The Eagles Shadow | Page 7

likely to
occur when two sensible, normal, healthy young people are thrown
together in this intimate fashion at a country-house where the
remaining company consists of two elderly gentlemen. Billy was forced
to be polite to his uncle's guest; and Margaret couldn't well be
discourteous to her host's nephew, could she? Of course not: so it befell
in the course of time that Frederick R. Woods and the Colonel--who
had quickly become a great favourite, by virtue of his implicit faith in
the Eagle and in Woden and Sir Percival de Wode of Hastings, and
such-like flights of heraldic fancy, and had augmented his popularity
by his really brilliant suggestion of Wynkyn de Worde, the famous
sixteenth-century printer, as a probable collateral relation of the

family--it came to pass, I say, that the two gentlemen nodded over their
port and chuckled, and winked at one another and agreed that the thing
would do.
This was all very well; but they failed to make allowances for the
inevitable quarrel and the subsequent spectacle of the gentleman
contemplating suicide and the lady looking wistfully toward a nunnery.
In this case it arose, I believe, over Teddy Anstruther, who for a cousin
was undeniably very attentive to Margaret; and in the natural course of
events they would have made it up before the week was out had not
Frederick R. Woods selected this very moment to interfere in the
matter.
Ah, si vieillesse savait!
The blundering old man summoned Billy into his study and ordered
him to marry Margaret Hugonin, precisely as the Colonel might have
ordered a private to go on sentry-duty. Ten days earlier Billy would
have jumped at the chance; ten days later he would probably have
suggested it himself; but at that exact moment he would have as
willingly contemplated matrimony with Alecto or Medusa or any of the
Furies. Accordingly, he declined. Frederick R. Woods flew into a
pyrotechnical display of temper, and gave him his choice between
obeying his commands and leaving his house forever--the choice, in
fact, which he had been according Billy at very brief intervals ever
since the boy had had the measles, fifteen years before, and had refused
to take the proper medicines.
It was merely his usual manner of expressing a request or a suggestion.
But this time, to his utter horror and amaze, the boy took him at his
word and left Selwoode within the hour.
Billy's life, you see, was irrevocably blighted. It mattered very little
what became of him; personally, he didn't care in the least. But as for
that fair, false, fickle woman--perish the thought! Sooner a thousand
deaths! No, he would go to Paris and become a painter of worldwide
reputation; the money his father had left him would easily suffice for
his simple wants. And some day, the observed of all observers 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 totter and fall into the arms
of the bloated Silenus, for whose title she had bartered her purely
superficial charms.
Yes, upon mature deliberation, that was precisely what Billy decided to
do.
Followed dark days at Selwoode. Frederick R. Woods told Margaret of
what had occurred; and he added the information that, as his wife's
nearest 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. Woods
precisely what she thought of him; she acquainted him with the fact
that he was a sordid, low-minded, grasping beast, and a miser, and a
tyrant, and (I think) a parricide; she notified him that he was thoroughly
unworthy to wipe the dust off his nephew's shoes--an office toward
which, to do him justice, he had never shown any marked
aspirations--and that Billy had acted throughout in a most noble and
sensible manner; and that, personally, she wouldn't marry Billy Woods
if he were the last man on earth, for she had always despised him; and
she added the information that she expected to die shortly, and she
hoped they would both be sorry then; and subsequently she clapped the
climax by throwing her arms about his neck and bursting into tears and
telling him he was the dearest old man in the world and that she was
thoroughly ashamed of herself.
So they kissed and made it up. And after a little the Colonel and
Margaret went away from Selwoode, and Frederick R. Woods was left
alone to nourish his anger and indignation, if he could, and to hunger
for his boy, whether he would or not. He was too proud to seek him out;
indeed, he never thought of that; and so