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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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confused, so torn, so messy. She felt that her appearance must be the
same. She drew a sobbing breath of relief as she left the village
behind and found herself on the “up back” road. There was little fear
of meeting any one she knew here. The cars that fled by her with
raucous shrieks were filled with strangers. One of them was packed with
young people who whirled past her singing uproariously:
“My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever,
Oh, I hope it won’t leave her,
For I want to be single again.”
Valancy flinched as if one of them had leaned from the car and cut her
across the face with a whip.
She had made a covenant with death and death had cheated her. Now life
stood mocking her. She had trapped Barney. Trapped him into marrying
her. And divorce was so hard to get in Ontario. So expensive. And
Barney was poor.
With life, fear had come back into her heart. Sickening fear. Fear of
what Barney would think. Would say. Fear of the future that must be
lived without him. Fear of her insulted, repudiated clan.
She had had one draught from a divine cup and now it was dashed from
her lips. With no kind, friendly death to rescue her. She must go on
living and longing for it. Everything was spoiled, smirched, defaced.
Even that year in the Blue Castle. Even her unashamed love for Barney.
It had been beautiful because death waited. Now it was only sordid
because death was gone. How could any one bear an unbearable thing?
She must go back and tell him. Make him believe she had not meant to
trick him—she _must_ make him believe that. She must say good-bye to
her Blue Castle and return to the brick house on Elm Street. Back to
everything she had thought left behind forever. The old bondage—the old
fears. But that did not matter. All that mattered now was that Barney
must somehow be made to believe she had not consciously tricked him.
When Valancy reached the pines by the lake she was brought out of her
daze of pain by a startling sight. There, parked by the side of old,
battered ragged Lady Jane, was another car. A wonderful car. A purple
car. Not a dark, royal purple but a blatant, screaming purple. It shone
like a mirror and its interior plainly indicated the car caste of Vere
de Vere. On the driver’s seat sat a haughty chauffeur in livery. And in
the tonneau sat a man who opened the door and bounced out nimbly as
Valancy came down the path to the landing-place. He stood under the
pines waiting for her and Valancy took in every detail of him.
A stout, short, pudgy man, with a broad, rubicund, good-humoured face—a
clean-shaven face, though an unparalysed little imp at the back of
Valancy’s paralysed mind suggested the thought, “Such a face should
have a fringe of white whisker around it.” Old-fashioned, steel-rimmed
spectacles on prominent blue eyes. A pursey mouth; a little round,
knobby nose. Where—where—where, groped Valancy, had she seen that face
before? It seemed as familiar to her as her own.
The stranger wore a green hat and a light fawn overcoat over a suit of
a loud check pattern. His tie was a brilliant green of lighter shade;
on the plump hand he outstretched to intercept Valancy an enormous
diamond winked at her. But he had a pleasant, fatherly smile, and in
his hearty, unmodulated voice was a ring of something that attracted
her.
“Can you tell me, Miss, if that house yonder belongs to a Mr. Redfern?
And if so, how can I get to it?”
Redfern! A vision of bottles seemed to dance before Valancy’s eyes—long
bottles of bitters—round bottles of hair tonic—square bottles of
liniment—short, corpulent little bottles of purple pills—and all of
them bearing that very prosperous, beaming moon-face and steel-rimmed
spectacles on the label.
Dr. Redfern!
“No,” said Valancy faintly. “No—that house belongs to Mr. Snaith.”
Dr. Redfern nodded.
“Yes, I understand Bernie’s been calling himself Snaith. Well, it’s his
middle name—was his poor mother’s. Bernard Snaith Redfern—that’s him.
And now, Miss, you can tell me how to get over to that island? Nobody
seems to be home there. I’ve done some waving and yelling. Henry,
there, wouldn’t yell. He’s a one-job man. But old Doc Redfern can yell
with the best of them yet, and ain’t above doing it. Raised nothing but
a couple of crows. Guess Bernie’s out for the day.”
“He was away when I left this morning,” said Valancy. “I suppose he
hasn’t come home yet.”
She spoke flatly and tonelessly. This last shock had temporarily bereft
her of whatever little power of reasoning had been left her by Dr.
Trent’s revelation. In the back of her mind the aforesaid little imp
was jeeringly repeating a silly old proverb, “It never rains but it
pours.” But she was not trying to think. What was the use?
Dr. Redfern was gazing at her in perplexity.
“When you left this morning? Do you live—over there?”