"Don't take it," she pleaded. "Please don't take it."
"But why?" demanded the older girl. "Why won't you help to build Olive's bigger?"
"I want my own little dust-pile," said Valancy piteously.
Her plea went unheeded. While she argued with one girl another scraped up her dust-pile. Valancy turned away, her heart swelling, her eyes full of tears.
"Jealous--you're jealous!" said the girls mockingly.
"You were very selfish," said her mother coldly, when Valancy told her about it at night. That was the first and last time Valancy had ever taken any of her troubles to her mother.
Valancy was neither jealous nor selfish. It was only that she wanted a dust-pile of her own--small or big mattered not. A team of horses came down the street--Olive's dust pile was scattered over the roadway--the bell rang--the girls trooped into school and had forgotten the whole affair before they reached their seats. Valancy never forgot it. To this day she resented it in her secret soul. But was it not symbolical of her life?
"I've never been able to have my own dust-pile," thought Valancy.
The enormous red moon she had seen rising right at the end of the street one autumn evening of her sixth year. She had been sick and cold with the awful, uncanny horror of it. So near to her. So big. She had run in trembling to her mother and her mother had laughed at her. She had gone to bed and hidden her face under the clothes in terror lest she might look at the window and see that horrible moon glaring in at her through it.
The boy who had tried to kiss her at a party when she was fifteen. She had not let him--she had evaded him and run. He was the only boy who had ever tried to kiss her. Now, fourteen years later, Valancy found herself wishing that she had let him.
The time she had been made to apologize to Olive for something she hadn't done. Olive had said that Valancy had pushed her into the mud and spoiled her new shoes on purpose. Valancy knew she hadn't. It had been an accident--and even that wasn't her fault--but nobody would believe her. She had to apologize--and kiss Olive to "make up." The injustice of it burned in her soul tonight.
That summer when Olive had the most beautiful hat, trimmed with creamy yellow net, with a wreath of red roses and little ribbon bows under the chin. Valancy had wanted a hat like that more than she had ever wanted anything. She pleaded for one and had been laughed at--all summer she had to wear a horrid little brown sailor with elastic that cut behind her ears. None of the girls would go around with her because she was so shabby--nobody but Olive. People had thought Olive so sweet and unselfish.
"I was an excellent foil for her," thought Valancy. "Even then she knew that."
Valancy had tried to win a prize for attendance in Sunday School once. But Olive won it. There were so many Sundays Valancy had to stay home because she had colds. She had once tried to "say a piece" in school one Friday afternoon and had broken down in it. Olive was a good reciter and never got stuck.
That night she had spent in Port Lawrence with Aunt Isabel when she was ten. Byron Stirling was there; from Montreal, twelve years old, conceited, clever. At family prayers in the morning Byron had reached across and given Valancy's thin arm such a savage pinch that she screamed out with pain. After prayers were over she was summoned to Aunt Isabel's bar of judgment. But when she said Byron had pinched her Byron denied it. He said she cried out because the kitten scratched her. He said she had put the kitten up on her chair and was playing with it when she should have been listening to Uncle David's prayer. He was believed. In the Stirling clan the boys were always believed before the girls. Valancy was sent home in disgrace because of her exceeding bad behavior during family prayers and she was not asked to Aunt Isabel's again for many moons.
The time Cousin Betty Stirling was married. Somehow Valancy got wind of the fact that Betty was going to ask her to be one of her bridesmaids. Valancy was secretly uplifted. It would be a delightful thing to be a bridesmaid. And of course she would have to have a new dress for it--a pretty new dress--a pink dress. Betty wanted her bridesmaids to dress in pink.
But Betty had never asked her, after all. Valancy couldn't guess why, but long after her secret tears of disappointment had been dried Olive told her. Betty, after much consultation and reflection, had decided that Valancy was too insignificant--she would "spoil the effect." That was nine years ago. But tonight Valancy caught her breath with the old pain and sting of it.
That day in her eleventh year when her mother had badgered her into confessing something she had never done. Valancy had denied it for a long time but eventually for peace sake she had given in and pleaded guilty. Mrs. Frederick was always making people lie by pushing them into situations where they had to lie. Then her mother had made her kneel down on parlor floor, between herself and Cousin Stickles, and say, "O God, please forgive me for not speaking the truth." Valancy had said it, but as she rose from her knees she muttered, "But O God, you know I did speak the truth." Valancy had not then heard of Galileo but her fate was similar to his. She was punished just as severely as if she hadn't confessed and prayed.
The winter she went to dancing-school. Uncle James had decreed she should go and had paid for her lessons. How she had looked forward to it! And how she had hated it! She had never had a voluntary partner. The teacher always had to tell some boy to dance with her, and generally he had been sulky about it. Yet Valancy was a good dancer, as light on her feet as thistledown. Olive, who never lacked eager partners, was heavy.
The affair of the button-string, when she was ten. All the girls in school had button-strings. Olive had a very long one with a great many beautiful buttons. Valancy had one. Most of the buttons on it were very commonplace, but she had six beauties that had come off Grandmother Stirling's wedding-gown--sparkling buttons of gold and glass, much more beautiful than any Olive had. Their possession conferred a certain distinction on Valancy. She knew every little girl in school envied her the exclusive possession of those beautiful buttons. When Olive saw them on the button-string she had looked at them narrowly but said nothing--then. The next day Aunt Wellington had come to Elm Street and told Mrs. Frederick that she thought Olive should have some of those buttons--Grandmother Stirling was just as much Wellington's mother as Frederick's. Mrs. Frederick had agreed amiably. She could not afford to fall out with Aunt Wellington. Moreover, the matter was of no importance whatever. Aunt Wellington carried off four of the buttons, generously leaving two for Valancy. Valancy had torn these from her string and flung them on the floor--she had not yet learned that it was unladylike to have feelings--and had been sent supperless to bed for the exhibition.
The night of Margaret Blunt's party. She had made such pathetic efforts to be pretty that night. Rob Walker was to be there; and two nights before, on the moonlit veranda of Uncle Herbert's cottage at Mistawis, Rob had really seemed attracted to her. At Margaret's party Rob never even asked her to dance--did not notice her at all. She was a wallflower, as usual. That, of course, was years ago. People in Deerwood had long since given up inviting Valancy to dances. But to Valancy its humiliation and disappointment were of the other day. Her face burned in the darkness as she recalled herself sitting there with her pitifully crimped, thin hair and the cheeks she had pinched for an hour before coming, in an effort to make them red. All that came of it was a wild story that Valancy Stirling was rouged at Margaret Blum's party. In those days in Deerwood that was enough to wreck your character forever. It did not wreck Valancy's, or even damage it. People knew she couldn't be fast if she tried. They only laughed at her.
"I've had nothing but a second-hand existence," decided Valancy. "All the great emotions of life have passed me by. I've never even had a grief. And have I ever really loved anybody? Do I really love Mother? No, I don't. That's the truth, whether it is disgraceful or not. I don't love her--I've never loved her. What's worse, I don't even like her. So I don't know anything about any kind of love. My life has been empty--empty. Nothing is worse than emptiness. Nothing!" Valancy ejaculated the last "nothing" a
loud passionately. Then she moaned and stopped thinking about anything for a while. One of her attacks of pain had come on.
When it was over, something had happened to Valancy--perhaps the culmination of the process that had been going on in her mind ever since she had read Dr. Trent's letter. It was three o'clock in the morning--the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes it sets us free.
"I've been trying to please other people all my life and failed," she said. "After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything again. I've breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretenses and evasions all my life. What a luxury it will be to tell the truth! I may not be able to do much that I want to do but I won't do another thing that I don't want to do. Mother can pout for weeks--I shan't worry over it. 'Despair is a free man--hope is a slave.'"
Valancy got up and dressed, with a deepening of that curious sense of freedom. When she had finished with her hair she opened the window and hurled the jar of potpourri over into the next lot. It smashed gloriously against the schoolgirl complexion on the old carriage-shop.
"I'm sick of fragrance of dead things," said Valancy.
CHAPTER 9
Uncle Herbert and Aunt Alberta's silver wedding was delicately referred to among the Stirlings during the following weeks as "the time we first noticed poor Valancy was--a little--you understand?"
Not for words would any of the Stirlings have said out and out at first that Valancy had gone mildly insane or even that her mind was slightly deranged. Uncle Benjamin was considered to have gone entirely too far when he had ejaculated, "She's dippy--I tell you, she's dippy," and was only excused because of the outrageousness of Valancy's conduct at the aforesaid wedding dinner.
But Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles had noticed a few things that made them uneasy before the dinner. It had begun with the rosebush of course; and Valancy never was really "quite right" again. She did not seem to worry in the least over the fact that her mother was not speaking to her. You would never suppose she noticed it at all. She had flatly refused to take either Purple Pills or Redfern's Bitters. She had announced coolly that she did not intend to answer to the name of "Doss" any longer. She had told Cousin Stickles that she wished she would give up wearing that brooch with Cousin Artemas Stickles' hair in it. She had moved her bed in her room to the opposite corner. She had read Magic of Wings Sunday afternoon. When Cousin Stickles had rebuked her Valancy had said indifferently, "Oh, I forgot it was Sunday"--and had gone on reading it.
Cousin Stickles had seen a terrible thing--she had caught Valancy sliding down the banister. Cousin Stickles did not tell Mrs. Frederick this--poor Amelia was worried enough as it was. But it was Valancy's announcement on Saturday night that she was not going to go to the Anglican church any more that broke through Mrs. Frederick's stony silence.
"Not going to church anymore! Doss, have you absolutely taken leave."
"Oh, I'm going to church," said Valancy airily. "I'm going to the Presbyterian church. But to the Anglican church I will not go."
This was even worse. Mrs. Frederick had recourse to tears, having found outraged majesty had ceased to be effective.
"What have you got against the Anglican church?" she sobbed.
"Nothing--only just that you've always made me go there. If you'd made me go to the Presbyterian church I'd want to go to the Anglican."
"Is that a nice thing to say to your mother? Oh, how true it is that it is sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child."
"Is that a nice thing to say to your daughter?" said unrepentant Valancy.
So Valancy's behavior at the silver wedding was not quite the surprise to Mrs. Frederick and Christine Stickles that it was to the rest. They were doubtful about the wisdom of taking her, but concluded it would "make talk" if they didn't. Perhaps she would behave herself, and so far no outsider suspected there was anything queer about her. By a special mercy of Providence it had poured torrents Sunday morning, so Valancy had not carried out her hideous threat of going to the Presbyterian church.
Valancy would not have cared in the least if they had left her at home. These family celebrations were all hopelessly dull. But the Stirlings always celebrated everything. It was a long-established custom. Even Mrs. Frederick gave a dinner party on her wedding anniversary and Cousin Stickles had friends in to supper on her birthday. Valancy hated these entertainments because they had to pinch and save and contrive for weeks afterwards to pay for them. But she wanted to go to the silver wedding. It would hurt Uncle Herbert's feelings if she stayed away, and she rather liked Uncle Herbert. Besides, she wanted to look over all her relatives from her new angle. It would be an excellent place to make public her declaration of independence if occasion offered.
"Put on your brown silk dress," said Mrs. Stirling.
As if there were anything else to put on! Valancy had only the one festive dress--that snuffy-brown silk Aunt Isabel had given her. Aunt Isabel had decreed that Valancy should never wear colors. They did not become her. When she was young they allowed her to wear white, but that had been tacitly dropped for some years. Valancy put on the brown silk. It had a high collar and long sleeves. She had never had a dress with low neck and elbow sleeves, although they had been worn, even in Deerwood, for over a year. But she did not do her hair pompadour. She knotted it on her neck and pulled it out over her ears. She thought it became her--only the little knot was so absurdly small. Mrs. Frederick resented the hair but decided it was wisest to say nothing on the eve of the party. It was so important that Valancy should be kept in good humor, if possible, until it was over. Mrs. Frederick did not reflect that this was the first time in her life that she had thought it necessary to consider Valancy's humors. But then Valancy had never been "queer" before.
On their way to Uncle Herbert's--Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles walking in front, Valancy trotting meekly along behind--Roaring Abel drove past them. Drunk as usual but not in the roaring stage. Just drunk enough to be excessively polite. He raised his disreputable old tartan cap with the air of a monarch saluting his subjects and swept them a grand bow. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles dared not cut Roaring Abel altogether. He was the only person in Deerwood who could be got to do odd jobs of carpentering and repairing when they needed to be done, so it would not do to offend him. But they responded with only the stiffest, slightest of bows. Roaring Abel must be kept in his place.
Valancy, behind them, did a thing they were fortunately spared seeing. She smiled gaily and waved her hand to Roaring Abel. Why not? She had always liked the old sinner. He was such a jolly, picturesque, unashamed reprobate and stood out against the drab respectability of Deerwood and its customs like a flame-red flag of revolt and protest. Only a few nights ago Abel had gone through Deerwood in the wee sma's, shouting oaths at the top of his stentorian voice which could be heard for miles, and lashing his horse into a furious gallop as he tore along prim, proper Elm Street.
"Yelling and blaspheming like a fiend," shuddered Cousin Stickles at the breakfast-table.
"I cannot understand why the judgment of the Lord has not fallen upon that man long ere this," said Mrs. Frederick petulantly, as if she thought Providence was very dilatory and ought to have a gentle reminder.
"He'll be picked up dead some morning--he'll fall under his horse's hooves and be trampled to death," said Cousin Stickles reassuringly.
Valancy had said nothing, of course; but she wondered to herself if Roaring Abel's periodic sprees were not his futile protest against the poverty and drudgery and monotony of his existence. She went on dream sprees in her Blue Castle. Roaring Abel, having no imagination, could not do that. His escapes from reality had to be concrete. So she waved at him today with a sudden fellow feeling, and Roaring Abel, not too drunk to be astonished, nearly fell off his seat in his amazement.
By this time they had reached Maple Avenue and Uncle Herbert's house, a large, pretentious structure peppered with meaningless bay windows and excrescent porches. A house that alw
ays looked like a stupid, prosperous, self-satisfied man with warts on his face.
"A house like that," said Valancy solemnly, "is a blasphemy."
Mrs. Frederick was shaken to her soul. What had Valancy said? Was it profane? Or only just queer? Mrs. Frederick took off her hat in Aunt Alberta's spare room with trembling hands. She made one more feeble attempt to avert disaster. She held Valancy back on the landing as Cousin Stickles went downstairs.
"Won't you try to remember you're a lady?" she pleaded.
"Oh, if there were only any hope of being able to forget it!" said Valancy wearily.
Mrs. Frederick felt that she had not deserved this from Providence.
CHAPTER 10
"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 parlor 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 dullness and vacuity.