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Read Ebook: The Wind Bloweth by Byrne Donn Bellows George Illustrator
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Ebook has 1010 lines and 48516 words, and 21 pages
thing he had no wish to intrude upon, so closely did she conceal it.... There was a locked, haunted room in her heart ... poor heart!... but one day the presence would be exercised, and the room swept and garnished.... Some day she would marry him, and he would bring her home to Ulster.... And who better than she could understand the springy heather and the blue smoke-reek, the crickets of the evening and the curlew's call? And in the house where his mother was cold and arrogant, would be a warm and gracious lady ... Claire-Anne!...
God! he was thinking long to be in Marseilles again, to go up the dusky path, to call, "Claire-Anne!"
The big Belfast mate larruped down the short companionway.
"How's she doing, Mr. McKinstry?"
"Nor a better mate, Mr. McKinstry."
"Ah, well, sir; we do wir best."
He tumbled on deck again, and Shane could hear him roar from amidships:
"Lay forward, a couple of you damned farmers, and see if you can't get more out of those jibs. Faster! faster! You're as slow as the grace of God at a miser's funeral.... If I only had a crew...."
? 10
She stopped in her swift flight to him through the dusk of the Midi garden.
"Dearest, why is your face so white? Your hands bruised?"
"The consul said something to me--about you--and I knocked him down."
"Oh!" she said, a shocked little cry, and: "Oh!" a drawn-out wail of pain. "Why did you strike him?"
"Because he lied about you."
Her face was turned from him, in the dusk of the crickets, toward the wooded amphitheater, where dead Pontius roved wild-eyed in the dusk, where Lazarus tossed uneasily in his second sleep, where the Greeks lay in alien soil, and the shadows of Roman legionaries looked puzzled at the flat sea, not recognizing busy Tiber--her back was to him, her head up in pain, her nerve-wrenched hands uneasy, white....
"He didn't lie," she said at last. "Oh, you'd have known it sooner or later. No! no! He didn't lie."
"Claire-Anne!"
"He didn't lie. I was just a fool to think--oh, well, he didn't lie. No, no!" she repeated. "He didn't lie." She threw out a hand hopelessly. "He didn't lie."
He went up to her in the dusk, put his hands gently on her shoulders. The quivering frame became still suddenly, with a greater nervousness. She was like a deer ready to bound away....
"I don't see what I could have done, Claire-Anne. But--can I do anything now?"
She turned toward him suddenly. Her face was a mask of pain--and surprise.
"Then you haven't grown cold to me, unmerciful, ... or gross?"
"Why, no, Claire-Anne!"
"And you know."
"I--know, but I don't understand...."
She gave a queer, little shuddering cry, half laugh, half sob. She moved over to the seat by the whispering mulberry-tree, and dropped in it, her hands covering her face.
She suddenly raised her face, her eyes shining through the humid mask of it.
"Would you--could you--understand?"
"Tell me, Claire-Anne, what you want to."
She drew a short gasping breath, turned her head away, looked up, turned it away again, paused for breath, gripped his hand by the wrist....
"I ... I ... I was the child of actors, and they died, and there was enough money to bring me up and educate me, and give me my chance on the stage.... And I wasn't good enough.... I was too much myself. Couldn't quite be other characters. I don't know if you understand.... But ... then a man got infatuated with me and married me.... And later he wished he'd married a--comfortable woman with a fortune.... And then he died and left me ... not very much.... But that was not the reason.... I was left, how do you say?... stranded. I had no career, no husband, no child, no business. France, it is not easy ... not easy anywhere.... Friends? People are too busy.... And I was ... just there.... And all around me life bubbled and flowed, and I was ... not dead, not alive ... and alone ... I might have been a leper, but even lepers have colonies, and some one to be kind to them ... not dead, not alive ... and alone. I was so young.... It was unfair. Life was everywhere like a sparkling wine ... but where I was, was flat....
"And I wasn't so ashamed ... I was a little glad I had a place in the world ... a work even.... And every one might despise me.... I had a place.... I was no longer not dead, not alive.... I was even thankful for that.... Until I met you with your--terrible courtesy, with your understanding.... My head and my heart melted, and my body, too, and all had been so firm, so decided.... And I dreamed that I could snatch a while from destiny.... But--you see.... What the consul said was true, so ... dearest--but I mustn't ever call you dearest again."
"Claire-Anne!"
"Well, then--dearest, you see why I couldn't marry you when you asked." She laughed bitterly. "If you had only known...."
He took a terrible grip on himself, faced her, looked at her.
"Claire-Anne, will you marry me now?"
"Destiny...."
? 11
Dusk had gone; darkness had come, and now darkness itself would leave soon, for the third quarter of a great saffron moon showed its edge in the eastward. Marseilles was like the pale light of a candle. And a great palpable darkness had settled like water in the hollow of the woods.
"Dearest"--her voice took sudden strength--"will you forgive me? I don't say that just as if I'd done a small wrong. But will a big power come out of your heart and say: 'It's all right, Claire-Anne. I understood.' It will be so much for me to know that--in the days when you are gone--"
"But, Claire-Anne, I'm not gone--"
"You must go, dearest. You must go now. Don't you see?" Her voice grew gentle. "You couldn't stay any more. It wouldn't be like you, somehow. And I wouldn't have you spoiled in my eyes ... darling, you could never be ... but you must go...."
"And you, Claire-Anne--"
"Destiny ... a long, lean finger ... a path...."
"But you never know--"
"O my God! Claire-Anne!"
"Heart of hearts, Shane. I once escaped to light, where they escape to oblivion.... Once I had you, and all my life I'll remember it.... All my life I'll remember: I once knew a man.... And it will be a help, so much a help...."
"Oh, Claire-Anne, it can't be!"
"It must be, dearest heart. It is--decreed. Darling, sometimes I thought--Do you remember your showing me the poor prince's dagger, and our talking about him--setting himself free--and I said I thought I could understand why he did not.... I've wanted to, myself.... But.... There's a way you're brought up, when you're young.... They put such fear of God in you ... such fear of hell ... you never could--throw things down and go straight to Him, and say: 'I couldn't. I just simply couldn't. I hadn't the strength. I couldn't ... just....' And they never think of Him saying: 'Of course you couldn't.... And it was all My fault. I wasn't looking.... I've so much to think of.... You did right to come to Me....' But, no! no! One fears. They teach you so much fear, Shane, when you are young ... so that even this is better--this--game, where none win.... And so--one goes on...."
She rose suddenly and clutched his shoulders in panic. Her mouth twisted in piteous agony....
"No, Claire-Anne! no!"
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