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Title: The Castle of Twilight
Author: Potter, Margaret Horton
Language: English
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The Castle of Twilight
[Illustration: Lenore]
[Illustration]
THE CASTLE OF TWILIGHT
_By_ MARGARET HORTON POTTER
_With six Illustrations by Ch. Weber_
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO
_1903_
COPYRIGHT
A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
1903
Published September 26, 1903
DESIGNED, ARRANGED, AND PRINTED
BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TO
G. M. McB.
WHOSE MUSIC SUGGESTED THE STORY
_This little volume is faithfully
inscribed_
[Illustration:
Nocturne—Grieg: Opus 54, No. 4.
]
[Illustration]
TABLE · OF CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD vii
CHAPTER
I. THE DESOLATION OF AGE 1
II. THE SILENCE OF YOUTH 29
III. FLAMMECŒUR 62
IV. THE PASSION 94
V. SHADOWS 121
VI. A LOVE-STRAIN 154
VII. THE LOST LENORE 177
VIII. TO A TRUMPET-CALL 209
IX. THE STORM 235
X. FROM RENNES 260
XI. THE WANDERER 286
XII. LAURE 316
XIII. LENORE 347
XIV. ELEANORE 378
XV. THE RISING TIDE 401
XVI. THE MIDDLE OF THE VALLEY 423
[Illustration]
LIST · OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Lenore _Frontispiece_
_Page_
The whole Castle had assembled to say God-speed to their
departing lord 90
Only one among them seemed not of their mood 180
“Gerault—Gerault—my lord!” she whispered 276
Mother and child were happy to sit all day in the
flower-strewn meadow 336
Hand in hand, by the murmurous sea, they walked 416
* * * * *
_The decorations for title-page, end-papers, and chapter initials are by
Miss Mabel Harlow_
_FOREWORD_
_Wistfully I deliver up to you my simple story, knowing that the first
suggestion of “historical novel” will bring before you an image of
dreary woodenness and unceasing carnage. Yet if you will have the
graciousness but to unlock my castle door you will find within only two
or three quiet folk who will distress you with no battles nor strange
oaths. Even in the days of rival Princes and never-ending wars there
dwelt still a few who took no part in the moil of life, but lived with
gentle pleasures and unvoiced sorrows, somewhat as you and I; wherefore,
I pray you, cross the moat. The drawbridge is down for you, and will not
be raised, if, after introduction to the Chatelaine, you desire speedily
to retreat._
_M. H. P._
[Illustration]
_The_ CASTLE _of_ TWILIGHT
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER ONE_
THE DESOLATION OF AGE
[Illustration]
It was mid-April: a sunny afternoon. A flood of golden light, borne on
gusts of sweet, chilly air, poured through the open windows of the
Castle into a high-vaulted, massively furnished bedroom, hung with
tapestries, and strewn with dry rushes. A heavy silence that was less a
thing of the moment than a part of the general atmosphere hovered about
the room; and it was not lessened by the unceasing murmur of ocean waves
breaking upon the face of the cliff on which the Castle stood. This
sound held in it a note of unutterable melancholy. Indeed, despite the
sunlight, the sparkle of the waves, and the fragrance of the fresh
spring air, this whole building, the culminating point of a long slope
of landscape, seemed wrapped in an atmosphere of loneliness, of sadness,
of lifelessness, that found full expression in the attitude of the
black-robed woman who knelt alone in the high-vaulted bedroom.
Eleanore was kneeling at her priedieu. Madame Eleanore knelt at her
priedieu, and did not pray. Nay, the great grief, the unvoiced
bitterness in her heart, killed prayer. For, henceforth, there was one
near and unbearably dear to her who must be praying for evermore. And it
was this thought and the vista of her future lonely years that denied
her, even as she knelt, the consolation of religion.
To the still solitude of her bedchamber, and always to the foot of her
crucifix, the chatelaine of Le Crépuscule was accustomed to bring her
griefs; and there had been many griefs and some very bitter ones in the
thirty-four years that she had reigned as mistress over the Castle. But
this last was one that, trained though she was in the ways of sorrow,
defied all comfort, denied the right of consolation, and forbade even
the relief of an appeal to the All-merciful. Laure, her daughter, the
star of her solitude, the youth and the joy of her life, the object of
all the blind devotion of which her mother-soul was capable, had this
morning entered upon her novitiate at the convent of the Virgins of the
Magdalen. Although Madame Eleanore’s family was celebrated for its
piety, though many a generation of Lavals and Crépuscules had rendered a
daughter to the eternal worship of God, there were still no records left
in either family of a great mother-grief when the daughter left her
home. But madame, Laval as she was, Crépuscule as she had learned to be,
could not find it in her heart to praise God for the loss of her child.
Once again, after many years, years that she could look back upon now as
filled with broad content, she was alone. Not since, many, many years
ago, she had come to the Castle as a girl-bride, wife of a military
lord, had such utter desolation held her in its bonds,—such desolation
as, after the coming of her two children, she had thought never to feel
again. In the days after the Seigneur’s first early departure for
Rennes, without her, she had felt as now. It came back very vividly to
her memory, how he had ridden away for the capital, the city of war, of
arms, of glittering shield and piercing lance, of tourney and laughter
and song; how she had longed in silence to ride thither at his side; how
she had wept when he was really gone; how she had watched bitterly, day
after day, for his return up the steep road that came out of the forest
on the edge of the sand-downs below. Clearly indeed did her youth return
to Eleanore as she knelt here, in the barred sunlight, alone with her
unheeding crucifix. And intertwined with this memory was the new sense
of blinding sorrow, the loss of Laure.
The reality, as it came to her, seemed even now vague and impossible.
Laure, her girl, her strong, wild, adventurous, high-hearted, fearless
girl, to become a nun! Laure, of whom, in her own way, Eleanore had been
accustomed to think as she thought of the great white gulls that veered,
through sunlight and storm, on straight-stretched pinions, along the
rocky coast, as a creature of light, of air, above all of perfect,
indestructible freedom! This, her Laure, to become a nun! Spite of what
the Bishop of St. Nazaire had so earnestly told her, how, in all strong
natures, there are strong antitheses and quiet, governing depths that no
outer turbulence can disclose, Eleanore rebelled at the disposal that
had been made of this nature. She knew herself too well to believe that
her daughter could renounce all the joys of youth and of life without a
single after-pang.
After this early mother-thought for the child’s state, Eleanore’s
self-grief returned again with redoubled force; and her brain conjured
up a vision of the future,—that great, shadowy future, that wrapped her
heart around in a cold and deadening despair.
The April wind blew higher through the room, catching the tapestry
curtains of the immense bed and waving them about like blue banners. The
bars of sunlight mellowed and broadened over the shrunken rushes and the
smooth stones of the floor. The surf boomed louder as the tide advanced.
And Eleanore, still upon her knees, rocked her body in her helpless
rebellion, and found it in her heart to question the righteous wisdom of
her God. She did not, however, come quite to this; for which,
afterwards, she found it expedient to give thanks to the same deity. Her
solitude was unexpectedly broken. There came a knock upon the door,
which immediately afterwards opened, and Gerault, her son, entered the
room.
This fourth Seigneur of Le Crépuscule, a dark-browed, lean, and rather
handsome fellow, clad in half armor and carrying on his wrist a falcon,
jessed and belled, was the first of Eleanore’s two children. She
reverenced him as his father’s successor; she held affection for him
because she had borne him; and she respected him and his wishes because
he was a man that commanded respect. But perhaps it was this very
respect, which had in it something of distance, that killed in her the
overwhelming love which she had always felt for his sister Laure, her
youngest and beloved.
Gerault, seeing his mother’s attitude, stopped short in the doorway.
“Madame, I crave pardon! I had not known you were at prayer,” he said.
Eleanore rose from her knees a little hastily. “Nay, Gerault, I was not
at prayer. ’Tis an old custom of mine to meditate in that place. Enter
thou and sit with me for a little.”
Gerault bowed silently and accepted her invitation by seating himself
near one of the windows on a wooden settle. His silence seemed to demand
speech from his mother. But Eleanore, once on her feet, had begun slowly
to pace the floor of her room, at the same time losing herself again in
her own thoughts.
Without speaking and without any discomfort at the continued silence,
Gerault watched his mother—contemplated her, rather—as she walked. Often
he had felt a pride—a pride that suggested patronage—in that walk of
madame’s. Never, in any woman, had he seen such a carriage, such
conscious poise, such dignity, such command. In his heart her son,
somewhat given to irreverent observation and analysis of those about
him, had named her the “Quiet-Browed,” and the very fact that he could
have seen somewhat below the surface and yet named her thus, was
evidence enough of her powers of self-control. It was he who finally
broke the silence between them.
“Well, madame, the change in our house hath taken place. Laure’s new
life is safely begun; and she hath given what she could to the honor of
our race. Now that it is done, I return to Rennes, to the side of my
Lord Duke.”
Eleanore made no pause in her walk, nor did she betray by the slightest
gesture her feeling at the announcement. Too many times before had she
experienced this same sensation. After a few seconds she asked quietly:
“When do you go?”
In spite of her self-control, her voice had been a strain off the key,
and now Gerault looked at her keenly, asking: “There is a reason why I
should not ride to Rennes? I have not thy permission to go?”
Eleanore paused in her walk to turn and look at him. There was just a
suggestion of scorn in her attitude. “Reason! Permission! Was ever a
reason why a Crépuscule might not fare forth to Rennes, or one that
asked permission of a woman ere he went?”
Again Gerault looked at her, this time in that dignified disapproval
that man uses to cover an unlooked-for mortification. And the Seigneur
was decidedly lofty as he said: “I have given thee pain, madame, though
of how, or wherefore, I am wofully ignorant.”
“Pain, Gerault? Pain?” Eleanore repressed herself again and immediately
resumed her walk. In a few seconds the calm, quiet dignity returned, her
mask was replaced, every vestige of her feeling hidden, and she had
become once more the châtelaine of unvoiced loneliness. Then she went on
speaking: “Pain, Gerault? Surely not. Know I not enough of Rennes that I
should not be well content to have thee in that lordly place, with thy
rightful companions, men of thy blood? Shall I not send thee gayly forth
again to that trysting-place of knightly arms?”
“And yet, madame, I did but now surprise in thy face a look of sorrow,
of some unhappiness, that is new to it.”
“Well, even so?”
“Ah, yes! It is Laure’s departure. Yet that must not be too much
mourned. Laure’s wild ways had come to be a source of uneasiness to both
of us at times. ’Tis true that there is lost an alliance that might have
brought much honor to Le Crépuscule. By the favor of my Lord Duke, Laure
might have wed with Grantmesnil, Senlis, Angers itself, perhaps; and
there was ever Laval.—Yet—”
He paused musingly, not seeing the look that had come back into the face
of madame. Only when she stopped again and turned to him did he utter a
soft exclamation, half surprise and half helpless apology. But Eleanore,
smiling at him sadly, began, in that voice that had long been tuned to
the stillness of the Castle: “If I could but make thee understand,
Gerault! If I could make thee look upon my hours of loneliness here—and
see—Gerault, it is not a matter of alliance, or of honor, or of
dishonor, with Laure. It is that she was my child, my daughter, my
companion—how adored!—here, in this—this great Castle of Twilight.
Neither thou nor any man can know what our lives are.—But think,
Gerault—think of me and of the Castle after thou art gone. What is there
for me here? The tasks that I invent to fill the hours are useless to
deaden thought. They are not changed from the occupations of thirty
years ago. Nor, methinks, have women known aught else than spinning,
weaving, sewing, spinning again, since the days of the earliest
kings,—the Kings of Jerusalem.—And day after day through the long years
I dwell here in this barren spot—dependent on others for what happiness
I am to get in my life. And now—now the Church, in which always my hope
of another, better life hath lain, taketh my child from me. Let then the
Church give me something in place of her! Let the Church pay back
something of its debt. And thou also, my son,—give me some help to live
through the unending days of thy absence in Rennes.”
“I, madame!—the Church!—What art thou saying?”
“Hast thou not heard me?”
“I have heard. But what shall I do, my mother?”
“Listen, Gerault. The Church hath taken a daughter from me. Thou, by the
aid of the Church, canst give me another. Gerault, thou must marry.
Marry, my son. Bring thy wife home to me!”
Gerault sprang to his feet with an expression on his face that his
mother had never before called there. For a moment he looked at her, his
eyes saying what his lips would not. Then, gradually, the fire in his
face died down, and he reseated himself slowly on the settle, while the
bird on his wrist, a wild _hagard_, fluttered its wings, and dug its
talons painfully into the knight’s flesh.
“Marry!” said Gerault, at length, in a voice that sounded strange to his
own ears. “Marry! Hast thou forgotten?”
“Nay, I have not forgotten; nor has anyone in the Castle. But thou,
Gerault, must forget. It is now five years since, and thou art more than
come to man’s estate. Even then thou wast not young.—Nay, Gerault, I do
not forget that cruel thing. Yet we must all go.—And ere I die I must
see thee wed. ’Tis not only for myself, child. It is for the house, and
the line of Crépuscule. Shall it be lost in four generations?”
Frowning, Gerault rose. “Well, madame, not as yet have I seen in
Brittany the maid that I would wed, barring always—” He shook himself to
dissipate the memory that was on him. “To-morrow I and Courtoise ride
forth to Rennes. Let me now leave thee once more to thy meditations.”
Gerault went to the door, opened it, turned to look once at his mother,
whose face he could not see, and then, with an audible sigh, went
quietly away. Each was ignorant of the other’s feelings. As Eleanore
moved over toward the open windows that looked off upon the sea, her
eyes, tear-blinded, saw nothing of the broad plain of blue and sparkling
gold that stretched infinitely away before her. Nor did she dream of the
spirit of reawakened bitterness and desolation that her words had
conjured up in Gerault’s heart. But the Seigneur’s calm and unruffled
expression concealed a very storm of reawakened misery as he descended
the great stone staircase of the Castle, passed through the empty lower
hall, and so out into the courtyard.
This courtyard was always the liveliest spot about the chateau. Le
Crépuscule itself was very large, and its adjacent buildings were on a
corresponding scale. Like all the feudal fortress-castles of its time,
it was almost a little city in itself. It dated from the year 1203, and
had been built by the first lord of the name, Bernard, a left-handed
scion of Coucy, who had been called Crépuscule from his colors, two
contrasting shades of gray. Since his time, each of its lords had added
to its strength or its convenience, till now, in the year 1380, it was
the strongest chateau on the South Breton coast. One side was built on
the very edge of an immense cliff against which the Atlantic surf had
beaten unceasingly through the ages. The other three sides were well
protected, first by a heavy wall that surrounded the whole courtyard
with its various buildings, beyond which came a broad strip of garden
land and pasturage, bounded on the far side by the second, or lower
wall, and a dry moat. The keep was of a size proportionate to the
Castle; and the number of men-at-arms that were kept in it taxed the
coffers of the rather meagre estate to the utmost for food and pay.
When Gerault entered the courtyard a girl stood drawing water from the
round, stone well. Two or three henchmen lolled in the doorway of the
keep, chaffing a peasant who had come up the hill from one of the manor
farms carrying eggs in a big basket. Just outside the stables, which
occupied the whole east side of the courtyard, a boy stood rubbing down
a sleek, white palfrey. All of these people respectfully saluted their
lord, who returned them rather a curt recognition as he passed round the
west tower on his way to a little narrow building just in front of the
north gate, in which his falcons were housed through the winter. Gerault
had a great passion for hawking, and his birds were always objects of
solicitude with him. He and Courtoise, his squire, were accustomed to
spend much time together in this little building, and in the open-air
falconry on the terrace outside the north gate, where young birds or
newly captured ones were trained.
Just now Gerault stood in the doorway of the falcon-house, looking
around him for Courtoise, whom he had thought to find within. He was
speaking to the bird on his wrist, his mind still occupied with the
recent talk with his mother, when, through the gate, came a burst of
laughter and song, and he raised his eyes to see a giddy company swaying
toward him in the measure of a “carole”[1] led by Courtoise and Laure’s
foster-sister, Alixe la Rieuse. Moving a little out of their way he
stood and watched the group go by,—the demoiselles and the squires of
the Castle household, retained by his mother as company for herself,
also to be trained in etiquette according to their several stations. And
a pretty enough company of youth and gayety they were: Berthe, Yseult,
Isabelle, Viviane, daughters all of noble houses; with Roland of St.
Bertaux, Louis of Florence, Robert Meloc, and Guy d’Armenonville, called
“le Trouvé.” But, of them all, Alixe, surnamed the Laughing One, was the
brightest of eye, the warmest of color, and the lightest of foot.
Footnote 1:
A “carole” was originally a dance to which the dancers sang their own
accompaniment.
As they went by, Gerault signalled to his squire, Courtoise, and the
young fellow would have disengaged himself immediately from his
companions, but that Alixe suddenly broke her step, dropped the hand of
Robert Meloc, who was behind her, and leaving the company, ran to
Gerault’s side, dragging Courtoise with her. The dance ceased while the
young people stood still, staring at their erstwhile leaders. Alixe,
however, impatiently motioned them on.
“Go back to the Castle with your ‘Roi qui ne ment pas.’[2] I will come
soon.”
Footnote 2:
An old-time game.
Obedient to her command, the little company resumed their quaint song,
and, with steps that lagged a little, passed into the Castle, leaving
their arbitrary leader behind them, with the Seigneur and his squire.
Gerault was silent till the young people had gone. Then he turned to
Alixe, but, before he had time to speak, she broke in hastily:
“Let me go with you to the falcons. You must see Bec-Hardi sit upon my
wrist, and attack his _pât_ on the rope.”
“Diable!—Bec-Hardi!—Thou hast a genius with the birds, Alixe. The
_hagard_ will not move for me.” Gerault was all attention to her now.
Alixe did not answer his praise, but started quickly forward toward the
gate through which she had just come, beyond which was the strip of turf
where the falcons lived in summer. Gerault and Courtoise followed her at
a slower pace, and she caught some disjointed words spoken by the
Seigneur behind her:—“Rennes”—“to-morrow”—“horses.”
As these came to her ears, Alixe’s steps grew laggard, for she had put
the thoughts together, and instantly her mood changed from golden
irresponsibility to dull and dreary melancholy. For a long time she had
concealed in her heart the deep sorrow that she felt at the prospective
loss of her life-playmate, Laure, now actually gone, and gone forever.
She had resigned herself to the thought of solitary adventures on moor
and cliff, and lonely sails on the breezy, treacherous bay, in a more
than treacherous boat,—such wild and risky amusements as she and the
daughter of Le Crépuscule had loved to indulge together. Laure was gone,
and she had kept herself from tears. But now—now, at these words of
Gerault’s, there suddenly rose before her a vivid picture of life in the
Castle without either brother or sister. Toward Gerault she had no such
feeling as that which she had held for Laure. He was a man to her, and
the fact made a vast difference. At times she entertained for him a
violent enthusiasm; at other times she treated him with infinite scorn.
But till now she had never confessed, even to herself, how much interest
he had added to the monotonous Castle life. Considering her wayward
nature, it was certainly anomalous that, in her first rush of
displeasure, there came to her the thought of Eleanore, the mother now
doubly bereft. And for madame she felt a sympathy that was entirely new.
Gerault and his squire reached the outdoor falconry before Alixe, whom
they perceived to have fallen into one of her sudden reveries.
Accustomed to her rapid changes of mood, neither man took much heed of
her slow steps and bent head. And when she reached the falconry and saw
the birds, her interest in them brought over her again a wave of
animation.
The outdoor falconry was a long strip of turf that lay between the
flower-terrace and the kitchen-garden. Into this turf had been driven
about twenty heavy stakes, to which were nailed wooden cross-pieces. On
nearly every one of these a falcon perched, and a strong cord, tied
about one leg, fastened each to his own stake. At sight of their master,
whom they knew perfectly well, all the birds set up a peculiar, harsh
cry, at the same time eagerly flapping their wings, appealing, as best
they could, for an hour or two of freedom. Alixe ran at once down to the
end of the second row of stakes, where sat a half-grown bird, striking
viciously at his perch with his iron beak.
Courtoise and Gerault ceased their conversation when Alixe went up to
this bird and addressed it in a curious jargon of Latin and
Breton-French. Courtoise betrayed an admiring interest when she stooped
to lay her hand on the bird’s feathers; and Gerault called
involuntarily,—
“Have a care, Alixe!”
The girl, however, had her way with the creature. At sound of her voice
it became attentive. At the touch of her hand it half raised its wings,
the motion indicating expectant delight. In a moment more it had hopped
upon the girl’s wrist, and sat there, swaying and preening contentedly.
“Sang Dieu, Alixe, thou hast done that well! Thou sayest he will also
attack the _pât_ from your hand?”
Alixe merely nodded. To all appearances, she was wholly engrossed with
the bird, which she continued to handle. Gerault and Courtoise had come
close to her side, though the falcon betrayed its displeasure at their
approach. All three of them had been silent for some seconds, when Alixe
turned her green eyes upon the Seigneur, and, looking at him with a
glance that carried discomfort with it, said in a very precise and
cutting tone:
“So you leave Le Crépuscule to-morrow, Gerault? And for how long?”
“That I cannot tell,” answered Gerault, exhibiting no annoyance. “For as
long a time as Duke Jean will accept my services.”
“Ah! then there will be fighting. I had not heard of a war. Tell me of
it.”
Gerault became suddenly embarrassed and correspondingly displeased. “Of
what import can it be to you, a woman, whether there is war or peace?”
he inquired.
“Oh, there is great import.”
“Prithee, what may it be?”
“This: that an there were indeed a war thou mightest be forgiven thy
great selfishness in going forth to pleasure, leaving thy mother here in
her loneliness and sorrow; whereas—”
“Silence, Alixe! Thine insolence merits the whip,” cried Courtoise.
“Peace, boy!” said Gerault, shortly, and forthwith turned again to the
demoiselle. “And is not my mother long accustomed to this life, and well
content with it? Is she not lady of a great castle, mistress of enviable
estates? Hath she not a position to be proud of? From her speech and
thine one might think—” he snapped his fingers impatiently.—“Come you
with me, Alixe. Let us walk here together on the turf, while I say to
you certain things. Thou, Courtoise, return to the Castle if thou wilt.”
The squire, however, chose to remain in the field, and stood leaning
against the wall, watching the falcons at his feet, and whistling under
his breath for his own amusement. Alixe replaced Bec-Hardi, screaming
angrily and flapping its wings, and moved off beside Gerault, her long
red houppelande and mantle trailing upon the grass round her feet, the
veil from her filet flowing behind her nearly to the ground. Long time
these two, Lord of Le Crépuscule and his almost sister, walked together
in the sunny light of the late afternoon. And long Courtoise the squire
watched them as they went. Although Gerault had said, somewhat in ire,
that he had a matter to speak of with her, it was Alixe that talked the
most, and from his manner it could be seen that Gerault was fallen very
much under the influence of her peculiar insistence. What it was they
spoke of, Courtoise could only guess—and fear. For, though he might hold
in his heart some sympathy with madame in her loneliness, yet the squire
was a man, and young; and his young thoughts drew with delight the
picture of Rennes’ gayeties in the summer-time, when no war was toward
and the court alive with merriment. Indeed, it was not very wonderful
that he prayed to be off on the morrow; but the occasional glimpse that
he got of his lord’s face carried doubt into his heart.
As the squire stood there by the wall, musing, Madame Eleanore herself
came out of the courtyard into the field. Her rosary hung from her
waist, and in her hand was a little volume of Latin prayers. In some
way, of which she was probably unconscious, the placid manner of her as
she came into the field for her evening walk caused Courtoise’s idle
dreams of gayety to vanish away, and the present, so tinged with the
spirit of sweet melancholy, to become the only reality. The squire at
once advanced toward his lady, while, ere he reached her, Alixe and
Gerault had halted at her side.
“Indeed, my mother, thou art well come hither at this time. Prithee join
us in our walk. For some time past Alixe and I have been speaking of
thee. See, the air is sweet, for it comes off the fields to-night.”
“Indeed, ’tis sweet—sweeter than summer,” said Eleanore, smiling as she
joined the twain. “But mayhap I shall break your pleasure by coming with
you, for you are gay and young, and I—”
They moved on without having noticed him, and Courtoise lost the rest of
Eleanore’s speech. But the squire remained in the field, watching the
three move back and forth in the deepening dusk. When they came toward
him for the last time, and passed through the gate in the north wall,
returning to the Castle, all three faces were as calm as madame’s, and
Courtoise permitted himself only one sigh for the lost summer at Rennes.
Oddly enough, the squire’s regrets proved to be premature, for
immediately after the evening meal he was summoned by Gerault to the
Seigneur’s room, to make ready for the journey. Gerault did not deign to
inform his squire of the substance of his talk in the fields, but from
the tranquillity of his manner Courtoise could not but perceive that
everything had gone well. It was a late hour when all the necessary
preparations had been made; and then the two, lord and squire, went
together to the chapel and were there confessed by Anselm, the
steward-priest; after which they bade each other a good-night, and
sought their rest.
By sunrise, next morning, the whole Castle had assembled at the
drawbridge, to say God-speed to their departing lord. Madame Eleanore,
in bliault, houppelande, mantle, and coif all of black and white, held
Gerault’s stirrup-cup, and smiled as she spoke with him. There was a
chorus of chattering demoiselles and a boyish clattering of swords and
little armor-pieces from the young squires, as Gerault buckled on his
shield, whereon was wrought the motto and device of Crépuscule.
Courtoise had already fastened to his lord the golden spurs. And now the
two were mounted and ready, Gerault with lance in rest and white reins
gathered on his horse’s neck; Courtoise, brimming with delight, now and
then giving his steed a heel in flank that caused him to rear and curvet
with graceful spirit. For the last time Gerault bent to his mother’s
lips, and for the last time he looked vainly over the company for a
glimpse of Alixe, his recent mentor. Finally his spurs went home. The
drawbridge was down before him, the portcullis raised. Amid a chorus of
farewell cries, he and Courtoise swept away together, over the bridge
and down the long, gentle hill, and out upon the Rennes road, which, at
some twelve miles from Le Crépuscule, passed the priory-convent of Les
Vierges de la Madeleine.
When the twain were gone, and the group prepared to disperse,—the
squires-at-arms to their sword-practice under the captain of the keep,
the sighing demoiselles to their long morning of weaving and
embroidery,—Alixe suddenly appeared from the watch-tower close at hand,
inquiring for Madame Eleanore.
“Methinks she hath retreated to her room, to say her prayers for the
Seigneur’s safe journey,” Berthe told her. And Alixe, with a nod of
thanks, ran to the Castle, and ascended to madame’s room.
The door was open, for madame was not at prayer. She stood at the open
window, looking out upon the sea. Alixe could not see her face, but from
the line of her shoulders she read much of her lady’s heart.
“Madame,” she said, in a half-whisper.
Eleanore turned quickly. “Alixe!”
“Madame Eleanore—mother—”
A terrible sob broke from the older woman’s throat, and suddenly she
fell upon her knees beside a wooden settle, and, burying her face in her
hands, finally gave way to her desolation. Alixe, who had opened her
heart, now comforted her as best she could, soothing her, caressing her,
whispering to her in a magnetic, gentle voice, till madame’s grief had
been nearly washed away. Then the young girl said, softly, in her ear:
“Think, madame! ’tis now but eleven days till thou mayest ride out to
Laure at the priory. And there thou canst talk with her alone, and for
as long as thou wilt. Also, when her novitiate is at an end, she may
come here to thee, once in a fortnight, for so the Mother-prioress hath
said.”
Eleanore held Alixe’s hand close to her breast, and while she stroked
it, a little convulsively, she said, with returning self-control: “I
thank thee—I thank thee—Alixe, for thy good comfort.” Then, in a
different tone, she added, with a little sigh: “Eleven days—eleven
ages—how many others have I still to spend—alone?”
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER TWO_
THE SILENCE OF YOUTH
[Illustration]
The priory-convent of the Virgins of the Magdalen was as old as any
nunnery in Brittany of its repute. It had been founded in the early days
of the tenth Louis of France and his good lady of Burgundy, long before
the death of the last of the Dreux lords of the dukedom. It was
celebrated for more than its age, however; for through three centuries
it had held in ecclesiastic Brittany, for its wealth, its exclusiveness,
and, above either of these things, its unswerving chastity, a place as
unique as it was gratifying. In the year 1381 no breath of scandal had
ever disturbed its fragrant atmosphere. Moreover, though this was a fact
not much regarded by people in authority, it was a remarkably
comfortable little house, of excellent architecture and ample room for
the practice of any amount of worship. Its situation, however, was
lonely. It stood nearly at the end of the Rennes coast road, on the
outskirts of a thick forest, twenty miles from the town of St.
Nazaire-by-the-sea, and twelve from the Chateau of Le Crépuscule. And it
was here, in this pleasant if austere retreat, that many a noble lady of
Laval and Crépuscule had ended her youth and worn her life away in the
endeavor to attain undying sanctity.
On a certain afternoon in this mid-spring of 1381, the very day, indeed,
that Lord Gerault took to the Rennes road to ease his ennui, a little
company of nuns sat out in the convent garden, embroidering away their
recreation time. The day was exquisite: sunny, a little chilly, its
breeze laden with the rare perfume of awakening summer. The garden, at
this season of the year, was a place of wondrous beauty, redolent of
rich, pregnant soil, and all shimmering with the misty green of tender
grass and countless leaf-buds, from the midst of which a few flowers,
pale primroses and crocuses and a hyacinth or two, peered forth,
starring the new-planted beds with the first fruits of this new union of
earth and sky.
The spirit of the spring ruled supreme over all natural things. Only the
creatures of God, the self-consecrated nuns, sat in the midst of this
wonder of the young world, untouched by it. Heedless to the uttermost of
this greatest of worldly blessings, they sat plying their needles in and
out of their bright-colored, ecclesiastical fabrics, listening, in their
dull and dreamy way, to the voice of one of their number who was droning
out to them for the thousandth time the old and long-familiar laws of
their order, expressed in the “Rhymed Rule of St. Benedict.” One only
among them seemed not of their mood. This was a young girl, white-robed
like all the rest, her unveiled head proclaiming her novitiate. As
became her station she bent decorously to her task, and it had taken a
close observer to see and read all the little signs she gave of
consciousness of the world around her, the green, growing things, and
the liquid bird-songs that came trilling out of the forest near at hand.
Probably not even the most skilled of readers could have recognized all
the meaning in the long, slow looks, half wondrous and half probing,
with which, every now and again, she traversed the circle of faces about
her. Her self-restraint was very nearly flawless, and was successfully
maintained throughout the long period of recreation; so that not one of
her companions guessed the relief she felt when the first clang of the
vesper-bell roused them from their trance-like dulness. But the young
girl wondered a little at herself when she perceived that her brows were
damp with the sweat of the constraint.
At this time Laure of Le Crépuscule was sixteen years of age, and pretty
as a flower to look upon. She was slim and white-faced, with immense,
limpid brown eyes that were wont to move rather slowly, and burnished
brown hair hanging in twists to her knees: an object for men to rave
over, had any man worth so calling ever set eyes upon her. She was young
enough and pure enough to be of unquestioning innocence; and, until now,
the fiery life in her had found sufficient outlet in unlimited bodily
exercise. She had seen nothing of real life, and never dreamed of the
talent she possessed for it. It was from her own heart that the wish to
consecrate herself to the eternal worship of God had come; for she
believed that in this way she should find a haven for those terrible and
fathomless mental storms of which she had weathered many in her young
life, and of which her own mother never so much as dreamed. Utterly
ignorant of her real self, she was yet a girl of strong intellect, of
great versatility, of over-weening passions, and withal as feminine a
creature as the Creator ever fashioned. Both her temperament and her
appearance more resembled the dwellers of the far South—Provence or even
Navarre—than the children of the rugged, chilly shores of northern
Brittany; for her skin had the dark, creamy pallor of the South, and her
eyes held none of the keen fire that glows in the North, while her hair
grew low above her smooth, white brow.
Laure’s temperament was dramatically mobile. She adapted herself almost
unconsciously to any mode or situation of life, and this, though she did
not know it, was all that she was doing now. It was with real, if
subdued pleasure that she went through the services of the day. From
matins, which, at this period of the year, began at the cheerless hour
of four in the morning, till compline, at eight in the evening, when the
church bell tolled the end of another day of prayer, Laure’s nature was
under a kind of religious spell, which she and those about her had
joyfully interpreted as a true vocation.
The first eleven days of Laure’s convent life passed away in comparative
calmness; and she found no weariness in them. On the twelfth, Madame
Eleanore rode in from Le Crépuscule to see her daughter. She was
admitted to the convent as speedily as if the little lay sister had
known the devouring eagerness of the mother-heart; and because she was a
lady of consequence, and because she was known to be very generous to
the Church, and especially because the Bishop of St. Nazaire was her
close friend, she was not left to wait in the reception-room, but
conducted straight to the Prioress’ cell.
Mère Piteuse received Madame Eleanore with anxious cordiality. After
their greetings the guest seated herself, and was obliged to keep
silence for a moment before she could ask quietly,—
“And Laure, Reverend Mother,—how fares my child? Is she content with
you?” Eleanore’s heart throbbed with unconfessed hope as she asked this
question. For if Laure was _not_ content, she might return at will to
the Castle, her home, and her mother’s heart.
But the Prioress returned Eleanore’s look with a smile of satisfaction.
“In a moment Laure will come hither. I have sent for her. Then thou
shalt learn from her own lips how well her life goes. Never, I think,
hath our priory received a new daughter that showed herself so happy in
her vocation. We shall call her name Angelique at her consecration.”
Eleanore felt her body grow cold, and her head swim. Her face, however,
betrayed nothing. Her little girl, then, was really gone! Laure, the
wild bird, was tamable. She—_could_ she become “Angelique”?
Neither madame nor the Prioress spoke again till there was a sound of
gentle footsteps in the corridor, followed by a light tap on the wooden
door of the cell.
“Enter!” cried the Prioress; and Laure came quietly in.
First of all she bowed to Mère Piteuse. Then, as Eleanore involuntarily
held out her arms, the girl went into them, and kissed her mother with a
warmth and a sweetness that perhaps Eleanore had not known from her
before. At the same moment the Prioress rose quietly, and left the room.
The instant that she was gone, Eleanore seized the girl in a still
closer embrace, and held her tightly and more tightly to her breast.
“Laure, my darling! Laure, my sweet child! how hath my heart yearned for
thee! How hath thy name lain ever on my lips while I slept, and been
enshrined in my heart by day!”
The young girl’s arms wound themselves about her mother’s neck, and she
laid her head upon that shoulder where it had been wont to rest in her
babyhood. And Laure sighed a little, not unhappily, but like a child
tired of play.
“Laure, wilt thou remain here in the convent? Art thou happy? Dost thou
wish it, or wilt thou come home again to Crépuscule?”
A sudden image of the gray Castle, with its vast hall, and the great
fire blazing in the chimney-place within, and all the well-known figures
assembled there for a meal,—Alixe, Gerault, the demoiselles and young
squires headed by Courtoise, and the burly men-at-arms that had played
with her and carried her about as a little child,—all the long-familiar,
comfortable scenes of her old life came before the girl’s eye. And
then—then she drew a little breath and answered her mother, unfaltering:
“’Tis beautiful here, and sweet and holy withal. I am content, dear
mother. I will remain.”
“And hast thou, then, the vocation in thy heart, whereby some souls are
claimed of God from birth to death, and find the utmost of their
happiness in His communion?”
Laure’s great eyes fixed themselves upon the mother’s sad face as she
replied again, very softly: “Yea, my mother. That, from my heart, do I
believe.”
Eleanore sighed deeply, and then quickly smiled again. “Think not that I
mourn, my daughter, for having yielded thee up to the Church. May this
blessed spirit remain in thee, bringing thee everlasting peace.”
Then, while Laure still clung to her, the mother herself put the closely
clasped arms away from her neck, and drew the novice to her feet. “Now,
my Laure, I must go. But my thoughts are still left with thee.”
“But thou wilt come, mother?—In ten days’ time thou wilt come to me
again?”
“Yea, sith it is permitted by the rules that I see thee once more, I
will surely come,” she answered quietly.
“Laure will greatly rejoice at thy coming,” said the Prioress, gently,
from the doorway.
So Eleanore renewed her promise, and shortly after rode away from the
priory gate, into the thick wood through which ran the road to
Crépuscule.
Her mother’s visit brought Laure two days of extremest homesickness and
yearning. Then she regained her independence, and began to find a new
delight in her surroundings. The perfect peace of it, the infinite,
delightful detail of worship, with its multifarious candle-points, and
its continual clouds of fragrant incense, all wrought together into a
life of undeviating regularity, brought to the novice a sense of
peculiar safety and freedom from vexation or care that was quite new to
her, for all her youth. The day began with matins, repeated by each nun
alone in her cell. Laure had been given a room in a corner of the
priory, at the very end of the corridor of novices, and she gained
therefrom an added sense of exclusiveness and seclusion. She had not
once been late in her answer to the matins bell, and the mistress of
novices, passing Laure’s cell on her first round of the day, had never
failed to find her praying. Laure came of a pious house, and had known
her prayers, all the forms of them, long before she entered the priory.
They required no thought in the repetition, and therefore there was many
a morning when she played the parrot at her desk, either too sleepy, or
too much occupied with thoughts and dreams, to heed the familiar
addresses to God. This was not entirely a fault, perhaps. The mornings
came very early in these days, and there were wonderful things to be
seen through her cell-window. She saw the dawn, golden-girdled, garbed
in flowing rose-color, unlock the eastern portals of the sky. She saw
stars and moon glimmer faintly and more faint, and finally sink to rest
under the high, clear green of the morning heaven. Last of all, over the
feathery line of trees that made a horizon for her at her cell-window,
she could see the first dazzling ladder of the sun lifted up to lean
against the east. And then Laure would long for the murmur of devotion
to be stilled in the Abbey, for sun-mists were filling the Heavens, and
from the forest the bird-chorus rose to a full-throated _tutti_, in its
hymn of glorification to the new day.
This morning benediction that she found, Laure kept to herself by day,
and carried with her until dark. There was no one in the priory to whom
she could have confided her pleasure, for there was none in the Abbey
that had her love, or, indeed, any love at all, for the world that God
had made for Himself and for mankind. The day-tasks also had their
pleasures for the novice. She learned, in time, that she was not obliged
to fill her recreation hours with embroidery; but that she might sleep,
or pray, or work in the garden, or do whatever a quiet fancy should
select. So she chose to befriend the soil, and played with it as if it
were a tender companion. And after her exercise here, the rest of the
day, nones, vespers, supper, confession, and compline, melted away
almost unheeded, leaving her at last to the sweet-breathed night, and to
a sleep as dreamless and as sound as that of any baby.
In this most simple way, without any untoward happening, without her
once leaving the priory, the days flowed on, spring melted into summer,
and Laure found herself possessed of an infinite and ever-increasing
content, the great secret of which probably lay in the fact that every
waking hour had its occupation. She had entered her new life in the most
beautiful time of the year, and, heedless of this, began, in her
delusive happiness, to wonder why, long ago, the whole world had not
taken to such existence. She had plenty of time to indulge in
dreams,—vague and fragile dreams of the great world and the people
dwelling therein, that she should never come to know. But the fact that
she could never know them did not come home to her with the force of a
deprivation. She did not feel herself to be a hopeless prisoner. She was
not professed; and the fact that there still remained to her a free
choice easily kept her from any over-vivid perception of the eternal
dulness of convent life.
Once in two weeks Madame Eleanore came to see her, and if these visits
were bitter to the mother, Laure never guessed it. Also, from time to
time, the professed nuns would leave the convent for a day or two at a
time, on what errands the novices were not told. But Laure knew that
similar privileges would be hers after her profession.
The summer, in its fulness and beauty, passed away. Purple autumn came
and went. And one day, in the first cold weather, Laure was summoned to
the Mother-prioress’ room, where she was told a proud thing. It was
that, if she chose profession at the end of her novitiate, which would
come in the Christmas season, her consecration might take place at the
same time, by special permission from the highest power; for, by
ordinary ecclesiastic law, she was still many years too young for this
consummation of the celibate life. But if she so chose, his Grace the
Bishop of St. Nazaire would perform the ceremony of sanctification on
the twenty-sixth of December, directly after the forty-eight-hour vigil
of the birth of the Christ.
Laure heard this news with every appearance and every expression of
delight; and when she returned to the church for tierce and morning
mass, she tried, all through the service, to bring herself face to face
with herself, to appreciate, as she was conscious that she must, sooner
or later, the intense gravity of her position. But for some reason, by
some failure of concentrative force, she could not bring her mind to the
point of understanding. Over and over again her thoughts slid around
that one fact that she knew she must try to realize,—how, after the
giving of her final pledge, there could be no turning back, there could
be no escape, while she should live, from this life of prayer. She did
not appreciate it at all. She only remembered that she had been very
contented here, and that the days were never long.
In the weeks that followed her talk with Mère Piteuse, Laure enacted
this same scene of effort with herself many times, always futilely. As a
matter of fact, it was too grave a responsibility to put upon the
shoulders of a child in years and a less than child in experience. But
this unfairness was one of the prerogatives of monasticism,
unappreciated to this day.
Christmas time drew near; and gradually Laure dropped her efforts toward
understanding and fell into dreams of a varied and complex, if
unimportant, nature. She was to be professed alone, on the day after
Christmas. No novice had entered the convent within three months of her,
and, moreover, her birth and position made it desirable that she should
be surrounded by a little extra pomp; for, although Laure did not know
it, she was much looked up to by the nuns of humbler birth, and
universally regarded as a future prioress of the house. During the last
days of her novitiate the young girl was treated with peculiar reverence
and consideration, and she was given a good deal of time for solitary
reflection and prayer. Every day she was summoned to the cell of the
Prioress, who herself gave the girl good counsel and instruction upon
the higher life; while so much general attention was paid her that Laure
became a little astonished at her own importance.
In the first three weeks of December Madame Eleanore did not come at all
to see her daughter, and Laure grew lonely for her. She suspected
nothing of her mother’s heart-sickness over the approaching ceremony
that was to cut her child off from her forever; and, indeed, had Laure
been told of the mother-feeling, she could not have understood it.
On the afternoon of the twenty-third day of December the novice was
kneeling in her cell, supposedly at prayer, in reality indulging in a
rather forlorn and melancholy reverie. It was the hour of recreation;
and the convent was very quiet, for most of the nuns were sleeping, in
preparation for the strain of the forty-eight-hour Christmas service.
The stillness brought a chill to Laure’s heart, and she was near to
tears, when her door was suddenly pushed open, and some one halted
there. Laure turned quickly enough to see the white-robed Prioress
disappear, closing the door behind a figure that remained motionless
inside the threshold.
“My mother!” cried Laure, springing to her feet.
“Laure,” was the quivering response, as Eleanore held out her arms.
The dreamer, suddenly become a little child, went into the mother-clasp,
her pristine home, and was half carried over to the only seat in the
room,—a wooden tabouret, large enough for only one. Upon this Eleanore
seated herself, while Laure sank to the floor beside her, huddling close
to the human warmth of her mother, her head lying in that mother’s lap,
both hands held tightly in the larger, stronger, older ones.
“Laure—my Laure—my little Laure!” was all that, at this time, madame
could force her lips to say. And hearing it, the girl, suddenly
overwrought and overswept with repressed yearning for home love, all at
once burst into a convulsive flood of tears.
Some moments passed, and the sobs, instead of diminishing, began to
increase in violence, till Eleanore became alarmed. Certain unexpressed
fears took possession of her. She made no effort to bring them into
definite order in her mind. They merely joined themselves to a shadow
that had long since come upon her in the form of a question: What, in
bare reality, was this vast monster called “the Church”? Why had it a
right to step thus between mother and child? How could such a thing be
called holy? Filled with this idea, and realizing to the full how
desperately short was her chance, Eleanore set herself to work, through
every means known to her, to quiet Laure, to stop her tears, and to gain
her earnest attention.
Under madame’s determined calm, it was not long before Laure was brought
back to self-control. And when she was quiet, the mother, sitting very
straight in her place, drew the girl to her feet, and, holding her fast
by the hand, while she looked steadily into the clear, brown eyes, she
asked, slowly, with an emphasis born of her desperation,—
“Laure, is it indeed in thy heart to remain, of thy free will and
desire, forever in this house, forsaking all that was dear to thee of
youth and love, and freedom, in thy home, Le Crépuscule?”
Laure, while she looked at her mother, gave a sudden sigh, and her face
became staring pale. Eleanore strove to fathom her daughter’s look, but
could know nothing of the flood of natural desire and youth that was
oversweeping the girl. Laure’s resistance against it was silence. She
sat still, cowed and bent, while the noise of the waters filled her ears
and her heart was near to bursting with suffocation and yearning. Before
this silence, however, these passionate moments gradually ebbed away.
The wave retreated, and her heart shut tight. Words and phrases from
Holy Scriptures, books of prayer, and St. Benedict’s Rule, came crowding
to her, and she considered to herself how she might show her mother the
sin of her suggestion. But, as she had kept silence one way, so now she
practised it in the other. After the long pause her voice found itself
in three words only,—
“My mother!—madame!”
Eleanore’s eyes fell. Her hope was gone. For the thousandth time her
religion rose to shame her, before her child, for the absorbing love of
her motherhood. Presently Laure, standing before her, more like her
judge than like the disconsolate creature she had so lately comforted,
spoke again,—
“Madame, here in this place have I found contentment. There is no sorrow
and no desire when one lives but to pray and sleep, and wake and pray
again. God lives here continually in our hearts and He begets in us the
love that we bear for each other. Moreover, after my profession and
consecration, much freedom will be added to my life. I shall have no
more long hours of instruction, nor shall I be called on to do the
bidding of any one save perhaps that of the Reverend Mother. And whereas
thou ridest hither to me each fortnight, I, after my vow, may go instead
to thee, to see thee and mine ancient home.—Nay, mother, forgive me that
I rebuke thy words; but thou must not urge me thus, for my spirit is not
as yet very strong or very much tried, and is like to break under
temptation.”
Dry-eyed and straight-lipped, Eleanore rose from her place and kissed
her daughter, saying,—
“This is farewell, dear child, till thou shalt come home to me for the
first time after thy wedding with Heaven. My humble and earthly blessing
be upon thee,—and mayst thou find thy spirit strong, my Laure, when thou
shalt have need of it; as, in God’s time, thou surely wilt.”
Once again the mother kissed her girl—kissed her in final renunciation.
Laure felt a burning upon her brow long after madame had left the room.
Eleanore’s last words also somewhat affected the novice,—brought her a
dim sense of uneasiness and foreboding. But it was in silence that she
saw the black-robed figure leave the cell, and in silence she remained
for a long time after she was left alone, thinking over what had passed.
Laure had acted in such perfect sincerity that the wound she inflicted
on her mother, and the mortification she put upon her, were neither of
them realized. It was not wonderful that the impulses of the girl’s
heart had been stilled by the unceasing precept of the past months. Her
years were naturally powerless to fathom her mother’s heart, the heart
of her who sees herself completely separated in every interest from the
one that has always been nearest and dearest. And so the argument that
she conducted within herself after her mother’s going was not one of
justification of her own act, but—oh, ye gods!—an attempted
justification of Eleanore’s impiety.
Laure passed the next two days in an odor of extreme sanctity, and
hailed with deep inward joy the beginning of the long vigil of the birth
of the Saviour, on Christmas Eve. She was excused from keeping steadily
in church through this protracted service, for the reason that she would
be obliged, according to the Rule, to spend the night after her
consecration alone in the church, at prayer. Throughout Christmas Day
Laure was in a state of repressed nervous excitement. Was not to-morrow
to be her wedding-day? Was she not to become what the first Magdalen had
never been,—the bride of Christ? Her prayers throughout this day were
mingled with thoughts of the highest purity, the most refined spiritual
ecstasy, the most shining, uplifted innocence. Tears of joy and of proud
humility flowed readily from her eyes, while her mouth was filled with
heavenly praises that welled up from her heart.
In the afternoon she was sent away to rest; for the Mother-prioress was
considerate of her strength. Laure did not, however, lie down. Instead,
she stood for more than an hour at the window of her cell, looking out
over the world, and watching the fine feathery snowflakes float down
through the clear blue air. The earth was wrapped in a mantle whiter
than her consecration robe and veil. Perhaps it was a shroud. Laure
shivered at the thought, while she contemplated the unutterable
stillness of all things. Not a sound disturbed this vast scene of death.
The tree-boughs bent low under the weight of their pure burden; and when
the early evening fell, and vespers chimed out over the valley, the
tiny, frozen tears of Heaven still floated through the dark with
ever-increasing softness.
It was seven o’clock when Sœur Celeste, the chaplain, came to summon the
bride-elect to confession and interrogation with Monseigneur the Bishop
of St. Nazaire. As the two women passed together down the long corridor
of novices, through the cold cloister and empty refectory and along the
passage leading to the chapter, Laure’s heart was struck with a chill of
fear. How terribly empty the convent was! No one in the refectory, the
corridors scarcely lighted, the whole convent utterly silent; for the
drone of prayers in the church was inaudible here. She wondered how the
terrible vigil progressed, how many nuns had fainted in their fatigue.
She thought of anything but the matter before her, and was still
unprepared when the chaplain left her alone at the door of the chapter.
The Bishop of St. Nazaire was alone in this room, and at Laure’s
appearance he rose and went to her, taking her by the hand, and not
amazed to find her icy cold.
“My daughter!” he said gently; and Laure, looking into his face, was
suddenly filled with an ineffable comfort.
She had known the Bishop all her life, for he was her mother’s close
friend and a constant visitor at Le Crépuscule. But never before had she
seen him in this fulness of his office, so replete with magnetic
spirituality. If the unswervingly narrow tenets of his creed made St.
Nazaire too arbitrary where his religion was concerned, and if the
geniality of his own nature had, at times, brought upon him in his own
home reactions that afterwards rendered necessary the severest penances,
at least these two extremes of his life had brought him to a remarkable
intermediate balance. Irrespective of his state, he could be defined as
a man of the world, of large sympathies, having a broad understanding of
human frailty, because of the unconquerable weaknesses of his own
nature. His ethical code was one of high severity and strict purity; and
he strove with all the power of his spirit to follow it himself, never
failing, the while, to excuse the eternal failures of others. And now,
as Laure looked up into his large, smooth-shaven face, framed in long
fair hair, and lighted by a pair of bright blue eyes that generally
regarded the world with a surprising air of trustful innocence, the
young novice lost all her sense of desolation, and felt herself suddenly
introduced into a secure and unhoped-for haven.
St. Nazaire himself, examining the young girl’s face, and searching her
soul therein, knew that at this moment he was nearer to the inmost being
of the daughter of Le Crépuscule than he should ever be again; and he
felt that no one ever yet had been in a position to probe the depths of
her nature as he was going to probe them now. She gave herself up to him
as completely as Eleanore had given her once long ago, when, as a
new-born infant, she had wailed in his arms at her baptism before the
altar in the chapel of the Twilight Castle.
With this strong feeling of mutual confidence, Laure and the Bishop
seated themselves in the chapter of the convent. Confession and
stereotyped interrogation were gone through with dutifully, and then
followed what Laure had begun to wish for at the first moment of their
meeting,—a long and intimate talk upon the life that she should lead as
a professed nun. It was a life with which St. Nazaire was as fully
conversant as a man could ever be, and he pictured it to Laure as
faithfully as he was accustomed to picture Heaven—a heaven of flying men
and women carrying in their hands small golden harps—to those that
received the last sacrament at his hands. Laure had a vision of long
years filled ever fuller of transcendent joy and peace, in which she
should never know a wish that her life could not fill, nor a desire
beyond more earnest prayers, or a fast a little longer and more rigorous
than heretofore. And so skilful was the Bishop in the manipulation of
his sombre material, that he got from it remarkable beauties which,
impossible as it seems, were as convincing to him as to Laure.
It was late in the evening when the young girl received the episcopal
blessing and retired through the still nunnery to her cell. But her mind
was at perfect rest that night; and she went to sleep to dream of
nothing but the happiness and beauty of a consecrated life.
At ten o’clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth day of December, the
whole convent assembled in church for high mass, which was to be
celebrated by the Bishop of St. Nazaire. To-day the novices were
separated from the professed nuns, and the two companies knelt on
opposite sides of the church, leaving a broad space between them. The
choir was in its place. In the lower choir-stalls sat the
Mother-prioress, the sub-prioress, the chaplain and the deacons; while
his Grace was in the great chair of honor used by none but him. The only
member of the nunnery not present was Laure, who made her appearance
just as the bell began to ring for the opening of the mass. She came in
from the chapter-house at the far end of the church, and moved slowly up
the aisle. Her white robe and full mantle hid her figure and trailed
around her on the floor, and her head was crowned with the bridal veil,
which covered her face and fell to the ground all around her. In one
hand she carried a parchment scroll on which her vow was inscribed; and
in the other hand she bore the wedding ring.
As she advanced toward the altar every head was turned toward her, and
it was seen that she was white as death. But she was also very calm.
Indeed she was acting quite mechanically, like one under a hypnotic
spell; and there was no expression whatever on her face as she made her
genuflection to the cross, and then turned aside and knelt among the
company of novices. She took her usual part in the mass that followed,
making no slip in the service, and joining as usual in the singing, with
her full contralto voice.
When the benediction had been pronounced from the chancel, there was a
pause. No one in the church moved from her knees, and the Bishop
remained before the company with his right hand uplifted. Laure raised
her eyes, and her body trembled slightly, for her heart was palpitating
like running water. When the silence had lasted a seemingly unbearable
while, St. Nazaire turned his face to Laure, who rose and went up to
him, kneeling again in the chancel. And now, as she spoke, her quiet,
impressive voice was heard by every nun in the church,—
“_Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam. Et non confundas
me in expectatione mea._”
As she finished, Laure’s throat contracted, and she gasped convulsively.
Her head swam in a mist, but she knew that the Bishop was questioning
her from the catechism,—knew that she was answering him; and then,
afterwards, she heard, as from a great distance, the voice of the Bishop
praying. At the Amen, St. Nazaire signed to her again, and she rose and
stepped forward to his side. Then, turning till she faced the church,
she said quite distinctly, though in a low tone,—
“I, Sister Angelique, promise steadfastness, virginity, continuance in
virtue, and obedience before God and all His saints, in accordance with
the Rule of St. Benedict, in this Priory of Holy Madeleine, in the
presence of the Reverend Father Charles, Lord Bishop of St. Nazaire, of
the Duchy of Brittany, Lord under the most Christian Duke, Jean de
Montfort.”
Thereafter she went up to the altar, and there signed her scroll with
her new name and the sign of the cross. And there the ring of Heaven was
placed upon her finger, and she was declared a bride. For the last time
she knelt before the father, who lifted up his hands and consecrated
her, after the ancient formula, to the love of her Saviour, the blessing
of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. And then Laure, a
professed nun, came down from the holy place, and was received among her
sisters and reverently saluted by them.
The ceremony over, all the convent adjourned to the refectory, where a
little feast of rejoicing was held in honor of the newly consecrated
one. And after this, at an early hour of the afternoon, Laure was
conducted to her cell, and her ten days of retirement began. All that
afternoon, overcome with the strain of the past few days, the young girl
slept. She woke only when the Sœur Eloise, a stout and stupid little
nun, but a few weeks since made a lay sister, came up to her with bread
and milk. When she had eaten and was alone again, she sat for a long
time in her dark cell, looking out upon the starry night, and wondering
vaguely over her long future. Presently the bell for the end of
confession rang out, and, knowing that it was time, she rose and went
through the convent, and into the vast church. The last of the nuns had
left it and gone to seek her rest. Only the sub-prioress remained,
waiting for Laure. Seeing her come, the older nun saluted her silently,
and then moved away toward the dimly lighted chapter. In the doorway of
this room she turned to look back at the white figure standing in the
dimly lighted, incense-reeking aisle; and then, with a faint sigh of
memory, she extinguished all the chapter lights, bowed to the little
crucifix hanging in that room, and went her way to bed.
Laure was left alone in the great, dusky House of God. Where she knelt,
before the shrine of St. Joseph, two candles burned. All around her was
darkness—silence—solitude. Awed and wide-eyed, she forced herself to
kneel upon the stones, and her mind vaguely sought a prayer. But
thoughts of Heaven refused to come. Her Bridegroom was very far away.
She felt a cold weight settling slowly down upon her heart, and she
trembled, and her brows grew damp with chilly dew. Many thoughts came
and went. She remembered afterwards to have had a very distinct vision
of Alixe, standing alone upon a great cliff a mile from Le Crépuscule,
with a wild sea-wind blowing her hair and her mantle, and white gulls
veering about her head. For an instant, a wild longing flamed up through
her soul. Setting her lips, she tried to force her mind back again to
God. One—two—three faltering, reverent words were uttered by her. Then
Laure du Crépuscule started wildly to her feet.
“God! Oh, God! I am imprisoned! I am captive! I am captive forever! God!
Oh, God!”
As these wild cries echoed through the vaulted roof, she threw herself
passionately to the floor and lay there helpless, while the wave of
merciless realization swept over her. Then her hands wandered along the
stones of the floor, and her cheek followed them, and she clutched at
the cold, damp granite, in a vain, vague search for her mother’s breast.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER THREE_
FLAMMECŒUR
[Illustration]
The New Year had come: a time of highest festival in Brittany, when the
land was alive with merriment and gifts and legends and grewsome tales.
It was St. Sylvester’s Eve, when, as all men knew, the waves of the
Atlantic for once defied their barriers and struggled up the towering
cliffs, eager to meet, halfway, the descending dolmens, permitted once
in the year to leave unguarded the deep earth-treasures, that they might
quench their furious thirst in the sea. And on that night half the
peasants of Brittany lay awake, speculating on the vast wealth that
might be theirs if they were but to arise and seek out some monster
dolmen and wait beside it till the immense rock rolled away from its
hole, leaving a pit of gold and gems open to the clutching hands of the
world-man. But fear of the demoniac return of these same rolling rocks
kept most of the dreamers safe within their beds during the fateful
midnight hour, though of the luck of the few daring ones, there were,
nay, still are, many veracious tales.
Le Crépuscule, no less than the surrounding countryside, participated in
the interest of these supernatural matters; but the old Chateau had real
affairs of feast and frolic to occupy it also. The great New Year’s
dinner was the most lavish that the Castle gave in the twelve-month, and
this year, in spite of its depleted household, there was no exception
made to the general rule. The great tables were set in the central hall
and loaded with every sort of food and drink, while kitchen fires roared
about their juicy meats, and in the chimney-piece of the hall an ox was
roasted whole before the flames. Ordinarily the dinner hour at the
Castle was half-past eleven in the morning; but on feast days it was
changed to four in the afternoon, and the merriment was then kept up
till the last woman had retired, and the last man found a pillow on the
rushes that strewed the floor.
On this New Year’s eve there were, as usual, two great tables set; for
to-night not only all the retainers of the Castle, but also half a
hundred of the tenantry from the estates, claimed the privilege of their
fealty and came to eat at the house of their lord, sitting below his
salt, breaking his bread, supping his beer, and talking and laughing and
drinking each till he could no more.
Madame Eleanore was always present at this feast, as a matter of duty
and of graciousness. She sat to-night at the head of the board, with an
empty place beside her for Gerault. Alixe was upon her right hand, and
one of the young squires-at-arms upon her left; and in the general
hubbub of the feast none of the peasant boors noticed how persistent a
silence reigned at that end of the table, nor how wearily sad was the
expression of their lady’s face.
This was the first feast in many years at which the Bishop of St.
Nazaire had not been present; but he had not come to Le Crépuscule since
Laure’s consecration, and madame had given up hoping for his arrival.
Darkness had fallen some time since, and the hour was growing late. This
could be told from the increased noise at the table. Puddings and
crumcakes had been finished, and the men of the company were turning
their attention exclusively to the liquor—beer and wine—which had been
brought up to the hall in great casks, from which each might help
himself. David le petit, the jester, ran up and down on the table,
waving a black wand and shouting verses at the company. There was a
universal clamor and howling of laughter and song, which madame heard
with ever-increasing weariness and displeasure, though the demoiselles
showed no such signs of fatigue.
Suddenly, through the tumult, madame caught a sound that made her lift
her head and half rise from her chair, listening intently. There had
been a sound of horses’ hoofs on the courtyard stones.
“’Tis St. Nazaire at last,” she whispered to Alixe. “Now we shall hear
of—Go thou thyself, Alixe, and fetch hither fresh meat and a pasty and a
flagon of the best wine. Monseigneur must be weary. He shall sit here at
my side—”
Alixe rose obediently and hurried away on her errand; and while she was
gone there came a clamor at the door. A burly henchman sprang up and
lurched forward to open it, peering out into the darkness. Those in the
room heard a little ejaculation, and then there entered a new-comer with
some one else beside him. Neither was the Bishop of St. Nazaire. Both of
them were young,—one, indeed, no more than a boy, wearing an esquire’s
jerkin, hosen, cap, and mantle, and carrying only a short dirk in his
belt. The other, who came forward into the full light of the lamps and
torches, was a young man of six and twenty or thereabouts, lean and tall
and graceful, clad in half armor, but clean-shaved, like a woman. His
face had the look of the South in it, his eyes were piercingly dark, and
his waving hair as black as the night. In their first glance at the
new-comer, most in the room took notice that his spurs were not gilt;
but soon a maid spied out that the little squire carried on his back a
lute, strung on a ribbon, and then the stranger’s profession was plain.
This general examination lasted but the matter of a few seconds. Then
Madame Eleanore rose, and the stranger saluted her with a grace that
became him well, and began to speak in a mellow voice,—
“Madame la Châtelaine, give thee God’s greeting! I hight Bertrand
Flammecœur, singer of Provence, the land of the trouvère; and now find
myself a most weary traveller through this chilly land. Here—”
indicating his follower with two slim fingers—“is my squire, Yvain. We
come to-day from the Castle of Laval, in the South, where, in the high
hospitality of its lord, we have sojourned for some weeks. There,
indeed, I sang in half a score of tenzons with one Le Fleurie, an able
singer. But now, to-night, inasmuch as we are weary with long riding,
empty for food, numb with cold, and have found the drawbridge of this
Castle down, we make bold to crave shelter for the night, and a manchet
of bread to comfort our stomachs withal,” and the trouvère bent his body
in a graceful obeisance; while Eleanore, smiling her hospitality,
stepped forward a little from where she stood.
“It is the Breton custom, Sir Trouvère, to leave the drawbridge down
during the holy weeks of Christmas and Easter; and in those days any may
obtain food and shelter among us. Thou and thy squire, however, are
doubly welcome, coming as ye do from our cousins of Laval, in which
house I, Eleanore du Crépuscule, was born. In the name of my son, the
Seigneur Gerault, I return you God’s greeting, and pray you to make this
Chateau your home. Now, sith ye are well weary and anhungered, let your
boy rest him there among my squires, while you come here and sit and
eat.”
Thereupon little Yvain, after a bow, ran eagerly to the place indicated
to him; and Flammecœur, smiling, went forward at madame’s invitation
toward the place at her side. Ere he reached it, Alixe, who had been in
the kitchens and thus missed the stranger’s entrance, came into the
hall, bearing with her a wooden tray containing food and red wine. At
sight of the stranger she halted suddenly, and as suddenly he paused to
make her reverence; for by her dress he knew her to be no serving-wench.
In the instant that their glances met, her green and brilliant eyes
flashed a flame of fire into his dark ones; and curiously enough, a
color rose in the pale cheeks of the man ere Alixe had thought to catch
the flush of maiden modesty. Perhaps no one in the room had noted the
contretemps. At any rate, Flammecœur, taking a quick glance to see,
found none looking at him in more than ordinary curiosity; whereupon his
debonair self-possession flew back to him, and, turning again to Madame
Eleanore, he presently sat down to table and began his meal. While he
ate, and his appetite was excellent, he found space to converse with
every one about him; and had a smile for all, from madame to the shyest
of the demoiselles. Out of courtesy for their hospitality, he gave a
somewhat careless and rambling but nevertheless highly entertaining
account of some of his wanderings, and was amused to see how the young
demoiselles hung on his words. Only upon Alixe did he waste his efforts,
for she paid scant attention to him, listening just enough to escape the
charge of rudeness. And Flammecœur was man enough and vain enough to get
himself into something of a pique about her in this first hour of his
coming to Le Crépuscule.
When the stranger had had his say, and proved himself sufficiently
“trouvère,” the general after-feast of song and story began. Both tale
and song were of that day,—broad enough for modern ears, but of their
time unusually mild, and of the character that was to be heard from
ladies’ lips. Burliest henchman and slenderest squire alike tuned his
verse for the ears of Madame Eleanore to hear; and the wanderer,
Flammecœur, noted this fact astutely, and so much approved of it that,
while dwarf David’s fairy tale went on, he took a quick resolve that he
would make a temporary home for himself in this Castle.
In the course of time Flammecœur was asked for a song. Yvain brought his
lute to him, and he tuned the instrument while he pleaded excuse from a
long chanson. When he began, however, his voice showed small sign of
fatigue. He sang a low, swinging melody of his own composing, fitted to
words once used in a Court of Love in the south,—a delicate bit of
versification dealing with dreams. And so delicately did he perform his
task that perfect silence followed its close.
A moment later there was a sharp round of applause; for these Bretons
had never heard such a chansonette in all their cold-country lives.
Before anything more could be demanded, Flammecœur, satisfied with the
impression already made, sprang to his feet, and turned to Eleanore,
saying: “Lady, I crave permission for me and my squire to seek our rest.
We have ridden many leagues to-day, and at early dawn must be up and off
again.”
Eleanore rose and gave him her hand to kiss. “Sieur Flammecœur, we
render thee thanks for our pleasure, and give ye God’s sleep. Hither,
Foulque! Light the Sieur Trouvère and his boy to thy room, and sleep
thou this night with Robert Meloc.”
The young squire bowed and fetched a torch from the wall. Yvain came
running to his master’s side; and presently, to the deep regret of all
the demoiselles, the three disappeared into the “long room,” from which
a hallway led to the squires’ rooms.
In spite of Bertrand’s words about his early departure on the following
morning, he and Yvain did not go that day. Neither did they depart on
the next, nor within that week. On the morning after his arrival the
minstrel confessed, readily enough, though with seeming reluctance, that
he had no particular objective point in his journeying; that he but
travelled for adventure, for love of his lady, and that it was his mind
to linger around St. Nazaire or the coast till spring should give an
opening into Normandy. Madame Eleanore would not hear of it that he
should seek lodgings in St. Nazaire. There was strong tradition of
hospitality in Le Crépuscule,—ordinarily a lonely place enough; and its
châtelaine eagerly besought the Flaming-heart to lodge with her till
spring—and longer if he would. And after that she put him, forsooth,
into the Bishop’s chamber on the ground-floor, gave Yvain an adjoining
closet, and would take no refusal that he go hawking in the early
afternoon with all the young squires of the Castle.
Bertrand took to his life at the Twilight Castle with a grace, an ease,
and, withal, a tact that won him every heart within the first three days
of his residence there. He was a man of the broad world, such an one as
these simple Breton folk had not known before; for Seigneur Gerault did
not travel like this fellow, and had none of his manner for setting
forth tales. The young squires, the men-at-arms, the henchmen, the very
cooks and scullions, listened open-mouthed and open-eyed at the stories
he told of adventure and love, of distant countries, of kings and courts
and mighty wars. Besides this, he could manage a horse or a sword like
any warrior knight; he was deep learned in falconry; he could track a
hare or a fox through the most impossible furze; and he could read like
a monk and write like a scribe. As for his accomplishments with the
other sex, they were too many to mention. Before evening of the second
day every woman in the Castle from Madame Eleanore down, save, for some
mysterious reason, Alixe, was at his feet, confessing her utter
subjection. His soft Southern speech, the exquisite Langue d’Oc, used in
Brittany as French was used in England; his clean, dark, fine-featured
face; his glowing eyes; his love-laden manner, that ever dared and never
presumed; finally, what, in all ages, has seemed to prove most
attractive to women in men, a suggestion of past libertinism,—all these
things combined to make him utterly irresistible to the feminine heart.
Such a life of never-ending adulation, of universal admiration, was a
paradise to the troubadour, in whom inordinate vanity was the strongest
and most carefully concealed characteristic. So long as he should be the
centre of interest, he was never bored. But when he was not the central
object, there were just two people in all the Castle that did not bore
him unendurably. One of these was Madame Eleanore, in liking whom he
betrayed exceptional taste; the other was Alixe, who had piqued him into
attention. His admiration for madame was not wholly unnatural; for
Bertrand Flammecœur, love-child as he was, and filled with unholy
passions, was, nevertheless, as his singing showed, a man of refinement
and gentle blood. His feeling for Alixe was keen, because it was
unsatisfactory. She was at no pains to conceal her dislike for him, and
it was her greatest pleasure to whip a pretty speech of his to rags with
irony. He plied her with every art he knew, tried every mood upon her,
and to Alixe’s glory be it said, she never betrayed, by look or word,
that she had anything for him more than, at best, contemptuous
indifference. And after a week of effort the minstrel was obliged to
confess to himself that never before, in all his adventures, had he met
with so complete a rebuff from any woman.
He did not, even then, entirely relax his efforts. One morning, ten days
after his arrival, he was passing the chapel, a small octagonal room
opening off the great hall just beside the stairs, when he perceived
Alixe within. She was alone; and as he turned into the doorway she was
just rising from her knees. Unconscious of his presence, she remained
standing before the altar looking upon the crucifix, her hands fervently
clasped before her. After watching her for a moment in silence,
Flammecœur began to move noiselessly across the little room, and was at
her very shoulder before he said softly,—
“A fair good morn to thee, my demoiselle.”
Alixe wheeled about. “A prayerful one to thee, Sir Minstrel!” she said
sharply, and would have left him but that, smiling, he held her back.
“Nay, ma mie, nay, be pleased to remain for a moment’s love-look.” Alixe
merely shrugged at his teasing mockery, whereupon he became serious.
“Listen, mademoiselle, and explain this matter to me. Is all this Castle
under a vow of unceasing prayer? Piety beseems a damsel well enow; yet
never have I seen a household so devout. Madame Châtelaine repeats her
prayers five times a day; and the step before the altar here is ever
weighted by some ardent maid or squire. Ohé! Love in the south; prayer
in the north. Rose of Langue d’Oc,—snows of Langue d’Oïl. Tell me, Dame
Alixe, which likes thy heart the most, customs of my land or of thine?”
“This is all the land I know. And as for thee—well, if thou’rt a true
man of the south, methinks I would remain here,” she retorted
discourteously, giving him eye for eye.
“I do not my country so much despite to say its men are all like me,”
returned the Flame-hearted, smoothly, in an inward rage. “Yet I could
tell thee tales of thy cold Normandy that are not all of ice. Methinks
this cheerless Breton coast is the mother of melancholy; for shine the
sun never so brightly, it cannot melt the soul that hath been frozen
under its past winter’s sky. But, Demoiselle Alixe,”—Flammecœur dropped
his anger, and took on a sudden tone of exceeding interest,—“Demoiselle
Alixe, I hold in my heart a great curiosity concerning thee. I see thee
here living as a daughter of the house; yet art thou called Rieuse. Now,
wast thou born in Crépuscule?”
Alixe regarded him with half-closed eyes. Never had she resented
anything in him half so much as this question. Yet she replied to him in
a tone as smooth as his own: “Yea, truly I am of Le Crépuscule, by heart
and love. But I am not of the Twilight blood. I was born on the Castle
lands. I am the foster-sister of the Demoiselle Laure.”
“Laure?”
“Sooth, hast thou not heard of Laure, the daughter of madame?”
“Nay. Is she dead, this maid?”
“She is a nun.”
“Ah! ’Tis the same.”
“Not for us here. Thou must know she is but newly consecrated; and she
is to be permitted to come home, here, to the Castle, once in a
fortnight, to see madame her mother. On the morrow she will come for the
first time since her novitiate began, nine months agone.”
“Sang Dieu! Now know I why the Castle breathes with prayer. Madame would
make all things holy enough to receive her. She cannot be old, this
Laure, sith she is thy foster-sister?”
“I am older than she. Also, an I remain longer from the tapestry, I
shall be caused to make you do half my daily task as a punishment for
keeping me tardy. Give ye God-den, fair sir, and pleasant prayers!” And
with a flutter and an unholy laugh, Alixe had whirled past him and was
gone out of the chapel.
Flammecœur looked after her, but for the first time felt no inclination
for pursuit. Perhaps this was because, for the first time, Alixe had
given him something besides herself to think about. This daughter of
Madame Eleanore and her peculiar vocation interested him extremely. It
was quite surprising to find how interested one could become in little
matters, after a few days in Le Crépuscule. So Flammecœur presently
marched off to the armory in search of Yvain, and, finding him, he
questioned the little squire minutely as to the gossip of the keep
concerning the Demoiselle Laure. Was she mis-shapen? This was the only
excuse for entering a nunnery that occurred to the Flame-hearted. Yvain
had not heard that she was deformed. Was she crossed in love? Mayhap;
but Yvain had not heard it. Flammecœur shrugged his shoulders. The
enigma was not solved. It mattered little enough, anyway. Alixe had
jilted him again. Heigho! He ordered his horse, and went to seek a
falcon. While in the falcon-house he remembered that this nun was coming
to the Castle on the morrow, and he decided that he would have a sight
of her when she arrived.
Not unnaturally Bertrand Flammecœur had taken on the state of mind of
the whole Castle. Mademoiselle was coming home on the morrow. Every one
knew it, for a message had arrived on the previous day from Monseigneur
the Bishop of St. Nazaire, and Le Crépuscule was in a state of unwonted
excitement. The word came to madame as less of a surprise than as an
overwhelming relief, and a joy that had some bitterness in it. It had
rested with St. Nazaire whether her child should come home to see her
twice in the month! Ah, well, she was coming; she would lie in her
mother’s arms; the Castle would echo again to the music of her voice!
Thus through the whole day madame sat dreaming of the morrow, nor
noticed the tardy arrival of Alixe in the spinning-room, nor how, all
morning, Isabelle and Viviane whispered and smiled and idled over their
tasks.
Now, if Madame Eleanore’s heart and brain were full to overflowing with
the dreams of Laure, how feverish with longing came the thought of home,
home though for one little hour, to the prisoner herself! On the night
before her going, as, indeed, on many nights of late, Laure could not
sleep. Her eyes stared wide open into the night, while her mind traced
outlines of Le Crépuscule in the soft darkness. Ah! the dearly loved
halls and their blessed company, all that she had not seen for nearly
nine months, and on the morrow should see again! Her brain burned with
impatience. She tossed and tumbled on her hard and narrow bed. Finally,
long ere the hour for matins, she rose and went to sit at the window of
her cell, looking out upon the clear and frosty winter’s night. How the
hours passed till prime she scarcely knew. But at a quarter to five,
when matins were over, she went down into the church for first service,
wearing short riding-shoes under her white robe, with her hair bound
tight beneath her coif and veil, for galloping. During the simple
prayer-service, she got twenty penitential Aves for inattention, and
read added reproof in the eyes of Mère Piteuse. At length, however, it
came to be the hour for the breaking of the fast, and Laure found
opportunity to speak to the Sœur Eloise, who was to follow her as
attendant and protectress on the road to Crépuscule. Stupid, stolid,
faithful, low of birth and therefore much in awe of Laure, was this
little nun; and had the Mother-prioress been worldly wise, it had not
been she that followed Laure into the world this bright and bitter
January morning.
At a quarter to eight o’clock the two young women mounted their palfreys
at the convent gate, and were off into the snow-filled forest, while
behind them echoed gentle admonitions to unceasing prayer. Feeling a
saddle under her once again, and a strong white horse bearing her along
over a well-beaten road, Laure drew a breath that seemed to have no end.
And as her lungs filled with God’s free air, she pressed one hand to her
throat to ease the terrible ache of rising tears. How long it was since
she had felt free to move her limbs! How long since she had traversed
this shaded road! Eloise did not trouble her. The lay sister was too
occupied in clinging to the mane of her horse to venture speech; and she
looked at her high-born companion with mingled awe and admiration as she
saw her urge her beast into a trot. The convent animal had an easy gait,
and appeared to possess possibilities in the way of speed. Laure touched
him a little with her spur. The creature responded well. A moment later
Eloise turned pale with fright to see her lady strike the spur home in
earnest, and go flying wildly down the road till she was presently lost
among the thick snow-laden trees.
Laure was happy now. She found herself not much encumbered with her
dress, which had been “modified” in obedience to the law for conduct
outside the convent. Her gown and mantle were of the usual cut, and she
was girdled by her rosary; but her head was covered with a close-fitting
black hood from which fell a short white veil, two edges of which were
pinned beneath her chin, giving her, though she did not know it, a
delightfully softened expression. After she had left Eloise behind, she
continued to increase the speed of her animal till she had all but lost
control of him. Fifteen minutes later she was out of the forest and
running along a heavily packed road, bordered on either side with a thin
line of trees, beyond which stretched broad fields and moorlands, among
which, somewhere, the priory estate ended and that of Le Crépuscule
began. Eloise was now a mile behind; but Laure had no thought for her.
Her breath was coming short no less with emotion than with the exercise;
for the image of her mother was before her eyes. She let her mind search
where it would, through sweet and yearning depths; and her heart was
filled with thanksgiving for this hour of freedom. She was nearing that
place where the Rennes highway joined that of St. Nazaire, both of them
uniting at the Castle road, which led to the Chateau by a long and
winding ascent. Presently the Chateau became visible; and Laure, looking
on it with all her soul in her eyes, took no heed of the slow-moving
horseman ahead of her, on whom she was rapidly gaining. Indeed, neither
was aware of the presence of the other, till Laure’s horse, scenting
company, made a short dash of a hundred yards, and then came into a
sudden walk beside the animal bestrode by Bertrand Flammecœur of
Provence. The suddenness of the horse’s stop caused Laure to jerk
heavily forward. Flammecœur leaned over and caught her bridle. At that
moment their eyes met.
A flush of vivid pink overspread Laure’s lily face. She shrank quickly
away from the look in Flammecœur’s eyes. Then her hand went up to her
dishevelled hair; and she tried confusedly to straighten it back.
“Take not such pains, reverend lady. By the glory of the saints, thou
couldst not make thyself as lovely as God’s world hath made
thee!—Prithee, heed me not!”
Laure gave a little gasp at the man’s daring; yet such was Flammecœur’s
manner that she did not find herself offended. Presently she had the
impulse to give him a sideways glance; and then, all untutored as she
was, she read the lively admiration that was written in his face. After
that her hands came down from her head, and she took up her bridle
again, by the act causing him to relinquish it. “The Sœur Eloise is
behind me. I fear that I did much outdistance her,” she said, with a
demureness through which a smile was very near to breaking.
Flammecœur looked at her with a peculiar pleasure, a pleasure that he
had not often experienced. His immediate impulse was to put a still
greater distance between them and Eloise; but prudence came happily to
his aid. “Let us stop here till thine attendant comes, while thy horse
breathes,” he said, bringing his animal to a gentle halt.
Laure acquiesced at once, and did not analyze her little momentary qualm
as one of disappointment. Nevertheless, her face grew white again, and
she said not a word through the ten minutes they had to wait till Eloise
came riding heavily out of the wood. The other nun looked infinitely
startled at the sight of Flammecœur, and was muttering a prayer while
she stared from Laure to the trouvère. As soon, however, as she came,
the others reined their horses about, and immediately, in the most
remarkable silence that the Provençal had ever experienced, proceeded up
the hill and into the Castle courtyard.
In this wise they reached the Chateau, and Laure came to her own again.
She found herself surrounded by every one and everything that she had so
unspeakably yearned for; and—they made little impression on her. She
walked among them like one in a dream, striving in vain to free her mind
from its encompassing mists. When she was alone with her mother, in
Eleanore’s familiar and beloved room, Laure felt in herself an
inexplicable insincerity. She clung to madame, and wept, and kissed her,
and expressed in eager, disjointed phrases the great joy she felt in
being at home again; and all the while she scarce knew what she said, or
wherefore she said it. And in the end she gave such an impression of
hysteria that her mother became seriously distressed.
At dinner Laure’s manner changed. She was quiet and silent, and kept her
eyes fixed continually on her plate. Her cheeks were burning and she was
in a tumult of inward emotion that displayed itself in the most unwonted
stupidity. Her mother never dreamed the reason for her mood. Curiously
enough, Alixe read Laure better, though she scarcely dared admit to
herself that which she saw. No look of Flammecœur’s, nor quick flush of
the young nun’s face escaped her eyes, yet neither then nor ever after
did Alixe confess to any one what she read; for her own heart was too
much wrought upon for speech.
Dinner ended, and with that end came the hour for Laure’s return to the
convent. The girl realized this with a chill at her heart, but accepted
the inevitable resignedly. It was with a sense of desolation that she
followed Eloise out of the Castle to the courtyard where their horses
were waiting. Her parting with her mother was filled with grief of the
sincerest kind. She wept and clung to Madame Eleanore, gasping out
convulsive promises to return as soon as the rule permitted. She said
good-bye to Alixe as tenderly as to her mother, for the two maidens were
fast friends; she kissed all the demoiselles, was kissed by the young
squires-at-arms; and it was a sudden relief to her, in this rush of
home-feeling, that Flammecœur was nowhere to be seen, he and Yvain
having disappeared immediately after dinner.
Much to the satisfaction of Eloise, who endured a good deal of
discomfort when she was in high places, Laure finally mounted her
palfrey, and the two of them started away, waving good-byes all across
the courtyard and drawbridge, and indeed until Eleanore, leaning heavily
on Alixe’s arm, turned to re-enter the Castle.
The nuns began their descent of the long hill at a slow, jogging trot;
and presently Eloise remarked comfortably,—
“Reverend Mother enjoined us to repeat the hours as we ride. But so
didst thou gallop on the way hither, Sister Angelique, and so out of
breath was I with trotting after, that I said no more than the first
part of one Ave. Therefore let us return at a more seemly pace, that we
may rightly tell our beads,” and the stolid sister settled her horse
into a slower walk, and sighed comprehensively as she thought of the
dinner she had eaten and the sweetmeats that were hidden in her tunic.
Laure did not answer her. She fingered her rosary dutifully, and her
lips mechanically repeated the prayers. But her thoughts were no more on
what she said than they were upon food. Her face was drawn and whiter
even than its wont, and she sat her horse with a weary air. She was
making no struggle against the inevitable. In her soul she knew that she
must be strong enough to endure her lot; but she could make no pretence
to herself that that lot was pleasant.
The two were a long time in their descent of the hill, and it was
mid-afternoon when they reached the bend in the road that hid the
Chateau from sight. Laure was not looking ahead; rather, when she
looked, her eyes noticed nothing. But suddenly Eloise started from her
prayers and uttered an exclamation: “Saints of God! There is that man
again!”
A quick, cold tremor passed over Laure, and she trembled violently.
There in the road, fifty yards away, both of them on horseback, were
Flammecœur and his page.
Eloise began a series of weak and rapid expostulations. Laure sat like a
statue in her saddle. Nothing was done till the two young women came
abreast of the troubadour and his boy. Then, with a rapid and adroit
movement, young Yvain wheeled his horse between Laure and Eloise, and
presently fell back with Eloise’s animal beside him, while Bertrand
Flammecœur drew up beside Laure. The man was white with nervousness, and
he bent toward her and said in a low voice: “Sister of angels, grant me
pardon for this act!”
Laure had gone all aflame. Her heart was beating tremulously and her dry
throat contracted so that she could not speak. But looking, for one
fleeting instant, into his face, she smiled.
Flammecœur could have laughed for joy, for he saw that his cause was
won. And the ease of this conquest did not make him contemptuous of it;
for however little he understood it, there was that in this childlike
nun that made him hold his breath with reverence before her. The hour
that followed their second meeting was almost as new to him as to her,
in the stretch of emotions. They spoke very little. From behind them
came the continual, droll chatter of Yvain and the answering giggles of
Eloise. But Laure could not have laughed, and the trouvère knew it. As
they entered the forest, however, at no great distance from the priory,
he leaned far over and laid one of his gloved hands upon the tunic that
covered her knee.
[Illustration:
_The whole Castle had assembled to say
God-speed to their departing lord.—Page 25_
]
“Let me have some gage,—some token of thee,” he said in a hoarse and
unsteady tone.
“I cannot! Oh, I cannot!”
He did not urge, but resignedly drew his hand away; and as Laure’s body
made the little, involuntary movement of following him, he contained his
joy with an effort.
Now the white priory was visible from afar, among the leafless trees;
and so Laure, reining in her horse, turned to her companion: “Thou must
leave us at once,” she whispered, trembling.
He bent his head, and drew his horse to a standstill. At the same time
Yvain and Eloise rode up, having just pledged themselves to eternal
devotion. After a moment’s hesitation, Flammecœur leaned again toward
Laure, asking, this time fearfully,—
“Wilt thou tell me, lady, in what part of the convent is thy cell?”
She looked at him, wondering, but answered what he wanted, and then
waited, in silence, praying that he would ask another question. He sat,
however, with his head bent over so that she could not see his face, and
he said nothing more. Laure sighed, looked up into the wintry sky,
looked down to the snow-covered earth, felt the pall of her frozen life
closing around her once again, and then got a sudden, blind
determination that that life should not smother the little, creeping
flame that had to-day been lighted in her heart. Looking sidewise at
Flammecœur, who sat bowed upon his horse, she whispered,—
“Shall we—see—each other yet again?”
“By all the saints—and God—we shall! We shall!”
“Alas, Angelique, we are late for vespers! Haste!” cried Eloise, in the
same moment.
Laure sent the spur into her palfrey, which leaped forward like the
stone from a sling. Eloise followed after her at a terrifying pace, and
the troubadour and his page stood and watched them till they were lost
among the trees. The two reached the priory gate almost together; and
before they were admitted, Eloise, her face flushed and her eyes
shining, whispered imploringly to Laure: “Confess it not! Confess it
not! Else shall we never go again!”
To this plea Laure had no time to make reply; but the other, seeing her
manner, had, somehow, no fear that she would betray herself, and with
her the delicious love-prattlings of Yvain.
They found vespers just at an end, and were reproved for their tardy
return. Eloise retreated to her cell at once, to repeat her penitential
Aves of the morning, and Laure retired ostensibly for the same purpose.
Once alone in her cell, the young girl took off her riding-garments,—the
unusual cap and veil, boots, gloves, and spur,—and put them carefully
away in her oaken chest. Afterwards she straightened her bliault and her
hair, set her image of the Virgin straight upon its shelf, and moved the
priedieu a little more accurately between the door and her bed. Then,
standing up, she looked about her. There was nothing more to do. She was
alone with her heart, and she could no longer escape from thinking. So
she sat down on the bed, folded her hands upon her knees, and in this
wise twisted out the meaning of her day, till she found in her secret
soul that the unspeakable, the unholy, the most glorious, had come to
her, to fill the great void of her empty life.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER FOUR_
THE PASSION
[Illustration]
In the evening of the day of that momentous visit, after compline was
over, and she was in her bed in her cell, Laure yielded herself up to
sleep only after a rebellious struggle; she wished intensely to lie
awake with her wonderful thoughts. Sleep prevailed, however, and was
sound and dreamless; for she was physically tired out.
At two in the morning came the first boom of the church bell pulled by
the sleep-laden sexton,—the beginning of the call to matins. The night
was very black; and only after two or three minutes did Laure struggle
up from her bed, trembling with that dead, numb feeling that results
from being roused too suddenly from heavy unconsciousness. Mechanically
the young girl felt about for her lantern and opened the door into the
dimly lit corridor. There were half a dozen nuns and novices grouped
about the stone lamp which burned all night on the wall, and from which
the sisters were accustomed to light their cressets for matins. Laure
waited her turn in a dazed manner, and when she had obtained the light,
went back to her cell, left the door unclosed according to rule, and,
placing the lantern on the small table, knelt at her priedieu.
So far her every move had been mechanical. Her brain was not yet awake.
But, with the first words of the Agnus Dei, the full memory of yesterday
suddenly flashed upon her. She had been at home, and had found there
Flammecœur!—Flammecœur! Her own heart flamed up, and the prayer died
away from it. Her lips moved on, and the murmur of her voice continued
to swell the low chorus that spread through the whole priory. But Laure
was not speaking those words. Her whole mind and heart had turned
irrevocably to another subject,—to another god, the little, rosy-winged
boy that finds his way into the sternest places, and lights them with
his magic presence till they are changed for their inhabitants beyond
recognition. Strictly speaking, Laure was not thinking of the trouvère.
Her thoughts refused to review him in the light of her knowledge of him.
She would not think of his personality,—his face, eyes, form, or manner.
Her heart shrank from anything so bold. She refused to question herself.
Yet her mind was full of him, and the other subject in her thoughts was
this: that in eleven days more, were God pitying to her, she should,
perhaps—ever perhaps—see him again.
When matins and lauds were over, the sisters returned to bed till the
hour for dressing, a quarter to five. Laure was accustomed to sleep
soundly through this period. But to-day she refused to close her eyes.
Nay, it was ecstasy to her to lie dreaming of many old, vague things
that had scarce any connection with her new heart, and yet would have
had no place at all with her had they not carried as an undercurrent the
image of that same new god.
All day Laure went about with a song in her soul. Why she should have
been glad, who can say? What possible hope for happiness there was for
her, what idea of any finale save one of grief, resignation, or despair,
she never thought to ask herself. She let her new happiness take
possession of her without stopping to analyze it. And it was as well
that she did no analyzing. For a logical process would inevitably have
brought her to the beginning of these things, to the moment, the
ineffable moment, when the hand of Flammecœur had first rested on her
own.
This first morning passed away. Dinner was eaten, and recreation time
came. Now Eloise persistently sought Laure’s company; and Laure, with
equal persistence and quite remarkable adroitness, avoided her. The
young nun knew, from the face of Eloise, that there were a thousand
silly thoughts ready to come out of her; and Laure could not bear to
have her own delicate, rainbow dreams so crudely disturbed. And there
was something more about the presence of Eloise that disturbed the
daughter of Le Crépuscule; this was the understanding between them that
they should not confess the real reason for their tardy arrival on the
previous day. Laure had made up her mind, tacitly, to confess
nothing—yet. But she did not like to be reminded of the fact.
That night Laure successfully resisted the dictates of sleep, with the
result that, all next day, she felt dull and weak. When dinner and sext
were over, and recreation came, she obtained ready permission to retire
to her cell instead of going to the garden or the court or the library
with the other nuns. Once alone and safe from the attacks of Eloise, who
was becoming importunate, she lay down on her bed and sank, almost at
once, to rest. While she slept, the sun came out upon the outer world,
and poured its beams over the chill valley beyond the priory. The gray,
lowering clouds were broken up. The heavens shone blue, and the
ice-crust shimmered with myriad, sparkling diamonds. No sunlight could
enter the cell of sleep; for it was afternoon, and the single little
window looked toward the east. But after nearly an hour of shining
stillness, there came a sound from the frozen vale that was more
beautiful than sunlight. It reached Laure’s ears, and woke her. She rose
up, hearkening incredulously for a moment, and then, with a smothered
cry of delight, threw herself forward again on the bed, and laughed and
moaned together into the cold sheets.
From below, just outside her window, rose a voice, a tenor voice, high
and clear and mellow, singing a chanson of the south to the
accompaniment of a six-stringed lute. After a few seconds Laure ventured
to raise her head and listen. With a thrill of ecstasy she caught the
words,—
“_Ele ot plain le visage, si fu encolorez;
Les iex vairs et riants, lonc et traités le nez;
La bouche vermeillête, le menton forcelé;
Le col plain et blanc plus que n’est flor de pré._”
At this point in the familiar song, sung with a fervor she had never
dreamed of, Laure rose involuntarily from the bed, and, redder than any
flower, stole to the window. Timidly, her heart beating so that she was
like to choke, she looked out into the snowy clearing. Just beneath her,
in the shadow of the wall, so close that a whisper from him might easily
have been heard, stood Flammecœur.
He was scanning closely the row of cell windows above him, hoping
against hope for a sight of Laure’s face. Ignorant as he was of convent
hours, he knew that he had but the barest chance of making her hear; and
that there was less than this chance of seeing her. Thus when Laure’s
face, framed in its soft white veil, looked out to him, Flammecœur
experienced a rush of emotion that was overpowering. She inspired him
with a reverence that he had not known he could feel for any woman. Her
face was so glorified in his eyes that she looked like an image of the
Holy Virgin. Breaking off in the middle of the song, he fell upon his
knees there in the snow, uttering incoherent and indistinguishable
phrases of adoration.
Flammecœur was theatrical enough; also he was hard, utterly
unscrupulous, and a scoffer at holy things. His only idol was his love
for beauty. This was his religion, and he had worshipped it consistently
from boyhood. Now he had found its almost perfect embodiment in this
girl, in whom innocence, purity, youth, and beauty were inextricably
mingled. And Flammecœur strove to adjust his rather callous spirit to
hers, feeling that he would sooner breathe his last than shock her
delicacy—till he had attained his end.
Now, in the dying sunlight, the two talked together; and in the light of
his new reverence the young nun lost a little of her timidity and made
open confession in her looks, though never in her words, of her delight
in his presence.
“Tell me, O Maiden of Angels,” he said, addressing her in a term that at
once brought them both a sense of familiarity and of pleasure, “tell me,
is this thy regular hour of solitude? Could I—might I hope—to see thee
often here—hold speech with thee—without endangering thy devotions?”
“Nay, verily!” whispered Laure, hastily. “Oh, thou must not come! Nay, I
am supposed to be with the other sisters at this hour of recreation.
Only to-day was I permitted—”
“And didst thou think of me? Hopest thou I would come? Didst think—”
“Monsieur!” Laure’s tone was reproachful and embarrassed.
“Forgive me! Though verily I know not how I have offended thee!”
Laure was about to utter her reproach when suddenly, around the corner
of the wall, appeared the head of Flammecœur’s horse. All at once, at
this apparition, the old spirit of freedom and the old love of liberty
rushed over her. “Ah, would that I might leap down there into the snow,
and mount with thee thy steed, and ride, and ride, and ride back to my
home in Le Crépuscule!” she cried out, utterly forgetful of herself and
of her position.
Instantly Flammecœur seized her mood. “By all the saints, come on!” he
cried. “I will catch thee in mine arms; and we will ride! We will ride
and ride—not back—”
“Alas! Now Heaven forgive me! What have I said? Farewell, monsieur!
Indeed, farewell!”
And ere Flammecœur could grasp her sudden revulsion of feeling, she was
gone; the window above him was empty. He stayed where he was for some
moments, meditating on what plea would be successful. Finally, deciding
silence the surer part, he remounted his horse and turned slowly to the
west, through the chill evening, doing battle with himself. He found
that he was unable to cope with the flame that this pretty nun had
kindled in his brain. His anger rose against her, to be once more
overtopped by passion. And had he not been so occupied in trying to
regain sufficient self-control to make some safe plan of action, he
might have known himself for the knave he surely was.
In the priory three days went prayerfully by; and at the end of that
time Laure found herself sick with misery. Flammecœur had laid hold of
her heart, and her struggles against the thought of him began to grow
stronger; for she longed to escape from her present state of madness.
Incredible as it may seem, she never had, in connection with him, one
single tainted thought. Laure was a peculiarly innocent girl,—innocent
even of any unshaped desire or longing. The force of her nature had
always found relief in physical activity. In her home life all things
had been clean and free before her. And in the convent the teaching that
emotion was sin had been accepted by her without thought. Nevertheless,
in her, all unwaked, there lay a broad, passionate nature that needed
but a quickening touch to throw her into such depths as, were she taken
unawares, would eventually drag her to her doom. Her ignorance was
pitiable; and even now she had entered alone upon a dark stretch of
road, the end of which she did not herself know, and which none could
prophesy to her.
Three days of unhappiness, of battle with herself, and of longing for a
sight of Flammecœur, and then—he came. Again it was the recreation hour,
and Laure was in the garden, walking in the cold with one or two of the
sisters. Her thoughts had strayed from the general chatter, and her
eyes, like her mind, looked afar off. Her companions, rather accustomed
to Angelique’s vagaries, paid little attention to her, and she pursued
her reverie uninterrupted. Suddenly, from out of the snowy stillness, a
sound reached her ears. For an instant her heart ceased to beat; and she
halted in her walk. Yes, Flammecœur was singing, somewhere near. It was
the same chanson, and it came from the other side of the priory. He must
be where he had been before. She looked at the faces of the nuns beside
her. Did they not also hear? How dull, how intensely dull they were! She
went on for a few steps undecidedly. Then she halted.
“I had forgot,” she said quietly. “I must to my cell. I have five Aves
to repeat for inattention at the reading of St. Elizabeth this morning.”
“Methought they were to be said in chapter,” observed one of her
companions, indifferently.
“Nay; Reverend Mother gave permission,—in my cell,” answered Laure,
rather weakly; for she saw that she should get into difficulty if any
one mentioned this matter again. However, Flammecœur’s voice was singing
still and, flinging care to the winds, she made a hasty escape.
Fifteen minutes later she was in the church, kneeling at the shrine of
St. Joseph. She said twenty Aves there before she rose, yet got no
comfort from them. For twenty Aves is small salve to the conscience for
the first guilty deceit of one’s life.
That evening was not wholly a pleasant one; yet Laure underwent fierce
gusts of happiness. She had seen him again; she had held speech with
him, and had smiled when he looked at her. She felt his looks like
caresses, and was half ashamed and half enamoured of them. Her night was
filled with a tumult of dreams; and when day dawned again she was hot
with the fever of unrest.
Days went by, and then weeks, and finally two months, and March was on
the world. Hints of spring were borne down the breeze. The deeply frozen
earth began slowly, slowly to throw off its weight of ice, and to open
its breast to the warm touches of the sun. The black, bare branches of
the forest trees waved about uncannily, like gaunt arms, beckoning to
the distant summer. And in all this time the situation of the little nun
of Crépuscule had not changed. The troubadour still lingered at the
Chateau, a welcome guest. And still he haunted the priory, unknown to
any one save her whom he continually sought. As yet he had done nothing,
said not one word that betrayed his intentions. He had waited patiently
till the time should be ripe; and now that time approached. Laure had
endured a life of secret torture, but had not succeeded in throwing off
the shackles she had voluntarily put on. Nay, she confessed now to
herself that, without his occasional coming, she could not have lived.
She chafed at their restricted intercourse. She longed to meet him where
she could put her hands into his, where she could listen to the sound of
his voice without the terror of discovery. All this Flammecœur had read
in her, but still he waited till of her own accord she should break her
bonds.
There came a day in March when the two, Laure and Flammecœur, with
Eloise and her now very _bel ami_, Yvain, were riding from Crépuscule to
the priory. As they went, the spring sun sent its beams aslant across
the road; and birds, newly arrived from the far south, were site-hunting
among the black trees. The air was filled with the chilly sweetness that
made one dizzy with dreams of coming summer; and both Laure and the
trouvère grew slowly intoxicated as they rode side by side, so close
that his knee touched her palfrey’s flank. Behind them, Yvain and Eloise
were still discussing their love-notions. The afternoon was misty with
approaching sunset. In the radiant golden light, Laure’s heart grew big
with unshed tears of life; and before the sobs came, Flammecœur, leaning
far toward her, whispered thickly,—
“Thou must come to me alone! I must have thee alone. I must know thy
lips. ’Fore God, refuse me not, thou greatly beloved!”
Laure drew a long, shivering breath and looked slowly into his face. Her
eyes rested full upon his, and she did not speak, but he read her reply.
“Where shall I come to-night?” he asked.
“To-night!”
“Assuredly. To-night. Dieu! Thinkest thou that I can stand aloof from
thee forever? Thinkest thou my blood is water in my veins? To-night!”
Laure mused a little, her eyes looking afar off, as if she dreamed. She
brought them back to him with a start. “To-night—by starlight—in the
convent garden. Canst thou climb the wall?”
“Ah! thou shalt see!”
Laure’s heart palpitated with the look he gave her, and she sat silent
under it, while, bit by bit, all her training, all her year of precepts,
all herself, her womanhood, her truth, her steadfastness to
righteousness, slipped away from her under the spell of this most
powerful of all emotions. And presently she turned to him again with
such an expression of exaltation in her poor face, that his heart warmed
to her with a tenderer feeling.
“At what hour?” he whispered.
“One hour after the last tolling of the bell at compline after
confession.”
“Confession!” the word slipped from him before he thought. He saw Laure
turn first scarlet and then very white; and her lips trembled.
“Ah, Laure, most beloved, heed it not! If there be any sin in loving as
we love, lay it all on me. For on my soul, I would leave heaven itself
gladly behind for thee! And since God created thee as lovely as thou
art, wert thou not made to be beloved? Look, Laure! see the gray bird
there among the trees! Behold, it is the bird of the Saint Esprit! It is
an omen. It is our heavenly sign; therefore be not afraid.”
And as Laure promised him, so she did. She understood so well how the
Flaming-heart wanted to be alone with her: did she not also long for
solitude with him? And if they were alone for one hour, God was above.
He saw and He knew all things. Why, then, should she be afraid?
Therefore Laure went to her cell that night with her soul unshriven, and
a heavy weight upon it of mingled joy and pain. Lying fully dressed upon
her bed, she heard the great bell boom out the close of another day of
praise to God. And when the last vibration had died down the wind, and
the sexton had wended her pious way to bed, Laure rose, and prepared
herself to go out into the garden. All that she had to do was to wrap
herself in her mantle and to cover her head with a hood and veil. But
first, following an instinct of dormant conscience, she unwound the
rosary from her waist and hung it on the rail of the priedieu, before
which she had not prayed to-night. Then she sat down upon her bed and
waited,—waited through centuries, through ages, till it seemed to her
that dawn must be about to break. But she felt that should she reach the
garden before the coming of Flammecœur, her heart would fail indeed.
During this time she refused to allow herself to think, though she was
very cold and continued to tremble. Finally, when her nerves would stay
her no longer, she rose and left her cell. The convent was open before
her. The nuns were all asleep. Her sandalled feet made no noise upon the
stones, and she passed in safety through corridors and rooms till she
reached the library, from which there was an open exit to the garden.
In the doorway she paused and looked out upon the pale moonlit scene.
Her heart was beating quite steadily now, and she was able to consider
almost with calmness the possibility that she was early. The light from
the half-moon fell upon her where she stood, and suddenly she beheld a
dark-cloaked figure run out of the shrubbery by the northwestern wall
and come hurrying toward her. At the same moment she herself started
forward, half fearfully. A moment later she was caught in Flammecœur’s
arms, and a rain of kisses beat down upon her face.
Gasping, crimson, horrified, she tore herself away from the embrace with
the strength of one outraged.
“Stop! In God’s name, stop! Wouldst do me dishonor?” she cried out, in
an anger that bordered upon tears.
“Dishonor! Mon Dieu! wherefore, prithee, camest thou into this garden,
then? Was it to stand here in this doorway and permit me to scream my
devotion at thee from yonder wall?”
In her nervousness Laure suddenly laughed. But she was forced back to
gravity, as he went on with a sudden rush of passion,—
“Laure, Laure, is it thy intent to drive me mad? Faith, what man would
forbear as I have forborne with thee? Thinkest thou any one would wait
for weeks, nay, months, as I have waited, and feel thee at last free and
in his arms, to be instantly thrust away again? Nay, by my soul! Thou
art here, and thou art mine, and I have much to ask of thee. Christ!
Thine eyes! Thy hair! Laure, I shall bear thee away from this
prison-house. I will have thee for all mine own. Thou must leave thy
cell by night, and come to me here. Outside the wall Yvain will wait
with horses; and we will ride away—ride like hounds—out of this land of
tears, southward, into the country of freedom and roses and love! There
we shall dwell together, thou and I—thou and I—Laure, Laure, my sweet!
And who in all God’s earth before hath known such joy as we shall know!
Answer me, Laure, answer me! Say thou’lt come!”
Once again he took her in his arms, but more calmly now, the force of
his passion having spent itself in words but half articulate. And now he
perceived how she was all trembling and afraid; and so he soothed her
with gentle phrases and tender caresses, for indeed Flammecœur loved
this maid as truly as it was in him to love at all. And it seemed to him
a joy to have the protecting of her.
“Speak to me, answer me, greatly beloved,” he insisted, drawing her face
up to his.
Laure clung to him and wept, and did not speak. All that followed was
but a confusion of kisses, of pleadings, of tears and restraints, to
both of them; and presently Laure was struggling from his arms and
crying to him that it was near matins, and she must go. Once again, and
finally, Flammecœur demanded a reply to his plea. There was hesitation,
doubting, evident desire, and very evident fear. Then, staking
everything, he urged her thus,—
“Listen, Laure. I would not have thee decide all things now in thy mind.
In one week I will be here, as to-night, at the same hour, in this
place; and all things will be prepared for our flight. If thou come to
me before the matins bell rings out, all will be well, and we shall go
forth together into heaven. If thou come not,—why, I have tarried far
too long in this Bretagne, and Yvain and I will go on together into the
world, and thou shalt see me no more forever. Fair choice and honorable
I give thee, for that I love thee better than myself. Now fare thee
well, lady of my heart’s delight. God in His sweet mercy give thee into
my keeping!”
With a final kiss he put her from him and saw her go; and then he threw
himself over the wall, and set out on his return ride to the Castle by
the sea.
Laure descended to prime next morning, trembling for fear of unknown
possibilities. But no one in the church saw her muddy sandals; and her
skirts and mantle were not more soiled round the bottom than was
customary with those nuns that took their recreation in the garden. By
the time the breaking of the fast occurred, she was reassured, and felt
herself safe from the consequences of her night. Then, and only then,
did she turn her mind to the choice that she must make during the
ensuing sennight.
That week was one of terror by night and woe by day. Hourly she resolved
to renounce forever all thoughts of the flesh, confess her sin, and
remain true to the convent for life. For the first three days these
renewals of faith made her strong and stronger. She wept and she prayed
and she hoped for strength; and finally she began to believe that the
Devil was beaten. And yet—and yet—she did not even now confess the story
of her acquaintance with Flammecœur. She said to herself that she would
win this last fight alone; but she did not seek to find if there was
self-deception in that excuse. No one but the girl Eloise had any idea
that there existed such a person as the trouvère; and Eloise was unaware
that Sœur Angelique had ever seen that gallant gentleman save when she
and Yvain were present. Moreover, the stupid one was becoming alarmed
lest the sudden devotional fervor of Demoiselle Angelique should lead to
the cessation of those meetings for which her vague soul so impiously
thirsted. The rest of the sisters perceived Laure’s extra prayers and
rigorous fasting with admiration and approval, and put them down to one
of those sudden rushes of fervor to which young nuns were peculiarly
subject.
After three days of this devotional effort, the Devil widened his little
wedge of temptation, and roused in her an overpowering desire to see her
lover again. By now she had lost her shame at the first hot kiss ever
laid upon her lips, and—alas, poor humanity!—was longing secretly for
more. So long, however, as Flammecœur was still in Le Crépuscule, she
believed that she could endure everything. But she knew that after four
days he would be there no more; and if she let her chance go, it was the
last she should ever have. Then her mind strayed to the after-picture of
her life here in the nunnery; and at the thought her heart grew numb and
cold. Yet still she fought and prayed, trusting to no one her weight of
temptation, keeping steadfastly to that self-deceptive determination to
finish the battle alone.
The torturing week came slowly to an end. On the final night, after
compline, she went to her cell feeling like a spirit condemned to
eternal night. Once alone, face to face with her soul, she sat down upon
a chair, bent her head upon her breast, and thought. She did not
extinguish her light, neither did she make preparations for bed.
Unconsciously she set herself to wait through the hour following
compline, as if its finish would bring the end of her trial. The minutes
were passing smoothly by, and there was a great, unuttered cry of terror
in her heart. What should she do? Nay, at the last minute, what _would_
she do? Here her mind broke. She could think no more. Her brain was a
vacuum. Presently her muscles began to twitch. Her flesh became cold and
damp, and the hot saliva poured into her mouth. Would that hour never
end?
It ended. By now Flammecœur was in the garden, three hundred feet away.
Flammecœur was waiting for her. Horses were there, and garments for
her,—other garments than these of sickening white wool. How long would
the trouvère wait? Till matins, he had said. But if that were not true?
If he should go before—if he were going _now_!
Laure started to her feet, halted, hesitated, then sank slowly to her
knees. The first words of a prayer came from her lips; but in the middle
of the phrase she was silent. Prayer was suddenly nothing to her. She
had prayed so much; she had prayed so long! The beauty of appeals to the
Most High was lost just now. She felt all the weight of her
never-satisfied religion upon her, and she revolted at it. For the
moment love itself seemed desirable only in so much as it would get her
away from this place of her hypocrisy. A sudden thought of her mother
came to her. For one moment—two—five—she kept her mind fixed. Then she
sobbed. Flammecœur was below, calling to her with every fibre of his
being. She knew that. She could see him waiting there, her cloak over
his arm. With a low wail she stretched out her arms to the mental image.
Afterwards, scarcely knowing what she did, she knelt down before the
bright-painted picture of the Madonna on the wall of her cell, and
kissed the stones of the floor below it.
Then she stood up, pressing her hands tightly to her throat to ease the
pain there. She looked around her, and in that look saw everything in
the little stone room that had for so long been her home. Then, removing
from her head the coif, wimple, and veil, the symbols of her virginity,
she extinguished her lantern, and walked, blindly and wearily, out of
her cell. So she passed, without making any noise, through the convent,
into the library, and out—out—out into the garden beyond.
Instantly Flammecœur was at her side. “Laure!” cried he, half laughing
in his triumph. “Laure! Now we shall go!”
Over his arm he carried a voluminous black mantle and a close, dark
hood. These he put upon her, getting small assistance in the matter, for
Laure’s movements were wooden, her hands like ice.
“Now—canst climb the wall with me?” he asked, gazing at her in her
transformation, and noting how pure and white her skin showed in its
dark frame.
She gasped and bent her head. Thereupon he seized her in his arms and
carried her to the wall. There she surpassed his hopes; for her old,
tomboyish skill suddenly came back to her, and she scrambled up the
rough stones more agilely than he. Once in the road outside the garden,
Flammecœur gave a low whistle. Then, out of the shadow of the wood, on
the north side of the road, came Yvain, riding one steed, and leading
that of Flammecœur, on which were both saddle and pillion. Flammecœur
leaped to his place, and, bending over, held out his hand to Laure.
“Thou comest freely,” he whispered.
Laure looked up into his eyes. “Freely,” she answered, surrendering her
soul.
He laughed again, softly, as she climbed up behind him, by the help of
his feet and his hands. And then, in another moment, they were off, into
the moonlit night. And what that night concealed from Laure, what future
of fierce joy, of terror, of misery, and of unutterable heartbreak, how
should she know, poor girl, whose only guide was God Inscrutable,
working His mysterious way alone, in heaven on high?
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER FIVE_
SHADOWS
[Illustration]
On the day after Laure’s flight, Madame Eleanore left the great
dinner-table and went to her bedroom early in the afternoon. Once again,
as a year ago, she was alone there, hovering over her priedieu. Only
this day was not sunny, but cold and damp, and very gray. Eleanore was
in her usual mood of lonely melancholy, but when Alixe tapped at the
door she was admitted, and madame ceased her devotions and bade the girl
come in and sit down to her embroidery frame beside the window. Latterly
it had become a habit of Alixe’s to break in upon her foster-mother’s
elected solitude, and to draw her, willy-nilly, out of her sadness. If
madame perceived the kindly intention in these interruptions, she did
not comment upon it, but accepted the maid’s devotion with growing
affection.
When Alixe entered, madame also seated herself near the window, yet did
not take up any work, leaving the tambour frame and spinning-wheel both
idle in their places. She regarded Alixe for a few moments in silence,
wondering why the young girl did not speak, finally putting her dulness
down to the fact that it was but yesterday morning they had bidden
Flammecœur and his squire God-speed on their journey to Normandy. Their
long sojourn at Crépuscule had brought a gayety to the Castle that made
it doubly dull now that they were gone. Madame pondered for some time on
the subject, and presently spoke of it.
“Sieur Bertrand hath a dreary sky for his journey.”
“But a promise of beauty in the land to which he goeth,” responded
Alixe, with something of an effort.
“Mayhap. I have not been in Normandy.”
And here the conversation ended. They sat together, these two women,
listening to the incessant beating of the heavy waves on the cliff far
below, and to the tap, tap, of the rain upon the windows; but neither
found it in her heart to speak again. Alixe was shading her bird from
blue into green, and Eleanore sat with folded hands, her eyes looking
far away, musing upon the nothingness of her life. Suddenly there came a
clamor at the door. Somewhat startled, Eleanore called admittance, and
immediately David the dwarf walked into the room, stepped to the right
of the doorway, and ushered in his companion, announcing her gravely,—
“Sœur Celeste from the Couvent des Madeleines.”
The sub-prioress, her white cloak and veil damp and stringing with rain,
came slowly into the room and courtesied, first to Eleanore, then to
Alixe.
Madame rose hastily, in some surprise, and went forward.
“Give you God’s greeting, good sister,” she said.
The nun returned the salutation, and then, with some hesitation,
indicated the little dwarf in a gesture that showed her desire that he
should leave the room. Madame accordingly motioned him away, and when he
was gone, turned to the nun with a hint of anxiety on her face. The
new-comer did not hesitate in her mission. Leaning over, she asked
eagerly,—
“Madame, is Angelique here, with you?”
Eleanore looked at her blankly. “Laure?—Laure is with you. Laure is—What
sayest thou, woman?”
Sœur Celeste resignedly bent her head. For some seconds nothing was
said. Alixe, her face grown ashen, her body changed to ice, rose, and
moved to the side of madame. Then she asked softly, “What hath happened,
good sister?”
“Angelique—Laure—the demoiselle—is not in the convent. We have searched
for her everywhere. Her veil and wimple were found in her cell upon the
bed. Beyond this there is no trace of her. This morning she came not to
the church for prime, and we thought she had overslept. She hath so much
fasted and prayed of late that Reverend Mother granted indulgence, and
bade us let her rest. At breaking of the fast Sœur Eloise was despatched
to her cell, and returned with word that she was not there. Since that
hour even the daily services have been suspended, while we sought for
her. In the garden we found footprints,—those of a woman, and of a man.
Perchance they were hers—yet—”
“It is a lie! That is a lie!” burst from Eleanore’s white lips. “Woman,
woman, unsay thy words! No man hath ever seen her,—my Laure!”
“I said it not, Madame Eleanore; I but said mayhap,” ventured the gentle
sister, timidly. But Eleanore did not hear her. White, rigid, her every
muscle drawn tense, she stood there staring before her into space; while
Alixe, feeling this scene to be too intimate even for her presence,
glided slowly from the room.
Immediately outside the closed door stood David the dwarf, moving
restlessly from one spot to another, biting his thick lips, and working
his heavy black brows with great nervousness. Seeing Alixe, he seized
upon her at once.
“I know what it is: Laure hath gone away, hath she not?”
Alixe simply nodded.
“Yea, I know it,—with that scoundrelly trouvère!”
Alixe quivered as if she had been touched upon the raw; but David paid
no attention to her movement of pain.
“Come,” he jerked out nervously; “come away from this room. Come below.
I will tell thee what I saw in the fellow.”
The two of them walked silently across the broad upper hall and down the
great staircase into the lower room, which was always deserted at this
hour. Here Alixe and the dwarf seated themselves on tabourets at one of
the long tables, and David began to talk. It seemed that he had watched
Flammecœur closely, and had seen a good deal of his attentions to Laure;
knew how he rode with her to and from the priory, guessed Laure’s all
too apparent feeling for him, and was aware that most of the hours in
which the troubadour had supposedly hunted, hawked, or gone to St.
Nazaire, had really been spent in the neighborhood of the priory, though
how much he had seen of the nun, David could not know.
Alixe listened to him without much comment, and agreed in her heart with
all that he said. But she was at a loss to comprehend her own bitterness
of spirit at thought of what Flammecœur had done. She loved Laure truly;
yet these sensations of hers were not for Laure, but for herself alone;
and this girl, so acute at reading the minds of others, failed entirely
to read her own; for had she not soundly hated Flammecœur? _Had_ she
hated him?
It was a heavy hour that these two, dwarf and peasant born, spent
waiting for their lady to give some sign. At length, however, there were
footsteps on the stairs, and both of them rose, as Eleanore, followed,
not accompanied, by the white-robed nun, descended.
Madame was very erect, very brilliant-eyed, very white and stiff, but
she had perfect control over herself. As she swept toward the great
door, David could plainly see her state, and Alixe read well her heart;
yet neither of them could but admire her splendid self-possession. Out
of the Castle and into the courtyard she went, the three others
following her, on her way to the keep. In the open doorway of the rough
stone tower, she halted; and the dozen lolling henchmen within instantly
started to their feet.
“My men,” she said, in a voice as steady and as commanding as that of a
lord of Crépuscule, “my men, a great blow has fallen upon me, and a
disgrace to all that dwell in this Castle. Laure, my daughter, your
demoiselle, the lady of all our hearts, hath been stolen from the place
of her consecration. She hath been abducted from the priory of the Holy
Madeleine, by one that hath broken our bread, and received our
hospitality. Bertrand Flammecœur, the troubadour, hath brought dishonor
upon Le Crépuscule, and I ask you all to avenge your lord and me!”
Here she was interrupted by a chorus begun in low murmurs of
astonishment, and now risen to a roar of wrath. After a moment she
raised her hand, and, in the silence that quickly ensued, began again,—
“In the name of your lord, I bid you avenge us! Ride forth, every man of
you, into the countryside, in pursuit of the flying hound. Go every man
by a different road, nor halt by day or night till you bring me tidings
of my child. And to him that shall find and bring her back to me, will I
give honor and riches and great love, such as I would give to none that
was not of noble blood. Go, nor stay to talk of it.—Go forth in the name
of God—and bring me back my child!”
The men needed no further urging to action. As she ceased to speak they
sprang from their places, and began preparations for departure with a
spirit that showed their devotion to madame and to Laure. Madame stayed
in the courtyard till Sœur Celeste and the last henchman had ridden
away; and then, when there was no more to see, she turned to Alixe, and,
leaning heavily upon the young girl’s shoulder, slowly mounted to her
darkening chamber and lay down upon her tapestried bed. Alixe moved
gently about the room, bringing her lady such physical comforts as she
could, though these were not many. Neither of them spoke, and neither
wept. Eleanore lay motionless, staring out into the dusk. Alixe’s eyes
closed every now and then, with a kind of deadly weariness that was not
physical. But she did not leave madame.
After a long time, when it had grown quite dark, Alixe asked suddenly,—
“Wouldst have a message sent to Rennes, madame?”
“To Gerault? No, it is too late. What could he do? Nay, I will not have
the shame of his house published abroad in the Duke’s capital. Speak of
it no more.” And, obediently, Alixe was silent.
It was now long past the early supper hour, but neither of the women
went downstairs. The thought of food did not occur to Eleanore. Alixe
sat by the closed window, brooding deeply. Darkness had come over the
sea, and with it clouds dispersed so that a few stars glimmered forth,
and at times a moon showed through the ragged mists. Downstairs the
young men and maidens had resorted to their usual evening amusements of
games, but they played without spirit, and finally, one by one, heavy
with unvoiced foreboding, crept off to rest. David the dwarf had not
been among them at all to-night. Ever since the ending of supper he had
sat outside the door of madame’s room, waiting, patiently, for some
sound to come from within. Everything, however, was silent. From her bed
the mother, tearless, bright-eyed, watched the broken moonlight creep
along the floor, past the figure of Alixe. Her mind was filled with
terrible things,—pictures of Laure, and of what the young girl was
doubtless enduring. For a long time she contained herself under these
thoughts, but finally, racked with unbearable misery, she started up,
crying aloud,—
“Alixe! Alixe! Methinks I shall go mad!”
As she spoke, madame rose from the bed, stumbled across the floor, flung
open one of the windows, and looked out upon the splendor of the
tumbling, moonlit sea. After a moment or two she felt upon her arm a
gentle touch, and she knew that Alixe was beside her.
“Mad with thy thoughts, madame? Indeed, meseemeth Laure will not die.
Doubtless the Sieur Trouvère loveth her—”
She was interrupted by a long groan.
“Madame?” she whispered, in soft deprecation.
“Not die, Alixe? Not _die_? Dieu! It were now my one prayer for her that
she might quickly die!”
“Nay, what is there so terrible for her, save that she hath brought upon
herself damnation an she die unrepentant? Wouldst thou not have her live
to repent and be shriven?”
Eleanore groaned again. “Thou art too young to understand, Alixe. Ah!
her purity! her innocence! How she will suffer! There is no suffering
like unto it.” Madame slipped to her knees, there by the window, and
putting her arms upon the sill, buried her head in them, and drew two or
three terrible breaths. Alixe, helpless, fighting to keep down her own
secret woe in the face of this more bitter grief, felt herself useless.
She remained perfectly still, looking out at the sea, but noting nothing
of its beauty, till, all at once, madame began to speak again, in a
muffled voice,—
“I remember well my wedding with the Sieur du Crépuscule. I was of the
age and of the innocence of Laure. Never was mortal so happy as I, upon
the day of the ceremony at Laval. I loved my lord, and he had given all
his honor into my keeping. But had the bitterness of guilt been on me
when I was brought home to Le Crépuscule, alone and a stranger in his
house, I know not if I could have lived through the shame and bitterness
of my first days. Thou canst not know, Alixe; but the humiliation of
that time is as fresh in my memory as ’twere but yesterday. Ah! leave me
now, maiden. Leave me alone. Thou’st been good and faithful to me, but a
mother’s grief she must bear alone. Go thou to bed, child, and, in the
name of pity, pray for thy sister!”
So she sent Alixe from the room, and made the door fast after her. After
this she did not return to her place at the window, but began slowly to
make ready for the night. When at length she was prepared, she wrapped
herself closely in a warm woollen mantle, and went to her priedieu.
Laure, from the priory, had ceased to accost Heaven. Therefore madame
took her daughter’s place, and thence through the night ascended an
unceasing, bitter, commanding prayer that Laure should be restored to
her mother’s house, or else be mercifully received into the more
accessible hereafter.
When morning dawned, her great bed had not been slept in, but throughout
that day Eleanore sought no rest. She spent the hours passing from the
hall to the keep and thence to the tower at the drawbridge, waiting,
hoping, praying for tidings. During the afternoon three or four henchmen
rode in, exhausted. But none of them had found any trace of Laure. One,
however, who had taken the St. Nazaire road and had reached that town
during the night, had learned that Flammecœur and his page had been
there on the afternoon of the day they left Crépuscule. And, upon
further search, this man found a shop where the trouvère had bought a
lady’s mantle and hood, both black. This was all the news that could be
got; but it was enough to prove, without the least doubt, Flammecœur’s
guilt.
Late in the afternoon Alixe went to work among the falcons, changing
some of them from their winter-house to the open falconry in the field.
Madame, seeing her at work, went out and watched her for a time. Alixe
answered her few remarks with respect, but would not talk herself. The
girl was dark-browed to-day, and very silent, and madame, perceiving
that something troubled her, shortly left her to herself, and began to
pace the damp turf. Hither, presently, came David, with the news that
Monseigneur de St. Nazaire had come.
With a cry of sudden relief madame hurried back to the Castle, where the
Bishop awaited her. He was gowned as usual in his violet, with round
black cap, and gauntlet cut to show his ring. And as she came into the
great hall, he advanced to her with both hands outstretched and a look
of trouble in his clear eyes.
“Eleanore, for the first time in many years I come to you in sorrow, to
bring to you what comfort the Church can give,” he said gently, fixing
his eyes upon her to read how she had taken her blow, and from it decide
what his attitude toward her should be. For St. Nazaire had a great and
affectionate respect for Eleanore, and he was accustomed to treat her
with a consideration that he used toward no other woman. It was for this
that he had come to her in her grief, at the first moment that he heard
the news of Laure’s flight.
“Come thou into this room, where we can be alone,” she said quickly,
leading him into the round armory that opened off the great hall
immediately opposite the chapel. Half closing the heavy door, she sat
down on a wooden settle, motioning the Bishop to a tabouret near at
hand.
“Is there any news of her? What hast thou heard?” she asked eagerly,
bending toward him.
“I come but now from the priory, where I chanced to go to-day. This
morning the girl Eloise, a lay sister, she that was accustomed to ride
hither from the priory with Laure, confessed to many rides and
love-passages between herself and Yvain the young squire, while Bertrand
Flammecœur followed Laure.”
Madame drew a sharp breath, and the Bishop continued: “The girl is now
under heavy penance; yet is she a silly thing, and in my heart I find no
great blame for her.”
“Then there hath been no word—no news—of Laure? Left she no token in her
cell?”
“Nothing, Eleanore, nothing.”
“Ah, St. Nazaire! St. Nazaire! how did we that cruel thing? How took we
away from a young girl all her freedom, all her youth, all her love of
life? Know I not enough of the woe of loneliness, that I should have
sent her forth into that living death? Alas! alas! I am all to blame.”
“Not wholly thou, madame. Perhaps the Church also,” said the Bishop,
softly.
Eleanore looked at him in something of amazement. It was the first time
that he had ever suggested any criticism of the Church. But after these
words had escaped him, the Bishop paused for a little and fixed upon
Eleanore a look that she read aright. It told her many things that she
had guessed before, many unuttered things that had drawn her closely to
St. Nazaire; but it told her also that these things must never be
discussed between them; that never again would the man be guilty of so
heretical an utterance as that which he had just voiced.
After this he began to speak again, still in the same tone of sympathy,
but with a subtle difference in the general tenor of his views. He told
her, in a manner eloquent with simplicity, of his talk with Laure on the
eve of her consecration. He reminded Eleanore that Laure had entered of
her own free will upon the life of a nun. He recalled the girl’s
contentment throughout the period of her novitiate; and finally, seeing
that he had succeeded in obliterating some of the self-reproach in this
woman to whom he was so sincerely attached, he began to prepare her for
the blow that he was about to deal, to tell her what words could not
soften, to inflict a wound that time could not heal, but which,
according to the law of the Roman Catholic Church, he was bound to
administer.
Eleanore listened to his plausibly logical phrases with close attention.
She sat there before him, elbow on knee, her head resting on her hand,
her eyes wandering over the armor-strewn walls. The Bishop talked around
his subject, circling ever a little nearer to its climax; but he was
still far from the end when madame, suddenly straightening up and
looking full into his eyes, interrupted him to ask baldly: “Monseigneur,
hast thou never, in thy heart, known the yearning for a woman’s love?”
“Many a time and oft, madame, I have _felt_ love—a deeply reverent
love—for woman; and I have rejoiced therein, and given thanks to God,”
was the careful reply.
But Eleanore had begun her attack, and she would not be repulsed in the
first onslaught. “And has no woman, Reverend Father, known thy love?”
she demanded.
“Madame!” A pale flush overspread St. Nazaire’s face. “That question is
not—kind,” he said haltingly, but without rebuke.
“Nay. I am not kind now. Make me answer.”
St. Nazaire looked at her thoughtfully, and weighed certain things in
certain balances. Because of many years of the confessional and also of
free confidence he knew Eleanore thoroughly,—knew how she had suffered
every soul-torment; knew her unswerving virtue; sympathized with her
intense loneliness. He prized her trust in him more than she was aware,
and he feared to jeopardize that confidence now by whatever answer he
should make. Ignorant of the purport of her questions, he yet saw that
she was in terrible earnest in them. So finally he did the honest and
straightforward thing. Answering her look, eye for eye, he said slowly:
“Yea, Eleanore of Le Crépuscule, a woman hath known my love. What then?”
“Then if thou, a good man and as strong as any the Church ever knew,
found that to human nature a loveless life is an impossibility, how
shouldst thou blame a maid, high-strung, full of youth, vitality,
emotions that she has not tried, for yielding to the same temptation
before which thou didst fall? How is it right that the Church—that
God—should demand so much?—should ask more than His creatures can give?”
“Eleanore! Eleanore! thou shalt not question God!”
“I do not question Him. It is—it is—” untried in this exercise, she
groped for words. “It is what ye say He saith. It is what ye declare His
will to be that I question.”
“What, Eleanore, have I declared His will to be? Have I yet blamed or
chid the waywardness of Laure, whom indeed I loved as a dear daughter,—a
child of purity and faith?”
“Then, then,” Eleanore bent over eagerly, and her voice shook,—“then, an
_thou_ blamest her not, St. Nazaire, thou wilt not—” she clasped her
hands in an agony of pleading, “thou wilt not put upon her the terrible
ban? Thou wilt not excommunicate her?”
It was only then that the Bishop realized how skilfully she had led up
to her point. He had not realized that he was dealing with perception
engendered by an agony of grief and fear. As she reached her climax, he
sprang to his feet, and began to pace the room, hands clasped behind
him, brows much contracted, head far bent upon his breast. Eleanore,
meantime, had slid to her knees and watched him as he moved.
“If thou wilt spare her, ask what thou wilt of me. I will do her
penance, whatever thou shalt decree. I will give money; I will give all
that remains to me of my dower, freely and with light heart, to the
Church. I will aid whomsoever thou wilt of thy poor, I—”
“Cease, Eleanore! These things cannot avail against the Church. Thou
must not tempt, thou must not question; thou canst not understand _the
Law_! I am but an instrument of that Law, and am commanded by it. Laure,
the bride of Heaven, hath forsaken her chosen life. She must endure her
punishment, being guilty of—thou knowest the sin. Next Sunday the ban
must be put upon her. In doing so, I but obey a higher power. Eleanore,
Eleanore, rise from thy knees! Thou art tearing at my heart! Peace,
woman! Peace, and let me go!”
Eleanore, in her agony of despair, had crept to him and clasped his
knees, mutely imploring the pity that he dared not show. Logic and
reason he had put from him, holding fast to the tenets of that Church
that had made him what he was. In all his career he had not been so
tried, so tempted, to slip his duty. But, through the crucial moment, he
did not speak; and after that he was safe from attack.
After many minutes the mother loosed her clasp of him, and ceased to
moan, and let him go; for she saw that he could not help her. And as he
passed slowly out of the room, she rose to her feet and looked after him
blindly. Then she groped her way to the door, crossed the great hall,
and, with her burden, ascended the stairs and went to her own room. Next
morning, when the Bishop said mass in the chapel, madame, for the first
time in thirty years on such an occasion, was not present. Nor did
monseigneur seem astonished at the fact, but left his sympathy for her
before he rode away to St. Nazaire.
All that afternoon and night, indeed, till after dawn of the next day,
weary henchmen of the keep came straggling in on spent horses, fruitless
returned from a fruitless quest. And when they were all back again, and
the hope of seeing Laure was gone, the shadow of loneliness settled a
little lower over the great pile of stone, and the silence within the
Castle grew more and more intense to the aching heart within.
In the general desolation of Castle life Alixe, the unnatural child of
peasant blood, came very close to the heart of Eleanore. Through the
long, budding spring madame fought a terrible battle with herself
against an overpowering desire for an end of life, for the peace of
death. And in these times Alixe often drew her away from herself by
getting her to hunt and to hawk,—two amusements in which madame had been
wont to indulge eagerly in her youth, and which she found were still
possible for her, though she had grown to what she thought
old-womanhood. Besides this, she and Alixe took the long walks that
Laure had formerly delighted in; and the two ventured into many a deep
cave in the sea-cliffs, and explored many crevices that no native of the
coast would enter. In these places they found fair treasures of the sea,
but were never accosted by any of the supernatural beings said to
inhabit such spots. Nor, though they listened many times for it at
twilight, did either of them hear, a single time, the long, low, wailing
cries of the spirit of the lost Lenore.
In this way some pleasures entered unawares into the life of Eleanore.
Perhaps there were other pleasures also, so simple and so familiar that
she took no cognizance of them as such. Perhaps of a morning, in the
spinning-room, when her fingers flew under some familiar, pretty task,
and her ears were filled with the chatter of the demoiselles, who still
strove after light-hearted joys amid their gray surroundings, she found
forgetfulness of Laure’s bitter disgrace. Or better still, when, at the
sunset hour, she paced the grassy falcon-field, watching the glories of
the sea and sky, there came to her heart that benison of Nature that God
has devised for all of us in our days of woe. But when she was alone, in
early afternoon, or, most of all, through the silent night-watches, she
was sometimes overcome with sheer terror of herself and of her solitude.
At such times she fought the creeping horror with what weapons time had
given her, battling so bravely that she never suffered utter rout.
In a dim, quiet way the weeks sped on, leaving behind them no trace of
what had been, nothing for memory to hang her lightest fabric on. In all
the weeks that lay between Laure’s flight and the coming of July,
Eleanore could remember distinctly just one talk beside the bitter one
with St. Nazaire. And this other was with neither Alixe nor the Bishop,
who, however, made it a point to come once in a fortnight to Le
Crépuscule.
On a fair morning in May, as the dawn crept up out of the east not many
hours after midnight, Eleanore rose, in the early flush, and, clothing
herself lightly, left her room with the intention of going into the
fields to walk. No one was to be seen as she entered the lower hall;
but, to her amazement, the great door stood half open, and through it
poured a draught of morning air, rich with the perfume of blossoming
trees and fertile fields. Wondering that Alixe should have risen so
early, Eleanore left the Castle and hurried out of the courtyard into
the strip of meadow lying between the wall and the dry moat. Here, near
the north edge of the cliff, sitting cross-legged in the grass, sat
David the dwarf, holding in his hand something to which he talked in a
low, solemn tone. Advancing noiselessly toward him, Eleanore perceived
that it was a dead butterfly that he had found, and to which he was
pouring out his soul. Amazed at the first phrases that caught her ears,
she halted a few steps behind him, and there learned something of the
thoughts that lay hidden in his volatile brain.
“White Butterfly, White Butterfly, thou frail and delicate child of
summer, speak to me again! Say, hast thou found death as fair as life,
thou White and Still? Came the messenger to thee unawares, or didst thou
see his face and know it? Wast thou confessed, White Butterfly? Wentest
thou forth absolved of all thy fluttering sins?
“Say, wanderer, didst love thy life? Wast afraid or sorrowful to leave
it, in its dawn? Or foundest thou comfort in the thought of eternal rest
for thy battling wings?
“And I, O living Thistledown, teach me my way! Shall I follow thee into
the great world, to roam there seeking why men love to live? Or shall I
also, like thee, leave it all? Shall I go, knowing nothing of the joy of
life? Or, again, shall I practise a weary courtesy, and remain to bring
echoes of laughter into that Twilight Castle, for the sake of the love I
bear its Twilight Lady? Her life, my flutterer, hath been such a dream
of tears as even thou and I, dead thing, have never known. Yea, many a
time while I laughed and shouted at the light crew of damsels that sleep
there now, my heart hath bled for her. O Ghost of the Morning, know you
what Eleanore, our lady, thinks of me, the fool? And yet, yet I do so
deeply pity her—”
“Thou pityest me, David?” echoed Eleanore, advancing till she stood
before him, forgetful of how her appearance must startle him.
David looked up at her, winking slowly, like one that would bring
himself out of a dream-world into reality. “Lady of Twilight, thou’rt a
woman, lonely and mournful, forsaken of thy children. Therefore I grieve
for thee,” he said slowly, gazing at her with his big eyes, but not
rising from where he sat.
“A woman,” said Eleanore, looking at him with a half-smile, and echoing
his tone,—“a woman doubtless is always to be pitied; and yet what man
deems it so? Master David, ye are all born of women, and ye are all
reared by them. Afterwards, in youth, ye wed, use us as your playthings
for an hour, and then leave us in your gray dwellings, while ye fare
forth to more manly sports and exploits. There in solitude we bear and
rear again, and later our maidens wed and our sons depart from us, and
for the last time, in our age, we are left alone to die. Truly, David,
thou mayest well pity!”
David’s wide mouth curved in a bitter smile.
“Even so, Madame Eleanore. And now, for fifteen years, I have lived as a
woman lives. Mayhap by now I know her life better than other men—if,
indeed, I am a man, being but little taller than the animals. And all
these things said I to my dead friend here in my hand.”
“’Tis now fifteen years since thou camest with my lord to Crépuscule?”
“Ay, fifteen. I was then a boy of about such age. Fifteen years in Le
Crépuscule by the sea! It is a lifetime.”
Madame sighed. Then her face brightened again as she looked down at the
dwarf. “What was the life of thy youth, David? ’Tis a tale I have never
heard.”
“’Tis but a little tale. Like my dead butterfly, I wandered. I come of a
race of dwarfs,—all straight-backed, know you, and not ill to look upon.
My father was a mountebank. My mother, who measured greater than was
customary among us, cooked and sewed and travelled with us whithersoever
we went in our wagon. When I was young,—at the age of five or
thereabouts,—I began to assist my father in his entertainments. When I
was fifteen we were in Rennes for the jousting season, and there thy
lord saw me, bought me, and brought me back to you, lady, to be your
merry jester. But indeed my laughter hath run low, of late. Long years I
have bravely jested through; but now the Twilight spell is creeping over
me, and merriment rises no more in my heart. Indeed, I question if I
should not beg leave of thee to go forth into the world again for a
little time, to learn once more the song of joy. Yet when thou art near,
and I look out upon the sea, and behold the sun lifting his glory out of
the eastern hills, I ever think I cannot go,—I cannot leave this gentle
home of melancholy.”
“Thou art free, David, if freedom is mine to bestow upon thee. Indeed, I
could not ask that any one remain in this sad and quiet place, of any
than his own will. Go thou forth into the world! Go forth to joy and
life and laughter. Fill thy little heart again with jests. Forget the
brooding silence of Le Crépuscule, and laugh through the broad world to
thy heart’s content. Yet we shall miss thee sorely, little man.”
Madame stopped speaking, and there was a pause. David seemed to have no
response to make to her words. Instead he bent over the earth, digging a
little hole in the sod. Into this he laid the dead form of his white
butterfly. When he had covered it from sight with the black earth, and
patted a little earthen mound over it, he rose to his feet with an
exaggerated sigh.
“So I bury my friend—and my freedom. My desire is dead, Madame Eleanore,
with my freedom. I will remain here among you women-folk, and keep you
sad company or merry as you demand. Look! The rim of the sun is pushing
over the line of the distant trees!”
“Yea, it is there—far away—in the land where Laure may be, deserted,
mayhap, and a wanderer, cast out from every dwelling that she enters!”
Eleanore whispered these words, more to herself than to David. They were
an expression of her eternal thought. The dwarf heard them, and sought
some comfort for her. But her expression forbade comfort; and, in the
end, he did not speak at all. The two of them stood side by side and
watched the sun come up the heavens. Presently the Castle awoke, and
shortly Alixe came out to the field to feed the young _niais_ and the
mother-birds in the falcon-nests. So Eleanore, when she had given the
young girl greeting, returned to her solitude in the Castle, finding her
heart in some part relieved of its immediate burden.
One by one the lengthening days passed. June came into the world, and
palpitated, and glowed with glory and fire, and then died. During this
time not a word had come from distant Rennes to tell the Lady of
Crépuscule how Gerault fared. The midsummer month came in, and the young
men and maidens of the Castle grew gay with the heat, and made riotous
expenditure of the riches of Nature. That year the whole earth seemed a
tangle of flowers and rich meadow-grass, with which young demoiselles
played havoc, while the squires and henchmen hawked and hunted and drank
deep. These days stirred Eleanore’s heart once more to love of life, and
woke the sleeping soul of Alixe to strange fits of passionate yearning
after unattainable ideals. The living earth brought fire to every soul,
and the pinched melancholy of winter was dead and forgotten.
On the night of the seventh of July the Castle sat unusually late at
meat, for the Bishop had arrived unexpectedly, and, being in a merry
mood, deigned to entertain the whole Castle with tales and jests. Just
in the middle of a story of Church militant in the war of the three
Jeannes, there came the grating noise of the lowering drawbridge, a
faint echo of shouts from the men-at-arms in the watch-tower, and the
clatter of swift hoofs over the courtyard stones. Half a dozen henchmen
ran to open the great door, while Eleanore rose with difficulty to her
feet. Her heart had suddenly come into her throat, and she had turned
deathly white with an unexpressed hope and an inarticulate fear. There
was a little pause. The new-comer was dismounting. Then, after what had
seemed a year of waiting, Courtoise walked into the hall, advanced to
his liege lady, and bent the knee.
“Courtoise!” gasped Eleanore, faintly. “Courtoise—thy message!”
“Madame,” he cried, “I bring joyful tidings from my lord! He sends thee
health, greeting, and duty, and prays you to prepare the Castle for a
great feast; for in a week’s time he brings home his bride from Rennes!”
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER SIX_
A LOVE-STRAIN
[Illustration]
Late that night, when the little throng below had been as nearly
satisfied with information concerning the great event as three poor
hours of steady talking from Courtoise could make them, Eleanore sat in
her own room alone with the messenger, there to learn those intimate
details of Gerault’s wooing, that none but her had right to know. She
questioned Courtoise eagerly, earnestly, repeatedly, with such yearning
in her eyes that the young squire’s heart smote him to see what her
loneliness had been.
“Tell me again, Courtoise, yet once again! She is fair, this maid?”
“As fair as a rose, madame; her skin composed of pink and white, so
cunningly mingled that none can judge which hath most play upon it. And
her eyes are blue like a midsummer sky; and she hath clouds of hair that
glisten like meshes of sun-threads, crowning her.”
“And she is small and delicately formed?”
“She is slender and fragile; yet is she in no way sickly of body.”
“And her name,” went on madame, musingly, “is Lenore! Is that not a
strange thing, Courtoise? Is’t not strange that a second time this name
should have entered so deeply into the life of thy lord? Was he glad
that it so chanced, Courtoise; or did he hesitate to pronounce it
again?”
“I know not if it troubled him at first, madame. But this I know: that
he is happy in her.”
“Then the dear God be thanked! I ask no more. Ah! It seems that at last
I can pray again with an open heart. ’Twill be the first time
since—since—” Suddenly Eleanore began to tremble. “Courtoise,” she
whispered, pale with dread, “hath thy lord heard—of—of Laure’s flight?”
Courtoise bent his head, answering in a strained voice: “My lord had
news of—of the flight late in the month of March. Monseigneur de St.
Nazaire sent us the word of it, and for many weeks my lord hunted the
country over for a trace of her. And when he found her not, nor any word
of her, he forbore, in his grief, to write to thee, dear lady, lest he
should cause thy tears to flow again.”
“I thank the good God that he knows!” murmured Eleanore. “It had been
more than I could bear that Gerault should come home to find his wedding
feast blackened with a new-learned shame.”
“Yea, Lady Eleanore.”
“And so now, Courtoise, go thou to thy rest; for I have kept thee long,
and thou’rt very weary. And on the morrow there must be a beginning of
making the Castle bravely gay for the home-coming of its lord and its
bride. Likewise, on the morrow thou must tell me more of the young
Lenore, my daughter.”
Courtoise smiled wearily, and then, with proper obeisance, hurried off
to his own room, a little triangular closet opening into Gerault’s old
bedroom on the first floor. When the squire was gone, his liege lady
also laid her down; and for the first time in many months sank easily to
sleep. For happiness is the best of doctors, and this that had come to
her was a greater happiness than Eleanore had thought ever to know
again.
Through the next week the very dogs about the Castle caught the air of
bustle and eager life that had laid hold of it. Never, since the days of
the old lord and his crews of drinking barons, had Le Crépuscule shown
such symptoms of gayety. Every scullion scampered about his pots and
kettles as if an army of Brittany depended on him for nourishment. The
henchmen hurried about, polishing their armor and their steel trappings
till the keep glittered as with many mirrors, and they broke off from
this labor now and then to see that the stable-boys were at work on the
proper horses or to dissolve into thunderous roars of laughter at a
neighbor’s jest. The young demoiselles were giddy with excitement. They
pricked their fingers with spindles, they broke innumerable threads on
the wheels, they stopped the loom to dance or sing in the middle of the
morning; and while they were arranging the rooms where the train of the
young bride were to lodge, they gossiped so ardently over possible
future gayeties that their very tongues were like to drop off with
weariness. As for the squires, all five of them, headed by Courtoise,
were to ride out to Croitôt on the Rennes road, as an additional escort
for Seigneur Gerault. And the parade they made over this matter was more
than Montfort had for his coronation at Rennes when the great war ended.
There were, however, three silent workers in the Castle who did more
than all the rest together; and they were silent only because their
hearts were too full for speech. These were madame, Alixe, and David the
dwarf. While the little man worked at the decoration of the chapel, the
women adorned the bridal chamber; and in all that week of preparation,
not a soul save these two set foot over that sacred threshold. Madame
had selected the room. It was not Gerault’s usual chamber, but one on
the second floor, on the northwest corner of the Castle, separated from
madame’s room only by the place in which Laure had slept of old, and
which madame now kept closed to all save herself.
For the adornment of Gerault’s and Lenore’s apartment, madame brought
out the old historic tapestries, embroideries, and precious silken
hangings that had been for years stowed away in great chests in the
spinning-room. The bed was hung with curtains in which were woven
illustrations of the “Romant of the Rose,” a poem that had once been
much recited in Le Crépuscule. On the walls were great squares of
tapestry representing the battles of the family of Montfort. On the
floor were two or three strips of precious brocade, brought out of the
East a century before by some crusading lord. Finished, the room looked
very rich, but very sombre; and, this being the fashion of the times, it
was satisfactory to all that saw it. Eleanore only, with eyes new-opened
by the thought of approaching happiness, feared the room a little dark,
a little heavy for the reception of so delicate a creature as the young
Lenore. But every one else in the Castle was in such delight over its
appearance that she left it as it was. Meantime the lower hall was hung
with banners and scarred pennants and gay streamers; and then the
pillars were wreathed with greenery and flowers till the still, gray
place was all transformed, and resembled a triumphal hall awaiting the
coming of a conqueror.
Thus the week of waiting passed merrily and rapidly away, and the day of
the departure of Courtoise and the squires for Croitôt speedily arrived.
With them also went a picked half-dozen men-at-arms, who were bursting
with pride at this honor done their brilliant steel and smooth-flanked
horses. After their going, when everything in the Castle was in
readiness for the reception, a little wave of reaction set in among
those left at home. Eleanore retired to commune with her own happy mind.
David sought solitude in which to arrange a programme of welcome. And
Alixe, seized with a sudden mood of misery, fled away to a certain cave
in the base of the Castle cliff, and here wept and raged by herself, for
some undefined reason, till her tears cleared the mists from her soul,
and she was herself again. Still, as she returned to the Castle, she
knew that there remained a bitterness in her heart. Eleanore, who had
long ago come to mean mother to her, had, in the last month or two, for
the first time given her almost a mother-love, that had fed Alixe’s
hungry heart as the body of the Lord had never fed her soul. And now
this love was to be taken away again. A real daughter was coming into
the household, a daughter by the marriage of the Seigneur; and this,
Alixe knew, must be a closer tie than any of time or custom. She must go
back to her old place, the place she had held in the days of Laure; but
she could never hope to find in the stranger the beautiful friendship
that had existed between her and her foster-sister.
That evening was a quiet one in the Castle. Monseigneur of St. Nazaire
had arrived in the afternoon; but he seemed wearier than his wont, and,
out of consideration for him, Eleanore ordered the general retirement at
an early hour.
The next day, the great day, dawned over Le Crépuscule, red and clear
and intensely hot. Every one was up before the sun; and when fast had
been broken and prayer said in the chapel, every one went forth to the
meadow, some even down to the moor, half a mile below the moat, to
gather flowers to be scattered in the courtyard for the coming of the
bride. The party was expected to arrive by noon at latest; and, as the
morning waned, Eleanore found herself uncontrollably nervous. Alixe and
David both stood in the watch-tower, looking for the first sign of
horses and banners on the edge of the forest at the foot of the long
hill. Noon passed, and the earliest hour of afternoon, and the Castle
was on tiptoe with excitement. At two o’clock came a cry from Alixe, in
the tower. Down the hill, round the sweep in the road, was the flutter
of a blue and white pennant, presently flanked by a longer one of gray.
There was a pause of two or three moments. Then the trumpeters dashed
out from the keep, ranged up before their captain, and blew a quick,
triumphal, if somewhat jerky, fanfare. There was an outpouring of
retainers into the courtyard, and presently, from far away, came the
faint sounds of an answering blast from Gerault’s heralds. As this died
away, a great shout of excitement and delight arose from the waiting
company, now massed about the flower-strewn drawbridge, and only at this
time Madame Eleanore came out of the Castle.
Many eyes were turned upon her as she crossed the courtyard, bearing
herself as royally as a princess. She was garbed in flowing robes of
damask, white, and olive green, silver-studded, and her head was dressed
in those great horns so much in fashion at this time, but seldom
affected by her, and now lending an unrivalled majesty to her
appearance.
Madame took her place at the right of the drawbridge, and, like all the
throng, strained her eyes toward the approaching cavalcade that
contained the future of Le Crépuscule. Apparently madame was very calm.
In reality her heart beat so that it was like to suffocate her, for now
Gerault’s form took on distinct shape before her eyes. The sun shot
serpents of light around his helmet and his steel-encased arms, while
over his body-pieces he wore the silken surcoat of pale gray,
embroidered with the arms of his Castle. Gerault’s lance, held in rest,
fluttered a pennant of azure and white, the colors of his lady; and
Courtoise, who rode just behind his master, carried the gray streamer of
Le Crépuscule.
Amid a tumult of blaring trumpets, vigorous shouting, and eager choruses
of welcome and greeting, the Lord of Crépuscule, with his bride on her
white palfrey beside him, rode across the drawbridge of the Twilight
Castle. Just inside the courtyard Gerault halted, leaped from his horse,
and ran quickly to embrace his mother. When he had held her for a moment
in his arms, he turned, lifted his lady from her horse, and, amid an
embarrassing silence of curiosity, led the young girl up to madame.
“In the name of Le Crépuscule and of its lord, I bid thee welcome to
this Castle, my daughter! Good people, give greeting to your lady!”
Men and maidens, serving-maids and henchmen, still gazing wide-eyed at
the figure of the Seigneur’s wife, sent forth an inarticulate buzz of
welcome and of admiration; and, when it had died away, Gerault took his
bride by the hand, and, with Eleanore upon the other side, moved slowly
across the courtyard toward the Castle doorway, where now stood the
Bishop of St. Nazaire, waiting to add his welcome to the newly wed. Nor
did the Bishop refrain from a little exclamation of pleasure at sight of
the young wife, as she sank upon her knees before his mitre, to receive
a blessing.
A few moments later the whole company crowded into the brilliantly
decorated hall and moved about, each selecting a desired place at the
great horseshoe table ready prepared for the feast. Gerault was standing
in the middle of the room, looking about him in surprise and pleasure at
the preparations made to do him honor. Presently, however, he turned to
his mother, who stood close at his elbow, and said, after a second’s
hesitation: “I do not see Alixe, madame. Is she not here in the Castle?”
Eleanore looked about her in some surprise. “Hast not seen her? Where
hath she been? Ah, yes, there she stands, in yonder corner. Alixe!
Hither!”
“Alixe!” echoed Gerault; and strode to where she stood, half concealed,
between the staircase and the chapel door, her head drooping, her eyes
cast down.
“Come, Alixe, and greet Lenore. She hath heard much of thee, and I would
have you friends, for you are both young, and you must be good
companions here together.” So he took her hand and kissed her, and led
her out to where Eleanore and the young wife stood waiting.
“Lenore, this is my foster-sister. La Rieuse have we called her, and she
is well named. Give her greeting—” Gerault came to rather a halting
pause; for the attitude of the two women nonplussed him.
Lenore stood motionless, suddenly putting on a little dress of dignity,
and looking steadfastly into the dark face of the other girl. Alixe,
anything but laughing now, was absorbing, detail by detail, the delicate
and exquisite personality of Gerault’s bride. More fairy-like than human
she seemed, with her slender, beautifully curved child’s figure, her
face neither white nor pink, but of a transparent, pearly tint
indescribably ethereal, in which were set great eyes of violet hue, and
all around which floated her hair,—that wonderful hair that was, indeed,
a captive sun-ray. The curve of Lenore’s lips, the turn of her nostril,
the poise of her head, and the delicacy of her hands and feet, all
proclaimed her noble birth. The dress that she wore set off her beauty
as pure gold makes a gem more brilliant. She wore a loosely fitting
bliault of greenish blue, embroidered in long, silver vines, while her
undersleeves and yoke were of frosty cloth of silver. Her head was
crowned with a simple circlet of gold, far less lustrous than her hair;
and from it, at the back, fell a veil of silver tissue that touched the
hem of her robe. All this dress was disordered and dusty with long
riding; but the carelessness of it seemed to become her the better. In
the rich heat of the July sun she had seemed a little too colorless, a
little too pale and misty, for beauty; but here, in the cool shadows of
the great stone hall, she was brighter than any angel.
Alixe examined her long and carefully, to the confusion of the girl,
whose feeling of strangeness and embarrassment continually increased. In
the face of “La Rieuse” it was easy to read the struggle between
jealousy and admiration. Alixe was, secretly, a worshipper of beauty;
and beauty such as this of Lenore’s she had never seen before. In the
end it triumphed. Alixe’s eyes grew brighter and brighter as she gazed;
and presently, when the strain of silence was not much longer to be
endured, there burst from her the involuntary exclamation,—
“God of dreams! How art thou fair!”
And from that moment the allegiance of Alixe was fixed. She was on her
knees to Lenore, this fair usurper of her place, this Gerault’s bride.
Presently the moving company resolved itself into order, and each sought
his place at the table, where the Seigneur and St. Nazaire now stood
side by side, at the head, with Lenore upon Gerault’s left hand, madame
on St. Nazaire’s right, and Alixe next madame and opposite Courtoise,
who was placed beside the bride. There was a long Latin grace from the
Bishop, and then the feast began. It was like all the feasts of the day,
a matter of stuffing till one could hold no more, and then of drinking
till one knew no more; for, to the commoner folk, and those below the
salt, this was the greatest pleasure in life. To those for whom the
feast was given, and to the rest of the little group at the head of the
table, the whole business was sufficiently tedious: not to say, however,
that monseigneur and even Gerault showed no symptoms of fondness for a
morsel of peacock’s breast, or a calf’s head stuffed with the brains,
pounded suet, and raisins, over which was poured a good brown gravy.
Courtoise and Alixe also displayed healthy appetites. But madame and
Lenore, whether from excitement or other causes, sat for the most part
playing with what was put before them, and eating nothing.
After half an hour at the table Madame Eleanore found herself watching,
with rather unexpected interest, the attitude of Gerault toward his
wife. And she perceived, with a kind of dull surprise, that his
attentions savored of perfunctoriness. The Seigneur failed in no way to
do his lady courtesy; but that air of tender delight that the
personality of the young girl would be expected to draw from a young
husband, was not there. Whatever impression of indifference madame
received, however, she admitted no such thing to herself. Her heart was
too full of joy for Gerault, and for Le Crépuscule. For, great as had
been her hopes of her son’s choice, her dreams had never pictured a
being so rare and so lovely as this who was come to dwell at her side in
the gray and ancient Castle.
As for Lenore herself, she seemed to see nothing but devotion in
Gerault’s attitude toward her. She sat with a smile upon her face,
playing daintily with what she had to eat, answering any question or
remark put to her with a straightforwardness that had in it no taint of
self-consciousness, even addressing a sentence or two of her own to
Courtoise on her right; but at the same time holding all heart and soul
for Gerault. The Seigneur did not speak much with his wife, but answered
her modest glances with an air of mild indulgence, taking small notice
of anything that went on round him save the keen looks now and then shot
from the scintillating green eyes of Alixe. Of all the tableful, Alixe
was the only one that found any food for thought in the situation before
her; and, surprisingly enough, the key to her reflections lay in the
curious behavior of Courtoise, who, as time went on, became so uneasy,
so fidgety, so restless, that Gerault finally leaned over the table and
asked him rather sharply if he were ill.
In the course of time, however, the last jack was emptied, the last song
sung, the last questionable story told. Monseigneur de St. Nazaire rose
and repeated the ending grace, and then the whole drowsy, witless
company followed him into the glowing chapel, where a short mass was
performed. Lenore and Gerault knelt side by side to the right of the
altar, with Eleanore a little behind them, where she could watch the
bright candle-rays vie with the radiance of Lenore’s golden hair, and
see where the silvery bridal robe overlapped a little the edge of the
gray surcoat of Le Crépuscule, that swept the floor beside it. The
mother-eyes were all for the girlish form of the new daughter; and her
heart went out again to Gerault, who had brought this fairy creature to
Le Crépuscule, in place of her who had been so terribly mourned.
Lenore listened to the repetition of the mass with a reverent air, but
without much thinking of the familiar form. Her mind was busy with
thoughts of these new surroundings and the faces of the new vassals and
companions. Gerault, her beloved, was at her side; the great silver
crucifix that hung over the altar gave her a sense of comfort and
protection, and she found a restful pleasure in the tones of the
Bishop’s voice. The bright candle-light that shone into her eyes
produced in her a semi-hypnotic state, and she seemed to have knelt
there at the altar but three or four minutes when the words of the
benediction fell upon her ears, and presently the whole company was
trooping out into the great hall, whence all signs of the feast had been
removed.
In the same dreamlike way, Lenore went with her husband and madame
upstairs, to the room that had been prepared for her and Gerault. Here
her two demoiselles were already unpacking the coffer which had come
from Rennes with them. And here she removed her travel-stained garments,
bathed the dust from her face and arms, was combed and perfumed like the
great lady she had become, and lay down to rest for a little time in the
twilight, with new ministers to her comfort all about her. Later, as it
grew dark, she dressed again and descended to the great hall, where
further merriment was in progress.
The demoiselles and squires of the Castle were now holding high revel,
and their games caused the old stone walls to echo with laughter and
shrieks of delight. In one corner of the room madame and the Bishop sat
together over a game of chess. Gerault was near them, where he could
watch the battle; but his eyes were often to be seen following the light
figure of Lenore through the mazes of the dances and games in which she
so eagerly joined. The sports in which these maidens and young men grown
indulged, were commonly played by older folk throughout France, and have
descended almost intact to the children of a more advanced and less
light-hearted age. Lenore entered into the play with a pleasure too
unconscious not to be genuine. She laughed and sang and chattered, and
put herself at home with every one. She was soon the leading spirit of
the company, as she had been wont to be in her own home. The games were
innumerable: _Pantouffle_, _Pince-Mérille_, _Bric_, _Qui Féry_, _Le Roi
qui ne Ment pas_, and a dozen others. And were there a forfeit to be
paid in the shape of a kiss, she instantly deserted Courtoise and David,
who, enraptured with her youth and gayety, kept close on either side of
her, and delivered it with shy delight to Gerault, who scarcely appeared
to appreciate the gifts he got.
In the course of time a “Ribbon Dance” was ordered, and madame and
monseigneur actually left their game to lead it, drawing Gerault with
them into the sport. Obediently he gave one hand to Lenore, the other to
Alixe, and went through the dance with apathetic grace, bringing by his
half unconscious manner the first chill upon Lenore’s happy evening.
This was, however, the end of the amusement; and when the flushed and
panting company finally halted, Gerault at once drew his wife to
madame’s side, himself saluted his mother, and then followed Lenore up
the torchlit stairs. In ten minutes the whole company had dispersed, and
Eleanore remained alone in the great hall.
When she had extinguished all the lights below, madame passed up the
stairs, putting out the smoking torches as she went, and, reaching the
upper hall, went immediately to her own bedroom. Here she slipped off
the heavy mantle and the modified “cote-hardi.” Then, clad only in a
long, light, damask tunic, she went over to one of the wide-open west
windows, and, leaning across its sill, looked out upon the vasty,
murmurous, summer sea. Low on the horizon, among a group of faint
clustering stars, swung the crescent moon, which was reflected in the
smooth surface of a distant wave. A great, fresh, salt breath came up
like a tonic through the wilted air. The voice of the sea was infinitely
soothing. Eleanore listened to it eagerly, her lips parted, her eyes
wandering along that distant wave-line; her thoughts almost as far away.
Presently the door of her room opened, softly; and some one paused upon
the threshold. Instinctively she knew who it was that entered. Half
turning, she said gently,—
“Thou’rt come here, Gerault?”
Her son came forward slowly, halted a few steps away, and held out one
hand to her. She went to him and took it, wondering a little at his
manner, but not questioning him. Quietly she drew the young man to the
window where she had been; and both stood there and looked out upon the
scene. They were silent for a long time. It was intensely difficult for
Gerault to speak; and madame knew not how to help him. At length, in a
voice that sounded slightly strained, he asked: “Thou’rt pleased with
her? Thou’rt satisfied, my mother?”
“Oh, Gerault! Gerault! She is so fair, so delicate, so like some faery
child! I almost fear to see her beauty fade in the shadow of these gray
walls.”
“And will she—Lenore—help thee, in a way, to forget thy grief in Laure?”
Eleanore gave a sudden, involuntary sob; for none had pronounced that
name to her since the early spring. The sob was answer enough to
Gerault’s question. But in a moment she said, in a voice that was
perfectly controlled: “Methinks I love her, thy lady, already. Ah, my
son, she is very sweet! Very, very sweet and fair!”
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER SEVEN_
THE LOST LENORE
[Illustration]
When Gerault left her to go to his mother’s room, on that first evening
in the Castle that was to be her home, Lenore was still fully dressed.
As soon as she was alone, however, she made herself ready for the night;
and then, wrapping herself about in her long day-mantle, went to a
window overlooking the sea, and sat there waiting for her lord’s return.
Now that the excitement of the day, of the arrival, of meeting so many
new people, all eager to make her welcome, was over, Lenore began to
feel herself very weary, a little homesick, a little wistful, and
tremulously eager for Gerault’s speedy return. She clung to the thought
of him and her newly risen love, with pathetic anxiety. Was it not
lawful and right that she should love him? Was it not equally lawful and
therefore equally certain that he must love her? She knew little enough
of love and of men, young Lenore; yet this idea came to her
instinctively, and it seemed impossible that it could be otherwise. It
was so recently that she had been a little girl in all her thoughts and
pleasures and habits, that this sudden transition to the dignified
estate of wifehood had left her singularly helpless, singularly
dependent on the man whom she had married out of duty and fallen in love
with afterwards, on the way from Rennes. Gerault helped her, in his way.
He was kind, he was gentle, was solicitous for her comfort, and required
of her nothing but a quiet demeanor. But that he failed in some way to
give her what was her due, the young girl rather felt than knew.
While she waited here alone, looking out upon the lonely sea, that was
so new and so wonderful a sight to her, the Lady Lenore bitterly
regretted and took herself to task for her gayety of the evening. The
silly games that she had once so loved to play—alas! he had not joined
in them, doubtless thought them trivial and unbecoming in a woman grown
and married! She had made herself a fool before him! He was older than
she, and wiser, and a gallant knight. Lenore’s cheeks flushed with pride
as she remembered how he could joust and tilt at the ring. She
remembered when she had first seen him, from the gallery of the list at
Rennes, when he unseated the Seigneur Geoffrey Cartel. This lordly sport
was as simple to him as her games to her. Little wonder that she had
exhausted his patience! And yet—if he would but come to her now! She was
so sadly weary; and it grew so late. Her little body ached, her temples
throbbed, her eyes burned with the past glare of the sun on the white
dust, and the recent flickering light of the torches. If he would but
come back, and forgive her her childishness, and kiss her before she
slept, she would be very happy.
In point of fact Gerault did come soon. Knowing that Lenore must be
weary, he remained but a short time with his mother, and returned
immediately to his wife. The moment that he entered the room, Lenore
rose from her place, and ran to him with a faint cry of delight.
“At last thou art come! Thou art come!” she said indistinctly, not
wanting him to hear the words, yet unable to keep from saying them.
“And didst thou sit up for me, child, and thou so weary? I went but to
give my mother good-night, for thou knowest ’tis long since I saw her
last. She sent thee her blessing and sweet rest; and my wish is fellow
to hers. Come now, child.”
Gerault lifted her up in his arms, and, carrying her to the bed, laid
her down in it, mantle and all. In the carrying, Lenore had leaned her
head upon his shoulder, and her two tired arms folded themselves around
his neck. How it was that Gerault felt no thrill at this touch; that it
was almost a relief to him when the hold loosened; and how, though he
slept at her side that night, his dreams, freer replica of his
day-thoughts, were filled with vague trouble, he himself could scarce
have told; and yet it was so.
[Illustration:
_Only one among them seemed
not of their mood.—Page 31_
]
Next morning, however, Gerault watched her waken, looking as rosy and
fresh as a child, and smiling a child’s delighted welcome at the new
day. Unquestionably she was a pleasure to him at such times. Before her
marriage he had liked, in thinking of her, to accentuate her fairy-like
ways, because through them he had brought himself to marry her. And now
his treatment of her resembled most, perhaps, the treatment of something
very fine and fair, something very rare and delicate and generally to be
prized, but not really belonging to him, not essentially valued by him,
or near at all to his human heart.
When they were ready for the day, the two of them, Lenore and Gerault,
did not linger together in their room, but descended immediately to the
chapel, where morning prayers were just beginning. Every eye was turned
upon them as they entered the holy room; and it was as sunshine greeting
sunshine when Lenore faced the open window, through which poured the
golden light of July. Madame’s heart swelled and beat fast, and that of
Alixe all but stopped, as each beheld the morning’s bride; and they
perceived, with a kind of dull surprise, that Gerault’s face was as
dark-browed, as reserved, as melancholy as ever. It seemed impossible
that he should not be moved to new life by the presence and possession
of so fair a thing as this Lenore. Yet when the devotions were at an
end, and the Castle household rose and moved out to where the tables
were spread for the breaking of the fast, no one noted how the young
girl’s blue eyes glanced once or twice a little wistfully, a little
forlornly, up into the unmoved face of her husband, and that she got
therefrom no answering smile.
In celebration of the Seigneur’s wedding, a week’s holiday had been
declared for every one in the Castle; and so, when the first meal of the
day was at an end, the demoiselles, in high glee at escaping from the
morning’s toil in the hot spinning-room, gayly proposed to their
attendant squires that they repair at once to the open meadows, where
there was glorious opportunity for games and caroles. Lenore’s eyes
lighted with pleasure at this proposal; but she looked instinctively at
Gerault, to see if his face approved the plan. She found his eyes upon
her; and, as he caught her glance, he motioned her to his side, and drew
her with him a little apart from the general group. Then he said to her
kindly,—
“Beloved, I shall see thee at noon meat. Courtoise and I go forth this
morning together to try two of the new falcons that Alixe hath trained.
Thou’lt fare gently here with all the demoiselles and the young squires;
and see that thou weary not thyself at play in the heat. Till noon, my
little one!”
He bent and touched his lips to her hair,—that sunlit hair,—and then, as
he strode away, followed, but half willingly, by Courtoise, Lenore’s
head bent forward, and her eyes, that for one instant had brimmed full,
were shut tight till the unbidden drops went back again. When she looked
up once more, Alixe was at her side, and the expression on the face of
La Rieuse was full of unlooked-for tenderness. Lenore, however, was too
proud for pity, and in a moment she smiled, and said bravely:
“My lord is going a-hawking with his squire. Shall we to the fields?
Said they not that we should go to weave garlands in the fields?”
“Yes! To the fields! To the fields! Hola, David! We are commanded to the
fields by our Queen of Delight!” called Alixe, loudly, waving her hands
above her head, and striving in every way to gain the attention of the
company. But in spite of her efforts, Gerault’s departure was seen, and
there was a general outcry of protest, which did not, however, reach the
ears of the Seigneur. Then Lenore was forced to bear the comments of the
company: their loudly expressed disappointment, and the unspoken but
infinitely more painful astonishment plainly indicated in every glance.
Nevertheless the young girl had in her the instincts of a fine race, and
she bore everything with a heroic unconcern that won Alixe’s admiration,
and so far deceived the thoughtless throng as to bring her a new
accusation of indifference to Gerault’s absence.
To the girl-bride that morning passed—somehow. It was perhaps the
bitterest three hours she had ever endured; yet she would not confess
her disappointment even to herself. Besides, was not Gerault coming home
again? Had he not said that he would be back at noon? Had he not called
her “beloved”? Her heart thrilled at the thought; and she forgot the
fact that Gerault knew that she could ride with hawk on wrist and tell a
fair quarry when she saw it. She forgot that at such times as this even
hawking will generally give way to love; and that he is a sorry
bridegroom that loves his horse better than his bride. Yet she forgave
him for the time, and regained her smiles until the shadow of a new
dread fell upon her. She could endure the morning; but the afternoon?
Would he remain with her through the afternoon? Alas, here was the
terrible pity of it! She could not tell.
However, this last dread proved to be groundless. Gerault made no move
to leave the Castle again that day. Perhaps he even felt a little guilty
of neglect; or perhaps her greeting on his return betrayed to him how
she had suffered through the morning. However it was, as soon as the
long dinner was at an end, the Seigneur and his lady were observed to
wander away into the armory, and they sat there together, on the same
settle, until the shadows grew long in the courtyard and the afternoon
was nearly worn away. What they said to one another, or how Gerault
entertained his maid, no one knew; for, oddly enough, Courtoise had put
himself on guard at the armory door, and would permit none to venture so
much as a peep into the room on which his own back was religiously
turned. So for that afternoon demoiselles and squires chose King and
Queen of their revels from among their own number, and perhaps enjoyed
their games the better for that fact.
When the sun was leaning far toward the broad breast of the sea, all the
Castle, mindful of their souls, repaired to the chapel for vespers, a
service held only when the Bishop was at Le Crépuscule. Gerault and
Lenore were the last to appear, and while the Seigneur’s expression was
rather thoughtful than happy, it had in it, nevertheless, a suggestion
of Lenore’s repressed joy, so that madame, seeing him, was satisfied for
the first time since his home-coming.
But alas for the thoughts and hopes that this afternoon had raised in
the observing ones of Le Crépuscule, Lenore and her husband were not
seen again to spend a single hour alone together. Gerault remained for
the most part with the general company of the Castle, not seeking to
escape to solitude with Courtoise, but holding his lady from him at
arm’s length. His attitude toward her was uneasy. He did not avoid her,
but, were they by chance left alone together for ten minutes, his manner
changed till it was like that of a man guilty of some dishonorable
thing. Oftentimes, when they were with a number of others, Gerault would
be seen to watch Lenore closely, and his eyes would light with momentary
pleasure at some one of her unconscious graces. But the light never
stayed. Quickly his black brows would darken, the shadows re-cover his
face, and he would be more unapproachable than before.
In the course of a few days, Lenore began to grow morbidly sensitive
over her husband’s attitude; and, out of sheer misery, she began to
avoid him persistently. This brought a still more bitter blow to her,
for she discovered that he was glad to be avoided. Lenore was desperate;
but still she was brave, still she held to herself; and if at times she
sought refuge with madame and Alixe, those two kindly and pitying souls
met her with outstretched arms of silent sympathy, and never betrayed to
her by so much as a glance how much they had observed of Gerault’s
incomprehensible neglect.
The holiday week passed, and with its end came a spirit of relief that
it was over. Next morning the usual occupations were begun, and Lenore
went up to the spinning-room with the rest of the women. This work-room
was on the second floor, and ran almost the whole length of the south
side of the Castle: a long, narrow room, with many windows looking out
upon the courtyard, and only a sideways view of the hazy, turquoise sea.
Here was every known mechanical contrivance for the making of cloth and
tapestry, and their development out of the raw wool. The loom, just now
half filled with a warp of pale green, stood at the east end of the
room; the fixed combs, the half-dozen spinning-wheels, the
tambour-frames for embroidery, and the great tapestry-border frame, were
ranged in an orderly line down the remaining length, and each of the
maidens had her particular task of the summer in some stage of
completion. Since Lenore’s arrival a spinning-wheel had been set up here
for her, and she sat down to it at once, while her demoiselles were
directed by madame to begin work on the tapestry border, at which four
could apply the needle at the same time. As the roomful settled quickly
to work, under the general guidance of madame, Lenore began to tread her
wheel and draw out thread with a hand practised enough to win the
approval even of Eleanore. And as the morning wore along, Lenore found
herself unaccountably soothed and comforted by her task and the kindly
atmosphere of perseverance and attention to duty surrounding her.
Nevertheless, it was not a comfortable day for such work. The heat was
intense. Fingers grew constantly damp with sweat. Thread knotted and
broke, silk drew, and little exclamations of anger and disgust were
frequently to be heard. However, the labor was continued as usual for
three hours, till eleven o’clock, the dinner hour, came, and the little
company willingly left the spinning-room to another afternoon of
silence, and went downstairs to meat. At the foot of the stairs stood
Gerault, waiting for Lenore; and when she reached him he kissed her upon
the brow before leading her to table. In that moment the girl’s heart
sang, and she felt that her day had been fittingly crowned.
In the early afternoon Lenore found that there were new occupations for
all the Castle. The demoiselles were despatched to the long room on the
first floor, which, though not dignified by the name of library, yet
took that place, for instruction in certain things, mental and moral, by
the friar-steward, Father Anselm. The young men were at sword practice
in the keep. And Lenore, who could write her name and read a little from
parchment manuscripts in both Latin and French, and whose education was
therefore finished, was summoned by madame and taken over the whole
Castle, receiving, at various stages, instruction in domestic duties and
the management of the great building. She saw everything, from the
linen-presses upstairs to the wine-cellars underground; and everywhere
the hand of madame was visible in the scrupulous exactness and neatness
with which the Castle was kept. Then in her heart Lenore determined that
in time she would learn madame’s habits, and, if it could be done in no
other way, win Gerault’s respect by her abilities as a housekeeper.
The hours of late afternoon and early evening were devoted to
recreation, which was entered into with new zest by every one. To be
sure, Gerault sat all evening with his mother, playing draughts. But his
eyes occasionally strayed to the figure of his wife; and later, when the
Castle was still, and Lenore, in the great curtained bed, was wandering
on the borderland of sleep, she felt that this day was the happiest she
had yet spent in Le Crépuscule; and she knew in her heart that work and
work only could now bring her peace. And thereafter, poor little
dreamer, a smile hovered upon her face as she slept!
On the tenth day of the new regime in Le Crépuscule, squire Courtoise
sat in the armory, polishing the design engraved on his lord’s
breastplate. Courtoise was moody. Ordinarily his cheerfulness in the
face of insuperable dulness was something to be proud of. But latterly
his faith, the one great faith in his heart,—not religion, but utter
devotion to his lord—had been receiving a series of shocks that had
shaken it to its foundation. Courtoise was by nature as gentle, genial,
and kindly a fellow as ever held a lance; and in his heart he had for
years blindly worshipped Gerault. His creed of devotion, indeed, had
embraced the whole family of Le Crépuscule, because Gerault was its
head. Till the time of their last going to Rennes, there had been for
him no woman like madame, no such maid as Laure, and no man anywhere
comparable to his master. Poor Laure had dealt him a grievous blow when
she followed Flammecœur from the priory. But from the day of Gerault’s
betrothal to little Lenore, the daughter of the Iron Chateau had held
his heart in her hand, and might have done with it as she would. Loving
the two of them as he did, and seeing each day fresh proof of Lenore’s
affection for her lord and his, Courtoise naturally looked for a fitting
return of this from the Seigneur. And here, all in a night, Courtoise’s
first great doubt had entered in. They had been married three days, they
were barely at Le Crépuscule, before Courtoise saw what made him sick
with uneasiness. If the Seigneur had wedded this exquisite maiden with
the sunlit hair, must he not love her? And yet—and yet—and yet—Courtoise
sat in the armory and polished freely at the steel, and swore to himself
under his breath, recklessly incurring whatever penance Anselm should
see fit to give. For here it was mid-afternoon, and his little lady just
freed from her hours of toil; and there was Gerault gone off by himself,
without even his squire, forsooth, to hawk with the Iron-Beak over the
moor!
Courtoise had been indulging himself in ire for some time, when a shadow
stole past the doorway of the armory. He looked up. The shadow had gone;
but presently it returned and halted: “Courtoise!”
The young fellow leaped to his feet, and the breastplate clattered to
the floor. Lenore, looking very transparently pale, very humbly wistful,
and having just a suspicion of red around her eyes, was regarding him
tentatively from the doorway.
“Ma dame, what service dost thou ask?”
“None, Courtoise,” the voice sounded rather faint and tired. “None, save
to tell me if thou hast lately seen my lord.”
The expression on her face was so pathetic that Courtoise was suddenly
struck to the heart, and he bit his tongue before he could reply quietly
enough: “Ma Dame Lenore, Seigneur Gerault rode out long time since
a-hawking; and methinks he will shortly now return. The hour for evening
meat approaches. I—I—” he broke off, stammering; and Lenore without
speaking bowed her head, and patiently turned away.
Courtoise sat down again when she left him, and remained motionless, the
steel on his knees, his hands idle, staring into space. Suddenly he
leaped to his feet and hurled the breastplate to the floor with a
smothered oath. “Gray of St. Gray!” he cried, “what devil hath seized
the man I loved? Gerault, my lord, rides out and leaves this angel to
weep after him! Gray of St. Gray! what desires he more fair than this
his Lenore? What—what—what—” the muttered words died into thoughts as
Courtoise clapped a cap on his head and strode away from the armory and
out of the Castle.
In the courtyard the first object that met his eyes was Gerault’s horse,
standing in front of the keep, with a stable-boy holding him by the
bridle. Gerault himself was in the doorway of the empty falcon-house,
holding a _hagard_ on his wrist, while two dead pigeons swung from his
girdle.
“Courtoise! Behold our spoils! Hath not Talon-Fer done Alixe’s training
honor?” cried Gerault, the note of pleasure keener than usual in his
voice.
Courtoise, flushed with rising anger, went over to him. “My lord, the
Lady Lenore asks for thee!” he said a little hoarsely, paying no
attention to the dead pigeons or the young falcon.
Gerault very slightly raised his brows, more at Courtoise’s tone,
perhaps, than at the words he spoke. “The Lady Lenore,” he said.
“Even so—the Lady Lenore—thy wife!”
“I understand thee, good Courtoise.”
The veins in the younger man’s neck and temples stood out under the
strain of repression. “Comes my lord?” he asked slowly.
“In good time, Courtoise. The _hagard_ must be fed.” Gerault would have
turned away, but Courtoise, with a burst of irritation, exclaimed,—
“I will feed the creature!”
Now Gerault turned to him again: “Hast thou some strange malady or
frenzy, that thou shouldst use such tones to me, boy?”
“Tones—tones, and yet again tones! Gerault—thou churl! Ay, I that have
been faithful squire to thee these many years, I say it. Thou churl and
worse, to have wedded with the sweetest lady ever sun shone upon, to
bring her, a stranger, home to thy Castle, and then leave her there, day
following day, while thou ridest over the moors to dally with some bird!
All the Castle stares at the cruelty of thy neglect. Daily the
demoiselles whisper together, wondering what distemper thy lady hath
that thou seest her not by day—”
“Hush, boy—hush! Thou’rt surely mad!” cried out Gerault, with a note in
his voice that gave Courtoise pause.
Then there fell between them a silence, heavy, and so binding that
Courtoise could not move. He stood staring into his master’s face,
watching the color grow from white to red and back again, and the
expression change from angry amazement to something softer, something
strange, something that Courtoise did not know in his lord’s face. And
Gerault gnawed his lip, and bent low his head, and presently spoke, in a
voice that was not his own, but was rather curiously muffled and
unnatural.
“Thou sayest well, Courtoise. ’Tis true I have neglected her, poor,
frail, pretty child! Ah! I had never thought how I have neglected her”;
and Gerault sat suddenly down upon the step of the falcon-house and laid
his head in his hands, in an attitude of such dejection that Courtoise
experienced a swift rush of repentance.
For some time there was again silence between them. Courtoise,
thoroughly mystified by the whole situation, had nothing whatever to
say. Finally the Seigneur stood up, this time with his head high, and
his self-control returned. He put the falcon, screaming, into his
squire’s hands, and took the bodies of the pigeons from his belt.
“So, Courtoise, I leave them all with you. Where is the Lady Lenore?”
“Sooth, I know not; yet methinks when she left the armory where she had
spoken to me, she passed into the chapel.”
“I go to her. And I thank thee, Courtoise, for thy rebuke.”
“My lord, my lord, forgive me!” Courtoise choked with a sudden new rush
of devotion for his master. He would have fallen on his knees there on
the courtyard stones, but that the Seigneur, with a faint smile at him,
was gone, carrying alone the burden of his inexplicable sorrow.
The Lady Lenore was in the chapel, half kneeling, half lying upon the
altar-step. In the dim light of the shadowy place her golden hair and
amber-colored garments glimmered faintly. She was not praying, yet
neither was she weeping, now. The long, hot loneliness of the afternoon
had thrown her into a state of apathy, in which she wished for nothing,
and in which she refused to think. She had no desire for company; but
had any one come—David, or Alixe, or Madame—she should not have cared.
It was only Gerault that she would not have see her in this place and
attitude. The thought of Gerault was continually with her, as something
omnipresent; but at this especial hour she felt no wish to see the man
himself. Yet now he came. She heard a tread on the stones that sent a
tremor through her whole body. Then some one was kneeling beside her,
and a quiet voice said gently in her ear,—
“Lenore!—My child!—Why art thou lying here?”
Lenore tried hard to speak; but her throat contracted convulsively, and
she made no answer.
“Child, art thou sick for thy home? Thou hast found sorrow here, and
loneliness, in this new abode. Perhaps thou wouldst have had me oftener
at thy side. Is it so, Lenore?”
The girl’s golden head burrowed down into her arms, and she seemed to
shake it, but she did not speak.
Gerault looked about him a little helplessly. Then, taking new
resolution, he put one arm about her, and, drawing her slight form close
to him, he said in a halting and broken way: “Come, my wife—come with me
for a little time. Let us walk out together to the cliff by the sea. The
sun draws near the water—the afternoon grows rich with gold.—And thou
and I will talk together.—Lenore, much might I tell thee of myself,
whereby thou couldst understand many things that trouble thee now.
Knowing them, and with them, me, thou shalt more justly judge me. Come,
little one,—rise up!” He drew her to her feet beside him, and then, with
his arms still around her, he stood and put his lips to her half-averted
cheek. Under that kiss she grew cold and tremulous, but still preserved
her silence. Then the two moved, side by side, out of the Castle,
through the courtyard, and on to the outer terrace that ran along the
very edge of the precipitous cliff against which, far below, the summer
sea gently broke and plashed.
Here, hand in hand, the Seigneur and his lady walked, looking off
together at the glory of the mighty waters. The crimson sky was veiled
in light clouds that caught a more and more splendid reflection of the
fiery ball behind them; while the moving waves below were stained with
pink and mellow gold. Lenore kept her eyes fixed fast upon this sight,
while she listened to what Gerault was saying to her. He talked, in a
fitful, chaotic way, of many things: of his boyhood here, of Laure his
sister, and Alixe, and of “one other that was not as any of us,—our
cousin, a daughter of Laval, whose dead mother had put her in the
keeping of mine.”
So much mention of this girl Gerault made, and then went on to other
things, jumbling together many incidents and scenes of his boyhood and
his youth, never guessing that Lenore, who continued so quietly to look
off upon the sea, had seized upon this one little thing that he had
said, and realized, with a woman’s intuition, that the story of his
heart lay here. As Gerault rambled on, he came gradually to feel that he
had lost her attention, and so, little by little, as the sunset light
died away, he ceased to speak, and there crept in upon them, over them,
through them, that terrible silence that both of them knew: the
all-pervading, ghostly silence that haunted this spot; the silence that
had brought the name upon the Castle,—the Chateau du Crépuscule. Lenore
grew slowly cold with miserable foreboding, while Gerault, rebelling
against himself, was struggling to break the bonds of his own nature.
“Well named is this home of ours, Lenore,” he said sadly.
“Yea, it is well named,” was the reply.
“Wilt thou—be—lonely forever here? Art thou lonely now? Hast thou a
sickness for thy home and for thy people?”
For an instant Lenore hesitated. At Gerault’s words her heart had leaped
up with a great cry of “Yes”; and yet now there was something in her
that withheld her from saying it. When at last she answered him, her
words were unaccountable to herself, yet she spoke them feelingly: “Nay,
Gerault. Thou hast taken me to be one with thee. Thou hast brought me
here to thy home, and it is also mine.”
A light of pleasure came into Gerault’s face, and he took her into his
arms with a freer and more open warmth than he had ever shown her
before. “Indeed, thou art my wife—one with me—my sweet one—my sweet
child Lenore! And this my home is also thine,—Chateau du Crépuscule!”
Suddenly Lenore shivered in his clasp. That word “Crépuscule” sounded
like a knell in her ears, and as she looked upon the gray walls looming
out of the twilight mists, the very blood in her veins stood still.
Whether Gerault felt her dread she did not know, but he did not loose
his hold upon her for a long time. They stood, close-clasped, on the
edge of the cliff, looking off upon the darkening sea, till, over the
eastern horizon line, the great pink moon slipped up, giving promise of
glory to the night. The cool evening breeze came off the waters. They
heard the creaking and grating of the drawbridge, as it was raised. Then
a flock of sea gulls floated up from the water below, and veered
southward, along the shore, toward their home. Finally, in the deepening
west, the evening star came out, hanging there like a diamond on an
invisible thread. Then Gerault whispered in the ear of Lenore,—
“Sweet child, it is late. The hour of evening meat is now long past. Let
us go into the Castle.”
Lenore yielded at once to the pressure of Gerault’s arm, and let herself
be drawn away. But she carried forever after the memory of that quiet
half-hour, in which the mighty hand of nature had been lifted over her
to give her blessing.
Courtoise the faithful had kept the two from a summons at the hour of
supper; and on their return they found food left upon the table for
them; but, what was unusual at this time, the great room was empty. Only
Courtoise, who was again at work in the armory, knew how long they sat
and ate and talked together, and only he saw them when they rose from
table, passed immediately to the stairs, and ascended, side by side.
Then the young squire knew that they would come down no more that night;
and he guessed what was really true: that on that evening Lenore’s cup
of happiness seemed full; for, as never before, Gerault claimed and took
to himself the unselfish devotion that she was so ready to give. When
she slept, a smile yet lingered round her lips; nor, in that sleep, did
she feel the change that came upon her lord.
Not many hours after she had sunk to rest, Lenore woke slowly, to find
herself alone in the canopied bed. Gerault was not there. She put out
her hand to him, and found his place empty. Opening her eyes with a
little effort, she pushed the curtains back from the edge of the bed,
and looked about her. It could not be more than twelve o’clock. The room
was flooded with moonlight, till it looked like a fairy place. The three
windows were wide open to the breath of the sea; and beside one of them
knelt Gerault. He was wrapped in a full mantle that hid the lines of his
figure; and Lenore could see only that his brow rested on the
window-sill, that his shoulders were bent, and his hands clasped tight
on the ledge beyond his head. Unutterable pain was expressed in the
attitude.
What was he doing there? Of what were his thoughts? Why had he left her
side? Above all, what was his secret trouble? These questions passed
quickly through Lenore’s brain, and her first impulse was to rise and go
to him. Had she not the right to know his heart? Had he not given it to
her this very night? She looked at him again, asking herself if he were
really in pain; if he were not rather simply looking out upon the
moonlit sea, and was now, perhaps, engaged in prayer, to which the
beauty of the scene had lifted him. She would go to him and learn.
She sat up in bed, pushed her golden hair out of her neck and back from
her face. Then she drew the curtains still farther aside, preparatory to
stepping out, when suddenly she saw Gerault lift his head as if he
listened for something far away; and then she caught the whispered word,
“Lenore!”
For some reason, she could not have told why, Lenore did not move, but
sat quite still, staring at him. She heard him say again, more loudly,
“Lenore!” but he did not turn toward her bed. Rather, he was looking
out, out of the window, and down the line of rocky shore that stretched
away to the north.
“Lenore! I hear thee! I hear thy voice!” he whispered, to himself,
fearfully. “I hear thee speaking to me.—Oh, my God! My God! When wilt
Thou remove this torture from my brain?” He rose to his feet and lifted
his arms as if in supplication. “It is a curse upon me! It is a madness,
that I cannot love this other maiden. Thou spirit of my lost
Lenore!—Lenore!—Lenore!—Thou callest to me from the sea by day and
night!—Only and forever beloved, come thou back to me, out of the
sea!—Come back to me!—Come back!” His hands were clenched under such a
stress of emotion as his girl-wife had never dreamed him capable of. Now
he stood there without speaking, his breath coming in sobbing gasps that
shook his whole frame. The beating of his heart seemed as if it would
suffocate him, and his body swayed back and forward, under the force of
his mental anguish. For the first time in all his years of silent grief,
he gave way unreservedly to himself; let all the pent-up agony come
forth as it would from him, as he stood there, looking off upon that
wonderful, inscrutable, shimmering ocean, that had played such havoc
with his changeless heart.
From the bed where she sat, Lenore watched him, silent, motionless,
afraid almost to breathe lest he should discover that she was awake. But
Gerault wist nothing of her presence. He had known no joy in her, in the
hallowed hours of the early night; else he could not now stand there at
the window, calling, in tones of unutterable agony and tenderness, upon
his dead,—
“Lenore! Lenore! Come back!—O sea—thou mighty, cruel sea, deliver her up
for one moment to my arms! Let me have but one look, a touch, a
kiss.—Oh, my God!—Come back to me at last, or else I die!”
He fell to his knees again, faint with the power of his emotion; and
Lenore, the other, the unloved Lenore, sat behind him, in the great bed,
watching.
The moonlight crept slowly from that room, and passed, like a wraith,
off the sea, and beyond, into the east. The stars shone brighter for the
passing of the moon. There was no sound in the great stillness, save the
rustling murmur of the outflowing tide. In the chilly darkness before
the break of dawn, Gerault of the Twilight Castle crept back to the bed
he had left, looking fixedly, through the gloom, at the white, passive
face of his wife, who lay back, with closed eyes, on her pillow. And
when at last he slept again, she did not move; yet she was not asleep.
In that hour her youth was passing from her, and she, a woman at last,
entered alone into that dim and quiet vale where those that lived about
her had wandered so long, so patiently, and, at last, so wearily, alone.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER EIGHT_
TO A TRUMPET-CALL
[Illustration]
After the night of Gerault’s passion, twelve days ebbed and flowed away
without any incident of moment in the Castle. How much bitter heart-life
was enacted in that time, it had indeed been difficult to tell. Lenore
wondered, constantly, as she looked into the faces about her and
questioned them as she refused to question her own heart. If, beneath
that cloak of lordly courtesy and calmness, Gerault could hide such a
grief as she knew was buried in his soul; if she herself found it so
easy to conceal her own knowledge of that bitterest of all facts, that
she was a wife unloved,—what stories of mental anguish, of long-hidden
torture, might not lie behind the impassive masks around her. There was
Madame Eleanore, madame of the commanding presence and infinitely gentle
manners. What was it that had generated the expression of her eyes?
Lenore had scarcely heard the name of Laure, thought only that there had
been a daughter in Crépuscule who had died long since; and so she wove a
little history of her own to account for that haunted look so often to
be found in madame’s dark orbs. Gerault she knew. Alixe puzzled her, but
there also she found food for her morbidness. Courtoise and the
demoiselles she did not consider; but David the dwarf held
possibilities. The young woman’s new-sharpened glance quickly discovered
that the jester suffered also from the devouring malady, and she
wondered over and pitied him also.
Indeed, at this time, Lenore was in an abnormal and unhealthy frame of
mind. It seemed to her that all the world lived only to hide its
sorrows. But her melancholy speculations concerning the nature of the
griefs of others saved her from the disastrous effects of too much
self-analysis. Her love for Gerault, to which she always clung, led her
to pity him as he would not have believed she could have pitied any one;
and, unnatural as it seemed, she brooded as much over his sorrow as over
her own. Melancholy she was, indeed, and older by many years than when
she had first come to Le Crépuscule. Sometimes the fact that Gerault did
not know how much she knew brought her a measure of comfort, but it made
her uneasy, also, for she was not sure that she was not wrongfully
deceiving him. She could not bring herself to confess to Father Anselm
what she felt no one should know; and neither did she find it in her
heart to tell Gerault himself of her inadvertent discovery, though had
she but done this last, all might have come right in the end. But from
day to day she put away from her the thought of speaking, and from day
to day she drew closer into herself, till she was shut to all thought of
confiding in him who had the right to know the reason of her
unhappiness.
Gerault, however, was not unobserving, and he noticed the change in her
very early in its existence. It was an intangible thing, elusive,
changeable, varying in degree. All this he realized; but, man-like,
never guessed the reason for it, never knew that Lenore herself was
unconscious of it. Did she desire to coquet with him, render him
uneasily jealous of every one on whom she turned her eyes? If so, it was
useless, for the knight believed himself incapable of jealousy in regard
to her. He had married her for the sake of his mother, and for Le
Crépuscule,—much as the fact did him dishonor. In the very hour of their
highest love, his thoughts had been all for another; and when she slept
he had left her side to cry into the night and the silence, unto that
other, of whom this young Lenore had never heard. Despite these
confessed things, the Seigneur Gerault felt in some way hurt when the
timid shadow of his wife no longer haunted him by day, nor stretched to
his protecting arm by night. She had withdrawn from him into herself,
and even his occasional half-hours of devotion failed to bring any light
into her eyes, though she treated him always with half-tender courtesy.
Her lord was not a little puzzled by her new manner, but he took it in
his own way; and there was presently a stiffness of demeanor between the
two that would have been almost laughable had it not been so
pathetically cruel to Lenore.
The month of July passed away, and August came into the land. Brittany,
long blazing with sunlight, lay parching for want of rain. The moors
grew brown and dusty, and the meadow flowers bloomed no more. But the
blue sea shimmered radiantly day by day, and the sunsets were ever more
glorious and more red.
On a day in the first week of the last summer month, when Anselm had
found the temperature too great for the casting of choice paragraphs of
Cicero before the unheeding demoiselles, when the Castle reeked with the
smell of cooking, and the air outside was heavy with the odor of
hard-baked earth, Gerault sat in the long room alone, reading Seneca
from an illuminated text. A heretical document this, and not to be found
in a monastery or holy place; yet there were in it such scraps of homely
wisdom and comfort as the Seigneur—something of a scholar in his idle
hours—had failed to find in Holy Scripture.
In its dimly lighted silence the long room was, at this hour, a soothing
place. The row of small casement windows were open to the sea, and two
or three swallows, coming up from the water below, flitted through the
room, and once even a sleek and well-fed gull came to sit upon a sill
and flap his wings over the flavor of his last fish.
Gerault’s back was turned to the light; yet he knew these little
incidents of the birds, and took pleasure in them. A portion of his mind
rejoiced lazily in the quiet and solitude; the rest was fixed upon the
Latin words that he translated still with some lordly difficulty. He
found himself in the mood to consider the thoughts of men long dead, and
was indulging in the unsurpassed delight of the philosopher when, to his
vast annoyance, Courtoise pushed aside the curtains of the door, and
came into the room followed by another man. Gerault looked up testily;
but as he uttered his first word of reproach, his eye caught the dress
of his squire’s companion, and he broke off with an exclamation: “Dame!
Thou, Favriole?”
“May it please thee, Seigneur du Crépuscule,” was the reply, as the
new-comer advanced, bowing. He was elaborately and significantly dressed
in a parti-colored surcoat of blue and white silk, emblazoned behind and
before with the coronet and arms of Duke Jean of Brittany. His hosen
were also parti-colored, yellow and blue, and the round cap that he held
in his hand was of blue felt with a white feather. At his side hung the
instrument of his calling, a silver trumpet on a tasselled cord; for he
was a ducal herald, and, before he spoke, Gerault knew his errand.
“Welcome, welcome, Favriole!” he said kindly. “What is thy message now?
Surely not war?”
“Nay, Seigneur Gerault! A merrier message than that!” Lifting his
trumpet to his lips, he blew upon it a clear, silvery blast, and, after
the rather absurd formality, began: “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Be it known to
all princes, barons, knights, and gentlemen of the Duchy of Brittany and
the dependency of Normandy, and to the knights of Christian countries,
if they be not enemies to the Duke our Sire,—to whom God give long
life,—that in the ducal lists of Rennes in Brittany, upon the fifteenth
day of this month of August in this year of grace 1381, and thereafter
till the twentieth day of that month, there will be a great pardon of
arms and very noble tourney fought after the ancient customs, at which
tourney the chiefs will be the most illustrious Duke of Brittany,
appellant, and the very valiant Hugo de Laci, Lord in vassalage to his
Grace of England, of the Castle Andelin in Normandy, defendant. And
hereby are invited all knights of Christian countries not at variance
with our Lord Duke, to take part in the said tourney for the glory of
Knighthood and the fame of their Ladies.”
Favriole finished, smiling and important, and from behind him rose a
little buzz of interest. For, at sound of the trumpet, almost all the
Castle company had hurried from their various retreats to learn the
meaning of the untoward sound. In this group, not foremost, standing
rather a little back from the rest, was Lenore, gravely regarding
Gerault, where he sat with the parchment before him. She had recognized
Favriole, the herald, for a familiar figure in the lists at that
long-past tournament where she had first thought of being lady of her
lord; and she grew a little white under the memories that the herald
brought her. Gerault had seen her at the first moment of her coming,
and, as soon as Favriole finished his announcement, beckoned her to his
side. She came forward to him quietly, and took her place, acknowledging
the pleased salute of the visitor with the slightest inclination of her
golden head. When she was seated at the table, Gerault, who had risen at
her coming, spoke:
“Our thanks to you, Sir Herald, for your message, which you have come a
long and weary way to bear to the one spurred knight in this house. And
devotion to our Lord, Duke Jean, who—” Gerault paused. His mother had
just come to the room and halted on the threshold, a little in front of
the general group, her eyes travelling swiftly from Favriole’s face to
that of Lenore. Gerault, his thought broken, hesitated for an instant,
and turned also to look at his wife. Instantly Lenore rose, and advanced
a step or two to his side. Then she said in a curiously pleading tone,—
“I do humbly entreat my lord that he will not refuse to enter this
tournament; but that he will at once set out for Rennes, there to fight
for—for ‘the glory of his Knighthood, and the—the fame of his—Ladies’!”
When Lenore had spoken she found the whole room staring at her in open
amazement. Gerault gave his wife a glance that brought her a moment’s
bitter satisfaction,—a look filled with astonishment and discomfort.
Long he gazed at her, but could find no softening curve in her white,
set face. Every line in her figure bade him go. At length, then, he
turned back to Favriole, with something that resembled a sigh, and
continued his speech.
“Sir Herald, carry my name for the lists; and my word that on the
fifteenth day of this month I shall be in Rennes, armed and horsed for
the tourney. My challenge shall be sent anon.—Courtoise! Take thine
ancient comrade to the keep, and find him refreshment ere he proceeds
upon his way.”
Courtoise bowed, wearing an expression of mingled pleasure and
disapproval, and presently he and the herald left the room together,
followed by all the young esquires. After their disappearance the
demoiselles also wandered off to their pursuits, and presently Gerault,
Eleanore, and Lenore were left alone in the long room. Eleanore stood
still, just where she was, and looked once, searchingly, from the face
of her son to that of his wife. Then she addressed Gerault: “See that
thou come to me to-night, when I am alone in my chamber. I would talk
with thee, Gerault.” And with another look that had in it a suggestion
of disdain, madame turned and went out of the room.
When she was gone the knight drew a long sigh, and then, with an air of
apprehensive inquiry, faced Lenore. At once she rose and, with a very
humble courtesy, started also to depart. But Gerault, whose bewilderment
at the situation was changing to anxiety, said sharply: “Stay, Lenore!
Thou shalt not go till we have spoken together.”
Immediately she returned to her place and sat down. She gave him one
swift glance from under her lashes, and then remained in silence, her
eyes fixed upon the floor.
At the same time the Seigneur got to his feet and began to pace unevenly
up and down the room. His step was sufficient evidence of his agitation;
but it was many minutes before he suddenly halted, turning to his wife
and saying in a tone of command: “Tell me, Lenore, why thou biddest me
go forth into this tournament.”
“Ah, my lord—do not—I—” she paused, and, from flushing vividly, her face
grew white again: “Thou wilt be happier in Rennes, my lord.”
“How say you that? Were I not happier at home here with my bride?”
“Asks my lord wherefore?” answered Lenore, in a tone containing
something that Gerault could not understand.
“Nay, then, I ask thee naught but this: wouldst thou, all for thyself,
of thine own will, have me go? Dost thou in thy heart desire it?”
Lenore drew her head a little high, and looked him full in the face:
“For myself, for mine own selfish desires, of mine own will, I entreat
thee by that which through thy life thou hast held most dear, to go!”
Gerault stared at her, some vague distrust that was entering his mind
continually foiled by the open-eyed clearness of her look. Finally,
then, he shrugged his shoulders, and, as he turned away from her, he
said: “Be satisfied, madame. I do your bidding. I give you what pleasure
I can. In ten days’ time I shall set off; and thou wilt be unfettered in
this Crépuscule!”
And with this last ungenerous and angry taunt, the Seigneur, his brain
seething with some emotion that he could not define, strode from the
room. Lenore rose as he left her, and followed him, unsteadily, halfway
to the door. He went out of the Castle without once looking back, and
when he was quite gone, the young girl felt her way blindly to the chair
where she had sat, and crouching down in it, burst into a flood of
repressed and desperate tears.
When Gerault left Lenore’s side, he was no whit happier than she. After
the herald had made his announcement of the tourney, and Gerault had
begun his reply, it was his intent to refuse to go, though in his secret
heart he longed eagerly to be off to that city of gay forgetfulness. But
when his wife, Lenore, the clinging child, besought him, with every
appearance of sincerity, to leave her, he heard her with less of
satisfaction than with surprised disappointment. Now he fought with
himself; now he questioned her motive; again he longed for Rennes and
the tourney. Finally, there rushed over him the detestable deceit in his
own attitude; and he began to curse himself for what, sometimes, he
was,—the most intolerant and the most selfish of tyrants. In these
varying moods Gerault rode, for the rest of the afternoon, over the dry
moors, hawk on wrist, but finding his own thoughts, unhappy as they
were, more engrossing than possible quarries. He returned late—when the
evening meal was nearly at an end; and he perceived, with dull
disappointment, that Lenore was not at table. Madame presently informed
him that she lay in bed, sick of a headache; and this was all the
conversation in which he indulged while he ate his hurried meal. But as
soon as grace was said and the company had risen, Gerault started to the
stairs. Instantly his mother caught his sleeve and held him back,
saying,—
“Go not to thy room. She has perchance fallen asleep by now; and she
should not be wakened, for she hath been very ill. Seek thou rather my
bedchamber, and there presently I will come to thee; for I have somewhat
that I would say to thee, Gerault.”
Feeling as he had sometimes felt when, in his early boyhood, he had
waited punishment for some boyish misdeed, the Seigneur obeyed his
mother, and went up to her room, which was now wrapped in
close-gathering shadows. Here, a few moments later, Eleanore found him,
pacing up and down, his arms folded, his head bent upon his breast, a
dark frown upon his brows. The windows were open to the evening, and,
like some witchcraft spell, its sweetness entered into Gerault,
penetrating to his brain, and once again turning his thoughts to the
spirit that haunted all Le Crépuscule for him.
Madame came into the room, drawing the iron-bound door shut behind her,
and pushing the tapestry curtain over it. Then, without speaking, she
crossed the room, seated herself on her settle beside the window, and
fixed her eyes on the moving form of her son. Under her look Gerault
grew more restless still; and he was about to break the silence when
presently she said, in a low, rather grating tone: “Know, Gerault, that
I am grieved with thee.”
He turned to her at once with a little gesture of deprecation; but she
went on speaking:
“Thou hast brought home from Rennes a wife: a fair maid and a gentle as
any that hath ever lived; and moreover one that loves thee but too well.
In her little time of dwelling here she hath, by her quiet, lovely ways,
crept close into my heart, that was erstwhile so bitterly empty. And
having her here, and seeing her growing devotion to thee, her continual
striving to please thee in thine every desire, methought that thou, a
knight sworn to chivalry, must needs treat her with more than
tenderness. Yet that hast thou not, Gerault. Dieu! Thou’rt all but cruel
with her! God knows thy father came to be not over-thoughtful in his
love of me. Yet had he neglected and spurned me in our early marriage as
thou hast this bride of thine, I had surely made end of myself or ever
thou camest into the world. Shame it is to thee and to all mankind how—”
“Madame! Madame!—Forbear!”
At his tone, Eleanore held her peace, while Gerault, after a deep pause,
in which he regained his self-control, began,—
“Canst thou remember, my mother, a talk that we—thou and I together in
this room—held one afternoon more than a year agone? ’Twas in this room,
the day before I went last to Rennes. Thou didst entreat me to bring
thee back a wife to be thy daughter in the place of Laure.
“At that hour the idea was impossible to me. Thou knowest—’fore God thou
knowest—the suffering that time has never eased for me. A thousand times
I had vowed then, a hundred times I swore thereafter, that the image of
mine own Lenore should never be replaced within my heart; and it holds
there to-day as fair and clear as if it were but yesterday she went.
“Many months passed away, madame, and I saw this golden-haired maiden
about Rennes,—in the Ladies’ Gallery in the lists, and at feasts in the
Castle; yet I had never a thought in my heart of wedding with her.
Then—late in the spring—St. Nazaire sent me message of Laure’s disgrace,
her excommunication; and my heart bled for thee. I sent out many men to
search my sister, but not one ever gathered trace of her. Then, when
there was no further hope of restoring her to thee, the idea of marriage
came to me for the first time as a duty—toward thee. My whole soul cried
out against it. Lenore de Laval reproached me from the heaven where she
dwells. And yet—in the end—for _thy_ sake, madame, I brought home with
me the gentle child men call my wife.
“I confess it to thee only: I do not love her. Yet indeed none can say
that I have used her ill, save as I could not bring myself falsely to
act the ardent lover. If she hath been unhappy, then am I greatly
grieved. Yet what hath she not that women do desire in life? What lacks
there of honor or of pleasure in her estate? Moreover, if she has lost
her own mother, hath she not gained thee, dear lady of mine? Mon Dieu,
madame,—think not so ill of me. I swear that for me she yearns not at
all. Even this afternoon, when all of you had departed from the long
room, she did implore me, with sincerest speech, that I depart at early
date for Rennes. How likes you that? And moreover, to all my
questioning, she did stoutly deny that my going would be for aught but
her own pleasure, and would in no way grieve her heart.” And Gerault
stared upon his mother with the assured and exasperated look of a doubly
injured man.
Madame Eleanore drew herself together and set her lips in the firm
resolve still to treat her son with consideration. When she began to
speak, her manner was calm and her voice low and quiet; yet in her eyes
there gleamed a fire that was not born of patience. “So, Gerault!
Doubtless all thou sayest is sooth to thee; yet I would tell thee this:
when thou left’st her alone, I came upon her still sitting in the long
room, leaning her head upon the table where thou hadst sat, weeping as
if her heart was like to break. And when her sobs were still I brought
her up to her room and caused her to remove her garments and to seek her
bed, though all the while she shook with inward grief, till Alixe
brought her a posset, and bathed her head in elder-flower water, and
then, at last, she slept.”
“And gave she no name to thee as cause for her malady?”
“Art thou indeed so ignorant of us? Or is it heartlessness? Wilt thou go
to Rennes?”
“Hath she not required me to go? Good Heavens, madame! what wouldst have
me do?” he answered with weary impatience.
“Gerault, Gerault, if I could by prayer or anger make thee to understand
for one instant only! Ah, ’tis the same tale that every woman has to
tell. It was so with me. In my early youth I was brought from bright
Laval, where I was a queen of gayety and life, to rule alone over this
great Twilight Castle. Thy grandam was dead; and there was no other
woman of my station here. In a few months after my home-coming as a
bride, thy father rode away to join the army of Montfort in the East.
From that time I saw my lord but a few weeks in every year; for the war
lasted till I had reached the age of four-and-thirty. Thou camest to
cheer my loneliness; and then, long after, Laure. And at last, when
Laure was in her first babyhood, seventeen years agone, the long
struggle ended at Auray; and then my lord, sore wounded in his last
fight, came home. Alas! I was no happier for his coming. He had suffered
much, and he was no longer young. We two, so long separated, were almost
as strangers one to the other. Thou wast his great pride; dost remember
how he loved to have thee near him? And many a time it cut me to the
heart to hear the bloody, valorous tales he poured into thine ears; for
I knew by them that he meant thee to do what he had done. It was not
till he lay in his mortal sickness that we came back one to the other;
but he died in my arms, whispering to me such words as I had never had
from him before. That last is a sweet memory, Gerault; but the tale is
none the less grievous of my young life here. And there is the more pity
of it that mine is not the only story of such things. Many and many is
the weary life led by some high-born lady in her castle, while her lord
fights or jousts or drinks his life out in his own selfishness. Through
those long years of the war of the Three Jeannes, I suffered not alone
of women; and how I suffered, thou canst never know. Do thou not
likewise with thy frail Lenore. Stay with her here a little while, and
make her life what it might be made with love.”
Gerault listened in non-committal silence. When she finished he turned
and faced her squarely: “Hast made this prate of my father and thee to
Lenore?” he asked severely.
“Gerault!” The exclamation escaped involuntarily; when it was out
Eleanore bit her lip and drew herself up haughtily. “Thou’rt insolent,”
she said in a tone that she would have used to an inferior.
In that moment her son found something in her to admire, but the man and
master in him was all alive. “Madame, we will waste no further words. I
crave the honor to wish you a good-night.” And with a profound and
ironical bow, he turned from the room, leaving Eleanore alone to the
darkness, and to what was a defeat as bitter as any she had ever known.
Through the watches of the night this woman did not pray, but sat and
meditated on the immense question that she had herself raised, and to
which she had not the courage to give the true answer. Through her
nearest and dearest she had learned the natures of men, knew full well
their only aims and interest: prowess in arms, hunting, hawking,
drinking, and, when they were weary, dalliance with their women. But was
this _all_? Was this all there was for any woman in the mind of the man
that loved her? The idea of rebellion against the scorn of men was not
at all in her mind. She only wondered sadly how she and others of her
sex came to be born so keenly sentient, so open to heart-wounds as they
were. And she divined that her question burned no less in the brain of
the young Lenore than in her own, though neither of them ever spoke of
it together. Nor did either make any roundabout inquiries as to
Gerault’s intentions with regard to Rennes. Not so, however, the
demoiselles of the Castle. Courtoise was under a hot fire of inquisition
throughout most of the following two days; but for once he himself was
uncertain of his lord’s move, and presently there was a little air of
joy creeping over the place in the shape of a hope that the Seigneur was
going to remain in Crépuscule. This, indeed, was the secret idea of
Courtoise; and only David the dwarf refused to entertain a suspicion
that Gerault would not ride to Rennes for the tourney.
David judged well; for Gerault went to Rennes. Lenore knew on the tenth
of the month that he would go. Madame remained in doubt till the day
before the departure.
On the morning of the twelfth the whole Castle was astir by dawn.
Gerault and his squire, bravely arrayed, came into the great hall at
five o’clock, and sat down to their early meal. On the right hand of the
Seigneur was Lenore, not eating, only looking about her on the fresh
morning light, and again into Gerault’s face. She was not under any
stress of emotion. She was, rather, very dull and heavy-eyed. Yet down
in her heart lay a smothered pain that she felt must come forth before
long, in what form she could not tell. She and Gerault did not talk much
together. There was a little strain between them that was none the less
certain because it was indefinable, and it was a relief to the young
wife when madame finally appeared. Lenore saw Eleanore’s face with
something of surprise. Never had it been so cold, so expressionless, so
like a piece of chiselled marble; and looking upon her son, it grew yet
harder, yet colder. But when madame, after some little parley with
Courtoise, turned finally to Lenore, the child-wife found something in
that face that came dangerously near to melting her apathy, and freeing
the flood of grief that lay deep in her heart.
Half an hour later the knight and his squire were in the courtyard,
where their horses stood ready for the mount. The little company of the
Castle gathered close about their master, watching him as they might
have watched some mythical god. Indeed, he was a brave sight, as he
stood there in the early sunshine, flashing with armor, a gray plume
floating from his helmet, and one of Lenore’s small gloves fastened over
his visor as a gage. Lenore beheld this with infinite, gentle pride, as
she stood fixing his great lance in its socket. Presently two of the
squires helped him to mount to the saddle; and when he was seated, he
lifted Lenore up to him to give her good-bye. A few tears ran from her
eyes, and rolled silently down his breastplate, on which they gleamed
like clustered diamonds. But Lenore wiped them away with her hair, that
they might not tarnish the metal of his trappings; and by that act,
perhaps, Gerault lost a blessing.
The last kiss that he gave her was a long one, and his last words almost
tender. Then, putting her to the ground again, he saluted his mother,
though her coldness struck him to the heart; and, after a final farewell
to the assembled company, he turned and gave the sign of departure to
Courtoise.
Spur struck flank. At the same instant, the two horses darted forward to
the drawbridge, across which they had presently clattered. Alixe, who
had been a silent spectator of the scene of departure, was standing near
Lenore; and now she leaned over and would have whispered in the young
wife’s ear; but Lenore could not have heard her had she spoken. The
child stood like a statue, blind to everything save to the blaze of
passing armor, deaf to all but the echo of flying hoofs. Here she stood,
in the centre of the courtyard, alone with her strange little life,
watching the swift-running steed carry from her all her power of joy.
With straining eyes she saw the two figures disappear down the long,
winding hill; and when they had gone, and only a lazily rising
dust-cloud remained to mark their path, she stayed there still. But
presently Eleanore came to her side and took her cold hand in a hot
pressure. And then, as the two bereft women looked into each other’s
eyes, the frozen grief melted at last, and the flood burst upon them in
all its overwhelming fury.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER NINE_
THE STORM
[Illustration]
For ten days after Gerault’s departure, Lenore led a disastrous mental
existence, which she expressed neither by words nor by deeds. In that
time no one in the Castle knew how she was rent and torn with anguish,
with yearning that had never been satisfied, and with useless regret for
a bygone happiness that had not been happy. The silent progress of her
grief led her into dark valleys of despair; yet none dreamed in what
depths she wandered. She, the woman chaste and pure, dared not try to
comprehend all that went on within her. She dared not picture to herself
what it was she really longed for so bitterly. The cataclysms that rent
her mind in twain were unholy things, and, had she been normal, she
might have refused to acknowledge them. The changes in her life had come
upon her with such overwhelming swiftness that she had hitherto had no
time for analysis; and now that she found herself with a long leisure in
which to think, the chaos of her mind seemed hopeless; she despaired of
coming again into understanding with herself.
During all these days Madame Eleanore watched her closely, but to little
purpose. The calm outward demeanor of the young woman baffled every
suspicion of her inward state. Day after day Lenore sat at work in the
whirring, noisy spinning-room, toiling upon her tapestry with a
diligence and a persistent silence that defied encroachment. Hour after
hour her eyes would rest upon the dim, blue sea; for that sea was the
only thing that seemed to possess the power of stilling her inward
rebellion. Forgetting how the winds could sometimes drive its sparkling
surface into a furious stretch of tumbling waters, she dreamed of making
her own spirit as placid and as quiet as the ocean. The thought was
inarticulate; but it grew, even in the midst of her inward tumult, till
in the end it brought her something of the quiet she so sorely needed.
By day and by night, through every hour, in every place, the figure of
her husband was always before her. How unspeakably she wanted him, she
herself could not have put into words. She knew well that he had
promised to come back—“soon.” But when every hour is replete with hidden
anguish, can a day be short? Can ten days be less than an eternity? a
possible month of delay less than unutterable?
One little oasis Lenore found for herself in this waste of time. Every
day she had been accustomed to pray upon her rosary, which was composed
of sixty-two white beads. Now, when she had said her morning prayer, she
tied a little red string above the first bead. On the second morning it
was moved up over the second bead; and so the sacred chain became a
still more sacred calendar. How many times did she halt in her prayers
to find the thirtieth bead! and how her heart sank when she saw it still
so very far from the little line of red!
At the end of the first week of the Seigneur’s absence, it came to
Madame Eleanore with a start that Lenore was growing paler and more wan.
Then a suspicion of what the young wife was suffering came to the older
woman, and she racked her brains to think of possible diversions for the
forlorn girl. A hawking party was arranged, which Madame Eleanore
herself led, on her good gray horse. And in this every one discovered
with some surprise that Lenore could sit a horse as easily as the young
squires, and that she managed her bird as well as any man. Alixe, who
had always been the one woman in the Castle to make a practice of riding
after the dogs, or with hawk on wrist, was filled with delight to find
this unexpected companion for her sports; and she decided that
henceforth Lenore should take the place of her old companion, Laure, in
her life.
The hawking party accomplished part of its purpose, at least; for Lenore
returned from the ride with some color in her face and a sparkle in her
eyes. She was obliged, however, to take to her bed shortly after
reaching the Castle, prostrated by a fatigue that was not natural.
Madame hovered over her anxiously all through the night, though she
slept more than in any night of late, and rose next morning at the usual
hour, much refreshed. That afternoon, when the work was through, madame
saw no harm in her riding out with Alixe for an hour, to give a lesson
to two young _mués_ that were jessed and belled for the first time. And
during this ride the young women made great strides in companionship.
What with new interest in an old pastime thus awakened, and a subject of
common delight between her and Alixe, Lenore found the next nine days
pass more quickly than the first. On the morning of the thirty-first of
the month, however, Lenore had a serious fainting-spell in the
spinning-room. She had been at work at her frame for an hour or more,
when suddenly it seemed to her that a steel had pierced her heart, and
she fell backward in her chair with a cry. The women hurried to her, and
after some moments of chafing her hands and temples, and forcing
cordials down her throat, she was brought back to consciousness. Her
first words were: “Gerault! Gerault!” and then in a still fainter voice:
“Save him, Courtoise! He falls!”
Thinking her out of her mind, madame carried her to her bedroom, and,
admitting only Alixe with her, quickly undressed the slender body, and
laid Lenore in the great bed. Presently she opened her blue eyes, and,
looking up into madame’s face, said, in a voice shaking with weakness,—
“It was a dream—a vision—a terrible vision! I saw Gerault—_killed_! My
God!” she put her hands to the sides of her head, in the attitude that a
terrified woman will take. “I saw him— Ah! But it is gone, now. It is
gone. Tell me ’twas a dream!”
Madame and Alixe soothed her, smoothing the hair back from her brow,
patting her hands, and giving her all the comfort that they knew.
Presently Lenore was calm again, and asked to rise. Madame, however,
forbade this, insisting that she should keep to her bed all day; and
through the afternoon either she or Alixe remained in the room, sewing,
and talking fitfully with Lenore. The young wife, however, seemed
inclined to silence. A shadow of melancholy had stolen upon her, and
there was a cold clutch at her heart that she did not understand.
Eleanore had her own theory in regard to the illness, and Alixe,
whatever she might have noticed, had nothing to say about it.
Next morning, the morning of the first of September, Lenore rose to go
about her usual tasks, seeming no worse for the attack of the day
before, except that her melancholy continued. Work in the spinning-room
that day, however, was cut short on account of the heat, which was more
oppressive than it had been at any time during the summer. Though the
sky was clear and the sun red and luminous, the air was heavy with
moisture; the birds flew close to the ground; spiders were busy spinning
heavy webs; worms and insects sought the underside of leaves; and all
things pointed to a coming storm. At noon two mendicant monks came to
the Castle, asking dinner as alms; and when the meal was over, they did
not proceed upon their way. The bright blue of the sky was beginning to
be obscured by fragments of gathering cloud, and in the infinite
distance could be heard low and portentous murmurs. The sense of
oppression and of apprehension that comes with the approach of any
disturbance of nature was strong in the Castle. At four in the
afternoon, madame had prayers said in the chapel, and there was a short
mass for safety during the coming storm. After this service, Lenore,
with Alixe and Roland de Bertaux, went out to walk upon the terrace that
overlooked the water. The sight before them was impressive. The whole
sea, from shore to far horizon, lay gray and glassy, flattened by the
weight of air that overhung it, heavy and hot with moisture. The sun was
gone, and the heart of the sky palpitated with purple. Flocks of gulls
wheeled round the Castle towers, screaming, now and then, with some
uneasy dread for their safety. The air grew more and more heavy, till
one was obliged to breathe in gasps, and the sweat ran down the body
like rain. The moments grew longer and quieter. The whole world seemed
to stop moving; and the birds, veering along the cliffs, moved not a
feather of their wings.
After that it came. The sky, from zenith to water-line, was cut with a
lightning sword, that hissed through the water-logged gray like molten
gold. Then followed the cry of pain from the wound,—such a roar as might
have come from the throats of all the hell-hounds at once. There was a
quick second crash, while at the same instant a fire-ball dropped from
heaven into the ocean, curdling the waters where it fell. Then, fury on
fury, came the storm,—wind and rain and fiercer flashes, the line of the
shower on the sea chased eastward by a toppling mass of rushing foam.
With a scream the flock of gulls dashed out into the mist to meet it,
and were seen no more; for now the world was black, and everything out
of shelter was in a whirling chaos of spray and rain.
Inside the Castle holy candles had been lighted in every room, and
beside them were placed manchets of blessed bread, considered to be of
great efficacy in warding off lightning-strokes. The two monks,
sincerely grateful for their shelter from this outburst, knelt together
in the chapel, and called down upon themselves the frightened blessings
of the company by praying incessantly, though their voices were
inaudible in the tumult of the storm. The wind shrieked around the
Castle towers. Flashes of white light, instantly followed by long rolls
of thunder, succeeded each other with startling rapidity. And, as a
fierce, indeterminate undertone to all other sounds, came the roaring of
the sea, which an incoming tide was bringing every minute higher and
closer around the base of the cliff below.
An hour went by, and yet another, and instead of diminishing in fury,
the wind seemed only to increase. None in the Castle, not madame
herself, could remember a summer storm of such duration. Every momentary
lull brought after it a still more violent attack, and the longer it
lasted, the greater grew the nervousness of the Castle inmates; for to
them this meant the anger of God for the sins of His children. The
evening meal was eaten amid repeated prayers for mercy and protection;
and shortly thereafter, the little company dispersed and crept away to
bed,—not because of any hope of sleep, but because there would be a
certain comfort in crouching down in a warm shelter and drawing the
blankets close overhead. The demoiselles, for the most part, and
possibly the squires too, huddled two or three in a room. The monks were
lodged together in the servants’ quarters; and of all that castleful,
only the women for whom it was kept were unafraid to be alone. Eleanore,
Lenore, and Alixe sought each her bed; but of them madame only closed
her eyes in sleep.
Lenore found herself terribly restless; and the foreboding in her mind
seemed not all the effect of the storm. Her thoughts moved through
terrifying shadows. It seemed to her that some great, unknown evil hung
over her; but her apprehension was as elusive as it was unreasonable.
For some hours she forced herself to keep in bed, tossing and twisting
about, but letting no sound escape her. It seemed at last as if the fury
of the wind had diminished, though the lightning-flashes continued
incessantly, and the whole sky was still alive with muttering thunder. A
little after midnight, urged by a restlessness that she was powerless to
control, Lenore rose, threw a loose bliault around her, took down the
iron lantern that hung, dimly burning, on a hook in a corner of the
room, and, lighting her way with this, went out into the silent upper
hall of the Castle.
Gray and ghostly enough everything looked, in the dim, flickering
lantern-light. There was in the air a smell of pitchy smoke from
burnt-out torches, and it seemed to Lenore as if spirits were passing
through this mist. Yet she felt no fear of anything in the spirit world.
Her heart was full of something else,—a vague, indefinable, more
terrible dread, an oppression that she could not reason away. Clad in
her voluminous purple mantle, with her hair unbound and flowing over her
shoulders, where it sparkled faintly in the lantern-light, she went down
the stairs, across the shadowy, pillared spaces of the great lower hall,
and so into the long room where Gerault had sat on the day when the
herald had come to call him to Rennes. She had a vision of him sitting
there at the table, bent upon his manuscript philosophy, never looking
up, as again and again she passed the door. It was a ghostly hour for
her to be abroad and occupied in such a way; yet she had no thought of
present danger. A useless sob choked her as she turned away from this
place of sorrowful memories and went to the chapel. Here half a dozen
candles on the altar were still burning to the god of the storm; and
Lenore, finding comfort in the sight of the cross, knelt before it and
offered up a prayer for peace of mind. Then, rising, she moved back
again into the hall; and, dreading to return to her lonely room, where
the roar of waves and the soughing of the wind round the towers made a
din too great for sleep, she sat down on a bench that stood beside a
pillar directly opposite the great, locked door. Sitting here, her
lantern at her feet, elbow on knee, chin on hand, she fell into a
strange reverie. The bitterest of all memories came back to her without
bitterness; and she tried to picture to herself that woman of Gerault’s
secret heart. What had she been? How had she died? Or was she dead? In
what relation had she really stood to Gerault? Was she that cousin of
Laval—or some other? These thoughts, which, always before, Lenore had
refused to work into definite shape, came to her now and were not
repelled. Her musing was deepest when, suddenly, she was startled by the
sound of light footsteps in the hall above. Some one came to the
staircase; some one came gliding sinuously down. Lenore half rose, and
looked up, cold with fear. Then she saw that it was Alixe, and,
strangely enough, her fear did not lessen; for never had she seen Alixe
like this.
Lenore looked at her long before she was noticed; and the strangeness of
the peasant-born’s appearance did not lessen on close examination. She
was dressed in garments of pale green. And in these, and in her floating
hair, her greenish eyes, her arms, her neck, Lenore fancied that she saw
twists and coils and lissome curves and the green and golden fire of
innumerable snakes. In the shadowy light everything was indistinct; but
there seemed to be a phosphorescent glow about Alixe’s garments that
illumined her, till she stood out, the brightest thing in the
surrounding darkness. Striving bravely to ward off her sense of creeping
fear, Lenore raised her lantern high, and looked at the other, who had
now reached the foot of the stairs. Yes—no—_was_ this Alixe? Lenore took
two or three frightened steps backward, and instantly Alixe turned
toward her.
“Lenore! Thou!” she cried.
“Alixe!” Lenore stared, wondering at herself. Surely she had suffered a
hallucination. Alixe was as ever, save that her eyes were a little
wider, her skin a little paler, than usual.
“What dost thou here, at this hour, alone, Lenore? Did aught frighten
thee?”
“I could not sleep, and so, long since, I rose, to wander about till the
noise of the storm should fall. I have sat here for but a
moment—thinking. But thou, Alixe,—whither goest thou?”
“I? I also could not sleep. The storm is in my blood. I turned and
tossed and strove to lose my thoughts. But they burn forever. Alas! I am
seared by them. My eyes refuse to close.”
“What are those thoughts of thine, Alixe? Perchance they were of the
same woof as mine.”
“Nay, nay, Lenore! Thou hast no ancient memories of this place.”
“That may be; yet my thoughts were of this place, and of a woman. Tell
me, Alixe, hast thou known in thy life one of the same name as mine own:
a maid whom—whom my lord knew well, and who hath gone far away?”
“Lenore! Mon Dieu! Who told thee of her?”
“It matters not. I know. Prithee, Alixe, talk to me of her, an thou
wouldst still the torture of my soul!”
“What shall I tell thee, madame?” Alixe stared at the young woman with
slow, questioning surprise. “Knowest thou of her life here among us?—or
wouldst hear of her death?”
“Of all—of her life and death—tell me all!” Lenore drew her mantle close
around her, for she was shivering with something that was not cold. She
kept her head slightly bent, so that Alixe could not see the working of
her face, as the two of them went together to the settle by the pillar.
Lenore sat very still, listening absently to the muffled sound of wind
and rain and beating waves, while her mind drank in the narrative that
Alixe poured into her ears; and so did the one thing interweave itself
with the other in her consciousness, that, in after time, the spirit of
the lost Lenore walked forever in her mind amid the terrible grandeur of
a mighty storm, lightning crowning her head, her hair and garments
dripping with rain and blown about by the increasing wind. An eerie
thing it was for these two young and tender women, lightly clad, to sit
at this midnight hour in the gray fastnesses of the Twilight Castle,
and, while the whirlwind howled without, to turn over in their thoughts
the story of a young life so tragically cut off in the midst of its
happiness and beauty. Alixe’s changeable eyes shone in the semi-darkness
with a phosphorescent gleam, and her voice rose and fell and trembled
with emotion as she poured into Lenore’s burning heart the tale of
Gerault’s sorrow.
“Five years agone, when I was but a maid of twelve, Seigneur Gerault was
of the age of twenty-three. At that time this Castle, I mind me, was a
merry place enow. Madame Eleanore had a great train of squires and
demoiselles in those days, and thy lord kept a young following of his
own—though he held Courtoise ever the favorite. At that time Gerault
rode not to tournaments in Rennes, but bided at home with madame, his
mother, and Laure, and the young demoiselle Lenore de Laval, niece to
madame, a maid as young as thou art now. This maiden had come to
Crépuscule when she was but a little girl, her own mother being dead,
and madame loving her as a daughter. Gerault’s love for her was not that
of a brother; yet because of their blood-relationship, there was little
talk of their wedding. For all that, they two were ever together in
company, and alone as much as madame permitted. They hawked, they
hunted, and, above all, they sailed out on the sea. The Seigneur had a
sailing-boat, and Madame Eleanore never knew, methinks, how many hours
they spent on the waters of the bay. Child as I was, I envied them their
happiness; and, though I went with them but seldom, I knew always how
long they were together each day; and methinks I understood how precious
each moment seemed.
“On this day I am to tell thee of—oh, Mother of God, that it would leave
my memory!—I sat alone by the little gate in the wall behind the
falconry, weeping because Laure had deserted our game and run to her
mother in the Castle. So, while I sat there, wailing like the little
fool I was, came the Seigneur and the demoiselle Lenore out by the gate
on their way over the moat and to the beach by the steps that still lead
thither down the cliff. The demoiselle paused in her going to comfort
me, and presently, more, methinks, to tease the Seigneur than for mine
own sake, insisted that I go sailing with them in their boat. I can
remember how I screamed out with delight at the thought; for I loved to
sail better than I loved to eat; and though Gerault somewhat protested,
Lenore had her way, and presently we had come down the cliff and were on
the beach by the inlet where the boat was kept.
“’Twas the early afternoon of an April day: warm, the sun covered over
with a gray mist that was like smoke, and but little wind for our
pleasure. Howbeit, as we put off into the full tide, a breath caught our
sail and we started out toward an island near the coast, round the north
point of the bay, which from here thou canst not see. I lay down in the
bottom of the boat, near to the mast, and listened to the gurgling sound
of the water as it passed underneath the planks, and later grew drowsy
with the rocking. I ween I slept; for I remember naught of that sail
till we were suddenly in the midst of a fog so thick that where I lay I
could scarce see the figure of my lord sitting in the stern. There was
no wind at all, for the sail flapped against the mast; and I was a
little frightened with the silence of everything; so I rose and went to
the demoiselle Lenore, who laid her hand on my shoulder, and patted me.
She and Sieur Gerault were not talking together, for I think both were a
little nervous of the fog. All at once, in the midst of the calm, a
streak of wind caught us, and the little boat heeled over under it.
Gerault caught at the tiller, swearing an oath that was born more from
uneasiness than from anger. Reading his mind, Lenore moved a little out
of his way, and began to sing. Ah, that voice and its sweetness! I mind
it very well—and also her chansonette. Since that day I have not heard
it sung, yet the words are fresh in my mind. Dost know it, madame? It
beginneth,—
“‘Assez i a reson porqoi
L’eu doit fame chière tenir—’
“Ah, I remember it all so terribly! While Lenore sang, there came yet
another gust of wind, and in it one of the ropes of the sail went loose,
and the Seigneur must go to fix it. I sat between him and his lady, and
as he jumped up, he put the tiller against my shoulder, and bade me not
move till he came back. Lenore sat no more than four feet from me, on
that side of the boat that was low in the wind. While she sang she had
been playing with a ring that she had drawn from her finger. Just as
monsieur sprang forward to the rope, Lenore dropped this ring, which
methinks rolled into the water. I know that she gave a cry and threw
herself far over the side and stretched out her hand for something. As
she leaned, I followed her movement, and the tiller slipped its place.
Ah, madame—madame—I remember not all the horror of the next moment! The
boat went far over before a wave. Lenore lost her hold, and was in the
water without a sound. The Seigneur, in a rage at me for letting the
rudder slip, leaped back, and in an instant righted the boat, I
screaming and crying, the while, in my woe. I know not how it was, but
it seemed that, till we were started on our way again, Gerault never
knew that—that his lady was gone.
“Then what a scene! We turned the boat into the wind, the Seigneur
saying not one word, but sitting stiff and still and white as death in
the stern. The path of the wind had made a long rift in the fog, and
through this we sailed, I calling till my voice was gone, the Seigneur
leaning over, straining his eyes into that fathomless mist that walled
us in on both sides. After that he drew off his doublet and boots, and
would have leaped into the waves, but that I—_I_, madame—held him from
it. I caught him round the arms till we were both forced to the tiller
again, and I cried and commanded and shrieked at him till I made him see
that his madness would bring no help. I could not guide the boat alone
in the storm, nor could he have saved Lenore from the power of the
water.
“For hours and hours we sailed the bay. The wind drove the fog before it
until the air was clear, and I think that the sight of that waste of
tumbling seas was more cruel than the veiling mist from which we ever
looked for Lenore to come back to us. Ah, I cannot picture that time to
thee—or to myself. At last, madame, we went back to the Castle. We left
her there, the glory of our Seigneur’s life, alone with the pitiless
sea. It was I that had done it; that I knew in my heart. That I have
always known, and shall never forget. Yet Gerault never spoke a word of
blame to me. Mayhap he never knew how it came about. For many months
thereafter he was as a man crazed; and since that time he hath not been
the same. All that long summer he stayed alone in his room, shut away
from us all, seeing only Courtoise, who served him, and his mother, who
gave him what comfort she could. Twice, too, he asked for me, and
treated me with such kindness that it went near to breaking my heart.
Ah, then it was that the Castle began to bear out its name! It seems as
if none had ever really lived here since that time.
“But Lenore, thou wouldst say. We never saw her again; though ’tis said
that many weeks afterwards a woman’s body was cast up on the shore near
St. Nazaire, and was burned there by the fisher-folk, as is their custom
with those dead at sea. And they say that now, by night, her voice is
heard to cry out along the shore near the inlet where Gerault’s boat
once lay.
“Many years are passed since these things happened; yet they have not
faded from my memory, nor have they from that of my lord. Up to the time
of thy coming, madame, he mourned for her always; nor did he abstain
from asking forgiveness of Heaven for her end.”
“Ah, Alixe, he hath not yet ceased to mourn for her. Alas! I cannot fill
her place for him. He is uncomforted. How sad, how terrible her end,
within the very sight of him she loved! Tell me, Alixe, was she very
fair?”
“Not, methinks, so fair as thou, madame. Yet she was beautiful to look
on, with her dark hair and her pale, clear skin, and her mouth redder
than a rose in June. Her eyes were dark—like shadowy stars. And her ways
were gentle—gay—tender—anything to fit her mood. Ah! I am wounding
thee!”
Poor Lenore’s head was bent a little farther down, and by her shoulders
her companion knew that she wept. Alixe would have given much to bring
some comfort for the pain she had unintentionally roused. But in the
presence of the unhappy wife, she sat uneasy and abashed, powerless to
bring solace to that tortured heart.
While the two sat there, in this silence, the storm, which had lulled a
little, broke out afresh with such a flash and roar as caused even Alixe
to cower back where she was. There was a fierce tumult of new rain and
howling wind, and in the midst of it a sudden great clamoring at the
Castle door, and the faint sound of a horse neighing outside. Alixe
sprang up, and, thinking only of giving shelter to some storm-driven
stranger, unbarred the door. As it flew open before the storm, a man was
hurled into the room, in a furious gush of water; and when the
lantern-light fell upon his haggard face, Lenore gave a cry that was
half a sob, and rushed upon him, clasping his arms,—
“Courtoise! Courtoise! How fares my lord?”
Courtoise gazed down upon her, and did not speak. In his face was such a
look of suffering as none had ever seen before upon it.
“Courtoise!” she cried again, this time with a new note in her voice.
“Courtoise!—my lord!—speak to me! speak—how fares my lord?”
But still, though she clung to him, Courtoise made no reply.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER TEN_
FROM RENNES
[Illustration]
Lenore’s two hands went up in an agony of entreaty. Courtoise maintained
his silence. There was in the great hall a stillness that the rushing of
the storm could not affect. Alixe moved back to the door, and barred it
once more against the attacks of the wind. At the same time another
figure appeared on the stairs. Madame Eleanore, fully dressed, her hair
bound round with a metal filet, came rapidly down and joined the little
group. Lenore was as one groping through a mist. She knew, vaguely, when
madame came; but it meant nothing to her. Now she repeated, in the
pleading tone of a child that begs for some sweet withheld from it by
its elder,—
“Thou bringest a packet from my lord, Courtoise? Sweet Courtoise,
deliver it to my hand. My lord sendeth me a letter, is it not so?”
A low cry, inarticulate, heart-broken, came from the lips of the
esquire; and therewith he fell upon his knees before the young Lenore
and held up his two hands as if to ward off from her the blow that he
should deal. “Madame!” he said; and, for some reason, Lenore cowered
before him.
Then Eleanore came up to them, her face milk-white, her eyes burning;
and, laying her hand upon the young man’s shoulder, she said softly:
“Speak, Courtoise! Tell us what is come to thy lord. In pity for us,
delay no more.”
Courtoise looked up to her, and saw how deeply haggard her face seemed.
Then the world grew great and black; and out of the surrounding darkness
came his voice, “The Seigneur is dead. Lord Gerault is killed of a
spear-thrust that he got in the lists at Rennes. They bear him homeward
now.”
A deep groan, born of this, her final world-wound, came from Eleanore’s
gray lips. Alixe gave a long scream, and then fell forward upon her
knees and began to mutter senseless words of prayer. Courtoise huddled
himself up on the floor, and let fatigue and grief strive for the
mastery over him. Only Lenore uttered no sound. She, the youngest of
them there, and the most bereaved, stood perfectly still. One of her
hands was pressed hard against her forehead; and she looked as if she
were trying to recall some forgotten thing. Presently she whispered to
herself a few indistinguishable words, and a faint smile hovered round
her lips. Finally, seeing the piteous plight of Courtoise, she laid one
hand upon his lowered head and said gently,—
“Courtoise, thou art weary, and wet, and spent with riding. Rise, dear
squire, and seek thy bed, and rest. ’Tis very late—and thou’rt so weary.
Go to thy rest.”
Eleanore looked at her, the frail girl, in amazement. Then she came
round and took Lenore’s hand, and said: “Thou sayest well; ’tis very
late, Lenore, and thou art also lightly clad. Come thou to thy bed, and
let Alixe to hers. Come, my girl.”
Lenore made no resistance, and went with madame toward the stairs; Alixe
stared after them as if they had both been mad, for she had never known
a blow that stuns the brain. Lenore suffered herself to be led quietly
up the stairs, and, reaching her own room, which was dark save for the
light that came through from madame’s open door, she dropped off her
wide bliault, and lay down, shivering slightly, in the cold bed. She was
numb and drowsy. Madame, bending over her, watched and saw the eyelids
slowly close over her great blue eyes, till they were fast shut; and the
young Lenore slept—slept as sweetly as a babe.
Of the night, however, that madame spent, who dares to speak in
unexpressive words? What the slow-passing, dark-robed hours brought her,
who shall say? Her last loss broke her spirit; and she felt that
underneath the heavy, all-powerful hand of the Creator-Destroyer, none
might stand upright and hope to live. Gerault had suffered, as now he
gave, great sorrow. Eleanore had never felt herself close to his heart,
as she had once been close to the heart of that daughter whom she had
sacrificed to an unwilling God. But now, in the knowledge of his death,
the memory of Gerault’s coldness and of his elected solitude went from
her, and she recalled only the justice, the strength, the self-reliance
of him. Gradually her memory drew her back through his manhood, through
his youth and his boyhood, to the time of his infancy, when the little,
helpless, dark-eyed babe had come to bless the loneliness of her own
young life. And with this memory, at last, came tears,—those divine
tears that can wash the direst grief free of its bitterness.
As the dawn showed in the east, and rose triumphant over the dying
storm, madame crept to her bed, and laid her weary body on the kindly
resting-place, and slept.
At half-past six the sun lifted above the eastern hills, and looked
forth from a clear, green sky, over a land freshly washed, glittering
with dew, and new-colored with brighter green and gold and red for the
glorification of the September day. The sea, bringing great breakers in
from the pathless west, was spread with a carpet of high-rolling gold,
designed to cover all the new-stolen treasures gathered by night and
stored within its treacherous, malignant depths. But the world poured
fragrant incense to the sun, and the sun showered gold on the sea, and
in this sacrificial worship Nature expiated her dire passion of the
night.
It was fair daylight when Lenore opened her eyes and sat up in her bed
to greet the morning. She was glad indeed to escape from the fetters of
sleep, for her dreams had been feverish things. In them she had wandered
abroad over the gray battlements, and through the grim chambers of dimly
lighted Crépuscule, and had seen and heard terrible things. Lenore
smiled to herself at the thought that all were past. And then, creeping
over her, came the black shadow of reality, of memory. There was the
storm—her sleeplessness—Alixe—the story of the lost Lenore—were these
dreams? And then—finally—God!—the coming of Courtoise—and—
With a sharp cry Lenore sprang from the bed, flung her purple mantle
upon her, and ran wildly through the adjoining room into that of madame.
Eleanore, roused from her light sleep by that cry, had risen and met her
daughter near the door. Lenore needed but one glance into madame’s
colorless face. Then she knew that she had not dreamed in the past
night. Her horrible visions were true.
Physical refreshment brought her a terrible power: the power of
suffering. There could not now be any numb acceptance of facts. Eleanore
herself was shocked at the change that a few seconds wrought in the
young face. Yet still Lenore shed no tears, made no exhibition of her
grief. Quietly, with the stillness of death about her movements, she
returned to her room and began to dress herself. Before she had finished
her toilet, Alixe crept in, white-faced and red-eyed, to ask if there
were any service she might do. Lenore tremulously bade her wait till her
hair was bound; and then she said: “Let Courtoise be brought in to me,
here.”
“Wilt thou not first eat—but a morsel of bread—nay, a sup of wine?”
pleaded Alixe.
Lenore looked at her. “How should I eat or drink? Let Courtoise be
brought to me.”
Obediently Alixe went and found Courtoise loitering about the foot of
the stairs in the hall below. He ascended eagerly when Alixe gave him
her message, and entered alone into the room where sat Lenore.
Through two long hours Alixe and the demoiselles and young esquires, a
stricken, silent company, huddled together at the table in the long
room, sat and waited the coming of Courtoise. There was nothing to be
done in the Castle save to wait; and it seemed to them all that they
would rather work like slaves than sit thus, inert and silent, and with
naught to do but think of what had come upon Le Crépuscule. They knew
that the body of Gerault was on its way home. A henchman had long since
started off for St. Nazaire to acquaint the Bishop with the news and
bring him back to the Castle. Also, Anselm and the captain of the keep
had lifted the great stone in the floor of the chapel, that led into the
vault below. This was all there was to be done now, until the last
home-coming of their lord.
At ten o’clock Courtoise appeared on the threshold of the long room, and
his face bore a light as of transfiguration. As he went in and halted
near the doorway, the little company rose reverently, and waited for him
to speak. He turned to Alixe, but it was a moment or two before he could
get his voice and control it to speak.
“Alixe—Alixe—Madame Lenore hath asked for you—asks that you come to
her.”
Alixe rose at once, and the two went out together into the hall. There,
however, Courtoise halted, saying, in a low, almost reverent tone: “She
is in her chamber. I am to remain here below.”
Alixe turned her white face and her bright green eyes upon him
questioningly. “How doth she bear herself? Doth she yet weep?” she asked
in a half-whisper.
“She doth not weep. Ah, God! the Seigneur married an angel out of
heaven, Alixe, and never knew it; and now can never know!”
“He was our lord, Courtoise. Reproach not the dead.”
Courtoise bent his head without speaking, and Alixe went on, up to
Lenore’s chamber, the door of which stood half open. Alixe went softly
in, and found Lenore sitting alone by the window, where madame had just
left her. Silently the widowed girl put out both hands to Alixe, and, as
Alixe went over to her, the tears began to run from her eyes. It was
this sight of tears that first broke through Lenore’s wonderful
self-control. Springing to her feet, with a choking, hysterical cry she
flung both arms around Alixe’s neck, and wailed out, in that breathless
monotone that children sometimes use: “Alixe! Alixe! Why is it that I
cannot die? O Alixe! Alixe! Pray God to let me die!”
* * * * *
At four o’clock in the afternoon Monseigneur de St. Nazaire arrived at
the Castle. The body of the fallen knight had not yet come. Watchers had
been placed in every tower to catch the first sight of the funeral
train; but all day long they had strained their eyes in vain. At last,
when the sun was near the horizon, and the golden shadows were long over
the land, and the sky was haloed with a saintly glow, up, out of the
cool depths of the forest, on the winding, barren road that rose toward
the Castle on the cliff, came a wearily moving company of men and
horses. There were six riders, who, with lances reversed, rode three on
a side of a broad, heavy cart, of which the burden was covered with a
great, black cloth, embroidered in one corner with the ducal arms of
Brittany.
The drawbridge was already lowered. In the courtyard an orderly company
of henchmen and servants stood waiting to see the funeral car drive in.
The Castle doors were open, and in their space stood the Bishop, with a
priest at his right hand and, on his left, Courtoise, black-clothed, and
white and calm. In front of the doorway the cart halted, and immediately
the six gentlemen of Rennes, who had drawn Gerault from the fatal lists
and had of their own desire brought him home, dismounted, and, after
reverently saluting the Bishop, went to the cart and lifted out the
stretcher. This, its burden still covered with the black cloth, they
carried into the Castle and deposited in the chapel on the high, black
bier made ready for it.
Madame Eleanore, Alixe, and the demoiselles, but not Lenore, were in the
chapel waiting. When the burden of the litter had been placed, and the
black cloth drawn close over the dead body, Eleanore, who till this time
had been upon her knees before the altar, came forward to greet the six
knightly gentlemen, and all of them, as they returned her sad salute,
were struck with her impenetrable dignity. Her salutation at once
thanked them, greeted them, and dismissed them from the chapel; and
indeed they had no thought of staying to watch this first meeting of the
living with the dead; but, returning obeisance to the mother of their
comrade, they left the holy room and found Courtoise outside, waiting to
conduct them to the refreshment that had been prepared.
So was Eleanore left alone before her dead. Behind her, near the altar,
knelt the maidens, weeping while they prayed. The tall candles around
the bier were yet unlighted; but through one of the high windows came a
last ray of sunlight, to bar the mourning-cloth with royal gold.
For a moment, clasping both hands before her, in her silent strain,
Eleanore stood still before the bier. Then, moving forward, she lifted
the edge of the covering, and drew it away from the head and shoulders
of her son.
There was he,—Gerault. There was he, scarcely whiter or more still than
she had seen him many times in life; yet he was dead: transparent and
pinched and ineffably still, and dead! The head was bare of any cap or
helmet, and the black locks and beard were smoothly combed. The broad,
fair brow was calm and unwrinkled. The mouth, scarce concealed by the
mustache, was curved into an expression of great peace.
Madame took the cover again, and drew it slowly down till the whole form
lay before her. His armor had been removed, and he was clothed in silken
vestments that hid all trace of his wound. The hands were folded fair
across his breast; his feet were cased in long velvet shoes,
fur-bordered. From the peacefulness of his attitude it was difficult to
imagine the scene by which he had met his end: the great flashing and
clashing of arms, the blare of trumpets, the shouting applause of
thousands of fair onlookers, gayly clothed ladies, who, after their
shouting, saw him fall.
Long Eleanore stood there, looking upon him as he lay, untroubled now by
any human thing. And as she looked, many world-thoughts rose up within
her as to his life, his griefs, and the manner of his going. She had had
him always: had borne, and reared, and watched, and loved him; and he
had loved her, she knew, though he had seldom shown it, and had lived
much within himself. She yearned—ah, _how_ she yearned!—to take him now
into her arms again, and croon over him, and soothe him, as a mother
soothes her children. Alas, that he did not need it of her! Her breast
heaved twice or thrice, with deep, suppressed sobs. Then she fell upon
her knees, and leaned her forehead over upon an edge of his robe while
she prayed. And as she knelt there, twilight gathered over the sunset
glow, and the chapel grew dim and gray with coming darkness.
After a long while madame rose and turned to Alixe, who stood near,
looking at her and weeping. And madame said gently: “Alixe, let her be
summoned—little Lenore—his wife. She should be here.”
Alixe bowed silently, and went away out of the room. Eleanore remained
in her place, and the demoiselles still knelt under the crucifix. Then
came footboys, with tapers, to light the candles. Presently the bier was
haloed with yellow flames, and the marble altar blazed with lights. The
hour for the mass was near, and the people of the Castle, and a few
country folk, clothed in their best, began to come softly into the
chapel, by twos and threes. All, after bowing to the cross and pausing
for a few seconds to look upon Gerault, passed over to the far side of
the room, and knelt there, absorbed in prayer. The little room was more
than half filled, when Courtoise, pale and wide-eyed, appeared upon the
threshold, and, holding up his hand, whispered to the throng,—
“Madame Lenore is here! Peace, and be still! Madame Lenore comes in!”
Immediately Lenore walked into the room, and men held their breath at
sight of her. She was dressed as for a bridal, in robes of stiff, white
damask, her mantle fastened at her throat with a silver pin, and her
silver-woven wedding-veil falling over her from the filet that confined
it. White as death itself she was, and staring straight before her,
seeing nothing of the throng of onlookers. For a moment her eyes were
blinded by the blaze of light. Then she started forward, to the body of
her lord.
When she entered, her two hands had been tightly clenched, and she had
thought to restrain herself from any outbreak of grief before the
people. But the living were forgotten now. Here before her was the face
that she had loved so wofully, that she had hungered for so unspeakably.
Here was he, the giver of her one brief hour of unutterable happiness;
the cause of so many days and nights of tremulous woe. Here he lay,
waiting not for her nor for anything, with no power to give her greeting
when she came. Yet it was he; it was his face.
“Gerault—Gerault—my lord!” she whispered softly, as if he slept:
“Gerault!” She was beside him, and had taken one of the rigid hands in
both her warm, living ones. “My lord, my beloved, wilt not turn thy face
to me? I have waited long for thy kiss. Prithee, give but a little of
thy love; _seem_ but to notice me, and I will be well content. Nay, but
thou surely wilt! Surely, surely, beloved, thou wilt not pass me by!”
She had been covering the hand she held with kisses, but now she put it
from her, and looked down upon the passive body, her eyes wide and hurt,
and her mouth tremulous with his repulse. The spectators watched this
pitiable scene with fascinated awe; and it seemed not to occur to one of
them to prevent what followed. None there realized that Lenore was
unbalanced: that to her, Gerault was still alive. She bent over, and put
her lips to his. Then, burned and tortured by the unresponsiveness of
the clay, she laid herself down upon the bier and put her head in the
hollow of Gerault’s neck, where it had been wont to rest.
Now, at last, two of that watching company started forward to prevent a
continuance of the scene. Courtoise and the Bishop went to her with one
impulse; took her—monseigneur by the hands, Courtoise about the body;
loosened her clasp upon the form of her dead husband, and drew her
gently away from the bier. She, spent and shaken with her grief, made no
resistance, but lay quietly back in their arms, trembling and weak.
Thereupon both men looked helplessly toward Madame Eleanore, to know
what should be done. She, strained almost to the point of breaking, came
and stood over the form of Lenore and said to Courtoise,—
[Illustration:
_“Gerault—Gerault—my
lord!” she whispered.—Page 275_
]
“She cannot remain here. ’Tis too terrible for her. Carry her up to her
room, whither Alixe shall follow her. But I must remain here till the
mass is said.”
Both of the men would gladly have acted upon this suggestion; but madame
had not finished speaking when Lenore began to struggle in their arms,
crying piteously the while:
“Nay! Let me stay! In the name of mercy, let me not be sent from him. I
will not seek again to disturb his rest. I will be very quiet—very
still. I will not even weep. I will but kneel here upon the stones, and
will not speak through all the mass, so that you take me not out of his
sight. Methinks he might care to have me here; it might be his wish that
I should remain unto the end. Have pity, gentle Courtoise! Pity,
monseigneur!”
At once they granted her request, and released her; for indeed her plea
was more than any of the three could well endure. The Bishop was beyond
speech, and the tears were streaming from Courtoise’s eyes as he left
her side. Lenore kept her word. She knelt down upon the stones, two or
three feet from the bier; and, with head bent low and hands clasped upon
her breast, strove to force her thoughts to God and high heaven. St.
Nazaire at once began the mass for the dead, and never had any man more
reverence done him or more tears shed for him than the stern and silent
Lord of Crépuscule, who, it seemed, had formed a light of life for
Lenore the golden-haired. After the beginning of the service, she was
left unnoticed where she had placed herself; and, as the minutes passed,
her strained figure settled nearer and nearer to the floor; the
candle-light played more joyously with her glorious hair; and finally,
as the mass neared its end, she sank quietly down upon the stones,
unconscious and released from tears at last.
A few moments later, Courtoise and Alixe bore her gently up the great
stairs, and laid her, in her white bridal robes, upon her lonely bed. It
was thus that she left Gerault; thus that her youth and her love met
their end, and her long twilight of widowhood began.
* * * * *
Another morning dawned, in tender primrose tints, and saluted the sea
through a low-clinging September haze. The Castle rose at the usual
hour, and dressed, and descended to the morning meal, scarce able to
understand that there was any change in the usual quiet existence. It
was impossible, indeed, to realize that, in two little days of sun and
storm, the life of the Castle had died, its mainstay had broken, and
that henceforth it must exist only in memories. On this day two of the
squires made their adieux to madame, and hied them forth to seek a lord
by whom to be trained yet more thoroughly for knighthood; and mayhap to
get themselves a little more familiar with its third article.[3] But
Courtoise, all heart-broken as he was, and Roland de St. Bertaux, and
Guy le Trouvé, being all of gentle blood, but without other home to
seek, came to their lady and kissed her hand, and swore her eternal
allegiance and service. And the demoiselles, who had, indeed, no need of
a lord in the Castle, renewed their duty to their mistress, and also
tried to give her what little comfort they knew, in the shape of certain
of Anselm’s Latin texts, and a few less pithy but warmer phrases of
their own making. The six knights that had brought Gerault home, rode
off again, sadly bearing with them Eleanore’s brave messages of loyalty
and thanks to Duke Jean in Rennes. The Bishop of St. Nazaire sent his
assistant priest home; but he himself elected to remain for a day or
two, knowing that, should Lenore become seriously ill, he would be a
stay for Madame Eleanore. Of Eleanore herself there were no fears. She
was too strong to cause any one anxiety for her health. Indeed, it was
generally thought that she had put Gerault too much away. How that may
be is not certain; but there was nothing now in the Castle to speak of
him. The chapel was empty; the mouth of the great vault had closed once
more, this time to hide under its grim weight the last of the line of
Crépuscule.
Footnote 3:
“He shall uphold the rights of the weaker, such as orphans, damsels,
and widows.”
On the second day after the funeral, Eleanore, knowing by bitter
experience how excellent a cure for melancholy is hard work, betook
herself and the demoiselles up to the spinning-room as usual. Lenore
only, of the company, was missing. She, by madame’s own bidding, still
kept her bed,—lying there silent, patient, asking no attendance from any
one; listening hour by hour to the soft sound of the sea as it broke
upon the cliffs far below her window. Of what was in her heart, what
things she saw in her day dreams, neither Alixe nor madame sought to
learn. But there was something in her face, thin, wan, transparent as it
had grown, that sent a great fear to Eleanore’s heart, and caused her to
watch over Lenore with deep anxiety; and it seemed as if the effort of
walking would break the last vestige of strength in that frail body.
Through the first day of return to the old routine, madame was fully
occupied in making a pretence at cheerfulness and in inducing those
around her to hide their sadness. But afterwards, when chatter and
smiles began to come naturally back to the young lips, and the gayety of
youth to shine from their eyes again, she suddenly relaxed her strain,
and let her mind sink into what depths it would. How dim with misery was
the September air! Hope had gone out of her life; and the thought of joy
was a mockery. Throughout her whole world there was not a single spot of
brightness on which to feast her tired eyes. Even imagination had fled,
and there remained to her only a vista of unending, monotonous days, the
one so like the other that she should soon forget the passage of time.
And this future was inevitable. Le Crépuscule was here, and she must
keep to it. She had no other refuge save a nunnery; and that merest
suggestion was terrible to her. Gerault’s widow, the young Lenore, was
left; yet she would be infinitely happier to go back to the home of her
youth. There was a cry of despair in Eleanore’s heart at this
realization, and she fought with herself for a long time before finally
she was wrought to the point of going to Lenore and counselling her
return to her father’s roof. Yet Eleanore brought herself to this; for
she felt that this last sacrifice was one of duty: that she had no right
forever to shut the youth and beauty of the young life into the grim
shadows of Le Crépuscule.
On the evening of the third day of her new struggle Eleanore went, with
woe in her heart, to the door of Lenore’s room. The apartment was
flooded with the light of sunset, so that Lenore, lying in the very
midst of it, seemed to be resting in a sea of glowing gold. When
Eleanore entered, the young girl turned, with a little smile of
pleasure, and said,—
“Thou’rt very kind to come to me here while I lie thus in idlesse.
Indeed, I see not how thou shouldst bear with me that I do nothing when
all the Castle is at work.”
“Bear with thee! My child, thou hast given us nothing to bear. Thou hast
rather brought into the Castle a light that will burn always in our
hearts. And, in thy great grief, thou shalt get what comfort may be for
thee from whatever thou canst find. Now, indeed, dear child, I am come
to make a pleading that breaketh my heart; yet we have done so much
wrong to thy fair young life, that it is not in me further to blight
it.” She went over to the bedside, and Lenore, sitting up, took one of
the strong white hands in her own delicate fingers and pressed it to her
lips. Then, while Eleanore bent close over her, she said softly,—
“What is this thing that pains thee? Surely thou’lt not think that I
could do aught to hurt thee?”
“Yes, for this will bring happiness back into thy heart.”
“Happiness!”
“Yes, Lenore, happiness. That word sounds strange in thine ears from me;
yet listen while I speak. Gerault, my dead son, brought thee out of a
life of sunshine and gayety and fair youth into this grim Twilight
Castle; and now thou hast entered, with all of us, from twilight into
blackest night. But thou hast in thee what is lacking in me, and in
those that dwell here as part of our race; thou’rt young, and thou hast
had a joyous youth. Thou knowest what I long since forgot: that, in this
world, there is a country of happiness. Now it is I, Gerault’s mother,
that bids thee leave these shades of ours and return to thy real home. I
bid thee go back again into thy youth, to thy father’s house, whither,
if thou wilt, I will myself in all love convey thee; and I will tell thy
father how thou hast been unto me all that—more than—a daughter should
be; that I love thee as one of my own blood; that I am sore to give thee
up—”
“Madame! Madame Eleanore! Thou must not give me up! Surely thou wilt
not!” Lenore turned a quivering face up to the other; and madame read
her expression with deep amazement.
“Give thee up! Do I not tell thee that at the thought my heart is like
to break? Nay, thou’rt my daughter always; and when thou wilt, this is
thy home. Yet for the sake of thy youth—”
“Madame—” Lenore sat up straighter, and looked suddenly off to the
windows of her room, her face by turns gone deathly white and rosy red:
“madame, this Twilight Castle is my double home. Here dwelt Gerault, my
beloved lord, and—and here shall dwell his child—the child that is to be
born to me—the new Lord of Le Crépuscule.”
“Lenore!—Lenore!”
“My mother!”
Then, as the sunset died from the distant west, these two women, united
as never before, sat together upon Gerault’s bed, clasping each other
close and mingling their tears and their laughter in a joy that neither
had thought to know again.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER ELEVEN_
THE WANDERER
[Illustration]
The utterly unexpected revelation that Lenore had made to madame drew
the two women into a tender intimacy that brought a holy joy to both of
them. That most beautiful, most priceless flowering of Lenore’s life
gave to her nature an added sweetness, and to her soul a new depth that
rendered her incomparably beautiful in the eyes of every one around her.
The secret remained a secret between her and her new-made mother, and
for this reason the happiness of the two was as inexplicable as it was
joyous for the rest of the Castle. Alixe, standing jealously without the
gate of this golden citadel, into which she had frequent glimpses,
wondered at its brightness as much as she wondered at its existence at
all. Day by day Lenore grew beautiful, and day by day the look of
content upon her face became more marked, until it was marvelled at how
she had forgotten her bereavement. And Eleanore—Madame Eleanore—found
herself growing young again in the youth of Gerault’s bride; and in her
love for the beautiful, tranquil girl she learned a lesson in patience
that fifty years of trial and sorrow had never brought her.
When Lenore finally rose from her bed she did not return to the mornings
in the spinning-room; and, since madame must perforce be there to
oversee the work, Alixe took her frame or her wheel to Lenore’s chamber,
and sat there through the morning hours. Save for the fact that Alixe
could not be addressed on the subject nearest her heart, Lenore probably
enjoyed these periods of the younger woman’s company quite as much as
those graver times with madame. Both of them were young, and Alixe,
having a nature the individuality of which nothing could suppress, knew
more of the gayeties of youth than one could have thought possible,
considering her opportunities. This jumped well with Lenore’s
disposition, for her own sunny nature would have shone through any
cloud-thickness, provided there was some one to catch the beam and
reflect it back to her. The two talked on every conceivable subject, but
generally reverted to one common interest before many hours had gone.
This was Nature: of which Lenore had been vaguely, but none the less
passionately fond; and of which Alixe, in her lonely life, had made a
beautiful and minute study. The two of them together watched the death
of the summer, and saw autumn weave its full woof, from the rich colors
of golden harvest and purple vine to the melancholy brown and gray of
dead moorland and leafless branch. And when the dreariness of November
came upon the land, there remained, to their keen eyes, the sea—the sea
that is never twice the same—the sea whose beauties cannot die.
This sea, which Lenore had never looked on till she came a bride to
Crépuscule, held for her a deep fascination. She watched it as an
astronomer watches his stars. And its vasty, changing surface came to
exercise a peculiar influence over her quiet life. The night of the
great storm brought it into double conjunction with the bitterest grief
in her life; and, with the knowledge of its cruel power, awe was added
to her interest and her admiration. She and Alixe were accustomed to
talk daily of the lost Lenore, Lenore herself always introducing the
topic with irresistible eagerness, and Alixe answering her innumerable
questions with an interest born of curiosity regarding the young widow’s
motive. In the presence of Alixe, Lenore never betrayed the tiniest
tremor of sensitiveness; and it would have been impossible for Alixe to
surmise how keen was the secret bitterness that lay hidden in her heart.
What suffering it brought she endured alone, by night, and indeed she
kept herself for the most part well shielded from it.
From the first night after Gerault’s burial, Lenore had insisted upon
sleeping alone. To every suggestion of company she replied that solitude
was precious to her, and that she could not sleep with another in the
room. Eleanore understood her feeling, and, while she left an easy
access from her room to Lenore’s, never once ventured to enter Lenore’s
chamber after nightfall. For this, indeed, the young woman was grateful,
not because of any joy she found in being alone in the darkness, but
because, after she had gone to bed, she felt that her veil of
appearances had fallen, and that she might let her mind take what temper
it would. It was by night that she knew the terrible yearning for the
dead that all women have in time, and from which they suffer keenest
agony. It was by night that she pictured Gerault not as he had been, but
as she had wished him to be toward her; and gradually Gerault dead came
to be vested with every perfect quality, till her loss became endurable
to her through the hours of her dreaming. By night, also, her childhood
returned to her; and she recalled and gently regretted all the simple
pleasures she had known, the rides and games and caroles that she had
been wont to indulge in, in her father’s house. Sometimes, too, in hours
of distorted vision, she came to feel that her great blessing was rather
a burden; and she would weep at the thought of the little thing that
must be born to the interminable shadows of this grim Castle, and felt
that she alone would be responsible for the sadness of the young life.
Yet there might be fair things devised for him. It could not be but a
boy,—her child; and in his early youth she planned that he should ride
to some distant, gay chateau, to be esquired to a gallant knight; and in
time he should come riding home to her, himself golden-spurred; and
then, later, he should bring a lady to the Castle whom he should love as
a man loves once; and the two of them would bring the light of the sun
to Crépuscule, and banish its shadows forever away. So dreamed Lenore
for this unborn babe of hers.
And then again, sometimes, by night, she would leave her bed and sit for
hours together at that window where, long ago, Gerault had knelt in the
hour of his passion. And Lenore would watch the quiet moon sail serenely
through the sky, till it sank, at early dawn, under the other sea. And
this vision of the setting moon never failed to bring peace to her
heart. Sometimes, after Gerault’s example, but not in his tone, she
would call down from her height upon the spirit of the lost Lenore that
was supposed to walk the rocky shore at the base of the Castle cliff.
But no answering cry ever reached her ears, and this was well; for what
such a thing would have brought to her already morbid mind, it were sad
to surmise. Nevertheless, in the nights thus spent, this gentle ghost
came to have a personality for her, in which she rather rejoiced, for
she felt that here must be some one in whom she could expect
understanding of her secret grief. Lenore at night, living with the
creatures of her fancy, was a strange little being, no more resembling
the Lenore of daylight than a gnome resembles some bright fairy. And so
well did she hide her midnight moods that no one in the Castle ever so
much as suspected them.
It was not till the middle of November that Alixe learned of the hope of
Crépuscule; but when she did know, her tenderness for Lenore became
something beautiful to see, and she partook both of Eleanore’s deep joy
and of Lenore’s quiet content. Three or four days after the knowledge
had come to her, Alixe was pacing up and down the terrace in front of
the Castle, side by side with Lenore. It was a blustering, chilly day,
and both young women drew their heavy mantles close around them as they
watched the great flocks of gulls wheel and dip to the sea, looking like
flurries of snowflakes against the sombre background of the sky. Far out
in the bay one or two of the crude fishing-boats from St. Nazaire were
beating their way southward toward their harbor, and then Lenore watched
with eyes that dilated more and more with interest and desire.
“Alixe,” she said suddenly, “canst thou sail a boat?”
“Why dost thou ask?”
“Certes, for that I would know.”
Alixe laughed. “’Tis a reason,” she said.
“Tell me, Alixe! Make me answer!”
“Knowest thou not that, after the drowning of the demoiselle Lenore, it
was forbidden any one in Crépuscule to put out upon the sea in any boat,
though he might be able to walk the water like Our Lord?”
“Hush, Alixe! But yet—thou’st not replied to me.”
“Well, then, if thou wouldst know, I can sail a boat, and withal
skilfully. In the olden days, Laure—’twas Gerault’s sister—and I have
gone out in secret an hundred times in a fisherman’s boat anchored a
mile down the shore, in front of some of the peasants’ huts. Laure and I
paid the fisherman money to let us take the boat; for she loved it as
well as I. Indeed, I have been lonely for it since her going.”
“Ah! Since her going thou’st not known the sea?”
“Not often. Alone, with a heavy boat, there is danger.”
“Alixe, take me with thee sometime! Soon! To-day! My soul is athirst to
feel the tremor of the boiling waves!”
“Madame!” murmured Alixe, not relishing what she considered an
ill-advised jest.
“Nay! Look not like that upon me! I would truly go. Can we not set
forth? There is yet time ere dark.”
From sheer nervousness Alixe laughed. Then she said solemnly: “Madame
Lenore, right willingly, hadst thou need of it, I would yield up my life
to you; but venture forth with you upon those waters will I not; nor
thou nor any other that were not mad, would ask it.”
Lenore frowned at these words, but she said nothing more, either on that
subject or another; and presently the two went back into the Castle. But
a strange desire had been born in Lenore, and she brooded upon it
continually. Day by day she hungered for the sea; and, though she did
not again suggest her wish, there were times when the roar of the waves
on the cliffs, and the cold puffs of air strong with the odor of the
salt tide, came near unbalancing her mind, and drove uncanny thoughts of
watery deaths through her heart. But through that long winter she
betrayed only occasional evidences of the effect that illness,
loneliness, and long brooding were having upon her mind; and perhaps it
was only the dread of betrayal that in the end saved her from actual
insanity.
December came in and advanced in the midst of arctic gales and
continually swirling snow, till Brittany was wrapped deep under a pure,
fleecy blanket. It was the season of warmth and idleness indoors, when
the poorest peasant got out his chestnut-bag, and merrily roasted this
staple article of his diet before the fire by night. The Christmas
spirit was on all men; and this in Brittany was tempered and tinctured
with the quaintest fairy-lore relating to the season, and as real to
every Breton as the story of their Christ. The Christmas mass was no
more devoutly enjoyed than was the great feast, held a week later, on
the night known throughout Brittany not as the New Year, but as St.
Sylvester’s Eve, when all elfdom was abroad to guard the treasures left
uncovered by the thirsty dolmens. And this, and an infinite number of
other tales, of witch and gnome, sprite and fay, sleeping princess and
hero-king, of Viviane and her wondrous forest of Broecilande, were told
anew, each year, behind locked doors, before the crackling fires that
burned from dusk to enchanted midnight.
To Lenore, the holy week from Christmas to New Year’s was replete with
interest; for in her own home, near Rennes, she had known nothing like
it. Christmas morning saw all the peasantry of the estates of Crépuscule
come to the Castle for mass; after which there was a great distribution
of alms.
From Christmas Day, throughout that week, according to ecclesiastic law,
the Castle drawbridge was never raised; no watchers were posted on the
battlements, and monk and knight, outlaw and criminal, high lord and
lady, found welcome and food and shelter within the great gray walls.
This open hospitality was made safe by the fact that, during this time,
no matter what war might be in progress, or what family feud in height,
no man was allowed to lift a hand against his neighbor, and the knight
that dared to use his sword during those seven days was branded caitiff
throughout his life. This law prevailed throughout the length and
breadth of France; but its observance belonged more peculiarly to the
far coast regions, where towns were scarce, and feudal fortresses
offered the only hope of shelter to the traveller. And during this week
there was scarcely an hour in the day that did not see its wanderer, of
whatever degree, appealing for safe housing from the bitter cold.
The week was the merriest and the busiest that Lenore had known since
coming to the Castle; and the arrival of the Bishop of St. Nazaire, on
the day before New Year’s, brought all Le Crépuscule to the highest
state of satisfaction. For many years it had been monseigneur’s custom
to spend St. Sylvester’s Day in the Castle,—formerly as the guest of the
old Seigneur, latterly as that of Madame Eleanore; and though the
Twilight Castle always delighted to honor his coming, on such occasions
it was a double pleasure; for upon this one day he carried with him a
spirit of bonhomie, of general, rollicking gayety, that roused every one
to the same pitch of happiness, and made the Saint’s feast what it was.
Since the last home-coming of Gerault, St. Nazaire had spent a good deal
of time at the Castle, had played many a well-fought game of chess with
Madame Eleanore, and had exerted himself to lift little Lenore, for whom
he entertained almost a veneration, out of her quiet melancholy. None in
the Castle, from Alixe to the scullions, but would have done him any
service; and his arrival assured the feast of something of its one-time
merriment.
On this great day the time for midday meat was set forward two hours, it
being just one o’clock when the company sat down at the immense
horseshoe table, that nearly encircled the great hall; for the ordinary
Castle retinue was increased by a rabble of peasants, and a dozen or
more of travellers that had claimed their privilege of hospitality.
As Madame Eleanore, handed by the Bishop, took her place at the head of
the table, the band of musicians in the stone gallery overhead sent out
a noisy blast of trumpets, and everybody sought a place. Beside madame,
supported by Courtoise, came Lenore; and again by her were Alixe, with
Anselm the steward. When these were all standing behind their tabourets,
monseigneur repeated the grace, in Latin. Immediately upon the amen, the
trumpets rang out again, and there was a great rustling as everybody sat
down and, in the same breath, began to talk. After a wait of not less
than ten seconds, there appeared four pages, bearing high in their hands
four huge platters, on each of which reposed a stuffed boar’s head,
steaming fragrantly. Two more boys followed these first, carrying
immense baskets of bread,—white to go above the salt, black for those
below. Then came Grichot, the cellarer, rolling into the room a cask of
beer, which was set up in the space between the two ends of the curved
table, and tapped. Instantly this was surrounded by a throng of
struggling henchmen, friars, and peasants, each with his horn in his
hand, eager to be among the first to drink allegiance to their lady.
Madame and her little party in the centre of the table were served with
wine of every description known to the north; besides mead or punches
for whosoever should call for them.
Lenore was seated between Courtoise and monseigneur; and for her alone
of all the company, apparently, the feast held less of merriment than of
sadness. When every one was seated, and the clatter of tongues had
begun, she looked about her, vaguely wondering how many times she
should, by this feast, measure a year passed in the grim Castle. Looking
along the table either way, at the double rows of men and women, Lenore
saw every mouth working greedily upon food already served, and every
hand outstretched for more, as rapidly as the various dishes could be
brought in. She saw burly men, roaring with the laughter of animal
satisfaction, drinking down flagon after flagon of bitter beer. She
caught echoes and fragments of coarse jokes and coarser suggestions; and
her delicate nature revolted at the scene. She turned to look toward the
mistress of the Castle, wondering how madame, who was of a fibre as fine
as her own, could endure such sights and sounds. Eleanore sat calmly
listening to monseigneur, her eyes lifted a little above the level of
the scene, her lips smiling, her air pleasantly animated, though she was
scarcely eating, and only a cup of milk stood before her place. As for
the Bishop, he was unfeignedly enjoying himself. A generous portion of
roast peacock was on his plate, and a bottle of red wine stood close at
his elbow. His wit was at its best, and he was entertaining all his
immediate neighborhood with such stories and reminiscences as he alone
could relate. Lenore found relief in the sight of him and madame, and,
pulling herself together, turned to the young squire on her right hand,
and began to talk to him gently. Roland listened to her with the
reverent adoration entertained for her by every man about the Castle;
but his replies were a little inadequate, and presently Lenore was again
sitting silent, her burning eyes staring straight in front of her, her
white face, framed in its shining hair, looking very set, her white
robes gleaming frostily in the candle-light, her whole bearing stiffly
unapproachable. She was nervous and uneasy, and she longed intensely to
escape to her own quiet room. But there was madame talking serenely on,
apparently unconscious of the gluttony around her; there was Alixe the
Scornful, merrily jesting with Anselm, who had forgotten his frowns and
his Latin together. Here was a great company of varied people, variously
making merry, among whom there was not one that could have understood or
excused her displeasure with the scene. Therefore she was fain to sit
on, disconsolate, enduring as best she might her weariness and her
contempt.
“En passant!” cried the Bishop, presently, “where is David le petit? Is
the dwarf lying sick?”
“Why, indeed, I do not know,” answered Eleanore, looking around her.
“David! Is David not among us?” she cried.
At this moment there was a commotion at one end of the room, and
presently the table began to shake. Dishes and flagons clattered
together, and a little ripple of laughter rose and flowed along from
mouth to mouth, following the progress of David himself, who was darting
rapidly down the table, picking his way easily between clumps of holly
and tall candles, and dishes and plates and flagons, as he moved around
toward Madame Eleanore and her little party. His costume added
materially to the effect of his appearance, for he was dressed like an
elf, in scarlet hose, pointed brown shoes, tight jerkin of brown slashed
with red, and peaked, parti-colored cap. In this garb his tiny figure
showed off straight and slender, and his ruddy face and glittering eyes
gave him proper animation for the role he had chosen to play.
Flying down the table till he came to a halt in front of madame and the
Bishop, he jerked the cap from his head, whirled lightly round on his
toes, twice or thrice, and then, with a quaint gesture of introduction,
he sang, in a sing-song tone, these verses:—
“From elf-land I—
Gnome or troll—
Leaped from the cave
Whence dolmens roll
Down from on high
To the tumbling wave!
“In darkness I live;
In darkness I love.
Yet there’s one thing
To mortals I give.
From treasure-trove
Jewels I bring!”
With the last words he drew, from a fat pouch at his side, a handful of
bright bits of quartz-crystal, and, tossing them high in the air, let
them fall over him and down upon the table in a glittering shower. There
was a quick scramble for them; and then, with an uncanny laugh, David
pirouetted down the table, backward, guiding himself miraculously among
the articles that loaded the board, flinging about him, at every other
step, more of his “jewels,” and now and then singing more extemporaneous
verses concerning his mysterious country. All the table paused in its
eating and drinking to watch him, for, when he chose, he was a
remarkably clever and magnetic actor. To-day he was making an unusual
effort, and presently even Lenore leaned forward a little to catch his
words; and, in a swift glance, he perceived that some color had come
into her cheeks, and a faint light into her eyes.
It made a pleasant interlude in the feasting; and when at length the
little man, with a hop and a spring, left the table, and came round to
the place where he was accustomed to sit, he was followed by a burst of
enthusiastic applause.
The gayety that he had excited by his rhymes and his pebble shower did
not die away for some time. By now, however, the eating was at an end,
and a lighter tone of conversation spread through the room, as the
footboys brought in two extra casks of beer and some dozens of bottles
of red wine. This was the wished-for stage of the day’s entertainment,
and if there was any one present that should be unminded for what was to
come, this was the signal for departure. Madame Lenore was the only one
in the room to go; but she rose the moment that the table had been
cleared of food, and, with a slight bow to madame and monseigneur,
slipped quietly to the stairs and passed up to her room with a relief in
her heart that the day was over.
The last white fold of Lenore’s drapery had scarcely disappeared round
the bend in the stairway, when there came a knocking upon the outer door
of the great hall, which was presently thrust open, before one of the
henchmen could reach it, to let in a beggar from the bitter cold
outside. It was the last day of the week of hospitality, and perhaps
this wanderer was the more readily admitted for that fact. It was a
woman, ragged, unkempt, and purple with cold. Madame Eleanore just
glanced at her, and then signed to those at the lower end of the table
to give her place with them, and bring her food. But the new-comer
seemed not to notice the invitations of those near by. She stood still,
gazing intently toward Madame Eleanore, till presently one of the
henchmen, somewhat affected with liquor, sprang from his place with the
intention of pulling her to a seat. In this act he got a view of her
face with the light from a torch falling full across it. Instantly he
started back with a loud exclamation,—
“Mademoiselle!”
Then all at once the woman, holding out both her arms toward madame’s
chair, swayed forward to her knees with a low wailing cry that brought
the whole company to their feet. There was one moment of terrible
silence, and then a woman’s scream rang through the room, as Madame
Eleanore staggered to her feet and started forward to the side of the
wanderer.
“Laure! Laure! O God! my Laure!”
As the two women—madame now on her knees beside her daughter—intertwined
their arms, and the older woman felt again the living flesh of her
flesh, the throng at the table moved slowly together and drew closer and
closer to these central figures. Nearest of all stood Alixe and
Courtoise, white-faced, tremulous, but with great joy written in their
eyes. They had recognized Laure simultaneously an instant before madame,
but they had restrained themselves from rushing upon her, leaving the
first place to the mother.
Eleanore was fondling Laure in her arms, murmuring over her inarticulate
things, while tears streamed from her eyes, and her strained throat
palpitated with sobs. What Laure did or felt, none knew. She lay back,
half-fainting, in the warm clasp; but presently she struggled a little
away, and sat straight. Pushing the tangled hair out of her eyes,—those
black, brilliant eyes that were still undimmed,—and seeing the universal
gaze upon her, she shrank within herself, and whispered to her mother:
“In the name of God, madame, I prithee let me be alone with thee!”
Then Eleanore bethought herself, and rose, lifting Laure also to her
feet. For a moment she looked about her, and then with a mere lifting of
her hand dispersed the crowd. They melted away like snow in rain, till
only three were left there in the great hall: Courtoise, Alixe, and
lastly monseigneur, who during the whole scene had stood apart from the
throng, the law of excommunication heavy upon him. Forbid a mother,
starved by nearly a year of denial of her child, to satisfy herself now
that that child was at last returned to her? Not he, the man of flesh
and blood and human passions!
Madame stood still for an instant in the centre of the disordered room,
supporting Laure with one arm. Then she turned to Alixe.
“Go thou, Alixe, and get food,—milk, and meat, and bread,—and bring it
in the space of a few moments to my room. But let no other seek to
disturb us in our solitude. Now, my girl!”
Madame led her daughter across the hall and up the stairs, and to the
door of her bedroom, into which Laure passed first. Madame followed her
in, and closed and fastened the door after her. Then she turned to her
child.
At last they were alone, where no human eyes could perceive them, no
human ear hear what words they spoke. And now Eleanore’s arms dropped to
her sides, and she stood a little off, face to face with Laure. With
Laure? Yes, it was she,—there could be but one woman like her,—with her
tall, lithe, straight form, terribly wasted now by hardship and
suffering: with those firm features, and the unrivalled hair that hung,
brown and unkempt, to her knees. And again, it was not the Laure that
the mother had known. In her eyes—the great, doubting, haunted, shifting
eyes—lay plainly written the story of the iron that had entered into her
soul. And there was that in her manner, in her bearing, that something
of defiant recklessness, that pierced her mother like a knife. It was
not the rags and the dirt of her body; it was the rags and dirt of her
defiled soul.
The girl looked straight before her into space; but she saw her mother’s
head suddenly lowered, and she saw her mother’s hands go up before her
face.
Then came Alixe’s knock at the door; and Laure went and opened it, took
in the food, set it down on the bed, shut and fastened the door again,
and returned to her mother, who was sitting now beside the shuttered
window, her head lying on her arms, which rested on a table in front of
her.
There was a silence. Laure’s hand crept up to her throat and held it
tight, to keep the strain of repressed sobs from bursting her very
flesh. Her eyes roved round the old, familiar, twilight room; but just
now she did not see. Her brain was reeling under its weight of agonized
weariness. What was she to say or do? What was there for her here? Her
mother sat yonder, bent under the weight of her sin. Was there any
excuse for her to make? Should she try to give reasons? Worst of all,
should she ask forgiveness? Never! Laure had the pride of despair left
in her still. She had come home dreaming that the gates of heaven might
still be open to her. She found them barred; and the password she could
not speak. Hell alone, it seemed, remained.
“Madame,” she said in a hard, quiet voice, “I have come wrongfully home,
thinking thou couldst give me succor here. But I perceive that I do but
pain thee. I will go forth again. ’Tis all I ask.”
At the mere suggestion that Laure should go again, madame’s heart melted
and ran in tears within her. “Ah, Laure! my baby—my girl—thou couldst
not leave me again?” she cried in a kind of wail.
“Mother! First of all, I came to thee!” said the girl, in a whisper that
was very near a sob.
But, unexpectedly, Eleanore rose again, with a gleam of anger coming
anew into her eyes. “Nay; thou didst _not_ first of all come to me! If
thou hadst—if thou hadst—ere thou wast stolen away by the cowardly
dastard that hath ruined thee—!”
Laure trembled violently, and her voice was faint with pleading: “Speak
no ill of him, madame! I was not stolen away. Freely, willingly, I went
with him. Freely—” she drew herself up and held her head high—“freely
and willingly, though with the curse of Heaven on my head, would I go
with him still, were it in the same way!”
“God of God! why hast thou left him, then?”
A black shadow spread itself out before Laure’s eyes, and in her
unpitying wilderness her woman’s soul reeled, blindly. Her voice shook
and her body grew rigid, as she answered: “I—did not—leave him.”
“He is dead?” Eleanore’s tone was softer.
“No; he is not dead!” Laure’s face contorted terribly, as there suddenly
rushed over her the memory of the last three months; and as it swept
upon her, she sank to her knees, and held out her hands again in
supplication: “Ah, pity me! pity me! As thou’rt a woman, pity me, and
ask me not what’s gone! I loved him. God in Heaven! How did I love him!
And he hath gone from me. Mine no more, he left me to wander over the
face of the earth. He left me to weep and mourn through all the years of
mine empty life. Flammecœur! Flammecœur! How wast thou dearer than God!
more merciless than Him.” Here her words became so rapid and so
incoherent that all meaning was lost, and the deserted woman, exhausted,
overcome with her torn emotions, presently fell heavily forward to the
floor, in a faint.
In this scene Eleanore had forgotten every scruple, every resentment,
everything save her own motherhood and Laure’s need. Putting aside all
thought of the girl’s shame, her abandonment, her rejection, she went to
her and lifted her up in her strong and tender arms, and, with the art
known only to the big-souled women of her type, poured comfort upon the
bruised and broken body of the wanderer, and words of cheer and
encouragement into her more cruelly bruised and broken mind. In a few
moments Laure had recovered consciousness, had grown calm, and was
weeping quietly in her mother’s arms.
Then madame began to make her fit for the Castle again. She took off the
soiled and ragged garments, that hung upon the skin and bone of her
wasted body. She bathed the poor flesh with hot water, and with her own
tears. She combed and coiled the wonderful, tangled hair. And lastly,
wrapping her, for warmth, in a huge woollen mantle, she led Laure over
to her bed, drew back the heavy curtains, and laid the weary woman-child
in it, to rest.
When Laure felt this soft comfort; when she realized where, indeed, she
was and who was bending over her; when she knew what land of love and of
tenderness she had finally reached after her months of anguished
wandering,—it seemed that she could bear no more of mingled joy and
pain. She let her tears flow as freely as they would. She clung to her
mother’s hand, smoothing it, kissing it, pressing it to her cheek; and
finally, lulled by the sound of her mother’s voice crooning an old
familiar lullaby, her mind slipped gradually out of reality, and she
went to sleep.
Long and long and long she slept, with the sleep of one that is leaving
an old life behind, and entering slowly into the new. And for many hours
her mother watched her, in the gathering darkness, till after Alixe had
come softly in, and lit a torch near by the bed. And later the mother,
unwilling to leave her child for a single moment, laid herself down,
dressed as she was, and, drawing Laure’s passive form close to her,
finally closed her eyes, and, worn out with emotion and with joy, lost
herself in the mists of sleep.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER TWELVE_
LAURE
[Illustration]
Through the long, chilly night, mother and daughter slept together, each
with peace in her heart. At dawn, however, madame slipped quietly out of
Laure’s unconscious embrace, and rose and prepared herself for the day.
And presently she left the room, while Laure still slept. It was some
time afterwards before there crept upon the blank of the girl’s mind a
dim, fluttering shadow telling her that light had come again over the
world. How long it was before this first sense became a double
consciousness, no one knows. Laure’s stupor had been so heavy, she had
been so utterly dead in her weariness, that it required a powerful
subconscious effort to throw off the bonds of sleep. But when the two
heavy eyes at last fell open, she gasped, and sat suddenly up in her
bed.
“Holy Mother! it is an angel!”
The face that she looked on smiled sunnily.
“No. I am Lenore.” And she would have come round to the side of the bed,
but that Laure held up a hand to stay her.
“Prithee, prithee, do not move, thou spirit of Lenore! Am I, then, come
into thy land? Is’t heaven—for me?”
For an instant, at the easily explainable illusion about that other, the
new Lenore’s head drooped, and she sighed. How full of the dead maiden
was every member of this Twilight Castle! But again, shaking off the
momentary melancholy, she lifted her eyes, and answered Laure’s fixed
look. So these two young women, whose histories had been so utterly
different, and yet in their way so pitiably alike, learned, in this one
long glance, to know each other. Into Laure’s deeply burning eyes,
Lenore gazed till she was as one under a hypnotic spell. Her senses were
all but swimming before the other turned her look, and then she asked
dreamily: “Thou art Lenore. Tell me, who is Lenore?”
The other hesitated for a moment. She had learned from Alixe, on the
previous evening, the history of the strange home-coming, and all that
any one knew of what had gone before it; and she realized that any
question that Laure might ask must be fully answered. Yet it cost her a
strong mental effort before she could say: “I was the wife of thy
brother.”
“Ah! Gerault! Where is he?” Laure paused for an instant.
“Thou—_wast_—his wife, thou sayest?”
Lenore gazed at her sadly, wondering if the wanderer must so soon be
confronted with new sorrow. Laure sat there, bewildered, but questioning
with her eyes, a suggestion of fear beginning to show in her face.
Lenore realized how madame must shrink from telling the story of
Gerault’s death; so, presently, lifting her eyes to Laure’s again, she
said in a low voice,—
“Gerault’s wife was I, because—since September, thy brother—sleeps—in
the chapel—by his father.”
Laure listened with wide eyes to these words; and, having heard, she
neither moved nor spoke. A few tears gathered slowly, and fell down her
face to her woollen robe, and then she bowed her head till it rested on
the hands clasped on her knee. Lenore stood where she was, looking on,
knowing not whether to go or stay; realizing instinctively that there
are natures that desire to find their own comfort.
While Lenore was still debating the point, Madame Eleanore and Alixe
came together into the room; and as soon as madame beheld Lenore, she
knew that her daughter had learned all that she was to know of sorrow:
that what she herself most dreaded, had mercifully come to pass. And
going to the bed, she took Laure into her arms.
Their embrace was as close as the first of yesterday had been. Laure
clung to her mother, getting comfort from the mere contact; and, in her
child’s grief for the dead, Eleanore felt the touch of that sympathy for
which she had hungered in silence through the first shock of her loss.
For Laure was of her own blood and of Gerault’s; had known the Seigneur
as brother, companion, and equal, and had looked up to him even as he
had looked up to his mother. Thus, bitterly poignant as were these
moments of fresh grief, there was in them also a great consolation,—the
consolation of companionship. And when finally madame raised her head,
there was written in her face what none had seen there since the time of
Laure’s departure for her novitiate at La Madeleine. Then she reminded
Laure of Alixe’s presence, and Laure, looking up, smiled through her
tears, and held out both hands.
“Alixe! Alixe! my sister! Art thou glad I am come home?”
“So glad, Laure! There have been many hours empty for want of thee since
thy going. And art thou—” she hesitated a little—“art thou to stay with
us now?”
Accidentally, inadvertently, had come the question that had lain hidden
both in Laure’s heart and in her mother’s since almost the first moment
of the return. Laure herself dared not answer Alixe; but she looked
fearfully at her mother, her eyes filled with mute pleading. And
Eleanore, seeing the look, made a sudden decision in her heart,—
“Yea! Laure shall stay with us now! There shall be no doubting of it.
Laure is my child; and I shall keep her with me, an all Christendom
forbid!”
The last sentence flew out in answer to madame’s secret fears; and she
did not realize how much meaning it might hold for other ears. Her
speech was followed by an intense silence. Laure did not dare ask aloud
the questions that reason answered for her; and Lenore and Alixe both
felt that it was not their place to speak. In the end, then, Eleanore
herself had to break the strain, which she did by saying, with a brisk
air,—
“Come, come, Laure! Rise, and go into thine own room here. I have laid
out one of the old-time gowns, with shoes, chemise, bliault, and
under-tunic complete, and also a wimple and head-veil. Make thyself
ready for the day, while we go down to break our fast. When thou’rt
dressed I will have food brought thee here; and after thou’st eaten,
monseigneur will come up to thee. Hasten, for ’tis rarely cold!”
Laure jumped from the bed eager to see her childhood’s room again; eager
for her meal; most of all eager, in spite of her apprehensiveness, to
know what St. Nazaire had to say to her. As she paused to gather her
mantle close about her, and to push the hair out of her eyes, her gaze
chanced to meet that of Lenore. There was between them no spoken word;
but in that instant was born a sudden affection which, while they lived
together, saw not the end of its growth.
As Eleanore and the two young women left madame’s room on their way
downstairs, Laure entered alone into the room of her youth and her
innocence. It was exactly as it had been on the day she last saw it. The
small, curtained bed was ready for occupancy. The chairs, the table, the
round steel mirror, the carved wooden chest for clothes, lastly, the
small priedieu, were just where they had always stood. The wooden
shutters were open, and the half-transparent glass was all aflame with
the reflection of sunlight on the sea; for the cold, clear morning was
advancing. Across a narrow settle, beside one of the windows, lay the
clothes that the mother had selected,—the girlhood clothes that she had
worn in those years of her other life. Like one that dimly dreams, Laure
took these garments up, one by one, and examined them, handling them
with the same ruminative tenderness of touch that she might have used
for some one that had been very dear to her, but had died long since,—so
long that the bitterness of death had gone from memory.
When she had looked at them for a long time, Laure began slowly to don
her clothes. She performed her toilet with all the precision of her
maidenhood, coiling her hair with a care that suggested vanity, and
adjusting her filet and veil with the same touch that they had known so
many times before. Her outer tunic was of green _saie_; and even though
her whole form had grown deplorably thin, she found it a little snug in
bust and hip. Finally, when she was quite dressed, she sat down at one
of the windows to wait for some one to bring food to her. To her
surprise, it was Lenore who carried up the tray of bread and milk; and
she found herself a little relieved that no former member of the Castle
was to see her yet in the familiar dress of long ago. When she took the
tray from the frail white hands of her sister-in-law, she murmured
gratefully: “I thank thee that thou hast deigned to wait on me, madame.”
Lenore’s big blue eyes opened wide, as she smiled and answered:
“Prithee, say not ‘madame.’ Rather, if thou canst, I would have thee
call me ‘sister,’ for such I should wish to be to thee.”
“My sister!” Laure’s voice was choked as she raised both arms and threw
them about the slender body of the other girl with such abandon that
Lenore was obliged to put her off a little. Finally, however, Laure sat
down to the table on which she had placed her simple breakfast, and as
she carried the first bite to her lips, Lenore moved softly toward the
door. Before going out, however, she turned and said quietly: “Thou’lt
not be long alone. The Bishop is coming to thee at once.”
Laure’s spoon fell suddenly into her bowl, and she looked quickly round;
but, to her chagrin, Lenore had already slipped away.
Left to herself, Laure could not eat. Hungry as she was, her anxiety and
her suspense were greater than her appetite. Why was it that Lenore had
so suddenly escaped from her? Why was it that she had seen no members of
the Castle company save three women since her home-coming? Why was she
forced thus to eat alone? Above all, why should the Bishop come to her
here, instead of receiving her, as had been his custom, in the chapel?
Laure remembered the last serious talk she had had with St. Nazaire, and
shuddered. In her own mind she realized perfectly the spiritual enormity
of her sin; and, however persistently she might refuse to confess it to
herself, she knew also what the penalty of that sin must be. It was many
minutes before she could force herself to recommence her meal; and she
had taken little when there was a tap on the door. She had not time to
do more than rise when the door opened, and her mother, followed by St.
Nazaire, entered the room.
Madame dropped behind as the Bishop advanced, and Laure bowed before
him.
“My child, I trust thou art found well in body?” said St. Nazaire, more
solemnly than she had ever heard him speak.
“Yes, monseigneur,” was the subdued reply.
Now madame came up, and indicated a chair to the Bishop, who, after
seeing her seated, sat down himself, while Laure remained on her feet in
front of them. Then followed a pause, uncomfortable to all, terrifying
to Laure, who was becoming hysterically nervous with dread. She dared
not, however, break the silence; and with a convulsive sigh she folded
her arms across her breast, and stood waiting for whatever was to come.
Monseigneur regarded her closely and steadily, as if he were reading
something that he wished to know of her, but at the same time he did not
make her shrink from him. On the contrary, his expression brought the
assurance that he had lost nothing of his old-time sympathy with human
nature. His first question was unhesitatingly direct.
“Laure,” he said very quietly, “art thou bound by the marriage tie to
this Bertrand Flammecœur?”
At the sound of the name Laure trembled, and her white face grew whiter
still. “No,” she answered in a half-whisper, at the same time clenching
her two hands till the nails pierced her flesh.
“And thou hast lived with him, under his name, since thy departure from
the priory of the Holy Madeleine?”
Laure paused for a moment to steady her voice, and then answered
huskily: “Until two months past.”
“And in that two months?”
“I have begged my way from where we were—hither.”
“Thou hast in this time known none but the man Flammecœur?”
Laure crimsoned and put up her hand in protest. Then she said quietly,
“None.”
Monseigneur bowed his head and remained silent for a moment. When he
looked at her again it was with a gentler expression. “Laure,” said he,
in a very kindly voice, “but a little time after thy flight from the
priory, I placed upon thee, and upon the man that abducted thee, the ban
of excommunication, for violating the holiest laws of the Holy Church.
That ban is not yet raised, and by it, as well thou knowest, all that
come in voluntary contact with thee are defiled.”
For a moment Laure dropped her head to her breast. When she lifted it
again, her face had not changed; and she asked, “Can that ban ever be
lifted?”
“Yes. By me.”
Laure fell upon her knees before him. “What must I do? Tell me the
penance! I would give anything—even to my life—yet—nay! There is one
thing I will not do.”
St. Nazaire frowned. “What is that?” he asked.
“Father, I will not go back into the priory. I will never return alive
into that living death. Rather would I cast myself from the top of the
Castle cliff into the sea below, and trust—”
“Laure! Laure! Be silent!” cried Eleanore, sharply.
Laure stopped and stood motionless, her eyes aflame, her face deathly
white, her fingers twining and intertwining among themselves, as she
waited for St. Nazaire to speak again. His hands were folded upon his
knee, and he appeared lost in thought. Only after an unendurable
suspense did he look again into the girl’s eyes, saying slowly, in a
tone lower than was habitual to him,—
“Thou tookest once the vows of the nun. These, it is true, thou hast
broken continually, and hast abused and violated till their chain of
virtue binds thee no more. Yet the words of those vows passed thy lips
scarce more than a year agone; and for that reason thou art not free.
Ere thou canst be absolved of duty to the priory, thou must go to the
Mother-prioress and ask her humbly if she will again receive thee into
the convent. An she refuse, thou wilt be freed from the bond.”
“Monseigneur—will she set me free?” asked Laure, in a low tone.
“Yea, Laure; for methinks I shall counsel her so to do. Thou hast not
the vocation of a nun. Thy spirit is too much thine own, too
freedom-loving, to accept the suppression of that secluded life. If I
will, I can see to it that thou’rt freed from the priory. But that being
accomplished—what then, Demoiselle Laure?”
“Ah—after that—may not the ban be removed? Can I obtain no absolution?
Can I not be made free to dwell here in my home in my beloved Castle,—my
fitting Crépuscule?—Mother! Shall I not be received here? Have I no
home?”
“This is thy home, and I thy mother always. Though my soul be condemned
to eternal fire, Laure, thou art my child, the flesh of my flesh and the
blood of my blood; and I will not give thee up.”
“Eleanore!” The Bishop spoke sharply, and his face grew severe.
“Eleanore, deceive not thyself. Nor yet thou, thou child of wilfulness!
Laure hath sinned not only against the rules of her Church and her God,
but against the laws of mankind. Her sin has been great and very ugly.
Think not that, by brave words of motherhood, or many tears and
pleadings of sudden repentance, she can regain her old position. The
stain of this bygone year will remain upon her forever. She is under a
heavy ban, and she must go through a rigorous penance ere she can be
received again among the undefiled. Art ready, Laure, to place thy sick
soul in my hands?”
Laure bent her head.
“Then I prescribe for thee this penance: Thou shalt go alone, on foot,
to Holy Madeleine, and there seek of the Reverend Mother thy freedom
from the priory. If it be granted, thou mayest return hither to this
same room and remain shut up in utter solitude, to pray and fast as
rigorously as thy body will admit, for the space of fourteen days. If,
by that time, thou art come to see truly the magnitude of thy offence,
and if thy mind be purified of evil thoughts and thy heart opened to the
abounding mercy of God, I will absolve thee of thy sin, and lift away
the ban of Heaven. For meseemeth, my daughter, that thy sin found thee
out or ever thou hadst reached this house of safety. There is the mark
of suffering upon thy brow, and, seeing it, I bow before the power of
God, that holdeth over us whithersoever we may go. But see that in thy
lonely hours thou find true repentance for thy evil deed. For if that
come not, then truly shalt thou be an outcast on the face of the earth.
I will go to-day to the priory to talk with the Mère Piteuse, if thy
heart accepteth my word.”
Laure fell upon her knees before the Bishop and kissed his hand in token
of submission. St. Nazaire suffered her for a few moments to humble
herself, and then, lifting her up, he rose himself and quickly left the
room.
Eleanore remained a few moments longer with her daughter, and then went
away, leaving Laure alone again, to dread the ordeal that was before
her, the facing of the assemblage of nuns in that place that she
remembered as her heart’s prison.
By order of the Bishop, Laure was left alone all day, and this
twenty-four hours was the most wretched that she had to spend after her
return to Le Crépuscule. On the following day she went alone to the
priory,—not on foot, as the Bishop had at first commanded; for the snow
was too deep, and Laure too much exhausted by her privations of the last
two months, for her safely to endure the fatigue of such a walk. She
rode thither on horseback; and possibly extracted more soul’s good out
of the ride than she would have got afoot, for the whole way was laden
with bitter memories and grief and shame. The Bishop himself met her at
the priory gate, and he remained at her side throughout the time that
she was there. The ordeal was not terrible. Mère Piteuse bore out her
name, and Laure thought that the spirit of the Saviour had surely
descended upon the reverend woman. As an unheard-of concession, the
penitent was permitted to recant her vows before only the eight officers
of the priory assembled in the chapter-house, instead of before the
whole company of nuns in the great church; and thus Laure did not see at
all her former companion and abettor, Sœur Eloise, a meeting with whom
she had dreaded more than anything else. And when, in the afternoon,
Laure finally rode away from the priory gate, it was with a heart
throbbing with devotion for St. Nazaire and his goodness to her. Swiftly
and eagerly, in the falling twilight, she traversed the road leading
back to the Castle, and, when she reached home, night had fallen. Her
mother, who had spent the day in the deepest anxiety, was waiting for
her in the great hall, and, the moment that Laure entered, weary with
the now unusual exercise, she cried out, “It is well? Thou art
dismissed?”
And as Laure began to answer the question with a full description of the
day, her mother drew her slowly up the stairs, across the hall, and
finally into her own narrow room, which was to be the chamber of
penance. When they entered there, Laure became suddenly silent; for the
little place was dark and chill, and the thought of what was before her
struck an added tremor to her heart. Madame read her thoughts and said
gently,—
“Be not so sad, dear child. When thou thinkest of the fair, pure, loving
life that lies before us, in this Castle of thy youth, surely fourteen
little days of peaceful solitude cannot fright thee? Think always that
God is on high, and that around thee are those that love thee well; and
thus thou canst not be very miserable. Lights and food shall be brought;
and then—I bid thee make much of thy solitude, my child; for there is no
more healing balm for wounded souls. Now, commending thee to the mercy
of the All-merciful, I leave thee.”
In the darkness, Laure clung to her mother as if it were their last
embrace, and madame had to put the girl’s hands away before she would
bear to be left alone. But at last the door was closed and bolted on the
outside; and Laure, within, knew that her imprisonment was begun.
Feeling her way to a chair, she seated herself thereon, and laid her
head in her hands. Burning and incoherent thoughts hurried through her
brain, and she was still lost in these when there was a soft tap at her
door, and the outer bolt was drawn. She rose and stumbled hurriedly to
open it, but there was no one outside. On the floor was a burning
candle, and a tray on which stood a jug of water and a loaf of bread. As
she took them in, Laure experienced a wave of desolation. However, she
set the food and drink down on her table, lighted the torch on the wall
at the candle-flame, and finally sat herself down to eat. No grace to
God passed her lips as she took her first bite from the loaf; for her
heart was bitter in its weariness. But after she had eaten and drunk she
lost the inclination to brood; and, overcome with weariness and the
emotions of the day, she hurriedly disrobed, extinguished both her
lights, and crept, with her first sense of comfort, into the warmly
covered bed. For a long time she lay there, chilly and a little nervous,
but thinking of nothing. Then gradually her spirit grew calmer; some of
the weariness was done away, and she fell asleep.
When next she woke it was daylight,—a gray, January morning,—and Laure
realized, rather disconsolately, that she could sleep no more for the
time. Therefore she left her bed, threw a mantle around her, and went to
the door, to see if there might be food without. Somewhat to her dismay,
she found the door locked fast, and, having no means of knowing what the
hour might be, she thought that possibly she had overslept, and that she
should have nothing to eat throughout the morning. The heaviness of her
head told her that she had slept too long; and, not daring to get back
to bed again, she began resignedly to dress. She was in the midst of her
toilet when there came a tap at the door, and she flew to open it.
Outside stood a kitchen-boy, who handed her a tray containing fresh
bread and water, and asked her with formal respect for the stale food of
the night before. This she gave him; and immediately the door was shut
and rebolted.
[Illustration:
_Mother and child were happy to sit all
day in the flower-strewn meadow.—Page 402_
]
With grim precision Laure finished dressing and broke her fast, meantime
keeping her thoughts fixed on the most trivial subjects. But when her
meal was over, and she knew how long the day must be, and realized that
there was no escape from herself, she sat down in the largest chair in
the room, let her eyes wander over the familiar objects, and allowed her
thoughts to take what form they would. The terrible fatigue of her
lonely journey was quite gone now. Nor was there in her own person
anything to remind her of her recent suffering. Her body was clean,
well-clothed, and warm, and, in her youth, the memory of the past
terrible two months grew dim, and instead there rose up before her
mental vision a very different picture,—an image,—the image of the idol
and the ruin of her life: her joy, her shame, her ecstasy, and her
despair; Bertrand Flammecœur, the troubadour, in his matchless,
irresponsible untrustworthiness, his incomparable beauty, his fiery
enthusiasm. For, strange as it may be, all the bitterness, all the
suffering that this man had brought her, had not killed her love for him
nor blackened his image in her heart. There being nothing to check her
fancy, Laure went mentally back to the hour of her flight with the
troubadour, and passed slowly over the whole period of their life
together,—from the first days of physical agony and mental shame through
the period of increasing delight, to the culmination of her happiness in
him and the beginning of its end. Once more she reviewed their journey
out of Brittany up the north coast to Calais, whence, in the fair spring
weather, they had taken passage to Dover, in England, thence making
their way by slow stages to London. Here, in the train of the Duke of
Gloucester, uncle of the young Richard, the most powerful man in the
kingdom, the two had passed their summer. To Laure it was a summer of
fairyland. Flammecœur had become her god, and she saw him ascend height
after height of popularity and favor. His nationality and his profession
won for him instant recognition, for trouvères from Provence were
Persian nightingales to the England of that day. And after his first
introduction into high places, his breeding, his dress, and his graceful
personality brought him an enviable position, especially among the women
of the court. Laure passed always as his wife, and was adroitly
exploited among the court gallants. She was still too single-minded to
receive the slightest taint from this life. She was found to be as
incorruptible as she was pretty, and by this unusual fact her own
reputation went up, and her popularity rivalled that of the troubadour.
If this manner of life sometimes weighed on her and brought her
something of remorse, she found her consolation in the fact that
Flammecœur never wavered in his fidelity. For the time being he was
thoroughly infatuated with her; and in their stolen hours of golden
solitude both of them found their reward for the ofttimes wearisome
round of pleasures that, with them, constituted work.
Now, alone, in her solitary prison-room, Laure of Le Crépuscule reviewed
her high and holy noon of love, forgetting its subsequence, brooding
only over its supreme forgetfulness, till the madness of it was tingling
in her every vein, and there rushed over her again, in a tumultuous
wave, all that fierce longing, all that hopeless desire, that she
thought herself to have endured for the last time. In their early days
Flammecœur had been so much her companion, so devoted to her in little,
pretty, telling ways, so constant to her and to her alone, that the
thought of any life other than the one with him would have been to her
like a promise of eternal death. It was not more their hours of delirium
than those of silent communion that they had held together, which
brought her now the tears of hopeless yearning. All that she desired
without him, was death. All that she had loved or cared for was with
him.
At this time came to her the thought of Lenore; and she had an
instinctive feeling that, had God seen fit to give her that most
precious of all gifts, motherhood, this penitential cell had not been
the end for her.
Three days and three nights did Laure spend in this state of bitter
rebellion against her lot; and then, from over-wishing, came a change.
Up to this time, in her new flood of grief for the separation from
Flammecœur, she had driven from her mind every creeping memory of the
day of his change toward her. Another woman had come upon the horizon of
his life: a young and noble Englishwoman, of high station. And soon he
was pursuing her with the ardor that he no longer spent on Laure. This
lady was one of the first that they had met in England, and Laure had
liked her before Flammecœur’s new passion began to develop. But with her
first real fears, the poor girl’s jealousy was born, and soon it became
the moving spirit of her life. Many times in the ensuing weeks—those
bitter weeks of early autumn—did angry words pass between her and her
protector, her only shield from the world in this strange land. Once, in
a fit of uncontrollable grief and passion, she had left him, and for two
days wandered about the streets of London till starvation drove her back
to the lodgings of the Flaming-heart. Her reception—of quiet
indifference—on her return showed her that her world was in a state of
dissolution. For a week she dwelt among its ruins, and then, when she
demanded it, he told her that she was no longer dear to him, and he
begged her to take what money he had and to set out whither she would,
assuring her that she would find no difficulty in securing some
excellent abiding-place in this adopted land. Laure took her dismissal
heroically. She knew him too well to be horrified at his suggestions as
to her procedure; and, refusing his gifts of money, she sold the clothes
and ornaments that he had given her in a happier day, and with the
proceeds started on her return to Crépuscule. Her little store gave out
when she had scarce more than reached France; and the last half of the
journey had been accomplished by literally begging her way from hut to
hut, never giving up the idea of at last reaching the only refuge she
could trust,—the place where now she sat dreaming out her woe.
Through the bitter hours when her old jealousy took possession of her
again and seared her with its hot flames, Laure found herself, more than
once, gazing fixedly at the little priedieu in the corner of the room,
where, as a child, she had been wont to kneel each night and morning.
Since the hour she had left the priory, a prayer had scarcely passed her
lips; and now, in the time of reactive sorrow, she felt a pride about
kneeling in supplication to Him whose laws she had so freely broken. In
the course of time, for so doth solitude work changes in the hearts of
the most stubborn, the spirit of real repentance of her sin came over
her; and then, for the first time in her young life, she wept unselfish
tears. It was only inch by inch that she crept back toward the place of
heart’s peace. But at length, on the tenth day of her penance, she went
to her God; and, throwing herself at the feet of the crucifix, claimed
her own from the All-merciful.
Never in her life of prayers had Laure prayed as she prayed now. Now at
last God was a living Being, and she was come home to Him for
forgiveness and for comfort. Her words sprang from her deepest heart.
Tears of joy, not pain, welled up within her; and it seemed as if she
felt her purity coming back to her again. She believed that she was
received before the throne, and listened to; and no absolution of a
consecrated bishop had brought her such confidence as this, her first
unlettered prayer.
When she rose from her knees it was as if she had been bathed in spirit.
Her old joy of youth was again alive within her and shone forth from her
eyes with a radiant softness. A strange quiet took possession of her; a
new peace was hidden in her heart; tranquillity reigned about her, and
the four days of solitude that remained were all too short. She was
learning herself anew; but she dreaded that time when others should look
into her face and think to find there what she knew was gone from her
forever. After her first prayer she did not often resume the accepted
attitude of communication with the Most High; yet she prayed almost
continually, with a dreamy fervor peculiar to her state. She still
thought of Flammecœur, but no longer with desire; only with a gentle
regret for the fever of his soul and that he could never know such peace
as hers. She also felt remorse for the part she had played in his life;
and this remorse was now her only pain. She suffered under it; but it
was easier to endure than the terrible, restless longing that had once
consumed her. Indeed, at this time, Laure’s spirituality was
exaggerated; for solitude is apt to breed exaggeration in whatever mood
the recluse happens to be. But this state was also bound to know its
reaction; and, upon the whole, it was as well that the penitential
fortnight was near its end.
On the afternoon of the fourteenth day, Laure dressed herself in the
somberest robe to be found in her chest,—a loose tunic of rusty black,
with mantle of the same, and a rosary around her waist by way of belt.
She braided her hair into two long plaits, and bound these round and
round her head like a heavy filet. This was all of her coiffure. When
she was dressed, she stood in front of her mirror and looked at herself
by the smoky light of a torch. Her vanity was not flattered by the
reflection; but steel is deceitful sometimes, and Laure did not know how
much younger she had grown in the two weeks of her penance. As the hour
of liberty approached, she became not a little excited. The thought of
being surrounded with such a throng of familiar faces set her aflame
with eagerness; and she waited, literally counting the seconds, till she
should be set free.
Punctually at the hour in which, two weeks before, Laure had been left
alone, her door was opened, and Eleanore and Lenore came together into
the room, to lead the prisoner down to the chapel. Madame clasped her
warmly by the hand, and looked searchingly into her face: but that was
all the salutation that was given, for the ban of excommunication was
still upon her. And so, without a word, the three moved quickly to the
stairs, and, descending, passed at once into the lighted chapel.
Of all the ceremonies that had been performed in that little room since
it was built, more than two centuries before, the one that now took
place was perhaps the most impressive, certainly the most unique. Laure,
in her penitential garb, presented a curious contrast to the gayly robed
Castle company, and to St. Nazaire, in his most gorgeous of canonicals.
Yet Laure’s face was more interesting to study than anything else in the
crowded room. St. Nazaire, while he confessed and absolved her, watched
her with an interest that he had never felt for her before; and he
realized that probably never again would he hear such a confession as
hers. She told him the whole story of her life after her flight from the
priory, with neither break, hesitation, tremor, nor tear. She took her
absolution in uplifted silence. And when the ban of excommunication was
raised from her, neither the Bishop nor her mother could guess, from her
face, what her feeling was.
When she had been blessed, and the general benediction pronounced, all
the company came crowding to her to give her welcome. After that
followed a great feast, at which Laure ate not a mouthful, and drank
nothing but a cup of milk. And finally, when all the merrymaking was
through, the young woman returned alone to her room, and, this time with
her door bolted from within, lay down upon her bed and wept as if her
heart had finally dissolved in tears.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_
LENORE
[Illustration]
On the morning of the sixteenth of January, Laure went into the
spinning-room with the other women, to begin the old, familiar work. The
sight of that room brought back to her a peculiar sensation.
Long-forgotten memories of her girlhood’s yearnings and restless
discontents, half-formed plans and desires, picture after picture of
what she had once imagined convent life to be, crowded thick upon her,
and caused her to shudder, knowing what these vague dreams had led her
to. Here was the room, with its row of wheels and tambour-frames, and,
at the end, the big, wooden loom, filled with red warp. Everywhere were
little disorderly heaps of flax and uncarded wool, bits of thread and
silk, and long woollen remnants clipped from uneven tapestry borders. In
a moment this place would be alive with the droning buzz of wheels, the
clack-clack of the loom, and the bright chatter of feminine voices.
Laure heard it all in the first glance down the room, and in the same
instant she lived a lifetime here. Before her eyes was an endless vista
of mornings spent in this place upon work that could never keep her
thoughts from paths where they should not stray. Alas! with Flammecœur
she had neither toiled nor spun.
In neither face nor manner did Laure betray any suggestion of her
feeling; and she found herself presently seated at a wheel, between
Alixe, who was at the tapestry frame, and Lenore, who had come to the
room for the first time in many weeks, and was engaged in fashioning a
delicate little garment of white _saie_. Madame, at the head of the
room, was embroidering a square of linen and overseeing the work of
every one else; and she glanced, every now and then, rather searchingly
into her daughter’s face, finding in it, however, nothing that could
cause her anxiety; for Laure was ashamed of her own sensations, and
strove bravely to conceal them.
Possibly this scene might have held out promise of reward to the
thinker, the psychologist, or the humanitarian. Of all these quiet, busy
women, was there one whose dull, passionless exterior did not cover an
intricate and tumultuous heart-history? The rebellious thought-life of
Alixe was no less interesting, despite her inactivity, than the
deadening sorrow through which Lenore had passed. Nor had the early life
of Eleanore, with its doubtful joys and its bitter periods of
loneliness, left any stronger traces in her face than had the long
after-years of rigid self-suppression. She had nearly overcome her once
devastating habit of self-analysis, by forcing herself to take an
unselfish interest in those around her. But the marks of her later and
nobler struggles with grief lay as plainly in her face as those of her
younger life. Only, the influence of her youth, with its rebellions and
its solitudes, was to be found bodily transferred into the character of
Laure, who had, in her infancy, absorbed her mother into herself. These
four women, by reason either of years or station, had experienced much
in the ways of joy and sorrow. But to what depths of unhappiness all the
other pathetically colorless lives of the uninstructed and unloved women
of that day had sunk, cannot be surmised by any one who has seen what
strange courses loneliness and solitude will take. Who knows how great a
self-struggle may result only in a pallid, vacant face and a negative
personality? And what had they, all these neglected women of the
chivalric age, to give them life, color, or force? Men did battle and
feats of arms, expecting their ladies to sit at home, to toil and spin
and bear them heirs, and, when their time came, haply die. So much we
all know. But how much these same women, having something of both soul
and brain, may have tried to use them in their small way, who has cared
to surmise?
The January morning wore along, and by and by the fitful chatter became
more fitful: the pauses grew longer; for every one was weary with work,
and with the incessant noise of loom and wheel. Laure, who through the
morning had been covertly watching Lenore at her task, saw that the
young woman had grown paler than was her wont, and that the shadows
under her eyes had deepened till their effect against her pallor was
startling. Gradually Lenore’s hands moved more slowly. She would pause
for a moment, and then, with a slight start, return to her work with so
conscious an effort that Laure was more than once on the point of crying
to her to stop. Presently, however, Lenore herself looked toward
madame’s chair with an appeal in her eyes and a faintly murmured word on
her lips.
Eleanore glanced at her, and then rose at once and went over to her
side. “Why didst thou not speak sooner? Go quickly to thy room and lie
down. Shall I send Alixe with thee?”
“Nay! Let me rather be alone!” And Lenore, hastily gathering her work
into her arms, slipped from her place and was gone from the room.
The little scene caused no comment. Only Laure, who was not accustomed
to the sight of Lenore’s transparent skin and almost startling frailty,
sat thinking about her after she was gone. How forlorn must be her poor
existence! If she had greatly loved Gerault,—and surely any maiden would
have loved him,—how gray her world must have become! how without hope
her life! Laure lost herself completely in a revery of Lenore’s sorrows,
and forgot, for the time, how weary she herself was: how her foot ached
with treading the wheel, and how irritated were her finger-tips with the
long unaccustomed manipulation of thread. But it came as an intense
relief when she heard her mother say softly,—
“Go thou, Laure, to thy sister’s room. Make her comfortable, if thou
canst. Take the wheel also with thee and finish thy skein there.”
“Nay, madame. The whirl of the wheel is distressing to Lenore; I saw it
while she sat here. I will finish after noon if thou wilt, but Lenore
must not be disturbed.”
Madame nodded to her, and Laure slipped away, not noticing how Alixe’s
eyes followed her, or what disappointment was written in her face. For
hitherto this ministering to Lenore had fallen to Alixe’s share, and it
had been the proudest pleasure of her life.
Lenore was lying upon her bed, which, some weeks previously, had been
moved over close beside the windows of her room, that she might always
have a view of the sea. When Laure entered, she scarcely moved, and her
great eyes continued to rove round the room. The new-comer paused in the
doorway and gazed at her a moment or two before she asked: “May I enter?
May I come and sit beside you?”
Lenore smiled slightly; but there was no actual welcome in her face as
she said, in her usual, gentle tone: “Certes. As ever, I was idle and
unthinking. Come thou in, Laure, and sit where thou canst gaze out upon
the sea. Look, there is a glint of sun on it, even through the folds of
the clouds.”
Laure looked to where she pointed, and then came silently over and
seated herself in a large chair that stood between the bed and the
window, in a little jut in the wall. Her eyes were turned not to the
many-paned glass, however, but rather upon the figure of Lenore, who was
now looking off through a half-opened pane, through which blew fitful
gusts of icy wind. The two young women remained here in silence for some
moments, each in her own position, thinking silently. Suddenly, however,
Laure shivered, and then sprang to her feet, saying: “Thou’lt surely
freeze here! Let me cover thee.” She took up a thick coverlet that lay
over the foot of the bed and placed it, folded double, upon Lenore’s
form. Then, glancing down into the milk-white face, she said again: “Let
me bring thee something—a little food—some wine. Thou’rt so pale—so
ill!”
“Peace, Laure! I am comfortable. I lie thus for hours every day. Ah! for
how many hours in the past months—”
She looked up into Laure’s face, and the eyes of the two women met, in
an unfathomable gaze. Then Laure went slowly back to her place, wishing
that she might close the window, but not daring to interfere with her
sister’s desired sight of the sea. After she had sat down, Lenore once
more lost herself in a reverie, which, however, her companion did not
respect.
“Lenore,” she said in a low, rather melancholy voice, “how is it that
thou canst endure this life of thine,—thou, young and bright and gay and
all unused to this dim dwelling; how hath such existence not already
killed thee? Tell me, how hast thou fared since Gerault went?”
Lenore turned her eyes from the sea and fixed them on Laure’s face. She
wondered a little why she did not resent the question, not realizing
that it was the first throb of natural understanding that had come to
her out of Le Crépuscule. Lenore’s first impulse of affection toward her
new sister had altered a little in the past two weeks. Since she had
heard and understood the story of Laure’s last months, the white-souled
girl had shrunk from contact with her whose career lay shrouded in so
black a depth. Yet now Laure’s tone, as she spoke, and, more than that,
the expression in her eyes, touched a key in Lenore’s nature that had
long been unsounded, and which brought a tremor of unwonted feeling to
her heart. Quickly repressing the impulse toward tears, she gave a
moment’s pause, and then answered in a dreamy, reflective way, as if she
were for the first time examining the array of her own emotions,—
“Meseemeth that, since the day of Gerault’s death, a part of me hath
been asleep. Save when, on the night of his home-coming, I lay beside
his body and touched again his hair and his eyes—”
“Holy God! Thou couldst lie beside the dead!”
“Ah, was it not Gerault come home to me—seeming as if he slept? Since
that time, and the night that followed it, I say, I have not wept for
him. Mine eyes are dry. There is sometimes a fire in them; but the tears
never come. And my heart ofttimes burns, and yet I do not very bitterly
grieve. I know not why, but my sorrow hath not been all that I should
have made it. I have been soothed with shadows. I have found great
comfort in yon rolling sea. And then there is also the child,—Gerault’s
son,—the Lord of Crépuscule.”
“Yes, the child! Oh, I know how thou lovest him—I know!”
“Thou knowest? How?”
“Methinks, Lenore, I understand the mother-love. How should I have
praised God had he deemed me also worthy of it! But I was not. I know
well ’twas a vain desire. But, oh, to hold in mine arms a little one, a
babe, and to know it for mine own! Wouldst not deliver up thy soul for
that, Lenore?”
Lenore looked at her with a vague little smile. “Perhaps; I do not know.
My babe must carry on his father’s name, and so I love him. Yea, I will
bear any suffering so that he come into the world; for Gerault said to
me long since that such must be my duty and my great joy. He spake
somewhat as you do. Yet I know not that eagerness thou speakest of.”
Laure examined the ethereal figure lying before her with new curiosity;
and under the gaze of the calm, deep-hued eyes her own were kindled with
a brighter gleam. “Hast thou not loved, Lenore?” she asked. “Knowest
thou nothing of the joy of living, the two in one, united by divine
fire? Dost thou not worship God for the reason that there is now in thee
a double soul? Wake! Wake from thy dream-life! Suffer! For out of
suffering, great joy will come upon thee!”
As she met Laure’s look, a new light burned in Lenore’s eyes, and the
other saw her quiver under those words. Finally, freeing her gaze, she
said very softly: “I would not wake. How, indeed, should I live, if I
roused myself? Life and love and the world are hidden away behind the
far hills of Rennes. Here I must dwell forever in the twilight. So let
me dream! Ah, Laure, thou too, thou too wilt come to it. The fever may
burn within thee still, but time will cool it. Tell me, Laure,” she
added, smitten with a sudden curiosity that was foreign to her usual
self, “tell me, Laure, how didst thou find courage to run out from thy
dreams in the priory into life with Flammecœur, the trouvère?”
At sound of the name, Laure flushed scarlet, and then turned pale again.
“Flammecœur! Flammecœur!” she murmured to herself. Then, suddenly, she
shook the spell away. “Ah, how did I fall from heaven to hell and find
heaven in hell? I cannot tell thee more than thou thyself hast said. I
was buried while I was yet alive; and so I arose from mine own tomb and
escaped back to the world of living things. I was among sleepers, yet
could not myself sleep. After a time fire, not blood, began to run in my
veins. And so, in the end, I rode away with the Flaming-heart. And I
loved him! _how_ I loved him! God be merciful to me! Ah, Lenore, how do
they put us poor, long-haired things into the fair world, giving us
hearts and brains and souls, and thereon bid us all only to spin—to
spin, and weave, and so, perchance, kiss, once, and then go back to spin
again?”
Laure was half hysterical, but wholly in earnest,—so much in earnest
that she had forgotten her companion; and when she looked at her again,
she found Lenore lying back on her pillows, her breath coming more
rapidly than usual, but her face rigidly calm, her blue eyes wandering
through space, and Laure perceived that she had rejected the passionate
words and kept herself still in the dream state.
It was well that at this moment there came a tap at the door. Laure
cried entrance, and as Alixe came in from the hall, Madame Eleanore
appeared from the other door that led to Laure’s room, and thence
through to madame’s own chamber. Evidently the work hours were over, and
it was time for the noon meal.
Lenore did not care to descend to meat, and she asked Alixe to bring a
glass of wine and water and a manchet of bread to her room. This request
Alixe joyfully promised to fulfil, and then Laure and her mother
together left the room, Laure in the throes of a painful reaction from
strong feeling, and with a sense, moreover, that Lenore was relieved to
have her go.
In this last conjecture, or rather, sense, Laure was right. But it was
not through dislike of her sister that Lenore was glad to be alone
again. It was rather because the young widow had been powerfully moved
by Laure’s words, and she wanted time and solitude to readjust herself
from the new and disquieting ideas that had been put into her mind.
Alixe believed her to be fatigued, and perhaps suffering; and,
understanding her nature much better than Laure did, she brought the
invalid everything that she wanted in the way of food, and then left
her, believing that she could sleep.
It was afternoon in the Castle. Dinner was at an end. Madame had betaken
herself to her own room, for prayer and meditation. The damsels were all
scattered, some to their own small rooms, some to the courtyard and the
snow. Laure was in the chapel, before the altar, struggling with her
newly roused demon of unrest. In the long room, off the great hall, was
Courtoise, seated in Gerault’s old place, before a reading-desk, with an
illuminated parchment before him. It was part of “The Romant de la
Rose,” and he was reading the passage descriptive of the garden of
_Déduit_. Although nothing, perhaps, could be found in the literature of
that day better fitted to appeal to a dweller of Le Crépuscule, the mind
of the dark-browed Courtoise was not very securely fixed upon his book.
His eyes rested steadily on one word; his forehead was puckered, and
there was an expression on his face which, had he been a maid, would
likely have portended tears. Courtoise was not a man to weep; but he had
lately fallen recklessly into the habit of his former lord, of coming
here to sit with a parchment before him, as an excuse for brooding
hopelessly on the trouble in his soul. His head was now so far bent that
he did not see a woman’s figure glide into the room. Not till she stood
over his very desk did he look up with a little start: “Thou, Alixe!” he
said half impatiently.
“Yea, Alixe, Master Courtoise. Thine eyes, it seems, can make out great
shapes very well, but halt an untold time over one curly letter.”
“What sayest thou? Thy words, Alixe, are like the quips of the dwarf;
but thou hast not his license to say them.”
“Ahimé, Courtoise,” she came lazily round the table till she stood
beside his chair, “seek to quarrel with me if thou wilt. A quarrel would
be a merry thing in this Castle. For I am dull—dull—piteously dull, good
master!”
Courtoise looked at her rather grimly. “Art thou dull indeed, Mistress
Alixe? What thinkest thou, then, of all of us?”
“Thou also, quiet one? Well, I had guessed it. Yet methought—” she
paused, with mischief in her eyes; and Courtoise, who knew some of her
moods, was wise enough not to let her finish the sentence. Rising from
his place, he went and got a tabouret from a corner of the room, and,
placing it beside the chair at the desk, sat down on it, motioning Alixe
to the seat beside him.
Alixe refused the offer. “Nay, nay, Master Courtoise. Thou shalt sit in
the brawny chair, for thou’rt to be my adviser. Sit, I prithee, and let
me take the little place, and then list to me carefully while I do talk
on a matter of grave importance.”
“Name of Heaven! Is there something of importance in this house of
shadows?”
“There is Madame Lenore,” she said soberly.
“Lenore! Ah, ’tis of her thou wouldst speak,” he cried, his whole face
lighting.
Suddenly Alixe broke into a rippling mockery of laughter. “There,
Courtoise, thou art betrayed! Nay, I will be still about it, for I also
love her. Now, to be cruel, my talk is not to be of her, but of myself,
even me,—Alixe No-name. Thou, Courtoise, art in something the same
position in Le Crépuscule as I, save that thou hast a binding tie of
interest here. Then canst thou not offer me a moment’s thought, a
moment’s sympathy? For, in very truth, I need them both.”
With Alixe’s first words, Courtoise had flushed an angry scarlet; but
with her last, his ordinary color came back to him, and he looked at her
in friendly fashion as he answered: “What time and thought I have are
thine, Alixe. But thou must show me thy need of sympathy.”
“Why, let it be just for dwelling in Le Crépuscule. And—if thou wouldst
have more—for holding no certain place here. There was a time, after
Laure had gone away, and when the Seigneur was in Rennes, that I was
really wanted. I brought comfort to madame, and I know she loved me
well. And also, since Madame Lenore was widowed, I have been sometimes a
companion to her. But now there are two daughters here. Madame’s life is
full with them; and my place in Le Crépuscule is only one of tolerance.
Therefore—lend thine ear closely, Courtoise—I would go away, I, Alixe
No-name, out into the world, to see if there be not a fortune hidden for
me beyond the eastern hills. I would go to Rennes, or even farther, to
try what city life might be; yet I would not have the trouble of
explanation and protests and insistence, and finally of farewell, with
the dwellers here. Rather, I would just steal away, some night, nor
return again hither evermore. What say you, Courtoise? Think you that
that wish is all ingratitude?”
It was some moments before Courtoise replied. His face was a little
turned from Alixe, but she could see that his brow was knit in thought.
At length he answered her: “Nay, Alixe, thy wish is not ingratitude.
Rather, indeed, I have sometimes thought that Madame Eleanore showed
something of ingratitude toward thee; for thou wast a daughter to her in
her sorrow; and since the return of mademoiselle, I have seen thee many
a time set aside.
“If thou wouldst fare forth into the world—well, Alixe, the world is a
wide place, and many dangers lurk therein. Yet thou art stout of heart,
and strong enow in body, and methinks there are few like thee that would
of choice dwell in such a place as this. I myself, were it only not for—
Ah, well, if thou wouldst go forth and make thy way at once to Rennes,
depart not now in the winter season. Thou’dst freeze on thy way. Wait
till the spring is upon us, and the woods are light at night. And then—”
“Then thou’lt help me? Wilt thou, Courtoise? Wilt thou tell madame when
I am gone wherefore it was I went? Wilt thou give her messages of
faithful love? Wilt—”
“Wait, wait! Ask no more than that,” he said, smiling thoughtfully.
“When the days are warmer and the spring is in the leaf, when the blood
flows fast through the veins, and the head burns with new life—” he drew
a sudden, quick breath, and Alixe, looking upon him with new interest,
said quickly and softly:
“Then come thou, also, Courtoise, out into the wide world! Let us
together go forth to seek our fortunes. Thou’lt find me not too weak a
comrade, I promise.”
Courtoise’s smile vanished, and he shook his head, a look of sadness
stealing into his eyes: “Think you, Alixe, that after the death of my
well-loved lord I should have stayed in this Castle to grow gray and
mouldy ere my time, had it not held for me a trust so sacred that I
could not give it up?”
“Lenore,” murmured Alixe, gently.
“Thou knowest it. Since the first day that she came home with the
Seigneur, I knew that here she would sadly need a friend; and indeed she
hath been my very saint. I have worshipped her more as an angel than as
a woman, in her purity; and my heart hath all but broken for the great
sadness of her life here. And if by remaining I can serve her in any
way, in thought or in deed; if it giveth her comfort to have me in the
Castle, I would sooner cut off my hand than leave her here alone. I feel
also that my lord knoweth that I am faithful to the trust he left with
me; and I would not forfeit his dead thanks. Therefore, Alixe, ask me
not to return into the world with thee or with another.”
While he spoke, Alixe had watched him fixedly, and had seen no suspicion
either in tone or in face of a deeper feeling for Lenore than he had
confessed. Now she sighed quietly, and said in a gentle voice:
“Courtoise, I think thou shouldst not mourn that thou’rt to dwell here;
for thou hast thy trust, and thou hast some one to serve, always.
Therefore fear nothing, and give thanks to God; for with Lenore in thy
world—”
“Alas, alas, Alixe, there is that fear in me! Should Lenore be
lost—should Lenore die—ah!”
Low as was his voice, the agony in it was unmistakable; and now Alixe
was sure of all his secret: that he also loved Lenore as man sometimes
loves woman,—purely. And she could find no words to say to him when the
usually self-contained and tranquil man laid his head down on the table
before him and did not try to hide his grief.
It was at this inopportune moment that Laure, tired of prayers, and
still consumed by her restless fever, rushed in upon the two in the long
room. Her old-time wild gayety was upon her, and she did not pause
before the position of Courtoise, who, however, quickly straightened up.
Laure scarcely saw it. She knew only that here were the companions of
her youth, and as she entered she cried out to them,—
“Alixe! Courtoise! Up and out with me! Burn ye not? Stifle ye not in
this dim hole? Courtoise, is our old sailing-boat still in its mooring?
Let us fare forth, all three, and set out upon the wintry sea! Let us
feel this January wind pull and strain at the ropes! Let us watch the
foamy waves pile up before and behind us—”
“Mon Dieu!”
“Mademoiselle, it is impossible. The boat lies on the beach; two days’
work would not fit her for the water.”
Laure stamped angrily on the floor. “Something, then, something! I will
get out into the cold, into the snow; I will move, I will feel, I will
breathe again!”
It was so much the wild, free Laure, it had in it so much her old-time
magnetism of comradeship, so much the spirit of the dead Gerault,
desirous of action, that Alixe and Courtoise were drawn irresistibly
into her mood. Both of them moved forward, while Alixe cried gayly: “The
hawks! Come, we will ride!”
“The hawks!” echoed Laure. “Run, Courtoise, and get the horses, while
Alixe and I go don our riding-garb and jess the birds!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, rather with a throb of pleasure,
Courtoise ran obediently away toward the stables, while the young women
hurried to their rooms. In twenty minutes the wild trio were dashing
across the lowered drawbridge, all well mounted, hawk on wrist, spur at
heel, with Laure in the lead. Down the road for the space of a mile they
went, and then struck off to the snowy moor. They rode long and they
rode hard, finding scarce a single quarry, but letting their pent-up
spirits out in this free and healthful exercise. When they came in again
to the Castle courtyard, it was in starry darkness; and not one of the
three but felt a new strength to resist the dead life of the Castle.
Perhaps, had Courtoise known how Lenore had quietly wept away the
afternoon in her solitude and loneliness, he had not appeared at evening
meat with air so vigorous, eye so bright, and appetite so ready. Lenore,
however, was never known to make a plaint; and she came to table with
her cheeks hardly paler than usual, though her downcast eyes were
shrunken with tears, and their lids were tinged with feverish red.
Men say that it is one of the irrevocable blessings that Time should
move as surely as he does. But when the hours, nay, the minutes, lag
away as drearily as they did in Le Crépuscule that winter, one feels no
gratitude to Time; but rather a resentment that his immortality should
be so dead-alive. Yet winter did pass, however slowly. In March the
frozen chains of the prisoned earth were riven. Streams began to flow
fast and full. The snow melted and soaked into the rich, black soil,
making it ready for the seed. The doors of the peasants’ huts were
opened to the sun and rain. Flocks of storks began to fly northward on
their return from the Nile to their unsettled fatherland. Spring caught
the earth in a tender embrace; and wherever her warm breath touched the
soil, a flower appeared, to mark the kiss.
To Lenore the spring warmth was as heaven to a soul newly freed from
earth-sorrow and suffering. Now the windows of her room could all be
thrown wide open to the outer air. The whole sea lay before her, strewn
with sunlight, and frosted with white foam. She saw the fishing-fleet
from St. Nazaire go up past the bay, on its way to the herring
fisheries; and then she was suddenly inspired again with an
uncontrollable desire for the sea. That afternoon she sent one of her
damsels to find Courtoise. He came to her room breathless, and eager to
learn her will; and to him, without delay, she made known her imperative
wish to be upon the sea.
Courtoise found himself in a dilemma. He knew that there was a boat at
her disposal, for he and Laure and Alixe had now been sailing every day
for a fortnight. He believed Lenore to be aware of this, though as a
matter of fact she was not; nevertheless he at first refused her request
point-blank. After that, because she wept, he temporized. Finally, in
despair, he went and consulted madame, who was horrified at the idea.
Lenore still insisted, appealed to every one in the Castle, from Alixe
and Laure to the very scullions. Finding herself repulsed on every hand
and powerless to act of her own accord, she became, all at once, utterly
irresponsible, and made a scene that threatened to end everything with
her. Half unbalanced by months of illness and lonely brooding, and
tortured by this morbid and unreasonable fancy, she wept and screamed
and raved, and threw herself about her bed, till she was in a state of
complete exhaustion, and every one in the Castle awaited the result of
her paroxysm with unconcealed distress.
After this time she did not leave her bed. She was very weak, and she
seemed to have lost all ambition and all desire to move or even to
speak. Her days she spent in silent moodiness, her nights in tossing
feverishly about the bed. She seemed to take no notice of the little
attentions so tenderly showered upon her by every one; except that she
was pleased to see the little spring flowers, tender pink bells and
anemones, that David and Courtoise spent hours in gathering at the edge
of the forest on the St. Nazaire road. Upon these she smiled, and for
many days kept a bouquet of them at her side, carrying them often to her
lips. But after a little while she grew impatient of these simple
flowers, and began to plead for violets, which no one in the world could
find in Brittany before May. Courtoise brooded for two days over his
inability to supply her want, and every one condoled her. Indeed, her
own condition was not more pathetic than that of the Castle household in
their eagerness for her welfare and her happiness, and for the welfare
of that other precious soul that was in her keeping. Madame prayed night
and morning for the heir of Le Crépuscule. Laure sewed for him, talked
of him, dreamed of him, and bitterly envied Lenore. And now there was no
whisper in the Castle that was not understood to pertain to “the little
lord.”
At last there came an April twilight when the glow of the sunset was
growing dim beneath the lowering veil of night. Lenore had passed an
unusually quiet day, and was now lying in her bed, quite still and
tranquil. That afternoon David had been admitted to her presence, and
had amused her with tales from the fairy-lore of Brittany, which she
dearly loved. Now he was gone, and Madame Eleanore sat in her room
beside the bed. The two had been silent for some time when Lenore’s eyes
opened, and she said softly,—
“Madame, hast ever thought that there might be a daughter of Le
Crépuscule? That is what I believe.”
“God forbid!” exclaimed Eleanore, involuntarily. Then, as Lenore turned
a white, half-resentful face toward her, madame went on hurriedly:
“There must be no more daughters of this house, Lenore. ’Tis what I
could scarcely bear,—to see another maiden grow up in this endless
twilight—” Her voice trailed off into silence, and then, for a long
time, the women were still together, thinking.
A tear or two stole from Lenore’s eyes and meandered down her cheek to
the folds of her white gown; but her weeping was noiseless. The evening
darkened. A sweet, rich breath of spring blew softly in from off the
sea. Finally, one by one, the jewels of night began to gleam out from
the sky. Each woman, unknown to the other, was offering up a prayer. And
it was in the midst of this quiet scene that Lenore started suddenly up,
knowing that her agony had begun.
No one in Le Crépuscule slept that night. Laure was called to help her
mother; and the three women were alone in the bedroom of dead Gerault.
The demoiselles, all dressed, had assembled in the spinning-room, and
clustered there in the torchlight, whispering nervously together, and
listening with strained ears for any sounds coming from Madame Lenore’s
bedchamber. In the hall below were a company of servants, women and men,
and a half-dozen henchmen, who quaffed occasional flagons of beer, but
spoke not a word through the hours. David and Alixe sat in a corner
playing at chess together; and a wondrous game it was, for neither knew
when the other was in check, nor paid attention to a queen in jeopardy.
Lastly, Courtoise was there, pacing up and down the hall, his hands
clenched behind him, and the beads of sweat rolling off his face. And
how many miles he walked that night, he never knew.
The hours passed solemnly away, and there was no sign from the holy room
above. Time dragged by, slowly and yet more slowly, till the hours
became as years; and it seemed that ages had gone when finally the dawn
came creeping from beyond the distant hills, and a pale light glimmered
across the moving waters. By the time the torches were flaring high in
their mingling with the daybreak, there came, from above, the sound of a
door softly opening and then closing again. In the hall below, no one
breathed. Courtoise paused beside a table, and trembled and shook with
cold. Alixe, very pale and white, moved slowly toward the stairs. There
was a faint sound of rustling garments across the stones of the upper
hall, and then, descending step by step in the wavering light, came
Laure, great-eyed and deathly white, after the night’s terrible toil.
She came alone, carrying nothing in her arms; and on the fifth step from
the floor she stopped still, and looked down upon the motionless
company. Once she tried to speak, and her throat failed her.
“Mademoiselle—in the name of God!” pleaded Courtoise, hoarsely.
Laure trembled a little. “Good friends,” she said, “Madame Lenore is
safely delivered; and there is—a new daughter in Le Crépuscule.”
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER FOURTEEN_
ELEANORE
[Illustration]
When Laure, her message given, started back upstairs again, Alixe was at
her side. At Lenore’s door they both stopped, till madame opened it.
Laure entered the room at once, but Eleanore shook her head at the
maiden, and bade her seek her rest. Then Alixe, disappointed, but too
weary for speech, followed the chattering demoiselles down the corridor
where were all their rooms, and, saying not a word to one of them, shut
herself into her own chamber. Once there, she disrobed with speed, but
when she had crept into her bed and pulled the coverings up above her,
she found that sleep was an impossibility. There was a dull weight at
her heart, which for the moment she could not analyze. It was as if some
great misfortune had befallen her. Yet Lenore lived—was remarkably well.
And the child—ah, the child! It was the first, almost, that Alixe had
thought of the child. A girl, another girl, in Le Crépuscule! a thing of
inaction, of resignation, of quiescence; the sport of Fate; the jest of
the age! Alas, alas! A girl! To grow up alone, here in this wilderness,
companionless, without hope of escape! Thus, dully, inarticulately,
every one in Le Crépuscule was meditating with Alixe, till at last, one
by one, they fell asleep, each in his late bed.
The morning was far spent, and an April sun streamed brightly across her
coverlet, when Alixe finally awoke. Her sleep had done her good, and
there was no trace of melancholy in her air as she rose and made herself
ready for the day. She was healthfully hungry, but there was another
interest, greater than hunger, that had caused her so speedily to dress.
Hurrying out and down the hall, she stopped at the door to Lenore’s
room, and tapped there softly.
Laure opened it at once, and smiled a good-morning to her. “Come thou
in,” she whispered. “Lenore would have thee see the child.”
Alixe entered softly, and halted near the bed, transfixed by the sight
of Lenore. Never, even in the early days of her bridal, had Gerault’s
lady been so beautiful. The mysterious spell of her holy estate was on
her, was clearly visible in her brilliant eyes, in the rosy flush of her
cheeks, in the coiling, burning gold of her wondrous hair, in the
smiling, gentle languor of her manner. There was something newly born in
her, some still ecstasy, that had come to her together with the tiny
bundle at her side.
“Come thou, Alixe, and look at her,” she said, in a weak voice, smiling
happily, and casting tender love-looks at the little thing.
Alixe went over, and, with Laure’s aid, unwrapped enough of the small
creature for her to see its tiny, red face and feeble, fluttering hands.
As she gently touched one of the cheeks, the wide, blue, baby eyes
stared up at her, unwinking in their new wonder at the world; while
Lenore watched them, eagerly, hungrily. Neither she nor Alixe noticed
that Laure had moved off to a distance, and was staring dully out of a
window. When Alixe had stood for some moments over the baby, wondering
in her heart what to say to Lenore, the mother looked up at her with
those newly unfathomable eyes, and said softly,—
“Put her into my arms, Alixe.”
Alixe did so, laying the infant carefully across the mother’s breast.
Lenore’s arms closed around it, and her eyes fell shut while a smile of
unutterable peace lighted up her gentle face.
Alixe knew that it was time for her to go, and, moved as she had never
been moved before in her young life, she started toward the door,
glancing as she went at Laure, who followed her.
“How beautiful she is!” whispered Alixe, as they stood together on the
threshold.
Laure nodded, but there was no sign of joy in her face. “Alas for them
both!” she said quietly. “There have been enough daughters in Le
Crépuscule.”
To this Alixe could find no reply, and so, with a slight nod, she left
the room and went down to the morning meal. Madame Eleanore was not
there. After the strain of the past night, she had gone to her room a
little after sunrise, leaving Laure to care for the young mother. At
breakfast, then, Courtoise and Alixe sat nearest the head of the table,
but they did not talk together. In fact, no one said very much during
the course of the meal. Instead of the joyful gayety that might have
been expected, now that their dead lord’s lady was safely through her
trial, a dull gloom seemed to overhang everything, to weigh every one
down: Courtoise ate in silence, heavy-browed and brooding, his head bent
far over; David, in no humor for wit, scarcely spoke; even Alixe, whose
heart had been somewhat lightened by the sight of Lenore and her
happiness, presently succumbed to the atmosphere, and began to reflect
that the last hope of the Castle was gone, that the line of Crépuscule
had died forever. And neither she nor any one else paused to think that,
if the little Twilight baby asleep upstairs had understood the true
nature of her welcome into the world, she might readily have been
persuaded to escape again, as rapidly as possible, into her blue ether,
where pain and unwelcome were things unknown.
When Alixe had eaten, she returned to the sick-room and, madame being
still asleep, insisted upon taking Laure’s place till the weary girl had
eaten and slept. Lenore had already taken some nourishment, and the baby
had been fed; and, while the noon sunshine poured a flood of gold over
the world, the mother and child drowsed happily together in their bed.
Alixe, having set the room as much to rights as was possible, seated
herself by one of the open windows, and straightway began to dream. Her
thoughts were of her own life, of the new life that she should now soon
enter upon, and of what would befall her when she should really reach
the vast world that lay behind the barrier of eastern hills,—that world
that Laure had found, but could not stay in; that world from which
Lenore had come, and whither Gerault had betaken himself to die. Alixe
mused for a long time, and, in her untaught way, philosophized over the
sad stories of those in the Castle, and the prospect of a real history
that there might be for her when she should leave Le Crépuscule; and it
was in the midst of this reverie that the door from Laure’s room opened
softly, and madame came in.
Near the threshold she paused, looking intently at the sleeping mother
and child, so that she did not at first perceive Alixe, who sat
motionless, transfixed by the change which, since yesterday, had come
upon madame. If there were gloom throughout the Castle, because of a
disappointment in the sex of Lenore’s child, that gloom was epitomized
in the face of Madame Eleanore. She was paler and older than Alixe had
ever seen her before. The white in her hair was more marked than the
dark. Every line in her face had deepened. Her eyes, tearless as they
were, seemed somehow faded, and her manner bespoke an unutterable
weariness. She looked haggard and old and worn. And yet, as she gazed at
the unconscious picture of youth and tender love, the joy of the world,
and the life of her race asleep there before her, her face softened, and
her mouth lost a little of its hardness.
After some moments of this gazing, seeing that still she had not moved,
Alixe went to her.
“Laure was weary, madame, and so I took her place while Lenore and the
baby slept,” she said.
Eleanore nodded, and Alixe wondered uneasily if she should leave the
room. After a second or two, however, madame shook away her
preoccupation and turned to the girl.
“Alixe,” she said, “none hath as yet been despatched for Monseigneur de
St. Nazaire; and I will not have Anselm baptize the child. Go thou and
tell Courtoise to ride and fetch the Bishop as soon as may be, to
perform one last ceremony for this house. Give him my good greeting.
Tell him Lenore is well—and the babe—a girl. Mon Dieu! a girl!—Haste
thee, Alixe. And thou needst not return. I will sit here while Lenore
sleeps.”
Alixe bowed, but still stood hesitating, near the door, till madame
looked up at her impatiently.
“When I have given Courtoise his message, let me bring thee food and
wine, madame. Thou’lt be ill, an thou eat not.”
“Nay. Begone, Alixe! Bring nothing to me. Why should I eat? Why should I
eat, when after me there will be none of mine to eat in Crépuscule?” And
it was with a kind of groan that madame moved slowly across to the
bedside. When Alixe left the room she was still standing there, gazing
down upon Lenore, who, if awake, could hardly have borne the look with
which madame regarded her.
An hour later, Courtoise was on his way to St. Nazaire; but he did not
return with Monseigneur till evensong of the next day. Arrived at the
Castle, the Bishop was given chance for food and rest after his ride,
before he was summoned to Lenore’s room, where madame received him. From
Courtoise, on their way, St. Nazaire had learned of the disappointment
of the Castle; so that he was prepared for what he found. He read
Eleanore’s mind from her face, and was not surprised at it, but from his
own manner no one could have told that he felt anything but the utmost
delight with the whole affair. He was full of congratulations and
felicitations of every kind; he was witty, he was gay, he was more
talkative than any one had ever seen him before; and he took the baby
and handled it, cried to it, cooed to it, with the air of an experienced
old beldame. Lenore, still radiant with her happiness of motherhood,
brightened yet more under the cheer of his presence; and in her
unexpected joy the Bishop found some consolation for the cloud of misery
that shrouded madame. Indeed, he watched Lenore with unaffected delight,
seeing with amazement the miracle that had been worked in her, and
knowing her now for the first time as what she had been before her
marriage, when there was, in her nature, none of the melancholy, the
morbidness, the pain of loneliness, that had for so long clouded her
life.
Lenore was not strong enough to endure even his cheerful presence very
long; and when Laure presently stole in, he seized the opportunity that
he had been waiting for, and, on some light excuse, drew madame with him
out of the room.
The moment that they were alone together, his gay manner dropped from
him like a cloak, and he looked upon the woman before him with piercing
eyes.
“Eleanore,” he said severely, “it were well an thou came with me for a
little time before God. There is written on thy face the tale of that
old-time inward rebellion that hath been so long asleep that I had hoped
it dead.”
Madame looked at him with something of defiance, displeasure very
plainly to be read in her brilliant eyes. “My lord,” she said coldly,
“thou’rt wearied with thy ride. It were well an thou soughtest rest.”
“I have already rested. Where wouldst thou rather be,—in thine own room,
or in the chapel?”
“Charles!” madame spoke with angry impetuosity. “Think you I am to be
treated as a child?”
“There are times when all of us are children, Eleanore,—times when we
need the Father-hand, the Father-guidance. I would not be harsh with
thee were there another way; nevertheless, thou must do my bidding.”
She led him in silence to her own room, and they entered it together,
St. Nazaire closing the door behind him. Madame seated herself at once
in a broad chair near a window, and the Bishop paced up and down before
her. The room was warm, for the night air was soft, and a half-dead fire
gleamed upon the stone hearth. A torch upon the wall had been lighted,
and two candles burned on the table near by. By this light St. Nazaire
could watch Eleanore’s face as he walked. It was some moments before he
spoke, and when he began, his voice had changed again, and was as gentle
as a woman’s,—
“This birth of a girl child hath been a grievous disappointment to thee,
dear friend?”
Eleanore replied only by a look; but what words could have expressed
half so much?
“Art thou angry with me, Eleanore! Am I to blame for it? Is there fault
in any one for what is come? Sex is no matter of choice with the world.
Were it so, methinks thou hadst not now been grieving.”
“Thou sayest truly, it is no matter of choice with the world. But hast
not ever taught that there is One who may choose always as He will?
There is a fault, and it is the fault of God! God of God, Charles, have
I not had enough to bear? Could I not, now that the end cannot be far
away, have known a little content in mine old age? What hath there been
for me, these thirty years, save sorrow? With the death of Gerault, I
believed that the world held no further woe for me; but in the following
months hope, which I had thought forever gone, came on me again, combat
its coming as I would. Yet the thought that an heir might be born to
Crépuscule, the thought that the line might yet be carried on to
something better than this eternal sadness, came to be so strong with me
that I gave way, fool that I was, to joy. And now, by the merciless
wrath of God, Fate makes sport of me again. God alone would have been so
pitiless. And am I, a mortal, to forgive the Almighty for all the woes
that He recklessly putteth on me?”
In this speech Eleanore’s low voice had risen above its usual pitch, and
rang out in tones of deep-seated, passionate anger. St. Nazaire paused
in his walk to look at her as she spoke; and never had he felt himself
in a more difficult position. Sincere as was his belief, there were,
indeed, things in the divine order that his creed could not explain
away. He dreaded to take the only orthodox stand,—resignation and
continued praise of the Lord, for in Eleanore’s present state of mind
this would be worse than mockery; and yet in this he was obliged at
length to take his refuge.
“Eleanore, when Laure, the infant, was first put into thy arms, wast
thou grieved that she was not a man child?”
“I had Gerault—”
“Hast thou not loved Laure and cared for her throughout thy life because
she was thy child, flesh of thy flesh, blood of thy blood, conceived of
great love, and born of suffering?”
“Yea, verily.”
“And, despite her months of grievous wandering from thy sight, still
hath she not given thee all the joy that Gerault gave?”
“More, methinks; in that she hath ever been more mine own.”
“Then, Eleanore,” and there was joy in the man’s tone, “take this child
of thy son to thy heart and love her. Let her young innocence bring thee
peace. Hold her close to thy life, and give and receive comfort through
thy love. Seek not woe because she is not what she cannot be. Assume not
a knowledge greater than that of God. Trouble not thyself about the
future; but, rather, take what is given thee, and know that it is good.
Shall not a young voice cause these walls to echo again to the sound of
laughter? Will not a child bring light into thy life? Why shouldst thou
grieve because, in the years after thy death, Le Crépuscule may fall
into other hands than those of thy race? Thinkest thou thou wilt be here
to see it? For shame, Eleanore! Forget thy bitterness, and find the joy
that Gerault’s widow already knows!”
Though she would not have acknowledged it, Eleanore was influenced by
the Bishop’s words; and the change in her was already visible in her
face. Judging wisely, then, St. Nazaire let his plea rest where it was,
and blessing her, said good-night and left her to sleep or to pray—he
could not tell which. And in truth Eleanore slept; but in her sleep,
love and pity entered into her heart. She woke in the early dawn, and,
hardly thinking what she did, stole into Lenore’s room, creeping softly
to the bed where the sleeping mother and infant lay. At sight of them a
wave of feeling overswept her. She knew again the crowning joy of
woman’s life: she felt again the glory of youth; and when she returned
to her solitude, it was to weep away the greater part of her bitterness,
and to take into her inmost heart the helpless baby of Gerault.
On the following morning, in the presence of an imposing company, the
Lord Bishop officiating, the little girl was baptized. Laure and
Courtoise were the godparents; Laure feeling that, in being trusted with
this holy office, she stood once more honorably in the eyes of the
world. According to her mother’s wish, the babe was christened Lenore,
and Alixe guessed wrong when she thought the little one called after
another of that name. When the ceremony was over, and the baptismal
feast lay ready spread, madame took the child into her arms to carry it
back to the mother; and St. Nazaire, seeing the kiss that she pressed
upon the tiny cheek, realized that the cause was won.
Madame Eleanore’s lead was quickly followed by every one in the Castle;
and the disappointment at the baby’s sex wore away so rapidly that in a
month probably no one would have admitted that there had ever been any
chagrin at all. Perhaps no royal heir had ever known more abject homage
than was paid to that wee, bright-eyed, grave-faced, helpless creature,
who was perfectly contented only when she lay in her mother’s arms.
Lenore regained her strength slowly. Her long winter of idleness and
grieving had ill-fitted her to bear the strain of what she had endured;
and it was many weeks before she tried to leave her room. Thus, bit by
bit, the whole life of the Castle came to gravitate around her chamber.
It was like a court of which the young mother was queen, and where at
certain hours of the day, all the women-folk of Crépuscule were wont to
congregate. It was on an afternoon in the middle of May, when summer
first hovered over the land, that Lenore was dressed for the first time.
She sat in a semi-reclining position by the window, whence she could
look off upon the sea, the baby at her side, and Alixe the only other
person in the room. For nearly an hour Lenore had been silent, one hand
gently caressing the baby’s little cheek, her big eyes wandering along
the far horizon line. Alixe was bent over a parchment manuscript, which
Anselm had taught her how to read, and she scarcely raised her eyes from
it to look at anything in the room. Her passage had become complicated,
and, at the same time, interesting, when Lenore’s voice suddenly broke
in upon her,—
“Alixe, ’tis long time now since I saw Courtoise. Thinkest thou he is
near and would come and talk to me?”
Alixe let her poetry go, and jumped hastily up. “I will seek him. An he
be about the Castle, he will surely come.”
Lenore smiled with pleasure. “Thank thee, maiden. Let him come now, at
once.”
Alixe, hugging Courtoise’s secret to her heart, hurriedly left the room,
and ran downstairs, straight upon Courtoise, who stood in the hall
below. He was booted and spurred, and his horse waited for him in the
doorway. Making a hasty apology to Alixe, he was going on, when she
cried to him: “Courtoise, stay! Madame Lenore seeks thy presence. She
would have thee go to her and talk with her for an hour this afternoon.
Shall I tell her thou’rt ridden hawking?”
“Holy Mary! Say that—say that I come instantly. She hath asked for me?
Hurry, Alixe! Say that I come at once!”
Courtoise retreated to his room, trembling like a girl. He had forgotten
his horse, which Alixe considerately caused to be taken back to the
stable, and while he removed his spurs and fussily rearranged his dress
and hair, he tried in vain to recover his equanimity. Then, when he
could no longer torture himself with delay, he hurried away to the door
of her room and there paused again, remembering how many times since her
illness he had stood there, both by night and by day, listening, not
always vainly, for the sound of her voice, or for the little wailing cry
of the hungry babe. And now—now he was to enter that sacred room, holier
to him than any consecrated church of God. Now he was to look at her, to
touch her hand, to feast his eyes upon her exquisite face. He drew a
long breath and was about to tap on the door, when it suddenly opened,
and Alixe, finding herself face to face with him, gave a little
exclamation,—
“Holy saints! I was just coming to seek thee again. Hadst forgotten that
madame waits for thee? There—go in!”
Courtoise never noticed the mischief of Alixe’s tone, but went straight
into the room, and saw Lenore sitting by the window with the baby on her
lap. She turned toward him, smiling, and holding out her hand. He went
over, looking at her thirstily, but not so that she could read what was
in his heart. Then he realized vaguely that Alixe had left the room, and
that he was alone with Lenore.
“’Tis very long, Courtoise, very long, since we have seen each other.
Why hast thou not come ere now?”
“Madame! Had I but thought thou’dst have had me! Thrice every day during
thy illness came I to thy door to ask after thee and the babe; and since
then—often—I have stood and listened, to hear if thou wast speaking here
within. But I did not know—”
“Enough, Courtoise! I thank thee. Thou’rt very good. Thou knowest
thou’rt all that I have left of Gerault, and I would fain have thee
oftener near me. Wilt take the babe? Little one! She feels the strength
of a man’s arms but seldom. Sit there yonder with her. So!”
She put the tiny bundle into his strong arms, and laughed to see the
half-terrified air with which the young fellow bore it over to the
settle which she indicated. But when he had sat down, he laid the baby
on his knees, and then, retaining careful hold of it, turned his whole
look upon Lenore.
She smiled at him, supremely unconscious of the electric thrills that
were making the man’s whole body quiver and tremble with emotion.
Indeed, it would have been difficult enough to read his feeling in his
matter-of-fact manner. For a long time they sat there, talking upon many
subjects, but most of all about Gerault, whose name had scarcely crossed
Lenore’s lips since the time of his death. To Courtoise it was an acute
pain to hear her refer to the various incidents of her courtship in
Rennes; but back of her words there was no suggestion of either grief or
bitterness. She recalled her first acquaintance with Gerault fully,
incident by incident, and caused Courtoise to take an unwilling part in
the reminiscences. He hoped continually to get her away from the
subject, to matters now nearer both of them; but time sped on, and, as
the sun began to near the sea, the baby woke from sleep with a little
cry that Courtoise recognized with a pang. His hour was over; and he had
gained little hope from it. Yet, as he returned the baby to its mother’s
arms, there was a smile for him in Lenore’s calm eyes, and he retreated
with a beating heart as Madame Eleanore and Laure came together into the
room, to spend their usual evening hour with the mother and child.
This hour of the day, the twilight time, the time of yearning for things
long gone, had of late weeks been drawing these three women of the
Twilight Castle very close together. Laure, Lenore, and Eleanore, these
three, with Alixe ofttimes a shadow in the background, were accustomed
to sit together, watching the sunset die over the great waters, and
waiting for the appearance of the evening star upon the fading glow. And
in this time of silent companionship each felt within her a new growth,
a new, half-sorrowful love for the life in this lonely habitation. The
spell of solitude was weaving about them a slow, strong bond, which in
after years none of the three felt any wish to break. Many
dream-shadows, the ghosts of forgotten lives, rose up for each out of
the darkening waste of the sea; and with these spirits of memory or
imagination, each one was making a life as real and as strong as the
lives of those that dwelt out in the great world, for which, at one time
or another, all of them had so deeply yearned. Each felt, in her heart,
that her active life was over; and, as time passed, and thoughts began
adequately to take the place of realities, none of them cared to keep
alive the sharp stings of bitterness or of unavailing regret. They knew
themselves dead to the great, outer life that each, in her way, had
known. Nor did they mourn themselves. What fire of life remained with
them had been transformed into secret dreams and ambitions for the
future of that little creature swathed so carefully from the world, now
lying peacefully asleep upon the mother-breast of Gerault’s widow.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER FIFTEEN_
THE RISING TIDE
[Illustration]
Summer was on the world again, and with its coming, melancholy was
banished for a season from Le Crépuscule. With the first northward
flight of storks, a new air, a breath of hidden life and gayety, crept
into the Castle household, and, in the early days of June, broke forth
in a riot of pleasures,—caroles, garland-weaving parties, and hunting.
As in former times, Laure was now the moving spirit in every sport, and,
to the general amazement, madame, who in her younger days had been
celebrated at the chase, herself headed one of the rabbit-hunts,—in that
day a favorite pastime with women.
The country around Le Crépuscule was as beautiful in summer as it was
desolate in winter; for the moorlands were one gay tangle of
many-colored wild-flowers. The cultivated land around the peasants’
homes was thick with various crops, and the cool, green depths of the
forest hid beauties surpassing all those of the open country. The
stables of Le Crépuscule were well supplied with horses, for the family,
both women and men, had always been persistent riders. In these June
days the women-folk, Madame and Laure and the demoiselles, rode early
and late, deserting wheel, loom, and tambour frame to revel in a
much-needed rest and change of occupation. Only Lenore refused to take
part in the sports, finding pleasure enough at home with the child, who
was growing to be a fine lusty infant, with a smile as ready as if she
had been born in Rennes. And the mother and child were happy enough to
sit all day in the flower-strewn meadow, between the north wall and the
dry moat, playing together with bright posies, watching the movements of
the birds in the open falconry, and sometimes taking part in quieter
revels with the others. Ere June was gone, the demoiselles were scarcely
to be recognized for the pale, heavy-eyed, pallid things that had been
wont to assemble in the great hall after supper on winter evenings to
listen to the stories told round the fire. Now their laughter was ever
ready, their feet light for the dance, their cheeks brown, and their
eyes bright with the continual riot in sunlight and sea-winds. Winter
lay behind, like the shadow of an ugly dream, and now, of a sudden,
God’s world, and with it Le Crépuscule, became beautiful for man.
In the first week of July, however, the period of gayety was checked by
the loss of four members of the household. Two of the demoiselles of
noble family, whom madame had taken to train as gentlewomen of rank,
Berthe de Montfort and Isabelle de Joinville, had now been in Le
Crépuscule the customary time for the acquirement of etiquette and the
arts of needlework, and escorts arrived from their homes to convoy them
away. After their departure, the squires Louis of Florence and Robert
Meloc resigned their places and rode out into the world, to seek a life
of action.
There were now left in Le Crépuscule the demoiselles whom Lenore had
brought with her from Rennes a year ago, and two others who had come to
madame many years ago, and who must perforce stay on, having no other
home than this, living as they did upon madame’s bounty. And there were
also two young squires, who had sworn fealty to madame, but hoped some
day to ride to Rennes and win their spurs in the lists of their Lord
Duke. For the present they were content to remain out on the lonely
coast, where Courtoise taught them the articles of knighthood, and where
twenty stout henchmen could look up to them as superiors. These, with
David le petit, Anselm the steward, Alixe, Courtoise, and a young
peasant woman, who had come to foster the infant of Madame Lenore,
comprised the attendants of the three ladies of Crépuscule. It was a
well-knit little company, and one so accustomed to the quiet life, that
none of them save only one desired better things.
Of the mood of Alixe during these summer months, much might be said.
Throughout the spring she had been in a state of hot desire for what was
not in Le Crépuscule. She was filled with unrest; but her plans were too
vague, too indefinite, for immediate action. Strong as was the will that
would have carried her through any difficulty that lay not in the
condition of her heart, she was still, after nearly six months of
dreaming and debating, in Le Crépuscule. Still she labored through the
long, dull mornings; and still, through the afternoons, she drifted
about through moving seas of doubt and yearning. She longed for the
world, but she could not give up Le Crépuscule, and those whom it held.
Here was her problem,—which way to turn. She felt that another such
winter as she had just passed would drive her senses from her; but she
knew that anywhere outside Le Crépuscule the visions of three faces, the
fair, sad faces of her ladies, would haunt her by day and by night till
she should return to them at last. She carried her struggle always with
her, and at length it drove her to seek an old-time solitude. She began
to spend her afternoons in a cave in the great cliff north of that on
which the Castle stood. This cave had been formed by the action of the
water, and it stretched in cavernous darkness far into the wall of
rock,—much farther than Alixe had ever dared to go. Near the entrance,
four or five feet above the tide-washed floor, was a little ledge where
she was accustomed to sit till the rising water drove her to the upper
shore. Tides, in Brittany, are proverbially high; and at full tide the
top of the cave’s opening was scarcely visible above the water; so it
behooved Alixe to restrain herself from sleep while she lay therein,
meditating on her other life.
On the 19th of July the tide was at low ebb at half-past two in the
afternoon; and at three o’clock Alixe entered the cave, and climbed,
dry-shod, up to her ledge of rock. Here, as she knew, she was safe for
two hours, if she chose to stay so long.
The interior of this cave was by no means an uninteresting place, though
Alixe had never yet explored it beyond the space of twenty feet, where
it was bright with the daylight that poured in through its jagged
entrance. After that it wound a darker way into the cliff, and the far
recesses were lost in utter blackness. A spoken word directed toward the
inner passage-way would reverberate along that mysterious interior till
one could not but be a little awed at the vast extent of the lost
passage. The visible floor of the cavern was a thing of interest and
beauty, for at low tide it was like a little park, where pools of clear
sea-water alternated with groves of filmy plants, small ridges of
pebbles and rocks, and patches of delicately ribbed sand, where every
species of shell-fish dwelt. At times Alixe spent hours in studying
sea-life in these places; and certainly, on hot summer afternoons, no
pleasanter occupation could have been found. Probably others than Alixe
would have taken to it, were it not for the fact that the cave was the
scene of one of the weirdest legends of the coast, and was held in
avoidance as much by Castle folk as by the peasantry. Alixe, however,
had long been held to possess some uncanny power over the people of the
supernatural world, for she would venture fearlessly into the most
unholy spots, emerging unharmed and undisturbed; nor could any one ever
learn from her whether or not she had actually held intercourse with the
creatures whom they devoutly believed in, and so devoutly dreaded.
To-day, certainly, there was no suggestion of the uncanny about her as
she lay upon her ledge of rock, looking off upon the sparkling waters
that danced up to the very edge of her retreat. With one hand she shaded
her eyes from the golden glare, and her head was pillowed on her other
arm. Her usually smooth brow was puckered into a frown for which the sun
was not responsible; nor yet was Alixe’s mind upon any subject that
might be supposed to anger or distress her. For the moment she had
dropped her inward debate, and was lazily watching the sea. The warmth
of the afternoon had made her drowsy, and now the shadowy coolness of
the cave soothed her till her vivid mental images had become a little
blurred, and the sparkle of the water and its crispy rustle, as it
advanced and retreated over the sand outside, was luring her mind into
the faery wastes of dreamland. She wondered a little whether she were
awake or asleep; but, in point of fact, her eyes were not actually shut,
when a slender figure came round a corner of the entrance, and slipped
lightly into the cave.
Alixe started, and sat up straight, while a high tenor voice cried out:
“Ho, Mistress Alixe, ’tis thou, then? Is’t I that discover thee in thy
retreat, or thou that hast invaded mine?”
“Ohé, David, thou’st startled me! Meseemeth I all but slept.”
“’Tis a day for sleep, but this is not the place. Is there room there on
the ledge? Wilt let me up? ’Tis wet enough, below here.”
“Yea; thy feet slop i’ the sand, and thou’st frightened two crabs. Canst
climb hither?”
He laughed merrily, and scrambled up beside her, his light body seeming
but a feather in weight. She made room beside her, and he sat down
there, cocking one parti-colored knee upon the other, and beginning
lightly: “Thus bravely, then, thou comest into the cave of the water
goblin. Art thou, perchance, courted here by some sly water sprite?”
The maiden, responding to his mood, laughed also. “Not unless thou’lt
play the sprite, Master David. Say—wilt court me?”
“Nay, sister. Thou and I, and all i’ the Castle up above, know each
other in a way that admits no love-foolery. Heigho!” The little man’s
tone had changed to one of whimsical earnestness. Alixe made no
immediate reply to his speech, and so, to entertain himself, he took
from his open bag two pebbles, and began to toss them lightly into the
air, one after the other.
For a few seconds Alixe watched him absently. Then she said: “Those
pebbles, David, are like thee and me. Watch now which will be the first
to fall from thy hand. Thou’rt the mottled; I the gray.”
“And I, damsel,” said he, as he began to handle them a little less
carelessly, “I, who sit here forever, for my amusement tossing into the
air two light souls, catching them when they come back to me, and
flinging them again away—who am I, I ask?”
“Thou, David?” Alixe’s face took on a little, bitter smile. “Why, thou
art that inexorable thing that men call God. Wilt never drop thy stones
from their wearisome sphere, Almighty One?”
“They will not fall. They return to me evermore,” he answered; and,
after another toss or two, he let them both remain in his hand while he
looked at them for a moment. After that he put them back into his bag
again, with a curious smile. “That, then, is our end,” he remarked, at
last.
“_Is_ it our end? David, David! Shall I not leave Le Crépuscule, to fare
forth into the world? I dream, and dream, and vow unto myself that I
shall surely go; and then—I still remain.”
“Ay. There are things that keep thee here—and me too. There is the baby,
now, and its angel-faced mother. And then madame—how is one to leave
her, when she is a little more alive than formerly? I, too, Alixe, have
dreamed dreams. The fever of my boyhood, with its wanderings, its life,
its continual change, comes upon me strong sometimes. Here, in this
place, my wit lies buried, my soul grows gray within me, my eyes have
forgot the look of the world’s bright colors. And yet I stay on—I stay
on forever.”
“How if we two went out together, David, thou and I? Think you the world
might hold a place for us? I would be a good comrade, I promise thee. I
would march stoutly at thy side, nor complain when weariness overcame
me. We should not have always to beg for food, for I have a little bag—”
“See, Alixe, look! There below, on the sand, by that sharp-pointed
stone,—there is a gray-white crab. He must be hurt. See how he fumbles
and struggles, without avail, to reach the little pool ten inches from
him. Watch him; he makes no progress. Now that were thou and I, thrown
upon the world. Oh, this place is full of omens! I have found them here
before. ’Tis the witchery of the cave.”
Alixe failed to smile. This last augury, though it confirmed the one
that she herself had made, did not please her. She sat silent on the
ledge, her feet hanging, her elbows on her knees, her head on her hand,
watching intently all the little dramas taking place below her among the
sea-creatures. Nor was David in a mood to make conversation. So the two
of them sat silent for a long time—how long a time neither of them knew.
The water was growing more brightly golden under the beams of the
fast-descending sun, and Alixe noted the fact, but held her peace. It
was David who, after a little while, suddenly exclaimed,—
“Diable, Alixe! See how the tide hath risen! We shall be wet enough
getting out and back to the upper cliff. Come quickly!” As he spoke, he
slid from the ledge, landing in water that was up to his ankles.
“Quickly, Alixe! I will steady thee. Come, thou’lt but be the wetter if
thou stayest.”
Alixe sat motionless upon the ledge above, and looked calmly down upon
the dwarf.
“Reflect, David, how easy it were not to wet my ankles thus. How easy
’twould be just to sit here—until the stone should drop for the last
time into the hand of God.”
David stood looking up at her, wide-eyed. The idea was slow to pierce
his brain. “Why, yes,” said he, “’twere easy enow, easy enow. Yet when I
go, ’t must be from mine own room, and by a clean dagger-stroke. I care
not to choke myself to death in a goblin’s cave. Come, Alixe, the water
riseth.”
“Go thou on, David. I can come down when I will; for I have traversed
the way often.”
“Come down!”
“Nay, David.”
“Come down.”
“Nay.”
The water was deeper by four inches than it had been when he first
reached the bottom of the cave. The dwarf looked up at the girl, who sat
smiling at him, and his face reddened slightly. Then, without more ado,
he climbed back upon the ledge, and sat down beside Alixe, hanging his
dripping feet toward the water, which now covered the tallest of the
stones on the floor of the cave.
“David, thou must go. Climb down, and save thyself quickly. Thy slender
body cannot much longer breast the tide.”
David crossed his knees and clasped his hands around them. “If thou
stayest, I also will remain.”
“I beg of thee, go, ere it is too late!”
“Not without thee.”
“In the name of God I ask it.”
“We two were together in God’s hand.”
“Then so be it, David. Sit thou here beside me. We will wait together.”
The little man did not reply to her this time, and Alixe felt no more
need for speech. They sat there, occupied with their own thoughts, both
watching, under the spell of a peculiar fascination, how the green water
was mounting, mounting toward them. The cave was filled with blinding
light from the setting sun. The roar of the ocean, a voice mighty and
ineffable, filled all their consciousness. White-crested breakers rolled
in and broke below them, and their faces were wet with chill salt spray.
The water in the cave was waist-deep.
Alixe was growing cold. A deadly intoxication stole upon her senses, and
she bent far over the ledge to look into the swirling, foamy green below
her.
“By the Almighty God, His creation is wondrous! This is a scene worthy
of the end!” cried David, suddenly, in a hoarse, emotional tone.
Alixe started violently. The sound of a human voice, breaking in upon
the universal murmur of the infinite waters, sent a sudden stab to her
heart. In a quick flash, she beheld Lenore’s baby holding out its feeble
hands to her. Near it stood Laure, the penitent; and, on the other hand,
madame, with her great, grave, sorrowful eyes fixed full upon herself,
Alixe.
“David!” cried the girl, suddenly, wildly, above the roar of the tide:
“David! We must escape!—Quickly! Quickly! Quickly!”
As she spoke, she left the ledge, to find herself swaying almost
shoulder deep in the fierce, swelling water. “Come!” she cried, her face
livid with her new-born terror.
For an instant, David looked down upon her with something resembling a
smile. Then he followed her, and would have been carried off his feet in
the water, had not Alixe steadied him with one hand, while, with the
other, she clung to the rock above her head. The sudden chill woke
David’s senses, and he said sharply: “We must hurry, Alixe! There is no
time to lose.”
[Illustration:
_Hand in hand, by the murmurous
sea, they walked.—Page 427_
]
Then the two of them began their work of getting out of the cave. David,
with his small, lithe body clad in tight-fitting hosen and jerkin,
started to swim lightly through the water, diving headforemost into the
beating breakers, and rounding toward the shore with rather a sense of
pleasurable skill than anything else. But with Alixe, the case was
different. Her long skirts were soaked with water, and clung
disastrously about her feet. The idea of her swimming was vain; and she
grimly gave thanks for her height. But she found that the matter of
walking had its dangers too. The bottom of the cave and the outer
stretch that lay between her and safety was very uneven. She stumbled
over rocks and sank into sudden hollows, continually hampered by her
clinging skirts. Presently she fell, and a great breaker came tumbling
over her. In it she lost her self-control, and was presently rolling
helpless in the tide, gasping in sea-water with every terrified breath,
and unable to get her limbs free from their binding, clinging robe.
Alixe was very near death in earnest, now, and she knew it. Presently,
where a sweeping wave left her head for a moment above water, she sent
one hoarse, guttural shriek toward David, who had regained the land; and
he turned, horrified, to look at her. She heard his cry of amazement and
distress, and then she was rolled upon her face, and knew nothing more
till she found herself lying on the sand, with David bending over her,
whiter than death, and trembling like a woman.
She was dizzy and weak and sick, and her lungs ached furiously; yet with
it all, she saw David’s distress, and managed to keep herself conscious
by staring at him fixedly.
“Up, Alixe! Up!” he muttered. “Thou _must_ get up to the Castle. I
cannot carry thee there, and here thou’lt perish. Up, I say! Here, hold
to my belt. See, the water is upon us again.”
With an effort that seemed to her to be superhuman, Alixe struggled to
her feet. He held her dripping skirts away from her, so that she could
walk as little hampered as possible; and though she staggered and reeled
at every step, they still made progress, and were halfway up the cliff
before she collapsed again, utterly exhausted. Happily, at that moment,
David spied the figure of Laure at the top of the cliff, and he cried to
her with all the strength that was left him to come down. In a moment
she was beside them, staring in silent astonishment at their plight.
“The demoiselle Alixe had a fancy for bathing. She hath bathed,”
observed David.
Alixe did not speak. But suddenly her eyes met Laure’s, and she burst
into hysterical laughter. Laure, being a woman, realized that she was
strained to the point of collapse. So she bade David go on before them
and take all precautions to recover from his bath; and then, as soon as
Alixe signified her ability to go on again, Laure put one of her strong,
young arms about the dripping body, and, sustaining more than half her
weight, succeeded in getting her to the Castle. Alixe demurred faintly
about going in, for she dreaded questions. But it was that hour of the
day when the open rooms of the Castle were deserted, when all the world
was asleep or at play, and, as the two crossed the courtyard and went
through the lower hall, they met no one but a pair of henchmen who were
too respectful of Laure to voice their curiosity. As the young women
went through the upper hall, on their way to Alixe’s room, there came,
from behind Lenore’s closed door, the gurgling crow of the baby. At this
sound Alixe shuddered, and through her heart shot a pang of horrified
remorse at the crime she had so nearly committed.
A few moments later the exhausted girl lay in her bed, wrapped round
with blankets, her dripping garments stripped away, and her body glowing
again with the warmth of vigorous friction, while her wet hair was
fastened high on her head, away from her face. When Laure had removed,
as far as possible, every evidence of the escapade, she bent for a
moment over the pillow of her foster-sister, and then stole quietly
away. Alixe made no sign at her departure. She lay back in the bed, her
eyes closed, her face set like marble, her mind wandering vaguely over
the events of the afternoon. Gradually her world grew full of misty,
creeping shadows, and she was on the borderland of sleep, when some one
again bent over her, and the fragrant breath of hot wine came to her
nostrils. With an effort she shook her eyes open, to find Laure’s kindly
face above her, and Laure’s hand holding out to her a silver cup.
“Drink, Alixe. ’Twill give thee strength.”
Obediently, Alixe drank; and the posset sent a new glow of warmth
through her body.
“Now, if thou canst, thou must sleep.”
Alixe sent a thoughtful glance into her companion’s eyes, and there was
something in her look that caused Laure to take both of the trembling
hands in her own, and to wait for Alixe to speak.
“Nay, Laure, nay; I cannot sleep till I have told thee. Some one I must
tell,—some one that will understand. Let me confess to thee.”
Laure seated herself on the edge of the bed, Alixe still retaining her
hands. And Laure’s sad eyes looked down upon the drawn face of her
foster-sister, while she spoke. “Alixe,” she said softly, “methinks I
know thy confession. Thou hast tried to leave Le Crépuscule. Is it not
so?”
Alixe’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “It is so. I tried—to leave Le
Crépuscule.” The last she only whispered, faintly.
“But it drew thee back again? The Castle would not loose its hold on
thee? Even so was it with me. Methought I hated it, Alixe, with its
loneliness and its shadows and its vast silences. Yet however far away I
was, I found it always before my eyes, or hidden in my thoughts. Through
my hours of highest happiness I yearned for it; and it drew me back to
it at last.”
“It is true! It is true! I know thou speakest truth.”
“And thou wilt not try again to go away, my sister?”
“Not again; oh, not again! I could see you all, you and madame and
Madame Lenore, and your eyes called me back. It is my home, is’t not? I
have a place here, have I not? Ah, Laure, thou’st been so good to me!
Shall we not, thou and I, go back again into our childhood, and dream of
naught better than dwelling here forever in this place? Both of us have
sinned. And now we are come home into the shadow of the Castle of
Twilight, for forgiveness’ sake.”
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER SIXTEEN_
THE MIDDLE OF THE VALLEY
[Illustration]
Alixe had faith enough in David to believe that he would keep silent
about the affair of that afternoon, and her confidence was not
misplaced. No one save Laure knew of the caprice and the projected sin
that had led them into their dangerous plight. And to the dwarf’s credit
be it said that he never attached any blame to Alixe for their
adventure. Indeed, thereafter, his manner toward her was marked by
unusual consideration, a little veiled interest and sympathy, sprung
from a knowledge that their habits of mind had led them both in the same
ways of thought and desire. During the remainder of the summer, however,
neither of them ventured again into the Goblin’s Cave; and, from Alixe’s
mind at least, every thought, every desire, to leave the Castle, had
been washed away. Her dreams of another life were dead. And, as the
golden days slipped by, the thought that Le Crépuscule must be her home
forever, came to have no bitterness in it; for she had learned in a
strange way how Le Crépuscule was rooted into her heart, and how
impossible it would be that she should leave it till the great
Inevitable should bid her say farewell.
Indeed, the Castle had set its seal upon every one of its inmates. The
little household had acquired the peculiar characteristics that
generally grow up in a secluded community. Every dweller in the Twilight
Land was unconsciously possessed of the same quiet manner, the same air
of tranquil repose, the same habit of abstracted thought. And these
things had stolen upon them so unawares that none was conscious of it in
any other, and least of all in herself. It was a singularly beautiful
atmosphere in which to bring up a little being fresh to the world. In
this place a new soul might have dwelt forever untainted by any mark of
worldliness, of passion, or of sin; for these things were foreign to the
whole place. No one in the Castle but had, at some time, been through
the depths of human experience, been swayed by the most powerful
emotions, and known the passion that is inherent in every mortal. But
from these things the Twilight folk had been purified by long stretches
of vain longing, vain struggles in the midst of solitude, and that
continued repression that alone can eradicate mortal tendencies toward
sin. And now the women of this Castle had reached, in their progress,
the neutral vale of tranquillity that lies between the gorgeous meadows
of delight and the grim crags of grief and disappointment.
There was no one in the Castle that did not at times reflect upon these
things; but of them all, Eleanore saw most clearly whence they had all
come, and where they now were. Whither they might be going—ah, that!
that, who should say? But she could see and understand the quiet
happiness that Lenore had reached through her child; and the increasing
contentment, that was more than resignation, in Laure. And if she was
ignorant of the route by which Courtoise, Alixe, and David had come into
the kingdom of tranquillity, at least she knew that all had reached it,
and was glad that it was so. To St. Nazaire, who was now her only
connection with the outer world, she talked of all these things, and
found in him not quite the spirit of her Castle, but yet a great
understanding of human and spiritual matters.
Summer wove out its web over the Castle by the sea, and at length its
golden heat began to give way before the attacks of chilly nights and
shortening days. The earth grew rich and red with autumn. Chestnut fires
began to blaze upon peasants’ hearths, and the early morning air had in
it that little sting that brings the blood to the cheek and fire to the
eye. It was still too early for flights of storks toward the Nile, and
the year, hovering on the edge of dissolution, was at the zenith of its
glory. It was the time when the smoke from the forest fires lingers
pungently over the land for days on end, like incense proffered to the
beauty of Mother Earth. It was the time when the sun rises and sets in a
veil of mist that transcends the splendor of its golden gleams, till,
before the incomparable richness and purity of its glory, the human
spectator can only stand back, aghast and trembling with awe. In fine,
it was that time when, Nature having reached the full measure of her
maturity, she was turning to look back upon her youth, in retrospect of
all the loveliness that had been hers, before she should start toward
the darker, colder, grayer regions that lay about her coming grave.
It was late in the afternoon of such an autumn day that the three women
of Le Crépuscule, Laure, Lenore, and Eleanore, each lightly wrapped
about to protect her from the slight chill in the air, went out of the
Castle to the terrace bordering the cliff, for their evening walk. In
the hearts of all three lay that little wistful sadness that was part of
the time of year, and in their surrounding solitude they involuntarily
drew close each to the other. Yet their faces were not wholly sad. None
of them wept at the thought of the long winter that was again upon them.
Hand in hand, by the murmurous sea, they walked, looking off upon the
broad plain of moving waters, each unconsciously seeking to read there
the destiny of her remaining years.
The hour was a holy one, and there came no sound from the living world
to pierce its stillness. Nature knelt before the great marriage of the
sun and sea. The altar of the west was hung with golden and purple
tapestries; and the ministers of the sky poured out a libation of
crimson-flowing wine before the Lord of Heaven. And when the sacrifice
was made, all could behold how the great sun slipped gently from his car
into the embrace of the sea, and the two of them were presently hidden
underneath the golden locks and shimmering veil of the beautiful bride;
and thereafter Twilight, the swift-footed handmaid, aided by all the
ocean nymphs, quickly pulled the broad curtains of gray and crimson
across the portals of the bridal room.
The sweet dusk deepened, but it was not yet time for the rising of the
moon. There was still a flush of red in the west, and still the breasts
of the gulls that veered over the waters flashed white and luminous in
the gathering gray. The silence was absolute, save for the silken swish
of the tide rising gently along the shore. The spell of twilight, the
great soul-twilight of the middle ages, hung heavy on the battlements of
the Castle on the cliff. On the terrace the three women paused in their
slow walk. Lenore, her white face uplifted, and a look in her face as if
the gates of Heaven had opened a little before her eyes, said dreamily,—
“How sweet it is,—and how beautiful,—our home!”
The silence of the others throbbed assent to her whispered words.
The gulls were sinking slowly toward their nests. The drawbridge over
the moat was just lifting for the night. A lapwing or two floated round
the high turrets of the Castle; and from the doorway there, Alixe was
coming forth, bearing Lenore’s baby in her arms. The stillness grew more
intense, and over the edge of the eastern trees slipped the round, pink
harvest moon. Then, one by one, a few great stars came sparkling out
into the sky.
“See,” murmured Eleanore, very softly, “the east is clear around the
rising moon.”
And Laure replied to her: “Yes, very clear. How beautiful will be the
morrow’s dawn!”
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
MISS POTTER’S FIRST SUCCESS
_Uncanonized_
BY MARGARET HORTON POTTER
_Author of “The Castle of Twilight”_
[Illustration]
A story of English monastic life in the thirteenth century during the
momentous reign of King John. The leading character, Anthony
Fitz-Hubert, is a brilliant young courtier, son of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who turns monk to insure the safety of his father’s soul.
The interpretation of King John’s character and acts differs widely from
the traditional view, but it is one which investigation is now beginning
to present with confidence.
One of the most powerful historical romances that has ever appeared
over the name of an American writer.—PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER.
In such romances we shall always delight, turning to them from much
that is dull and inane in what passes for the realistic reflex of
our present-day life.—HARPER’S MAGAZINE.
It is a noteworthy book of its very attractive kind.—THE
INDEPENDENT.
[Illustration]
SIXTH EDITION
WITH FRONTISPIECE. 12mo. $1.50
A. C. McCLURG & CO., _Publishers_
[Illustration]
UNIFORM WITH “THE THRALL OF LEIF THE LUCKY”
_The Ward of King Canute_
A ROMANCE OF THE DANISH CONQUEST
BY OTTILIE A. LILJENCRANTZ
[Illustration]
This book is for those who are weary of conventional romances and are
searching for a story that does not give them the dusty and worn-out
historic trappings with which they are over familiar. The story of
Randalin, the beautiful Danish maiden who served King Canute disguised
as a page, is spontaneous and unhackneyed, and has a mediæval atmosphere
of the most inspiring kind. The reader forgets his practical
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It is a romance of enthralling interest.... Written in plain,
unadorned Anglo-Saxon, it is as pure and wholesome as the lovely
maiden whose face smiles between the lines. It is one of the few
novels that can be read a second time with increased enjoyment. Than
this, what more can be said?—CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
Readers of “The Thrall of Leif the Lucky” can understand without
description the pleasure in store for them in Miss Liljencrantz’s
latest tale. The volume is a remarkable example of bookmaking, the
colored illustrations showing to what heights the art of book
illustration may attain.—BOSTON TRANSCRIPT.
A stalwart and beautiful tale—a fine, big thing, full of men’s
strength and courage and a girl’s devotion, the atmosphere of great
days and primitive human passions.—PHILADELPHIA LEDGER.
[Illustration]
THIRD EDITION
WITH SIX FULL-PAGE PICTURES IN COLOR AND OTHER DECORATIONS BY THE
KINNEYS. $1.50
A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS
[Illustration]
A BOOK OF GREAT BEAUTY
_The Thrall of Leif the Lucky_
A STORY OF VIKING DAYS
BY OTTILIE A. LILJENCRANTZ
[Illustration]
A remarkable book because it not only tells an unusual and fascinating
story, with a novel and seldom used—and therefore interesting—historical
background, but it was everywhere declared “the most beautiful book of
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the wonderful pictures in color. It is the story of Alwin, the son of an
English earl, and how he served the great Leif Ericsson on his famous
voyage to the New World, and how he finally won his freedom and the
beautiful Helga by his own high courage.
Nearer to absolute novelty than any book published this spring.—NEW
YORK WORLD.
The most beautifully illustrated and artistically ornamented romance
published this year.—NEW YORK JOURNAL.
A tale which moves among stalwart men, and in the palaces of
leaders.—NEW YORK MAIL AND EXPRESS.
One of the best constructed historical romances that has appeared in
America in some years.—BROOKLYN EAGLE.
The atmosphere of the old days of fighting and adventure glows in
the book.—SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN.
[Illustration]
SIXTH EDITION
WITH SIX FULL-PAGE PICTURES IN COLOR, AND OTHER DECORATIONS BY THE
KINNEYS. $1.50
A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
3. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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