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.”