The Fortunate Youth

by William John Locke

Paul nodded. He was listening, with death in his heart. The whole fantastic substructure of his life had been suddenly kicked away, and his life was an inchoate ruin. Gone was the glamour of romance in which since the day of the cornelian heart he had had his essential being. Up to an hour ago he had never doubted his mysterious birth. No real mother could have pursued an innocent child with Polly Kegworthy's implacable hatred. His passionate repudiation of her had been a cardinal article of his faith. On the other hand, the prince and princess theory he had long ago consigned to the limbo of childish things; but the romance of his birth, the romance of his high destiny, remained a vital part of his spiritual equipment. His looks, his talents, his temperament, his instincts, his dreams had been irrefutable confirmations. His mere honesty, his mere integrity, had been based on this fervent and unshakable creed. And now it had gone. No more romance. No more glamour. No more Vision Splendid now faded into the light of common and sordid day. Outwardly listening, his gay, mobile face turned to iron, he lived in a molten intensity of thought, his acute brain swiftly coordinating the ironical scraps of history. He was the son of Polly Kegworthy. So far he was unclean; but hitherto her blood had not manifested itself in him. He was the son of this violent and pathetic fanatic, this ex-convict; he had his eyes, his refined face; perhaps he inherited from him the artistic temperament—he recalled grimly the daubs on the man's walls, and his purblind gropings toward artistic self-expression; and all this—the Southern handsomeness, and Southern love of colour, had come from his Sicilian grandmother, the nameless drab, with bright yellow handkerchief over swarthy brows, turning the handle of a barrel organ in the London streets. Instinct had been right in its promptings to assume an Italian name; but the irony of it was of the quality that makes for humour in hell. And his very Christian name—Paul—the exotic name which Polly Kegworthy would not have given to a brat of hers—was but a natural one for a Silas to give his son, a Silas born of generations of evangelical peasants. His eyes rested on the photograph of his Princess. She, first of all, was gone with the Vision. An adventurer he had possibly been; but an adventurer of romance, carried high by his splendid faith, and regarding his marriage with the Princess but as a crowning of his romantic destiny. But now he beheld himself only as a base-born impostor. His Princess was gone from his life. Death was in his heart.

He saw his familiar, luxurious room as in a dream, and Jane, anxious-eyed, looking into the fire, and Barney Bill a little way off, clutching his hard felt hat against his body; but his eyes were fixed on the strange, many-passioned, unbalanced man who claimed to be—nay, who was—his father.

"When I first met you that night my heart went out to you," he was saying. "It overflowed in thankfulness to God that He had delivered you out of the power of the Dog, and in His inscrutable mercy had condoned that part of my sin as a father and had set you in high places."

With the fringe of his brain Paul recognized, for the first time, how he brought into ordinary talk the habits of speech acquired in addressing a Free Zionist congregation.

"It was only the self-restraint," Silas continued, "taught me by bitter years of agony and a message from God that it was part of my punishment not to acknowledge you as my son—"

"And what I told you, and what Jane told you about him," said Barney Bill. "Remember that, Silas."

"I remember it—it was these influences that kept me silent. But we were drawn together, Paul." He bent forward in his chair. "You liked me. In spite of all our differences of caste and creed—you liked me."

"Yes, I was drawn to you," said Paul, and a strange, unknown note in his voice caused Jane to glance at him swiftly. "You seemed to be a man of many sorrows and deep enthusiasms—and I admit I was in close sympathy with you." He paused, not moving from his rigid attitude, and then went on: "What you have told me of your sufferings—and I know, with awful knowledge, the woman who was my mother—has made me sympathize with you all the more. But to express that sympathy in any way you must give me time. I said you had played hell with my life. It's true. One of these days I may be able to explain. Not now. There's no time. We're caught up in the wheels of an inexorable political machine. I address my party in the constituency to-night." It was a cold intelligence that spoke, and once more Jane flashed a half-frightened glance at him. "What I shall say to them, in view of all this, I don't quite know. I must have half an hour to think."

"I know I oughtn't to interfere, Paul," said Jane, "but you mustn't blame Mr. Finn too much. Although he differs from you in politics and so on, he loves you and is proud of you—as we all are—and looks forward to your great career—I know it only too well. And now he has this deep conviction that he has a call from on High to ruin your career at the very beginning. Do understand, Paul, that he feels himself in a very terrible position."

"I do," said Mr. Finn. "God knows that if it weren't for His command, I should myself withdraw."