Weird Tales volume 24 number 03 Read online

  " 'Come out o' there!' he ordered me, and there was a kind of sharp, hard dryness in his voice I'd never heard before. 'So that's the shameless way you spend your time behind my back?' he asked as I climbed up the bank. 'In spite of all I've done to keep you decent, you dared to do a thing like this?'

  " 'Why, Father, we were only swimming,' I began, but he struck me on the mouth.

  " 'Be quiet, you young rake!' he roared. 'I'll teach you.'

  "Before I realized his intention he'd cut a willow switch, seized me by the neck and thrust my head between his knees; then, while he held me tight as in a vise, he flogged me with the willow lash until the blood came through the skin and stained my soaking cotton singlet. Then he released me and kicked me back into the pool as a heartless master might abuse a dog.

  "As I said, I wasn't an heroic figure. It was Arabella who came to my rescue, helped me up the slippery bank, and took my head upon her shoulder. 'Poor Den-nie,' she said. 'Poor, poor Dennie. It was my fault, Dennie dear; I never should have let you take me in the water.' Then she kissed me—it was the first time anyone had kissed me since the pretty lady;

  of my half-remembered dreams — and told me: 'We'll be married, dear, the very day that Uncle Warburg dies, and I'll be so sweet and good to you and you will love me so that we shan't remember any of these cruel things that we have to go through now.'

  "We thought my father'd gone away, but he must have stayed to see what we would say; for as Arabella finished speaking he stepped out from behind a clump of rhododendron and then, for the first time, I heard him laugh. 'You'll be married, will you?' he asked jeeringly. 'Well, you'd better not. You'll both wish that the earth had opened and swallowed you if you ever dare to marry.'

  "That was the last time he actually struck me, but from that time on he seemed to go out of his way to invent mental torments for us both. We weren't allowed to go to public school, but he had a private tutor, a little rat-faced man named Erickson, come in and give us lessons, and in the evening he would take the book and make us stand before him and recite. If either of us failed to answer promptly when he gave a problem in arithmetic or demanded that we spell a word or conjugate a French or Latin verb, he'd wither us with sarcasm, and always as a finish of his diatribe he'd bring the subject of our marriage up, jeering at us, and hinting at some awful consequence if we went through with what we'd set our hearts upon.

  "So, Doctor, you can see," he finished, "why I can't help but suspect that this provision of my father's will is really some sort of horrible practical joke he's planned on us—almost as though he'd planned to force us into a situation which would make it possible for him to laugh at us from the grave."

  "I can understand your feelings, boy," I answered, "but "

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  " 'But' be baked and roasted in the hottest oven hell possesses!" interrupted Jules de Grandin. "The wicked dead one's funeral is at two tomorrow afternoon, n'est-ce-pas?

  "Tres Men. At eight tomorrow evening—or earlier, if it will be convenient —you shall be married. I shall esteem it a favor if you permit that I shall be best man. Doctor Trowbridge will be there to give the bride away, and we shall have a merry time, by blue! You shall go upon a gorgeous honeymoon and learn how sweet the joys of love can be—sweeter for having been so long denied, par-dieu! And in the! meantime we shall keep those papers safe for you, and when your lawyer has returned, I shall see that he receives them in due course.

  "You fear the so unpleasant joke? Mais non, I think the joke is on the other foot, my friends, and the laugh upon the wicked old one who had thought himself so clever!"

  Warburg tantavul was neither widely known nor popular, but the solitude in which he had lived had invested him with mystery; now the bars of reticence were down and the walls of isolation broken, upward of a hundred neighbors, mostly women, gathered in the Martin funeral chapel as the services began. The afternoon sun beat softly through the stained glass windows and glinted upon the polished mahogany of the pews. Here and there it touched upon bright spots of color that marked a flower, a woman's hat or a man's tie. The solemn hush was unbroken save for occasional soft sibilations: "What'd he die of? Did he leave much? Were the two young folks his only heirs?"

  Then the burial office: "Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation

  to another . . . for a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, seeing it is as a watch in the night. . . . Oh teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom . . ."

  As the final Amen sounded, one of Mr. Martin's young men glided forward, paused beside the casket for a moment, and made the stereotyped announcement: "Those who wish to say good-bye to Mr. Tantavul may do so at this time."

  The grisly rite of passing by the bier dragged on. I would have left the place, for I had no wish to look upon the man's dead face and folded hands; but de Grandin took me firmly by the elbow, held me back until the final curiosity-impelled female had filed past the body, then steered me quickly to the casket.

  The little Frenchman paused beside the bier, and it seemed to me there was a hint of irony in the smile that touched the corners of his mouth as he leant forward. "Eh bien, my old one; we know a secret, thou and I, n'est-ce-pas?" he asked the silent form before us.

  I swallowed back an exclamation of dismay. Perhaps it was a trick of the uncertain light, possibly it was one of those ghastly, inexplicable things which every doctor and embalmer meets with sometime in his practise—the effect of desiccation from formaldehyde, the pressure of some tissue gas within the body, or something of the sort—at any rate, as Jules de Grandin spoke the corpse's upper lids drew back the fraction of an inch, revealing slits of yellow eyes, which seemed to glare at us with mingled hate and fury.

  "Good heavens; come away!" I begged. "It seemed as if he looked at us, de Grandin!"

  "Et puis —and if he did?" he asked me as we left the chapel. "Me, I damn think that I can trade him look for look, my friend. He was clever, that one, I admit

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  it; but do not be mistaken, Jules de Gran-din is no one's imbecile."

  4

  The wedding took place in the rectory of St. Chrysostom's. Robed in stole and surplice, Doctor Bentley glanced benignly from Dennis to Arabella, then to de Grandin and me as he began: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this company to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony. . . ." His round and ruddy face grew slightly stern as he continued: "If any man can show just cause why they should not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak or else hereafter for ever hold his peace."

  He paused the customary short, dramatic moment, and I thought I saw a hard, grim look spread on Jules de Gran-din's face. Very faint and far-off seeming, so faint that we could scarcely hear it, but gaining steadily in strength, there came a high, thin, screaming sound. Curiously, it seemed to me to resemble the long-drawn, wailing shriek of a freight train's whistle heard from miles away upon a still and sultry summer night, weird, wavering and ghastly. Now it seemed to grow in shrillness, though its volume was no greater. High, so high the human ear could scarcely register it, it. beat upon our consciousness with a frightful, piercing sharpness. It was like a sick, shrill scream of hellish torment that set the tortured air to quivering till we could not say if we were really hearing it, or if it were but a subjective ringing in our heads.

  I saw a look of haunted fright leap into Arabella's eyes, saw Dennis' pale face go paler as the strident whistle sounded shriller and more shrill; then, as it seemed

  I could endure the stabbing of that needle-sound no longer, it ceased abruptly, giving way to blessed, comforting silence. And through the silence came a peal of chuckling laughter, half breathless, half hysterical, wholly devilish: Huh — bu-u-uh — hu-u-u-u-uh! the final syllable drawn out until it seemed almost a grcan.

  "The wind, Monsieur le Cure, it is the wind," said Jules de Grandin sharpl
y. "Proceed to marry them, if you will be so kind."

  "The wind?" Doctor Bentley echoed incredulously. "Why, I could have sworn I heard somebody laugh, but "

  "It is the wind, Monsieur; it plays strange tricks at times," the little Frenchman answeredr his small, blue eyes as hard as frozen iron. "Proceed, if you will be so kind; we wait on you."

  "Forasmuch as Dennis and Arabella have consented to be joined together in holy wedlock ... I pronounce them man and wife," concluded Doctor Bentley, and de Grandin, ever gallant, kissed the bride upon the lips, and, before we could restrain him, planted kisses upon both of Dennis' cheeks.

  "Parbleu, I thought that we might have the trouble, for a time," he told me as we left the rectory.

  "What was that awful, shrieking noise we heard?" I asked.

  "It was the wind, my friend," he answered in a hard, fiat, toneless voice. "The ten times damned, but wholly ineffectual wind."

  I o, THEN, little sinner, weep and wail for the burden of mortality that has befallen thee; weep, wail, cry and breadie, my little wrinkled one.' Ha, you will not? Pardieu, I say you shall!"

  Gently, but smartly, Jules de Grandin

  W. T.— 2

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  spanked the small red infant's small red posterior with the end of a towel wrung out in hot water, and as the smacking impact sounded, the tiny, toothless mouth opened to its fullest compass, and a thin, high, piping squall of protest sounded.

  "Ah, that is better, mon petit ami," the little Frenchman chuckled. "One can not learn too soon that one must do as one is told, not as one wishes, in this world which you have entered. Look to him, Mademoiselle." He passed the wriggling, bawling morsel of humanity to the nurse and turned to me as I bent above the table where Arabella Tantavul lay. "How does the mother, good Friend Trowbridge?" he asked.

  "U'm'mp," I answered noncommittal-ly, working furiously. "Poor youngster," I added as Arabella, swathed in blankets, was trundled to her room, "she had a pretty tough time of it, but "

  "But in the morning she will have forgotten!" de Grandin cut in with a laugh. "Ha, have I not seen it? She will gaze upon the little monkey-thing which I just caused to breathe the breath of life, and vow it is the loveliest of all God's lovely creatures. Cordieu, she will hold it at her tender breast and smile on it — she will

  "Sacre nom d'un rat, what is that?"

  From the nursery where, ensconced in wire trays twenty new-born fragments of humanity slept or squalled, there came a sudden frightened scream—a woman's cry of terror.

  We raced along the corridor, reached the glass-walled room and thrust the door back, taking care to open it no wider than was necessary, lest a draft disturb the carefully conditioned air within the place.

  Backed against the farther wall, her

  face gone gray with fright, the nurse in

  charge was staring at the skylight with

  horror-widened eyes, and even as we en-

  W. T.—3

  tered she opened her lips to emit another shriek.

  "Stop it, Mademoiselle, you are disturbing your small charges!" De Grandin seized the horrified girl's shoulder and administered a shake. Then:

  "What is it that you saw, Mademoiselle," he asked her in a whisper. "Do not be afraid to speak; we shall respect your confidence—but speak softly."

  "It — it was up there!" she pointed with a shaking finger toward the black square of the skylight. "They'd just brought Baby Tantavul in and I'd laid him in his crib when I thought I heard somebody laughing. Oh" — she shuddered at the recollection—"it was awful! Not really a laugh, but something more like a long-drawn-out hysterical groan. Did you ever hear a child tickled to exhaustion—how he moans and gasps for breath and laughs, all at once? I think the fiends in hell must laugh like that!"

  "Yes, yes, we understand," de Grandin nodded shortly, "but tell us, if you please, what happened next?"

  "I looked around the nursery, but I was all alone here with the babies. Then it came again, louder, this time, and seemingly right above me. I looked up at the skylight, and—there it was!

  "It was a face, sir—just a face, with no body to it, and it seemed to float in midair, just above the glass, then to dip down against it, like a child's balloon drifting in the wind, and it looked right past me down at Baby Tantavul and laughed again."

  "A face, Mademoiselle, did you say "

  "Yes, sir, a face—the most awful face I've ever seen. It was thin and wrinkled, and shriveled like a mummy, and its long, gray hair hung down across its forehead, and its eyes were yellow—like a cat's!—and as they looked at Baby Tan-

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  tavul they seemed to stretch and open till the white of the balls glared all round the yellow irises, and the mouth opened, not widely, but as though it were chewing something that it relished—and it gave that dreadful, cackling, jubilating laugh again. That's it! I couldn't think before, but it seemed as if that bodiless head were laughing with a sort of evil triumph, Doctor de Grandin!"

  "H'm," the little Frenchman tweaked his tightly waxed mustache. "I should not wonder if it did, Mademoiselle."

  He turned to me, and: "Stay with her, if you please, my friend," he ordered. "I shall see the supervisor and have her send another nurse to keep her company. I shall request a special watch for the small Tantavul. I do not think that there is any danger, but—mice do not play where cats are wakeful."

  "Tsn't he just lovely?" Arabella Tanta--S- vul looked up from the small knob of hairless flesh which rested on her breast, and ecstasy was in her eyes. "I don't believe I ever saw so beautiful a baby!"

  "Tzens, Madame, his voice is excellent, at any rate," de Grandin answered with a grin, "and from what one may observe, his appetite is excellent, as well."

  Arabella smiled and patted the small creature's back. "You know, I never had a doll in all my life," she told us. "Now I've got this dear little mite, and I'm going to be so happy with him. Oh, I wish Uncle Warburg were alive; I know this darling baby would soften even his hard heart.

  "But I mustn't say such things about him, must I? He really wanted Dennis and me to marry, didn't he? His will proved that. You think he wanted us to marry, Doctor?"

  "I am persuaded that he did, Madame.

  Your marriage was his dearest wish, his fondest hope," de Grandin answered solemnly.

  "I felt that way, too. He was harsh and cruel to us while we were growing up, and preserved his stony-hearted attitude to the end, but underneath it all there must have been some hidden streak of kindness, some lingering affection for Dennis and me, or he'd never have put that clause into his will "

  "Nor have left this memorandum for you," de Grandin interrupted, drawing from an inner pocket the parchment envelope which Dennis had given him the day before his father's funeral.

  The youthful mother started back as though he menaced her with a live scorpion, and instinctively her arms closed protectively about the baby at her breast.

  "The—that—letter?" she faltered, her breath coming in short, smothered gasps. "I'd forgotten it. Oh, Doctor de Grandin, burn it. Don't let me see what's in it. I'm afraid!"

  It was a bright May morning, without sufficient breeze to stir the budding leaflets on the maple trees outside, but as de Grandin held the letter out I thought I heard the sudden rustle of a wind beyond the window, not loud, but shrewd and keen, like wind among the graveyard evergreens in autumn, and, curiously, there was a note of soft, malicious laughter mingled with it.

  The little Frenchman heard it too, and for an instant he looked toward the window, and I thought I saw the flicker of an ugly sneer take form beneath the ends of his mustache.

  "Open it, Madame" he bade. "It is for you and Monsieur Dennis, and little Monsieur Bebe here."

  "No-o; I daren't "

  "Tres bien, then Jules de Grandin does!" Drawing out his penknife he slit

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  the heavy env
elope, pressed suddenly against its ends, so that its sides bulged out, and dumped its contents on the counterpane. Ten twenty-dollar bills dropped on the coverlet. And nothing else.

  "Two hundred dollars!" Arabella gasped. "Why "

  "As a birthday gift for petit Monsieur Dennis, one surmises," de Grandin smiled, "Bb bien, the old one had a sense of humor underneath his ugly outward shell, it seems. He kept you on the tenterhooks lest the message in this envelope were one of evil import, while all the time it was a present of congratulation."

  "But such a gift from Uncle Warburg —I can't understand it!" Arabella murmured wonderingly.

  "Perhaps it is as well, Madame," he answered as we rose to go. "Be happy with the gift, and give your ancient uncle credit for at least one act of kindliness. Au 'voir."

  "TT anged if I can understand it A A either," I told him as we left the hospital. "If that old curmudgeon had left a message berating them for fools for having offspring, it would have been more in character, but such a gift—-well, I'm surprized."

  Amazingly, de Grandin halted in mid-stride and laughed until the tears rolled down his face. "Parbleu, my friend," he told me when he managed to regain his breath, "I do not think that your surprize is half so great as that of Monsieur Warburg Tantavul!"

  Dennis tantavul regarded me with misery-haunted eyes. "I just can't understand it," he admitted. "It's all so

  sudden, so utterly "

  "Pardonnez-moi," de Giandin inter-

  rupted from the door of the consulting-room, "I could not help but hear your last remark, and if it is net an intrusion "

  "Not at all," the young man answered. "I'd like the benefit of your advice. It's Arabella, and I'm dreadfully afraid that she "