Valancy is going to die too.
This thought is the only one racing through his head as he raises his eyes from Dr Trent's letter and stares at her in shock. This woman, so full of zest for life, kindness and courage is going to die soon, possibly in only weeks if not days.
He's going to lose another friend before he's even started to process the grief for the first one.
He wants to howl at the rising moon at the fucking unfairness of it all.
He looks down at the letter in his hand again, hating every cold, blunt sentence written in assured black scrawl. Hating the death sentence it puts on the head of the woman in front of him and everything it means for them both.
"Are you sure nothing can be done for you?" he asks desperately. The letter does not leave any room for doubts, but maybe there is something else – a second opinion, a hope of a cure, a treatment, anything. If there is anything to be done, he'll do it. He'll take her to any hospital, any specialist who may help, in Canada, in America, in Europe – it doesn't matter. He searched for the best care for Cissy and he'll do nothing less for Valancy. He can't stand the thought of witnessing another of his friends dying a mere day after his first one was buried.
His hope shatters when Valancy shakes her head.
"Yes. You know Dr. Trent's reputation in regard to heart disease. I haven't long to live—perhaps only a few months—a few weeks. I want to live them. I can't go back to Deerwood—you know what my life was like there. And"—she takes a deep breath —"I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That's all."
Barney folds his arms on the gate and looks gravely enough at a white, saucy star that was winking at him just over Roaring Abel's kitchen chimney. To say that he is even more stunned by that than by that blasted letter is an understatement. He barely knows what to think, except that what she says is absolutely impossible.
"You don't know anything about me. I may be a—murderer."
"No, I don't. You may be something dreadful. Everything they say of you may be true. But it doesn't matter to me."
How can she look so damned calm when she's saying such things?!
"You care that much for me, Valancy?" says Barney incredulously, looking away from the star and into her eyes—her strange, mysterious eyes. He doesn't even realise that it is the first time he calls her by her name out loud. Everything seems so unreal – so impossible – that he can hardly comprehend it.
"I care—that much," says Valancy in a low voice and for a long while he loses his ability to speak.
He is thinking fast though – faster and harder than he's ever done in his life. There were three unbelievable things he learnt from her tonight: that she is terminally ill, that she thinks she loves him and that she wants to marry him. He leaves aside the matter of her feelings for him – this is too much and too uncertain, too mind boggling, too fraught with potential misunderstanding – and focuses on the tangibles. He can't say whether she truly loves him or not, but her condition is indisputable and her proposal requires an answer.
The first, instinctive one is a refusal, of course, but it sits wrong with him. To refuse her her dying wish – because that is what it is, much as he hates to acknowledge it – after everything she's done for Cissy… After he promised Cissy on her deathbed to help Valancy in any way he could… To send her back to her uncaring, hateful relatives to spend her last days in scorn and loneliness… No, he can't do that. There's no way he could do that and live with himself.
He was willing to go so far for Cissy, once upon a time, and this was before she got sick, when he didn't have any idea how short the marriage he had offered her would have been fated to last. He should be able to make it work with Valancy. There are worse things than marriage to a friend.
Except… except now he knows how it feels to watch your friend with a death sentence hanging over their head. He knows how devastating it is to watch someone you care about slowly fade away. If he marries Valancy… If he marries Valancy, he will not only have to somehow make it work but also lose her just as he lost Cissy.
Somehow he will have to find the courage to wait with her for death and not fall apart until she's gone.
The very idea makes him shudder with fear of what's coming, but he knows that he will do it – that he will find this strength and courage – because he simply can't do otherwise.
Not when Valancy is going to die.
He pushes this thought away for now and focuses on the practicalities. He is determined to marry her now, he really is, but there are things which must be discussed first. Important things.
"If we are going to get married," says Barney, speaking in a casual, matter-of-fact voice, "some things must be understood."
"Everything must be understood," says Valancy.
"I have things I want to hide," says Barney coolly. "You are not to ask me about them."
"I won't."
"You must never ask to see my mail."
"Never."
"And we are never to pretend anything to each other."
"We won't," says Valancy. "You won't even have to pretend you like me. If you marry me I know you're only doing it out of pity."
"And we'll never tell a lie to each other about anything—a big lie or a petty lie."
"Especially a petty lie," agrees Valancy.
"And you'll have to live back on my island. I won't live anywhere else."
"That's partly why I want to marry you," says Valancy.
Barney peers at her.
"I believe you mean it. Well—let's get married, then."
"Thank you," said Valancy, looking suddenly rather embarrassed. Barney remembers how nerve-wrecking his own proposal had been – manages not to scowl at the memory only with great effort – and feels a mix of compassion and admiration at the gumption it must have taken for her to propose to him. It certainly wasn't something the way she was raised could ever prepare her for. "I suppose I haven't any right to make conditions. But I'm going to make one. You are never to refer to my heart or my liability to sudden death. You are never to urge me to be careful. You are to forget—absolutely forget—that I'm not perfectly healthy. I have written a letter to my mother—here it is—you are to keep it. I have explained everything in it. If I drop dead suddenly—as I likely will do—"
"It will exonerate me in the eyes of your kindred from the suspicion of having poisoned you," says Barney with a grin, resolutely refusing to think of her dropping dead in front of him and failing miserably. Would it be better or worse if he didn't witness it but found her dead after? If he woke up with her cold and stiff by his side?
"Exactly," Valancy laughs gaily. "Dear me, I'm glad this is over. It has been—a bit of an ordeal. You see, I'm not in the habit of going about asking men to marry me. It is so nice of you not to refuse me—or offer to be a brother!"
Barney thinks sardonically that no, Valancy was never in danger of being considered a sister by him. He never had any idea of marrying her – not for a moment – but looking at her like a brother would – no, he can't claim it either.
He shakes those thoughts off, as another matter to ponder later – much later – when he actually has the time and peace to sort all his hopelessly confused feelings about it all out, and focuses on practicalities.
"I'll go to the Port tomorrow and get a licence. We can be married tomorrow evening. Dr. Stalling, I suppose?"
"Heavens, no," Valancy shudders visibly. "Besides, he wouldn't do it. He'd shake his forefinger at me and I'd jilt you at the altar. No, I want my old Mr. Towers to marry me."
"Will you marry me as I stand?" demands Barney. A passing car, full of tourists, honks loudly—it seems derisively. Valancy looks at him and he considers with disbelief what she sees: blue homespun shirt, nondescript hat, muddy overalls. Unshaved!
"Yes," she says.
Barney puts his hands over the gate and takes her little, cold ones gently in his.
"Valancy," he says, trying to speak lightly and not at all sure if he's succeeding, "of course I'm not in love with you—never thought of such a thing as being in love. But, do you know, I've always thought you were a bit of a dear."
xxx
He checks his house over with a critical eye to spot any lurking hint of any of his secret identities – anything at all able to tell Valancy that he isn't the penniless, good for nothing Barney Snaith she for some inexplicable reason claims to be in love with. He finds plenty, of course – after all he has never had to bother with keeping his secrets hidden in his own home before. Most of them are located in the lean-to where he usually writes – although he also does it everywhere else as strewn around random sheets of paper and half filled notebooks attest to – and he quickly decides that putting everything incriminating in there and forbidding Valancy from going inside this room will be the simplest solution to the problem. So there it all goes: any scrap of his writing, letters and documents of all kinds, his better clothes which he only wears on the rare occasions when he needs to meet his editor or his publisher in person. After so many years spent chiefly in the wild while wearing a homespun shirt and overalls putting on an expensive suit feels like dressing up, but he wants to keep his John Foster persona as separate from Barney Snaith as possible and showing up in his usual get up on an upscale Toronto business street would draw more attention than he would feel comfortable with.
Still, he looks at the suit in his hands for a long while, biting his lip. Valancy did say that she was ready to marry him as he was, unshaved jaw and muddy overalls included, and of course it's going to be nothing like a conventional wedding, but for a moment he is tempted to make himself properly presentable for her. It's the only wedding she will ever get to have, after all. The only one he is likely to ever get too, come to think of it – he's hardly going to repeat the deed, he'd never would have done it in normal circumstances, not after the last time when he considered marriage for real – but he's not the one who's important here, this wedding is for her. Her dying wish, he thinks, and feels his throat tighten. Why the hell all women in his life must be either false or dying?
He tries to push this thought out of his mind – he promised Valancy not to mention it and he intends to keep this promise – but he finds he can't dismiss it or hide from it, not yet. He is still too shocked by the news, too raw from the pain of it. Valancy, dying! And so soon, so very soon after Cissy! The very unfairness of it boggles the mind.
And he agreed to watch her through her last days. To take care of her, if she needs it. To be by her side while she's dying.
He closes his eyes and clenches his fists, the visions of what this may entail taunting him.
Then he opens them and looks around with determination.
Valancy is his friend. When she learnt that she was going to die, her first action was to go and care for another dying girl – another dear friend of his – and make Cissy's last days bearable. He could not save Cissy and he won't be able to save Valancy, but the least he can do is do for her what she's done for Cissy. To make her remaining days as happy as possible. And since that apparently involves him becoming her husband, so be it. He can do so much for her.
His mind easily switches to another shocking revelation of this evening. He can hardly believe that she was serious about being in love with him. There was only one other woman in his life who claimed such feelings and she had been lying to him through her teeth about it for months, never meaning a word. But Valancy, unlike Ethel, has no motive to lie – nothing to gain by it. He supposes she could be lying to convince him to marry her, but why would she want to marry him in the first place if it wasn't for love? She wants to escape her overbearing, horrible family, true, but there are other ways to do so; hell, he could have helped her to run away in a heartbeat if that was her wish. If there is one thing he has experience in, it's running away without a trace. But she doesn't simply want to run away; she wants to spend her last days with him – him! – who, as far as she knows, has no money to speak of, is shunned by all polite society and could have all kinds of dreadful secrets lurking in his past. And yet, she claims to want him, to love him. As unbelievable as it is, she must believe it at least. He thinks how isolated she's been all her life, how starved for love – it's quite probable that she's mistaking friendship and maybe a bit of a crush for love, having never experienced it – yes, he finds it quite likely. Still, it is what she wants, to be married to him and since he hasn't had the heart to refuse her in the light of the death sentence hanging over her head, he needs to treat it seriously.
They are going to be married by tomorrow's evening.
Oh God.
He's going to have a wife.
His eyes flicker involuntarily towards the bedroom and he swallows nervously, thinking of all that having one usually entails. It's not that he's completely inexperienced, but well… He hasn't made a habit of sleeping with women either.
xxx
He lost his virginity in Klondike, on what was coincidentally the eve of his twenty-fifth birthday.
He was leaving the dingy bar in one of the non-descript little towns seemingly raised overnight to support the goldseekers, when screams and sounds of scuffle in the alley next to it attracted his attention. The fights between drunk men were common enough, but the scream was of a woman and Barney had enough chivalry left in him to investigate.
He found two men attempting to force themselves on Veronica.
Barney knew Veronica – every man showing up in this town knew her sooner or later, the women here were scarce and Veronica definitely memorable. She was earning her keep as a barmaid and supplementing it handsomely as a harlot, and even with much bigger competition than she had she would have been successful in her trade, with her wild black curls, dark soulful eyes and a figure fit enough to star in a man's dreams for the rest of his life. She was feisty and intelligent too, her red mouth equally likely to entice or eviscerate, and Barney more than once wondered idly what had brought her to that godforsaken, harsh place.
He spoke with her briefly several times when she served his meals or whisky, but was never tempted to use other services she had on offer and she was bright enough to pick up on it and never push them on him. The idea of a woman pretending to like him for his money hit much too close to home for him and made him instantly recoil, even if it was going to be a straightforward transaction this time, with all parties equally aware of the terms. But he liked her enough and even if he didn't, there was no way he could witness a scene like that and not intervene.
The men were thankfully drunk enough to be clumsy and Barney had enough practice with bullies to be an experienced and scrappy fighter, so it didn't take long for him to be able to get them on the ground and lead Veronica to the dubious safety of another dark alley.
They looked at each other in the dim light, both panting from the fight and the running, their eyes wide.
"Thank you," she said, looking way more composed than he was. "That wouldn't've been nice."
"I don't expect it would," he agreed breathlessly and looked cautiously around the edge of the building. "I don't think they're chasing us though, you can go home safely."
"Won't you escort me there?" she asked, looking at him with wide eyes, and he cursed himself for being an indelicate brute. Of course she must be rattled after what had nearly just happened to her!
"Of course, if you wish," he said then smiled at her. "But you will have to lead the way, because I actually have no idea where you live."
She laughed in response and took his hand, pulling him out of the alley. She had a nice, merry laugh.
It turned out that she had a room over the bar where she worked, with a separate staircase leading up to it. She stopped in front of it and Barney took it as his clue to make his goodbyes.
"Goodnight then," he said, feeling a little awkward under her probing, questioning stare. "I hope we won't meet like that again."
He froze when she put her hands on his chest.
"Are you really in such a hurry to go?" she asked. "You don't have to, you know. You could join me upstairs for a little while."
He took her hands off his chest gently.
"That's not why I've done it," he said and was surprised to see her smile in response.
"I know," she said, leaning towards him. "And it's not what I'm offering. I simply want to lie tonight with a man I like, for a change."
Her slender hand stroked his cheek and then sneaked into his hair.
"Besides," she whispered, "you have such beautiful eyes."
She kissed him then in a way which made it impossible to think.
Barney didn't know why he agreed – was it the novelty of being touched in what appeared to be genuine wish for his company? The slight buzz of whisky in his head? Veronica's red mouth, so near and tempting next to his? The loneliness he seemed cursed to never be able to escape? The burning desire to purge Ethel from his mind and heart where she still stubbornly dwelled, despite everything? – but in the end he did and soon found himself in a narrow metal bed in her room over the bar, naked and seeing and feeling for the very first time a naked woman pressed against him.
"I've never done it before," he blurted out, nearly against his will, but he was so overwhelmed by what was going to happen – what was happening already – that he could hardly think straight.
Veronica's eyes glistened as she stroked his cheek calmingly.
"I know," she whispered. "I'll take care to make it good for you."
She did and when Barney awoke the next morning, his arms still wrapped tightly around her, he could only look at her in awe. He wanted to kiss her in thanks, but he wasn't sure if he was allowed. The whisky evaporated from his head by then, after all, and he was aware that she only gave herself to him in thanks; that didn't give him permission to presume he could take any further liberties the next day.
As it turned out, he was mistaken, because Veronica kissed him as soon as she woke up and laughed when he hesitantly raised his doubts.
"Oh, you are sweet," she said, laughing softly still. "I'm with you because I want to be. If I didn't, I would have kicked you out last night; you can't imagine I allow every man I'm with to linger in my bed like that."
"I suppose not," he said sheepishly and kissed her shyly back. He looked at her with determination though when he raised his head afterwards.
"Teach me what you like," he said firmly, his hand gliding over her silky, warm body. "I want to make it good for you too."
xxx
They met several more times over the next year or so. Barney came to the town every few months and Veronica was always happy to see him and find some time to reconnect. She never accepted money from him and he soon stopped offering.
"You're a friend, Blue Eyes" she said firmly. "And I don't work when I'm with a friend."
He learnt her story over time. She had come to Klondike with her husband, who had died their very first winter. Finding herself with no money to survive on her own or go home – not that she had a home to go back to, she said, although she never elaborated much on it and Barney never asked – she had decided to use one currency she had, being a beautiful woman in a place with scarcely any women at all and plenty of lonely men. It was not a bad life, she claimed with a shrug, and Barney pretended to believe her, for all he wasn't convinced of her sincerity on the matter.
On his last night with her, he waited for her to fall asleep and put several pieces of gold – all he had ever found – into her costume jewellery box. When he came into town next, she wasn't there. Some people said she had left, some that she had been murdered by a client. He hoped the first version was true and that she had used his gold to make a better life for herself somewhere else, but he accepted that he would never know for sure.
xxx
He had laid with several other women over the years, but none which meant very much to him. There was a lonely widow on a cattle ranch where he stopped for a night while travelling through Oregon, and a playful girl celebrating the carnival in Venice. He never got over his revulsion of sex involving any kind of pretended affection, especially when money was involved, and he never allowed himself to get genuinely close to anybody again – never really stayed long enough in one place for it to happen anyway – so there hadn't been much of it during his travels and none at all since he had bought his island. As he is lying on his bed now, on the eve of his wedding – oh dear God, his wedding – he realises that he hasn't been with a woman for nearly six years.
Does Valancy expect it? Does she want it? Does he want it, for that matter, with her?
His body answers this last question before his brain does and he laughs ruefully at this proof that yes, he does want it if it's on the table. He doesn't mind the idea at all. Valancy is not conventionally pretty, but she can be damnably attractive at times. There is something elvish and otherworldly about her, something indefinable but clearly present and utterly fascinating. He's never dreamed of exploring it, of course, but he couldn't help noticing and now, when the circumstances suddenly changed, he can't deny to himself that he is captivated by the possibilities. If sex is on the table in that strange marriage of theirs; if Valancy wants him too in that way, he rather expects they could have some fun together.
But is it on the table? Quite apart from what Valancy wants and whether it includes physical intimacy with him, is it even possible, with her heart as it is? He frowns, remembering sternly worded warnings in Doctor Trent's letter. The advice against physical effort or excitement… It all sounds terribly dire and final. On the other hand, Valancy's one demand was that he treats her normally and never mentions her condition, so he's not sure how to discuss it with her. He turns on his side and stares through the window at the still waters of the lake and the stars reflected in its surface. The familiar, but still no less breathtaking view calms him down and slowly lulls him to sleep.
However the whole thing is going to shape, he's simply going to play it by ear.
xxx
He wakes up in a bad mood and more nervous than he sees as necessary, which only sours his mood further. He's dreamt of Ethel, for the first time in years – his impending marriage must have brought up very unwelcome thoughts of his previous near encounter with that institution – and his head is still full of memories of her soft lips and cruel words. He washes himself thoroughly in the cold water of the lake, scrubbing as if he wanted to scrape off the ghostly touches from his dream, all the caresses she was allowing him or offering herself and which he now knows must have filled her with revulsion. He grinds his teeth and tells himself to put it out of his mind. Ethel is firmly in his past – not even in his past, in Bernie Redfern's past and he hasn't been Bernie Redfern, poor, rich, lonely, naive Bernie Redfern, for years – and it's been years since she mattered to him. He is marrying another woman today, after all, shouldn't he focus on that?
The problem is of course that now, in the light of dawn, everything seems much more real and downright scary, if he is to be honest. He likes Valancy – he truly does – and he expects that they will get along – but still. He hasn't lived with anybody else for years. For God's sake, he hasn't even had guests on his island or in his house except for one or two visits from Roaring Abel. Maybe he should be excused for dreading sharing it with another human, however nice, for an indefinite amount of time. It is a big deal.
Acknowledging it to himself doesn't make his mood better – he still feels twitchy like a blind cat in a room full of rocking chairs – but at least he stops thinking of the damn Ethel which is a plus. He goes back to the house, feeds the cats who claim to be completely starving, of course, and fixes up a simple breakfast for himself. Then he shaves, dresses in clean clothes and gets into the canoe to go to Port for the licence. The boat would have been faster, but he feels that a good, long paddling is just the thing he needs. Something to get rid of this nervous energy coursing through his body.
He is presented with the licence to fill by a bored clerk who points to the front section.
"You need to fill the oath part for me to issue this to you," he says by rote, clearly more interested in his pulp novel with a lurid cover than in a shabby looking fellow desiring to be married. "The one where you give your full name and address and swear that you've been resident of Province of Ontario for at least 15 days and that there are no impediments to the marriage – you know, that neither of you is married already or that you're not closely related or anything like that."
He buries his nose back into his book, leaving Barney to agonise over the document.
"What happens with the licence after the pastor signs it?" he asks, frantically wondering how to get around it. The clerk, clearly annoyed at being pulled out of whatever exciting thing is happening on the page, answers without raising his eyes.
"He needs to send it to the Registrar General in Parliaments Building in Toronto."
Barney bites his lip and thinks fast, then hesitantly picks up the pen and writes down the name Bernard Snaith, taking care to leave free space after the name. He leaves the space for occupation blank but, just as he's hoped for, the clerk doesn't even bother to read the document in full and sings it swiftly after ensuring Barney filled anything at all.
"Here you go," he says dismissively, his eyes already back on his book. "Good luck."
Barney folds the licence carefully and leaves the office.
xxx
It occurs to him on the street that he will need a wedding ring for Valancy as well. He needs a moment to remember where the jeweller is located – he hardly had any need for one in all his years of living in the area, but Port Lawrence is not exactly a huge town – but soon he is on his way and finds the shop without much trouble.
The jeweller – a Mr Carson by the name on the window – looks a bit doubtfully at Barney's clothes when he announces he needs a wedding ring, but reaches eventually for a tray with some.
"Those are the cheapest ones, silver or zinc," he says, snottily enough to make Barney contrary. Besides, he has a thought that unconventional or not, it is a real marriage and Valancy deserves to have the best ring he can get on such a short notice.
"I want platinum," he says firmly. "Best you have."
Mr Carson looks even more doubtful, but is too much of an old businessman to refuse. Barney smirks slightly in triumph and bends over the tray to inspect the rings.
He realises that he didn't ask for Valancy's ring size, of course – he wonders if she even knows it, considering that he's never seen her wearing jewellery of any kind – but he thinks he remembers her slender little fingers well enough to be reasonably certain. Oh well, if it doesn't fit, they can always resize it or exchange it; the important thing is to show up with one for the ceremony.
"This one," he says finally, pointing at a slim, elegant ring with delicate floral engraving. He thinks it should suit Valancy – not ostentatious enough to overwhelm her, but charming and dainty as she is.
"It's 40 dollars," says Mr Carson suggestively, but Barney just smirks again and reaches for his wallet.
He whistles when he's leaving the shop with his purchase.
xxx
He's not whistling when he gets ready to go and fetch Valancy. He does a quick mirror check – he's shaved and his clothes are clean, but his good suit is locked safely in the lean-to after all. Let's see if Valancy truly meant it about marrying him as he is. He could not resist exchanging his muddy, worn work boots for a pair of his smart city ones though. Not that it matters much when he doesn't intend to wear neither a coat nor hat, but somehow it makes him feel better to have his good shoes on.
He double checks whether he has the licence and the ring in his pockets and gives his cats a stern look.
"Behave," he says, but gives Good Luck a scratch under his chin when he bumps his hand. "I'm bringing you a new mistress, so don't make any mess to welcome her home."
Oh God, it was getting much too real. He truly is going to bring a wife here this evening. If Valancy hasn't changed her mind, of course. Which would be rather a sensible thing to do, he thinks as he's getting into the dispro boat. After all, seriously, what can he offer her beyond himself, his questionable reputation, his numerous secrets and a shack on the lake with two cats and no bathroom? He was hardly a catch when he had literal millions at his disposal – although of course his millions had their share of admirers. As Ethel charmingly put it, they were enough to gild the Pills and sweeten the Bitters after all. Enough even to endure Bernard Redfern, for all his smell of turpentine and naive notions of love and romance. He scowls and reminds himself that Valancy doesn't have the slightest idea of any of it. If she is mad enough to want to marry him as she knows him, she can't have any other motive than simply wanting him.
As mind boggling and unprecedented as it is.
When he stops Lady Jane by Abel's gate, she is waiting for him. She wears the same green dress and green hat as she did at that awful escapade at Childers Corners, but this time without flowers on her neck. He can see her collarbones for the very first time and has a passing thought that they look so delicate and pretty. She doesn't look at all bride-like – in fact she really looks like a wild elf strayed out of the greenwood – but it makes it better, somehow. She looks like the Valancy he knows, his friend. Besides, he's hardly dressed like a proper groom, his good shoes notwithstanding.
"Ready?" he asks, listening with suspicion to the new, horrible noises Lady Jane makes when he parks. He hopes to God she is not going to pull one of her tricks tonight.
"Yes," answers Valancy simply and gets into the car.
"Haven't changed your mind?" asks Barney after they leave Deerwood behind.
"No. Have you?"
"No."
That is their whole conversation on the fifteen miles, until they reach Port Lawrence and he needs to ask Valancy for Mr Towers' address. They stop before the shabby little house in an unfashionable street and go into the small, shabby parlour, where Barney produces his licence. It all seems surreal to him, even as they are standing up together before Mr. Towers and reciting their vows. He is really, truly doing it – he is getting married. He is vowing to love and cherish this woman and for a moment he feels like a liar until he reminds himself that he can and will love her as a friend. How can he call what he felt for Cissy as anything else than love, even if it was never a romantic one? And Valancy is also very dear to him, however short he's known her. He treats his word seriously and he will honour his vows to the best of his ability.
When the time comes to sign their marriage licence, he casually gestures for Valancy to fill her information and signature first and when he fills his father's name and nationality, he also gives 'writer' as his occupation.
"Mrs. Snaith, I hope you will be very happy," Mr. Towers is saying and Barney's ears redden slightly as he adds Redfern in the space he has left before after Bernard Snaith. He hopes Mr. Towers won't look too closely at the licence before sending it to Toronto – after all he checked everything before already and he seems both trusting and near-sighted – but after thinking of it the whole day, he decided to provide full and truthful information. It's extremely unlikely that Valancy would ever need to use this document for anything, but if somehow both he and his father met an end before her, she would be the rightful heiress to the Redfern fortune, even if she couldn't enjoy it for long. As improbable as this scenario is, he doesn't want to make things difficult for her in such a case. Besides, he doesn't like the idea of lying on his marriage certificate, not when he doesn't really have anything to be ashamed of.
Besides the scent of turpentine, whispers the hated voice in his head. He shakes it off like a fly, hands the certificate to Mr. Towers and offers his arm to his wife to lead her to the car.
"What a nice way to get married!" he says as he puts Lady Jane in gear. "No fuss and flub-dub. I never supposed it was half so easy."
"For heaven's sake," says Valancy suddenly, "let's forget we are married and talk as if we weren't. I can't stand another drive like the one we had coming in."
Barney howls and throws Lady Jane into high with an infernal noise.
"And I thought I was making it easy for you," he says. "You didn't seem to want to talk."
"I didn't. But I wanted you to talk. I don't want you to make love to me, but I want you to act like an ordinary human being. Tell me about this island of yours. What sort of a place is it?"
Barney smiles, he can't not to. His island always makes him happy.
"The jolliest place in the world. You're going to love it. The first time I saw it I loved it. Old Tom MacMurray owned it then. He built the little shack on it, lived there in winter and rented it to Toronto people in summer. I bought it from him—became by that one simple transaction a landed proprietor owning a house and an island. There is something so satisfying in owning a whole island. And isn't an uninhabited island a charming idea? I'd wanted to own one ever since I'd read Robinson Crusoe. It seemed too good to be true. And beauty! Most of the scenery belongs to the government, but they don't tax you for looking at it, and the moon belongs to everybody. You won't find my shack very tidy. I suppose you'll want to make it tidy."
"Yes," says Valancy honestly. "I have to be tidy. I don't really want to be. But untidiness hurts me. Yes, I'll have to tidy up your shack."
"I was prepared for that," says Barney, with a hollow groan.
"But," continues Valancy relentingly, "I won't insist on your wiping your feet when you come in."
"No, you'll only sweep up after me with the air of a martyr," says Barney. He remembers the scrapper Abel was allowed to consign to perdition but never to leave unused. "Well, anyway, you can't tidy the lean-to. You can't even enter it. The door will be locked and I shall keep the key."
"Bluebeard's chamber," says Valancy complacently. "I shan't even think of it. I don't care how many wives you have hanging up in it. So long as they're really dead."
"Dead as door-nails. You can do as you like in the rest of the house. There's not much of it—just one big living-room and one small bedroom. Well built, though. Old Tom loved his job. The beams of our house are cedar and the rafters fir. Our living-room windows face west and east. It's wonderful to have a room where you can see both sunrise and sunset. I have two cats there. Banjo and Good Luck. Adorable animals. Banjo is a big, enchanting, grey devil-cat. Striped, of course. I don't care a hang for any cat that hasn't stripes. I never knew a cat who could swear as genteelly and effectively as Banjo. His only fault is that he snores horribly when he is asleep. Luck is a dainty little cat. Always looking wistfully at you, as if he wanted to tell you something. Maybe he will pull it off sometime. Once in a thousand years, you know, one cat is allowed to speak. My cats are philosophers—neither of them ever cries over spilt milk.
Two old crows live in a pine-tree on the point and are reasonably neighbourly. Call 'em Nip and Tuck. And I have a demure little tame owl. Name, Leander. I brought him up from a baby and he lives over on the mainland and chuckles to himself o' nights. And bats—it's a great place for bats at night. Scared of bats?"
"No; I like them."
"So do I. Nice, queer, uncanny, mysterious creatures. Coming from nowhere—going nowhere. Swoop! Banjo likes 'em, too. Eats 'em. I have a canoe and a disappearing propeller boat. Went to the Port in it today to get my licence. Quieter than Lady Jane."
"I thought you hadn't gone at all—that you had changed your mind," admits Valancy and he laughs cynically.
"I never change my mind," he says shortly.
They go back through Deerwood. Up the Muskoka road. Past Roaring Abel's. Over the rocky, daisied lane. The dark pine woods swallow them up. Through the pine woods, where the air is sweet with the incense of the unseen, fragile bells of the linnæas that carpeted the banks of the trail. Out to the shore of Mistawis. Lady Jane must be left here. They get out. Barney leads the way down a little path to the edge of the lake.
"There's our island," he says gloatingly.
Valancy looks for a long while at the view in front of them and Barney tries to see it how it must appear to her eyes. There is a diaphanous, lilac mist on the lake, shrouding the island. Through it the two enormous pine-trees that clasp hands over their shack loom out like dark turrets. Behind them is a sky still rose-hued in the afterlight, and a pale young moon.
By his side, Valancy shivers like a tree the wind stirs suddenly. Her dark eyes are wide and full of awe.
"My Blue Castle!" she says and he feels a thrill of his own when he immediately recognises the reference to her cherished dreams. It's obvious that the place enchanted her from first sight just as it did for him. "Oh, my Blue Castle!"
When they paddle to the island, Barney lifts Valancy out of the canoe and swings her to a lichen-covered rock under a young pine-tree. He doesn't know he's going to kiss her until his arms are about her and suddenly his lips are on hers. He suspects she's never been kissed before and as rusty as he feels at it – he hasn't kissed a woman in over six years and it's been many more since he's done it with anybody he cared for – he wants to make it good for her. He's delicate when he presses his lips against hers – so very soft – and kisses the surprised little gasp off them. Her whole body seemingly melts into his arms – she's so slight and small against him, but also so unmistakably feminine, there's nothing of a child in her, despite her size – and she kisses him back – and he feels a deep shudder coursing through him at the intimacy of this embrace and that kiss.
Turns out it's no hardship to kiss her – no hardship at all.
When they finally part and he looks into her dark eyes, wide with wonder of that kiss, he can only think that he's not afraid of being married to her anymore. They might not be in love – at least he isn't and he still can't believe that she truly is either – but what is rapidly going through his mind is the lightning, heady realisation that the intimacy they just shared is real, that she really, truly wants him; that she is not going to hurt him. It might not be love – and all the better that it isn't, with all its pain and desperation and ugliness – but whatever name they put on it, it's honest.
"Welcome home, dear," he says and drinks in the way she smiles at that.
xxx
Still a bit lightheaded with the strength of his epiphany, he is near exuberant when he gives Valancy the tour of their house, buoyed further by her obvious delight in everything she sees, from the cats to the bearskin in front of the fireplace and the stuffed owls with their uncanny dead expressions. The cats are observing her in return, Banjo with open suspicion and Good Luck with lively curiosity. Valancy gives them space, but looks at them with obvious fondness and Barney feels quite secure that they're going to become friends in a short time.
When she stops in front of the oriel window and observes the lake in the last vestiges of the setting sun, she can't keep herself from exclaiming in awe.
"Goodness," she says softly, "how can you force yourself to ever leave this place with a view as magnificent as that?"
"With effort," answers Barney sincerely, delighted beyond measure himself by her reaction to their home, so much like his own when he first saw the place five years ago. "And usually only in the promise of equally nice views and similar absence of people somewhere else."
She turns back towards him with a slight frown.
"But you don't mind my presence here too much?" she asks anxiously and in that moment it's perfectly easy for him to shake his head with a reassuring smile.
"Not at all," he says fondly. "You seem to belong here as well."
The joy in her eyes at his words makes his own chest unexpectedly warm.
He shows her the bedroom and the small chest of drawers where he made space for her things, mostly by taking half of his possessions into the lean-to, and leaves her to unpack in privacy. Sharing the small space with her is making him slightly nervous, for all his newly found conviction that the marriage was a good idea. As he prepares the simple supper of bacon, toast and eggs he can't help wondering what their night will look like and what is or isn't on the table. He has a sudden terrifying thought that she might not know anything about marital relations – he can't imagine her puritan mother would teach her anything on the topic – and inwardly groans at the absolute awkwardness involved in explaining it. He's on the verge of deciding that in such a case it might be easier to never raise the topic at all, when Valancy comes out from the bedroom.
"All unpacked?" he asks lightly, gathering the plates and gesturing for her to join him at the verandah. She fetches the teapot and two mismatched cups and follows him.
"Yes," she says with a smile. "I don't own much, as you might have guessed from the weight of my valise."
They sit down to eat, in silence, but a companionable one. The cats, shameless beggars that they are, settle themselves on the verandah's railing and wait for scraps, which Valancy provides soon with an amused smile.
"You're going to buy into their good graces at record speed if you go like this," observes Barney. "At least until the next time they decide they're starving and claim oblivion of any previous occasion any of us has fed them before."
Valancy laughs merrily at that and throws another piece of her bacon at Good Luck who catches it deftly and somehow manages not to fall into the lake while doing so.
"I hope I will," she says. "I've always wanted a cat. They are so independent and self-possessed that when they do show you attention it feels twice as rewarding as with any other creature."
"There's no way to force affection or obedience from a cat," agrees Barney. "They're called our pets, but they aren't, not truly. It's immediately obvious to anyone who gets to know them properly that it's them who decide to live with us, not the other way around."
Darkness is falling fast around them, but the moonlight is bright and the candles Barney lights on the verandah's table flicker brightly. He's struck again how well this kind of light suits Valancy – how much it transforms her from ordinary into otherworldly, as through some strange, sheer magic happening only in the wild. He catches his eyes travelling without his conscious thought to her lips and swallows against the remembrance of their kiss.
He notices her eyes observing him keenly as well – lingering on his hands lying on the table, on his chest clad in his homespun shirt, on his lips. She turns her head quickly away, blushing, when she realises he caught her admiring stares, but he sees her giving him a slanted gaze again, just a more discreet one and laughs softly.
"It seems moonlight is affecting us both tonight," he says lightly and is rewarded with that wry, half-humours, half-daring smile from her.
"Isn't everyone a fool in the moonlight, at least a little?" she asks whimsically, looking at him more boldly now. "I think that's why sensible people stay inside after dark and pull the curtains tightly shut, so not even a sliver of it gets into their houses."
"And yet our house has no curtains," says Barney in a voice which he is surprised to hear is lowering into truly intimate. "I've never felt a need for them. So unless you want to hang some, the moonlight will have free reign of it. It can look through every window."
She looks him fully in the eyes then, her own full of meaning.
"As it should," she says and her own voice is so warm and low that he can't escape the observation that it's a perfect voice for love-making. "We're not sensible people after all, are we?"
He laughs.
"Not in the slightest," he answers. "We're free of such burdensome things as common sense and social expectations."
Her eyes light up, the fire of the candles flickering on their brown surface.
"No need to shut ourselves from the moonlight – we'll just keep inviting it whenever it decides to shine on our part of the world."
He gets up then and leans against the railing which is practically hanging over the moonlit lake, not at all surprised when she follows him shortly. The cats, seeing that there will be no more scraps, make themselves scarce, but multiple bats shoot across the sky and Leander chuckles in the woods on the mainland. It's the first time Barney is sharing a night like this with another human – and it feels so right. He turns towards Valancy and shivers slightly at the expression on her face, so close to his.
She wants him.
She closes her eyes briefly when he cradles her little triangular face in his palm and leans into his caress, but opens them quickly as if she wants to memorise his face.
"Should we allow the Moon to make us foolish, Valancy?" he asks softly. "To act on what we want as if there was no tomorrow?"
Her gaze is clear and focused when she answers him.
"I can't believe there is a tomorrow on a night like this," she says. "It seems like it's going to last forever – and I am quite happy to allow it to."
He kisses her then, in a different way than he did on the shore and is somehow not any more surprised that she responds with equal passion, her arms pulling him towards her and her hands sliding into his hair. He continues to cradle her face with one hand, his other slowly stroking her back and he doesn't know what devilry is going on tonight but he's never felt more alive.
Their lips part finally – after minutes? hours? years? – and they stare at each other wildly, both panting slightly. He swallows before he manages to speak.
"Shall we go to the bedroom?" he asks, his voice somewhat rough, and he looks closely at her to ascertain whether it is something she wants too – or even knows enough to want it.
The slight widening of her eyes followed by immediate blush answers his question partially; it's clear she knows at least something of what is supposed to happen.
"What about the dishes?" she whispers and he laughs, resting his forehead briefly against hers and caressing her face.
"They won't go anywhere," he says in what he hopes is a seductive manner. He never had to convince anybody to join him in bed and he's not sure if he knows how, but right now he hopes very much that he is convincing. It must be the moonlight, he thinks, to turn him so eager and impatient.
She looks at him with a wry turn of her mouth.
"But they will be much harder to clean if you let them dry dirty," she points out dryly. He bites back a groan at her most unwelcome burst of practicality.
"Alright," he concedes, "how about I will wash them while you get yourself ready for bed?"
Maybe it isn't the worst idea to slow down a bit, he thinks, taking a step back from her and letting his arms fall, but before he can turn towards the table, she pulls him down for another passionate kiss.
"I don't mind scrubbing them tomorrow," she whispers against his mouth. "There are only two plates and a pan."
He picks her up and spins her around, laughing, before he puts her down and leads her by the hand to the bedroom, narrowly avoiding stepping on one of the cats.
The bedroom, small as it is and with most of the space taken by his wide bed – one of the few creature comforts he added to Tom MacMurray's cabin – has a huge window with the breathtaking view of the lake. The moonlight is streaming through it now, providing enough light that there's no need to bother with the candles or lamps, not for what they have in mind. They stop by the edge of the bed and kiss again, their hands slowly getting bolder in exploring each other's body. He can feel Valancy shiver under his touch and pulls back a bit to check whether she's alright with it. The last thing he wants is to scare or hurt her in any way and he does remind himself that he may be moving too fast for a woman who hasn't even been kissed before tonight.
"Is it alright?" he asks softly as he moves his hand gently from her shoulder to her breast. She gasps slightly at that, but her eyes are steady on him.
"Yes," she answers firmly. "I want it – I want you. I want everything."
He swallows, his emotions threatening to overwhelm him for a moment. He can't remain unmoved when she says things like that or looks at him with such obvious, raw desire.
"How much do you know of it?" he feels obliged to ask.
Valancy laughs.
"Not much," she admits openly. "As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly part of my education. But I know the basics, I think – I did check the medical encyclopaedia in the library – and girls talk a bit, you know – but most of it I learnt from Cissy."
She laughs again at his open relief that he won't be forced to explain it to her himself, then looks at him from under her eyelashes.
"I may not know so much," she says and her voice and those uncanny eyes of hers are doing things to him which he would never suspect her capable of inspiring in him before. "But I know enough to want it. I want it with you."
He nods and kisses her again, slowly, sensuously, his hands wandering around her slender body as hers start to travel over his own. His fingers investigate the buttons of her dress when she pulls back and he immediately stops, alarmed by the worried frown on her face.
"What is it?" he asks and she bites her lip in hesitation.
"Barney," she asks. "But what about children? I can't… You know I can't… It wouldn't be fair to anyone."
He swallows again, this time against the sudden tightness in his throat. For a moment, the magic of the moonlight and the feel of Valancy's lips against his made him forget – but she is right, she is painfully right – pregnancy is something they can't afford to risk. He doesn't want to consider why, not right now – this is the very last thing he wants to think about when he has her in his arms – but it's his responsibility to take care of her, to not risk her life more than it's already in danger, and he'll be damned if he endangers it even more.
"Don't worry," he says, his mind going through everything he's learnt on the topic. "There are ways we can be careful. There will be no child."
She melts back against him, clearly relieved of her doubts and more than willing to go back to what they were doing, but he needs a moment longer to get his head into it. It shakes him, her obvious trust in him. The weight of the responsibility he's taken on himself seems impossibly heavy. Valancy is trusting him with her very life – not just right now, in their marital bed, but in all ways until death inevitably does part them – she trusts him to make her happy. It seems inconceivable, absurd. Nobody ever placed such expectations on him.
But then she kisses him again – and the moonlight is still so bright – and her body feels so natural, so right, so fitting under his hands – that he soon can't think of death and responsibility and what it actually means that Valancy chose to spend her last days in his company. Right now she is here, in his arms, alive and wonderful and so alluring, and the way she responds to his touch is making him wild. She is so amazingly responsive – every caress and kiss he bestows on her are welcomed with a gasp, or a shiver, or a moan – and so quickly followed with a caress or a kiss of her own – and the way she looks at him as they slowly divest each other of their clothes and lie down on the bed, the moonlight still pouring through the window straight onto them – with so much awe and desire and… he can't believe love – he doesn't dare to believe love – but something so very like it – so very like it – that he can just kiss and caress her more in pure awe and gratitude of his own.
When he manages to guide her into her very first burst of sheer pleasure – when she tenses and gasps under him, her eyes widening with disbelief – and when she calls his name and kisses him with such tenderness, such passion – he can't but realise that it has never been like that before, with any of his few lovers – that he's never felt like this before – and when she whispers his name again and tells him she loves him with the same raw honesty and openness he's been admiring in her from the beginning, he just can't deny the truth of it it – that Valancy thinks she loves him – and that thought makes him reach his own completion.
As he falls asleep, holding Valancy tightly in his arms, her head resting on his chest and a happy smile on her face even in her sleep, Barney feels wanted, truly wanted, for the first time in his life, even if he still can't wrap his head around it or believe it is a true love.