The Child of Destiny

Summary

A feral Eden unfurls within the black-water labyrinth of a nameless swamp, where Alita—part changeling, part forsaken heir—breathes the moss-thick air alongside a moonstruck boy and a parliament of herons. Her custodians, the Putnams, ignite the fuse of narrative by summoning Judge Gates, a solitary jurist whose heart is mortared with distrust of womankind. In the city, Gates discovers that his boon companion Bob Stange—once a fellow signatory to an oath of eternal bachelorhood—has secretly pledged himself to Constance, an aging siren who stitches gowns by day and disassembles virtue by night. Their marriage license, fluttering to the carpet like a dying moth, becomes the inciting relic. Constance, already entangled with the velvet-clad reprobate Calvin Baker, stages a hasty wedding to outrun revelation; Gates arrives mid-ceremony, recognizes her as the architect of his own ancient ruin, and denounces the union. Disillusioned, the two men flee to the glades, where Bob’s stray bullet—meant for a squirrel—pierces Alita’s shoulder instead, and the girl’s unblemished adoration for her first glimpse of masculinity is sealed in crimson. Civilization attempts to graft itself onto the wild child: Gates commissions a professor to polish her manners, but Alita’s untamed syllables and swamp-inked gestures reduce the tutor to a trembling wraith. Meanwhile, Bob’s sister parades eligible debutants at a lake-side hotel; fate funnels both Alita—now corseted and pearl-strung—and Constance toward the same parquet floors. When Bob begs Constance for liberation, Gates discovers the entreaty; Alita, eavesdropping, learns the full arc of her own illegitimacy and flees back to the marsh, craving extinction beneath a shroud of reeds. In the denouement, Gates reveals to Constance that the waif she abandoned is the living ledger of her sins; maternal instinct, long atrophied, spasms into motion. Constance pursues her daughter through fog and fever, bargains her own demise so that Bob may wed the girl she once discarded, and expires off-screen, a penitential ghost dissolving into peat-rich water.

Synopsis

Alita, a child who has been left in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Putnam in a desolate swamp country, reaches the age when she is to be prepared for the world, and the Putnams send word to Judge Gates, her guardian, to come for her. Her life has been spent in the swamps with a half-witted boy, "Weird Willie," and many animals and birds of that country, as her only playmates. Judge Gates receives the letter at his bachelor apartment, which he shares with a younger friend and companion, Bob Stange. Through the accidental dropping of a marriage license the Judge discovers that Bob is about to become a benedict, despite the fact that they had a compact never to marry, on the theory that all women are deceitful. The Judge recounts a story about one ill-fated marriage that ended in the divorce courts, in which the real tragedy was the little baby which no one seemed to want. Bob turns a deaf ear to this and leaves in anger. Constance, the one woman Bob has idealized, is older than he. She plays upon his sympathies by telling of her hard work as a dressmaker, when, in reality, she is leading a dual life, and only wants Bob for his money. She is carrying on a liaison with a Calvin Baker, a man about town, and he is calling on her when Bob arrives and tells her a minister is on the way to marry them. Baker hides behind the screen and listens. Bob tells Constance that he has invited his best friend, Judge Gates, to the ceremony. When Constance hears this name she is startled and insists on the ceremony being hurried. The marriage is performed as the Judge arrives. He recognizes Constance as the one who has ruined his own and his best friend's life. He denounces her, and Bob realizes her perfidy when he finds Baker hidden in the room. Bob and the Judge leave, and go away for a fishing trip, hoping to forget. In the country Bob comes upon Alita, and through a strange chain of circumstances, she is slightly wounded by a shot which her constant protector, "Weird Willie," intended for Bob. Alita falls in love with Bob, for he is the first man she has come in contact with. The Judge decides to take Alita away. Judge Gates puts Alita in charge of a professor to educate her, but she proves, through her hoydenish ways, a source of annoyance to the teacher. Bob receives a letter from his sister, telling him she has found the right girl for him at a summer hotel, where she is stopping. The Judge buys an extensive wardrobe for Alita, and by chance, they go to the same hotel for which Bob is bound. Bob is startled when his sister leads him into the presence of Constance. Alita meets Constance and the girl is attracted to her. The Judge finds them together and afterwards upbraids Constance. Alita and Bob meet again. Bob goes to Constance, begs her to release him, and to grant him a divorce. The Judge sees Bob enter her room and follows. Alita waits until they leave. She goes to Constance and asks her if she knew Bob before. Constance tells her the truth. Alita leaves all, and goes back to the swamp country. She cannot face the Putnams, so she runs into the fields instead, where she wishes to die. After Alita leaves Judge Gates tells Constance that Alita is her child. Constance's better nature is aroused and she goes in search of her daughter. Bob and the Judge follow. Constance agrees with the Judge that it is best not to tell Alita the truth, and when Bob and "Weird Willie" find Alita in the swamps, Constance wanders away to her death that Bob may be free to marry the child she has wronged.