7 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.

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

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 7 There was a rosebush on the little sterling lawn growing beside the gate.

It was called Dossie's rosebush.

Cousin Georgiana had given it to Valancy five years ago and Valancy had planted it joyfully.

She loved roses but of course the rosebush never bloomed.

That was her luck.

Valancy did everything she could think of and took the advice of everyone in the clan but still the rosebush would not bloom.

It grew luxuriantly with great leafy branches untouched of rust or spider but not even a bud had ever appeared on it.

Valancy looking at it two days after her birthday was filled with a sudden overwhelming hatred for it.

The thing wouldn't bloom.

Very well then,

She would cut it down.

She marched to the tool room in the barn for her garden knife and she went at the rosebush viciously.

A few minutes later horrified Mrs Frederick came out of the veranda and beheld her daughter slashing insanely among the rosebush boughs.

Half of them were already strewn on the walk.

The bush looked sadly dismantled.

Dos,

What on earth are you doing?

Have you gone crazy?

No,

Said Valancy.

She meant to say defiantly but habit was too strong for her so she said it deprecatingly instead.

I just made up my mind to cut this bush down.

It's no good.

It never blooms.

Never will it bloom.

That is no reason for destroying it,

Said Mrs Frederick sternly.

It was a beautiful bush and quite ornamental.

You've made a sorry looking thing of it.

Rose trees should bloom,

Said Valancy a little obstinately.

Don't argue with me,

Dos.

Clear up that mess and leave the bush alone.

I don't know what Georgiana will say when she sees how you've hacked it to pieces.

Really I'm surprised at you and you do it without consulting me.

This bush is mine,

Muttered Valancy.

What's that?

What did you say,

Dos?

I only said the bush was mine.

Mrs Frederick turned without a word and marched back into the house.

The mischief was done.

Valancy knew she defended her mother deeply and would not be spoken to or noticed in any way for two or three days.

Cousin Stickles would see to Valancy's bringing up but Mrs Frederick would preserve the stony silence of outraged majesty.

Valancy sighed and put away her garden knife hanging it precisely on its precise nail in the precise tool shop.

She cleared away the severed branches and swept up the leaves.

Her lips twitched as she looked at the straggling bush.

It had an odd resemblance to its shaken scrawny donor,

Little cousin Georgiana herself.

I certainly have made an awful looking thing of it,

Thought Valancy,

But she did not feel repentant.

She was only sorry she defended her mother.

Things would be so uncomfortable until she was forgiven.

Mrs Frederick was one of those women who can make their anger felt all over a house.

Walls and doors are no protection from that.

You'd better go uptown and get the mail,

Said Cousin Stickles when Valancy went in.

I can't go.

I feel sort of peaky and piney.

I want you to stop at the drugstore and get me a bottle of Redfern's blood bitters.

There's nothing like that for building a body up.

Cousin James said the purple pills are the best,

But I know better.

My poor dear husband took Redfern bitters right up to the day he died.

Don't let them charge you more than 90 cents.

I can get it for that at the port.

And what have you been saying to your poor mother?

Do you ever stop to think,

Doss?

You can only have one mother.

One is enough for me,

Thought Valancy undutifully as she went uptown.

She got Cousin Stickles' bottle of bitters.

Then she went to the post office and asked for her mail.

Her mother did not have a box.

They got too little mail to bother with it.

Valancy did not expect any mail,

Except the Christian Times,

Which was the only paper they took.

They hardly ever got any letters,

But she rather liked to stand in the office and watch Mr Carew,

The grey beard,

Santa Clausy Clark.

He would hand out the letters to the lucky people who did get them,

And he did it with such a detached,

Impersonable,

Jove-like air,

As if it did not matter in the least to him what supernal joys or shattering horrors might be in those letters.

Lettuce had a fascination for Valancy,

Perhaps because she seldom got any.

In her blue castle,

Exciting epistles bound with silk and sealed with crimson were always being brought to her by pages in livery of golden blue,

But in real life,

Her only letters were occasional perfunctory notes from relatives or an advertising circular.

Consequently,

She was immensely surprised when Mr Carew,

Looking even more jovian than usual,

Poked a letter out to her.

It was addressed to her plainly in a fierce black hand,

Miss Valancy Stirling,

Elm Street,

Deerwood.

The postmark was Montreal.

Valancy picked it up with a little quickening of her breath.

It must be from Dr Trent.

He had remembered her after all.

As she left the office,

She met Uncle Benjamin coming in.

What is the difference between a donkey and a postage stamp?

He asked.

I don't know.

What?

She answered dutifully.

One you lick with a stick,

And the other you stick with a lick.

Then he passed in tremendously pleased with himself.

When Valancy got home,

Cousin Stickles pounced on the times,

But it did not occur to her to ask if there were any letters.

Mrs Frederick would have asked it,

But Mrs Frederick's lips at present were sealed.

Valancy was glad of it.

If her mother had asked if there were any letters,

She would have had to admit there was.

Then she would have had to tell her mother and cousin Stickles that she had been to the doctor without their say so.

On the way upstairs,

Her heart acted strangely.

She sat down by her window for a few minutes before opening the letter.

She felt very guilty and deceitful.

She had never before kept a letter secret from her mother.

Every letter she had ever written or received had been read by Mrs Frederick.

That had never mattered.

Valancy had never had anything to hide.

But this did matter.

She could not have anyone see this letter.

Her fingers trembled with a consciousness of wickedness and unfilial conduct as she opened it,

Trembled a little,

Perhaps with apprehension.

She felt quite sure there was nothing seriously wrong with her heart,

But one never knew.

Dr Trent's letter was like himself.

Blunt,

Abrupt,

Concise,

Wasting no words.

Dr Trent never beat about the bush.

Dear Miss Stirling,

It said,

And then a page of black positive writing.

Valancy seemed to read it at a glance.

Then she dropped it on her lap,

Her face ghost white.

She had a very dangerous and fatal form of heart disease,

Evidently complicated with an aneurysm,

Whatever that was,

And she was in the last stages.

Dr Trent said without mincing matters,

Nothing could be done.

If she took great care of herself,

She might live a year,

He said,

But she might also die at any moment.

Dr Trent never worried himself with euphemisms.

She must be careful to avoid all excitement and all severe muscular efforts.

She must eat and drink moderately.

She must never run.

She must go upstairs and uphill with great care.

Any sudden jolt or shock might be fatal.

She was to get the prescription he enclosed filled and carry it with her always.

Taking a dose whenever her attacks came on.

He was hers,

Truly H.

B.

Trent.

Valancy sat for a long while by her window.

Outside was a world drowned in the light of a spring afternoon.

Skies entrancingly blue,

Winds perfumed and free,

Lovely soft blue hazes at the end of every street.

Over at the railway station,

A group of young girls was waiting for a train.

She heard their gay laughter as they chatted and joked.

The train roared and roared out,

But none of these things had any reality.

None had any reality except the fact she had only another year to live.

When she was tired of sitting at the window,

She went over and lay down on her bed.

She stared at the cracked,

Discoloured ceiling.

The curious numbness that follows on a staggering blow possessed her.

She did not feel anything but surprise and incredulity.

When the gong rang for supper,

Valancy got up and went to bed.

She went downstairs mechanically.

She wondered that she'd been let alone so long,

But of course her mother would not pay any attention to her just now,

And she was thankful for this.

She thought the quarrel over the rosebush had been really providential.

She could not eat anything,

So she found herself smiling inwardly to think of what a commotion she could make if she chose.

Let her merely tell them what was in Dr Trent's letter,

Then there would be so much fuss made of her,

As if they really cared two straws.

Dr Trent's housekeeper got word from him today,

Said Cousin Stickle,

So suddenly Valancy jumped.

Mrs Judd was talking to her uptown,

They think his son will recover,

But he wrote if he did,

He was going to take him abroad as soon as he was able to travel,

And he wouldn't be back for a year at least.

That will not matter much to us,

Said Mrs Frederick majestically.

He is not our doctor.

I would not have him to doctor a sick cat.

May I go upstairs and lie down,

Said Valancy suddenly.

I have a headache.

What has given you a headache,

Asked Cousin Stickles.

The question had to be asked.

Valancy could not be allowed to have headaches without interference.

You ain't in the habit of having headaches.

I hope you're not taking the mumps.

Try a spoonful of vinegar.

Piffle,

Said Valancy rudely,

Getting up from the table.

She did not care just then if she were rude.

She had had to be so polite all her life.

If it had been possible for Cousin Stickles to turn pale,

She would then have.

But as it was not,

She turned yellower.

Are you sure you ain't feverish?

You sound like it.

Go and get right into bed.

I'll come up and rub your forehead and the back of your neck with Redfern's liniment.

At this,

Valancy reached the door and turned with a I won't be rubbed with Redfern's liniment.

Cousin Stickles stared.

What do you mean?

I said I won't be rubbed with Redfern's liniment.

Horrid sticky stuff.

It's the filest smell of any liniment I ever saw.

It's no good.

I want to be left alone.

That's all.

Then she went out,

Leaving Cousin Stickles aghast.

She's feverish.

She must be feverish,

Ejaculated Cousin Stickles.

Mrs.

Frederick,

Meanwhile,

Went on eating her supper.

It did not matter whether Valancy was or was not feverish.

Valancy had been guilty of impertinence to her.