The Castle of Twilight

by Margaret Horton Potter

“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.