Read Online Cloudless May by Storm Jameson - Free Book Online Page B

protect you. And apart from that, it’s abominably unpatriotic. You’d better see Thiviers tomorrow and tell him you’ve changed your mind. You must.”
    She did not answer. What did he see when he thought of poverty? Not a shabby dress, stained under the arms, not his wife bending over a pan at the sink, her nails scraping into the cracks. Patriotism—a cloud floating at a great height, and men gaping at it.
    She slipped easily into her part, the more easily that she was absolutely sincere.
    â€œWhy have you moved? Please listen, my darling. We’ve had four years. We’ve been happy. Why? Not simply because we have each other, but because you have your work. Would you be satisfied with an ordinary life? Never. And you need money, enough to be independent: it’s the same in politics as in everything else, if you have money, and don’t need help, people will offer to help you. You want to get on in politics, don’t you? You won’t do it as a poor man. You must be safe—and for us, too, so that we can be happy, and grow to look like each other. Old husbands and wives do, you know. . . . Let Robert send part of your money to the States. You can trust him, he’s fond of you.”
    She let two tears roll over her cheeks. “Have you a handkerchief?” she said, smiling. She turned her head away, so that her tears ran into the pillow. She was crying without a sound. “My life hasn’t been easy,” she said, with her poor little smile.
    Ã‰mile bent over her. “My dear love. What is it?”
    â€œYou could make us safe,” she said, pressing his cheek against hers. “It’s much easier than listening to an old idiot pretending to be Joan of Arc. You haven’t a great deal of money, it will make no difference to the country—and to me, all the difference between happiness and a dreadful anxiety.”
    â€œVery well,” he said quietly. “I agree.”
    She was afraid of rousing mistrust and resentment in him if she showed her thankfulness. But her relief was so great, now that she had relaxed, that it showed in her face; it became paler and older. He saw it; and the conviction that he had made a grave mistake vanished, in his pity for her. To reassure her—she might think he had made a sacrifice—he turned brusquely to something else.
    â€œWhat did you do today?” he asked.
    â€œI had lunch with Léonie,” she said gratefully. “She wants you to speak to your friend Mathieu about Edgar. If the police were sure they could do it quietly, they would release him—provisionally—” She was deliberately being clumsy, so that he could get rid on Léonie of his resentment and doubts. And she would be able to tell Léonie that she had done her best.
    â€œMy God, I like her impudence,” he said, with sudden fury. “The fellow is a common swindler. He hasn’t been charged with spying or he wouldn’t be sitting comfortably in prison. But I shouldn’t be surprised if he were a German agent—at least an Italian one. And I’m told he had a brothel in Nantes. And she wants to loose him on society again. I won’t do a thing to help her.”
    â€œHe’s her son,” she murmured.
    â€œThen she’s responsible for him,” Bergeot said. “Don’t let’s talk about him.”
    He undressed and came back to her. Almost as soon as he lay down he fell asleep, but she was awake for a long time, reluctant to move the arm she had stretched under his head. With her free hand she felt his side and shoulder and the back of his head. The bones were very close under his skin: she felt afraid; it is so easy to kill men; their thin covering of skin is no cover. An accident, a trifle of violence, and Émile’s courage and nervous life would slip out. Take care of him, take care of him, she said soundlessly—speaking to the featureless severity she