1 The Blue Castle - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Valancy Stirling is 29, unmarried, and has never been in love. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she finds her only consolation in the "forbidden" books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle. This is the place she can be who she truly wants to be.

After getting shocking news from a doctor about her state of ill health, Valancy decides to rebel against her family in true heroine style and live the life she was always meant to have.

Transcript

Welcome to sleep stories with Steph.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you and let all the worries of the day drift away.

This is your time and your space.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

The Blue Castle by L.

M.

Montgomery Read by Stephanie Poppins Chapter One If it had not rained on a certain May morning,

Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been entirely different.

She would have gone with the rest of her clan to Aunt Wellington's engagement picnic and Dr.

Trent would have gone to Montreal.

But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.

Valancy wakened early in the lifeless,

Hopeless hour just preceding dawn.

She had not slept very well.

One does not sleep well sometimes when one is twenty-nine on the morrow and unmarried in a community and connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to get a man.

Dearwood and the Stirlings had long since relegated Valancy to hopeless old maidenhood.

But Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful,

Shamed little hope that romance would come her way yet.

Never until this wet,

Horrible morning when she wakened to the fact she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man.

Ay,

There lay this sting.

Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid.

After all,

She thought,

Being an old maid couldn't possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellington or an Uncle Benjamin or even Uncle Herbert.

What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid.

No man had ever desired her.

Tears came into her eyes as she lay there alone in the faintly grained darkness.

She dared not let herself cry as hard as she wanted to,

For two reasons.

She was afraid that crying might bring on another attack of that pain around the heart.

She had had a spell of it after she had gone into bed,

Rather worse than any she had had yet.

And she was afraid her mother would notice her red eyes at breakfast and keep her with minute,

Persistent,

Mosquito-like questions regarding the cause thereof.

Suppose,

Thought Valancy with a ghastly grin,

I answered with the plain truth,

I am crying because I cannot get married.

How horrified Mother would be,

Though she is ashamed every day of her life of her old maid daughter.

But,

Of course,

Appearances should be kept up.

It is not,

Valancy could hear her mother's prim dictatorial voice,

It is not maidenly to think about men.

The thought of her mother's expression made Valancy laugh,

For she had a sense of humour nobody in her clan suspected.

For that matter,

There were a good many things about Valancy nobody suspected,

But her laughter was very superficial,

And presently she lay there,

A huddled,

Futile little figure,

Listening to the rain pouring down outside,

And watching with a sick distaste the chill,

Merciless light creeping into her ugly,

Sordid room.

She knew the ugliness of that room by heart,

Knew it and hated it.

The yellow painted floor,

With one hideous,

Hooked rug by the bed,

With a grotesque,

Hooked dog on it,

Always grinning at her when she awoke.

The faded,

Dark red paper,

The ceiling discoloured by old leaks and crossed by cracks.

The narrow,

Pinched little washstand,

The brown paper labyrinth with purple roses on it,

The spotted,

Awed-looking glass with a crack across it,

Propped up on the inadequate dressing table,

The jar of ancient potpourri made by her mother in her mythical honeymoon,

The shell-covered box with one burst corner which Cousin Stickles had made in her equally mythical girlhood,

The beaded pincushion with half its bead fringe gone,

The one stiff yellow chair,

The faded old motto,

Gone but Not Forgotten,

Worked in coloured yarns about Great Grandmother Stirling's grim old face,

The old photographs of ancient relatives long banished from the rooms below.

There were only two pictures that were not of relatives.

One,

An old chroma of a puppy sitting on a rainy doorstep.

That picture always made Valancy unhappy.

That forlorn little dog crouched on the doorstep in the driving rain.

Why didn't someone open the door and let him in?

The other picture was a faded engraving of Queen Louise coming down a stairway,

Which Aunt Wellington had lavishly given her on her tenth birthday.

For nineteen years she'd looked at it and hated it.

Beautiful,

Smug,

Self-satisfied Queen Louise.

But she never dared destroy it or remove it.

Mother and Cousin Stickles would have been aghast,

Or,

As Valancy irreverently expressed it in her thoughts,

Would have had a fit.

Every room in the house was ugly,

Of course,

But downstairs appearances were kept up somewhat.

There was no money for rooms nobody ever saw.

Valancy sometimes felt she could have done something for her room herself,

Even without money,

If she were permitted.

But her mother had negated every timid suggestion,

And Valancy did not persist.

Valancy never persisted.

She was afraid to.

Her mother could not brook opposition.

Mrs Stirling would sulk for days if offended,

Were the heirs of an insulted Duchess.

The only thing Valancy liked about her room was that she could be alone there at night to cry if she wanted to.

But after all,

What did it matter if a room,

Which you used for nothing except sleeping and dressing in,

Were ugly?

Valancy was never permitted to stay alone in her room for any other purpose.

People who wanted to be alone,

So Mrs Frederick Stirling and Cousin Stickles believed,

Could only want to be alone for some sinister purpose.

But her room in the Blue Castle was everything a room should be.

Valancy,

So cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life,

Was one to let herself go rather splendidly in her daydreams.

Nothing in the Stirling clan or its ramifications suspected this,

Least of all her mother and cousin Stickles.

They never knew Valancy had two homes,

The ugly red brick box of a home on Elm Street,

And the Blue Castle in Spain.

Valancy had lived spiritually in the Blue Castle ever since she could remember.

She'd been a very tiny child when she found herself possessed of it.

Always when she shut her eyes,

She could see it plainly with its turrets and banners on the pine-clad mountain height,

Wrapped in its faint blue loveliness against the sunset skies of a fair and unknown land.

Everything wonderful and beautiful was in that castle.

Jewels that queens might have worn,

Robes of moonlight and fire,

Couches of roses and gold,

Long flights of shallow marble steps with great white urns and with slender mist-clad maidens going up and down them.

Courts,

Marble-pillared,

Where shimmering fountains fell and nightingales sang among the myrtles.

Halls of mirrors that reflected only handsome knights and lovely women.

Herself the loveliest of all,

For whose glance men died.

All that supported her through the boredom of her days was the hope of going on a dream spree at night.

Most,

If not all,

Of the Stirlings would have died of horror if they had known half the things Valancy did in her Blue Castle.

For one thing,

She had quite a few lovers in it.

Only one at a time.

One who wooed her with all the romantic ardour of the age of chivalry and won her after long devotion and many deeds of daring do and was wedded to her with pomp and circumstance in the great banner-hung chapel of the Blue Castle.

At twelve,

This lover was a fair lad with golden curls and heavily blue eyes.

At fifteen,

He was tall and dark and pale but still necessarily handsome.

At twenty,

He was ascetic,

Dreamy and spiritual.

At twenty-five,

He had a clean-cut jaw,

Slightly grim and a face strong and rugged rather than handsome.

Valancy never grew older than twenty-five in her Blue Castle but recently,

Very recently,

Her hero had had reddish,

Tawny hair,

A twisted smile and a mysterious past.

I don't say Valancy deliberately murdered these lovers as she outgrew them.

One simply faded away as another came.

Things are very convenient in this respect in Blue Castles.

But on this morning of her day of fate,

Valancy could not find the key.

Reality pressed on her too hardly,

Barking at her heels like a maddening little dog.

She was twenty-nine,

Lonely,

Undesired,

Ill-favoured,

The only homely girl in a handsome clan with no past and no future.

As far as she could look back,

Life was drab and colourless with not one single crimson or purple spot anywhere.

As far as she could look forward,

It seemed certain to be just the same until she was nothing but a solitary little withered leaf clinging to a wintry bough.

The moment when a woman realises she had nothing to live for,

Neither love,

Duty,

Purpose nor hope,

Holds for her the bitterness of death.

And I have just to go on living because I can't stop.

I may have to live eighty years,

She thought in a kind of panic.

We're all horribly long-lived.

It sickens me to think of it.

She was glad it was raining.

Or rather,

She was drearily satisfied it was raining.

There would be no picnic that day.

This annual picnic whereby Aunt and Uncle Wellington – one always thought of them in that succession – inevitably celebrated their engagement at a picnic thirty years before had been of late years a veritable nightmare to Valancy.

By an impish coincidence,

It was the same day as her birthday and after she'd passed twenty-five,

Nobody let her forget it.

Much as she hated going to the picnic,

It would never have occurred to Valancy to rebel.

There seemed to be nothing of the revolutionary in her nature and she knew exactly what everyone would say to her.

Uncle Wellington,

Whom she disliked and despised,

Even though he had fulfilled the highest sterling aspiration,

Marrying money,

Would say to her in a peak's whisper,

Not thinking of getting married yet,

My dear?

Then he would go off into the bellow of laughter with which he invariably concluded his dull remarks.

Aunt Wellington,

Of whom Valancy stood in abject awe,

Would tell her about Olive's new chiffon dress and Cecil's last devoted letter.

Valancy would have to look as pleased and interested as if the dress and letter had been hers.

And Aunt Alberta,

Enormously fat with an amiable habit of always referring to her husband as he,

As if he were the only male creature in the world,

Who could never forget she'd been a great beauty in her youth,

Would condole with Valancy on her sallow skin.

I don't know why all the girls of today are so sunburned,

She'd say.

When I was a girl,

My skin was roses and cream.

I was considered the prettiest girl in Canada,

My dear.

Perhaps Uncle Herbert wouldn't say anything or perhaps he would remark,

How fetch you're getting,

Doss.

And then everyone would laugh over the excessively humorous idea of poor,

Scrawny little Doss getting fat.

Handsome,

Solemn Uncle James,

Who Valancy disliked but respected because he was reputed to be very clever,

Would probably remark with the owl-like sarcasm,

I suppose you're busy with your hope chest these days.

And Uncle Benjamin would ask some of his abominable conundrums between wheezy chuckles and answer them himself.

What's the difference between a Doss and a mouse?

The mouse wishes to harp the cheese and Doss wishes to charm the he's.

Valancy had heard him ask that riddle fifty times and every time she wanted to throw something at him,

But she never did.

In the first place,

The Stirlings simply did not throw things.

In the second place,

Uncle Benjamin was a wealthy and childless old widower and Valancy had been brought up in the fear and admonition of his money.

If she offended him,

He would cut her out of his will.

Valancy did not want to be cut out of Uncle Benjamin's will.

She had been poor all her life and knew the galling bitterness of it.

Aunt Isabelle,

Downright and disagreeable as an east wind,

Would criticise her in some way.

She prided herself on saying what she thought,

But she didn't like it so well when other people said what they thought to her.

Cousin Georgiana,

Named after her great-great-grandmother,

Would recount gloriously the names of all the relatives and friends who died since the last picnic and wonder,

Which of us will be the first to go next?

Aunt Mildred would talk endlessly of her husband and her odious prodigies of babies,

Because Valancy would be the only one she could find to put up with it.

Cousin Gladys,

A tall,

Thin lady who admitted she had a sensitive disposition,

Would describe minutely the tortures of her neuritis.

Olive,

The wonder girl of the whole sterling clan,

Who had everything Valancy had not,

Beauty,

Popularity and love,

Would show off her beauty and presume on her popularity and flaunt her diamond insignia of love in Valancy's dazzled,

Envious eyes.

Thank goodness there would be none of this today.

Valancy blessed the rain that had saved her from it.

There would be no picnic this year.

And since there would be no picnic,

She made up her mind if the rain held up in the afternoon,

She would go to the library and get another of John Foster's books.

Valancy was never allowed to read novels,

But John Foster's books were not novels,

They were nature books,

So the librarian told Mrs Frederick Stirling.

Valancy was allowed to read those,

Under protest,

For it was only to evidence she enjoyed them too much.

Valancy did not know whether her mind was being improved or not,

But she felt vaguely if she had come across John Foster's books years ago,

Life might have been a different thing for her.

It was only within the last year that John Foster's books had been in the Deerwood Library.

Where does he live?

Valancy had asked.

Nobody knows.

From his books he must be a Canadian,

But no more information can be had,

Said the librarian.

I think his books are wonderful,

Said Valancy.

Yes,

If the rain held off,

She would get a new Foster book.

It was almost a month since she had had Thistle Harvest,

So surely Mother could not object.

She'd read it four times,

She knew the whole passages off by heart.

Then she would go and see Dr Trent,

She thought,

About that queer pain around her heart.

It had come rather often lately and the palpitations were becoming annoying,

Not to speak of an occasional dizzy moment and a queer shortness of breath.

None of the Stirlings ever consulted a doctor without holding a family council and getting Uncle James' approval.

Then they went to Dr Ambrose Marsh of Port Lawrence.

But Valancy disliked Dr Ambrose Marsh.

Besides,

She could not get to Port Lawrence,

Fifteen miles away,

Without being taken there and she did not want anyone to know about her heart.

It would be such a fuss made and every member of the family would come down and talk it over and advise her and caution her and warn her and tell her horrible tales.

Aunt Isabel would remember she'd always said Doss looked like a girl who would have heart trouble,

So pinched and peeped always,

And Uncle Wellington would take it as a personal insult,

When no Stirling had ever had heart disease before.

Valancy felt she couldn't tell anybody unless she had to.

She felt quite sure there was nothing at all seriously wrong with her and had no need of all the bother that would ensue if she mentioned it.

She would just slip up quietly and see Dr Trent that very day.

As for his bill,

She had the $200 that her father had put in the bank for her the day she was born.

She was never allowed to use even the interest of this,

But she would secretly take out enough to pay Dr Trent.

He was a gruff,

Outspoken,

Absent-minded old fellow,

But he was recognised as the authority on heart disease.

He was over 70 and there had been rumours he meant to retire soon.

None of the Stirling clan had ever gone to him before.

You couldn't patronise a doctor who insulted your first cousin once removed,

Not to mention he was a Pescatarian when all the Stirlings went to the Anglican church.

But Valancy,

Between the devil of disloyalty to clan and the deep sea of fuss and clutter and advice,

Thought she might as well take a chance with the devil.

Reviews

Loving this book already! Can’t wait for the next chapter!

Stephanie‘s voice and accent and cadence is a delight to listen to!