Stella Dallas (1923, Houghton Mifflin)/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
1
Stephen sat in his office, fifteen floors above the sidewalk and street thermometer that registered ninety-five. He sat in the gentle breeze of two silently revolving electric fans, in front of his desk, in a big chair with his elbows on its arm, and his hands folded. He was dictating, gazing out of the high window toward the northeast with a look in his eyes as if he saw a hundred miles away.
To-day, as Stephen sat and gazed, searched, and selected, he was aware of the heat, aware of the rumble of the city outside, aware of the loud insistent pound—pound—pound of a riveter at work near by, aware of his own fatigue, too. He sighed deeply now and then. When Stephen was tired, and gazed out of the high windows in the direction of the green lawns and white beaches of Long Island, there was a Helen between every careful phrase that he spoke.
At a quarter of one that day, or thereabouts, Stephen raised his wrist and glanced at it.
"Time for one more, I think, Miss Mills. Pretty hot, isn't it? Can you stand it? All right. Ready."
He was attacking a difficult second paragraph—twice already had murmured, "No, start again"—when there was a repressed burr at his side. He frowned, turned away from his engrossed contemplation of the illimitable space outside his window, and reached for the telephone, supporting it upon his chest as he leaned back again and spoke into it.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Long distance. Green Hills, New York, Mrs. Cornelius Morrison," the operator in the outer office announced.
It was as if a current of electricity passed through Stephen. Though he didn't move a hand or foot, Miss Mills observed his sudden alertness, the sudden tightening of the muscles around his jaw and cheek-bones. Discreetly she turned away.
"Connect me," she heard him say. Then he turned to her. His eyes were like spots of phosphorescence. "We'll finish that later. I'll call you." He nodded toward the outer office. She rose. "Please close the door."
Alone, Stephen leaned forward, placed the telephone on the solid foundation of his desk, drew his chair close to it, jerked himself to the edge of the chair, crouched over the telephone eagerly, cupping his hand over the transmitter.
Helen's voice sounded clear and sweet, as if she were in the very room beside him. He hadn't heard her voice for two years.
"Hello."
"Hello, Helen."
"Is it you, Stephen?"
"It's I. Yes. What is it? Are you all right?"
He caught her little laugh.
"Oh, yes, yes. I'm all right. I called you up to find out if you had an engagement for to-night."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, have you an engagement?"
"No. Of course I haven't. But—"
"Then could you come down this evening?"
"Helen, what has happened?"
"Nothing awful. Could you?"
"Yes. I could. But—"
"About eight o'clock?"
"Yes, eight o'clock. All right. But, Helen, please—"
"Eight o'clock to-night, then. Good-bye."
She had sent for him! Helen had sent for him to come to her! At one o'clock, at half-past one, at two, Stephen was still sitting in his big chair before his desk, looking far out over the roofs. Miss Mills was still sitting outside the door, waiting to finish the dictation.
2
"I'm sorry to have called you at your office, Stephen," were Helen's first words when she saw him that night, standing ten feet away from him, just inside the threshold of the big room. "I suppose you were having a consultation or doing something important"—she tried to make her voice sound light and careless—"but I wanted to get you, right straight off, so that you wouldn't fall down an elevator-shaft, or get killed in an explosion, or something"—she laughed tremulously—"the way they do in novels, sometimes, before I had a chance to tell you that after all our years of waiting, that—that—after—Oh, Stephen—"
3
Stella arrived at the apartment on Commonwealth Avenue at eleven o'clock that night. She telephoned to Laurel from the Back Bay station that she would be out in half an hour, and when she puffed up the last flight of stairs—it grew hotter and hotter as she approached the roof—Laurel, in her thin sleeveless nightgown, with her hair pulled tightly back and braided, was in the hall to meet her.
"I've made some lemonade, mother. It's on the ice. And there's some cold watermelon. Come in and get those horrid hot things off. I've pulled the bed out where it will get the breeze, if there is any, in the early morning. How is Mrs. McDavitt and the children?"
Ten minutes later, Stella, nightgowned and hair pulled back and braided, too, sat on the back porch under the clothes-reel and drank lemonade, and ate cold watermelon, and gazed at Lollie, seated on top of the coal-box with her bare arms locked about her knees, not talking much, looking up at the lop-sided moon that had been full three nights ago on Stag Island.
Funny place, thought Stella, for the lovely Miss Laurel Dallas, who would be staggering New York society one of these days, to be perched in mid-summer. Oh, if she could only tell the poor suffering little kiddie (for she was suffering—she had been pretty crazy about that Grosvenor boy, Stella guessed)—if she could only tell her it was only for a short time now; that everything would come out all right in the end. But of course she couldn't. Mum was the word.
"It's simply horrid for you here, honey."
Laurel gave a start, as if she had been a thousand miles away.
"Oh, no, it isn't," she assured Stella lightly. "Really, I like it. Oh, we'll have a good time. See if we don't. There's Revere, and Nantasket, and Norumbega."
"Was it awful lonesome without me?"
"No more awful for me than for you when I'm away, I guess."
"What did you do?"
"Oh, I sat out here."
"Gracious! Seventeen, summer, a moon, and alone, out here."
"About nine o'clock the bell rang. It was that Mr. Munn."
"Oh, Ed! Really?"
"He said he saw the light and thought it was probably you who were here, alone, while I was off visiting somewhere. When he discovered it was I, he said please to excuse him, and went away."
"That sounds real polite of Ed."
"No, it wasn't. He didn't have any right to ring the bell for you—a man like that. He knows we don't want him. We've shown him. Oh, I hate that man, mother."
"I know you do. You've told me so enough times. Funny. You're your father right over again, Lollie."
"Did father ever see Ed Munn?"
"Mercy, yes!"
"Did father ever hate Ed Munn?"
"Like fury," laughed Stella; "and there was never any sense in it either—no more than with you—just a whim."
Laurel still gazing at the moon and the few far dim stars that seemed to He beyond was silent. Was Alfred Munn one of the pieces of the puzzle, too?
4
Helen and Stephen were quietly married one afternoon the following spring. The same day Laurel received a note from Mrs. Morrison inviting her to spend a week-end with her, a fortnight later. The invitation did not come as a surprise to Laurel. Mrs. Morrison had told her last September that she hoped to have Laurel stay with her for a few days in the spring. Laurel had told her mother of the possibility. Stella had been working on Laurel's wardrobe, in preparation, for weeks before Mrs. Morrison's note arrived.
Helen was at the station to meet Laurel. She and Mrs. Morrison (she was still Mrs. Morrison to Laurel) were quite alone in the back of the limousine as it threaded its way out of the congestion of Forty-Second Street, and turned north on Fifth Avenue. Laurel sat forward on the edge of the seat beside Helen, cheeks flushed, chin raised, breathing in deep breaths of the intoxicating, Mrs. Morrison-charged air, not saying anything at all.
"Glad to be here?" finally Helen interrupted from her deep corner.
Laurel simply nodded, keeping her starry eyes steadfastly turned away. Her worshipful regard for Mrs. Morrison had not changed in quality in the last four years. The only difference was that she was able to adapt herself a little sooner now than formerly to the dazzling presence of her goddess. Give Laurel an hour and she would find her tongue. Give her several hours and the same emotion which choked, confined—later unloosened, unlocked, threw the gates wide.
"Your father is going to be with us for dinner to-night," briefly Helen announced before the car had left them at the door.
"Oh, I wondered when I'd see father."
Helen and Stephen had decided to tell Laurel together. They waited until after dinner. Con and Dane were away at school, and little Rick, who had been cautioned not to mention the great news, had finally been torn away from Laurel's side (little Rick was devoted to Laurel) and had gone upstairs. Helen and Stephen were alone with Laurel in Helen's lovely ivory-tinted room, seated, all three, before the fire, on the long Sheraton sofa, with Laurel in the middle.
Helen slipped an arm through Laurel's and, smiling across at Stephen, said, "Shall I tell Laurel a story now?"
The story that Helen told was the story of her own life. She told it exquisitely. "And then—and then—and then—" step by step, from the first time when she knew that she loved Stephen when only a little older than Laurel, down through all the years, when their paths diverged, met, diverged again. It was a simple, straightforward statement of facts, with no excuses nor explanations. It sounded to Stephen like some beautiful epic poem. He had to close his eyes frequently to shut out tears. When she reached the end, "And so here we are, Laurel—Stephen and I, together at last."
Laurel whispered softly, "Married?"
"Yes."
"I wondered when you would be," was Laurel's unsurprised reply.
"How long have you wondered that, Laurel?" eagerly Stephen inquired.
"Oh, ever since I saw you together in the big room at Green Hills, when I came down from upstairs that first time, I felt then that you were meant to be married, only—"
"Yes, only?"
"Only you must have taken a wrong turn way back somewhere—you know how it is—a wrong turn or a detour makes all the journey different sometimes."
Stephen slipped his arm through Laurels, too. "Are you glad?" he asked her.
"Oh, ever so glad!" promptly she assured him. "It's like a book, or a play, coming out the way you hoped it would; or a journey ending where it should, even though there was a wrong turn. What shall I call you, Mrs. Morrison?" she broke off. "I've wondered and wondered. Isn't it funny?" she laughed. "You aren't Mrs. Morrison any more!"
What a little girl she was, after all, thought Stephen, and how merciful. It had been easier than he feared to tell her that he had become to another woman what he had one day been to her mother. How simply, how serenely, she accepted that which had been so painfully won.
"Let's call each other by our first names," lightly Helen suggested.
"Oh, I wonder if I ever could! Your name is so—so special. Mrs. Morrison is like the word 'America' to me. It means things. I couldn't possibly call America anything else."
"You could call it home, couldn't you?" said Helen.
5
Later, placing her hand over Laurel's, and Laurel turning hers palm upwards, and interlacing her fingers with Helen's in impulsive response, Helen said, "There's more to my story, Laurel."
With infinite gentleness she explained to Laurel that she was a part of this home now—was a member of this family; they were hers and she was theirs. She must have been talking five minutes before Laurel caught the import of her words.
"You mean," suddenly she interrupted, "I'm to live here?"
"Yes, here, and at the place at Green Hills. With us—with your father, with Con and Dane and Rick—they're so happy about it—wherever we are—as one of us, Laurel."
"I never thought of that." Laurel gazed wonderingly around the lovely room. This her home? This beautiful place? A family like other girls? A mother and father who lived together? Mrs. Morrison? "Yes, yes," she gasped, "but what about—what about—"
"What about your mother?" Helen asked for her. "I know, I understand. You shall see your mother often, Laurel."
"You mean"—she still had a manner as if gasping for air—as if groping for light, for comprehension. "You mean mother would still live in Boston?"
"That would seem wisest, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, yes, of course," Laurel nodded. "Yes, that would seem wisest." For a long quarter-minute she was silent, staring straight in front of her, then unlocking her fingers from Helen's, withdrawing her arm linked through her father's, "No," she said quietly, "it wouldn't do."
"You may visit your mother in Boston, Laurel."
Again for a moment Laurel was silent. "No, it wouldn't do," she repeated. The little girl in her had disappeared. The spontaneity, the soft tender impulsiveness had faded, gone. "I'd like to be a member of your family, father," she said, turning toward Stephen, "of yours, too, Mrs. Morrison," turning toward Helen. "Thank you ever and ever so much, but I'm sorry, I couldn't."
"But, Lollie, my dear child—"
"But, Laurel, listen—"
For twenty minutes, for half an hour, both Stephen and Helen labored with Laurel; but to no purpose, to no avail. "I'm sorry. I couldn't," was her unvaried reply.
Finally Stephen exclaimed, "But, Laurel, my dear child, this isn't a matter we are consulting you on. It is a matter that has already been arranged. We are simply telling you about it."
"That makes no difference. I'm sorry. I couldn't," she persisted.
"Why, of course you can, my dear. You don't understand. You are not of age to make your own decisions yet, Laurel."
"Oh, yes, I am, father."
"But you're not. Not on a matter of this sort. Your mother and I have decided this for you."
"Does mother know of it?"
"Certainly, and approves. She is sending your trunks to-morrow."
Two little bright spots appeared in the center of Laurel's cheeks.
"The trunks will have to be sent back then," she announced. "How silly to have tried to force me like that!"
"We didn't think it would be forcing. We believed it would be a plan that would make you very happy. It was your mother's idea, to say nothing about it beforehand, to avoid, I believe, good-byes."
Laurel replied calmly, "I came down here for four days and I am going home in four days, father."
"This is home now," he told her.
"Oh, no, it isn't," she flashed back, "and it never will be home either, as long as my mother is alive." Laurel stood up. "Of course you can lock me up if you want to," she went on, "but I shan't stay any other way. Please understand that."
The bright spots on her cheeks had not disappeared. There were unfamiliar lines and shadows, too, about her chin and jaw. Helen and Stephen stared at her. They had never felt the steel in Laurel before.
"But, Laurel—"
"Oh, don't let's argue about it, father. It won't do the least bit of good."
"Why, this is absurd, impossible. I cannot allow—"
"Just a minute, Stephen," Helen interrupted. There were bright spots in the center of Stephen's cheeks, too. "Laurel, dear," she said, reaching for Laurel's hand, drawing her down on the sofa again. "Listen. Let me explain. It is your mother's wish. It's all your mother's planning. This—all this"—with a wave of her hand she included the whole house and all it stood for in way of happiness for Laurel—"is her gift to you." (The truth was best, Helen concluded.) "She came and saw me about it last summer. We talked it all over in detail, together."
"When last summer?" Laurel exclaimed.
"Last July."
(Oh, then, it flashed across Laurel, her mother had heard! She hadn't been asleep that night on the train! She hadn't been to Milhampton the next day to see Effie McDavitt. She had been to New York to give her Mrs. Morrison!)
"Well, I shan't take her gift," said Laurel. (Her mother! Her wonderful mother! And they had called her "That woman!" "That awful creature!" "That dame!")