“This will be our room,” she said and requested that the bed be aired forthwith and made with fresh clean sheetings. Thus, one was happy because of the library and the other because of the bedroom and each pleasured in the joy of the other.
For a week they did nothing but explore the castle and the dark woods surrounding it. During the week the automobile stood where they had left it.
The road ran past the castle and on through the woods to a sudden ending at a sharp precipice, making an edge to the mountain. A mile below, they could see a little mountain stream decorating the mottled green of the valley like a silver ribbon, lying haphazard. Standing on the very rim of the world one day, the lovers felt that here was truly the end of a long trail. Constance turned to her husband.
“Will you do one more favor for me?”
“If it will make you happy,” he replied.
She looked at him anxiously, twisting in her indecision.
“All my life, dear, I’ve wanted to be happy in just this way. I don’t understand my emotions—but I do know that I am happy and that I’m fearful lest something spoil it all. I want to stay here. At night I wake up crying, and I know the tears come because I can’t bear to think of leaving. Ever since I dreamed of this place I’ve wanted it, and in it I’ve found, not quiet peace, but a tumultuous rapture—expectation of what I know not nor why.
“This I do know; that if I have to leave here I’ll die with longing to return. I can’t bear to look at the car; it’s a symbol of roving; it means someday you’ll ask me to sit on the seat beside you and ride to the cities you delight in. When I see it standing there a dark despair fills my heart.”
“Suppose I take it down to the village and store it?”
“No! Because then you can claim it again. I want—Oh! I know it’s silly, but I must have you do it! Start it and let it go down over the side—here. When I know that it’s down there, crushed and broken, a mile below me, I’ll sleep in peace—the fears of the great cities will no longer torture me with the menace of their nearness!”
Gallien drew a deep breath. “It’s a good car,” he said simply.
For answer she clung to him, trembling in the fierceness of her desire. And, because he loved her, he asked her to wait for him. Without looking at her again he went and drove the car within ten feet of the lip of the ledge. Stepping out, he threw on the gas and let it go free. Up it plunged into the air and down it fell—like a fallen star, striking so far below that no noise came to tell them of its destruction.
The man looked at the woman, and on his face was a twisted, bitter smile, but the woman, with eyes shut, breathed deeply, peacefully. Nor did she rouse from her seeming sleep for a long time and then only to kiss him passionately, lapsing again into her dreams. Thus it was dark before they returned to the castle.
The old woman was anxious about them, for seeing the car gone when she returned from her herding, she thought they had left for further adventuring; a new life, perhaps, in the great, to her unknown, cities, whither her lover had gone whistling in the days before the war.
Thus the springtime came and went, and summer brooded warmly over the dark forest, in all its sweet majestic beauty. Time passed happily, though slowly, through long months. More and more time Gallien spent in the library, while Constance, in a long, happy daze, spent hours on the bed dreaming of the future and of dreams already come true. The dame had shown her dresses of ladies long dead, and more and more frequently the bride wore these gay things of past ages, and more and more she wore her hair braided down her back in two long ropes, falling below her knees; and more and more she passed the minutes looking through the windows into the dark forest.
One day she noticed that the room was but twenty feet from the ground and that the ivy covering the wall formed a perfect ladder for adventurous feet. That night she could not sleep. The old woman in her walled-off bedroom slept, dreaming of her long dead lover and the beautiful wild thing in the forest that had come to her through him. Gallien, tired from a day of study, slept dreamlessly. Under the flagstones in the kitchen the cricket slept, but Constance, wide-eyed and pulsing-hearted, lay with her face in the moonbeams. Sleep she could not. In the dark forest there was neither song of bird, hoot of moon owl, nor howl of far-away wolf. There all slept.
Then came the near music of a pipe, the thin-trilling, few-noted music of a pipe, and Constance, without knowing that she knew it, realized that the tune was the oldest in the world contained in one octave, but encompassing every dread and exultation known to mankind throughout the ages. Even in bed her fair body wove from side to side as she lay listening to the music of the pipe. Not being able to bide longer, she ran to the casement where she saw a man, and around him in silent circles, were geese and goats. The man sat on a rock and made mad music in the moonlight.
The woman put on a pair of slippers, crept into a black silken robe and, inching to the window, climbed down the ivy. Her feet hardly touched the ground as she sped to the rock, broke through the circle of goats and geese and came near to the man who was making the olden music. As he came to the end of his song, and the music died in the murmuring notes, mixed with the mellow moonbeams, he looked at her with a glad smile.
“You like my music?”
“It’s wonderful! Who are you and where did you learn to play?”
“I’ve always lived around here; this is my home. I never learned to play. I always knew how. Only one piece, but it can be played in an infinity of ways. Would you like to hear more? Come here, beside me, while I pipe for you.”
Then he played in a livelier manner, and the goats and the geese stepped a gay measure to the music. Round and round the rock they went till at last Constance joined them. Between a goat and a goose she danced till there was an ending to the music. She rejoined the man on the rock, flushed and breathless, happier than she had been in all her life.
“Oh! I’m so happy!” she whispered, entranced.
Throwing back his head he laughed, revealing white teeth glistening in the moonlight. He tossed his arms upward. In one hand was the pipe, in the other there was nothing, and with that hand he clutched at moonbeams. Again he laughed gaily.
“‘Tis wonderful to be happy. Men and women used to be happy. I seem to remember this place being filled of a night with bravely dressed men and dainty women in love, and sometimes the men piped for the ladies to dance, sometimes the men loved for the entrancing of their women, and which pleased the women the more, the music or the loving, how can I, being a man, tell? Those days are gone save in my memory, and I’m not sure even that serves me honestly. At least, I now have no audience save such as you see.”
Suddenly she turned to him and asked, “Who are you?”
“What does that matter, as long as my music thrills you?”
“It does make me glad. Weeks ago I dreamed of this place and asked my husband to find it with me. He did. I asked him to destroy the car so we would not be able to leave. He did. I want a son—a gay, gladsome son—who will be able to catch the moonbeams and play the pipes. Can he give me that son?”
“Perhaps, but what odds? If you want a son, I will tell you how. Have you seen the pool of dark water over the hill on the other side of the castle? No doubt the old lady told you not to drink there—that it was poison. Near the water is a giant oak. Now you must do thus and so—”
Slowly, for an hour he held her hand, telling her just how she should do and why and if she did this and the other as he directed, the desire of her heart would be granted. He promised that on every moonlit night he would sit on the rock, playing the pipe for her pleasure and thus, when her child was born, it would be a child of great joy and wondrous beauty, a player of ancient tunes upon the pipes, a gatherer of moonbeams and star dust.
She walked slowly back to the castle, climbed the ivy, put off her shoes and her black silken robe. She stole again to her husband’s side, while he, never having wakened, snored peacefully, for that he had never knowingly wronged anyone. Con
stance, awake beside him heard him snore and still in her soul rang the unearthly sweet music of the stranger’s pipe. She could not help contrasting the two. Placing one ear against the pillow she covered the other with a mass of hair and a pink palm. Thus she slept, lulled to calm by the memory of that soul-engulfing liquid music of the moonlight. The next morning she woke and could not tell whether it had been a dream or a reality. Her husband was still asleep but she woke him with a torrent of kisses and then was unable to tell him of the night or her desires.
The same day the old woman left the castle and wandered through the dark forest till she met the man who had played the pipe. She kissed him tenderly and ran her fingers through his tight-curled hair and over his pointed ears. At last she took courage and asked him to play no more at the castle until the woman and the man departed. “But you were asleep last night,” he answered her.
“Yes, but I saw the tracks around the rock and the woman’s footprints, mingled with those of the animals and the birds; so leave her alone, for the sake of your mother.”
For reply he only laughed and ran away in big skipping leaps.
The mother was worried. She had never been able to tell whether she had created a simpleton or a god.
Constance began to prepare according to directions of the man who piped in the moonlight. There had to be a ladder, a sickle, and a white sheet. Some of those things could be got only by the wiles of a cunning woman. Finally all was ready. With burning heart she undressed and pretended to sleep on her pillow. But, while sleep came swiftly to her husband, she remained wide-eyed and anxious till she was sure of his slumber. She donned her robe and slippers. Tying the sickle in the sheet and the bundle to her back, she went out the window to the ivy and down to where the ladder rested against the wall. Lifting the ladder to her shoulder she tiptoed westward from the castle to the place of the pool of dark water.
It was moonlight and the shadows and the moonbeams made a curious fairyland of the dark forest. Though her heart was beating fast there was a song on her lips, a very old song, such as could have been sung within one octave or upon a very simple pipe. She came at last to the old oak tree which grew by the dark pool and drank of its water.
Placing the ladder against the rough bole she looked upward. On the first branch, just a little above the ladder, grew a spray of mistletoe, its green leaves, white berries, and gray stems all shimmering in the eerie moonlight. Taking the sheet she spread it evenly over the ground under the parasite plant; on the sheet she placed the sickle. Now she loosened the two long braids and let those dark, wondrous tresses come in freedom, one in front and one behind her body, which she freed from her silken robe and white gown. Taking the sickle in hand, she, trembling, started up the ladder.
Near the top she paused. The mistletoe was within her reach. She still hesitated, and while she did so—was it the wind?—a long strand of hair reached over and entwined around the gray branched parasite. The woman looked at the union of plant and hair, then slowly reached and freed herself. With the curved knife she began cutting the plant from the oak, being careful to take a large piece of the bark with the roots of the plant in it. With the last slash the mistletoe fell earthward, but on the shadowed sheet, which was as it should be, for all in vain had it touched the heart. Then this last of the Druid worshippers descended the ladder carefully and placed wet moss over the cut bark, tying it tenderly in the white linen sheet. The ladder she slid into the dark pool and did up her hair and put on her clothes. With ineffable joy in her heart, she tripped back to the castle. Somewhere in the dark, moon-spangled forest a laughing man piped a very old tune, and she, hearing him, sang the song to his music.
Back in the bedroom she found it still light from the moon. On the headpost of the bed, on the side on which she slept, she fastened the freshly cut bark placing the wet moss over and around it, and wrapped it all with the white sheet which she tied in hard knots. Thus was the mistletoe grafted onto the oaken bed, just a foot above her pillow. She kissed the white fruit and, loosening her hair, fell asleep.
Thus Paul Gallien first beheld her in the morning, on her face the smile of infinite peace. Her slippers, kicked wantonly from her feet were wet, and her silken robe stained with dew.
“She is a queer little wild thing, and so far I cannot tell what she is doing. Perhaps the old woman can help me,” he spoke to himself as a feeling of frustration and futility settled over him as a rain-cloud envelops a mountain peak.
The next time one of the girls came up from the village with fruit, Gallien took her and the old woman into the kitchen where by the girl’s little knowledge of French made the woman understand what he needed to know. Sighing, she bade the girl leave them. She then led Gallien to the library where she found him a very old book with pictures in it, and, crossing herself, left him. Gallien began the study of that book, even as young men have studied it in all centuries past.
The young bride woke, saw the mistletoe, smiled and went to sleep again. When next she woke, she dressed. After dinner she took the silver pitcher and in it carried water from the dark pool, as was her wont each day, for the moss must be moist for the grafted parasite to grow. And it grew. Finally it spread all over the head of the bed, fastening here and there to the ancient oak, and seeming to sap the life from it.
At last Paul Gallien solved the secret of the book and understood the conduct of his wife. Now while in the library he slept so when night came he was able to stay awake. The full moon passed, the dark of the moon had come and gone; now the crescent moon was growing larger, thriving on her diet of stars.
The first night of the watch Constance slept as though drugged. So satisfied was her husband with her sound sleep that he arose, lit a candle, and sat on the bridal chest, watching her. It was dark in the room and he decided that when she stirred he would blow out the candle, even though by so doing he would be alone with the shadowless things.
Her girlhood beauty was now ripening into the full bloom of womanhood; her white face shone like a pearl amid the blackness of her loosened hair which covered the pillow. Above her shadowed masses of the gray mistletoe, green leaves, and white berries. Even as he looked a branch drooped slowly, until it rested on her breast. The ringlets of her hair seemed to curl upward from the pillow to interlace, caressingly, with the green leaves. All her fair body was at last covered with black hair and green plant. She smiled as though her dream were giving her great joy. Now and then her lips moved—as if caressing a lover.
The next nights were the same. Then came a fuller moonlight and the woman was restless. She tossed by her husband with little murmuring cries.
“I cannot sleep,” she sobbed. “Life is too full. There is so much love and happiness in the world, why should a woman spend her life sleeping?” She flung herself passionately into her husband’s arms, smothering him with kisses, wrapping her hair all about him.
“Life is too short!” she cried again and again.
He tried to satisfy her and calm her, but at last pretended to sleep. She lay quietly by him, but he knew by her short, sharp breathing that she was wide awake and restless. Then, through the sweet, resinous air of the moonlit forest came the sound of music. Constance sat upright. She listened to her husband, then, satisfied that he was asleep, she ran to the window. There on the rock sat the laughing man, surrounded by the goats and the geese and the tune he played was a very old one, all within one octave. Drawing on her leather slippers, she climbed down the ivy, hurrying on eager feet to join the dance.
Paul Gallien stood in the shadow and watched her dance, all lovely and exotic in the moonlight with the goats and the geese who paced sedately with her. After the dance she sat on the rock with the man who clutched moonbeams.
“Is all well with you?” he asked her.
“All is well. The plant is growing on the oak bed. Every night the spirit enters my body. I never knew how exquisite real happiness could be. The thought of your love and your music fills my every thought.”
; “Life is naught without love,” replied the man, laughing, as he reached into the air for the moonbeams. “Keep the plant well watered, my dear. Whenever you are not sure of yourself, follow me.”
As Gallien watched from his window he thought of the old book with its pictures and knew that he had but little time to spare. Below, in the little room next to the kitchen, the old dame heard the music, crossed herself, kissed the silver cross which hung from her neck, prayed and remembered other such nights, long years gone by. She determined to ask the strangers to leave before it was too late.
The next day the young woman made her usual visit to the dark pool, carrying her little silver pitcher, while her husband went to the little village at the bottom of the valley for letters and food. There he talked with some of the young men and they went far away with a mule team, and in a week came back with a number of long pieces of iron pipe.
Came a day when Constance went to the dark pool, carrying her little silver pitcher and instead of the dark pool of water there was but a mud spot; nothing save the slime of the ages, and on the slime rested the ladder. Angry, she walked around the edge of the muddy hole and at last found where the water had all drained through long iron pipes. She looked at the giant oak and saw all the mistletoe on it was turning golden, a sign of dryness, death, decay. Crying, she ran back to the castle with her empty pitcher. Up to her bedroom!
Her husband was there arranging some of his ties. She ignored him as she ran to her side of the bed. There was no mistake. The love plant was indeed golden, on the bed as on the tree. It must have water every day from the dark pool; and now it was dead from the lack of it. She touched it, pityingly, and the leaves dropped off. All the dried berries rolled in a pitter-pattering across the floor; all the dark green had turned to golden brown. She faced her husband.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Drain my pond?”
“I was afraid of malaria. It was the only place like it on the mountain and I did not want you to be sick.”
The Golden Age of Weird Fiction Megapack, Volume 5 Page 8