They do end up watching the fox kits playing in the spring.
They wait until dusk, with soft shadows following over brightly green new leaves and the last rays of the sun reaching as in farewell from behind the woods on the other shore of Mistawis. They crouch downwind, half-hidden by the bushes and very, very quiet – they don't want to spook the fox family. There are three kits, grey and fluffy, jumping around and nipping each other playfully, and their splendid, brilliantly red-haired mother, keeping watch over them. She throws them several suspicious looks, but they are quiet and familiar enough that she obviously decides they are not a threat worthy of acknowledging for now.
"She lives far away enough from humans that she's not overly suspicious of us, as long as we keep our distance," explains Barney in a whisper. "The foxes living closer to the towns are more skittish; they know humans mean trouble even if they don't mind pilfering our trash or chicken coops. But to this one we are just another being from the woods and if we don't bother her or her babies, she's not going to give us more attention than we deserve."
Valancy nods, her eyes riveted by the little creatures.
"I've always yearned for a sibling," she says quietly, to avoid spooking the foxes. "The closest thing I had to one was Olive and well, we weren't exactly close as you can imagine. But I've always wanted a playmate who would understand me," she shakes her head with a wry smile. "Maybe I just wanted somebody else there to deal with Mother's moods."
She looks at him, a question hanging on her lips, but she stops herself from giving voice to it. Always so respectful of his wishes for privacy, for secrets. Suddenly Barney finds himself wanting to share some of it with her. Not all, heavens forbid – he has no wish to air Bernie Redfern's sorry existence – but the little tidbits which Barney Snaith can afford to claim for himself.
"I've also always wanted a sibling," he admits, feeling Valancy start in surprise. "I was an only child too and the loneliness was getting to me at times. But who knows, I might've hated the kid. Shared blood is no guarantee for the shared ideals."
Valancy nods, well aware of that.
"Friends are nicer this way," she agrees and he grins at her, clasping her hand.
"I've been very lucky in mine."
xxx
It rains on Barney's thirty-sixth birthday, but it doesn't matter. It's still the best birthday he's ever had.
He's reading a book on the sofa, the fire lit in the fireplace and a hot cup of coffee in his other hand, when Valancy emerges from the bedroom with a brilliant smile and birthday wishes on her lips. In her hands, she carries a small package carefully tied with a blue ribbon. Barney accepts both, feeling strangely awkward; it occurs to him that the last time anybody celebrated his birthday he was still answering to the name Bernie Redfern. Cissy would have, he knows, gladly, but somehow he never got around to telling her the date.
He unwraps his gift under Valancy's expectant eyes as she folds her legs and leans into him on the sofa. It contains an elegant new pipe and a bag of his favourite tobacco.
"The clerk assured me it was the best pipe they had," said Valancy, somehow anxiously. "But if you don't like it, I'm sure we could exchange it."
He puts his free hand on her little ones, stilling her nervous fingers.
"I like it," he says simply and honestly. "Thank you, Moonlight."
He truly does. The pipe is made of cherry wood and has a smooth, glossy finish; he puts it in his mouth to try it and he likes how it lies in it. Yes, he likes the pipe. He'll be certain to think of Valancy every time he lights it, but for some reason he doesn't express this thought out loud.
Valancy beams at him, reassured, but Barney side eyes his gift silently. The pipe is a nice quality one and the clerk was probably sincere about it being the best in his shop; it must have cost Valancy a pretty penny, even more so with the addition of the tobacco. This brand is one of Barney's few indulgences and it's quite an expensive one, at least for Deerwood. He wonders how much money she spent on it and how much she still has left out of her two hundred dollars. It can't be that much, not with all the clothes she purchased for herself over the last year, and he barely suppresses a frown at the thought that she would go without something she needed or wanted for the lack of funds. He has some doubts whether she would ask him for money in such a case as she should; he knows how hesitant she is to accept it as hers. It's the one thing he's failed so far to convince her of during the course of their marriage.
Valancy kisses him sweetly and gets up to whip a fabulous omelette as the first of his birthday treats. All the meals that day are his particular favourites. They spend some time taking turns reading aloud and afterwards they play a vicious, laughter filled game of checkers. In the afternoon, Abel arrives, with drops of rain clinging to his fiery beard and his fiddle wrapped securely in oiled cloth to keep it safe from the elements. He eats Valancy's dinner with gusto and then, after he and Barney move the furniture aside, plays for them as they twirl around their living room. It's late into the night when he goes home, declining Valancy's urging to stay until morning.
When Barney falls asleep that night with Valancy in his arms and the sound of rain against the roof of the Blue Castle, he once again thinks that it was the best birthday he's ever had.
xxx
Some days later, there is someone knocking on the Blue Castle's door and Barney nearly falls out of his swivel chair when he hears it.
In his excuse, this is the very first time it happened. Abel is their only visitor and he never bothers to knock; he saunters into their living room as the entitled dear friend he is to both of them, hollering first from the jetty for them to make sure they're decent enough to welcome him. Valancy is out currently but even if she came from her foraging trip with her arms full of the spoils of spring, why would she bother knocking on the open door of their house instead of calling for him or pushing them with her hip? It must be a stranger then and Barney's hackles immediately rise in annoyance at the thought of somebody invading their sanctuary without warning or invitation.
When he opens the door, he finds Allan Tierney's grizzled face.
"Mr Snaith, I presume?" he asks with a New York twang. Barney, still annoyed at the invasion, takes great pleasure in pretending he has no idea who's in front of him.
"That's right," he says curtly. "And you are?"
Oh, Tierney doesn't like not being recognised on sight, he doesn't like it at all. Barney barely suppresses a smirk.
"Allan Tierney, painter," he says gruffly. "I'm here about your wife."
For a moment, Barney feels as if the floor opened up beneath his feet. It takes but a second for his brain to conjure the conviction that Tierney must have found Valancy collapsed somewhere in the woods – ill or dead is to be determined – and came to summon him to her. The bitter, instant rage that he wasn't there with her, that he let her go alone while he was busy with his worthless scribbles, floods Barney with the force of a tsunami.
"What about her?" he asks roughly, his heart in his throat.
"I want to paint her," says Tierney as if it was obvious, and Barney finds he can breathe again. Wordlessly, he steps back and gestures for him to get in. The relief replacing the terror and rage he experienced in those brief moments is powerful enough that he stops messing with his guest. He fairly drops into the armchair as soon as Tierney takes a seat on the sofa.
Tierney doesn't waste time in explaining his business, leaning forward, his eyes fierce and excited.
"I saw her yesterday in the woods," he explains. "She was walking ahead of me, dressed in green, and turned her head back to look at me. A shaft of pale spring sunlight fell through a great pine at her head – the way it lit her black hair, with a fillet of linnæa vine, and those slanted eyes! She had the feathery fountain of trailing spruce overflowing her arms and falling around her and I knew, I simply knew in that instant, that she would be my Spirit of Muskoka. The curve of her cheek as she looked back over her shoulder… Why, it was worth a poem! And those eyes… you never see such eyes here. Positively Oriental yet her face is not at all foreign. But not common at all either, it's something else, something raw and natural, like a dryad or a nymph who stepped out straight from a myth. I saw those eyes the whole night in my dreams, they keep haunting me. The depth, the clarity, that shape! The mysteries suggested within! When can we arrange a sitting?"
Barney's mind churns at that onslaught of praise for Valancy. He agrees with every word, with no question, but as soon as he's going to agree, giddy at the expression on Valancy's face when she hears that Alan Tierney wants to paint her, it suddenly occurs to him that he would have no way of buying that painting from him. Or, to be specific, Barney Snatih would have no way of doing that. Tierney's paintings sell for thousands of dollars and Barney Snaith is a down at the heels bum living in a shack on an island in the middle of nowhere.
A solution comes as fast as the realisation of the problem. Barney can authorise Neal to buy the picture for him. He would have to keep it in storage for now, of course, he would have no way to explain to Valancy how he acquired it… but at least he would have a true picture of her afterwards. Barney is familiar with Tierney's work, he knows how skilled the artist is in capturing the spirit of his subjects. This would be Valancy looking at him over her shoulder from the wall, frozen forever in her young summer glory as her body long lies in the cold ground.
No!
He barely suppresses a flinch at the strength of his sudden repulsion. No, there is no way he's going to suffer looking at her image day after day when she herself is gone. He imagines it, quickly and torturously, how it would be to stare at that damn portrait – maybe even talk to it, he can easily see himself doing it in his loneliness – with no answer from her, no word or smile or touch, just the still, painted look of her beautiful eyes, never changing whatever he tells her – no! He's not foolish enough to subject himself to such torture. He would either end up throwing the portrait into the lake or jumping into it himself.
But the thought of that portrait hanging among indifferent strangers, staring at it in his place and commenting on his Moonlight's features while he will have only his fading memory left to cling to, makes his stomach turn. No way, no fucking way. Valancy is his, just as he is hers, and if he can't keep her with him, those strangers won't be allowed either. Let their Blue Castle and the pathways around Mistawis be the only ones holding her echo long after she's gone. Barney knows that he will see a shadow of her at every familiar turn anyway.
He raises his eyes at Tierney who's waiting impatiently for his answer.
"Never."
Tierney startles, his brows frowning in confusion.
"What do you mean, never?"
"There will be no sitting," says Barney calmly, his arms folded over his chest, "because I don't want my wife painted."
Tierney boggles at him.
"Whyever not?" he exclaims. Barney wonders if he has ever experienced a denial like this.
He shrugs.
"Your pictures are expensive," he says, abandoning the pretence that he doesn't know anything about Tierney and his art. "And I am poor. I don't want my wife being gawked at by other men."
He wouldn't have minded, he thinks, if he had the original by his side. He would have been proud to spread the knowledge of Valancy's worth to the world at large, to show her that she can be admired by other people than just him. But with Valancy gone… No. He's not doing it to himself.
Tierney looks like he would love nothing more than to strangle him.
"It wouldn't be your wife they would gawk at!" he protests. "It would be art – an amazing art, I can just see it – a Spirit of Muskoka in all her glory and mystery – not a Mrs Snaith nobody knows or cares about – but something more, so much more!"
Barney's jaw clenches. He knows that the portrait would have been good, brilliant even, but there's no chance that it would ever be able to surpass Valancy.
"There might be nobody caring for Mrs Snaith other than me," he says quietly, his eyes flashing, "but she is worth a dozen of your portraits. I won't have her reduced to one."
Tierney stares at him incredulously.
"Is that your final answer?" he demands and, when Barney nods firmly, he throws his hands in clear exasperation and leaves with a huff. He doesn't even give Barney a courtesy of goodbye, not that Barney cares.
He's in a foul mood anyway and he doesn't even know why.
xxx
Barney's mood thankfully improves by the time Valancy comes back from another flower quest, her arms full of arbutus.
"I've had a caller," he says from the armchair where he's spent most of the afternoon, smoking his new pipe and contemplating the lake in front of him.
"Who?" she asks, but doesn't appear to care much, busy as she is with filling a basket with arbutus. Barney grins inwardly in the anticipation of her reaction.
"Allan Tierney. He wants to paint you, Moonlight."
She doesn't disappoint.
"Me!" Valancy drops her basket and her arbutus, then looks at him with rebuke. "You're laughing at me, Barney."
"I'm not. That's what Tierney came for. To ask my permission to paint my wife—as the Spirit of Muskoka, or something like that."
"But—but—" stammers Valancy, "Allan Tierney never paints any but—any but—"
"Beautiful women," finishes Barney triumphantly. "Conceded. Q. E. D., Mistress Barney Snaith is a beautiful woman."
"Nonsense," says Valancy, stooping to retrieve her arbutus. "You know that's nonsense, Barney. I know I'm a heap better-looking than I was a year ago, but I'm not beautiful."
Barney doesn't roll his eyes at her stubbornness, but it's a close thing.
"Allan Tierney never makes a mistake," he says firmly instead. "You forget, Moonlight, that there are different kinds of beauty. Your imagination is obsessed by the very obvious type of your cousin Olive. Oh, I've seen her—she's a stunner—but you'd never catch Allan Tierney wanting to paint her. In the horrible but expressive slang phrase, she keeps all her goods in the shop-window. But in your subconscious mind you have a conviction that nobody can be beautiful who doesn't look like Olive. Also, you remember your face as it was in the days when your soul was not allowed to shine through it. Tierney said something about the curve of your cheek as you looked back over your shoulder. You know I've often told you it was distracting. And he's quite batty about your eyes. If I wasn't absolutely sure it was solely professional—he's really a crabbed old bachelor, you know—I'd be jealous."
"Well, I don't want to be painted," says Valancy. "I hope you told him that."
"I couldn't tell him that. I didn't know what you wanted. But I told him I didn't want my wife painted—hung up in a salon for the mob to stare at. Belonging to another man. For of course I couldn't buy the picture. So even if you had wanted to be painted, Moonlight, your tyrannous husband would not have permitted it. Tierney was a bit squiffy. He isn't used to being turned down like that. His requests are almost like royalty's."
"But we are outlaws," laughs Valancy. "We bow to no decrees—we acknowledge no sovereignty."
He laughs with her, relieved beyond measure that she doesn't hold him sending Tierney packing against him. He could have kept the artist's visit secret from her, easily, but he couldn't resist giving her the compliment implicit in the request. Valancy deserves to know that a famous painter of beautiful women found her worth of admiration.
xxx
"You're magnificent," he tells her later that night, when the moonlight is shimmering on Valancy's white skin and making her elfin features look otherworldly in the best possible way. "Beautiful. Fascinating. No wonder Tierney wants to paint you. I would too, if I had a fraction of his talent."
She laughs and kisses him in thanks for his compliments, but he knows that as much as likes hearing them, she thinks him kind, not sincere.
He's tempted to summon Tierney back just to prove her wrong.
xxx
He regrets he can't paint himself, at times, so he could preserve the scenes in front of him in a different way than his at times woefully inadequate words, scribbled hastily in his notebook when Valancy's back is turned. To portray Valancy, as she's lying in her green swimsuit on that little sandy shore on the southern edge of their island, with her hands under her chin and her legs crossed, lost in daydreams as the sunlight leaves playful kisses all over Mistawis. Or dancing with him around the campfire in the warmth and fragrance of a May evening to the music floating towards them through the stillness of the lake from other islands, her pale face flushed becomingly from the exercise and the fire, the starlight and the flames reflecting in her dark eyes as she looks at him. He doesn't think he will ever forget how she feels in his arms, but still wishes he had a tool to preserve that moment for the whole eternity, bottle it up with Valancy's dear laugh when he manages to amuse her with a well-chosen joke, with the intoxicating smell of her skin and the indescribable softness of her lips. His pen is useless when he attempts to use it for such a purpose, all sentences coming out flat and trite; there are many moments when Barney throws it across his desk in sheer frustration, scowling at it. He feels a near feverish need to preserve it all, imprint it into his memory, engrave it all over his brain. He can't stand the prospect of forgetting even one detail of this spring.
He doesn't allow himself to consider why.
xxx
On the morning of Valancy's thirtieth birthday Barney, as usual, wakes up first, but this time he returns to bed after feeding the cats. Good Luck follows him, jumping into his lap and purring in adoration and gratitude, and Barney absentmindedly scratches him under his dainty chin as he sits there, watching his sleeping wife in the cheerful yellow rays of sunrise.
His wife who is thirty years old today and he doesn't know if he feels more like celebrating or mourning it.
She lived to reach thirty, something neither of them could be sure of, even if both of them counted on it quietly. He's been blessed with her presence in his life for that long at least. But looking at Valancy's sleeping face, with her smooth, unlined skin, Barney can't escape a bitter thought that thirty is terribly young to die.
Cissy died even younger, of course, not to even mention Gem. Barney is fully aware that life and nature don't always work fair. There is plenty of casual cruelty in the order of the natural world – the young animals getting eaten by predators, the young trees fallen by the harsh winds, the illnesses hitting their victims randomly, be they of human or animal variety. Barney has seen it, studied it, written of the poignancy of it, and yet, confronted again with this merciless character of nature when it comes to Valancy, he's struck with the utter wrongness, the sheer waste of it. Such a bright, brilliant creature as his Moonlight shouldn't die at thirty. Eighty would seem too soon for her.
But there is nothing to be done about it, so he, as always, tries to push it out of his mind for now. Today is Valancy's birthday and Barney is determined to make sure she has a pleasant one, as she ensured for him a few weeks earlier. She deserves to have one good birthday in her thirty years of life.
Even – or maybe especially since – it's unlikely she will ever celebrate another.
When she finally stirs and opens her slanted dark eyes to look up at him, there's somehow nothing easier than to smile at her and bend down to kiss her.
"Happy birthday, Moonlight," Barney whispers, basking in the way her lips are eagerly responding to his kiss.
xxx
They take the canoe to one of the Fortunate Islands, paddling lazily through the sparkling waters of Mistawis. The weather is perfect, warm and sunny, but with fluffy white clouds here and there and the breeze over the lake preventing it from becoming too hot. There is a picnic basket between them, which makes Valancy laugh when she sees it.
"Oh, to go to a picnic on May 25th, but with no Stirlings or silver spoons in sight! It's too perfect, Barney," she exclaims lively, giving him a kiss on the cheek in thanks.
"No matching Wedgwood plates either, I'm afraid," says Barney drily, pretending to be unaffected by her evident joy at the idea he came up with, but damn satisfied inside that it worked as intended. They had dozens of picnics over the last year, but he knows what having her own picnic on her birthday means to her. "But I hope we can still celebrate you in style."
She grins at him cheekily.
"I hope all the plates are mismatched and chipped," she says. "And if we lose one of the spoons – if you even packed any – neither of us will ever mention it again."
"I didn't pack the spoons," answers Barney. "Less cattle, less care. But if we do lose any plates or glasses, you may be certain I'm not going to remember it at all."
But he is going to remember Valancy's face when they spread a blanket on the soft, fragrant grass and she opens the basket to find a box of chocolates – the same ones he got her last year and which she claimed to love so much. He reflects how little importance that small gift held to him back then – how foolishly he worried that she might misconstrue it as evidence of some romantic inclinations on his part – and yet how very nice he finds it now to have her as his wife and how happy he is that the memory of that gift clearly has plenty of meaning for her.
"Do you want some?" she asks, offering him the small gilded box. "If yes, better take your share now. They are so good I know I won't be strong enough to resist finishing the whole lot today."
"At least you don't think it would be sacrilege to eat them," teases Barney, but refuses her generous offer. It's her gift to enjoy, after all.
Valancy laughs.
"No, not anymore," she confirms, her eyes dancing. "You spoiled me too much for such fancies."
Now, if that doesn't make Barney satisfied with himself, nothing will. He pulls her towards him to kiss her in triumph and thinks that the chocolates taste best on her lips anyway.
xxx
Few days later, they walk over the hills in the sunset. They have the delight of discovering a virgin spring in a ferny hollow and drink together from it out of a birch-bark cup; then they come to an old tumble-down rail fence and sit on it for a long time. They don't talk much, but Barney has a curious sense of oneness. He doesn't think he has ever felt such contentment, such peace with himself and the world – and he knows with painful clarity that it is all due to the woman sitting in companionable silence next to him, her little hand in his.
"You nice little thing," says Barney suddenly, the truth bursting out of some deep, secret place within him. "Oh, you nice little thing! Sometimes I feel you're too nice to be real—that I'm just dreaming you."
She turns from the fiery display in front of them to him, her eyes shining with joy at his outburst. She doesn't say anything, but her slender fingers lace with his and she rests her head against his shoulder – and in that moment, as Barney leans his cheek against her black hair, everything is perfect.
xxx
He starts reviewing the galleys sent to him from Toronto and finds Valancy on every page. Somehow he hasn't noticed when he was writing it or doing his final revisions to the manuscript but now, looking with fresh eyes on his printed words, he sees what he really has written – a record of their year together. The whole book is centred around the wonder of experiencing the beauty of the woods with a like-minded companion, a kindred spirit who understands the overwhelming loveliness of nature in the same deep, instinctive way. A paean of praise to friendship and shared joy.
A paean to Valancy.
He slowly caresses the page with slightly trembling fingers. A record of their year together…
A year… It's been nearly a year since they were married. They are just weeks short of their anniversary.
It's been over a year already since Valancy's visit to Dr Trent.
Which means… Which means… that they are nearly out of time.
He curls his hands into tight fists, trying fruitlessly to push that awful, hateful realisation out of his head. For the umpteenth time, he tells himself that doctors can be wrong with estimates like this. They were wrong about Cissy, who lived for a whole year and a half longer than they predicted for her. It might be the same for Valancy; nobody can say that she won't live for longer than the year she was allotted. She looks so much better than she did a year ago, so much stronger and healthier; can't it mean that she is a little bit better? That even if her heart can't heal, at least her body is better equipped to handle her illness? To grant her at least a few more months?
To grant him at least a few more months…
With a stifled groan, Barney drops his head into his hands and kneads his temples with his fingers.
Oh God, he is going to miss her so!
When he lost Cissy, Valancy stepped into his life. She didn't replace Cissy – it didn't work like that – but much as he grieved for his friend, he wasn't alone. And the companionship he discovered with Valancy, that perfect bond between two souls made from the same fire – it is different from the bond he had with Cissy. Sometimes he thinks that the deep understanding between him and Cissy was one involving the person he used to be – desperately lonely, ostracised, heartbroken and betrayed. Cissy was a friend and a sister Bernie Redfern never had and was amazed to discover. But Valancy… Valancy fits him perfectly as he is now. They both suffered through long years of misery, but came out stronger and voracious for life and joy they'd never known before. They are discovering happiness together for the very first time in their lives; it's an equally unexpected gift for each of them. They are making it possible for each other to discover and appreciate it fully; neither of them would be able to find it on their own.
He is not at all sure that he will remain able to grasp this kind of joy when he won't have Valancy by his side anymore to share it with.
Before he knows it, he is reaching for his pen and adding a dedication to the galleys:
"To Moonlight, my dearest wife and friend, whose presence haunts every page of this book. The woods were never as beautiful as when experienced with you by my side."
He just hopes fervently that she'll still be alive when this book is published and he can put it into her hands.