Books: Missy

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"What have you been doing with your hair?"

"Oh, just experimenting. Mother, may I have it crimped for the
party?"

"I don't know--we'll see. Now hurry and jump into bed."

After mother had kissed her good night and gone, and after the light
had been turned out, Missy lay awake for a long time.

Through the lace window curtains shone the moonlight, a gleaming
path along which Missy had often flown out to be a fairy. It is
quite easy to be a fairy. You lie perfectly still, your arms
stretched out like wings. Then you fix your eyes on the moonlight
and imagine you feel your wings stir. And the first thing you know
you feel yourself being wafted through the window, up through the
silver-tinged air. You touch the clouds with your magic wand, and
from them fall shimmering jewels.

Missy was fourteen, going on fifteen, but she could still play being
a fairy.

But to-night, though the fairy path stretched invitingly to her very
bed, she did not ride out upon it. She shut her eyes, though she
felt wide-awake. She shut her eyes so as to see better the pictures
that came before them.

With her eyes shut she could see herself quite plainly at the party.
She looked like herself, only much prettier. Yes, and a little
older, perhaps. Her pink dotted mull was easily recognizable, though
it had taken on a certain ethereally chic quality--as if a rosy
cloud had been manipulated by French fingers. Her hair was a soft,
bright, curling triumph. And when she moved she was graceful as a
swaying flower stem.

As Missy watched this radiant being which was herself she could see
that she was as gracious and sweet-mannered as she was beautiful;
perhaps a bit dignified and reserved, but that is always fitting.

No wonder the other girls and the boys gathered round her,
captivated. All the boys were eager to dance with her, and when she
danced she reminded you of a swaying lily. Most often her partner
was Raymond himself. Raymond danced well too. And he was the
handsomest boy at his party. He had blonde hair and deep, soft black
eyes like his father, who was the handsomest as well as the richest
man in Cherryvale. And he liked her, for last year, their first year
in high school, he used to study the Latin lesson with her and wait
for her after school and carry her books home for her. He had done
that although Kitty Allen was much prettier than she and though
Beulah Crosswhite was much, much smarter. The other girls had teased
her about him, and the boys must have teased Raymond, for after a
while he had stopped walking home with her. She didn't know whether
she was gladder or sorrier for that. But she knew that she was glad
he did not ignore that radiant, pink-swathed guest who, in her
beautiful vision, was having such a glorious time at his party.

Next morning she awoke to find a soft, misty rain greying the world
outside her window. Missy did not mind that; she loved rainy days--
they made you feel so pleasantly sad. For a time she lay quiet,
watching the slant, silvery threads and feeling mysteriously,
fascinatingly, at peace. Then Poppy, who always slept at the foot of
her bed, awoke with a tremendous yawning and stretching--exactly the
kind of "exercises" that young Doc Alison prescribed for father, who
hated to get up in the mornings!

Then Poppy, her exercises done, majestically trod the coverlet to
salute her mistress with the accustomed matinal salutation which
Missy called a kiss. Mother did not approve of Poppy's "kisses," but
Missy argued to herself that the morning one, dependable as an alarm
clock, kept her from oversleeping.

She hugged Poppy, jumped out of bed, and began dressing. When she
got downstairs breakfast was ready and the house all sweetly
diffused with the dreamy shadows that come with a rainy day.

Father had heard the great news and bantered her: "So we've got a
society queen in our midst!"

"I think," put in Aunt Nettie, "that it's disgraceful the way they
put children forward these days."

"I wouldn't let Missy go if Mrs. Allen wasn't going to be there to
look after her," said mother.

"Mother, may I have the hem of my pink dress let down?" asked Missy.

At that father laughed, and Aunt Nettie might just as well have
said: "I told you so!" as put on that expression.

"It's my first real party," Missy went on, "and I'd like to look as
pretty as I can."

Something prompted father, as he rose from the table, to pause and
lay his hand on Missy's shoulder.

"Can't you get her a new ribbon or something, mother?" he asked.

"Maybe a new sash," answered mother reflectively. "They've got some
pretty brocaded pink ribbon at Bonner's."

After which Missy finished her breakfast in a rapture. It is queer
how you can eat, and like what you eat very much, and yet scarcely
taste it at all.

When the two hours of practicing were over, mother sent her down
town to buy the ribbon for the sash--a pleasant errand. She changed
the black tie on her middy blouse to a scarlet one and let the ends
fly out of her grey waterproof cape. Why is it that red is such a
divine colour on a rainy day?

Upon her return there was still an hour before dinner, and she sat
by the dining-room window with Aunt Nettie, to darn stockings.

"Well, Missy," said Aunt Nettie presently, "a penny for your
thoughts."

Missy looked up vaguely, at a loss. "I wasn't thinking of anything
exactly," she said.

"What were you smiling about?"

"Was I smiling?"

Just then mother entered and Aunt Nettie said: "Missy smiles, and
doesn't know it. Party!"

But Missy knew it wasn't the party entirely. Nor was it entirely the
sound of the rain swishing, nor the look of the trees quietly
weeping, nor of the vivid red patches of geranium beds. Everything
could have been quite different, and still she'd have felt happy.
Her feeling, mysteriously, was as much from things INSIDE her as
from things outside.

After dinner was over and the baby minded for an hour, mother made
the pink-brocaded sash. It was very lovely. Then she had an hour to
herself, and since the rain wouldn't permit her to spend it in the
summerhouse, she took a book up to her own room. It was a book of
poems from the Public Library.

The first poem she opened to was one of the most marvellous things
she had ever read--almost as wonderful as "The Blessed Damozel." She
was glad she had chanced upon it on a rainy day, and when she felt
like this. It was called "A Birthday," and it went:

My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My
heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset
fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon
sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to
me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it with doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred
eyes; Work in it gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver
fleurs-de-lys, Because the birthday of my life Is come; my love is
come to me.

The poem expressed beautifully what she might have answered when
Aunt Nettie asked why she smiled. Only, even though she herself
could have expressed it so beautifully then, it was not the kind of
answer you'd dream of making to Aunt Nettie.

Thp next morning Missy awoke to find the rain gone and warm, golden
sunshine filtering through the lace curtains. She dressed herself
quickly, while the sunshine smiled and watched her toilet. After
breakfast, at the piano, her fingers found the scales tiresome. Of
themselves they wandered off into unexpected rhythms which seemed to
sing aloud: Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver
fieurs-de-lys . . . Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with
vair and purple dyes . . .

She was idly wondering what a "vair" might be when her dreams were
crashed into by mother's reproving voice: "Missy, what are you
doing? If you don't get right down to practicing, there'll be no
more parties!"

Abashed, Missy made her fingers behave, but not her heart. It was
singing a tune far out of harmony with chromatic exercises, and she
was glad her mother could not hear.

The tune kept right on throughout dinner. During the meal she was
called to the telephone, and at the other end was Raymond; he wanted
her to save him the first dance that evening. What rapture--this was
what happened to the beautiful belles you read about!

After dinner mother and Aunt Nettie went to call upon some ladies
they hoped wouldn't be at home--what funny things grown-ups do! The
baby was taking his nap, and Missy had a delicious long time ahead
in which to be utterly alone.

She took the library book of poems and a book of her father's out to
the summerhouse. First she opened the book of her father's. It was a
translation of a Russian book, very deep and moving and sad and
incomprehensible. A perfectly fascinating book! It always filled her
with vague, undefinable emotions. She read: "O youth, youth! Thou
carest for nothing: thou possessest, as it were, all the treasures
of the universe; even sorrow comforts thee, even melancholy becomes
thee; thou art self-confident and audacious; thou sayest: 'I alone
live--behold!' But the days speed on and vanish without a trace and
without reckoning, and everything vanishes in thee, like wax in the
sun, like snow. . ."

Missy felt sublime sadness resounding through her soul. It was
intolerable that days should speed by irrevocably and vanish, like
wax in the sun, like snow. She sighed. But even as she sighed the
feeling of sadness began to slip away. So she turned to the poem
discovered last night, and read it over happily.

The title, "A Birthday," made her feel that Raymond Bonner was
somehow connected with it. This was his birthday--and that brought
her thoughts back definitely to the party. Mother had said that
presents were not expected, that they were getting too big to
exchange little presents, yet she would have liked to carry him some
little token. The ramblers and honeysuckle above her head sniffed at
her in fragrant suggestion--why couldn't she just take him some
flowers?

Acting on the impulse, Missy jumped up and began breaking off the
loveliest blooms. But after she had gathered a big bunch a swift
wave of self-consciousness swept over her. What would they say at
the house? Would they let her take them? Would they understand? And
a strong distaste for their inevitable questions, for the
explanations which she could not explain definitely even to herself,
prompted her not to carry the bouquet to the house. Instead she ran,
got a pitcher of water, carried it back to the summerhouse and left
the flowers temporarily there, hoping to figure out ways and means
later.

At the house she discovered that the baby was awake, so she had to
hurry back to take care of him. She always loved to do that; she
didn't mind that a desire to dress up in her party attire had just
struck her, for the baby always entered into the spirit of her
performances. While she was fastening up the pink dotted mull, Poppy
walked inquisitively in and sat down to oversee this special,
important event. Missy succeeded with the greatest difficulty in
adjusting the brocaded sash to her satisfaction. She regretted her
unwaved hair, but mother was going to crimp it herself in the
evening. The straight, everyday coiffure marred the picture in the
mirror, yet, aided by her imagination, it was pleasing. She stood
with arms extended in a languid, graceful pose, her head thrown
back, gazing with half-closed eyes at something far, far beyond her
own eyes in the glass.

Then suddenly she began to dance. She danced with her feet, her
arms, her hands, her soul. She felt within her the grace of stately
beauties, the heartbeat of dew-jewelled fairies, the longings of
untrammelled butterflies--dancing, she could have flown up to heaven
at that moment! A gurgle of sound interrupted her; it was the baby.
"Do you like me, baby?" she cried. "Am I beautiful, baby?"

Baby, now, could talk quite presentably in the language of grown-
ups. But in addition he knew all kinds of wise, unintelligible
words. Missy knew that they were wise, even though she could not
understand their meaning, and she was glad the baby chose, this
time, to answer in that secret jargon.

She kissed the baby and, in return, the baby smiled his secret
smile. Missy was sure that Poppy then smiled too, a secret smile; so
she kissed Poppy also. How wonderful, how mysterious, were the
smiles of baby and Poppy! What unknown thoughts produced them?

At this point her cogitations were interrupted and her playacting
spoiled by the unexpected return of mother and Aunt Nettie. It
seemed that certain of the ladies had obligingly been "out."

"What in the world are you doing, Missy?" asked mother.

Missy suddenly felt herself a very foolish-appearing object in her
party finery. She tried to make an answer, but the right words were
difficult to find.

"Party!" said Aunt Nettie significantly.

Missy, still standing in mute embarrassment, couldn't have explained
how it was not the party entirely.

Mother did not scold her for dressing up.

"Better get those things off, dear," she said kindly, "and come in
and let me curl your hair. I'd better do it before supper, before
the baby gets cross." The crimped coiffure was an immense success;
even in her middy blouse Missy felt transformed. She could have
kissed herself in the glass!

"Do you think I look pretty, mother?" she asked. "You mustn't think
of such things, dear." But, as mother stooped to readjust a waving
lock, her fingers felt marvellously tender to Missy's forehead.

Evening arrived with a sunset of grandeur and glory. It made
everything look as beautiful as it should look on the occasion of a
festival. The beautiful and festive aspect of the world without, and
of, her heart within, made it difficult to eat supper. And after
supper it was hard to breathe naturally, to control her nervous
fingers as she dressed.

At last, with the help of mother and Aunt Nettie, her toilet was
finished: the pink-silk stockings and slippers shimmering beneath
the lengthened pink mull; the brocaded pink ribbon now become a
huge, pink-winged butterfly; and, mother's last touch, a pink
rosebud holding a tendril--a curling tendril--artfully above the
left ear! Missy felt a stranger to herself as, like some gracious
belle and fairy princess and airy butterfly all compounded into one,
she walked--no, floated down the stairs.

"Well!" exclaimed father, "behold the Queen of the Ball!" But Missy
did not mind his bantering tone. The expression of his eyes told her
that he thought she looked pretty.

Presently Mrs. Allen and Kitty, in the Allens' surrey, stopped by
for her. With them was a boy she had never seen before, a tall, dark
boy in a blue-grey braided coat and white duck trousers--a military
cadet!

He was introduced as Kitty's cousin, Jim Henley. Missy had heard
about this Cousin Jim who was going to visit Cherryvale some time
during the summer; he had arrived rather unexpectedly that day.

Kitty herself--in pink dotted mull, of course--was looking rather
wan. Mrs. Allen explained she had eaten too much of the candy Cousin
Jim had brought her.

Cousin Jim, with creaking new shoes, leaped down to help Missy in.
She had received her mother's last admonition, her father's last
banter, Aunt Nettie's last anxious peck at her sash, and was just
lifting her foot to the surrey step when suddenly she said: "Oh!"

"What is it?" asked mother. "Forgotten something?"

Missy had forgotten something. But how, with mother's inquiring eyes
upon her, and father's and Aunt Nettie's and Mrs. Allen's and
Kitty's and Cousin Jim's inquiring eyes upon her, could she mention
Raymond's bouquet in the summerhouse? How could she get them? What
should she say? And what would they think? "No," she answered
hesitantly. "I guess not." But the bright shining of her pleasure
was a little dimmed. She could not forget those flowers waiting,
waiting there in the summerhouse. She worried more about them, so
pitifully abandoned, than she did about Raymond's having to go
without a remembrance.

Missy sat in the back seat with Mrs. Allen, Kitty in front with her
cousin. Now and then he threw a remark over his shoulder, and
smiled. He had beautiful white teeth which gleamed out of his dark-
skinned face, and he seemed very nice. But he wasn't as handsome as
Raymond, nor as nice--even if he did wear a uniform.

When they reached the Bonners they saw it all illumined for the
party. The Bonners' house was big and square with a porch running
round three sides, the most imposing house in Cherryvale. Already
strings of lanterns were lighted on the lawn, blue and red and
yellow orbs. The lights made the trees and shrubs seem shadowy and
remote, mysterious creatures awhisper over their own business.

Not yet had many guests arrived, but almost immediately they
appeared in such droves that it seemed they must have come up
miraculously through the floor. The folding camp chairs which lined
the parlours and porches (the rented chairs always seen at
Cherryvale parties and funerals) were one moment starkly exposed and
the next moment hidden by light-hued skirts and by stiffly held,
Sunday-trousered dark legs. For a while that stiffness which
inevitably introduces a formal gathering of youngsters held them
unnaturally bound. But just as inevitably it wore away, and by the
time the folding chairs were drawn up round the little table where
"hearts" were to be played, voices were babbling, and laughter was
to be heard everywhere for no reason at all.

At Missy's table sat Raymond Bonner, looking handsomer than ever
with his golden hair and his eyes like black velvet pansies. There
was another boy who didn't count; and then there was the most
striking creature Missy had ever seen. She was a city girl visiting
in town, an older, tall, red-haired girl, with languishing, long-
lashed eyes. She wore a red chiffon dress, lower cut than was worn
in Cherryvale, which looked like a picture in a fashion magazine.
But it was not her chic alone that made her so striking. It was her
manner. Missy was, not sure that she knew what "sophisticated"
meant, but she decided that the visiting girl's air of self-
possession, of calm, almost superior assurance, denoted
sophistication. How eloquent was that languid way of using her fan!

In this languishing-eyed presence she herself did not feel at her
best; nor was she made happier by the way Raymond couldn't keep his
eyes off the visitor. She played her hand badly, so that Raymond and
his alluring partner "progressed" to the higher table while she
remained with the boy who didn't count. But, as luck would have it,
to take the empty places, from the head table, vanquished, came
Cousin Jim and his partner. Jim now played opposite her, and laughed
over his "dumbness" at the game.

"I feel sorry for you!" he told Missy. "I'm a regular dub at this
game!"

"I guess I'm a 'dub' too." It was impossible not to smile back at
that engaging flash of white teeth in the dark face.

This time, however, neither of them proved "dubs." Together they
"progressed" to the next higher table. Cousin Jim assured her it was
all due to her skill. She almost thought that, perhaps, she was
skillful at "hearts," and for the first time she liked the silly
game.

Eventually came time for the prizes--and then dancing. Dancing Missy
liked tremendously. Raymond claimed her for the first waltz. Missy
wondered, a little wistfully, whether now he mightn't be regretting
that pre-engagement, whether he wouldn't rather dance it with the
languishing-eyed girl he was following about.

But as soon as the violin and piano, back near the library window,
began to play, Raymond came straight to Missy and made his charming
bow. They danced through the two parlours and then out to the porch
and round its full length; the music carried beautifully through the
open windows; it was heavenly dancing outdoors like that. Too soon
it was over.

"Will you excuse me?" Raymond asked in his polite way. "Mother wants
to see me about something. I hate to run away, but--"

Scarcely had he gone when Mrs. Allen, with Jim in tow, came hurrying
up.

"Oh, Missy! I've been looking for you everywhere. Kitty's awfully
sick. She was helping with the refreshments and got hold of some
pickles. And on top of all that candy--"

"Oh!" commiserated Missy.

"I've got to get her home at once," Mrs. Allen went on. "I hate to
take you away just when your good time's beginning, but--"

"Why does she have to go?" Jim broke in. "I can take you and Kitty
home, and then come back, and take her home after the party's over."
He gave a little laugh. "You see that gives me an excuse to see the
party through myself!"

Mrs. Allen eyed Missy a little dubiously.

"Oh, Mrs. Allen, couldn't I?"

"I don't know--I said I'd bring you home myself."

"Oh, Mrs. Allen! Please!" Missy's eyes pleaded even more than her
voice.

"Well, I don't see why not," decided Kitty's mother, anxious to
return to her own daughter. "Jim will take good care of you, and
Mrs. Bonner will send you all home early."

When Mrs. Allen, accompanied by her nephew, had hurried away, Missy
had an impulse to wander alone, for a moment, out into the
deliciously alluring night. She loved the night always, but just now
it looked indescribably beautiful. The grounds were deserted, but
the lanterns, quivering in the breeze, seemed to be huge live glow-
worms suspended up there in the dark. It was enchantment. Stepping
lightly, holding her breath, sniffing at unseen scents, hearing
laughter and dance music from far away as if in another world, she
penetrated farther and farther into the shadows. An orange-coloured
moon was pushing its way over the horizon, so close she could surely
reach out her hands and touch it!

And then, too near to belong to any other world, and quite
distinctly, she heard a voice beyond the rose arbour:

"Oh, yes! Words sound well! But the fact remains you didn't ask me
for the first dance."

Missy knew that drawling yet strangely assured voice. Almost, with
its tones, she could see the languorously uplifted eyes, the
provoking little gesture of fan at lips. Before she could move,
whether to advance or to flee, Raymond replied:

"I wanted to ask you--you know I wanted to ask you!"

"Oh, yes, you did!" replied the visiting girl ironically.

"I did!" protested Raymond.

"Well, why didn't you then?"

"I'd already asked somebody else. I couldn't!"

And then the visiting girl laughed strangely. Missy knew she knew
with whom Raymond had danced that first dance. Why did she laugh?
And Raymond--oh, oh! She had seemed to grow rooted to the ground,
unable to get away; her heart, her breathing, seemed to petrify too;
they hurt her. Why had Raymond danced with her if he didn't want to?
And why, why did that girl laugh? She suddenly felt that she must
let them know that she heard them, that she must ask why! And, in
order not to exclaim the question against her will, she covered her
mouth with both hands, and crept silently away from the rose arbour.

Without any definite purpose, borne along by an inner whirlwind of
suppressed sobs and utter despair, Missy finally found herself
nearer the entrance gate, Fortunately there was nobody to see her;
everyone--except those two--was back up there in the glare and
noise, laughing and dancing. Laughing and dancing--oh, oh! What ages
ago it seemed when she too had laughed and danced!

Oh, why hadn't she gone home with Mrs. Allen and Kitty before her
silly pleasure had turned to anguish? But, of course, that was what
life was: pain crowding elbows with pleasure always--she had read
that somewhere. She was just inevitably living Life.

Consoled a trifle by this reflection and by a certain note of
sublimity in her experience, Missy leaned against the gatepost upon
which a lantern was blinking its last shred of life, and gazed at
the slow-rising, splendid moon.

She was still there when Cousin Jim, walking quickly and his shoes
creaking loudly, returned. "Hello!" he said. "What're you doing out
here?"

"Oh, just watching the moon."

"You're a funny girl," he laughed.

"Why am I funny?" Her tone was a little wistful. "Why, moon-gazing
instead of dancing, and everything."

"But I like to dance too," emphasized Missy, as if to defend herself
against a charge.

"I'll take you up on that. Come straight in and dance the next dance
with me!"

Missy obeyed. And then she knew that she had met the Dancer of the
World. At first she was pleased that her steps fitted his so well,
and then she forgot all about steps and just floated along, on
invisible gauzy wings, unconscious of her will of direction, of his
will of direction. There was nothing in the world but invisible
gauzy wings, which were herself and Jim and the music. And they were
a part of the music and the music was a part of them. It was divine.

"Say, you can dance!" said Jim admiringly when the music stopped.

"I love to dance."

"I should say you might! You dance better than any girl I ever
danced with!"

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