It was late in the afternoon when Rosemary at last made her way back to
the small hotel in Sót. She had spent the day roaming about the
forests, and eating such scrappy food as she could purchase at one or
other of the cottages. Twice she had been to the railway station to meet
the trains that were due in from Cluj. She hoped that Maurus might have
come by one of them. Now there was not another due before the midnight
express, which got to Sot in the small hours of the morning. The farce
of there being a block on the line was still kept up. Passengers got out
of the train, grumbling, and the small hotel was full to capacity. It
was a low, irregular building, with a very large courtyard closed on
three sides, and a wide archway through which cars and carriages could
drive in, intersecting the fourth. One side of the house was given over
to stabling and cowsheds, another to kitchens and offices, the other two
held the guest-rooms and one or two public rooms. Some of the bedrooms
were level with the ground, and on the floor above a wooden gallery ran
right round the courtyard. The courtyard itself seemed to be the
principal meeting place for cows and chickens, and even pigs, which
roamed freely about the place and entered any door that happened to be
conveniently open. The best bedrooms gave on the balcony above. On
inquiry Rosemary was informed that the English milord had booked three
rooms that morning for himself and milady who would be coming during the
day. A buxom, bare-footed peasant girl then conducted milady up to these
rooms.
Rosemary went along heavy-footed. She was more tired than she would have
cared to admit. She had had very little food all day, and her nerves by
now were terribly on edge. It had been a day packed full of emotions and
there was more to come. There was the inevitable interview with Jasper.
Horrible as it would be, she had no intention of shirking it. She would
leave him, of course, with the hope never to set eyes on him again, but
certain matters would have to be arranged between them, and Rosemary's
moral courage would not allow her to have recourse to letter-writing or
to the help of lawyers. She knew what she wished to say to Jasper and
would have despised herself if she had shrunk from the ordeal.
The hours went slowly by. Later, in the evening, she ordered some supper
to be brought up to her room. She found it difficult to swallow any
food, but she drank two cups of deliciously strong coffee, and munched
some of the excellent and very sustaining maize bread for which this
part of the country is famous. She had a book in her suit-case and
contrived to read for a while, but she could not concentrate on what she
was reading, and soon had to put the book away. Time hung very heavily.
She was terribly weary and yet she could not sleep. And she could not
understand what had become of Jasper. She had seen or heard nothing of
him since they parted in that ugly, bare room, the picture of which
would for ever remain graven in her mind as the place where she had
experienced the greatest horror in her life. No one in the hotel had
seen him. A vague sense of uneasiness began to stir within her. At the
same time she dismissed from her mind any fear for his safety. She was
quite sure that whatever he ultimately decided to do, he would not pass
out of her life without a final struggle for mastery. She did not dread
the interview. She knew it to be inevitable; but she longed passionately
for it to be over--to know the worst--to feel certain of that measure of
freedom for which she meant to fight.
And because she longed for the interview to be over she would not go to
bed before Jasper returned. She sat in the narrow slip-room, grandiosely
described by the hotel proprietor as the salon, which divided Jasper's
room from hers. The one window, which was wide open, gave her a
beautiful view over the mountains, and the evening sky studded with
stars. Somewhere the other side of those mountaintops Philip and Anna
were speeding towards freedom--the freedom which Peter had won for them
by dint of courage, resource and wit. Instinctively memory recalled that
other weary waiting at Kis-Imre, when she and Elza had watched and
prayed together through the hours of the night. And torturing fears rose
out of the darkness lest this second attempt at flight should prove as
unsuccessful as the first.
It was past midnight when Rosemary heard Jasper's familiar step along
the wooden balcony. He came straight to the door of the salon and
entered, apparently without the slightest hesitation. He closed the door
behind him, and throwing down his hat said coolly: "I saw the light
under the door, so I knew you had not gone to bed yet. I've been in some
time, but stayed to have some supper in the coffee-room. Very good
supper, too. They know how to cook in Hungary. That is the one thing the
Roumanians might with advantage learn from them."
He threw himself into a chair and drew his cigarette-case out of his
pocket. Having selected one he offered his case to Rosemary.
"Have one?" he asked. When she shook her head he shrugged and laughed,
then he struck a match and lighted his cigarette. His hand was perfectly
steady. The flame of the match brought for a moment into relief his
narrow hatchet face, with the dark eyes set closely together and the
harsh Wellingtonian features. Rosemary looked at him curiously. It was
the first time she had really studied his face closely since she knew.
Once or twice before she had been repelled by a flash of animal passion
in his eyes, and once she had caught sight of his face in the mirror in
the smoking-room at Kis-Imre, when it was distorted by a wolfish
expression of cruelty. Now both the passion and the cruelty were there,
expressed around his mouth and in his eyes which looked at her over the
tiny flickering flame.
Deliberately he blew the match out, took a long whiff from his
cigarette, and said calmly:
"How you are going to hate me after this!" After a second's pause he
added: "Well, I have had so much cruelty to endure from you in the past,
a little more or less won't make much difference."
"I have never meant to be cruel, Jasper," Rosemary rejoined coldly. "But
I know now that the cruelest thing I ever did to you was to become your
wife."
"You only found that out, my dear, since you saw Peter Blakeney again."
To this Rosemary made no answer. She shrugged her shoulders and turned
her head away. Jasper jumped up and gripped her by the arm, making her
wince with pain.
"Before we go any further, Rosemary," he said with a savage oath, "I'll
have it out with you. Are you still in love with Peter Blakeney?"
"I refuse to answer," Rosemary said calmly. "You have no longer the
right to ask me such a question."
"No longer the right," he retorted with a harsh laugh. "You are still my
wife, my dear. What happened this morning will not give you your freedom
in law, remember."
"I know that, Jasper. What happened this morning has broken my life,
but, as you say, it cannot give me my freedom, save with your consent."
He gave a derisive chuckle. "And you are reckoning on that, are you?" he
asked dryly.
"I am reckoning on it."
"Then all I can say, my dear, is that, for a clever woman, your
calculations are singularly futile."
"I don't think so," she rejoined. "I know enough about the laws of
England to know that they do not compel me to live under your roof."
"You mean that you intend to leave me?"
"I do."
"And create a scandal?"
"There need be no scandal. We'll agree to live apart; that is all."
"That is not all, my dear," he retorted dryly, "as you will find out to
your cost."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Peter Blakeney chose to follow you to Transylvania; any
number of witnesses can testify to that. I mean, that we are now in a
country where money will purchase everything, even such testimony as
will enable Lord Tarkington to divorce his wife, and raise such a hell
of scandal around Mr. Blakeney that no decent club would have him as a
member, and he would have to live out of England for the benefit of his
health."
Rosemary had listened to him without attempting to interrupt. She even
tried hard not to reveal the indignation which she felt. When he had
finished speaking, and once more threw himself into a chair, with a sigh
of self-satisfaction, she said quite quietly:
"I thought that this morning I had probed the lowest depths to which a
man's nature could sink. But God help me! I have seen worse now!"
"That is as it may be, my dear. A man fights for what he treasures with
any weapon that comes to his hand."
"For what he treasures, yes! But you----"
"I treasure you beyond all things on earth," he broke in hoarsely. "You
are my wife, my property, my own possession. You may love Blakeney and
hate me, but I have rights over you that all the sophistries in the
world cannot deny me. I alone," he went on, and in one second he was on
his feet again, and before she had time to defend herself he had her in
his arms. "I alone have the right to hold you as I am holding you now. I
alone have the right to demand a kiss. Kiss me, Rosemary, my beautiful,
exquisite wife, with the pixie eyes! Though you hate me, kiss me--though
you love him, kiss me----Mine is still the better part."
He pressed his lips against hers, and for these few horrible moments
Rosemary, half swooning, could only lie rigid in his arms. But horror
and loathing gave her strength. With her two hands she pushed against
him with all her might. "Let me go," she murmured. "I hate you."
But he only laughed. "Of course you hate me. Well, I like your hatred
better than the cool indifference I have had from you up to now. You
hate me, my dear, because you don't understand. With all your vaunted
cleverness you don't understand. Women such as you--good women, I
suppose we must call them--never would understand all that there is in a
man that is evil and vicious and cruel. Yes, in every man! Deep down in
our souls we are blackguards, every one of us! Some of us are what women
have made us, others have vices ingrained in our souls at birth. Have
you ever seen a schoolboy tease a cat, or a lad set a terrier against a
stoat? Would you hate him for that? Not you! If he has revolted you too
much, you may punish him, but even so you'll only smile: it is boy's
nature, you will say. Well, boy's nature is man's nature. Cruel,
vicious! Civilization has laid a veneer over us. Some of us appear
gentle and kind and good. Gentle? Yes! On the surface. Deep down in our
souls, grown men as we are, we would still love to tease the cat, or to
see a terrier worry a stoat. Whilst men had slaves they thrashed them.
Where wives are submissive their husband beat them. Give a man power to
torture and he will do it. Boy's nature, I tell you, but we dare not
show it. We are gentlemen now, not men. And most of us have a false idea
that women would despise us if they knew. And so we smirk, and toady,
and pretend, and those of us who are not puppets writhe against this
pretence. I was born a savage. When I was a schoolboy I was not content
with teasing a cat, I loved to torture it; if a horse was restive I
would thrash it with the greatest joy. Later I revelled in twisting a
smaller boy's wrist until he screamed, in pulling a girl's hair or
pinching her arm--anything that hurt. Boy's nature. Most women only
smiled! Then came the war and the world was plunged in an orgy of
cruelty. I was a very fine linguist and became attached to the secret
service. I worked for the French army. I no longer pulled girls' hair
nor pinched their arms, but I--the spy--tracked enemy spies down--women
and men--dragged them out of their lair as a terrier would a stoat, and
brought them before the military tribunals to be condemned and shot. But
the women still smiled. Good women, mind you! Those whom I was tracking
down were Germans, and so I--the spy--was a hero and they were only
human refuse whom to torture was a duty. When war was over and my uncle
died I inherited a title, and civilization threw the mantle of
convention over me, imposed on me certain obligations. My work was done.
I became a puppet. I smirked and toadied and tried to pretend. Oh, how I
loathed it! Restrictions, civilization, drove me mad! If I had never met
you I should have gone off to a land where I could keep slaves and work
my will on them, or turned Moslem and keep numberless wives, whom I
could beat when the mood seized me. But I met you, and all my desires
were merged in the one longing to have you for my own. You were
adulated, famous, rich probably. I had a title to offer you and nothing
else. My friend de Kervoisin, who knew my capabilities, spoke to me of
Transylvania, a conquered country where rebellion was rife. He spoke to
me of Naniescu, an ambitious man, unscrupulous and venal, who wanted
help to consolidate his position, to put himself right before his
government and before the world by bringing to light intrigues and
conspiracies that did not always exist. The work meant money. I took it
on. I made over £100,000 in three years, and there was more to come.
Already I was a rich man and the work satisfied the boy's nature in me.
Following up a clue. Disguises. Tracking a man down, or a woman. Seeing
their fear, watching their terror. Arrests, secret trials. Executions in
the early dawn. Scenes of desolation and farewells. I had them all! They
helped me to endure the London seasons, the evenings at the club, the
balls, the crowds, the futility of it all. And the money which. I earned
brought me nearer and nearer to you. Luck was on my side. Peter Blakeney
courted you, and like a fool he lost you. How? I did not know and cared
less. I won you because I was different from other men, because you were
piqued, and because I interested you. Because I knew how to smirk and to
toady better than most. Then came the question of Transylvania. Naniescu
entrusted me with the task of discovering the authorship of certain
articles that had appeared in English and American newspapers which
impugned his administration. He offered me ten thousand pounds if I
succeeded in bringing the author to justice, and ten thousand more if
certain articles which you were to write were published in the _Times._
The very first morning that we were in Cluj the girl Anna Heves gave
away her secret. Once I had her and Philip under arrest it was easy
enough to bring pressure to bear upon you. I almost succeeded, as you
know. At first it was difficult--whilst Elza and Maurus Imrey were
ignorant of the bargain that Naniescu had proposed to you. I had only
gained one victory, I was not likely to win the other. So while you
thought me in Bucharest, I came back disguised as a gipsy and warned
Elza that Philip and Anna were in danger of death. This brought
everything to a head. Unfortunately Peter Blakeney already suspected me.
It began probably in England--exactly when I shall never know--but he
was my friend once, and then suddenly I felt that we had become enemies.
I must have given myself away at one time, I suppose, and he is as sharp
as a wild cat. He followed us to Transylvania--to make sure. . . . Then
at Cluj Anna Heves confided in him. The children's arrest confirmed his
suspicions, and that night at Kis-Imre he recognised me under my
disguise as a gipsy. Curse him! After that the whole adventure became a
battle of wits between him and me. I won the first round when I spied
out the plan for Philip and Anna's escape; I won again when I persuaded
you to place the whole bargain between yourself and Naniescu before
Elza, and indirectly induced you to write the newspaper articles which
he wanted. I thought I had won an easy victory then. But Peter Blakeney
stole your manuscript and I feared then that I had lost everything. The
death of Philip and Anna Heves would have been some compensation, it is
true, but I wanted that extra ten thousand pounds more than I did the
joy of seeing those two children shot. I thought that Peter had stolen
the manuscript in order to bargain with it for the lives of his two
cousins, but I know better now. He sold your manuscript to Naniescu for
the Kis-Imre property. It will stand in his name until he can hand it
over to the Imreys again. In the meanwhile by a clever ruse he has got
Philip and Anna out of the country. And by now he will have sent a
telegram in your name to the _Times._ He has won the battle hands down.
I am beaten in all, except in one thing, I have _you._ Not all his
cleverness--and he is as clever as a monkey, it seems--can take you away
from me. If you leave me, you do so knowing the consequences. Remember
what I said: we are in a country where money can purchase everything,
even such testimony as will enable me to divorce you and to raise such a
hell of scandal around Peter Blakeney that no decent man in England
would shake him by the hand. So now you know. I have told you my
history, and I have extolled Peter Blakeney's virtues--his heroism, if
you like to call it so. And I have done it deliberately so that you may
admire him, regret him, love him if you must, even whilst you feel
yourself irrevocably bound to me. You are just as much my slave now, as
if I had bought you in the open market. If you continue to hate me, I
shall probably hate you too in the end. But that would not help to free
you. On the contrary, I think it would rather amuse me. I was never
content to tease a cat, I invariably tortured it."
Jasper Tarkington had been speaking without interruption for nearly ten
minutes, but he had not spoken without a pause. He was pacing up and
down the narrow room with his hands held behind his back, but now and
again he had come to halt, quite close to Rosemary, either to emphasize
a point, or to look her up and down with a glance of cruelty or merely
mockery. Rosemary withstood every glance without flinching. She was
standing close to the table with her hand resting on it, to give herself
support. She did not interrupt him. She wanted to hear everything he had
to say, right to the end. When he renewed his threat that he would call
false witnesses in order to create deadly scandal around Peter, and
warned her that she was as much his slave as if he had bought her in the
open market, she had, quite instinctively, glanced down on the tray
which contained the remnants of her supper. There was a knife on the
tray; one with a broad blade narrowing into a sharp point. She shuddered
and turned her eyes away, but Jasper had caught her glance. He had just
finished speaking, and he went deliberately up to the table, picked the
knife up by its point, and with a mocking smile held it with its handle
towards her.
"Very dramatic," he said lightly. "Did you ever see _La Tosca?_"
When she made no reply he laughed and threw the knife back on the table.
Then he sat down and lit another cigarette.
There was silence in the little room now. Rosemary had scarcely moved.
The horror and indignation which she had felt at first when Jasper
embarked upon the history of his life had given place to a kind of moral
numbness. She had ceased to feel. Her body seemed turned to stone; even
her soul no longer rebelled. She was this man's wife, and he had warned
her of the means which he would adopt to bind her, unresisting, to him.
Nothing but death could loosen the bonds which he had tightened by his
threats against Peter.
Jasper smoked on in silence. Only the fussy ticking of the old-fashioned
little clock broke the stillness that had descended over this lonely
corner of God's earth like a pall. A little while ago Rosemary had been
vaguely conscious of a certain amount of bustle and animation in the
house, and subconsciously she had associated this bustle with the
probable arrival of guests who had come off the night train. But that
had been some time ago. How long she did not know; probably before
Jasper had begun speaking. She looked at her watch. It was half past
two. Jasper jumped to his feet.
"It must be very late," he said coolly. "I really must beg your pardon
for having kept you up so long. Reminiscences are apt to run away with
one."
He put down his cigarette, deliberately went up to his wife and took her
by the shoulders.
"Kiss me, Rosemary," he said quietly.
It seemed to amuse him that she did not respond, for he gave a mocking
chuckle and put his arms round her. He pressed his lips upon her mouth,
her eyes, her throat. Then suddenly he let her go and she almost fell up
against the table.
He then walked across to the door of his room.