Inklings // May 2024

The subject for the May Inklings link-up (see Heidi’s post here for rules to link up!) is a scene with a pearl necklace in book or film. Of course, my brain being the uncooperative thing it is, the first pearl necklace scenes that came to mind were from the Anne books – which I took a scene from last month – and from the Jeeves and Wooster books – which Heidi took a scene from this month.

Fortunately, I was finally able to settle on something at least slightly different: a selection from The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. (Which apparently I re-read every year…I had no idea that I’d read it so often until I recently spent some time looking at my old reading records.) This bit is from the description of Barney and Valancy’s first Christmas together:

Barney had asked Valancy what she wanted for a Christmas present.

“Something frivolous and unnecessary,” said Valancy, who had got a pair of galoshes last Christmas and two long-sleeved, woollen undervests the year before. And so on back.

To her delight, Barney gave her a necklace of pearl beads. Valancy had always wanted a string of milky pearl beads – like congealed moonshine – all her life. And these were so pretty. All that worried her was that they were really too good. They must have cost a great deal – fifteen dollars, at least. Could Barney afford that? She didn’t know a thing about his finances. She had refused to let him buy any of her clothes – she had enough for that, she told him, as long as she would need clothes. In a round, black jar on the chimney-piece Barney put money for their household expenses – always enough. The jar was never empty, though Valancy never caught him replenishing it. He couldn’t have much, of course, and that necklace – but Valancy tossed care aside. She would wear it and enjoy it. It was the first pretty thing she had ever had.

Have you read The Blue Castle? Do you think that pearls look like “congealed moonshine?”