CHAPTER VIII
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
had not grown any shorter or less knobbly with age. And she would be
watched and checked like a baby and never let do anything or go
anywhere alone. Perhaps she would not even be allowed to sleep alone
lest she die in her sleep. Cousin Stickles or her mother would insist
on sharing her room and bed. Yes, undoubtedly they would.
It was this last thought that really decided Valancy. She could not put
up with it and she wouldn’t. As the clock in the hall below struck
twelve Valancy suddenly and definitely made up her mind that she would
not tell anybody. She had always been told, ever since she could
remember, that she must hide her feelings. “It is not ladylike to have
feelings,” Cousin Stickles had once told her disapprovingly. Well, she
would hide them with a vengeance.
But though she was not afraid of death she was not indifferent to it.
She found that she _resented_ it; it was not fair that she should have
to die when she had never lived. Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the
dark hours passed by—not because she had no future but because she had
no past.
“I’m poor—I’m ugly—I’m a failure—and I’m near death,” she thought. She
could see her own obituary notice in the Deerwood _Weekly Times_,
copied into the Port Lawrence _Journal_. “A deep gloom was cast over
Deerwood, etc., etc.”—“leaves a large circle of friends to mourn, etc.,
etc., etc.”—lies, all lies. Gloom, forsooth! Nobody would miss her. Her
death would not matter a straw to anybody. Not even her mother loved
her—her mother who had been so disappointed that she was not a boy—or
at least, a pretty girl.
Valancy reviewed her whole life between midnight and the early spring
dawn. It was a very drab existence, but here and there an incident
loomed out with a significance out of all proportion to its real
importance. These incidents were all unpleasant in one way or another.
Nothing really pleasant had ever happened to Valancy.
“I’ve never had one wholly happy hour in my life—not one,” she thought.
“I’ve just been a colourless nonentity. I remember reading somewhere
once that there is an hour in which a woman might be happy all her life
if she could but find it. I’ve never found my hour—never, never. And I
never will now. If I could only have had that hour I’d be willing to
die.”
Those significant incidents kept bobbing up in her mind like unbidden
ghosts, without any sequence of time or place. For instance, that time
when, at sixteen, she had blued a tubful of clothes too deeply. And the
time when, at eight, she had “stolen” some raspberry jam from Aunt
Wellington’s pantry. Valancy never heard the last of those two
misdemeanours. At almost every clan gathering they were raked up
against her as jokes. Uncle Benjamin hardly ever missed re-telling the
raspberry jam incident—he had been the one to catch her, her face all
stained and streaked.
“I have really done so few bad things that they have to keep harping on
the old ones,” thought Valancy. “Why, I’ve never even had a quarrel
with any one. I haven’t an enemy. What a spineless thing I must be not
to have even one enemy!”
There was that incident of the dust-pile at school when she was seven.
Valancy always recalled it when Dr. Stalling referred to the text, “To
him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken
even that which he hath.” Other people might puzzle over that text but
it never puzzled Valancy. The whole relationship between herself and
Olive, dating from the day of the dust-pile, was a commentary on it.
She had been going to school a year, but Olive, who was a year younger,
had just begun and had about her all the glamour of “a new girl” and an
exceedingly pretty girl at that. It was at recess and all the girls,
big and little, were out on the road in front of the school making
dust-piles. The aim of each girl was to have the biggest pile. Valancy
was good at making dust-piles—there was an art in it—and she had secret
hopes of leading. But Olive, working off by herself, was suddenly
discovered to have a larger dust-pile than anybody. Valancy felt no
jealousy. Her dust-pile was quite big enough to please her. Then one of
the older girls had an inspiration.
“Let’s put all our dust on Olive’s pile and make a tremendous one,” she
exclaimed.
A frenzy seemed to seize the girls. They swooped down on the dust-piles
with pails and shovels and in a few seconds Olive’s pile was a
veritable pyramid. In vain Valancy, with scrawny, outstretched little
arms, tried to protect hers. She was ruthlessly swept aside, her
dust-pile scooped up and poured on Olive’s. Valancy turned away
resolutely and began building another dust-pile. Again a bigger girl
pounced on it. Valancy stood before it, flushed, indignant, arms
outspread.
“Don’t take it,” she pleaded. “Please don’t take it.”
“But _why_?” demanded the older girl. “Why won’t you help to build
Olive’s bigger?”
“I want my own little dust-pile,” said Valancy piteously.
Her plea went unheeded. While she argued with one girl another scraped
up her dust-pile. Valancy turned away, her heart swelling, her eyes
full of tears.
“Jealous—you’re jealous!” said the girls mockingly.
“You were very selfish,” said her mother coldly, when Valancy told her
about it at night. That was the first and last time Valancy had ever
taken any of her troubles to her mother.
Valancy was neither jealous nor selfish. It was only that she wanted a
dust-pile of her own—small or big mattered not. A team of horses came
down the street—Olive’s dust pile was scattered over the roadway—the
bell rang—the girls trooped into school and had forgotten the whole
affair before they reached their seats. Valancy never forgot it. To
this day she resented it in her secret soul. But was it not symbolical
of her life?
“I’ve never been able to have my own dust-pile,” thought Valancy.
The enormous red moon she had seen rising right at the end of the
street one autumn evening of her sixth year. She had been sick and cold
with the awful, uncanny horror of it. So near to her. So big. She had
run in trembling to her mother and her mother had laughed at her. She
had gone to bed and hidden her face under the clothes in terror lest
she might look at the window and see that horrible moon glaring in at
her through it.
The boy who had tried to kiss her at a party when she was fifteen. She
had not let him—she had evaded him and run. He was the only boy who had
ever tried to kiss her. Now, fourteen years later, Valancy found
herself wishing that she had let him.
The time she had been made to apologise to Olive for something she
hadn’t done. Olive had said that Valancy had pushed her into the mud
and spoiled her new shoes _on purpose_. Valancy knew she hadn’t. It had
been an accident—and even that wasn’t her fault—but nobody would
believe her. She had to apologise—and kiss Olive to “make up.” The
injustice of it burned in her soul tonight.
That summer when Olive had the most beautiful hat, trimmed with creamy
yellow net, with a wreath of red roses and little ribbon bows under the
chin. Valancy had wanted a hat like that more than she had ever wanted
anything. She pleaded for one and had been laughed at—all summer she
had to wear a horrid little brown sailor with elastic that cut behind
her ears. None of the girls would go around with her because she was so
shabby—nobody but Olive. People had thought Olive so sweet and
unselfish.
“I was an excellent foil for her,” thought Valancy. “Even then she knew
that.”
Valancy had tried to win a prize for attendance in Sunday School once.
But Olive won it. There were so many Sundays Valancy had to stay home
because she had colds. She had once tried to “say a piece” in school
one Friday afternoon and had broken down in it. Olive was a good
reciter and never got stuck.
The night she had spent in Port Lawrence with Aunt Isabel when she was
ten. Byron Stirling was there; from Montreal, twelve years old,
conceited, clever. At family prayers in the morning Byron had reached
across and given Valancy’s thin arm such a savage pinch that she
screamed out with pain. After prayers were over she was summoned to
Aunt Isabel’s bar of judgment. But when she said Byron had pinched her
Byron denied it. He said she cried out because the kitten scratched
her. He said she had put the kitten up on her chair and was playing
with it when she should have been listening to Uncle David’s prayer. He
was _believed_. In the Stirling clan the boys were always believed
before the girls. Valancy was sent home in disgrace because of her
exceedingly bad behavior during family prayers and she was not asked to
Aunt Isabel’s again for many moons.
The time Cousin Betty Stirling was married. Somehow Valancy got wind of
the fact that Betty was going to ask her to be one of her bridesmaids.
Valancy was secretly uplifted. It would be a delightful thing to be a
bridesmaid. And of course she would have to have a new dress for it—a
pretty new dress—a pink dress. Betty wanted her bridesmaids to dress in
pink.
But Betty had never asked her, after all. Valancy couldn’t guess why,
but long after her secret tears of disappointment had been dried Olive
told her. Betty, after much consultation and reflection, had decided
that Valancy was too insignificant—she would “spoil the effect.” That
was nine years ago. But tonight Valancy caught her breath with the old
pain and sting of it.
That day in her eleventh year when her mother had badgered her into
confessing something she had never done. Valancy had denied it for a
long time but eventually for peace’ sake she had given in and pleaded
guilty. Mrs. Frederick was always making people lie by pushing them
into situations where they _had_ to lie. Then her mother had made her
kneel down on the parlour floor, between herself and Cousin Stickles,
and say, “O God, please forgive me for not speaking the truth.” Valancy
had said it, but as she rose from her knees she muttered, “But, O God,
_you_ know I did speak the truth.” Valancy had not then heard of
Galileo but her fate was similar to his. She was punished just as
severely as if she hadn’t confessed and prayed.
The winter she went to dancing-school. Uncle James had decreed she
should go and had paid for her lessons. How she had looked forward to
it! And how she had hated it! She had never had a voluntary partner.
The teacher always had to tell some boy to dance with her, and
generally he had been sulky about it. Yet Valancy was a good dancer, as
light on her feet as thistledown. Olive, who never lacked eager
partners, was heavy.
The affair of the button-string, when she was ten. All the girls in
school had button-strings. Olive had a very long one with a great many
beautiful buttons. Valancy had one. Most of the buttons on it were very
commonplace, but she had six beauties that had come off Grandmother
Stirling’s wedding-gown—sparkling buttons of gold and glass, much more
beautiful than any Olive had. Their possession conferred a certain
distinction on Valancy. She knew every little girl in school envied her
the exclusive possession of those beautiful buttons. When Olive saw
them on the button-string she had looked at them narrowly but said
nothing—then. The next day Aunt Wellington had come to Elm Street and
told Mrs. Frederick that she thought Olive should have some of those
buttons—Grandmother Stirling was just as much Wellington’s mother as
Frederick’s. Mrs. Frederick had agreed amiably. She could not afford to
fall out with Aunt Wellington. Moreover, the matter was of no
importance whatever. Aunt Wellington carried off four of the buttons,
generously leaving two for Valancy. Valancy had torn these from her
string and flung them on the floor—she had not yet learned that it was
unladylike to have feelings—and had been sent supperless to bed for the
exhibition.
The night of Margaret Blunt’s party. She had made such pathetic efforts
to be pretty that night. Rob Walker was to be there; and two nights
before, on the moonlit verandah of Uncle Herbert’s cottage at Mistawis,
Rob had really seemed attracted to her. At Margaret’s party Rob never
even asked her to dance—did not notice her at all. She was a
wallflower, as usual. That, of course, was years ago. People in
Deerwood had long since given up inviting Valancy to dances. But to
Valancy its humiliation and disappointment were of the other day. Her
face burned in the darkness as she recalled herself, sitting there with
her pitifully crimped, thin hair and the cheeks she had pinched for an
hour before coming, in an effort to make them red. All that came of it
was a wild story that Valancy Stirling was rouged at Margaret Blunt’s
party. In those days in Deerwood that was enough to wreck your
character forever. It did not wreck Valancy’s, or even damage it.
People knew _she_ couldn’t be fast if she tried. They only laughed at
her.
“I’ve had nothing but a second-hand existence,” decided Valancy. “All
the great emotions of life have passed me by. I’ve never even had a
grief. And have I ever really loved anybody? Do I really love Mother?
No, I don’t. That’s the truth, whether it is disgraceful or not. I
don’t love her—I’ve never loved her. What’s worse, I don’t even like
her. So I don’t know anything about any kind of love. My life has been
empty—empty. Nothing is worse than emptiness. Nothing!” Valancy
ejaculated the last “nothing” aloud passionately. Then she moaned and
stopped thinking about anything for a while. One of her attacks of pain
had come on.
When it was over something had happened to Valancy—perhaps the
culmination of the process that had been going on in her mind ever
since she had read Dr. Trent’s letter. It was three o’clock in the
morning—the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes
it sets us free.
“I’ve been trying to please other people all my life and failed,” she
said. “After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything
again. I’ve breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretences and evasions
all my life. What a luxury it will be to tell the truth! I may not be
able to do much that I want to do but I won’t do another thing that I
don’t want to do. Mother can pout for weeks—I shan’t worry over it.
‘Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.’”
Valancy got up and dressed, with a deepening of that curious sense of
freedom. When she had finished with her hair she opened the window and
hurled the jar of potpourri over into the next lot. It smashed
gloriously against the schoolgirl complexion on the old carriage-shop.
“I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things,” said Valancy.