Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories Page 12

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  THE DARK MUSIC

  by Charles Beaumont

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  It was not a path at all but a dry white river of shells, washed clean by the hot summer rain and swept by the winds that came over the gulf from Mexico: a million crushed white shells, spread quietly over the cold earth, for the feet of Miss Lydia Maple. She'd never seen the place before. She's never been told of it. It couldn't have been purposeful, her stopping the bus at the unmarked turn, pausing, then inching down the narrow path and stopping again at the tree-formed arch; on the other hand, it certainly was not impulse. She had recognized impulsive actions for what they were years ago: animal actions. And, as she was proud to say, Miss Maple did not choose to think of herself as an animal. Which the residents of Sand Hill might have found a slightly odd attitude for a biology teacher, were it not so characteristic. Perhaps it was this: that by it's virginal nature, the area promised much in the way of specimens. Frogs would be here, and insects, and, if they were lucky, a few garden snakes for the bolder lads. In any case, Miss Maple was well satisfied. And if one could judge from their excited murmurings, which filtered through the thickness of trees, so were the students. She smiled. Leaning against the elm, now, with all the forest fragrance to her nostrils, and the clean gulf breeze cooling her, she was suddenly very glad indeed that she had selected today for the field trip. Otherwise, she would be at this moment seated in the chalky heat of the classroom. And she would be reminded again of the whole nasty business, made to defend her stand against the clucking tongues, or to pretend there was nothing to defend. The newspapers were not difficult to ignore; but it was impossible to shut away the attitude of her colleagues; and-no: one must not think about it. She looked at the shredded lace of sunlight. It was a lovely spot! Not a single beer can, not a bottle nor a cellophane wrapper nor even a cigarette to suggest that human beings had ever been here before. It was -pure. In a way, Miss Maple liked to think of herself in similar terms. She believed in purity, and had her own definition of the word. Of course she realized-how could she doubt it now?-she might be an outmoded and slightly incongruous figure in this day and age; but that was all right. She took pride in the distinction. And to Mr. Owen Tracy's famous remark that hers was the only biology class in the world where one would hear nothing to discourage the idea of the stork, she had responded as though to a great compliment. The Lord could testify, it hadn't been easy! How many, she wondered, would have fought as valiantly as she to protect the town's children from the most pernicious and evil encroachment of them all? Sex education, indeed! By all means, let us kill every last lovely dream; let us destroy the only trace of goodness and innocence in this wretched, guilty world! Miss Maple twitched, vaguely aware that she was dozing. The word sex jarred her toward wakefulness, but purity pulled her back again. What a pity, in a way, she thought, that I was born so late… She had no idea what the thought meant; only that, for all the force of good she might be in Sand Hill, her battle was probably a losing one; and she was something of a dinosaur. In earlier, unquestionably better times, how different it would have been! Her purity would then have served a very real and necessary function, and would not have called down charges from the magazines that she was "hindering education." She might have been born in pre-Dynastian Egypt, for instance, and marched at the forefront of the court maidens toward some enormously important sacrifice. Or in the early Virginia, when the ladies were ladies and wore fifteen petticoats and were cherished because of it. Or in New England. In any time but this! A sound brushed her ear. She opened her eyes, watched a fat wren on a pipestem twig, and settled back to the half-sleep, deciding to dream a while now about Mr. Hennig and Sally Barnes. They had been meeting secretly after three o'clock, Miss Maple knew. She'd waited, though, and taken her time, and then struck. And she'd caught them, in the basement, doing unspeakable things. Mr. Hennig would not be teaching school for a while now. She stretched, almost invisible against the forest floor. The mouse-colored dress covered her like an embarrassed hand, concealing, not too successfully, the rounded hills of her breasts, keeping the secret of her slender waist and full hips, trailing down below the legs she hated because they were so smooth and white and shapely, down to the plain black leather shoes. Her face was pale and naked as a nun's, but the lips were large and moist and the cheekbones high, and it did not look very much like a nun's face. Miss Maple fought her body and her face every morning, but she was not victorious. In spite of it all, and to her eternal dismay, she was an attractive woman. The sound came again, and woke her. It was not the fat bird and it was not the children. It was music. Like the music of flutes, very high-pitched and mellow, yet sharp; and though there was a melody, she could not recognize it. Miss Maple shook her head, and listened. The sound was real. It was coming from the forest, distant and far off, and if you did not shut out the other noises, you could scarcely hear it. But it was there. Miss Maple rose, instantly alert, and brushed the leaves and pine needles away. For some reason, she felt a chill. Why should there be music in a lost place like this? She listened. The wind cooled through the trees and the piping sound seemed to be carried along with it, light as shadows. Three quick high notes; a pause; then a trill, like an infant's weeping; and a pause. Miss Maple shivered and started back to the field where the children were. She took three steps and did not take any more in that direction. The music changed. Now it did not weep, and the notes were not so highpitched. They were slow and sinuous, lower to the ground. Imploring. Beckoning Miss Maple turned and, without having the slightest notion why, began to walk into the thickness. The foliage was wet, glistening dark green, and it was not long before her thin dress was soaked in many places, but she understood that she must go on. She must find the person who was making such beautiful sounds. In minutes she was surrounded by bushes, and the trail had vanished. She pushed branches aside, walked, listened. The music grew louder. It grew nearer. But now it was fast, yelping and crying, and there was great urgency in it. Once, to Miss Maple's terror, it sounded, for a brief moment, like chuckling; still, there was no note that was not lonely, and sad. She walked, marveling at her foolishness. It was, of course, not proper for a school teacher to go tumbling through the shrubbery, and she was a proper person. Besides-she stopped, and heard the beating of her heart-what if it were one of those horrid men who live on the banks of rivers and in woods and wait for women? She'd heard of such men. The music became plaintive. It soothed her, told her not to be afraid; and some of the fear drained away. She was coming closer, she knew. It had seemed vague and elusive before, now it thrummed in the air and encircled her. Was there ever such lonely music? She walked carefully across a webwork of stones. They protruded like small islands from the rushing brook, and the silver water looked very cold, but when her foot slipped and sank, she did not flinch. The music grew impossibly loud. Miss Maple covered her ears with her hands, and could not still it. She listened and tried to run. The notes rolled and danced in her mind; shrill screams and soft whispers and silences that pulsed and roared. Beyond the trees. Beyond the trees; another step; one more-. Miss Maple threw her hands out and parted the heavy green curtain. The music stopped. There was only the sound of the brook, and the wind, and her heart. She swallowed and let the breath come out of her lungs. Then, slowly, she went through the shrubs and bushes, and rubbed her eyes. She was standing in a grove. Slender saplings, spotted brown, undulated about her like the necks of restless giraffes, and beneath her feet there was soft golden grass, high and wild. The branches of the trees came together at the top to form a green dome. Sunlight speared the ground. Miss Maple looked in every direction. Across the grove to the surrounding dark and shadowed woods, and to all sides. And saw nothing. Only the grass and the trees and the sunlight. Then she sank to the earth and lay still, wondering why she felt such heat and such fear. It was at this moment that she became conscious of it: one thing which her vision might deny, and her senses, but which she knew nonetheless to be. She was not alone. "Yes?" the wor
d rushed up and then died before it could ever leave her mouth. A rustle of leaves; tiny hands applauding. "Who is it?" A drum in her chest. "Yes, please-who is it? Who's here?" And silence. Miss Maple put fisted fingers to her chin and stopped breathing. I'm not alone, she thought. I'm not alone. No. Did someone say that? The terror built, and then she felt something else entirely that wasn't terror and wasn't fear, either. Something that started her trembling. She lay on the grass, trembling, while this new sensation washed over her, catching her up in great tides and filling her. What was it? She tried to think. She'd known this feeling before, a very long time ago; years ago on a summer night when the moon was a round, unblinking, huge and watchful eye, and that boy-John?-had stopped talking-and touched her. And how strange it was then, wondering what his hands were going to do next. John! There's a big eye watching us; take me home, I'm afraid! I'm afraid, John. If you don't take me home, I'll tell. I'll tell them the things you tried to do. Miss Maple stiffened when she felt the nearness, and heard the laughter. Her eyes arced over the grove. "Who's laughing?" She rose to her feet. There was a new smell in the air. A coarse animal smell, like wet fur: hot and fetid, thick, heavy, rolling toward her, covering her. Miss Maple screamed. Then the pipes began, and the music was frenzied this time. In front of her, in back, to the sides of her; growing louder, growing faster, and faster. She heard it deep in her blood and when her body began to sway, rhythmically, she closed her eyes and fought and found she could do nothing. Almost of their own volition, her legs moved in quick, graceful steps. She felt herself being carried over the grass, swiftly, light as a blown leaf-. "Stop!" -swiftly, leaping and turning, to the shaded dell at the end of the grove. Here, consumed with heat, she dropped to the softness, and breathed the animal air. The music ceased. A hand touched her, roughly. She threw her arms over her face: "No. Please-" "Miss Maple!" She felt her hands reaching toward the top button of her dress. "Miss Maple! What's the matter?" An infinite moment; then, everything sliding, melting, like a vivid dream you will not remember. Miss Maple shook her head from side to side and stared up at a young boy with straw hair and wide eyes. She pulled reality about her. "You all right, Miss Maple?" "Of course, William," she said. The smell was gone. The music was gone. It was a dream. "I was following a snake, you see-a chicken snake, to be exact: and a nice, long one, too-and I almost had it, but I twisted my ankle on one of the stones in the brook. That's why I called." The boy said, "Wow." "Unfortunately," Miss Maple continued, getting to her feet, "it escaped me. You don't happen to see it, do you, William?" William said no, and she pretended to hobble back to the field. At 4:19, after grading three groups of tests, Miss Lydia Maple put on her gray cotton coat and flat black hat and started for home. She was not exactly thinking about the incident in the forest, but Owen Tracy had to speak twice. He had been waiting. "Miss Maple. Over here!" She stopped, turned and approached the blue car. The principal of Overton High was smiling: he was too handsome for his job, too tall and too young, and Miss Maple resented his eyes. They traveled. "Yes, Mr. Tracy?" "Thought maybe you'd like a lift home." "That is very nice of you," she said, "but I enjoy walking. It isn't far." "Well, then, how about my walking along with you?" Miss Maple flushed. "I-" "Like to talk with you, off the record." The tall man got out of his car, locked it. "Not, I hope, about the same subject." "Yes ." "I'm sorry. I have nothing further to add." Owen Tracy fell into step. His face was still pleasant, and it was obvious that he intended to retain his good humor, his charm. "I suppose you read Ben Sugrue's piece in the Sun-Mirror yesterday?" Miss Maple said, "No," perfunctorily. Sugrue was a monster, a libertine: it was he who started the campaign, whose gross libidinous whispers had first swept the town. "It refers to Overton High as a medieval fortress." "Indeed? Well," Miss Maple said, "perhaps that's so." She smiled, delicately. "It was, I believe, a medieval fortress that saved the lives of four hundred people during the time of the Black Plague." Tracy stopped a moment to light a cigarette. "Very good," he conceded. "You're an intelligent person, Lydia. Intelligent and sharp." "Thank you." "And that's what puzzles me. This mess over the sex-education program isn't intelligent and it isn't sharp. It's foolish. As a biology teacher you ought to know that." Miss Maple was silent. "If we were an elementary school," Tracy said, "well, maybe your idea would make sense. I personally don't think so, but at least you'd have a case. In a high school, though, it's silly; and it's making a laughingstock out of us. If I know Sugrue, he'll keep hammering until one of the national magazines picks it up. And that will be bad." Miss Maple did not change her expression. "My stand," she said, "ought to be perfectly clear by now, Mr. Tracy. In the event it isn't, let me tell you again. There will be no sex-education program at Overton so long as I am in charge of the biology department. I consider the suggestion vile and unspeakable-and quite impractical-and am not to be persuaded otherwise: neither by yourself, nor by that journalist, nor by the combined efforts of the faculty. Because, Mr. Tracy, I feel a responsibility toward my students. Not only to fill their minds with biological data, but to protect them, also." Her voice was even. "If you wish to take action, of course, you are at liberty to do so-" "I wouldn't want to do that," Owen Tracy said. He seemed to be struggling with his calm. "I think that's wise," Miss Maple said. She paused and stared at the principal. "And what is that supposed to mean?" "Simply that any measure to interrupt or impede my work, or force changes upon the present curriculum, will prove embarrassing, Mr. Tracy, both to yourself and to Overton." She noticed his fingers and how they were curling. "Go on." "I hardly think that's necessary." "I do. Go on, please." "I may be… old-fashioned," she said, "but I am not stupid. Nor am I unobservant. I happen to have learned some of the facts concerning yourself and Miss Bond…" Owen Tracy's calm fled like a released animal. Anger began to twitch along his temples. "I see." They looked at one another for a while; then the principal turned and started back in the opposite direction. The fire had gone out of his eyes. After a few steps, he turned again and said, "It may interest you to know that Miss Bond and I are going to be married at the end of the term." "I wonder why," Miss Maple said, and left the tall man standing in the bloody twilight. She felt a surge of exultation as she went up the stairs of her apartment. Of course she'd known nothing about them, only guessed: but when you think the worst of people, you're seldom disappointed. It had been true, after all. And now her position was absolutely unassailable. She opened cans and bottles and packages and prepared her usual supper. Then, when the dishes were done, she read Richard's Practical Criticism until nine o'clock. At nine-thirty she tested the doors to see that they were securely locked, drew the curtains, fastened the windows and removed her clothes, hanging them carefully in the one small closet. The gown she chose was white cotton, chin-high and ankle-low, faintly figured with tiny fleur-de-lis. For a brief moment her naked body was exposed; then, at once, covered up again, wrapped, encased, sealed. Miss Maple lay in the bed, her mind untroubled. But sleep would not come. She got up after a while and warmed some milk; still she could not sleep. Unidentifiable thoughts came, disturbing her. Unnormal sensations. A feeling that was not proper. Then she heard the music. The pipes: the high-pitched, dancing pipes of the afternoon, so distant now that she felt perhaps she was imagining them, so real she knew that couldn't be true. They were real. She became frightened, when the music did not stop, and reached for the telephone. But what person would she call? And what would she say? Miss Maple decided to ignore the sounds, and the hot strange feeling that was creeping upon her alone in her bed. She pressed the pillow tight against her ears, and held it there, and almost screamed when she saw that her legs were moving apart slowly, beyond her will. The heat in her body grew. It was a flame, the heat of high fevers, moist and interior: not a warmth. And it would not abate. She threw the covers off and began to pace the room, hands clenched. The music came through the locked windows. Miss Maple! She remembered things, without remembering them. She fought another minute, very hard; then surrendered. Without knowing why, she ran to the closet an
d removed her gray coat and put it on over the nightgown; then she opened a bureau drawer and pocketed a ring of keys, ran out the front door, down the hail, her naked feet silent upon the thick-piled carpet, and into the garage where it was dark. The music played fast, her heart beat fast, and she moaned softly when the seldom-used automobile sat cold and unresponding to her touch. At last it came to life, when she thought she must go out of her mind; and Miss Maple shuddered at the dry coughs and violent starts and black explosions. In moments she was out of town, driving faster then she had ever driven, pointed toward the wine-dark waters of the gulf. The highway turned beneath her in a blur and sometimes, on the curves, she heard the shocked and painful cry of the tires, and felt the car slide; but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except the music. Though her eyes were blind, she found the turn-off, and soon she was hurtling across the white path of shells, so fast that there was a wake behind her, then, scant yards from the restless stream, she brought her foot down hard upon the brake pedal, and the car danced to a stop. Miss Maple rushed out because now the piping was inside her, and ran across the path into the field and across the field into the trees and through the trees, stumbling and falling and getting up again, not feeling the cold sharp fingers of brush tearing at her and the high wet grass soaking her and the thousand stones daggering her flesh, feeling only the pumping of her heart and the music, calling and calling. There! The brook was cold, but she was across it, and past the wall of foliage. And there! The grove, moon-silvered and waiting. Miss Maple tried to pause and rest; but the music would not let her do this. Heat enveloped her: she removed the coat; ate her: she tore the tiny pearl buttons of her gown and pulled the gown over her head and threw it to the ground. It did no good. Proper Miss Lydia Maple stood there, while the wind lifted her hair and sent it billowing like shreds of amber silk, and felt the burning and listened to the pipes. Dance! they told her. Dance tonight, Miss Maple: now. It's easy. You remember. Dance! She began to sway then, and her legs moved, and soon she was leaping over the tall grass, whirling and pirouetting. Like this? Like that, Miss Maple. Yes, like that! She danced until she could dance no more, then she stopped by the first tree by the end of the grove, and waited for the music to stop as she knew it would. The forest became silent. Miss Maple smelled the goaty animal smell and felt it coming closer; she lay against the tree and squinted her eyes, but there was nothing to see, only shadows. She waited. There was a laugh, a wild shriek of amusement; bull-like and heavily masculine it was, but wild as no man's laugh ever could be. And then the sweaty fur odor was upon her, and she experienced a strength about her, and there was breath against her face, hot as steam. "Yes," she said, and hands touched her, hurting with fierce pain. "Yes!" and she felt glistening muscles beneath her fingers, and a weight upon her, a shaggy, tawny weight that was neither ghost nor human nor animal, but with much heat; hot as the fires that blazed inside her. "Yes," said Miss Maple, parting her lips. "Yes! Yes!" The change in Miss Lydia Maple thenceforth was noticed by some but not marked, for she hid it well. Owen Tracy would stare at her sometimes, and sometimes the other teachers would wonder to themselves why she should be looking so tired so much of the time; but since she did not say or do anything specifically different, it was left a small mystery. When some of the older boys said that they had seen Miss Maple driving like a bat out of hell down the gulf highway at two in the morning, they were quickly silenced: for such a thing was, on the face of it, too absurd for consideration. The girls of her classes were of the opinion that Miss Maple looked happier than she had ever been, but this was attributed to her victory over the press and the principal's wishes on the matter of sex-education. To Mr. Owen Tracy, it seemed to be a distasteful subject for conversation all the way around. He was in full agreement with the members of the school board that progress at Overton would begin only when Miss Maple was removed: but in order to remove her, one would have to have grounds. Sufficient grounds, at that, for there was the business of himself and Lorraine Bond… As for Miss Maple, she developed the facility of detachment to a fine degree. A week went by and she answered the call of the pipes without fail-though going about it in a more orderly manner-and still, wondering vaguely about the spattered mud on her legs, about the grass stains and bits of leaves and fresh twigs, she did not actually believe that any of it was happening. It was fantastic, and fantasy had no place in Miss Maple's life. She would awaken each morning satisfied that she had had another unusual dream; then she would forget it, and go about her business. It was on a Monday-the night of the day that she had assembled positive proof that Willie Hammacher and Rosalia Forbes were cutting classes together and stealing away to Dauphin Park; and submitted this proof; and had Willie and Rosalia threatened with expulsion from school-that Miss Maple scented her body with perfumes, lay down and waited, again, for the music. She waited, tremulous as usual, aching beneath the temporary sheets; but the air was still. He's late, she thought, and tried to sleep. Often she would sit up, though, certain that she had heard it, and once she got halfway across the room toward the closet; and sleep was impossible. She stared at the ceiling until three A.M., listening. Then she rose and dressed and got into her car. She went to the grove. She stood under the crescent moon, under the bruised sky. And heard the wind; her heart; owls high in the trees; the shifting currents of the stream; the stony rustle of the brook; and heard the forest quiet. Tentatively, she took off her clothes, and stacked them in a neat pile. She raised her arms from her sides and tried a few steps. They were awkward. She stopped, embarrassed. "Where are you?" she whispered. Silence. "I'm here," she whispered. Then, she heard the chuckling: it was cruel and hearty, but not mirthless. Over here, Miss Maple. She smiled and ran to the middle of the grove. Here? No, Miss Maple: over here! You're looking beautiful tonight. And hungry. Why don't you dance? The laughter came from the trees, to the right. She ran to it. It disappeared. It appeared again, from the trees to the left. What can you be after, madame? It's hardly pro per, you know. Miss Maple, where are your clothes? She covered her breasts with her hands, and knew fear. "Don't," she said. "Please don't." The aching and the awful heat were in her. "Come out! I want-" You want-? Miss Maple went from tree to tree, blindly. She ran until pain clutched at her legs, and, by the shadowed deli, she sank exhausted. There was one more sound. A laugh. It faded. And everything became suddenly very still and quiet. Miss Maple looked down and saw that she was naked. It shocked her. It shocked her, also, to become aware that she was Lydia Maple, thirty-seven, teacher of biology at Overton. "Where are you?" she cried. The wind felt cold upon her body. Her feet were cold among the grasses. She knew a hunger and a longing that were unbearable. "Come to me," she said, but her voice was soft and hopeless. She was alone in the wood now. And this was the way it had been meant. She put her face against the rough bark of the tree and wept for the first time in her life. Because she knew that there was no more music for her, there would never be any music for her again. Miss Maple went to the grove a few more times, late at night, desperately hoping it was not true. But her blood thought for her: What it was, or who it was, that played the pipes so sweetly in the wooded place would play no more; of that she was sure. She did not know why. And it gave her much pain for many hours, and sleep was difficult, but there was nothing to be done. Her body considered seeking out someone in the town, and rejected the notion. For what good was a man when one had been loved by a god? In time she forgot everything, because she had to forget. The music, the dancing, the fire, the feel of strong arms about her: everything. And she might have gone on living quietly, applauding purity, battling the impure, and holding the Beast of Worldliness outside the gates of Sand Hill forever- if a strange thing had not happened. It happened in a small way. During dinner one evening Miss Maple found herself craving things. It had been a good day, she found proof that the rumors about Mr. Etlin, the English teacher, were true-he did indeed subscribe to that dreadful magazine; and Owen Tracy was thinking of transferring to another school; yet, as she sat there in h
er apartment, alone, content, she was hungry for things. First it was ice cream. Big plates of strawberry ice cream topped with marshmellow sauce. Then it was wine. And then Miss Maple began to crave grass . . Nobody ever did find out why she moved away from Sand Hill in such a hurry, or where she went, or what happened to her. But then, nobody cared.