Meekly and obediently Jasper went off to see after the luggage, and
Rosemary wandered away as far as the village. Her first thought was to
ascertain definitely whether indeed there was no chance of hiring some
sort of conveyance to take her as far as Hódmezö. The first man she
spoke to was the keeper of the inevitable grocery store. He had heard a
rumour that there was a block on the railway line somewhere near the
frontier, and this annoyed him very much because he was expecting a
consignment of maize from Hungary, and he supposed that he would not now
get it for two or three days. He had no horse. Hadn't had one since the
beginning of the war, when his nag was commandeered. Now even an old
crock was so dear it did not pay to buy.
Rosemary asked him if he knew of anyone in the village from whom she
could hire a horse and cart to take her as far as the frontier, but the
man shook his head. The Jew at the hotel had two horses, and the priest
had one, but the military were down from the barracks yesterday and took
those away. There were manœuvres in progress somewhere, it seems. The
soldiers said they would bring the horses back in two or three days, but
it was very hard and inconvenient for everybody when that sort of thing
was done.
Rosemary asked, what about oxen? But draft-oxen and some buffaloes
belonging to the mayor had also been commandeered. It was very hard. Did
not the gracious lady think so?
Finally the storekeeper made a suggestion that with the help of a little
baksheesh the gracious lady might succeed in getting the officer at the
château to let her have what she wanted. The château was only a couple
of kilomètres from the village. It lay close to the road; the gracious
lady couldn't fail to spy the great iron gates. It had belonged at one
time to Count Fekete, but the family had been gone some time, and the
château was now a cavalry barrack, and some prisoners of war were still
kept there.
The storekeeper offered his son as an escort to the gracious lady, so
that she should not miss her way. But Rosemary declined the offer; she
purchased a few stale biscuits from the man, intending to ask for a
glass of milk from some cottage on the way; then she set out at a brisk
pace down the road. It ran along the mountain-side, and some fifty feet
below the turbulent little stream tossed and tumbled over stones and
boulders, its incessant murmuring making a soothing accompaniment to
Rosemary's thoughts. At the last cottage in the village, where Rosemary
had obtained a glass of fresh milk from a comely peasant woman, the
latter had directed her to a mountain path which ran below the road,
parallel with it, and close to the edge of the stream. Here it was
perfectly lovely; the moist, sweet air, the occasional call of birds,
the beech and oak and dense undergrowth, the carpet of moss, the
occasional clearing where the grass was of a luscious green, and the
mauve campanula grew to a stately height. At times the path rose
sharply, twenty feet or more above the stream; at others it ran level
with the water's edge; and at one place the stream widened into a little
bay, where the water was as clear as a fairy pool and of a translucent
blue.
Rosemary lingered for a little while beside the pool, thinking how
delicious it would be to bathe in it. When she went on again she came to
a sharp bend in the path, and as soon as she had rounded this she saw
some twenty yards farther on a man dressed in the uniform of a Roumanian
officer, sitting upon a tree stump close by the water's edge. The man
sat with his elbows resting on his knees, and his head was buried in his
hands. He looked like a man in trouble. Rosemary walked on, a dry twig
crackled under her tread, and the man suddenly looked up.
It was Peter.
The moment he caught sight of Rosemary he jumped up, and then made a
movement as if he meant to run away. But Rosemary, with sudden impulse,
called to him at once.
"Don't go, Peter."
It seemed as if the magic of her voice rooted him to the spot. He stood
quite still, but with his back to her; and then he took off his képi
with one hand, and passed the other once or twice across his forehead.
Rosemary felt strangely disturbed and puzzled. Why was Peter here? How
did he come to be here? And in this uniform?
"Aren't you going to speak to me, Peter?" she asked, because Peter being
here seemed so amazing that for the moment she thought that she was
seeing a vision; "or even look at me?" she added.
"I did not suppose you particularly wished me to speak to you," he said,
without turning round to face her.
"Why should you say that?" she asked simply.
"Because I imagine that you look upon me as such an unmitigated
blackguard that the very sight of me must be hateful to you."
She said nothing for a moment or two. Perhaps she was still wondering if
he was real, and if so, how he came to be here--just to-day and at this
hour. Then she went deliberately up to him, put her hand on his arm, and
forced him to look at her.
"It is true, then?" she asked, and her eyes, those pixie eyes of hers,
luminous and searching, were fastened on his as if seeking to penetrate
to the very soul within him. But a look of dull and dogged obstinacy was
all that she got in response.
"It is all true, Peter?" she insisted, trying with all her might to
steady her voice, so that he should not hear the catch in her throat.
He shrugged his shoulders, indifferent and still obstinate.
"I don't know what you mean," he retorted, almost roughly.
"I mean," she said slowly, "that these last few days have not just been
a hideous nightmare, as I still hoped until--until two minutes ago. That
things have really happened--that you--that you----"
She paused, physically unable to continue. It was all too vile, too
hideous to put into words. Peter gave a harsh laugh.
"Oh, don't spare me," he said, with a flippant laugh. "You mean that you
did not believe until two minutes ago that I was really a spy in the pay
of the Roumanian government, and that you did not believe that I had
intrigued to have Philip and Anna arrested, stolen your articles for the
_Times_, and bought Kis-Imre over Aunt Elza's head, and turned her and
Maurus out of their home. Well, you believe it now, don't you? So that's
that. And as I am on my way to meet a friend, you'll excuse me, won't
you, if I run away? Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Yes," she said. "You can look me straight in the eyes and tell me what
has brought you down to--to this. Is it money?"
Peter shrugged. "The want of it, I suppose," he replied.
"I have no right to ask, I know. Only--only--we were friends once,
Peter," she went on, with a note of pleading in her tone. "You used to
tell me all your plans--your ambitions. You used to say that you did not
want to--to bind me to a promise until you had made a name for yourself.
If you had told me that you were short of money, and that you were
actually thinking of taking up this--this sort of work, I could have
helped you. I know I could have helped you. I know I should have found
the right words to dissuade you. Oh, Peter!" she went on almost wildly,
unable to hold her tears longer in check, or to control the tremor in
her voice, "it is all so horrible! Can't you see? Can't you see? We were
such friends! You used to tell me everything. You were taking up your
father's work. Some of your scientific experiments were already
attracting attention. And you were a sportsman, too! And your V.C. And
now this--this. Oh, it is too horrible--too horrible!"
Her words were carrying her away. The murmur of the water grew louder
and louder in her ears, and in the trees the soughing of the wind among
the leaves grew almost deafening. She felt herself swaying, and for a
few seconds she closed her eyes. But when she put out her hand she felt
it resting on Peter's arm. There was the feel of the rough cloth of his
tunic. So she opened her eyes and raised them slowly until they met his.
Her glance had wandered on the ugly uniform, the livery of this
unspeakable shame. Her eyes expressed the contempt which she felt, the
loathing which was almost physical. But Peter's glance now was not only
dogged, but defiant. In it she read the determination to follow the path
of life which he had chosen for himself, and a challenge to her power to
drag him away from it. This was no longer the Peter of Kis-Imre, the
irresponsible young English athlete, whose thoughts would never soar
above the interest in a cricket-match. It was more the Peter of olden
times--the tempestuous lover, the wayward creature of caprice, the
temperamental enthusiast capable of heroic deeds, and always chafing
under the restraint imposed by twentieth century conventions; the Peter
whose soul had once been equally great in virtue as it was now steeped
in crime, the gallant soldier, the worthy descendant of the Scarlet
Pimpernel. It was the Peter of olden times, but his love for her was
dead. Dead. If one spark of it had remained alive, if something of her
image had remained in his heart, he could never have given himself over
to this vile, vile thing. But while she had been battling bravely to
banish from her mind all memories of their early love, he had torn her
out of his heart, and turned to this ignominious calling to help him to
forget.
Rosemary felt giddy and ill; even the sweet woodland air seemed to have
turned to poisonous fumes of intrigue and venality. She pushed Peter's
arm that supported her roughly away, but she was still swaying; her hat
fell from her head, and her glorious hair lay in a tumbled mass of ruddy
gold around her face.
"Better sit down on this old stump," Peter remarked drily. "You'll have
to lean on me till you get to it."
But Rosemary did not really know what happened just then. She had such a
gnawing pain in her heart. She certainly tottered forward a step or two
until she reached the tree-stump, and she sank down on it, helped
thereto no doubt by Peter's arm. The next thing of which she was
conscious was a flood of tears that would not be checked. It welled up
to her eyes, and eased that heavy pain in her heart. Great sobs shook
her bowed shoulders, and she buried her face in her hands, for she was
ashamed of her tears. Ashamed that she cared so much.
And the next thing that struck her consciousness was that Peter sunk
down on his knees before her, that he raised her skirt to his lips, and
that he murmured: "Good-bye, sweetheart. My Rosemary for remembrance.
God bless and keep you. Try and forget." Then he jumped to his feet and
was gone. Gone! She called him back with a cry of despair. "Peter!" But
he was nowhere to be seen. He must have scrambled up the incline that
led to the road. She certainly heard high above her the crackling of dry
twigs, but nothing more. Peter had passed out of her life, more
completely, more effectually, indeed, than on the day when she became
Jasper Tarkington's wife. Peter--her Peter, the friend of her girlhood,
the master from whom she had learned her first lesson of love, was dead.
The thing that remained was a vague speck, a creation of this venal
post-war world. It was as well that he should go out of her life.
"Try to forget!" were the last words she would ever hear him speak.
"Try to forget?" If she only could!