Books: Missy

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A big moon rose up from behind the church-tower, a beautiful and
medieval-looking combination. Missy thought of those olden-time
feasts "unto kings and dukes," when there was revel and play, and
"all manner of noblesse." And, though none but her suspected it, the
little white-covered tables became long, rough-hewn boards, and the
Congregational ladies' loaned china became antique-looking pewter,
and the tumblers of water were golden flaskets of noble wine. Missy,
who was helping Aunt Isabel serve at one of the tables, attended her
worshipful patrons with all manner of noblesse. She was glad she was
wearing her best pink mull with the brocaded sash.

Aunt Isabel's table was well patronized. It seemed to Missy that
most of the men present tried to get "served" here. Perhaps it was
because they admired Aunt Isabel. Missy couldn't have blamed them
for that, because none of the other Congregational ladies was half
as pretty. To-night Aunt Isabel had on a billowy pale-blue organdy,
and she looked more like an angel than ever. An ethereally radiant,
laughing, vivacious angel. And whenever she moved near you, you
caught a ghostly whiff of that delicious perfume. (Missy now knows
Aunt Isabel got it from little sachet bags, tucked away with her
clothes, and from an "atomizer" which showered a delicate, fairy-
like spray of fragrance upon her hair.) There was one young man, who
was handsome in a dark, imperious way, who hung about and ate so
much ice-cream that Missy feared lest he should have an "upset" to-
morrow.

Also, there was another persevering patron for whom she surmised,
with modest palpitation, Aunt Isabel might not be the chief
attraction. The joy of being a visiting girl was begun! This
individual was a talkative, self-confident youth named Raleigh
Peters. She loved the name Raleigh--though for the Peters part she
didn't care so much. And albeit, with the dignity which became her
advancing years, she addressed him as "Mr. Peters," in her mind she
preferred to think of him as "Raleigh." Raleigh, she learned (from
himself), was the only son of a widowed mother and, though but
little older than Missy, had already started making his own way by
clerking in Uncle Charlie's store. He clerked in the grocery
department, the prosperity of which, she gathered, was largely due
to his own connection with it. Some day, he admitted, he was going
to own the biggest grocery store in the State. He was thrillingly
independent and ambitious and assured. All that seemed admirable,
but--if only he hadn't decided on groceries! "Peters' Grocery
Store!" Missy thought of jousting, of hawking, of harping, customs
which noble gentlemen used to follow, and sighed.

But Raleigh, unaware that his suit had been lost before it started,
accompanied them all home. "All" because the dark and imperiously
handsome young man went along, too. His name was Mr. Saunders, and
Missy had now learned he was a "travelling man" who came to
Pleasanton to sell Uncle Charlie merchandise; he was also quite a
friend of the family's, she gathered, and visited them at the house.

When they reached home, Mr. Saunders suggested stopping in a minute
to see how Uncle Charlie was. However, Uncle Charlie, it turned out,
was already in bed.

"But you needn't go yet, anyway," said Aunt Isabel. "It's heavenly
out here on the porch."

"Doesn't the hour wax late?" demurred Mr. Saunders. "Wax late!"--
What quaint, delightful language he used!

"Oh, it's still early. Stay a while, and help shake off the
atmosphere of the festival--those festivals bore me to death!"

Odd how women can act one way while they're feeling another way!
Missy had supposed, at the festival, that Aunt Isabel was having a
particularly enjoyable time.

"Stay and let's have some music," Aunt Isabel went on. "You left
your ukelele here last week."

So the handsome Mr. Saunders played the ukelele!--How wonderfully
that suited his type. And it was just the kind of moonlight night
for music. Missy rejoiced when Mr. Saunders decided to stay, and
Aunt Isabel went in the house for the ukelele. It was heavenly when
Mr. Saunders began to play and sing. The others had seated
themselves in porch chairs, but he chose a place on the top step,
his head thrown back against a pillar, and the moon shining full on
his dark, imperious face. His bold eyes now gazed dreamily into
distance as, in a golden tenor that seemed to melt into the
moonlight itself, he sang:

"They plucked the stars out of the blue, dear, Gave them to you,
dear, For eyes . . . "

The ukelele under his fingers thrummed out a soft, vibrant,
melancholy accompaniment. It was divine! Here surely was a "harper
passing all other!" Mr. Saunders looked something like a knight,
too--all but his costume. He was so tall and dark and handsome; and
his dark eyes were bold, though now so soft from his own music.

The music stopped. Aunt Isabel jumped up from her porch chair, left
the shadows, and seated herself beside him on the moonlit top.

"That looks easy," she said. "Show me how to do it."

She took the ukelele from him. He showed her how to place her
fingers--their fingers got tangled up--they laughed.

Missy started to laugh, too, but stopped right in the middle of it.
A sudden thought had struck her, remembrance of another beauteous
lady who had been "learned" to harp. She gazed down on Aunt Isabel--
how beautiful there in the white moonlight! So fair and slight, the
scarf-thing around her shoulders like a shroud of mist, hair like
unto gold, eyes like the stars of heaven. Her eyes were now lifted
laughingly to Mr. Saunders'. She was so close he must catch that
faintly sweetness of her hair. He returned the look and started to
sing again; while La Beale--no, Aunt Isabel--

Even the names were alike!

Missy drew in a quick, sharp breath. Mr. Saunders, now smiling
straight at Aunt Isabel as she tried to pick the chords, went on:

"They plucked the stars out of the blue, dear, Gave them to you,
dear, For eyes . . ."

How expressively he sang those words! Missy became troubled. Of
course Romance was beautiful but those things belonged in ancient
times. You wouldn't want things like that right in your own family,
especially when Uncle Charlie already had a broken big toe . . .

She forgot that the music was beautiful, the night bewitching; she
even forgot to listen to what Raleigh was saying, till he leaned
forward and demanded irately:

"Say! you haven't gone to sleep, have you?"

Missy gave a start, blinked, and looked self-conscious.

"Oh, excuse me," she murmured. "I guess I was sort of dreaming."

Mr. Saunders, overhearing, glanced up at her.

"The spell of moon and music, fair maid?" he asked. And, though he
smiled, she didn't feel that he was making fun of her.

Again that quaint language! A knight of old might have talked that
way! But Missy, just now, was doubtful as to whether a knight in the
flesh was entirely desirable.

It was with rather confused emotions that, after the visitors had
departed and she had told Aunt Isabel good night, Missy went up to
the little white-painted, cretonne-draped room. Life was
interesting, but sometimes it got very queer.

After she had undressed and snapped off the light, she leaned out of
the window and looked at the night for a long time. Missy loved the
night; the hordes of friendly little stars which nodded and
whispered to one another; the round silver moon, up there at some
enigmatic distance yet able to transfigure the whole world with
fairy-whiteness--turning the dew on the grass into pearls, the
leaves on the trees into trembling silver butterflies, and the dusty
street into a breadth of shimmering silk. At night, too, the very
flowers seemed to give out a sweeter odour; perhaps that was because
you couldn't see them.

Missy leaned farther out the window to sniff in that damp, sweet
scent of unseen flowers, to feel the white moonlight on her hand.
She had often wished that, by some magic, the world might be enabled
to spin out its whole time in such a gossamer, irradiant sheen as
this--a sort of moon-haunted night-without-end, keeping you tingling
with beautiful, blurred, indescribable feelings.

But to-night, for the first time, Missy felt skeptical as to that
earlier desire. She still found the night beautiful--oh,
inexpressibly beautiful!--but moonlight nights were what made lovers
want to look into each other's eyes, and sing each other love songs
"with expression." To be sure, she had formerly considered this very
tendency an elysian feature of such nights; but that was when she
thought that love always was right for its own sake, that true
lovers never should be thwarted. She still held by that belief; and
yet--she visioned Uncle Charlie, dear Uncle Charlie, so fond of
buying Aunt Isabel extravagant organdies and slippers to match; so
like grandpa and father--and King Mark!

Missy had always hated King Mark, the lawful husband, the enemy of
true love. But Romance gets terribly complicated when it threatens
to leave the Middle Ages, pop right in on you when you are visiting
in Pleasanton; and when the lawful husband is your own Uncle
Charlie--poor Uncle Charlie!--lying in there suffering with his
broken--well there was no denying it was his big toe.

Missy didn't know that her eyes had filled--tears sometimes came so
unexpectedly nowadays--till a big drop splashed down on her hand.

She felt very, very sad. Often she didn't mind being sad. Sometimes
she even enjoyed it in a peculiar way on moonlit nights; found a
certain pleasant poignancy of exaltation in the feeling. But there
are different kinds of sadness. To-night she didn't like it. She
forsook the moonlit vista and crept into bed.

The next morning she overslept. Perhaps it was because she wasn't in
her own little east room at home, where the sun and Poppy, her cat,
vied to waken her; or perhaps because it had turned intensely hot
and sultry during the night--the air seemed to glue down her eyelids
so as to make waking up all the harder.

It was Sunday, and, when she finally got dressed and downstairs, the
house was still unusually quiet. But she found Uncle Charlie in his
"den" with the papers. He said Aunt Isabel was staying in bed with a
headache; and he himself hobbled into the dining room with Missy,
and sat with her while the maid (Aunt Isabel called her hired girl a
"maid") gave her breakfast.

Uncle Charlie seemed cheerful despite his--his trouble. And
everything seemed so peaceful and beautiful that Missy could hardly
realize that ever Tragedy might come to this house. Somewhere in the
distance church bells were tranquilly sounding. Out in the kitchen
could be heard the ordinary clatter of dishes. And in the dining
room it was very, very sweet. The sun filtered through the gently
swaying curtains, touching vividly the sweet peas on the breakfast-
table. The sweet peas were arranged to stand upright in a round,
shallow bowl, just as if they were growing up out of a little pool--
a marvellously artistic effect. The china was very artistic, too,
Japanese, with curious-looking dragons in soft old-blue. And, after
the orange, she had a finger-bowl with a little sprig of rose-
geranium she could crunch between her fingers till it sent out a
heavenly odour. It was just like Aunt Isabel to have rose-geranium
in her finger-bowls!

Her mind was filled with scarcely defined surmises concerning Aunt
Isabel, her unexpected headache, and the too handsome harper. But
Uncle Charlie, unsuspecting, talked on in that cheerful strain. He
was teasing Missy because she liked the ham and eggs and muffins,
and took a second helping of everything.

"Good thing I can get groceries at wholesale!" he bantered. "Else
I'd never dare ask you to visit me!"

Missy returned his smile, grateful that the matter of her appetite
might serve to keep him jolly a little while longer. Perhaps he
didn't even suspect, yet. DID he suspect? She couldn't forbear a
tentative question:

"What seems to be the matter with Aunt Isabel, Uncle Charlie?"

"Why, didn't I tell you she has a headache?'

"Oh! a headache." She was silent a second; then, as if there was
something strange about this malady, she went on: "Did she SAY she
had a headache?"

"Of course, my dear. It's a pretty bad one. I guess it must be the
weather." It was hot. Uncle Charlie had taken off his coat and was
in his shirt sleeves--she was pleased to note it was a silken shirt;
little beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead, and on his
head where it was just beginning to get bald. Somehow, the fact that
he looked so hot had the effect of making her feel even more tender
toward him. So, though she thirsted for information, not for the
world would she have aroused his suspicions by questions. And she
made her voice very casual, when she finally enquired:

"By the way, that Mr. Saunders who brought us home is awfully
handsome. Sort of gallant looking, don't you think?"

Uncle Charlie laughed; then shook his finger at her in mock
admonition.

"Oh, Missy! You've fallen, too?"

Missy gulped; Uncle Charlie had made an unwitting revelation! But
she tried not to give herself away; still casual, she asked:

"Oh! do other people fall?"

"All the ladies fall for Saunders," said Uncle Charlie.

Missy hesitated, then hazarded:

"Aunt Isabel, too?"

"Oh, yes." Uncle Charlie looked pathetically unconcerned. "Aunt
Isabel likes to have him around. He often comes in handy at dances."

It would be just like Mr. Saunders to be a good dancer!

"He harps well, too," she said meditatively.

"What's that?" enquired Uncle Charlie.

"Oh, I mean that thing he plays."

"The ukelele. Yes, Saunders is a wizard with it. But in spite of
that he's a good fellow." (What did "in spite of that" mean--didn't
Uncle Charlie approve of harpers?)

He continued: "He sometimes goes on fishing-trips with me."

Fishing-trips! From father Missy had learned that this was the
highest proof of camaraderie. So Uncle Charlie didn't suspect. He
was harbouring the serpent in his very bosom. Missy crumpled the
fragrant rose-geranium reflectively between her fingers.

Then Uncle Charlie suggested that she play something for him on the
piano. And Missy, feeling every minute tenderer toward him because
she must keep to herself the dreadful truths which would hurt him if
he knew, hurried to his side, took away his cane, and put her own
arm in its place for him to lean on. And Uncle Charlie seemed to
divine there was something special in her deed, for he reached down
and patted the arm which supported him, and said:

"You're a dear child, Missy."

In the living-room the sun was shining through the charming,
cretonne-hung bay window and upon the soft, rich colours of the
Chinese embroideries. The embroideries were on the wall beyond the
piano, so that she could see them while she played. Uncle Charlie
wasn't in her range of vision unless she turned her head; but she
could smell his cigar, and could sense him sitting there very quiet
in a big wicker chair, smoking, his eyes half closed, his bandaged
foot stretched out on a little stool.

And her poignant feeling of sympathy for him, sitting there thus,
and her rapturous delight in the sun-touched colours of the
embroideries, and the hushed peace of the hot Sabbath morning, all
seemed to intermingle and pierce to her very soul. She was glad to
play the piano. When deeply moved she loved to play, to pour out her
feelings in dreamy melodies and deep vibrant harmonies with queer
minor cadences thrown in--the kind of music you can play "with
expression," while you vision mysterious, poetic pictures.

After a moment's reflection, she decided on "The Angel's Serenade";
she knew it by heart, and adored playing it. There was something
brightly-sweet and brightly-sad in those strains of loveliness; she
could almost hear the soft flutter of angelic wings, almost see the
silvery sheen of them astir. And, oddly, all that sheen and stir,
all that sadly-sweet sound, seemed to come from within herself--just
as if her own soul were singing, instead of the piano keyboard.

And with Missy, to play "The Angel's Serenade" was to crave playing
more such divine pieces; she drifted on into "Traumerei"; "Simple
Confession"; "One Sweetly Solemn Thought," with variations. She
played them all with extra "expression," putting all her loving
sympathy for Uncle Charlie into her finger-tips. And he must have
been soothed by it, for he dozed off, and came to with a start when
she finally paused, to tell her how beautifully she played.

Then began a delicious time of talking together. Uncle Charlie was
like grandpa--the kind of man you enjoyed talking with, about deep,
unusual things. They talked about music, and the meaning of the
pieces she'd played. Then about reading. He asked her what she was
reading nowadays.

"This is your book, isn't it?" he enquired, picking up "The Romances
of King Arthur" from the table beside him. Heavens! how tactless of
her to have brought it down this morning! But there was nothing for
her to do, save to act in a natural, casual manner.

"Yes," she said.

Uncle Charlie opened the book. Heavens! it fell open at the
illustration of the two lovers drinking the fateful potion!

"Which is your favourite legend?" he asked.

Missy was too nervous to utter anything but the simple truth.

"The story of Sir Tristram and La Beale Isoud," she answered.

"Ah," said Uncle Charlie. He gazed at the picture she knew so well.
What was he thinking?

"Why is it your favourite?" he went on.

"I don't know--because it's so romantic, I guess. And so sad and
beautiful."

"Ah, yes," said Uncle Charlie. "You have a feeling for the classic,
I see. You call her 'Isoud'?"

That pleased Missy; and, despite her agitation over this malaprop
theme, she couldn't resist the impulse to air her lately acquired
learning.

"Yes, but she has different names in all the different languages,
you know. And she was the most beautiful lady or maiden that ever
lived."

"Is that so?" said Uncle Charlie. "More beautiful than your Aunt
Isabel?"

Missy hesitated, confused; the conversation was getting on dangerous
ground. "Why, I guess they're the same type, don't you? I've often
thought Aunt Isabel looks like La Beale Isoud."

Uncle Charlie smiled again at her--an altogether cheerful kind of
smile; no, he didn't suspect any tragic undercurrent beneath this
pleasant-sounding conversation. All he said was:

"Aunt Isabel should feel flattered--but I hope she finds a happier
lot."

Ah!

"Yes, I hope so," breathed Missy, rather weakly.

Then Uncle Charlie at last closed the book.

"Poor Tristram and Isolde," he said, as if speaking an epitaph.

But Missy caught her breath. Uncle Charlie felt sorry for the ill-
fated lovers. Oh, if he only knew!

At dinner time (on Sundays they had midday dinner here), Aunt Isabel
came down to the table. She said her head was better, but she looked
pale; and her blue eyes were just like the Blessed Damozel's,
"deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even." Yet, pale and
quiet like this, she seemed even more beautiful than ever,
especially in that adorable lavender negligee--with slippers to
match. Missy regarded her with secret fascination.

After dinner, complaining of the heat, Aunt Isabel retired to her
room again. She suggested that Missy take a nap, also. Missy didn't
think she was sleepy, but, desiring to be alone with her bewildered
thoughts, she went upstairs and lay down. The better to think things
over, she closed her eyes; and when she opened them to her amazement
there was Aunt Isabel standing beside the bed--a radiant vision in
pink organdy this time--and saying:

"Wake up, sleepy-head! It's nearly six o'clock!"

Aunt Isabel, her vivacious self once more, with gentle fingers (Oh,
hard not to love Aunt Isabel!) helped Missy get dressed for supper.

It was still so hot that, at supper, everyone drank a lot of ice-tea
and ate a lot of ice-cream. Missy felt in a steam all over when they
rose from the table and went out to sit on the porch. It was very
serene, for all the sultriness, out on the porch; and Aunt Isabel
was so sweet toward Uncle Charlie that Missy felt her gathering
suspicions had something of the unreal quality of a nightmare. Aunt
Isabel was reading aloud to Uncle Charlie out of the Sunday paper.
Beautiful! The sunset was carrying away its gold like some bold
knight with his captured, streaming-tressed lady. The fitful breeze
whispered in the rhythm of olden ballads. Unseen church bells sent
long-drawn cadences across the evening hush. And the little stars
quivered into being, to peer at the young poignancy of feeling which
cannot know what it contributes to the world. . .

Everything was idyllic--that is, almost idyllic--till, suddenly
Uncle Charlie spoke:

"Isn't that Saunders coming up the street?"

Why, oh why, did Mr. Saunders have to come and spoil everything?

But poor Uncle Charlie seemed glad to see him--just as glad as Aunt
Isabel. Mr. Saunders sat up there amongst them, laughing and joking,
now and then directing one of his quaint, romantic-sounding phrases
at Missy. And she pretended to be pleased with him--indeed, she
would have liked Mr. Saunders under any other circumstances.

Presently he exclaimed:

"By my halidome, I'm hot! My kingdom for a long, tall ice-cream
soda!"

And Uncle Charlie said:

"Well, why don't you go and get one? The drug store's just two
blocks around the corner."

"A happy suggestion," said Mr. Saunders. He turned to Aunt Isabel.
"Will you join me?"

"Indeed I will," she answered. "I'm stifling."

Then Mr. Saunders looked at Missy.

"And you, fair maid?"

Missy thought a cool soda would taste good.

At the drug store, the three of them sat on tall stools before the
white marble counter, and quaffed heavenly cold soda from high
glasses in silver-looking flaskets. "Poor Charlie! He likes soda,
so," remarked Aunt Isabel.

"Why not take him some?"

Missy didn't know you could do that, but the drug store man said it
would be all right.

Then they all started home again, Aunt Isabel carrying the silver-
looking flasket.

It was when they were about half-way, that Aunt Isabel suddenly
exclaimed:

"Do you know, I believe I could drink another soda? I feel hotter
than ever--and it looks so good!"

"Why not drink it, then?" asked Mr. Saunders.

"Oh, no," said Aunt Isabel.

"Do," he insisted. "We can go back and get another."

"Well, I'll take a taste," she said.

On the words, she lifted the flasket to her lips and took a long
draught. Then Mr. Saunders, laughing, caught it from her, and he
took a long draught.

Missy felt a wave of icy horror sweep down her spine. She wanted to
cry out in protest. For, even while she stared at them, at Aunt
Isabel in pink organdie and Mr. Saunders in blue serge dividing the
flasket of soda between them, a vision presented itself clearly
before her eyes:

La Beale Isoud slenderly tall in a straight girdled gown of grey-
green velvet, head thrown back so that her filleted golden hair
brushed her shoulders, violet eyes half-closed, and an "antique"-
looking flasket clasped in her two slim hands; and Sir Tristram so
imperiously dark and handsome in his crimson, fur-trimmed doublet,
his two hands stretched out and gripping her two shoulders, his
black eyes burning as if to look through her closed lids--the
magical love-potion. . . love that never would depart for weal
neither for woe. . .

Missy closed her eyes tight, as if fearing what they might behold in
the flesh. But when she opened them again, Aunt Isabel was only
gazing into the drained flasket with a rueful expression.

Then they went back and got another soda for Uncle Charlie. And poor
Uncle Charlie, unsuspecting, seemed to enjoy it.

During the remainder of that evening Missy was unusually subdued.
She realized, of course, that there were no love-potions nowadays;
that they existed only in the Middle Ages; and that the silver
flasket contained everyday ice-cream soda. And she wasn't sure she
knew exactly what the word "symbol" meant, but she felt that somehow
the ice-cream soda, shared between them, was symbolic of that
famous, fateful drink. She wished acutely that this second episode,
so singularly parallel, hadn't happened.

She was still absorbed in gloomy meditations when Mr. Saunders arose
to go.

"Oh, it's early yet," protested Uncle Charlie--dear, kind, ignorant
Uncle Charlie!

"But I've got to catch the ten-thirty-five," said Mr. Saunders.

"Why can't you stay over till to-morrow night," suggested Aunt
Isabel. She had risen, too, and now put her hand on Mr. Saunders's
sleeve; her face looked quite pleading in the moonlight. "There's to
be a dance in Odd Fellows' Hall."

"I'd certainly love to stay." He even dared to take hold of her hand
openly. "But I've got to be in Paola in the morning, and Blue Mound
next day."

"The orchestra's coming down from Macon City," she cajoled.

"Now, don't make it any harder for me," begged Mr. Saunders, smiling
down at her.

Aunt Isabel petulantly drew away her hand.

"You're selfish! And Charlie laid up and all!"

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