THE BLUE CASTLE

Some quotes from The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Chapter 8:

“’My life has been empty—empty. Nothing is worse than emptiness. Nothing!’ Valancy ejaculated the last ‘nothing’ aloud passionately. Then she moaned and stopped thinking about anything for a while. One of her attacks of pain had come on.

When it was over, something had happened to Valancy—perhaps the culmination of the process that had been going on in her mind ever since she had read Dr. Trent’s letter. It was three o’clock in the morning—the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes it sets us free.

‘I’ve been trying to please other people all my life and failed,’ she said. ‘After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything again. I’ve breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretences and evasions all my life. What a luxury it will be to tell the truth! I may not be able to do much that I want to do but I won’t do another thing that I don’t want to. Mother can pout for weeks—I shan’t worry over it. ‘Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.’

Valancy got up and dressed, with a deepening of that curious sense of freedom. When she finished with her hair she opened the window and hurled the jar of potpourri over into the next lot. It smashed gloriously against the schoolgirl complexion on the old carriage-shop.

‘I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things,’ said Valancy.”

(pages 45-46)

Chapter 11:

“’She’s feverish,’ said Cousin Stickles to Uncle Benjamin in an agonized whisper. ‘We’ve thought she’s seemed feverish for days.’
‘She’s gone dippy, in my opinion,’ growled Uncle Benjamin. ‘If not, she ought to be spanked. Yes, spanked.’
‘You can’t spank her.’ Cousin Stickles was much agitated. ‘She’s twenty-nine years old.’
‘So there is that advantage, at least, in being twenty-nine,’ said Valancy, whose ears had caught this aside.
‘Doss,’ said Uncle Benjamin, ‘when I am dead you may say what you please. As long as I am alive I demand to be treated with respect.’
‘Oh, but you know we’re all dead,’ said Valancy, ‘the whole Stirling clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t—yet. That is the only difference.’

‘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 had been sure Uncle Benjamin would drag in the jam somehow.
‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘It was good jam. I’ve always been sorry I hadn’t time to eat more of it before you found me. Oh, look at Aunt Isabel’s profile on the wall. Did you ever see anything so funny?’
Everybody looked, including Aunt Isabel herself, which, of course, destroyed it. But Uncle Herbert said kindly, ‘I—I wouldn’t eat any more if I were you, Doss. It isn’t that I grudge it—but don’t you think it would be better for yourself? Your—your stomach seems a little out of order.’
‘Don’t worry about my stomach, old dear,’ said Valancy. ‘It is all right. I’m going to keep right 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. 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.

Aunt Alberta’s maid came in to remove the salad plates and bring in the dessert. It was a welcome diversion. Everybody brightened up with a determination to ignore Valancy and talk as if she wasn’t there. Uncle Wellington mentioned Barney Snaith. Eventually somebody did mention Barney Snaith at every Stirling function, Valancy reflected. Whatever he was, he was an individual that could not be ignored. She resigned herself to listen.”

(pages 60-61)

“’They say he keeps dozens of cats in that hut back on Mistawis,’ said Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, by way of appearing not entirely ignorant of him.

Cats. It sounded quite alluring to Valancy, in the plural. She pictured an island in Muskoka haunted by pussies.

‘That alone shows there is something wrong with him,’ decreed Aunt Isabel.

‘People who don’t like cats,’ said Valancy, attacking her dessert with relish, ‘always seem to think that there is some peculiar virtue in not liking them.’”

(page 64)