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 know where you need to go.
Close your eyes.
And feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let all the worries of the day go.
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.
That's it!
There is nothing you need to be doing now.
And know where you need to go.
Happy listening.
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 still she could not sleep.
She pretended to be asleep when Barney came in,
And Barney pretended to go to sleep,
But Valancy knew perfectly well he wasn't sleeping any more than she was.
She knew he was just lying there staring through the darkness.
But thinking of what?
Trying to face what?
Valancy who had spent so many happy waitful 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.
Or ignore it.
There could be nothing seriously wrong with her heart,
No matter what Dr Trent said.
If there had been,
Those 30 seconds would have killed her.
It was no use to recall his letter and reputation.
Even the greatest specialists made mistakes sometimes.
Towards morning,
Valancy fell into a fitful doze with ridiculous dreams.
One of them was a 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.
It 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 it all,
And a miserable,
Sickening recollection of what had happened the day before.
Barney was gone.
Balancing you as people sometimes do know things Inescapably without being told 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.
He 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 aureole,
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.
That furious silence of these.
.
.
It 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 cross to the mainland in the motorboat.
She was going into Deerwood to see Dr Trent.
She must know.
Chapter 37 Dr Trent looked at Valancy blankly and fumbled among his recollections.
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.
Dr.
Trent's face cleared.
Ah,
Of course,
I remember now.
I'm really not going to blame you for not knowing you,
You know.
You've changed splendidly.
And married.
Well,
That has agreed with you.
You don't look much like an invalid now,
Hey?
I remember that day.
I was badly upset,
Wasn't I?
Hearing about poor Ned bowled me over.
That's as good as you,
And you are too,
Evidently.
I told you!
You know,
I told you there was nothing to worry about.
Balanced Seed looks at Dr.
Trent.
You told me in your letter,
She said slowly,
With a curious feeling someone else was talking through her lips,
I had angina in the last stages,
Complicated with an aneurysm,
That I might die any minute.
So I couldn't live longer than a year.
Dr.
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,
Of course I wrote you on the train that night.
But I told you there was nothing serious.
Read your letter.
Insisted valency.
Doctor Trent took it out,
Unfolded it,
Glanced over it,
And 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 Mrs Jane Stirling from Port Lawrence.
She was here that day too.
Valancy,
I sent you the wrong letter.
What unpardonable carelessness!
But I was beside myself that night.
My God,
Can you believe that?
But you didn't.
You then went to another doctor.
Valancy stood up,
Turned around,
Looked foolishly about her and sat back down again.
I believed it.
She said faintly.
I didn't go to any other doctor.
It would take too long to explain.
I believed I was going to die soon.
Dr 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 Dolly.
So there's nothing the matter with my heart.
Oh,
Nothing serious.
You had what's called a 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.
Arts of balancing.
She remembered the marvellous feeling of recreation she had had when she saw Barney coming home safe after the storm.
Was that the shock of joy that cured her?
Then likely you were right.
I told you what to do in the letter.
And of course,
I supposed you'd go to another doctor.
Child,
Why don't you go to another doctor?
I didn't want anyone to know.
Idiot.
Said Dr.
Dren bluntly.
I can't understand such folly.
And poor old Miss Stirling,
She must have got your letter telling her there was nothing serious.
Well,
It couldn't have made any difference.
Her case was hopeless.
Nothing she could have done or left undone could have made any difference.
I'm surprised she lived as long as she did.
Two whole 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.
I can't soften things.
But I'm a snivelling coward when it comes to telling a woman face to face she's got to die soon.
I thought I'd look up some features of the case I wasn't quite sure of and let her know the next day.
But you got her letter.
Look here.
S T E R L I N G Yours is spelt with an I.
Yes,
I noticed that.
Said Valancy but I thought it was a mistake.
I didn't know there were any other Stirlings in Port Lawrence.
She was the only one,
A lonely old soul,
Lived by herself with only a little home girl.
She died two months after she was here,
In her sleep.
My mistake couldn't have made any difference to her.
But to 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.
It was just that I'd got that news and I thought my son was fatally injured.
But that's no excuse.
Valancy then let Dr Trent examine her and answered all his questions.
When he told her she was as fit as a fiddle and would probably live to be a hundred.
She got up and went away silently.
She knew there were a great many horrible things outside waiting to be thought over.
Dr Trent,
Meanwhile,
Thought she was very odd.
Anyone would have thought,
From her hopeless eyes and woe-begone face,
He'd given her a sentence of death instead of life.
And ask for Snape.
Who the devil had she married?
He had never heard of snakes in Deerwood.
And Valancy had been such a sallow,
Faded little old maid.
Marriage had made a difference in her anyhow,
Whoever Snaith was.
Then Dr.
Trent remembered.
That wraps Scadian up.
Had Fancy Sterling married him?
And her clan had only gone and let 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's new home.
A jailbird?
A defaulter,
A fugitive from justice.
It must be pretty bad if she had looked to death as a release pool girl.
But why were women such fools?
Dr Trent dismissed Fallency from his mind.
Though to the day of his death.
He was ashamed of putting those letters into the wrong.
Envelopes.
