The Eagle's Shadow Read online

  III

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

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

  It was when the nineteenth century was still a hearty octogenarianthat Frederick R. Woods caused Selwoode to be builded. I give you thename by which he was known on "the Street." A mythology has grownabout the name since, and strange legends of its owner are stillnarrated where brokers congregate. But with the lambs he sheared, andthe bulls he dragged to earth, and the bears he gored to financialdeath, we have nothing to do; suffice it, that he performed theseoperations with almost uniform success and in an unimpeachablyrespectable manner.

  And if, in his time, he added materially to the lists of inmates invarious asylums and almshouses, it must be acknowledged that he borehis victims no malice, and that on every Sunday morning he confessedhimself to be a miserable sinner, in a voice that was perfectlyaudible three pews off. At bottom, I think he considered his relationswith Heaven on a purely business basis; he kept a species of runningaccount with Providence; and if on occasions he overdrew it somewhat,he saw no incongruity in evening matters with a cheque for the churchfund.

  So that at his death it was said of him that he had, in his day, sentmore men into bankruptcy and more missionaries into Africa than anyother 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--ahandsome Tudor manor which stands some seven miles from the village ofFairhaven--where he dwelt in state, by turns affable and domineeringto the neighbouring farmers, and evincing a grave interest in thecondition of their crops. He no longer turned to the financial reportsin the papers; and the pedigree of the Woodses hung in the living-hallfor all men to see, beginning gloriously with Woden, the Scandinaviangod, and attaining a respectable culmination in the names of FrederickR. Woods and of William, his brother.

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

  "The Woods arms," he would inform you, with a relishing gusto, "arevert, an eagle displayed, barry argent and gules. And the crest isout 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 availablenook at Selwoode; it was carved in the woodwork, was set in themosaics, was chased in the tableware, was woven in the napery, wasglazed in the very china. Turn where you would, an eagle or twoconfronted you; and Hunston Wyke, who is accounted something of awit, swore that Frederick R. Woods at Selwoode reminded him of "asore-headed bear who had taken up permanent quarters in an aviary."

  There was one, however, who found the bear no very untractablemonster. This was the son of his brother, dead now, who dwelt atSelwoode as heir presumptive. Frederick R. Woods's wife had died longago, 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 wishto see, with the eyes of an inquisitive cherub and a big tow-head,which Frederick R. Woods fell into the habit of cuffing heartily, inorder to conceal the fact that he would have burned Selwoode to theground rather than allow any one else to injure a hair of it.

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

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

  I dare say the old gentleman was so completely accustomed to havinghis own way that this unlooked-for opposition tickled him by itsnovelty; or perhaps he recognised in Billy an obstinacy akin to hisown; or perhaps it was merely that he loved the boy. In any event, henever again alluded to the subject; and it is a fact that whenBilly sent for carpenters to convert an upper room into an atelier,Frederick R. Woods spent two long and dreary weeks in Boston in orderto remain in ignorance of the entire affair.

  Billy scrambled through college, somehow, in the allotted four years.At the end of that time, he returned to find new inmates installed atSelwoode.

  For the wife of Frederick R. Woods had been before her marriage one ofthe beautiful Anstruther sisters, who, as certain New Yorkers stillremember--those grizzled, portly, rosy-gilled fellows who prattleon provocation of Jenny Lind and Castle Garden, and remembereverything--created a pronounced furor at their debut in the days ofcrinoline and the Grecian bend; and Margaret Anstruther, as theywill tell you, was married to Thomas Hugonin, then a gallant cavalryofficer in the service of Her Majesty, the Empress of India.

  And she must have been the nicer of the two, because everybody whoknew her says that Margaret Hugonin is exactly like her.

  So it came about naturally enough, that Billy Woods, now an _ArtiumBaccalaureus_, if you please, and not a little proud of it, found theColonel and his daughter, then on a visit to this country, installedat Selwoode as guests and quasi-relatives. And Billy was twenty-two,and Margaret was nineteen.

  * * * * *

  Precisely what happened I am unable to tell you. Billy Woods claimsit is none of my business; and Margaret says that it was a long, longtime ago and she really can't remember.

  But I fancy we can all form a very fair notion of what is most likelyto occur when two sensible, normal, healthy young people are throwntogether in this intimate fashion at a country-house where theremaining company consists of two elderly gentlemen. Billy was forcedto be polite to his uncle's guest; and Margaret couldn't well bediscourteous to her host's nephew, could she? Of course not: soit befell in the course of time that Frederick R. Woods and theColonel--who had quickly become a great favourite, by virtue of hisimplicit faith in the Eagle and in Woden and Sir Percival de Wode ofHastings, and such-like flights of heraldic fancy, and had augmentedhis popularity by his really brilliant suggestion of Wynkyn de Worde,the famous sixteenth-century printer, as a probable collateralrelation of the family--it came to pass, I say, that the two gentlemennodded over their port and chuckled, and winked at one another andagreed that the thing would do.

  This was all very well; but they failed to make allowances for theinevitable quarrel and the subsequent spectacle of the gentlemancontemplating suicide and the lady looking wistfully toward a nunnery.In this case it arose, I believe, over Teddy Anstruther, who for acousin was undeniably very attentive to Margaret; and in the naturalcourse of events they would have made it up before the week was outhad not Frederick R. Woods selected this very moment to interfere inthe matter.

  Ah, _si vieillesse savait!_

  The blundering old man summoned Billy into his study and ordered himto marry Margaret Hugonin, precisely as the Colonel might have ordereda private to go on sentry-duty. Ten days earlier Billy would havejumped at the chance; ten days later he would probably have suggestedit himself; but at that exact moment he would have as willinglycontemplated matrimony with Alecto or Medusa or any of the Furies.Accordingly, he declined. Frederick R. Woods flew into a pyrotechnicaldisplay of temper
, and gave him his choice between obeying hiscommands and leaving his house forever--the choice, in fact, which hehad been according Billy at very brief intervals ever since the boyhad had the measles, fifteen years before, and had refused to take theproper medicines.

  It was merely his usual manner of expressing a request or asuggestion. But this time, to his utter horror and amaze, the boy tookhim at his word and left Selwoode within the hour.

  Billy's life, you see, was irrevocably blighted. It mattered verylittle what became of him; personally, he didn't care in the least.But as for that fair, false, fickle woman--perish the thought! Soonera thousand deaths! No, he would go to Paris and become a painter ofworldwide reputation; the money his father had left him would easilysuffice for his simple wants. And some day, the observed of allobservers in some bright hall of gaiety, he would pass her coldly by,with a cynical smile upon his lips, and she would grow pale and totterand fall into the arms of the bloated Silenus, for whose title she hadbartered her purely superficial charms.

  Yes, upon mature deliberation, that was precisely what Billy decidedto do.

  Followed dark days at Selwoode. Frederick R. Woods told Margaret ofwhat had occurred; and he added the information that, as his wife'snearest relative, he intended to make her his heir.

  Then Margaret did what I would scarcely have expected of Margaret.She turned upon him like a virago and informed Frederick R. Woodsprecisely what she thought of him; she acquainted him with the factthat he was a sordid, low-minded, grasping beast, and a miser, anda tyrant, and (I think) a parricide; she notified him that he wasthoroughly unworthy to wipe the dust off his nephew's shoes--anoffice toward which, to do him justice, he had never shown any markedaspirations--and that Billy had acted throughout in a most noble andsensible manner; and that, personally, she wouldn't marry Billy Woodsif he were the last man on earth, for she had always despised him; andshe added the information that she expected to die shortly, and shehoped they would both be sorry _then_; and subsequently she clappedthe climax by throwing her arms about his neck and bursting into tearsand telling him he was the dearest old man in the world and that shewas thoroughly ashamed of herself.

  So they kissed and made it up. And after a little the Colonel andMargaret went away from Selwoode, and Frederick R. Woods was leftalone to nourish his anger and indignation, if he could, and to hungerfor his boy, whether he would or not. He was too proud to seek himout; indeed, he never thought of that; and so he waited alone in hisfine house, sick at heart, impotent, hoping against hope that the boywould come back. The boy never came.

  No, the boy never came, because he was what the old man had madehim--headstrong, and wilful, and obstinate. Billy had been thoroughlyspoiled. The old man had nurtured his pride, had applauded it as amark of proper spirit; and now it was this same pride that had robbedhim of the one thing he loved in all the world.

  So, at last, the weak point in the armour of this sturdy old Phariseewas found, and Fate had pierced it gaily. It was retribution, if youwill; and I think that none of his victims in "the Street," none ofthe countless widows and orphans that he had made, suffered morebitterly than he in those last days.

  It was almost two years after Billy's departure from Selwoode that hisbody-servant, coming to rouse Frederick R. Woods one June morning,found him dead in his rooms. He had been ailing for some time. Itwas his heart, the doctors said; and I think that it was, though notprecisely in the sense which they meant.

  The man found him seated before his great carved desk, on which hishead and shoulders had fallen forward; they rested on a sheet oflegal-cap paper half-covered with a calculation in his crabbed oldhand as to the value of certain properties--the calculation which henever finished; and underneath was a mass of miscellaneous papers,among them his will, dated the day after Billy left Selwoode, in whichFrederick R. Woods bequeathed his millions unconditionally to MargaretHugonin when she should come of age.

  Her twenty-first birthday had fallen in the preceding month. SoMargaret was one of the richest women in America; and you may dependupon it, that if many men had loved her before, they worshipped hernow--or, at least, said they did, and, after all, their protestationswere the only means she had of judging. She might have been acountess--and it must be owned that the old Colonel, who had an honestAnglo-Saxon reverence for a title, saw this chance lost wistfully--andshe might have married any number of grammarless gentlemen, personallyunknown to her, whose fervent proposals almost every mail brought in;and besides these, there were many others, more orthodox in theirwooing, some of whom were genuinely in love with Margaret Hugonin, andsome--I grieve to admit it--who were genuinely in love with her money;and she would have none of them.

  She refused them all with the utmost civility, as I happen to know.How I learned it is no affair of yours.

  For Miss Hugonin had remarkably keen eyes, which she used toadvantage. In the world about her they discovered very little that shecould admire. She was none the happier for her wealth; the piled-upmillions overshadowed her personality; and it was not long before sheknew that most people regarded her simply as the heiress of the Woodsfortune--an unavoidable encumbrance attached to the property, whichdivers thrifty-minded gentlemen were willing to put up with. To put upwith!--at the thought, her pride rose in a hot blush, and, it must beconfessed, she sought consolation in the looking-glass.

  She was an humble-minded young woman, as the sex goes, and she saw nogreat reason there why a man should go mad over Margaret Hugonin. Thisdecision, I grant you, was preposterous, for there were any number ofreasons. Her final conclusion, however, was for the future to regardall men as fortune-hunters and to do her hair differently.

  She carried out both resolutions. When a gentleman grew pressing inhis attentions, she more than suspected his motives; and when sheeventually declined him it was done with perfect, courtesy, but theglow of her eyes was at such times accentuated to a marked degree.

  Meanwhile, the Eagle brooded undisturbed at Selwoode. Miss Hugoninwould allow nothing to be altered.

  "The place doesn't belong to me, attractive," she would tell herfather. "I belong to the place. Yes, I do--I'm exactly like a littlecow thrown in with a little farm when they sell it, and _all_ mylittle suitors think so, and they are very willing to take me on thoseterms, too. But they shan't, attractive. I hate every single solitaryman in the whole wide world but you, beautiful, and I particularlyhate that horrid old Eagle; but we'll keep him because he's a constantreminder to me that Solomon or Moses, or whoever it was that said allmen were liars, was a person of _very_ great intelligence."

  So that I think we may fairly say the money did her no good.

  If it benefited no one else, it was not Margaret's fault. She had ahigh sense of her responsibilities, and therefore, at various times,endeavoured to further the spread of philanthropy and literature andtheosophy and art and temperance and education and other laudablecauses. Mr. Kennaston, in his laughing manner, was wont to jest ather varied enterprises and term her Lady Bountiful; but, then, Mr.Kennaston had no real conception of the proper uses of money. Infact, he never thought of money. He admitted this to Margaret with awhimsical sigh.

  Margaret grew very fond of Mr. Kennaston because he was not mercenary.

  Mr. Kennaston was much at Selwoode. Many people came therenow--masculine women and muscleless men, for the most part. They had,every one of them, some scheme for bettering the universe; and ifamong them Margaret seemed somewhat out of place--a butterfly amongearnest-minded ants--her heart was in every plan they advocated, andthey found her purse-strings infinitely elastic. The girl was pitiablyanxious to be of some use in the world.

  So at Selwoode they gossiped of great causes and furthered themillenium. And above them the Eagle brooded in silence.

  And Billy? All this time Billy was junketing abroad, where everyyear he painted masterpieces for the Salon, which--on account of anefarious conspiracy among certain artists, jealous of his superiormerits--were invariably refused.

  Now Billy is bac
k again in America, and the Colonel has insisted thathe come to Selwoode, and Margaret is waiting for him in the dog-cart.The glow of her eyes is very, very bright. Her father's careless wordsthis morning, coupled with certain speeches of Mr. Kennaston's lastnight, have given her food for reflection.

  "He wouldn't dare," says Margaret, to no one in particular. "Oh, no,he wouldn't dare after what happened four years ago."

  And, Margaret-like, she has quite forgotten that what happened fouryears ago was all caused by her having flirted outrageously with TeddyAnstruther, in order to see what Billy would do.