The Blue Castle (13 page)

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 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 realize 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 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.”

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 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 parlor. Barney produced his license. So he
had
got it. Also a ring. This ring 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, gray 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 neighborly. 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 linnaeas 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.