CHAPTER XXII
THE next morning amazement fluttered over a million breakfast tables
and throbbed in a million railway carriages. For all the fierceness
of political passions, parliamentary elections are but sombre
occurrences to the general public. Rarely are they attended by the
picturesque, the dramatic, the tragic. But already the dramatic had
touched the election of Hickney Heath, stimulating interest in the
result. Thousands, usually apathetic as to political matters, opened
their newspapers to see how the ex-convict candidate had fared. They
read, with a gasp, that he was dead; that his successful opponent
had proclaimed himself to be his son. They had the dramatic value of
cumulative effect. If Paul had ever sought notoriety he had it now.
His name rang through the length and breadth of the land. The early
editions of the London afternoon papers swelled the chorus of amazed
comment and conjecture. Some had even routed out a fact or two,
Heaven knows whence, concerning father and son. According to party
they meted out praise or blame. Some, unversed in the law, declared
the election invalid. The point was discussed in a hundred clubs.
There was consternation in the social world. The Duchesses' boudoirs
with which Paul had been taunted hummed with indignation. They had
entertained an adventurer unawares. They had entrusted the sacred
ark of their political hopes to a charlatan. Their daughters had
danced with the offspring of gaol and gutter. He must be cast out
from the midst of them. So did those that were foolish furiously
rage together and imagine many a vain thing. The Winwoods came in
for pity. They had been villainously imposed upon. And the Young
England League to which they had all subscribed so handsomely--
where were its funds? Was it safe to leave them at the disposal of
so unprincipled a fellow? Then germs of stories crept in from the
studios and the stage and grew perversely in the overheated
atmosphere. Paul's reputation began to assume a pretty colour. On
the other hand, there were those who, while deploring the deception,
were impressed by the tragedy and by Paul's attitude. He had his
defenders. Among the latter first sprang forward Lord Francis Ayres,
the Chief Whip, officially bound to protect his own pet candidate.
He called early at the house in Portland Place, a distressed and
anxious man. The door was besieged by reporters from newspapers,
vainly trying to gain, entrance. His arrival created a sensation. At
any Tate there was a headline "Opposition Whip calls on Savelli."
One or two attempted to interview him on the doorstep. He excused
himself courteously. As-yet he knew as much or as little as they.
The door opened. The butler snatched him in hurriedly. He asked to
see the Winwoods. He found them in the library.
"Here's an awful mess," said he, throwing up his hands. "I thought
I'd have a word or two with you before I tackle Savelli. Have you
seen him this morning?"
"Oh, yes."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"I think," said Ursula, "that the best thing I can do is to take him
away with me for a rest as soon as possible. He's at the end of his
tether."
"You seem to take it pretty calmly."
"How do you expect us to take it, my dear Frank?" she asked. "We
always expected Paul to do the right thing when the time came, and
we consider that he has done it."
The Chief Whip smoothed a perplexed brow. "I don't quite follow.
Were you, vulgarly speaking, in the know all the time?"
"Sit down, and I'll tell you."
So he sat down and Miss Winwood quietly told him all she knew about
Paul and what had happened during the past few weeks, while the
Colonel sat by his desk and tugged his long moustache and here and
there supplemented her narrative.
"That's all very interesting," Ayres remarked when she had finished,
"and you two have acted like bricks. I also see that he must have
had a devil of a time of it. But I've got to look at things from an
official point of view."
"There's no question of invalidity, is there?" asked Colonel
Winwood.
"No. He was known as Paul Savelli, nominated as Paul Savelli, and
elected as Paul Savelli by the electors of Hickney Heath. So he'll
sit as Paul Savelli. That's all right. But how is the House going to
receive him when he is introduced? How will it take him afterwards?
What use will he be to the party? We only ran him because he seemed
to be the most brilliant of the young outsiders. We hoped great
things of him. Hasn't he smashed up himself socially? Hasn't he
smashed up his career at the very beginning? All that is what I want
to know."
"So do I," groaned Colonel Winwood. "I didn't have a wink of sleep
last night."
"I didn't either," said Ursula, "but I don't think it will matter a
row of pins to Paul in his career."
"It will always be up against him," said Ayres.
"Because he has acted like a man?"
"It's the touch of Ruy Blas that I'm afraid of."
"You must remember that he wasn't aware of his relation to the dead
man until the eve of the election."
"But he was aware that he wasn't a descendant of a historical
Italian family, which everyone thought him to be. I don't speak for
myself," said Ayres. "I'm fond of the chap. One can't help it. He
has the charm of the great gentleman, confound him, and it's all
natural. The cloven hoof has never appeared, because I personally
believe there's no cloven hoof. The beggar was born well bred, and,
as to performance--well--he has been a young meteor across the
political sky. Until this election. Then he was a disappointment. I
frankly confess it. I didn't know what he was playing at. Now I do.
Poor chap. I personally am sympathetic. But what about the
cold-blooded other people, who don't know what you've told me? To
them he's the son of an ex-convict--a vendor of fried fish--I
put it brutally from their point of view--who has been
masquerading as a young St. George on horseback. Will he ever be
forgiven? Officially, have I any use for him? You see, I'm
responsible to the party."
"Any party," said Ursula, "would be a congregation of imbeciles who
didn't do their best to develop the genius of Paul Savelli."
"I'm fond of Paul," said Colonel Winwood, in his tired way, "but I
don't know that I would go as far as that."
"It's only because you're a limited male, my dear James. I suppose
Caesar was the only man who really crossed the Rubicon. And the fuss
he made about it! Women jump across with the utmost certainty. My
dear Frank, we're behind Paul, whatever happens. He has been
fighting for his own hand ever since he was a child, it is true. But
he has fought gallantly."
"My dear Miss Winwood," said Frank Ayres, "if there's a man to be
envied, it's the one who has you for his champion!"
"Anyone, my dear Frank, is to be envied," she retorted, "who is
championed by common-sense."
"All these fireworks illuminate nothing," said Colonel Winwood. "I
think we had better ask Paul to come down and see Frank. Would you
like to see him alone?"
"I had rather you stayed," said Frank Ayres.
A message was sent to Paul, and presently he appeared, very pale and
haggard.
Frank Ayres met him with outstretched hand, spoke a courteous word
of sympathy, apologized for coming in the hour of tragic
bereavement.
Paul thanked him with equal courtesy. "I was about to write to you,
Lord Francis," he continued, "a sort of statement in explanation of
what happened last night--"
"Our friends have told me all, I think, that you may have to say."
"I shall still write it," said Paul, "so that you can have it in
black and white. At present, I've given the press nothing."
"Quite right," said Frank Ayres. "For God's sake, let us work
together as far as the press is concerned. That's one of the reasons
why I've forced myself upon you. It's horrible, my dear fellow, to
intrude at such a time. I hate it, as you can well imagine. But it's
my duty."
"Of course it is," said Paul. There was a span of awkward silence.
"Well," said he, with a wan smile, "we're facing, not a political,
but a very unimportant party situation. Don't suppose I haven't a
sense of proportion. I have. What for me is the end of the world is
the unruffled continuance of the cosmic scheme for the rest of
mankind. But there are relative things to consider. You have to
consider the party. I'm sort of fly-blown. Am I any use? Let us talk
straight. Am I or am I not?"
"My dear chap," said Frank Ayres, with perplexed knitting of the
brows, "I don't quite know what to say. You yourself have invited me
to talk straight. Well! Forgive me if I do. There may be a
suggestion in political quarters that you have won this election
under false pretences."
"Do you want me to resign my seat?"
The two men looked deep into each other's eyes.
"A Unionist in is a Liberal out," said Frank Ayres, "and counts two
on division. That's one way of looking at it. We want all we can get
from the enemy. On the other hand, you'd come in for a lot of
criticism and hostility. You'd have to start not only from the
beginning, but with a handicap. Are you strong enough to face it?"
"I'm not going to run away from anything," said Paul. "But I'll tell
you what I'm prepared to do. I'll resign and fight the constituency
again, under my real name of Kegworthy, provided, of course, the
local people are willing to adopt me--on the understanding,
however, that the party support me, or, at least, don't put forward
another candidate. I'm not going to turn berserk."
"That's a sporting offer, at any rate. But, pardon me--we're
talking business--where is the money for another election to come
from?"
"My poor father's death makes me a wealthy man," replied Paul.
Miss Winwood started forward in her chair. "My dear, you never told
us."
"There were so many other things to talk about this morning," he
said gently; "but of course I would have told you later. I only
mention it now"--he turned to the Chief Whip--"in answer to your
direct and very pertinent question."
Now between a political free-lance adopting a parliamentary career
in order to fight for his own hand, as all Paul's supporters were
frankly aware that he was doing, and a wealthy, independent and
brilliant young politician lies a wide gulf. The last man on earth,
in his private capacity, to find his estimate of his friends
influenced by their personal possessions was the fine aristocrat
Lord Francis Ayres. But he was a man of the world, the very
responsible head of the executive of a great political party. As
that executive head he was compelled to regard Paul from a different
angle. The millions of South Africa or the Middle West might vainly
knock at his own front door till the crack of doom, while Paul the
penniless sauntered in an honoured guest. But in his official room
in the House of Commons more stern and worldly considerations had to
prevail.
"Of course I can't give you an answer now," said he. "I'll have to
discuss the whole matter with the powers that be. But a seat's a
seat, and though I appreciate your Quixotic offer, I don't see why
we should risk it. It's up to you to make good. It's more in your
own interest that I'm speaking now. Can you go through with it?"
Paul, with his unconquerable instinct for the dramatic, hauled out
the little cornelian heart at the end of his watch-chain. "My dear
fellow," said he. "Do you see that? It was given to me for failing
to win a race at a Sunday-school treat, when I was a very little
boy. I didn't possess coat or stockings, and my toes came out
through the ends of my boots, and in order to keep the thing safe I
knotted it up in the tail of my shirt, which waggled out of the seat
of my breeches. It was given to me by a beautiful lady, who, I
remember, smelled like all the perfumes of Araby. She awakened my
aesthetic sense by the divine and intoxicating odour that emanated
from her. Since then I have never met woman so--so like a scented
garden of all the innocences. To me she was a goddess. I overheard
her prophesy things about me. My life began from that moment. I kept
the cornelian heart all my life, as a talisman. It has brought me
through all kinds of things. Once I was going to throw it away and
Miss Winwood would not let me. I kept it, somewhat against my will,
for I thought it was a lying talisman. It had told me, in the
sweet-scented lady's words, that I was the son of a prince. Give me
half an hour to-morrow or the day after," he said, seeing a puzzled
look in Frank Ayres's face, "and I'll tell you a true psychological
fairy tale--the apologia pro vita mea. I say, anyhow, that lately,
until last night, I thought this little cornelian heart was a lying
talisman. Then I knew it didn't lie. I was the son of a prince, a
prince of men, although he had been in gaol and spent his days
afterwards in running emotional Christianity and fried-fish shops.
His name was Silas. Mine is Paul. Something significant about it,
isn't there? Anyhow"--he balanced the heart in the palm of his
hand--"this hasn't lied. It has carried me through all my life.
When I thought it failed, I found it at the purest truth of its
prophecy. It's not going to fail me now. If it's right for me to
take my seat I'll take it--whether I make good politically, or
not, is on the knees of the gods. But you may take it from me that
there's nothing in this wide world that I won't face or go through
with, if I've set my mind to it."
So the child who had kicked Billy Goodge and taken the spolia opima
of paper cocked hat and wooden sword spoke through the man. As then,
in a queer way, he found himself commanding a situation; and as
then, commanding it rightfully, through sheer personal force. Again,
at a sign, he would have broken the sword across his knee. But the
sign did not come.
"Speaking quite unofficially," said Frank Ayres, "I think, if you
feel like that, you would be a fool to give up your seat."
"Very well," said Paul, "I thank you. And now, perhaps, it would be
wise to draw up that statement for the press, if you can spare the
time."
So Paul made a draft and Frank Ayres revised it, and it was sent
upstairs to be typed. When the typescript came down, Paul signed and
dispatched it and gave the Chief Whip a duplicate.
"Well," said the latter, shaking hands, "the best of good luck!"
Whereupon he went home feeling that though there would be the deuce
to pay, Paul Savelli would find himself perfectly solvent; and
meeting the somewhat dubious Leader of the Opposition later in the
day he said: "Anyhow, this 'far too gentlemanly party' has got
someone picturesque, at last, to touch the popular imagination."
"A new young Disraeli?"
"Why not?"
The Leader made a faint gesture of philosophic doubt. "The mould is
broken," said he.
"We'll see," said Frank Ayres, confidently.
Meanwhile, Paul returned to his room and wrote a letter, three words
of which he had put on paper--"My dear Princess"--when the
summons to meet the Chief Whip had come. The unblotted ink had dried
hard. He took another sheet.
"My dear Princess," he began.
He held his head in his hand. What could he say? Ordinary courtesy
demanded an acknowledgment of the Princess's message of inquiry. But
to write to her whom he had held close in his arms, whose lips had
clung maddeningly to his, in terms of polite convention seemed
impossible. What had she meant by her message? If she had gone
scornfully out of his life, she had gone, and there was an end on't.
Her coming back could bear only one interpretation--that of Jane's
passionate statement. In spite of all, she loved him. But now,
stripped and naked and at war with the world, for all his desire, he
would have none of her love. Not he. . . . At last he wrote:
PRINCESS,--A thousand grateful thanks for last night's gracious
act--the act of the very great lady that I have the privilege of
knowing you to be.
PAUL SAVELLI.
He rang for a servant and ordered the note to be sent by hand, and
then went out to Hickney Heath to see to the burying of his dead. On
his return he found a familiar envelope with the crown on the flap
awaiting him. It contained but few words:
PAUL, come and see me. I will stay at home all day.
SOPHIE.
His pulses throbbed. Her readiness to await his pleasure proved a
humility of spirit rare in Princess Sophie Zobraska. Her hands were
held out towards him. But he hardened his heart. The fairy-tale was
over. Nothing but realities lay before him. The interview was
perilous; but he was not one to shirk danger. He went out, took a
cab and drove to Berkeley Square.
She rose shyly as he entered and advanced to meet him. He kissed her
hand, but when he sought to release it he found his held in her warm
clasp. "Mon Dieu! How ill you are looking!" she said, and her lips
quivered.
"I'm only tired."
"You look so old. Ah!" She moved away from him with a sigh. "Sit
down. I suppose you can guess why I've asked you to come," she
continued after a pause. "But it is a little hard to say. I want you
to forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive," said Paul.
"Don't be ungenerous; you know there is. I left you to bear
everything alone."
"You were more than justified. You found me an impostor. You were
wounded in everything you held sacred. I wounded you deliberately.
You could do nothing else but go away. Heaven forbid that I should
have thought of blaming you. I didn't. I understood."
"But it was I who did not understand," she said, looking at the
rings on her fingers. "Yes. You are right. I was wounded--like an
animal, I hid myself in the country, and I hoped you would write,
which was foolish, for I knew you wouldn't. Then I felt that if I
had loved you as I ought, I should never have gone away."
"I thought it best to kill your love outright," said Paul.
She lay back on her cushions, very fair, very alluring, very sad.
From where he sat he saw her face in its delicate profile, and he
had a mighty temptation to throw himself on his knees by her side.
"I thought, too, you had killed it," she said.
"Still think so," said Paul, in a low voice.
She raised herself, bent forward, and he met the blue depths of her
gaze. "And you? Your love?"
"I never did anything to kill it."
"But I did."
"No, you couldn't. I shall love you to the hour of my death." He saw
the light leap into her eyes. "I only say it," he added somewhat
coldly, "because I will lie to you no longer. But it's a matter that
concerns me alone."
"How you alone? Am not I to be considered?"
He rose and stood on the hearthrug, facing her. "I consider you all
the time," said he.
"Listen, mon cher ami," she said, looking up at him. "Let us
understand one another. Is there anything about you, your birth or
your life that I still don't know--I mean, anything essential?"
"Nothing that matters," said Paul.
"Then let us speak once and for all, soul to soul. You and I are of
those who can do it. Eh bien. I am a woman of old family, princely
rank and fortune--you--"
"By my father's death," said Paul, for the second time that day, "I
am a rich man. We can leave out the question of fortune--except
that the money I inherit was made out of a fried-fish shop business.
That business was conducted by my father on lines of peculiar
idealism. It will be my duty to carry on his work--at least"--he
inwardly and conscientiously repudiated the idea of buying fish at
Billingsgate at five o'clock in the morning--"as far as the
maintenance of his principles is concerned."
"Soit," said the Princess, "we leave out the question of fortune.
You are then a man of humble birth, and the rank you have gained for
yourself."
"I am a man of no name and of tarnished reputation. Good God!" he
blazed out suddenly, losing control. "What is the good of torturing
ourselves like this? If I wouldn't marry you--before--until I
had done something in the front of the world to make you proud of
me, what do you think I'll do now, lying in the gutter for every one
to kick me? Would it be to the happiness of either of us for me to
sneak through society behind your rank? It would be the death of me
and you would come to hate me as a mean hound."
"You? A mean hound?" Her voice broke and the tears welled up in her
eyes. "You have done nothing for me to be proud of? You? You who did
what you did last night? Yes, I was there. I saw and heard. Listen!"
She rose to her feet and stood opposite to him, her eyes all stars,
her figure trembling and her hands moving in her Frenchwoman's
passionate gestures. "When I saw in the newspapers about your
father, my heart was wrung for you. I knew what it meant. I knew how
you must suffer. I came up straight to town. I wanted to be near
you. I did not know how. I did not want you to see me. I called in
my steward. 'How can I see the election?' We talked a little. He
went and hired a room opposite the Town Hall. I waited there in the
darkness. I thought it would last forever. And then came the result
and the crowd cheered and I thought I should choke. I sobbed, I
sobbed, I sobbed--and then you came. And I heard, and then I held
out my arms to you alone in the dark room--like this--and cried:
'Paul, Paul!"' Woman conquered. Madness surged through him and he
flung his arms about her and they kissed long and passionately.
"Whether you do me the honour of marrying me or not," she said a
while later' flushed and triumphant, "our lives are joined
together."
And Paul, still shaken by the intoxication of her lips and hair and
clinging pressure of her body, looked at her intensely with the eyes
of a man's longing. But he said: "Nothing can alter what I said a
few minutes ago--not all the passion and love in the world. You
and I are not of the stuff, thank God, to cut ourselves adrift and
bury ourselves in some romantic island and give up our lives to a
dream. We're young. We're strong. We both know that life is a
different sort of thing altogether from that. We're not of the sort
that shirks its responsibilities. We've got to live in the world,
you and I, and do the world's work."
"Parfaitement, mon bien aime." She smiled at him serenely. "I would
not bury myself with you in an Ionian island for more than two
months in a year for anything on earth. On my part, it would be the
unforgivable sin. No woman has the right, however much she loves
him, to ruin a man, any more than a man has the right to ruin a
woman. But if you won't marry me, I'm perfectly willing to spend two
months a year in an Ionian island with you," and she looked at him,
very proud and fearless.
Paul took her by the shoulders and shook her, more roughly than he
realized. "Sophie, don't tempt me to a madness that we should both
regret."
She laughed, wincing yet thrilled, under the rude handling, and
freed herself. "But what more can a woman offer the man who loves
her--that is to say if he does love her?"
"I not love you?" He threw up his hands--"Dear God!"
She waved him away and retreated a step or two, still laughing, as
he advanced. "Then why won't you marry me? You're afraid."
"Yes," he cried. "It's the only thing on this earth that I'm afraid
of."
"Why?"
"The sneers. First you'd hate them. Then you'd hate and despise me."
She grew serious. "Calme-toi, my dearest. just consider things
practically. Who is going to sneer at a great man?"
"I the first," replied Paul bitterly, his self-judgment warped by
the new knowledge of the vanities and unsubstantialities on which
his life had been founded. "I a great man, indeed!"
"A very great man. A brilliant man I knew long ago. A brave man I
have known, in spite of my pride, these last two or three awful
weeks. But last night I knew you were a great man--a very great
man. Ah, mon Paul. La canaille, whether it lives in Whitechapel or
Park Lane, what does it matter to us?"
"The riff-raff, unfortunately," said Paul, "forms the general
judgment of society."
The Princess drew herself up in all her aristocratic dignity. "My
Paul well-beloved," said she, "you have still one or two things to
learn. People of greatness and rank march with their peers, and they
can spit upon the canaille. There is canaille in your House of
Lords, upon which, the day after to-morrow, you can spit, and it
will take off its coronet and thank you--and now," she said,
resuming her seat on the sofa, among the cushions, "let us stop
arguing. If there is any more arguing to be done, let us put it off
to another occasion. Let us dismiss the questions of marriage and
Ionian islands altogether, and let us talk pleasantly like dear
friends who are reconciled."
And with the wit of the woman who loves and the subtlety of the
woman of the world she took Paul in her delicate hands and held him
before her smiling eyes and made him tell her of all the things she
wanted to know. And so Paul told her of all his life, of Bludston,
of Barney Bill, of the model days, of the theatre, of Jane, of his
father; and he showed her the cornelian heart and expounded its
significance; and he talked of his dearest lady, Miss Winwood, and
his work on the Young England League, and his failure to grip in
this disastrous election, and he went back to the brickfield and his
flight from the Life School, and his obsessing dream of romantic
parentage and the pawning of his watch at Drane's Court; and in the
full tide of it all a perturbed butler appeared at the door.
"Can I speak a word to Your Highness?"
She rose. The butler spoke the word. She burst out laughing. "My
dear," she cried, "it's past nine o'clock. The household is in a
state of agitation about dinner. We'll have it at once, Wilkins."
The butler bowed and retired.
The Princess laughed again. "Of course you'll stay. I left Stephanie
at Morebury."
And Paul stayed to dinner, and though, observing the flimsy compact,
they dismissed the questions of Ionian islands and marriage, they
talked till midnight of matters exceedingly pleasant.
