Blue Castle (Bedtime Story) Chapter 10

Chapter 10 Bless this food to our use,

And consecrate our lives by thy service,

Said Uncle Herbert briskly.

Aunt Wellington frowned.

She always considered Herbert's graces entirely too short and flippant.

A grace to be a grace in Aunt Wellington's eyes had to be at least three minutes long and uttered in an unearthly tone,

Between a groan and a chant.

As a protest,

She kept her head bent.

A perceptible time after all the rest had been lifted,

When she permitted herself to sit upright,

She found Valancy looking at her.

Even afterwards,

Aunt Wellington averred that she had known from that moment that there was something wrong with Valancy.

In those queer,

Slanted eyes of hers,

We should always have known she was not entirely right with eyes like that.

There was an odd gleam of mockery and amusement,

As if Valancy were laughing at her.

Such a thing was unthinkable,

Of course.

Aunt Wellington once ceased to think it.

Valancy was enjoying herself.

She had never enjoyed herself at the family reunion before.

In social functions,

As in childish games,

She had only filled in.

Her clan had always considered her very dull.

She had no parlor tricks,

And she had been in the habit of taking refuge from the boredom of family parties in her blue castle,

Which resulted in an absent mindlessness.

That increased her reputation for dullness and vacuity.

She has no social presence whatever,

Aunt Wellington had decreed once,

And for all.

Nobody dreamed that Valancy was dumb,

In the presence merely because she was afraid of them.

Now she was no longer afraid of them.

The Shekels had been stricken off her soul.

She was quite prepared to talk if occasion offered.

Meanwhile,

She was giving herself such freedom of thought as she had never dared to take before.

She let herself go with a wild,

Inner exultation.

As Uncle Herbert carved a turkey,

Uncle Herbert gave Valancy a second look that day.

Being a man,

He didn't know what she had done to her hair,

But he thought surprisingly that Doris was not such a bad-looking girl after all,

And he put an extra piece of white meat on her plate.

What Herb is most injurious to a young lady's beauty,

Pronounced Uncle Benjamin by way of starting conversation,

Loosening things up a bit.

As he would have said,

Valancy whose duty it was to say,

What,

Did not say it.

Nobody else said it.

So Uncle Benjamin,

After an expectant pause,

Had to answer,

Time,

And felt that his riddle had fallen flat.

He looked resentfully at Valancy,

Who had never felt him before,

But Valancy did not seem even to be aware of him.

She was gazing around the table,

Examining relentlessly everyone in this depressing assembly of sensible people,

And watching their little squirms with a detached,

Amused smile.

So these were the people she had always held in reverence and fear.

She seemed to see them with new eyes,

Big,

Capable,

Patronizing,

Voluble Aunt Miltred,

Who thought herself the cleverest woman in the clan.

Her husband,

A little lower than the angels and her children wonders.

Had not her son,

Howard,

Been all through teething at eleven months,

And could she not tell you the best way to do everything,

From cooking mushrooms to picking up a snake?

What a boar she was,

What ugly moles she had on her face.

Cousin Gladys,

Who was always praising her son,

Had died young,

And always fighting with her living one.

She had neuritis,

Or what she called neuritis.

It jumped about from one part of her body to another.

It was a convenient thing.

If anybody wanted her to go somewhere,

She didn't want to go.

She had neuritis in her legs.

And always,

If any mental effort was required,

She could have neuritis in her head.

You can think with neuritis in your head,

My dear.

What an old humbug you are,

Thought Valancy impiously.

Aunt Isabel.

Valancy counted her gins.

Aunt Isabel was the critic of the clan.

She had always got about squashing people flat.

More members of it than Valancy were afraid of her.

She had,

It was conceded,

A biting tongue.

I wonder what would happen to your face if you ever smiled,

Speculated Valancy unblushingly.

Second cousin,

Sarah Taylor,

With her great pale,

Expressionless eyes,

Was noted for the variety of her pickle recipes and for nothing else.

So afraid of saying anything,

Something indiscreet that she never said anything worth listening to.

So proper that she blushed when she saw the advertisement picture of a corset and had put a dress on her Venus de Milo statuette,

Which made it look really tasty.

The old cousin Georgiana,

Not such a bad little soul,

But dreary,

Weary,

Always looking as if she had just been starched and ironed.

Always afraid to let herself go.

The only thing she really enjoyed was her funeral.

You never knew where you were with a corpse.

Nothing more could happen to it,

But while there was life there was fear.

Uncle James,

Handsome,

Black,

Witty,

Sarcastic,

Trap-like mouth and iron-gray sideburns,

Whose favorite amusement was to write controversial letters to the Christian Times,

Attacking modernism.

Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he did when awake.

No wonder his wife had died young.

Valancy remembered her,

A pretty sensitive thing.

Uncle James had denied her everything she wanted and showered her on everything she didn't want.

He had killed her,

Quite legally.

She had been smothered and starved.

Uncle Benjamin,

Wheezy,

Pussy-mounted,

With great pouches under eyes that hold nothing in reverence.

Uncle Wellington,

Long,

Pallid face,

Thin,

Pale yellow hair,

One of the fair sterling's thin,

Stooping body,

Up in a high forehead,

With such ugly wrinkles and eyes about as intelligent as a fish.

Daughter Valancy.

Looks like a cartoon of himself.

Aunt Wellington,

Named Mary,

But called by her husband's name to distinguish her from Great-Aunt Mary,

A massive,

Dignified,

Permanent lady,

Splendidly arranged,

Iron-gray hair,

Fashionable beaded dress,

Had her moles removed by electrolysis,

Which Aunt Mildred thought was a wicked evasion of the purpose of God.

Uncle Herbert,

With his spiky gray hair.

Aunt Alberta,

Who twisted her mouth so unpleasantly in talking and had a great reputation for unselfishness,

Because she was always giving up a lot of things she didn't want.

Aunt Valancy let them off easily in her judgment,

Because she liked them,

Even if they were,

In Mildred's expressive praise,

Stupidly good.

But she wondered for what inscrutable reason Aunt Alberta had seen fit to tie a black velvet ribbon around each of her choppy arms above the elbow.

Then she looked across the table at Olive.

Olive,

Who had been holed up to her as a paragon of beauty,

Behavior and success,

As long as she could remember.

Why can't you hold yourself like Olive does?

Why can't you stand correctly like Olive does?

Why can't you speak prettily like Olive does?

Why can't you make an effort does?

Valancy's elfin eyes lost their mocking glitter and became pensive and sorrowful.

You could not ignore or disdain Olive.

It was quite impossible to deny that she was beautiful and effective and sometimes she was a little intelligent.

Her mouth might be a trifle heavy.

She might show her fine,

White,

Regular teeth rather too lavishly,

But she smiled.

But when all was said and done,

Olive justified Uncle Benjamin's summing up.

A stunning girl,

Yes,

Valancy agreed in her heart,

Olive was stunning.

Rich golden-brown hair,

Elaborately dressed with a sparkly bandeau holding its glossy puffs in place,

Arch-brilliant blue eyes and thick silken lashes.

Face of a rose and bare neck of snow above her gown,

Great pearl bubbles in her ears,

The blue-white diamond flame on her long,

Smooth waxen finger with its rosy,

Pointed nail,

Arms of marble gleaming two green chiffon and shadow lace.

Valancy felt suddenly thankful that her own scrawny arms were decently swashed in brown silk.

Then she resumed her tabulation of Olive's charms.

Tall,

Queenly,

Confident,

Everything that Valancy was not,

Dimples,

Two in cheeks and chin.

A woman with dimples always gets her own way,

Thought Valancy,

In a recurring spasm of bitterness,

At the fate which had denied her even one dimple.

Olive was only a year younger than Valancy,

Though a stranger would have thought that there was at least ten years between them.

Nobody ever treated old maidenhood for her.

Olive had been surrounded by a crowd of eager,

Bold,

Since her early teens,

Just as her mirror was always surrounded by a fringe of cards,

Autographs,

Programs and invitations.

At eighteen,

When she had graduated from Havergill College,

Olive had been engaged to Will Desmond,

Lawyer in Embroider.

Will Desmond had died,

And Olive had mourned him,

Probably for two years.

When she was twenty-three,

She had a hectic affair with Donald Jackson,

But Aunt and Uncle Wellington disapproved of that,

And in the end,

Olive dutifully gave him up.

Nobody in the Sterling Glen,

Whatever outsiders might say,

Hinted that.

She did so because Donald himself was cooling off.

However,

That might be Olive's third venture met with everybody's approval.

Cecil Price was clever and handsome,

And one of the Port Lawrence's priceless.

Olive had been engaged to him for three years.

He had just graduated in civil engineering,

And they were to be married as soon as he landed a contract.

Olive's harp chest was full of overflowing with exquisite things,

And Olive had already confided to Valancy what her wedding dress was to be.

Ivory silk,

Draped with lace,

White satin court train,

Lined with pale green georgette,

Haloon veil of Brussels lace.

Valancy knew also,

Though Olive had not told her,

That the bridesmaids were selected and that she was not among them.

Valancy had,

After her fashion,

Always been Olive's confidante,

Perhaps because she was the only girl in the connection who could not bore Olive with return confidences.

Olive always told Valancy about the details of her love affairs,

From the days when the little boys in school used to persecute her with love letters.

Valancy could not comfort herself by thinking these affairs mythical.

Olive really had them.

Many men had come mad over her besides the three fortunate ones.

I don't know what the poor idiots see in me that tries them to make such double idiots of themselves.

Olive was wont to say.

Valancy would have liked to say,

I don't either,

But truth and diplomacy both restrained her.

She did know perfectly well,

Olive Sterling was one of the girls about whom men do go mad just as indubitably as she,

Valancy,

Was one of the girls at whom no man ever looked twice,

And yet,

Thought Valancy,

Summing her up with a new and merciless conclusiveness,

She is like a do-less morning,

There is something lacking.