Stella Bain by Anita Shreve Page A

Van Tassel, her former husband, the only man she has intimately touched in years (apart from the wounded), seems completely natural in motion, as if he had been practicing forever. In time, Phillip would have suffocated in Thrupp as the dean of the college, a post her husband now holds.
    “Your face is flushed,” he says when the music stops.
    “I might need to sit this one out.”
     
    A woman in a green taffeta dress bends toward the table and asks, “Phil?”
    “Marjorie,” Phillip answers, standing.
    “Introduce me, darling.”
    “Etna, this is a friend of mine, Marjorie Sherriff.”
    “Edna, did you say?”
    “No, Etna,” Phillip repeats.
    “Like the mountain,” Marjorie muses, assessing whether or not a volcanic mountain is an apt description for the tall woman beside Phillip.
    “How do you do?” Etna asks.
    “Well, thank you,” Marjorie answers, turning away from Etna. “Phil, Jerome is with us. We’re at a bigger table. You should join us. Everett and Ruth are here, too. Well, I think Ruth is still with us.”
    “Do you mind?” Phillip asks Etna.
    How can she possibly mind?
     
    All British except for Etna and half of Phillip. Both Marjorie and Ruth, who just manages to sit upright, are nurses with the British Expeditionary Force. The two men drive ambulances, which explains how they know Phillip.
    “Another Yank,” says Jerome. “You’re at Camiers.”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Heroes,” he tells the table. “Not even in the war, and still they volunteer.”
    “Nothing heroic about it,” Etna says.
    The hairstyles of the two women fascinate Etna. Ruth, a brunette, has bobbed her hair, the curls falling above her shoulders. It’s a smart look, somewhat ruined by her sodden eyes. Marjorie, who is blond, has her hair crimped and pulled back.
    Darling.
    Jerome, his face full of freckles, stretches his body beneath the table. Everett has long brown hair slicked back from a high forehead. Everyone except Etna smokes.
    “You got caught in the bombardment,” Jerome says, addressing Etna.
    “I did, yes.”
    “The way I heard it,” he says to the table, “she executed a perfect shortcut through the fields.”
    “Just for a minute or two.”
    “You saved your wounded. That’s the kind of thing they give medals for.”
    “They give medals to ambulance drivers?” she asks unthinkingly, and then covers her blunder by saying, “I should hope they’d give a medal to the ambulance driver who stayed on the road and made it safely to camp.”
    “I don’t know,” says Jerome, determined to give her a compliment. “Quick wits on your part.”
    Merely the will to live, she wants to say.
    Phillip puts his arm around her shoulders, and she understands it as a protective gesture.
    A meal arrives of unidentifiable fish in a white sauce. Bottles of wine appear on the table. Ruth seems to have fallen asleep.
    “Is she all right?” Etna asks.
    “She shouldn’t drink,” Everett says. “In fact, I ought to drive her back.”
    “You can’t take her back in that condition,” protests Marjorie. “Besides, I would have to leave, too, and I’m not ready. Find some of that brew they’re calling coffee now, get it into her, and walk her around outside. She’s got to be able to walk into her tent. I can’t very well carry her.”
    Everett does as he is told, which leaves only the four of them. Marjorie shows no sign of tiring. She asks Phillip to dance. He hesitates, perhaps not wanting to leave Etna alone. Can Marjorie be the person to whom Phillip was referring when he said he had known love?
    Well mannered, Jerome asks Etna if she would like to dance.
    “If you don’t mind, I’d rather sit a moment.”
    “Me, too,” Jerome says with relief. “She’s wearing me out.”
    Etna smiles.
    “We’re all a bit in awe of you,” Jerome confesses.
    “Why so?”
    “You’ve taken on the double role of VAD and ambulance driver. Not sure I’ve ever met anyone who answers to that