The Strange and Wonderful Marriage of Barney Snaith

by kehlana

Barney Snaith is many things - a writer (albeit one with nome de plume), a woodsman, a cat person and, above everything else, a loner. He tried the whole friendship and love things once and it was more than enough, thank you very much. The very last thing he expects to ever do in his life is to get married and yet this is exactly what happens to him one summer evening.

2. Enter Valancy

It's strange what one can get used to if one has no choice. A year ago, Dr Marsh gave Cissy six months to live and it sure sounded likely, given how poorly she was then. But a year has passed and Cissy is still alive, even if very weak and periodically tortured by coughing fits and fevers, and somehow, impossibly, everybody got used to it. Cissy is sick and dying and still shunned by everybody in that damned town for being a bad, fallen girl, but there is remarkably little sadness when they are together. They talk and play checkers and complain about Abel's newest housekeeper and sometimes Abel plays his violin and for a moment or two it all seems normal. The shadow of death does hang over their heads, lurking to strike again, but they push the thought of it away; it's not doing it yet, after all, and there might be still months, even years before it does. One cannot be sad or grieving for all that time, humans are too resilient for that

But it does make Barney philosophical at times, even more than he's prone to be anyway. He thinks about fear a lot. His own fear of getting close to anybody again, with lesson after lesson drilled into his head that it ends with nothing but pain and heartbreak. He thinks of Cissy's courage in facing first the social censure concerning her father, then her own situation and finally the prospect of her own death. Of his own overwhelming sense of freedom when he stopped running and started to live his life on his own terms, refusing to bow to the pressures and people who were keeping him down most of his life. He scowls when he remembers how desperately he wanted to belong among people who clearly were never going to accept him, out of fear of loneliness and being shunned and shamed. He knows better now.

Judgement of others can only hold power over you if you fear it. If you're sure of who you are and stand strong in the face of it – like Cissy has been doing all her life and as he tries to do now and regrets he hasn't learnt it earlier – then even though there will be a cost, sometimes a hefty one, you will be free. You will find strength in the assurance of your own value.

The opening lines of his newest book come out of those musings.

"Fear is the original sin. Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that someone is afraid of something. It is a cold, slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading."

xxx

It is a hot summer day when Barney is lying under Lady Jane in Deerwood and fights with her suspension. She likes playing with him like that, his Lady Jane, breaking down suddenly and in the most inconvenient of places. In the four years he's had her he's become an expert in Grey Slosson maintenance; he hardly had a choice to do otherwise. He could afford a different car but by now he and Lady Jane are so close friends that he would cry bitter tears if he had to part with her and it's not like he ever is in a hurry to get anywhere (and on the rare occasions that he is, he takes a boat and walks, just to be sure). So it is with quite a light heart that Barney triumphantly finishes his repairs to Lady Jane, getting her in order, and emerges to continue with his mission of getting some fresh oranges for Cissy, anticipating her thankful smile in return. This is when he first consciously notices Miss Valancy Stirling, although he doesn't know her name at the time and is not going to know it for quite some time yet.

For now, she is just a plain looking, badly dressed slip of a girl, peering at him shyly with exotic dark eyes. For once, he sees no censure or disgust to which he got used to over the years he's spent in Deerwood, just this shy curiosity, and he is in such a good mood anyway that he can't stop himself from grinning at her. She looks startled at that and blushes pink, but he thinks he can detect a hint of smile on her face as she passes him by and he smiles again too, just to his own thoughts.

She has a nice smile, that girl.

He forgets this brief encounter before he reaches the store, but when he remembers it later – much later – he likes the fact that the first time they saw each other they exchanged smiles, as if their souls could sense the potential kinship between them. Then he berates himself for being sentimental and trite, but he can't help smiling again at the memory.

xxx

When he first hears Valancy's name, he doesn't connect it to the face of the girl he smiled at months earlier.

It is October and the trees are again a feria of rich, vivid colours, contrasting sharply with bright blue sky one only sees in the fall. He sits with Cissy on the back verandah of Abel's house, she wrapped thickly in a shawl and covered with a woollen blanket, he in his overcoat which is getting slightly ratty, but still keeps him wonderfully warm. Cissy's breathing is harsh and her voice rough from coughing, but she is in a good mood and tells him stories from her school days.

"I didn't have many close friends," she says placidly, "most of the girls were not allowed to visit me or to invite me to their house – because of father, of course – but many were nice enough and played with me at recess. There was this one girl – Valancy Stirling – who always seemed so different from the other girls—so kind and sweet—and as if she had something in herself nobody knew about—some dear, pretty secret. She was always so nice to me and I so wished she could come visit, but of course she couldn't."

"I'm sure she couldn't," mutters Barney cynically. "Not one of the almighty Stirlings!"

He did not forget how Benjamin Stirling refused to serve Cissy in his store.

Cissy shakes her head.

"She wasn't like that," she insists firmly. "Her cousin though – Olive – oh, she was very proud and quite a bully, in that sneaky way girls can be to each other – but Valancy was never like that. She just had a very strict mother – really strict – and she would never be allowed to speak a word to me outside of school. When she graduated – she was older than me – we never met again. She goes to the Anglican church, so we were in different societies and didn't have common friends, but I never forgot that she was one of the nicest people in this town, even if she was too shy to speak much."

Barney chews on his pipe in lieu of an answer, his mind bringing unhappy memories of his own school days. The parallels between him and Cissy are stark in his head; both of them social pariahs among their peers for the sins of their fathers and no fault of their own, and once again he seeths at the raw injustice of it. It leads him once again to compare Abel and his father, both the banes of their only children' existence in their own way for all the obvious love they carried for them. He doesn't like to think of dad, since it invariably brings up both all the reasons he left him without a word and the excruciating guilt for allowing the society to make him ashamed of him; to repudiate not only dad's cursed money, but also the man himself. He might be a crook making millions out of people's gullibility, but he was as good a father to Barney as he knew how, as Cissy once described Abel's efforts on her behalf, and in his heart of hearts Barney knew his dad deserved better than the utter silence he got from his only son for nearly a decade.

Still, there is no way he could see himself getting back to what he left behind – he fought hard enough to earn himself some solace and peace from the wreckage which used to be his life – so there is no point in pondering it all too long either.

xxx

On Gem's birthday Abel gets drunk soon after breakfast and Barney takes Cissy to the grave.

"He would have been three today," she whispers between coughs. It's not a good day for her, but she was adamant that she wants to come and Barney didn't have the heart to refuse her. His own heart hurts, despite it being nearly two years since the little mite died.

"Probably running around and wrecking havoc," he agrees roughly, his throat tight and painful. It still seems impossible to reconcile the tiny grave with a plain wooden cross over it with the energetic, laughing baby from his memory. It's so utterly wrong.

Cissy coughs harshly by his side and he is reminded that there is more grief and wrongness he's going to be forced to deal with and that again he is powerless to prevent it. His hands curl into fists.

"I was thinking of writing to his father," she says out of the blue and Barney's head snaps up. Cissy never mentioned the fellow in his presence since that first conversation they had years ago when she confessed to him she was pregnant. "To tell him about Gem – so he would know how he was and that he died."

"Why?" asks Barney curtly. The passing years and his love for Gem did nothing to quench his desire to shoot the man for what he'd done to his friend. In his opinion he deserved nothing regarding the baby he abandoned, even the knowledge of his death. Not like he ever cared to learn, after all.

"I was thinking that if he ever has any questions about his child, soon there would be nobody there to answer them," says Cissy placidly. From the beginning, she has been frank and unflinching about her death and yet it never stopped disconcerting Barney when she speaks of it. He knows Cissy is dying – there is no way to deny it, there hasn't been for a long time – but he still hates to hear her speaking of it so calmly. He is not at all calm when he thinks of it. "But then I thought that he's had my address the whole time – four years – and he's never written. Not to ask how I am and not to learn about his child. So I thought that if he doesn't write himself before I die, it's on him. That Gem was and is going to remain wholly mine, nobody else's. Is it very wicked of me to think so, Barney?"

"No," answers Barney immediately. "As you said, he had his chance to act rightly and he didn't. He was no father to Gem and he doesn't deserve to be considered as one."

Cissy is silent for a long while, looking at the sad little cross. The wind is picking up and turning biting, and Barney thinks he needs to take Cissy home soon.

"He did offer to marry me," she says and he nearly does a double take at that. This is the last thing he expected to hear.

"But you said he didn't love you," he says slowly, trying to reconcile this new knowledge with what little she told him before.

Cissy hugs herself and he doesn't think it's due to the dropping temperature.

"He didn't," she whispers. "When I wrote to him about the baby and he came to do the right thing, I could see that he didn't anymore. And I… I simply couldn't marry him when he didn't. It somehow seemed worse."

Barney nods.

"You did the right thing, Cissy," he says, taking one of her hands and locks his eyes with her when she turns towards him. "A very hard thing, but the right one."

He still wants to shoot the fellow and she can see it.

"He wanted to do the right thing too," she points out.

"But he didn't," says Barney savagely. "Not when he got you with child first and not when he abandoned you both afterwards."

"I don't regret it," says Cissy quietly. "Not Gem – I could never regret him – and not how he came to be either. He loved me then and I loved him, so very much."

Barney squeezes her hand. Oh, he knows very well how it feels to love someone like that – to be willing to do anything in the world for them – and how it feels to have this love crushed. Except, of course, his love was never returned, not even briefly. It was never real.

"I know you don't," he says gently. "And I'm not saying you should. But he… He shouldn't have done it, Cissy, and when he did and he learnt of the consequences… Even if he didn't love you anymore, even if you refused his proposal, he should have made sure that you and Gem were alright, at the very least. It really was the bare minimum he should have done and he didn't. He doesn't deserve to be treated as Gem's father because he never truly was. Gem had no father, but it doesn't mean he wasn't the happiest, most loved baby in the world."

Cissy nods, the tears slowly trailing down her cheeks, and she leans against him as they both look at the tiny grave.

xxx

It is nearly a year after the first time, in May, when he sees Valancy Stirling again, although he still doesn't know that this is her name. He doubts if he'd recognise her at all if it wasn't for the circumstances being exactly the same – him getting out from under Lady Jane, after fixing the breaks this time, and her passing him by with a curious but friendly gaze from under her remarkably ugly hat. The identical circumstances jig his memory with the force of deja vu and he smiles again at her in remembrance of their previous encounter. She smiles back, more tremulously than shy though, and the quick sideways look she's given him seems to him so filled with desperation and misery that it startles him for a moment, the cheery tune he's been whistling going silent. She's gone in a moment though and he tells himself with a shake of the head that he's imagining things; there was no way he could read so much just in a quick glance like that. And yet, the mysterious plain girl with desperate eyes haunts his thoughts from time to time and he can't deny certain curiosity on who she is and what could be haunting her so.

xxx

When Barney meets Abel for some fishing about two weeks later, his friend is full of woe over the dramatic sacking of his latest housekeeper.

"Sometimes I'm sorry I kicked old Rachel Edwards out," says Abel in his deep voice as they're getting their rods ready. "Even though her face looked as if it had wore out a hundred bodies. And she moped. Talk about temper! Temper's nothing to moping. She was too slow to catch worms, and dirty—damned dirty. I ain't unreasonable—I know a man has to eat his peck before he dies—but she went over the limit. What d'ye sp'ose I saw that lady do? She'd made some punkin jam—had it on the table in glass jars with the tops off. The dawg got up on the table and stuck his paw into one of them. What did she do? She jest took holt of the dawg and wrung the syrup off his paw back into the jar! Then screwed the top on and set it in the pantry. I sets open the door and says to her, 'Go!' The dame went, and I fired the jars of punkin after her, two at a time. Thought I'd die laughing to see old Rachel run—with them punkin jars raining after her. She's told everywhere I'm crazy, so nobody'll come for love or money."

Barney laughs heartily over the picture of poor Rachel Edwards running for her life with the jars flying after her, but he soon sobers when he thinks of Cissy. Her health has been steadily deteriorating and she hardly has the strength to do much more than get up from her bed most days. As horrible as Rachel was, at least Cissy had somebody around who could bring her a glass of water while Abel was out.

"What about Cissy?" he asks with concern and Abel shrugs, but Barney can see that he is worried too.

"She can get around a bit," he says gruffly. "And I will find some housekeeper somewhere, in the end."

Still, Barney is concerned enough to visit Cissy in the evening and his concern is not at all lessened when he finds her leaning heavily on the back of a kitchen chair, breathless with the effort it took her to get to the kitchen. He sits her gently down and sets out to make some scrambled eggs with bacon for her, one of the few dishes he feels confident enough of mastering. They soon eat it together in companionable silence.

"I'm glad she's gone," Cissy says indifferently when he enquiries how she manages without help. "She was dirty, horrible and I hated her. I'll manage, Barney, you don't have to worry."

But he does worry and so is cautiously happy when just two days later Abel tells him over a bottle of whisky in a dingy pub in Port Lawrence that he miraculously managed to find a new housekeeper.

"And you're never gonna believe who she is!" he announces loudly. "Miss Valancy Stirling herself, of the Deerwood Stirlings."

Barney's eyebrows go up. He doesn't know who Valancy Stirling is – he's never met her or had her pointed out to him specifically – but he's heard more than enough about the Stirlings and their self-importance to understand how utterly impossible it should be.

"Is she in such desperate circumstances that she needed a job?" he asks incredulously. Surely, if that was the case, her clan would sooner take her in to live with one relative or another rather than have her "work out" at such a scandalous household as the Gays.

"Damned if I know," shrugs Abel. "Her scarecrow of a mother did hire me for fixing her porch and she was good for it. Miss Stirling said she has nothing better to do and seemed awfully worried about Cissy and that she doesn't have anybody to look after her – even though she's never bothered to visit herself all those years – but now she came and she says she's staying. Never saw my little girl so happy to see somebody."

Barney tries to wrap his head around it and still utterly fails.

"And her family just let her?"

Abel roars in a laugh.

"I never s'posed that ruck of Stirlings would let her," he agrees. "But she only grinned at me with those sharp teeth and said they couldn't stop her. I didn't think she'd so much spunk. And what nice ankles of her!"

Barney looks at him suspiciously.

"How old is Miss Stirling?" he asks. He's had an elderly spinster in mind, but Abel's face is much too admiring for it to be the case.

Abel shrugs again.

"About Cis's age," he says. "They were in school together."

Barney, remembering suddenly Cissy's reminiscences of Valancy Stirling, gives Abel a stern look.

"She's a young woman then who's been brought up properly," he says chidingly. "You should mind yourself and your language around her. She's not one of your usual old hags."

Abel laughs loudly again.

"That she isn't!" he agrees easily. "She's no beauty – a scrawny little thing – but with the most devilish dark eyes you can imagine. You should see how she looked at me when I forgot to wipe my feet yesterday!"

That description jigs Barney's memory again and he gapes briefly at his friend.

"Is Miss Stirling a dark-haired, pale girl, always dressed in brown or some other drab colour like that?" he asks and reels a bit when Abel nods in confirmation. Somehow it seems amazing to him that the girl who he saw briefly twice and exchanged smiles with is both one of the Stirlings and currently residing at Abel's house.

But then he thinks that the description matches half of the young women in town. Abel's housekeeper might be the girl with the shy smile and desperate eyes or she might be someone completely different. Whoever she is, he is glad for Cissy's sake that she exists.

He has to admit though, he is curious whether she is the girl he smiled at and who returned his smile.

xxx

The first time he drives past Abel's house without stopping, but keeping a keen eye on the garden and windows, he tells himself it is entirely disconnected from his curiosity about the girl. He's only going to Port for some supplies and the only road leads by Abel's house; there's nothing more to it.

He tells himself the same thing the second night when he drives past it again, only this time his reason is to go to Deerwood to refuel. Lady Jane was getting low on gas, after all, and he wants to be prepared if he has the need to take her anywhere.

The third night is a bit contrived, he admits. He goes to Port again, to meet with Abel for some drinking, but he could have taken the boat instead. He tells himself it's safer not to get on the water with whisky clouding his head, but of course it's not exactly safer to drive and when he thinks of it, he does feel rather frustrated that he hasn't caught a glimpse of Miss Stirling yet and still doesn't know if she is the girl he met.

The realisation makes him feel ridiculous, so he doesn't think about it. At least not much.

Abel is in the best mood he's seen him in months when he meets him at the bar and it doesn't take long to learn that Miss Stirling is very much the reason for it.

"Most things are predestinated, but some are just darn sheer luck," he announces with deep satisfaction as soon as Barney takes his seat. "What a splendid girl she is! She got an answer every time. I should think the Stirlings would be glad to be rid of her. They don't like being sassed back. The way she told me she is not going to have me tracking mud all over a floor she just scrubbed – that I must use the scraper whether I consign it to perdition or not!"

He bursts out laughing and Barney joins him, amused by the picture of a diminutive girl glaring at Abel as she tells him off like that. She truly sounds like she has spunk a plenty, which makes him doubt again if she is the same shy, desperate girl he saw. She didn't look like she had any spunk left which wasn't beaten out of her.

Damn, he must see her finally or the wondering was going to drive him to distraction.

Abel, unaware of his friend's distraction, continues his tale with gusto.

"She's determined to clean the whole old place top to bottom. I told her she is foolish to bother doing so much more than she was asked to do, but there's no interfering with her, and I am very well satisfied with my bargain. She is a good cook – she gets a flavour into things. The only fault I find with her is that she doesn't sing at her work and do you know what she said when I told her that?"

"What?" asks Barney with interest.

"Fancy a butcher singing at his work. Or an undertaker," answers Abel with a grin and Barney laughs again.

But then Abel's face gets serious and his eyes soft as he tells Barney about the change in Cissy since Miss Stirling came to his house.

"Cis likes it clean," he says. "And she clings to Miss Stirling like a child or a kitten. Looks at her as if she hung the moon. And Miss Stirling is so good with her, you know – doesn't fuss or anything like that, but she's always there when Cis needs something – sleeps in her room to help her out at night, even though I offered her the spare bedroom – said that Cissy would never call at night, for fear of disturbing her, but that she's a light sleeper and wake up anyway if Cissy needs her. But she does it all in such a way that my girl doesn't feel like a burden and you'll see, Barney, you'll hardly recognise her for how much better she looks."

That makes Barney's throat tight. To hear that Cissy is finally taken care of properly, after all this time – in all the ways he was not able to… It means so much to him. He's never met Miss Stirling – even if she is the girl he saw he can hardly say they met when they never exchanged a word, just a smile – but with this act of kindness to Cissy she's bought all his good will already. And it must cost her dearly to do so. He knows Deerwood – God, doesn't he! – and moving in with Cissy and Abel is tantamount to burning all bridges behind her. He can't believe the hypocrites of her social circle will be able to see the compassion and kindness in her actions. To be honest, he wonders what could have prompted her to do so now after years of no visits or even speaking with Cissy. Whatever it was though, he is deeply grateful and full of admiration.

Abel gets properly drunk soon after and Barney, who was too busy thinking to drink much himself, arranges for someone to take care of Abel's horses and takes him home in Lady Jane. Abel howls his most ribald songs most of the way home and Barney frowns as he watches him stumble into the house. Cissy has been unfortunately familiar with her father's repertoire her whole life, but Miss Stirling has been brought up gently and properly; she must be shocked to hear something so indelicate. He resolves to have a talk with Abel again when he's sober, it wouldn't do for him to treat Miss Stirling like that after all she's sacrificing to take care of Cissy. He doesn't think Abel would ever do something truly bad to her – he wouldn't be his friend if Abel was the kind of man to force his attentions on a woman – but he's not the most astute man when more delicate sensibilities come into play.

The next day he tells himself that he should simply go and visit Cissy – and since it would also solve the mystery of Miss Stirling's identity it really would be the most sensible thing to do – but somehow he dawdles all day first in the woods, then sitting lazily on his verandah and staring at the lake. He doesn't know why he makes something so simple so complicated, but somehow he just wants to know whether Miss Stirling is the girl he saw before he speaks with her, to prepare himself. To prepare himself for what, exactly, he is not at all sure, but he just yearns to know. Feeling awfully frustrated with himself, he jumps into Lady Jane and goes for a drive.

He does get a glimpse of a brown-clad slim figure in Abel's overgrown garden but she is too far from him to see her features. He mutters a curse as he drives by.

He meets Abel for some fishing the day after, still in a horrible mood and irritated even more by the fact he has one. He hasn't felt so ridiculous in years.

Abel sends him a curious glance over his fishing rod.

"What's with the driving?" he asks. "Cissy mentioned you were racketing past every day this week, but haven't stopped by once."

Barney hopes very much he's not blushing as he gives Abel a carefully casual shrug. For God's sake, he hasn't been a blushing schoolboy in two decades! He hasn't got anything to blush over!

"This and that," he mutters noncommittally. "Felt like giving Lady Jane a spin."

Abel accepts the explanations – Barney knows Cissy wouldn't have, but there's a reason he hasn't gone to see her until he gets his head straight – and they continue fishing in companionable silence, but Barney comes to the conclusion that enough is enough.

He's going to finally meet the famous Miss Stirling tonight.

xxx

When he finally stops by Abel's house that evening and leans over the ramshackle gate he can't for the life of his understand why he got so damned worked up over it. Miss Stirling is there, picking narcissus, and when she straightens up and looks into his face she is not at all frightening.

It is the girl who returned his smile and when their eyes meet he feels for some reason glad to have it confirmed.

She is not pretty – or at least not stunningly so – but her slanted bright eyes have a strange charm. They don't look desperate now and he's glad for it; absurd as it was when he didn't know anything about her and her life, he felt worried for her after their last brief meeting.

"Good evening, Miss Stirling," he says. "I'm going over to the Port. Can I acquire merit by getting or doing anything there for you or Cissy?"

"Will you get some salt codfish for us?" she asks and he thinks that she has a very nice voice, low and warm.

"Certainly. You're sure there's nothing else? Lots of room in Lady Jane Grey Slosson. And she always gets back some time, does Lady Jane."

"I don't think there's anything more," she answers and he should go and actually do his errands before the store is closed, but he finds himself unable to, not yet. Instead, he finds himself speaking again.

"Miss Stirling, you're a brick! You're a whole cartload of bricks. To come here and look after Cissy—under the circumstances."

"There's nothing so bricky about that," says Miss Stirling simply. "I'd nothing else to do. And—I like it here. I don't feel as if I'd done anything specially meritorious. Mr. Gay is paying me fair wages. I never earned any money before—and I like it."

"All the money in the world couldn't buy what you're doing for Cissy Gay," says Barney with conviction. "It's splendid and fine of you. And if there's anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to let me know. If Roaring Abel ever tries to annoy you—"

"He doesn't. He's lovely to me. I like Roaring Abel," she answers immediately and he can't help smiling.

"So do I. But there's one stage of his drunkenness—perhaps you haven't encountered it yet—when he sings ribald songs—" he thinks it was impossible for her not to hear Abel last night, but maybe she was very deeply asleep…

"Oh, yes. He came home last night like that. Cissy and I just went to our room and shut ourselves in where we couldn't hear him. He apologised this morning. I'm not afraid of any of Roaring Abel's stages."

"Well, I'm sure he'll be decent to you, apart from his inebriated yowls," says Barney. "And I've told him he's got to stop damning things when you're around."

"Why?" she asks slily, with an odd, slanted glances and a sudden flake of pink on each cheek. "I often feel like damning things myself."

For a moment Barney just stares. Is this elfin girl the little, old-maidish creature who stood there two minutes ago? Surely there was magic and devilry going on in that shabby, weedy old garden.

Then he laughs.

"It will be a relief to have someone to do it for you, then. So you don't want anything but salt codfish?"

"Not tonight. But I dare say I'll have some errands for you very often when you go to Port Lawrence. I can't trust Mr. Gay to remember to bring all the things I want."

He goes away, then, but he grins to himself for most of the way to Port.

xxx

He speaks with Cissy later this evening when Miss Stirling gets busy setting the codfish to soak and he goes to the back verandah to give Cissy her favourite oranges.

"It's good to finally see you," she says with an inquiring look at him. "It was impossible not to hear you and Lady Jane, but you've never stopped."

He still doesn't have a good explanation for his behaviour, so he doesn't even try.

"I was glad to hear you have some decent company here at last," he says instead, leaning against a verandah post.

The way Cissy instantly beams at his words, her eyes lighting up, warms his heart in the best possible way.

"Valancy is amazing," she says softly. "I was right about her all those years ago – she is so nice and kind and wonderful."

"Why hasn't she come before now then?" asks Barney curiously and is disappointed when Cissy frowns with puzzlement of her own.

"I don't know why now," she answers slowly. "But I know she couldn't. Her whole family is aghast that she did it now."

"But she's not going to leave you?" asks Barney with a hint of anxiety and is instantly reasured by Cissy's confident shake of head.

"She's not. She promised to stay with me until the end and I know she's serious about it."

Barney averts his eyes. He hates thinking of how much time Cissy has or doesn't have. He's grateful it has been so much longer than the doctors originally predicted, but every time he looks at her pale, wasted face he knows it can't be very much longer and he hates it.

Miss Stirling comes out with a smile.

"I set the codfish to soak. Let's hope I know how to prepare it so it's not as salty as the Dead Sea," she says in her soft, melodious voice, with a clear hint of humour in it. Barney again thinks that it sounds very nice.

Cissy immediately offers her one of her oranges.

"Look what Barney has brought me," she says eagerly. "He's always bringing me oranges because he knows they are my favourite and he's a darling like that."

Barney feels the tops of his ears burn.

"It's hardly a thing to make a fuss over," he mutters deprecatingly. "You like them and it's no problem for me to fetch you some when I go shopping anyway."

Cissy gives him a superior, chiding look as if to say she's the better judge of that, but it's Miss Stirling who speaks up softly.

"It is a nice gesture to make," she says, looking rather wistful. "Not just that you bring them to Cissy as a gift, but that you know and remember that this is the fruit which will truly bring her joy."

Cissy nods firmly to that and Barney decides he's had enough.

"That's it, I'm going," he announces. "If you are determined to make a mountain out of a molehill, you don't need me to stick around for that. Good evening, Cissy, Miss Stirling."

He turns and goes before either of them can attempt to make him stay.

xxx

He finds himself coming over two days later, this time without any silly subterfuge (he still has no idea what the hell that was about, but he's glad he's back to acting sensibly). The early June evening is warm and beautiful, he's had a very nice morning exploring the woods and a productive afternoon writing with Good Luck purring on his desk, and he doesn't even realise he's going to whistle until he's already doing so. But then, why shouldn't he? The day has been nice and he expects to enjoy good company this evening and isn't it enough to put a fellow in a good mood?

He is welcomed eagerly by the three people on the back verandah and is very happy to see how well Cissy is looking tonight. She's laying in the hammock, pushing herself gently with her foot against the railing, with Miss Stirling in a rocking chair next to her and Abel smoking his pipe in another one on the other side of the verandah. Miss Stirling has a book open on her knees and Barney peers curiously at it, only to do a double take when he realises it's one of his own.

"Valancy has been reading aloud to us," explains Cissy with enthusiasm. "Father is not convinced, but I love it so far. Do you want to listen?"

"What are you reading?" he asks, pretending ignorance and frantically wondering how to react. He's never been in a situation like this before.

"It's Magic of Wings by John Foster," says Miss Stirling and Barney is startled by how earnest she sounds. "He's my favourite author – simply amazing. I can't express how much his books have meant to me over the years."

Alright, now Barney doesn't know how to react to this. He is truly touched – how could he not be? – but it's all incredibly awkward.

Well, it's even more awkward when Miss Stirling starts reading it aloud and it takes all Barney has not to cringe in embarrassment.

It's not that she does it badly – it's the opposite, actually – he's shocked how well her voice expresses his sentiments, how exactly her inflections match the cadence of his thoughts – but it's still so terribly weird to hear them read aloud. He can't help wincing when he notices an unfortunate phrase – why ever had he thought this choice of words was a good idea? – or when he realises how pretentious another sentence sounds. And yet it's obvious from Miss Stirling's expression and the loving way she reads the passage that she is truly in earnest; that his writing touches something deep in her and she finds it truly meaningful. It's a humbling experience in so many ways.

He sighs with relief when she's done and raises her eyes expectantly.

"How did you like it?" she asks, clearly hoping for raptures similar to her own, and Barney feels badly for disappointing her, he really does, but he can't answer any other way than with a dismissive shrug and a word 'piffle'.

"I agree," booms Abel from his chair. "Damn boring, if you ask me. Why this Foster fellow needs so many words to say that he saw some trees and liked to look at them is beyond me."

Barney's mouth twitches in amusement, but he sees the rather hurt expression on Miss Stirling's face, so he resists the impulse to poke fun at his inability to be concise and tendency to ramble on for paragraphs on end.

"I like it," says Cissy staunchly and it warms Barney all anew, even though he doesn't have the highest opinion of Cissy's taste in literature. She tends to prefer the sentimentality of the kind which sets his teeth on edge. He admires her support of her friend though. "I think his descriptions are beautiful."

"Me too," Miss Stirling rallies up and looks at Cissy with a smile. "I was never allowed to read novels, but those books brought beauty and poetry into my life when it was utterly devoid of either."

Barney has read many reviews of his books over the years, but he thinks that he's never encountered a more heartfelt one.

xxx

He gets to know Miss Stirling better over the next weeks. She doesn't speak much – she often prefers to listen to his or Abel's stories or to get lost in her own thoughts – but when she does, it's intelligent, thoughtful and witty. She has a sense of humour very well aligned with his own and he finds himself sliding into exchanging absurd jokes and catty asides with her so naturally as if they'd known each other for years. Sometimes, when Abel is out somewhere and Cissy retires early, he stays alone with her, so lost in talking about anything under the sun that he barely registers the passage of time.

She doesn't really talk much of her family or the life she had before coming to work for Abel and take care of Cissy, but from what little she does say and from Abel's disparaging remarks about the Stirlings he construes a rather dreary picture. He still doesn't know what made her abandon everything she knew and expose herself to censure of her whole acquaintance – her answers are frustratingly evasive – and he remains intrigued by it to a great degree. He knows what kinds of reasons can push a person into such radical choices and he remembers the impression her desperate eyes made on him back in May, but he doesn't see any of that in her now. In fact, she seems quietly happy and very self-possessed, with this kind of intense zest for life which makes his own mood lift after talking with her. She is a mystery wrapped in a riddle for all her startling honesty and he finds himself thinking of her more and more often during his romps through the woods or quiet moments before falling asleep.

He thinks of her when he's shopping in Port Lawrence late in June and notices a stack of small boxes of chocolates in a window of a confectionery store. He used to buy them for Cissy, but she barely has an appetite nowadays and says they've become too rich for her; she prefers her oranges. He thinks how much good Miss Stirling's presence does for both Cissy and Abel, how much lighter and happy they both are, and how little pleasure seems to be in her own life, and he can't resist the impulse to buy one of the small boxes for her. It's just a little gift, hardly something worth much pondering, but he hopes she will like it.

What he's not prepared for is just how much she does and what it does to him.

He gives it to her all casual, after he hands Cissy her usual oranges and a bouquet of flowers he's picked for her, and he is startled by the shock and downing joy in her eyes. Her reaction seems so much out of proportion to the smallness of his gesture that he can't help looking at her questioningly and making her blush in clear embarrassment.

"It's the first time I was ever given candy," she explains softly, averting her eyes. "It seems a sacrilege to eat them."

His heart clenches with pity for her and sudden anger at her numerous relatives. He knows that her closest family is not well off – he remembers her mentioning that her father died when she was a baby and that her mother and hers circumstances have been rather strained ever since – but Cissy is much poorer, has been poor her whole life, and Abel made sure she had little pleasures like that often enough. He thinks of Benjamin Stirling with his general store full of goods, of Wellington Stirling with his huge house and a new car, of Herbert Stirling with his summer cottage on the shores of Mistawis and all the rest of them, sanctimonious and self-important, yet none of them generous enough to give their young relative a paltry box of candy over twenty-nine years of her life.

"Well, that's what they're made for," he says lightly. "They're only going to spoil if you don't."

She smiles at him and the way her whole face lights up with it still takes his breath away with how it completely transforms her features from plain to captivating.

"Then I will take care to eat them soon," she promises. "After all, I've been taught not to let things go to waste."

xxx

He doesn't get away with the gesture, of course. Cissy traps him the very next time he comes, as soon as Miss Stirling is busy in the kitchen making tea for them.

"It was really good of you to bring Valancy chocolates," she says innocently. "She truly loved them."

He's not at all fooled by her innocence; he knows Cissy too well for that, even if he's never given her an opportunity for that kind of teasing before.

"I'm glad she liked them," he says with studied indifference, although he's happy to receive the confirmation. It's not necessary, Miss Striling's delight was plain to see, but it's still nice to hear that his small gift was appreciated. "She does so much for others; I thought she deserved a treat of her own."

"She absolutely does," agrees Cissy immediately and seriously. "I can't tell you how much it means to have her with me… She made everything so much better."

Then her eyes turn mischievous again.

"But I don't think it's only gratitude for what she's doing for me which made you buy her chocolates."

Barney groans theatrically.

"Can't a fellow do anything nice without such undeserved teasing?" he grumbles. "Miss Stirling is a brick and it sounds like she's had a hard life; I wanted to do something nice for her, that's all."

Cissy drops the subject – she is a nice person, after all, and can see that he is close to being annoyed with her – but to his further irritation he can sense that his denial did absolutely nothing to change her suspicions, absurd as they are.

And they are absurd, he thinks angrily as he's walking back home. He had his one dramatic, great love and it turned out the way great love usually does, into a tragedy. He knows better than to allow himself to fall into that particular trap again, thank you very much. Love seems a concept which works great in stories and poetry, brings weight into plays or songs, but is only rarely encountered in life and not worth pursuing. It's enough to look at what suffering it brought poor Cissy who was as naive as he used to be and believed in the truth of it. Abel has always been wiser than either of them and kept his numerous affairs superficial and brief, his heart never deeply engaged. Barney knows he would never be capable of that – he has a stupid tendency to feel everything more deeply than is wise – so the best course of action for him is to avoid any kind of romantic attachment altogether and it has served him very well over the last ten years. He has no intention of changing it now. Miss Stirling is slowly growing to be a friend and he is slowly accepting her as one and that is all that it's ever going to be. He likes giving his friends gifts, as it happens. Cissy should know that well enough not to make a thing out of it.

He is a bit alarmed though at the thought that Miss Stirling may read too much into it – she doesn't know him very well after all – and is hugely relieved when he visits next and ascertains that it is very much not the case.

"I've eaten your chocolates," she tells him in that warm voice of hers, little sparks dancing in her strange, dark eyes. "Turns out they were so delicious that when I tried one, I couldn't resist eating all of them. It's good I am not likely to get many more boxes any time soon or I would turn as fat as my Aunt Alberta."

He knows by now how honest and straightforward she is, so he knows she is sincere when she says she does not expect regular gifts of that kind from him. He is relieved that there is no misunderstanding between them or expectations for him to disappoint, he really is, and yet something bothers him in her lack of said expectations. She should be expecting to be spoiled with gifts, he thinks, she is so generous herself, and yet it is crystal clear that she never was and doesn't expect it to change. It rankles him, that resigned acceptance of it that she shows. She deserves better.

Miss Stirling changes the topic and tells him how much fun they had with Cissy when they were redecorating their bedroom earlier today.

"It's so nice to have a girlfriend," she says with a slight awe, as if she was discovering a beautiful secret. "I never really had any friends, you know, boys or girls, although I've always liked Cissy very much. I wish I was braver years before and approached her more, but I was too afraid to act. I've always thought she is so very sweet."

"Cissy Gay is the sweetest girl I ever knew—and there's a man somewhere I'd like to shoot if I could find him," Barney says savagely and Miss Stirling looks at him in obvious understanding.

"Whoever he was, must have been a terrible person," she says with conviction. "I can't imagine anybody who would be willing to hurt her so and have any claim to goodness."

Something occurs to him then and he looks at her curiously.

"You don't think it was me?" he asks. "Most people do."

She purses her lips with a fierce expression.

"No," she answers firmly. "I don't. I've never believed that."

Now he is really intrigued. He can understand that she doesn't think so now, when she can see how he and Cissy are with each other, but why would she have any doubts before she knew him? She smiles enigmatically when he asks her and shakes her head ruefully.

"I couldn't tell you," she says, her head tilted to the side and a whimsical expression on her face. "But I just knew it. You might have done all kinds of things, but I've never believed you would betray someone like that."

He averts his eyes, discomfited by her wholly undeserved faith in him. He likes to think he never broke faith with anybody – he's done plenty of things he regrets but he likes to think he's never done that – but she has no way of knowing that and he isn't used to being thought of well or trusted by most of people who do know him, never mind by complete strangers.

xxx

He hears of the procession of messengers from the Stirlings – Abel takes great satisfaction in relying every failed attempt to him – and even as he laughs at the mental picture of dignified and self-important James Stirling flying into asparagus, he can't help wondering yet again what made Miss Stirling defy her relations like that. It's clear from what she, Cissy and Abel all say that she didn't used to be so brave or standing up against her clan and it drives him a little mad that he has no idea what caused such a change in her. She might have just reached the end of her rope and snapped, but he somehow suspects that there is more to it than that.

Whatever the reason, he truly admires her determination and courage.

xxx

He's much less fond of her courage when he's racing towards Childers Corners a few days later.

He stops at Abel's house at a whim earlier this evening. He was on his way to Deerwood to refuel Lady Jane – there was a small line at the gas station when he was in town before and he didn't feel like waiting in it – and is surprised when he finds Cissy alone at this late hour.

"Is Miss Stirling already in bed?" he asks, a little concerned if he's to be honest. In their few short weeks of acquaintance he's never seen Miss Stirling go to bed so early and he wonders if she's feeling ill.

Cissy's worried face does nothing to calm his own worry.

"No," she says, twisting her hands nervously. "Father plays at Childers Corners dance and he invited Valancy to come along. I didn't want to talk her out of it – I didn't want her to think I am selfish or need her to always babysit me – but Barney, I don't think she knows how things might be there if they bring liquor. Do you think they will?"

Barney groans inwardly at that, his imagination going rampant with the images the name Childers Corners bring to mind and little, gentle Miss Stirling in the middle of it all.

"There will be liquor," he says curtly. "I passed some Port boys on the way here and they were half-drunk already."

"Oh, Barney," says Cissy, her mouth pursed unhappily. "Could you go and see if she's alright? I'm sure Father won't allow her to be seriously hurt – he would never do that – but he's not always the most observant man… And I really don't think Valancy will know what to do. She never had to, you know."

Yes, Barney does know. He remembers himself, all green and naive, cosetted all his life in private schools and best colleges and upscale hotels, when he first went to the Yukon and saw the rougher side of life for the very first time. It was an eye-opening experience, to be sure, one he was lucky to survive, and he doesn't want Miss Stirling to learn her lessons the hard way.

"I will fetch her," he promises Cissy, already turning back towards Lady Jane. "Don't worry!"

But he himself can't not worry. He knows – even better than Cissy, although she is definitely less sheltered than Miss Stirling ever was – what can happen to a woman at this kind of party if she's not adequately protected or doesn't know how to protect herself. He knows that Abel always took care of Cissy when he took her with him to places like that, but he also is sure, with a twist in his gut, that Abel may not realise how much protection Miss Stirling may need. He sees her as spunky and standing up for herself and probably lacks imagination to recognise how little real life experience she has had and how vulnerable it makes her to the kind of men she's likely to encounter there.

How much of a prey.

Lady Jane roars in protest as he pushes the throttle to fly over the rough, uneven road up back but he hardly cares.

He needs to get to her in time.

xxx

He hasn't been so relieved in a long time as he is when, after pushing through a crowd of people at the porch and the door – half of them drunk – he finally spots Miss Stirling over the heads of the crowd. She is standing by the wall, looking a bit miserable, but otherwise perfectly alright and he can finally breathe easier. She spots him as well and her whole face lights up when their eyes meet, although there is a curious little annoyed frown on her face.

Barney can't help noticing that she looks truly ravishing in that green dress he's never seen before and with red flowers hung around her throat and over her black hair.

Unfortunately, he is not the only one who noticed that and by the time he manages to push through even more people – seriously, has everybody from up-back decided to come tonight? – he sees her struggling against a drunk brute dragging her towards the dancefloor and threatening with kissing her and then handing her to his pals.

Barney doesn't even think before he hits the man straight on the jaw, sending him to the floor and knocking down whirling couples as he goes. He doesn't wait a moment before grasping Miss Stirling's arm and pulling her towards the window.

"This way—quick," he says as he swings her out through the open window behind them, vaults lightly over the sill and catches her hand.

"Quick—we must run for it—they'll be after us."

They dash through the forest, her little hand grasped securely in his. Barney risks a quick look over his shoulder and sees a whole bunch of them in hot pursuit, eager to avenge their fallen friend, no doubt. He forces his legs to run faster, hoping madly that Miss Stirling can keep up.

They finally reach a quiet corner in the pine woods. The pursuit has taken a different direction and the whoops and yells behind them are growing faint. Miss Stirling, visibly out of breath, collapses on the trunk of a fallen pine.

"Thanks," she gasps.

"What a goose you were to come to such a place!" says Barney. His hands are shaking from adrenaline and he's angry with her, truly angry, for making him so scared for her.

"I—didn't—know—it—would—be like this," she protests among heavy breaths and he knows she is telling the truth, but is still too angry with her to care.

"You should have known. Chidley Corners!"

"It—was—just—a name—to me."

He takes a deep breath himself and rakes his fingers through his hair, telling himself to calm the hell down. She is safe now, nothing serious happened – thank God! – and in all truth, hasn't he been just pondering how ignorant she was of the seamier side of life?

"When I drifted in at Abel's this evening and Cissy told me you'd come here I was amazed. And downright scared. Cissy told me she was worried about you but hadn't liked to say anything to dissuade you for fear you'd think she was thinking selfishly about herself. So I came on up here instead of going to Deerwood," he takes a cautious look through the dark woods, listening carefully to any sounds of pursuit. "As soon as they stop hunting for us we'll sneak around to the Muskoka road. I left Lady Jane down there. I'll take you home. I suppose you've had enough of your party."

"Quite," answers Miss Stirling meekly, looking rather ashamed, and Barney's conscience prickles him. Maybe he was too sharp with her. No, scratch that, he definitely was. It was not really her fault – she couldn't have known what she was getting herself into – if anybody was to blame it was Abel, both for taking her there in the first place and for not protecting her better when she needed it.

The first half of the way home neither of them says anything. It would not have been much use. Lady Jane makes so much noise they could not have heard each other if they tried. Then, all at once, just where the pine woods fray out to the scrub barrens, Lady Jane becomes quiet—too quiet. Lady Jane slows down quietly—and stops.

Barney utters an aghast exclamation and gets out to investigate. He wants to curse himself until he's blue in the face, but well, there is a lady present.

Which, of course, is the heart of the problem.

"I'm a doddering idiot. Out of gas. I knew I was short when I left home, but I meant to fill up in Deerwood. Then I forgot all about it in my hurry to get to the Corners," he tells Miss Stirling apologetically.

"What can we do?" she asks coolly and he wonders whether she hasn't fully understood her predicament yet.

"I don't know. There's no gas nearer than Deerwood, nine miles away. And I don't dare leave you here alone. There are always tramps on this road—and some of those crazy fools back at the Corners may come straggling along presently. There were boys there from the Port. As far as I can see, the best thing to do is for us just to sit patiently here until some car comes along and lends us enough gas to get to Roaring Abel's with."

"Well, what's the matter with that?" asks Miss Stirling, still appearing perfectly unconcerned.

"We may have to sit here all night," says Barney slowly.

"I don't mind," says Valancy.

He gives a short laugh.

"If you don't, I needn't. I haven't any reputation to lose."

"Nor I," says Valancy comfortably and she truly seems sincere, so he shrugs and sits back next to her.

They sit in silence for a long while, but it's not in the least uncomfortable. Silence with Miss Stirling never is. Barney never has the impression that she expects him to talk, although she always listens attentively when he does – but when he goes silent in her presence, she appears content to lose herself in her own thoughts. He wishes sometimes that she spoke more of them. He's certain that there is an active, vibrant mind inside that dark head of hers; a whole life lived without ever being known to anybody but her.

In the meantime, he enjoys simply sitting next to her and letting his own thoughts wander. Little rabbits hop across the road. Once or twice an owl laughs out delightfully. The road beyond them is fringed with the woven shadow lace of trees. Away off to the southwest the sky was full of silvery little cirrus clouds above the spot where Barney's island is.

Looking at the sky reminds him of one of his oldest dreams – one he hasn't yet managed to fulfil.

"Ever dream of ballooning?" he finds himself asking Miss Stirling suddenly and breaking the silence between them.

"No," she says only, but she looks at him with interest, clearly eager to hear what he has to say.

"I do—often. Dream of sailing through the clouds—seeing the glories of sunset—spending hours in the midst of a terrific storm with lightning playing above and below you—skimming above a silver cloud floor under a full moon—wonderful!"

"It does sound so," says Valancy and he can hear she is sincere, as always, that she really does get what he's feeling when he thinks of it. "I've stayed on earth in my dreams."

She laughs softly, a little self-deprecatingly, and tells him about a glorious blue castle in Spain, with its tall spires mired in purple mists and its lavish parties and tournaments, and her as its beautiful chatelaine. The visions she describes are so vivid that he can easily picture it all in his mind and wonder at the creativity of her imagination, considering how little she's seen or knew outside of the drab little town she was born and spent her whole life in.

"You see, my life was so devoid of anything meaningful – of any beauty – that I had to invent some for myself," she says and he can see how very much she means it, the very real, raw need to escape her existence that she must have felt. "You can't know how very restricted my life was. I've never visited any place besides the church, school, my relatives' houses or teas and dances at the houses of the respectable circle in Deerwood and Port Lawrence. I've never even been to a hotel or a restaurant, never mind a party like at Childers Corners. I was never allowed to go to a place like Childers Corners, for any reason, or heard it spoken about – places like that were not deemed fit to be mentioned in front of proper girls like me. There was a lot which was not deemed fit for my ears or eyes. I was never allowed to read novels or newspapers – although I did, a bit, in the library whenever I managed to get permission to go there. I've always loved books and learning things, but reading was treated as being idle and idleness was the most mortal of sins in my house. I was forced to fill every hour of every day with some meaningless task which I hated because God forbid I would sit and do nothing for a minute – or even worse, something enjoyable. My Blue Castle was the only respite I had. My real life was nothing but drudgery, boredom, fear, poverty and desperate struggle to keep up appearances. So when Abel invited me to come along, I truly had no idea what it was going to look like. I was kept in such ignorance of everything!"

And in such loneliness, thinks Barney, feeling a wave of compassion for her. She hasn't named it in her story, but it was permeating every word of it.

"You see—I've never had any real life," she concludes. "I've just—breathed. Every door has always been shut to me."

"But you're still young," says Barney with a frown. He doesn't like how resigned she sounds. It's plain wrong to hear from a girl so hungry for life as she usually is.

"Oh, I know. Yes, I'm 'still young'—but that's so different from young," says Valancy bitterly. "Though I never was really young. I never had a life like other girls. You couldn't understand. Why, I didn't even love my mother. Isn't it awful that I don't love my mother?"

"Rather awful—for her," says Barney drily. From everything he's heard and a good deal more he's read between the lines, he's convinced Mrs Stirling worked very hard to earn herself that lack of love from her daughter. Valancy is such an obviously affectionate creature. She would have loved her mother dearly if she hadn't had it smothered out of her.

"Oh, she didn't know it. She took my love for granted. And I wasn't any use or comfort to her or anybody. I was just a—a—vegetable. And I got tired of it. That's why I came to keep house for Mr. Gay and look after Cissy."

"And I suppose your people thought you'd gone mad."

"They did—and do—literally," says Valancy with an amused twist of her mouth. "But it's a comfort to them. They'd rather believe me mad than bad. There's no other alternative. But I've been living since I came to Mr. Gay's. It's been a delightful experience. I suppose I'll pay for it when I have to go back—but I'll have had it."

"That's true," says Barney. "If you buy your experience it's your own. So it's no matter how much you pay for it. Somebody else's experience can never be yours. Well, it's a funny old world."

"Do you think it really is old?" asks Valancy dreamily. "I never believe that in June. It seems so young tonight—somehow. In that quivering moonlight—like a young, white girl—waiting."

"Moonlight here on the verge of up back is different from moonlight anywhere else," agrees Barney. "It always makes me feel so clean, somehow—body and soul. And of course the age of gold always comes back in spring."

It is close to midnight now. A dragon of black cloud ate up the moon. The spring air grows chill and he sees Valancy shiver. He realises that in their haste to escape they had no chance to get her coat and pretty as she looks in that dress, it doesn't offer much in terms of warmth with it low cut and short sleeves. He reaches back into the innards of Lady Jane and claws up his old, tobacco-scented overcoat.

"Put that on," he orders.

"Don't you want it yourself?" protests Valancy and he rolls his eyes.

"No. I'm not going to have you catching a cold on my hands."

"Oh, I won't catch a cold. I haven't had a cold since I came to Mr. Gay's—though I've done the foolishest things. It's funny, too—I used to have them all the time. I feel so selfish taking your coat."

"You've sneezed three times. No use winding up your 'experience' up back with grippe or pneumonia."

He pulls it up tight about her throat and buttons it on her. His heart clenches a bit when he sees how obviously touched she is by that small gallantry. It's reactions like that that tell him more than anything she's said that she is wholly unused to being taken care of, even in the smallest of ways, and he feels his resentment against the Stirling clan rise again.

Ten minutes later a car swoops down on them from "up back." Barney springs from Lady Jane and waves his hand. The car comes to a stop beside them and he nearly groans when he recognises Mr Wellington Stirling and his daughter. Of all the people who could stumble upon them on that road!

He barely restrains a snicker when he notices with what horror they gaze at Valancy and him.

"Can you let me have enough gas to take me to Deerwood?" Barney asks politely, but Mr Stirling is not attending to him.

"Valancy, how came you here!" he says sternly.

"By chance or God's grace," says Valancy flippantly and Barney silently cheers her on.

"With this jail-bird—at twelve o'clock at night!" says Uncle Wellington.

Valancy turns to Barney. The moon has escaped from its dragon and in its light her eyes are full of deviltry.

"Are you a jail-bird?" she asks.

"Does it matter?" says Barney curiously, gleams of fun in his eyes. It doesn't seem to him that it does, not to her.

"Not to me. I only asked out of curiosity," continues Valancy, confirming his thoughts.

"Then I won't tell you. I never satisfy curiosity," he turns to Mr Stirling and his voice changes subtly. "Mr. Stirling, I asked you if you could let me have some gas. If you can, well and good. If not, we are only delaying you unnecessarily."

The terrible dilemma Mr Stirling is facing is obvious on his bewhiskered face, but in the end he relents. He probably rightly surmises that it's safest to give Barney and Valancy the means to send them on their way home.

"Got anything to get gas in?" he grunts surlily.

Barney produces a two-gallon measure from Lady Jane and they go to the rear of the Stirling car and begin manipulating the tap. They don't talk – what's there to talk about? – so Barney can hear the conversation between Valancy and her cousin and barely restrains a laugh.

"Olive, does it hurt?" asks Valancy, leaning forward towards the window of Lady Jane.

"Does what hurt?"

"Looking like that."

"Doss," Olive implors, leaning forward also, "won't you come home—come home tonight?"

Barney nearly laughs again when Valancy theatrically yawns. He absolutely understands why Abel relishes her confrontations with her family so much.

"You sound like a revival meeting," she says. "You really do."

"If you will come back—"

"All will be forgiven."

"Yes," says Olive eagerly. "We'll never cast it up to you. Doss, there are nights when I cannot sleep for thinking of you."

"And me having the time of my life," says Valancy, laughing, and Barney stifles yet another laugh himself.

"Doss, I can't believe you're bad. I've always said you couldn't be bad—"

"I don't believe I can be," says Valancy. "I'm afraid I'm hopelessly proper. I've been sitting here for three hours with Barney Snaith and he hasn't even tried to kiss me. I wouldn't have minded if he had, Olive."

Barney nearly drops the measuring can in shock, his eyes flying to her. Valancy is still leaning forward. Her little hat with its crimson rose is tilted down over one eye. Olive stares at her as well in her own shock, but Barney can't spare his mind for Olive. In the moonlight Valancy's eyes – Valancy's smile—what has happened to Valancy! She looks – not pretty – she's not exactly pretty – but provocative, fascinating – yes, distractingly so. And what she's just said… Barney's too shocked to wrap his head around it at the moment.

Thankfully, this is the moment when the measuring can is full and he can switch to business.

"Thanks—that's enough," says Barney, reaching into his pocket for the money. "Much obliged, Mr. Stirling. Two gallons—seventy cents. Thank you."

He barely knows what to say when the Stirlings are on their way and he sits back next to Valancy. Luckily, she doesn't make it awkward, laughing merrily about her relatives.

"You'd think we murdered somebody from the way they looked at us," she says, laughter evident in both her warm voice and dark eyes. "I don't think they could look more shocked if they found us over a bloody corpse."

"Easily shocked, your relations," agrees Barney dryly, beyond grateful for her choice of topics. "Do you suppose they would have reported us to the police in such a case or helped us bury the corpse of our victim to avoid the scandal?"

"Oh, help us bury the corpse, definitely," says Valancy solemnly. "That's what my family excels at – keeping all the corpses safely buried."

Barney is still laughing as he starts Lady Jane's engine.

xxx

He firmly doesn't allow himself to think of Valancy's words to Olive until he deposits her safely at Abel's gate and watches her go inside.

It's only then it strikes him that somehow, over the course of the evening, she stopped being Miss Stirling in his head and that he thinks of her now simply and firmly as Valancy.

Well, he assumes with an internal shrug, the kind of adventures and intimate conversations they had tonight do breed familiarity. And Valancy is such a whimsical, beautiful, unusual name. It fits her to a T, while the world has more than enough of Misses Stirling.

And Valancy said that she wouldn't have minded if he kissed her.

The most shocking thing is that, for a moment, he truly wanted to.

They were sitting there in the moonlight, exchanging confidences – alright, she was doing that, but he listened and felt that intimate connection which comes with somebody baring their soul to a sympathetic audience – and he couldn't help noticing for a moment how very lovely she looked in that dress, turning her head towards him, the moonlight making her skin look like ivory and cream and her strange, dark eyes positively otherworldly. She looked elvish somehow, completely different from her usual demure, proper self, and in that moment he felt he would like to kiss her very much.

He didn't, of course.

First of all, he'd just rescued her from a fellow who threatened her with forcing his kiss on her and his pals' kisses to boot – his blood still boils when he thinks of the vile things he heard that man say to her and he's glad, truly glad, that he got to punch him for that – and the last thing he wanted was to scare or repulse her with his own or make her think that he demanded one as a reward for coming to her rescue. It never even entered his mind that she might have wanted a kiss from him – she never gave him the smallest hint that she looked at him like that until he overheard her conversation with her cousin – and to be honest, he hardly believes it now. It does occur to him that she might have said that just to rile Olive up, considering the whole tone of that conversation. It did rile her right up, no doubt about that – her cousin confessing her attraction to the known jailbird and reprobate Barney Snaith – and Barney doesn't mind being used like that, it was all too funny to witness their aghast reactions. Yes, it was most probably just that. Valancy didn't mean it, not really. There was no way she did.

Which is good, of course, because there was another reason kissing her then would have been such a bad idea. Valancy is his friend – he firmly considers her as such by now – and he doesn't have enough friends to afford losing any of them. And kissing Valancy would lead to losing her, one way or another. Either she would be offended by his lack of respect for her after all – she was brought up so very proper! – or even worse, she could develop feelings for him, feelings which he could never reciprocate. She is so starved for love and affection, such a romantic soul for all her sensible, practical approach to things – he knows that now – and as poor a prospect for romance as he is, a kiss in the moonlight has been known to create an illusion of love and lead people astray thousands of times in history. Traitorous thing, moonlight, as likely to make fools of people as not. It's a good thing he managed to restrain himself from following that moonlight induced mad impulse.

But when he paddles towards his island, struck for a thousandth time by the moonlit loveliness all around him, he thinks with compassion how utterly devoid of beauty or adventure Valancy's life has been, how very restricted and joyless. He has a sudden desire to show her some of it, to share at least a little of beauty and joy he's managed to fill his own life with – just a little. He can't exactly invite her to his shack – speak about improper! – and anyway, he's never really had any guests there, it would be too strange – but maybe he could take her for a small adventure somewhere else. The way she was speaking of never even being in a hotel or a restaurant, despite living in the tourist area all her life…

The whole idea is born before he reaches his island.

xxx

He is still shocked when Valancy simply gets into his car when he invites her to accompany him to Port Lawrence one evening. To be honest, he rather expected her to refuse. It was one thing to be driven home by him to escape a rowdy party, but to show up with him in public like that… Well, it was quite another. When he was saying it, he felt a tad self-conscious for a moment – a feeling he immensely disliked and thought he had left behind many years ago – and wished briefly that he made some effort with his appearance. But here he was, bare-headed, unshaven, in his shirtsleeves and old overalls and she still hopped into Lady Jane the moment he finished speaking, without even fetching her own hat first.

He has a feeling Valancy Stirling will never cease to surprise him.

They tear through Deerwood on their way to Port – in front of Valancy's house, actually – and he laughs quietly to himself when he sees her waving cheerfully at her aghast mother and aunt as they pass them by.

They reach Port Lawrence in a short time – Lady Jane could hit the pike when she wanted to – and Valancy's eyes light up when Barney leads her into a movie theatre.

"I've never seen a film before!" she exclaims excitedly and Barney discovers that he really likes seeing her face all delighted like that and knowing he's the one to make it so.

They watch 'The Mark of Zorro' with Douglas Fairbanks and they like it very much, although Barney spends at least half of the over an hour long movie watching Valancy's reactions instead. She is so engaged in everything which happens on the screen – laughing, gasping in fright, widening her eyes when the main character is in danger – that he finds her more interesting than the plot.

They leave the theatre discussing their impressions of the movie, but soon discover they are both hungry. Barney takes her to a Chinese restaurant he is fond of and they enjoy a truly delicious chicken, talking lively the whole time. It's the best evening Barney has had in years and it is obvious that Valancy thinks the same.

"You know," she says thoughtfully after they finish laughing over an anecdote from Barney's trip on a cattle ship on which he earned his way to England. "I was never laughing before I left home. Nobody has ever laughed in my house, not as long as I can remember. Everybody was always so serious all the time, if not downright miserable. I know I was."

He looks at the merry creature in front of him and he finds it hard to imagine how she could have retained her sense of humour and her ability to find joy in the mundane in such an unpromising environment.

"I admire you," he says sincerely, watching her eyes grow wide at this statement. "You must be very strong to not allow them to stifle you completely."

She shakes her head.

"But I did allow them to do so," she protests. "I did allow them for years. I've never said a word to contradict anybody, never disobeyed even the most absurd orders. Can you believe that I wasn't even allowed to choose how I do my own hair and I listened?"

"That may be true," he says seriously. "But you never allowed them to kill your spirit for good. If you had, you wouldn't have been able to discover it now."

She blushes, but looks pleased by his sincere comments. He's glad that she believes him.

"I admire you," she says earnestly. "The way you live your life on your own rules – and how clearly you are able to see people around you. How out of all the people in Deerwood you chose to befriend Abel and Cissy, how you saw goodness and worthiness in them which few people have."

He squirms in his chair uncomfortably.

"I don't deserve so much praise for the latter," he protests. "Not when you see them the same way I do. And as for the former… it took me years as well to arrive at that point in my life. There was a time when I was not much freer than you with your family."

He's not going to say anything else – he feels like he's said too much already – but Valancy doesn't prod for more.

"I admit I was always allowed to choose my own haircut though," he says to lighten the mood and grins when he succeeds in making Valancy laugh.

"Thank you!" she says brightly when they start their way home. "I've never had as much fun as tonight – never in my life!"

It does make him warm and happy and whistling all the way home.

xxx

He smiles at Valancy when he comes to Abel's house next evening, but his smile falls when he sees her sombre face and worried eyes as he opens the door for him.

"Cissy is not well," she says quietly and his gut twists in sudden fear. "She told me to ask you to come to her room if you're here – she would like to talk with you."

He goes, of course, his heart and fists clenched. He knows of course what's coming – he understands the inevitability of it – but he can't help wishing for just a bit more time.

Cissy indeed does not look well, laying pale and limp in her bed like a rag doll, her breath quick and shallow. She smiles when he sits by her side though and grasps his hand.

"I'm glad you came," she says quietly. "I wanted to see you."

"How could I not?" he says, forcing himself to return her smile. He knows how she abhors fussing over her. "You asked. Besides, I happen to like your company."

I'll miss you, he thinks painfully. I'll miss you so much.

"Barney," she says, "you don't know what you've been to me, these past two years. Everything would have been unbearable without you."

"You don't know what you've been to me," he answers roughly. "Cissy… I…"

He can't say it – he simply doesn't have words. He wants to laugh at the bitter irony of a writer running out of words, especially such a verbose writer as himself, but he does in that moment. How can he explain just what her friendship means to him? Or how terrible it has been to know he was going to lose it and spend years grieving it even before she's gone? But worth it, still so damn worth it. To be her friend for those years is worth the pain.

"I know," says Cissy gently, squeezing his hand weakly. "That's why I've never felt guilty for everything you were doing for me – because I hoped that I've been giving you something too."

"So much, Cissy," he chokes out. "So much. More than you can ever know."

"I'm glad," she says, closing her eyes, clearly tired. She opens them stubbornly though, determined to have her say. He thinks with dread that she probably doesn't expect to have another chance. "Barney, I'm so glad that there will be someone to remember Gem – and me – not through the lens of my scandal but as we truly were. I hope to see him in Heaven – but just in case I don't – you will visit him sometimes, won't you?"

"Of course I will," he vows. "I could never do otherwise, even if you didn't ask."

She smiles.

"I know," she says. "But I wanted to hear it anyway."

They are silent for another moment as Cissy gathers strength to speak.

"You will take care of Father for me too?" she asks quietly. "He can take care of himself, of course – I wasn't much use to him for years anyway – but I'm so afraid he's going to be lonely when I'm gone."

"He won't," he assures her. "He's my friend too. He will miss you – we will all miss you – but I won't allow him to be lonely."

She nods, accepting his words.

"Valancy has made those last weeks so happy for me," she says. "She has been so good to me – so kind and wonderful. I don't know what she will decide to do after I'm gone – I don't think she's going to stay here – but if there is something you can do to help her… I don't know how much you know – she doesn't say much – but her family has always been truly dreadful to her. I can't believe she could be happy with them."

Somehow it has never occurred to Barney that with Cissy's death Valancy's time at Abel's house would also come to end and Cissy's words startle him now. But of course, there is no way she can stay here alone with Abel – whatever is still left of her tattered reputation would be utterly ruined in such a case. But the thought of her going back to that horrible house and those horrible people leaves a bad taste in his mouth, as well as produces a twinge of fear in his chest. If she does… and she can hardly do anything else… he's probably not going to be able to see her anymore. The Stirlings would never allow it and he's not sure if Valancy would be able to defy them if she lives with them again.

It's easy to make this last promise to Cissy though.

"If there is anything I can do for her, I will," he says firmly. "She deserves the world."

Cissy's eyes soften when she looks at him.

"You deserve the world too, Barney," she says. "And I believe – I truly believe – that God will bless you for everything you've done for me."

She does fall asleep soon after that and when he bends down to kiss her pale forehead before he goes, he can't escape the thought that it's the last time he can.

xxx

Barney is not surprised when Cissy dies three days later, but it still hits him in the chest so hard he can scarcely breathe.

He finds Valancy and Abel sitting in silence in the kitchen, their heads bent. Abel is sober – a startling sight – and even more startlingly he has big, fat tears falling softly over his cheeks into his red beard. Valancy doesn't cry, but her dark eyes, bruised from lack of sleep, clearly express the depth of her grief. She points in silence to the empty chair and gets up to get Barney some coffee.

"Cissy died this morning, at sunrise," she says in a wooden voice. "It was peaceful – she didn't suffer."

Barney more falls onto the chair than sits down on it. The tears on Abel's face start falling faster.

For a long time there is no sound in the kitchen except for the kettle and the clung of the mug Valancy puts in front of Barney. What is there to say? They all loved Cissy and now she's gone. There will be time to reminisce about her – to remember all the good moments they shared with her – but it isn't now. Now the only thing they can share is their deep, overwhelming grief for her and they don't need words for that.

Finally it's Valancy, the dear practical Valancy who raises her head.

"I need to clean the house," she says. "There will be people over for the funeral."

Her words seem to wake Abel up.

"I will talk to the minister and the undertaker," he says heavily. "And get the coffin."

He gets up and walks slowly to get the horses. Barney stands up as well when Valancy does.

"How can I help?" he asks simply.

She looks at him blankly for a moment, but then frowns thoughtfully and comes up with the list of tasks. He once again admires her level head.

"If you could go to town, I'll give you the list of things to buy. We'll need food and lots of it – people will expect to be fed. And when Abel gets the coffin…" she pauses when her voice breaks a bit on that word, then takes a deep breath to steady herself and continues. "When he gets it, I would need your help to move her. I will prepare her, but I don't think I'd manage that, I'm not strong enough – and I don't want to ask Abel. Things are awful for him as it is."

He nods, instantly agreeing.

"Any way I can help with cleaning?" he asks and for the first time this morning sees a hint of smile on Valancy's lips.

"Are you any good with it?" she asks, eyeing his tattered clothes doubtfully. Obviously his ragged appearance does not fill her with confidence regarding his housekeeping skills. Despite everything, Barney feels his mouth twitch.

"Better than I am with cooking."

Valancy considers it for a moment longer, than nods.

"Alright then," she says, reaching for a broom. "Can you start with sweeping the floors downstairs?"

xxx

They clean Abel's house top to bottom until it's spotless and Barney puts poor Cissy's body in the coffin set in the sitting room after Valancy gets her ready. He shrouds her in all the white roses he can find and makes sure there's nothing more he can do for Valancy or Abel, but he goes back to his island before the first mourners start arriving for the funeral.

He's afraid of what he could do if he stayed there.

The hypocrisy, the damn, blasted hypocrisy of them all drives him into a rage like few things before. All those people hurrying to put Cissy Gay in her grave, making a show of piety and mourning, when neither of them had a good word for her when she was still alive – when they had shunned her for years – when none of them cared how she lived and whether she needed any help in her sickness – when they abandoned her completely and were satisfied to watch her die from afar while calling her most vicious names – no, he doesn't believe he could keep his mouth shut when confronted with it all and Cissy deserves better than him making a scene at her funeral. It's better if he makes himself scarce.

He mourns her in his own way, alone. He's sitting on his verandah for hours, watching the sun moving slowly over the lake, and remembering her as she was – sweet, caring, funny, mischievous, loving. Truly the sweetest girl he's ever known.

His friend. One of the only three true friends he's ever had in the world, dead. He's done everything he could to save her and it wasn't enough. He lost her anyway.

He drops his head into his hands and allows himself to cry.

xxx

The next day he thinks rather guiltily that it wasn't the best of him to leave the whole circus for Valancy to deal with. He feels very sure that she loathed it quite as much as he did and yet she probably handled it all with all the good grace he gave himself the luxury of not being capable of. By evening he is restless enough that he decides to check on her and jumps eagerly into Lady Jane after crossing the lake.

He finds her by the ramshackle gate, obviously waiting for him. The garden is lying in the magic of the warm, odorous July twilight. A few stars are out and the robins are calling through the velvety silences of the barrens.

"Going home, Miss Stirling?" he asks and again he feels a pang at the thought of her back in her cage.

"I don't know—yet," says Valancy slowly.

"I thought I'd run down and ask if there was anything I could do for you," says Barney, wishing fiercely that there was something he could do to make things better for her. She deserves better for everything she's done for Cissy. She deserves better simply because she is too good to be trapped with those awful people for the rest of her life.

She locks her eyes with his.

"Yes, there is something you can do for me," she says, evenly and distinctly. "Will you marry me?"