There is undeniable, epicurean kind of pleasure in spending the whole day reading in bed, with Valancy engrossed in her own book next to him and two cats purring on their legs while a sheet of rain pounds against their sturdy roof and the ferocious wind viciously bends the pines on the shore and stirs the lake into angry grey waves. What care they? Old Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew. They are warm and snuggly under the blankets, sinfully comfortable against the pillows, well-supplied with hot tea and superbly entertained. Barney has a passing thought that maybe he should drag himself to the Bluebeard's Chamber and work on outlining his next book, but truth be told he is too content to move; he tells himself he will work twice as long tomorrow since the weather doesn't promise to improve any time soon. So they eat breakfast in their pyjamas – Valancy grinning at the outrage of it – and jump back straight under their warm covers, the cats eagerly following their example.
Valancy laughs merrily to herself over something amusing in her book and Barney's eyes drift from his own text to his wife's face. He doesn't ask her what amused her so, he would hate to interrupt her reading, but he loves watching her when she laughs. The sound itself is so nice; warm and throaty and soft somehow, like velvet caressing his ears – and there is this mysterious quality to it, as if there was more laughter hiding somewhere behind it, waiting to come out if only he finds a way to coax it to. It makes him want to climb to the heights of witticism just to achieve it. And then there is the way her dark eyes twinkle when she's laughing, their corners crinkling adorably and he can't get enough of the sight of her like that too. He feels pleasant warmth spreading through his chest whenever he does get to see and hear it.
He loves everything about Valancy's laugh. He loves this visible, audible proof that she's happy with him.
After three months of marriage he should be used to it, but it still startles him often when he reflects upon it – the thought that she's happy with him and that he has made her so. It's not something which anything in his life has ever prepared him for. Yet he can't deny that Valancy is happy – by her own account happier than she's ever been before – and that it's due to him and the fact that she loves him. He no longer doubts it either; how could he when it's so obvious in all her looks, gestures, caresses? In the way her whole face lights up when he emerges from his writing room or comes back from some excursion with Abel? In the way she smiles brilliantly at him when she wakes up in the morning and sees his face next to hers? In the way she initiates kisses or grabs his hand on their treks through the woods, lacing her little fingers with his? No, he harbours no more doubts on the score of Valancy's feelings and this surety is as exhilarating as it's heady.
He, Barney Snaith, is passionately and sincerely loved.
Valancy laughs again and raises her twinkling eyes from her book.
"Oh, this is too funny!" she says brightly. "I know you profess not to like novels, but I wish you made an exception for Miss Austen. I've heard her often described as romantic, but now that I finally get to read her books, I find her voice more bitingly witty than anything else. The way she can simply skewer a character with one sentence of accurate observation! I also must admit that the society she immortalised over a hundred years ago on the other side of the world is not at all different from the one in Deerwood, for all our aeroplanes and telegrams."
"You make a more convincing case than you did with 'Jane Eyre', but I think I will stay with Carman today – just listen to this," says Barney and starts to read.
"There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood—
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name."
"I definitely see what he means," says Valancy, looking through their tiny bedroom's big window to the incredible opulence of colour surrounding the lake. "But I'd prefer to wait with following autumn's call until it's a little bit more dry."
The wind howls louder as if to highlight her point and Barney laughs in easy agreement.
"I've been out many times in this kind of weather and much worse," he says. "But there is something to be said for warm fire—books—comfort—safety from storm—our cats on the rug. Moonlight," he asks, struck by a sudden thought which he is not entirely sure where it came from, "would you be any happier now if you had a million dollars?"
She looks up at him, startled by non sequitur.
"No—nor half so happy. I'd be bored by conventions and obligations then."
He doesn't doubt her sincerity. His Valancy is a true woods sprite, joyful and free; he can't imagine her finding that joy in leading a life of a society lady. She remains visibly elated by escaping the chains of the propriety and convention of Deerwood – granted, much more oppressive and stifling than anything she would ever encounter as a wife of Bernard Redfern – but still, it is obvious that for all her dreams of mediaeval castles, she has never yearned for actual, earthly riches and doesn't yearn for them now. Barney isn't sure why he keeps asking when he knows the answer already. Is it the insecurity in him still? Suspicion that there can't be anything in him to love or appreciate other than his father cursed money? If yes, it is absurd. He knows very well that Valancy has no idea of any of it and he doesn't doubt her feelings for him at all. How could he, when she expresses it clearly and constantly in so many little, countless ways?
And yet, he can't stop himself from asking and he curses damn Ethel for a thousandth time for wounding him deeply enough to make him question even one of the most genuine and pure relationships in his life.
"Would you be any happier if you had a million dollars?" Valancy returns his question to him and he nearly flinches.
"No," he answers vehemently. "Absolutely not."
He looks at all he has around him now – an impressive wild storm behind the windows, the roaring fire in front of him, his cats, his books and his wife – his wife, who is sitting curled against his side in their bed and looks at him so warmly – his wife who genuinely loves him – and he can only kiss her tenderly in gratitude for being here, for loving him, for making him the happiest he's ever been in his life.
"I couldn't possibly be happier anywhere else," he tells her.
xxx
They do get out to follow autumn's call two days later, after the first bout of bad, stormy weather is finally over. The ground is too muddy to provide an enjoyable walk, but it is a perfect day for paddling idly in their canoe along shores and up the rivers of crimson and gold, and admiring a gorgeous pageant of colour around Mistawis. Barney sees fierce, awed admiration on Valancy's face, mirroring his own so closely that his heart squeezes in a painful joy at getting to share it with somebody who understands.
"I've never imagined anything so splendid," whispers Valancy, soaking it all in. "Such great, tinted peace and such vivid colours. Have you ever seen colours so bright anywhere else? I know I never did. Everything I've seen before seems drab by comparison."
"It does, doesn't it?" answers Barney, whispering as well to avoid breaking that peace and great silence surrounding them. It feels like they are the only human beings left in the world and it's glorious. "I've seen colours just as vivid in other lands – the breathtaking kaleidoscope of Africa or India, the reds of Australia or Arizona, the sheer blue of the southern seas – but they are all different, nothing like what's in front of our eyes now. This is its own special kind of loveliness. I think every place under the sun has its own, but this must be one of my favourites."
"Then I'm glad I get to share it with you," says Valancy softly, echoing his thoughts in this uncanny way she sometimes has. "I don't think it would be the same if I was looking at it all with somebody who couldn't appreciate its beauty."
"No," agrees Barney, his throat tight for some reason. "It's better to see such sights alone than with somebody who is blind to the beauty in front of their eyes."
But he can't help thinking that it's so much better to see it with somebody who feels the same than alone – he just never had a chance to experience it before.
xxx
This thought stays stubbornly with him when he finally sits down to write and before he knows it, he has several pages of an essay on the joy a companionship of a kindred spirit brings to experiencing nature. He groans in frustration and nearly tears up the pages, but at the last moment stops himself and decides to leave it with a shrug. He has always been honest in his writing, all his thoughts coming straight from his soul, why shouldn't he share this new insight as well? It's not like he's putting Valancy into this new book, just the generic observation how she – a like-minded companion – enriches his life – the experience.
Yes, now it's phrased suitably neutral. There's no reason to overthink it.
xxx
As much as they both enjoy the ramblings through increasingly deserted Muskoka, the tourists scared away by the cold, there are practical considerations they must tend to before the winter comes.
"We will be cut off for weeks at the time," warns Barney as he explains it to Valancy. "First when there's too much ice on the lake for the boat, but it's not yet solid enough for skates, and then when the winter storms come and we end up snowed in. Are you sure you're not scared of it, Moonlight? We'll be quite on our own."
Valancy shrugs, clearly unconcerned.
"You've been doing it for five winters, haven't you? Clearly you know how to prepare for it."
He does, but he has a momentary, flashing thought that he never had to fear being cut off from any help or the possibility to fetch a doctor. If Valancy gets worse during one of those periods… But he pushes this thought away, as he does routinely with all thoughts of this kind. If it happens, he will deal with it, one way or another; until then there's no use in borrowing trouble.
"First of all, we must stock up on food and other supplies," he says practically. "Make a list of anything you'd like to have on hand, because I'm sure that yours is going to be much more extensive than mine ever was."
"I don't think I want to know what you survived on during such weeks," mutters Valancy with a wry look at him and reaches for a pencil and a notepad to start working on it. "You may be certain that I'll feed you better, snowed in or not."
Barney laughs.
"I freely admit that it's a sure bet," he agrees with a grin and goes to chop some wood. There will be plenty of wood chopping for him in the coming weeks, so he might as well start now.
He's awed but not at all surprised when Valancy proudly shows him the way she stocked their pantry for them. He's known of course that she's been making jellies and pickles throughout the summer and autumn, but looking at the rows of cheerful jars on the beforehand empty shelves truly impresses him with the results of her labours. In addition to that, Barney and Abel have been going hunting and the meat, dried and salted, goes next to bacon and ham hanging on the hooks attached to the ceiling, well out of Banjo and Good Luck's greedy reach. They have two huge sacks of potatoes and heavy sacks of flour, sugar, tea, coffee, oil for the lamps and the stove, matches and all kinds of cooking ingredients Barney hardly recognises but Valancy assures him are essential. The wood is stacked around the fireplace to be dry and ready, with more of it piled orderly on the verandah under the hanging roof. However long the storms last, they should survive them in comfort.
When Valancy is out gathering mushrooms to dry, Barney surreptitiously checks that she's also stocked up on her medicine and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds her drawer full.
xxx
They are not the only ones stocking for the coming winter. During their walks they have plenty of occasions to observe their animal neighbours busy with preparation of their own. One day they spend more than an hour sitting under the pines and watching ants marching one after another and bringing over pine needles to thicken the walls of the anthill. On a different occasion, Barney points out to Valancy a burrow shared companionably by a family of foxes and a badger, each with their own entrance, marked clearly by visible differences in cleanliness.
"The badgers fastidiously clean their earths and defecate in latrines, but as you see red foxes habitually leave pieces of prey around their dens," explains Barney, adding with a smirk. "Yet they are usually agreeable cohabitants – rather like you and I."
"Mostly because I don't have a clue what kind of mess you're hiding in the Bluebeard's Chamber," answers Valancy drily. "Who knows what kind of marital spats we would have if you didn't have this outlet."
Barney laughs, visions of Valancy chasing him around with a broom vivid in his head. Judging from her dancing eyes, her imagination is going in a similar direction.
"This is the season of romance for the badgers," he says. "So maybe they have additional motivation in trying to impress their potential mate with their tidiness."
"And the foxes?" asks Valancy curiously.
"They just moved in for the winter," answers Barney, feeling himself getting more enthusiastic about the topic with every question of hers. "Between spring and late autumn they live in the open; it's only with the approach of winter that they seek shelter of a burrow, which they sometimes dig themselves, but often use one built by another animal – and, as you see here, they don't mind roommates. They don't mate until January and have their kits in the spring. One thing I like about them is that they have real families; the older siblings stay for some time with their parents to help take care of the younger. We may be lucky enough to see them play here when the snow thaws."
It's only the wistful expression crossing briefly Valancy's face which reminds him that they need quite a lot of luck to get the opportunity to observe kits at play together. Unfortunately, it is by no means assured. But Valancy is clearly as determined as ever to avoid giving voice to that fact and a moment later smiles at him eagerly.
"I would love that!" she says brightly. "There is something so endearing about any young creatures at play – it makes one's heart lighter just to witness their joy."
It makes Barney's heart lighter to witness her joy – and he couldn't be more grateful that he has so many opportunities for that every day. It startles him to realise that he hasn't seen her truly sad since those first weeks after Cissy's passing; he can't think of any other reason which has made her so since they married. Even with the shadow of imminent death hanging constantly over her, his Moonlight is simply iridescent with happiness and it never ceases to amaze him whenever he reflects on it.
Quietly, he admits to himself again that he's happy with her too.
xxx
One starry night they sit companionably on the swing on their verandah. The air is brisk and cold, but they are dressed warmly and bundled together under a blanket, with their hands and bellies warmed wonderfully by mulled cider Valancy has made. The contrast with summer couldn't be starker: there are no lights or fires anywhere in sight, with all their near and far neighbours on the lake having removed themselves to civilization until next summer. The lake belongs to them for the time being and they are both fully satisfied with it.
"It's hard to believe we are just several paltry miles away from Deerwood or Port Lawrence," notes Valancy with wonder. "Right now it seems to me as if we are worlds apart from any other people, in utter wilderness and solitude."
"Yes," agrees Barney, taking a sip of his cider. He is content in a way which still feels alien to him at times, "and isn't it marvellous?"
Valancy laughs and he grins at her over the rim of his mug.
"Quite," she says, the remnants of laughter still in her voice, and Barney's grin widens. "Who needs other people when we have this?"
She gestures expansively at the dark landscape all around them and accidentally dislodges the blanket. Barney manages to grasp it before it slides completely down to the planks of the verandah and carefully tucks it around her. The grateful look he receives in response is touched by his gesture, but no longer surprised by it and he swells with pride that he has achieved this too: he's made Valancy used to the idea of receiving kindness. He vows silently to provide any that will be in his power until her last hour on earth. It won't make up for twenty nine years of neglect, but he's determined to try.
"Was there ever a time when you missed other people during your travels or were you always content with your own company?" asks Valancy unexpectedly and for a long moment Barney is lost for words.
There is no simple answer to her question. There were plenty of times when he was lonely – desperately so – but this was a loneliness he had been carrying with him his whole life. Running away from it didn't lessen it, especially in the beginning, when he did miss people but at the same time knew with devastating surety that there was no point in missing them. He missed Ethel for a long time in Yukon, even knowing what he knew, and hated himself for it – for missing her, for loving her, for falling for her act, for not being enough for her to love him for real. He missed his dad, but he didn't know how to be his son anymore, not without breaking utterly under the strain of it. And then he found the legs under him, stopped running away and started wandering just for the sheer joy and adventure of it; for the loveliness of the natural world around him, which soothed something deep and raw inside of him until he felt whole again, if not without scars. He didn't miss people anymore and stopped wishing for somebody to share his journey with him; he finally accepted that such things were not to be, not for him at least, and that there was no point in wishing otherwise and making himself unhappy.
He is one of those people who are destined to be alone and finally, somewhere along the way, he made his peace with it.
But he can't talk about it with anyone, even Valancy, without getting into all kinds of topics he never wants to even think about and opening wounds which can badly bear poking into the scar tissue thinly covering them. He's especially loath to do so now, during such a lovely evening, when he's feeling so much at peace.
"I've learnt to walk alone," he says finally, which is true, but hides so much that it might as well be a lie. "I'm the cat who walks by himself and all the places are alike to me."
He sees a pensive look on Valancy's face and can't resist the urge to make her smile again. The last thing he wanted to do is to make her sad. He grabs her free hand under the blanket and rests his forehead against hers.
"There is something to be said for sharing a night like this though," he whispers, with a conspiratorial wink. "I've just never really met anybody I was willing to share a blanket and mulled cider with before."
He feels lighter when he succeeds and sees the corners of her mouth lift.
xxx
In the meantime, his previous book comes out. He brings his own copy, smelling of fresh print, from the post office at Port Lawrence, and hands it to Valancy with a carefully careless gesture.
"I've seen that yet another John Foster's book is out," he says, avoiding her surprised gaze. "Thought you may like it."
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Valancy's face glowing with delight as she eagerly grasps the book.
"Oh, Barney!" she exclaims joyously. "How kind of you to get it for me!"
"I expect I will have to see about my own supper – and yours – why you inhale it within hours and start learning it by heart," he comments dryly.
Valancy laughs, her eyes already scanning the first page.
"I won't even attempt to deny it," she says. "I'm perfectly alright with some bacon and eggs tonight."
Barney rolls his eyes – not that she notices, entranced as she is by his words on the page – but can't deny being touched by her honest adoration of them.
xxx
Some days later, the evening finds them on the wolf skins' covered sofa, each lost in their own thoughts. The stars smoulder in the horizon mists through the old oriel. The haunting, persistent croon of the pine-trees fills the air. The little waves begin to make soft, sobbing splashes on the rocks below them in the rising winds. They need no light but the firelight that sometimes leaps up and reveals them—sometimes shrouds them in shadow. Valancy's eyes are focused on something far, far away. Barney smokes his pipe, his arm hugging her loosely, and basks in the companionable silence they so often share.
A book he's been reading to her earlier rests by his side, 'The Autobiography of Super-Tramp' by the Welsh poet and writer W. H. Davis. When Valancy finally emerges from whatever daydream she's been weaving inside her head, her eyes fall on it again as she asks:
"Did you ever spend a winter in jail like him, to keep out of the elements?"
"No," answers Barney with a smile, noting that the way she phrased the question didn't pry into whether he spent time in jail for other reasons. "Unlike him, I started my travels in the Yukon, not a Welsh town; I wasn't afraid of winter in the wild after that. Besides, I usually managed to get some kind of work in a warmer climate if I got tired of the snow. But I had an easier time of this than many."
"How so?" she asks, her dark eyes curious.
"I was literate and not very picky," he answers dryly. "It went a long way. The hoboes were a very varied crowd; a mix of desperates, fugitives and adventures. Some were willing to accept any kind of honest work to fill their bellies, while others abhorred nothing as much as bowing their head to a boss and allowing someone to order them around. There were writers and journalists and poets travelling in search of inspiration, enlightenment or a story, but there were many more poor souls who never got the opportunity to get even the most basic education. Besides, my main goal was to see as much of the world as possible. I wasn't going to waste time playing cards with other hoboes in a small town jail, not when there were so many wonderful things to see and places to explore which I have never seen before."
Valancy nods, accepting his explanation.
"Weren't you afraid that you would lose a leg like him or even be killed?"
"Not really," answers Barney honestly. "But that was because I wasn't thinking of it much."
Truth be told, back then he didn't care about his well-being enough to worry about scenarios like that. He doesn't tell her that, of course, but from her vaguely chiding air he suspects she guessed enough anyway.
"I'm glad you're not doing that anymore," she says thoughtfully. "But at the same time I wish I could have experienced such an adventure. Were there any women among hoboes?"
He gapes at her for a moment, then bursts out into startled laughter. He shouldn't be surprised, he thinks fondly. His Moonlight is fearless and with a ravenous appetite for everything life has to offer; why not hopping freight trains to explore the world?
"There were a few," he says slowly, his smile fading when he imagines Valancy as one of them. She has enough spunk to learn the ropes and survive such a life, but he hates the thought that she would ever have to, even hypothetically. "But it's not an easy life for a woman, especially a single one."
"There's an easy solution to that," answers Valancy with this crooked smile and a sly look over her shoulder which she must know doesn't fail to drive him mad, little minx. "If I ever get it into my head to start train hopping as a hobby, I'll simply take you with me."
"And where would you drag me, my lawless Mrs Snaith?" asks Barney curiously. Valancy laughs and shrugs.
"Everywhere you've been and I haven't, which leaves us with anywhere beyond Port Lawrence," she says dryly. "So I suppose I'd leave the choice to you."
For a moment, Barney is so overwhelmed by the desire to show the world to her – so overwhelmed that he has the offer to do so on the tip of his tongue. To see her eyes wide in wonder as she takes in all the sights which took his breath away over the years – to see it all anew through her impressions – for that moment the vision of it is so clear to him that it seems real enough to touch.
Then reality crashes on him and reminds him all the reasons while it's a pipe dream if there ever was. His secrets which he still has no wish to tell her; the money he doesn't want to touch; the fact that he hates the idea of Valancy dying in some anonymous hotel room or on a ship rather than in the house she came to love and make into her home… No, he's not going to take her anywhere, but there is so much beauty in Muskoka which he still hasn't discovered after wandering its paths for five years; there's more than enough to show Valancy through however little time she has left.
xxx
The November wind is howling hauntingly over the lake, chasing heavy clouds over its waters with breaknecking speed and shaking off the remaining leaves from the trees. It's a dark, gloomy and powerful spectacle, bringing to mind Gothic novels and poems describing the desolation and power of nature saying goodby to the sun and the frolicking of summer. As Barney leans on the balustrade of the verandah with a pipe in his mouth and Valancy by his side, he can't shake off a darker shade the weather and the disquieting landscape in front of him bleed into his thoughts.
He has no reason to expect that Valancy won't remain by his side when the Mistawis shines again with the summer heat, but it's unfortunately not beyond probability, and he hates, simply hates, contemplating it.
He has always been lousy at goodbyes.
But right now she is at his side and the awed tone she uses when she starts to speak makes it clear to him that her own thoughts are luckily of a much happier nature.
"It's amazing to see how everything around us prepares for the winter sleep," she says, her dark eyes taking in everything in front of them. "All in hope of rising again in the spring, ready to rejoice at their awakening and return of life. John Foster says," she adds and Barney groans theatrically around his pipe which she of course ignores. "That autumn is not at all about death – it is a promise of rebirth."
Barney feels the rebuke of his own old words, but once again scoffs at his younger self's ignorance.
Not everything which dies is going to be reborn with the spring.
Much as he might wish for that.
xxx
The conversation haunts him, much as he tries to fight it – what's the point of dwelling on inevitable after all? – but whenever he sits in his secret writing room and tries to collect his scattered thoughts and impressions into a somewhat coherent theme for a new book, he can't escape the reflection that he's never had such a happy, magical summer in his life. With how matters stand, he doesn't expect to ever have one like this again, since it's blindingly obvious what made this summer so unique.
He didn't walk alone during it and it made a permanent imprint on his soul.
This book is going to be quite different from any of his previous ones, he can see it now. Mellower. Happier. Like basking in warm, summer sunlight while the waters of the lake shimmer all around them and the pines smell so strong that it goes to one's head. Sweet like honey on Valancy's lips when they had some with the freshly picked wild strawberries.
One perfect summer locked inside the covers.
He toys with picking the title while he twirls his pen in his ink stained fingers, and discards most as too trite or too obvious. He doesn't intend to write a diary, after all, isn't he capable of immortalising his single summer of marital bliss with some subtlety?
In the end, he settles on "Wild Honey", the taste of Valancy's sweet lips tangible on his own.