Melissa was out in the summerhouse, reading; now and then lifting her eyes from the big book on her lap to watch the baby at play. With a pail of sand, a broken lead-pencil and several bits of twig, the baby had concocted an engrossing game. Melissa smiled indulgently at his absurd absorption; while the baby, looking up, smiled back as one who would say: “What a stupid game reading is to waste your time with!”
For the standpoint of three-years-old is quite different from that of fourteen-going-on-fifteen. Missy now felt almost grown-up; it had been eons since SHE was a baby, and three; even thirteen lay back across a chasm so wide her thoughts rarely tried to bridge it. Besides, her thoughts were kept too busy with the present. Every day the world was presenting itself as a more bewitching place. Cherryvale had always been a thrilling place to live in; but this was the summer which, surely, would ever stand out in italics in her mind. For, this summer, she had come really to know Romance.
Her more intimate acquaintance with this enchanting phenomenon had begun in May, the last month of school, when she learned that Miss Smith, her Algebra teacher, received a letter every day from an army officer. An army officer!—and a letter every day! And she knew Miss Smith very well, indeed! Ecstasy! Miss Smith, who looked too pretty to know so much about Algebra, made an adorable heroine of Romance.
But she was not more adorable-looking than Aunt Isabel. Aunt Isabel was Uncle Charlie's wife, and lived in Pleasanton; Missy was going to Pleasanton in just three days, now, and every time she thought of the visit, she felt delicious little tremors of anticipation. What an experience that would be! For father and mother and grandpa and grandma and all the other family grown-ups admitted that Uncle Charlie's marriage to Aunt Isabel was romantic. Uncle Charlie had been forty-three—very, very old, even older than father—and a “confirmed bachelor” when, a year ago last summer, he had married Aunt Isabel. Aunt Isabel was much younger, only twenty; that was what made the marriage romantic.
Like Miss Smith, Aunt Isabel had big violet eyes and curly golden hair. Most heroines seemed to be like that. The reflection saddened Missy. Her own eyes were grey instead of violet, her hair straight and mouse-coloured instead of wavy and golden.
Even La Beale Isoud was a blonde, and La Beale Isoud, as she had recently discovered, was one of the Romantic Queens of all time. She knew this fact on the authority of grandpa, who was enormously wise. Grandpa said that the beauteous lady was a heroine in all languages, and her name was spelled Iseult, and Yseult, and Isolde, and other queer ways; but in “The Romance of King Arthur” it was spelled La Beale Isoud. “The Romance of King Arthur” was a fascinating book, and Missy was amazed that, up to this very summer, she had passed by the rather ponderous volume, which was kept on the top shelf of the “secretary,” as uninteresting-looking. Uninteresting!
It was “The Romance of King Arthur” that, this July afternoon, lay open on Missy's lap while she minded the baby in the summerhouse. Already she knew by heart its “deep” and complicated story, and, now, she was re-reading the part which told of Sir Tristram de Liones and his ill-fated love for La Beale Isoud. It was all very sad, yet very beautiful.
Sir Tristram was a “worshipful knight” and a “harper passing all other.” He got wounded, and his uncle, King Mark, “let purvey a fair vessel, well victualled,” and sent him to Ireland to be healed. There the Irish King's daughter, La Beale Isoud, “the fairest maid and lady in the world,” nursed him back to health, while Sir Tristram “learned her to harp.”
That last was an odd expression. In Cherryvale it would be considered bad grammar; but, evidently, grammar rules were different in olden times. The unusual phraseology of the whole narrative fascinated Missy; even when you could hardly understand it, it was—inspiring. Yes, that was the word. In inspiring! That was because it was the true language of Romance. The language of Love... Missy's thoughts drifted off to ponder the kind of language the army officer used to Miss Smith; Uncle Charlie to Aunt Isabel...
She came back to the tale of La Beale Isoud.
Alas! true love must ever suffer at the hands of might. For the harper's uncle, old King Mark himself, decided to marry La Beale Isoud; and he ordered poor Sir Tristram personally to escort her from Ireland. And Isoud's mother entrusted to two servants a magical drink which they should give Isoud and King Mark on their wedding-day, so that the married pair “either should love the other the days of their life.”
But, Tristram and La Beale Isoud found that love-drink! Breathing quickly, Missy read the fateful part:
“It happened so that they were thirsty, and it seemed by the colour and the taste that it was a noble wine. When Sir Tristram took the flasket in his hand, and said, 'Madam Isoud, here is the best drink that ever ye drunk, that Dame Braguaine, your maiden, and Gouvernail, my servant, have kept for themselves.' Then they laughed (laughed—think of it!) and made good cheer, and either drank to other freely. And they thought never drink that ever they drank was so sweet nor so good. But by that drink was in their bodies, they loved either other so well that never their love departed for weal neither for woe.” (Think of that, too!)
Missy gazed at the accompanying illustration: La Beale Isoud slenderly tall in her 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 metal goblet 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. What a tremendous situation! Love that never would depart for weal neither for woe!
Missy sighed. For she had read and re-read what was the fullness of their woe. And she couldn't help hating King Mark, even if he was Isoud's lawful lord, because he proved himself such a recreant and false traitor to true love. Of course, he WAS Isoud's husband; and Missy lived in Cherryvale, where conventions were not complicated and were strictly adhered to; else scandal was the result. But she told herself that this situation was different because it was an unusual kind of love. They couldn't help themselves. It wasn't their fault. It was the love-drink that did it. Besides, it happened in the Middle Ages...
Suddenly her reverie was blasted by a compelling disaster. The baby, left to his own devices, had stuck a twig into his eye, and was uttering loud cries for attention. Missy remorsefully hurried over and kissed his hurt. As if healed thereby, the baby abruptly ceased crying; even sent her a little wavering smile. Missy gazed at him and pondered: why do babies cry over their tiny troubles, and so often laugh over their bigger ones? She felt an immense yearning over babies—over all things inexplicable.
That evening after supper, grandpa and grandma came over for a little while. They all sat out on the porch and chatted. It was very beautiful out on the porch,—greying twilight, and young little stars just coming into being, all aquiver as if frightened.
The talk turned to Missy's imminent visit.
“Aren't you afraid you'll get homesick?” asked grandma.
It was Missy's first visit away from Cherryvale without her mother. A year ago she would have dreaded the separation, but now she was almost grown-up. Besides, this very summer, in Cherryvale, she had seen how for some reason, a visiting girl seems to excite more attention than does a mere home girl. Missy realized that, of course, she wasn't so “fashionable” as was the sophisticated Miss Slade from Macon City who had so agitated Cherryvale, yet she was pleased to try the experience for herself. Moreover, the visit was to be at Uncle Charlie's!
“Oh, no,” answered Missy. “Not with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Isabel. She's so pretty and wears such pretty clothes—remember that grey silk dress with grey-topped shoes exactly to match?”
“I think she has shoes to match everything, even her wrappers,” said grandma rather drily. “Isabel's very extravagant.”
“Extravagance becomes a virtue when Isabel wears the clothes,” commented grandpa. Grandpa often said “deep” things like that, which were hard to understand exactly.
“She shouldn't squander Charlie's money,” insisted grandma.
“Charlie doesn't seem to mind it,” put in mother in her gentle way. “He's as pleased as Punch buying her pretty things.”
“Yes—poor Charlie!” agreed grandma. “And there's another thing: Isabel's always been used to so much attention, I hope she won't give poor Charlie anxiety.”
Why did grandma keep calling him “poor” Charlie? Missy had always understood that Uncle Charlie wasn't poor at all; he owned the biggest “general store” in Pleasanton and was, in fact, the “best-fixed” of the whole Merriam family.
But, save for fragments, she soon lost the drift of the family discussion. She was absorbed in her own trend of thoughts. At Uncle Charlie's she was sure of encountering Romance. Living-and-breathing Romance. And only two days more! How could she wait?
But the two days flew by in a flurry of mending, and running ribbons, and polishing all her shoes and wearing old dresses to keep her good ones clean, and, finally, packing. It was all so exciting that only at the last minute just before the trunk was shut, did she remember to tuck in “The Romance of King Arthur.”
At the depot in Pleasanton, Aunt Isabel alone met her; Uncle Charlie was “indisposed.” Missy was sorry to hear that. For she had liked Uncle Charlie even before he had become Romantic. He was big and silent like father and grandpa and you had a feeling that, like them, he understood you more than did most grown-ups.
She liked Aunt Isabel, too; she couldn't have helped that, because Aunt Isabel was so radiantly beautiful. Missy loved all beautiful things. She loved the heavenly colour of sunlight through the stained-glass windows at church; the unquenchable blaze of her nasturtium bed under a blanket of grey mist; the corner street-lamp reflecting on the wet sidewalk; the smell of clean, sweet linen sheets; the sound of the brass band practicing at night, blaring but unspeakably sad through the distance; the divine mystery of faint-tinted rainbows; trees in moonlight turned into great drifts of fairy-white blossoms.
And she loved shining ripples of golden hair; and great blue eyes that laughed in a sidewise glance and then turned softly pensive in a second; and a sweet high voice now vivacious and now falling into hushed cadences; and delicate white hands always restlessly fluttering; and, a drifting, elusive fragrance, as of wind-swept petals...
All of which meant that she loved Aunt Isabel very much; especially in the frilly, pastel-flowered organdy she was wearing to-day—an “extravagant” dress, doubtless, but lovely enough to justify that. Naturally such a person as Aunt Isabel would make her home a beautiful place. It was a “bungalow.” Missy had often regretted that her own home had been built before the vogue of the bungalow. And now, when she beheld Aunt Isabel's enchanting house, the solid, substantial furnishings left behind in Cherryvale lost all their savour for her, even the old-fashioned “quaintness” of grandma's house.
For Aunt Isabel's house was what Pleasanton termed “artistic.” It had white-painted woodwork, and built-in bookshelves instead of ordinary bookcases, and lots of window-seats, and chintz draperies which trailed flowers or birds or peacocks, which were like a combination of both, and big wicker chairs with deep cushions—all very bright and cosy and beautiful. In the living-room were some Chinese embroideries which Missy liked, especially when the sun came in and shone upon their soft, rich colours; she had never before seen Chinese embroideries and, thus, encountered a brand-new love. Then Aunt Isabel was the kind of woman who keeps big bowls of fresh flowers sitting around in all the rooms, even if there's no party—a delightful habit. Missy was going to adore watching Aunt Isabel's pretty, restless hands flutter about as, each morning, she arranged the fresh flowers in their bowls.
Even in Missy's room there was a little bowl of jade-green pottery, a colour which harmonized admirably with sweet peas, late roses, nasturtiums, or what-not. And all the furniture in that room was painted white, while the chintz bloomed with delicate little nosegays.
The one inharmonious element was that of Uncle Charlie's indisposition—not only the fact that he was suffering, but also the nature of his ailment. For Uncle Charlie, it developed, had been helping move a barrel of mixed-pickles in the grocery department of his store, and the barrel had fallen full-weight upon his foot and broken his big toe. Missy realized that, of course, a tournament with a sword-thrust in the heart, or some catastrophe like that, would have meant a more dangerous injury; but—a barrel of pickles! And his big toe! Any toe was unromantic. But the BIG toe! That was somehow the worst of all.
Uncle Charlie, however, spoke quite openly of the cause of his trouble. Also of its locale. Indeed, he could hardly have concealed the latter, as his whole foot was bandaged up, and he had to hobble about, very awkwardly, with the aid of a cane.
Uncle Charlie's indisposition kept him from accompanying Missy and Aunt Isabel to an ice-cream festival which was held on the Congregational church lawn that first night. Aunt Isabel was a Congregationalist; and, as mother was a Presbyterian and grandma a Methodist, Missy was beginning to feel a certain kinship with all religions.
This festival proved to be a sort of social gathering, because the Congregational church in Pleasanton was attended by the town's “best” people. The women were as stylishly dressed as though they were at a bridge party—or a tournament. The church lawn looked very picturesque with red, blue and yellow lanterns—truly a fair lawn and “well victualled” with its ice-cream tables in the open. Large numbers of people strolled about, and ate, and chatted and laughed. The floating voices of people you couldn't see, the flickering light of the lanterns, the shadows just beyond their swaying range, all made it seem gay and alluring, so that you almost forgot that it was only a church festival.
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!”
Mr. Saunders outspread his hands in a helpless gesture.
“Well, you know the hard lot of the knight of the road—here to-day, gone to-morrow, never able to stay where his heart would wish!”
Missy caught her breath; how incautiously he talked!
After Mr. Saunders was gone, Aunt Isabel sat relapsed in her porch chair, very quiet. Missy couldn't keep her eyes off of that lovely, apathetic figure. Once Aunt Isabel put her hand to her head.
“Head hitting it up again?” asked Uncle Charlie solicitously.
Aunt Isabel nodded.
“You'd better get to bed, then,” he said. And, despite his wounded toe, he wouldn't let her attend to the shutting-up “chores,” but, accompanied by Missy, hobbled around to all the screen doors himself. Poor Uncle Charlie!
It was hard for Missy to get to sleep that night. Her brain was a dark, seething whirlpool. And the air seemed to grow thicker and thicker; it rested heavily on her hot eyelids, pressed suffocatingly against her throat. And when, finally, she escaped her thoughts in sleep, it was only to encounter them again in troubled dreams.
She was awakened abruptly by a terrific noise. Oh, Lord! what was it? She sat up. It sounded as if the house were falling down. Then the room, the whole world, turned suddenly a glaring, ghostly white—then a sharp, spiteful, head-splitting crack of sound—then heavier, staccato volleys—then a baneful rumble, dying away.
A thunder-storm! Oh, Lord! Missy buried her face in her pillow. Nothing in the world so terrified her as thunder-storms.
She seemed to have lain there ages, scarcely breathing, when, in a little lull, above the fierce swish of rain she thought she heard voices. Cautiously she lifted her head; listened. She had left her door open for air and, now, she was sure she heard Uncle Charlie's deep voice. She couldn't hear what he was saying. Then she heard Aunt Isabel's voice, no louder than uncle Charlie's but more penetrating; it had a queer note in it—almost as if she were crying. Suddenly she did cry out!—And then Uncle Charlie's deep grumble again.
Missy's heart nearly stopped beating. Could it be that Uncle Charlie had found out?—That he was accusing Aunt Isabel and making her cry? But surely they wouldn't quarrel in a thunder-storm! Lightning might hit the house, or anything!
The conjunction of terrors was too much for Missy to bear. Finally she crept out of bed and to the door. An unmistakable moan issued from Aunt Isabel's room. And then she saw Uncle Charlie, in bath-robe and pajamas, coming down the hall from the bathroom. He was carrying a hot-water bottle.
“Why, what's the matter, Missy?” he asked her. “The storm frighten you?”
Missy nodded; she couldn't voice those other horrible fears which were tormenting her.
“Well, the worst is over now,” he said reassuringly. “Run back to bed. Your aunt's sick again—I've just been filling the hot-water bottle for her.”
“Is she—very sick?” asked Missy tremulously.
“Pretty sick,” answered Uncle Charlie. “But there's nothing you can do. Jump back into bed.”
So Missy crept back, and listened to the gradual steadying down of the rain. She was almost sorry, now, that the whirlwind of frantic elements had subsided; that had been a sort of terrible complement to the whirlwind of anguish within herself.
She lay there tense, strangling a desperate impulse to sob. La Beale Isoud had died of love—and now Aunt Isabel was already sickening. She half-realized that people don't die of love nowadays—that happened only in the Middle Ages; yet, there in the black stormy night, strange, horrible fancies overruled the sane convictions of daytime. It was fearfully significant, Aunt Isabel's sickening so quickly, so mysteriously. And immediately after Mr. Saunders's departure. That was exactly what La Beale Isoud always did whenever Sir Tristram was obliged to leave her; Sir Tristram was continually having to flee away, a kind of knight of the road, too—to this battle or that tourney or what-not—“here to-day, gone to-morrow, never able to stay where his heart would wish.”
“Oh! oh!”
At last exhaustion had its way with the taut, quivering little body; the hot eyelids closed; the burning cheek relaxed on the pillow. Missy slept.
When she awoke, the sun, which is so blithely indifferent to sufferings of earth, was high up in a clear sky. The new-washed air was cool and sparkling as a tonic. Missy's physical being felt more refreshed than she cared to admit; for her turmoil of spirit had awakened with her, and she felt her body should be in keeping.
By the time she got dressed and downstairs, Uncle Charlie had breakfasted and was about to go down town. He said Aunt Isabel was still in bed, but much better.
“She had no business to drink all those sodas,” he said. “Her stomach was already upset from all that ice-cream and cake the night before—and the hot weather and all—”
Missy was scarcely listening to the last. One phrase had caught her ear: “Her stomach upset!”—How could Uncle Charlie?
But when she went up to Aunt Isabel's room later, the latter reiterated that unromantic diagnosis. But perhaps she was pretending. That would be only natural.
Missy regarded the convalescent; she seemed quite cheerful now, though wan. And not so lovely as she generally did. Missy couldn't forbear a leading remark.
“I'm terribly sorry Mr. Saunders had to go away so soon.” She strove for sympathetic tone, but felt inexpert and self-conscious. “Terribly sorry. I can't—”
And then, suddenly, Aunt Isabel laughed—laughed!—and said a surprising thing.
“What! You, too, Missy? Oh, that's too funny!”
Missy stared—reproach, astonishment, bewilderment, contending in her expression.
Aunt Isabel continued that delighted gurgle.
“Mr. Saunders is a notorious heart-breaker—but I didn't realize he was capturing yours so speedily!”
Striving to keep her dignity, Missy perhaps made her tone more severe than she intended.
“Well,” she accused, “didn't he capture yours, Aunt Isabel?”
Then Aunt Isabel, still laughing a little, but with a serious shade creeping into her eyes, reached out for one of Missy's hands and smoothed it gently between her own.
“No, dear; I'm afraid your Uncle Charlie has that too securely tucked away.”
Something in Aunt Isabel's voice, her manner, her eyes, even more than her words, convinced Missy that she was speaking the real truth. It was all a kind of wild jumbled day-dream she'd been having. La Beale Aunt Isabel wasn't in love with Mr. Saunders after all! She was in love with Uncle Charlie. There had been no romantic undermeaning in all that harp-ukelele business, in the flasket of ice-cream soda, in the mysterious sickness. The sickness wasn't even mysterious any longer. Aunt Isabel had only had an “upset.”
Deeply stirred, Missy withdrew her hand.
“I think I forgot to open my bed to air,” she said, and hurried away to her own room. But, oblivious of the bed, she stood for a long time at the window, staring out at nothing.
Yes; Romance had died out in the Middle Ages...
She was still standing there when the maid called her to the telephone. It was Raleigh Peters on the wire, asking to take her to the dance that night. She accepted, but without enthusiasm. Where were the thrills she had expected to experience while receiving the homage paid a visiting girl? He was just a grocery clerk named Peters!
Yes; Romance had died out in the Middle Ages...
She felt very blase as she hung up the receiver.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg