The Blue Castle

B“less this food to our use and consecrate our lives to 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. Ever 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 at once ceased to think it. Valancy was enjoying herself. She had never enjoyed herself at a “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 parlour 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-mindedness that increased her reputation for dulness and vacuity. “She has no social presence whatever,” Aunt Wellington had decreed once and for all. Nobody dreamed that Valancy was dumb in their presence merely because she was afraid of them. Now she was no longer afraid of them. The shackles 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 the 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 surprisedly that Doss 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?” propounded 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, “Thyme,” and felt that his riddle had fallen flat. He looked resentfully at Valancy, who had never failed him before, but Valancy did not seem even to be aware of him. She was gazing around the table, examining relentlessly every one 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,...