William John Locke

“ His destiny was drawing him nearer and nearer to it, he thought, with slow and irresistible force. In a few years there would be Parliament, office, power, the awaking from stupor of an England hypnotized by malign influences. He saw himself at the table in the now familiar House of green benches, thundering out an Empire's salvation. If he thought more of the awakener than the awakening, it was because he was the same little Paul Kegworthy to whom the cornelian heart had brought the Vision Splendid in the scullery of the Bludston slum. ”

“ I have many to flatter me. I am not too ugly. Many men pay their court to me, but they do not touch my heart. None of them even interest me. I don't know why. And then I have my rank, which imposes on me its obligations. Sometimes I wish I were a little woman of nothing at all, so that I could do as I like. Mais enfin, I do what I can. You have come, Paul Savelli, with your youth and your faith and your genius, and you pay your court to me like the others. ”

“ And they saw the great pictures of the world, and Paul, with his expert knowledge, pointed out beauties she had not dreamed of hitherto, and told her tales of the painters and discoursed picturesquely on Venetian history, and she marvelled at his insight and learning and thought him the most wonderful man that had ever dropped, ready-made, from heaven. And he, in the flush of his new love, was thrilled by her touch and the low tones of her voice when she plucked him by the sleeve and murmured: "Ah, Paul, regardez-moi ca. It is so beautiful one wants to weep with joy." ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was a paragon of young Greek gods. She had discovered him; and women don't discover even mortal paragons every day in the week. Also, she was a woman of forty-three, which, after all, is not wrinkled and withered eld; and she was not a soured woman; she radiated health and sweetness; she had loved once in her life, very dearly. Romance touched her with his golden feather and, in the most sensible and the most unreprehensible way in the world, she fell in love with Paul.
"I wonder what made you put that Santa Barbara of Palma Vecchio just opposite the bed," he said one day. ”

“ Jane sniffed up the fresh spring air, unconscious of the London taint, and laughed. "Why, what's the matter with the Euston Road?"
"It's vulgar," said Paul. "In the Park the hyacinths and the daffodils will be out."
What he meant he scarcely knew. When one is very young and out of tune with life, one is apt to speak discordantly.
They mounted a westward omnibus. Paul lit a cigarette and smoked almost in silence until they alighted by the Park gates. As they entered, he turned to her suddenly. "Look here, Jane, I want to ask you something. ”

“ He entered the hopeless factory gate at six in the morning and left it at half-past five in the evening; and, his rough food swallowed, slunk to his kennel in the scullery like a little tired dog. And Mr. Button drank, and beat Mrs. Button, and Mrs. Button beat Paul whenever she felt in the humour and had anything handy to do it with, and, as a matter of course, confiscated his wages on Saturday and set him to mind the baby on Sunday afternoons. In the monotony, weariness and greyness of life the glory of the Vision began to grow dim. ”

“ 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? ”

“ He could not even awaken Hickney Heath. As he dashed through the streets in his triumphal car, he hated Hickney Heath, hated the wild "hoorays" of waggon-loads of his supporters on their way to the polls, hated the smug smiles of his committee-men at polling stations. He forgot that he did not hate England. A little black disk an inch or two in diameter if cunningly focussed can obscure the sun in heaven from human eye. There was England still behind the little black disk, though Paul for the moment saw it not.
Wilson pulled his scrubby moustache and made no retort to Paul's anathema. ”

“ She preferred the prosaic reality of stenography and typewriting. No sphere could be too dazzling for Paul; he was born to great things, the consciousness of his high destiny being at once her glory and her despair; but, as regards herself, her outlook on life was cool and sober. Paul was peacock born; it was for him to strut about in iridescent plumage. She was a humble daw and knew her station. It must be said that Paul held out the stage as a career more on account of the social status that it would give to Jane than through a belief in her histrionic possibilities. ”

“ Lord Francis Ayres, a bachelor and a man of winning charm, as men must be whose function it is to keep Members of Parliament good and pleased with themselves and sheeplike, held the Princess captive, in a remote corner, with his honeyed tongue. She looked at him seductively out of her great, slumberous blue eyes, even as she had looked, on occasion, at him, Paul. He hated Lord Francis, set himself up against him, as of old he had set himself up against Billy Goodge. He was a better man than Frank Ayres. Frank Ayres was only a popinjay. ”

“ Paul snapped three or four fingers. "Bah!" he cried. "Talk sense. Talk facts. Leave God out of the question for a while. It's blasphemy to connect Him with a sordid business like this. Tell me about myself—my parentage—let me know where I am."
"You're with three people as loves yer, sonny," said Barney Bill. "What passes in this room will never be known to another soul on earth."
"That I swear," said Silas Finn.
"You can publish it broadcast in every newspaper in England," said Paul. "I'm making no bargains. Good God! I'm asking for nothing but the truth. ”

“ She named an eminent actor, then in the heyday of his fame, of whom legend hath it that his photographs were bought in thousands by love-lorn maidens who slept with them beneath their pillows.
Paul drew her away from the little knot of idlers clustered round the window. "There's nothing that man can do that I can't do," said Paul.
"You're twenty times better looking," said Jane.
"I have more intelligence," said Paul.
"Of course," said Jane.
"I'm going to be an actor," said Paul.
"Oh!" cried Jane in sudden rapture. Then her sturdy common-sense asserted itself. "But can you act?" ”

“ When Parliament rose for the Easter recess Paul, the most tired, yet the most blissful, youth among the Fortunate, flew straight to Venice, where a happy-eyed princess welcomed him. She was living in a Palazzo on the Grand Canal, lent to her—that is the graceful Italian way of putting it—by some Venetian friends; and there, with Mademoiselle de Cressy to keep off the importunate, she received such acquaintance as floated from the ends of the earth through the enchanted city.
"I have started by seeing as few people as I can," she said. ”

“ Paul was packing his clothes in the portmanteau that lay on the narrow bed in his tiny back bedroom, watched disconsolately by a sallow, careworn man who sat astride the one cane chair, his hat on the back of his head, the discoloured end of a cigarette between his lips.
"It's all very well for you to take it cheerfully," said the latter. "You're young. You're strong. You're rich. You've no one but yourself. You haven't a wife and kids depending on you."
"I know it makes a devil of a difference," replied Paul, disregarding the allusion to his wealth. ”

“ Paul scudded off, his heart aflame, his hand, as he ran, tucking in the shirt whose evasion from the breeches was beyond the control of the single brace. Besides, crawling on your stomach is dislocating even to the most neatly secured attire. But his action was mechanical. His thoughts were with his goddess. In his inarticulate mind he knew himself to be her champion. He sped under her consecration. He knew he could run. He could run like a young deer. Though despised, could he not outrun any of the youth in Budge Street? ”

“ 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. ”

“ I was in a stone-cold palazzo in Florence—in winter. Ugh! Shall I ever forget it? I don't want to speak evil of Italy to an Italian—"
"I'm only Italian by descent," exclaimed Paul, with a laugh, his first frank laugh during the whole of that gloomy evening. And he laughed louder than was necessary, for, as it suddenly dawned upon him that he did not in the least recall to her mind the grimy little Bludston boy, the cold hand of fear was dissolved in a warm gush of exultation. "You can abuse Italy or any country but England as much as you like." ”

“ 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. ”

“ They recognized each other. Barney Bill told his tale: how he had run across Polly Kegworthy after a dozen years' wandering; how, for love of his old friend, he had taken Paul, child of astonishing promise, away from Bludston—
"Do you remember, sonny, when I left you alone that night and went to the other side of the brickfield? It was to think it out," said Bill. "To think out my duty as a man."
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. ”

“ She alone knew of Bludston, of Barney Bill, of the model days the memory of which made him shiver. She alone (save Barney Bill) knew of his high destiny—for Paul, quick to recognize the cynical scepticism of an indifferent world, had not revealed the Vision Splendid to any of his associates. To her he could write; to her, when he was in London, he could talk; to her he could outpour all the jumble of faith, vanity, romance, egotism and poetry that was his very self, without thought of miscomprehension. ”

“ The twisted, bright-eyed little man, so obviously ill at ease in his amazing garb, and the beautiful youth, debonair in his well-fitting blue serge, formed a queer contrast.
"Don't you never long for the wind of God and the smell of the rain?" asked Barney Bill.
"I haven't the time," said Paul. "I'm busy all day long."
"Well, well," said Barney Bill, "the fellow wasn't far wrong who said it takes all sorts to make a world. There are some as likes electric light and some as likes the stars. Gimme the stars." ”

“ Here was Sophie Zobraska, reared from childhood in the atmosphere of great affairs, mixing daily with folk who guided the destiny of nations, having two years before refused in marriage one of those who held the peace of Europe in his hands, moved to tense excitement of heart and brain and soul by the news that an obscure young man might possibly be chosen to contest a London Borough for election to the British Parliament, and thrillingly convinced that now was imminent the great momentous crisis in the history of mankind. ”

“ That the little beggar is of startling beauty is undeniable. That he has got his bill agape, like a young bird, for whatever food of beauty and emotion and knowledge comes his way is obvious to any fool. But whether, in what I propose, I'm giving a helping hand to a kind of wild genius, or whether I'm starting a vain boy along the primrose path in the direction of everlasting bonfire, I'm damned if I know."
But Paul jogged along by the side of Barney Bill in no such state of dubiety. God was in His Heaven, arranging everything for his especial benefit. ”

“ Now princesses were begging him to rescue them from Egyptologists. With glorious sureness all his dreams were coming true.
Thus we see our Fortunate Youth at eight-and-twenty in the heyday of success. If he had strutted about under Jane's admiring eyes, like a peacock among daws, he now walked serene, a peacock among peacocks. He wore the raiment, frequented the clubs, ate the dinners of the undeservingly rich and the deservingly great. His charm and his self-confidence, which a genius of tact saved from self-assertion, carried him pleasantly through the social world ”

“ In his close sympathy with the man Paul knew what had struck him down. It was not the blow of the nameless enemy, but the stunning realization that he was not, after all, the irresistible nominee of the Almighty. His great faith had not suffered; for the rigid face was serene, as though he had accepted this final chastisement and purification before entrance into the Eternal Kingdom; but his high pride, the mainspring of his fanatical life, had been broken and the workings of the physical organism had been arrested. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Paul damned the party. He was in the overwrought mood in which a man damns everything. Quagmire and bramble and the derision of Olympus-that was the end of his vanity of an existence. Suppose he was elected—what then? He would be a failure-the high gods in their mirth would see to that—a puppet in Frank Ayres' hands until the next general election, when he would have ignominiously to retire. Awakener of England indeed! ”

“ Paul laughed, for she did not refer to the first meeting of all. "I'm afraid I was very young and fatuous," said he. "It was years ago. I hadn't grown up."
"Never mind. We talked about waking the country from its sleep."
"And you gave me a phrase, Lady Chudley—'the Awakener of England.' It stuck. It crystallized all sorts of vague ambitions. I've never forgotten it for five consecutive minutes. But how can you remember a casual act of graciousness to an unimportant boy?"
"No boy who dreams of England's greatness is unimportant," she said. "You've proved me to be right. ”