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None of this would have happened had Valancy not chanced to pick up a newspaper in the train station to pass the time on the first leg of her journey from Deerwood back to Montreal. Providence had also deemed it necessary to supply a flock of recalcitrant sheep, which had escaped their pasture and now refused to budge from the railroad tracks, causing an extended delay. Valancy was reduced to studying every word and picture printed in the paper, even the advertisements, to wring the last possible drops of entertainment from its unpromising pages.
Her father-in-law’s round, bespectacled face beamed up at her from a testimonial for Redfern’s Remedies, exciting a medley of contradictory emotions in her heart. Quickly, Valancy cast her eyes down the page to a nice, impersonal, comforting ad for Rollings Reliable Baking Powder. It took up an unusually large portion of the page. Below a drawing of a smiling baker removing her perfect cake from the oven, a block of boldface text announced the return of a contest first held many years before…
“Oh!” exclaimed Valancy, rather too loudly to be in the best of taste for the wife of a millionaire. Luckily, the train was not crowded; there was no one to hear except the sheep, who took no notice. Carefully, she folded the newspaper sheet and stowed it securely in the pocket of her traveling coat.
*
When Valancy revealed her idea at breakfast the next morning, Barney merely raised his eyebrows pointedly at her over his coffee cup. Doc Redfern, however, broke into a grin even wider than the one he wore on the labels of his products.
“Well, if that don’t beat all!” he said. “Here I’ve just been racking my brains wondering how to expand our advertising. I’ve got a few of my agents traveling the countryside asking farmers to rent out their fences to paint our ads on, but most of those who’d be willing have their fences already spoken for. Would you believe, some of ‘em claim it would spoil the look of their property to add a few nice colorful signs about Purple Pills or Redfern’s liniment?”
“Imagine that,” Barney muttered into his scrambled eggs.
“But this story contest, now,” Doc continued, giving no sign that he had heard, “that’ll make folks sit up and take notice! Who doesn’t like a ripping good yarn, eh? And then you slide in a reference to our products, nice and smooth, like it just fits naturally there, and the whole country reads about it in the papers! Say, Bernie,” he added, turning to his son, “how’d you like to be the judge for our little contest? Put that fancy McGill degree to some use?”
Barney, his mouth full, mumbled something indistinctly.
Valancy cleared her throat. “Actually, I was hoping I might handle the judging, if you don’t mind. I may not have a degree, but I like to fancy myself a discerning reader.” She turned toward Barney and gave him a tiny smile.
Barney’s face showed no reaction, but on the floor his foot shifted to press against hers just for a moment.
“Of course, of course! It’s only fair, seeing as it was your idea in the first place. I always said you’d be an asset to this family, and here I am proving myself right once again!” Doc rubbed his hands together. “Now, what would really make a splash is if we could get some big-name author involved. Emily Byrd Starr, say—wouldn’t that be something? Or…who’s that nature writer fellow you’re always on about, Valancy? Jack Forester, was it?”
A bite of toast somehow became lodged in Barney’s throat at this point. Valancy pounded him on the back until he stopped producing alarming noises.
“I’m sure Emily Byrd Starr and John Foster are busy with their own projects,” she said once Barney had recovered. “This would be more the sort of event to give a brand-new writer their start. Suppose we’re about to launch the career of the next great Canadian author?” She patted Barney’s knee under the table.
*
Late one evening some months later, Barney entered the sitting room of their guest suite in the big Montreal house to find his wife curled up on the sofa in front of a roaring fire, surrounded by stacks of paper. Valancy looked up with a welcoming smile, which rapidly gave way to a sigh of dismay as she saw the envelope in his hand.
“Not another one, Barney! I’ll never get through all of these by tomorrow.”
“I believe this one’s very short,” Barney said, holding it out to her.
Indeed, the envelope contained only a single sheet of paper, bearing the following words:
There once were a tortoise and hare,
And which was the more debonair?
With Redfern’s Hair Vigor,
Hare’s hair grew much bigger,
So the tortoise just couldn’t compare.
Below this edifying verse was the signature “Jack Forester.”
Barney had lost no time in joining Valancy on the sofa and slipping an arm around her as she read. Thus he was in a position to support her as she collapsed in laughter. He would never grow tired of hearing her laugh.
“You’d better not show this to your father,” said Valancy at last, wiping her eyes. “He might just choose it as the winner. It certainly beats Uncle Benjamin’s entry.”
“Uncle Benjamin wrote a story? Surely you jest.”
“Well, it’s not so much a story as a series of conundrums.” She picked through one of her stacks of paper for a moment before extracting a sheet and passing it to him.
What’s the difference between a smug wife and Redfern’s liniment? Barney read aloud.
One gets the better of you and wants to rub it in afterwards; the other you want to rub in, and it gets you better afterwards.
“There’s more, but you needn’t subject yourself to it,” Valancy said, reaching for a different sheaf of papers. “This is the one I’m going to choose, I think. It’s by, let’s see, Nan and Di Blythe. The introduction says they’re sisters—isn’t that nice? And they’ve dedicated it to their mother and their Aunt Diana—must be a namesake. And… well, I won’t read out the whole thing; it’s a bit long. But in the beginning, Iphigenia Eugenia is engaged to Lord Sebastian Fitzosborne—“
Barney snorted.
“Barney!” She elbowed him sharply. “Anyway, they’re very much in love, and exceedingly happy, until an evil witch gives Lord Sebastian a poisoned apple, which puts him into a deep sleep. And she gazed upon the pallor of his alabaster brow and the ebony lashes of his eyes, closed in slumber; she feared they would never open again in this world.”
Barney waved a hand impatiently.
“Ah… she decides to bake him his favorite cake, which they had often shared in happier times. She’s gathering all the ingredients, and she’s afraid they’re out of vanilla, but at the last moment she finds an old bottle in the back of the pantry. She goes to smell it, to be sure it’s still good, but it turns out she can’t smell anything, because she’s got a terrible cold…”
Barney covered his face with his hands and made an ambiguous sound that may have been either a laugh or a groan.
“…so she decides she must simply trust to Providence. So she bakes the cake, and…. here, I’ve got to read this part out. She held the morsel of cake under his nose, and his eyes flew open. An unreadable expression crossed his face. Weakly, he gasped, “Is this…? Can it be…?” “Yes, my love!’ cried Iphigenia. “You must eat it; it is our only hope!” Well, and he eats the cake, but it turns out—“
“Let me guess,” Barney interrupted. “It wasn’t vanilla after all.”
Valancy looked slightly put out. “Well, no, it wasn’t. How did you know?”
“Was it Redfern’s liniment?”
“Certainly not,” said Valancy with mock indignation. “That’s for external use only. It was Redfern’s Bitters.”
“And of course it cured him completely,” Barney surmised.
Valancy nodded. “And Redfern’s Purple Pills cured her cold, and they both lived happily ever after.”
“That’s the best kind of ending,” Barney said. He kissed her. In the interval that followed, some of the stacks of paper slid to the floor.
Valancy bent to pick them up. When she straightened up again, “Jack Forester’s” limerick was at the top of the pile in her hand, and her face had grown serious. “Barney, does Doc know?”
He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “About John Foster? Not from me, that’s certain.”
“From my family, then?”
“Well, they flap their mouths about it often enough, but seems to me he never pays them any mind. Anyway, he’s never mentioned one word to me about it, whether he knows or not.”
“Do you think…” Valancy looked down at one of the sofa cushions, twisting its fringe around her finger. “Do you think he might like to know?” She set the cushion firmly aside and looked Barney in the eye. “I think he’d be proud of you.”
“Mmmph,” said Barney. “Duly noted. Now, let’s turn our minds to other things.”
The sofa was much more comfortable after all the papers had been moved aside. The fire burned low. No more was said of the story contest, or of Doc Redfern, that night.
*
The next morning, Doc professed himself delighted with the Blythe sisters’ story. Valancy happily volunteered to write the letter to Nan and Di informing them of their prize. She immediately went upstairs to begin writing at once.
Barney agreed to type up copies of the story to send out to the newspaper offices. He was headed for the study, manuscript in hand, when he heard Doc clearing his throat. He turned to see his father holding up a single sheet of paper. The back of the sheet was facing Barney, but enough light shone through it to reveal that it was blank save for five short lines of poetry, with a signature at the bottom.
“So, Mr. Forester,” said Doc, laying a hand atop his own bald pate, “do you reckon I’m the tortoise or the hare in this race?”
“I think you're an old fox,” said Barney.