Stellara

“ Even when he and Stellamaris were alone together, looking at the moonlit sea from the terrace outside the drawing-room windows, or in the sunshine of the sweet cliff garden, the cloud did not lift from his brow. Unless they talked of Unity,—and it relieved his heart to do so, and Stellamaris loved to listen to the brave little chronicles of her life,—long silences marked their intercourse. To get back to the old plane was impossible. They could find no new one on which to meet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only an hour before the time for her guests to arrive Mrs. Sinclair called Stella to her luxurious dressing-room and, passing her arm around the young girl's form, said fondly: "Stella dear, look your best to-night. You know we expect a large contingent of lords and baronets, and nothing fills my old heart with more exquisite pleasure than to witness the admiration which they bestow upon my beautiful daughter."
Stella laughed softly, but no blush of foolish vanity rose in her face at her foster-mother's tender words. ”

“ In the tiny garden great shadows fell. The dusk gathered and Hillyard and Stella Croyle sat without a word in the darkening room. But Stella had lost her pride of carriage. On the mantelpiece the clock struck the hour—six little tinkling silvery strokes. At that moment a guard was blowing his whistle on a platform of Waterloo and a train beginning slowly to move.
"He will have missed his train," said Stella in an unhappy whisper. "He will be here later."
"My dear," replied Hillyard, and leaning forward he took and gently shook her hand. "Soldiers don't miss their trains." ”

“ Upon the countenance there was the perfection of ideal beauty. Loveliness, angelic, heavenly, was radiant upon the face, and that face was one well known to him, for Stella stood there, but Stella-glorified and immortal.
"Wonderful! Miraculous!" burst from his lips. "It is the creation of a god. It is not the work of man! Who is he? Where is he? The genius who formed this? How could it happen that it should be Stella, my daughter? Who is the artist?"
"He is here in the next apartment," said the duke, and going to the door he spoke to some one. He returned, leading the artist. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Here Stella's voice died away as a specially vindictive gust swept by their sheltered nook, and Sir Frederic, after pressing a tender kiss upon her lips, sprang to his feet and wrapping her closer in his ample rug, almost carried her across the deck and down to the comfortable stateroom, then leaving her with Mrs. Sinclair, he climbed the stairs once more, and walked back and forth across the slippery planks, trying to calm, if possible, the tumult of indignation and sorrow, that Stella's recital aroused within his breast. ”

“ Stella look'd on, and from her heavenly face
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.
IV. In martial sports I had my cunning tried,
And yet to break more staves did me address;
While with the people's shouts, I must confess,
Youth, luck, and praise, even fill'd my veins with pride.
When Cupid, having me (his slave) descried
In Mars's livery, prancing in the press,
'What now, Sir Fool,' said he, 'I would no less.
Look here, I say.' I look'd, and Stella spied,
Who hard by made a window send forth light. ”

“ He laughed softly, his cheek laid to hers. "Ah, Stella!" he said. "What a queen you have been to-night! I have been watching you with the rest of the world, and I shouldn't mind laying pretty heavy odds that there isn't a single man among 'em that doesn't envy me."
Stella drew a deep breath as if she laboured against some oppression. "It's nice to be envied, isn't it?" she said. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They can't go on for ever and—oh, my God! there are rabbit-holes on the Downs." And his voice rose to a shout: "Stella! Stella!"
But she never looked over her shoulder. She fled the more desperately, shamed through and through! Along the high ridge, between the bushes and the beech-trees, their shadows flitted over the turf, to a jingle of bits and the thunder of hoofs. Duncton Beacon rose far behind them; they had crossed the road and Charlton forest was slipping past like dark water before the mad race came to an end. Stella became aware that escape was impossible. ”

“ Beside the pure, fresh vision of Stella he sees leaning over a black-haired, vagabond-looking man at the roulette-table at Baden-Baden the hectic ruin of a woman who has been magnificently beautiful, a woman with painted cheeks and with deep lines about her eyes and mouth,--otherwise the very image of Stella. ”

“ There, in the same little boudoir where he had lately been with the Princess Oblonsky, Stella is cowering on a divan in the darkest corner, her face hidden in her hands, her whole frame convulsed with sobs.
"Baroness Stella!" he says, advancing. She does not hear him. "Stella!" he says, more loudly, laying his hand on her arm. She starts, drops her hands in her lap, and gazes at him with such terrible despair in her eyes that for an instant he trembles for her reason. He forgets everything,--all that has been tormenting him; his soul is filled only with anxiety for her. ”

“ At five o'clock that afternoon, when Stella, with a hundred or so other women, emerged from the big black building through the little opening at the bottom (like the opening cut at the bottom of a big black hogshead; every little while a thin dark stream of humanity would pour out of the building; it housed over a hundred small factories) , the air was clear and crisp and cold. Stella stepped out of the little stream, once on the sidewalk, stood still, and gazed straight up. ”

“ This was Stella's friend, black-eyed Prince Zino Capito. All Venice was then talking of the Prince's adoration of the beautiful Livonian.
"What is it about her that makes every man fall in love with her?" Stella asks herself. And a sudden pang of something like envy assails her innocent heart. Ah, she would like just one taste of the wondrous poison of which all the poets sing. "Will any one ever be in love with me?" she asks herself. "Ah, it must be delicious,--delicious as music and the fragrance of flowers in spring ”

“ I know every turn of his nature—am I not of the same flesh and blood? Stella, he is not like other men—quick to change and forget. He will never bend and turn as other men. Stella, you will break his heart!"
Stella turned on her like some tortured animal driven to bay.
"Do I not know it! Is it not this knowledge that is breaking my heart—that has already broken it?" she retorted wildly. "Do you think I am sorrowing for myself alone? Do you think me so mean, so selfish? Listen, Lady Lilian, if—if this separation were to bring him happiness I could have borne it with a smile. ”

“ When the situation at last becomes clear, he perceives a very handsome old lady in a close black travelling-hat, a pair of blue spectacles shielding her eyes from the dust, and wearing a dust-cloak which may once have been black, while beside her--he adjusts his eye-glass in his eye--assuredly Stella does not remind him of the 'hysterical tree-frog' of frightful memory, but of some one else, for the life of him he cannot remember whom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At first Stella sang quite low, as though she wished to repress her powers. Now, as it happened, at Monksland the choir was feeble, but inoffensive; whereas the organ was a good, if a worn and neglected instrument, suited to the great but sparsely peopled church, and the organist, a man who had music in his soul. Low as she was singing, he caught the sound of Stella’s voice, and knew at once that before him was a woman who in a supreme degree possessed the divinest gift, perhaps, with which Nature can crown her sex, the power and gift of song. ”

“ When trembling voice brings foorth, that I do Stella love.
When nature made her chiefe worke, Stella’s eyes,
In collour blacke, why wrapt she beames so bright?
Would she in beamy blacke like Painter wise,
Frame daintiest lustre mixte of shades of light?
Or did she els that sober hewe devise,
In object best, to strength and knitt our sighte
Least if no vaile these brave gleames did disguise,
They Sun-like should more dazell than delight. ”

“ A little way apart, shadowed by his name in death no less than in life, lies Stella, the pale, dark-haired child whose wide eyes filled with love as they followed the poor and lonely scholar through stately Shene or the prim rococo epicureanism of Moor Park. She sleeps as she lived, at her master's feet. ”

“ Stella had murdered the baron, and the bloody figure was his ghost. Disappointed and humbled, Stella resolved to consult a noted witch, of whom he had heard much. Arriving at her cottage, he handed her a purse of gold, and promised her a greater reward if she would send to the lower world the spirit that disturbed [Pg 303] him. The old hag complied, received the money, counted it, spat on it, put it into a weasel-skin purse, and then into her pocket. With much ceremony she put a powder into the fire, which caused a blue flame to arise. ”

“ Tell me, Stella, is it because I am nothing to you, and you do not like to tell me so? Ah! better the truth at once, hard as it may be to bear, than suspense. Tell me, Stella."
"It—it—is not that," she says, with drooping head.
"What is it, then?" he whispers, and he bends his head to catch [89] her faintly whispered words, so that his lips almost touch her face.
From the drawing-room comes the sound of some one playing; it recalls all the grandeur of the scene, all the high mightiness of the house to which he belongs—of which he is so nearly the head, and it gives her strength. ”

“ Stella looked down at him, and a faint color stole into her cheeks.
"It is I who should beg pardon; I am not frightened, but your horse was—and by me?"
He half glanced at the horse standing quiet enough now, with its bridle over his arm.
"He is an idiot!" he said, quickly; "an obstinate idiot, and incapable of fear. It was mere pretense."
"For which you punished him," said Stella, with a quick smile.
He looked up at her, and slowly there came into his eyes and his lips that smile of which Mr. Etheridge had spoken, and which Stella had foreseen.
"You are afraid I am going to whip him again?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ You like it, Stella, I hope?" and he turned to Stella with a softened smile.
Stella was leaning on the old man's arm, looking out to sea, with a far-away expression in her dark eyes.
"Yes," she said, quietly; "I like it."
"Stella likes any place that is far from the madding crowd," remarked Mr. Etheridge, gazing at her affectionately. "You don't appear to have got back your roses yet, my child, however."
"I am quite well," she said, not so wearily as indifferently. "I am always well. It is Frank who is ill, you know, uncle." ”