Part 16
“Yea, Laure; for methinks I shall counsel her so to do. Thou hast not the vocation of a nun. Thy spirit is too much thine own, too freedom-loving, to accept the suppression of that secluded life. If I will, I can see to it that thou’rt freed from the priory. But that being accomplished—what then, Demoiselle Laure?”
“Ah—after that—may not the ban be removed? Can I obtain no absolution? Can I not be made free to dwell here in my home in my beloved Castle,—my fitting Crépuscule?—Mother! Shall I not be received here? Have I no home?”
“This is thy home, and I thy mother always. Though my soul be condemned to eternal fire, Laure, thou art my child, the flesh of my flesh and the blood of my blood; and I will not give thee up.”
“Eleanore!” The Bishop spoke sharply, and his face grew severe. “Eleanore, deceive not thyself. Nor yet thou, thou child of wilfulness! Laure hath sinned not only against the rules of her Church and her God, but against the laws of mankind. Her sin has been great and very ugly. Think not that, by brave words of motherhood, or many tears and pleadings of sudden repentance, she can regain her old position. The stain of this bygone year will remain upon her forever. She is under a heavy ban, and she must go through a rigorous penance ere she can be received again among the undefiled. Art ready, Laure, to place thy sick soul in my hands?”
Laure bent her head.
“Then I prescribe for thee this penance: Thou shalt go alone, on foot, to Holy Madeleine, and there seek of the Reverend Mother thy freedom from the priory. If it be granted, thou mayest return hither to this same room and remain shut up in utter solitude, to pray and fast as rigorously as thy body will admit, for the space of fourteen days. If, by that time, thou art come to see truly the magnitude of thy offence, and if thy mind be purified of evil thoughts and thy heart opened to the abounding mercy of God, I will absolve thee of thy sin, and lift away the ban of Heaven. For meseemeth, my daughter, that thy sin found thee out or ever thou hadst reached this house of safety. There is the mark of suffering upon thy brow, and, seeing it, I bow before the power of God, that holdeth over us whithersoever we may go. But see that in thy lonely hours thou find true repentance for thy evil deed. For if that come not, then truly shalt thou be an outcast on the face of the earth. I will go to-day to the priory to talk with the Mère Piteuse, if thy heart accepteth my word.”
Laure fell upon her knees before the Bishop and kissed his hand in token of submission. St. Nazaire suffered her for a few moments to humble herself, and then, lifting her up, he rose himself and quickly left the room.
Eleanore remained a few moments longer with her daughter, and then went away, leaving Laure alone again, to dread the ordeal that was before her, the facing of the assemblage of nuns in that place that she remembered as her heart’s prison.
By order of the Bishop, Laure was left alone all day, and this twenty-four hours was the most wretched that she had to spend after her return to Le Crépuscule. On the following day she went alone to the priory,—not on foot, as the Bishop had at first commanded; for the snow was too deep, and Laure too much exhausted by her privations of the last two months, for her safely to endure the fatigue of such a walk. She rode thither on horseback; and possibly extracted more soul’s good out of the ride than she would have got afoot, for the whole way was laden with bitter memories and grief and shame. The Bishop himself met her at the priory gate, and he remained at her side throughout the time that she was there. The ordeal was not terrible. Mère Piteuse bore out her name, and Laure thought that the spirit of the Saviour had surely descended upon the reverend woman. As an unheard-of concession, the penitent was permitted to recant her vows before only the eight officers of the priory assembled in the chapter-house, instead of before the whole company of nuns in the great church; and thus Laure did not see at all her former companion and abettor, Sœur Eloise, a meeting with whom she had dreaded more than anything else. And when, in the afternoon, Laure finally rode away from the priory gate, it was with a heart throbbing with devotion for St. Nazaire and his goodness to her. Swiftly and eagerly, in the falling twilight, she traversed the road leading back to the Castle, and, when she reached home, night had fallen. Her mother, who had spent the day in the deepest anxiety, was waiting for her in the great hall, and, the moment that Laure entered, weary with the now unusual exercise, she cried out, “It is well? Thou art dismissed?”
And as Laure began to answer the question with a full description of the day, her mother drew her slowly up the stairs, across the hall, and finally into her own narrow room, which was to be the chamber of penance. When they entered there, Laure became suddenly silent; for the little place was dark and chill, and the thought of what was before her struck an added tremor to her heart. Madame read her thoughts and said gently,—
“Be not so sad, dear child. When thou thinkest of the fair, pure, loving life that lies before us, in this Castle of thy youth, surely fourteen little days of peaceful solitude cannot fright thee? Think always that God is on high, and that around thee are those that love thee well; and thus thou canst not be very miserable. Lights and food shall be brought; and then—I bid thee make much of thy solitude, my child; for there is no more healing balm for wounded souls. Now, commending thee to the mercy of the All-merciful, I leave thee.”
In the darkness, Laure clung to her mother as if it were their last embrace, and madame had to put the girl’s hands away before she would bear to be left alone. But at last the door was closed and bolted on the outside; and Laure, within, knew that her imprisonment was begun. Feeling her way to a chair, she seated herself thereon, and laid her head in her hands. Burning and incoherent thoughts hurried through her brain, and she was still lost in these when there was a soft tap at her door, and the outer bolt was drawn. She rose and stumbled hurriedly to open it, but there was no one outside. On the floor was a burning candle, and a tray on which stood a jug of water and a loaf of bread. As she took them in, Laure experienced a wave of desolation. However, she set the food and drink down on her table, lighted the torch on the wall at the candle-flame, and finally sat herself down to eat. No grace to God passed her lips as she took her first bite from the loaf; for her heart was bitter in its weariness. But after she had eaten and drunk she lost the inclination to brood; and, overcome with weariness and the emotions of the day, she hurriedly disrobed, extinguished both her lights, and crept, with her first sense of comfort, into the warmly covered bed. For a long time she lay there, chilly and a little nervous, but thinking of nothing. Then gradually her spirit grew calmer; some of the weariness was done away, and she fell asleep.
When next she woke it was daylight,—a gray, January morning,—and Laure realized, rather disconsolately, that she could sleep no more for the time. Therefore she left her bed, threw a mantle around her, and went to the door, to see if there might be food without. Somewhat to her dismay, she found the door locked fast, and, having no means of knowing what the hour might be, she thought that possibly she had overslept, and that she should have nothing to eat throughout the morning. The heaviness of her head told her that she had slept too long; and, not daring to get back to bed again, she began resignedly to dress. She was in the midst of her toilet when there came a tap at the door, and she flew to open it. Outside stood a kitchen-boy, who handed her a tray containing fresh bread and water, and asked her with formal respect for the stale food of the night before. This she gave him; and immediately the door was shut and rebolted.
With grim precision Laure finished dressing and broke her fast, meantime keeping her thoughts fixed on the most trivial subjects. But when her meal was over, and she knew how long the day must be, and realized that there was no escape from herself, she sat down in the largest chair in the room, let her eyes wander over the familiar objects, and allowed her thoughts to take what form they would. The terrible fatigue of her lonely journey was quite gone now. Nor was there in her own person anything to remind her of her recent suffering. Her body was clean, well-clothed, and warm, and, in her youth, the memory of the past terrible two months grew dim, and instead there rose up before her mental vision a very different picture,—an image,—the image of the idol and the ruin of her life: her joy, her shame, her ecstasy, and her despair; Bertrand Flammecœur, the troubadour, in his matchless, irresponsible untrustworthiness, his incomparable beauty, his fiery enthusiasm. For, strange as it may be, all the bitterness, all the suffering that this man had brought her, had not killed her love for him nor blackened his image in her heart. There being nothing to check her fancy, Laure went mentally back to the hour of her flight with the troubadour, and passed slowly over the whole period of their life together,—from the first days of physical agony and mental shame through the period of increasing delight, to the culmination of her happiness in him and the beginning of its end. Once more she reviewed their journey out of Brittany up the north coast to Calais, whence, in the fair spring weather, they had taken passage to Dover, in England, thence making their way by slow stages to London. Here, in the train of the Duke of Gloucester, uncle of the young Richard, the most powerful man in the kingdom, the two had passed their summer. To Laure it was a summer of fairyland. Flammecœur had become her god, and she saw him ascend height after height of popularity and favor. His nationality and his profession won for him instant recognition, for trouvères from Provence were Persian nightingales to the England of that day. And after his first introduction into high places, his breeding, his dress, and his graceful personality brought him an enviable position, especially among the women of the court. Laure passed always as his wife, and was adroitly exploited among the court gallants. She was still too single-minded to receive the slightest taint from this life. She was found to be as incorruptible as she was pretty, and by this unusual fact her own reputation went up, and her popularity rivalled that of the troubadour. If this manner of life sometimes weighed on her and brought her something of remorse, she found her consolation in the fact that Flammecœur never wavered in his fidelity. For the time being he was thoroughly infatuated with her; and in their stolen hours of golden solitude both of them found their reward for the ofttimes wearisome round of pleasures that, with them, constituted work.
Now, alone, in her solitary prison-room, Laure of Le Crépuscule reviewed her high and holy noon of love, forgetting its subsequence, brooding only over its supreme forgetfulness, till the madness of it was tingling in her every vein, and there rushed over her again, in a tumultuous wave, all that fierce longing, all that hopeless desire, that she thought herself to have endured for the last time. In their early days Flammecœur had been so much her companion, so devoted to her in little, pretty, telling ways, so constant to her and to her alone, that the thought of any life other than the one with him would have been to her like a promise of eternal death. It was not more their hours of delirium than those of silent communion that they had held together, which brought her now the tears of hopeless yearning. All that she desired without him, was death. All that she had loved or cared for was with him.
At this time came to her the thought of Lenore; and she had an instinctive feeling that, had God seen fit to give her that most precious of all gifts, motherhood, this penitential cell had not been the end for her.
Three days and three nights did Laure spend in this state of bitter 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.
_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_ LENORE
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?