Pimpernel and Rosemary

Now this was a language that Rosa understood far better than a string of kindly inquiries. She had been smacked by her mother, almost as soon as she was born, she had been smacked by her elder sister, by her grandmother, by her aunt and by her father while she grew up, and when she started service in the chateau and was silly or tiresome she had been smacked by the gracious Countess. Being smacked did not hurt, but it acted as a tonic, and braced up Rosa's slackened nerves. The threat of it by the gracious English lady at once dried the well of her tears, she wiped her nose and eyes with her apron and murmured:

"The gracious Count Philip-they have taken him away."

At first Rosemary did not take it in. She did not trust her ears, or her knowledge of Hungarian. She must, she thought, have misunderstood Rosa, or else Rosa was talking like a fool But Rosemary's grasp tightened on the girl's arm, her fingers buried themselves in the young, firm flesh.

"What do you mean, Rosa?" she queried. "What do you mean about the gracious count? Who has taken him away?"

"The soldiers, gracious lady," Rosa murmured.

"What soldiers?" which was a foolish question on Rosemary's part-and she knew it. There were no soldiers now in Transylvania except the Roumanian soldiers. But somehow the thing would not penetrate into her brain-she felt that, too, and wanted to give it time to sink in slowly, slowly.

Rosa now ventured to look the English lady in the face. Her big, blue eyes were still swimming in tears.

"The Roumanian soldiers, gracious lady," she said, "the ones who came last night."

"But they went away again last night, Rosa," Rosemary explained deliberately and patiently, "they went away and the gracious Count Philip remained at home, he went to bed as we all did. Anton must have waited on him, as he always does."

But Rosa gave a deep sigh and gulped down a fresh flood of tears that threatened to choke her.

"Anton did wait on the gracious count when he went to bed. But soon after midnight the soldiers returned. Feri the night watchman at the gate, had to let them in. They ordered him not to make a noise, only to rouse the gracious count's valet. So Feri went to call Anton, as quietly as he could, for the soldiers kept threatening him that if he made a noise they would beat him. "Poor Anton nearly fainted with terror-you know, gracious lady, Anton always was a coward. What would you?" Rosa added with a shrug. "A gipsy."

"Yes! Yes!" Rosemary urged impatiently. "Go on, girl, go on."

"The soldiers would not even allow Anton to dress himself. Just as he was he had to go and rouse the gracious Count Philip. The soldiers were threatening to burn the house down if anyone made a noise, but I am sure that Feri and Anton were too scared to think of screaming. The gracious count jumped out of bed: the soldiers stood by while he dressed, but they would not allow him to take anything with him except just the clothes he put on-no money-not his watch-not a letter-nothing. Feri says that the soldiers were in the house and out again in less than a quarter of an hour. They took the gracious count with them, but four of them remained behind; they made Feri and Anton sit together in the lodge and kept guard over them until an hour ago. Then they went away and Anton ran in with the news. Oh! you should have seen the gracious countess! It was pitiable-pitiable, though she said nothing and she did not cry. By God! My God! What is to become of us all?"

The girl started wringing her hands, and her voice became loud and shrill with the sobs that would no longer be suppressed.

"Be quiet, Rosa, be quiet!" Rosemary said once or twice quite mechanically. She had taken it all in at last: the trick, the awful treachery, the cruelty of it all. She stood there beside the sobbing girl, with hands tightly clenched and a deep frown between her brows. She wanted to think. To think. something would have to be done, and done quickly. But what? Naniescu? What role did he play in this mean trickery? Rosemary was a woman who thought straight and acted straight: so consistently straight, in fact, that she never could visualize treachery in others. In the wide, wide would that attitude of mind is called the attitude of a fool. Yet Rosemary Tarkington was anything but a fool. Perhaps she was lacking in the intuition of evil: certain it is that at this moment she would not allow herself to think that Naniescu was a party to the abominable deed. The young officer, perhaps, or the local commandant who might have a grudge against the Imreys. But Naniescu? No!

She sent the girl away; Rosa's round, pink face with the round, blue eyes and round-tipped nose was getting on her nerves. The girl was comical in her grief, and when Rosemary looked at her she felt an uncontrollable desire to laugh. And this would have horrified Rosa. So she sent Rosa away.

A moment or two later Jasper came in, ready for breakfast. Once glance at this face and Rosemary knew that he, too, had heard the news.