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. 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.”
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.”
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 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.