Blue Castle.txt

CHAPTER I


If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole
life would have been entirely different. She would have gone, with the
rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr. Trent
would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what
happened to her because of it.

Valancy wakened early, in the lifeless, hopeless hour just preceding
dawn. She had not slept very well. One does not sleep well, sometimes,
when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in a community
and connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to
get a man.

Deerwood and the Stirlings had long since relegated Valancy to hopeless
old maidenhood. But Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a
certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way
yet—never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the
fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man.

Ay, _there_ lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old
maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as
dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellington or an Uncle Benjamin,
or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a
chance to be anything but an old maid. No man had ever desired her.

The tears came into her eyes as she lay there alone in the faintly
greying darkness. She dared not let herself cry as hard as she wanted
to, for two reasons. She was afraid that crying might bring on another
attack of that pain around the heart. She had had a spell of it after
she had got into bed—rather worse than any she had had yet. And she was
afraid her mother would notice her red eyes at breakfast and keep at
her with minute, persistent, mosquito-like questions regarding the
cause thereof.

“Suppose,” thought Valancy with a ghastly grin, “I answered with the
plain truth, ‘I am crying because I cannot get married.’ How horrified
Mother would be—though she is ashamed every day of her life of her old
maid daughter.”

But of course appearances should be kept up. “It is not,” Valancy could
hear her mother’s prim, dictatorial voice asserting, “it is not
_maidenly_ to think about _men_.”

The thought of her mother’s expression made Valancy laugh—for she had a
sense of humour nobody in her clan suspected. For that matter, there
were a good many things about Valancy that nobody suspected. But her
laughter was very superficial and presently she lay there, a huddled,
futile little figure, listening to the rain pouring down outside and
watching, with a sick distaste, the chill, merciless light creeping
into her ugly, sordid room.

She knew the ugliness of that room by heart—knew it and hated it. The
yellow-painted floor, with one hideous, “hooked” rug by the bed, with a
grotesque, “hooked” dog on it, always grinning at her when she awoke;
the faded, dark-red paper; the ceiling discoloured by old leaks and
crossed by cracks; the narrow, pinched little washstand; the
brown-paper lambrequin with purple roses on it; the spotted old
looking-glass with the crack across it, propped up on the inadequate
dressing-table; the jar of ancient potpourri made by her mother in her
mythical honeymoon; the shell-covered box, with one burst corner, which
Cousin Stickles had made in her equally mythical girlhood; the beaded
pincushion with half its bead fringe gone; the one stiff, yellow chair;
the faded old motto, “Gone but not forgotten,” worked in coloured yarns
about Great-grand-mother Stirling’s grim old face; the old photographs
of ancient relatives long banished from the rooms below. There were
only two pictures that were not of relatives. One, an old chromo of a
puppy sitting on a rainy doorstep. That picture always made Valancy
unhappy. That forlorn little dog crouched on the doorstep in the
driving rain! Why didn’t _some one_ open the door and let him in? The
other picture was a faded, passe-partouted engraving of Queen Louise
coming down a stairway, which Aunt Wellington had lavishly given her on
her tenth birthday. For nineteen years she had looked at it and hated
it, beautiful, smug, self-satisfied Queen Louise. But she never dared
destroy it or remove it. Mother and Cousin Stickles would have been
aghast, or, as Valancy irreverently expressed it in her thoughts, would
have had a fit.

Every room in the house was ugly, of course. But downstairs appearances
were kept up somewhat. There was no money for rooms nobody ever saw.
Valancy sometimes felt that she could have done something for her room
herself, even without money, if she were permitted. But her mother had
negatived every timid suggestion and Valancy did not persist. Valancy
never persisted. She was afraid to. Her mother could not brook
opposition. Mrs. Stirling would sulk for days if offended, with the
airs of an insulted duchess.

The only thing Valancy liked about her room was that she could be alone
there at night to cry if she wanted to.

But, after all, what did it matter if a room, which you used for
nothing except sleeping and dressing in, were ugly? Valancy was never
permitted to stay alone in her room for any other purpose. People who
wanted to be alone, so Mrs. Frederick Stirling and Cousin Stickles
believed, could only want to be alone for some sinister purpose. But
her room in the Blue Castle was everything a room should be.

Valancy, so cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life,
was wont to let herself go rather splendidly in her day-dreams. Nobody
in the Stirling clan, or its ramifications, suspected this, least of
all her mother and Cousin Stickles. They never knew that Valancy had
two homes—the ugly red brick box of a home, on Elm Street, and the Blue
Castle in Spain. Valancy had lived spiritually in the Blue Castle ever
since she could remember. She had been a very tiny child when she found
herself possessed of it. Always, when she shut her eyes, she could see
it plainly, with its turrets and banners on the pine-clad mountain
height, wrapped in its faint, blue loveliness, against the sunset skies
of a fair and unknown land. Everything wonderful and beautiful was in
that castle. Jewels that queens might have worn; robes of moonlight and
fire; couches of roses and gold; long flights of shallow marble steps,
with great, white urns, and with slender, mist-clad maidens going up
and down them; courts, marble-pillared, where shimmering fountains fell
and nightingales sang among the myrtles; halls of mirrors that
reflected only handsome knights and lovely women—herself the loveliest
of all, for whose glance men died. All that supported her through the
boredom of her days was the hope of going on a dream spree at night.
Most, if not all, of the Stirlings would have died of horror if they
had known half the things Valancy did in her Blue Castle.

For one thing she had quite a few lovers in it. Oh, only one at a time.
One who wooed her with all the romantic ardour of the age of chivalry
and won her after long devotion and many deeds of derring-do, and was
wedded to her with pomp and circumstance in the great, banner-hung
chapel of the Blue Castle.

At twelve, this lover was a fair lad with golden curls and heavenly
blue eyes. At fifteen, he was tall and dark and pale, but still
necessarily handsome. At twenty, he was ascetic, dreamy, spiritual. At
twenty-five, he had a clean-cut jaw, slightly grim, and a face strong
and rugged rather than handsome. Valancy never grew older than
twenty-five in her Blue Castle, but recently—very recently—her hero had
had reddish, tawny hair, a twisted smile and a mysterious past.

I don’t say Valancy deliberately murdered these lovers as she outgrew
them. One simply faded away as another came. Things are very convenient
in this respect in Blue Castles.

But, on this morning of her day of fate, Valancy could not find the key
of her Blue Castle. Reality pressed on her too hardly, barking at her
heels like a maddening little dog. She was twenty-nine, lonely,
undesired, ill-favoured—the only homely girl in a handsome clan, with
no past and no future. As far as she could look back, life was drab and
colourless, with not one single crimson or purple spot anywhere. As far
as she could look forward it seemed certain to be just the same until
she was nothing but a solitary, little withered leaf clinging to a
wintry bough. The moment when a woman realises that she has nothing to
live for—neither love, duty, purpose nor hope—holds for her the
bitterness of death.

“And I just have to go on living because I can’t stop. I may have to
live eighty years,” thought Valancy, in a kind of panic. “We’re all
horribly long-lived. It sickens me to think of it.”

She was glad it was raining—or rather, she was drearily satisfied that
it was raining. There would be no picnic that day. This annual picnic,
whereby Aunt and Uncle Wellington—one always thought of them in that
succession—inevitably celebrated their engagement at a picnic thirty
years before, had been, of late years, a veritable nightmare to
Valancy. By an impish coincidence it was the same day as her birthday
and, after she had passed twenty-five, nobody let her forget it.

Much as she hated going to the picnic, it would never have occurred to
her to rebel against it. There seemed to be nothing of the
revolutionary in her nature. And she knew exactly what every one would
say to her at the picnic. Uncle Wellington, whom she disliked and
despised even though he had fulfilled the highest Stirling aspiration,
“marrying money,” would say to her in a pig’s whisper, “Not thinking of
getting married yet, my dear?” and then go off into the bellow of
laughter with which he invariably concluded his dull remarks. Aunt
Wellington, of whom Valancy stood in abject awe, would tell her about
Olive’s new chiffon dress and Cecil’s last devoted letter. Valancy
would have to look as pleased and interested as if the dress and letter
had been hers or else Aunt Wellington would be offended. And Valancy
had long ago decided that she would rather offend God than Aunt
Wellington, because God might forgive her but Aunt Wellington never
would.

Aunt Alberta, enormously fat, with an amiable habit of always referring
to her husband as “he,” as if he were the only male creature in the
world, who could never forget that she had been a great beauty in her
youth, would condole with Valancy on her sallow skin—

“I don’t know why all the girls of today are so sunburned. When _I_ was
a girl my skin was roses and cream. I was counted the prettiest girl in
Canada, my dear.”

Perhaps Uncle Herbert wouldn’t say anything—or perhaps he would remark
jocularly, “How fat you’re getting, Doss!” And then everybody would
laugh over the excessively humorous idea of poor, scrawny little Doss
getting fat.

Handsome, solemn Uncle James, whom Valancy disliked but respected
because he was reputed to be very clever and was therefore the clan
oracle—brains being none too plentiful in the Stirling connection—would
probably remark with the owl-like sarcasm that had won him his
reputation, “I suppose you’re busy with your hope-chest these days?”

And Uncle Benjamin would ask some of his abominable conundrums, between
wheezy chuckles, and answer them himself.

“What is the difference between Doss and a mouse?

“The mouse wishes to harm the cheese and Doss wishes to charm the
he’s.”

Valancy had heard him ask that riddle fifty times and every time she
wanted to throw something at him. But she never did. In the first
place, the Stirlings simply did not throw things; in the second place,
Uncle Benjamin was a wealthy and childless old widower and Valancy had
been brought up in the fear and admonition of his money. If she
offended him he would cut her out of his will—supposing she were in it.
Valancy did not want to be cut out of Uncle Benjamin’s will. She had
been poor all her life and knew the galling bitterness of it. So she
endured his riddles and even smiled tortured little smiles over them.

Aunt Isabel, downright and disagreeable as an east wind, would
criticise her in some way—Valancy could not predict just how, for Aunt
Isabel never repeated a criticism—she found something new with which to
jab you every time. Aunt Isabel prided herself on saying what she
thought, but didn’t like it so well when other people said what _they_
thought to _her_. Valancy never said what _she_ thought.

Cousin Georgiana—named after her great-great-grand-mother, who had been
named after George the Fourth—would recount dolorously the names of all
relatives and friends who had died since the last picnic and wonder
“which of us will be the first to go next.”

Oppressively competent, Aunt Mildred would talk endlessly of her
husband and her odious prodigies of babies to Valancy, because Valancy
would be the only one she could find to put up with it. For the same
reason, Cousin Gladys—really First Cousin Gladys once removed,
according to the strict way in which the Stirlings tabulated
relationship—a tall, thin lady who admitted she had a sensitive
disposition, would describe minutely the tortures of her neuritis. And
Olive, the wonder girl of the whole Stirling clan, who had everything
Valancy had not—beauty, popularity, love,—would show off her beauty and
presume on her popularity and flaunt her diamond insignia of love in
Valancy’s dazzled, envious eyes.

There would be none of all this today. And there would be no packing up
of teaspoons. The packing up was always left for Valancy and Cousin
Stickles. And once, six years ago, a silver teaspoon from Aunt
Wellington’s wedding set had been lost. Valancy never heard the last of
that silver teaspoon. Its ghost appeared Banquo-like at every
subsequent family feast.

Oh, yes, Valancy knew exactly what the picnic would be like and she
blessed the rain that had saved her from it. There would be no picnic
this year. If Aunt Wellington could not celebrate on the sacred day
itself she would have no celebration at all. Thank whatever gods there
were for that.

Since there would be no picnic, Valancy made up her mind that, if the
rain held up in the afternoon, she would go up to the library and get
another of John Foster’s books. Valancy was never allowed to read
novels, but John Foster’s books were not novels. They were “nature
books”—so the librarian told Mrs. Frederick Stirling—“all about the
woods and birds and bugs and things like that, you know.” So Valancy
was allowed to read them—under protest, for it was only too evident
that she enjoyed them too much. It was permissible, even laudable, to
read to improve your mind and your religion, but a book that was
enjoyable was dangerous. Valancy did not know whether her mind was
being improved or not; but she felt vaguely that if she had come across
John Foster’s books years ago life might have been a different thing
for her. They seemed to her to yield glimpses of a world into which she
might once have entered, though the door was forever barred to her now.
It was only within the last year that John Foster’s books had been in
the Deerwood library, though the librarian told Valancy that he had
been a well-known writer for several years.

“Where does he live?” Valancy had asked.

“Nobody knows. From his books he must be a Canadian, but no more
information can be had. His publishers won’t say a word. Quite likely
John Foster is a nom de plume. His books are so popular we can’t keep
them in at all, though I really can’t see what people find in them to
rave over.”

“I think they’re wonderful,” said Valancy, timidly.

“Oh—well—” Miss Clarkson smiled in a patronising fashion that relegated
Valancy’s opinions to limbo, “I can’t say I care much for bugs myself.
But certainly Foster seems to know all there is to know about them.”

Valancy didn’t know whether she cared much for bugs either. It was not
John Foster’s uncanny knowledge of wild creatures and insect life that
enthralled her. She could hardly say what it was—some tantalising lure
of a mystery never revealed—some hint of a great secret just a little
further on—some faint, elusive echo of lovely, forgotten things—John
Foster’s magic was indefinable.

Yes, she would get a new Foster book. It was a month since she had
_Thistle Harvest_, so surely Mother could not object. Valancy had read
it four times—she knew whole passages off by heart.

And—she almost thought she would go and see Dr. Trent about that queer
pain around the heart. It had come rather often lately, and the
palpitations were becoming annoying, not to speak of an occasional
dizzy moment and a queer shortness of breath. But could she go to see
him without telling any one? It was a most daring thought. None of the
Stirlings ever consulted a doctor without holding a family council and
getting Uncle James’ approval. _Then_, they went to Dr. Ambrose Marsh
of Port Lawrence, who had married Second Cousin Adelaide Stirling.

But Valancy disliked Dr. Ambrose Marsh. And, besides, she could not get
to Port Lawrence, fifteen miles away, without being taken there. She
did not want any one to know about her heart. There would be such a
fuss made and every member of the family would come down and talk it
over and advise her and caution her and warn her and tell her horrible
tales of great-aunts and cousins forty times removed who had been “just
like that” and “dropped dead without a moment’s warning, my dear.”

Aunt Isabel would remember that she had always said Doss looked like a
girl who would have heart trouble—“so pinched and peaked always”; and
Uncle Wellington would take it as a personal insult, when “no Stirling
ever had heart disease before”; and Georgiana would forebode in
perfectly audible asides that “poor, dear little Doss isn’t long for
this world, I’m afraid”; and Cousin Gladys would say, “Why, _my_ heart
has been like that for _years_,” in a tone that implied no one else had
any business even to have a heart; and Olive—Olive would merely look
beautiful and superior and disgustingly healthy, as if to say, “Why all
this fuss over a faded superfluity like Doss when you have _me_?”

Valancy felt that she couldn’t tell anybody unless she had to. She felt
quite sure there was nothing at all seriously wrong with her heart and
no need of all the pother that would ensue if she mentioned it. She
would just slip up quietly and see Dr. Trent that very day. As for his
bill, she had the two hundred dollars that her father had put in the
bank for her the day she was born. She was never allowed to use even
the interest of this, but she would secretly take out enough to pay Dr.
Trent.

Dr. Trent was a gruff, outspoken, absent-minded old fellow, but he was
a recognised authority on heart disease, even if he were only a general
practitioner in out-of-the-world Deerwood. Dr. Trent was over seventy
and there had been rumours that he meant to retire soon. None of the
Stirling clan had ever gone to him since he had told Cousin Gladys, ten
years before, that her neuritis was all imaginary and that she enjoyed
it. You couldn’t patronise a doctor who insulted your
first-cousin—once-removed like that—not to mention that he was a
Presbyterian when all the Stirlings went to the Anglican church. But
Valancy, between the devil of disloyalty to clan and the deep sea of
fuss and clatter and advice, thought she would take a chance with the
devil.




CHAPTER II


When Cousin Stickles knocked at her door, Valancy knew it was half-past
seven and she must get up. As long as she could remember, Cousin
Stickles had knocked at her door at half-past seven. Cousin Stickles
and Mrs. Frederick Stirling had been up since seven, but Valancy was
allowed to lie abed half an hour longer because of a family tradition
that she was delicate. Valancy got up, though she hated getting up more
this morning than ever she had before. What was there to get up for?
Another dreary day like all the days that had preceded it, full of
meaningless little tasks, joyless and unimportant, that benefited
nobody. But if she did not get up at once she would not be ready for
breakfast at eight o’clock. Hard and fast times for meals were the rule
in Mrs. Stirling’s household. Breakfast at eight, dinner at one, supper
at six, year in and year out. No excuses for being late were ever
tolerated. So up Valancy got, shivering.

The room was bitterly cold with the raw, penetrating chill of a wet May
morning. The house would be cold all day. It was one of Mrs.
Frederick’s rules that no fires were necessary after the twenty-fourth
of May. Meals were cooked on the little oil-stove in the back porch.
And though May might be icy and October frost-bitten, no fires were
lighted until the twenty-first of October by the calendar. On the
twenty-first of October Mrs. Frederick began cooking over the kitchen
range and lighted a fire in the sitting-room stove in the evenings. It
was whispered about in the connection that the late Frederick Stirling
had caught the cold which resulted in his death during Valancy’s first
year of life because Mrs. Frederick would not have a fire on the
twentieth of October. She lighted it the next day—but that was a day
too late for Frederick Stirling.

Valancy took off and hung up in the closet her nightdress of coarse,
unbleached cotton, with high neck and long, tight sleeves. She put on
undergarments of a similar nature, a dress of brown gingham, thick,
black stockings and rubber-heeled boots. Of late years she had fallen
into the habit of doing her hair with the shade of the window by the
looking-glass pulled down. The lines on her face did not show so
plainly then. But this morning she jerked the shade to the very top and
looked at herself in the leprous mirror with a passionate determination
to see herself as the world saw her.

The result was rather dreadful. Even a beauty would have found that
harsh, unsoftened side-light trying. Valancy saw straight black hair,
short and thin, always lustreless despite the fact that she gave it one
hundred strokes of the brush, neither more nor less, every night of her
life and faithfully rubbed Redfern’s Hair Vigor into the roots, more
lustreless than ever in its morning roughness; fine, straight, black
brows; a nose she had always felt was much too small even for her
small, three-cornered, white face; a small, pale mouth that always fell
open a trifle over little, pointed white teeth; a figure thin and
flat-breasted, rather below the average height. She had somehow escaped
the family high cheek-bones, and her dark-brown eyes, too soft and
shadowy to be black, had a slant that was almost Oriental. Apart from
her eyes she was neither pretty nor ugly—just insignificant-looking,
she concluded bitterly. How plain the lines around her eyes and mouth
were in that merciless light! And never had her narrow, white face
looked so narrow and so white.

She did her hair in a pompadour. Pompadours had long gone out of
fashion, but they had been in when Valancy first put her hair up and
Aunt Wellington had decided that she must always wear her hair so.

“It is the _only_ way that becomes you. Your face is so small that you
_must_ add height to it by a pompadour effect,” said Aunt Wellington,
who always enunciated commonplaces as if uttering profound and
important truths.

Valancy had hankered to do her hair pulled low on her forehead, with
puffs above the ears, as Olive was wearing hers. But Aunt Wellington’s
dictum had such an effect on her that she never dared change her style
of hairdressing again. But then, there were so many things Valancy
never dared do.

All her life she had been afraid of something, she thought bitterly.
From the very dawn of recollection, when she had been so horribly
afraid of the big black bear that lived, so Cousin Stickles told her,
in the closet under the stairs.

“And I always will be—I know it—I can’t help it. I don’t know what it
would be like not to be afraid of something.”

Afraid of her mother’s sulky fits—afraid of offending Uncle
Benjamin—afraid of becoming a target for Aunt Wellington’s
contempt—afraid of Aunt Isabel’s biting comments—afraid of Uncle James’
disapproval—afraid of offending the whole clan’s opinions and
prejudices—afraid of not keeping up appearances—afraid to say what she
really thought of  anything—afraid of poverty in her old age.
Fear—fear—fear—she could never escape from it. It bound her and
enmeshed her like a spider’s web of steel. Only in her Blue Castle
could she find temporary release. And this morning Valancy could not
believe she had a Blue Castle. She would never be able to find it
again. Twenty-nine, unmarried, undesired—what had she to do with the
fairy-like chatelaine of the Blue Castle? She would cut such childish
nonsense out of her life forever and face reality unflinchingly.

She turned from her unfriendly mirror and looked out. The ugliness of
the view always struck her like a blow; the ragged fence, the
tumble-down old carriage-shop in the next lot, plastered with crude,
violently coloured advertisements; the grimy railway station beyond,
with the awful derelicts that were always hanging around it even at
this early hour. In the pouring rain everything looked worse than
usual, especially the beastly advertisement, “Keep that schoolgirl
complexion.” Valancy _had_ kept her schoolgirl complexion. That was
just the trouble. There was not a gleam of beauty anywhere—“exactly
like my life,” thought Valancy drearily. Her brief bitterness had
passed. She accepted facts as resignedly as she had always accepted
them. She was one of the people whom life always passes by. There was
no altering that fact.

In this mood Valancy went down to breakfast.




CHAPTER III


Breakfast was always the same. Oatmeal porridge, which Valancy loathed,
toast and tea, and one teaspoonful of marmalade. Mrs. Frederick thought
two teaspoonfuls extravagant—but that did not matter to Valancy, who
hated marmalade, too. The chilly, gloomy little dining-room was
chillier and gloomier than usual; the rain streamed down outside the
window; departed Stirlings, in atrocious, gilt frames, wider than the
pictures, glowered down from the walls. And yet Cousin Stickles wished
Valancy many happy returns of the day!

“Sit up straight, Doss,” was all her mother said.

Valancy sat up straight. She talked to her mother and Cousin Stickles
of the things they always talked of. She never wondered what would
happen if she tried to talk of something else. She knew. Therefore she
never did it.

Mrs. Frederick was offended with Providence for sending a rainy day
when she wanted to go to a picnic, so she ate her breakfast in a sulky
silence for which Valancy was rather grateful. But Christine Stickles
whined endlessly on as usual, complaining about everything—the weather,
the leak in the pantry, the price of oatmeal and butter—Valancy felt at
once she had buttered her toast too lavishly—the epidemic of mumps in
Deerwood.

“Doss will be sure to ketch them,” she foreboded.

“Doss must not go where she is likely to catch mumps,” said Mrs.
Frederick shortly.

Valancy had never had mumps—or whooping cough—or chicken-pox—or
measles—or anything she should have had—nothing but horrible colds
every winter. Doss’ winter colds were a sort of tradition in the
family. Nothing, it seemed, could prevent her from catching them. Mrs.
Frederick and Cousin Stickles did their heroic best. One winter they
kept Valancy housed up from November to May, in the warm sitting-room.
She was not even allowed to go to church. And Valancy took cold after
cold and ended up with bronchitis in June.

“None of _my_ family were ever like that,” said Mrs. Frederick,
implying that it must be a Stirling tendency.

“The Stirlings seldom take colds,” said Cousin Stickles resentfully.
_She_ had been a Stirling.

“I think,” said Mrs. Frederick, “that if a person makes up her mind
_not_ to have colds she will not _have_ colds.”

So that was the trouble. It was all Valancy’s own fault.

But on this particular morning Valancy’s unbearable grievance was that
she was called Doss. She had endured it for twenty-nine years, and all
at once she felt she could not endure it any longer. Her full name was
Valancy Jane. Valancy Jane was rather terrible, but she liked Valancy,
with its odd, out-land tang. It was always a wonder to Valancy that the
Stirlings had allowed her to be so christened. She had been told that
her maternal grandfather, old Amos Wansbarra, had chosen the name for
her. Her father had tacked on the Jane by way of civilising it, and the
whole connection got out of the difficulty by nicknaming her Doss. She
never got Valancy from any one but outsiders.

“Mother,” she said timidly, “would you mind calling me Valancy after
this? Doss seems so—so—I don’t like it.”

Mrs. Frederick looked at her daughter in astonishment. She wore glasses
with enormously strong lenses that gave her eyes a peculiarly
disagreeable appearance.

“What is the matter with Doss?”

“It—seems so childish,” faltered Valancy.

“Oh!” Mrs. Frederick had been a Wansbarra and the Wansbarra smile was
not an asset. “I see. Well, it should suit _you_ then. You are childish
enough in all conscience, my dear child.”

“I am twenty-nine,” said the dear child desperately.

“I wouldn’t proclaim it from the house-tops if I were you, dear,” said
Mrs. Frederick. “Twenty-nine! _I_ had been married nine years when I
was twenty-nine.”

“_I_ was married at seventeen,” said Cousin Stickles proudly.

Valancy looked at them furtively. Mrs. Frederick, except for those
terrible glasses and the hooked nose that made her look more like a
parrot than a parrot itself could look, was not ill-looking. At twenty
she might have been quite pretty. But Cousin Stickles! And yet
Christine Stickles had once been desirable in some man’s eyes. Valancy
felt that Cousin Stickles, with her broad, flat, wrinkled face, a mole
right on the end of her dumpy nose, bristling hairs on her chin,
wrinkled yellow neck, pale, protruding eyes, and thin, puckered mouth,
had yet this advantage over her—this right to look down on her. And
even yet Cousin Stickles was necessary to Mrs. Frederick. Valancy
wondered pitifully what it would be like to be wanted by some
one—needed by some one. No one in the whole world needed her, or would
miss anything from life if she dropped suddenly out of it. She was a
disappointment to her mother. No one loved her. She had never so much
as had a girl friend.

“I haven’t even a gift for friendship,” she had once admitted to
herself pitifully.

“Doss, you haven’t eaten your crusts,” said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly.

It rained all the forenoon without cessation. Valancy pieced a quilt.
Valancy hated piecing quilts. And there was no need of it. The house
was full of quilts. There were three big chests, packed with quilts, in
the attic. Mrs. Frederick had begun storing away quilts when Valancy
was seventeen and she kept on storing them, though it did not seem
likely that Valancy would ever need them. But Valancy must be at work
and fancy work materials were too expensive. Idleness was a cardinal
sin in the Stirling household. When Valancy had been a child she had
been made to write down every night, in a small, hated, black notebook,
all the minutes she had spent in idleness that day. On Sundays her
mother made her tot them up and pray over them.

On this particular forenoon of this day of destiny Valancy spent only
ten minutes in idleness. At least, Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles
would have called it idleness. She went to her room to get a better
thimble and she opened _Thistle Harvest_ guiltily at random.

“The woods are so human,” wrote John Foster, “that to know them one
must live with them. An occasional saunter through them, keeping to the
well-trodden paths, will never admit us to their intimacy. If we wish
to be friends we must seek them out and win them by frequent, reverent
visits at all hours; by morning, by noon, and by night; and at all
seasons, in spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter. Otherwise we can
never really know them and any pretence we may make to the contrary
will never impose on them. They have their own effective way of keeping
aliens at a distance and shutting their hearts to mere casual
sightseers. It is of no use to seek the woods from any motive except
sheer love of them; they will find us out at once and hide all their
sweet, old-world secrets from us. But if they know we come to them
because we love them they will be very kind to us and give us such
treasures of beauty and delight as are not bought or sold in any
market-place. For the woods, when they give at all, give unstintedly
and hold nothing back from their true worshippers. We must go to them
lovingly, humbly, patiently, watchfully, and we shall learn what
poignant loveliness lurks in the wild places and silent intervals,
lying under starshine and sunset, what cadences of unearthly music are
harped on aged pine boughs or crooned in copses of fir, what delicate
savours exhale from mosses and ferns in sunny corners or on damp
brooklands, what dreams and myths and legends of an older time haunt
them. Then the immortal heart of the woods will beat against ours and
its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own forever,
so that no matter where we go or how widely we wander we shall yet be
drawn back to the forest to find our most enduring kinship.”

“Doss,” called her mother from the hall below, “what are you doing all
by yourself in that room?”

Valancy dropped _Thistle Harvest_ like a hot coal and fled downstairs
to her patches; but she felt the strange exhilaration of spirit that
always came momentarily to her when she dipped into one of John
Foster’s books. Valancy did not know much about woods—except the
haunted groves of oak and pine around her Blue Castle. But she had
always secretly hankered after them and a Foster book about woods was
the next best thing to the woods themselves.

At noon it stopped raining, but the sun did not come out until three.
Then Valancy timidly said she thought she would go uptown.

“What do you want to go uptown for?” demanded her mother.

“I want to get a book from the library.”

“You got a book from the library only last week.”

“No, it was four weeks.”

“Four weeks. Nonsense!”

“Really it was, Mother.”

“You are mistaken. It cannot possibly have been more than two weeks. I
dislike contradiction. And I do not see what you want to get a book
for, anyhow. You waste too much time reading.”

“Of what value is my time?” asked Valancy bitterly.

“Doss! Don’t speak in that tone to _me_.”

“We need some tea,” said Cousin Stickles. “She might go and get that if
she wants a walk—though this damp weather is bad for colds.”

They argued the matter for ten minutes longer and finally Mrs.
Frederick agreed rather grudgingly that Valancy might go.




CHAPTER IV


“Got your rubbers on?” called Cousin Stickles, as Valancy left the
house.

Christine Stickles had never once forgotten to ask that question when
Valancy went out on a damp day.

“Yes.”

“Have you got your flannel petticoat on?” asked Mrs. Frederick.

“No.”

“Doss, I really do not understand you. Do you want to catch your death
of cold _again_?” Her voice implied that Valancy had died of a cold
several times already. “Go upstairs this minute and put it on!”

“Mother, I don’t _need_ a flannel petticoat. My sateen one is warm
enough.”

“Doss, remember you had bronchitis two years ago. Go and do as you are
told!”

Valancy went, though nobody will ever know just how near she came to
hurling the rubber-plant into the street before she went. She hated
that grey flannel petticoat more than any other garment she owned.
Olive never had to wear flannel petticoats. Olive wore ruffled silk and
sheer lawn and filmy laced flounces. But Olive’s father had “married
money” and Olive never had bronchitis. So there you were.

“Are you sure you didn’t leave the soap in the water?” demanded Mrs.
Frederick. But Valancy was gone. She turned at the corner and looked
back down the ugly, prim, respectable street where she lived. The
Stirling house was the ugliest on it—more like a red brick box than
anything else. Too high for its breadth, and made still higher by a
bulbous glass cupola on top. About it was the desolate, barren peace of
an old house whose life is lived.

There was a very pretty little house, with leaded casements and dubbed
gables, just around the corner—a new house, one of those houses you
love the minute you see them. Clayton Markley had built it for his
bride. He was to be married to Jennie Lloyd in June. The little house,
it was said, was furnished from attic to cellar, in complete readiness
for its mistress.

“I don’t envy Jennie the man,” thought Valancy sincerely—Clayton
Markley was not one of her many ideals—“but I _do_ envy her the house.
It’s such a nice young house. Oh, if I could only have a house of my
own—ever so poor, so tiny—but my own! But then,” she added bitterly,
“there is no use in yowling for the moon when you can’t even get a
tallow candle.”

In dreamland nothing would do Valancy but a castle of pale sapphire. In
real life she would have been fully satisfied with a little house of
her own. She envied Jennie Lloyd more fiercely than ever today. Jennie
was not so much better looking than she was, and not so very much
younger. Yet she was to have this delightful house. And the nicest
little Wedgwood teacups—Valancy had seen them; an open fireplace, and
monogrammed linen; hemstitched tablecloths, and china-closets. Why did
_everything_ come to some girls and _nothing_ to others? It wasn’t
fair.

Valancy was once more seething with rebellion as she walked along, a
prim, dowdy little figure in her shabby raincoat and three-year-old
hat, splashed occasionally by the mud of a passing motor with its
insulting shrieks. Motors were still rather a novelty in Deerwood,
though they were common in Port Lawrence, and most of the summer
residents up at Muskoka had them. In Deerwood only some of the smart
set had them; for even Deerwood was divided into sets. There was the
smart set—the intellectual set—the old-family set—of which the
Stirlings were members—the common run, and a few pariahs. Not one of
the Stirling clan had as yet condescended to a motor, though Olive was
teasing her father to have one. Valancy had never even been in a
motorcar. But she did not hanker after this. In truth, she felt rather
afraid of motorcars, especially at night. They seemed to be too much
like big purring beasts that might turn and crush you—or make some
terrible savage leap somewhere. On the steep mountain trails around her
Blue Castle only gaily caparisoned steeds might proudly pace; in real
life Valancy would have been quite contented to drive in a buggy behind
a nice horse. She got a buggy drive only when some uncle or cousin
remembered to fling her “a chance,” like a bone to a dog.




CHAPTER V


Of course she must buy the tea in Uncle Benjamin’s grocery-store. To
buy it anywhere else was unthinkable. Yet Valancy hated to go to Uncle
Benjamin’s store on her twenty-ninth birthday. There was no hope that
he would not remember it.

“Why,” demanded Uncle Benjamin, leeringly, as he tied up her tea, “are
young ladies like bad grammarians?”

Valancy, with Uncle Benjamin’s will in the background of her mind, said
meekly, “I don’t know. Why?”

“Because,” chuckled Uncle Benjamin, “they can’t decline matrimony.”

The two clerks, Joe Hammond and Claude Bertram, chuckled also, and
Valancy disliked them a little more than ever. On the first day Claude
Bertram had seen her in the store she had heard him whisper to Joe,
“Who is that?” And Joe had said, “Valancy Stirling—one of the Deerwood
old maids.” “Curable or incurable?” Claude had asked with a snicker,
evidently thinking the question very clever. Valancy smarted anew with
the sting of that old recollection.

“Twenty-nine,” Uncle Benjamin was saying. “Dear me, Doss, you’re
dangerously near the second corner and not even thinking of getting
married yet. Twenty-nine. It seems impossible.”

Then Uncle Benjamin said an original thing. Uncle Benjamin said, “How
time does fly!”

“_I_ think it _crawls_,” said Valancy passionately. Passion was so
alien to Uncle Benjamin’s conception of Valancy that he didn’t know
what to make of her. To cover his confusion, he asked another conundrum
as he tied up her beans—Cousin Stickles had remembered at the last
moment that they must have beans. Beans were cheap and filling.

“What two ages are apt to prove illusory?” asked Uncle Benjamin; and,
not waiting for Valancy to “give it up,” he added, “Mir-age and
marriage.”

“M-i-r-a-g-e is pronounced _mirazh_,” said Valancy shortly, picking up
her tea and her beans. For the moment she did not care whether Uncle
Benjamin cut her out of his will or not. She walked out of the store
while Uncle Benjamin stared after her with his mouth open. Then he
shook his head.

“Poor Doss is taking it hard,” he said.

Valancy was sorry by the time she reached the next crossing. Why had
she lost her patience like that? Uncle Benjamin would be annoyed and
would likely tell her mother that Doss had been impertinent—“to
_me_!”—and her mother would lecture her for a week.

“I’ve held my tongue for twenty years,” thought Valancy. “Why couldn’t
I have held it once more?”

Yes, it was just twenty, Valancy reflected, since she had first been
twitted with her loverless condition. She remembered the bitter moment
perfectly. She was just nine years old and she was standing alone on
the school playground while the other little girls of her class were
playing a game in which you must be chosen by a boy as his partner
before you could play. Nobody had chosen Valancy—little, pale,
black-haired Valancy, with her prim, long-sleeved apron and odd,
slanted eyes.

“Oh,” said a pretty little girl to her, “I’m so sorry for you. You
haven’t got a beau.”

Valancy had said defiantly, as she continued to say for twenty years,
“I don’t _want_ a beau.” But this afternoon Valancy once and for all
stopped saying that.

“I’m going to be honest with myself anyhow,” she thought savagely.
“Uncle Benjamin’s riddles hurt me because they are true. I _do_ want to
be married. I want a house of my own—I want a husband of my own—I want
sweet, little fat _babies_ of my own—” Valancy stopped suddenly aghast
at her own recklessness. She felt sure that Rev. Dr. Stalling, who
passed her at this moment, read her thoughts and disapproved of them
thoroughly. Valancy was afraid of Dr. Stalling—had been afraid of him
ever since the Sunday, twenty-three years before, when he had first
come to St. Albans’. Valancy had been too late for Sunday School that
day and she had gone into the church timidly and sat in their pew. No
one else was in the church—nobody except the new rector, Dr. Stalling.
Dr. Stalling stood up in front of the choir door, beckoned to her, and
said sternly, “Little boy, come up here.”

Valancy had stared around her. There was no little boy—there was no one
in all the huge church but herself. This strange man with the blue
glasses couldn’t mean her. She was not a boy.

“Little boy,” repeated Dr. Stalling, more sternly still, shaking his
forefinger fiercely at her, “come up here at once!”

Valancy arose as if hypnotised and walked up the aisle. She was too
terrified to do anything else. What dreadful thing was going to happen
to her? What _had_ happened to her? Had she actually turned into a boy?
She came to a stop in front of Dr. Stalling. Dr. Stalling shook his
forefinger—such a long, knuckly forefinger—at her and said:

“Little boy, take off your hat.”

Valancy took off her hat. She had a scrawny little pigtail hanging down
her back, but Dr. Stalling was short-sighted and did not perceive it.

“Little boy, go back to your seat and _always_ take off your hat in
church. _Remember_!”

Valancy went back to her seat carrying her hat like an automaton.
Presently her mother came in.

“Doss,” said Mrs. Stirling, “what do you mean by taking off your hat?
Put it on instantly!”

Valancy put it on instantly. She was cold with fear lest Dr. Stalling
should immediately summon her up front again. She would have to go, of
course—it never occurred to her that one could disobey the rector—and
the church was full of people now. Oh, what would she do if that
horrible, stabbing forefinger were shaken at her again before all those
people? Valancy sat through the whole service in an agony of dread and
was sick for a week afterwards. Nobody knew why—Mrs. Frederick again
bemoaned herself of her delicate child.

Dr. Stalling found out his mistake and laughed over it to Valancy—who
did not laugh. She never got over her dread of Dr. Stalling. And now to
be caught by him on the street corner, thinking such things!

Valancy got her John Foster book—_Magic of Wings_. “His latest—all
about birds,” said Miss Clarkson. She had almost decided that she would
go home, instead of going to see Dr. Trent. Her courage had failed her.
She was afraid of offending Uncle James—afraid of angering her
mother—afraid of facing gruff, shaggy-browed old Dr. Trent, who would
probably tell her, as he had told Cousin Gladys, that her trouble was
entirely imaginary and that she only had it because she liked to have
it. No, she would not go; she would get a bottle of Redfern’s Purple
Pills instead. Redfern’s Purple Pills were the standard medicine of the
Stirling clan. Had they not cured Second Cousin Geraldine when five
doctors had given her up? Valancy always felt very sceptical concerning
the virtues of the Purple Pills; but there _might_ be something in
them; and it was easier to take them than to face Dr. Trent alone. She
would glance over the magazines in the reading-room a few minutes and
then go home.

Valancy tried to read a story, but it made her furious. On every page
was a picture of the heroine surrounded by adoring men. And here was
she, Valancy Stirling, who could not get a solitary beau! Valancy
slammed the magazine shut; she opened _Magic of Wings_. Her eyes fell
on the paragraph that changed her life.

“_Fear is the original sin_,” wrote John Foster. “_Almost all the evil
in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of
something_. It is a cold, slimy serpent coiling about you. It is
horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.”

Valancy shut _Magic of Wings_ and stood up. She would go and see Dr.
Trent.




CHAPTER VI


The ordeal was not so dreadful, after all. Dr. Trent was as gruff and
abrupt as usual, but he did not tell her ailment was imaginary. After
he had listened to her symptoms and asked a few questions and made a
quick examination, he sat for a moment looking at her quite intently.
Valancy thought he looked as if he were sorry for her. She caught her
breath for a moment. Was the trouble serious? Oh, it couldn’t be,
surely—it really hadn’t bothered her _much_—only lately it had got a
little worse.

Dr. Trent opened his mouth—but before he could speak the telephone at
his elbow rang sharply. He picked up the receiver. Valancy, watching
him, saw his face change suddenly as he listened,
“‘Lo—yes—yes—_what_?—yes—yes”—a brief interval—“My God!”

Dr. Trent dropped the receiver, dashed out of the room and upstairs
without even a glance at Valancy. She heard him rushing madly about
overhead, barking out a few remarks to somebody—presumably his
housekeeper. Then he came tearing downstairs with a club bag in his
hand, snatched his hat and coat from the rack, jerked open the street
door and rushed down the street in the direction of the station.

Valancy sat alone in the little office, feeling more absolutely foolish
than she had ever felt before in her life. Foolish—and humiliated. So
this was all that had come of her heroic determination to live up to
John Foster and cast fear aside. Not only was she a failure as a
relative and non-existent as a sweetheart or friend, but she was not
even of any importance as a patient. Dr. Trent had forgotten her very
presence in his excitement over whatever message had come by the
telephone. She had gained nothing by ignoring Uncle James and flying in
the face of family tradition.

For a moment she was afraid she was going to cry. It _was_ all
so—ridiculous. Then she heard Dr. Trent’s housekeeper coming down the
stairs. Valancy rose and went to the office door.

“The doctor forgot all about me,” she said with a twisted smile.

“Well, that’s too bad,” said Mrs. Patterson sympathetically. “But it
wasn’t much wonder, poor man. That was a telegram they ’phoned over
from the Port. His son has been terribly injured in an auto accident in
Montreal. The doctor had just ten minutes to catch the train. I don’t
know what he’ll do if anything happens to Ned—he’s just bound up in the
boy. You’ll have to come again, Miss Stirling. I hope it’s nothing
serious.”

“Oh, no, nothing serious,” agreed Valancy. She felt a little less
humiliated. It was no wonder poor Dr. Trent had forgotten her at such a
moment. Nevertheless, she felt very flat and discouraged as she went
down the street.

Valancy went home by the short-cut of Lover’s Lane. She did not often
go through Lover’s Lane—but it was getting near supper-time and it
would never do to be late. Lover’s Lane wound back of the village,
under great elms and maples, and deserved its name. It was hard to go
there at any time and not find some canoodling couple—or young girls in
pairs, arms intertwined, earnestly talking over their little secrets.
Valancy didn’t know which made her feel more self-conscious and
uncomfortable.

This evening she encountered both. She met Connie Hale and Kate Bayley,
in new pink organdy dresses with flowers stuck coquettishly in their
glossy, bare hair. Valancy had never had a pink dress or worn flowers
in her hair. Then she passed a young couple she didn’t know, dandering
along, oblivious to everything but themselves. The young man’s arm was
around the girl’s waist quite shamelessly. Valancy had never walked
with a man’s arm about her. She felt that she ought to be shocked—they
might leave that sort of thing for the screening twilight, at least—but
she wasn’t shocked. In another flash of desperate, stark honesty she
owned to herself that she was merely envious. When she passed them she
felt quite sure they were laughing at her—pitying her—“there’s that
queer little old maid, Valancy Stirling. They say she never had a beau
in her whole life”—Valancy fairly ran to get out of Lover’s Lane. Never
had she felt so utterly colourless and skinny and insignificant.

Just where Lover’s Lane debouched on the street, an old car was parked.
Valancy knew that car well—by sound, at least—and everybody in Deerwood
knew it. This was before the phrase “tin Lizzie” had come into
circulation—in Deerwood, at least; but if it had been known, this car
was the tinniest of Lizzies—though it was not a Ford but an old Grey
Slosson. Nothing more battered and disreputable could be imagined.

It was Barney Snaith’s car and Barney himself was just scrambling up
from under it, in overalls plastered with mud. Valancy gave him a
swift, furtive look as she hurried by. This was only the second time
she had ever seen the notorious Barney Snaith, though she had heard
enough about him in the five years that he had been living “up back” in
Muskoka. The first time had been nearly a year ago, on the Muskoka
road. He had been crawling out from under his car then, too, and he had
given her a cheerful grin as she went by—a little, whimsical grin that
gave him the look of an amused gnome. He didn’t look bad—she didn’t
believe he was bad, in spite of the wild yarns that were always being
told of him. Of course he went tearing in that terrible old Grey
Slosson through Deerwood at hours when all decent people were in
bed—often with old “Roaring Abel,” who made the night hideous with his
howls—“both of them dead drunk, my dear.” And every one knew that he
was an escaped convict and a defaulting bank clerk and a murderer in
hiding and an infidel and an illegitimate son of old Roaring Abel Gay
and the father of Roaring Abel’s illegitimate grandchild and a
counterfeiter and a forger and a few other awful things. But still
Valancy didn’t believe he was bad. Nobody with a smile like that could
be bad, no matter what he had done.

It was that night the Prince of the Blue Castle changed from a being of
grim jaw and hair with a dash of premature grey to a rakish individual
with overlong, tawny hair, dashed with red, dark-brown eyes, and ears
that stuck out just enough to give him an alert look but not enough to
be called flying jibs. But he still retained something a little grim
about the jaw.

Barney Snaith looked even more disreputable than usual just now. It was
very evident that he hadn’t shaved for days, and his hands and arms,
bare to the shoulders, were black with grease. But he was whistling
gleefully to himself and he seemed so happy that Valancy envied him.
She envied him his light-heartedness and his irresponsibility and his
mysterious little cabin up on an island in Lake Mistawis—even his
rackety old Grey Slosson. Neither he nor his car had to be respectable
and live up to traditions. When he rattled past her a few minutes
later, bareheaded, leaning back in his Lizzie at a raffish angle, his
longish hair blowing in the wind, a villainous-looking old black pipe
in his mouth, she envied him again. Men had the best of it, no doubt
about that. This outlaw happy, whatever he was or wasn’t. She, Valancy
Stirling, respectable, well-behaved to the last degree, was unhappy and
had always been unhappy. So there you were.

Valancy was just in time for supper. The sun had clouded over, and a
dismal, drizzling rain was falling again. Cousin Stickles had the
neuralgia. Valancy had to do the family darning and there was no time
for _Magic of Wings_.

“Can’t the darning wait till tomorrow?” she pleaded.

“Tomorrow will bring its own duties,” said Mrs. Frederick inexorably.

Valancy darned all the evening and listened to Mrs. Frederick and
Cousin Stickles talking the eternal, niggling gossip of the clan, as
they knitted drearily at interminable black stockings. They discussed
Second Cousin Lilian’s approaching wedding in all its bearings. On the
whole, they approved. Second Cousin Lilian was doing well for herself.

“Though she hasn’t hurried,” said Cousin Stickles. “She must be
twenty-five.”

“There have not—fortunately—been many old maids in our connection,”
said Mrs. Frederick bitterly.

Valancy flinched. She had run the darning needle into her finger.

Third Cousin Aaron Gray had been scratched by a cat and had
blood-poisoning in his finger. “Cats are most dangerous animals,” said
Mrs. Frederick. “I would never have a cat about the house.”

She glared significantly at Valancy through her terrible glasses. Once,
five years ago, Valancy had asked if she might have a cat. She had
never referred to it since, but Mrs. Frederick still suspected her of
harbouring the unlawful desire in her heart of hearts.

Once Valancy sneezed. Now, in the Stirling code, it was very bad form
to sneeze in public.

“You can always repress a sneeze by pressing your finger on your upper
lip,” said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly.

Half-past nine o’clock and so, as Mr. Pepys would say, to bed. But
First Cousin Stickles’ neuralgic back must be rubbed with Redfern’s
Liniment. Valancy did that. Valancy always had to do it. She hated the
smell of Redfern’s Liniment—she hated the smug, beaming, portly,
be-whiskered, be-spectacled picture of Dr. Redfern on the bottle. Her
fingers smelled of the horrible stuff after she got into bed, in spite
of all the scrubbing she gave them.

Valancy’s day of destiny had come and gone. She ended it as she had
begun it, in tears.




CHAPTER VII


There was a rosebush on the little Stirling lawn, growing beside the
gate. It was called “Doss’s rosebush.” Cousin Georgiana had given it to
Valancy five years ago and Valancy had planted it joyfully. She loved
roses. But—of course—the rosebush never bloomed. That was her luck.
Valancy did everything she could think of and took the advice of
everybody in the clan, but still the rosebush would not bloom. It
throve and grew luxuriantly, with great leafy branches untouched of
rust or spider; but not even a bud had ever appeared on it. Valancy,
looking at it two days after her birthday, was filled with a sudden,
overwhelming hatred for it. The thing wouldn’t bloom: very well, then,
she would cut it down. She marched to the tool-room in the barn for her
garden knife and she went at the rosebush viciously. A few minutes
later horrified Mrs. Frederick came out to the verandah and beheld her
daughter slashing insanely among the rosebush boughs. Half of them were
already strewn on the walk. The bush looked sadly dismantled.

“Doss, what on earth are you doing? Have you gone crazy?”

“No,” said Valancy. She meant to say it defiantly, but habit was too
strong for her. She said it deprecatingly. “I—I just made up my mind to
cut this bush down. It is no good. It never blooms—never will bloom.”

“That is no reason for destroying it,” said Mrs. Frederick sternly. “It
was a beautiful bush and quite ornamental. You have made a
sorry-looking thing of it.”

“Rose trees should _bloom_,” said Valancy a little obstinately.

“Don’t argue with _me_, Doss. Clear up that mess and leave the bush
alone. I don’t know what Georgiana will say when she sees how you have
hacked it to pieces. Really, I’m surprised at you. And to do it without
consulting _me_!”

“The bush is mine,” muttered Valancy.

“What’s that? What did you say, Doss?”

“I only said the bush was mine,” repeated Valancy humbly.

Mrs. Frederick turned without a word and marched back into the house.
The mischief was done now. Valancy knew she had offended her mother
deeply and would not be spoken to or noticed in any way for two or
three days. Cousin Stickles would see to Valancy’s bringing-up but Mrs.
Frederick would preserve the stony silence of outraged majesty.

Valancy sighed and put away her garden knife, hanging it precisely on
its precise nail in the tool-shop. She cleared away the severed
branches and swept up the leaves. Her lips twitched as she looked at
the straggling bush. It had an odd resemblance to its shaken, scrawny
donor, little Cousin Georgiana herself.

“I certainly have made an awful-looking thing of it,” thought Valancy.

But she did not feel repentant—only sorry she had offended her mother.
Things would be so uncomfortable until she was forgiven. Mrs. Frederick
was one of those women who can make their anger felt all over a house.
Walls and doors are no protection from it.

“You’d better go uptown and git the mail,” said Cousin Stickles, when
Valancy went in. “_I_ can’t go—I feel all sorter peaky and piny this
spring. I want you to stop at the drugstore and git me a bottle of
Redfern’s Blood Bitters. There’s nothing like Redfern’s Bitters for
building a body up. Cousin James says the Purple Pills are the best,
but I know better. My poor dear husband took Redfern’s Bitters right up
to the day he died. Don’t let them charge you more’n ninety cents. I
kin git it for that at the Port. And what _have_ you been saying to
your poor mother? Do you ever stop to think, Doss, that you kin only
have one mother?”

“One is enough for me,” thought Valancy undutifully, as she went
uptown.

She got Cousin Stickles’ bottle of bitters and then she went to the
post-office and asked for her mail at the General Delivery. Her mother
did not have a box. They got too little mail to bother with it. Valancy
did not expect any mail, except the _Christian Times_, which was the
only paper they took. They hardly ever got any letters. But Valancy
rather liked to stand in the office and watch Mr. Carewe, the
grey-bearded, Santa-Clausy old clerk, handing out letters to the lucky
people who did get them. He did it with such a detached, impersonal,
Jove-like air, as if it did not matter in the least to him what
supernal joys or shattering horrors might be in those letters for the
people to whom they were addressed. Letters had a fascination for
Valancy, perhaps because she so seldom got any. In her Blue Castle
exciting epistles, bound with silk and sealed with crimson, were always
being brought to her by pages in livery of gold and blue, but in real
life her only letters were occasional perfunctory notes from relatives
or an advertising circular.

Consequently she was immensely surprised when Mr. Carewe, looking even
more Jovian than usual, poked a letter out to her. Yes, it was
addressed to her plainly, in a fierce, black hand: “Miss Valancy
Stirling, Elm Street, Deerwood”—and the postmark was Montreal. Valancy
picked it up with a little quickening of her breath. Montreal! It must
be from Doctor Trent. He had remembered her, after all.

Valancy met Uncle Benjamin coming in as she was going out and was glad
the letter was safely in her bag.

“What,” said Uncle Benjamin, “is the difference between a donkey and a
postage-stamp?”

“I don’t know. What?” answered Valancy dutifully.

“One you lick with a stick and the other you stick with a lick. Ha,
ha!”

Uncle Benjamin passed in, tremendously pleased with himself.

Cousin Stickles pounced on the _Times_ when Valancy got home, but it
did not occur to her to ask if there were any letters. Mrs. Frederick
would have asked it, but Mrs. Frederick’s lips at present were sealed.
Valancy was glad of this. If her mother had asked if there were any
letters Valancy would have had to admit there was. Then she would have
had to let her mother and Cousin Stickles read the letter and all would
be discovered.

Her heart acted strangely on the way upstairs, and she sat down by her
window for a few minutes before opening her letter. She felt very
guilty and deceitful. She had never before kept a letter secret from
her mother. Every letter she had ever written or received had been read
by Mrs. Frederick. That had never mattered. Valancy had never had
anything to hide. But this _did_ matter. She could not have any one see
this letter. But her fingers trembled with a consciousness of
wickedness and unfilial conduct as she opened it—trembled a little,
too, perhaps, with apprehension. She felt quite sure there was nothing
seriously wrong with her heart but—one never knew.

Dr. Trent’s letter was like himself—blunt, abrupt, concise, wasting no
words. Dr. Trent never beat about the bush. “Dear Miss Sterling”—and
then a page of black, positive writing. Valancy seemed to read it at a
glance; she dropped it on her lap, her face ghost-white.

Dr. Trent told her that she had a very dangerous and fatal form of
heart disease—angina pectoris—evidently complicated with an
aneurism—whatever that was—and in the last stages. He said, without
mincing matters, that nothing could be done for her. If she took great
care of herself she might live a year—but she might also die at any
moment—Dr. Trent never troubled himself about euphemisms. She must be
careful to avoid all excitement and all severe muscular efforts. She
must eat and drink moderately, she must never run, she must go upstairs
and uphill with great care. Any sudden jolt or shock might be fatal.
She was to get the prescription he enclosed filled and carry it with
her always, taking a dose whenever her attacks came on. And he was hers
truly, H. B. Trent.

Valancy sat for a long while by her window. Outside was a world drowned
in the light of a spring afternoon—skies entrancingly blue, winds
perfumed and free, lovely, soft, blue hazes at the end of every street.
Over at the railway station a group of young girls was waiting for a
train; she heard their gay laughter as they chattered and joked. The
train roared in and roared out again. But none of these things had any
reality. Nothing had any reality except the fact that she had only
another year to live.

When she was tired of sitting at the window she went over and lay down
on her bed, staring at the cracked, discoloured ceiling. The curious
numbness that follows on a staggering blow possessed her. She did not
feel anything except a boundless surprise and incredulity—behind which
was the conviction that Dr. Trent knew his business and that she,
Valancy Stirling, who had never lived, was about to die.

When the gong rang for supper Valancy got up and went downstairs
mechanically, from force of habit. She wondered that she had been let
alone so long. But of course her mother would not pay any attention to
her just now. Valancy was thankful for this. She thought the quarrel
over the rosebush had been really, as Mrs. Frederick herself might have
said, Providential. She could not eat anything, but both Mrs. Frederick
and Cousin Stickles thought this was because she was deservedly unhappy
over her mother’s attitude, and her lack of appetite was not commented
on. Valancy forced herself to swallow a cup of tea and then sat and
watched the others eat, with an odd feeling that years had passed since
she had sat with them at the dinner-table. She found herself smiling
inwardly to think what a commotion she could make if she chose. Let her
merely tell them what was in Dr. Trent’s letter and there would be as
much fuss made as if—Valancy thought bitterly—they really cared two
straws about her.

“Dr. Trent’s housekeeper got word from him today,” said Cousin
Stickles, so suddenly that Valancy jumped guiltily. Was there anything
in thought waves? “Mrs. Judd was talking to her uptown. They think his
son will recover, but Dr. Trent wrote that if he did he was going to
take him abroad as soon as he was able to travel and wouldn’t be back
here for a year at least.”

“That will not matter much to _us_,” said Mrs. Frederick majestically.
“He is not _our_ doctor. I would not”—here she looked or seemed to look
accusingly right through Valancy—“have _him_ to doctor a sick cat.”

“May I go upstairs and lie down?” said Valancy faintly. “I—I have a
headache.”

“What has given you a headache?” asked Cousin Stickles, since Mrs.
Frederick would not. The question had to be asked. Valancy could not be
allowed to have headaches without interference.

“You ain’t in the habit of having headaches. I hope you’re not taking
the mumps. Here, try a spoonful of vinegar.”

“Piffle!” said Valancy rudely, getting up from the table. She did not
care just then if she were rude. She had had to be so polite all her
life.

If it had been possible for Cousin Stickles to turn pale she would
have. As it was not, she turned yellower.

“Are you sure you ain’t feverish, Doss? You sound like it. You go and
get right into bed,” said Cousin Stickles, thoroughly alarmed, “and
I’ll come up and rub your forehead and the back of your neck with
Redfern’s Liniment.”

Valancy had reached the door, but she turned. “I won’t be rubbed with
Redfern’s Liniment!” she said.

Cousin Stickles stared and gasped. “What—what do you mean?”

“I said I wouldn’t be rubbed with Redfern’s Liniment,” repeated
Valancy. “Horrid, sticky stuff! And it has the vilest smell of any
liniment I ever saw. It’s no good. I want to be left alone, that’s
all.”

Valancy went out, leaving Cousin Stickles aghast.

“She’s feverish—she _must_ be feverish,” ejaculated Cousin Stickles.

Mrs. Frederick went on eating her supper. It did not matter whether
Valancy was or was not feverish. Valancy had been guilty of
impertinence to _her_.




CHAPTER VIII


Valancy did not sleep that night. She lay awake all through the long
dark hours—thinking—thinking. She made a discovery that surprised her:
she, who had been afraid of almost everything in life, was not afraid
of death. It did not seem in the least terrible to her. And she need
not now be afraid of anything else. Why had she been afraid of things?
Because of life. Afraid of Uncle Benjamin because of the menace of
poverty in old age. But now she would never be old—neglected—tolerated.
Afraid of being an old maid all her life. But now she would not be an
old maid very long. Afraid of offending her mother and her clan because
she had to live with and among them and couldn’t live peaceably if she
didn’t give in to them. But now she hadn’t. Valancy felt a curious
freedom.

But she was still horribly afraid of one thing—the fuss the whole
jamfry of them would make when she told them. Valancy shuddered at the
thought of it. She couldn’t endure it. Oh, she knew so well how it
would be. First there would be indignation—yes, indignation on the part
of Uncle James because she had gone to a doctor—any doctor—without
consulting HIM. Indignation on the part of her mother for being so sly
and deceitful—“to your own mother, Doss.” Indignation on the part of
the whole clan because she had not gone to Dr. Marsh.

Then would come the solicitude. She would be taken to Dr. Marsh, and
when Dr. Marsh confirmed Dr. Trent’s diagnosis she would be taken to
specialists in Toronto and Montreal. Uncle Benjamin would foot the bill
with a splendid gesture of munificence in thus assisting the widow and
orphan, and talk forever after of the shocking fees specialists charged
for looking wise and saying they couldn’t do anything. And when the
specialists could do nothing for her Uncle James would insist on her
taking Purple Pills—“I’ve known them to effect a cure when _all_ the
doctors had given up”—and her mother would insist on Redfern’s Blood
Bitters, and Cousin Stickles would insist on rubbing her over the heart
every night with Redfern’s Liniment on the grounds that it _might_ do
good and _couldn’t_ do harm; and everybody else would have some pet
dope for her to take. Dr. Stalling would come to her and say solemnly,
“You are very ill. Are you prepared for what may be before you?”—almost
as if he were going to shake his forefinger at her, the forefinger that
had not grown any shorter or less knobbly with age. And she would be
watched and checked like a baby and never let do anything or go
anywhere alone. Perhaps she would not even be allowed to sleep alone
lest she die in her sleep. Cousin Stickles or her mother would insist
on sharing her room and bed. Yes, undoubtedly they would.

It was this last thought that really decided Valancy. She could not put
up with it and she wouldn’t. As the clock in the hall below struck
twelve Valancy suddenly and definitely made up her mind that she would
not tell anybody. She had always been told, ever since she could
remember, that she must hide her feelings. “It is not ladylike to have
feelings,” Cousin Stickles had once told her disapprovingly. Well, she
would hide them with a vengeance.

But though she was not afraid of death she was not indifferent to it.
She found that she _resented_ it; it was not fair that she should have
to die when she had never lived. Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the
dark hours passed by—not because she had no future but because she had
no past.

“I’m poor—I’m ugly—I’m a failure—and I’m near death,” she thought. She
could see her own obituary notice in the Deerwood _Weekly Times_,
copied into the Port Lawrence _Journal_. “A deep gloom was cast over
Deerwood, etc., etc.”—“leaves a large circle of friends to mourn, etc.,
etc., etc.”—lies, all lies. Gloom, forsooth! Nobody would miss her. Her
death would not matter a straw to anybody. Not even her mother loved
her—her mother who had been so disappointed that she was not a boy—or
at least, a pretty girl.

Valancy reviewed her whole life between midnight and the early spring
dawn. It was a very drab existence, but here and there an incident
loomed out with a significance out of all proportion to its real
importance. These incidents were all unpleasant in one way or another.
Nothing really pleasant had ever happened to Valancy.

“I’ve never had one wholly happy hour in my life—not one,” she thought.
“I’ve just been a colourless nonentity. I remember reading somewhere
once that there is an hour in which a woman might be happy all her life
if she could but find it. I’ve never found my hour—never, never. And I
never will now. If I could only have had that hour I’d be willing to
die.”

Those significant incidents kept bobbing up in her mind like unbidden
ghosts, without any sequence of time or place. For instance, that time
when, at sixteen, she had blued a tubful of clothes too deeply. And the
time when, at eight, she had “stolen” some raspberry jam from Aunt
Wellington’s pantry. Valancy never heard the last of those two
misdemeanours. At almost every clan gathering they were raked up
against her as jokes. Uncle Benjamin hardly ever missed re-telling the
raspberry jam incident—he had been the one to catch her, her face all
stained and streaked.

“I have really done so few bad things that they have to keep harping on
the old ones,” thought Valancy. “Why, I’ve never even had a quarrel
with any one. I haven’t an enemy. What a spineless thing I must be not
to have even one enemy!”

There was that incident of the dust-pile at school when she was seven.
Valancy always recalled it when Dr. Stalling referred to the text, “To
him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken
even that which he hath.” Other people might puzzle over that text but
it never puzzled Valancy. The whole relationship between herself and
Olive, dating from the day of the dust-pile, was a commentary on it.

She had been going to school a year, but Olive, who was a year younger,
had just begun and had about her all the glamour of “a new girl” and an
exceedingly pretty girl at that. It was at recess and all the girls,
big and little, were out on the road in front of the school making
dust-piles. The aim of each girl was to have the biggest pile. Valancy
was good at making dust-piles—there was an art in it—and she had secret
hopes of leading. But Olive, working off by herself, was suddenly
discovered to have a larger dust-pile than anybody. Valancy felt no
jealousy. Her dust-pile was quite big enough to please her. Then one of
the older girls had an inspiration.

“Let’s put all our dust on Olive’s pile and make a tremendous one,” she
exclaimed.

A frenzy seemed to seize the girls. They swooped down on the dust-piles
with pails and shovels and in a few seconds Olive’s pile was a
veritable pyramid. In vain Valancy, with scrawny, outstretched little
arms, tried to protect hers. She was ruthlessly swept aside, her
dust-pile scooped up and poured on Olive’s. Valancy turned away
resolutely and began building another dust-pile. Again a bigger girl
pounced on it. Valancy stood before it, flushed, indignant, arms
outspread.

“Don’t take it,” she pleaded. “Please don’t take it.”

“But _why_?” demanded the older girl. “Why won’t you help to build
Olive’s bigger?”

“I want my own little dust-pile,” said Valancy piteously.

Her plea went unheeded. While she argued with one girl another scraped
up her dust-pile. Valancy turned away, her heart swelling, her eyes
full of tears.

“Jealous—you’re jealous!” said the girls mockingly.

“You were very selfish,” said her mother coldly, when Valancy told her
about it at night. That was the first and last time Valancy had ever
taken any of her troubles to her mother.

Valancy was neither jealous nor selfish. It was only that she wanted a
dust-pile of her own—small or big mattered not. A team of horses came
down the street—Olive’s dust pile was scattered over the roadway—the
bell rang—the girls trooped into school and had forgotten the whole
affair before they reached their seats. Valancy never forgot it. To
this day she resented it in her secret soul. But was it not symbolical
of her life?

“I’ve never been able to have my own dust-pile,” thought Valancy.

The enormous red moon she had seen rising right at the end of the
street one autumn evening of her sixth year. She had been sick and cold
with the awful, uncanny horror of it. So near to her. So big. She had
run in trembling to her mother and her mother had laughed at her. She
had gone to bed and hidden her face under the clothes in terror lest
she might look at the window and see that horrible moon glaring in at
her through it.

The boy who had tried to kiss her at a party when she was fifteen. She
had not let him—she had evaded him and run. He was the only boy who had
ever tried to kiss her. Now, fourteen years later, Valancy found
herself wishing that she had let him.

The time she had been made to apologise to Olive for something she
hadn’t done. Olive had said that Valancy had pushed her into the mud
and spoiled her new shoes _on purpose_. Valancy knew she hadn’t. It had
been an accident—and even that wasn’t her fault—but nobody would
believe her. She had to apologise—and kiss Olive to “make up.” The
injustice of it burned in her soul tonight.

That summer when Olive had the most beautiful hat, trimmed with creamy
yellow net, with a wreath of red roses and little ribbon bows under the
chin. Valancy had wanted a hat like that more than she had ever wanted
anything. She pleaded for one and had been laughed at—all summer she
had to wear a horrid little brown sailor with elastic that cut behind
her ears. None of the girls would go around with her because she was so
shabby—nobody but Olive. People had thought Olive so sweet and
unselfish.

“I was an excellent foil for her,” thought Valancy. “Even then she knew
that.”

Valancy had tried to win a prize for attendance in Sunday School once.
But Olive won it. There were so many Sundays Valancy had to stay home
because she had colds. She had once tried to “say a piece” in school
one Friday afternoon and had broken down in it. Olive was a good
reciter and never got stuck.

The night she had spent in Port Lawrence with Aunt Isabel when she was
ten. Byron Stirling was there; from Montreal, twelve years old,
conceited, clever. At family prayers in the morning Byron had reached
across and given Valancy’s thin arm such a savage pinch that she
screamed out with pain. After prayers were over she was summoned to
Aunt Isabel’s bar of judgment. But when she said Byron had pinched her
Byron denied it. He said she cried out because the kitten scratched
her. He said she had put the kitten up on her chair and was playing
with it when she should have been listening to Uncle David’s prayer. He
was _believed_. In the Stirling clan the boys were always believed
before the girls. Valancy was sent home in disgrace because of her
exceedingly bad behavior during family prayers and she was not asked to
Aunt Isabel’s again for many moons.

The time Cousin Betty Stirling was married. Somehow Valancy got wind of
the fact that Betty was going to ask her to be one of her bridesmaids.
Valancy was secretly uplifted. It would be a delightful thing to be a
bridesmaid. And of course she would have to have a new dress for it—a
pretty new dress—a pink dress. Betty wanted her bridesmaids to dress in
pink.

But Betty had never asked her, after all. Valancy couldn’t guess why,
but long after her secret tears of disappointment had been dried Olive
told her. Betty, after much consultation and reflection, had decided
that Valancy was too insignificant—she would “spoil the effect.” That
was nine years ago. But tonight Valancy caught her breath with the old
pain and sting of it.

That day in her eleventh year when her mother had badgered her into
confessing something she had never done. Valancy had denied it for a
long time but eventually for peace’ sake she had given in and pleaded
guilty. Mrs. Frederick was always making people lie by pushing them
into situations where they _had_ to lie. Then her mother had made her
kneel down on the parlour floor, between herself and Cousin Stickles,
and say, “O God, please forgive me for not speaking the truth.” Valancy
had said it, but as she rose from her knees she muttered. “But, O God,
_you_ know I did speak the truth.” Valancy had not then heard of
Galileo but her fate was similar to his. She was punished just as
severely as if she hadn’t confessed and prayed.

The winter she went to dancing-school. Uncle James had decreed she
should go and had paid for her lessons. How she had looked forward to
it! And how she had hated it! She had never had a voluntary partner.
The teacher always had to tell some boy to dance with her, and
generally he had been sulky about it. Yet Valancy was a good dancer, as
light on her feet as thistledown. Olive, who never lacked eager
partners, was heavy.

The affair of the button-string, when she was ten. All the girls in
school had button-strings. Olive had a very long one with a great many
beautiful buttons. Valancy had one. Most of the buttons on it were very
commonplace, but she had six beauties that had come off Grandmother
Stirling’s wedding-gown—sparkling buttons of gold and glass, much more
beautiful than any Olive had. Their possession conferred a certain
distinction on Valancy. She knew every little girl in school envied her
the exclusive possession of those beautiful buttons. When Olive saw
them on the button-string she had looked at them narrowly but said
nothing—then. The next day Aunt Wellington had come to Elm Street and
told Mrs. Frederick that she thought Olive should have some of those
buttons—Grandmother Stirling was just as much Wellington’s mother as
Frederick’s. Mrs. Frederick had agreed amiably. She could not afford to
fall out with Aunt Wellington. Moreover, the matter was of no
importance whatever. Aunt Wellington carried off four of the buttons,
generously leaving two for Valancy. Valancy had torn these from her
string and flung them on the floor—she had not yet learned that it was
unladylike to have feelings—and had been sent supperless to bed for the
exhibition.

The night of Margaret Blunt’s party. She had made such pathetic efforts
to be pretty that night. Rob Walker was to be there; and two nights
before, on the moonlit verandah of Uncle Herbert’s cottage at Mistawis,
Rob had really seemed attracted to her. At Margaret’s party Rob never
even asked her to dance—did not notice her at all. She was a
wallflower, as usual. That, of course, was years ago. People in
Deerwood had long since given up inviting Valancy to dances. But to
Valancy its humiliation and disappointment were of the other day. Her
face burned in the darkness as she recalled herself, sitting there with
her pitifully crimped, thin hair and the cheeks she had pinched for an
hour before coming, in an effort to make them red. All that came of it
was a wild story that Valancy Stirling was rouged at Margaret Blunt’s
party. In those days in Deerwood that was enough to wreck your
character forever. It did not wreck Valancy’s, or even damage it.
People knew _she_ couldn’t be fast if she tried. They only laughed at
her.

“I’ve had nothing but a second-hand existence,” decided Valancy. “All
the great emotions of life have passed me by. I’ve never even had a
grief. And have I ever really loved anybody? Do I really love Mother?
No, I don’t. That’s the truth, whether it is disgraceful or not. I
don’t love her—I’ve never loved her. What’s worse, I don’t even like
her. So I don’t know anything about any kind of love. My life has been
empty—empty. Nothing is worse than emptiness. Nothing!” Valancy
ejaculated the last “nothing” aloud passionately. Then she moaned and
stopped thinking about anything for a while. One of her attacks of pain
had come on.

When it was over something had happened to Valancy—perhaps the
culmination of the process that had been going on in her mind ever
since she had read Dr. Trent’s letter. It was three o’clock in the
morning—the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes
it sets us free.

“I’ve been trying to please other people all my life and failed,” she
said. “After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything
again. I’ve breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretences and evasions
all my life. What a luxury it will be to tell the truth! I may not be
able to do much that I want to do but I won’t do another thing that I
don’t want to do. Mother can pout for weeks—I shan’t worry over it.
‘Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.’”

Valancy got up and dressed, with a deepening of that curious sense of
freedom. When she had finished with her hair she opened the window and
hurled the jar of potpourri over into the next lot. It smashed
gloriously against the schoolgirl complexion on the old carriage-shop.

“I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things,” said Valancy.




CHAPTER IX


Uncle Herbert and Aunt Alberta’s silver wedding was delicately referred
to among the Stirlings during the following weeks as “the time we first
noticed poor Valancy was—a little—you understand?”

Not for worlds would any of the Stirlings have said out and out at
first that Valancy had gone mildly insane or even that her mind was
slightly deranged. Uncle Benjamin was considered to have gone entirely
too far when he had ejaculated, “She’s dippy—I tell you, she’s dippy,”
and was only excused because of the outrageousness of Valancy’s conduct
at the aforesaid wedding dinner.

But Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles had noticed a few things that
made them uneasy _before_ the dinner. It had begun with the rosebush,
of course; and Valancy never was really “quite right” again. She did
not seem to worry in the least over the fact that her mother was not
speaking to her. You would never suppose she noticed it at all. She had
flatly refused to take either Purple Pills or Redfern’s Bitters. She
had announced coolly that she did not intend to answer to the name of
“Doss” any longer. She had told Cousin Stickles that she wished she
would give up wearing that brooch with Cousin Artemas Stickles’ hair in
it. She had moved her bed in her room to the opposite corner. She had
read _Magic of Wings_ Sunday afternoon. When Cousin Stickles had
rebuked her Valancy had said indifferently, “Oh, I forgot it was
Sunday”—and _had gone on reading it_.

Cousin Stickles had seen a terrible thing—she had caught Valancy
sliding down the bannister. Cousin Stickles did not tell Mrs. Frederick
this—poor Amelia was worried enough as it was. But it was Valancy’s
announcement on Saturday night that she was not going to go to the
Anglican church any more that broke through Mrs. Frederick’s stony
silence.

“Not going to church any more! Doss, have you absolutely taken leave——”

“Oh, I’m going to church,” said Valancy airily. “I’m going to the
Presbyterian church. But to the Anglican church I will not go.”

This was even worse. Mrs. Frederick had recourse to tears, having found
outraged majesty had ceased to be effective.

“What have you got against the Anglican church?” she sobbed.

“Nothing—only just that you’ve always made me go there. If you’d made
me go to the Presbyterian church I’d want to go to the Anglican.”

“Is that a nice thing to say to your mother? Oh, how true it is that it
is sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child.”

“Is that a nice thing to say to your daughter?” said unrepentant
Valancy.

So Valancy’s behaviour at the silver wedding was not quite the surprise
to Mrs. Frederick and Christine Stickles that it was to the rest. They
were doubtful about the wisdom of taking her, but concluded it would
“make talk” if they didn’t. Perhaps she would behave herself, and so
far no outsider suspected there was anything queer about her. By a
special mercy of Providence it had poured torrents Sunday morning, so
Valancy had not carried out her hideous threat of going to the
Presbyterian church.

Valancy would not have cared in the least if they had left her at home.
These family celebrations were all hopelessly dull. But the Stirlings
always celebrated everything. It was a long-established custom. Even
Mrs. Frederick gave a dinner party on her wedding anniversary and
Cousin Stickles had friends in to supper on her birthday. Valancy hated
these entertainments because they had to pinch and save and contrive
for weeks afterwards to pay for them. But she wanted to go to the
silver wedding. It would hurt Uncle Herbert’s feelings if she stayed
away, and she rather liked Uncle Herbert. Besides, she wanted to look
over all her relatives from her new angle. It would be an excellent
place to make public her declaration of independence if occasion
offered.

“Put on your brown silk dress,” said Mrs. Stirling.

As if there were anything else to put on! Valancy had only the one
festive dress—that snuffy-brown silk Aunt Isabel had given her. Aunt
Isabel had decreed that Valancy should never wear colours. They did not
become her. When she was young they allowed her to wear white, but that
had been tacitly dropped for some years. Valancy put on the brown silk.
It had a high collar and long sleeves. She had never had a dress with
low neck and elbow sleeves, although they had been worn, even in
Deerwood, for over a year. But she did not do her hair pompadour. She
knotted it on her neck and pulled it out over her ears. She thought it
became her—only the little knot was so absurdly small. Mrs. Frederick
resented the hair but decided it was wisest to say nothing on the eve
of the party. It was so important that Valancy should be kept in good
humour, if possible, until it was over. Mrs. Frederick did not reflect
that this was the first time in her life that she had thought it
necessary to consider Valancy’s humours. But then Valancy had never
been “queer” before.

On their way to Uncle Herbert’s—Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles
walking in front, Valancy trotting meekly along behind—Roaring Abel
drove past them. Drunk as usual but not in the roaring stage. Just
drunk enough to be excessively polite. He raised his disreputable old
tartan cap with the air of a monarch saluting his subjects and swept
them a grand bow. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles dared not cut
Roaring Abel altogether. He was the only person in Deerwood who could
be got to do odd jobs of carpentering and repairing when they needed to
be done, so it would not do to offend him. But they responded with only
the stiffest, slightest of bows. Roaring Abel must be kept in his
place.

Valancy, behind them, did a thing they were fortunately spared seeing.
She smiled gaily and waved her hand to Roaring Abel. Why not? She had
always liked the old sinner. He was such a jolly, picturesque,
unashamed reprobate and stood out against the drab respectability of
Deerwood and its customs like a flame-red flag of revolt and protest.
Only a few nights ago Abel had gone through Deerwood in the wee sma’s,
shouting oaths at the top of his stentorian voice which could be heard
for miles, and lashing his horse into a furious gallop as he tore along
prim, proper Elm Street.

“Yelling and blaspheming like a fiend,” shuddered Cousin Stickles at
the breakfast-table.

“I cannot understand why the judgment of the Lord has not fallen upon
that man long ere this,” said Mrs. Frederick petulantly, as if she
thought Providence was very dilatory and ought to have a gentle
reminder.

“He’ll be picked up dead some morning—he’ll fall under his horse’s
hoofs and be trampled to death,” said Cousin Stickles reassuringly.

Valancy had said nothing, of course; but she wondered to herself if
Roaring Abel’s periodical sprees were not his futile protest against
the poverty and drudgery and monotony of his existence. _She_ went on
dream sprees in her Blue Castle. Roaring Abel, having no imagination,
could not do that. _His_ escapes from reality had to be concrete. So
she waved at him today with a sudden fellow feeling, and Roaring Abel,
not too drunk to be astonished, nearly fell off his seat in his
amazement.

By this time they had reached Maple Avenue and Uncle Herbert’s house, a
large, pretentious structure peppered with meaningless bay windows and
excrescent porches. A house that always looked like a stupid,
prosperous, self-satisfied man with warts on his face.

“A house like that,” said Valancy solemnly, “is a blasphemy.”

Mrs. Frederick was shaken to her soul. What had Valancy said? Was it
profane? Or only just queer? Mrs. Frederick took off her hat in Aunt
Alberta’s spare-room with trembling hands. She made one more feeble
attempt to avert disaster. She held Valancy back on the landing as
Cousin Stickles went downstairs.

“Won’t you try to remember you’re a lady?” she pleaded.

“Oh, if there were only any hope of being able to forget it!” said
Valancy wearily.

Mrs. Frederick felt that she had not deserved this from Providence.




CHAPTER X


“Bless this food to our use and consecrate our lives to Thy service,”
said Uncle Herbert briskly.

Aunt Wellington frowned. She always considered Herbert’s graces
entirely too short and “flippant.” A grace, to be a grace in Aunt
Wellington’s eyes, had to be at least three minutes long and uttered in
an unearthly tone, between a groan and a chant. As a protest she kept
her head bent a perceptible time after all the rest had been lifted.
When she permitted herself to sit upright she found Valancy looking at
her. Ever afterwards Aunt Wellington averred that she had known from
that moment that there was something wrong with Valancy. In those
queer, slanted eyes of hers—“we should always have known she was not
entirely _right_ with eyes like that”—there was an odd gleam of mockery
and amusement—as if Valancy were laughing at _her_. Such a thing was
unthinkable, of course. Aunt Wellington at once ceased to think it.

Valancy was enjoying herself. She had never enjoyed herself at a
“family reunion” before. In social function, as in childish games, she
had only “filled in.” Her clan had always considered her very dull. She
had no parlour tricks. And she had been in the habit of taking refuge
from the boredom of family parties in her Blue Castle, which resulted
in an absent-mindedness that increased her reputation for dulness and
vacuity.

“She has no social presence whatever,” Aunt Wellington had decreed once
and for all. Nobody dreamed that Valancy was dumb in their presence
merely because she was afraid of them. Now she was no longer afraid of
them. The shackles had been stricken off her soul. She was quite
prepared to talk if occasion offered. Meanwhile she was giving herself
such freedom of thought as she had never dared to take before. She let
herself go with a wild, inner exultation, as Uncle Herbert carved the
turkey. Uncle Herbert gave Valancy a second look that day. Being a man,
he didn’t know what she had done to her hair, but he thought
surprisedly that Doss was not such a bad-looking girl, after all; and
he put an extra piece of white meat on her plate.

“What herb is most injurious to a young lady’s beauty?” propounded
Uncle Benjamin by way of starting conversation—“loosening things up a
bit,” as he would have said.

Valancy, whose duty it was to say, “What?” did not say it. Nobody else
said it, so Uncle Benjamin, after an expectant pause, had to answer,
“Thyme,” and felt that his riddle had fallen flat. He looked
resentfully at Valancy, who had never failed him before, but Valancy
did not seem even to be aware of him. She was gazing around the table,
examining relentlessly every one in this depressing assembly of
sensible people and watching their little squirms with a detached,
amused smile.

So these were the people she had always held in reverence and fear. She
seemed to see them with new eyes.

Big, capable, patronising, voluble Aunt Mildred, who thought herself
the cleverest woman in the clan, her husband a little lower than the
angels and her children wonders. Had not her son, Howard, been all
through teething at eleven months? And could she not tell you the best
way to do everything, from cooking mushrooms to picking up a snake?
What a bore she was! What ugly moles she had on her face!

Cousin Gladys, who was always praising her son, who had died young, and
always fighting with her living one. She had neuritis—or what she
called neuritis. It jumped about from one part of her body to another.
It was a convenient thing. If anybody wanted her to go somewhere she
didn’t want to go she had neuritis in her legs. And always if any
mental effort was required she could have neuritis in her head. You
can’t _think_ with neuritis in your head, my dear.

“What an old humbug you are!” thought Valancy impiously.

Aunt Isabel. Valancy counted her chins. Aunt Isabel was the critic of
the clan. She had always gone about squashing people flat. More members
of it than Valancy were afraid of her. She had, it was conceded, a
biting tongue.

“I wonder what would happen to your face if you ever smiled,”
speculated Valancy, unblushingly.

Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, with her great, pale, expressionless eyes,
who was noted for the variety of her pickle recipes and for nothing
else. So afraid of saying something indiscreet that she never said
anything worth listening to. So proper that she blushed when she saw
the advertisement picture of a corset and had put a dress on her Venus
de Milo statuette which made it look “real tasty.”

Little Cousin Georgiana. Not such a bad little soul. But dreary—very.
Always looking as if she had just been starched and ironed. Always
afraid to let herself go. The only thing she really enjoyed was a
funeral. You knew where you were with a corpse. Nothing more could
happen to _it_. But while there was life there was fear.

Uncle James. Handsome, black, with his sarcastic, trap-like mouth and
iron-grey side-burns, whose favourite amusement was to write
controversial letters to the _Christian Times_, attacking Modernism.
Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he
did when awake. No wonder his wife had died young. Valancy remembered
her. A pretty, sensitive thing. Uncle James had denied her everything
she wanted and showered on her everything she didn’t want. He had
killed her—quite legally. She had been smothered and starved.

Uncle Benjamin, wheezy, pussy-mouthed. With great pouches under eyes
that held nothing in reverence.

Uncle Wellington. Long, pallid face, thin, pale-yellow hair—“one of the
fair Stirlings”—thin, stooping body, abominably high forehead with such
ugly wrinkles, and “eyes about as intelligent as a fish’s,” thought
Valancy. “Looks like a cartoon of himself.”

Aunt Wellington. Named Mary but called by her husband’s name to
distinguish her from Great-aunt Mary. A massive, dignified, permanent
lady. Splendidly arranged, iron-grey hair. Rich, fashionable beaded
dress. Had _her_ moles removed by electrolysis—which Aunt Mildred
thought was a wicked evasion of the purposes of God.

Uncle Herbert, with his spiky grey hair. Aunt Alberta, who twisted her
mouth so unpleasantly in talking and had a great reputation for
unselfishness because she was always giving up a lot of things she
didn’t want. Valancy let them off easily in her judgment because she
liked them, even if they were in Milton’s expressive phrase, “stupidly
good.” But she wondered for what inscrutable reason Aunt Alberta had
seen fit to tie a black velvet ribbon around each of her chubby arms
above the elbow.

Then she looked across the table at Olive. Olive, who had been held up
to her as a paragon of beauty, behaviour and success as long as she
could remember. “Why can’t you hold yourself like Olive, Doss? Why
can’t you stand correctly like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you speak
prettily like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you make an effort, Doss?”

Valancy’s elfin eyes lost their mocking glitter and became pensive and
sorrowful. You could not ignore or disdain Olive. It was quite
impossible to deny that she was beautiful and effective and sometimes
she was a little intelligent. Her mouth might be a trifle heavy—she
might show her fine, white, regular teeth rather too lavishly when she
smiled. But when all was said and done, Olive justified Uncle
Benjamin’s summing up—“a stunning girl.” Yes, Valancy agreed in her
heart, Olive was stunning.

Rich, golden-brown hair, elaborately dressed, with a sparkling bandeau
holding its glossy puffs in place; large, brilliant blue eyes and thick
silken lashes; face of rose and bare neck of snow, rising above her
gown; great pearl bubbles in her ears; the blue-white diamond flame on
her long, smooth, waxen finger with its rosy, pointed nail. Arms of
marble, gleaming through green chiffon and shadow lace. Valancy felt
suddenly thankful that her own scrawny arms were decently swathed in
brown silk. Then she resumed her tabulation of Olive’s charms.

Tall. Queenly. Confident. Everything that Valancy was _not_. Dimples,
too, in cheeks and chin. “A woman with dimples always gets her own
way,” thought Valancy, in a recurring spasm of bitterness at the fate
which had denied her even one dimple.

Olive was only a year younger than Valancy, though a stranger would
have thought that there was at least ten years between them. But nobody
ever dreaded old maidenhood for her. Olive had been surrounded by a
crowd of eager beaus since her early teens, just as her mirror was
always surrounded by a fringe of cards, photographs, programmes and
invitations. At eighteen, when she had graduated from Havergal College,
Olive had been engaged to Will Desmond, lawyer in embryo. Will Desmond
had died and Olive had mourned for him properly for two years. When she
was twenty-three she had a hectic affair with Donald Jackson. But Aunt
and Uncle Wellington disapproved of that and in the end Olive dutifully
gave him up. Nobody in the Stirling clan—whatever outsiders might
say—hinted that she did so because Donald himself was cooling off.
However that might be, Olive’s third venture met with everybody’s
approval. Cecil Price was clever and handsome and “one of the Port
Lawrence Prices.” Olive had been engaged to him for three years. He had
just graduated in civil engineering and they were to be married as soon
as he landed a contract. Olive’s hope chest was full to overflowing
with exquisite things and Olive had already confided to Valancy what
her wedding-dress was to be. Ivory silk draped with lace, white satin
court train, lined with pale green georgette, heirloom veil of Brussels
lace. Valancy knew also—though Olive had not told her—that the
bridesmaids were selected and that she was not among them.

Valancy had, after a fashion, always been Olive’s confidante—perhaps
because she was the only girl in the connection who could not bore
Olive with return confidences. Olive always told Valancy all the
details of her love affairs, from the days when the little boys in
school used to “persecute” her with love letters. Valancy could not
comfort herself by thinking these affairs mythical. Olive really had
them. Many men had gone mad over her besides the three fortunate ones.

“I don’t know what the poor idiots see in me, that drives them to make
such double idiots of themselves,” Olive was wont to say. Valancy would
have liked to say, “I don’t either,” but truth and diplomacy both
restrained her. She _did_ know, perfectly well. Olive Stirling was one
of the girls about whom men do go mad just as indubitably as she,
Valancy, was one of the girls at whom no man ever looked twice.

“And yet,” thought Valancy, summing her up with a new and merciless
conclusiveness, “she’s like a dewless morning. There’s _something_
lacking.”




CHAPTER XI


Meanwhile the dinner in its earlier stages was dragging its slow length
along true to Stirling form. The room was chilly, in spite of the
calendar, and Aunt Alberta had the gas-logs lighted. Everybody in the
clan envied her those gas-logs except Valancy. Glorious open fires
blazed in every room of her Blue Castle when autumnal nights were cool,
but she would have frozen to death in it before she would have
committed the sacrilege of a gas-log. Uncle Herbert made his hardy
perennial joke when he helped Aunt Wellington to the cold meat—“Mary,
will you have a little lamb?” Aunt Mildred told the same old story of
once finding a lost ring in a turkey’s crop. Uncle Benjamin told _his_
favourite prosy tale of how he had once chased and punished a now
famous man for stealing apples. Second Cousin Jane described all her
sufferings with an ulcerating tooth. Aunt Wellington admired the
pattern of Aunt Alberta’s silver teaspoons and lamented the fact that
one of her own had been lost.

“It spoiled the set. I could never get it matched. And it was my
wedding-present from dear old Aunt Matilda.”

Aunt Isabel thought the seasons were changing and couldn’t imagine what
had become of our good, old-fashioned springs. Cousin Georgiana, as
usual, discussed the last funeral and wondered, audibly, “which of us
will be the next to pass away.” Cousin Georgiana could never say
anything as blunt as “die.” Valancy thought she could tell her, but
didn’t. Cousin Gladys, likewise as usual, had a grievance. Her visiting
nephews had nipped all the buds off her house-plants and chivied her
brood of fancy chickens—“squeezed some of them actually to death, my
dear.”

“Boys will be boys,” reminded Uncle Herbert tolerantly.

“But they needn’t be ramping, rampageous animals,” retorted Cousin
Gladys, looking round the table for appreciation of her wit. Everybody
smiled except Valancy. Cousin Gladys remembered that. A few minutes
later, when Ellen Hamilton was being discussed, Cousin Gladys spoke of
her as “one of those shy, plain girls who can’t get husbands,” and
glanced significantly at Valancy.

Uncle James thought the conversation was sagging to a rather low plane
of personal gossip. He tried to elevate it by starting an abstract
discussion on “the greatest happiness.” Everybody was asked to state
his or her idea of “the greatest happiness.”

Aunt Mildred thought the greatest happiness—for a woman—was to be “a
loving and beloved wife and mother.” Aunt Wellington thought it would
be to travel in Europe. Olive thought it would be to be a great singer
like Tetrazzini. Cousin Gladys remarked mournfully that _her_ greatest
happiness would be to be free—absolutely free—from neuritis. Cousin
Georgiana’s greatest happiness would be “to have her dear, dead brother
Richard back.” Aunt Alberta remarked vaguely that the greatest
happiness was to be found in “the poetry of life” and hastily gave some
directions to her maid to prevent any one asking her what she meant.
Mrs. Frederick said the greatest happiness was to spend your life in
loving service for others, and Cousin Stickles and Aunt Isabel agreed
with her—Aunt Isabel with a resentful air, as if she thought Mrs.
Frederick had taken the wind out of her sails by saying it first. “We
are all too prone,” continued Mrs. Frederick, determined not to lose so
good an opportunity, “to live in selfishness, worldliness and sin.” The
other women all felt rebuked for their low ideals, and Uncle James had
a conviction that the conversation had been uplifted with a vengeance.

“The greatest happiness,” said Valancy suddenly and distinctly, “is to
sneeze when you want to.”

Everybody stared. Nobody felt it safe to say anything. Was Valancy
trying to be funny? It was incredible. Mrs. Frederick, who had been
breathing easier since the dinner had progressed so far without any
outbreak on the part of Valancy, began to tremble again. But she deemed
it the part of prudence to say nothing. Uncle Benjamin was not so
prudent. He rashly rushed in where Mrs. Frederick feared to tread.

“Doss,” he chuckled, “what is the difference between a young girl and
an old maid?”

“One is happy and careless and the other is cappy and hairless,” said
Valancy. “You have asked that riddle at least fifty times in my
recollection, Uncle Ben. Why don’t you hunt up some new riddles if
riddle you _must_? It is such a fatal mistake to try to be funny if you
don’t succeed.”

Uncle Benjamin stared foolishly. Never in his life had he, Benjamin
Stirling, of Stirling and Frost, been spoken to so. And by Valancy of
all people! He looked feebly around the table to see what the others
thought of it. Everybody was looking rather blank. Poor Mrs. Frederick
had shut her eyes. And her lips moved tremblingly—as if she were
praying. Perhaps she was. The situation was so unprecedented that
nobody knew how to meet it. Valancy went on calmly eating her salad as
if nothing out of the usual had occurred.

Aunt Alberta, to save her dinner, plunged into an account of how a dog
had bitten her recently. Uncle James, to back her up, asked where the
dog had bitten her.

“Just a little below the Catholic church,” said Aunt Alberta.

At that point Valancy laughed. Nobody else laughed. What was there to
laugh at?

“Is that a vital part?” asked Valancy.

“What do you mean?” said bewildered Aunt Alberta, and Mrs. Frederick
was almost driven to believe that she had served God all her years for
naught.

Aunt Isabel concluded that it was up to her to suppress Valancy.

“Doss, you are horribly thin,” she said. “You are _all_ corners. Do you
_ever_ try to fatten up a little?”

“No.” Valancy was not asking quarter or giving it. “But I can tell you
where you’ll find a beauty parlor in Port Lawrence where they can
reduce the number of your chins.”

“_Val-an-cy_!” The protest was wrung from Mrs. Frederick. She meant her
tone to be stately and majestic, as usual, but it sounded more like an
imploring whine. And she did not say “Doss.”

“She’s feverish,” said Cousin Stickles to Uncle Benjamin in an agonised
whisper. “We’ve thought she’s seemed feverish for several days.”

“She’s gone dippy, in my opinion,” growled Uncle Benjamin. “If not, she
ought to be spanked. Yes, spanked.”

“You can’t spank her.” Cousin Stickles was much agitated. “She’s
twenty-nine years old.”

“So there is that advantage, at least, in being twenty-nine,” said
Valancy, whose ears had caught this aside.

“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, “when I am dead you may say what you
please. As long as I am alive I demand to be treated with respect.”

“Oh, but you know we’re all dead,” said Valancy, “the whole Stirling
clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t—yet. That is the only
difference.” “Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, thinking it might cow
Valancy, “do you remember the time you stole the raspberry jam?”

Valancy flushed scarlet—with suppressed laughter, not shame. She had
been sure Uncle Benjamin would drag that jam in somehow.

“Of course I do,” she said. “It was good jam. I’ve always been sorry I
hadn’t time to eat more of it before you found me. Oh, _look_ at Aunt
Isabel’s profile on the wall. Did you ever see anything so funny?”

Everybody looked, including Aunt Isabel herself, which of course,
destroyed it. But Uncle Herbert said kindly, “I—I wouldn’t eat any more
if I were you, Doss. It isn’t that I grudge it—but don’t you think it
would be better for yourself? Your—your stomach seems a little out of
order.”

“Don’t worry about my stomach, old dear,” said Valancy. “It is all
right. I’m going to keep right on eating. It’s so seldom I get the
chance of a satisfying meal.”

It was the first time any one had been called “old dear” in Deerwood.
The Stirlings thought Valancy had invented the phrase and they were
afraid of her from that moment. There was something so uncanny about
such an expression. But in poor Mrs. Frederick’s opinion the reference
to a satisfying meal was the worst thing Valancy had said yet. Valancy
had always been a disappointment to her. Now she was a disgrace. She
thought she would have to get up and go away from the table. Yet she
dared not leave Valancy there.

Aunt Alberta’s maid came in to remove the salad plates and bring in the
dessert. It was a welcome diversion. Everybody brightened up with a
determination to ignore Valancy and talk as if she wasn’t there. Uncle
Wellington mentioned Barney Snaith. Eventually somebody did mention
Barney Snaith at every Stirling function, Valancy reflected. Whatever
he was, he was an individual that could not be ignored. She resigned
herself to listen. There was a subtle fascination in the subject for
her, though she had not yet faced this fact. She could feel her pulses
beating to her finger-tips.

Of course they abused him. Nobody ever had a good word to say of Barney
Snaith. All the old, wild tales were canvassed—the defaulting
cashier-counterfeiter-infidel-murderer-in-hiding legends were thrashed
out. Uncle Wellington was very indignant that such a creature should be
allowed to exist at all in the neighbourhood of Deerwood. He didn’t
know what the police at Port Lawrence were thinking of. Everybody would
be murdered in their beds some night. It was a shame that he should be
allowed to be at large after all that he had done.

“What _has_ he done?” asked Valancy suddenly.

Uncle Wellington stared at her, forgetting that she was to be ignored.

“Done! Done! He’s done _everything_.”

“_What_ has he done?” repeated Valancy inexorably. “What do you _know_
that he has done? You’re always running him down. And what has ever
been proved against him?”

“I don’t argue with women,” said Uncle Wellington. “And I don’t need
proof. When a man hides himself up there on an island in Muskoka, year
in and year out, and nobody can find out where he came from or how he
lives, or what he does there, _that’s_ proof enough. Find a mystery and
you find a crime.”

“The very idea of a man named Snaith!” said Second Cousin Sarah. “Why,
the name itself is enough to condemn him!”

“I wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark lane,” shivered Cousin
Georgiana.

“What do you suppose he would do to you?” asked Valancy.

“Murder me,” said Cousin Georgiana solemnly.

“Just for the fun of it?” suggested Valancy.

“Exactly,” said Cousin Georgiana unsuspiciously. “When there is so much
smoke there must be some fire. I was afraid he was a criminal when he
came here first. I _felt_ he had something to hide. I am not often
mistaken in my intuitions.”

“Criminal! Of course he’s a criminal,” said Uncle Wellington. “Nobody
doubts it”—glaring at Valancy. “Why, they say he served a term in the
penitentiary for embezzlement. I don’t doubt it. And they say he’s in
with that gang that are perpetrating all those bank robberies round the
country.”

“_Who_ say?” asked Valancy.

Uncle Wellington knotted his ugly forehead at her. What had got into
this confounded girl, anyway? He ignored the question.

“He has the identical look of a jail-bird,” snapped Uncle Benjamin. “I
noticed it the first time I saw him.”

“‘A fellow by the hand of nature marked,
Quoted and signed to do a deed of shame’,”


declaimed Uncle James. He looked enormously pleased over managing to
work that quotation in at last. He had been waiting all his life for
the chance.

“One of his eyebrows is an arch and the other is a triangle,” said
Valancy. “Is _that_ why you think him so villainous?”

Uncle James lifted _his_ eyebrows. Generally when Uncle James lifted
his eyebrows the world came to an end. This time it continued to
function.

“How do _you_ know his eyebrows so well, Doss?” asked Olive, a trifle
maliciously. Such a remark would have covered Valancy with confusion
two weeks ago, and Olive knew it.

“Yes, how?” demanded Aunt Wellington.

“I’ve seen him twice and I looked at him closely,” said Valancy
composedly. “I thought his face the most interesting one I ever saw.”

“There is no doubt there is something fishy in the creature’s past
life,” said Olive, who began to think she was decidedly out of the
conversation, which had centred so amazingly around Valancy. “But he
can hardly be guilty of _everything_ he’s accused of, you know.”

Valancy felt annoyed with Olive. Why should _she_ speak up in even this
qualified defence of Barney Snaith? What had _she_ to do with him? For
that matter, what had Valancy? But Valancy did not ask herself this
question.

“They say he keeps dozens of cats in that hut up back on Mistawis,”
said Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, by way of appearing not entirely
ignorant of him.

Cats. It sounded quite alluring to Valancy, in the plural. She pictured
an island in Muskoka haunted by pussies.

“That alone shows there is something wrong with him,” decreed Aunt
Isabel.

“People who don’t like cats,” said Valancy, attacking her dessert with
a relish, “always seem to think that there is some peculiar virtue in
not liking them.”

“The man hasn’t a friend except Roaring Abel,” said Uncle Wellington.
“And if Roaring Abel had kept away from him, as everybody else did, it
would have been better for—for some members of his family.”

Uncle Wellington’s rather lame conclusion was due to a marital glance
from Aunt Wellington reminding him of what he had almost forgotten—that
there were girls at the table.

“If you mean,” said Valancy passionately, “that Barney Snaith is the
father of Cecily Gay’s child, he _isn’t_. It’s a wicked lie.”

In spite of her indignation Valancy was hugely amused at the expression
of the faces around that festal table. She had not seen anything like
it since the day, seventeen years ago, when at Cousin Gladys’ thimble
party, they discovered that she had got—SOMETHING—in her head at
school. _Lice_ in her head! Valancy was done with euphemisms.

Poor Mrs. Frederick was almost in a state of collapse. She had
believed—or pretended to believe—that Valancy still supposed that
children were found in parsley beds.

“Hush—hush!” implored Cousin Stickles.

“I don’t mean to hush,” said Valancy perversely. “I’ve hush—hushed all
my life. I’ll scream if I want to. Don’t make me want to. And stop
talking nonsense about Barney Snaith.”

Valancy didn’t exactly understand her own indignation. What did Barney
Snaith’s imputed crimes and misdemeanours matter to her? And why, out
of them all, did it seem most intolerable that he should have been
poor, pitiful little Cecily Gay’s false lover? For it _did_ seem
intolerable to her. She did not mind when they called him a thief and a
counterfeiter and jail-bird; but she could not endure to think that he
had loved and ruined Cecily Gay. She recalled his face on the two
occasions of their chance meetings—his twisted, enigmatic, engaging
smile, his twinkle, his thin, sensitive, almost ascetic lips, his
general air of frank daredeviltry. A man with such a smile and lips
might have murdered or stolen but he could not have betrayed. She
suddenly hated every one who said it or believed it of him.

“When _I_ was a young girl I never thought or spoke about such matters,
Doss,” said Aunt Wellington, crushingly.

“But I’m not a young girl,” retorted Valancy, uncrushed. “Aren’t you
always rubbing that into me? And you are all evil-minded, senseless
gossips. Can’t you leave poor Cissy Gay alone? She’s dying. Whatever
she did, God or the Devil has punished her enough for it. _You_ needn’t
take a hand, too. As for Barney Snaith, the only crime he has been
guilty of is living to himself and minding his own business. He can, it
seems, get along without you. Which _is_ an unpardonable sin, of
course, in your little snobocracy.” Valancy coined that concluding word
suddenly and felt that it was an inspiration. That was exactly what
they were and not one of them was fit to mend another.

“Valancy, your poor father would turn over in his grave if he could
hear you,” said Mrs. Frederick.

“I dare say he would like that for a change,” said Valancy brazenly.

“Doss,” said Uncle James heavily, “the Ten Commandments are fairly up
to date still—especially the fifth. Have you forgotten that?”

“No,” said Valancy, “but I thought _you_ had—especially the ninth. Have
you ever thought, Uncle James, how dull life would be without the Ten
Commandments? It is only when things are forbidden that they become
fascinating.”

But her excitement had been too much for her. She knew, by certain
unmistakable warnings, that one of her attacks of pain was coming on.
It must not find her there. She rose from her chair.

“I am going home now. I only came for the dinner. It was very good,
Aunt Alberta, although your salad-dressing is not salt enough and a
dash of cayenne would improve it.”

None of the flabbergasted silver wedding guests could think of anything
to say until the lawn gate clanged behind Valancy in the dusk. Then—

“She’s feverish—I’ve said right along she was feverish,” moaned Cousin
Stickles.

Uncle Benjamin punished his pudgy left hand fiercely with his pudgy
right.

“She’s dippy—I tell you she’s gone dippy,” he snorted angrily. “That’s
all there is about it. Clean dippy.”

“Oh, Benjamin,” said Cousin Georgiana soothingly, “don’t condemn her
too rashly. We _must_ remember what dear old Shakespeare says—that
charity thinketh no evil.”

“Charity! Poppy-cock!” snorted Uncle Benjamin. “I never heard a young
woman talk such stuff in my life as she just did. Talking about things
she ought to be ashamed to think of, much less mention. Blaspheming!
Insulting _us_! What she wants is a generous dose of spank-weed and I’d
like to be the one to administer it. H-uh-h-h-h!” Uncle Benjamin gulped
down the half of a scalding cup of coffee.

“Do you suppose that the mumps could work on a person that way?” wailed
Cousin Stickles.

“I opened an umbrella in the house yesterday,” sniffed Cousin
Georgiana. “I _knew_ it betokened some misfortune.”

“Have you tried to find out if she has a temperature?” asked Cousin
Mildred.

“She wouldn’t let Amelia put the thermometer under her tongue,”
whimpered Cousin Stickles.

Mrs. Frederick was openly in tears. All her defences were down.

“I must tell you,” she sobbed, “that Valancy has been acting very
strangely for over two weeks now. She hasn’t been a bit like
herself—Christine could tell you. I have hoped against hope that it was
only one of her colds coming on. But it is—it must be something worse.”

“This is bringing on my neuritis again,” said Cousin Gladys, putting
her hand to her head.

“Don’t cry, Amelia,” said Herbert kindly, pulling nervously at his
spiky grey hair. He hated “family ructions.” Very inconsiderate of Doss
to start one at _his_ silver wedding. Who could have supposed she had
it in her? “You’ll have to take her to a doctor. This may be only
a—er—a brainstorm. There are such things as brainstorms nowadays,
aren’t there?”

“I—I suggested consulting a doctor to her yesterday,” moaned Mrs.
Frederick. “And she said she wouldn’t go to a doctor—wouldn’t. Oh,
surely I have had trouble enough!”

“And she _won’t_ take Redfern’s Bitters,” said Cousin Stickles.

“Or _anything_,” said Mrs. Frederick.

“And she’s determined to go to the Presbyterian church,” said Cousin
Stickles—repressing, however, to her credit be it said, the story of
the bannister.

“That proves she’s dippy,” growled Uncle Benjamin. “I noticed something
strange about her the minute she came in today. I noticed it _before_
today.” (Uncle Benjamin was thinking of “m-i-r-a-z-h.”) “Everything she
said today showed an unbalanced mind. That question—‘Was it a vital
part?’ Was there any sense at all in that remark? None whatever! There
never was anything like that in the Stirlings. It must be from the
Wansbarras.”

Poor Mrs. Frederick was too crushed to be indignant.

“I never heard of anything like that in the Wansbarras,” she sobbed.

“Your father was odd enough,” said Uncle Benjamin.

“Poor Pa was—peculiar,” admitted Mrs. Frederick tearfully, “but his
mind was never affected.” “He talked all his life exactly as Valancy
did today,” retorted Uncle Benjamin. “And he believed he was his own
great-great grandfather born over again. I’ve heard him say it. Don’t
tell _me_ that a man who believed a thing like _that_ was ever in his
right senses. Come, come, Amelia, stop sniffling. Of course Doss has
made a terrible exhibition of herself today, but she’s not responsible.
Old maids are apt to fly off at a tangent like that. If she had been
married when she should have been she wouldn’t have got like this.”

“Nobody wanted to marry her,” said Mrs. Frederick, who felt that,
somehow, Uncle Benjamin was blaming her.

“Well, fortunately there’s no outsider here,” snapped Uncle Benjamin.
“We may keep it in the family yet. I’ll take her over to see Dr. Marsh
tomorrow. _I_ know how to deal with pig-headed people. Won’t that be
best, James?”

“We must have medical advice certainly,” agreed Uncle James.

“Well, that’s settled. In the meantime, Amelia, act as if nothing had
happened and keep an eye on her. Don’t let her be alone. Above all,
don’t let her sleep alone.”

Renewed whimpers from Mrs. Frederick.

“I can’t help it. Night before last I suggested she’d better have
Christine sleep with her. She positively refused—_and locked her door_.
Oh, you don’t know how she’s changed. She won’t work. At least, she
won’t sew. She does her usual housework, of course. But she wouldn’t
sweep the parlour yesterday morning, though we _always_ sweep it on
Thursdays. She said she’d wait till it was dirty. ‘Would you rather
sweep a dirty room than a clean one?’ I asked her. She said, ‘Of
course. I’d see something for my labour then.’ Think of it!”

Uncle Benjamin thought of it.

“The jar of potpourri”—Cousin Stickles pronounced it as spelled—“has
disappeared from her room. I found the pieces in the next lot. She
won’t tell us what happened to it.”

“I should never have dreamed it of Doss,” said Uncle Herbert. “She has
always seemed such a quiet, sensible girl. A bit backward—but
sensible.”

“The only thing you can be sure of in this world is the multiplication
table,” said Uncle James, feeling cleverer than ever.

“Well, let’s cheer up,” suggested Uncle Benjamin. “Why are chorus girls
like fine stock raisers?”

“Why?” asked Cousin Stickles, since it had to be asked and Valancy
wasn’t there to ask it.

“Like to exhibit calves,” chuckled Uncle Benjamin.

Cousin Stickles thought Uncle Benjamin a little indelicate. Before
Olive, too. But then, he was a man.

Uncle Herbert was thinking that things were rather dull now that Doss
had gone.




CHAPTER XII


Valancy hurried home through the faint blue twilight—hurried too fast
perhaps. The attack she had when she thankfully reached the shelter of
her own room was the worst yet. It was really very bad. She might die
in one of those spells. It would be dreadful to die in such pain.
Perhaps—perhaps this was death. Valancy felt pitifully alone. When she
could think at all she wondered what it would be like to have some one
with her who could sympathise—some one who really cared—just to hold
her hand tight, if nothing else—some one just to say, “Yes, I know.
It’s dreadful—be brave—you’ll soon be better;” not some one merely
fussy and alarmed. Not her mother or Cousin Stickles. Why did the
thought of Barney Snaith come into her mind? Why did she suddenly feel,
in the midst of this hideous loneliness of pain, that _he_ would be
sympathetic—sorry for any one that was suffering? Why did he seem to
her like an old, well-known friend? Was it because she had been
defending him—standing up to her family for him?

She was so bad at first that she could not even get herself a dose of
Dr. Trent’s prescription. But eventually she managed it, and soon after
relief came. The pain left her and she lay on her bed, spent,
exhausted, in a cold perspiration. Oh, that had been horrible! She
could not endure many more attacks like that. One didn’t mind dying if
death could be instant and painless. But to be hurt so in dying!

Suddenly she found herself laughing. That dinner _had_ been fun. And it
had all been so simple. She had merely _said_ the things she had always
_thought_. Their faces—oh, their faces! Uncle Benjamin—poor,
flabbergasted Uncle Benjamin! Valancy felt quite sure he would make a
new will that very night. Olive would get Valancy’s share of his fat
hoard. Olive had always got Valancy’s share of everything. Remember the
dust-pile.

To laugh at her clan as she had always wanted to laugh was all the
satisfaction she could get out of life now. But she thought it was
rather pitiful that it should be so. Might she not pity herself a
little when nobody else did?

Valancy got up and went to her window. The moist, beautiful wind
blowing across groves of young-leafed wild trees touched her face with
the caress of a wise, tender, old friend. The lombardies in Mrs.
Tredgold’s lawn, off to the left—Valancy could just see them between
the stable and the old carriage-shop—were in dark purple silhouette
against a clear sky and there was a milk-white, pulsating star just
over one of them, like a living pearl on a silver-green lake. Far
beyond the station were the shadowy, purple-hooded woods around Lake
Mistawis. A white, filmy mist hung over them and just above it was a
faint, young crescent. Valancy looked at it over her thin left
shoulder.

“I wish,” she said whimsically, “that I may have _one_ little dust-pile
before I die.”




CHAPTER XIII


Uncle Benjamin found he had reckoned without his host when he promised
so airily to take Valancy to a doctor. Valancy would not go. Valancy
laughed in his face.

“Why on earth should I go to Dr. Marsh? There’s nothing the matter with
my mind. Though you all think I’ve suddenly gone crazy. Well, I
haven’t. I’ve simply grown tired of living to please other people and
have decided to please myself. It will give you something to talk about
besides my stealing the raspberry jam. So that’s that.”

“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, solemnly and helplessly, “you are not—like
yourself.”

“Who am I like, then?” asked Valancy.

Uncle Benjamin was rather posed.

“Your Grandfather Wansbarra,” he answered desperately.

“Thanks.” Valancy looked pleased. “That’s a real compliment. I remember
Grandfather Wansbarra. He was one of the few human beings I _have_
known—almost the only one. Now, it is of no use to scold or entreat or
command, Uncle Benjamin—or exchange anguished glances with Mother and
Cousin Stickles. I am not going to any doctor. And if you bring any
doctor here I won’t see him. So what are you going to do about it?”

What indeed! It was not seemly—or even possible—to hale Valancy
doctorwards by physical force. And in no other way could it be done,
seemingly. Her mother’s tears and imploring entreaties availed not.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” said Valancy, lightly but quite respectfully.
“It isn’t likely I’ll do anything very terrible. But I mean to have a
little fun.”

“Fun!” Mrs. Frederick uttered the word as if Valancy had said she was
going to have a little tuberculosis.

Olive, sent by her mother to see if _she_ had any influence over
Valancy, came away with flushed cheeks and angry eyes. She told her
mother that nothing could be done with Valancy. After _she_, Olive, had
talked to her just like a sister, tenderly and wisely, all Valancy had
said, narrowing her funny eyes to mere slips, was, “_I_ don’t show my
gums when I laugh.”

“More as if she were talking to herself than to me. Indeed, Mother, all
the time I was talking to her she gave me the impression of not really
listening. And that wasn’t all. When I finally decided that what I was
saying had no influence over her I begged her, when Cecil came next
week, not to say anything queer before him, at least. Mother, what do
you think she said?”

“I’m sure I can’t imagine,” groaned Aunt Wellington, prepared for
anything.

“She said, ‘I’d rather like to shock Cecil. His mouth is too red for a
man’s.’ Mother, I can never feel the same to Valancy again.”

“Her mind is affected, Olive,” said Aunt Wellington solemnly. “You must
not hold her responsible for what she says.”

When Aunt Wellington told Mrs. Frederick what Valancy had said to
Olive, Mrs. Frederick wanted Valancy to apologise.

“You made me apologise to Olive fifteen years ago for something I
didn’t do,” said Valancy. “That old apology will do for now.”

Another solemn family conclave was held. They were all there except
Cousin Gladys, who had been suffering such tortures of neuritis in her
head “ever since poor Doss went queer” that she couldn’t undertake any
responsibility. They decided—that is, they accepted a fact that was
thrust in their faces—that the wisest thing was to leave Valancy alone
for a while—“give her her head” as Uncle Benjamin expressed it—“keep a
careful eye on her but let her pretty much alone.” The term of
“watchful waiting” had not been invented then, but that was practically
the policy Valancy’s distracted relatives decided to follow.

“We must be guided by developments,” said Uncle Benjamin. “It
is”—solemnly—“easier to scramble eggs than unscramble them. Of
course—if she becomes violent——”

Uncle James consulted Dr. Ambrose Marsh. Dr. Ambrose Marsh approved
their decision. He pointed out to irate Uncle James—who would have
liked to lock Valancy up somewhere, out of hand—that Valancy had not,
as yet, really done or said anything that could be construed as proof
of lunacy—and without proof you cannot lock people up in this
degenerate age. Nothing that Uncle James had reported seemed very
alarming to Dr. Marsh, who put up his hand to conceal a smile several
times. But then he himself was not a Stirling. And he knew very little
about the old Valancy. Uncle James stalked out and drove back to
Deerwood, thinking that Ambrose Marsh wasn’t much of a doctor, after
all, and that Adelaide Stirling might have done better for herself.




CHAPTER XIV


Life cannot stop because tragedy enters it. Meals must be made ready
though a son dies and porches must be repaired even if your only
daughter is going out of her mind. Mrs. Frederick, in her systematic
way, had long ago appointed the second week in June for the repairing
of the front porch, the roof of which was sagging dangerously. Roaring
Abel had been engaged to do it many moons before and Roaring Abel
promptly appeared on the morning of the first day of the second week,
and fell to work. Of course he was drunk. Roaring Abel was never
anything but drunk. But he was only in the first stage, which made him
talkative and genial. The odour of whisky on his breath nearly drove
Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles wild at dinner. Even Valancy, with
all her emancipation, did not like it. But she liked Abel and she liked
his vivid, eloquent talk, and after she washed the dinner dishes she
went out and sat on the steps and talked to him.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought it a terrible proceeding,
but what could they do? Valancy only smiled mockingly at them when they
called her in, and did not go. It was so easy to defy once you got
started. The first step was the only one that really counted. They were
both afraid to say anything more to her lest she might make a scene
before Roaring Abel, who would spread it all over the country with his
own characteristic comments and exaggerations. It was too cold a day,
in spite of the June sunshine, for Mrs. Frederick to sit at the
dining-room window and listen to what was said. She had to shut the
window and Valancy and Roaring Abel had their talk to themselves. But
if Mrs. Frederick had known what the outcome of that talk was to be she
would have prevented it, if the porch was never repaired.

Valancy sat on the steps, defiant of the chill breeze of this cold June
which had made Aunt Isabel aver the seasons were changing. She did not
care whether she caught a cold or not. It was delightful to sit there
in that cold, beautiful, fragrant world and feel free. She filled her
lungs with the clean, lovely wind and held out her arms to it and let
it tear her hair to pieces while she listened to Roaring Abel, who told
her his troubles between intervals of hammering gaily in time to his
Scotch songs. Valancy liked to hear him. Every stroke of his hammer
fell true to the note.

Old Abel Gay, in spite of his seventy years, was handsome still, in a
stately, patriarchal manner. His tremendous beard, falling down over
his blue flannel shirt, was still a flaming, untouched red, though his
shock of hair was white as snow, and his eyes were a fiery, youthful
blue. His enormous, reddish-white eyebrows were more like moustaches
than eyebrows. Perhaps this was why he always kept his upper lip
scrupulously shaved. His cheeks were red and his nose ought to have
been, but wasn’t. It was a fine, upstanding, aquiline nose, such as the
noblest Roman of them all might have rejoiced in. Abel was six feet two
in his stockings, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped. In his youth he had
been a famous lover, finding all women too charming to bind himself to
one. His years had been a wild, colourful panorama of follies and
adventures, gallantries, fortunes and misfortunes. He had been
forty-five before he married—a pretty slip of a girl whom his goings-on
killed in a few years. Abel was piously drunk at her funeral and
insisted on repeating the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah—Abel knew most
of the Bible and all the Psalms by heart—while the minister, whom he
disliked, prayed or tried to pray. Thereafter his house was run by an
untidy old cousin who cooked his meals and kept things going after a
fashion. In this unpromising environment little Cecilia Gay had grown
up.

Valancy had known “Cissy Gay” fairly well in the democracy of the
public school, though Cissy had been three years younger than she.
After they left school their paths diverged and she had seen nothing of
her. Old Abel was a Presbyterian. That is, he got a Presbyterian
preacher to marry him, baptise his child and bury his wife; and he knew
more about Presbyterian theology than most ministers, which made him a
terror to them in arguments. But Roaring Abel never went to church.
Every Presbyterian minister who had been in Deerwood had tried his
hand—once—at reforming Roaring Abel. But he had not been pestered of
late. Rev. Mr. Bently had been in Deerwood for eight years, but he had
not sought out Roaring Abel since the first three months of his
pastorate. He had called on Roaring Abel then and found him in the
theological stage of drunkenness—which always followed the sentimental
maudlin one, and preceded the roaring, blasphemous one. The eloquently
prayerful one, in which he realised himself temporarily and intensely
as a sinner in the hands of an angry God, was the final one. Abel never
went beyond it. He generally fell asleep on his knees and awakened
sober, but he had never been “dead drunk” in his life. He told Mr.
Bently that he was a sound Presbyterian and sure of his election. He
had no sins—that he knew of—to repent of.

“Have you never done anything in your life that you are sorry for?”
asked Mr. Bently.

Roaring Abel scratched his bushy white head and pretended to reflect.
“Well, yes,” he said finally. “There were some women I might have
kissed and didn’t. I’ve always been sorry for _that_.”

Mr. Bently went out and went home.

Abel had seen that Cissy was properly baptised—jovially drunk at the
same time himself. He made her go to church and Sunday School
regularly. The church people took her up and she was in turn a member
of the Mission Band, the Girls’ Guild and the Young Women’s Missionary
Society. She was a faithful, unobtrusive, sincere, little worker.
Everybody liked Cissy Gay and was sorry for her. She was so modest and
sensitive and pretty in that delicate, elusive fashion of beauty which
fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness. But
then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces
like hungry cats when the catastrophe came. Four years previously Cissy
Gay had gone up to a Muskoka hotel as a summer waitress. And when she
had come back in the fall she was a changed creature. She hid herself
away and went nowhere. The reason soon leaked out and scandal raged.
That winter Cissy’s baby was born. Nobody ever knew who the father was.
Cecily kept her poor pale lips tightly locked on her sorry secret.
Nobody dared ask Roaring Abel any questions about it. Rumour and
surmise laid the guilt at Barney Snaith’s door because diligent inquiry
among the other maids at the hotel revealed the fact that nobody there
had ever seen Cissy Gay “with a fellow.” She had “kept herself to
herself” they said, rather resentfully. “Too good for _our_ dances. And
now look!”

The baby had lived for a year. After its death Cissy faded away. Two
years ago Dr. Marsh had given her only six months to live—her lungs
were hopelessly diseased. But she was still alive. Nobody went to see
her. Women would not go to Roaring Abel’s house. Mr. Bently had gone
once, when he knew Abel was away, but the dreadful old creature who was
scrubbing the kitchen floor told him Cissy wouldn’t see any one. The
old cousin had died and Roaring Abel had had two or three disreputable
housekeepers—the only kind who could be prevailed on to go to a house
where a girl was dying of consumption. But the last one had left and
Roaring Abel had now no one to wait on Cissy and “do” for him. This was
the burden of his plaint to Valancy and he condemned the “hypocrites”
of Deerwood and its surrounding communities with some rich, meaty oaths
that happened to reach Cousin Stickles’ ears as she passed through the
hall and nearly finished the poor lady. Was Valancy listening to
_that_?

Valancy hardly noticed the profanity. Her attention was focussed on the
horrible thought of poor, unhappy, disgraced little Cissy Gay, ill and
helpless in that forlorn old house out on the Mistawis road, without a
soul to help or comfort her. And this in a nominally Christian
community in the year of grace nineteen and some odd!

“Do you mean to say that Cissy is all alone there now, with nobody to
do anything for her—_nobody_?”

“Oh, she can move about a bit and get a bite and sup when she wants it.
But she can’t work. It’s d——d hard for a man to work hard all day and
go home at night tired and hungry and cook his own meals. Sometimes I’m
sorry I kicked old Rachel Edwards out.” Abel described Rachel
picturesquely.

“Her face looked as if it had wore out a hundred bodies. And she moped.
Talk about temper! Temper’s nothing to moping. She was too slow to
catch worms, and dirty—d——d dirty. I ain’t unreasonable—I know a man
has to eat his peck before he dies—but she went over the limit. What
d’ye sp’ose I saw that lady do? She’d made some punkin jam—had it on
the table in glass jars with the tops off. The dawg got up on the table
and stuck his paw into one of them. What did she do? She jest took holt
of the dawg and wrung the syrup off his paw back into the jar! Then
screwed the top on and set it in the pantry. I sets open the door and
says to her, ‘Go!’ The dame went, and I fired the jars of punkin after
her, two at a time. Thought I’d die laughing to see old Rachel run—with
them punkin jars raining after her. She’s told everywhere I’m crazy, so
nobody’ll come for love or money.”

“But Cissy _must_ have some one to look after her,” insisted Valancy,
whose mind was centred on this aspect of the case. She did not care
whether Roaring Abel had any one to cook for him or not. But her heart
was wrung for Cecilia Gay.

“Oh, she gits on. Barney Snaith always drops in when he’s passing and
does anything she wants done. Brings her oranges and flowers and
things. There’s a Christian for you. Yet that sanctimonious, snivelling
parcel of St. Andrew’s people wouldn’t be seen on the same side of the
road with him. Their dogs’ll go to heaven before they do. And their
minister—slick as if the cat had licked him!”

“There are plenty of good people, both in St. Andrew’s and St.
George’s, who would be kind to Cissy if you would behave yourself,”
said Valancy severely. “They’re afraid to go near your place.”

“Because I’m such a sad old dog? But I don’t bite—never bit any one in
my life. A few loose words spilled around don’t hurt any one. And I’m
not asking people to come. Don’t want ’em poking and prying about. What
I want is a housekeeper. If I shaved every Sunday and went to church
I’d get all the housekeepers I’d want. I’d be respectable then. But
what’s the use of going to church when it’s all settled by
predestination? Tell me that, Miss.”

“Is it?” said Valancy.

“Yes. Can’t git around it nohow. Wish I could. I don’t want either
heaven or hell for steady. Wish a man could have ’em mixed in equal
proportions.”

“Isn’t that the way it is in this world?” said. Valancy
thoughtfully—but rather as if her thought was concerned with something
else than theology.

“No, no,” boomed Abel, striking a tremendous blow on a stubborn nail.
“There’s too much hell here—entirely too much hell. That’s why I get
drunk so often. It sets you free for a little while—free from
yourself—yes, by God, free from predestination. Ever try it?”

“No, I’ve another way of getting free,” said Valancy absently. “But
about Cissy now. She _must_ have some one to look after her——”

“What are you harping on Sis for? Seems to me you ain’t bothered much
about her up to now. You never even come to see her. And she used to
like you so well.”

“I should have,” said Valancy. “But never mind. You couldn’t
understand. The point is—you must have a housekeeper.”

“Where am I to get one? I can pay decent wages if I could get a decent
woman. D’ye think I like old hags?”

“Will I do?” said Valancy.




CHAPTER XV


“Let us be calm,” said Uncle Benjamin. “Let us be perfectly calm.”

“Calm!” Mrs. Frederick wrung her hands. “How can I be calm—how could
anybody be calm under such a disgrace as this?”

“Why in the world did you let her go?” asked Uncle James.

“_Let_ her! How could I stop her, James? It seems she packed the big
valise and sent it away with Roaring Abel when he went home after
supper, while Christine and I were out in the kitchen. Then Doss
herself came down with her little satchel, dressed in her green serge
suit. I felt a terrible premonition. I can’t tell you how it was, but I
seemed to _know_ that Doss was going to do something dreadful.”

“It’s a pity you couldn’t have had your premonition a little sooner,”
said Uncle Benjamin drily.

“I said, ‘Doss, _where are you going_?’ and _she_ said, ‘I am going to
look for my Blue Castle.’”

“Wouldn’t you think _that_ would convince Marsh that her mind is
affected?” interjected Uncle James.

“And _I_ said, ‘Valancy, what _do_ you mean?’ And _she_ said, ‘I am
going to keep house for Roaring Abel and nurse Cissy. He will pay me
thirty dollars a month.’ I wonder I didn’t drop dead on the spot.”

“You shouldn’t have let her go—you shouldn’t have let her out of the
house,” said Uncle James. “You should have locked the door—anything——”

“She was between me and the front door. And you can’t realise how
determined she was. She was like a rock. That’s the strangest thing of
all about her. She used to be so good and obedient, and now she’s
neither to hold nor bind. But I said _everything_ I could think of to
bring her to her senses. I asked her if she had no regard for her
reputation. I said to her solemnly, ‘Doss, when a woman’s reputation is
once smirched nothing can ever make it spotless again. Your character
will be gone for ever if you go to Roaring Abel’s to wait on a bad girl
like Sis Gay.’ And she said, ‘I don’t believe Cissy was a bad girl, but
I don’t care if she was.’ Those were her very words, ‘I don’t care if
she was.’”

“She has lost all sense of decency,” exploded Uncle Benjamin.

“‘Cissy Gay is dying,’ she said, ‘and it’s a shame and disgrace that
she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for
her. Whatever she’s been or done, she’s a human being.’”

“Well, you know, when it comes to that, I suppose she is,” said Uncle
James with the air of one making a splendid concession.

“I asked Doss if she had no regard for appearances. She said, ‘I’ve
been keeping up appearances all my life. Now I’m going in for
realities. Appearances can go hang!’ Go _hang_!”

“An outrageous thing!” said Uncle Benjamin violently. “An outrageous
thing!”

Which relieved his feelings, but didn’t help any one else.

Mrs. Frederick wept. Cousin Stickles took up the refrain between her
moans of despair.

“I told her—we _both_ told her—that Roaring Abel had certainly killed
his wife in one of his drunken rages and would kill her. She laughed
and said, ‘I’m not afraid of Roaring Abel. He won’t kill _me_, and he’s
too old for me to be afraid of his gallantries.’ What did she mean?
What _are_ gallantries?”

Mrs. Frederick saw that she must stop crying if she wanted to regain
control of the conversation.

“_I_ said to her, ‘Valancy, if you have no regard for your own
reputation and your family’s standing, have you none for _my_
feelings?’ She said, ‘None.’ Just like that, ‘_None_!’”

“Insane people never _do_ have any regard for other people’s feelings,”
said Uncle Benjamin. “That’s one of the symptoms.”

“I broke out into tears then, and she said, ‘Come now, Mother, be a
good sport. I’m going to do an act of Christian charity, and as for the
damage it will do my reputation, why, you know I haven’t any
matrimonial chances anyhow, so what does it matter?’ And with that she
turned and went out.”

“The last words I said to her,” said Cousin Stickles pathetically,
“were, ‘Who will rub my back at nights now?’ And she said—she said—but
no, I cannot repeat it.”

“Nonsense,” said Uncle Benjamin. “Out with it. This is no time to be
squeamish.”

“She said”—Cousin Stickles’ voice was little more than a whisper—“she
said—‘Oh, _darn_!’”

“To think I should have lived to hear my daughter swearing!” sobbed
Mrs. Frederick.

“It—it was only imitation swearing,” faltered Cousin Stickles, desirous
of smoothing things over now that the worst was out. But she had
_never_ told about the bannister.

“It will be only a step from that to real swearing,” said Uncle James
sternly.

“The worst of this”—Mrs. Frederick hunted for a dry spot on her
handkerchief—“is that every one will know now that she is deranged. We
can’t keep it a secret any longer. Oh, I cannot bear it!”

“You should have been stricter with her when she was young,” said Uncle
Benjamin.

“I don’t see how I could have been,” said Mrs. Frederick—truthfully
enough.

“The worst feature of the case is that Snaith scoundrel is always
hanging around Roaring Abel’s,” said Uncle James. “I shall be thankful
if nothing worse comes of this mad freak than a few weeks at Roaring
Abel’s. Cissy Gay _can’t_ live much longer.”

“And she didn’t even take her flannel petticoat!” lamented Cousin
Stickles.

“I’ll see Ambrose Marsh again about this,” said Uncle Benjamin—meaning
Valancy, not the flannel petticoat.

“I’ll see Lawyer Ferguson,” said Uncle James.

“Meanwhile,” added Uncle Benjamin, “let us be calm.”




CHAPTER XVI


Valancy had walked out to Roaring Abel’s house on the Mistawis road
under a sky of purple and amber, with a queer exhilaration and
expectancy in her heart. Back there, behind her, her mother and Cousin
Stickles were crying—over themselves, not over her. But here the wind
was in her face, soft, dew-wet, cool, blowing along the grassy roads.
Oh, she loved the wind! The robins were whistling sleepily in the firs
along the way and the moist air was fragrant with the tang of balsam.
Big cars went purring past in the violet dusk—the stream of summer
tourists to Muskoka had already begun—but Valancy did not envy any of
their occupants. Muskoka cottages might be charming, but beyond, in the
sunset skies, among the spires of the firs, her Blue Castle towered.
She brushed the old years and habits and inhibitions away from her like
dead leaves. She would not be littered with them.

Roaring Abel’s rambling, tumble-down old house was situated about three
miles from the village, on the very edge of “up back,” as the sparsely
settled, hilly, wooded country around Mistawis was called vernacularly.
It did not, it must be confessed, look much like a Blue Castle.

It had once been a snug place enough in the days when Abel Gay had been
young and prosperous, and the punning, arched sign over the gate—“A.
Gay, Carpenter,” had been fine and freshly painted. Now it was a faded,
dreary old place, with a leprous, patched roof and shutters hanging
askew. Abel never seemed to do any carpenter jobs about his own house.
It had a listless air, as if tired of life. There was a dwindling grove
of ragged, crone-like old spruces behind it. The garden, which Cissy
used to keep neat and pretty, had run wild. On two sides of the house
were fields full of nothing but mulleins. Behind the house was a long
stretch of useless barrens, full of scrub pines and spruces, with here
and there a blossoming bit of wild cherry, running back to a belt of
timber on the shores of Lake Mistawis, two miles away. A rough, rocky,
boulder-strewn lane ran through it to the woods—a lane white with
pestiferous, beautiful daisies.

Roaring Abel met Valancy at the door.

“So you’ve come,” he said incredulously. “I never s’posed that ruck of
Stirlings would let you.”

Valancy showed all her pointed teeth in a grin.

“They couldn’t stop me.”

“I didn’t think you’d so much spunk,” said Roaring Abel admiringly.
“And look at the nice ankles of her,” he added, as he stepped aside to
let her in.

If Cousin Stickles had heard this she would have been certain that
Valancy’s doom, earthly and unearthly, was sealed. But Abel’s
superannuated gallantry did not worry Valancy. Besides, this was the
first compliment she had ever received in her life and she found
herself liking it. She sometimes suspected she had nice ankles, but
nobody had ever mentioned it before. In the Stirling clan ankles were
among the unmentionables.

Roaring Abel took her into the kitchen, where Cissy Gay was lying on
the sofa, breathing quickly, with little scarlet spots on her hollow
cheeks. Valancy had not seen Cecilia Gay for years. Then she had been
such a pretty creature, a slight, blossom-like girl, with soft, golden
hair, clear-cut, almost waxen features, and large, beautiful blue eyes.
She was shocked at the change in her. Could this be sweet Cissy—this
pitiful little thing that looked like a tired, broken flower? She had
wept all the beauty out of her eyes; they looked too big—enormous—in
her wasted face. The last time Valancy had seen Cecilia Gay those
faded, piteous eyes had been limpid, shadowy blue pools aglow with
mirth. The contrast was so terrible that Valancy’s own eyes filled with
tears. She knelt down by Cissy and put her arms about her.

“Cissy dear, I’ve come to look after you. I’ll stay with you
till—till—as long as you want me.”

“Oh!” Cissy put her thin arms about Valancy’s neck. “Oh—_will_ you?
It’s been so—lonely. I can wait on myself—but it’s been so _lonely_.
It—would just be like—heaven—to have some one here—like you. You were
always—so sweet to me—long ago.”

Valancy held Cissy close. She was suddenly happy. Here was some one who
needed her—some one she could help. She was no longer a superfluity.
Old things had passed away; everything had become new.

“Most things are predestinated, but some are just darn sheer luck,”
said Roaring Abel, complacently smoking his pipe in the corner.




CHAPTER XVII


When Valancy had lived for a week at Roaring Abel’s she felt as if
years had separated her from her old life and all the people she had
known in it. They were beginning to seem remote—dream-like—far-away—and
as the days went on they seemed still more so, until they ceased to
matter altogether.

She was happy. Nobody ever bothered her with conundrums or insisted on
giving her Purple Pills. Nobody called her Doss or worried her about
catching cold. There were no quilts to piece, no abominable
rubber-plant to water, no ice-cold maternal tantrums to endure. She
could be alone whenever she liked, go to bed when she liked, sneeze
when she liked. In the long, wondrous, northern twilights, when Cissy
was asleep and Roaring Abel away, she could sit for hours on the shaky
back verandah steps, looking out over the barrens to the hills beyond,
covered with their fine, purple bloom, listening to the friendly wind
singing wild, sweet melodies in the little spruces, and drinking in the
aroma of the sunned grasses, until darkness flowed over the landscape
like a cool, welcome wave.

Sometimes of an afternoon, when Cissy was strong enough, the two girls
went into the barrens and looked at the wood-flowers. But they did not
pick any. Valancy had read to Cissy the gospel thereof according to
John Foster: “It is a pity to gather wood-flowers. They lose half their
witchery away from the green and the flicker. The way to enjoy
wood-flowers is to track them down to their remote haunts—gloat over
them—and then leave them with backward glances, taking with us only the
beguiling memory of their grace and fragrance.”

Valancy was in the midst of realities after a lifetime of unrealities.
And busy—very busy. The house had to be cleaned. Not for nothing had
Valancy been brought up in the Stirling habits of neatness and
cleanliness. If she found satisfaction in cleaning dirty rooms she got
her fill of it there. Roaring Abel thought she was foolish to bother
doing so much more than she was asked to do, but he did not interfere
with her. He was very well satisfied with his bargain. Valancy was a
good cook. Abel said she got a flavour into things. The only fault he
found with her was that she did not sing at her work.

“Folks should always sing at their work,” he insisted. “Sounds
cheerful-like.”

“Not always,” retorted Valancy. “Fancy a butcher singing at his work.
Or an undertaker.”

Abel burst into his great broad laugh.

“There’s no getting the better of you. You’ve got an answer every time.
I should think the Stirlings would be glad to be rid of you. _They_
don’t like being sassed back.”

During the day Abel was generally away from home—if not working, then
shooting or fishing with Barney Snaith. He generally came home at
nights—always very late and often very drunk. The first night they
heard him come howling into the yard, Cissy had told Valancy not to be
afraid.

“Father never does anything—he just makes a noise.”

Valancy, lying on the sofa in Cissy’s room, where she had elected to
sleep, lest Cissy should need attention in the night—Cissy would never
have called her—was not at all afraid, and said so. By the time Abel
had got his horses put away, the roaring stage had passed and he was in
his room at the end of the hall crying and praying. Valancy could still
hear his dismal moans when she went calmly to sleep. For the most part,
Abel was a good-natured creature, but occasionally he had a temper.
Once Valancy asked him coolly:

“What is the use of getting in a rage?”

“It’s such a d——d relief,” said Abel.

They both burst out laughing together.

“You’re a great little sport,” said Abel admiringly. “Don’t mind my bad
French. I don’t mean a thing by it. Jest habit. Say, I like a woman
that ain’t afraid to speak up to me. Sis there was always too meek—too
meek. That’s why she got adrift. I like you.”

“All the same,” said Valancy determinedly, “there is no use in sending
things to hell as you’re always doing. And I’m _not_ going to have you
tracking mud all over a floor I’ve just scrubbed. You _must_ use the
scraper whether you consign it to perdition or not.”

Cissy loved the cleanness and neatness. She had kept it so, too, until
her strength failed. She was very pitifully happy because she had
Valancy with her. It had been so terrible—the long, lonely days and
nights with no companionship save those dreadful old women who came to
work. Cissy had hated and feared them. She clung to Valancy like a
child.

There was no doubt that Cissy was dying. Yet at no time did she seem
alarmingly ill. She did not even cough a great deal. Most days she was
able to get up and dress—sometimes even to work about in the garden or
the barrens for an hour or two. For a few weeks after Valancy’s coming
she seemed so much better that Valancy began to hope she might get
well. But Cissy shook her head.

“No, I can’t get well. My lungs are almost gone. And I—don’t want to.
I’m so tired, Valancy. Only dying can rest me. But it’s lovely to have
you here—you’ll never know how much it means to me. But Valancy—you
work too hard. You don’t need to—Father only wants his meals cooked. I
don’t think you are strong yourself. You turn so pale sometimes. And
those drops you take. _Are_ you well, dear?”

“I’m all right,” said Valancy lightly. She would not have Cissy
worried. “And I’m not working hard. I’m glad to have some work to
do—something that really wants to be done.”

“Then”—Cissy slipped her hand wistfully into Valancy’s—“don’t let’s
talk any more about my being sick. Let’s just forget it. Let’s pretend
I’m a little girl again—and you have come here to play with me. I used
to wish that long ago—wish that you could come. I knew you couldn’t, of
course. But how I did wish it! You always seemed so different from the
other girls—so kind and sweet—and as if you had something in yourself
nobody knew about—some dear, pretty secret. _Had_ you, Valancy?”

“I had my Blue Castle,” said Valancy, laughing a little. She was
pleased that Cissy had thought of her like this. She had never
suspected that anybody liked or admired or wondered about her. She told
Cissy all about her Blue Castle. She had never told any one about it
before.

“Every one has a Blue Castle, I think,” said Cissy softly. “Only every
one has a different name for it. _I_ had mine—once.”

She put her two thin little hands over her face. She did not tell
Valancy—then—who had destroyed her Blue Castle. But Valancy knew that,
whoever it was, it was not Barney Snaith.




CHAPTER XVIII


Valancy was acquainted with Barney by now—well acquainted, it seemed,
though she had spoken to him only a few times. But then she had felt
just as well acquainted with him the first time they had met. She had
been in the garden at twilight, hunting for a few stalks of white
narcissus for Cissy’s room when she heard that terrible old Grey
Slosson coming down through the woods from Mistawis—one could hear it
miles away. Valancy did not look up as it drew near, thumping over the
rocks in that crazy lane. She had never looked up, though Barney had
gone racketting past every evening since she had been at Roaring
Abel’s. This time he did not racket past. The old Grey Slosson stopped
with even more terrible noises than it made going. Valancy was
conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the
ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his face.
Their eyes met—Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious weakness.
Was one of her heart attacks coming on?—But this was a new symptom.

His eyes, which she had always thought brown, now seen close, were deep
violet—translucent and intense. Neither of his eyebrows looked like the
other. He was thin—too thin—she wished she could feed him up a bit—she
wished she could sew the buttons on his coat—and make him cut his
hair—and shave every day. There was _something_ in his face—one hardly
knew what it was. Tiredness? Sadness? Disillusionment? He had dimples
in his thin cheeks when he smiled. All these thoughts flashed through
Valancy’s mind in that one moment while his eyes looked into hers.

“Good-evening, Miss Stirling.”

Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional. Any one might have
said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave them
poignancy. When he said good-evening you felt that it _was_ a good
evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt
that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt all this vaguely, but
she couldn’t imagine why she was trembling from head to foot—it _must_
be her heart. If only he didn’t notice it!

“I’m going over to the Port,” Barney was saying. “Can I acquire merit
by getting or doing anything there for you or Cissy?”

“Will you get some salt codfish for us?” said Valancy. It was the only
thing she could think of. Roaring Abel had expressed a desire that day
for a dinner of boiled salt codfish. When her knights came riding to
the Blue Castle, Valancy had sent them on many a quest, but she had
never asked any of them to get her salt codfish.

“Certainly. You’re sure there’s nothing else? Lots of room in Lady Jane
Grey Slosson. And she always gets back _some_ time, does Lady Jane.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more,” said Valancy. She knew he would
bring oranges for Cissy anyhow—he always did.

Barney did not turn away at once. He was silent for a little. Then he
said, slowly and whimsically:

“Miss Stirling, you’re a brick! You’re a whole cartload of bricks. To
come here and look after Cissy—under the circumstances.”

“There’s nothing so bricky about that,” said Valancy. “I’d nothing else
to do. And—I like it here. I don’t feel as if I’d done anything
specially meritorious. Mr. Gay is paying me fair wages. I never earned
any money before—and I like it.” It seemed so easy to talk to Barney
Snaith, someway—this terrible Barney Snaith of the lurid tales and
mysterious past—as easy and natural as if talking to herself.

“All the money in the world couldn’t buy what you’re doing for Cissy
Gay,” said Barney. “It’s splendid and fine of you. And if there’s
anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to let me know.
If Roaring Abel ever tries to annoy you——”

“He doesn’t. He’s lovely to me. I like Roaring Abel,” said Valancy
frankly.

“So do I. But there’s one stage of his drunkenness—perhaps you haven’t
encountered it yet—when he sings ribald songs——”

“Oh, yes. He came home last night like that. Cissy and I just went to
our room and shut ourselves in where we couldn’t hear him. He
apologised this morning. I’m not afraid of any of Roaring Abel’s
stages.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be decent to you, apart from his inebriated
yowls,” said Barney. “And I’ve told him he’s got to stop damning things
when you’re around.”

“Why?” asked Valancy slily, with one of her odd, slanted glances and a
sudden flake of pink on each cheek, born of the thought that Barney
Snaith had actually done so much for _her_. “I often feel like damning
things myself.”

For a moment Barney stared. Was this elfin girl the little, old-maidish
creature who had stood there two minutes ago? Surely there was magic
and devilry going on in that shabby, weedy old garden.

Then he laughed.

“It will be a relief to have some one to do it for you, then. So you
don’t want anything but salt codfish?”

“Not tonight. But I dare say I’ll have some errands for you very often
when you go to Port Lawrence. I can’t trust Mr. Gay to remember to
bring all the things I want.”

Barney had gone away, then, in his Lady Jane, and Valancy stood in the
garden for a long time.

Since then he had called several times, walking down through the
barrens, whistling. How that whistle of his echoed through the spruces
on those June twilights! Valancy caught herself listening for it every
evening—rebuked herself—then let herself go. Why shouldn’t she listen
for it?

He always brought Cissy fruit and flowers. Once he brought Valancy a
box of candy—the first box of candy she had ever been given. It seemed
sacrilege to eat it.

She found herself thinking of him in season and out of season. She
wanted to know if he ever thought about her when she wasn’t before his
eyes, and, if so, what. She wanted to see that mysterious house of his
back on the Mistawis island. Cissy had never seen it. Cissy, though she
talked freely of Barney and had known him for five years, really knew
little more of him than Valancy herself.

“But he isn’t bad,” said Cissy. “Nobody need ever tell me he is. He
_can’t_ have done a thing to be ashamed of.”

“Then why does he live as he does?” asked Valancy—to hear somebody
defend him.

“I don’t know. He’s a mystery. And of course there’s something behind
it, but I _know_ it isn’t disgrace. Barney Snaith simply couldn’t do
anything disgraceful, Valancy.”

Valancy was not so sure. Barney must have done _something_—sometime. He
was a man of education and intelligence. She had soon discovered that,
in listening to his conversations and wrangles with Roaring Abel—who
was surprisingly well read and could discuss any subject under the sun
when sober. Such a man wouldn’t bury himself for five years in Muskoka
and live and look like a tramp if there were not too good—or bad—a
reason for it. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was
sure now that he had never been Cissy Gay’s lover. There was nothing
like _that_ between them. Though he was very fond of Cissy and she of
him, as any one could see. But it was a fondness that didn’t worry
Valancy.

“You don’t know what Barney has been to me, these past two years,”
Cissy had said simply. “_Everything_ would have been unbearable without
him.”

“Cissy Gay is the sweetest girl I ever knew—and there’s a man somewhere
I’d like to shoot if I could find him,” Barney had said savagely.

Barney was an interesting talker, with a knack of telling a great deal
about his adventures and nothing at all about himself. There was one
glorious rainy day when Barney and Abel swapped yarns all the afternoon
while Valancy mended tablecloths and listened. Barney told weird tales
of his adventures with “shacks” on trains while hoboing it across the
continent. Valancy thought she ought to think his stealing rides quite
dreadful, but didn’t. The story of his working his way to England on a
cattle-ship sounded more legitimate. And his yarns of the Yukon
enthralled her—especially the one of the night he was lost on the
divide between Gold Run and Sulphur Valley. He had spent two years out
there. Where in all this was there room for the penitentiary and the
other things?

If he were telling the truth. But Valancy knew he was.

“Found no gold,” he said. “Came away poorer than when I went. But such
a place to live! Those silences at the back of the north wind _got_ me.
I’ve never belonged to myself since.”

Yet he was not a great talker. He told a great deal in a few
well-chosen words—how well-chosen Valancy did not realise. And he had a
knack of saying things without opening his mouth at all.

“I like a man whose eyes say more than his lips,” thought Valancy.

But then she liked everything about him—his tawny hair—his whimsical
smiles—the little glints of fun in his eyes—his loyal affection for
that unspeakable Lady Jane—his habit of sitting with his hands in his
pockets, his chin sunk on his breast, looking up from under his
mismated eyebrows. She liked his nice voice which sounded as if it
might become caressing or wooing with very little provocation. She was
at times almost afraid to let herself think these thoughts. They were
so vivid that she felt as if the others _must_ know what she was
thinking.

“I’ve been watching a woodpecker all day,” he said one evening on the
shaky old back verandah. His account of the woodpecker’s doings was
satisfying. He had often some gay or cunning little anecdote of the
wood folk to tell them. And sometimes he and Roaring Abel smoked
fiercely the whole evening and never said a word, while Cissy lay in
the hammock swung between the verandah posts and Valancy sat idly on
the steps, her hands clasped over her knees, and wondered dreamily if
she were really Valancy Stirling and if it were only three weeks since
she had left the ugly old house on Elm Street.

The barrens lay before her in a white moon splendour, where dozens of
little rabbits frisked. Barney, when he liked, could sit down on the
edge of the barrens and lure those rabbits right to him by some
mysterious sorcery he possessed. Valancy had once seen a squirrel leap
from a scrub pine to his shoulder and sit there chattering to him. It
reminded her of John Foster.

It was one of the delights of Valancy’s new life that she could read
John Foster’s books as often and as long as she liked. She could read
them in bed if she wanted to. She read them all to Cissy, who loved
them. She also tried to read them to Abel and Barney, who did not love
them. Abel was bored and Barney politely refused to listen at all.

“Piffle,” said Barney.




CHAPTER XIX


Of course, the Stirlings had not left the poor maniac alone all this
time or refrained from heroic efforts to rescue her perishing soul and
reputation. Uncle James, whose lawyer had helped him as little as his
doctor, came one day and, finding Valancy alone in the kitchen, as he
supposed, gave her a terrible talking-to—told her she was breaking her
mother’s heart and disgracing her family.

“But _why_?” said Valancy, not ceasing to scour her porridge pot
decently. “I’m doing honest work for honest pay. What is there in that
that is disgraceful?”

“Don’t quibble, Valancy,” said Uncle James solemnly. “This is no fit
place for you to be, and you know it. Why, I’m told that jail-bird,
Snaith, is hanging around here every evening.”

“Not _every_ evening,” said Valancy reflectively. “No, not quite every
evening.”

“It’s—it’s insufferable!” said Uncle James violently. “Valancy, you
_must_ come home. We won’t judge your harshly. I assure you we won’t.
We will overlook all this.”

“Thank you,” said Valancy.

“Have you no sense of shame?” demanded Uncle James.

“Oh, yes. But the things _I_ am ashamed of are not the things _you_ are
ashamed of.” Valancy proceeded to rinse her dishcloth meticulously.

Still was Uncle James patient. He gripped the sides of his chair and
ground his teeth.

“We know your mind isn’t just right. We’ll make allowances. But you
_must_ come home. You shall not stay here with that drunken,
blasphemous old scoundrel——”

“Were you by any chance referring to _me_, _Mister_ Stirling?” demanded
Roaring Abel, suddenly appearing in the doorway of the back verandah
where he had been smoking a peaceful pipe and listening to “old Jim
Stirling’s” tirade with huge enjoyment! His red beard fairly bristled
with indignation and his huge eyebrows quivered. But cowardice was not
among James Stirling’s shortcomings.

“I was. And, furthermore, I want to tell you that you have acted an
iniquitous part in luring this weak and unfortunate girl away from her
home and friends, and I will have you punished yet for it——”

James Stirling got no further. Roaring Abel crossed the kitchen at a
bound, caught him by his collar and his trousers, and hurled him
through the doorway and over the garden paling with as little apparent
effort as he might have employed in whisking a troublesome kitten out
of the way.

“The next time you come back here,” he bellowed, “I’ll throw you
through the window—and all the better if the window is shut! Coming
here, thinking yourself God to put the world to rights!”

Valancy candidly and unashamedly owned to herself that she had seen few
more satisfying sights than Uncle James’ coat-tails flying out into the
asparagus bed. She had once been afraid of this man’s judgment. Now she
saw clearly that he was nothing but a rather stupid little village
tin-god.

Roaring Abel turned with his great broad laugh.

“He’ll think of that for years when he wakes up in the night. The
Almighty made a mistake in making so many Stirlings. But since they are
made, we’ve got to reckon with them. Too many to kill out. But if they
come here bothering you I’ll shoo ’em off before a cat could lick its
ear.”

The next time they sent Dr. Stalling. Surely Roaring Abel would not
throw him into asparagus beds. Dr. Stalling was not so sure of this and
had no great liking for the task. He did not believe Valancy Stirling
was out of her mind. She had always been queer. He, Dr. Stalling, had
never been able to understand her. Therefore, beyond doubt, she was
queer. She was only just a little queerer than usual now. And Dr.
Stalling had his own reasons for disliking Roaring Abel. When Dr.
Stalling had first come to Deerwood he had had a liking for long hikes
around Mistawis and Muskoka. On one of these occasions he had got lost
and after much wandering had fallen in with Roaring Abel with his gun
over his shoulder.

Dr. Stalling had contrived to ask his question in about the most
idiotic manner possible. He said, “Can you tell me where I’m going?”

“How the devil should I know where you’re going, gosling?” retorted
Abel contemptuously.

Dr. Stalling was so enraged that he could not speak for a moment or two
and in that moment Abel had disappeared in the woods. Dr. Stalling had
eventually found his way home, but he had never hankered to encounter
Abel Gay again.

Nevertheless he came now to do his duty. Valancy greeted him with a
sinking heart. She had to own to herself that she was terribly afraid
of Dr. Stalling still. She had a miserable conviction that if he shook
his long, bony finger at her and told her to go home, she dared not
disobey.

“Mr. Gay,” said Dr. Stalling politely and condescendingly, “may I see
Miss Stirling alone for a few minutes?”

Roaring Abel was a little drunk—just drunk enough to be excessively
polite and very cunning. He had been on the point of going away when
Dr. Stalling arrived, but now he sat down in a corner of the parlour
and folded his arms.

“No, no, mister,” he said solemnly. “That wouldn’t do—wouldn’t do at
all. I’ve got the reputation of my household to keep up. I’ve got to
chaperone this young lady. Can’t have any sparkin’ going on here behind
my back.”

Outraged Dr. Stalling looked so terrible that Valancy wondered how Abel
could endure his aspect. But Abel was not worried at all.

“D’ye know anything about it, anyway?” he asked genially.

“About _what_?”

“Sparking,” said Abel coolly.

Poor Dr. Stalling, who had never married because he believed in a
celibate clergy, would not notice this ribald remark. He turned his
back on Abel and addressed himself to Valancy.

“Miss Stirling, I am here in response to your mother’s wishes. She
begged me to come. I am charged with some messages from her. Will
you”—he wagged his forefinger—“will you hear them?”

“Yes,” said Valancy faintly, eyeing the forefinger. It had a hypnotic
effect on her.

“The first is this. If you will leave this—this——”

“House,” interjected Roaring Abel. “H-o-u-s-e. Troubled with an
impediment in your speech, ain’t you, Mister?”

“—this _place_ and return to your home, Mr. James Stirling will himself
pay for a good nurse to come here and wait on Miss Gay.”

Back of her terror Valancy smiled in secret. Uncle James must indeed
regard the matter as desperate when he would loosen his purse-strings
like that. At any rate, her clan no longer despised her or ignored her.
She had become important to them.

“That’s _my_ business, Mister,” said Abel. “Miss Stirling can go if she
pleases, or stay if she pleases. I made a fair bargain with her, and
she’s free to conclude it when she likes. She gives me meals that stick
to my ribs. She don’t forget to put salt in the porridge. She never
slams doors, and when she has nothing to say she don’t talk. That’s
uncanny in a woman, you know, Mister. I’m satisfied. If she isn’t,
she’s free to go. But no woman comes here in Jim Stirling’s pay. If any
one does”—Abel’s voice was uncannily bland and polite—“I’ll spatter the
road with her brains. Tell him that with A. Gay’s compliments.”

“Dr. Stalling, a nurse is not what Cissy needs,” said Valancy
earnestly. “She isn’t so ill as that, yet. What she wants is
companionship—somebody she knows and likes just to live with her. You
can understand that, I’m sure.”

“I understand that your motive is quite—ahem—commendable.” Dr. Stalling
felt that he was very broad-minded indeed—especially as in his secret
soul he did not believe Valancy’s motive _was_ commendable. He hadn’t
the least idea what she was up to, but he was sure her motive was not
commendable. When he could not understand a thing he straightway
condemned it. Simplicity itself! “But your first duty is to your
mother. _She_ needs you. She implores you to come home—she will forgive
everything if you will only come home.”

“That’s a pretty little thought,” remarked Abel meditatively, as he
ground some tobacco up in his hand.

Dr. Stalling ignored him.

“She entreats, but I, Miss Stirling,”—Dr. Stalling remembered that he
was an ambassador of Jehovah—“_I command_. As your pastor and spiritual
guide, I command you to come home with me—this very day. Get your hat
and coat and come _now_.”

Dr. Stalling shook his finger at Valancy. Before that pitiless finger
she drooped and wilted visibly.

“She’s giving in,” thought Roaring Abel. “She’ll go with him. Beats
all, the power these preacher fellows have over women.”

Valancy _was_ on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home
with him—and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and
for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she
had always been. It was her fate—typified by that relentless, uplifted
forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his
predestination. She eyed it as the fascinated bird eyes the snake.
Another moment—

“_Fear is the original sin_,” suddenly said a still, small voice away
back—back—back of Valancy’s consciousness. “_Almost all the evil in the
world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of
something_.”

Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul
was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.

“Dr. Stalling,” she said slowly, “I do not at present owe _any_ duty to
my mother. She is quite well; she has all the assistance and
companionship she requires; she does not need me at all. I _am_ needed
here. I am going to stay here.”

“There’s spunk for you,” said Roaring Abel admiringly.

Dr. Stalling dropped his forefinger. One could not keep on shaking a
finger forever.

“Miss Stirling, is there _nothing_ that can influence you? Do you
remember your childhood days——”

“Perfectly. And hate them.”

“Do you realise what people will say? What they _are_ saying?”

“I can imagine it,” said Valancy, with a shrug of her shoulders. She
was suddenly free of fear again. “I haven’t listened to the gossip of
Deerwood teaparties and sewing circles twenty years for nothing. But,
Dr. Stalling, it doesn’t matter in the least to me what they say—not in
the least.”

Dr. Stalling went away then. A girl who cared nothing for public
opinion! Over whom sacred family ties had no restraining influence! Who
hated her childhood memories!

Then Cousin Georgiana came—on her own initiative, for nobody would have
thought it worth while to send her. She found Valancy alone, weeding
the little vegetable garden she had planted, and she made all the
platitudinous pleas she could think of. Valancy heard her patiently.
Cousin Georgiana wasn’t such a bad old soul. Then she said:

“And now that you have got all that out of your system, Cousin
Georgiana, can you tell me how to make creamed codfish so that it will
not be as thick as porridge and as salt as the Dead Sea?”

* * * * * * *

“We’ll just have to _wait_,” said Uncle Benjamin. “After all, Cissy Gay
can’t live long. Dr. Marsh tells me she may drop off any day.”

Mrs. Frederick wept. It would really have been so much easier to bear
if Valancy had died. She could have worn mourning then.




CHAPTER XX


When Abel Gay paid Valancy her first month’s wages—which he did
promptly, in bills reeking with the odour of tobacco and
whiskey—Valancy went into Deerwood and spent every cent of it. She got
a pretty green crêpe dress with a girdle of crimson beads, at a bargain
sale, a pair of silk stockings, to match, and a little crinkled green
hat with a crimson rose in it. She even bought a foolish little
beribboned and belaced nightgown.

She passed the house on Elm Street twice—Valancy never even thought
about it as “home”—but saw no one. No doubt her mother was sitting in
the room this lovely June evening playing solitaire—and cheating.
Valancy knew that Mrs. Frederick always cheated. She never lost a game.
Most of the people Valancy met looked at her seriously and passed her
with a cool nod. Nobody stopped to speak to her.

Valancy put on her green dress when she got home. Then she took it off
again. She felt so miserably undressed in its low neck and short
sleeves. And that low, crimson girdle around the hips seemed positively
indecent. She hung it up in the closet, feeling flatly that she had
wasted her money. She would never have the courage to wear that dress.
John Foster’s arraignment of fear had no power to stiffen her against
this. In this one thing habit and custom were still all-powerful. Yet
she sighed as she went down to meet Barney Snaith in her old
snuff-brown silk. That green thing had been very becoming—she had seen
so much in her one ashamed glance. Above it her eyes had looked like
odd brown jewels and the girdle had given her flat figure an entirely
different appearance. She wished she could have left it on. But there
were some things John Foster did not know.

Every Sunday evening Valancy went to the little Free Methodist church
in a valley on the edge of “up back”—a spireless little grey building
among the pines, with a few sunken graves and mossy gravestones in the
small, paling-encircled, grass-grown square beside it. She liked the
minister who preached there. He was so simple and sincere. An old man,
who lived in Port Lawrence and came out by the lake in a little
disappearing propeller boat to give a free service to the people of the
small, stony farms back of the hills, who would otherwise never have
heard any gospel message. She liked the simple service and the fervent
singing. She liked to sit by the open window and look out into the pine
woods. The congregation was always small. The Free Methodists were few
in number, poor and generally illiterate. But Valancy loved those
Sunday evenings. For the first time in her life she liked going to
church. The rumour reached Deerwood that she had “turned Free
Methodist” and sent Mrs. Frederick to bed for a day. But Valancy had
not turned anything. She went to the church because she liked it and
because in some inexplicable way it did her good. Old Mr. Towers
believed exactly what he preached and somehow it made a tremendous
difference.

Oddly enough, Roaring Abel disapproved of her going to the hill church
as strongly as Mrs. Frederick herself could have done. He had “no use
for Free Methodists. He was a Presbyterian.” But Valancy went in spite
of him.

“We’ll hear something worse than _that_ about her soon,” Uncle Benjamin
predicted gloomily.

They did.

Valancy could not quite explain, even to herself, just why she wanted
to go to that party. It was a dance “up back” at Chidley Corners; and
dances at Chidley Corners were not, as a rule, the sort of assemblies
where well-brought-up young ladies were found. Valancy knew it was
coming off, for Roaring Abel had been engaged as one of the fiddlers.

But the idea of going had never occurred to her until Roaring Abel
himself broached it at supper.

“You come with me to the dance,” he ordered. “It’ll do you good—put
some colour in your face. You look peaked—you want something to liven
you up.”

Valancy found herself suddenly wanting to go. She knew nothing at all
of what dances at Chidley Corners were apt to be like. Her idea of
dances had been fashioned on the correct affairs that went by that name
in Deerwood and Port Lawrence. Of course she knew the Corners’ dance
wouldn’t be just like them. Much more informal, of course. But so much
the more interesting. Why shouldn’t she go? Cissy was in a week of
apparent health and improvement. She wouldn’t mind staying alone in the
least. She entreated Valancy to go if she wanted to. And Valancy _did_
want to go.

She went to her room to dress. A rage against the snuff-brown silk
seized her. Wear that to a party! Never. She pulled her green crêpe
from its hanger and put it on feverishly. It was nonsense to feel
so—so—naked—just because her neck and arms were bare. That was just her
old maidishness. She would not be ridden by it. On went the dress—the
slippers.

It was the first time she had worn a pretty dress since the organdies
of her early teens. And _they_ had never made her look like this.

If she only had a necklace or something. She wouldn’t feel so bare
then. She ran down to the garden. There were clovers there—great
crimson things growing in the long grass. Valancy gathered handfuls of
them and strung them on a cord. Fastened above her neck they gave her
the comfortable sensation of a collar and were oddly becoming. Another
circlet of them went round her hair, dressed in the low puffs that
became her. Excitement brought those faint pink stains to her face. She
flung on her coat and pulled the little, twisty hat over her hair.

“You look so nice and—and—different, dear,” said Cissy. “Like a green
moonbeam with a gleam of red in it, if there could be such a thing.”

Valancy stooped to kiss her.

“I don’t feel right about leaving you alone, Cissy.”

“Oh, I’ll be all right. I feel better tonight than I have for a long
while. I’ve been feeling badly to see you sticking here so closely on
my account. I hope you’ll have a nice time. I never was at a party at
the Corners, but I used to go sometimes, long ago, to dances up back.
We always had good times. And you needn’t be afraid of Father being
drunk tonight. He never drinks when he engages to play for a party.
But—there may be—liquor. What will you do if it gets rough?”

“Nobody would molest me.”

“Not seriously, I suppose. Father would see to that. But it _might_ be
noisy and—and unpleasant.”

“I won’t mind. I’m only going as a looker-on. I don’t expect to dance.
I just want to _see_ what a party up back is like. I’ve never seen
anything except decorous Deerwood.”

Cissy smiled rather dubiously. She knew much better than Valancy what a
party “up back” might be like if there should be liquor. But again
there mightn’t be.

“I hope you’ll enjoy it, dear,” she repeated.

Valancy enjoyed the drive there. They went early, for it was twelve
miles to Chidley Corners, and they had to go in Abel’s old, ragged
top-buggy. The road was rough and rocky, like most Muskoka roads, but
full of the austere charm of northern woods. It wound through
beautiful, purring pines that were ranks of enchantment in the June
sunset, and over the curious jade-green rivers of Muskoka, fringed by
aspens that were always quivering with some supernal joy.

Roaring Abel was excellent company, too. He knew all the stories and
legends of the wild, beautiful “up back,” and he told them to Valancy
as they drove along. Valancy had several fits of inward laughter over
what Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Wellington, _et al._, would feel and think
and say if they saw her driving with Roaring Abel in that terrible
buggy to a dance at Chidley Corners.

At first the dance was quiet enough, and Valancy was amused and
entertained. She even danced twice herself, with a couple of nice “up
back” boys who danced beautifully and told her she did, too.

Another compliment came her way—not a very subtle one, perhaps, but
Valancy had had too few compliments in her life to be over-nice on that
point. She overheard two of the “up back” young men talking about her
in the dark “lean-to” behind her.

“Know who that girl in green is?”

“Nope. Guess she’s from out front. The Port, maybe. Got a stylish look
to her.”

“No beaut but cute-looking, I’ll say. ‘Jever see such eyes?”

The big room was decorated with pine and fir boughs, and lighted by
Chinese lanterns. The floor was waxed, and Roaring Abel’s fiddle,
purring under his skilled touch, worked magic. The “up back” girls were
pretty and prettily dressed. Valancy thought it the nicest party she
had ever attended.

By eleven o’clock she had changed her mind. A new crowd had arrived—a
crowd unmistakably drunk. Whiskey began to circulate freely. Very soon
almost all the men were partly drunk. Those in the porch and outside
around the door began howling “come-all-ye’s” and continued to howl
them. The room grew noisy and reeking. Quarrels started up here and
there. Bad language and obscene songs were heard. The girls, swung
rudely in the dances, became dishevelled and tawdry. Valancy, alone in
her corner, was feeling disgusted and repentant. Why had she ever come
to such a place? Freedom and independence were all very well, but one
should not be a little fool. She might have known what it would be
like—she might have taken warning from Cissy’s guarded sentences. Her
head was aching—she was sick of the whole thing. But what could she do?
She must stay to the end. Abel could not leave till then. And that
would probably be not till three or four in the morning.

The new influx of boys had left the girls far in the minority and
partners were scarce. Valancy was pestered with invitations to dance.
She refused them all shortly, and some of her refusals were not well
taken. There were muttered oaths and sullen looks. Across the room she
saw a group of the strangers talking together and glancing meaningly at
her. What were they plotting?

It was at this moment that she saw Barney Snaith looking in over the
heads of the crowd at the doorway. Valancy had two distinct
convictions—one was that she was quite safe now; the other was that
_this_ was why she had wanted to come to the dance. It had been such an
absurd hope that she had not recognised it before, but now she knew she
had come because of the possibility that Barney might be there, too.
She thought that perhaps she ought to be ashamed for this, but she
wasn’t. After her feeling of relief her next feeling was one of
annoyance with Barney for coming there unshaved. Surely he might have
enough self-respect to groom himself up decently when he went to a
party. There he was, bareheaded, bristly-chinned, in his old trousers
and his blue homespun shirt. Not even a coat. Valancy could have shaken
him in her anger. No wonder people believed everything bad of him.

But she was not afraid any longer. One of the whispering group left his
comrades and came across the room to her, through the whirling couples
that now filled it uncomfortably. He was a tall, broad-shouldered
fellow, not ill-dressed or ill-looking but unmistakably half drunk. He
asked Valancy to dance. Valancy declined civilly. His face turned
livid. He threw his arm about her and pulled her to him. His hot,
whiskied breath burned her face.

“We won’t have fine-lady airs here, my girl. If you ain’t too good to
come here you ain’t too good to dance with us. Me and my pals have been
watching you. You’ve got to give us each a turn and a kiss to boot.”

Valancy tried desperately and vainly to free herself. She was being
dragged out into the maze of shouting, stamping, yelling dancers. The
next moment the man who held her went staggering across the room from a
neatly planted blow on the jaw, knocking down whirling couples as he
went. Valancy felt her arm grasped.

“This way—quick,” said Barney Snaith. He swung her out through the open
window behind them, vaulted lightly over the sill and caught her hand.

“Quick—we must run for it—they’ll be after us.”

Valancy ran as she had never run before, clinging tight to Barney’s
hand, wondering why she did not drop dead in such a mad scamper.
Suppose she did! What a scandal it would make for her poor people. For
the first time Valancy felt a little sorry for them. Also, she felt
glad that she had escaped from that horrible row. Also, glad that she
was holding tight to Barney’s hand. Her feelings were badly mixed and
she had never had so many in such a brief time in her life.

They finally reached a quiet corner in the pine woods. The pursuit had
taken a different direction and the whoops and yells behind them were
growing faint. Valancy, out of breath, with a crazily beating heart,
collapsed on the trunk of a fallen pine.

“Thanks,” she gasped.

“What a goose you were to come to such a place!” said Barney.

“I—didn’t—know—it—would—be like this,” protested Valancy.

“You _should_ have known. Chidley Corners!”

“It—was—just—a name—to me.”

Valancy knew Barney could not realise how ignorant she was of the
regions “up back.” She had lived in Deerwood all her life and of course
he supposed she knew. He didn’t know how she had been brought up. There
was no use trying to explain.

“When I drifted in at Abel’s this evening and Cissy told me you’d come
here I was amazed. And downright scared. Cissy told me she was worried
about you but hadn’t liked to say anything to dissuade you for fear
you’d think she was thinking selfishly about herself. So I came on up
here instead of going to Deerwood.”

Valancy felt a sudden delightful glow irradiating soul and body under
the dark pines. So he had actually come up to look after her.

“As soon as they stop hunting for us we’ll sneak around to the Muskoka
road. I left Lady Jane down there. I’ll take you home. I suppose you’ve
had enough of your party.”

“Quite,” said Valancy meekly. The first half of the way home neither of
them said anything. It would not have been much use. Lady Jane made so
much noise they could not have heard each other. Anyway, Valancy did
not feel conversationally inclined. She was ashamed of the whole
affair—ashamed of her folly in going—ashamed of being found in such a
place by Barney Snaith. By Barney Snaith, reputed jail-breaker,
infidel, forger and defaulter. Valancy’s lips twitched in the darkness
as she thought of it. But she _was_ ashamed.

And yet she was enjoying herself—was full of a strange
exultation—bumping over that rough road beside Barney Snaith. The big
trees shot by them. The tall mulleins stood up along the road in stiff,
orderly ranks like companies of soldiers. The thistles looked like
drunken fairies or tipsy elves as their car-lights passed over them.
This was the first time she had even been in a car. After all, she
liked it. She was not in the least afraid, with Barney at the wheel.
Her spirits rose rapidly as they tore along. She ceased to feel
ashamed. She ceased to feel anything except that she was part of a
comet rushing gloriously through the night of space.

All at once, just where the pine woods frayed out to the scrub barrens,
Lady Jane became quiet—too quiet. Lady Jane slowed down quietly—and
stopped.

Barney uttered an aghast exclamation. Got out. Investigated. Came
apologetically back.

“I’m a doddering idiot. Out of gas. I knew I was short when I left
home, but I meant to fill up in Deerwood. Then I forgot all about it in
my hurry to get to the Corners.”

“What can we do?” asked Valancy coolly.

“I don’t know. There’s no gas nearer than Deerwood, nine miles away.
And I don’t dare leave you here alone. There are always tramps on this
road—and some of those crazy fools back at the Corners may come
straggling along presently. There were boys there from the Port. As far
as I can see, the best thing to do is for us just to sit patiently here
until some car comes along and lends us enough gas to get to Roaring
Abel’s with.”

“Well, what’s the matter with that?” said Valancy.

“We may have to sit here all night,” said Barney.

“I don’t mind,” said Valancy.

Barney gave a short laugh. “If you don’t, I needn’t. I haven’t any
reputation to lose.”

“Nor I,” said Valancy comfortably.




CHAPTER XXI


“We’ll just sit here,” said Barney, “and if we think of anything worth
while saying we’ll say it. Otherwise, not. Don’t imagine you’re bound
to talk to me.”

“John Foster says,” quoted Valancy, “‘If you can sit in silence with a
person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that
person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you
need not waste time in trying.’”

“Evidently John Foster says a sensible thing once in a while,” conceded
Barney.

They sat in silence for a long while. Little rabbits hopped across the
road. Once or twice an owl laughed out delightfully. The road beyond
them was fringed with the woven shadow lace of trees. Away off to the
southwest the sky was full of silvery little cirrus clouds above the
spot where Barney’s island must be.

Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some
things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had had a lightning flash.

She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday she had been
all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing—said
nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t
matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved
him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him.
She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so
absolutely that thought apart from him—thought in which he did not
predominate—was an impossibility.

She had realised, quite simply and fully, that she loved him, in the
moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane
had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had
known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed.
Old things passed away and all things became new.

She was no longer unimportant, little, old maid Valancy Stirling. She
was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant—justified
to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat
her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.

Love! What a searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing it was—this
possession of body, soul and mind! With something at its core as fine
and remote and purely spiritual as the tiny blue spark in the heart of
the unbreakable diamond. No dream had ever been like this. She was no
longer solitary. She was one of a vast sisterhood—all the women who had
ever loved in the world.

Barney need never know it—though she would not in the least have minded
his knowing. But _she_ knew it and it made a tremendous difference to
her. Just to love! She did not ask to be loved. It was rapture enough
just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in
the white splendour of moonshine, with the wind blowing down on them
out of the pine woods. She had always envied the wind. So free. Blowing
where it listed. Through the hills. Over the lakes. What a tang, what a
zip it had! What a magic of adventure! Valancy felt as if she had
exchanged her shop-worn soul for a fresh one, fire-new from the
workshop of the gods. As far back as she could look, life had been
dull—colourless—savourless. Now she had come to a little patch of
violets, purple and fragrant—hers for the plucking. No matter who or
what had been in Barney’s past—no matter who or what might be in his
future—no one else could ever have this perfect hour. She surrendered
herself utterly to the charm of the moment.

“Ever dream of ballooning?” said Barney suddenly.

“No,” said Valancy.

“I do—often. Dream of sailing through the clouds—seeing the glories of
sunset—spending hours in the midst of a terrific storm with lightning
playing above and below you—skimming above a silver cloud floor under a
full moon—wonderful!”

“It does sound so,” said Valancy. “I’ve stayed on earth in my dreams.”

She told him about her Blue Castle. It was so easy to tell Barney
things. One felt he understood everything—even the things you didn’t
tell him. And then she told him a little of her existence before she
came to Roaring Abel’s. She wanted him to see why she had gone to the
dance “up back.”

“You see—I’ve never had any real life,” she said. “I’ve just—breathed.
Every door has always been shut to me.”

“But you’re still young,” said Barney.

“Oh, I know. Yes, I’m ‘still young’—but that’s so different from
_young_,” said Valancy bitterly. For a moment she was tempted to tell
Barney why her years had nothing to do with her future; but she did
not. She was not going to think of death tonight.

“Though I never was really young,” she went on—“until tonight,” she
added in her heart. “I never had a life like other girls. You couldn’t
understand. Why,”—she had a desperate desire that Barney should know
the worst about her—“I didn’t even love my mother. Isn’t it awful that
I don’t love my mother?”

“Rather awful—for her,” said Barney drily.

“Oh, she didn’t know it. She took my love for granted. And I wasn’t any
use or comfort to her or anybody. I was just a—a—vegetable. And I got
tired of it. That’s why I came to keep house for Mr. Gay and look after
Cissy.”

“And I suppose your people thought you’d gone mad.”

“They did—and do—literally,” said Valancy. “But it’s a comfort to them.
They’d rather believe me mad than bad. There’s no other alternative.
But I’ve been _living_ since I came to Mr. Gay’s. It’s been a
delightful experience. I suppose I’ll pay for it when I have to go
back—but I’ll have _had_ it.”

“That’s true,” said Barney. “If you buy your experience it’s your own.
So it’s no matter how much you pay for it. Somebody else’s experience
can never be yours. Well, it’s a funny old world.”

“Do you think it really is old?” asked Valancy dreamily. “I never
believe _that_ in June. It seems so young tonight—somehow. In that
quivering moonlight—like a young, white girl—waiting.”

“Moonlight here on the verge of up back is different from moonlight
anywhere else,” agreed Barney. “It always makes me feel so clean,
somehow—body and soul. And of course the age of gold always comes back
in spring.”

It was ten o’clock now. A dragon of black cloud ate up the moon. The
spring air grew chill—Valancy shivered. Barney reached back into the
innards of Lady Jane and clawed up an old, tobacco-scented overcoat.

“Put that on,” he ordered.

“Don’t you want it yourself?” protested Valancy.

“No. I’m not going to have you catching cold on my hands.”

“Oh, I won’t catch cold. I haven’t had a cold since I came to Mr.
Gay’s—though I’ve done the foolishest things. It’s funny, too—I used to
have them all the time. I feel so selfish taking your coat.”

“You’ve sneezed three times. No use winding up your ‘experience’ up
back with grippe or pneumonia.”

He pulled it up tight about her throat and buttoned it on her. Valancy
submitted with secret delight. How nice it was to have some one look
after you so! She snuggled down into the tobaccoey folds and wished the
night could last forever.

Ten minutes later a car swooped down on them from “up back.” Barney
sprang from Lady Jane and waved his hand. The car came to a stop beside
them. Valancy saw Uncle Wellington and Olive gazing at her in horror
from it.

So Uncle Wellington had got a car! And he must have been spending the
evening up at Mistawis with Cousin Herbert. Valancy almost laughed
aloud at the expression on his face as he recognised her. The pompous,
bewhiskered old humbug!

“Can you let me have enough gas to take me to Deerwood?” Barney was
asking politely. But Uncle Wellington was not attending to him.

“Valancy, how came you _here_!” he said sternly.

“By chance or God’s grace,” said Valancy.

“With this jail-bird—at ten o’clock at night!” said Uncle Wellington.

Valancy turned to Barney. The moon had escaped from its dragon and in
its light her eyes were full of deviltry.

“_Are_ you a jail-bird?”

“Does it matter?” said Barney, gleams of fun in _his_ eyes.

“Not to me. I only asked out of curiosity,” continued Valancy.

“Then I won’t tell you. I never satisfy curiosity.” He turned to Uncle
Wellington and his voice changed subtly.

“Mr. Stirling, I asked you if you could let me have some gas. If you
can, well and good. If not, we are only delaying you unnecessarily.”

Uncle Wellington was in a horrible dilemma. To give gas to this
shameless pair! But not to give it to them! To go away and leave them
there in the Mistawis woods—until daylight, likely. It was better to
give it to them and let them get out of sight before any one else saw
them.

“Got anything to get gas in?” he grunted surlily.

Barney produced a two-gallon measure from Lady Jane. The two men went
to the rear of the Stirling car and began manipulating the tap. Valancy
stole sly glances at Olive over the collar of Barney’s coat. Olive was
sitting grimly staring straight ahead with an outraged expression. She
did not mean to take any notice of Valancy. Olive had her own secret
reasons for feeling outraged. Cecil had been in Deerwood lately and of
course had heard all about Valancy. He agreed that her mind was
deranged and was exceedingly anxious to find out whence the derangement
had been inherited. It was a serious thing to have in the family—a very
serious thing. One had to think of one’s—descendants.

“She got it from the Wansbarras,” said Olive positively. “There’s
nothing like that in the Stirlings—nothing!”

“I hope not—I certainly hope not,” Cecil had responded dubiously. “But
then—to go out as a servant—for that is what it practically amounts to.
Your cousin!”

Poor Olive felt the implication. The Port Lawrence Prices were not
accustomed to ally themselves with families whose members “worked out.”

Valancy could not resist temptation. She leaned forward.

“Olive, does it hurt?”

Olive bit—stiffly.

“Does _what_ hurt?”

“Looking like that.”

For a moment Olive resolved she would take no further notice of
Valancy. Then duty came uppermost. She must not miss the opportunity.

“Doss,” she implored, leaning forward also, “won’t you come home—come
home tonight?”

Valancy yawned.

“You sound like a revival meeting,” she said. “You really do.”

“If you will come back——”

“All will be forgiven.”

“Yes,” said Olive eagerly. Wouldn’t it be splendid if _she_ could
induce the prodigal daughter to return? “We’ll never cast it up to you.
Doss, there are nights when I cannot sleep for thinking of you.”

“And me having the time of my life,” said Valancy, laughing.

“Doss, I can’t believe you’re bad. I’ve always said you couldn’t be
bad——”

“I don’t believe I can be,” said Valancy. “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly
proper. I’ve been sitting here for three hours with Barney Snaith and
he hasn’t even tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t have minded if he had,
Olive.”

Valancy was still leaning forward. Her little hat with its crimson rose
was tilted down over one eye. Olive stared. In the moonlight Valancy’s
eyes—Valancy’s smile—what had happened to Valancy! She looked—not
pretty—Doss couldn’t be pretty—but provocative, fascinating—yes,
abominably so. Olive drew back. It was beneath her dignity to say more.
After all, Valancy must be both mad _and_ bad.

“Thanks—that’s enough,” said Barney behind the car. “Much obliged, Mr.
Stirling. Two gallons—seventy cents. Thank you.”

Uncle Wellington climbed foolishly and feebly into his car. He wanted
to give Snaith a piece of his mind, but dared not. Who knew what the
creature might do if provoked? No doubt he carried firearms.

Uncle Wellington looked indecisively at Valancy. But Valancy had turned
her back on him and was watching Barney pour the gas into Lady Jane’s
maw.

“Drive on,” said Olive decisively. “There’s no use in waiting here. Let
me tell you what she said to me.”

“The little hussy! The shameless little hussy!” said Uncle Wellington.




CHAPTER XXII


The next thing the Stirlings heard was that Valancy had been seen with
Barney Snaith in a movie theatre in Port Lawrence and after it at
supper in a Chinese restaurant there. This was quite true—and no one
was more surprised at it than Valancy herself. Barney had come along in
Lady Jane one dim twilight and told Valancy unceremoniously if she
wanted a drive to hop in.

“I’m going to the Port. Will you go there with me?”

His eyes were teasing and there was a bit of defiance in his voice.
Valancy, who did not conceal from herself that she would have gone
anywhere with him to any place, “hopped in” without more ado. They tore
into and through Deerwood. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles, taking a
little air on the verandah, saw them whirl by in a cloud of dust and
sought comfort in each other’s eyes. Valancy, who in some dim
pre-existence had been afraid of a car, was hatless and her hair was
blowing wildly round her face. She would certainly come down with
bronchitis—and die at Roaring Abel’s. She wore a low-necked dress and
her arms were bare. That Snaith creature was in his shirt-sleeves,
smoking a pipe. They were going at the rate of forty miles an
hour—sixty, Cousin Stickles averred. Lady Jane could hit the pike when
she wanted to. Valancy waved her hand gaily to her relatives. As for
Mrs. Frederick, she was wishing she knew how to go into hysterics.

“Was it for this,” she demanded in hollow tones, “that I suffered the
pangs of motherhood?”

“I will not believe,” said Cousin Stickles solemnly, “that our prayers
will not yet be answered.”

“Who—_who_ will protect that unfortunate girl when I am gone?” moaned
Mrs. Frederick.

As for Valancy, she was wondering if it could really be only a few
weeks since she had sat there with them on that verandah. Hating the
rubber-plant. Pestered with teasing questions like black flies. Always
thinking of appearances. Cowed because of Aunt Wellington’s teaspoons
and Uncle Benjamin’s money. Poverty-stricken. Afraid of everybody.
Envying Olive. A slave to moth-eaten traditions. Nothing to hope for or
expect.

And now every day was a gay adventure.

Lady Jane flew over the fifteen miles between Deerwood and the
Port—through the Port. The way Barney went past traffic policemen was
not holy. The lights were beginning to twinkle out like stars in the
clear, lemon-hued twilight air. This was the only time Valancy ever
really liked the town, and she was crazy with the delight of speeding.
Was it possible she had ever been afraid of a car? She was perfectly
happy, riding beside Barney. Not that she deluded herself into thinking
it had any significance. She knew quite well that Barney had asked her
to go on the impulse of the moment—an impulse born of a feeling of pity
for her and her starved little dreams. She was looking tired after a
wakeful night with a heart attack, followed by a busy day. She had so
little fun. He’d give her an outing for once. Besides, Abel was in the
kitchen, at the point of drunkenness where he was declaring he did not
believe in God and beginning to sing ribald songs. It was just as well
she should be out of the way for a while. Barney knew Roaring Abel’s
repertoire.

They went to the movie—Valancy had never been to a movie. And then,
finding a nice hunger upon them, they went and had fried
chicken—unbelievably delicious—in the Chinese restaurant. After which
they rattled home again, leaving a devastating trail of scandal behind
them. Mrs. Frederick gave up going to church altogether. She could not
endure her friends’ pitying glances and questions. But Cousin Stickles
went every Sunday. She said they had been given a cross to bear.




CHAPTER XXIII


On one of Cissy’s wakeful nights, she told Valancy her poor little
story. They were sitting by the open window. Cissy could not get her
breath lying down that night. An inglorious gibbous moon was hanging
over the wooded hills and in its spectral light Cissy looked frail and
lovely and incredibly young. A child. It did not seem possible that she
could have lived through all the passion and pain and shame of her
story.

“He was stopping at the hotel across the lake. He used to come over in
his canoe at night—we met in the pines down the shore. He was a young
college student—his father was a rich man in Toronto. Oh, Valancy, I
didn’t mean to be bad—I didn’t, indeed. But I loved him so—I love him
yet—I’ll always love him. And I—didn’t know—some things. I
didn’t—understand. Then his father came and took him away. And—after a
little—I found out—oh, Valancy,—I was so frightened. I didn’t know what
to do. I wrote him—and he came. He—he said he would marry me, Valancy.”

“And why—and why?——”

“Oh, Valancy, he didn’t love me any more. I saw that at a glance. He—he
was just offering to marry me because he thought he ought to—because he
was sorry for me. He wasn’t bad—but he was so young—and what was I that
he should keep on loving me?”

“Never mind making excuses for him,” said Valancy a bit shortly. “So
you wouldn’t marry him?”

“I couldn’t—not when he didn’t love me any more. Somehow—I can’t
explain—it seemed a worse thing to do than—the other. He—he argued a
little—but he went away. Do you think I did right, Valancy?”

“Yes, I do. _You_ did right. But he——”

“Don’t blame him, dear. Please don’t. Let’s not talk about him at all.
There’s no need. I wanted to tell you how it was—I didn’t want you to
think me bad——”

“I never did think so.”

“Yes, I felt that—whenever you came. Oh, Valancy, what you’ve been to
me! I can never tell you—but God will bless you for it. I know He
will—‘with what measure ye mete.’”

Cissy sobbed for a few minutes in Valancy’s arms. Then she wiped her
eyes.

“Well, that’s almost all. I came home. I wasn’t really so very unhappy.
I suppose I should have been—but I wasn’t. Father wasn’t hard on me.
And my baby was so sweet while he lived. I was even happy—I loved him
so much, the dear little thing. He was so sweet, Valancy—with such
lovely blue eyes—and little rings of pale gold hair like silk floss—and
tiny dimpled hands. I used to bite his satin-smooth little face all
over—softly, so as not to hurt him, you know——”

“I know,” said Valancy, wincing. “I know—a woman _always_ knows—and
dreams——”

“And he was _all_ mine. Nobody else had any claim on him. When he died,
oh, Valancy, I thought I must die too—I didn’t see how anybody could
endure such anguish and live. To see his dear little eyes and know he
would never open them again—to miss his warm little body nestled
against mine at night and think of him sleeping alone and cold, his wee
face under the hard frozen earth. It was so awful for the first
year—after that it was a little easier, one didn’t keep thinking ‘this
day last year’—but I was so glad when I found out I was dying.”

“‘Who could endure life if it were not for the hope of death?’”
murmured Valancy softly—it was of course a quotation from some book of
John Foster’s.

“I’m glad I’ve told you all about it,” sighed Cissy. “I wanted you to
know.”

Cissy died a few nights after that. Roaring Abel was away. When Valancy
saw the change that had come over Cissy’s face she wanted to telephone
for the doctor. But Cissy wouldn’t let her.

“Valancy, why should you? He can do nothing for me. I’ve known for
several days that—this—was near. Let me die in peace, dear—just holding
your hand. Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Tell Father good-bye for me.
He’s always been as good to me as he knew how—and Barney. Somehow, I
think that Barney——”

But a spasm of coughing interrupted and exhausted her. She fell asleep
when it was over, still holding to Valancy’s hand. Valancy sat there in
the silence. She was not frightened—or even sorry. At sunrise Cissy
died. She opened her eyes and looked past Valancy at
something—something that made her smile suddenly and happily. And,
smiling, she died.

Valancy crossed Cissy’s hands on her breast and went to the open
window. In the eastern sky, amid the fires of sunrise, an old moon was
hanging—as slender and lovely as a new moon. Valancy had never seen an
old, old moon before. She watched it pale and fade until it paled and
faded out of sight in the living rose of day. A little pool in the
barrens shone in the sunrise like a great golden lily.

But the world suddenly seemed a colder place to Valancy. Again nobody
needed her. She was not in the least sorry Cecilia was dead. She was
only sorry for all her suffering in life. But nobody could ever hurt
her again. Valancy had always thought death dreadful. But Cissy had
died so quietly—so pleasantly. And at the very last—something—had made
up to her for everything. She was lying there now, in her white sleep,
looking like a child. Beautiful! All the lines of shame and pain gone.

Roaring Abel drove in, justifying his name. Valancy went down and told
him. The shock sobered him at once. He slumped down on the seat of his
buggy, his great head hanging.

“Cissy dead—Cissy dead,” he said vacantly. “I didn’t think it would ‘a’
come so soon. Dead. She used to run down the lane to meet me with a
little white rose stuck in her hair. Cissy used to be a pretty little
girl. And a good little girl.”

“She has always been a good little girl,” said Valancy.




CHAPTER XXIV


Valancy herself made Cissy ready for burial. No hands but hers should
touch that pitiful, wasted little body. The old house was spotless on
the day of the funeral. Barney Snaith was not there. He had done all he
could to help Valancy before it—he had shrouded the pale Cecilia in
white roses from the garden—and then had gone back to his island. But
everybody else was there. All Deerwood and “up back” came. They forgave
Cissy splendidly at last. Mr. Bradly gave a very beautiful funeral
address. Valancy had wanted her old Free Methodist man, but Roaring
Abel was obdurate. He was a Presbyterian and no one but a Presbyterian
minister should bury _his_ daughter. Mr. Bradly was very tactful. He
avoided all dubious points and it was plain to be seen he hoped for the
best. Six reputable citizens of Deerwood bore Cecilia Gay to her grave
in decorous Deerwood cemetery. Among them was Uncle Wellington.

The Stirlings all came to the funeral, men and women. They had had a
family conclave over it. Surely now that Cissy Gay was dead Valancy
would come home. She simply could not stay there with Roaring Abel.
That being the case, the wisest course—decreed Uncle James—was to
attend the funeral—legitimise the whole thing, so to speak—show
Deerwood that Valancy had really done a most creditable deed in going
to nurse poor Cecilia Gay and that her family backed her up in it.
Death, the miracle worker, suddenly made the thing quite respectable.
If Valancy would return to home and decency while public opinion was
under its influence all might yet be well. Society was suddenly
forgetting all Cecilia’s wicked doings and remembering what a pretty,
modest little thing she had been—“and motherless, you know—motherless!”
It was the psychological moment—said Uncle James.

So the Stirlings went to the funeral. Even Cousin Gladys’ neuritis
allowed her to come. Cousin Stickles was there, her bonnet dripping all
over her face, crying as woefully as if Cissy had been her nearest and
dearest. Funerals always brought Cousin Stickles’ “own sad bereavement”
back.

And Uncle Wellington was a pall-bearer.

Valancy, pale, subdued-looking, her slanted eyes smudged with purple,
in her snuff-brown dress, moving quietly about, finding seats for
people, consulting in undertones with minister and undertaker,
marshalling the “mourners” into the parlour, was so decorous and proper
and Stirlingish that her family took heart of grace. This was not—could
not be—the girl who had sat all night in the woods with Barney
Snaith—who had gone tearing bareheaded through Deerwood and Port
Lawrence. This was the Valancy they knew. Really, surprisingly capable
and efficient. Perhaps she had always been kept down a bit too
much—Amelia really was rather strict—hadn’t had a chance to show what
was in her. So thought the Stirlings. And Edward Beck, from the Port
road, a widower with a large family who was beginning to take notice,
took notice of Valancy and thought she might make a mighty fine second
wife. No beauty—but a fifty-year-old widower, Mr. Beck told himself
very reasonably, couldn’t expect everything. Altogether, it seemed that
Valancy’s matrimonial chances were never so bright as they were at
Cecilia Gay’s funeral.

What the Stirlings and Edward Beck would have thought had they known
the back of Valancy’s mind must be left to the imagination. Valancy was
hating the funeral—hating the people who came to stare with curiosity
at Cecilia’s marble-white face—hating the smugness—hating the dragging,
melancholy singing—hating Mr. Bradly’s cautious platitudes. If she
could have had her absurd way, there would have been no funeral at all.
She would have covered Cissy over with flowers, shut her away from
prying eyes, and buried her beside her nameless little baby in the
grassy burying-ground under the pines of the “up back” church, with a
bit of kindly prayer from the old Free Methodist minister. She
remembered Cissy saying once, “I wish I could be buried deep in the
heart of the woods where nobody would ever come to say, ‘Cissy Gay is
buried here,’ and tell over my miserable story.”

But this! However, it would soon be over. Valancy knew, if the
Stirlings and Edward Beck didn’t, exactly what she intended to do then.
She had lain awake all the preceding night thinking about it and
finally deciding on it.

When the funeral procession had left the house, Mrs. Frederick sought
out Valancy in the kitchen.

“My child,” she said tremulously, “you’ll come home _now_?”

“Home,” said Valancy absently. She was getting on an apron and
calculating how much tea she must put to steep for supper. There would
be several guests from “up back”—distant relatives of the Gays’ who had
not remembered them for years. And she was so tired she wished she
could borrow a pair of legs from the cat.

“Yes, home,” said Mrs. Frederick, with a touch of asperity. “I suppose
you won’t dream of staying here _now_—alone with Roaring Abel.”

“Oh, no, I’m not going to stay _here_,” said Valancy. “Of course, I’ll
have to stay for a day or two, to put the house in order generally. But
that will be all. Excuse me, Mother, won’t you? I’ve a frightful lot to
do—all those “up back” people will be here to supper.”

Mrs. Frederick retreated in considerable relief, and the Stirlings went
home with lighter hearts.

“We will just treat her as if nothing had happened when she comes
back,” decreed Uncle Benjamin. “That will be the best plan. Just as if
nothing had happened.”




CHAPTER XXV


On the evening of the day after the funeral Roaring Abel went off for a
spree. He had been sober for four whole days and could endure it no
longer. Before he went, Valancy told him she would be going away the
next day. Roaring Abel was sorry, and said so. A distant cousin from
“up back” was coming to keep house for him—quite willing to do so now
since there was no sick girl to wait on—but Abel was not under any
delusions concerning her.

“She won’t be like you, my girl. Well, I’m obliged to you. You helped
me out of a bad hole and I won’t forget it. And I won’t forget what you
did for Cissy. I’m your friend, and if you ever want any of the
Stirlings spanked and sot in a corner send for me. I’m going to wet my
whistle. Lord, but I’m dry! Don’t reckon I’ll be back afore tomorrow
night, so if you’re going home tomorrow, good-bye now.”

“I _may_ go home tomorrow,” said Valancy, “but I’m not going back to
Deerwood.”

“Not going——”

“You’ll find the key on the woodshed nail,” interrupted Valancy,
politely and unmistakably. “The dog will be in the barn and the cat in
the cellar. Don’t forget to feed her till your cousin comes. The pantry
is full and I made bread and pies today. Good-bye, Mr. Gay. You have
been very kind to me and I appreciate it.”

“We’ve had a d——d decent time of it together, and that’s a fact,” said
Roaring Abel. “You’re the best small sport in the world, and your
little finger is worth the whole Stirling clan tied together. Good-bye
and good-luck.”

Valancy went out to the garden. Her legs trembled a little, but
otherwise she felt and looked composed. She held something tightly in
her hand. The garden was lying in the magic of the warm, odorous July
twilight. A few stars were out and the robins were calling through the
velvety silences of the barrens. Valancy stood by the gate expectantly.
Would he come? If he did not——

He was coming. Valancy heard Lady Jane Grey far back in the woods. Her
breath came a little more quickly. Nearer—and nearer—she could see Lady
Jane now—bumping down the lane—nearer—nearer—he was there—he had sprung
from the car and was leaning over the gate, looking at her.

“Going home, Miss Stirling?”

“I don’t know—yet,” said Valancy slowly. Her mind was made up, with no
shadow of turning, but the moment was very tremendous.

“I thought I’d run down and ask if there was anything I could do for
you,” said Barney.

Valancy took it with a canter.

“Yes, there is something you can do for me,” she said, evenly and
distinctly. “Will you marry me?”

For a moment Barney was silent. There was no particular expression on
his face. Then he gave an odd laugh.

“Come, now! I knew luck was just waiting around the corner for me. All
the signs have been pointing that way today.”

“Wait.” Valancy lifted her hand. “I’m in earnest—but I want to get my
breath after that question. Of course, with my bringing up, I realise
perfectly well that this is one of the things ‘a lady should not do.’”

“But why—why?”

“For two reasons.” Valancy was still a little breathless, but she
looked Barney straight in the eyes, while all the dead Stirlings
revolved rapidly in their graves and the living ones did nothing
because they did not know that Valancy was at that moment proposing
lawful marriage to the notorious Barney Snaith. “The first reason is,
I—I”—Valancy tried to say “I love you” but could not. She had to take
refuge in a pretended flippancy. “I’m crazy about you. The second
is—this.”

She handed him Dr. Trent’s letter.

Barney opened it with the air of a man thankful to find some safe, sane
thing to do. As he read it his face changed. He understood—more perhaps
than Valancy wanted him to.

“Are you sure nothing can be done for you?”

Valancy did not misunderstand the question.

“Yes. You know Dr. Trent’s reputation in regard to heart disease. I
haven’t long to live—perhaps only a few months—a few weeks. I want to
_live_ them. I can’t go back to Deerwood—you know what my life was like
there. And”—she managed it this time—“I love you. I want to spend the
rest of my life with you. That’s all.”

Barney folded his arms on the gate and looked gravely enough at a
white, saucy star that was winking at him just over Roaring Abel’s
kitchen chimney.

“You don’t know anything about me. I may be a—murderer.”

“No, I don’t. You _may_ be something dreadful. Everything they say of
you may be true. But it doesn’t matter to me.”

“You care that much for me, Valancy?” said Barney incredulously,
looking away from the star and into her eyes—her strange, mysterious
eyes.

“I care—that much,” said Valancy in a low voice. She was trembling. He
had called her by her name for the first time. It was sweeter than
another man’s caress could have been just to hear him say her name like
that.

“If we are going to get married,” said Barney, speaking suddenly in a
casual, matter-of-fact voice, “some things must be understood.”

“Everything must be understood,” said Valancy.

“I have things I want to hide,” said Barney coolly. “You are not to ask
me about them.”

“I won’t,” said Valancy.

“You must never ask to see my mail.”

“Never.”

“And we are never to pretend anything to each other.”

“We won’t,” said Valancy. “You won’t even have to pretend you like me.
If you marry me I know you’re only doing it out of pity.”

“And we’ll never tell a lie to each other about anything—a big lie or a
petty lie.”

“Especially a petty lie,” agreed Valancy.

“And you’ll have to live back on my island. I won’t live anywhere
else.”

“That’s partly why I want to marry you,” said Valancy.

Barney peered at her.

“I believe you mean it. Well—let’s get married, then.”

“Thank you,” said Valancy, with a sudden return of primness. She would
have been much less embarrassed if he had refused her.

“I suppose I haven’t any right to make conditions. But I’m going to
make one. You are never to refer to my heart or my liability to sudden
death. You are never to urge me to be careful. You are to
forget—absolutely forget—that I’m not perfectly healthy. I have written
a letter to my mother—here it is—you are to keep it. I have explained
everything in it. If I drop dead suddenly—as I likely will do——”

“It will exonerate me in the eyes of your kindred from the suspicion of
having poisoned you,” said Barney with a grin.

“Exactly.” Valancy laughed gaily. “Dear me, I’m glad this is over. It
has been—a bit of an ordeal. You see, I’m not in the habit of going
about asking men to marry me. It is so nice of you not to refuse me—or
offer to be a brother!”

“I’ll go to the Port tomorrow and get a license. We can be married
tomorrow evening. Dr. Stalling, I suppose?”

“Heavens, no.” Valancy shuddered. “Besides, he wouldn’t do it. He’d
shake his forefinger at me and I’d jilt you at the altar. No, I want my
old Mr. Towers to marry me.”

“Will you marry me as I stand?” demanded Barney. A passing car, full of
tourists, honked loudly—it seemed derisively. Valancy looked at him.
Blue homespun shirt, nondescript hat, muddy overalls. Unshaved!

“Yes,” she said.

Barney put his hands over the gate and took her little, cold ones
gently in his.

“Valancy,” he said, trying to speak lightly, “of course I’m not in love
with you—never thought of such a thing as being in love. But, do you
know, I’ve always thought you were a bit of a dear.”




CHAPTER XXVI


The next day passed for Valancy like a dream. She could not make
herself or anything she did seem real. She saw nothing of Barney,
though she expected he must go rattling past on his way to the Port for
a license.

Perhaps he had changed his mind.

But at dusk the lights of Lady Jane suddenly swooped over the crest of
the wooded hill beyond the lane. Valancy was waiting at the gate for
her bridegroom. She wore her green dress and her green hat because she
had nothing else to wear. She did not look or feel at all
bride-like—she really looked like a wild elf strayed out of the
greenwood. But that did not matter. Nothing at all mattered except that
Barney was coming for her.

“Ready?” said Barney, stopping Lady Jane with some new, horrible
noises.

“Yes.” Valancy stepped in and sat down. Barney was in his blue shirt
and overalls. But they were clean overalls. He was smoking a
villainous-looking pipe and he was bareheaded. But he had a pair of
oddly smart boots on under his shabby overalls. And he was shaved. They
clattered into Deerwood and through Deerwood and hit the long, wooded
road to the Port.

“Haven’t changed your mind?” said Barney.

“No. Have you?”

“No.”

That was their whole conversation on the fifteen miles. Everything was
more dream-like than ever. Valancy didn’t know whether she felt happy.
Or terrified. Or just plain fool.

Then the lights of Port Lawrence were about them. Valancy felt as if
she were surrounded by the gleaming, hungry eyes of hundreds of great,
stealthy panthers. Barney briefly asked where Mr. Towers lived, and
Valancy as briefly told him. They stopped before the shabby little
house in an unfashionable street. They went in to the small, shabby
parlour. Barney produced his license. So he _had_ got it. Also a ring.
This thing was real. She, Valancy Stirling, was actually on the point
of being married.

They were standing up together before Mr. Towers. Valancy heard Mr.
Towers and Barney saying things. She heard some other person saying
things. She herself was thinking of the way she had once planned to be
married—away back in her early teens when such a thing had not seemed
impossible. White silk and tulle veil and orange-blossoms; no
bridesmaid. But one flower girl, in a frock of cream shadow lace over
pale pink, with a wreath of flowers in her hair, carrying a basket of
roses and lilies-of-the-valley. And the groom, a noble-looking
creature, irreproachably clad in whatever the fashion of the day
decreed. Valancy lifted her eyes and saw herself and Barney in the
little, slanting, distorting mirror over the mantelpiece. She in her
odd, unbridal green hat and dress; Barney in shirt and overalls. But it
was Barney. That was all that mattered. No veil—no flowers—no guests—no
presents—no wedding-cake—but just Barney. For all the rest of her life
there would be Barney.

“Mrs. Snaith, I hope you will be very happy,” Mr. Towers was saying.

He had not seemed surprised at their appearance—not even at Barney’s
overalls. He had seen plenty of queer weddings “up back.” He did not
know Valancy was one of the Deerwood Stirlings—he did not even know
there _were_ Deerwood Stirlings. He did not know Barney Snaith was a
fugitive from justice. Really, he was an incredibly ignorant old man.
Therefore he married them and gave them his blessing very gently and
solemnly and prayed for them that night after they had gone away. His
conscience did not trouble him at all.

“What a nice way to get married!” Barney was saying as he put Lady Jane
in gear. “No fuss and flub-dub. I never supposed it was half so easy.”

“For heaven’s sake,” said Valancy suddenly, “let’s forget we _are_
married and talk as if we weren’t. I can’t stand another drive like the
one we had coming in.”

Barney howled and threw Lady Jane into high with an infernal noise.

“And I thought I was making it easy for you,” he said. “You didn’t seem
to want to talk.”

“I didn’t. But I wanted you to talk. I don’t want you to make love to
me, but I want you to act like an ordinary human being. Tell me about
this island of yours. What sort of a place is it?”

“The jolliest place in the world. You’re going to love it. The first
time I saw it I loved it. Old Tom MacMurray owned it then. He built the
little shack on it, lived there in winter and rented it to Toronto
people in summer. I bought it from him—became by that one simple
transaction a landed proprietor owning a house and an island. There is
something so satisfying in owning a whole island. And isn’t an
uninhabited island a charming idea? I’d wanted to own one ever since
I’d read _Robinson Crusoe_. It seemed too good to be true. And beauty!
Most of the scenery belongs to the government, but they don’t tax you
for looking at it, and the moon belongs to everybody. You won’t find my
shack very tidy. I suppose you’ll want to make it tidy.”

“Yes,” said Valancy honestly. “I _have_ to be tidy. I don’t really
_want_ to be. But untidiness hurts me. Yes, I’ll have to tidy up your
shack.”

“I was prepared for that,” said Barney, with a hollow groan.

“But,” continued Valancy relentingly, “I won’t insist on your wiping
your feet when you come in.”

“No, you’ll only sweep up after me with the air of a martyr,” said
Barney. “Well, anyway, you can’t tidy the lean-to. You can’t even enter
it. The door will be locked and I shall keep the key.”

“Bluebeard’s chamber,” said Valancy. “I shan’t even think of it. I
don’t care how many wives you have hanging up in it. So long as they’re
really dead.”

“Dead as door-nails. You can do as you like in the rest of the house.
There’s not much of it—just one big living-room and one small bedroom.
Well built, though. Old Tom loved his job. The beams of our house are
cedar and the rafters fir. Our living-room windows face west and east.
It’s wonderful to have a room where you can see both sunrise and
sunset. I have two cats there. Banjo and Good Luck. Adorable animals.
Banjo is a big, enchanting, grey devil-cat. Striped, of course. I don’t
care a hang for any cat that hasn’t stripes. I never knew a cat who
could swear as genteelly and effectively as Banjo. His only fault is
that he snores horribly when he is asleep. Luck is a dainty little cat.
Always looking wistfully at you, as if he wanted to tell you something.
Maybe he will pull it off sometime. Once in a thousand years, you know,
one cat is allowed to speak. My cats are philosophers—neither of them
ever cries over spilt milk.

“Two old crows live in a pine-tree on the point and are reasonably
neighbourly. Call ’em Nip and Tuck. And I have a demure little tame
owl. Name, Leander. I brought him up from a baby and he lives over on
the mainland and chuckles to himself o’ nights. And bats—it’s a great
place for bats at night. Scared of bats?”

“No; I like them.”

“So do I. Nice, queer, uncanny, mysterious creatures. Coming from
nowhere—going nowhere. Swoop! Banjo likes ’em, too. Eats ’em. I have a
canoe and a disappearing propeller boat. Went to the Port in it today
to get my license. Quieter than Lady Jane.”

“I thought you hadn’t gone at all—that you _had_ changed your mind,”
admitted Valancy.

Barney laughed—the laugh Valancy did not like—the little, bitter,
cynical laugh.

“I never change my mind,” he said shortly.

They went back through Deerwood. Up the Muskoka road. Past Roaring
Abel’s. Over the rocky, daisied lane. The dark pine woods swallowed
them up. Through the pine woods, where the air was sweet with the
incense of the unseen, fragile bells of the linnæas that carpeted the
banks of the trail. Out to the shore of Mistawis. Lady Jane must be
left here. They got out. Barney led the way down a little path to the
edge of the lake.

“There’s our island,” he said gloatingly.

Valancy looked—and looked—and looked again. There was a diaphanous,
lilac mist on the lake, shrouding the island. Through it the two
enormous pine-trees that clasped hands over Barney’s shack loomed out
like dark turrets. Behind them was a sky still rose-hued in the
afterlight, and a pale young moon.

Valancy shivered like a tree the wind stirs suddenly. Something seemed
to sweep over her soul.

“My Blue Castle!” she said. “Oh, my Blue Castle!”

They got into the canoe and paddled out to it. They left behind the
realm of everyday and things known and landed on a realm of mystery and
enchantment where anything might happen—anything might be true. Barney
lifted Valancy out of the canoe and swung her to a lichen-covered rock
under a young pine-tree. His arms were about her and suddenly his lips
were on hers. Valancy found herself shivering with the rapture of her
first kiss.

“Welcome home, dear,” Barney was saying.




CHAPTER XXVII


Cousin Georgiana came down the lane leading up to her little house. She
lived half a mile out of Deerwood and she wanted to go in to Amelia’s
and find out if Doss had come home yet. Cousin Georgiana was anxious to
see Doss. She had something very important to tell her. Something, she
was sure, Doss would be delighted to hear. Poor Doss! She _had_ had
rather a dull life of it. Cousin Georgiana owned to herself that _she_
would not like to live under Amelia’s thumb. But that would be all
changed now. Cousin Georgiana felt tremendously important. For the time
being, she quite forgot to wonder which of them would go next.

And here was Doss herself, coming along the road from Roaring Abel’s in
such a queer green dress and hat. Talk about luck. Cousin Georgiana
would have a chance to impart her wonderful secret right away, with
nobody else about to interrupt. It was, you might say, a Providence.

Valancy, who had been living for four days on her enchanted island, had
decided that she might as well go in to Deerwood and tell her relatives
that she was married. Otherwise, finding that she had disappeared from
Roaring Abel’s, they might get out a search warrant for her. Barney had
offered to drive her in, but she had preferred to go alone. She smiled
very radiantly at Cousin Georgiana, who, she remembered, as of some one
known a long time ago, had really been not a bad little creature.
Valancy was so happy that she could have smiled at anybody—even Uncle
James. She was not averse to Cousin Georgiana’s company. Already, since
the houses along the road were becoming numerous, she was conscious
that curious eyes were looking at her from every window.

“I suppose you’re going home, dear Doss?” said Cousin Georgiana as she
shook hands—furtively eyeing Valancy’s dress and wondering if she had
_any_ petticoat on at all.

“Sooner or later,” said Valancy cryptically.

“Then I’ll go along with you. I’ve been wanting to see you very
especially, Doss dear. I’ve something quite _wonderful_ to tell you.”

“Yes?” said Valancy absently. What on earth was Cousin Georgiana
looking so mysterious and important about? But did it matter? No.
Nothing mattered but Barney and the Blue Castle up back in Mistawis.

“Who do you suppose called to see me the other day?” asked Cousin
Georgiana archly.

Valancy couldn’t guess.

“Edward Beck.” Cousin Georgiana lowered her voice almost to a whisper.
“_Edward Beck_.”

Why the italics? And _was_ Cousin Georgiana blushing?

“Who on earth is Edward Beck?” asked Valancy indifferently.

Cousin Georgiana stared.

“Surely you remember Edward Beck,” she said reproachfully. “He lives in
that lovely house on the Port Lawrence road and he comes to our
church—regularly. You _must_ remember him.”

“Oh, I think I do now,” said Valancy, with an effort of memory. “He’s
that old man with a wen on his forehead and dozens of children, who
always sits in the pew by the door, isn’t he?”

“Not dozens of children, dear—oh, no, not dozens. Not even _one_ dozen.
Only nine. At least only nine that count. The rest are dead. He isn’t
old—he’s only about forty-eight—the prime of life, Doss—and what does
it matter about a wen?”

“Nothing, of course,” agreed Valancy quite sincerely. It certainly did
not matter to her whether Edward Beck had a wen or a dozen wens or no
wen at all. But Valancy was getting vaguely suspicious. There was
certainly an air of suppressed triumph about Cousin Georgiana. Could it
be possible that Cousin Georgiana was thinking of marrying again?
Marrying Edward Beck? Absurd. Cousin Georgiana was sixty-five if she
were a day and her little anxious face was as closely covered with fine
wrinkles as if she had been a hundred. But still——

“My dear,” said Cousin Georgiana, “Edward Beck wants to marry _you_.”

Valancy stared at Cousin Georgiana for a moment. Then she wanted to go
off into a peal of laughter. But she only said:

“Me?”

“Yes, you. He fell in love with you at the funeral. And he came to
consult me about it. I was such a friend of his first wife, you know.
He is very much in earnest, Dossie. And it’s a wonderful chance for
you. He’s very well off—and you know—you—you——”

“Am not so young as I once was,” agreed Valancy. “‘To her that hath
shall be given.’ Do you really think I would make a good stepmother,
Cousin Georgiana?”

“I’m sure you would. You were always so fond of children.”

“But nine is such a family to start with,” objected Valancy gravely.

“The two oldest are grown up and the third almost. That leaves only six
that really count. And most of them are boys. So much easier to bring
up than girls. There’s an excellent book—‘Health Care of the Growing
Child’—Gladys has a copy, I think. It would be such a help to you. And
there are books about morals. You’d manage nicely. Of course I told Mr.
Beck that I thought you would—would——”

“Jump at him,” supplied Valancy.

“Oh, no, no, dear. I wouldn’t use such an indelicate expression. I told
him I thought you would consider his proposal favourably. And you will,
won’t you, dearie?”

“There’s only one obstacle,” said Valancy dreamily. “You see, I’m
married already.”

“Married!” Cousin Georgiana stopped stock-still and stared at Valancy.
“Married!”

“Yes. I was married to Barney Snaith last Tuesday evening in Port
Lawrence.”

There was a convenient gate-post hard by. Cousin Georgiana took firm
hold of it.

“Doss, dear—I’m an old woman—are you trying to make fun of me?”

“Not at all. I’m only telling you the truth. For heaven’s sake, Cousin
Georgiana,”—Valancy was alarmed by certain symptoms—“don’t go crying
here on the public road!”

Cousin Georgiana choked back the tears and gave a little moan of
despair instead.

“Oh, Doss, _what_ have you done? What _have_ you done?”

“I’ve just been telling you. I’ve got married,” said Valancy, calmly
and patiently.

“To that—that—aw—that—_Barney Snaith_. Why, they say he’s had a dozen
wives already.”

“I’m the only one round at present,” said Valancy.

“What will your poor mother say?” moaned Cousin Georgiana.

“Come along with me and hear, if you want to know,” said Valancy. “I’m
on my way to tell her now.”

Cousin Georgiana let go the gate-post cautiously and found that she
could stand alone. She meekly trotted on beside Valancy—who suddenly
seemed quite a different person in her eyes. Cousin Georgiana had a
tremendous respect for a married woman. But it was terrible to think of
what the poor girl had done. So rash. So reckless. Of course Valancy
must be stark mad. But she seemed so happy in her madness that Cousin
Georgiana had a momentary conviction that it would be a pity if the
clan tried to scold her back to sanity. She had never seen that look in
Valancy’s eyes before. But what _would_ Amelia say? And Ben?

“To marry a man you know nothing about,” thought Cousin Georgiana
aloud.

“I know more about him than I know of Edward Beck,” said Valancy.

“Edward Beck _goes to church_,” said Cousin Georgiana. “Does Bar—does
your husband?”

“He has promised that he will go with me on fine Sundays,” said
Valancy.

When they turned in at the Stirling gate Valancy gave an exclamation of
surprise.

“Look at my rosebush! Why, it’s blooming!”

It was. Covered with blossoms. Great, crimson, velvety blossoms.
Fragrant. Glowing. Wonderful.

“My cutting it to pieces must have done it good,” said Valancy,
laughing. She gathered a handful of the blossoms—they would look well
on the supper-table of the verandah at Mistawis—and went, still
laughing, up the walk, conscious that Olive was standing on the steps,
Olive, goddess-like in loveliness, looking down with a slight frown on
her forehead. Olive, beautiful, insolent. Her full form voluptuous in
its swathings of rose silk and lace. Her golden-brown hair curling
richly under her big, white-frilled hat. Her colour ripe and melting.

“Beautiful,” thought Valancy coolly, “but”—as if she suddenly saw her
cousin through new eyes—“without the slightest touch of distinction.”

So Valancy had come home, thank goodness, thought Olive. But Valancy
was not looking like a repentant, returned prodigal. This was the cause
of Olive’s frown. She was looking triumphant—graceless! That outlandish
dress—that queer hat—those hands full of blood-red roses. Yet there was
something about both dress and hat, as Olive instantly felt, that was
entirely lacking in her own attire. This deepened the frown. She put
out a condescending hand.

“So you’re back, Doss? Very warm day, isn’t it? Did you walk in?”

“Yes. Coming in?”

“Oh, no. I’ve just been in. I’ve come often to comfort poor Aunty.
She’s been so lonesome. I’m going to Mrs. Bartlett’s tea. I have to
help pour. She’s giving it for her cousin from Toronto. Such a charming
girl. You’d have loved meeting her, Doss. I think Mrs. Bartlett did
send you a card. Perhaps you’ll drop in later on.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Valancy indifferently. “I’ll have to be
home to get Barney’s supper. We’re going for a moonlit canoe ride
around Mistawis tonight.”

“Barney? Supper?” gasped Olive. “What _do_ you mean, Valancy Stirling?”

“Valancy Snaith, by the grace of God.”

Valancy flaunted her wedding-ring in Olive’s stricken face. Then she
nimbly stepped past her and into the house. Cousin Georgiana followed.
She would not miss a moment of the great scene, even though Olive did
look as if she were going to faint.

Olive did not faint. She went stupidly down the street to Mrs.
Bartlett’s. _What_ did Doss mean? She couldn’t have—that ring—oh, what
fresh scandal was that wretched girl bringing on her defenceless family
now? She should have been—shut up—long ago.

Valancy opened the sitting-room door and stepped unexpectedly right
into a grim assemblage of Stirlings. They had not come together of
malice prepense. Aunt Wellington and Cousin Gladys and Aunt Mildred and
Cousin Sarah had just called in on their way home from a meeting of the
missionary society. Uncle James had dropped in to give Amelia some
information regarding a doubtful investment. Uncle Benjamin had called,
apparently, to tell them it was a hot day and ask them what was the
difference between a bee and a donkey. Cousin Stickles had been
tactless enough to know the answer—“one gets all the honey, the other
all the whacks”—and Uncle Benjamin was in a bad humour. In all of their
minds, unexpressed, was the idea of finding out if Valancy had yet come
home, and, if not, what steps must be taken in the matter.

Well, here was Valancy at last, a poised, confident thing, not humble
and deprecating as she should have been. And so oddly, improperly
young-looking. She stood in the doorway and looked at them, Cousin
Georgiana timorous, expectant, behind her. Valancy was so happy she
didn’t hate her people any more. She could even see a number of good
qualities in them that she had never seen before. And she was sorry for
them. Her pity made her quite gentle.

“Well, Mother,” she said pleasantly.

“So you’ve come home at last!” said Mrs. Frederick, getting out a
handkerchief. She dared not be outraged, but she did not mean to be
cheated of her tears.

“Well, not exactly,” said Valancy. She threw her bomb. “I thought I
ought to drop in and tell you I was married. Last Tuesday night. To
Barney Snaith.”

Uncle Benjamin bounced up and sat down again.

“God bless my soul!” he said dully. The rest seemed turned to stone.
Except Cousin Gladys, who turned faint. Aunt Mildred and Uncle
Wellington had to help her out to the kitchen.

“She would have to keep up the Victorian traditions,” said Valancy,
with a grin. She sat down, uninvited, on a chair. Cousin Stickles had
begun to sob.

“Is there _one_ day in your life that you haven’t cried?” asked Valancy
curiously.

“Valancy,” said Uncle James, being the first to recover the power of
utterance, “did you mean what you said just now?”

“I did.”

“Do you mean to say that you have actually gone and
married—_married_—that notorious Barney
Snaith—that—that—criminal—that——”

“I have.”

“Then,” said Uncle James violently, “you are a shameless creature, lost
to all sense of propriety and virtue, and I wash my hands entirely of
you. I do not want ever to see your face again.”

“What have you left to say when I commit murder?” asked Valancy.

Uncle Benjamin again appealed to God to bless his soul.

“That drunken outlaw—that——”

A dangerous spark appeared in Valancy’s eyes. They might say what they
liked to and of her but they should not abuse Barney.

“Say ‘damn’ and you’ll feel better,” she suggested.

“I can express my feelings without blasphemy. And I tell you have
covered yourself with eternal disgrace and infamy by marrying that
drunkard——”

“_You_ would be more endurable if you got drunk occasionally. Barney is
_not_ a drunkard.”

“He was seen drunk in Port Lawrence—pickled to the gills,” said Uncle
Benjamin.

“If that is true—and I don’t believe it—he had a good reason for it.
Now I suggest that you all stop looking tragic and accept the
situation. I’m married—you can’t undo that. And I’m perfectly happy.”

“I suppose we ought to be thankful he has really married her,” said
Cousin Sarah, by way of trying to look on the bright side.

“If he really has,” said Uncle James, who had just washed his hands of
Valancy. “Who married you?”

“Mr. Towers, of Port Lawrence.”

“By a Free Methodist!” groaned Mrs. Frederick—as if to have been
married by an imprisoned Methodist would have been a shade less
disgraceful. It was the first thing she had said. Mrs. Frederick didn’t
know _what_ to say. The whole thing was too horrible—too nightmarish.
She was sure she must wake up soon. After all their bright hopes at the
funeral!

“It makes me think of those what-d’ye-call-’ems,” said Uncle Benjamin
helplessly. “Those yarns—you know—of fairies taking babies out of their
cradles.”

“Valancy could hardly be a changeling at twenty-nine,” said Aunt
Wellington satirically.

“She was the oddest-looking baby I ever saw, anyway,” averred Uncle
Benjamin. “I said so at the time—you remember, Amelia? I said I had
never seen such eyes in a human head.”

“I’m glad _I_ never had any children,” said Cousin Sarah. “If they
don’t break your heart in one way they do it in another.”

“Isn’t it better to have your heart broken than to have it wither up?”
queried Valancy. “Before it could be broken it must have felt something
splendid. _That_ would be worth the pain.”

“Dippy—clean dippy,” muttered Uncle Benjamin, with a vague,
unsatisfactory feeling that somebody had said something like that
before.

“Valancy,” said Mrs. Frederick solemnly, “do you ever pray to be
forgiven for disobeying your mother?”

“I _should_ pray to be forgiven for obeying you so long,” said Valancy
stubbornly. “But I don’t pray about that at all. I just thank God every
day for my happiness.”

“I would rather,” said Mrs. Frederick, beginning to cry rather
belatedly, “see you dead before me than listen to what you have told me
today.”

Valancy looked at her mother and aunts, and wondered if they could ever
have known anything of the real meaning of love. She felt sorrier for
them than ever. They were so very pitiable. And they never suspected
it.

“Barney Snaith is a scoundrel to have deluded you into marrying him,”
said Uncle James violently.

“Oh, _I_ did the deluding. I asked _him_ to marry me,” said Valancy,
with a wicked smile.

“Have you _no_ pride?” demanded Aunt Wellington.

“Lots of it. I am proud that I have achieved a husband by my own
unaided efforts. Cousin Georgiana here wanted to help me to Edward
Beck.”

“Edward Beck is worth twenty thousand dollars and has the finest house
between here and Port Lawrence,” said Uncle Benjamin.

“That sounds very fine,” said Valancy scornfully, “but it isn’t worth
_that_“—she snapped her fingers—“compared to feeling Barney’s arms
around me and his cheek against mine.”

“_Oh_, Doss!” said Cousin Stickles. Cousin Sarah said, “Oh, _Doss_!”
Aunt Wellington said, “Valancy, you need not be indecent.”

“Why, it surely isn’t indecent to like to have your husband put his arm
around you? I should think it would be indecent if you didn’t.”

“Why expect decency from her?” inquired Uncle James sarcastically. “She
has cut herself off from decency forevermore. She has made her bed. Let
her lie on it.”

“Thanks,” said Valancy very gratefully. “How you would have enjoyed
being Torquemada! Now, I must really be getting back. Mother, may I
have those three woollen cushions I worked last winter?”

“Take them—take everything!” said Mrs. Frederick.

“Oh, I don’t want everything—or much. I don’t want my Blue Castle
cluttered. Just the cushions. I’ll call for them some day when we motor
in.”

Valancy rose and went to the door. There she turned. She was sorrier
than ever for them all. _They_ had no Blue Castle in the purple
solitudes of Mistawis.

“The trouble with you people is that you don’t laugh enough,” she said.

“Doss, dear,” said Cousin Georgiana mournfully, “some day you will
discover that blood is thicker than water.”

“Of course it is. But who wants water to be thick?” parried Valancy.
“We want water to be thin—sparkling—crystal-clear.”

Cousin Stickles groaned.

Valancy would not ask any of them to come and see her—she was afraid
they _would_ come out of curiosity. But she said:

“Do you mind if I drop in and see you once in a while, Mother?”

“My house will always be open to you,” said Mrs. Frederick, with a
mournful dignity.

“You should never recognise her again,” said Uncle James sternly, as
the door closed behind Valancy.

“I cannot quite forget that I am a mother,” said Mrs. Frederick. “My
poor, unfortunate girl!”

“I dare say the marriage isn’t legal,” said Uncle James comfortingly.
“He has probably been married half a dozen times before. But _I_ am
through with her. I have done all I could, Amelia. I think you will
admit that. Henceforth”—Uncle James was terribly solemn about
it—“Valancy is to me as one dead.”

“Mrs. Barney Snaith,” said Cousin Georgiana, as if trying it out to see
how it would sound.

“He has a score of aliases, no doubt,” said Uncle Benjamin. “For my
part, I believe the man is half Indian. I haven’t a doubt they’re
living in a wigwam.”

“If he has married her under the name of Snaith and it isn’t his real
name wouldn’t that make the marriage null and void?” asked Cousin
Stickles hopefully.

Uncle James shook his head.

“No, it is the man who marries, not the name.”

“You know,” said Cousin Gladys, who had recovered and returned but was
still shaky, “I had a distinct premonition of this at Herbert’s silver
dinner. I remarked it at the time. When she was defending Snaith. You
remember, of course. It came over me like a revelation. I spoke to
David when I went home about it.”

“What—_what_,” demanded Aunt Wellington of the universe, “has come over
Valancy? _Valancy_!”

The universe did not answer but Uncle James did.

“Isn’t there something coming up of late about secondary personalities
cropping out? I don’t hold with many of those new-fangled notions, but
there may be something in this one. It would account for her
incomprehensible conduct.”

“Valancy is so fond of mushrooms,” sighed Cousin Georgiana. “I’m afraid
she’ll get poisoned eating toadstools by mistake living up back in the
woods.”

“There are worse things than death,” said Uncle James, believing that
it was the first time in the world that such a statement had been made.

“Nothing can ever be the same again!” sobbed Cousin Stickles.

Valancy, hurrying along the dusty road, back to cool Mistawis and her
purple island, had forgotten all about them—just as she had forgotten
that she might drop dead at any moment if she hurried.




CHAPTER XXVIII


Summer passed by. The Stirling clan—with the insignificant exception of
Cousin Georgiana—had tacitly agreed to follow Uncle James’ example and
look upon Valancy as one dead. To be sure, Valancy had an unquiet,
ghostly habit of recurring resurrections when she and Barney clattered
through Deerwood and out to the Port in that unspeakable car. Valancy,
bareheaded, with stars in her eyes. Barney, bareheaded, smoking his
pipe. But shaved. Always shaved now, if any of them had noticed it.
They even had the audacity to go in to Uncle Benjamin’s store to buy
groceries. Twice Uncle Benjamin ignored them. Was not Valancy one of
the dead? While Snaith had never existed. But the third time he told
Barney he was a scoundrel who should be hung for luring an unfortunate,
weak-minded girl away from her home and friends.

Barney’s one straight eyebrow went up.

“I have made her happy,” he said coolly, “and she was miserable with
her friends. So that’s that.”

Uncle Benjamin stared. It had never occurred to him that women had to
be, or ought to be, “made happy.”

“You—you pup!” he said.

“Why be so unoriginal?” queried Barney amiably. “Anybody could call me
a pup. Why not think of something worthy of the Stirlings? Besides, I’m
not a pup. I’m really quite a middle-aged dog. Thirty-five, if you’re
interested in knowing.”

Uncle Benjamin remembered just in time that Valancy was dead. He turned
his back on Barney.

Valancy _was_ happy—gloriously and entirely so. She seemed to be living
in a wonderful house of life and every day opened a new, mysterious
room. It was in a world which had nothing in common with the one she
had left behind—a world where time was not—which was young with
immortal youth—where there was neither past nor future but only the
present. She surrendered herself utterly to the charm of it.

The absolute freedom of it all was unbelievable. They could do exactly
as they liked. No Mrs. Grundy. No traditions. No relatives. Or in-laws.
“Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away,” as Barney quoted
shamelessly.

Valancy had gone home once and got her cushions. And Cousin Georgiana
had given her one of her famous candlewick spreads of most elaborate
design. “For your spare-room bed, dear,” she said.

“But I haven’t got any spare-room,” said Valancy.

Cousin Georgiana looked horrified. A house without a spare-room was
monstrous to her.

“But it’s a lovely spread,” said Valancy, with a kiss, “and I’m so glad
to have it. I’ll put it on my own bed. Barney’s old patch-work quilt is
getting ragged.”

“I don’t see how you can be contented to live up back,” sighed Cousin
Georgiana. “It’s so out of the world.”

“Contented!” Valancy laughed. What was the use of trying to explain to
Cousin Georgiana. “It is,” she agreed, “most gloriously and entirely
out of the world.”

“And you are really happy, dear?” asked Cousin Georgiana wistfully.

“I really am,” said Valancy gravely, her eyes dancing.

“Marriage is such a serious thing,” sighed Cousin Georgiana.

“When it’s going to last long,” agreed Valancy.

Cousin Georgiana did not understand this at all. But it worried her and
she lay awake at nights wondering what Valancy meant by it.

Valancy loved her Blue Castle and was completely satisfied with it. The
big living-room had three windows, all commanding exquisite views of
exquisite Mistawis. The one in the end of the room was an oriel
window—which Tom MacMurray, Barney explained, had got out of some
little, old “up back” church that had been sold. It faced the west and
when the sunsets flooded it Valancy’s whole being knelt in prayer as if
in some great cathedral. The new moons always looked down through it,
the lower pine boughs swayed about the top of it, and all through the
nights the soft, dim silver of the lake dreamed through it.

There was a stone fireplace on the other side. No desecrating gas
imitation but a real fireplace where you could burn real logs. With a
big grizzly bearskin on the floor before it, and beside it a hideous,
red-plush sofa of Tom MacMurray’s régime. But its ugliness was hidden
by silver-grey timber wolf skins, and Valancy’s cushions made it gay
and comfortable. In a corner a nice, tall, lazy old clock ticked—the
right kind of a clock. One that did not hurry the hours away but ticked
them off deliberately. It was the jolliest looking old clock. A fat,
corpulent clock with a great, round, man’s face painted on it, the
hands stretching out of its nose and the hours encircling it like a
halo.

There was a big glass case of stuffed owls and several deer
heads—likewise of Tom MacMurray’s vintage. Some comfortable old chairs
that asked to be sat upon. A squat little chair with a cushion was
prescriptively Banjo’s. If anybody else dared sit on it Banjo glared
him out of it with his topaz-hued, black-ringed eyes. Banjo had an
adorable habit of hanging over the back of it, trying to catch his own
tail. Losing his temper because he couldn’t catch it. Giving it a
fierce bite for spite when he _did_ catch it. Yowling malignantly with
pain. Barney and Valancy laughed at him until they ached. But it was
Good Luck they loved. They were both agreed that Good Luck was so
lovable that he practically amounted to an obsession.

One side of the wall was lined with rough, homemade book-shelves filled
with books, and between the two side windows hung an old mirror in a
faded gilt frame, with fat cupids gamboling in the panel over the
glass. A mirror, Valancy thought, that must be like the fabled mirror
into which Venus had once looked and which thereafter reflected as
beautiful every woman who looked into it. Valancy thought she was
almost pretty in that mirror. But that may have been because she had
shingled her hair.

This was before the day of bobs and was regarded as a wild, unheard-of
proceeding—unless you had typhoid. When Mrs. Frederick heard of it she
almost decided to erase Valancy’s name from the family Bible. Barney
cut the hair, square off at the back of Valancy’s neck, bringing it
down in a short black fringe over her forehead. It gave a meaning and a
purpose to her little, three-cornered face that it never had possessed
before. Even her nose ceased to irritate her. Her eyes were bright, and
her sallow skin had cleared to the hue of creamy ivory. The old family
joke had come true—she was really fat at last—anyway, no longer skinny.
Valancy might never be beautiful, but she was of the type that looks
its best in the woods—elfin—mocking—alluring.

Her heart bothered her very little. When an attack threatened she was
generally able to head it off with Dr. Trent’s prescription. The only
bad one she had was one night when she was temporarily out of medicine.
And it _was_ a bad one. For the time being, Valancy realised keenly
that death was actually waiting to pounce on her any moment. But the
rest of the time she would not—did not—let herself remember it at all.




CHAPTER XXIX


Valancy toiled not, neither did she spin. There was really very little
work to do. She cooked their meals on a coal-oil stove, performing all
her little domestic rites carefully and exultingly, and they ate out on
the verandah that almost overhung the lake. Before them lay Mistawis,
like a scene out of some fairy tale of old time. And Barney smiling his
twisted, enigmatical smile at her across the table.

“What a view old Tom picked out when he built this shack!” Barney would
say exultantly.

Supper was the meal Valancy liked best. The faint laughter of winds was
always about them and the colours of Mistawis, imperial and spiritual,
under the changing clouds were something that cannot be expressed in
mere words. Shadows, too. Clustering in the pines until a wind shook
them out and pursued them over Mistawis. They lay all day along the
shores, threaded by ferns and wild blossoms. They stole around the
headlands in the glow of the sunset, until twilight wove them all into
one great web of dusk.

The cats, with their wise, innocent little faces, would sit on the
verandah railing and eat the tidbits Barney flung them. And how good
everything tasted! Valancy, amid all the romance of Mistawis, never
forgot that men had stomachs. Barney paid her no end of compliments on
her cooking.

“After all,” he admitted, “there’s something to be said for square
meals. I’ve mostly got along by boiling two or three dozen eggs hard at
once and eating a few when I got hungry, with a slice of bacon once in
a while and a jorum of tea.”

Valancy poured tea out of Barney’s little battered old pewter teapot of
incredible age. She had not even a set of dishes—only Barney’s
mismatched chipped bits—and a dear, big, pobby old jug of robin’s-egg
blue.

After the meal was over they would sit there and talk for hours—or sit
and say nothing, in all the languages of the world, Barney pulling away
at his pipe, Valancy dreaming idly and deliciously, gazing at the
far-off hills beyond Mistawis where the spires of firs came out against
the sunset. The moonlight would begin to silver the Mistawis dusk. Bats
would begin to swoop darkly against the pale, western gold. The little
waterfall that came down on the high bank not far away would, by some
whim of the wildwood gods, begin to look like a wonderful white woman
beckoning through the spicy, fragrant evergreens. And Leander would
begin to chuckle diabolically on the mainland shore. How sweet it was
to sit there and do nothing in the beautiful silence, with Barney at
the other side of the table, smoking!

There were plenty of other islands in sight, though none were near
enough to be troublesome as neighbours. There was one little group of
islets far off to the west which they called the Fortunate Isles. At
sunrise they looked like a cluster of emeralds, at sunset like a
cluster of amethysts. They were too small for houses; but the lights on
the larger islands would bloom out all over the lake, and bonfires
would be lighted on their shores, streaming up into the wood shadows
and throwing great, blood-red ribbons over the waters. Music would
drift to them alluringly from boats here and there, or from the
verandahs on the big house of the millionaire on the biggest island.

“Would you like a house like that, Moonlight?” Barney asked once,
waving his hand at it. He had taken to calling her Moonlight, and
Valancy loved it.

“No,” said Valancy, who had once dreamed of a mountain castle ten times
the size of the rich man’s “cottage” and now pitied the poor
inhabitants of palaces. “No. It’s too elegant. I would have to carry it
with me everywhere I went. On my back like a snail. It would own
me—possess me, body and soul. I like a house I can love and cuddle and
boss. Just like ours here. I don’t envy Hamilton Gossard ‘the finest
summer residence in Canada.’ It is magnificent, but it isn’t my Blue
Castle.”

Away down at the far end of the lake they got every night a glimpse of
a big, continental train rushing through a clearing. Valancy liked to
watch its lighted windows flash by and wonder who was on it and what
hopes and fears it carried. She also amused herself by picturing Barney
and herself going to the dances and dinners in the houses on the
islands, but she did not want to go in reality. Once they did go to a
masquerade dance in the pavilion at one of the hotels up the lake, and
had a glorious evening, but slipped away in their canoe, before
unmasking time, back to the Blue Castle.

“It was lovely—but I don’t want to go again,” said Valancy.

So many hours a day Barney shut himself up in Bluebeard’s Chamber.
Valancy never saw the inside of it. From the smells that filtered
through at times she concluded he must be conducting chemical
experiments—or counterfeiting money. Valancy supposed there must be
smelly processes in making counterfeit money. But she did not trouble
herself about it. She had no desire to peer into the locked chambers of
Barney’s house of life. His past and his future concerned her not. Only
this rapturous present. Nothing else mattered.

Once he went away and stayed away two days and nights. He had asked
Valancy if she would be afraid to stay alone and she had said she would
not. He never told her where he had been. She was not afraid to be
alone, but she was horribly lonely. The sweetest sound she had ever
heard was Lady Jane’s clatter through the woods when Barney returned.
And then his signal whistle from the shore. She ran down to the landing
rock to greet him—to nestle herself into his eager arms—they _did_ seem
eager.

“Have you missed me, Moonlight?” Barney was whispering.

“It seems a hundred years since you went away,” said Valancy.

“I won’t leave you again.”

“You must,” protested Valancy, “if you want to. I’d be miserable if I
thought you wanted to go and didn’t, because of me. I want you to feel
perfectly free.”

Barney laughed—a little cynically.

“There is no such thing as freedom on earth,” he said. “Only different
kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. _You_ think you are free
now because you’ve escaped from a peculiarly unbearable kind of
bondage. But are you? You love me—_that’s_ a bondage.”

“Who said or wrote that ‘the prison unto which we doom ourselves no
prison is’?” asked Valancy dreamily, clinging to his arm as they
climbed up the rock steps.

“Ah, now you have it,” said Barney. “That’s all the freedom we can hope
for—the freedom to choose our prison. But, Moonlight,”—he stopped at
the door of the Blue Castle and looked about him—at the glorious lake,
the great, shadowy woods, the bonfires, the twinkling
lights—“Moonlight, I’m glad to be home again. When I came down through
the woods and saw my home lights—mine—gleaming out under the old
pines—something I’d never seen before—oh, girl, I was glad—glad!”

But in spite of Barney’s doctrine of bondage, Valancy thought they were
splendidly free. It was amazing to be able to sit up half the night and
look at the moon if you wanted to. To be late for meals if you wanted
to—she who had always been rebuked so sharply by her mother and so
reproachfully by Cousin Stickles if she were one minute late. Dawdle
over meals as long as you wanted to. Leave your crusts if you wanted
to. Not come home at all for meals if you wanted to. Sit on a sun-warm
rock and paddle your bare feet in the hot sand if you wanted to. Just
sit and do nothing in the beautiful silence if you wanted to. In short,
do any fool thing you wanted to whenever the notion took you. If _that_
wasn’t freedom, what was?




CHAPTER XXX


They didn’t spend all their days on the island. They spent more than
half of them wandering at will through the enchanted Muskoka country.
Barney knew the woods as a book and he taught their lore and craft to
Valancy. He could always find trail and haunt of the shy wood people.
Valancy learned the different fairy-likenesses of the mosses—the charm
and exquisiteness of woodland blossoms. She learned to know every bird
at sight and mimic its call—though never so perfectly as Barney. She
made friends with every kind of tree. She learned to paddle a canoe as
well as Barney himself. She liked to be out in the rain and she never
caught cold.

Sometimes they took a lunch with them and went berrying—strawberries
and blueberries. How pretty blueberries were—the dainty green of the
unripe berries, the glossy pinks and scarlets of the half ripes, the
misty blue of the fully matured! And Valancy learned the real flavour
of the strawberry in its highest perfection. There was a certain sunlit
dell on the banks of Mistawis along which white birches grew on one
side and on the other still, changeless ranks of young spruces. There
were long grasses at the roots of the birches, combed down by the winds
and wet with morning dew late into the afternoons. Here they found
berries that might have graced the banquets of Lucullus, great
ambrosial sweetnesses hanging like rubies to long, rosy stalks. They
lifted them by the stalk and ate them from it, uncrushed and virgin,
tasting each berry by itself with all its wild fragrance ensphered
therein. When Valancy carried any of these berries home that elusive
essence escaped and they became nothing more than the common berries of
the market-place—very kitchenly good indeed, but not as they would have
been, eaten in their birch dell until her fingers were stained as pink
as Aurora’s eyelids.

Or they went after water-lilies. Barney knew where to find them in the
creeks and bays of Mistawis. Then the Blue Castle was glorious with
them, every receptacle that Valancy could contrive filled with the
exquisite things. If not water lilies then cardinal flowers, fresh and
vivid from the swamps of Mistawis, where they burned like ribbons of
flame.

Sometimes they went trouting on little nameless rivers or hidden brooks
on whose banks Naiads might have sunned their white, wet limbs. Then
all they took with them were some raw potatoes and salt. They roasted
the potatoes over a fire and Barney showed Valancy how to cook the
trout by wrapping them in leaves, coating them with mud and baking them
in a bed of hot coals. Never were such delicious meals. Valancy had
such an appetite it was no wonder she put flesh on her bones.

Or they just prowled and explored through woods that always seemed to
be expecting something wonderful to happen. At least, that was the way
Valancy felt about them. Down the next hollow—over the next hill—you
would find it.

“We don’t know where we’re going, but isn’t it fun to go?” Barney used
to say.

Once or twice night overtook them, too far from their Blue Castle to
get back. But Barney made a fragrant bed of bracken and fir boughs and
they slept on it dreamlessly, under a ceiling of old spruces with moss
hanging from them, while beyond them moonlight and the murmur of pines
blended together so that one could hardly tell which was light and
which was sound.

There were rainy days, of course, when Muskoka was a wet green land.
Days when showers drifted across Mistawis like pale ghosts of rain and
they never thought of staying in because of it. Days when it rained in
right good earnest and they had to stay in. Then Barney shut himself up
in Bluebeard’s Chamber and Valancy read, or dreamed on the wolfskins
with Good Luck purring beside her and Banjo watching them suspiciously
from his own peculiar chair. On Sunday evenings they paddled across to
a point of land and walked from there through the woods to the little
Free Methodist church. One felt really too happy for Sunday. Valancy
had never really liked Sundays before.

And always, Sundays and weekdays, she was with Barney. Nothing else
really mattered. And what a companion he was! How understanding! How
jolly! How—how Barney—like! That summed it all up.

Valancy had taken some of her two hundred dollars out of the bank and
spent it in pretty clothes. She had a little smoke-blue chiffon which
she always put on when they spent the evening at home—smoke-blue with
touches of silver about it. It was after she began wearing it that
Barney began calling her Moonlight.

“Moonlight and blue twilight—that is what you look like in that dress.
I like it. It belongs to you. You aren’t exactly pretty, but you have
some adorable beauty-spots. Your eyes. And that little kissable dent
just between your collar bones. You have the wrist and ankle of an
aristocrat. That little head of yours is beautifully shaped. And when
you look backward over your shoulder you’re maddening—especially in
twilight or moonlight. An elf maiden. A wood sprite. You belong to the
woods, Moonlight—you should never be out of them. In spite of your
ancestry, there is something wild and remote and untamed about you. And
you have such a nice, sweet, throaty, summery voice. Such a nice voice
for love-making.”

“Shure an’ ye’ve kissed the Blarney Stone,” scoffed Valancy. But she
tasted these compliments for weeks.

She got a pale green bathing-suit, too—a garment which would have given
her clan their deaths if they had ever seen her in it. Barney taught
her how to swim. Sometimes she put her bathing-dress on when she got up
and didn’t take it off until she went to bed—running down to the water
for a plunge whenever she felt like it and sprawling on the sun-warm
rocks to dry.

She had forgotten all the old humiliating things that used to come up
against her in the night—the injustices and the disappointments. It was
as if they had all happened to some other person—not to her, Valancy
Snaith, who had always been happy.

“I understand now what it means to be born again,” she told Barney.

Holmes speaks of grief “staining backward” through the pages of life;
but Valancy found her happiness had stained backward likewise and
flooded with rose-colour her whole previous drab existence. She found
it hard to believe that she had ever been lonely and unhappy and
afraid.

“When death comes, I shall have lived,” thought Valancy. “I shall have
had my hour.”

And her dust-pile!

One day Valancy had heaped up the sand in the little island cove in a
tremendous cone and stuck a gay little Union Jack on top of it.

“What are you celebrating?” Barney wanted to know.

“I’m just exorcising an old demon,” Valancy told him.




CHAPTER XXXI


Autumn came. Late September with cool nights. They had to forsake the
verandah; but they kindled a fire in the big fireplace and sat before
it with jest and laughter. They left the doors open, and Banjo and Good
Luck came and went at pleasure. Sometimes they sat gravely on the
bearskin rug between Barney and Valancy; sometimes they slunk off into
the mystery of the chill night outside. The stars smouldered in the
horizon mists through the old oriel. The haunting, persistent croon of
the pine-trees filled the air. The little waves began to make soft,
sobbing splashes on the rocks below them in the rising winds. They
needed no light but the firelight that sometimes leaped up and revealed
them—sometimes shrouded them in shadow. When the night wind rose higher
Barney would shut the door and light a lamp and read to her—poetry and
essays and gorgeous, dim chronicles of ancient wars. Barney never would
read novels: he vowed they bored him. But sometimes she read them
herself, curled up on the wolf skins, laughing aloud in peace. For
Barney was not one of those aggravating people who can never hear you
smiling audibly over something you’ve read without inquiring placidly,
“What is the joke?”

October—with a gorgeous pageant of color around Mistawis, into which
Valancy plunged her soul. Never had she imagined anything so splendid.
A great, tinted peace. Blue, wind-winnowed skies. Sunlight sleeping in
the glades of that fairyland. Long dreamy purple days paddling idly in
their canoe along shores and up the rivers of crimson and gold. A
sleepy, red hunter’s moon. Enchanted tempests that stripped the leaves
from the trees and heaped them along the shores. Flying shadows of
clouds. What had all the smug, opulent lands out front to compare with
this?

November—with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red
sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear
days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified
serenity of folded hands and closed eyes—days full of a fine, pale
sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the
juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up
evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days
with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite
melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake.
But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed
by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the
pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old
Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew.

“Warm fire—books—comfort—safety from storm—our cats on the rug.
Moonlight,” said Barney, “would you be any happier now if you had a
million dollars?”

“No—nor half so happy. I’d be bored by conventions and obligations
then.”

December. Early snows and Orion. The pale fires of the Milky Way. It
was really winter now—wonderful, cold, starry winter. How Valancy had
always hated winter! Dull, brief, uneventful days. Long, cold,
companionless nights. Cousin Stickles with her back that had to be
rubbed continually. Cousin Stickles making weird noises gargling her
throat in the mornings. Cousin Stickles whining over the price of coal.
Her mother, probing, questioning, ignoring. Endless colds and
bronchitis—or the dread of it. Redfern’s Liniment and Purple Pills.

But now she loved winter. Winter was beautiful “up back”—almost
intolerably beautiful. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were
like cups of glamour—the purest vintage of winter’s wine. Nights with
their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite winter sunrises. Lovely ferns of
ice all over the windows of the Blue Castle. Moonlight on birches in a
silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings—torn, twisted, fantastic
shadows. Great silences, austere and searching. Jewelled, barbaric
hills. The sun suddenly breaking through grey clouds over long, white
Mistawis. Icy-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cosy
living-room, with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats seemed
cosier than ever. Every hour brought a new revelation and wonder.

Barney ran Lady Jane into Roaring Abel’s barn and taught Valancy how to
snowshoe—Valancy, who ought to be laid up with bronchitis. But Valancy
had not even a cold. Later on in the winter Barney had a terrible one
and Valancy nursed him through it with a dread of pneumonia in her
heart. But Valancy’s colds seemed to have gone where old moons go.
Which was luck—for she hadn’t even Redfern’s Liniment. She had
thoughtfully bought a bottle at the Port and Barney had hurled it into
frozen Mistawis with a scowl.

“Bring no more of that devilish stuff here,” he had ordered briefly. It
was the first and last time he had spoken harshly to her.

They went for long tramps through the exquisite reticence of winter
woods and the silver jungles of frosted trees, and found loveliness
everywhere.

At times they seemed to be walking through a spellbound world of
crystal and pearl, so white and radiant were clearings and lakes and
sky. The air was so crisp and clear that it was half intoxicating.

Once they stood in a hesitation of ecstasy at the entrance of a narrow
path between ranks of birches. Every twig and spray was outlined in
snow. The undergrowth along its sides was a little fairy forest cut out
of marble. The shadows cast by the pale sunshine were fine and
spiritual.

“Come away,” said Barney, turning. “We must not commit the desecration
of tramping through there.”

One evening they came upon a snowdrift far back in an old clearing
which was in the exact likeness of a beautiful woman’s profile. Seen
too close by, the resemblance was lost, as in the fairy-tale of the
Castle of St. John. Seen from behind, it was a shapeless oddity. But at
just the right distance and angle the outline was so perfect that when
they came suddenly upon it, gleaming out against the dark background of
spruce in the glow of that winter sunset they both exclaimed in
amazement. There was a low, noble brow, a straight, classic nose, lips
and chin and cheek-curve modelled as if some goddess of old time had
sat to the sculptor, and a breast of such cold, swelling purity as the
very spirit of the winter woods might display.

“‘All the beauty that old Greece and Rome, sung painted, taught,’”
quoted Barney.

“And to think no human eyes save ours have seen or will see it,”
breathed Valancy, who felt at times as if she were living in a book by
John Foster. As she looked around her she recalled some passages she
had marked in the new Foster book Barney had brought her from the
Port—with an adjuration not to expect _him_ to read or listen to it.

“‘All the tintings of winter woods are extremely delicate and
elusive,’” recalled Valancy. “‘When the brief afternoon wanes and the
sun just touches the tops of the hills, there seems to be all over the
woods an abundance, not of colour, but of the spirit of colour. There
is really nothing but pure white after all, but one has the impression
of fairy-like blendings of rose and violet, opal and heliotrope on the
slopes—in the dingles and along the curves of the forest-land. You feel
sure the tint is there, but when you look at it directly it is gone.
From the corner of your eye you are aware that it is lurking over
yonder in a spot where there was nothing but pale purity a moment ago.
Only just when the sun is setting is there a fleeting moment of real
colour. Then the redness streams out over the snow and incarnadines the
hills and rivers and smites the crest of the pines with flame. Just a
few minutes of transfiguration and revelation—and it is gone.’”

“I wonder if John Foster ever spent a winter in Mistawis,” said
Valancy.

“Not likely,” scoffed Barney. “People who write tosh like that
generally write it in a warm house on some smug city street.”

“You are too hard on John Foster,” said Valancy severely. “No one could
have written that little paragraph I read you last night without having
seen it first—you know he couldn’t.”

“I didn’t listen to it,” said Barney morosely. “You know I told you I
wouldn’t.”

“Then you’ve got to listen to it now,” persisted Valancy. She made him
stand still on his snowshoes while she repeated it.

“‘She is a rare artist, this old Mother Nature, who works “for the joy
of working” and not in any spirit of vain show. Today the fir woods are
a symphony of greens and greys, so subtle that you cannot tell where
one shade begins to be the other. Grey trunk, green bough, grey-green
moss above the white, grey-shadowed floor. Yet the old gypsy doesn’t
like unrelieved monotones. She must have a dash of colour. See it. A
broken dead fir bough, of a beautiful red-brown, swinging among the
beards of moss.’”

“Good Lord, do you learn all that fellow’s books by heart?” was
Barney’s disgusted reaction as he strode off.

“John Foster’s books were all that saved my soul alive the past five
years,” averred Valancy. “Oh, Barney, look at that exquisite filigree
of snow in the furrows of that old elm-tree trunk.”

When they came out to the lake they changed from snowshoes to skates
and skated home. For a wonder Valancy had learned, when she was a
little schoolgirl, to skate on the pond behind the Deerwood school. She
never had any skates of her own, but some of the other girls had lent
her theirs and she seemed to have a natural knack of it. Uncle Benjamin
had once promised her a pair of skates for Christmas, but when
Christmas came he had given her rubbers instead. She had never skated
since she grew up, but the old trick came back quickly, and glorious
were the hours she and Barney spent skimming over the white lakes and
past the dark islands where the summer cottages were closed and silent.
Tonight they flew down Mistawis before the wind, in an exhilaration
that crimsoned Valancy’s cheeks under her white tam. And at the end was
her dear little house, on the island of pines, with a coating of snow
on its roof, sparkling in the moonlight. Its windows glinted impishly
at her in the stay gleams.

“Looks exactly like a picture-book, doesn’t it?” said Barney.

They had a lovely Christmas. No rush. No scramble. No niggling attempts
to make ends meet. No wild effort to remember whether she hadn’t given
the same kind of present to the same person two Christmases before—no
mob of last-minute shoppers—no dreary family “reunions” where she sat
mute and unimportant—no attacks of “nerves.” They decorated the Blue
Castle with pine boughs, and Valancy made delightful little tinsel
stars and hung them up amid the greenery. She cooked a dinner to which
Barney did full justice, while Good Luck and Banjo picked the bones.

“A land that can produce a goose like that is an admirable land,” vowed
Barney. “Canada forever!” And they drank to the Union Jack a bottle of
dandelion wine that Cousin Georgiana had given Valancy along with the
bedspread.

“One never knows,” Cousin Georgiana had said solemnly, “when one may
need a little stimulant.”

Barney had asked Valancy what she wanted for a Christmas present.

“Something frivolous and unnecessary,” said Valancy, who had got a pair
of goloshes last Christmas and two long-sleeved, woolen undervests the
year before. And so on back.

To her delight, Barney gave her a necklace of pearl beads. Valancy had
wanted a string of milky pearl beads—like congealed moonshine—all her
life. And these were so pretty. All that worried her was that they were
really too good. They must have cost a great deal—fifteen dollars, at
least. Could Barney afford that? She didn’t know a thing about his
finances. She had refused to let him buy any of her clothes—she had
enough for that, she told him, as long as she would need clothes. In a
round, black jar on the chimney-piece Barney put money for their
household expenses—always enough. The jar was never empty, though
Valancy never caught him replenishing it. He couldn’t have much, of
course, and that necklace—but Valancy tossed care aside. She would wear
it and enjoy it. It was the first pretty thing she had ever had.




CHAPTER XXXII


New Year. The old, shabby, inglorious outlived calendar came down. The
new one went up. January was a month of storms. It snowed for three
weeks on end. The thermometer went miles below zero and stayed there.
But, as Barney and Valancy pointed out to each other, there were no
mosquitoes. And the roar and crackle of their big fire drowned the
howls of the north wind. Good Luck and Banjo waxed fat and developed
resplendent coats of thick, silky fur. Nip and Tuck had gone.

“But they’ll come back in spring,” promised Barney.

There was no monotony. Sometimes they had dramatic little private spats
that never even thought of becoming quarrels. Sometimes Roaring Abel
dropped in—for an evening or a whole day—with his old tartan cap and
his long red beard coated with snow. He generally brought his fiddle
and played for them, to the delight of all except Banjo, who would go
temporarily insane and retreat under Valancy’s bed. Sometimes Abel and
Barney talked while Valancy made candy for them; sometimes they sat and
smoked in silence _à la_ Tennyson and Carlyle, until the Blue Castle
reeked and Valancy fled to the open. Sometimes they played checkers
fiercely and silently the whole night through. Sometimes they all ate
the russet apples Abel had brought, while the jolly old clock ticked
the delightful minutes away.

“A plate of apples, an open fire, and ‘a jolly goode booke whereon to
looke’ are a fair substitute for heaven,” vowed Barney. “Any one can
have the streets of gold. Let’s have another whack at Carman.”

It was easier now for the Stirlings to believe Valancy of the dead. Not
even dim rumours of her having been over at the Port came to trouble
them, though she and Barney used to skate there occasionally to see a
movie and eat hot dogs shamelessly at the corner stand afterwards.
Presumably none of the Stirlings ever thought about her—except Cousin
Georgiana, who used to lie awake worrying about poor Doss. Did she have
enough to eat? Was that dreadful creature good to her? Was she warm
enough at nights?

Valancy was quite warm at nights. She used to wake up and revel
silently in the cosiness of those winter nights on that little island
in the frozen lake. The nights of other winters had been so cold and
long. Valancy hated to wake up in them and think about the bleakness
and emptiness of the day that had passed and the bleakness and
emptiness of the day that would come. Now, she almost counted that
night lost on which she didn’t wake up and lie awake for half an hour
just being happy, while Barney’s regular breathing went on beside her,
and through the open door the smouldering brands in the fireplace
winked at her in the gloom. It was very nice to feel a little Lucky cat
jump up on your bed in the darkness and snuggle down at your feet,
purring; but Banjo would be sitting dourly by himself out in front of
the fire like a brooding demon. At such moments Banjo was anything but
canny, but Valancy loved his uncanniness.

The side of the bed had to be right against the window. There was no
other place for it in the tiny room. Valancy, lying there, could look
out of the window, through the big pine boughs that actually touched
it, away up Mistawis, white and lustrous as a pavement of pearl, or
dark and terrible in the storm. Sometimes the pine boughs tapped
against the panes with friendly signals. Sometimes she heard the little
hissing whisper of snow against them right at her side. Some nights the
whole outer world seemed given over to the empery of silence; then came
nights when there would be a majestic sweep of wind in the pines;
nights of dear starlight when it whistled freakishly and joyously
around the Blue Castle; brooding nights before storm when it crept
along the floor of the lake with a low, wailing cry of boding and
mystery. Valancy wasted many perfectly good sleeping hours in these
delightful communings. But she could sleep as long in the morning as
she wanted to. Nobody cared. Barney cooked his own breakfast of bacon
and eggs and then shut himself up in Bluebeard’s Chamber till supper
time. Then they had an evening of reading and talk. They talked about
everything in this world and a good many things in other worlds. They
laughed over their own jokes until the Blue Castles re-echoed.

“You _do_ laugh beautifully,” Barney told her once. “It makes me want
to laugh just to hear you laugh. There’s a trick about your laugh—as if
there were so much more fun back of it that you wouldn’t let out. Did
you laugh like that before you came to Mistawis, Moonlight?”

“I never laughed at all—really. I used to giggle foolishly when I felt
I was expected to. But now—the laugh just comes.”

It struck Valancy more than once that Barney himself laughed a great
deal oftener than he used to and that his laugh had changed. It had
become wholesome. She rarely heard the little cynical note in it now.
Could a man laugh like that who had crimes on his conscience? Yet
Barney _must_ have done something. Valancy had indifferently made up
her mind as to what he had done. She concluded he was a defaulting bank
cashier. She had found in one of Barney’s books an old clipping cut
from a Montreal paper in which a vanished, defaulting cashier was
described. The description applied to Barney—as well as to half a dozen
other men Valancy knew—and from some casual remarks he had dropped from
time to time she concluded he knew Montreal rather well. Valancy had it
all figured out in the back of her mind. Barney had been in a bank. He
was tempted to take some money to speculate—meaning, of course, to put
it back. He had got in deeper and deeper, until he found there was
nothing for it but flight. It had happened so to scores of men. He had,
Valancy was absolutely certain, never meant to do wrong. Of course, the
name of the man in the clipping was Bernard Craig. But Valancy had
always thought Snaith was an alias. Not that it mattered.

Valancy had only one unhappy night that winter. It came in late March
when most of the snow had gone and Nip and Tuck had returned. Barney
had gone off in the afternoon for a long, woodland tramp, saying he
would be back by dark if all went well. Soon after he had gone it had
begun to snow. The wind rose and presently Mistawis was in the grip of
one of the worst storms of the winter. It tore up the lake and struck
at the little house. The dark angry woods on the mainland scowled at
Valancy, menace in the toss of their boughs, threats in their windy
gloom, terror in the roar of their hearts. The trees on the island
crouched in fear. Valancy spent the night huddled on the rug before the
fire, her face buried in her hands, when she was not vainly peering
from the oriel in a futile effort to see through the furious smoke of
wind and snow that had once been blue-dimpled Mistawis. Where was
Barney? Lost on the merciless lakes? Sinking exhausted in the drifts of
the pathless woods? Valancy died a hundred deaths that night and paid
in full for all the happiness of her Blue Castle. When morning came the
storm broke and cleared; the sun shone gloriously over Mistawis; and at
noon Barney came home. Valancy saw him from the oriel as he came around
a wooded point, slender and black against the glistening white world.
She did not run to meet him. Something happened to her knees and she
dropped down on Banjo’s chair. Luckily Banjo got out from under in
time, his whiskers bristling with indignation. Barney found her there,
her head buried in her hands.

“Barney, I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

Barney hooted.

“After two years of the Klondike did you think a baby storm like this
could get me? I spent the night in that old lumber shanty over by
Muskoka. A bit cold but snug enough. Little goose! Your eyes look like
burnt holes in a blanket. Did you sit up here all night worrying over
an old woodsman like me?”

“Yes,” said Valancy. “I—couldn’t help it. The storm seemed so wild.
Anybody might have been lost in it. When—I saw you—come round the
point—there—something happened to me. I don’t know what. It was as if I
had died and come back to life. I can’t describe it any other way.”




CHAPTER XXXIII


Spring. Mistawis black and sullen for a week or two, then flaming in
sapphire and turquoise, lilac and rose again, laughing through the
oriel, caressing its amethyst islands, rippling under winds soft as
silk. Frogs, little green wizards of swamp and pool, singing everywhere
in the long twilights and long into the nights; islands fairy-like in a
green haze; the evanescent beauty of wild young trees in early leaf;
frost-like loveliness of the new foliage of juniper-trees; the woods
putting on a fashion of spring flowers, dainty, spiritual things akin
to the soul of the wilderness; red mist on the maples; willows decked
out with glossy silver pussies; all the forgotten violets of Mistawis
blooming again; lure of April moons.

“Think how many thousands of springs have been here on Mistawis—and all
of them beautiful,” said Valancy. “Oh, Barney, look at that wild plum!
I will—I must quote from John Foster. There’s a passage in one of his
books—I’ve re-read it a hundred times. He must have written it before a
tree just like that:

“‘Behold the young wild plum-tree which has adorned herself after
immemorial fashion in a wedding-veil of fine lace. The fingers of wood
pixies must have woven it, for nothing like it ever came from an
earthly loom. I vow the tree is conscious of its loveliness. It is
bridling before our very eyes—as if its beauty were not the most
ephemeral thing in the woods, as it is the rarest and most exceeding,
for today it is and tomorrow it is not. Every south wind purring
through the boughs will winnow away a shower of slender petals. But
what matter? Today it is queen of the wild places and it is always
today in the woods.’”

“I’m sure you feel much better since you’ve got that out of your
system,” said Barney heartlessly.

“Here’s a patch of dandelions,” said Valancy, unsubdued. “Dandelions
shouldn’t grow in the woods, though. They haven’t any sense of the
fitness of things at all. They are too cheerful and self-satisfied.
They haven’t any of the mystery and reserve of the real wood-flowers.”

“In short, they’ve no secrets,” said Barney. “But wait a bit. The woods
will have their own way even with those obvious dandelions. In a little
while all that obtrusive yellowness and complacency will be gone and
we’ll find here misty, phantom-like globes hovering over those long
grasses in full harmony with the traditions of the forest.”

“That sounds John Fosterish,” teased Valancy.

“What have I done that deserved a slam like that?” complained Barney.

One of the earliest signs of spring was the renaissance of Lady Jane.
Barney put her on roads that no other car would look at, and they went
through Deerwood in mud to the axles. They passed several Stirlings,
who groaned and reflected that now spring was come they would encounter
that shameless pair everywhere. Valancy, prowling about Deerwood shops,
met Uncle Benjamin on the street; but he did not realise until he had
gone two blocks further on that the girl in the scarlet-collared
blanket coat, with cheeks reddened in the sharp April air and the
fringe of black hair over laughing, slanted eyes, was Valancy. When he
did realise it, Uncle Benjamin was indignant. What business had Valancy
to look like—like—like a young girl? The way of the transgressor was
hard. Had to be. Scriptural and proper. Yet Valancy’s path couldn’t be
hard. She wouldn’t look like that if it were. There was something
wrong. It was almost enough to make a man turn modernist.

Barney and Valancy clanged on to the Port, so that it was dark when
they went through Deerwood again. At her old home Valancy, seized with
a sudden impulse, got out, opened the little gate and tiptoed around to
the sitting-room window. There sat her mother and Cousin Stickles
drearily, grimly knitting. Baffling and inhuman as ever. If they had
looked the least bit lonesome Valancy would have gone in. But they did
not. Valancy would not disturb them for worlds.




CHAPTER XXXIV


Valancy had two wonderful moments that spring.

One day, coming home through the woods, with her arms full of trailing
arbutus and creeping spruce, she met a man who she knew must be Allan
Tierney. Allan Tierney, the celebrated painter of beautiful women. He
lived in New York in winter, but he owned an island cottage at the
northern end of Mistawis to which he always came the minute the ice was
out of the lake. He was reputed to be a lonely, eccentric man. He never
flattered his sitters. There was no need to, for he would not paint any
one who required flattery. To be painted by Allan Tierney was all the
_cachet_ of beauty a woman could desire. Valancy had heard so much
about him that she couldn’t help turning her head back over her
shoulder for another shy, curious look at him. A shaft of pale spring
sunlight fell through a great pine athwart her bare black head and her
slanted eyes. She wore a pale green sweater and had bound a fillet of
linnæa vine about her hair. The feathery fountain of trailing spruce
overflowed her arms and fell around her. Allan Tierney’s eyes lighted
up.

“I’ve had a caller,” said Barney the next afternoon, when Valancy had
returned from another flower quest.

“Who?” Valancy was surprised but indifferent. She began filling a
basket with arbutus.

“Allan Tierney. He wants to paint you, Moonlight.”

“Me!” Valancy dropped her basket and her arbutus. “You’re laughing at
me, Barney.”

“I’m not. That’s what Tierney came for. To ask my permission to paint
my wife—as the Spirit of Muskoka, or something like that.”

“But—but—” stammered Valancy, “Allan Tierney never paints any but—any
but——”

“Beautiful women,” finished Barney. “Conceded. Q. E. D., Mistress
Barney Snaith is a beautiful woman.”

“Nonsense,” said Valancy, stooping to retrieve her arbutus. “You _know_
that’s nonsense, Barney. I know I’m a heap better-looking than I was a
year ago, but I’m not beautiful.”

“Allan Tierney never makes a mistake,” said Barney. “You forget,
Moonlight, that there are different kinds of beauty. Your imagination
is obsessed by the very obvious type of your cousin Olive. Oh, I’ve
seen her—she’s a stunner—but you’d never catch Allan Tierney wanting to
paint her. In the horrible but expressive slang phrase, she keeps all
her goods in the shop-window. But in your subconscious mind you have a
conviction that nobody can be beautiful who doesn’t look like Olive.
Also, you remember your face as it was in the days when your soul was
not allowed to shine through it. Tierney said something about the curve
of your cheek as you looked back over your shoulder. You know I’ve
often told you it was distracting. And he’s quite batty about your
eyes. If I wasn’t absolutely sure it was solely professional—he’s
really a crabbed old bachelor, you know—I’d be jealous.”

“Well, I don’t want to be painted,” said Valancy. “I hope you told him
that.”

“I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t know what _you_ wanted. But I told
him _I_ didn’t want my wife painted—hung up in a salon for the mob to
stare at. Belonging to another man. For of course I couldn’t buy the
picture. So even if you had wanted to be painted, Moonlight, your
tyrannous husband would not have permitted it. Tierney was a bit
squiffy. He isn’t used to being turned down like that. His requests are
almost like royalty’s.”

“But we are outlaws,” laughed Valancy. “We bow to no decrees—we
acknowledge no sovereignty.”

In her heart she thought unashamedly:

“I wish Olive could know that Allan Tierney wanted to paint me. _Me_!
Little-old-maid-Valancy-Stirling-that-was.”

Her second wonder-moment came one evening in May. She realised that
Barney actually liked her. She had always hoped he did, but sometimes
she had a little, disagreeable, haunting dread that he was just kind
and nice and chummy out of pity; knowing that she hadn’t long to live
and determined she should have a good time as long as she did live; but
away back in his mind rather looking forward to freedom again, with no
intrusive woman creature in his island fastness and no chattering thing
beside him in his woodland prowls. She knew he could never love her.
She did not even want him to. If he loved her he would be unhappy when
she died—Valancy never flinched from the plain word. No “passing away”
for her. And she did not want him to be the least unhappy. But neither
did she want him to be glad—or relieved. She wanted him to like her and
miss her as a good chum. But she had never been sure until this night
that he did.

They had walked over the hills in the sunset. They had the delight of
discovering a virgin spring in a ferny hollow and had drunk together
from it out of a birch-bark cup; they had come to an old tumble-down
rail fence and sat on it for a long time. They didn’t talk much, but
Valancy had a curious sense of _oneness_. She knew that she couldn’t
have felt that if he hadn’t liked her.

“You nice little thing,” said Barney suddenly. “Oh, you nice little
thing! Sometimes I feel you’re too nice to be real—that I’m just
dreaming you.”

“Why can’t I die now—this very minute—when I am so happy!” thought
Valancy.

Well, it couldn’t be so very long now. Somehow, Valancy had always felt
she would live out the year Dr. Trent had allotted. She had not been
careful—she had never tried to be. But, somehow, she had always counted
on living out her year. She had not let herself think about it at all.
But now, sitting here beside Barney, with her hand in his, a sudden
realisation came to her. She had not had a heart attack for a long
while—two months at least. The last one she had had was two or three
nights before Barney was out in the storm. Since then she had not
remembered she had a heart. Well, no doubt, it betokened the nearness
of the end. Nature had given up the struggle. There would be no more
pain.

“I’m afraid heaven will be very dull after this past year,” thought
Valancy. “But perhaps one will not remember. Would that be—nice? No,
no. I don’t want to forget Barney. I’d rather be miserable in heaven
remembering him than happy forgetting him. And I’ll always remember
through all eternity—that he really, _really_ liked me.”




CHAPTER XXXV


Thirty seconds can be very long sometimes. Long enough to work a
miracle or a revolution. In thirty seconds life changed wholly for
Barney and Valancy Snaith.

They had gone around the lake one June evening in their disappearing
propeller, fished for an hour in a little creek, left their boat there,
and walked up through the woods to Port Lawrence two miles away.
Valancy prowled a bit in the shops and got herself a new pair of
sensible shoes. Her old pair had suddenly and completely given out, and
this evening she had been compelled to put on the little fancy pair of
patent-leather with rather high, slender heels, which she had bought in
a fit of folly one day in the winter because of their beauty and
because she wanted to make one foolish, extravagant purchase in her
life. She sometimes put them on of an evening in the Blue Castle, but
this was the first time she had worn them outside. She had not found it
any too easy walking up through the woods in them, and Barney guyed her
unmercifully about them. But in spite of the inconvenience, Valancy
secretly rather liked the look of her trim ankles and high instep above
those pretty, foolish shoes and did not change them in the shop as she
might have done.

The sun was hanging low above the pines when they left Port Lawrence.
To the north of it the woods closed around the town quite suddenly.
Valancy always had a sense of stepping from one world to another—from
reality to fairyland—when she went out of Port Lawrence and in a
twinkling found it shut off behind her by the armies of the pines.

A mile and a half from Port Lawrence there was a small railroad station
with a little station-house which at this hour of the day was deserted,
since no local train was due. Not a soul was in sight when Barney and
Valancy emerged from the woods. Off to the left a sudden curve in the
track hid it from view, but over the tree-tops beyond, the long plume
of smoke betokened the approach of a through train. The rails were
vibrating to its thunder as Barney stepped across the switch. Valancy
was a few steps behind him, loitering to gather June-bells along the
little, winding path. But there was plenty of time to get across before
the train came. She stepped unconcernedly over the first rail.

She could never tell how it happened. The ensuing thirty seconds always
seemed in her recollection like a chaotic nightmare in which she
endured the agony of a thousand lifetimes.

The heel of her pretty, foolish shoe caught in a crevice of the switch.
She could not pull it loose.

“Barney—Barney!” she called in alarm.

Barney turned—saw her predicament—saw her ashen face—dashed back. He
tried to pull her clear—he tried to wrench her foot from the prisoning
hold. In vain. In a moment the train would sweep around the curve—would
be on them.

“Go—go—quick—you’ll be killed, Barney!” shrieked Valancy, trying to
push him away.

Barney dropped on his knees, ghost-white, frantically tearing at her
shoe-lace. The knot defied his trembling fingers. He snatched a knife
from his pocket and slashed at it. Valancy still strove blindly to push
him away. Her mind was full of the hideous thought that Barney was
going to be killed. She had no thought for her own danger.

“Barney—go—go—for God’s sake—go!”

“Never!” muttered Barney between his set teeth. He gave one mad wrench
at the lace. As the train thundered around the curve he sprang up and
caught Valancy—dragging her clear, leaving the shoe behind her. The
wind from the train as it swept by turned to icy cold the streaming
perspiration on his face.

“Thank God!” he breathed.

For a moment they stood stupidly staring at each other, two white,
shaken, wild-eyed creatures. Then they stumbled over to the little seat
at the end of the station-house and dropped on it. Barney buried his
face in his hands and said not a word. Valancy sat, staring straight
ahead of her with unseeing eyes at the great pine woods, the stumps of
the clearing, the long, gleaming rails. There was only one thought in
her dazed mind—a thought that seemed to burn it as a shaving of fire
might burn her body.

Dr. Trent had told her over a year ago that she had a serious form of
heart-disease—that any excitement might be fatal.

If that were so, why was she not dead now? This very minute? She had
just experienced as much and as terrible excitement as most people
experience in a lifetime, crowded into that endless thirty seconds. Yet
she had not died of it. She was not an iota the worse for it. A little
wobbly at the knees, as any one would have been; a quicker heart-beat,
as any one would have; nothing more.

Why!

_Was it possible Dr. Trent had made a mistake?_

Valancy shivered as if a cold wind had suddenly chilled her to the
soul. She looked at Barney, hunched up beside her. His silence was very
eloquent. Had the same thought occurred to him? Did he suddenly find
himself confronted by the appalling suspicion that he was married, not
for a few months or a year, but for good and all to a woman he did not
love and who had foisted herself upon him by some trick or lie? Valancy
turned sick before the horror of it. It could not be. It would be too
cruel—too devilish. Dr. Trent _couldn’t_ have made a mistake.
Impossible. He was one of the best heart specialists in Ontario. She
was foolish—unnerved by the recent horror. She remembered some of the
hideous spasms of pain she had had. There must be something serious the
matter with her heart to account for them.

But she had not had any for nearly three months.

Why?

Presently Barney bestirred himself. He stood up, without looking at
Valancy, and said casually:

“I suppose we’d better be hiking back. Sun’s getting low. Are you good
for the rest of the road?”

“I think so,” said Valancy miserably.

Barney went across the clearing and picked up the parcel he had
dropped—the parcel containing her new shoes. He brought it to her and
let her take out the shoes and put them on without any assistance,
while he stood with his back to her and looked out over the pines.

They walked in silence down the shadowy trail to the lake. In silence
Barney steered his boat into the sunset miracle that was Mistawis. In
silence they went around feathery headlands and across coral bays and
silver rivers where canoes were slipping up and down in the afterglow.
In silence they went past cottages echoing with music and laughter. In
silence drew up at the landing-place below the Blue Castle.

Valancy went up the rock steps and into the house. She dropped
miserably on the first chair she came to and sat there staring through
the oriel, oblivious of Good Luck’s frantic purrs of joy and Banjo’s
savage glares of protest at her occupancy of his chair.

Barney came in a few minutes later. He did not come near her, but he
stood behind her and asked gently if she felt any the worse for her
experience. Valancy would have given her year of happiness to have been
able honestly to answer “Yes.”

“No,” she said flatly.

Barney went into Bluebeard’s Chamber and shut the door. She heard him
pacing up and down—up and down. He had never paced like that before.

And an hour ago—only an hour ago—she had been so happy!




CHAPTER XXXVI


Finally Valancy went to bed. Before she went she re-read Dr. Trent’s
letter. It comforted her a little. So positive. So assured. The writing
so black and steady. Not the writing of a man who didn’t know what he
was writing about. But she could not sleep. She pretended to be asleep
when Barney came in. Barney pretended to go to sleep. But Valancy knew
perfectly well he wasn’t sleeping any more than she was. She knew he
was lying there, staring through the darkness. Thinking of what? Trying
to face—what?

Valancy, who had spent so many happy wakeful hours of night lying by
that window, now paid the price of them all in this one night of
misery. A horrible, portentous fact was slowly looming out before her
from the nebula of surmise and fear. She could not shut her eyes to
it—push it away—ignore it.

There could be nothing seriously wrong with her heart, no matter what
Dr. Trent had said. If there had been, those thirty seconds would have
killed her. It was no use to recall Dr. Trent’s letter and reputation.
The greatest specialists made mistakes sometimes. Dr. Trent had made
one.

Towards morning Valancy fell into a fitful dose with ridiculous dreams.
One of them was of Barney taunting her with having tricked him. In her
dream she lost her temper and struck him violently on the head with her
rolling-pin. He proved to be made of glass and shivered into splinters
all over the floor. She woke with a cry of horror—a gasp of relief—a
short laugh over the absurdity of her dream—a miserable sickening
recollection of what had happened.

Barney was gone. Valancy knew, as people sometimes know
things—inescapably, without being told—that he was not in the house or
in Bluebeard’s Chamber either. There was a curious silence in the
living-room. A silence with something uncanny about it. The old clock
had stopped. Barney must have forgotten to wind it up, something he had
never done before. The room without it was dead, though the sunshine
streamed in through the oriel and dimples of light from the dancing
waves beyond quivered over the walls.

The canoe was gone but Lady Jane was under the mainland trees. So
Barney had betaken himself to the wilds. He would not return till
night—perhaps not even then. He must be angry with her. That furious
silence of his must mean anger—cold, deep, justifiable resentment.
Well, Valancy knew what she must do first. She was not suffering very
keenly now. Yet the curious numbness that pervaded her being was in a
way worse than pain. It was as if something in her had died. She forced
herself to cook and eat a little breakfast. Mechanically she put the
Blue Castle in perfect order. Then she put on her hat and coat, locked
the door and hid the key in the hollow of the old pine and crossed to
the mainland in the motor boat. She was going into Deerwood to see Dr.
Trent. She must _know_.




CHAPTER XXXVII


Dr. Trent looked at her blankly and fumbled among his recollections.

“Er—Miss—Miss—”

“Mrs. Snaith,” said Valancy quietly. “I was Miss Valancy Stirling when
I came to you last May—over a year ago. I wanted to consult you about
my heart.”

Dr. Trent’s face cleared.

“Oh, of course. I remember now. I’m really not to blame for not knowing
you. You’ve changed—splendidly. And married. Well, well, it has agreed
with you. You don’t look much like an invalid now, hey? I remember that
day. I was badly upset. Hearing about poor Ned bowled me over. But
Ned’s as good as new and you, too, evidently. I told you so, you
know—told you there was nothing to worry over.”

Valancy looked at him.

“You told me, in your letter,” she said slowly, with a curious feeling
that some one else was talking through her lips, “that I had angina
pectoris—in the last stages—complicated with an aneurism. That I might
die any minute—that I couldn’t live longer than a year.”

Dr. Trent stared at her.

“Impossible!” he said blankly. “I couldn’t have told you that!”

Valancy took his letter from her bag and handed it to him.

“Miss Valancy Stirling,” he read. “Yes—yes. Of course I wrote you—on
the train—that night. But I _told_ you there was nothing serious——”

“Read your letter,” insisted Valancy.

Dr. Trent took it out—unfolded it—glanced over it. A dismayed look came
into his face. He jumped to his feet and strode agitatedly about the
room.

“Good heavens! This is the letter I meant for old Miss Jane Sterling.
From Port Lawrence. She was here that day, too. I sent you the wrong
letter. What unpardonable carelessness! But I was beside myself that
night. My God, and you believed that—you believed—but you didn’t—you
went to another doctor——”

Valancy stood up, turned round, looked foolishly about her and sat down
again.

“I believed it,” she said faintly. “I didn’t go to any other doctor.
I—I—it would take too long to explain. But I believed I was going to
die soon.”

Dr. Trent halted before her.

“I can never forgive myself. What a year you must have had! But you
don’t look—I can’t understand!”

“Never mind,” said Valancy dully. “And so there’s nothing the matter
with my heart?”

“Well, nothing serious. You had what is called pseudo-angina. It’s
never fatal—passes away completely with proper treatment. Or sometimes
with a shock of joy. Have you been troubled much with it?”

“Not at all since March,” answered Valancy. She remembered the
marvellous feeling of re-creation she had had when she saw Barney
coming home safe after the storm. Had that “shock of joy” cured her?

“Then likely you’re all right. I told you what to do in the letter you
should have got. _And_ of course I supposed you’d go to another doctor.
Child, why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want anybody to know.”

“Idiot,” said Dr. Trent bluntly. “I can’t understand such folly. And
poor old Miss Sterling. She must have got your letter—telling her there
was nothing serious the matter. Well, well, it couldn’t have made any
difference. Her case was hopeless. Nothing that she could have done or
left undone could have made any difference. I was surprised she lived
as long as she did—two months. She was here that day—not long before
you. I hated to tell her the truth. You think I’m a blunt old
curmudgeon—and my letters _are_ blunt enough. I can’t soften things.
But I’m a snivelling coward when it comes to telling a woman face to
face that she’s got to die soon. I told her I’d look up some features
of the case I wasn’t quite sure of and let her know next day. But you
got her letter—look here, ‘Dear Miss S-t-_e_-r-l-i-n-g.’”

“Yes. I noticed that. But I thought it a mistake. I didn’t know there
were any Sterlings in Port Lawrence.”

“She was the only one. A lonely old soul. Lived by herself with only a
little home girl. She died two months after she was here—died in her
sleep. My mistake couldn’t have made any difference to her. But you! I
can’t forgive myself for inflicting a year’s misery on you. It’s time I
retired, all right, when I do things like that—even if my son was
supposed to be fatally injured. Can you ever forgive me?”

A year of misery! Valancy smiled a tortured smile as she thought of all
the happiness Dr. Trent’s mistake had bought her. But she was paying
for it now—oh, she was paying. If to feel was to live she was living
with a vengeance.

She let Dr. Trent examine her and answered all his questions. When he
told her she was fit as a fiddle and would probably live to be a
hundred, she got up and went away silently. She knew that there were a
great many horrible things outside waiting to be thought over. Dr.
Trent thought she was odd. Anybody would have thought, from her
hopeless eyes and woebegone face, that he had given her a sentence of
death instead of life. Snaith? Snaith? Who the devil had she married?
He had never heard of Snaiths in Deerwood. And she had been such a
sallow, faded, little old maid. Gad, but marriage _had_ made a
difference in her, anyhow, whoever Snaith was. Snaith? Dr. Trent
remembered. That rapscallion “up back!” Had Valancy Stirling married
_him_? And her clan had let her! Well, probably that solved the
mystery. She had married in haste and repented at leisure, and that was
why she wasn’t overjoyed at learning she was a good insurance prospect,
after all. Married! To God knew whom! Or what! Jail-bird? Defaulter?
Fugitive from justice? It must be pretty bad if she had looked to death
as a release, poor girl. But why were women such fools? Dr. Trent
dismissed Valancy from his mind, though to the day of his death he was
ashamed of putting those letters into the wrong envelopes.




CHAPTER XXXVIII


Valancy walked quickly through the back streets and through Lover’s
Lane. She did not want to meet any one she knew. She didn’t want to
meet even people she didn’t know. She hated to be seen. Her mind was so
confused, so torn, so messy. She felt that her appearance must be the
same. She drew a sobbing breath of relief as she left the village
behind and found herself on the “up back” road. There was little fear
of meeting any one she knew here. The cars that fled by her with
raucous shrieks were filled with strangers. One of them was packed with
young people who whirled past her singing uproariously:

“My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever,
Oh, I hope it won’t leave her,
For I want to be single again.”


Valancy flinched as if one of them had leaned from the car and cut her
across the face with a whip.

She had made a covenant with death and death had cheated her. Now life
stood mocking her. She had trapped Barney. Trapped him into marrying
her. And divorce was so hard to get in Ontario. So expensive. And
Barney was poor.

With life, fear had come back into her heart. Sickening fear. Fear of
what Barney would think. Would say. Fear of the future that must be
lived without him. Fear of her insulted, repudiated clan.

She had had one draught from a divine cup and now it was dashed from
her lips. With no kind, friendly death to rescue her. She must go on
living and longing for it. Everything was spoiled, smirched, defaced.
Even that year in the Blue Castle. Even her unashamed love for Barney.
It had been beautiful because death waited. Now it was only sordid
because death was gone. How could any one bear an unbearable thing?

She must go back and tell him. Make him believe she had not meant to
trick him—she _must_ make him believe that. She must say good-bye to
her Blue Castle and return to the brick house on Elm Street. Back to
everything she had thought left behind forever. The old bondage—the old
fears. But that did not matter. All that mattered now was that Barney
must somehow be made to believe she had not consciously tricked him.

When Valancy reached the pines by the lake she was brought out of her
daze of pain by a startling sight. There, parked by the side of old,
battered ragged Lady Jane, was another car. A wonderful car. A purple
car. Not a dark, royal purple but a blatant, screaming purple. It shone
like a mirror and its interior plainly indicated the car caste of Vere
de Vere. On the driver’s seat sat a haughty chauffeur in livery. And in
the tonneau sat a man who opened the door and bounced out nimbly as
Valancy came down the path to the landing-place. He stood under the
pines waiting for her and Valancy took in every detail of him.

A stout, short, pudgy man, with a broad, rubicund, good-humoured face—a
clean-shaven face, though an unparalysed little imp at the back of
Valancy’s paralysed mind suggested the thought, “Such a face should
have a fringe of white whisker around it.” Old-fashioned, steel-rimmed
spectacles on prominent blue eyes. A pursey mouth; a little round,
knobby nose. Where—where—where, groped Valancy, had she seen that face
before? It seemed as familiar to her as her own.

The stranger wore a green hat and a light fawn overcoat over a suit of
a loud check pattern. His tie was a brilliant green of lighter shade;
on the plump hand he outstretched to intercept Valancy an enormous
diamond winked at her. But he had a pleasant, fatherly smile, and in
his hearty, unmodulated voice was a ring of something that attracted
her.

“Can you tell me, Miss, if that house yonder belongs to a Mr. Redfern?
And if so, how can I get to it?”

Redfern! A vision of bottles seemed to dance before Valancy’s eyes—long
bottles of bitters—round bottles of hair tonic—square bottles of
liniment—short, corpulent little bottles of purple pills—and all of
them bearing that very prosperous, beaming moon-face and steel-rimmed
spectacles on the label.

Dr. Redfern!

“No,” said Valancy faintly. “No—that house belongs to Mr. Snaith.”

Dr. Redfern nodded.

“Yes, I understand Bernie’s been calling himself Snaith. Well, it’s his
middle name—was his poor mother’s. Bernard Snaith Redfern—that’s him.
And now, Miss, you can tell me how to get over to that island? Nobody
seems to be home there. I’ve done some waving and yelling. Henry,
there, wouldn’t yell. He’s a one-job man. But old Doc Redfern can yell
with the best of them yet, and ain’t above doing it. Raised nothing but
a couple of crows. Guess Bernie’s out for the day.”

“He was away when I left this morning,” said Valancy. “I suppose he
hasn’t come home yet.”

She spoke flatly and tonelessly. This last shock had temporarily bereft
her of whatever little power of reasoning had been left her by Dr.
Trent’s revelation. In the back of her mind the aforesaid little imp
was jeeringly repeating a silly old proverb, “It never rains but it
pours.” But she was not trying to think. What was the use?

Dr. Redfern was gazing at her in perplexity.

“When you left this morning? Do you live—over there?”

He waved his diamond at the Blue Castle.

“Of course,” said Valancy stupidly. “I’m his wife.”

Dr. Redfern took out a yellow silk handkerchief, removed his hat and
mopped his brow. He was very bald, and Valancy’s imp whispered, “Why be
bald? Why lose your manly beauty? Try Redfern’s Hair Vigor. It keeps
you young.”

“Excuse me,” said Dr. Redfern. “This is a bit of a shock.”

“Shocks seem to be in the air this morning.” The imp said this out loud
before Valancy could prevent it.

“I didn’t know Bernie was—married. I didn’t think he _would_ have got
married without telling his old dad.”

Were Dr. Redfern’s eyes misty? Amid her own dull ache of misery and
fear and dread, Valancy felt a pang of pity for him.

“Don’t blame him,” she said hurriedly. “It—it wasn’t his fault. It—was
all my doing.”

“You didn’t ask him to marry you, I suppose,” twinkled Dr. Redfern. “He
might have let me know. I’d have got acquainted with my daughter-in-law
before this if he had. But I’m glad to meet you now, my dear—very glad.
You look like a sensible young woman. I used to sorter fear Barney’d
pick out some pretty bit of fluff just because she was good-looking.
They were all after him, of course. Wanted his money? Eh? Didn’t like
the pills and the bitters but liked the dollars. Eh? Wanted to dip
their pretty little fingers in old Doc’s millions. Eh?”

“Millions!” said Valancy faintly. She wished she could sit down
somewhere—she wished she could have a chance to think—she wished she
and the Blue Castle could sink to the bottom of Mistawis and vanish
from human sight forevermore.

“Millions,” said Dr. Redfern complacently. “And Bernie chucks them
for—that.” Again he shook the diamond contemptuously at the Blue
Castle. “Wouldn’t you think he’d have more sense? And all on account of
a white bit of a girl. He must have got over _that_ feeling, anyhow,
since he’s married. You must persuade him to come back to civilisation.
All nonsense wasting his life like this. Ain’t you going to take me
over to your house, my dear? I suppose you’ve some way of getting
there.”

“Of course,” said Valancy stupidly. She led the way down to the little
cove where the disappearing propeller boat was snuggled.

“Does your—your man want to come, too?”

“Who? Henry. Not he. Look at him sitting there disapproving.
Disapproves of the whole expedition. The trail up from the road nearly
gave him a conniption. Well, it _was_ a devilish road to put a car on.
Whose old bus is that up there?”

“Barney’s.”

“Good Lord! Does Bernie Redfern ride in a thing like that? It looks
like the great-great-grand-mother of all the Fords.”

“It isn’t a Ford. It’s a Grey Slosson,” said Valancy spiritedly. For
some occult reason, Dr. Redfern’s good-humoured ridicule of dear old
Lady Jane stung her to life. A life that was all pain but still _life_.
Better than the horrible half-dead-and-half-aliveness of the past few
minutes—or years. She waved Dr. Redfern curtly into the boat and took
him over to the Blue Castle. The key was still in the old pine—the
house still silent and deserted. Valancy took the doctor through the
living-room to the western verandah. She must at least be out where
there was air. It was still sunny, but in the southwest a great
thundercloud, with white crests and gorges of purple shadow, was slowly
rising over Mistawis. The doctor dropped with a gasp on a rustic chair
and mopped his brow again.

“Warm, eh? Lord, what a view! Wonder if it would soften Henry if he
could see it.”

“Have you had dinner?” asked Valancy.

“Yes, my dear—had it before we left Port Lawrence. Didn’t know what
sort of wild hermit’s hollow we were coming to, you see. Hadn’t any
idea I was going to find a nice little daughter-in-law here all ready
to toss me up a meal. Cats, eh? Puss, puss! See that. Cats love me.
Bernie was always fond of cats! It’s about the only thing he took from
me. He’s his poor mother’s boy.”

Valancy had been thinking idly that Barney must resemble his mother.
She had remained standing by the steps, but Dr. Redfern waved her to
the swing seat.

“Sit down, dear. Never stand when you can sit. I want to get a good
look at Barney’s wife. Well, well, I like your face. No beauty—you
don’t mind my saying that—you’ve sense enough to know it, I reckon. Sit
down.”

Valancy sat down. To be obliged to sit still when mental agony urges us
to stride up and down is the refinement of torture. Every nerve in her
being was crying out to be alone—to be hidden. But she had to sit and
listen to Dr. Redfern, who didn’t mind talking at all.

“When do you think Bernie will be back?”

“I don’t know—not before night probably.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know that either. Likely to the woods—up back.”

“So he doesn’t tell you his comings and goings, either? Bernie was
always a secretive young devil. Never understood him. Just like his
poor mother. But I thought a lot of him. It hurt me when he disappeared
as he did. Eleven years ago. I haven’t seen my boy for eleven years.”

“Eleven years.” Valancy was surprised. “It’s only six since he came
here.”

“Oh, he was in the Klondike before that—and all over the world. He used
to drop me a line now and then—never give any clue to where he was but
just a line to say he was all right. I s’pose he’s told you all about
it.”

“No. I know nothing of his past life,” said Valancy with sudden
eagerness. She wanted to know—she must know now. It hadn’t mattered
before. Now she must know all. And she could never hear it from Barney.
She might never even see him again. If she did, it would not be to talk
of his past.

“What happened? Why did he leave his home? Tell me. Tell me.”

“Well, it ain’t much of a story. Just a young fool gone mad because of
a quarrel with his girl. Only Bernie was a stubborn fool. Always
stubborn. You never could make that boy do anything he didn’t want to
do. From the day he was born. Yet he was always a quiet, gentle little
chap, too. Good as gold. His poor mother died when he was only two
years old. I’d just begun to make money with my Hair Vigor. I’d dreamed
the formula for it, you see. Some dream that. The cash rolled in.
Bernie had everything he wanted. I sent him to the best schools—private
schools. I meant to make a gentleman of him. Never had any chance
myself. Meant he should have every chance. He went through McGill. Got
honours and all that. I wanted him to go in for law. He hankered after
journalism and stuff like that. Wanted me to buy a paper for him—or
back him in publishing what he called a ‘real, worthwhile,
honest-to-goodness Canadian Magazine.’ I s’pose I’d have done it—I
always did what he wanted me to do. Wasn’t he all I had to live for? I
wanted him to be happy. And he never was happy. Can you believe it? Not
that he said so. But I’d always a feeling that he wasn’t happy.
Everything he wanted—all the money he could spend—his own bank
account—travel—seeing the world—but he wasn’t happy. Not till he fell
in love with Ethel Traverse. Then he was happy for a little while.”

The cloud had reached the sun and a great, chill, purple shadow came
swiftly over Mistawis. It touched the Blue Castle—rolled over it.
Valancy shivered.

“Yes,” she said, with painful eagerness, though every word was cutting
her to the heart. “What—was—she—like?”

“Prettiest girl in Montreal,” said Dr. Redfern. “Oh, she was a looker,
all right. Eh? Gold hair—shiny as silk—great, big, soft, black
eyes—skin like milk and roses. Don’t wonder Bernie fell for her. And
brains as well. _She_ wasn’t a bit of fluff. B. A. from McGill. A
thoroughbred, too. One of the best families. But a bit lean in the
purse. Eh! Bernie was mad about her. Happiest young fool you ever saw.
Then—the bust-up.”

“What happened?” Valancy had taken off her hat and was absently
thrusting a pin in and out of it. Good Luck was purring beside her.
Banjo was regarding Dr. Redfern with suspicion. Nip and Tuck were
lazily cawing in the pines. Mistawis was beckoning. Everything was the
same. Nothing was the same. It was a hundred years since yesterday.
Yesterday, at this time, she and Barney had been eating a belated
dinner here with laughter. Laughter? Valancy felt that she had done
with laughter forever. And with tears, for that matter. She had no
further use for either of them.

“Blest if I know, my dear. Some fool quarrel, I suppose. Bernie just
lit out—disappeared. He wrote me from the Yukon. Said his engagement
was broken and he wasn’t coming back. And not to try to hunt him up
because he was never coming back. I didn’t. What was the use? I knew
Bernie. I went on piling, up money because there wasn’t anything else
to do. But I was mighty lonely. All I lived for was them little notes
now and then from Bernie—Klondike—England—South
Africa—China—everywhere. I thought maybe he’d come back some day to his
lonesome old dad. Then six years ago even the letters stopped. I didn’t
hear a word of or from him till last Christmas.”

“Did he write?”

“No. But he drew a check for fifteen thousand dollars on his bank
account. The bank manager is a friend of mine—one of my biggest
shareholders. He’d always promised me he’d let me know if Bernie drew
any checks. Bernie had fifty thousand there. And he’d never touched a
cent of it till last Christmas. The check was made out to Aynsley’s,
Toronto——”

“Aynsley’s?” Valancy heard herself saying Aynsley’s! She had a box on
her dressing-table with the Aynsley trademark.

“Yes. The big jewellery house there. After I’d thought it over a while,
I got brisk. I wanted to locate Bernie. Had a special reason for it. It
was time he gave up his fool hoboing and come to his senses. Drawing
that fifteen told me there was something in the wind. The manager
communicated with the Aynsleys—his wife was an Aynsley—and found out
that Bernard Redfern had bought a pearl necklace there. His address was
given as Box 444, Port Lawrence, Muskoka, Ont. First I thought I’d
write. Then I thought I’d wait till the open season for cars and come
down myself. Ain’t no hand at writing. I’ve motored from Montreal. Got
to Port Lawrence yesterday. Enquired at the post-office. Told me they
knew nothing of any Bernard Snaith Redfern, but there was a Barney
Snaith had a P. O. box there. Lived on an island out here, they said.
So here I am. And where’s Barney?”

Valancy was fingering her necklace. She was wearing fifteen thousand
dollars around her neck. And she had worried lest Barney had paid
fifteen dollars for it and couldn’t afford it. Suddenly she laughed in
Dr. Redfern’s face.

“Excuse me. It’s so—amusing,” said poor Valancy.

“Isn’t it?” said Dr. Redfern, seeing a joke—but not exactly hers. “Now,
you seem like a sensible young woman, and I dare say you’ve lots of
influence over Bernie. Can’t you get him to come back to civilisation
and live like other people? I’ve a house up there. Big as a castle.
Furnished like a palace. I want company in it—Bernie’s wife—Bernie’s
children.”

“Did Ethel Traverse ever marry?” queried Valancy irrelevantly.

“Bless you, yes. Two years after Bernie levanted. But she’s a widow
now. Pretty as ever. To be frank, that was my special reason for
wanting to find Bernie. I thought they’d make it up, maybe. But, of
course, that’s all off now. Doesn’t matter. Bernie’s choice of a wife
is good enough for me. It’s my boy I want. Think he’ll soon be back?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t think he’ll come before night. Quite late,
perhaps. And perhaps not till tomorrow. But I can put you up
comfortably. He’ll certainly be back tomorrow.”

Dr. Redfern shook his head.

“Too damp. I’ll take no chances with rheumatism.”

“Why suffer that ceaseless anguish? Why not try Redfern’s Liniment?”
quoted the imp in the back of Valancy’s mind.

“I must get back to Port Lawrence before rain starts. Henry goes quite
mad when he gets mud on the car. But I’ll come back tomorrow. Meanwhile
you talk Bernie into reason.”

He shook her hand and patted her kindly on the shoulder. He looked as
if he would have kissed her, with a little encouragement, but Valancy
did not give it. Not that she would have minded. He was rather dreadful
and loud—and—and—dreadful. But there was something about him she liked.
She thought dully that she might have liked being his daughter-in-law
if he had not been a millionaire. A score of times over. And Barney was
his son—and heir.

She took him over in the motor boat and watched the lordly purple car
roll away through the woods with Henry at the wheel looking things not
lawful to be uttered. Then she went back to the Blue Castle. What she
had to do must be done quickly. Barney _might_ return at any moment.
And it was certainly going to rain. She was thankful she no longer felt
very bad. When you are bludgeoned on the head repeatedly, you naturally
and mercifully become more or less insensible and stupid.

She stood briefly like a faded flower bitten by frost, by the hearth,
looking down on the white ashes of the last fire that had blazed in the
Blue Castle.

“At any rate,” she thought wearily, “Barney isn’t poor. He will be able
to afford a divorce. Quite nicely.”




CHAPTER XXXIX


She must write a note. The imp in the back of her mind laughed. In
every story she had ever read when a runaway wife decamped from home
she left a note, generally on the pin-cushion. It was not a very
original idea. But one had to leave something intelligible. What was
there to do but write a note? She looked vaguely about her for
something to write with. Ink? There was none. Valancy had never written
anything since she had come to the Blue Castle, save memoranda of
household necessaries for Barney. A pencil sufficed for them, but now
the pencil was not to be found. Valancy absently crossed to the door of
Bluebeard’s Chamber and tried it. She vaguely expected to find it
locked, but it opened unresistingly. She had never tried it before, and
did not know whether Barney habitually kept it locked or not. If he
did, he must have been badly upset to leave it unlocked. She did not
realise that she was doing something he had told her not to do. She was
only looking for something to write with. All her faculties were
concentrated on deciding just what she would say and how she would say
it. There was not the slightest curiosity in her as she went into the
lean-to.

There were no beautiful women hanging by their hair on the walls. It
seemed a very harmless apartment, with a commonplace little sheet-iron
stove in the middle of it, its pipe sticking out through the roof. At
one end was a table or counter crowded with odd-looking utensils. Used
no doubt by Barney in his smelly operations. Chemical experiments,
probably, she reflected dully. At the other end was a big writing desk
and swivel-chair. The side walls were lined with books.

Valancy went blindly to the desk. There she stood motionless for a few
minutes, looking down at something that lay on it. A bundle of
galley-proofs. The page on top bore the title _Wild Honey_, and under
the title were the words “by John Foster.”

The opening sentence—“Pines are the trees of myth and legend. They
strike their roots deep into the traditions of an older world, but wind
and star love their lofty tops. What music when old Æolus draws his bow
across the branches of the pines—” She had heard Barney say that one
day when they walked under them.

So Barney was John Foster!

Valancy was not excited. She had absorbed all the shocks and sensations
that she could compass for one day. This affected her neither one way
nor the other. She only thought:

“So this explains it.”

“It” was a small matter that had, somehow, stuck in her mind more
persistently than its importance seemed to justify. Soon after Barney
had brought her John Foster’s latest book she had been in a Port
Lawrence bookshop and heard a customer ask the proprietor for John
Foster’s new book. The proprietor had said curtly, “Not out yet. Won’t
be out till next week.”

Valancy had opened her lips to say, “Oh, yes, it _is_ out,” but closed
them again. After all, it was none of her business. She supposed the
proprietor wanted to cover up his negligence in not getting the book in
promptly. Now she knew. The book Barney had given her had been one of
the author’s complimentary copies, sent in advance.

Well! Valancy pushed the proofs indifferently aside and sat down in the
swivel-chair. She took up Barney’s pen—and a vile one it was—pulled a
sheet of paper to her and began to write. She could not think of
anything to say except bald facts.


“Dear Barney:—

I went to Dr. Trent this morning and found out he had sent me the wrong
letter by mistake. There never was anything serious the matter with my
heart and I am quite well now.

I did not mean to trick you. Please believe that. I could not bear it
if you did not believe that. I am very sorry for the mistake. But
surely you can get a divorce if I leave you. Is desertion a ground for
divorce in Canada? Of course if there is anything I can do to help or
hasten it I will do it gladly, if your lawyer will let me know.

I thank you for all your kindness to me. I shall never forget it. Think
as kindly of me as you can, because I did not mean to trap you.
Good-bye.

Yours gratefully,

VALANCY.”


It was very cold and stiff, she knew. But to try to say anything else
would be dangerous—like tearing away a dam. She didn’t know what
torrent of wild incoherences and passionate anguish might pour out. In
a postscript she added:


“Your father was here today. He is coming back tomorrow. He told me
everything. I think you should go back to him. He is very lonely for
you.”


She put the letter in an envelope, wrote “Barney” across it, and left
it on the desk. On it she laid the string of pearls. If they had been
the beads she believed them she would have kept them in memory of that
wonderful year. But she could not keep the fifteen thousand dollar gift
of a man who had married her out of pity and whom she was now leaving.
It hurt her to give up her pretty bauble. That was an odd thing, she
reflected. The fact that she was leaving Barney did not hurt her—yet.
It lay at her heart like a cold, insensible thing. If it came to
life—Valancy shuddered and went out——

She put on her hat and mechanically fed Good Luck and Banjo. She locked
the door and carefully hid the key in the old pine. Then she crossed to
the mainland in the disappearing propeller. She stood for a moment on
the bank, looking at her Blue Castle. The rain had not yet come, but
the sky was dark, and Mistawis grey and sullen. The little house under
the pines looked very pathetic—a casket rifled of its jewels—a lamp
with its flame blown out.

“I shall never again hear the wind crying over Mistawis at night,”
thought Valancy. This hurt her, too. She could have laughed to think
that such a trifle could hurt her at such a time.




CHAPTER XL


Valancy paused a moment on the porch of the brick house in Elm Street.
She felt that she ought to knock like a stranger. Her rosebush, she
idly noticed, was loaded with buds. The rubber-plant stood beside the
prim door. A momentary horror overcame her—a horror of the existence to
which she was returning. Then she opened the door and walked in.

“I wonder if the Prodigal Son ever felt really at home again,” she
thought.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles were in the sitting-room. Uncle
Benjamin was there, too. They looked blankly at Valancy, realising at
once that something was wrong. This was not the saucy, impudent thing
who had laughed at them in this very room last summer. This was a
grey-faced woman with the eyes of a creature who had been stricken by a
mortal blow.

Valancy looked indifferently around the room. She had changed so
much—and it had changed so little. The same pictures hung on the walls.
The little orphan who knelt at her never-finished prayer by the bed
whereon reposed the black kitten that never grew up into a cat. The
grey “steel engraving” of Quatre Bras, where the British regiment
forever stood at bay. The crayon enlargement of the boyish father she
had never known. There they all hung in the same places. The green
cascade of “Wandering Jew” still tumbled out of the old granite
saucepan on the window-stand. The same elaborate, never-used pitcher
stood at the same angle on the sideboard shelf. The blue and gilt vases
that had been among her mother’s wedding-presents still primly adorned
the mantelpiece, flanking the china clock of berosed and besprayed ware
that never went. The chairs in exactly the same places. Her mother and
Cousin Stickles, likewise unchanged, regarding her with stony
unwelcome.

Valancy had to speak first.

“I’ve come home, Mother,” she said tiredly.

“So I see.” Mrs. Frederick’s voice was very icy. She had resigned
herself to Valancy’s desertion. She had almost succeeded in forgetting
there was a Valancy. She had rearranged and organised her systematic
life without any reference to an ungrateful, rebellious child. She had
taken her place again in a society which ignored the fact that she had
ever had a daughter and pitied her, if it pitied her at all, only in
discreet whispers and asides. The plain truth was that, by this time,
Mrs. Frederick did not want Valancy to come back—did not want ever to
see or hear of her again.

And now, of course, Valancy was here. With tragedy and disgrace and
scandal trailing after her visibly. “So I see,” said Mrs. Frederick.
“May I ask why?”

“Because—I’m—not—going to die,” said Valancy huskily.

“God bless my soul!” said Uncle Benjamin. “Who said you were going to
die?”

“I suppose,” said Cousin Stickles shrewishly—Cousin Stickles did not
want Valancy back either—“I suppose you’ve found out he has another
wife—as we’ve been sure all along.”

“No. I only wish he had,” said Valancy. She was not suffering
particularly, but she was very tired. If only the explanations were all
over and she were upstairs in her old, ugly room—alone. Just alone! The
rattle of the beads on her mother’s sleeves, as they swung on the arms
of the reed chair, almost drove her crazy. Nothing else was worrying
her; but all at once it seemed that she simply could not endure that
thin, insistent rattle.

“My home, as I told you, is always open to you,” said Mrs. Frederick
stonily, “but I can never forgive you.”

Valancy gave a mirthless laugh.

“I’d care very little for that if I could only forgive myself,” she
said.

“Come, come,” said Uncle Benjamin testily. But rather enjoying himself.
He felt he had Valancy under his thumb again. “We’ve had enough of
mystery. What has happened? Why have you left that fellow? No doubt
there’s reason enough—but what particular reason is it?”

Valancy began to speak mechanically. She told her tale bluntly and
barely.

“A year ago Dr. Trent told me I had angina pectoris and could not live
long. I wanted to have some—life—before I died. That’s why I went away.
Why I married Barney. And now I’ve found it is all a mistake. There is
nothing wrong with my heart. I’ve got to live—and Barney only married
me out of pity. So I have to leave him—free.”

“God bless me!” said Uncle Benjamin. Cousin Stickles began to cry.

“Valancy, if you’d only had confidence in your own mother——”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Valancy impatiently. “What’s the use of going
into that now? I can’t undo this year. God knows I wish I could. I’ve
tricked Barney into marrying me—and he’s really Bernard Redfern. Dr.
Redfern’s son, of Montreal. And his father wants him to go back to
him.”

Uncle Benjamin made a queer sound. Cousin Stickles took her
black-bordered handkerchief away from her eyes and stared at Valancy. A
queer gleam suddenly shot into Mrs. Frederick’s stone-grey orbs.

“Dr. Redfern—not the Purple Pill man?” she said.

Valancy nodded. “He’s John Foster, too—the writer of those nature
books.”

“But—but—” Mrs. Frederick was visibly agitated, though not over the
thought that she was the mother-in-law of John Foster—“_Dr. Redfern is
a millionaire_!”

Uncle Benjamin shut his mouth with a snap.

“Ten times over,” he said.

Valancy nodded.

“Yes. Barney left home years ago—because of—of some
trouble—some—disappointment. Now he will likely go back. So you see—I
had to come home. He doesn’t love me. I can’t hold him to a bond he was
tricked into.”

Uncle Benjamin looked incredibly sly.

“Did he say so? Does he want to get rid of you?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since I found out. But I tell you—he only
married me out of pity—because I asked him to—because he thought it
would only be for a little while.”

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles both tried to speak, but Uncle
Benjamin waved a hand at them and frowned portentously.

“Let _me_ handle this,” wave and frown seemed to say. To Valancy:

“Well, well, dear, we’ll talk it all over later. You see, we don’t
quite understand everything yet. As Cousin Stickles says, you should
have confided in us before. Later on—I dare say we can find a way out
of this.”

“You think Barney can easily get a divorce, don’t you?” said Valancy
eagerly.

Uncle Benjamin silenced with another wave the exclamation of horror he
knew was trembling on Mrs. Frederick’s lips.

“Trust to me, Valancy. Everything will arrange itself. Tell me this,
Dossie. Have you been happy up back? Was Sr.—Mr. Redfern good to you?”

“I have been very happy and Barney was very good to me,” said Valancy,
as if reciting a lesson. She remembered when she studied grammar at
school she had disliked the past and perfect tenses. They had always
seemed so pathetic. “I have been”—it was all over and done with.

“Then don’t worry, little girl.” How amazingly paternal Uncle Benjamin
was! “Your family will stand behind you. We’ll see what can be done.”

“Thank you,” said Valancy dully. Really, it was quite decent of Uncle
Benjamin. “Can I go and lie down a little while? I’m—I’m—tired.”

“Of course you’re tired.” Uncle Benjamin patted her hand gently—very
gently. “All worn out and nervous. Go and lie down, by all means.
You’ll see things in quite a different light after you’ve had a good
sleep.”

He held the door open. As she went through he whispered, “What is the
best way to keep a man’s love?”

Valancy smiled wanly. But she had come back to the old life—the old
shackles. “What?” she asked as meekly as of yore.

“Not to return it,” said Uncle Benjamin with a chuckle. He shut the
door and rubbed his hands. Nodded and smiled mysteriously round the
room.

“Poor little Doss!” he said pathetically.

“Do you really suppose that—Snaith—can actually be Dr. Redfern’s son?”
gasped Mrs. Frederick.

“I see no reason for doubting it. She says Dr. Redfern has been there;
Why, the man is rich as wedding-cake. Amelia, I’ve always believed
there was more in Doss than most people thought. You kept her down too
much—repressed her. She never had a chance to show what was in her. And
now she’s landed a millionaire for a husband.”

“But—” hesitated Mrs. Frederick, “he—he—they told terrible tales about
him.”

“All gossip and invention—all gossip and invention. It’s always been a
mystery to me why people should be so ready to invent and circulate
slanders about other people they know absolutely nothing about. I can’t
understand why you paid so much attention to gossip and surmise. Just
because he didn’t choose to mix up with everybody, people resented it.
I was surprised to find what a decent fellow he seemed to be that time
he came into my store with Valancy. I discounted all the yarns then and
there.”

“But he was seen dead drunk in Port Lawrence once,” said Cousin
Stickles. Doubtfully, yet as one very willing to be convinced to the
contrary.

“Who saw him?” demanded Uncle Benjamin truculently. “Who saw him? Old
Jemmy Strang _said_ he saw him. I wouldn’t take old Jemmy Strang’s word
on oath. He’s too drunk himself half the time to see straight. He said
he saw him lying drunk on a bench in the Park. Pshaw! Redfern’s been
asleep there. Don’t worry over _that_.”

“But his clothes—and that awful old car—” said Mrs. Frederick
uncertainly.

“Eccentricities of genius,” declared Uncle Benjamin. “You heard Doss
say he was John Foster. I’m not up in literature myself, but I heard a
lecturer from Toronto say that John Foster’s books had put Canada on
the literary map of the world.”

“I—suppose—we must forgive her,” yielded Mrs. Frederick.

“Forgive her!” Uncle Benjamin snorted. Really, Amelia was an incredibly
stupid woman. No wonder poor Doss had gone sick and tired of living
with her. “Well, yes, I think you’d better forgive her! The question
is—will Snaith forgive _us_!”

“What if she persists in leaving him? You’ve no idea how stubborn she
can be,” said Mrs. Frederick.

“Leave it all to me, Amelia. Leave it all to me. You women have muddled
it enough. This whole affair has been bungled from start to finish. If
you had put yourself to a little trouble years ago, Amelia, she would
not have bolted over the traces as she did. Just let her alone—don’t
worry her with advice or questions till she’s ready to talk. She’s
evidently run away in a panic because she’s afraid he’d be angry with
her for fooling him. Most extraordinary thing of Trent to tell her such
a yarn! That’s what comes of going to strange doctors. Well, well, we
mustn’t blame her too harshly, poor child. Redfern will come after her.
If he doesn’t, I’ll hunt him up and talk to him as man to man. He may
be a millionaire, but Valancy is a Stirling. He can’t repudiate her
just because she was mistaken about her heart disease. Not likely he’ll
want to. Doss is a little overstrung. Bless me, I must get in the habit
of calling her Valancy. She isn’t a baby any longer. Now, remember,
Amelia. Be very kind and sympathetic.”

It was something of a large order to expect Mrs. Frederick to be kind
and sympathetic. But she did her best. When supper was ready she went
up and asked Valancy if she wouldn’t like a cup of tea. Valancy, lying
on her bed, declined. She just wanted to be left alone for a while.
Mrs. Frederick left her alone. She did not even remind Valancy that her
plight was the outcome of her own lack of daughterly respect and
obedience. One could not—exactly—say things like that to the
daughter-in-law of a millionaire.




CHAPTER XLI


Valancy looked dully about her old room. It, too, was so exactly the
same that it seemed almost impossible to believe in the changes that
had come to her since she had last slept in it. It
seemed—somehow—indecent that it should be so much the same. There was
Queen Louise everlastingly coming down the stairway, and nobody had let
the forlorn puppy in out of the rain. Here was the purple paper blind
and the greenish mirror. Outside, the old carriage-shop with its
blatant advertisements. Beyond it, the station with the same derelicts
and flirtatious flappers.

Here the old life waited for her, like some grim ogre that bided his
time and licked his chops. A monstrous horror of it suddenly possessed
her. When night fell and she had undressed and got into bed, the
merciful numbness passed away and she lay in anguish and thought of her
island under the stars. The camp-fires—all their little household jokes
and phrases and catch words—their furry beautiful cats—the lights
agleam on the fairy islands—canoes skimming over Mistawis in the magic
of morning—white birches shining among the dark spruces like beautiful
women’s bodies—winter snows and rose-red sunset fires—lakes drunken
with moonshine—all the delights of her lost paradise. She would not let
herself think of Barney. Only of these lesser things. She could not
endure to think of Barney.

Then she thought of him inescapably. She ached for him. She wanted his
arms around her—his face against hers—his whispers in her ear. She
recalled all his friendly looks and quips and jests—his little
compliments—his caresses. She counted them all over as a woman might
count her jewels—not one did she miss from the first day they had met.
These memories were all she could have now. She shut her eyes and
prayed.

“Let me remember every one, God! Let me never forget one of them!”

Yet it would be better to forget. This agony of longing and loneliness
would not be so terrible if one could forget. And Ethel Traverse. That
shimmering witch woman with her white skin and black eyes and shining
hair. The woman Barney had loved. The woman whom he still loved. Hadn’t
he told her he never changed his mind? Who was waiting for him in
Montreal. Who was the right wife for a rich and famous man. Barney
would marry her, of course, when he got his divorce. How Valancy hated
her! And envied her! Barney had said, “I love you,” to _her_. Valancy
had wondered what tone Barney would say “I love you” in—how his
dark-blue eyes would look when he said it. Ethel Traverse knew. Valancy
hated her for the knowledge—hated and envied her.

“She can never have those hours in the Blue Castle. They are _mine_,”
thought Valancy savagely. Ethel would never make strawberry jam or
dance to old Abel’s fiddle or fry bacon for Barney over a camp-fire.
She would never come to the little Mistawis shack at all.

What was Barney doing—thinking—feeling now? Had he come home and found
her letter? Was he still angry with her? Or a little pitiful. Was he
lying on their bed looking out on stormy Mistawis and listening to the
rain streaming down on the roof? Or was he still wandering in the
wilderness, raging at the predicament in which he found himself? Hating
her? Pain took her and wrung her like some great pitiless giant. She
got up and walked the floor. Would morning never come to end this
hideous night? And yet what could morning bring her? The old life
without the old stagnation that was at least bearable. The old life
with the new memories, the new longings, the new anguish.

“Oh, why can’t I die?” moaned Valancy.




CHAPTER XLII


It was not until early afternoon the next day that a dreadful old car
clanked up Elm Street and stopped in front of the brick house. A
hatless man sprang from it and rushed up the steps. The bell was rung
as it had never been rung before—vehemently, intensely. The ringer was
demanding entrance, not asking it. Uncle Benjamin chuckled as he
hurried to the door. Uncle Benjamin had “just dropped in” to enquire
how dear Doss—Valancy was. Dear Doss—Valancy, he had been informed, was
just the same. She had come down for breakfast—which she didn’t
eat—gone back to her room, come down for dinner—which she didn’t
eat—gone back to her room. That was all. She had not talked. And she
had been let, kindly, considerately, alone.

“Very good. Redfern will be here today,” said Uncle Benjamin. And now
Uncle Benjamin’s reputation as a prophet was made. Redfern was
here—unmistakably so.

“Is my wife here?” he demanded of Uncle Benjamin without preface.

Uncle Benjamin smiled expressively.

“Mr. Redfern, I believe? Very glad to meet you, sir. Yes, that naughty
little girl of yours is here. We have been——”

“I must see her,” Barney cut Uncle Benjamin ruthlessly short.

“Certainly, Mr. Redfern. Just step in here. Valancy will be down in a
minute.”

He ushered Barney into the parlour and betook himself to the
sitting-room and Mrs. Frederick.

“Go up and tell Valancy to come down. Her husband is here.”

But so dubious was Uncle Benjamin as to whether Valancy could really
come down in a minute—or at all—that he followed Mrs. Frederick on
tiptoe up the stairs and listened in the hall.

“Valancy dear,” said Mrs. Frederick tenderly, “your husband is in the
parlour, asking for you.”

“Oh, Mother.” Valancy got up from the window and wrung her hands. “I
cannot see him—I cannot! Tell him to go away—_ask_ him to go away. I
can’t see him!”

“Tell her,” hissed Uncle Benjamin through the keyhole, “that Redfern
says he won’t go away until he _has_ seen her.”

Redfern had not said anything of the kind, but Uncle Benjamin thought
he was that sort of a fellow. Valancy knew he was. She understood that
she might as well go down first as last.

She did not even look at Uncle Benjamin as she passed him on the
landing. Uncle Benjamin did not mind. Rubbing his hands and chuckling,
he retreated to the kitchen, where he genially demanded of Cousin
Stickles:

“Why are good husbands like bread?”

Cousin Stickles asked why.

“Because women need them,” beamed Uncle Benjamin.

Valancy was looking anything but beautiful when she entered the
parlour. Her white night had played fearful havoc with her face. She
wore an ugly old brown-and-blue gingham, having left all her pretty
dresses in the Blue Castle. But Barney dashed across the room and
caught her in his arms.

“Valancy, darling—oh, you darling little idiot! Whatever possessed you
to run away like that? When I came home last night and found your
letter I went quite mad. It was twelve o’clock—I knew it was too late
to come here then. I walked the floor all night. Then this morning Dad
came—I couldn’t get away till now. Valancy, whatever got into you?
Divorce, forsooth! Don’t you know——”

“I know you only married me out of pity,” said Valancy, brushing him
away feebly. “I know you don’t love me—I know——”

“You’ve been lying awake at three o’clock too long,” said Barney,
shaking her. “That’s all that’s the matter with you. Love you! Oh,
don’t I love you! My girl, when I saw that train coming down on you I
knew whether I loved you or not!”

“Oh, I was afraid you would try to make me think you cared,” cried
Valancy passionately. “Don’t—don’t! I _know_. I know all about Ethel
Traverse—your father told me everything. Oh, Barney, don’t torture me!
I can never go back to you!”

Barney released her and looked at her for a moment. Something in her
pallid, resolute face spoke more convincingly than words of her
determination.

“Valancy,” he said quietly, “Father couldn’t have told you everything
because he didn’t know it. Will you let _me_ tell you—everything?”

“Yes,” said Valancy wearily. Oh, how dear he was! How she longed to
throw herself into his arms! As he put her gently down in a chair, she
could have kissed the slender, brown hands that touched her arms. She
could not look up as he stood before her. She dared not meet his eyes.
For his sake, she must be brave. She knew him—kind, unselfish. Of
course he would pretend he did not want his freedom—she might have
known he would pretend that, once the first shock of realisation was
over. He was so sorry for her—he understood her terrible position. When
had he ever failed to understand? But she would never accept his
sacrifice. Never!

“You’ve seen Dad and you know I’m Bernard Redfern. And I suppose you’ve
guessed that I’m John Foster—since you went into Bluebeard’s Chamber.”

“Yes. But I didn’t go in out of curiosity. I forgot you had told me not
to go in—I forgot——”

“Never mind. I’m not going to kill you and hang you up on the wall, so
there’s no need to call for Sister Anne. I’m only going to tell you my
story from the beginning. I came back last night intending to do it.
Yes, I’m ‘old Doc. Redfern’s son’—of Purple Pills and Bitters fame. Oh,
don’t I know it? Wasn’t it rubbed into me for years?”

Barney laughed bitterly and strode up and down the room a few times.
Uncle Benjamin, tiptoeing through the hall, heard the laugh and
frowned. Surely Doss wasn’t going to be a stubborn little fool. Barney
threw himself into a chair before Valancy.

“Yes. As long as I can remember I’ve been a millionaire’s son. But when
I was born Dad wasn’t a millionaire. He wasn’t even a doctor—isn’t yet.
He was a veterinary and a failure at it. He and Mother lived in a
little village up in Quebec and were abominably poor. I don’t remember
Mother. Haven’t even a picture of her. She died when I was two years
old. She was fifteen years younger than Father—a little school teacher.
When she died Dad moved into Montreal and formed a company to sell his
hair tonic. He’d dreamed the prescription one night, it seems. Well, it
caught on. Money began to flow in. Dad invented—or dreamed—the other
things, too—Pills, Bitters, Liniment and so on. He was a millionaire by
the time I was ten, with a house so big a small chap like myself always
felt lost in it. I had every toy a boy could wish for—and I was the
loneliest little devil in the world. I remember only one happy day in
my childhood, Valancy. Only one. Even you were better off than that.
Dad had gone out to see an old friend in the country and took me along.
I was turned loose in the barnyard and I spent the whole day hammering
nails in a block of wood. I had a glorious day. When I had to go back
to my roomful of playthings in the big house in Montreal I cried. But I
didn’t tell Dad why. I never told him anything. It’s always been a hard
thing for me to tell things, Valancy—anything that went deep. And most
things went deep with me. I was a sensitive child and I was even more
sensitive as a boy. No one ever knew what I suffered. Dad never dreamed
of it.

“When he sent me to a private school—I was only eleven—the boys ducked
me in the swimming-tank until I stood on a table and read aloud all the
advertisements of Father’s patent abominations. I did it—then”—Barney
clinched his fists—“I was frightened and half drowned and all my world
was against me. But when I went to college and the sophs tried the same
stunt I didn’t do it.” Barney smiled grimly. “They couldn’t make me do
it. But they could—and did—make my life miserable. I never heard the
last of the Pills and the Bitters and the Hair Tonic. ‘After using’ was
my nickname—you see I’d always such a thick thatch. My four college
years were a nightmare. You know—or you don’t know—what merciless
beasts boys can be when they get a victim like me. I had few
friends—there was always some barrier between me and the kind of people
I cared for. And the other kind—who would have been very willing to be
intimate with rich old Doc. Redfern’s son—I didn’t care for. But I had
one friend—or thought I had. A clever, bookish chap—a bit of a writer.
That was a bond between us—I had some secret aspirations along that
line. He was older than I was—I looked up to him and worshipped him.
For a year I was happier than I’d ever been. Then—a burlesque sketch
came out in the college magazine—a mordant thing, ridiculing Dad’s
remedies. The names were changed, of course, but everybody knew what
and who was meant. Oh, it was clever—damnably so—and witty. McGill
rocked with laughter over it. I found out _he_ had written it.”

“Oh, were you sure?” Valancy’s dull eyes flamed with indignation.

“Yes. He admitted it when I asked him. Said a good idea was worth more
to him than a friend, any time. And he added a gratuitous thrust. ‘You
know, Redfern, there are some things money won’t buy. For instance—it
won’t buy you a grandfather.’ Well, it was a nasty slam. I was young
enough to feel cut up. And it destroyed a lot of my ideals and
illusions, which was the worst thing about it. I was a young
misanthrope after that. Didn’t want to be friends with any one. And
then—the year after I left college—I met Ethel Traverse.”

Valancy shivered. Barney, his hands stuck in his pockets, was regarding
the floor moodily and didn’t notice it.

“Dad told you about her, I suppose. She was very beautiful. And I loved
her. Oh, yes, I loved her. I won’t deny it or belittle it now. It was a
lonely, romantic boy’s first passionate love, and it was very real. And
I thought she loved me. I was fool enough to think that. I was wildly
happy when she promised to marry me. For a few months. Then—I found out
she didn’t. I was an involuntary eavesdropper on a certain occasion for
a moment. That moment was enough. The proverbial fate of the
eavesdropper overtook me. A girl friend of hers was asking her how she
could stomach Doc. Redfern’s son and the patent-medicine background.

“‘His money will gild the Pills and sweeten the Bitters,’ said Ethel,
with a laugh. ‘Mother told me to catch him if I could. We’re on the
rocks. But pah! I smell turpentine whenever he comes near me.’”

“Oh, Barney!” cried Valancy, wrung with pity for him. She had forgotten
all about herself and was filled with compassion for Barney and rage
against Ethel Traverse. How dared she?

“Well,”—Barney got up and began pacing round the room—“that finished
me. Completely. I left civilisation and those accursed dopes behind me
and went to the Yukon. For five years I knocked about the world—in all
sorts of outlandish places. I earned enough to live on—I wouldn’t touch
a cent of Dad’s money. Then one day I woke up to the fact that I no
longer cared a hang about Ethel, one way or another. She was somebody
I’d known in another world—that was all. But I had no hankering to go
back to the old life. None of that for me. I was free and I meant to
keep so. I came to Mistawis—saw Tom MacMurray’s island. My first book
had been published the year before, and made a hit—I had a bit of money
from my royalties. I bought my island. But I kept away from people. I
had no faith in anybody. I didn’t believe there was such a thing as
real friendship or true love in the world—not for me, anyhow—the son of
Purple Pills. I used to revel in all the wild yarns they told of me. In
fact, I’m afraid I suggested a few of them myself. By mysterious
remarks which people interpreted in the light of their own
prepossessions.

“Then—you came. I _had_ to believe you loved me—really loved _me_—not
my father’s millions. There was no other reason why you should want to
marry a penniless devil with my supposed record. And I was sorry for
you. Oh, yes, I don’t deny I married you because I was sorry for you.
And then—I found you the best and jolliest and dearest little pal and
chum a fellow ever had. Witty—loyal—sweet. You made me believe again in
the reality of friendship and love. The world seemed good again just
because you were in it, honey. I’d have been willing to go on forever
just as we were. I knew that, the night I came home and saw my
homelight shining out from the island for the first time. And knew you
were there waiting for me. After being homeless all my life it was
beautiful to have a home. To come home hungry at night and know there
was a good supper and a cheery fire—and _you_.

“But I didn’t realise what you actually meant to me till that moment at
the switch. Then it came like a lightning flash. I knew I couldn’t live
without you—that if I couldn’t pull you loose in time I’d have to die
with you. I admit it bowled me over—knocked me silly. I couldn’t get my
bearings for a while. That’s why I acted like a mule. But the thought
that drove me to the tall timber was the awful one that you were going
to die. I’d always hated the thought of it—but I supposed there wasn’t
any chance for you, so I put it out of my mind. Now I had to face
it—you were under sentence of death and I couldn’t live without you.
When I came home last night I had made up my mind that I’d take you to
all the specialists in the world—that something surely could be done
for you. I felt sure you couldn’t be as bad as Dr. Trent thought, when
those moments on the track hadn’t even hurt you. And I found your
note—and went mad with happiness—and a little terror for fear you
didn’t care much for me, after all, and had gone away to get rid of me.
But now, it’s all right, isn’t it, darling?”

Was she, Valancy being called “darling”?

“I _can’t_ believe you care for me,” she said helplessly. “I _know_ you
can’t. What’s the use, Barney? Of course, you’re sorry for me—of course
you want to do the best you can to straighten out the mess. But it
can’t be straightened out that way. You couldn’t love me—me.” She stood
up and pointed tragically to the mirror over the mantel. Certainly, not
even Allan Tierney could have seen beauty in the woeful, haggard little
face reflected there.

Barney didn’t look at the mirror. He looked at Valancy as if he would
like to snatch her—or beat her.

“Love you! Girl, you’re in the very core of my heart. I hold you there
like a jewel. Didn’t I promise you I’d never tell you a lie? Love you!
I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every
fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There’s
nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.”

“You’re—a good actor, Barney,” said Valancy, with a wan little smile.

Barney looked at her.

“So you don’t believe me—yet?”

“I—can t.”

“Oh—damn!” said Barney violently.

Valancy looked up startled. She had never seen _this_ Barney. Scowling!
Eyes black with anger. Sneering lips. Dead-white face.

“You don’t want to believe it,” said Barney in the silk-smooth voice of
ultimate rage. “You’re tired of me. You want to get out of it—free from
me. You’re ashamed of the Pills and the Liniment, just as she was. Your
Stirling pride can’t stomach them. It was all right as long as you
thought you hadn’t long to live. A good lark—you could put up with me.
But a lifetime with old Doc Redfern’s son is a different thing. Oh, I
understand—perfectly. I’ve been very dense—but I understand, at last.”

Valancy stood up. She stared into his furious face. Then—she suddenly
laughed.

“You darling!” she said. “You do mean it! You do really love me! You
wouldn’t be so enraged if you didn’t.”

Barney stared at her for a moment. Then he caught her in his arms with
the little low laugh of the triumphant lover.

Uncle Benjamin, who had been frozen with horror at the keyhole,
suddenly thawed out and tiptoed back to Mrs. Frederick and Cousin
Stickles.

“Everything is all right,” he announced jubilantly.

Dear little Doss! He would send for his lawyer right away and alter his
will again. Doss should be his sole heiress. To her that had should
certainly be given.

Mrs. Frederick, returning to her comfortable belief in an overruling
Providence, got out the family Bible and made an entry under
“Marriages.”




CHAPTER XLIII


“But, Barney,” protested Valancy after a few minutes, “your
father—somehow—gave me to understand that you _still_ loved _her_.”

“He would. Dad holds the championship for making blunders. If there’s a
thing that’s better left unsaid you can trust him to say it. But he
isn’t a bad old soul, Valancy. You’ll like him.”

“I do, now.”

“And his money isn’t tainted money. He made it honestly. His medicines
are quite harmless. Even his Purple Pills do people whole heaps of good
when they believe in them.”

“But—I’m not fit for your life,” sighed Valancy. “I’m not—clever—or
well-educated—or——”

“My life is in Mistawis—and all the wild places of the world. I’m not
going to ask you to live the life of a society woman. Of course, we
must spend a bit of the time with Dad—he’s lonely and old——”

“But not in that big house of his,” pleaded Valancy. “I can’t live in a
palace.”

“Can’t come down to that after your Blue Castle,” grinned Barney.
“Don’t worry, sweet. I couldn’t live in that house myself. It has a
white marble stairway with gilt bannisters and looks like a furniture
shop with the labels off. Likewise it’s the pride of Dad’s heart. We’ll
get a little house somewhere outside of Montreal—in the real
country—near enough to see Dad often. I think we’ll build one for
ourselves. A house you build for yourself is so much nicer than a
hand-me-down. But we’ll spend our summers in Mistawis. And our autumns
travelling. I want you to see the Alhambra—it’s the nearest thing to
the Blue Castle of your dreams I can think of. And there’s an old-world
garden in Italy where I want to show you the moon rising over Rome
through the dark cypress-trees.”

“Will that be any lovelier than the moon rising over Mistawis?”

“Not lovelier. But a different kind of loveliness. There are so many
kinds of loveliness. Valancy, before this year you’ve spent all your
life in ugliness. You know nothing of the beauty of the world. We’ll
climb mountains—hunt for treasures in the bazaars of Samarcand—search
out the magic of east and west—run hand in hand to the rim of the
world. I want to show you it all—see it again through your eyes. Girl,
there are a million things I want to show you—do with you—say to you.
It will take a lifetime. And we must see about that picture by Tierney,
after all.”

“Will you promise me one thing?” asked Valancy solemnly.

“Anything,” said Barney recklessly.

“Only one thing. You are never, under any circumstances or under any
provocation, to cast it up to me that I asked you to marry me.”




CHAPTER XLIV




E_xtract from letter written by Miss Olive Stirling to Mr. Cecil
Bruce:_

“It’s really disgusting that Doss’ crazy adventures should have turned
out like this. It makes one feel that there is no use in behaving
properly.

“I’m _sure_ her mind was unbalanced when she left home. What she said
about a dust-pile showed that. Of course I don’t think there was ever a
thing the matter with her heart. Or perhaps Snaith or Redfern or
whatever his name really is fed Purple Pills to her, back in that
Mistawis hut and cured her. It would make quite a testimonial for the
family ads, wouldn’t it?

“He’s such an insignificent-looking creature. I mentioned this to Doss
but all she said was, ‘I don’t like collar ad men.’

“Well, he’s certainly no collar ad man. Though I must say there is
something rather distinguished about him, now that he has cut his hair
and put on decent clothes. I really think, Cecil, you should exercise
more. It doesn’t do to get too fleshy.

“He also claims, I believe, to be John Foster. We can believe _that_ or
not, as we like, I suppose.

“Old Doc Redfern has given them two millions for a wedding-present.
Evidently the Purple Pills bring in the bacon. They’re going to spend
the fall in Italy and the winter in Egypt and motor through Normandy in
apple-blossom time. _Not_ in that dreadful old Lizzie, though. Redfern
has got a wonderful new car.

“Well, I think I’ll run away, too, and disgrace myself. It seems to
pay.

“Uncle Ben is a scream. Likewise Uncle James. The fuss they all make
over Doss now is absolutely sickening. To hear Aunt Amelia talking of
‘my son-in-law, Bernard Redfern’ and ‘my daughter, Mrs. Bernard
Redfern.’ Mother and Father are as bad as the rest. And they can’t see
that Valancy is just laughing at them all in her sleeve.”




CHAPTER XLV


Valancy and Barney turned under the mainland pines in the cool dusk of
the September night for a farewell look at the Blue Castle. Mistawis
was drowned in sunset lilac light, incredibly delicate and elusive. Nip
and Tuck were cawing lazily in the old pines. Good Luck and Banjo were
mewed and mewing in separate baskets in Barney’s new, dark-green car
_en route_ to Cousin Georgiana’s. Cousin Georgiana was going to take
care of them until Barney and Valancy came back. Aunt Wellington and
Cousin Sarah and Aunt Alberta had also entreated the privilege of
looking after them, but to Cousin Georgiana was it given. Valancy was
in tears.

“Don’t cry, Moonlight. We’ll be back next summer. And now we’re off for
a real honeymoon.”

Valancy smiled through her tears. She was so happy that her happiness
terrified her. But, despite the delights before her—‘the glory that was
Greece and the grandeur that was Rome’—lure of the ageless Nile—glamour
of the Riviera—mosque and palace and minaret—she knew perfectly well
that no spot or place or home in the world could ever possess the
sorcery of her Blue Castle.

THE END