Then another interminable stretch of turmoil, this all the more terrifying because less violent.
"Oh, mother-I can"t--" Anger, spent, had given way to broken sobbing.
"I understand how you feel, dear. But you"ll--"
"I despise him!"
"I understand, dear. All girls get frightened and--"
"But it isn"t that, mother. I don"t love him. I can"t go on. Won"t you, this minute, tell him--tell everybody--?"
"Darling, don"t you realize I can"t?" Missy had never before heard old Mrs. Greenleaf"s voice tremble.
"The invitation, and the trousseau, and the presents, and everything.
Think of the scandal, dear. We couldn"t. Don"t you see, dear, we can"t back out, now?"
"O-o-oh."
"I almost wish--but don"t you see--?"
"Oh, I can"t stand it another hour!"
"You"re excited, dear," soothingly. "You"d better go rest a while. I"ll have a good talk with Porter. And you go upstairs and lie down. The Carrolls" dinner--"
"Oh, dinners, luncheons, clothes. I--"
The despairing sound of Miss Princess"s cry, and the throbbing realization that these were calamities she must not overhear, stung Missy to renewed reconnoitering. Tiptoeing over to the window, she fumbled at the fastening of the screen, swung it outward, and, contemplating a jump to the sward below, thrust one foot over the sill.
"h.e.l.lo, there! What are you up to?"
On the side porch, not twenty feet away, Mr. Hackett was regarding her with amazed and hostile eyes. Missy"s heart thumped against her ribs.
Her consternation was not lessened when, tossing away his cigarette with a vindictive gesture, he added: "Stay where you are!"
Missy slackened her hold and crouched back like a hunted criminal. And like a hunted criminal he condemned her, a moment later, to old Mrs.
Greenleaf.
"That kid from next door has been snooping in here. I caught her trying to sneak out."
Missy faltered out her explanation.
"I know it wasn"t your fault, dear," said old Mrs. Greenleaf kindly.
"What was it you wanted?"
Her errand forgotten, Missy could only attempt a smile and dumbly extend the bouquet.
Old Mrs. Greenleaf took the flowers, then spoke over her shoulder: "I think Helen wants you upstairs, Porter." Missy had always thought she was like a Roman Matron; now it was upsetting to see the Roman Matron so upset.
"Miss Helen"s got a terrible headache and is lying down," said old Mrs.
Greenleaf, fussing over the flowers.
"Oh," said Missy, desperately tongue-tied and ill-at-ease.
For a long second it endured portentously still in the room and in the world without; then like a sharp thunder-clap out of a summer sky, a door slammed upstairs. There was a sound of someone running down the steps, and Missy glimpsed Mr. Hackett going out the front door, banging the screen after him.
At the last noise, old Mrs. Greenleaf"s shoulders stiffened as if under a lash. But she turned quietly and said:
"Thank you so much for the flowers, Missy. I"ll give them to her after a while, when she"s better. And you can see her to-morrow."
It was the politest of dismissals. Missy, having remembered the pattern, hurriedly got it and ran home. She had seen a suspicion of tears in old Mrs. Greenleaf"s eyes. It was as upsetting as though the bronze Winged Victory on the parlour mantel should begin to weep.
All that afternoon Missy sought solitude. She refused to play croquet with Kitty Allen when that beautiful and most envied friend appeared.
When Kitty took herself home, offended, Missy went out to the remote summerhouse, relieved. She looked back, now, on her morning"s careless happiness as an old man looks back on the heyday of his youth.
Heavy with sympathy, non-comprehension and fear, she brooded over these dark, mysterious hints about the handsome Cleveland man; over young Doc"s blighted love; over Miss Princess"s wanting to "back out"; over old Mrs. Greenleaf"s strange, dominant "pride."
Why did Miss Princess want to "back out"?--Miss Princess with her beautiful coppery hair, and eager parted lips, and eyes of mysterious purple (Missy lingered on the reflection "eyes of mysterious purple"
long enough to foreshadow a future poem including that line). Was it because she still loved Doc? If so, why didn"t it turn out all right, since Doc loved her, too? Surely that would be better, since there seemed to be something wrong with Mr. Hackett--even though everybody did talk about what a wonderful match he was. Then they talked about invitations and things as though old Mrs. Greenleaf thought those things counted for more than the bridegroom. Old Mrs. Greenleaf, Missy was sure, loved Miss Princess better than anything else in the world: then how could she, even if she was "proud," twist things so foolishly?
She had brought with her the blue-bound Anthology and a writing-pad and pencil. First she read a little--"Lochinvar" it was she opened to. Then she meditated. Poor Young Doc! The whole unhappy situation was like poetry. (So much in life she was finding, these days, like poetry.) This would make a very sad, but effective poem: the faithful, unhappy lover, the lovely, unhappy bride, the mother keeping them asunder who, though stern, was herself unhappy, and the craven bridegroom who--she hoped it, anyway!--was unhappy also.
In all this unhappiness, though she didn"t suspect it, Missy revelled--a peculiar kind of melancholy tuned to the golden day. She detected a subtle restlessness in the shimmering leaves about her; the scent of the June roses caught at something elusively sad in her. Without knowing why, her eyes filled with tears.
She drew the writing-pad to her; conjured the vision of nice Doc and of Miss Princess, and, immersed in a sea of feeling, sought for words and rhyme:
O, young Doctor Al is the pride of the West, Than big flashy autos his Ford is the best; Ah! courtly that lover and faithful and true. And fair, wondrous fair, the maiden was, too. But O--dire the day! when from Cleveland afar--
A long pause here: "car," "scar," "jar,"--all tried and discarded.
Finally sense, rhyme and meter were attuned:
--afar, A dastard she met, their sweet idyl to mar.
He won her away with his glitter and plume And citified ways, while the lover did fume. O, fair dawned the Wedding Day, pink in the East, And folk from all quarters did come for the feast; Gay banners from turrets--
"Missy!"
The poet, head bent, absorbed in creation, did not hear.
"Missy! Where are you? Me-lis-sa!"
This time the voice cleaved into the mood of inspiration. With a sigh Missy put the pad and pencil in the Anthology, laid the whole on the bench, and obediently went to mind the Baby. But, as she wheeled the perambulator up and down the front walk, her mind liltingly repeated the words she had written, and she stepped along in time to the rhythm.
It was a fine rhythm. And, as soon as she was relieved from duty, she rushed back to the temporary shrine of the Muse. The words, now, flowed much more easily than at the beginning--one of the first lessons learned by all creative artists.
Gay banners from turrets streamed out in the air And all Maple, Avenue turned out for the pair. Ah! beauteous was she, that white-satin young bride, But sorrow had reddened her deep purple eyes. Each clatter of hoofs from the courtyard below Did summon the blood swift to ebb and then flow; For the gem on her finger, the flower in her hair, Bound not her sad heart to that Cleveland man there.