Rosemary had never before welcomed her husband so eagerly as she did
that afternoon. As soon as she heard the whirring of his motor she ran
to the gates to meet him.
"What news?" she cried when he had brought the car to a standstill.
As usual, his dark eyes flashed with joy when he saw her. He jumped down
and raised both her hands to his lips.
"Very vague, I am afraid," he replied. "And some of it a mere
conjecture."
"Tell me."
"To begin with, young Imrey and Anna Heves have been transferred to
Sót."
"Where is that?"
"Between Cluj and the frontier. It seems that there is a château there
that is being used as a prison for political offenders."
"Who told you that?"
"Naniescu. I saw him for a moment. He was very busily engaged with the
Minister for Home Affairs who was over from Bucharest, so he could only
give me a few minutes."
"Had he seen Elza?"
"No. But she had applied for permission to see Philip and Anna, and he
gave the permission. He supposed that she had gone on to Sót by train."
"Even so," Rosemary mused, "she would be back by now, or else she would
have wired."
Jasper appeared to hesitate for a moment or two, and then he said: "I
don't think that she has been allowed to do either."
"Why not?"
"It is mere surmise, my dear," Jasper went on quietly, "but one thing
Naniescu did tell me, and that was that he had on behalf of his
government definitely made over the Kis-Imre estates to Peter Blakeney."
They were walking round the house towards the veranda when he said this.
Rosemary made no response; indeed, it might be thought that she had not
heard, for the next question which she put to Jasper appeared
irrelevant.
"Does the midnight express stop at Sót?"
"It does," Jasper replied.
"Then I can see Elza there. I am sure that is where she is. You inquired
at Ujlak?"
"Yes, Elza went there first and then to Cluj."
They had reached the veranda now, and Rosemary went up the steps and
then into the house.
"You still wish to come with me to-night?" she asked her husband before
she went upstairs.
"Why, of course."
"You are not too tired after all this running about?"
"I?" he exclaimed with a laugh. "Tired? When it is a question of being
near you!"
He tried to capture her wrist, but she evaded him and ran quickly
through the hall and up the stairs. Before going into her room she
called down to him:
"If we use your motor we need not start before eleven o'clock, and there
is still a chance of Elza being home before then."
It was just before dinner that the culminating tragedy occurred.
Rosemary was in her room, when she heard loud commotion coming from the
hall--harsh, peremptory voices, a word or two from Anton, and then
Jasper's voice raised as if in protest. She opened her door, and to her
horror saw a squad of soldiers in the hall, and between them an officer,
and a man in civilian clothes who had an official-looking paper in his
hand and was apparently explaining something to Jasper.
"I regret, my lord, but these are my orders," the man was saying, "and I
cannot enter into any discussion with you."
Jasper tried to protest again. "But surely----" he began. The man,
however, cut him short.
"If you like," he said, "I can allow you to see Count Imrey first, but
this order I must deliver into his own hands."
Rosemary in the meanwhile had run downstairs.
"What is it, Jasper?" she asked quickly.
"An order of eviction," Jasper replied curtly, "against that wretched
Maurus."
"Whatever does that mean?"
"That he must quit this place within twenty-four hours."
"Impossible!" she exclaimed hotly.
She turned to the officer and the civilian who had brought this
monstrous order.
"The whole thing is a mistake," she said coolly; "some error in the
name. Count Imrey is a loyal subject of the King. There has never been a
hint of disloyalty levelled against him."
The officer in charge gave a curt laugh and shrugged his shoulders, and
the civilian said with a sneer:
"They all say that, milady. They are all wonderfully loyal after they
have been found out."
"But General Naniescu himself is a friend of the family. And Lord
Tarkington and I can vouch----"
"Pardon, milady," the civilian broke in coldly. "This affair does not
concern you or Lord Tarkington, and the order of eviction is signed on
behalf of the present owner of Kis-Imre by His Excellency the Governor
himself."
"On behalf----"
It was Rosemary who spoke, but the sound of her voice might have come
out of a grave. She had never been so near to swooning in her life. The
walls around her, the woodwork, the stairs, all took on distorted
shapes, and moved, round and round and up and down, until everything was
a blur through which the faces of the Roumanian officer and the civilian
stared at her and grinned. "On behalf of the present owner of Kis-Imre!"
But that was Peter! Peter! And the world did not totter, the earth did
not quake, and engulf all these monstrous crimes, this cruelty and this
shame.
Luckily none of the Roumanians appeared to have noticed this sudden
weakness in her; the civilian was consulting with the officer whether he
should allow milord Tarkington to break the awful news to Maurus.
Neither raised any objection, and Jasper pronounced himself ready to go.
Rosemary turned appealingly to him:
"You will be very patient, Jasper," she begged, "and very, very gentle?"
"Leave it to me, dear," he responded; "I'll do my best."
When he was gone, Rosemary mechanically asked the officer and his
companion to come into the smoking-room and sit down. She offered
cigarettes. They made her ceremonious bows, and were as polite and
conventional as circumstances demanded. She tried to talk; she even
asked questions; but they were diplomatically ignorant of everything
except of their duty. They explained that this consisted in seeing Count
Imrey personally, and giving the eviction order into his own hands.
"It will kill him," Rosemary said, with conviction, "or else send him
out of his mind."
Both the men shrugged. They had seen so much of this sort of thing, one
of them said, people always threatened to die or to go mad, but nothing
of the sort had ever happened.
"Are you quite sure of that?" Rosemary retorted.
Somehow the episode had brought back into the forefront of her
consciousness her responsibility with regard to her newspaper articles.
Not that conscience had been dormant, but Peter's infamy had been such
an overwhelming shock that every other emotion had slipped away into the
background. But now it all came back to her. Those articles of hers if
they were published would be a justification of all this--of these
orders of eviction, the sort of thing that men died of, or went mad over
out of grief, while officials shrugged their shoulders, having seen it
all so often.
A few minutes after Jasper returned and Maurus was with him. At sight of
Maurus Rosemary had risen from her chair as if drawn up by mechanical
force, and she remained standing, staring at the man whom she had last
seen as a fragile weakling, babbling incoherent words. Maurus had
dressed himself with unusual care. It almost seemed as if he had been
expecting visitors. Rosemary had never seen him with hair so sleekly
brushed, or chin so smooth. The officer and the civilian had risen to
greet him, and he went up to them with perfect calm, inquiring politely
what they desired to say to him. Rosemary turned a questioning glance on
Jasper. He, too, appeared puzzled, and followed Maurus' every movement
as if he dreaded that something would happen presently, and all the
man's self-possession disintegrate in a tempest of fury.
But nothing of the sort happened. Maurus took the order from the
civilian, and read it through carefully. Not a muscle of his face
twitched, and his hands were perfectly steady. For the moment Rosemary
wondered whether this outward calm was not some form of madness.
"I can't understand it," she whispered to Jasper, while the three men
were engaged together.
"I am just as puzzled as you are," Jasper replied. "I never thought that
he would take it like that."
"So long as he is not just putting a terrible strain on himself--in
which case the reaction will be frightful."
Maurus was now taking leave of the officials.
"I quite understand the position," he said quietly. "If I had bought a
house, I, too, would wish to take possession of it as soon as possible.
Perhaps," he added, with a smile, "I should not have been quite in such
a hurry, but we all know that with the English time is money, eh,
messieurs? And now all I need do is to thank you for your courtesy. I
will comply with the order, chiefly because I have no choice."
It was almost unbelievable. Rosemary thought that her eyes and ears must
be playing her a trick. The two Roumanians took their leave with their
habitual elaborate politeness and Maurus himself saw them to his front
door, where the squad of soldiers still stood at attention. When they
had all gone, he came back into the smoking-room, and he was actually
laughing when he entered.
"Did you ever see such swine?" he said lightly, and then apologised to
Rosemary for his language.
"You are taking it so bravely, Maurus dear," Rosemary murmured
bewildered. "But what about Elza?"
"Oh, she prepared me for it; she knew all about it yesterday, and she
sent me word what to bring along in the way of clothes for her. And, of
course, there will be her jewellery, and one or two little things to see
to. However, I have got twenty-four hours before me, and there will be
Anton and Rosa to help me."
"But, Maurus dear----"
"You are astonished, dear Lady Tarkington," Maurus broke in, with rather
a sad smile, "to see me take it all so calmly. I was born in this house,
and I always thought that I would die in it; but lately these walls have
seen so much sorrow and so many villainies that I would just as soon
turn my back on them."
"But what does Elza feel about it?"
"The same as I do. She writes quite calmly."
"When did you hear from her?"
"Early this afternoon, so you see I was prepared."
"But where is she?" Rosemary asked insistently.
"She was at Sót when she wrote to me. She had seen Philip and Anna. And
she was on the point of leaving for Hódmezö. This was late last night.
She is in Hungary by now--and in safety. Please God I shall be with her
soon."
He still spoke quite quietly, in short, crisp sentences, with nothing of
the rambling and babbling about his speech that had been so pathetic to
witness yesterday. But though Rosemary ought to have felt reassured and
comforted about him, she could not rid herself of a persistent feeling
of dread: the same sort of feeling that invades the nerves at the
manifestation of a supernatural phenomenon. There was nothing
supernatural about Maurus certainly, but his attitude was so abnormal,
so unlike himself, that Rosemary caught herself watching with
ever-increasing anxiety for the moment when his real, violent nature
would reassert itself.
A moment or two later the dinner-bell rang, and Maurus was full of
apologies.
"My stupid affairs have prevented your getting on with your packing,
dear Lady Tarkington. Can you forgive me?"
Rosemary could only assure him that all her packing was done. "And,
anyway," she added, "as Jasper has a car we need not start before eleven
o'clock."
"Ah, then," Maurus said, and offered her his arm to lead her into the
dining-room, "we need not hurry over dinner; and I shall have the
pleasure of two or three more hours of your company."
Jasper all the while had been strangely silent. Rosemary could see that
he was just as much puzzled as she was, and that he was studying Maurus
very keenly while the latter was talking. During dinner and while the
servants were about, the conversation drifted to indifferent subjects.
This was the first time that Maurus had had a meal in the dining-room
since he was taken ill four days ago, and he was like a child enjoying
his food, and delighted with everything. It was only when coffee had
been brought in and the servants had gone away that he reverted to the
important subject of his departure.
"My chief cause of regret, dear Lady Tarkington," he said, "is that I
cannot welcome you here when you return from your journey. But perhaps
we could meet at Budapest, not? Elza speaks about that in her letter to
me. She is very anxious to see you."
"I shall break my journey at Hódmezö," Rosemary said, "and probably
wait there twenty-four hours till you come."
She had it in her mind that she could wire from there to the _Times_
office, and in any case she had to see Elza.
"There are two good hotels in Hódmezö," Maurus rejoined. "Elza is
staying at the Bristol. A very grand name for a simple provincial hotel,
but it is very comfortable, I believe. Peter Blakeney's cricket people
stayed there last week, you know."
He even could mention Peter's name calmly; and a quaint old English
saying came to Rosemary's mind, one that she was fond of repeating in
past days whenever her professional activities brought her in contact
with extraordinary people. "Nought so queer as folk!" She almost said it
aloud; for never in all her life had she witnessed anything so strange
as this metamorphosis of a violent-tempered, morbid epileptic into a
calm, sensible man of the world, who takes things as he finds them, and
Fate's heaviest blows without wearing his heart on his sleeve.
"I shall not forget the Bristol at Hódmezö," she said, after a little
while, "and I will certainly remain with Elza until you come. Perhaps I
can help her to endure the suspense."
"Perhaps."
"How did her letter get to you? Through the post?"
"No; she tent a peasant over from Sót, a lad who lives in Kis-Imre, and
was returning home. You know him, dear Lady Tarkington--him and his
brother--the two sons of Jànos the miller."
"Those two brave lads who----"
Rosemary paused abruptly. The last thing she wanted to do was to bring
back to Maurus' memory that fateful night of the children's abortive
escape; but Maurus himself broke in quietly:
"Yes, the two fellows who helped us all they could that night when
Philip and Anna tried to get out of the country. The attempt was
unsuccessful, as you know. Philip and Anna were captured. They are in
Sót now. But the two sons of Jànos--I forget their names--got over the
frontier safely. They joined the cricketers at Hódmezö, and are safely
back at the mill now."
"Thank God," Rosemary exclaimed fervently, "they did not suffer for
their devotion."
"No, I am glad of that," Maurus concluded, with obvious indifference.
"But the authorities don't trouble about the peasants. It is the landed
aristocracy and the professional classes who have to suffer, if they
belong to the conquered race."
It was past ten o'clock before the small party broke up. During the
latter part of the time it had been Rosemary's turn to become silent.
Maurus started the subject of politics, and Jasper carried on a
desultory argument with him on that inexhaustible question. In almost
weird contrast to his previous calmness, Maurus' violent temper broke
out once or twice during the course of the discussion, and it needed all
Jasper's tact and Rosemary's soothing influence to steer clear of all
that tended to aggravate him. It was the real man peeping through the
armour of all the previous unnatural self-control, the gipsy blood
reasserting itself--self-willed, obstinate, impatient of control, bitter
against humiliation. Rosemary almost welcomed the change when it came.
It was more like the Maurus she knew--a man eccentric and violent,
walking close to, but not overstepping the borderland that separates the
sane from the insane. It was only when Philip, or Elza, or Kis-Imre were
mentioned that he seemed to step over that borderland, encased in an
armour of impish indifference.
The soldier-chauffeur brought the car round at eleven o'clock. Rosemary
took affectionate leave of Maurus.
"We meet very soon," she said. "In Hungary."
"Yes," he replied. "In Hungary. I shall be so thankful to be there."
He also shook hands very cordially with Jasper.
"I am afraid this has not been a very agreeable stay for you," he said.
"Better luck next time," Jasper responded, as he settled himself down in
the car beside his wife.
The car swung out of the gates. Rosemary, looking back, had a last
vision of Maurus, standing under the electric lamp in the porch, his
hand waving a last farewell.