Stella Dallas (1923, Houghton Mifflin)/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
1
It was only temporary relief he contemplated, then. It was his intention, when he first went to New York, to establish Stella somewhere, sometime, within commuting distance of his business. Not within too easy commuting distance, however. "In New York a man's business-life and his home-life," Mr. Palmer had once said to Stephen, avoiding his eyes as he did so, "can be made two distinct and separate affairs, which is difficult to accomplish in a place the size of Milhampton."
When Stephen first went to New York, he consulted several real-estate agents, and listened to many confusing arguments, about the desirability of this suburb over that, its commuting advantages, its unexcelled schools, its unusually "nice" set of young people. Stephen fully expected that Stella would join him in the spring in some suburb or other best suited to her peculiar susceptibilities. Or if not in the spring, in the summer. It would be unwise, he concluded, to take Laurel out of school until the end of the year. Laurel had just started in at Miss Fillibrown's in Milhampton, an excellent school for little girls. Stephen had no idea of leaving Stella permanently when he first went to New York.
But until he went to New York, Stephen had no idea what release from Stella would mean to him. He had no idea what possibilities for success, what resources for enjoyment, had been growing in the dark within him, unencouraged, all these years. He went out among people very little the first winter, but he was able to devote himself to work as never before. When he did seek recreation, the freedom to follow whatever whim or fancy his nature dictated was actually exhilarating.
Since October, when he first went to New York, and the New Year, Stephen spent three Sundays with Stella. Each one was an ordeal to him, and each one a more difficult ordeal than the one before. The long periods of absence tended to make him more sensitive to Stella's offenses, he supposed. It seemed to him as if she almost delighted in doing the sort of things he disliked over those week-ends; indulging in all the striking slang of the day; indulging in all the striking styles of the day (she knew how he disliked her in conspicuous clothes); carrying on long giggling conversations over the telephone with "one of the girls," gossiping, tale-bearing; carrying on long giggling flirtations over the telephone with one of her male admirers, going through a series of smiles and smirks, shrugs and arch expressions, as if the man himself were present to see her, ignoring Stephen behind his book at the other end of the room as if he were a plant or piece of furniture; dashing off for her riding-lesson at ten o'clock Sunday morning with Alfred Munn, while Stephen read the paper or went to church or took a walk by himself. Going back on the train after his third week-end with Stella, Stephen asked himself why he persisted in these self-inflicted periods of torture.
To what end? To what purpose? The idea of separation or divorce had always been distasteful to him, but some things were worse—a thousand times worse, after love had turned to contempt, and respect to scorn. Of course there was Laurel. But wasn't it better for Laurel not to grow up beneath the shadow of constant chafing and irritation? He could see Laurel. She could come to New York occasionally. He could have his child alone.
On a certain week-end in January, which Stephen forced himself to spend in Milhampton, he had found upon his arrival some cigarette ashes in a tray upstairs in the little sitting-room off Stella's bedroom. Stella didn't smoke. At that time few of the women in Milhampton smoked. Stephen didn't refer to the cigarette ashes to Stella. He was too listless, too desireless to care who had left the ashes there. He didn't doubt Stella's fidelity. Not then. It was just another offense in taste. She'd be sure to argue, to harangue, to acclaim in a tone, that would become loud and harsh, that she could see no difference between a man's smoking up-stairs and down. And the pity of it was she couldn't see the difference.
A month slipped by. Two months. Stephen wrote only the briefest notes to Stella and they were far between. Oh, how easy it was to drift out of the troubled waters! What a comfort and relief!
2
At first Stephen's periods of absence were a comfort and relief to Stella, too. It was simply wonderful, she told Effie McDavitt, to go about unhampered, when, where, how, and with whom she pleased, and have a little harmless fun in life, without being preached to for hours afterwards. It didn't seriously occur to Stella that Stephen's absences portended anything permanent. When Effie suggested such a possibility, she "pooh-poohed" the idea.
"Oh, goodness, no," she said. "It would just about kill Stephen if his domestic affairs got aired in the newspapers. I know Stephen. I never could even mention divorce, or separation, in our squabbles, even as a joke, without his sort of turning away, as if I'd said something indecent. No. We'll stick—you'll see."
In early March, Stella wrote to Stephen and asked him when he expected to come home next. She'd like to know so as to be there. There was a good deal going on and Rosamond was planning a house-party out at her country place, over some week-end soon.
Stella was unprepared for Stephen's reply. He told her that he had no definite plan as to when he was coming to Milhampton next. She was not to worry about expenses, the letter went on significantly. He would see that she and Laurel were always provided for. Had he known in January that he was not coming back again for so long a while, he would have told her. But after all they had already had their discussions.
"Isn't that the coolest?" Stella exclaimed to Effie. She made frequent trips across the river to Effie's tenement now. She always made frequent trips across the river to Effie's tenement when she had "something on her mind."
"You'd think we'd had a row or something, the last time he was here, but we didn't. In fact, it seemed to me, if anything, he was a little more friendly than usual. I can't imagine what he's got up his sleeve. I think he had a right to kick up a little dust, don't you? Puts me in a pretty position! It wasn't bad, for a while playing around alone, and calling myself a grass-widow, as a joke. But the real thing is an entirely different matter. It's no fun being an extra woman of any kind for long, in society. If you don't own a husband, or a brother, or some two-legged article in trousers, you drop out of things—out of evening things, anyhow. Of course, there are luncheons, and teas, and women's shindies left, but I get on best with men, and I look best in evening clothes, too. I'm the kind, anyhow, who wants to take in everything that's going. The more places you're seen at the more you go to, and it's just life to me to keep going! Why, when I don't go out for a week—have a wave and a manicure and a hot bath and get all dressed up in my best clothes, and set out for a real little party of some sort somewheres—I get horribly depressed. Listen here, Effie, I haven't eaten a dinner outside my own house for three weeks now! I haven't been to a River Club dance since Alfred Munn took the horses South in December! I've known for quite a while it was time for Stephen to come back and get Laurel and me."
Effie wanted to know why Stella didn't write to him, and urge him to come back and get her then.
"Urge him to come back!" Stella exclaimed. "Indeed, I won't! I've got a little pride left, I hope. I never urged a man to come back to me yet, and I don't intend to begin. Oh, I'll manage somehow. Don't worry. You'll see."
She herself worried a good deal. What was she to say? She couldn't go on indefinitely, telling people that Stephen had arrived so late on a Saturday and been obliged to go back so early on Sunday, that he hadn't seen any of his friends. Nor could she repeat many times the subterfuge she had successfully carried through once, of stealing across the river, and burying herself for three or four miserable days in the little red cottage with her father, returning with the story that she had been in New York.
It had been necessary to practice involving deceptions in explaining her absence from such generally discussed functions as the River Club costume dance, and the Annual Charity Ball. Once she had pretended a turned ankle, another time a headache. But the truth was that on both these occasions she had stayed at home and had gone to bed at ten o'clock, because no one had invited her to a dinner-party beforehand. She couldn't go to a dance without either a man or a party!
She had tried to get up a party of her own before the ball. But everybody's plans seemed to be made. Rosamond might easily have included her in the dinner-party she gave. She had two extra men. Neither Edith nor Rosamond had had her to a single dinner-party since Stephen had gone to New York! And they were her "best friends" in Milhampton now. She had had them one night, with two other couples. A real party! Ten in all. She had given them two cocktails apiece and a generous amount of Stephen's champagne. Not one of her guests had reciprocated yet by an invitation of any kind.
The possibility of an empty engagement calendar, the consideration of long stretches of idle days with no climaxes at their ends, filled Stella with alarm. Frightening ghosts of various kinds filtered through the cracks of Stella's bedroom, during this time, woke her up every morning about five, and kept her awake until it was time to get up and dress. The tragic idleness of a certain new gown she had bought in January haunted her day and night. Never had a new dress of hers remained new so long. For three weeks it had hung in the closet, just as it had been lifted from its box. Stella longed to wear the gown. It would make an impression. Now that she could no longer contribute a man to society it was necessary for her to contribute at least an impression. A conspicuous gown could do a lot for a woman at a dance, Stella believed.
"But it can't if it hangs in the closet," she sobbed into her pillow.
3
When Alfred Munn returned from Florida with his horses for another season at the River Club, he put many of Stella's ghosts to flight. He filled her engagement calendar; he provided climaxes to her days; he saw to it that there was never a week when Stella didn't dress up in her best clothes and set out for "a real little party" of some sort somewhere. He broke the back of the worst goblin of all—her fear (her almost conviction now) that when a woman's husband goes out of town for any length of time and people begin to wonder why, all her old admirers turn tail and run, too, to avoid any possible danger of being mentioned in a scandal. Life wouldn't be worth living, Stella felt, if she had no admirers.
Riding was still popular in Milhampton that Spring; Alfred Munn was still popular. Stella grasped at his attentions eagerly, instinctively, as she would at a rope flung to her from the basket of a balloon that offered to rescue her from some unfortunate fate and carry her aloft. But the balloon of Alfred Munn's popularity in Milhampton had already begun to lose its buoyancy. It couldn't carry Stella far. Alfred Munn should have been throwing off ballast instead of taking more on. For a while, though, it lifted Stella out of the valley, and diverted her attention from its shadows. Under the excitement of Alfred Munn's attentions, Stella took heart.
Alfred Munn invited her to every dance there was at the River Club that spring. People began to talk. Women, she told Effie, began to envy. She knew of at least a dozen who would give their eyeteeth if Alfred Munn would ask them to dance with him. He really was as good as a professional. He had asked her to be his partner in one of the new fancy dances last Saturday night. They had been the only two on the floor. Everybody else had sat around and stared, and applauded afterwards! Oh, she was really managing to make quite a splash in Milhampton with Alfred Munn. At the Luncheon Club she belonged to, "the girls" had discussed little else last Friday. Rosamond was simply green with jealousy. Stella could tell she was, because she acted so cool and offish. Lots of people were "jollying" her about him. She got it from all sides. Even that nice old tabby-cat, Mrs. Palmer, had heard the talk. She had stopped her, on the street, one day, and given her a little motherly advice. Too bad nobody ever invited Ed to dinner, or to anything small or private. He would be so much more useful. She couldn't see why they didn't. But never mind, he was convenient just as he was, and oh, awfully kind! She was getting a little tired of him, she must confess. But then, she always did, when "the new" wore off, and "they got a little slushy."
Effie wondered if there wasn't danger of Stephen's hearing about the splash Stella was making in Milhampton with Alfred Munn.
"Why, of course," Stella exclaimed to that. "I want him to hear about it. I don't intend to give Stephen the satisfaction of thinking I had to go into seclusion the minute he cleared out. He had an idea I couldn't get along in this town without his telling me how to do it. He meant to use his importance to my position here as a kind of gun to point at me and make me do just as he wants, when we get together again. Good gracious, having a good time, being successful all by myself, is the only gun I've got to point at him, my dear."
But Stella was inexperienced in the use of firearms. Her gun exploded when she didn't expect it to. And she herself became the victim.
4
It's possible to receive a bullet wound, even a fatal bullet wound, and be unaware of it, until you put your hand to the spot where it tingles a little. You're surprised when your fingers come into contact with something warm and wet. You're shocked when you draw them away, and find them red! Laurel was the messenger who brought the first sign of red to Stella's horrified attention.
Stella sent out a dozen invitations to a party for Laurel in June. All Laurel's schoolmates were having parties this year. Stella intended that Laurel's party should surpass them all. There was going to be a tailless donkey, and a peanut-hunt, and a cobweb contest, and a Jack Horner pie, and creamed chicken, and ice-cream, and paper caps.
Laurel had been told all about the elaborate plans. She had helped select the invitation-cards with the pretty colored pictures in the corner, and the thrilling announcement underneath, "I am going to have a party." She had stood close beside her mother when the blank spaces had been filled in. She had watched the addressing of each one of the little pink envelopes. Afterwards, standing on tiptoes, she had dropped them, one by one, into the green box at the corner.
Laurel mailed the invitations on a Friday night. All day Saturday and Sunday she was full of the exhilarating consciousness that others were sharing the wonderful secret now. When she started to school on Monday there was a sparkle beneath the calm gray surface of her eyes that made them look almost black—like the pools of meadow-brooks in mid-morning sunshine. When Laurel came home at noon her eyes seemed to have faded like the pools when the sun is hidden behind clouds. Instead of the blackness and the sparkle there was a grave, wondering, bewildered look in them.
"Nobody can come to my party, mother," she announced briefly.
All day Sunday the mothers of the recipients of the pink envelopes had been busy at the telephone.
Twice Laurel had to tell her mother that nobody could come to the party before Stella grasped the significance of the announcement. Then fiercely she threw her arms about Laurel, and held her to her tight.
"We don't care. We don't care!" she burst out. "Let them stay away! We'll have our party by ourselves! Don't you mind, Lollie. We'll have the party just the same—you and I and Uncle Ed Munn. Cats! Just because father runs off and leaves us all alone! Well—we've got each other, Lollie, anyhow. I won't ever run off and leave you, and, oh, Lollie, you won't ever run off and leave me, will you—ever, ever?" Stella was crying now.
Laurel did not cry. She stood very still, and listened, and afterwards remembered.