_ CHAPTER 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. In God's name, why can't you talk like a sensible woman, Peggy?" I am afraid that Mr. Woods, too, was beginning to lose his temper.
"That's right--swear at me! It only needed that. You do want the money, and when you say you don't you're lying--lying--_lying_, do you understand? You all want my money. Oh, dear, _dear!_" Margaret wailed, and her great voice was shaken to its depths and its sobbing was the long, hopeless sobbing of a violin, as she flung back her tear-stained face, and clenched her little hands tight at her sides; "why _can't_ you let me alone? You're all after my money--you, and Mr. Kennaston, and Mr. Jukesbury, and all of you! Why _can't_ you let me alone? Ever since I've had it you've hunted me as if I'd been a wild beast. God help me, I haven't had a moment's peace, a moment's rest, a, moment's quiet, since Uncle Fred died. They all want my money--everybody wants my money! Oh, Billy, Billy, why _can't_ they let me alone?"
"Peggy----" said he.
But she interrupted him. "Don't talk to _me_, Billy Woods! Don't you _dare_ talk to me. I told you I didn't wish to hear a word you had to say, didn't I? Yes, you all want my money. And you shan't have it. It's mine. Uncle Fred left it to me. It's mine, I tell you. I've got the greatest thing in the world--money! And I'll keep it. Ah, I hate you all--every one of you--but I'll make you cringe to me. I'll make you _all_ cringe, do you hear, because I've got the money you're ready to sell your paltry souls for! Oh, I'll make you cringe most of all, Billy Woods! I'm rich, do you hear?--rich--_rich_! Wouldn't you be glad to marry the rich Margaret Hugonin, Billy? Ah, haven't you schemed hard for that? You'd be glad to do it, wouldn't you? You'd give your dirty little soul for that, wouldn't you, Billy? Ah, what a cur you are! Well, some day perhaps I'll buy you just as I would any other cur. Wouldn't you be glad if I did, Billy? Beg for it, Billy! Beg, sir! Beg!" And Margaret flung back her head again, and laughed shrilly, and held up her hand before him as one holds a lump of sugar before a pug-dog.
In Selwoode I can fancy how the Eagle screamed his triumph.
But Billy's face was ashen.
"Before God!" he said, between his teeth, "loving you as I do, I wouldn't marry you now for all the wealth in the world! The money has ruined you--ruined you, Peggy."
For a little she stared at him. By and bye, "I dare say it has," she said, in a strangely sober tone. "I've been scolding like a fishwife. I beg your pardon, Mr. Woods--not for what I've said, because I meant every _word_ of it, but I beg your pardon for saying it. Don't come with me, please."
Blindly she turned from him. Her shoulders had the droop of an old woman's. Margaret was wearied now, weary with the weariness of death.
For a while Mr. Woods stared after the tired little figure that trudged straight onward in the sunlight, stumbling as she went. Then a pleached walk swallowed her, and Mr. Woods groaned.
"Oh, Peggy, Peggy!" he said, in bottomless compassion; "oh, my poor little Peggy! How changed you are!"
Afterward Mr. Woods sank down upon the bench and buried his face in his hands. He sat there for a long time. I don't believe he thought of anything very clearly. His mind was a turgid chaos of misery; and about him the birds shrilled and quavered and carolled till the air was vibrant with their trilling. One might have thought they choired in honour of the Eagle's triumph, in mockery of poor Billy.
Then Mr. Woods raised his head with a queer, alert look. Surely he had heard a voice--the dearest of all voices.
"Billy!" it wailed; "oh, Billy, _Billy_!" _