A Happy Inspiration

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 1, 4 January 1908, Page 39

A Happy Inspiration

By

MARY ANGELA DICKENS

I. W • HAT have you settled about 11/ Christmas, Bob?” ■ /•/ “ Nothing. I’m bored to f w death by the thought of it.” Mary Vawdrey drew her chair nearer to the fire, put her small feet on the fender, and knocked the ash from her cigarette against the old oak mantelpiece browned by countless hearth fires. Much to the horror of the excellent old servants at Vawdrey Court, Miss Vawdrey, since she came to live there with her brother on his succession to the property some six months earlier, had displayed an unconventional and 'undignified preference for the smokingroom rather than the drawing-room in the evenings. “To think of what her late aunt, Lady Vawdrey, would ’a said,” groaned Mrs Wheeler, the housekeeper, to Mr Scott, the butler. “It’s enough to bring her back, poor dear old lady, to see Miss Vawdrey a-setting in them leather ehairs, ■with that beautiful gilt suite not half lused, as you may say, in the drawingroom, seeing she’s only there before dinner. And the chairs her late ladyship’s mother worked in wool, too! And Sir John!” “Sir John!” that gentleman’s former servant never failed to respond. This conversation was repeated, on an average, about once a week in the housekeeper’s room; but apparently it never lost its infinite variety. “It’d have killed him quicker than any apoplexy could do to see a lady with a cigarette. And so knowing, the way she handles them. I look at her, I do, when I go in the last thing. She must have had a sad ’abit of it years, one would think.” The victim of the sad habit had put out her cigarette, it seemed, by the vehemence of her gesture. She stretched out her hand for the matches, which lay on a small table between the brother and sister, and lighted another in silence. “I can’t see a single thing to do,” continued her brother, in a sort of growl. “I’ve got a kind of feeling that I ought to be here, as it’s our first Christmas here, and so on. Hut there’s nothing to do but to ask someone to come and eat dinner exactly like what she or she or they can have at home, without going out in the cold first. And if we ask people, down to stay—well, they’ll be rather injured because the shooting’s poor, and cook’s not a chef, and I’ve only one motor.” Miss Vawdrey threw her cigarette away, and wheeled suddenly round to face her brother. Her eyes were very bright. “I’ve got an idea. Bob,” she said. “Let’s have it, Polly, especially if it has to do with Christmas. “It has. Suppose we ask people down to stay who don’t mind about chefs, and never have shooting or motors.” “Unemployed? East End? It may be ■horribly selfish of me, but, Polly, I “Don’t be in such a hurry. There are people who aren’t East Endy, who are quite as capable of enjoying all those things, only they never get the chance to try.” “I suppose you’ve got something in your head—or someone.” “I have. Emily Brooke—you know. Teddy Carr’s her brother, and they live in Bruton-street—has developed an idea that she is literary. So she writes novels, and goes about asking her friends to read them. But that’s by the way. Tile, point is that she has set up a typewriting secretary, a girl of about two-

and-twenty”—Miss Vawdrey spoke with the superior dignity of thirty years — “and I used to go and talk to her last time I stayed there. She lives in the house. She’s a very clever girl, clever in every way. She trims Emily’s hats as well as writes half the books, and Emily is always boasting of her Paris bats and being congratulated on her brilliant literary style. She pays the poor thing as little as ever she decently can, and the whole thing makes me mad. But what’s the good? Well, .one night I found her crying.” Miss Vawdrey paused. “It seems her people live at Dinard, or somewhere there, for economy. The father’s an Army man, with nothing but his pension, and she has to send them all she can —I got that out of her—and she saw no prospect of saving enough to go home for Christmas. And it mightn’t be a bad plan if we asked her here for Christmas, I thought.. It would at least' save her from spending it in Emily’s study. I know Emily.” Sir Robert Vawdrey pulled himselt up from the depths of his long armchair, and, standing back to the fire, displayed his broad shoulders and his six feel of heights “A rattling good idea,” he said. “And look here, Polly, I’m blessed if I see why I shouldn’t produce a young man to match your young woman.” “Bob, how dear of ydu! Ido think it would be father good to have poor little Phyllis. But can you —the man, I mean?” Her brother moved to the table and poured himself out a drink. When the fizz of the syphon had subsided he spoke. “His name’s McKinley.” he said. “A friend of Jim St. John’s he is, and Jim asked me to look him up. In intervals of waiting for briefs I'd plenty of time to do it, and the more I saw of him the more 1 liked him. He was trying to make a beginning as an architect on his own account, and not getting very far. I don’t know why exactly; he’s clever enough. But these things take time, and he has precisely sixty pounds a year of his own to live on.” “What does he do, then, when he hasn’t any work?” “Starves more or less. Don’t look so white, Polly; but it’s true. He’s been a good bit on my mind since I came here, and if we could give him a decent sort of Christmas perhaps I should feel better about him.” “Oh. Bob, write, to him, do!” “All right. Polly, old girl. And should you mind if a third were to be added to our new sort of house-party? The more-I think of it the more the thing pleases me. It’s extraordinary,” he added, racier shamefacedly, "how that sort of thing develops as you go along. Another old boy—McKinley’s young, but no mattef l —came into my mind while 1 was telling you about McKinley. You remember when 1 was with Ford and Fraser to get in a solicitor’s office before my brilliant career at the bar began? There was an elderly clerk there—good old sort, a gentleman, you know. He set out by meaning to became a partner, so he said. But circumstances were too strong, or his meaning too weak, and he never came to more than a capable clerk. Burke his name is. He trots backwards and forwards every day from and to his rooms in Brixton, and he’s not a soul belonging to him, not a soul in the world. We might look him up and see if he'd care for a Christmas in the country. At any rate, it would be less lonely here than there.” Mary Vawdrey came up to her brother and put her hands on his shoulders, “You’re a brick, Bob,” she said. “Neither more nor less. I’ve got one more. Old

Wheeler must bustle about for a change, and make them get ready the large room in the corridor, because Ellen Paget doesn’t like sleeping anywhere but in a south room. I remember that.” “Ellen Paget? Who in the name of good fortune is ” “Don’t you remember that cousin of Aunt Maria’s husband who was Aunt Maria’s companion? She has done nothing since Aunt Maria died. She’s got enough to live on, but she’s all alone in some little flat in London, and no one goes to see her much because she is so dull.” “Cheerful guest!” “Who knows? She may turn out so,” said Miss Vawdrey, kissing her brother by way of good-night. 11. “Rather luck having Christmas Eve on Sunday. Gives one an extra day.” “Oh, I don’t know. Absurd these definitions between working days and holidays, I think.” Phyllis Desmond and Jack McKinley were alone together in the drawing-room at Vawdrey Court. They had reached it together two minutes earlier, and as they shortly discovered, twenty minutes too early for dinner. Phyllis Desmond, Miss Paget, and Mr. Burke had all arrived by the same train some hour or so earlier. Jack McKinley put in his appearance just as tea was ended; he had missed the dogcart sent to meet him, and had walked along snowy roads alone to the Court. Miss Vawdrey had made a brief introduction of her guests before carrying oil' Phyllis and Miss Paget to their rooms, and. therefore, now the two found themselves in the drawing-rcom they knew each ether’s names but scarcely more. “One’s life is either all work or all pleasure. Most of us find it the former,” McKinley added. Phyllis Desmond scanned her fellowguest. She had hardly glanced at him before. The two were standing on tho hearthrug. The long, double-room was lighted by old-fashioned candle sconces only as yet, but the firelight was very bright. It showed her a handsome face, with heavy lines about a mouth which was irritable, and restless blue eyis. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said. “It’s a grind, of course. You wouldn’t have it all play, would you? But there’s a considerable amount of pleasure to be had if one makes up one’s mind to get it—to get every bit one can.” “That’s what you go for, is it?” McKinley wondered as he spoke why ho was asking questions of a chance acquaintance of a few moments, but ho took a good look at her as he ended. Phyllis Desmond was small and pretty. Her hair and colouring were dark, and her character seemed defined by her firm mouth and bright, keen eyes. She was wearing a black lace frock, rather shabby, but worn with a certain odd determination to make the best of it which in

some inexplicable way covered its many defects. And some brilliant red roses, pinned into the bodice, gave out a sweet scent and emphasised all her best points by their colour. “What else should one go for? Doesn't everyone want and mean to get everything they can out of life? I assure you I mean to do so. And determination will do a great, deal,” she added, with a little laugh. He laughed in answer, but it was not a particularly pleasant laugh. “You think so?” he said. “Now I think it's a good plan to determine that other people shall do a great deal; they can do the determining and I’ll have the results. Much better philosophy, 1 assure you.” “Old fashioned people will tell you ■that it’s good to make one’s own way in the world.” “Old-fashioned people will tell you that it’s good to think of something or someone eke while you’re doing it,” lie retorted. “Old fashions are out of dale, ’ she flashed out. “I know you will siy what’s true in one instance is true in both.” “Don’t choose such high-flown words. Say sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” he said, looking at her with a keenness foreign to his blue eyes as a rule. “It saves trouble to say what one means, and you seem discerning enough to know that that is always worth wh le. Have you known the Vawdreys long?” he added, abruptly. There was a certain edge in his tone as he asked the apparently harmless and natural question, and she seemed to feel it in some strange way, for she flushed and re-arranged her roses, with her head bent over them. Before she had spoken the door opened and Miss Vawdrey came in. “I am sorry,” she cried, “I’m late. Oh. the other’s aren’t here yet. But I’m sorry not to have been down earlier. I hope you have been making each other's acquaintance. Phyllis, dear,” she said, “let me put a bit of my heliotrope with your roses. Its scent is so good. You like it?” she asked, for Phyllis had not answered, though Mary Vawdrey’s quick fingers had nearly rearranged the flowers in her guest’s frock. “Yes, indeed I do,” Phyllis answered at length. “Thank you a hundred times. I like everything that's nice in life.” She accompanied the words with a half defiant glance over her shoulder at MeKinley; but he had turned to greet his host, who entered at this moment with Miss Paget and Mr. Burke. Ellen Paget was a little woman of fifty-six or so. Phyllis hid imide up her mind that Miss Paget was quite seventy. and very plain, and. she looked now with some curiosity at her as she came up to the fire. “To see what sort of frock an old frumpy person I ke that wears,” she said to herself. SFc was surprised to see Miss Paget in a soft black silk gown which by no means accentuated her plainness. Miss Paget was certainly plain, an 1 the dv'l look which rested on her face did nothing

to improve it. Fine wrinkles had taken from her the last vestige of the delicate akin and lovely complexion which had been her one beauty, and they could only have been chased away by ready smiles. But ready smiles did not find an abiding place on Ellen Paget’s face. There remained to her one outward eharm, and that consisted in singularly simple and honest eyes. They rested on Mary Vawdrey with a look that might have said a good deal if anyone could have read it. But in words she oidy said that the night was cold and fire was pleasant.

To this eminently reasonable remark Mr. Burke hastened to assent cordially. He was a tall, thin old man, with an elderly stoop about the shoulders, natural enough to his sixty years, and his eyes were blue, faded, and worn, but transparent in their expression as any child’s, and his whole face, wore an unmistakable look of straightforward simplicity and kindness. He apparently was not much better provided with general conversation than Miss Paget, for having exhausted the fire subject he drew nearer to his hostess and said, in his rather diffident old voice: “Do you find Vawdrey Court a difficult place to warm?” Dinner was announced before Mary Vawdrey had eome to the end of her answer, and as Sir Robert said to the old man with that extra touch of deference he always shewed to old people: “Burke, you’ll take in my sister, won’t you?” he might, had he looked into the old eyes, have seen a light of pleasure in them—pleasure at the courteous tone. Mr. Burke’s days were spent chiefly in being orered about; very little deference was ever shewn to him. Phyllis Desmond was on Sir Robert’s left, and, McKinley being on Mary Vawdrey’s left, it followed that the two were as nearly opposite each other as is possible at a round table. More than once, in the midst of a stream of gay chatter she was keeping up with her host, Phyllis felt herself compelled, as it seemed, to look up and look across the table. “To live in the country? In this sort of country? Oh. but I can’t imagine anything pleasanter,” she was saying, lightly, when she felt that strange, eom-

polling force, and looked up to find McKinley’s eyes fixed full on her. Their glance made her, to her own vexation, redden, and she turned abruptly to talk to old Mr. Burke at her side. He Had just come to the end of a conversation with Mary Vawdrey, in which, little though he knew it, she had drawn from him a faithful picture of his dull and lonely life. “And I assure you,” he ended, earnestly, “I have had no greater pleasure than that which the receipt of Sir Robert’s letter gave me. 1 hope,” he said, very simply, “you may never know how great a pleasure it is to be remembered when one is okl and lonely.” To all this Miss Paget had listened in the silence which seemed to be habitual with her. If her mouth trembled a very little at his words, no one saw it. And it was quite steady when Mary Vawdrey turned and asked her if she cared to listen to the earol-singinx, which was always to be heard for the week preceding Christmas Day. “If you do,” she said, “we’ll send for them to come up on the terrace. They don t eome quite near every night. They’re very nice about not disturbing us. But Bob and I like it—it’s so—so Christmasy, somehow.” The two great windows of the hall looked out on the terrace, and each was a large bay, the space within the bay being practically cut off from the hall by half-drawn thick curtains. No one could have said how it happened that Phyllis and McKinley found themselves alone in one window, while the rest were together in another. MeKinley was so quick in seizing his opportunity that he seemed to have been waiting for it. “You never told me whether you had known the Vawdrey’s long?” he said, abruptly. “ Why do you ask ? ” was the equally abrupt response. Phyllis Desmond’s eyes were fixed on the scene outside. It was picturesque enough to arrest anyone’s attention. The stone balustrade of the terrace, thick with snowy ivy, was just visible in the light of a lantern carried by one of the village boys, and all the figures showed

dimly against it in an irregular group, with their one musician—an elderly man witn a fiddle—-in the midst. “ In Bethlehem—that fair city,” echoed the voices. “ 1 don’t understand you,” she added, speaking through the rising and falling eadenee of the old-world melody. “ I believe you do,” he said, lightly. “ I wanted to know if they were old friends of yours, or if—if you had come down here in pursuance of your favourite principle—to get all you can. Does the getting all you can include a possible chance of becoming, perhaps, the chatelaine of this ‘ desirable mansion,’ as the agents have it ? ” She turned on him with flashing eyes. “How dare you! ” she said, in a low, furious voice. “How dare you speak so to me when you don’t know me the least bit? ” “ Because I do know you,” he said, very coolly. “ You judge others by yourself,” she sneered. “ What are you here for yourself? Old friendship for Sir Robert? I don’t believe it —not for a moment! ” “ Don’t, then,” he said, calmly. “My principles work out on the same lines as your own, it is to be presumed, and in al? probability I came to get something—too.” Before she could speak the curtain was drawn aside by Miss Vawdrey. “ I’m so afraid you’ll be cold,” she said. “ And I don’t want you to begin your Christmas holidays by catching cold. I want you to enjoy it, every minute of it. Come to the drawing-room and think what we can do to make the very most of the time. Bob is gone to bring in the carol-singers.” 111. “ Well, how do you think our plan has worked, Polly ? ” It was the afternoon of the day after Christmas Day. Robert Vawdrey was finishing a cigarette in a little room Mar Vawdrey called her den. At the moment she was writing a letter. She laid down her pen and looked up at her brother.

“ If they’ve enjoyed it half as much as we’ve enjoyed it, it’s all right,” she said, laughingly. “ I’ve had the nicest Christmas I ever remember. I’m so glad you thought of the skating match this afternoon, Bob,” she added. Sir Robert had taken his four guests that afternoon to see a skating competition on some flooded meadows. “ I hope they were amused.” “ Your little Miss Desmond and MeKinley were amused, at any rate,” he said. " I’m ready to bet anything in reason on their having had a good time since they came.” “ I’m glad you’re sure of it. I don’t think I’ll take your bet though.” “ Why in the world not? They’ve been so uncommonly lively—both of them.” . “ Oh, I know; they’ve been lively enough. I didn’t know little Phyllis had so much gaiety in her. I’m glad we’ve called it out.” “ McKinley’s been just the same. You wouldn’t think he had a care in the world, if you’d heard him rattling on to Burke and me in the smoking-room. And if they’ve both been so lively, Polly, I don’t see what you’ve got to be doubtful about.” “ Oh, I don’t know, Bob. I fancied they seemed to jar on each other somehow. But it may be my fancy.” “ Now, if you’d said you weren’t sure about Ellen Paget and old Burke I’d have been with yon. I have felt a bit bothered about him. He’s so silent.” “He looks happy, Bob, I think. I thought his nice old face looked really fascinating yesterday coming home from church. He told me about his childhood; he said the Christmas hymns always made him think of it.” “ Ah, well, you know how to make him talk, I suppose. I don’t. You can’t say, Ellen Paget looks happy though.” “She looks just the same as she always does. And she’s been quite sweet to me. She never talks—it’s not her way.” “If she did I doubt her being able to express anything,” said Sir Robert. “I don’t care a straw what they express,” responded his sister, “if only they’ve been happy.” If the brother and sister could have

Been into the conservatory of their own house at that moment their doubts might have been set at rest. In one comer of it was a very comfortable wicker chair with a snaded light over it by which to read. In the chair sat Miss Paget, but the book she had been reading had fallen from her hands. In front of her stood Mr. Burke. “I should never have dared to dream of such a thought,” he was saying, ‘‘only you said to me yesterday that this delightful Christmas visit would emphasise the loneliness of one's own life afterwards. I don’t know how to ask it, but if —if you are lonely, too, could you think of spending the rest of our lives together? Could you make me very happy? Could you marry me? I have nothing to offer—no luxuries —barely comforts, and I don’t know how I venture to ask it.” Mr. Burke paused, as if for breath, and courage; but Miss Paget rose and held out her hands, which were trembling. “I don’t want luxuries,” she said; “I want to make someone happy, and if I can do that I will—marry you. I could never ask anything better than to be able to make someone happy. There is nothing better—in this world.” "By Jove!” Neither Mr. Burke nor Miss Paget heard the words, nor the heavy fall of a curtain hanging over the door between the conservatory and the smoking-room which accompanied them. Jack McKinley and Phyllis Desmond, on their way to set out for a walk together, silently abandoned the way through the conservatory and found their way out by another door. Not a word was spoken by either of them until they had left the house some way behind. “By Jove!” McKinley repeated. Since the night ci t-ne caroi-singing he and Phyllis Desmond had established a sort of armed friendship. Each seemed to wish to show the other a defiant front, and both had exerted to the utmost their powers of pleasing in order to show how little they cared for the other s strictures. Phyllis had never been so charming in her life; and McKinley had not known, as he owned to himself, that he had so much energy in him. Though they had continually been aware of each other’s surveillance they bad not since that night exchanged a word alone, and Phyllis had given a surprised consent when McKinley had asked her on the way back from the skating match to come “for a stroll” with him before dinner. She made no response whatever, and McKinley turned round to look at her. She was crying. He stopped short suddenlv. “By Jove!” was all he could find to say for the third time; but her crying went on to sobbing, and he was entirely at a loss and half frightened. “What in the world is it?” he said. “What have I done?” He looked helplessly round. They were in the middle of the track across a frosty field out of earshot and out of sight of any house. “Do tell me what I’ve done,” he entreated. His voice seemed to reach her senses at last, and she ■ checked her sobbing. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.” “What is it, then? Who has done anything?” “No one —myself.” The answer came after a long pause, and another succeeded it. ’“l’m a perfect beast,” she said, suddenly. “I asked you to come out in order to make the same statement about myself.” he said. “I knew it all along,” she added. “Did you? I daresay you did,” he remarked drily. “Don’t be silly,” she said, stamping her foot in the snow; “I don’t mean you; it's about me I knew. I’ve been hateful the whole time. You were right. I did come here to see what I could get. I cultivated Mary Vawdrey—at least. I let her be niee to me, and she has been most awfully nice—for the sake of what she could give me. And I thought in my heart I would get him too if I could. You were right there, too. I could never care one straw for him. but I thought he might give me what I liked. I’ve been despicable! I’ve had the wrong end of the stick all the time—all my life, I think—• and those old angels -have got the right one. They put the finishing-touch. It is true, there is nothing so good as the making of someone else happy. How I know when I never tried I can’t tell. But I do know I’ve been a fool. I’m •orry.” ( She dried her tears hastily.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “You’ve given me courage to tell you my tale. I came out to do it, but I didn't know how to begin it in the face of those old dears and their words. It’s been in my mind vaguely since the carol-singing. But I never meant you to know it till this afternoon. I can’t hide from you any longer that I’m much worse tlian you. I came down to make Bob Vawdrey lend me some money. I knew I could work on his feelings. And when Tve had money I’ve never worked. I’ve enjoyed myself, and upon my word that’s all I’ve ever cared about. But seeing them—Bob and his sister—so deadly anxious to give other people happiness and never thinking of themselves made me shaky somehow. And now old Burke and Miss Paget have put the finishing-touch to me—like you. I’m going to make a elean breast of the whole to Bob to-night, and see if he’ll find me work—not money.” He paused, and she looked at him, her eyes shining in the moonlight, though swollen and softened with tears. “There’s one more thing,” he said awkwardly. “I—how would it be since I’ve shown you—the whole bag of tricks -—told you the lot—if you would go shares with me in trying to —-straighten it up a bit? I can work if I choose —- I honestly can—and I’ll make you a home yet if you'll give me the hope that you'll come to it some day? I say—l don’t find tears much of an answer!” For Phyllis was crying again, softly, her face hidden in his hands, which she had caught when he tried to lift up her face. “Who would have thought it?” said Sir Robert, staring blankly at his sister as they confronted one another alone in the smoking-room late that night. “We’ve done more than we set out to do, eh, Polly?” Miss Vawdrey laughed gaily. Her eyes were very soft and sweet. “Well, Bob, we did want to make them happy, didn’t we?” she said. (The End.)