The blue castle

Valancy walked quickly through the back streets and through Lover’s Lane. She did not want to meet any one she knew. She didn’t want to meet even people she didn’t know. She hated to be seen. Her mind was so confused, so torn, so messy. She felt that her appearance must be the same. She drew a sobbing breath of relief as she left the village behind and found herself on the “up back” road. There was little fear of meeting any one she knew here. The cars that fled by her with raucous shrieks were filled with strangers. One of them was packed with young people who whirled past her singing uproariously:

“My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever,
Oh, I hope it won’t leave her,
For I want to be single again.”

Valancy flinched as if one of them had leaned from the car and cut her across the face with a whip.

She had made a covenant with death and death had cheated her. Now life stood mocking her. She had trapped Barney. Trapped him into marrying her. And divorce was so hard to get in Ontario. So expensive. And Barney was poor.

With life, fear had come back into her heart. Sickening fear. Fear of what Barney would think. Would say. Fear of the future that must be lived without him. Fear of her insulted, repudiated clan.

She had had one draught from a divine cup and now it was dashed from her lips. With no kind, friendly death to rescue her. She must go on living and longing for it. Everything was spoiled, smirched, defaced. Even that year in the Blue Castle. Even her unashamed love for Barney. It had been beautiful because death waited. Now it was only sordid because death was gone. How could any one bear an unbearable thing?

She must go back and tell him. Make him believe she had not meant to trick him—she must make him believe that. She must say good-bye to her Blue Castle and return to the brick house on Elm Street. Back to everything she had thought left behind forever. The old bondage—the old fears. But that did not matter. All that mattered now was that Barney must somehow be made to believe she had not consciously tricked him.

When Valancy reached the pines by the lake she was brought out of her daze of pain by a startling sight. There, parked by the side of old, battered ragged Lady Jane, was another car. A wonderful car. A purple car. Not a dark, royal purple but a blatant, screaming purple. It shone like a mirror and its interior plainly indicated the car caste of Vere de Vere. On the driver’s seat sat a haughty chauffeur in livery. And in the tonneau sat a man who opened the door and bounced out nimbly as Valancy came down the path to the landing-place. He stood under the pines waiting for her and Valancy took in every detail of him.

A stout, short, pudgy man, with a broad, rubicund, good-humoured face—a clean-shaven face, though an unparalysed little imp at the back of Valancy’s paralysed mind suggested the thought, “Such a face should have a fringe of white whisker around it.” Old-fashioned, steel-rimmed spectacles on prominent blue eyes. A pursey mouth; a little round, knobby nose. Where—where—where, groped Valancy, had she seen that face before? It seemed as familiar to her as her own.

The stranger wore a green hat and a light fawn overcoat over a suit of a loud check pattern. His tie was a brilliant green of lighter shade; on the plump hand he outstretched to intercept Valancy an enormous diamond winked at her. But he had a pleasant, fatherly smile, and in his hearty, unmodulated voice was a ring of something that attracted her.

“Can you tell me, Miss, if that house yonder belongs to a Mr. Redfern? And if so, how can I get to it?”

Redfern! A vision of bottles seemed to dance before Valancy’s eyes—long bottles of bitters—round bottles of hair tonic—square bottles of liniment—short, corpulent little bottles of purple pills—and all of them bearing that very prosperous, beaming moon-face and steel-rimmed spectacles on the label.

Dr. Redfern!

“No,” said Valancy faintly. “No—that house belongs to Mr. Snaith.”

Dr. Redfern nodded.

“Yes, I understand Bernie’s been calling himself Snaith. Well, it’s his middle name—was his poor mother’s. Bernard Snaith Redfern—that’s him. And now, Miss, you can tell me how to get over to that island? Nobody seems to be home there. I’ve done some waving and yelling. Henry, there, wouldn’t yell. He’s a one-job man. But old Doc Redfern can yell with the best of them yet, and ain’t above doing it. Raised nothing but a couple of crows. Guess Bernie’s out for the day.”

“He was away when I left this morning,” said Valancy. “I suppose he hasn’t come home yet.”

She spoke flatly and tonelessly. This last shock had temporarily bereft her of whatever little power of reasoning had been left her by Dr. Trent’s revelation. In the back of her mind the aforesaid little imp was jeeringly repeating a silly old proverb, “It never rains but it pours.” But she was not trying to think. What was the use?

Dr. Redfern was gazing at her in perplexity.

“When you left this morning? Do you live—over there?”

He waved his diamond at the Blue Castle.

“Of course,” said Valancy stupidly. “I’m his wife.”

Dr. Redfern took out a yellow silk handkerchief, removed his hat and mopped his brow. He was very bald, and Valancy’s imp whispered, “Why be bald? Why lose your manly beauty? Try Redfern’s Hair Vigor. It keeps you young.”

“Excuse me,” said Dr. Redfern. “This is a bit of a shock.”

“Shocks seem to be in the air this morning.” The imp said this out loud before Valancy could prevent it.

“I didn’t know Bernie was—married. I didn’t think he would have got married without telling his old dad.”

Were Dr. Redfern’s eyes misty? Amid her own dull ache of misery and fear and dread, Valancy felt a pang of pity for him.

“Don’t blame him,” she said hurriedly. “It—it wasn’t his fault. It—was all my doing.”

“You didn’t ask him to marry you, I suppose,” twinkled Dr. Redfern. “He might have let me know. I’d have got acquainted with my daughter-in-law before this if he had. But I’m glad to meet you now, my dear—very glad. You look like a sensible young woman. I used to sorter fear Barney’d pick out some pretty bit of fluff just because she was good-looking. They were all after him, of course. Wanted his money? Eh? Didn’t like the pills and the bitters but liked the dollars. Eh? Wanted to dip their pretty little fingers in old Doc’s millions. Eh?”

“Millions!” said Valancy faintly. She wished she could sit down somewhere—she wished she could have a chance to think—she wished she and the Blue Castle could sink to the bottom of Mistawis and vanish from human sight forevermore.

“Millions,” said Dr. Redfern complacently. “And Bernie chucks them for—that.” Again he shook the diamond contemptuously at the Blue Castle. “Wouldn’t you think he’d have more sense? And all on account of a white bit of a girl. He must have got over that feeling, anyhow, since he’s married. You must persuade him to come back to civilisation. All nonsense wasting his life like this. Ain’t you going to take me over to your house, my dear? I suppose you’ve some way of getting there.”

“Of course,” said Valancy stupidly. She led the way down to the little cove where the disappearing propeller boat was snuggled.

“Does your—your man want to come, too?”

“Who? Henry. Not he. Look at him sitting there disapproving. Disapproves of the whole expedition. The trail up from the road nearly gave him a conniption. Well, it was a devilish road to put a car on. Whose old bus is that up there?”

“Barney’s.”

“Good Lord! Does Bernie Redfern ride in a thing like that? It looks like the great-great-grandmother of all the Fords.”

“It isn’t a Ford. It’s a Grey Slosson,” said Valancy spiritedly. For some occult reason, Dr. Redfern’s good-humoured ridicule of dear old Lady Jane stung her to life. A life that was all pain but still life. Better than the horrible half-dead-and-half-aliveness of the past few minutes—or years. She waved Dr. Redfern curtly into the boat and took him over to the Blue Castle. The key was still in the old pine—the house still silent and deserted. Valancy took the doctor through the living-room to the western verandah. She must at least be out where there was air. It was still sunny, but in the southwest a great thundercloud, with white crests and gorges of purple shadow, was slowly rising over Mistawis. The doctor dropped with a gasp on a rustic chair and mopped his brow again.

“Warm, eh? Lord, what a view! Wonder if it would soften Henry if he could see it.”

“Have you had dinner?” asked Valancy.

“Yes, my dear—had it before we left Port Lawrence. Didn’t know what sort of wild hermit’s hollow we were coming to, you see. Hadn’t any idea I was going to find a nice little daughter-in-law here all ready to toss me up a meal. Cats, eh? Puss, puss! See that. Cats love me. Bernie was always fond of cats! It’s about the only thing he took from me. He’s his poor mother’s boy.”

Valancy had been thinking idly that Barney must resemble his mother. She had remained standing by the steps, but Dr. Redfern waved her to the swing seat.

“Sit down, dear. Never stand when you can sit. I want to get a good look at Barney’s wife. Well, well, I like your face. No beauty—you don’t mind my saying that—you’ve sense enough to know it, I reckon. Sit down.”

Valancy sat down. To be obliged to sit still when mental agony urges us to stride up and down is the refinement of torture. Every nerve in her being was crying out to be alone—to be hidden. But she had to sit and listen to Dr. Redfern, who didn’t mind talking at all.
“When do you think Bernie will be back?”

“I don’t know—not before night probably.”