Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 14

"I'm--not sure! But it will be too dreadful if she marries Major Vand.y.k.e after what he has done. Why do you say you 'shouldn't wonder' if they're engaged already? And a little while ago, too, you said 'if Lady Di is engaged to Vand.y.k.e.' Di can't have heard yet that there's any reason why--why the most disloyal coward should drop Eagle March."

"There are such things as telegrams. And the big California papers must have got hold of the story printed in El Paso this morning. They're sure to have correspondents here. I bet Lady Di had Vand.y.k.e as a hero served up to her with her coffee at breakfast to-day. Wouldn't she wire and congratulate him? Wouldn't he wire back to her, and strike while the iron was hot, to get her promise? That's what I'd do if I were in his place."

"I never thought----" I began; but no more words would come. I felt broken. It seemed to me that I could look ahead and see the whole future.

I let my hand lie in Tony's, and he stroked it gently, not speaking or trying to make me speak. Silence was the only balm just then, if balm there was, and a loud burst of music not far off struck on my brain like the blow of a hammer.

We had forgotten all about the torchlight procession which we had come out to see. But--by and by--Tony did not forget his kiss.

CHAPTER XII

If I could, without betraying Tony, I should have written to Eagle that night, telling him just a hundredth part of what I thought and felt. But I was bound by my word to "keep dark" what I had heard, even from Eagle himself, unless some day Tony set me free to speak. I must seem to know and believe what the public knew and believed, no more. But I did write cautiously, saying how grieved I was if he suffered, how I should think of him every hour, and how I wished that some way might be arranged for me to see him by and by. Could it be managed? I asked. And I posted the letter before I went to bed, tired to the heart and more miserable than I had ever been in my life.

The next morning, before I was out of my room, a telegram was brought to the door. It was from Di, and said, "Am engaged to Major Vand.y.k.e. He will probably call and tell you the news himself, but thought I should like you to know first from me. Please be nice to him for my sake. I am very happy. What a hero he is! Write me all about what happened."

This was a long, expensive message to lavish on me; but Diana's days of economy were over, and this was the first sign of the change.

I boiled with anger against her, and should have liked to send some of my emotions over the telegraph wire, but that would have been a childish way to strike. Besides, I knew in my heart that I was a little unjust.

Di had treated Eagle shamefully, there was no doubt of that. But there was one thing in her favour: she was not conscious of betraying Eagle March in the hour of danger, for she knew about him only what the papers said: that he had been wounded in an accident. It was Major Vand.y.k.e's great exploit which had weighed down the scales in his favour, or influenced Diana, anyhow, to throw Eagle over definitely, and announce her engagement to the "hero." I telegraphed back, "Don't make it public till you've heard from me. You may change your mind." I followed the wire with a letter, in which I a.s.sured Di that Major Vand.y.k.e had committed a crime against Eagle March. Perhaps it would be found out, and then she would be very sorry that she had promised to marry such a man. I dared not hope much from my protest, however; so, two days later, I wasn't surprised to hear that Di was disgusted as well as hurt by my "wicked prejudice against Sidney." "You never liked him," she said, "but I didn't think you would go so far as to accuse him of crimes. If it weren't so silly, it would be horrible. As it is, I can't help laughing; but all the same, be careful what you say to other people. If you speak against Sidney to strangers, you can't do him any harm, but you will do yourself a great deal, and Captain March, too. Sidney has written me a long letter telling me the whole history of that Thursday night. It has just come. Of course, I can repeat to _n.o.body_ what he wrote. It was strictly confidential, though I suppose the truth is bound to leak out, more or less, in future. Judging from your hints, I suppose you, too, have heard something--probably from Tony Dalziel (whom I hope, by the way, you are treating better than you did, as you're never likely to get another such chance). Naturally you believe the other side. But after the court-martial there won't be any 'other side.'"

There was just one consolation in the next few days: a letter that came to me from Eagle. He said not a word that any one mightn't have read, and told me nothing about himself, except that he was "getting along very well" and I mustn't spend a sad minute over him. But he added: "Your thought of me, and your unfailing friends.h.i.+p, are more to me than I can express. I feel that nothing can rob me of them, and now and always they will be for me like a comforting fire, at which I can warm myself when days are cold and dark. I count on you, my little Peggy girl, and I know I shan't count in vain, even though I have to say that it's impossible for us to meet now, or for some time to come. Write to me when you feel like it. I shall be more than glad of your letters."

If I had written when I felt like it, I should seldom have had a pen out of my hand; yet it was hard to write. There was so little I dared, so much I wished, to say. And I couldn't mention Diana. I wondered whether she had broken to him in a letter the news of her engagement, or whether she had left it for him to discover by accident. I felt that he ought to be told, but I couldn't bear to be the one to deal the blow, so I hedged when I wrote to him next, asking, "Have you heard from D... lately?"

He answered the question briefly by the next post "Yes, I heard from her on Sat.u.r.day." That was all. No comment, no word as to his feelings. But he had let me see how he loved her. He could not help knowing that I would understand what losing her meant to him--and losing her to Major Vand.y.k.e, at such a time and in such a way. Looking back at events, I calculated that the blow had fallen on Eagle before he answered my letter, and this gave a more pathetic meaning to the lines which I intended always to keep.

Except for the knowledge that, powerless as I was, he valued me, there was no brightness in my days. Major Vand.y.k.e did have the effrontery to come and see me, as Di had thought he would, and I had thought he wouldn't. He took me at a disadvantage by walking up to me in the hall of the hotel, where I stood reading a note from Tony. Warned by a flash of my eyes as I looked up at the sound of his voice, saying, "How do you do?" he went on hastily: "Don't let's have a scene, please, for Diana's sake, if not for your own. I know how you feel, so you needn't go to the length of telling me, or even cutting me, before people. If I hadn't been sure you were too much of a little lady to make yourself conspicuous in public, in spite of your feelings, I shouldn't have risked surprising you like this. I was pretty sure if I didn't catch you unawares you would refuse to see me. So I had to take some risk, for I particularly want to speak to you."

"I don't share your desire," I said stiffly. "You were perfectly right in thinking I shouldn't have seen you if you had given me the chance to refuse. It's like you, not to have given it. But you're right, too, when you take it for granted that I won't make a scene. If it could do the the slightest good, though, to any one concerned, I would!"

He smiled, a pale, unpleasant smile. "No doubt. You'd be capable of anything. Here's the situation: I'm going to marry your sister, and though you've tried your best to stop me, you can't."

"I wonder any man, even you, should want Diana after the way she's behaved," I said sullenly.

"Thanks for that expressive 'even.' Your weapons are pretty sharp, little lady! But you're a child, and you're Diana's sister, so I bear no malice. I'm the sort of man, it happens, who doesn't stop to bother much about the way a very beautiful girl 'behaves' to another fellow. I love Diana, and I'd take her across that other fellow's dead body if she'd just stabbed him."

"She has stabbed Captain March, though not mortally, I hope," said I.

"But she has behaved as badly to you as to him, in a way."

"You mean the affair of the photograph, I suppose," Major Vand.y.k.e remarked calmly. "She has explained that. Not that I asked her to. All I did was to put into a letter the story of that little scene in which you were mixed up in March's tent. She answered voluntarily that March must have bribed the photographer to sell him a copy, though the man had been given strict instructions to print only one--for me. March had begged her for a picture, when he heard from Mrs. Main that she'd been sitting for that fellow, who's supposed to be a great artist; and Di put him off in some laughing way. I was pretty certain, when I noticed there was no signature on the portrait March had, that he'd not got the photograph from Diana herself. No doubt he thought all fair in love or war."

"You judge him by yourself," I said. "But never mind! I shan't ask you not to believe Di, but to believe your own common sense. Think--or pretend to think what you like."

"I shall," he a.s.sured me; "that's a great principle of mine! As a general rule it makes for happiness and success. But we're getting away from my object in speaking to you, when I know you're wis.h.i.+ng me in kingdom come."

"Not there," said I. He laughed out aloud, and anybody looking at us might have imagined us the best of friends.

"What a little devil you are! Where did you inherit it from?"

"From French chocolate, perhaps," said I. "What is it you want with me, Major Vand.y.k.e? Tell me, and get it over."

"I want to know exactly what it is in me that you dislike so much?"

"Only everything."

"That's a large order, and not very explicit. Would you have disliked me if I hadn't interfered with--a--er--a person more to your taste; in other words, with Captain Eagleston March?"

"Oh, of course, if you hadn't been jealous of him, I might have thought better of your _character_. But then, you wouldn't have been you."

"D'you know," drawled Major Vand.y.k.e, "I've a sort of idea that it was Captain March who was jealous of me!"

"It isn't _in_ him to be jealous, in the way you mean. But you've asked why I dislike you, and you interrupted me before I could finish.

'Dislike' is a very small word for what I feel. I loathe you, because you've done your best to ruin him. There are some things I _know_.

Partly, I blame myself because of what I said to you about Di in camp.

Perhaps--just perhaps--you mightn't have done what you have done if I'd held my tongue. That's why, if I've had a hand in pulling Eagle March down, I'd cut it off, and the other one, too, if I could have a hand in lifting him up."

"Sounds complicated--and Iris.h.!.+" sneered Vand.y.k.e. "In your country a man is presumed to be innocent until he's proved guilty; yet you accuse me of guilt on no proof whatever. Evidently you've wormed things out of Tony Dalziel, and drawn your own conclusions to suit yourself. So like a woman! But my conscience is clear as crystal. Personal feeling has had nothing to do with my actions. Every man will give me credit for that.

I'm sorry for March. He's either insane with jealousy, or he's allowed himself to be tricked. Privately, not publicly, of course, I'm inclined to believe in the former theory; and I think most people would agree with me if they knew all the circ.u.mstances----"

"As you put them!"

"Let's go back to my object in inflicting myself upon you to-night, Lady Peggy. Eagleston March is the G.o.d of your idolatry. Let's take that for granted. He's bound to suffer. He brought it on himself, whatever you--a child--may think to the contrary. Do you want to make him suffer more or less?"

"Is it necessary to answer?" I asked.

"Hardly. But I have to impress upon you that it's partly in those hands of yours, which you would 'cut off' for him. The full immensity of his guilt need never come out. It's not intended that it should come out.

Still, if you are going to treat me like the dirt under your feet--the man who will soon be your sister's husband--and kick up a scandal, I shan't lie still. I'm not a saint. If you mean to fight against me with Diana, or anybody else, or even set people talking by your behaviour, by Jove! I'll hit back. I shan't take much trouble to do my part in keeping the secret."

"You're bound to keep it, aren't you?" I suggested. "Government doesn't want it to come out."

"That's the att.i.tude at present. But when relations have been definitely and permanently smoothed over between the United States and Mexico, it won't so much matter except for March himself. In any case, _I_ shan't let the cat out of the bag. I'm not such a blunderer! But I tell you frankly, I can influence others to keep the secret after the time limit's up--or I can refrain from using influence. Which shall it be? Is it peace or war between us?"

I stopped to think for a moment, and then I answered, "It's an armed truce."

We have all heard quite a lot about the mouse who saved a lion. But it was only one mouse out of a world crammed full of mice. I never heard, in the whole history of mice, since those which Cain and Abel maybe had for pets, of another mouse capable of saving any animal whatever, even itself. Still, there remains that one heroic and intelligent mouse. When Sidney Vand.y.k.e had left me to "think things over," I envied it with pa.s.sion, feeling that I was not even of the mouse tribe. I felt more like a fly, if you can imagine a fly cursed with a human heart, who loves an eagle that has been shot in the wing and caged, and the cage set down on the seash.o.r.e when the night tide is coming in. What could such a fly do but cling sadly to the cage and buzz and let the great rush of water drown it with the eagle? Even that fly seemed more fortunate than I was, as I pictured it to myself. For it was privileged to rest on the eagle's cage. I could not be near my wounded eagle!

Five days after that awful Thursday night a letter from Di told me that her engagement had "changed all her plans." "Sidney" was very impatient, and wanted to be married soon. The moment his work was over at El Paso he would get long leave, and possibly he might make up his mind to resign from the army. That was what she wanted him to do; and when she had him with her, she knew that she could persuade him, for he wasn't really "very keen" on soldiering, and she _must_ live in England, at least half the year round. This part was for the future to decide; but in any case there would be the long leave. It would give time for the wedding and the honeymoon. She had set her heart on being married at St.

George's, for it was the "historic" thing to do. And there was the trousseau. Kitty Main _insisted_ on giving it to her for a wedding present; which was rather a weight off one's mind, as America had cost something in spite of everybody's being so hospitable and good. Kitty would go to Paris with her, and help to choose the things, which would be nicer than having just a sum down, and going alone. So they--Di and Kitty and Father--had all decided to cut out the rest of the visits arranged and "make for home." California had been great fun, and Di wished she might stop longer, but one couldn't have one's cake and eat it, too. Being married was her cake. This was her mistake. As I have said before, she had always had both.

Major Vand.y.k.e's "work in El Paso" was to bear witness against Eagle March in the court-martial which would come on almost at once. And I was to go away without hearing the verdict or seeing Eagle after all was over.

Di had written to Mrs. Dalziel, too, it appeared, and Milly was only too glad of an excuse to escape from the the place where Captain March's society had been the first and only attraction for her.