Chapter IV: Part 4

It was only then that the Bishop realized how skilfully she had led up to her point. He had not realized that he was dealing with perception engendered by an agony of grief and fear. As she reached her climax, he sprang to his feet, and began to pace the room, hands clasped behind him, brows much contracted, head far bent upon his breast. Eleanore, meantime, had slid to her knees and watched him as he moved.

“If thou wilt spare her, ask what thou wilt of me. I will do her penance, whatever thou shalt decree. I will give money; I will give all that remains to me of my dower, freely and with light heart, to the Church. I will aid whomsoever thou wilt of thy poor, I—”

“Cease, Eleanore! These things cannot avail against the Church. Thou must not tempt, thou must not question; thou canst not understand _the Law_! I am but an instrument of that Law, and am commanded by it. Laure, the bride of Heaven, hath forsaken her chosen life. She must endure her punishment, being guilty of—thou knowest the sin. Next Sunday the ban must be put upon her. In doing so, I but obey a higher power. Eleanore, Eleanore, rise from thy knees! Thou art tearing at my heart! Peace, woman! Peace, and let me go!”

Eleanore, in her agony of despair, had crept to him and clasped his knees, mutely imploring the pity that he dared not show. Logic and reason he had put from him, holding fast to the tenets of that Church that had made him what he was. In all his career he had not been so tried, so tempted, to slip his duty. But, through the crucial moment, he did not speak; and after that he was safe from attack.

After many minutes the mother loosed her clasp of him, and ceased to moan, and let him go; for she saw that he could not help her. And as he passed slowly out of the room, she rose to her feet and looked after him blindly. Then she groped her way to the door, crossed the great hall, and, with her burden, ascended the stairs and went to her own room. Next morning, when the Bishop said mass in the chapel, madame, for the first time in thirty years on such an occasion, was not present. Nor did monseigneur seem astonished at the fact, but left his sympathy for her before he rode away to St. Nazaire.

All that afternoon and night, indeed, till after dawn of the next day, weary henchmen of the keep came straggling in on spent horses, fruitless returned from a fruitless quest. And when they were all back again, and the hope of seeing Laure was gone, the shadow of loneliness settled a little lower over the great pile of stone, and the silence within the Castle grew more and more intense to the aching heart within.

In the general desolation of Castle life Alixe, the unnatural child of peasant blood, came very close to the heart of Eleanore. Through the long, budding spring madame fought a terrible battle with herself against an overpowering desire for an end of life, for the peace of death. And in these times Alixe often drew her away from herself by getting her to hunt and to hawk,—two amusements in which madame had been wont to indulge eagerly in her youth, and which she found were still possible for her, though she had grown to what she thought old-womanhood. Besides this, she and Alixe took the long walks that Laure had formerly delighted in; and the two ventured into many a deep cave in the sea-cliffs, and explored many crevices that no native of the coast would enter. In these places they found fair treasures of the sea, but were never accosted by any of the supernatural beings said to inhabit such spots. Nor, though they listened many times for it at twilight, did either of them hear, a single time, the long, low, wailing cries of the spirit of the lost Lenore.

In this way some pleasures entered unawares into the life of Eleanore. Perhaps there were other pleasures also, so simple and so familiar that she took no cognizance of them as such. Perhaps of a morning, in the spinning-room, when her fingers flew under some familiar, pretty task, and her ears were filled with the chatter of the demoiselles, who still strove after light-hearted joys amid their gray surroundings, she found forgetfulness of Laure’s bitter disgrace. Or better still, when, at the sunset hour, she paced the grassy falcon-field, watching the glories of the sea and sky, there came to her heart that benison of Nature that God has devised for all of us in our days of woe. But when she was alone, in early afternoon, or, most of all, through the silent night-watches, she was sometimes overcome with sheer terror of herself and of her solitude. At such times she fought the creeping horror with what weapons time had given her, battling so bravely that she never suffered utter rout.

In a dim, quiet way the weeks sped on, leaving behind them no trace of what had been, nothing for memory to hang her lightest fabric on. In all the weeks that lay between Laure’s flight and the coming of July, Eleanore could remember distinctly just one talk beside the bitter one with St. Nazaire. And this other was with neither Alixe nor the Bishop, who, however, made it a point to come once in a fortnight to Le Crépuscule.

On a fair morning in May, as the dawn crept up out of the east not many hours after midnight, Eleanore rose, in the early flush, and, clothing herself lightly, left her room with the intention of going into the fields to walk. No one was to be seen as she entered the lower hall; but, to her amazement, the great door stood half open, and through it poured a draught of morning air, rich with the perfume of blossoming trees and fertile fields. Wondering that Alixe should have risen so early, Eleanore left the Castle and hurried out of the courtyard into the strip of meadow lying between the wall and the dry moat. Here, near the north edge of the cliff, sitting cross-legged in the grass, sat David the dwarf, holding in his hand something to which he talked in a low, solemn tone. Advancing noiselessly toward him, Eleanore perceived that it was a dead butterfly that he had found, and to which he was pouring out his soul. Amazed at the first phrases that caught her ears, she halted a few steps behind him, and there learned something of the thoughts that lay hidden in his volatile brain.

“White Butterfly, White Butterfly, thou frail and delicate child of summer, speak to me again! Say, hast thou found death as fair as life, thou White and Still? Came the messenger to thee unawares, or didst thou see his face and know it? Wast thou confessed, White Butterfly? Wentest thou forth absolved of all thy fluttering sins?

“Say, wanderer, didst love thy life? Wast afraid or sorrowful to leave it, in its dawn? Or foundest thou comfort in the thought of eternal rest for thy battling wings?

“And I, O living Thistledown, teach me my way! Shall I follow thee into the great world, to roam there seeking why men love to live? Or shall I also, like thee, leave it all? Shall I go, knowing nothing of the joy of life? Or, again, shall I practise a weary courtesy, and remain to bring echoes of laughter into that Twilight Castle, for the sake of the love I bear its Twilight Lady? Her life, my flutterer, hath been such a dream of tears as even thou and I, dead thing, have never known. Yea, many a time while I laughed and shouted at the light crew of damsels that sleep there now, my heart hath bled for her. O Ghost of the Morning, know you what Eleanore, our lady, thinks of me, the fool? And yet, yet I do so deeply pity her—”

“Thou pityest me, David?” echoed Eleanore, advancing till she stood before him, forgetful of how her appearance must startle him.

David looked up at her, winking slowly, like one that would bring himself out of a dream-world into reality. “Lady of Twilight, thou’rt a woman, lonely and mournful, forsaken of thy children. Therefore I grieve for thee,” he said slowly, gazing at her with his big eyes, but not rising from where he sat.

“A woman,” said Eleanore, looking at him with a half-smile, and echoing his tone,—“a woman doubtless is always to be pitied; and yet what man deems it so? Master David, ye are all born of women, and ye are all reared by them. Afterwards, in youth, ye wed, use us as your playthings for an hour, and then leave us in your gray dwellings, while ye fare forth to more manly sports and exploits. There in solitude we bear and rear again, and later our maidens wed and our sons depart from us, and for the last time, in our age, we are left alone to die. Truly, David, thou mayest well pity!”

David’s wide mouth curved in a bitter smile.

“Even so, Madame Eleanore. And now, for fifteen years, I have lived as a woman lives. Mayhap by now I know her life better than other men—if, indeed, I am a man, being but little taller than the animals. And all these things said I to my dead friend here in my hand.”

“’Tis now fifteen years since thou camest with my lord to Crépuscule?”

“Ay, fifteen. I was then a boy of about such age. Fifteen years in Le Crépuscule by the sea! It is a lifetime.”

Madame sighed. Then her face brightened again as she looked down at the dwarf. “What was the life of thy youth, David? ’Tis a tale I have never heard.”

“’Tis but a little tale. Like my dead butterfly, I wandered. I come of a race of dwarfs,—all straight-backed, know you, and not ill to look upon. My father was a mountebank. My mother, who measured greater than was customary among us, cooked and sewed and travelled with us whithersoever we went in our wagon. When I was young,—at the age of five or thereabouts,—I began to assist my father in his entertainments. When I was fifteen we were in Rennes for the jousting season, and there thy lord saw me, bought me, and brought me back to you, lady, to be your merry jester. But indeed my laughter hath run low, of late. Long years I have bravely jested through; but now the Twilight spell is creeping over me, and merriment rises no more in my heart. Indeed, I question if I should not beg leave of thee to go forth into the world again for a little time, to learn once more the song of joy. Yet when thou art near, and I look out upon the sea, and behold the sun lifting his glory out of the eastern hills, I ever think I cannot go,—I cannot leave this gentle home of melancholy.”

“Thou art free, David, if freedom is mine to bestow upon thee. Indeed, I could not ask that any one remain in this sad and quiet place, of any than his own will. Go thou forth into the world! Go forth to joy and life and laughter. Fill thy little heart again with jests. Forget the brooding silence of Le Crépuscule, and laugh through the broad world to thy heart’s content. Yet we shall miss thee sorely, little man.”

Madame stopped speaking, and there was a pause. David seemed to have no response to make to her words. Instead he bent over the earth, digging a little hole in the sod. Into this he laid the dead form of his white butterfly. When he had covered it from sight with the black earth, and patted a little earthen mound over it, he rose to his feet with an exaggerated sigh.

“So I bury my friend—and my freedom. My desire is dead, Madame Eleanore, with my freedom. I will remain here among you women-folk, and keep you sad company or merry as you demand. Look! The rim of the sun is pushing over the line of the distant trees!”

“Yea, it is there—far away—in the land where Laure may be, deserted, mayhap, and a wanderer, cast out from every dwelling that she enters!”

Eleanore whispered these words, more to herself than to David. They were an expression of her eternal thought. The dwarf heard them, and sought some comfort for her. But her expression forbade comfort; and, in the end, he did not speak at all. The two of them stood side by side and watched the sun come up the heavens. Presently the Castle awoke, and shortly Alixe came out to the field to feed the young _niais_ and the mother-birds in the falcon-nests. So Eleanore, when she had given the young girl greeting, returned to her solitude in the Castle, finding her heart in some part relieved of its immediate burden.

One by one the lengthening days passed. June came into the world, and palpitated, and glowed with glory and fire, and then died. During this time not a word had come from distant Rennes to tell the Lady of Crépuscule how Gerault fared. The midsummer month came in, and the young men and maidens of the Castle grew gay with the heat, and made riotous expenditure of the riches of Nature. That year the whole earth seemed a tangle of flowers and rich meadow-grass, with which young demoiselles played havoc, while the squires and henchmen hawked and hunted and drank deep. These days stirred Eleanore’s heart once more to love of life, and woke the sleeping soul of Alixe to strange fits of passionate yearning after unattainable ideals. The living earth brought fire to every soul, and the pinched melancholy of winter was dead and forgotten.

On the night of the seventh of July the Castle sat unusually late at meat, for the Bishop had arrived unexpectedly, and, being in a merry mood, deigned to entertain the whole Castle with tales and jests. Just in the middle of a story of Church militant in the war of the three Jeannes, there came the grating noise of the lowering drawbridge, a faint echo of shouts from the men-at-arms in the watch-tower, and the clatter of swift hoofs over the courtyard stones. Half a dozen henchmen ran to open the great door, while Eleanore rose with difficulty to her feet. Her heart had suddenly come into her throat, and she had turned deathly white with an unexpressed hope and an inarticulate fear. There was a little pause. The new-comer was dismounting. Then, after what had seemed a year of waiting, Courtoise walked into the hall, advanced to his liege lady, and bent the knee.

“Courtoise!” gasped Eleanore, faintly. “Courtoise—thy message!”

“Madame,” he cried, “I bring joyful tidings from my lord! He sends thee health, greeting, and duty, and prays you to prepare the Castle for a great feast; for in a week’s time he brings home his bride from Rennes!”

_CHAPTER SIX_
A LOVE-STRAIN

Late that night, when the little throng below had been as nearly satisfied with information concerning the great event as three poor hours of steady talking from Courtoise could make them, Eleanore sat in her own room alone with the messenger, there to learn those intimate details of Gerault’s wooing, that none but her had right to know. She questioned Courtoise eagerly, earnestly, repeatedly, with such yearning in her eyes that the young squire’s heart smote him to see what her loneliness had been.

“Tell me again, Courtoise, yet once again! She is fair, this maid?”

“As fair as a rose, madame; her skin composed of pink and white, so cunningly mingled that none can judge which hath most play upon it. And her eyes are blue like a midsummer sky; and she hath clouds of hair that glisten like meshes of sun-threads, crowning her.”

“And she is small and delicately formed?”

“She is slender and fragile; yet is she in no way sickly of body.”

“And her name,” went on madame, musingly, “is Lenore! Is that not a strange thing, Courtoise? Is’t not strange that a second time this name should have entered so deeply into the life of thy lord? Was he glad that it so chanced, Courtoise; or did he hesitate to pronounce it again?”

“I know not if it troubled him at first, madame. But this I know: that he is happy in her.”

“Then the dear God be thanked! I ask no more. Ah! It seems that at last I can pray again with an open heart. ’Twill be the first time since—since—” Suddenly Eleanore began to tremble. “Courtoise,” she whispered, pale with dread, “hath thy lord heard—of—of Laure’s flight?”

Courtoise bent his head, answering in a strained voice: “My lord had news of—of the flight late in the month of March. Monseigneur de St. Nazaire sent us the word of it, and for many weeks my lord hunted the country over for a trace of her. And when he found her not, nor any word of her, he forbore, in his grief, to write to thee, dear lady, lest he should cause thy tears to flow again.”

“I thank the good God that he knows!” murmured Eleanore. “It had been more than I could bear that Gerault should come home to find his wedding feast blackened with a new-learned shame.”

“Yea, Lady Eleanore.”

“And so now, Courtoise, go thou to thy rest; for I have kept thee long, and thou’rt very weary. And on the morrow there must be a beginning of making the Castle bravely gay for the home-coming of its lord and its bride. Likewise, on the morrow thou must tell me more of the young Lenore, my daughter.”

Courtoise smiled wearily, and then, with proper obeisance, hurried off to his own room, a little triangular closet opening into Gerault’s old bedroom on the first floor. When the squire was gone, his liege lady also laid her down; and for the first time in many months sank easily to sleep. For happiness is the best of doctors, and this that had come to her was a greater happiness than Eleanore had thought ever to know again.

Through the next week the very dogs about the Castle caught the air of bustle and eager life that had laid hold of it. Never, since the days of the old lord and his crews of drinking barons, had Le Crépuscule shown such symptoms of gayety. Every scullion scampered about his pots and kettles as if an army of Brittany depended on him for nourishment. The henchmen hurried about, polishing their armor and their steel trappings till the keep glittered as with many mirrors, and they broke off from this labor now and then to see that the stable-boys were at work on the proper horses or to dissolve into thunderous roars of laughter at a neighbor’s jest. The young demoiselles were giddy with excitement. They pricked their fingers with spindles, they broke innumerable threads on the wheels, they stopped the loom to dance or sing in the middle of the morning; and while they were arranging the rooms where the train of the young bride were to lodge, they gossiped so ardently over possible future gayeties that their very tongues were like to drop off with weariness. As for the squires, all five of them, headed by Courtoise, were to ride out to Croitôt on the Rennes road, as an additional escort for Seigneur Gerault. And the parade they made over this matter was more than Montfort had for his coronation at Rennes when the great war ended.

There were, however, three silent workers in the Castle who did more than all the rest together; and they were silent only because their hearts were too full for speech. These were madame, Alixe, and David the dwarf. While the little man worked at the decoration of the chapel, the women adorned the bridal chamber; and in all that week of preparation, not a soul save these two set foot over that sacred threshold. Madame had selected the room. It was not Gerault’s usual chamber, but one on the second floor, on the northwest corner of the Castle, separated from madame’s room only by the place in which Laure had slept of old, and which madame now kept closed to all save herself.

For the adornment of Gerault’s and Lenore’s apartment, madame brought out the old historic tapestries, embroideries, and precious silken hangings that had been for years stowed away in great chests in the spinning-room. The bed was hung with curtains in which were woven illustrations of the “Romant of the Rose,” a poem that had once been much recited in Le Crépuscule. On the walls were great squares of tapestry representing the battles of the family of Montfort. On the floor were two or three strips of precious brocade, brought out of the East a century before by some crusading lord. Finished, the room looked very rich, but very sombre; and, this being the fashion of the times, it was satisfactory to all that saw it. Eleanore only, with eyes new-opened by the thought of approaching happiness, feared the room a little dark, a little heavy for the reception of so delicate a creature as the young Lenore. But every one else in the Castle was in such delight over its appearance that she left it as it was. Meantime the lower hall was hung with banners and scarred pennants and gay streamers; and then the pillars were wreathed with greenery and flowers till the still, gray place was all transformed, and resembled a triumphal hall awaiting the coming of a conqueror.

Thus the week of waiting passed merrily and rapidly away, and the day of the departure of Courtoise and the squires for Croitôt speedily arrived. With them also went a picked half-dozen men-at-arms, who were bursting with pride at this honor done their brilliant steel and smooth-flanked horses. After their going, when everything in the Castle was in readiness for the reception, a little wave of reaction set in among those left at home. Eleanore retired to commune with her own happy mind. David sought solitude in which to arrange a programme of welcome. And Alixe, seized with a sudden mood of misery, fled away to a certain cave in the base of the Castle cliff, and here wept and raged by herself, for some undefined reason, till her tears cleared the mists from her soul, and she was herself again. Still, as she returned to the Castle, she knew that there remained a bitterness in her heart. Eleanore, who had long ago come to mean mother to her, had, in the last month or two, for the first time given her almost a mother-love, that had fed Alixe’s hungry heart as the body of the Lord had never fed her soul. And now this love was to be taken away again. A real daughter was coming into the household, a daughter by the marriage of the Seigneur; and this, Alixe knew, must be a closer tie than any of time or custom. She must go back to her old place, the place she had held in the days of Laure; but she could never hope to find in the stranger the beautiful friendship that had existed between her and her foster-sister.

That evening was a quiet one in the Castle. Monseigneur of St. Nazaire had arrived in the afternoon; but he seemed wearier than his wont, and, out of consideration for him, Eleanore ordered the general retirement at an early hour.

The next day, the great day, dawned over Le Crépuscule, red and clear and intensely hot. Every one was up before the sun; and when fast had been broken and prayer said in the chapel, every one went forth to the meadow, some even down to the moor, half a mile below the moat, to gather flowers to be scattered in the courtyard for the coming of the bride. The party was expected to arrive by noon at latest; and, as the morning waned, Eleanore found herself uncontrollably nervous. Alixe and David both stood in the watch-tower, looking for the first sign of horses and banners on the edge of the forest at the foot of the long hill. Noon passed, and the earliest hour of afternoon, and the Castle was on tiptoe with excitement. At two o’clock came a cry from Alixe, in the tower. Down the hill, round the sweep in the road, was the flutter of a blue and white pennant, presently flanked by a longer one of gray. There was a pause of two or three moments. Then the trumpeters dashed out from the keep, ranged up before their captain, and blew a quick, triumphal, if somewhat jerky, fanfare. There was an outpouring of retainers into the courtyard, and presently, from far away, came the faint sounds of an answering blast from Gerault’s heralds. As this died away, a great shout of excitement and delight arose from the waiting company, now massed about the flower-strewn drawbridge, and only at this time Madame Eleanore came out of the Castle.

Many eyes were turned upon her as she crossed the courtyard, bearing herself as royally as a princess. She was garbed in flowing robes of damask, white, and olive green, silver-studded, and her head was dressed in those great horns so much in fashion at this time, but seldom affected by her, and now lending an unrivalled majesty to her appearance.

Madame took her place at the right of the drawbridge, and, like all the throng, strained her eyes toward the approaching cavalcade that contained the future of Le Crépuscule. Apparently madame was very calm. In reality her heart beat so that it was like to suffocate her, for now Gerault’s form took on distinct shape before her eyes. The sun shot serpents of light around his helmet and his steel-encased arms, while over his body-pieces he wore the silken surcoat of pale gray, embroidered with the arms of his Castle. Gerault’s lance, held in rest, fluttered a pennant of azure and white, the colors of his lady; and Courtoise, who rode just behind his master, carried the gray streamer of Le Crépuscule.

Amid a tumult of blaring trumpets, vigorous shouting, and eager choruses of welcome and greeting, the Lord of Crépuscule, with his bride on her white palfrey beside him, rode across the drawbridge of the Twilight Castle. Just inside the courtyard Gerault halted, leaped from his horse, and ran quickly to embrace his mother. When he had held her for a moment in his arms, he turned, lifted his lady from her horse, and, amid an embarrassing silence of curiosity, led the young girl up to madame.

“In the name of Le Crépuscule and of its lord, I bid thee welcome to this Castle, my daughter! Good people, give greeting to your lady!”

Men and maidens, serving-maids and henchmen, still gazing wide-eyed at the figure of the Seigneur’s wife, sent forth an inarticulate buzz of welcome and of admiration; and, when it had died away, Gerault took his bride by the hand, and, with Eleanore upon the other side, moved slowly across the courtyard toward the Castle doorway, where now stood the Bishop of St. Nazaire, waiting to add his welcome to the newly wed. Nor did the Bishop refrain from a little exclamation of pleasure at sight of the young wife, as she sank upon her knees before his mitre, to receive a blessing.

A few moments later the whole company crowded into the brilliantly decorated hall and moved about, each selecting a desired place at the great horseshoe table ready prepared for the feast. Gerault was standing in the middle of the room, looking about him in surprise and pleasure at the preparations made to do him honor. Presently, however, he turned to his mother, who stood close at his elbow, and said, after a second’s hesitation: “I do not see Alixe, madame. Is she not here in the Castle?”

Eleanore looked about her in some surprise. “Hast not seen her? Where hath she been? Ah, yes, there she stands, in yonder corner. Alixe! Hither!”

“Alixe!” echoed Gerault; and strode to where she stood, half concealed, between the staircase and the chapel door, her head drooping, her eyes cast down.

“Come, Alixe, and greet Lenore. She hath heard much of thee, and I would have you friends, for you are both young, and you must be good companions here together.” So he took her hand and kissed her, and led her out to where Eleanore and the young wife stood waiting.

“Lenore, this is my foster-sister. La Rieuse have we called her, and she is well named. Give her greeting—” Gerault came to rather a halting pause; for the attitude of the two women nonplussed him.

Lenore stood motionless, suddenly putting on a little dress of dignity, and looking steadfastly into the dark face of the other girl. Alixe, anything but laughing now, was absorbing, detail by detail, the delicate and exquisite personality of Gerault’s bride. More fairy-like than human she seemed, with her slender, beautifully curved child’s figure, her face neither white nor pink, but of a transparent, pearly tint indescribably ethereal, in which were set great eyes of violet hue, and all around which floated her hair,—that wonderful hair that was, indeed, a captive sun-ray. The curve of Lenore’s lips, the turn of her nostril, the poise of her head, and the delicacy of her hands and feet, all proclaimed her noble birth. The dress that she wore set off her beauty as pure gold makes a gem more brilliant. She wore a loosely fitting bliault of greenish blue, embroidered in long, silver vines, while her undersleeves and yoke were of frosty cloth of silver. Her head was crowned with a simple circlet of gold, far less lustrous than her hair; and from it, at the back, fell a veil of silver tissue that touched the hem of her robe. All this dress was disordered and dusty with long riding; but the carelessness of it seemed to become her the better. In the rich heat of the July sun she had seemed a little too colorless, a little too pale and misty, for beauty; but here, in the cool shadows of the great stone hall, she was brighter than any angel.

Alixe examined her long and carefully, to the confusion of the girl, whose feeling of strangeness and embarrassment continually increased. In the face of “La Rieuse” it was easy to read the struggle between jealousy and admiration. Alixe was, secretly, a worshipper of beauty; and beauty such as this of Lenore’s she had never seen before. In the end it triumphed. Alixe’s eyes grew brighter and brighter as she gazed; and presently, when the strain of silence was not much longer to be endured, there burst from her the involuntary exclamation,—

“God of dreams! How art thou fair!”

And from that moment the allegiance of Alixe was fixed. She was on her knees to Lenore, this fair usurper of her place, this Gerault’s bride.

Presently the moving company resolved itself into order, and each sought his place at the table, where the Seigneur and St. Nazaire now stood side by side, at the head, with Lenore upon Gerault’s left hand, madame on St. Nazaire’s right, and Alixe next madame and opposite Courtoise, who was placed beside the bride. There was a long Latin grace from the Bishop, and then the feast began. It was like all the feasts of the day, a matter of stuffing till one could hold no more, and then of drinking till one knew no more; for, to the commoner folk, and those below the salt, this was the greatest pleasure in life. To those for whom the feast was given, and to the rest of the little group at the head of the table, the whole business was sufficiently tedious: not to say, however, that monseigneur and even Gerault showed no symptoms of fondness for a morsel of peacock’s breast, or a calf’s head stuffed with the brains, pounded suet, and raisins, over which was poured a good brown gravy. Courtoise and Alixe also displayed healthy appetites. But madame and Lenore, whether from excitement or other causes, sat for the most part playing with what was put before them, and eating nothing.

After half an hour at the table Madame Eleanore found herself watching, with rather unexpected interest, the attitude of Gerault toward his wife. And she perceived, with a kind of dull surprise, that his attentions savored of perfunctoriness. The Seigneur failed in no way to do his lady courtesy; but that air of tender delight that the personality of the young girl would be expected to draw from a young husband, was not there. Whatever impression of indifference madame received, however, she admitted no such thing to herself. Her heart was too full of joy for Gerault, and for Le Crépuscule. For, great as had been her hopes of her son’s choice, her dreams had never pictured a being so rare and so lovely as this who was come to dwell at her side in the gray and ancient Castle.

As for Lenore herself, she seemed to see nothing but devotion in Gerault’s attitude toward her. She sat with a smile upon her face, playing daintily with what she had to eat, answering any question or remark put to her with a straightforwardness that had in it no taint of self-consciousness, even addressing a sentence or two of her own to Courtoise on her right; but at the same time holding all heart and soul for Gerault. The Seigneur did not speak much with his wife, but answered her modest glances with an air of mild indulgence, taking small notice of anything that went on round him save the keen looks now and then shot from the scintillating green eyes of Alixe. Of all the tableful, Alixe was the only one that found any food for thought in the situation before her; and, surprisingly enough, the key to her reflections lay in the curious behavior of Courtoise, who, as time went on, became so uneasy, so fidgety, so restless, that Gerault finally leaned over the table and asked him rather sharply if he were ill.

In the course of time, however, the last jack was emptied, the last song sung, the last questionable story told. Monseigneur de St. Nazaire rose and repeated the ending grace, and then the whole drowsy, witless company followed him into the glowing chapel, where a short mass was performed. Lenore and Gerault knelt side by side to the right of the altar, with Eleanore a little behind them, where she could watch the bright candle-rays vie with the radiance of Lenore’s golden hair, and see where the silvery bridal robe overlapped a little the edge of the gray surcoat of Le Crépuscule, that swept the floor beside it. The mother-eyes were all for the girlish form of the new daughter; and her heart went out again to Gerault, who had brought this fairy creature to Le Crépuscule, in place of her who had been so terribly mourned.

Lenore listened to the repetition of the mass with a reverent air, but without much thinking of the familiar form. Her mind was busy with thoughts of these new surroundings and the faces of the new vassals and companions. Gerault, her beloved, was at her side; the great silver crucifix that hung over the altar gave her a sense of comfort and protection, and she found a restful pleasure in the tones of the Bishop’s voice. The bright candle-light that shone into her eyes produced in her a semi-hypnotic state, and she seemed to have knelt there at the altar but three or four minutes when the words of the benediction fell upon her ears, and presently the whole company was trooping out into the great hall, whence all signs of the feast had been removed.

In the same dreamlike way, Lenore went with her husband and madame upstairs, to the room that had been prepared for her and Gerault. Here her two demoiselles were already unpacking the coffer which had come from Rennes with them. And here she removed her travel-stained garments, bathed the dust from her face and arms, was combed and perfumed like the great lady she had become, and lay down to rest for a little time in the twilight, with new ministers to her comfort all about her. Later, as it grew dark, she dressed again and descended to the great hall, where further merriment was in progress.

The demoiselles and squires of the Castle were now holding high revel, and their games caused the old stone walls to echo with laughter and shrieks of delight. In one corner of the room madame and the Bishop sat together over a game of chess. Gerault was near them, where he could watch the battle; but his eyes were often to be seen following the light figure of Lenore through the mazes of the dances and games in which she so eagerly joined. The sports in which these maidens and young men grown indulged, were commonly played by older folk throughout France, and have descended almost intact to the children of a more advanced and less light-hearted age. Lenore entered into the play with a pleasure too unconscious not to be genuine. She laughed and sang and chattered, and put herself at home with every one. She was soon the leading spirit of the company, as she had been wont to be in her own home. The games were innumerable: _Pantouffle_, _Pince-Mérille_, _Bric_, _Qui Féry_, _Le Roi qui ne Ment pas_, and a dozen others. And were there a forfeit to be paid in the shape of a kiss, she instantly deserted Courtoise and David, who, enraptured with her youth and gayety, kept close on either side of her, and delivered it with shy delight to Gerault, who scarcely appeared to appreciate the gifts he got.

In the course of time a “Ribbon Dance” was ordered, and madame and monseigneur actually left their game to lead it, drawing Gerault with them into the sport. Obediently he gave one hand to Lenore, the other to Alixe, and went through the dance with apathetic grace, bringing by his half unconscious manner the first chill upon Lenore’s happy evening. This was, however, the end of the amusement; and when the flushed and panting company finally halted, Gerault at once drew his wife to madame’s side, himself saluted his mother, and then followed Lenore up the torchlit stairs. In ten minutes the whole company had dispersed, and Eleanore remained alone in the great hall.

When she had extinguished all the lights below, madame passed up the stairs, putting out the smoking torches as she went, and, reaching the upper hall, went immediately to her own bedroom. Here she slipped off the heavy mantle and the modified “cote-hardi.” Then, clad only in a long, light, damask tunic, she went over to one of the wide-open west windows, and, leaning across its sill, looked out upon the vasty, murmurous, summer sea. Low on the horizon, among a group of faint clustering stars, swung the crescent moon, which was reflected in the smooth surface of a distant wave. A great, fresh, salt breath came up like a tonic through the wilted air. The voice of the sea was infinitely soothing. Eleanore listened to it eagerly, her lips parted, her eyes wandering along that distant wave-line; her thoughts almost as far away. Presently the door of her room opened, softly; and some one paused upon the threshold. Instinctively she knew who it was that entered. Half turning, she said gently,—

“Thou’rt come here, Gerault?”

Her son came forward slowly, halted a few steps away, and held out one hand to her. She went to him and took it, wondering a little at his manner, but not questioning him. Quietly she drew the young man to the window where she had been; and both stood there and looked out upon the scene. They were silent for a long time. It was intensely difficult for Gerault to speak; and madame knew not how to help him. At length, in a voice that sounded slightly strained, he asked: “Thou’rt pleased with her? Thou’rt satisfied, my mother?”

“Oh, Gerault! Gerault! She is so fair, so delicate, so like some faery child! I almost fear to see her beauty fade in the shadow of these gray walls.”

“And will she—Lenore—help thee, in a way, to forget thy grief in Laure?”

Eleanore gave a sudden, involuntary sob; for none had pronounced that name to her since the early spring. The sob was answer enough to Gerault’s question. But in a moment she said, in a voice that was perfectly controlled: “Methinks I love her, thy lady, already. Ah, my son, she is very sweet! Very, very sweet and fair!”

_CHAPTER SEVEN_
THE LOST LENORE

When Gerault left her to go to his mother’s room, on that first evening in the Castle that was to be her home, Lenore was still fully dressed. As soon as she was alone, however, she made herself ready for the night; and then, wrapping herself about in her long day-mantle, went to a window overlooking the sea, and sat there waiting for her lord’s return. Now that the excitement of the day, of the arrival, of meeting so many new people, all eager to make her welcome, was over, Lenore began to feel herself very weary, a little homesick, a little wistful, and tremulously eager for Gerault’s speedy return. She clung to the thought of him and her newly risen love, with pathetic anxiety. Was it not lawful and right that she should love him? Was it not equally lawful and therefore equally certain that he must love her? She knew little enough of love and of men, young Lenore; yet this idea came to her instinctively, and it seemed impossible that it could be otherwise. It was so recently that she had been a little girl in all her thoughts and pleasures and habits, that this sudden transition to the dignified estate of wifehood had left her singularly helpless, singularly dependent on the man whom she had married out of duty and fallen in love with afterwards, on the way from Rennes. Gerault helped her, in his way. He was kind, he was gentle, was solicitous for her comfort, and required of her nothing but a quiet demeanor. But that he failed in some way to give her what was her due, the young girl rather felt than knew.

While she waited here alone, looking out upon the lonely sea, that was so new and so wonderful a sight to her, the Lady Lenore bitterly regretted and took herself to task for her gayety of the evening. The silly games that she had once so loved to play—alas! he had not joined in them, doubtless thought them trivial and unbecoming in a woman grown and married! She had made herself a fool before him! He was older than she, and wiser, and a gallant knight. Lenore’s cheeks flushed with pride as she remembered how he could joust and tilt at the ring. She remembered when she had first seen him, from the gallery of the list at Rennes, when he unseated the Seigneur Geoffrey Cartel. This lordly sport was as simple to him as her games to her. Little wonder that she had exhausted his patience! And yet—if he would but come to her now! She was so sadly weary; and it grew so late. Her little body ached, her temples throbbed, her eyes burned with the past glare of the sun on the white dust, and the recent flickering light of the torches. If he would but come back, and forgive her her childishness, and kiss her before she slept, she would be very happy.

In point of fact Gerault did come soon. Knowing that Lenore must be weary, he remained but a short time with his mother, and returned immediately to his wife. The moment that he entered the room, Lenore rose from her place, and ran to him with a faint cry of delight.

“At last thou art come! Thou art come!” she said indistinctly, not wanting him to hear the words, yet unable to keep from saying them.

“And didst thou sit up for me, child, and thou so weary? I went but to give my mother good-night, for thou knowest ’tis long since I saw her last. She sent thee her blessing and sweet rest; and my wish is fellow to hers. Come now, child.”

Gerault lifted her up in his arms, and, carrying her to the bed, laid her down in it, mantle and all. In the carrying, Lenore had leaned her head upon his shoulder, and her two tired arms folded themselves around his neck. How it was that Gerault felt no thrill at this touch; that it was almost a relief to him when the hold loosened; and how, though he slept at her side that night, his dreams, freer replica of his day-thoughts, were filled with vague trouble, he himself could scarce have told; and yet it was so.

_Only one among them seemed
not of their mood.—Page 31_
]

Next morning, however, Gerault watched her waken, looking as rosy and fresh as a child, and smiling a child’s delighted welcome at the new day. Unquestionably she was a pleasure to him at such times. Before her marriage he had liked, in thinking of her, to accentuate her fairy-like ways, because through them he had brought himself to marry her. And now his treatment of her resembled most, perhaps, the treatment of something very fine and fair, something very rare and delicate and generally to be prized, but not really belonging to him, not essentially valued by him, or near at all to his human heart.

When they were ready for the day, the two of them, Lenore and Gerault, did not linger together in their room, but descended immediately to the chapel, where morning prayers were just beginning. Every eye was turned upon them as they entered the holy room; and it was as sunshine greeting sunshine when Lenore faced the open window, through which poured the golden light of July. Madame’s heart swelled and beat fast, and that of Alixe all but stopped, as each beheld the morning’s bride; and they perceived, with a kind of dull surprise, that Gerault’s face was as dark-browed, as reserved, as melancholy as ever. It seemed impossible that he should not be moved to new life by the presence and possession of so fair a thing as this Lenore. Yet when the devotions were at an end, and the Castle household rose and moved out to where the tables were spread for the breaking of the fast, no one noted how the young girl’s blue eyes glanced once or twice a little wistfully, a little forlornly, up into the unmoved face of her husband, and that she got therefrom no answering smile.

In celebration of the Seigneur’s wedding, a week’s holiday had been declared for every one in the Castle; and so, when the first meal of the day was at an end, the demoiselles, in high glee at escaping from the morning’s toil in the hot spinning-room, gayly proposed to their attendant squires that they repair at once to the open meadows, where there was glorious opportunity for games and caroles. Lenore’s eyes lighted with pleasure at this proposal; but she looked instinctively at Gerault, to see if his face approved the plan. She found his eyes upon her; and, as he caught her glance, he motioned her to his side, and drew her with him a little apart from the general group. Then he said to her kindly,—

“Beloved, I shall see thee at noon meat. Courtoise and I go forth this morning together to try two of the new falcons that Alixe hath trained. Thou’lt fare gently here with all the demoiselles and the young squires; and see that thou weary not thyself at play in the heat. Till noon, my little one!”

He bent and touched his lips to her hair,—that sunlit hair,—and then, as he strode away, followed, but half willingly, by Courtoise, Lenore’s head bent forward, and her eyes, that for one instant had brimmed full, were shut tight till the unbidden drops went back again. When she looked up once more, Alixe was at her side, and the expression on the face of La Rieuse was full of unlooked-for tenderness. Lenore, however, was too proud for pity, and in a moment she smiled, and said bravely:

“My lord is going a-hawking with his squire. Shall we to the fields? Said they not that we should go to weave garlands in the fields?”

“Yes! To the fields! To the fields! Hola, David! We are commanded to the fields by our Queen of Delight!” called Alixe, loudly, waving her hands above her head, and striving in every way to gain the attention of the company. But in spite of her efforts, Gerault’s departure was seen, and there was a general outcry of protest, which did not, however, reach the ears of the Seigneur. Then Lenore was forced to bear the comments of the company: their loudly expressed disappointment, and the unspoken but infinitely more painful astonishment plainly indicated in every glance. Nevertheless the young girl had in her the instincts of a fine race, and she bore everything with a heroic unconcern that won Alixe’s admiration, and so far deceived the thoughtless throng as to bring her a new accusation of indifference to Gerault’s absence.

To the girl-bride that morning passed—somehow. It was perhaps the bitterest three hours she had ever endured; yet she would not confess her disappointment even to herself. Besides, was not Gerault coming home again? Had he not said that he would be back at noon? Had he not called her “beloved”? Her heart thrilled at the thought; and she forgot the fact that Gerault knew that she could ride with hawk on wrist and tell a fair quarry when she saw it. She forgot that at such times as this even hawking will generally give way to love; and that he is a sorry bridegroom that loves his horse better than his bride. Yet she forgave him for the time, and regained her smiles until the shadow of a new dread fell upon her. She could endure the morning; but the afternoon? Would he remain with her through the afternoon? Alas, here was the terrible pity of it! She could not tell.

However, this last dread proved to be groundless. Gerault made no move to leave the Castle again that day. Perhaps he even felt a little guilty of neglect; or perhaps her greeting on his return betrayed to him how she had suffered through the morning. However it was, as soon as the long dinner was at an end, the Seigneur and his lady were observed to wander away into the armory, and they sat there together, on the same settle, until the shadows grew long in the courtyard and the afternoon was nearly worn away. What they said to one another, or how Gerault entertained his maid, no one knew; for, oddly enough, Courtoise had put himself on guard at the armory door, and would permit none to venture so much as a peep into the room on which his own back was religiously turned. So for that afternoon demoiselles and squires chose King and Queen of their revels from among their own number, and perhaps enjoyed their games the better for that fact.

When the sun was leaning far toward the broad breast of the sea, all the Castle, mindful of their souls, repaired to the chapel for vespers, a service held only when the Bishop was at Le Crépuscule. Gerault and Lenore were the last to appear, and while the Seigneur’s expression was rather thoughtful than happy, it had in it, nevertheless, a suggestion of Lenore’s repressed joy, so that madame, seeing him, was satisfied for the first time since his home-coming.

But alas for the thoughts and hopes that this afternoon had raised in the observing ones of Le Crépuscule, Lenore and her husband were not seen again to spend a single hour alone together. Gerault remained for the most part with the general company of the Castle, not seeking to escape to solitude with Courtoise, but holding his lady from him at arm’s length. His attitude toward her was uneasy. He did not avoid her, but, were they by chance left alone together for ten minutes, his manner changed till it was like that of a man guilty of some dishonorable thing. Oftentimes, when they were with a number of others, Gerault would be seen to watch Lenore closely, and his eyes would light with momentary pleasure at some one of her unconscious graces. But the light never stayed. Quickly his black brows would darken, the shadows re-cover his face, and he would be more unapproachable than before.