"I've been watching a woodpecker all day," he said one evening on the shaky old back veranda. His account of the woodpecker's doings was satisfying. He had often some gay or cunning little anecdote of the wood folk to tell them. And sometimes he and Roaring Abel smoked fiercely the whole evening and never said a word, while Cissy lay in the hammock swung between the veranda posts and Valancy sat idly on the steps, her hands clasped over her knees, and wondered dreamily if she were really Valancy Stirling and if it were only three weeks since she had left the ugly old house on Elm Street.
The barrens lay before her in a white moon splendor, where dozens of little rabbits frisked. Barney, when he liked, could sit down on the edge of the barrens and lure those rabbits right to him by some mysterious sorcery he possessed. Valancy had once seen a squirrel leap from a scrub pine to his shoulder and sit there chattering to him. It reminded her of John Foster.
It was one of the delights of Valancy's new life that she could read John Foster's book as often and as long as she wanted to. She read them all to Cissy, who loved them. She also tried to read them to Abel and Barney, who did not love them. Abel was bored and Barney politely refused to listen at all.
"Piffle," said Barney.
CHAPTER 19
Of course, the Stirlings had not left the poor maniac alone all this time or refrained from heroic efforts to rescue her perishing soul and reputation. Uncle James, whose lawyer had helped him as little as his doctor, came one day and, finding Valancy alone in the kitchen, as he supposed, gave her a terrible talking to--told her she was breaking her mother's heart and disgracing her family.
"But why?" said Valancy, not ceasing to scour her porridge pot decently. "I'm doing honest work for honest pay. What is there in that that is disgraceful?"
"Don't quibble, Valancy," said Uncle James solemnly. "This is no fit place for you to be, and you know it. Why, I'm told that that jailbird, Snaith, is hanging around here every evening."
"Not every evening," said Valancy reflectively. "No, not quite every evening."
"It's--it's insufferable!" said Uncle James violently. "Valancy, you must come home. We won't judge you harshly. I assure you we won't. We will overlook all this."
"Thank you," said Valancy.
"Have you no sense of shame?" demanded Uncle James.
"Oh, yes. But the things I am ashamed of are not the things you are ashamed of." Valancy proceeded to rinse her dishcloth meticulously.
Still was Uncle James patient. He gripped the sides of his chair and ground his teeth.
"We know your mind isn't just right. We'll make allowances. But you must come home. You shall not stay here with that drunken, blasphemous old scoundrel--"
"Were you by any chance referring to me, Mister Stirling?" demanded Roaring Abel, suddenly appearing in the doorway of the back veranda where he had been smoking a peaceful pipe and listening to "old Jim Stirling's" tirade with huge enjoyment. His red beard fairly bristled with indignation and his huge eyebrows quivered. But cowardice was not among James Stirling's shortcomings.
"I was. And, furthermore, I want to tell you that you have acted an iniquitous part in luring this weak and unfortunate girl away from her home and friends, and I will have you punished yet for it--"
James Stirling got no further. Roaring Abel crossed the kitchen at a bound, caught him by his collar and his trousers, and hurled him through the doorway and over the garden paling with as little apparent effort as he might have employed in whisking a troublesome kitten out of the way.
"The next time you come back here," he bellowed, "I'll throw you through the window--and all the better if the window is shut! Coming here, thinking yourself God to put the world to rights!"
Valancy candidly and unashamedly owned to herself that she had seen few more satisfying sights than Uncle James's coat-tails flying out into the asparagus bed. She had once been afraid of this man's judgment. Now she saw clearly that he was nothing but a rather stupid little village tin-god.
Roaring Abel turned with his great broad laugh.
"He'll think of that for years when he wakes up in the night. The Almighty made a mistake in making so many Stirlings. But since they are made, we've got to reckon with them. Too many to kill out. But if they come here bothering you I'll shoo 'em off before a cat could lick its ear."
The next time they sent Dr. Stalling. Surely Roaring Abel would not throw him into asparagus beds. Dr. Stalling was not so sure of this and had no great liking for the task. He did not believe Valancy Stirling was out of her mind. She had always been queer. She was only just a little queerer than usual now. And Dr. Stalling had his own reasons for disliking Roaring Abel. When Dr. Stalling had first come to Deerwood he had had a liking for long hikes around Mistawis and Muskoka. On one of these occasions he had got lost and after much wandering had fallen in with Roaring Abel with his gun over his shoulder.
Dr. Stalling had contrived to ask his question in about the most idiotic manner possible. He said, "Can you tell me where I'm going?"
"How the devil should I know where you're going, gosling?" retorted Abel contemptuously.
Dr. Stalling was so enraged that he could not speak for a moment or two and in that moment Abel had disappeared in the woods. Dr. Stalling had eventually found his way home, but he had never hankered to encounter Abel Gay again.
Nevertheless he came now to do his duty. Valancy greeted him with a sinking heart. She had to own to herself that she was terribly afraid of Dr. Stalling still. She had a miserable conviction that if he shook his long, bony finger at her and told her to go home, she dared not disobey.
"Mr. Gay," said Dr. Stalling politely and condescendingly, "may I see Miss Stirling alone for a few minutes?"
Roaring Abel was a little drunk--just drunk enough to be excessively polite and very cunning. He had been on the point of going away when Dr. Stalling arrived, but now he sat down in a corner of the parlor and folded his arms.
"No, no, mister," he said solemnly. "That wouldn't do--wouldn't do at all. I've got the reputation of my household to keep up. I've got to chaperone this young lady. Can't have any sparkin' going on here behind my back."
Outraged Dr. Stalling looked so terrible that Valancy wondered how Abel could endure his aspect. But Abel was not worried at all.
"D'ye know anything about it, anyway?" he asked genially.
"About what?"
"Sparking," said Abel coolly.
Poor Dr. Stalling, who had never married because he believed in a celibate clergy, would not notice this ribald remark. He turned his back on Abel and addressed himself to Valancy.
"Miss Stirling, I am here in response to your mother's wishes. She begged me to come. I am charged with some messages from her. Will you"--he wagged his forefinger--"will you hear them?"
"Yes," said Valancy faintly, eyeing the forefinger. It had a hypnotic effect on her.
"The first is this. If you will leave this--this--"
"House," interjected Roaring Abel. "H-o-u-s-e. Troubled with an impediment in your speech, ain't you, Mister?"
"--this place and return to your home, Mr. James Stirling will himself pay for a good nurse to come here and wait on Miss Gay."
Back of her terror Valancy smiled in secret. Uncle James must indeed regard the matter as desperate when he would loosen his purse-strings like that. At any rate, her clan no longer despised her or ignored her. She had become important to them.
"That's my business, Mister," said Abel. "Miss Stirling can go if she pleases, or stay if she pleases. I made a fair bargain with her, and she's free to conclude it when she likes. She gives me meals that stick to my ribs. She don't forget to put salt in the porridge. She never slams doors, and when she has nothing to say she don't talk. That's uncanny in a woman, you know, Mister. I'm satisfied. If she isn't, she's free to go. But no woman comes here in Jim Stirling's pay. If any one does"--Abel's voice was uncannily bland and polite--"I'll spatter the road with her brains. Tell him that with A. Gay's compliments."
; "Dr. Stalling, a nurse is not what Cissy needs," said Valancy earnestly. "She isn't so ill as that, yet. What she wants is companionship--somebody she knows and likes just to live with her. You can understand that, I'm sure."
"I understand that your motive is quite--ahem--commendable." Dr. Stalling felt that he was very broad-minded indeed--especially as in his secret soul he did not believe Valancy's motive was commendable. He hadn't the least idea what she was up to, but he was sure her motive was not commendable. When he could not understand a thing he straightway condemned it. Simplicity itself! "But your first duty is to your mother. She needs you. She implores you to come home--she will forgive everything if you will only come home."
"That's a pretty little thought," remarked Abel meditatively, as he ground some tobacco up in his hand.
Dr. Stalling ignored him.
"She entreats, but I, Miss Stirling,"--Dr. Stalling remembered that he was an ambassador of Jehovah--"I command. As your pastor and spiritual guide, I command you to come home with me--this very day. Get your hat and coat and come now."
Dr. Stalling shook his finger at Valancy. Before that pitiless finger she drooped and wilted visibly.
"She's giving in," thought Roaring Abel. "She'll go with him. Beats all, the power these preacher fellows have over women."
Valancy was on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home with him--and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she had always been. It was her fate--typified by that relentless, uplifted forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his predestination. She eyed it as the fascinated bird eyes the snake. Another moment--"Fear is the original sin," suddenly said a still, small voice away back--back--back of Valancy's consciousness. "Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that someone is afraid of something."
Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.
"Dr. Stalling," she said slowly, "I do not at present owe any duty to my mother. She is quite well; she has all the assistance and companionship she requires; she does not need me at all. I am needed here. I am going to stay here."
"There's spunk for you," said Roaring Abel admiringly.
Dr. Stalling dropped his forefinger. One could not keep on shaking a finger forever.
"Miss Stirling, is there nothing that can influence you? Do you remember your childhood days--"
"Perfectly. And hate them."
"Do you realize what people will say? What they are saying?"
"I can imagine it," said Valancy, with a shrug of her shoulders. She was suddenly free of fear again. "I haven't listened to the gossip of Deerwood tea parties and sewing circles twenty years for nothing. But, Dr. Stalling, it doesn't matter in the least to me what they say--not in the least."
Dr. Stalling went away then. A girl who cared nothing for public opinion! Over whom sacred family ties had no restraining influence! Who hated her childhood memories!
Then Cousin Georgiana came--on her own initiative, for nobody would have thought it worthwhile to send her. She found Valancy alone, weeding the little vegetable garden she had planted, and she made all the platitudinous pleas she could think of. Valancy heard her patiently. Cousin Georgiana wasn't such a bad old soul. Then she said:
"And now that you have got all that out of your system, Cousin Georgiana, can you tell me how to make creamed codfish so that it will not be as thick as porridge and as salt as the Dead Sea?"
*
"We'll just have to wait," said Uncle Benjamin. "After all, Cissy Gay can't live long. Dr. Marsh tells me she may drop off any day."
Mrs. Frederick wept. It would really have been so much easier to bear if Valancy had died. She could have worn mourning then.
CHAPTER 20
When Abel Gay paid Valancy her first month's wages--which he did promptly, in bills reeking with the odor of tobacco and whiskey--Valancy went into Deerwood and spent every cent of it. She got a pretty green crepe dress with a girdle of crimson beads, at a bargain sale, a pair of silk stockings to match, and a little crinkled green hat with a crimson rose in it. She even bought a foolish little beribboned and belaced nightgown. She passed the house on Elm Street twice--Valancy never even thought about it as "home"--but saw no one. No doubt her mother was sitting in the room this lovely June evening playing solitaire--and cheating. Valancy knew that Mrs. Frederick always cheated. She never lost a game. Most of the people Valancy met looked at her seriously and passed her with a cool nod. Nobody stopped to speak to her.
Valancy put on her green dress when she got home. Then she took it off again. She felt so miserably undressed in its low neck and short sleeves. And that low, crimson girdle around the hips seemed positively indecent. She hung it up in the closet, feeling flatly that she had wasted her money. She would never have the courage to wear that dress. John Foster's arraignment of fear had no power to stiffen her against this. In this one thing habit and custom were still all-powerful. Yet she sighed as she went down to meet Barney Snaith in her old snuff-brown silk. That green thing had been very becoming--she had seen so much in her one ashamed glance. Above it her eyes had looked like odd brown jewels and the girdle had given her flat figure an entirely different appearance. She wished she could have left it on. But there were some things John Foster did not know.
Every Sunday evening Valancy went to the little Free Methodist church in a valley on the edge of "up back"--a spireless little gray building among the pines, with a few sunken graves and mossy gravestones in the small, paling-encircled, grass-grown square beside it. She liked the minister who preached there. He was so simple and sincere. An old man, who lived in Port Lawrence and came out by the lake in a little disappearing propeller boat to give free service to the people of the small, stony farms back of the hills, who would otherwise never have heard any gospel message. She liked the simple service and the fervent singing. She liked to sit by the open window and look out into the pine woods. The congregation was always small. The Free Methodists were few in number, poor and generally illiterate. But Valancy loved those Sunday evenings. For the first time in her life she liked going to church. The rumor reached Deerwood that she had "turned Free Methodist" and sent Mrs. Frederick to bed for a day. But Valancy had not turned anything. She went to the church because she liked it and because in some inexplicable way it did her good. Old Mr. Towers believed exactly what he preached and somehow it made a tremendous difference.
Oddly enough, Roaring Abel disapproved of her going to the hill church as strongly as Mrs. Frederick herself could have done. He had "no use for Free Methodists. He was a Presbyterian." But Valancy went in spite of him.
"We'll hear something worse than that about her soon," Uncle Benjamin predicted gloomily.
They did.
Valancy could not quite explain, even to herself, just why she wanted to go to that party. It was a dance "up back" at Chidley Corners; and dances at Chidley Corners were not, as a rule, the sort of assemblies where well-brought-up young ladies were found. Valancy knew it was coming off, for Roaring Abel had been engaged as one of the fiddlers.
But the idea of going had never occurred to her until Roaring Abel himself broached it at supper.
"You come with me to the dance," he ordered. "It'll do you good--put some color in your face. You look peaked--you want something to liven you up."
Valancy found herself suddenly wanting to go. She knew nothing at all of what dances at Chidley Corners were apt to be like. Her idea of dances had been fashioned on the correct affairs that went by that name in Deerwood and Port Lawrence. Of course she knew the Corners' dance wouldn't be just like them. Much more informal, of course. But so much the more interesting. Why shouldn't she go? Cissy was in a week of apparent health and improvement. She wouldn't mind staying alone in the least. She entreated Valancy to go if she wanted to. And Valancy did want to go.
She went to her room to dress. A rage against the snuff-brown silk seized her. Wear that to a party! Never. She pulled her green crepe from its hanger and put it on feverishly. It was nonsense to feel so--so--naked--just because her neck and arms were bare. That was just her old-maidishness. She would not be ridden by it. On went the dress--the slippers.
It was the first time she had worn a pretty dress since the organdies of her early teens. And they had never made her look like this.
If she only had a necklace or something. She wouldn't feel so bare then. She ran down to the garden. There were clovers there--great crimson things growing in the long grass. Valancy gathered handfuls of them and strung them on a cord. Fastened above her neck they gave her the comfortable sensation of a collar and were oddly becoming. Another circlet of them went round her hair, dressed in the low puffs that became her. Excitement brought those faint pink stains to her face. She flung on her coat and pulled the little, twisty hat over her hair.
"You look so nice and--and--different, dear," said Cissy. "Like a green moonbeam with a gleam of red in it, if there could be such a thing."
Valancy stooped to kiss her.
"I don't feel right about leaving you alone, Cissy."
"Oh, I'll be all right. I feel better tonight than I have for a long while. I've been feeling badly to see you sticking here so closely on my account. I hope you'll have a nice time. I never was at a party at the Corners, but I used to go sometimes, long ago, to dances up back. We always had good times. And you needn't be afraid of Father being drunk tonight. He never drinks when he engages to play for a party. But--there may be--liquor. What will you do if it gets rough?"
"Nobody would molest me."
"Not seriously, I suppose. Father would see to that. But it might be noisy and--and unpleasant."
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