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.