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 22.
The next thing the Stirlings heard was that Valancy had been seen with Barney Snaith in a movie at her in Port Lawrence and after it had supper in a Chinese restaurant.
This was quite true and no one was more surprised at it than Valancy herself.
Barney had come along in Lady Jane one dim twilight and told Valancy unceremoniously if she wanted a drive to hop in.
I'm going to the port you go there with me he said.
His eyes were teasing and there was a bit of defiance in his voice.
Valancy who did not conceal from herself she would have gone anywhere with him to any place hopped in without more ado.
They tore into and through Deerwood.
Mrs.
Frederick and Cousin Stickles taking a little air on the veranda saw them whirl by in a cloud of dust and sought comfort in each other's eyes.
Valancy who in some dim pre-existence had been afraid of a car was hatless and her hair was blown wildly around her face.
She would certainly come down with bronchitis they said and die at roaring eagles.
She wore a low-necked dress and her arms were bare and that Snaith creature was in his shirt sleeve smoking a pipe.
They were going on at the rate of 40 miles an hour 60 Cousin Stickles a bird.
Lady Jane could hit the pike when she wanted to.
Valancy waved her hand gaily to her relatives.
As for Mrs.
Frederick she was wishing she knew how to go into hysterics.
Was it for this she demanded in hollow tones that I suffered the pangs of motherhood?
I will not believe said Cousin Stickles solemnly that our prayers will not yet be answered.
Who will protect that unfortunate girl when I'm gone moaned Mrs.
Frederick.
As for Valancy she was wondering if it could really be only a few weeks since she'd sat there with him in that veranda.
Hating the rubber plant,
Pestered with teasing questions like black flies,
Always thinking of appearances,
Cowed because of Aunt Wellington's teaspoons and Uncle Benjamin's money.
Poverty stricken,
Afraid of everyone,
Envying Olive,
A slave to moth-eaten traditions with nothing to hope for and nothing to expect.
But now every day was a gay adventure.
Lady Jane flew over the 15 miles between Deerwood and the port,
Through the port.
The way Barney went past traffic policemen was not holy.
The lights were beginning to twinkle out like stars in the clear lemon-hued twilight air.
This was the only time Valancy ever really liked the town and she was crazy with the delight of speeding.
Was it possible she had ever even been afraid of a car?
She was perfectly happy riding beside Barney.
Not that she deluded herself into thinking it had any significance.
She knew quite well Barney had asked her to go on the impulse of the moment.
An impulse born of feeling a pity for her and her starved little dreams.
She was looking tired after a wakeful night with a heart attack,
Followed by a busy day and she had so little fun.
He'd given her an outing for once.
Beside,
Abel was in the kitchen at the point of drunkenness when he was declaring he did not believe in God and beginning to sing his songs.
It was just as well she should be out of the way for a while.
Barney knew roaring Abel's repertoire.
They went to the movie.
Valancy had never been to a movie and then finding a nice hunger upon them they went and had fried chicken,
Unbelievably delicious,
In the Chinese restaurant.
After which they rattled home again leaving a devastating trail of scandal behind them.
Mrs.
Frederick gave up going to church altogether now.
She could not endure her friends pitying glances and questions but Cousin Stickles went every Sunday.
She said they'd been given a cross to bear.
Chapter 23.
In one of Sissy's wakeful night she told Valancy her poor little story.
They were sitting by the open window and Sissy could not get her breath lying down.
An inglorious gibbous moon was hanging over the wooded hills and in its spectral light Sissy looked frail and lovely and incredibly young.
A child.
It did not seem possible she could have lived through all the passion and pain and shame of her story.
He was stopping at the hotel across the lake.
He used to come over in his canoe at night.
We met in the pines down the shore.
He was a young college student.
His father was a rich man in Toronto.
Oh Valancy I didn't mean to be bad.
I didn't but I loved him.
I love him yet.
I'll always love him.
I didn't know some things.
I didn't understand.
Then his father came took him away and after a little time I found out.
I was so frightened.
I didn't know what to do.
I wrote to him and he came.
He said he would marry me and why didn't he?
He didn't love me anymore.
I saw that at a glance.
He was just offering to marry me because he thought he ought to because he was sorry for me.
He wasn't bad but he was so young and what was I that he should keep on loving me?
Never mind making excuses for him said Valancy a bit shortly.
Wouldn't you marry him?
I couldn't not when he didn't love me anymore.
I can't explain.
It seemed a worse thing to do than the other.
He argued a little but then he went away.
Do you think I did right Valancy?
Yes I do.
You did do right but he?
Oh don't blame him dear.
Let's not talk about it at all.
There's no need.
I wanted to tell you how it was.
I didn't want you to think me bad.
I never did think you were.
I felt that whenever you came.
Oh Valancy what you've been to me I can never tell you but God will bless you for it.
I know he will.
Sissy then sobbed for a few moments in Valancy's arms before wiping her eyes.
Well that's almost all.
I came home and I wasn't really very unhappy.
I suppose I should have been but I wasn't.
The father wasn't hard on me.
My baby was so sweet while he lived.
I was even happy.
I loved him so much the dear little thing.
Lovely blue eyes he had and little rings of pale gold hair.
I know said Valancy wincing.
I know.
He was all mine said Sissy.
Nobody else had any claim on him.
When he died I thought I must die too.
I didn't see how anyone could endure such anguish and live.
To see his dear little eyes and know he'd never open them again.
Who could endure life if it were not for the hope of death murmured Valancy softly.
It was of course a quotation from some book of John Foster's.
I'm glad I've told you about it sighed Sissy.
I wanted you to know.
She died a few nights after that.
Roaring Abel was away.
When Valancy saw the change that had come over her face she wanted to telephone for the doctor but Sissy would not let her.
He can do nothing for me now she said.
I've known for several days it was near.
Let me die in peace.
Just hold my hand.
I'm so glad you're here.
Tell father goodbye for me.
He's always been as good to me as he knew how and Barney of course.
Somehow I think that Barney.
.
.
But a spasm of coughing interrupted and exhausted her and she fell asleep.
Valancy sat there in the silence.
She was not frightened or even sorry.
At sunrise Sissy died and she opened her eyes and looked past Valancy at something that made her smile suddenly.
Valancy crossed Sissy's hands on her breast and went to the open window.
In the eastern sky amid the fires of sunrise an old moon was hanging as slender and lovely as a new moon.
Valancy had never seen an old old moon before.
She watched it pale and fade until it paled and faded out of sight in the living rose of day.
But the world suddenly seemed a colder place.
Again nobody needed Valancy.
She was not in the least sorry Cecilia was dead but she was sorry for all the suffering she'd had in life.
She had died so quietly so pleasantly and at the very last something had made up to her for everything.
She was lying there now in her white sleep looking like a child.
Beautiful.
All the lines of shame and pain gone.
Roaring Abel drove in justifying his name.
Valancy went down and told him.
The shock sobered him up once.
He slumped down on the seat of his buggy his great head hanging.
Sissy dead he said vacantly.
I didn't think it would come so soon.
Dead.
She used to run down the lane to meet me with a little white rose stuck in her hair.
She used to be a pretty little girl and a good little girl.
She has always been a good little girl said Valancy.
