Missy: A Novel

by Miriam Coles Harris

"Because we are so old, mamma. I know it. Yes; don't mind speaking of it. I know it very well. I am—twenty-seven." And Missy looked into the fire with a sort of dreamy wonder; but her voice showed the fact had no sting for her. Her life had been such that she did not mind it that she was no longer young. She had never been like other girls, nor had their ambitions. She had known she was not pretty; she had not expected to marry. Her life had been very full of occupation and of duty, and of things that gave her pleasure. She also had had an important position, owing to her mother's invalid condition. She was lady of the house, she was an important person; a good deal of money passed through her hands, a good many persons looked up to her. As for her heart, it was not hungry. She had a passionate love for her mother, who, since the death of her stepfather, had depended much upon her; and towards her young stepbrother, now on this October night, bringing home an unwelcome fiancée, she had felt a sort of tigerish mother love. There were seven years between them. She had always felt she owned him—and though bitterly jealous of the fond and blind devotion of her mother to him (as she saw it), she felt as if her life were inseparable from his. How could he live and love and have an existence in what she had no part? But it was even so. The boy had outgrown her, and had no longer any need of her. She had, indeed, need of all her strength and courage to-night, and the mother saw it, putting aside her own needs, which were not likely to be less. For this boy, St. John, and this daughter were all she had left her of a past not always very bright, even to remember. But with patient sweetness she sought to comfort Missy, smarting with the first knowledge that she was not necessary to some one whom she loved.

"You know we should have been prepared for it," she said. "It really is not strange—twenty is not young."

"I suppose not. But that is the very least of it. Mamma, you know this is throwing himself away. You know this is a bitter disappointment to you. You know she is the last person you would have chosen for him. You know you feel as I do, now confess it." Missy had a way of speaking vehemently, and her words tripped over each other in this speech.

"Well," said Mrs. Varian, with calm motherly justice, upholding the cause of the absent offender, while she soothed the wrath of the present offended, "I will confess, I am sorry. I am even disappointed in St. John—but that may be my fault, and not his failure. Perhaps I was unreasonable to expect more of him than of others."

"More of him? Why pray, do theological students, as a rule, engage themselves to actresses before they are half through their studies?"

"My dear Missy, I must beg of you—this is unwarrantable. You have no right to call her an actress. Not the smallest right."

"Excuse me, mamma, I think I have a right. A person who gives readings, a person whose one ambition is to be before the public, who is only detained from the stage by want of ability to be successful on it, who is an adventuress, neither more nor less, who has neither social position nor private principle, who has beauty and who means to use it—may be called an actress, without any injustice to herself, but only to the class to which she does no credit."

The words tripped over each other vehemently now.

"You are very wrong, very unwise to speak and feel so, Missy. I must beg you to control yourself, even in speaking to me. It simply is not right."

"You do not like the truth, mamma, you do not like the English language. I have spoken the truth, I have used plain language. What have I said wrong? I cannot make things according to your wishes by being silent. I can only keep them out of your sight. Is it not true that she has given readings? Not in absolute public, but as near it as she could get. Do we not know that she has made more than one effort to get on the stage? Are not she and her mother poor, and living on their wits? Is she not beautiful, and is not that all we know to her advantage? I think I have spoken the truth after all, if you will please review it."