"What happened?" Valancy had taken off her hat and was absently thrusting a pin in and out of it. Good Luck was purring beside her. Banjo was regarding Dr. Redfern with suspicion. Nip and Tuck were lazily cawing in the pines. Mistawis was beckoning. Everything was the same. Nothing was the same. It was a hundred years since yesterday. Yesterday, at this time, she and Barney had been eating a belated dinner here with laughter. Laughter? Valancy felt that she had done with laughter forever. And with tears, for that matter. She had no further use for either of them.
"Blest if I know, my dear. Some fool quarrel, I suppose. Bernie just lit out--disappeared. He wrote me from the Yukon. Said his engagement was broken and he wasn't coming back. And not to try to hunt him up because he was never coming back. I didn't. What was the use? I knew Bernie. I went on piling up money because there wasn't anything else to do. But I was mighty lonely. All I lived for was them little notes now and then from Bernie--Klondike--England--South Africa--China--everywhere. I thought maybe he'd come back some day to his lonesome old dad. Then six years ago even the letters stopped. I didn't hear a word of or from him till last Christmas."
"Did he write?"
"No. But he drew a check for fifteen thousand dollars on his bank account. The bank manager is a friend of mine--one of my biggest shareholders. He'd always promised me he'd let me know if Bernie drew any checks. Bernie had fifty thousand there. And he'd never touched a cent of it till last Christmas. The check was made out to Aynsley's, Toronto--"
"Aynsley's?" Valancy heard herself saying Aynsley's! She had a box on her dressing-table with the Aynsley trademark.
"Yes. The big jewelry house there. After I'd thought it over a while, I got brisk. I wanted to locate Bernie. Had a special reason for it. It was time he gave up his fool hoboing and come to his senses. Drawing that fifteen told me there was something in the wind. The manager communicated with the Aynsleys--his wife was an Aynsley--and found out that Bernard Redfern had bought a pearl necklace there. His address was given as Box 444, Port Lawrence, Muskoka, Ont. First I thought I'd write. Then I thought I'd wait till the open season for cars and come down myself. Ain't no hand at writing. I've motored from Montreal. Got to Port Lawrence yesterday. Inquired at the post-office. Told me they knew nothing of any Bernard Snaith Redfern, but there was a Barney Snaith had a P.O. Box there. Lived on an island out here, they said. So here I am. And where's Barney?"
Valancy was fingering her necklace. She was wearing fifteen thousand dollars around her neck. And she had worried lest Barney had paid fifteen dollars for it and couldn't afford it. Suddenly she laughed in Dr. Redfern's face.
"Excuse me. It's so--amusing," said poor Valancy.
"Isn't it?" said Dr. Redfern, seeing a joke--but not exactly hers. "Now, you seem like a sensible young woman, and I dare say you've lots of influence over Bernie. Can't you get him to come back to civilization and live like other people? I've a house up there. Big as a castle. Furnished like a palace. I want company in it--Bernie's wife--Bernie's children."
"Did Ethel Traverse ever marry?" queried Valancy irrelevantly.
"Bless you, yes. Two years after Bernie levanted. But she's a widow now. Pretty as ever. To be frank, that was my special reason for wanting to find Bernie. I thought they'd make it up, maybe. But of course, that's all off now. Doesn't matter. Bernie's choice of a wife is good enough for me. It's my boy I want. Think he'll soon be back?"
"I don't know. But I don't think he'll come before night. Quite late, perhaps. And perhaps not till tomorrow. But I can put you up comfortably. He'll certainly be back tomorrow."
Dr. Redfern shook his head.
"Too damp. I'll take no chances with rheumatism."
"Why suffer that ceaseless anguish? Why not try Redfern's Liniment?" quoted the imp in the back of Valancy's mind.
"I must get back to Port Lawrence before rain starts. Henry goes quite mad when he gets mud on the car. But I'll come back tomorrow. Meanwhile you talk Bernie into reason."
He shook her hand and patted her kindly on the shoulder. He looked as if he would have kissed her, with a little encouragement, but Valancy did not give it. Not that she would have minded. He was rather dreadful and loud--and--and--dreadful. But there was something about him she liked. She thought dully that she might have liked being his daughter-in-law if he had not been a millionaire. A score of times over. And Barney was his son--and heir.
She took him over in the motor boat and watched the lordly purple car roll away through the woods with Henry at the wheel looking things not lawful to be uttered. Then she went back to the Blue Castle. What she had to do must be done quickly. Barney might return at any moment. And it was certainly going to rain. She was thankful she no longer felt very bad. When you are bludgeoned on the head repeatedly, you naturally and mercifully become more or less insensible and stupid.
She stood briefly like a faded flower bitten by frost, by the hearth, looking down on the white ashes of the last fire that had blazed in the Blue Castle.
"At any rate," she thought wearily, "Barney isn't poor. He will be able to afford a divorce. Quite nicely."
CHAPTER 39
She must write a note. The imp in the back of her mind laughed. In every story she had ever read when a runaway life decamped from home she left a note, generally on the pin-cushion. It was not a very original idea. But one had to leave something intelligible. What was there to do but write a note? She looked vaguely about her for something to write with. Ink? There was none. Valancy had never written anything since she had come to the Blue Castle, save memoranda of household necessaries for Barney. A pencil sufficed for them, but now the pencil was not to be found. Valancy absently crossed to the door of Bluebeard's Chamber and tried it. She vaguely expected to find it locked, but it opened unresistingly. She had never tried it before, and did not know whether Barney habitually kept it locked or not. If he did, he must have been badly upset to leave it unlocked. She did not realize that she was doing something he had told her not to do. She was only looking for something to write with. All her faculties were concentrated on deciding just what she would say and how she would say it. There was not the slightest curiosity in her as she went into the lean-to.
There were no beautiful women hanging by their hair on the walls. It seemed a very harmless apartment, with a commonplace little sheet-iron stove in the middle of it, its pipe sticking out through the roof. At one end was a table or counter crowded with odd-looking utensils. Used no doubt by Barney in his smelly operations. Chemical experiments, probably, she reflected dully. At the other end was a big writing desk and swivel-chair. The side walls were lined with books.
Valancy went blindly to the desk. There she stood motionless for a few minutes, looking down at something that lay on it. A bundle of galley proofs. The page on top bore the title Wild Honey, and under the title were the words "by John Foster."
The opening sentence--"Pines are the trees of myth and legend. They strike their roots deep into the traditions of an older world, but wind and star love their lofty tops. What music when old AEolus draws his bow across the branches of the pines--" She had heard Barney say that one day when they walked under them.
So Barney was John Foster!
Valancy was not excited. She had absorbed all the shocks and sensations that she could compass for one day. This affected her neither one way nor the other. She only thought:
"So this explains it."
"It" was a small matter that had, somehow, stuck in her mind more persistently than its importance seemed to justify. Soon after Barney had brought her John Foster's latest book she had been in a Port Lawrence bookshop and heard a customer ask the proprietor for John Foster's new book. The proprietor had said curtly, "Not out yet. Won't be out till next week."
Valancy had opened her lips to say, "Oh, yes, it is out," but closed them again. After all, it was none of her business. She supposed the proprietor wanted to cover up his negligence in not getting the book in promptly. Now she knew. The book Barney had given
her had been one of the author's complimentary copies, sent in advance.
Well! Valancy pushed the proofs indifferently aside and sat down in the swivel-chair. She took up Barney's pen--and a vile one it was--pulled a sheet of paper to her and began to write. She could not think of anything to say except bald facts.
Dear Barney:
I went to Dr. Trent this morning and found out he had sent me the wrong letter by mistake. There never was anything serious the matter with my heart and I am quite well now.
I did not mean to trick you. Please believe that. I could not bear it if you did not believe that. I am very sorry for the mistake. But surely you can get a divorce if I leave you. Is desertion a ground for divorce in Canada? Of course if there is anything I can do to help or hasten it I will do it gladly, if your lawyer will let me know.
I thank you for all your kindness to me. I shall never forget it. Think as kindly of me as you can, because I did not mean to trap you. Good-bye.
Yours gratefully,
Valancy
It was very cold and stiff, she knew. But to try to say anything else would be dangerous--like tearing away a dam. She didn't know what torrent of wild incoherences and passionate anguish might pour out. In a postscript she added:
Your father was here today. He is coming back tomorrow. He told me everything. I think you should go back to him. He is very lonely for you.
She put the letter in an envelope, wrote "Barney" across it, and left it on the desk. On it she laid the string of pearls. If they had been the beads she believed them she would have kept them in memory of that wonderful year. But she could not keep the fifteen-thousand-dollar gift of a man who had married her out of pity and whom she was now leaving. It hurt her to give up her pretty bauble. That was an odd thing, she reflected. The fact that she was leaving Barney did not hurt her--yet. It lay at her heart like a cold, insensible thing. If it came to life--Valancy shuddered and went out--She put on her hat and mechanically fed Good Luck and Banjo. She locked the door and carefully hid the key in the old pine. Then she crossed to the mainland in the disappearing propeller. She stood for a moment on the bank, looking at her Blue Castle. The rain had not yet come, but the sky was dark, and Mistawis gray and sullen. The little house under the pines looked very pathetic--a casket rifled of its jewels--a lamp with its flame blown out.
"I shall never again hear the wind crying over Mistawis at night," thought Valancy. This hurt her, too. She could have laughed to think that such a trifle could hurt her at such a time.
CHAPTER 40
Valancy paused a moment on the porch of the brick house in Elm Street. She felt that she ought to knock like a stranger. Her rosebush, she idly noticed, was loaded with buds. The rubber-plant stood beside the prim door. A momentary horror overcame her--a horror of the existence to which she was returning. Then she opened the door and walked in.
"I wonder if the Prodigal Son ever felt really at home again," she thought.
Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles were in the sitting-room. Uncle Benjamin was there, too. They looked blankly at Valancy, realizing at once that something was wrong. This was not the saucy, impudent thing who had laughed at them in this very room last summer. This was a gray-faced woman with the eyes of a creature who had been stricken by a mortal blow.
Valancy looked indifferently around the room. She had changed so much--and it had changed so little. The same pictures hung on the walls. The little orphan who knelt at her never-finished prayer by the bed whereon reposed the black kitten that never grew up into cat. The gray "steel engraving" of Quatre Bras, where the British regiment forever stood at bay. The crayon enlargement of the boyish father she had never known. There they all hung in the same places. The green cascade of "Wandering Jew" still tumbled out of the old granite saucepan on the window-stand. The same elaborate, never-used pitcher stood at the same angle on the sideboard shelf. The blue and gilt vases that had been among her mother's wedding-presents still primly adorned the mantelpiece, flanking the china clock of berosed and besprayed ware that never went. The chairs in exactly the same places. Her mother and Cousin Stickles, likewise unchanged, regarding her with stony unwelcome.
Valancy had to speak first.
"I've come home, Mother," she said tiredly.
"So I see." Mrs. Frederick's voice was very icy. She had resigned herself to Valancy's desertion. She had almost succeeded in forgetting there was a Valancy. She had rearranged and organized her systematic life without any reference to an ungrateful, rebellious child. She had taken her place again in a society which ignored the fact that she had ever had a daughter and pitied her, if it pitied her at all, only in discreet whispers and asides. The plain truth was that, by this time, Mrs. Frederick did not want Valancy to come back--did not want ever to see or hear of her again.
And now, of course, Valancy was here. With tragedy and disgrace and scandal trailing after her visibly.
"So I see," said Mrs. Frederick. "May I ask why?"
"Because--I'm--not--going to die," said Valancy huskily.
"God bless my soul!" said Uncle Benjamin. "Who said you were going to die?"
"I suppose," said Cousin Stickles shrewishly--Cousin Stickles did not want Valancy back either--"I suppose you've found out he has another wife--as we've been sure all along."
"No. I only wish he had," said Valancy. She was not suffering particularly, but she was very tired. If only the explanations were all over and she were upstairs in her old ugly room--alone. Just alone! The rattle of the beads on her mother's sleeves, as they swung on the arms of the reed chair, almost drove her crazy. Nothing else was worrying her; but all at once it seemed that she simply could not endure that thin, insistent rattle.
"My home, as I told you, is always open to you," said Mrs. Frederick stonily, "but I can never forgive you."
Valancy gave a mirthless laugh.
"I'd care very little for that if I could only forgive myself," she said.
"Come, come," said Uncle Benjamin testily. But rather enjoying himself. He felt he had Valancy under his thumb again. "We've had enough of mystery. What has happened? Why have you left that fellow? No doubt there's reason enough--but what particular reason is it?"
Valancy began to speak mechanically. She told her tale bluntly and barely.
"A year ago Dr. Trent told me I had angina pectoris and could not live long. I wanted to have some--life--before I died. That's why I went away. Why I married Barney. And now I've found it is all a mistake. There is nothing wrong with my heart. I've got to live--and Barney only married me out of pity. So I have to leave him--free."
"God bless me!" said Uncle Benjamin. Cousin Stickles began to cry.
"Valancy, if you'd only had confidence in your own mother--"
"Yes, yes, I know," said Valancy impatiently. "What's the use of going into that now? I can't undo this year. God knows I wish I could. I've tricked Barney into marrying me--and he's really Bernard Redfern. Dr. Redfern's son, of Montreal. And his father wants him to go back to him."
Uncle Benjamin made a queer sound. Cousin Stickles took her black-bordered handkerchief away from her eyes and stared at Valancy. A queer gleam suddenly shot into Mrs. Frederick's stone-gray orbs.
"Dr. Redfern--not the Purple Pill man?" she said.
Valancy nodded. "He's John Foster, too--the writer of those nature books."
"But--but--" Mrs. Frederick was visibly agitated, though not over the thought that she was the mother-in-law of John Foster--"Dr. Redfern is a millionaire!"
Uncle Benjamin shut his mouth with a snap.
"Ten times over," he said.
Valancy nodded.
"Yes. Barney left home years ago--because of--of--some trouble--some--disappointment. Now he will likely go back. So you see--I had to come home. He doesn't love me. I can't hold him to a bond he was tricked into."
Uncle Benjamin looked incredibly sly.
"Did he say so? Does he want to get rid of you?"
"No. I haven't seen him since I found
out. But I tell you--he only married me out of pity--because I asked him to--because he thought it would only be for a little while."
Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles both tried to speak, but Uncle Benjamin waved a hand at them and frowned portentously.
"Let me handle this," wave and wave and frown seemed to say. To Valancy:
"Well, well, dear, we'll talk it over later. You see, we don't quite understand everything yet. As Cousin Stickles says, you should have confided in us before. Later on--I dare say we can find a way out of this."
"You think Barney can easily get a divorce, don't you?" said Valancy eagerly.
Uncle Benjamin silenced with another wave the exclamation of horror he knew was trembling on Mrs. Frederick's lips.
"Trust to me, Valancy. Everything will arrange itself. Tell me this, Dossie. Have you been happy up back? Was Sn--Mr. Redfern good to you?"
"I have been very happy and Barney was very good to me," said Valancy, as if reciting a lesson. She remembered when she studied grammar at school she had disliked the past and perfect tenses. They had always seemed so pathetic. "I have been"--it was all over and done with.
"Then don't worry, little girl." How amazingly paternal Uncle Benjamin was! "Your family will stand behind you. We'll see what can be done."
"Thank you," said Valancy dully. Really, it was quite decent of Uncle Benjamin. "Can I go and lie down a little while? I'm--I'm--tired."
"Of course you're tired." Uncle Benjamin patted her hand gently--very gently. "All worn out and nervous. Go and lie down, by all means. You'll see things in quite a different light after you've had a good sleep."
He held the door open. As she went through he whispered, "What is the best way to keep a man's love?"
Valancy smiled wanly. But she had come back to the old life--the old shackles. "What?" she asked as meekly as of yore.