Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 17

"He?" I murmured back.

"Lord Ballyconal. But dear Diana is wonderful, of course."

Her wondrousness was largely a tribute to Kitty, who had given the bride everything she had on, everything that was packed away in her trunks at home, or laid out ready to go away in.

It all pa.s.sed off exactly like any other wedding on a grand scale, except that Tony, sitting by my side, drew a long breath when the bishop who was marrying Diana to Sidney Vand.y.k.e finished the conventional pause following "or else forever after hold his peace." I flashed another glance at Tony but he was looking more like an imperturbable Billiken than he had ever looked.

And so Di was married, and people whispered what a beautiful bride, and how good-looking the American bridegroom was, while she and Sidney were in the vestry signing their names in the book. Then, down the aisle they came, Di radiant, Major Vand.y.k.e flushed and brilliant eyed. "He looks as if he had just fought a successful engagement," I heard an American man in the pew behind say to his wife. Well, that was exactly what he had done. But whether according to the rules of war or not was another question. We let the crowd pour out of the church before us, and followed at leisure, I feeling more depressed than I should at a funeral. Automobiles and carriages were dashing up to the pavement to take people away, and dashing off again after an instant's pause, while throngs of the uninvited and curious pressed close on either side of the red carpet. Rain was falling, but the lookers-on appeared to care little. The people seemed more excited than usual at a wedding, we thought, especially after the pa.s.sing of the bride; and Tony and I looked at each other questioningly with raised eyebrows as we caught a word here and there.

"Might 'ave been a tragedy!" "Pretty close call, that was." "If it hadn't been for that feller they'd both have been dead corpses now!"

remarked the uninvited.

"What can have happened?" we asked each other, and I made Tony speak to the policeman who had shut us into our car.

"Bride's carriage, sir; but it was soon all right in the end," was the only answer we got, as the signal was given for our motor to move off and the next to come up.

"The bride's carriage!" Then the new automobile hadn't come, and there had been an accident at the church door.

CHAPTER XV

We dashed home to get news of Diana, and it was a relief to find everything decorous and apparently serene at the house. We were informed by a band of footmen, hired with powder and pomatum inclusive, for the occasion, that the bride had arrived safely. There was no stare of consternation or half-hidden horror on any face. But in the flower-decked drawing-room, with its effective marble pillars (Di and Father had taken the house on the strength of that drawing-room, so well designed for a wedding reception), the bride and bridegroom had not yet stationed themselves to smile and be congratulated, although guests had begun to arrive. Father, however, was there, at his best and rea.s.suring everybody. Diana had been a "little upset by the fright, don't you know, and Vand.y.k.e was looking after her"; but it was nothing--nothing at all.

She would be down presently.

"What is it, Father? What did happen?" I found a chance to whisper; but to my surprise he gave me for answer only a frown which seemed inexplicably to say, "Whatever it is, _you'd_ better not ask! Don't pretend innocence, it doesn't suit you."

"Do find out something from somebody," I said hastily to Tony, and ran upstairs in search of Kitty Main, who, having deserted us to return home with Father, was nevertheless not to be found in the drawing-room. She was sure to know everything, I thought, and delighted to talk. But the first person I met was Sidney Vand.y.k.e in the act of closing Diana's door and coming out into the hall. Seeing me, a set and gloomy expression, most unsuitable to a bridegroom, changed to a look of actual fury. If I had been a small tame dog which had unexpectedly sprung up to bite him, he could not have glared more venomously.

Since he had come to London we had met almost every day, and when necessary I had been as dully polite as a book on etiquette. But only when necessary. At other times I had effaced myself; now, though I was keen for news of Di, I didn't care to get it from him, especially after that look. Never since the episode of the photograph in camp at El Paso had I of my own free will begun a conversation with Major Vand.y.k.e, and it was now my intention to wait until he was out of the way before going to Kitty or Diana. But when I would quietly have slid past the bridegroom in the corridor, he stopped me.

"You've always been the enemy," he said in a tone of repressed rage, subdued to reach my ears only, "but I did think you fought fair. I didn't expect you to hit me in the back--and strike your sister, too, on her wedding day. You're a cruel and cowardly little enemy, after all.

And let me tell you this: neither of us will forgive you as long as we live."

I stared at him in amazement. "I don't know what you mean!"

"I shouldn't lie on top of the rest, if I were you," he sneered. "I forbid you to go to Di. She's borne enough. A little more, and she'd not be able to face those people downstairs."

"I tell you again, and I don't lie, because Eagle March himself taught me to speak the truth," I said, "that I've no idea what you're driving at. I have done nothing, except live. I don't know what's happened. I want to know."

"You shan't have the satisfaction of hearing anything from me!" Sidney flung the words at my head. Then he turned on his heel, and opened Diana's door again without knocking. I think he would have shut it in my face; but Kitty Main was ready to come out, and must have had her hand on the k.n.o.b when it was s.n.a.t.c.hed from her fingers.

"Oh, Major!" she exclaimed. "I was hurrying to call you back. Di thinks she's strong enough to go down now."

The door remained open, and I saw Di sitting on a sofa just opposite, with an empty champagne gla.s.s in her hand. Her white face and white figure in her wedding dress stood out like a wonderfully painted portrait against the fashionable black chintz wall-covering of the bedroom. Seeing her husband, she stood up and came forward, setting the winegla.s.s on the table as she pa.s.sed. "I'm all right now," she said, and then caught sight of me.

"Oh, cruel!" she reproached me. "Was it _he_ who asked you not to tell, or was it your own thought?"

"He?" I echoed. "You all talk in riddles. You accuse me of something, and won't explain what it is."

"You _must_ know!" Di exclaimed. "But I can't talk about it now, or I shall break down again. Thanks for the champagne, Sid. You were right; it did me good. Now we'll go."

She brushed past me in the corridor, her head turned away; and as I stared stupidly after her and Major Vand.y.k.e, suddenly my eyes fell on a small but conspicuous spot of red that marred the l.u.s.tre of Di's silver train. It looked like a drop of blood.

When the two had gone, I pounced upon Mrs. Main. "For pity's sake, explain the mystery!"

"Oh, it was dreadful for a few minutes," she said. "There was nearly the most _awful_ accident. Of course you came out too late to see. But--you _do know who was in the church_?--at least, I suppose he must have been there."

I started as if she had boxed my ears, for without telling, I knew all she meant. I remembered the odd feeling I had had of some one trying to call me, as if in a dream; and how I had looked behind me in vain. Tony, too, had been very strange. He had begun to say something and had stopped in haste. He had promised to explain later, but coming home I had forgotten to ask him. There had been the excitement about the supposed accident to Diana, and my thoughts had clung to that.

Now I realized that there was only _one person_ who might have been at St. George's with my secret connivance, whose presence there Sidney Vand.y.k.e would furiously resent: Eagle March.

Kitty was looking at me curiously, almost appealingly, and I was vexed with myself for blushing. "I do not know," I answered steadily. "I might guess--but almost surely I should guess wrong. Tell me who, in all that crowd, it was worth Sidney's while to make this fuss about."

"Well," said Kitty, who being far from brave is easily abashed, "I'm not sure he _was_ inside the church, but anyhow he was _outside_, because I saw him the instant before he seized the horses' heads. And then----"

"Seized the horses' heads? But who--who?"

"Captain March. Of course it was he who saved Diana and Major Vand.y.k.e.

At least I think he deserves so much credit, and Di would think it, too, if she were left to herself. But Major Vand.y.k.e says the whole thing was arranged; that it was Captain March who planned--to--to----"

"He's sure to say something horrible. But begin at the beginning!"

"I can't now, dear," said Kitty nervously. "Di and Sidney will be so cross if I stay up here talking to you. I really must go down; but you're sure to hear everything."

I didn't insist, for I could not keep her against her will; and besides, it would be better to have the story from some one who could tell things more clearly. Down I flew to find Tony, whom I could trust to have commandeered some news for me by this time. Already the drawing-room was crammed with perfumed people and too fragrant flowers, and a babel of chatter. I should have had to knock fat old ladies and thin old gentlemen about like ninepins to sort out from among bonneted and bald pates the inconspicuous brown head I sought, and my search was checked constantly by well-meaning creatures who pined to tell me how pretty the wedding had been, or how much I had grown since they saw me last. Now and then, however, I picked up a wisp of information.

"What a close shave there was of a tragedy! But all's well that ends well," said Lady O'Harrel, a distant cousin of ours who had ignored the connection until it advertised itself in Norfolk Street and Park Lane.

"Who was the man who seized the horses' heads when they bolted? I didn't see him myself, but I heard some one say he looked like a gentleman."

I answered as if I had the whole affair at my fingers' ends: "It was Captain March of the American army, the flying man who used to be so popular here last summer."

"Dear me!" breathed Lady O'Harrel, who had two sons of her own in the British army. "_Fancy!_ Why, I heard Gerald speaking of him only the other day. He heard that Captain March had been cashiered for something or other so _dreadful_ it couldn't be spoken of. The story's going the rounds of London now. I'm not sure Gerald didn't get it from your brother-in-law the night he asked Major Vand.y.k.e to dine at the Rag. How strange Captain March should have been the one to save them!"

"He was not cashiered," I pa.s.sionately protested. "He did nothing dreadful. It was----" I stopped myself on the verge of saying that it was Sidney Vand.y.k.e himself who deserved to bear the shame he would thrust on another. But there are some things you cannot do! One of these is to inform a guest at your sister's wedding that the bridegroom is a villain. I had to choke back my rage against Sidney at its hottest, like Vesuvius swallowing its own lava, and resolve to fight the battle of Eagle March only on the lines of _n.o.blesse oblige_--the lines on which he would choose to fight, no matter what the provocative.

At last I unearthed Tony, talking to the prettiest bridesmaid. But because she was the prettiest, and other men were glad to snap her up, I disentangled Tony with ease. "I've been dying for you!" I said.

"I don't flatter myself too much on that," he replied. "It's my story you want. Well, I've been busy putting things together, and I guess it's only the two ends of the jig-saw that are missing now. I warn you, Peggy, I don't know how Eagle March got into church, or where from, or what became of him at the end."

"Perhaps I shall hear from him," I said; yet I spoke mechanically and with little hope. I felt that the time Eagle had fixed for our meeting was not yet.

"Perhaps you will," echoed Tony. "He may want to explain, when he knows _you_ know he was there, why he turned up at Lady Di's wedding: that it wasn't just vulgar curiosity, or the wish to give her a start that made him do it."

"He wouldn't need to explain to you, or me, or any one who knew him," I answered. "That goes without saying. Whatever his reason was, it was good. But are you sure he was in the church?"

"Well, you remember when I asked why you kept turning your head, and you told me it was because you felt some one 'looking for you?'"