THE GHOULS
They dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne
served them--old Anne of Fäouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette,
her velvet bodice and her _chaussons_ broidered with the rose.
Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver--garrulous,
deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that
second infancy which comes before the night.
"_Ouidame!_ It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty
gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin
and end in the Woods of Aulnes--alas!--in the Woods and the House of
Aulnes----"
"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.
"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young,
Monsieur--and the world was young, too, _mon Capitaine--hélas!_--but the
Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is
older, _beau jeune homme_--only the sea is older--the sea which always was
and will be."
"Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "--to
France!--I have the honour--" She touched her glass to his and they
saluted France with the ancient wine of France--a sip, a faint smile, and
silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment.
"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking.
But--but there will be sun enough another year."
"Yes."
"_B’en oui!_ The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the
Woods of Aulnes. _Non pas._ There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes
where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with Our Lady
of Aulnes in shining vestments all----"
"She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear.
"In shining robes of grace--_oui-da_!--the martyrs and the acolytes of
God. It is I who tell you, _beau jeune homme_--I, Anne of Fäouette. I saw
them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the
brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed
Lady----"
"She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the châtelaine of
Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.
Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit
returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes--some graceful shade come back out
of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles--the
exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendée drowned and
washed it out in blood.
"I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident,
in months."
Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh napkins and set two crystal bowls
beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat.
"_Ho fois!_" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods
of Aulnes; they never change--they never change.... The golden people of
Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."
The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the
trees."
"_Vrai, c’est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!_
And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant
gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth,
no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair--the Loup-Garou!--O Lady of Aulnes,
adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"
The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content,
so full of faith in months----"
A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the
forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling,
swinging wide, drifting against the dying light of day, southward toward
the sea.
"There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.
Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild
fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds.
"Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked quietly.
"Yes. I will go with you----"
"No."
"Why?"
"No. Show me the path."
His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house
beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the
house, L’Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not
speak of it to each other. At the forest’s edge he halted: "Is this the
path?"
"Yes.... May I not go?"
"No--please."
"Is there danger?"
"No.... I don’t know if there is any danger."
"Will you be cautious, then?"
He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little
while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held
out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his
lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.
After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head
lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.
A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler
higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.
It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh
candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set
them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.
At five in the morning every clock struck five.
She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles,
listening, when the door below burst open and there came the trampling
rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall----
A loud voice cried:--"Because you are armed and not in uniform!--you
British swine!"--
And the pistol shots crashed through the house.
On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail.
Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed
window--where they had sat together--he and she----
Spectres were flitting to and fro--grey shapes without faces--things with
eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking
brain:
"You there on the stairs!--do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"
She looked down at the dead man.
"Yes," she said.
Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring
darkness she fell.
After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man’s. And
moved no more.
In the moat L’Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the
kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes
which had no faces, only eyes.