Blue Castle (Bedtime Story) Chapter 20

The Blue Castle reminds us that the most profound transformations begin with a single act of self-trust. In this reflective session, we’ll journey with Valancy Stirling as she discovers her voice, her freedom, and the quiet strength of authenticity. This is a meditation on reclaiming your power — learning to honor your truth, follow your heart, and live the life your soul has been waiting for.

Transcript

Chapter 20 When Abel gave Pate Valancy her first month's wages,

Which she did promptly,

In bills raking with the odor of tobacco and whiskey,

She went into Deerwood and spent every cent of it.

She got a pretty green creep dress,

With a girdle of crimson beads,

And a bargain sale,

A pair of silk stockings to match,

And a little crinkled green hat with a crimson rose in it.

She even bought a foolish little berry bonnet,

And a lace nightgown.

She passed the house on Elm Street twice.

Valancy never even thought about it as home,

But saw no one.

No doubt her mother was sitting in the room,

This lonely June evening playing solitaire and cheating.

Valancy knew that Miss Frederick always cheated.

She never lost a game.

Most of the people Valancy met looked at her seriously,

And passed her with a cool nod.

Nobody stopped to speak to her.

Valancy put on her green dress when she got home.

Then she took it off again.

She felt so miserably undressed,

In its low neck and show sleeves,

And that low crimson girdle around the hip-tip,

Positively indecent,

As she hung it up in the closet,

Feeling proudly that she had raised her money.

She would never have the courage to wear that dress.

John Foster's arrangement of fear had no power to stiffen her against this.

In this one thing habit and custom were still all-powerful.

Yet she sighed as she went down to meet Barney's maid,

In her old snuff-brown silk.

That queen-thing had been very becoming.

She had seen somewhat in her one ashamed glance.

Above it her eyes had looked like old brown jewels,

And the girdle had given her flat figure an entirely different appearance.

She wished she could have left it on,

But there were some things John Foster did not know.

Every Sunday evening,

Valancy went to the little free Methodist church,

In a valley on the edge of Upback.

As far as a little grey building among the pines,

With a few sunken graves and mossy gravestones in the small,

Paling and circled,

Grass-grown square beside it.

She liked the minister who preached there.

He was so simple and sincere.

An old man who lived in Port Lawrence,

And came out by the lake in a little disappearing propeller-boat,

To give a free service to the people of the small,

Stony farms back on the hills,

Who would otherwise never have heard any gospel message.

She liked the simple service and the servants' singing.

She liked to sit by the open window and look out into the pine woods.

The congregation was always small.

The free Methodists were few in number,

Poor and generally illiterate.

But Valancy loved those Sunday evenings.

For the first time in her life,

She liked going to church.

The rumour reached Diogo that she had turned free Methodist,

And sent Miss Frederick to bed for a day.

But Valancy had not tried anything.

She went to the church because she liked it,

And because,

In some way,

It did her good.

Old Mr.

Towers believed exactly what he preached,

And somehow it made a tremendous difference.

Oddly enough,

Roaring Abel disapproved of her going to the hill church as strongly as Miss Frederick herself could have done.

He had no use for free Methodists.

He was a Presbyterian.

But Valancy went in spite of him.

We'll hear something worse than that about her soon,

Uncle Benjamin predicted gloomily.

They did.

Valancy could not quite explain even to herself just why she wanted to go to that party.

It was a dance,

Up back,

At Chidley Corners,

And dances at Chidley Corners were not,

As a rule,

The sort of assemblies where well-brought-up young ladies were found.

Valancy knew it was coming off,

For roaring Abel had been engaged as one of the fiddlers.

But the idea of going had never occurred to her,

Until roaring Abel himself broached it at supper.

You come with me to the dance,

He ordered.

It will do you good.

Put some colour in your face.

You want something to liven you up.

Valancy found herself suddenly wanting to go.

She knew nothing at all of what dances at Chidley Corners were apt to be like.

Her idea of dances had been fashioned from the Quirked Affairs that went by that name in Deerwood and Port Lawrence.

Of course she knew the Corners dance would be just like them,

Much more informal,

Of course,

But so much the more interesting.

Why shouldn't she go?

C.

C.

Was in a week of apparent health and improvement.

She wouldn't mind staying alone in the least.

She entreated Valancy to go if she wanted to,

And Valancy didn't want to go.

She went to her room to dress.

Her rage against the snuff-brown silk seized her.

Wear that to a party?

Never.

She put her green reep from its hanger and put it on feverishly.

It was nonsense to feel so,

So naked,

Just because her neck and arms were bare.

That was just her old maidishness.

She would not be ridden by it.

On went the dress.

The slippers.

It was the first time she had worn a pretty dress since the organdy's of her early teens,

And they had never made her look like this.

If she only had a necklace or something,

She wouldn't feel so bare then.

She ran down to the garden.

There were clovers there,

Great crimson things,

Growing in the long grass.

Valancy gathered handfuls of them and strung them on the cord.

Fastened upon her neck they gave her the comfortable sensation of a collar,

And were oddly becoming.

Another circlet of them went around her hair,

Dressed in the low puffs that became her.

Excitement brought those faint pink stains to her face.

She flung on her coat and pulled the little twisty hat over her hair.

You look so nice and different,

Dear,

Said Sissi.

Like a green moonbeam with a gleam of red in it,

If there could be such a thing.

Valancy stopped to kiss her.

I don't feel right about leaving you alone,

Sissi.

Oh,

I'll be all right.

I feel better tonight than I have for a long while.

I've been feeling badly to see you sticking here so closely,

On my account.

I hope you'll have a nice time.

I never was at the party at the Corners,

But I used to go sometimes long ago the dances up back.

We always had good times.

And you don't need to be afraid of father being drunk tonight.

He never drinks and he engages to play for a party.

But there may be liquor.

What will you do if it gets rough?

Nobody would molest me.

Not seriously,

I suppose.

Father would see to that.

But it might get nosy and unpleasant.

I won't mind.

I'm only going as a looker-on.

I don't expect the dance.

I just want to see what the party up back is like.

I've never seen anything except thicker steelwood.

Sissi smiled rather dubiously.

She knew much better than Valancy of the party up back.

What would it be like if there should be liquor?

But again,

There might not be.

I hope you'll enjoy it there,

She repeated.

Valancy enjoyed the drive there.

They went early,

For it was twelve miles to Jiggly Corners,

And they had to go in Abel's old racktop buggy.

The road was rough and rocky,

Like most Muskoka roads,

But full of the austere charm of northern woods.

It warmed through beautiful,

Purring vines that were ranks of enchantment in the June sunset,

And over the curious,

Jade-green rivers of Muskoka,

Fringed by aspens that were always quivering with some supernal joy.

Roaring Abel was excellent company,

Too.

He knew all the stories and legends of the wild,

Beautiful up back,

And he taught them to Valancy as they drove along.

Valancy had several fits of inward laughter over what Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Bennington would feel and think,

And say if they saw her driving with Roaring Abel in the terrible buggy to a dance at Jiggly Corners.

At first the dance was quiet enough,

And Valancy was amused and entertained.

She even danced twice herself,

With a couple of nice up back boys who danced beautifully and taught her she did too.

Another compliment came her way,

Not a very subtle one,

Perhaps what Valancy had had too few compliments in her life to be over nice on that point.

She overheard two of the up back young men talking about her in the dark,

Leaning to behind her.

Know who that girl in green is?

Nope.

Yes,

She's from out front.

A court,

Maybe.

But a stylish look to her.

Not a beauty,

But cute-looking,

I'll say.

Did you ever see such eyes?

The big room was decorated with pine and fir boughs,

And lighted by Chinese anthems.

The glow was waxed,

And Roaring Abel's fiddle,

Purring under his cute touch,

Worked magic.

The up back girls were pretty and prettily dressed.

Valancy thought it the nicest party she had ever attended.

By eleven o'clock she had changed her mind.

A new crowd had arrived,

Unmistakably drunk.

Miski began to circulate freely.

Very soon almost all the men were partly drunk.

Folks in the porch and outside,

Around the door,

Began howling,

Come all yes,

And continued to howl them.

The room grew nosy and reeking.

Pearls started up here and there.

Bad language and obscene songs were heard.

The girls sung rudely the dances,

Gained his help,

And talked free.

Valancy alone in her corner was feeling disgusted and repentant.

Why had she ever come to such a place?

Freedom and independence were all very well.

But one should not be a little fool.

She might have known what it would be like.

She might have taken warning from Sissi's guarded sentences.

Her head was aching.

She was sick of the whole thing.

But what could she do?

She must stay to the end.

Abel would not leave till then.

That would probably be not till three or four in the morning.

And that would probably be not till three or four in the morning.

The new influx of boys had left the girls far in the minority,

And partners were scarce.

Valancy was flustered with invitations to dance.

She refused them all shortly.

And some of her refusals were not well taken.

There were muttered odes and dullened looks.

Across the room she saw a group of strangers looking together,

All glancing meaningfully at her.

What were they plotting?

It was at this moment that she saw Barney Snape looking in over the heads of the crowd at the doorway.

Valancy had two distinct convictions.

One was that she was quite safe now.

The other was that this was why she had wanted to come to the dance.

It had been such an absurd hope that she had not recognized it before.

But now she knew.

She had come because of the possibility that Barney might be there too.

She thought that perhaps she ought to be ashamed for this,

But she wasn't.

After her feeling of relief,

Her next feeling was one of annoyance with Barney for coming there unshaved.

Surely he might have enough self-respect to cool himself up decently when he went to a party.

There he was,

Bareheaded,

Wristly chinned in his old trousers,

And his blue homespun shirt not even a coat.

Valancy could have shaken him in anger.

No wonder people believed everything bad of him.

But she was not afraid any longer.

One of the whispering group left his comrades and came across the room to her,

Two diverting couples that now felt it unconfortably.

He was a tall,

Broad-shouldered fellow,

Not ill-dressed or ill-looking,

Unmistakably half-drunk.

He asked Valancy to dance.

Valancy declined civilly.

His face turned livid.

He drew his arm about her and pulled her to him.

He sought to whisk it right round her face.

We won't have fine lady-heirs here,

My girl.

If you ain't too good to come here,

You ain't too good to dance with us.

Me and my pals have been watching you.

You got to give us each a turn and kiss to boot.

Valancy tried desperately and meekly to free herself.

She was being dragged out into the maze of shouting,

Stamping,

Yelling dancers.

The next moment the man who held her,

And staggering across the room from a neatly planted blow on the jaw,

Knocking down burning couples as he went,

Valancy felt her arm grasped.

This way,

Quick,

Said Barney's maid.

He swung her out through the open window behind them,

Bolted lightly over the sill,

And caught her hand.

Quick,

We must run for it.

They'll be after us.

Valancy ran as she had never ran before,

Clinging tight to Barney's hand,

Wondering why she did not drop dead in such a mad scamper.

Suppose she did.

What scandal it would make for her poor people.

For the first time Valancy felt a little sorry for them.

Also,

She felt glad that she had escaped from that horrible row.

Also glad that she was holding tight to Barney's hand.

Her things were badly mixed,

And she had never had so many in such a brief time in her life.

They finally reached a quiet corner in the pine woods.

The pursuit had taken a different direction,

And the hoops and yells behind them were growing faint.

Valancy,

Out of breath,

With a gracefully beating heart,

Collapsed off the trunk of a fallen pine.

Thanks,

She gasped,

For the good you were to come to such a place,

Said Barney.

I didn't know it would be like this,

Said Valancy.

You should have known.

Jiggly corners.

It was just a name to me.

Valancy knew Barney could not realize how ignorant she was of regions of fact.

She had lived in Deerwood all her life,

And of course,

He supposed,

She knew.

He didn't know how she had been brought up.

There was no use trying to explain.

When I drifted in at Abel's this evening,

And Zizi told me you had come here,

I was amazed,

But now bright scared.

Zizi told me she was worried about you,

But hadn't liked to say anything to dissuade you,

For fear you'd think she was thinking selfishly about herself.

So I came up here instead of going to Deerwood.

Thus he felt a sudden delightful glow,

Irradiating soul and body under the dark pines.

So he had actually come up to look after her.

Do not stay so pondering,

Voss.

We'll sneak around to the Muskoka Road.

I'll have Lady Jane down there.

I'll take you home.

I suppose you've had enough of your party.

Quite,

Said Valancy neatly.

The first half of the way home,

Neither of them said anything.

It would not have been much use.

Lady Jane made so much noise,

They would not have heard each other anyway.

Valancy did not feel conversationally inclined.

She was ashamed of the whole affair,

Ashamed of being found in such a place by Varnisnate,

A reputed jailbreaker,

Infidel,

Vulture,

And defaulter.

Valancy's lips twitched in the darkness as she thought of it,

But she was ashamed.

And yet she was enjoying herself.

It was full of a strange exhortation.

Lumping over the rough road beside Varnisnate,

The big trees shot by them.

The tall moulin stood up along the road in stiff,

Ordinary ranks like companies of soldiers.

The thistles looked like drunken fairies or tipsy elves,

As their carlight passed over them.

This was the first time she had ever been in a car.

After all,

She liked it.

She was not in the least afraid,

With Barney at the wheel,

Her spirit rose rapidly as they tore along.

She ceased to feel ashamed.

She ceased to feel anything except that she was part of a comet rushing gloriously through the night of space.

All at once,

Just there,

Just where the pinewoods frayed out the scrub barrens,

Lady Jane began quiet.

Too quiet.

Lady Jane slowed down quietly and stopped.

Barney uttered an aghast exclamation.

Got out.

Investigated.

Came apologetically back.

I am a doddering idiot.

Out of gas.

I knew I was short when I left home,

But I meant to fill up in Deerwood.

Then I forgot all about it in my hurry to get to the corners.

What can we do?

Asked Valancy coolly.

I don't know.

There's no gas nearer than Deerwood.

Nine miles away.

And I don't dare leave you here alone.

There are always traps on this road,

And some of those crazy fools back at the corners may come straggling along presently.

There were boys there from the port.

As far as I can see,

The best thing to do is for us just to sit patiently here until some car comes along and lends us enough gas to get to Roaring Ablesford.

Oh,

What's the matter with that?

Said Valancy.

You may have to sit here all night.

Said Barney.

I don't mind.

Said Valancy.

Barney gave a short laugh.

If you don't,

I needn't.

We haven't any reputation to lose.

No,

I.

.

.

Said Valancy constipatedly.