The Fortunate Youth Part 41

"For the sake of argument, I agree."

"Well--there are two kinds of donkeys. One kind is meek and mild and will go wherever it is driven. The other, in order to get along, must always have a bunch of carrots dangling before its eyes. That's you."

"But confound it all!" he cried, "I've lost my carrots--can't you see?

I'll never have any carrots again. That's the whole d.a.m.ned tragedy."

For the first time she smiled--the smile of the woman wiser in certain subtle things than the man. "My dear," she said, "carrots are cheap."

She paused for an instant and added, "Thank G.o.d!"

Paul squeezed her arms affectionately and they moved apart. He sighed.

"They're the most precious things in the world," said he.

"The most precious things in the world are those which you can get for nothing," said Jane.

"You're a dear," said he, "and a comfort."

Presently he left her and returned to his weary round of the const.i.tuency, feeling of stouter heart, with a greater faith in the decent ordering of mundane things. A world containing such women as Jane and Ursula Winwood possessed elements of sanity. Outside one of the polling stations he found Barney Bill holding forth excitedly to a knot of working-men. He ceased as the car drove up, and cast back a broad proud smile at the candidate's warm greeting.

"I got up the old 'bus so nice and proper, with all your colours and posters, and it would have been a spectacular Diorama for these 'ere poor people; but you know for why I didn't bring it out to-day, don't you, sonny?"

"I know, dear old friend," said Paul.

"I 'adn't the 'cart to."

"What were you speechifying about when I turned up?"

Barney Bill jerked a backward thumb. "I was telling this pack of cowardly Radicals that though I've been a Tory born and bred for sixty odd years, and though I've voted for you, Silas Finn, for all he was in prison while most of them were sucking wickedness and Radicalism out of Nature's founts, is just as good a man as what you are. They was saying, yer see, they was Radicals, but on account of Silas being blown upon, they was going to vote for you. So I tells 'em, I says, 'Mr.

Savelli would scorn your dirty votes. If yer feel low and Radical, vote Radical. Mr. Savelli wants to play fair. I know both of 'em,' I says, 'both of 'em intimately.' And they begins to laugh, as if I was talking through my hat. Anyway, they see now I know you, sonny."

Paul laughed and clapped the loyal old man on the shoulder. Then he turned to the silent but interested group. "Gentlemen," said he, "I don't want to inquire on which side you are; but you can take it from me that whatever my old friend Mr. Simmons says about Mr. Finn and myself is the absolute truth. If you're on Mr. Finn's side in politics, in G.o.d's name vote for him. He's a n.o.ble, high-souled man and I'm proud of his private friends.h.i.+p."

He drew Barney Bill apart. "You're the only Tory in the place who can try to persuade people not to vote for me. I wish you would keep on doing it."

"I've been a-doing of it ever since the polls opened this morning,"

said Barney Bill. Then he c.o.c.ked his head on one side and his little eyes twinkled: "It's an upside-down way of fighting an election to persuade people not to vote for you, isn't it?"

"Everything is topsy-turvy with me, these days," Paul replied: "so we've just got to stand on our heads and make the best of it."

And he drove off in the gathering dusk.

Night found him in the great chamber of the Town Hall, with his agent and members of his committee. Present too were the Liberal Agent and the members of the Liberal Committee. At one end of the room sat the Mayor of the Borough in robe and chain of office, presiding over the proceedings. The Returning Officer and his staff sat behind long tables, on which were deposited the sealed ballot boxes brought in from the various polling stations; and these were emptied and the votes were counted, the voting papers for each candidate being done up in bundles of fifty. Knots of committee-men of both parties stood chatting in low voices. In an ordinary election both candidates would have chatted together, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred about golf, and would have made an engagement to meet again in milder conflict that day week.

But here Paul was the only candidate to appear, and he sat in a cane-bottomed chair apart from the lounging politicians, feeling curiously an interloper in this vast, solemn and scantily-filled hall.

He was very tired, too tired in body, mind and soul to join in the small-talk of Wilson and his bodyguard. Besides, they all wore the air of antic.i.p.ated victory, and for that he held them in detestation. He had detested them the whole day long. The faces that yesterday had been long and anxious to-day had been wreathed in smirks. Wherever he had gone he had found promise of victory in his father's disgrace.

Pa.s.sionately the young man, fronting vital issues, longed for his own defeat.

But for the ironical interposition of the high G.o.ds, it might have been so different. Any other candidate against him, he himself buoyed up with his own old glorious faith, his Princess, dazzling meteor illuminating the murky streets--dear G.o.d! what would not have been the joy of battle during the past week, what would not have been the intense thrill, the living of a thousand lives in these few hours of suspense now so dull with dreariness and pain! He sat apart, his legs crossed, a hand over his eyes. Wilson and his men, puzzled by his apparent apathy, left him alone. It is not much use addressing a mute and wooden idol, no matter how physically prepossessing.

The counting went on slowly, relentlessly, and the bundles of fifty on each side grew in bulk, and Paul's side bulked larger than Silas Finn's.

At last Wilson could stand it no longer. He left the group with which he was talking, and came to Paul. "We're far ahead already," he cried excitedly. "I told you last night would do the trick."

"Last night," said Paul, rising and stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets, "my opponent's supporters pa.s.sed a vote of confidence in him in a scene of tumultuous enthusiasm."

"Quite so," replied Wilson. "A crowd is generous and easily swayed. A theatrical audience of scalliwags and thieves will howl applause at the triumph of virtue and the downfall of the villain; and each separate member will go out into the street and begin to practise villainy and say 'to h.e.l.l with virtue.' If last night's meeting could have polled on the spot, they would have been as one man. To-day they're scattered and each individual revises his excited opinion. Your hard-bitten Radical would sooner have a self-made man than an aristocrat to represent him in Parliament; but, d.a.m.n it all, he'd sooner have an aristocrat than an ex-convict."

"But who the devil told you I'm an aristocrat?" cried Paul.

Wilson laughed. "Who wants to be told such an obvious thing? Anyhow, you've only got to look and you'll see how the votes are piling up."

Paul looked and saw that Wilson spoke truly. Then he reflected that Wilson and the others who had worked so strenuously for him had no part in his own personal depression. They deserved a manifestation of interest, also expressions of grat.i.tude. So Paul pulled himself together and went amongst them and was responsive to their prophecies of victory.

Then just as the last votes were being counted, an official attendant came in with a letter for Paul. It had been brought by messenger. The writing on the envelope was Jane's. He tore it open and read.

Mr. Finn is dying. He has had a stroke. The doctor says he can't live through the night. Come as soon as you can. JANE.

Outside the Town Hall the wide street was packed with people. Men surged up to the hollow square of police guarding the approach to the flight of steps and the great entrance door. Men swarmed about the electric standards above the heads of their fellows. Men rose in a long tier with their backs to the shop-fronts on the opposite side of the road. In spite of the raw night the windows were open and the arc lights revealed a ghostly array of faces looking down on the ma.s.s below, whose faces in their turn were lit up by the more yellow glare streaming from the doors and uncurtained windows of the Town Hall. In the lobby behind the gla.s.s doors could be seen a few figures going and coming, committee-men, journalists, officials. A fine rain began to fall, but the crowd did not heed it. The mackintosh capes of the policemen glistened. It was an orderly crowd, held together by tense excitement: all eyes fixed on the silent illuminated building whence the news would come. Across one window on the second floor was a large white patch, blank and sphinx-like. At right angles to one end of the block ran the High Street and the tall, blazing trams pa.s.sed up and down and all eyes in the trams strained for a transient glimpse of the patch, hoping that it would flare out into message.

Presently a man was seen to dash from the interior of the hall into the lobby, casting words at the waiting figures, who clamoured eagerly and disappeared within, just as the man broke through the folding doors and appeared at the top of the steps beneath the portico. The great crowd surged and groaned, and the word was quickly pa.s.sed from rank to rank.

"Savelli. Thirteen hundred and seventy majority." And then there burst out wild cheers and the crowd broke into a myriad little waves like a choppy sea. Men danced and shouted and clapped each other on the back, and the tall facade of the street opposite the hall was a-flutter.

Suddenly the white patch leaped into an illumination proclaiming the figures.

Savelli--6,135.

Finn--4,765.

Again the wild cheering rose, and then the great double windows in the centre of the first floor of the Town Hall were flung open and Paul, surrounded by the mayor and officials, appeared.

Paul gripped the iron hand-rail and looked down upon the tumultuous scene, his ears deafened by the roar, his eyes dazed by the conflicting lights and the million swift reflections from moving faces and arms and hats and handkerchiefs. The man is not born who can receive unmoved a frenzied public ovation. A lump rose in his throat. After all, this delirium of joy was sincere. He stood for the moment the idol of the populace. For him this vast concourse of human beings had waited in rain and mud and now became a deafening, seething welter of human pa.s.sion. He gripped the rail tighter and closed his eyes. He heard as in a dream the voice of the mayor behind him: "Say a few words. They won't hear you--but that doesn't matter."

Then Paul drew himself up, facing the whirling scene. He sought in his pockets and suddenly shot up his hand, holding a letter, and awaited a lull in the uproar. He was master of himself now. He had indeed words to say, deliberately prepared, and he knew that if he could get a hearing he would say them as deliberately. At last came comparative calm.

"Gentlemen," said he, with a motion of the letter, "my opponent is dying."

He paused. The words, so unexpected, so strangely different from the usual exordium, seemed to pa.s.s from line to line through the crowd.

"I am speaking in the presence of death," said Paul, and paused again.

And a hush spread like a long wave across the street, and the thronged windows, last of all, grew still and silent.

"I will ask you to hear me out, for I have something very grave to say." And his voice rang loud and clear. "Last night my opponent was forced to admit that nearly thirty years ago he suffered a term of penal servitude. The shock, after years of reparation, of spotless life, spent in the service of G.o.d and his fellow-creatures, has killed him. I desire publicly to proclaim that I, as his opponent, had no share in the dastardly blow that has struck him down. And I desire to proclaim the reason. He is my own father; I, Paul Savelli, am my opponent, Silas Finn's son."

A great gasp and murmur rose from the wonder-stricken throng, but only momentarily, for the spell of drama was on them. Paul continued.

"I will make public later on the reasons for our respective changes of name. For the present it is enough to state the fact of our relations.h.i.+p and of our mutual affection and respect. That I thank you for electing me goes without saying; and I will do everything in my power to advance the great cause you have enabled me to represent. I regret I cannot address you in another place to-night, as I had intended. I must ask you of your kindness to let me go quietly where my duty and my heart call me to my father's death-bed."

He bowed and waved a dignified gesture of farewell, and turning into the hall met the a.s.semblage of long, astounded faces. From outside came the dull rumbling of the dispersing crowd. The mayor, the first to break the silence, murmured a plat.i.tude.

Paul thanked him gravely. Then he went to Wilson. "Forgive me," said he, "for all that has been amiss with me to-day. It has been a strain of a very peculiar kind."