SHUT AND BARRED.
The destiny that lay before her was a little harder than even she knew,
when she went into the hall that night, throwing off the damp cloak that
she had worn, and mechanically walking to the fire in the library to
warm herself, after her half-hour in the chilly night air. She thought
she knew how dull and hateful her life was to be, how lonely, how
uneventful. She was still young--twenty-nine is young when you are
twenty-nine, not, of course, when you are seventeen. She had just found
out what it is, to have life full and intense in emotion and interest,
and now she was turned back into the old path that had seemed good
enough before, when she did not know any better one. But still, with
resolute courage, she said to herself, her mother, and duty, and study,
and health, and money, might do something for her yet, and, after a year
or two of bitterness, restore her to content and usefulness.
These things she said to herself, not on that first night of pain, but
the next day, when she walked past the shut-up house, and wondered,
under the cold gray sky, at the strength of the emotion that had filled
her as she had watched, through the darkness, the glimmer of the cigar
spark by the gate. Thank heaven, she hadn't spoken! She knew just as
well now what she had lost, as then, but daylight, and east wind, level
values inevitably. It was all worth less--living and dying, love and
loneliness. She could bear what she had chosen, she hadn't any doubt.
How gloomy the day was! Raw and chill, and yet not cold enough to brace
the nerves. The gate stood ajar. Missy pushed through it, and walked
down the path. Some straw littered the piazza steps; an empty paper box
lay on the grass. The windows were all closed. Only the dog, still
chained to his kennel, howled her a dismal welcome. He was to go,
probably, to some new home that day. Well, Missy thought bitterly, he
will at least have novelty to divert him.
She didn't go on the piazza; she remembered, with a sense of shame, the
last time she had crossed that threshold, saying it should be the last
time. What a tempest of jealousy and anger had been in her heart! Oh,
the folly of it (not to say the sin of it). How she had been conquered
by those two women (not to say the enemy of souls). She could see it all
so clearly now. Every word and look and gesture of Mr. Andrews took a
different meaning, now she was in her senses. That dinner had been his
last hope, his last attempt to conciliate her. She had repulsed him more
sharply than ever that night, stung as she was by the insults of her two
rivals. After that, he had made his plans to go away and end the matter.
Miss Flora might thank her for "dear Europe," this time.
But poor little Jay, what had he to thank her for? Ah! that gave her
heart a pinch to think of. Poor little Jay might set down as the sum of
his gratitude to her, a miserable youth, a mercenary rule at home,
deceit and worldliness, low aims, and selfishness, that would drive him
shelterless into the world to find his pleasure there. For Missy never
doubted that Flora would gain her end. She knew Mr. Andrews was not
clever enough to stand out very long. "He's just the sort of man," she
said to herself, "to be married by somebody who is persistent. He
doesn't know women well enough to stand out against them. He will give
in for the children's sake, he won't care for his own. And he will spend
a life of homeless wretchedness, silent and stolid, protecting the woman
who is cheating him, laboring for the children who will disappoint him.
Ah! my little Jay, forgive me," she cried, stooping and picking up a
broken whip of his that lay in the grass beside the path.
Everybody makes mistakes, but it isn't often given to any one to make
such a wholesale one as this. We must be charitable to Missy if she was
bitter and gloomy that dark morning. She wandered about the paths for a
little while longer, then, picking a few artemesias that grew close up
by the house, she turned to go away. At the gate she met a boy with a
yellow envelope in his hand. He was just going to her house, he
explained, presenting the envelope. It was a telegram, and Missy opened
it hastily.
"It is all right," she said, giving him the money, and putting the paper
in her pocket. We are apt to be very selfish when we are miserable, and
Missy's first thought on reading the message was a selfish one. The
message was from her brother. He had just landed, and would be at home
that evening. She did not think of the joy it would be to her mother, of
the joy it might have been to her; she only thought, "Thank Heaven, this
will give me something else to think of for a little while." She was
quite bent upon curing herself, even at this early date; but with the
supreme selfishness of great disappointment, she thought of nothing but
as it influenced her trouble.