Pimpernel and Rosemary

Rosemary was standing close by the open window. The sky was grey. Great banks of cloud rose and tumbled about the mountain tops. The pine trees on the hill-side appeared like ghostly sentinels standing at attention in the mist. The heat was oppressive. From far away came the dull rumble of distant thunder. The tuberoses beneath the window sent a heady, intoxicating scent through the storm-laden air. Rosemary felt terribly wearied, and for the first time in her life discouraged. She had striven for right, smothered every sentiment for the sake of abstract justice, and in the end right was proclaimed to be wrong, at best a fantasy born of her own vanity. Was Jasper right, after all? He had rather a way of being always right. Anyway, he was English and practical; sentiment had no part in his organization. Even his love, deep as it was, was not sentiment. Rosemary had found this out before now. It was not sentiment-it was elemental passion. But his views of life were built neither on sentiment nor passion. He looked at things straight, as Englishmen of a certain type do, who despise sentiment and whose unanswerable argument is: "Well, it is the right thing to do."

But, heavens above! what was the right thing now? Rosemary felt sick and faint; the heat and the scent of the tuberoses made her head ache and her eyes smart. Jasper was saying something, but she hardly heard him, and she hardly felt his nearness when he took her hand and pressed it against his lips.

CHAPTER XXIX

But a moment or two later a curious thing happened.

Jasper had gone out of the room, and Rosemary, leaning against the window frame, was looking out into the approaching storm. She had not heard what Jasper had said just before he kissed her hand; but her mind must have registered it, must have made a kind of record of it, like that of a gramophone, because now some of his words came back to her quite distinctly through the rumblings of distant thunder. She had not heard him then, but she heard him now quite distinctly-every word.

"I have jotted down a few ideas. You, of course, will put them into your own picturesque language. Just a few notes of what Naniescu would like to see in The Times. I thought it would save you the trouble to think. I don't think that you will find anything glaringly impossible in my suggestions."

Then he had put something down on the table. Memory had registered a kind of swishing sound. And Rosemary, now turning slowly away from the window, caught sight of that something on the table. Half a dozen loose sheets of paper covered with Jasper's clear, minute handwriting. Like a sleep-walker Rosemary went to the table and picked up the sheets. The shades of evening were drawing in, and the heavy grey clouds in the sky blotted out the remaining rags of daylight. With the papers in her hand Rosemary went out on the balcony. She had the feeling that while she read she must have the pure, storm-laden air about her. She had not turned away from these notes of Jasper's in horror. She had not closed her ears to the record of his words. She knew quite well what was written on these sheets of paper, and deliberately she sat down and began to read.

The political and economic situation of Transylvania was stated in these brief notes with remarkable lucidity. Jasper's clear, unemotional outlook on the administration of the conquered country was set forth without any imagery or attempt at style. Even the obvious bias in favour of the ruling Government was tempered by sound logic and a certain measure of indulgent toleration for the other side. Rosemary read the notes through twice very carefully. She could hear Jasper's voice in every sentence, feel his presence while she read. Long after she had finished reading she sat there quite still, with the sheets of paper lying on her lap and her hands folded over them. She marvelled whether she was quite sane. Jasper had said at one moment that this terrible impasse might overcloud her brain. Well, perhaps it had done that already, and she could no longer distinguish right from wrong through the clouds.

Evening closed in about her. The garden down below became a blur, through which white, starry flowers blinked up at her, and with their placidity mocked the turmoil which was rending her soul. The thunder-clouds were drawing nearer; they hung like lead over the mountains. The pine trees, like dark sentinels, shivered at times under a sudden gust of wind, and from time to time a pale reflex of distant lightning lit the sky above the valley.

Rosa came presently into the room and turned on the lights; she inquired anxiously whether the gracious lady would not come in, as it was raining already and the storm would be breaking very soon. Then only did Rosemary become conscious that her hair and her dress were wet. Heavy drops, the size of a shilling, were falling, but she had not noticed them before.