The Castle of Twilight

by Margaret Horton Potter

It was well that at this moment there came a tap at the door. Laure cried entrance, and as Alixe came in from the hall, Madame Eleanore appeared from the other door that led to Laure’s room, and thence through to madame’s own chamber. Evidently the work hours were over, and it was time for the noon meal.

Lenore did not care to descend to meat, and she asked Alixe to bring a glass of wine and water and a manchet of bread to her room. This request Alixe joyfully promised to fulfil, and then Laure and her mother together left the room, Laure in the throes of a painful reaction from strong feeling, and with a sense, moreover, that Lenore was relieved to have her go.

In this last conjecture, or rather, sense, Laure was right. But it was not through dislike of her sister that Lenore was glad to be alone again. It was rather because the young widow had been powerfully moved by Laure’s words, and she wanted time and solitude to readjust herself from the new and disquieting ideas that had been put into her mind. Alixe believed her to be fatigued, and perhaps suffering; and, understanding her nature much better than Laure did, she brought the invalid everything that she wanted in the way of food, and then left her, believing that she could sleep.

It was afternoon in the Castle. Dinner was at an end. Madame had betaken herself to her own room, for prayer and meditation. The damsels were all scattered, some to their own small rooms, some to the courtyard and the snow. Laure was in the chapel, before the altar, struggling with her newly roused demon of unrest. In the long room, off the great hall, was Courtoise, seated in Gerault’s old place, before a reading-desk, with an illuminated parchment before him. It was part of “The Romant de la Rose,” and he was reading the passage descriptive of the garden of Déduit. Although nothing, perhaps, could be found in the literature of that day better fitted to appeal to a dweller of Le Crépuscule, the mind of the dark-browed Courtoise was not very securely fixed upon his book. His eyes rested steadily on one word; his forehead was puckered, and there was an expression on his face which, had he been a maid, would likely have portended tears. Courtoise was not a man to weep; but he had lately fallen recklessly into the habit of his former lord, of coming here to sit with a parchment before him, as an excuse for brooding hopelessly on the trouble in his soul. His head was now so far bent that he did not see a woman’s figure glide into the room. Not till she stood over his very desk did he look up with a little start: “Thou, Alixe!” he said half impatiently.

“Yea, Alixe, Master Courtoise. Thine eyes, it seems, can make out great shapes very well, but halt an untold time over one curly letter.”

“What sayest thou? Thy words, Alixe, are like the quips of the dwarf; but thou hast not his license to say them.”

“Ahimé, Courtoise,” she came lazily round the table till she stood beside his chair, “seek to quarrel with me if thou wilt. A quarrel would be a merry thing in this Castle. For I am dull—dull—piteously dull, good master!”

Courtoise looked at her rather grimly. “Art thou dull indeed, Mistress Alixe? What thinkest thou, then, of all of us?”

“Thou also, quiet one? Well, I had guessed it. Yet methought—” she paused, with mischief in her eyes; and Courtoise, who knew some of her moods, was wise enough not to let her finish the sentence. Rising from his place, he went and got a tabouret from a corner of the room, and, placing it beside the chair at the desk, sat down on it, motioning Alixe to the seat beside him.

Alixe refused the offer. “Nay, nay, Master Courtoise. Thou shalt sit in the brawny chair, for thou’rt to be my adviser. Sit, I prithee, and let me take the little place, and then list to me carefully while I do talk on a matter of grave importance.”