"Try to forget!" were the last words she would ever hear him speak.
"Try to forget?" If she only could!
A minute or two later Rosemary was startled out of her day-dream by the sound of Jasper's voice calling to her from somewhere in the near distance. She had barely time to obliterate the traces of tears from her eyes and cheeks before he appeared round the bend of the path. The next moment he was by her side. Apparently he had been running, for he seemed breathless and not quite so trim and neat in his appearance as he usually was.
"I heard a scream," were the first words he said, as soon as he came in sight of her. "It terrified me when I recognised your voice. Thank God you are safe!"
He was obviously exhausted and, for him, strangely agitated. He threw himself down on the carpet of moss at her feet; then he seized her hand and covered it with kisses. "Thank God!" he kept on murmuring. "Thank God you are safe!"
Then suddenly he looked up at her with an inquiring frown. "But what made you scream?" he asked.
Rosemary by now had regained control over her nerves. She succeeded in disengaging her hand, and in smiling quite coolly down upon him.
"It was very stupid of me," she said, with a light laugh. "I saw a pair of eyes looking at me through the undergrowth. It startled me. I thought that it was a wild cat—I had heard that there were some in these parts—but it was only a homely one."
She tried to rise, but Jasper had recaptured her hand. He was engaged, in kissing her finger-tips one by one, lingering over each kiss as if to savour its sweetness in full. Now he looked up at her with a glance of hungering passion. Rosemary felt herself flushing. She was conscious of an intense feeling of pity for this man who had lavished on her all the love of which he was capable, and hungered for that which she was not able to give. He looked care-worn, she thought, and weary.
"You were not anxious about me, Jasper, were you?" she asked kindly.
He smiled. "I am always anxious," he said, "when I don't see you."
"But how did you find me?"
"Quite easily; I went to the hotel, you know. Not at all a bad little place, by the way; rather primitive, but with electric light and plenty of hot water. I engaged the rooms, and had a mouthful of breakfast. Then I sallied forth in quest of you. A man in the village told me you had been asking the way to the château, and I knew you would never stand the dusty road. So when I found that there was a woodland path that went through the same way as the road, I naturally concluded that you would choose it in preference. You see," Jasper concluded, with a smile, "that there was no magic in my quest."
Then he looked up at her again, and there was a gleam of suspicion in his dark, questioning eyes. "You must have walked very slowly," he said. "I started quite half an hour, probably more, after you did."
"I did walk very slowly. This path is enchanting, and this is not the first time I have sat down to think and to gaze at this delicious little stream. But," Rosemary went on briskly, "I think I had better be getting on."
But Jasper put out his arms and encircled her knees. "Don't go for a minute, little one. It is so peaceful here, and somehow I have had so little of you these last days. I don't know, but it seems as if we had taken to misunderstanding one another lately." Then, as she made an involuntary movement of impatience, he continued gently: "Do I annoy you by making love to you?"
Rosemary tried to smile. "Of course not, dear. What a question!"
"Then tell me if there is anything in the world I can do to make you happier. You have not looked happy lately. I have been tortured with remorse, for I feel somehow that it has been my fault."
"You are sweet and kind, Jasper, as always. But you must be a little patient. I have gone through a great deal these last few days."
"I know, I know, little one. Don't let us talk any more about it."
He was wonderfully kind—kinder and gentler than he had been since the first days of their married life. It almost seemed as if he had set himself the task of making her forget all that he had involuntarily revealed to her of his violent, unbridled temperament, and of that lawless passion that lay at the root of his love for her.
He talked of the future, of their return to England, the home that he' would make for her, which would be a fitting casket for the priceless jewel which he possessed. Rosemary, who felt inexpressibly lonely, was once more conscious of that feeling of gratitude towards him which she had once hoped might be transmuted in days to come into something more ardent than friendship. She had suffered so terribly in her love for the one man who, with all his faults, had come very near to her ideals that she felt a desperate longing to cherish and to cling to the husband whom she had chosen half out of pique, the man on whom she had inflicted so much cruelty by becoming his wife.
Rosemary was the first to remember that time was slipping by. She looked at her watch. It was past ten o'clock—over an hour since Peter had asked her to try and forget. She rose briskly to her feet, and arm in arm, like two good comrades, she and Jasper made their way together towards the château. When they came in sight of the great gates—a couple of hundred yards still ahead of them—Rosemary was the first to spy a motor-car standing there, and some half-dozen persons in the act of getting into the car. There were two sentries at the gates, and seemingly a few people on the other side.
"It looks like a man and a woman and three soldiers in uniform getting into that car," Rosemary remarked casually. And immediately, for no apparent reason, Jasper started to walk along more rapidly; a few seconds later he almost broke into a run. At that moment the car started off, and was soon lost to sight in a cloud of dust. Rosemary thought that she heard Jasper utter a savage oath.
"Is anything wrong?" she asked. But he did not answer, only hurried along so quickly that she was not able to keep up with him. He had passed through the gates when she reached them, and when she tried to follow she was stopped by the sentry. She called to Jasper, who apparently did not hear; pointing to him, she explained to the man on duty that she was that gentleman's wife, and if he was allowed to go in, why not she? They were as mate as if she had spoken in an unknown tongue, but they would not allow her to pass. In the meanwhile Jasper had disappeared inside the château. Rosemary had seen him go in by the main entrance, challenged by the sentry on guard at the door, but after a second or two allowed to pass freely in.
Fortunately she was provided with money, and her experience of this part of the world was that most things could be accomplished with the aid of baksheesh. A young officer was crossing the courtyard; he looked in the direction of the gates, saw an excessively pretty woman standing there, and, true to his race and upbringing, came at once to see if he could enter into conversation with her. Very politely he explained to her that no one was allowed to enter the château, or to visit any of the prisoners, without a special permit from the commanding officer.
Rosemary told him that she desired to speak with the commanding officer. This also, it seems, was impossible. But a hint from Rosemary as to a reward if the matter could be managed simplified matters a great deal.
The young officer conducted her across the courtyard and into the château. It had been a fine place once, not unlike Kis-Imre in architecture, but its occupation by the military had stripped it of every charm. There were no carpets on the floors, and only very rough furniture in the way of chairs and tables in what had obviously been at one time a cosy lounge hall. The officer led the way through a couple of equally bare roomsen enfilade, and came to a halt outside a door which bore roughly chalked upon the finely carved and decorated panels the legend: "Major Buriecha. Private. No admittance." He offered one of the rough chairs rather shamefacedly to Rosemary, and said: "Major Buriecha will be coming through here presently. Will you wait, gracious lady? You will be sure to see him. I am afraid," the young man added, with a pleasant smile, "that it is the best I can do."
"Couldn't you announce me?" Rosemary asked. "I am Lady Tarkington. I am sure Major Buriecha would not refuse to see me."
The officer's smile became self-deprecating. "It is more than I should dare to do, milady," he said. "The major is engaged in conversation with an important government official. I would even ask you kindly, when you see him, not to tell him that I brought you as far as here."
"I couldn't do that, even if I wished, as I don't know your name."
"Lieutenant Uriesu, at your service, milady."
"I suppose," Rosemary went on, after a moment's hesitation, "you couldn't tell me what has become of my husband, Lord Tarkington. He went through the gates and entered the château, then I lost sight of him. But he seemed to be well known inside this place. Could you find out for me where he is?"
"I am afraid not, milady," the young officer replied politely. "I have not the honour of Lord Tarkington's acquaintance."
He stood at attention, waiting for a moment or two to see if the English lady had any further questions she wished to ask; then, as she remained silent, he saluted gravely and went out of the room, leaving Rosemary to bear her soul in patience, and to wonder what in the world had become of Jasper.
At first only a confused murmur of voices came to her ears through the closed doors of Major Buriecha's private room. But gradually one of those voices grew louder and louder, as if raised in anger; and Rosemary, astonished, recognised that it was Jasper speaking—in French, and obviously with authority—to Major Buriecha, the officer commanding! . . . What in the world——?
She heard some words quite distinctly:
"You are a fool, Buriecha! No one but a fool could have been taken in like this."
And the voice that gave reply was humble, apologetic, decidedly tremulous with fear. Rosemary could not distinguish what it said.
Major Buriecha engaged in conversation with Jasper! And Jasper reprimanding him with obvious authority! What could it mean? At first she had only been puzzled, now a vague sense of uneasiness stirred in her heart. Uneasiness that almost partook of fear. With sudden impulse she rose and went to the door. Orders or no orders, she must know what was going on inside that room. Her hand was on the latch when she paused, listening. Was it mean to listen? Perhaps; but instinct was stronger than good conduct, and she had just heard Jasper's harsh voice giving a curt command:
"Get through to General Naniescu at once," and then the click of the telephone receiver being lifted from its hook and the whir of the bell-handle. What could she do but listen? There was silence inside the private room now, but Rosemary could hear Jasper's easily recognizable step pacing restlessly up and down. At one moment he paused quite close to the door, and Rosemary quickly drew back a step or two, ready to face him if he came. But he resumed his pacing and she her watch by the door. Presently she heard the other voice—the major's, presumably—saying: "Is that you, Marghilo? Ask His Excellency the Governor to come to the telephone, will you?" There was a pause, then Buriecha spoke again. "Tell him it is Major Buriecha. And, I say, Marghilo, tell him it is very important and desperately urgent."
Again there was a pause, a long one this time. Jasper was still pacing up and down the room. Rosemary could picture him to herself, with his habitual stoop and his thin hands held behind his back. Once he laughed, his usual harsh, mirthless laugh. "You'll get a fine dressing-down for this, my friend, I am thinking," he said. "Naniescu won't make light of it, I can tell you."
Silence once again. Then Jasper's voice speaking into the telephone, and always in French: "Hallo! Hallo! Is that you, Naniescu? Good! Number Ten speaking."
Number Ten! What——? But there was no time to think, no time for puzzlement or fear. Jasper was speaking again.
"Buriecha has made a complete fool of himself. He has allowed young Imrey and the girl Heves to escape! Hallo! Did you hear me? It's no use swearing like that, you'll only break the telephone. Yes, they've gone, and you've got to get them back. Went by car half an hour ago, in the direction of Cluj, but probably making for the frontier—what? Oh, a plot, of course, engineered by that damned Blakeney. No use cursing Buriecha; you are as much to blame as he is. Eh? Of course, for treating with that young devil behind my back! Yes, you——Well, hold on and listen. Blakeney, I am sure it was he, came here with a forged order from you, demanding that Imrey and the girl shall be delivered to him for transference to an unknown destination. Eh? Well, of course he should have known, but he says your signature looked perfect; he thought it was all in order. The rascal was in officer's uniform, and had two men with him also in uniform. What can you do? Telephone all along the roads to your frontier police, of course. If they stick to the car they are bound to be stopped. Yes, five persons. Three of the men in uniform in an open car. The prisoners have probably taken on some disguise by now. Shoot at sight, of course, if the car does not slow down. Police the mountain paths as well. Blakeney can't know them well. I don't know who the other two men are. Hungarian, perhaps, or English. Don't delay. Yes, yes! What's that? Marghilo getting through? Good! Well, that's the best you can do. We'll have a reckoning presently, my friend. You should not have treated with him, I say. He has probably robbed your courier of the newspaper articles or else telegraphed in Uno's name to theTimesnot to print them, and then got the prisoners out of your clutches by this impudent trick. Oh, all right. Hurry up! You have no time to waste, nor have I. Yes! All right. Come along if you want to. I shall be at Sót all right enough. But you won't enjoy the interview, my friend, I promise you that. What?"
Jasper had ceased speaking for some time, but Rosemary still stood beside the door—a woman turned to stone. Her hands and feet were numb. She could not move; only from time to time a cold shudder travelled all down her spine. She felt nothing, not even horror. It was all too stupendous even for horror. A cataclysm, a ball of fire, a flame that froze, ice that scorched. A topsy-turvydom that meant the kingdom of death.
And Jasper, her husband, was the other side of that door, Jasper Tarkington, her husband! The spy of an alien government, Number Ten! A thing! A rag torn and filthy. The man whose name she bore. She could hear his footstep in the next room, his mirthless laugh, his harsh voice muttering curses or else invectives against the other man, who was only a fool. Then suddenly the footsteps came to a halt. The door was pulled open and Rosemary stood face to face with Jasper.
At sight of her he stood stock-still. An ashen hue spread over his face. The curse that had risen to his throat died before it reached his lips.
From the room behind him Major Buriecha's tremulous voice was asking if anything was amiss. Jasper closed the door and stood with his back to it, still facing Rosemary. His eyes, always hawk-like and closely set, had narrowed till they were mere slits, and his lips had curled up over his jaws, showing his teeth white and sharp, like those of a wolf. An expression of intense cruelty distorted his face. He was about to speak, but Rosemary put up her hand to stop him.
"Not here," she commanded. "Not now."
He gave a hard laugh and shrugged his shoulders.
"It had to come some time, I suppose," he said coolly. "I am not sorry."
"Nor I," she replied. "But will you please go now? We'll meet later—in the hotel."
He looked her up and down with that glance which she had learned to dread, and for a moment it seemed as if he would yield to that ungovernable passion in him and seize her in his arms. Rosemary did not move. Her luminous eyes, abnormally dilated, never left his face for one instant. She watched the struggle in the man's tortuous soul, the passion turned to hatred now that he stood revealed. She did not flinch, because she was not afraid. The man was too vile to inspire fear.
"Go!" she said coldly.
For another second he hesitated, but it was the banal sound of Buriecha spluttering and coughing the other side of the door that clinched his resolve. This was neither the place nor the time to assert his will, to punish her for the humiliation which he was enduring. Once more he laughed and shrugged his shoulders, then he walked slowly out of the room.
For over half an hour Rosemary waited in that bare, cheerless room, and gazed unseeing out of the window while she tried vainly to co-ordinate her thoughts. In the forefront of her mind there was a feeling of great joy which she hardly dared to analyze. Joy! And she also had the feeling, though she had come to the very brink of an awful precipice, though she was looking down into an abyss of shame and horror, with no hope of ever being able to bridge the chasm over, that yet on the other side was peace—peace that she would never attain, but which was there nevertheless, to dwell on, to dream of, when the turmoil was past and she be allowed to rest.
After about half an hour the young officer who had first conducted her to the fateful spot came back to see what had happened. He seemed astonished that she was still there.
"Major Buriecha has not yet come out of his room," Rosemary managed to say quite coolly. "It is getting near dinner-time. I don't think I'll wait any longer."
The young man appeared relieved. Anyway he was not likely now to get into trouble on the English lady's account. He clicked his heels together, expressed perfunctory regret at her disappointment, then offered to conduct milady out of the château. Rosemary accepted his escort and took leave of him at the gates.
"If milady will write to the commanding officer," Lieutenant Uriesu said at the end, "I am sure he will give the permit milady requires."
"I will certainly take your advice," Rosemary assented cheerfully. "Good-bye, Lieutenant Uriesu, and thank you for your kind efforts on my behalf."
She walked back towards the village by way of the path. When she came to the spot where first she had seen Peter that morning she sat down on the tree-stump and listened to the murmur of the stream. She would not allow herself to think of Peter—only of Philip and Anna, whom he was taking across the frontier by another clever trick—in disguise, probably—and over the mountain passes. Rosemary could not believe that they would stick to the car and be stopped by the frontier police. They would get away into Hungary—on foot. They were young, they knew the country, and they could scramble over the mountain passes and be at Hódmezö soon, where Elza would be waiting for them. Elza knew, of course, and Maurus knew too. That was why he had been so calm and so composed when he was told that he must leave Kis-Imre within four-and-twenty hours. They all knew. Peter had trusted them. Only she, Rosemary, had been kept out of his councils, because she might have betrayed them to Jasper, and Peter could not tell her that it was Jasper who was the miserable spy.
But no, she would not think of Peter, or of how he had worked to circumvent Jasper at every turn. She only waited to think of Philip and Anna, those two children who were so ingenuously learning the lesson of love one from the other, and of Elza, so patient and so heroic, and of Maurus, who had played his part so well. Maurus would be coming through from Cluj some time to-day, and he, too, would be held up at Sót, and perhaps spend the night in the funny little hotel. Rosemary hoped that she would see him. His company would be very welcome whilst Jasper was still there. Then to-morrow she and Maurus would get across the frontier somehow, and join up with Elza and the children at Hódmezö. And there was always the British Consul in Cluj to appeal to. There was no desperate hurry now. The children were safe and those articles of hers would not be published in theTimes.Peter would have seen to that.
But no, she did not want to think of Peter. Was she not still Jasper Tarkington's wife?
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 theTimes.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 theTimes.He has won the battle hands down. I am beaten in all, except in one thing, I haveyou.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 seeLa 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.
Jasper Tarkington, on the point of entering his room, had switched on the light and then paused on the threshold, uttering a gasp of astonishment.
"Maurus!" he exclaimed, "what in the world are you doing here?"
Maurus Imrey was sprawling on the horse-hair sofa, apparently fast asleep. At Jasper's ejaculation he opened his eyes, blinked, yawned, and stretched his arms.
"Ah! my dear Tarkington," he said in Hungarian. "I thought you were never coming."
He rose and shook himself like a big, shaggy dog, and passed his fingers through his tousled hair.
"I must have been fast asleep," he said.
"But what are you doing here, my friend?" Jasper asked, frowning.
"Waiting for you to do me a little service. It is so late, I don't really like to ask you. But I should be badly stranded if you did not help me."
"What is it?"
"I left Cluj by the midnight express," Maurus explained. "You know that we have all been turned out of Kis-Imre. And, by the way, it is Peter Blakeney who has bought the place. Isn't it a scandal? I never thought he would be such a swine. You know he is a near relation of my wife's."
"Yes, yes!" Jasper muttered impatiently. "What about it?"
"Well, simply that those damned officials at Cluj station never told me that I could only get as far as Sót. So I arrived here with my luggage and Anton, and, of course, I found this beastly hotel full. Not a room to be had, my dear fellow. Did you ever hear such a thing? In the olden days one would just have taken a man by the scruff of his neck and thrown him out of any room one happened to want for oneself. I don't know what it's like with you in England, but here——"
"Just as bad," Jasper broke in with a curse, "but in heaven's name get on, man."
"Well, then, I left my big luggage here, and Anton and I went on to another little tavern I know of in the village. There, as luck would have it, the proprietor whom I used to know is dead, and the new man is one of those Bulgarian agriculturists who come over every year, you know, for the harvesting. Some of these men do settle down here sometimes, and this man——"
"Well, what about him?"
"He doesn't know a word of Hungarian, my dear fellow, and he does not seem to understand much Roumanian either. You once told me that you had been in Bulgaria and that you knew a little of their beastly language, so I thought——"
"What is it you want me to do?" Jasper broke in impatiently. "Walk over with you and arrange with the man about your rooms?"
"If you would not mind. Or could you let me sleep on your sofa?"
Jasper had hesitated at first. It was close on three o'clock, and he did not relish the idea of turning out again at this hour; but the suggestion that Maurus should be his room companion for the night was far more unpleasant.
"Come along, then," he said curtly. "It isn't far, I suppose?"
"Five minutes' walk, my dear fellow," Maurus said with obvious relief, "just the other side of the stream. And Anton shall walk back with you afterwards."
"I don't want anybody to chaperone me," Jasper retorted roughly.
He had to go into the salon to fetch his hat. Rosemary was still standing there leaning against the table for support. She had very much wanted to see Maurus at one time, but now it did not seem to matter. Nothing probably would ever matter again. She heard Jasper's voice saying in a whisper. "You've heard what this fool wants. I suppose I shall have to go."
She nodded in response. And then Jasper added with mocking courtesy:
"Good night, Lady Tarkington."
Anton saw it all, and it was he who broke the news to Rosemary.
He had been sitting up in the small slip of a room on the ground floor which had been assigned to him, waiting for his master and wondering why the gracious count should be so long upstairs at this hour with the English lord and lady, when he saw the gracious count and the English milord come along the first floor balcony, he heard them go downstairs, and saw them go out of the house.
Anton was rather anxious about his master because the gracious count had been very, very queer the last twenty-four hours. Sometimes he would be very hilarious; he would laugh and sing and shout "Hurrah for Peter! Bravo!" and so on; at others he would be terribly depressed and sit and cry like a child, or else tear about the place in a passion of fury. He had had a slight fit after the gracious English lord and lady had gone, and the sisters thought that probably the control he had put on himself when the Roumanian soldiers brought the expulsion order had been too much for his nerves.
So when Anton saw the gracious count go out with the English lord at this extraordinary hour he could not help but follow him. Though there was no moon the sky was clear and the darkness of the night was just beginning to yield to the first touch of dawn. The two gentlemen walked quite fast, but Anton was able to keep them in sight. When they came to the little wooden bridge that spans the stream the English lord was a few steps ahead of the gracious count. Suddenly, in mid-stream, the count sprang upon milord from behind, and in a moment had him by the throat. The English lord, taken entirely by surprise, fought desperately nevertheless. Anton had uttered a great shout, and ran to the rescue as fast as ever he could. Through the gloom he could just see the English milord forced down, with his back nearly doubled over the slender parapet of the bridge, and the gracious count bending over him and holding him by the throat. Anton's shout echoed from mountain to mountain, but all around there was the silence of the night, broken only by the howling of a dog outside a cottage door.
Then suddenly, before Anton set his foot upon the bridge, the catastrophe occurred. The parapet suddenly crashed and gave way under the weight of the two men, and they were hurled into the stream below. One awful cry rent the stillness of the night. Anton, half crazy with horror, waded into the stream, the waters of which at a point near a huge boulder were stained with a streak of crimson. The English milord in falling had broken his head against the stone. The gracious count had probably fallen at first on the top of him, and then rolled over on his back, thus breaking his fall. Anton dragged them both single-handed out of the stream, first his master, then the English lord. The latter was dead, but the gracious count was still breathing and moaning softly. Anton laid him down upon the grass, and made a pillow for him with his own coat, which he had taken off. Then he ran to the priest's house, which was quite close, and rang the bell until he made someone hear. The priest had been quite kind. He roused his servant, and together—the priest and Anton and the servant—carried the gracious count into the presbytery. But the English milord, who was quite dead, they laid upon the bier in the tiny mortuary chapel which was by the entrance of the churchyard.
The priest had already sent for the village doctor, who had done what he could for the gracious count, but, of course, he was ignorant, and, anyhow, Anton was of the opinion that there was nothing that any man could do. But he had been to the station and roused the station-master and asked him to telephone to Dr. Zacharias at Cluj. Anton was just going to run back and see if the answer had come through. In the meanwhile he had come over to the hotel to see if he could speak with the gracious lady.
Rosemary had not yet thought of going to bed. For two hours after Jasper went out with Maurus she had sat, unthinking, by the open window. Time for her had ceased to be. She had heard the howling of a dog. At one moment she had heard a shout, and then a weird and prolonged cry. But these sounds conveyed no meaning to her brain. Her thinking powers were atrophied.
Then the bare-footed, buxom, very sleepy little maid came to tell her that Anton, the valet of the gracious count at Kis-Imre, desired to speak with her at once. She was fully dressed; she sent for Anton and he told her what he had seen.
Hastily seizing hat and wrap, she went with Anton out of the house and through the village to the priest's house. The soft, colourless light of dawn lay over the mountain and valley. On ahead the turbulent waters of the stream tossed and played around the projecting boulders, murmuring of the tragedy which had culminated within their bosom. Nearing the priest's house Rosemary could see the narrow bridge, with its broken parapet——
The priest met her at the gate. The gracious count, he said, had not regained consciousness. He still lived, the doctor said, but life only hung by a thread. Rosemary sat down by Maurus' bedside and watched that life slowly ebbing away. In the late afternoon Dr. Zacharias came over from Cluj. He only confirmed what the village doctor had said. The spine was broken. It was only a question of hours. He could do nothing, but at Rosemary's earnest request—or perhaps on the promise of a heavy fee—he agreed to come again in the morning.
Less than an hour after he left the dying man rallied a little. He opened his eyes, and seeing Rosemary, his face was illumined by a great joy. She bent over him and kissed his forehead. Two tears rolled slowly down his wan cheeks. He murmured something, and she bent her ear till it was quite close to his lips.
"He was a monster," he murmured. "I heard everything. I had to punish him for the evil he did to my wife and the children. And I have made you free."
At sunset Maurus Count Imrey passed away into the Unknown.
Then only did Rosemary leave his bedside. Accompanied by the priest, she went to the little mortuary chapel to take a last look at the man who had done her such an infinity of wrong. Now that his stormy life was ended, and his hard features were set in lines of peace, Rosemary felt once more that aching sense of pity for him which so often before had prompted her to forgive. She was able to commend his turbulent soul to God without the slightest thought of hatred or revenge. He had said once that she would never understand; but the infinite pity in her heart was born of an infinite understanding. The man who had atoned for his sins by this tragic death was not wholly responsible for his actions. He was the victim of his temperament: more sinned against, perhaps, than sinning. Who knows? If some other woman had captured his fancy she might have made him happy, found what was strong and fine in him, and all that was cruel would perhaps have been submerged beneath a great wave of love.
Since then, nearly two years! And this was the season of 1924! Wembley! The Rodeo! Royalties from Italy and Denmark and Roumania! The Labour Government!
How far, how very far, seemed Transylvania and Sót and the little mortuary chapel wherein Rosemary had gazed for the last time on the enigmatic personality which had once been Jasper Tarkington—her husband.
Even in death he had kept his secret—the secret of that strange dual entity which she had never been able to reconcile one with the other, the cruel, wolfish nature so skilfully hidden beneath the mantle of supercivilisation.
Rosemary had not seen Peter since then. After the tragedy at Sót she had at last succeeded, by dint of bribery, in entering into direct communication with the British Consulate at Cluj.
Arrangements for the conveying of Lord Tarkington's body to England took up some considerable time. She only met Elza in Budapest when she herself was on her way home. Peter had left by then for an unknown destination. He had conveyed Philip and Anna over the frontier. They had soon abandoned the car, fearing pursuit, and in disguise had made their way to the frontier over the mountains. They were young and strong, the hardships were not serious, and the dangers reduced to a minimum once they had reached the lonely mountain passes. It was the planning of the escape that had been so wonderful. Peter Blakeney, disguised as a Roumanian officer, and having with him Captain Payson and a young Hungarian cricketer, bath dressed as Roumanian soldiers, had presented a forged order for the surrender of the two prisoners, Philip Imrey and Anna Heves. To the officer commanding the depôt the order appeared in no way suspicious, and he gave up the prisoners without question. After that the whole thing became just a delightful adventure, nothing more. But Elza spoke of Peter with tears in her eyes. They had all of them mistrusted him. Wasn't that strange? Did Rosemary guess? Elza wanted to know, and Philip and Anna plied her with questions.
These were sad days for them all. But still Elza was wonderful, as wonderful as she had ever been. Even Rosemary never actually found out just how much of the tragedy Elza knew or guessed. Anton did not tell her, and to their world the death of the two men who were known to have been friends was just a terrible accident. Darkness. A broken bridge. Fatality.
Rosemary never told, of course. She wondered if Peter knew. She waited on in Budapest for some days hoping for news of him. But none came. Captain Payson heard in an indirect way that Peter was still in Transylvania, but no reliance could be placed on the truth of the rumour. It was only when Rosemary was back in England that she heard definite news of Peter. Elza wrote to say that he was living in Kis-Imre. "He is administering the property for us," she went on. "Isn't he wonderful? I am sure he will make something more of it than poor Maurus was able to do. Of course, they dare not do anything to him because he is a British subject, and he tells me in his last letter that he hopes in a very few years' time, when justice has been at last meted out to our unfortunate country, to hand over Kis-Imre to Philip in a better state than it is now. Then my poor Philip's dream will, I hope, come true. He and Anna have loved each other ever since they were tiny children. When he has once more a fine home to offer her they will be married with my blessing. And all this we shall owe to Peter Blakeney. Can you wonder, my dear, that we all worship him? When I look at him I seem to see my dear and beautiful sister gazing at me through his eyes, and in his smile I see something of hers, because just like Peter, she was always ready to laugh, always smiling at the world, always doing great and kind things under cover of a joke. So Philip and Anna and I, we bless Peter, and for some reason, which perhaps you can explain better than I, when we think of him we immediately also think of you."
Since then nearly two years! Rosemary has resumed work. Her powerful articles inThe International Reviewon the conditions obtaining in Transylvania under alien occupation have begun at last to arouse from its apathy public opinion in England and America. Time and her own perseverance, aided by the lovers of justice and fair play who abound in Anglo-Saxon communities, would after a while, she felt, do the rest. Rosemary had seen the rampant evil with her own eyes, now she was conscious of her power to help in remedying, or, at any rate, mitigating it. She threw herself heart and soul into the work, not only because she loved it and because it thrilled her, but because work alone could help her to forget. "Try to forget" were the last words which she heard Peter speak, there in the woods beside the turbulent mountain stream when she had thought him a spy, a vile and venal wretch, and he had not said one word to exculpate himself. How could he when this might have meant rousing her suspicions of Jasper?—or perhaps it was just pride that had caused him to hold his tongue. Pride which so often has proved love's most persistent enemy.
Or perhaps he no longer cared, and that was why he thought it would be so easy for her to forget.
Since then nearly two years! Rosemary walked through the park that late afternoon in July. She had been to the Albert Hall to hear Kreisler, and she wandered up the Broad Walk under the trees, because she did not feel that she could stand the noise and bustle of streets at a moment when her whole soul was still full of the exquisite music conjured up by that great magician. It was very hot and she was rather tired, so she sat down on a chair in the shade. Then suddenly she saw Peter. He was coming towards her, quite naturally, as if to an assignation. He looked just the same as he always did—like a boy, clean and straight-limbed as a young god, his eyes shining with excitement, that quaint, self-deprecating smile on his lips that Rosemary knew so well.
"I've been to hear old Kreisler," were the first words he said. "Wasn't he wonderful?"
So like Peter! He dragged a chair quite close to hers and sat down. He threw down his hat and passed his hand through his hair. He did not attempt to shake hands or to greet her in any way. "I've been to hear old Kreisler!" So like Peter! The very first words . . . and she hadn't seen him for nearly two years.
After a second or two he went on: "I wouldn't speak to you in the Albert Hall. When you went out I followed you. I knew you would wander out here."
And Rosemary asked quite casually: "Have you been in England long?"
"Only a few hours," Peter replied with a laugh. "I crossed over by the night boat,viaHavre. I always meant to sample that journey, and it was really rather nice." After that he was silent for a moment; then suddenly he seized her hand. She had no gloves on, and he held the soft palm to his lips. Rosemary did not move. She was not looking at Peter; she was just watching a huge blackbird that had landed on the elm tree opposite and who was whistling away for dear life.
"Rosemary, when can we be married?" Peter asked abruptly.
She couldn't help smiling. It was so like Peter. "I've waited two years, dash it all," he went on. "And during those two years I've been in hell. Now I'm not going to wait any longer. When can we be married, Rosemary?"
Then Rosemary ceased to watch the blackbird and turned slowly to look at Peter.
"Whenever you like, dear," she replied.