Chapter 7 There was a rosebush on the little sterling lawn.
Growing beside the gate,
It was called Dosse's rosebush.
Cousin Georgiana had given it to Valancy five years ago,
And Valancy had planted it joyfully.
She loved roses,
But of course,
The rosebush never bloomed.
That was her luck.
Valancy did everything she could think of,
And took the advice of everybody in the clan,
But still the rosebush would not bloom.
It grew and grew luxuriantly,
With great leafy branches untouched of rust or spider,
But not even a bud had ever appeared on it.
Valancy,
Looking at it two days after her birthday,
Was filled with a sudden,
Overwhelming hatred for it.
The thing wouldn't bloom.
Very well,
Then.
She would cut it down.
She marched to the tool room in the barn for her garden knife,
And she went at the rosebush viciously.
A few minutes later horrified Miss Frederick came out to the veranda,
And behold her daughters lashing insanely among the rosebush boughs.
Half of them were already strewn on the walk.
The bush looked sadly dismantled.
Dosse,
What on earth are you doing?
Have you gone crazy?
No,
Said Valancy.
She meant to say it defiantly,
But habit was too strong for her.
She said it deprecatingly.
I just made up my mind to cut this bush down.
It is no good.
It never blooms.
Never will bloom.
There is no reason for destroying it,
Said Miss Frederick sternly.
It was a beautiful bush,
And quite ornamental.
You have made a sorry-looking thing of it.
Rose trees should bloom,
Said Valancy a little obstinately.
Don't argue with me,
Dosse.
Clear up that mess and leave the bush alone.
I don't know what Georgiana will say when she sees how you have hacked it to pieces.
Really,
I am surprised at you.
Aren't you doing it without consulting me?
The bush is mine,
Muttered Valancy.
What's that?
What did you say,
Dosse?
I only said the bush was mine,
Repeated Valancy humbly.
Miss Frederick turned without a word and marched back into the house.
The mid-she was done now.
Valancy knew she had offended her mother deeply and would not be spoken to or noticed in any way for two or three days.
Cousin Stickles would see to Valancy's bringing up,
But Miss Frederick would preserve this stony silence of outraged majesty.
Valancy sighed and put away her garden-knife,
Hanging it precisely on its precise nail,
In the tool-shop.
She cleared away the severed branches and swept up the leaves.
Her lips twitched as she looked at the straggling bush.
It had an odd resemblance to its shaken,
Scrawny donor little cousin Georgiana herself.
I certainly have made an awful looking thing of it,
Thought Valancy.
But she did not feel repentant.
Only sorry.
She had offended her mother.
Things would be so uncomfortable until she was forgiven.
Miss Frederick was one of those women who can make the anger felt all over the house.
Walls and doors are no protection from it.
You'd better go uptown and get the mail.
Said Cousin Stickles when Valancy went in.
I cannot go.
I feel a sore terpeki and piney this spring.
I want you to stop at the drugstore and get me a bottle of Redfern's blood bitters.
There's nothing like Redfern's bitters for building a body up.
Cousin James says the purple pills are the best.
But I know better.
My poor dear husband took Redfern's bitters right up to the day he died.
Don't let them charge you more than ninety cents.
I can get it for that at the port.
And what have you been saying to your poor mother?
Do you ever stop to think,
Doss,
That you can only have one mutter?
One is enough for me,
Thought Valancy,
Undutifully,
As she went uptown.
She got Cousin Stickles' bottle of bitters,
And then she went to the post office and asked for her mail at the general delivery.
Her mother did not have a box.
They got too little mail to bother with it.
Valancy did not expect any mail except the Christian Times,
Which was the only paper they took.
They hardly ever got any letters,
But Valancy rather liked to stand in the post office and watch Mr.
Carravee,
The grey-bearded,
Santa Claus-y old clerk,
Handing out letters to the lucky people who did get them.
He did it with such a detached,
Impersonal,
Jove-like air as if it did not matter in the least to him what supernal joys or shattering horrors might be in those letters for the people to whom they were addressed.
Letters had a fascination for Valancy,
Perhaps because she so seldom got any.
In her blue castle,
Exciting epistles,
Bound with silk and sealed with crimson,
Were always being brought to her by pages,
In a library of gold and blue,
But in real life her only letters were occasional perfunctionary notes from relatives or an advertising circular.
Consequently,
She was immensely surprised when Mr.
Carravee,
Looking even more jovian than usual,
Poked a let out to her.
Yes,
It was addressed to her plainly in a fierce black hand.
Miss Valancy Stirling,
Elm Street,
Deerwood.
And the postmark was Montreal.
Valancy picked it up with a little quinkening of her breath.
Montreal!
It must be from Dr.
Trent.
He had remembered her after all.
Valancy met Uncle Benjamin coming in as she was going out,
And was glad the letter was safely in her bag.
What,
Said Uncle Benjamin,
Is the difference between a donkey and a postage stamp?
I don't know.
What,
Answered Valancy dutifully.
One you lick with a stick,
And the other you stick with a lick.
Ah!
Uncle Benjamin passed in,
Tremendously pleased with himself.
Cousin Stickles pounced on the times when Valancy got home,
But he did not occur to her to ask if there were any letters.
Miss Frederick would have asked it,
But Miss Frederick's lips at present were sealed.
Valancy was glad of this.
If her mother had asked if there were any letters,
Valancy would have had to admit there was.
Then she would have had to let her mother and cousin Stickles read the letter,
And all would be discovered.
Her heart acted strangely on the way upstairs,
And she sat down by her window for a few minutes before opening her letter.
She felt very guilty and deceitful.
She had never before kept a letter secret from her mother.
Every letter she had ever written or received had been read by Miss Frederick.
That had never mattered.
Valancy had never had anything to hide.
But this did matter.
She could not have anyone see this letter,
But her fingers trembled with the consciousness of wickedness and unfallible conduct as she opened it.
Trembled a little too,
Perhaps,
With apprehension.
She felt quite sure there was nothing seriously wrong with her heart,
But one never knew.
Dr.
Trent's letter was like himself.
Blunt,
Abrupt,
Concise,
Wasting no words.
Dr.
Trent never beat about the bush.
The end is sterling,
And in a page of black,
Positive writing,
Valancy seemed to read it at a glance.
She dropped it on her lap.
Her face ghost white.
Dr.
Trent told her that she had a very dangerous and fatal form of heart disease,
Angina pectoris,
Evidently complicated with aneurysm.
Whatever that was,
And in the last stages,
He said,
Without mincing matters,
That nothing could be done for her,
If she took great care of herself.
She might live a year,
But she might also die at any moment,
Dr.
Trent never troubled himself about euphemisms.
She must be careful to avoid all excitement and all severe muscular efforts.
She must eat and drink moderately.
She must never run.
She must go upstairs and uphill with great care.
Any sudden jolt or shock might be fatal.
She was to get the prescription he enclosed filled and carried with her always,
Taking a dose whenever her attacks came on.
And he was hers truly,
H.
P.
Trent.
When she sat for a long while by her window,
Outside was a world drowned in the light of a spring afternoon.
Skies a trancingly blue,
Winds perfumed and free,
Lovely,
Soft blue hazes at the end of every street.
Over at the railway station a group of young girls was waiting for a train.
She heard tray-gay laughter as they chattered and joked.
The train rode in and rode out again,
But none of these things had any reality.
Nothing had any reality except the fact that she had only another year to live.
And she was tired of sitting at the window.
She went over and lay down on her bed,
Staring at the cracked,
Discolored ceiling.
The curious numbness that follows on a staggering blow possessed her.
She did not feel anything except a boundless surprise and incredulity,
Behind which was the conviction that Dr.
Trent knew his business and that she,
Valancy Sterling,
Who had never lived,
Was about to die.
When the gong rang for supper,
Valancy got up and went downstairs,
Mechanically,
From force of habit.
She wondered that she had been left alone so long.
But of course her mother would not pay any attention to her just now.
Valancy was thankful for this.
She thought the quarrel over the rosebush had been really,
As Miss Frederick herself might have said,
Providential.
She could not eat anything,
But both Miss Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought this deservedly unhappy over her mother's attitude,
And her lack of appetite was not commended on.
Valancy forced herself to swallow a cup of tea,
And then sat and watched the others eat,
With an odd feeling that years had passed since.
She had sat with them at the dinner table.
She found herself smiling inwardly,
To think what a commotion she could make if she chose.
Let her merely tell them what was in Dr.
Trent's letter,
And there would be as much fuss made as if,
Valancy thought bitterly,
They really cared two straws about her.
Dr.
Trent's housekeeper got word from him today,
Said Cousin Stickles,
So suddenly that Valancy jumped giddily.
Was there anything in taught ways?
Miss Judd was talking to her uptown.
They think his son will recover,
But Dr.
Trent wrote that,
If he had,
If he did,
He was going to take him abroad as soon as he was able to travel,
And wouldn't be back here for a year at least.
That will not matter to us,
Said Miss Frederick majestically.
He is not our doctor.
I would not.
He or she looked or seemed to look accusingly right through Valancy.
Have him to doctor a sick cat.
May I go upstairs and lie down,
Said Valancy faintly.
I have a headache.
What has given you a headache?
Asked Cousin Stickles,
Since Miss Frederick could not.
The question had to be asked.
Valancy could not be allowed to have headaches without interference.
You ain't in the habit of having headaches.
I hope you're not taking the mumps.
Here,
Try a spoonful.
Here,
Try a spoonful of vinegar.
Peeful,
Said Valancy rudely,
Getting up from the table.
She did not care just then.
If she were rude,
She had had to be so polite all her life.
If it had been possible for Cousin Stickles to turn pale,
She would have.
As it was not,
She turned yellower.
Are you sure you ain't feverish,
Doss?
Doss,
You sound like it.
You go and get right into bed,
Said Cousin Stickles,
Truly alarmed,
And I'll come up and wrap your forehead and the back of your neck with Redfern's liniment.
Valancy had reached the door,
But she turned.
I won't be wrapped with Redfern's liniment,
She said.
Cousin Stickles stared and gasped.
What do you mean?
I said I wouldn't be wrapped with Redfern's liniment,
Repeated Valancy.
Horrid,
Sticky stuff,
And it has the wildest smell of any liniment I ever saw.
It is no good.
I want to be left alone,
That's all.
Valancy went out,
Leaving Cousin Stickles aghast.
She is feverish.
She must be feverish,
Ejaculated Cousin Stickles.
Miss Frederick went on eating her supper.
It did not matter whether Valancy was or was not feverish.
Feverish.
Valancy had been guilty of impertinence to her.
