Part 15

The last white fold of Lenore’s drapery had scarcely disappeared round the bend in the stairway, when there came a knocking upon the outer door of the great hall, which was presently thrust open, before one of the henchmen could reach it, to let in a beggar from the bitter cold outside. It was the last day of the week of hospitality, and perhaps this wanderer was the more readily admitted for that fact. It was a woman, ragged, unkempt, and purple with cold. Madame Eleanore just glanced at her, and then signed to those at the lower end of the table to give her place with them, and bring her food. But the new-comer seemed not to notice the invitations of those near by. She stood still, gazing intently toward Madame Eleanore, till presently one of the henchmen, somewhat affected with liquor, sprang from his place with the intention of pulling her to a seat. In this act he got a view of her face with the light from a torch falling full across it. Instantly he started back with a loud exclamation,—

“Mademoiselle!”

Then all at once the woman, holding out both her arms toward madame’s chair, swayed forward to her knees with a low wailing cry that brought the whole company to their feet. There was one moment of terrible silence, and then a woman’s scream rang through the room, as Madame Eleanore staggered to her feet and started forward to the side of the wanderer.

“Laure! Laure! O God! my Laure!”

As the two women—madame now on her knees beside her daughter—intertwined their arms, and the older woman felt again the living flesh of her flesh, the throng at the table moved slowly together and drew closer and closer to these central figures. Nearest of all stood Alixe and Courtoise, white-faced, tremulous, but with great joy written in their eyes. They had recognized Laure simultaneously an instant before madame, but they had restrained themselves from rushing upon her, leaving the first place to the mother.

Eleanore was fondling Laure in her arms, murmuring over her inarticulate things, while tears streamed from her eyes, and her strained throat palpitated with sobs. What Laure did or felt, none knew. She lay back, half-fainting, in the warm clasp; but presently she struggled a little away, and sat straight. Pushing the tangled hair out of her eyes,—those black, brilliant eyes that were still undimmed,—and seeing the universal gaze upon her, she shrank within herself, and whispered to her mother: “In the name of God, madame, I prithee let me be alone with thee!”

Then Eleanore bethought herself, and rose, lifting Laure also to her feet. For a moment she looked about her, and then with a mere lifting of her hand dispersed the crowd. They melted away like snow in rain, till only three were left there in the great hall: Courtoise, Alixe, and lastly monseigneur, who during the whole scene had stood apart from the throng, the law of excommunication heavy upon him. Forbid a mother, starved by nearly a year of denial of her child, to satisfy herself now that that child was at last returned to her? Not he, the man of flesh and blood and human passions!

Madame stood still for an instant in the centre of the disordered room, supporting Laure with one arm. Then she turned to Alixe.

“Go thou, Alixe, and get food,—milk, and meat, and bread,—and bring it in the space of a few moments to my room. But let no other seek to disturb us in our solitude. Now, my girl!”

Madame led her daughter across the hall and up the stairs, and to the door of her bedroom, into which Laure passed first. Madame followed her in, and closed and fastened the door after her. Then she turned to her child.

At last they were alone, where no human eyes could perceive them, no human ear hear what words they spoke. And now Eleanore’s arms dropped to her sides, and she stood a little off, face to face with Laure. With Laure? Yes, it was she,—there could be but one woman like her,—with her tall, lithe, straight form, terribly wasted now by hardship and suffering: with those firm features, and the unrivalled hair that hung, brown and unkempt, to her knees. And again, it was not the Laure that the mother had known. In her eyes—the great, doubting, haunted, shifting eyes—lay plainly written the story of the iron that had entered into her soul. And there was that in her manner, in her bearing, that something of defiant recklessness, that pierced her mother like a knife. It was not the rags and the dirt of her body; it was the rags and dirt of her defiled soul.

The girl looked straight before her into space; but she saw her mother’s head suddenly lowered, and she saw her mother’s hands go up before her face.

Then came Alixe’s knock at the door; and Laure went and opened it, took in the food, set it down on the bed, shut and fastened the door again, and returned to her mother, who was sitting now beside the shuttered window, her head lying on her arms, which rested on a table in front of her.

There was a silence. Laure’s hand crept up to her throat and held it tight, to keep the strain of repressed sobs from bursting her very flesh. Her eyes roved round the old, familiar, twilight room; but just now she did not see. Her brain was reeling under its weight of agonized weariness. What was she to say or do? What was there for her here? Her mother sat yonder, bent under the weight of her sin. Was there any excuse for her to make? Should she try to give reasons? Worst of all, should she ask forgiveness? Never! Laure had the pride of despair left in her still. She had come home dreaming that the gates of heaven might still be open to her. She found them barred; and the password she could not speak. Hell alone, it seemed, remained.

“Madame,” she said in a hard, quiet voice, “I have come wrongfully home, thinking thou couldst give me succor here. But I perceive that I do but pain thee. I will go forth again. ’Tis all I ask.”

At the mere suggestion that Laure should go again, madame’s heart melted and ran in tears within her. “Ah, Laure! my baby—my girl—thou couldst not leave me again?” she cried in a kind of wail.

“Mother! First of all, I came to thee!” said the girl, in a whisper that was very near a sob.

But, unexpectedly, Eleanore rose again, with a gleam of anger coming anew into her eyes. “Nay; thou didst _not_ first of all come to me! If thou hadst—if thou hadst—ere thou wast stolen away by the cowardly dastard that hath ruined thee—!”

Laure trembled violently, and her voice was faint with pleading: “Speak no ill of him, madame! I was not stolen away. Freely, willingly, I went with him. Freely—” she drew herself up and held her head high—“freely and willingly, though with the curse of Heaven on my head, would I go with him still, were it in the same way!”

“God of God! why hast thou left him, then?”

A black shadow spread itself out before Laure’s eyes, and in her unpitying wilderness her woman’s soul reeled, blindly. Her voice shook and her body grew rigid, as she answered: “I—did not—leave him.”

“He is dead?” Eleanore’s tone was softer.

“No; he is not dead!” Laure’s face contorted terribly, as there suddenly rushed over her the memory of the last three months; and as it swept upon her, she sank to her knees, and held out her hands again in supplication: “Ah, pity me! pity me! As thou’rt a woman, pity me, and ask me not what’s gone! I loved him. God in Heaven! How did I love him! And he hath gone from me. Mine no more, he left me to wander over the face of the earth. He left me to weep and mourn through all the years of mine empty life. Flammecœur! Flammecœur! How wast thou dearer than God! more merciless than Him.” Here her words became so rapid and so incoherent that all meaning was lost, and the deserted woman, exhausted, overcome with her torn emotions, presently fell heavily forward to the floor, in a faint.

In this scene Eleanore had forgotten every scruple, every resentment, everything save her own motherhood and Laure’s need. Putting aside all thought of the girl’s shame, her abandonment, her rejection, she went to her and lifted her up in her strong and tender arms, and, with the art known only to the big-souled women of her type, poured comfort upon the bruised and broken body of the wanderer, and words of cheer and encouragement into her more cruelly bruised and broken mind. In a few moments Laure had recovered consciousness, had grown calm, and was weeping quietly in her mother’s arms.

Then madame began to make her fit for the Castle again. She took off the soiled and ragged garments, that hung upon the skin and bone of her wasted body. She bathed the poor flesh with hot water, and with her own tears. She combed and coiled the wonderful, tangled hair. And lastly, wrapping her, for warmth, in a huge woollen mantle, she led Laure over to her bed, drew back the heavy curtains, and laid the weary woman-child in it, to rest.

When Laure felt this soft comfort; when she realized where, indeed, she was and who was bending over her; when she knew what land of love and of tenderness she had finally reached after her months of anguished wandering,—it seemed that she could bear no more of mingled joy and pain. She let her tears flow as freely as they would. She clung to her mother’s hand, smoothing it, kissing it, pressing it to her cheek; and finally, lulled by the sound of her mother’s voice crooning an old familiar lullaby, her mind slipped gradually out of reality, and she went to sleep.

Long and long and long she slept, with the sleep of one that is leaving an old life behind, and entering slowly into the new. And for many hours her mother watched her, in the gathering darkness, till after Alixe had come softly in, and lit a torch near by the bed. And later the mother, unwilling to leave her child for a single moment, laid herself down, dressed as she was, and, drawing Laure’s passive form close to her, finally closed her eyes, and, worn out with emotion and with joy, lost herself in the mists of sleep.

_CHAPTER TWELVE_ LAURE

Through the long, chilly night, mother and daughter slept together, each with peace in her heart. At dawn, however, madame slipped quietly out of Laure’s unconscious embrace, and rose and prepared herself for the day. And presently she left the room, while Laure still slept. It was some time afterwards before there crept upon the blank of the girl’s mind a dim, fluttering shadow telling her that light had come again over the world. How long it was before this first sense became a double consciousness, no one knows. Laure’s stupor had been so heavy, she had been so utterly dead in her weariness, that it required a powerful subconscious effort to throw off the bonds of sleep. But when the two heavy eyes at last fell open, she gasped, and sat suddenly up in her bed.

“Holy Mother! it is an angel!”

The face that she looked on smiled sunnily.

“No. I am Lenore.” And she would have come round to the side of the bed, but that Laure held up a hand to stay her.

“Prithee, prithee, do not move, thou spirit of Lenore! Am I, then, come into thy land? Is’t heaven—for me?”

For an instant, at the easily explainable illusion about that other, the new Lenore’s head drooped, and she sighed. How full of the dead maiden was every member of this Twilight Castle! But again, shaking off the momentary melancholy, she lifted her eyes, and answered Laure’s fixed look. So these two young women, whose histories had been so utterly different, and yet in their way so pitiably alike, learned, in this one long glance, to know each other. Into Laure’s deeply burning eyes, Lenore gazed till she was as one under a hypnotic spell. Her senses were all but swimming before the other turned her look, and then she asked dreamily: “Thou art Lenore. Tell me, who is Lenore?”

The other hesitated for a moment. She had learned from Alixe, on the previous evening, the history of the strange home-coming, and all that any one knew of what had gone before it; and she realized that any question that Laure might ask must be fully answered. Yet it cost her a strong mental effort before she could say: “I was the wife of thy brother.”

“Ah! Gerault! Where is he?” Laure paused for an instant. “Thou—_wast_—his wife, thou sayest?”

Lenore gazed at her sadly, wondering if the wanderer must so soon be confronted with new sorrow. Laure sat there, bewildered, but questioning with her eyes, a suggestion of fear beginning to show in her face. Lenore realized how madame must shrink from telling the story of Gerault’s death; so, presently, lifting her eyes to Laure’s again, she said in a low voice,—

“Gerault’s wife was I, because—since September, thy brother—sleeps—in the chapel—by his father.”

Laure listened with wide eyes to these words; and, having heard, she neither moved nor spoke. A few tears gathered slowly, and fell down her face to her woollen robe, and then she bowed her head till it rested on the hands clasped on her knee. Lenore stood where she was, looking on, knowing not whether to go or stay; realizing instinctively that there are natures that desire to find their own comfort.

While Lenore was still debating the point, Madame Eleanore and Alixe came together into the room; and as soon as madame beheld Lenore, she knew that her daughter had learned all that she was to know of sorrow: that what she herself most dreaded, had mercifully come to pass. And going to the bed, she took Laure into her arms.

Their embrace was as close as the first of yesterday had been. Laure clung to her mother, getting comfort from the mere contact; and, in her child’s grief for the dead, Eleanore felt the touch of that sympathy for which she had hungered in silence through the first shock of her loss. For Laure was of her own blood and of Gerault’s; had known the Seigneur as brother, companion, and equal, and had looked up to him even as he had looked up to his mother. Thus, bitterly poignant as were these moments of fresh grief, there was in them also a great consolation,—the consolation of companionship. And when finally madame raised her head, there was written in her face what none had seen there since the time of Laure’s departure for her novitiate at La Madeleine. Then she reminded Laure of Alixe’s presence, and Laure, looking up, smiled through her tears, and held out both hands.

“Alixe! Alixe! my sister! Art thou glad I am come home?”

“So glad, Laure! There have been many hours empty for want of thee since thy going. And art thou—” she hesitated a little—“art thou to stay with us now?”

Accidentally, inadvertently, had come the question that had lain hidden both in Laure’s heart and in her mother’s since almost the first moment of the return. Laure herself dared not answer Alixe; but she looked fearfully at her mother, her eyes filled with mute pleading. And Eleanore, seeing the look, made a sudden decision in her heart,—

“Yea! Laure shall stay with us now! There shall be no doubting of it. Laure is my child; and I shall keep her with me, an all Christendom forbid!”

The last sentence flew out in answer to madame’s secret fears; and she did not realize how much meaning it might hold for other ears. Her speech was followed by an intense silence. Laure did not dare ask aloud the questions that reason answered for her; and Lenore and Alixe both felt that it was not their place to speak. In the end, then, Eleanore herself had to break the strain, which she did by saying, with a brisk air,—

“Come, come, Laure! Rise, and go into thine own room here. I have laid out one of the old-time gowns, with shoes, chemise, bliault, and under-tunic complete, and also a wimple and head-veil. Make thyself ready for the day, while we go down to break our fast. When thou’rt dressed I will have food brought thee here; and after thou’st eaten, monseigneur will come up to thee. Hasten, for ’tis rarely cold!”

Laure jumped from the bed eager to see her childhood’s room again; eager for her meal; most of all eager, in spite of her apprehensiveness, to know what St. Nazaire had to say to her. As she paused to gather her mantle close about her, and to push the hair out of her eyes, her gaze chanced to meet that of Lenore. There was between them no spoken word; but in that instant was born a sudden affection which, while they lived together, saw not the end of its growth.

As Eleanore and the two young women left madame’s room on their way downstairs, Laure entered alone into the room of her youth and her innocence. It was exactly as it had been on the day she last saw it. The small, curtained bed was ready for occupancy. The chairs, the table, the round steel mirror, the carved wooden chest for clothes, lastly, the small priedieu, were just where they had always stood. The wooden shutters were open, and the half-transparent glass was all aflame with the reflection of sunlight on the sea; for the cold, clear morning was advancing. Across a narrow settle, beside one of the windows, lay the clothes that the mother had selected,—the girlhood clothes that she had worn in those years of her other life. Like one that dimly dreams, Laure took these garments up, one by one, and examined them, handling them with the same ruminative tenderness of touch that she might have used for some one that had been very dear to her, but had died long since,—so long that the bitterness of death had gone from memory.

When she had looked at them for a long time, Laure began slowly to don her clothes. She performed her toilet with all the precision of her maidenhood, coiling her hair with a care that suggested vanity, and adjusting her filet and veil with the same touch that they had known so many times before. Her outer tunic was of green _saie_; and even though her whole form had grown deplorably thin, she found it a little snug in bust and hip. Finally, when she was quite dressed, she sat down at one of the windows to wait for some one to bring food to her. To her surprise, it was Lenore who carried up the tray of bread and milk; and she found herself a little relieved that no former member of the Castle was to see her yet in the familiar dress of long ago. When she took the tray from the frail white hands of her sister-in-law, she murmured gratefully: “I thank thee that thou hast deigned to wait on me, madame.”

Lenore’s big blue eyes opened wide, as she smiled and answered: “Prithee, say not ‘madame.’ Rather, if thou canst, I would have thee call me ‘sister,’ for such I should wish to be to thee.”

“My sister!” Laure’s voice was choked as she raised both arms and threw them about the slender body of the other girl with such abandon that Lenore was obliged to put her off a little. Finally, however, Laure sat down to the table on which she had placed her simple breakfast, and as she carried the first bite to her lips, Lenore moved softly toward the door. Before going out, however, she turned and said quietly: “Thou’lt not be long alone. The Bishop is coming to thee at once.”

Laure’s spoon fell suddenly into her bowl, and she looked quickly round; but, to her chagrin, Lenore had already slipped away.

Left to herself, Laure could not eat. Hungry as she was, her anxiety and her suspense were greater than her appetite. Why was it that Lenore had so suddenly escaped from her? Why was it that she had seen no members of the Castle company save three women since her home-coming? Why was she forced thus to eat alone? Above all, why should the Bishop come to her here, instead of receiving her, as had been his custom, in the chapel? Laure remembered the last serious talk she had had with St. Nazaire, and shuddered. In her own mind she realized perfectly the spiritual enormity of her sin; and, however persistently she might refuse to confess it to herself, she knew also what the penalty of that sin must be. It was many minutes before she could force herself to recommence her meal; and she had taken little when there was a tap on the door. She had not time to do more than rise when the door opened, and her mother, followed by St. Nazaire, entered the room.

Madame dropped behind as the Bishop advanced, and Laure bowed before him.

“My child, I trust thou art found well in body?” said St. Nazaire, more solemnly than she had ever heard him speak.

“Yes, monseigneur,” was the subdued reply.

Now madame came up, and indicated a chair to the Bishop, who, after seeing her seated, sat down himself, while Laure remained on her feet in front of them. Then followed a pause, uncomfortable to all, terrifying to Laure, who was becoming hysterically nervous with dread. She dared not, however, break the silence; and with a convulsive sigh she folded her arms across her breast, and stood waiting for whatever was to come. Monseigneur regarded her closely and steadily, as if he were reading something that he wished to know of her, but at the same time he did not make her shrink from him. On the contrary, his expression brought the assurance that he had lost nothing of his old-time sympathy with human nature. His first question was unhesitatingly direct.

“Laure,” he said very quietly, “art thou bound by the marriage tie to this Bertrand Flammecœur?”

At the sound of the name Laure trembled, and her white face grew whiter still. “No,” she answered in a half-whisper, at the same time clenching her two hands till the nails pierced her flesh.

“And thou hast lived with him, under his name, since thy departure from the priory of the Holy Madeleine?”

Laure paused for a moment to steady her voice, and then answered huskily: “Until two months past.”

“And in that two months?”

“I have begged my way from where we were—hither.”

“Thou hast in this time known none but the man Flammecœur?”

Laure crimsoned and put up her hand in protest. Then she said quietly, “None.”

Monseigneur bowed his head and remained silent for a moment. When he looked at her again it was with a gentler expression. “Laure,” said he, in a very kindly voice, “but a little time after thy flight from the priory, I placed upon thee, and upon the man that abducted thee, the ban of excommunication, for violating the holiest laws of the Holy Church. That ban is not yet raised, and by it, as well thou knowest, all that come in voluntary contact with thee are defiled.”

For a moment Laure dropped her head to her breast. When she lifted it again, her face had not changed; and she asked, “Can that ban ever be lifted?”

“Yes. By me.”

Laure fell upon her knees before him. “What must I do? Tell me the penance! I would give anything—even to my life—yet—nay! There is one thing I will not do.”

St. Nazaire frowned. “What is that?” he asked.

“Father, I will not go back into the priory. I will never return alive into that living death. Rather would I cast myself from the top of the Castle cliff into the sea below, and trust—”

“Laure! Laure! Be silent!” cried Eleanore, sharply.

Laure stopped and stood motionless, her eyes aflame, her face deathly white, her fingers twining and intertwining among themselves, as she waited for St. Nazaire to speak again. His hands were folded upon his knee, and he appeared lost in thought. Only after an unendurable suspense did he look again into the girl’s eyes, saying slowly, in a tone lower than was habitual to him,—

“Thou tookest once the vows of the nun. These, it is true, thou hast broken continually, and hast abused and violated till their chain of virtue binds thee no more. Yet the words of those vows passed thy lips scarce more than a year agone; and for that reason thou art not free. Ere thou canst be absolved of duty to the priory, thou must go to the Mother-prioress and ask her humbly if she will again receive thee into the convent. An she refuse, thou wilt be freed from the bond.”

“Monseigneur—will she set me free?” asked Laure, in a low tone.