I think if Sidney Vandyke had never taken the trouble actually to hate
me, he exerted himself to that extent on his wedding day.
I kept my distance when the others gave the bride and bridegroom a
send-off of waving hands and showering rice as they skimmed away in the
Grayles-Grice car (ready at last); but I'd caught a wandering glance or
two meanwhile from my new brother-in-law, and thanked my stars that
Heaven hadn't made me some poor private soldier under his command. Di
turned her cheek with the look of a martyred saint when I was supposed
to kiss her good-bye; and altogether I fancied that I should not be
urged to visit in Park Lane when the happy pair came back in the autumn.
I intended to be at Ballyconal then; but a thousand things were fated to
change my scheme and the schemes of all the other unsuspecting mice in
England and Europe.
The first thing--oh, such a small thing compared to those that were to
follow--which happened after Di's marriage was an announcement from
Father. He had proposed to Mrs. Main, and she had been "good enough to
accept him." That was his formal way of breaking the news to me, for we
had been on official terms only for some days following the wedding;
though to his darling Di he would probably have put it "Look here, girl,
she's jumped at me! Hurrah! The luck of Ballyconal's come right side up
again!" And Di would have congratulated dear old Bally, reminding him
that third times were always successful.
Of course, whenever I stopped to think of it, I had told myself that
this announcement was bound to come, and to come soon. But my head had
been full as a hive of bees with other thoughts; and besides, I hadn't
realized how I should feel the blow when it fell.
Vaguely, I'd taken it for granted that life would go on for me as
before. I liked Kitty, and she didn't dislike me, though, of course, Di
had been brilliantly her favourite. I had told myself that Kitty and
Father would trot off somewhere and leave me free at Ballyconal to
hibernate in some neglected corner, while the place was glorified into a
stately British home for an American millionairess. Then (I had gone on
dimly planning) they would return in state, and Kitty would be duly
honoured by a picturesque welcome from the hastily cleaned up tenants.
After that, nobody would take much notice of little Peggy. I should be
tacitly permitted to play among my books, and the peasants I loved the
best, for whose sake I had been trying to learn the art of nursing.
Father's way of telling his news, however, showed me the truth about
myself. I didn't feel in the least related to him; and I decided to use
the month before their return from the wedding journey in finding some
other way of spending my life. I couldn't make a "crowd" in that
"company" of two!
I was nice to Father and charming to Kitty, and all the time I was
polishing my brain as if it were the genie's lamp, and summoning the
genie to bring me inspiration. I couldn't be a governess on the strength
of languages alone. Not knowing the multiplication table, having to do
hasty sums on my fingers, and being ignorant of principal rivers,
boundaries, and all dates except that of Waterloo, was too big a
handicap; and in sheer poverty of invention I seemed to be driven back
to Billiken, that god of "things as they ought to be." Perhaps it was
fate that I had been invited by Mrs. Dalziel to a "boy and girl" theatre
party the very night when I had to congratulate Father, and wish wishes
for Kitty which short of a miracle couldn't come true.
It was only two days after Di's wedding, but already that event seemed
long ago. No news had come from Eagle, and he was referred to in London
newspapers as "the modest stranger" who had disappeared after saving the
lives of the bride and bridegroom, "leaving no trace except a little
blood shed in their service." The dinner at the Savoy and the boy and
girl party at the theatre afterward were given, no doubt, more in honour
of "Milly's count" (who was starting for Petrograd next morning) than
for me; but I was made to feel myself a guest of importance; and at the
St. James I had Tony next to me. There had been no chance to pour out my
news at dinner, but now it came and I seized it instantly. Tony was
always nice and sympathetic to tell things to! He actually listened and
seemed interested, which I've noticed that few people do except in their
own affairs. But the next minute I was sorry I'd spoken, for he proposed
again immediately. I might have known he would! "You see, your whole
family's bound to marry Americans, so I might as well be the one for
you," he said. "If you don't take me, Mrs. Main will produce a nephew of
hers. I know him--poisonous blighter--and he'll be shoved down your
throat, sure as fate. He's _some_ homelier than me, if possible."
I laughed. "Dear Tony! You're much too good to be a refuge for the
destitute."
"Depends on the destitute," said he. "I'd love to be a sort of asylum or
young ladies' home for you. Do take me this time, and have done with it
once and for all."
"It wouldn't be done with," I reminded him. "That's the worst of it."
"It might be the best of it, if I played my cards right. You know,
Peggy, not very long ago as the bird of time flies, you said you liked
me better than any other fellow. Has my stock gone down, or stands it
where it did?"
"Where it did, or even a point or two higher," I assured him. "But, dear
Tony, I'm afraid even _that_ isn't high enough for--for marriage, and
fearfully serious things like that, though lovely for a dance or the
theatre. Besides, I didn't say _exactly_ what you think I said."
"About liking me better than other men? Oh, I know you made one
exception. 'Tisn't jolly likely I'd forget! But you said the One
Exception didn't count. I haven't forgotten that either. He looked on
you as his sister or his maiden aunt."
"Oh, _not_ his maiden aunt!" I moaned. "I could bear anything but that.
And--and I'm afraid, after all, he _does_ count--just in my mind, you
know, not in any other way. But he's there and I can't--can't put him
out. I'm afraid I don't want to."
"Gee! That's a bad prospect for me," said Tony with a big sigh, luckily
not audible over the orchestra which was loudly playing between acts
"You made me love you, I didn't want to do it!" with variations. "But
see here, Peggy, it's just the same with me about you. I can't put _you_
out of my mind, and I don't mean to. There you are! What are we going to
do about this? Your best man won't come and play in your backyard, and
my best girl won't put her nose in mine. You'll always be my best girl,
because you're the best girl there is. So here's an idea: suppose I
don't ask to be best with you, and don't whine to be on the ground floor
or anything conceited? Couldn't you spare me a third-story back bedroom
in your heart's house? Just sort of lend it to me, you know. I'd promise
to turn out if you couldn't get along with me as a boarder when you've
given me a fair trial. Of course, though, dear, I don't want to nag at
you if there's a grain of chance that the best man--the real tenant of
the house--will ever come to his right senses!"
"His right senses!" I almost laughed. "Why, Tony, for him to like me--in
_that_ way--would be to lose them. You don't know who he is."
Tony was silent.
"Or--_do_ you? Have you been guessing?"
"Mayn't have guessed right," grumbled Billiken evasively. And then I
knew that he knew the poor little secret I had thought to keep.
"I think you have guessed right," I said. "Don't look as if you were
afraid you'd hurt me. You haven't. I don't much mind your knowing. And
that's the greatest compliment I could pay you. It's Eagle March, of
course."
With that the orchestra stopped dead as if on purpose to eavesdrop, and
I had made a present of the name to the whole audience. But luckily that
was all I had given. Any girl may yell any man's name, just as any cat
may look at any king. All the same my cheeks were hot throughout the
next act, during which I pretended to be passionately absorbed in the
play. The minute it was over and forced silence at an end, Tony boldly
said, "I knew it must be March, all the time. Not that you showed it!"
he hurried to add. "You're too good plucked an infant for that! And I'm
sure he never twigged. Not he! He's not that kind. It was only because
you saw a lot of him, that I thought so; and a girl who wouldn't fall
head over ears in love with March, if he was always underfoot, wouldn't
have wit enough to know which side her bread was buttered. See?"
I laughed again more than before, for Tony when he meant to be intensely
serious was generally funny. "Poor me!" I said. "There was no butter on
my bread, nor any jam. I'm a fool to go on eating it bare and stale!
Imagine a man who loved Di anticlimaxing over to me!"
"I can't imagine any man not beginning and ending with you," said Tony
stoutly, and I shouldn't have been a human girl if his loyal admiration
hadn't pleased me. "But I suppose you're a better judge of March than I
am," he went on, "and so, if his name's not down on the programme, won't
you write mine there--to be figurative again? Scribble it in pencil if
you like, not in ink. Then you can easily rub it out if you get tired of
seeing it always under your eyes."
"What do you mean?" I asked, really puzzled by his allegories.
"Why, be engaged to me on the instalment plan. Stop payment whenever you
want to. Agreement to be drawn up that way. All these weeks you've been
trying, according to promise, haven't you, to like me enough to be
engaged? Now, instead, try _being_ engaged, and see whether you can like
me enough to strike a fast bargain by and by. You might come along to
Belgium with mater and Milly and me--they're dying to have you. Milly
wants to bore you talking about her Russian--and we'll see such a lot of
each other, travelling, that you'll know your own mind by the time my
leave's up. Think, if I could take you back to God's own country with me
as my--no, I won't say the word. I see it shocks you."
"It does," I said. "And even if I did what you ask, which would be nice
for me, but not fair to you, nothing would induce me to--to----"
"Marry?"
"Yes, so soon. I'm too--young. Unless I loved you perfectly. Then I'd
marry you if I were _eight_ instead of eighteen."
"I wouldn't marry you! Must draw the line somewhere. But if you really
think it would be nice, why not do it? I think it's fair, and I'm the
judge. Say yes, quick, before that darned orchestra stops again. You
shan't be married till you like, even if I have to wait as long as Jacob
did for Rachel. Not that I know how long that was. Say yes----"
"Yes, then!" I shouted over an appalling blast of instruments. And Tony
squeezed my hand.
That is how I happened to start for Belgium with Mrs. Dalziel and Milly,
the day after Father's quiet wedding with Kitty Main, and the day before
Austria delivered her ultimatum to Servia.