Books: Missy

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"Three kinds of cake?"

"Well," explained Tess, "you see Beula and Beth and Kitty all want
cake for their share--they say their mothers won't be bothered with
anything else. We're dividing the menu up between us, you know."

"I see. And what have you allotted to Missy?"

Missy herself found courage to answer this question; Mother's grave
inquiries were bringing her intense relief.

"I thought maybe I could furnish the heavenly hash, Mother."

"Heavenly hash?" Mother looked perplexed. "What's that?"

"I don't know," admitted Missy. "But I liked the name--it's so
alluring. Beulah suggested it--I guess she knows the recipe."

"I think it's all kinds of fruit chopped together," volunteered
Tess.

"But aren't you having a great deal of fruit--and pickles?"
suggested Mrs. Merriam mildly.

"Oh, well," explained Tess, rather grandly, "at a swell function you
don't have to have many substantial viands, you know."

"Oh, I nearly forgot--this is to be a swell function."

"Yes, the real thing," said Tess proudly. "Potted palms and hand-
painted place-cards and orchestra music and candle shades and
everything!"

"Candle shades?--won't it be daylight at six o'clock?"

"Well, then, we'll pull down the window shades," said Tess,
undisturbed. "Candle-light '11 add--"

Aunt Nettie, who couldn't keep still any longer, cut in:

"Will you tell me where you're going to get an orchestra?"

"Oh," said Tess, with an air of patience, "we're going to fix the
date on a band-practice night. I guess they'd be willing to practice
on your porch if we gave them some ice-cream and cake."

"My word!" gasped Aunt Nettie.

"Music always adds so much e'clat to an affair," pursued Tess,
unruffled.

"The band practicing '11 add a-clatter, all right," commented Aunt
Nettie, adding a syllable to Tess's triumphant word.

Missy, visioning the seductive scene of Tess's description, did not
notice her aunt's sarcasm.

"If only we had a butler!" she murmured dreamily.

Aunt Nettie made as if to speak again, but caught an almost
imperceptible signal from her sister.

"Surely, Mary," she began, "you don't mean to say you're--"

Another almost imperceptible gesture.

"Remember, Nettie, that when there's poison in the system, it is
best to let it out as quickly as possible."

What on earth was Mother talking about?

But Missy was too thrilled by the leniency of her mother's attitude
to linger on any side-question--anyway, grown-ups were always making
incomprehensible remarks. She came back swiftly to the important
issue.

"And may we really have the party here, Mother?"

Mother smiled at her, a rather funny kind of smile.

"I guess so--the rest of us may as well have the benefit."

What did Mother mean? . . .

But oh, rapture!

Tess and Missy wrote the invitations themselves and decided to
deliver them in person, and Missy had no more prevision of all that
decision meant than Juliet had when her mother concluded she would
give the ball that Romeo butted in on.

Tess said they must do it with empressement, meaning she would
furnish an equipage for them to make their rounds in. Her father was
a doctor, and had turned the old Smith place into a sanitarium; and,
to use the Cherryvale word, he had several "rigs." However, when the
eventful day for delivery arrived, Tess discovered that her father
had disappeared with the buggy while her mother had "ordered out"
the surrey to take some ladies to a meeting of the Missionary
Society.

That left only an anomalous vehicle, built somewhat on the lines of
a victoria, in which Tim, "the coachman" (in Cherryvale argot known
as "the hired man"), was wont to take convalescent patients for an
airing. Tess realized the possible lack of dignity attendant upon
having to sit in the driver's elevated seat; but she had no choice,
and consoled herself by terming it "the box."

A more serious difficulty presented itself in the matter of suitable
steeds. One would have preferred a tandem of bright bays or, failing
these, spirited ponies chafing at the bit and impatiently tossing
their long, waving manes. But one could hardly call old Ben a steed
at all, and he proved the only animal available that afternoon. Ben
suffered from a disability of his right rear leg which caused him to
raise his right haunch spasmodically when moving. The effect was
rhythmic but grotesque, much as if Ben thought he was turkey-
trotting. Otherwise, too, Ben was unlovely. His feet were by no
means dainty, his coat was a dirty looking dappled-white, and his
mane so attenuated it needed a toupee. As if appreciating his
defects, Ben wore an apologetic, almost timid, expression of
countenance, which greatly belied his true stubbornness of
character.

Not yet aware of the turn-out they must put up with, about two
o'clock that afternoon Missy set out for Tess's house. She departed
unobtrusively by the back door and side gate. The reason for this
almost surreptitious leave-taking was in the package she carried
under her arm. It held her mother's best black silk skirt, which
boasted a "sweep"; a white waist of Aunt Nettie's; a piece of
Chantilly lace which had once been draped on mother's skirt but was
destined, to-day, to become a "mantilla"; and a magnificent "willow
plume" snipped from Aunt Nettie's Sunday hat. This plume, when
tacked to Missy's broad leghorn, was intended to be figuratively as
well as literally the crowning feature of her costume.

Tess, too, had made the most of her mother's absence at the
Missionary Society. Unfortunately Mrs. O'Neill had worn her black
silk skirt, but her blue dimity likewise boasted a "sweep." A
bouquet of artificial poppies (plucked from a hat of "the mater's")
added a touch of colour to Tess's corsage. And she, also, had
acquired a "willow plume."

Of course it was Tess who had thought to provide burnt matches and
an extra poppy--artificial. The purpose of the former was to give a
"shadowy look" under the eyes; of the latter, moistened, to lend a
"rosy flush" to cheek and lip.

Missy was at first averse to these unfamiliar aids to beauty.

"Won't it make your face feel sort of queer--like it needed
washing?" she demurred.

"Don't talk like a bourgeois," said Tess.

Missy applied the wet poppy.

At the barn, "the coachman" was luckily absent, so Tess could
harness up her steed without embarrassing questions. At the sight of
the steed of the occasion, Missy's spirits for a moment sagged a
bit; nor did old Ben present a more impressive appearance when,
finally, he began to turkey-trot down Maple Avenue. His right haunch
lifted--fell--lifted--fell, in irritating rhythm as his bulky feet
clumped heavily on the macadam. Tess had insisted that Missy should
occupy the driver's seat with her, though Missy wanted to recline
luxuriously behind, perhaps going by home to pick up Poppy--that is,
Fifine--to hold warm and perdu in her lap. But practical Tess
pointed out that such an act might attract the attention of Mrs.
Merriam and bring the adventure to an end. They proceeded down Maple
Avenue. It was Tess's intention to turn off at Silver Street, to
leave the first carte d'invitation at the home of Mr. Raymond
Bonner. These documents were proudly scented (and incidentally
spotted) from Mrs. O'Neill's cologne bottle.

Young Mr. Bonner resided in one of the handsomest houses in
Cherryvale, and was himself the handsomest boy in the crowd.
Besides, he had more than once looked at Missy with soft eyes--the
girls "teased" Missy about Raymond. It was fitting that Raymond
should receive the first billet doux. So, at the corner of Maple and
Silver, Tess pulled the rein which should have turned Ben into the
shady street which led to Raymond's domicile. Ben moved his head
impatiently, and turkey-trotted straight ahead. Tess pulled the rein
more vigorously; Ben twitched his head still more like a swear word
and, with a more pronounced shrug of his haunch, went undivertingly
onward.

"What's the matter?" asked Missy. "Is Ben a little--wild?"

"No--I don't think so," replied Tess, but her tone was anxious. "I
guess that it's just that he's used to Tim. Then I'm sort of out of
practice driving."

"Well, we can just as well stop at Lester's first, and come back by
Raymond's."

But when Tess attempted to manoeuvre Ben into Lester's street, Ben
still showed an inalienable and masterful preference for Maple
Avenue. Doggedly ahead he pursued his turkey-trotting course, un-
mindful of tuggings, coaxings, or threats, till, suddenly, at the
point where Maple runs into the Public Square, he made a turn into
Main so abrupt as to send the inner rear wheel up onto the curb.

"My!" gasped Missy, regaining her balance. "He IS wild, isn't he? Do
you think, maybe--"

She stopped suddenly. In front of the Post Office and staring at
them was that new boy she had heard about--it must be he; hadn't
Kitty Allen seen him and said he was a brunette? Even in her
agitated state she could but notice that he was of an unusual
appearance--striking. He somewhat resembled Archibald Chesney, one
of airy fairy Lilian's suitors. Like Archibald, the stranger was
tall and eminently gloomy in appearance. His hair was of a rare
blackness; his eyes were dark--a little indolent, a good deal
passionate--smouldering eyes! His eyebrows were arched, which gave
him an air of melancholy protest against the world in general. His
nose was of the high-and-mighty order that comes under the
denomination of aquiline, or hooked, as may suit you best. However
he did not shade his well-cut mouth with a heavy, drooping moustache
as did Archibald, for which variation Missy was intensely grateful.
Despite Lilian's evident taste for moustached gentlemen, Missy
didn't admire these "hirsute adornments."

She made all these detailed observations in the second before blond
Raymond Bonner, handsomer but less interesting-looking than the
stranger, came out of the Post Office, crying:

"Hello, girls! What's up?--joined the circus?"

This bantering tone, these words, were disconcerting. And before,
during their relentless progress down Maple Avenue, the expressions
of certain people sitting out on front porches or walking along the
street, had occasioned uncertainty as to their unshadowed
empressement. Still no doubts concerning her own personal get-up had
clouded Missy's mind. And the dark Stranger was certainly regarding
her with a look of interest in his indolent eyes. Almost you might
say he was staring. It must be admiration of her toilette. She was
glad she was looking so well--she wished he might hear the frou-frou
of her silken skirt when she walked!

The consciousness of her unusually attractive appearance made
Missy's blood race intoxicatingly. It made her feel unwontedly
daring. She did an unwontedly daring thing. She summoned her courage
and returned the Strange Boy's stare--full. But she was embarrassed
when she found herself looking away suddenly--blushing. Why couldn't
she hold that gaze?--why must she blush? Had he noticed her lack of
savoir-faire? More diffidently she peeped at him again to see
whether he had. It seemed to her that his expression had altered. It
was a subtle change; but, somehow, it made her blush again. And turn
her eyes away again--more quickly than before. But there was a
singing in her brain. The dark, interesting-looking Stranger LIKED
her to look at him--LIKED her to blush and look away!

She felt oddly light-headed--like someone unknown to herself. She
wanted to laugh and chatter about she knew not what. She wanted to--

But here certain external happenings cruelly grabbed her attention.
Old Ben, who had seemed to slow down obligingly upon the girls'
greeting of Raymond, had refused to heed Tess's tugging effort to
bring him to a standstill. To be sure, he moved more slowly, but
move he did, and determinedly; till--merciful heaven!--he came to a
dead and purposeful halt in front of the saloon. Not "a saloon," but
"the saloon!"

Now, more frantically than she had urged him to pause, Tess implored
Ben to proceed. No local standards are so hide-bound as those of a
small town, and in Cherryvale it was not deemed decently
permissible, but disgraceful, to have aught to do with liquor. "The
saloon" was far from a "respectable" place even for men to visit;
and for two girls to drive up openly--brazenly--

"Get up, Ben! Get up!" rang an anguished duet.

Missy reached over and helped wallop the rains. Oh, this pain!--this
faintness! She now comprehended the feeling which had so often
overcome the fair ladies of England when enmeshed in some frightful
situation. They, on such upsetting occasions, had usually sunk back
and murmured:

"Please ring the bell--a glass of wine!" And Missy, while reading,
had been able to vision herself, in some like quandary, also
ordering a "glass of wine"; but, now! . . . the wine was only too
terribly at hand!

"Get up!--there's a good old Ben!"

"Good old Ben--get up!"

But he was not a good old Ben. He was a mean old Ben--mean with
inborn, incredibly vicious stubbornness. How terrible to live to
come to this! But Missy was about to learn what a tangled web Fate
weaves, and how amazingly she deceives sometimes when life looks
darkest. Raymond and the Stranger (Missy knew his name was Ed Brown;
alas! but you can't have everything in this world) started forth to
rescue at the same time, knocked into each other, got to Ben's head
simultaneously, and together tugged and tugged at the bridle.

Ben stood planted, with his four huge feet firmly set, defying any
force in heaven or earth to budge them. His head, despite all the
boys could do, maintained a relaxed attitude--a contradiction in
terms justified by the facts--and also with a certain sidewise
inclination toward the saloon. It was almost as if he were watching
the saloon door. In truth, that is exactly what old Ben was doing.
He was watching for Tim. Ben had good reason for knowing Tim's ways
since, for a considerable time, no one save Tim had deigned to drive
him. Besides having a natural tendency toward being "set in his
ways," Ben had now reached the time of life when one, man or beast,
is likely to become a creature of habit. Thus he had unswervingly
followed Tim's route to Tim's invariable first halt; and now he
stood waiting Tim's reappearance through the saloon door. Other
volunteer assistants, in hordes, hordes, and laughing as if this
awful calamity were a huge joke, had joined Raymond and the Other.
Missy was flamingly aware of them, of their laughter, their stares,
their jocular comments.

But they all achieved nothing; and relief came only when Ben's
supreme faith was rewarded when Tim, who had been spending his
afternoon off in his favourite club, was attracted from his checker-
game in the "back room" by some hubbub in the street and came
inquisitively to the front door.

Ben, then, pricked his ears and showed entire willingness to depart.
Tim, after convincing himself that he wasn't drunk and "seeing
things," climbed up on the "box"; the two girls, "naturally covered
with confusion," were only too glad to sink down unobtrusively into
the back seat. Not till they were at the sanitarium again, did they
remember the undelivered invitations; but quickly they agreed to put
on stamps and let Tim take them, without empressement, to the Post
Office.

All afternoon Missy burned and chilled in turn. Oh, it was too
dreadful! What would people say? What would her parents, should they
hear, do? And what, oh what would the interesting-looking Stranger
think? Oh, what a contretemps!

If she could have heard what the Stranger actually did say, she
would still have been "covered with confusion"--though of a more
pleasurable kind. He and Raymond were become familiar acquaintances
by this time. "What's the matter with 'em?" he had inquired as the
steed Ben turkey-trotted away. "Doing it on a bet or something?"

"Dunno," replied Raymond. "The blonde one's sort of bughouse,
anyway. And the other one, Missy Merriam, gets sorta queer streaks
sometimes--you don't know just what's eating her. She's sorta funny,
but she's a peach, all right."

"She the one with the eyes?"

Raymond suddenly turned and stared at the new fellow.

"Yes," he assented, almost reluctantly.

"Some eyes!" commented the other, gazing after the vanishing
equipage.

Raymond looked none too pleased. But it was too late, now, to spike
Fate's spinning wheel. Missy was terribly cast down by the
afternoon's history; but not so cast down that she had lost sight of
the obligation to invite to her dinner a boy who had rescued her--
anyhow, he had tried to rescue her, and that was the same thing. So
a carte must be issued to "Mr. Ed Brown." After all, what's in a
name?--hadn't Shakespeare himself said that?

At supper, Missy didn't enjoy her meal. Had father or mother heard?
Once she got a shock: she glanced up suddenly and caught father's
eyes on her with a curious expression. For a second she was sure he
knew; but he said nothing, only looked down again and went on eating
his chop.

That evening mother suggested that Missy go to bed early. "You
didn't eat your supper, and you look tired out," she explained.

Missy did feel tired--terribly tired; but she wouldn't have admitted
it, for fear of being asked the reason. Did mother, perhaps, know?
Missy had a teasing sense that, under the placid, commonplace
conversation, there was something unspoken. A curious and
uncomfortable feeling. But, then, as one ascertains increasingly
with every year one lives, Life is filled with curious and often
uncomfortable feelings. Which, however, one would hardly change if
one could, because all these things make Life so much more complex,
therefore more interesting. The case of Ben was in point: if he had
not "cut up," it might have been weeks before she got acquainted
with the Dark Stranger!

Still pondering these "deep" things, Missy took advantage of her
mother's suggestion and went up to undress. She was glad of the
chance to be alone.

But she wasn't to be alone for yet a while. Her mother followed her
and insisted on helping unfasten her dress, turning down her bed,
bringing some witch-hazel to bathe her forehead--a dozen little
pretexts to linger. Mother did not always perform these offices.
Surely she must suspect. Yet, if she did suspect, why her kindness?
Why didn't she speak out, and demand explanations?

Mothers are sometimes so mystifying!

The time for the good night kiss came and went with no revealing
word from either side. The kiss was unusually tender, given and
received. Left alone at last, on her little, moon-whitened bed,
Missy reflected on her great fondness for her mother. No; she
wouldn't exchange her dear mother, not even for the most
aristocratic lady in England.

Then, as the moon worked its magic on her fluttering lids, the
flowered wall-paper, the bird's-eye maple furniture, all dissolved
in air, and in their place magically stood, faded yet rich, lounges
and chairs of velvet; priceless statuettes; a few bits of bric-a-
brac worth their weight in gold; several portraits of beauties well-
known in the London and Paris worlds, frail as they were fair, false
as they were piquante; tobacco-stands and meerschaum pipes and
cigarette-holders; a couple of dogs snoozing peacefully upon the
hearth-rug; a writing-table near the blazing grate and, seated
before it--

Yes! It was he! Though the room was Archibald Chesney's "den," the
seated figure was none other than Ed Brown! . . .

A shadow falls across the paper on which he is writing--he glances
up--beholds an airy fairy vision regarding him with a saucy smile--a
slight graceful creature clothed in shell-pink with daintiest lace
frillings at the throat and wrists, and with a wealth of nut-brown
locks brought low on her white brow, letting only the great grey
eyes shine out.

"What are you writing, sir?" she demands, sending him a bewitching
glance.

"Only a response to your gracious invitation, Lady Melissa," he
replies, springing up to kiss her tapering fingers. . . The moon
seals the closed eyelids down with a kiss.

The day of days arrived.

Missy got up while the rest of the household was still sleeping. For
once she did not wait for Poppy's kiss to awaken her. The empty bed
surprised and disconcerted Poppy--that is, Fifine--upon her
appearance. But much, these days, was happening to surprise and
disconcert Poppy--that is, Fifine.

Fifine finally located her mistress down in the back parlour,
occupied with shears and a heap of old magazines. Missy was clipping
sketches from certain advertisements, which she might trace upon
cardboard squares and decorate with water-colour. These were to be
the "place-cards"--an artistic commission Missy had put off from day
to day till, now, at the last minute, she was constrained to rise
early, with a rushed and remorseful feeling. A situation familiar to
many artists.

She succeeded in concentrating herself upon the work with the
greatest difficulty. For, after breakfast, there began a great
bustling with brooms and carpet-sweepers and dusters; and, no sooner
was the house swept than appeared a gay and chattering swarm to
garnish it: "Marble Hearts" with collected "potted palms" and "cut
flowers" and cheesecloth draperies of blue and gold--the "club
colours" which, upon the sudden need for club colours, had been
suddenly adopted.

Missy betook herself to her room, but it was filled up with two of
the girls and a bolt of cheesecloth; to the dining room, but there
was no inspiration in the sight of Marguerite polishing the spare
silver; to the side porch, but one cannot work where giggling girls
sway and shriek on tall ladders, hanging paper-lanterns; to the
summerhouse, but even to this refuge the Baby followed her, finally
upsetting the water-colour box.

The day went rushing past. Enticing odours arose from the kitchen.
The grocery wagon came, and came again. The girls went home. A
sketchy lunch was eaten off the kitchen table, and father stayed
down town. The girls reappeared. They overran the kitchen, peeling
oranges and pineapples and bananas for "heavenly hash." Marguerite
grew cross. The Baby, who missed his nap, grew cross. And Missy, for
some reason, grew sort of cross, too; she resented the other girls'
unrestrainable hilarity. They wouldn't be so hilarious if it were
their own households they were setting topsy-turvy; if they had
sixteen "place-cards" yet to finish. In England, the hostess's
entertainments went more smoothly. Things were better arranged
there.

Gradually the girls drifted home to dress; the house grew quiet.
Missy's head was aching. Flushed and paint-daubed, she bent over the
"place-cards."

Mother came to the door.

"Hadn't you better be getting dressed, dear?--it's half-past five."

Half-past five! Heavens! Missy bent more feverishly over the "place-
cards"; there were still two left to colour.

"I'll lay out your dotted Swiss for you," offered mother kindly.

At this mention of her "best dress," Missy found time for a pang of
vain desire. She wished she had a more befitting dinner gown. A
black velvet, perhaps; a "picture dress" with rare old lace, and no
other adornment save diamonds in her hair and ears and round her
throat and wrists.

But, then, velvet might be too hot for August. She visioned herself
in an airy creation of batiste--very simple, but the colour
combination a ravishing mingling of palest pink and baby-blue, with
ribbons fluttering; delicately tinted long gloves; delicately tinted
slippers and silken stockings on her slender, high-arched feet; a
few glittering rings on her restless fingers; one blush-pink rose in
her hair which, simply arranged, suffered two or three stray
rippling locks to wander wantonly across her forehead.

"Missy! It's ten minutes to six! And you haven't even combed your
hair!" It was mother at the door again.

The first guest arrived before Missy had got her hair "smoothed up"-
-no time, tonight, to try any rippling, wanton effects. She could
hear the swelling sound of voices and laughter in the distance--oh,
dreadful! Her fingers became all thumbs as she sought to get into
the dotted swiss, upside down.

Mother came in just in time to extricate her, and buttoned the dress
with maddeningly deliberate fingers.

"Now, don't fret yourself into a headache, dear," she said in a
voice meant to be soothing. "The party won't run away--just let
yourself relax."

Relax!

The musicians, out on the side porch, were already beginning their
blaring preparations when the hostess, at last, ran down the stairs
and into the front parlour. Her agitation had no chance to subside
before they must file out to the dining room. Missy hadn't had time
before to view the completely embellished dining room and, now, in
all its glory and grandeur, it struck her full force: the potted
palms screening the windows through which floated strains of music,
streamers of blue and gold stretching from the chandelier to the
four corners of the room in a sort of canopy, the long white table
with its flowers and gleaming silver--

It might almost have been the scene of a function at Chetwoode Manor
itself!

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