Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “I understand, Countess.”

  “Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself — for my own fears — my personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be coincident with my country’s mishaps.... So I thought — if they sent an officer who would be kind enough to understand — —”

  “I understand ... L’Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?”

  “Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “And — the clocks?”

  “For a week they have been all wrong.”

  “What hour do they strike?” he asked curiously.

  “Five.”

  “No matter where the hands point?”

  “No matter. I have tried to regulate them. I have done everything I could do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I have” — a pale smile touched her lips— “I have been a little wakeful — perhaps a trifle uneasy — on my country’s account. You understand....” Pride and courage had permitted her no more than uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the race whose name she bore.

  The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly believed what she told him.

  But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it. And this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood of every Breton ever born.

  But he merely said with pleasant deference: “I can very easily understand your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of great nervous tension in France — of heart-racking suspense — —”

  She lifted her dark eyes. “You do not believe me, Monsieur.”

  “I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a natural explanation concerning these matters.”

  “I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no explanation.”

  “Of course there must be one,” he insisted carelessly. “Is there anything in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?”

  “There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the same time and in the same manner?”

  He smiled. “I don’t know,” he said frankly. “I’ll investigate, if you will permit me.”

  “Of course.... And, about L’Ombre. What could explain its presence in the moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its range. My father has often said that, except L’Ombre which has appeared at long intervals in our moat, L’Ombre never has been seen in Brittany.”

  “From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?” he asked, smiling.

  “From living springs in the bottom.”

  “No doubt,” he said cheerfully, “a long subterranean vein of water connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere — in the Pyrenees, perhaps—” He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as far-fetched as the water.

  Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.

  Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He drew out his watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.

  After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust and regulate them would be a simple matter.

  She sat very still beside him on the stone coping — her dark eyes wandered toward the forest — wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied — the visionary eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.

  Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts: “Madame,” he said, “have you heard any rumours concerning enemy airships — or, undersea boats?”

  The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: “No, but something has been happening in the Aulnes Étang.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright — clouds of them — and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour.”

  “A poacher?”

  “I know of none remaining here in Finistère.”

  “Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?”

  “Only the wild fowl whirling above the étang.”

  “You have heard nothing — from the clouds?”

  “Only the vanneaux complaining and the wild curlew answering.”

  “Where is L’Ombre?” he asked, vaguely troubled.

  She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.

  For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent — a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid element through which it loomed.

  L’Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the stream reflected the façade of that ancient house.

  Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing them, dived. L’Ombre never stirred.

  An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped — but not yet quite realizing it.

  In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle and suspended threat.

  He said tritely and with an effort: “For everything there are natural causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?”

  “Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer be sent here? Tell me truthfully, are you annoyed?”

  “No, indeed,” he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense of depression which was creeping over him.

  He looked down again at the grey wraith in the water, then, as they turned and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:

  “Something is wrong somewhere in Finistère. That is evident to me. There have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they come — rumours of things half seen, half heard — glimpses of enemy aircraft, sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the light of the military intelligence which we possess.

  “But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they come thicker and faster day by day. But this—” He hesitated, then smiled— “this seems rather different — —”

  “I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule — —”

  “Countess — —”

  “You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become nervous — imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the sadness of the past year — the strangeness of it, and — —”

  She sighed unconsciously.

  “It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes,” she said.

  “Indeed it must be very lonely here,” he returned in a low voice.

  “Yes.... Aulnes Wood is — too remote for them to send our wounded here for their convalescence.
I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me.”

  She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest.

  “So there is nothing for me to do,” she said, “except to remain here and sew for the hospitals.” ... She looked out thoughtfully across the fern-grown carrefour: “Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window there — all day long, day after day — and when one is young and when there is nobody — nothing to look at except the curlew flying — nothing to hear except the vanneaux, and the clocks striking the hour — —”

  Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and smiled, and her tone grew firm again:

  “You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely physical; my heart is quite undaunted.”

  “You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of France.”

  “Yes ... therefore there could be no fear — no doubt of God.... Affairs go well with France, Monsieur? — may I ask without military impropriety?”

  “France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory and light.”

  “Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you, Monsieur.”

  He said quietly: “The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English. Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see light, Madame — and I also shall see it — perhaps — —”

  She looked up at the young man, met his eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.

  On the doorstep of the house they paused. “Is it possible,” she asked, “that an enemy aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang? — L’Étang aux Vanneaux?”

  “In the Étang?” he repeated, a little startled. “How large is it, this Étang aux Vanneaux?”

  “It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds — like a man without a face — and only two great eyes—” She forced a pale smile. “Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen dress that way.... I wondered — —”

  He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache.

  “One of the rumours we have heard,” he began, “concerns a supposed invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions — a new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer.

  “It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usual Albatross type, with a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and a very large crew.

  “And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class automobile.”

  “Has such an one been seen in Brittany?”

  “Such a machine has been reported — many, many times — as though not one but hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us — a report has arrived from a distant and totally independent source — from Sweden — that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in Germany by the hundreds.”

  After a moment’s silence she stepped into the house; he followed.

  The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and monotonous.

  Her chair and workbasket stood by a latticed window; she seated herself and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel clock — a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself and containing the works, bell and dial.

  When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance.

  “I can’t do anything with it,” he admitted, smiling cheerfully across the room at her; “is there another clock on this floor?”

  She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him through the house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.

  When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering their striking mechanism — that every clock in the house persisted in striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.

  As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts; of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.

  And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had turned to mould — where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where only the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was slowly yielding — under the attacks of Time’s relentless mercenaries, moth and dust and rust.

  CHAPTER X

  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?”