Stoner

Her needlepoint was delicate and useless, she painted misty landscapes of thin water-color washes, and she played the piano with a forceless but precise hand; yet she was ignorant of her own bodily functions, she had never been alone to care for her own self one day of her life, nor could it ever have occurred to her that she might become responsible for the wellbeing of another. Her life was invariable, like a low hum; and it was watched over by her mother, who, when Edith was a child, would sit for hours watching her paint her pictures or play her piano, as if no other occupation were possible for either of them.

At the age of thirteen Edith went through the usual sexual transformation; she also went through a physical transformation that was more uncommon. In the space of a few months she grew almost a foot, so that her height was near that of a grown man. And the association between the ungainliness of her body and her awkward new sexual estate was one from which she never fully recovered. These changes intensified a natural shyness--she was distant from her classmates at school, she had no one at home to whom she could talk, and she turned more and more inward upon herself.

Upon that inner privacy William Stoner now intruded. And something unsuspected within her, some instinct, made her call him back when he started to go out the door, made her speak quickly and desperately, as she had never spoken before, and as she would never speak again.

During the next two weeks he saw her nearly every evening. They went to a concert sponsored by the new music department at the University; on evenings when it was not too cold they took slow, solemn walks through the streets of Columbia; but more often they sat in Mrs. Darley's parlor. Sometimes they talked, and Edith played for him, while he listened and watched her hands move lifelessly over the keys. After that first evening together their conversation was curiously impersonal; he was unable to draw her out of her reserve, and when he saw that his efforts to do so embarrassed her, he stopped trying. Yet there was a kind of ease between them, and he imagined that they had an understanding. Less than a week before she was to return to St. Louis he declared his love to her and proposed marriage.

Though he did not know exactly how she would take the declaration and proposal, he was surprised at her equanimity. After he spoke she gave him a long look that was deliberative and curiously bold; and he was reminded of the first afternoon, after he had asked permission to call on her, when she had looked at him from the doorway where a cold wind was blowing upon them. Then she dropped her glance; and the surprise that came upon her face seemed to him unreal. She said she had never thought of him that way, that she had never imagined, that she did not know.

"You must have known I loved you," he said. "I don't see how I could have hidden it."

She said with some hint of animation, "I didn't. I don't know anything about that."

"Then I must tell you again," he said gently. "And you must get used to it. I love you, and I cannot imagine living without you."

She shook her head, as if confused. "My trip to Europe," she said faintly. "Aunt Emma . . ."

He felt a laugh come up in his throat, and he said in happy confidence, "Ah, Europe. I'll take you to Europe. We'll see it together someday."

She pulled away from him and put her fingertips upon her forehead. "You must give me time to think. And I would have to talk to Mother and Daddy before I could even consider . . ."

And she would not commit herself further than that. She was not to see him again before she left for St. Louis in a few days, and she would write him from there after she talked to her parents and had things settled in her mind. When he left that evening he stooped to kiss her; she turned her head, and his lips brushed her cheek. She gave his hand a little squeeze and let him out the front door without looking at him again.

Ten days later he got his letter from her. It was a curiously formal note, and it mentioned nothing that had passed between them; it said that she would like him to meet her parents and that they were all looking forward to seeing him when he came to St. Louis, the following weekend if that was possible.

Edith's parents met him with the cool formality he had expected, and they tried at once to destroy any sense of ease he might have had. Mrs. Bostwick would ask him a question, and upon his answer would say, "Y-e-es," in a most doubtful manner, and look at him curiously, as if his face were smudged or his nose were bleeding. She was tall and thin like Edith, and at first Stoner was startled by a resemblance he had not anticipated; but Mrs. Bostwick's face was heavy and lethargic, without any strength or delicacy, and it bore the deep marks of what must have been a habitual dissatisfaction.