Lucy Montgomery - The Blue Castle

"I - didn't - know - it - would - be like this," protested Valancy.

"You SHOULD have known. Chidley Corners!"

"It - was - just - a name - to me."

Valancy knew Barney could not realise how ignorant she was of the regions "up back." She had lived in Deerwood all her life and of course he supposed she knew. He didn't know how she had been brought up. There was no use trying to explain.

"When I drifted in at Abel's this evening and Cissy told me you'd come here I was amazed. And downright scared. Cissy told me she was worried about you but hadn't liked to say anything to dissuade you for fear you'd think she was thinking selfishly about herself. So I came on up here instead of going to Deerwood."

Valancy felt a sudden delightful glow irradiating soul and body under the dark pines. So he had actually come up to look after her.

"As soon as they stop hunting for us we'll sneak around to the Muskoka road. I left Lady Jane down there. I'll take you home. I suppose you've had enough of your party."

"Quite," said Valancy meekly. The first half of the way home neither of them said anything. It would not have been much use. Lady Jane made so much noise they could not have heard each other. Anyway, Valancy did not feel conversationally inclined. She was ashamed of the whole affair - ashamed of her folly in going - ashamed of being found in such a place by Barney Snaith. By Barney Snaith, reputed jail-breaker, infidel, forger and defaulter. Valancy's lips twitched in the darkness as she thought of it. But she WAS ashamed.

And yet she was enjoying herself - was full of a strange exultation - bumping over that rough road beside Barney Snaith. The big trees shot by them. The tall mulleins stood up along the road in stiff, orderly ranks like companies of soldiers. The thistles looked like drunken fairies or tipsy elves as their car-lights passed over them. This was the first time she had even been in a car. After all, she liked it. She was not in the least afraid, with Barney at the wheel. Her spirits rose rapidly as they tore along. She ceased to feel ashamed. She ceased to feel anything except that she was part of a comet rushing gloriously through the night of space.

All at once, just where the pine woods frayed out to the scrub barrens, Lady Jane became quiet - too quiet. Lady Jane slowed down quietly - and stopped.

Barney uttered an aghast exclamation. Got out. Investigated. Came apologetically back.

"I'm a doddering idiot. Out of gas. I knew I was short when I left home, but I meant to fill up in Deerwood. Then I forgot all about it in my hurry to get to the Corners."

"What can we do?" asked Valancy coolly.

"I don't know. There's no gas nearer than Deerwood, nine miles away. And I don't dare leave you here alone. There are always tramps on this road - and some of those crazy fools back at the Corners may come straggling along presently. There were boys there from the Port. As far as I can see, the best thing to do is for us just to sit patiently here until some car comes along and lends us enough gas to get to Roaring Abel's with."

"Well, what's the matter with that?" said Valancy.

"We may have to sit here all night," said Barney.

"I don't mind," said Valancy.

Barney gave a short laugh. "If you don't, I needn't. I haven't any reputation to lose."

"Nor I," said Valancy comfortably.

We'll just sit here," said Barney, "and if we think of anything worth while saying we'll say it. Otherwise, not. Don't imagine you're bound to talk to me."

"John Foster says," quoted Valancy, "'If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.'"

"Evidently John Foster says a sensible thing once in a while," conceded Barney.

They sat in silence for a long while. Little rabbits hopped across the road. Once or twice an owl laughed out delightfully. The road beyond them was fringed with the woven shadow lace of trees. Away off to the southwest the sky was full of silvery little cirrus clouds above the spot where Barney's island must be.

Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had had a lightning flash.

She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday she had been all her own. Now she was this man's. Yet he had done nothing - said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn't matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him. She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so absolutely that thought apart from him - thought in which he did not predominate - was an impossibility.

She had realised, quite simply and fully, that she loved him, in the moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed. Old things passed away and all things became new.

She was no longer unimportant, little old maid Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant - justified to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.

Love! What a searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing it was - this possession of body, soul and mind! With something at its core as fine and remote and purely spiritual as the tiny blue spark in the heart of the unbreakable diamond. No dream had ever been like this. She was no longer solitary. She was one of a vast sisterhood - all the women who had ever loved in the world.

Barney need never know it - though she would not in the least have minded his knowing. But SHE knew it and it made a tremendous difference to her. Just to love! She did not ask to be loved. It was rapture enough just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in the white splendour of moonshine, with the wind blowing down on them out of the pine woods. She had always envied the wind. So free. Blowing where it listed. Through the hills. Over the lakes. What a tang, what a zip it had! What a magic of adventure! Valancy felt as if she had exchanged her shop- worn soul for a fresh one, fire-new from the workshop of the gods. As far back as she could look, life had been dull - colourless - savourless. Now she had come to a little patch of violets, purple and fragrant - hers for the plucking. No matter who or what had been in Barney's past - no matter who or what might be in his future - no one else could ever have this perfect hour. She surrendered herself utterly to the charm of the moment.

"Ever dream of ballooning?' said Barney suddenly.

"No," said Valancy.

"I do - often. Dream of sailing through the clouds - seeing the glories of sunset - spending hours in the midst of a terrific storm with lightning playing above and below you - skimming above a silver cloud floor under a full moon - wonderful!"

"It does sound so," said Valancy. "I've stayed on earth in my dreams."

She told him about her Blue Castle. It was so easy to tell Barney things. One felt he understood everything - even the things you didn't tell him. And then she told him a little of her existence before she came to Roaring Abel's. She wanted him to see why she had gone to the dance "up back."

"You see - I've never had any real life," she said. "I've just - breathed. Every door has always been shut to me."

"But you're still young," said Barney.

"Oh, I know. Yes, I'm 'still young' - but that's so different from YOUNG," said Valancy bitterly. For a moment she was tempted to tell Barney why her years had nothing to do with her future; but she did not. She was not going to think of death tonight.