Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 16

"Now, dear, I've told you the story as well or as badly as I can.

Anyhow, you know as much as I do, and that is a good deal more than you ought to know, or others are likely to know. If you hear anything further, it will be from March himself.

"When the Mexican bees have settled down in their hive again, and we're back at Fort Alvarado, I'm going to have a good try for a month's leave or longer, so as to cross the blue with the mater and sis. Of course, entirely with the object of looking after them, and perhaps getting an invitation to Lady Di's wedding, and not a bit for the sake of seeing you or jogging your memory about a certain decision! Yours till the end of beyond, Billiken."

For a while, after I had read this long letter through, to the accompaniment of thunder, lightning, and rain, I sat with the four closely written sheets of paper in my hand, not thinking, only feeling.

I could not console myself with "the one bit of comfort" which Tony waved under my eyes. Eagle March was a born soldier. He cared more for his career than for his life, and it had been taken from him. Though the world was not to know what he was accused of doing, all the world would know that he had left the army because his country no longer needed his services. And he owed this to his love for my sister! This was what Diana and I had brought upon the bravest and best man we should ever meet.

"What will he do? What will become of him?" I asked myself miserably; and the rain beating on the window seemed to give a desolating answer.

But there was still the letter I had waited to read until I learned the best or worst from Tony. Perhaps that would tell me what I wished to know!

CHAPTER XIV

Eagle March's letter was characteristic. Though he must have felt as if he stood alone, at the jumping-off place of the world, he had more to say about me than of himself.

He had read in the El Paso papers that I was going to sail for England, and all the first part of his letter was concerned with "bon voyage." It was only in the last paragraph that he mentioned his own affairs.

"You'll have heard already," he said, "of what has happened to me. I've had a blow, but I'm not going to lie down under it. There must be work for me somewhere, and when I've found it you'll hear from me again. Not until then though, for I'm rather hard hit, and might be inclined to grumble. But I shall think of you constantly, and I don't believe if I wrote a volume I could make you understand how much the thought will help. I shall wear it like armour."

Not a word of Diana. But I read between the lines. He was "rather hard hit." Just when he was facing an attack from the front she had stabbed him in the back. In one way, the letter was a bitter disappointment, for I had longed to be told Eagle's plans; yet in the hint that I should hear again when he had "found work," there was a thrill like that which comes with martial music. I was far from guessing then what that work would be, and how quickly and surprisingly he would find it; but vaguely I felt that there was only one kind of work worth Eagle March's while: soldier work.

Because I mustn't expect to hear, that did not prevent my writing from the s.h.i.+p. "This isn't 'good-bye,'" I said. "Always I'll be looking forward to great things for you. And (you may laugh, but I'm in earnest) I shall live in the hope of 'righting' you in the world's eyes. The day may come. I believe it will--the best day of my life."

When the _Mauretania_ pa.s.sed "Liberty" I sent back a last message by the statue to Eagle. "Till the day!" I said. But it was a pang to see the last of her. I went down to my stateroom and cried--oh! how I cried!

As if to flaunt the glorious difference between this summer and last, Father took a furnished house in Norfolk Street, Hyde Park, which was to let with the owner's servants. It was very rich looking, though the elaborate decorations reminded me of houses in moving-picture plays.

Father was able to splurge, on Di's prospects; and probably Kitty Main contributed to the expense, for she and her maid came to stay with us.

We began to be expensively gay; and I believe if any duke or earl who tangoed with Diana had offered himself for the dance of life, she would have thrown over Sidney Vand.y.k.e at the eleventh hour. But no one exciting showed signs of entangling himself permanently, and so, when Major Vand.y.k.e wired that the situation in Mexico permitted him to ask for leave, Di's engagement was announced in the _Morning Post_.

Soon after this, Sidney arrived with cartloads of luggage, which seemed to detach him from America forever. He had got long leave and intended to resign from the army at the end of it. He took up his quarters at the Savoy Hotel, but he was at our house morning, noon, and night; and though everybody who saw him for the first time said how handsome he was, it struck me from the minute we met that he had changed for the worse. He looked older and stouter, and black and white would no longer express him in a picture. A suffusion of red for the face, as well as for the lips under the black moustache, would have been needed. I wondered if he were drinking; and though, when he lunched or dined with us he was always careful (except with champagne, which he loved as a child loves sweets), he might be less cautious when out of Diana's sight.

At first I could hardly bear to sit down at the same table with Sidney Vand.y.k.e; but as time went on, I found an impish pleasure in watching him, in staring openly, as a baby stares. I had the satisfaction of feeling that he was disturbed by my gaze, and that he knew, even when not looking, that my eyes were on him. Sometimes in the midst of talk he would break down and forget what he had meant to say next. I affected him with a kind of aphasia, erasing the words he wanted from his brain.

But otherwise my tactics were changed. I was no longer rude to my future brother-in-law. I wished to study him, and I didn't object to his knowing that I studied him.

A silent battle was being fought between us under a smooth surface of civility, and Sidney might easily have complained to Diana that my owl stare was "getting on his nerves," even though he could have brought no other complaint. If he had spoken to her she would have made some excuse to scratch me off her list of bridesmaids. I hoped she would, and save me trouble! But perhaps Sidney felt that I was yearning for him to "squeal," and resolved not to please me. In any case, n.o.body not in the secret of our hearts could have guessed that anything was wrong. And I had to play at spraining my ankle in order to escape being one of the eight.

It was well to be civil in word and deed, and "bide my time," but to be in at the death, and marry my sister to a man who'd stolen her from Eagle March and ruined him, was a different thing. I drew the line at that.

It's quite simple for a girl vowed to the conscientious life and no fibs to wrench her ankle, if she'll wear high heels. All she has to do when walking in the street is to look out for banana peel; or an apple paring may do at a pinch. She launches herself upon it, with a skating movement. Her foot turns, and the deed is done. She can in this way produce a "strain," if not a "sprain"; and only doctors know the difference. The difficult part comes in remembering to limp. I was so fearful of forgetting in some moment of excitement, that I took to wearing shoes which were not mates. They were actually incompatible. One had a Louis Quinze heel and the other had none at all; but my dresses by this time were so "grown up" and long that n.o.body noticed. Besides, though refusing to see a doctor, I stopped in bed for days, and hypnotically impressed the idea of a sprain on every one.

Those who didn't know why I wouldn't for the world be bridesmaid to Diana sat by my bedside and sympathized, among others Mrs. Dalziel and Milly, who had followed us in time to have all the season's fun in London before the wedding. Tony hoped to get leave and arrive for "the great day." Afterward he and his mother and sister planned a motor tour through Belgium, and Luxemburg, and France, before the time when Tony must rejoin his regiment. I had a sneaking idea that they meant me to go, too; but at that moment--before other things had happened--I told myself that I would do nothing of the kind. I was homesick for Ireland and Ballyconal.

The date of Di's wedding wasn't definitely settled until after Sidney came. Then it was fixed for the ninth of July, and the bride and bridegroom were to have four weeks' motoring in the north of England.

When the honeymoon was officially over they were to make country-house visits in Scotland for the shooting season. Sidney Vand.y.k.e boasted of being a crack shot, and Diana hoped to be proud of her American husband among British sportsmen.

Meanwhile they had some time before the wedding in which to find a town house, and choose furniture and things so that they might be "at home"

in the autumn. I think Di really loved Sidney the day he consented to buy a house--a very expensive though small house--in Park Lane. She had set her heart upon Park Lane; for, you see, there was always something rootedly Victorian about Di; such as being convinced that Park Lane was the Mount Olympus of London, and that you couldn't be properly married except at St. George's. She was, and is, up-to-date only on the surface, in such details as clothes and hats, and tango, and the latest slang.

Probably Di had never been so happy as in gathering together materials for her future frame; and if Sidney was chagrined because Father didn't offer to lend for the honeymoon our ancestral castle (to which he and Di had frequently alluded in America) he kept his feelings to himself. He would have been twice as much chagrined by the castle could he have seen it before Kitty Main got in her deadly work. The Trowbridges of Chicago would have rejoiced to tell him what it was really like.

I don't quite know why it is the fas.h.i.+on for brides to shut themselves up and not "go out" for days before the wedding; but perhaps they are supposed to pa.s.s their close time in prayer and maiden meditation, thanking heaven for what it has provided, and dwelling on the responsibilities of the future. Di spent her days in being fitted for frocks (goodness knew who would pay for them, unless Sidney, on ceasing to be a bridegroom and turning into a husband), receiving wedding presents, having photographs taken, and giving discreet interviews to journalists. She told the male ones what a heroic person Major Vand.y.k.e was; and to the female ones she showed her dresses. There wasn't an ill.u.s.trated daily or weekly paper in London that didn't produce a picture of Sidney in uniform, looking das.h.i.+ng, and Di looking down, all modesty and eyelashes.

The last night she went out to anything big before the wedding was to a dinner at the Russian emba.s.sy; and though nothing which seemed to us sensationally interesting happened that night, something was led up to later. It came through Milly Dalziel, for whom Father and Di had contrived to get an invitation. She met Captain Count Stefan Stefanovitch, the military attache of the Russian Emba.s.sy.

There is something irresistible to some natures about a Russian count; and to Russian counts about American heiresses, particularly those with red hair. When the two had seen each other three times they were engaged, subject to the consent of the count's father. Everybody in that family was a count or countess, a delicious prospect for Milly when she wished to talk of her Russian relatives. Stefan was to stay and see Milly in her bridesmaid's dress; then he was going to make a dash for Petrograd (we called it St. Petersburg then!) armed with her photograph and substantial accounts of her father's bank balance, returning as soon as the consent was insured. There seemed to be something almost feudally old-fas.h.i.+oned about Russians, Milly thought, for a mere wire to _her_ father had been considered adequate. But then, Tony Senior wasn't a count or a "vitch," or anything exciting like that.

It was after this dinner that I began to prowl for banana peel. I hadn't wanted to be premature; still, it was necessary to give some other girl time to get a bridesmaid's dress. Just then the only thing in London that anybody cared about was the Russian opera and ballet, and it occurred to Di that it would be original to clothe her eight attendant maidens in Leon Bakst designs. Most of the girls were pale blondes, whom she had chosen because they would form an effective contrast to herself; but they were very brave about the Bakst effects. The measure of their fingers had been taken, and they were expecting presents of rings beautiful enough to console them for worse disasters. Besides, Sidney had brought over from America a Captain Beatty to be his best man. He was rather rich and very good-looking.

During all this time of our new popularity I had heard nothing of Eagle March, except that he had turned his back on his native land after resigning from the army, and that various "ugly stories" were in circulation. It was even said that he had been bribed by Mexico with immense sums of money to betray his country. It was Tony who wrote me this, in answer to a question. But he knew no more than this gossip, not even when he arrived in London the day before Diana's wedding.

"For all I can tell," he said, when he had congratulated me on my limp, "March may have offered himself and his aeroplane to the Viceroy of India or the Sultan of Turkey or even the Emperor of j.a.pan. There's only one thing certain about him: he'll have to be a soldier somewhere--somehow!"

"Blessed is the bride the sun s.h.i.+nes on," they say, but the sun did not s.h.i.+ne on Diana. The ninth of July dawned gray and bl.u.s.tering, with a queer rasping chill in the air like an autumn day slipped back in the calendar. I hated the thought of seeing Di married to Sidney Vand.y.k.e. It seemed like aiding and abetting the enemy, but unless I had another accident at the last minute, such as falling downstairs, I could see no way of stopping at home without a row.

What would Eagle want me to do? I asked myself. It was almost as if I could hear his voice saying, "Don't hurt Diana on such a day by stopping away from her wedding."

I decided to be there; and it was arranged for me to sit with Kitty Main, Mrs. Dalziel, and Tony. I didn't mind this, because Tony couldn't very well propose in church with "The voice that breathed o'er Eden"

resounding to the roof.

The wedding was fixed for two o'clock at St. George's, Hanover Square; and if any were left in London who didn't know the hour and all other details, it must have been because they didn't read the halfpenny papers. It had even been announced that one of the bridegroom's many magnificent presents to the bride would be a high-powered Grayles-Grice car, in which Lady Diana Vand.y.k.e would drive from the church with her husband to the house of her father, for the wedding reception, and go on for the honeymoon tour afterward. This paragraph was truer than some of the others, but the day before the wedding the car hadn't yet been delivered by the makers. A frantic telegram from Sidney brought the a.s.surance that he might count without fail on its arriving by ten o'clock next day at latest. The firm regretted deeply the unforeseen delay which had occurred owing to a strike, but the automobile had been s.h.i.+pped. Still Sidney and Diana were anxious.

Kitty and Mrs. Dalziel and Tony and I started rather late, for Kitty had superintended the bride's dressing. The other two came for us in a motor car, but Mrs. Dalziel had to stop for a look at Di. As for me, I'm not sure how I felt about my sister. She was so lovely in her lace and silver brocade gown, and her cap-veil, that my eyes clung to her, yet it was hateful that her beauty should be for Sidney Vand.y.k.e. My thoughts flew to Eagle, wherever he might be--at the other end of the world, perhaps--and I wondered if he knew what was happening in London.

Our places at church were at the front, in one of the pews reserved for the bride's relatives and intimate friends, so our being late didn't matter. But already the back part of the church was full, and the air heavy with the perfumes women wore, and the fragrance of roses and lilies which made the decorations. As we went in, a sense of suffocation gripped me. I felt as if I could easily faint, and I realized that the long strain on my nerves had begun to tell. I had a queer impression that I was only a body, and that my soul was far away looking for some one it could not find. I was glad when we were settled in our seats, but still the odour of the flowers oppressed me. I fancied that the brooding gloom of the day would end in a thunderstorm.

People were whispering and rustling in their seats, wondering if it were not almost the time for the bride music to begin. I had a jumpy sensation that somebody behind me must be staring, and strongly willing me to look round. Always I have been sensitive to that kind of influence, and often, too, I've tried to make others feel it. I kept turning my head, but could see no one who seemed to be taking an undue interest in me. Presently, however, I caught Tony's eyes, which fixed themselves on mine in an owlish stare.

"What makes you keep on twisting round like that?" he inquired in a stage whisper. "Are you looking for any one in particular?"

"No--o," I said, "but I have a funny sort of feeling as if some one were looking for me!"

"By Jove!" exclaimed Tony, and repressed himself at a glare from his mother. "I wonder if it's possible----" He stopped, and began carefully to smooth his silk hat which was poised on his knee.

"If what's possible?" I wanted to know, bending my head near to his, regardless of somebody's plume which grazed my eye.

"Oh--er, nothing much. Only just a silly idea of mine."

"Tell me, and let me judge whether it's silly or not. You're rousing my curiosity." And all the while I tingled with that almost irresistible desire to turn my head again. It was as if I were missing something very important.

"I'd rather not now," said Tony. "I'll tell you afterward."

Before I had time to wheedle the mystery out of him (as I felt confident I could) the "Wedding March" from Lohengrin struck up. Of course, Diana _would_ have that! It went with St. George's and the rest of it: the "historic" thing.

She came up the aisle, her hand on Father's arm.

"Oh, doesn't he look _handsome_?" murmured Kitty Main.