Missy: A Novel

by Miriam Coles Harris

"Can't you telegraph to some station a few miles further down the Sound than she can yet be, and tell them to send out a boat and watch for her, and board her with the message?" said Missy. This was finally decided on, and carried out with some variations.

About two o'clock, a message was received that the Ilia had been boarded, and was in possession of the intelligence. She had evidently sighted no Hamburg bark, or she would have sent back word to that effect, nor had she made quite as good time as they had hoped she would. The wind was slackening, and varying from one quarter to another. It would not hold out much longer, every one agreed in thinking. And so the afternoon wore on. Some of the gentlemen went in to the Varians and got a glass of wine and some lunch in the dining-room. Others drove away and came back again. Always there were two or three on the lawn, and some one was always at the glass by the beach gate.

Missy shut herself into her own room. Even her mother's sympathy was no help. She wanted to be let alone; the suspense was telling on her nerves. She had hardly eaten at all, and there had scarcely been a moment till now, that she had not been using her wits in the most active way. Poor wits; they felt as if they were near a revolt. But what could she do with them for the hours that remained, before a word, good or bad, could come from the slim little yacht and her gallant crew? Hours, she talked about. She well knew it might be days. One of the gentlemen on the lawn had said, of course she would return if by midnight they had met with no success; they were not provisioned for a cruise; and at best would never think of going out to sea. This gentleman was elderly, and had a son on board the Ilia. Missy scorned his opinion—now that Mr. Andrews had gone, there would be no turning back. She did not say anything, but she felt quite safe, provisions or no provisions. The day did wear away—as all days do.

"Be the day weary, or never so long,
At last it ringeth to evensong."

Evensong, however, brought its own additions to the misery. If it were hard to think of the betrayed child, alone with such cruel keepers, when the sun shone, and the waves danced blue and white, it was little short of maddening when the twilight thickened, and the long day died, and the thick, starless night set in. Missy could not stay in the house after dark; it seemed to her insupportable to be within four walls. She paced the beach below the lawn, or sat under shelter of the boat-house, and watched the bonfire which the men had made a few feet off, and which sent a red light out a little way upon the black waters.

A little way, alas, how little a way! Missy's eyes were always strained eagerly out into the darkness beyond; her ears were always listening for something more than the lonely sounds she heard. It seemed to her that it would be intolerable to watch out these hours of darkness and silence; she must penetrate them. She felt as if her solicitude and wretchedness would be half gone if the night were lifted, and the day come again. Ten o'clock struck—eleven—the outsiders, one by one, dropped off. There were left two or three men who had been hired by some of the gentlemen to watch the night out by the bonfire; Mr. Andrews' own man, the Varians' man, and Missy and Goneril. Eliza, the nurse, worn out and useless, had gone to bed. Of course, Ann was expended, and no one but Goneril had nerve and strength left to be of any service. She had a real affection for the little boy, with all her ungraciousness, and felt, with Missy, that the house was suffocating, and sleep impossible. She had got Miss Varian into her bed, and then told her she must fight her burglars by herself, for Miss Rothermel needed her more than she. This put Miss Varian in a rage, but Goneril did not stop to listen. She went to Mrs. Varian's room, and soothed her by taking down warm wraps for Missy, and promising to stay by her till she consented to come up and go to bed. She also carried down coffee and biscuits to the men, and made Missy drink some, and lie down a little while inside the boat-house door. It was surprising how invaluable Goneril was in time of trouble, and how intolerable in hours of ease.

Midnight passed, and in the cold, dreary hours between that and dawn, poor Missy's strength and courage ebbed low. She was chilled and ill; her fancy had been drawing such dreadful pictures for her they were having the same effect upon her as realities. She felt quite sure that the child never would be restored to them; that even now, perhaps, his life was in danger from the violent temper of the wicked woman in whose hands he was; that if she found herself near being thwarted in her object, she was quite capable of killing him. Her temper was violent, even outstripping her cunning and malice. Poor little boy! how terrified and lonely he would be, shut down, perhaps, in some dark hole in the ship. "I want you, Missy! I want you, Missy!" he had cried, heartbroken, in the darkness of his own nursery. What would be his terror in the darkness of that foreign ship. She felt such a horror of her own thoughts that she tried to sleep; failing that, she made Goneril talk to her, till the talking was intolerable.

The men around the fire smoked and dozed, or chatted in low tones; the wind, which had come up again, made a wailing noise in the trees, the rising tide washed monotonously over the pebbles; a bird now and then twittered a sharp note of wonder at the untimely light of the fire upon the beach. These were the only sounds; the night was unusually dark; a damp mist shut out the stars, and there was no moon.

It was just two o'clock; Missy had bent down for the fiftieth time to look at her watch by the light of the bonfire; Goneril, silent and stern, was sitting with her hands clasped around her knees, on the boat-house floor, when a sudden sound broke the stillness, a gun from the yacht as she rounded into the harbor. The two women sprang to their feet, and Missy clutched Goneril's arm.

"If those milk-sops have come back without him," said the latter between her teeth, answering Missy's thought. Surely they would not have come without him; the father was not a man to give up so; and yet it was earlier than any one had supposed it possible they could return; and the wind had been so variable, and the night so dark. Could it be that they had come in, disheartened and hungry? feeling the barque was beyond their reach upon the seas, and excusing themselves by sending after her steam instead of sail?