Part 17

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.

Suddenly Alixe broke into a rippling mockery of laughter. “There, Courtoise, thou art betrayed! Nay, I will be still about it, for I also love her. Now, to be cruel, my talk is not to be of her, but of myself, even me,—Alixe No-name. Thou, Courtoise, art in something the same position in Le Crépuscule as I, save that thou hast a binding tie of interest here. Then canst thou not offer me a moment’s thought, a moment’s sympathy? For, in very truth, I need them both.”

With Alixe’s first words, Courtoise had flushed an angry scarlet; but with her last, his ordinary color came back to him, and he looked at her in friendly fashion as he answered: “What time and thought I have are thine, Alixe. But thou must show me thy need of sympathy.”

“Why, let it be just for dwelling in Le Crépuscule. And—if thou wouldst have more—for holding no certain place here. There was a time, after Laure had gone away, and when the Seigneur was in Rennes, that I was really wanted. I brought comfort to madame, and I know she loved me well. And also, since Madame Lenore was widowed, I have been sometimes a companion to her. But now there are two daughters here. Madame’s life is full with them; and my place in Le Crépuscule is only one of tolerance. Therefore—lend thine ear closely, Courtoise—I would go away, I, Alixe No-name, out into the world, to see if there be not a fortune hidden for me beyond the eastern hills. I would go to Rennes, or even farther, to try what city life might be; yet I would not have the trouble of explanation and protests and insistence, and finally of farewell, with the dwellers here. Rather, I would just steal away, some night, nor return again hither evermore. What say you, Courtoise? Think you that that wish is all ingratitude?”

It was some moments before Courtoise replied. His face was a little turned from Alixe, but she could see that his brow was knit in thought. At length he answered her: “Nay, Alixe, thy wish is not ingratitude. Rather, indeed, I have sometimes thought that Madame Eleanore showed something of ingratitude toward thee; for thou wast a daughter to her in her sorrow; and since the return of mademoiselle, I have seen thee many a time set aside.

“If thou wouldst fare forth into the world—well, Alixe, the world is a wide place, and many dangers lurk therein. Yet thou art stout of heart, and strong enow in body, and methinks there are few like thee that would of choice dwell in such a place as this. I myself, were it only not for— Ah, well, if thou wouldst go forth and make thy way at once to Rennes, depart not now in the winter season. Thou’dst freeze on thy way. Wait till the spring is upon us, and the woods are light at night. And then—”

“Then thou’lt help me? Wilt thou, Courtoise? Wilt thou tell madame when I am gone wherefore it was I went? Wilt thou give her messages of faithful love? Wilt—”

“Wait, wait! Ask no more than that,” he said, smiling thoughtfully. “When the days are warmer and the spring is in the leaf, when the blood flows fast through the veins, and the head burns with new life—” he drew a sudden, quick breath, and Alixe, looking upon him with new interest, said quickly and softly:

“Then come thou, also, Courtoise, out into the wide world! Let us together go forth to seek our fortunes. Thou’lt find me not too weak a comrade, I promise.”

Courtoise’s smile vanished, and he shook his head, a look of sadness stealing into his eyes: “Think you, Alixe, that after the death of my well-loved lord I should have stayed in this Castle to grow gray and mouldy ere my time, had it not held for me a trust so sacred that I could not give it up?”

“Lenore,” murmured Alixe, gently.

“Thou knowest it. Since the first day that she came home with the Seigneur, I knew that here she would sadly need a friend; and indeed she hath been my very saint. I have worshipped her more as an angel than as a woman, in her purity; and my heart hath all but broken for the great sadness of her life here. And if by remaining I can serve her in any way, in thought or in deed; if it giveth her comfort to have me in the Castle, I would sooner cut off my hand than leave her here alone. I feel also that my lord knoweth that I am faithful to the trust he left with me; and I would not forfeit his dead thanks. Therefore, Alixe, ask me not to return into the world with thee or with another.”

While he spoke, Alixe had watched him fixedly, and had seen no suspicion either in tone or in face of a deeper feeling for Lenore than he had confessed. Now she sighed quietly, and said in a gentle voice: “Courtoise, I think thou shouldst not mourn that thou’rt to dwell here; for thou hast thy trust, and thou hast some one to serve, always. Therefore fear nothing, and give thanks to God; for with Lenore in thy world—”

“Alas, alas, Alixe, there is that fear in me! Should Lenore be lost—should Lenore die—ah!”

Low as was his voice, the agony in it was unmistakable; and now Alixe was sure of all his secret: that he also loved Lenore as man sometimes loves woman,—purely. And she could find no words to say to him when the usually self-contained and tranquil man laid his head down on the table before him and did not try to hide his grief.

It was at this inopportune moment that Laure, tired of prayers, and still consumed by her restless fever, rushed in upon the two in the long room. Her old-time wild gayety was upon her, and she did not pause before the position of Courtoise, who, however, quickly straightened up. Laure scarcely saw it. She knew only that here were the companions of her youth, and as she entered she cried out to them,—

“Alixe! Courtoise! Up and out with me! Burn ye not? Stifle ye not in this dim hole? Courtoise, is our old sailing-boat still in its mooring? Let us fare forth, all three, and set out upon the wintry sea! Let us feel this January wind pull and strain at the ropes! Let us watch the foamy waves pile up before and behind us—”

“Mon Dieu!”

“Mademoiselle, it is impossible. The boat lies on the beach; two days’ work would not fit her for the water.”

Laure stamped angrily on the floor. “Something, then, something! I will get out into the cold, into the snow; I will move, I will feel, I will breathe again!”

It was so much the wild, free Laure, it had in it so much her old-time magnetism of comradeship, so much the spirit of the dead Gerault, desirous of action, that Alixe and Courtoise were drawn irresistibly into her mood. Both of them moved forward, while Alixe cried gayly: “The hawks! Come, we will ride!”

“The hawks!” echoed Laure. “Run, Courtoise, and get the horses, while Alixe and I go don our riding-garb and jess the birds!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, rather with a throb of pleasure, Courtoise ran obediently away toward the stables, while the young women hurried to their rooms. In twenty minutes the wild trio were dashing across the lowered drawbridge, all well mounted, hawk on wrist, spur at heel, with Laure in the lead. Down the road for the space of a mile they went, and then struck off to the snowy moor. They rode long and they rode hard, finding scarce a single quarry, but letting their pent-up spirits out in this free and healthful exercise. When they came in again to the Castle courtyard, it was in starry darkness; and not one of the three but felt a new strength to resist the dead life of the Castle.

Perhaps, had Courtoise known how Lenore had quietly wept away the afternoon in her solitude and loneliness, he had not appeared at evening meat with air so vigorous, eye so bright, and appetite so ready. Lenore, however, was never known to make a plaint; and she came to table with her cheeks hardly paler than usual, though her downcast eyes were shrunken with tears, and their lids were tinged with feverish red.

Men say that it is one of the irrevocable blessings that Time should move as surely as he does. But when the hours, nay, the minutes, lag away as drearily as they did in Le Crépuscule that winter, one feels no gratitude to Time; but rather a resentment that his immortality should be so dead-alive. Yet winter did pass, however slowly. In March the frozen chains of the prisoned earth were riven. Streams began to flow fast and full. The snow melted and soaked into the rich, black soil, making it ready for the seed. The doors of the peasants’ huts were opened to the sun and rain. Flocks of storks began to fly northward on their return from the Nile to their unsettled fatherland. Spring caught the earth in a tender embrace; and wherever her warm breath touched the soil, a flower appeared, to mark the kiss.

To Lenore the spring warmth was as heaven to a soul newly freed from earth-sorrow and suffering. Now the windows of her room could all be thrown wide open to the outer air. The whole sea lay before her, strewn with sunlight, and frosted with white foam. She saw the fishing-fleet from St. Nazaire go up past the bay, on its way to the herring fisheries; and then she was suddenly inspired again with an uncontrollable desire for the sea. That afternoon she sent one of her damsels to find Courtoise. He came to her room breathless, and eager to learn her will; and to him, without delay, she made known her imperative wish to be upon the sea.

Courtoise found himself in a dilemma. He knew that there was a boat at her disposal, for he and Laure and Alixe had now been sailing every day for a fortnight. He believed Lenore to be aware of this, though as a matter of fact she was not; nevertheless he at first refused her request point-blank. After that, because she wept, he temporized. Finally, in despair, he went and consulted madame, who was horrified at the idea. Lenore still insisted, appealed to every one in the Castle, from Alixe and Laure to the very scullions. Finding herself repulsed on every hand and powerless to act of her own accord, she became, all at once, utterly irresponsible, and made a scene that threatened to end everything with her. Half unbalanced by months of illness and lonely brooding, and tortured by this morbid and unreasonable fancy, she wept and screamed and raved, and threw herself about her bed, till she was in a state of complete exhaustion, and every one in the Castle awaited the result of her paroxysm with unconcealed distress.