The Blue Castle a novel

Capítulo 1

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-grandmother 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-grandmother, 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.