Datasets:
edwindvinas
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testdataset

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
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When she permitted herself to sit upright she found Valancy looking at
her. Ever afterwards Aunt Wellington averred that she had known from
that moment that there was something wrong with Valancy. In those
queer, slanted eyes of hers—“we should always have known she was not
entirely _right_ with eyes like that”—there was an odd gleam of mockery
and amusement—as if Valancy were laughing at _her_. Such a thing was
unthinkable, of course. Aunt Wellington at once ceased to think it.
Valancy was enjoying herself. She had never enjoyed herself at a
“family reunion” before. In social function, as in childish games, she
had only “filled in.” Her clan had always considered her very dull. She
had no parlour tricks. And she had been in the habit of taking refuge
from the boredom of family parties in her Blue Castle, which resulted
in an absent-mindedness that increased her reputation for dulness and
vacuity.
“She has no social presence whatever,” Aunt Wellington had decreed once
and for all. Nobody dreamed that Valancy was dumb in their presence
merely because she was afraid of them. Now she was no longer afraid of
them. The shackles had been stricken off her soul. She was quite
prepared to talk if occasion offered. Meanwhile she was giving herself
such freedom of thought as she had never dared to take before. She let
herself go with a wild, inner exultation, as Uncle Herbert carved the
turkey. Uncle Herbert gave Valancy a second look that day. Being a man,
he didn’t know what she had done to her hair, but he thought
surprisedly that Doss was not such a bad-looking girl, after all; and
he put an extra piece of white meat on her plate.
“What herb is most injurious to a young lady’s beauty?” propounded
Uncle Benjamin by way of starting conversation—“loosening things up a
bit,” as he would have said.
Valancy, whose duty it was to say, “What?” did not say it. Nobody else
said it, so Uncle Benjamin, after an expectant pause, had to answer,
“Thyme,” and felt that his riddle had fallen flat. He looked
resentfully at Valancy, who had never failed him before, but Valancy
did not seem even to be aware of him. She was gazing around the table,
examining relentlessly every one in this depressing assembly of
sensible people and watching their little squirms with a detached,
amused smile.
So these were the people she had always held in reverence and fear. She
seemed to see them with new eyes.
Big, capable, patronising, voluble Aunt Mildred, who thought herself
the cleverest woman in the clan, her husband a little lower than the
angels and her children wonders. Had not her son, Howard, been all
through teething at eleven months? And could she not tell you the best
way to do everything, from cooking mushrooms to picking up a snake?
What a bore she was! What ugly moles she had on her face!
Cousin Gladys, who was always praising her son, who had died young, and
always fighting with her living one. She had neuritis—or what she
called neuritis. It jumped about from one part of her body to another.
It was a convenient thing. If anybody wanted her to go somewhere she
didn’t want to go she had neuritis in her legs. And always if any
mental effort was required she could have neuritis in her head. You
can’t _think_ with neuritis in your head, my dear.
“What an old humbug you are!” thought Valancy impiously.
Aunt Isabel. Valancy counted her chins. Aunt Isabel was the critic of
the clan. She had always gone about squashing people flat. More members
of it than Valancy were afraid of her. She had, it was conceded, a
biting tongue.
“I wonder what would happen to your face if you ever smiled,”
speculated Valancy, unblushingly.
Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, with her great, pale, expressionless eyes,
who was noted for the variety of her pickle recipes and for nothing
else. So afraid of saying something indiscreet that she never said
anything worth listening to. So proper that she blushed when she saw
the advertisement picture of a corset and had put a dress on her Venus
de Milo statuette which made it look “real tasty.”
Little Cousin Georgiana. Not such a bad little soul. But dreary—very.
Always looking as if she had just been starched and ironed. Always
afraid to let herself go. The only thing she really enjoyed was a
funeral. You knew where you were with a corpse. Nothing more could
happen to _it_. But while there was life there was fear.
Uncle James. Handsome, black, with his sarcastic, trap-like mouth and
iron-grey side-burns, whose favourite amusement was to write
controversial letters to the _Christian Times_, attacking Modernism.
Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he
did when awake. No wonder his wife had died young. Valancy remembered
her. A pretty, sensitive thing. Uncle James had denied her everything
she wanted and showered on her everything she didn’t want. He had
killed her—quite legally. She had been smothered and starved.
Uncle Benjamin, wheezy, pussy-mouthed. With great pouches under eyes
that held nothing in reverence.
Uncle Wellington. Long, pallid face, thin, pale-yellow hair—“one of the
fair Stirlings”—thin, stooping body, abominably high forehead with such
ugly wrinkles, and “eyes about as intelligent as a fish’s,” thought
Valancy. “Looks like a cartoon of himself.”
Aunt Wellington. Named Mary but called by her husband’s name to