Pimpernel and Rosemary

Anna's mother and sister had come over from Ujlak. The mother was a hard woman, obviously selfish and unsympathetic. Her own grievances, the confiscation of a great deal of her property, seemed to have smothered every soft, womanly instinct in her. Apparently she knew nothing of the danger that hung over her daughter, and Rosemary had the feeling that if she had known she would not greatly have cared. Her eyes, which were dark and set very wide apart in a flat, colourless face, only softened once, and that was when she spoke about her husband, who had died just before the war.

As for persecutions, humiliations, petty tyrannies, she dismissed them with a shrug of the shoulders. "The Roumanians are the scum of the earth," she said in her quiet, unemotional manner, through her thin, colourless lips, "just a horde of uneducated peasantry; you can't expect anything from a pig but a grunt. I am only thankful that Béla is not here to see it all."

On the other hand, the young people who filled the stately château of Kis-Imre with their flutterings like an army of gaily painted butterflies did not worry about political grievances. For them the Roumanian officers were just dancing-partners, and their worth was only measured by their proficiency in the latest steps. The mammas and papas either played bridge or sat on the chairs that were ranged against the walls all round the beautiful ballroom placidly admiring the evolutions of their own progeny.

Rosemary, not to be outdone in self-discipline, was outwardly as gay as any of them. She danced impartially with the Hungarians and the Roumanians, and talked cricket knowledgeably with the team. For her the atmosphere was electrical. At times it seemed to her over-strained senses as if she could hear the whir of the spinning-wheel driven by the Fates, the hum of the spindle, and the click of their scissors as they made ready to cut the thread of these people's destiny.

Just before midnight the young Roumanian officers who formed the cricket team left in the two motor-cars which were to take them direct to Hódmezö, a matter of ninety odd miles. Rosemary found herself saying good-bye to them like an automaton—counting them over as if they were ninepins. A kind of mist was before her eyes through which their good-looking faces seemed to be grinning at her, and their moustaches bristling like Alice's Cheshire cat.

Elza, wonderful as ever, fussed around them, stuffing delicacies into the cars at the last moment, fruit, bottles of wine, cakes, chocolates, and lending them rugs and cushions.

"It is a long drive," she said, as she shook hands one by one with the young officers, who clicked their heels together, jingled their spurs and declared that they had had a very pleasant evening. "You will be hungry when you get to Hódmezö," she added, "and all the restaurants will be closed. You will be glad of a glass of wine and some of my home-made cake."

Rosemary was standing next to Maurus Imrey at the time. She heard him mutter between his teeth:

"And may it choke you when you eat and drink."

But even Maurus was wonderful. Wonderful! He shook hands. He smiled—wryly; but he smiled. Wished them all God-speed. He had been well drilled, and he was fully conscious of the danger to Philip and Anna if he lost control over his temper now.

So he, too, gave directions for putting provisions into the cars. He had four bottles of French red wine in his cellar and he insisted that the young officers should have those. "It will make them play that silly cricket better," he said. "And I hate the stuff myself."

The four men who were going with the team as servants were there arranging the rugs, stowing the wine and fruit and cake in the cars. Rosemary knew the two sons of János, the miller, by sight. They were fine, well-set-up young fellows, obviously of the stuff that heroes are made of, for they were going to risk their lives for the children of their feudal lords.

Anna, equally self-possessed, flitted among the guests like a little fairy. She had on a pale blue dress, and out in the open her slim figure was hardly distinguishable in the gloom; only her small, white face told as if carved out of alabaster: that dear little face, with the big eyes that were so like Peter's. When she was saying good-bye to one of the young officers, who had been her dancing-partner, she said with a pout:

"I think it was horrid of you to telephone to Peter Blakeney yesterday and take him away from us. I don't believe you would have had any difficulty with the hotel people about your rooms. And, anyway, you might have let Peter have another day's enjoyment."

The young man appeared genuinely bewildered.

"Will the gracious lady deign to explain?" he asked.

"Oh, there is nothing to explain," Anna said, with a light laugh. "We were all of us very angry with you for sending that telephone message which took Peter Blakeney away from us."