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.
Chapter 14 Life cannot stop because tragedy enters it.
Meals must be made ready,
Even if your son dies,
And porches must be prepared,
Even if your only daughter is going out of her mind.
Mrs.
Frederick,
In her systematic way,
Had long ago appointed the second week in June for the repairing of the French porch,
The roof of which was sagging dangerously.
Roaring Abel had been engaged to do it many moons before,
And Roaring Abel promptly appeared on the morning of the first day of the second week and fell to work.
Of course he was drunk.
Roaring Abel was never anything else but drunk.
But he was only in the first stage,
Which made him talkative and genial.
The odour of whisky on his breath nearly drove Mrs.
Frederick and Cousin Stickles wild.
Even Valancy,
With all her emancipation,
Did not like it.
But she liked Abel and she liked his vivid,
Eloquent talk.
After she washed the dinner dishes,
She went out and sat on the steps and talked to him.
Mrs.
Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought it a terrible proceeding,
But what could they do?
Valancy only smiled,
Mocking me.
It was so easy to defy once you got started.
The first step was the only one that really counted.
They were both afraid to say anything more to her,
Lest she might make a scene.
Then Roaring Abel would spread it all over the country with his own characteristic comments.
It was too cold a day in spite of the June sunshine for Mrs.
Frederick to sit at the dining room window and listen.
She had to shut the window.
So Valancy and Roaring Abel had their talk to themselves.
But if Mrs.
Frederick had known what the outcome was to be,
She would have prevented it.
Valancy sat on the steps,
Defiant of the chill breeze.
She did not care whether she caught a cold or not.
It was delightful to sit there in the beautiful,
Fragrant world and feel free.
She filled her lungs with a clean,
Lovely wind and held out her arms to it and let it tear her hair to pieces.
Whilst Roaring Abel told her all his troubles between intervals of hammering gaily in time to his Scotch songs.
Old Abel Gay,
In spite of his 70 years,
Was handsome still in a stately,
Patriarchal manner.
His tremendous beard,
Falling down over his blue fannel shirt,
Was still a flaming,
Untouched red.
Though his head was white as snow and his eyes a fiery,
Youthful blue.
He had enormous reddish-white eyebrows,
More like moustaches.
Perhaps that's why he always kept his upper lip scrupulously shaved.
His cheeks were red and his nose ought to have been,
But it wasn't.
It was a fine,
Upstanding aquiline nose,
Such as the noblest Roman of them all might have rejoiced.
Abel was six feet two in his stockings,
Broad shoulders,
Lean-hipped,
And in his youth he had been quite a famous lover.
He had been 45 before he married,
A pretty slip of a girl whom his goings-on killed in a few years.
He was piously drunk at her funeral and insisted on repeating the 55th chapter of Isaiah.
Abel knew most of the Bible and all the Psalms by heart.
His house was run by an untidy old cousin who cooked his meals and kept things going after a fashion.
In this uncompromising environment,
Little Cecilia Gay had grown up.
Valancy had known Cici Gay fairly well in the democracy of the public school,
Although Cici had been three years younger than her.
After they left school,
Their paths diverged and she'd seen nothing of her.
She had been properly baptised,
But Abel was jovially drunk at the same time himself.
He made her go to church and Sunday school regularly,
And then the church people took her up,
And she was in turn a member of the mission band,
The Girls' Guide,
And the Young Women's Missionary Society.
Everyone liked Cici Gay and was sorry for her.
She was so modest and sensitive and pretty in that delicate,
Elusive fashion of beauty which fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness.
But then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces like hungry cats when the catastrophe came.
Four years previously,
She had gone up to a Muskoka hotel as a summer waitress,
And when she came back,
She was a changed creature.
She hid herself away and went nowhere.
The reason soon leaked out,
And that winter Cici's baby was born.
No one ever knew who the father was.
She kept her poor pale lips tightly locked on that secret.
No one dared ask roaring Abel any questions about it.
Rumour and surmise laid the guilt at Barney Snaith's door.
She had kept herself to herself,
They said about Cici.
But there had only ever been one boy seen with Cici Gay.
The baby had lived for a year.
After its death,
Cici faded away.
Two years ago,
Dr Marsh gave her only six months to live.
But she was still alive today.
Nobody went to see her.
Women would not go to roaring Abel's house.
Do you mean to say that Cici's all alone there now with no one to do anything for her?
Oh,
She can move about a bit and get up and bite and sub when she wants it,
Said Abel.
But she can't work.
And it's a might heart to go home at night,
Tired and hungry,
And cook your own meals.
But Cici must have someone to look after her,
Insisted Valancy,
Whose mind was centred on this aspect of the case.
She did not care whether roaring Abel had anyone to cook for him or not.
But her heart was wrung for Cecilia Gay.
There's plenty of good people both in St Andrew's and St George's who would be kind to Cici if you would behave yourself amongst women,
Said Valancy severely.
They're afraid to go near your place.
I don't bite.
I never bit anyone in my life,
He insisted.
A few loose words spelled around don't hurt anyone,
And I'm not asking people to come.
I don't want them poking and prying about.
What I need is a housekeeper.
If I shaved every Sunday and went to church,
I'd get all the housekeepers I'd want.
What's the use of going to church,
Miss?
Anyhow,
Barney Snaith always drops in when he's passing,
Does anything she wants done.
Brings oranges and flowers and things.
There's a Christian for you.
Yet that sanctimonious,
Snivelling pass of St Andrew's people wouldn't be seen on the same side of the road with him.
Their dogs will go to heaven before they do,
And their minister slick as the cat that licked him.
Valancy's thoughts became consumed with Sissy.
She must have someone,
She said.
About Sissy,
She must have someone to look after her,
You know.
What are you harping on about Sis for?
Seems to me you ain't bothered much about her up to now.
You never even come to see her,
Said Abel.
And she used to like you so well.
I should have,
Said Valancy.
Yes,
I should.
But never mind,
You couldn't understand.
The point is,
You need a housekeeper.
You must have a housekeeper.
And where am I to get one of those?
I can pay decent wages enough,
If I could get a decent woman.
Do you think I like old hags?
Valancy looked at roaring Abel straight in the eye.
Do you think I will do?
She said.
