Lenore sat very still, listening absently to the muffled sound of wind and rain and beating waves, while her mind drank in the narrative that Alixe poured into her ears; and so did the one thing interweave itself with the other in her consciousness, that, in after time, the spirit of the lost Lenore walked forever in her mind amid the terrible grandeur of a mighty storm, lightning crowning her head, her hair and garments dripping with rain and blown about by the increasing wind. An eerie thing it was for these two young and tender women, lightly clad, to sit at this midnight hour in the gray fastnesses of the Twilight Castle, and, while the whirlwind howled without, to turn over in their thoughts the story of a young life so tragically cut off in the midst of its happiness and beauty. Alixe’s changeable eyes shone in the semi-darkness with a phosphorescent gleam, and her voice rose and fell and trembled with emotion as she poured into Lenore’s burning heart the tale of Gerault’s sorrow.
“Five years agone, when I was but a maid of twelve, Seigneur Gerault was of the age of twenty-three. At that time this Castle, I mind me, was a merry place enow. Madame Eleanore had a great train of squires and demoiselles in those days, and thy lord kept a young following of his own—though he held Courtoise ever the favorite. At that time Gerault rode not to tournaments in Rennes, but bided at home with madame, his mother, and Laure, and the young demoiselle Lenore de Laval, niece to madame, a maid as young as thou art now. This maiden had come to Crépuscule when she was but a little girl, her own mother being dead, and madame loving her as a daughter. Gerault’s love for her was not that of a brother; yet because of their blood-relationship, there was little talk of their wedding. For all that, they two were ever together in company, and alone as much as madame permitted. They hawked, they hunted, and, above all, they sailed out on the sea. The Seigneur had a sailing-boat, and Madame Eleanore never knew, methinks, how many hours they spent on the waters of the bay. Child as I was, I envied them their happiness; and, though I went with them but seldom, I knew always how long they were together each day; and methinks I understood how precious each moment seemed.
“On this day I am to tell thee of—oh, Mother of God, that it would leave my memory!—I sat alone by the little gate in the wall behind the falconry, weeping because Laure had deserted our game and run to her mother in the Castle. So, while I sat there, wailing like the little fool I was, came the Seigneur and the demoiselle Lenore out by the gate on their way over the moat and to the beach by the steps that still lead thither down the cliff. The demoiselle paused in her going to comfort me, and presently, more, methinks, to tease the Seigneur than for mine own sake, insisted that I go sailing with them in their boat. I can remember how I screamed out with delight at the thought; for I loved to sail better than I loved to eat; and though Gerault somewhat protested, Lenore had her way, and presently we had come down the cliff and were on the beach by the inlet where the boat was kept.
“’Twas the early afternoon of an April day: warm, the sun covered over with a gray mist that was like smoke, and but little wind for our pleasure. Howbeit, as we put off into the full tide, a breath caught our sail and we started out toward an island near the coast, round the north point of the bay, which from here thou canst not see. I lay down in the bottom of the boat, near to the mast, and listened to the gurgling sound of the water as it passed underneath the planks, and later grew drowsy with the rocking. I ween I slept; for I remember naught of that sail till we were suddenly in the midst of a fog so thick that where I lay I could scarce see the figure of my lord sitting in the stern. There was no wind at all, for the sail flapped against the mast; and I was a little frightened with the silence of everything; so I rose and went to the demoiselle Lenore, who laid her hand on my shoulder, and patted me. She and Sieur Gerault were not talking together, for I think both were a little nervous of the fog. All at once, in the midst of the calm, a streak of wind caught us, and the little boat heeled over under it. Gerault caught at the tiller, swearing an oath that was born more from uneasiness than from anger. Reading his mind, Lenore moved a little out of his way, and began to sing. Ah, that voice and its sweetness! I mind it very well—and also her chansonette. Since that day I have not heard it sung, yet the words are fresh in my mind. Dost know it, madame? It beginneth,—
“‘Assez i a reson porqoi
L’eu doit fame chière tenir—’
“Ah, I remember it all so terribly! While Lenore sang, there came yet another gust of wind, and in it one of the ropes of the sail went loose, and the Seigneur must go to fix it. I sat between him and his lady, and as he jumped up, he put the tiller against my shoulder, and bade me not move till he came back. Lenore sat no more than four feet from me, on that side of the boat that was low in the wind. While she sang she had been playing with a ring that she had drawn from her finger. Just as monsieur sprang forward to the rope, Lenore dropped this ring, which methinks rolled into the water. I know that she gave a cry and threw herself far over the side and stretched out her hand for something. As she leaned, I followed her movement, and the tiller slipped its place. Ah, madame—madame—I remember not all the horror of the next moment! The boat went far over before a wave. Lenore lost her hold, and was in the water without a sound. The Seigneur, in a rage at me for letting the rudder slip, leaped back, and in an instant righted the boat, I screaming and crying, the while, in my woe. I know not how it was, but it seemed that, till we were started on our way again, Gerault never knew that—that his lady was gone.
“Then what a scene! We turned the boat into the wind, the Seigneur saying not one word, but sitting stiff and still and white as death in the stern. The path of the wind had made a long rift in the fog, and through this we sailed, I calling till my voice was gone, the Seigneur leaning over, straining his eyes into that fathomless mist that walled us in on both sides. After that he drew off his doublet and boots, and would have leaped into the waves, but that I—I, madame—held him from it. I caught him round the arms till we were both forced to the tiller again, and I cried and commanded and shrieked at him till I made him see that his madness would bring no help. I could not guide the boat alone in the storm, nor could he have saved Lenore from the power of the water.
“For hours and hours we sailed the bay. The wind drove the fog before it until the air was clear, and I think that the sight of that waste of tumbling seas was more cruel than the veiling mist from which we ever looked for Lenore to come back to us. Ah, I cannot picture that time to thee—or to myself. At last, madame, we went back to the Castle. We left her there, the glory of our Seigneur’s life, alone with the pitiless sea. It was I that had done it; that I knew in my heart. That I have always known, and shall never forget. Yet Gerault never spoke a word of blame to me. Mayhap he never knew how it came about. For many months thereafter he was as a man crazed; and since that time he hath not been the same. All that long summer he stayed alone in his room, shut away from us all, seeing only Courtoise, who served him, and his mother, who gave him what comfort she could. Twice, too, he asked for me, and treated me with such kindness that it went near to breaking my heart. Ah, then it was that the Castle began to bear out its name! It seems as if none had ever really lived here since that time.
“But Lenore, thou wouldst say. We never saw her again; though ’tis said that many weeks afterwards a woman’s body was cast up on the shore near St. Nazaire, and was burned there by the fisher-folk, as is their custom with those dead at sea. And they say that now, by night, her voice is heard to cry out along the shore near the inlet where Gerault’s boat once lay.