“That proves she’s dippy,” growled Uncle Benjamin. “I noticed something strange about her the minute she came in today. I noticed it before today.” (Uncle Benjamin was thinking of “m-i-r-a-z-h.”) “Everything she said today showed an unbalanced mind. That question—’Was it a vital part?’ Was there any sense at all in that remark? None whatever! There never was anything like that in the Stirlings. It must be from the Wansbarras.”
Poor Mrs. Frederick was too crushed to be indignant. “I never heard of anything like that in the Wansbarras,” she sobbed,
“Your father was odd enough,” said Uncle Benjamin.
“Poor Pa was — peculiar,” admitted Mrs. Frederick tearfully, “but his mind was never affected.”
“He talked all his life exactly as Valancy did today,” retorted Uncle Benjamin. “And he believed he was his own great-great grandfather born over again. I’ve heard him say it. Don’t tell me that a man who believed a thing like that was ever in his right senses. Come, come, Amelia, stop sniffling. Of course Doss has made a terrible exhibition of herself today, but she’s not responsible. Old maids are apt to fly off at a tangent like that. If she had been married when she should have been she wouldn’t have got like this.”
“Nobody wanted to marry her,” said Mrs. Frederick, who felt that, somehow, Uncle Benjamin was blaming her.
“Well, fortunately there’s no outsider here,” snapped Uncle Benjamin. “We may keep it in the family yet. I’ll take her over to see Dr. Marsh tomorrow. I know how to deal with pig-headed people. Won’t that be best, James?”
“We must have medical advice certainly,” agreed Uncle James.
“Well, that’s settled. In the meantime, Amelia, act as if nothing had happened and keep an eye on her. Don’t let her be alone. Above all, don’t let her sleep alone.”
Renewed whimpers from Mrs. Frederick.
“I can’t help it. Night before last I suggested she’d better have Christine sleep with her. She positively refused — and locked her door. Oh, you don’t know how she’s changed. She won’t work. At least, she won’t sew. She does her usual housework, of course. But she wouldn’t sweep the parlour yesterday morning, though we always sweep it on Thursdays. She said she’d wait till it was dirty. ‘Would you rather sweep a dirty room than a clean one?’ I asked her. She said, ‘Of course. I’d see something for my labour then.’ Think of it!”
Uncle Benjamin thought of it.
“The jar of potpourri” — Cousin Stickles pronounced it as spelled—”has disappeared from her room. I found the pieces in the next lot. She won’t tell us what happened to it.”
“I should never have dreamed it of Doss,” said Uncle Herbert. “She has always seemed such a quiet, sensible girl. A bit backward — but sensible.”
“The only thing you can be sure of in this world is the multiplication table,” said Uncle James, feeling cleverer than ever.
“Well, let’s cheer up,” suggested Uncle Benjamin. “Why are chorus girls like fine stock raisers?”
“Why?” asked Cousin Stickles, since it had to be asked and Valancy wasn’t there to ask it.
“Like to exhibit calves,” chuckled Uncle Benjamin.
Cousin Stickles thought Uncle Benjamin a little indelicate. Before Olive, too. But then, he was a man.
Uncle Herbert was thinking that things were rather dull now that Doss had gone.
CHAPTER XII
Valancy hurried home through the faint blue twilight — hurried too fast perhaps. The attack she had when she thankfully reached the shelter of her own room was the worst yet. It was really very bad. She might die in one of those spells. It would be dreadful to die in such pain. Perhaps — perhaps this was death. Valancy felt pitifully alone. When she could think at all she wondered what it would be like to have someone with her who could sympathise — someone who really cared — just to hold her hand tight, if nothing else — some one just to say, “Yes, I know. It’s dreadful — be brave — you’ll soon be better;” not some one merely fussy and alarmed. Not her mother or Cousin Stickles. Why did the thought of Barney Snaith come into her mind? Why did she suddenly feel, in the midst of this hideous loneliness of pain, that he would be sympathetic — sorry for any one that was suffering? Why did he seem to her like an old, well-known friend? Was it because she had been defending him — standing up to her family for him?
She was so bad at first that she could not even get herself a dose of Dr. Trent’s prescription. But eventually she managed it, and soon after relief came. The pain left her and she lay on her bed, spent, exhausted, in a cold perspiration. Oh, that had been horrible! She could not endure many more attacks like that. One didn’t mind dying if death could be instant and painless. But to be hurt so in dying!
Suddenly she found herself laughing. That dinner had been fun. And it had all been so simple. She had merely said the things she had always thought. Their faces! Uncle Benjamin — poor, flabbergasted Uncle Benjamin! Valancy felt quite sure he would make a new will that very night. Olive would get Valancy’s share of his fat hoard. Olive had always got Valancy’s share of everything. Remember the dust-pile.
To laugh at her clan as she had always wanted to laugh was all the satisfaction she could get out of life now. But she thought it was rather pitiful that it should be so. Might she not pity herself a little when nobody else did?
Valancy got up and went to her window. The moist, beautiful wind blowing across groves of young-leafed wild trees touched her face with the caress of a wise, tender, old friend. The lombardies in Mrs. Tredgold’s lawn, off to the left — Valancy could just see them between the stable and the old carriage-shop — were in dark purple silhouette against a clear sky and there was a milk-white, pulsating star just over one of them, like a living pearl on a silver-green lake. Far beyond the station were the shadowy, purple-hooded woods around Lake Mistawis. A white, filmy mist hung over them and just above it was a faint, young crescent. Valancy looked at it over her thin left shoulder.
“I wish,” she said whimsically, “that I may have one little dust-pile before I die.”
CHAPTER XIII
Uncle Benjamin found he had reckoned without his host when he promised so airily to take Valancy to a doctor. Valancy would not go. Valancy laughed in his face.
“Why on earth should I go to Dr. Marsh? There’s nothing the matter with my mind. Though you all think I’ve suddenly gone crazy. Well, I haven’t. I’ve simply grown tired of living to please other people and have decided to please myself. It will give you something to talk about besides my stealing the raspberry jam. So that’s that.”
“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, solemnly and helplessly, “you are not — like yourself.”
“Who am I like, then?” asked Valancy.
Uncle Benjamin was rather posed.
“Your Grandfather Wansbarra,” he answered desperately.
“Thanks.” Valancy looked pleased. “That’s a real compliment. I remember Grandfather Wansbarra. He was one of the few human beings I have known — almost the only one. Now, it is of no use to scold or entreat or command, Uncle Benjamin — or exchange anguished glances with Mother and Cousin Stickles. I am not going to any doctor. And if you bring any doctor here I won’t see him. So what are you going to do about it?”
What indeed! It was not seemly — or even possible — to hale Valancy doctorwards by physical force. And in no other way could it be done, seemingly. Her mother’s tears and imploring entreaties availed not.
“Don’t worry, Mother,” said Valancy, lightly but quite respectfully. “It isn’t likely I’ll do anything very terrible. But I mean to have a little fun.”
“Fun!” Mrs. Frederick uttered the word as if Valancy had said she was going to have a little tuberculosis.
Olive, sent by her mother to see if she had any influence over Valancy, came away with flushed cheeks and angry eyes. She told her mother that nothing could be done with Valancy. After she, Olive, had talked to her just like a sister, tenderly and wisely, all
Valancy had said, narrowing her funny eyes to mere slips, was, “I don’t show my gums when I laugh.”
“More as if she were talking to herself than to me. Indeed, Mother, all the time I was talking to her she gave me the impression of not really listening. And that wasn’t all. When I finally decided that what I was saying had no influence over her I begged her, when Cecil came next week, not to say anything queer before him, at least. Mother, what do you think she said?”
“I’m sure I can’t imagine,” groaned Aunt Wellington, prepared for anything.
“She said, ‘I’d rather like to shock Cecil. His mouth is too red for a man’s.’ Mother, I can never feel the same to Valancy again.”
“Her mind is affected, Olive,” said Aunt Wellington solemnly. “You must not hold her responsibile for what she says.”
When Aunt Wellington told Mrs. Frederick what Valancy had said to Olive, Mrs. Frederick wanted Valancy to apoligise.
“You made me apologise to Olive fifteen years ago for something I didn’t do,” said Valancy. “That old apology will do for now.”
Another solemn family conclave was held. They were all there except Cousin Gladys, who had been suffering such tortures of neuritis in her head “ever since poor Doss went queer” that she couldn’t undertake any responsibility. They decided — that is, they accepted a fact that was thrust in their faces — that the wisest thing was to leave Valancy alone for a while—”give her her head” as Uncle Benjamin expressed it—”keep a careful eye on her but let her pretty much alone.” The term of “watchful waiting” had not been invented then, but that was practically the policy Valancy’s distracted relatives decided to follow.
“We must be guided by developments,” said Uncle Benjamin. “It is” — solemnly—”easier to scramble eggs that unscramble them. Of course — if she becomes violent—”
Uncle James consulted Dr. Ambrose Marsh. Dr. Ambrose Marsh approved their decision. He pointed out to irate Uncle James — who would have liked to lock Valancy up somewhere, out of hand — that Valancy had not, as yet, really done or said anything that could be constructed as proof of lunacy — and without proof you cannot lock people up in this degenerate age. Nothing that Uncle James had reported seemed very alarming to Dr. Marsh, who put up his hand to conceal a smile several times. But then he himself was not a Stirling. And he knew very little about the old Valancy. Uncle James stalked out and drove back to Deerwood, thinking that Ambrose Marsh wasn’t much of a doctor, after all, and that Adelaide Stirling might have done better for herself.
CHAPTER XIV
Life cannot stop because tragedy enters it. Meals must be made ready though a son dies and porches must be repaired even if your only daughter is going out of her mind. Mrs. Frederick, in her systematic way, had long ago appointed the second week in June for the repairing of the front porch, the roof of which was sagging dangerously. Roaring Abel had been engaged to do it many moons before and Roaring Abel promptly appeared on the morning of the first day of the second week, and fell to work. Of course he was drunk. Roaring Abel was never anything but drunk. But he was only in the first stage, which made him talkative and genial. The odour of whisky on his breath nearly drove Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles wild at dinner. Even Valancy, with all her emancipation, did not like it. But she liked Abel and she liked his vivid, eloquent talk, and after she washed the dinner dishes she went out and sat on the steps and talked to him.
Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought it a terrible proceeding, but what could they do? Valancy only smiled mockingly at them when they called her in, and did not go. It was so easy to defy once you got started. The first step was the only one that really counted. They were both afraid to say anything more to her lest she might make a scene before Roaring Abel, who would spread it all over the country with his own characteristic comments and exaggerations. It was too cold a day, in spite of the June sunshine, for Mrs. Frederick to sit at the dining-room window and listen to what was said. She had to shut the window and Valancy and Roaring Abel had their talk to themselves. But if Mrs. Frederick had known what the outcome of that talk was to be she would have prevented it, if the porch was never repaired.
Valancy sat on the steps, defiant of the chill breeze of this cold June which had made Aunt Isabel aver the seasons were changing. She did not care whether she caught a cold or not. It was delightful to sit there in that cold, beautiful, fragrant world and feel free. She filled her lungs with the clean, lovely wind and held out her arms to it and let it tear her hair to pieces while she listening to Roaring Abel, who told her his troubles between intervals of hammering gaily in time to his Scotch songs. Valancy liked to hear him. Every stroke of his hammer fell true to the note.
Old Abel Gay, in spite of his seventy years, was handsome still, in a stately, patriarchal manner. His tremendous beard, falling down over his blue flannel shirt, was still a flaming, untouched red, though his shock of hair was white as snow, and his eyes were a fiery, youthful blue. His enormous, reddish-white eyebrows were more like moustaches than eyebrows. Perhaps this was why he always kept his upper lip scrupulously shaved. His cheeks were red and his nose ought to have been, but wasn’t. It was a fine, upstanding, aquiline nose, such as the noblest Roman of them all might have rejoiced in. Abel was six feet two in his stockings, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped. In his youth he had been a famous lover, finding all women too charming to bind himself to one. His years had been a wild, colourful panorama of follies and adventures, gallantries, fortunes and misfortunes. He had been forty-five before he married — a pretty slip of a girl whom his goings-on killed in a few years. Abel was piously drunk at her funeral and insisted on repeating the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah — Abel knew most of the Bible and all the Psalms by heart — while the minister, whom he disliked, prayed or tried to pray. Thereafter his house was run by an untidy old cousin who cooked his meals and kept things going after a fashion. In this unpromising environment little Cecilia Gay had grown up.
Valancy had known “Cissy Gay” fairly well in the democracy of the public school, though Cissy had been three years younger than she. After they left school their paths diverged and she had seen nothing of her. Old Abel was a Presbyterian. That is, he got a Presbyterian preacher to marry him, baptise his child and bury his wife; and he knew more about Presbyterian theology than most ministers, which made him a terror to them in arguments. But Roaring Abel never went to church. Every Presbyterian minister who had been in Deerwood had tried his hand — once — at reforming Roaring Abel. But he had not been pestered of late. Rev. Mr. Bently had been in Deerwood for eight years, but he had not sought out Roaring Abel since the first three months of his pastorate. He had called on Roaring Abel then and found him in the theological stage of drunkenness — which always followed the sentimental maudlin one, and preceded the roaring, blasphemous one. The eloquently prayerful one, in which he realised himself temporarily and intensely as a sinner in the hands of an angry God, was the final one. Abel never went beyond it. He generally fell asleep on his knees and awakened sober, but he had never been “dead drunk” in his life. He told Mr. Bently that he was a sound Presbyterian and sure of his election. He had no sins — that he knew of — to repent of.
“Have you never done anything in your life that you are sorry for?” asked Mr. Bently.
Roaring Abel scratched his bushy white head and pretended to reflect.
“Well, yes,” he said finally. “There were some women I might have kissed and didn’t. I’ve always been sorry for that.”
Mr. Bently went out and went home.
Abel had seen that Cissy was properly baptised — jovially drunk at the same time himself. He made her go to church and Sunday School regularly. The church people took her up and she was in turn a member of the Mission Band, the Girls’ Guild and the Young Women’s Missionary Society. She was a faithful, unobtrusive, sincere, little worker. Everybody liked Cissy Gay and was sorry for her. She was so modest and sensitive and pretty in that delicate, elusive fashion
of beauty which fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness. But then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces like hungry cats when the catastrophe came. Four years previously Cissy Gay had gone up to a Muskoka hotel as a summer waitress. And when she had come back in the fall she was a changed creature. She hid herself away and went nowhere. The reason soon leaked out and scandal raged. That winter Cissy’s baby was born. Nobody ever knew who the father was. Cecily kept her poor pale lips tightly locked on her sorry secret. Nobody dared ask Roaring Abel any questions about it. Rumour and surmise laid the guilt at Barney Snaith’s door because diligent inquiry among the other maids at the hotel revealed the fact that nobody there had ever seen Cissy Gay “with a fellow.” She had “kept herself to herself” they said, rather resentfully. “Too good for our dances. And now look!”
The baby had lived for a year. After its death Cissy faded away. Two years ago Dr. Marsh had given her only six months to live — her lungs were hopelessly diseased. But she was still alive. Nobody went to see her. Women would not go to Roaring Abel’s house. Mr. Bently had gone once, when he knew Abel was away, but the dreadful old creature who was scrubbing the kitchen floor told him Cissy wouldn’t see any one. The old cousin had died and Roaring Abel had had two or three disreputable housekeepers — the only kind who could be prevailed on to go to a house where a girl was dying of consumption. But the last one had left and Roaring Abel had now no one to wait on Cissy and “do” for him. This was the burden of his plaint to Valancy and he condemned the “hypocrites” of Deerwood and its surrounding communities with some rich, meaty oaths that happened to reach Cousin Stickles’ ears as she passed through the hall and nearly finished the poor lady. Was Valancy listening to that?
Valancy hardly noticed the profanity. Her attention was focussed on the horrible thought of poor, unhappy, disgraced little Cissy Gay, ill and helpless in that forlorn old house out on the Mistawis road, without a soul to help or comfort her. And this in a nominally Christian community in the year of grace nineteen and some odd!
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 437