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.”