Read Ebook: Baby Chatterbox by Anonymous

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Ebook has 167 lines and 9289 words, and 4 pages

"But you said--"

"It was a small lie, and it served its purpose."

"Well, anyway, I'm thankful for Kerrel's rudeness. I'd much rather talk to you!" His ill-humor was quite gone. He took her hand, and was amazed to find how strong it was. The girl seemed to radiate an immense vitality, an aliveness that made all the other women of his knowing appear like half-awakened clods.

"Shairn."

"That doesn't sound Breton."

Her eyes were very bright in the starshine. He thought that in some secret way she was mocking him, but he did not care. He said, "I'll stick to Shairn." They had started down the path again. He told her his own name, and she asked,

"You are American?"

"Fourth generation."

"From Brittany to Cornwall to America," she murmured, as though to herself. "The years, the generations, the mingling of other strains--and still the Vardda blood breeds true! Michael, you're wonderful!"

"A tribal name. You've never heard it." She laughed with pure delight. "You're incredible. No wonder Kerrel made a mistake! Listen, Michael. You wonder about your family, your race. Oh, yes, I heard all that. Well, perhaps I'll tell you--or again, perhaps I won't! There's a little cove beyond the lighthouse. I'll meet you there, in the morning."

TWO

Morning is an indeterminate time for an appointment. Trehearne made it early, clambering over the spray-wet rocks. The sun was warm, and the sea was very blue, flecked with white foam. A high excitement burned in him. He had not slept, thinking of the girl Shairn and the man Kerrel, trying to analyze the strangeness that clung about them and touched some buried chord within himself. He had not succeeded.

There was something almost fierce in the way he moved. He was oppressed by a fear that Shairn would not come. He felt that she was playing some game of her own with him, though for what purpose he could not guess. But having started the game, he was going to see to it that she played it out. If she did not come he would find her, if he had to take the stones of St. Malo apart to do it.

He found the cove. It was deserted. Reason told him that he was impatient, but he was disappointed and angry all the same. Then, looking closer, he saw footprints in the sand, small naked ones leading to the water. A beach robe and a pair of sandals were tucked into a crevice in the rocks.

He searched the waves that rolled idly in between two grey, tumbled shoulders. There was no sign of her. Trehearne's eyes took on a hard, bright glint. He stripped off his shirt and slacks and plunged into the cold surf.

He was an excellent swimmer. In his college days he had gone through a phase of being a star athlete, until he was stopped by a vague conviction that his physique had been designed for something more important than leaping over bars and running arbitrary distances on a cinder track. He had never found the important thing, but the conviction remained with him. It was part of that pride which was the mainspring of his character--a meaningless pride, he was forced to admit, which had served only to make trouble between himself and the world.

He made the circuit of the cove twice before he found her, hiding among the broken rocks of the north wall, half veiled in glistening weed, laughing at him. He reached for her and she went under him like a dolphin, breaking water ten feet away to splash and dive again.

He chased her down into the rustling blue-green depths and up again to the sunlight and the foam, and her body was the color of silver, fleet and lithe and wondrously strong. He might have caught her, but he did not, only touching her with his fingers to show her that he could. Her hair was unbound, a streaming darkness around her head, and her mouth was red, and her eyes were two green dancing motes of the sea itself, unknowable, taunting, fickle as the waves.

At last she rolled over on her back to float, breathless, pleased with herself and him.

"Let us rest!" she said, and he floated near her, watching the motion of her white arms in the water. The lines of an old poem came unbidden to his tongue.

"'What bright babes had Lilith and Adam-- 'Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters, 'Radiant sons and glittering daughters....'"

"The man who wrote that knew only half the truth," said Shairn. "Let's go in."

They found a sheltered spot where the sun was warm. Absently, Shairn smoothed a patch of sand with her palm, and rumpled it again. After a while she said,

"What sort of a man are you, Michael? What do you do? How do you live?"

He looked at her keenly. "Do you really want to know? All right, I'll tell you. I'm a man who has never been satisfied. I've never had a job I could stay with very long. I'm a flier by trade, but even that seems a dull and rather childish business. And why? Because I'm too good for any of it."

He laughed, not without a certain cruel humor. "Don't ask me in what way I'm too good. I seem to be unusually healthy, but that's only important to me. My brain-power has never set the world on fire. I have no tendency to genius. In fact, a suspicion creeps upon me that I'm just not good enough. Whichever way it is, there has always been something lacking, either in me or the world."

Shairn nodded, and again he was conscious of a queer wisdom in her that did not fit with her youth. She smiled, a small thing full of secrets.

"And you thought that if you learned the origin of your blood you would understand yourself."

"Perhaps. My father was a weedy little man with red hair. He swore I was none of his. I didn't look like my mother's side, either. I've never looked like anybody, until I met you and Kerrel. Oddness becomes very wearing, especially when you don't know why you should be odd." He added, "The villagers in Cornwall called me changeling. I had the same thought when I saw you."

"So we are of one race. Could you stay with me, Michael?"

"You're not a woman, you're a witch. I've never met a witch before."

She laughed outright at that. "Nonsense. Witch, changeling--those are words for fools and peasants."

"Who are the Vardda, Shairn?"

She shook her head. "I told you last night. It is a tribal name. You were saying to Kerrel that you had come to Brittany to trace down your family. Do you know where to start?"

"I learned in Cornwall that they came from a place called Keregnac."

He thought she started a little at that name, but she said nothing, and he asked, "Do you know the town?"

"It's not a town," she answered slowly. "Only a tiny village, lying on the edge of a great moor. Yes, I know Keregnac." She picked up a bit of driftwood and began to draw idle patterns in the sand. "I don't think you will learn much there. The village is very old, and is now almost dead."

"But," he said, "I don't have to worry about that now, do I?"

"How do you mean?"

"You, Shairn. You know about my family, my race. I don't have to depend on Keregnac. You'll tell me."

She flung down the bit of driftwood. "Will I?"

"You said last night--"

"I don't remember what I said. And anyway, one says many things at night that sound foolish in the daytime." She stood up. "Perhaps Kerrel was right."

"About what?"

"About you. He made quite a scene when I joined him again. He said a number of things, and some of them were true."

"Such as what?" asked Trehearne evenly.

"Such as that heredity has played a rather cruel trick on you, and that you're better off to know nothing about your ancestry. Get me my robe, Michael, I must go."

But he had reached out and caught her wrist, and his grip was not gentle. "You can't do that," he said. "You can't refuse to tell me now."

"Oh," she said softly, "but I can. And I do."

"Listen," said Trehearne. "I've come a long way, and I've been through a lot. You're a beautiful woman, and I suppose you have a right to your whims, but not about this."

She looked down at his hand that was locked so tight around her wrist, and then up at him again, and her eyes were bright and very hot. "Is that your idea of persuasion?"

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