The Eagle's Shadow by James Branch Cabell (rm book recommendations TXT) 📗

Hugonin went to the door leading to the hallway and paused.
Then--I grieve to relate it--she shook a little pink-tipped fist in
the air.

"I detest you!" she commented, between her teeth; "oh, how dare you
make me feel so ashamed of the way I've treated you!"

The query--as possibly you may have divined--was addressed to Mr.
Woods. He was standing by the fireplace in the hallway, and his tall
figure was outlined sharply against the flame of the gas-logs that
burned there. His shoulders had a pathetic droop, a listlessness.

Billy was reading a paper of some kind by the firelight, and the black
outline of his face smiled grimly over it. Then he laughed and threw
it into the fire.

"Billy!" a voice observed--a voice that was honey and gold and velvet
and all that is most sweet and rich and soft in the world.

Mr. Woods was aware of a light step, a swishing, sibilant, delightful
rustling--the caress of sound is the rustling of a well-groomed
woman's skirts--and of an afterthought of violets, of a mere
reminiscence of orris, all of which came toward him through the
dimness of the hall. He started, noticeably.

"Billy," Miss Hugonin stated, "I'm sorry for what I said to you. I'm
not sure it isn't true, you know, but I'm sorry I said it."

"Bless your heart!" said Billy; "don't you worry over that, Peggy.
That's all right. Incidentally, the things you've said to me and about
me aren't true, of course, but we won't discuss that just now. I--I
fancy we're both feeling a bit fagged. Go to bed, Peggy! We'll both
go to bed, and the night will bring counsel, and we'll sleep off all
unkindliness. Go to bed, little sister!--get all the beauty-sleep you
aren't in the least in need of, and dream of how happy you're going to
be with the man you love. And--and in the morning I may have something
to say to you. Good-night, dear."

And this time he really went. And when he had come to the bend in the
stairs his eyes turned back to hers, slowly and irresistibly, drawn
toward them, as it seemed, just as the sunflower is drawn toward the
sun, or the needle toward the pole, or, in fine, as the eyes of young
gentlemen ordinarily are drawn toward the eyes of the one woman in the
world. Then he disappeared.

The mummery of it vexed Margaret. There was no excuse for his looking
at her in that way. It irritated her. She was almost as angry with him
for doing it as she would have been for not doing it.

Therefore, she bent an angry face toward the fire, her mouth pouting
in a rather inviting fashion. Then it rounded slowly into a sanguine
O, which of itself suggested osculation, but in reality stood for
"observe!" For the paper Billy had thrown into the fire had fallen
under the gas-logs, and she remembered his guilty start.

"After all," said Margaret, "it's none of my business."

So she eyed it wistfully.

"It may be important," she considerately remembered. "It ought not to
be left there."

So she fished it out with a big paper-cutter.

"But it can't be very important," she dissented afterward, "or he
wouldn't have thrown it away."

So she looked at the superscripture on the back of it.

Then she gave a little gasp and tore it open and read it by the
firelight.

Miss Hugonin subsequently took credit to herself for not going into
hysterics. And I think she had some reason to; for she found the paper
a duplicate of the one Billy had taken out of the secret drawer, with
his name set in the place of hers. At the last Frederick R. Woods had
relented toward his nephew.

Margaret laughed a little; then she cried a little; then she did both
together. Afterward she sat in the firelight, very puzzled and very
excited and very penitent and very beautiful, and was happier than she
had ever been in her life.

"He had it in his pocket," her dear voice quavered; "he had it in his
pocket, my brave, strong, beautiful Billy did, when he asked me to
marry him. It was King Cophetua wooing the beggar-maid--and the beggar
was an impudent, ungrateful, idiotic little piece!" Margaret hissed,
in her most shrewish manner. "She ought to be spanked. She ought to go
down on her knees to him in sackcloth, and tears, and ashes, and all
sorts of penitential things. She will, too. Oh, it's such a beautiful
world--such a beautiful world! Billy loves me--really! Billy's a
millionaire, and I'm a pauper. Oh, I'm glad, glad, glad!"

She caressed the paper that had rendered the world such a goodly place
to live in--caressed it tenderly and rubbed her check against it. That
was Margaret's way of showing affection, you know; and I protest it
must have been very pleasant for the paper. The only wonder was that
the ink it was written in didn't turn red with delight.

Then she read it through again, for sheer enjoyment of those
beautiful, incomprehensible words that disinherited her. How lovely
of Uncle Fred! she thought. Of course, he'd forgiven Billy; who
wouldn't? What beautiful language Uncle Fred used! quite prayer-booky,
she termed it. Then she gasped.

The will in Billy's favour was dated a week earlier than the one they
had found in the secret drawer. It was worthless, mere waste paper. At
the last Frederick R. Woods's pride had conquered his love.

"Oh, the horrid old man!" Margaret wailed; "he's left me everything he
had! How dare he disinherit Billy! I call it rank impertinence in
him. Oh, boy dear, dear, dear boy!" Miss Hugonin crooned, in an
ecstacy of tenderness and woe. "He found this first will in one of the
other drawers, and thought he was the rich one, and came in a great
whirl of joy to ask me to marry him, and I was horrid to him! Oh, what
a mess I've made of it! I've called him a fortune-hunter, and I've
told him I love another man, and he'll never, never ask me to marry
him now. And I love him, I worship him, I adore him! And if only
I were poor--"

Ensued a silence. Margaret lifted the two wills, scrutinised them
closely, and then looked at the fire, interrogatively.

"It's penal servitude for quite a number of years," she said. "But,
then, he really couldn't tell any one, you know. No gentleman would
allow a lady to be locked up in jail. And if he knew--if he knew I
didn't and couldn't consider him a fortune-hunter, I really believe he
would--"

Whatever she believed he would do, the probability of his doing it
seemed highly agreeable to Miss Hugonin. She smiled at the fire in the
most friendly fashion, and held out one of the folded papers to it.

"Yes," said Margaret, "I'm quite sure he will."

There I think we may leave her. For I have dredged the dictionary,
and I confess I have found no fitting words wherewith to picture this
inconsistent, impulsive, adorable young woman, dreaming brave dreams
in the firelight of her lover and of their united future. I should
only bungle it. You must imagine it for yourself.

It is a pretty picture, is it not?--with its laughable side, perhaps;
under the circumstances, whimsical, if you will; but very, very
sacred. For she loved him with a clean heart, loved him infinitely.

Let us smile at it--tenderly--and pass on.

But upon my word, when I think of how unreasonably, how outrageously
Margaret had behaved during the entire evening, I am tempted to
depose her as our heroine. I begin to regret I had not selected Ad�le
Haggage.

She would have done admirably. For, depend upon it, she, too, had
her trepidations, her white nights, her occult battles over Hugh Van
Orden. Also, she was a pretty girl--if you care for brunettes--and
accomplished. She was versed in I forget how many foreign languages,
both Continental and dead, and could discourse sensibly in any one of
them. She was perfectly reasonable, perfectly consistent, perfectly
unimpulsive, and never expressed an opinion that was not countenanced
by at least two competent authorities. I don't know a man living,
prepared to dispute that Miss Haggage excelled Miss Hugonin in all
these desirable qualities.

Yet with pleasing unanimity they went mad for Margaret and had the
greatest possible respect for Ad�le.

And, my dear Mrs. Grundy, I grant you cheerfully that this was all
wrong. A sensible man, as you very justly observe, will seek in a
woman something more enduring than mere personal attractions; he will
value her for some sensible reason--say, for her wit, or her learning,
or her skill in cookery, or her proficiency in Greek. A sensible man
will look for a sensible woman; he will not concern his sensible head
over such trumperies as a pair of bright eyes, or a red lip or so, or
a satisfactory suit of hair. These are fleeting vanities.

However--

You have doubtless heard ere this, my dear madam, that had Cleopatra's
nose been an inch shorter the destiny of the world would have been
changed; had she been the woman you describe--perfectly reasonable,
perfectly consistent, perfectly sensible in all she said and
did--confess, dear lady, wouldn't Antony have taken to his heels and
have fled from such a monster?



XIV

I regret to admit that Mr. Woods did not toss feverishly about his bed
all through the silent watches of the night. He was very miserable,
but he was also twenty-six. That is an age when the blind bow-god
deals no fatal wounds. It is an age to suffer poignantly, if you will;
an age wherein to aspire to the dearest woman on earth, to write her
halting verses, to lose her, to affect the clich�s of cynicism, to
hear the chimes at midnight--and after it all, to sleep like a top.

So Billy slept. And kind Hypnos loosed a dream through the gates of
ivory that lifted him to a delectable land where Peggy was nineteen,
and had never heard of Kennaston, and was unbelievably sweet and dear
and beautiful. But presently they and the Colonel put forth to sea--on
a great carved writing-desk--fishing for sharks, which the Colonel
said were very plentiful in those waters; and Frederick R. Woods
climbed up out of the sea, and said Billy was a fool and must go to
college; and Peggy said that was impossible, as seventeen hundred and
fifty thousand children had to be given an education apiece, and they
couldn't spare one for Billy; and a missionary from Zambesi Land came
out of one of the secret drawers and said Billy must give him both
of his feet as he needed them for his working-girls' classes; and
thereupon the sharks poked their heads out of the water and began, in
a deafening chorus, to cry, "Feet, feet, feet!" And Billy then woke
with a start, and found it was only the birds chattering in the dawn
outside.

Then he was miserable.

He tossed, and groaned, and dozed, and smoked cigarettes until he
could stand it no longer. He got up and dressed, in sheer desperation,
and went for a walk in the gardens.

The day was clear as a new-minted coin. It was not yet wholly aired,
not wholly free from the damp savour of night, but low in the east the
sun was taking heart. A mile-long shadow footed it with Billy Woods
in his pacings through the amber-chequered gardens. Actaeon-like, he
surprised the world at its toilet, and its fleeting grace somewhat
fortified his spirits.

But his thoughts pestered him like gnats. The things he said to the
roses it is not necessary to set down.



XV

After a vituperative half-hour or so Mr. Woods was hungry. He came
back toward Selwoode; and upon the terrace in front of the house he
found Kathleen Saumarez.

During the warm weather, one corner of the terrace had been converted,
by means of gay red-and-white awnings, into a sort of living-room.
There were chairs, tables, sofa-cushions, bowls of roses, and any
number of bright-coloured rugs. Altogether, it was a cosy place,
and the glowing hues of its furnishings were very becoming to Mrs.
Saumarez, who sat there writing industriously.

It was a thought embarrassing. They had avoided one another
yesterday--rather obviously--both striving to put off a necessarily
awkward meeting. Now it had come. And now, somehow, their eyes met for
a moment, and they laughed frankly, and the awkwardness was gone.

"Kathleen," said Mr. Woods, with conviction, "you're a dear."

"You broke my heart," said she, demurely, "but I'm going to forgive
you."

Mrs. Saumarez was not striving to be clever now. And, heavens (thought
Billy), how much nicer she was like this! It wasn't the same woman:
her thin cheeks flushed arbutus-like, and her rather metallic voice
was grown low and gentle. Billy brought memories with him, you see;
and for the moment, she was Kathleen Eppes again--Kathleen Eppes in
the first flush of youth, eager, trustful,