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her hand tight, if nothing else—some one just to say, “Yes, I know.
It’s dreadful—be brave—you’ll soon be better;” not some one merely
fussy and alarmed. Not her mother or Cousin Stickles. Why did the
thought of Barney Snaith come into her mind? Why did she suddenly feel,
in the midst of this hideous loneliness of pain, that _he_ would be
sympathetic—sorry for any one that was suffering? Why did he seem to
her like an old, well-known friend? Was it because she had been
defending him—standing up to her family for him?
She was so bad at first that she could not even get herself a dose of
Dr. Trent’s prescription. But eventually she managed it, and soon after
relief came. The pain left her and she lay on her bed, spent,
exhausted, in a cold perspiration. Oh, that had been horrible! She
could not endure many more attacks like that. One didn’t mind dying if
death could be instant and painless. But to be hurt so in dying!
Suddenly she found herself laughing. That dinner _had_ been fun. And it
had all been so simple. She had merely _said_ the things she had always
_thought_. Their faces—oh, their faces! Uncle Benjamin—poor,
flabbergasted Uncle Benjamin! Valancy felt quite sure he would make a
new will that very night. Olive would get Valancy’s share of his fat
hoard. Olive had always got Valancy’s share of everything. Remember the
dust-pile.
To laugh at her clan as she had always wanted to laugh was all the
satisfaction she could get out of life now. But she thought it was
rather pitiful that it should be so. Might she not pity herself a
little when nobody else did?
Valancy got up and went to her window. The moist, beautiful wind
blowing across groves of young-leafed wild trees touched her face with
the caress of a wise, tender, old friend. The lombardies in Mrs.
Tredgold’s lawn, off to the left—Valancy could just see them between
the stable and the old carriage-shop—were in dark purple silhouette
against a clear sky and there was a milk-white, pulsating star just
over one of them, like a living pearl on a silver-green lake. Far
beyond the station were the shadowy, purple-hooded woods around Lake
Mistawis. A white, filmy mist hung over them and just above it was a
faint, young crescent. Valancy looked at it over her thin left
shoulder.
“I wish,” she said whimsically, “that I may have _one_ little dust-pile
before I die.”
CHAPTER XIII
Uncle Benjamin found he had reckoned without his host when he promised
so airily to take Valancy to a doctor. Valancy would not go. Valancy
laughed in his face.
“Why on earth should I go to Dr. Marsh? There’s nothing the matter with
my mind. Though you all think I’ve suddenly gone crazy. Well, I
haven’t. I’ve simply grown tired of living to please other people and
have decided to please myself. It will give you something to talk about
besides my stealing the raspberry jam. So that’s that.”
“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, solemnly and helplessly, “you are not—like
yourself.”
“Who am I like, then?” asked Valancy.
Uncle Benjamin was rather posed.
“Your Grandfather Wansbarra,” he answered desperately.
“Thanks.” Valancy looked pleased. “That’s a real compliment. I remember
Grandfather Wansbarra. He was one of the few human beings I _have_
known—almost the only one. Now, it is of no use to scold or entreat or
command, Uncle Benjamin—or exchange anguished glances with Mother and
Cousin Stickles. I am not going to any doctor. And if you bring any
doctor here I won’t see him. So what are you going to do about it?”
What indeed! It was not seemly—or even possible—to hale Valancy
doctorwards by physical force. And in no other way could it be done,
seemingly. Her mother’s tears and imploring entreaties availed not.
“Don’t worry, Mother,” said Valancy, lightly but quite respectfully.
“It isn’t likely I’ll do anything very terrible. But I mean to have a
little fun.”
“Fun!” Mrs. Frederick uttered the word as if Valancy had said she was
going to have a little tuberculosis.
Olive, sent by her mother to see if _she_ had any influence over
Valancy, came away with flushed cheeks and angry eyes. She told her
mother that nothing could be done with Valancy. After _she_, Olive, had
talked to her just like a sister, tenderly and wisely, all Valancy had
said, narrowing her funny eyes to mere slips, was, “_I_ don’t show my
gums when I laugh.”
“More as if she were talking to herself than to me. Indeed, Mother, all
the time I was talking to her she gave me the impression of not really
listening. And that wasn’t all. When I finally decided that what I was
saying had no influence over her I begged her, when Cecil came next
week, not to say anything queer before him, at least. Mother, what do
you think she said?”