The last thing I said before we started was, "Go as high, please, as you would if you were alone. If I press the bulb, it will be twice, to fly higher."
Then came the starting of the motor, the wheeled run, and the leap into air. As we took wing, I could have sung for joy. I was so gloriously excited, I was hardly conscious of the noise of the engine. That helmeted head and the firm leather-clad shoulders beneath me seemed the head and shoulders of a G.o.d.
We circled over the enclosure. The _Golden Eagle_ hadn"t risen very high yet, but I had a queer feeling of being no longer related to any one on earth. I was with my champion, a creature of another sphere. Intoxicated with joy, I pressed the bulb twice. I could not hear the shrill whistle, but the driver evidently heard, for in obedience we shot up--up--up! The height indicator showed that we had reached the height of five hundred feet. I pressed the bulb again twice over. Eagle began to steer the monoplane in immense circles. I felt I could almost see our corkscrew-track in the air, like twisted threads of gold on blue. The hangars in the fields of Hendon were toy sheds on a green-painted tray.
Even the aerodrome was no more than a big rat trap. London spread itself out beneath us, a vast dark patch, like a fallen cloud. A shaft of sunlight set a golden dome on fire. It must have been St. Paul"s. For the third time I gave the signal to mount. For the third time Eagle obeyed. I wondered if he liked me a little for sharing the confidence he had in his machine.
A few white clouds floated lazily beneath us, like snowy birds of an intolerable brightness and t.i.tanic size. Then they joined together in a glittering flock, and lost the semblance of birds. The ma.s.s became a sparkling silver sea, with here and there a dark gulf in it like a whirlpool. The air grew biting cold. I felt it press on me through the fur-lined coat Di had lent, like blocks of solid ice. But the strange sensation only exhilarated me the more. "I"m not a coward, I"m not a coward. I"m brave!" The words sang themselves in my head to the accompanying roar of the motor.
It was a glorious, dependable roar, but suddenly, in the midst of a spiral movement, I noticed a change in the sound. A gurgle--a choking stammer. A spray of petrol dashed across my goggles.
"Now--what?" The question asked itself in my soul. But there was no fear with it, only an awed realization that this might be the end of things, as I had known them, in a very little world low down and far away. "What does it matter?" the answer came. But Eagle had turned round in his seat, and was handing me a spanner. Now he was motioning to me. If he spoke, I couldn"t hear a word. Yet I understood from the gestures of one mittened hand what he hoped I might be able to do. Somehow, even then, the driving force of thought in my brain was to please him, to show him that he hadn"t relied on me in vain, rather than to save us both from threatening danger, though danger I saw there must be. I was determined that the corporal should not fail the captain.
The thing I had to do, as I seized the situation, was to turn the spanner on a loosened nut in the petrol pipe, to which Eagle pointed.
Reaching up with my right hand, I steadied myself with the left, and touched something hot, horribly hot. There was an involuntary flinch of the nerves as the heat burned through the thick mittens I wore and scorched my fingers, but I didn"t scream, I"m glad to say, or let go the spanner. I screwed and screwed at the union, with the nasty smell of burnt wool, and perhaps flesh, in my nostrils. Then there came the glorious sensation of success as the song of the motor took up its old refrain again. No more choking and spluttering, and it was I who had cured it.
I gave a little sob of thanksgiving, because I hadn"t failed; and a voice seemed to whisper far, far down under the renewed song of the engine, "What if this is a prophecy? What if, after Diana has left him in the lurch, it should be given to _you_ to atone--to help or save him in some danger?"
The little voice was so strong, so clear, that I thrilled all over. What it said seemed to become part of an experience which I could never forget.
CHAPTER V
In the remaining six weeks of his leave, Eagle March made himself very popular in England. He secured a record for alt.i.tude, and flew upside down longer than any one else had at that time, two years ago, which is a whole age in the aeroplane world. He did other quaint tricks, too, that n.o.body had thought of or accomplished then, such as walking on a wing of the monoplane when she was in the air; and all the prettiest and smartest women in London were proud to meet him. He was invited everywhere, and people who pretended to know said that peeresses, married and unmarried, made violent love to Captain March. Naturally a girl like Di was enchanted to lead him about, tied to what would have been her ap.r.o.n strings if she"d been frumpish enough to wear such things. When it began to be said that Eagle March found excuses not to accept invitations unless Lord Ballyconal and Lady Di O"Malley might be expected to turn up, Father and Diana were asked by a great many hostesses who wouldn"t have thought of them except as bait. Di realized this, even if Father were too proud or too conceited to do so, and she used Eagle in every way, for all he was worth. She liked him, too, better than she"d ever liked any man, perhaps, except her first love--the handsomest Irish boy you ever saw, whom she couldn"t think of marrying because he"d no family and no money. But she was only seventeen then and Jerry Taylor was a mere subaltern. He died in India of enteric when Di was eighteen; and before Captain March came on the scene she had liked and flirted with at least a dozen others.
Besides, Eagle March was a very different "proposition," as they say in his country, from poor Jerry Taylor. There was no reason why she shouldn"t think of marrying him if he wanted her, and he did want her desperately. A moderately intelligent bat could have seen that he was dying for my lovely sister. Anyhow, _she_ saw it, and I saw that she saw it, and that she was troubled as to which way to make up her mind. She didn"t want to lose her golden eagle, with his brilliant plumage of fame and popularity, and the future fortune from his aunt. On the other hand, through Eagle, Di had met a number of desirable men, some moneyed, some t.i.tled; and she was a girl who would rather marry a rich n.o.body of the country she had known, than fly with a hero to a land she knew not. I used to notice in her soft, thoughtful eyes the "wait and see" policy.
As the time drew near for Eagle to go back to his regiment on the other side of the world, things grew exciting. I felt electricity in the atmosphere, though Diana didn"t confide in me, and I had no idea what she meant to do. I couldn"t bear to think of Eagle having to suffer, as he must suffer if she threw him over, for already I knew enough of him to know that, quiet as he was, he had very deep and sensitive feelings.
I am too young, even now, after all I have lived through in the last year or two, to set myself up as a judge of character; yet I couldn"t then help forming my own opinion of all those who came near me. I seemed to see under Eagle March"s simple, half-humorous, calmly deliberate manner, flashes of inner fire. I thought his character was not really simple at all, but very complex. I don"t mean in a deceitful way, far indeed from that; but I believed there was much in him which he did not yet know himself, about himself. I fancied that the Southern blood he had in his veins from one side of his family had made him high-strung and pa.s.sionate, as well as daring, quick to think, and quick to act; and that his study was to hold this side of his nature in check. I felt sure that he was generous even to a fault, yet I was certain that, if driven to desperation, there might be a cruel streak which would make him a dangerous enemy unless some tide of love broke down the barrier of hardness in his soul. He was not hard at that time, however, and I didn"t want my sister to be the one to make him so.
For this reason, I sometimes wished that she would marry him, and give him as much happiness as she had it in her to give. And yet, apart from my own feelings (they didn"t count, for his losing Di would not give him to me), I couldn"t believe that having her would really be for his happiness in the end. The two hadn"t one idea or taste in common. But all I could do was to hope that, whatever happened, it would be for _his_ best; because, you see, knowing him, and having that chevron of black and gold as a "reward of valour," had made me a nicer, less selfish girl than I had been before we met. Because I loved a soldier, I wanted to be a soldier, too! Hardly anything of the pert minx remained in me, I used to think sometimes, and comparatively little of the pig or cat. This was fortunate, because, when toward the last he confided in me, everything bad that was left in my composition longed to turn and rend Diana.
The way he did this made it all the harder for me not to desert the colours. He told me that ever since the day when I had been "such a little trump in the air, and maybe saved both our lives," I"d been more to him than any other female thing, except, of course, my sister.
Something in Diana"s weakness had appealed to him as much as my strength; and he loved her with a different love from the affection he gave me. I was his little sister, his brave little friend, and because I was so dear to him, he dared to ask me what chance he had with Diana.
Did I think she tried to keep him from telling her what he felt, because she didn"t care and wanted to save him pain, or was there just a possibility that she was only shy?
I could have given a bitter laugh to both questions, because the truthful, straight-out answer to one and the other was the same: "No!"
Di loved to get proposals, and counted them up as if they were scalps, or those horrid little soft, boneless masks which head hunters collect.
The only trouble was, that among the lot, she had never had one scalp worth the wearing, for a real live beauty, who needed only a bit of luck to be at the top of the world. As for her shyness, it was all in the tricks she played with her eyelashes and the way she curved her upper lip.
But I didn"t laugh. I merely said I wasn"t sure how Diana felt, as she never talked to me about such things. And I got for answer, spoken reflectively: "I suppose not. You"re too much of a child."
He knew by this time that I was sixteen, instead of thirteen as he had thought at first; but what you"re not much interested in makes little impression on your mind if you"re a man and in love. For him I was a child, a nice sympathetic child. And such affection as he gave me, I lived upon, as if it had been the washings from a cup of the elixir of life.
For his sake, I studied Di more closely than ever, after that day, and soon I understood what she was driving at. She wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. And she got it. Any girl can manage this, if she is clever enough; and Di, though she isn"t bookish or intellectual, is very, very clever in the way women have been clever since they emerged from cave life.
She succeeded in keeping back a real proposal which she would have had to answer with a "yes" or "no"; but she hinted to Captain March that, if she could have just a little more time to think about it, with the glamour of his presence gone, she would probably realize that she couldn"t be happy without him. Of course it would be a blow for poor, dear Bally if she married out of Ireland or England, but still--but still--only give her time to read her heart.
Eagle told me something of the scene between them, and of course, I saw exactly what Di was up to: but I caged all the wild cats in me, and said I was glad, if _he_ were happy. Yes, indeed, I"d take care of Di for him, and write him how she looked and what she did, and use all my influence to make Father escort us both over to America as soon as possible. Di, it seemed, had also agreed to use her influence in bringing this result about. I couldn"t tell at the time whether she had thrown the promise as a sop to keep Eagle quiet, or whether she really thought that she would like to go. All I knew was that, if she did use her influence--and Father could get hold of enough money--the thing was as good as done.
Eagle took his departure; and we, and lots of his new friends, went to Euston to see him off for Liverpool, Di, no doubt, secretly thinking that sort of public "good-bye" safer than a private one. As for our going to America, the scheme hung by a thread, as I guessed soon after Eagle"s back was turned. A bird in the hand is always worth at least two in the bush, and Di"s hand was ready. If the right bird could be palmed before the season"s end, it would mean that nothing of Di except her wedding cards would sail across the sea. But as it turned out, home birds were wary, and we crept back to Ireland in time for the horse show with Diana empty handed, and Father with pockets cleaned out. It was then that Di seriously set her thoughts upon the new world--new worlds, it is said, being easier to conquer than old ones.
Father had two or three acquaintances in the diplomatic service at Washington. He hoped to squeeze invitations out of them; for in a country entirely populated by monotonous Misters and Mrs-es, with nothing more decorative than a colonel or a general or a judge, even a poor Irish earl isn"t to be sneezed at. Di needn"t be handicapped by every one remembering that her mother would have described herself as a "music "all h"artist"; and several Americans living in New York had asked us to their houses.
At first it wasn"t proposed to take me if the family went, and the thought of going through again what I had endured when seeing Di and Eagle March together, kept me from raising my voice in persuasion. It would be heartwearing to be left behind, never to know what was happening except from an occasional letter; but to be on the spot and see for myself would be heartbreaking. I wasn"t quite sure which would be worse, so I left the decision to Fate; and as I said before, it was my Frenchified genius for doing hair which settled the matter. Di discussed it with Father frankly before me, and argued that not only was I cleverer than the average maid, but actually cheaper. "Besides," she finished, "Peggy dear would like to go, and she"s not a bad little thing. Who knows but she might pick up something over there for herself?"
"A picker up of unconsidered trifles!" the scotched, not killed minx in me couldn"t resist quoting, at the suggestion that I was welcome to Di"s leavings if I could bag them. But neither Father nor Di was paying the slightest attention.
By superhuman efforts in borrowing, and perhaps begging (I wouldn"t "put it past him"), and selling the portrait of our best-looking, worst-behaved ancestor, Father sc.r.a.ped up enough money to take us to America and have a little over for travelling expenses there. Further than that he did not look, for we should be living board free most of the time; and besides, something was almost sure to turn up. In December we sailed on a slow, cheap ship; and once on the other side, lived for six weeks, like the lord and ladies we were, upon friends Di had carefully collected, as if they were rare foreign stamps or postcards, in London during the past season. Most of these she had met through Eagle. She had a gorgeous time, and even I came in for plenty of fun; because it seems that a girl in America ceases to "flap" while she is still quite young. I was strictly reduced by my elders to "just sixteen," although my seventeenth birthday was upon me; but there were men in New York not above talking or tangoing with a girl of sixteen, and my hair, though only looped up flapper fashion, with a ribbon, was actually admired. I saw it in the newspapers--not the hair, but the admiration.
Never were people so hospitable as those kind ones in New York, and never were houses more beautiful or more luxurious than theirs. I had never seen anything quite like them at home: but it wasn"t the luxury that stirred in my heart a wondering love for America. I began to feel it from the very moment when our cheap liner brought us into the harbour, and the Statue of Liberty (about which Eagle had told me) was suddenly unveiled to my eyes from behind a curtain of silver mist. The thrill warmed my blood, and I had the sensation of being at home, as if I were coming to stay with kinsfolk; a dim but deep conviction, that I _belonged_; that there was a place for me.
We were doing something from morning till night--or rather till the next morning; and the air was like a tonic to keep us up to the work of play.
Luncheons and dinners and dances were given for Di, and she was written and talked about as the "Beautiful Lady Diana O"Malley"; but, though she had proposals, nothing better offered than Captain March, whose rich aunt, Mrs. Cabot, lived in New York, and proved to be the genuine article. Consequently, we turned our attention to Washington. Washington also turned its attention to us, and made itself agreeable to Father and Diana. Place and people were both fascinating; and we had five weeks more of dinners and dances, without the result we all knew in our secret souls we had come to get. The men who wanted Di, she didn"t want, and vice versa. So at length we came to the last item marked on our programme: a visit to the fashionable Alvarado Springs, close to Fort Alvarado, in Arizona, where Captain March was stationed.
It was the end of March when we arrived at Alvarado, and the newspapers were thickly sprinkled with the name of the Mexican President Huerta, printed in big, black letters. A few weeks ago the name would have meant nothing to me, but I hadn"t lived in vain in Washington for more than a month. If the name of a Mexican president or general who had done anything conspicuous during the past six years had been suddenly flung at my head (as in the children"s game where they shout "Beast, Bird, Fish!" and you answer before the count of three), I could have told who he was, and whether the conspicuous deed had been good or bad.
At Alvarado we had thought to be past invitation zone, and Father had been fearfully h.o.a.rding his resources at the expense of his friends, to hold out against high charges at a big hotel. There was said to be a very big one indeed, at the Springs, with bills to match; but at the eleventh hour one of Father"s devoted band of rich widows (the widows thoughtfully provided for him by deceased financiers) took a furnished cottage there and asked us to visit her. She was an unusually nice widow, whose husband had made a fortune through inventing gollywogs with different eyes from other gollywogs. The strain had given him a weak heart, and he had died. The widow"s name was Mrs. Main, and Di shamelessly christened her the "Main Chance." She certainly _was_ ours!
Mrs. Main, whom we"d met in New York, dashed off to Alvarado Springs a fortnight ahead of us, in time to get acquainted through letters of introduction with the highest-up officers at Fort Alvarado, and the wives of those who had any; also to put the furnished "cottage," as she called it (there must have been fifteen or twenty rooms), in order; and the night we arrived, after our long but utterly fascinating journey, she gave a dinner in honour of Father and Diana.
I had been tremendously interested in the whole trip from Washington to Arizona, and with the first glimpse I had of the romantic Springs I felt a thrilling sensation that it was a place where things were bound to happen. The hotel, as all who have heard of Alvarado must know, stands in the midst of a young forest, overlooking a canon that for colour is like a vast cup full of rainbows, and beyond the forest to the left is the garrison. From the higher stories of the hotel you can see the red roofs of the officers" quarters, and farther away the barracks and the big, bare drill ground, but from the wide verandas no houses are anywhere visible, except the colony of cottages built in Spanish fashion like the hotel itself, each having its own little garden with a flowery hedge. From the glorified cottage Mrs. Main had taken we could walk up to a dance at the hotel in five minutes.
I think Eagle would have liked to meet us at the railway station, but Di had plenty of excuses for not allowing that. He had met Mrs. Main, however, and in the afternoon he called. Father was out prospering round the little town, and visiting the smart club at which he had been put up as an honorary member. Di and our hostess (she made us call her Kitty, a sprightly name to which she struggled to live up to) were in the garden when Eagle came, but I happened to be in the drawing-room with a book, so I had about five minutes alone with him before Mrs. Main"s black butler found the others.
I hadn"t tried, as a well-regulated young girl would no doubt have tried, to "get over" being in love with Captain March. I had just simply said to myself that the kind of unhappiness which loving him made me suffer was better than any little wretched pretence at half-baked happiness I could hope for by putting him out of my mind. So I had basked in the painful luxury of thinking about him constantly, and dreaming dreams of how I might serve or sacrifice myself for him, and win his pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude. Consequently, when I raised my eyes from the Spanish novel I wanted to translate, and saw Eagle March come in at the door, I loved him a thousand times more than ever. I don"t know if an unprejudiced person would call him actually handsome; but I thought there couldn"t be on earth a man worth comparing with that brown-faced soldier.
He was glad to meet his "dear little pal" again, because of what he could get out of her about his loved one. He did hold back his eagerness long enough to rattle off, "Why, Peggy, you"re growing up! By Jove, you"re almost a woman, aren"t you? and a pretty one, too--though you"ve kept your impish look, I"m glad to see!" But that was only the preface.
As soon as he decently could, he turned the conversation to Diana. How was she? As beautiful as ever? Though of course she was! Did she ever speak of him? He"d pa.s.sed sleepless nights after reading newspaper paragraphs which reported her on the eve of an engagement with this man or that--disgustingly rich, overfed brutes. Was there a grain of truth in any of the reports? No? Thank heaven! Well, then, perhaps there was a sporting chance for him after all!
"But, just like my luck," he went on, half laughing, "there"s a chap here who"s as formidable as any of them. A regular twelve-and-a-half-inch gun, latest make and improvements; his name"s Vand.y.k.e; only a major; all the same he"s got a pot of money. There"s hardly a man in the army as rich as he is, if there"s one. Soldiering means only fun for him. Most of us here are like me; or if they don"t come from generations of soldiers as I do, they"re in the service for a career. Vand.y.k.e will probably resign if he gets bored. He"s dining at this house to-night. Notice him, and tell me what you think of him afterward, will you?"
"You"re coming, too, aren"t you?" I asked. "Mrs. Main--Kitty--said you were, and I was so glad."
"I should say I was coming!" he exclaimed. "Catch me giving Vand.y.k.e a clear field at the start, if he _is_ my superior officer! You see, Vand.y.k.e----"
But on the name, as if it were her cue, Diana floated in, and Mrs. Main steamed in with her, through one of the long windows which opened on to the veranda. After that I ceased to exist.
Di wore white that night for the dinner party. A good deal of what Father was saving in hotel bills he put into clothes for her. It was a new dress, and sparkled all over like a moonlit lily crusted with dew. I had a fancy to put on the frock with roses on it, which I"d bought at Selfridge"s so many months ago, with the money paid me by Eagle for my mother"s lace. The dress was still alive, and on active service (though the roses began to look somewhat sat upon); and Eagle had never seen me in it. Not that he would notice me now! But I had a queer feeling of sentiment about the gown, and often I had told myself that never, never would I throw it away. I should have had a much queerer feeling if I"d known all that was yet to come of my first meeting with Eagle March in the Wardour Street curiosity shop.
Kitty Main had explained that it wasn"t to be a big, tiresome dinner on our first night: merely a few people she thought dear Lord Ballyconal and Lady Di would like to meet, and "who would love to know them--little Peggy, too, of course!"--with a belated gasp of politeness for me.
There would be, besides ourselves, only Mr. and Mrs. Tony Dalziel of New York; their pretty daughter, Millicent, just out; their son, Lieutenant Dalziel--"Tony," too; Major Vand.y.k.e; and Captain March, who was already our friend.
The gossips did suggest, Kitty had gone on to hint, that Millicent Dalziel was rather throwing herself at Captain March"s head (if an heiress could be said to throw herself at the head of a poor man); but of course, Milly wouldn"t have a look in now, if dear Lady Di had any attention to spare for Eagleston March. Di, however, was to be taken in to dinner by Major Vand.y.k.e, and Millicent Dalziel by Captain March. It wasn"t probable that Milly would give him much chance for talk with Lady Di, although he was to sit beside her. "Good little Peggy" would have young Tony, so nice for both of them! and dear Lord Ballyconal would be placed between his hostess and Mrs. Dalziel.
I ought to have had eyes only for my special prey, Lieutenant Dalziel; but whether I pleased or bored him seemed so comparatively unimportant, that before the guests began to arrive, I found my faculties preparing to concentrate elsewhere. Di hadn"t mentioned the name of Major Vand.y.k.e while I did her hair, or melted and poured her into the sparkly frock, but I felt her consciousness of him in the air; and when his name was announced at the door of the "cottage" drawing-room, my heart gave a jump as if it wanted to peer over the high wall of the future.