The Blue Castle: a novel
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