"Now that Tony's time is so dreadfully taken up," she said to her mother, "he can't give us any fun, or have any fun with us himself, so we might as well go away. _Let's_, dear! Let's clear out to-morrow, and take Peggy to meet Lady Di and the others at Albuquerque, where we can get into the 'Limited' and join them."

"I don't know what Tony will say!" wavered Mrs. Dalziel, who was finding El Paso rather hot in those days, for plump people. She looked at me. So did Milly. Then Milly laughed. "No good pretending we've got cotton wool over our eyes," she exclaimed. "Can't you make up your mind to take my poor, dear little brother, Peggy, and put him out of his misery?"

"Tony and I understand each other already," I said.

"Do you? Oh, I'm _so_ glad, so pleased," they both cried together. And I had to explain in a violent hurry, before I had been caressed under false pretences, that there are understandings _and_ understandings.

Tony's and mine was the kind of understanding which left us both perfectly free; the kind of understanding where you didn't make up your mind, but just waited to see whether it made itself up.

"Isn't there anything between you and the poor boy, then?" implored the boy's mother.

"Only--a kiss," I said. "One--on a cheek. My cheek."

"Well, that's something," she sighed. "At least, it was when I was a girl."

It was not much to me, though it might have been to a better regulated flapper. I couldn't dwell on such trifles as kisses. I thought only of the coming court-martial.

CHAPTER XIII

The "understanding" remained _in statu quo_ (whatever that means; the expression was his) between Tony and me, when Mrs. Dalziel and Milly and I turned our backs on El Paso. We had a night at Albuquerque, which made me homesick for past days, because the hotel where we stopped had the name of Alvarado. I hadn't known that I was happy at the Springs, but in looking back it seemed as though I must have been without a care.

Milly and her mother bought wonderful Indian curios and gorgeous Mexican opals and silver spoons set with turquoises at Albuquerque, and Milly was almost feverishly gay; but I guessed that at heart, if she had an organ worth the name, she was nearly as wretched as I. For she had failed; and she had let the venom of her spite poison her nature, trying to tell herself that she rejoiced because of Eagle's misfortunes, and that it was very good, as things turned out, to be free of him and his fate. No one can really be happy with such poison in the veins, and there can't possibly be deep-down, soul-satisfying enjoyment from revelling in another's misfortunes. Underneath my fury, when Milly said little veiled, spiteful things about Captain March, was pity for her, the kind of pity you have for an irritable invalid who snaps.

When Father and Mrs. Main and Diana (Di in great beauty) came to Albuquerque on the "Limited," and we three took up our quarters in staterooms on board, Milly Dalziel and Di struck up a great friendship, almost as if they were new acquaintances who had just been introduced and fallen in love with each other's unexpectedly charming qualities.

This was quite funny, because Milly had found it hard work to be civil to Di at Alvarado Springs, and Di had been rather contemptuously amused at Milly's badly disguised jealousy. Now, with Eagle March eliminated from the scheme of life for both of them, each discovered that the other was a delightful creature.

Milly accounted to me for her change of mind by exclaiming: "I do think Lady Di has got heaps prettier since she went to California, don't you?

And she's just as sweet as she's pretty. Perhaps it's being engaged to the man she loves that has made the difference. And no wonder, with such a gorgeous lover as Major Vand.y.k.e! He's something to be proud of--even for a beauty and a 'swell' like your sister."

Di accounted for the change in _her_ mind by saying to me: "I don't know what you've done to that Dalziel girl, Peggy, but you seem to have made her all over. She used to be a thorough-paced cat. Now she's quite a darling, and if you're ever sensible enough to marry Tony, I shall love to have such a fascinating sister-in-law. I've asked her to be one of my bridesmaids."

I suppose changing your mind often is a good, clean thing for your soul, just as changing your clothes is for your body.

We had a few hours to flash round Chicago in a motor car, seeing pretty, young-looking parks, and a great lake like the sea with wonderful buildings along its sh.o.r.e, and a sky like a painting by Turner. I was bitterly disappointed not to get the telegram Tony had promised to send, addressed to the Blackstone Hotel, where it had been arranged beforehand that we should lunch and dine. The court-martial was to have been held on the eighth day after Eagle March's arrest, the day before our arrival in Chicago, and meanwhile I had lived only for the telegram. My impatience to know the worst--or best--had been like a flame in my blood and brain. When it was time to take the fast train to New York in the evening, and no telegram had come, it seemed as if that flame gave a devouring leap, and then went out, leaving my body a burnt-up sh.e.l.l.

The next morning we were in New York, where Mr. Dalziel met his wife and Milly. I hoped that he might have read some news of El Paso in the morning papers, and that he would spring it upon us in the railway station where we paused, being charming and affectionate to each other, and making plans to meet again before our party sailed. I couldn't have questioned him to save my life, any more than I could have cried out in fearful nightmares which I remembered, when the earth was about to swallow me up, or a mountain fall on to my head. Surely, I thought, if there were news about the court-martial it would be interesting enough to the Dalziel family for the man to mention it, if only because Tony was to be a witness in the case! But the affair might have been more remote from us all than a destructive tidal wave in China, judging by Mr. Dalziel's oblivion of it. He and Father talked about our luck in grabbing cabins at short notice on the _Mauretania_; his wife and Mrs.

Main discussed getting seats for that night at D'Annunzio's great moving-picture play, which had come on at a theatre in New York; his daughter and Diana chatted about the earliest date when Milly could persuade her mother to sail for England. I longed to scream at them, "Oh, you hard, unfeeling _wretches_!" But instead I stood outwardly patient, a good, well-behaved young girl with a little mincing smile on my face. Only the smile was frozen so hard you could have knocked it off with a hammer.

We were going to Kitty Main's flat, which she called her "apartment,"

and the Dalziels were going to their house, but it was not to be a regular parting. We were to dine with them (somehow the idea was borne in upon me that dear Mrs. Dalziel wanted naughty, shilly-shallying Peggy to see what lovely surroundings might be hers as Tony's wife); all of us were to lunch next day at Delmonico's, as Kitty's guests; the Dalziels were to motor us over to Long Island for a glimpse of their country place there; and they were to see us off on the _Mauretania_. But that would not be until five days had pa.s.sed. Meanwhile, there would be time for telegrams and even letters from El Paso.

At last, after all the noisy planning of things to do, the two parties contrived to tear themselves from one another, and we got away from the wonderful station in Mrs. Main's motor car, which had come to meet us--a most impressive motor car which needed only a coronet or at worst a crest, on its door. Perhaps, however, judging from present signs, that lack might be supplied later.

Her "apartment" was in a marvellously ornate sky-sc.r.a.per; a huge brown block like a plum cake for a t.i.tan tea party, which would have made Buckingham Palace or any other royal residence in Europe look a toy. It was in the highest story, according to Kitty the most desirable, because you had all the air there and none of the noise; just like living on a mountain, with a lift to the top. I wondered what she would think of poor old Ballyconal, when she came to see it!

The first thing I did was to wire my temporary address to Tony, and hate myself because I hadn't done it before. Until I met Father and Di I didn't know where we were to stay in New York, for everything had been settled through letters and telegrams, with as little useful information as possible. If I had remembered in Chicago that Tony had no idea where I would be in New York, there need have been no more delay in my getting the news. But something seemed to be strangely wrong at his end of the line, for even when there had been time for him to get my telegram and send another, no answer came. Nothing arrived for Di, either; but apparently she was expecting no wire. She must have had some human curiosity, if not anxiety, to know the fate of a man who had been as much to her as Eagle March had been; but she was thinking of his trial, I suppose, entirely from Sidney Vand.y.k.e's point of view, and she had no uneasiness as to the result for Sidney. As for the papers, though I quite cleverly managed to find other things than football news, I could discover nothing about the court-martial on Captain March. I had to tell myself that perhaps they didn't put such affairs in newspapers, for I was too ignorant to think of trying to hunt up the army and navy official journals.

We had been three days in New York in great heat, which Kitty took pains to tell us was most unseasonable, when one morning a thunderstorm accompanied by terrific wind came up, preventing us from going out as we had intended. Kitty's floor at the top of the building, with its steel supports, actually gave the effect of swaying in the blast like an overgrown spear of wheat, a phenomenon Kitty took as a matter of course.

So we Britishers had to do the same, no matter how we felt, to show that we were as brave as Americans. In the midst of the storm the postman's ring sounded rea.s.suringly, as if to say that we were not cut off from earth; and a calm maid, used to hanging on insectlike by her antennae to the top grain on the wheat stalk, quietly presented a silver tray with letters to her mistress.

"One for dear Diana," Kitty announced, picking up a large purple-sealed and monogrammed envelope, such as Sidney Vand.y.k.e had made peculiarly his own. And I had only time for a heartbeat before she added, "Two for little Peggy!"

I never much relished being patronized as "little Peggy" by my would-be stepmother, but she might safely have called me anything from a pterodactyl to a hippopotamus just then. I had caught a glimpse of the uppermost envelope of the two as she doled the letters out. In a flash I knew that Eagle March had written to me.

Just to save the scarlet flag my cheeks flung out from Father's stare, I pretended great interest in the other envelope. It had been addressed to me by Tony.

"My letter is from Sidney. I thought I should have one from him to-day,"

said Di, with the brazen boldness of the legitimately engaged girl who has a right to expose her feelings. "Now he'll tell me, perhaps, when he will be able to get leave and follow us."

She proceeded to tear open the envelope in the ruthless violating way of which I could never be guilty except with a soulless circular. A letter from a lover, or a friend, full of thoughts and touched by a dear hand, is too sacred for such usage. Fearing from Di's expression that she would be capable of reading aloud choice selections from Major Vand.y.k.e's version of events, I simply couldn't stay to risk hearing them. I jumped up and fled with my two prizes.

Locked safely in my room, delicately I cut the edge of Eagle's envelope.

I was on the point of drawing out the letter, which appeared to be meagrely thin, when something within me seemed to faint. Reading what he had to say, I should know in a very few words, I was sure, the fate to which he looked forward. There would be no working up, no preamble, to prepare my mind. I wasn't strong enough to bear it. I should have to take Tony's letter first, like a dose of sal volatile.

"Dear, dear Peggy," my benevolent Billiken addressed me, and as I read, the thunder rolled like the far-away drums of Fort Alvarado or El Paso.

"This is my first real letter to you, for I don't count notes; and I wish it could be a better one. I'm afraid you must be pretty mad about not getting a telegram at Chicago, or anyhow at Mrs. Main's, when you'd taken all the trouble to wire me your address. But it was intimated to all of us concerned that we weren't to telegraph news about _you know what_ to our families or friends, and that we were even to be discreet about our letters. I've been so indiscreet with you on that subject already, on a never-to-be-forgotten night, however, that the latter bit of fatherly instruction doesn't hold good in my case. Only, before telling you what I have to tell, I'll just take the liberty of reminding you once again of your promise to keep mum till Gabriel's trumpet sounds--or till I take off the embargo (is that the way to spell it, I wonder, and what exactly does it mean?). As matters look at present, one thing is liable to happen about the same time as the other. Well, now I'm going to tell you news of the court-martial as best I can. I'm no great shakes at telling things, you know. Vand.y.k.e was 'seedy' (as you say in your truly British fashion) the day appointed for the trial, and as he was the princ.i.p.al witness it had to be put off for twenty-four hours. You'd have thought it would be March, if anybody, who was on the sick list, wouldn't you? But he was all right in health. I don't know what was the matter with Vand.y.k.e, except that I happened to hear our old Doc say he had a temperature way up in C. Maybe it was stage fright. I felt like that myself--queer all over when the time came, as a fellow does when he's just going to be seasick.

"The court-martial was what you call a 'field-general court-martial,'

which can be convened when forces are on active service, as of course we are now (though we've had nothing very active to do, except on a certain night none of us will forget, and on Army Day when we all marched and sweated to give the populace an impressive show). A field general court-martial can try cases just as grave as a general court-martial can, and its proceedings are conducted with more secrecy. It consists of not less than three officers, none of them under the rank of captain, but the president of the court may be a general officer, a colonel, or lieutenant-colonel. In this case, which was considered very important, both on account of March's fine record and the necessary secrecy that had to be maintained, we had the general commanding the Fort for president, and the other two officers of the court were a colonel and a major. I don't think you met either of them when you were here, so their names wouldn't interest you.

"The courtroom was just a plain ordinary room in the barracks at Fort Bliss; but there wasn't a map or copy of 'rules and regulations' hanging on the yellowish white walls that I can't see now, whenever I shut my eyes. I guess they were all photographed on my 'mental retina,' as the writing folks say. The three officers were in full uniform, to do honour to the case, and of course there wasn't a man present dressed in 'cits.'

All were army chaps, even to the headquarters clerk who took notes of the proceedings, the orderly who kept the door, and the witnesses. There weren't many of those. I was one of the princ.i.p.al witnesses and you've heard from me before how little I had to say.

"March, who as prisoner had to be formally conducted in by an officer, had a seat on the left of the judges' table, and his friend, Major Dell, sat beside him. If you could have been a fly on that beastly wall, looking down at your hero, I guess you'd have been proud of the way he held himself. If he'd been brought there to receive a medal of honour instead of to be tried for a big, insane sort of offence calculated to bring about international complications he couldn't have had a prouder bearing. And he wasn't even pale. He looked just brown and calm and natural. I had to confess to when you asked me a point-blank question that night in the park, that I was all muddled up in my mind about his conduct in ordering the gunfire. I didn't know whether he'd gone off his chump, or been fooled, or what. But I can tell you one thing: I felt proud of him as a man and as my superior officer when I saw the way he bore himself for his trial. I don't know now the rights of the matter any more than I did then, in spite of the court's findings; but something tells me--as girls say--that March _wasn't to blame_. There's a black mystery in this, and I don't see how it's ever going to be cleared up, as things are. But to go back to the court-martial.

"March was accused by the prosecutor of having fired without orders three charges from field guns into a country living at peace with the United States, to the detriment of its inhabitants and property, and to the imminent peril of disturbing international relations. He could have objected legally to any of the judges and stated his objections. But he didn't object to them, nor to the shorthand-writer, whom he had a right to throw out if he could show reasons for thinking that the man was likely to be partial in his notes of the proceedings.

"Of course, I as a mere witness wasn't present all the time; but I know what took place, because I've heard some of it from different quarters.

I know that when 'the court had been duly sworn, the accused was arraigned,' which means that the president read out the charges against March, and asked him whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty. Can't you just hear March answering steadily in that pleasant, quiet voice of his: 'Not guilty!' The next thing to follow was the prosecutor's address, outlining the case against the prisoner, and mentioning the witnesses he meant to summon. Then he called the evidence for the prosecution, and that's where, as I've heard from other witnesses, those present got their first big surprise.

"Naturally there'd been no end of whispering among those in the know before the court met; and it was discussed whether or not March would bring into his defence the state of feeling between Vand.y.k.e and himself.

Some thought he would be justified in doing so, and quixotic not to, as the bad blood between them, and the cause of it (I hope you don't mind my saying this?) was already a sort of open secret. Others argued that if the ill-feeling were once lugged in, the name of the lady concerned and other details would certainly be dragged into the case through inquiries which would have to be made; and that March wasn't the man to run such a risk even if it were likely to do him any good. The surprise of the court came when Vand.y.k.e accused March of giving the order for firing the guns without authority, but deliberately putting the responsibility on him--Vand.y.k.e--with the object of ruining him. Did you ever know the like of that?

"From one way of looking at the thing, it was a jolly smart way for Vand.y.k.e to turn the tables, because it would take all the wind out of March's sails, in case he meant to accuse Vand.y.k.e of the same intention toward him. I don't suppose there ever was such a queer case between officers as this one; both men highly placed and popular in the service and society.

"I believe March brought out his notebook in evidence (the khaki-coloured one with his monogram on it in silver, which I'd often seen, and which you say you gave him) to show the newly torn-out leaf; and his friend, Major Dell, who was his cla.s.smate at West Point (you've seen him here; fine-looking cavalry chap), suggested that the page underneath should be examined with a magnifying gla.s.s for the impression of writing on the missing page with a blunt pencil which had borne heavily on the paper. No words could be definitely made out, even with the magnifier, and even if they could have been, I'm afraid that wouldn't have made much difference in the case. March had had the notebook in his possession after the gunfiring, you see, and could easily have written what he liked and then torn out the leaf.

"Vand.y.k.e's orderly being dead, there was no evidence as to the part he had played for either side; but I suppose he would have been a witness for the prosecution, so his disappearance off the scene was perhaps a good thing for March. I was called for the defence, but nothing I had to say was of any good. I felt that; and being keen to serve March's interest if I could with truth, put such a strain on me to be careful of each word that you could have knocked me down with a feather after I was released. When my evidence was read over (they always do that to every witness before he leaves the court) it seemed to me I'd given the most rotten answers every time; but I couldn't have made them any better if I'd tried to explain them away, or amend them as I should have had the right to do; so I let them go as they were.

"March cross-examined me himself, about the distance he was from the guns when the orderly was supposed to come up; and the darkness of the night; and the nature of the ground for m.u.f.fling the sound of footsteps.

He didn't seem a bit disgusted or hurt with me because I could not do better for his case. He had a real friendly look in his eyes whenever they met mine; and I tell you, Peggy, I could have blubbed like a kid when I thought of it later, after I knew what the verdict was.

"Once I saw him cross glances with Vand.y.k.e, and if you won't think I'm getting sentimental on top of all the rest, I'll tell you I thought March's look was like a sword. Vand.y.k.e was yellow and bloodshot as if he'd had a bilious attack, and perhaps bile had been the trouble when he went on sick report and the case had to be delayed for him.

"The findings were considered in closed court. And now you must take this one bit of comfort to yourself, Peggy, in your trouble about your friend Captain March: things might have gone a lot harder for him than they did in such a serious case. Vand.y.k.e's accusation against him was mighty bad, and there was some evidence to support it. March didn't seem to use such weapons as he had to hit back with, quite as smartly as he might have done, though that was, no doubt, in his determination to keep your sister's name from coming into the affair. He did defend himself to the extent of saying he'd tried to save the situation by firing blank instead of sh.e.l.l; but that didn't help him much, for the whole point of the accusation against him was that he had had no right to fire at all.

None of his witnesses could help him any more than I could, whereas Vand.y.k.e had several who took their oath to seeing him in the auto with his orderly, leaving old Fort Bliss at much about the time when March said Johnson came to him with the second verbal order. March could have been sentenced to imprisonment or chucked out of the army if the court had believed in his giving the order to fire the guns on his own responsibility out of sheer madness, or spite against Vand.y.k.e. As it was, they accepted the theory that he had been hoaxed by some one unknown, purporting to be the orderly of Major Vand.y.k.e, then acting as colonel. Owing to the comparative darkness of the night (luckily there wasn't a moon, only stars) it would have been possible for a nervous, jumpy man to mistake the ident.i.ty of a person masquerading as another person. Now _you_ know, and _I_ know, and everybody who knows him knows March is the last fellow in the world to get nerves or jumps in any circ.u.mstances whatever. All the same, giving him credit for them on a night when a Mexican raid on the town had been predicted offered the court an excuse to let the accused down lightly. He was sentenced merely to 'severe censure for rashness and carelessness,' etc., etc. In sequence to this our Old Man--the colonel, I mean--has had to advise March to resign. That's part of the programme. And equally it is part of the programme that March should take the advice.