26 The Blue Castle - Soothing Guided Reading

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.

In this episode, Valancy hears the truth and begins to rebel.

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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. Chapter 26. 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 as if a wild elf strayed out of the greenwood. But that did not matter. Nothing mattered at all except that Barney was coming for her. Ready? He said as he stopped 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 Deawood and through Deawood and hit the long wooded road to the port. Have you changed your mind? Said Barney. No. Have you? No. That was their whole conversation on the 15 miles. Everything was more dreamlike than ever. Valancy didn't know whether she felt happy or terrified or just plain foolish. Then all at once 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 and they went into the small shabby parlor. Barney produced his license so he had got it. Also a ring. This thing was real. She, Valancy Sterling, 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 too. She herself was thinking of the way she'd once planned to be married a way 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 flock 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 distorted mirror. She in her odd unbridled green hat and dress and Barney in shirt and overalls looked strange over the mantelpiece. But this was Barney. That was all that mattered. No veil, Flowers, Guests, Presents or wedding cake. Just Barney. For all the rest of her life there would be Barney. Mrs. Snaith, I hope you will be very happy, Mr. Towers was saying. He had not seemed surprised at their appearance. Not even at Barney's overalls. He'd seen plenty of queer weddings up back. He did not know Valancy was one of the Dearwood Sterlings. He did not even know there were Dearwood Sterlings. He did not know Barney Snaith was a fugitive from justice. Really he was an incredibly ignorant old man. Therefore he married them and gave them his blessing very gently and solemnly and prayed for them that night after they went away. His conscience did not trouble him at all. What a nice way to get married, Said Barney as he put Lady Jane in gear. No fuss and flub up. I never supposed it was half so easy. For heaven's sake, Said Valancy suddenly, Let's forget we are married and talk as if we were, Shall we? I can't stand another drive like the one we had coming in. Barney howled and threw Lady Jane into a high gear with an infernal noise. And I thought I was making it easy for you, He said. You didn't seem to want to talk. I didn't but I wanted you to talk. I don't want you to make love to me but I want you to act like an ordinary human being. Tell me about this island of yours. What sort of place is it? The jolliest place in the world. You're going to love it. The first time I saw it I loved it. Old Tong McMurray owned it then. He built a little shack on it, Lived there in the winter and rented it to Toronto people in the summer. I bought it from him. Became, By that one simple transaction, A landed proprietor owning a house in an island. There's something so satisfying in owning a whole island. And isn't an uninhabited island a charming idea? I wanted to own one ever since I'd read Robinson Crusoe. Seemed too good to be true. And what about the beauty? Most of the scenery belongs to the government but they don't tax you for looking at it and the moon belongs to everyone. You won't find my shack very tidy though. I suppose you'll want to make it tidy. Yes, Said Valancy, Honestly, I have to be tidy. I don't really want to be but untidiness hurts me. I'll have to tidy up your shack. I was prepared for that, Said Barney with a hollow groan. But, Continued Valancy, Relentingly, I won't insist on your wiping your feet when you come in. No, You'll only sweep up after me with the air of a martyr. Well, Anyway, You can't tidy the lean-to. You can't even enter it. The door will be locked and I shall keep the key, Said Barney. Bluebeard's chamber, Said Valancy. I shan't even think of it. I don't care how many wives you have hanging up in it as long as they're really dead. Dead as doornails. You can do what you like in the rest of the house. There's not much of it. Just one big living room and one small bedroom. Well built. Old Tom loved his job. The beams of our house are cedar and the rafters fir. Our living room windows face west and east. It's wonderful to have a room where you can see both sunrise and sunset. I have two cats there, Banjo and Good Luck. Adorable animals. Banjo's a big enchanting grey devil cat. Striped, Of course. I don't care. A hang for any cat that hasn't got stripes. I never knew a cat who could swear as gentily and effectively as Banjo. His only fault is he snores horribly when he's asleep. Luck is a dainty little cat, Always looking wistfully at you as if he wanted to tell you something. Maybe he'll pull it off sometime. Once in a thousand years, You know, One cat is allowed to speak. My cats are philosophers. Neither of them ever cries over spilt milk. Two old crows live in a pine tree on the point and are reasonably neighbourly. I call them Nip and Tuck. And I've a demure little tame owl too. I bought him up from a baby and he lives over on the mainland and chuckles to himself over nights. And bats. It's a great place for bats. You scared of bats? No, I like them. So do I. Nice, Queer, Uncanny things. Coming from nowhere and going nowhere. Banjo likes them too. He eats them. I've got a canoe and a disappearing propeller boat. I went to the port in it today to get the licence. Quite a m'lady Jane. I thought you hadn't gone at all. That you'd changed your mind. Barley laughed. The kind of laugh Valancy did not like. A little bitter, Cynical laugh. I never changed my mind, He said shortly. They went back through Deerwood, Up the Muskoka Road, Past Roaring Ables, Over the rocky Daisy Lane. The dark pine wood swallowed them up. Through the woods where the air was sweet with the incense of the unseen fragile bells that copped at the banks of the trail. Then out to the shore where Lady Jane was left. They got out. Barney led the way down a little path to the edge of the lake. There's our island, He said gloatingly. Valancy looked and looked and looked again. There was a diaphanous lilac mist on the lake, Shrouding the island. Through it, The two enormous pine trees that clasped hands over Barney's shack loomed out like dark turrets. Behind them was a sky still rose-hued in the afterlight and a pale young moon. Valancy shivered like a tree. The wind stirs suddenly. Something seemed to sweep over her soul. My blue castle, She said. Oh, My blue castle. They got into the canoe and paddled out to it. They left behind the realm of everyday and things known and landed on a realm of mystery and enchantment where anything might happen. Anything might be true. Barney lifted Valancy out of the canoe and swung her to a lichen-covered rock under a young pine tree. His arms were about her and suddenly his lips were on hers. Valancy found herself shivering with the rapture of her first kiss. Welcome home, Dear, Said Barney.