CHAPTER XVII

When Valancy had lived for a week at Roaring Abel’s she felt as if

years had separated her from her old life and all the people she had

known in it. They were beginning to seem remote—dream-like—far-away—and

as the days went on they seemed still more so, until they ceased to

matter altogether.

She was happy. Nobody ever bothered her with conundrums or insisted on

giving her Purple Pills. Nobody called her Doss or worried her about

catching cold. There were no quilts to piece, no abominable

rubber-plant to water, no ice-cold maternal tantrums to endure. She

could be alone whenever she liked, go to bed when she liked, sneeze

when she liked. In the long, wondrous, northern twilights, when Cissy

was asleep and Roaring Abel away, she could sit for hours on the shaky

back verandah steps, looking out over the barrens to the hills beyond,

covered with their fine, purple bloom, listening to the friendly wind

singing wild, sweet melodies in the little spruces, and drinking in the

aroma of the sunned grasses, until darkness flowed over the landscape

like a cool, welcome wave.

Sometimes of an afternoon, when Cissy was strong enough, the two girls

went into the barrens and looked at the wood-flowers. But they did not

pick any. Valancy had read to Cissy the gospel thereof according to

John Foster: “It is a pity to gather wood-flowers. They lose half their

witchery away from the green and the flicker. The way to enjoy

wood-flowers is to track them down to their remote haunts—gloat over

them—and then leave them with backward glances, taking with us only the

beguiling memory of their grace and fragrance.”

Valancy was in the midst of realities after a lifetime of unrealities.

And busy—very busy. The house had to be cleaned. Not for nothing had

Valancy been brought up in the Stirling habits of neatness and

cleanliness. If she found satisfaction in cleaning dirty rooms she got

her fill of it there. Roaring Abel thought she was foolish to bother

doing so much more than she was asked to do, but he did not interfere

with her. He was very well satisfied with his bargain. Valancy was a

good cook. Abel said she got a flavour into things. The only fault he

found with her was that she did not sing at her work.

“Folks should always sing at their work,” he insisted. “Sounds

cheerful-like.”

“Not always,” retorted Valancy. “Fancy a butcher singing at his work.

Or an undertaker.”

Abel burst into his great broad laugh.

“There’s no getting the better of you. You’ve got an answer every time.

I should think the Stirlings would be glad to be rid of you. _They_

don’t like being sassed back.”

During the day Abel was generally away from home—if not working, then

shooting or fishing with Barney Snaith. He generally came home at

nights—always very late and often very drunk. The first night they

heard him come howling into the yard, Cissy had told Valancy not to be

afraid.

“Father never does anything—he just makes a noise.”

Valancy, lying on the sofa in Cissy’s room, where she had elected to

sleep, lest Cissy should need attention in the night—Cissy would never

have called her—was not at all afraid, and said so. By the time Abel

had got his horses put away, the roaring stage had passed and he was in

his room at the end of the hall crying and praying. Valancy could still

hear his dismal moans when she went calmly to sleep. For the most part,

Abel was a good-natured creature, but occasionally he had a temper.

Once Valancy asked him coolly:

“What is the use of getting in a rage?”

“It’s such a d——d relief,” said Abel.

They both burst out laughing together.

“You’re a great little sport,” said Abel admiringly. “Don’t mind my bad

French. I don’t mean a thing by it. Jest habit. Say, I like a woman

that ain’t afraid to speak up to me. Sis there was always too meek—too

meek. That’s why she got adrift. I like you.”

“All the same,” said Valancy determinedly, “there is no use in sending

things to hell as you’re always doing. And I’m _not_ going to have you

tracking mud all over a floor I’ve just scrubbed. You _must_ use the

scraper whether you consign it to perdition or not.”

Cissy loved the cleanness and neatness. She had kept it so, too, until

her strength failed. She was very pitifully happy because she had

Valancy with her. It had been so terrible—the long, lonely days and

nights with no companionship save those dreadful old women who came to

work. Cissy had hated and feared them. She clung to Valancy like a

child.

There was no doubt that Cissy was dying. Yet at no time did she seem

alarmingly ill. She did not even cough a great deal. Most days she was

able to get up and dress—sometimes even to work about in the garden or

the barrens for an hour or two. For a few weeks after Valancy’s coming

she seemed so much better that Valancy began to hope she might get

well. But Cissy shook her head.

“No, I can’t get well. My lungs are almost gone. And I—don’t want to.

I’m so tired, Valancy. Only dying can rest me. But it’s lovely to have

you here—you’ll never know how much it means to me. But Valancy—you

work too hard. You don’t need to—Father only wants his meals cooked. I

don’t think you are strong yourself. You turn so pale sometimes. And

those drops you take. _Are_ you well, dear?”

“I’m all right,” said Valancy lightly. She would not have Cissy

worried. “And I’m not working hard. I’m glad to have some work to

do—something that really wants to be done.”

“Then”—Cissy slipped her hand wistfully into Valancy’s—“don’t let’s

talk any more about my being sick. Let’s just forget it. Let’s pretend

I’m a little girl again—and you have come here to play with me. I used

to wish that long ago—wish that you could come. I knew you couldn’t, of

course. But how I did wish it! You always seemed so different from the

other girls—so kind and sweet—and as if you had something in yourself

nobody knew about—some dear, pretty secret. _Had_ you, Valancy?”

“I had my Blue Castle,” said Valancy, laughing a little. She was

pleased that Cissy had thought of her like this. She had never

suspected that anybody liked or admired or wondered about her. She told

Cissy all about her Blue Castle. She had never told any one about it

before.

“Every one has a Blue Castle, I think,” said Cissy softly. “Only every

one has a different name for it. _I_ had mine—once.”

She put her two thin little hands over her face. She did not tell

Valancy—then—who had destroyed her Blue Castle. But Valancy knew that,

whoever it was, it was not Barney Snaith.