Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 2

"People? I haven't any. At least, a governess I once had said you couldn't call two, 'people.' They must be spoken of as 'persons.' I have only _persons_ who belong to me--just Father and a grown-up sister--a half-sister. They like each other so much that they haven't room to care about me. If the _Golden Eagle_ tipped me out, and smashed me as flat as a paper doll, they wouldn't shed a tear."

"Poor little child! But maybe you're mistaken. Maybe _you_ are not conceited!"

"Yes, I am! That's why I notice when I'm not loved. Oh, _do_ take me up.

Take me up to-day! I'm all alone in the world. My 'persons' have gone to the Derby, and are staying all night at Epsom with a fat, rich family.

I'm left to the mercy of the landlady in our lodgings. I'll even give up the dress at Selfridge's to go with you. That's more than sacrificing a toe!"

But he had stopped laughing. Instead he had turned quite grave. "I couldn't possibly do it," he said. "I'm awfully sorry to refuse. If you were older, you'd understand that it wouldn't be the right thing for a strange man and a 'foreigner,' to kidnap a little girl and fly off with her into s.p.a.ce. Supposing I had an accident? I'm sure I shouldn't--but just supposing. I should never be able to forgive myself. Don't despair though. If you can manage to introduce me as a respectable sort of chap to your father, and he gives his permission----"

"But how did I get to know you?" I groaned. "I shall have to fib."

"No, you won't," he said quickly. "I refuse to be fibbed about. You must think of some other way."

"I'm afraid," I said dolefully, "you agree with that hateful curiosity man about me!"

"Agree with him? I don't understand."

"That I'm a pert minx or something. That's what he called me--or a pert piece. It's all the same thing. And I am it. I don't mind telling fibs.

I've told lots."

"You poor little thing!" exclaimed Captain March in a pitying tone, but with the kind of pity the proudest person wouldn't resent, because it really came from his heart. "You seem to have had to fight your own battles. Maybe your mother died when you were very young?"

"When I was a week young," I said, and suddenly I felt myself choked up.

"That explains the telling of fibs, you see, and saying you don't mind--though I'm sure you do, when you stop to think of it; because the sort of girl who can be a good pal to a man just can't tell fibs, any more than the man can--if he's worth being a pal to."

Two boiling hot tears ran down my face, one on each cheek. I couldn't answer. I only looked up at him, feeling all eyes.

"What a beast I am!" he exclaimed. "I've made you cry!"

"It's I who am the beast," I managed to gasp out, because I saw he was badly distressed about me, and what he had done. "I'm crying because I'm a little beast. But I'd like not to be."

"You're not. You're a little soldier. Will you forgive me? I didn't mean to preach."

"You didn't preach. I expect you'd talk like that to a real soldier--one of those you're captain of. Well, I'll pretend I'm one of those soldiers, and that you're my captain."

As I spoke, the taxi was drawing up in front of his hotel; but I went straight on with my play, and gave him a military salute. "Thank you, Captain," said I, "for taking an interest. I shan't forget. No more fibs! I'll work for my corporal's stripe!"

"Good child!" he beamed on me, looking young and happy again. "I'll get you the stripe. I have it ready for you upstairs. I'll bring it down when I bring the money for the lace scarf. Would you rather wait in the taxi, or will you come into the ladies' parlour in the hotel?"

I thought "parlour" a lovely word, and very French, though I supposed it might be American, too. It was quite an adventure going into an hotel.

My captain (already I'd begun to think of him as that, since he'd called me a soldier) paid the chauffeur and led me to a big drawing-room where several women sat, so prettily dressed and so trim that they made me feel shabby in my brown holland frock and my blown-about hair. I wondered what he had meant by saying he would bring me a "corporal's stripe," and whether he had meant anything at all, except a pa.s.sing joke. Somehow, I felt that he had had a definite idea, but I didn't dream it would be anything half so fascinating as it turned out.

He was not gone more than five or six minutes, and when he appeared again he drew up a chair in front of me, deliberately turning his back to the other occupants of the room, so that they could not see what was going on. Then he made me hold out my hands (I was ashamed of my untidy gloves) and receive in them ten golden sovereigns, which he counted as they dropped into my open palms.

"I hope you'll never regret bartering away your great-great-grandmother's beautiful lace for this pittance," said he.

"And now for the corporal's stripe, if you're going to enlist in my regiment."

"I am," I cried. "I've enlisted in it already."

"Here, then," and he took from his coat pocket a little crumpled-up ball of something black and gold, evidently thrust in with haste. "This is one of the chevrons I wore on my sleeve when I was made corporal of cadets at West Point, eleven years ago this very month. You'll laugh, I guess, when I tell you why I brought the thing with me over here. I kept it, out of a sort of--of sentiment, or sentimentality maybe, because I was so dashed proud when I got it. I thought it marked an epoch in my life; that it was a token of success. Well, when I was coming over to your side of the water, to try out the _Golden Eagle_ among all the English flyers, I was silly enough to think if she did any good, I'd stick this poor old stripe on her somewhere, for auld lang syne. Now I'd rather give it to you, little soldier."

I think it was at that minute I began to worship him. I worshipped him as a child worships, and as a woman worships, too; except that, perhaps, when a woman lets herself go with a flood of love for a man, she unconsciously expects some return. I'm sure I didn't expect anything.

That would have been too ridiculous!

I felt rather guilty about depriving the _Golden Eagle_ of her master's trophy, but after all, a girl is more appreciative than a monoplane; and besides, it would have hurt Captain March's feelings in that mood of his, if I'd refused. I had a conviction that a corporal's stripe, given as a reward and an incentive, would be to me a talisman. I decided that I'd keep it in a place where I could rush to look at it whenever I needed encouragement to go on being a soldier. If I wanted to sneak myself out of trouble with a fib, or be snappish to Father or cattish to Di, or say "d.a.m.n," or bang a door in a rage, it seemed to me that I should only have to think of that little triangle of black cloth and gilt braid to be suddenly as good as gold, all the way through to my heart.

Maybe I showed some of these thoughts in my eyes when I thanked Captain March (Di says my eyes tell all my secrets), for he was nicer than ever, in the chivalrous, almost tender way some men have with girl-children.

He said he was just as lonely as I was, or worse, because he hadn't a soul who belonged to him in England, and would it be quite proper and all right for an old soldier like him to invite a little girl like me to lunch?

Of course I said yes--_yes_, it would be entirely proper and perfectly splendid, though they might have forgotten to put anything of the sort into books of etiquette. By that time it was half-past twelve, only a few minutes left to dash to Selfridge's and rescue the dress (if it wasn't already lost) before luncheon, so Captain March offered to whisk me up to the shop in a taxi. He promised, if the gown were gone, that he'd help me choose another. But it wasn't gone; which showed that, as I'd felt in my bones, it really had been born for me.

"Why, it's a party dress, isn't it?" my captain innocently wanted to know. "And isn't it a bit too old for you?"

"I can have it made shorter," I said. "And if it is a little too old for me it doesn't matter, because I'm never invited to any parties. I shan't be for years, if ever. I shan't come out like my sister Di, I shall just slowly _leak_ out, with n.o.body noticing. It isn't that I expect to _wear_ this frock. It's the joy of having it which is so important."

"Girls begin to be queer evidently, even when they're children," said he. "But that doesn't make them less interesting. I know of an invitation to a party you _could_ have, though, if you wanted it. The wife of our American amba.s.sador is giving a ball to-morrow night. I know her a little. She'd be awfully pleased to send your people cards for the show, if I asked her. Or perhaps they've had cards already?"

I shook my head. "I'm sure they haven't. Are you going?"

"Yes, I've accepted."

"I know Diana would love it. I'll tell her about you--and about to-day, for she can't be cross with me if it ends in an invitation. And you'd be her _first_ flying man."

Even as I spoke I had a misgiving. It came like a cramp in the heart.

Di's nickname seemed to whisper itself in my ear: "Diana the Huntress--Diana the Huntress!" I didn't want her to shoot her arrow through this man's heart, because--well--_just because_. But they would have to meet if he were not to be lost to me, since he refused to be a partner in fibs. The idea seemed exactly the chance I had been looking for; and if the invitation came through me, provided I were included by the amba.s.sadress, I didn't see how Di and Father could leave me out.

"All right, you shall have the card, I can promise that!" my captain said cheerily.

"But," I haggled, "will the amba.s.sadress ask a--a little girl like me, who isn't out yet?"

"Of course she will. I'll see to that. Why shouldn't a little girl go for once? Here is one partner for her."

To dance in the white dress, with him! The thing must be too good to be true. Yet it really did seem as if it might come true.

He let me select the place for luncheon, and I chose the Zoo. He said I couldn't have chosen better. It wasn't a very grand meal, but it was the happiest I'd ever had. Captain March told me things about America, and aeroplanes, though very little about himself--except that he was stationed at a beautiful place in Arizona, called Fort Alvarado, close to the springs of the same name, where girls came and had "the time of their lives." Afterward we wandered about and made love to the Zoo animals, and at last saw them fed. When the lions and tigers had finished their glorious roaring, which seemed to bring the desert and the jungle near, it was almost five o'clock, so we had tea at the crescent-shaped tea house, in front of the Mappin Terraces. I lingered over my strawberries as long as I decently could, because, though I searched hard for it, there seemed to be no bored look on Captain March's face. When I did reluctantly say, "I suppose I'd better go home?" he actually had the air of being sorry.

"It's been the nicest day I ever lived in," I told him.

"I've enjoyed every minute of it, too," said he. "What a pity we can't polish it off with a dinner and the theatre. Look here, if you'd like it, Miss Peggy, I guess I can get that old lady I told you of, who's sailing to-morrow and will take the lace scarf, to go with us as chaperon. What do you say?"

What could I say? Being a child, it didn't matter showing the wildest delight. There are some advantages in being a child.

He took me home to our lodgings in Chapel Street (which cheaply gave us the address of Mayfair) and then I had to break it to him that I wasn't a Miss.

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, when I began with those words. "Children don't marry in your country at thirteen, do they?"

I explained that, because my father happened to be an earl, his daughters had a courtesy t.i.tle; and when he looked a little shocked, as if he were wondering whether he had been indiscreet, I nodded toward the house, as our taxicab stopped before the insignificant green door. "You see by where we live how unimportant we are!" I excused myself in such a pleading voice that he laughed. Then he flashed away to make arrangements for the evening--_our_ evening!