Chapter Text
Extract from letter written by Olive Stirling to Cecil Bruce
So Valancy has had her baby—a girl, called Phoebe Cecilia. Phoebe is after some Greek goddess of the woods, and Cecilia after poor Cecilia Gay, who died in disgrace the summer before last. Valancy went up to nurse her before she died, and it caused a dreadful scandal.
Really, I don’t know why they couldn’t have chosen something Christian and respectable—Phoebe has rather a heathenish ring to it—but then, I suppose when you are called Valancy, you are fated to give your children unusual names.
Apparently Doctor Redfern has settled a million dollars on his granddaughter already. Aunt Amelia can’t stop talking about it. She says Phoebe is to have a brand new nursery with a suite of walnut furniture and the most expensive toys money can buy. Her christening gown is pure silk with the finest French lace at the collar and cuffs. All of Montreal society has been invited to the event. Really, she boasts so much that she’s becoming insufferable. She seems to think she’s accomplished her life’s worth by marrying her daughter to the son of a millionaire—though it’s hardly as if she had much of a hand in it.
Valancy and her husband are going to stay in Montreal for the rest of the winter, but once the ice on the lake has thawed, they plan to return to that dreadful old shack of theirs up back in Muskoka. You’d think that after living in luxury for the better part of the year, they’d have lost their taste for such an uncivilised and out of the way place, but evidently not. I daresay the family will make an enormous fuss about them when they come back, and won’t realise that they’re laughing under their sleeves the whole time.
It was springtime again in Muskoka, the ice on the lake had thawed, and Valancy and Barney were returning to the Blue Castle. They left the car at the shore, as they had done so many times before, and walked the short distance to the edge of the lake, Valancy carrying Phoebe in her arms. When they reached the spot from which the island could first be glimpsed, she held Phoebe up, one hand gently supporting her head, so that she could see the water, and beyond that, the misty outline of the pines and the little house. Phoebe didn’t make a sound, but simply stared at the view, blue eyes solemn and unblinking. She was, as Barney had once fondly remarked, a philosophical sort of baby.
Presently, once Barney had loaded the propeller boat with all the paraphernalia that a four-month-old infant seemed to require, they set sail for the island. Nothing had changed: the key was still in the hollow tree, the crows were still cawing from the pines, the bearskin rug still occupied its old place near the hearth, the oriel window still let in the fading afternoon light. Valancy fed Phoebe, rocked her to sleep and laid her in her bassinet; then she fried some trout and potatoes for supper while Barney unpacked their belongings. Every so often, she stole over to Phoebe’s crib to gaze at her daughter’s sleeping face: her plump cheeks, the delicate tracery of her eyelashes, her thick reddish-brown hair, so like Barney’s. It was an occupation which she never tired of. Even now, there were still moments when she feared that her life did not really belong to her—that it was all a mirage and might simply fade away one morning. But those moments were, thankfully, few and far-between.
After supper, when Phoebe woke up, they took it in turns to hold her and gloat over her. Barney tickled her stomach and blew raspberries against her skin until she cooed and giggled in delight—he was good at making her laugh. Then he threw her into the air several times, while Valancy entertained horrifying and irrational visions of what might happen if he failed to catch her (he never did). At last, when she began to grow fretful, he settled her in his arms, rocking her gently back and forth. Before long, she stilled and fell quiet.
Valancy was content simply to watch them, the two people she loved most in the world. The grandfather clock chimed the half hour, then the hour. The twilight deepened. The fire gave out a warm glow.
“Do you know, Moonlight,” Barney said, breaking the silence, “married life must be making me sentimental, because I was thinking just now that there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be, and that nothing compares to a home of your own and someone to share it with. Now, if that isn’t sentimental nonsense, I don’t know what is.”
“All those sleepless nights must have addled your brain,” Valancy said dryly, but in her heart of hearts, she agreed with everything he’d said.