The Eagle's Shadow by James Branch Cabell (online e book reader .txt) 📕

wouldn't be about to marry you, knowing you as I do for
what you are--knowing that I haven't one chance in a hundred of any
happiness."

"My dear," he said, and his voice was earnest, "you know at least that
what there is of good in me is at its best with you."

"Yes, yes!" Kathleen cried, quickly. "That is so, isn't it, Felix?
And you do care for me, don't you? Felix, are you sure you care for
me--quite sure? And are you quite certain, Felix, that you never cared
so much for any one else?"

Mr. Kennaston was quite certain. He proceeded to explain his feelings
toward her at some length.

Kathleen listened with downcast eyes and almost cheated herself into
the belief that the man she loved was all that he should be. But at
the bottom of her heart she knew he wasn't.

I think we may fairly pity her.

Kennaston and Mrs. Saumarez chatted very amicably for some ten
minutes. At the end of that period, the twelve forty-five express
bellowing faintly in the distance recalled the fact that the morning
mail was in, and thereupon, in the very best of humours, they set
out for the house. I grieve to admit it, but Kathleen had utterly
forgotten Billy by this, and was no more thinking of him than she was
of the Man in the Iron Mask.

She was with Kennaston, you see; and her thoughts, and glances, and
lips, and adoration were all given to his pleasuring, just as her life
would have been if its loss could have saved him from a toothache. He
strutted a little, and was a little grateful to her, and--to do
him justice--received the tribute she accorded him with perfect
satisfaction and equanimity.



XXIV

Margaret came out of the summer-house, Billy Woods followed her, in a
very moist state of perturbation.

"Peggy----" said Mr. Woods.

But Miss Hugonin was laughing. Clear as a bird-call, she poured forth
her rippling mimicry of mirth. They train women well in these matters.
To Margaret, just now, her heart seemed dead within her. Her lover was
proved unworthy. Her pride was shattered. She had loved this clumsy
liar yonder, had given up a fortune for him, dared all for him, had
(as the phrase runs) flung herself at his head. The shame of it was a
physical sickness, a nausea. But now, in this jumble of miseries, in
this breaking-up of the earth and the void heavens that surged about
her and would not be mastered, the girl laughed; and her laughter was
care-free and half-languid like that of a child who is thinking of
something else. Ah, yes, they train women well in these matters.

At length Margaret said, in high, crisp accents: "Pardon me, but I
can't help being amused, Mr. Woods, by the way in which hard luck
dogs your footsteps. I think Fate must have some grudge against you,
Mr. Woods."

"Peggy----" said Mr. Woods.

"Pardon me," she interrupted him, her masculine little chin high in
the air, "but I wish you wouldn't call me that. It was well enough
when we were boy and girl together, Mr. Woods. But you've developed
since--ah, yes, you've developed into such a splendid actor, such a
consummate liar, such a clever scoundrel, Mr. Woods, that I scarcely
recognise you now."

And there was not a spark of anger in the very darkest corner of
Billy's big, brave heart, but only pity--pity all through and through,
that sent little icy ticklings up and down his spine and turned his
breathing to great sobs. For she had turned full face to him and he
could see the look in her eyes.

I think he has never forgotten it. Years after the memory of it would
come upon him suddenly and set hot drenching waves of shame and
remorse surging about his body--remorse unutterable that he ever hurt
his Peggy so deeply. For they were tragic eyes. Beneath them her
twitching mouth smiled bravely, but the mirth of her eyes was
monstrous. It was the mirth of a beaten woman, of a woman who has
known the last extreme of shame and misery and has learned to laugh at
it. Even now Billy Woods cannot quite forget.

"Peggy," said he, brokenly, "ah, dear, dear Peggy, listen to me!"

"Why, have you thought of a plausible lie so soon?" she queried,
sweetly. "Dear me, Mr. Woods, what is the use of explaining things? It
is very simple. You wanted to marry me last night because I was rich.
And when I declined the honour, you went back to your old love. Oh,
it's very simple, Mr. Woods! It's a pity, though--isn't it?--that all
your promptness went for nothing. Why, dear me, you actually managed
to propose before breakfast, didn't you? I should have thought that
such eagerness would have made an impression on Kathleen--oh, a most
favourable impression. Too bad it hasn't!"

"Listen!" said Billy. "Ah, you're forcing me to talk like a cad,
Peggy, but I can't see you suffer--I can't! Kathleen misunderstood
what I said to her. I--I didn't mean to propose to her, Peggy. It was
a mistake, I tell you. It's you I love--just you. And when I asked you
to marry me last night--why, I thought the money was mine, Peggy.
I'd never have asked you if I hadn't thought that. I--ah, you don't
believe me, you don't believe me, Peggy, and before God, I'm telling
you the simple truth! Why, I hadn't ever seen that last will, Peggy!
It was locked up in that centre place in the desk, you remember.
Why--why, you yourself had the keys to it, Peggy. Surely, you
remember, dear?" And Billy's voice shook and skipped whole octaves as
he pleaded with her, for he knew she did not believe him and he could
not endure the horror of her eyes.

But Margaret shook her head; and as aforetime the twitching lips
continued to laugh beneath those tragic eyes. Ah, poor little lady of
Elfland! poor little Undine, with a soul wakened to suffering!

"Clumsy, very clumsy!" she rebuked him. "I see that you are accustomed
to prepare your lies in advance, Mr. Woods. As an extemporaneous liar
you are very clumsy. Men don't propose by mistake except in farces.
And while we are speaking of farces, don't you think it time to drop
that one of your not knowing about that last will?"

"The farce!" Billy stammered. "You--why, you saw me when I found it!"

"Ah, yes, I saw you when you pretended to find it. I saw you when you
pretended to unlock that centre place. But now, of course, I know it
never was locked. I'm very careless about locking things, Mr. Woods.
Ah, yes, that gave you a beautiful opportunity, didn't it? So, when
you were rummaging through my desk--without my permission, by the way,
but that's a detail--you found both wills and concocted your little
comedy? That was very clever. Oh, you think you're awfully smooth,
don't you, Billy Woods? But if you had been a bit more daring, don't
you see, you could have suppressed the last one and taken the money
without being encumbered by me? That was rather clumsy of you, wasn't
it?" Suave, gentle, sweet as honey was the speech of Margaret as she
lifted her face to his, but her eyes were tragedies.

"Ah!" said Billy. "Ah--yes--you think--that." He was very careful in
articulating his words, was Billy, and afterward he nodded his head
gravely. The universe had somehow suffered an airy dissolution like
that of Prospero's masque--Selwoode and its gardens, the great globe
itself, "the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn
temples" were all as vanished wraiths. There was only Peggy left--
Peggy with that unimaginable misery in her eyes that he must drive
away somehow. If that was what she thought, there was no way for him
to prove it wasn't so.

"Why, dear me, Mr. Woods," she retorted, carelessly, "what else could
I think?"

Here Mr. Woods blundered.

"Ah, think what you will, Peggy!" he cried, his big voice cracking and
sobbing and resonant with pain. "Ah, my dear, think what you will, but
don't grieve for it, Peggy! Why, if I'm all you say I am, that's no
reason you should suffer for it! Ah, don't, Peggy! In God's name,
don't! I can't bear it, dear," he pleaded with her, helplessly.

Billy was suffering, too. But her sorrow was the chief of his, and
what stung him now to impotent anger was that she must suffer and he
be unable to help her--for, ah, how willingly, how gladly, he would
have borne all poor Peggy's woes upon his own broad shoulders.

But none the less, he had lost an invaluable opportunity to hold his
tongue.

"Suffer! I suffer!" she mocked him, languidly; and then, like a
banjo-string, the tension snapped, and she gave a long, angry gasp,
and her wrath flamed.

"Upon my word, you're the most conceited man I ever knew in my life!
You think I'm in love with you! With you! Billy Woods, I wouldn't wipe
my feet on you if you were the last man left on earth! I hate you, I
loathe you, I detest you, I despise you! Do you hear me?--I hate you.
What do I care if you are a snob, and a cad, and a fortune-hunter,
and a forger, and--well, I don't care! Perhaps you haven't ever
forged anything yet, but I'm quite sure you would if you ever got an
opportunity. You'd be delighted to do it. Yes, you would--you're just
the sort of man who revels in crime. I love you! Why, that's the
best joke I've heard for a long time. I'm only sorry for you, Billy
Woods--sorry because Kathleen has thrown you over--sorry, do you
understand? Yes, since you're so fond of skinny women, I think it's a
great pity she wouldn't have you. Don't talk to me!--she is skinny.
I guess I know. She's as skinny as a beanpole. She's skinnier than I
ever imagined it possible for anybody--anybody--to be. And she
pads and rouges till I think it's disgusting, and not half--not
one-half--of her hair belongs to her, and that half is dyed. But,
of course, if you like that sort of thing, there's no accounting for
tastes, and I'm sure I'm very sorry for you, even though personally I
don't care for skinny women. I hate 'em! And I hate you, too, Billy
Woods!"

She stamped her foot, did Margaret. You must bear with her, for her
heart is breaking now, and if she has become a termagant it is because
her shamed pride has driven her mad. Bear with her, then, a little
longer.

Billy tried to bear with her, for in part he understood.

"Peggy," said he, very gently, "you're wrong."

"Yes, I dare say!" she snapped at him.

"We won't discuss Kathleen, if you please. But you're wrong about the
will. I've told you the whole truth about that, but I don't blame you
for not believing me, Peggy--ah, no, not I. There seems to be a curse
upon Uncle Fred's money. It brings out the worst of all of us. It has
changed even you, Peggy--and not for the better, Peggy. You've become
distrustful. You--ah, well, we won't discuss that now. Give me the
will, my dear, and I'll burn it before your eyes. That ought to show
you, Peggy, that you're wrong." Billy was very white-lipped as he
ended, for the Woods temper is a short one.

But she had an arrow left for him. "Give it to you! And do you think
I'd trust you with it, Billy Woods?"

"Peggy!--ah, Peggy, I hadn't deserved that. Be just, at least, to me,"
poor Billy begged of her.

Which was an absurd thing to ask of an angry woman.

"Yes, I do know what you'd do with it! You'd take it right off and
have it probated or executed or whatever it is they do to wills, and
turn me straight out in the gutter. That's just what you're longing
to do this very moment. Oh, I know, Billy Woods--I know what a temper
you've got, and I know you're keeping quiet now simply because you
know that's the most exasperating thing you can possibly do. I
wouldn't have such a disposition as you've got for the world. You've
absolutely no control over your temper--not a bit of it. You're
vile, Billy Woods! Oh, I hate you! Yes, you've made me cry, and I
suppose you're very proud of yourself. Aren't you proud? Don't stand
staring at me like a stuck pig, but answer me when I talk to you!
Aren't you proud of making me cry? Aren't you? Ah, don't talk to
me--don't talk to me, I tell you! I don't wish to hear a word you've
got to say. I hate you. And you shan't have the money, that's flat."

"I don't want it," said Billy. "I've been trying to tell you for the
last, half-hour I don't want it.