What a Man Wills.

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey.

CHAPTER ONE.

AT THE DYING OF THE YEAR.

The New Year festivities were over; in the hall of the old country Manor the guests had danced and sung, had stood hand in hand in a widening circle, listening to the clanging of bells in the church-tower near by.

Now, with much hooting and snorting of motors, the visitors from afar had departed to their homes, and the members of the house-party had settled themselves by the log fire for the enjoyment of a last chat.

There were eleven people left around the fire, counting the host and hostess, four men, and five girls, all young, as youth is counted in these days, the women averaging about twenty-four or five, the men a few years older, and in the mellow light of the fire, and of the ma.s.sed candles in the old bra.s.s sconces on the walls, they looked a goodly company. They belonged, it was easy to see, to the cultured cla.s.ses; whatever might be their means or present position, these people had been born of gentlefolks, had been educated according to the traditions of their kind, and were equipped with the weapons of courtesy and self-control, which had descended to them as a heritage from those pa.s.sed and gone. Mentally, they might be guilty of anger and impatience; mentally, they might rage and storm--that was their own business, and concerned no one but themselves; in the presence of their fellow-creatures they could be trusted to present a smiling front.

There are occasions, however, when the most reserved natures are tempted to unclose, and of these the opening of the New Year is surely the most seductive. When the guests have departed, and the laughter is stilled, when for a last half-hour men and women sit quietly over the fire, there arises in the mind a consciousness of severance with the past, a sense of newness, which is not untouched with awe.

A new year has opened--what will it bring? What gifts, what losses, lie awaiting in its lap? When its last hour trembles away on the striking of a deep twelfth chime, what will happen to me? Where shall I be? In the language, the consciousness of earth--_shall I be at all_?

The tall dark girl, who had borne herself so proudly during the dance, shivered and bent forward to warm her hands at the fire.

"Whew! It's eerie!" she cried. "How I hate new years, and birthdays, and anniversaries that make one think! What's the use of them, anyway?

One ambles along quite contentedly in the daily rut--it's only when one's eyes are opened to see that it is a rut..."

"And that there are a solid three hundred and sixty-five days of it ahead!" chimed in the man with the firm chin and the tired eyes.

"Exactly! Then one pants to get out."

"And bowl triumphantly along the road in a C-spring carriage, or the very latest divinity in motor-cars!" laughed the beauty who sat in the corner of the oak settle, agreeably conscious that the background was all that could be desired as a foil to her red-gold hair, and that the dim light shed a kindly illusion over a well-worn frock. "I object to ruts of every kind and persuasion. They disagree with me, and make me cross, and I'm so nice when I'm pleased! The parsons say that prosperity makes people hard and selfish, but it is just the other way about with me. When there's not enough to go round--well, naturally, I keep it all for myself; but so long as I have everything I want, I _like_ other people to be happy. I really do! I'd give them everything that was over."

She looked around with a challenging smile, and the others obediently laughed and applauded. It was fashionable to have a new role, and it was Claudia's role to be honest, and quite blatantly selfish. She was pretty enough to carry it off, and clever enough to realise that her plain speaking served as a blind. No one believed for a moment that she was speaking the truth, whereas, if she had not distracted attention by waving this red flag, they must certainly have discovered the truth for themselves. Claudia's G.o.d was self; she would have seen her best friend cut up into mincemeat, to provide herself with a needed _hors d'oeuvre_.

The tall man with the large head and the sharp, hawklike features, sprang to his feet, and stood in the centre of the circle, aflush with excitement.

"Ruts!" he repeated loudly. "What's the matter with us all is we're _content_ with ruts! The thing which depresses me most at the beginning of a year is to look back and realise the futility, the weakness, the lack of progress. Great heavens! how much longer are we to be content with ruts? Our youth is pa.s.sing; in a short time it will have gone.

What have we done with our years? If we had been worthy the name, we should have been done with ruts by now, they would have been paved over with a smooth white path--the path to fortune! We should have walked along it--our own road, a private road, forbidden to trespa.s.sers!"

A girl seated on an oak stool, in the shadow of the settle, raised her quiet eyes, and watched him while he spoke. She was a slim, frail thing, with hair parted in the centre and coiled flatly round her head.

She had taken the lowest seat, and had drawn it into the shadow, but now she leaned forward, and the firelight searched her face. She was not beautiful, she was not even pretty, she was small and insignificant, she had made no effort to join in the conversation, and now, as John Malham finished speaking, she shrank back into her corner, and became once more a frail, shadowy shape; nevertheless, a beholder who had been vouchsafed that one glimpse would have found himself turning once and again to that shaded corner. He would have wanted to see that girl again; he would have been conscious of a strange attraction towards her; he would have asked himself curiously was it liking, or--hate?

The girl said nothing, but a man by her side punctuated the pause by a laugh. He was a handsome fellow, with a bright, quizzical face and a pair of audacious blue eyes.

"Oh, be hanged to fortune!" he cried loudly. "Be hanged to flagged paths! They're the deepest ruts of all, if you could but see it.

What's wrong with us all is lethargy, slackness, the inability to move of our own accord. What we get matters nothing, it's the _getting_ that counts! Why, when I think of the whole wide world lying open, waiting, beckoning, and of fellows like myself pacing every day of our lives in a square mile cage in the City, I--I--" (he snapped his fingers in a frenzy of impatience) "I wonder how long I can carry my chains! They'll snap some day, and I'll be off, and it will be a long good-bye to the civilised world."

The girl in the blue dress looked at him with wistful eyes, but she laughed more gaily than ever, and cried:

"Wait, please, till after the dance on the tenth, and when you _do_ go, send home things to us, won't you? Shawls and cashmeres, and embroideries. And pearls! I've always longed to know a real live pearl-fisher. He ought to remember us, oughtn't he, everybody--because we've been so kind and patient with his vagaries? We all deserve something, but bags Me the pearls!"

"Oh, you shall have your pearls right enough," said the handsome man, but there was a careless tone in his voice which made the promise seem worthless as sand, and he never glanced in the direction of the girl in the blue dress.

Pretty, wistful little Norah Boyce looked up quickly as if she were about to speak; thought better of it, and turned back to stare into the fire.

The girl seated on the oak stool leaned forward once again, and looked straight into the face of the handsome man. One white hand rested against her throat, a slim column of a throat, bare of ornament. Her fingers moved as though in imagination they were fingering a rope of pearls.

Buried in the depth of a great arm-chair lay the form of a giant of a man who had listened to the conversation with a sleepy smile. At this point a yawn overcame him; he struggled with it, only to find himself entangled in a second.

"I say," he drawled lazily, "what about bed? Doesn't that strike you as about the most sensible proposition for the moment? I know this dissatisfied feeling. No New Year's gathering is complete without it.

Best thing to get to sleep as soon as possible, and start afresh next day. Things look better after coffee and bacon. What's the use of grizzling? If we can't have what we want, let us like what we can get.

Eh? It's pretty certain we'll never get what we want."

"Are you so sure of that?" asked a quiet voice. The hostess sat erect in her seat, her graceful head with its silvering hair silhouetted against the wall. She looked round the circle of her guests, and smiled, a fine, delicate smile. "When you make that statement, Frank, you are contradicting flatly all the premises of modern thought. The time has pa.s.sed for sitting still and lamenting the impossible. The time is past for calling anything impossible. The thing that a man strives for--deeply, strongly, persistently--_that thing he can hovel_ That is the theory held by many great thinkers of to-day. And it is _true_."

There was silence for a moment, while everyone looked questioningly at the figure of the speaker. The man with the tired eyes asked a question:

"I suppose that applies to women as well as to men! Have _you_ proved it, Mrs Ingram?"

"I have proved it," answered the quiet voice. The host leaned forward, and knocked the ash of his cigarette into the grate. His face was hidden from view. Mrs Ingram looked round with a sudden, challenging smile. "_Why don't you all prove it_?" she cried. "Why don't you all start forth on this year with an aim in view? I don't say you will gain it in one year, or in two, or possibly in a dozen; but if you care enough to go on trying, it _will_ be gained! It's a question of one big aim instead of a dozen. The lesser things must go; you must become a man, a woman, of one idea. There are other things which are good and pleasant and alluring, but they must be set aside as weights which would hamper the chase. You cannot have the one big thing--and everything else! Therefore it is well to ask oneself seriously at the beginning--_Is it worth while_?"

Once more the guests were silent, staring into the heart of the fire.

That last question, uttered in a deep, grave tone, had called to the bar those inner voices which had so long breathed envy and discontent. Each listener examined his own motives, and knew a chill of doubt, but the chill pa.s.sed, and the conviction remained. Each one felt convinced that life held no good outside the coveted goal.

The silence gave a.s.sent, as Mrs Ingram realised without need of further words.

"Suppose," she said gently, "you make me your father confessor to-night, and confess your various aims and ambitions? It is the sort of confession appropriate to a New Year's dawn, and perhaps the very putting into words will vitalise your dreams and take them the first step towards becoming realities. You must _all_ confess, remember!

There must be no holding back; if one begins the rest must follow, and after the confessions have been made, we must pledge ourselves to help each other towards our separate goals, if not by material aids, by reinforcing his will with our own!"

The girl in blue laughed lightly, and cried: "Oh, let's! Let's all confess, and then, years afterwards, when we are old, and wear transformations, we'll meet again, at the dying of the year, and sit round the Yule log, and tell the stories of our lives. And if we have failed, we will weep salt tears of disappointment; and if we have succeeded, we'll weep more, because it's all hollow and stuffed with bran, and we'll make pious reflections, and sigh: 'Oh, me! Oh, my!' and preach sermons to the youngsters, and they won't believe a word. And so it will all begin over again. Juliet, you set the ball rolling, by speaking of ruts. You ought to be the first to confess. What is the secret longing of your heart?"

The dark girl showed no sign of embarra.s.sment at being chosen to lead the way. There was no sign of shrinking or hesitation upon her face; on the contrary, at the sound of that penetrating question, the careless smile died away, and her features seemed suddenly to glow with life.

"_Adventure_!" she cried quickly. "Give me that, and, for good or ill, I shall be satisfied. Fate made me with a vagrant's heart shut up in a woman's body, and for twenty-four years it's been fed on monotony in a country parish. Since I left the schoolroom I've never had a real experience of my own. I've had trivial pleasures, never one real big joy; never"--she looked slowly, thoughtfully, from face to face--"_never a grief_! There's something here"--she laid her hand on her heart--"fighting to get out! The ordinary, quiet, comfortable life would not content it. It wants more. It wants happenings, changes, excitement--it wants the big world, and I am a prisoner in the castle of convention. Mrs Ingram, how does your prophecy apply to me? How am I to get out?"

"No prison is so strong that it cannot be pulled down, Juliet. The walls of Jericho fell at the sound of the trumpet. But you must discover your own trumpet, and the walls won't fall at the first flourish," said Mrs Ingram, and then suddenly and incontinently she added: "Poor child!"

"Just so! Miss Juliet will certainly be one of those who will sigh: 'Woe's me!' at our future merry meeting," cried the tall man with the hawklike features, "and it's rough on her, too, for she's so touchingly modest in her desire. Doesn't care a pin apparently whether she comes out better or worse! Now, for my own part, that's all I do care for.

Success! Success! that's my mania: forging ahead, gaining on my opponents, winning the lead. Adventure doesn't count. I'd sit at an office desk for fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, for fourteen years at a stretch, if it ensured success at the end--a big success, a success which left me head and shoulders above the ruck. I'd walk the world barefooted from one end to the other to gain a secret that was worth while. Success is my G.o.d. To gain it I would sacrifice everything else."

"Then, of a certainty, it can be yours," said Mrs Ingram quietly, and she looked at him with such a gentle glance that he asked her a laughing question: "Are you going to call me 'poor child!' too?"

"Not yet," she said quietly. Then she turned to the big man, and laid a hand on his arm. "You next, Frank?"

"Oh, well!" he laughed good-humouredly yet with a tinge of embarra.s.sment. "I didn't bargain for this confession business, but since it's the rule, I must follow suit, I suppose. I'm a commonplace beggar! I'm pretty well content with things as they come. I'm not keen on any adventures that I know of; if I can have enough to be comfortable, that's all I want. I'd like a nice wife, and a house with a bit of garden; and a youngster or two, and a runabout car, don't you know, and the usual accessories! That's about all I fancy. 'Man wants but little here below.'"

"Frank plumps for comfort," said Mrs Ingram, smiling. "His programme sounds distinctly restful, for a change. Take care of your figure, Frank! I should suggest mowing the garden as a helpful recreation.

Next, please! Claudia!"

"Oh, money, please!" cried Claudia eagerly. "_Lots_ of money, and a safe full of jewels. Do you know, I dress on forty pounds a year all told, and a rich cousin sends me cast-offs! I take them hungrily, but I hate her for it, and when I'm a millionaire I'll cut her dead. A German Jew stock-broker, dear, or a Maharajah of 'something-core,' or a soap-boiler without h's--anyone will do if he has enough money! I'd rather not, of course, but it's the only way! Dear people, will you _all_ come to my wedding?"

"Claudia, you are impossible! You ought to be ashamed!"

"Yes, I should, but I'm not! Isn't it horrid of me? If I blow _very_ loudly, do you think I shall go off this season?"