Читать книгу Missy - Miriam Coles Harris - Страница 5

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"There is the carriage!" exclaimed Missy, as she caught the sound of wheels in the distance. She darted into the house, her heart beating with violence. "Mamma, I believe they are coming," she said with forced calmness, as she went into the parlor, shaking out the fringe of the shawl across her mother's lap, and straightening the foot-stool. "Aunt Harriet, do let me move your chair a little back. Goneril's one idea seems to be to put it always as much in the way as possible."

"Don't scold," said Miss Varian, tartly. "Your new sister may take a prejudice against you."

Missy disdained to answer, but occupied herself with putting on the fire some choice pine knots which she had been reserving for this moment. They blazed up with effusion; the room was beautiful. The carriage wheels drew nearer; they were before the house. Missy threw open the parlor door and advanced into the hall, with a very firm step, but with a very weak heart. She knew her hands were cold and that they trembled. How could she keep this from the knowledge of her guest; it was all very well to walk forward under the crystal lamps, as if she were a queen. But queens arrange to keep their hands from shaking, and to command their voices.

The maid had already gone out to the steps to bring in the shawls and bags. Everything seemed to swim before Missy as she stood in the hall door. The light went out in a flood across the piazza, but there seemed to be darkness beyond, about the carriage. There was no murmur of voices. Missy in bewilderment saw her brother, and then the maid coming up the steps after him and carrying nothing. In her agitation she hardly looked at him, as, at the door, he stooped down and kissed her, passing on. But the touch of his hand was light and cold.

"You have no wraps, or bags, or anything," she said confusedly, following him.

"No," he said, in a forced voice, throwing his hat on a table as he passed it, and going towards the stairs. "Is mamma in her room?"

"No, in the parlor waiting for you."

A contraction passed across his face as he turned toward the open parlor door, from which such a light came. He went in, however, quickly, and hurried to his mother's sofa. She had half raised herself from it, and with an agitated face looked up at him.

"You are—alone—St. John?"

"I am alone, mamma," he said in a strained, unnatural voice, stooping to embrace her.

Miss Varian had caught the scent of trouble and was standing up beside her chair.

"Aunt Harriet," he said, as if he had forgotten her, going over to her and kissing her.

"You are late," she said, as he turned away.

"Am I?" he said, looking at his watch, but very much as if he did not see it. "Yes, I suppose so. There was an accident or something on the road. The days are growing short. I am afraid I have kept you waiting."

Then he walked restlessly up and down the room, and took up and laid down a book upon the table, and spoke to a dog that came whisking about his feet, but in a way that showed that the book and the dog had not either entered into his mind.

"I will go and see about tea," said Missy, faintly, glad to get away. St. John's face frightened her. He looked ten years older. He was pallid. There was a most affecting look of suffering about his mouth. His eyes were strange to her; they were absolutely unlike her brother's eyes. What could it all mean? What had befallen him? She felt as if they were all in a dream. She hurried into the dining-room, where the waitress was whispering with gesticulation to the cook and laundress, whose faces appeared in the further door full of curiosity. Her presence put them to flight; the waitress, much humbled, bestirred herself to obey Missy's orders and remove the unneeded plate and chair, and to make the table look as if it were not intended for more than would sit down to it. How large it looked; Missy was so sorry that extra leaf had been put in. And all the best china, and the silver that was not used every day. What a glare and glitter they made; she hated the sight of them; she knew they would give St. John a stab. She would have taken some off the table, but that she felt the demure waitress would make a note of it. She had patiently to see her lighting the candles in the sconces. Poor St. John's eyes would ache at so much light. But there was no help for it now.

"Put tea upon the table at once," said Missy, sharply. There was no relief for her but scolding the innocent maid, and no one could have the heart to deny her that, if it would do her any good.

In a few moments the tea was served, and Missy went to announce it herself. Things were not altered in the parlor. St. John and his aunt were trying to talk in a way that would not convict the one of a broken heart, and the other of a consuming curiosity. Mrs. Varian, very pale, was leaning her head back on the pillows, and not speaking or looking at them.

"Mamma, tea is ready," said Missy, coming in. "St. John, take Aunt Harriet. Mamma will come with me."

"I think you may send me in a cup of tea," said Mrs. Varian. "I am almost too tired to go into the dining-room."

"Very well; that will be best. I will send Anne to wait upon you."

So the party of three went into the brilliantly-lighted dining-room, and sat down at the table that had been laid for five. Perhaps St. John didn't see anything but the light; that hurt his eyes, for he put his hand up once or twice to shield them. It was a ghastly feast. Aunt Harriet talked fast and much. St. John could not follow her enough to answer her with any show of sense. Missy blundered about the sugar in the two cups of tea she made, and tried to speak in her ordinary tone, but in vain. St. John sent oysters twice to his aunt, and not at all to Missy, and when the servant brought him her plate he said, what? and put it down before himself, and went on pouring cream into his tea, though he had done it twice before.

"No matter," said Missy sharply, to the girl, who could not make him understand, and who looked inclined to titter. She did not want the oysters, but she longed to see the poor fellow eat something himself, and she watched him furtively from behind the urn. He took everything upon his plate that was brought to him, but the physical effort of eating seemed impossible to him. He could not even drink the tea, which Missy had quietly renewed since the deluge of cream.

The excitement had even affected Miss Varian's appetite; she found fault with the rolls. This was a comfort to Missy, and restored to her the feeling that the world was on its time-honored route, notwithstanding her brother's troubles. At last it was impossible to watch it any longer. He was sitting unevenly at the head of the table, with his profile almost turned to her—as if he were ready to go away, ah, too ready!—if he could get away. His untouched plate was pushed back.

"St. John," said Missy, "do you want to take this cup of tea in to mamma, or shall Rosa go with it?"

"I will take it," he said, with an eager movement, getting up. The tears rushed into Missy's eyes as she watched him going out of the door with the cup of tea in his unsteady hand. Then she heard the parlor door shut, as Anne came out and left the mother and son together. Missy could fancy the eager, tender words, the outburst of wretchedness. Her own heart ached unutterably. "As one whom his mother comforteth." Oh, that he might be comforted, even though she was shut out, and could not help him, and her help was not thought of. It was her first approach to great trouble since she had been old enough to feel it intelligibly. How happy we have been, she thought, as people always think; how smooth and sweet our life has flowed; and now it is turned all out of its course, and will never be the same again. It was a life-and-death matter, even though no one wore a shroud, and no sod was broken; the smooth, happy boy's face was gone. She would never look on it again, and she had loved it so. She thought of him as he had been, only two months ago, when he went away, easy, frank, happy, good. Everybody loved him. It was the fashion to be fond of him, and it did not seem to hurt him. Missy thought of his beauty, his fine proportions, his look of perfect health. "Like as a moth fretting a garment," this trouble had already begun. His harassed features, his sallow tint—why, it was like a dream. Poor St. John! the only thing his sister had had to reproach him with had been his boyishness, and that was over and done. He had not the regularity of feature that had made his father remarkable for beauty, but he had the same warm coloring, the deep blue eye, the fair yellow hair. He was larger, too, than his father—a broad-shouldered, six-foot fellow, who had been grown on the sunny side of the wall. About his brain power there was a difference of opinion, as there will be about undeveloped resources. His mother's judgment did not count; his aunt thought him unusually clever for his age. Missy looked upon him as doubtfully average. His masters loved him, and thought there might be a good deal in him, if it could be waked up (but it hadn't been); his comrades thought him a good fellow, but were sure he wouldn't set the sea on fire. The men about the village, oyster men and stable boys, sailors of sloops and tillers of soil, were all ready, to a man, to bet upon him, whatever he might undertake. And here he was, not twenty yet, a boy whom fortune had seemed to agree should be left to ripen to utmost slow perfection, suddenly shaken with a blast of ice and fire, and called upon to show cause why more time should be given him to develop the powers within him, and to meet the inherent cruelty of life. It was precipitate and cruel; and the sister's heart cried out against it.

What was the mother's heart crying out? Missy yearned to know. But here was, no one knew how much time to pass before she could see her mother. Her duty now was to keep Aunt Harriet away from them, and to hold her in check. And this was not easy. Freed from the restraint of St. John's presence, Miss Varian's anxiety showed itself in irritability. She found fault with everything, and soon brought her tea to an end. Then she called for Goneril to take her to the parlor. While Rosa went for Goneril, Missy said, firmly:

"Wait a few minutes, Aunt Harriet. I am sure St. John wants to see mamma alone a little while."

Then Miss Varian gave way to a very bad fit of temper, only stopped by the re-entrance of the servant. It was gall to her to think that his mother could only comfort him, and that she had no place. But she respected the decencies of life enough not to betray herself before the servants. So while Missy busied herself in putting away the cake, and locking up the tea caddy, she sat silent, listening eagerly for any sound or movement in the parlor.

"If I had the evening paper, I would read it to you," said Missy, having come to the end of her invented business. "Rosa, go and look in the hall for it."

"It is on the parlor table, miss."

"Well, no matter then; tell the cook to come here. I want to read her a receipt for soup to-morrow."

The receipt book was the only bit of literature in the dining-room, so the cook came, and Missy read her the receipt for the new soup, and then another receipt that had fallen into desuetude, and might be revived with benefit to the ménage. And then she gave her orders for breakfast, and charged the cook with a message for the clam man and the scallop man, and the man who brought fish. For at Yellowcoats every man brings the captive of his own bow and spear (or drag and net), and the man who wooes oysters never vends fish; and the man who digs clams, digs clams and never potatoes; and scallops are a distinct calling.

All this time Missy was listening, with intent ear, for some movement in the parlor, Miss Varian listening no less intently. The tea-table was cleared—the cook could be detained no longer with any show of reason; the waitress waited to know if there was anything she could bring Miss Rothermel. It was so very unusual for any one to sit in the dining-room after tea; there were no books in it, nor any easy chairs, nor anything to do. The waitress, being a creature of habit, was quite disturbed to see them stay, but she knew very well what it meant.

At last! There was a movement across the hall—the parlor door opened, and they heard St. John and his mother come out and go slowly up the stairs. When they were on the first landing, Miss Varian said, sharply,

"Well, I suppose we can be released now."

"Yes, I think it will be as pleasant in the parlor," said Missy, giving her arm to Miss Varian, and going forward with a firm step. She installed her companion in an easy chair, seated herself, and read aloud the evening paper. Politics, fashions, marriages, and deaths, what a senseless jumble they made in her mind. She was often called sharply to account for betraying the jumble in her tone, for Miss Varian had recovered herself enough to feel an interest in the paper, while she felt sure she should have no tidings of St. John's trouble that night. It was easy to see nothing would be told her till it was officially discussed, with Missy in council, and till it was decided how much and what she was to hear. So she resolved to revenge herself by keeping Missy out of it as long as she could. The paper, to the last personal, had to be read. And then she found it necessary to have two or three notes written. Goneril was no scribe, so Missy was always expected to write her notes for her, which she always did, filled with a proud consciousness of being pretty good to do it, for somebody who wasn't her aunt, and who was her enemy. Aunt Harriet had always a good many notes to write; she never could get over the habit of wanting things her own way, and to have your own way, even about the covering of a footstool, requires sometimes the writing of a good many little notes; the looking up of a good many addresses, the putting on of a good many stamps, the sending a good many times to the post-office. All these things Missy generally did with outward precision and perfection. But to-night her hand shook, her mind wandered, she made mighty errors, and blotted and crossed out and misdirected like an ordinary mortal in a state of agitation. It was not lost upon Miss Varian, who heard the pen scratching through a dozen words at a time.

"Anything but an erasure in writing to such a person as Mrs. Olor, and particularly about a matter such as this. If you can't put your mind on it to-night, I'd rather you'd leave it till to-morrow."

"I haven't found any difficulty in putting my mind on it," said Missy. "If you could give me a lucid sentence, I think I could write it out. I believe I have done it before." So she tore up the letter, her cheeks burning, and began a fresh one.

All this time she listened for the sounds overhead. Sometimes it would be silent, of course they could not hear the sound of voices—sometimes for five minutes together there would be the sound of St. John's tread as he walked backward and forward the length of the room. Eleven o'clock came.

"I am going to bed," said Missy, pushing away the writing things. "I will finish your business in the morning. Shall I ring for Goneril?"

While Goneril was coming, Missy put out the lamp, and gathered up her books. When she had gone up and shut herself into her room, she began to cry. The two hours' strain upon her nerves, in keeping up before Miss Varian, had been great; then the suspense and pity for St. John; and not least, the feeling that she was forgotten and outside of all he suffered, and her mother knew. Mamma could have called me, even if St. John had not remembered, she thought bitterly. By and bye she heard her mother's door open and her brother's step cross the hall, and stealing out she looked after him down the stairs. He walked once or twice up and down the lower hall, then taking up his hat, went out, and she heard his step on the gravel walk that led down to the beach gate. Then she felt a great longing to go into her mother's room, and hear all. But an obstinate jealous pride kept her back. She lingered near the open door of her room till Anne the maid went into her mother's room, and after a few moments came out.

"Did mamma ask for me?" she said, as the woman passed her door.

"No, miss. She told me she did not want anything, that I was to leave the light, and that all were to go to bed."

Then Missy shut her door, and dried her tears, or rather they dried away before the hot fire of her hurt feelings. St. John's trouble, whatever it was, began to grow less to her. At least he had his mother, if he had lost his love; and mother to her had always been more than any love. And then, he had had the fulness of life, he had had an experience; he had lived more than she had, though he was but twenty, and she was twenty-seven. She was angry, humbled, wounded. Poor Missy; and then she hated herself for it, and knew that she ought to be crying for St. John, instead of envying him his mother's heart. It is detestable to find yourself falling below the occasion, and Missy knew that was just what she was doing. She was thinking about herself and her own wounds and wants, and she should have been filled with the sorrow of her brother. Well, so she would have been if he had asked her. She was sure she would have given him her whole heart, if he had wanted it. This was destined to be a night of suspenses. Missy undressed herself, and put on a wrapper, and said her very tumultuous and fragmentary evening prayers, and read a chapter in one or two good books, without the least understanding, and then put her light behind a screen in the corner, and went to the window, and began to wonder why St. John did not come back. The night was clear and starlight, but there was no moon, and it looked dark as she gazed out. She could see a light or two twinkling out on the bay, at the mast of some sloop or yacht. An hour passed. She walked about her room, in growing uneasiness, and opened her door softly, wondering if her mother shared her watch, and with what feelings. Another half hour, and it truly seemed to her, unused to such excitements, that she could bear it no longer. Where could he be, what could it mean? All the jealousy was over before this time, and she would have gone quickly enough to her mother, but that the silence in her room, made her fear to disturb her, and to give her a sleepless night. At last, just as the hands of her little watch reached two, she heard a movement of the latch of the beach gate, and her brother's step coming up the path. She flew down to the door of the summer parlor and opened it for him. There was only a faint light coming from the hall. He did not speak, and she followed him across the parlor, into the hall. "Where have you been?" she said humbly, "I have been so worried."

But when she got into the hall under the light, she uttered a little scream, "St. John! You are all wet, look at your feet."

The polished floor was marked with every step.

"It is nothing," he said hoarsely, going towards the stairs.

"Is mamma's light burning?"

"You are not going to mamma's room," said Missy, earnestly, "at this hour of the night? You might make her very ill. I think you are very inconsiderate."

There came into his eyes for a moment a hungry, evil look. He looked at Missy as if he could have killed her.

"Then tell her why I didn't come," he said in an unnatural voice, taking a candle from her hand, and going up the stairs, shut himself into his own room.

Poor Missy was frightened. She wished she had let him go to his mother; as the light of the lamp fell on his face, it was dreadful. His clear blue eyes, with their dark lashes, had always looked at her with feelings that she could interpret. She had seen him angry—a short-lived, sudden anger, that had melted while you looked, but never malicious; but this was malice, despair. The habitual expression of his eye was soft, happy, bright; a good nature looking out. She did not think he had lost his mind; she only thought he might be losing his soul. His eyes were bloodshot, his face of such a dreadful color.

"This is trouble," she said to herself, as with trembling hands she put out the light, and went up the dark staircase. At her mother's door she paused and listened, and a voice within called her. How gladly she heard it! She went in, longing to throw herself into her mother's arms and cry what is it? But she controlled herself, and went softly to the sofa where her mother lay, still undressed, the lamp burning on the table beside her, her eyes shining with an unusual lustre.

"I didn't know you were awake," said Missy, sitting down on an ottoman by the fire. "Your room is cold," and she pulled together the embers, and put on a stick or two of wood, her teeth chattering. She knew quite well it wasn't the cold that made them chatter.

"Where is St. John?" said her mother.

"He has just come in," returned Missy, looking furtively at her—"and has gone to bed."

"Why didn't he come in to me?" asked Mrs. Varian, anxiously.

"Because I thought that it—it was so late—you ought not to be kept awake so long."

"Did you tell him not to come?"

"Well, yes."

Mrs. Varian sighed. "It would have been better not," she said.

Missy turned her face to the fire, which was beginning to blaze, and stretched out her hands to it. "Well, mamma," she said a little querulously, after several moments of silence, "I suppose you don't think that I care anything about St. John's trouble. I should think you might tell me without being asked to."

"O my child!" exclaimed her mother. "Forgive me. I have been so absorbed in him."

"O, I know that," retorted Missy, crying a little. "That isn't what I want to know."

"It won't take long to tell you. The girl to whom he was engaged, has fled from him and from her mother, and last night was married privately to a man for whom, it seems, she has long had a passion."

"Then why did she ever engage herself to St. John?" cried Missy, turning her pale and excited face towards her mother.

"I suppose it was the mother's work. The mother must be unscrupulous and daring. No doubt she worked hard for such a prize as St. John, and she found him easy prey, poor boy. Easier to manage than her daughter, whose passions are strong, and whose will is undisciplined. The girl could not conquer the thought of the old lover, though she had dissembled cruelly. I think she is but little to be preferred to her mother, inasmuch as her intention was the same; she meant to sacrifice St. John, and to satisfy her ambition. Only at the last moment, her passion conquered, and she broke faith both with her mother and him. O Missy, what wicked, wicked lives! Does it seem possible that there can be such women living?"

"I thank them from the bottom of my heart," said Missy, from between her set teeth.

"Yes," said her mother with a sigh. "It is right to feel that, I know. But oh, my boy; it is so hard to see him suffer. To have loved so, and been so duped. And he cannot, in his disgust and revulsion, conquer his great love for her. He is writhing in such pangs of jealousy. Think, last night this time he was dreaming happy dreams about her, as foolish and as fond as boy could be. To-night, she is in the arms of another—separated from him forever—leaving him with mockery and coldness, without a word of penitence or supplication. She flung him off as if she had disdained and loathed him."

"How did it come out—how did he hear it first?"

"This morning, he went for her to drive. They were to have had a very happy day. St. John, you know, is so nice and thoughtful about planning pleasures and expeditions. I think he must have had an insight into their characters, though he was so blinded. First, they were to go to see some pictures, then to the Park for an hour or two, then to Delmonico's for an early dinner; then to do some shopping before coming to the cars. The shopping meant letting her choose all sorts of expensive things to wear, to which she was unaccustomed, while he paid the bills. Poor boy, think of that not opening his eyes. I asked if she never remonstrated, 'Yes, a little perhaps, at first.' Well, they were to have had this perfect day; and St. John mounted the stairs to their apartment without a misgiving.

"The moment the door was opened he felt what was coming. The room was in confusion; the mother, wild and dishevelled, turned from him with a shriek. It took but a moment, but it was a horrible moment, to persuade her to tell him the truth.

"'Yes,' she cried, with a sudden impulse—perhaps it was the first honest word she had ever spoken to the poor boy—'Yes, you shall know everything. You shall know all that I know. There is no good in keeping things back now. She has gone; she is a deceitful, bad girl. She has left me to poverty and you to misery. She has gone off with a wicked man, a man who destroyed her sister, and left her, but whom she has always loved. She has broken her promise to me—she has deceived me, she has ruined me. What shall I do! how shall I pay her bills! I shall have to hide myself; and I thought I had got through with being poor! She promised me, she promised me to bear with you and to carry this out. Everything hung upon it, every one was waiting—the landlord, the grocer even knew that she was going to make a fine match, and they were waiting. I had to explain it all to them. You can't think how like heaven it seemed to have a prospect of easy times. I have had a hard life, a hard life, ever since I can remember. How I have worked for that girl, and for her sister before her—what sacrifices I have made! You can't think, a man can't know. I really enjoy telling the truth; it's such a long time since I've done it. Making the best of things—making out that things were one way with us when they were another—telling lies to every body—almost to each other! Oh, what shall I do without her! I don't know where to go or which way to turn! She is a wicked girl to have served me such a trick. She will be come up with yet. She will hate that man—hate him worse than she hated you. Nobody could say you were not sweet and nice to every one, even if you were too young. And he—he is an evil, deep, bad man. He will break her heart for her, as he broke her sister's. And he hasn't got a penny. And she, oh! she has a fury of a temper, and she must have her own way if she dies for it. Well, she's got it, and I almost hope she will be punished. I'd like to see her poor as poverty, and come begging to the door.'

"And so on, Missy, in her wretched, selfish moan of disappointed greed, while the poor boy stood stunned and almost stupefied. It did not seem to him at all real or true; he felt as if he must wake up from it; for the girl had been a good actress; and the mother, though he had always felt a little uncomfortable with her, had simulated the manners of a lady, and his refined tastes never had been shocked; at least never with force enough to break the spell of the daughter's influence. Fancy what this revelation was to him; the woman, in her transport of anger, and in her despair of further help from him, tearing away their flimsy hypocrisies, and revealing their disgusting meanness. It all seemed hideous raving to St. John, till she thrust into his hand the letter that the girl had left. Then the sight of the handwriting that had always given him such emotions, and the cruel words, made an end of his dream, and he was quite awake."

"What did she write?" asked Missy.

"That he has not told me. He cannot seem to bring himself to speak the words. But I gather from him, it was a vehement protestation of what she felt for her old lover, and the contempt in which she held the poor boy, and perhaps some rude defiance of her mother. St. John, I think, could hardly have spoken many words during the interview. He emptied his pockets, poor boy, and left the wretched woman silent with amazement. She may well have repented of her reckless speech—how much she might have got out of him, if she had still played the hypocrite. He came down the stairs which half an hour before he had mounted, weak, like a person after months of illness. When he got into the carriage, his eyes fell on some lovely flowers which he had brought for her, and the sight and scent of them seemed to make clear the horrible reality. I think he really cannot tell what he did with the rest of the day. He told the man to drive to the Park, and there he wandered about, no doubt, for hours. I am sure he has not tasted food since morning. It must result in a terrible illness. How did he look, Missy, when he came in from the beach?"

Missy evaded; and her heart smote her that she had not brought the poor boy to his mother, instead of turning him away from the only chance of comfort. "Shall I go and see?" she said. And going softly into the hall, she stood outside the door of his room and listened. "It is all quiet," she said, coming back. "Perhaps he has fallen asleep. He looked utterly worn out when he came in." Then she crept up beside her mother, and pulling a shawl about her, they sat talking, hand in hand, till the stars grew pale, and the chilly dawn broke.