Читать книгу Missy - Miriam Coles Harris - Страница 8

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After that, there were daily visits to Mrs. Andrews, daily messages passing between the houses, daily hours with Gabby and Jay upon the beach. It became the most interesting part of Miss Rothermel's life. It was a romance to her, though she thought she was not romantic. Her dream was to do good, a great deal of good, to somebody, all the better if she happened to like the somebody. It was tiresome to do good all the time to Aunt Harriet, who was all the time there ready to be done good to. It was not conceivable that mamma could need her very much—mamma, who had St. John, and who really did not seem an object of compassion at all, rather some one to go to, to get comforted. She was "a-weary" of the few poor people of the place. They seemed inexpressibly "narrow" to her now. She seemed suddenly to have outgrown them. She condemned herself for the time and thought she had bestowed upon them, when she counted up the pitiful results.

"I suppose I have spent a month, and driven forty miles, and talked volumes, if it were all put together, to get that wretched Burney boy to go to Sunday school. And what does it amount to, after all, now that he does go? He carries things in his pockets to eat, and he makes the other children laugh, and he sits on the gravestones during service, and whistles loud enough to have to be hunted away by the sexton every Sunday. No; I shall let him go now; he may come or not, as he sees fit."

It was certainly much pleasanter to sit on the beach and curl Jay's tawny hair, and make him pictures on shells, and teach him verses, and his letters. Gabrielle, with her great dark, side-looking eyes, was not as congenial to Missy, but even she was more satisfactory than the Burney boy, with his dirty hands and terrible dialect. Children without either refinement or innocence are not attractive, and though Missy feared Gabby was not quite innocent, she had a good deal of refinement in appearance and manner. She spoke with a slow, soft manner, and never looked one straight in the eye. She had a passion for jewelry and fine clothes, and made her way direct to any one who had on a bracelet or locket of more than ordinary pretension, and hung over it fascinated. It was sometimes difficult to shake her off, and the questions she asked were wearisome. Missy's visitors were apt to pet and notice her very much at first and then to grow very tired of her. She was a picturesque object, though her face was often dirty, and her hair was always wild. She wore beautiful clothes, badly put on and in wretched order; embroidered French muslin dresses with the ruffles scorched and over-starched; rich Roman scarfs with the fringes full of straws and sticks; kid boots warped at the heel, and almost buttonless; stockings faded, darned with an alien color, loose about the ankles. All this was a trial to Missy, whose love of order and neatness was outraged by the lovely little slattern.

For a long while she sewed on furtive buttons, picked clear fringes, re-instated ruffles, caught up yawning rents. She would reconstruct Gabby, then catch her in her arms and kiss her, and tell her how much better she looked when she was neat. Gabby would submit to the caress, but would give a sidelong glance at Missy's perfect appointments—yawn, stretch out her arms, make probably a new rent, and tear away across the lawn to be caught in the first thorn presenting. She was passionately fond of fine clothes, but she was deeply lazy, and inconsequently Bohemian. The idea of constraint galled her. She revolted from Missy's lectures and repairing touches.

Then Missy tried her 'prentice hand on the faithless servants. The faithless servants did not take it kindly. They resented her suggestions, and hated her.

Then she faintly tried to bring the subject to the notice of the mother. This was done with many misgivings, and with much difficulty, for it was not easy to get the conversation turned on duties and possible failures. Somehow, it was always a very different view the two took of things, when they had their long talks together. It was always of herself that Mrs. Andrews talked—always of her sufferings, her wrongs. When your friend is posturing for a martyr, it is hard to get her into an attitude of penitence without hurting her feelings. When she is bewailing the faults of others, it is embarrassing to turn the office into a confession of her own. Missy entered on her task humbly, knowing that it would be a hard one. She did not realize why it would be so hard. She had a romantic pity for her friend. She would not see her faults. Indeed, any one might have been blinded, who began with a strong admiration. When a woman is too ill to be talked to about her duties even, it is hard to expect her to perform them with rigor. When Missy, baffled and humbled, returned from that unfortunate mission, she acknowledged to herself she had attempted an impossibility. "She cannot see, she never has seen—probably she never will be obliged to see, what neglect her children are suffering from. She is too ill to be able to take in anything outside her sick room. The cross laid on her requires all her strength. It is cruelty to ask her to bear anything more. I am ashamed to have had the thought." So she turned to the poor little children so sadly orphaned, as it seemed to her, and with tenderness, tried to lighten their lot, and shield them from the tyrannies and negligences of their attendants. Little Jay lived at his new friend's house, ate at her table, almost slept in her bosom. He naturally preferred this to the cold slatternliness of his own home, and he was rarely missed or inquired for.

"He might have been in the bay for the past five hours, for all the servants know about it," said Mrs. Varian, to whom all this was an anxiety and depression. "Don't you think, Missy, you give them an excuse in keeping him here so much? They naturally will say, if anything happens, they thought he was with you, and that you take him away for such long drives and walks, they never know where to find him."

"My dear mamma," cried Missy, "don't you think the wretches would find an excuse for whatever they did? Is their duplicity to make it right for me to abandon my poor little man to them?"

"At least always report it at the house when you take him away for half a day."

So after that, Missy was careful to make known her plan at the Andrews' before she took Jay away for any long excursion. She would stop at the door in her little pony-carriage, and lifting out Jay, would send him in to say to a pampered menial at the door, that they need not be uneasy about him if he did not come back till one or two o'clock.

"We won't put on mournin' for ye before three, thin, honey," said the man, on one occasion. Jay didn't understand the meaning of the words, but he understood the cynical tone, and he kicked the fellow on a beloved calf. Then the man, enraged, caught him by the arm and held him off, but he continued to kick and hit from the shoulder with his one poor little unpinioned arm. The man was white with rage, for Jay was unpopular, and Miss Rothermel also, and he hated to be held in check by her presence, and by the puerile fear of losing his place, which her presence created.

Now it happened on this pleasant summer morning that Mr. Andrews had not gone to town, and that he had not gone out on the bay, as was supposed in the household, the wind having proved capricious. Consequently he was just entering from the rear of the house, as this pretty tableau was being presented on the front piazza. When the enraged combatants raised their eyes, they found Mr. Andrews standing in the hall door, and darkly regarding them.

"Papa! kill him!" cried Jay, as the flunky suddenly released him, dashing at the unprotected calves like a fury. "Kill him for me!"

"With pleasure," said his father, calmly, "but you let it alone. Come to the library at ten o'clock, I will see you about this matter," he said to the man, who slunk away, while Jay came to take his father's outstretched hand, very red and dishevelled. By this time Missy, much alarmed, had sprung from the carriage, and ran down the walk, just in time to confront the father. He was beginning to question the boy, but turning around faced the young lady unexpectedly, and took off his hat. Missy looked flushed and as excited as the boy.

"I hope you won't blame Jay," she said, "for it is safe to say it is the man's fault. They tease him shamefully, and he is such a little fellow."

Mr. Andrews' face softened at these words. It was plain she thought he was severe with his children, but that was lost in the sweetness of hearing any one plead for his little boy with that intuitive and irrational tenderness.

"I want to hit him!" interrupted Jay, doubling up his fist. "I want to hit him right in his ugly mouth."

"Hush," said his father, frowning, "little boys must not hit any one, least of all, their father's servants. You come to me whenever they trouble you, and I will make it right."

"You're never here when they do it," said the child.

"Well, you keep quiet, and then come and tell me when I get home."

"I forget it then," said Jay, naively.

"Then I think it can't go very deep," returned his father, smiling.

"It will go deep enough to spoil his temper utterly, I'm afraid," said Missy, biting her lips to keep from saying more.

"I am sorry enough," he began earnestly, but catching sight of her face, his voice grew more distant. "I suppose it is inevitable," he added slowly, as Jay, loosing his hold of his father's hand, picked up his hat, straightened his frock, and went over to Missy's side.

"I am going to ride with Missy," he said, tugging a little at her dress. "Come, it's time."

"Perhaps your father wants you to stay with him, as he isn't often at home."

"O no," said Mr. Andrews, as they all walked towards the gate. "Jay is better off with you, I am afraid, and happier. And I want to thank you, Miss Rothermel, for your many kindnesses to the children. I assure you, I—I appreciate them very much."

"O," cried Missy, stiffly, and putting very sharp needles into her voice, "there is nothing to thank me for. It is a pleasure to have them for their own sakes, and everything that I can do to make Mrs. Andrews more comfortable about them, is an added pleasure."

Missy knew this was a fib the instant she had uttered it. She knew it didn't make Mrs. Andrews a straw more comfortable to know the children were in safe hands; but she wanted to say something to punish this brutal husband, and this little stab dealt itself, so to speak. She was very sorry about the fib, but she reflected one must not be too critical in dealing with brutal husbands if one's motives are right. Mr. Andrews stiffened too, and his face took a hard and cynical look.

"Undoubtedly," he said, and then he said no more. Jay held the gate open for them.

"Come," he said, "it's time to go." Missy stepped into the low carriage—disdaining help, and gathered up the reins. Mr. Andrews lifted Jay into the seat beside her.

"And I guess I'll stay to dinner with Missy, so you needn't send for me," said Jay, seating himself comfortably and taking the whip, which was evidently his prerogative. Nobody could help smiling, even brutal husbands and people who had been telling fibs. "I haven't heard you invited," said the representative of the former class.

"O, Jay knows he is always welcome. I will send him home before evening, if I may keep him till then."

Mr. Andrews bowed, and the little carriage rolled away, the child forgetting to look back at his father, eagerly pleased with the whip and the drive, and the sunshine and the morning air. Mr. Andrews watched them out of sight, and as they were lost among the trees in a turn of the road, he sighed and turned stolidly towards the house. It was a low, pretty cottage, the piazza was covered with flowering vines, there were large trees about it—the grass was green and well-kept, a trim hedge separated it from the Varian place; at the rear, beyond the garden, was the boat-house and then a low fence that ran along the yellow beach. The water sparkled clear and blue; what a morning it was; and what a peaceful, pretty attractive little home it looked. People passing along the road might well gaze at it with envy, and imagine it the "haunt of all affections pure." This thought passed through Mr. Andrews' mind, as he walked from the gate. It made his face a little harder than usual, and it was usually hard enough.