CHAPTER XXI

“We’ll just sit here,” said Barney, “and if we think of anything worth while saying we’ll say it. Otherwise, not. Don’t imagine you’re bound to talk to me.”

“John Foster says,” quoted Valancy, “‘If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you need not waste time in trying.’”

“Evidently John Foster says a sensible thing once in a while,” conceded Barney.

They sat in silence for a long while. Little rabbits hopped across the road. Once or twice an owl laughed out delightfully. The road beyond them was fringed with the woven shadow lace of trees. Away off to the southwest the sky was full of silvery little cirrus clouds above the spot where Barney’s island must be.

Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had had a lightning flash.

She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday she had been all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing—said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him. She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so absolutely that thought apart from him—thought in which he did not predominate—was an impossibility.

She had realised, quite simply and fully, that she loved him, in the moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed. Old things passed away and all things became new.

She was no longer unimportant, little, old maid Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant—justified to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.

Love! What a searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing it was—this possession of body, soul and mind! With something at its core as fine and remote and purely spiritual as the tiny blue spark in the heart of the unbreakable diamond. No dream had ever been like this. She was no longer solitary. She was one of a vast sisterhood—all the women who had ever loved in the world.

Barney need never know it—though she would not in the least have minded his knowing. But she knew it and it made a tremendous difference to her. Just to love! She did not ask to be loved. It was rapture enough just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in the white splendour of moonshine, with the wind blowing down on them out of the pine woods. She had always envied the wind. So free. Blowing where it listed. Through the hills. Over the lakes. What a tang, what a zip it had! What a magic of adventure! Valancy felt as if she had exchanged her shop-worn soul for a fresh one, fire-new from the workshop of the gods. As far back as she could look, life had been dull—colourless—savourless. Now she had come to a little patch of violets, purple and fragrant—hers for the plucking. No matter who or what had been in Barney’s past—no matter who or what might be in his future—no one else could ever have this perfect hour. She surrendered herself utterly to the charm of the moment.

“Ever dream of ballooning?” said Barney suddenly.

“No,” said Valancy.

“I do—often. Dream of sailing through the clouds—seeing the glories of sunset—spending hours in the midst of a terrific storm with lightning playing above and below you—skimming above a silver cloud floor under a full moon—wonderful!”

“It does sound so,” said Valancy. “I’ve stayed on earth in my dreams.”

She told him about her Blue Castle. It was so easy to tell Barney things. One felt he understood everything—even the things you didn’t tell him. And then she told him a little of her existence before she came to Roaring Abel’s. She wanted him to see why she had gone to the dance “up back.”

“You see—I’ve never had any real life,” she said. “I’ve just—breathed. Every door has always been shut to me.”

“But you’re still young,” said Barney.

“Oh, I know. Yes, I’m ‘still young’—but that’s so different from young,” said Valancy bitterly. For a moment she was tempted to tell Barney why her years had nothing to do with her future; but she did not. She was not going to think of death tonight.

“Though I never was really young,” she went on—“until tonight,” she added in her heart. “I never had a life like other girls. You couldn’t understand. Why,”—she had a desperate desire that Barney should know the worst about her—“I didn’t even love my mother. Isn’t it awful that I don’t love my mother?”

“Rather awful—for her,” said Barney drily.

“Oh, she didn’t know it. She took my love for granted. And I wasn’t any use or comfort to her or anybody. I was just a—a—vegetable. And I got tired of it. That’s why I came to keep house for Mr. Gay and look after Cissy.”

“And I suppose your people thought you’d gone mad.”

“They did—and do—literally,” said Valancy. “But it’s a comfort to them. They’d rather believe me mad than bad. There’s no other alternative. But I’ve been living since I came to Mr. Gay’s. It’s been a delightful experience. I suppose I’ll pay for it when I have to go back—but I’ll have had it.”

“That’s true,” said Barney. “If you buy your experience it’s your own. So it’s no matter how much you pay for it. Somebody else’s experience can never be yours. Well, it’s a funny old world.”

“Do you think it really is old?” asked Valancy dreamily. “I never believe that in June. It seems so young tonight—somehow. In that quivering moonlight—like a young, white girl—waiting.”

“Moonlight here on the verge of up back is different from moonlight anywhere else,” agreed Barney. “It always makes me feel so clean, somehow—body and soul. And of course the age of gold always comes back in spring.”

It was ten o’clock now. A dragon of black cloud ate up the moon. The spring air grew chill—Valancy shivered. Barney reached back into the innards of Lady Jane and clawed up an old, tobacco-scented overcoat.

“Put that on,” he ordered.

“Don’t you want it yourself?” protested Valancy.

“No. I’m not going to have you catching cold on my hands.”

“Oh, I won’t catch cold. I haven’t had a cold since I came to Mr. Gay’s—though I’ve done the foolishest things. It’s funny, too—I used to have them all the time. I feel so selfish taking your coat.”

“You’ve sneezed three times. No use winding up your ‘experience’ up back with grippe or pneumonia.”

He pulled it up tight about her throat and buttoned it on her. Valancy submitted with secret delight. How nice it was to have some one look after you so! She snuggled down into the tobaccoey folds and wished the night could last forever.

Ten minutes later a car swooped down on them from “up back.” Barney sprang from Lady Jane and waved his hand. The car came to a stop beside them. Valancy saw Uncle Wellington and Olive gazing at her in horror from it.

So Uncle Wellington had got a car! And he must have been spending the evening up at Mistawis with Cousin Herbert. Valancy almost laughed aloud at the expression on his face as he recognised her. The pompous, bewhiskered old humbug!

“Can you let me have enough gas to take me to Deerwood?” Barney was asking politely. But Uncle Wellington was not attending to him.

“Valancy, how came you here!” he said sternly.

“By chance or God’s grace,” said Valancy.

“With this jail-bird—at ten o’clock at night!” said Uncle Wellington.

Valancy turned to Barney. The moon had escaped from its dragon and in its light her eyes were full of deviltry.

“Are you a jail-bird?”

“Does it matter?” said Barney, gleams of fun in his eyes.

“Not to me. I only asked out of curiosity,” continued Valancy.

“Then I won’t tell you. I never satisfy curiosity.” He turned to Uncle Wellington and his voice changed subtly.

“Mr. Stirling, I asked you if you could let me have some gas. If you can, well and good. If not, we are only delaying you unnecessarily.”

Uncle Wellington was in a horrible dilemma. To give gas to this shameless pair! But not to give it to them! To go away and leave them there in the Mistawis woods—until daylight, likely. It was better to give it to them and let them get out of sight before any one else saw them.

“Got anything to get gas in?” he grunted surlily.

Barney produced a two-gallon measure from Lady Jane. The two men went to the rear of the Stirling car and began manipulating the tap. Valancy stole sly glances at Olive over the collar of Barney’s coat. Olive was sitting grimly staring straight ahead with an outraged expression. She did not mean to take any notice of Valancy. Olive had her own secret reasons for feeling outraged. Cecil had been in Deerwood lately and of course had heard all about Valancy. He agreed that her mind was deranged and was exceedingly anxious to find out whence the derangement had been inherited. It was a serious thing to have in the family—a very serious thing. One had to think of one’s—descendants.

“She got it from the Wansbarras,” said Olive positively. “There’s nothing like that in the Stirlings—nothing!”

“I hope not—I certainly hope not,” Cecil had responded dubiously. “But then—to go out as a servant—for that is what it practically amounts to. Your cousin!”

Poor Olive felt the implication. The Port Lawrence Prices were not accustomed to ally themselves with families whose members “worked out.”

Valancy could not resist temptation. She leaned forward.

“Olive, does it hurt?”

Olive bit—stiffly.

“Does what hurt?”

“Looking like that.”

For a moment Olive resolved she would take no further notice of Valancy. Then duty came uppermost. She must not miss the opportunity.

“Doss,” she implored, leaning forward also, “won’t you come home—come home tonight?”

Valancy yawned.

“You sound like a revival meeting,” she said. “You really do.”

“If you will come back——”

“All will be forgiven.”

“Yes,” said Olive eagerly. Wouldn’t it be splendid if she could induce the prodigal daughter to return? “We’ll never cast it up to you. Doss, there are nights when I cannot sleep for thinking of you.”

“And me having the time of my life,” said Valancy, laughing.

“Doss, I can’t believe you’re bad. I’ve always said you couldn’t be bad——”

“I don’t believe I can be,” said Valancy. “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly proper. I’ve been sitting here for three hours with Barney Snaith and he hasn’t even tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t have minded if he had, Olive.”

Valancy was still leaning forward. Her little hat with its crimson rose was tilted down over one eye. Olive stared. In the moonlight Valancy’s eyes—Valancy’s smile—what had happened to Valancy! She looked—not pretty—Doss couldn’t be pretty—but provocative, fascinating—yes, abominably so. Olive drew back. It was beneath her dignity to say more. After all, Valancy must be both mad and bad.

“Thanks—that’s enough,” said Barney behind the car. “Much obliged, Mr. Stirling. Two gallons—seventy cents. Thank you.”

Uncle Wellington climbed foolishly and feebly into his car. He wanted to give Snaith a piece of his mind, but dared not. Who knew what the creature might do if provoked? No doubt he carried firearms.

Uncle Wellington looked indecisively at Valancy. But Valancy had turned her back on him and was watching Barney pour the gas into Lady Jane’s maw.

“Drive on,” said Olive decisively. “There’s no use in waiting here. Let me tell you what she said to me.”

“The little hussy! The shameless little hussy!” said Uncle Wellington.