Missy: A Novel

by Miriam Coles Harris

"Jay, if you love me," said Missy, putting her hands to her ears, "be quiet and don't talk any more about the fire. Let me eat my breakfast, and forget my miseries."

But Gabrielle could not be silenced, though Jay, when the hominy came, gave himself to that. She always had information to impart, and this occasion was too great to be lost. She told Missy everything she didn't want to hear, from the destruction of the flowerbeds by the crowd, to the remarks of the boys at the stable, about her father's broken arm.

"They said he was a fool, to work so hard for nothing; they expected to be paid, but he didn't. Then Peters said 'maybe he expects to be paid as well as you,' and then they all laughed. What did they all laugh for, Missy, and do you suppose my father does expect to be paid?"

"I suppose you were where you had no business to be," said Missy, shortly. "Now, if you will eat your breakfast, and be silent, we shall thank you."

Then Gabby retired into the hominy and there was a silence if not a peace. It was a dull morning—much fog, and little life in the air. Missy hadn't even looked out of the window. She dreaded the thought of what she was to see on the other side of the hedge. If it had been possible, she would have delayed the work that lay before her; but she was goaded on now by the thought that if she did not hurry, they must spend another night here, and eat another breakfast to the accompaniment of Gabby's information and observation. It was ten o'clock before she could get away, leaving directions to the servants to follow her.

It was a dismal scene; the faultless lawn trampled and torn up, the vines torn from the piazza and lying stretched and straggling on the ground. The windows were curtainless, the piazza steps broken, the piazza piled with ladders and steps and buckets; the front door had a black eye. There was at this side of the house not much evidence of the fire, but at the rear it was much worse. The summer parlor was badly damaged, the sashes quite burnt black, the ceiling all defaced. The flames had reached the room above, Missy's own room, and here had been stayed. The windows were broken out, a good deal of the woodwork charred, and the walls much damaged with water. These two rooms were all that were seriously injured. It was quite wonderful that the damage had gone no further; there had been no wind, and Mr. Andrews had been on the spot; if they had not had these two things in their favor, the house must have gone. Peters had shown himself a respectable donkey, and none of the women but Goneril proved to have any head in such an emergency. Missy tried to be comforted by the smallness of the material injury. But the desolation and disorder of the pretty rooms! In her own, Missy fairly cried. She felt completely dépaysée. A few hundred dollars and a few weeks would put it all in order again, but Missy was not in a philosophic mood. She felt herself an outcast and a wanderer, and turning bitterly from the scorched spot, vowed never to love anything again.

By this time the clumsy Peters and the headless maids had come up to be set to work. So turning the keys on the damaged rooms, she followed them out and began to try roughly to get the furniture back into the rooms to which it belonged. Her ambition, at present, was to get her mother's and her aunt's rooms in order to have them return that night, and the kitchen so far reconstructed that the servants might do their work. But at night-fall, the prospect was so dismal, the hall so encumbered with unbestowed goods, the workmen so tardy, the progress so small, that Missy reluctantly acknowledged she would be cruel to her mother, if she insisted on bringing her back to such a scene of desolation. She must be contented to accept Mr. Andrews' considerate hospitality. He had sent over Eliza with a message at lunch time, in which he took it for granted that they were to stay there for the present, and covered all the ground of an invitation, and was less offensive. It was understood and inevitable, and so she tried to take it.

The rain came down heavily at six o'clock; as she locked herself out of the front door, and wrapping her waterproof around her, went down the wet steps, and out on the soaking ground, feeling tired and heartsick, she could not but contrast the scene with that of last evening, when, under the smiling rosy sunset, she had come down the steps on her way out to her stolen row upon the bay. It seemed a year ago, instead of a day. Ann followed close behind her, with various articles for the comfort of her mother. At the door of the Andrews' house Ann took off her mistress' waterproof and overshoes.

"I am almost too tired to speak, Ann," she said. "I shall go up-stairs and lie down, and you may bring me a cup of tea. I don't want any dinner."

But once up-stairs, Missy found she must change her plans, and forget her weariness. Her mother was quite unable to go down to dinner; indeed, was only waiting for her tea, to try to quiet herself with a view to getting a tolerable night. Miss Varian had a violent attack of neuralgia; the whole house had been laid under tribute to alleviate her sufferings. She was to have her dinner in bed, and had ordered the house to be kept perfectly quiet after she had partaken of that meal. Eliza, the waitress, no less than Goneril, had been actively running up and down stairs, to take her orders to the kitchen. Melinda had received directions from Mr. Andrews to cook an unusually elaborate dinner, to do honor to the guests. Ann had confided this to Mrs. Varian in the afternoon. She thought it such a pity, for she knew nobody would eat it. And now, when Missy told her mother, as she took off her hat, that she was going to lie down and have a cup of tea, Mrs. Varian made an exclamation of regret.