James Cabell - The Eagle's Shadow

Then Billy, the diplomatist, received a surprise.

"She'll come with me, of course," said Mrs. Haggage.

Mr. Woods made an—unfortunately—inaudible observation.

"I beg your pardon?" she queried. Then, obtaining no response, she continued, with perfect simplicity: "Margaret's quite like a daughter to me, you know. Of course, she and the Colonel will come with us—at least, until affairs are a bit more settled. Even afterward—well, we have a large house, Billy, and I don't see that they'd be any better off anywhere else."

Billy's emotions were complex.

"You big-hearted old parasite," his own heart was singing. "If you could only keep that ring of truth that's in your voice for your platform utterances—why, in less than no time you could afford to feed your Afro-Americans on nightingales' tongues and clothe every working-girl in the land in cloth of gold! You've been pilfering from Peggy for years—pilfering right and left with both hands! But you've loved her all the time, God bless you; and now the moment she's in trouble you're ready to take both her and the Colonel—whom, by the way, you must very cordially detest—and share your pitiful, pilfered little crusts with 'em and—having two more mouths to feed—probably pilfer a little more outrageously in the future! You're a sanctimonious old hypocrite, you are, and a pious fraud, and a delusion, and a snare, and you and Adèle have nefarious designs on me at this very moment, but I think I'd like to kiss you!"

Indeed, I believe Mr. Woods came very near doing so. She loved Peggy, you see; and he loved every one who loved her.

But he compromised by shaking hands energetically, for a matter of five minutes, and entreating to be allowed to subscribe to some of her deserving charitable enterprises—any one she might mention—and so left the old lady a little bewildered, but very much pleased.

She decided that for the future Adèle must not see so much of Mr. Van Orden. She began to fear that gentleman's views of life were not sufficiently serious.

Billy went into the gardens in pursuit of Margaret. He was almost happy now and felt vaguely ashamed of himself. Then he came upon Kathleen Saumarez, who, indeed, was waiting for him there; and his heart went down into his boots.

He realised on a sudden that he was one of the richest men in America.

It was a staggering thought. Also, Mr. Woods's views, at this moment, as to the advantages of wealth, might have been interesting.

Kathleen stood silent for an instant, eyes downcast, face flushed. She was trembling.

Then, "Billy," she asked, almost inaudibly, "do—do you still want—your answer?"

The birds sang about them. Spring triumphed in the gardens. She looked very womanly and very pretty.

To all appearances, it might easily have been a lover and his lass met in the springtide, shamefaced after last night's kissing. But Billy, somehow, lacked much of the elation and the perfect content and the disposition to burst into melody that is currently supposed to seize upon rustic swains at such moments. He merely wanted to know if at any time in the remote future his heart would be likely to resume the discharge of its proper functions. It was standing still now.

However, "Can you ask—dear?" His words, at least, lied gallantly.

The poor woman looked up into Billy's face. After years of battling with the world, here for the asking was peace and luxury and wealth incalculable, and—as Kathleen thought—a love that had endured since they were boy and girl together. Yet she shrunk from him a little and clinched her hands before she spoke.

"Yes," Kathleen faltered, and afterward she shuddered.

And here, if for the moment I may prefigure the Eagle as a sentient being, I can imagine his chuckle.

"Please God," thought poor Billy, "I will make her happy. Yes, please God, I can at least do that, since she cares for me."

Then he kissed her.

"My dear," said he, aloud, "I'll try to make you happy. And—and you don't mind, do you, if I leave you now?" queried this ardent lover.

"You see, it's absolutely necessary I should see—see Miss Hugonin about this will business. You don't mind very much, do you—darling?"

Mr. Woods inquired of her, the last word being rather obviously an afterthought.

"No," said she. "Not if you must—dear."

Billy went away, lugging a heart of lead in his breast.

Kathleen stared after him and gave a hard, wringing motion of her hands. She had done what many women do daily; the thing is common and sensible and universally commended; but in her own eyes, the draggled trollop of the pavements was neither better nor worse than she.

At the entrance of the next walkway Billy encountered Felix Kennaston—alone and in the most ebulliently mirthful of humours.

But we had left Mr. Kennaston, I think, in company with Miss Hugonin, at the precise moment she inquired of him whether it were not the strangest thing in the world—referring thereby to the sudden manner in which she had been disinherited.

The poet laughed and assented. Afterward, turning north from the front court, they descended past the shield-bearing griffins—and you may depend upon it that each shield is adorned with a bas-relief of the Eagle—that guard the broad stairway leading to the formal gardens of Selwoode. The gardens stretch northward to the confines of Peter Blagden's estate of Gridlington; and for my part—unless it were that primitive garden that Adam lost—I can imagine no goodlier place.

On this particular forenoon, however, neither Miss Hugonin nor Felix Kennaston had eyes for its comeliness; silently they braved the griffins, and in silence they skirted the fish-pond—silver-crinkling in the May morning—and passed through cloistral ilex-shadowed walks, and amphitheatres of green velvet, and terraces ample and mellow in the sunlight, silently. The trees pelted them with blossoms; pedestaled in leafy recesses, Satyrs grinned at them apishly, and the arrows of divers pot-bellied Cupids threatened them, and Fauns piped for them ditties of no tone; the birds were about shrill avocations overhead, and everywhere the heatless, odourful air was a caress; but for all this, Miss Hugonin and Mr. Kennaston were silent and very fidgetty.

Margaret was hatless—and the glory of the eminently sensible spring sun appeared to centre in her hair—and violet-clad; and the gown, like most of her gowns, was all tiny tucks and frills and flounces, diapered with semi-transparencies—unsubstantial, foam-like, mere violet froth. As she came starry-eyed through the gardens, the impudent wind trifling with her hair, I protest she might have been some lady of Oberon's court stolen out of Elfland to bedevil us poor mortals, with only a moonbeam for the changeable heart of her, and for raiment a violet shadow spirited from the under side of some big, fleecy cloud.

They came presently through a trim, yew-hedged walkway to a summer-house covered with vines, into which Margaret peeped and declined to enter, on the ground that it was entirely too chilly and gloomy and exactly like a mausoleum; but nearby they found a semi-circular marble bench about which a group of elm-trees made a pleasant shadow splashed at just the proper intervals with sunlight.

On this Margaret seated herself; and then pensively moved to the other end of the bench, because a slanting sunbeam fell there. Since it was absolutely necessary to blast Mr. Kennaston's dearest hopes, she thoughtfully endeavoured to distract his attention from his own miseries—as far as might be possible—by showing him how exactly like an aureole her hair was in the sunlight. Margaret always had a kind heart.

Kennaston stood before her, smiling a little. He was the sort of man to appreciate the manoeuver.