rebellion against her lot; and then, from over-wishing, came a change.
Up to this time, in her new flood of grief for the separation from
Flammecœur, she had driven from her mind every creeping memory of the
day of his change toward her. Another woman had come upon the horizon of
his life: a young and noble Englishwoman, of high station. And soon he
was pursuing her with the ardor that he no longer spent on Laure. This
lady was one of the first that they had met in England, and Laure had
liked her before Flammecœur’s new passion began to develop. But with her
first real fears, the poor girl’s jealousy was born, and soon it became
the moving spirit of her life. Many times in the ensuing weeks—those
bitter weeks of early autumn—did angry words pass between her and her
protector, her only shield from the world in this strange land. Once, in
a fit of uncontrollable grief and passion, she had left him, and for two
days wandered about the streets of London till starvation drove her back
to the lodgings of the Flaming-heart. Her reception—of quiet
indifference—on her return showed her that her world was in a state of
dissolution. For a week she dwelt among its ruins, and then, when she
demanded it, he told her that she was no longer dear to him, and he
begged her to take what money he had and to set out whither she would,
assuring her that she would find no difficulty in securing some
excellent abiding-place in this adopted land. Laure took her dismissal
heroically. She knew him too well to be horrified at his suggestions as
to her procedure; and, refusing his gifts of money, she sold the clothes
and ornaments that he had given her in a happier day, and with the
proceeds started on her return to Crépuscule. Her little store gave out
when she had scarce more than reached France; and the last half of the
journey had been accomplished by literally begging her way from hut to
hut, never giving up the idea of at last reaching the only refuge she
could trust,—the place where now she sat dreaming out her woe.
Through the bitter hours when her old jealousy took possession of her
again and seared her with its hot flames, Laure found herself, more than
once, gazing fixedly at the little priedieu in the corner of the room,
where, as a child, she had been wont to kneel each night and morning.
Since the hour she had left the priory, a prayer had scarcely passed her
lips; and now, in the time of reactive sorrow, she felt a pride about
kneeling in supplication to Him whose laws she had so freely broken. In
the course of time, for so doth solitude work changes in the hearts of
the most stubborn, the spirit of real repentance of her sin came over
her; and then, for the first time in her young life, she wept unselfish
tears. It was only inch by inch that she crept back toward the place of
heart’s peace. But at length, on the tenth day of her penance, she went
to her God; and, throwing herself at the feet of the crucifix, claimed
her own from the All-merciful.
Never in her life of prayers had Laure prayed as she prayed now. Now at
last God was a living Being, and she was come home to Him for
forgiveness and for comfort. Her words sprang from her deepest heart.
Tears of joy, not pain, welled up within her; and it seemed as if she
felt her purity coming back to her again. She believed that she was
received before the throne, and listened to; and no absolution of a
consecrated bishop had brought her such confidence as this, her first
unlettered prayer.
When she rose from her knees it was as if she had been bathed in spirit.
Her old joy of youth was again alive within her and shone forth from her
eyes with a radiant softness. A strange quiet took possession of her; a
new peace was hidden in her heart; tranquillity reigned about her, and
the four days of solitude that remained were all too short. She was
learning herself anew; but she dreaded that time when others should look
into her face and think to find there what she knew was gone from her
forever. After her first prayer she did not often resume the accepted
attitude of communication with the Most High; yet she prayed almost
continually, with a dreamy fervor peculiar to her state. She still
thought of Flammecœur, but no longer with desire; only with a gentle
regret for the fever of his soul and that he could never know such peace
as hers. She also felt remorse for the part she had played in his life;
and this remorse was now her only pain. She suffered under it; but it
was easier to endure than the terrible, restless longing that had once
consumed her. Indeed, at this time, Laure’s spirituality was
exaggerated; for solitude is apt to breed exaggeration in whatever mood
the recluse happens to be. But this state was also bound to know its
reaction; and, upon the whole, it was as well that the penitential
fortnight was near its end.
On the afternoon of the fourteenth day, Laure dressed herself in the
somberest robe to be found in her chest,—a loose tunic of rusty black,
with mantle of the same, and a rosary around her waist by way of belt.
She braided her hair into two long plaits, and bound these round and
round her head like a heavy filet. This was all of her coiffure. When
she was dressed, she stood in front of her mirror and looked at herself
by the smoky light of a torch. Her vanity was not flattered by the
reflection; but steel is deceitful sometimes, and Laure did not know how
much younger she had grown in the two weeks of her penance. As the hour
of liberty approached, she became not a little excited. The thought of
being surrounded with such a throng of familiar faces set her aflame
with eagerness; and she waited, literally counting the seconds, till she
should be set free.
Punctually at the hour in which, two weeks before, Laure had been left
alone, her door was opened, and Eleanore and Lenore came together into
the room, to lead the prisoner down to the chapel. Madame clasped her
warmly by the hand, and looked searchingly into her face: but that was
all the salutation that was given, for the ban of excommunication was
still upon her. And so, without a word, the three moved quickly to the
stairs, and, descending, passed at once into the lighted chapel.
Of all the ceremonies that had been performed in that little room since
it was built, more than two centuries before, the one that now took
place was perhaps the most impressive, certainly the most unique. Laure,
in her penitential garb, presented a curious contrast to the gayly robed
Castle company, and to St. Nazaire, in his most gorgeous of canonicals.
Yet Laure’s face was more interesting to study than anything else in the
crowded room. St. Nazaire, while he confessed and absolved her, watched
her with an interest that he had never felt for her before; and he
realized that probably never again would he hear such a confession as
hers. She told him the whole story of her life after her flight from the
priory, with neither break, hesitation, tremor, nor tear. She took her
absolution in uplifted silence. And when the ban of excommunication was
raised from her, neither the Bishop nor her mother could guess, from her
face, what her feeling was.
When she had been blessed, and the general benediction pronounced, all
the company came crowding to her to give her welcome. After that
followed a great feast, at which Laure ate not a mouthful, and drank
nothing but a cup of milk. And finally, when all the merrymaking was
through, the young woman returned alone to her room, and, this time with
her door bolted from within, lay down upon her bed and wept as if her
heart had finally dissolved in tears.
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_
LENORE
[Illustration]
On the morning of the sixteenth of January, Laure went into the
spinning-room with the other women, to begin the old, familiar work. The
sight of that room brought back to her a peculiar sensation.
Long-forgotten memories of her girlhood’s yearnings and restless
discontents, half-formed plans and desires, picture after picture of
what she had once imagined convent life to be, crowded thick upon her,
and caused her to shudder, knowing what these vague dreams had led her
to. Here was the room, with its row of wheels and tambour-frames, and,
at the end, the big, wooden loom, filled with red warp. Everywhere were
little disorderly heaps of flax and uncarded wool, bits of thread and
silk, and long woollen remnants clipped from uneven tapestry borders. In
a moment this place would be alive with the droning buzz of wheels, the
clack-clack of the loom, and the bright chatter of feminine voices.
Laure heard it all in the first glance down the room, and in the same
instant she lived a lifetime here. Before her eyes was an endless vista
of mornings spent in this place upon work that could never keep her
thoughts from paths where they should not stray. Alas! with Flammecœur
she had neither toiled nor spun.
In neither face nor manner did Laure betray any suggestion of her
feeling; and she found herself presently seated at a wheel, between
Alixe, who was at the tapestry frame, and Lenore, who had come to the
room for the first time in many weeks, and was engaged in fashioning a
delicate little garment of white _saie_. Madame, at the head of the
room, was embroidering a square of linen and overseeing the work of
every one else; and she glanced, every now and then, rather searchingly
into her daughter’s face, finding in it, however, nothing that could
cause her anxiety; for Laure was ashamed of her own sensations, and
strove bravely to conceal them.
Possibly this scene might have held out promise of reward to the
thinker, the psychologist, or the humanitarian. Of all these quiet, busy
women, was there one whose dull, passionless exterior did not cover an
intricate and tumultuous heart-history? The rebellious thought-life of
Alixe was no less interesting, despite her inactivity, than the
deadening sorrow through which Lenore had passed. Nor had the early life
of Eleanore, with its doubtful joys and its bitter periods of
loneliness, left any stronger traces in her face than had the long
after-years of rigid self-suppression. She had nearly overcome her once
devastating habit of self-analysis, by forcing herself to take an
unselfish interest in those around her. But the marks of her later and
nobler struggles with grief lay as plainly in her face as those of her
younger life. Only, the influence of her youth, with its rebellions and
its solitudes, was to be found bodily transferred into the character of
Laure, who had, in her infancy, absorbed her mother into herself. These
four women, by reason either of years or station, had experienced much
in the ways of joy and sorrow. But to what depths of unhappiness all the
other pathetically colorless lives of the uninstructed and unloved women
of that day had sunk, cannot be surmised by any one who has seen what
strange courses loneliness and solitude will take. Who knows how great a
self-struggle may result only in a pallid, vacant face and a negative
personality? And what had they, all these neglected women of the
chivalric age, to give them life, color, or force? Men did battle and
feats of arms, expecting their ladies to sit at home, to toil and spin
and bear them heirs, and, when their time came, haply die. So much we
all know. But how much these same women, having something of both soul
and brain, may have tried to use them in their small way, who has cared
to surmise?
The January morning wore along, and by and by the fitful chatter became
more fitful: the pauses grew longer; for every one was weary with work,
and with the incessant noise of loom and wheel. Laure, who through the
morning had been covertly watching Lenore at her task, saw that the
young woman had grown paler than was her wont, and that the shadows
under her eyes had deepened till their effect against her pallor was
startling. Gradually Lenore’s hands moved more slowly. She would pause
for a moment, and then, with a slight start, return to her work with so
conscious an effort that Laure was more than once on the point of crying
to her to stop. Presently, however, Lenore herself looked toward
madame’s chair with an appeal in her eyes and a faintly murmured word on
her lips.
Eleanore glanced at her, and then rose at once and went over to her
side. “Why didst thou not speak sooner? Go quickly to thy room and lie
down. Shall I send Alixe with thee?”
“Nay! Let me rather be alone!” And Lenore, hastily gathering her work
into her arms, slipped from her place and was gone from the room.
The little scene caused no comment. Only Laure, who was not accustomed
to the sight of Lenore’s transparent skin and almost startling frailty,
sat thinking about her after she was gone. How forlorn must be her poor
existence! If she had greatly loved Gerault,—and surely any maiden would
have loved him,—how gray her world must have become! how without hope
her life! Laure lost herself completely in a revery of Lenore’s sorrows,
and forgot, for the time, how weary she herself was: how her foot ached
with treading the wheel, and how irritated were her finger-tips with the
long unaccustomed manipulation of thread. But it came as an intense
relief when she heard her mother say softly,—
“Go thou, Laure, to thy sister’s room. Make her comfortable, if thou
canst. Take the wheel also with thee and finish thy skein there.”
“Nay, madame. The whirl of the wheel is distressing to Lenore; I saw it
while she sat here. I will finish after noon if thou wilt, but Lenore
must not be disturbed.”
Madame nodded to her, and Laure slipped away, not noticing how Alixe’s
eyes followed her, or what disappointment was written in her face. For
hitherto this ministering to Lenore had fallen to Alixe’s share, and it
had been the proudest pleasure of her life.
Lenore was lying upon her bed, which, some weeks previously, had been
moved over close beside the windows of her room, that she might always
have a view of the sea. When Laure entered, she scarcely moved, and her
great eyes continued to rove round the room. The new-comer paused in the
doorway and gazed at her a moment or two before she asked: “May I enter?
May I come and sit beside you?”
Lenore smiled slightly; but there was no actual welcome in her face as
she said, in her usual, gentle tone: “Certes. As ever, I was idle and
unthinking. Come thou in, Laure, and sit where thou canst gaze out upon
the sea. Look, there is a glint of sun on it, even through the folds of
the clouds.”
Laure looked to where she pointed, and then came silently over and
seated herself in a large chair that stood between the bed and the
window, in a little jut in the wall. Her eyes were turned not to the
many-paned glass, however, but rather upon the figure of Lenore, who was
now looking off through a half-opened pane, through which blew fitful
gusts of icy wind. The two young women remained here in silence for some
moments, each in her own position, thinking silently. Suddenly, however,
Laure shivered, and then sprang to her feet, saying: “Thou’lt surely
freeze here! Let me cover thee.” She took up a thick coverlet that lay
over the foot of the bed and placed it, folded double, upon Lenore’s
form. Then, glancing down into the milk-white face, she said again: “Let
me bring thee something—a little food—some wine. Thou’rt so pale—so
ill!”
“Peace, Laure! I am comfortable. I lie thus for hours every day. Ah! for
how many hours in the past months—”
She looked up into Laure’s face, and the eyes of the two women met, in
an unfathomable gaze. Then Laure went slowly back to her place, wishing
that she might close the window, but not daring to interfere with her
sister’s desired sight of the sea. After she had sat down, Lenore once
more lost herself in a reverie, which, however, her companion did not
respect.
“Lenore,” she said in a low, rather melancholy voice, “how is it that
thou canst endure this life of thine,—thou, young and bright and gay and
all unused to this dim dwelling; how hath such existence not already
killed thee? Tell me, how hast thou fared since Gerault went?”
Lenore turned her eyes from the sea and fixed them on Laure’s face. She
wondered a little why she did not resent the question, not realizing
that it was the first throb of natural understanding that had come to
her out of Le Crépuscule. Lenore’s first impulse of affection toward her
new sister had altered a little in the past two weeks. Since she had
heard and understood the story of Laure’s last months, the white-souled
girl had shrunk from contact with her whose career lay shrouded in so
black a depth. Yet now Laure’s tone, as she spoke, and, more than that,
the expression in her eyes, touched a key in Lenore’s nature that had
long been unsounded, and which brought a tremor of unwonted feeling to
her heart. Quickly repressing the impulse toward tears, she gave a
moment’s pause, and then answered in a dreamy, reflective way, as if she
were for the first time examining the array of her own emotions,—
“Meseemeth that, since the day of Gerault’s death, a part of me hath
been asleep. Save when, on the night of his home-coming, I lay beside
his body and touched again his hair and his eyes—”
“Holy God! Thou couldst lie beside the dead!”
“Ah, was it not Gerault come home to me—seeming as if he slept? Since
that time, and the night that followed it, I say, I have not wept for
him. Mine eyes are dry. There is sometimes a fire in them; but the tears
never come. And my heart ofttimes burns, and yet I do not very bitterly
grieve. I know not why, but my sorrow hath not been all that I should
have made it. I have been soothed with shadows. I have found great
comfort in yon rolling sea. And then there is also the child,—Gerault’s
son,—the Lord of Crépuscule.”
“Yes, the child! Oh, I know how thou lovest him—I know!”
“Thou knowest? How?”
“Methinks, Lenore, I understand the mother-love. How should I have
praised God had he deemed me also worthy of it! But I was not. I know
well ’twas a vain desire. But, oh, to hold in mine arms a little one, a
babe, and to know it for mine own! Wouldst not deliver up thy soul for
that, Lenore?”
Lenore looked at her with a vague little smile. “Perhaps; I do not know.
My babe must carry on his father’s name, and so I love him. Yea, I will
bear any suffering so that he come into the world; for Gerault said to
me long since that such must be my duty and my great joy. He spake
somewhat as you do. Yet I know not that eagerness thou speakest of.”
Laure examined the ethereal figure lying before her with new curiosity;
and under the gaze of the calm, deep-hued eyes her own were kindled with
a brighter gleam. “Hast thou not loved, Lenore?” she asked. “Knowest
thou nothing of the joy of living, the two in one, united by divine
fire? Dost thou not worship God for the reason that there is now in thee
a double soul? Wake! Wake from thy dream-life! Suffer! For out of
suffering, great joy will come upon thee!”
As she met Laure’s look, a new light burned in Lenore’s eyes, and the
other saw her quiver under those words. Finally, freeing her gaze, she
said very softly: “I would not wake. How, indeed, should I live, if I
roused myself? Life and love and the world are hidden away behind the
far hills of Rennes. Here I must dwell forever in the twilight. So let
me dream! Ah, Laure, thou too, thou too wilt come to it. The fever may
burn within thee still, but time will cool it. Tell me, Laure,” she
added, smitten with a sudden curiosity that was foreign to her usual
self, “tell me, Laure, how didst thou find courage to run out from thy
dreams in the priory into life with Flammecœur, the trouvère?”
At sound of the name, Laure flushed scarlet, and then turned pale again.
“Flammecœur! Flammecœur!” she murmured to herself. Then, suddenly, she
shook the spell away. “Ah, how did I fall from heaven to hell and find
heaven in hell? I cannot tell thee more than thou thyself hast said. I
was buried while I was yet alive; and so I arose from mine own tomb and
escaped back to the world of living things. I was among sleepers, yet
could not myself sleep. After a time fire, not blood, began to run in my
veins. And so, in the end, I rode away with the Flaming-heart. And I
loved him! _how_ I loved him! God be merciful to me! Ah, Lenore, how do
they put us poor, long-haired things into the fair world, giving us
hearts and brains and souls, and thereon bid us all only to spin—to
spin, and weave, and so, perchance, kiss, once, and then go back to spin
again?”
Laure was half hysterical, but wholly in earnest,—so much in earnest
that she had forgotten her companion; and when she looked at her again,
she found Lenore lying back on her pillows, her breath coming more
rapidly than usual, but her face rigidly calm, her blue eyes wandering
through space, and Laure perceived that she had rejected the passionate
words and kept herself still in the dream state.
It was well that at this moment there came a tap at the door. Laure
cried entrance, and as Alixe came in from the hall, Madame Eleanore
appeared from the other door that led to Laure’s room, and thence
through to madame’s own chamber. Evidently the work hours were over, and
it was time for the noon meal.
Lenore did not care to descend to meat, and she asked Alixe to bring a
glass of wine and water and a manchet of bread to her room. This request
Alixe joyfully promised to fulfil, and then Laure and her mother
together left the room, Laure in the throes of a painful reaction from
strong feeling, and with a sense, moreover, that Lenore was relieved to
have her go.
In this last conjecture, or rather, sense, Laure was right. But it was
not through dislike of her sister that Lenore was glad to be alone
again. It was rather because the young widow had been powerfully moved
by Laure’s words, and she wanted time and solitude to readjust herself
from the new and disquieting ideas that had been put into her mind.
Alixe believed her to be fatigued, and perhaps suffering; and,
understanding her nature much better than Laure did, she brought the
invalid everything that she wanted in the way of food, and then left
her, believing that she could sleep.
It was afternoon in the Castle. Dinner was at an end. Madame had betaken
herself to her own room, for prayer and meditation. The damsels were all
scattered, some to their own small rooms, some to the courtyard and the
snow. Laure was in the chapel, before the altar, struggling with her
newly roused demon of unrest. In the long room, off the great hall, was
Courtoise, seated in Gerault’s old place, before a reading-desk, with an
illuminated parchment before him. It was part of “The Romant de la
Rose,” and he was reading the passage descriptive of the garden of
_Déduit_. Although nothing, perhaps, could be found in the literature of
that day better fitted to appeal to a dweller of Le Crépuscule, the mind
of the dark-browed Courtoise was not very securely fixed upon his book.
His eyes rested steadily on one word; his forehead was puckered, and
there was an expression on his face which, had he been a maid, would
likely have portended tears. Courtoise was not a man to weep; but he had
lately fallen recklessly into the habit of his former lord, of coming
here to sit with a parchment before him, as an excuse for brooding
hopelessly on the trouble in his soul. His head was now so far bent that
he did not see a woman’s figure glide into the room. Not till she stood
over his very desk did he look up with a little start: “Thou, Alixe!” he
said half impatiently.
“Yea, Alixe, Master Courtoise. Thine eyes, it seems, can make out great
shapes very well, but halt an untold time over one curly letter.”
“What sayest thou? Thy words, Alixe, are like the quips of the dwarf;
but thou hast not his license to say them.”
“Ahimé, Courtoise,” she came lazily round the table till she stood
beside his chair, “seek to quarrel with me if thou wilt. A quarrel would
be a merry thing in this Castle. For I am dull—dull—piteously dull, good
master!”
Courtoise looked at her rather grimly. “Art thou dull indeed, Mistress
Alixe? What thinkest thou, then, of all of us?”
“Thou also, quiet one? Well, I had guessed it. Yet methought—” she
paused, with mischief in her eyes; and Courtoise, who knew some of her
moods, was wise enough not to let her finish the sentence. Rising from
his place, he went and got a tabouret from a corner of the room, and,
placing it beside the chair at the desk, sat down on it, motioning Alixe
to the seat beside him.
Alixe refused the offer. “Nay, nay, Master Courtoise. Thou shalt sit in
the brawny chair, for thou’rt to be my adviser. Sit, I prithee, and let
me take the little place, and then list to me carefully while I do talk
on a matter of grave importance.”
“Name of Heaven! Is there something of importance in this house of
shadows?”
“There is Madame Lenore,” she said soberly.
“Lenore! Ah, ’tis of her thou wouldst speak,” he cried, his whole face
lighting.