THE KING OF YOUTH
Ten minutes later Kenny, coming into the dark, old-fashioned library
where Adam's books were once more arrayed upon the shelves, found Don
wandering turbulently around the room.
Was this boy ever anything but turbulent, he wondered with impatience.
Must he always brood about the boulder and atonement?
Don stopped dead in his tracks, his fingers clenched in his hair, his
white face staring queerly; and Kenny, irresistibly reminded of himself
in minutes of turmoil, stared back, knowing in a flash of inspiration
why the tale of the boulder had made him think of the crash of bouillon
cups. The desire of the moment that marked men for disaster! The
tongue-tied youngster there with his feet rooted to the ground and his
face pale with agitation, was indeed something like himself. Kenny had
a moment of pity.
"Mr. O'Neill," said Don with a hard, dry sob, "you know I've wanted to
make up to Brian somehow about that boulder. If I hadn't been crazy to
drive up the ledge once and if I hadn't lied to Grogan and bullied
Tony, Brian wouldn't have spent the rest of the winter in a plaster
cast. I--I want to do something for him, something big, and I--I've
got to do it in a queer way." He shuddered and wiped his face. Kenny
saw that his hands were shaking wildly, and pitied him again. "Mr.
O'Neill," he blurted, "Brian loves my sister and she loves him."
It seemed to Kenny that lightning struck with a sinister flare of fire
at his feet and hot blinding pieces of the floor were flying all about
him.
"How do you know?" he said fiercely. "How _do_ you know? How can you
know such a thing as that? You can't! You can't possibly."
"I do," said Don. "I heard them say it."
"Heard them!"
"I was on the porch," said Don, "and I came through the window there to
get a book. They were in the hall."
"You listened!"
Don flushed.
"I--I wanted to," he said sullenly. "And I did."
"Ah, yes," said Kenny, wiping his hair back and wondering vaguely why
it felt so wet, "you wanted to and you did."
"I wanted to," said Don fiercely, "because I knew Brian loved her. And
I knew my sister wasn't happy. She's looked sad and tired and
frightened a lot of times, Joan has, and she's cried a lot--"
"Yes," said Kenny, "she has."
Don's challenging eyes swept with stormy suspicion over Kenny's face.
"Mr. O'Neill," he flung out, "don't you blame her. Don't you do it.
She was a kid, an awful kid when you came here first, and lonesome.
She wanted to be flattered and loved. All girls do. She wasn't happy.
She wanted to play and you gave her a chance. You're famous and you've
been everywhere and you're a good looker," he gulped courageously, "and
maybe you turned her head. I--don't know. I think she loves you an
awful lot anyway. But not--not that way. You could have been her
father--"
"Yes," said Kenny wincing. "She's younger than Brian." Where had he
read that youth was cruel? "Yes, I could have been her father."
"I don't mean you're old," stammered Don, flushing. "I mean--Oh, Mr.
O'Neill--" and now Don slipped back into childhood for a second and
sobbed aloud--"I--I don't know what I mean. You just--just mustn't
blame her. She's my sister. She even patched my clothes."
"I'm not blaming her, Don. God knows I'm not. I'm just wonderin'."
"Joan's going to marry you just the same. She said so. Mr. O'Neill,
you've got to do something. You--you've got to!" He clenched his
hands and bolted for the door.
"Yes," said Kenny, frowning, "I--I've got to do something. I
can't--think--what. Where's Joan?"
"I think she's gone to the cabin. She often went there when Uncle made
her cry. Mr. O'Neill," Don clenched one hand and struck it fiercely
against the palm of the other, "you've been good to me. I--I'm awful
sorry--"
He fled with a sob and Kenny put his hand to his throat to still a
painful throbbing.
There was a clanking in his ears. Or was it in his memory? Ah, yes,
Adam had said that life was a link in a chain that clanks, and he
couldn't escape. Well, he hadn't.
Kenny sat down, conscious of a tired irresolution in his head and a
numbness. Nothing seemed clearly defined, save somewhere within him a
monumental sharpness as of pain. Joan's happiness he remembered must
be the religion of his love.
After that things blurred--curiously. Superstition, ordinarily
within him but an artificial twist of fancy, reared a mocking head and
reminded him of omens. Sailing over the river long ago he had thought
of Hy Brazil, the Isle of Delight that receded always when you
followed. Receded! It was very true. Later the wind among the
blossoms had been chill and fitful and Joan had been unaware of the
romance in the white, sweet drift. Omens! And rain had come, the
blossom storm. And Death had spread its sable wing over the first day
of his love. He shuddered and closed his eyes.
Separate thoughts rose quiveringly from the blur. He thought of a
lantern and Samhain. Samhain, the summer-ending of the druids!
Perhaps this was the summer ending of his youth and hope. And he had
drank in Adam's room that Samhain night to Destiny--Destiny who had
brought him--this!
Still the blur and the separate thoughts stinging into his
consciousness like poisoned arrows. Whitaker's voice, persistent and
analytical, rang in his ears. The King of Youth! Kenny laughed aloud
and tears stung at his eyes. He blinked and laughed again. Why, he
was growing up all at once! John would be pleased. Thoughts of
Whitaker, Brian, his farcical penance and Joan, became a brilliant
phantasmagoria from which for an interval nothing emerged separate or
distinct. Then sharp and clear came the dread of Brian's death and the
ride over the sleet with Frank. The steering wheel strained in his
aching hands and the wheels slid dangerously . . . He did not want to
be a failure . . . He wanted passionately after all the turmoil to be
Brian's successful parent. If in this instance there was a curious
need to wreck his own life in order that he might parent Brian with
success, he must not make a mess of it. Once, accidentally, John said,
he had almost shipwrecked Brian's life and Brian had stepped out--just
in the nick of time. He must not do that again. Brian had suffered
enough from self rampant in others.
The King of Youth! . . . The King of Youth! . . . And Brian was
twenty-four years _old_. He must not make him--older. This sharp
aging all in a moment was fraught with pain.
His weary ears resented the mocking persistence of Whitaker's
voice. Kenny's happy-go-lucky self-indulgence, it said, had often
spelled for Brian discomfort of a definite sort. . . . Well,
it--should--not--spell--pain. . . . And if in the past his generosity
had always been congenial, now it should hurt. Was he about to learn
something of the psychology of sacrifice that Adam had said he ought to
know?
He swung rebelliously to his feet. Why must the fullness of life come
through sacrifice? Why must all things good and permanent and true
come only out of suffering? Why must men pay for their dreams with
pain?
He moved mechanically toward the door. . . . Yes, he cared more for
Joan's happiness than for his own. And she was suffering. Why, the
tired truth of it was, he loved them both enough to want to see them
happy . . . And he would be a part of Don's erratic atonement.
He smiled wryly and realized with a start that he was already
out-of-doors, walking dazedly toward the cabin in the pines. The
fresh, sweet wind blew through his hair and into his face, but the blur
persisted, filled with voices and memories and promptings from God
alone knew where.
The odor of pine was sharply reminiscent. . . . And then with a shock
that stung him out of inhibition he was staring in at the cabin window.
Joan sat by the table, her head upon her arm, her shoulders heaving.
"Poor child!" he said heavily. "Poor child!" And savagely cursed the
summer pictures that flamed in his mind at the sight of her. The
cabin, the wistaria ladder, the punt, the girl by the willow in the
gold brocade--
Well, he must go hurriedly toward that door or not at all. His courage
was failing.
The sound of the door startled her. Joan leaped to her feet and stood,
shaking violently, by the table, one hand clutching at the edge of it
in terror.
In that tongue-tied minute, if he had but known, with his fingers
clenched in his hair and his face scarlet, he was like that turbulent
boy who such a little while ago had crashed into his life with a sob.
Joan's agonized eyes, wet with tears, brought home to him the need of a
steady head . . . and responsibility. Yes, he must keep his two feet
solidly on the ground and face a gigantic responsibility.
"Don't cry, dear, please!" he said gently. "It's just one of the
things that can't be helped. Don told me. He overheard."
Her low cry hurt--viciously. And she came flying wildly across the
room to his arms, sobbing out her grief and remorse.
"Oh, Kenny, Kenny." she sobbed. "I--want--you--both."
His shaking arms sheltered her. A heart-broken child! He must
remember that. And, as Don said, he could have been her father.
"Happiness with the least unhappiness to others, girleen," he reminded
with his cheek against her hair. "Remember?"
"Yes," she choked.
"You must go to Brian. Any foolish notion of sacrifice now will only
tangle the lives of all of us."
"But--I cannot forget! Kenny, if only you would hate me!"
"I didn't mean to love you, mavourneen. It was like the tale of
Killarney. I left a cover off in my heart and a spring gushed out and
flooded my life."
"I am blaming myself!"
"You must not do that. You were in love with love. You must now know
how different it--" But he could not say it, courageous as he felt.
"And the money!" choked Joan. "Oh, Kenny, Kenny, the ragged money!
And I gave it away. And you were so good--so good!"
He frowned, unable to understand at once the relevance of the ragged
money and realized that Joan was sobbing into his shoulder the tale of
an eavesdropping bartender and a doctor. He accepted it, dazedly,
thunderstruck at the alertness of his Nemesis who missed no single
chance to shoot an arrow.
"And Don must give that money back. I will tell him--"
"No," said Kenny. "No, he must not."
She stared at him in wonder.
"Mavourneen," he pleaded wistfully, "may I--not do that at least for
someone who is yours? Don needs it."
He could not know that his kindness was to her more poignant torment
than his bitterest reproach. He thought as the color fled from her
lips and left her gray and trembling, that she was fainting. He held
her closely in his arms.
She slipped away from him and sat down weakly in a chair. Dusk lay
beyond the windows. Joan covered her face with her hands.
"The Gray Man," she whispered. "He's peeping in."
Pain flared intolerably in Kenny's throat and stabbed into his heart.
He drew the shades with a shudder and lighted the lamp.
In the supreme moment of his agony, came inspiration. He must save
them all with a lie! Queer that, queer and contradictory! Yes, after
practicing the truth, he must save them all from shipwreck with a lie.
"Girleen," he said, "there is something now that I must tell you. I
thought never to say it. You came into my dream that day beneath the
willow in gold brocade, with afterglow behind you and an ancient boat.
I am an Irishman--and a painter. 'Twas a spot of rare enchantment and
I said to myself, I am falling in love--again."
"Again!" echoed Joan a little blankly.
"Again!" said Kenny inexorably. "You see, Joan, dear, I was used to
falling in love. There are men like that. You and Brian would never
understand."
"No," said the girl, shocked. "No."
"You made a mistake, the sort of mistake that drives half the lifeboats
on the rocks. I mean, dear, falling in love with love. But you're
over that. It was--a different sort of love with me. I knew as we
crossed the river that first day in the punt that the madness could not
last. You see--it never had."
"Kenny!"
If Joan in that moment had remembered the Irishman tearing bricks from
the fireplace in a spasm of histrionic zeal, she might have distrusted
the steadiness of his level, kindly glance. She might have guessed
that again he was reckless and on his mettle. But she did not remember.
"Romance and mystery," said Kenny, lighting a cigarette and smiling at
her through a cloud of smoke, "were always the death of me. My fancy's
wayward and romantic. Afterward your will-of-the-wisp charm held me
oddly. You kept yourself apart and precious. And I was always
pursuing. It was provocative--and unfamiliar. And then came Samhain,
the--the summer-ending." There was an odd note in his voice. "I faced
a new experience. I had gone over the usual duration of my madness and
I thought," he smiled, "I thought I was loving you for good. But--"
Her dark eyes stared at him, wistful and yet in the moment of her hope
a shade reproachful.
"And--your love--did not last, Kenny?" It was a forlorn little voice,
for all its unmistakable note of rejoicing. How very young she
was--and childlike!
"It--did--not--last!" said Kenny deliberately. "It never does with me.
I should have known it. I love you sincerely, girleen. I always
shall. But I love you as I would have loved--my daughter."
"Your daughter! Kenny, why then did you speak so of the flood of
Killarney?"
"I was testing you. You can see for yourself. I could not honorably
tell you this, dear, if you still cared."
"But I do care," cried Joan, flinging out her hands with a gesture of
appeal. "I love you so much, Kenny, that it hurts."
"But not in the way you love Brian."
"No."
"And that, mavourneen, is as it should be."
He told her of the stage mother. Let the lie go with the castle he had
built upon it. And he would begin afresh.
"Ah," said Joan, dismissing it with shining eyes, "there, Kenny, you
meant only to be kind."
He wondered wearily why the lie with all its torment had not shocked
her. Truth was queer.
Joan glided toward the door. He caught in her face the look of a white
flame and dropped his eyes. A Botticelli look. Ah, well, it was
beautiful to be young and joyous!
"I must tell Brian," she said.
"Yes," said Kenny. "Of course."
And she was gone. Kenny lay back in his chair and closed his eyes; the
sound of her flying feet death in his ears.