CHAPTER X

“Bless this food to our use and consecrate our lives to Thy service,”
said Uncle Herbert briskly.

Aunt Wellington frowned. She always considered Herbert’s graces
entirely too short and “flippant.” A grace, to be a grace in Aunt
Wellington’s eyes, had to be at least three minutes long and uttered in
an unearthly tone, between a groan and a chant. As a protest she kept
her head bent a perceptible time after all the rest had been lifted.
When she permitted herself to sit upright she found Valancy looking at
her. Ever afterwards Aunt Wellington averred that she had known from
that moment that there was something wrong with Valancy. In those
queer, slanted eyes of hers—“we should always have known she was not
entirely _right_ with eyes like that”—there was an odd gleam of mockery
and amusement—as if Valancy were laughing at _her_. Such a thing was
unthinkable, of course. Aunt Wellington at once ceased to think it.

Valancy was enjoying herself. She had never enjoyed herself at a
“family reunion” before. In social functions, as in childish games, she
had only “filled in.” Her clan had always considered her very dull. She
had no parlour tricks. And she had been in the habit of taking refuge
from the boredom of family parties in her Blue Castle, which resulted
in an absent-mindedness that increased her reputation for dulness and
vacuity.

“She has no social presence whatever,” Aunt Wellington had decreed once
and for all. Nobody dreamed that Valancy was dumb in their presence
merely because she was afraid of them. Now she was no longer afraid of
them. The shackles had been stricken off her soul. She was quite
prepared to talk if occasion offered. Meanwhile she was giving herself
such freedom of thought as she had never dared to take before. She let
herself go with a wild, inner exultation, as Uncle Herbert carved the
turkey. Uncle Herbert gave Valancy a second look that day. Being a man,
he didn’t know what she had done to her hair, but he thought
surprisedly that Doss was not such a bad-looking girl, after all; and
he put an extra piece of white meat on her plate.

“What herb is most injurious to a young lady’s beauty?” propounded
Uncle Benjamin by way of starting conversation—“loosening things up a
bit,” as he would have said.

Valancy, whose duty it was to say, “What?” did not say it. Nobody else
said it, so Uncle Benjamin, after an expectant pause, had to answer,
“Thyme,” and felt that his riddle had fallen flat. He looked
resentfully at Valancy, who had never failed him before, but Valancy
did not seem even to be aware of him. She was gazing around the table,
examining relentlessly every one in this depressing assembly of
sensible people and watching their little squirms with a detached,
amused smile.

So these were the people she had always held in reverence and fear. She
seemed to see them with new eyes.

Big, capable, patronising, voluble Aunt Mildred, who thought herself
the cleverest woman in the clan, her husband a little lower than the
angels and her children wonders. Had not her son, Howard, been all
through teething at eleven months? And could she not tell you the best
way to do everything, from cooking mushrooms to picking up a snake?
What a bore she was! What ugly moles she had on her face!

Cousin Gladys, who was always praising her son, who had died young, and
always fighting with her living one. She had neuritis—or what she
called neuritis. It jumped about from one part of her body to another.
It was a convenient thing. If anybody wanted her to go somewhere she
didn’t want to go she had neuritis in her legs. And always if any
mental effort was required she could have neuritis in her head. You
can’t _think_ with neuritis in your head, my dear.

“What an old humbug you are!” thought Valancy impiously.

Aunt Isabel. Valancy counted her chins. Aunt Isabel was the critic of
the clan. She had always gone about squashing people flat. More members
of it than Valancy were afraid of her. She had, it was conceded, a
biting tongue.

“I wonder what would happen to your face if you ever smiled,”
speculated Valancy, unblushingly.

Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, with her great, pale, expressionless eyes,
who was noted for the variety of her pickle recipes and for nothing
else. So afraid of saying something indiscreet that she never said
anything worth listening to. So proper that she blushed when she saw
the advertisement picture of a corset and had put a dress on her Venus
de Milo statuette which made it look “real tasty.”

Little Cousin Georgiana. Not such a bad little soul. But dreary—very.
Always looking as if she had just been starched and ironed. Always
afraid to let herself go. The only thing she really enjoyed was a
funeral. You knew where you were with a corpse. Nothing more could
happen to _it_. But while there was life there was fear.

Uncle James. Handsome, black, with his sarcastic, trap-like mouth and
iron-grey side-burns, whose favourite amusement was to write
controversial letters to the _Christian Times_, attacking Modernism.
Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he
did when awake. No wonder his wife had died young. Valancy remembered
her. A pretty, sensitive thing. Uncle James had denied her everything
she wanted and showered on her everything she didn’t want. He had
killed her—quite legally. She had been smothered and starved.

Uncle Benjamin, wheezy, pussy-mouthed. With great pouches under eyes
that held nothing in reverence.

Uncle Wellington. Long, pallid face, thin, pale-yellow hair—“one of the
fair Stirlings”—thin, stooping body, abominably high forehead with such
ugly wrinkles, and “eyes about as intelligent as a fish’s,” thought
Valancy. “Looks like a cartoon of himself.”

Aunt Wellington. Named Mary but called by her husband’s name to
distinguish her from Great-aunt Mary. A massive, dignified, permanent
lady. Splendidly arranged, iron-grey hair. Rich, fashionable beaded
dress. Had _her_ moles removed by electrolysis—which Aunt Mildred
thought was a wicked evasion of the purposes of God.

Uncle Herbert, with his spiky grey hair. Aunt Alberta, who twisted her
mouth so unpleasantly in talking and had a great reputation for
unselfishness because she was always giving up a lot of things she
didn’t want. Valancy let them off easily in her judgment because she
liked them, even if they were in Milton’s expressive phrase, “stupidly
good.” But she wondered for what inscrutable reason Aunt Alberta had
seen fit to tie a black velvet ribbon around each of her chubby arms
above the elbow.

Then she looked across the table at Olive. Olive, who had been held up
to her as a paragon of beauty, behaviour and success as long as she
could remember. “Why can’t you hold yourself like Olive, Doss? Why
can’t you stand correctly like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you speak
prettily like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you make an effort, Doss?”

Valancy’s elfin eyes lost their mocking glitter and became pensive and
sorrowful. You could not ignore or disdain Olive. It was quite
impossible to deny that she was beautiful and effective and sometimes
she was a little intelligent. Her mouth might be a trifle heavy—she
might show her fine, white, regular teeth rather too lavishly when she
smiled. But when all was said and done, Olive justified Uncle
Benjamin’s summing up—“a stunning girl.” Yes, Valancy agreed in her
heart, Olive was stunning.

Rich, golden-brown hair, elaborately dressed, with a sparkling bandeau
holding its glossy puffs in place; large, brilliant blue eyes and thick
silken lashes; face of rose and bare neck of snow, rising above her
gown; great pearl bubbles in her ears; the blue-white diamond flame on
her long, smooth, waxen finger with its rosy, pointed nail. Arms of
marble, gleaming through green chiffon and shadow lace. Valancy felt
suddenly thankful that her own scrawny arms were decently swathed in
brown silk. Then she resumed her tabulation of Olive’s charms.

Tall. Queenly. Confident. Everything that Valancy was _not_. Dimples,
too, in cheeks and chin. “A woman with dimples always gets her own
way,” thought Valancy, in a recurring spasm of bitterness at the fate
which had denied her even one dimple.

Olive was only a year younger than Valancy, though a stranger would
have thought that there was at least ten years between them. But nobody
ever dreaded old maidenhood for her. Olive had been surrounded by a
crowd of eager beaus since her early teens, just as her mirror was
always surrounded by a fringe of cards, photographs, programmes and
invitations. At eighteen, when she had graduated from Havergal College,
Olive had been engaged to Will Desmond, lawyer in embryo. Will Desmond
had died and Olive had mourned for him properly for two years. When she
was twenty-three she had a hectic affair with Donald Jackson. But Aunt
and Uncle Wellington disapproved of that and in the end Olive dutifully
gave him up. Nobody in the Stirling clan—whatever outsiders might
say—hinted that she did so because Donald himself was cooling off.
However that might be, Olive’s third venture met with everybody’s
approval. Cecil Price was clever and handsome and “one of the Port
Lawrence Prices.” Olive had been engaged to him for three years. He had
just graduated in civil engineering and they were to be married as soon
as he landed a contract. Olive’s hope chest was full to overflowing
with exquisite things and Olive had already confided to Valancy what
her wedding-dress was to be. Ivory silk draped with lace, white satin
court train, lined with pale green georgette, heirloom veil of Brussels
lace. Valancy knew also—though Olive had not told her—that the
bridesmaids were selected and that she was not among them.

Valancy had, after a fashion, always been Olive’s confidante—perhaps
because she was the only girl in the connection who could not bore
Olive with return confidences. Olive always told Valancy all the
details of her love affairs, from the days when the little boys in
school used to “persecute” her with love letters. Valancy could not
comfort herself by thinking these affairs mythical. Olive really had
them. Many men had gone mad over her besides the three fortunate ones.

“I don’t know what the poor idiots see in me, that drives them to make
such double idiots of themselves,” Olive was wont to say. Valancy would
have liked to say, “I don’t either,” but truth and diplomacy both
restrained her. She _did_ know, perfectly well. Olive Stirling was one
of the girls about whom men do go mad just as indubitably as she,
Valancy, was one of the girls at whom no man ever looked twice.

“And yet,” thought Valancy, summing her up with a new and merciless
conclusiveness, “she’s like a dewless morning. There’s _something_
lacking.”