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.