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 Vandyke. 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 Vandyke'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 assured Di that Major Vandyke 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 _nobody_ 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 friendship, 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 Saturday." 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
Vandyke, 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 Vandyke 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 Vandyke
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 assured 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 wishing 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 Vandyke? 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 Vandyke, "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 Irish!" sneered Vandyke. "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 circumstances----"
"As you put them!"
"Let's go back to my object in inflicting myself upon you to-night, Lady
Peggy. Eagleston March is the god 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 attitude 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 Vandyke had left me to "think things over," I envied it with
passion, 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 seashore 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 Vandyke'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.
"Now that Tony's time is so dreadfully taken up," she said to her
mother, "he can't give us any fun, or have any fun with us himself, so
we might as well go away. _Let's_, dear! Let's clear out to-morrow, and
take Peggy to meet Lady Di and the others at Albuquerque, where we can
get into the 'Limited' and join them."
"I don't know what Tony will say!" wavered Mrs. Dalziel, who was finding
El Paso rather hot in those days, for plump people. She looked at me. So
did Milly. Then Milly laughed. "No good pretending we've got cotton wool
over our eyes," she exclaimed. "Can't you make up your mind to take my
poor, dear little brother, Peggy, and put him out of his misery?"
"Tony and I understand each other already," I said.
"Do you? Oh, I'm _so_ glad, so pleased," they both cried together. And I
had to explain in a violent hurry, before I had been caressed under
false pretences, that there are understandings _and_ understandings.
Tony's and mine was the kind of understanding which left us both
perfectly free; the kind of understanding where you didn't make up your
mind, but just waited to see whether it made itself up.
"Isn't there anything between you and the poor boy, then?" implored the
boy's mother.
"Only--a kiss," I said. "One--on a cheek. My cheek."
"Well, that's something," she sighed. "At least, it was when I was a
girl."
It was not much to me, though it might have been to a better regulated
flapper. I couldn't dwell on such trifles as kisses. I thought only of
the coming court-martial.