Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 25

"Oh, I am so glad!" she breathed. "Then, if you are great friends, you will want to go in to dinner together, and I must let you do so."

She had the air of having just been saved from drowning; and I was the straw which had thrust itself out in the nick of time for her to catch.

Having accomplished my mission as a straw, I gave my attention wholly to Eagle, but though I tried not to notice, I was dimly conscious, all the same, of what was going on around me. I saw Major Skobeleff, the young Russian officer whose escape Eagle had aided--Prince Sanzanow's nephew--talking to Milly; and noticed that Stefan Stefanovitch had been given to Di as a subst.i.tute for Captain March. Somehow or other the princess juggled her guests about so that three minutes after the crash, when dinner was announced, all could "set to partners" without confusion. There was a French d.u.c.h.ess--a refugee from Paris--present, whom the prince had to take in, and the princess had the duke. That arrangement couldn't be upset; and the only quite ridiculous effect of the whirlwind was to give young Prince Paul to a widow old enough to be his grandmother.

I had rushed into talk with Eagle before we stopped shaking hands; but he had not been able to answer the call of conventionality so soon; and it was not till after we were seated at table that he could control himself to speak. On his other side was Prince Paul's elderly dinner companion. On my other side was the new military attache who had taken the count's place in the Emba.s.sy, a man past the soldiering age; and as he had Madame Pavlova to talk to, for him I did not exist. Eagle and I could speak to each other as if we were alone together in a forest haunted with far-off voices.

"What a fool I was to come here!" he said. "I ought to have known."

"Don't be sorry," I whispered. "Think how glad I am to see you. And there's no reason--no reason in the world--why you should wish to keep out of _their_ way. You have nothing to be ashamed of--but very proud."

"I _am_ glad to see you again," he answered. "Don't imagine I'm not! But I meant to see you, anyhow. I've known for weeks where you were. I made that kind old parson who piloted you home promise to wire to an address I gave, when you got safely back to England. And afterward he wrote to tell me what fine work you were doing. This is the first time I've been out anywhere except for an invalid crawl or two. It's only three days since we left the nursing home in Fitzroy Square, where Prince and Princess Sanzanow visited us several times. Skobeleff is their nephew, you know. They asked us both to stay with them, and Skobeleff is being moved here by his servant to-night; but I made an excuse not to come--said it would hurt the feelings of an old friend who had offered to lend me his chambers in Whitehall Court to finish getting well in.

The Sanzanows wouldn't take a refusal for dinner this evening, though.

It made no difference my telling them who I really am, March instead of Mars. I thought they were sure to know something of my story. They said, when I tried to cry off, that it was going to be a small dinner--just a few friends who would like to meet Skobeleff and me, so I let myself be persuaded. This is the result!"

As we spoke together, the conversation around us murmured vaguely in my ears. I heard it without listening, as one can hear an undertone of murmuring sea beneath all other sounds. People were talking of the one inevitable subject, the war, with variations; the New Patriotism which has made the Tory Lion and the Liberal Lamb lie down together in peace, side by side, paying each other compliments; the good-girl tactics of the suffragettes; the surprising slump in murders and every sort of crime; possible raids of Zeppelins; and the amusingly persistent legend of Russians in France; the same things which were being discussed at that very moment, no doubt, in every household high and low, from one end of Great Britain to the other, but always new and ever interesting, yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow. I glanced at Di and Major Vand.y.k.e and Milly, to see how they were bearing themselves, and I was not pleased with what I saw.

The princess had distributed her guests at three small tables, and, of course, had separated Di and Sidney. I had to crane my head round a floral monoplane, which was our centrepiece, to catch sight of them at their separate tables; and even so, I had but a glimpse now and then of a profile. But the expression of those profiles, and the earnest, confidential way in which they turned toward their neighbours, convinced me that they were not talking war-talk. Milly faced me where I sat, and though the tables were lit by amber-shaded wax candles which gave an ivory effect to the women's complexions, the primrose light could not subdue Milly's colour. As a rule, she was rather pale, but to-night cheeks and ears were flushed deep rose colour. She looked excited and childishly angry, her greenish-gray eyes dilated and her lips pouting.

Had she not been conscious of her new honours as a married woman and a countess, I don't think she would have dared display her feelings at a dinner-party of so much importance. Once or twice she stared with narrowed gaze across the room at Eagle March, then turned to one of her two companions in such a way as almost to advertise the fact that she was speaking of him. She would make little impression, I thought, on Major Skobeleff if she tried to prejudice him against Eagle; but it might be different with the man on her other side, who knew nothing of Captain March save what she had to tell; and even Skobeleff--though surely he would not believe evil of his comrade--could not help remembering. I could imagine Milly whispering: "What an awful _faux pas_ for the princess to have brought Major Vand.y.k.e and Captain March together in her house, where they can't get away from one another for hours, without being rude to her and the prince! Why, the man was such an enemy of Major Vand.y.k.e's that he actually betrayed his country in the hope of ruining his superior officer. It's a long story, but I can tell it to you if you like. Captain March had to leave the United States army in the most dreadful disgrace!"

She looked so like a spiteful, green-eyed cat, that I seemed to hear the words hissed out; and as the man whose ear approached her lips was one of the famous gossips of London, I could imagine, too, how the story would spread and grow. Milly would certainly tell Prince and Princess Sanzanow, also, before she went home, what a dreadful thing they had done in asking "that notorious Captain March" to be their guest, and especially to meet Major and Lady Diana Vand.y.k.e. Sidney, too, if he could pile anything more on the injuries of the past, would be sure to do his best.

As I thought these thoughts my cheeks began to burn even more hotly than Milly's. I had been questioning Eagle about his adventures, and he had been answering in the laconic way most brave men have when teased to talk of themselves; but for a minute, keen though I was, I lost the thread of narrative I had begun eagerly drawing out. This was when I met Milly's eyes and flung a challenge from mine to hers. "Dare to hurt him with your lying tongue, and somehow, surely as you live, I'll make you repent. Don't dream that my affection for Tony can stand between you and me," was the warning I sent.

Silently we defied each other in the savage and primitive way which we female human things have merely modernized, not modified, since the days of Lilith up to the days of suffragettes. I was asking myself what punishment I could devise and inflict, if necessary, to fit Milly's crime, and how I--so small and powerless--could dig myself into a defensive trench between Eagle and Sidney Vand.y.k.e, when I realized that Eagle's eyes were studying my flushed face. They were sad eyes, yet there was a faint glint of laughter in them.

"You little fighter!" he said. "You never throw down the cudgels you've taken up in my defence."

"No, and never will!" I answered, defiance in my voice even for him, because my blood had been set on fire and the flame would not die down.

"You're very young!" he said, with a faint sigh. "So young that you haven't learnt not to hurl yourself against stone walls. Learn the lesson from me, child. Public opinion is a stone wall, the thickest and highest in the world. The tiny bubble of my reputation was wafted against it by an evil wind, and burst forever. If I was fool enough once to hope that I could mend it, I know now that I was mistaken. Broken bubbles are like Humpty Dumpty: they can't be put together again; and I don't mean to break my head in the place where the bubble burst, or let you break yours."

"We shan't break _our_ heads," said I. "We'll break other people's wicked heads, that deserve to be broken; and they're aching hard already with sheer rage, because you've made a beautiful new bubble for yourself, ever so much bigger and brighter than the old one they tried to burst. Only _tried_, because they may find that it didn't smash when it seemed to! Then if the old bubble is saved, there'll be two, solid as crystal and brilliant as rainbows--_boomerang_ bubbles--that will come blowing back to break the brutes who wanted to burst them!"

Captain March laughed out aloud, and I saw Sidney turn involuntarily with a slight, nervous start, as if he fancied that the laugh must be directed against him. "Irish Peggy, you're inimitable!" said Eagle.

"Look out for your metaphors, or you'll be turning my bubble into a bull!"

"Hang metaphors!" I retorted. "I wish I _could_ turn the bubble into a bull, not an Irish, but a wild one, and _set_ it at two or three people.

Perhaps I shall yet! And what has made you suddenly change your mind, Eagle? At Liege, in hospital, you told me how you hated Sidney Vand.y.k.e and felt as if you could choke his life out."

"I haven't changed my mind," he said. "I hate Vand.y.k.e now as I hated him then, more if possible. That's not Christian, but I can't help it, or else I don't try to help it; I'm not sure which. If by killing Vand.y.k.e I could get back what he took from me, I should do my best to kill him.

But I am just cool enough, where he is concerned, to realize that I can't help myself by hurting him; rather the contrary. That's where we come to the stone wall. So I'm not going to smash what he has left of my head on the stones he piled up against me. To do that would be giving the enemy great satisfaction, wouldn't it?"

"Perhaps!" I had to agree with a sigh.

"But if the circ.u.mstances ever change in my favour," Eagle went on, his pleasant face hardening into grimness, "and I can get revenge without putting myself in the wrong, G.o.d help Vand.y.k.e!"

"I hope He _won't_ help him, when that time comes!" I exclaimed. "And I believe it will come. Something often tells me so--tells me that I----"

"That you--what?" Eagle prompted me as I broke off.

"That I shall have some hand in the--the retribution, whatever it may be. It's what I always pray for."

Eagle gazed straight at me, with eyes which had changed sadly since the day they first met mine in the Wardour Street shop. I had thought them full of romance and dreams then. Their look was harder and older now, the look of a man who has been down very near to the gates of h.e.l.l, and by desperate fighting has battled his way up the heights again, but not so high as to forget the red glare that singed his eyeb.a.l.l.s. My heart ached, because it seemed impossible that the peace of dreams and romance could ever come back. I was glad--glad, that Eagle's heart hadn't softened toward Sidney Vand.y.k.e, who was as bitterly his enemy to-night as ever; but I was sorrowful because the beautiful youth of a man's soul had been scorched in the furnace fire.

"I can't bear to think your friends.h.i.+p for me should harden or embitter you, Peggy," Eagle said. "Nothing is worth that! I oughtn't to talk to you as I've been talking now. I shan't again. Forgive me, and forget.

Help _me_ to forget! Forgetfulness is the best thing that can happen to me now. I realize that in my sensible moments. But it's hard to be sensible always."

How I wished I could help him even in so small and humble a fas.h.i.+on! At least, I could try to draw his thoughts away for the moment from the unhealed wound violently torn open. It was a temptation to dwell on it, to look at it and feed my anger; but on his wistful hint I threw the temptation off. Instead of returning to our interrupted talk of his adventures as I wished to do, I answered Eagle's questions about life at "The Haven," and told him pathetic or funny stories of our refugees.

"I'm getting to be quite a weird combination of Red Cross nurse, nursery-governess, and nursemaid," I said. "I really ought to design some special sort of costume suited to my _metier_, but I've never had time to think one out yet! Meanwhile, I wear a badge which keeps up my courage, and gives me back my strength whenever I'm tired. You couldn't guess what it is!"

"The flag of the Allies?" he ventured.

"No. The chevron you gave me when you made me your corporal. Do you remember?"

I saw by his eyes that he was touched. A gleam of the old light flashed into them, and brightened his smile. "Do I remember?" he echoed. "Yes, I remember, Peggy, only too well. And I remember the day you flew with me from Hendon in the poor old _Golden Eagle_, heaven rest her ashes! The day when--when Lady Diana failed me, and your pluck and presence of mind saved us both from coming to grief. I remember lots of other things you've probably forgotten; and I use the memories for balm."

I had to look down suddenly to hide the tears that stung my eyelids. But I winked them away in an instant, and was bracing myself to make him laugh by mimicking the man who had introduced us: Nebuchadnezzar of Wardour Street.

When great hothouse peaches and amethyst bunches of grapes were brought by the footman, I knew that soon Princess Sanzanow would smile at the French d.u.c.h.ess, and we should all troop away to leave the men. I was sure that Eagle would not join the ladies conventionally in the drawing-room, and I did not want that summons to mean a long good-bye. I asked hastily, therefore, if he would come and see me and the Miss Splatchleys and our Belgians at "The Haven," when he had grown a little stronger.

"I'm strong enough now," he said. "Write to-morrow to tell me when I may come, and let it be soon, for the minute I'm fit I shall go back to the front, of course."

"Of course," I repeated firmly, though my heart felt as if it had been squeezed by a mailed fist. "I will write the first thing in the morning, and send you a formal, written invitation from dear Miss Emma and Miss Jane."

"Do. My address is 21a Whitehall Court. You won't forget, will you?"

"No, I won't forget," I a.s.sured him, with a secret smile.

"Because I shall beg the princess as she pa.s.ses to forgive me if I go without bidding her farewell in the drawing-room. Being a bit of a crock still gives me a good excuse, and--she'll understand and be glad to be rid of me."

Even as he spoke, the signal I'd been expecting was given by our hostess. We all rose, smiling at our neighbours, and the men stood while we women trailed to the door. I, being last of all the guests, saw the princess pause as Captain March took a step forward; and I knew that he was bidding her farewell.

Then I went on, and in the drawing-room found Di waiting to pounce, anger for me in her eyes, a smile for everybody else on her lips.

"How dared you!" she whispered. "How _dared_ you treat that man as if he were your best friend!"

"Because he is," I answered bluntly.

"Then you're no friend of ours! Sidney and I will _never_ forgive you for this night--trying to put us both in the wrong as you have!"

"It's an honour not to be forgiven for that," I flung back at her. "Now I'm going to tell the princess that I have to get back early to my Belgians, and I shall have a taxi called to take me away because, after this, I can't even accept from Sidney a lift in his motor."

"You must accept it," whispered Diana furiously, "if only to take the things we're giving you out of his house. It _is_ his house, you know; and though you're my sister, I can't expect him to ask you into it again as a visitor, after your deliberate insult to us both to-night. Your being no more than a child has excused some things, but it can't excuse this; for you haven't acted like a child. You've acted like a malicious woman, and--I think we've reached the end."

"I think so, too," I replied. "Don't be afraid. I shan't trouble either of you after to-night. I'll not go in your motor, but I'll go to your house and fetch my trunk. As for the things you were giving to the refugees, I'll take them or not, as you like."

"I'd like to have the rubbish out of the way and see the last of it,"

said Diana; and looked as if she would gladly see the last of me.