We’ve been reading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery and this week we are discussing chapters 11 to 23. You can find the discussion on Chapters 1 through 10 here.
When I first read this book, the chapters we are discussing today were where I really fell in love with the book, and it wasn’t any different this time. I fell in love with the story and book again in these chapters. There are so many swoonworthy moments in this book it makes me question how our dear Maud was not called one of the greatest romance writers in history.
In these chapters, we see Valancy Stirling finally spread her wings, leaving behind her family to take care of a dying woman and also finding love. All of this is to the horror of her family, of course, but Valancy ignores her family and doing so feels amazing to her.
The family dinner is where her rebellion really kicks in as she levels mouthy comebacks after mouth comeback at her aunts, uncles, cousins, and mother.
It’s a sight to behold – or a chapter to read and laugh at in the least.
Something has snapped in Valancy, who believes she is dying of a heart condition. She decides she has nothing to lose, so she goes full bore on saying what she wants when she wants.
Her uncle Benjamin is always making silly jokes that he expects everyone to laugh at. When Valancy doesn’t, he is offended and calls her disrespectful.
“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin. “When I am dead you may say what you please. As lon as I am alive I demand to be treated with respect.”
Valancy (whose nickname is Doss, which she hates) says, “Oh, but you now we’re all dead. The whole Stirling clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t — yet. That is the only difference.”
It goes on like this throughout the night, her comments becoming more and more biting and caustic and her chest starts to hurt so she goes to bed.
This is the first time we really start to see Valancy rebel beyond simply cutting at a rose bush that was given to her but never bloomed.
Then the local drunk comes by to make repairs in the house and when he tells Valancy about his dying daughter and how he needs help caring for her and the house, Valancy jumps at the chance. It will get her away from her family, but she also feels it is the right thing to do.
“’Cissy Gay is dying,’ she said. ‘And it’s a shame and disgrace that she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for her. Whatever she’s been or done, she’s a human being.”
For years, there have been all kinds of rumors about the dying girl. One was that she had a child out of wedlock, and that child died as punishment for her sins. The other rumor is that Barney Snaith, a free spirit whom Valancy has already met, was the father.
Valancy goes to live with Abel and Cissy, and her mother about dies from the shock and scandal of it all.
It is at Roaring Abel’s house that Valancy learns more about herself and what she is actually capable of, but also bonds with Cissy, who she knew in her childhood. At the Stirling home, Valancy was always told that she was too weak or sickly to do. At Abel and Cissy’s, she cooks food and cleans, but most importantly, she gives companionship to Cissy.
And she also gets to know Barney Snaith more because he often stops to see or bring treats to Cissy to help cheer her up.
It is in these chapters that Valancy realizes she’s fallen in love with Barney.
Her family keeps trying to bring her home, even sending the pastor, their greatest weapon. She almost caves to him but then ….
“Valancy was on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home with him — and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she had always been. It was her fate — typified by that relentless, uplifted forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his predestination. She eyed it as a fascinated bird eyes the snake. Another moment —
‘Fear is the original sin,’ suddenly said a still, small voice away back — back — back of Valancy’s consciousness. ‘Almost all the evil in the world has its origins in the fact that someone is afraid of something.’
Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.”
I just love this part. I love the idea that she was afraid and did it anyway. She stood her ground and refused to go back home and become oppressed and sad again. She got a taste of the wind, a feel of it under her wings, and she was never going back.
This makes me think of all the years I tried to please people and make everyone happy, and how I slowly stopped doing it and caring what others thought. It isn’t that I didn’t care about people, but I realized I didn’t have to do everything everyone wanted me to do. I felt a freedom to be myself and to ignore disapproving words or looks.
This has been even more true in the last couple of years as I have stood up for myself in various situations and walked away from situations I would have put up with a lot longer in the past.
I love this line: “She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again.”
She was afraid, even of all the new freedom she had, but she owned that fear, had chosen that fear, had allowed her soul to waken up. She wasn’t about to put it all back to where she had been before — with no choice and no life of her own.
Dr. Stalling is, of course, appalled that Valancy will not go back home simply because he tells her to, but there are better things in store for Valancy.
Love is in store for Valancy.
She has already started noticing she feels different around Barney, but those feelings are growing.
“Valancy was conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his face. Their eyes met — Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious weakness. Was one of her heart attacks coming on? But this was a new symptom.”
***
“Good evening, Miss Stirling.”
Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional. Anyone might have said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave thm poignancy. When he said good evening you felt that it was a good evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt a this vaguely, but she couldn’t imagine why she was trembling from head to foot — it must be her heart. If only he didn’t notice it!”
Then Valancy takes her biggest step of freedom yet by going to a late-night party with Abel. She gets a bit more than she bargained for, though, and is completely relieved and smitten when Barney comes to rescue her from some very handsy men.
When Barney’s car runs out of gas as they are fleeing, Valancy has even more time to process her feelings for him.
I love the passages Montgomery writes about Valancy’s love for Barney. To me, they are more romantic than most romance books of today.
“Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had a lightning flash.
She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday, she had been all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing, said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him. She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so absolutely that though apart from him — thought in which he did not predominate — was an impossibility.
She had realized, quite simply and fully that she loved him, in the moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed. Old things passed away and all things became new.
She was no longer unimportant, little old main Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant — justified to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.”
Whew!
And what is fun about this book is that there is even more to come.
What did you think of these chapters?
Of Valancy refusing to go home and the reactions of her family to these refusals?
Let me know in the comments.
In two weeks, we will discuss chapters 23 to 35.
To read previous posts about the book:
The Blue Castle: Chapters 1 to 10. Spoilers/discussion availability ahead.
Introduction: Read The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery with me. First, a Little History.
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
