Then, as the sunset died from the distant west, these two women, united as never before, sat together upon Gerault’s bed, clasping each other close and mingling their tears and their laughter in a joy that neither had thought to know again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE WANDERER
The utterly unexpected revelation that Lenore had made to madame drew the two women into a tender intimacy that brought a holy joy to both of them. That most beautiful, most priceless flowering of Lenore’s life gave to her nature an added sweetness, and to her soul a new depth that rendered her incomparably beautiful in the eyes of every one around her. The secret remained a secret between her and her new-made mother, and for this reason the happiness of the two was as inexplicable as it was joyous for the rest of the Castle. Alixe, standing jealously without the gate of this golden citadel, into which she had frequent glimpses, wondered at its brightness as much as she wondered at its existence at all. Day by day Lenore grew beautiful, and day by day the look of content upon her face became more marked, until it was marvelled at how she had forgotten her bereavement. And Eleanore—Madame Eleanore—found herself growing young again in the youth of Gerault’s bride; and in her love for the beautiful, tranquil girl she learned a lesson in patience that fifty years of trial and sorrow had never brought her.
When Lenore finally rose from her bed she did not return to the mornings in the spinning-room; and, since madame must perforce be there to oversee the work, Alixe took her frame or her wheel to Lenore’s chamber, and sat there through the morning hours. Save for the fact that Alixe could not be addressed on the subject nearest her heart, Lenore probably enjoyed these periods of the younger woman’s company quite as much as those graver times with madame. Both of them were young, and Alixe, having a nature the individuality of which nothing could suppress, knew more of the gayeties of youth than one could have thought possible, considering her opportunities. This jumped well with Lenore’s disposition, for her own sunny nature would have shone through any cloud-thickness, provided there was some one to catch the beam and reflect it back to her. The two talked on every conceivable subject, but generally reverted to one common interest before many hours had gone. This was Nature: of which Lenore had been vaguely, but none the less passionately fond; and of which Alixe, in her lonely life, had made a beautiful and minute study. The two of them together watched the death of the summer, and saw autumn weave its full woof, from the rich colors of golden harvest and purple vine to the melancholy brown and gray of dead moorland and leafless branch. And when the dreariness of November came upon the land, there remained, to their keen eyes, the sea—the sea that is never twice the same—the sea whose beauties cannot die.
This sea, which Lenore had never looked on till she came a bride to Crépuscule, held for her a deep fascination. She watched it as an astronomer watches his stars. And its vasty, changing surface came to exercise a peculiar influence over her quiet life. The night of the great storm brought it into double conjunction with the bitterest grief in her life; and, with the knowledge of its cruel power, awe was added to her interest and her admiration. She and Alixe were accustomed to talk daily of the lost Lenore, Lenore herself always introducing the topic with irresistible eagerness, and Alixe answering her innumerable questions with an interest born of curiosity regarding the young widow’s motive. In the presence of Alixe, Lenore never betrayed the tiniest tremor of sensitiveness; and it would have been impossible for Alixe to surmise how keen was the secret bitterness that lay hidden in her heart. What suffering it brought she endured alone, by night, and indeed she kept herself for the most part well shielded from it.
From the first night after Gerault’s burial, Lenore had insisted upon sleeping alone. To every suggestion of company she replied that solitude was precious to her, and that she could not sleep with another in the room. Eleanore understood her feeling, and, while she left an easy access from her room to Lenore’s, never once ventured to enter Lenore’s chamber after nightfall. For this, indeed, the young woman was grateful, not because of any joy she found in being alone in the darkness, but because, after she had gone to bed, she felt that her veil of appearances had fallen, and that she might let her mind take what temper it would. It was by night that she knew the terrible yearning for the dead that all women have in time, and from which they suffer keenest agony. It was by night that she pictured Gerault not as he had been, but as she had wished him to be toward her; and gradually Gerault dead came to be vested with every perfect quality, till her loss became endurable to her through the hours of her dreaming. By night, also, her childhood returned to her; and she recalled and gently regretted all the simple pleasures she had known, the rides and games and caroles that she had been wont to indulge in, in her father’s house. Sometimes, too, in hours of distorted vision, she came to feel that her great blessing was rather a burden; and she would weep at the thought of the little thing that must be born to the interminable shadows of this grim Castle, and felt that she alone would be responsible for the sadness of the young life. Yet there might be fair things devised for him. It could not be but a boy,—her child; and in his early youth she planned that he should ride to some distant, gay chateau, to be esquired to a gallant knight; and in time he should come riding home to her, himself golden-spurred; and then, later, he should bring a lady to the Castle whom he should love as a man loves once; and the two of them would bring the light of the sun to Crépuscule, and banish its shadows forever away. So dreamed Lenore for this unborn babe of hers.
And then again, sometimes, by night, she would leave her bed and sit for hours together at that window where, long ago, Gerault had knelt in the hour of his passion. And Lenore would watch the quiet moon sail serenely through the sky, till it sank, at early dawn, under the other sea. And this vision of the setting moon never failed to bring peace to her heart. Sometimes, after Gerault’s example, but not in his tone, she would call down from her height upon the spirit of the lost Lenore that was supposed to walk the rocky shore at the base of the Castle cliff. But no answering cry ever reached her ears, and this was well; for what such a thing would have brought to her already morbid mind, it were sad to surmise. Nevertheless, in the nights thus spent, this gentle ghost came to have a personality for her, in which she rather rejoiced, for she felt that here must be some one in whom she could expect understanding of her secret grief. Lenore at night, living with the creatures of her fancy, was a strange little being, no more resembling the Lenore of daylight than a gnome resembles some bright fairy. And so well did she hide her midnight moods that no one in the Castle ever so much as suspected them.