The Blue Castle Book Club Chapter 42
AKA, some great comedy, finally we get Barney's life story--and some cheap silly melodrama that I, for one, could have done without.
It was not until early afternoon the next day that a dreadful old car clanked up Elm Street and stopped in front of the brick house. A hatless man sprang from it and rushed up the steps. The bell was rung as it had never been rung beforeâvehemently, intensely. The ringer was demanding entrance, not asking it.Â
FINALLY you showed up, it was about time, Mr Snaith. I mean, Mr Redfern.
This scene is pure gold in comedy. Barney, storming into the house in absolute frenzy. Uncle Benjamin, giggling to himself in strategy "nice to meet you, Mr Redfern, Valancy will be down presently". And then he commands Mrs Frederick to go get Valancy, and listens at the door to make sure it goes well. He takes no chances.
âValancy dear,â said Mrs. Frederick tenderly, âyour husband is in the parlour, asking for you.â
Calling her Valancy and speaking to her tenderly after she unexpectedly found herself a mother-in-law to an heir--who would have thunk it.
âOh, Mother.â Valancy got up from the window and wrung her hands. âI cannot see himâI cannot! Tell him to go awayâask him to go away. I canât see him!â
Okay but why? WHY? Can't help feeling it's purely for melodramatic reason (it's such a stereotypical scene that it makes me groan). Thank the gods for Uncle Benjamin. It is not proper to spy through a keyhole but, well, sometimes you gotta.
âValancy, darlingâoh, you darling little idiot! Whatever possessed you to run away like that? When I came home last night and found your letter I went quite mad. It was twelve oâclockâI knew it was too late to come here then. I walked the floor all night. Then this morning Dad cameâI couldnât get away till now. Valancy, whatever got into you? Divorce, forsooth! Donât you knowâââ
And what the fuck did you expect her to do when you never spoke but two sentences to her after the narrow escape at the train tracks and then disappeared into the woods? What was she supposed to think.
Although. Sigh. Married me out of pity. He is kind so he will make me think he cares. Goody, but it is tiring, I want to shake her. (Previously I wanted to shake Barney, so maybe both should be shaken, like tree branches in the wind. Very fitting for them.)
Uncle Benjamin, tiptoeing through the hall, heard the laugh and frowned. Surely Doss wasnât going to be a stubborn little fool.
You and me both, Uncle Ben.
Thankfully, she lets him tell his story without protests.
I like his story (I mean, I don't like that he was so unhappy, obviously, but I like it as a story) and it makes a lot of sense with what we know about Barney. How ironic that when his dad got rich, Barney started suffering those bullies. Kids are such cruel creatures.
Dad had gone out to see an old friend in the country and took me along. I was turned loose in the barnyard and I spent the whole day hammering nails in a block of wood. I had a glorious day.
That stunt his so-called friend pulled with the sketch was beyond shitty. A good idea was worth more to him than a friend, he said? I wonder how he's doing now. I wonder if he ran out of ideas and whether he has any friends at all.
Now onto Ethel Traverse. (Sigh.) So, he fell in love, they got engaged and then he once happened to overhear her say
A girl friend of hers was asking her how she could stomach Doc. Redfernâs son and the patent-medicine background.
ââHis money will gild the Pills and sweeten the Bitters,â said Ethel, with a laugh. âMother told me to catch him if I could. Weâre on the rocks. But pah! I smell turpentine whenever he comes near me.ââ
LMM going for a lazy trope of a gold digger.
âOh, Barney!â cried Valancy, wrung with pity for him. She had forgotten all about herself and was filled with compassion for Barney and rage against Ethel Traverse. How dared she?
Indeed. How dared she. How dared she come from a family that was losing money, how dared she get pressured by her mother to get engaged to a man she didn't love and seemingly didn't even have any respect for (which is worse), how dared she be put off by the smell of turpentine. How very dared she.
I left civilisation and those accursed dopes behind me and went to the Yukon.
And this is IT. This is what makes him a dreamboat.
I said this during the Anne of the Island Book Club regarding Billy Andrews sending his sister to propose to Anne for him bc he was too shy: 'You know what makes you not an incel? Not behaving like an incel'. If you don't want to be an incel, all you need to do is to make a decision not to become one. And then do the work. That's it. Barney did it. He went away, worked on himself, toughened up and started writing books. He made his own money and bought a house. Of course, he still had unresolved issues--being avoidant and all that, but that is his own arc in the story. That's where Valancy came in and made him believe that true friendship and love exist.
Young Barney, of the Ethel Traverse era, was not the Barney of Blue Castle, the Barney we know and love. He was probably quite an insecure young man, and too sensitive. That Barney would not be seen driving the 'dreadful' Lady Jane, he would not roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty fixing her. He would not buy oranges for a disgraced girl like Cissy Gay, he would not be friends with Roaring Abel. He would not buy an island on Mistawis, he would not smoke a villainous pipe. And he would most likely not be a hero of Valancy's Blue Castle, in any era. It's what he went through that made him the man he is. Who wants a guy who smells of turpentine?
After being homeless all my life it was beautiful to have a home. To come home hungry at night and know there was a good supper and a cheery fireâand you.
Gold standard LMM romance! Love feels like home. It's like when Anne and Gilbert (finally) get engaged. Gilbert proposal was: âI have a dream,â he said slowly. âI persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friendsâand you!â (Midsommar has that famous "do you feel held by him, does he feel like home to you?", a dark example but true nonetheless.)
Melodrama, yadda yadda YAWN. It's just so silly. He fucking told you he loved you, why do you insist on not believing him. He drove up to your mother's house, rang the bell like a madman and probably scared the living daylight out of poor Stickles. You're not dying, so what would he be pitying you for? Jesus, Valancy. *headdesk*
Uncle Benjamin, who had been frozen with horror at the keyhole, suddenly thawed out and tiptoed back to Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles.
âEverything is all right,â he announced jubilantly.
Mrs. Frederick, returning to her comfortable belief in an overruling Providence, got out the family Bible and made an entry under âMarriages.â
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