The Fortunate Youth Part 20

Paul smiled. "An appeal to the imagination," said he.

When Colonel Winwood got in by an increased majority, in spite of the wave of Liberalism that spread over the land, he gave Paul a gold cigarette case; and thenceforward admitted him into his political confidence. So Paul became familiar with the Lobby of the House of Commons and with the subjects before the Committees on which Colonel Winwood sat, and with the delicate arts of wire-pulling and intrigue, which appeared to him a monstrously fine diversion. There was also the matter of Colonel Winwood's speeches, which the methodical warrior wrote out laboriously beforehand and learned by heart. They were sound, weighty p.r.o.nouncements, to which the House listened with respect; but they lacked the flashes which lit enthusiasm. One day he threw the bundle of typescript across to Paul.

"See what you think of that."

Paul saw and made daring pencilled amendments, and took it to the Colonel.

"It's all very funny," said the latter, tugging his drooping moustache, "but I can't say things like that in the House."

"Why not?" asked Paul.

"If they heard me make an epigram, they would have a fit."

"Our side wouldn't. The Government might. The Government ought to have fits all the time until it expires in convulsions."

"But this is a mere dull agricultural question. The Board of Agriculture have brought it in, and it's such pernicious nonsense that I, as a county gentleman, have to speak against it."

"But couldn't you stick in my little joke about the pigs?" asked Paul pleadingly.

"What's that?" Colonel Winwood found the place in the script. "I say that the danger of swine fever arising from this clause in the Bill will affect every farmer in England."

"And I say," cried Paul eagerly, pointing to his note, "if this clause becomes law, swine fever will rage through the land like a demoniacal possession. The myriad pigs of Great Britain, possessed of the devils of Socialism, will be turned into Gadarene swine hurtling down to destruction. You can show how they hurtle, like this--" He flickered his hands. "Do try it."

"H'm!" said Colonel Winwood.

Sorely against his will, he tried it. To his astonishment it was a success. The House of Commons, like Mr. Peter Magnus's friend, is easily amused. The exaggeration gave a cannon-ball's weight to his sound argument. The Government dropped the clause--it was only a trivial part of a wide-reaching measure--the President of the Board of Agriculture saying gracefully that in the miracle he hoped to bring about he had unfortunately forgotten the effect it might have on the pigs. There was "renewed laughter," but Colonel Winwood remained the hero of the half-hour and received the ecstatic congratulations of unhumorous friends. He might have defeated the Government altogether.

In the daily round of political life nothing is so remarkable as the lack of sense of proportion.

"It was the Gadarene swine that did it," they said.

"And that," said Colonel Winwood honestly, "was my young devil of a secretary."

Thenceforward the young wit and the fresh fancy of Paul played like a fountain over Colonel Winwood's and speeches.

"Look here, young man," said he one day, "I don't like it. Sometimes I take your confounded suggestions, because they happen to fit in; but I'm actually getting the reputation of a light political comedian, and it won't do."

Whereupon Paul, with his swift intuition, saw that in the case of a proud, earnest gentleman like Colonel Winwood the tempting emendations of typescript would not do. In what Miss Winwood called his subtle Italian way, he induced his patron to discuss the speeches before the process of composition. These discussions, involving the swift rapier play of intelligences, Colonel Winwood enjoyed. They stimulated him magically. He sat down and wrote his speeches, delightfully unconscious of what in them was Paul and what was himself; and when he delivered them he was proud of the impression he had made upon the House.

And so, as the years pa.s.sed, Paul gained influence not only in the little circle of Drane's Court and Portland Place, but also in the outer world. He was a young man of some note. His name appeared occasionally in the newspapers, both in connection with the Winwood charities and with the political machine of the Unionist party. He was welcomed at London dinner tables and in country houses. He was a young man who would go far. For the rest, he had learned to ride and shoot, and not to make mistakes about the genealogical relationships of important families. He had travelled about Europe, sometimes with the Winwoods, sometimes by himself. He was a young man of cultivation and accomplishment.

On this fifth anniversary he sat gazing unseeingly at the autumn rack, the Princess's letter in his hand, and letting his thoughts wander down the years. He marvelled how valiantly the stars in their courses had fought for him. Even against recognition his life was charmed. Once, indeed, he met at the house in Portland Place a painter to whom he had posed. The painter looked at him keenly.

"Surely we have met before?"

"We have," said Paul with daring frankness. "I remember it gratefully.

But if you would forget it I should be still more grateful."

The painter shook hands with him and smiled. "You may be sure I haven't the least idea what you're talking about."

As for Theatreland, the lower walks in the profession to which Paul had belonged do not cross the paths of high political society. It lay behind him far and forgotten. His position was secure. Here and there an anxious mother may have been worried as to his precise antecedents; but Paul was too astute to give mothers over-much cause for anxiety. He lived under the fascination of the Great Game. When he came into his kingdom he could choose; not before. 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. The cornelian heart still lay in his waistcoat pocket at the end of his watch chain. He also held a real princess's letter in his hand.

A tap at the door aroused him from his day-dream.

There entered a self-effacing young woman with pencil and notebook.

"Are you ready for me, sir?"

"Not quite. Sit down for a minute, Miss Smithers. Or, come up to the table if you don't mind, and help me open these envelopes."

Paul, you see, was a great man, who commanded the services of a shorthand typist.

To the ma.s.s of correspondence then opened and read he added that which he had brought in from Colonel and Miss Winwood. From this he sorted the few letters which it would be necessary to answer in his own handwriting, and laid them aside; then taking the great bulk, he planted himself on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and, cigarette in mouth, dictated to the self-effacing young woman. She took down his words with anxious humility, for she looked upon him as a G.o.d sphered on Olympian heights--and what socially insecure young woman of lower-middle-cla.s.s England could do otherwise in the presence of a torturingly beautiful youth, immaculately raimented, who commanded in the great house with a smile more royal and debonair than that of the master thereof, Member of Parliament though he was, and Justice of the Peace and Lord of the Manor? And Paul, fresh from his retrospect, looked at the girl's thin shoulders and sharp, intent profile, and wondered a little, somewhat ironically. He knew that she regarded him as a kind of G.o.d, for reasons of caste. Yet she was the daughter of a Morebury piano tuner, of unblemished parentage for generations. She had never known hunger and cold and the real sting of poverty. Miss Winwood herself knew more of drunken squalor. He saw himself a ragged and unwashed urchin, his appalling breeches supported by one brace, addressing her in familiar terms; and he saw her transfigured air of lofty disgust; whereupon he laughed aloud in the middle of a most unhumorous sentence, much to Miss Smithers' astonishment.

When he had finished his dictation he dismissed her and sat down to his writing. After a while Miss Winwood came in. The five years had treated her lightly. A whitening of the hair about her brows, which really enhanced the comeliness of her florid complexion, a few more lines at corners of eyes and lips, were the only evidences of the touch of Time's fingers. As she entered Paul swung round from his writing chair and started to his feet. "Oh, Paul, I said the 20th for the Disabled Soldiers and Sailors, didn't I? I made a mistake. I'm engaged that afternoon."

"I don't think so, dearest lady," said Paul.

"I am."

"Then you've told me nothing about it," said Paul the infallible.

"I know," she said meekly. "It's all my fault. I never told you. I've asked the Bishop of Frome to lunch, and I can't turn him out at a quarter-past two, can I? What date is there free?"

Together they bent over the engagement book, and after a little discussion the new date was fixed.

"I'm rather keen on dates to-day," said Paul, pointing to the bra.s.s calendar.

"Why?"

"It's exactly five years since I entered your dear service," said Paul.

"We've worked you like a galley slave, and so I love your saying 'dear service,'" she replied gently.

Paul, half sitting on the edge of the Cromwellian table in the bay of the window, laughed. "I could say infinitely more, dearest lady, if I were to let myself go."

She sat on the arm of a great leathern chair. Their respective att.i.tudes signified a happy intimacy. "So long as you're contented, my dear boy---" she said.

"Contented? Good heavens!" He waved a protesting hand.

"You're ambitious."

"Of course," said he. "What would be the good of me if I wasn't?"

"One of these days you'll be wanting to leave the nest and--what shall we say?--soar upwards."

Paul, too acute to deny the truth of this prophecy said: "I probably shall. But I'll be the rarissima avis, to whom the abandoned nest will always be the prime object of his life's consideration."

"Pretty,"' said Miss Winwood.