James Cabell - The Eagle's Shadow

Billy gasped.

But meanwhile, Colonel Hugonin had given the members of his daughter's house-party some inkling as to the present posture of affairs. They were gazing at Billy Woods rather curiously. He stood in the vestibule of Selwoode, staring after Margaret Hugonin; but they stared at him, and over his curly head, sculptured above the door-way, they saw the Eagle—the symbol of the crude, incalculable power of wealth.

Mr. Woods stood in the vestibule of his own house.

"By gad!" said Colonel Hugonin, very grimly, "anybody would think you'd just lost a fortune instead of inheriting one! Wish you joy of it, Billy. I ain't saying, you know, we shan't miss it, my daughter and I—no, begad, for it's a nice pot of money, and we'll miss it damnably. But since somebody had to have it, I'd much rather it was you, my boy, than a set of infernal, hypocritical, philanthropic sharks, and I'm damn' glad Frederick has done the square thing by you—yes, begad!"

The old gentleman was standing beside Mr. Woods in the vestibule of Selwoode, some distance from the other members of the house-party, and was speaking in confidence. He was sincere; I don't say that the thought of facing the world at sixty-five with practically no resources save his half-pay—I think I have told you that the Colonel's diversions had drunk up his wife's fortune and his own like a glass of water—I don't say that this thought moved him to hilarity.

Over it, indeed, he pulled a frankly grave face.

But he cared a deal for Billy; and even now there was balm—soothing, priceless balm—to be had of the reflection that this change in his prospects affected materially the prospects of those cultured, broad-minded, philanthropic persons who had aforetime set his daughter to requiring of him a perusal of Herbert Spencer.

Billy was pretty well aware how monetary matters stood with the old wastrel; and the sincerity of the man affected him far more than the most disinterested sentiments would have done. Mr. Woods accordingly shook hands, with entirely unnecessary violence.

"You're a trump, that's what you are!" he declared; "oh, yes, you are, Colonel! You're an incorrigible, incurable old ace of trumps—the very best there is in the pack—and it's entirely useless for you to attempt to conceal it."

"Gad——!" said the Colonel.

"And don't you worry about that will," Mr. Woods advised. "I—I can't explain things just now, but it's all right. You just wait—just wait till I've seen Peggy," Billy urged, in desperation, "and I'll explain everything."

"By gad——!" said the Colonel. But Mr. Woods was half-way out of the vestibule.

Mr. Woods was in an unenviable state of perturbation.

He could not quite believe that Peggy had destroyed the will; the thing out-Heroded Herod, out-Margareted Margaret. But if she had, it struck him as a high-handed proceeding, entailing certain vague penalties made and provided by the law to cover just such cases—penalties of whose nature he was entirely ignorant and didn't care to think. Heavens! for all he knew, that angel might have let herself in for a jail sentence.

Billy pictured that queen among women! that paragon! with her glorious hair cropped and her pink-tipped little hands set to beating hemp—he had a shadowy notion that the lives of all female convicts were devoted to this pursuit—and groaned in horror.

"In the name of Heaven!" Mr. Woods demanded of his soul, "what possible reason could she have had for this new insanity? And in the name of Heaven, why couldn't she have put off her tête-à-tête with Kennaston long enough to explain? And in the name of Heaven, what does she see to admire in that putty-faced, grimacing ass, any way! And in the name of Heaven, what am I to say to this poor, old man here? I can't explain that his daughter isn't in any danger of being poor, but merely of being locked up in jail! And in the name of Heaven, how long does that outrageous angel expect me to remain in this state of suspense!"

Billy groaned again and paced the vestibule. Then he retraced his steps, shook hands with Colonel Hugonin once more, and, Kennaston or no Kennaston, set out to find her.

But when he came out upon the terrace, Sarah Ellen Haggage stopped him—stopped him with a queer blending of diffidence and resolve in her manner.

The others, by this, had disappeared in various directions, puzzled and exceedingly uncertain what to do. Indeed, to congratulate Billy in the Colonel's presence would have been tactless; and, on the other hand, to condole with the Colonel without seeming to affront the wealthy Mr. Woods was almost impossible. So they temporised and fled—all save Mrs. Haggage.

She, alone, remained to view Mr. Woods with newly opened eyes; for as he paused impatiently—the sculptured Eagle above his head—she perceived that he was a remarkably handsome and intelligent young man.

Her motherly heart opened toward this lonely, wealthy orphan.

"My dear Billy," she cooed, with asthmatic gentleness, "as an old, old friend of your mother's, aren't you going to let me tell you how rejoiced Adèle and I are over your good fortune? It isn't polite, you naughty boy, for you to run away from your friends as soon as they've heard this wonderful news. Ah, such news it was—such a manifest intervention of Providence! My heart has been fluttering, fluttering like a little bird, Billy, ever since I heard it."

In testimony to this fact, Mrs. Haggage clasped a stodgy hand to an exceedingly capacious bosom, and exhibited the whites of her eyes freely. Her smile, however, remained unchanged and ample.

"Er—ah—oh, yes! Very kind of you, I'm sure!" said Mr. Woods.

"I never in my life saw Adèle so deeply affected by anything ," Mrs. Haggage continued, with a certain large archness. "The sweet child was always so fond of you, you know, Billy. Ah, I remember distinctly hearing her speak of you many and many a time when you were in that dear, delightful, wicked Paris, and wonder when you would come back to your friends—not very grand and influential friends, Billy, but sincere, I trust, for all that."

Mr. Woods said he had no doubt of it.

"So many people," she informed him, confidentially, "will pursue you with adulation now that you are wealthy. Oh, yes, you will find that wealth makes a great difference, Billy. But not with Adèle and me—no, dear boy, despise us if you will, but my child and I are not mercenary. Money makes no difference with us; we shall be the same to you that we always were—sincerely interested in your true welfare, overjoyed at your present good fortune, prayerful as to your brilliant future, and delighted to have you drop in any evening to dinner. We do not consider money the chief blessing of life; no, don't tell me that most people are different, Billy, for I know it very well, and many is the tear that thought has cost me. We live in a very mercenary world, my dear boy; but our thoughts, at least, are set on higher things, and I trust we can afford to despise the merely temporal blessings of life, and I entreat you to remember that our humble dwelling is always open to the son of my old, old friend, and that there is always a jug of good whiskey in the cupboard."

Thus in the shadow of the Eagle babbled the woman whom—for all her absurdities—Margaret had loved as a mother.

Billy thanked her with an angry heart.

"And this"—I give you the gist of his meditations—"this is Peggy's dearest friend! Oh, Philanthropy, are thy protestations, then, all void and empty, and are thy noblest sentiments—every one of 'em—so full of sound and rhetoric, so specious, so delectable—are these, then, but dicers' oaths!"

Aloud, "I'm rather surprised, you know," he said, slowly, "that you take it just this way, Mrs. Haggage. I should have thought you'd have been sorry on—on Miss Hugonin's account. It's awfully jolly of you, of course—oh, awfully jolly, and I appreciate it at its true worth, I assure you. But it's a bit awkward, isn't it, that the poor girl will be practically penniless? I really don't know whom she'll turn to now."