Chapter Text
When Barney rings the bell of the ugly house on Elm Street, it occurs to him suddenly what a disreputable picture he must make. Hatless – unshaven – his shirt worn thin – no coat – and an undoubtedly crazed look in his eyes to boot. He wouldn’t care, he never has before, but with a thread of unease he wonders briefly what he’s going to do if the damn Stirlings refuse to open the door to him.
He scowls and presses the bell harder. If they think they can keep him away from his wife, they have another thing coming.
If Valancy is even here, of course.
Finally, just when Barney thinks he’s going to have to resort to kicking the door in, it opens and he finds himself face to face with Benjamin bloody Stirling.
“Is my wife here?” Barney demands without preface, fully determined to force his way past the bastard if he tries to refuse him entry.
He blinks when he’s met with an expressive smile instead.
“Mr. Redfern, I believe? Very glad to meet you, sir. Yes, that naughty little girl of yours is here. We have been——”
Ah.
That certainly explains things.
“I must see her,” Barney cuts Benjamin Stirling ruthlessly short. Valancy is here , just a wall or two separating them, and if the very unwelcome reveal of his former identity is going to make her damn relatives cooperative for a change, Barney is not above using it. He’ll worry about what they do or don’t know about him later.
“Certainly, Mr. Redfern. Just step in here. Valancy will be down in a minute.”
The change in attitude is bloody uncanny though. It does make a man’s head spin.
Stirling ushers Barney into the parlour and betakes himself to hopefully notify Valancy that he’s here. Barney has nothing left to do but pace and look around at the place he’s never been deemed worthy of seeing the inside of before.
It’s depressively, soullessly ugly. Dark, slightly faded wallpapers make the narrow and dim room look even smaller and dimmer, as do the heavy brown curtains draped over the windows. Departed Stirlings, in atrocious, gilt frames, wider than the pictures, glower down from the walls. There’s nothing homely or cheerful in this room – nothing which could make a person smile – and Barney shudders when he thinks of his Moonlight trapped here for years and years.
Well, he’s going to drag her out of here the moment he sees her. Nobody deserves to be stuck here and his bright, elfin wife least of all.
At last, just when the impatience threatens to drive Barney completely mad, the parlour’s heavy door opens and there she is.
She looks terrible, he thinks in a flash, pale and exhausted, with her eyes bruised by lack of sleep, and dressed in some ugly rag of a dress. But it only spurs him more to dash across the room and catch her in his arms, overwhelming relief flooding him to finally, finally have her back there. She’s here, she’s alright, even if clearly distraught – and nobody is going to take her away from Barney, not anymore, not ever . Not even death, for all it held her in its grasp for so long.
Valancy is in his arms and she is going to live .
It’s that overwhelming relief which spills out of him in barely coherent babbling.
“Valancy, darling—oh, you darling little idiot! Whatever possessed you to run away like that? When I came home last night and found your letter I went quite mad. It was twelve o’clock—I knew it was too late to come here then. I walked the floor all night. Then this morning Dad came—I couldn’t get away till now. Valancy, whatever got into you? Divorce, forsooth! Don’t you know——”
“I know you only married me out of pity,” says Valancy, brushing him away feebly. “I know you don’t love me—I know——”
It’s not even anger which makes him shake her lightly in response – just pure bafflement at the things she’s saying.
“You’ve been lying awake at three o’clock too long, that’s all that’s the matter with you. Love you! Oh, don’t I love you! My girl, when I saw that train coming down on you I knew whether I loved you or not!”
The truth of this is so obvious – so blinding – that his confusion only grows when Valancy continues to struggle out of his embrace.
“Oh, I was afraid you would try to make me think you cared,” she cries passionately. “Don’t—don’t! I know . I know all about Ethel Traverse—your father told me everything. Oh, Barney, don’t torture me! I can never go back to you!”
He releases her, of course, there’s no way in hell he would ever hold her against her will. He looks at her pallid, resolute face – really looks at it – and his brain somehow kicks back into gear through the haze of relief and confusion.
He’s an idiot. A self-centred, blathering moron. So obsessed with the realisation of his true feelings, so shaken by the sudden release of Valancy from the jaws of certain death – by reunion with dad as well, he supposes – that he hasn’t even spared a moment to consider what all of this means to her – or how little she can know of his feelings considering he didn’t open his bloody mouth to confess any to her at all. Not to mention God only knows what nonsense dad has told her. She mentioned Ethel – and wasn’t that an unexpected blow to his solar plexus – but as for what exactly she learnt about his disastrous engagement Barney didn’t even dare to speculate. He could count on dear old dad to get everything wrong and tell it in the worst possible manner, after all.
He needs to take hold of himself and talk, that’s for sure. Some honesty from him is painfully overdue.
“Valancy,” he says quietly, “Father couldn’t have told you everything because he didn’t know it. Will you let me tell you—everything?”
“Yes,” says Valancy wearily, and Barney’s heart clenches. She looks and sounds so tired, so very tired. He’s not even thinking before he finds himself leading her to the nearest chair and putting her gently down. His chest tightens when she refuses to raise her eyes to look at him, staring at her shoes instead.
He needs to make it right. He must.
“You’ve seen Dad and you know I’m Bernard Redfern. And I suppose you’ve guessed that I’m John Foster—since you went into Bluebeard’s Chamber.”
She startles at that, her eyes flying to his in alarm which he likes even less than her avoiding his gaze. Damn it, he didn’t intend to scare her!
“Yes. But I didn’t go in out of curiosity. I forgot you had told me not to go in—I forgot——”
“Never mind. I’m not going to kill you and hang you up on the wall, so there’s no need to call for Sister Anne. I’m only going to tell you my story from the beginning. I came back last night intending to do it. Yes, I’m ‘old Doc. Redfern’s son’—of Purple Pills and Bitters fame. Oh, don’t I know it? Wasn’t it rubbed into me for years?” a bitter laugh escapes him and he strides up and down the room a few times to calm himself down. He needs to be calm, it’s paramount that he is. But how can he be calm about the bane of his existence when nothing ever worked for him other than running to the most remote spots of the world and putting it all firmly behind him?
But he must achieve it now. Valancy deserves to finally know the whole ugly truth from his own lips.
He throws himself into a chair before her and forces himself to speak.
It all thumbles out then, as if a dam has been breached – his whole miserable, pathetic childhood, his acute loneliness, the cruelty of other children which evolved only into the cruelty of young men. The people who wanted to weasel into his good graces and whom he despised, and the people he desperately wanted to befriend who despised him in turn. The betrayal of the only true friend he deluded himself into believing he gained.
“Oh, were you sure?” Valancy’s dull eyes flame with indignation on his behalf, and somehow it gives him strength to continue his tale as it approaches its explosive conclusion.
“Yes. He admitted it when I asked him. Said a good idea was worth more to him than a friend, any time. And he added a gratuitous thrust. ‘You know, Redfern, there are some things money won’t buy. For instance—it won’t buy you a grandfather.’ Well, it pwas a nasty slam. I was young enough to feel cut up. And it destroyed a lot of my ideals and illusions, which was the worst thing about it. I was a young misanthrope after that. Didn’t want to be friends with anyone. And then—the year after I left college—I met Ethel Traverse.”
He stares at the floor, his hands stuck in his pockets. The carpet is impressively ugly. The familiar taste of bile is rising in the back of his throat.
“Dad told you about her, I suppose. She was very beautiful. And I loved her. Oh, yes, I loved her. I won’t deny it or belittle it now. It was a lonely, romantic boy’s first passionate love, and it was very real. And I thought she loved me. I was fool enough to think that. I was wildly happy when she promised to marry me. For a few months. Then—I found out she didn’t. I was an involuntary eavesdropper on a certain occasion for a moment. That moment was enough. The proverbial fate of the eavesdropper overtook me. A girl friend of hers was asking her how she could stomach Doc. Redfern’s son and the patent-medicine background.”
He is there, again, in that glittering ballroom, only a pillar and a potted palm separating him from the love of his life as she shatters his heart and every illusion he still held, in one short, laughing speech.
“‘His money will gild the Pills and sweeten the Bitters. Mother told me to catch him if I could. We’re on the rocks. But pah! I smell turpentine whenever he comes near me.’”
He’s so deep in that hellish memory that Valancy’s cry startles him.
“Oh, Barney!” cries Valancy, her dark eyes flashing with rage like he’s never seen before. “How dared she?”
“Well,”—Barney gets up and begins pacing round the room—“that finished me. Completely. I left civilisation and those accursed dopes behind me and went to the Yukon. For five years I knocked about the world—in all sorts of outlandish places. I earned enough to live on—I wouldn’t touch a cent of Dad’s money. Then one day I woke up to the fact that I no longer cared a hang about Ethel, one way or another. She was somebody I’d known in another world—that was all. But I had no hankering to go back to the old life. None of that for me. I was free and I meant to keep so. I came to Mistawis—saw Tom MacMurray’s island. My first book had been published the year before, and made a hit—I had a bit of money from my royalties. I bought my island. But I kept away from people. I had no faith in anybody. I didn’t believe there was such a thing as real friendship or true love in the world—not for me, anyhow—the son of Purple Pills. I used to revel in all the wild yarns they told of me. In fact, I’m afraid I suggested a few of them myself. By mysterious remarks which people interpreted in the light of their own prepossessions.”
His mouth twitches with a momentary humour. He thinks briefly of those first years – thinks of Abel, of Cissy, of Gem – but he doesn’t dwell on this part of his story. Valancy knows plenty of it already, and what she doesn’t know, they can discuss in a less fraught frame of mind. What’s important right now – imperative – is that she finally understands just what her love meant to him. How precious and still unbelievable it is.
“Then—you came. I had to believe you loved me—really loved me —not my father’s millions. There was no other reason why you should want to marry a penniless devil with my supposed record. And I was sorry for you. Oh, yes, I don’t deny I married you because I was sorry for you. And then—I found you the best and jolliest and dearest little pal and chum a fellow ever had. Witty—loyal—sweet. You made me believe again in the reality of friendship and love. The world seemed good again just because you were in it, honey. I’d have been willing to go on forever just as we were. I knew that, the night I came home and saw my homelight shining out from the island for the first time. And knew you were there waiting for me. After being homeless all my life it was beautiful to have a home. To come home hungry at night and know there was a good supper and a cheery fire—and you .
But I didn’t realise what you actually meant to me till that moment at the switch. Then it came like a lightning flash. I knew I couldn’t live without you—that if I couldn’t pull you loose in time I’d have to die with you. I admit it bowled me over—knocked me silly. I couldn’t get my bearings for a while. That’s why I acted like a mule. But the thought that drove me to the tall timber was the awful one that you were going to die. I’d always hated the thought of it—but I supposed there wasn’t any chance for you, so I put it out of my mind. Now I had to face it—you were under sentence of death and I couldn’t live without you. When I came home last night I had made up my mind that I’d take you to all the specialists in the world—that something surely could be done for you. I felt sure you couldn’t be as bad as Dr. Trent thought, when those moments on the track hadn’t even hurt you. And I found your note—and went mad with happiness—and a little terror for fear you didn’t care much for me, after all, and had gone away to get rid of me. But now, it’s all right, isn’t it, darling?”
He looks at her pleadingly, feeling drained and empty and so very much in need to hear that it is alright, that all the turmoil of the last two days is over. He longs desperately that they were home already, entwined in their bed, with no confusion, doubt or secrets left between them. He doesn’t regret confessing it all to her, not at all, but it wasn’t easy. Barney’s every nerve feels painfully raw and exposed, and it’s only made worse by the way Valancy is keeping her distance, her knuckles white as she wrings her small hands.
“I can’t believe you care for me,” she says helplessly, and it takes all Barney’s remaining strength to stop himself from swearing. “I know you can’t. What’s the use, Barney? Of course, you’re sorry for me—of course you want to do the best you can to straighten out the mess. But it can’t be straightened out that way. You couldn’t love me—me.” She stands up and points tragically to the mirror over the mantel.
Barney doesn’t look at the mirror. He inhales deeply and reminds himself again that he has only himself to blame for her lack of belief in his words. Reap what you sowed, Snaith. If he wasn’t such a damned idiot – if he didn’t insist for a year that he wasn’t in love with her, no, sir, not at all – if he wasn’t lying about so many things – then maybe his wife wouldn’t have so many valid reasons to doubt his veracity now.
So he swallows his frustration and hurt and increasing desperation, and bares his heart out again, in no mistakeable terms.
“Love you! Girl, you’re in the very core of my heart. I hold you there like a jewel. Didn’t I promise you I’d never tell you a lie? Love you! I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There’s nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.”
“You’re—a good actor, Barney,” says Valancy, with a wan little smile, and Barney sees red.
“So you don’t believe me—yet?”
“I—can't.”
“Oh—damn!” says Barney violently as his world shatters around him yet again.
He never learns, does he?
But this time he truly thought it was real. That this time, he was truly loved. Well, that’s what he believed before too, didn’t he? Apparently he needed to burn himself once again to get it into his thick head that he was unlovable, that his love was always going to end up spurned and used against him.
That being loved was something for other people.
Not for him. Never for him. But this time he truly thought…
Well, he’s been bloody wrong, and Valancy couldn’t have made it clearer.
“You don’t want to believe it,” says Barney in the silk-smooth voice of ultimate rage, only fueled by the way his hands still ache to grasp hers and never let her go. “You’re tired of me. You want to get out of it—free from me. You’re ashamed of the Pills and the Liniment, just as she was. Your Stirling pride can’t stomach them. It was all right as long as you thought you hadn’t long to live. A good lark—you could put up with me. But a lifetime with old Doc Redfern’s son is a different thing. Oh, I understand—perfectly. I’ve been very dense—but I understand, at last.”
Valancy stands up. She stares fearlessly into his furious face. Then—she suddenly laughs, her eyes bright, her laughter without a hint of derision, merely happy, and something tight in Barney’s chest, something resembling an impossible hope, starts to unfurl at the sound.
“You darling!” she says, and his heart thrills at her tone even as his brain refuses to believe it. “You do mean it! You do really love me! You wouldn’t be so enraged if you didn’t.”
Barney stares at her for a moment, trying to wrap his hopelessly confused head around the rollercoaster of emotions rolling through him. Then he catches her in his arms with the little low laugh of the triumphant lover and his heart sings when he feels her soft lips against his. He allows his racing breath to calm.
She loves him. Valancy loves him and believes him and she’s going to live. He pours all his love and relief, so much of relief, into their kiss, and it’s quite a long time until any of them is able to form words.
“But, Barney,” protests Valancy after a few minutes, “your father—somehow—gave me to understand that you still loved her .”
Barney nearly snorts. Of course he did. Back for one day after nearly eleven years apart and he nearly managed to destroy Barney’s marriage.
“He would. Dad holds the championship for making blunders. If there’s a thing that’s better left unsaid you can trust him to say it. But he isn’t a bad old soul, Valancy. You’ll like him.”
“I do, now,” she assures him, and he kisses her again for the sincerity ringing in her voice.
“And his money isn’t tainted money. He made it honestly. His medicines are quite harmless. Even his Purple Pills do people whole heaps of good when they believe in them,” he says, still drunk on relief coursing through his veins, and more predisposed to be generous towards his father’s cursed business than he’s ever been before in his life. He doesn’t think it’s going to last, but he yearns to facilitate a good relationship between dad and Valancy. He can’t help being anxious that for all her goodwill towards her father-in-law, she’s going to baulk at being related to him when she has more time to reflect on everything.
Valancy, as it turns out, is anxious about something else entirely.
“But—I’m not fit for your life,” she sighs, and Barney’s hands tighten on hers when he feels a minute trembling of her fingers. “I’m not—clever—or well-educated—or——”
“My life is in Mistawis—and all the wild places of the world. I’m not going to ask you to live the life of a society woman. Of course, we must spend a bit of the time with Dad—he’s lonely and old——”
“But not in that big house of his,” pleads Valancy. “I can’t live in a palace.”
He kisses her again, there’s no way he wouldn’t.
“Can’t come down to that after your Blue Castle,” he grins. “Don’t worry, sweet. I couldn’t live in that house myself. It has a white marble stairway with gilt bannisters and looks like a furniture shop with the labels off. Likewise it’s the pride of Dad’s heart. We’ll get a little house somewhere outside of Montreal—in the real country—near enough to see Dad often. I think we’ll build one for ourselves. A house you build for yourself is so much nicer than a hand-me-down. But we’ll spend our summers in Mistawis. And our autumns travelling. I want you to see the Alhambra—it’s the nearest thing to the Blue Castle of your dreams I can think of. And there’s an old-world garden in Italy where I want to show you the moon rising over Rome through the dark cypress-trees.”
His head spins with the possibilities, spoilt for choice. He spent years travelling the world and all its wonders – saw so many wondrous things – and now, when he’s facing the possibility of sharing it with her, he doesn’t know where to start. He wants to show her – why, everything! He feels giddy at the realisation that he can .
“Will that be any lovelier than the moon rising over Mistawis?”
“Not lovelier. But a different kind of loveliness. There are so many kinds of loveliness. Valancy, before this year you’ve spent all your life in ugliness. You know nothing of the beauty of the world. We’ll climb mountains—hunt for treasures in the bazaars of Samarcand—search out the magic of east and west—run hand in hand to the rim of the world. I want to show you it all—see it again through your eyes. Girl, there are a million things I want to show you—do with you—say to you. It will take a lifetime. And we must see about that picture by Tierney, after all.”
“Will you promise me one thing?” asks Valancy solemnly.
“Anything,” says Barney recklessly.
“Only one thing. You are never, under any circumstances or under any provocation, to cast it up to me that I asked you to marry me.”
Barney throws his head back and laughs.