The Blue Castle: a novel
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 doze 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