Part 3 (1/2)
The drawing-room ran the whole length of the house, and was pink and gray, because the Youngs knew that pink and gray go well together, just as blue and gold do, only that blue fades.
The chairs were very comfortable, the little tables had the right kind of ornaments, the pictures were a harmless, unenlightening addition to the gray-satin walls.
The books that lay about were novels. They were often a little improper, but never seriously so, and they always ended in people getting what they wanted legally.
It was a clean, comfortable, fresh room and nothing was ever out of place in it.
Marian was sitting under a high vase of pink canterbury-bells; by some happy chance her dress was the same pale pink as the bells. She looked, with her hands in her lap, her throat lifted, and the sun on her hair, like a flower of the same family. Her manner was a charming mixture of ease and diffidence.
Stella was late, and Lady Verny and Julian had arrived before her.
Lady Verny was like her son. She was very tall and graceful, and carried herself as if she had never had to stoop. Her eyes had the steady, frosty blueness of Julian's, with lightly chiseled edges; her lips were ironic, curved, and a little thin.
She had piles of white hair drawn back over her forehead. When Marian introduced her to Stella, she rose and turned away from the tea-table.
”I hope you will come and talk to me a little,” she said in a clear, musical voice. ”We can leave Julian and Marian to themselves.”
Lady Verny leaned back in the chair she had chosen for herself and regarded Stella with steady, imperturbable eyes. It struck Stella as a little alarming that they should all know where they wanted to sit, and with whom they wanted to talk, without any indecision. She thought that chairs would walk across the room to Lady Verny if she looked at them, and kettles boil the moment Julian thought that it was time for tea. But though she was even more frightened at this calm, unconscious competency than she had expected to be, she saw it didn't matter about her clothes.
She knew they were all wrong, as cheap clothes always are, particularly cheap clothes that you've been in a hurry over and not clever enough to match. Her boots and her gloves weren't good, and her hat was horrid and probably on the back of her head. Her blue-serge coat and skirt had indefinite edges. But Stella was aware that Lady Verny, beautifully dressed as she was, was taking no notice whatever of Stella's clothes.
They might make an extra point against her if she didn't like her.
Stella could hear her saying, ”Funny that Marian should make friends with a sloppy little scarecrow.” But if she did like her, she would say nothing about Stella's clothes. As far as the Vernys were concerned, the appearances of things were always subsidiary.
”Engagements are such interrupted times,” Lady Verny observed, with a charming smile. ”One likes to poke a little opportunity toward the poor dears when one can.”
”Yes,” said Stella, eagerly, with her little, rapid flight of words.
”You're always running away when you're engaged, and never getting there, aren't you? And then, of course, when you're married, you're there, and can't run away. It's such a pity they can't be more mixed up.”
”Perhaps,” said Lady Verny, still smiling. ”But marriage is like a delicate clock; it has to be wound up very carefully, and the less you take its works to pieces afterward the better. Have you known Marian a long time?”
”Three years,” said Stella; ”but when you say 'know,' I am only an accident. I don't in any real sense belong to Marian's life; I belong only to Marian. You see, I work.” She thought she ought, in common fairness to Lady Verny, not let her think that she was one of Marian's real friends.
Lady Verny overlooked this implication.
”And what is your work, may I ask?” she inquired, with her grave, solid politeness, which reminded Stella of nothing so much as a procession in a cathedral.
”I was a secretary to Professor Paulson,” Stella explained, ”the great naturalist. He was a perfect dear, too,--it wasn't only beetles and things,--and when he died, I went into a town hall,--I've been there for two years,--and that's more exciting than you can think. It isn't theories and experiments, of course, but it's like being a part of the hub of the universe. Rates and taxes, sanitary inspectors, old-age pensions, and the health of babies run through my hands like water through a sieve. You wouldn't believe how entertaining civic laws and customs are--and such charming people! Of course I miss the other work, too,--it was like having one's ear against nature,--but this is more like having one's ear against life.”
”I think you must have very catholic tastes,” said Lady Verny, gently.
”My son knew Professor Paulson; it will interest him to know that you worked for him. And Marian--did she take any interest in your scientific experiences?”
Stella moved warily across this question; she had never spoken to Marian about her work at all. Marian, as she knew, thought it all very tiresome.
”You see,” she explained, ”they weren't my experiences; they were Professor Paulson's. Marian couldn't very well be thrilled at third hand; the thrill only got as far as me. Besides, half of what I do as a secretary is confidential, and the other half sounds dull. Of course it isn't really. I've been so lucky in that way. I've never had anything dull to do.”
”I can quite imagine that,” said Lady Verny, kindly. ”Dullness is in the eye, not in the object. Does Marian like life better than intellect, too?”
”Ah, Marian's life,” said Stella, a little doubtfully, ”is so different!”
They glanced across at the distant tea-table. Julian was leaning toward Marian with eyes that held her with the closeness of a frame to a picture.