Chapter Text
In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Later, after the commotion died down, no one could say who had first learned of the news. Among the Stirling Clan, everybody knew that Uncle Benjamin had heard the news first, and relayed it to Cousin Gladys when she came by the store for Redfern’s Purple Pills. Cousin Gladys had then told Aunt Mildred, whom she had had for tea that afternoon. Aunt Mildred had told Aunt Wellington, who had told Uncle Wellington and Aunt Isabel. The latter had made sure that the rest of the clan was duly informed, although she maintained that it would have been much more efficient if Uncle Benjamin had thought to tell her first to begin with. But when it came to how Uncle Benjamin had originally come by the news, suddenly everyone's memories seemed to fail and no one could quite say how it had happened.
Valancy herself heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!"
Valancy, of course, had been a princess herself for years, safe in the walls of her Blue Castle, but a real life princess was a very different matter. She very nearly gaped at Cousin Olive, who wore a small smile of benevolent triumph at being the one who catch Valancy in so unladylike an expression. "Why?" Valancy managed after a moment. Deerwood, with its prim, well-kept, ugly streets and its well brought up, deathly dull inhabitants, seemed the last place any princess would want to set eyes on. Valancy could hardly believe that someone like that would come to live in Deerwood.
Olive did not seem to care about this vital matter, and she waved Valancy's question away with an airy, "Why not?" While Valancy was still trying to find a response, Olive started on her true reason for confiding in Valancy. "She's going to need an entourage," Olive said. She pronounced entourage as it was spelled. "She'll come with servants, of course, but she'll need some companions of her own stature."
Valancy privately thought that Olive was presuming a great deal, saying that the Stirling Clan was of the same stature as a real princess. For, of course, that was what Olive had wanted to discuss: whether she, Olive, would be one of the chosen ones. Valancy felt this a foregone conclusion. Of course Olive would be one of the princess' friends. Olive was the prettiest girl in school, and Uncle Wellington had married money so Olive always went around in pretty new clothes that set off her looks. Olive spoke charmingly and moved gracefully (although she was heavy on her feet, Valancy thought rebelliously) and she even cried prettily when she was upset. Olive could have been a princess herself, if she hadn't been born a Stirling.
That night at supper, Valancy timidly mentioned the grand news when her mother perfunctorily asked her how school had been. Mrs. Fredrick Stirling did not care how school had been, but she always asked, in case Valancy had sins or misdemeanors to confess. It was a gift, Mrs. Stirling felt, to allow Doss the opportunity to freely confess her misdeeds and practice humility, and Mrs. Stirling found it quite ungrateful how rarely Doss availed herself of this opportunity.
Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles had, of course, already heard the news, and had, in fact, passed much of the afternoon discussing the affair with Uncle Benjamin. As such, Mrs. Stirling felt no compunction in rebuking Valancy for gossiping. "A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much," she said severely, and Valancy shrank in her seat. "And sit up straight," Mrs. Fredrick added. Valancy sat up straight and stayed quiet for the rest of supper. After supper, the three retired to their handwork, and Valancy reluctantly set to work piecing her latest quilt. It was a hideous piece, she thought, eyeing the dull brown wool, made of the offcuts of fabric no one had wanted to begin with. Her mother had bought it at a reduced price, after Uncle Benjamin couldn't sell the entire shipment, and had decreed that Providence provided and insisted that Valancy should wear only that wool until they had used up the last scrap. Those scraps were now Valancy's task, and she stabbed her needle into the work with uncharacteristically deep resentment. The princess surely did not have to spend her evenings slaving away at unneeded quilts. Indeed, Valancy knew she did not, because Valancy herself never had to piece quilts in the Blue Castle. She wrote letters to her friends and her beau (Valancy did not dare even think the word lover in the presence of Mrs. Fredrick Stirling), or danced late into the night, or went for long adventures in the woods surrounding the castle grounds.
At last, it came time to retire. Valancy set her quilt aside and said her goodnights to Mrs. Fredrick and Cousin Stickles, then made her way to her room with undue haste that she knew would be remarked upon come morning. She couldn't help it. She had a pressing appointment in the Blue Castle. After all, royalty was coming to Deerwood, and it was only fair that the Blue Castle be put in order to receive it.
Over the coming weeks, no one seemed able to talk of anything but the princess' arrival. No one knew when she was meant to appear, but a few days after the initial rumor, word flew through town that the grandest house in Deerwood was being prepared to receive her. The house belonged to Mr. Charles Clydesdale, a reclusive old man with no children. Everyone knew he had inherited a fortune and lost everything but the house, although no one could agree on quite how. A bad business venture, the men speculated at dinner parties and in mixed company. Gambling and liquor, those same men said with conviction when all the ladies were out of earshot. A love affair gone wrong, the ladies said knowingly when the men were not around to hear. Some terrible crime, the children told each other gleefully, hoping there were no grownups around to scold them for gossiping.
Regardless of how it had happened, those were the facts. Mr. Charles Clydesdale lived alone in his grand, crumbling house and spoke to no one. He had no packages delivered and only ever left his home to go to church. He had one servant to keep his house, an old maid of fifty or sixty who did his shopping and refused to answer any questions about her employer, no matter how persistently she was plied with questions or sly compliments. Valancy had been terribly afraid of him as a child, and felt sure that the darkest, most terrible of the rumors must be true. As she grew, however, she found herself thinking more than once that it must be lonely, living all alone like that with no one for company but a mean old cook. Two years ago, when the word went round that he was suffering from a terrible pain and Dr. Trent was making house calls twice a month, Valancy had once included him in her prayers. For this she had been soundly scolded -- adding someone new into her prayers without first asking permission to do was disrespectful of Providence and Mrs. Fredrick Stirling, and tantamount to blasphemy -- but although Valancy cried bitter tears at her disgrace, she found she could not regret the gesture itself.
It was this man who was rumored to be hosting the princess. Uncle James initially dismissed this as utter rubbish, nonsense invented by people with too much time and not enough work to do -- he looked straight at Valancy as he spoke, even though she was diligently working on her darning and had not set her needle down once all evening -- but as the days went on packages began arriving at Mr. Charles Clydesdale's door and it became impossible to deny that something momentous was afoot.
Valancy herself was the first to bring home the next piece of news, although credit would later be given to Cousin Georgiana who had learned the news later in the day and quite innocently reported it to the greater clan, unaware that Valancy had already told Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles. The princess, it turned out, was named Miss Crewe, and she was coming from London. Valancy had happened to spot the name on a package at the post office while she was inquiring after her post, and she had gotten up the courage to ask Mr. Carewe about it. "That's the new missus who's coming to town," Mr. Carewe had said affably. "Here's your post, Miss Valancy." He handed Valancy a copy of the Christian Times and a letter addressed to Cousin Stickles. Valancy, certain that no one else in her household would have heard this news, practically flew home.
"Crewe, eh?" Cousin Stickles said, after reading her letter and tossing it aside. "'S not the name of any Princess I've ever heard of."
"I'm sure it's just an overblown story," Mrs. Fredrick said haughtily. She disliked all this fuss being made of a stranger, and one who wasn't even here at that. "She's likely just some woman who puts on airs."
"She must be terribly important, to be getting so much mail already," Valancy ventured.
"Anyone can get mail," pronounced Mrs. Fredrick, who seldom received any herself and had as such determined that anyone who did had too high an opinion of their own importance. "Just sign up for some horrid subscriptions and your box will be cluttered with post from now until eternity."
"This was a package, not a magazine," Valancy pointed out, emboldened by the fact that, for once, she had first-hand knowledge of what was being discussed. "There aren't subscriptions for those."
"It's very unbecoming of a lady to look at other people's mail," Mrs. Stirling said sharply. She disliked being corrected, and felt that the least her own child could do was refrain from doing so.
"I just happened to be at the post office at the same time," Valancy objected. "I wasn't looking at it."
"Don't take that tone with me," Mrs. Stirling snapped. "It's to bed without supper tonight for you, and if you argue with me again it'll be the same tomorrow."
Valancy lowered her gaze. "I'm sorry," she said.
"What was that? Speak clearly."
"I said I'm sorry," Valancy repeated, and Mrs. Stirling nodded.
"Good," she said. To Cousin Stickles she said, "What is it that Mildred wrote to you?" It was clear that the subject of Miss Crewe was off limits for the rest of the evening. Valancy worked at her knitting in silence and, when Mrs. Fredrick and Cousin Sickles went to supper, retreated to her room.
"I wasn't looking on purpose," she said aloud, in the safety of her room, her tone petulant. It was on that night that she began harboring a secret, entirely undeserved resentment of Miss Crewe.
Miss Crewe finally arrived on a blustery November day. Valancy was home with a cold, and Mrs. Stirling had decreed the week before that there would be no more talk of the girl under her roof, so no one in the brick house on Elm Street heard that she had arrived until church that Sunday. Valancy had started to improve, but she was still coughing a great deal, and so it was decided that Cousin Stickles would stay home with her and Mrs. Fredrick Stirling would make their excuses to Dr. Stalling after the service. Cousin Stickles sat her in the parlor where it was warm and rubbed Redfern's liniment on Valancy's chest, although it never did anything but make Valancy cough harder until the smell dissipated.
After church, Mrs. Stirling returned with Aunt Wellington and Cousin Georgiana, who were taking tea with Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles. Cousin Georgiana often visited when Valancy was ill -- to see how close she was to death, Valancy had once thought, when she was deep into a bronchitis and too miserable to control her thoughts -- and Aunt Wellington made a habit of stopping in as Valancy recovered, to check on her condition. Olive never visited when Valancy was sick.
It had long since been decreed that Valancy was to speak as little as possible during her colds, as too much exertion of the lungs could cause the sickness to settle in deeper. So she sat in the parlor and listened as the adults talked, interjecting only to cough or, for variety, let out the occasional sneeze. It was under these conditions that Valancy finally heard the news: the princess herself, Miss Crewe, had attended church that morning.
"At least she's a proper Anglican," Cousin Stickles said. "That's a relief for you, I'm sure." This was addressed to Aunt Wellington. It had long been taken as fact within the clan that of course Olive would become friends with Miss Crewe when she arrived, and so it was indeed fortunate that there would be no need for Olive to besmirch her reputation by befriending a Presbyterian, or worse, a Methodist.
Aunt Wellington nodded.
"She had such a pretty air about her," Cousin Georgiana said. "Somber and polite, as though she was thinking of all the good folks who have passed through the church and heard the word of Providence before us."
"She wasn't alone, surely," Cousin Stickles said.
"Certainly not," Aunt Wellington said. "She had a gentleman with her -- her guardian, Dr. Stalling told us -- and a companion. Quite a plain girl, if I may say, but I suppose you wouldn't want a girl like that to outshine you." It was very clear in her tone just what kind of girl Aunt Wellington meant. Stirling women did not become servants, not even to princesses.
"Miss Crewe herself is quite queer looking," Cousin Georgiana put in. "Not pretty, exactly, but she catches the eye."
This caught Valancy's interest. She had always assumed that Miss Crewe would be beautiful, with golden hair and shining eyes. "What does she look like?" she couldn't help but ask. Mrs. Stirling and Aunt Wellington both looked at her severely, while Cousin Stickles put a hand over her mouth and reminded her that she did not want her cold to turn into pneumonia again this year. Properly chastised, Valancy fell quiet once more and, although the conversation remained on Miss Crewe for the rest of the afternoon, she never once got an answer to her question.
It would not be until the following day when, finally deemed well enough to return to school, Valancy got her first glimpse of the fabled Miss Crewe.