The Blue Castle, Part 14

Please enjoy this continued reading of "The Blue Castle", a delightful 1926 Canadian novel from author Lucy Maud Montgomery, best known for her 1908 book "Anne of Green Gables".

Follow along as we hear how Valancy Stirling's dull life as a 29-year-old "old maid" is transformed by a life-changing medical diagnosis and subsequent foray into the world of romance, in search of the man and "Blue Castle" of her dreams!

Please note: This track may include some explicit/strong language.

Transcript

Hello there.

Thank you so much for joining me for this next part of the reading of The Blue Castle,

Which is a 1926 novel from the Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Perhaps you've heard the preceding parts of this reading.

Perhaps not.

Either way,

It doesn't really matter.

You can find the preceding parts,

Though,

If you look for the playlist for The Blue Castle.

So,

Before we move along with the story here,

Let's take a moment to have a nice,

Deep exhale.

Letting go of the day.

Letting go of whatever we might be bringing with us into this moment.

There's nothing else that we have to do right now.

Nowhere else that we have to be.

So we can just relax,

Get ourselves comfortable,

And enjoy this next part of the story of The Blue Castle.

Chapter 35 Thirty seconds can be very long sometimes.

Long enough to work a miracle or a revolution.

In thirty seconds,

Life changed wholly for Barney and Valancy Snaith.

They had gone around the lake one June evening in their disappearing propeller,

Fished for an hour in a little creek,

Left their boat there and walked up through the woods to Port Lawrence,

Two miles away.

Valancy prowled a bit in the shops and got herself a new pair of sensible shoes.

Her old pair had suddenly and completely given out,

And this evening she had been compelled to put on the little fancy pair of patent leather with rather high,

Slender heels,

Which she had bought in a fit of folly one day in the winter because of their beauty and because she wanted to make one foolish,

Extravagant purchase in her life.

She sometimes put them on of an evening in the Blue Castle,

But this was the first time she had worn them outside.

She had not found it any too easy walking up through the woods in them,

And Barney guide her unmercifully about them.

But in spite of the inconvenience,

Valancy secretly rather liked the look of her trim ankles and high instep above those pretty,

Foolish shoes,

And did not change them in the shop as she might have done.

The sun was hanging low above the pines when they left Port Lawrence.

To the north of it,

The woods closed around the town quite suddenly.

Valancy always had a sense of stepping from one world to another,

From reality to fairyland when she went out of Port Lawrence,

And in a twinkling found it shut off behind her by the armies of the pines.

A mile and a half from Port Lawrence,

There was a small railroad station with a little station house,

Which at this hour of the day was deserted since no local train was due.

Not a soul was in sight when Barney and Valancy emerged from the woods.

Off to the left,

A sudden curve in the track hid it from view,

But over the treetops beyond,

The long plume of smoke betokened the approach of a through-train.

The rails were vibrating to its thunder as Barney stepped across the switch.

Valancy was a few steps behind him,

Loitering to gather dune bells along the little winding path,

But there was plenty of time to get across before the train came.

She stepped unconcernedly over the first rail.

She could never tell how it happened.

The ensuing thirty seconds always seemed in her recollection like a chaotic nightmare in which she endured the agony of a thousand lifetimes.

The heel of her pretty,

Foolish shoe caught in a crevice of the switch.

She could not pull it loose.

Barney!

Barney!

She called in alarm.

Barney turned,

Saw her predicament,

Saw her ashen face,

Dashed back.

He tried to pull her clear,

He tried to wrench her foot from the prisoning hold.

In vain.

In a moment,

The train would sweep around the curve,

Would be on them.

Go,

Go,

Quick!

You'll be killed,

Barney!

Shrieked Valancy,

Trying to push him away.

Barney dropped on his knees,

Ghost-white,

Frantically tearing at her shoelace.

The knot defied his trembling fingers.

He snatched a knife from his pocket and slashed at it.

Valancy still strove blindly to push him away.

Her mind was full of the hideous thought that Barney was going to be killed.

She had no thought for her own danger.

Barney!

Go!

Go!

For God's sake,

Go!

Never!

Muttered Barney between his set teeth.

He gave one mad wrench at the lace.

As the train thundered around the curve,

He sprang up and caught Valancy,

Dragging her clear,

Leaving the shoe behind her.

The wind from the train,

As it swept by,

Turned to icy cold,

The streaming perspiration on his face.

Thank God,

He breathed.

For a moment,

They stood stupidly staring at each other,

Two white,

Shaken,

Wild-eyed creatures.

Then they stumbled over to the little seat at the end of the station house and dropped on it.

Barney buried his face in his hands and said not a word.

Valancy sat staring straight ahead of her with unseeing eyes at the great pine woods,

The stumps of the clearing,

The long,

Gleaming rails.

There was only one thought in her dazed mind,

A thought that seemed to burn it as a shaving of fire might burn her body.

Dr.

Trent had told her over a year ago that she had a serious form of heart disease,

That any excitement might be fatal.

If that were so,

Why was she not dead now,

This very minute?

She had just experienced as much and as terrible excitement as most people experience in a lifetime,

Crowded into that endless 30 seconds,

Yet she had not died of it.

She was not an iota the worse for it.

A little wobbly at the knees,

As anyone would have been.

A quicker heartbeat,

As anyone would have.

Nothing more.

Why was it possible Dr.

Trent had made a mistake?

Valancy shivered as if a cold wind had suddenly chilled her to the soul.

She looked at Barney,

Hunched up beside her.

His silence was very eloquent.

Had the same thought occurred to him?

Did he suddenly find himself confronted by the appalling suspicion that he was married,

Not for a few months or a year,

But for good and all,

To a woman he did not love,

And who had foisted herself upon him by some trick or lie?

Valancy turned sick before the horror of it.

It could not be.

It would be too cruel,

Too devilish.

Dr.

Trent couldn't have made a mistake.

Impossible.

He was one of the best heart specialists in Ontario.

She was foolish,

Unnerved by the recent horror.

She remembered some of the hideous spasms of pain she had had.

There must be something serious the matter with her heart to account for them.

But she had not had any for nearly three months.

Why?

Presently,

Barney bestirred himself.

He stood up,

Without looking at Valancy,

And said casually,

I suppose we'd better be hiking back.

Sun's getting low.

Are you good for the rest of the road?

I think so,

Said Valancy miserably.

Barney went across the clearing and picked up the parcel he had dropped,

The parcel containing her new shoes.

He brought it to her and let her take out the shoes and put them on without any assistance,

While he stood with his back to her and looked out over the pines.

They walked in silence down the shadowy trail to the lake.

In silence,

Barney steered his boat into the sunset miracle that was Mystawis.

In silence,

They went around feathery headlands and across coral bays and silver rivers,

Where canoes were slipping up and down in the afterglow.

In silence,

They went past cottages,

Echoing with music and laughter.

In silence,

Drew up at the landing place below the blue castle.

Valancy went up the rock steps and into the house.

She dropped miserably on the first chair she came to and sat there,

Staring through the oriel,

Oblivious of Good Luck's frantic purrs of joy and Banjo's savage glares of protest at her occupancy of his chair.

Barney came in a few minutes later.

He did not come near her,

But he stood behind her and asked gently if she felt any the worse for her experience.

Valancy would have given her year of happiness to have been able honestly to answer yes.

No,

She said flatly.

Barney went into Bluebeard's chamber and shut the door.

She heard him pacing up and down,

Up and down.

He had never paced like that before.

And an hour ago,

Only an hour ago,

She had been so happy.

Chapter 36 Finally,

Valancy went to bed.

Before she went,

She re-read Dr.

Trent's letter.

It comforted her a little.

So positive,

So assured.

The writing,

So black and steady.

Not the writing of a man who didn't know what he was writing about.

But she could not sleep.

She pretended to be asleep when Barney came in.

Barney pretended to go to sleep.

But Valancy knew perfectly well he wasn't sleeping any more than she was.

She knew he was lying there,

Staring through the darkness.

Thinking of what?

Trying to face what?

Valancy,

Who had spent so many happy,

Wakeful hours of night lying by that window,

Now paid the price of them all in this one night of misery.

A horrible,

Portentous fact was slowly looming out before her from the nebula of surmise and fear.

She could not shut her eyes to it,

Push it away,

Ignore it.

There could be nothing seriously wrong with her heart.

No matter what Dr.

Trent had said,

If there had been,

Those 30 seconds would have killed her.

It was no use to recall Dr.

Trent's letter and reputation.

The greatest specialists made mistakes sometimes.

Dr.

Trent had made one.

Towards morning,

Valancy fell into a fitful dose with ridiculous dreams.

One of them was of Barney taunting her with having tricked him.

In her dream,

She lost her temper and struck him violently on the head with her rolling pin.

He proved to be made of glass and shivered into splinters all over the floor.

She woke with a cry of horror,

A gasp of relief,

A short laugh over the absurdity of her dream,

A miserable,

Sickening recollection of what had happened.

Barney was gone.

Valancy knew,

As people sometimes know things inescapably without being told,

That he was not in the house or in Bluebeard's chamber either.

There was a curious silence in the living room,

A silence with something uncanny about it.

The old clock had stopped.

Barney must have forgotten to wind it up,

Something he had never done before.

The room without it was dead.

Though the sunshine streamed in through the oriel and dimples of light from the dancing waves beyond quivered over the walls,

The canoe was gone.

But Lady Jane was under the mainland trees.

So,

Barney had betaken himself to the wilds.

He would not return till night,

Perhaps not even then.

He must be angry with her.

That furious silence of his must mean anger,

Cold,

Deep,

Justifiable resentment.

Well,

Valancy knew what she must do first.

She was not suffering very keenly now,

Yet the curious numbness that pervaded her being was in a way worse than pain.

It was as if something in her had died.

She forced herself to cook and eat a little breakfast.

Mechanically,

She put the blue castle in perfect order.

Then,

She put on her hat and coat,

Locked the door and hid the key in the hollow of the old pine and crossed to the mainland in the motorboat.

She was going into Deerwood to see Doctor Trent.

She must know.

Chapter 37 Doctor Trent looked at her blankly and fumbled among his recollections.

Uh.

.

.

Miss.

.

.

Miss.

.

.

Mrs.

.

.

Snaith,

Said Valancy quietly.

I was Miss Valancy Stirling when I came to you last May.

Over a year ago,

I wanted to consult you about my heart.

Doctor Trent's face cleared.

Oh,

Of course.

I remember now.

I'm really not to blame for not knowing you.

You've changed.

Splendidly.

And married.

Well,

Well.

It has agreed with you.

You don't look much like an invalid now,

Hey?

I remember that day.

I was badly upset.

Hearing about poor Ned bowled me over.

But Ned's as good as new.

And you,

Too,

Evidently.

I told you so,

You know.

Told you there was nothing to worry over.

Valancy looked at him.

You told me in your letter,

She said slowly,

With a curious feeling that someone else was talking through her lips,

That I had angina pectoris in the last stages,

Complicated with an aneurysm,

That I might die any minute,

That I couldn't live longer than a year.

Doctor Trent stared at her.

Impossible,

He said blankly.

I couldn't have told you that.

Valancy took his letter from her bag and handed it to him.

Miss Valancy Stirling,

He read.

Yes,

Yes.

Of course,

I wrote you on the train that night,

But I told you there was nothing serious.

Read your letter,

Insisted Valancy.

Doctor Trent took it out,

Unfolded it,

Glanced over it.

A dismayed look came into his face.

He jumped to his feet and strode agitatedly about the room.

Good heavens!

This is the letter I meant for old Miss Jane Stirling from Port Lawrence.

She was here that day too.

I sent you the wrong letter.

What unpardonable carelessness!

But I was beside myself that night.

My God!

And you believed that?

You believed,

But you didn't.

.

.

You went to another doctor?

Valancy stood up,

Turned around,

Looked foolishly about her and sat down again.

I believed it,

She said faintly.

I didn't go to any other doctor.

I.

.

.

I.

.

.

It would take too long to explain,

But I believed.

I was going to die soon.

Doctor Trent halted before her.

I can never forgive myself.

What a year you must have had!

But you don't look.

.

.

I can't understand.

Never mind,

Said Valancy dully.

And.

.

.

So.

.

.

There's nothing the matter with my heart?

Well,

Nothing serious.

You had what is called pseudo-angina.

It's never fatal.

It passes away completely with proper treatment or sometimes with a shock of joy.

Have you been troubled much with it?

Not at all since March,

Answered Valancy.

She remembered the marvellous feeling of re-creation she had had when she saw Barney coming home safe after the storm.

Had that shock of joy cured her?

Then likely you're alright.

I told you what to do in the letter you should have got.

And of course I supposed you'd go to another doctor.

Child,

Why didn't you?

I didn't want anybody to know.

Idiot,

Said Doctor Trent bluntly.

I can't understand such folly.

And poor old Miss Stirling.

She must have got your letter telling her there was nothing serious the matter.

Well,

Well.

Couldn't have made any difference.

Her case was hopeless.

Nothing that she could have done or left undone could have made any difference.

I was surprised she lived as long as she did.

Two months.

She was here that day,

Not long before you.

I hated to tell her the truth.

You think I'm a blunt old curmudgeon.

And my letters are blunt enough.

I can't soften things,

But I'm a snivelling coward when it comes to telling a woman face to face that she's got to die soon.

I told her I'd look up some features of the case I wasn't quite sure of and let her know next day.

But you got her letter.

Look,

Here.

Dear Miss S-T-E-R-L-I-N-G.

Yes,

I noticed that,

But I thought it a mistake.

I didn't know there were any Stirlings in Port Lawrence.

She was the only one.

A lonely old soul,

Lived by herself,

With only a little homegirl.

She died two months after she was here.

Died in her sleep.

My mistake couldn't have made any difference to her,

But you!

I can't forgive myself for inflicting a year's misery on you.

It's time I retired,

Alright?

When I do things like that,

Even if my son was supposed to be fatally injured,

Can you ever forgive me?

A year of misery?

For Lancey smiled a tortured smile as she thought of all the happiness Dr.

Trent's mistake had bought her.

But she was paying for it now.

Oh,

She was paying.

If to feel was to live,

She was living with a vengeance.

She let Dr.

Trent examine her and answered all his questions.

When he told her she was fit as a fiddle and would probably live to be a hundred,

She got up and went away,

Silently.

She knew that there were a great many horrible things outside waiting to be thought over.

Dr.

Trent thought she was odd.

Anybody would have thought from her hopeless eyes and woe-begone face that he had given her a sentence of death instead of life.

Snaith?

Snaith?

Who the devil had she married?

He had never heard of snaiths in Deerwood.

And she had been such a sallow,

Faded little old maid.

Gad,

But marriage had made a difference in her,

Anyhow.

Whoever snaith was.

Snaith.

Dr.

Trent remembered that rapscallion up back.

Had Valancy Stirling married him?

And her clan had led her?

Well,

Probably that solved the mystery.

She had married in haste and repented at leisure,

And that was why she wasn't overjoyed at learning she was a good insurance prospect after all.

Married?

To God knew whom?

Or what?

Jailbird?

Defaulter?

Fugitive from justice?

It must be pretty bad if she had looked to death as a release.

Poor girl.

But why were women such fools?

Dr.

Trent dismissed Valancy from his mind.

Though,

To the day of his death,

He was ashamed of putting those letters into the wrong envelopes.

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