Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 10

"Perhaps," Mrs. Dalziel and Milly both agreed, looking a little relieved by my silly supposition.

"Shall we hurry up and dress ourselves and go downstairs?" I suggested.

"See what a lot of people are in the streets. The whole town's surprised out of its wits, and wild to know what's happened. Why shouldn't we know, too?"

"Oh, yes, let's go down," cried Milly. "By this time Therese is certain to be in mother's room, in hysterics and nothing else! We'll make her stop and drape herself in a blanket and dress us."

"Thank goodness I can dress myself, and in five minutes," I said. They went hesitatingly out, forgetting to close my door, and before I could do so myself I heard Therese's voice across the hall.

I didn't stop to put up my hair, but let it hang down my back; I didn't even tie my shoes, or fasten more than three hooks of my easiest blouse: one at the top, one in the middle, and one at the waist. Consequently, I was ready before the Dalziels, but waited for them outside the door of their suite, almost dazedly watching people--men and women, half clothed--dashing out of their rooms toward the stairs and elevators.

Some of these were jabbering to each other, but n.o.body seemed to know what had happened. They were merely wondering, as we were; and in the big hall, where some of the lights had been switched on, we could glean no further details. Several of the hotel employes had arrived on the scene, more or less dressed, and they did what they could to calm their guests. Presently one of the managers appeared, and he strongly advised every one to remain in the hotel. If any trouble were afoot, it would be safer indoors than out, and news might be expected soon. He had already sent a trustworthy messenger, he explained, to inquire of the police and the answer would be more reliable than mere wild gossip picked up in the street, among the crowd.

Some of the older men, and all the women, took the manager's advice, though a good many young men disregarded it, and went off foraging for news. Those of us who remained in the house, however, didn't think of meekly returning to our rooms. We herded together in the hall of the hotel, in a fever of expectation, strangers hobn.o.bbing like old acquaintances and exchanging opinions on the mysterious alarm. The time of waiting seemed long; but we three had not been below more than twenty minutes, perhaps, when people who had been out began to stream back with tidings of a sort for their families. No two men had quite the same story to tell. One had heard that a band of _Apaches_ from a low quarter of the town had organized a scare to stir up the military. Another had been told on good authority that the Mexicans had fired guns from across the river and injured one of the tall buildings in El Paso, n.o.body knew which. A third a.s.sured everybody that our guns had been fired, but charged only with blank, to frighten the Mexicans, at the moment when they hoped to give us a surprise. By and by, the messenger dispatched by the manager came back; but he had little new light to throw on the situation, except to a.s.sure every one on the authority of the police that there had been no raid, and there was no danger of any kind for the town. Accordingly, the best thing for its inhabitants to do would be to go to bed again.

Very few, however, seemed inclined to take this advice. Mrs. Dalziel might have done so had Milly and I consented; but I had an idea that Tony would come to the hotel, if possible, sooner or later, expecting us to be anxious. I was right, for in an hour, or not much more, while we all sat munching sandwiches, hastily provided, the familiar plump figure in khaki stalked into the hall. Milly and I both sprang up, and Tony directed himself toward us; but before he came near enough to speak, I knew that something really terrible had happened. Whether he meant to tell us the truth or not was another question. The jolly, round-faced boy seemed to have lost the characteristics I a.s.sociated most closely with him; and when a a youth with comical features of the Billiken type is suddenly fitted with a tragic mask, the effect is somehow more alarming than any look of distress on a serious face.

He tried to grin, as his mother greeted him like one returning from the dead. "Why, mater," he said, "any one'd think to see and hear you that I'd been blown to smithereens, and this was my ghost. You'll laugh, I guess, when I tell you what really happened. I got leave to make a dash and put you out of your misery." When he had gone so far, he stopped, and swallowed. He looked sick, and all the more so because of the Billiken grin which he was afraid to let drop. His eyes wandered from his mother to me, and I saw pain in them. I felt for the first time that little Tony was a grown-up man.

"Well--well?" Milly urged him sharply. "Why don't you tell us?"

"I'm a bit out of breath," her brother excused himself. "I hiked over here pretty fast--borrowed a bicycle. Give me a second to get my wind back, sis."

But this was more than Milly could do. "Weren't you with the guns to-night?" she asked. "You said you were going to be."

"Did I say that? Well, I was. But--but the row you all heard had nothing to do with the _guns_, you know. At least, nothing directly. It was--the ammunition; an accident, you see. One of our chaps dropped a lighted match, and it set fire to part of our train of ammunition. Three sh.e.l.ls burst, but--but n.o.body was hurt--except----"

"Except who?" Milly had to break in before Tony could go on. I said nothing at all. I only looked at him. But after that first glance he kept his eyes away from me, I believed purposely.

"Except an orderly of--one of the officers, and--oh, very slightly indeed--March. He's hardly hurt at all, but--you mustn't be surprised if you don't see him around for the next few days."

The blood rushed up to Milly's pale face, but she pressed her lips together almost viciously, and forced herself not to speak. Her green-gray eyes flashed out one distress signal, then seemed to shut it off deliberately and coldly.

"Captain March!" exclaimed kind Mrs. Dalziel, with real distress. "Oh, I'm so sorry that he should be hurt!"

"So are we all," Tony responded; and voice and face would have told me, if I hadn't guessed before, that he was either keeping back something of grave importance, or else carefully lying.

"Will he really be all right again in a few days?" the dear little lady went on.

"Er--perhaps not all right, but--nothing to worry about," said Tony, with lumbering cheerfulness. "He's in no danger of death, anyhow, that's one good thing."

"What about Major Vand.y.k.e?" I heard myself say; and even as the question came, I wondered why I should have thought of it in that connection. But somehow it would out, and only my subconscious self, far down in mysterious depths, knew the reason.

"Oh, Major Vand.y.k.e! Why, as it happens, he went over to the other side of the river in his motor car--on business."

A flame of suspicion in me was lit by that match.

"To _Mexico_!" I exclaimed. "But I was told only this very day, by Captain March, that no officer or soldier was allowed to cross the river on any pretext whatever."

"That was--is--so, in an ordinary way," Tony admitted, swallowing heavily again. "But you see that fearful row on the hill where the guns are might--must have set a hornet's nest buzzing over there. The chaps were likely to think we were potting at _them_--out of a clear sky, and--er--they might have begun potting back at us in a minute or two, in their excitement. So, to save the situation, Vand.y.k.e scooted across with only his orderly--who's his chauffeur, too--in his own car with some sort of white flag rigged up in a jiffy. I expect he'll get a lot of credit for that dash when the story--I mean the facts, are out."

"It _was_ a brave thing to do!" cried Mrs. Dalziel, always delighted to praise any one. "He must have risked his life."

"Yes," said Tony, "no doubt of that. The Mexican bridge sentries might have fired on him in spite of the white flag. They--they did fire, I believe. But Vand.y.k.e's all right, anyhow."

"You speak as if some one wasn't." I heard myself talking, though I seemed not to have spoken the words deliberately.

"Only the orderly, poor chap. He was driving the car. I guess the sentries saw him before they saw the white flag."

"They shot him?"

"Yes, unfortunately they did." Tony's voice broke a little, and that struck me as odd; for he could not have had any personal interest, it seemed, in Major Vand.y.k.e's chauffeur-orderly.

"I hope they didn't kill the poor fellow?" purred Mrs. Dalziel.

"I don't think he's dead yet, mater, but I'm afraid he's past speaking.

They got him in the lungs."

"Major Vand.y.k.e's come back, then," I said.

"Oh, yes, he was back in less than an hour, after a parley over there, explaining everything and making the Const.i.tutionalists understand we weren't meaning them any harm. I didn't get leave to see you till just after he had brought his car and his wounded orderly over to this side again. And now, if your minds are calmed down, I'll be off. I've told you no secrets. Everything I've said the papers will repeat to-morrow.

But all the same, please don't talk to any one about this business.

Promise, mater, and Milly. And I guess I don't need to ask you, Lady Peggy. Now, good-bye. I'll see you as early as I can in the morning."

He kissed his mother, patted Milly on the arm, and gave my hand such a shake that I should have writhed if I had worn any rings. For once, instead of lingering, he had the air of being glad to escape from us, but on an impulse I followed him to the door and called him back just as he had reached the threshold.

"Tony!" I began. He turned with a start, and stopped. I had often been invited, but had never before consented, to call him Tony.

"I want to ask you something before you go," I said.

He gave me a queer, apprehensive look. "Please don't!"

"Then I'll tell you something, instead. There isn't one word of truth in your story about what happened. You've been making it all up."

"That's where you're mistaken," he contradicted me. "I haven't made it up."

"If not, somebody made it up for you, and you've been ordered to put the story round. This is what people are to believe, the version that the papers will be given. But it's no use giving it to me. I don't believe it. So there!"

"It's all I've got to say, and even you won't get a different word out of me," he said despairingly. "You always did have a wonderful imagination, Lady Peggy, but whatever you may think, for G.o.d's sake don't blab to any one else, unless to me; and I'd rather you wouldn't even to me. I tell you, I'm pretty near all in."

I let him go, but I made up my mind that I would not be put off with the story which papers and public were to get. I would know the truth, and exactly what had happened to Eagle March.

CHAPTER X

It was just as Tony had said it would be: the newspapers next day repeated his story. Very few clear details were given. The articles with their spread-eagle headlines concerned themselves more--for a wonder--with effect than cause. They told at length and dramatically how El Paso had been aroused in the dead of night by bomblike explosions which, many had taken for granted, came from the guns on the hill, repelling or revenging a raid from the other side. They told how the public had behaved, and described the relief felt when it had been definitely learned on good authority that the alarm was due to an accident with some ammunition. But about the accident itself there was what struck me as a singular reticence, considering the wild conjectures newspapers did not hesitate to print on other subjects. Their _piece de resistance_ was the magnificent courage and presence of mind displayed by Major Sidney Vand.y.k.e of the --th Artillery, whose battery had been concerned in the incident.

I sent for all the El Paso papers, which were brought to me before I was up, very early in the morning; and I sat in bed studying, in one after the other of them, the version of last night's strange affair. Somehow, the general praise of Sidney Vand.y.k.e's exploit annoyed me intensely, as one is annoyed when an undeserving person is ignorantly lauded to the skies. I know that on the face of things I had no right to say that he was "undeserving," in this case; but that instinctive rebellion in me against Tony's story last night cried out against it now. "There's something queer under it all," I kept telling myself. "I must find out what it is, and I _must_ know about Eagle."