It was only two days after Di"s wedding, but already that event seemed long ago. No news had come from Eagle, and he was referred to in London newspapers as "the modest stranger" who had disappeared after saving the lives of the bride and bridegroom, "leaving no trace except a little blood shed in their service." The dinner at the Savoy and the boy and girl party at the theatre afterward were given, no doubt, more in honour of "Milly"s count" (who was starting for Petrograd next morning) than for me; but I was made to feel myself a guest of importance; and at the St. James I had Tony next to me. There had been no chance to pour out my news at dinner, but now it came and I seized it instantly. Tony was always nice and sympathetic to tell things to! He actually listened and seemed interested, which I"ve noticed that few people do except in their own affairs. But the next minute I was sorry I"d spoken, for he proposed again immediately. I might have known he would! "You see, your whole family"s bound to marry Americans, so I might as well be the one for you," he said. "If you don"t take me, Mrs. Main will produce a nephew of hers. I know him--poisonous blighter--and he"ll be shoved down your throat, sure as fate. He"s _some_ homelier than me, if possible."
I laughed. "Dear Tony! You"re much too good to be a refuge for the dest.i.tute."
"Depends on the dest.i.tute," said he. "I"d love to be a sort of asylum or young ladies" home for you. Do take me this time, and have done with it once and for all."
"It wouldn"t be done with," I reminded him. "That"s the worst of it."
"It might be the best of it, if I played my cards right. You know, Peggy, not very long ago as the bird of time flies, you said you liked me better than any other fellow. Has my stock gone down, or stands it where it did?"
"Where it did, or even a point or two higher," I a.s.sured him. "But, dear Tony, I"m afraid even _that_ isn"t high enough for--for marriage, and fearfully serious things like that, though lovely for a dance or the theatre. Besides, I didn"t say _exactly_ what you think I said."
"About liking me better than other men? Oh, I know you made one exception. "Tisn"t jolly likely I"d forget! But you said the One Exception didn"t count. I haven"t forgotten that either. He looked on you as his sister or his maiden aunt."
"Oh, _not_ his maiden aunt!" I moaned. "I could bear anything but that.
And--and I"m afraid, after all, he _does_ count--just in my mind, you know, not in any other way. But he"s there and I can"t--can"t put him out. I"m afraid I don"t want to."
"Gee! That"s a bad prospect for me," said Tony with a big sigh, luckily not audible over the orchestra which was loudly playing between acts "You made me love you, I didn"t want to do it!" with variations. "But see here, Peggy, it"s just the same with me about you. I can"t put _you_ out of my mind, and I don"t mean to. There you are! What are we going to do about this? Your best man won"t come and play in your backyard, and my best girl won"t put her nose in mine. You"ll always be my best girl, because you"re the best girl there is. So here"s an idea: suppose I don"t ask to be best with you, and don"t whine to be on the ground floor or anything conceited? Couldn"t you spare me a third-story back bedroom in your heart"s house? Just sort of lend it to me, you know. I"d promise to turn out if you couldn"t get along with me as a boarder when you"ve given me a fair trial. Of course, though, dear, I don"t want to nag at you if there"s a grain of chance that the best man--the real tenant of the house--will ever come to his right senses!"
"His right senses!" I almost laughed. "Why, Tony, for him to like me--in _that_ way--would be to lose them. You don"t know who he is."
Tony was silent.
"Or--_do_ you? Have you been guessing?"
"Mayn"t have guessed right," grumbled Billiken evasively. And then I knew that he knew the poor little secret I had thought to keep.
"I think you have guessed right," I said. "Don"t look as if you were afraid you"d hurt me. You haven"t. I don"t much mind your knowing. And that"s the greatest compliment I could pay you. It"s Eagle March, of course."
With that the orchestra stopped dead as if on purpose to eavesdrop, and I had made a present of the name to the whole audience. But luckily that was all I had given. Any girl may yell any man"s name, just as any cat may look at any king. All the same my cheeks were hot throughout the next act, during which I pretended to be pa.s.sionately absorbed in the play. The minute it was over and forced silence at an end, Tony boldly said, "I knew it must be March, all the time. Not that you showed it!"
he hurried to add. "You"re too good plucked an infant for that! And I"m sure he never twigged. Not he! He"s not that kind. It was only because you saw a lot of him, that I thought so; and a girl who wouldn"t fall head over ears in love with March, if he was always underfoot, wouldn"t have wit enough to know which side her bread was b.u.t.tered. See?"
I laughed again more than before, for Tony when he meant to be intensely serious was generally funny. "Poor me!" I said. "There was no b.u.t.ter on my bread, nor any jam. I"m a fool to go on eating it bare and stale!
Imagine a man who loved Di anticlimaxing over to me!"
"I can"t imagine any man not beginning and ending with you," said Tony stoutly, and I shouldn"t have been a human girl if his loyal admiration hadn"t pleased me. "But I suppose you"re a better judge of March than I am," he went on, "and so, if his name"s not down on the programme, won"t you write mine there--to be figurative again? Scribble it in pencil if you like, not in ink. Then you can easily rub it out if you get tired of seeing it always under your eyes."
"What do you mean?" I asked, really puzzled by his allegories.
"Why, be engaged to me on the instalment plan. Stop payment whenever you want to. Agreement to be drawn up that way. All these weeks you"ve been trying, according to promise, haven"t you, to like me enough to be engaged? Now, instead, try _being_ engaged, and see whether you can like me enough to strike a fast bargain by and by. You might come along to Belgium with mater and Milly and me--they"re dying to have you. Milly wants to bore you talking about her Russian--and we"ll see such a lot of each other, travelling, that you"ll know your own mind by the time my leave"s up. Think, if I could take you back to G.o.d"s own country with me as my--no, I won"t say the word. I see it shocks you."
"It does," I said. "And even if I did what you ask, which would be nice for me, but not fair to you, nothing would induce me to--to----"
"Marry?"
"Yes, so soon. I"m too--young. Unless I loved you perfectly. Then I"d marry you if I were _eight_ instead of eighteen."
"I wouldn"t marry you! Must draw the line somewhere. But if you really think it would be nice, why not do it? I think it"s fair, and I"m the judge. Say yes, quick, before that darned orchestra stops again. You shan"t be married till you like, even if I have to wait as long as Jacob did for Rachel. Not that I know how long that was. Say yes----"
"Yes, then!" I shouted over an appalling blast of instruments. And Tony squeezed my hand.
That is how I happened to start for Belgium with Mrs. Dalziel and Milly, the day after Father"s quiet wedding with Kitty Main, and the day before Austria delivered her ultimatum to Servia.
CHAPTER XVII
Not being politicians or war prophets, but only tourists, we didn"t realize what a flame would sweep over Europe on the winds of fury from this one far-off fiery spark. Tony read us out the news at breakfast in a hotel at Bruges: "Austria"s Ultimatum to Servia"; whereupon we went on drinking our coffee and eating our crisp rolls as if nothing had happened.
"Dear me, what a pity!" sighed Mrs. Dalziel absently. She was thinking of our sight-seeing expedition for which we were already late. Milly remarked that somebody was always throwing an ultimatum at somebody else"s head, and asked for jam. Tony said intelligently that it was just what he had expected, after the murder of the archduke and the d.u.c.h.ess, and looked at his watch. As for me, it did shoot through my mind that Russia might have something to say if Servia were attacked; and I thought that if I were Milly I should have a qualm of anxiety about my captain-count. But I didn"t wish to worry her with such a remote suggestion, and our war conversation ended there. None of us bothered seriously with the papers for the next day or two. Sight-seeing in Belgium seemed to us the last thing on earth which could possibly connect itself with an ultimatum, or even a declaration of war on Servia. We went from Bruges to Ghent, from Ghent to Antwerp, from Antwerp to Brussels, from Brussels to Namur, to Louvain, and Spa, and so at last arrived at Liege. The next item on our programme was a run into Luxemburg, which was to finish our trip; and in a few days more Tony was to leave us to catch his ship for home, as his holiday was over. He had been behaving so well that I minded being engaged less than I"d expected; and it was nice to be petted by Milly and Mrs. Dalziel and loaded with presents. It was the first time in my life that I had experienced anything of the sort, for I had always been the one who didn"t matter, at home. Each place we visited seemed more beautiful than the last, and I was trying hard to say to myself, "This is happiness, or all you can expect to know. Make the most of it, and be a sensible Peggy!"
It was late on the night of Wednesday, July 29th, when we arrived at quaint old Liege; and though we knew that Austria had declared war, and that all the great powers were muttering thunderously, it didn"t seem as if anything devastating would really happen. That was much too bad to be true, and everything seemed so peaceful and comfortable. Hotel keepers smiled and said that the war scare was sure to blow over as it had blown over time after time in the past. We met other people gayly touring like ourselves. They all appeared to be easy in their minds and free from care, so we followed their pleasant example; and the sun shone on us, and Belgium seemed the prettiest and most pacific of all countries, basking under a cloudless sky.
"Telegram for you, dear," Mrs. Dalziel said to Milly as she sorted the post handed to her by the man in the hotel bureau at Liege. Then she dealt out envelopes to Tony and me, and we were rather sleepily busied with them when Milly gave a gasp. "Oh, Mamma, he"s got to _fight_!" she squealed.
"He--who?" questioned Mrs. Dalziel dazedly in the midst of deciphering a closely written and crossed page of thin foreign paper.
"Stefan!" Milly choked on the name. "Oh, it"s awful! His father has consented to his marrying me all right, but _of course_ he"ll go and--and be _killed_ now, and I shall never see him again! I"m the unluckiest girl that ever lived. And just when I thought everything was going to be so splendid."
I heard her wailing as I finished my letter, which was from Di: the first she had written me. It had gone to Brussels and been forwarded from there to Liege. "Sidney and I are rushing back to London as fast as the car will take us," she wrote. "This war news is terrible. Any minute we may hear that England"s mixed up in the business. There"s no more fun motoring about the country in this suspense; and if there"s war, all the house parties we were asked to in Scotland are sure to be given up. We want to be where we can have news every minute, and will hurry up the decorators so we can get into our house, even if things are at sixes and sevens there. From what I hear, everybody will be congregating in London to be in the heart of things. It makes me sick to think of all my _lovely_ clothes! If there"s war, n.o.body will be wearing _anything_. All the nicest men will be away at the front. Isn"t it _sickening_? Luckily, Sidney won"t have to fight, as America"s not involved. But I don"t want to go over there and have people at home calling me a _coward_, to sneak away from under the Zeppelins and things the Germans will be sending over. I want to do what everybody else does, though Heaven alone knows yet what that will be. I expect Bally and Kitty will come back from Harrogate, where poor dear Bally is celebrating his honeymoon by taking a strict cure, and I hear Kitty is doing mud baths to reduce her flesh.
They wire that there isn"t one waiter out of sixty left in their hotel--all were _Germans_; so you see what that means. And Kitty"s maid had hysterics this morning because war"s to be declared on her country, and because the hotel chambermaids are all turned into waitresses, and she had to make Bally"s and Kitty"s beds. One realizes that war will be horrible for _all cla.s.ses_. Your life won"t be safe on the Continent, you know, and you"d better persuade Mrs. D. to bring you back immediately. Though you"ve been so horrid to Sidney, he"ll overlook it in this crisis, for my sake, when even Ulsterites and Nationalists are forgiving each other. Father and Kitty will have to stay with us when they arrive, as the Norfolk Street house is given up; and you must of course come, too. You can be our guest till you and Tony are married, if you don"t want your engagement to last _too_ long."
I hardly knew whether I most wanted to laugh or cry over that letter.
All I did know was that nothing would induce me to stay with Diana and Sidney Vand.y.k.e. I would even rather be married, if worst came to worst; but though Tony and I were playing at being engaged, the thought of actually marrying him was like jumping over a precipice. I wasn"t ready for the precipice yet, and must avoid it if I could.
I folded up the letter and kept its news and its suggestions to myself.
I sympathized with Milly; and hoped that, after all, even if Russia and Austria and Servia and Germany flew in each others" faces, it might be possible for England and France and Italy to keep the peace. Di was always inclined to exaggerate, and probably she was glad of any excuse by this time to put an end to a motoring _tete-a-tete_ with Sidney.
I went to bed and tried to believe that I had had a bad dream, but next morning I was still dreaming it. The papers told us how the Stock Exchange in London had closed, which seemed like hearing that England had suddenly gone under the sea. Belgrade was being bombarded. The Germans as well as Russians were mobilizing furiously. King George had telegraphed to the Czar, but before his message had time to reach Petrograd, the Kaiser had declared war on Russia. Belgium had begun mobilizing too, and only just in time. Trains were wanted for the soldiers. Frightened tourists clamoured in vain to get away. Even those who had automobiles could hardly move along the roads, and many chauffeurs were called to their colours. Ours was French, and went off at a moment"s notice, with just time for a polite "_Adieu, peut-etre pour toujours._" Tony hated everything mechanical except rifles and revolvers, and had never learned to drive a car; Belgian chauffeurs had something better to do than help travellers out of trouble; so there we were!
It seemed only another phase of the dream from which we could not wake, when glittering hordes of German cavalry, the Kaiser"s beloved uhlans, were said to be clanking over the frontier to violate the neutrality of Belgium, and we heard that Great Britain had declared war on Germany. I would have given anything to be back in England then, not because I was afraid of what might happen in Belgium, but because my blood was hot with pride of my country, and I wanted to be there to see the spirit of the people rise. There was little time to think, however, for Liege was seething with excitement. Fugitives began to pour into the town, with children and bundles in queer little carts drawn by dogs. Soldiers bade their families good-bye in the streets, and marched or rode off in clouds of dust. Wounded men were brought from the frontier, and an annex of our old-fashioned, dormer-windowed hotel was hastily turned into a hospital. Red Cross nurses appeared from somewhere, and several women among the penned-up tourists volunteered to help. Mrs. Dalziel could do nothing, because she had collapsed with fear, and was sure that she was in for nervous prostration. Milly had her mother to care for; but I was free, and thanks to my work in Ballyconal, I knew something about first aid. Ever since I met Eagle and he had given me the old cadet chevron, which I carried with me everywhere, I had grown more and more keen on learning to do what I could for others, and war talk in Texas had prompted me to buy books on nursing.
I mentioned this as a personal recommendation; the real nurses smiled.
But they accepted my services as a probationer, strong and willing, and glad to do what she was told, even to scrub floors with disinfectant fluid.
"You"ll spoil you hands," said Milly.
I laughed.
Almost at once after this began the bombardment of the forts at Liege; and all day long and most of the night we were deafened with the boom of great guns across the river. It was a relief to be allowed to watch through the dark hours beside soldiers whose wounds were not serious enough to need expert care that I could not give. Even if I had been in bed I should not have slept. I felt as if my brain were part of the battlefield where armies marched and fought. My heartbeats were the drums. We grew used to the firing of cannon. It seemed a part of everyday life. It was hard to remember after the first that each "boom!"
meant lives ended in violence. Perhaps if we had remembered we should have gone mad.
Suddenly, on the third day, just at dawn, came a new sound, a great whirring like a thousand racing automobiles, and then two loud explosions, one after the other, different from the roar of cannon or the shots from the field guns that night at El Paso. The whole building shook as if it must fall, and wounded men who had slept restlessly through the thunder from the forts waked with a wild start. My charge, a Belgian boy of nineteen whose arms had been amputated, shivered and then relapsed into stoical calm as the house ceased to shake. "Zeppelin," he said, in a quiet voice. "They have dropped bombs."
It seemed that two must have fallen and burst close by, the noise had been so ear-shattering. Up from the street below our windows came a clamour of voices, shrill and sharp, which cut through the constant whirr of the giant motor. Near the head of the bed was an open window, and mechanically, rather than of my own free will, I leaned far out, as some of the professional nurses were leaning from other windows.
"You might get a bomb on your head," said my soldier, in his tired voice. But I did not draw back. I was surprised to find that I was not afraid. It seemed just then ridiculous, puny, to care about one"s self.
I was awe-struck rather than terrified, realizing with a solemnity I had never known that the next minute might be the last on earth for all of us in that dimly lit room of narrow beds.