On the narrow made-up bed, with the coarse linen and the heavy blanket,
and the smell of sulphur and dust about her, Rosemary found it quite
impossible to get any rest. At first there had been a good deal of
clumsy shunting, the engine probably had been detached, the tin-trumpet
sounded at intervals, and there was a good deal of shouting; but all
these noises ceased presently, and the night seemed peculiarly still.
Still, but not restful. Rosemary could not sleep. Fortunately the
communicating doors between her compartment and the one which Jasper
occupied were closed, so she felt free to fidget, to get up or to lie
down as the mood seized her, to turn on the light to read or to
meditate, without fear of disturbing him.
She could not help feeling desperately nervous. Jasper, of course, was
quite right: there was plenty of time in which to see Elza, and then to
send a telegram to London if necessary, so there was nothing in a few
hours' delay to worry about. Nevertheless she, who had always prided
herself on independence and level-headedness, felt a strange kind of
foreboding--something vague and indefinite that nevertheless was
terrifying. She tried to compose herself and could not. She forced
herself into quietude, deliberately kept her eyes closed and her body
still. It was torture, but she did it because she wanted to feel that
she still controlled her nerves, and that she was not giving way to this
stupid sense of fear.
And there was no denying it; the fear that beset her was on account of
her coming interview with Elza. Maurus' attitude had been very strange,
even abnormal, and it was consequent on a letter from Elza. And
Rosemary, though she had not owned it to herself before, felt a growing
conviction that Elza's lofty patriotism had given way at last to
mother-love. Confronted with Philip and Anna, who no doubt had youth's
passionate desire to live, with Anna's mother who was all for
conciliating the tyrants, and with Maurus whose reason was threatening
to give way, Elza had laid down her arms, had capitulated and decided
that her son's life must be saved at any cost. Perhaps she knew
that Rosemary's articles had fallen into Naniescu's hands,
perhaps she and Peter had actually been in collusion over the theft,
perhaps--perhaps----There was no end to conjecture, and no limit to
Rosemary's dread of what the next four-and-twenty hours would bring.
Only now did she realise what it had meant to her to place the final
decision into Elza's hands. With it she had given her professional
honour, her very conscience into another woman's keeping. She had
probably only done it because she was so sure of Elza, of Elza's
patriotism and her sense of justice and honour. Poor Elza! Who could
blame her for being weak, for being a mother rather than a patriot? She
should never have been placed before such a cruel alternative.
Self-reproach, the stirrings of conscience helped to aggravate
Rosemary's racking anxiety. She got up in the early dawn, made what
sketchy toilet the limited accommodation allowed, and went out into the
open. The little station appeared quite deserted; only the two soldiers
were still there on duty at the exit door. Rosemary marvelled if they
were the same two who had been there during the night. They looked
perfectly stolid, unwashed and slouchy in their faded, coarse-looking
uniforms and dusty boots and képis.
Rosemary looked up and down the line. The train, consisting of half a
dozen coaches, looked derelict without its engine, and there was no
guard in sight. She had no eyes for the beautiful scenery around--the
narrow valley bordered by densely wooded heights; the mountain-side
covered with oak and beech that were just beginning to clothe themselves
in gold at the approach of autumn; the turbulent little mountain-stream;
the small station nestling amidst gnarled acacia trees; and on the right
the quaint Transylvania village with the hemp-thatched roofs and bunches
of golden maize drying in the sun, with its primitive stuccoed church
and white-washed presbytery. Rosemary saw nothing of this; her eyes
searched the landscape for the château--now a prison for political
offenders--where Philip and Anna were detained--those children whose
safety would be paid for perhaps by countless miseries, by worse tyranny
and more cruel oppression. But there was no large building in sight, and
presently Rosemary caught sight of Jasper, some way up the line, walking
toward her in company with a man in very _négligé_ toilet, who
probably was the station-master.
At sight of Rosemary, Jasper hastened to meet her, while the man kept at
a respectful distance.
"What news?" Rosemary cried eagerly.
Jasper appeared dejected. "Not very good I am afraid," he said. "The
station-master here tells me that he has been advised that the line will
take the whole of the day to clear--probably more."
"Very well, then," Rosemary said resolutely, "we must get a car."
"Impossible, my dear; you can't get across if the road is blocked."
"All the roads in Transylvania are not blocked, I imagine," Rosemary
retorted drily. Then she called to the station-master: "I want," she
said, "to get to Hódmezö to-day. Can I get a car anywhere in Sót?"
"But the roads are impassable, gracious lady," the man exclaimed; "the
landslide----"
"Never mind about the landslide. There are other roads in Transylvania
besides this one. I can go by a roundabout way, but I can get there
somehow if I have a car. Or," she added impatiently, seeing that the man
was looking very dubious, "a conveyance of any sort, I don't care what
it is."
"Alas! gracious lady, that is just the trouble. The soldiers were here
yesterday, and they commandeered all the horses and bullocks in Sót for
military purposes. It is so hard," the man went on, muttering half to
himself; "no sooner does a man scrape together a little money and buy an
old horse, than the soldiers come down and take it away from him."
The man was full of apologies and explanations, but somehow Rosemary had
the impression that he lied. He rambled on for a while in the same
strain; Rosemary did not hear him. Her brain was at work trying to find
a way to combat this net of intrigue that was hemming her in. She was
quite sure that the man was lying--that Naniescu had ordered these
ignorant yokels to tell the lies that suited him. She, Rosemary, Lady
Tarkington, a British subject, could not be held up at the frontier, of
course, but there could be a landslide, a block on the line, no
conveyance available, horses commandeered by the military, two, three,
perhaps four days' delay while Naniescu's courier was speeding to London
with Rosemary's manuscript and her letter to the editor of the _Times_
asking for early publication.
She turned with some impatience to Jasper.
"What shall I do?"
Gravely he shook his head.
"Accept the inevitable," he replied gently. "I understand that there is
quite a clean little hotel in the place, and twenty-four hours' delay is
not very serious, is it?"
"It would not be," she admitted, "if it were not prolonged."
"It can't be prolonged indefinitely."
"No," she retorted, "for I can always walk to the frontier."
"Over mountain passes?" he queried, with a smile.
But she only gave a scornful shrug. "Accept the inevitable?" How little
he knew her. The more she saw difficulties ahead, the more she felt
ready for a fight. Time was still in her favour. Hódmezö was not far
with its telegraph service, and Naniescu's power did not extend beyond
the frontier.
Always supposing that Elza did wish her to wire.
Rosemary thought things over for a moment or two; then she said to
Jasper: "Very well! I'll possess myself in patience for twenty-four
hours. Will you see about rooms at the hotel? And I suppose this man
will see about our luggage being taken across?"
"Of course I'll see to everything, dear," Jasper said meekly. "But you
would like some breakfast, wouldn't you?"
"No," Rosemary replied; "I am going for a walk. I should be such poor
company at breakfast."