Lucy Montgomery - The Blue Castle

"I thought I'd run down and ask if there was anything I could do for you," said Barney.

Valancy took it with a canter.

"Yes, there is something you can do for me," she said, evenly and distinctly. "Will you marry me?"

For a moment Barney was silent. There was no particular expression on his face. Then he gave an odd laugh.

"Come, now! I knew luck was just waiting around the corner for me. All the signs have been pointing that way today."

"Wait." Valancy lifted her hand. "I'm in earnest - but I want to get my breath after that question. Of course, with my bringing up, I realise perfectly well that this is one of the things 'a lady should not do.'"

"But why - why?"

"For two reasons." Valancy was still a little breathless, but she looked Barney straight in the eyes while all the dead Stirlings revolved rapidly in their graves and the living ones did nothing because they did not know that Valancy was at that moment proposing lawful marriage to the notorious Barney Snaith. "The first reason is, I - I - " Valancy tried to say "I love you" but could not. She had to take refuge in a pretended flippancy. "I'm crazy about you. The second is - this."

She handed him Dr. Trent's letter.

Barney opened it with the air of a man thankful to find some safe, sane thing to do. As he read it his face changed. He understood - more perhaps than Valancy wanted him to.

"Are you sure nothing can be done for you?"

Valancy did not misunderstand the question.

"Yes. You know Dr. Trent's reputation in regard to heart disease. I haven't long to live - perhaps only a few months - a few weeks. I want to LIVE them. I can't go back to Deerwood - you know what my life was like there. And" - she managed it this time - "I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That's all."

Barney folded his arms on the gate and looked gravely enough at a white, saucy star that was winking at him just over Roaring Abel's kitchen chimney.

"You don't know anything about me. I may be a - murderer."

"No, I don't. You MAY be something dreadful. Everything they say of you may be true. But it doesn't matter to me."

"You care that much for me, Valancy?" said Barney incredulously, looking away from the star and into her eyes - her strange, mysterious eyes.

"I care - that much," said Valancy in a low voice. She was trembling. He had called her by her name for the first time. It was sweeter than another man's caress could have been just to hear him say her name like that.

"If we are going to get married," said Barney, speaking suddenly in a casual, matter-of-fact voice, "some things must be understood."

"Everything must be understood," said Valancy.

"I have things I want to hide," said Barney coolly "You are not to ask me about them."

"I won't," said Valancy.

"You must never ask to see my mail."

"Never."

"And we are never to pretend anything to each other."

"We won't," said Valancy. "You won't even have to pretend you like me. If you marry me I know you're only doing it out of pity."

"And we'll never tell a lie to each other about anything - a big lie or petty lie."

"Especially a petty lie," agreed Valancy.

"And you'll have to live back on my island. I won't live anywhere else."

"That's partly why I want to marry you," said Valancy.

Barney peered at her.

"I believe you mean it. Well - let's get married, then."

"Thank you," said Valancy, with a sudden return of primness. She would have been much less embarrassed if he had refused her.

"I suppose I haven't any right to make conditions. But I'm going to make one. You are never to refer to my heart or my liability to sudden death. You are never to urge me to be careful. You are to forget - absolutely forget - that I'm not perfectly healthy. I have written a letter to my mother - here it is - you are to keep it. I have explained everything in it. If I drop dead suddenly - as I likely will do - "

"It will exonerate me in the eyes of your kindred from the suspicion of having poisoned you," said Barney with a grin.

"Exactly." Valancy laughed gaily. "Dear me, I'm glad this is over. It has been - a bit of an ordeal. You see, I'm not in the habit of going about asking men to marry me. It is so nice of you not to refuse me - or offer to be a brother!"

"I'll go to the Port tomorrow and get a license. We can be married tomorrow evening. Dr. Stalling, I suppose?"

"Heavens, no." Valancy shuddered. "Besides, he wouldn't do it. He'd shake his forefinger at me and I'd jilt you at the altar. No, I want my old Mr. Towers to marry me."

"Will you marry me as I stand?" demanded Barney. A passing car, full of tourists, honked loudly - it seemed derisively. Valancy looked at him. Blue homespun shirt, nondescript hat, muddy overalls. Unshaved!

"Yes," she said.

Barney put his hands over the gate and took her little, cold ones gently in his.

"Valancy," he said, trying to speak lightly, "of course I'm not in love with you - never thought of such a thing as being in love. But, do you know, I've always thought you were a bit of a dear."

The next day passed for Valancy like a dream. She could not make herself or anything she did seem real. She saw nothing of Barney, though she expected he must go rattling past on his way to the Port for a license.

Perhaps he had changed his mind.

But at dusk the lights of Lady Jane suddenly swooped over the crest of the wooded hill beyond the lane. Valancy was waiting at the gate for her bridegroom. She wore her green dress and her green hat because she had nothing else to wear. She did not look or feel at all bride-like - she really looked like a wild elf strayed out of the greenwood. But that did not matter. Nothing at all mattered except that Barney was coming for her.

"Ready?" said Barney, stopping Lady Jane with some new, horrible noises.

"Yes." Valancy stepped in and sat down. Barney was in his blue shirt and overalls. But they were clean overalls. He was smoking a villainous-looking pipe and he was bareheaded. But he had a pair of oddly smart boots on under his shabby overalls. And he was shaved. They clattered into Deerwood and through Deerwood and hit the long, wooded road to the Port.

"Haven't changed your mind?" said Barney.

"No. Have you?"

"No."

That was their whole conversation on the fifteen miles. Everything was more dream-like than ever. Valancy didn't know whether she felt happy. Or terrified. Or just plain fool.

Then the lights of Port Lawrence were about them. Valancy felt as if she were surrounded by the gleaming, hungry eyes of hundreds of great, stealthy panthers. Barney briefly asked where Mr. Towers lived, and Valancy as briefly told him. They stopped before the shabby little house in an unfashionable street. They went in to the small, shabby parlour. Barney produced his license. So he HAD got it. Also a ring. This thing was real. She, Valancy Stirling, was actually on the point of being married.

They were standing up together before Mr. Towers. Valancy heard Mr. Towers and Barney saying things. She heard some other person saying things. She herself was thinking of the way she had once planned to be married - away back in her early teens when such a thing had not seemed impossible. White silk and tulle veil and orange-blossoms; no bridesmaid. But one flower girl, in a frock of cream shadow lace over pale pink, with a wreath of flowers in her hair, carrying a basket of roses and lilies-of-the-valley. And the groom, a noble-looking creature, irreproachably clad in whatever the fashion of the day decreed. Valancy lifted her eyes and saw herself and Barney in the little slanting, distorting mirror over the mantelpiece. She in her odd, unbridal green hat and dress; Barney in shirt and overalls. But it was Barney. That was all that mattered. No veil - no flowers - no guests - no presents - no wedding-cake - but just Barney. For all the rest of her life there would be Barney.