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

distant music, and it
thrilled you to much the same magnanimity and yearning, cloudily
conceived; and yet you could not but smile in spite of yourself at the
quaint emphasis fluttering through her speech and pouncing for the
most part on the unlikeliest word in the whole sentence.

But I fancy the Colonel must have been tone-deaf. "Don't you make
phrases for me!" he snorted; "you keep 'em for your menagerie Think!
By gad, the world never thinks. I believe the world deliberately
reads the six bestselling books in order to incapacitate itself for
thinking." Then, his wrath gathering emphasis as he went on: "The
longer I live the plainer I see Shakespeare was right--what
fools these mortals be, and all that. There's that Haggage
woman--speech-making through the country like a hiatused politician.
It may be philanthropic, but it ain't ladylike--no, begad! What has
she got to do with Juvenile Courts and child-labour in the South, I'd
like to know? Why ain't she at home attending to that crippled boy
of hers--poor little beggar!--instead of flaunting through America
meddling with other folk's children?"

Miss Hugonin put another lump of sugar into his cup and deigned no
reply.

"By gad," cried the Colonel fervently, "if you're so anxious to spend
that money of yours in charity, why don't you found a Day Nursery for
the Children of Philanthropists--a place where advanced men and women
can leave their offspring in capable hands when they're busied with
Mothers' Meetings and Educational Conferences? It would do a thousand
times more good, I can tell you, than that fresh kindergarten scheme
of yours for teaching the children of the labouring classes to make a
new sort of mud-pie."

"You don't understand these things, attractive," Margaret gently
pointed out. "You aren't in harmony with the trend of modern thought."

"No, thank God!" said the Colonel, heartily.

Ensued a silence during which he chipped at his egg-shell in an
absent-minded fashion.

"That fellow Kennaston said anything to you yet?" he presently
queried.

"I--I don't understand," she protested--oh, perfectly unconvincingly.
The tea-making, too, engrossed her at this point to an utterly
improbable extent.

Thus it shortly befell that the Colonel, still regarding her under
intent brows, cleared his throat and made bold to question her
generosity in the matter of sugar; five lumps being, as he suggested,
a rather unusual allowance for one cup.

Then, "Mr. Kennaston and I are very good friends," said she, with
dignity. And having spoiled the first cup in the making, she began on
another.

"Glad to hear it," growled the old gentleman. "I hope you value his
friendship sufficiently not to marry him. The man's a fraud--a flimsy,
sickening fraud, like his poetry, begad, and that's made up of botany
and wide margins and indecency in about equal proportions. It ain't
fit for a woman to read--in fact, a woman ought not to read anything;
a comprehension of the Decalogue and the cookery-book is enough
learning for the best of 'em. Your mother never--never--"

Colonel Hugonin paused and stared at the open window for a little. He
seemed to be interested in something a great way off.

"We used to read Ouida's books together," he said, somewhat wistfully.
"Lord, Lord, how she revelled in Chandos and Bertie Cecil and those
dashing Life Guardsmen! And she used to toss that little head of hers
and say I was a finer figure of a man than any of 'em--thirty
years ago, good Lord! And I was then, but I ain't now. I'm only a
broken-down, cantankerous old fool," declared the Colonel, blowing
his nose violently, "and that's why I'm quarrelling with the dearest,
foolishest daughter man ever had. Ah, my dear, don't mind me--run your
menagerie as you like, and I'll stand it."

Margaret adopted her usual tactics; she perched herself on the arm
of his chair and began to stroke his cheek very gently. She
often wondered as to what dear sort of a woman that tender-eyed,
pink-cheeked mother of the old miniature had been--the mother who had
died when she was two years old. She loved the idea of her, vague as
it was. And, just now, somehow, the notion of two grown people reading
Ouida did not strike her as being especially ridiculous.

"Was she very beautiful?" she asked, softly.

"My dear," said her father, "you are the picture of her."

"You dangerous old man!" said she, laughing and rubbing her cheek
against his in a manner that must have been highly agreeable. "Dear,
do you know that is the nicest little compliment I've had for a long
time?"

Thereupon the Colonel chuckled. "Pay me for it, then," said he, "by
driving the dog-cart over to meet Billy's train to-day. Eh?"

"I--I can't," said Miss Hugonin, promptly.

"Why?" demanded her father.

"Because----" said Miss Hugonin; and after giving this really
excellent reason, reflected for a moment and strengthened it by
adding, "Because----"

"See here," her father questioned, "what did you two quarrel about,
anyway?"

"I--I really don't remember," said she, reflectively; then continued,
with hauteur and some inconsistency, "I am not aware that Mr. Woods
and I have ever quarrelled."

"By gad, then," said the Colonel, "you may as well prepare to, for
I intend to marry you to Billy some day. Dear, dear, child," he
interpolated, with malice aforethought, "have you a fever?--your
cheek's like a coal. Billy's a man, I tell you--worth a dozen of your
Kennastons and Charterises. I like Billy. And besides, it's only right
he should have Selwoode--wasn't he brought up to expect it? It
ain't right he should lose it simply because he had a quarrel with
Frederick, for, by gad--not to speak unkindly of the dead, my
dear--Frederick quarrelled with every one he ever knew, from the woman
who nursed him to the doctor who gave him his last pill. He may have
gotten his genius for money-making from Heaven, but he certainly
got his temper from the devil. I really believe," said the Colonel,
reflectively, "it was worse than mine. Yes, not a doubt of it--I'm a
lamb in comparison. But he had his way, after all; and even now poor
Billy can't get Selwoode without taking you with it," and he caught
his daughter's face between his hands and turned it toward his for a
moment. "I wonder now," said he, in meditative wise, "if Billy will
consider that a drawback?"

It seemed very improbable. Any number of marriageable males would have
sworn it was unthinkable.

However, "Of course," Margaret began, in a crisp voice, "if you advise
Mr. Woods to marry me as a good speculation--"

But her father caught her up, with a whistle. "Eh?" said he. "Love in
a cottage?--is it thus the poet turns his lay? That's damn' nonsense!
I tell you, even in a cottage the plumber's bill has to be paid, and
the grocer's little account settled every month. Yes, by gad, and
even if you elect to live on bread and cheese and kisses, you'll find
Camembert a bit more to your taste than Sweitzer."

"But I don't want to marry anybody, you ridiculous old dear," said
Margaret.

"Oh, very well," said the old gentleman; "don't. Be an old maid, and
lecture before the Mothers' Club, if you like. I don't care. Anyhow,
you meet Billy to-day at twelve-forty-five. You will?--that's a good
child. Now run along and tell the menagerie I'll be down-stairs as
soon as I've finished dressing."

And the Colonel rang for his man and proceeded to finish his toilet.
He seemed a thought absent-minded this morning.

"I say, Wilkins," he questioned, after a little. "Ever read any of
Ouida's books?"

"Ho, yes, sir," said Wilkins; "Miss 'Enderson--Mrs. 'Aggage's maid,
that his, sir--was reading haloud hout hof 'Hunder Two Flags' honly
last hevening, sir."

"H'm--Wilkins--if you can run across one of them in the servants'
quarters--you might leave it--by my bed--to-night."

"Yes, sir."

"And--h'm, Wilkins--you can put it under that book of Herbert
Spencer's my daughter gave me yesterday. Under it, Wilkins--and,
h'm, Wilkins--you needn't mention it to anybody. Ouida ain't cultured,
Wilkins, but she's damn' good reading. I suppose that's why she ain't
cultured, Wilkins."



III

And now let us go back a little. In a word, let us utilise the next
twenty minutes--during which Miss Hugonin drives to the neighbouring
railway station, in, if you press me, not the most pleasant state of
mind conceivable--by explaining a thought more fully the posture of
affairs at Selwoode on the May morning that starts our story.

And to do this I must commence with the nature of the man who founded
Selwoode.

It was when the nineteenth century was still a hearty octogenarian
that Frederick R. Woods caused Selwoode to be builded. I give you the
name by which he was known on "the Street." A mythology has grown
about the name since, and strange legends of its owner are still
narrated where brokers congregate. But with the lambs he sheared, and
the bulls he dragged to earth, and the bears he gored to financial
death, we have nothing to do; suffice it, that he performed these
operations with almost uniform success and in an unimpeachably
respectable manner.

And if, in his time, he added materially to the lists of inmates in
various asylums and almshouses, it must be acknowledged that he bore
his victims no malice, and that on every Sunday morning he confessed
himself to be a miserable sinner, in a voice that was perfectly
audible three pews off. At bottom, I think he considered his relations
with Heaven on a purely business basis; he kept a species of running
account with Providence; and if on occasions he overdrew it somewhat,
he saw no incongruity in evening matters with a cheque for the church
fund.

So that at his death it was said of him that he had, in his day, sent
more men into bankruptcy and more missionaries into Africa than any
other man in the country.

In his sixty-fifth year, he caught Alfred Van Orden short in Lard,
erected a memorial window to his wife and became a country gentleman.
He never set foot in Wall Street again. He builded Selwoode--a
handsome Tudor manor which stands some seven miles from the village of
Fairhaven--where he dwelt in state, by turns affable and domineering
to the neighbouring farmers, and evincing a grave interest in the
condition of their crops. He no longer turned to the financial reports
in the papers; and the pedigree of the Woodses hung in the living-hall
for all men to see, beginning gloriously with Woden, the Scandinavian
god, and attaining a respectable culmination in the names of Frederick
R. Woods and of William, his brother.

It is not to be supposed that he omitted to supply himself with a
coat-of-arms. Frederick R. Woods evinced an almost childlike pride in
his heraldic blazonings.

"The Woods arms," he would inform you, with a relishing gusto, "are
vert, an eagle displayed, barry argent and gules. And the crest is
out of a ducal coronet, or, a demi-eagle proper. We have no motto,
sir--none of your ancient coats have mottoes."

The Woods Eagle he gloried in. The bird was perched in every available
nook at Selwoode; it was carved in the woodwork, was set in the
mosaics, was chased in the tableware, was woven in the napery, was
glazed in the very china. Turn where you would, an eagle or two
confronted you; and Hunston Wyke, who is accounted something of a
wit, swore that Frederick R. Woods at Selwoode reminded him of "a
sore-headed bear who had taken up permanent quarters in an aviary."

There was one, however, who found the bear no very untractable
monster. This was the son of his brother, dead now, who dwelt at
Selwoode as heir presumptive. Frederick R. Woods's wife had died long
ago, leaving him childless. His brother's boy was an orphan; and so,
for a time, he and the grim old man lived together peaceably enough.
Indeed, Billy Woods was in those days as fine a lad as you would wish
to see, with the eyes of an inquisitive cherub and a big tow-head,
which Frederick R. Woods fell into the habit of cuffing heartily, in
order to conceal the fact that he would have burned Selwoode to the
ground rather than allow any one else to injure a hair of it.

In the consummation of time, Billy, having attained the ripe age of
eighteen, announced to his uncle that he intended to become a famous
painter. Frederick R. Woods exhorted him not to be a fool, and packed
him off to college.

Billy Woods returned on his first vacation with a fragmentary mustache
and any quantity of paint-tubes, canvases, palettes, mahl-sticks, and
such-like paraphernalia. Frederick R. Woods passed over the mustache,
and had the painters' trappings burned by the second footman. Billy
promptly purchased another lot. His uncle came upon them one morning,
rubbed his chin meditatively for a moment, and laughed for the first
time, so far as known, in his lifetime; then he tiptoed to his own
apartments, lest Billy--the lazy young rascal was still abed in the
next room--should awaken and discover his knowledge of this act of
flat rebellion.

I