Daphne du Maurier: The Apple Tree: a short novel & several long stories

"Who is that woman?" he asked. "What does she want with us?"

Victor explained that Anna was his wife, that they had come from the valley to climb the mountain, that they were tourists on holiday, and they would be glad of shelter for the night. He said the old man stared away from him to Anna.

"She is your wife? " he said. " She is not from Monte Verità?"

"She is my wife," repeated Victor. "We come from England. We are in this country on holiday. We have never been here before."

The old man turned to the younger and they muttered together for a few moments. Then the younger man went back inside the house, and there was further talk from the interior. A woman appeared, even more frightened than the younger man. She was literally trembling, Victor said, as she looked out of the doorway towards Anna. It was Anna who disturbed them.

"She is my wife," said Victor again, "we come from the valley."

Finally the old man made a gesture of consent, of understanding.

"I believe you," he said. "You are welcome to come inside. If you are from the valley, that is all right. We have to be careful."

Victor beckoned to Anna, and slowly she came up the track and stood beside Victor, on the threshold of the house. Even now the woman looked at her with timidity, and she and the children backed away.

The old man motioned his visitors inside. The living-room was bare but clean, and there was a fire burning.

"We have food," said Victor, unshouldering his pack, "and mattresses too. We don't want to be a nuisance. But if we could eat here, and sleep on the floor, it will do very well indeed."

The old man nodded. "I am satisfied," he said, "I believe you."

Then he withdrew with his family.

Victor said he and Anna were both puzzled at their reception, and could not understand why the fact of their being married, and coming from the valley, should have gained them admittance, after that first odd show of terror. They ate, and unrolled their packs, and then the old man appeared again with milk for them, and cheese. The woman remained behind, but the younger man, out of curiosity, accompanied the elder.

Victor thanked the old fellow for his hospitality, and said that now they would sleep, and in the morning, soon after sunrise, they would climb to the summit of the mountain.

"Is the way easy?" he asked.

"It is not difficult," came the reply. "I would offer to send someone with you, but no one cares to go."

His manner was diffident, and Victor said he glanced again at Anna.

"Your wife will be all right in the house here," he said. "We will take care of her."

"My wife will climb with me," said Victor. "She won't want to stay behind."

A look of anxiety came into the old man's face.

"It is better that your wife does not go up Monte Verità," he said. "It will be dangerous."

"Why is it dangerous for me to go up Monte Verità?" asked Anna.

The old man looked at her, his anxiety deepening. "For girls," he said, "for women, it is dangerous."

"But how?" asked Anna. "Why? You told my husband the path is easy."

"It is not the path that is dangerous," he answered; "my son can set you on the path. It is because of the…" and Victor said he used a word that neither he nor Anna understood, but that it sounded like 'sacerdotessa', or 'sacerdozio'."

"That's priestess, or priesthood," said Victor. "It can't be that. I wonder what on earth he means?"

The old man, anxious and distressed, looked from one to the other of them.

"It is safe for you to climb Monte Verità, and to descend again," he repeated to Victor, "but not for your wife. They have great power, the 'sacerdotesse'. Here in the village we are always in fear for our young girls, for our women."

Victor said the whole thing sounded like an African travel tale, where a tribe of wild men pounced out of the jungle and carried off the female population into captivity.

"I don't know what he's talking about," he said to Anna, "but I suppose they are riddled with some sort of superstition, which will appeal to you, with your Welsh blood."

He laughed, he told me, making light of it, and then, being confoundedly sleepy, arranged their mattresses in front of the fire. Bidding the old man good evening, he and Anna settled themselves for the night.

He slept soundly, in the profound sleep that comes after climbing, and woke suddenly, just before daybreak, to the sound of a cock crowing in the village outside.

He turned over on his side to see if Anna was awake. The mattress was thrown back, and bare. Anna had gone…

No one was yet astir in the house, Victor said, and the only sound was the cock crowing. He got up and put on his shoes and coat, went to the door and stepped outside.

It was the cold, still moment that comes just before sunrise. The last few stars were paling in the sky. Clouds hid the valley, some thousands of feet below. Only here, near the summit of the mountain, was it clear.

At first Victor felt no misgiving. He knew by this time that Anna was capable of looking after herself and was as sure-footed as he — more so, possibly. She would take no foolish risks, and anyway the old man had told them that the climb was not dangerous. He felt hurt, though, that she had not waited for him. It was breaking the promise that they should always climb together. And he had no idea how much of a start she had in front of him. The only thing he could do was to follow her as swiftly as he could.

He went back into the room to collect their rations for the day — she had not thought of that. Their packs they could fetch later, for the descent, and they would probably have to accept hospitality here for another night.

His movements must have roused his host, for suddenly the old man appeared from the inner room and stood beside him. His eye fell on Anna's empty mattress, then he searched Victor's eyes, almost in accusation.

"My wife has gone on ahead," Victor said. "I am going to follow her."

The old man looked very grave. He went to the open door and stood there, staring away from the village, up the mountain.

"It was wrong to let her go," he said, "you should not have permitted it." He appeared very distressed, Victor said, and shook his head to and fro, murmuring to himself.

"It's all right," said Victor. "I shall soon catch her up, and we shall probably be back again, soon after midday."

He put his hand on the old fellow's arm, to reassure him.

"I fear very much that it will be too late," said the old man. "She will go to them, and once she is with them she will not come back."

Once again he used the word 'sacerdotesse', the power of the 'sacerdotesse', and his manner, his state of apprehension, now communicated itself to Victor, so that he too felt a sense of urgency, and of fear.

"Do you mean that there are living people at the top of Monte Verità?" he said. "People who may attack her, and harm her bodily?"

The old man began to talk rapidly, and it was difficult to make any sense out of the torrent of words that now sprang from him. No, he said, the 'sacerdotesse' would not hurt her, they hurt no one; it was that they would take her to become one of them. Anna would go to them, she could not help herself, the power was so strong. Twenty, thirty years ago, the old man said, his daughter had gone to them: he had never seen her again. Other young women from the village, and from down below, in the valley, were called by the 'sacerdotesse'. Once they were called they had to go, no one could keep them back. No one saw them again. Never, never. It had been so for many years, in his father's time, his father's father's time, before that, even.

It was not known now when the 'sacerdotesse' first came to Monte Verità. No man living had set eyes upon them. They lived there, enclosed, behind their walls, but with power, he kept insisting, with magic. "Some say they have this from God, some from the Devil," he said, "but we do not know, we cannot tell. It is rumoured that the 'sacerdotesse' on Monte Verità never grow old, they stay forever young and beautiful, and that it is from the moon they draw their power. It is the moon they worship, and the sun."