Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley Part 7

I folded up the note and tucked it into the neck of my dress. Then I danced. And all the rest of the evening I danced. Yet I thought only of one thing: the half-veiled confidence Eagle had given me. Apparently Di had said something calculated to send him away happy. But Major Vand.y.k.e had looked far from sad when he walked into the ballroom with Di, after their _tete-a-tete_ on the veranda in my deserted nook. I felt something was wrong, and determined to have it out with Diana the minute I could get her alone. My chance came sooner than I expected, for just before supper she tore her frock and wanted me to run up with her to the dressing-room and mend it. "A maid will make an awful mess of the thing," she said, "but you'll know what to do, and it'll take only a few minutes."

We had the dressing-room to ourselves, for Mrs. Kilburn's French maid, who was in charge, had slipped away, probably for a sly peep at the dancing. When I had Di at my mercy, holding her by a trail of gold fringe, I opened fire.

"Are you engaged to Eagle March?" I flashed out.

"Certainly not," Di flashed back. "What makes you think such a thing?

You said you didn't hear----" In haste she cut her sentence short, realizing how she had given herself away. She would have gone on quickly, but I broke in.

"You ask what makes me think such a thing when I told you that I didn't hear a word of your talk. Which shows that if I _had_ heard, I _might_ have thought of it. Well, I did not hear, but, all the same, I think."

"You needn't, then," she a.s.sured me. "If I'm engaged to any one, it is to Sidney Vand.y.k.e. But I tell you as much as that, only to prove there's nothing between me and Captain March. It's in strict confidence, and you must be sure and keep the secret, Peg, till I'm ready to have it come out. Nothing's to be said until this Mexican bother is over. Can you make the fringe look right?"

"Yes, if you give me time," I answered. "But, Di, I won't have you playing tricks with Eagle March. I simply won't stand it!"

"It's horrid of you to suggest that I would do such a thing," Diana protested virtuously.

"Pooh!" said I, secure in my knowledge that she dared not move. "I know you pretty well, Di, and although you can be quite a darling when you like, you'd do anything--_anything whatever_, that was for your own interests, no matter how much it hurt others. You'd better tell me the truth, because I'm sure to find out; and if you mean to hurt or deceive Eagle March I'll stop you from doing it, I don't care how much it may cost me or you, or any one else but him."

"If ever there was a thorough little _pig_, it's you, Peggy," said Di.

"Thorough pigs seem to run in our family," I ruthlessly retorted. "But they're intelligent animals, and this one has rooted up something already. I believe you've practically promised to marry _both_ these men, and persuaded them to keep the secret, so you can have time to decide which one will be the better to take, in the end."

"You make me out a perfect wretch," Di moaned piteously, peering over her shoulder to see how the repairs were getting on.

"So you are! A beautiful one, but a wretch. You like them both, Eagle and Major Vand.y.k.e. You like Eagle because he's so popular and such a hero as an airman; and you like Major Vand.y.k.e because he's awfully good looking and awfully rich and an awful flirt. You were worried to death for fear he wouldn't propose, and I'd have known to-night, from the change in your face, even if you hadn't told me, that he had spoken at last. But Eagle spoke, too, and you sent him away happy. I know that; though the only other thing I do know for certain, is that you think now he's sure to get his aunt's money."

"It's not such a tremendous lot, anyhow," Di gave herself away again.

"He won't have more than two or three hundred thousand dollars at the most. If only it were _pounds_! Every one says Sidney Vand.y.k.e has a million. He's one of the few very rich men in the American army."

"But he can't fly, and he can't invent things, and he'll never be the man in any career that Eagle will," I reminded her. "You know this as well as I do. That's why you're waiting. Don't you think you'd better explain your true state of mind to me, if you don't want me to work against you?"

"You're a cat as well as a pig, you little horror!"

"What a museum combination! Don't twitch, or the fringe will go crooked.

Is Eagle's rich aunt likely to die?"

"Well, yes, she is," Diana admitted. "She's very old, you know. She's had a third stroke of paralysis. If Eagle could have got leave he would have gone to her, but that was out of the question as things are."

"Did he tell you about her, or was it some one else who gave you the news?"

"It was some one else, of course. Naturally I wanted to make sure, so I--sympathized with him on his aunt's illness. He had only just heard about it, himself. He's always been fond of her, and he said he couldn't have had the heart to come to a dance, if it hadn't been his last night, and the only way to see me before he left for Texas. But he told me that Mrs. Cabot's death would make him comparatively a rich man. Those were the words he used. I don't think he's sure how much he'll get. It was from Kitty I heard what Mrs. Cabot is likely to leave."

"And as 'likely' isn't the same as 'certain,' you're hanging fire till she's dead," I explained Diana to herself.

"You make me out heaps worse than I am," she reproached me. "If I haven't given an absolutely definite answer to Eagle March or Sidney Vand.y.k.e, it's--it's--because of this expedition they're both going on.

They may get some chance to distinguish themselves. You're such a practical little person that you can't realize the romantic sort of feeling I have about such things. If I marry a man who isn't of my own country, I should like him to be a great hero, whom every one would read about and admire. I've told each of them to work, and do his best for my sake."

"There'll probably be no opportunity for anything heroic in such an expedition as this," said I, living up to the reputation--ill-deserved--for practicality, which Di wished to thrust on me in contrast with herself.

"That's what they both said," she agreed, "but one never knows."

"And so you get a story-book-heroine excuse to wait!"

"Little viper!"

"The cat-pig-viper won't sting unless you force it to," I guaranteed.

"There! Your dress is all right again."

"You could have finished five minutes ago, if you hadn't been determined to lecture me. Thanks, all the same. You have your uses, though they're not always sweet, like those of adversity."

We went our separate ways with the men who were waiting to take us in to supper; and we didn't come together again till the dance was over, and every one but the party specially asked to stay had gone home. We heard the bugles sounding reveille; then presently the beat of drums and the rumble of the field guns going to the station. When Captain Kilburn announced that the entrainment was well under way, we started in his big limousine, shivering a little in evening cloaks flung on hastily over low-necked dresses. We waited till the platform was clear of the great ma.s.s of khaki-clad young men, and then timidly appeared, to stare through the dusk of early morning in search of friends. Ours wasn't the only party engaged in that business. Others were there; and swathed figures of girls and women, in rich-coloured cloaks over pale-tinted ball gowns, glimmered in the dawn like a row of tall flowers crowding along the edge of a garden path. My eyes were trying to find Eagle March when Tony Dalziel spoke by my shoulder, and made me jump. "I've just a minute," he said when I turned. "I want to ask you if you'll forget you turned me down last night, and be friends again. I will if you will.

_Will_ you?"

"Yes," I returned gladly, shaking hands. "I'm so glad you've realized that you were silly to feel about me like that. Why you or any man _should_, I can't think!"

"Can't you? That's because you haven't seen yourself, or heard yourself, and don't know what a quaint, darling sort of girl you are. But never mind. Let it go at that. We'll be friends. And promise, if my mother and Milly ask you to do something for them, you will."

"Anything I possibly can," I warmly answered. "Good-bye! Good luck!"

He was off. I meant to follow him with my eyes and wave to him when he looked out of his window in the train. But before he appeared again, I caught sight of Eagle March on a car platform, and forgot Tony, just as Eagle had forgotten me. Behind Eagle's slight figure towered ma.s.sively Major Vand.y.k.e's splendid bulk; and as I waved my handkerchief to Eagle, while the train slid slowly out, I was vaguely aware of Diana's outstretched arm and a b.u.t.terfly flutter of something white and small.

Eagle's eyes went past me to her, though his smile was for me also; and Di was able deftly to kill her two birds with one stone, at the last.

Her farewell look and gesture did equally well for both, yet each could take it wholly to himself.

CHAPTER VII

The next night I had a dreadful dream about Eagle March. Somehow or other, he had been condemned to death by Major Vand.y.k.e (who had unbecomingly turned into a judge) and Eagle was to be executed unless I could arrive in time to save him, armed with a reprieve or pardon--I didn't quite know which--that I had got from Washington. I waked up crying out, because a hand had been stretched forth through darkness to clutch my shoulder, and prevent me from getting to El Paso until too late. Even then, when I was wide awake, the dream had been so horribly vivid that I couldn't persuade myself it wasn't true. I had always laughed at superst.i.tious people who believed in dreams, yet I couldn't clear my mind of this one, or keep from asking myself in a panic, "What if it's a warning?" It seemed that after all such things might mysteriously be.

Alvarado Springs was as dull as a convent after the officers we liked best had gone from the fort, and Kitty proposed subletting her cottage to an invalid who, for a wonder, had really come to the place for nothing but to take the cure. This rare creature was distressed by the noises of the hotel, and was willing to pay more than Kitty had paid, for the remaining few weeks of Mrs. Main's tenancy. Our hostess was enchanted with the idea, clapped her fat, dimpled hands like a little girl, and proposed to "blow" the money (this was slang she had delightedly picked up from Father) on a motor tour to California. She had no car of her own, but she could hire one, with a chauffeur we had often taken for short runs, and at Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and other places, she had friends who would shower invitations. The trip would take from two to six weeks, according to our own desire. Then, when we were tired of motoring and country-house visiting, the car would be sent home, and we could have the fun of going East together by the "Limited," which, Kitty said, was one of the most wonderful trains in the world.

This was the proposal, and it suited Father and Di very well. Each had a reason for wishing to prolong the tour in America, if it could be done "on the cheap." Di, of course, wanted to see Major Vand.y.k.e or Captain March--whichever she decided to take in the end--and settle her affairs definitely before going home to prepare for the wedding. As to Father, I began to ask myself about this time if he seriously thought of making our "Main Chance" a countess, and counting her dollars into his own pockets. In any case; travelling luxuriously in a land where poor Irish earls weighed as well in the balance as a rich English variety, was better than vegetating at Ballyconal or economizing in London; so he smiled upon the plan, and I was the one obstacle. The only comfortable car that Mrs. Main could get at short notice, was ideal for five, counting a chauffeur and a maid, but close quarters for six. I couldn't be put permanently with the chauffeur; and, besides, Kitty's looks were of the sort that depend upon a maid. "Dear little Peggy must just squeeze in somehow," was her verdict, although Di would temporarily have done without my services rather than be cramped, if I could have been disposed of elsewhere. She and Father put their heads together, and I had begun to feel in my bones that an invitation for me from Mrs.

Kilburn was to be hinted at, when Mrs. Dalziel came to the rescue.

Her husband had gone back to New York long ago, and she and Milly had been wondering ever since Tony's orders came, whether it might be feasible to follow him to El Paso, and "see what was doing there." He had now wired that all the women of the neighbourhood had refused to leave the men; that the "scare" was dying down; that it looked as if the imported troops would have nothing more exciting to do than guard the concentration camp; and there was a gorgeous hotel in the town, full of rich Spanish refugees, men who were celebrities, and women who were beauties. Mrs. Dalziel had accordingly decided to venture; and Milly would enjoy the trip immensely, if Father would let me go with them as their guest. The eyes of my family lighted at this hope of liberation, and I suddenly understood what Tony's last words to me had meant. This was _his_ plan; but I wanted so violently to go to El Paso and was so violently wanted to go by Father and Di, that I didn't stop to debate whether or no it was right to say yes. I simply said it, and--hang the consequences!

Di bade me an affectionate farewell, with a plaintive reminder that a girl not likely to be proposed to every day might do worse than Tony Dalziel. I, in turn, reminded her that any knavish juggling with Captain March's faith would be dealt with severely by me; and so we parted, she to go her way to California _en automobile_, I to go mine to Texas by Santa Fe trains.

I was grateful to Mrs. Dalziel and Milly for taking me, though I couldn't help seeing that it was not for my _beaux yeux_ they had asked me to be their guest. I was a handle, or cat's-paw; but I preferred the part of usefulness to my hostesses to being carted about by them as an expensive luxury. Mrs. Dalziel really wanted me for Tony, who had never been denied anything short of the moon that he cried for. Milly wanted people to think that she wanted me for Tony, in order to have an invincible, ironproof excuse for the rush to El Paso, which her friends of the cat tribe might attribute to a different motive. She had been rather depressed at Alvarado, but began to bubble over with wild spirits the moment we were off for El Paso. She said that this would be the great adventure of our lives, and she was only sorry all danger along the border was over, as we shouldn't get the chance to show how brave we were.

It was an interesting journey, every stage of it; and at Las Cruces and after, we began to realize how close we were to old Mexico. Only the river ran between us and that mysterious, ancient land, as far removed in thought from the United States as though it were an annex of Egypt.

Here and there, too, the Rio Grande (which I'd thought of geographically as a vast stream, wide as a lake) was a mere water serpent, writhing in its shallow bed of mud. This, we heard our fellow pa.s.sengers say, explained the late danger of a raid. It would be as "easy as falling off a log" for a party of ill-advised Mexicans to make a dash across the river, and already there had been small private expeditions of cattle stealers. Staring out of the windows at little adobe villages, their huddled houses turned from brown to cubes of gold by the afternoon sun, we listened to all sorts of disquieting gossip. According to the travellers, who talked loudly to each other across the car, the "scare"

was suddenly on again. Some more Federals had escaped the Const.i.tutionalist soldiers, and got into Del Rio, where they had been protected by American soldiers, and there had been some shooting from one side of the river to the other. Carranza was threatening reprisals; no one seemed to know what Villa's att.i.tude would be. A few American women who had little children had decided after all to go north. At Las Cruces and El Paso you could no longer buy a Browning, or arms of any kind. All had been snapped up. Las Cruces men, remembering that the militia was composed of Mexicans, had begun giving their wives lessons in target practice. At El Paso there was the peril of the Mexican population to be faced in case of attack from across the river; to say nothing of the thousand Mexicans employed in the smelting works down on the flats, and the five thousand refugees in the concentration camp, if they should mutiny and get out of control.

Poor Mrs. Dalziel drooped more and more piteously as this ball of gossip was tossed from one side of the car to the other, and Milly's ever white face grew so pale that her freckles stood out conspicuously. She ceased to exclaim with excitement over the cowboys galloping along the road on the United States side of the river, or to count the automobiles and the great alfalfa barns near small stations where black-veiled Mexican women waved sad farewells to weedy, olive-faced youths, perhaps going to the "war."