Stella Maris

“ Stella rose, and, clasping hands to her bosom, went to him.
“Belovedest, for Christ's sake, what is the end of all this?”
He halted and took her hands.
“Not shadows, not lies. Once I thought—indeed, I knew—you loved me. That was when you were an ignorant child. You loved some one you thought was me. Now your eyes are opened. You have passed through flames. Knowledge has come to you. You see me as I am, and your love has gone. I know, too, what I am. Unity has taught me. You can't—you don't love me, Stella. ”

“ They are beyond all question grown up. But what wider experience of life had Stellamaris gained in the four years between the ages of sixteen and twenty? What fresh facts of existence had been presented to her for observation and correlation? What data had she for that deduction of a philosophy which marks the adult? Neither harm nor spell nor charm had come the lovely lady any nearer during the last four years than during those of her childhood. The Unwritten Law had prevailed as strong as ever. The routine of the sea-chamber had remained unchanged. ”

“ Outside Stella's door the wicked must cast their evil thoughts, the gloomy shed their cloak of cloud, and the wretched unpack their burden of suffering. Whether it was for the ultimate welfare of Stellamaris to live in this land of illusion is another matter.
“Save her from knowledge of pain and from suspicion of evil,” John Risca would cry, when discussing the matter. “Let us make sure of one perfect flower in this poisonous fungus garden of a world.”
“Great High Belovedest,” Stellamaris would say when they were alone together, “what about the palace to-day?” ”

“ Yet when Sir Oliver and Julia both assured him that Stella never doubted his luxurious happiness, and that the ordering of the picture was due to no subtle suggestion, he had to believe them.
“You always make the mistake, John, of thinking Stellamaris mortal,” said Herold, at the supper-table, for, on receipt of the young men's telegram, the Blounts had deferred their dinner to the later hour of supper. “You are utterly wrong,” said he. “How can she be mortal when she talks all day to winds and clouds and the sea-children in their cups of foam? She's as elemental as Ariel. ”

“ Meanwhile Stella put on a smiling face to the world,—for, after all, the world smiled on her,—and she was gentle with Sir Oliver and Lady Blount. She mingled in such social life as the neighbourhood afforded—a luncheon party, a garden party, where young men fell at her feet in polite adoration, and young women put their arms round her waist and talked to her of hats. ”

“ Although Stella had been in London for a day or two, this was the first time that John had seen her since the riotous June day when he had waved farewell to the train carrying her back to Southcliff. He had gone to the front gate to meet her in his ill-fitting, outgrown frock-coat, sticking-plaster still hiding the wounds on his scalp, and his heavy face white and drawn. She, in her black dress, looked a startling lily enveloped by night; her great eyes had softened from diamond into starshine. Behind her came the old people, attendant ghosts. John folded her hand in his. ”

“ A day was bright because Miss Stella had requested the sun to shine. Unity knew all this, and when John went out, her heart began to flutter with a wild hope. She laid her sewing in her lap and pictured the scene: the maid would open the door. “Unity, Miss Stella desires to see you.” The fairy-books said that you kissed a princess's hand. I think this must have been Unity Blake's first day-dream. It was a sign of a spirit's emancipation.
The days passed, however, without the dream coming true. But she was very humble. Why should Miss Stella want to see any one so ugly and unimportant? ”

“ He who does not recognize them has no sense of values.
The conjugal wrangle having been checked, the meal proceeded gaily enough. Stella spoke of the play and praised Herold's acting, but with curious shyness avoided discussion of the theme. Herold noticed her adroit detours. He also noticed, with a sensitive man's pain, many other little things indicative of the awakening of Stellamaris. Once he saw her lay her hand impulsively on John's, as she had been wont to do since her childhood, and draw it quickly away, while a flush, like a rose-edged fairy cloud, came and went in her cheek. ”

“ We 're used to these things, dear; we 're hardened—”
“If I have got to live in the world, dear Excellency,” said Stella, feeling that there were some sort of flood-gates between the tumultuous flow of her being and the still waters of pity in which for the moment her consciousness acted, “it seems that I must get used to it, like every one else.”
“But what shall we do, darling?” cried Lady Blount, clinging pathetically to the child of sea foam, from whom all knowledge of the perilous world had been hidden. ”

“ He obeyed; but his claw caught in the lace, and away it ripped from the shoulder.
“Oh, darling, you 've ruined my beautiful jacket!”
Constable wagged his tail, and came up to be petted. A man would have confounded himself in apologies, and made matters worse. In such a circumstance the way of the dog may be recommended.
Stella rang the bell. The maid entered. Her Serene High-and-Mightiness the nurse was summoned. Dismay reigned in the sea-chamber. The dressing and undressing of Stellamaris was a tragic matter. ”

“ Which shows how any woman may be made to eat her words just by a little kindness.
So the talk went back to Stella and her ways and her oddities, and the question of faith in Pontius Pilate being necessary for salvation was forgotten. A maid, Stella's own maid, came in with a message. Miss Stella's compliments, and were Mr. Risca and Mr. Herold having a good supper? She herself was about to drink her egg beaten up in sherry, and would be glad if the gentlemen would take a glass of wine with her. ”

“ There was a class of beings in the world who did all kinds of ferocious, criminal, cruel, mean, and vulgar things; but they were a class apart. In the world in which she herself and Stella and John and Walter dwelt all was beauty and refinement. Stella dried her eyes. At one-and-twenty one cannot weep forever. She allowed herself to be half persuaded of the truth of her Aunt Julia's sophistries. But the little, impish devil who stage-manages the comedies of life arranged a day or two afterward a sardonic situation. ”

“ They are the dregs of our civilization. We could n't possibly keep them all in luxury, could we? Now, don't be distressed, dear,” she added, bending down and kissing the girl's cheek.
“I 'll go and have a word with the woman. I 'll treat her quite generously, for your sake, you may be assured.”
She smiled, and went out of the room, leaving Stella crushed beneath an avalanche of knowledge. Filthy, starving shreds of humanity were common objects in the beautiful world—so common as to arouse little or no compassion in the hearts of kind women like the maid Mary and her Aunt Julia. ”

“ She had once done that.
“You 'd make your fortune as a tragedy queen. Why don't you ask Mr. Herold to get you on the stage? Sit down again, darling, and don't be a little fool. I've got lots more to tell you.”
“I prefer to stand,” said Stella.
“It does n't matter to me whether you stand or sit, my precious pet,” said Mrs. Risca. “I only want to tell you all about your dearly beloved John. Oh, he 's a daisy! They 'll tell you all sorts of things about me—about me and Unity—”
“Unity?” cried Stella, taken off her guard. ”

“ Stella hid her face against the kind bosom and sobbed.
“Auntie dear, I'm frightened, so frightened!”
“Of what, darling?”
“Of ugliness and wickedness and horror.”
“Nothing of that, dear, can ever come our way. It does n't come the way of decent folk. People like us don't have anything to do with that side of life.”
Stella still sobbed. The words brought no conviction. Lady Blount continued her unenlightened consolation. Let the precious ostrich stick her head in a bush, and that which she could not see could by no chance happen. ”

“ We have got to look at things as they are, and laugh sometimes.”
“I feel,” said he, “as though I could never laugh again.”
“Yet Unity meant to make you happy and not miserable,” said Stella.
“I know,” said he, “and that's the devil of it.”
He paused for a moment, his hands thrust deep in his trousers' pockets, and his heel on the fender. At last he said: “It would be the best thing in the world for the dear old lady. And God knows it will be good for me. So if you 'll have us for a week or two, we 'll be glad to get away from here.”
“I 'll ask Miss Lindon when she comes down.” ”

“ After providing herself with a few possible candidates for the marriage, the enterprising Stella spent long laborious hours making the yard surrounding the red cottage attractive, with morning-glory vines and wild-cucumber; and built herself a little temple that was very becoming to her type of beauty; and when the young men from the technical school came, in their clean collars, and dark suits, with beautiful creases down the front legs of their trousers, to call on Miss Martin, she usually chanced to be sitting in her little shrine. ”

“ Speaking of the midnight and the music, sometimes I go over to the hotel to tread a measure with Stella O'Cleave, able for a moment to forget Stella's father in the opulent beauty of Stella herself. Her mother is what is called a fine figure of a woman, and so will Stella be some day. Sometimes, when we have left the dance floor to sit along the rail where the yellow cars will line up next morning to sweep Stella away within a day after she and her putties have come into my young life, I may say that I find Stella O'Cleave not difficult to look upon. ”

“ Sharply Stella broke in upon her. "Don't think it! You don't know me in the least. You—you have far more beauty of soul than I have, or can ever hope to have now."
Mrs. Ralston shook her head.
"But it is so," Stella insisted. "I—What am I?" A tremor of passion crept unawares into her low voice. "I am a woman who has been denied everything. I have been cast out like Eve, but without Eve's compensations. If I had been given a child to love, I might have had hope. But now I have none—I have none. I am hard and bitter,—old before my time, and I shall never now be anything else."
"Oh, darling, no!" ”

“ He imagined her riding in the Row beside him, the “mad viscount” and his lovely bride, every man there envying him his newly found treasure. Not only would she outshine every woman there in beauty, but also in the management of her horse. He pictured his friends and acquaintances clamoring for an introduction, and Stella talking to them with her sweet seriousness and total absence of coquetry and affectation. He longed, like any romantic schoolboy, for her love, which he set himself with all his heart and all his intellect to win. ”

“ Of what importance was money to a woman who was willing to pay for her child's happiness with the child's love if it menaced that happiness? And communication, even secret communication, would menace it. It was far safer that she, Helen herself, should remain in doubt as to Stella's hiding-place. It was necessary to be so very honest with Laurel. Helen, too, must not know but that Stella was beyond call in some far country. She mustn't allow herself even to look for the shadow again. She mustn't tell any one about it. Oh, Stella should not be defeated, if Helen could help it. ”

“ Laurel had never glowed about a woman before. Stella didn't know what to make of it. It perplexed her. It hurt her. It hurt her more than the possibility that Stephen might be glowing about the same woman. Who was she, anyway—this tall mysterious siren, who was bewitching Lollie with her youth and beauty and prosperity, buying the kiddie's affection, by bestowing luxuries and attentions upon her in a single week which Stella would give her eyeteeth to be able to give Laurel in a lifetime. ”

“ Twice Stella had risen and lit the light to see what time it was, had stopped a moment by the side of the bed, and gazed down upon Laurel.
"Like a lovely Sleeping Beauty, she is. Oh, my God, she can't be a stenographer!" It would be like planting an orchid between the cobblestones at the corner of Washington and Winter Streets to stick Laurel in front of a typewriter, inside of one of the big grimy office-buildings downtown. She'd get all dust and dirt and trampled and spoiled in no time. She mustn't be sacrificed like that! Why, New York would go simply crazy about Lollie. ”

“ Experience had taught Stella that a big buzzing fly is as ineffective in breaking through a plate-glass barrier.
"Well," gloomily, "what are you going to do with yourself, then? You can't hang around a five-roomed apartment all your life, can you, reading two library books a week, and practicing on a piano two hours a day?" (Laurel had not taken any "Courses" this winter.) "What are you going to do to amuse yourself, I'd like to know?"
"I've got a plan," nodded Laurel, smiling.
"Humph."
"I must have something to do, of course. Busy people are always the happiest. I'm going to be very busy. ”

“ I do not think anything in the world would ruffle her. I think if she were on board a ship that was going down inch by inch, and she knew that she was within, say, five minutes of death, she would not flinch, or drop for a moment the smile which usually rests upon her lips. That is her charm, Stella—the perfect ease and perfect grace which spring from a consciousness of her power. ”

“ The first time Stephen went to see Stella at the red cottage her vines were profuse with leaf and blossom. She had trained the docile vines to run all over the picket fence that surrounded the little house, and had shrouded the back porch with them; had shrouded with them, too, a latticed summer-house which stood in the side yard. Stella had copied the summer-house, with much the same genius with which she copied hats or dresses, from a summer-house she had seen in a garden in Milhampton across the river. Stella's summer-house was made of plasterer's laths painted white, and criss-crossed. ”