Stasy

“ Blanche looked at her sister doubtfully.
“Perhaps she has, but perhaps not,” she replied. “It isn’t always those lucky people who are the happiest. But, Stasy, I do wish you wouldn’t be so lugubrious: the air of London doesn’t seem to suit you.”
“I am not lugubri— what a dreadful word!—I am quite cheerful to-day. It is so interesting to be going to choose our new house. Mamma, shall we have to buy a lot of furniture, or will there be enough of what we had at home?”
“My dear Stasy—of course not. What a baby you are! ”

“ The only thing I really care about is a little good companionship for Stasy.”
“She must not make friends with any girls beneath her—as to that I am determined,” said Mrs Derwent.
“Far better have none. Not that anything could make her common, but it would be bad for her to feel herself the superior; and I can picture her queening it over others, and then making fun of them and their homes and ways. She has such a sense of the ridiculous. No; Stasy needs to be with those she can look up to. I am sure, Blanche, it is better not to think of her going to that day-school at Blissmore.” ”

“ She was utterly exhausted for the moment.
“Mamma dear,” said Stasy, “it is impossible to take it all in at once; we must get used to it gradually. The first thing to attend to just now is you. You mustn’t make yourself ill about it, mamma.”
Blanche glanced at Stasy admiringly.
“Yes,” she said, “that is the first thing to care about. I am going down-stairs to see if tea is ready. Will you come down, mamma, or shall I bring you a cup up here?”
“I will come down,” said Mrs Derwent, adding to herself, in a voice which she tried to make firm: “I must begin to get used to it at once.” ”

“ Jack Leskjewitsch always used to declare that Stasy's shoulders were shaped like a champagne-bottle. Stella wonders whether anywhere in the world can be found a pair of more sloping shoulders than those which that fur-trimmed circular fails to conceal. Both ladies devote their entire attention for a time to their supper ”

“ Lady Hebe listened with great interest. “And as it is,” she repeated, “do you not like it?”
“It is so very dull,” said Stasy lugubriously. “At least, I shouldn’t find it dull if I might amuse myself in ways mamma and Blanche would not like.”
Hebe looked rather startled, but Stasy was too engrossed with her own woes to notice it. “I mean,” she continued, “that there are some girls at the school I go to for classes, who are really nice, and there are lots who are very amusing. But mamma and Blanchie don’t want me to make friends with them, because, you see—well, they are not exactly refined.” ”

“ Stasy agreed. “People are very like sheep; still, Blanche, the Enneslies are very nice girls. You are not going to advise mamma not to let me go to see them, when they asked me so very kindly, and not at all in a patronising way. ”

“ They’ll all be going up to London directly, I suppose, for the season. They don’t want us, or care about quiet, not very rich, people like us. England isn’t a bit like what I thought it would be.”
“We can’t quite judge yet,” said Blanche. “And—I am sure you are too sweeping, Stasy. Mamma may have been too sanguine, and have seen things too much through rose-coloured spectacles, but she cannot be altogether mistaken in her pleasant remembrances of her old friends—the ‘best’ people—among whom she lived.”
“Would you give Lady Harriot Dunstan as a specimen?” said Stasy snappishly. ”

“ But I don’t think she will try that sort of thing again, with me, at least.”
“How did the girls take what you said?” her sister inquired quietly.
Stasy seemed a little uncomfortable.
“Oh well, you know, it wasn’t pleasant for them either. The dark one—she’s much cleverer and quicker than the pretty, stupid, fair one—the dark one looked very grave, and I think she got a very little red.”
“Poor girl!” said Blanche—and something in her tone made Stasy wince—“I daresay she did. They did not deserve to be punished, that I can see.” ”

“ But I think I should mind for Stasy more than for myself. She is naturally more dependent on outside life than I. She does feel it very dull and lonely here, and I wish she had some companions.” Hebe looked and felt full of sympathy.
“I hope your life here will brighten by degrees,” she said. “Don’t you think your sister would do something to help us, too? She seems so clever.”
“Yes, she is very quick, and she can be very amusing,” said Blanche. “We should both be glad to do anything we can. But have you not a good many helpers already? ”

“ A cold shiver of dread thrills Stella from head to foot. The Baroness looks up from her pamphlet and exclaims, "I really must read you this, Stella. I do not understand how this brochure did not attract more notice. To be sure, when one lives so entirely withdrawn from all intercourse with the literary world, and has no connection at all with the journals, one may expect----"
Stasy turns around. "My dear Baroness!" she exclaims, with effusion. "And you too, Stella! What a delightful surprise! I must introduce you: Baroness Meineck and her daughter,--Princess Oblonsky." ”

“ With the extreme graciousness which all great ladies whose social position is partly compromised testify towards their thoroughly respectable sisters, the Princess rises and offers her hand to both Stella and her mother. The Baroness smiles absently; Stella does not smile, and barely touches with her finger-tips the hand extended to her. Meanwhile, Stasy has recognized in Fräulein Fuhrwesen an old acquaintance from Zalow. ”

“ And now I think tea must be ready in the drawing-room, if you’ll be so good as to step that way.”
“But you are going to have tea with us,” said Stasy. “It would be no fun if you didn’t. And we have to settle the day for our first lesson; and you’ve never been out to see our house yet, Miss Halliday. Mamma sent a special message about that.”
“What a good little soul she is!” said Blanche, as Stasy and she were walking home together.
“Yes, isn’t she?” said Stasy. “Blanche,” she went on, thoughtfully, after a moment’s pause, “do you ever think how nice it would be to be really very rich? ”

“ Blanche replied; “but in London it’s different. Miss Milwards cousin probably has her own friends and relations who know her and back her up. It wouldn’t be the same thing at all in a little country town, and in a neighbourhood where people have not been too kind to us as it is. And living ‘on the premises,’ as people say—oh no, it would be quite different.”
Stasy’s face fell. ”

“ Mamma engaged her because she thought that her ugliness would put a stop to love-making----" Stella breaks the thread of her discourse to laugh gently; her laugh is like the ripple of a brook. "But real talent defies all obstacles. Mamma's experiment made her richer by one sad experience: she knows now that not even a large hump can make its possessor impervious to Cupid's arrows."
The captain laughs. Stasy's disapprobation has reached its climax; she twitches impatiently at the worsted she is winding from Rohritz's hands. ”

“ And she gave Stasy a rapid summary of their interview with Mr Mapleson.
“That’s all right,” said Stasy. “Come in: I have tea all ready for you in the library. I have some news for you; at least, something to tell you—two things. In the first place,” she went on, as she began pouring out tea, “I’ve had a visitor to-day. Nobody very exciting, but it may be a good thing. My visitor was Adela Bracy.”
“What did she come about?” said Blanche. “I hope they’re not beginning to think they may—well, take freedoms with us, just because we’ve lost our money.”
Blanche’s tone was a trifle bitter. ”

“ It’s a millinery class for the girls I’m thinking of. It would be such a surprise to Lady Hebe when she comes back, to see them with neat, pretty hats. It is just the time they’re getting their summer ones, and they do wear such awful things.”
“And I daresay they pay a lot for them, too,” said Stasy.
“No doubt they do,” said Blanche; “and I don’t suppose one of them has the slightest idea of trimming anything neatly.”
Stasy was silent for a moment; then she said, with a little hesitation: “You’re very complimentary about my taste, Blanchie. ”

“ Afterwards, Blanche felt glad that it had been so. There was a satisfaction in looking back upon this little space of time as bright and cheerful.
“I really think,” said Stasy one day, when she and Blanche were walking back together from Blissmore, “that we are getting acclimatised at last, Blanchie, or rather I should say, I am, for I’m sure you’ve never been anything but contented. I can look forward now to going on living here with mamma and you for—oh! for ever so long, even if nothing more exciting comes into our lives.” ”

“ I cannot understand you quite, Blanchie.”
“I don’t know that I quite understand myself,” Blanche replied. “It is more an instinct. I suppose I dread mamma’s old home, because she would go there with more expectation. It will be curious, Stasy, very curious, to find ourselves really in England. There cannot be many English girls who have reached our age without having even seen their own country.”
“And to have been so near it all these years,” said Stasy, “Oh, it is too delightful to think we are really going to live in England—dear, dear England! Of course I shall always love France ”

“ We have a mass of things to be grateful for and happy about, and why should we worry about things that, through no fault of ours, don’t come in our way.”
“Some of them may come in our way,” said Stasy, whoso versatile spirits had already gone up again. “I shouldn’t wonder if that nice, ugly Miss Milward were to call on us, and ask us to go to see her.—Oh Blanchie, there’s Flopper rushing about over the flower-beds; he really must be tied up, till he sobers down a little.”
“Run out and tie him up, then,” said Blanche, and off Stasy set. ”

“ That is so dull.”
“I suppose,” said Blanche thoughtfully again, “that things to do, things that you feel you could do better than any one else could do them, always do turn up sooner or later if one really wants to use one’s life well.”
“Oh,” said Stasy, with a touch of impatience. “I don’t look at things in such a grand way as you do, Blanchie. I want to get some fun out of life, and, after all, I’m not difficult to please. My spirits have gone up ever so high, just with the idea of learning millinery and teaching the girls, and perhaps helping good little Miss Halliday. ”

“ Is not that Stella? He leans out of the carriage window, but it is dark, and she is closely veiled. And yet he could swear that it is she. She vanishes in the Hôtel ----, in the house where he called upon Zino Capito this very day.
For one brief moment all the evil that Stasy said of Stella confuses his brain; then he compresses his lips: he cannot believe evil of her. A malicious chance has maligned her. She must have a double in Paris.
CHAPTER XXXVI. LOST AGAIN.
How Stella has looked forward to this ball! ”

“ We are both very ignorant of much English literature, though, thanks to papa’s library and grandfather’s advice, I think we know some of the older authors better than some English girls do. I wonder what sort of teaching we can get at Blissmore; we are rather too old for a governess.”
“Oh dear, yes. Of course we can’t have a governess,” said Stasy. “We must go to cours—‘classes,’ or whatever they are called. I suppose there is something of the kind at Blissmore.”
“I don’t know that there is. I don’t know what will be done about Herty,” said Blanche. ”

“ How can you attach any importance to what she says?"
"No matter what Stasy says. Your conduct is extraordinary."
"But, mother, mother----"
"What have you to do with tête-à-têtes with young men?" the Baroness asks, with dramatic effect, the same Baroness who sent her child to a singing-teacher three times a week without an escort. "It is improper,--very improper. What must Rohritz think of you? You will come to be like your aunt Eugenie!"
CHAPTER X. FREDDY'S BIRTHDAY.
It is not to be denied that Stella's behaviour is always unconventional and sometimes very thoughtless. ”

“ Stasy asks under her breath.
Baron Rohritz makes no reply: perhaps such talk is to his taste.
Meanwhile, Stella goes on in the same satirical tone: "As soon as some one of these æsthetic proprietors has come to a decision as to where the piano is to stand, we shall certainly be invited to admire the new furniture. Then mamma will look up from her books and say, 'I have no time; but if you want to go, pray do as you please.' Mamma never cares what I do or where I go." Stella's soft voice trembles; she shakes her head, passes her hand over her eyes, and runs on: "Even the walks are spoiled ”

“ That no doubt was the difference for Staza expressed in the most general terms. But otherwise she here entered into a new world, and still it appeared to her as though it was a world akin to the one she knew before. True, when she and Frank came out of the graves or from the graves themselves into the fields, gaiety, potent even to excess and delight seized upon her spirits, her soul soared aloft with the very skylarks, and fluttered into the blue of heaven and the clear transparent ether. ”

“ Tom Stacy, of the Manhattan Club, half dozing on the veranda of his establishment, was rejoiced to see his old friend Martin Wall crossing the pavement toward him.
"Well, Martin—" he began. And then a look of concern came into his face. "Good lord, man—what ails you?"
Mr. Wall sank like a wet rag to the steps.
"Tom," he said, "a terrible thing has just happened. I was left alone in Ostby and Blake's jewelry shop."
"Alone?" cried Mr. Stacy. "You—alone?" ”