sent a copy of Washington Irving’s The Alhambra to MacMillan. On August 2, 1915 she writes to MacMillan stating that when she opens the covers of the book she feels as if she “stepped through an enchanted gateway … shutting me in ‘the land where dreams come true.’” Furthermore she reports that one of her greatest wishes is to visit The Alhambra. While this does not actually happen for Montgomery, Barney assures Valancy that she will see the Alhambra with him because “it’s the nearest thing to the Blue Castle of your dreams I can think of ” (Ibid., 263).
18. Elizabeth Epperly, Through Lover’s Lane: L.M. Montgomery’s Photography and Visual Imagery. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).
19. Sylvia Du Vernet, Theosophic Thoughts Concerning L.M. Montgomery. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 53.
20. L.M. Montgomery. The Blue Castle. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1926), 47.
21. Ibid., 169.
22. L.M. Montgomery, The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. (Toronto: Fitzhenry, 1975), 76.
23. L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1926), 4–5.
24. L.M. Montgomery, Ephraim Weber: Letters 1916-1941. November 16, 1927.
25. L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1926), 12–3.
26. L.M. Montgomery, The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume 1: 1889–1910. Ed. Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1985), 321.
27L.M. Montgomery, The Selected Journals of L.M. Montogomery Volume 2: 1910–1921, Ed. Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1985), 368.
28. Jane Cowan Fredeman, “The Land of Lost Content: The Use of Fantasy in L.M. Montgomery’s Novels,” in L.M. Montgomery: An Assessment, edited by John Sorfleet. (Guelph: Canadian Children’s Press, 1976), 60.
29. Ibid., 61.
30. L.M. Montgomery. The Blue Castle. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1926), 60.
31. Ibid., 97.
It is also significant at this point that as she reaches out for life Valancy throws out the glass potpourri that contains dried flowers: “It smashed gloriously against the schoolgirl complexion on the old carriage-shop. ‘I’m sick of fragrance of dead things, ’ said Valancy.” (Ibid., 55).
32. Ibid., 34.
33. Ibid., 45.
34. Ibid., 103.
35. Ibid., 104–5.
36. Ibid., 111–2.
37. Ibid., 158.
38. Ibid., 163.
39. Ibid., 168.
40. Mary Henley Rubio, “Introduction,” in Harvesting Thistles: The Textual Garden of L.M. Montgomery: Essays on Her Novels and Journals, edited by Mary Henley Rubio, (Guelph: Canadian Children’s Press, 1994), 6.
41. Mary Henley Rubio, “Subverting the Trite: L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Room of Her Own, ’” Canadian Children’s Literature, 65 (1992), 31–2.
42. L.M. Montgomery. The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume III: 1921-1929, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 218.
43. Ibid., 222.
44. L.M. Montgomery, The Selected Journals 1, 322.
45. L.M. Montgomery, The Selected Journals 2, 68.
46. Mary Henley Rubio, “Introduction,” in Harvesting Thistles: The Textual Garden of L.M. Montgomery: Essays on Her Novels and Journals, edited by Mary Henley Rubio, (Guelph: Canadian Children’s Press, 1994), 5.
47. L.M. Montgomery. The Blue Castle. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1926), 187.
48. Ibid., 111.
49. Ibid., 183.
50. Ibid., 185.
51. Ibid., 218.
If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different. She would have gone, with the rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr.Trent would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.
Valancy wakened early, in the lifeless, hopeless hour just preceding dawn. She had not slept very well. One does not sleep well, sometimes, when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in a community and connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to get a man.
Deerwood and the Stirlings had long since relegated Valancy to hopeless old maidenhood. But Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that romance would come her way yet — never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man.
Ay, there lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellington or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid. No man had ever desired her.
The tears came into her eyes as she lay there alone in the faintly greying darkness. She dared not let herself cry as hard as she wanted to, for two reasons. She was afraid that crying might bring on another attack of that pain around the heart. She had had a spell of it after she had got into bed — rather worse than any she’d had yet. And she was afraid her mother would notice her red eyes at breakfast and keep at her with minute, persistent, mosquito-like questions regarding the cause thereof.
“Suppose,” thought Valancy with a ghastly grin, “I answered with the plain truth, ‘I am crying because I cannot get married.’ How horrified Mother would be — though she is ashamed every day of her life of her old maid daughter.”
But of course appearances should be kept up. “It is not,” Valancy could hear her mother’s prim, dictatorial voice asserting, “it is not maidenly to think about men.”
The thought of her mother’s expression made Valancy laugh — for she had a sense of humour nobody in her clan suspected. For that matter, there were a good many things about Valancy that nobody suspected. But her laughter was very superficial and presently she lay there, a huddled, futile little figure, listening to the rain pouring down outside and watching, with a sick distaste, the chill, merciless light creeping into her ugly, sordid room.
She knew the ugliness of that room by heart — knew it and hated it. The yellow-painted floor, with one hideous, “hooked” rug by the bed, with a grotesque, “hooked” dog on it, always grinning at her when she awoke; the faded,
