The Fortunate Youth

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"It's up agin a man, sonny," said Barney Bill, limping towards them,
"it's up agin a candidate, you understand, him not being a Fenian or
a Irish patriot, that he's been in gaol. Penal servitude ain't a
nice state of life to be reminded of, sonny. Whereas if you leaves
things as they is, nobody's going to ask no questions."

"That's my point," said Silas Finn.

Paul looked from one to the other, darkly. In a kind of dull fierce
passion he had made up his mind to clear himself before the world,
to rend to tatters his garments of romance, to snap his fingers at
the stars and destiny and such-like deluding toys, to stand a young
Ajax defying the thunderbolts. Here came the first check.

"If they found out as how he'd done time, they'd find out for why,"
said Bill, cocking his head earnestly.

As Paul, engaged in sombre thought, made no reply, Silas turned
away, his hands uplifted in supplication, and prayed aloud. He had
sinned in giving way to his anger. He prostrated himself before the
divine vengeance. If this was his apportioned punishment, might God
give him meekness and strength to bear it. The tremulous, crying
voice, the rapt, fanatical face, and the beseeching attitude struck
a bizarre note in the comfortable and worldly room. Supported on
either side by Jane, helpless and anxious, and Barney Bill, crooked,
wrinkled, with his close-cropped white hair and little liquid
diamond eyes, still nervously tearing his hat-brim, he looked almost
grotesque. To Paul he seemed less a man than a creation of another
planet, with unknown and incalculable instincts and impulses, who
had come to earth and with foolish hand had wiped out the meaning of
existence. Yet he felt no resentment, but rather a weary pity for
the stranger blundering through an unsympathetic world. As soon as
there came a pause in the prayer, he said not ungently:

"The Almighty is not going to use me as an instrument to punish you,
if I can help it. I quite appreciate your point. I'll say nothing."

Barney Bill jerked his thumb towards the chair where the Princess
had been sitting:

"She won't give it away?"

Paul smiled sadly. "No, old man. She'll keep it to herself."

That marked the end of the interview. Paul accompanied the three
downstairs.

"I meant to act for the best, Paul," said Silas piteously, on
parting. "Tell me that I haven't made you my enemy."

"God forbid," said Paul.

He went slowly up to his room again and threw himself in his writing
chair. His eye fell upon the notes on the sheet of foolscap. The
Radical candidate having been chosen, they were no longer relevant
to his speech. He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the
waste-paper basket. His speech! He held his head in both hands. A
couple of hours hence he would be addressing a vast audience, the
centre of the hopes of thousands of his fellow countrymen. The
thought beat upon his brain. He had had the common nightmare of
standing with conductor's baton in front of a mighty orchestra and
being paralyzed by sense of impotence. No less a nightmare was his
present position. A couple of hours ago he was athrill with
confidence and joy of battle. But then he was a different man. The
morning stars, the stars of his destiny, sang together in the
ever-deepening glamour of the Vision Splendid. He was entering into
the lists of Camelot to fight for his Princess. He was the
Mysterious Knight, parented in fairy-far Avilion, the Fortunate
Youth, the Awakener of England. Now he was but a base-born young man
who had attained a high position by false pretences; an ordinary
adventurer with a glib tongue; a self-educated, self-seeking,
commonplace fellow. At least, so he saw himself in his Princess's
eyes. And he had meant that she should thus behold him. No longer
was he entering lists to fight for her. For what hopeless purpose
was he entering them? To awaken England? The awakener must have his
heart full of dreams and visions and glamour and joy and throbbing
life; and in his heart there was death.

He drew out the little cornelian talisman at the end of his
watch-chain and looked at it bitterly. It was but a mocking symbol
of illusion. He unhooked it and laid it on the table. He would carry
it about with him no longer. He would throw it away.

Ursula Winwood quietly entered the room.

"You must come down and have something to cat before the meeting."

Paul rose. "I don't want anything, thank you, Miss Winwood."

"But James and I do. So come and join us."

"Are you coming to the meeting?" he asked in surprise.

"Of course." She lifted her eyebrows. "Why not?"

"After what you have heard?"

"All the more reason for us to go." She smiled as she had smiled on
that memorable evening six years ago when she had stood with the
horrible pawn-ticket in her hand. "James has to support the Party. I
have to support you. James will do the same as I in a day or two.
Just give him time. His mind doesn't work very quickly, not as
quickly as a woman's. Come," she said. "When we have a breathing
space you can tell me all about it. But in the meantime I'm pretty
sure I understand."

"How can you?" he asked wearily. "You have other traditions."

"I don't know about traditions; but I don't give my love and take it
away again. I set rather too much value on it. I understand because
I love you."

"Others with the same traditions can't understand."

"I'm not proposing to marry you," she said bluntly. "That makes a
difference."

"It does," said he, meeting her eyes unflinchingly.

"If you weren't a brave man, I shouldn't say such a thing to you.
Anyhow I understand you're the last man in the world who should take
me for a fool."

"My God!" said Paul in a choky voice. "What can I do to thank you?"

"Win the election."

"You are still my dearest lady--my very very dearest lady," said
he.

Her shrewd eyes fell upon the cornelian heart. She picked it tip and
held it out to him on her plump palm.

"Why have you taken this off your watch-chain?"

"It's a little false god," said he.

"It's the first thing yon asked for when you recovered from your
illness. You said you had kept it since you were a tiny boy. See? I
remember. You set great value on it then?"

"I believed in it," said Paul.

"And now you don't? But a woman gave it to you."

"Yes," said Paul, wondering, in his masculine way, how the deuce she
knew that. "I was a brat of eleven."

"Then keep it. Put it on your chain again. I'm sure it's a true
little god. Take it back to please me."

As there was nothing, from lapping up Eisel to killing a crocodile,
that Paul would not have done, in the fulness of his wondering
gratitude, for his dearest lady, he meekly attached the heart to his
chain and put it in his pocket.

"I must tell you," said he, "that the lady--she seemed a goddess
to me then--chose me as her champion in a race, a race of urchins
at a Sunday school treat, and I didn't win. But she gave me the
cornelian heart as a prize."

"But as my champion you will win," said Miss Winwood. "My dear boy,"
she said, and her eyes grew very tender as she laid her hand on the
young man's arm, "believe what an old woman is telling you is true.
Don't throw away any little shred of beauty you've ever had in your
life. The beautiful things are really the true ones, though they may
seem to be illusions. Without the trinket or what it stood for,
would you be here now?"

"I don't know," replied Paul. "I might have taken a more honest road
to get here."

"We took you to ourselves as a bright human being, Paul--not for
what you might or might not have been. By the way, what have you
decided as regards making public the fact of your relationship?"

"My father, for his own reasons, has urged me not to do so."

Miss Winwood drew a long breath.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said.

So Paul, comforted by one woman's amazing loyalty, went out that
evening and addressed his great meeting. But the roar of applause
that welcomed him echoed through void spaces of his being. He felt
neither thrill nor fear. The speech prepared by the Fortunate Youth
was delivered by a stranger to it, glowing and dancing eloquence.
The words came trippingly enough, but the informing Spirit was gone.

Those in the audience familiar with the magic of his smile were
disappointed. The soundness of his policy satisfied the hard-
headed, but he made no appeal to the imaginative. If his speech did
not fall flat, it was not the clarion voice that his supporters had
anticipated. They whispered together with depressed headshakings.
Their man was not in form. He was nervous. What he said was right
enough, but his utterance lacked fire. It carried conviction to
those already convinced; but it could make no proselytes. Had they
been mistaken in their choice? Too young a man, hadn't lie bitten
off a hunk greater than he could chew? So the inner ring of local
politicians. An election audience, however, brings its own
enthusiasms, and it must be a very dull dog indeed who damps their
ardour. They cheered prodigiously when Paul sat down, and a crowd of
zealots waiting outside the building cheered him again as he drove
off. But Paul knew that he had been a failure. He had delivered
another man's speech. To-morrow and the day after and the day after
that, and ever afterwards, if he held to the political game, he
would have to speak in his own new person. What kind of a person
would the new Paul be?

He drove back almost in silence with the Colonel and Miss Winwood,
vainly seeking to solve the problem. The foundations of his life had
been swept away. His foot rested on nothing solid save his own
manhood. That no shock should break down. He would fight. He would
win the election. He set his lips in grim determination. If life
held no higher meaning, it at least offered this immediate object
for existence. Besides he owed the most strenuous effort of his soul
to the devoted and loyal woman whose face he saw dimly opposite.
Afterwards come what might. The Truth at any rate. Magna est veritas
et praevalebit.

These were "prave 'orts" and valorous protestations.

But when their light supper was over and Colonel Winwood had
retired, Ursula Winwood lingered in the dining room, her heart
aching for the boy who looked so stern and haggard. She came behind
him and touched his hair.

"Poor boy," she murmured.

Then Paul--he was very young, barely thirty--broke down, as
perhaps she meant that he should, and, elbows sprawling amid the
disarray of the meal, poured out all the desolation of his soul, and
for the first time cried out in anguish for the woman he had lost.
So, as love lay a-bleeding mortally pierced, Ursula Win wood wept
unaccustomed tears and with tender fingers strove to staunch the
wound.

CHAPTER XIX

DAYS of strain followed: days of a thousand engagements, a thousand
interviews, a thousand journeyings, a thousand speeches; days in
which he was reduced to an unresisting automaton, mechanically
uttering the same formulas; days in which the irresistible force of
the campaign swept him along without volition. And day followed day
and not a sign came from the Princess Zobraska either of condonation
or resentment. It was as though she had gathered her skirts around
her and gone disdainfully out of his life for ever. If speaking were
to be done, it was for her to speak. Paul could not plead. It was he
who, in a way, had cast her off. In effect he had issued the
challenge: "I am a child of the gutter, an adventurer masquerading
under an historical name, and you are a royal princess. Will you
marry me now?" She had given her answer, by walking out of the room,
her proud head in the air. It was final, as far as he was concerned.
He could do nothing--not even beg his dearest lady to plead for
him. Besides, rumour had it that the Princess had cancelled her town
engagements and gone to Morebury. So he walked in cold and darkness,
uninspired, and though he worked with feverish energy, the heart and
purpose of his life were gone.

As in his first speech, so in his campaign, he failed. He had been
chosen for his youth, his joyousness, his magnetism, his radiant
promise of great things to come. He went about the constituency an,
anxious, haggard man, working himself to death without being able to
awaken a spark of emotion in the heart of anybody. He lost ground
daily. On the other hand, Silas Finn, with his enthusiasms, and his
aspect of an inspired prophet, made alarming progress. He swept the
multitude. Paul Savelli, the young man of the social moment, had an
army of helpers, members of Parliament making speeches, friends on
the Unionist press writing flamboyant leaders, fair ladies in
automobiles hunting for voters through the slums of Hickney Heath.
Silas Finn had scarcely a personal friend. But hope reigned among
his official supporters, whereas depression began to descend over
Paul's brilliant host.

"They want stirring up a bit," said the Conservative agent
despondently. "I hear old Finn's meetings go with a bang. They
nearly raised the roof off last night. We want some roof-raising on
this side."

"I do my best," said Paul coldly, but the reproach cut deep. He was
a failure. No nervous or intellectual effort could save him now,
though he spent himself to the last heartbeat. He was the sport of a
mocking Will o' the Wisp which he had taken for Destiny.

Once on coming out of his headquarters he met Silas, who was walking
up the street with two or three of his committee-men. In accordance
with the ordinary amenities of English political life, the two
candidates shook hands, and withdrew a pace or two aside to chat for
a while. This was the first time they had come together since the
afternoon of revelation, and there was a moment of constraint during
which Silas tugged at his streaked beard and looked with mournful
wistfulness at his son.

"I wish I were not your opponent, Paul," said he in a low voice, so
as not to be overheard.

"That doesn't matter a bit," Paul replied courteously. "I see you're
putting up an excellent fight."

"It's the Lord's battle. If it weren't, do you think I would not let
you win?"

The same old cry. Through sheer repetition, Paul began almost to
believe in it. He felt very weary. In his father's eyes he
recognized, with a pang, the glow of a faith which he had lost.
Their likeness struck him, and he saw himself, his old self, beneath
the unquestioning though sorrowful eyes.

"That's the advantage of a belief in the Almighty's personal
interest," he answered, with a touch of irony: "whatever happens,
one is not easily disillusioned."

"That is true, my son," said Silas.

"Jane is well?" Paul asked, after an instant's pause, breaking off
the profitless discussion.

"Very well."

"And Barney Bill?"

"He upbraids me bitterly for what I have said."

Paul smiled at the curiously stilted phrase.

"Tell him from me not to do it. My love to them both."

They shook hands again, and Paul drove off in the motor car that had
been placed at his disposal during the election, and Silas continued
his sober walk with his committee-men up the muddy street. Whereupon
Paul conceived a sudden hatred for the car. It was but the final
artistic touch to this comedy of mockery of which he had been the
victim. . . . Perhaps God was on his father's side, after all--on
the side of them who humbly walked and not of them who rode in proud
chariots. But his political creed, his sociological convictions rose
in protest. How could the Almighty be in league with all that was
subversive of social order, all that was destructive to Imperial
cohesion, all that which inevitably tended to England's downfall?

He turned suddenly to his companion, the Conservative agent.

"Do you think God has got common sense?"

The agent, not being versed in speculations regarding the attributes
of the Deity, stared; then, disinclined to commit himself, took
refuge in platitude.

"God moves in a mysterious way, Mr. Savelli."

"That's rot," said Paul. "If there's an Almighty, He must move in a
common-sense way; otherwise the whole of this planet would have
busted up long ago. Do you think it's common sense to support the
present Government?"

"Certainly not," said the agent, fervently.

"Then if God supported it, it wouldn't be common sense on His part.
It would be merely mysterious?"

"I see what you're driving at," said the agent. "Our opponent
undoubtedly has been making free with the name of the Almighty in
his speeches. As a matter of fact he's rather crazy on the subject.
I don't think it would be a bad move to make a special reference to
it. It's all damned hypocrisy. There's a chap in the old French
play--what's his name?"

"Tartuffe."

"That's it. Well, there you are. That speech of his yesterday--now
why don't you take it and wring religiosity and hypocrisy and
Tartuffism out of it? You know how to do that sort of thing. You can
score tremendously. I never thought of it before. By George! you can
get him in the neck if you like."

"But I don't like," said Paul. "I happen to know that Mr. Finn is
sincere in his convictions."

"But, my dear sir, what does his supposed sincerity matter in
political contest?"

"It's the difference between dirt and cleanliness," said Paul.
"Besides, as I told you at the outset, Mr. Finn and I are close
personal friends, and I have the highest regard for his character.
He has seen that his side has scrupulously refrained from
personalities with regard to me, and I insist on the same observance
with regard to him."

"With all due deference to you, Mr. Savelli, you were called only
the day before yesterday 'the spoiled darling of Duchesses'
boudoirs.'"

"It wasn't with Mr. Finn's cognizance. I've found that out."

"Well," said the agent, leaning back-in the luxurious limousine, "I
don't see why somebody, without your cognizance, shouldn't call Mr.
Finn the spoiled minion of the Almighty's ante-chamber. That's a
devilish good catch-phrase," he added, starting forward in the joy
of his newborn epigram: "Devilish good. 'The spoiled minion of the
Almighty's ante-chamber.' It'll become historical."

"If it does," said Paul, "it will be associated with the immediate
retirement of the Conservative candidate."

"Do you really mean that?"

It was Paul's turn to start forward. "My dear Wilson," said he, "if
you or anybody else thinks I'm a man to talk through his hat, I'll
retire at once. I don't care a damn about myself. Not a little
tuppenny damn. What the devil does it matter to me whether I get
into Parliament or not? Nothing. Not a tuppenny damn. You can't
understand. It's the party and the country. For myself, personally,
the whole thing can go to blazes. I'm in earnest, dead earnest," he
continued, with a vehemence incomprehensible to Wilson. "If anybody
doesn't think so, I'll clear out at once"--he snapped his fingers.
"But while I'm candidate everything I say I mean. I mean it
intensely--with all my soul. And I say that if there's a single
insulting reference to Mr. Finn during this election, you'll be up
against the wreck of your own political career."

The agent watched the workings of his candidate's dark clear-cut
face. He was very proud of his candidate, and found it difficult to
realize that there were presumably sane people who would not vote
for him on sight. A lingering memory of grammar school days flashed
on him when he told his wife later of the conversation, and he
likened Paul to a wrathful Apollo. Anxious to appease the god, he
said humbly:

"It was the merest of suggestions, Mr. Savelli. Heaven knows we
don't want to descend to personalities, and your retirement would be
an unqualifiable disaster. But--you'll pardon my mentioning it--
you began this discussion by asking me whether the Almighty had
common sense."

"Well, has He or not?"

"Of course," said Wilson.

"Then we're going to win this election," said Paul.

If he could have met enthusiasm with enthusiasm, all would have been
well. The awakener of England could have captivated hearts by
glowing pictures of a great and glorious future. It would have been
a counter-blaze to that lit by his opponent, which flamed in all the
effulgence of a reckless reformer's promise, revealing a Utopia in
which there would be no drunkenness, no crime, no poverty, and in
which the rich, apparently, would have to work very hard in order to
support the poor in comfortable idleness. But beyond proving
fallacies, Paul could do nothing--and even then, has there ever
been a mob since the world began susceptible to logical argument?
So, all through the wintry days of the campaign, Silas Finn carried
his fiery cross through the constituency, winning frenzied
adherents, while Paul found it hard to rally the faithful round the
drooping standard of St. George.

The days went on. Paul addressed his last meeting on the eve of the
poll. By a supreme effort he regained some of his former fire and
eloquence. He drove home exhausted, and going straight to bed slept
like a dog till morning.

The servant who woke him brought a newspaper to the bedside.

"Something to interest you, sir."

Paul looked at the headline indicated by the man.

"Hickney Heath Election. Liberal Candidate's Confession.
Extraordinary Scene."

He glanced hurriedly down the column and read with amazement and
stabbing pain the matter that was of interest. The worst had
happened--the thing which during all his later life Silas Finn had
feared. The spectre of the prison had risen up against him.

Towards the end of Silas Finn's speech, at his last great meeting, a
man, sitting in the body of the hall near the platform, got up and
interrupted him. "What about your own past life? What about your
three years' penal servitude?" All eyes were turned from the man--
a common looking, evil man--to the candidate, who staggered as if
he had been shot, caught at the table behind him for support and
stared in greyfaced terror. There was an angry tumult, and the
interrupter would have fared badly, but for Silas Finn holding up
his hand and imploring silence.

"I challenge the candidate to deny," said the man, as soon as he
could be heard, "that his real name is Silas Kegworthy, and that he
underwent three years' penal servitude for murderously assaulting
his wife."

Then the candidate braced himself and said: "The bare facts are
true. But I have lived stainlessly in the fear of God and in the
service of humanity for thirty years. I have sought absolution for a
moment of mad anger under awful provocation in unremitting prayer
and in trying to save the souls and raise the fortunes of my
fellow-men. Is that all you have against me?"

"That's all," said the man.

"It is for you, electors of Hickney Heath, to judge me."

He sat down amid tumultuous cheers, and the man who had interrupted
him, after some rough handling, managed to make his escape. The
chairman then put a vote of confidence in the candidate, which was
carried by acclamation, and the meeting broke up.

Such were the essential facts in the somewhat highly coloured
newspaper story which Paul read in stupefied horror. He dressed
quickly and went to his sitting-room, where he rang tip his father's
house on the telephone. Jane's voice met his ear.

"It's Paul speaking," he replied. "I've just this moment read of
last night. I'm shaken to my soul. How is my father?"

"He's greatly upset," came the voice. "He didn't sleep all night,
and he's not at all well this morning. Oh, it was a cruel, cowardly
blow."

"Dastardly. Do you know who it was?"

"No. Don't you?"

"I? Does either of you think that I--?"

"No, no," came the voice, now curiously tearful. "I didn't mean
that. I forgot you've not had time to find out."

"Who does he think it was?"

"Some old fellow prisoner who had a grudge against him."

"Were you at the meeting?"

"Yes. Oh, Paul, it was splendid to see him face the audience. He
spoke so simply and with such sorrowful dignity. He had their
sympathy at once. But it has broken him. I'm afraid he'll never be
the same man again. After all these years it's dreadful."

"It's all that's damnable. It's tragic. Give him my love and tell
him that words can't express my sorrow and indignation."

He rang off. Almost immediately Wilson was announced. He carne into
the room radiant.

"You were right about the divine common-sensicality," said he. "The
Lord has delivered our adversary into our hands with a vengeance."

He was a chubby little man of forty, with coarse black hair and
scrubby moustache, not of the type that readily appreciates the
delicacies of a situation. Paul conceived a sudden loathing for him.

"I would give anything for it not to have happened," he said.

Wilson opened his eyes. "Why? It's our salvation. An ex-convict--
it's enough to damn any candidate. But we want to make sure. Now
I've got an idea."

Paul turned on him angrily. "I'll have no capital made out of it
whatsoever. It's a foul thing to bring such an accusation up against
a man who has lived a spotless life for thirty years. Everything in
me goes out in sympathy with him, and I'll let it be known all
through the constituency."

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