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edwindvinas
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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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“I was an excellent foil for her,” thought Valancy. “Even then she knew
that.”
Valancy had tried to win a prize for attendance in Sunday School once.
But Olive won it. There were so many Sundays Valancy had to stay home
because she had colds. She had once tried to “say a piece” in school
one Friday afternoon and had broken down in it. Olive was a good
reciter and never got stuck.
The night she had spent in Port Lawrence with Aunt Isabel when she was
ten. Byron Stirling was there; from Montreal, twelve years old,
conceited, clever. At family prayers in the morning Byron had reached
across and given Valancy’s thin arm such a savage pinch that she
screamed out with pain. After prayers were over she was summoned to
Aunt Isabel’s bar of judgment. But when she said Byron had pinched her
Byron denied it. He said she cried out because the kitten scratched
her. He said she had put the kitten up on her chair and was playing
with it when she should have been listening to Uncle David’s prayer. He
was _believed_. In the Stirling clan the boys were always believed
before the girls. Valancy was sent home in disgrace because of her
exceedingly bad behavior during family prayers and she was not asked to
Aunt Isabel’s again for many moons.
The time Cousin Betty Stirling was married. Somehow Valancy got wind of
the fact that Betty was going to ask her to be one of her bridesmaids.
Valancy was secretly uplifted. It would be a delightful thing to be a
bridesmaid. And of course she would have to have a new dress for it—a
pretty new dress—a pink dress. Betty wanted her bridesmaids to dress in
pink.
But Betty had never asked her, after all. Valancy couldn’t guess why,
but long after her secret tears of disappointment had been dried Olive
told her. Betty, after much consultation and reflection, had decided
that Valancy was too insignificant—she would “spoil the effect.” That
was nine years ago. But tonight Valancy caught her breath with the old
pain and sting of it.
That day in her eleventh year when her mother had badgered her into
confessing something she had never done. Valancy had denied it for a
long time but eventually for peace’ sake she had given in and pleaded
guilty. Mrs. Frederick was always making people lie by pushing them
into situations where they _had_ to lie. Then her mother had made her
kneel down on the parlour floor, between herself and Cousin Stickles,
and say, “O God, please forgive me for not speaking the truth.” Valancy
had said it, but as she rose from her knees she muttered. “But, O God,
_you_ know I did speak the truth.” Valancy had not then heard of
Galileo but her fate was similar to his. She was punished just as
severely as if she hadn’t confessed and prayed.
The winter she went to dancing-school. Uncle James had decreed she
should go and had paid for her lessons. How she had looked forward to
it! And how she had hated it! She had never had a voluntary partner.
The teacher always had to tell some boy to dance with her, and
generally he had been sulky about it. Yet Valancy was a good dancer, as
light on her feet as thistledown. Olive, who never lacked eager
partners, was heavy.
The affair of the button-string, when she was ten. All the girls in
school had button-strings. Olive had a very long one with a great many
beautiful buttons. Valancy had one. Most of the buttons on it were very
commonplace, but she had six beauties that had come off Grandmother
Stirling’s wedding-gown—sparkling buttons of gold and glass, much more
beautiful than any Olive had. Their possession conferred a certain
distinction on Valancy. She knew every little girl in school envied her
the exclusive possession of those beautiful buttons. When Olive saw
them on the button-string she had looked at them narrowly but said
nothing—then. The next day Aunt Wellington had come to Elm Street and
told Mrs. Frederick that she thought Olive should have some of those
buttons—Grandmother Stirling was just as much Wellington’s mother as
Frederick’s. Mrs. Frederick had agreed amiably. She could not afford to
fall out with Aunt Wellington. Moreover, the matter was of no
importance whatever. Aunt Wellington carried off four of the buttons,
generously leaving two for Valancy. Valancy had torn these from her
string and flung them on the floor—she had not yet learned that it was
unladylike to have feelings—and had been sent supperless to bed for the
exhibition.
The night of Margaret Blunt’s party. She had made such pathetic efforts
to be pretty that night. Rob Walker was to be there; and two nights
before, on the moonlit verandah of Uncle Herbert’s cottage at Mistawis,
Rob had really seemed attracted to her. At Margaret’s party Rob never
even asked her to dance—did not notice her at all. She was a
wallflower, as usual. That, of course, was years ago. People in
Deerwood had long since given up inviting Valancy to dances. But to
Valancy its humiliation and disappointment were of the other day. Her
face burned in the darkness as she recalled herself, sitting there with
her pitifully crimped, thin hair and the cheeks she had pinched for an
hour before coming, in an effort to make them red. All that came of it
was a wild story that Valancy Stirling was rouged at Margaret Blunt’s
party. In those days in Deerwood that was enough to wreck your
character forever. It did not wreck Valancy’s, or even damage it.
People knew _she_ couldn’t be fast if she tried. They only laughed at
her.
“I’ve had nothing but a second-hand existence,” decided Valancy. “All
the great emotions of life have passed me by. I’ve never even had a
grief. And have I ever really loved anybody? Do I really love Mother?
No, I don’t. That’s the truth, whether it is disgraceful or not. I
don’t love her—I’ve never loved her. What’s worse, I don’t even like
her. So I don’t know anything about any kind of love. My life has been