Pimpernel and Rosemary by Baroness Orczy

Author:Baroness Orczy [Orczy, Baroness]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction, Adventure Stories
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2021-01-22T18:01:40+00:00

XXII

Rosemary did not see Peter again before he left. Somehow that last vision which she had of him, hitting at a rubber ball with a stick, and his utterly callous suggestion of a game of tennis at an hour which he must have known was fateful to all his kindred, had caused a revulsion in Rosemary’s heart. She felt that never again would she feel tempted to break her word to Jasper. Indeed, she felt how right Jasper had been all along in insisting that she should not discuss the grave events that affected the lives of all the inmates of Kis-Imre with such a callous, empty-headed, irresponsible young jackanapes as Peter had lately become.

So she had gone upstairs to her room, and with a curious heartache, for which she was unable to account, she listened to the familiar bustle and noise that always filled the château whenever visitors came or went. Somehow she could not bring herself to say “Goodbye” to Peter. Elza had told her that he would be coming back within the next week or so, but Rosemary, who felt too tired for introspection, could not have told you whether she was glad or sorry at the prospect of seeing him again quite so soon.

The rest of the day, as well as the long, interminable evening, were taken up with the discussion of household affairs—the luncheon, the dinner, the ball, and even into these Philip and Anna entered wholeheartedly and with apparent complete disregard of what that fateful morrow might bring them. As for Elza, she was perfectly marvellous! Kind, fussy as usual, her menus and the airing of the guestrooms being, to all appearances, the most important matters in her mind.

After everyone had gone to bed little Anna came to Rosemary’s room and sat for a while beside her on the sofa, holding the Englishwoman’s hand as if she wished to transfuse through those slender fingers strength and courage into her soul. When Rosemary made a passing allusion to the wonderful stoicism that could allow trivial matters to seem so important at a moment when life and worse were at stake, Anna explained quite gently:

“We are made like that, we Hungarians. We hold our lives cheap, I think, because throughout our history we have always had to sacrifice them for our country. And also, I think, that we have a certain Oriental fatalism in us. Not the fatalism of the Moslem, who abdicates free will, but the faith of the Christian who believes that God ordains everything and that it is useless to fight His decrees.”

“And yet you are not a religious people,” Rosemary riposted, thinking of what Elza had said to her the night before.

“Only in the sense that children are religious,” Anna rejoined. “We accept blindly what some kind nuns and ignorant priests have taught us, and we believe in an Almighty God more absolutely and ingenuously than the more thoughtful people of the West.”

Long after Anna had gone Rosemary thought over what the child had said.

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