Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 23

I could not bear to go away to safety in England while Eagle stayed behind, daily risking his life. But he would not listen to my faltering hints that I should take up Red Cross work again in Brussels. "If you want to give me peace of mind, go," he said. So I argued no more, and smiled my best smile as we clasped hands for the last time. That was in the thronged railway station, where Eagle came to see me off and help our pilot parson steer his charges through the crowd. I was glad then that we had said our real good-bye alone.

It took us two days to get out of Belgium at that busy time of mobilization. We changed trains so often that we lost count, and frequently waited for hours at wayside places in pouring rain or broiling sun. We hadn't much to eat, but most of what we had we gave to refugees worse off than ourselves, or to tired, hungry soldiers. It was a hard, almost a terrible journey; but it gave me two friends, and carried me one stage farther on the strange road along which Fate was leading me blindfold.

The two friends were old maiden ladies, the sort of old maiden ladies Father and Di would have avoided like a pestilence if they had met them travelling on the Continent. They were twin sisters, exactly alike in figure and face. Their name was Splatchley; their looks were as repellent as their name; and their natures were angelic. They were tall and thin and sprawling, with corrugated iron foreheads, and grizzled hair which they crimped over it in little bunches. They had wistful, wondering brown eyes, like dogs' eyes (if you can imagine dogs wearing pince-nez!), the sort of noses manufactured by the gross to fit any face, and large stick-out teeth, which made you feel sure that no man would ever have kissed the poor ladies at any price. Their clothes and hats and shoes resembled French caricatures of British tourists, and they had a habit of talking together in a way to rasp the nerves. But to me they were adorable. All their lives they had lived in a country village, fussing happily over church work; but an uncle, who had made jam and lots of money, died, leaving everything to his nieces. Part of that "everything" was a large house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead, in which, by the uncle's will, the Miss Splatchleys were obliged to live for nine months of the year. They had done their duty by it for the first nine months, and had then, with great excitement and some trepidation, started with a maid as old as themselves for their first trip abroad. They had just conscientiously worked, by the aid of Baedeker, from France into Belgium when the war broke out; and the heart-rending sights they saw among refugees inspired them with a brilliant and benevolent scheme. It occurred to them that their big house could be turned into a home for Belgian refugees, and they resolved to offer a thousand pounds toward the expense of bringing penniless people over to England. They could have their largest bedrooms altered into beehives of cubicles for single women, and stick little families of mothers and children into the smaller rooms.

"Parkins will help," they said, as we whiled away dreary hours of waiting in discussing over and over again their plans. And so saying they smiled square-toothed, affectionate smiles at the old woman who had been in their service since they were all three young together.

"But we must have at least a couple of nurses to help the poor, distracted mothers with the children, and, of course, there must be a second cook and another housemaid to make things comfortable," they went on. "We must try and think of some nice young girl, too, among our friends, who would give up her time to work with us. We're too old to make a success alone."

Then they ran over a list of the girls they knew, in town and country, but were able to suggest no one whom they both--Jane and Emma--could agree upon as suitable. While these two angels were busily racking their brains, I sat with a great idea developing in mine. I suppose I must have looked intelligent and eager while this was happening, for Miss Jane was moved to inquire if, by chance, I knew of anybody who would do?

"A girl who is kind, and willing, and bright and strong, and rich enough to give up all her time for nothing," explained the dear old lady. "It's a very difficult combination, I know. And, anyhow, your friends wouldn't care to bother perhaps with such a middle-cla.s.s inst.i.tution as ours will be. There'll be hundreds of charities organized by princesses and d.u.c.h.esses, smart affairs that will do good on a grander scale than we can, and maybe get a little fun out of it, too. But you _did_ look as if you had something on your mind to help us out with; so you must excuse me if I asked."

"I know a girl who would like to help you," I said, "if you'd have her.

She's willing and strong, though not at all kind, and perhaps not so very bright. She isn't rich, either, but poor as the churchiest mouse!

Still, she'll gladly give up all her time if she may stay with you, because she has no home that she can properly call a home."

"We should _want_ her to stay with us, of course!" they protested, both together, as usual. "But, if she isn't kind----"

"Perhaps she could learn to be kind! She would try hard," I said meekly.

"Her name is Peggy O'Malley."

They thought I was joking at first; and when I'd made them understand that I was in dead earnest, they shook their heads and looked dubious, fearing it "wouldn't work."

"You see, my dear," Miss Emma explained, volubly a.s.sisted by Miss Jane, "you are the only earl's daughter, or indeed _any_ member of the aristocracy--higher than a knight's family--we have ever met socially--if you can speak of this as 'socially'--being actually _thrown together_, in all senses of the word, whenever they're in too great a hurry to couple our train nicely, or when we fall out in a heap at some wayside place like this. We don't flatter ourselves that you'd be likely to select us for acquaintances if you were able to _choose_ at this time; and you mightn't be pleased with our ways at home. We have kippers for breakfast sometimes, and always cold supper Sunday nights."

I a.s.sured them pa.s.sionately that if Providence had made them both expressly for my taste, we couldn't be better suited to each other. As for being an "earl's daughter," said I, there was nothing in that except extra charges from dressmakers and hotels, and having things you had never done attributed to you in paragraphs of penny weeklies. Then I drew on all my funds of pathos, describing myself as unwanted and unloved. This did the trick! The twin angels took me to their hearts and promised me a place in their home and scheme. By the time we got on board the boat they had dropped my handle and were calling me "Peggy dear."

In London a crowd had come to the station expressly to welcome and cheer us returning wanderers. And London was not the same London we had left a few weeks ago. It was a city under a spell, a London of some strange dream, all the stranger because the only change was in the people.

Later, it changed again, becoming almost gay and lively in outer appearance, but at this time the balance was not adjusted.

Soldiers and recruits were marching through the streets, which but for them and those who dazedly watched them were almost empty. Instead of the mad herds of motor omnibuses, which had gone charging up and down in "old days," a few moved sedately, with here an ancient horse bus unearthed from oblivion. Of the lively streams of taxis, blue and green and black and gray, the source seemed suddenly more than half to have dried up. Some melancholy four-wheelers and hansoms had made bold to steal out, and were finding customers. Little boys were playing soldiers in the middle of Pall Mall, no longer a maelstrom. There was no din of traffic to drown the frog-like music of their sixpenny drums and penny trumpets. Looking into the doorways of the biggest shops one saw n.o.body but the attendants, waiting to serve customers who were not there and would not come. Outside the little shops the proprietors were frankly standing, to wonder sadly what had happened to them and to London, and what worse thing was likely to happen next? They talked in low voices to each other, trying to smile or read the latest war edition of some newspaper.

Most of the people who were in the streets seemed to have come there to look at the soldiers or to read the papers, which they did regardless of b.u.mping into all the others who were doing the same thing. n.o.body appeared to think of buying anything, though the shopkeepers had already pathetically changed the aspect of their windows to suit altered circ.u.mstances. Instead of displaying lovely dresses, they showed rolls of khaki cloth, or linen, cotton, or flannel for shirts, and gray army blankets. Shoemakers had bundled away their attractive paste-buckled slippers, and put forward conspicuously thick-soled brown boots to which they drew the attention of officers and soldiers. Chemists had hung printed cards, advising the public to "Keep up Their Strength in War Time" by taking So and So's Tonic Wine. But no one cared. No one bought.

There was a dazed look on most of the faces. If those who read newspapers cannoned into each other, instead of glaring or swearing they smiled mildly, wistfully, and perhaps fell into conversation about the war. One felt able to guess what all the millions in London and even in all England and Europe were talking about and thinking about at any given moment; yet it was strange to us who had come from the hot red heart of the war to see no other sign of it except this dreamlike silence which hid the pain of parting from those loved best.

n.o.body came to meet me at the station, because, not knowing when I should succeed in arriving, I had not tried to wire; nor would a message have been likely to reach its destination if I had. The Miss Splatchleys took me home with them, as if I had been an adopted child; and it was from the appropriate address of "The Haven" that I telegraphed Father and Diana: "Reached London safely with friends who have asked me to visit them. Writing explanations."

Miss Jane and Miss Emma prophesied that "his lordship" would put down his foot on our plans, but they did not know him. I did. Having received my promised explanations, he was more genial on paper than he often took the trouble to be for "only Peggy."

He wrote from Di's new house in Park Lane, a letter eminently fitted to be read aloud, and to impress with his graciousness the middle cla.s.ses personified by estimable if vulgar females labelled Splatchley. He had, it seemed, made inquiries about these ladies, and was in receipt of quite satisfactory references. I had his permission to visit them until further notice, and help in their good work, which he thoroughly approved in these early trying days when everybody was organizing something. Also, he was prepared to make me a small weekly allowance for personal expenses and charities. He enclosed a cheque for the first week. It was for two guineas.

Kitty added a postscript with a good many italics. She was _so_ glad that I was safe after that terrible time when she and dear Ballyconal had been _so_ worried about me, and would have been even _more_ anxious if they had had any time to think of themselves. Of course, in the circ.u.mstances, she could _quite_ understand that it would be awkward for me to accept Major Vand.y.k.e's hospitality, so perhaps things were best as they were, especially as I would be working for the good cause. But I _must_ come and see them. Surely I could do that? And it would make talk if I did not. She was sure I would be interested in the sewing guild which Di had started. Everybody was starting a guild of some sort, but this was a very special one, consisting of the most _top-wave swells_.

Not a woman on the list of workers whose name you couldn't find in Burke and Debrett!

Diana also wrote, not at all hurt that I hadn't accepted her invitation.

Indeed, she seemed to have forgotten the episode, quite taking it for granted that I was disposed of with the Miss Splatchleys for some time to come. "Kitty and I will motor out to see you the first day we have a chance," she said, "if we can _find_ Fitzjohn's Avenue. I never heard of it. But then, one doesn't hear of streets in Hampstead, I suppose, except in war, or crises like that, when we're all as democratic as saints. You might ask your friends for a subscription to buy shirt material for us to make up. I can get more workers than I need, but very little money, and we need a lot, especially as some of us have had no experience in sewing and we do waste rather a lot of material getting things wrong at first! Still, we are persevering, and you must come and see us at work cutting out and putting together garments for the wounded every afternoon in my drawing-room, where the decorations are all finished and immensely admired. We have tea, and I've engaged a palmist, who tells us what will happen to our friends at the front and how the war will end. She encourages us and keeps us up. Later we hope to get convalescent officers to tell us their experiences while we sew. Could you do any knitting for us? I remember you learnt from your nurse when you were a small child. I thought it so irritating of you, but it might come in useful now, if you remember the st.i.tch. Some of us can crochet, but it seems that won't do for socks. A good many use worsted of a pretty colour which doesn't clash with their frocks; but as for me, I've thrown aside _all_ vanity. Don't forget to ask the Miss Splatchleys for a cheque, as Bally says they're rich; and I do hope you haven't jilted poor Tony. He has gone, as of course you have heard, and the Dalziels don't know _anything_--I mean about you and T----I see them every day.

Milly spoiled two shirts this afternoon, but her mother bought us some beautiful readymade ones instead, with tucked fronts."

Work was so real and so pressing with us at "The Haven" that I laughed at the picture of Diana's guild with its list of helpers from Debrett, its palmist, and its tea. Miss Jane and Miss Emma, however, said that it was my duty to go and see my family, as I was younger than they were, and it was not to be expected that they could get to me. The desired cheque I hadn't meant to mention, but in reading the funny part of the letter aloud one of Di's references to it fell out inadvertently, and the generous creatures caught it up. They were prepared to spend many hundreds of pounds in turning "The Haven" into a refuge, and in supporting the homeless Belgian women and children to whom they offered hospitality, but they couldn't allow my sister to ask in vain. I was given twenty guineas for the guild and told that I ought to take the cheque myself, for I would discover that "it was the busiest people who could always find time."

We were busy from six-thirty in the morning till ten-thirty at night, with indigestibly short intervals s.n.a.t.c.hed for meals; but, as the two angels said, there was always time to do one more thing. On that principle I contrived to go to Diana's on one of her "afternoons," armed with the Splatchley cheque and my own knitting, strongly resolved not to drink any of Sidney Vand.y.k.e's tea or eat one of his horrid eclairs.

I was ushered into the house by two powdered footmen far too big for it.

It is a small house for Park Lane, all up and down stairs; but the drawing-room is of good size; and when a bishop-like butler published my name at the door, I saw that the room was full of women, young, old, and middle-aged, seated at sewing-machines, or standing at long tables cutting out strange-looking shapes from hideous materials.

There were some quaint sights to be seen at "The Haven," rooms being part.i.tioned off into cubicles; others being turned into dormitories, nurseries, or refectories for the refugees, who had already begun to arrive, before things were half ready to receive them. But Diana's smart new drawing-room in Park Lane presented a far more extraordinary study in contrasts than anything the middle-cla.s.s "Haven" could show.

Improbable Louis-Seize furniture was pushed back against white and gold and silk-panelled walls. Gilt-legged tables and chairs were piled with rolls of bleached and unbleached cotton, feverishly pink flannelette, and scarlet flannel; or littered with cut-out parts of garments, some of which (judging from the confusion and clamour about them) had got badly mixed. On the garland-embroidered curtains of primrose yellow silk were pinned placards announcing patriotic meetings of women who wished to a.s.sist or form recruiting agencies; or appeals from the Red Cross Society or the Prince of Wales' Fund. Rugs had been rolled up, and the polished parquet floor was strewn with shirt b.u.t.tons, reels of cotton, and torn papers of pins. Scissors hid among sc.r.a.ps of waste material, and on request were searched for by very young girls whose apparent business was to supply the sewing-machines with cut-out and basted-up garments, to fold and stack the finished things according to kind, and to knit wildly at intervals on immense stockings with singularly long feet which clearly could suit no one but Santa Claus.

As, according to my stepmother, all the ladies of the guild were "top-wave swells," I'd expected to find the fair brigade of volunteers exquisitely dressed in the latest Paris fashions of "before the war."

But no! They had invented a still later fashion of their own. It was to be frumpish. The smart thing for the women of Great Britain was to have their hair done plainly, with an angelic effect of putting patriotism before vanity, and having no time to spend on self. No money, either, to judge from their frocks! Where they had raked up their old clothes, I can't imagine. There were skirts and blouses in that transformed drawing-room in which, a few weeks ago, their wearers would not have gone out to burn down a church or to be dragged to prison. Still, I must say that most of the wearers contrived to look very distinguished, even those at the sewing-machines, who had got tousled as children do over unaccustomed schoolroom tasks. No one had on any jewellery except Kitty, Mrs. Dalziel, and Milly, and one or two others who were also evidently Americans not required to sacrifice everything for Great Britain's sake.

They, with their pretty dresses, their rings and earrings and strings of large, glistening pearls, were like gay flowers in a kitchen garden.

Kitty, fat and fashionable, and Di, slim and elaborately frumpish, came to meet me with pajama legs in their hands. They didn't trouble to take off their thimbles, and I thought they seemed far from being ashamed of the needle p.r.i.c.ks on their fingers.

A few of the girls I knew already, and some of the older women. All had heard from Di or from the Dalziels that I had been doing a little amateur work as a nurse in Belgium, but no one--not even Di herself--expressed curiosity as to details. They had so much to think of that interested them more; and I was thankful for the self-absorption of Kitty and Di which saved me from awkward questions as to how I had contrived to get out of Liege. It was simply taken for granted by my family that, according to my own written account, I had made the journey home with thoroughly reputable refugees. I felt sure that Tony had not given his mother and sister any indiscreet information about "Monsieur Mars." Neither did he appear to have told them that our engagement was definitely broken off. Their unsuspecting friendliness made me feel guilty, and I decided that I ought sooner or later to let them know the truth.

That day at Di's, however, they gave me no chance to speak, even if I'd had strength of mind to s.n.a.t.c.h it. Tony was safely on his way to America, travelling in the steerage, having given up his cabin to as many ladies as it could hold. He was admiringly mentioned, and then dismissed as a subject of conversation in favour of others more exciting to his family and closer at hand. Milly, while sewing spasmodically on a weirdly shaped shirt which could only be got on or off by a weirdly shaped man, talked about Stefan and produced a letter from him, which she cherished inside her blouse. He had been wounded, seriously though not dangerously, in Poland, and invalided home. It was not thought that he would be able to do any more fighting, and so when he was strong enough, he hoped to try and reach England in order that they might be married at once, if Milly would not mind taking an invalid for a husband. Apparently Milly did not mind in what condition she took her count provided she was sure of getting him. She was looking forward, if all went well, to becoming a Russian countess within a few weeks, for Stefan expected to arrive in a ship from Archangel along a sea route protected by the British navy. She had so little fear of anything going wrong that she was "encouraging dressmakers" by starting her trousseau, and had begun to study the Russian language as a surprise for her fiance. Mrs. Dalziel talked about Stefan, too, and how she would help nurse him back to health in a suite at the Savoy, when he and Milly were married. Meanwhile, mother and daughter were giving themselves up to good works, it seemed, whenever they had a minute to spare from their own affairs. Milly went three times a week to the Russian Emba.s.sy to sew for the Russians, and came twice a week to Diana's guild. Mrs. Dalziel had joined two committees got up by stranded Americans at the Savoy: one to supply money for moneyless millionaires, and the other to find clothes for clotheless millionairesses.

Whenever one of Diana's workers collapsed with fatigue, she was given tea or something to eat, and allowed an interval's repose in Di's boudoir, which had become the temporary consulting-room of Madame Mesmerre. The tame clairvoyant was expressly forbidden to foretell anything depressing; if she could not get visions of husbands, sons, and lovers coming safely home, it was distinctly understood with Diana (who paid by the afternoon) that she mustn't have any visions at all. This arrangement, however, was a family secret, which Kitty betrayed to me in confidence. Every one said that Madame Mesmerre was wonderful, but I didn't consult her.

I don't understand much about sewing or other really useful things of that sort, but I've picked up enough (thanks to helping my poor friends at Ballyconal) to know that men's shirts ought to have armholes bigger than those for little boys, and that they shouldn't be as short as bibs, or as long as surplices. Even this small amount of knowledge made me unexpectedly useful at the guild, where every member seemed to have her own original conception of what shape a shirt ought to be, and what it should be made of. Even my brief apprenticeship with the Miss Splatchleys, to whom most kinds of domestic work was as easy as breathing, made these fashionable women's desperate efforts at doing good seem pathetic. I agreed to return whenever I could, but no one would promise to come and see the "Haven Home for Belgian Refugees."

They were all too busy working, by day; and at night it was a _duty_ to go to a theatre or music hall, because the performance was given for the benefit of some fund, or else somebody sang a patriotic song to encourage recruiting.

We grew busier and busier at "The Haven" as the days went by. Refugees poured in. There was hardly time to be sad or anxious in the daytime; but at night always, always, my brain ceased to feel like a brain, and became a battlefield, as before in Belgium. The horror and anguish of war poured into my soul as water pours into a leaking ship. The most dreadful thoughts could be warded off in the busy hours of the day; but in the night stillness they found me without defence, and I surrendered.

Those were the hours when it seemed to me impossible that any of the men I knew, and above all, Eagle March, could ever escape from the slaughter alive. The Miss Splatchleys said that I looked pale and thin, with blue shadows under my eyes, and begged me not to work so hard. But I could have worked twice as hard without realizing that I was tired, if some one who knew the future, as no crystal-gazer can know it, had told me that Eagle would come out of the war unharmed.

Even when there was scarcely time for a decent meal, there was time to read the war news. All night long I existed for the moment in the morning when the two papers which the Miss Splatchleys took in should arrive, and I could bolt the big headlines and secretly search for the name of "Monsieur Mars." Then, whether I found it or not, the same suspense had to be lived through till the afternoon, when the evening editions came out; and after that again until the hour for the "Last War Extra."

Often the name of Mars started up to my eyes from the closely printed columns and set my heart beating and my blood flying to my head. No one seemed to have identified him as Captain March, not even the British or American war correspondents who occasionally reported his exploits. Or if they did, they respected his wish to keep it secret.

"Mars, the Belgian Air Scout," he was generally called, for few journalists appeared to know that he was a foreigner who had offered his services to the brave little country. Wonderful, almost miraculous, feats were attributed to him. Sometimes they were denied; but usually they proved to be true.

One morning I read that he had made a daring flight of two hundred miles over German territory, had dropped bombs on an ammunition train, had been fired on, and returned to his base "somewhere in Flanders" with the wings of his machine riddled by ninety-eight bullets. Again he and Sorel (who had been at Liege when we were there) went reconnoitring over the great German fortress of Metz, hoping to destroy the Zeppelin sheds.

Quickly they were detected, although nearly three thousand feet above the forts. Up came shots from high-angle guns, spattering around them like spray from a fountain; but they persevered, making for the direction of the drill ground. Then suddenly Mars' motor ceased to work.

It seemed that all was over for him, and the task left for Sorel to finish alone. But Mars, said the papers, resolved not to give his life away for nothing. Sweeping down in a bold volplane he launched his bomb, and had abandoned himself for lost when suddenly the motor started again; whereupon he darted off defiantly, following Simon Sorel, who had thrown his bomb also, and escaped.

If this had been all, I might have borne it somehow in my pride of Eagle. But there was always something more. I read of his monoplane being struck by a fragment of bursting sh.e.l.l over the enemy's lines, and his volplaning with a disabled engine, to drop into safety and a French stone quarry with important information to give concerning the disposition of German forces. When Paris was threatened and almost despairing, Mars flew over the sad city letting fall leaflets with the inspiring message, "Prenez courage, tout va bien." Over Brussels also he maneuvered, dropping his leaflets, and while angry German soldiers took aim at him and his monoplane he "looped the loop" far above their noses.

His cool remark after this exploit was said to have been: "These Germans do shoot badly!" He had more than one duel in the air with hostile war planes, having vowed with the Belgian airmen to ram all enemy aircraft whenever possible. There was a fearsome account to read, one morning, of his bringing down an aeroplane which had dropped bombs on the heads of French troops, helping out the wounded aviator and military observer, and then setting fire to their machine. In this adventure the _Golden Eagle_ was injured, and another monoplane was lent the airman while his own was being put to rights. The "Elusive Mars," newspapers began to name him, because in the face of almost certain destruction he invariably escaped in the nick of time and within an inch of his life.

At last, however, one October day of good news for the Allies, there was bad news for me. They had put it in big headlines on the most important page:

"Mars, the Belgian Airman, Caught at Last. While Reconnoitring His Machine is Disabled, and Falls in Enemy's Lines. He is Believed to be Wounded, and is Certainly a Prisoner."

I had no heart to rejoice in the tidings which made the rest of my world happy that day. And for many days afterward--days each one of which seemed a lifetime of suspense--there was no other news of Eagle March. I felt as if the future were a very long, dim corridor, in whose chill twilight I groped, my eyes straining toward the distance.

So a month dragged itself away, and then came news at last.