"Going home, Miss Stirling?"
"I don't know--yet," said Valancy slowly. Her mind was made up, with no shadow of turning, but the moment was very tremendous.
"I thought I'd run down and ask if there was anything I could do for you," said Barney.
Valancy took it with a canter."Yes, there is something you can do for me," she said, evenly and distinctly. "Will you marry me?"
For a moment Barney was silent. There was no particular expression on his face. Then he gave an odd laugh.
"Come, now! I knew luck was just waiting around the corner for me. All the signs have been pointing that way today."
"Wait." Valancy lifted her hand. "I'm in earnest--but I want to get my breath after that question. Of course, with my bringing up, I realize perfectly well that this is one of the things a lady should not do.'"
"But why--why?"
"For two reasons." Valancy was still a little breathless, but she looked Barney straight in the eyes while all the dead Stirlings revolved rapidly in their graves and the living ones did nothing because they did not know that Valancy was at that moment proposing lawful marriage to the notorious Barney Snaith. "The first reason is, I--I"--Valancy tried to say "I love you" but could not. She had to take refuge in a pretended flippancy. "I'm crazy about you. The second is--this."
She handed him Dr. Trent's letter.
Barney opened it with the air of a man thankful to find some safe, sane thing to do. As he read it his face changed. He understood--more perhaps than Valancy wanted him to.
"Are you sure nothing can be done for you?"
Valancy did not misunderstand the question.
"Yes. You know Dr. Trent's reputation in regard to heart disease. I haven't long to live--perhaps only a few months--a few weeks. I want to live them. I can't go back to Deerwood--you know what my life was like there. And"--she managed it this time--"I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That's all."
Barney folded his arms on the gate and looked gravely enough at a white, saucy star that was winking at him just over Roaring Abel's kitchen chimney.
"You don't know anything about me. I may be a--murderer."
"No, I don't. You may be something dreadful. Everything they say of you may be true. But it doesn't matter to me."
"You care that much for me, Valancy?" said Barney incredulously, looking away from the star and into her eyes--her strange, mysterious eyes.
"I care--that much," said Valancy in a low voice. She was trembling. He had called her by her name for the first time. It was sweeter than another man's caress could have been just to hear him say her name like that.
"If we are going to get married," said Barney, speaking suddenly in a casual, matter-of-fact voice, "some things must be understood."
"Everything must be understood," said Valancy.
"I have things I want to hide," said Barney coolly. "You are not to ask me about them."
"I won't," said Valancy.
"You must never ask to see my mail."
"Never."
"And we are never to pretend anything to each other."
"We won't," said Valancy. "You won't even have to pretend you like me. If you marry me I know you're only doing it out of pity."
"And we'll never tell a lie to each other about anything--a big lie or a petty lie."
"Especially a petty lie," agreed Valancy.
"And you'll have to live on my island. I won't live anywhere else."
"That's partly why I want to marry you," said Valancy.
Barney peered at her.
"I believe you mean it. Well--let's get married, then."
"Thank you," said Valancy, with a sudden return of primness. She would have been much less embarrassed if he had refused her.
"I suppose I haven't any right to make conditions. But I'm going to make one. You are never to refer to my heart or my liability to sudden death. You are never to urge me to be careful. You are to forget--absolutely forget--that I'm not perfectly healthy. I have written a letter to my mother--here it is--you are to keep it. I have explained everything in it. If I drop dead suddenly--as I likely will do--"
"It will exonerate me in the eyes of your kindred from the suspicion of having poisoned you," said Barney with a grin.
"Exactly." Valancy laughed gaily. "Dear me, I'm glad this is over. It has been--a bit of an ordeal. You see, I'm not in the habit of going about asking men to marry me. It is so nice of you not to refuse me--or offer to be a brother!"
"I'll go to the Port tomorrow and get a license. We can be married tomorrow evening. Dr. Stalling, I suppose?"
"Heavens, no." Valancy shuddered. "Besides, he wouldn't do it. He'd shake his forefinger at me and I'd jilt you at the altar. No, I want my old Mr. Towers to marry me."
"Will you marry me as I stand?" demanded Barney. A passing car, full of tourists, honked loudly--it seemed derisively. Valancy looked at him. Blue homespun shirt, nondescript hat, muddy overalls. Unshaved!
"Yes," she said.
Barney put his hands over the gate and took her little cold ones gently in his.
"Valancy," he said, trying to speak lightly, "of course I'm not in love with you--never thought of such a thing as being in love. But, do you know, I've always thought you were a bit of a dear."
CHAPTER 26
The next day passed for Valancy like a dream. She could not make herself or anything she did seem real. She saw nothing of Barney, though she expected he must go rattling past on his way to the Port for a license.
Perhaps he had changed his mind.
But at dusk the lights of Lady Jane suddenly swooped over the crest of the wooded hill beyond the lane. Valancy was waiting at the gate for her bridegroom. She wore her green dress and her green hat because she had nothing else to wear. She did not look or feel at all bride-like--she really looked like a wild elf strayed out of the greenwood. But that did not matter. Nothing at all mattered except Barney was coming for her.
"Ready?" said Barney, stopping Lady Jane with some new, horrible noises.
"Yes." Valancy stepped in and sat down. Barney was in his blue shirt and overalls. But they were clean overalls. He was smoking a villainous-looking pipe and he was bareheaded. But he had a pair of oddly smart boots on under his shabby overalls. And he was shaved. They clattered into Deerwood and through Deerwood and hit the long, wooded road to the Port.
"Haven't changed your mind?" said Barney.
"No. Have you?"
"No."
That was their whole conversation on the fifteen miles.
Everything was more dream-like than ever. Valancy didn't know whether she felt happy. Or terrified. Or just plain fool.
Then the lights of Port Lawrence were about them. Valancy felt as if she were surrounded by the gleaming, hungry eyes of hundreds of great, stealthy panthers. Barney briefly asked where Mr. Towers lived, and Valancy as briefly told him. They stopped before the shabby little house in an unfashionable street. They went in to the small, shabby parlor. Barney produced his license. So he had got it. Also a ring. This ring was real. She, Valancy Stirling, was actually on the point of being married.
They were standing up together before Mr. Towers. Valancy heard Mr. Towers and Barney saying things. She heard some other person saying things. She herself was thinking of the way she had once planned to be married--away back in her early teens when such a thing had not seemed impossible. White silk and tulle veil and orange-blossoms; no bridesmaid. But one flower girl, in a frock of cream shadow lace over pale pink, with a wreath of flowers in her hair, carrying a basket of roses and lilies-of-the-valley. And the groom, a noble-looking creature, irreproachably clad in whatever the fashion of the day decreed. Valancy lifted her eyes and saw herself and Barney in the little slanting, distorting mirror over the mantelpiece. She in her odd, unbridal green hat and dress. Barney in shirt and overalls. But it was Barney. That was all that mattered. No veil--no flowers--no guests--no presents--no wedding cake--but just Barney. For all the rest of her
life there would be Barney.
"Mrs. Snaith, I hope you will be very happy," Mr. Towers was saying.
He had not seemed surprised at their appearance--not even at Barney's overalls. He had seen plenty of queer weddings "up back." He did not know Valancy was one of the Deerwood Stirlings--he did not even know there were Deerwood Stirlings. He did not know Barney Snaith was a fugitive from justice. Really, he was an incredibly ignorant old man. Therefore he married them and gave them his blessing very gently and solemnly and prayed for them that night after they had gone away. His conscience did not trouble him at all.
"What a nice way to get married!" Barney was saying as he put Lady Jane in gear. "No fuss and flub-dub. I never supposed it was half so easy."
"For heaven's sake," said Valancy suddenly, "let's forget we are married and talk as if we weren't. I can't stand another drive like the one we had coming in."
Barney howled and threw Lady Jane into high with an infernal noise.
"And I thought I was making it easy for you," he said. "You didn't seem to want to talk."
"I didn't. But I wanted you to talk. I don't want you to make love to me, but I want you to act like an ordinary human being. Tell me about this island of yours. What sort of a place is it?"
"The jolliest place in the world. You're going to love it. The first time I saw it I loved it. Old Tom MacMurray owned it then. He built the little shack on it, lived there in winter and rented it to Toronto people in summer. I bought it from him--became by that one simple transaction a landed proprietor owning a house and an island. There is something so satisfying in owning a whole island. And isn't an uninhabited island a charming idea? I'd wanted to own one ever since I'd read Robinson Crusoe. It seemed too good to be true. And beauty! Most of the scenery belongs to the government, but they don't tax you for looking at it, and the moon belongs to everybody. You won't find my shack very tidy. I suppose you'll want to make it tidy."
"Yes," said Valancy honestly. "I have to be tidy. I don't really want to be. But untidiness hurts me. Yes, I'll have to tidy up your shack."
"I was prepared for that," said Barney, with a hollow groan.
"But," continued Valancy relentingly, "I won't insist on your wiping your feet when you come in."
"No, you'll only sweep up after me with the air of a martyr," said Barney. "Well, anyway, you can't tidy the lean-to. You can't even enter it. The door will be locked and I shall keep the key."
"Bluebeard's chamber," said Valancy. "I shan't even think of it. I don't care how many wives you have hanging up in it. So long as they're really dead."
"Dead as door-nails. You can do as you like in the rest of the house. There's not much of it--just one big living-room and one small bedroom. Well built, though. Old Tom loved his job. The beams of our house are cedar and the rafters fir. Our living-room windows face west and east. It's wonderful to have a room where you can see both sunrise and sunset. I have two cats there. Banjo and Good Luck. Adorable animals. Banjo is a big, enchanting, gray devil-cat. Striped, of course. I don't care a hang for any cat that hasn't stripes. I never knew a cat who could swear as genteelly and effectively as Banjo. His only fault is that he snores horribly when he is asleep. Luck is a dainty little cat. Always looking wistfully at you, as if he wanted to tell you something. Maybe he will pull it off sometime. Once in a thousand years, you know, one cat is allowed to speak. My cats are philosophers--neither of them ever cries over spilt milk.
"Two old crows live in a pine-tree on the point and are reasonably neighborly. Call 'em Nip and Tuck. And I have a demure little tame owl. Name, Leander. I brought him up from a baby and he lives over on the mainland and chuckles to himself o' nights. And bats--it's a great place for bats at night. Scared of bats?"
"No; I like them."
"So do I. Nice, queer, uncanny, mysterious creatures. Coming from nowhere--going nowhere. Swoop! Banjo likes 'em, too. Eats 'em. I have a canoe and a disappearing propeller boat. Went to the Port in it today to get my license. Quieter than Lady Jane."
"I thought you hadn't gone at all--that you had changed your mind," admitted Valancy.
Barney laughed--the laugh Valancy did not like--the little, bitter, cynical laugh.
"I never change my mind," he said shortly.
They went back through Deerwood. Up the Muskoka road. Past Roaring Abel's. Over the rocky, daisied lane. The dark pine woods swallowed them up. Through the pine woods, where the air was sweet with the incense of the unseen, fragile bells of the linnaeas that carpeted the banks of the trail. Out to the shore of Mistawis. Lady Jane must be left here. They got out. Barney led the way down a little path to the edge of the lake.
"There's our island," he said gloatingly.
Valancy looked--and looked--and looked again. There was a diaphanous lilac mist on the lake, shrouding the island. Through it the two enormous pine-trees that clasped hands over Barney's shack loomed out like dark turrets. Behind them was a sky still rose-hued in the afterlight, and a pale young moon.
Valancy shivered like a tree the wind stirs suddenly. Something seemed to sweep over her soul.
"My Blue Castle!" she said. "Oh, my Blue Castle!"
They got into the canoe and paddled out to it. They left behind the realm of everyday and things known and landed on a realm of mystery and enchantment where anything might happen--anything might be true. Barney lifted Valancy out of the canoe and swung her to a lichen-covered rock under a young pine-tree. His arms were about her and suddenly his lips were on hers. Valancy found herself shivering with the rapture of her first kiss.
"Welcome home, dear," Barney was saying.
CHAPTER 27
Cousin Georgiana came down the lane leading up to her little house. She lived half a mile out of Deerwood and she wanted to go in to Amelia's and find out if Doss had come home yet. Cousin Georgiana was anxious to see Doss. She had something very important to tell her. Something, she was sure, Doss would be delighted to hear. Poor Doss! She had had rather a dull life of it. Cousin Georgiana owned to herself that she would not like to live under Amelia's thumb. But that would be all changed now. Cousin Georgiana felt tremendously important. For the time being, she quite forgot to wonder which of them would go next.
And here was Doss herself, coming along the road from Roaring Abel's in such a queer green dress and hat. Talk about luck. Cousin Georgiana would have a chance to impart her wonderful secret right away, with nobody else about to interrupt. It was, you might say, Providence.
Valancy, who had been living for four days on her enchanted island, had decided that she might as well go in to Deerwood and tell her relatives that she was married. Otherwise, finding that she had disappeared from Roaring Abel's, they might get out a search warrant for her. Barney had offered to drive her in, but she had preferred to go alone. She smiled very radiantly at Cousin Georgiana, who, she remembered, as of someone known a long time ago, had really been not a bad little creature. Valancy was so happy that she could have smiled at anybody--even Uncle James. She was not averse to Cousin Georgiana's company. Already, since the houses along the road were becoming numerous, she was conscious that curious eyes were looking at her from every window.
"I suppose you're going home, dear Doss?" said Cousin Georgiana as she shook hands--furtively eyeing Valancy's dress and wondering if she had any petticoat on at all.
"Sooner or later," said Valancy cryptically.
"Then I'll go along with you. I've been wanting to see you very especially, Doss dear. I've something quite wonderful to tell you."
"Yes?" said Valancy absently. What on earth was Cousin Georgiana looking so mysterious and important about? But did it matter? No. Nothing mattered but Barney and the Blue Castle up back in Mistawis.
"Who do you suppose called to see me the other day?" asked Cousin Georgiana archly.
Valancy couldn't guess.
"Edward Beck." Cousin Georgiana lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "Edward Beck."
Why the italics? And was Cousin Georgiana blushi
ng?
"Who on earth is Edward Beck?" asked Valancy indifferently.
Cousin Georgiana stared.
"Surely you remember Edward Beck," she said reproachfully. "He lives in that lovely house on the Port Lawrence road and he comes to our church--regularly. You must remember him."
"Oh, I think I do now," said Valancy, with an effort of memory. "He's that old man with a wen on his forehead and dozens of children, who always sits in the pew by the door, isn't he?"
"Not dozens of children, dear--oh, no, not dozens. Not even one dozen. Only nine. At least only nine that count. The rest are dead. He isn't old--he's only about forty-eight--the prime of life, Doss--and what does it matter about a wen?"
"Nothing, of course," agreed Valancy quite sincerely. It certainly did not matter to her whether Edward Beck had a wen or a dozen wens or no wen at all. But Valancy was getting vaguely suspicious. There was certainly an air of suppressed triumph about Cousin Georgiana. Could it be possible that Cousin Georgiana was thinking of marrying again? Marrying Edward Beck? Absurd. Cousin Georgiana was sixty-five if she were a day and her little anxious face was as closely covered with fine wrinkles as if she had been a hundred. But still--"My dear," said Cousin Georgiana, "Edward Beck wants to marry you."
Valancy stared at Cousin Georgiana for a moment. Then she wanted to go off into a peal of laughter. But she only said:
"Me?"
"Yes, you. He fell in love with you at the funeral. And he came to consult me about it. I was such a friend of his first wife, you know. He is very much in earnest, Dossie. And it's a wonderful chance for you. He's very well off--and you know--you--you--"
"Am not so young as I once was," agreed Valancy. "'To her that hath shall be given.' Do you really think I would make a good stepmother, Cousin Georgiana?"
"I'm sure you would. You were always so fond of children."