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.