so long as her hands were immersed in the kitchen suds, stella could more or less successfully build up about her an illusion of romance, for it is perhaps the one solid virtue of dish-washing that it releases the mind to rambles far afield. however, this task completed and the pan on its peg, life slumped again badly.
she had not, it is true, always felt this way—until quite recently, in fact, had not been greatly concerned about the things that didn’t go with her destiny. but she had encountered the novel heroine irmengarde, and then—well, then the letter from elsa, brief but wonderful, and really the first letter since they were small girls living on the same street—before the utterbournes began mysteriously to rise. there had been postcards through the years: now and then from the eastern school where elsa had gone so young to escape domestic unpleasantness; sometimes, later on, a card startlingly from europe or the orient. for her part, stella had answered as many as she could with long, impulsive letters, in which lay revealed the germ which had at length so unhappily sprung to flower.
of course elsa was never very demonstrative, and a postcard is only a postcard; but that she hadn’t forgotten was the essential fact. then, at last, the letter: “i’m going to open the house in berkeley for dad. he’s been living at his club long enough, he says. when i get there i’ll look you up.”
stella had waited, and watched the mails eagerly for another glimpse of elsa’s thrilling scrawl. perhaps she would ask her over to tea. or perhaps she would take her to a matinée and they would pour out their hearts to each other afterward.[7] however, the time since elsa must have reached town had at length run into weeks—and no word.
stella thought of phoning; had even sketched problematical telephone conversations; but hadn’t, after all, brought herself to do it. there was something about elsa—well, something that always made approaches a little difficult. this seemed a part of her almost terrible charm. yet once they had come together again, everything would be quite simple and natural. and so restlessly did she long for a breath of that richer life, that at last she asked herself: “why not just go and see elsa without waiting to hear—just drop in as though i happened to be passing by? i’ll do it!” her day gave promise of turning out rather better than it had begun.
a desperately conventional maid seated her in the berkeley drawing room. then there was a long, long wait.
stella, nervously fingering her gloves, adjusting and readjusting her hat, had plenty of time to note her surroundings: a room sumptuous yet severe, but above all incommunicative—formal to a degree which suggested its ostracism from familiar domestic uses; yes, forbidding. it was like a blind, a decorous façade, behind which who knew what might be in progress? and the silence—something almost ominous—a sense of something beyond or underneath it all....
she rejoiced in the luxury, but at length grew restive, as ten, fifteen, twenty minutes—half an hour crept by. she stirred, coughed. finally she crossed the room. just as she reached the door, however, the spell was broken.
a figure came racing down the stairs. it was elsa—an active girl, yet inscrutably calm, heavy dark curly hair and very droopy eyes at once extremely soft and extremely bold, and possessed of a kind of unassailable bovine quality. she stopped abruptly at sight of stella, stood a moment facing her with an expression of wholly tactless blankness, then came forward with hands hospitably extended.
“stella—you old peach! hello there!” they kissed lightly. “please forgive me. i forgot all about you.”
[8]
stella wished she hadn’t come; but her friend went on with really disarming cordiality: “we can talk for a couple of minutes while the car’s being brought round. i’m sorry i have to run off. i’ve been rushed to death getting ready for my dance—the biggest thing i ever attempted, and a good deal of a bore, but i’m horribly indebted.” (the utterbourne family tree was aristocratic—men now and then in public life, and streaks of real genius, always more or less money—and of course the social fruits were proportionate.) “sit down.” her eyes drooped very much indeed at the corners.
certainly elsa couldn’t be called a snob; the fact is, she was so very much at ease with everybody that no one could accuse her of not treating all people exactly alike. there was even something a little humorous in her utter disregard of anything even approaching the conventions; and what made it the more surprising just now was her background of the most immaculate conventionality.
stella leaned forward, obviously constrained, and wriggled nervously. “you mustn’t let me keep you.” but elsa gazed at her in a perfectly steady yet detached manner, and exclaimed out of a silence which, it was clear, bore no impress of awkwardness for her: “you’re looking ripping!”
stella longed to throw her arms around elsa and free her heart of its accumulated turbulence. instead they merely sat facing each other on conventional chairs.
talk of the dance resumed. “a week from tomorrow—i’m dreadfully excited.” the girl’s eyes drooped pleasantly, however, and certainly didn’t display any excitement to speak of. she just gazed on, with disconcerting blankness; and since it couldn’t have occurred to her that any embarrassment might accompany this frank chatter about the approaching festivity, it must have been sheer impulse that brought out the suggestion: “if you’d care to come, stella, i’ll see you get an invitation. aunt flora’s engineering everything. if you like i’ll give her your name.”
[9]
all very quiet, ordinary, off-hand; yet stella flushed and felt her heart plunged into confusion. she was at once delighted and terrified. “i shouldn’t know a single person but you—i’m afraid....” pride, at first, prevented her framing it any more forcefully; but the next moment she felt so very wretched about her life that her pride just caved in and she was faltering, though with a stiff little laugh: “i’m afraid a ball gown would be a good deal of a problem!” her eyelids were burning. she was furious. she felt crushed.
elsa’s gaze was still upon her, yet it was plain her friend’s commotion of soul made no overwhelming impression. her eyes drooped to signify a forthcoming confidence. “if you’ll promise not to let it out—we’re planning to announce something that night—during the supper dance!” stella thought miserably of her own lagging and forlorn engagement. but it didn’t appear that the other girl, with everything so bewilderingly romantic, was particularly thrilled. all at once, her expression never changing, she disconcertingly demanded: “was that the horn?” and strode to the door. “let me take you wherever you’re bound for, stella—i’ve a little time to spare. sorry i can’t stay and talk.”
“oh, thanks—i think i’ll just be going back to san francisco. please don’t bother, elsa.”
“come along. i’ll take you as far as the ferry.”
the doggy little car in which one sat luxuriously low gave one a sense of distinction, made one forget, even, that in a few short hours there would be dish water again. elsa drove expertly. she could almost have driven a locomotive. stella, a little bewildered by the rate at which things had moved since her slow wait in the silence of the drawing room, watched her friend with awe and admiration. the only trouble with the ride to the ferry was its appalling brevity. and elsa’s affectionate drawl was in her ears: “here we are. i’m going to look you up one of these days. bye-bye.” she nodded pleasantly without smiling, and stella alighted.
“oh, by the way—hold on a minute.” elsa dove into one[10] of the car’s leather pockets and with blithe tactlessness produced a current vogue. “it will amuse you going across, and you’ll find some nifty patterns near the back.”
a moment later she had departed, full speed in a bath of blue smoke—breezed off exactly as she had breezed in, leaving behind her a vast unhappy vacuum. stella felt desperately let down. it was only now she realized how much she had counted on elsa.
“i’ll never hear from her again,” she brooded darkly; for she was rather given to indulging in premonitions. of course there would be no invitation to the dance. elsa would tremble for what her friend might arrive in! she beat back the tears angrily with her lashes. this was all that had come of her hopeful, desperate little expedition.
in the plodding ferry boat stella thumbed the fashions, her mood growing ever darker. “what will come next?” she muttered. the murk of discontent settled thicker and thicker in her heart, like the fog across the harbour, where whistles were hooting “beware!” on every side.
