Missy. Miriam Coles Harris
know you were awake," said Missy, sitting down on an ottoman by the fire. "Your room is cold," and she pulled together the embers, and put on a stick or two of wood, her teeth chattering. She knew quite well it wasn't the cold that made them chatter.
"Where is St. John?" said her mother.
"He has just come in," returned Missy, looking furtively at her—"and has gone to bed."
"Why didn't he come in to me?" asked Mrs. Varian, anxiously.
"Because I thought that it—it was so late—you ought not to be kept awake so long."
"Did you tell him not to come?"
"Well, yes."
Mrs. Varian sighed. "It would have been better not," she said.
Missy turned her face to the fire, which was beginning to blaze, and stretched out her hands to it. "Well, mamma," she said a little querulously, after several moments of silence, "I suppose you don't think that I care anything about St. John's trouble. I should think you might tell me without being asked to."
"O my child!" exclaimed her mother. "Forgive me. I have been so absorbed in him."
"O, I know that," retorted Missy, crying a little. "That isn't what I want to know."
"It won't take long to tell you. The girl to whom he was engaged, has fled from him and from her mother, and last night was married privately to a man for whom, it seems, she has long had a passion."
"Then why did she ever engage herself to St. John?" cried Missy, turning her pale and excited face towards her mother.
"I suppose it was the mother's work. The mother must be unscrupulous and daring. No doubt she worked hard for such a prize as St. John, and she found him easy prey, poor boy. Easier to manage than her daughter, whose passions are strong, and whose will is undisciplined. The girl could not conquer the thought of the old lover, though she had dissembled cruelly. I think she is but little to be preferred to her mother, inasmuch as her intention was the same; she meant to sacrifice St. John, and to satisfy her ambition. Only at the last moment, her passion conquered, and she broke faith both with her mother and him. O Missy, what wicked, wicked lives! Does it seem possible that there can be such women living?"
"I thank them from the bottom of my heart," said Missy, from between her set teeth.
"Yes," said her mother with a sigh. "It is right to feel that, I know. But oh, my boy; it is so hard to see him suffer. To have loved so, and been so duped. And he cannot, in his disgust and revulsion, conquer his great love for her. He is writhing in such pangs of jealousy. Think, last night this time he was dreaming happy dreams about her, as foolish and as fond as boy could be. To-night, she is in the arms of another—separated from him forever—leaving him with mockery and coldness, without a word of penitence or supplication. She flung him off as if she had disdained and loathed him."
"How did it come out—how did he hear it first?"
"This morning, he went for her to drive. They were to have had a very happy day. St. John, you know, is so nice and thoughtful about planning pleasures and expeditions. I think he must have had an insight into their characters, though he was so blinded. First, they were to go to see some pictures, then to the Park for an hour or two, then to Delmonico's for an early dinner; then to do some shopping before coming to the cars. The shopping meant letting her choose all sorts of expensive things to wear, to which she was unaccustomed, while he paid the bills. Poor boy, think of that not opening his eyes. I asked if she never remonstrated, 'Yes, a little perhaps, at first.' Well, they were to have had this perfect day; and St. John mounted the stairs to their apartment without a misgiving.
"The moment the door was opened he felt what was coming. The room was in confusion; the mother, wild and dishevelled, turned from him with a shriek. It took but a moment, but it was a horrible moment, to persuade her to tell him the truth.
"'Yes,' she cried, with a sudden impulse—perhaps it was the first honest word she had ever spoken to the poor boy—'Yes, you shall know everything. You shall know all that I know. There is no good in keeping things back now. She has gone; she is a deceitful, bad girl. She has left me to poverty and you to misery. She has gone off with a wicked man, a man who destroyed her sister, and left her, but whom she has always loved. She has broken her promise to me—she has deceived me, she has ruined me. What shall I do! how shall I pay her bills! I shall have to hide myself; and I thought I had got through with being poor! She promised me, she promised me to bear with you and to carry this out. Everything hung upon it, every one was waiting—the landlord, the grocer even knew that she was going to make a fine match, and they were waiting. I had to explain it all to them. You can't think how like heaven it seemed to have a prospect of easy times. I have had a hard life, a hard life, ever since I can remember. How I have worked for that girl, and for her sister before her—what sacrifices I have made! You can't think, a man can't know. I really enjoy telling the truth; it's such a long time since I've done it. Making the best of things—making out that things were one way with us when they were another—telling lies to every body—almost to each other! Oh, what shall I do without her! I don't know where to go or which way to turn! She is a wicked girl to have served me such a trick. She will be come up with yet. She will hate that man—hate him worse than she hated you. Nobody could say you were not sweet and nice to every one, even if you were too young. And he—he is an evil, deep, bad man. He will break her heart for her, as he broke her sister's. And he hasn't got a penny. And she, oh! she has a fury of a temper, and she must have her own way if she dies for it. Well, she's got it, and I almost hope she will be punished. I'd like to see her poor as poverty, and come begging to the door.'
"And so on, Missy, in her wretched, selfish moan of disappointed greed, while the poor boy stood stunned and almost stupefied. It did not seem to him at all real or true; he felt as if he must wake up from it; for the girl had been a good actress; and the mother, though he had always felt a little uncomfortable with her, had simulated the manners of a lady, and his refined tastes never had been shocked; at least never with force enough to break the spell of the daughter's influence. Fancy what this revelation was to him; the woman, in her transport of anger, and in her despair of further help from him, tearing away their flimsy hypocrisies, and revealing their disgusting meanness. It all seemed hideous raving to St. John, till she thrust into his hand the letter that the girl had left. Then the sight of the handwriting that had always given him such emotions, and the cruel words, made an end of his dream, and he was quite awake."
"What did she write?" asked Missy.
"That he has not told me. He cannot seem to bring himself to speak the words. But I gather from him, it was a vehement protestation of what she felt for her old lover, and the contempt in which she held the poor boy, and perhaps some rude defiance of her mother. St. John, I think, could hardly have spoken many words during the interview. He emptied his pockets, poor boy, and left the wretched woman silent with amazement. She may well have repented of her reckless speech—how much she might have got out of him, if she had still played the hypocrite. He came down the stairs which half an hour before he had mounted, weak, like a person after months of illness. When he got into the carriage, his eyes fell on some lovely flowers which he had brought for her, and the sight and scent of them seemed to make clear the horrible reality. I think he really cannot tell what he did with the rest of the day. He told the man to drive to the Park, and there he wandered about, no doubt, for hours. I am sure he has not tasted food since morning. It must result in a terrible illness. How did he look, Missy, when he came in from the beach?"
Missy evaded; and her heart smote her that she had not brought the poor boy to his mother, instead of turning him away from the only chance of comfort. "Shall I go and see?" she said. And going softly into the hall, she stood outside the door of his room and listened. "It is all quiet," she said, coming back. "Perhaps he has fallen asleep. He looked utterly worn out when he came in." Then she crept up beside her mother, and pulling a shawl about her, they sat talking, hand in hand, till the stars grew pale, and the chilly dawn broke.
CHAPTER III.