CHAPTER XVII
Lady Verny and Julian were sitting in the hall when Stella joined them. It wasn't in the least terrible meeting Julian; he had reduced his physical disabilities to the minimum of trouble for other people. He swung himself about on his crutches with an extraordinary ease, and he had taught himself to deal with his straitened powers so that he needed very little assistance; he had even controlled himself sufficiently to bear without apparent dislike the occasional help that he was forced to accept.
It was the Vernys' religion that one shouldn't make a fuss over anything larger than a broken boot-lace. Temper could be let loose over the trivial, but it must be kept if there was any grave cause for it.
Julian wished to disembarrass the casual eye of pity, partly because it was a nuisance to make people feel uncomfortable, and partly because it infuriated him to be the cause of compassion. Lady Verny had not pointed this out to Stella; she had left her to draw her own inferences from her own instincts. Lady Verny did not believe in either warnings or corrections after the days of infancy were passed.
She smiled across at Stella and said quietly:
"My son—Miss Waring."
Stella was for an instant aware of Julian's eyes dealing sharply and defensively with hers. He wanted to see if she was going to be such a fool as to pity him. She wasn't such a fool. Without a protest she let him swing himself heavily to his feet before he held out his hand to her. Her eyes met his without shrinking and without emphasis. She knew she must look rather wooden and stupid, but anything was better than looking too intelligent or too kind.
She realized that she hadn't made any mistake from the fact that Lady Verny laid down her embroidery. She would have continued it steadily if anything had gone wrong.
There was no recognition in Julian's eyes except the recognition that his mother's new friend looked as if she wasn't going to be a bother. Stella hadn't mattered when he met her before, and she didn't matter now. She had the satisfaction of knowing that she owed his oblivion of her to her own insignificance.
"I'm sure it's awfully good of you," Julian said, "to come down here and enliven my mother when we've nothing to offer you but some uncommonly bad weather."
"I find we have one thing," Lady Verny interposed. "Miss Waring is interested in Horsham. You must motor her over there. She wants to see Shelley's pond."
"Do you?" asked Julian. "I'll take you with pleasure, but I must admit that I think Shelley was an uncommonly poor specimen; never been able to stand all that shrill, woolly prettiness of his. It sets my teeth on edge. I don't think much of a man, either, who breaks laws, and then wants his conduct to be swallowed like an angel's. Have you ever watched a dog that's funked a scrap kick up the earth all round him and bark himself into thinking he's no end of a fine fellow in spite of it?"
"I don't believe you've read Shelley," cried Stella, stammering with eagerness. "I mean properly. You've only skimmed the fanciest bits. And he never saw the sense of laws. They weren't his own; he didn't break them. The laws he broke were only the dreadful, muddled notions of respectable people who didn't want to be inconvenienced by facts. I dare say it did make him a little shrill and frightened flying in the face of the whole world. However stupid a face it has, it's a massive one; but he didn't, for all the fright and the defiance, funk his fight."
"Let us settle Shelley at the dinner-table," said Lady Verny, drawing Stella's arm into hers and leaving Julian to follow. "Personally I do not agree with either of you. I do not think Shelley was a coward, and I do not think that as a man he was admirable. He has always seemed to me apart from his species, like his own skylark; 'Bird thou never wert.' He was an 'unpremeditated art,' a 'clear, keen joyance,' anything you like; but he hadn't the rudiments of a man in him. He was neither tough nor tender, and he never looked a fact in the face."
"There are plenty of people to look at facts," objected Stella, "Surely we can spare one to live in clouds and light and give us, in return for a few immunities, their elemental spirit."
"People shouldn't expect to be given immunities," said Julian. "They should take 'em if they want 'em, and then be ready to pay for 'em; nobody is forced to run with the crowd. What I object to is their taking to their heels in the opposite direction, and then complaining of loneliness. Besides, start giving people immunities, and see what it leads to—a dozen Shelleys without poems and God knows how many Harriets. What you want in a poet is a man who has something to say and sticks to the path while he's saying it."
"Oh, you might be talking about bishops!" cried Stella, indignantly. "How far would you have gone yourself on your Arctic explorations if you'd stuck to paths? Why should a poet run on a given line, like an electric tram-car?"
"I think Miss Waring has rather got the better of you, Julian," said Lady Verny, smiling. "You chose an unfortunate metaphor."
"Not a bit of it," said Julian, with a gleam of amusement. "I chose a jolly good one, and she's improved it. You can go some distance with a decent poet, but you can't with your man, Miss Waring. He twiddles up into the sky before you've got your foot on the step."
"That's a direct challenge," said Lady Verny. "I think after dinner we must produce something of Shelley's in contradiction. Can you think of anything solid enough to bear Julian?"
"Yes," said Stella. "All the way here in the train I was thinking of one of Shelley's poems. Have you read it—'The Ode to the West Wind'?"
"No," said Julian, smiling at her; "but it doesn't sound at all substantial. You started your argument on a cloud, and you finish off with wind. The Lord has delivered you into my hand."
"Not yet, Julian," said Lady Verny. "Wait till you've heard the poem."
It did not seem in the least surprising to Stella to find herself, half an hour later, sitting in a patch of candle-light, on a high-backed oak chair, saying aloud without effort or self-consciousness Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."
Neither Lady Verny nor Julian ever made a guest feel strange. There was in them both an innate courtesy, which was there to protect the feelings of others. They did not seem to be protecting Stella. They left her alone, but in the act of doing so they set her free from criticism. Lady Verny took up her embroidery, and Julian, sitting in the shadow of an old oak settle, contentedly smoked a cigarette. He did not appear to be watching Stella, but neither her movements nor her expressions escaped him. She was quite different from any one he had seen before. She wore a curious little black dress, too high to be smart, but low enough to set in relief her white, slim throat. She carried her head badly, so that it was difficult to see at first the beauty of the lines from brow to chin. She had a curious, irregular face, like one of the more playful and less attentive angels in a group round a Botticelli Madonna. She had no color, and all the life of her face was concentrated in her gray, far-seeing eyes. Julian had never seen a pair of eyes in any face so alert and fiery. They were without hardness, and the fire in them melted easily into laughter. But they changed with the tones of her voice, with the rapid words she said, so that to watch them was almost to know before she spoke what her swift spirit meant. Her voice was unfettered music, low, with quick changes of tone and intonation.
