The Blue Castle

by L.M. Montgomery

Valancy did not persist. Valancy never persisted. She was afraid to.

The only thing Valancy liked about her room was that she could be alone there at night to cry if she wanted to.

I don't say Valancy deliberately murdered these lovers as she outgrew them. One simply faded away as another came. Things are very convenient in this respect in Blue Castles.

The moment when a woman realises that she has nothing to live for—neither love, duty, purpose nor hope—holds for her the bitterness of death.

Much as she hated going to the picnic, it would never have occurred to her to rebel against it. There seemed to be nothing of the revolutionary in her nature.

It was permissible, even laudable, to read to improve your mind and your religion, but a book that was enjoyable was dangerous.

But Valancy, between the devil of disloyalty to clan and the deep sea of fuss and clatter and advice, thought she would take a chance with the devil.

Valancy got up, though she hated getting up more this morning than ever she had before.

What was there to get up for? Another dreary day like all the days that had preceded it, full of meaningless little tasks, joyless and unimportant, that benefited nobody.

It was whispered about in the connection that the late Frederick Stirling had caught the cold which resulted in his death during Valancy's first year of life because Mrs. Frederick would not have a fire on the twentieth of October. She lighted it the next day—but that was a day too late for Frederick Stirling.

Twenty-nine, unmarried, undesired—what had she to do with the fairy-like chatelaine of the Blue Castle? She would cut such childish nonsense out of her life forever and face reality unflinchingly.

Her brief bitterness had passed. She accepted facts as resignedly as she had always accepted them. She was one of the people whom life always passes by. There was no altering that fact.

She never wondered what would happen if she tried to talk of something else. She knew. Therefore she never did it.

"I think," said Mrs. Frederick, "that if a person makes up her mind not to have colds she will not have colds."

You are childish enough in all conscience, my dear child." "I am twenty-nine," said the dear child desperately.

On every page was a picture of the heroine surrounded by adoring men. And here was she, Valancy Stirling, who could not get a solitary beau!

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 it.

Do you ever stop to think, Doss, that you kin only have one mother?" "One is enough for me," thought Valancy undutifully, as she went uptown.

Nothing had any reality except the fact that she had only another year to live.

that she, Valancy Stirling, who had never lived, was about to die.

The question had to be asked. Valancy could not be allowed to have headaches without interference.

She did not care just then if she were rude. She had had to be so polite all her life.

It did not matter whether Valancy was or was not feverish. Valancy had been guilty of impertinence to her.

Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the dark hours passed by—not because she had no future but because she had no past.

"All the great emotions of life have passed me by. I've never even had a grief. And have I ever really loved anybody?

It was three o'clock in the morning—the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes it sets us free.

"I've been trying to please other people all my life and failed," she said. "After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything again. I've breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretences and evasions all my life. What a luxury it will be to tell the truth! I may not be able to do much that I want to do but I won't do another thing that I don't want to do. Mother can pout for weeks—I shan't worry over it. 'Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.'"

When Cousin Stickles had rebuked her Valancy had said indifferently, "Oh, I forgot it was Sunday"—and had gone on reading it.

"Is that a nice thing to say to your mother? Oh, how true it is that it is sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child." "Is that a nice thing to say to your daughter?" said unrepentant Valancy.

Mrs. Frederick did not reflect that this was the first time in her life that she had thought it necessary to consider Valancy's humours. But then Valancy had never been "queer" before.

She went on dream sprees in her Blue Castle. Roaring Abel, having no imagination, could not do that. His escapes from reality had to be concrete.

"Won't you try to remember you're a lady?" she pleaded. "Oh, if there were only any hope of being able to forget it!" said Valancy wearily.

Aunt Isabel. Valancy counted her chins.

"We are all too prone," continued Mrs. Frederick, determined not to lose so good an opportunity, "to live in selfishness, worldliness and sin." The other women all felt rebuked for their low

"The greatest happiness," said Valancy suddenly and distinctly, "is to sneeze when you want to."

It is such a fatal mistake to try to be funny if you don't succeed."

"But I can tell you where you'll find a beauty parlor in Port Lawrence where they can reduce the number of your chins."

"You can't spank her." Cousin Stickles was much agitated. "She's twenty-nine years old." "So there is that advantage, at least, in being twenty-nine," said Valancy, whose ears had caught this aside.

"It was good jam. I've always been sorry I hadn't time to eat more of it before you found me.

"People who don't like cats," said Valancy, attacking her dessert with a relish, "always seem to think that there is some peculiar virtue in not liking them."

"I've hush—hushed all my life. I'll scream if I want to.

"You made me apologise to Olive fifteen years ago for something I didn't do," said Valancy. "That old apology will do for now."

Life cannot stop because tragedy enters it.

It was so easy to defy once you got started. The first step was the only one that really counted.

But then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces like hungry cats when the catastrophe came.

"I asked Doss if she had no regard for appearances. She said, 'I've been keeping up appearances all my life. Now I'm going in for realities. Appearances can go hang!' Go hang!"

She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.

Dr. Stalling went away then. A girl who cared nothing for public opinion! Over whom sacred family ties had no restraining influence! Who hated her childhood memories!

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.'"

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.