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The Blue Castle - Chapter I · The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

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  Speaker 1: Chapter One If it had not rained on a certain
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  Speaker 1: May morning, Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been entirely different.
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  Speaker 1: She would have gone, with the rest of her clan,
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  Speaker 1: to Aunt Wellington's engagement picnic, and Dr. Trent would have
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  Speaker 1: gone to Montreal. But it did rain, and you shall
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  Speaker 1: hear what happened to her because of it. Valancy wakened early,
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  Speaker 1: in the lifeless, hopeless hour just preceding dawn. She had
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  Speaker 1: not slept very well. One does not sleep well, sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in
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  Speaker 1: a community and connection where the unmarried are simply those
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  Speaker 1: who have failed to get a man. Dearwood and the
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  Speaker 1: Stirlings had long since relegated Valancy to hopeless old maidenhood.
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  Speaker 1: But Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed,
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  Speaker 1: little hope that romance would come her way yet. Never.
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  Speaker 1: until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the
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  Speaker 1: fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man. Ay,
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  Speaker 1: there lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much
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  Speaker 1: being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an
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  Speaker 1: old maid couldn't possibly be as dreadful as being married
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  Speaker 1: to an Uncle Wellington, or an Uncle Benjamin, or even
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  Speaker 1: an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had
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  Speaker 1: never had a chance to be anything but an old maid.
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  Speaker 1: No man had ever desired her. The tears came into
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  Speaker 1: her eyes as she lay there alone in the faintly
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  Speaker 1: graying darkness. She dared not let herself cry as hard
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  Speaker 1: as she wanted to, for two reasons. She was afraid
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  Speaker 1: that crying might bring on another attack of that pain
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  Speaker 1: around the heart. She had had a spell of it
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  Speaker 1: after she had got into bed, rather worse than any
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  Speaker 1: she had had yet. And she was afraid her mother
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  Speaker 1: would notice her red eyes at breakfast. and keep at
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  Speaker 1: her with minute, persistent, mosquito-like questions regarding the cause thereof. Suppose,
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  Speaker 1: thought Valancy with a ghastly grin, I answered with the
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  Speaker 1: plain truth, I am crying because I cannot get married.
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  Speaker 1: How horrified mother would be, though she is ashamed every
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  Speaker 1: day of her life of her old maid daughter. But
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  Speaker 1: of course appearances should be kept up. It is not,
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  Speaker 1: Valancy could hear her mother's prim, dictatorial voice asserting, It
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  Speaker 1: is not maidenly to think about men. The thought of
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  Speaker 1: her mother's expression made Valancy laugh, for she had a
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  Speaker 1: sense of humour nobody in her clan suspected. For that matter,
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  Speaker 1: there were a good many things about Valancy that nobody suspected.
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  Speaker 1: But her laughter was very superficial, and presently she lay there,
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  Speaker 1: a huddled, futile little figure, listening to the rain pouring
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  Speaker 1: down outside and watching, with a sick distaste, the chill,
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  Speaker 1: merciless light creeping into her ugly, sordid room. She knew
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  Speaker 1: the ugliness of that room by heart, knew it and
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  Speaker 1: hated it. The yellow-painted floor, with one hideous, hooked rug
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  Speaker 1: by the bed, with a grotesque, hooked dog on it,
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  Speaker 1: always grinning at her when she awoke. The faded, dark
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  Speaker 1: red paper, the ceiling discoloured by old leaks and crossed
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  Speaker 1: by cracks. The narrow, pinched little washstand, The brown paper
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  Speaker 1: lambrequin with purple roses on it. The spotted old looking
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  Speaker 1: glass with the crack across it, propped up on the
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  Speaker 1: inadequate dressing table. The jar of ancient potpourri made by
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  Speaker 1: her mother in her mythical honeymoon. The shell-covered box with
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  Speaker 1: one burst corner which cousin Stickles had made in her
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  Speaker 1: equally mythical girlhood. The beaded pincushion with half its bead
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  Speaker 1: fringe gone. The one stiff yellow chair. The faded old motto,
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  Speaker 1: gone but not forgotten, worked in coloured yarns about great-grandmother
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  Speaker 1: Stirling's grim old face. The old photographs of ancient relatives
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  Speaker 1: long banished from the rooms below. There were only two
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  Speaker 1: pictures that were not of relatives. One, an old chromo
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  Speaker 1: of a puppy sitting on a rainy doorstep. That picture
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  Speaker 1: always made Valancy unhappy. That forlorn little dog crouched on
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  Speaker 1: the doorstep in the driving rain. Why didn't someone open
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  Speaker 1: the door and let him in? The other picture was
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  Speaker 1: a faded, passepartouted engraving of Queen Louise coming down a stairway,
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  Speaker 1: which Aunt Wellington had lavishly given her on her tenth birthday.
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  Speaker 1: For nineteen years she had looked at it and hated it. Beautiful, smug,
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  Speaker 1: self-satisfied Queen Louise. But she never dared destroy it or
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  Speaker 1: remove it. Mother and cousin Stickles would have been aghast, or...
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  Speaker 1: as Valancy irreverently expressed it in her thoughts, would have
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  Speaker 1: had a fit. Every room in the house was ugly,
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  Speaker 1: of course, but downstairs appearances were kept up somewhat. There
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  Speaker 1: was no money for rooms nobody ever saw. Valancy sometimes
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  Speaker 1: felt that she could have done something for her room herself,
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  Speaker 1: even without money, if she were permitted. But her mother
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  Speaker 1: had negatived every timid suggestion, and Valancy did not persist.
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  Speaker 1: Valancy never persisted. She was afraid to. Her mother could
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  Speaker 1: not brook opposition. Mrs. Stirling would sulk for days if offended,
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  Speaker 1: with the airs of an insulted duchess. The only thing
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  Speaker 1: Valancy liked about her room was that she could be
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  Speaker 1: alone there at night to cry if she wanted to. But,
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  Speaker 1: after all, what did it matter if a room, which
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  Speaker 1: you used for nothing except sleeping and dressing in, were ugly?
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  Speaker 1: Valancy was never permitted to stay alone in her room
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  Speaker 1: for any other purpose. People who wanted to be alone,
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  Speaker 1: so Mrs Frederick Stirling and Cousin Stickles believed, could only
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  Speaker 1: want to be alone for some sinister purpose. But her
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  Speaker 1: room in the Blue Castle was everything a room should be. Valancy,
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  Speaker 1: so cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life,
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  Speaker 1: was wont to let herself go rather splendidly in her daydreams.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody in the Stirling clan, or its ramifications, suspected this.
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  Speaker 1: least of all her mother and cousin Stickles. They never
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  Speaker 1: knew that Valancy had two homes, the ugly red brick
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  Speaker 1: box of a home on Elm Street and the Blue
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  Speaker 1: Castle in Spain. Valancy had lived spiritually in the Blue
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  Speaker 1: Castle ever since she could remember. She had been a
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  Speaker 1: very tiny child when she found herself possessed of it. Always,
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  Speaker 1: when she shut her eyes, she could see it plainly,
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  Speaker 1: with its turrets and banners on the pine-clad mountain height,
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  Speaker 1: wrapped in its faint blue loveliness against the sunset skies
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  Speaker 1: of a fair and unknown land. Everything wonderful and beautiful
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  Speaker 1: was in that castle. Jewels that queens might have worn,
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  Speaker 1: robes of moonlight and fire, couches of roses and gold,
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  Speaker 1: long flights of shallow marble steps with great white urns
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  Speaker 1: and with slender, mist-clad maidens going up and down them, courts, marble-pillared,
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  Speaker 1: where shimmering fountains fell and nightingales sang among the myrtles.
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  Speaker 1: Halls of mirrors that reflected only handsome knights and lovely women,
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  Speaker 1: herself the loveliest of all, for whose glance men died.
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  Speaker 1: All that supported her through the boredom of her days
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  Speaker 1: was the hope of going on a dream spree at night. Most,
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  Speaker 1: if not all, of the Stirlings would have died of
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  Speaker 1: horror if they had known half the things Valancy did
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  Speaker 1: in her blue castles. For one thing, she had quite
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  Speaker 1: a few lovers in it. Oh, only one at a time.
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  Speaker 1: One who wooed her with all the romantic ardour of
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  Speaker 1: the age of chivalry, and won her after long devotion
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  Speaker 1: and many deeds of daring do, and was wedded to
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  Speaker 1: her with pomp and circumstance in the great, banner-hung chapel
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  Speaker 1: of the Blue Castle. At twelve, this lover was a
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  Speaker 1: fair lad with golden curls and heavenly blue eyes. At 15,
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  Speaker 1: he was tall and dark and pale, but still necessarily handsome.
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  Speaker 1: At 20, he was ascetic, dreamy, spiritual. At 25, he
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  Speaker 1: had a clean-cut jaw, slightly grim, and a face strong
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  Speaker 1: and rugged rather than handsome. Valancy never grew older than
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  Speaker 1: 25 in her blue castle, but recently, very recently, her
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  Speaker 1: hero had had reddish, tawny hair. a twisted smile and
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  Speaker 1: a mysterious past. I don't say Valancy deliberately murdered these
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  Speaker 1: lovers as she outgrew them. One simply faded away as
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  Speaker 1: another came. Things are very convenient in this respect in
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  Speaker 1: Blue Castles. But, on this morning of her day of fate,
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  Speaker 1: Valancy could not find the key of her Blue Castle.
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  Speaker 1: Reality pressed on her too hardly, barking at her heels
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  Speaker 1: like a maddening little dog. She was twenty-nine, lonely, undesired, ill-favoured,
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  Speaker 1: the only homely girl in a handsome clan, with no
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  Speaker 1: past and no future. As far as she could look back,
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  Speaker 1: life was drab and colourless, with not one single crimson
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  Speaker 1: or purple spot anywhere. As far as she could look forward,
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  Speaker 1: it seemed certain to be just the same until she
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  Speaker 1: was nothing but a solitary, little withered leaf clinging to
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  Speaker 1: a wintry bough. The moment when a woman realises that
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  Speaker 1: she has nothing to live for, neither love, duty, purpose
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  Speaker 1: nor hope, holds for her the bitterness of death. And
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  Speaker 1: I just have to go on living because I can't stop.
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  Speaker 1: I may have to live eighty years, thought Valancy, in
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  Speaker 1: a kind of panic. We're all horribly long-lived. It sickens
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  Speaker 1: me to think of it. She was glad it was raining.
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  Speaker 1: Or rather, she was drearily satisfied that it was raining.
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  Speaker 1: There would be no picnic that day. This annual picnic,
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  Speaker 1: whereby Aunt and Uncle Wellington— one always thought of them in
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  Speaker 1: that succession— inevitably celebrated their engagement at a picnic thirty years
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  Speaker 1: before— was had been, of late years, a veritable nightmare to Valancy.
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  Speaker 1: By an impish coincidence, it was the same day as
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  Speaker 1: her birthday, and, after she had passed 25, nobody let
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  Speaker 1: her forget it. Much as she hated going to the picnic,
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  Speaker 1: it would never have occurred to her to rebel against it.
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  Speaker 1: There seemed to be nothing of the revolutionary in her nature,
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  Speaker 1: and she knew exactly what everyone would say to her
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  Speaker 1: at the picnic. Uncle Wellington, whom she disliked and despised,
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  Speaker 1: even though he had fulfilled the highest sterling aspiration, marrying money,
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  Speaker 1: would say to her in a pig's whisper, Not thinking
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  Speaker 1: of getting married yet, my dear? and then go off
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  Speaker 1: into the bellow of laughter with which he invariably concluded
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  Speaker 1: his dull remarks. Aunt Wellington, of whom Valancy stood in
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  Speaker 1: abject awe, would tell her about Olive's new chiffon dress
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  Speaker 1: and Cecil's last devoted letter. Valancy would have to look
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  Speaker 1: as pleased and interested as if the dress and letter
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  Speaker 1: had been hers, or else Aunt Wellington would be offended.
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  Speaker 1: And Valancy had long ago decided that she would rather
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  Speaker 1: offend God than Aunt Wellington, because God might forgive her,
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  Speaker 1: but Aunt Wellington never would. Aunt Alberta, enormously fat, with
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  Speaker 1: an amiable habit of always referring to her husband as he,
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  Speaker 1: as if he were the only male creature in the world.
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  Speaker 1: who could never forget that she had been a great
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  Speaker 1: beauty in her youth, would condole with valency on her
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  Speaker 1: sallow skin. I don't know why all the girls of
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  Speaker 1: today are so sunburned. When I was a girl, my
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  Speaker 1: skin was roses and cream. I was counted the prettiest
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  Speaker 1: girl in Canada, my dear. Perhaps Uncle Herbert wouldn't say anything,
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  Speaker 1: or perhaps he would remark jocularly, How fat you're getting, Doss!
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  Speaker 1: And then everybody would laugh over the excessively humorous idea
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  Speaker 1: of Poor, scrawny little Doss getting fat. Handsome, solemn Uncle James,
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  Speaker 1: whom Valancy disliked but respected because he was reputed to
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  Speaker 1: be very clever and was therefore the clan oracle, brains
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  Speaker 1: being none too plentiful in the Stirling connection, would probably
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  Speaker 1: remark with the owl-like sarcasm that had won him his reputation.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose you're busy with your hope chest these days.
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  Speaker 1: And Uncle Benjamin would ask some of his abominable conundrums,
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  Speaker 1: between wheezy chuckles and answer them himself. What is the
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  Speaker 1: difference between Doss and a mouse? The mouse wishes to
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  Speaker 1: harm the cheese, and Doss wishes to charm the he's.
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  Speaker 1: Valancy had heard him ask that riddle fifty times, and
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  Speaker 1: every time she wanted to throw something at him. But
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  Speaker 1: she never did. In the first place, the Sterlings simply
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  Speaker 1: did not throw things. In the second place, Uncle Benjamin
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  Speaker 1: was a wealthy and childless old widower, and Valancy had
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  Speaker 1: been brought up in the fear and admonition of his money.
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  Speaker 1: If she offended him, he would cut her out of
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  Speaker 1: his will, supposing she were in it. Valancy did not
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  Speaker 1: want to be cut out of Uncle Benjamin's will. She
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  Speaker 1: had been poor all her life and knew the galling
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  Speaker 1: bitterness of it. So she endured his riddles and even
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  Speaker 1: smiled tortured little smiles over them. Aunt Isabel, downright and
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  Speaker 1: disagreeable as an east wind, would criticise her in some way.
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  Speaker 1: Valancy could not predict just how, for Aunt Isabel never
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  Speaker 1: repeated a criticism. She found something new with which to
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  Speaker 1: jab you every time. Aunt Isabel prided herself on saying
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  Speaker 1: what she thought, but didn't like it so well when
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  Speaker 1: other people said what they thought to her. Valancy never
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: said what she thought. Cousin Georgiana, named after her great-great-grandmother,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: who had been named after George IV... would recount dolorously
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  Speaker 1: the names of all relatives and friends who had died
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: since the last picnic, and wonder, which of us will
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  Speaker 1: be the first to go next? Oppressively competent, Aunt Mildred
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  Speaker 1: would talk endlessly of her husband and her odious prodigies
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  Speaker 1: of babies to Valancy, because Valancy would be the only
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  Speaker 1: one she could find to put up with it. For
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the same reason, Cousin Gladys, really First Cousin Gladys once removed,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: According to the strict way in which the Stirlings tabulated relationship,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a tall, thin lady who admitted she had a sensitive
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: disposition would describe minutely the tortures of her neuritis. And Olive,
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  Speaker 1: the wonder girl of the whole Stirling clan, who had
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  Speaker 1: everything Valancy had not, beauty, popularity, love, would show off
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  Speaker 1: her beauty and presume on her popularity and flaunt her
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  Speaker 1: diamond insignia of love in Valancy's dazzled, envious eyes. There
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  Speaker 1: would be none of all this today, and there would
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: be no packing up of teaspoons. The packing up was
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: always left for Valancy and Cousin Stickles. And once, six
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  Speaker 1: years ago, a silver teaspoon from Aunt Wellington's wedding set
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: had been lost. Valancy never heard the last of that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: silver teaspoon. Its ghost appeared banquo-like at every subsequent family feast.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yes. Valancy knew exactly what the picnic would be like,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: and she blessed the rain that had saved her from it.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: There would be no picnic this year. If Aunt Wellington
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: could not celebrate on the sacred day itself, she would
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: have no celebration at all. Thank whatever gods there were
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: for that. Since there would be no picnic, Valancy made
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: up her mind that, if the rain held up in
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the afternoon, she would go up to the library and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: get another of John Foster's books. Valancy was never allowed
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to read novels, but John Foster's books were not novels.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: They were nature books, so the librarian told Mrs. Frederick Stirling,
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  Speaker 1: all about the woods and birds and bugs and things
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  Speaker 1: like that, you know. So Valancy was allowed to read them,
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  Speaker 1: under protest, for it was only too evident that she
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed them too much. It was permissible, even laudable, to
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  Speaker 1: read to improve your mind and your religion. but a
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: book that was enjoyable was dangerous. Valancy did not know
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: whether her mind was being improved or not, but she
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: felt vaguely that if she had come across John Foster's
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: books years ago, life might have been a different thing
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  Speaker 1: for her. They seemed to her to yield glimpses of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a world into which she might once have entered, though
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the door was forever barred to her now. It was
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: only within the last year that John Foster's books had
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: been in the Deerwood Library, though the librarian told Valancy
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that he had been a well-known writer for several years.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Where does he live? Valancy had asked. Nobody knows. From
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: his books he must be a Canadian, but no more
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: information can be had. His publishers won't say a word.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Quite likely John Foster is a nom de plume. His
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: books are so popular we can't keep them in at all,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: though I really can't see what people find in them
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  Speaker 1: to rave over. I think they're wonderful. said Valancy, timidly. Oh, well.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Miss Clarkson smiled in a patronising fashion that relegated Valancy's
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: opinions to limbo. I can't say I care much for
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: bugs myself, but certainly Foster seems to know all there
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: is to know about them. Valancy didn't know whether she
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: cared much for bugs either. It was not John Foster's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: uncanny knowledge of wild creatures and insect life that enthralled her.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: She could hardly say what it was. Some tantalising lure
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  Speaker 1: of a mystery never revealed. Some hint of a great
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: secret just a little further on. Some faint, elusive echo
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  Speaker 1: of lovely, forgotten things. John Foster's magic was indefinable. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: she would get a new Foster book. It was a
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: month since she had Thistle Harvest, so surely Mother could
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: not object. Valancy had read it four times. She knew
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: whole passages off by heart. And she almost thought she
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: would go and see Dr. Trent about that queer pain
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: around the heart. It had come rather often lately, and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the palpitations were becoming annoying, not to speak of an
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: occasional dizzy moment and a queer shortness of breath. But
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: could she go to see him without telling anyone? It
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: was a most daring thought. None of the Sterlings ever
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: consulted a doctor without holding a family council and getting
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Uncle James's approval. Then... They went to Dr. Ambrose Marsh
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of Port Lawrence, who had married second cousin Adelaide Sterling.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: But Valancy disliked Dr. Ambrose Marsh. And besides, she could
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: not get to Port Lawrence, 15 miles away, without being
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: taken there. She did not want anyone to know about
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: her heart. There would be such a fuss made, and
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: every member of the family would come down and talk
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  Speaker 1: it over, and advise her, and caution her, and warn her,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: and tell her horrible tales of great-aunts and cousins forty
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: times removed who had been just like that, and dropped
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: dead without a moment's warning, my dear. Aunt Isabel would
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: remember that she had always said Doss looked like a
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: girl who would have heart trouble, so pinched and peaked always.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And Uncle Wellington would take it as a personal insult
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: when no sterling ever had heart disease before and georgiana
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: would forebode in perfectly audible asides that poor dear little
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: dos isn't long for this world i'm afraid and cousin
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: gladys would say why my heart has been like that
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: for years in a tone that implied no one else
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: had any business even to have a heart And Olive?
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Olive would merely look beautiful and superior and disgustingly healthy.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: As if to say, why all this fuss over a
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: faded superfluity like Doss when you have me? Valancy felt
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: that she couldn't tell anybody unless she had to. She
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: felt quite sure there was nothing at all seriously wrong
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: with her heart, and no need of all the bother
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: that would ensue if she mentioned it. She would just
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: slip up quietly and see Dr. Trent that very day.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: As for his bill, she had the $ 200 that her
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: father had put in the bank for her the day
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: she was born. She was never allowed to use even
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the interest of this, but she would secretly take out
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: enough to pay Dr. Trent. Dr. Trent was a gruff, outspoken,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: absent-minded old fellow, but he was a recognized authority on
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: heart disease, even if he were only a general practitioner
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: in out-of-the-world Deerwood. Dr. Trent was over 70. and there
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: had been rumours that he meant to retire soon. None
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of the Stirling clan had ever gone to him since
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: he had told cousin Gladys, ten years before, that her
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: neuritis was all imaginary and that she enjoyed it. You
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't patronise a doctor who insulted your first cousin once
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: removed like that, not to mention that he was a
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Presbyterian when all the Stirlings went to the Anglican church.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But Valancy... between the devil of disloyalty to clan and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the deep sea of fuss and clatter and advice, thought
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: she would take a chance with the devil.