Part 3
Laure heard this news with every appearance and every expression of delight; and when she returned to the church for tierce and morning mass, she tried, all through the service, to bring herself face to face with herself, to appreciate, as she was conscious that she must, sooner or later, the intense gravity of her position. But for some reason, by some failure of concentrative force, she could not bring her mind to the point of understanding. Over and over again her thoughts slid around that one fact that she knew she must try to realize,—how, after the giving of her final pledge, there could be no turning back, there could be no escape, while she should live, from this life of prayer. She did not appreciate it at all. She only remembered that she had been very contented here, and that the days were never long.
In the weeks that followed her talk with Mère Piteuse, Laure enacted this same scene of effort with herself many times, always futilely. As a matter of fact, it was too grave a responsibility to put upon the shoulders of a child in years and a less than child in experience. But this unfairness was one of the prerogatives of monasticism, unappreciated to this day.
Christmas time drew near; and gradually Laure dropped her efforts toward understanding and fell into dreams of a varied and complex, if unimportant, nature. She was to be professed alone, on the day after Christmas. No novice had entered the convent within three months of her, and, moreover, her birth and position made it desirable that she should be surrounded by a little extra pomp; for, although Laure did not know it, she was much looked up to by the nuns of humbler birth, and universally regarded as a future prioress of the house. During the last days of her novitiate the young girl was treated with peculiar reverence and consideration, and she was given a good deal of time for solitary reflection and prayer. Every day she was summoned to the cell of the Prioress, who herself gave the girl good counsel and instruction upon the higher life; while so much general attention was paid her that Laure became a little astonished at her own importance.
In the first three weeks of December Madame Eleanore did not come at all to see her daughter, and Laure grew lonely for her. She suspected nothing of her mother’s heart-sickness over the approaching ceremony that was to cut her child off from her forever; and, indeed, had Laure been told of the mother-feeling, she could not have understood it.
On the afternoon of the twenty-third day of December the novice was kneeling in her cell, supposedly at prayer, in reality indulging in a rather forlorn and melancholy reverie. It was the hour of recreation; and the convent was very quiet, for most of the nuns were sleeping, in preparation for the strain of the forty-eight-hour Christmas service. The stillness brought a chill to Laure’s heart, and she was near to tears, when her door was suddenly pushed open, and some one halted there. Laure turned quickly enough to see the white-robed Prioress disappear, closing the door behind a figure that remained motionless inside the threshold.
“My mother!” cried Laure, springing to her feet.
“Laure,” was the quivering response, as Eleanore held out her arms.
The dreamer, suddenly become a little child, went into the mother-clasp, her pristine home, and was half carried over to the only seat in the room,—a wooden tabouret, large enough for only one. Upon this Eleanore seated herself, while Laure sank to the floor beside her, huddling close to the human warmth of her mother, her head lying in that mother’s lap, both hands held tightly in the larger, stronger, older ones.
“Laure—my Laure—my little Laure!” was all that, at this time, madame could force her lips to say. And hearing it, the girl, suddenly overwrought and overswept with repressed yearning for home love, all at once burst into a convulsive flood of tears.
Some moments passed, and the sobs, instead of diminishing, began to increase in violence, till Eleanore became alarmed. Certain unexpressed fears took possession of her. She made no effort to bring them into definite order in her mind. They merely joined themselves to a shadow that had long since come upon her in the form of a question: What, in bare reality, was this vast monster called “the Church”? Why had it a right to step thus between mother and child? How could such a thing be called holy? Filled with this idea, and realizing to the full how desperately short was her chance, Eleanore set herself to work, through every means known to her, to quiet Laure, to stop her tears, and to gain her earnest attention.
Under madame’s determined calm, it was not long before Laure was brought back to self-control. And when she was quiet, the mother, sitting very straight in her place, drew the girl to her feet, and, holding her fast by the hand, while she looked steadily into the clear, brown eyes, she asked, slowly, with an emphasis born of her desperation,—
“Laure, is it indeed in thy heart to remain, of thy free will and desire, forever in this house, forsaking all that was dear to thee of youth and love, and freedom, in thy home, Le Crépuscule?”
Laure, while she looked at her mother, gave a sudden sigh, and her face became staring pale. Eleanore strove to fathom her daughter’s look, but could know nothing of the flood of natural desire and youth that was oversweeping the girl. Laure’s resistance against it was silence. She sat still, cowed and bent, while the noise of the waters filled her ears and her heart was near to bursting with suffocation and yearning. Before this silence, however, these passionate moments gradually ebbed away. The wave retreated, and her heart shut tight. Words and phrases from Holy Scriptures, books of prayer, and St. Benedict’s Rule, came crowding to her, and she considered to herself how she might show her mother the sin of her suggestion. But, as she had kept silence one way, so now she practised it in the other. After the long pause her voice found itself in three words only,—
“My mother!—madame!”
Eleanore’s eyes fell. Her hope was gone. For the thousandth time her religion rose to shame her, before her child, for the absorbing love of her motherhood. Presently Laure, standing before her, more like her judge than like the disconsolate creature she had so lately comforted, spoke again,—
“Madame, here in this place have I found contentment. There is no sorrow and no desire when one lives but to pray and sleep, and wake and pray again. God lives here continually in our hearts and He begets in us the love that we bear for each other. Moreover, after my profession and consecration, much freedom will be added to my life. I shall have no more long hours of instruction, nor shall I be called on to do the bidding of any one save perhaps that of the Reverend Mother. And whereas thou ridest hither to me each fortnight, I, after my vow, may go instead to thee, to see thee and mine ancient home.—Nay, mother, forgive me that I rebuke thy words; but thou must not urge me thus, for my spirit is not as yet very strong or very much tried, and is like to break under temptation.”
Dry-eyed and straight-lipped, Eleanore rose from her place and kissed her daughter, saying,—
“This is farewell, dear child, till thou shalt come home to me for the first time after thy wedding with Heaven. My humble and earthly blessing be upon thee,—and mayst thou find thy spirit strong, my Laure, when thou shalt have need of it; as, in God’s time, thou surely wilt.”
Once again the mother kissed her girl—kissed her in final renunciation. Laure felt a burning upon her brow long after madame had left the room. Eleanore’s last words also somewhat affected the novice,—brought her a dim sense of uneasiness and foreboding. But it was in silence that she saw the black-robed figure leave the cell, and in silence she remained for a long time after she was left alone, thinking over what had passed.
Laure had acted in such perfect sincerity that the wound she inflicted on her mother, and the mortification she put upon her, were neither of them realized. It was not wonderful that the impulses of the girl’s heart had been stilled by the unceasing precept of the past months. Her years were naturally powerless to fathom her mother’s heart, the heart of her who sees herself completely separated in every interest from the one that has always been nearest and dearest. And so the argument that she conducted within herself after her mother’s going was not one of justification of her own act, but—oh, ye gods!—an attempted justification of Eleanore’s impiety.
Laure passed the next two days in an odor of extreme sanctity, and hailed with deep inward joy the beginning of the long vigil of the birth of the Saviour, on Christmas Eve. She was excused from keeping steadily in church through this protracted service, for the reason that she would be obliged, according to the Rule, to spend the night after her consecration alone in the church, at prayer. Throughout Christmas Day Laure was in a state of repressed nervous excitement. Was not to-morrow to be her wedding-day? Was she not to become what the first Magdalen had never been,—the bride of Christ? Her prayers throughout this day were mingled with thoughts of the highest purity, the most refined spiritual ecstasy, the most shining, uplifted innocence. Tears of joy and of proud humility flowed readily from her eyes, while her mouth was filled with heavenly praises that welled up from her heart.
In the afternoon she was sent away to rest; for the Mother-prioress was considerate of her strength. Laure did not, however, lie down. Instead, she stood for more than an hour at the window of her cell, looking out over the world, and watching the fine feathery snowflakes float down through the clear blue air. The earth was wrapped in a mantle whiter than her consecration robe and veil. Perhaps it was a shroud. Laure shivered at the thought, while she contemplated the unutterable stillness of all things. Not a sound disturbed this vast scene of death. The tree-boughs bent low under the weight of their pure burden; and when the early evening fell, and vespers chimed out over the valley, the tiny, frozen tears of Heaven still floated through the dark with ever-increasing softness.
It was seven o’clock when Sœur Celeste, the chaplain, came to summon the bride-elect to confession and interrogation with Monseigneur the Bishop of St. Nazaire. As the two women passed together down the long corridor of novices, through the cold cloister and empty refectory and along the passage leading to the chapter, Laure’s heart was struck with a chill of fear. How terribly empty the convent was! No one in the refectory, the corridors scarcely lighted, the whole convent utterly silent; for the drone of prayers in the church was inaudible here. She wondered how the terrible vigil progressed, how many nuns had fainted in their fatigue. She thought of anything but the matter before her, and was still unprepared when the chaplain left her alone at the door of the chapter.
The Bishop of St. Nazaire was alone in this room, and at Laure’s appearance he rose and went to her, taking her by the hand, and not amazed to find her icy cold.
“My daughter!” he said gently; and Laure, looking into his face, was suddenly filled with an ineffable comfort.
She had known the Bishop all her life, for he was her mother’s close friend and a constant visitor at Le Crépuscule. But never before had she seen him in this fulness of his office, so replete with magnetic spirituality. If the unswervingly narrow tenets of his creed made St. Nazaire too arbitrary where his religion was concerned, and if the geniality of his own nature had, at times, brought upon him in his own home reactions that afterwards rendered necessary the severest penances, at least these two extremes of his life had brought him to a remarkable intermediate balance. Irrespective of his state, he could be defined as a man of the world, of large sympathies, having a broad understanding of human frailty, because of the unconquerable weaknesses of his own nature. His ethical code was one of high severity and strict purity; and he strove with all the power of his spirit to follow it himself, never failing, the while, to excuse the eternal failures of others. And now, as Laure looked up into his large, smooth-shaven face, framed in long fair hair, and lighted by a pair of bright blue eyes that generally regarded the world with a surprising air of trustful innocence, the young novice lost all her sense of desolation, and felt herself suddenly introduced into a secure and unhoped-for haven.
St. Nazaire himself, examining the young girl’s face, and searching her soul therein, knew that at this moment he was nearer to the inmost being of the daughter of Le Crépuscule than he should ever be again; and he felt that no one ever yet had been in a position to probe the depths of her nature as he was going to probe them now. She gave herself up to him as completely as Eleanore had given her once long ago, when, as a new-born infant, she had wailed in his arms at her baptism before the altar in the chapel of the Twilight Castle.
With this strong feeling of mutual confidence, Laure and the Bishop seated themselves in the chapter of the convent. Confession and stereotyped interrogation were gone through with dutifully, and then followed what Laure had begun to wish for at the first moment of their meeting,—a long and intimate talk upon the life that she should lead as a professed nun. It was a life with which St. Nazaire was as fully conversant as a man could ever be, and he pictured it to Laure as faithfully as he was accustomed to picture Heaven—a heaven of flying men and women carrying in their hands small golden harps—to those that received the last sacrament at his hands. Laure had a vision of long years filled ever fuller of transcendent joy and peace, in which she should never know a wish that her life could not fill, nor a desire beyond more earnest prayers, or a fast a little longer and more rigorous than heretofore. And so skilful was the Bishop in the manipulation of his sombre material, that he got from it remarkable beauties which, impossible as it seems, were as convincing to him as to Laure.
It was late in the evening when the young girl received the episcopal blessing and retired through the still nunnery to her cell. But her mind was at perfect rest that night; and she went to sleep to dream of nothing but the happiness and beauty of a consecrated life.
At ten o’clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth day of December, the whole convent assembled in church for high mass, which was to be celebrated by the Bishop of St. Nazaire. To-day the novices were separated from the professed nuns, and the two companies knelt on opposite sides of the church, leaving a broad space between them. The choir was in its place. In the lower choir-stalls sat the Mother-prioress, the sub-prioress, the chaplain and the deacons; while his Grace was in the great chair of honor used by none but him. The only member of the nunnery not present was Laure, who made her appearance just as the bell began to ring for the opening of the mass. She came in from the chapter-house at the far end of the church, and moved slowly up the aisle. Her white robe and full mantle hid her figure and trailed around her on the floor, and her head was crowned with the bridal veil, which covered her face and fell to the ground all around her. In one hand she carried a parchment scroll on which her vow was inscribed; and in the other hand she bore the wedding ring.
As she advanced toward the altar every head was turned toward her, and it was seen that she was white as death. But she was also very calm. Indeed she was acting quite mechanically, like one under a hypnotic spell; and there was no expression whatever on her face as she made her genuflection to the cross, and then turned aside and knelt among the company of novices. She took her usual part in the mass that followed, making no slip in the service, and joining as usual in the singing, with her full contralto voice.
When the benediction had been pronounced from the chancel, there was a pause. No one in the church moved from her knees, and the Bishop remained before the company with his right hand uplifted. Laure raised her eyes, and her body trembled slightly, for her heart was palpitating like running water. When the silence had lasted a seemingly unbearable while, St. Nazaire turned his face to Laure, who rose and went up to him, kneeling again in the chancel. And now, as she spoke, her quiet, impressive voice was heard by every nun in the church,—
“_Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam. Et non confundas me in expectatione mea._”
As she finished, Laure’s throat contracted, and she gasped convulsively. Her head swam in a mist, but she knew that the Bishop was questioning her from the catechism,—knew that she was answering him; and then, afterwards, she heard, as from a great distance, the voice of the Bishop praying. At the Amen, St. Nazaire signed to her again, and she rose and stepped forward to his side. Then, turning till she faced the church, she said quite distinctly, though in a low tone,—
“I, Sister Angelique, promise steadfastness, virginity, continuance in virtue, and obedience before God and all His saints, in accordance with the Rule of St. Benedict, in this Priory of Holy Madeleine, in the presence of the Reverend Father Charles, Lord Bishop of St. Nazaire, of the Duchy of Brittany, Lord under the most Christian Duke, Jean de Montfort.”
Thereafter she went up to the altar, and there signed her scroll with her new name and the sign of the cross. And there the ring of Heaven was placed upon her finger, and she was declared a bride. For the last time she knelt before the father, who lifted up his hands and consecrated her, after the ancient formula, to the love of her Saviour, the blessing of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. And then Laure, a professed nun, came down from the holy place, and was received among her sisters and reverently saluted by them.
The ceremony over, all the convent adjourned to the refectory, where a little feast of rejoicing was held in honor of the newly consecrated one. And after this, at an early hour of the afternoon, Laure was conducted to her cell, and her ten days of retirement began. All that afternoon, overcome with the strain of the past few days, the young girl slept. She woke only when the Sœur Eloise, a stout and stupid little nun, but a few weeks since made a lay sister, came up to her with bread and milk. When she had eaten and was alone again, she sat for a long time in her dark cell, looking out upon the starry night, and wondering vaguely over her long future. Presently the bell for the end of confession rang out, and, knowing that it was time, she rose and went through the convent, and into the vast church. The last of the nuns had left it and gone to seek her rest. Only the sub-prioress remained, waiting for Laure. Seeing her come, the older nun saluted her silently, and then moved away toward the dimly lighted chapter. In the doorway of this room she turned to look back at the white figure standing in the dimly lighted, incense-reeking aisle; and then, with a faint sigh of memory, she extinguished all the chapter lights, bowed to the little crucifix hanging in that room, and went her way to bed.
Laure was left alone in the great, dusky House of God. Where she knelt, before the shrine of St. Joseph, two candles burned. All around her was darkness—silence—solitude. Awed and wide-eyed, she forced herself to kneel upon the stones, and her mind vaguely sought a prayer. But thoughts of Heaven refused to come. Her Bridegroom was very far away. She felt a cold weight settling slowly down upon her heart, and she trembled, and her brows grew damp with chilly dew. Many thoughts came and went. She remembered afterwards to have had a very distinct vision of Alixe, standing alone upon a great cliff a mile from Le Crépuscule, with a wild sea-wind blowing her hair and her mantle, and white gulls veering about her head. For an instant, a wild longing flamed up through her soul. Setting her lips, she tried to force her mind back again to God. One—two—three faltering, reverent words were uttered by her. Then Laure du Crépuscule started wildly to her feet.
“God! Oh, God! I am imprisoned! I am captive! I am captive forever! God! Oh, God!”
As these wild cries echoed through the vaulted roof, she threw herself passionately to the floor and lay there helpless, while the wave of merciless realization swept over her. Then her hands wandered along the stones of the floor, and her cheek followed them, and she clutched at the cold, damp granite, in a vain, vague search for her mother’s breast.
_CHAPTER THREE_ FLAMMECŒUR
The New Year had come: a time of highest festival in Brittany, when the land was alive with merriment and gifts and legends and grewsome tales. It was St. Sylvester’s Eve, when, as all men knew, the waves of the Atlantic for once defied their barriers and struggled up the towering cliffs, eager to meet, halfway, the descending dolmens, permitted once in the year to leave unguarded the deep earth-treasures, that they might quench their furious thirst in the sea. And on that night half the peasants of Brittany lay awake, speculating on the vast wealth that might be theirs if they were but to arise and seek out some monster dolmen and wait beside it till the immense rock rolled away from its hole, leaving a pit of gold and gems open to the clutching hands of the world-man. But fear of the demoniac return of these same rolling rocks kept most of the dreamers safe within their beds during the fateful midnight hour, though of the luck of the few daring ones, there were, nay, still are, many veracious tales.
Le Crépuscule, no less than the surrounding countryside, participated in the interest of these supernatural matters; but the old Chateau had real affairs of feast and frolic to occupy it also. The great New Year’s dinner was the most lavish that the Castle gave in the twelve-month, and this year, in spite of its depleted household, there was no exception made to the general rule. The great tables were set in the central hall and loaded with every sort of food and drink, while kitchen fires roared about their juicy meats, and in the chimney-piece of the hall an ox was roasted whole before the flames. Ordinarily the dinner hour at the Castle was half-past eleven in the morning; but on feast days it was changed to four in the afternoon, and the merriment was then kept up till the last woman had retired, and the last man found a pillow on the rushes that strewed the floor.
On this New Year’s eve there were, as usual, two great tables set; for to-night not only all the retainers of the Castle, but also half a hundred of the tenantry from the estates, claimed the privilege of their fealty and came to eat at the house of their lord, sitting below his salt, breaking his bread, supping his beer, and talking and laughing and drinking each till he could no more.
Madame Eleanore was always present at this feast, as a matter of duty and of graciousness. She sat to-night at the head of the board, with an empty place beside her for Gerault. Alixe was upon her right hand, and one of the young squires-at-arms upon her left; and in the general hubbub of the feast none of the peasant boors noticed how persistent a silence reigned at that end of the table, nor how wearily sad was the expression of their lady’s face.