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away, and she rather liked Uncle Herbert. Besides, she wanted to look
over all her relatives from her new angle. It would be an excellent
place to make public her declaration of independence if occasion
offered.
“Put on your brown silk dress,” said Mrs. Stirling.
As if there were anything else to put on! Valancy had only the one
festive dress—that snuffy-brown silk Aunt Isabel had given her. Aunt
Isabel had decreed that Valancy should never wear colours. They did not
become her. When she was young they allowed her to wear white, but that
had been tacitly dropped for some years. Valancy put on the brown silk.
It had a high collar and long sleeves. She had never had a dress with
low neck and elbow sleeves, although they had been worn, even in
Deerwood, for over a year. But she did not do her hair pompadour. She
knotted it on her neck and pulled it out over her ears. She thought it
became her—only the little knot was so absurdly small. Mrs. Frederick
resented the hair but decided it was wisest to say nothing on the eve
of the party. It was so important that Valancy should be kept in good
humour, if possible, until it was over. 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.
On their way to Uncle Herbert’s—Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles
walking in front, Valancy trotting meekly along behind—Roaring Abel
drove past them. Drunk as usual but not in the roaring stage. Just
drunk enough to be excessively polite. He raised his disreputable old
tartan cap with the air of a monarch saluting his subjects and swept
them a grand bow. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles dared not cut
Roaring Abel altogether. He was the only person in Deerwood who could
be got to do odd jobs of carpentering and repairing when they needed to
be done, so it would not do to offend him. But they responded with only
the stiffest, slightest of bows. Roaring Abel must be kept in his
place.
Valancy, behind them, did a thing they were fortunately spared seeing.
She smiled gaily and waved her hand to Roaring Abel. Why not? She had
always liked the old sinner. He was such a jolly, picturesque,
unashamed reprobate and stood out against the drab respectability of
Deerwood and its customs like a flame-red flag of revolt and protest.
Only a few nights ago Abel had gone through Deerwood in the wee sma’s,
shouting oaths at the top of his stentorian voice which could be heard
for miles, and lashing his horse into a furious gallop as he tore along
prim, proper Elm Street.
“Yelling and blaspheming like a fiend,” shuddered Cousin Stickles at
the breakfast-table.
“I cannot understand why the judgment of the Lord has not fallen upon
that man long ere this,” said Mrs. Frederick petulantly, as if she
thought Providence was very dilatory and ought to have a gentle
reminder.
“He’ll be picked up dead some morning—he’ll fall under his horse’s
hoofs and be trampled to death,” said Cousin Stickles reassuringly.
Valancy had said nothing, of course; but she wondered to herself if
Roaring Abel’s periodical sprees were not his futile protest against
the poverty and drudgery and monotony of his existence. _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. So
she waved at him today with a sudden fellow feeling, and Roaring Abel,
not too drunk to be astonished, nearly fell off his seat in his
amazement.
By this time they had reached Maple Avenue and Uncle Herbert’s house, a
large, pretentious structure peppered with meaningless bay windows and
excrescent porches. A house that always looked like a stupid,
prosperous, self-satisfied man with warts on his face.
“A house like that,” said Valancy solemnly, “is a blasphemy.”
Mrs. Frederick was shaken to her soul. What had Valancy said? Was it
profane? Or only just queer? Mrs. Frederick took off her hat in Aunt
Alberta’s spare-room with trembling hands. She made one more feeble
attempt to avert disaster. She held Valancy back on the landing as
Cousin Stickles went downstairs.
“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.
Mrs. Frederick felt that she had not deserved this from Providence.
CHAPTER X
“Bless this food to our use and consecrate our lives to Thy service,”
said Uncle Herbert briskly.
Aunt Wellington frowned. She always considered Herbert’s graces
entirely too short and “flippant.” A grace, to be a grace in Aunt
Wellington’s eyes, had to be at least three minutes long and uttered in
an unearthly tone, between a groan and a chant. As a protest she kept
her head bent a perceptible time after all the rest had been lifted.