if the matter of the carp was the only
thing that could worry her.
Rosemary made a great effort not to be a wet blanket in the midst of all
this gaiety. In this she succeeded admirably. All she had to do was to
smile and to nod her head, and now and then to cry out, "How splendid!"
The others did all the talking, and when conversation subsided for a
moment Peter came down with a fresh, crashing jazz tune.
Rosemary would have thought the whole scene a phantasmagoria--illusive
images that would presently be dispelled--only that she had known these
people ever since she was a child. She had studied their curious
psychology, half barbaric, with all the primitive disregard of danger
and the passion for pleasure, even at the point of death. She gave
ungrudging admiration to Elza--Elza who had sat in her room last night,
rigid, dry-eyed, a living statue of despair. What went on behind that
smooth, white brow of hers? What projects? What hopes? And little Anna?
Anna knew. Anna guessed. She had spoken of her fears to Rosemary. Spoken
of eyes that watched her, of eyes that were willing her to do something
foolish that would compromise her irretrievably this time. Elza and
Anna! What an example of self-possession, of self-control! Rosemary was
almost ready to persuade herself that something had happened to reassure
them both--that, in fact, they knew the danger to be past.
Only that Elza avoided her glance, and that the dear soul, usually so
placid, so stable, was just a thought more restless than usual, and her
gentle voice would from time to time become shrill.
At last, genuinely tired and bewildered by so much noise, Rosemary
jumped up and, laughing, declared that she must escape out of the
bear-garden for a moment and get a breath of fresh air in the park. In
order to reach the glass door that gave on the veranda, Rosemary had to
go past the piano. Quite close. Peter looked up when she was near him,
and she said to him as she went past: "They are very gay, aren't they?"
"Elza has a perfectly mad plan in her head," Peter replied, and struck a
few loud chords so that no one save Rosemary should hear what he said.
"For God's sake, if you have any influence over her, get her to give it
up."
Then he shouted merrily: "I've had enough of those horrible American
tunes. Who wants a _csàrdàs?_"
But he did not play a _csàrdàs_ a moment or two his fingers wandered
aimlessly over the keys, whilst his eyes followed Rosemary as she
stepped through the glass door on to the sun-bathed veranda. 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.