Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you and let all the worries of the day drift away.
This is your time and your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Chapter 11 The dinner dragged its slow length along true to sterling form.
The room was chilly in spite of the calendar and Aunt Alberta had the gas logs lighted.
Everyone in the clan envied her those gas logs except Valancy Stirling.
Glorious open fires blazed in every room of her blue castle where autumnal nights were cool.
But she would have frozen to death in it before she would have committed the sacrilege of a gas log.
Uncle Herbert then made his hardy perennial joke when he helped Aunt Wellington to the cold meat.
Mary,
Will you have a little lamb?
Aunt Mildred told the same story of once finding a lost ring in a turkey's crop.
Uncle Benjamin told his favourite prosy tale of how he once chased and punished a now famous man for stealing apples.
Second Cousin Jane described all her sufferings with an ulcerated tooth.
Aunt Wellington admired the pattern of Aunt Alberta's silver teaspoons and lamented the fact that one of her own had been lost.
It spoiled the set.
I could never get it matched and it was my wedding present from dear old Aunt Matilda.
Aunt Isabel thought the seasons were changing and couldn't imagine what had become of our good old fashioned springs.
Cousin Georgiana as usual discussed the last funeral and wondered audibly which of us will be the next.
Cousin Georgiana could never say anything as blunt as die.
Valancy thought she could tell her but she didn't.
Cousin Gladys likewise as usual had a grievance.
Her visiting nephews had nicked all the buds off her house plants and chivvied her brood of fancy chickens.
Squeeze some of them actually to death my dear.
Boys will be boys reminded Uncle Herbert tolerantly.
But they needn't be rampaging rampageous animals retorted Cousin Gladys looking round the table for appreciation of her wit.
Everybody smiled except for Valancy.
Cousin Gladys remembered that.
A few minutes later when Ellen Hamilton was being discussed she spoke of her as one of those shy plain girls who can't get husbands and glanced significantly at Valancy.
Uncle James thought the conversation was sagging to a rather low plane of personal gossip.
He tried to elevate it by starting an abstract discussion on the greatest happiness.
Everybody was asked to state his or her idea of the greatest happiness.
Aunt Mildred thought for a woman that was to be a loving and beloved wife and mother.
Aunt Wellington thought it would be to travel to Europe.
Olive thought it would be to be a great singer.
Cousin Gladys remarked mournfully her greatest happiness would be to be free from neuritis.
Cousin Georgiana's greatest happiness would be to have her dear dead brother Richard back.
Aunt Alberta remarked vaguely the greatest happiness was to be found in the poetry of life.
Mrs.
Frederick said the greatest happiness was to spend your life in loving service for others.
And Cousin Stickles and Aunt Isabel agreed with her.
Aunt Isabel with a resentful air as if she thought Mrs.
Frederick had taken the wind out of her sails by saying it first.
We are all too prone,
Continued Mrs.
Frederick,
Determined not to lose so good an opportunity,
To live in selfishness,
Worldliness and sin.
The other women all felt rebuked for their low ideals and Uncle James had a conviction the conversation had been uplifted with a vengeance.
The greatest happiness,
Said Valancy suddenly and distinctly,
Is to sneeze when you want to.
Everybody stared.
Nobody felt it safe to say anything.
Was Valancy trying to be funny?
It was incredible.
Mrs.
Frederick,
Who had been breathing easier since the dinner had progressed so far without any outbreak on the part of Valancy,
Began to tremble again.
But she deemed it the part of prudence to say nothing.
Uncle Benjamin was not so prudent.
He rushly rushed in when Mrs.
Frederick feared to tread.
Doss!
He chuckled.
What is the difference between a young girl and an old maid?
One is happy and careless and the other is cappy and hairless,
Said Valancy.
You've asked that riddle at least fifty times in my recollection,
Uncle Ben.
Why don't you hunt up some new riddles if riddle you must?
It's such a fatal mistake to try to be funny if you don't succeed.
Uncle Benjamin stared foolishly.
Never in his life had he,
Benjamin Stirling of Stirling and Frost,
Been spoken to in such a way and by Valancy of all people.
He looked feebly round the table to see what the others thought.
Everybody was looking rather blank.
Poor Mrs.
Frederick had shut her eyes and her lips moved tremblingly as if she were praying.
Perhaps she was.
The situation was so unprecedented nobody knew how to meet it.
Valancy went on calmingly eating her salad as if nothing out of the usual had occurred.
To save her dinner,
Aunt Alberta plunged into an account of how a dog had bitten her recently.
Uncle James,
Keen to back her up,
Asked where the dog had bitten her.
Just a little below the Catholic Church,
Said Aunt Alberta.
At that point Valancy laughed.
Nobody else laughed.
What was there to laugh at?
Is that a vital part?
Asked Valancy.
What do you mean?
Said Aunt Alberta.
Then Aunt Isabel concluded it was up to her to suppress Valancy.
Doss,
You're horribly thin,
She said.
You are all corners.
Do you ever try to fatten up a little?
No.
Valancy was not asking quarter or giving any of it.
But I can tell you where you'll find a pretty parlour in Port Lawrence where they can reduce the number of your chins.
Valancy!
The protest was rung from Mrs Frederick.
She meant her tone to be stately and majestic as usual but it sounded more like an imploring whine and she did not say Doss.
She's feverish,
Said Cousin Stickles.
We thought she seemed feverish for several days.
She's gone dippy in my opinion,
Growled Uncle Benjamin.
If not,
She ought to be spanked.
You can't spank her,
She's 29 years old.
So there is an advantage in being 29,
Said Valancy.
Doss,
Said Uncle Benjamin,
Thinking it might cow Valancy,
Do you remember the time you stole the raspberry jam?
Valancy flushed Scarlet with suppressed laughter,
Not shame.
She was sure Uncle Benjamin would drag that up.
Of course I do,
She said,
It was good jam.
I've always been a bit sorry I hadn't time to eat more of it before you found me.
Look at Aunt Isabel's profile on the wall,
Did you ever see anything so funny?
Everybody looked,
Including Aunt Isabel herself.
Then Uncle Herbert said,
I wouldn't eat any more if I were you Doss.
It isn't that I grudge it,
But I don't think it would be better for you.
Your stomach seems a little out of order.
Don't worry about my stomach,
Old dear,
Said Valancy defiantly.
It is alright,
I'm going to try and keep on eating,
It's so seldom I get the chance of a satisfying meal.
It was the first time anyone had been called old dear in Deerwood.
The Stirlings thought Valancy had invented the phrase,
And they were afraid of her from that moment.
There was something so uncanny about such an expression.
But in poor Mrs Frederick's opinion,
The reference to a satisfying meal was the worst thing Valancy had said yet.
Valancy had always been a disappointment to her,
But now she was a disgrace.
She thought she would have to get up and go away from the table,
Yet she dared not leave Valancy there unattended.
Aunt Alberta's maid came in to remove the salad plates and bring in the dessert.
It was a welcome diversion.
Everyone brightened up and remained determined to ignore Valancy and talk as if she wasn't there.
Valancy resigned herself to listen.
There was a subtle fascination in the subject for her.
Barney Smith was always mentioned at every Stirling function.
They always abused him.
Nobody ever had a good word to say about him.
All the old wild tales were canvassed.
Uncle Wellington was very indignant that such a creature should be allowed to exist at all in the neighbourhood of Deerwood.
What has he done?
Asked Valancy suddenly.
Uncle Wellington stared at her,
Forgetting Valancy was to be ignored.
He's done everything.
What has he done?
Repeated Valancy.
Do you know what he's done?
You're always running him down.
What has ever been proved against him?
I don't argue with women,
Said Uncle Wellington,
And I don't need proof.
When a man hides himself up there on an island in Muskoka year in,
Year out,
And nobody can find where he came from or how he lives or what he does,
That is proof enough.
Find a mystery and you'll find a crime.
The very idea of a man named Snaith,
Said second cousin.
Why,
The name itself is enough to condemn him.
I wouldn't like to meet him in a dark lane,
Shivered cousin Georgiana.
What do you suppose he would do to you?
Asked Valancy.
Murder me,
Said cousin Georgiana solemnly.
Just for the fun of it,
Suggested Valancy.
Exactly,
Said cousin Georgiana unsuspiciously.
When there's so much smoke,
There has to be some fire.
He's a criminal,
Said Uncle Wellington,
Nobody doubts it.
He glared at Valancy.
They say he served a term in the penitentiary for embezzlement.
I don't doubt it.
And they say he's in with that gang that are perpetrating all those bank robberies round the country.
Who say?
Asked Valancy.
Uncle Wellington knotted his ugly forehead at her.
What had got into this confounded girl?
He ignored the question.
He has the identical look of a jailbird,
Snapped Uncle Benjamin.
I noticed it the first time I saw him.
One of his eyebrows is an arch and the other is a triangle,
Said Valancy.
Is that why you think him so villainous?
Uncle James lifted his eyebrows.
Generally,
When Uncle James lifted his eyebrows,
The world came to an end.
This time it continued to function.
How do you know his eyebrows so well,
Doss?
Asked Olive,
A trifle maliciously.
How?
Demanded Aunt Wellington.
I've seen him twice and looked at him closely,
Said Valancy composedly.
I thought his face the most interesting one I ever saw.
There is no doubt there is something fishy in that creature's past.
Lie,
Said Olive.
She began to think she was decidedly out of the conversation which had centred so amazingly around Valancy.
He can hardly be guilty of everything he's accused of,
You know.
Valancy felt annoyed with her.
Why should she speak up,
Qualified defence of Barney Snaith?
Why and what had she to do with him?
For that matter,
What of Valancy?
But Valancy did not ask herself this question.
They say he keeps dozens of cats in that hut,
Said second cousin Sarah Taylor.
Cats.
They sounded quite alluring to Valancy in the plural.
That alone shows there is something wrong with him,
Decreed Aunt Isabel.
People who don't like cats,
Said Valancy,
Attacking her dessert with a relish,
Always seem to think there's some peculiar virtue in not liking them.
Valancy did not exactly understand her own indignation at this conversation.
Why did Barney Snaith's imputed crimes and misdemeanours matter to her?
Hush now,
Implored cousin Stickles.
I don't mean to hush,
Said Valancy perversely.
I've hushed all my life.
I'll scream if I want to.
Don't make me want to.
Stop talking nonsense about Barney Snaith.
When I was a young girl,
I never thought or spoke about such matters dos,
Said Aunt Wellington.
But I'm not a young girl,
Retorted Valancy.
Aren't you always rubbing that into me?
You're all evil-minded,
Senseless gossips.
Your poor father would turn over in his grave if he could hear you,
Said Mrs Frederick.
I dare say he'd like that for a change,
Said Valancy brazenly.
Dos,
Said Uncle James heavily.
The Ten Commandments are fairly up to date still,
Especially the fifth.
Have you forgotten that?
No,
Said Valancy,
But I thought you had,
Especially the ninth.
Have you forgotten,
Uncle James,
How dull life would be without the Ten Commandments?
It's only when things are forbidden they become fascinating.
But now the excitement was too much for her.
Valancy knew by certain unmistakable warnings one of her attacks of pain was coming on.
It must not find her there.
She rose from her chair.
I'm going home now.
I only came for dinner.
It was very good,
Aunt Alberta,
Although your salad dressing is not salt enough and a dash of cayenne would improve it.
None of the flabbergasted,
Silver-wedding guests could think of anything to say until the lawn gate clanged behind Valancy in the dusk.
Then they began.
She's feverish,
Said one.
She's dippy,
Said another.
I should never have dreamed it of Doss,
Said Uncle Herbert.
She's always seemed such a quiet,
Sensible girl.
A bit backward,
But sensible.
The only thing you can be sure of in this world is the multiplication table,
Said Uncle James,
Feeling cleverer than ever before.
