CHAPTER IX

L'OMBRE

Aulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns, startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.

It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were long past timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen branches seemed to have pa.s.sed a different way, for the forest floor was littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the acrid odour of decay.

Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.

It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.

Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint sounds--perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily conceding him right of way.

After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of stone stood, and where there should have been gates.

But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.

He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become indistinguishable.

Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes were broken; n.o.body came to the closed and discoloured door of ma.s.sive oak.

The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.

n.o.body was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in his autumn migration.

The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the house--a low, weather-ravaged structure in the gra.s.sy glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.

There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, pa.s.sed the carved and ma.s.sive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and continued on into the forest.

An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.

A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.

As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap.

"Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?"

"I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.

He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force."

"May I see your credentials, Captain Neeland?" She had descended the single step of crumbling stone.

"Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerning _your_ ident.i.ty?"

There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown.

Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made her skin seem so white.

"What proof of my ident.i.ty do you expect?" she asked in a low voice.

"Only one word, Madame."

She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L'Ombre," she whispered.

From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.

After she had examined them she handed them back to him.

"Will you come in, Captain Neeland--or, perhaps we had better seat ourselves on the bridge--in order to lose no time--because I wish you to see for yourself----"

She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarra.s.sment came into her cheeks: "It may seem absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times--what I am going to say to you--concerning L'Ombre----"

She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a bench under the parapet of the little bridge.

"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did not suppose myself to be superst.i.tious.... I really am not--unless--except for this one matter of L'Ombre.... My English governess drove superst.i.tion out of my head.... Still, living in Finistere--here in this house"--she flushed again--"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too courteous--... It required some courage for me to write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country--to risk ridicule--of course I do not hesitate."

She looked uncertainly at the young man's pleasant, serious face, and, as though rea.s.sured:

"I shall have to tell you a little about myself first--so that you may understand better."

"Please," he said gravely.

"Then--my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men servants here. They went with their cla.s.ses. One old woman remains." She looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our circ.u.mstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my memory--only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes began during the Vendee.... But that is of no interest ... except that--through coincidence, of course--every time a new misfortune comes upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still mystified, but interested.

"Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked.

"I thought it resembled a fish----"

"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"

"Yes."

"Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'."

"Yes."

"Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?"

"No; I did not know that."

"There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high alt.i.tudes where waters are icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything ... _everything_...."

"I am interested," he a.s.sured her pleasantly.

"Then--it is a legend--perhaps a superst.i.tion in our family--that any misfortune to us--_and to France_--is always preceded by two invariable omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in the waters of our moat--" She turned her head slowly and looked down over the parapet of the bridge.--"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong--all striking the same hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I, myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendee the clocks persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong.

"And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland----"