The Blue Castle: a novel
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