The Blue Castle, Chapter 11, The Defense of Barney pt. 2
I'll keep my quotations shorter this time, as I picked out far too many from this chapter!
Cats. It sounded quite alluring to Valancy, in the plural. She pictured an island in Muskoka haunted by pussies.
In spite of her indignation Valancy was hugely amused at the expression of the faces around that festal table.... Valancy was done with euphemisms.
Poor Mrs. Frederick was almost in a state of collapse. She had believed—or pretended to believe—that Valancy still supposed that children were found in parsley beds.
This was a fun moment to read, given that most discussion of sexuality has been through euphemism up until now. First time I'd heard of children being "found in parsley beds" too. Possibly where the idea for Cabbage Patch Kids came from?
She did not mind when they called him a thief and a counterfeiter and jail-bird; but she could not endure to think that he had loved and ruined Cecily Gay. She recalled his face on the two occasions of their chance meetings—his twisted, enigmatic, engaging smile, his twinkle, his thin, sensitive, almost ascetic lips, his general air of frank daredeviltry. A man with such a smile and lips might have murdered or stolen but he could not have betrayed. She suddenly hated every one who said it or believed it of him.
The chapter really takes a turn for the poignant here--both in that she genuinely seems to care for Cecily's fate, and that she is so convinced of Barney's innocence in the matter. Also, points to Maud for working in both "daredeviltry" and "snobocracy."
Valancy coined that concluding word suddenly and felt that it was an inspiration. That was exactly what they were and not one of them was fit to mend another.
Nothing like the satisfaction of finding just the right word, made-up or otherwise, to suit the situation. "Fit to mend another" brings to mind that while they might preach to each other about the best way to go about living, none of them are actually improving because of it. Except, perhaps, for Valancy, who is automatically excluded from the in-group dynamic because she dares speak against the grain.
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