"No one else on the train?" Rosemary broke in curtly. "What does he mean, Jasper? There must be other passengers on the train. Where have they gone to?"
Jasper put the question to the guard.
"The last of the passengers got out at this station, gracious lady. When it was known that the line was blocked this side of the frontier, no one took a ticket further than Sót."
"How do you mean? When was it known that the line was blocked?"
"Before we left Cluj, gracious lady, and so—"
"But they sold us tickets to Budapest, and said nothing about a breakdown," Rosemary exclaimed. And then she turned to her husband: "Jasper, tell me, is this man a fool or a liar, or am I half-witted? You took our tickets to Budapest. Did the man at the ticket-office say anything to you about a block on the line?"
"No," Jasper replied, "he did not."
"But our luggage?"
"We have no registered luggage—only what we have with us in the carriage."
"Of course, how stupid of me! But when the man clipped your ticket?"
"He didn't say anything."
Rosemary, impatient, her nerves on edge, turned again to the guard. "You saw the gracious gentleman's tickets," she said, "when we got into the train. Why didn't you warn us?"
"I thought perhaps the gracious lady and gentleman would only go as far as Sót and sleep there. I thought everyone knew about the landslide, and that every passenger had been warned."
"Can we get a car here that will take us to Hódmezö?"
"Not at this hour, gracious lady."
"Or a vehicle of any sort?"
The guard shook his head. Rosemary could have screamed with impatience until Jasper's quiet voice broke in: "I think, my dear, that by far the best thing to do will be to let the man make up a couple of beds for us, and to try and possess ourselves in patience until the morning. There is nothing to be done—really, darling, nothing. And, after all, it may only mean a delay of eight to ten hours."
Then, as Rosemary remained silent, making no further objection, he slipped some money into the guard's hand, and told him to get the beds ready. After that he re-entered the carriage, and rather diffidently sat down beside his wife.
"I feel terribly guilty, dear one," he said humbly, "but you know I don't speak Roumanian very well, and when these sort of people jabber away, I don't always understand what they say. And I was rather anxious about you at Cluj. You seemed so agitated, so unlike yourself."
"Can you wonder? Twenty-four hours' delay may mean that Naniescu's courier will get to London and make arrangements before I have time to wire. I must see Elza first, and in the meanwhile—"
"My darling," Jasper put in, with a quick, wearied sigh, "it is not like you to be so illogical. Do you really suppose that events move at such a rate in a newspaper office? There is bound to be delay—and there's ample time for your telegram to reach The Times before the editor has even thought of inserting your articles. Even if we are held up here for twenty-four hours, you can see Elza and send your wire from Hódmezö before Peter Blakeney, or whoever Naniescu's courier happens to be, can possibly have made any arrangements with The Times ."
"Of course, dear, of course," Rosemary said, more calmly. "I am stupid to-night. This whole business has got on my nerves, I suppose. I don't seem to know what I am doing."
CHAPTER XL
On the narrow made-up bed, with the coarse linen and the heavy blanket, and the smell of sulphur and dust about her, Rosemary found it quite impossible to get any rest. At first there had been a good deal of clumsy shunting, the engine probably had been detached, the tin-trumpet sounded at intervals, and there was a good deal of shouting; but all these noises ceased presently, and the night seemed peculiarly still. Still, but not restful. Rosemary could not sleep. Fortunately the communicating doors between her compartment and the one which Jasper occupied were closed, so she felt free to fidget, to get up or to lie down as the mood seized her, to turn on the light to read or to meditate, without fear of disturbing him.
She could not help feeling desperately nervous. Jasper, of course, was quite right: there was plenty of time in which to see Elza, and then to send a telegram to London if necessary, so there was nothing in a few hours' delay to worry about. Nevertheless she, who had always prided herself on independence and level-headedness, felt a strange kind of foreboding—something vague and indefinite that nevertheless was terrifying. She tried to compose herself and could not. She forced herself into quietude, deliberately kept her eyes closed and her body still. It was torture, but she did it because she wanted to feel that she still controlled her nerves, and that she was not giving way to this stupid sense of fear.
And there was no denying it; the fear that beset her was on account of her coming interview with Elza. Maurus' attitude had been very strange, even abnormal, and it was consequent on a letter from Elza. And Rosemary, though she had not owned it to herself before, felt a growing conviction that Elza's lofty patriotism had given way at last to mother-love. Confronted with Philip and Anna, who no doubt had youth's passionate desire to live, with Anna's mother who was all for conciliating the tyrants, and with Maurus whose reason was threatening to give way, Elza had laid down her arms, had capitulated and decided that her son's life must be saved at any cost. Perhaps she knew that Rosemary's articles had fallen into Naniescu's hands, perhaps she and Peter had actually been in collusion over the theft, perhaps—perhaps— There was no end to conjecture, and no limit to Rosemary's dread of what the next four-and-twenty hours would bring.
Only now did she realize what it had meant to her to place the final decision into Elza's hands. With it she had given her professional honour, her very conscience into another woman's keeping. She had probably only done it because she was so sure of Elza, of Elza's patriotism and her sense of justice and honour. Poor Elza! Who could blame her for being weak, for being a mother rather than a patriot? She should never have been placed before such a cruel alternative. Self-reproach, the stirrings of conscience helped to aggravate Rosemary's racking anxiety. She got up in the early dawn, made what sketchy toilet the limited accommodation allowed, and went out into the open. The little station appeared quite deserted; only the two soldiers were still there on duty at the exit door. Rosemary marvelled if they were the same two who had been there during the night. They looked perfectly stolid, unwashed and slouchy in their faded, coarse-looking uniforms and dusty boots and képis.
Rosemary looked up and down the line. The train, consisting of half a dozen coaches, looked derelict without its engine, and there was no guard in sight. She had no eyes for the beautiful scenery around—the narrow valley bordered by densely wooded heights; the mountain-side covered with oak and beech that were just beginning to clothe themselves in gold and at the approach of autumn; the turbulent little mountain-stream; the small station nestling amidst gnarled acacia trees; and on the right the quaint Transylvanian village with the hemp-thatched roofs and bunches of golden maize drying in the sun, with its primitive stuccoed church and whitewashed presbytery. Rosemary saw nothing of this; her eyes searched the landscape for the château—now a prison for political offenders—where Philip and Anna were detained—those children whose safety would be paid for perhaps by countless miseries, by worse tyranny and more cruel oppression. But there was no large building in sight, and presently Rosemary caught sight of Jasper, some way up the line, walking toward her in the company with a man in very négligé toilet, who probably was the station-master.