CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
VOLUME II
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
VOLUME III
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
VOLUME IV
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
Fate sits on these dark battlements, and frowns,
And, as the portals open to receive me,
Her voice, in sullen echoes through the courts,
Tells of a nameless deed.
VOLUME 1
CHAPTER I
home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polish’d friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
THOMSON
On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony,
stood, in the year 1584, the château of Monsieur St. Aubert. From its
windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony
stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vine, and
plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the
majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful
forms, seen, and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were
sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and
sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to
their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft
green of the pastures and woods that hung upon their skirts; among
whose flocks, and herds, and simple cottages, the eye, after having
scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the north, and to the
east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of
distance; on the west, Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay.
M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on the
margin of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that floated on its
waves. He had known life in other forms than those of pastoral
simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the
world; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had
delineated in early youth, his experience had too sorrowfully
corrected. Yet, amidst the changing visions of life, his principles
remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled; and he retired from the
multitude “more in _pity_ than in anger,” to scenes of simple nature,
to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercise of domestic
virtues.
He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family,
and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth
should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by
success in the intrigues of public affairs. But St. Aubert had too nice
a sense of honour to fulfil the latter hope, and too small a portion of
ambition to sacrifice what he called happiness, to the attainment of
wealth. After the death of his father he married a very amiable woman,
his equal in birth, and not his superior in fortune. The late Monsieur
St. Aubert’s liberality, or extravagance, had so much involved his
affairs, that his son found it necessary to dispose of a part of the
family domain, and, some years after his marriage, he sold it to
Monsieur Quesnel, the brother of his wife, and retired to a small
estate in Gascony, where conjugal felicity, and parental duties,
divided his attention with the treasures of knowledge and the
illuminations of genius.
To this spot he had been attached from his infancy. He had often made
excursions to it when a boy, and the impressions of delight given to
his mind by the homely kindness of the grey-headed peasant, to whom it
was intrusted, and whose fruit and cream never failed, had not been
obliterated by succeeding circumstances. The green pastures along which
he had so often bounded in the exultation of health, and youthful
freedom—the woods, under whose refreshing shade he had first indulged
that pensive melancholy, which afterwards made a strong feature of his
character—the wild walks of the mountains, the river, on whose waves he
had floated, and the distant plains, which seemed boundless as his
early hopes—were never after remembered by St. Aubert but with
enthusiasm and regret. At length he disengaged himself from the world,
and retired hither, to realise the wishes of many years.
The building, as it then stood, was merely a summer cottage, rendered
interesting to a stranger by its neat simplicity, or the beauty of the
surrounding scene; and considerable additions were necessary to make it
a comfortable family residence. St. Aubert felt a kind of affection for
every part of the fabric, which he remembered in his youth, and would
not suffer a stone of it to be removed, so that the new building,
adapted to the style of the old one, formed with it only a simple and
elegant residence. The taste of Madame St. Aubert was conspicuous in
its internal finishing, where the same chaste simplicity was observable
in the furniture, and in the few ornaments of the apartments, that
characterised the manners of its inhabitants.
The library occupied the west side of the château, and was enriched by
a collection of the best books in the ancient and modern languages.
This room opened upon a grove, which stood on the brow of a gentle
declivity, that fell towards the river, and the tall trees gave it a
melancholy and pleasing shade; while from the windows the eye caught,
beneath the spreading branches, the gay and luxuriant landscape
stretching to the west, and overlooked on the left by the bold
precipices of the Pyrenees. Adjoining the library was a green-house,
stored with scarce and beautiful plants; for one of the amusements of
St. Aubert was the study of botany, and among the neighbouring
mountains, which afforded a luxurious feast to the mind of the
naturalist, he often passed the day in the pursuit of his favourite
science. He was sometimes accompanied in these little excursions by
Madame St. Aubert, and frequently by his daughter; when, with a small
osier basket to receive plants, and another filled with cold
refreshments, such as the cabin of the shepherd did not afford, they
wandered away among the most romantic and magnificent scenes, nor
suffered the charms of Nature’s lowly children to abstract them from
the observance of her stupendous works. When weary of sauntering among
cliffs that seemed scarcely accessible but to the steps of the
enthusiast, and where no track appeared on the vegetation, but what the
foot of the izard had left; they would seek one of those green
recesses, which so beautifully adorn the bosom of these mountains,
where, under the shade of the lofty larch, or cedar, they enjoyed their
simple repast, made sweeter by the waters of the cool stream, that
crept along the turf, and by the breath of wild flowers and aromatic
plants, that fringed the rocks, and inlaid the grass.
Adjoining the eastern side of the green-house, looking towards the
plains of Languedoc, was a room, which Emily called hers, and which
contained her books, her drawings, her musical instruments, with some
favourite birds and plants. Here she usually exercised herself in
elegant arts, cultivated only because they were congenial to her taste,
and in which native genius, assisted by the instructions of Monsieur
and Madame St. Aubert, made her an early proficient. The windows of
this room were particularly pleasant; they descended to the floor, and,
opening upon the little lawn that surrounded the house, the eye was led
between groves of almond, palm-trees, flowering-ash, and myrtle, to the
distant landscape, where the Garonne wandered.
The peasants of this gay climate were often seen on an evening, when
the day’s labour was done, dancing in groups on the margin of the
river. Their sprightly melodies, _debonnaire_ steps, the fanciful
figure of their dances, with the tasteful and capricious manner in
which the girls adjusted their simple dress, gave a character to the
scene entirely French.
The front of the château, which, having a southern aspect, opened upon
the grandeur of the mountains, was occupied on the ground floor by a
rustic hall, and two excellent sitting rooms. The first floor, for the
cottage had no second story, was laid out in bed-chambers, except one
apartment that opened to a balcony, and which was generally used for a
breakfast-room.
In the surrounding ground, St. Aubert had made very tasteful
improvements; yet, such was his attachment to objects he had remembered
from his boyish days, that he had in some instances sacrificed taste to
sentiment. There were two old larches that shaded the building, and
interrupted the prospect; St. Aubert had sometimes declared that he
believed he should have been weak enough to have wept at their fall. In
addition to these larches he planted a little grove of beech, pine, and
mountain-ash. On a lofty terrace, formed by the swelling bank of the
river, rose a plantation of orange, lemon, and palm-trees, whose fruit,
in the coolness of evening, breathed delicious fragrance. With these
were mingled a few trees of other species. Here, under the ample shade
of a plane-tree, that spread its majestic canopy towards the river, St.
Aubert loved to sit in the fine evenings of summer, with his wife and
children, watching, beneath its foliage, the setting sun, the mild
splendour of its light fading from the distant landscape, till the
shadows of twilight melted its various features into one tint of sober
grey. Here, too, he loved to read, and to converse with Madame St.
Aubert; or to play with his children, resigning himself to the
influence of those sweet affections, which are ever attendant on
simplicity and nature. He has often said, while tears of pleasure
trembled in his eyes, that these were moments infinitely more
delightful than any passed amid the brilliant and tumultuous scenes
that are courted by the world. His heart was occupied; it had, what can
be so rarely said, no wish for a happiness beyond what it experienced.
The consciousness of acting right diffused a serenity over his manners,
which nothing else could impart to a man of moral perceptions like his,
and which refined his sense of every surrounding blessing.
The deepest shade of twilight did not send him from his favourite
plane-tree. He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light
die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through æther, and are
reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all
others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates
it to sublime contemplation. When the moon shed her soft rays among the
foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits
was often spread beneath it. Then, on the stillness of night, came the
song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness, and awakening melancholy.
The first interruptions to the happiness he had known since his
retirement, were occasioned by the death of his two sons. He lost them
at that age when infantine simplicity is so fascinating; and though, in
consideration of Madame St. Aubert’s distress, he restrained the
expression of his own, and endeavoured to bear it, as he meant, with
philosophy, he had, in truth, no philosophy that could render him calm
to such losses. One daughter was now his only surviving child; and,
while he watched the unfolding of her infant character, with anxious
fondness, he endeavoured, with unremitting effort, to counteract those
traits in her disposition, which might hereafter lead her from
happiness. She had discovered in her early years uncommon delicacy of
mind, warm affections, and ready benevolence; but with these was
observable a degree of susceptibility too exquisite to admit of lasting
peace. As she advanced in youth, this sensibility gave a pensive tone
to her spirits, and a softness to her manner, which added grace to
beauty, and rendered her a very interesting object to persons of a
congenial disposition. But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer
a charm to a virtue; and had penetration enough to see, that this charm
was too dangerous to its possessor to be allowed the character of a
blessing. He endeavoured, therefore, to strengthen her mind; to enure
her to habits of self-command; to teach her to reject the first impulse
of her feelings, and to look, with cool examination, upon the
disappointments he sometimes threw in her way. While he instructed her
to resist first impressions, and to acquire that steady dignity of
mind, that can alone counterbalance the passions, and bear us, as far
as is compatible with our nature, above the reach of circumstances, he
taught himself a lesson of fortitude; for he was often obliged to
witness, with seeming indifference, the tears and struggles which his
caution occasioned her.
In person, Emily resembled her mother; having the same elegant symmetry
of form, the same delicacy of features, and the same blue eyes, full of
tender sweetness. But, lovely as was her person, it was the varied
expression of her countenance, as conversation awakened the nicer
emotions of her mind, that threw such a captivating grace around her:
Those tend’rer tints, that shun the careless eye,
And, in the world’s contagious circle, die.
St. Aubert cultivated her understanding with the most scrupulous care.
He gave her a general view of the sciences, and an exact acquaintance
with every part of elegant literature. He taught her Latin and English,
chiefly that she might understand the sublimity of their best poets.
She discovered in her early years a taste for works of genius; and it
was St. Aubert’s principle, as well as his inclination, to promote
every innocent means of happiness. “A well-informed mind,” he would
say, “is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice.
The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge
into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with
ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the
world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from
the world within. Thought, and cultivation, are necessary equally to
the happiness of a country and a city life; in the first they prevent
the uneasy sensations of indolence, and afford a sublime pleasure in
the taste they create for the beautiful, and the grand; in the latter,
they make dissipation less an object of necessity, and consequently of
interest.”
It was one of Emily’s earliest pleasures to ramble among the scenes of
nature; nor was it in the soft and glowing landscape that she most
delighted; she loved more the wild wood-walks, that skirted the
mountain; and still more the mountain’s stupendous recesses, where the
silence and grandeur of solitude impressed a sacred awe upon her heart,
and lifted her thoughts to the GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. In scenes like
these she would often linger along, wrapt in a melancholy charm, till
the last gleam of day faded from the west; till the lonely sound of a
sheep-bell, or the distant bark of a watch-dog, were all that broke on
the stillness of the evening. Then, the gloom of the woods; the
trembling of their leaves, at intervals, in the breeze; the bat,
flitting on the twilight; the cottage-lights, now seen, and now
lost—were circumstances that awakened her mind into effort, and led to
enthusiasm and poetry.
Her favourite walk was to a little fishing-house, belonging to St.
Aubert, in a woody glen, on the margin of a rivulet that descended from
the Pyrenees, and, after foaming among their rocks, wound its silent
way beneath the shades it reflected. Above the woods, that screened
this glen, rose the lofty summits of the Pyrenees, which often burst
boldly on the eye through the glades below. Sometimes the shattered
face of a rock only was seen, crowned with wild shrubs; or a shepherd’s
cabin seated on a cliff, overshadowed by dark cypress, or waving ash.
Emerging from the deep recesses of the woods, the glade opened to the
distant landscape, where the rich pastures and vine-covered slopes of
Gascony gradually declined to the plains; and there, on the winding
shores of the Garonne, groves, and hamlets, and villas—their outlines
softened by distance, melted from the eye into one rich harmonious
tint.
This, too, was the favourite retreat of St. Aubert, to which he
frequently withdrew from the fervour of noon, with his wife, his
daughter, and his books; or came at the sweet evening hour to welcome
the silent dusk, or to listen for the music of the nightingale.
Sometimes, too, he brought music of his own, and awakened every fairy
echo with the tender accents of his oboe; and often have the tones of
Emily’s voice drawn sweetness from the waves, over which they trembled.
It was in one of these excursions to this spot, that she observed the
following lines written with a pencil on a part of the wainscot:
SONNET
Go, pencil! faithful to thy master’s sighs!
Go—tell the Goddess of the fairy scene,
When next her light steps wind these wood-walks green,
Whence all his tears, his tender sorrows, rise;
Ah! paint her form, her soul-illumin’d eyes,
The sweet expression of her pensive face,
The light’ning smile, the animated grace—
The portrait well the lover’s voice supplies;
Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say:
Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel!
How oft the flow’ret’s silken leaves conceal
The drug that steals the vital spark away!
And who that gazes on that angel-smile,
Would fear its charm, or think it could beguile!
These lines were not inscribed to any person; Emily therefore could not
apply them to herself, though she was undoubtedly the nymph of these
shades. Having glanced round the little circle of her acquaintance
without being detained by a suspicion as to whom they could be
addressed, she was compelled to rest in uncertainty; an uncertainty
which would have been more painful to an idle mind than it was to hers.
She had no leisure to suffer this circumstance, trifling at first, to
swell into importance by frequent remembrance. The little vanity it had
excited (for the incertitude which forbade her to presume upon having
inspired the sonnet, forbade her also to disbelieve it) passed away,
and the incident was dismissed from her thoughts amid her books, her
studies, and the exercise of social charities.
Soon after this period, her anxiety was awakened by the indisposition
of her father, who was attacked with a fever; which, though not thought
to be of a dangerous kind, gave a severe shock to his constitution.
Madame St. Aubert and Emily attended him with unremitting care; but his
recovery was very slow, and, as he advanced towards health, Madame
seemed to decline.
The first scene he visited, after he was well enough to take the air,
was his favourite fishing-house. A basket of provisions was sent
thither, with books, and Emily’s lute; for fishing-tackle he had no
use, for he never could find amusement in torturing or destroying.
After employing himself, for about an hour, in botanizing, dinner was
served. It was a repast, to which gratitude, for being again permitted
to visit this spot, gave sweetness; and family happiness once more
smiled beneath these shades. Monsieur St. Aubert conversed with unusual
cheerfulness; every object delighted his senses. The refreshing
pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and
the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as
the descriptions, of those in health. The green woods and pastures; the
flowery turf; the blue concave of the heavens; the balmy air; the
murmur of the limpid stream; and even the hum of every little insect of
the shade, seem to revivify the soul, and make mere existence bliss.
Madame St. Aubert, reanimated by the cheerfulness and recovery of her
husband, was no longer sensible of the indisposition which had lately
oppressed her; and, as she sauntered along the wood-walks of this
romantic glen, and conversed with him, and with her daughter, she often
looked at them alternately with a degree of tenderness, that filled her
eyes with tears. St. Aubert observed this more than once, and gently
reproved her for the emotion; but she could only smile, clasp his hand,
and that of Emily, and weep the more. He felt the tender enthusiasm
stealing upon himself in a degree that became almost painful; his
features assumed a serious air, and he could not forbear secretly
sighing—“Perhaps I shall some time look back to these moments, as to
the summit of my happiness, with hopeless regret. But let me not misuse
them by useless anticipation; let me hope I shall not live to mourn the
loss of those who are dearer to me than life.”
To relieve, or perhaps to indulge, the pensive temper of his mind, he
bade Emily fetch the lute she knew how to touch with such sweet pathos.
As she drew near the fishing-house, she was surprised to hear the tones
of the instrument, which were awakened by the hand of taste, and
uttered a plaintive air, whose exquisite melody engaged all her
attention. She listened in profound silence, afraid to move from the
spot, lest the sound of her steps should occasion her to lose a note of
the music, or should disturb the musician. Everything without the
building was still, and no person appeared. She continued to listen,
till timidity succeeded to surprise and delight; a timidity, increased
by a remembrance of the pencilled lines she had formerly seen, and she
hesitated whether to proceed, or to return.
While she paused, the music ceased; and, after a momentary hesitation,
she recollected courage to advance to the fishing-house, which she
entered with faltering steps, and found unoccupied! Her lute lay on the
table; everything seemed undisturbed, and she began to believe it was
another instrument she had heard, till she remembered, that, when she
followed M. and Madame St. Aubert from this spot, her lute was left on
a window seat. She felt alarmed, yet knew not wherefore; the melancholy
gloom of evening, and the profound stillness of the place, interrupted
only by the light trembling of leaves, heightened her fanciful
apprehensions, and she was desirous of quitting the building, but
perceived herself grow faint, and sat down. As she tried to recover
herself, the pencilled lines on the wainscot met her eye; she started,
as if she had seen a stranger; but, endeavouring to conquer the tremor
of her spirits, rose, and went to the window. To the lines before
noticed she now perceived that others were added, in which her name
appeared.
Though no longer suffered to doubt that they were addressed to herself,
she was as ignorant, as before, by whom they could be written. While
she mused, she thought she heard the sound of a step without the
building, and again alarmed, she caught up her lute, and hurried away.
Monsieur and Madame St. Aubert she found in a little path that wound
along the sides of the glen.
Having reached a green summit, shadowed by palm-trees, and overlooking
the valleys and plains of Gascony, they seated themselves on the turf;
and while their eyes wandered over the glorious scene, and they inhaled
the sweet breath of flowers and herbs that enriched the grass, Emily
played and sung several of their favourite airs, with the delicacy of
expression in which she so much excelled.
Music and conversation detained them in this enchanting spot, till the
sun’s last light slept upon the plains; till the white sails that
glided beneath the mountains, where the Garonne wandered, became dim,
and the gloom of evening stole over the landscape. It was a melancholy
but not unpleasing gloom. St. Aubert and his family rose, and left the
place with regret; alas! Madame St. Aubert knew not that she left it
for ever.
When they reached the fishing-house she missed her bracelet, and
recollected that she had taken it from her arm after dinner, and had
left it on the table when she went to walk. After a long search, in
which Emily was very active, she was compelled to resign herself to the
loss of it. What made this bracelet valuable to her was a miniature of
her daughter to which it was attached, esteemed a striking resemblance,
and which had been painted only a few months before. When Emily was
convinced that the bracelet was really gone, she blushed, and became
thoughtful. That some stranger had been in the fishing-house, during
her absence, her lute, and the additional lines of a pencil, had
already informed her: from the purport of these lines it was not
unreasonable to believe, that the poet, the musician, and the thief
were the same person. But though the music she had heard, the written
lines she had seen, and the disappearance of the picture, formed a
combination of circumstances very remarkable, she was irresistibly
restrained from mentioning them; secretly determining, however, never
again to visit the fishing-house without Monsieur or Madame St. Aubert.
They returned pensively to the château, Emily musing on the incident
which had just occurred; St. Aubert reflecting, with placid gratitude,
on the blessings he possessed; and Madame St. Aubert somewhat
disturbed, and perplexed, by the loss of her daughter’s picture. As
they drew near the house, they observed an unusual bustle about it; the
sound of voices was distinctly heard, servants and horses were seen
passing between the trees, and, at length, the wheels of a carriage
rolled along. Having come within view of the front of the château, a
landau, with smoking horses, appeared on the little lawn before it. St.
Aubert perceived the liveries of his brother-in-law, and in the parlour
he found Monsieur and Madame Quesnel already entered. They had left
Paris some days before, and were on the way to their estate, only ten
leagues distant from La Vallée, and which Monsieur Quesnel had
purchased several years before of St. Aubert. This gentleman was the
only brother of Madame St. Aubert; but the ties of relationship having
never been strengthened by congeniality of character, the intercourse
between them had not been frequent. M. Quesnel had lived altogether in
the world; his aim had been consequence; splendour was the object of
his taste; and his address and knowledge of character had carried him
forward to the attainment of almost all that he had courted. By a man
of such a disposition, it is not surprising that the virtues of St.
Aubert should be overlooked; or that his pure taste, simplicity, and
moderated wishes, were considered as marks of a weak intellect, and of
confined views. The marriage of his sister with St. Aubert had been
mortifying to his ambition, for he had designed that the matrimonial
connection she formed should assist him to attain the consequence which
he so much desired; and some offers were made her by persons whose rank
and fortune flattered his warmest hope. But his sister, who was then
addressed also by St. Aubert, perceived, or thought she perceived, that
happiness and splendour were not the same, and she did not hesitate to
forego the last for the attainment of the former. Whether Monsieur
Quesnel thought them the same, or not, he would readily have sacrificed
his sister’s peace to the gratification of his own ambition; and, on
her marriage with St. Aubert, expressed in private his contempt of her
spiritless conduct, and of the connection which it permitted. Madame
St. Aubert, though she concealed this insult from her husband, felt,
perhaps, for the first time, resentment lighted in her heart; and,
though a regard for her own dignity, united with considerations of
prudence, restrained her expression of this resentment, there was ever
after a mild reserve in her manner towards M. Quesnel, which he both
understood and felt.
In his own marriage he did not follow his sister’s example. His lady
was an Italian, and an heiress by birth; and, by nature and education,
was a vain and frivolous woman.
They now determined to pass the night with St. Aubert; and as the
château was not large enough to accommodate their servants, the latter
were dismissed to the neighbouring village. When the first compliments
were over, and the arrangements for the night made M. Quesnel began the
display of his intelligence and his connections; while St. Aubert, who
had been long enough in retirement to find these topics recommended by
their novelty, listened, with a degree of patience and attention, which
his guest mistook for the humility of wonder. The latter, indeed,
described the few festivities which the turbulence of that period
permitted to the court of Henry the Third, with a minuteness, that
somewhat recompensed for his ostentation; but, when he came to speak of
the character of the Duke de Joyeuse, of a secret treaty, which he knew
to be negotiating with the Porte, and of the light in which Henry of
Navarre was received, M. St. Aubert recollected enough of his former
experience to be assured, that his guest could be only of an inferior
class of politicians; and that, from the importance of the subjects
upon which he committed himself, he could not be of the rank to which
he pretended to belong. The opinions delivered by M. Quesnel, were such
as St. Aubert forebore to reply to, for he knew that his guest had
neither humanity to feel, nor discernment to perceive, what is just.
Madame Quesnel, meanwhile, was expressing to Madame St. Aubert her
astonishment, that she could bear to pass her life in this remote
corner of the world, as she called it, and describing, from a wish,
probably, of exciting envy, the splendour of the balls, banquets, and
processions which had just been given by the court, in honour of the
nuptials of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain, the sister
of the Queen. She described with equal minuteness the magnificence she
had seen, and that from which she had been excluded; while Emily’s
vivid fancy, as she listened with the ardent curiosity of youth,
heightened the scenes she heard of; and Madame St. Aubert, looking on
her family, felt, as a tear stole to her eye, that though splendour may
grace happiness, virtue only can bestow it.
“It is now twelve years, St. Aubert,” said M. Quesnel, “since I
purchased your family estate.”—“Somewhere thereabout,” replied St.
Aubert, suppressing a sigh. “It is near five years since I have been
there,” resumed Quesnel; “for Paris and its neighbourhood is the only
place in the world to live in, and I am so immersed in politics, and
have so many affairs of moment on my hands, that I find it difficult to
steal away even for a month or two.” St. Aubert remaining silent, M.
Quesnel proceeded: “I have sometimes wondered how you, who have lived
in the capital, and have been accustomed to company, can exist
elsewhere;—especially in so remote a country as this, where you can
neither hear nor see anything, and can in short be scarcely conscious
of life.”
“I live for my family and myself,” said St. Aubert; “I am now contented
to know only happiness;—formerly I knew life.”
“I mean to expend thirty or forty thousand livres on improvements,”
said M. Quesnel, without seeming to notice the words of St. Aubert;
“for I design, next summer, to bring here my friends, the Duke de
Durefort and the Marquis Ramont, to pass a month or two with me.” To
St. Aubert’s enquiry, as to these intended improvements, he replied,
that he should take down the whole east wing of the château, and raise
upon the site a set of stables. “Then I shall build,” said he, “a
_salle à manger_, a _salon_, a _salle au commune_, and a number of
rooms for servants; for at present there is not accommodation for a
third part of my own people.”
“It accommodated our father’s household,” said St. Aubert, grieved that
the old mansion was to be thus improved, “and that was not a small
one.”
“Our notions are somewhat enlarged since those days,” said M.
Quesnel;—“what was then thought a decent style of living would not now
be endured.” Even the calm St. Aubert blushed at these words, but his
anger soon yielded to contempt. “The ground about the château is
encumbered with trees; I mean to cut some of them down.”
“Cut down the trees too!” said St. Aubert.
“Certainly. Why should I not? they interrupt my prospects. There is a
chesnut which spreads its branches before the whole south side of the
château, and which is so ancient that they tell me the hollow of its
trunk will hold a dozen men. Your enthusiasm will scarcely contend that
there can be either use, or beauty, in such a sapless old tree as
this.”
“Good God!” exclaimed St. Aubert, “you surely will not destroy that
noble chesnut, which has flourished for centuries, the glory of the
estate! It was in its maturity when the present mansion was built. How
often, in my youth, have I climbed among its broad branches, and sat
embowered amidst a world of leaves, while the heavy shower has pattered
above, and not a rain drop reached me! How often I have sat with a book
in my hand, sometimes reading, and sometimes looking out between the
branches upon the wide landscape, and the setting sun, till twilight
came, and brought the birds home to their little nests among the
leaves! How often—but pardon me,” added St. Aubert, recollecting that
he was speaking to a man who could neither comprehend, nor allow his
feelings, “I am talking of times and feelings as old-fashioned as the
taste that would spare that venerable tree.”
“It will certainly come down,” said M. Quesnel; “I believe I shall
plant some Lombardy poplars among the clumps of chesnut, that I shall
leave of the avenue; Madame Quesnel is partial to the poplar, and tells
me how much it adorns a villa of her uncle, not far from Venice.”
“On the banks of the Brenta, indeed,” continued St. Aubert, “where its
spiry form is intermingled with the pine, and the cypress, and where it
plays over light and elegant porticos and colonnades, it,
unquestionably, adorns the scene; but among the giants of the forest,
and near a heavy gothic mansion—”
“Well, my good sir,” said M. Quesnel, “I will not dispute with you. You
must return to Paris before our ideas can at all agree. But _à propos_
of Venice, I have some thoughts of going thither, next summer; events
may call me to take possession of that same villa, too, which they tell
me is the most charming that can be imagined. In that case I shall
leave the improvements I mention to another year, and I may, perhaps,
be tempted to stay some time in Italy.”
Emily was somewhat surprised to hear him talk of being tempted to
remain abroad, after he had mentioned his presence to be so necessary
at Paris, that it was with difficulty he could steal away for a month
or two; but St. Aubert understood the self-importance of the man too
well to wonder at this trait; and the possibility, that these projected
improvements might be deferred, gave him a hope, that they might never
take place.
Before they separated for the night, M. Quesnel desired to speak with
St. Aubert alone, and they retired to another room, where they remained
a considerable time. The subject of this conversation was not known;
but, whatever it might be, St. Aubert, when he returned to the
supper-room, seemed much disturbed, and a shade of sorrow sometimes
fell upon his features that alarmed Madame St. Aubert. When they were
alone she was tempted to enquire the occasion of it, but the delicacy
of mind, which had ever appeared in his conduct, restrained her: she
considered that, if St. Aubert wished her to be acquainted with the
subject of his concern, he would not wait on her enquiries.
On the following day, before M. Quesnel departed, he had a second
conference with St. Aubert.
The guests, after dining at the château, set out in the cool of the day
for Epourville, whither they gave him and Madame St. Aubert a pressing
invitation, prompted rather by the vanity of displaying their
splendour, than by a wish to make their friends happy.
Emily returned, with delight, to the liberty which their presence had
restrained, to her books, her walks, and the rational conversation of
M. and Madame St. Aubert, who seemed to rejoice, no less, that they
were delivered from the shackles, which arrogance and frivolity had
imposed.
Madame St. Aubert excused herself from sharing their usual evening
walk, complaining that she was not quite well, and St. Aubert and Emily
went out together.
They chose a walk towards the mountains, intending to visit some old
pensioners of St. Aubert, which, from his very moderate income, he
contrived to support, though it is probable M. Quesnel, with his very
large one, could not have afforded this.
After distributing to his pensioners their weekly stipends, listening
patiently to the complaints of some, redressing the grievances of
others, and softening the discontents of all, by the look of sympathy,
and the smile of benevolence, St. Aubert returned home through the
woods,
where,
At fall of eve the fairy-people throng,
In various games and revelry to pass
The summer night, as village stories tell.
THOMSON
“The evening gloom of woods was always delightful to me,” said St.
Aubert, whose mind now experienced the sweet calm, which results from
the consciousness of having done a beneficent action, and which
disposes it to receive pleasure from every surrounding object. “I
remember that in my youth this gloom used to call forth to my fancy a
thousand fairy visions, and romantic images; and, I own, I am not yet
wholly insensible of that high enthusiasm, which wakes the poet’s
dream: I can linger, with solemn steps, under the deep shades, send
forward a transforming eye into the distant obscurity, and listen with
thrilling delight to the mystic murmuring of the woods.”
“O my dear father,” said Emily, while a sudden tear started to her eye,
“how exactly you describe what I have felt so often, and which I
thought nobody had ever felt but myself! But hark! here comes the
sweeping sound over the wood-tops;—now it dies away;—how solemn the
stillness that succeeds! Now the breeze swells again. It is like the
voice of some supernatural being—the voice of the spirit of the woods,
that watches over them by night. Ah! what light is yonder? But it is
gone. And now it gleams again, near the root of that large chestnut:
look, sir!”
“Are you such an admirer of nature,” said St. Aubert, “and so little
acquainted with her appearances as not to know that for the glow-worm?
But come,” added he gaily, “step a little further, and we shall see
fairies, perhaps; they are often companions. The glow-worm lends his
light, and they in return charm him with music, and the dance. Do you
see nothing tripping yonder?”
Emily laughed. “Well, my dear sir,” said she, “since you allow of this
alliance, I may venture to own I have anticipated you; and almost dare
venture to repeat some verses I made one evening in these very woods.”
“Nay,” replied St. Aubert, “dismiss the _almost_, and venture quite;
let us hear what vagaries fancy has been playing in your mind. If she
has given you one of her spells, you need not envy those of the
fairies.”
“If it is strong enough to enchant your judgment, sir,” said Emily,
“while I disclose her images, I need _not_ envy them. The lines go in a
sort of tripping measure, which I thought might suit the subject well
enough, but I fear they are too irregular.”
THE GLOW-WORM.
How pleasant is the green-wood’s deep-matted shade
On a mid-summer’s eve, when the fresh rain is o’er;
When the yellow beams slope, and sparkle thro’ the glade,
And swiftly in the thin air the light swallows soar!
But sweeter, sweeter still, when the sun sinks to rest,
And twilight comes on, with the fairies so gay
Tripping through the forest-walk, where flow’rs, unprest,
Bow not their tall heads beneath their frolic play.
To music’s softest sounds they dance away the hour,
Till moonlight steals down among the trembling leaves,
And checquers all the ground, and guides them to the bow’r,
The long haunted bow’r, where the nightingale grieves.
Then no more they dance, till her sad song is done,
But, silent as the night, to her mourning attend;
And often as her dying notes their pity have won,
They vow all her sacred haunts from mortals to defend.
When, down among the mountains, sinks the ev’ning star,
And the changing moon forsakes this shadowy sphere,
How cheerless would they be, tho’ they fairies are,
If I, with my pale light, came not near!
Yet cheerless tho’ they’d be, they’re ungrateful to my love!
For, often when the traveller’s benighted on his way,
And I glimmer in his path, and would guide him thro’ the grove,
They bind me in their magic spells to lead him far astray;
And in the mire to leave him, till the stars are all burnt out,
While, in strange-looking shapes, they frisk about the ground,
And, afar in the woods, they raise a dismal shout,
Till I shrink into my cell again for terror of the sound!
But, see where all the tiny elves come dancing in a ring,
With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the horn,
And the timbrel so clear, and the lute with dulcet string;
Then round about the oak they go till peeping of the morn.
Down yonder glade two lovers steal, to shun the fairy-queen,
Who frowns upon their plighted vows, and jealous is of me,
That yester-eve I lighted them, along the dewy green,
To seek the purple flow’r, whose juice from all her spells can free.
And now, to punish me, she keeps afar her jocund band,
With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the lute;
If I creep near yonder oak she will wave her fairy wand,
And to me the dance will cease, and the music all be mute.
O! had I but that purple flow’r whose leaves her charms can foil,
And knew like fays to draw the juice, and throw it on the wind,
I’d be her slave no longer, nor the traveller beguile,
And help all faithful lovers, nor fear the fairy kind!
But soon the _vapour of the woods_ will wander afar,
And the fickle moon will fade, and the stars disappear,
Then, cheerless will they be, tho’ they fairies are,
If I, with my pale light, come not near!
Whatever St. Aubert might think of the stanzas, he would not deny his
daughter the pleasure of believing that he approved them; and, having
given his commendation, he sunk into a reverie, and they walked on in
silence.
A faint erroneous ray,
Glanc’d from th’ imperfect surfaces of things,
Flung half an image on the straining eye;
While waving woods, and villages, and streams,
And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain
The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld.
THOMSON.
St. Aubert continued silent till he reached the château, where his wife
had retired to her chamber. The languor and dejection, that had lately
oppressed her, and which the exertion called forth by the arrival of
her guests had suspended, now returned with increased effect. On the
following day, symptoms of fever appeared, and St. Aubert, having sent
for medical advice, learned, that her disorder was a fever of the same
nature as that, from which he had lately recovered. She had, indeed,
taken the infection, during her attendance upon him, and, her
constitution being too weak to throw out the disease immediately, it
had lurked in her veins, and occasioned the heavy languor of which she
had complained. St. Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every
other consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered
the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon
his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in
company with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment,
that this illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed
this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to reanimate
with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The
physician, when asked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the disorder,
replied, that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he
could not ascertain. Madame St. Aubert seemed to have formed a more
decided one; but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed
them upon her anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of
tenderness, as if she anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and
that seemed to say, it was for their sakes only, for their sufferings,
that she regretted life. On the seventh day, the disorder was at its
crisis. The physician assumed a graver manner, which she observed, and
took occasion, when her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell
him, that she perceived her death was approaching. “Do not attempt to
deceive me,” said she, “I feel that I cannot long survive. I am
prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it.
Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to
induce you to flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their
affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour
to teach them resignation by my example.”
The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St.
Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect. The latter
was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he received
this information; but a consideration of the increased affliction which
the observance of his grief would occasion his wife, enabled him, after
some time, to command himself in her presence. Emily was at first
overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded by the strength of her
wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her mother would yet recover,
and to this she pertinaciously adhered almost to the last hour.
The progress of this disorder was marked, on the side of Madame St.
Aubert, by patient suffering, and subjected wishes. The composure, with
which she awaited her death, could be derived only from the retrospect
of a life governed, as far as human frailty permits, by a consciousness
of being always in the presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a
higher world. But her piety could not entirely subdue the grief of
parting from those whom she so dearly loved. During these her last
hours, she conversed much with St. Aubert and Emily, on the prospect of
futurity, and on other religious topics. The resignation she expressed,
with the firm hope of meeting in a future world the friends she left in
this, and the effort which sometimes appeared to conceal her sorrow at
this temporary separation, frequently affected St. Aubert so much as to
oblige him to leave the room. Having indulged his tears a while, he
would dry them and return to the chamber with a countenance composed by
an endeavour which did but increase his grief.
Never had Emily felt the importance of the lessons, which had taught
her to restrain her sensibility, so much as in these moments, and never
had she practised them with a triumph so complete. But when the last
was over, she sunk at once under the pressure of her sorrow, and then
perceived that it was hope, as well as fortitude, which had hitherto
supported her. St. Aubert was for a time too devoid of comfort himself
to bestow any on his daughter.
CHAPTER II
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul.
SHAKESPEARE
Madame St. Aubert was interred in the neighbouring village church; her
husband and daughter attended her to the grave, followed by a long
train of the peasantry, who were sincere mourners of this excellent
woman.
On his return from the funeral, St. Aubert shut himself in his chamber.
When he came forth, it was with a serene countenance, though pale in
sorrow. He gave orders that his family should attend him. Emily only
was absent; who, overcome with the scene she had just witnessed, had
retired to her closet to weep alone. St. Aubert followed her thither:
he took her hand in silence, while she continued to weep; and it was
some moments before he could so far command his voice as to speak. It
trembled while he said, “My Emily, I am going to prayers with my
family; you will join us. We must ask support from above. Where else
ought we to seek it—where else can we find it?”
Emily checked her tears, and followed her father to the parlour, where,
the servants being assembled, St. Aubert read, in a low and solemn
voice, the evening service, and added a prayer for the soul of the
departed. During this, his voice often faltered, his tears fell upon
the book, and at length he paused. But the sublime emotions of pure
devotion gradually elevated his views above this world, and finally
brought comfort to his heart.
When the service was ended, and the servants were withdrawn, he
tenderly kissed Emily, and said, “I have endeavoured to teach you, from
your earliest youth, the duty of self-command; I have pointed out to
you the great importance of it through life, not only as it preserves
us in the various and dangerous temptations that call us from rectitude
and virtue, but as it limits the indulgences which are termed virtuous,
yet which, extended beyond a certain boundary, are vicious, for their
consequence is evil. All excess is vicious; even that sorrow, which is
amiable in its origin, becomes a selfish and unjust passion, if
indulged at the expence of our duties—by our duties I mean what we owe
to ourselves, as well as to others. The indulgence of excessive grief
enervates the mind, and almost incapacitates it for again partaking of
those various innocent enjoyments which a benevolent God designed to be
the sunshine of our lives. My dear Emily, recollect and practise the
precepts I have so often given you, and which your own experience has
so often shown you to be wise.
“Your sorrow is useless. Do not receive this as merely a commonplace
remark, but let reason _therefore_ restrain sorrow. I would not
annihilate your feelings, my child, I would only teach you to command
them; for whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible
heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one; that, on the other
hand, is all vice—vice, of which the deformity is not softened, or the
effect consoled for, by any semblance or possibility of good. You know
my sufferings, and are, therefore, convinced that mine are not the
light words which, on these occasions, are so often repeated to destroy
even the sources of honest emotion, or which merely display the selfish
ostentation of a false philosophy. I will show my Emily, that I can
practise what I advise. I have said thus much, because I cannot bear to
see you wasting in useless sorrow, for want of that resistance which is
due from mind; and I have not said it till now, because there is a
period when all reasoning must yield to nature; that is past: and
another, when excessive indulgence, having sunk into habit, weighs down
the elasticity of the spirits so as to render conquest nearly
impossible; this is to come. You, my Emily, will show that you are
willing to avoid it.”
Emily smiled through her tears upon her father: “Dear sir,” said she,
and her voice trembled; she would have added, “I will show myself
worthy of being your daughter;” but a mingled emotion of gratitude,
affection, and grief overcame her. St. Aubert suffered her to weep
without interruption, and then began to talk on common topics.
The first person who came to condole with St. Aubert was a M. Barreaux,
an austere and seemingly unfeeling man. A taste for botany had
introduced them to each other, for they had frequently met in their
wanderings among the mountains. M. Barreaux had retired from the world,
and almost from society, to live in a pleasant château, on the skirts
of the woods, near La Vallée. He also had been disappointed in his
opinion of mankind; but he did not, like St. Aubert, pity and mourn for
them; he felt more indignation at their vices, than compassion for
their weaknesses.
St. Aubert was somewhat surprised to see him; for, though he had often
pressed him to come to the château, he had never till now accepted the
invitation; and now he came without ceremony or reserve, entering the
parlour as an old friend. The claims of misfortune appeared to have
softened down all the ruggedness and prejudices of his heart. St.
Aubert unhappy, seemed to be the sole idea that occupied his mind. It
was in manners, more than in words, that he appeared to sympathise with
his friends: he spoke little on the subject of their grief; but the
minute attention he gave them, and the modulated voice, and softened
look that accompanied it, came from his heart, and spoke to theirs.
At this melancholy period St. Aubert was likewise visited by Madame
Cheron, his only surviving sister, who had been some years a widow, and
now resided on her own estate near Thoulouse. The intercourse between
them had not been very frequent. In her condolements, words were not
wanting; she understood not the magic of the look that speaks at once
to the soul, or the voice that sinks like balm to the heart: but she
assured St. Aubert that she sincerely sympathised with him, praised the
virtues of his late wife, and then offered what she considered to be
consolation. Emily wept unceasingly while she spoke; St. Aubert was
tranquil, listened to what she said in silence, and then turned the
discourse upon another subject.
At parting she pressed him and her niece to make her an early visit.
“Change of place will amuse you,” said she, “and it is wrong to give
way to grief.” St. Aubert acknowledged the truth of these words of
course; but, at the same time, felt more reluctant than ever to quit
the spot which his past happiness had consecrated. The presence of his
wife had sanctified every surrounding scene, and, each day, as it
gradually softened the acuteness of his suffering, assisted the tender
enchantment that bound him to home.
But there were calls which must be complied with, and of this kind was
the visit he paid to his brother-in-law M. Quesnel. An affair of an
interesting nature made it necessary that he should delay this visit no
longer, and, wishing to rouse Emily from her dejection, he took her
with him to Epourville.
As the carriage entered upon the forest that adjoined his paternal
domain, his eyes once more caught, between the chesnut avenue, the
turreted corners of the château. He sighed to think of what had passed
since he was last there, and that it was now the property of a man who
neither revered nor valued it. At length he entered the avenue, whose
lofty trees had so often delighted him when a boy, and whose melancholy
shade was now so congenial with the tone of his spirits. Every feature
of the edifice, distinguished by an air of heavy grandeur, appeared
successively between the branches of the trees—the broad turret, the
arched gateway that led into the courts, the drawbridge, and the dry
fossé which surrounded the whole.
The sound of carriage wheels brought a troop of servants to the great
gate, where St. Aubert alighted, and from which he led Emily into the
gothic hall, now no longer hung with the arms and ancient banners of
the family. These were displaced, and the oak wainscotting, and beams
that crossed the roof, were painted white. The large table, too, that
used to stretch along the upper end of the hall, where the master of
the mansion loved to display his hospitality, and whence the peal of
laughter, and the song of conviviality had so often resounded, was now
removed; even the benches that had surrounded the hall were no longer
there. The heavy walls were hung with frivolous ornaments, and
everything that appeared denoted the false taste and corrupted
sentiments of the present owner.
St. Aubert followed a gay Parisian servant to a parlour, where sat
Mons. and Madame Quesnel, who received him with a stately politeness,
and, after a few formal words of condolement, seemed to have forgotten
that they ever had a sister.
Emily felt tears swell into her eyes, and then resentment checked them.
St. Aubert, calm and deliberate, preserved his dignity without assuming
importance, and Quesnel was depressed by his presence without exactly
knowing wherefore.
After some general conversation, St. Aubert requested to speak with him
alone; and Emily, being left with Madame Quesnel, soon learned that a
large party was invited to dine at the château, and was compelled to
hear that nothing which was past and irremediable ought to prevent the
festivity of the present hour.
St. Aubert, when he was told that company were expected, felt a mixed
emotion of disgust and indignation against the insensibility of
Quesnel, which prompted him to return home immediately. But he was
informed, that Madame Cheron had been asked to meet him; and, when he
looked at Emily, and considered that a time might come when the enmity
of her uncle would be prejudicial to her, he determined not to incur it
himself, by conduct which would be resented as indecorous, by the very
persons who now showed so little sense of decorum.
Among the visitors assembled at dinner were two Italian gentlemen, of
whom one was named Montoni, a distant relation of Madame Quesnel, a man
about forty, of an uncommonly handsome person, with features manly and
expressive, but whose countenance exhibited, upon the whole, more of
the haughtiness of command, and the quickness of discernment, than of
any other character.
Signor Cavigni, his friend, appeared to be about thirty—inferior in
dignity, but equal to him in penetration of countenance, and superior
in insinuation of manner.
Emily was shocked by the salutation with which Madame Cheron met her
father—“Dear brother,” said she, “I am concerned to see you look so
very ill; do, pray, have advice!” St. Aubert answered, with a
melancholy smile, that he felt himself much as usual; but Emily’s fears
made her now fancy that her father looked worse than he really did.
Emily would have been amused by the new characters she saw, and the
varied conversation that passed during dinner, which was served in a
style of splendour she had seldom seen before, had her spirits been
less oppressed. Of the guests, Signor Montoni was lately come from
Italy, and he spoke of the commotions which at that period agitated the
country; talked of party differences with warmth, and then lamented the
probable consequences of the tumults. His friend spoke with equal
ardour, of the politics of his country; praised the government and
prosperity of Venice, and boasted of its decided superiority over all
the other Italian states. He then turned to the ladies, and talked with
the same eloquence, of Parisian fashions, the French opera, and French
manners; and on the latter subject he did not fail to mingle what is so
particularly agreeable to French taste. The flattery was not detected
by those to whom it was addressed, though its effect, in producing
submissive attention, did not escape his observation. When he could
disengage himself from the assiduities of the other ladies, he
sometimes addressed Emily: but she knew nothing of Parisian fashions,
or Parisian operas; and her modesty, simplicity, and correct manners
formed a decided contrast to those of her female companions.
After dinner, St. Aubert stole from the room to view once more the old
chesnut which Quesnel talked of cutting down. As he stood under its
shade, and looked up among its branches, still luxuriant, and saw here
and there the blue sky trembling between them; the pursuits and events
of his early days crowded fast to his mind, with the figures and
characters of friends—long since gone from the earth; and he now felt
himself to be almost an insulated being, with nobody but his Emily for
his heart to turn to.
He stood lost amid the scenes of years which fancy called up, till the
succession closed with the picture of his dying wife, and he started
away, to forget it, if possible, at the social board.
St. Aubert ordered his carriage at an early hour, and Emily observed,
that he was more than usually silent and dejected on the way home; but
she considered this to be the effect of his visit to a place which
spoke so eloquently of former times, nor suspected that he had a cause
of grief which he concealed from her.
On entering the château she felt more depressed than ever, for she more
than ever missed the presence of that dear parent, who, whenever she
had been from home, used to welcome her return with smiles and
fondness; now, all was silent and forsaken.
But what reason and effort may fail to do, time effects. Week after
week passed away, and each, as it passed, stole something from the
harshness of her affliction, till it was mellowed to that tenderness
which the feeling heart cherishes as sacred. St. Aubert, on the
contrary, visibly declined in health; though Emily, who had been so
constantly with him, was almost the last person who observed it. His
constitution had never recovered from the late attack of the fever, and
the succeeding shock it received from Madame St. Aubert’s death had
produced its present infirmity. His physician now ordered him to
travel; for it was perceptible that sorrow had seized upon his nerves,
weakened as they had been by the preceding illness; and variety of
scene, it was probable, would, by amusing his mind, restore them to
their proper tone.
For some days Emily was occupied in preparations to attend him; and he,
by endeavours to diminish his expences at home during the journey—a
purpose which determined him at length to dismiss his domestics. Emily
seldom opposed her father’s wishes by questions or remonstrances, or
she would now have asked why he did not take a servant, and have
represented that his infirm health made one almost necessary. But when,
on the eve of their departure, she found that he had dismissed Jacques,
Francis, and Mary, and detained only Theresa the old housekeeper, she
was extremely surprised, and ventured to ask his reason for having done
so. “To save expences, my dear,” he replied—“we are going on an
expensive excursion.”
The physician had prescribed the air of Languedoc and Provence; and St.
Aubert determined, therefore, to travel leisurely along the shores of
the Mediterranean, towards Provence.
They retired early to their chamber on the night before their
departure; but Emily had a few books and other things to collect, and
the clock had struck twelve before she had finished, or had remembered
that some of her drawing instruments, which she meant to take with her,
were in the parlour below. As she went to fetch these, she passed her
father’s room, and, perceiving the door half open, concluded that he
was in his study—for, since the death of Madame St. Aubert, it had been
frequently his custom to rise from his restless bed, and go thither to
compose his mind. When she was below stairs she looked into this room,
but without finding him; and as she returned to her chamber, she tapped
at his door, and receiving no answer, stepped softly in, to be certain
whether he was there.
The room was dark, but a light glimmered through some panes of glass
that were placed in the upper part of a closet-door. Emily believed her
father to be in the closet, and, surprised that he was up at so late an
hour, apprehended he was unwell, and was going to enquire; but,
considering that her sudden appearance at this hour might alarm him,
she removed her light to the staircase, and then stepped softly to the
closet. On looking through the panes of glass, she saw him seated at a
small table, with papers before him, some of which he was reading with
deep attention and interest, during which he often wept and sobbed
aloud. Emily, who had come to the door to learn whether her father was
ill, was now detained there by a mixture of curiosity and tenderness.
She could not witness his sorrow, without being anxious to know the
subject of; and she therefore continued to observe him in silence,
concluding that those papers were letters of her late mother. Presently
he knelt down, and with a look so solemn as she had seldom seen him
assume, and which was mingled with a certain wild expression, that
partook more of horror than of any other character, he prayed silently
for a considerable time.
When he rose, a ghastly paleness was on his countenance. Emily was
hastily retiring; but she saw him turn again to the papers, and she
stopped. He took from among them a small case, and from thence a
miniature picture. The rays of light fell strongly upon it, and she
perceived it to be that of a lady, but not of her mother.
St. Aubert gazed earnestly and tenderly upon his portrait, put it to
his lips, and then to his heart, and sighed with a convulsive force.
Emily could scarcely believe what she saw to be real. She never knew
till now that he had a picture of any other lady than her mother, much
less that he had one which he evidently valued so highly; but having
looked repeatedly, to be certain that it was not the resemblance of
Madame St. Aubert, she became entirely convinced that it was designed
for that of some other person.
At length St. Aubert returned the picture to its case; and Emily,
recollecting that she was intruding upon his private sorrows, softly
withdrew from the chamber.
CHAPTER III
O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which nature to her vot’ry yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even;
All that the mountain’s shelt’ring bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven;
O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!
.....
These charms shall work thy soul’s eternal health,
And love, and gentleness, and joy, impart.
THE MINSTREL
St. Aubert, instead of taking the more direct road, that ran along the
feet of the Pyrenees to Languedoc, chose one that, winding over the
heights, afforded more extensive views and greater variety of romantic
scenery. He turned a little out of his way to take leave of M.
Barreaux, whom he found botanizing in the wood near his château, and
who, when he was told the purpose of St. Aubert’s visit, expressed a
degree of concern, such as his friend had thought it was scarcely
possible for him to feel on any similar occasion. They parted with
mutual regret.
“If anything could have tempted me from my retirement,” said M.
Barreaux, “it would have been the pleasure of accompanying you on this
little tour. I do not often offer compliments; you may, therefore,
believe me, when I say, that I shall look for your return with
impatience.”
The travellers proceeded on their journey. As they ascended the
heights, St. Aubert often looked back upon the château, in the plain
below; tender images crowded to his mind; his melancholy imagination
suggested that he should return no more; and though he checked this
wandering thought, still he continued to look, till the haziness of
distance blended his home with the general landscape, and St. Aubert
seemed to
Drag at each remove a lengthening chain.
He and Emily continued sunk in musing silence for some leagues, from
which melancholy reverie Emily first awoke, and her young fancy, struck
with the grandeur of the objects around, gradually yielded to
delightful impressions. The road now descended into glens, confined by
stupendous walls of rock, grey and barren, except where shrubs fringed
their summits, or patches of meagre vegetation tinted their recesses,
in which the wild goat was frequently browsing. And now, the way led to
the lofty cliffs, from whence the landscape was seen extending in all
its magnificence.
Emily could not restrain her transport as she looked over the pine
forests of the mountains upon the vast plains, that, enriched with
woods, towns, blushing vines, and plantations of almonds, palms, and
olives, stretched along, till their various colours melted in distance
into one harmonious hue, that seemed to unite earth with heaven.
Through the whole of this glorious scene the majestic Garonne wandered;
descending from its source among the Pyrenees, and winding its blue
waves towards the Bay of Biscay.
The ruggedness of the unfrequented road often obliged the wanderers to
alight from their little carriage, but they thought themselves amply
repaid for this inconvenience by the grandeur of the scenes; and, while
the muleteer led his animals slowly over the broken ground, the
travellers had leisure to linger amid these solitudes, and to indulge
the sublime reflections, which soften, while they elevate, the heart,
and fill it with the certainty of a present God! Still the enjoyment of
St. Aubert was touched with that pensive melancholy, which gives to
every object a mellower tint, and breathes a sacred charm over all
around.
They had provided against part of the evil to be encountered from a
want of convenient inns, by carrying a stock of provisions in the
carriage, so that they might take refreshment on any pleasant spot, in
the open air, and pass the nights wherever they should happen to meet
with a comfortable cottage. For the mind, also, they had provided, by a
work on botany, written by M. Barreaux, and by several of the Latin and
Italian poets; while Emily’s pencil enabled her to preserve some of
those combinations of forms, which charmed her at every step.
The loneliness of the road, where, only now and then, a peasant was
seen driving his mule, or some mountaineer-children at play among the
rocks, heightened the effect of the scenery. St. Aubert was so much
struck with it, that he determined, if he could hear of a road, to
penetrate further among the mountains, and, bending his way rather more
to the south, to emerge into Rousillon, and coast the Mediterranean
along part of that country to Languedoc.
Soon after mid-day, they reached the summit of one of those cliffs,
which, bright with the verdure of palm-trees, adorn, like gems, the
tremendous walls of the rocks, and which overlooked the greater part of
Gascony, and part of Languedoc. Here was shade, and the fresh water of
a spring, that, gliding among the turf, under the trees, thence
precipitated itself from rock to rock, till its dashing murmurs were
lost in the abyss, though its white foam was long seen amid the
darkness of the pines below.
This was a spot well suited for rest, and the travellers alighted to
dine, while the mules were unharnessed to browse on the savoury herbs
that enriched this summit.
It was some time before St. Aubert or Emily could withdraw their
attention from the surrounding objects, so as to partake of their
little repast. Seated in the shade of the palms, St. Aubert pointed out
to her observation the course of the rivers, the situation of great
towns, and the boundaries of provinces, which science, rather than the
eye, enabled him to describe. Notwithstanding this occupation, when he
had talked awhile he suddenly became silent, thoughtful, and tears
often swelled to his eyes, which Emily observed, and the sympathy of
her own heart told her their cause. The scene before them bore some
resemblance, though it was on a much grander scale, to a favourite one
of the late Madame St. Aubert, within view of the fishing-house. They
both observed this, and thought how delighted she would have been with
the present landscape, while they knew that her eyes must never, never
more open upon this world. St. Aubert remembered the last time of his
visiting that spot in company with her, and also the mournfully
presaging thoughts which had then arisen in his mind, and were now,
even thus soon, realised! The recollections subdued him, and he
abruptly rose from his seat, and walked away to where no eye could
observe his grief.
When he returned, his countenance had recovered its usual serenity; he
took Emily’s hand, pressed it affectionately, without speaking, and
soon after called to the muleteer, who sat at a little distance,
concerning a road among the mountains towards Rousillon. Michael said,
there were several that way, but he did not know how far they extended,
or even whether they were passable; and St. Aubert, who did not intend
to travel after sunset, asked what village they could reach about that
time. The muleteer calculated that they could easily reach Mateau,
which was in their present road; but that, if they took a road that
sloped more to the south, towards Rousillon, there was a hamlet, which
he thought they could gain before the evening shut in.
St. Aubert, after some hesitation, determined to take the latter
course, and Michael, having finished his meal, and harnessed his mules,
again set forward, but soon stopped; and St. Aubert saw him doing
homage to a cross, that stood on a rock impending over their way.
Having concluded his devotions, he smacked his whip in the air, and, in
spite of the rough road, and the pain of his poor mules, which he had
been lately lamenting, rattled, in a full gallop, along the edge of a
precipice, which it made the eye dizzy to look down. Emily was
terrified almost to fainting; and St. Aubert, apprehending still
greater danger from suddenly stopping the driver, was compelled to sit
quietly, and trust his fate to the strength and discretion of the
mules, who seemed to possess a greater portion of the latter quality
than their master; for they carried the travellers safely into the
valley, and there stopped upon the brink of the rivulet that watered
it.
Leaving the splendour of extensive prospects, they now entered this
narrow valley screened by
Rocks on rocks piled, as if by magic spell,
Here scorch’d by lightnings, there with ivy green.
The scene of barrenness was here and there interrupted by the spreading
branches of the larch and cedar, which threw their gloom over the
cliff, or athwart the torrent that rolled in the vale. No living
creature appeared, except the lizard, scrambling among the rocks, and
often hanging upon points so dangerous, that fancy shrunk from the view
of them. This was such a scene as _Salvator_ would have chosen, had he
then existed, for his canvas; St. Aubert, impressed by the romantic
character of the place, almost expected to see banditti start from
behind some projecting rock, and he kept his hand upon the arms with
which he always travelled.
As they advanced, the valley opened; its savage features gradually
softened, and, towards evening, they were among heathy mountains,
stretched in far perspective, along which the solitary sheep-bell was
heard, and the voice of the shepherd calling his wandering flocks to
the nightly fold. His cabin, partly shadowed by the cork-tree and the
ilex, which St. Aubert observed to flourish in higher regions of the
air than any other trees, except the fir, was all the human habitation
that yet appeared. Along the bottom of this valley the most vivid
verdure was spread; and, in the little hollow recesses of the
mountains, under the shade of the oak and chestnut, herds of cattle
were grazing. Groups of them, too, were often seen reposing on the
banks of the rivulet, or laving their sides in the cool stream, and
sipping its wave.
The sun was now setting upon the valley; its last light gleamed upon
the water, and heightened the rich yellow and purple tints of the heath
and broom, that overspread the mountains. St. Aubert enquired of
Michael the distance to the hamlet he had mentioned, but the man could
not with certainty tell; and Emily began to fear that he had mistaken
the road. Here was no human being to assist, or direct them; they had
left the shepherd and his cabin far behind, and the scene became so
obscured in twilight, that the eye could not follow the distant
perspective of the valley in search of a cottage, or a hamlet. A glow
of the horizon still marked the west, and this was of some little use
to the travellers. Michael seemed endeavouring to keep up his courage
by singing; his music, however, was not of a kind to disperse
melancholy; he sung, in a sort of chant, one of the most dismal ditties
his present auditors had ever heard, and St. Aubert at length
discovered it to be a vesper-hymn to his favourite saint.
They travelled on, sunk in that thoughtful melancholy, with which
twilight and solitude impress the mind. Michael had now ended his
ditty, and nothing was heard but the drowsy murmur of the breeze among
the woods, and its light flutter, as it blew freshly into the carriage.
They were at length roused by the sound of fire-arms. St. Aubert called
to the muleteer to stop, and they listened. The noise was not repeated;
but presently they heard a rustling among the brakes. St. Aubert drew
forth a pistol, and ordered Michael to proceed as fast as possible; who
had not long obeyed, before a horn sounded, that made the mountains
ring. He looked again from the window, and then saw a young man spring
from the bushes into the road, followed by a couple of dogs. The
stranger was in a hunter’s dress. His gun was slung across his
shoulders, the hunter’s horn hung from his belt, and in his hand was a
small pike, which, as he held it, added to the manly grace of his
figure, and assisted the agility of his steps.
After a moment’s hesitation, St. Aubert again stopped the carriage, and
waited till he came up, that they might enquire concerning the hamlet
they were in search of. The stranger informed him, that it was only
half a league distant, that he was going thither himself, and would
readily show the way. St. Aubert thanked him for the offer, and,
pleased with his chevalier-like air and open countenance, asked him to
take a seat in the carriage; which the stranger, with an
acknowledgment, declined, adding that he would keep pace with the
mules. “But I fear you will be wretchedly accommodated,” said he: “the
inhabitants of these mountains are a simple people, who are not only
without the luxuries of life, but almost destitute of what in other
places are held to be its necessaries.”
“I perceive you are not one of its inhabitants, sir,” said St. Aubert.
“No, sir, I am only a wanderer here.”
The carriage drove on, and the increasing dusk made the travellers very
thankful that they had a guide; the frequent glens, too, that now
opened among the mountains, would likewise have added to their
perplexity. Emily, as she looked up one of these, saw something at a
great distance like a bright cloud in the air. “What light is yonder,
sir?” said she.
St. Aubert looked, and perceived that it was the snowy summit of a
mountain, so much higher than any around it, that it still reflected
the sun’s rays, while those below lay in deep shade.
At length, the village lights were seen to twinkle through the dusk,
and, soon after, some cottages were discovered in the valley, or rather
were seen by reflection in the stream, on whose margin they stood, and
which still gleamed with the evening light.
The stranger now came up, and St. Aubert, on further enquiry, found not
only that there was no inn in the place, but not any sort of house of
public reception. The stranger, however, offered to walk on, and
enquire for a cottage to accommodate them; for which further civility
St. Aubert returned his thanks, and said, that, as the village was so
near, he would alight, and walk with him. Emily followed slowly in the
carriage.
On the way, St. Aubert asked his companion what success he had had in
the chase. “Not much, sir,” he replied, “nor do I aim at it. I am
pleased with the country, and mean to saunter away a few weeks among
its scenes. My dogs I take with me more for companionship than for
game. This dress, too, gives me an ostensible business, and procures me
that respect from the people, which would, perhaps, be refused to a
lonely stranger, who had no visible motive for coming among them.”
“I admire your taste,” said St. Aubert, “and, if I was a younger man,
should like to pass a few weeks in your way exceedingly. I, too, am a
wanderer, but neither my plan nor pursuits are exactly like yours—I go
in search of health, as much as of amusement.” St. Aubert sighed, and
paused; and then, seeming to recollect himself, he resumed: “If I can
hear of a tolerable road, that shall afford decent accommodation, it is
my intention to pass into Rousillon, and along the sea-shore to
Languedoc. You, sir, seem to be acquainted with the country, and can,
perhaps, give me information on the subject.”
The stranger said, that what information he could give was entirely at
his service; and then mentioned a road rather more to the east, which
led to a town, whence it would be easy to proceed into Rousillon.
They now arrived at the village, and commenced their search for a
cottage, that would afford a night’s lodging. In several, which they
entered, ignorance, poverty, and mirth seemed equally to prevail; and
the owners eyed St. Aubert with a mixture of curiosity and timidity.
Nothing like a bed could be found, and he had ceased to enquire for
one, when Emily joined him, who observed the languor of her father’s
countenance, and lamented, that he had taken a road so ill provided
with the comforts necessary for an invalid. Other cottages, which they
examined, seemed somewhat less savage than the former, consisting of
two rooms, if such they could be called; the first of these occupied by
mules and pigs, the second by the family, which generally consisted of
six or eight children, with their parents, who slept on beds of skins
and dried beech leaves, spread upon a mud floor. Here, light was
admitted, and smoke discharged, through an aperture in the roof; and
here the scent of spirits (for the travelling smugglers, who haunted
the Pyrenees, had made this rude people familiar with the use of
liquors) was generally perceptible enough. Emily turned from such
scenes, and looked at her father with anxious tenderness, which the
young stranger seemed to observe; for, drawing St. Aubert aside, he
made him an offer of his own bed. “It is a decent one,” said he, “when
compared with what we have just seen, yet such as in other
circumstances I should be ashamed to offer you.” St. Aubert
acknowledged how much he felt himself obliged by this kindness, but
refused to accept it, till the young stranger would take no denial. “Do
not give me the pain of knowing, sir,” said he, “that an invalid, like
you, lies on hard skins, while I sleep in a bed. Besides, sir, your
refusal wounds my pride; I must believe you think my offer unworthy
your acceptance. Let me show you the way. I have no doubt my landlady
can accommodate this young lady also.”
St. Aubert at length consented, that, if this could be done, he would
accept his kindness, though he felt rather surprised, that the stranger
had proved himself so deficient in gallantry, as to administer to the
repose of an infirm man, rather than to that of a very lovely young
woman, for he had not once offered the room for Emily. But she thought
not of herself, and the animated smile she gave him, told how much she
felt herself obliged for the preference of her father.
On their way, the stranger, whose name was Valancourt, stepped on first
to speak to his hostess, and she came out to welcome St. Aubert into a
cottage, much superior to any he had seen. This good woman seemed very
willing to accommodate the strangers, who were soon compelled to accept
the only two beds in the place. Eggs and milk were the only food the
cottage afforded; but against scarcity of provisions St. Aubert had
provided, and he requested Valancourt to stay, and partake with him of
less homely fare; an invitation, which was readily accepted, and they
passed an hour in intelligent conversation. St. Aubert was much pleased
with the manly frankness, simplicity, and keen susceptibility to the
grandeur of nature, which his new acquaintance discovered; and, indeed,
he had often been heard to say, that, without a certain simplicity of
heart, this taste could not exist in any strong degree.
The conversation was interrupted by a violent uproar without, in which
the voice of the muleteer was heard above every other sound. Valancourt
started from his seat, and went to enquire the occasion; but the
dispute continued so long afterwards, that St. Aubert went himself, and
found Michael quarrelling with the hostess, because she had refused to
let his mules lie in a little room where he and three of her sons were
to pass the night. The place was wretched enough, but there was no
other for these people to sleep in; and, with somewhat more of delicacy
than was usual among the inhabitants of this wild tract of country, she
persisted in refusing to let the animals have the same _bed-chamber_
with her children. This was a tender point with the muleteer; his
honour was wounded when his mules were treated with disrespect, and he
would have received a blow, perhaps, with more meekness. He declared
that his beasts were as honest beasts, and as good beasts, as any in
the whole province; and that they had a right to be well treated
wherever they went. “They are as harmless as lambs,” said he, “if
people don’t affront them. I never knew them behave themselves amiss
above once or twice in my life, and then they had good reason for doing
so. Once, indeed, they kicked at a boy’s leg that lay asleep in the
stable, and broke it; but I told them they were out there, and by St.
Anthony! I believe they understood me, for they never did so again.”
He concluded this eloquent harangue with protesting, that they should
share with him, go where he would.
The dispute was at length settled by Valancourt, who drew the hostess
aside, and desired she would let the muleteer and his beasts have the
place in question to themselves, while her sons should have the bed of
skins designed for him, for that he would wrap himself in his cloak,
and sleep on the bench by the cottage door. But this she thought it her
duty to oppose, and she felt it to be her inclination to disappoint the
muleteer. Valancourt, however, was positive, and the tedious affair was
at length settled.
It was late when St. Aubert and Emily retired to their rooms, and
Valancourt to his station at the door, which, at this mild season, he
preferred to a close cabin and a bed of skins. St. Aubert was somewhat
surprised to find in his room volumes of Homer, Horace, and Petrarch;
but the name of Valancourt, written in them, told him to whom they
belonged.
CHAPTER IV
In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,
Fond of each gentle, and each dreadful scene,
In darkness, and in storm he found delight;
Nor less than when on ocean-wave serene
The southern sun diffus’d his dazzling sheen.
Even sad vicissitude amus’d his soul;
And if a sigh would sometimes intervene,
And down his cheek a tear of pity roll,
A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wish’d not to control.
THE MINSTREL
St. Aubert awoke at an early hour, refreshed by sleep, and desirous to
set forward. He invited the stranger to breakfast with him; and,
talking again of the road, Valancourt said, that, some months past, he
had travelled as far as Beaujeu, which was a town of some consequence
on the way to Rousillon. He recommended it to St. Aubert to take that
route, and the latter determined to do so.
“The road from this hamlet,” said Valancourt, “and that to Beaujeu,
part at the distance of about a league and a half from hence; if you
will give me leave, I will direct your muleteer so far. I must wander
somewhere, and your company would make this a pleasanter ramble than
any other I could take.”
St. Aubert thankfully accepted his offer, and they set out together,
the young stranger on foot, for he refused the invitation of St. Aubert
to take a seat in his little carriage.
The road wound along the feet of the mountains through a pastoral
valley, bright with verdure, and varied with groves of dwarf oak, beech
and sycamore, under whose branches herds of cattle reposed. The
mountain-ash too, and the weeping birch, often threw their pendant
foliage over the steeps above, where the scanty soil scarcely concealed
their roots, and where their light branches waved to every breeze that
fluttered from the mountains.
The travellers were frequently met at this early hour, for the sun had
not yet risen upon the valley, by shepherds driving immense flocks from
their folds to feed upon the hills. St. Aubert had set out thus early,
not only that he might enjoy the first appearance of sunrise, but that
he might inhale the first pure breath of morning, which above all
things is refreshing to the spirits of the invalid. In these regions it
was particularly so, where an abundance of wild flowers and aromatic
herbs breathed forth their essence on the air.
The dawn, which softened the scenery with its peculiar grey tint, now
dispersed, and Emily watched the progress of the day, first trembling
on the tops of the highest cliffs, then touching them with splendid
light, while their sides and the vale below were still wrapt in dewy
mist. Meanwhile, the sullen grey of the eastern clouds began to blush,
then to redden, and then to glow with a thousand colours, till the
golden light darted over all the air, touched the lower points of the
mountain’s brow, and glanced in long sloping beams upon the valley and
its stream. All nature seemed to have awakened from death into life;
the spirit of St. Aubert was renovated. His heart was full; he wept,
and his thoughts ascended to the Great Creator.
Emily wished to trip along the turf, so green and bright with dew, and
to taste the full delight of that liberty, which the izard seemed to
enjoy as he bounded along the brow of the cliffs; while Valancourt
often stopped to speak with the travellers, and with social feeling to
point out to them the peculiar objects of his admiration. St. Aubert
was pleased with him: “Here is the real ingenuousness and ardour of
youth,” said he to himself; “this young man has never been at Paris.”
He was sorry when they came to the spot where the roads parted, and his
heart took a more affectionate leave of him than is usual after so
short an acquaintance. Valancourt talked long by the side of the
carriage; seemed more than once to be going, but still lingered, and
appeared to search anxiously for topics of conversation to account for
his delay. At length he took leave. As he went, St. Aubert observed him
look with an earnest and pensive eye at Emily, who bowed to him with a
countenance full of timid sweetness, while the carriage drove on. St.
Aubert, for whatever reason, soon after looked from the window, and saw
Valancourt standing upon the bank of the road, resting on his pike with
folded arms, and following the carriage with his eyes. He waved his
hand, and Valancourt, seeming to awake from his reverie, returned the
salute, and started away.
The aspect of the country now began to change, and the travellers soon
found themselves among mountains covered from their base nearly to
their summits with forests of gloomy pine, except where a rock of
granite shot up from the vale, and lost its snowy top in the clouds.
The rivulet, which had hitherto accompanied them, now expanded into a
river; and, flowing deeply and silently along, reflected, as in a
mirror, the blackness of the impending shades. Sometimes a cliff was
seen lifting its bold head above the woods and the vapours, that
floated mid-way down the mountains; and sometimes a face of
perpendicular marble rose from the water’s edge, over which the larch
threw his gigantic arms, here scathed with lightning, and there
floating in luxuriant foliage.
They continued to travel over a rough and unfrequented road, seeing now
and then at a distance the solitary shepherd, with his dog, stalking
along the valley, and hearing only the dashing of torrents, which the
woods concealed from the eye, the long sullen murmur of the breeze, as
it swept over the pines, or the notes of the eagle and the vulture,
which were seen towering round the beetling cliff.
Often, as the carriage moved slowly over uneven ground, St. Aubert
alighted, and amused himself with examining the curious plants that
grew on the banks of the road, and with which these regions abound;
while Emily, wrapt in high enthusiasm, wandered away under the shades,
listening in deep silence to the lonely murmur of the woods.
Neither village nor hamlet was seen for many leagues; the goat-herd’s
or the hunter’s cabin, perched among the cliffs of the rocks, were the
only human habitations that appeared.
The travellers again took their dinner in the open air, on a pleasant
spot in the valley, under the spreading shade of cedars; and then set
forward towards Beaujeu.
The road now began to descend, and, leaving the pine forests behind,
wound among rocky precipices. The evening twilight again fell over the
scene, and the travellers were ignorant how far they might yet be from
Beaujeu. St. Aubert, however, conjectured that the distance could not
be very great, and comforted himself with the prospect of travelling on
a more frequented road after reaching that town, where he designed to
pass the night. Mingled woods, and rocks, and heathy mountains were now
seen obscurely through the dusk; but soon even these imperfect images
faded in darkness. Michael proceeded with caution, for he could
scarcely distinguish the road; his mules, however, seemed to have more
sagacity, and their steps were sure.
On turning the angle of a mountain, a light appeared at a distance,
that illumined the rocks, and the horizon to a great extent. It was
evidently a large fire, but whether accidental, or otherwise, there
were no means of knowing. St. Aubert thought it was probably kindled by
some of the numerous banditti, that infested the Pyrenees, and he
became watchful and anxious to know whether the road passed near this
fire. He had arms with him, which, on an emergency, might afford some
protection, though certainly a very unequal one, against a band of
robbers, so desperate too as those usually were who haunted these wild
regions. While many reflections rose upon his mind, he heard a voice
shouting from the road behind, and ordering the muleteer to stop. St.
Aubert bade him proceed as fast as possible; but either Michael, or his
mules were obstinate, for they did not quit the old pace. Horses’ feet
were now heard; a man rode up to the carriage, still ordering the
driver to stop; and St. Aubert, who could no longer doubt his purpose,
was with difficulty able to prepare a pistol for his defence, when his
hand was upon the door of the chaise. The man staggered on his horse,
the report of the pistol was followed by a groan, and St. Aubert’s
horror may be imagined, when in the next instant he thought he heard
the faint voice of Valancourt. He now himself bade the muleteer stop;
and, pronouncing the name of Valancourt, was answered in a voice, that
no longer suffered him to doubt. St. Aubert, who instantly alighted and
went to his assistance, found him still sitting on his horse, but
bleeding profusely, and appearing to be in great pain, though he
endeavoured to soften the terror of St. Aubert by assurances that he
was not materially hurt, the wound being only in his arm. St. Aubert,
with the muleteer, assisted him to dismount, and he sat down on the
bank of the road, where St. Aubert tried to bind up his arm, but his
hands trembled so excessively that he could not accomplish it; and,
Michael being now gone in pursuit of the horse, which, on being
disengaged from his rider, had galloped off, he called Emily to his
assistance. Receiving no answer, he went to the carriage, and found her
sunk on the seat in a fainting fit. Between the distress of this
circumstance and that of leaving Valancourt bleeding, he scarcely knew
what he did; he endeavoured, however, to raise her, and called to
Michael to fetch water from the rivulet that flowed by the road, but
Michael was gone beyond the reach of his voice. Valancourt, who heard
these calls, and also the repeated name of Emily, instantly understood
the subject of his distress; and, almost forgetting his own condition,
he hastened to her relief. She was reviving when he reached the
carriage; and then, understanding that anxiety for him had occasioned
her indisposition, he assured her, in a voice that trembled, but not
from anguish, that his wound was of no consequence. While he said this
St. Aubert turned round, and perceiving that he was still bleeding, the
subject of his alarm changed again, and he hastily formed some
handkerchiefs into a bandage. This stopped the effusion of the blood;
but St. Aubert, dreading the consequence of the wound, enquired
repeatedly how far they were from Beaujeu; when, learning that it was
at two leagues’ distance, his distress increased, since he knew not how
Valancourt, in his present state, would bear the motion of the
carriage, and perceived that he was already faint from loss of blood.
When he mentioned the subject of his anxiety, Valancourt entreated that
he would not suffer himself to be thus alarmed on his account, for that
he had no doubt he should be able to support himself very well; and
then he talked of the accident as a slight one. The muleteer being now
returned with Valancourt’s horse, assisted him into the chaise; and, as
Emily was now revived, they moved slowly on towards Beaujeu.
St. Aubert, when he had recovered from the terror occasioned him by
this accident, expressed surprise on seeing Valancourt, who explained
his unexpected appearance by saying, “You, sir, renewed my taste for
society; when you had left the hamlet, it did indeed appear a solitude.
I determined, therefore, since my object was merely amusement, to
change the scene; and I took this road, because I knew it led through a
more romantic tract of mountains than the spot I have left. Besides,”
added he, hesitating for an instant, “I will own, and why should I not?
that I had some hope of overtaking you.”
“And I have made you a very unexpected return for the compliment,” said
St. Aubert, who lamented again the rashness which had produced the
accident, and explained the cause of his late alarm. But Valancourt
seemed anxious only to remove from the minds of his companions every
unpleasant feeling relative to himself; and, for that purpose, still
struggled against a sense of pain, and tried to converse with gaiety.
Emily meanwhile was silent, except when Valancourt particularly
addressed her, and there was at those times a tremulous tone in his
voice that spoke much.
They were now so near the fire, which had long flamed at a distance on
the blackness of night, that it gleamed upon the road, and they could
distinguish figures moving about the blaze. The way winding still
nearer, they perceived in the valley one of those numerous bands of
gipsies, which at that period particularly haunted the wilds of the
Pyrenees, and lived partly by plundering the traveller. Emily looked
with some degree of terror on the savage countenances of these people,
shown by the fire, which heightened the romantic effects of the
scenery, as it threw a red dusky gleam upon the rocks and on the
foliage of the trees, leaving heavy masses of shade and regions of
obscurity, which the eye feared to penetrate.
They were preparing their supper; a large pot stood by the fire, over
which several figures were busy. The blaze discovered a rude kind of
tent, round which many children and dogs were playing, and the whole
formed a picture highly grotesque. The travellers saw plainly their
danger. Valancourt was silent, but laid his hand on one of St. Aubert’s
pistols; St. Aubert drew forth another, and Michael was ordered to
proceed as fast as possible. They passed the place, however, without
being attacked; the rovers being probably unprepared for the
opportunity, and too busy about their supper to feel much interest, at
the moment, in anything besides.
After a league and a half more, passed in darkness, the travellers
arrived at Beaujeu, and drove up to the only inn the place afforded;
which, though superior to any they had seen since they entered the
mountains, was bad enough.
The surgeon of the town was immediately sent for, if a surgeon he could
be called, who prescribed for horses as well as for men, and shaved
faces at least as dexterously as he set bones. After examining
Valancourt’s arm, and perceiving that the bullet had passed through the
flesh without touching the bone, he dressed it, and left him with a
solemn prescription of quiet, which his patient was not inclined to
obey. The delight of ease had now succeeded to pain; for ease may be
allowed to assume a positive quality when contrasted with anguish; and,
his spirits thus reanimated, he wished to partake of the conversation
of St. Aubert and Emily, who, released from so many apprehensions, were
uncommonly cheerful. Late as it was, however, St. Aubert was obliged to
go out with the landlord to buy meat for supper; and Emily, who, during
this interval, had been absent as long as she could, upon excuses of
looking to their accommodation, which she found rather better than she
expected, was compelled to return, and converse with Valancourt alone.
They talked of the character of the scenes they had passed, of the
natural history of the country, of poetry, and of St. Aubert; a subject
on which Emily always spoke and listened to with peculiar pleasure.
The travellers passed an agreeable evening; but St. Aubert was fatigued
with his journey; and, as Valancourt seemed again sensible of pain,
they separated soon after supper.
In the morning St. Aubert found that Valancourt had passed a restless
night; that he was feverish, and his wound very painful. The surgeon,
when he dressed it, advised him to remain quietly at Beaujeu; advice
which was too reasonable to be rejected. St. Aubert, however, had no
favourable opinion of this practitioner, and was anxious to commit
Valancourt into more skilful hands; but learning, upon enquiry, that
there was no town within several leagues which seemed more likely to
afford better advice, he altered the plan of his journey, and
determined to await the recovery of Valancourt, who, with somewhat more
ceremony than sincerity, made many objections to this delay.
By order of his surgeon, Valancourt did not go out of the house that
day; but St. Aubert and Emily surveyed with delight the environs of the
town, situated at the feet of the Pyrenean Alps, that rose, some in
abrupt precipices, and others swelling with woods of cedar, fir, and
cypress, which stretched nearly to their highest summits. The cheerful
green of the beech and mountain-ash was sometimes seen, like a gleam of
light, amidst the dark verdure of the forest; and sometimes a torrent
poured its sparkling flood, high among the woods.
Valancourt’s indisposition detained the travellers at Beaujeu several
days, during which interval St. Aubert had observed his disposition and
his talents with the philosophic inquiry so natural to him. He saw a
frank and generous nature, full of ardour, highly susceptible of
whatever is grand and beautiful, but impetuous, wild, and somewhat
romantic. Valancourt had known little of the world. His perceptions
were clear, and his feelings just; his indignation of an unworthy, or
his admiration of a generous action, were expressed in terms of equal
vehemence. St. Aubert sometimes smiled at his warmth, but seldom
checked it, and often repeated to himself, “This young man has never
been at Paris.” A sigh sometimes followed this silent ejaculation. He
determined not to leave Valancourt till he should be perfectly
recovered; and, as he was now well enough to travel, though not able to
manage his horse, St. Aubert invited him to accompany him for a few
days in the carriage. This he the more readily did, since he had
discovered that Valancourt was of a family of the same name in Gascony,
with whose respectability he was well acquainted. The latter accepted
the offer with great pleasure, and they again set forward among these
romantic wilds about Rousillon.
They travelled leisurely; stopping wherever a scene uncommonly grand
appeared; frequently alighting to walk to an eminence, whither the
mules could not go, from which the prospect opened in greater
magnificence; and often sauntering over hillocks covered with lavender,
wild thyme, juniper, and tamarisc; and under the shades of woods,
between those boles they caught the long mountain-vista, sublime beyond
anything that Emily had ever imagined.
St. Aubert sometimes amused himself with botanizing, while Valancourt
and Emily strolled on; he pointing out to her notice the objects that
particularly charmed him, and reciting beautiful passages from such of
the Latin and Italian poets as he had heard her admire. In the pauses
of conversation, when he thought himself not observed, he frequently
fixed his eyes pensively on her countenance, which expressed with so
much animation the taste and energy of her mind; and when he spoke
again, there was a peculiar tenderness in the tone of his voice, that
defeated any attempt to conceal his sentiments. By degrees these silent
pauses became more frequent; till Emily, only, betrayed an anxiety to
interrupt them; and she; who had been hitherto reserved, would now talk
again, and again, of the woods and the valleys and the mountains, to
avoid the danger of sympathy and silence.
From Beaujeu the road had constantly ascended, conducting the
travellers into the higher regions of the air, where immense glaciers
exhibited their frozen horrors, and eternal snow whitened the summits
of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate these stupendous
scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only the ilex or the
larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of fir, and precipices
where human foot had never wandered, into the glen—so deep, that the
thunder of the torrent, which was seen to foam along the bottom, was
scarcely heard to murmur. Over these crags rose others of stupendous
height, and fantastic shape; some shooting into cones; others impending
far over their base, in huge masses of granite, along whose broken
ridges was often lodged a weight of snow, that, trembling even to the
vibration of a sound, threatened to bear destruction in its course to
the vale. Around, on every side, far as the eye could penetrate, were
seen only forms of grandeur—the long perspective of mountain-tops,
tinged with ethereal blue, or white with snow; valleys of ice, and
forests of gloomy fir. The serenity and clearness of the air in these
high regions were particularly delightful to the travellers; it seemed
to inspire them with a finer spirit, and diffused an indescribable
complacency over their minds. They had no words to express the sublime
emotions they felt. A solemn expression characterised the feelings of
St. Aubert; tears often came to his eyes, and he frequently walked away
from his companions. Valancourt now and then spoke, to point to Emily’s
notice some feature of the scene. The thinness of the atmosphere,
through which every object came so distinctly to the eye, surprised and
deluded her; who could scarcely believe that objects, which appeared so
near, were, in reality, so distant. The deep silence of these solitudes
was broken only at intervals by the scream of the vultures, seen
cowering round some cliff below, or by the cry of the eagle sailing
high in the air; except when the travellers listened to the hollow
thunder that sometimes muttered at their feet. While, above, the deep
blue of the heavens was unobscured by the lightest cloud, half way down
the mountains, long billows of vapour were frequently seen rolling, now
wholly excluding the country below, and now opening, and partially
revealing its features. Emily delighted to observe the grandeur of
these clouds as they changed in shape and tints, and to watch their
various effect on the lower world, whose features, partly veiled, were
continually assuming new forms of sublimity.
After traversing these regions for many leagues, they began to descend
towards Rousillon, and features of beauty then mingled with the scene.
Yet the travellers did not look back without some regret to the sublime
objects they had quitted; though the eye, fatigued with the extension
of its powers, was glad to repose on the verdure of woods and pastures,
that now hung on the margin of the river below; to view again the
humble cottage shaded by cedars, the playful group of
mountaineer-children, and the flowery nooks that appeared among the
hills.
As they descended, they saw at a distance, on the right, one of the
grand passes of the Pyrenees into Spain, gleaming with its battlements
and towers to the splendour of the setting rays, yellow tops of woods
colouring the steeps below, while far above aspired the snowy points of
the mountains, still reflecting a rosy hue.
St. Aubert began to look out for the little town he had been directed
to by the people of Beaujeu, and where he meant to pass the night; but
no habitation yet appeared. Of its distance Valancourt could not assist
him to judge, for he had never been so far along this chain of Alps
before. There was, however, a road to guide them; and there could be
little doubt that it was the right one; for, since they had left
Beaujeu, there had been no variety of tracks to perplex or mislead.
The sun now gave his last light, and St. Aubert bade the muleteer
proceed with all possible dispatch. He found, indeed, the lassitude of
illness return upon him, after a day of uncommon fatigue, both of body
and mind, and he longed for repose. His anxiety was not soothed by
observing a numerous train, consisting of men, horses, and loaded
mules, winding down the steeps of an opposite mountain, appearing and
disappearing at intervals among the woods, so that its numbers could
not be judged of. Something bright, like arms, glanced in the setting
ray, and the military dress was distinguishable upon the men who were
in the van, and on others scattered among the troop that followed. As
these wound into the vale, the rear of the party emerged from the
woods, and exhibited a band of soldiers. St. Aubert’s apprehensions now
subsided; he had no doubt that the train before him consisted of
smugglers, who, in conveying prohibited goods over the Pyrenees, had
been encountered, and conquered by a party of troops.
The travellers had lingered so long among the sublimer scenes of these
mountains, that they found themselves entirely mistaken in their
calculation that they could reach Montigny at sunset; but, as they
wound along the valley, the saw, on a rude Alpine bridge, that united
two lofty crags of the glen, a group of mountaineer-children, amusing
themselves with dropping pebbles into a torrent below, and watching the
stones plunge into the water, that threw up its white spray high in the
air as it received them, and returned a sullen sound, which the echoes
of the mountains prolonged. Under the bridge was seen a perspective of
the valley, with its cataract descending among the rocks, and a cottage
on a cliff, overshadowed with pines. It appeared, that they could not
be far from some small town. St. Aubert bade the muleteer stop, and
then called to the children to enquire if he was near Montigny; but the
distance, and the roaring of the waters, would not suffer his voice to
be heard; and the crags, adjoining the bridge, were of such tremendous
height and steepness, that to have climbed either would have been
scarcely practicable to a person unacquainted with the ascent. St.
Aubert, therefore, did not waste more moments in delay. They continued
to travel long after twilight had obscured the road, which was so
broken, that, now thinking it safer to walk than to ride, they all
alighted. The moon was rising, but her light was yet too feeble to
assist them. While they stepped carefully on, they heard the
vesper-bell of a convent. The twilight would not permit them to
distinguish anything like a building, but the sounds seemed to come
from some woods, that overhung an acclivity to the right. Valancourt
proposed to go in search of this convent. “If they will not accommodate
us with a night’s lodging,” said he, “they may certainly inform us how
far we are from Montigny, and direct us towards it.” He was bounding
forward, without waiting St. Aubert’s reply, when the latter stopped
him. “I am very weary,” said St. Aubert, “and wish for nothing so much
as for immediate rest. We will all go to the convent; your good looks
would defeat our purpose; but when they see mine and Emily’s exhausted
countenances, they will scarcely deny us repose.”
As he said this, he took Emily’s arm within his, and, telling Michael
to wait awhile in the road with the carriage, they began to ascend
towards the woods, guided by the bell of the convent. His steps were
feeble, and Valancourt offered him his arm, which he accepted. The moon
now threw a faint light over their path, and, soon after, enabled them
to distinguish some towers rising above the tops of the woods. Still
following the note of the bell, they entered the shade of those woods,
lighted only by the moonbeams, that glided down between the leaves, and
threw a tremulous uncertain gleam upon the steep track they were
winding. The gloom and the silence that prevailed, except when the bell
returned upon the air, together with the wildness of the surrounding
scene, struck Emily with a degree of fear, which, however, the voice
and conversation of Valancourt somewhat repressed. When they had been
some time ascending, St. Aubert complained of weariness, and they
stopped to rest upon a little green summit, where the trees opened, and
admitted the moonlight. He sat down upon the turf, between Emily and
Valancourt. The bell had now ceased, and the deep repose of the scene
was undisturbed by any sound, for the low dull murmur of some distant
torrents might be said to sooth, rather than to interrupt, the silence.
Before them, extended the valley they had quitted; its rocks, and woods
to the left, just silvered by the rays, formed a contrast to the deep
shadow, that involved the opposite cliffs, whose fringed summits only
were tipped with light; while the distant perspective of the valley was
lost in the yellow mist of moonlight. The travellers sat for some time
wrapt in the complacency which such scenes inspire.
“These scenes,” said Valancourt, at length, “soften the heart, like the
notes of sweet music, and inspire that delicious melancholy which no
person, who had felt it once, would resign for the gayest pleasures.
They waken our best and purest feelings, disposing us to benevolence,
pity, and friendship. Those whom I love—I always seem to love more in
such an hour as this.” His voice trembled, and he paused.
St. Aubert was silent; Emily perceived a warm tear fall upon the hand
he held; she knew the object of his thoughts; hers too had, for some
time, been occupied by the remembrance of her mother. He seemed by an
effort to rouse himself. “Yes,” said he, with a half-suppressed sigh,
“the memory of those we love—of times for ever past! in such an hour as
this steals upon the mind, like a strain of distant music in the
stillness of night;—all tender and harmonious as this landscape,
sleeping in the mellow moonlight.” After the pause of a moment, St.
Aubert added, “I have always fancied, that I thought with more
clearness, and precision, at such an hour than at any other, and that
heart must be insensible in a great degree, that does not soften to its
influence. But many such there are.”
Valancourt sighed.
“Are there, indeed, many such?” said Emily.
“A few years hence, my Emily,” replied St. Aubert, “and you may smile
at the recollection of that question—if you do not weep to it. But
come, I am somewhat refreshed, let us proceed.”
Having emerged from the woods, they saw, upon a turfy hillock above,
the convent of which they were in search. A high wall, that surrounded
it, led them to an ancient gate, at which they knocked; and the poor
monk, who opened it, conducted them into a small adjoining room, where
he desired they would wait while he informed the superior of their
request. In this interval, several friars came in separately to look at
them; and at length the first monk returned, and they followed him to a
room, where the superior was sitting in an arm-chair, with a large
folio volume, printed in black letter, open on a desk before him. He
received them with courtesy, though he did not rise from his seat; and,
having asked them a few questions, granted their request. After a short
conversation, formal and solemn on the part of the superior, they
withdrew to the apartment where they were to sup, and Valancourt, whom
one of the inferior friars civilly desired to accompany, went to seek
Michael and his mules. They had not descended half way down the cliffs,
before they heard the voice of the muleteer echoing far and wide.
Sometimes he called on St. Aubert, and sometimes on Valancourt; who
having, at length, convinced him that he had nothing to fear either for
himself, or his master; and having disposed of him, for the night, in a
cottage on the skirts of the woods, returned to sup with his friends,
on such sober fare as the monks thought it prudent to set before them.
While St. Aubert was too much indisposed to share it, Emily, in her
anxiety for her father, forgot herself; and Valancourt, silent and
thoughtful, yet never inattentive to them, appeared particularly
solicitous to accommodate and relieve St. Aubert, who often observed,
while his daughter was pressing him to eat, or adjusting the pillow she
had placed in the back of his arm-chair, that Valancourt fixed on her a
look of pensive tenderness, which he was not displeased to understand.
They separated at an early hour, and retired to their respective
apartments. Emily was shown to hers by a nun of the convent, whom she
was glad to dismiss, for her heart was melancholy, and her attention so
much abstracted, that conversation with a stranger was painful. She
thought her father daily declining, and attributed his present fatigue
more to the feeble state of his frame, than to the difficulty of the
journey. A train of gloomy ideas haunted her mind, till she fell
asleep.
In about two hours after, she was awakened by the chiming of a bell,
and then heard quick steps pass along the gallery, into which her
chamber opened. She was so little accustomed to the manners of a
convent, as to be alarmed by this circumstance; her fears, ever alive
for her father, suggested that he was very ill, and she rose in haste
to go to him. Having paused, however, to let the persons in the gallery
pass before she opened her door, her thoughts, in the mean time,
recovered from the confusion of sleep, and she understood that the bell
was the call of the monks to prayers. It had now ceased, and, all being
again still, she forbore to go to St. Aubert’s room. Her mind was not
disposed for immediate sleep, and the moonlight, that shone into her
chamber, invited her to open the casement, and look out upon the
country.
It was a still and beautiful night, the sky was unobscured by any
cloud, and scarce a leaf of the woods beneath trembled in the air. As
she listened, the midnight hymn of the monks rose softly from a chapel,
that stood on one of the lower cliffs, a holy strain, that seemed to
ascend through the silence of night to heaven, and her thoughts
ascended with it. From the consideration of His works, her mind arose
to the adoration of the Deity, in His goodness and power; wherever she
turned her view, whether on the sleeping earth, or to the vast regions
of space, glowing with worlds beyond the reach of human thought, the
sublimity of God, and the majesty of His presence appeared. Her eyes
were filled with tears of awful love and admiration; and she felt that
pure devotion, superior to all the distinctions of human system, which
lifts the soul above this world, and seems to expand it into a nobler
nature; such devotion as can, perhaps, only be experienced, when the
mind, rescued, for a moment, from the humbleness of earthly
considerations, aspires to contemplate His power in the sublimity of
His works, and His goodness in the infinity of His blessings.
Is it not now the hour,
The holy hour, when to the cloudless height
Of yon starred concave climbs the full-orbed moon,
And to this nether world in solemn stillness,
Gives sign, that, to the list’ning ear of Heaven
Religion’s voice should plead? The very babe
Knows this, and, chance awak’d, his little hands
Lifts to the gods, and on his innocent couch
Calls down a blessing.
CARACTACUS
The midnight chant of the monks soon after dropped into silence; but
Emily remained at the casement, watching the setting moon, and the
valley sinking into deep shade, and willing to prolong her present
state of mind. At length she retired to her mattress, and sunk into
tranquil slumber.
CHAPTER V
While in the rosy vale
Love breath’d his infant sighs, from anguish free.
THOMSON
St. Aubert, sufficiently restored by a night’s repose to pursue his
journey, set out in the morning, with his family and Valancourt, for
Rousillon, which he hoped to reach before night-fall. The scenes,
through which they now passed, were as wild and romantic, as any they
had yet observed, with this difference, that beauty, every now and
then, softened the landscape into smiles. Little woody recesses
appeared among the mountains, covered with bright verdure and flowers;
or a pastoral valley opened its grassy bosom in the shade of the
cliffs, with flocks and herds loitering along the banks of a rivulet,
that refreshed it with perpetual green. St. Aubert could not repent the
having taken this fatiguing road, though he was this day, also,
frequently obliged to alight, to walk along the rugged precipice, and
to climb the steep and flinty mountain. The wonderful sublimity and
variety of the prospects repaid him for all this, and the enthusiasm,
with which they were viewed by his young companions, heightened his
own, and awakened a remembrance of all the delightful emotions of his
early days, when the sublime charms of nature were first unveiled to
him. He found great pleasure in conversing with Valancourt, and in
listening to his ingenuous remarks. The fire and simplicity of his
manners seemed to render him a characteristic figure in the scenes
around them; and St. Aubert discovered in his sentiments the justness
and the dignity of an elevated mind, unbiased by intercourse with the
world. He perceived, that his opinions were formed, rather than
imbibed; were more the result of thought, than of learning. Of the
world he seemed to know nothing; for he believed well of all mankind,
and this opinion gave him the reflected image of his own heart.
St. Aubert, as he sometimes lingered to examine the wild plants in his
path, often looked forward with pleasure to Emily and Valancourt, as
they strolled on together; he, with a countenance of animated delight,
pointing to her attention some grand feature of the scene; and she,
listening and observing with a look of tender seriousness, that spoke
the elevation of her mind. They appeared like two lovers who had never
strayed beyond these their native mountains; whose situation had
secluded them from the frivolities of common life, whose ideas were
simple and grand, like the landscapes among which they moved, and who
knew no other happiness, than in the union of pure and affectionate
hearts. St. Aubert smiled, and sighed at the romantic picture of
felicity his fancy drew; and sighed again to think, that nature and
simplicity were so little known to the world, as that their pleasures
were thought romantic.
“The world,” said he, pursuing this train of thought, “ridicules a
passion which it seldom feels; its scenes, and its interests, distract
the mind, deprave the taste, corrupt the heart, and love cannot exist
in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence. Virtue and
taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste,
and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love. How then
are we to look for love in great cities, where selfishness,
dissipation, and insincerity supply the place of tenderness, simplicity
and truth?”
It was near noon, when the travellers, having arrived at a piece of
steep and dangerous road, alighted to walk. The road wound up an
ascent, that was clothed with wood, and, instead of following the
carriage, they entered the refreshing shade. A dewy coolness was
diffused upon the air, which, with the bright verdure of turf, that
grew under the trees, the mingled fragrance of flowers and of balm,
thyme, and lavender, that enriched it, and the grandeur of the pines,
beech, and chestnuts, that overshadowed them, rendered this a most
delicious retreat. Sometimes, the thick foliage excluded all view of
the country; at others, it admitted some partial catches of the distant
scenery, which gave hints to the imagination to picture landscapes more
interesting, more impressive, than any that had been presented to the
eye. The wanderers often lingered to indulge in these reveries of
fancy.
The pauses of silence, such as had formerly interrupted the
conversations of Valancourt and Emily, were more frequent today than
ever. Valancourt often dropped suddenly from the most animating
vivacity into fits of deep musing, and there was, sometimes, an
unaffected melancholy in his smile, which Emily could not avoid
understanding, for her heart was interested in the sentiment it spoke.
St. Aubert was refreshed by the shades, and they continued to saunter
under them, following, as nearly as they could guess, the direction of
the road, till they perceived that they had totally lost it. They had
continued near the brow of the precipice, allured by the scenery it
exhibited, while the road wound far away over the cliff above.
Valancourt called loudly to Michael, but heard no voice, except his
own, echoing among the rocks, and his various efforts to regain the
road were equally unsuccessful. While they were thus circumstanced,
they perceived a shepherd’s cabin, between the boles of the trees at
some distance, and Valancourt bounded on first to ask assistance. When
he reached it, he saw only two little children, at play, on the turf
before the door. He looked into the hut, but no person was there, and
the eldest of the boys told him that their father was with his flocks,
and their mother was gone down into the vale, but would be back
presently. As he stood, considering what was further to be done, on a
sudden he heard Michael’s voice roaring forth most manfully among the
cliffs above, till he made their echoes ring. Valancourt immediately
answered the call, and endeavoured to make his way through the thicket
that clothed the steeps, following the direction of the sound. After
much struggle over brambles and precipices, he reached Michael, and at
length prevailed with him to be silent, and to listen to him. The road
was at a considerable distance from the spot where St. Aubert and Emily
were; the carriage could not easily return to the entrance of the wood,
and, since it would be very fatiguing for St. Aubert to climb the long
and steep road to the place where it now stood, Valancourt was anxious
to find a more easy ascent, by the way he had himself passed.
Meanwhile St. Aubert and Emily approached the cottage, and rested
themselves on a rustic bench, fastened between two pines, which
overshadowed it, till Valancourt, whose steps they had observed, should
return.
The eldest of the children desisted from his play, and stood still to
observe the strangers, while the younger continued his little gambols,
and teased his brother to join in them. St. Aubert looked with pleasure
upon this picture of infantine simplicity, till it brought to his
remembrance his own boys, whom he had lost about the age of these, and
their lamented mother; and he sunk into a thoughtfulness, which Emily
observing, she immediately began to sing one of those simple and lively
airs he was so fond of, and which she knew how to give with the most
captivating sweetness. St. Aubert smiled on her through his tears, took
her hand and pressed it affectionately, and then tried to dissipate the
melancholy reflections that lingered in his mind.
While she sung, Valancourt approached, who was unwilling to interrupt
her, and paused at a little distance to listen. When she had concluded,
he joined the party, and told them, that he had found Michael, as well
as a way, by which he thought they could ascend the cliff to the
carriage. He pointed to the woody steeps above, which St. Aubert
surveyed with an anxious eye. He was already wearied by his walk, and
this ascent was formidable to him. He thought, however, it would be
less toilsome than the long and broken road, and he determined to
attempt it; but Emily, ever watchful of his ease, proposing that he
should rest, and dine before they proceeded further, Valancourt went to
the carriage for the refreshments deposited there.
On his return, he proposed removing a little higher up the mountain, to
where the woods opened upon a grand and extensive prospect; and thither
they were preparing to go, when they saw a young woman join the
children, and caress and weep over them.
The travellers, interested by her distress, stopped to observe her. She
took the youngest of the children in her arms, and, perceiving the
strangers, hastily dried her tears, and proceeded to the cottage. St.
Aubert, on enquiring the occasion of her sorrow, learned that her
husband, who was a shepherd, and lived here in the summer months to
watch over the flocks he led to feed upon these mountains, had lost, on
the preceding night, his little all. A gang of gipsies, who had for
some time infested the neighbourhood, had driven away several of his
master’s sheep. “Jacques,” added the shepherd’s wife, “had saved a
little money, and had bought a few sheep with it, and now they must go
to his master for those that are stolen; and what is worse than all,
his master, when he comes to know how it is, will trust him no longer
with the care of his flocks, for he is a hard man! and then what is to
become of our children!”
The innocent countenance of the woman, and the simplicity of her manner
in relating her grievance, inclined St. Aubert to believe her story;
and Valancourt, convinced that it was true, asked eagerly what was the
value of the stolen sheep; on hearing which he turned away with a look
of disappointment. St. Aubert put some money into her hand, Emily too
gave something from her little purse, and they walked towards the
cliff; but Valancourt lingered behind, and spoke to the shepherd’s
wife, who was now weeping with gratitude and surprise. He enquired how
much money was yet wanting to replace the stolen sheep, and found, that
it was a sum very little short of all he had about him. He was
perplexed and distressed. “This sum then,” said he to himself, “would
make this poor family completely happy—it is in my power to give it—to
make them completely happy! But what is to become of me?—how shall I
contrive to reach home with the little money that will remain?” For a
moment he stood, unwilling to forego the luxury of raising a family
from ruin to happiness, yet considering the difficulties of pursuing
his journey with so small a sum as would be left.
While he was in this state of perplexity, the shepherd himself
appeared: his children ran to meet him; he took one of them in his
arms, and, with the other clinging to his coat, came forward with a
loitering step. His forlorn and melancholy look determined Valancourt
at once; he threw down all the money he had, except a very few louis,
and bounded away after St. Aubert and Emily, who were proceeding slowly
up the steep. Valancourt had seldom felt his heart so light as at this
moment; his gay spirits danced with pleasure; every object around him
appeared more interesting, or beautiful, than before. St. Aubert
observed the uncommon vivacity of his countenance: “What has pleased
you so much?” said he. “O what a lovely day,” replied Valancourt, “how
brightly the sun shines, how pure is this air, what enchanting
scenery!” “It is indeed enchanting,” said St. Aubert, whom early
experience had taught to understand the nature of Valancourt’s present
feelings. “What pity that the wealthy, who can command such sunshine,
should ever pass their days in gloom—in the cold shade of selfishness!
For you, my young friend, may the sun always shine as brightly as at
this moment; may your own conduct always give you the sunshine of
benevolence and reason united!”
Valancourt, highly flattered by this compliment, could make no reply
but by a smile of gratitude.
They continued to wind under the woods, between the grassy knolls of
the mountain, and, as they reached the shady summit, which he had
pointed out, the whole party burst into an exclamation. Behind the spot
where they stood, the rock rose perpendicularly in a massy wall to a
considerable height, and then branched out into overhanging crags.
Their grey tints were well contrasted by the bright hues of the plants
and wild flowers, that grew in their fractured sides, and were deepened
by the gloom of the pines and cedars, that waved above. The steeps
below, over which the eye passed abruptly to the valley, were fringed
with thickets of alpine shrubs; and, lower still, appeared the tufted
tops of the chesnut woods, that clothed their base, among which peeped
forth the shepherd’s cottage, just left by the travellers, with its
bluish smoke curling high in the air. On every side appeared the
majestic summits of the Pyrenees, some exhibiting tremendous crags of
marble, whose appearance was changing every instant, as the varying
lights fell upon their surface; others, still higher, displaying only
snowy points, while their lower steeps were covered almost invariably
with forests of pine, larch, and oak, that stretched down to the vale.
This was one of the narrow valleys, that open from the Pyrenees into
the country of Rousillon, and whose green pastures, and cultivated
beauty, form a decided and wonderful contrast to the romantic grandeur
that environs it. Through a vista of the mountains appeared the
lowlands of Rousillon, tinted with the blue haze of distance, as they
united with the waters of the Mediterranean; where, on a promontory,
which marked the boundary of the shore, stood a lonely beacon, over
which were seen circling flights of sea-fowl. Beyond, appeared, now and
then, a stealing sail, white with the sunbeam, and whose progress was
perceivable by its approach to the light-house. Sometimes, too, was
seen a sail so distant, that it served only to mark the line of
separation between the sky and the waves.
On the other side of the valley, immediately opposite to the spot where
the travellers rested, a rocky pass opened toward Gascony. Here no sign
of cultivation appeared. The rocks of granite, that screened the glen,
rose abruptly from their base, and stretched their barren points to the
clouds, unvaried with woods, and uncheered even by a hunter’s cabin.
Sometimes, indeed, a gigantic larch threw its long shade over the
precipice, and here and there a cliff reared on its brow a monumental
cross, to tell the traveller the fate of him who had ventured thither
before. This spot seemed the very haunt of banditti; and Emily, as she
looked down upon it, almost expected to see them stealing out from some
hollow cave to look for their prey. Soon after an object not less
terrific struck her,—a gibbet standing on a point of rock near the
entrance of the pass, and immediately over one of the crosses she had
before observed. These were hieroglyphics that told a plain and
dreadful story. She forbore to point it out to St. Aubert, but it threw
a gloom over her spirits, and made her anxious to hasten forward, that
they might with certainty reach Rousillon before night-fall. It was
necessary, however, that St. Aubert should take some refreshment, and,
seating themselves on the short dry turf, they opened the basket of
provisions, while
by breezy murmurs cool’d,
Broad o’er _their_ heads the verdant cedars wave,
And high palmetos lift their graceful shade.
———_they_ draw
Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales
Profusely breathing from the piney groves,
And vales of fragrance; there at a distance hear
The roaring floods, and cataracts.
THOMSON
St. Aubert was revived by rest, and by the serene air of this summit;
and Valancourt was so charmed with all around, and with the
conversation of his companions, that he seemed to have forgotten he had
any further to go. Having concluded their simple repast, they gave a
long farewell look to the scene, and again began to ascend. St. Aubert
rejoiced when he reached the carriage, which Emily entered with him;
but Valancourt, willing to take a more extensive view of the enchanting
country, into which they were about to descend, than he could do from a
carriage, loosened his dogs, and once more bounded with them along the
banks of the road. He often quitted it for points that promised a wider
prospect, and the slow pace, at which the mules travelled, allowed him
to overtake them with ease. Whenever a scene of uncommon magnificence
appeared, he hastened to inform St. Aubert, who, though he was too much
tired to walk himself, sometimes made the chaise wait, while Emily went
to the neighbouring cliff.
It was evening when they descended the lower alps, that bind Rousillon,
and form a majestic barrier round that charming country, leaving it
open only on the east to the Mediterranean. The gay tints of
cultivation once more beautified the landscape; for the lowlands were
coloured with the richest hues, which a luxuriant climate, and an
industrious people can awaken into life. Groves of orange and lemon
perfumed the air, their ripe fruit glowing among the foliage; while,
sloping to the plains, extensive vineyards spread their treasures.
Beyond these, woods and pastures, and mingled towns and hamlets
stretched towards the sea, on whose bright surface gleamed many a
distant sail; while, over the whole scene, was diffused the purple glow
of evening. This landscape with the surrounding alps did, indeed,
present a perfect picture of the lovely and the sublime, of “beauty
sleeping in the lap of horror.”
The travellers, having reached the plains, proceeded, between hedges of
flowering myrtle and pomegranate, to the town of Arles, where they
proposed to rest for the night. They met with simple, but neat
accommodation, and would have passed a happy evening, after the toils
and the delights of this day, had not the approaching separation thrown
a gloom over their spirit. It was St. Aubert’s plan to proceed, on the
morrow, to the borders of the Mediterranean, and travel along its
shores into Languedoc; and Valancourt, since he was now nearly
recovered, and had no longer a pretence for continuing with his new
friends, resolved to leave them here. St. Aubert, who was much pleased
with him, invited him to go further, but did not repeat the invitation,
and Valancourt had resolution enough to forego the temptation of
accepting it, that he might prove himself not unworthy of the favour.
On the following morning, therefore, they were to part, St. Aubert to
pursue his way to Languedoc, and Valancourt to explore new scenes among
the mountains, on his return home. During this evening he was often
silent and thoughtful; St. Aubert’s manner towards him was
affectionate, though grave, and Emily was serious, though she made
frequent efforts to appear cheerful. After one of the most melancholy
evenings they had yet passed together, they separated for the night.
CHAPTER VI
I care not, Fortune! what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
THOMSON
In the morning, Valancourt breakfasted with St. Aubert and Emily,
neither of whom seemed much refreshed by sleep. The languor of illness
still hung over St. Aubert, and to Emily’s fears his disorder appeared
to be increasing fast upon him. She watched his looks with anxious
affection, and their expression was always faithfully reflected in her
own.
At the commencement of their acquaintance, Valancourt had made known
his name and family. St. Aubert was not a stranger to either, for the
family estates, which were now in the possession of an elder brother of
Valancourt, were little more than twenty miles distant from La Vallée,
and he had sometimes met the elder Valancourt on visits in the
neighbourhood. This knowledge had made him more willingly receive his
present companion; for, though his countenance and manners would have
won him the acquaintance of St. Aubert, who was very apt to trust to
the intelligence of his own eyes, with respect to countenances, he
would not have accepted these, as sufficient introductions to that of
his daughter.
The breakfast was almost as silent as the supper of the preceding
night; but their musing was at length interrupted by the sound of the
carriage wheels, which were to bear away St. Aubert and Emily.
Valancourt started from his chair, and went to the window; it was
indeed the carriage, and he returned to his seat without speaking. The
moment was now come when they must part. St. Aubert told Valancourt,
that he hoped he would never pass La Vallée without favouring him with
a visit; and Valancourt, eagerly thanking him, assured him that he
never would; as he said which he looked timidly at Emily, who tried to
smile away the seriousness of her spirits. They passed a few minutes in
interesting conversation, and St. Aubert then led the way to the
carriage, Emily and Valancourt following in silence. The latter
lingered at the door several minutes after they were seated, and none
of the party seemed to have courage enough to say—Farewell. At length,
St. Aubert pronounced the melancholy word, which Emily passed to
Valancourt, who returned it, with a dejected smile, and the carriage
drove on.
The travellers remained, for some time, in a state of tranquil
pensiveness, which is not unpleasing. St. Aubert interrupted it by
observing, “This is a very promising young man; it is many years since
I have been so much pleased with any person, on so short an
acquaintance. He brings back to my memory the days of my youth, when
every scene was new and delightful!” St. Aubert sighed, and sunk again
into a reverie; and, as Emily looked back upon the road they had
passed, Valancourt was seen, at the door of the little inn, following
them with his eyes. Her perceived her, and waved his hand; and she
returned the adieu, till the winding road shut her from his sight.
“I remember when I was about his age,” resumed St. Aubert, “and I
thought, and felt exactly as he does. The world was opening upon me
then, now—it is closing.”
“My dear sir, do not think so gloomily,” said Emily in a trembling
voice, “I hope you have many, many years to live—for your own sake—for
_my_ sake.”
“Ah, my Emily!” replied St. Aubert, “for thy sake! Well—I hope it is
so.” He wiped away a tear, that was stealing down his cheek, threw a
smile upon his countenance, and said in a cheering voice, “there is
something in the ardour and ingenuousness of youth, which is
particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his
feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world. It is cheering
and reviving, like the view of spring to a sick person; his mind
catches somewhat of the spirit of the season, and his eyes are lighted
up with a transient sunshine. Valancourt is this spring to me.”
Emily, who pressed her father’s hand affectionately, had never before
listened with so much pleasure to the praises he bestowed; no, not even
when he had bestowed them on herself.
They travelled on, among vineyards, woods, and pastures, delighted with
the romantic beauty of the landscape, which was bounded, on one side,
by the grandeur of the Pyrenees, and, on the other, by the ocean; and,
soon after noon, they reached the town of Colioure, situated on the
Mediterranean. Here they dined, and rested till towards the cool of
day, when they pursued their way along the shores—those enchanting
shores!—which extend to Languedoc. Emily gazed with enthusiasm on the
vastness of the sea, its surface varying, as the lights and shadows
fell, and on its woody banks, mellowed with autumnal tints.
St. Aubert was impatient to reach Perpignan, where he expected letters
from M. Quesnel; and it was the expectation of these letters, that had
induced him to leave Colioure, for his feeble frame had required
immediate rest. After travelling a few miles, he fell asleep; and
Emily, who had put two or three books into the carriage, on leaving La
Vallée, had now the leisure for looking into them. She sought for one,
in which Valancourt had been reading the day before, and hoped for the
pleasure of retracing a page, over which the eyes of a beloved friend
had lately passed, of dwelling on the passages, which he had admired,
and of permitting them to speak to her in the language of his own mind,
and to bring himself to her presence. On searching for the book, she
could find it nowhere, but in its stead perceived a volume of
Petrarch’s poems, that had belonged to Valancourt, whose name was
written in it, and from which he had frequently read passages to her,
with all the pathetic expression, that characterised the feelings of
the author. She hesitated in believing, what would have been
sufficiently apparent to almost any other person, that he had purposely
left this book, instead of the one she had lost, and that love had
prompted the exchange; but, having opened it with impatient pleasure,
and observed the lines of his pencil drawn along the various passages
he had read aloud, and under others more descriptive of delicate
tenderness than he had dared to trust his voice with, the conviction
came, at length, to her mind. For some moments she was conscious only
of being beloved; then, a recollection of all the variations of tone
and countenance, with which he had recited these sonnets, and of the
soul, which spoke in their expression, pressed to her memory, and she
wept over the memorial of his affection.
They arrived at Perpignan soon after sunset, where St. Aubert found, as
he had expected, letters from M. Quesnel, the contents of which so
evidently and grievously affected him, that Emily was alarmed, and
pressed him, as far as her delicacy would permit, to disclose the
occasion of his concern; but he answered her only by tears, and
immediately began to talk on other topics. Emily, though she forbore to
press the one most interesting to her, was greatly affected by her
father’s manner, and passed a night of sleepless solicitude.
In the morning they pursued their journey along the coast towards
Leucate, another town on the Mediterranean, situated on the borders of
Languedoc and Rousillon. On the way, Emily renewed the subject of the
preceding night, and appeared so deeply affected by St. Aubert’s
silence and dejection, that he relaxed from his reserve. “I was
unwilling, my dear Emily,” said he, “to throw a cloud over the pleasure
you receive from these scenes, and meant, therefore, to conceal, for
the present, some circumstances, with which, however, you must at
length have been made acquainted. But your anxiety has defeated my
purpose; you suffer as much from this, perhaps, as you will do from a
knowledge of the facts I have to relate. M. Quesnel’s visit proved an
unhappy one to me; he came to tell me part of the news he has now
confirmed. You may have heard me mention a M. Motteville, of Paris, but
you did not know that the chief of my personal property was invested in
his hands. I had great confidence in him, and I am yet willing to
believe, that he is not wholly unworthy of my esteem. A variety of
circumstances have concurred to ruin him, and—I am ruined with him.”
St. Aubert paused to conceal his emotion.
“The letters I have just received from M. Quesnel,” resumed he,
struggling to speak with firmness, “enclosed others from Motteville,
which confirmed all I dreaded.”
“Must we then quit La Vallée?” said Emily, after a long pause of
silence. “That is yet uncertain,” replied St. Aubert, “it will depend
upon the compromise Motteville is able to make with his creditors. My
income, you know, was never large, and now it will be reduced to little
indeed! It is for you, Emily, for you, my child, that I am most
afflicted.” His last words faltered; Emily smiled tenderly upon him
through her tears, and then, endeavouring to overcome her emotion, “My
dear father,” said she, “do not grieve for me, or for yourself; we may
yet be happy;—if La Vallée remains for us, we must be happy. We will
retain only one servant, and you shall scarcely perceive the change in
your income. Be comforted, my dear sir; we shall not feel the want of
those luxuries, which others value so highly, since we never had a
taste for them; and poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It
cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in
our own opinion, or in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to
value.”
St. Aubert concealed his face with his handkerchief, and was unable to
speak; but Emily continued to urge to her father the truths, which
himself had impressed upon her mind.
“Besides, my dear sir, poverty cannot deprive us of intellectual
delights. It cannot deprive you of the comfort of affording me examples
of fortitude and benevolence; nor me of the delight of consoling a
beloved parent. It cannot deaden our taste for the grand, and the
beautiful, or deny us the means of indulging it; for the scenes of
nature—those sublime spectacles, so infinitely superior to all
artificial luxuries! are open for the enjoyment of the poor, as well as
of the rich. Of what, then, have we to complain, so long as we are not
in want of necessaries? Pleasures, such as wealth cannot buy, will
still be ours. We retain, then, the sublime luxuries of nature, and
lose only the frivolous ones of art.”
St. Aubert could not reply: he caught Emily to his bosom, their tears
flowed together, but—they were not tears of sorrow. After this language
of the heart, all other would have been feeble, and they remained
silent for some time. Then, St. Aubert conversed as before; for, if his
mind had not recovered its natural tranquillity, it at least assumed
the appearance of it.
They reached the romantic town of Leucate early in the day, but St.
Aubert was weary, and they determined to pass the night there. In the
evening, he exerted himself so far as to walk with his daughter to view
the environs that overlook the lake of Leucate, the Mediterranean, part
of Rousillon, with the Pyrenees, and a wide extent of the luxuriant
province of Languedoc, now blushing with the ripened vintage, which the
peasants were beginning to gather. St. Aubert and Emily saw the busy
groups, caught the joyous song, that was wafted on the breeze, and
anticipated, with apparent pleasure, their next day’s journey over this
gay region. He designed, however, still to wind along the sea-shore. To
return home immediately was partly his wish, but from this he was
withheld by a desire to lengthen the pleasure, which the journey gave
his daughter, and to try the effect of the sea air on his own disorder.
On the following day, therefore, they recommenced their journey through
Languedoc, winding the shores of the Mediterranean; the Pyrenees still
forming the magnificent back-ground of their prospects, while on their
right was the ocean, and, on their left, wide extended plains melting
into the blue horizon. St. Aubert was pleased, and conversed much with
Emily, yet his cheerfulness was sometimes artificial, and sometimes a
shade of melancholy would steal upon his countenance, and betray him.
This was soon chased away by Emily’s smile; who smiled, however, with
an aching heart, for she saw that his misfortunes preyed upon his mind,
and upon his enfeebled frame.
It was evening when they reached a small village of Upper Languedoc,
where they meant to pass the night, but the place could not afford them
beds; for here, too, it was the time of the vintage, and they were
obliged to proceed to the next post. The languor of illness and of
fatigue, which returned upon St. Aubert, required immediate repose, and
the evening was now far advanced; but from necessity there was no
appeal, and he ordered Michael to proceed.
The rich plains of Languedoc, which exhibited all the glories of the
vintage, with the gaieties of a French festival, no longer awakened St.
Aubert to pleasure, whose condition formed a mournful contrast to the
hilarity and youthful beauty which surrounded him. As his languid eyes
moved over the scene, he considered, that they would soon, perhaps, be
closed for ever on this world. “Those distant and sublime mountains,”
said he secretly, as he gazed on a chain of the Pyrenees that stretched
towards the west, “these luxuriant plains, this blue vault, the
cheerful light of day, will be shut from my eyes! The song of the
peasant, the cheering voice of man—will no longer sound for me!”
The intelligent eyes of Emily seemed to read what passed in the mind of
her father, and she fixed them on his face, with an expression of such
tender pity, as recalled his thoughts from every desultory object of
regret, and he remembered only, that he must leave his daughter without
protection. This reflection changed regret to agony; he sighed deeply,
and remained silent, while she seemed to understand that sigh, for she
pressed his hand affectionately, and then turned to the window to
conceal her tears. The sun now threw a last yellow gleam on the waves
of the Mediterranean, and the gloom of twilight spread fast over the
scene, till only a melancholy ray appeared on the western horizon,
marking the point where the sun had set amid the vapours of an autumnal
evening. A cool breeze now came from the shore, and Emily let down the
glass; but the air, which was refreshing to health, was as chilling to
sickness, and St. Aubert desired, that the window might be drawn up.
Increasing illness made him now more anxious than ever to finish the
day’s journey, and he stopped the muleteer to enquire how far they had
yet to go to the next post. He replied, “Nine miles.” “I feel I am
unable to proceed much further,” said St. Aubert; “enquire, as you go,
if there is any house on the road that would accommodate us for the
night.” He sunk back in the carriage, and Michael, cracking his whip in
the air, set off, and continued on the full gallop, till St. Aubert,
almost fainting, called to him to stop. Emily looked anxiously from the
window, and saw a peasant walking at some little distance on the road,
for whom they waited, till he came up, when he was asked, if there was
any house in the neighbourhood that accommodated travellers. He
replied, that he knew of none. “There is a château, indeed, among those
woods on the right,” added he, “but I believe it receives nobody, and I
cannot show you the way, for I am almost a stranger here.” St. Aubert
was going to ask him some further question concerning the château, but
the man abruptly passed on. After some consideration, he ordered
Michael to proceed slowly to the woods. Every moment now deepened the
twilight, and increased the difficulty of finding the road. Another
peasant soon after passed. “Which is the way to the château in the
woods?” cried Michael.
“The château in the woods!” exclaimed the peasant—“Do you mean that
with the turret, yonder?”
“I don’t know as for the turret, as you call it,” said Michael, “I mean
that white piece of a building, that we see at a distance there, among
the trees.”
“Yes, that is the turret; why, who are you, that you are going
thither?” said the man with surprise.
St. Aubert, on hearing this odd question, and observing the peculiar
tone in which it was delivered, looked out from the carriage. “We are
travellers,” said he, “who are in search of a house of accommodation
for the night; is there any hereabout?”
“None, Monsieur, unless you have a mind to try your luck yonder,”
replied the peasant, pointing to the woods, “but I would not advise you
to go there.”
“To whom does the château belong?”
“I scarcely know myself, Monsieur.”
“It is uninhabited, then?”—“No, not uninhabited; the steward and
housekeeper are there, I believe.”
On hearing this, St. Aubert determined to proceed to the château, and
risk the refusal of being accommodated for the night; he therefore
desired the countryman would show Michael the way, and bade him expect
reward for his trouble. The man was for a moment silent, and then said,
that he was going on other business, but that the road could not be
missed, if they went up an avenue to the right, to which he pointed.
St. Aubert was going to speak, but the peasant wished him good night,
and walked on.
The carriage now moved towards the avenue, which was guarded by a gate,
and Michael having dismounted to open it, they entered between rows of
ancient oak and chesnut, whose intermingled branches formed a lofty
arch above. There was something so gloomy and desolate in the
appearance of this avenue, and its lonely silence, that Emily almost
shuddered as she passed along; and, recollecting the manner in which
the peasant had mentioned the château, she gave a mysterious meaning to
his words, such as she had not suspected when he uttered them. These
apprehensions, however, she tried to check, considering that they were
probably the effect of a melancholy imagination, which her father’s
situation, and a consideration of her own circumstances, had made
sensible to every impression.
They passed slowly on, for they were now almost in darkness, which,
together with the unevenness of the ground, and the frequent roots of
old trees, that shot up above the soil, made it necessary to proceed
with caution. On a sudden Michael stopped the carriage; and, as St.
Aubert looked from the window to enquire the cause, he perceived a
figure at some distance moving up the avenue. The dusk would not permit
him to distinguish what it was, but he bade Michael go on.
“This seems a wild place,” said Michael; “there is no house hereabout,
don’t your honour think we had better turn back?”
“Go a little farther, and if we see no house then, we will return to
the road,” replied St. Aubert.
Michael proceeded with reluctance, and the extreme slowness of his pace
made St. Aubert look again from the window to hasten him, when again he
saw the same figure. He was somewhat startled: probably the gloominess
of the spot made him more liable to alarm than usual; however this
might be, he now stopped Michael, and bade him call to the person in
the avenue.
“Please your honour, he may be a robber,” said Michael. “It does not
please me,” replied St. Aubert, who could not forbear smiling at the
simplicity of his phrase, “and we will, therefore, return to the road,
for I see no probability of meeting here with what we seek.”
Michael turned about immediately, and was retracing his way with
alacrity, when a voice was heard from among the trees on the left. It
was not the voice of command, or distress, but a deep hollow tone,
which seemed to be scarcely human. The man whipped his mules till they
went as fast as possible, regardless of the darkness, the broken
ground, and the necks of the whole party, nor once stopped till he
reached the gate, which opened from the avenue into the high-road,
where he went into a more moderate pace.
“I am very ill,” said St. Aubert, taking his daughter’s hand. “You are
worse, then, sir!” said Emily, extremely alarmed by his manner, “you
are worse, and here is no assistance. Good God! what is to be done!” He
leaned his head on her shoulder, while she endeavoured to support him
with her arm, and Michael was again ordered to stop. When the rattling
of the wheels had ceased, music was heard on their air; it was to Emily
the voice of Hope. “Oh! we are near some human habitation!” said she,
“help may soon be had.”
She listened anxiously; the sounds were distant, and seemed to come
from a remote part of the woods that bordered the road; and, as she
looked towards the spot whence they issued, she perceived in the faint
moonlight something like a château. It was difficult, however, to reach
this; St. Aubert was now too ill to bear the motion of the carriage;
Michael could not quit his mules; and Emily, who still supported her
father, feared to leave him, and also feared to venture alone to such a
distance, she knew not whither, or to whom. Something, however, it was
necessary to determine upon immediately; St. Aubert, therefore, told
Michael to proceed slowly; but they had not gone far, when he fainted,
and the carriage was again stopped. He lay quite senseless.—“My dear,
dear father!” cried Emily in great agony, who began to fear that he was
dying, “speak, if it is only one word to let me hear the sound of your
voice!” But no voice spoke in reply. In the agony of terror she bade
Michael bring water from the rivulet, that flowed along the road; and,
having received some in the man’s hat, with trembling hands she
sprinkled it over her father’s face, which, as the moon’s rays now fell
upon it, seemed to bear the impression of death. Every emotion of
selfish fear now gave way to a stronger influence, and, committing St.
Aubert to the care of Michael, who refused to go far from his mules,
she stepped from the carriage in search of the château she had seen at
a distance. It was a still moonlight night, and the music, which yet
sounded on the air, directed her steps from the high road, up a shadowy
lane, that led to the woods. Her mind was for some time so entirely
occupied by anxiety and terror for her father, that she felt none for
herself, till the deepening gloom of the overhanging foliage, which now
wholly excluded the moonlight, and the wildness of the place, recalled
her to a sense of her adventurous situation. The music had ceased, and
she had no guide but chance. For a moment she paused in terrified
perplexity, till a sense of her father’s condition again overcoming
every consideration for herself, she proceeded. The lane terminated in
the woods, but she looked round in vain for a house, or a human being,
and as vainly listened for a sound to guide her. She hurried on,
however, not knowing whither, avoiding the recesses of the woods, and
endeavouring to keep along their margin, till a rude kind of avenue,
which opened upon a moonlight spot, arrested her attention. The
wildness of this avenue brought to her recollection the one leading to
the turreted château, and she was inclined to believe, that this was a
part of the same domain, and probably led to the same point. While she
hesitated, whether to follow it or not, a sound of many voices in loud
merriment burst upon her ear. It seemed not the laugh of cheerfulness,
but of riot, and she stood appalled. While she paused, she heard a
distant voice, calling from the way she had come, and not doubting but
it was that of Michael, her first impulse was to hasten back; but a
second thought changed her purpose; she believed that nothing less than
the last extremity could have prevailed with Michael to quit his mules,
and fearing that her father was now dying, she rushed forward, with a
feeble hope of obtaining assistance from the people in the woods. Her
heart beat with fearful expectation, as she drew near the spot whence
the voices issued, and she often startled when her steps disturbed the
fallen leaves. The sounds led her towards the moonlight glade she had
before noticed; at a little distance from which she stopped, and saw,
between the boles of the trees, a small circular level of green turf,
surrounded by the woods, on which appeared a group of figures. On
drawing nearer, she distinguished these, by their dress, to be
peasants, and perceived several cottages scattered round the edge of
the woods, which waved loftily over this spot. While she gazed, and
endeavoured to overcome the apprehensions that withheld her steps,
several peasant girls came out of a cottage; music instantly struck up,
and the dance began. It was the joyous music of the vintage—the same
she had before heard upon the air. Her heart, occupied with terror for
her father, could not feel the contrast, which this gay scene offered
to her own distress; she stepped hastily forward towards a group of
elder peasants, who were seated at the door of a cottage, and, having
explained her situation, entreated their assistance. Several of them
rose with alacrity, and, offering any service in their power, followed
Emily, who seemed to move on the wind, as fast as they could towards
the road.
When she reached the carriage she found St. Aubert restored to
animation. On the recovery of his senses, having heard from Michael
whither his daughter was gone, anxiety for her overcame every regard
for himself, and he had sent him in search of her. He was, however,
still languid, and, perceiving himself unable to travel much farther,
he renewed his enquiries for an inn, and concerning the château in the
woods. “The château cannot accommodate you, sir,” said a venerable
peasant who had followed Emily from the woods, “it is scarcely
inhabited; but, if you will do me the honour to visit my cottage, you
shall be welcome to the best bed it affords.”
St. Aubert was himself a Frenchman; he therefore was not surprised at
French courtesy; but, ill as he was, he felt the value of the offer
enhanced by the manner which accompanied it. He had too much delicacy
to apologise, or to appear to hesitate about availing himself of the
peasant’s hospitality, but immediately accepted it with the same
frankness with which it was offered.
The carriage again moved slowly on; Michael following the peasants up
the lane, which Emily had just quitted, till they came to the moonlight
glade. St. Aubert’s spirits were so far restored by the courtesy of his
host, and the near prospect of repose, that he looked with a sweet
complacency upon the moonlight scene, surrounded by the shadowy woods,
through which, here and there, an opening admitted the streaming
splendour, discovering a cottage, or a sparkling rivulet. He listened,
with no painful emotion, to the merry notes of the guitar and
tamborine; and, though tears came to his eyes, when he saw the
_debonnaire_ dance of the peasants, they were not merely tears of
mournful regret. With Emily it was otherwise; immediate terror for her
father had now subsided into a gentle melancholy, which every note of
joy, by awakening comparison, served to heighten.
The dance ceased on the approach of the carriage, which was a
phenomenon in these sequestered woods, and the peasantry flocked round
it with eager curiosity. On learning that it brought a sick stranger,
several girls ran across the turf, and returned with wine and baskets
of grapes, which they presented to the travellers, each with kind
contention pressing for a preference. At length, the carriage stopped
at a neat cottage, and his venerable conductor, having assisted St.
Aubert to alight, led him and Emily to a small inner room, illuminated
only by moonbeams, which the open casement admitted. St. Aubert,
rejoicing in rest, seated himself in an arm-chair, and his senses were
refreshed by the cool and balmy air, that lightly waved the embowering
honeysuckles, and wafted their sweet breath into the apartment. His
host, who was called La Voisin, quitted the room, but soon returned
with fruits, cream, and all the pastoral luxury his cottage afforded;
having set down which, with a smile of unfeigned welcome, he retired
behind the chair of his guest. St. Aubert insisted on his taking a seat
at the table, and, when the fruit had allayed the fever of his palate,
and he found himself somewhat revived, he began to converse with his
host, who communicated several particulars concerning himself and his
family, which were interesting, because they were spoken from the
heart, and delineated a picture of the sweet courtesies of family
kindness. Emily sat by her father, holding his hand, and, while she
listened to the old man, her heart swelled with the affectionate
sympathy he described, and her tears fell to the mournful
consideration, that death would probably soon deprive her of the
dearest blessing she then possessed. The soft moonlight of an autumnal
evening, and the distant music, which now sounded a plaintive strain,
aided the melancholy of her mind. The old man continued to talk of his
family, and St. Aubert remained silent. “I have only one daughter
living,” said La Voisin, “but she is happily married, and is everything
to me. When I lost my wife,” he added with a sigh, “I came to live with
Agnes, and her family; she has several children, who are all dancing on
the green yonder, as merry as grasshoppers—and long may they be so! I
hope to die among them, monsieur. I am old now, and cannot expect to
live long, but there is some comfort in dying surrounded by one’s
children.”
“My good friend,” said St. Aubert, while his voice trembled, “I hope
you will long live surrounded by them.”
“Ah, sir! at my age I must not expect that!” replied the old man, and
he paused: “I can scarcely wish it,” he resumed, “for I trust that
whenever I die I shall go to heaven, where my poor wife is gone before
me. I can sometimes almost fancy I see her of a still moonlight night,
walking among these shades she loved so well. Do you believe, monsieur,
that we shall be permitted to revisit the earth, after we have quitted
the body?”
Emily could no longer stifle the anguish of her heart; her tears fell
fast upon her father’s hand, which she yet held. He made an effort to
speak, and at length said in a low voice, “I hope we shall be permitted
to look down on those we have left on the earth, but I can only hope
it. Futurity is much veiled from our eyes, and faith and hope are our
only guides concerning it. We are not enjoined to believe, that
disembodied spirits watch over the friends they have loved, but we may
innocently hope it. It is a hope which I will never resign,” continued
he, while he wiped the tears from his daughter’s eyes, “it will sweeten
the bitter moments of death!” Tears fell slowly on his cheeks; La
Voisin wept too, and there was a pause of silence. Then, La Voisin,
renewing the subject, said, “But you believe, sir, that we shall meet
in another world the relations we have loved in this; I must believe
this.” “Then do believe it,” replied St. Aubert, “severe, indeed, would
be the pangs of separation, if we believed it to be eternal. Look up,
my dear Emily, we shall meet again!” He lifted his eyes towards heaven,
and a gleam of moonlight, which fell upon his countenance, discovered
peace and resignation, stealing on the lines of sorrow.
La Voisin felt that he had pursued the subject too far, and he dropped
it, saying, “We are in darkness, I forgot to bring a light.”
“No,” said St. Aubert, “this is a light I love. Sit down, my good
friend. Emily, my love, I find myself better than I have been all day;
this air refreshes me. I can enjoy this tranquil hour, and that music,
which floats so sweetly at a distance. Let me see you smile. Who
touches that guitar so tastefully? are there two instruments, or is it
an echo I hear?”
“It is an echo, monsieur, I fancy. That guitar is often heard at night,
when all is still, but nobody knows who touches it, and it is sometimes
accompanied by a voice so sweet, and so sad, one would almost think the
woods were haunted.” “They certainly are haunted,” said St. Aubert with
a smile, “but I believe it is by mortals.” “I have sometimes heard it
at midnight, when I could not sleep,” rejoined La Voisin, not seeming
to notice this remark, “almost under my window, and I never heard any
music like it. It has often made me think of my poor wife till I cried.
I have sometimes got up to the window to look if I could see anybody,
but as soon as I opened the casement all was hushed, and nobody to be
seen; and I have listened, and listened till I have been so timorous,
that even the trembling of the leaves in the breeze has made me start.
They say it often comes to warn people of their death, but I have heard
it these many years, and outlived the warning.”
Emily, though she smiled at the mention of this ridiculous
superstition, could not, in the present tone of her spirits, wholly
resist its contagion.
“Well, but, my good friend,” said St. Aubert, “has nobody had courage
to follow the sounds? If they had, they would probably have discovered
who is the musician.” “Yes, sir, they have followed them some way into
the woods, but the music has still retreated, and seemed as distant as
ever, and the people have at last been afraid of being led into harm,
and would go no further. It is very seldom that I have heard these
sounds so early in the evening. They usually come about midnight, when
that bright planet, which is rising above the turret yonder, sets below
the woods on the left.”
“What turret?” asked St. Aubert with quickness, “I see none.”
“Your pardon, monsieur, you do see one indeed, for the moon shines full
upon it;—up the avenue yonder, a long way off; the château it belongs
to is hid among the trees.”
“Yes, my dear sir,” said Emily, pointing, “don’t you see something
glitter above the dark woods? It is a fane, I fancy, which the rays
fall upon.”
“O yes, I see what you mean; and who does the château belong to?”
“The Marquis de Villeroi was its owner,” replied La Voisin,
emphatically.
“Ah!” said St. Aubert, with a deep sigh, “are we then so near
Le-Blanc!” He appeared much agitated.
“It used to be the Marquis’s favourite residence,” resumed La Voisin,
“but he took a dislike to the place, and has not been there for many
years. We have heard lately that he is dead, and that it is fallen into
other hands.” St. Aubert, who had sat in deep musing, was roused by the
last words. “Dead!” he exclaimed, “Good God! when did he die?”
“He is reported to have died about five weeks since,” replied La
Voisin. “Did you know the Marquis, sir?”
“This is very extraordinary!” said St. Aubert without attending to the
question. “Why is it so, my dear sir?” said Emily, in a voice of timid
curiosity. He made no reply, but sunk again into a reverie; and in a
few moments, when he seemed to have recovered himself, asked who had
succeeded to the estates. “I have forgot his title, monsieur,” said La
Voisin; “but my lord resides at Paris chiefly; I hear no talk of his
coming hither.”
“The château is shut up then, still?”
“Why, little better, sir; the old housekeeper, and her husband the
steward, have the care of it, but they live generally in a cottage hard
by.”
“The château is spacious, I suppose,” said Emily, “and must be desolate
for the residence of only two persons.”
“Desolate enough, mademoiselle,” replied La Voisin, “I would not pass
one night in the château, for the value of the whole domain.”
“What is that?” said St. Aubert, roused again from thoughtfulness. As
his host repeated his last sentence, a groan escaped from St. Aubert,
and then, as if anxious to prevent it from being noticed, he hastily
asked La Voisin how long he had lived in this neighbourhood. “Almost
from my childhood, sir,” replied his host.
“You remember the late marchioness, then?” said St. Aubert in an
altered voice.
“Ah, monsieur!—that I do well. There are many besides me who remember
her.”
“Yes—” said St. Aubert, “and I am one of those.”
“Alas, sir! you remember, then, a most beautiful and excellent lady.
She deserved a better fate.”
Tears stood in St. Aubert’s eyes; “Enough,” said he, in a voice almost
stifled by the violence of his emotions,—“it is enough, my friend.”
Emily, though extremely surprised by her father’s manner, forbore to
express her feelings by any question. La Voisin began to apologise, but
St. Aubert interrupted him; “Apology is quite unnecessary,” said he,
“let us change the topic. You were speaking of the music we just now
heard.”
“I was, monsieur—but hark!—it comes again; listen to that voice!” They
were all silent;
At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose, like a stream of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even Silence
Was took ere she was ’ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more
Still, to be so displaced.
MILTON.
In a few moments the voice died into air, and the instrument, which had
been heard before, sounded in low symphony. St. Aubert now observed,
that it produced a tone much more full and melodious than that of a
guitar, and still more melancholy and soft than the lute. They
continued to listen, but the sounds returned no more. “This is
strange!” said St. Aubert, at length interrupting the silence. “Very
strange!” said Emily. “It is so,” rejoined La Voisin, and they were
again silent.
After a long pause, “It is now about eighteen years since I first heard
that music,” said La Voisin; “I remember it was on a fine summer’s
night, much like this, but later, that I was walking in the woods, and
alone. I remember, too, that my spirits were very low, for one of my
boys was ill, and we feared we should lose him. I had been watching at
his bedside all the evening while his mother slept; for she had sat up
with him the night before. I had been watching, and went out for a
little fresh air, the day had been very sultry. As I walked under the
shades and mused, I heard music at a distance, and thought it was
Claude playing upon his flute, as he often did of a fine evening, at
the cottage door. But, when I came to a place where the trees opened,
(I shall never forget it!) and stood looking up at the north-lights,
which shot up the heaven to a great height, I heard all of a sudden
such sounds!—they came so as I cannot describe. It was like the music
of angels, and I looked up again almost expecting to see them in the
sky. When I came home, I told what I had heard, but they laughed at me,
and said it must be some of the shepherds playing on their pipes, and I
could not persuade them to the contrary. A few nights after, however,
my wife herself heard the same sounds, and was as much surprised as I
was, and Father Denis frightened her sadly by saying, that it was music
come to warn her of her child’s death, and that music often came to
houses where there was a dying person.”
Emily, on hearing this, shrunk with a superstitious dread entirely new
to her, and could scarcely conceal her agitation from St. Aubert.
“But the boy lived, monsieur, in spite of Father Denis.”
“Father Denis!” said St. Aubert, who had listened to ‘narrative old
age’ with patient attention, “are we near a convent, then?”
“Yes, sir; the convent of St. Clair stands at no great distance, on the
sea shore yonder.”
“Ah!” said St. Aubert, as if struck with some sudden remembrance, “the
convent of St. Clair!” Emily observed the clouds of grief, mingled with
a faint expression of horror, gathering on his brow; his countenance
became fixed, and, touched as it now was by the silver whiteness of the
moonlight, he resembled one of those marble statues of a monument,
which seem to bend, in hopeless sorrow, over the ashes of the dead,
shown
by the blunted light
That the dim moon through painted casements lends.
THE EMIGRANTS.
“But, my dear sir,” said Emily, anxious to dissipate his thoughts, “you
forget that repose is necessary to you. If our kind host will give me
leave, I will prepare your bed, for I know how you like it to be made.”
St. Aubert, recollecting himself, and smiling affectionately, desired
she would not add to her fatigue by that attention; and La Voisin,
whose consideration for his guest had been suspended by the interests
which his own narrative had recalled, now started from his seat, and,
apologising for not having called Agnes from the green, hurried out of
the room.
In a few moments he returned with his daughter, a young woman of
pleasing countenance, and Emily learned from her, what she had not
before suspected, that, for their accommodation, it was necessary part
of La Voisin’s family should leave their beds; she lamented this
circumstance, but Agnes, by her reply, fully proved that she inherited,
at least, a share of her father’s courteous hospitality. It was
settled, that some of her children and Michael should sleep in the
neighbouring cottage.
“If I am better, tomorrow, my dear,” said St. Aubert when Emily
returned to him, “I mean to set out at an early hour, that we may rest,
during the heat of the day, and will travel towards home. In the
present state of my health and spirits I cannot look on a longer
journey with pleasure, and I am also very anxious to reach La Vallée.”
Emily, though she also desired to return, was grieved at her father’s
sudden wish to do so, which she thought indicated a greater degree of
indisposition than he would acknowledge. St. Aubert now retired to
rest, and Emily to her little chamber, but not to immediate repose. Her
thoughts returned to the late conversation, concerning the state of
departed spirits; a subject, at this time, particularly affecting to
her, when she had every reason to believe that her dear father would
ere long be numbered with them. She leaned pensively on the little open
casement, and in deep thought fixed her eyes on the heaven, whose blue
unclouded concave was studded thick with stars, the worlds, perhaps, of
spirits, unsphered of mortal mould. As her eyes wandered along the
boundless æther, her thoughts rose, as before, towards the sublimity of
the Deity, and to the contemplation of futurity. No busy note of this
world interrupted the course of her mind; the merry dance had ceased,
and every cottager had retired to his home. The still air seemed
scarcely to breathe upon the woods, and, now and then, the distant
sound of a solitary sheep-bell, or of a closing casement, was all that
broke on silence. At length, even this hint of human being was heard no
more. Elevated and enwrapt, while her eyes were often wet with tears of
sublime devotion and solemn awe, she continued at the casement, till
the gloom of midnight hung over the earth, and the planet, which La
Voisin had pointed out, sunk below the woods. She then recollected what
he had said concerning this planet, and the mysterious music; and, as
she lingered at the window, half hoping and half fearing that it would
return, her mind was led to the remembrance of the extreme emotion her
father had shown on mention of the Marquis La Villeroi’s death, and of
the fate of the Marchioness, and she felt strongly interested
concerning the remote cause of this emotion. Her surprise and curiosity
were indeed the greater, because she did not recollect ever to have
heard him mention the name of Villeroi.
No music, however, stole on the silence of the night, and Emily,
perceiving the lateness of the hour, returned to a scene of fatigue,
remembered that she was to rise early in the morning, and withdrew from
the window to repose.
CHAPTER VII
Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn.
But lofty souls can look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at fate, and wonder how they mourn.
Shall Spring to these sad scenes no more return?
Is yonder wave the sun’s eternal bed?—
Soon shall the orient with new lustre burn,
And Spring shall soon her vital influence shed,
Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead!
BEATTIE
Emily, called, as she had requested, at an early hour, awoke, little
refreshed by sleep, for uneasy dreams had pursued her, and marred the
kindest blessing of the unhappy. But, when she opened her casement,
looked out upon the woods, bright with the morning sun, and inspired
the pure air, her mind was soothed. The scene was filled with that
cheering freshness, which seems to breathe the very spirit of health,
and she heard only sweet and _picturesque_ sounds, if such an
expression may be allowed—the matin-bell of a distant convent, the
faint murmur of the sea-waves, the song of birds, and the far-off low
of cattle, which she saw coming slowly on between the trunks of trees.
Struck with the circumstances of imagery around her, she indulged the
pensive tranquillity which they inspired; and while she leaned on her
window, waiting till St. Aubert should descend to breakfast, her ideas
arranged themselves in the following lines:
THE FIRST HOUR OF MORNING
How sweet to wind the forest’s tangled shade,
When early twilight, from the eastern bound,
Dawns on the sleeping landscape in the glade,
And fades as morning spreads her blush around!
When ev’ry infant flower, that wept in night,
Lifts its chill head soft glowing with a tear,
Expands its tender blossom to the light,
And gives its incense to the genial air.
How fresh the breeze that wafts the rich perfume,
And swells the melody of waking birds;
The hum of bees, beneath the verdant gloom,
And woodman’s song, and low of distant herds!
Then, doubtful gleams the mountain’s hoary head,
Seen through the parting foliage from afar;
And, farther still, the ocean’s misty bed,
With flitting sails, that partial sunbeams share.
But, vain the sylvan shade—the breath of May,
The voice of music floating on the gale,
And forms, that beam through morning’s dewy veil,
If health no longer bid the heart be gay!
O balmy hour! ’tis thine her wealth to give,
Here spread her blush, and bid the parent live!
Emily now heard persons moving below in the cottage, and presently the
voice of Michael, who was talking to his mules, as he led them forth
from a hut adjoining. As she left her room, St. Aubert, who was now
risen, met her at the door, apparently as little restored by sleep as
herself. She led him down stairs to the little parlour, in which they
had supped on the preceding night, where they found a neat breakfast
set out, while the host and his daughter waited to bid them
good-morrow.
“I envy you this cottage, my good friends,” said St. Aubert, as he met
them, “it is so pleasant, so quiet, and so neat; and this air, that one
breathes—if anything could restore lost health, it would surely be this
air.”
La Voisin bowed gratefully, and replied, with the gallantry of a
Frenchman, “Our cottage may be envied, sir, since you and Mademoiselle
have honoured it with your presence.” St. Aubert gave him a friendly
smile for his compliment, and sat down to a table, spread with cream,
fruit, new cheese, butter, and coffee. Emily, who had observed her
father with attention and thought he looked very ill, endeavoured to
persuade him to defer travelling till the afternoon; but he seemed very
anxious to be at home, and his anxiety he expressed repeatedly, and
with an earnestness that was unusual with him. He now said, he found
himself as well as he had been of late, and that he could bear
travelling better in the cool hour of the morning, than at any other
time. But, while he was talking with his venerable host, and thanking
him for his kind attentions, Emily observed his countenance change,
and, before she could reach him, he fell back in his chair. In a few
moments he recovered from the sudden faintness that had come over him,
but felt so ill, that he perceived himself unable to set out, and,
having remained a little while, struggling against the pressure of
indisposition, he begged he might be helped up stairs to bed. This
request renewed all the terror which Emily had suffered on the
preceding evening; but, though scarcely able to support herself, under
the sudden shock it gave her, she tried to conceal her apprehensions
from St. Aubert, and gave her trembling arm to assist him to the door
of his chamber.
When he was once more in bed, he desired that Emily, who was then
weeping in her own room, might be called; and, as she came, he waved
his hand for every other person to quit the apartment. When they were
alone, he held out his hand to her, and fixed his eyes upon her
countenance, with an expression so full of tenderness and grief, that
all her fortitude forsook her, and she burst into an agony of tears.
St. Aubert seemed struggling to acquire firmness, but was still unable
to speak; he could only press her hand, and check the tears that stood
trembling in his eyes. At length he commanded his voice, “My dear
child,” said he, trying to smile through his anguish, “my dear
Emily!”—and paused again. He raised his eyes to heaven, as if in
prayer, and then, in a firmer tone, and with a look, in which the
tenderness of the father was dignified by the pious solemnity of the
saint, he said, “My dear child, I would soften the painful truth I have
to tell you, but I find myself quite unequal to the art. Alas! I would,
at this moment, conceal it from you, but that it would be most cruel to
deceive you. It cannot be long before we must part; let us talk of it,
that our thoughts and our prayers may prepare us to bear it.” His voice
faltered, while Emily, still weeping, pressed his hand close to her
heart, which swelled with a convulsive sigh, but she could not look up.
“Let me not waste these moments,” said St. Aubert, recovering himself,
“I have much to say. There is a circumstance of solemn consequence,
which I have to mention, and a solemn promise to obtain from you; when
this is done I shall be easier. You have observed, my dear, how anxious
I am to reach home, but know not all my reasons for this. Listen to
what I am going to say.—Yet stay—before I say more give me this
promise, a promise made to your dying father!”—St. Aubert was
interrupted; Emily, struck by his last words, as if for the first time,
with a conviction of his immediate danger, raised her head; her tears
stopped, and, gazing at him for a moment with an expression of
unutterable anguish, a slight convulsion seized her, and she sunk
senseless in her chair. St. Aubert’s cries brought La Voisin and his
daughter to the room, and they administered every means in their power
to restore her, but, for a considerable time, without effect. When she
recovered, St. Aubert was so exhausted by the scene he had witnessed,
that it was many minutes before he had strength to speak; he was,
however, somewhat revived by a cordial, which Emily gave him; and,
being again alone with her, he exerted himself to tranquilize her
spirits, and to offer her all the comfort of which her situation
admitted. She threw herself into his arms, wept on his neck, and grief
made her so insensible to all he said, that he ceased to offer the
alleviations, which he himself could not, at this moment, feel, and
mingled his silent tears with hers. Recalled, at length, to a sense of
duty, she tried to spare her father from a farther view of her
suffering; and, quitting his embrace, dried her tears, and said
something, which she meant for consolation. “My dear Emily,” replied
St. Aubert, “my dear child, we must look up with humble confidence to
that Being, who has protected and comforted us in every danger, and in
every affliction we have known; to whose eye every moment of our lives
has been exposed; he will not, he does not, forsake us now; I feel his
consolations in my heart. I shall leave you, my child, still in his
care; and, though I depart from this world, I shall be still in his
presence. Nay, weep not again, my Emily. In death there is nothing new,
or surprising, since we all know, that we are born to die; and nothing
terrible to those, who can confide in an all-powerful God. Had my life
been spared now, after a very few years, in the course of nature, I
must have resigned it; old age, with all its train of infirmity, its
privations and its sorrows, would have been mine; and then, at last,
death would have come, and called forth the tears you now shed. Rather,
my child, rejoice, that I am saved from such suffering, and that I am
permitted to die with a mind unimpaired, and sensible of the comforts
of faith and resignation.” St. Aubert paused, fatigued with speaking.
Emily again endeavoured to assume an air of composure; and, in replying
to what he had said, tried to sooth him with a belief, that he had not
spoken in vain.
When he had reposed a while, he resumed the conversation. “Let me
return,” said he, “to a subject, which is very near my heart. I said I
had a solemn promise to receive from you; let me receive it now, before
I explain the chief circumstance which it concerns; there are others,
of which your peace requires that you should rest in ignorance.
Promise, then, that you will perform exactly what I shall enjoin.”
Emily, awed by the earnest solemnity of his manner, dried her tears,
that had begun again to flow, in spite of her efforts to suppress them;
and, looking eloquently at St. Aubert, bound herself to do whatever he
should require by a vow, at which she shuddered, yet knew not why.
He proceeded: “I know you too well, my Emily, to believe, that you
would break any promise, much less one thus solemnly given; your
assurance gives me peace, and the observance of it is of the utmost
importance to your tranquillity. Hear, then, what I am going to tell
you. The closet, which adjoins my chamber at La Vallée, has a sliding
board in the floor. You will know it by a remarkable knot in the wood,
and by its being the next board, except one, to the wainscot, which
fronts the door. At the distance of about a yard from that end, nearer
the window, you will perceive a line across it, as if the plank had
been joined;—the way to open it is this:—Press your foot upon the line;
the end of the board will then sink, and you may slide it with ease
beneath the other. Below, you will see a hollow place.” St. Aubert
paused for breath, and Emily sat fixed in deep attention. “Do you
understand these directions, my dear?” said he. Emily, though scarcely
able to speak, assured him that she did.
“When you return home, then,” he added with a deep sigh—
At the mention of her return home, all the melancholy circumstances,
that must attend this return, rushed upon her fancy; she burst into
convulsive grief, and St. Aubert himself, affected beyond the
resistance of the fortitude which he had, at first, summoned, wept with
her. After some moments, he composed himself. “My dear child,” said he,
“be comforted. When I am gone, you will not be forsaken—I leave you
only in the more immediate care of that Providence, which has never yet
forsaken me. Do not afflict me with this excess of grief; rather teach
me by your example to bear my own.” He stopped again, and Emily, the
more she endeavoured to restrain her emotion, found it the less
possible to do so.
St. Aubert, who now spoke with pain, resumed the subject. “That closet,
my dear,—when you return home, go to it; and, beneath the board I have
described, you will find a packet of written papers. Attend to me now,
for the promise you have given particularly relates to what I shall
direct. These papers you must burn—and, solemnly I command you,
_without examining them_.”
Emily’s surprise, for a moment, overcame her grief, and she ventured to
ask, why this must be? St. Aubert replied, that, if it had been right
for him to explain his reasons, her late promise would have been
unnecessarily exacted. “It is sufficient for you, my love, to have a
deep sense of the importance of observing me in this instance.” St.
Aubert proceeded. “Under that board you will also find about two
hundred louis d’ors, wrapped in a silk purse; indeed, it was to secure
whatever money might be in the château, that this secret place was
contrived, at a time when the province was over-run by troops of men,
who took advantage of the tumults, and became plunderers.
“But I have yet another promise to receive from you, which is—that you
will never, whatever may be your future circumstances, _sell_ the
château.” St. Aubert even enjoined her, whenever she might marry, to
make it an article in the contract, that the château should always be
hers. He then gave her a more minute account of his present
circumstances than he had yet done, adding, “The two hundred louis,
with what money you will now find in my purse, is all the ready money I
have to leave you. I have told you how I am circumstanced with M.
Motteville, at Paris. Ah, my child! I leave you poor—but not
destitute,” he added, after a long pause. Emily could make no reply to
anything he now said, but knelt at the bedside, with her face upon the
quilt, weeping over the hand she held there.
After this conversation, the mind of St. Aubert appeared to be much
more at ease; but, exhausted by the effort of speaking, he sunk into a
kind of doze, and Emily continued to watch and weep beside him, till a
gentle tap at the chamber-door roused her. It was La Voisin, come to
say, that a confessor from the neighbouring convent was below, ready to
attend St. Aubert. Emily would not suffer her father to be disturbed,
but desired, that the priest might not leave the cottage. When St.
Aubert awoke from this doze, his senses were confused, and it was some
moments before he recovered them sufficiently to know, that it was
Emily who sat beside him. He then moved his lips, and stretched forth
his hand to her; as she received which, she sunk back in her chair,
overcome by the impression of death on his countenance. In a few
minutes he recovered his voice, and Emily then asked, if he wished to
see the confessor; he replied, that he did; and, when the holy father
appeared, she withdrew. They remained alone together above half an
hour; when Emily was called in, she found St. Aubert more agitated than
when she had left him, and she gazed, with a slight degree of
resentment, at the friar, as the cause of this; who, however, looked
mildly and mournfully at her, and turned away. St. Aubert, in a
tremulous voice, said, he wished her to join in prayer with him, and
asked if La Voisin would do so too. The old man and his daughter came;
they both wept, and knelt with Emily round the bed, while the holy
father read in a solemn voice the service for the dying. St. Aubert lay
with a serene countenance, and seemed to join fervently in the
devotion, while tears often stole from beneath his closed eyelids, and
Emily’s sobs more than once interrupted the service.
When it was concluded, and extreme unction had been administered, the
friar withdrew. St. Aubert then made a sign for La Voisin to come
nearer. He gave him his hand, and was, for a moment, silent. At length,
he said, in a trembling voice, “My good friend, our acquaintance has
been short, but long enough to give you an opportunity of showing me
much kind attention. I cannot doubt, that you will extend this kindness
to my daughter, when I am gone; she will have need of it. I entrust her
to your care during the few days she will remain here. I need say no
more—you know the feelings of a father, for you have children; mine
would be, indeed, severe if I had less confidence in you.” He paused.
La Voisin assured him, and his tears bore testimony to his sincerity,
that he would do all he could to soften her affliction, and that, if
St. Aubert wished it, he would even attend her into Gascony; an offer
so pleasing to St. Aubert, that he had scarcely words to acknowledge
his sense of the old man’s kindness, or to tell him, that he accepted
it. The scene, that followed between St. Aubert and Emily, affected La
Voisin so much, that he quitted the chamber, and she was again left
alone with her father, whose spirits seemed fainting fast, but neither
his senses, nor his voice, yet failed him; and, at intervals, he
employed much of these last awful moments in advising his daughter, as
to her future conduct. Perhaps, he never had thought more justly, or
expressed himself more clearly, than he did now.
“Above all, my dear Emily,” said he, “do not indulge in the pride of
fine feeling, the romantic error of amiable minds. Those, who really
possess sensibility, ought early to be taught, that it is a dangerous
quality, which is continually extracting the excess of misery, or
delight, from every surrounding circumstance. And, since, in our
passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently
than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute
than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless
we can in some degree command them. I know you will say, (for you are
young, my Emily) I know you will say, that you are contented sometimes
to suffer, rather than to give up your refined sense of happiness, at
others; but, when your mind has been long harassed by vicissitude, you
will be content to rest, and you will then recover from your delusion.
You will perceive, that the phantom of happiness is exchanged for the
substance; for happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult. It
is of a temperate and uniform nature, and can no more exist in a heart,
that is continually alive to minute circumstances, than in one that is
dead to feeling. You see, my dear, that, though I would guard you
against the dangers of sensibility, I am not an advocate for apathy. At
your age I should have said _that_ is a vice more hateful than all the
errors of sensibility, and I say so still. I call it a _vice_, because
it leads to positive evil; in this, however, it does no more than an
ill-governed sensibility, which, by such a rule, might also be called a
vice; but the evil of the former is of more general consequence. I have
exhausted myself,” said St. Aubert, feebly, “and have wearied you, my
Emily; but, on a subject so important to your future comfort, I am
anxious to be perfectly understood.”
Emily assured him, that his advice was most precious to her, and that
she would never forget it, or cease from endeavouring to profit by it.
St. Aubert smiled affectionately and sorrowfully upon her. “I repeat
it,” said he, “I would not teach you to become insensible, if I could;
I would only warn you of the evils of susceptibility, and point out how
you may avoid them. Beware, my love, I conjure you, of that
self-delusion, which has been fatal to the peace of so many persons;
beware of priding yourself on the gracefulness of sensibility; if you
yield to this vanity, your happiness is lost for ever. Always remember
how much more valuable is the strength of fortitude, than the grace of
sensibility. Do not, however, confound fortitude with apathy; apathy
cannot know the virtue. Remember, too, that one act of beneficence, one
act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the
world. Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead
us to good actions. The miser, who thinks himself respectable, merely
because he possesses wealth, and thus mistakes the means of doing good,
for the actual accomplishment of it, is not more blameable than the man
of sentiment, without active virtue. You may have observed persons, who
delight so much in this sort of sensibility to sentiment, which
excludes that to the calls of any practical virtue, that they turn from
the distressed, and, because their sufferings are painful to be
contemplated, do not endeavour to relieve them. How despicable is that
humanity, which can be contented to pity, where it might assuage!”
St. Aubert, some time after, spoke of Madame Cheron, his sister. “Let
me inform you of a circumstance, that nearly affects your welfare,” he
added. “We have, you know, had little intercourse for some years, but,
as she is now your only female relation, I have thought it proper to
consign you to her care, as you will see in my will, till you are of
age, and to recommend you to her protection afterwards. She is not
exactly the person, to whom I would have committed my Emily, but I had
no alternative, and I believe her to be upon the whole—a good kind of
woman. I need not recommend it to your prudence, my love, to endeavour
to conciliate her kindness; you will do this for his sake, who has
often wished to do so for yours.”
Emily assured him, that, whatever he requested she would religiously
perform to the utmost of her ability. “Alas!” added she, in a voice
interrupted by sighs, “that will soon be all which remains for me; it
will be almost my only consolation to fulfil your wishes.”
St. Aubert looked up silently in her face, as if would have spoken, but
his spirit sunk a while, and his eyes became heavy and dull. She felt
that look at her heart. “My dear father!” she exclaimed; and then,
checking herself, pressed his hand closer, and hid her face with her
handkerchief. Her tears were concealed, but St. Aubert heard her
convulsive sobs. His spirits returned. “O my child!” said he, faintly,
“let my consolations be yours. I die in peace; for I know, that I am
about to return to the bosom of my Father, who will still be your
Father, when I am gone. Always trust in him, my love, and he will
support you in these moments, as he supports me.”
Emily could only listen, and weep; but the extreme composure of his
manner, and the faith and hope he expressed, somewhat soothed her
anguish. Yet, whenever she looked upon his emaciated countenance, and
saw the lines of death beginning to prevail over it—saw his sunk eyes,
still bent on her, and their heavy lids pressing to a close, there was
a pang in her heart, such as defied expression, though it required
filial virtue, like hers, to forbear the attempt.
He desired once more to bless her; “Where are you, my dear?” said he,
as he stretched forth his hands. Emily had turned to the window, that
he might not perceive her anguish; she now understood, that his sight
had failed him. When he had given her his blessing, and it seemed to be
the last effort of expiring life, he sunk back on his pillow. She
kissed his forehead; the damps of death had settled there, and,
forgetting her fortitude for a moment, her tears mingled with them. St.
Aubert lifted up his eyes; the spirit of a father returned to them, but
it quickly vanished, and he spoke no more.
St. Aubert lingered till about three o’clock in the afternoon, and,
thus gradually sinking into death, he expired without a struggle, or a
sigh.
Emily was led from the chamber by La Voisin and his daughter, who did
what they could to comfort her. The old man sat and wept with her.
Agnes was more erroneously officious.
CHAPTER VIII
O’er him, whose doom thy virtues grieve,
Aerial forms shall sit at eve,
and bend the pensive head.
COLLINS
The monk, who had before appeared, returned in the evening to offer
consolation to Emily, and brought a kind message from the lady abbess,
inviting her to the convent. Emily, though she did not accept the
offer, returned an answer expressive of her gratitude. The holy
conversation of the friar, whose mild benevolence of manners bore some
resemblance to those of St. Aubert, soothed the violence of her grief,
and lifted her heart to the Being, who, extending through all place and
all eternity, looks on the events of this little world as on the
shadows of a moment, and beholds equally, and in the same instant, the
soul that has passed the gates of death, and that, which still lingers
in the body. “In the sight of God,” said Emily, “my dear father now
exists, as truly as he yesterday existed to me; it is to me only that
he is dead; to God and to himself he yet lives!”
The good monk left her more tranquil than she had been since St. Aubert
died; and, before she retired to her little cabin for the night, she
trusted herself so far as to visit the corpse. Silent, and without
weeping, she stood by its side. The features, placid and serene, told
the nature of the last sensations, that had lingered in the now
deserted frame. For a moment she turned away, in horror of the
stillness in which death had fixed that countenance, never till now
seen otherwise than animated; then gazed on it with a mixture of doubt
and awful astonishment. Her reason could scarcely overcome an
involuntary and unaccountable expectation of seeing that beloved
countenance still susceptible. She continued to gaze wildly; took up
the cold hand; spoke; still gazed, and then burst into a transport of
grief. La Voisin, hearing her sobs, came into the room to lead her
away, but she heard nothing, and only begged that he would leave her.
Again alone, she indulged her tears, and, when the gloom of evening
obscured the chamber, and almost veiled from her eyes the object of her
distress, she still hung over the body; till her spirits, at length,
were exhausted, and she became tranquil. La Voisin again knocked at the
door, and entreated that she would come to the common apartment. Before
she went, she kissed the lips of St. Aubert, as she was wont to do when
she bade him good night. Again she kissed them; her heart felt as if it
would break, a few tears of agony started to her eyes, she looked up to
heaven, then at St. Aubert, and left the room.
Retired to her lonely cabin, her melancholy thoughts still hovered
round the body of her deceased parent; and, when she sunk into a kind
of slumber, the images of her waking mind still haunted her fancy. She
thought she saw her father approaching her with a benign countenance;
then, smiling mournfully and pointing upwards, his lips moved, but,
instead of words, she heard sweet music borne on the distant air, and
presently saw his features glow with the mild rapture of a superior
being. The strain seemed to swell louder, and she awoke. The vision was
gone, but music yet came to her ear in strains such as angels might
breathe. She doubted, listened, raised herself in the bed, and again
listened. It was music, and not an illusion of her imagination. After a
solemn steady harmony, it paused; then rose again, in mournful
sweetness, and then died, in a cadence, that seemed to bear away the
listening soul to heaven. She instantly remembered the music of the
preceding night, with the strange circumstances, related by La Voisin,
and the affecting conversation it had led to, concerning the state of
departed spirits. All that St. Aubert had said, on that subject, now
pressed upon her heart, and overwhelmed it. What a change in a few
hours! He, who then could only conjecture, was now made acquainted with
truth; was himself become one of the departed! As she listened, she was
chilled with superstitious awe, her tears stopped; and she rose, and
went to the window. All without was obscured in shade; but Emily,
turning her eyes from the massy darkness of the woods, whose waving
outline appeared on the horizon, saw, on the left, that effulgent
planet, which the old man had pointed out, setting over the woods. She
remembered what he had said concerning it, and, the music now coming at
intervals on the air, she unclosed the casement to listen to the
strains, that soon gradually sunk to a greater distance, and tried to
discover whence they came. The obscurity prevented her from
distinguishing any object on the green platform below; and the sounds
became fainter and fainter, till they softened into silence. She
listened, but they returned no more. Soon after, she observed the
planet trembling between the fringed tops of the woods, and, in the
next moment, sink behind them. Chilled with a melancholy awe, she
retired once more to her bed, and, at length, forgot for a while her
sorrows in sleep.
On the following morning, she was visited by a sister of the convent,
who came, with kind offices and a second invitation from the lady
abbess; and Emily, though she could not forsake the cottage, while the
remains of her father were in it, consented, however painful such a
visit must be, in the present state of her spirits, to pay her respects
to the abbess, in the evening.
About an hour before sunset, La Voisin showed her the way through the
woods to the convent, which stood in a small bay of the Mediterranean,
crowned by a woody amphitheatre; and Emily, had she been less unhappy,
would have admired the extensive sea view, that appeared from the green
slope, in front of the edifice, and the rich shores, hung with woods
and pastures, that extended on either hand. But her thoughts were now
occupied by one sad idea, and the features of nature were to her
colourless and without form. The bell for vespers struck, as she passed
the ancient gate of the convent, and seemed the funereal note for St.
Aubert. Little incidents affect a mind, enervated by sorrow; Emily
struggled against the sickening faintness, that came over her, and was
led into the presence of the abbess, who received her with an air of
maternal tenderness; an air of such gentle solicitude and
consideration, as touched her with an instantaneous gratitude; her eyes
were filled with tears, and the words she would have spoken faltered on
her lips. The abbess led her to a seat, and sat down beside her, still
holding her hand and regarding her in silence, as Emily dried her tears
and attempted to speak. “Be composed, my daughter,” said the abbess in
a soothing voice, “do not speak yet; I know all you would say. Your
spirits must be soothed. We are going to prayers;—will you attend our
evening service? It is comfortable, my child, to look up in our
afflictions to a father, who sees and pities us, and who chastens in
his mercy.”
Emily’s tears flowed again, but a thousand sweet emotions mingled with
them. The abbess suffered her to weep without interruption, and watched
over her with a look of benignity, that might have characterised the
countenance of a guardian angel. Emily, when she became tranquil, was
encouraged to speak without reserve, and to mention the motive, that
made her unwilling to quit the cottage, which the abbess did not oppose
even by a hint; but praised the filial piety of her conduct, and added
a hope, that she would pass a few days at the convent, before she
returned to La Vallée. “You must allow yourself a little time to
recover from your first shock, my daughter, before you encounter a
second; I will not affect to conceal from you how much I know your
heart must suffer, on returning to the scene of your former happiness.
Here, you will have all, that quiet and sympathy and religion can give,
to restore your spirits. But come,” added she, observing the tears
swell in Emily’s eyes, “we will go to the chapel.”
Emily followed to the parlour, where the nuns were assembled, to whom
the abbess committed her, saying, “This is a daughter, for whom I have
much esteem; be sisters to her.”
They passed on in a train to the chapel, where the solemn devotion,
with which the service was performed, elevated her mind, and brought to
it the comforts of faith and resignation.
Twilight came on, before the abbess’s kindness would suffer Emily to
depart, when she left the convent, with a heart much lighter than she
had entered it, and was reconducted by La Voisin through the woods, the
pensive gloom of which was in unison with the temper of her mind; and
she pursued the little wild path, in musing silence, till her guide
suddenly stopped, looked round, and then struck out of the path into
the high grass, saying he had mistaken the road. He now walked on
quickly, and Emily, proceeding with difficulty over the obscured and
uneven ground, was left at some distance, till her voice arrested him,
who seemed unwilling to stop, and still hurried on. “If you are in
doubt about the way,” said Emily, “had we not better enquire it at the
château yonder, between the trees?”
“No,” replied La Voisin, “there is no occasion. When we reach that
brook, ma’amselle, (you see the light upon the water there, beyond the
woods) when we reach that brook, we shall be at home presently. I don’t
know how I happened to mistake the path; I seldom come this way after
sunset.”
“It is solitary enough,” said Emily, “but you have no banditti here.”
“No, ma’amselle—no banditti.”
“What are you afraid of then, my good friend? you are not
superstitious?” “No, not superstitious; but, to tell you the truth,
lady, nobody likes to go near that château, after dusk.” “By whom is it
inhabited,” said Emily, “that it is so formidable?” “Why, ma’amselle,
it is scarcely inhabited, for our lord the Marquis, and the lord of all
these find woods, too, is dead. He had not once been in it, for these
many years, and his people, who have the care of it, live in a cottage
close by.” Emily now understood this to be the château, which La Voisin
had formerly pointed out, as having belonged to the Marquis Villeroi,
on the mention of which her father had appeared so much affected.
“Ah! it is a desolate place now,” continued La Voisin, “and such a
grand, fine place, as I remember it!” Emily enquired what had
occasioned this lamentable change; but the old man was silent, and
Emily, whose interest was awakened by the fear he had expressed, and
above all by a recollection of her father’s agitation, repeated the
question, and added, “If you are neither afraid of the inhabitants, my
good friend, nor are superstitious, how happens it, that you dread to
pass near that château in the dark?”
“Perhaps, then, I am a little superstitious, ma’amselle; and, if you
knew what I do, you might be so too. Strange things have happened
there. Monsieur, your good father, appeared to have known the late
Marchioness.” “Pray inform me what did happen?” said Emily, with much
emotion.
“Alas! ma’amselle,” answered La Voisin, “enquire no further; it is not
for me to lay open the domestic secrets of my lord.”—Emily, surprised
by the old man’s words, and his manner of delivering them, forbore to
repeat her question; a nearer interest, the remembrance of St. Aubert,
occupied her thoughts, and she was led to recollect the music she heard
on the preceding night, which she mentioned to La Voisin. “You were not
alone, ma’amselle, in this,” he replied, “I heard it too; but I have so
often heard it, at the same hour, that I was scarcely surprised.”
“You doubtless believe this music to have some connection with the
château,” said Emily suddenly, “and are, therefore, superstitious.” “It
may be so, ma’amselle, but there are other circumstances, belonging to
that château, which I remember, and sadly too.” A heavy sigh followed:
but Emily’s delicacy restrained the curiosity these words revived, and
she enquired no further.
On reaching the cottage, all the violence of her grief returned; it
seemed as if she had escaped its heavy pressure only while she was
removed from the object of it. She passed immediately to the chamber,
where the remains of her father were laid, and yielded to all the
anguish of hopeless grief. La Voisin, at length, persuaded her to leave
the room, and she returned to her own, where, exhausted by the
sufferings of the day, she soon fell into deep sleep, and awoke
considerably refreshed.
When the dreadful hour arrived, in which the remains of St. Aubert were
to be taken from her for ever, she went alone to the chamber to look
upon his countenance yet once again, and La Voisin, who had waited
patiently below stairs, till her despair should subside, with the
respect due to grief, forbore to interrupt the indulgence of it, till
surprise, at the length of her stay, and then apprehension overcame his
delicacy, and he went to lead her from the chamber. Having tapped
gently at the door, without receiving an answer, he listened
attentively, but all was still; no sigh, no sob of anguish was heard.
Yet more alarmed by this silence, he opened the door, and found Emily
lying senseless across the foot of the bed, near which stood the
coffin. His calls procured assistance, and she was carried to her room,
where proper applications, at length, restored her.
During her state of insensibility, La Voisin had given directions for
the coffin to be closed, and he succeeded in persuading Emily to
forbear revisiting the chamber. She, indeed, felt herself unequal to
this, and also perceived the necessity of sparing her spirits, and
recollecting fortitude sufficient to bear her through the approaching
scene. St. Aubert had given a particular injunction, that his remains
should be interred in the church of the convent of St. Clair, and, in
mentioning the north chancel, near the ancient tomb of the Villerois,
had pointed out the exact spot, where he wished to be laid. The
superior had granted this place for the interment, and thither,
therefore, the sad procession now moved, which was met, at the gates,
by the venerable priest, followed by a train of friars. Every person,
who heard the solemn chant of the anthem, and the peal of the organ,
that struck up, when the body entered the church, and saw also the
feeble steps, and the assumed tranquillity of Emily, gave her
involuntary tears. She shed none, but walked, her face partly shaded by
a thin black veil, between two persons, who supported her, preceded by
the abbess, and followed by nuns, whose plaintive voices mellowed the
swelling harmony of the dirge. When the procession came to the grave
the music ceased. Emily drew the veil entirely over her face, and, in a
momentary pause, between the anthem and the rest of the service, her
sobs were distinctly audible. The holy father began the service, and
Emily again commanded her feelings, till the coffin was let down, and
she heard the earth rattle on its lid. Then, as she shuddered, a groan
burst from her heart, and she leaned for support on the person who
stood next to her. In a few moments she recovered; and, when she heard
those affecting and sublime words: “His body is buried in peace, and
his soul returns to Him that gave it,” her anguish softened into tears.
The abbess led her from the church into her own parlour, and there
administered all the consolations, that religion and gentle sympathy
can give. Emily struggled against the pressure of grief; but the
abbess, observing her attentively, ordered a bed to be prepared, and
recommended her to retire to repose. She also kindly claimed her
promise to remain a few days at the convent; and Emily, who had no wish
to return to the cottage, the scene of all her sufferings, had leisure,
now that no immediate care pressed upon her attention, to feel the
indisposition, which disabled her from immediately travelling.
Meanwhile, the maternal kindness of the abbess, and the gentle
attentions of the nuns did all, that was possible, towards soothing her
spirits and restoring her health. But the latter was too deeply
wounded, through the medium of her mind, to be quickly revived. She
lingered for some weeks at the convent, under the influence of a slow
fever, wishing to return home, yet unable to go thither; often even
reluctant to leave the spot where her father’s relics were deposited,
and sometimes soothing herself with the consideration, that, if she
died here, her remains would repose beside those of St. Aubert. In the
meanwhile, she sent letters to Madame Cheron and to the old
housekeeper, informing them of the sad event, that had taken place, and
of her own situation. From her aunt she received an answer, abounding
more in common-place condolement, than in traits of real sorrow, which
assured her, that a servant should be sent to conduct her to La Vallée,
for that her own time was so much occupied by company, that she had no
leisure to undertake so long a journey. However Emily might prefer La
Vallée to Thoulouse, she could not be insensible to the indecorous and
unkind conduct of her aunt, in suffering her to return thither, where
she had no longer a relation to console and protect her; a conduct,
which was the more culpable, since St. Aubert had appointed Madame
Cheron the guardian of his orphan daughter.
Madame Cheron’s servant made the attendance of the good La Voisin
unnecessary; and Emily, who felt sensibly her obligations to him, for
all his kind attention to her late father, as well as to herself, was
glad to spare him a long, and what, at his time of life, must have been
a troublesome journey.
During her stay at the convent, the peace and sanctity that reigned
within, the tranquil beauty of the scenery without, and the delicate
attentions of the abbess and the nuns, were circumstances so soothing
to her mind, that they almost tempted her to leave a world, where she
had lost her dearest friends, and devote herself to the cloister, in a
spot, rendered sacred to her by containing the tomb of St. Aubert. The
pensive enthusiasm, too, so natural to her temper, had spread a
beautiful illusion over the sanctified retirement of a nun, that almost
hid from her view the selfishness of its security. But the touches,
which a melancholy fancy, slightly tinctured with superstition, gave to
the monastic scene, began to fade, as her spirits revived, and brought
once more to her heart an image, which had only transiently been
banished thence. By this she was silently awakened to hope and comfort
and sweet affections; visions of happiness gleamed faintly at a
distance, and, though she knew them to be illusions, she could not
resolve to shut them out for ever. It was the remembrance of
Valancourt, of his taste, his genius, and of the countenance which
glowed with both, that, perhaps, alone determined her to return to the
world. The grandeur and sublimity of the scenes, amidst which they had
first met, had fascinated her fancy, and had imperceptibly contributed
to render Valancourt more interesting by seeming to communicate to him
somewhat of their own character. The esteem, too, which St. Aubert had
repeatedly expressed for him, sanctioned this kindness; but, though his
countenance and manner had continually expressed his admiration of her,
he had not otherwise declared it; and even the hope of seeing him again
was so distant, that she was scarcely conscious of it, still less that
it influenced her conduct on this occasion.
It was several days after the arrival of Madame Cheron’s servant before
Emily was sufficiently recovered to undertake the journey to La Vallée.
On the evening preceding her departure, she went to the cottage to take
leave of La Voisin and his family, and to make them a return for their
kindness. The old man she found sitting on a bench at his door, between
his daughter, and his son-in-law, who was just returned from his daily
labour, and who was playing upon a pipe, that, in tone, resembled an
oboe. A flask of wine stood beside the old man, and, before him, a
small table with fruit and bread, round which stood several of his
grandsons, fine rosy children, who were taking their supper, as their
mother distributed it. On the edge of the little green, that spread
before the cottage, were cattle and a few sheep reposing under the
trees. The landscape was touched with the mellow light of the evening
sun, whose long slanting beams played through a vista of the woods, and
lighted up the distant turrets of the château. She paused a moment,
before she emerged from the shade, to gaze upon the happy group before
her—on the complacency and ease of healthy age, depictured on the
countenance of La Voisin; the maternal tenderness of Agnes, as she
looked upon her children, and the innocency of infantine pleasures,
reflected in their smiles. Emily looked again at the venerable old man,
and at the cottage; the memory of her father rose with full force upon
her mind, and she hastily stepped forward, afraid to trust herself with
a longer pause. She took an affectionate and affecting leave of La
Voisin and his family; he seemed to love her as his daughter, and shed
tears; Emily shed many. She avoided going into the cottage, since she
knew it would revive emotions, such as she could not now endure.
One painful scene yet awaited her, for she determined to visit again
her father’s grave; and that she might not be interrupted, or observed
in the indulgence of her melancholy tenderness, she deferred her visit,
till every inhabitant of the convent, except the nun who promised to
bring her the key of the church, should be retired to rest. Emily
remained in her chamber, till she heard the convent bell strike twelve,
when the nun came, as she had appointed, with the key of a private
door, that opened into the church, and they descended together the
narrow winding staircase, that led thither. The nun offered to
accompany Emily to the grave, adding, “It is melancholy to go alone at
this hour;” but the former, thanking her for the consideration, could
not consent to have any witness of her sorrow; and the sister, having
unlocked the door, gave her the lamp. “You will remember, sister,” said
she, “that in the east aisle, which you must pass, is a newly opened
grave; hold the light to the ground, that you may not stumble over the
loose earth.” Emily, thanking her again, took the lamp, and, stepping
into the church, sister Mariette departed. But Emily paused a moment at
the door; a sudden fear came over her, and she returned to the foot of
the staircase, where, as she heard the steps of the nun ascending, and,
while she held up the lamp, saw her black veil waving over the spiral
balusters, she was tempted to call her back. While she hesitated, the
veil disappeared, and, in the next moment, ashamed of her fears, she
returned to the church. The cold air of the aisles chilled her, and
their deep silence and extent, feebly shone upon by the moonlight, that
streamed through a distant gothic window, would at any other time have
awed her into superstition; now, grief occupied all her attention. She
scarcely heard the whispering echoes of her own steps, or thought of
the open grave, till she found herself almost on its brink. A friar of
the convent had been buried there on the preceding evening, and, as she
had sat alone in her chamber at twilight, she heard, at distance, the
monks chanting the requiem for his soul. This brought freshly to her
memory the circumstances of her father’s death; and, as the voices,
mingling with a low querulous peal of the organ, swelled faintly,
gloomy and affecting visions had arisen upon her mind. Now she
remembered them, and, turning aside to avoid the broken ground, these
recollections made her pass on with quicker steps to the grave of St.
Aubert, when in the moonlight, that fell athwart a remote part of the
aisle, she thought she saw a shadow gliding between the pillars. She
stopped to listen, and, not hearing any footstep, believed that her
fancy had deceived her, and, no longer apprehensive of being observed,
proceeded. St. Aubert was buried beneath a plain marble, bearing little
more than his name and the date of his birth and death, near the foot
of the stately monument of the Villerois. Emily remained at his grave,
till a chime, that called the monks to early prayers, warned her to
retire; then, she wept over it a last farewell, and forced herself from
the spot. After this hour of melancholy indulgence, she was refreshed
by a deeper sleep, than she had experienced for a long time, and, on
awakening, her mind was more tranquil and resigned, than it had been
since St. Aubert’s death.
But, when the moment of her departure from the convent arrived, all her
grief returned; the memory of the dead, and the kindness of the living
attached her to the place; and for the sacred spot, where her father’s
remains were interred, she seemed to feel all those tender affections
which we conceive for home. The abbess repeated many kind assurances of
regard at their parting, and pressed her to return, if ever she should
find her condition elsewhere unpleasant; many of the nuns also
expressed unaffected regret at her departure, and Emily left the
convent with many tears, and followed by sincere wishes for her
happiness.
She had travelled several leagues, before the scenes of the country,
through which she passed, had power to rouse her for a moment from the
deep melancholy, into which she was sunk, and, when they did, it was
only to remind her, that, on her last view of them, St. Aubert was at
her side, and to call up to her remembrance the remarks he had
delivered on similar scenery. Thus, without any particular occurrence,
passed the day in languor and dejection. She slept that night in a town
on the skirts of Languedoc, and, on the following morning, entered
Gascony.
Towards the close of this day, Emily came within view of the plains in
the neighbourhood of La Vallée, and the well-known objects of former
times began to press upon her notice, and with them recollections, that
awakened all her tenderness and grief. Often, while she looked through
her tears upon the wild grandeur of the Pyrenees, now varied with the
rich lights and shadows of evening, she remembered, that, when last she
saw them, her father partook with her of the pleasure they inspired.
Suddenly some scene, which he had particularly pointed out to her,
would present itself, and the sick languor of despair would steal upon
her heart. “There!” she would exclaim, “there are the very cliffs,
there the wood of pines, which he looked at with such delight, as we
passed this road together for the last time. There, too, under the crag
of that mountain, is the cottage, peeping from among the cedars, which
he bade me remember, and copy with my pencil. O my father, shall I
never see you more!”
As she drew near the château, these melancholy memorials of past times
multiplied. At length, the château itself appeared, amid the glowing
beauty of St. Aubert’s favourite landscape. This was an object, which
called for fortitude, not for tears; Emily dried hers, and prepared to
meet with calmness the trying moment of her return to that home, where
there was no longer a parent to welcome her. “Yes,” said she, “let me
not forget the lessons he has taught me! How often he has pointed out
the necessity of resisting even virtuous sorrow; how often we have
admired together the greatness of a mind, that can at once suffer and
reason! O my father! if you are permitted to look down upon your child,
it will please you to see, that she remembers, and endeavours to
practise, the precepts you have given her.”
A turn on the road now allowed a nearer view of the château, the
chimneys, tipped with light, rising from behind St. Aubert’s favourite
oaks, whose foliage partly concealed the lower part of the building.
Emily could not suppress a heavy sigh. “This, too, was his favourite
hour,” said she, as she gazed upon the long evening shadows, stretched
athwart the landscape. “How deep the repose, how lovely the scene!
lovely and tranquil as in former days!”
Again she resisted the pressure of sorrow, till her ear caught the gay
melody of the dance, which she had so often listened to, as she walked
with St. Aubert, on the margin of the Garonne, when all her fortitude
forsook her, and she continued to weep, till the carriage stopped at
the little gate, that opened upon what was now her own territory. She
raised her eyes on the sudden stopping of the carriage, and saw her
father’s old housekeeper coming to open the gate. Manchon also came
running, and barking before her; and when his young mistress alighted,
fawned, and played round her, gasping with joy.
“Dear ma’amselle!” said Theresa, and paused, and looked as if she would
have offered something of condolement to Emily, whose tears now
prevented reply. The dog still fawned and ran round her, and then flew
towards the carriage, with a short quick bark. “Ah, ma’amselle!—my poor
master!” said Theresa, whose feelings were more awakened than her
delicacy, “Manchon’s gone to look for him.” Emily sobbed aloud; and, on
looking towards the carriage, which still stood with the door open, saw
the animal spring into it, and instantly leap out, and then with his
nose on the ground run round the horses.
“Don’t cry so, ma’amselle,” said Theresa, “it breaks my heart to see
you.” The dog now came running to Emily, then returned to the carriage,
and then back again to her, whining and discontented. “Poor rogue!”
said Theresa, “thou hast lost thy master, thou mayst well cry! But
come, my dear young lady, be comforted. What shall I get to refresh
you?” Emily gave her hand to the old servant, and tried to restrain her
grief, while she made some kind enquiries concerning her health. But
she still lingered in the walk which led to the château, for within was
no person to meet her with the kiss of affection; her own heart no
longer palpitated with impatient joy to meet again the well-known
smile, and she dreaded to see objects, which would recall the full
remembrance of her former happiness. She moved slowly towards the door,
paused, went on, and paused again. How silent, how forsaken, how
forlorn did the château appear! Trembling to enter it, yet blaming
herself for delaying what she could not avoid, she, at length, passed
into the hall; crossed it with a hurried step, as if afraid to look
round, and opened the door of that room, which she was wont to call her
own. The gloom of evening gave solemnity to its silent and deserted
air. The chairs, the tables, every article of furniture, so familiar to
her in happier times, spoke eloquently to her heart. She seated
herself, without immediately observing it, in a window, which opened
upon the garden, and where St. Aubert had often sat with her, watching
the sun retire from the rich and extensive prospect, that appeared
beyond the groves.
Having indulged her tears for some time, she became more composed; and,
when Theresa, after seeing the baggage deposited in her lady’s room,
again appeared, she had so far recovered her spirits, as to be able to
converse with her.
“I have made up the green bed for you, ma’amselle,” said Theresa, as
she set the coffee upon the table. “I thought you would like it better
than your own now; but I little thought this day month, that you would
come back alone. A-well-a-day! the news almost broke my heart, when it
did come. Who would have believed, that my poor master, when he went
from home, would never return again!” Emily hid her face with her
handkerchief, and waved her hand.
“Do taste the coffee,” said Theresa. “My dear young lady, be
comforted—we must all die. My dear master is a saint above.” Emily took
the handkerchief from her face, and raised her eyes full of tears
towards heaven; soon after she dried them, and, in a calm, but
tremulous voice, began to enquire concerning some of her late father’s
pensioners.
“Alas-a-day!” said Theresa, as she poured out the coffee, and handed it
to her mistress, “all that could come, have been here every day to
enquire after you and my master.” She then proceeded to tell, that some
were dead whom they had left well; and others, who were ill, had
recovered. “And see, ma’amselle,” added Theresa, “there is old Mary
coming up the garden now; she has looked every day these three years as
if she would die, yet she is alive still. She has seen the chaise at
the door, and knows you are come home.”
The sight of this poor old woman would have been too much for Emily,
and she begged Theresa would go and tell her, that she was too ill to
see any person that night. “Tomorrow I shall be better, perhaps; but
give her this token of my remembrance.”
Emily sat for some time, given up to sorrow. Not an object, on which
her eye glanced, but awakened some remembrance, that led immediately to
the subject of her grief. Her favourite plants, which St. Aubert had
taught her to nurse; the little drawings, that adorned the room, which
his taste had instructed her to execute; the books, that he had
selected for her use, and which they had read together; her musical
instruments, whose sounds he loved so well, and which he sometimes
awakened himself—every object gave new force to sorrow. At length, she
roused herself from this melancholy indulgence, and, summoning all her
resolution, stepped forward to go into those forlorn rooms, which,
though she dreaded to enter, she knew would yet more powerfully affect
her, if she delayed to visit them.
Having passed through the green-house, her courage for a moment forsook
her, when she opened the door of the library; and, perhaps, the shade,
which evening and the foliage of the trees near the windows threw
across the room, heightened the solemnity of her feelings on entering
that apartment, where everything spoke of her father. There was an arm
chair, in which he used to sit; she shrunk when she observed it, for
she had so often seen him seated there, and the idea of him rose so
distinctly to her mind, that she almost fancied she saw him before her.
But she checked the illusions of a distempered imagination, though she
could not subdue a certain degree of awe, which now mingled with her
emotions. She walked slowly to the chair, and seated herself in it;
there was a reading-desk before it, on which lay a book open, as it had
been left by her father. It was some moments before she recovered
courage enough to examine it; and, when she looked at the open page,
she immediately recollected, that St. Aubert, on the evening before his
departure from the château, had read to her some passages from this his
favourite author. The circumstance now affected her extremely; she
looked at the page, wept, and looked again. To her the book appeared
sacred and invaluable, and she would not have moved it, or closed the
page, which he had left open, for the treasures of the Indies. Still
she sat before the desk, and could not resolve to quit it, though the
increasing gloom, and the profound silence of the apartment, revived a
degree of painful awe. Her thoughts dwelt on the probable state of
departed spirits, and she remembered the affecting conversation, which
had passed between St. Aubert and La Voisin, on the night preceding his
death.
As she mused she saw the door slowly open, and a rustling sound in a
remote part of the room startled her. Through the dusk she thought she
perceived something move. The subject she had been considering, and the
present tone of her spirits, which made her imagination respond to
every impression of her senses, gave her a sudden terror of something
supernatural. She sat for a moment motionless, and then, her dissipated
reason returning, “What should I fear?” said she. “If the spirits of
those we love ever return to us, it is in kindness.”
The silence, which again reigned, made her ashamed of her late fears,
and she believed, that her imagination had deluded her, or that she had
heard one of those unaccountable noises, which sometimes occur in old
houses. The same sound, however, returned; and, distinguishing
something moving towards her, and in the next instant press beside her
into the chair, she shrieked; but her fleeting senses were instantly
recalled, on perceiving that it was Manchon who sat by her, and who now
licked her hands affectionately.
Perceiving her spirits unequal to the task she had assigned herself of
visiting the deserted rooms of the château this night, when she left
the library, she walked into the garden, and down to the terrace, that
overhung the river. The sun was now set; but, under the dark branches
of the almond trees, was seen the saffron glow of the west, spreading
beyond the twilight of middle air. The bat flitted silently by; and,
now and then, the mourning note of the nightingale was heard. The
circumstances of the hour brought to her recollection some lines, which
she had once heard St. Aubert recite on this very spot, and she had now
a melancholy pleasure in repeating them.
SONNET
Now the bat circles on the breeze of eve,
That creeps, in shudd’ring fits, along the wave,
And trembles ’mid the woods, and through the cave
Whose lonely sighs the wanderer deceive;
For oft, when melancholy charms his mind,
He thinks the Spirit of the rock he hears,
Nor listens, but with sweetly-thrilling fears,
To the low, mystic murmurs of the wind!
Now the bat circles, and the twilight-dew
Falls silent round, and, o’er the mountain-cliff,
The gleaming wave, and far-discover’d skiff,
Spreads the grey veil of soft, harmonious hue.
So falls o’er Grief the dew of pity’s tear
Dimming her lonely visions of despair.
Emily, wandering on, came to St. Aubert’s favourite plane-tree, where
so often, at this hour, they had sat beneath the shade together, and
with her dear mother so often had conversed on the subject of a future
state. How often, too, had her father expressed the comfort he derived
from believing, that they should meet in another world! Emily, overcome
by these recollections, left the plane-tree, and, as she leaned
pensively on the wall of the terrace, she observed a group of peasants
dancing gaily on the banks of the Garonne, which spread in broad
expanse below, and reflected the evening light. What a contrast they
formed to the desolate, unhappy Emily! They were gay and _debonnaire_,
as they were wont to be when she, too, was gay—when St. Aubert used to
listen to their merry music, with a countenance beaming pleasure and
benevolence. Emily, having looked for a moment on this sprightly band,
turned away, unable to bear the remembrances it excited; but where,
alas! could she turn, and not meet new objects to give acuteness to
grief?
As she walked slowly towards the house, she was met by Theresa. “Dear
ma’amselle,” said she, “I have been seeking you up and down this half
hour, and was afraid some accident had happened to you. How can you
like to wander about so in this night air! Do come into the house.
Think what my poor master would have said, if he could see you. I am
sure, when my dear lady died, no gentleman could take it more to heart
than he did, yet you know he seldom shed a tear.”
“Pray, Theresa, cease,” said Emily, wishing to interrupt this
ill-judged, but well-meaning harangue; Theresa’s loquacity, however,
was not to be silenced so easily. “And when you used to grieve so,” she
added, “he often told you how wrong it was—for that my mistress was
happy. And, if she was happy, I am sure he is so too; for the prayers
of the poor, they say, reach heaven.” During this speech, Emily had
walked silently into the château, and Theresa lighted her across the
hall into the common sitting parlour, where she had laid the cloth,
with one solitary knife and fork, for supper. Emily was in the room
before she perceived that it was not her own apartment, but she checked
the emotion which inclined her to leave it, and seated herself quietly
by the little supper table. Her father’s hat hung upon the opposite
wall; while she gazed at it, a faintness came over her. Theresa looked
at her, and then at the object, on which her eyes were settled, and
went to remove it; but Emily waved her hand—“No,” said she, “let it
remain. I am going to my chamber.” “Nay, ma’amselle, supper is ready.”
“I cannot take it,” replied Emily, “I will go to my room, and try to
sleep. Tomorrow I shall be better.”
“This is poor doings!” said Theresa. “Dear lady! do take some food! I
have dressed a pheasant, and a fine one it is. Old Monsieur Barreaux
sent it this morning, for I saw him yesterday, and told him you were
coming. And I know nobody that seemed more concerned, when he heard the
sad news, then he.”
“Did he?” said Emily, in a tender voice, while she felt her poor heart
warmed for a moment by a ray of sympathy.
At length, her spirits were entirely overcome, and she retired to her
room.
CHAPTER IX
Can Music’s voice, can Beauty’s eye,
Can Painting’s glowing hand supply
A charm so suited to my mind,
As blows this hollow gust of wind?
As drops this little weeping rill,
Soft tinkling down the moss-grown hill;
While, through the west, where sinks the crimson day,
Meek Twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners grey?
MASON
Emily, some time after her return to La Vallée, received letters from
her aunt, Madame Cheron, in which, after some common-place condolement
and advice, she invited her to Thoulouse, and added, that, as her late
brother had entrusted Emily’s _education_ to her, she should consider
herself bound to overlook her conduct. Emily, at this time, wished only
to remain at La Vallée, in the scenes of her early happiness, now
rendered infinitely dear to her, as the late residence of those, whom
she had lost for ever, where she could weep unobserved, retrace their
steps, and remember each minute particular of their manners. But she
was equally anxious to avoid the displeasure of Madame Cheron.
Though her affection would not suffer her to question, even a moment,
the propriety of St. Aubert’s conduct in appointing Madame Cheron for
her guardian, she was sensible, that this step had made her happiness
depend, in a great degree, on the humour of her aunt. In her reply, she
begged permission to remain, at present, at La Vallée, mentioning the
extreme dejection of her spirits, and the necessity she felt for quiet
and retirement to restore them. These she knew were not to be found at
Madame Cheron’s, whose inclinations led her into a life of dissipation,
which her ample fortune encouraged; and, having given her answer, she
felt somewhat more at ease.
In the first days of her affliction, she was visited by Monsieur
Barreaux, a sincere mourner for St. Aubert. “I may well lament my
friend,” said he, “for I shall never meet with his resemblance. If I
could have found such a man in what is called society, I should not
have left it.”
M. Barreaux’s admiration of her father endeared him extremely to Emily,
whose heart found almost its first relief in conversing of her parents,
with a man, whom she so much revered, and who, though with such an
ungracious appearance, possessed to much goodness of heart and delicacy
of mind.
Several weeks passed away in quiet retirement, and Emily’s affliction
began to soften into melancholy. She could bear to read the books she
had before read with her father; to sit in his chair in the library—to
watch the flowers his hand had planted—to awaken the tones of that
instrument his fingers had pressed, and sometimes even to play his
favourite air.
When her mind had recovered from the first shock of affliction,
perceiving the danger of yielding to indolence, and that activity alone
could restore its tone, she scrupulously endeavoured to pass all her
hours in employment. And it was now that she understood the full value
of the education she had received from St. Aubert, for in cultivating
her understanding he had secured her an asylum from indolence, without
recourse to dissipation, and rich and varied amusement and information,
independent of the society, from which her situation secluded her. Nor
were the good effects of this education confined to selfish advantages,
since, St. Aubert having nourished every amiable quality of her heart,
it now expanded in benevolence to all around her, and taught her, when
she could not remove the misfortunes of others, at least to soften them
by sympathy and tenderness;—a benevolence that taught her to feel for
all, that could suffer.
Madame Cheron returned no answer to Emily’s letter, who began to hope,
that she should be permitted to remain some time longer in her
retirement, and her mind had now so far recovered its strength, that
she ventured to view the scenes, which most powerfully recalled the
images of past times. Among these was the fishing-house; and, to
indulge still more the affectionate melancholy of the visit, she took
thither her lute, that she might again hear there the tones, to which
St. Aubert and her mother had so often delighted to listen. She went
alone, and at that still hour of the evening which is so soothing to
fancy and to grief. The last time she had been here she was in company
with Monsieur and Madame St. Aubert, a few days preceding that, on
which the latter was seized with a fatal illness. Now, when Emily again
entered the woods, that surrounded the building, they awakened so
forcibly the memory of former times, that her resolution yielded for a
moment to excess of grief. She stopped, leaned for support against a
tree, and wept for some minutes, before she had recovered herself
sufficiently to proceed. The little path, that led to the building, was
overgrown with grass and the flowers which St. Aubert had scattered
carelessly along the border were almost choked with weeds—the tall
thistle—the fox-glove, and the nettle. She often paused to look on the
desolate spot, now so silent and forsaken, and when, with a trembling
hand, she opened the door of the fishing-house, “Ah!” said she,
“everything—everything remains as when I left it last—left it with
those who never must return!” She went to a window, that overhung the
rivulet, and, leaning over it, with her eyes fixed on the current, was
soon lost in melancholy reverie. The lute she had brought lay forgotten
beside her; the mournful sighing of the breeze, as it waved the high
pines above, and its softer whispers among the osiers, that bowed upon
the banks below, was a kind of music more in unison with her feelings.
It did not vibrate on the chords of unhappy memory, but was soothing to
the heart as the voice of Pity. She continued to muse, unconscious of
the gloom of evening, and that the sun’s last light trembled on the
heights above, and would probably have remained so much longer, if a
sudden footstep, without the building, had not alarmed her attention,
and first made her recollect that she was unprotected. In the next
moment, a door opened, and a stranger appeared, who stopped on
perceiving Emily, and then began to apologise for his intrusion. But
Emily, at the sound of his voice, lost her fear in a stronger emotion:
its tones were familiar to her ear, and, though she could not readily
distinguish through the dusk the features of the person who spoke, she
felt a remembrance too strong to be distrusted.
He repeated his apology, and Emily then said something in reply, when
the stranger eagerly advancing, exclaimed, “Good God! can it be—surely
I am not mistaken—ma’amselle St. Aubert?—is it not?”
“It is indeed,” said Emily, who was confirmed in her first conjecture,
for she now distinguished the countenance of Valancourt, lighted up
with still more than its usual animation. A thousand painful
recollections crowded to her mind, and the effort, which she made to
support herself, only served to increase her agitation. Valancourt,
meanwhile, having enquired anxiously after her health, and expressed
his hopes, that M. St. Aubert had found benefit from travelling,
learned from the flood of tears, which she could no longer repress, the
fatal truth. He led her to a seat, and sat down by her, while Emily
continued to weep, and Valancourt to hold the hand, which she was
unconscious he had taken, till it was wet with the tears, which grief
for St. Aubert and sympathy for herself had called forth.
“I feel,” said he at length, “I feel how insufficient all attempt at
consolation must be on this subject. I can only mourn with you, for I
cannot doubt the source of your tears. Would to God I were mistaken!”
Emily could still answer only by tears, till she rose, and begged they
might leave the melancholy spot, when Valancourt, though he saw her
feebleness, could not offer to detain her, but took her arm within his,
and led her from the fishing-house. They walked silently through the
woods, Valancourt anxious to know, yet fearing to ask any particulars
concerning St. Aubert; and Emily too much distressed to converse. After
some time, however, she acquired fortitude enough to speak of her
father, and to give a brief account of the manner of his death; during
which recital Valancourt’s countenance betrayed strong emotion, and,
when he heard that St. Aubert had died on the road, and that Emily had
been left among strangers, he pressed her hand between his, and
involuntarily exclaimed, “Why was I not there!” but in the next moment
recollected himself, for he immediately returned to the mention of her
father; till, perceiving that her spirits were exhausted, he gradually
changed the subject, and spoke of himself. Emily thus learned that,
after they had parted, he had wandered, for some time, along the shores
of the Mediterranean, and had then returned through Languedoc into
Gascony, which was his native province, and where he usually resided.
When he had concluded his little narrative, he sunk into a silence,
which Emily was not disposed to interrupt, and it continued, till they
reached the gate of the château, when he stopped, as if he had known
this to be the limit of his walk. Here, saying, that it was his
intention to return to Estuvière on the following day, he asked her if
she would permit him to take leave of her in the morning; and Emily,
perceiving that she could not reject an ordinary civility, without
expressing by her refusal an expectation of something more, was
compelled to answer, that she should be at home.
She passed a melancholy evening, during which the retrospect of all
that had happened, since she had seen Valancourt, would rise to her
imagination; and the scene of her father’s death appeared in tints as
fresh, as if it had passed on the preceding day. She remembered
particularly the earnest and solemn manner, in which he had required
her to destroy the manuscript papers, and, awakening from the lethargy,
in which sorrow had held her, she was shocked to think she had not yet
obeyed him, and determined, that another day should not reproach her
with the neglect.
CHAPTER X
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder?
MACBETH
On the next morning, Emily ordered a fire to be lighted in the stove of
the chamber, where St. Aubert used to sleep; and, as soon as she had
breakfasted, went thither to burn the papers. Having fastened the door
to prevent interruption, she opened the closet where they were
concealed, as she entered which, she felt an emotion of unusual awe,
and stood for some moments surveying it, trembling, and almost afraid
to remove the board. There was a great chair in one corner of the
closet, and, opposite to it, stood the table, at which she had seen her
father sit, on the evening that preceded his departure, looking over,
with so much emotion, what she believed to be these very papers.
The solitary life, which Emily had led of late, and the melancholy
subjects, on which she had suffered her thoughts to dwell, had rendered
her at times sensible to the ‘thick-coming fancies’ of a mind greatly
enervated. It was lamentable, that her excellent understanding should
have yielded, even for a moment, to the reveries of superstition, or
rather to those starts of imagination, which deceive the senses into
what can be called nothing less than momentary madness. Instances of
this temporary failure of mind had more than once occurred since her
return home; particularly when, wandering through this lonely mansion
in the evening twilight, she had been alarmed by appearances, which
would have been unseen in her more cheerful days. To this infirm state
of her nerves may be attributed what she imagined, when, her eyes
glancing a second time on the arm-chair, which stood in an obscure part
of the closet, the countenance of her dead father appeared there. Emily
stood fixed for a moment to the floor, after which she left the closet.
Her spirits, however, soon returned; she reproached herself with the
weakness of thus suffering interruption in an act of serious
importance, and again opened the door. By the directions which St.
Aubert had given her, she readily found the board he had described in
an opposite corner of the closet, near the window; she distinguished
also the line he had mentioned, and, pressing it as he had bade her, it
slid down, and disclosed the bundle of papers, together with some
scattered ones, and the purse of louis. With a trembling hand she
removed them, replaced the board, paused a moment, and was rising from
the floor, when, on looking up, there appeared to her alarmed fancy the
same countenance in the chair. The illusion, another instance of the
unhappy effect which solitude and grief had gradually produced upon her
mind, subdued her spirits; she rushed forward into the chamber, and
sunk almost senseless into a chair. Returning reason soon overcame the
dreadful, but pitiable attack of imagination, and she turned to the
papers, though still with so little recollection, that her eyes
involuntarily settled on the writing of some loose sheets, which lay
open; and she was unconscious, that she was transgressing her father’s
strict injunction, till a sentence of dreadful import awakened her
attention and her memory together. She hastily put the papers from her;
but the words, which had roused equally her curiosity and terror, she
could not dismiss from her thoughts. So powerfully had they affected
her, that she even could not resolve to destroy the papers immediately;
and the more she dwelt on the circumstance, the more it inflamed her
imagination. Urged by the most forcible, and apparently the most
necessary, curiosity to enquire farther, concerning the terrible and
mysterious subject, to which she had seen an allusion, she began to
lament her promise to destroy the papers. For a moment, she even
doubted, whether it could justly be obeyed, in contradiction to such
reasons as there appeared to be for further information. But the
delusion was momentary.
“I have given a solemn promise,” said she, “to observe a solemn
injunction, and it is not my business to argue, but to obey. Let me
hasten to remove the temptation, that would destroy my innocence, and
embitter my life with the consciousness of irremediable guilt, while I
have strength to reject it.”
Thus reanimated with a sense of her duty, she completed the triumph of
her integrity over temptation, more forcible than any she had ever
known, and consigned the papers to the flames. Her eyes watched them as
they slowly consumed, she shuddered at the recollection of the sentence
she had just seen, and at the certainty, that the only opportunity of
explaining it was then passing away for ever.
It was long after this, that she recollected the purse; and as she was
depositing it, unopened, in a cabinet, perceiving that it contained
something of a size larger than coin, she examined it. “His hand
deposited them here,” said she, as she kissed some pieces of the coin,
and wetted them with her tears, “his hand—which is now dust!” At the
bottom of the purse was a small packet, having taken out which, and
unfolded paper after paper, she found to be an ivory case, containing
the miniature of a—lady! She started—“The same,” said she, “my father
wept over!” On examining the countenance she could recollect no person
that it resembled. It was of uncommon beauty, and was characterised by
an expression of sweetness, shaded with sorrow, and tempered by
resignation.
St. Aubert had given no directions concerning this picture, nor had
even named it; she, therefore, thought herself justified in preserving
it. More than once remembering his manner, when he had spoken of the
Marchioness of Villeroi, she felt inclined to believe that this was her
resemblance; yet there appeared no reason why he should have preserved
a picture of that lady, or, having preserved it, why he should lament
over it in a manner so striking and affecting as she had witnessed on
the night preceding his departure.
Emily still gazed on the countenance, examining its features, but she
knew not where to detect the charm that captivated her attention, and
inspired sentiments of such love and pity. Dark brown hair played
carelessly along the open forehead; the nose was rather inclined to
aquiline; the lips spoke in a smile, but it was a melancholy one; the
eyes were blue, and were directed upwards with an expression of
peculiar meekness, while the soft cloud of the brow spoke of the fine
sensibility of the temper.
Emily was roused from the musing mood into which the picture had thrown
her, by the closing of the garden gate; and, on turning her eyes to the
window, she saw Valancourt coming towards the château. Her spirits
agitated by the subjects that had lately occupied her mind, she felt
unprepared to see him, and remained a few moments in the chamber to
recover herself.
When she met him in the parlour, she was struck with the change that
appeared in his air and countenance since they had parted in Rousillon,
which twilight and the distress she suffered on the preceding evening
had prevented her from observing. But dejection and languor
disappeared, for a moment, in the smile that now enlightened his
countenance, on perceiving her. “You see,” said he, “I have availed
myself of the permission with which you honoured me—of bidding _you_
farewell, whom I had the happiness of meeting only yesterday.”
Emily smiled faintly, and, anxious to say something, asked if he had
been long in Gascony. “A few days only,” replied Valancourt, while a
blush passed over his cheek. “I engaged in a long ramble after I had
the misfortune of parting with the friends who had made my wanderings
among the Pyrenees so delightful.”
A tear came to Emily’s eye, as Valancourt said this, which he observed;
and, anxious to draw off her attention from the remembrance that had
occasioned it, as well as shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he began
to speak on other subjects, expressing his admiration of the château,
and its prospects. Emily, who felt somewhat embarrassed how to support
a conversation, was glad of such an opportunity to continue it on
indifferent topics. They walked down to the terrace, where Valancourt
was charmed with the river scenery, and the views over the opposite
shores of Guienne.
As he leaned on the wall of the terrace, watching the rapid current of
the Garonne, “I was a few weeks ago,” said he, “at the source of this
noble river; I had not then the happiness of knowing you, or I should
have regretted your absence—it was a scene so exactly suited to your
taste. It rises in a part of the Pyrenees, still wilder and more
sublime, I think, than any we passed in the way to Rousillon.” He then
described its fall among the precipices of the mountains, where its
waters, augmented by the streams that descend from the snowy summits
around, rush into the Vallée d’Aran, between whose romantic heights it
foams along, pursuing its way to the north west till it emerges upon
the plains of Languedoc. Then, washing the walls of Thoulouse, and
turning again to the north west, it assumes a milder character, as it
fertilizes the pastures of Gascony and Guienne, in its progress to the
Bay of Biscay.
Emily and Valancourt talked of the scenes they had passed among the
Pyrenean Alps; as he spoke of which there was often a tremulous
tenderness in his voice, and sometimes he expatiated on them with all
the fire of genius, sometimes would appear scarcely conscious of the
topic, though he continued to speak. This subject recalled forcibly to
Emily the idea of her father, whose image appeared in every landscape,
which Valancourt particularized, whose remarks dwelt upon her memory,
and whose enthusiasm still glowed in her heart. Her silence, at length,
reminded Valancourt how nearly his conversation approached to the
occasion of her grief, and he changed the subject, though for one
scarcely less affecting to Emily. When he admired the grandeur of the
plane-tree, that spread its wide branches over the terrace, and under
whose shade they now sat, she remembered how often she had sat thus
with St. Aubert, and heard him express the same admiration.
“This was a favourite tree with my dear father,” said she; “he used to
love to sit under its foliage with his family about him, in the fine
evenings of summer.”
Valancourt understood her feelings, and was silent; had she raised her
eyes from the ground she would have seen tears in his. He rose, and
leaned on the wall of the terrace, from which, in a few moments, he
returned to his seat, then rose again, and appeared to be greatly
agitated; while Emily found her spirits so much depressed, that several
of her attempts to renew the conversation were ineffectual. Valancourt
again sat down, but was still silent, and trembled. At length he said,
with a hesitating voice, “This lovely scene!—I am going to leave—to
leave you—perhaps for ever! These moments may never return; I cannot
resolve to neglect, though I scarcely dare to avail myself of them. Let
me, however, without offending the delicacy of your sorrow, venture to
declare the admiration I must always feel of your goodness—O! that at
some future period I might be permitted to call it love!”
Emily’s emotion would not suffer her to reply; and Valancourt, who now
ventured to look up, observing her countenance change, expected to see
her faint, and made an involuntary effort to support her, which
recalled Emily to a sense of her situation, and to an exertion of her
spirits. Valancourt did not appear to notice her indisposition, but,
when he spoke again, his voice told the tenderest love. “I will not
presume,” he added, “to intrude this subject longer upon your attention
at this time, but I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention, that these
parting moments would lose much of their bitterness if I might be
allowed to hope the declaration I have made would not exclude me from
your presence in future.”
Emily made another effort to overcome the confusion of her thoughts,
and to speak. She feared to trust the preference her heart acknowledged
towards Valancourt, and to give him any encouragement for hope, on so
short an acquaintance. For though in this narrow period she had
observed much that was admirable in his taste and disposition, and
though these observations had been sanctioned by the opinion of her
father, they were not sufficient testimonies of his general worth to
determine her upon a subject so infinitely important to her future
happiness as that, which now solicited her attention. Yet, though the
thought of dismissing Valancourt was so very painful to her, that she
could scarcely endure to pause upon it, the consciousness of this made
her fear the partiality of her judgment, and hesitate still more to
encourage that suit, for which her own heart too tenderly pleaded. The
family of Valancourt, if not his circumstances, had been known to her
father, and known to be unexceptionable. Of his circumstances,
Valancourt himself hinted as far as delicacy would permit, when he said
he had at present little else to offer but a heart, that adored her. He
had solicited only for a distant hope, and she could not resolve to
forbid, though she scarcely dared to permit it; at length, she acquired
courage to say, that she must think herself honoured by the good
opinion of any person, whom her father had esteemed.
“And was I, then, thought worthy of his esteem?” said Valancourt, in a
voice trembling with anxiety; then checking himself, he added, “But
pardon the question; I scarcely know what I say. If I might dare to
hope, that you think me not unworthy such honour, and might be
permitted sometimes to enquire after your health, I should now leave
you with comparative tranquillity.”
Emily, after a moment’s silence, said, “I will be ingenuous with you,
for I know you will understand, and allow for my situation; you will
consider it as a proof of my—my esteem that I am so. Though I live here
in what was my father’s house, I live here alone. I have, alas! no
longer a parent—a parent, whose presence might sanction your visits. It
is unnecessary for me to point out the impropriety of my receiving
them.”
“Nor will I affect to be insensible of this,” replied Valancourt,
adding mournfully—“but what is to console me for my candour? I distress
you, and would now leave the subject, if I might carry with me a hope
of being some time permitted to renew it, of being allowed to make
myself known to your family.”
Emily was again confused, and again hesitated what to reply; she felt
most acutely the difficulty—the forlornness of her situation, which did
not allow her a single relative, or friend, to whom she could turn for
even a look, that might support and guide her in the present
embarrassing circumstances. Madame Cheron, who was her only relative,
and ought to have been this friend, was either occupied by her own
amusements, or so resentful of the reluctance her niece had shown to
quit La Vallée, that she seemed totally to have abandoned her.
“Ah! I see,” said Valancourt, after a long pause, during which Emily
had begun, and left unfinished two or three sentences, “I see that I
have nothing to hope; my fears were too just, you think me unworthy of
your esteem. That fatal journey! which I considered as the happiest
period of my life—those delightful days were to embitter all my future
ones. How often I have looked back to them with hope and fear—yet never
till this moment could I prevail with myself to regret their enchanting
influence.”
His voice faltered, and he abruptly quitted his seat and walked on the
terrace. There was an expression of despair on his countenance, that
affected Emily. The pleadings of her heart overcame, in some degree,
her extreme timidity, and, when he resumed his seat, she said, in an
accent that betrayed her tenderness, “You do both yourself and me
injustice when you say I think you unworthy of my esteem; I will
acknowledge that you have long possessed it, and—and—”
Valancourt waited impatiently for the conclusion of the sentence, but
the words died on her lips. Her eyes, however, reflected all the
emotions of her heart. Valancourt passed, in an instant, from the
impatience of despair, to that of joy and tenderness. “O Emily!” he
exclaimed, “my own Emily—teach me to sustain this moment! Let me seal
it as the most sacred of my life!”
He pressed her hand to his lips, it was cold and trembling; and,
raising her eyes, he saw the paleness of her countenance. Tears came to
her relief, and Valancourt watched in anxious silence over her. In a
few moments, she recovered herself, and smiling faintly through her
tears, said, “Can you excuse this weakness? My spirits have not yet, I
believe, recovered from the shock they lately received.”
“I cannot excuse myself,” said Valancourt, “but I will forbear to renew
the subject, which may have contributed to agitate them, now that I can
leave you with the sweet certainty of possessing your esteem.”
Then, forgetting his resolution, he again spoke of himself. “You know
not,” said he, “the many anxious hours I have passed near you lately,
when you believed me, if indeed you honoured me with a thought, far
away. I have wandered, near the château, in the still hours of the
night, when no eye could observe me. It was delightful to know I was so
near you, and there was something particularly soothing in the thought,
that I watched round your habitation, while you slept. These grounds
are not entirely new to me. Once I ventured within the fence, and spent
one of the happiest, and yet most melancholy hours of my life in
walking under what I believed to be your window.”
Emily enquired how long Valancourt had been in the neighbourhood.
“Several days,” he replied. “It was my design to avail myself of the
permission M. St. Aubert had given me. I scarcely know how to account
for it; but, though I anxiously wished to do this, my resolution always
failed, when the moment approached, and I constantly deferred my visit.
I lodged in a village at some distance, and wandered with my dogs,
among the scenes of this charming country, wishing continually to meet
you, yet not daring to visit you.”
Having thus continued to converse, without perceiving the flight of
time, Valancourt, at length, seemed to recollect himself. “I must go,”
said he mournfully, “but it is with the hope of seeing you again, of
being permitted to pay my respects to your family; let me hear this
hope confirmed by your voice.” “My family will be happy to see any
friend of my dear father,” said Emily. Valancourt kissed her hand, and
still lingered, unable to depart, while Emily sat silently, with her
eyes bent on the ground; and Valancourt, as he gazed on her, considered
that it would soon be impossible for him to recall, even to his memory,
the exact resemblance of the beautiful countenance he then beheld; at
this moment a hasty footstep approached from behind the plane-tree,
and, turning her eyes, Emily saw Madame Cheron. She felt a blush steal
upon her cheek, and her frame trembled with the emotion of her mind;
but she instantly rose to meet her visitor. “So, niece!” said Madame
Cheron, casting a look of surprise and enquiry on Valancourt, “so
niece, how do you do? But I need not ask, your looks tell me you have
already recovered your loss.”
“My looks do me injustice then, Madame, my loss I know can never be
recovered.”
“Well—well! I will not argue with you; I see you have exactly your
father’s disposition; and let me tell you it would have been much
happier for him, poor man! if it had been a different one.”
A look of dignified displeasure, with which Emily regarded Madame
Cheron, while she spoke, would have touched almost any other heart; she
made no other reply, but introduced Valancourt, who could scarcely
stifle the resentment he felt, and whose bow Madame Cheron returned
with a slight curtsy, and a look of supercilious examination. After a
few moments he took leave of Emily, in a manner, that hastily expressed
his pain both at his own departure, and at leaving her to the society
of Madame Cheron.
“Who is that young man?” said her aunt, in an accent which equally
implied inquisitiveness and censure. “Some idle admirer of yours I
suppose; but I believed niece you had a greater sense of propriety,
than to have received the visits of any young man in your present
unfriended situation. Let me tell you the world will observe those
things, and it will talk, aye and very freely too.”
Emily, extremely shocked at this coarse speech, attempted to interrupt
it; but Madame Cheron would proceed, with all the self-importance of a
person, to whom power is new.
“It is very necessary you should be under the eye of some person more
able to guide you than yourself. I, indeed, have not much leisure for
such a task; however, since your poor father made it his last request,
that I should overlook your conduct—I must even take you under my care.
But this let me tell you niece, that, unless you will determine to be
very conformable to my direction, I shall not trouble myself longer
about you.”
Emily made no attempt to interrupt Madame Cheron a second time, grief
and the pride of conscious innocence kept her silent, till her aunt
said, “I am now come to take you with me to Thoulouse; I am sorry to
find, that your poor father died, after all, in such indifferent
circumstances; however, I shall take you home with me. Ah! poor man, he
was always more generous than provident, or he would not have left his
daughter dependent on his relations.”
“Nor has he done so, I hope, madam,” said Emily calmly, “nor did his
pecuniary misfortunes arise from that noble generosity, which always
distinguished him. The affairs of M. de Motteville may, I trust, yet be
settled without deeply injuring his creditors, and in the meantime I
should be very happy to remain at La Vallée.”
“No doubt you would,” replied Madame Cheron, with a smile of irony,
“and I shall no doubt consent to this, since I see how necessary
tranquillity and retirement are to restore your spirits. I did not
think you capable of so much duplicity, niece; when you pleaded this
excuse for remaining here, I foolishly believed it to be a just one,
nor expected to have found with you so agreeable a companion as this M.
La Val—, I forget his name.”
Emily could no longer endure these cruel indignities. “It was a just
one, madam,” said she; “and now, indeed, I feel more than ever the
value of the retirement I then solicited; and, if the purport of your
visit is only to add insult to the sorrows of your brother’s child, she
could well have spared it.”
“I see that I have undertaken a very troublesome task,” said Madame
Cheron, colouring highly. “I am sure, madam,” said Emily mildly, and
endeavouring to restrain her tears, “I am sure my father did not mean
it should be such. I have the happiness to reflect, that my conduct
under his eye was such as he often delighted to approve. It would be
very painful to me to disobey the sister of such a parent, and, if you
believe the task will really be so troublesome, I must lament, that it
is yours.”
“Well! niece, fine speaking signifies little. I am willing, in
consideration of my poor brother, to overlook the impropriety of your
late conduct, and to try what your future will be.”
Emily interrupted her, to beg she would explain what was the
impropriety she alluded to.
“What impropriety! why that of receiving the visits of a lover unknown
to your family,” replied Madame Cheron, not considering the impropriety
of which she had herself been guilty, in exposing her niece to the
possibility of conduct so erroneous.
A faint blush passed over Emily’s countenance; pride and anxiety
struggled in her breast; and, till she recollected, that appearances
did, in some degree, justify her aunt’s suspicions, she could not
resolve to humble herself so far as to enter into the defence of a
conduct, which had been so innocent and undesigning on her part. She
mentioned the manner of Valancourt’s introduction to her father; the
circumstances of his receiving the pistol-shot, and of their afterwards
travelling together; with the accidental way, in which she had met him,
on the preceding evening. She owned he had declared a partiality for
her, and that he had asked permission to address her family.
“And who is this young adventurer, pray?” said Madame Cheron, “and what
are his pretensions?” “These he must himself explain, madam,” replied
Emily. “Of his family my father was not ignorant, and I believe it is
unexceptionable.” She then proceeded to mention what she knew
concerning it.
“Oh, then, this it seems is a younger brother,” exclaimed her aunt,
“and of course a beggar. A very fine tale indeed! And so my brother
took a fancy to this young man after only a few days acquaintance!—but
that was so like him! In his youth he was always taking these likes and
dislikes, when no other person saw any reason for them at all; nay,
indeed, I have often thought the people he disapproved were much more
agreeable than those he admired;—but there is no accounting for tastes.
He was always so much influenced by people’s countenances; now I, for
my part, have no notion of this, it is all ridiculous enthusiasm. What
has a man’s face to do with his character? Can a man of good character
help having a disagreeable face?”—which last sentence Madame Cheron
delivered with the decisive air of a person who congratulates herself
on having made a grand discovery, and believes the question to be
unanswerably settled.
Emily, desirous of concluding the conversation, enquired if her aunt
would accept some refreshment, and Madame Cheron accompanied her to the
château, but without desisting from a topic, which she discussed with
so much complacency to herself, and severity to her niece.
“I am sorry to perceive, niece,” said she, in allusion to somewhat that
Emily had said, concerning physiognomy, “that you have a great many of
your father’s prejudices, and among them those sudden predilections for
people from their looks. I can perceive, that you imagine yourself to
be violently in love with this young adventurer, after an acquaintance
of only a few days. There was something, too, so charmingly romantic in
the manner of your meeting!”
Emily checked the tears, that trembled in her eyes, while she said,
“When my conduct shall deserve this severity, madam, you will do well
to exercise it; till then justice, if not tenderness, should surely
restrain it. I have never willingly offended you; now I have lost my
parents, you are the only person to whom I can look for kindness. Let
me not lament more than ever the loss of such parents.” The last words
were almost stifled by her emotions, and she burst into tears.
Remembering the delicacy and the tenderness of St. Aubert, the happy,
happy days she had passed in these scenes, and contrasting them with
the coarse and unfeeling behaviour of Madame Cheron, and from the
future hours of mortification she must submit to in her presence—a
degree of grief seized her, that almost reached despair. Madame Cheron,
more offended by the reproof which Emily’s words conveyed, than touched
by the sorrow they expressed, said nothing, that might soften her
grief; but, notwithstanding an apparent reluctance to receive her
niece, she desired her company. The love of sway was her ruling
passion, and she knew it would be highly gratified by taking into her
house a young orphan, who had no appeal from her decisions, and on whom
she could exercise without control the capricious humour of the moment.
On entering the château, Madame Cheron expressed a desire, that she
would put up what she thought necessary to take to Thoulouse, as she
meant to set off immediately. Emily now tried to persuade her to defer
the journey, at least till the next day, and, at length, with much
difficulty, prevailed.
The day passed in the exercise of petty tyranny on the part of Madame
Cheron, and in mournful regret and melancholy anticipation on that of
Emily, who, when her aunt retired to her apartment for the night, went
to take leave of every other room in this her dear native home, which
she was now quitting for she knew not how long, and for a world, to
which she was wholly a stranger. She could not conquer a presentiment,
which frequently occurred to her, this night—that she should never more
return to La Vallée. Having passed a considerable time in what had been
her father’s study, having selected some of his favourite authors, to
put up with her clothes, and shed many tears, as she wiped the dust
from their covers, she seated herself in his chair before the reading
desk, and sat lost in melancholy reflection, till Theresa opened the
door to examine, as was her custom before she went to bed, it was all
safe. She started, on observing her young lady, who bade her come in,
and then gave her some directions for keeping the château in readiness
for her reception at all times.
“Alas-a-day! that you should leave it!” said Theresa, “I think you
would be happier here than where you are going, if one may judge.”
Emily made no reply to this remark; the sorrow Theresa proceeded to
express at her departure affected her, but she found some comfort in
the simple affection of this poor old servant, to whom she gave such
directions as might best conduce to her comfort during her own absence.
Having dismissed Theresa to bed, Emily wandered through every lonely
apartment of the château, lingering long in what had been her father’s
bedroom, indulging melancholy, yet not unpleasing, emotions, and,
having often returned within the door to take another look at it, she
withdrew to her own chamber. From her window she gazed upon the garden
below, shown faintly by the moon, rising over the tops of the
palm-trees, and, at length, the calm beauty of the night increased a
desire of indulging the mournful sweetness of bidding farewell to the
beloved shades of her childhood, till she was tempted to descend.
Throwing over her the light veil, in which she usually walked, she
silently passed into the garden, and, hastening towards the distant
groves, was glad to breathe once more the air of liberty, and to sigh
unobserved. The deep repose of the scene, the rich scents, that floated
on the breeze, the grandeur of the wide horizon and of the clear blue
arch, soothed and gradually elevated her mind to that sublime
complacency, which renders the vexations of this world so insignificant
and mean in our eyes, that we wonder they have had power for a moment
to disturb us. Emily forgot Madame Cheron and all the circumstances of
her conduct, while her thoughts ascended to the contemplation of those
unnumbered worlds, that lie scattered in the depths of æther, thousands
of them hid from human eyes, and almost beyond the flight of human
fancy. As her imagination soared through the regions of space, and
aspired to that Great First Cause, which pervades and governs all
being, the idea of her father scarcely ever left her; but it was a
pleasing idea, since she resigned him to God in the full confidence of
a pure and holy faith. She pursued her way through the groves to the
terrace, often pausing as memory awakened the pang of affection, and as
reason anticipated the exile, into which she was going.
And now the moon was high over the woods, touching their summits with
yellow light, and darting between the foliage long level beams; while
on the rapid Garonne below the trembling radiance was faintly obscured
by the lightest vapour. Emily long watched the playing lustre, listened
to the soothing murmur of the current, and the yet lighter sounds of
the air, as it stirred, at intervals, the lofty palm-trees. “How
delightful is the sweet breath of these groves,” said she. “This lovely
scene!—how often shall I remember and regret it, when I am far away.
Alas! what events may occur before I see it again! O, peaceful, happy
shades!—scenes of my infant delights, of parental tenderness now lost
for ever!—why must I leave ye!—In your retreats I should still find
safety and repose. Sweet hours of my childhood—I am now to leave even
your last memorials! No objects, that would revive your impressions,
will remain for me!”
Then drying her tears and looking up, her thoughts rose again to the
sublime subject she had contemplated; the same divine complacency stole
over her heart, and, hushing its throbs, inspired hope and confidence
and resignation to the will of the Deity, whose works filled her mind
with adoration.
Emily gazed long on the plane-tree, and then seated herself, for the
last time, on the bench under its shade, where she had so often sat
with her parents, and where, only a few hours before, she had conversed
with Valancourt, at the remembrance of whom, thus revived, a mingled
sensation of esteem, tenderness and anxiety rose in her breast. With
this remembrance occurred a recollection of his late confession—that he
had often wandered near her habitation in the night, having even passed
the boundary of the garden, and it immediately occurred to her, that he
might be at this moment in the grounds. The fear of meeting him,
particularly after the declaration he had made, and of incurring a
censure, which her aunt might so reasonably bestow, if it was known,
that she was met by her lover, at this hour, made her instantly leave
her beloved plane-tree, and walk towards the château. She cast an
anxious eye around, and often stopped for a moment to examine the
shadowy scene before she ventured to proceed, but she passed on without
perceiving any person, till, having reached a clump of almond trees,
not far from the house, she rested to take a retrospect of the garden,
and to sigh forth another adieu. As her eyes wandered over the
landscape she thought she perceived a person emerge from the groves,
and pass slowly along a moonlight alley that led between them; but the
distance, and the imperfect light would not suffer her to judge with
any degree of certainty whether this was fancy or reality. She
continued to gaze for some time on the spot, till on the dead stillness
of the air she heard a sudden sound, and in the next instant fancied
she distinguished footsteps near her. Wasting not another moment in
conjecture, she hurried to the château, and, having reached it, retired
to her chamber, where, as she closed her window she looked upon the
garden, and then again thought she distinguished a figure, gliding
between the almond trees she had just left. She immediately withdrew
from the casement, and, though much agitated, sought in sleep the
refreshment of a short oblivion.
CHAPTER XI
I leave that flowery path for eye
Of childhood, where I sported many a day,
Warbling and sauntering carelessly along;
Where every face was innocent and gay,
Each vale romantic, tuneful every tongue—
Sweet, wild, and artless, all.
THE MINSTREL
At an early hour, the carriage, which was to take Emily and Madame
Cheron to Thoulouse, appeared at the door of the château, and Madame
was already in the breakfast-room, when her niece entered it. The
repast was silent and melancholy on the part of Emily; and Madame
Cheron, whose vanity was piqued on observing her dejection, reproved
her in a manner that did not contribute to remove it. It was with much
reluctance, that Emily’s request to take with her the dog, which had
been a favourite of her father, was granted. Her aunt, impatient to be
gone, ordered the carriage to draw up; and, while she passed to the
hall door, Emily gave another look into the library, and another
farewell glance over the garden, and then followed. Old Theresa stood
at the door to take leave of her young lady. “God for ever keep you,
ma’amselle!” said she, while Emily gave her hand in silence, and could
answer only with a pressure of her hand, and a forced smile.
At the gate, which led out of the grounds, several of her father’s
pensioners were assembled to bid her farewell, to whom she would have
spoken, if her aunt would have suffered the driver to stop; and, having
distributed to them almost all the money she had about her, she sunk
back in the carriage, yielding to the melancholy of her heart. Soon
after, she caught, between the steep banks of the road, another view of
the château, peeping from among the high trees, and surrounded by green
slopes and tufted groves, the Garonne winding its way beneath their
shades, sometimes lost among the vineyards, and then rising in greater
majesty in the distant pastures. The towering precipices of the
Pyrenees, that rose to the south, gave Emily a thousand interesting
recollections of her late journey; and these objects of her former
enthusiastic admiration, now excited only sorrow and regret. Having
gazed on the château and its lovely scenery, till the banks again
closed upon them, her mind became too much occupied by mournful
reflections, to permit her to attend to the conversation, which Madame
Cheron had begun on some trivial topic, so that they soon travelled in
profound silence.
Valancourt, meanwhile, was returned to Estuvière, his heart occupied
with the image of Emily; sometimes indulging in reveries of future
happiness, but more frequently shrinking with dread of the opposition
he might encounter from her family. He was the younger son of an
ancient family of Gascony; and, having lost his parents at an early
period of his life, the care of his education and of his small portion
had devolved to his brother, the Count de Duvarney, his senior by
nearly twenty years. Valancourt had been educated in all the
accomplishments of his age, and had an ardour of spirit, and a certain
grandeur of mind, that gave him particular excellence in the exercises
then thought heroic. His little fortune had been diminished by the
necessary expences of his education; but M. La Valancourt, the elder,
seemed to think that his genius and accomplishments would amply supply
the deficiency of his inheritance. They offered flattering hopes of
promotion in the military profession, in those times almost the only
one in which a gentleman could engage without incurring a stain on his
name; and La Valancourt was of course enrolled in the army. The general
genius of his mind was but little understood by his brother. That
ardour for whatever is great and good in the moral world, as well as in
the natural one, displayed itself in his infant years; and the strong
indignation, which he felt and expressed at a criminal, or a mean
action, sometimes drew upon him the displeasure of his tutor; who
reprobated it under the general term of violence of temper; and who,
when haranguing on the virtues of mildness and moderation, seemed to
forget the gentleness and compassion, which always appeared in his
pupil towards objects of misfortune.
He had now obtained leave of absence from his regiment when he made the
excursion into the Pyrenees, which was the means of introducing him to
St. Aubert; and, as this permission was nearly expired, he was the more
anxious to declare himself to Emily’s family, from whom he reasonably
apprehended opposition, since his fortune, though, with a moderate
addition from hers, it would be sufficient to support them, would not
satisfy the views, either of vanity, or ambition. Valancourt was not
without the latter, but he saw golden visions of promotion in the army;
and believed, that with Emily he could, in the mean time, be delighted
to live within the limits of his humble income. His thoughts were now
occupied in considering the means of making himself known to her
family, to whom, however, he had yet no address, for he was entirely
ignorant of Emily’s precipitate departure from La Vallée, of whom he
hoped to obtain it.
Meanwhile, the travellers pursued their journey; Emily making frequent
efforts to appear cheerful, and too often relapsing into silence and
dejection. Madame Cheron, attributing her melancholy solely to the
circumstance of her being removed to a distance from her lover, and
believing, that the sorrow, which her niece still expressed for the
loss of St. Aubert, proceeded partly from an affectation of
sensibility, endeavoured to make it appear ridiculous to her, that such
deep regret should continue to be felt so long after the period usually
allowed for grief.
At length, these unpleasant lectures were interrupted by the arrival of
the travellers at Thoulouse; and Emily, who had not been there for many
years, and had only a very faint recollection of it, was surprised at
the ostentatious style exhibited in her aunt’s house and furniture; the
more so, perhaps, because it was so totally different from the modest
elegance, to which she had been accustomed. She followed Madame Cheron
through a large hall, where several servants in rich liveries appeared,
to a kind of saloon, fitted up with more show than taste; and her aunt,
complaining of fatigue, ordered supper immediately. “I am glad to find
myself in my own house again,” said she, throwing herself on a large
settee, “and to have my own people about me. I detest travelling;
though, indeed, I ought to like it, for what I see abroad always makes
me delighted to return to my own château. What makes you so silent,
child?—What is it that disturbs you now?”
Emily suppressed a starting tear, and tried to smile away the
expression of an oppressed heart; she was thinking of _her_ home, and
felt too sensibly the arrogance and ostentatious vanity of Madame
Cheron’s conversation. “Can this be my father’s sister!” said she to
herself; and then the conviction that she was so, warming her heart
with something like kindness towards her, she felt anxious to soften
the harsh impression her mind had received of her aunt’s character, and
to show a willingness to oblige her. The effort did not entirely fail;
she listened with apparent cheerfulness, while Madame Cheron expatiated
on the splendour of her house, told of the numerous parties she
entertained, and what she should expect of Emily, whose diffidence
assumed the air of a reserve, which her aunt, believing it to be that
of pride and ignorance united, now took occasion to reprehend. She knew
nothing of the conduct of a mind, that fears to trust its own powers;
which, possessing a nice judgment, and inclining to believe, that every
other person perceives still more critically, fears to commit itself to
censure, and seeks shelter in the obscurity of silence. Emily had
frequently blushed at the fearless manners, which she had seen admired,
and the brilliant nothings, which she had heard applauded; yet this
applause, so far from encouraging her to imitate the conduct that had
won it, rather made her shrink into the reserve, that would protect her
from such absurdity.
Madame Cheron looked on her niece’s diffidence with a feeling very near
to contempt, and endeavoured to overcome it by reproof, rather than to
encourage it by gentleness.
The entrance of supper somewhat interrupted the complacent discourse of
Madame Cheron and the painful considerations, which it had forced upon
Emily. When the repast, which was rendered ostentatious by the
attendance of a great number of servants, and by a profusion of plate,
was over, Madame Cheron retired to her chamber, and a female servant
came to show Emily to hers. Having passed up a large staircase, and
through several galleries, they came to a flight of back stairs, which
led into a short passage in a remote part of the château, and there the
servant opened the door of a small chamber, which she said was
Ma’amselle Emily’s, who, once more alone, indulged the tears she had
long tried to restrain.
Those, who know, from experience, how much the heart becomes attached
even to inanimate objects, to which it has been long accustomed, how
unwillingly it resigns them; how with the sensations of an old friend
it meets them, after temporary absence, will understand the forlornness
of Emily’s feelings, of Emily shut out from the only home she had known
from her infancy, and thrown upon a scene, and among persons,
disagreeable for more qualities than their novelty. Her father’s
favourite dog, now in the chamber, thus seemed to acquire the character
and importance of a friend; and, as the animal fawned over her when she
wept, and licked her hands, “Ah, poor Manchon!” said she, “I have
nobody now to love me—but you!” and she wept the more. After some time,
her thoughts returning to her father’s injunctions, she remembered how
often he had blamed her for indulging useless sorrow; how often he had
pointed out to her the necessity of fortitude and patience, assuring
her, that the faculties of the mind strengthen by exertion, till they
finally unnerve affliction, and triumph over it. These recollections
dried her tears, gradually soothed her spirits, and inspired her with
the sweet emulation of practising precepts, which her father had so
frequently inculcated.
CHAPTER XII
Some pow’r impart the spear and shield,
At which the wizard passions fly,
By which the giant follies die!
COLLINS
Madame Cheron’s house stood at a little distance from the city of
Thoulouse, and was surrounded by extensive gardens, in which Emily, who
had risen early, amused herself with wandering before breakfast. From a
terrace, that extended along the highest part of them, was a wide view
over Languedoc. On the distant horizon to the south, she discovered the
wild summits of the Pyrenees, and her fancy immediately painted the
green pastures of Gascony at their feet. Her heart pointed to her
peaceful home—to the neighbourhood where Valancourt was—where St.
Aubert had been; and her imagination, piercing the veil of distance,
brought that home to her eyes in all its interesting and romantic
beauty. She experienced an inexpressible pleasure in believing, that
she beheld the country around it, though no feature could be
distinguished, except the retiring chain of the Pyrenees; and,
inattentive to the scene immediately before her, and to the flight of
time, she continued to lean on the window of a pavilion, that
terminated the terrace, with her eyes fixed on Gascony, and her mind
occupied with the interesting ideas which the view of it awakened, till
a servant came to tell her breakfast was ready. Her thoughts thus
recalled to the surrounding objects, the straight walks, square
parterres, and artificial fountains of the garden, could not fail, as
she passed through it, to appear the worse, opposed to the negligent
graces, and natural beauties of the grounds of La Vallée, upon which
her recollection had been so intensely employed.
“Whither have you been rambling so early?” said Madame Cheron, as her
niece entered the breakfast-room. “I don’t approve of these solitary
walks.” And Emily was surprised, when, having informed her aunt, that
she had been no further than the gardens, she understood these to be
included in the reproof. “I desire you will not walk there again at so
early an hour unattended,” said Madame Cheron; “my gardens are very
extensive; and a young woman, who can make assignations by moonlight at
La Vallée, is not to be trusted to her own inclinations elsewhere.”
Emily, extremely surprised and shocked, had scarcely power to beg an
explanation of these words, and, when she did, her aunt absolutely
refused to give it, though, by her severe looks, and half sentences,
she appeared anxious to impress Emily with a belief, that she was well
informed of some degrading circumstances of her conduct. Conscious
innocence could not prevent a blush from stealing over Emily’s cheek;
she trembled, and looked confusedly under the bold eye of Madame
Cheron, who blushed also; but hers was the blush of triumph, such as
sometimes stains the countenance of a person, congratulating himself on
the penetration which had taught him to suspect another, and who loses
both pity for the supposed criminal, and indignation of his guilt, in
the gratification of his own vanity.
Emily, not doubting that her aunt’s mistake arose from the having
observed her ramble in the garden on the night preceding her departure
from La Vallée, now mentioned the motive of it, at which Madame Cheron
smiled contemptuously, refusing either to accept this explanation, or
to give her reasons for refusing it; and, soon after, she concluded the
subject by saying, “I never trust people’s assertions, I always judge
of them by their actions; but I am willing to try what will be your
behaviour in future.”
Emily, less surprised by her aunt’s moderation and mysterious silence,
than by the accusation she had received, deeply considered the latter,
and scarcely doubted, that it was Valancourt whom she had seen at night
in the gardens of La Vallée, and that he had been observed there by
Madame Cheron; who now passing from one painful topic only to revive
another almost equally so, spoke of the situation of her niece’s
property, in the hands of M. Motteville. While she thus talked with
ostentatious pity of Emily’s misfortunes, she failed not to inculcate
the duties of humility and gratitude, or to render Emily fully sensible
of every cruel mortification, who soon perceived, that she was to be
considered as a dependant, not only by her aunt, but by her aunt’s
servants.
She was now informed, that a large party were expected to dinner, on
which account Madame Cheron repeated the lesson of the preceding night,
concerning her conduct in company, and Emily wished that she might have
courage enough to practise it. Her aunt then proceeded to examine the
simplicity of her dress, adding, that she expected to see her attired
with gaiety and taste; after which she condescended to show Emily the
splendour of her château, and to point out the particular beauty, or
elegance, which she thought distinguished each of her numerous suites
of apartments. She then withdrew to her toilet, the throne of her
homage, and Emily to her chamber, to unpack her books, and to try to
charm her mind by reading, till the hour of dressing.
When the company arrived, Emily entered the saloon with an air of
timidity, which all her efforts could not overcome, and which was
increased by the consciousness of Madame Cheron’s severe observation.
Her mourning dress, the mild dejection of her beautiful countenance,
and the retiring diffidence of her manner, rendered her a very
interesting object to many of the company; among whom she distinguished
Signor Montoni, and his friend Cavigni, the late visitors at M.
Quesnel’s, who now seemed to converse with Madame Cheron with the
familiarity of old acquaintance, and she to attend to them with
particular pleasure.
This Signor Montoni had an air of conscious superiority, animated by
spirit, and strengthened by talents, to which every person seemed
involuntarily to yield. The quickness of his perceptions was strikingly
expressed on his countenance, yet that countenance could submit
implicitly to occasion; and, more than once in this day, the triumph of
art over nature might have been discerned in it. His visage was long,
and rather narrow, yet he was called handsome; and it was, perhaps, the
spirit and vigour of his soul, sparkling through his features, that
triumphed for him. Emily felt admiration, but not the admiration that
leads to esteem; for it was mixed with a degree of fear she knew not
exactly wherefore.
Cavigni was gay and insinuating as formerly; and, though he paid almost
incessant attention to Madame Cheron, he found some opportunities of
conversing with Emily, to whom he directed, at first, the sallies of
his wit, but now and then assumed an air of tenderness, which she
observed, and shrunk from. Though she replied but little, the
gentleness and sweetness of her manners encouraged him to talk, and she
felt relieved when a young lady of the party, who spoke incessantly,
obtruded herself on his notice. This lady, who possessed all the
sprightliness of a Frenchwoman, with all her coquetry, affected to
understand every subject, or rather there was no affectation in the
case; for, never looking beyond the limits of her own ignorance, she
believed she had nothing to learn. She attracted notice from all;
amused some, disgusted others for a moment, and was then forgotten.
This day passed without any material occurrence; and Emily, though
amused by the characters she had seen, was glad when she could retire
to the recollections, which had acquired with her the character of
duties.
A fortnight passed in a round of dissipation and company, and Emily,
who attended Madame Cheron in all her visits, was sometimes
entertained, but oftener wearied. She was struck by the apparent
talents and knowledge displayed in the various conversations she
listened to, and it was long before she discovered, that the talents
were for the most part those of imposture, and the knowledge nothing
more than was necessary to assist them. But what deceived her most, was
the air of constant gaiety and good spirits, displayed by every
visitor, and which she supposed to arise from content as constant, and
from benevolence as ready. At length, from the over-acting of some,
less accomplished than the others, she could perceive, that, though
contentment and benevolence are the only sure sources of cheerfulness,
the immoderate and feverish animation, usually exhibited in large
parties, results partly from an insensibility to the cares, which
benevolence must sometimes derive from the sufferings of others, and
partly from a desire to display the appearance of that prosperity,
which they know will command submission and attention to themselves.
Emily’s pleasantest hours were passed in the pavilion of the terrace,
to which she retired, when she could steal from observation, with a
book to overcome, or a lute to indulge, her melancholy. There, as she
sat with her eyes fixed on the far-distant Pyrenees, and her thoughts
on Valancourt and the beloved scenes of Gascony, she would play the
sweet and melancholy songs of her native province—the popular songs she
had listened to from her childhood.
One evening, having excused herself from accompanying her aunt abroad,
she thus withdrew to the pavilion, with books and her lute. It was the
mild and beautiful evening of a sultry day, and the windows, which
fronted the west, opened upon all the glory of a setting sun. Its rays
illuminated, with strong splendour, the cliffs of the Pyrenees, and
touched their snowy tops with a roseate hue, that remained, long after
the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the shades of twilight had
stolen over the landscape. Emily touched her lute with that fine
melancholy expression, which came from her heart. The pensive hour and
the scene, the evening light on the Garonne, that flowed at no great
distance, and whose waves, as they passed towards La Vallée, she often
viewed with a sigh—these united circumstances disposed her mind to
tenderness, and her thoughts were with Valancourt, of whom she had
heard nothing since her arrival at Thoulouse, and now that she was
removed from him, and in uncertainty, she perceived all the interest he
held in her heart. Before she saw Valancourt she had never met a mind
and taste so accordant with her own, and, though Madame Cheron told her
much of the arts of dissimulation, and that the elegance and propriety
of thought, which she so much admired in her lover, were assumed for
the purpose of pleasing her, she could scarcely doubt their truth. This
possibility, however, faint as it was, was sufficient to harass her
mind with anxiety, and she found, that few conditions are more painful
than that of uncertainty, as to the merit of a beloved object; an
uncertainty, which she would not have suffered, had her confidence in
her own opinions been greater.
She was awakened from her musing by the sound of horses’ feet along a
road, that wound under the windows of the pavilion, and a gentleman
passed on horseback, whose resemblance to Valancourt, in air and
figure, for the twilight did not permit a view of his features,
immediately struck her. She retired hastily from the lattice, fearing
to be seen, yet wishing to observe further, while the stranger passed
on without looking up, and, when she returned to the lattice, she saw
him faintly through the twilight, winding under the high trees, that
led to Thoulouse. This little incident so much disturbed her spirits,
that the temple and its scenery were no longer interesting to her, and,
after walking a while on the terrace, she returned to the château.
Madame Cheron, whether she had seen a rival admired, had lost at play,
or had witnessed an entertainment more splendid than her own, was
returned from her visit with a temper more than usually discomposed;
and Emily was glad, when the hour arrived, in which she could retire to
the solitude of her own apartment.
On the following morning, she was summoned to Madame Cheron, whose
countenance was inflamed with resentment, and, as Emily advanced, she
held out a letter to her.
“Do you know this hand?” said she, in a severe tone, and with a look
that was intended to search her heart, while Emily examined the letter
attentively, and assured her, that she did not.
“Do not provoke me,” said her aunt; “you do know it, confess the truth
immediately. I insist upon your confessing the truth instantly.”
Emily was silent, and turned to leave the room, but Madame called her
back. “O you are guilty, then,” said she, “you do know the hand.” “If
you were before in doubt of this, madam,” replied Emily calmly, “why
did you accuse me of having told a falsehood.” Madame Cheron did not
blush; but her niece did, a moment after, when she heard the name of
Valancourt. It was not, however, with the consciousness of deserving
reproof, for, if she ever had seen his hand-writing, the present
characters did not bring it to her recollection.
“It is useless to deny it,” said Madame Cheron, “I see in your
countenance, that you are no stranger to this letter; and, I dare say,
you have received many such from this impertinent young man, without my
knowledge, in my own house.”
Emily, shocked at the indelicacy of this accusation, still more than by
the vulgarity of the former, instantly forgot the pride, that had
imposed silence, and endeavoured to vindicate herself from the
aspersion, but Madame Cheron was not to be convinced.
“I cannot suppose,” she resumed, “that this young man would have taken
the liberty of writing to me, if you had not encouraged him to do so,
and I must now”
“You will allow me to remind you, madam,” said Emily timidly, “of some
particulars of a conversation we had at La Vallée. I then told you
truly, that I had only not forbade Monsieur Valancourt from addressing
my family.”
“I will not be interrupted,” said Madame Cheron, interrupting her
niece, “I was going to say—I—I—have forgot what I was going to say. But
how happened it that you did not forbid him?” Emily was silent. “How
happened it that you encouraged him to trouble me with this letter?—A
young man that nobody knows;—an utter stranger in the place,—a young
adventurer, no doubt, who is looking out for a good fortune. However,
on that point he has mistaken his aim.”
“His family was known to my father,” said Emily modestly, and without
appearing to be sensible of the last sentence.
“O! that is no recommendation at all,” replied her aunt, with her usual
readiness upon this topic; “he took such strange fancies to people! He
was always judging persons by their countenances, and was continually
deceived.”
“Yet it was but now, madam, that you judged me guilty by my
countenance,” said Emily, with a design of reproving Madame Cheron, to
which she was induced by this disrespectful mention of her father.
“I called you here,” resumed her aunt, colouring, “to tell you, that I
will not be disturbed in my own house by any letters, or visits from
young men, who may take a fancy to flatter you. This M. de Valantine—I
think you call him, has the impertinence to beg I will permit him to
pay his respects to me! I shall send him a proper answer. And for you,
Emily, I repeat it once for all—if you are not contented to conform to
my directions, and to my way of live, I shall give up the task of
overlooking your conduct—I shall no longer trouble myself with your
education, but shall send you to board in a convent.”
“Dear madam,” said Emily, bursting into tears, and overcome by the rude
suspicions her aunt had expressed, “how have I deserved these
reproofs?” She could say no more; and so very fearful was she of acting
with any degree of impropriety in the affair itself, that, at the
present moment, Madame Cheron might perhaps have prevailed with her to
bind herself by a promise to renounce Valancourt for ever. Her mind,
weakened by her terrors, would no longer suffer her to view him as she
had formerly done; she feared the error of her own judgment, not that
of Madame Cheron, and feared also, that, in her former conversation
with him, at La Vallée, she had not conducted herself with sufficient
reserve. She knew, that she did not deserve the coarse suspicions,
which her aunt had thrown out, but a thousand scruples rose to torment
her, such as would never have disturbed the peace of Madame Cheron.
Thus rendered anxious to avoid every opportunity of erring, and willing
to submit to any restrictions, that her aunt should think proper, she
expressed an obedience, to which Madame Cheron did not give much
confidence, and which she seemed to consider as the consequence of
either fear, or artifice.
“Well, then,” said she, “promise me that you will neither see this
young man, nor write to him without my consent.” “Dear madam,” replied
Emily, “can you suppose I would do either, unknown to you!” “I don’t
know what to suppose; there is no knowing how young women will act. It
is difficult to place any confidence in them, for they have seldom
sense enough to wish for the respect of the world.”
“Alas, madam!” said Emily, “I am anxious for my own respect; my father
taught me the value of that; he said if I deserved my own esteem, that
the world would follow of course.”
“My brother was a good kind of a man,” replied Madame Cheron, “but he
did not know the world. I am sure I have always felt a proper respect
for myself, yet—” she stopped, but she might have added, that the world
had not always shown respect to her, and this without impeaching its
judgment.
“Well!” resumed Madame Cheron, “you have not given me the promise,
though, that I demand.”
Emily readily gave it, and, being then suffered to withdraw, she walked
in the garden; tried to compose her spirits, and, at length, arrived at
her favourite pavilion at the end of the terrace, where, seating
herself at one of the embowered windows, that opened upon a balcony,
the stillness and seclusion of the scene allowed her to recollect her
thoughts, and to arrange them so as to form a clearer judgment of her
former conduct. She endeavoured to review with exactness all the
particulars of her conversation with Valancourt at La Vallée, had the
satisfaction to observe nothing, that could alarm her delicate pride,
and thus to be confirmed in the self-esteem, which was so necessary to
her peace. Her mind then became tranquil, and she saw Valancourt
amiable and intelligent, as he had formerly appeared, and Madame Cheron
neither the one, nor the other. The remembrance of her lover, however,
brought with it many very painful emotions, for it by no means
reconciled her to the thought of resigning him; and, Madame Cheron
having already shown how highly she disapproved of the attachment, she
foresaw much suffering from the opposition of interests; yet with all
this was mingled a degree of delight, which, in spite of reason,
partook of hope. She determined, however, that no consideration should
induce her to permit a clandestine correspondence, and to observe in
her conversation with Valancourt, should they ever meet again, the same
nicety of reserve, which had hitherto marked her conduct. As she
repeated the words—“should we ever meet again!” she shrunk as if this
was a circumstance, which had never before occurred to her, and tears
came to her eyes, which she hastily dried, for she heard footsteps
approaching, and then the door of the pavilion open, and, on turning,
she saw—Valancourt.
An emotion of mingled pleasure, surprise and apprehension pressed so
suddenly upon her heart as almost to overcome her spirits; the colour
left her cheeks, then returned brighter than before, and she was for a
moment unable to speak, or to rise from her chair. His countenance was
the mirror, in which she saw her own emotions reflected, and it roused
her to self-command. The joy, which had animated his features, when he
entered the pavilion, was suddenly repressed, as, approaching, he
perceived her agitation, and, in a tremulous voice, enquired after her
health. Recovered from her first surprise, she answered him with a
tempered smile; but a variety of opposite emotions still assailed her
heart, and struggled to subdue the mild dignity of her manner. It was
difficult to tell which predominated—the joy of seeing Valancourt, or
the terror of her aunt’s displeasure, when she should hear of this
meeting. After some short and embarrassed conversation, she led him
into the gardens, and enquired if he had seen Madame Cheron. “No,” said
he, “I have not yet seen her, for they told me she was engaged, and as
soon as I learned that you were in the gardens, I came hither.” He
paused a moment, in great agitation, and then added, “May I venture to
tell you the purport of my visit, without incurring your displeasure,
and to hope, that you will not accuse me of precipitation in now
availing myself of the permission you once gave me of addressing your
family?” Emily, who knew not what to reply, was spared from further
perplexity, and was sensible only of fear, when on raising her eyes,
she saw Madame Cheron turn into the avenue. As the consciousness of
innocence returned, this fear was so far dissipated as to permit her to
appear tranquil, and, instead of avoiding her aunt, she advanced with
Valancourt to meet her. The look of haughty and impatient displeasure,
with which Madame Cheron regarded them, made Emily shrink, who
understood from a single glance, that this meeting was believed to have
been more than accidental: having mentioned Valancourt’s name, she
became again too much agitated to remain with them, and returned into
the château; where she awaited long, in a state of trembling anxiety,
the conclusion of the conference. She knew not how to account for
Valancourt’s visit to her aunt, before he had received the permission
he solicited, since she was ignorant of a circumstance, which would
have rendered the request useless, even if Madame Cheron had been
inclined to grant it. Valancourt, in the agitation of his spirits, had
forgotten to date his letter, so that it was impossible for Madame
Cheron to return an answer; and, when he recollected this circumstance,
he was, perhaps, not so sorry for the omission as glad of the excuse it
allowed him for waiting on her before she could send a refusal.
Madame Cheron had a long conversation with Valancourt, and, when she
returned to the château, her countenance expressed ill-humour, but not
the degree of severity, which Emily had apprehended. “I have dismissed
this young man, at last,” said she, “and I hope my house will never
again be disturbed with similar visits. He assures me, that your
interview was not preconcerted.”
“Dear madam!” said Emily in extreme emotion, “you surely did not ask
him the question!” “Most certainly I did; you could not suppose I
should be so imprudent as to neglect it.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, “what an opinion must he form of me, since
you, Madam, could express a suspicion of such ill conduct!”
“It is of very little consequence what opinion he may form of you,”
replied her aunt, “for I have put an end to the affair; but I believe
he will not form a worse opinion of me for my prudent conduct. I let
him see, that I was not to be trifled with, and that I had more
delicacy, than to permit any clandestine correspondence to be carried
on in my house.”
Emily had frequently heard Madame Cheron use the word delicacy, but she
was now more than usually perplexed to understand how she meant to
apply it in this instance, in which her whole conduct appeared to merit
the very reverse of the term.
“It was very inconsiderate of my brother,” resumed Madame Cheron, “to
leave the trouble of overlooking your conduct to me; I wish you were
well settled in life. But if I find, that I am to be further troubled
with such visitors as this M. Valancourt, I shall place you in a
convent at once;—so remember the alternative. This young man has the
impertinence to own to me,—he owns it! that his fortune is very small,
and that he is chiefly dependent on an elder brother and on the
profession he has chosen! He should have concealed these circumstances,
at least, if he expected to succeed with me. Had he the presumption to
suppose I would marry my niece to a person such as he describes
himself!”
Emily dried her tears when she heard of the candid confession of
Valancourt; and, though the circumstances it discovered were afflicting
to her hopes, his artless conduct gave her a degree of pleasure, that
overcame every other emotion. But she was compelled, even thus early in
life, to observe, that good sense and noble integrity are not always
sufficient to cope with folly and narrow cunning; and her heart was
pure enough to allow her, even at this trying moment, to look with more
pride on the defeat of the former, than with mortification on the
conquests of the latter.
Madame Cheron pursued her triumph. “He has also thought proper to tell
me, that he will receive his dismission from no person but yourself;
this favour, however, I have absolutely refused him. He shall learn,
that it is quite sufficient, that I disapprove him. And I take this
opportunity of repeating,—that if you concert any means of interview
unknown to me, you shall leave my house immediately.”
“How little do you know me, madam, that you should think such an
injunction necessary!” said Emily, trying to suppress her emotion, “how
little of the dear parents, who educated me!”
Madame Cheron now went to dress for an engagement, which she had made
for the evening; and Emily, who would gladly have been excused from
attending her aunt, did not ask to remain at home lest her request
should be attributed to an improper motive. When she retired to her own
room, the little fortitude, which had supported her in the presence of
her relation, forsook her; she remembered only that Valancourt, whose
character appeared more amiable from every circumstance, that unfolded
it, was banished from her presence, perhaps, for ever, and she passed
the time in weeping, which, according to her aunt’s direction, she
ought to have employed in dressing. This important duty was, however,
quickly dispatched; though, when she joined Madame Cheron at table, her
eyes betrayed, that she had been in tears, and drew upon her a severe
reproof.
Her efforts to appear cheerful did not entirely fail when she joined
the company at the house of Madame Clairval, an elderly widow lady, who
had lately come to reside at Thoulouse, on an estate of her late
husband. She had lived many years at Paris in a splendid style; had
naturally a gay temper, and, since her residence at Thoulouse, had
given some of the most magnificent entertainments, that had been seen
in that neighbourhood.
These excited not only the envy, but the trifling ambition of Madame
Cheron, who, since she could not rival the splendour of her
festivities, was desirous of being ranked in the number of her most
intimate friends. For this purpose she paid her the most obsequious
attention, and made a point of being disengaged, whenever she received
an invitation from Madame Clairval, of whom she talked, wherever she
went, and derived much self-consequence from impressing a belief on her
general acquaintance, that they were on the most familiar footing.
The entertainments of this evening consisted of a ball and supper; it
was a fancy ball, and the company danced in groups in the gardens,
which were very extensive. The high and luxuriant trees, under which
the groups assembled, were illuminated with a profusion of lamps,
disposed with taste and fancy. The gay and various dresses of the
company, some of whom were seated on the turf, conversing at their
ease, observing the _cotillons_, taking refreshments, and sometimes
touching sportively a guitar; the gallant manners of the gentlemen, the
exquisitely capricious air of the ladies; the light fantastic steps of
their dances; the musicians, with the lute, the hautboy, and the tabor,
seated at the foot of an elm, and the sylvan scenery of woods around
were circumstances, that unitedly formed a characteristic and striking
picture of French festivity. Emily surveyed the gaiety of the scene
with a melancholy kind of pleasure, and her emotion may be imagined
when, as she stood with her aunt, looking at one of the groups, she
perceived Valancourt; saw him dancing with a young and beautiful lady,
saw him conversing with her with a mixture of attention and
familiarity, such as she had seldom observed in his manner. She turned
hastily from the scene, and attempted to draw away Madame Cheron, who
was conversing with Signor Cavigni, and neither perceived Valancourt,
nor was willing to be interrupted. A faintness suddenly came over
Emily, and, unable to support herself, she sat down on a turf bank
beneath the trees, where several other persons were seated. One of
these, observing the extreme paleness of her countenance, enquired if
she was ill, and begged she would allow him to fetch her a glass of
water, for which politeness she thanked him, but did not accept it. Her
apprehension lest Valancourt should observe her emotion made her
anxious to overcome it, and she succeeded so far as to recompose her
countenance. Madame Cheron was still conversing with Cavigni; and the
Count Bauvillers, who had addressed Emily, made some observations upon
the scene, to which she answered almost unconsciously, for her mind was
still occupied with the idea of Valancourt, to whom it was with extreme
uneasiness that she remained so near. Some remarks, however, which the
Count made upon the dance obliged her to turn her eyes towards it, and,
at that moment, Valancourt’s met hers. Her colour faded again, she
felt, that she was relapsing into faintness, and instantly averted her
looks, but not before she had observed the altered countenance of
Valancourt, on perceiving her. She would have left the spot
immediately, had she not been conscious, that this conduct would have
shown him more obviously the interest he held in her heart; and, having
tried to attend to the Count’s conversation, and to join in it, she, at
length, recovered her spirits. But, when he made some observation on
Valancourt’s partner, the fear of showing that she was interested in
the remark, would have betrayed it to him, had not the Count, while he
spoke, looked towards the person of whom he was speaking. “The lady,”
said he, “dancing with that young Chevalier, who appears to be
accomplished in everything, but in dancing, is ranked among the
beauties of Thoulouse. She is handsome, and her fortune will be very
large. I hope she will make a better choice in a partner for life than
she has done in a partner for the dance, for I observe he has just put
the set into great confusion; he does nothing but commit blunders. I am
surprised, that, with his air and figure, he has not taken more care to
accomplish himself in dancing.”
Emily, whose heart trembled at every word, that was now uttered,
endeavoured to turn the conversation from Valancourt, by enquiring the
name of the lady, with whom he danced; but, before the Count could
reply, the dance concluded, and Emily, perceiving that Valancourt was
coming towards her, rose and joined Madame Cheron.
“Here is the Chevalier Valancourt, madam,” said she in a whisper, “pray
let us go.” Her aunt immediately moved on, but not before Valancourt
had reached them, who bowed lowly to Madame Cheron, and with an earnest
and dejected look to Emily, with whom, notwithstanding all her effort,
an air of more than common reserve prevailed. The presence of Madame
Cheron prevented Valancourt from remaining, and he passed on with a
countenance, whose melancholy reproached her for having increased it.
Emily was called from the musing fit, into which she had fallen, by the
Count Bauvillers, who was known to her aunt.
“I have your pardon to beg, ma’amselle,” said he, “for a rudeness,
which you will readily believe was quite unintentional. I did not know,
that the Chevalier was your acquaintance, when I so freely criticised
his dancing.” Emily blushed and smiled, and Madame Cheron spared her
the difficulty of replying. “If you mean the person, who has just
passed us,” said she, “I can assure you he is no acquaintance of either
mine, or ma’amselle St. Aubert’s: I know nothing of him.”
“O! that is the Chevalier Valancourt,” said Cavigni carelessly, and
looking back. “You know him then?” said Madame Cheron. “I am not
acquainted with him,” replied Cavigni. “You don’t know, then, the
reason I have to call him impertinent;—he has had the presumption to
admire my niece!”
“If every man deserves the title of impertinent, who admires ma’amselle
St. Aubert,” replied Cavigni, “I fear there are a great many
impertinents, and I am willing to acknowledge myself one of the
number.”
“O Signor!” said Madame Cheron, with an affected smile, “I perceive you
have learnt the art of complimenting, since you came into France. But
it is cruel to compliment children, since they mistake flattery for
truth.”
Cavigni turned away his face for a moment, and then said with a studied
air, “Whom then are we to compliment, madam? for it would be absurd to
compliment a woman of refined understanding; _she_ is above all
praise.” As he finished the sentence he gave Emily a sly look, and the
smile, that had lurked in his eye, stole forth. She perfectly
understood it, and blushed for Madame Cheron, who replied, “You are
perfectly right, signor, no woman of understanding can endure
compliment.”
“I have heard Signor Montoni say,” rejoined Cavigni, “that he never
knew but one woman who deserved it.”
“Well!” exclaimed Madame Cheron, with a short laugh, and a smile of
unutterable complacency, “and who could she be?”
“O!” replied Cavigni, “it is impossible to mistake her, for certainly
there is not more than one woman in the world, who has both the merit
to deserve compliment and the wit to refuse it. Most women reverse the
case entirely.” He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper than
before for her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.
“Well, signor!” said Madame Cheron, “I protest you are a Frenchman; I
never heard a foreigner say anything half so gallant as that!”
“True, madam,” said the Count, who had been some time silent, and with
a low bow, “but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly lost,
but for the ingenuity that discovered the application.”
Madame Cheron did not perceive the meaning of this too satirical
sentence, and she, therefore, escaped the pain, which Emily felt on her
account. “O! here comes Signor Montoni himself,” said her aunt, “I
protest I will tell him all the fine things you have been saying to
me.” The Signor, however, passed at this moment into another walk.
“Pray, who is it, that has so much engaged your friend this evening?”
asked Madame Cheron, with an air of chagrin, “I have not seen him
once.”
“He had a very particular engagement with the Marquis La Rivière,”
replied Cavigni, “which has detained him, I perceive, till this moment,
or he would have done himself the honour of paying his respects to you,
madam, sooner, as he commissioned me to say. But, I know not how it
is—your conversation is so fascinating—that it can charm even memory, I
think, or I should certainly have delivered my friend’s apology
before.”
“The apology, sir, would have been more satisfactory from himself,”
said Madame Cheron, whose vanity was more mortified by Montoni’s
neglect, than flattered by Cavigni’s compliment. Her manner, at this
moment, and Cavigni’s late conversation, now awakened a suspicion in
Emily’s mind, which, notwithstanding that some recollections served to
confirm it, appeared preposterous. She thought she perceived, that
Montoni was paying serious addresses to her aunt, and that she not only
accepted them, but was jealously watchful of any appearance of neglect
on his part.—That Madame Cheron at her years should elect a second
husband was ridiculous, though her vanity made it not impossible; but
that Montoni, with his discernment, his figure, and pretensions, should
make a choice of Madame Cheron—appeared most wonderful. Her thoughts,
however, did not dwell long on the subject; nearer interests pressed
upon them; Valancourt, rejected of her aunt, and Valancourt dancing
with a gay and beautiful partner, alternately tormented her mind. As
she passed along the gardens she looked timidly forward, half fearing
and half hoping that he might appear in the crowd; and the
disappointment she felt on not seeing him, told her, that she had hoped
more than she had feared.
Montoni soon after joined the party. He muttered over some short speech
about regret for having been so long detained elsewhere, when he knew
he should have the pleasure of seeing Madame Cheron here; and she,
receiving the apology with the air of a pettish girl, addressed herself
entirely to Cavigni, who looked archly at Montoni, as if he would have
said, “I will not triumph over you too much; I will have the goodness
to bear my honours meekly; but look sharp, Signor, or I shall certainly
run away with your prize.”
The supper was served in different pavilions in the gardens, as well as
in one large saloon of the château, and with more of taste, than either
of splendour, or even of plenty. Madame Cheron and her party supped
with Madame Clairval in the saloon, and Emily, with difficulty,
disguised her emotion, when she saw Valancourt placed at the same table
with herself. There, Madame Cheron having surveyed him with high
displeasure, said to some person who sat next to her, “Pray, who _is_
that young man?” “It is the Chevalier Valancourt,” was the answer.
“Yes, I am not ignorant of his name, but who is this Chevalier
Valancourt that thus intrudes himself at this table?” The attention of
the person, to whom she spoke, was called off before she received a
second reply. The table, at which they sat, was very long, and,
Valancourt being seated, with his partner, near the bottom, and Emily
near the top, the distance between them may account for his not
immediately perceiving her. She avoided looking to that end of the
table, but whenever her eyes happened to glance towards it, she
observed him conversing with his beautiful companion, and the
observation did not contribute to restore her peace, any more than the
accounts she heard of the fortune and accomplishments of this same
lady.
Madame Cheron, to whom these remarks were sometimes addressed, because
they supported topics for trivial conversation, seemed indefatigable in
her attempts to depreciate Valancourt, towards whom she felt all the
petty resentment of a narrow pride. “I admire the lady,” said she, “but
I must condemn her choice of a partner.” “Oh, the Chevalier Valancourt
is one of the most accomplished young men we have,” replied the lady,
to whom this remark was addressed: “it is whispered, that Mademoiselle
d’Emery, and her large fortune, are to be his.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Madame Cheron, reddening with vexation, “it is
impossible that she can be so destitute of taste; he has so little the
air of a person of condition, that, if I did not see him at the table
of Madame Clairval, I should never have suspected him to be one. I have
besides particular reasons for believing the report to be erroneous.”
“I cannot doubt the truth of it,” replied the lady gravely, disgusted
by the abrupt contradiction she had received, concerning her opinion of
Valancourt’s merit. “You will, perhaps, doubt it,” said Madame Cheron,
“when I assure you, that it was only this morning that I rejected his
suit.”
This was said without any intention of imposing the meaning it
conveyed, but simply from a habit of considering herself to be the most
important person in every affair that concerned her niece, and because
literally _she_ had rejected Valancourt. “Your reasons are indeed such
as cannot be doubted,” replied the lady, with an ironical smile. “Any
more than the discernment of the Chevalier Valancourt,” added Cavigni,
who stood by the chair of Madame Cheron, and had heard her arrogate to
herself, as he thought, a distinction which had been paid to her niece.
“His discernment _may_ be justly questioned, Signor,” said Madame
Cheron, who was not flattered by what she understood to be an encomium
on Emily.
“Alas!” exclaimed Cavigni, surveying Madame Cheron with affected
ecstasy, “how vain is that assertion, while that face—that shape—that
air—combine to refute it! Unhappy Valancourt! his discernment has been
his destruction.”
Emily looked surprised and embarrassed; the lady, who had lately
spoken, astonished, and Madame Cheron, who, though she did not
perfectly understand this speech, was very ready to believe herself
complimented by it, said smilingly, “O Signor! you are very gallant;
but those, who hear you vindicate the Chevalier’s discernment, will
suppose that I am the object of it.”
“They cannot doubt it,” replied Cavigni, bowing low.
“And would not that be very mortifying, Signor?”
“Unquestionably it would,” said Cavigni.
“I cannot endure the thought,” said Madame Cheron.
“It is not to be endured,” replied Cavigni.
“What can be done to prevent so humiliating a mistake?” rejoined Madame
Cheron.
“Alas! I cannot assist you,” replied Cavigni, with a deliberating air.
“Your only chance of refuting the calumny, and of making people
understand what you wish them to believe, is to persist in your first
assertion; for, when they are told of the Chevalier’s want of
discernment, it is possible they may suppose he never presumed to
distress you with his admiration.—But then again—that diffidence, which
renders you so insensible to your own perfections—they will consider
this, and Valancourt’s taste will not be doubted, though you arraign
it. In short, they will, in spite of your endeavours, continue to
believe, what might very naturally have occurred to them without any
hint of mine—that the Chevalier has taste enough to admire a beautiful
woman.”
“All this is very distressing!” said Madame Cheron, with a profound
sigh.
“May I be allowed to ask what is so distressing?” said Madame Clairval,
who was struck with the rueful countenance and doleful accent, with
which this was delivered.
“It is a delicate subject,” replied Madame Cheron, “a very mortifying
one to me.” “I am concerned to hear it,” said Madame Clairval, “I hope
nothing has occurred, this evening, particularly to distress you?”
“Alas, yes! within this half hour; and I know not where the report may
end;—my pride was never so shocked before, but I assure you the report
is totally void of foundation.” “Good God!” exclaimed Madame Clairval,
“what can be done? Can you point out any way, by which I can assist, or
console you?”
“The only way, by which you can do either,” replied Madame Cheron, “is
to contradict the report wherever you go.”
“Well! but pray inform me what I am to contradict.”
“It is so very humiliating, that I know not how to mention it,”
continued Madame Cheron, “but you shall judge. Do you observe that
young man seated near the bottom of the table, who is conversing with
Mademoiselle d’Emery?” “Yes, I perceive whom you mean.” “You observe
how little he has the air of a person of condition; I was saying just
now, that I should not have thought him a gentleman, if I had not seen
him at this table.” “Well! but the report,” said Madame Clairval, “let
me understand the subject of your distress.” “Ah! the subject of my
distress,” replied Madame Cheron; “this person, whom nobody knows—(I
beg pardon, madam, I did not consider what I said)—this impertinent
young man, having had the presumption to address my niece, has, I fear,
given rise to a report, that he had declared himself my admirer. Now
only consider how very mortifying such a report must be! You, I know,
will feel for my situation. A woman of my condition!—think how
degrading even the rumour of such an alliance must be.”
“Degrading indeed, my poor friend!” said Madame Clairval. “You may rely
upon it I will contradict the report wherever I go;” as she said which,
she turned her attention upon another part of the company; and Cavigni,
who had hitherto appeared a grave spectator of the scene, now fearing
he should be unable to smother the laugh, that convulsed him, walked
abruptly away.
“I perceive you do not know,” said the lady who sat near Madame Cheron,
“that the gentleman you have been speaking of is Madame Clairval’s
nephew!” “Impossible!” exclaimed Madame Cheron, who now began to
perceive, that she had been totally mistaken in her judgment of
Valancourt, and to praise him aloud with as much servility, as she had
before censured him with frivolous malignity.
Emily, who, during the greater part of this conversation, had been so
absorbed in thought as to be spared the pain of hearing it, was now
extremely surprised by her aunt’s praise of Valancourt, with whose
relationship to Madame Clairval she was unacquainted; but she was not
sorry when Madame Cheron, who, though she now tried to appear
unconcerned, was really much embarrassed, prepared to withdraw
immediately after supper. Montoni then came to hand Madame Cheron to
her carriage, and Cavigni, with an arch solemnity of countenance,
followed with Emily, who, as she wished them good night, and drew up
the glass, saw Valancourt among the crowd at the gates. Before the
carriage drove off, he disappeared. Madame Cheron forbore to mention
him to Emily, and, as soon as they reached the château, they separated
for the night.
On the following morning, as Emily sat at breakfast with her aunt, a
letter was brought to her, of which she knew the handwriting upon the
cover; and, as she received it with a trembling hand, Madame Cheron
hastily enquired from whom it came. Emily, with her leave, broke the
seal, and, observing the signature of Valancourt, gave it unread to her
aunt, who received it with impatience; and, as she looked it over,
Emily endeavoured to read on her countenance its contents. Having
returned the letter to her niece, whose eyes asked if she might examine
it, “Yes, read it, child,” said Madame Cheron, in a manner less severe
than she had expected, and Emily had, perhaps, never before so
willingly obeyed her aunt. In this letter Valancourt said little of the
interview of the preceding day, but concluded with declaring, that he
would accept his dismission from Emily only, and with entreating, that
she would allow him to wait upon her, on the approaching evening. When
she read this, she was astonished at the moderation of Madame Cheron,
and looked at her with timid expectation, as she said sorrowfully—“What
am I to say, madam?”
“Why—we must see the young man, I believe,” replied her aunt, “and hear
what he has further to say for himself. You may tell him he may come.”
Emily dared scarcely credit what she heard. “Yet, stay,” added Madame
Cheron, “I will tell him so myself.” She called for pen and ink; Emily
still not daring to trust the emotions she felt, and almost sinking
beneath them. Her surprise would have been less had she overheard, on
the preceding evening, what Madame Cheron had not forgotten—that
Valancourt was the nephew of Madame Clairval.
What were the particulars of her aunt’s note Emily did not learn, but
the result was a visit from Valancourt in the evening, whom Madame
Cheron received alone, and they had a long conversation before Emily
was called down. When she entered the room, her aunt was conversing
with complacency, and she saw the eyes of Valancourt, as he impatiently
rose, animated with hope.
“We have been talking over this affair,” said Madame Cheron, “the
chevalier has been telling me, that the late Monsieur Clairval was the
brother of the Countess de Duvarney, his mother. I only wish he had
mentioned his relationship to Madame Clairval before; I certainly
should have considered that circumstance as a sufficient introduction
to my house.” Valancourt bowed, and was going to address Emily, but her
aunt prevented him. “I have, therefore, consented that you shall
receive his visits; and, though I will not bind myself by any promise,
or say, that I shall consider him as my nephew, yet I shall permit the
intercourse, and shall look forward to any further connection as an
event, which may possibly take place in a course of years, provided the
chevalier rises in his profession, or any circumstance occurs, which
may make it prudent for him to take a wife. But Mons. Valancourt will
observe, and you too, Emily, that, till that happens, I positively
forbid any thoughts of marrying.”
Emily’s countenance, during this coarse speech, varied every instant,
and, towards its conclusion, her distress had so much increased, that
she was on the point of leaving the room. Valancourt, meanwhile,
scarcely less embarrassed, did not dare to look at her, for whom he was
thus distressed; but, when Madame Cheron was silent, he said,
“Flattering, madam, as your approbation is to me—highly as I am
honoured by it—I have yet so much to fear, that I scarcely dare to
hope.” “Pray, sir, explain yourself,” said Madame Cheron; an unexpected
requisition, which embarrassed Valancourt again, and almost overcame
him with confusion, at circumstances, on which, had he been only a
spectator of the scene, he would have smiled.
“Till I receive Mademoiselle St. Aubert’s permission to accept your
indulgence,” said he, falteringly—“till she allows me to hope—”
“O! is that all?” interrupted Madame Cheron. “Well, I will take upon me
to answer for her. But at the same time, sir, give me leave to observe
to you, that I am her guardian, and that I expect, in every instance,
that my will is hers.”
As she said this, she rose and quitted the room, leaving Emily and
Valancourt in a state of mutual embarrassment; and, when Valancourt’s
hopes enabled him to overcome his fears, and to address her with the
zeal and sincerity so natural to him, it was a considerable time before
she was sufficiently recovered to hear with distinctness his
solicitations and inquiries.
The conduct of Madame Cheron in this affair had been entirely governed
by selfish vanity. Valancourt, in his first interview, had with great
candour laid open to her the true state of his present circumstances,
and his future expectancies, and she, with more prudence than humanity,
had absolutely and abruptly rejected his suit. She wished her niece to
marry ambitiously, not because she desired to see her in possession of
the happiness, which rank and wealth are usually believed to bestow,
but because she desired to partake the importance, which such an
alliance would give. When, therefore, she discovered that Valancourt
was the nephew of a person of so much consequence as Madame Clairval,
she became anxious for the connection, since the prospect it afforded
of future fortune and distinction for Emily, promised the exaltation
she coveted for herself. Her calculations concerning fortune in this
alliance were guided rather by her wishes, than by any hint of
Valancourt, or strong appearance of probability; and, when she rested
her expectation on the wealth of Madame Clairval, she seemed totally to
have forgotten, that the latter had a daughter. Valancourt, however,
had not forgotten this circumstance, and the consideration of it had
made him so modest in his expectations from Madame Clairval, that he
had not even named the relationship in his first conversation with
Madame Cheron. But, whatever might be the future fortune of Emily, the
present distinction, which the connection would afford for herself, was
certain, since the splendour of Madame Clairval’s establishment was
such as to excite the general envy and partial imitation of the
neighbourhood. Thus had she consented to involve her niece in an
engagement, to which she saw only a distant and uncertain conclusion,
with as little consideration of her happiness, as when she had so
precipitately forbade it: for though she herself possessed the means of
rendering this union not only certain, but prudent, yet to do so was no
part of her present intention.
From this period Valancourt made frequent visits to Madame Cheron, and
Emily passed in his society the happiest hours she had known since the
death of her father. They were both too much engaged by the present
moments to give serious consideration to the future. They loved and
were beloved, and saw not, that the very attachment, which formed the
delight of their present days, might possibly occasion the sufferings
of years. Meanwhile, Madame Cheron’s intercourse with Madame Clairval
became more frequent than before, and her vanity was already gratified
by the opportunity of proclaiming, wherever she went, the attachment
that subsisted between their nephew and niece.
Montoni was now also become a daily guest at the château, and Emily was
compelled to observe, that he really was a suitor, and a favoured
suitor, to her aunt.
Thus passed the winter months, not only in peace, but in happiness, to
Valancourt and Emily; the station of his regiment being so near
Thoulouse, as to allow this frequent intercourse. The pavilion on the
terrace was the favourite scene of their interviews, and there Emily,
with Madame Cheron, would work, while Valancourt read aloud works of
genius and taste, listened to her enthusiasm, expressed his own, and
caught new opportunities of observing, that their minds were formed to
constitute the happiness of each other, the same taste, the same noble
and benevolent sentiments animating each.
CHAPTER XIII
As when a shepherd of the Hebrid-Isles,
Placed far amid the melancholy main,
(Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles,
Or that aerial beings sometimes deign
To stand embodied to our senses plain)
Sees on the naked hill, or valley low,
The whilst in ocean Phœbus dips his wain,
A vast assembly moving to and fro,
Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show.
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE
Madame Cheron’s avarice at length yielded to her vanity. Some very
splendid entertainments, which Madame Clairval had given, and the
general adulation, which was paid her, made the former more anxious
than before to secure an alliance, that would so much exalt her in her
own opinion and in that of the world. She proposed terms for the
immediate marriage of her niece, and offered to give Emily a dower,
provided Madame Clairval observed equal terms, on the part of her
nephew. Madame Clairval listened to the proposal, and, considering that
Emily was the apparent heiress of her aunt’s wealth, accepted it.
Meanwhile, Emily knew nothing of the transaction, till Madame Cheron
informed her, that she must make preparation for the nuptials, which
would be celebrated without further delay; then, astonished and wholly
unable to account for this sudden conclusion, which Valancourt had not
solicited (for he was ignorant of what had passed between the elder
ladies, and had not dared to hope such good fortune), she decisively
objected to it. Madame Cheron, however, quite as jealous of
contradiction now, as she had been formerly, contended for a speedy
marriage with as much vehemence as she had formerly opposed whatever
had the most remote possibility of leading to it; and Emily’s scruples
disappeared, when she again saw Valancourt, who was now informed of the
happiness, designed for him, and came to claim a promise of it from
herself.
While preparations were making for these nuptials, Montoni became the
acknowledged lover of Madame Cheron; and, though Madame Clairval was
much displeased, when she heard of the approaching connection, and was
willing to prevent that of Valancourt with Emily, her conscience told
her, that she had no right thus to trifle with their peace, and Madame
Clairval, though a woman of fashion, was far less advanced than her
friend in the art of deriving satisfaction from distinction and
admiration, rather than from conscience.
Emily observed with concern the ascendancy, which Montoni had acquired
over Madame Cheron, as well as the increasing frequency of his visits;
and her own opinion of this Italian was confirmed by that of
Valancourt, who had always expressed a dislike of him. As she was, one
morning, sitting at work in the pavilion, enjoying the pleasant
freshness of spring, whose colours were now spread upon the landscape,
and listening to Valancourt, who was reading, but who often laid aside
the book to converse, she received a summons to attend Madame Cheron
immediately, and had scarcely entered the dressing-room, when she
observed with surprise the dejection of her aunt’s countenance, and the
contrasted gaiety of her dress. “So, niece!”—said Madame, and she
stopped under some degree of embarrassment.—“I sent for you—I—I wished
to see you; I have news to tell you. From this hour you must consider
the Signor Montoni as your uncle—we were married this morning.”
Astonished—not so much at the marriage, as at the secrecy with which it
had been concluded, and the agitation with which it was announced,
Emily, at length, attributed the privacy to the wish of Montoni, rather
than of her aunt. His wife, however, intended, that the contrary should
be believed, and therefore added, “you see I wished to avoid a bustle;
but now the ceremony is over I shall do so no longer; and I wish to
announce to my servants that they must receive the Signor Montoni for
their master.” Emily made a feeble attempt to congratulate her on these
apparently imprudent nuptials. “I shall now celebrate my marriage with
some splendour,” continued Madame Montoni, “and to save time I shall
avail myself of the preparation that has been made for yours, which
will, of course, be delayed a little while. Such of your wedding
clothes as are ready I shall expect you will appear in, to do honour to
this festival. I also wish you to inform Monsieur Valancourt, that I
have changed my name, and he will acquaint Madame Clairval. In a few
days I shall give a grand entertainment, at which I shall request their
presence.”
Emily was so lost in surprise and various thought, that she made Madame
Montoni scarcely any reply, but, at her desire, she returned to inform
Valancourt of what had passed. Surprise was not his predominant emotion
on hearing of these hasty nuptials; and, when he learned, that they
were to be the means of delaying his own, and that the very ornaments
of the château, which had been prepared to grace the nuptial day of his
Emily, were to be degraded to the celebration of Madame Montoni’s,
grief and indignation agitated him alternately. He could conceal
neither from the observation of Emily, whose efforts to abstract him
from these serious emotions, and to laugh at the apprehensive
considerations, that assailed him, were ineffectual; and, when, at
length, he took leave, there was an earnest tenderness in his manner,
that extremely affected her; she even shed tears, when he disappeared
at the end of the terrace, yet knew not exactly why she should do so.
Montoni now took possession of the château, and the command of its
inhabitants, with the ease of a man, who had long considered it to be
his own. His friend Cavigni, who had been extremely serviceable, in
having paid Madame Cheron the attention and flattery, which she
required, but from which Montoni too often revolted, had apartments
assigned to him, and received from the domestics an equal degree of
obedience with the master of the mansion.
Within a few days, Madame Montoni, as she had promised, gave a
magnificent entertainment to a very numerous company, among whom was
Valancourt; but at which Madame Clairval excused herself from
attending. There was a concert, ball and supper. Valancourt was, of
course, Emily’s partner, and though, when he gave a look to the
decorations of the apartments, he could not but remember, that they
were designed for other festivities, than those they now contributed to
celebrate, he endeavoured to check his concern by considering, that a
little while only would elapse before they would be given to their
original destination. During this evening, Madame Montoni danced,
laughed and talked incessantly; while Montoni, silent, reserved and
somewhat haughty, seemed weary of the parade, and of the frivolous
company it had drawn together.
This was the first and the last entertainment, given in celebration of
their nuptials. Montoni, though the severity of his temper and the
gloominess of his pride prevented him from enjoying such festivities,
was extremely willing to promote them. It was seldom, that he could
meet in any company a man of more address, and still seldomer one of
more understanding, than himself; the balance of advantage in such
parties, or in the connections, which might arise from them, must,
therefore, be on his side; and, knowing, as he did, the selfish
purposes, for which they are generally frequented, he had no objection
to measure his talents of dissimulation with those of any other
competitor for distinction and plunder. But his wife, who, when her own
interest was immediately concerned, had sometimes more discernment than
vanity, acquired a consciousness of her inferiority to other women, in
personal attractions, which, uniting with the jealousy natural to the
discovery, counteracted his readiness for mingling with all the parties
Thoulouse could afford. Till she had, as she supposed, the affections
of a husband to lose, she had no motive for discovering the unwelcome
truth, and it had never obtruded itself upon her; but, now that it
influenced her policy, she opposed her husband’s inclination for
company, with the more eagerness, because she believed him to be really
as well received in the female society of the place, as, during his
addresses to her, he had affected to be.
A few weeks only had elapsed, since the marriage, when Madame Montoni
informed Emily, that the Signor intended to return to Italy, as soon as
the necessary preparation could be made for so long a journey. “We
shall go to Venice,” said she, “where the Signor has a fine mansion,
and from thence to his estate in Tuscany. Why do you look so grave,
child?—You, who are so fond of a romantic country and fine views, will
doubtless be delighted with this journey.”
“Am I then to be of the party, madam?” said Emily, with extreme
surprise and emotion. “Most certainly,” replied her aunt, “how could
you imagine we should leave you behind? But I see you are thinking of
the Chevalier; he is not yet, I believe, informed of the journey, but
he very soon will be so. Signor Montoni is gone to acquaint Madame
Clairval of our journey, and to say, that the proposed connection
between the families must from this time be thought of no more.”
The unfeeling manner, in which Madame Montoni thus informed her niece,
that she must be separated, perhaps for ever, from the man, with whom
she was on the point of being united for life, added to the dismay,
which she must otherwise have suffered at such intelligence. When she
could speak, she asked the cause of the sudden change in Madame’s
sentiments towards Valancourt, but the only reply she could obtain was,
that the Signor had forbade the connection, considering it to be
greatly inferior to what Emily might reasonably expect.
“I now leave the affair entirely to the Signor,” added Madame Montoni,
“but I must say, that M. Valancourt never was a favourite with me, and
I was overpersuaded, or I should not have given my consent to the
connection. I was weak enough—I am so foolish sometimes!—to suffer
other people’s uneasiness to affect me, and so my better judgment
yielded to your affliction. But the Signor has very properly pointed
out the folly of this, and he shall not have to reprove me a second
time. I am determined, that you shall submit to those, who know how to
guide you better than yourself—I am determined, that you shall be
conformable.”
Emily would have been astonished at the assertions of this eloquent
speech, had not her mind been so overwhelmed by the sudden shock it had
received, that she scarcely heard a word of what was latterly addressed
to her. Whatever were the weaknesses of Madame Montoni, she might have
avoided to accuse herself with those of compassion and tenderness to
the feelings of others, and especially to those of Emily. It was the
same ambition, that lately prevailed upon her to solicit an alliance
with Madame Clairval’s family, which induced her to withdraw from it,
now that her marriage with Montoni had exalted her self-consequence,
and, with it, her views for her niece.
Emily was, at this time, too much affected to employ either
remonstrance, or entreaty on this topic; and when, at length, she
attempted the latter, her emotion overcame her speech, and she retired
to her apartment, to think, if in the present state of her mind to
think was possible, upon this sudden and overwhelming subject. It was
very long, before her spirits were sufficiently composed to permit the
reflection, which, when it came, was dark and even terrible. She saw,
that Montoni sought to aggrandise himself in his disposal of her, and
it occurred, that his friend Cavigni was the person, for whom he was
interested. The prospect of going to Italy was still rendered darker,
when she considered the tumultuous situation of that country, then torn
by civil commotion, where every petty state was at war with its
neighbour, and even every castle liable to the attack of an invader.
She considered the person, to whose immediate guidance she would be
committed, and the vast distance, that was to separate her from
Valancourt, and, at the recollection of him, every other image vanished
from her mind, and every thought was again obscured by grief.
In this perturbed state she passed some hours, and, when she was
summoned to dinner, she entreated permission to remain in her own
apartment; but Madame Montoni was alone, and the request was refused.
Emily and her aunt said little during the repast; the one occupied by
her griefs, the other engrossed by the disappointment, which the
unexpected absence of Montoni occasioned; for not only was her vanity
piqued by the neglect, but her jealousy alarmed by what she considered
as a mysterious engagement. When the cloth was drawn and they were
alone, Emily renewed the mention of Valancourt; but her aunt, neither
softened to pity, nor awakened to remorse, became enraged, that her
will should be opposed, and the authority of Montoni questioned, though
this was done by Emily with her usual gentleness, who, after a long,
and torturing conversation, retired in tears.
As she crossed the hall, a person entered it by the great door, whom,
as her eyes hastily glanced that way, she imagined to be Montoni, and
she was passing on with quicker steps, when she heard the well-known
voice of Valancourt.
“Emily, O! my Emily!” cried he in a tone faltering with impatience,
while she turned, and, as he advanced, was alarmed at the expression of
his countenance and the eager desperation of his air. “In tears, Emily!
I would speak with you,” said he, “I have much to say; conduct me to
where we may converse. But you tremble—you are ill! Let me lead you to
a seat.”
He observed the open door of an apartment, and hastily took her hand to
lead her thither; but she attempted to withdraw it, and said, with a
languid smile, “I am better already; if you wish to see my aunt she is
in the dining-parlour.” “I must speak with _you_, my Emily,” replied
Valancourt, “Good God! is it already come to this? Are you indeed so
willing to resign me? But this is an improper place—I am overheard. Let
me entreat your attention, if only for a few minutes.”—“When you have
seen my aunt,” said Emily. “I was wretched enough when I came hither,”
exclaimed Valancourt, “do not increase my misery by this coldness—this
cruel refusal.”
The despondency, with which he spoke this, affected her almost to
tears, but she persisted in refusing to hear him, till he had conversed
with Madame Montoni. “Where is her husband, where, then, is Montoni?”
said Valancourt, in an altered tone: “it is he, to whom I must speak.”
Emily, terrified for the consequence of the indignation, that flashed
in his eyes, tremblingly assured him, that Montoni was not at home, and
entreated he would endeavour to moderate his resentment. At the
tremulous accents of her voice, his eyes softened instantly from
wildness into tenderness. “You are ill, Emily,” said he, “they will
destroy us both! Forgive me, that I dared to doubt your affection.”
Emily no longer opposed him, as he led her into an adjoining parlour;
the manner, in which he had named Montoni, had so much alarmed her for
his own safety, that she was now only anxious to prevent the
consequences of his just resentment. He listened to her entreaties,
with attention, but replied to them only with looks of despondency and
tenderness, concealing, as much as possible, the sentiments he felt
towards Montoni, that he might soothe the apprehensions, which
distressed her. But she saw the veil he had spread over his resentment,
and, his assumed tranquillity only alarming her more, she urged, at
length, the impolicy of forcing an interview with Montoni, and of
taking any measure, which might render their separation irremediable.
Valancourt yielded to these remonstrances, and her affecting entreaties
drew from him a promise, that, however Montoni might persist in his
design of disuniting them, he would not seek to redress his wrongs by
violence. “For my sake,” said Emily, “let the consideration of what I
should suffer deter you from such a mode of revenge!” “For your sake,
Emily,” replied Valancourt, his eyes filling with tears of tenderness
and grief, while he gazed upon her. “Yes—yes—I shall subdue myself.
But, though I have given you my solemn promise to do this, do not
expect, that I can tamely submit to the authority of Montoni; if I
could, I should be unworthy of you. Yet, O Emily! how long may he
condemn me to live without you,—how long may it be before you return to
France!”
Emily endeavoured to sooth him with assurances of her unalterable
affection, and by representing, that, in little more than a year, she
should be her own mistress, as far as related to her aunt, from whose
guardianship her age would then release her; assurances, which gave
little consolation to Valancourt, who considered, that she would then
be in Italy and in the power of those, whose dominion over her would
not cease with their rights; but he affected to be consoled by them.
Emily, comforted by the promise she had obtained, and by his apparent
composure, was about to leave him, when her aunt entered the room. She
threw a glance of sharp reproof upon her niece, who immediately
withdrew, and of haughty displeasure upon Valancourt.
“This is not the conduct I should have expected from you, sir;” said
she, “I did not expect to see you in my house, after you had been
informed, that your visits were no longer agreeable, much less, that
you would seek a clandestine interview with my niece, and that she
would grant one.”
Valancourt, perceiving it necessary to vindicate Emily from such a
design, explained, that the purpose of his own visit had been to
request an interview with Montoni, and he then entered upon the subject
of it, with the tempered spirit which the sex, rather than the
respectability, of Madame Montoni, demanded.
His expostulations were answered with severe rebuke; she lamented
again, that her prudence had ever yielded to what she termed
compassion, and added, that she was so sensible of the folly of her
former consent, that, to prevent the possibility of a repetition, she
had committed the affair entirely to the conduct of Signor Montoni.
The feeling eloquence of Valancourt, however, at length, made her
sensible in some measure of her unworthy conduct, and she became
susceptible to shame, but not remorse: she hated Valancourt, who
awakened her to this painful sensation, and, in proportion as she grew
dissatisfied with herself, her abhorrence of him increased. This was
also the more inveterate, because his tempered words and manner were
such as, without accusing her, compelled her to accuse herself, and
neither left her a hope, that the odious portrait was the caricature of
his prejudice, or afforded her an excuse for expressing the violent
resentment, with which she contemplated it. At length, her anger rose
to such a height, that Valancourt was compelled to leave the house
abruptly, lest he should forfeit his own esteem by an intemperate
reply. He was then convinced, that from Madame Montoni he had nothing
to hope, for what of either pity, or justice could be expected from a
person, who could feel the pain of guilt, without the humility of
repentance?
To Montoni he looked with equal despondency, since it was nearly
evident, that this plan of separation originated with him, and it was
not probable, that he would relinquish his own views to entreaties, or
remonstrances, which he must have foreseen and have been prepared to
resist. Yet, remembering his promise to Emily, and more solicitous,
concerning his love, than jealous of his consequence, Valancourt was
careful to do nothing that might unnecessarily irritate Montoni, he
wrote to him, therefore, not to demand an interview, but to solicit
one, and, having done this, he endeavoured to wait with calmness his
reply.
Madame Clairval was passive in the affair. When she gave her
approbation to Valancourt’s marriage, it was in the belief, that Emily
would be the heiress of Madame Montoni’s fortune; and, though, upon the
nuptials of the latter, when she perceived the fallacy of this
expectation, her conscience had withheld her from adopting any measure
to prevent the union, her benevolence was not sufficiently active to
impel her towards any step, that might now promote it. She was, on the
contrary, secretly pleased, that Valancourt was released from an
engagement, which she considered to be as inferior, in point of
fortune, to his merit, as his alliance was thought by Montoni to be
humiliating to the beauty of Emily; and, though her pride was wounded
by this rejection of a member of her family, she disdained to show
resentment otherwise, than by silence.
Montoni, in his reply to Valancourt, said, that as an interview could
neither remove the objections of the one, nor overcome the wishes of
the other, it would serve only to produce useless altercation between
them. He, therefore, thought proper to refuse it.
In consideration of the policy, suggested by Emily, and of his promise
to her, Valancourt restrained the impulse, that urged him to the house
of Montoni, to demand what had been denied to his entreaties. He only
repeated his solicitations to see him; seconding them with all the
arguments his situation could suggest. Thus several days passed, in
remonstrance, on one side, and inflexible denial, on the other; for,
whether it was fear, or shame, or the hatred, which results from both,
that made Montoni shun the man he had injured, he was peremptory in his
refusal, and was neither softened to pity by the agony, which
Valancourt’s letters portrayed, nor awakened to a repentance of his own
injustice by the strong remonstrances he employed. At length,
Valancourt’s letters were returned unopened, and then, in the first
moments of passionate despair, he forgot every promise to Emily, except
the solemn one, which bound him to avoid violence, and hastened to
Montoni’s château, determined to see him by whatever other means might
be necessary. Montoni was denied, and Valancourt, when he afterwards
enquired for Madame, and Ma’amselle St. Aubert, was absolutely refused
admittance by the servants. Not choosing to submit himself to a contest
with these, he, at length, departed, and, returning home in a state of
mind approaching to frenzy, wrote to Emily of what had passed,
expressed without restraint all the agony of his heart, and entreated,
that, since he must not otherwise hope to see her immediately, she
would allow him an interview unknown to Montoni. Soon after he had
dispatched this, his passions becoming more temperate, he was sensible
of the error he had committed in having given Emily a new subject of
distress in the strong mention of his own suffering, and would have
given half the world, had it been his, to recover the letter. Emily,
however, was spared the pain she must have received from it by the
suspicious policy of Madame Montoni, who had ordered, that all letters,
addressed to her niece, should be delivered to herself, and who, after
having perused this and indulged the expressions of resentment, which
Valancourt’s mention of Montoni provoked, had consigned it to the
flames.
Montoni, meanwhile, every day more impatient to leave France, gave
repeated orders for dispatch to the servants employed in preparations
for the journey, and to the persons, with whom he was transacting some
particular business. He preserved a steady silence to the letters in
which Valancourt, despairing of greater good, and having subdued the
passion, that had transgressed against his policy, solicited only the
indulgence of being allowed to bid Emily farewell. But when Valancourt
learned that she was really to set out in a very few days, and that it
was designed he should see her no more, forgetting every consideration
of prudence, he dared, in a second letter to Emily, to propose a
clandestine marriage. This also was transmitted to Madame Montoni, and
the last day of Emily’s stay at Thoulouse arrived, without affording
Valancourt even a line to sooth his sufferings, or a hope, that he
should be allowed a parting interview.
During this period of torturing suspense to Valancourt, Emily was sunk
into that kind of stupor, with which sudden and irremediable misfortune
sometimes overwhelms the mind. Loving him with the tenderest affection,
and having long been accustomed to consider him as the friend and
companion of all her future days, she had no ideas of happiness, that
were not connected with him. What, then, must have been her suffering,
when thus suddenly they were to be separated, perhaps, for ever,
certainly to be thrown into distant parts of the world, where they
could scarcely hear of each other’s existence; and all this in
obedience to the will of a stranger, for such as Montoni, and of a
person, who had but lately been anxious to hasten their nuptials! It
was in vain, that she endeavoured to subdue her grief, and resign
herself to an event, which she could not avoid. The silence of
Valancourt afflicted more than it surprised her, since she attributed
it to its just occasion; but, when the day, preceding that, on which
she was to quit Thoulouse, arrived, and she had heard no mention of his
being permitted to take leave of her, grief overcame every
consideration, that had made her reluctant to speak of him, and she
enquired of Madame Montoni, whether this consolation had been refused.
Her aunt informed her that it had, adding, that, after the provocation
she had herself received from Valancourt, in their last interview, and
the persecution, which the Signor had suffered from his letters, no
entreaties should avail to procure it.
“If the chevalier expected this favour from us,” said she, “he should
have conducted himself in a very different manner; he should have
waited patiently, till he knew whether we were disposed to grant it,
and not have come and reproved me, because I did not think proper to
bestow my niece upon him, and then have persisted in troubling the
Signor, because he did not think proper to enter into any dispute about
so childish an affair. His behaviour throughout has been extremely
presumptuous and impertinent, and I desire, that I may never hear his
name repeated, and that you will get the better of those foolish
sorrows and whims, and look like other people, and not appear with that
dismal countenance, as if you were ready to cry. For, though you say
nothing, you cannot conceal your grief from my penetration. I can see
you are ready to cry at this moment, though I am reproving you for it;
aye, even now, in spite of my commands.”
Emily, having turned away to hide her tears, quitted the room to
indulge them, and the day was passed in an intensity of anguish, such
as she had, perhaps, never known before. When she withdrew to her
chamber for the night, she remained in the chair where she had placed
herself, on entering the room, absorbed in her grief, till long after
every member of the family, except herself, was retired to rest. She
could not divest herself of a belief, that she had parted with
Valancourt to meet no more; a belief, which did not arise merely from
foreseen circumstances, for, though the length of the journey she was
about to commence, the uncertainty as to the period of her return,
together with the prohibitions she had received, seemed to justify it,
she yielded also to an impression, which she mistook for a
presentiment, that she was going from Valancourt for ever. How dreadful
to her imagination, too, was the distance that would separate them—the
Alps, those tremendous barriers! would rise, and whole countries extend
between the regions where each must exist! To live in adjoining
provinces, to live even in the same country, though without seeing him,
was comparative happiness to the conviction of this dreadful length of
distance.
Her mind was, at length, so much agitated by the consideration of her
state, and the belief, that she had seen Valancourt for the last time,
that she suddenly became very faint, and, looking round the chamber for
something, that might revive her, she observed the casements, and had
just strength to throw one open, near which she seated herself. The air
recalled her spirits, and the still moonlight, that fell upon the elms
of a long avenue, fronting the window, somewhat soothed them, and
determined her to try whether exercise and the open air would not
relieve the intense pain that bound her temples. In the château all was
still; and, passing down the great staircase into the hall, from whence
a passage led immediately to the garden, she softly and unheard, as she
thought, unlocked the door, and entered the avenue. Emily passed on
with steps now hurried, and now faltering, as, deceived by the shadows
among the trees, she fancied she saw some person move in the distant
perspective, and feared, that it was a spy of Madame Montoni. Her
desire, however, to revisit the pavilion, where she had passed so many
happy hours with Valancourt, and had admired with him the extensive
prospect over Languedoc and her native Gascony, overcame her
apprehension of being observed, and she moved on towards the terrace,
which, running along the upper garden, commanded the whole of the lower
one, and communicated with it by a flight of marble steps, that
terminated the avenue.
Having reached these steps, she paused a moment to look round, for her
distance from the château now increased the fear, which the stillness
and obscurity of the hour had awakened. But, perceiving nothing that
could justify it, she ascended to the terrace, where the moonlight
showed the long broad walk, with the pavilion at its extremity, while
the rays silvered the foliage of the high trees and shrubs, that
bordered it on the right, and the tufted summits of those, that rose to
a level with the balustrade on the left, from the garden below. Her
distance from the château again alarming her, she paused to listen; the
night was so calm, that no sound could have escaped her, but she heard
only the plaintive sweetness of the nightingale, with the light shiver
of the leaves, and she pursued her way towards the pavilion, having
reached which, its obscurity did not prevent the emotion, that a fuller
view of its well-known scene would have excited. The lattices were
thrown back, and showed beyond their embowered arch the moonlight
landscape, shadowy and soft; its groves, and plains extending gradually
and indistinctly to the eye, its distant mountains catching a stronger
gleam, and the nearer river reflecting the moon, and trembling to her
rays.
Emily, as she approached the lattice, was sensible of the features of
this scene only as they served to bring Valancourt more immediately to
her fancy. “Ah!” said she, with a heavy sigh, as she threw herself into
a chair by the window, “how often have we sat together in this
spot—often have looked upon that landscape! Never, never more shall we
view it together—never—never more, perhaps, shall we look upon each
other!”
Her tears were suddenly stopped by terror—a voice spoke near her in the
pavilion; she shrieked—it spoke again, and she distinguished the
well-known tones of Valancourt. It was indeed Valancourt who supported
her in his arms! For some moments their emotion would not suffer either
to speak. “Emily,” said Valancourt at length, as he pressed her hand in
his. “Emily!” and he was again silent, but the accent, in which he had
pronounced her name, expressed all his tenderness and sorrow.
“O my Emily!” he resumed, after a long pause, “I do then see you once
again, and hear again the sound of that voice! I have haunted this
place—these gardens, for many—many nights, with a faint, very faint
hope of seeing you. This was the only chance that remained to me, and
thank Heaven! it has at length succeeded—I am not condemned to absolute
despair!”
Emily said something, she scarcely knew what, expressive of her
unalterable affection, and endeavoured to calm the agitation of his
mind; but Valancourt could for some time only utter incoherent
expressions of his emotions; and, when he was somewhat more composed,
he said, “I came hither, soon after sunset, and have been watching in
the gardens, and in this pavilion ever since; for, though I had now
given up all hope of seeing you, I could not resolve to tear myself
from a place so near to you, and should probably have lingered about
the château till morning dawned. O how heavily the moments have passed,
yet with what various emotion have they been marked, as I sometimes
thought I heard footsteps, and fancied you were approaching, and then
again—perceived only a dead and dreary silence! But, when you opened
the door of the pavilion, and the darkness prevented my distinguishing
with certainty, whether it was my love—my heart beat so strongly with
hopes and fears, that I could not speak. The instant I heard the
plaintive accents of your voice, my doubts vanished, but not my fears,
till you spoke of me; then, losing the apprehension of alarming you in
the excess of my emotion, I could no longer be silent. O Emily! these
are moments, in which joy and grief struggle so powerfully for
pre-eminence, that the heart can scarcely support the contest!”
Emily’s heart acknowledged the truth of this assertion, but the joy she
felt on thus meeting Valancourt, at the very moment when she was
lamenting, that they must probably meet no more, soon melted into
grief, as reflection stole over her thoughts, and imagination prompted
visions of the future. She struggled to recover the calm dignity of
mind, which was necessary to support her through this last interview,
and which Valancourt found it utterly impossible to attain, for the
transports of his joy changed abruptly into those of suffering, and he
expressed in the most impassioned language his horror of this
separation, and his despair of their ever meeting again. Emily wept
silently as she listened to him, and then, trying to command her own
distress, and to sooth his, she suggested every circumstance that could
lead to hope. But the energy of his fears led him instantly to detect
the friendly fallacies, which she endeavoured to impose on herself and
him, and also to conjure up illusions too powerful for his reason.
“You are going from me,” said he, “to a distant country, O how
distant!—to new society, new friends, new admirers, with people too,
who will try to make you forget me, and to promote new connections! How
can I know this, and not know, that you will never return for me—never
can be mine.” His voice was stifled by sighs.
“You believe, then,” said Emily, “that the pangs I suffer proceed from
a trivial and temporary interest; you believe—”
“Suffer!” interrupted Valancourt, “suffer for me! O Emily—how sweet—how
bitter are those words; what comfort, what anguish do they give! I
ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection, yet such is the
inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion,
however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object
of its interest, and thus it is, that I always feel revived, as by a
new conviction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and, wanting
these, I relapse into doubt, and too often into despondency.” Then
seeming to recollect himself, he exclaimed, “But what a wretch am I,
thus to torture you, and in these moments, too! I, who ought to support
and comfort you!”
This reflection overcame Valancourt with tenderness, but, relapsing
into despondency, he again felt only for himself, and lamented again
this cruel separation, in a voice and words so impassioned, that Emily
could no longer struggle to repress her own grief, or to sooth his.
Valancourt, between these emotions of love and pity, lost the power,
and almost the wish, of repressing his agitation; and, in the intervals
of convulsive sobs, he, at one moment, kissed away her tears, then told
her cruelly, that possibly she might never again weep for him, and then
tried to speak more calmly, but only exclaimed, “O Emily—my heart will
break!—I cannot—cannot leave you! Now—I gaze upon that countenance, now
I hold you in my arms! a little while, and all this will appear a
dream. I shall look, and cannot see you; shall try to recollect your
features—and the impression will be fled from my imagination;—to hear
the tones of your voice, and even memory will be silent!—I cannot,
cannot leave you! Why should we confide the happiness of our whole
lives to the will of people, who have no right to interrupt, and,
except in giving you to me, have no power to promote it? O Emily!
venture to trust your own heart, venture to be mine for ever!” His
voice trembled, and he was silent; Emily continued to weep, and was
silent also, when Valancourt proceeded to propose an immediate
marriage, and that at an early hour on the following morning, she
should quit Madame Montoni’s house, and be conducted by him to the
church of the Augustines, where a friar should await to unite them.
The silence, with which she listened to a proposal, dictated by love
and despair, and enforced at a moment, when it seemed scarcely possible
for her to oppose it;—when her heart was softened by the sorrows of a
separation, that might be eternal, and her reason obscured by the
illusions of love and terror, encouraged him to hope, that it would not
be rejected. “Speak, my Emily!” said Valancourt eagerly, “let me hear
your voice, let me hear you confirm my fate.” she spoke not; her cheek
was cold, and her senses seemed to fail her, but she did not faint. To
Valancourt’s terrified imagination she appeared to be dying; he called
upon her name, rose to go to the château for assistance, and then,
recollecting her situation, feared to go, or to leave her for a moment.
After a few minutes, she drew a deep sigh, and began to revive. The
conflict she had suffered, between love and the duty she at present
owed to her father’s sister; her repugnance to a clandestine marriage,
her fear of emerging on the world with embarrassments, such as might
ultimately involve the object of her affection in misery and
repentance;—all this various interest was too powerful for a mind,
already enervated by sorrow, and her reason had suffered a transient
suspension. But duty, and good sense, however hard the conflict, at
length, triumphed over affection and mournful presentiment; above all,
she dreaded to involve Valancourt in obscurity and vain regret, which
she saw, or thought she saw, must be the too certain consequence of a
marriage in their present circumstances; and she acted, perhaps, with
somewhat more than female fortitude, when she resolved to endure a
present, rather than provoke a distant misfortune.
With a candour, that proved how truly she esteemed and loved him, and
which endeared her to him, if possible, more than ever, she told
Valancourt all her reasons for rejecting his proposals. Those, which
influenced her concerning his future welfare, he instantly refuted, or
rather contradicted; but they awakened tender considerations for her,
which the frenzy of passion and despair had concealed before, and love,
which had but lately prompted him to propose a clandestine and
immediate marriage, now induced him to renounce it. The triumph was
almost too much for his heart; for Emily’s sake, he endeavoured to
stifle his grief, but the swelling anguish would not be restrained. “O
Emily!” said he, “I must leave you—I _must_ leave you, and I know it is
for ever!”
Convulsive sobs again interrupted his words, and they wept together in
silence, till Emily, recollecting the danger of being discovered, and
the impropriety of prolonging an interview, which might subject her to
censure, summoned all her fortitude to utter a last farewell.
“Stay!” said Valancourt, “I conjure you stay, for I have much to tell
you. The agitation of my mind has hitherto suffered me to speak only on
the subject that occupied it;—I have forborne to mention a doubt of
much importance, partly, lest it should appear as if I told it with an
ungenerous view of alarming you into a compliance with my late
proposal.”
Emily, much agitated, did not leave Valancourt, but she led him from
the pavilion, and, as they walked upon the terrace, he proceeded as
follows:
“This Montoni: I have heard some strange hints concerning him. Are you
certain he is of Madame Quesnel’s family, and that his fortune is what
it appears to be?”
“I have no reason to doubt either,” replied Emily, in a voice of alarm.
“Of the first, indeed, I cannot doubt, but I have no certain means of
judging of the latter, and I entreat you will tell me all you have
heard.”
“That I certainly will, but it is very imperfect, and unsatisfactory
information. I gathered it by accident from an Italian, who was
speaking to another person of this Montoni. They were talking of his
marriage; the Italian said, that if he was the person he meant, he was
not likely to make Madame Cheron happy. He proceeded to speak of him in
general terms of dislike, and then gave some particular hints,
concerning his character, that excited my curiosity, and I ventured to
ask him a few questions. He was reserved in his replies, but, after
hesitating for some time, he owned, that he had understood abroad, that
Montoni was a man of desperate fortune and character. He said something
of a castle of Montoni’s, situated among the Apennines, and of some
strange circumstances, that might be mentioned, as to his former mode
of life. I pressed him to inform me further, but I believe the strong
interest I felt was visible in my manner, and alarmed him; for no
entreaties could prevail with him to give any explanation of the
circumstances he had alluded to, or to mention anything further
concerning Montoni. I observed to him, that, if Montoni was possessed
of a castle in the Apennines, it appeared from such a circumstance,
that he was of some family, and also seemed to contradict the report,
that he was a man of entirely broken fortunes. He shook his head, and
looked as if he could have said a great deal, but made no reply.
“A hope of learning something more satisfactory, or more positive,
detained me in his company a considerable time, and I renewed the
subject repeatedly, but the Italian wrapped himself up in reserve,
said—that what he had mentioned he had caught only from a floating
report, and that reports frequently arose from personal malice, and
were very little to be depended upon. I forbore to press the subject
farther, since it was obvious that he was alarmed for the consequence
of what he had already said, and I was compelled to remain in
uncertainty on a point where suspense is almost intolerable. Think,
Emily, what I must suffer to see you depart for a foreign country,
committed to the power of a man of such doubtful character as is this
Montoni! But I will not alarm you unnecessarily;—it is possible, as the
Italian said, at first, that this is not the Montoni he alluded to.
Yet, Emily, consider well before you resolve to commit yourself to him.
O! I must not trust myself to speak—or I shall renounce all the
motives, which so lately influenced me to resign the hope of your
becoming mine immediately.”
Valancourt walked upon the terrace with hurried steps, while Emily
remained leaning on the balustrade in deep thought. The information she
had just received excited, perhaps, more alarm than it could justify,
and raised once more the conflict of contrasted interests. She had
never liked Montoni. The fire and keenness of his eye, its proud
exultation, its bold fierceness, its sullen watchfulness, as occasion,
and even slight occasion, had called forth the latent soul, she had
often observed with emotion; while from the usual expression of his
countenance she had always shrunk. From such observations she was the
more inclined to believe, that it was this Montoni, of whom the Italian
had uttered his suspicious hints. The thought of being solely in his
power, in a foreign land, was terrifying to her, but it was not by
terror alone that she was urged to an immediate marriage with
Valancourt. The tenderest love had already pleaded his cause, but had
been unable to overcome her opinion, as to her duty, her disinterested
considerations for Valancourt, and the delicacy, which made her revolt
from a clandestine union. It was not to be expected, that a vague
terror would be more powerful, than the united influence of love and
grief. But it recalled all their energy, and rendered a second conquest
necessary.
With Valancourt, whose imagination was now awake to the suggestion of
every passion; whose apprehensions for Emily had acquired strength by
the mere mention of them, and became every instant more powerful, as
his mind brooded over them—with Valancourt no second conquest was
attainable. He thought he saw in the clearest light, and love assisted
the fear, that this journey to Italy would involve Emily in misery; he
determined, therefore, to persevere in opposing it, and in conjuring
her to bestow upon him the title of her lawful protector.
“Emily!” said he, with solemn earnestness, “this is no time for
scrupulous distinctions, for weighing the dubious and comparatively
trifling circumstances, that may affect our future comfort. I now see,
much more clearly than before, the train of serious dangers you are
going to encounter with a man of Montoni’s character. Those dark hints
of the Italian spoke much, but not more than the idea I have of
Montoni’s disposition, as exhibited even in his countenance. I think I
see at this moment all that could have been hinted, written there. He
is the Italian, whom I fear, and I conjure you for your own sake, as
well as for mine, to prevent the evils I shudder to foresee. O Emily!
let my tenderness, my arms withhold you from them—give me the right to
defend you!”
Emily only sighed, while Valancourt proceeded to remonstrate and to
entreat with all the energy that love and apprehension could inspire.
But, as his imagination magnified to her the possible evils she was
going to meet, the mists of her own fancy began to dissipate, and
allowed her to distinguish the exaggerated images, which imposed on his
reason. She considered, that there was no proof of Montoni being the
person, whom the stranger had meant; that, even if he was so, the
Italian had noticed his character and broken fortunes merely from
report; and that, though the countenance of Montoni seemed to give
probability to a part of the rumour, it was not by such circumstances
that an implicit belief of it could be justified. These considerations
would probably not have arisen so distinctly to her mind, at this time,
had not the terrors of Valancourt presented to her such obvious
exaggerations of her danger, as incited her to distrust the fallacies
of passion. But, while she endeavoured in the gentlest manner to
convince him of his error, she plunged him into a new one. His voice
and countenance changed to an expression of dark despair. “Emily!” said
he, “this, this moment is the bitterest that is yet come to me. You do
not—cannot love me!—It would be impossible for you to reason thus
coolly, thus deliberately, if you did. I, _I_ am torn with anguish at
the prospect of our separation, and of the evils that may await you in
consequence of it; I would encounter any hazards to prevent it—to save
you. No! Emily, no!—you cannot love me.”
“We have now little time to waste in exclamation, or assertion,” said
Emily, endeavouring to conceal her emotion: “if you are yet to learn
how dear you are, and ever must be, to my heart, no assurances of mine
can give you conviction.”
The last words faltered on her lips, and her tears flowed fast. These
words and tears brought, once more, and with instantaneous force,
conviction of her love to Valancourt. He could only exclaim, “Emily!
Emily!” and weep over the hand he pressed to his lips; but she, after
some moments, again roused herself from the indulgence of sorrow, and
said, “I must leave you; it is late, and my absence from the château
may be discovered. Think of me—love me—when I am far away; the belief
of this will be my comfort!”
“Think of you!—love you!” exclaimed Valancourt.
“Try to moderate these transports,” said Emily, “for my sake, try.”
“For your sake!”
“Yes, for my sake,” replied Emily, in a tremulous voice, “I cannot
leave you thus!”
“Then do not leave me!” said Valancourt, with quickness. “Why should we
part, or part for longer than till tomorrow?”
“I am, indeed I am, unequal to these moments,” replied Emily, “you tear
my heart, but I never can consent to this hasty, imprudent proposal!”
“If we could command our time, my Emily, it should not be thus hasty;
we must submit to circumstances.”
“We must indeed! I have already told you all my heart—my spirits are
gone. You allowed the force of my objections, till your tenderness
called up vague terrors, which have given us both unnecessary anguish.
Spare me! do not oblige me to repeat the reasons I have already urged.”
“Spare you!” cried Valancourt, “I am a wretch—a very wretch, that have
felt only for myself!—I! who ought to have shown the fortitude of a
man, who ought to have supported you, I have increased your sufferings
by the conduct of a child! Forgive me, Emily! think of the distraction
of my mind now that I am about to part with all that is dear to me—and
forgive me! When you are gone, I shall recollect with bitter remorse
what I have made you suffer, and shall wish in vain that I could see
you, if only for a moment, that I might sooth your grief.”
Tears again interrupted his voice, and Emily wept with him. “I will
show myself more worthy of your love,” said Valancourt, at length; “I
will not prolong these moments. My Emily—my own Emily! never forget me!
God knows when we shall meet again! I resign you to his care.—O God!—O
God!—protect and bless her!”
He pressed her hand to his heart. Emily sunk almost lifeless on his
bosom, and neither wept, nor spoke. Valancourt, now commanding his own
distress, tried to comfort and reassure her, but she appeared totally
unaffected by what he said, and a sigh, which she uttered, now and
then, was all that proved she had not fainted.
He supported her slowly towards the château, weeping and speaking to
her; but she answered only in sighs, till, having reached the gate,
that terminated the avenue, she seemed to have recovered her
consciousness, and, looking round, perceived how near they were to the
château. “We must part here,” said she, stopping, “Why prolong these
moments? Teach me the fortitude I have forgot.”
Valancourt struggled to assume a composed air. “Farewell, my love!”
said he, in a voice of solemn tenderness—“trust me we shall meet
again—meet for each other—meet to part no more!” His voice faltered,
but, recovering it, he proceeded in a firmer tone. “You know not what I
shall suffer, till I hear from you; I shall omit no opportunity of
conveying to you my letters, yet I tremble to think how few may occur.
And trust me, love, for your dear sake, I will try to bear this absence
with fortitude. O how little I have shown tonight!”
“Farewell!” said Emily faintly. “When you are gone, I shall think of
many things I would have said to you.” “And I of many—many!” said
Valancourt; “I never left you yet, that I did not immediately remember
some question, or some entreaty, or some circumstance, concerning my
love, that I earnestly wished to mention, and feel wretched because I
could not. O Emily! this countenance, on which I now gaze—will, in a
moment, be gone from my eyes, and not all the efforts of fancy will be
able to recall it with exactness. O! what an infinite difference
between this moment and the next!—_now_, I am in your presence, can
behold you! _then_, all will be a dreary blank—and I shall be a
wanderer, exiled from my only home!”
Valancourt again pressed her to his heart, and held her there in
silence, weeping. Tears once again calmed her oppressed mind. They
again bade each other farewell, lingered a moment, and then parted.
Valancourt seemed to force himself from the spot; he passed hastily up
the avenue, and Emily, as she moved slowly towards the château, heard
his distant steps. She listened to the sounds, as they sunk fainter and
fainter, till the melancholy stillness of night alone remained; and
then hurried to her chamber, to seek repose, which, alas! was fled from
her wretchedness.
VOLUME 2
CHAPTER I
Where’er I roam, whatever realms I see,
My heart untravell’d still shall turn to thee.
GOLDSMITH
The carriages were at the gates at an early hour; the bustle of the
domestics, passing to and fro in the galleries, awakened Emily from
harassing slumbers: her unquiet mind had, during the night, presented
her with terrific images and obscure circumstances, concerning her
affection and her future life. She now endeavoured to chase away the
impressions they had left on her fancy; but from imaginary evils she
awoke to the consciousness of real ones. Recollecting that she had
parted with Valancourt, perhaps for ever, her heart sickened as memory
revived. But she tried to dismiss the dismal forebodings that crowded
on her mind, and to restrain the sorrow which she could not subdue;
efforts which diffused over the settled melancholy of her countenance
an expression of tempered resignation, as a thin veil, thrown over the
features of beauty, renders them more interesting by a partial
concealment. But Madame Montoni observed nothing in this countenance
except its usual paleness, which attracted her censure. She told her
niece, that she had been indulging in fanciful sorrows, and begged she
would have more regard for decorum, than to let the world see that she
could not renounce an improper attachment; at which Emily’s pale cheek
became flushed with crimson, but it was the blush of pride, and she
made no answer. Soon after, Montoni entered the breakfast room, spoke
little, and seemed impatient to be gone.
The windows of this room opened upon the garden. As Emily passed them,
she saw the spot where she had parted with Valancourt on the preceding
night: the remembrance pressed heavily on her heart, and she turned
hastily away from the object that had awakened it.
The baggage being at length adjusted, the travellers entered their
carriages, and Emily would have left the château without one sigh of
regret, had it not been situated in the neighbourhood of Valancourt’s
residence.
From a little eminence she looked back upon Thoulouse, and the far-seen
plains of Gascony, beyond which the broken summits of the Pyrenees
appeared on the distant horizon, lighted up by a morning sun. “Dear
pleasant mountains!” said she to herself, “how long may it be ere I see
ye again, and how much may happen to make me miserable in the interval!
Oh, could I now be certain, that I should ever return to ye, and find
that Valancourt still lived for me, I should go in peace! He will still
gaze on ye, gaze when I am far away!”
The trees, that impended over the high banks of the road and formed a
line of perspective with the distant country, now threatened to exclude
the view of them; but the bluish mountains still appeared beyond the
dark foliage, and Emily continued to lean from the coach window, till
at length the closing branches shut them from her sight.
Another object soon caught her attention. She had scarcely looked at a
person who walked along the bank, with his hat, in which was the
military feather, drawn over his eyes, before, at the sound of wheels,
he suddenly turned, and she perceived that it was Valancourt himself,
who waved his hand, sprung into the road, and through the window of the
carriage put a letter into her hand. He endeavoured to smile through
the despair that overspread his countenance as she passed on. The
remembrance of that smile seemed impressed on Emily’s mind for ever.
She leaned from the window, and saw him on a knoll of the broken bank,
leaning against the high trees that waved over him, and pursuing the
carriage with his eyes. He waved his hand, and she continued to gaze
till distance confused his figure, and at length another turn of the
road entirely separated him from her sight.
Having stopped to take up Signor Cavigni at a château on the road, the
travellers, of whom Emily was disrespectfully seated with Madame
Montoni’s woman in a second carriage, pursued their way over the plains
of Languedoc. The presence of this servant restrained Emily from
reading Valancourt’s letter, for she did not choose to expose the
emotions it might occasion to the observation of any person. Yet such
was her wish to read this his last communication, that her trembling
hand was every moment on the point of breaking the seal.
At length they reached the village, where they staid only to change
horses, without alighting, and it was not till they stopped to dine,
that Emily had an opportunity of reading the letter. Though she had
never doubted the sincerity of Valancourt’s affection, the fresh
assurances she now received of it revived her spirits; she wept over
his letter in tenderness, laid it by to be referred to when they should
be particularly depressed, and then thought of him with much less
anguish than she had done since they parted. Among some other requests,
which were interesting to her, because expressive of his tenderness,
and because a compliance with them seemed to annihilate for a while the
pain of absence, he entreated she would always think of him at sunset.
“You will then meet me in thought,” said he; “I shall constantly watch
the sunset, and I shall be happy in the belief, that your eyes are
fixed upon the same object with mine, and that our minds are
conversing. You know not, Emily, the comfort I promise myself from
these moments; but I trust you will experience it.”
It is unnecessary to say with what emotion Emily, on this evening,
watched the declining sun, over a long extent of plains, on which she
saw it set without interruption, and sink towards the province which
Valancourt inhabited. After this hour her mind became far more tranquil
and resigned, than it had been since the marriage of Montoni and her
aunt.
During several days the travellers journeyed over the plains of
Languedoc; and then entering Dauphiny, and winding for some time among
the mountains of that romantic province, they quitted their carriages
and began to ascend the Alps. And here such scenes of sublimity opened
upon them as no colours of language must dare to paint! Emily’s mind
was even so much engaged with new and wonderful images, that they
sometimes banished the idea of Valancourt, though they more frequently
revived it. These brought to her recollection the prospects among the
Pyrenees, which they had admired together, and had believed nothing
could excel in grandeur. How often did she wish to express to him the
new emotions which this astonishing scenery awakened, and that he could
partake of them! Sometimes too she endeavoured to anticipate his
remarks, and almost imagined him present. She seemed to have arisen
into another world, and to have left every trifling thought, every
trifling sentiment, in that below; those only of grandeur and sublimity
now dilated her mind, and elevated the affections of her heart.
With what emotions of sublimity, softened by tenderness, did she meet
Valancourt in thought, at the customary hour of sunset, when, wandering
among the Alps, she watched the glorious orb sink amid their summits,
his last tints die away on their snowy points, and a solemn obscurity
steal over the scene! And when the last gleam had faded, she turned her
eyes from the west with somewhat of the melancholy regret that is
experienced after the departure of a beloved friend; while these lonely
feelings were heightened by the spreading gloom, and by the low sounds,
heard only when darkness confines attention, which make the general
stillness more impressive—leaves shook by the air, the last sigh of the
breeze that lingers after sunset, or the murmur of distant streams.
During the first days of this journey among the Alps, the scenery
exhibited a wonderful mixture of solitude and inhabitation, of
cultivation and barrenness. On the edge of tremendous precipices, and
within the hollow of the cliffs, below which the clouds often floated,
were seen villages, spires, and convent towers; while green pastures
and vineyards spread their hues at the feet of perpendicular rocks of
marble, or of granite, whose points, tufted with alpine shrubs, or
exhibiting only massy crags, rose above each other, till they
terminated in the snowtopped mountain, whence the torrent fell, that
thundered along the valley.
The snow was not yet melted on the summit of Mount Cenis, over which
the travellers passed; but Emily, as she looked upon its clear lake and
extended plain, surrounded by broken cliffs, saw, in imagination, the
verdant beauty it would exhibit when the snows should be gone, and the
shepherds, leading up the midsummer flocks from Piedmont, to pasture on
its flowery summit, should add Arcadian figures to Arcadian landscape.
As she descended on the Italian side, the precipices became still more
tremendous, and the prospects still more wild and majestic, over which
the shifting lights threw all the pomp of colouring. Emily delighted to
observe the snowy tops of the mountains under the passing influence of
the day, blushing with morning, glowing with the brightness of noon, or
just tinted with the purple evening. The haunt of man could now only be
discovered by the simple hut of the shepherd and the hunter, or by the
rough pine bridge thrown across the torrent, to assist the latter in
his chase of the chamois over crags where, but for this vestige of man,
it would have been believed only the chamois or the wolf dared to
venture. As Emily gazed upon one of these perilous bridges, with the
cataract foaming beneath it, some images came to her mind, which she
afterwards combined in the following
STORIED SONNET
The weary traveller, who all night long
Has climb’d among the Alps’ tremendous steeps,
Skirting the pathless precipice, where throng
Wild forms of danger; as he onward creeps
If, chance, his anxious eye at distance sees
The mountain-shepherd’s solitary home,
Peeping from forth the moon-illumin’d trees,
What sudden transports to his bosom come!
But, if between some hideous chasm yawn,
Where the cleft pine a doubtful bridge displays,
In dreadful silence, on the brink, forlorn
He stands, and views in the faint rays
Far, far below, the torrent’s rising surge,
And listens to the wild impetuous roar;
Still eyes the depth, still shudders on the verge,
Fears to return, nor dares to venture o’er.
Desperate, at length the tottering plank he tries,
His weak steps slide, he shrieks, he sinks—he dies!
Emily, often as she travelled among the clouds, watched in silent awe
their billowy surges rolling below; sometimes, wholly closing upon the
scene, they appeared like a world of chaos, and, at others, spreading
thinly, they opened and admitted partial catches of the landscape—the
torrent, whose astounding roar had never failed, tumbling down the
rocky chasm, huge cliffs white with snow, or the dark summits of the
pine forests, that stretched mid-way down the mountains. But who may
describe her rapture, when, having passed through a sea of vapour, she
caught a first view of Italy; when, from the ridge of one of those
tremendous precipices that hang upon Mount Cenis and guard the entrance
of that enchanting country, she looked down through the lower clouds,
and, as they floated away, saw the grassy vales of Piedmont at her
feet, and, beyond, the plains of Lombardy extending to the farthest
distance, at which appeared, on the faint horizon, the doubtful towers
of Turin?
The solitary grandeur of the objects that immediately surrounded her,
the mountain-region towering above, the deep precipices that fell
beneath, the waving blackness of the forests of pine and oak, which
skirted their feet, or hung within their recesses, the headlong
torrents that, dashing among their cliffs, sometimes appeared like a
cloud of mist, at others like a sheet of ice—these were features which
received a higher character of sublimity from the reposing beauty of
the Italian landscape below, stretching to the wide horizon, where the
same melting blue tint seemed to unite earth and sky.
Madame Montoni only shuddered as she looked down precipices near whose
edge the chairmen trotted lightly and swiftly, almost, as the chamois
bounded, and from which Emily too recoiled; but with her fears were
mingled such various emotions of delight, such admiration,
astonishment, and awe, as she had never experienced before.
Meanwhile the carriers, having come to a landing-place, stopped to
rest, and the travellers being seated on the point of a cliff, Montoni
and Cavigni renewed a dispute concerning Hannibal’s passage over the
Alps, Montoni contending that he entered Italy by way of Mount Cenis,
and Cavigni, that he passed over Mount St. Bernard. The subject brought
to Emily’s imagination the disasters he had suffered in this bold and
perilous adventure. She saw his vast armies winding among the defiles,
and over the tremendous cliffs of the mountains, which at night were
lighted up by his fires, or by the torches which he caused to be
carried when he pursued his indefatigable march. In the eye of fancy,
she perceived the gleam of arms through the duskiness of night, the
glitter of spears and helmets, and the banners floating dimly on the
twilight; while now and then the blast of a distant trumpet echoed
along the defile, and the signal was answered by a momentary clash of
arms. She looked with horror upon the mountaineers, perched on the
higher cliffs, assailing the troops below with broken fragments of the
mountain; on soldiers and elephants tumbling headlong down the lower
precipices; and, as she listened to the rebounding rocks, that followed
their fall, the terrors of fancy yielded to those of reality, and she
shuddered to behold herself on the dizzy height, whence she had
pictured the descent of others.
Madame Montoni, meantime, as she looked upon Italy, was contemplating
in imagination the splendour of palaces and the grandeur of castles,
such as she believed she was going to be mistress of at Venice and in
the Apennine, and she became, in idea, little less than a princess.
Being no longer under the alarms which had deterred her from giving
entertainments to the beauties of Thoulouse, whom Montoni had mentioned
with more _eclât_ to his own vanity than credit to their discretion, or
regard to truth, she determined to give concerts, though she had
neither ear nor taste for music; _conversazione_, though she had no
talents for conversation; and to outvie, if possible, in the gaieties
of her parties and the magnificence of her liveries, all the noblesse
of Venice. This blissful reverie was somewhat obscured, when she
recollected the Signor, her husband, who, though he was not averse to
the profit which sometimes results from such parties, had always shown
a contempt of the frivolous parade that sometimes attends them; till
she considered that his pride might be gratified by displaying, among
his own friends, in his native city, the wealth which he had neglected
in France; and she courted again the splendid illusions that had
charmed her before.
The travellers, as they descended, gradually, exchanged the region of
winter for the genial warmth and beauty of spring. The sky began to
assume that serene and beautiful tint peculiar to the climate of Italy;
patches of young verdure, fragrant shrubs and flowers looked gaily
among the rocks, often fringing their rugged brows, or hanging in tufts
from their broken sides; and the buds of the oak and mountain ash were
expanding into foliage. Descending lower, the orange and the myrtle,
every now and then, appeared in some sunny nook, with their yellow
blossoms peeping from among the dark green of their leaves, and
mingling with the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate and the paler ones
of the arbutus, that ran mantling to the crags above; while, lower
still, spread the pastures of Piedmont, where early flocks were
cropping the luxuriant herbage of spring.
The river Doria, which, rising on the summit of Mount Cenis, had dashed
for many leagues over the precipices that bordered the road, now began
to assume a less impetuous, though scarcely less romantic character, as
it approached the green valleys of Piedmont, into which the travellers
descended with the evening sun; and Emily found herself once more amid
the tranquil beauty of pastoral scenery; among flocks and herds, and
slopes tufted with woods of lively verdure and with beautiful shrubs,
such as she had often seen waving luxuriantly over the alps above. The
verdure of the pasturage, now varied with the hues of early flowers,
among which were yellow ranunculuses and pansey violets of delicious
fragrance, she had never seen excelled.—Emily almost wished to become a
peasant of Piedmont, to inhabit one of the pleasant embowered cottages
which she saw peeping beneath the cliffs, and to pass her careless
hours among these romantic landscapes. To the hours, the months, she
was to pass under the dominion of Montoni, she looked with
apprehension; while those which were departed she remembered with
regret and sorrow.
In the present scenes her fancy often gave her the figure of
Valancourt, whom she saw on a point of the cliffs, gazing with awe and
admiration on the imagery around him; or wandering pensively along the
vale below, frequently pausing to look back upon the scenery, and then,
his countenance glowing with the poet’s fire, pursuing his way to some
overhanging heights. When she again considered the time and the
distance that were to separate them, that every step she now took
lengthened this distance, her heart sunk, and the surrounding landscape
charmed her no more.
The travellers, passing Novalesa, reached, after the evening had
closed, the small and ancient town of Susa, which had formerly guarded
this pass of the Alps into Piedmont. The heights which command it had,
since the invention of artillery, rendered its fortifications useless;
but these romantic heights, seen by moonlight, with the town below,
surrounded by its walls and watchtowers, and partially illumined,
exhibited an interesting picture to Emily. Here they rested for the
night at an inn, which had little accommodation to boast of; but the
travellers brought with them the hunger that gives delicious flavour to
the coarsest viands, and the weariness that ensures repose; and here
Emily first caught a strain of Italian music, on Italian ground. As she
sat after supper at a little window, that opened upon the country,
observing an effect of the moonlight on the broken surface of the
mountains, and remembering that on such a night as this she once had
sat with her father and Valancourt, resting upon a cliff of the
Pyrenees, she heard from below the long-drawn notes of a violin, of
such tone and delicacy of expression, as harmonised exactly with the
tender emotions she was indulging, and both charmed and surprised her.
Cavigni, who approached the window, smiled at her surprise. “This is
nothing extraordinary,” said he, “you will hear the same, perhaps, at
every inn on our way. It is one of our landlord’s family who plays, I
doubt not,” Emily, as she listened, thought he could be scarcely less
than a professor of music whom she heard; and the sweet and plaintive
strains soon lulled her into a reverie, from which she was very
unwillingly roused by the raillery of Cavigni, and by the voice of
Montoni, who gave orders to a servant to have the carriages ready at an
early hour on the following morning; and added, that he meant to dine
at Turin.
Madame Montoni was exceedingly rejoiced to be once more on level
ground; and, after giving a long detail of the various terrors she had
suffered, which she forgot that she was describing to the companions of
her dangers, she added a hope, that she should soon be beyond the view
of these horrid mountains, “which all the world,” said she, “should not
tempt me to cross again.” Complaining of fatigue she soon retired to
rest, and Emily withdrew to her own room, when she understood from
Annette, her aunt’s woman, that Cavigni was nearly right in his
conjecture concerning the musician, who had awakened the violin with so
much taste, for that he was the son of a peasant inhabiting the
neighbouring valley. “He is going to the Carnival at Venice,” added
Annette, “for they say he has a fine hand at playing, and will get a
world of money; and the Carnival is just going to begin: but for my
part, I should like to live among these pleasant woods and hills,
better than in a town; and they say Ma’amselle, we shall see no woods,
or hills, or fields, at Venice, for that it is built in the very middle
of the sea.”
Emily agreed with the talkative Annette, that this young man was making
a change for the worse, and could not forbear silently lamenting, that
he should be drawn from the innocence and beauty of these scenes, to
the corrupt ones of that voluptuous city.
When she was alone, unable to sleep, the landscapes of her native home,
with Valancourt, and the circumstances of her departure, haunted her
fancy; she drew pictures of social happiness amidst the grand
simplicity of nature, such as she feared she had bade farewell to for
ever; and then, the idea of this young Piedmontese, thus ignorantly
sporting with his happiness, returned to her thoughts, and, glad to
escape a while from the pressure of nearer interests, she indulged her
fancy in composing the following lines.
THE PIEDMONTESE
Ah, merry swain, who laugh’d along the vales,
And with your gay pipe made the mountains ring,
Why leave your cot, your woods, and thymy gales,
And friends belov’d, for aught that wealth can bring?
He goes to wake o’er moonlight seas the string,
Venetian gold his untaught fancy hails!
Yet oft of home his simple carols sing,
And his steps pause, as the last Alp he scales.
Once more he turns to view his native scene—
Far, far below, as roll the clouds away,
He spies his cabin ’mid the pine-tops green,
The well-known woods, clear brook, and pastures gay;
And thinks of friends and parents left behind,
Of sylvan revels, dance, and festive song;
And hears the faint reed swelling in the wind;
And his sad sighs the distant notes prolong!
Thus went the swain, till mountain-shadows fell,
And dimm’d the landscape to his aching sight;
And must he leave the vales he loves so well!
Can foreign wealth, and shows, his heart delight?
No, happy vales! your wild rocks still shall hear
His pipe, light sounding on the morning breeze;
Still shall he lead the flocks to streamlet clear,
And watch at eve beneath the western trees.
Away, Venetian gold—your charm is o’er!
And now his swift step seeks the lowland bow’rs,
Where, through the leaves, his cottage light _once more_
Guides him to happy friends, and jocund hours.
Ah, merry swain! that laugh along the vales,
And with your gay pipe make the mountains ring,
Your cot, your woods, your thymy-scented gales—
And friends belov’d, more joy than wealth can bring!
CHAPTER II
_Titania_. If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Early on the following morning, the travellers set out for Turin. The
luxuriant plain, that extends from the feet of the Alps to that
magnificent city, was not then, as now, shaded by an avenue of trees
nine miles in length; but plantations of olives, mulberry and palms,
festooned with vines, mingled with the pastoral scenery, through with
the rapid Po, after its descent from the mountains, wandered to meet
the humble Doria at Turin. As they advanced towards this city, the
Alps, seen at some distance, began to appear in all their awful
sublimity; chain rising over chain in long succession, their higher
points darkened by the hovering clouds, sometimes hid, and at others
seen shooting up far above them; while their lower steeps, broken into
fantastic forms, were touched with blue and purplish tints, which, as
they changed in light and shade, seemed to open new scenes to the eye.
To the east stretched the plains of Lombardy, with the towers of Turin
rising at a distance; and beyond, the Apennines, bounding the horizon.
The general magnificence of that city, with its vistas of churches and
palaces, branching from the grand square, each opening to a landscape
of the distant Alps or Apennines, was not only such as Emily had never
seen in France, but such as she had never imagined.
Montoni, who had been often at Turin, and cared little about views of
any kind, did not comply with his wife’s request, that they might
survey some of the palaces; but staying only till the necessary
refreshments could be obtained, they set forward for Venice with all
possible rapidity. Montoni’s manner, during this journey, was grave,
and even haughty; and towards Madame Montoni he was more especially
reserved; but it was not the reserve of respect so much as of pride and
discontent. Of Emily he took little notice. With Cavigni his
conversations were commonly on political or military topics, such as
the convulsed state of their country rendered at this time particularly
interesting, Emily observed, that, at the mention of any daring
exploit, Montoni’s eyes lost their sullenness, and seemed
instantaneously to gleam with fire; yet they still retained somewhat of
a lurking cunning, and she sometimes thought that their fire partook
more of the glare of malice than the brightness of valour, though the
latter would well have harmonised with the high chivalric air of his
figure, in which Cavigni, with all his gay and gallant manners, was his
inferior.
On entering the Milanese, the gentlemen exchanged their French hats for
the Italian cap of scarlet cloth, embroidered; and Emily was somewhat
surprised to observe, that Montoni added to his the military plume,
while Cavigni retained only the feather: which was usually worn with
such caps: but she at length concluded, that Montoni assumed this
ensign of a soldier for convenience, as a means of passing with more
safety through a country over-run with parties of the military.
Over the beautiful plains of this country the devastations of war were
frequently visible. Where the lands had not been suffered to lie
uncultivated, they were often tracked with the steps of the spoiler;
the vines were torn down from the branches that had supported them, the
olives trampled upon the ground, and even the groves of mulberry trees
had been hewn by the enemy to light fires that destroyed the hamlets
and villages of their owners. Emily turned her eyes with a sigh from
these painful vestiges of contention, to the Alps of the Grison, that
overlooked them to the north, whose awful solitudes seemed to offer to
persecuted man a secure asylum.
The travellers frequently distinguished troops of soldiers moving at a
distance; and they experienced, at the little inns on the road, the
scarcity of provision and other inconveniences, which are a part of the
consequence of intestine war; but they had never reason to be much
alarmed for their immediate safety, and they passed on to Milan with
little interruption of any kind, where they staid not to survey the
grandeur of the city, or even to view its vast cathedral, which was
then building.
Beyond Milan, the country wore the aspect of a ruder devastation; and
though everything seemed now quiet, the repose was like that of death,
spread over features, which retain the impression of the last
convulsions.
It was not till they had passed the eastern limits of the Milanese,
that the travellers saw any troops since they had left Milan, when, as
the evening was drawing to a close, they descried what appeared to be
an army winding onward along the distant plains, whose spears and other
arms caught the last rays of the sun. As the column advanced through a
part of the road, contracted between two hillocks, some of the
commanders, on horseback, were distinguished on a small eminence,
pointing and making signals for the march; while several of the
officers were riding along the line directing its progress, according
to the signs communicated by those above; and others, separating from
the vanguard, which had emerged from the pass, were riding carelessly
along the plains at some distance to the right of the army.
As they drew nearer, Montoni, distinguishing the feathers that waved in
their caps, and the banners and liveries of the bands that followed
them, thought he knew this to be the small army commanded by the famous
captain Utaldo, with whom, as well as with some of the other chiefs, he
was personally acquainted. He, therefore, gave orders that the
carriages should draw up by the side of the road, to await their
arrival, and give them the pass. A faint strain of martial music now
stole by, and, gradually strengthening as the troops approached, Emily
distinguished the drums and trumpets, with the clash of cymbals and of
arms, that were struck by a small party, in time to the march.
Montoni being now certain that these were the bands of the victorious
Utaldo, leaned from the carriage window, and hailed their general by
waving his cap in the air; which compliment the chief returned by
raising his spear, and then letting it down again suddenly, while some
of his officers, who were riding at a distance from the troops, came up
to the carriage, and saluted Montoni as an old acquaintance. The
captain himself soon after arriving, his bands halted while he
conversed with Montoni, whom he appeared much rejoiced to see; and from
what he said, Emily understood that this was a victorious army,
returning into their own principality; while the numerous waggons, that
accompanied them, contained the rich spoils of the enemy, their own
wounded soldiers, and the prisoners they had taken in battle, who were
to be ransomed when the peace, then negociating between the
neighbouring states, should be ratified. The chiefs on the following
day were to separate, and each, taking his share of the spoil, was to
return with his own band to his castle. This was therefore to be an
evening of uncommon and general festivity, in commemoration of the
victory they had accomplished together, and of the farewell which the
commanders were about to take of each other.
Emily, as these officers conversed with Montoni, observed with
admiration, tinctured with awe, their high martial air, mingled with
the haughtiness of the noblesse of those days, and heightened by the
gallantry of their dress, by the plumes towering on their caps, the
armorial coat, Persian sash, and ancient Spanish cloak. Utaldo, telling
Montoni that his army were going to encamp for the night near a village
at only a few miles distance, invited him to turn back and partake of
their festivity, assuring the ladies also, that they should be
pleasantly accommodated; but Montoni excused himself, adding, that it
was his design to reach Verona that evening; and, after some
conversation concerning the state of the country towards that city,
they parted.
The travellers proceeded without any interruption; but it was some
hours after sunset before they arrived at Verona, whose beautiful
environs were therefore not seen by Emily till the following morning;
when, leaving that pleasant town at an early hour, they set off for
Padua, where they embarked on the Brenta for Venice. Here the scene was
entirely changed; no vestiges of war, such as had deformed the plains
of the Milanese, appeared; on the contrary, all was peace and elegance.
The verdant banks of the Brenta exhibited a continued landscape of
beauty, gaiety, and splendour. Emily gazed with admiration on the
villas of the Venetian noblesse, with their cool porticos and
colonnades, overhung with poplars and cypresses of majestic height and
lively verdure; on their rich orangeries, whose blossoms perfumed the
air, and on the luxuriant willows, that dipped their light leaves in
the wave, and sheltered from the sun the gay parties whose music came
at intervals on the breeze. The Carnival did, indeed, appear to extend
from Venice along the whole line of these enchanting shores; the river
was gay with boats passing to that city, exhibiting the fantastic
diversity of a masquerade in the dresses of the people within them;
and, towards evening, groups of dancers frequently were seen beneath
the trees.
Cavigni, meanwhile, informed her of the names of the noblemen to whom
the several villas they passed belonged, adding light sketches of their
characters, such as served to amuse rather than to inform, exhibiting
his own wit instead of the delineation of truth. Emily was sometimes
diverted by his conversation; but his gaiety did not entertain Madame
Montoni, as it had formerly done; she was frequently grave, and Montoni
retained his usual reserve.
Nothing could exceed Emily’s admiration on her first view of Venice,
with its islets, palaces, and towers rising out of the sea, whose clear
surface reflected the tremulous picture in all its colours. The sun,
sinking in the west, tinted the waves and the lofty mountains of
Friuli, which skirt the northern shores of the Adriatic, with a saffron
glow, while on the marble porticos and colonnades of St. Mark were
thrown the rich lights and shades of evening. As they glided on, the
grander features of this city appeared more distinctly: its terraces,
crowned with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched, as they now were, with
the splendour of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been called
up from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter, rather than reared by
mortal hands.
The sun, soon after, sinking to the lower world, the shadow of the
earth stole gradually over the waves, and then up the towering sides of
the mountains of Friuli, till it extinguished even the last upward
beams that had lingered on their summits, and the melancholy purple of
evening drew over them, like a thin veil. How deep, how beautiful was
the tranquillity that wrapped the scene! All nature seemed to repose;
the finest emotions of the soul were alone awake. Emily’s eyes filled
with tears of admiration and sublime devotion, as she raised them over
the sleeping world to the vast heavens, and heard the notes of solemn
music, that stole over the waters from a distance. She listened in
still rapture, and no person of the party broke the charm by an
enquiry. The sounds seemed to grow on the air; for so smoothly did the
barge glide along, that its motion was not perceivable, and the fairy
city appeared approaching to welcome the strangers. They now
distinguished a female voice, accompanied by a few instruments, singing
a soft and mournful air; and its fine expression, as sometimes it
seemed pleading with the impassioned tenderness of love, and then
languishing into the cadence of hopeless grief, declared, that it
flowed from no feigned sensibility. Ah! thought Emily, as she sighed
and remembered Valancourt, those strains come from the heart!
She looked round, with anxious enquiry; the deep twilight, that had
fallen over the scene, admitted only imperfect images to the eye, but,
at some distance on the sea, she thought she perceived a gondola: a
chorus of voices and instruments now swelled on the air—so sweet, so
solemn! it seemed like the hymn of angels descending through the
silence of night! Now it died away, and fancy almost beheld the holy
choir reascending towards heaven; then again it swelled with the
breeze, trembled awhile, and again died into silence. It brought to
Emily’s recollection some lines of her late father, and she repeated in
a low voice,
Oft I hear,
Upon the silence of the midnight air,
Celestial voices swell in holy chorus
That bears the soul to heaven!
The deep stillness, that succeeded, was as expressive as the strain
that had just ceased. It was uninterrupted for several minutes, till a
general sigh seemed to release the company from their enchantment.
Emily, however, long indulged the pleasing sadness, that had stolen
upon her spirits; but the gay and busy scene that appeared, as the
barge approached St. Mark’s Place, at length roused her attention. The
rising moon, which threw a shadowy light upon the terraces, and
illumined the porticos and magnificent arcades that crowned them,
discovered the various company, whose light steps, soft guitars, and
softer voices, echoed through the colonnades.
The music they heard before now passed Montoni’s barge, in one of the
gondolas, of which several were seen skimming along the moonlight sea,
full of gay parties, catching the cool breeze. Most of these had music,
made sweeter by the waves over which it floated, and by the measured
sound of oars, as they dashed the sparkling tide. Emily gazed, and
listened, and thought herself in a fairy scene; even Madame Montoni was
pleased; Montoni congratulated himself on his return to Venice, which
he called the first city in the world, and Cavigni was more gay and
animated than ever.
The barge passed on to the grand canal, where Montoni’s mansion was
situated. And here, other forms of beauty and of grandeur, such as her
imagination had never painted, were unfolded to Emily in the palaces of
Sansovino and Palladio, as she glided along the waves. The air bore no
sounds, but those of sweetness, echoing along each margin of the canal,
and from gondolas on its surface, while groups of masks were seen
dancing on the moonlight terraces, and seemed almost to realise the
romance of fairyland.
The barge stopped before the portico of a large house, from whence a
servant of Montoni crossed the terrace, and immediately the party
disembarked. From the portico they passed a noble hall to a staircase
of marble, which led to a saloon, fitted up in a style of magnificence
that surprised Emily. The walls and ceilings were adorned with
historical and allegorical paintings, in _fresco_; silver tripods,
depending from chains of the same metal, illumined the apartment, the
floor of which was covered with Indian mats painted in a variety of
colours and devices; the couches and drapery of the lattices were of
pale green silk, embroidered and fringed with green and gold. Balcony
lattices opened upon the grand canal, whence rose a confusion of voices
and of musical instruments, and the breeze that gave freshness to the
apartment. Emily, considering the gloomy temper of Montoni, looked upon
the splendid furniture of this house with surprise, and remembered the
report of his being a man of broken fortune, with astonishment. “Ah!”
said she to herself, “if Valancourt could but see this mansion, what
peace would it give him! He would then be convinced that the report was
groundless.”
Madame Montoni seemed to assume the air of a princess; but Montoni was
restless and discontented, and did not even observe the civility of
bidding her welcome to her home.
Soon after his arrival, he ordered his gondola, and, with Cavigni, went
out to mingle in the scenes of the evening. Madame then became serious
and thoughtful. Emily, who was charmed with everything she saw,
endeavoured to enliven her; but reflection had not, with Madame
Montoni, subdued caprice and ill-humour, and her answers discovered so
much of both, that Emily gave up the attempt of diverting her, and
withdrew to a lattice, to amuse herself with the scene without, so new
and so enchanting.
The first object that attracted her notice was a group of dancers on
the terrace below, led by a guitar and some other instruments. The
girl, who struck the guitar, and another, who flourished a tambourine,
passed on in a dancing step, and with a light grace and gaiety of
heart, that would have subdued the goddess of spleen in her worst
humour. After these came a group of fantastic figures, some dressed as
gondolieri, others as minstrels, while others seemed to defy all
description. They sung in parts, their voices accompanied by a few soft
instruments. At a little distance from the portico they stopped, and
Emily distinguished the verses of Ariosto. They sung of the wars of the
Moors against Charlemagne, and then of the woes of Orlando: afterwards
the measure changed, and the melancholy sweetness of Petrarch
succeeded. The magic of his grief was assisted by all that Italian
music and Italian expression, heightened by the enchantments of
Venetian moonlight, could give.
Emily, as she listened, caught the pensive enthusiasm; her tears flowed
silently, while her fancy bore her far away to France and to
Valancourt. Each succeeding sonnet, more full of charming sadness than
the last, seemed to bind the spell of melancholy: with extreme regret
she saw the musicians move on, and her attention followed the strain
till the last faint warble died in air. She then remained sunk in that
pensive tranquillity which soft music leaves on the mind—a state like
that produced by the view of a beautiful landscape by moonlight, or by
the recollection of scenes marked with the tenderness of friends lost
for ever, and with sorrows, which time has mellowed into mild regret.
Such scenes are indeed, to the mind, like “those faint traces which the
memory bears of music that is past.”
Other sounds soon awakened her attention: it was the solemn harmony of
horns, that swelled from a distance; and, observing the gondolas
arrange themselves along the margin of the terraces, she threw on her
veil, and, stepping into the balcony, discerned, in the distant
perspective of the canal, something like a procession, floating on the
light surface of the water: as it approached, the horns and other
instruments mingled sweetly, and soon after the fabled deities of the
city seemed to have arisen from the ocean; for Neptune, with Venice
personified as his queen, came on the undulating waves, surrounded by
tritons and sea-nymphs. The fantastic splendour of this spectacle,
together with the grandeur of the surrounding palaces, appeared like
the vision of a poet suddenly embodied, and the fanciful images, which
it awakened in Emily’s mind, lingered there long after the procession
had passed away. She indulged herself in imagining what might be the
manners and delights of a sea-nymph, till she almost wished to throw
off the habit of mortality, and plunge into the green wave to
participate them.
“How delightful,” said she, “to live amidst the coral bowers and
crystal caverns of the ocean, with my sister nymphs, and listen to the
sounding waters above, and to the soft shells of the tritons! and then,
after sunset, to skim on the surface of the waves round wild rocks and
along sequestered shores, where, perhaps, some pensive wanderer comes
to weep! Then would I soothe his sorrows with my sweet music, and offer
him from a shell some of the delicious fruit that hangs round Neptune’s
palace.”
She was recalled from her reverie to a mere mortal supper, and could
not forbear smiling at the fancies she had been indulging, and at her
conviction of the serious displeasure, which Madame Montoni would have
expressed, could she have been made acquainted with them.
After supper, her aunt sat late, but Montoni did not return, and she at
length retired to rest. If Emily had admired the magnificence of the
saloon, she was not less surprised, on observing the half-furnished and
forlorn appearance of the apartments she passed in the way to her
chamber, whither she went through long suites of noble rooms, that
seemed, from their desolate aspect, to have been unoccupied for many
years. On the walls of some were the faded remains of tapestry; from
others, painted in fresco, the damps had almost withdrawn both colours
and design. At length she reached her own chamber, spacious, desolate,
and lofty, like the rest, with high lattices that opened towards the
Adriatic. It brought gloomy images to her mind, but the view of the
Adriatic soon gave her others more airy, among which was that of the
sea-nymph, whose delights she had before amused herself with picturing;
and, anxious to escape from serious reflections, she now endeavoured to
throw her fanciful ideas into a train, and concluded the hour with
composing the following lines:
THE SEA-NYMPH
Down, down a thousand fathom deep,
Among the sounding seas I go;
Play round the foot of ev’ry steep
Whose cliffs above the ocean grow.
There, within their secret cares,
I hear the mighty rivers roar;
And guide their streams through Neptune’s waves
To bless the green earth’s inmost shore:
And bid the freshen’d waters glide,
For fern-crown’d nymphs of lake, or brook,
Through winding woods and pastures wide,
And many a wild, romantic nook.
For this the nymphs, at fall of eave,
Oft dance upon the flow’ry banks,
And sing my name, and garlands weave
To bear beneath the wave their thanks.
In coral bow’rs I love to lie,
And hear the surges roll above,
And through the waters view on high
The proud ships sail, and gay clouds move.
And oft at midnight’s stillest hour,
When summer seas the vessel lave,
I love to prove my charmful pow’r
While floating on the moonlight wave.
And when deep sleep the crew has bound,
And the sad lover musing leans
O’er the ship’s side, I breathe around
Such strains as speak no mortal means!
O’er the dim waves his searching eye
Sees but the vessel’s lengthen’d shade;
Above—the moon and azure sky;
Entranc’d he hears, and half afraid!
Sometimes, a single note I swell,
That, softly sweet, at distance dies;
Then wake the magic of my shell,
And choral voices round me rise!
The trembling youth, charm’d by my strain,
Calls up the crew, who, silent, bend
O’er the high deck, but list in vain;
My song is hush’d, my wonders end!
Within the mountain’s woody bay,
Where the tall bark at anchor rides,
At twilight hour, with tritons gay,
I dance upon the lapsing tides:
And with my sister-nymphs I sport,
Till the broad sun looks o’er the floods;
Then, swift we seek our crystal court,
Deep in the wave, ’mid Neptune’s woods.
In cool arcades and glassy halls
We pass the sultry hours of noon,
Beyond wherever sunbeam falls,
Weaving sea-flowers in gay festoon.
The while we chant our ditties sweet
To some soft shell that warbles near;
Join’d by the murmuring currents, fleet,
That glide along our halls so clear.
There, the pale pearl and sapphire blue,
And ruby red, and em’rald green,
Dart from the domes a changing hue,
And sparry columns deck the scene.
When the dark storm scowls o’er the deep,
And long, long peals of thunder sound,
On some high cliff my watch I keep
O’er all the restless seas around:
Till on the ridgy wave afar
Comes the lone vessel, labouring slow,
Spreading the white foam in the air,
With sail and top-mast bending low.
Then, plunge I ’mid the ocean’s roar,
My way by quiv’ring lightnings shown,
To guide the bark to peaceful shore,
And hush the sailor’s fearful groan.
And if too late I reach its side
To save it from the ’whelming surge,
I call my dolphins o’er the tide,
To bear the crew where isles emerge.
Their mournful spirits soon I cheer,
While round the desert coast I go,
With warbled songs they faintly hear,
Oft as the stormy gust sinks low.
My music leads to lofty groves,
That wild upon the sea-bank wave;
Where sweet fruits bloom, and fresh spring roves,
And closing boughs the tempest brave.
Then, from the air spirits obey
My potent voice they love so well,
And, on the clouds, paint visions gay,
While strains more sweet at distance swell.
And thus the lonely hours I cheat,
Soothing the ship-wreck’d sailor’s heart,
Till from the waves the storms retreat,
And o’er the east the day-beams dart.
Neptune for this oft binds me fast
To rocks below, with coral chain,
Till all the tempest’s over-past,
And drowning seamen cry in vain.
Whoe’er ye are that love my lay,
Come, when red sunset tints the wave,
To the still sands, where fairies play;
There, in cool seas, I love to lave.
CHAPTER III
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,
....................he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort,
As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit
that could be mov’d to smile at anything.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease,
While they behold a greater than themselves.
JULIUS CÆSAR
Montoni and his companion did not return home, till many hours after
the dawn had blushed upon the Adriatic. The airy groups, which had
danced all night along the colonnade of St. Mark, dispersed before the
morning, like so many spirits. Montoni had been otherwise engaged; his
soul was little susceptible of light pleasures. He delighted in the
energies of the passions; the difficulties and tempests of life, which
wreck the happiness of others, roused and strengthened all the powers
of his mind, and afforded him the highest enjoyments, of which his
nature was capable. Without some object of strong interest, life was to
him little more than a sleep; and, when pursuits of real interest
failed, he substituted artificial ones, till habit changed their
nature, and they ceased to be unreal. Of this kind was the habit of
gaming, which he had adopted, first, for the purpose of relieving him
from the languor of inaction, but had since pursued with the ardour of
passion. In this occupation he had passed the night with Cavigni and a
party of young men, who had more money than rank, and more vice than
either. Montoni despised the greater part of these for the inferiority
of their talents, rather than for their vicious inclinations, and
associated with them only to make them the instruments of his purposes.
Among these, however, were some of superior abilities, and a few whom
Montoni admitted to his intimacy, but even towards these he still
preserved a decisive and haughty air, which, while it imposed
submission on weak and timid minds, roused the fierce hatred of strong
ones. He had, of course, many and bitter enemies; but the rancour of
their hatred proved the degree of his power; and, as power was his
chief aim, he gloried more in such hatred, than it was possible he
could in being esteemed. A feeling so tempered as that of esteem, he
despised, and would have despised himself also had he thought himself
capable of being flattered by it.
Among the few whom he distinguished, were the Signors Bertolini,
Orsino, and Verezzi. The first was a man of gay temper, strong
passions, dissipated, and of unbounded extravagance, but generous,
brave, and unsuspicious. Orsino was reserved, and haughty; loving power
more than ostentation; of a cruel and suspicious temper; quick to feel
an injury, and relentless in avenging it; cunning and unsearchable in
contrivance, patient and indefatigable in the execution of his schemes.
He had a perfect command of feature and of his passions, of which he
had scarcely any, but pride, revenge and avarice; and, in the
gratification of these, few considerations had power to restrain him,
few obstacles to withstand the depth of his stratagems. This man was
the chief favourite of Montoni. Verezzi was a man of some talent, of
fiery imagination, and the slave of alternate passions. He was gay,
voluptuous, and daring; yet had neither perseverance nor true courage,
and was meanly selfish in all his aims. Quick to form schemes, and
sanguine in his hope of success, he was the first to undertake, and to
abandon, not only his own plans, but those adopted from other persons.
Proud and impetuous, he revolted against all subordination; yet those
who were acquainted with his character, and watched the turn of his
passions, could lead him like a child.
Such were the friends whom Montoni introduced to his family and his
table, on the day after his arrival at Venice. There were also of the
party a Venetian nobleman, Count Morano, and a Signora Livona, whom
Montoni had introduced to his wife, as a lady of distinguished merit,
and who, having called in the morning to welcome her to Venice, had
been requested to be of the dinner party.
Madame Montoni received with a very ill grace, the compliments of the
Signors. She disliked them, because they were the friends of her
husband; hated them, because she believed they had contributed to
detain him abroad till so late an hour of the preceding morning; and
envied them, since, conscious of her own want of influence, she was
convinced, that he preferred their society to her own. The rank of
Count Morano procured him that distinction which she refused to the
rest of the company. The haughty sullenness of her countenance and
manner, and the ostentatious extravagance of her dress, for she had not
yet adopted the Venetian habit, were strikingly contrasted by the
beauty, modesty, sweetness and simplicity of Emily, who observed, with
more attention than pleasure, the party around her. The beauty and
fascinating manners of Signora Livona, however, won her involuntary
regard; while the sweetness of her accents and her air of gentle
kindness awakened with Emily those pleasing affections, which so long
had slumbered.
In the cool of the evening the party embarked in Montoni’s gondola, and
rowed out upon the sea. The red glow of sunset still touched the waves,
and lingered in the west, where the melancholy gleam seemed slowly
expiring, while the dark blue of the upper æther began to twinkle with
stars. Emily sat, given up to pensive and sweet emotions. The
smoothness of the water, over which she glided, its reflected images—a
new heaven and trembling stars below the waves, with shadowy outlines
of towers and porticos, conspired with the stillness of the hour,
interrupted only by the passing wave, or the notes of distant music, to
raise those emotions to enthusiasm. As she listened to the measured
sound of the oars, and to the remote warblings that came in the breeze,
her softened mind returned to the memory of St. Aubert and to
Valancourt, and tears stole to her eyes. The rays of the moon,
strengthening as the shadows deepened, soon after threw a silvery gleam
upon her countenance, which was partly shaded by a thin black veil, and
touched it with inimitable softness. Hers was the _contour_ of a
Madona, with the sensibility of a Magdalen; and the pensive uplifted
eye, with the tear that glittered on her cheek, confirmed the
expression of the character.
The last strain of distant music now died in air, for the gondola was
far upon the waves, and the party determined to have music of their
own. The Count Morano, who sat next to Emily, and who had been
observing her for some time in silence, snatched up a lute, and struck
the chords with the finger of harmony herself, while his voice, a fine
tenor, accompanied them in a rondeau full of tender sadness. To him,
indeed, might have been applied that beautiful exhortation of an
English poet, had it then existed:
Strike up, my master,
But touch the strings with a religious softness!
Teach sounds to languish through the night’s dull ear
Till Melancholy starts from off her couch,
And Carelessness grows concert to attention!
With such powers of expression the Count sung the following
RONDEAU
Soft as yon silver ray, that sleeps
Upon the ocean’s trembling tide;
Soft as the air, that lightly sweeps
Yon sad, that swells in stately pride:
Soft as the surge’s stealing note,
That dies along the distant shores,
Or warbled strain, that sinks remote—
So soft the sigh my bosom pours!
True as the wave to Cynthia’s ray,
True as the vessel to the breeze,
True as the soul to music’s sway,
Or music to Venetian seas:
Soft as yon silver beams, that sleep
Upon the ocean’s trembling breast;
So soft, so true, fond Love shall weep,
So soft, so true, with _thee_ shall rest.
The cadence with which he returned from the last stanza to a repetition
of the first; the fine modulation in which his voice stole upon the
first line, and the pathetic energy with which it pronounced the last,
were such as only exquisite taste could give. When he had concluded, he
gave the lute with a sigh to Emily, who, to avoid any appearance of
affectation, immediately began to play. She sung a melancholy little
air, one of the popular songs of her native province, with a simplicity
and pathos that made it enchanting. But its well-known melody brought
so forcibly to her fancy the scenes and the persons, among which she
had often heard it, that her spirits were overcome, her voice trembled
and ceased—and the strings of the lute were struck with a disordered
hand; till, ashamed of the emotion she had betrayed, she suddenly
passed on to a song so gay and airy, that the steps of the dance seemed
almost to echo to the notes. _Bravissimo!_ burst instantly from the
lips of her delighted auditors, and she was compelled to repeat the
air. Among the compliments that followed, those of the Count were not
the least audible, and they had not concluded, when Emily gave the
instrument to Signora Livona, whose voice accompanied it with true
Italian taste.
Afterwards, the Count, Emily, Cavigni, and the Signora, sung
_canzonettes_, accompanied by a couple of lutes and a few other
instruments. Sometimes the instruments suddenly ceased, and the voices
dropped from the full swell of harmony into a low chant; then, after a
deep pause, they rose by degrees, the instruments one by one striking
up, till the loud and full chorus soared again to heaven!
Meanwhile, Montoni, who was weary of this harmony, was considering how
he might disengage himself from his party, or withdraw with such of it
as would be willing to play, to a Casino. In a pause of the music, he
proposed returning to shore, a proposal which Orsino eagerly seconded,
but which the Count and the other gentlemen as warmly opposed.
Montoni still meditated how he might excuse himself from longer
attendance upon the Count, for to him only he thought excuse necessary,
and how he might get to land, till the gondolieri of an empty boat,
returning to Venice, hailed his people. Without troubling himself
longer about an excuse, he seized this opportunity of going thither,
and, committing the ladies to the care of his friends, departed with
Orsino, while Emily, for the first time, saw him go with regret; for
she considered his presence a protection, though she knew not what she
should fear. He landed at St. Mark’s, and, hurrying to a Casino, was
soon lost amidst a crowd of gamesters.
Meanwhile, the Count having secretly dispatched a servant in Montoni’s
boat, for his own gondola and musicians, Emily heard, without knowing
his project, the gay song of gondolieri approaching, as they sat on the
stern of the boat, and saw the tremulous gleam of the moonlight wave,
which their oars disturbed. Presently she heard the sound of
instruments, and then a full symphony swelled on the air, and, the
boats meeting, the gondolieri hailed each other. The Count then
explaining himself, the party removed into his gondola, which was
embellished with all that taste could bestow.
While they partook of a collation of fruits and ice, the whole band,
following at a distance in the other boat, played the most sweet and
enchanting strains, and the Count, who had again seated himself by
Emily, paid her unremitted attention, and sometimes, in a low but
impassioned voice, uttered compliments which she could not
misunderstand. To avoid them she conversed with Signora Livona, and her
manner to the Count assumed a mild reserve, which, though dignified,
was too gentle to repress his assiduities: he could see, hear, speak to
no person, but Emily while Cavigni observed him now and then, with a
look of displeasure, and Emily, with one of uneasiness. She now wished
for nothing so much as to return to Venice, but it was near midnight
before the gondolas approached St. Mark’s Place, where the voice of
gaiety and song was loud. The busy hum of mingling sounds was heard at
a considerable distance on the water, and, had not a bright moonlight
discovered the city, with its terraces and towers, a stranger would
almost have credited the fabled wonders of Neptune’s court, and
believed, that the tumult arose from beneath the waves.
They landed at St. Mark’s, where the gaiety of the colonnades and the
beauty of the night, made Madame Montoni willingly submit to the
Count’s solicitations to join the promenade, and afterwards to take a
supper with the rest of the party, at his Casino. If anything could
have dissipated Emily’s uneasiness, it would have been the grandeur,
gaiety, and novelty of the surrounding scene, adorned with Palladio’s
palaces, and busy with parties of masqueraders.
At length they withdrew to the Casino, which was fitted up with
infinite taste, and where a splendid banquet was prepared; but here
Emily’s reserve made the Count perceive, that it was necessary for his
interest to win the favour of Madame Montoni, which, from the
condescension she had already shown to him, appeared to be an
achievement of no great difficulty. He transferred, therefore, part of
his attention from Emily to her aunt, who felt too much flattered by
the distinction even to disguise her emotion; and before the party
broke up, he had entirely engaged the esteem of Madame Montoni.
Whenever he addressed her, her ungracious countenance relaxed into
smiles, and to whatever he proposed she assented. He invited her, with
the rest of the party, to take coffee, in his box at the opera, on the
following evening, and Emily heard the invitation accepted, with strong
anxiety, concerning the means of excusing herself from attending Madame
Montoni thither.
It was very late before their gondola was ordered, and Emily’s surprise
was extreme, when, on quitting the Casino, she beheld the broad sun
rising out of the Adriatic, while St. Mark’s Place was yet crowded with
company. Sleep had long weighed heavily on her eyes, but now the fresh
sea-breeze revived her, and she would have quitted the scene with
regret, had not the Count been present, performing the duty, which he
had imposed upon himself, of escorting them home. There they heard that
Montoni was not yet returned; and his wife, retiring in displeasure to
her apartment, at length released Emily from the fatigue of further
attendance.
Montoni came home late in the morning, in a very ill humour, having
lost considerably at play, and, before he withdrew to rest, had a
private conference with Cavigni, whose manner, on the following day,
seemed to tell, that the subject of it had not been pleasing to him.
In the evening, Madame Montoni, who, during the day, had observed a
sullen silence towards her husband, received visits from some Venetian
ladies, with whose sweet manners Emily was particularly charmed. They
had an air of ease and kindness towards the strangers, as if they had
been their familiar friends for years; and their conversation was by
turns tender, sentimental and gay. Madame, though she had no taste for
such conversation, and whose coarseness and selfishness sometimes
exhibited a ludicrous contrast to their excessive refinement, could not
remain wholly insensible to the captivations of their manner.
In a pause of conversation, a lady who was called Signora Herminia took
up a lute, and began to play and sing, with as much easy gaiety, as if
she had been alone. Her voice was uncommonly rich in tone, and various
in expression; yet she appeared to be entirely unconscious of its
powers, and meant nothing less than to display them. She sung from the
gaiety of her heart, as she sat with her veil half thrown back, holding
gracefully the lute, under the spreading foliage and flowers of some
plants, that rose from baskets, and interlaced one of the lattices of
the saloon. Emily, retiring a little from the company, sketched her
figure, with the miniature scenery around her, and drew a very
interesting picture, which, though it would not, perhaps, have borne
criticism, had spirit and taste enough to awaken both the fancy and the
heart. When she had finished it, she presented it to the beautiful
original, who was delighted with the offering, as well as the sentiment
it conveyed, and assured Emily, with a smile of captivating sweetness,
that she should preserve it as a pledge of her friendship.
In the evening Cavigni joined the ladies, but Montoni had other
engagements; and they embarked in the gondola for St. Mark’s, where the
same gay company seemed to flutter as on the preceding night. The cool
breeze, the glassy sea, the gentle sound of its waves, and the sweeter
murmur of distant music; the lofty porticos and arcades, and the happy
groups that sauntered beneath them; these, with every feature and
circumstance of the scene, united to charm Emily, no longer teased by
the officious attentions of Count Morano. But, as she looked upon the
moonlight sea, undulating along the walls of St. Mark, and, lingering
for a moment over those walls, caught the sweet and melancholy song of
some gondolier as he sat in his boat below, waiting for his master, her
softened mind returned to the memory of her home, of her friends, and
of all that was dear in her native country.
After walking some time, they sat down at the door of a Casino, and,
while Cavigni was accommodating them with coffee and ice, were joined
by Count Morano. He sought Emily with a look of impatient delight, who,
remembering all the attention he had shown her on the preceding
evening, was compelled, as before, to shrink from his assiduities into
a timid reserve, except when she conversed with Signora Herminia and
the other ladies of her party.
It was near midnight before they withdrew to the opera, where Emily was
not so charmed but that, when she remembered the scene she had just
quitted, she felt how infinitely inferior all the splendour of art is
to the sublimity of nature. Her heart was not now affected, tears of
admiration did not start to her eyes, as when she viewed the vast
expanse of ocean, the grandeur of the heavens, and listened to the
rolling waters, and to the faint music that, at intervals, mingled with
their roar. Remembering these, the scene before her faded into
insignificance.
Of the evening, which passed on without any particular incident, she
wished the conclusion, that she might escape from the attentions of the
Count; and, as opposite qualities frequently attract each other in our
thoughts, thus Emily, when she looked on Count Morano, remembered
Valancourt, and a sigh sometimes followed the recollection.
Several weeks passed in the course of customary visits, during which
nothing remarkable occurred. Emily was amused by the manners and scenes
that surrounded her, so different from those of France, but where Count
Morano, too frequently for her comfort, contrived to introduce himself.
His manner, figure and accomplishments, which were generally admired,
Emily would, perhaps, have admired also, had her heart been disengaged
from Valancourt, and had the Count forborne to persecute her with
officious attentions, during which she observed some traits in his
character, that prejudiced her against whatever might otherwise be good
in it.
Soon after his arrival at Venice, Montoni received a packet from M.
Quesnel, in which the latter mentioned the death of his wife’s uncle,
at his villa on the Brenta; and that, in consequence of this event, he
should hasten to take possession of that estate and of other effects
bequeathed to him. This uncle was the brother of Madame Quesnel’s late
mother; Montoni was related to her by the father’s side, and though he
could have had neither claim nor expectation concerning these
possessions, he could scarcely conceal the envy which M. Quesnel’s
letter excited.
Emily had observed with concern, that, since they left France, Montoni
had not even affected kindness towards her aunt, and that, after
treating her, at first, with neglect, he now met her with uniform
ill-humour and reserve. She had never supposed, that her aunt’s foibles
could have escaped the discernment of Montoni, or that her mind or
figure were of a kind to deserve his attention. Her surprise,
therefore, at this match, had been extreme; but since he had made the
choice, she did not suspect that he would so openly have discovered his
contempt of it. But Montoni, who had been allured by the seeming wealth
of Madame Cheron, was now severely disappointed by her comparative
poverty, and highly exasperated by the deceit she had employed to
conceal it, till concealment was no longer necessary. He had been
deceived in an affair, wherein he meant to be the deceiver; out-witted
by the superior cunning of a woman, whose understanding he despised,
and to whom he had sacrificed his pride and his liberty, without saving
himself from the ruin, which had impended over his head. Madame Montoni
had contrived to have the greatest part of what she really did possess,
settled upon herself: what remained, though it was totally inadequate
both to her husband’s expectations, and to his necessities, he had
converted into money, and brought with him to Venice, that he might a
little longer delude society, and make a last effort to regain the
fortunes he had lost.
The hints which had been thrown out to Valancourt, concerning Montoni’s
character and condition, were too true; but it was now left to time and
occasion, to unfold the circumstances, both of what had, and of what
had not been hinted, and to time and occasion we commit them.
Madame Montoni was not of a nature to bear injuries with meekness, or
to resent them with dignity: her exasperated pride displayed itself in
all the violence and acrimony of a little, or at least of an
ill-regulated mind. She would not acknowledge, even to herself, that
she had in any degree provoked contempt by her duplicity, but weakly
persisted in believing, that she alone was to be pitied, and Montoni
alone to be censured; for, as her mind had naturally little perception
of moral obligation, she seldom understood its force but when it
happened to be violated towards herself: her vanity had already been
severely shocked by a discovery of Montoni’s contempt; it remained to
be farther reproved by a discovery of his circumstances. His mansion at
Venice, though its furniture discovered a part of the truth to
unprejudiced persons, told nothing to those who were blinded by a
resolution to believe whatever they wished. Madame Montoni still
thought herself little less than a princess, possessing a palace at
Venice, and a castle among the Apennines. To the castle di Udolpho,
indeed, Montoni sometimes talked of going for a few weeks to examine
into its condition, and to receive some rents; for it appeared that he
had not been there for two years, and that, during this period, it had
been inhabited only by an old servant, whom he called his steward.
Emily listened to the mention of this journey with pleasure, for she
not only expected from it new ideas, but a release from the persevering
assiduities of Count Morano. In the country, too, she would have
leisure to think of Valancourt, and to indulge the melancholy, which
his image, and a recollection of the scenes of La Vallée, always
blessed with the memory of her parents, awakened. The ideal scenes were
dearer, and more soothing to her heart, than all the splendour of gay
assemblies; they were a kind of talisman that expelled the poison of
temporary evils, and supported her hopes of happy days: they appeared
like a beautiful landscape, lighted up by a gleam of sunshine, and seen
through a perspective of dark and rugged rocks.
But Count Morano did not long confine himself to silent assiduities; he
declared his passion to Emily, and made proposals to Montoni, who
encouraged, though Emily rejected, him: with Montoni for his friend,
and an abundance of vanity to delude him, he did not despair of
success. Emily was astonished and highly disgusted at his perseverance,
after she had explained her sentiments with a frankness that would not
allow him to misunderstand them.
He now passed the greater part of his time at Montoni’s, dining there
almost daily, and attending Madame and Emily wherever they went; and
all this, notwithstanding the uniform reserve of Emily, whose aunt
seemed as anxious as Montoni to promote this marriage; and would never
dispense with her attendance at any assembly where the Count proposed
to be present.
Montoni now said nothing of his intended journey, of which Emily waited
impatiently to hear; and he was seldom at home but when the Count, or
Signor Orsino, was there, for between himself and Cavigni a coolness
seemed to subsist, though the latter remained in his house. With
Orsino, Montoni was frequently closeted for hours together, and,
whatever might be the business, upon which they consulted, it appeared
to be of consequence, since Montoni often sacrificed to it his
favourite passion for play, and remained at home the whole night. There
was somewhat of privacy, too, in the manner of Orsino’s visits, which
had never before occurred, and which excited not only surprise, but
some degree of alarm in Emily’s mind, who had unwillingly discovered
much of his character when he had most endeavoured to disguise it.
After these visits, Montoni was often more thoughtful than usual;
sometimes the deep workings of his mind entirely abstracted him from
surrounding objects, and threw a gloom over his visage that rendered it
terrible; at others, his eyes seemed almost to flash fire, and all the
energies of his soul appeared to be roused for some great enterprise.
Emily observed these written characters of his thoughts with deep
interest, and not without some degree of awe, when she considered that
she was entirely in his power; but forbore even to hint her fears, or
her observations, to Madame Montoni, who discerned nothing in her
husband, at these times, but his usual sternness.
A second letter from M. Quesnel announced the arrival of himself and
his lady at the Villa Miarenti; stated several circumstances of his
good fortune, respecting the affair that had brought him into Italy;
and concluded with an earnest request to see Montoni, his wife and
niece, at his new estate.
Emily received, about the same period, a much more interesting letter,
and which soothed for a while every anxiety of her heart. Valancourt,
hoping she might be still at Venice, had trusted a letter to the
ordinary post, that told her of his health, and of his unceasing and
anxious affection. He had lingered at Thoulouse for some time after her
departure, that he might indulge the melancholy pleasure of wandering
through the scenes where he had been accustomed to behold her, and had
thence gone to his brother’s château, which was in the neighbourhood of
La Vallée. Having mentioned this, he added, “If the duty of attending
my regiment did not require my departure, I know not when I should have
resolution enough to quit the neighbourhood of a place which is
endeared by the remembrance of you. The vicinity to La Vallée has alone
detained me thus long at Estuvière: I frequently ride thither early in
the morning, that I may wander, at leisure, through the day, among
scenes, which were once your home, where I have been accustomed to see
you, and to hear you converse. I have renewed my acquaintance with the
good old Theresa, who rejoiced to see me, that she might talk of you: I
need not say how much this circumstance attached me to her, or how
eagerly I listened to her upon her favourite subject. You will guess
the motive that first induced me to make myself known to Theresa: it
was, indeed, no other than that of gaining admittance into the château
and gardens, which my Emily had so lately inhabited: here, then, I
wander, and meet your image under every shade: but chiefly I love to
sit beneath the spreading branches of your favourite plane, where once,
Emily, we sat together; where I first ventured to tell you, that I
loved. O Emily! the remembrance of those moments overcomes me—I sit
lost in reverie—I endeavour to see you dimly through my tears, in all
the heaven of peace and innocence, such as you then appeared to me; to
hear again the accents of that voice, which then thrilled my heart with
tenderness and hope. I lean on the wall of the terrace, where we
together watched the rapid current of the Garonne below, while I
described the wild scenery about its source, but thought only of you. O
Emily! are these moments passed for ever—will they never more return?”
In another part of his letter he wrote thus. “You see my letter is
dated on many different days, and, if you look back to the first, you
will perceive, that I began to write soon after your departure from
France. To write was, indeed, the only employment that withdrew me from
my own melancholy, and rendered your absence supportable, or rather, it
seemed to destroy absence; for, when I was conversing with you on
paper, and telling you every sentiment and affection of my heart, you
almost appeared to be present. This employment has been from time to
time my chief consolation, and I have deferred sending off my packet,
merely for the comfort of prolonging it, though it was certain, that
what I had written, was written to no purpose till you received it.
Whenever my mind has been more than usually depressed I have come to
pour forth its sorrows to you, and have always found consolation; and,
when any little occurrence has interested my heart, and given a gleam
of joy to my spirits, I have hastened to communicate it to you, and
have received reflected satisfaction. Thus, my letter is a kind of
picture of my life and of my thoughts for the last month, and thus,
though it has been deeply interesting to me, while I wrote it, and I
dare hope will, for the same reason, be not indifferent to you, yet to
other readers it would seem to abound only in frivolities. Thus it is
always, when we attempt to describe the finer movements of the heart,
for they are too fine to be discerned, they can only be experienced,
and are therefore passed over by the indifferent observer, while the
interested one feels, that all description is imperfect and
unnecessary, except as it may prove the sincerity of the writer, and
sooth his own sufferings. You will pardon all this egotism—for I am a
lover.”
“I have just heard of a circumstance, which entirely destroys all my
fairy paradise of ideal delight, and which will reconcile me to the
necessity of returning to my regiment, for I must no longer wander
beneath the beloved shades, where I have been accustomed to meet you in
thought.—La Vallée is let! I have reason to believe this is without
your knowledge, from what Theresa told me this morning, and, therefore,
I mention the circumstance. She shed tears, while she related, that she
was going to leave the service of her dear mistress, and the château
where she had lived so many happy years; and all this, added she,
without even a letter from Mademoiselle to soften the news; but it is
all Mons. Quesnel’s doings, and I dare say she does not even know what
is going forward.”
“Theresa added, That she had received a letter from him, informing her
the château was let, and that, as her services would no longer be
required, she must quit the place, on that day week, when the new
tenant would arrive.”
“Theresa had been surprised by a visit from M. Quesnel, some time
before the receipt of this letter, who was accompanied by a stranger
that viewed the premises with much curiosity.”
Towards the conclusion of his letter, which is dated a week after this
sentence, Valancourt adds, “I have received a summons from my regiment,
and I join it without regret, since I am shut out from the scenes that
are so interesting to my heart. I rode to La Vallée this morning, and
heard that the new tenant was arrived, and that Theresa was gone. I
should not treat the subject thus familiarly if I did not believe you
to be uninformed of this disposal of your house; for your satisfaction
I have endeavoured to learn something of the character and fortune of
your tenant, but without success. He is a gentleman, they say, and this
is all I can hear. The place, as I wandered round the boundaries,
appeared more melancholy to my imagination, than I had ever seen it. I
wished earnestly to have got admittance, that I might have taken
another leave of your favourite plane-tree, and thought of you once
more beneath its shade: but I forbore to tempt the curiosity of
strangers: the fishing-house in the woods, however, was still open to
me; thither I went, and passed an hour, which I cannot even look back
upon without emotion. O Emily! surely we are not separated for
ever—surely we shall live for each other!”
This letter brought many tears to Emily’s eyes; tears of tenderness and
satisfaction on learning that Valancourt was well, and that time and
absence had in no degree effaced her image from his heart. There were
passages in this letter which particularly affected her, such as those
describing his visits to La Vallée, and the sentiments of delicate
affection that its scenes had awakened. It was a considerable time
before her mind was sufficiently abstracted from Valancourt to feel the
force of his intelligence concerning La Vallée. That Mons. Quesnel
should let it, without even consulting her on the measure, both
surprised and shocked her, particularly as it proved the absolute
authority he thought himself entitled to exercise in her affairs. It is
true, he had proposed, before she left France, that the château should
be let, during her absence, and to the economical prudence of this she
had nothing to object; but the committing what had been her father’s
villa to the power and caprice of strangers, and the depriving herself
of a sure home, should any unhappy circumstances make her look back to
her home as an asylum, were considerations that made her, even then,
strongly oppose the measure. Her father, too, in his last hour, had
received from her a solemn promise never to dispose of La Vallée; and
this she considered as in some degree violated if she suffered the
place to be let. But it was now evident with how little respect M.
Quesnel had regarded these objections, and how insignificant he
considered every obstacle to pecuniary advantage. It appeared, also,
that he had not even condescended to inform Montoni of the step he had
taken, since no motive was evident for Montoni’s concealing the
circumstance from her, if it had been made known to him: this both
displeased and surprised her; but the chief subjects of her uneasiness
were—the temporary disposal of La Vallée, and the dismission of her
father’s old and faithful servant.—“Poor Theresa,” said Emily, “thou
hadst not saved much in thy servitude, for thou wast always tender
towards the poor, and believd’st thou shouldst die in the family, where
thy best years had been spent. Poor Theresa!—now thou art turned out in
thy old age to seek thy bread!”
Emily wept bitterly as these thoughts passed over her mind, and she
determined to consider what could be done for Theresa, and to talk very
explicitly to M. Quesnel on the subject; but she much feared that his
cold heart could feel only for itself. She determined also to enquire
whether he had made any mention of her affairs, in his letter to
Montoni, who soon gave her the opportunity she sought, by desiring that
she would attend him in his study. She had little doubt, that the
interview was intended for the purpose of communicating to her a part
of M. Quesnel’s letter concerning the transactions at La Vallée, and
she obeyed him immediately. Montoni was alone.
“I have just been writing to Mons. Quesnel,” said he when Emily
appeared, “in reply to the letter I received from him a few days ago,
and I wished to talk to you upon a subject that occupied part of it.”
“I also wished to speak with you on this topic, sir,” said Emily.
“It is a subject of some interest to you, undoubtedly,” rejoined
Montoni, “and I think you must see it in the light that I do; indeed it
will not bear any other. I trust you will agree with me, that any
objection founded on sentiment, as they call it, ought to yield to
circumstances of solid advantage.”
“Granting this, sir,” replied Emily, modestly, “those of humanity ought
surely to be attended to. But I fear it is now too late to deliberate
upon this plan, and I must regret, that it is no longer in my power to
reject it.”
“It is too late,” said Montoni; “but since it is so, I am pleased to
observe, that you submit to reason and necessity without indulging
useless complaint. I applaud this conduct exceedingly, the more,
perhaps, since it discovers a strength of mind seldom observable in
your sex. When you are older you will look back with gratitude to the
friends who assisted in rescuing you from the romantic illusions of
sentiment, and will perceive, that they are only the snares of
childhood, and should be vanquished the moment you escape from the
nursery. I have not closed my letter, and you may add a few lines to
inform your uncle of your acquiescence. You will soon see him, for it
is my intention to take you, with Madame Montoni, in a few days to
Miarenti, and you can then talk over the affair.”
Emily wrote on the opposite page of the paper as follows:
“It is now useless, sir, for me to remonstrate upon the circumstances
of which Signor Montoni informs me that he has written. I could have
wished, at least, that the affair had been concluded with less
precipitation, that I might have taught myself to subdue some
prejudices, as the Signor calls them, which still linger in my heart.
As it is, I submit. In point of prudence nothing certainly can be
objected; but, though I submit, I have yet much to say on some other
points of the subject, when I shall have the honour of seeing you. In
the meantime I entreat you will take care of Theresa, for the sake of,
“Sir,
“Your affectionate niece,
“EMILY ST. AUBERT.”
Montoni smiled satirically at what Emily had written, but did not
object to it, and she withdrew to her own apartment, where she sat down
to begin a letter to Valancourt, in which she related the particulars
of her journey, and her arrival at Venice, described some of the most
striking scenes in the passage over the Alps; her emotions on her first
view of Italy; the manners and characters of the people around her, and
some few circumstances of Montoni’s conduct. But she avoided even
naming Count Morano, much more the declaration he had made, since she
well knew how tremblingly alive to fear is real love, how jealously
watchful of every circumstance that may affect its interest; and she
scrupulously avoided to give Valancourt even the slightest reason for
believing he had a rival.
On the following day Count Morano dined again at Montoni’s. He was in
an uncommon flow of spirits, and Emily thought there was somewhat of
exultation in his manner of addressing her, which she had never
observed before. She endeavoured to repress this by more than her usual
reserve, but the cold civility of her air now seemed rather to
encourage than to depress him. He appeared watchful of an opportunity
of speaking with her alone, and more than once solicited this; but
Emily always replied, that she could hear nothing from him which he
would be unwilling to repeat before the whole company.
In the evening, Madame Montoni and her party went out upon the sea, and
as the Count led Emily to his _zendaletto_, he carried her hand to his
lips, and thanked her for the condescension she had shown him. Emily,
in extreme surprise and displeasure, hastily withdrew her hand, and
concluded that he had spoken ironically; but, on reaching the steps of
the terrace, and observing by the livery, that it was the Count’s
_zendaletto_ which waited below, while the rest of the party, having
arranged themselves in the gondolas, were moving on, she determined not
to permit a separate conversation, and, wishing him a good evening,
returned to the portico. The Count followed to expostulate and entreat,
and Montoni, who then came out, rendered solicitation unnecessary, for,
without condescending to speak, he took her hand, and led her to the
_zendaletto_. Emily was not silent; she entreated Montoni, in a low
voice, to consider the impropriety of these circumstances, and that he
would spare her the mortification of submitting to them; he, however,
was inflexible.
“This caprice is intolerable,” said he, “and shall not be indulged:
there is no impropriety in the case.”
At this moment, Emily’s dislike of Count Morano rose to abhorrence.
That he should, with undaunted assurance, thus pursue her,
notwithstanding all she had expressed on the subject of his addresses,
and think, as it was evident he did, that her opinion of him was of no
consequence, so long as his pretensions were sanctioned by Montoni,
added indignation to the disgust which she had felt towards him. She
was somewhat relieved by observing that Montoni was to be of the party,
who seated himself on one side of her, while Morano placed himself on
the other. There was a pause for some moments as the gondolieri
prepared their oars, and Emily trembled from apprehension of the
discourse that might follow this silence. At length she collected
courage to break it herself, in the hope of preventing fine speeches
from Morano, and reproof from Montoni. To some trivial remark which she
made, the latter returned a short and disobliging reply; but Morano
immediately followed with a general observation, which he contrived to
end with a particular compliment, and, though Emily passed it without
even the notice of a smile, he was not discouraged.
“I have been impatient,” said he, addressing Emily, “to express my
gratitude; to thank you for your goodness; but I must also thank Signor
Montoni, who has allowed me this opportunity of doing so.”
Emily regarded the Count with a look of mingled astonishment and
displeasure.
“Why,” continued he, “should you wish to diminish the delight of this
moment by that air of cruel reserve?—Why seek to throw me again into
the perplexities of doubt, by teaching your eyes to contradict the
kindness of your late declaration? You cannot doubt the sincerity, the
ardour of my passion; it is therefore unnecessary, charming Emily!
surely unnecessary, any longer to attempt a disguise of your
sentiments.”
“If I ever had disguised them, sir,” said Emily, with recollected
spirit, “it would certainly be unnecessary any longer to do so. I had
hoped, sir, that you would have spared me any farther necessity of
alluding to them; but, since you do not grant this, hear me declare,
and for the last time, that your perseverance has deprived you even of
the esteem, which I was inclined to believe you merited.”
“Astonishing!” exclaimed Montoni: “this is beyond even my expectation,
though I have hitherto done justice to the caprice of the sex! But you
will observe, Mademoiselle Emily, that I am no lover, though Count
Morano is, and that I will not be made the amusement of your capricious
moments. Here is the offer of an alliance, which would do honour to any
family; yours, you will recollect, is not noble; you long resisted my
remonstrances, but my honour is now engaged, and it shall not be
trifled with.—You shall adhere to the declaration, which you have made
me an agent to convey to the Count.”
“I must certainly mistake you, sir,” said Emily; “my answers on the
subject have been uniform; it is unworthy of you to accuse me of
caprice. If you have condescended to be my agent, it is an honour I did
not solicit. I myself have constantly assured Count Morano, and you
also, sir, that I never can accept the honour he offers me, and I now
repeat the declaration.”
The Count looked with an air of surprise and enquiry at Montoni, whose
countenance also was marked with surprise, but it was surprise mingled
with indignation.
“Here is confidence, as well as caprice!” said the latter. “Will you
deny your own words, Madam?”
“Such a question is unworthy of an answer, sir;” said Emily blushing;
“you will recollect yourself, and be sorry that you have asked it.”
“Speak to the point,” rejoined Montoni, in a voice of increasing
vehemence. “Will you deny your own words; will you deny, that you
acknowledged, only a few hours ago, that it was too late to recede from
your engagements, and that you accepted the Count’s hand?”
“I will deny all this, for no words of mine ever imported it.”
“Astonishing! Will you deny what you wrote to Mons. Quesnel, your
uncle? If you do, your own hand will bear testimony against you. What
have you now to say?” continued Montoni, observing the silence and
confusion of Emily.
“I now perceive, sir, that you are under a very great error, and that I
have been equally mistaken.”
“No more duplicity, I entreat; be open and candid, if it be possible.”
“I have always been so, sir; and can claim no merit in such conduct,
for I have had nothing to conceal.”
“How is this, Signor?” cried Morano, with trembling emotion.
“Suspend your judgment, Count,” replied Montoni, “the wiles of a female
heart are unsearchable. Now, Madame, your _explanation_.”
“Excuse me, sir, if I withhold my explanation till you appear willing
to give me your confidence; assertion as present can only subject me to
insult.”
“Your explanation, I entreat you!” said Morano.
“Well, well,” rejoined Montoni, “I give you my confidence; let us hear
this explanation.”
“Let me lead to it then, by asking a question.”
“As many as you please,” said Montoni, contemptuously.
“What, then, was the subject of your letter to Mons. Quesnel?”
“The same that was the subject of your note to him, certainly. You did
well to stipulate for my confidence before you demanded that question.”
“I must beg you will be more explicit, sir; what was that subject?”
“What could it be, but the noble offer of Count Morano,” said Montoni.
“Then, sir, we entirely misunderstood each other,” replied Emily.
“We entirely misunderstood each other too, I suppose,” rejoined
Montoni, “in the conversation which preceded the writing of that note?
I must do you the justice to own, that you are very ingenious at this
same art of misunderstanding.”
Emily tried to restrain the tears that came to her eyes, and to answer
with becoming firmness. “Allow me, sir, to explain myself fully, or to
be wholly silent.”
“The explanation may now be dispensed with; it is anticipated. If Count
Morano still thinks one necessary, I will give him an honest one: you
have changed your intention since our last conversation; and, if he can
have patience and humility enough to wait till tomorrow, he will
probably find it changed again: but as I have neither the patience nor
the humility, which you expect from a lover, I warn you of the effect
of my displeasure!”
“Montoni, you are too precipitate,” said the Count, who had listened to
this conversation in extreme agitation and impatience;—“Signora, I
entreat your own explanation of this affair!”
“Signor Montoni has said justly,” replied Emily, “that all explanation
may now be dispensed with; after what has passed I cannot suffer myself
to give one. It is sufficient for me, and for you, sir, that I repeat
my late declaration; let me hope this is the last time it will be
necessary for me to repeat it—I never can accept the honour of your
alliance.”
“Charming Emily!” exclaimed the Count in an impassioned tone, “let not
resentment make you unjust; let me not suffer for the offence of
Montoni!—Revoke—”
“Offence!” interrupted Montoni—“Count, this language is ridiculous,
this submission is childish!—speak as becomes a man, not as the slave
of a pretty tyrant.”
“You distract me, Signor; suffer me to plead my own cause; you have
already proved insufficient to it.”
“All conversation on this subject, sir,” said Emily, “is worse than
useless, since it can bring only pain to each of us: if you would
oblige me, pursue it no farther.”
“It is impossible, Madam, that I can thus easily resign the object of a
passion, which is the delight and torment of my life.—I must still
love—still pursue you with unremitting ardour;—when you shall be
convinced of the strength and constancy of my passion, your heart must
soften into pity and repentance.”
“Is this generous, sir? is this manly? Can it either deserve or obtain
the esteem you solicit, thus to continue a persecution from which I
have no present means of escaping?”
A gleam of moonlight that fell upon Morano’s countenance, revealed the
strong emotions of his soul; and, glancing on Montoni discovered the
dark resentment, which contrasted his features.
“By Heaven this is too much!” suddenly exclaimed the Count; “Signor
Montoni, you treat me ill; it is from you that I shall look for
explanation.”
“From me, sir! you shall have it;” muttered Montoni, “if your
discernment is indeed so far obscured by passion, as to make
explanation necessary. And for you, madam, you should learn, that a man
of honour is not to be trifled with, though you may, perhaps, with
impunity, treat a _boy_ like a puppet.”
This sarcasm roused the pride of Morano, and the resentment which he
had felt at the indifference of Emily, being lost in indignation of the
insolence of Montoni, he determined to mortify him, by defending her.
“This also,” said he, replying to Montoni’s last words, “this also,
shall not pass unnoticed. I bid you learn, sir, that you have a
stronger enemy than a woman to contend with: I will protect Signora St.
Aubert from your threatened resentment. You have misled me, and would
revenge your disappointed views upon the innocent.”
“Misled you!” retorted Montoni with quickness, “is my conduct—my
word”—then pausing, while he seemed endeavouring to restrain the
resentment, that flashed in his eyes, in the next moment he added, in a
subdued voice, “Count Morano, this is a language, a sort of conduct to
which I am not accustomed: it is the conduct of a passionate boy—as
such, I pass it over in contempt.”
“In contempt, Signor?”
“The respect I owe myself,” rejoined Montoni, “requires, that I should
converse more largely with you upon some points of the subject in
dispute. Return with me to Venice, and I will condescend to convince
you of your error.”
“Condescend, sir! but I will not condescend to be so conversed with.”
Montoni smiled contemptuously; and Emily, now terrified for the
consequences of what she saw and heard, could no longer be silent. She
explained the whole subject upon which she had mistaken Montoni in the
morning, declaring, that she understood him to have consulted her
solely concerning the disposal of La Vallée, and concluding with
entreating, that he would write immediately to M. Quesnel, and rectify
the mistake.
But Montoni either was, or affected to be, still incredulous; and Count
Morano was still entangled in perplexity. While she was speaking,
however, the attention of her auditors had been diverted from the
immediate occasion of their resentment, and their passion consequently
became less. Montoni desired the Count would order his servants to row
back to Venice, that he might have some private conversation with him;
and Morano, somewhat soothed by his softened voice and manner, and
eager to examine into the full extent of his difficulties, complied.
Emily, comforted by this prospect of release, employed the present
moments in endeavouring, with conciliating care, to prevent any fatal
mischief between the persons who so lately had persecuted and insulted
her.
Her spirits revived, when she heard once more the voice of song and
laughter, resounding from the grand canal, and at length entered again
between its stately piazzas. The _zendaletto_ stopped at Montoni’s
mansion, and the Count hastily led her into the hall, where Montoni
took his arm, and said something in a low voice, on which Morano kissed
the hand he held, notwithstanding Emily’s effort to disengage it, and,
wishing her a good evening, with an accent and look she could not
misunderstand, returned to his _zendaletto_ with Montoni.
Emily, in her own apartment, considered with intense anxiety all the
unjust and tyrannical conduct of Montoni, the dauntless perseverance of
Morano, and her own desolate situation, removed from her friends and
country. She looked in vain to Valancourt, confined by his profession
to a distant kingdom, as her protector; but it gave her comfort to
know, that there was, at least, one person in the world, who would
sympathise in her afflictions, and whose wishes would fly eagerly to
release her. Yet she determined not to give him unavailing pain by
relating the reasons she had to regret the having rejected his better
judgment concerning Montoni; reasons, however, which could not induce
her to lament the delicacy and disinterested affection that had made
her reject his proposal for a clandestine marriage. The approaching
interview with her uncle she regarded with some degree of hope, for she
determined to represent to him the distresses of her situation, and to
entreat that he would allow her to return to France with him and Madame
Quesnel. Then, suddenly remembering that her beloved La Vallée, her
only home, was no longer at her command, her tears flowed anew, and she
feared that she had little pity to expect from a man who, like M.
Quesnel, could dispose of it without deigning to consult with her, and
could dismiss an aged and faithful servant, destitute of either support
or asylum. But, though it was certain, that she had herself no longer a
home in France, and few, very few friends there, she determined to
return, if possible, that she might be released from the power of
Montoni, whose particularly oppressive conduct towards herself, and
general character as to others, were justly terrible to her
imagination. She had no wish to reside with her uncle, M. Quesnel,
since his behaviour to her late father and to herself, had been
uniformly such as to convince her, that in flying to him she could only
obtain an exchange of oppressors; neither had she the slightest
intention of consenting to the proposal of Valancourt for an immediate
marriage, though this would give her a lawful and a generous protector,
for the chief reasons, which had formerly influenced her conduct, still
existed against it, while others, which seemed to justify the step,
would not be done away; and his interest, his fame were at all times
too dear to her, to suffer her to consent to a union, which, at this
early period of their lives, would probably defeat both. One sure, and
proper asylum, however, would still be open to her in France. She knew
that she could board in the convent, where she had formerly experienced
so much kindness, and which had an affecting and solemn claim upon her
heart, since it contained the remains of her late father. Here she
could remain in safety and tranquillity, till the term, for which La
Vallée might be let, should expire; or, till the arrangement of M.
Motteville’s affairs enabled her so far to estimate the remains of her
fortune, as to judge whether it would be prudent for her to reside
there.
Concerning Montoni’s conduct with respect to his letters to M. Quesnel,
she had many doubts; however he might be at first mistaken on the
subject, she much suspected that he wilfully persevered in his error,
as a means of intimidating her into a compliance with his wishes of
uniting her to Count Morano. Whether this was or was not the fact, she
was extremely anxious to explain the affair to M. Quesnel, and looked
forward with a mixture of impatience, hope and fear, to her approaching
visit.
On the following day, Madame Montoni, being alone with Emily,
introduced the mention of Count Morano, by expressing her surprise,
that she had not joined the party on the water the preceding evening,
and at her abrupt departure to Venice. Emily then related what had
passed, expressed her concern for the mutual mistake that had occurred
between Montoni and herself, and solicited her aunt’s kind offices in
urging him to give a decisive denial to the count’s further addresses;
but she soon perceived, that Madame Montoni had not been ignorant of
the late conversation, when she introduced the present.
“You have no encouragement to expect from me,” said her aunt, “in these
notions. I have already given my opinion on the subject, and think
Signor Montoni right in enforcing, by any means, your consent. If young
persons will be blind to their interest, and obstinately oppose it,
why, the greatest blessings they can have are friends, who will oppose
their folly. Pray what pretensions of any kind do you think you have to
such a match as is now offered you?”
“Not any whatever, Madam,” replied Emily, “and, therefore, at least,
suffer me to be happy in my humility.”
“Nay, niece, it cannot be denied, that you have pride enough; my poor
brother, your father, had his share of pride too; though, let me add,
his fortune did not justify it.”
Emily, somewhat embarrassed by the indignation, which this malevolent
allusion to her father excited, and by the difficulty of rendering her
answer as temperate as it should be reprehensive, hesitated for some
moments, in a confusion, which highly gratified her aunt. At length she
said, “My father’s pride, Madam, had a noble object—the happiness which
he knew could be derived only from goodness, knowledge and charity. As
it never consisted in his superiority, in point of fortune, to some
persons, it was not humbled by his inferiority, in that respect, to
others. He never disdained those, who were wretched by poverty and
misfortune; he did sometimes despise persons, who, with many
opportunities of happiness, rendered themselves miserable by vanity,
ignorance and cruelty. I shall think it my highest glory to emulate
such pride.”
“I do not pretend to understand anything of these high-flown
sentiments, niece; you have all that glory to yourself: I would teach
you a little plain sense, and not have you so wise as to despise
happiness.”
“That would indeed not be wisdom, but folly,” said Emily, “for wisdom
can boast no higher attainment than happiness; but you will allow,
Madam, that our ideas of happiness may differ. I cannot doubt, that you
wish me to be happy, but I must fear you are mistaken in the means of
making me so.”
“I cannot boast of a learned education, niece, such as your father
thought proper to give you, and, therefore, do not pretend to
understand all these fine speeches about happiness. I must be contented
to understand only common sense, and happy would it have been for you
and your father, if that had been included in his education.”
Emily was too much shocked by these reflections on her father’s memory,
to despise this speech as it deserved.
Madame Montoni was about to speak, but Emily quitted the room, and
retired to her own, where the little spirit she had lately exerted
yielded to grief and vexation, and left her only to her tears. From
every review of her situation she could derive, indeed, only new
sorrow. To the discovery, which had just been forced upon her, of
Montoni’s unworthiness, she had now to add, that of the cruel vanity,
for the gratification of which her aunt was about to sacrifice her; of
the effrontery and cunning, with which, at the time that she meditated
the sacrifice, she boasted of her tenderness, or insulted her victim;
and of the venomous envy, which, as it did not scruple to attack her
father’s character, could scarcely be expected to withhold from her
own.
During the few days that intervened between this conversation and the
departure for Miarenti, Montoni did not once address himself to Emily.
His looks sufficiently declared his resentment; but that he should
forbear to renew a mention of the subject of it, exceedingly surprised
her, who was no less astonished, that, during three days, Count Morano
neither visited Montoni, nor was named by him. Several conjectures
arose in her mind. Sometimes she feared that the dispute between them
had been revived, and had ended fatally to the Count. Sometimes she was
inclined to hope, that weariness, or disgust at her firm rejection of
his suit had induced him to relinquish it; and, at others, she
suspected that he had now recourse to stratagem, and forbore his
visits, and prevailed with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his
name, in the expectation that gratitude and generosity would prevail
with her to give him the consent, which he could not hope from love.
Thus passed the time in vain conjecture, and alternate hopes and fears,
till the day arrived when Montoni was to set out for the villa of
Miarenti, which, like the preceding ones, neither brought the Count,
nor the mention of him.
Montoni having determined not to leave Venice, till towards evening,
that he might avoid the heats, and catch the cool breezes of night,
embarked about an hour before sunset, with his family, in a barge, for
the Brenta. Emily sat alone near the stern of the vessel, and, as it
floated slowly on, watched the gay and lofty city lessening from her
view, till its palaces seemed to sink in the distant waves, while its
loftier towers and domes, illumined by the declining sun, appeared on
the horizon, like those far-seen clouds which, in more northern climes,
often linger on the western verge, and catch the last light of a
summer’s evening. Soon after, even these grew dim, and faded in
distance from her sight; but she still sat gazing on the vast scene of
cloudless sky, and mighty waters, and listening in pleasing awe to the
deep-sounding waves, while, as her eyes glanced over the Adriatic,
towards the opposite shores, which were, however, far beyond the reach
of sight, she thought of Greece, and, a thousand classical remembrances
stealing to her mind, she experienced that pensive luxury which is felt
on viewing the scenes of ancient story, and on comparing their present
state of silence and solitude with that of their former grandeur and
animation. The scenes of the Illiad illapsed in glowing colours to her
fancy—scenes, once the haunt of heroes—now lonely, and in ruins; but
which still shone, in the poet’s strain, in all their youthful
splendour.
As her imagination painted with melancholy touches, the deserted plains
of Troy, such as they appeared in this after-day, she reanimated the
landscape with the following little story.
STANZAS
O’er Ilion’s plains, where once the warrior bled,
And once the poet rais’d his deathless strain,
O’er Ilion’s plains a weary driver led
His stately camels: For the ruin’d fane
Wide round the lonely scene his glance he threw,
For now the red cloud faded in the west,
And twilight o’er the silent landscape drew
Her deep’ning veil; eastward his course he prest:
There, on the grey horizon’s glimm’ring bound,
Rose the proud columns of deserted Troy,
And wandering shepherds now a shelter found
Within those walls, where princes wont to joy.
Beneath a lofty porch the driver pass’d,
Then, from his camels heav’d the heavy load;
Partook with them the simple, cool repast,
And in short vesper gave himself to God.
From distant lands with merchandise he came,
His all of wealth his patient servants bore;
Oft deep-drawn sighs his anxious wish proclaim
To reach, again, his happy cottage door;
For there, his wife, his little children, dwell;
Their smiles shall pay the toil of many an hour:
Ev’n now warm tears to expectation swell,
As fancy o’er his mind extends her pow’r.
A death-like stillness reign’d, where once the song,
The song of heroes, wak’d the midnight air,
Save, when a solemn murmur roll’d along,
That seem’d to say—“for future worlds prepare.”
For Time’s imperious voice was frequent heard
Shaking the marble temple to its fall,
(By hands he long had conquer’d, vainly rear’d),
And distant ruins answer’d to his call.
While Hamet slept, his camels round him lay,
Beneath him, all his store of wealth was piled;
And here, his cruse and empty wallet lay,
And there, the flute that chear’d him in the wild.
The robber Tartar on his slumber stole,
For o’er the waste, at eve, he watch’d his train;
Ah! who his thirst of plunder shall control?
Who calls on him for mercy—calls in vain!
A poison’d poignard in his belt he wore,
A crescent sword depended at his side,
The deathful quiver at his back he bore,
And infants—at his very look had died!
The moon’s cold beam athwart the temple fell,
And to his sleeping prey the Tartar led;
But soft!—a startled camel shook his bell,
Then stretch’d his limbs, and rear’d his drowsy head.
Hamet awoke! the poignard glitter’d high!
Swift from his couch he sprung, and ’scap’d the blow;
When from an unknown hand the arrows fly,
That lay the ruffian, in his vengeance, low.
He groan’d, he died! from forth a column’d gate
A fearful shepherd, pale and silent, crept,
Who, as he watch’d his folded flock star-late,
Had mark’d the robber steal where Hamet slept.
He fear’d his own, and sav’d a stranger’s life!
Poor Hamet clasp’d him to his grateful heart;
Then, rous’d his camels for the dusty strife,
And, with the shepherd, hasten’d to depart.
And now, aurora breathes her fresh’ning gale,
And faintly trembles on the eastern cloud;
And now, the sun, from under twilight’s veil,
Looks gaily forth, and melts her airy shroud.
Wide o’er the level plains, his slanting beams
Dart their long lines on Ilion’s tower’d site;
The distant Hellespont with morning gleams,
And old Scamander winds his waves in light.
All merry sound the camel bells, so gay,
And merry beats fond Hamet’s heart, for he,
E’er the dim evening steals upon the day,
His children, wife and happy home shall see.
As Emily approached the shores of Italy she began to discriminate the
rich features and varied colouring of the landscape—the purple hills,
groves of orange pine and cypress, shading magnificent villas, and
towns rising among vineyards and plantations. The noble Brenta, pouring
its broad waves into the sea, now appeared, and, when she reached its
mouth, the barge stopped, that the horses might be fastened which were
now to tow it up the stream. This done, Emily gave a last look to the
Adriatic, and to the dim sail,
that from the sky-mix’d wave
Dawns on the sight,
and the barge slowly glided between the green and luxuriant slopes of
the river. The grandeur of the Palladian villas, that adorn these
shores, was considerably heightened by the setting rays, which threw
strong contrasts of light and shade upon the porticos and long arcades,
and beamed a mellow lustre upon the orangeries and the tall groves of
pine and cypress, that overhung the buildings. The scent of oranges, of
flowering myrtles, and other odoriferous plants was diffused upon the
air, and often, from these embowered retreats, a strain of music stole
on the calm, and “softened into silence.”
The sun now sunk below the horizon, twilight fell over the landscape,
and Emily, wrapt in musing silence, continued to watch its features
gradually vanishing into obscurity. She remembered her many happy
evenings, when with St. Aubert she had observed the shades of twilight
steal over a scene as beautiful as this, from the gardens of La Vallée,
and a tear fell to the memory of her father. Her spirits were softened
into melancholy by the influence of the hour, by the low murmur of the
wave passing under the vessel, and the stillness of the air, that
trembled only at intervals with distant music:—why else should she, at
these moments, have looked on her attachment to Valancourt with
presages so very afflicting, since she had but lately received letters
from him, that had soothed for a while all her anxieties? It now seemed
to her oppressed mind, that she had taken leave of him for ever, and
that the countries, which separated them, would never more be retraced
by her. She looked upon Count Morano with horror, as in some degree the
cause of this; but apart from him, a conviction, if such that may be
called, which arises from no proof, and which she knew not how to
account for, seized her mind—that she should never see Valancourt
again. Though she knew, that neither Morano’s solicitations, nor
Montoni’s commands had lawful power to enforce her obedience, she
regarded both with a superstitious dread, that they would finally
prevail.
Lost in this melancholy reverie, and shedding frequent tears, Emily was
at length roused by Montoni, and she followed him to the cabin, where
refreshments were spread, and her aunt was seated alone. The
countenance of Madame Montoni was inflamed with resentment, that
appeared to be the consequence of some conversation she had held with
her husband, who regarded her with a kind of sullen disdain, and both
preserved, for some time, a haughty silence. Montoni then spoke to
Emily of Mons. Quesnel: “You will not, I hope, persist in disclaiming
your knowledge of the subject of my letter to him?”
“I had hoped, sir, that it was no longer necessary for me to disclaim
it,” said Emily, “I had hoped, from your silence, that you were
convinced of your error.”
“You have hoped impossibilities then,” replied Montoni; “I might as
reasonably have expected to find sincerity and uniformity of conduct in
one of your sex, as you to convict me of error in this affair.”
Emily blushed, and was silent; she now perceived too clearly, that she
had hoped an impossibility, for, where no mistake had been committed no
conviction could follow; and it was evident, that Montoni’s conduct had
not been the consequence of mistake, but of design.
Anxious to escape from conversation, which was both afflicting and
humiliating to her, she soon returned to the deck, and resumed her
station near the stern, without apprehension of cold, for no vapour
rose from the water, and the air was dry and tranquil; here, at least,
the benevolence of nature allowed her the quiet which Montoni had
denied her elsewhere. It was now past midnight. The stars shed a kind
of twilight, that served to show the dark outline of the shores on
either hand, and the grey surface of the river; till the moon rose from
behind a high palm grove, and shed her mellow lustre over the scene.
The vessel glided smoothly on: amid the stillness of the hour Emily
heard, now and then, the solitary voice of the barge-men on the bank,
as they spoke to their horses; while, from a remote part of the vessel,
with melancholy song,
The sailor sooth’d,
Beneath the trembling moon, the midnight wave.
Emily, meanwhile, anticipated her reception by Mons, and Madame
Quesnel; considered what she should say on the subject of La Vallée;
and then, to withhold her mind from more anxious topics, tried to amuse
herself by discriminating the faint-drawn features of the landscape,
reposing in the moonlight. While her fancy thus wandered, she saw, at a
distance, a building peeping between the moonlight trees, and, as the
barge approached, heard voices speaking, and soon distinguished the
lofty portico of a villa, overshadowed by groves of pine and sycamore,
which she recollected to be the same, that had formerly been pointed
out to her, as belonging to Madame Quesnel’s relative.
The barge stopped at a flight of marble steps, which led up the bank to
a lawn. Lights appeared between some pillars beyond the portico.
Montoni sent forward his servant, and then disembarked with his family.
They found Mons. and Madame Quesnel, with a few friends, seated on
sofas in the portico, enjoying the cool breeze of the night, and eating
fruits and ices, while some of their servants at a little distance, on
the river’s bank, were performing a simple serenade. Emily was now
accustomed to the way of living in this warm country, and was not
surprised to find Mons. and Madame Quesnel in their portico, two hours
after midnight.
The usual salutations being over, the company seated themselves in the
portico, and refreshments were brought them from the adjoining hall,
where a banquet was spread, and servants attended. When the bustle of
this meeting had subsided, and Emily had recovered from the little
flutter into which it had thrown her spirits, she was struck with the
singular beauty of the hall, so perfectly accommodated to the luxuries
of the season. It was of white marble, and the roof, rising into an
open cupola, was supported by columns of the same material. Two
opposite sides of the apartment, terminating in open porticos, admitted
to the hall a full view of the gardens, and of the river scenery; in
the centre a fountain continually refreshed the air, and seemed to
heighten the fragrance, that breathed from the surrounding orangeries,
while its dashing waters gave an agreeable and soothing sound. Etruscan
lamps, suspended from the pillars, diffused a brilliant light over the
interior part of the hall, leaving the remoter porticos to the softer
lustre of the moon.
Mons. Quesnel talked apart to Montoni of his own affairs, in his usual
strain of self-importance; boasted of his new acquisitions, and then
affected to pity some disappointments, which Montoni had lately
sustained. Meanwhile, the latter, whose pride at least enabled him to
despise such vanity as this, and whose discernment at once detected
under this assumed pity, the frivolous malignity of Quesnel’s mind,
listened to him in contemptuous silence, till he named his niece, and
then they left the portico, and walked away into the gardens.
Emily, however, still attended to Madame Quesnel, who spoke of France
(for even the name of her native country was dear to her) and she found
some pleasure in looking at a person, who had lately been in it. That
country, too, was inhabited by Valancourt, and she listened to the
mention of it, with a faint hope, that he also would be named. Madame
Quesnel, who, when she was in France, had talked with rapture of Italy,
now, that she was in Italy, talked with equal praise of France, and
endeavoured to excite the wonder and the envy of her auditors by
accounts of places, which they had not been happy enough to see. In
these descriptions she not only imposed upon them, but upon herself,
for she never thought a present pleasure equal to one, that was passed;
and thus the delicious climate, the fragrant orangeries and all the
luxuries, which surrounded her, slept unnoticed, while her fancy
wandered over the distant scenes of a northern country.
Emily listened in vain for the name of Valancourt. Madame Montoni spoke
in her turn of the delights of Venice, and of the pleasure she expected
from visiting the fine castle of Montoni, on the Apennine; which latter
mention, at least, was merely a retaliating boast, for Emily well knew,
that her aunt had no taste for solitary grandeur, and, particularly,
for such as the castle of Udolpho promised. Thus the party continued to
converse, and, as far as civility would permit, to torture each other
by mutual boasts, while they reclined on sofas in the portico, and were
environed with delights both from nature and art, by which any honest
minds would have been tempered to benevolence, and happy imaginations
would have been soothed into enchantment.
The dawn, soon after, trembled in the eastern horizon, and the light
tints of morning, gradually expanding, showed the beautifully declining
forms of the Italian mountains and the gleaming landscapes, stretched
at their feet. Then the sunbeams, shooting up from behind the hills,
spread over the scene that fine saffron tinge, which seems to impart
repose to all it touches. The landscape no longer gleamed; all its
glowing colours were revealed, except that its remoter features were
still softened and united in the mist of distance, whose sweet effect
was heightened to Emily by the dark verdure of the pines and cypresses,
that over-arched the foreground of the river.
The market people, passing with their boats to Venice, now formed a
moving picture on the Brenta. Most of these had little painted awnings,
to shelter their owners from the sunbeams, which, together with the
piles of fruit and flowers, displayed beneath, and the tasteful
simplicity of the peasant girls, who watched the rural treasures,
rendered them gay and striking objects. The swift movement of the boats
down the current, the quick glance of oars in the water, and now and
then the passing chorus of peasants, who reclined under the sail of
their little bark, or the tones of some rustic instrument, played by a
girl, as she sat near her sylvan cargo, heightened the animation and
festivity of the scene.
When Montoni and M. Quesnel had joined the ladies, the party left the
portico for the gardens, where the charming scenery soon withdrew
Emily’s thoughts from painful subjects. The majestic forms and rich
verdure of cypresses she had never seen so perfect before: groves of
cedar, lemon, and orange, the spiry clusters of the pine and poplar,
the luxuriant chesnut and oriental plane, threw all their pomp of shade
over these gardens; while bowers of flowering myrtle and other spicy
shrubs mingled their fragrance with that of flowers, whose vivid and
various colouring glowed with increased effect beneath the contrasted
umbrage of the groves. The air also was continually refreshed by
rivulets, which, with more taste than fashion, had been suffered to
wander among the green recesses.
Emily often lingered behind the party, to contemplate the distant
landscape, that closed a vista, or that gleamed beneath the dark
foliage of the foreground;—the spiral summits of the mountains, touched
with a purple tint, broken and steep above, but shelving gradually to
their base; the open valley, marked by no formal lines of art; and the
tall groves of cypress, pine and poplar, sometimes embellished by a
ruined villa, whose broken columns appeared between the branches of a
pine, that seemed to droop over their fall.
From other parts of the gardens, the character of the view was entirely
changed, and the fine solitary beauty of the landscape shifted for the
crowded features and varied colouring of inhabitation.
The sun was now gaining fast upon the sky, and the party quitted the
gardens, and retired to repose.
CHAPTER IV
And poor Misfortune feels the lash of Vice.
THOMSON
Emily seized the first opportunity of conversing alone with Mons.
Quesnel, concerning La Vallée. His answers to her enquiries were
concise, and delivered with the air of a man, who is conscious of
possessing absolute power and impatient of hearing it questioned. He
declared, that the disposal of the place was a necessary measure; and
that she might consider herself indebted to his prudence for even the
small income that remained for her. “But, however,” added he, “when
this Venetian Count (I have forgot his name) marries you, your present
disagreeable state of dependence will cease. As a relation to you I
rejoice in the circumstance, which is so fortunate for you, and, I may
add, so unexpected by your friends.” For some moments Emily was chilled
into silence by this speech; and, when she attempted to undeceive him,
concerning the purport of the note she had inclosed in Montoni’s
letter, he appeared to have some private reason for disbelieving her
assertion, and, for a considerable time, persevered in accusing her of
capricious conduct. Being, at length, however, convinced that she
really disliked Morano and had positively rejected his suit, his
resentment was extravagant, and he expressed it in terms equally
pointed and inhuman; for, secretly flattered by the prospect of a
connection with a nobleman, whose title he had affected to forget, he
was incapable of feeling pity for whatever sufferings of his niece
might stand in the way of his ambition.
Emily saw at once in his manner all the difficulties, that awaited her,
and, though no oppression could have power to make her renounce
Valancourt for Morano, her fortitude now trembled at an encounter with
the violent passions of her uncle.
She opposed his turbulence and indignation only by the mild dignity of
a superior mind; but the gentle firmness of her conduct served to
exasperate still more his resentment, since it compelled him to feel
his own inferiority, and, when he left her, he declared, that, if she
persisted in her folly, both himself and Montoni would abandon her to
the contempt of the world.
The calmness she had assumed in his presence failed Emily, when alone,
and she wept bitterly, and called frequently upon the name of her
departed father, whose advice to her from his death-bed she then
remembered. “Alas!” said she, “I do indeed perceive how much more
valuable is the strength of fortitude than the grace of sensibility,
and I will also endeavour to fulfil the promise I then made; I will not
indulge in unavailing lamentation, but will try to endure, with
firmness, the oppression I cannot elude.”
Somewhat soothed by the consciousness of performing a part of St.
Aubert’s last request, and of endeavouring to pursue the conduct which
he would have approved, she overcame her tears, and, when the company
met at dinner, had recovered her usual serenity of countenance.
In the cool of the evening, the ladies took the _fresco_ along the bank
of the Brenta in Madame Quesnel’s carriage. The state of Emily’s mind
was in melancholy contrast with the gay groups assembled beneath the
shades that overhung this enchanting stream. Some were dancing under
the trees, and others reclining on the grass, taking ices and coffee
and calmly enjoying the effect of a beautiful evening, on a luxuriant
landscape. Emily, when she looked at the snow-capped Apennines,
ascending in the distance, thought of Montoni’s castle, and suffered
some terror, lest he should convey her thither, for the purpose of
enforcing her obedience; but the thought vanished, when she considered,
that she was as much in his power at Venice as she could be elsewhere.
It was moonlight before the party returned to the villa, where supper
was spread in the airy hall, which had so much enchanted Emily’s fancy,
on the preceding night. The ladies seated themselves in the portico,
till Mons. Quesnel, Montoni, and other gentlemen should join them at
table, and Emily endeavoured to resign herself to the tranquillity of
the hour. Presently, a barge stopped at the steps that led into the
gardens, and, soon after, she distinguished the voices of Montoni and
Quesnel, and then that of Morano, who, in the next moment, appeared.
His compliments she received in silence, and her cold air seemed at
first to discompose him; but he soon recovered his usual gaiety of
manner, though the officious kindness of M. and Madame Quesnel Emily
perceived disgusted him. Such a degree of attention she had scarcely
believed could be shown by M. Quesnel, for she had never before seen
him otherwise than in the presence of his inferiors or equals.
When she could retire to her own apartment, her mind almost
involuntarily dwelt on the most probable means of prevailing with the
Count to withdraw his suit, and to her liberal mind none appeared more
probable, than that of acknowledging to him a prior attachment and
throwing herself upon his generosity for a release. When, however, on
the following day, he renewed his addresses, she shrunk from the
adoption of the plan she had formed. There was something so repugnant
to her just pride, in laying open the secret of her heart to such a man
as Morano, and in suing to him for compassion, that she impatiently
rejected this design and wondered, that she could have paused upon it
for a moment. The rejection of his suit she repeated in the most
decisive terms she could select, mingling with it a severe censure of
his conduct; but, though the Count appeared mortified by this, he
persevered in the most ardent professions of admiration, till he was
interrupted and Emily released by the presence of Madame Quesnel.
During her stay at this pleasant villa, Emily was thus rendered
miserable by the assiduities of Morano, together with the cruelly
exerted authority of M. Quesnel and Montoni, who, with her aunt, seemed
now more resolutely determined upon this marriage than they had even
appeared to be at Venice. M. Quesnel, finding, that both argument and
menace were ineffectual in enforcing an immediate conclusion to it, at
length relinquished his endeavours, and trusted to the power of Montoni
and to the course of events at Venice. Emily, indeed, looked to Venice
with hope, for there she would be relieved in some measure from the
persecution of Morano, who would no longer be an inhabitant of the same
house with herself, and from that of Montoni, whose engagements would
not permit him to be continually at home. But amidst the pressure of
her own misfortunes, she did not forget those of poor Theresa, for whom
she pleaded with courageous tenderness to Quesnel, who promised, in
slight and general terms, that she should not be forgotten.
Montoni, in a long conversation with M. Quesnel, arranged the plan to
be pursued respecting Emily, and M. Quesnel proposed to be at Venice,
as soon as he should be informed, that the nuptials were concluded.
It was new to Emily to part with any person, with whom she was
connected, without feeling of regret; the moment, however, in which she
took leave of M. and Madame Quesnel, was, perhaps, the only
satisfactory one she had known in their presence.
Morano returned in Montoni’s barge, and Emily, as she watched her
gradual approach to that magic city, saw at her side the only person,
who occasioned her to view it with less than perfect delight. They
arrived there about midnight, when Emily was released from the presence
of the Count, who, with Montoni, went to a Casino, and she was suffered
to retire to her own apartment.
On the following day, Montoni, in a short conversation, which he held
with Emily, informed her, that he would no longer be _trifled_ with,
and that, since her marriage with the Count would be so highly
advantageous to her, that folly only could object to it, and folly of
such extent as was incapable of conviction, it should be celebrated
without further delay, and, if that was necessary, without her consent.
Emily, who had hitherto tried remonstrance, had now recourse to
supplication, for distress prevented her from foreseeing, that, with a
man of Montoni’s disposition, supplication would be equally useless.
She afterwards enquired by what right he exerted this unlimited
authority over her, a question, which her better judgment would have
withheld her, in a calmer moment, from making, since it could avail her
nothing, and would afford Montoni another opportunity of triumphing
over her defenceless condition.
“By what right!” cried Montoni, with a malicious smile, “by the right
of my will; if you can elude that, I will not inquire by what right you
do so. I now remind you, for the last time, that you are a stranger, in
a foreign country, and that it is your interest to make me your friend;
you know the means; if you compel me to become your enemy—I will
venture to tell you, that the punishment shall exceed your expectation.
You may know _I_ am not to be trifled with.”
Emily continued, for some time after Montoni had left her, in a state
of despair, or rather stupefaction; a consciousness of misery was all
that remained in her mind. In this situation Madame Montoni found her,
at the sound of whose voice Emily looked up, and her aunt, somewhat
softened by the expression of despair, that fixed her countenance,
spoke in a manner more kind than she had ever yet done. Emily’s heart
was touched; she shed tears, and, after weeping for some time,
recovered sufficient composure to speak on the subject of her distress,
and to endeavour to interest Madame Montoni in her behalf. But, though
the compassion of her aunt had been surprised, her ambition was not to
be overcome, and her present object was to be the aunt of a Countess.
Emily’s efforts, therefore, were as unsuccessful as they had been with
Montoni, and she withdrew to her apartment to think and weep alone. How
often did she remember the parting scene with Valancourt, and wish,
that the Italian had mentioned Montoni’s character with less reserve!
When her mind, however, had recovered from the first shock of this
behaviour, she considered, that it would be impossible for him to
compel her alliance with Morano, if she persisted in refusing to repeat
any part of the marriage ceremony; and she persevered in her resolution
to await Montoni’s threatened vengeance rather than give herself for
life to a man, whom she must have despised for his present conduct, had
she never even loved Valancourt; yet she trembled at the revenge she
thus resolved to brave.
An affair, however, soon after occurred, which somewhat called off
Montoni’s attention from Emily. The mysterious visits of Orsino were
renewed with more frequency since the return of the former to Venice.
There were others, also, besides Orsino, admitted to these midnight
councils, and among them Cavigni and Verezzi. Montoni became more
reserved and austere in his manner than ever; and Emily, if her own
interests had not made her regardless of his, might have perceived,
that something extraordinary was working in his mind.
One night, on which a council was not held, Orsino came in great
agitation of spirits, and dispatched his confidential servant to
Montoni, who was at a Casino, desiring that he would return home
immediately; but charging the servant not to mention his name. Montoni
obeyed the summons, and, on meeting Orsino, was informed of the
circumstances, that occasioned his visit and his visible alarm, with a
part of which he was already acquainted.
A Venetian nobleman, who had, on some late occasion, provoked the
hatred of Orsino, had been way-laid and poniarded by hired assassins:
and, as the murdered person was of the first connections, the Senate
had taken up the affair. One of the assassins was now apprehended, who
had confessed, that Orsino was his employer in the atrocious deed; and
the latter, informed of his danger, had now come to Montoni to consult
on the measures necessary to favour his escape. He knew, that, at this
time, the officers of the police were upon the watch for him, all over
the city; to leave it, at present, therefore, was impracticable, and
Montoni consented to secrete him for a few days till the vigilance of
justice should relax, and then to assist him in quitting Venice. He
knew the danger he himself incurred by permitting Orsino to remain in
his house, but such was the nature of his obligations to this man, that
he did not think it prudent to refuse him an asylum.
Such was the person whom Montoni had admitted to his confidence, and
for whom he felt as much friendship as was compatible with his
character.
While Orsino remained concealed in his house, Montoni was unwilling to
attract public observation by the nuptials of Count Morano; but this
obstacle was, in a few days, overcome by the departure of his criminal
visitor, and he then informed Emily, that her marriage was to be
celebrated on the following morning. To her repeated assurances, that
it should not take place, he replied only by a malignant smile; and,
telling her that the Count and a priest would be at his house, early in
the morning, he advised her no further to dare his resentment, by
opposition to his will and to her own interest. “I am now going out for
the evening,” said he, “remember, that I shall give your hand to Count
Morano in the morning.” Emily, having, ever since his late threats,
expected, that her trials would at length arrive to this crisis, was
less shocked by the declaration, that she otherwise would have been,
and she endeavoured to support herself by the belief, that the marriage
could not be valid, so long as she refused before the priest to repeat
any part of the ceremony. Yet, as the moment of trial approached, her
long-harassed spirits shrunk almost equally from the encounter of his
vengeance, and from the hand of Count Morano. She was not even
perfectly certain of the consequence of her steady refusal at the
altar, and she trembled, more than ever, at the power of Montoni, which
seemed unlimited as his will, for she saw, that he would not scruple to
transgress any law, if, by so doing, he could accomplish his project.
While her mind was thus suffering and in a state little short of
distraction, she was informed that Morano asked permission to see her,
and the servant had scarcely departed with an excuse, before she
repented that she had sent one. In the next moment, reverting to her
former design, and determining to try, whether expostulation and
entreaty would not succeed, where a refusal and a just disdain had
failed, she recalled the servant, and, sending a different message,
prepared to go down to the Count.
The dignity and assumed composure with which she met him, and the kind
of pensive resignation, that softened her countenance, were
circumstances not likely to induce him to relinquish her, serving, as
they did, to heighten a passion, which had already intoxicated his
judgment. He listened to all she said with an appearance of complacency
and of a wish to oblige her; but his resolution remained invariably the
same, and he endeavoured to win her admiration by every insinuating art
he so well knew how to practise. Being, at length, assured, that she
had nothing to hope from his justice, she repeated, in a solemn and
impressive manner, her absolute rejection of his suit, and quitted him
with an assurance, that her refusal would be effectually maintained
against every circumstance, that could be imagined for subduing it. A
just pride had restrained her tears in his presence, but now they
flowed from the fulness of her heart. She often called upon the name of
her late father, and often dwelt with unutterable anguish on the idea
of Valancourt.
She did not go down to supper, but remained alone in her apartment,
sometimes yielding to the influence of grief and terror, and, at
others, endeavouring to fortify her mind against them, and to prepare
herself to meet, with composed courage, the scene of the following
morning, when all the stratagem of Morano and the violence of Montoni
would be united against her.
The evening was far advanced, when Madame Montoni came to her chamber
with some bridal ornaments, which the Count had sent to Emily. She had,
this day, purposely avoided her niece; perhaps, because her usual
insensibility failed her, and she feared to trust herself with a view
of Emily’s distress; or possibly, though her conscience was seldom
audible, it now reproached her with her conduct to her brother’s orphan
child, whose happiness had been entrusted to her care by a dying
father.
Emily could not look at these presents, and made a last, though almost
hopeless, effort to interest the compassion of Madame Montoni, who, if
she did feel any degree of pity, or remorse, successfully concealed it,
and reproached her niece with folly in being miserable, concerning a
marriage, which ought only to make her happy. “I am sure,” said she,
“if I was unmarried, and the Count had proposed to me, I should have
been flattered by the distinction: and if I should have been so, I am
sure, niece, you, who have no fortune, ought to feel yourself highly
honoured, and show a proper gratitude and humility towards the Count,
for his condescension. I am often surprised, I must own, to observe how
humbly he deports himself to you, notwithstanding the haughty airs you
give yourself; I wonder he has patience to humour you so: if I was he,
I know, I should often be ready to reprehend you, and make you know
yourself a little better. I would not have flattered you, I can tell
you, for it is this absurd flattery that makes you fancy yourself of so
much consequence, that you think nobody can deserve you, and I often
tell the Count so, for I have no patience to hear him pay you such
extravagant compliments, which you believe every word of!”
“Your patience, madam, cannot suffer more cruelly on such occasions,
than my own,” said Emily.
“O! that is all mere affectation,” rejoined her aunt. “I know that his
flattery delights you, and makes you so vain, that you think you may
have the whole world at your feet. But you are very much mistaken; I
can assure you, niece, you will not meet with many such suitors as the
Count: every other person would have turned upon his heel, and left you
to repent at your leisure, long ago.”
“O that the Count had resembled every other person, then!” said Emily,
with a heavy sigh.
“It is happy for you, that he does not,” rejoined Madame Montoni; “and
what I am now saying is from pure kindness. I am endeavouring to
convince you of your good fortune, and to persuade you to submit to
necessity with a good grace. It is nothing to me, you know, whether you
like this marriage or not, for it must be; what I say, therefore, is
from pure kindness. I wish to see you happy, and it is your own fault
if you are not so. I would ask you, now, seriously and calmly, what
kind of a match you can expect, since a Count cannot content your
ambition?”
“I have no ambition whatever, madam,” replied Emily, “my only wish is
to remain in my present station.”
“O! that is speaking quite from the purpose,” said her aunt, “I see you
are still thinking of Mons. Valancourt. Pray get rid of all those
fantastic notions about love, and this ridiculous pride, and be
something like a reasonable creature. But, however, this is nothing to
the purpose—for your marriage with the Count takes place tomorrow, you
know, whether you approve it or not. The Count will be trifled with no
longer.”
Emily made no attempt to reply to this curious speech; she felt it
would be mean, and she knew it would be useless. Madame Montoni laid
the Count’s presents upon the table, on which Emily was leaning, and
then, desiring she would be ready early in the morning, bade her
good-night. “Good-night, madam,” said Emily, with a deep sigh, as the
door closed upon her aunt, and she was left once more to her own sad
reflections. For some time she sat so lost in thought, as to be wholly
unconscious where she was; at length, raising her head, and looking
round the room, its gloom and profound stillness awed her. She fixed
her eyes on the door, through which her aunt had disappeared, and
listened anxiously for some sound, that might relieve the deep
dejection of her spirits; but it was past midnight, and all the family
except the servant, who sat up for Montoni, had retired to bed. Her
mind, long harassed by distress, now yielded to imaginary terrors; she
trembled to look into the obscurity of her spacious chamber, and feared
she knew not what; a state of mind, which continued so long, that she
would have called up Annette, her aunt’s woman, had her fears permitted
her to rise from her chair, and to cross the apartment.
These melancholy illusions at length began to disperse, and she retired
to her bed, not to sleep, for that was scarcely possible, but to try,
at least, to quiet her disturbed fancy, and to collect strength of
spirits sufficient to bear her through the scene of the approaching
morning.
CHAPTER V
Dark power! with shudd’ring, meek submitted thought
Be mine to read the visions old
Which thy awak’ning bards have told,
And, lest they meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true.
COLLINS’ ODE TO FEAR
Emily was recalled from a kind of slumber, into which she had, at
length, sunk, by a quick knocking at her chamber door. She started up
in terror, for Montoni and Count Morano instantly came to her mind;
but, having listened in silence for some time, and recognising the
voice of Annette, she rose and opened the door. “What brings you hither
so early?” said Emily, trembling excessively. She was unable to support
herself, and sat down on the bed.
“Dear ma’amselle!” said Annette, “do not look so pale. I am quite
frightened to see you. Here is a fine bustle below stairs, all the
servants running to and fro, and none of them fast enough! Here is a
bustle, indeed, all of a sudden, and nobody knows for what!”
“Who is below besides them?” said Emily, “Annette, do not trifle with
me!”
“Not for the world, ma’amselle, I would not trifle for the world; but
one cannot help making one’s remarks, and there is the Signor in such a
bustle, as I never saw him before; and he has sent me to tell you,
ma’am, to get ready immediately.”
“Good God support me!” cried Emily, almost fainting, “Count Morano is
below, then!”
“No, ma’amselle, he is not below that I know of,” replied Annette,
“only his _Excellenza_ sent me to desire you would get ready directly
to leave Venice, for that the gondolas would be at the steps of the
canal in a few minutes: but I must hurry back to my lady, who is just
at her wits’ end, and knows not which way to turn for haste.”
“Explain, Annette, explain the meaning of all this before you go,” said
Emily, so overcome with surprise and timid hope, that she had scarcely
breath to speak.
“Nay, ma’amselle, that is more than I can do. I only know that the
Signor is just come home in a very ill humour, that he has had us all
called out of our beds, and tells us we are all to leave Venice
immediately.”
“Is Count Morano to go with the Signor?” said Emily, “and whither are
we going?”
“I know neither, ma’am, for certain; but I heard Ludovico say something
about going, after we get to _Terra-firma_, to the signor’s castle
among some mountains, that he talked of.”
“The Apennines!” said Emily, eagerly, “O! then I have little to hope!”
“That is the very place, ma’am. But cheer up, and do not take it so
much to heart, and think what a little time you have to get ready in,
and how impatient the Signor is. Holy St. Mark! I hear the oars on the
canal; and now they come nearer, and now they are dashing at the steps
below; it is the gondola, sure enough.”
Annette hastened from the room; and Emily prepared for this unexpected
flight, as fast as her trembling hands would permit, not perceiving,
that any change in her situation could possibly be for the worse. She
had scarcely thrown her books and clothes into her travelling trunk,
when, receiving a second summons, she went down to her aunt’s
dressing-room, where she found Montoni impatiently reproving his wife
for delay. He went out, soon after, to give some further orders to his
people, and Emily then enquired the occasion of this hasty journey; but
her aunt appeared to be as ignorant as herself, and to undertake the
journey with more reluctance.
The family at length embarked, but neither Count Morano, nor Cavigni,
was of the party. Somewhat revived by observing this, Emily, when the
gondolieri dashed their oars in the water, and put off from the steps
of the portico, felt like a criminal, who receives a short reprieve.
Her heart beat yet lighter, when they emerged from the canal into the
ocean, and lighter still, when they skimmed past the walls of St. Mark,
without having stopped to take up Count Morano.
The dawn now began to tint the horizon, and to break upon the shores of
the Adriatic. Emily did not venture to ask any questions of Montoni,
who sat, for some time, in gloomy silence, and then rolled himself up
in his cloak, as if to sleep, while Madame Montoni did the same; but
Emily, who could not sleep, undrew one of the little curtains of the
gondola, and looked out upon the sea. The rising dawn now enlightened
the mountain-tops of Friuli, but their lower sides, and the distant
waves, that rolled at their feet, were still in deep shadow. Emily,
sunk in tranquil melancholy, watched the strengthening light spreading
upon the ocean, showing successively Venice and her islets, and the
shores of Italy, along which boats, with their pointed latin sails,
began to move.
The gondolieri were frequently hailed, at this early hour, by the
market-people, as they glided by towards Venice, and the lagune soon
displayed a gay scene of innumerable little barks, passing from
_Terra-firma_ with provisions. Emily gave a last look to that splendid
city, but her mind was then occupied by considering the probable
events, that awaited her, in the scenes, to which she was removing, and
with conjectures, concerning the motive of this sudden journey. It
appeared, upon calmer consideration, that Montoni was removing her to
his secluded castle, because he could there, with more probability of
success, attempt to terrify her into obedience; or, that, should its
gloomy and sequestered scenes fail of this effect, her forced marriage
with the Count could there be solemnized with the secrecy, which was
necessary to the honour of Montoni. The little spirit, which this
reprieve had recalled, now began to fail, and, when Emily reached the
shore, her mind had sunk into all its former depression.
Montoni did not embark on the Brenta, but pursued his way in carriages
across the country, towards the Apennine; during which journey, his
manner to Emily was so particularly severe, that this alone would have
confirmed her late conjecture, had any such confirmation been
necessary. Her senses were now dead to the beautiful country, through
which she travelled. Sometimes she was compelled to smile at the
_naïveté_ of Annette, in her remarks on what she saw, and sometimes to
sigh, as a scene of peculiar beauty recalled Valancourt to her
thoughts, who was indeed seldom absent from them, and of whom she could
never hope to hear in the solitude, to which she was hastening.
At length, the travellers began to ascend among the Apennines. The
immense pine-forests, which, at that period, overhung these mountains,
and between which the road wound, excluded all view but of the cliffs
aspiring above, except, that, now and then, an opening through the dark
woods allowed the eye a momentary glimpse of the country below. The
gloom of these shades, their solitary silence, except when the breeze
swept over their summits, the tremendous precipices of the mountains,
that came partially to the eye, each assisted to raise the solemnity of
Emily’s feelings into awe; she saw only images of gloomy grandeur, or
of dreadful sublimity, around her; other images, equally gloomy and
equally terrible, gleamed on her imagination. She was going she
scarcely knew whither, under the dominion of a person, from whose
arbitrary disposition she had already suffered so much, to marry,
perhaps, a man who possessed neither her affection, nor esteem; or to
endure, beyond the hope of succour, whatever punishment revenge, and
that Italian revenge, might dictate.—The more she considered what might
be the motive of the journey, the more she became convinced, that it
was for the purpose of concluding her nuptials with Count Morano, with
that secrecy, which her resolute resistance had made necessary to the
honour, if not to the safety, of Montoni. From the deep solitudes, into
which she was emerging, and from the gloomy castle, of which she had
heard some mysterious hints, her sick heart recoiled in despair, and
she experienced, that, though her mind was already occupied by peculiar
distress, it was still alive to the influence of new and local
circumstance; why else did she shudder at the idea of this desolate
castle?
As the travellers still ascended among the pine forests, steep rose
over steep, the mountains seemed to multiply, as they went, and what
was the summit of one eminence proved to be only the base of another.
At length, they reached a little plain, where the drivers stopped to
rest the mules, whence a scene of such extent and magnificence opened
below, as drew even from Madame Montoni a note of admiration. Emily
lost, for a moment, her sorrows, in the immensity of nature. Beyond the
amphitheatre of mountains, that stretched below, whose tops appeared as
numerous almost, as the waves of the sea, and whose feet were concealed
by the forests—extended the _campagna_ of Italy, where cities and
rivers, and woods and all the glow of cultivation were mingled in gay
confusion. The Adriatic bounded the horizon, into which the Po and the
Brenta, after winding through the whole extent of the landscape, poured
their fruitful waves. Emily gazed long on the splendours of the world
she was quitting, of which the whole magnificence seemed thus given to
her sight only to increase her regret on leaving it; for her,
Valancourt alone was in that world; to him alone her heart turned, and
for him alone fell her bitter tears.
From this sublime scene the travellers continued to ascend among the
pines, till they entered a narrow pass of the mountains, which shut out
every feature of the distant country, and, in its stead, exhibited only
tremendous crags, impending over the road, where no vestige of
humanity, or even of vegetation, appeared, except here and there the
trunk and scathed branches of an oak, that hung nearly headlong from
the rock, into which its strong roots had fastened. This pass, which
led into the heart of the Apennine, at length opened to day, and a
scene of mountains stretched in long perspective, as wild as any the
travellers had yet passed. Still vast pine-forests hung upon their
base, and crowned the ridgy precipice, that rose perpendicularly from
the vale, while, above, the rolling mists caught the sunbeams, and
touched their cliffs with all the magical colouring of light and shade.
The scene seemed perpetually changing, and its features to assume new
forms, as the winding road brought them to the eye in different
attitudes; while the shifting vapours, now partially concealing their
minuter beauties and now illuminating them with splendid tints,
assisted the illusions of the sight.
Though the deep valleys between these mountains were, for the most
part, clothed with pines, sometimes an abrupt opening presented a
perspective of only barren rocks, with a cataract flashing from their
summit among broken cliffs, till its waters, reaching the bottom,
foamed along with unceasing fury; and sometimes pastoral scenes
exhibited their “green delights” in the narrow vales, smiling amid
surrounding horror. There herds and flocks of goats and sheep, browsing
under the shade of hanging woods, and the shepherd’s little cabin,
reared on the margin of a clear stream, presented a sweet picture of
repose.
Wild and romantic as were these scenes, their character had far less of
the sublime, that had those of the Alps, which guard the entrance of
Italy. Emily was often elevated, but seldom felt those emotions of
indescribable awe which she had so continually experienced, in her
passage over the Alps.
Towards the close of day, the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains,
whose shaggy steeps appeared to be inaccessible, almost surrounded it.
To the east, a vista opened, that exhibited the Apennines in their
darkest horrors; and the long perspective of retiring summits, rising
over each other, their ridges clothed with pines, exhibited a stronger
image of grandeur, than any that Emily had yet seen. The sun had just
sunk below the top of the mountains she was descending, whose long
shadow stretched athwart the valley, but his sloping rays, shooting
through an opening of the cliffs, touched with a yellow gleam the
summits of the forest, that hung upon the opposite steeps, and streamed
in full splendour upon the towers and battlements of a castle, that
spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a precipice above. The
splendour of these illumined objects was heightened by the contrasted
shade, which involved the valley below.
“There,” said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours,
“is Udolpho.”
Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood
to be Montoni’s; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun,
the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark
grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the
light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which
spread deeper and deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain,
while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From
those, too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested
with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely, and sublime, it
seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on
all, who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened,
its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to
gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops
of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began
to ascend.
The extent and darkness of these tall woods awakened terrific images in
her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under
the trees. At length, the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and,
soon after, reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal
bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased
the fearful emotions, that had assailed Emily. While they waited till
the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously
surveyed the edifice: but the gloom, that overspread it, allowed her to
distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the massy
walls of the ramparts, and to know, that it was vast, ancient and
dreary. From the parts she saw, she judged of the heavy strength and
extent of the whole. The gateway before her, leading into the courts,
was of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned by
overhanging turrets, embattled, where, instead of banners, now waved
long grass and wild plants, that had taken root among the mouldering
stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the
desolation around them. The towers were united by a curtain, pierced
and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of a huge
portcullis, surmounting the gates: from these, the walls of the
ramparts extended to other towers, overlooking the precipice, whose
shattered outline, appearing on a gleam, that lingered in the west,
told of the ravages of war.—Beyond these all was lost in the obscurity
of evening.
While Emily gazed with awe upon the scene, footsteps were heard within
the gates, and the undrawing of bolts; after which an ancient servant
of the castle appeared, forcing back the huge folds of the portal, to
admit his lord. As the carriage-wheels rolled heavily under the
portcullis, Emily’s heart sunk, and she seemed, as if she was going
into her prison; the gloomy court, into which she passed, served to
confirm the idea, and her imagination, ever awake to circumstance,
suggested even more terrors, than her reason could justify.
Another gate delivered them into the second court, grass-grown, and
more wild than the first, where, as she surveyed through the twilight
its desolation—its lofty walls, overtopped with briony, moss and
nightshade, and the embattled towers that rose above,—long-suffering
and murder came to her thoughts. One of those instantaneous and
unaccountable convictions, which sometimes conquer even strong minds,
impressed her with its horror. The sentiment was not diminished, when
she entered an extensive gothic hall, obscured by the gloom of evening,
which a light, glimmering at a distance through a long perspective of
arches, only rendered more striking. As a servant brought the lamp
nearer partial gleams fell upon the pillars and the pointed arches,
forming a strong contrast with their shadows, that stretched along the
pavement and the walls.
The sudden journey of Montoni had prevented his people from making any
other preparations for his reception, than could be had in the short
interval, since the arrival of the servant, who had been sent forward
from Venice; and this, in some measure, may account for the air of
extreme desolation, that everywhere appeared.
The servant, who came to light Montoni, bowed in silence, and the
muscles of his countenance relaxed with no symptom of joy.—Montoni
noticed the salutation by a slight motion of his hand, and passed on,
while his lady, following, and looking round with a degree of surprise
and discontent, which she seemed fearful of expressing, and Emily,
surveying the extent and grandeur of the hall in timid wonder,
approached a marble staircase. The arches here opened to a lofty vault,
from the centre of which hung a tripod lamp, which a servant was
hastily lighting; and the rich fret-work of the roof, a corridor,
leading into several upper apartments, and a painted window, stretching
nearly from the pavement to the ceiling of the hall, became gradually
visible.
Having crossed the foot of the staircase, and passed through an
ante-room, they entered a spacious apartment, whose walls, wainscoted
with black larch-wood, the growth of the neighbouring mountains, were
scarcely distinguishable from darkness itself. “Bring more light,” said
Montoni, as he entered. The servant, setting down his lamp, was
withdrawing to obey him, when Madame Montoni observing, that the
evening air of this mountainous region was cold, and that she should
like a fire, Montoni ordered that wood might be brought.
While he paced the room with thoughtful steps, and Madame Montoni sat
silently on a couch, at the upper end of it, waiting till the servant
returned, Emily was observing the singular solemnity and desolation of
the apartment, viewed, as it now was, by the glimmer of the single
lamp, placed near a large Venetian mirror, that duskily reflected the
scene, with the tall figure of Montoni passing slowly along, his arms
folded, and his countenance shaded by the plume, that waved in his hat.
From the contemplation of this scene, Emily’s mind proceeded to the
apprehension of what she might suffer in it, till the remembrance of
Valancourt, far, far distant! came to her heart, and softened it into
sorrow. A heavy sigh escaped her: but, trying to conceal her tears, she
walked away to one of the high windows, that opened upon the ramparts,
below which, spread the woods she had passed in her approach to the
castle. But the night-shade sat deeply on the mountains beyond, and
their indented outline alone could be faintly traced on the horizon,
where a red streak yet glimmered in the west. The valley between was
sunk in darkness.
The scene within, upon which Emily turned on the opening of the door,
was scarcely less gloomy. The old servant, who had received them at the
gates, now entered, bending under a load of pine-branches, while two of
Montoni’s Venetian servants followed with lights.
“Your _Excellenza_ is welcome to the castle,” said the old man, as he
raised himself from the hearth, where he had laid the wood: “it has
been a lonely place a long while; but you will excuse it, Signor,
knowing we had but short notice. It is near two years, come next feast
of St. Mark, since your _Excellenza_ was within these walls.”
“You have a good memory, old Carlo,” said Montoni: “it is thereabout;
and how hast thou contrived to live so long?”
“A-well-a-day, sir, with much ado; the cold winds, that blow through
the castle in winter, are almost too much for me; and I thought
sometimes of asking your _Excellenza_ to let me leave the mountains,
and go down into the lowlands. But I don’t know how it is—I am loth to
quit these old walls I have lived in so long.”
“Well, how have you gone on in the castle, since I left it?” said
Montoni.
“Why much as usual, Signor, only it wants a good deal of repairing.
There is the north tower—some of the battlements have tumbled down, and
had liked one day to have knocked my poor wife (God rest her soul!) on
the head. Your _Excellenza_ must know—”
“Well, but the repairs,” interrupted Montoni.
“Aye, the repairs,” said Carlo: “a part of the roof of the great hall
has fallen in, and all the winds from the mountains rushed through it
last winter, and whistled through the whole castle so, that there was
no keeping one’s self warm, be where one would. There, my wife and I
used to sit shivering over a great fire in one corner of the little
hall, ready to die with cold, and—”
“But there are no more repairs wanted,” said Montoni, impatiently.
“O Lord! Your _Excellenza_, yes—the wall of the rampart has tumbled
down in three places; then, the stairs, that lead to the west gallery,
have been a long time so bad, that it is dangerous to go up them; and
the passage leading to the great oak chamber, that overhangs the north
rampart—one night last winter I ventured to go there by myself, and
your _Excellenza_—”
“Well, well, enough of this,” said Montoni, with quickness: “I will
talk more with thee tomorrow.”
The fire was now lighted; Carlo swept the hearth, placed chairs, wiped
the dust from a large marble table that stood near it, and then left
the room.
Montoni and his family drew round the fire. Madame Montoni made several
attempts at conversation, but his sullen answers repulsed her, while
Emily sat endeavouring to acquire courage enough to speak to him. At
length, in a tremulous voice, she said, “May I ask, sir, the motive of
this sudden journey?”—After a long pause, she recovered sufficient
courage to repeat the question.
“It does not suit me to answer enquiries,” said Montoni, “nor does it
become you to make them; time may unfold them all: but I desire I may
be no further harassed, and I recommend it to you to retire to your
chamber, and to endeavour to adopt a more rational conduct, than that
of yielding to fancies, and to a sensibility, which, to call it by the
gentlest name, is only a weakness.”
Emily rose to withdraw. “Good night, madam,” said she to her aunt, with
an assumed composure, that could not disguise her emotion.
“Good night, my dear,” said Madame Montoni, in a tone of kindness,
which her niece had never before heard from her; and the unexpected
endearment brought tears to Emily’s eyes. She curtsied to Montoni, and
was retiring; “But you do not know the way to your chamber,” said her
aunt. Montoni called the servant, who waited in the ante-room, and bade
him send Madame Montoni’s woman, with whom, in a few minutes, Emily
withdrew.
“Do you know which is my room?” said she to Annette, as they crossed
the hall.
“Yes, I believe I do, ma’amselle; but this is such a strange rambling
place! I have been lost in it already: they call it the double chamber,
over the south rampart, and I went up this great staircase to it. My
lady’s room is at the other end of the castle.”
Emily ascended the marble staircase, and came to the corridor, as they
passed through which, Annette resumed her chat—“What a wild lonely
place this is, ma’am! I shall be quite frightened to live in it. How
often, and often have I wished myself in France again! I little
thought, when I came with my lady to see the world, that I should ever
be shut up in such a place as this, or I would never have left my own
country! This way, ma’amselle, down this turning. I can almost believe
in giants again, and such like, for this is just like one of their
castles; and, some night or other, I suppose I shall see fairies too,
hopping about in that great old hall, that looks more like a church,
with its huge pillars, than anything else.”
“Yes,” said Emily, smiling, and glad to escape from more serious
thought, “if we come to the corridor, about midnight, and look down
into the hall, we shall certainly see it illuminated with a thousand
lamps, and the fairies tripping in gay circles to the sound of
delicious music; for it is in such places as this, you know, that they
come to hold their revels. But I am afraid, Annette, you will not be
able to pay the necessary penance for such a sight: and, if once they
hear your voice, the whole scene will vanish in an instant.”
“O! if you will bear me company, ma’amselle, I will come to the
corridor, this very night, and I promise you I will hold my tongue; it
shall not be my fault if the show vanishes.—But do you think they will
come?”
“I cannot promise that with certainty, but I will venture to say, it
will not be your fault if the enchantment should vanish.”
“Well, ma’amselle, that is saying more than I expected of you: but I am
not so much afraid of fairies, as of ghosts, and they say there are a
plentiful many of them about the castle: now I should be frightened to
death, if I should chance to see any of them. But hush! ma’amselle,
walk softly! I have thought, several times, something passed by me.”
“Ridiculous!” said Emily, “you must not indulge such fancies.”
“O ma’am! they are not fancies, for aught I know; Benedetto says these
dismal galleries and halls are fit for nothing but ghosts to live in;
and I verily believe, if I _live_ long in them I shall turn to one
myself!”
“I hope,” said Emily, “you will not suffer Signor Montoni to hear of
these weak fears; they would highly displease him.”
“What, you know then, ma’amselle, all about it!” rejoined Annette. “No,
no, I do know better than to do so; though, if the Signor can sleep
sound, nobody else in the castle has any right to lie awake, I am
sure.” Emily did not appear to notice this remark.
“Down this passage, ma’amselle; this leads to a back staircase. O! if I
see anything, I shall be frightened out of my wits!”
“That will scarcely be possible,” said Emily smiling, as she followed
the winding of the passage, which opened into another gallery: and then
Annette, perceiving that she had missed her way, while she had been so
eloquently haranguing on ghosts and fairies, wandered about through
other passages and galleries, till, at length, frightened by their
intricacies and desolation, she called aloud for assistance: but they
were beyond the hearing of the servants, who were on the other side of
the castle, and Emily now opened the door of a chamber on the left.
“O! do not go in there, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “you will only lose
yourself further.”
“Bring the light forward,” said Emily, “we may possibly find our way
through these rooms.”
Annette stood at the door, in an attitude of hesitation, with the light
held up to show the chamber, but the feeble rays spread through not
half of it. “Why do you hesitate?” said Emily, “let me see whither this
room leads.”
Annette advanced reluctantly. It opened into a suite of spacious and
ancient apartments, some of which were hung with tapestry, and others
wainscoted with cedar and black larch-wood. What furniture there was,
seemed to be almost as old as the rooms, and retained an appearance of
grandeur, though covered with dust, and dropping to pieces with the
damps, and with age.
“How cold these rooms are, ma’amselle!” said Annette: “nobody has lived
in them for many, many years, they say. Do let us go.”
“They may open upon the great staircase, perhaps,” said Emily, passing
on till she came to a chamber, hung with pictures, and took the light
to examine that of a soldier on horseback in a field of battle.—He was
darting his spear upon a man, who lay under the feet of the horse, and
who held up one hand in a supplicating attitude. The soldier, whose
beaver was up, regarded him with a look of vengeance, and the
countenance, with that expression, struck Emily as resembling Montoni.
She shuddered, and turned from it. Passing the light hastily over
several other pictures, she came to one concealed by a veil of black
silk. The singularity of the circumstance struck her, and she stopped
before it, wishing to remove the veil, and examine what could thus
carefully be concealed, but somewhat wanting courage. “Holy Virgin!
what can this mean?” exclaimed Annette. “This is surely the picture
they told me of at Venice.”
“What picture?” said Emily. “Why a picture—a picture,” replied Annette,
hesitatingly—“but I never could make out exactly what it was about,
either.”
“Remove the veil, Annette.”
“What! I, ma’amselle!—I! not for the world!” Emily, turning round, saw
Annette’s countenance grow pale. “And pray, what have you heard of this
picture, to terrify you so, my good girl?” said she. “Nothing,
ma’amselle: I have heard nothing, only let us find our way out.”
“Certainly: but I wish first to examine the picture; take the light,
Annette, while I lift the veil.” Annette took the light, and
immediately walked away with it, disregarding Emily’s call to stay,
who, not choosing to be left alone in the dark chamber, at length
followed her. “What is the reason of this, Annette?” said Emily, when
she overtook her, “what have you heard concerning that picture, which
makes you so unwilling to stay when I bid you?”
“I don’t know what is the reason, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “nor
anything about the picture, only I have heard there is something very
dreadful belonging to it—and that it has been covered up in black _ever
since_—and that nobody has looked at it for a great many years—and it
somehow has to do with the owner of this castle before Signor Montoni
came to the possession of it—and—”
“Well, Annette,” said Emily, smiling, “I perceive it is as you say—that
you know nothing about the picture.”
“No, nothing, indeed, ma’amselle, for they made me promise never to
tell:—but—”
“Well,” rejoined Emily, who observed that she was struggling between
her inclination to reveal a secret, and her apprehension for the
consequence, “I will enquire no further—”
“No, pray, ma’am, do not.”
“Lest you should tell all,” interrupted Emily.
Annette blushed, and Emily smiled, and they passed on to the extremity
of this suite of apartments, and found themselves, after some further
perplexity, once more at the top of the marble staircase, where Annette
left Emily, while she went to call one of the servants of the castle to
show them to the chamber, for which they had been seeking.
While she was absent, Emily’s thoughts returned to the picture; an
unwillingness to tamper with the integrity of a servant, had checked
her enquiries on this subject, as well as concerning some alarming
hints, which Annette had dropped respecting Montoni; though her
curiosity was entirely awakened, and she had perceived, that her
questions might easily be answered. She was now, however, inclined to
go back to the apartment and examine the picture; but the loneliness of
the hour and of the place, with the melancholy silence that reigned
around her, conspired with a certain degree of awe, excited by the
mystery attending this picture, to prevent her. She determined,
however, when daylight should have reanimated her spirits, to go
thither and remove the veil. As she leaned from the corridor, over the
staircase, and her eyes wandered round, she again observed, with
wonder, the vast strength of the walls, now somewhat decayed, and the
pillars of solid marble, that rose from the hall, and supported the
roof.
A servant now appeared with Annette, and conducted Emily to her
chamber, which was in a remote part of the castle, and at the very end
of the corridor, from whence the suite of apartments opened, through
which they had been wandering. The lonely aspect of her room made Emily
unwilling that Annette should leave her immediately, and the dampness
of it chilled her with more than fear. She begged Caterina, the servant
of the castle, to bring some wood and light a fire.
“Aye, lady, it’s many a year since a fire was lighted here,” said
Caterina.
“You need not tell us that, good woman,” said Annette; “every room in
the castle feels like a well. I wonder how you contrive to live here;
for my part, I wish myself at Venice again.” Emily waved her hand for
Caterina to fetch the wood.
“I wonder, ma’am, why they call this the double chamber?” said Annette,
while Emily surveyed it in silence and saw that it was lofty and
spacious, like the others she had seen, and, like many of them, too,
had its walls lined with dark larch-wood. The bed and other furniture
was very ancient, and had an air of gloomy grandeur, like all that she
had seen in the castle. One of the high casements, which she opened,
overlooked a rampart, but the view beyond was hid in darkness.
In the presence of Annette, Emily tried to support her spirits, and to
restrain the tears, which, every now and then, came to her eyes. She
wished much to enquire when Count Morano was expected at the castle,
but an unwillingness to ask unnecessary questions, and to mention
family concerns to a servant, withheld her. Meanwhile, Annette’s
thoughts were engaged upon another subject: she dearly loved the
marvellous, and had heard of a circumstance, connected with the castle,
that highly gratified this taste. Having been enjoined not to mention
it, her inclination to tell it was so strong, that she was every
instant on the point of speaking what she had heard. Such a strange
circumstance, too, and to be obliged to conceal it, was a severe
punishment; but she knew, that Montoni might impose one much severer,
and she feared to incur it by offending him.
Caterina now brought the wood, and its bright blaze dispelled, for a
while, the gloom of the chamber. She told Annette, that her lady had
enquired for her, and Emily was once again left to her own sad
reflections. Her heart was not yet hardened against the stern manners
of Montoni, and she was nearly as much shocked now, as she had been
when she first witnessed them. The tenderness and affection, to which
she had been accustomed, till she lost her parents, had made her
particularly sensible to any degree of unkindness, and such a reverse
as this no apprehension had prepared her to support.
To call off her attention from subjects, that pressed heavily on her
spirits, she rose and again examined her room and its furniture. As she
walked round it, she passed a door, that was not quite shut, and,
perceiving, that it was not the one, through which she entered, she
brought the light forward to discover whither it led. She opened it,
and, going forward, had nearly fallen down a steep, narrow staircase
that wound from it, between two stone walls. She wished to know to what
it led, and was the more anxious, since it communicated so immediately
with her apartment; but, in the present state of her spirits, she
wanted courage to venture into the darkness alone. Closing the door,
therefore, she endeavoured to fasten it, but, upon further examination,
perceived, that it had no bolts on the chamber side, though it had two
on the other. By placing a heavy chair against it, she in some measure
remedied the defect; yet she was still alarmed at the thought of
sleeping in this remote room alone, with a door opening she knew not
whither, and which could not be perfectly fastened on the inside.
Sometimes she wished to entreat of Madame Montoni, that Annette might
have leave to remain with her all night, but was deterred by an
apprehension of betraying what would be thought childish fears, and by
an unwillingness to increase the apt terrors of Annette.
Her gloomy reflections were, soon after, interrupted by a footstep in
the corridor, and she was glad to see Annette enter with some supper,
sent by Madame Montoni. Having a table near the fire, she made the good
girl sit down and sup with her; and, when their little repast was over,
Annette, encouraged by her kindness and stirring the wood into a blaze,
drew her chair upon the hearth, nearer to Emily, and said—“Did you ever
hear, ma’amselle, of the strange accident, that made the Signor lord of
this castle?”
“What wonderful story have you now to tell?” said Emily, concealing the
curiosity, occasioned by the mysterious hints she had formerly heard on
that subject.
“I have heard all about it, ma’amselle,” said Annette, looking round
the chamber and drawing closer to Emily; “Benedetto told it me as we
travelled together: says he, ‘Annette, you don’t know about this castle
here, that we are going to?’ ‘No,’ says I, ‘Mr. Benedetto, pray what do
you know?’ But, ma’amselle, you can keep a secret, or I would not tell
it you for the world; for I promised never to tell, and they say, that
the Signor does not like to have it talked of.”
“If you promised to keep this secret,” said Emily, “you do right not to
mention it.”
Annette paused a moment, and then said, “O, but to you, ma’amselle, to
you I may tell it safely, I know.”
Emily smiled, “I certainly shall keep it as faithful as yourself,
Annette.”
Annette replied very gravely, that would do, and proceeded—“This
castle, you must know, ma’amselle, is very old, and very strong, and
has stood out many sieges as they say. Now it was not Signor Montoni’s
always, nor his father’s; no; but, by some law or other, it was to come
to the Signor, if the lady died unmarried.”
“What lady?” said Emily.
“I am not come to that yet,” replied Annette, “it is the lady I am
going to tell you about, ma’amselle: but, as I was saying, this lady
lived in the castle, and had everything very grand about her, as you
may suppose, ma’amselle. The Signor used often to come to see her, and
was in love with her, and offered to marry her; for, though he was
somehow related, that did not signify. But she was in love with
somebody else, and would not have him, which made him very angry, as
they say, and you know, ma’amselle, what an ill-looking gentleman he
is, when he is angry. Perhaps she saw him in a passion, and therefore
would not have him. But, as I was saying, she was very melancholy and
unhappy, and all that, for a long while, and—Holy Virgin! what noise is
that? did not you hear a sound, ma’amselle?”
“It was only the wind,” said Emily, “but do come to the end of your
story.”
“As I was saying—O, where was I?—as I was saying—she was very
melancholy and unhappy a long while, and used to walk about upon the
terrace, there, under the windows, by herself, and cry so! it would
have done your heart good to hear her. That is—I don’t mean good, but
it would have made you cry too, as they tell me.”
“Well, but, Annette, do tell me the substance of your tale.”
“All in good time, ma’am; all this I heard before at Venice, but what
is to come I never heard till today. This happened a great many years
ago, when Signor Montoni was quite a young man. The lady—they called
her Signora Laurentini, was very handsome, but she used to be in great
passions, too, sometimes, as well as the Signor. Finding he could not
make her listen to him—what does he do, but leave the castle, and never
comes near it for a long time! but it was all one to her; she was just
as unhappy whether he was here or not, till one evening, Holy St.
Peter! ma’amselle,” cried Annette, “look at that lamp, see how blue it
burns!” She looked fearfully round the chamber. “Ridiculous girl!” said
Emily, “why will you indulge those fancies? Pray let me hear the end of
your story, I am weary.”
Annette still kept her eyes on the lamp, and proceeded in a lower
voice. “It was one evening, they say, at the latter end of the year, it
might be about the middle of September, I suppose, or the beginning of
October; nay, for that matter, it might be November, for that, too, is
the latter end of the year, but that I cannot say for certain, because
they did not tell me for certain themselves. However, it was at the
latter end of the year, this grand lady walked out of the castle into
the woods below, as she had often done before, all alone, only her maid
was with her. The wind blew cold, and strewed the leaves about, and
whistled dismally among those great old chesnut trees, that we passed,
ma’amselle, as we came to the castle—for Benedetto showed me the trees
as he was talking—the wind blew cold, and her woman would have
persuaded her to return: but all would not do, for she was fond of
walking in the woods, at evening time, and, if the leaves were falling
about her, so much the better.
“Well, they saw her go down among the woods, but night came, and she
did not return: ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock came, and
no lady! Well, the servants thought to be sure, some accident had
befallen her, and they went out to seek her. They searched all night
long, but could not find her, or any trace of her; and, from that day
to this, ma’amselle, she has never been heard of.”
“Is this true, Annette?” said Emily, in much surprise.
“True, ma’am!” said Annette, with a look of horror, “yes, it is true,
indeed. But they do say,” she added, lowering her voice, “they do say,
that the Signora has been seen, several times since, walking in the
woods and about the castle in the night: several of the old servants,
who remained here some time after, declare they saw her; and, since
then, she has been seen by some of the vassals, who have happened to be
in the castle, at night. Carlo, the old steward, could tell such
things, they say, if he would.”
“How contradictory is this, Annette!” said Emily, “you say nothing has
been since known of her, and yet she has been seen!”
“But all this was told me for a great secret,” rejoined Annette,
without noticing the remark, “and I am sure, ma’am, you would not hurt
either me or Benedetto, so much as to go and tell it again.” Emily
remained silent, and Annette repeated her last sentence.
“You have nothing to fear from my indiscretion,” replied Emily, “and
let me advise you, my good Annette, be discreet yourself, and never
mention what you have just told me to any other person. Signor Montoni,
as you say, may be angry if he hears of it. But what inquiries were
made concerning the lady?”
“O! a great deal, indeed, ma’amselle, for the Signor laid claim to the
castle directly, as being the next heir, and they said, that is, the
judges, or the senators, or somebody of that sort, said, he could not
take possession of it till so many years were gone by, and then, if,
after all, the lady could not be found, why she would be as good as
dead, and the castle would be his own; and so it is his own. But the
story went round, and many strange reports were spread, so very
strange, ma’amselle, that I shall not tell them.”
“That is stranger still, Annette,” said Emily, smiling, and rousing
herself from her reverie. “But, when Signora Laurentini was afterwards
seen in the castle, did nobody speak to her?”
“Speak—speak to her!” cried Annette, with a look of terror; “no, to be
sure.”
“And why not?” rejoined Emily, willing to hear further.
“Holy Mother! speak to a spirit!”
“But what reason had they to conclude it was a spirit, unless they had
approached, and spoken to it?”
“O ma’amselle, I cannot tell. How can you ask such shocking questions?
But nobody ever saw it come in, or go out of the castle; and it was in
one place now, and then the next minute in quite another part of the
castle; and then it never spoke, and, if it was alive, what should it
do in the castle if it never spoke? Several parts of the castle have
never been gone into since, they say, for that very reason.”
“What, because it never spoke?” said Emily, trying to laugh away the
fears that began to steal upon her.
“No, ma’amselle, no;” replied Annette, rather angrily “but because
something has been seen there. They say, too, there is an old chapel
adjoining the west side of the castle, where, any time at midnight, you
may hear such groans!—it makes one shudder to think of them!—and
strange sights have been seen there—”
“Pr’ythee, Annette, no more of these silly tales,” said Emily.
“Silly tales, ma’amselle! O, but I will tell you one story about this,
if you please, that Caterina told me. It was one cold winter’s night
that Caterina (she often came to the castle then, she says, to keep old
Carlo and his wife company, and so he recommended her afterwards to the
Signor, and she has lived here ever since) Caterina was sitting with
them in the little hall, says Carlo, ‘I wish we had some of those figs
to roast, that lie in the store-closet, but it is a long way off, and I
am loath to fetch them; do, Caterina,’ says he, ‘for you are young and
nimble, do bring us some, the fire is in nice trim for roasting them;
they lie,’ says he, ‘in such a corner of the store-room, at the end of
the north-gallery; here, take the lamp,’ says he, ‘and mind, as you go
up the great staircase, that the wind, through the roof, does not blow
it out.’ So, with that, Caterina took the lamp—Hush! ma’amselle, I
surely heard a noise!”
Emily, whom Annette had now infected with her own terrors, listened
attentively; but everything was still, and Annette proceeded:
“Caterina went to the north-gallery, that is the wide gallery we
passed, ma’am, before we came to the corridor, here. As she went with
the lamp in her hand, thinking of nothing at all—There, again!” cried
Annette suddenly—“I heard it again!—it was not fancy, ma’amselle!”
“Hush!” said Emily, trembling. They listened, and, continuing to sit
quite still, Emily heard a low knocking against the wall. It came
repeatedly. Annette then screamed loudly, and the chamber door slowly
opened.—It was Caterina, come to tell Annette, that her lady wanted
her. Emily, though she now perceived who it was, could not immediately
overcome her terror; while Annette, half laughing, half crying, scolded
Caterina heartily for thus alarming them; and was also terrified lest
what she had told had been overheard.—Emily, whose mind was deeply
impressed by the chief circumstance of Annette’s relation, was
unwilling to be left alone, in the present state of her spirits; but,
to avoid offending Madame Montoni, and betraying her own weakness, she
struggled to overcome the illusions of fear, and dismissed Annette for
the night.
When she was alone, her thoughts recurred to the strange history of
Signora Laurentini and then to her own strange situation, in the wild
and solitary mountains of a foreign country, in the castle, and the
power of a man, to whom, only a few preceding months, she was an entire
stranger; who had already exercised a usurped authority over her, and
whose character she now regarded, with a degree of terror, apparently
justified by the fears of others. She knew, that he had invention equal
to the conception and talents to the execution of any project, and she
greatly feared he had a heart too void of feeling to oppose the
perpetration of whatever his interest might suggest. She had long
observed the unhappiness of Madame Montoni, and had often been witness
to the stern and contemptuous behaviour she received from her husband.
To these circumstances, which conspired to give her just cause for
alarm, were now added those thousand nameless terrors, which exist only
in active imaginations, and which set reason and examination equally at
defiance.
Emily remembered all that Valancourt had told her, on the eve of her
departure from Languedoc, respecting Montoni, and all that he had said
to dissuade her from venturing on the journey. His fears had often
since appeared to her prophetic—now they seemed confirmed. Her heart,
as it gave her back the image of Valancourt, mourned in vain regret,
but reason soon came with a consolation which, though feeble at first,
acquired vigour from reflection. She considered, that, whatever might
be her sufferings, she had withheld from involving him in misfortune,
and that, whatever her future sorrows could be, she was, at least, free
from self-reproach.
Her melancholy was assisted by the hollow sighings of the wind along
the corridor and round the castle. The cheerful blaze of the wood had
long been extinguished, and she sat with her eyes fixed on the dying
embers, till a loud gust, that swept through the corridor, and shook
the doors and casements, alarmed her, for its violence had moved the
chair she had placed as a fastening, and the door, leading to the
private staircase stood half open. Her curiosity and her fears were
again awakened. She took the lamp to the top of the steps, and stood
hesitating whether to go down; but again the profound stillness and the
gloom of the place awed her, and, determining to enquire further, when
daylight might assist the search, she closed the door, and placed
against it a stronger guard.
She now retired to her bed, leaving the lamp burning on the table; but
its gloomy light, instead of dispelling her fear, assisted it; for, by
its uncertain rays, she almost fancied she saw shapes flit past her
curtains and glide into the remote obscurity of her chamber.—The castle
clock struck one before she closed her eyes to sleep.
CHAPTER VI
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes,
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me!
JULIUS CÆSAR
Daylight dispelled from Emily’s mind the glooms of superstition, but
not those of apprehension. The Count Morano was the first image that
occurred to her waking thoughts, and then came a train of anticipated
evils, which she could neither conquer, nor avoid. She rose, and, to
relieve her mind from the busy ideas, that tormented it, compelled
herself to notice external objects. From her casement she looked out
upon the wild grandeur of the scene, closed nearly on all sides by
alpine steeps, whose tops, peeping over each other, faded from the eye
in misty hues, while the promontories below were dark with woods, that
swept down to their base, and stretched along the narrow valleys. The
rich pomp of these woods was particularly delightful to Emily; and she
viewed with astonishment the fortifications of the castle spreading
along a vast extent of rock, and now partly in decay, the grandeur of
the ramparts below, and the towers and battlements and various features
of the fabric above. From these her sight wandered over the cliffs and
woods into the valley, along which foamed a broad and rapid stream,
seen falling among the crags of an opposite mountain, now flashing in
the sunbeams, and now shadowed by over-arching pines, till it was
entirely concealed by their thick foliage. Again it burst from beneath
this darkness in one broad sheet of foam, and fell thundering into the
vale. Nearer, towards the west, opened the mountain-vista, which Emily
had viewed with such sublime emotion, on her approach to the castle: a
thin dusky vapour, that rose from the valley, overspread its features
with a sweet obscurity. As this ascended and caught the sunbeams, it
kindled into a crimson tint, and touched with exquisite beauty the
woods and cliffs, over which it passed to the summit of the mountains;
then, as the veil drew up, it was delightful to watch the gleaming
objects, that progressively disclosed themselves in the valley—the
green turf—dark woods—little rocky recesses—a few peasants’ huts—the
foaming stream—a herd of cattle, and various images of pastoral beauty.
Then, the pine-forests brightened, and then the broad breast of the
mountains, till, at length, the mist settled round their summit,
touching them with a ruddy glow. The features of the vista now appeared
distinctly, and the broad deep shadows, that fell from the lower
cliffs, gave strong effect to the streaming splendour above; while the
mountains, gradually sinking in the perspective, appeared to shelve
into the Adriatic sea, for such Emily imagined to be the gleam of
bluish light that terminated the view.
Thus she endeavoured to amuse her fancy, and was not unsuccessful. The
breezy freshness of the morning, too, revived her. She raised her
thoughts in prayer, which she felt always most disposed to do, when
viewing the sublimity of nature, and her mind recovered its strength.
When she turned from the casement, her eyes glanced upon the door she
had so carefully guarded, on the preceding night, and she now
determined to examine whither it led; but, on advancing to remove the
chairs, she perceived, that they were already moved a little way. Her
surprise cannot be easily imagined, when, in the next minute, she
perceived that the door was fastened.—She felt, as if she had seen an
apparition. The door of the corridor was locked as she had left it, but
this door, which could be secured only on the outside, must have been
bolted, during the night. She became seriously uneasy at the thought of
sleeping again in a chamber, thus liable to intrusion, so remote, too,
as it was from the family, and she determined to mention the
circumstance to Madame Montoni, and to request a change.
After some perplexity she found her way into the great hall, and to the
room, which she had left, on the preceding night, where breakfast was
spread, and her aunt was alone, for Montoni had been walking over the
environs of the castle, examining the condition of its fortifications,
and talking for some time with Carlo. Emily observed that her aunt had
been weeping, and her heart softened towards her, with an affection,
that showed itself in her manner, rather than in words, while she
carefully avoided the appearance of having noticed, that she was
unhappy. She seized the opportunity of Montoni’s absence to mention the
circumstance of the door, to request that she might be allowed another
apartment, and to enquire again, concerning the occasion of their
sudden journey. On the first subject her aunt referred her to Montoni,
positively refusing to interfere in the affair; on the last, she
professed utter ignorance.
Emily, then, with a wish of making her aunt more reconciled to her
situation, praised the grandeur of the castle and the surrounding
scenery, and endeavoured to soften every unpleasing circumstance
attending it. But, though misfortune had somewhat conquered the
asperities of Madame Montoni’s temper, and, by increasing her cares for
herself, had taught her to feel in some degree for others, the
capricious love of rule, which nature had planted and habit had
nourished in her heart, was not subdued. She could not now deny herself
the gratification of tyrannising over the innocent and helpless Emily,
by attempting to ridicule the taste she could not feel.
Her satirical discourse was, however, interrupted by the entrance of
Montoni, and her countenance immediately assumed a mingled expression
of fear and resentment, while he seated himself at the breakfast-table,
as if unconscious of there being any person but himself in the room.
Emily, as she observed him in silence, saw, that his countenance was
darker and sterner than usual. “O could I know,” said she to herself,
“what passes in that mind; could I know the thoughts, that are known
there, I should no longer be condemned to this torturing suspense!”
Their breakfast passed in silence, till Emily ventured to request, that
another apartment might be allotted to her, and related the
circumstance which made her wish it.
“I have no time to attend to these idle whims,” said Montoni, “that
chamber was prepared for you, and you must rest contented with it. It
is not probable, that any person would take the trouble of going to
that remote staircase, for the purpose of fastening a door. If it was
not fastened, when you entered the chamber, the wind, perhaps, shook
the door and made the bolts slide. But I know not why I should
undertake to account for so trifling an occurrence.”
This explanation was by no means satisfactory to Emily, who had
observed, that the bolts were rusted, and consequently could not be
thus easily moved; but she forbore to say so, and repeated her request.
“If you will not release yourself from the slavery of these fears,”
said Montoni, sternly, “at least forbear to torment others by the
mention of them. Conquer such whims, and endeavour to strengthen your
mind. No existence is more contemptible than that, which is embittered
by fear.” As he said this, his eye glanced upon Madame Montoni, who
coloured highly, but was still silent. Emily, wounded and disappointed,
thought her fears were, in this instance, too reasonable to deserve
ridicule; but, perceiving, that, however they might oppress her, she
must endure them, she tried to withdraw her attention from the subject.
Carlo soon after entered with some fruit:
“Your _Excellenza_ is tired after your long ramble,” said he, as he set
the fruit upon the table; “but you have more to see after breakfast.
There is a place in the vaulted passage leading to—”
Montoni frowned upon him, and waved his hand for him to leave the room.
Carlo stopped, looked down, and then added, as he advanced to the
breakfast-table, and took up the basket of fruit, “I made bold, your
_Excellenza_, to bring some cherries, here, for my honoured lady and my
young mistress. Will your ladyship taste them, madam?” said Carlo,
presenting the basket, “they are very fine ones, though I gathered them
myself, and from an old tree, that catches all the south sun; they are
as big as plums, your ladyship.”
“Very well, old Carlo,” said Madame Montoni; “I am obliged to you.”
“And the young Signora, too, she may like some of them,” rejoined
Carlo, turning with the basket to Emily, “it will do me good to see her
eat some.”
“Thank you, Carlo,” said Emily, taking some cherries, and smiling
kindly.
“Come, come,” said Montoni, impatiently, “enough of this. Leave the
room, but be in waiting. I shall want you presently.”
Carlo obeyed, and Montoni, soon after, went out to examine further into
the state of the castle; while Emily remained with her aunt, patiently
enduring her ill humour, and endeavouring, with much sweetness, to
soothe her affliction, instead of resenting its effect.
When Madame Montoni retired to her dressing-room, Emily endeavoured to
amuse herself by a view of the castle. Through a folding door she
passed from the great hall to the ramparts, which extended along the
brow of the precipice, round three sides of the edifice; the fourth was
guarded by the high walls of the courts, and by the gateway, through
which she had passed, on the preceding evening. The grandeur of the
broad ramparts, and the changing scenery they overlooked, excited her
high admiration; for the extent of the terraces allowed the features of
the country to be seen in such various points of view, that they
appeared to form new landscapes. She often paused to examine the gothic
magnificence of Udolpho, its proud irregularity, its lofty towers and
battlements, its high-arched casements, and its slender watch-towers,
perched upon the corners of turrets. Then she would lean on the wall of
the terrace, and, shuddering, measure with her eye the precipice below,
till the dark summits of the woods arrested it. Wherever she turned,
appeared mountain-tops, forests of pine and narrow glens, opening among
the Apennines and retiring from the sight into inaccessible regions.
While she thus leaned, Montoni, followed by two men, appeared,
ascending a winding path, cut in the rock below. He stopped upon a
cliff, and, pointing to the ramparts, turned to his followers, and
talked with much eagerness of gesticulation.—Emily perceived, that one
of these men was Carlo; the other was in the dress of a peasant, and he
alone seemed to be receiving the directions of Montoni.
She withdrew from the walls, and pursued her walk, till she heard at a
distance the sound of carriage wheels, and then the loud bell of the
portal, when it instantly occurred to her, that Count Morano was
arrived. As she hastily passed the folding doors from the terrace,
towards her own apartment, several persons entered the hall by an
opposite door. She saw them at the extremities of the arcades, and
immediately retreated; but the agitation of her spirits, and the extent
and duskiness of the hall, had prevented her from distinguishing the
persons of the strangers. Her fears, however, had but one object, and
they had called up that object to her fancy:—she believed that she had
seen Count Morano.
When she thought that they had passed the hall, she ventured again to
the door, and proceeded, unobserved, to her room, where she remained,
agitated with apprehensions, and listening to every distant sound. At
length, hearing voices on the rampart, she hastened to her window, and
observed Montoni, with Signor Cavigni, walking below, conversing
earnestly, and often stopping and turning towards each other, at which
time their discourse seemed to be uncommonly interesting.
Of the several persons who had appeared in the hall, here was Cavigni
alone: but Emily’s alarm was soon after heightened by the steps of some
one in the corridor, who, she apprehended, brought a message from the
Count. In the next moment, Annette appeared.
“Ah! ma’amselle,” said she, “here is the Signor Cavigni arrived! I am
sure I rejoiced to see a christian person in this place; and then he is
so good natured too, he always takes so much notice of me!—And here is
also Signor Verezzi, and who do you think besides, ma’amselle?”
“I cannot guess, Annette; tell me quickly.”
“Nay, ma’am, do guess once.”
“Well, then,” said Emily, with assumed composure, “it is—Count Morano,
I suppose.”
“Holy Virgin!” cried Annette, “are you ill, ma’amselle? you are going
to faint! let me get some water.”
Emily sunk into a chair. “Stay, Annette,” said she, feebly, “do not
leave me—I shall soon be better; open the casement.—The Count, you
say—he is come, then?”
“Who, I!—the Count! No, ma’amselle, I did not say so.”
“He is _not_ come then?” said Emily eagerly.
“No, ma’amselle.”
“You are sure of it?”
“Lord bless me!” said Annette, “you recover very suddenly, ma’am! why,
I thought you were dying, just now.”
“But the Count—you are sure, is not come?”
“O yes, quite sure of that, ma’amselle. Why, I was looking out through
the grate in the north turret, when the carriages drove into the
courtyard, and I never expected to see such a goodly sight in this
dismal old castle! but here are masters and servants, too, enough to
make the place ring again. O! I was ready to leap through the rusty old
bars for joy!—O! who would ever have thought of seeing a christian face
in this huge dreary house? I could have kissed the very horses that
brought them.”
“Well, Annette, well, I am better now.”
“Yes, ma’amselle, I see you are. O! all the servants will lead merry
lives here, now; we shall have singing and dancing in the little hall,
for the Signor cannot hear us there—and droll stories—Ludovico’s come,
ma’am; yes, there is Ludovico come with them! You remember Ludovico,
ma’am—a tall, handsome young man—Signor Cavigni’s lacquey—who always
wears his cloak with such a grace, thrown round his left arm, and his
hat set on so smartly, all on one side, and—”
“No,” said Emily, who was wearied by her loquacity.
“What, ma’amselle, don’t you remember Ludovico—who rowed the
Cavaliero’s gondola, at the last regatta, and won the prize? And who
used to sing such sweet verses about Orlandos and about the
Black-a-moors, too; and Charly—Charly—magne, yes, that was the name,
all under my lattice, in the west portico, on the moonlight nights at
Venice? O! I have listened to him!—”
“I fear, to thy peril, my good Annette,” said Emily; “for it seems his
verses have stolen thy heart. But let me advise you; if it is so, keep
the secret; never let him know it.”
“Ah—ma’amselle!—how can one keep such a secret as that?”
“Well, Annette, I am now so much better, that you may leave me.”
“O, but, ma’amselle, I forgot to ask—how did you sleep in this dreary
old chamber last night?”—“As well as usual.”—“Did you hear no
noises?”—“None.”—“Nor see anything?”—“Nothing.”—“Well, that is
surprising!”—“Not in the least: and now tell me, why you ask these
questions.”
“O, ma’amselle! I would not tell you for the world, nor all I have
heard about this chamber, either; it would frighten you so.”
“If that is all, you have frightened me already, and may therefore tell
me what you know, without hurting your conscience.”
“O Lord! they say the room is haunted, and has been so these many
years.”
“It is by a ghost, then, who can draw bolts,” said Emily, endeavouring
to laugh away her apprehensions; “for I left the door open, last night,
and found it fastened this morning.”
Annette turned pale, and said not a word.
“Do you know whether any of the servants fastened this door in the
morning, before I rose?”
“No, ma’am, that I will be bound they did not; but I don’t know: shall
I go and ask, ma’amselle?” said Annette, moving hastily towards the
corridor.
“Stay, Annette, I have another question to ask; tell me what you have
heard concerning this room, and whither that staircase leads.”
“I will go and ask it all directly, ma’am; besides, I am sure my lady
wants me. I cannot stay now, indeed, ma’am.”
She hurried from the room, without waiting Emily’s reply, whose heart,
lightened by the certainty, that Morano was not arrived, allowed her to
smile at the superstitious terror, which had seized on Annette; for,
though she sometimes felt its influence herself, she could smile at it,
when apparent in other persons.
Montoni having refused Emily another chamber, she determined to bear
with patience the evil she could not remove, and, in order to make the
room as comfortable as possible, unpacked her books, her sweet delight
in happier days, and her soothing resource in the hours of moderate
sorrow: but there were hours when even these failed of their effect;
when the genius, the taste, the enthusiasm of the sublimest writers
were felt no longer.
Her little library being arranged on a high chest, part of the
furniture of the room, she took out her drawing utensils, and was
tranquil enough to be pleased with the thought of sketching the sublime
scenes, beheld from her windows; but she suddenly checked this
pleasure, remembering how often she had soothed herself by the
intention of obtaining amusement of this kind, and had been prevented
by some new circumstance of misfortune.
“How can I suffer myself to be deluded by hope,” said she, “and,
because Count Morano is not yet arrived, feel a momentary happiness?
Alas! what is it to me, whether he is here today, or tomorrow, if he
comes at all?—and that he will come—it were weakness to doubt.”
To withdraw her thoughts, however, from the subject of her misfortunes,
she attempted to read, but her attention wandered from the page, and,
at length, she threw aside the book, and determined to explore the
adjoining chambers of the castle. Her imagination was pleased with the
view of ancient grandeur, and an emotion of melancholy awe awakened all
its powers, as she walked through rooms, obscure and desolate, where no
footsteps had passed probably for many years, and remembered the
strange history of the former possessor of the edifice. This brought to
her recollection the veiled picture, which had attracted her curiosity,
on the preceding night, and she resolved to examine it. As she passed
through the chambers, that led to this, she found herself somewhat
agitated; its connection with the late lady of the castle, and the
conversation of Annette, together with the circumstance of the veil,
throwing a mystery over the subject, that excited a faint degree of
terror. But a terror of this nature, as it occupies and expands the
mind, and elevates it to high expectation, is purely sublime, and leads
us, by a kind of fascination, to seek even the object, from which we
appear to shrink.
Emily passed on with faltering steps, and having paused a moment at the
door, before she attempted to open it, she then hastily entered the
chamber, and went towards the picture, which appeared to be enclosed in
a frame of uncommon size, that hung in a dark part of the room. She
paused again, and then, with a timid hand, lifted the veil; but
instantly let it fall—perceiving that what it had concealed was no
picture, and, before she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless
on the floor.
When she recovered her recollection, the remembrance of what she had
seen had nearly deprived her of it a second time. She had scarcely
strength to remove from the room, and regain her own; and, when arrived
there, wanted courage to remain alone. Horror occupied her mind, and
excluded, for a time, all sense of past, and dread of future
misfortune: she seated herself near the casement, because from thence
she heard voices, though distant, on the terrace, and might see people
pass, and these, trifling as they were, were reviving circumstances.
When her spirits had recovered their tone, she considered, whether she
should mention what she had seen to Madame Montoni, and various and
important motives urged her to do so, among which the least was the
hope of the relief, which an overburdened mind finds in speaking of the
subject of its interest. But she was aware of the terrible
consequences, which such a communication might lead to; and, dreading
the indiscretion of her aunt, at length, endeavoured to arm herself
with resolution to observe a profound silence on the subject. Montoni
and Verezzi soon after passed under the casement, speaking cheerfully,
and their voices revived her. Presently the Signors Bertolini and
Cavigni joined the party on the terrace, and Emily, supposing that
Madame Montoni was then alone, went to seek her; for the solitude of
her chamber, and its proximity to that where she had received so severe
a shock, again affected her spirit.
She found her aunt in her dressing-room, preparing for dinner. Emily’s
pale and affrighted countenance alarmed even Madame Montoni; but she
had sufficient strength of mind to be silent on the subject, that still
made her shudder, and which was ready to burst from her lips. In her
aunt’s apartment she remained till they both descended to dinner. There
she met the gentlemen lately arrived, who had a kind of busy
seriousness in their looks, which was somewhat unusual with them, while
their thoughts seemed too much occupied by some deep interest, to
suffer them to bestow much attention either on Emily or Madame Montoni.
They spoke little, and Montoni less. Emily, as she now looked on him,
shuddered. The horror of the chamber rushed on her mind. Several times
the colour faded from her cheeks, and she feared, that illness would
betray her emotions, and compel her to leave the room; but the strength
of her resolution remedied the weakness of her frame; she obliged
herself to converse, and even tried to look cheerful.
Montoni evidently laboured under some vexation, such as would probably
have agitated a weaker mind or a more susceptible heart, but which
appeared, from the sternness of his countenance, only to bend up his
faculties to energy and fortitude.
It was a comfortless and silent meal. The gloom of the castle seemed to
have spread its contagion even over the gay countenance of Cavigni, and
with this gloom was mingled a fierceness such as she had seldom seen
him indicate. Count Morano was not named, and what conversation there
was, turned chiefly upon the wars which at that time agitated the
Italian states, the strength of the Venetian armies, and the characters
of their generals.
After dinner, when the servants had withdrawn, Emily learned, that the
cavalier, who had drawn upon himself the vengeance of Orsino, had since
died of his wounds, and that strict search was still making for his
murderer. The intelligence seemed to disturb Montoni, who mused, and
then enquired, where Orsino had concealed himself. His guests, who all,
except Cavigni, were ignorant, that Montoni had himself assisted him to
escape from Venice, replied, that he had fled in the night with such
precipitation and secrecy, that his most intimate companions knew not
whither. Montoni blamed himself for having asked the question, for a
second thought convinced him, that a man of Orsino’s suspicious temper
was not likely to trust any of the persons present with the knowledge
of his asylum. He considered himself, however, as entitled to his
utmost confidence, and did not doubt, that he should soon hear of him.
Emily retired with Madame Montoni, soon after the cloth was withdrawn,
and left the cavaliers to their secret councils, but not before the
significant frowns of Montoni had warned his wife to depart, who passed
from the hall to the ramparts, and walked, for some time, in silence,
which Emily did not interrupt, for her mind was also occupied by
interests of its own. It required all her resolution, to forbear
communicating to Madame Montoni the terrible subject, which still
thrilled her every nerve with horror; and sometimes she was on the
point of doing so, merely to obtain the relief of a moment; but she
knew how wholly she was in the power of Montoni, and, considering, that
the indiscretion of her aunt might prove fatal to them both, she
compelled herself to endure a present and an inferior evil, rather than
to tempt a future and a heavier one. A strange kind of presentiment
frequently, on this day, occurred to her;—it seemed as if her fate
rested here, and was by some invisible means connected with this
castle.
“Let me not accelerate it,” said she to herself: “for whatever I may be
reserved, let me, at least, avoid self-reproach.”
As she looked on the massy walls of the edifice, her melancholy spirits
represented it to be her prison; and she started as at a new
suggestion, when she considered how far distant she was from her native
country, from her little peaceful home, and from her only friend—how
remote was her hope of happiness, how feeble the expectation of again
seeing him! Yet the idea of Valancourt, and her confidence in his
faithful love, had hitherto been her only solace, and she struggled
hard to retain them. A few tears of agony started to her eyes, which
she turned aside to conceal.
While she afterwards leaned on the wall of the rampart, some peasants,
at a little distance, were seen examining a breach, before which lay a
heap of stones, as if to repair it, and a rusty old cannon, that
appeared to have fallen from its station above. Madame Montoni stopped
to speak to the men, and enquired what they were going to do. “To
repair the fortifications, your ladyship,” said one of them; a labour
which she was somewhat surprised, that Montoni should think necessary,
particularly since he had never spoken of the castle, as of a place, at
which he meant to reside for any considerable time; but she passed on
towards a lofty arch, that led from the south to the east rampart, and
which adjoined the castle, on one side, while, on the other, it
supported a small watch-tower, that entirely commanded the deep valley
below. As she approached this arch, she saw, beyond it, winding along
the woody descent of a distant mountain, a long troop of horse and
foot, whom she knew to be soldiers, only by the glitter of their pikes
and other arms, for the distance did not allow her to discover the
colour of their liveries. As she gazed, the vanguard issued from the
woods into the valley, but the train still continued to pour over the
remote summit of the mountain, in endless succession; while, in the
front, the military uniform became distinguishable, and the commanders,
riding first, and seeming, by their gestures, to direct the march of
those that followed, at length, approached very near to the castle.
Such a spectacle, in these solitary regions, both surprised and alarmed
Madame Montoni, and she hastened towards some peasants, who were
employed in raising bastions before the south rampart, where the rock
was less abrupt than elsewhere. These men could give no satisfactory
answers to her enquiries, but, being roused by them, gazed in stupid
astonishment upon the long cavalcade. Madame Montoni, then thinking it
necessary to communicate further the object of her alarm, sent Emily to
say, that she wished to speak to Montoni; an errand her niece did not
approve, for she dreaded his frowns, which she knew this message would
provoke; but she obeyed in silence.
As she drew near the apartment, in which he sat with his guests, she
heard them in earnest and loud dispute, and she paused a moment,
trembling at the displeasure, which her sudden interruption would
occasion. In the next, their voices sunk all together; she then
ventured to open the door, and, while Montoni turned hastily and looked
at her, without speaking, she delivered her message.
“Tell Madam Montoni I am engaged,” said he.
Emily then thought it proper to mention the subject of her alarm.
Montoni and his companions rose instantly and went to the windows, but,
these not affording them a view of the troops, they at length proceeded
to the ramparts, where Cavigni conjectured it to be a legion of
_condottieri_, on their march towards Modena.
One part of the cavalcade now extended along the valley, and another
wound among the mountains towards the north, while some troops still
lingered on the woody precipices, where the first had appeared, so that
the great length of the procession seemed to include a whole army.
While Montoni and his family watched its progress, they heard the sound
of trumpets and the clash of cymbals in the vale, and then others,
answering from the heights. Emily listened with emotion to the shrill
blast, that woke the echoes of the mountains, and Montoni explained the
signals, with which he appeared to be well acquainted, and which meant
nothing hostile. The uniforms of the troops, and the kind of arms they
bore, confirmed to him the conjecture of Cavigni, and he had the
satisfaction to see them pass by, without even stopping to gaze upon
his castle. He did not, however, leave the rampart, till the bases of
the mountains had shut them from his view, and the last murmur of the
trumpet floated away on the wind. Cavigni and Verezzi were inspirited
by this spectacle, which seemed to have roused all the fire of their
temper; Montoni turned into the castle in thoughtful silence.
Emily’s mind had not yet sufficiently recovered from its late shock, to
endure the loneliness of her chamber, and she remained upon the
ramparts; for Madame Montoni had not invited her to her dressing-room,
whither she had gone evidently in low spirits, and Emily, from her late
experience, had lost all wish to explore the gloomy and mysterious
recesses of the castle. The ramparts, therefore, were almost her only
retreat, and here she lingered, till the grey haze of evening was again
spread over the scene.
The cavaliers supped by themselves, and Madame Montoni remained in her
apartment, whither Emily went, before she retired to her own. She found
her aunt weeping, and in much agitation. The tenderness of Emily was
naturally so soothing, that it seldom failed to give comfort to the
drooping heart: but Madame Montoni’s was torn, and the softest accents
of Emily’s voice were lost upon it. With her usual delicacy, she did
not appear to observe her aunt’s distress, but it gave an involuntary
gentleness to her manners, and an air of solicitude to her countenance,
which Madame Montoni was vexed to perceive, who seemed to feel the pity
of her niece to be an insult to her pride, and dismissed her as soon as
she properly could. Emily did not venture to mention again the
reluctance she felt to her gloomy chamber, but she requested that
Annette might be permitted to remain with her till she retired to rest;
and the request was somewhat reluctantly granted. Annette, however, was
now with the servants, and Emily withdrew alone.
With light and hasty steps she passed through the long galleries, while
the feeble glimmer of the lamp she carried only showed the gloom around
her, and the passing air threatened to extinguish it. The lonely
silence, that reigned in this part of the castle, awed her; now and
then, indeed, she heard a faint peal of laughter rise from a remote
part of the edifice, where the servants were assembled, but it was soon
lost, and a kind of breathless stillness remained. As she passed the
suite of rooms which she had visited in the morning, her eyes glanced
fearfully on the door, and she almost fancied she heard murmuring
sounds within, but she paused not a moment to enquire.
Having reached her own apartment, where no blazing wood on the hearth
dissipated the gloom, she sat down with a book, to enliven her
attention, till Annette should come, and a fire could be kindled. She
continued to read till her light was nearly expired, but Annette did
not appear, and the solitude and obscurity of her chamber again
affected her spirits, the more, because of its nearness to the scene of
horror, that she had witnessed in the morning. Gloomy and fantastic
images came to her mind. She looked fearfully towards the door of the
staircase, and then, examining whether it was still fastened, found
that it was so. Unable to conquer the uneasiness she felt at the
prospect of sleeping again in this remote and insecure apartment, which
some person seemed to have entered during the preceding night, her
impatience to see Annette, whom she had bidden to enquire concerning
this circumstance, became extremely painful. She wished also to
question her, as to the object, which had excited so much horror in her
own mind, and which Annette on the preceding evening had appeared to be
in part acquainted with, though her words were very remote from the
truth, and it appeared plainly to Emily, that the girl had been
purposely misled by a false report: above all she was surprised, that
the door of the chamber, which contained it, should be left unguarded.
Such an instance of negligence almost surpassed belief. But her light
was now expiring; the faint flashes it threw upon the walls called up
all the terrors of fancy, and she rose to find her way to the habitable
part of the castle, before it was quite extinguished. As she opened the
chamber door, she heard remote voices, and, soon after, saw a light
issue upon the further end of the corridor, which Annette and another
servant approached. “I am glad you are come,” said Emily: “what has
detained you so long? Pray light me a fire immediately.”
“My lady wanted me, ma’amselle,” replied Annette in some confusion; “I
will go and get the wood.”
“No,” said Caterina, “that is my business,” and left the room
instantly, while Annette would have followed; but, being called back,
she began to talk very loud, and laugh, and seemed afraid to trust a
pause of silence.
Caterina soon returned with the wood, and then, when the cheerful blaze
once more animated the room, and this servant had withdrawn, Emily
asked Annette, whether she had made the enquiry she bade her. “Yes,
ma’amselle,” said Annette, “but not a soul knows anything about the
matter: and old Carlo—I watched him well, for they say he knows strange
things—old Carlo looked so as I don’t know how to tell, and he asked me
again and again, if I was sure the door was ever unfastened. Lord, says
I—am I sure I am alive? And as for me, ma’am, I am all astounded, as
one may say, and would no more sleep in this chamber, than I would on
the great cannon at the end of the east rampart.”
“And what objection have you to that cannon, more than to any of the
rest?” said Emily smiling: “the best would be rather a hard bed.”
“Yes, ma’amselle, any of them would be hard enough for that matter; but
they do say, that something has been seen in the dead of night,
standing beside the great cannon, as if to guard it.”
“Well! my good Annette, the people who tell such stories, are happy in
having you for an auditor, for I perceive you believe them all.”
“Dear ma’amselle! I will show you the very cannon; you can see it from
these windows!”
“Well,” said Emily, “but that does not prove, that an apparition guards
it.”
“What! not if I show you the very cannon! Dear ma’am, you will believe
nothing.”
“Nothing probably upon this subject, but what I see,” said
Emily.—“Well, ma’am, but you shall see it, if you will only step this
way to the casement.”—Emily could not forbear laughing, and Annette
looked surprised. Perceiving her extreme aptitude to credit the
marvellous, Emily forbore to mention the subject she had intended, lest
it should overcome her with idle terrors, and she began to speak on a
lively topic—the regattas of Venice.
“Aye, ma’amselle, those rowing matches,” said Annette, “and the fine
moonlight nights, are all, that are worth seeing in Venice. To be sure
the moon is brighter than any I ever saw; and then to hear such sweet
music, too, as Ludovico has often and often sung under the lattice by
the west portico! Ma’amselle, it was Ludovico, that told me about that
picture, which you wanted so to look at last night, and—”
“What picture?” said Emily, wishing Annette to explain herself.
“O! that terrible picture with the black veil over it.”
“You never saw it, then?” said Emily.
“Who, I!—No, ma’amselle, I never did. But this morning,” continued
Annette, lowering her voice, and looking round the room, “this morning,
as it was broad daylight, do you know, ma’am, I took a strange fancy to
see it, as I had heard such odd hints about it, and I got as far as the
door, and should have opened it, if it had not been locked!”
Emily, endeavouring to conceal the emotion this circumstance
occasioned, enquired at what hour she went to the chamber, and found,
that it was soon after herself had been there. She also asked further
questions, and the answers convinced her, that Annette, and probably
her informer, were ignorant of the terrible truth, though in Annette’s
account something very like the truth, now and then, mingled with the
falsehood. Emily now began to fear, that her visit to the chamber had
been observed, since the door had been closed, so immediately after her
departure; and dreaded lest this should draw upon her the vengeance of
Montoni. Her anxiety, also, was excited to know whence, and for what
purpose, the delusive report, which had been imposed upon Annette, had
originated, since Montoni could only have wished for silence and
secrecy; but she felt, that the subject was too terrible for this
lonely hour, and she compelled herself to leave it, to converse with
Annette, whose chat, simple as it was, she preferred to the stillness
of total solitude.
Thus they sat, till near midnight, but not without many hints from
Annette, that she wished to go. The embers were now nearly burnt out;
and Emily heard, at a distance, the thundering sound of the hall doors,
as they were shut for the night. She, therefore, prepared for rest, but
was still unwilling that Annette should leave her. At this instant, the
great bell of the portal sounded. They listened in fearful expectation,
when, after a long pause of silence, it sounded again. Soon after, they
heard the noise of carriage wheels in the courtyard. Emily sunk almost
lifeless in her chair; “It is the Count,” said she.
“What, at this time of night, ma’am!” said Annette: “no, my dear lady.
But, for that matter, it is a strange time of night for anybody to
come!”
“Nay, pr’ythee, good Annette, stay not talking,” said Emily in a voice
of agony—“Go, pr’ythee, go, and see who it is.”
Annette left the room, and carried with her the light, leaving Emily in
darkness, which a few moments before would have terrified her in this
room, but was now scarcely observed by her. She listened and waited, in
breathless expectation, and heard distant noises, but Annette did not
return. Her patience, at length, exhausted, she tried to find her way
to the corridor, but it was long before she could touch the door of the
chamber, and, when she had opened it, the total darkness without made
her fear to proceed. Voices were now heard, and Emily even thought she
distinguished those of Count Morano and Montoni. Soon after she heard
steps approaching, and then a ray of light streamed through the
darkness, and Annette appeared, whom Emily went to meet.
“Yes, ma’amselle,” said she, “you were right, it is the Count sure
enough.”
“It is he!” exclaimed Emily, lifting her eyes towards heaven and
supporting herself by Annette’s arm.
“Good Lord! my dear lady, don’t be in such a _fluster_, and look so
pale, we shall soon hear more.”
“We shall, indeed!” said Emily, moving as fast as she was able towards
her apartment. “I am not well; give me air.” Annette opened a casement,
and brought water. The faintness soon left Emily, but she desired
Annette would not go till she heard from Montoni.
“Dear ma’amselle! he surely will not disturb you at this time of night;
why he must think you are asleep.”
“Stay with me till I am so, then,” said Emily, who felt temporary
relief from this suggestion, which appeared probable enough, though her
fears had prevented its occurring to her. Annette, with secret
reluctance, consented to stay, and Emily was now composed enough to ask
her some questions; among others, whether she had seen the Count.
“Yes, ma’am, I saw him alight, for I went from hence to the grate in
the north turret, that overlooks the inner courtyard, you know. There I
saw the Count’s carriage, and the Count in it, waiting at the great
door,—for the porter was just gone to bed—with several men on horseback
all by the light of the torches they carried.”
Emily was compelled to smile. “When the door was opened, the Count said
something, that I could not make out, and then got out, and another
gentleman with him. I thought, to be sure, the Signor was gone to bed,
and I hastened away to my lady’s dressing-room, to see what I could
hear. But in the way I met Ludovico, and he told me that the Signor was
up, counselling with his master and the other Signors, in the room at
the end of the north gallery; and Ludovico held up his finger, and laid
it on his lips, as much as to say—There is more going on, than you
think of, Annette, but you must hold your tongue. And so I did hold my
tongue, ma’amselle, and came away to tell you directly.”
Emily enquired who the cavalier was, that accompanied the Count, and
how Montoni received them; but Annette could not inform her.
“Ludovico,” she added, “had just been to call Signor Montoni’s valet,
that he might tell him they were arrived, when I met him.”
Emily sat musing, for some time, and then her anxiety was so much
increased, that she desired Annette would go to the servants’ hall,
where it was possible she might hear something of the Count’s
intention, respecting his stay at the castle.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Annette with readiness; “but how am I to find the
way, if I leave the lamp with you?”
Emily said she would light her, and they immediately quitted the
chamber. When they had reached the top of the great staircase, Emily
recollected, that she might be seen by the Count, and, to avoid the
great hall, Annette conducted her through some private passages to a
back staircase, which led directly to that of the servants.
As she returned towards her chamber, Emily began to fear, that she
might again lose herself in the intricacies of the castle, and again be
shocked by some mysterious spectacle; and, though she was already
perplexed by the numerous turnings, she feared to open one of the many
doors that offered. While she stepped thoughtfully along, she fancied,
that she heard a low moaning at no great distance, and, having paused a
moment, she heard it again and distinctly. Several doors appeared on
the right hand of the passage. She advanced, and listened. When she
came to the second, she heard a voice, apparently in complaint, within,
to which she continued to listen, afraid to open the door, and
unwilling to leave it. Convulsive sobs followed, and then the piercing
accents of an agonizing spirit burst forth. Emily stood appalled, and
looked through the gloom, that surrounded her, in fearful expectation.
The lamentations continued. Pity now began to subdue terror; it was
possible she might administer comfort to the sufferer, at least, by
expressing sympathy, and she laid her hand on the door. While she
hesitated she thought she knew this voice, disguised as it was by tones
of grief. Having, therefore, set down the lamp in the passage, she
gently opened the door, within which all was dark, except that from an
inner apartment a partial light appeared; and she stepped softly on.
Before she reached it, the appearance of Madame Montoni, leaning on her
dressing-table, weeping, and with a handkerchief held to her eyes,
struck her, and she paused.
Some person was seated in a chair by the fire, but who it was she could
not distinguish. He spoke, now and then, in a low voice, that did not
allow Emily to hear what was uttered, but she thought, that Madame
Montoni, at those times, wept the more, who was too much occupied by
her own distress, to observe Emily, while the latter, though anxious to
know what occasioned this, and who was the person admitted at so late
an hour to her aunt’s dressing-room, forbore to add to her sufferings
by surprising her, or to take advantage of her situation, by listening
to a private discourse. She, therefore, stepped softly back, and, after
some further difficulty, found the way to her own chamber, where nearer
interests, at length, excluded the surprise and concern she had felt,
respecting Madame Montoni.
Annette, however, returned without satisfactory intelligence, for the
servants, among whom she had been, were either entirely ignorant, or
affected to be so, concerning the Count’s intended stay at the castle.
They could talk only of the steep and broken road they had just passed,
and of the numerous dangers they had escaped and express wonder how
their lord could choose to encounter all these, in the darkness of
night; for they scarcely allowed, that the torches had served for any
other purpose but that of showing the dreariness of the mountains.
Annette, finding she could gain no information, left them, making noisy
petitions, for more wood on the fire and more supper on the table.
“And now, ma’amselle,” added she, “I am so sleepy!—I am sure, if you
were so sleepy, you would not desire me to sit up with you.”
Emily, indeed, began to think it was cruel to wish it; she had also
waited so long, without receiving a summons from Montoni, that it
appeared he did not mean to disturb her, at this late hour, and she
determined to dismiss Annette. But, when she again looked round her
gloomy chamber, and recollected certain circumstances, fear seized her
spirits, and she hesitated.
“And yet it were cruel of me to ask you to stay, till I am asleep,
Annette,” said she, “for I fear it will be very long before I forget
myself in sleep.”
“I dare say it will be very long, ma’amselle,” said Annette.
“But, before you go,” rejoined Emily, “let me ask you—Had Signor
Montoni left Count Morano, when you quitted the hall?”
“O no, ma’am, they were alone together.”
“Have you been in my aunt’s dressing-room, since you left me?”
“No, ma’amselle, I called at the door as I passed, but it was fastened;
so I thought my lady was gone to bed.”
“Who, then, was with your lady just now?” said Emily, forgetting, in
surprise, her usual prudence.
“Nobody, I believe, ma’am,” replied Annette, “nobody has been with her,
I believe, since I left you.”
Emily took no further notice of the subject, and, after some struggle
with imaginary fears, her good nature prevailed over them so far, that
she dismissed Annette for the night. She then sat, musing upon her own
circumstances and those of Madame Montoni, till her eye rested on the
miniature picture, which she had found, after her father’s death, among
the papers he had enjoined her to destroy. It was open upon the table,
before her, among some loose drawings, having, with them, been taken
out of a little box by Emily, some hours before. The sight of it called
up many interesting reflections, but the melancholy sweetness of the
countenance soothed the emotions, which these had occasioned. It was
the same style of countenance as that of her late father, and, while
she gazed on it with fondness on this account, she even fancied a
resemblance in the features. But this tranquillity was suddenly
interrupted, when she recollected the words in the manuscript, that had
been found with this picture, and which had formerly occasioned her so
much doubt and horror. At length, she roused herself from the deep
reverie, into which this remembrance had thrown her; but, when she rose
to undress, the silence and solitude, to which she was left, at this
midnight hour, for not even a distant sound was now heard, conspired
with the impression the subject she had been considering had given to
her mind, to appall her. Annette’s hints, too, concerning this chamber,
simple as they were, had not failed to affect her, since they followed
a circumstance of peculiar horror, which she herself had witnessed, and
since the scene of this was a chamber nearly adjoining her own.
The door of the staircase was, perhaps, a subject of more reasonable
alarm, and she now began to apprehend, such was the aptitude of her
fears, that this staircase had some private communication with the
apartment, which she shuddered even to remember. Determined not to
undress, she lay down to sleep in her clothes, with her late father’s
dog, the faithful _Manchon_, at the foot of the bed, whom she
considered as a kind of guard.
Thus circumstanced, she tried to banish reflection, but her busy fancy
would still hover over the subjects of her interest, and she heard the
clock of the castle strike two, before she closed her eyes.
From the disturbed slumber, into which she then sunk, she was soon
awakened by a noise, which seemed to arise within her chamber; but the
silence, that prevailed, as she fearfully listened, inclined her to
believe, that she had been alarmed by such sounds as sometimes occur in
dreams, and she laid her head again upon the pillow.
A return of the noise again disturbed her; it seemed to come from that
part of the room, which communicated with the private staircase, and
she instantly remembered the odd circumstance of the door having been
fastened, during the preceding night, by some unknown hand. Her late
alarming suspicion, concerning its communication, also occurred to her.
Her heart became faint with terror. Half raising herself from the bed,
and gently drawing aside the curtain, she looked towards the door of
the staircase, but the lamp, that burnt on the hearth, spread so feeble
a light through the apartment, that the remote parts of it were lost in
shadow. The noise, however, which, she was convinced, came from the
door, continued. It seemed like that made by the undrawing of rusty
bolts, and often ceased, and was then renewed more gently, as if the
hand, that occasioned it, was restrained by a fear of discovery.
While Emily kept her eyes fixed on the spot, she saw the door move, and
then slowly open, and perceived something enter the room, but the
extreme duskiness prevented her distinguishing what it was. Almost
fainting with terror, she had yet sufficient command over herself, to
check the shriek, that was escaping from her lips, and, letting the
curtain drop from her hand, continued to observe in silence the motions
of the mysterious form she saw. It seemed to glide along the remote
obscurity of the apartment, then paused, and, as it approached the
hearth, she perceived, in the stronger light, what appeared to be a
human figure. Certain remembrances now struck upon her heart, and
almost subdued the feeble remains of her spirits; she continued,
however, to watch the figure, which remained for some time motionless,
but then, advancing slowly towards the bed, stood silently at the feet,
where the curtains, being a little open, allowed her still to see it;
terror, however, had now deprived her of the power of discrimination,
as well as of that of utterance.
Having continued there a moment, the form retreated towards the hearth,
when it took the lamp, held it up, surveyed the chamber, for a few
moments, and then again advanced towards the bed. The light at that
instant awakening the dog, that had slept at Emily’s feet, he barked
loudly, and, jumping to the floor, flew at the stranger, who struck the
animal smartly with a sheathed sword, and, springing towards the bed,
Emily discovered—Count Morano!
She gazed at him for a moment in speechless affright, while he,
throwing himself on his knee at the bedside, besought her to fear
nothing, and, having thrown down his sword, would have taken her hand,
when the faculties, that terror had suspended, suddenly returned, and
she sprung from the bed, in the dress, which surely a kind of prophetic
apprehension had prevented her, on this night, from throwing aside.
Morano rose, followed her to the door, through which he had entered,
and caught her hand, as she reached the top of the staircase, but not
before she had discovered, by the gleam of a lamp, another man half-way
down the steps. She now screamed in despair, and, believing herself
given up by Montoni, saw, indeed, no possibility of escape.
The Count, who still held her hand, led her back into the chamber.
“Why all this terror?” said he, in a tremulous voice. “Hear me, Emily:
I come not to alarm you; no, by Heaven! I love you too well—too well
for my own peace.”
Emily looked at him for a moment, in fearful doubt.
“Then leave me, sir,” said she, “leave me instantly.”
“Hear me, Emily,” resumed Morano, “hear me! I love, and am in
despair—yes—in despair. How can I gaze upon you, and know, that it is,
perhaps, for the last time, without suffering all the frenzy of
despair? But it shall not be so; you shall be mine, in spite of Montoni
and all his villany.”
“In spite of Montoni!” cried Emily eagerly: “what is it I hear?”
“You hear, that Montoni is a villain,” exclaimed Morano with
vehemence,—“a villain who would have sold you to my love!—Who—”
“And is he less, who would have bought me?” said Emily, fixing on the
Count an eye of calm contempt. “Leave the room, sir, instantly,” she
continued in a voice, trembling between joy and fear, “or I will alarm
the family, and you may receive that from Signor Montoni’s vengeance,
which I have vainly supplicated from his pity.” But Emily knew, that
she was beyond the hearing of those, who might protect her.
“You can never hope anything from his pity,” said Morano, “he has used
me infamously, and my vengeance shall pursue him. And for you, Emily,
for you, he has new plans more profitable than the last, no doubt.” The
gleam of hope, which the Count’s former speech had revived, was now
nearly extinguished by the latter; and, while Emily’s countenance
betrayed the emotions of her mind, he endeavoured to take advantage of
the discovery.
“I lose time,” said he: “I came not to exclaim against Montoni; I came
to solicit, to plead—to Emily; to tell her all I suffer, to entreat her
to save me from despair, and herself from destruction. Emily! the
schemes of Montoni are insearchable, but, I warn you, they are
terrible; he has no principle, when interest, or ambition leads. Can I
love you, and abandon you to his power? Fly, then, fly from this gloomy
prison, with a lover, who adores you! I have bribed a servant of the
castle to open the gates, and, before tomorrow’s dawn, you shall be far
on the way to Venice.”
Emily, overcome by the sudden shock she had received, at the moment,
too, when she had begun to hope for better days, now thought she saw
destruction surround her on every side. Unable to reply, and almost to
think, she threw herself into a chair, pale and breathless. That
Montoni had formerly sold her to Morano, was very probable; that he had
now withdrawn his consent to the marriage, was evident from the Count’s
present conduct; and it was nearly certain, that a scheme of stronger
interest only could have induced the selfish Montoni to forego a plan,
which he had hitherto so strenuously pursued. These reflections made
her tremble at the hints, which Morano had just given, which she no
longer hesitated to believe; and, while she shrunk from the new scenes
of misery and oppression, that might await her in the castle of
Udolpho, she was compelled to observe, that almost her only means of
escaping them was by submitting herself to the protection of this man,
with whom evils more certain and not less terrible appeared,—evils,
upon which she could not endure to pause for an instant.
Her silence, though it was that of agony, encouraged the hopes of
Morano, who watched her countenance with impatience, took again the
resisting hand she had withdrawn, and, as he pressed it to his heart,
again conjured her to determine immediately. “Every moment we lose,
will make our departure more dangerous,” said he: “these few moments
lost may enable Montoni to overtake us.”
“I beseech you, sir, be silent,” said Emily faintly: “I am indeed very
wretched, and wretched I must remain. Leave me—I command you, leave me
to my fate.”
“Never!” cried the Count vehemently: “let me perish first! But forgive
my violence! the thought of losing you is madness. You cannot be
ignorant of Montoni’s character, you may be ignorant of his
schemes—nay, you must be so, or you would not hesitate between my love
and his power.”
“Nor do I hesitate,” said Emily.
“Let us go, then,” said Morano, eagerly kissing her hand, and rising,
“my carriage waits, below the castle walls.”
“You mistake me, sir,” said Emily. “Allow me to thank you for the
interest you express in my welfare, and to decide by my own choice. I
shall remain under the protection of Signor Montoni.”
“Under his protection!” exclaimed Morano, proudly, “his _protection!_
Emily, why will you suffer yourself to be thus deluded? I have already
told you what you have to expect from his _protection_.”
“And pardon me, sir, if, in this instance, I doubt mere assertion, and,
to be convinced, require something approaching to proof.”
“I have now neither the time, nor the means of adducing proof,” replied
the Count.
“Nor have I, sir, the inclination to listen to it, if you had.”
“But you trifle with my patience and my distress,” continued Morano.
“Is a marriage with a man, who adores you, so very terrible in your
eyes, that you would prefer to it all the misery, to which Montoni may
condemn you in this remote prison? Some wretch must have stolen those
affections, which ought to be mine, or you would not thus obstinately
persist in refusing an offer, that would place you beyond the reach of
oppression.” Morano walked about the room, with quick steps, and a
disturbed air.
“This discourse, Count Morano, sufficiently proves, that my affections
ought not to be yours,” said Emily, mildly, “and this conduct, that I
should not be placed beyond the reach of oppression, so long as I
remained in your power. If you wish me to believe otherwise, cease to
oppress me any longer by your presence. If you refuse this, you will
compel me to expose you to the resentment of Signor Montoni.”
“Yes, let him come,” cried Morano furiously, “and brave _my_
resentment! Let him dare to face once more the man he has so
courageously injured; danger shall teach him morality, and vengeance
justice—let him come, and receive my sword in his heart!”
The vehemence, with which this was uttered, gave Emily new cause of
alarm, who arose from her chair, but her trembling frame refused to
support her, and she resumed her seat;—the words died on her lips, and,
when she looked wistfully towards the door of the corridor, which was
locked, she considered it was impossible for her to leave the
apartment, before Morano would be apprised of, and able to counteract,
her intention.
Without observing her agitation, he continued to pace the room in the
utmost perturbation of spirits. His darkened countenance expressed all
the rage of jealousy and revenge; and a person, who had seen his
features under the smile of ineffable tenderness, which he so lately
assumed, would now scarcely have believed them to be the same.
“Count Morano,” said Emily, at length recovering her voice, “calm, I
entreat you, these transports, and listen to reason, if you will not to
pity. You have equally misplaced your love, and your hatred.—I never
could have returned the affection, with which you honour me, and
certainly have never encouraged it; neither has Signor Montoni injured
you, for you must have known, that he had no right to dispose of my
hand, had he even possessed the power to do so. Leave, then, leave the
castle, while you may with safety. Spare yourself the dreadful
consequences of an unjust revenge, and the remorse of having prolonged
to me these moments of suffering.”
“Is it for mine, or for Montoni’s safety, that you are thus alarmed?”
said Morano, coldly, and turning towards her with a look of acrimony.
“For both,” replied Emily, in a trembling voice.
“Unjust revenge!” cried the Count, resuming the abrupt tones of
passion. “Who, that looks upon that face, can imagine a punishment
adequate to the injury he would have done me? Yes, I will leave the
castle; but it shall not be alone. I have trifled too long. Since my
prayers and my sufferings cannot prevail, force shall. I have people in
waiting, who shall convey you to my carriage. Your voice will bring no
succour; it cannot be heard from this remote part of the castle;
submit, therefore, in silence, to go with me.”
This was an unnecessary injunction, at present; for Emily was too
certain, that her call would avail her nothing; and terror had so
entirely disordered her thoughts, that she knew not how to plead to
Morano, but sat, mute and trembling, in her chair, till he advanced to
lift her from it, when she suddenly raised herself, and, with a
repulsive gesture, and a countenance of forced serenity, said, “Count
Morano! I am now in your power; but you will observe, that this is not
the conduct which can win the esteem you appear so solicitous to
obtain, and that you are preparing for yourself a load of remorse, in
the miseries of a friendless orphan, which can never leave you. Do you
believe your heart to be, indeed, so hardened, that you can look
without emotion on the suffering, to which you would condemn me?—”
Emily was interrupted by the growling of the dog, who now came again
from the bed, and Morano looked towards the door of the staircase,
where no person appearing, he called aloud, “Cesario!”
“Emily,” said the Count, “why will you reduce me to adopt this conduct?
How much more willingly would I persuade, than compel you to become my
wife! but, by Heaven! I will not leave you to be sold by Montoni. Yet a
thought glances across my mind, that brings madness with it. I know not
how to name it. It is preposterous—it cannot be.—Yet you tremble—you
grow pale! It is! it is so;—you—you—love Montoni!” cried Morano,
grasping Emily’s wrist, and stamping his foot on the floor.
An involuntary air of surprise appeared on her countenance. “If you
have indeed believed so,” said she, “believe so still.”
“That look, those words confirm it,” exclaimed Morano, furiously. “No,
no, no, Montoni had a richer prize in view, than gold. But he shall not
live to triumph over me!—This very instant—”
He was interrupted by the loud barking of the dog.
“Stay, Count Morano,” said Emily, terrified by his words, and by the
fury expressed in his eyes, “I will save you from this error.—Of all
men, Signor Montoni is not your rival; though, if I find all other
means of saving myself vain, I will try whether my voice may not arouse
his servants to my succour.”
“Assertion,” replied Morano, “at such a moment, is not to be depended
upon. How could I suffer myself to doubt, even for an instant, that he
could see you, and not love?—But my first care shall be to convey you
from the castle. Cesario! ho,—Cesario!”
A man now appeared at the door of the staircase, and other steps were
heard ascending. Emily uttered a loud shriek, as Morano hurried her
across the chamber, and, at the same moment, she heard a noise at the
door, that opened upon the corridor. The Count paused an instant, as if
his mind was suspended between love and the desire of vengeance; and,
in that instant, the door gave way, and Montoni, followed by the old
steward and several other persons, burst into the room.
“Draw!” cried Montoni to the Count, who did not pause for a second
bidding, but, giving Emily into the hands of the people, that appeared
from the staircase, turned fiercely round. “This in thine heart,
villain!” said he, as he made a thrust at Montoni with his sword, who
parried the blow, and aimed another, while some of the persons, who had
followed him into the room, endeavoured to part the combatants, and
others rescued Emily from the hands of Morano’s servants.
“Was it for this, Count Morano,” said Montoni, in a cool sarcastic tone
of voice, “that I received you under my roof, and permitted you, though
my declared enemy, to remain under it for the night? Was it, that you
might repay my hospitality with the treachery of a fiend, and rob me of
my niece?”
“Who talks of treachery?” said Morano, in a tone of unrestrained
vehemence. “Let him that does, show an unblushing face of innocence.
Montoni, you are a villain! If there is treachery in this affair, look
to yourself as the author of it. _If_—do I say? _I_—whom you have
wronged with unexampled baseness, whom you have injured almost beyond
redress! But why do I use words?—Come on, coward, and receive justice
at my hands!”
“Coward!” cried Montoni, bursting from the people who held him, and
rushing on the Count, when they both retreated into the corridor, where
the fight continued so desperately, that none of the spectators dared
approach them, Montoni swearing, that the first who interfered, should
fall by his sword.
Jealousy and revenge lent all their fury to Morano, while the superior
skill and the temperance of Montoni enabled him to wound his adversary,
whom his servants now attempted to seize, but he would not be
restrained, and, regardless of his wound, continued to fight. He seemed
to be insensible both of pain and loss of blood, and alive only to the
energy of his passions. Montoni, on the contrary, persevered in the
combat, with a fierce, yet wary, valour; he received the point of
Morano’s sword on his arm, but, almost in the same instant, severely
wounded and disarmed him. The Count then fell back into the arms of his
servant, while Montoni held his sword over him, and bade him ask his
life. Morano, sinking under the anguish of his wound, had scarcely
replied by a gesture, and by a few words, feebly articulated, that he
would not—when he fainted; and Montoni was then going to have plunged
the sword into his breast, as he lay senseless, but his arm was
arrested by Cavigni. To the interruption he yielded without much
difficulty, but his complexion changed almost to blackness, as he
looked upon his fallen adversary, and ordered, that he should be
carried instantly from the castle.
In the mean time, Emily, who had been withheld from leaving the chamber
during the affray, now came forward into the corridor, and pleaded a
cause of common humanity, with the feelings of the warmest benevolence,
when she entreated Montoni to allow Morano the assistance in the
castle, which his situation required. But Montoni, who had seldom
listened to pity, now seemed rapacious of vengeance, and, with a
monster’s cruelty, again ordered his defeated enemy to be taken from
the castle, in his present state, though there were only the woods, or
a solitary neighbouring cottage, to shelter him from the night.
The Count’s servants having declared, that they would not move him till
he revived, Montoni’s stood inactive, Cavigni remonstrating, and Emily,
superior to Montoni’s menaces, giving water to Morano, and directing
the attendants to bind up his wound. At length, Montoni had leisure to
feel pain from his own hurt, and he withdrew to examine it.
The Count, meanwhile, having slowly recovered, the first object he saw,
on raising his eyes, was Emily, bending over him with a countenance
strongly expressive of solicitude. He surveyed her with a look of
anguish.
“I have deserved this,” said he, “but not from Montoni. It is from you,
Emily, that I have deserved punishment, yet I receive only pity!” He
paused, for he had spoken with difficulty. After a moment, he
proceeded. “I must resign you, but not to Montoni. Forgive me the
sufferings I have already occasioned you! But for _that_ villain—his
infamy shall not go unpunished. Carry me from this place,” said he to
his servants. “I am in no condition to travel: you must, therefore,
take me to the nearest cottage, for I will not pass the night under his
roof, although I may expire on the way from it.”
Cesario proposed to go out, and enquire for a cottage, that might
receive his master, before he attempted to remove him: but Morano was
impatient to be gone; the anguish of his mind seemed to be even greater
than that of his wound, and he rejected, with disdain, the offer of
Cavigni to entreat Montoni, that he might be suffered to pass the night
in the castle. Cesario was now going to call up the carriage to the
great gate, but the Count forbade him. “I cannot bear the motion of a
carriage,” said he: “call some others of my people, that they may
assist in bearing me in their arms.”
At length, however, Morano submitted to reason, and consented, that
Cesario should first prepare some cottage to receive him. Emily, now
that he had recovered his senses, was about to withdraw from the
corridor, when a message from Montoni commanded her to do so, and also
that the Count, if he was not already gone, should quit the castle
immediately. Indignation flashed from Morano’s eyes, and flushed his
cheeks.
“Tell Montoni,” said he, “that I shall go when it suits my own
convenience; that I quit the castle, he dares to call his, as I would
the nest of a serpent, and that this is not the last he shall hear from
me. Tell him, I will not leave _another_ murder on his conscience, if I
can help it.”
“Count Morano! do you know what you say?” said Cavigni.
“Yes, Signor, I know well what I say, and he will understand well what
I mean. His conscience will assist his understanding, on this
occasion.”
“Count Morano,” said Verezzi, who had hitherto silently observed him,
“dare again to insult my friend, and I will plunge this sword in your
body.”
“It would be an action worthy the friend of a villain!” said Morano, as
the strong impulse of his indignation enabled him to raise himself from
the arms of his servants; but the energy was momentary, and he sunk
back, exhausted by the effort. Montoni’s people, meanwhile, held
Verezzi, who seemed inclined, even in this instant, to execute his
threat; and Cavigni, who was not so depraved as to abet the cowardly
malignity of Verezzi, endeavoured to withdraw him from the corridor;
and Emily, whom a compassionate interest had thus long detained, was
now quitting it in new terror, when the supplicating voice of Morano
arrested her, and, by a feeble gesture, he beckoned her to draw nearer.
She advanced with timid steps, but the fainting languor of his
countenance again awakened her pity, and overcame her terror.
“I am going from hence for ever,” said he: “perhaps, I shall never see
you again. I would carry with me your forgiveness, Emily; nay more—I
would also carry your good wishes.”
“You have my forgiveness, then,” said Emily, “and my sincere wishes for
your recovery.”
“And only for my recovery?” said Morano, with a sigh. “For your general
welfare,” added Emily.
“Perhaps I ought to be contented with this,” he resumed; “I certainly
have not deserved more; but I would ask you, Emily, sometimes to think
of me, and, forgetting my offence, to remember only the passion which
occasioned it. I would ask, alas! impossibilities: I would ask you to
love me! At this moment, when I am about to part with you, and that,
perhaps, for ever, I am scarcely myself. Emily—may you never know the
torture of a passion like mine! What do I say? O, that, for me, you
might be sensible of such a passion!”
Emily looked impatient to be gone. “I entreat you, Count, to consult
your own safety,” said she, “and linger here no longer. I tremble for
the consequences of Signor Verezzi’s passion, and of Montoni’s
resentment, should he learn that you are still here.”
Morano’s face was overspread with a momentary crimson, his eyes
sparkled, but he seemed endeavouring to conquer his emotion, and
replied in a calm voice, “Since you are interested for my safety, I
will regard it, and be gone. But, before I go, let me again hear you
say, that you wish me well,” said he, fixing on her an earnest and
mournful look.
Emily repeated her assurances. He took her hand, which she scarcely
attempted to withdraw, and put it to his lips. “Farewell, Count
Morano!” said Emily; and she turned to go, when a second message
arrived from Montoni, and she again conjured Morano, as he valued his
life, to quit the castle immediately. He regarded her in silence, with
a look of fixed despair. But she had no time to enforce her
compassionate entreaties, and, not daring to disobey the second command
of Montoni, she left the corridor, to attend him.
He was in the cedar parlour, that adjoined the great hall, laid upon a
couch, and suffering a degree of anguish from his wound, which few
persons could have disguised, as he did. His countenance, which was
stern, but calm, expressed the dark passion of revenge, but no symptom
of pain; bodily pain, indeed, he had always despised, and had yielded
only to the strong and terrible energies of the soul. He was attended
by old Carlo and by Signor Bertolini, but Madame Montoni was not with
him.
Emily trembled, as she approached and received his severe rebuke, for
not having obeyed his first summons; and perceived, also, that he
attributed her stay in the corridor to a motive, that had not even
occurred to her artless mind.
“This is an instance of female caprice,” said he, “which I ought to
have foreseen. Count Morano, whose suit you obstinately rejected, so
long as it was countenanced by me, you favour, it seems, since you find
I have dismissed him.”
Emily looked astonished. “I do not comprehend you, sir,” said she, “You
certainly do not mean to imply, that the design of the Count to visit
the double-chamber, was founded upon any approbation of mine.”
“To that I reply nothing,” said Montoni; “but it must certainly be a
more than common interest, that made you plead so warmly in his cause,
and that could detain you thus long in his presence, contrary to my
express order—in the presence of a man, whom you have hitherto, on all
occasions, most scrupulously shunned!”
“I fear, sir, it was a more than common interest, that detained me,”
said Emily calmly; “for of late I have been inclined to think, that of
compassion is an uncommon one. But how could I, could _you_, sir,
witness Count Morano’s deplorable condition, and not wish to relieve
it?”
“You add hypocrisy to caprice,” said Montoni, frowning, “and an attempt
at satire, to both; but, before you undertake to regulate the morals of
other persons, you should learn and practise the virtues, which are
indispensable to a woman—sincerity, uniformity of conduct and
obedience.”
Emily, who had always endeavoured to regulate her conduct by the nicest
laws, and whose mind was finely sensible, not only of what is just in
morals, but of whatever is beautiful in the female character, was
shocked by these words; yet, in the next moment, her heart swelled with
the consciousness of having deserved praise, instead of censure, and
she was proudly silent. Montoni, acquainted with the delicacy of her
mind, knew how keenly she would feel his rebuke; but he was a stranger
to the luxury of conscious worth, and, therefore, did not foresee the
energy of that sentiment, which now repelled his satire. Turning to a
servant who had lately entered the room, he asked whether Morano had
quitted the castle. The man answered, that his servants were then
removing him, on a couch, to a neighbouring cottage. Montoni seemed
somewhat appeased, on hearing this; and, when Ludovico appeared, a few
moments after, and said, that Morano was gone, he told Emily she might
retire to her apartment.
She withdrew willingly from his presence; but the thought of passing
the remainder of the night in a chamber, which the door from the
staircase made liable to the intrusion of any person, now alarmed her
more than ever, and she determined to call at Madame Montoni’s room,
and request, that Annette might be permitted to be with her.
On reaching the great gallery, she heard voices seemingly in dispute,
and, her spirits now apt to take alarm, she paused, but soon
distinguished some words of Cavigni and Verezzi, and went towards them,
in the hope of conciliating their difference. They were alone.
Verezzi’s face was still flushed with rage; and, as the first object of
it was now removed from him, he appeared willing to transfer his
resentment to Cavigni, who seemed to be expostulating, rather than
disputing, with him.
Verezzi was protesting, that he would instantly inform Montoni of the
insult, which Morano had thrown out against him, and above all, that,
wherein he had accused him of murder.
“There is no answering,” said Cavigni, “for the words of a man in a
passion; little serious regard ought to be paid to them. If you persist
in your resolution, the consequences may be fatal to both. We have now
more serious interests to pursue, than those of a petty revenge.”
Emily joined her entreaties to Cavigni’s arguments, and they, at
length, prevailed so far, as that Verezzi consented to retire, without
seeing Montoni.
On calling at her aunt’s apartment, she found it fastened. In a few
minutes, however, it was opened by Madame Montoni herself.
It may be remembered, that it was by a door leading into the bedroom
from a back passage, that Emily had secretly entered a few hours
preceding. She now conjectured, by the calmness of Madame Montoni’s
air, that she was not apprised of the accident, which had befallen her
husband, and was beginning to inform her of it, in the tenderest manner
she could, when her aunt interrupted her, by saying, she was acquainted
with the whole affair.
Emily knew indeed, that she had little reason to love Montoni, but
could scarcely have believed her capable of such perfect apathy, as she
now discovered towards him; having obtained permission, however, for
Annette to sleep in her chamber, she went thither immediately.
A track of blood appeared along the corridor, leading to it; and on the
spot, where the Count and Montoni had fought, the whole floor was
stained. Emily shuddered, and leaned on Annette, as she passed. When
she reached her apartment, she instantly determined, since the door of
the staircase had been left open, and that Annette was now with her, to
explore whither it led,—a circumstance now materially connected with
her own safety. Annette accordingly, half curious and half afraid,
proposed to descend the stairs; but, on approaching the door, they
perceived, that it was already fastened without, and their care was
then directed to the securing it on the inside also, by placing against
it as much of the heavy furniture of the room, as they could lift.
Emily then retired to bed, and Annette continued on a chair by the
hearth, where some feeble embers remained.
CHAPTER VII
Of aery tongues, that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
MILTON
It is now necessary to mention some circumstances, which could not be
related amidst the events of Emily’s hasty departure from Venice, or
together with those, which so rapidly succeeded to her arrival in the
castle.
On the morning of her journey, Count Morano had gone at the appointed
hour to the mansion of Montoni, to demand his bride. When he reached
it, he was somewhat surprised by the silence and solitary air of the
portico, where Montoni’s lacqueys usually loitered; but surprise was
soon changed to astonishment, and astonishment to the rage of
disappointment, when the door was opened by an old woman, who told his
servants, that her master and his family had left Venice, early in the
morning, for _Terra-firma_. Scarcely believing what his servants told,
he left his gondola, and rushed into the hall to enquire further. The
old woman, who was the only person left in care of the mansion,
persisted in her story, which the silent and deserted apartments soon
convinced him was no fiction. He then seized her with a menacing air,
as if he meant to wreak all his vengeance upon her, at the same time
asking her twenty questions in a breath, and all these with a
gesticulation so furious, that she was deprived of the power of
answering them; then suddenly letting her go, he stamped about the
hall, like a madman, cursing Montoni and his own folly.
When the good woman was at liberty, and had somewhat recovered from her
fright, she told him all she knew of the affair, which was, indeed,
very little, but enough to enable Morano to discover, that Montoni was
gone to his castle on the Apennine. Thither he followed, as soon as his
servants could complete the necessary preparation for the journey,
accompanied by a friend, and attended by a number of his people,
determined to obtain Emily, or a full revenge on Montoni. When his mind
had recovered from the first effervescence of rage, and his thoughts
became less obscured, his conscience hinted to him certain
circumstances, which, in some measure, explained the conduct of
Montoni: but how the latter could have been led to suspect an
intention, which, he had believed, was known only to himself, he could
not even guess. On this occasion, however, he had been partly betrayed
by that sympathetic intelligence, which may be said to exist between
bad minds, and which teaches one man to judge what another will do in
the same circumstances. Thus it was with Montoni, who had now received
indisputable proof of a truth, which he had some time suspected—that
Morano’s circumstances, instead of being affluent, as he had been
bidden to believe, were greatly involved. Montoni had been interested
in his suit, by motives entirely selfish, those of avarice and pride;
the last of which would have been gratified by an alliance with a
Venetian nobleman, the former by Emily’s estate in Gascony, which he
had stipulated, as the price of his favour, should be delivered up to
him from the day of her marriage. In the meantime, he had been led to
suspect the consequence of the Count’s boundless extravagance; but it
was not till the evening, preceding the intended nuptials, that he
obtained certain information of his distressed circumstances. He did
not hesitate then to infer, that Morano designed to defraud him of
Emily’s estate; and in this supposition he was confirmed, and with
apparent reason, by the subsequent conduct of the Count, who, after
having appointed to meet him on that night, for the purpose of signing
the instrument, which was to secure to him his reward, failed in his
engagement. Such a circumstance, indeed, in a man of Morano’s gay and
thoughtless character, and at a time when his mind was engaged by the
bustle of preparation for his nuptials, might have been attributed to a
cause less decisive, than design; but Montoni did not hesitate an
instant to interpret it his own way, and, after vainly waiting the
Count’s arrival, for several hours, he gave orders for his people to be
in readiness to set off at a moment’s notice. By hastening to Udolpho
he intended to remove Emily from the reach of Morano, as well as to
break off the affair, without submitting himself to useless
altercation: and, if the Count meant what he called honourably, he
would doubtless follow Emily, and sign the writings in question. If
this was done, so little consideration had Montoni for her welfare,
that he would not have scrupled to sacrifice her to a man of ruined
fortune, since by that means he could enrich himself; and he forbore to
mention to her the motive of his sudden journey, lest the hope it might
revive should render her more intractable, when submission would be
required.
With these considerations, he had left Venice; and, with others totally
different, Morano had, soon after, pursued his steps across the rugged
Apennines. When his arrival was announced at the castle, Montoni did
not believe, that he would have presumed to show himself, unless he had
meant to fulfil his engagement, and he, therefore, readily admitted
him; but the enraged countenance and expressions of Morano, as he
entered the apartment, instantly undeceived him; and, when Montoni had
explained, in part, the motives of his abrupt departure from Venice,
the Count still persisted in demanding Emily, and reproaching Montoni,
without even naming the former stipulation.
Montoni, at length, weary of the dispute, deferred the settling of it
till the morrow, and Morano retired with some hope, suggested by
Montoni’s apparent indecision. When, however, in the silence of his own
apartment, he began to consider the past conversation, the character of
Montoni, and some former instances of his duplicity, the hope, which he
had admitted, vanished, and he determined not to neglect the present
possibility of obtaining Emily by other means. To his confidential
valet he told his design of carrying away Emily, and sent him back to
Montoni’s servants to find out one among them, who might enable him to
execute it. The choice of this person he entrusted to the fellow’s own
discernment, and not imprudently; for he discovered a man, whom Montoni
had, on some former occasion, treated harshly, and who was now ready to
betray him. This man conducted Cesario round the castle, through a
private passage, to the staircase, that led to Emily’s chamber; then
showed him a short way out of the building, and afterwards procured him
the keys, that would secure his retreat. The man was well rewarded for
his trouble; how the Count was rewarded for his treachery, had already
appeared.
Meanwhile, old Carlo had overheard two of Morano’s servants, who had
been ordered to be in waiting with the carriage, beyond the castle
walls, expressing their surprise at their master’s sudden, and secret
departure, for the valet had entrusted them with no more of Morano’s
designs, than it was necessary for them to execute. They, however,
indulged themselves in surmises, and in expressing them to each other;
and from these Carlo had drawn a just conclusion. But, before he
ventured to disclose his apprehensions to Montoni, he endeavoured to
obtain further confirmation of them, and, for this purpose, placed
himself, with one of his fellow-servants, at the door of Emily’s
apartment, that opened upon the corridor. He did not watch long in
vain, though the growling of the dog had once nearly betrayed him. When
he was convinced, that Morano was in the room, and had listened long
enough to his conversation, to understand his scheme, he immediately
alarmed Montoni, and thus rescued Emily from the designs of the Count.
Montoni, on the following morning, appeared as usual, except that he
wore his wounded arm in a sling; he went out upon the ramparts;
overlooked the men employed in repairing them; gave orders for
additional workmen, and then came into the castle to give audience to
several persons, who were just arrived, and who were shown into a
private apartment, where he communicated with them, for near an hour.
Carlo was then summoned, and ordered to conduct the strangers to a part
of the castle, which, in former times, had been occupied by the upper
servants of the family, and to provide them with every necessary
refreshment.—When he had done this, he was bidden to return to his
master.
Meanwhile, the Count remained in a cottage in the skirts of the woods
below, suffering under bodily and mental pain, and meditating deep
revenge against Montoni. His servant, whom he had dispatched for a
surgeon to the nearest town, which was, however, at a considerable
distance, did not return till the following day, when, his wounds being
examined and dressed, the practitioner refused to deliver any positive
opinion, concerning the degree of danger attending them; but giving his
patient a composing draught and ordering him to be quiet, remained at
the cottage to watch the event.
Emily, for the remainder of the late eventful night, had been suffered
to sleep, undisturbed; and, when her mind recovered from the confusion
of slumber, and she remembered, that she was now released from the
addresses of Count Morano, her spirits were suddenly relieved from a
part of the terrible anxiety, that had long oppressed them; that which
remained, arose chiefly from a recollection of Morano’s assertions,
concerning the schemes of Montoni. He had said, that plans of the
latter, concerning Emily, were insearchable, yet that he knew them to
be terrible. At the time he uttered this, she almost believed it to be
designed for the purpose of prevailing with her to throw herself into
his protection, and she still thought it might be chiefly so accounted
for; but his assertions had left an impression on her mind, which a
consideration of the character and former conduct of Montoni did not
contribute to efface. She, however, checked her propensity to
anticipate evil; and, determined to enjoy this respite from actual
misfortune, tried to dismiss thought, took her instruments for drawing,
and placed herself at a window, to select into a landscape some
features of the scenery without.
As she was thus employed, she saw, walking on the rampart below, the
men, who had so lately arrived at the castle. The sight of strangers
surprised her, but still more, of strangers such as these. There was a
singularity in their dress, and a certain fierceness in their air, that
fixed all her attention. She withdrew from the casement, while they
passed, but soon returned to observe them further. Their figures seemed
so well suited to the wildness of the surrounding objects, that, as
they stood surveying the castle, she sketched them for banditti, amid
the mountain-view of her picture, when she had finished which, she was
surprised to observe the spirit of her group. But she had copied from
nature.
Carlo, when he had placed refreshment before these men in the apartment
assigned to them, returned, as he was ordered, to Montoni, who was
anxious to discover by what servant the keys of the castle had been
delivered to Morano, on the preceding night. But this man, though he
was too faithful to his master quietly to see him injured, would not
betray a fellow-servant even to justice; he, therefore, pretended to be
ignorant who it was, that had conspired with Count Morano, and related,
as before, that he had only overheard some of the strangers describing
the plot.
Montoni’s suspicions naturally fell upon the porter, whom he ordered
now to attend. Carlo hesitated, and then with slow steps went to seek
him.
Barnardine, the porter, denied the accusation with a countenance so
steady and undaunted, that Montoni could scarcely believe him guilty,
though he knew not how to think him innocent. At length, the man was
dismissed from his presence, and, though the real offender, escaped
detection.
Montoni then went to his wife’s apartment, whither Emily followed soon
after, but, finding them in high dispute, was instantly leaving the
room, when her aunt called her back, and desired her to stay.—“You
shall be a witness,” said she, “of my opposition. Now, sir, repeat the
command, I have so often refused to obey.”
Montoni turned, with a stern countenance, to Emily, and bade her quit
the apartment, while his wife persisted in desiring, that she would
stay. Emily was eager to escape from this scene of contention, and
anxious, also, to serve her aunt; but she despaired of conciliating
Montoni, in whose eyes the rising tempest of his soul flashed terribly.
“Leave the room,” said he, in a voice of thunder. Emily obeyed, and,
walking down to the rampart, which the strangers had now left,
continued to meditate on the unhappy marriage of her father’s sister,
and on her own desolate situation, occasioned by the ridiculous
imprudence of her, whom she had always wished to respect and love.
Madame Montoni’s conduct had, indeed, rendered it impossible for Emily
to do either; but her gentle heart was touched by her distress, and, in
the pity thus awakened, she forgot the injurious treatment she had
received from her.
As she sauntered on the rampart, Annette appeared at the hall door,
looked cautiously round, and then advanced to meet her.
“Dear ma’amselle, I have been looking for you all over the castle,”
said she. “If you will step this way, I will show you a picture.”
“A picture!” exclaimed Emily, and shuddered.
“Yes, ma’am, a picture of the late lady of this place. Old Carlo just
now told me it was her, and I thought you would be curious to see it.
As to my lady, you know, ma’amselle, one cannot talk about such things
to her.”
“And so,” said Emily smilingly, “as you must talk of them to somebody—”
“Why, yes, ma’amselle; what can one do in such a place as this, if one
must not talk? If I was in a dungeon, if they would let me talk—it
would be some comfort; nay, I would talk, if it was only to the walls.
But come, ma’amselle, we lose time—let me show you the picture.”
“Is it veiled?” said Emily, pausing.
“Dear ma’amselle!” said Annette, fixing her eyes on Emily’s face, “what
makes you look so pale?—are you ill?”
“No, Annette, I am well enough, but I have no desire to see this
picture; return into the hall.”
“What! ma’am, not to see the lady of this castle?” said the girl; “the
lady, who disappeared to strangely? Well! now, I would have run to the
furthest mountain we can see, yonder, to have got a sight of such a
picture; and, to speak my mind, that strange story is all, that makes
me care about this old castle, though it makes me thrill all over, as
it were, whenever I think of it.”
“Yes, Annette, you love the wonderful; but do you know, that, unless
you guard against this inclination, it will lead you into all the
misery of superstition?”
Annette might have smiled in her turn, at this sage observation of
Emily, who could tremble with ideal terrors, as much as herself, and
listen almost as eagerly to the recital of a mysterious story. Annette
urged her request.
“Are you sure it is a picture?” said Emily, “Have you seen it?—Is it
veiled?”
“Holy Maria! ma’amselle, yes, no, yes. I am sure it is a picture—I have
seen it, and it is not veiled!”
The tone and look of surprise, with which this was uttered, recalled
Emily’s prudence; who concealed her emotion under a smile, and bade
Annette lead her to the picture. It was in an obscure chamber,
adjoining that part of the castle, allotted to the servants. Several
other portraits hung on the walls, covered, like this, with dust and
cobweb.
“That is it, ma’amselle,” said Annette, in a low voice, and pointing.
Emily advanced, and surveyed the picture. It represented a lady in the
flower of youth and beauty; her features were handsome and noble, full
of strong expression, but had little of the captivating sweetness, that
Emily had looked for, and still less of the pensive mildness she loved.
It was a countenance, which spoke the language of passion, rather than
that of sentiment; a haughty impatience of misfortune—not the placid
melancholy of a spirit injured, yet resigned.
“How many years have passed, since this lady disappeared, Annette?”
said Emily.
“Twenty years, ma’amselle, or thereabout, as they tell me; I know it is
a long while ago.” Emily continued to gaze upon the portrait.
“I think,” resumed Annette, “the Signor would do well to hang it in a
better place, than this old chamber. Now, in my mind, he ought to place
the picture of a lady, who gave him all these riches, in the handsomest
room in the castle. But he may have good reasons for what he does: and
some people do say that he has lost his riches, as well as his
gratitude. But hush, ma’am, not a word!” added Annette, laying her
finger on her lips. Emily was too much absorbed in thought, to hear
what she said.
“’Tis a handsome lady, I am sure,” continued Annette: “the Signor need
not be ashamed to put her in the great apartment, where the veiled
picture hangs.” Emily turned round. “But for that matter, she would be
as little seen there, as here, for the door is always locked, I find.”
“Let us leave this chamber,” said Emily: “and let me caution you again,
Annette; be guarded in your conversation, and never tell, that you know
anything of that picture.”
“Holy Mother!” exclaimed Annette, “it is no secret; why all the
servants have seen it already!”
Emily started. “How is this?” said she—“Have seen it! When?—how?”
“Dear, ma’amselle, there is nothing surprising in that; we had all a
little more _curiousness_ than you had.”
“I thought you told me, the door was kept locked?” said Emily.
“If that was the case, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, looking about her,
“how could we get here?”
“Oh, you mean _this_ picture,” said Emily, with returning calmness.
“Well, Annette, here is nothing more to engage my attention; we will
go.”
Emily, as she passed to her own apartment, saw Montoni go down to the
hall, and she turned into her aunt’s dressing-room, whom she found
weeping and alone, grief and resentment struggling on her countenance.
Pride had hitherto restrained complaint. Judging of Emily’s disposition
from her own, and from a consciousness of what her treatment of her
deserved, she had believed, that her griefs would be cause of triumph
to her niece, rather than of sympathy; that she would despise, not pity
her. But she knew not the tenderness and benevolence of Emily’s heart,
that had always taught her to forget her own injuries in the
misfortunes of her enemy. The sufferings of others, whoever they might
be, called forth her ready compassion, which dissipated at once every
obscuring cloud to goodness, that passion or prejudice might have
raised in her mind.
Madame Montoni’s sufferings, at length, rose above her pride, and, when
Emily had before entered the room, she would have told them all, had
not her husband prevented her; now that she was no longer restrained by
his presence, she poured forth all her complaints to her niece.
“O Emily!” she exclaimed, “I am the most wretched of women—I am indeed
cruelly treated! Who, with my prospects of happiness, could have
foreseen such a wretched fate as this?—who could have thought, when I
married such a man as the Signor, I should ever have to bewail my lot?
But there is no judging what is for the best—there is no knowing what
is for our good! The most flattering prospects often change—the best
judgments may be deceived—who could have foreseen, when I married the
Signor, that I should ever repent my _generosity?_”
Emily thought she might have foreseen it, but this was not a thought of
triumph. She placed herself in a chair near her aunt, took her hand,
and, with one of those looks of soft compassion, which might
characterise the countenance of a guardian angel, spoke to her in the
tenderest accents. But these did not sooth Madame Montoni, whom
impatience to talk made unwilling to listen. She wanted to complain,
not to be consoled; and it was by exclamations of complaint only, that
Emily learned the particular circumstances of her affliction.
“Ungrateful man!” said Madame Montoni, “he has deceived me in every
respect; and now he has taken me from my country and friends, to shut
me up in this old castle; and, here he thinks he can compel me to do
whatever he designs! But he shall find himself mistaken, he shall find
that no threats can alter—But who would have believed! who would have
supposed, that a man of his family and apparent wealth had absolutely
no fortune?—no, scarcely a sequin of his own! I did all for the best; I
thought he was a man of consequence, of great property, or I am sure I
would never have married him,—ungrateful, artful man!” She paused to
take breath.
“Dear Madam, be composed,” said Emily: “the Signor may not be so rich
as you had reason to expect, but surely he cannot be very poor, since
this castle and the mansion at Venice are his. May I ask what are the
circumstances, that particularly affect you?”
“What are the circumstances!” exclaimed Madame Montoni with resentment:
“why is it not sufficient, that he had long ago ruined his own fortune
by play, and that he has since lost what I brought him—and that now he
would compel me to sign away my settlement (it was well I had the chief
of my property settled on myself!) that he may lose this also, or throw
it away in wild schemes, which nobody can understand but himself? And,
and—is not all this sufficient?”
“It is, indeed,” said Emily, “but you must recollect, dear madam, that
I knew nothing of all this.”
“Well, and is it not sufficient,” rejoined her aunt, “that he is also
absolutely ruined, that he is sunk deeply in debt, and that neither
this castle, nor the mansion at Venice, is his own, if all his debts,
honourable and dishonourable, were paid!”
“I am shocked by what you tell me, madam,” said Emily.
“And is it not enough,” interrupted Madame Montoni, “that he has
treated me with neglect, with cruelty, because I refused to relinquish
my settlements, and, instead of being frightened by his menaces,
resolutely defied him, and upbraided him with his shameful conduct? But
I bore all meekly,—you know, niece, I never uttered a word of
complaint, till now; no! That such a disposition as mine should be so
imposed upon! That I, whose only faults are too much kindness, too much
generosity, should be chained for life to such a vile, deceitful, cruel
monster!”
Want of breath compelled Madame Montoni to stop. If anything could have
made Emily smile in these moments, it would have been this speech of
her aunt, delivered in a voice very little below a scream, and with a
vehemence of gesticulation and of countenance, that turned the whole
into burlesque. Emily saw, that her misfortunes did not admit of real
consolation, and, contemning the commonplace terms of superficial
comfort, she was silent; while Madame Montoni, jealous of her own
consequence, mistook this for the silence of indifference, or of
contempt, and reproached her with want of duty and feeling.
“O! I suspected what all this boasted sensibility would prove to be!”
rejoined she; “I thought it would not teach you to feel either duty, or
affection, for your relations, who have treated you like their own
daughter!”
“Pardon me, madam,” said Emily, mildly, “it is not natural to me to
boast, and if it was, I am sure I would not boast of sensibility—a
quality, perhaps, more to be feared, than desired.”
“Well, well, niece, I will not dispute with you. But, as I said,
Montoni threatens me with violence, if I any longer refuse to sign away
my settlements, and this was the subject of our contest, when you came
into the room before. Now, I am determined no power on earth shall make
me do this. Neither will I bear all this tamely. He shall hear his true
character from me; I will tell him all he deserves, in spite of his
threats and cruel treatment.”
Emily seized a pause of Madame Montoni’s voice, to speak. “Dear madam,”
said she, “but will not this serve to irritate the Signor
unnecessarily? will it not provoke the harsh treatment you dread?”
“I do not care,” replied Madame Montoni, “it does not signify: I will
not submit to such usage. You would have me give up my settlements,
too, I suppose!”
“No, madam, I do not exactly mean that.”
“What is it you do mean then?”
“You spoke of reproaching the Signor,”—said Emily, with hesitation.
“Why, does he not deserve reproaches?” said her aunt.
“Certainly he does; but will it be prudent in you, madam, to make
them?”
“Prudent!” exclaimed Madame Montoni. “Is this a time to talk of
prudence, when one is threatened with all sorts of violence?”
“It is to avoid that violence, that prudence is necessary.” said Emily.
“Of prudence!” continued Madame Montoni, without attending to her, “of
prudence towards a man, who does not scruple to break all the common
ties of humanity in his conduct to me! And is it for me to consider
prudence in my behaviour towards him! I am not so mean.”
“It is for your own sake, not for the Signor’s, madam,” said Emily
modestly, “that you should consult prudence. Your reproaches, however
just, cannot punish him, but they may provoke him to further violence
against you.”
“What! would you have me submit, then, to whatever he commands—would
you have me kneel down at his feet, and thank him for his cruelties?
Would you have me give up my settlements?”
“How much you mistake me, madam!” said Emily, “I am unequal to advise
you on a point so important as the last: but you will pardon me for
saying, that, if you consult your own peace, you will try to conciliate
Signor Montoni, rather than to irritate him by reproaches.”
“Conciliate indeed! I tell you, niece, it is utterly impossible; I
disdain to attempt it.”
Emily was shocked to observe the perverted understanding and obstinate
temper of Madame Montoni; but, not less grieved for her sufferings, she
looked round for some alleviating circumstance to offer her. “Your
situation is, perhaps, not so desperate, dear madam,” said Emily, “as
you may imagine. The Signor may represent his affairs to be worse than
they are, for the purpose of pleading a stronger necessity for his
possession of your settlement. Besides, so long as you keep this, you
may look forward to it as a resource, at least, that will afford you a
competence, should the Signor’s future conduct compel you to sue for
separation.”
Madame Montoni impatiently interrupted her. “Unfeeling, cruel girl!”
said she, “and so you would persuade me, that I have no reason to
complain; that the Signor is in very flourishing circumstances, that my
future prospects promise nothing but comfort, and that my griefs are as
fanciful and romantic as your own! Is it the way to console me, to
endeavour to persuade me out of my senses and my feelings, because you
happen to have no feelings yourself? I thought I was opening my heart
to a person, who could sympathise in my distress, but I find, that your
people of sensibility can feel for nobody but themselves! You may
retire to your chamber.”
Emily, without replying, immediately left the room, with a mingled
emotion of pity and contempt, and hastened to her own, where she
yielded to the mournful reflections, which a knowledge of her aunt’s
situation had occasioned. The conversation of the Italian with
Valancourt, in France, again occurred to her. His hints, respecting the
broken fortunes of Montoni, were now completely justified; those, also,
concerning his character, appeared not less so, though the particular
circumstances, connected with his fame, to which the stranger had
alluded, yet remained to be explained. Notwithstanding, that her own
observations and the words of Count Morano had convinced her, that
Montoni’s situation was not what it formerly appeared to be, the
intelligence she had just received from her aunt on this point, struck
her with all the force of astonishment, which was not weakened, when
she considered the present style of Montoni’s living, the number of
servants he maintained, and the new expences he was incurring, by
repairing and fortifying his castle. Her anxiety for her aunt and for
herself increased with reflection. Several assertions of Morano, which,
on the preceding night, she had believed were prompted either by
interest, or by resentment, now returned to her mind with the strength
of truth. She could not doubt, that Montoni had formerly agreed to give
her to the Count, for a pecuniary reward;—his character, and his
distressed circumstances justified the belief; these, also, seemed to
confirm Morano’s assertion, that he now designed to dispose of her,
more advantageously for himself, to a richer suitor.
Amidst the reproaches, which Morano had thrown out against Montoni, he
had said—he would not quit the castle _he dared to call his_, nor
willingly leave _another_ murder on his conscience—hints, which might
have no other origin than the passion of the moment: but Emily was now
inclined to account for them more seriously, and she shuddered to
think, that she was in the hands of a man, to whom it was even possible
they could apply. At length, considering, that reflection could neither
release her from her melancholy situation, nor enable her to bear it
with greater fortitude, she tried to divert her anxiety, and took down
from her little library a volume of her favourite Ariosto; but his wild
imagery and rich invention could not long enchant her attention; his
spells did not reach her heart, and over her sleeping fancy they
played, without awakening it.
She now put aside the book, and took her lute, for it was seldom that
her sufferings refused to yield to the magic of sweet sounds; when they
did so, she was oppressed by sorrow, that came from excess of
tenderness and regret; and there were times, when music had increased
such sorrow to a degree, that was scarcely endurable; when, if it had
not suddenly ceased, she might have lost her reason. Such was the time,
when she mourned for her father, and heard the midnight strains, that
floated by her window near the convent in Languedoc, on the night that
followed his death.
She continued to play, till Annette brought dinner into her chamber, at
which Emily was surprised, and enquired whose order she obeyed. “My
lady’s, ma’amselle,” replied Annette: “the Signor ordered her dinner to
be carried to her own apartment, and so she has sent you yours. There
have been sad doings between them, worse than ever, I think.”
Emily, not appearing to notice what she said, sat down to the little
table, that was spread for her. But Annette was not to be silenced thus
easily. While she waited, she told of the arrival of the men, whom
Emily had observed on the ramparts, and expressed much surprise at
their strange appearance, as well as at the manner, in which they had
been attended by Montoni’s order. “Do they dine with the Signor, then?”
said Emily.
“No, ma’amselle, they dined long ago, in an apartment at the north end
of the castle, but I know not when they are to go, for the Signor told
old Carlo to see them provided with everything necessary. They have
been walking all about the castle, and asking questions of the workmen
on the ramparts. I never saw such strange-looking men in my life; I am
frightened whenever I see them.”
Emily enquired, if she had heard of Count Morano, and whether he was
likely to recover: but Annette only knew, that he was lodged in a
cottage in the wood below, and that everybody said he must die. Emily’s
countenance discovered her emotion.
“Dear ma’amselle,” said Annette, “to see how young ladies will disguise
themselves, when they are in love! I thought you hated the Count, or I
am sure I would not have told you; and I am sure you have cause enough
to hate him.”
“I hope I hate nobody,” replied Emily, trying to smile; “but certainly
I do not love Count Morano. I should be shocked to hear of any person
dying by violent means.”
“Yes, ma’amselle, but it is his own fault.”
Emily looked displeased; and Annette, mistaking the cause of her
displeasure, immediately began to excuse the Count, in her way. “To be
sure, it was very ungenteel behaviour,” said she, “to break into a
lady’s room, and then, when he found his discoursing was not agreeable
to her, to refuse to go; and then, when the gentleman of the castle
comes to desire him to walk about his business—to turn round, and draw
his sword, and swear he’ll run him through the body! To be sure it was
very ungenteel behaviour, but then he was disguised in love, and so did
not know what he was about.”
“Enough of this,” said Emily, who now smiled without an effort; and
Annette returned to a mention of the disagreement between Montoni, and
her lady. “It is nothing new,” said she: “we saw and heard enough of
this at Venice, though I never told you of it, ma’amselle.”
“Well, Annette, it was very prudent of you not to mention it then: be
as prudent now; the subject is an unpleasant one.”
“Ah dear, ma’amselle!—to see now how considerate you can be about some
folks, who care so little about you! I cannot bear to see you so
deceived, and I must tell you. But it is all for your own good, and not
to spite my lady, though, to speak truth, I have little reason to love
her; but—”
“You are not speaking thus of my aunt, I hope, Annette?” said Emily,
gravely.
“Yes, ma’amselle, but I am, though; and if you knew as much as I do,
you would not look so angry. I have often, and often, heard the Signor
and her talking over your marriage with the Count, and she always
advised him never to give up to your foolish whims, as she was pleased
to call them, but to be resolute, and compel you to be obedient,
whether you would, or no. And I am sure, my heart has ached a thousand
times, and I have thought, when she was so unhappy herself, she might
have felt a little for other people, and—”
“I thank you for your pity, Annette,” said Emily, interrupting her:
“but my aunt was unhappy then, and that disturbed her temper perhaps,
or I think—I am sure—You may take away, Annette, I have done.”
“Dear ma’amselle, you have eat nothing at all! Do try, and take a
little bit more. Disturbed her temper truly! why, her temper is always
disturbed, I think. And at Thoulouse I have heard my lady talking of
you and Mons. Valancourt to Madame Merveille and Madame Vaison, often
and often, in a very ill-natured way, as I thought, telling them what a
deal of trouble she had to keep you in order, and what a fatigue and
distress it was to her, and that she believed you would run away with
Mons. Valancourt, if she was not to watch you closely; and that you
connived at his coming about the house at night, and—”
“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, blushing deeply, “it is surely impossible
my aunt could thus have represented me!”
“Indeed, ma’am, I say nothing more than the truth, and not all of that.
But I thought, myself, she might have found something better to
discourse about, than the faults of her own niece, even if you had been
in fault, ma’amselle; but I did not believe a word of what she said.
But my lady does not care what she says against anybody, for that
matter.”
“However that may be, Annette,” interrupted Emily, recovering her
composure, “it does not become you to speak of the faults of my aunt to
me. I know you have meant well, but—say no more.—I have quite dined.”
Annette blushed, looked down, and then began slowly to clear the table.
“Is this, then, the reward of my ingenuousness?” said Emily, when she
was alone; “the treatment I am to receive from a relation—an aunt—who
ought to have been the guardian, not the slanderer of my
reputation,—who, as a woman, ought to have respected the delicacy of
female honour, and, as a relation, should have protected mine! But, to
utter falsehoods on so nice a subject—to repay the openness, and, I may
say with honest pride, the propriety of my conduct, with
slanders—required a depravity of heart, such as I could scarcely have
believed existed, such as I weep to find in a relation. O! what a
contrast does her character present to that of my beloved father; while
envy and low cunning form the chief traits of hers, his was
distinguished by benevolence and philosophic wisdom! But now, let me
only remember, if possible, that she is unfortunate.”
Emily threw her veil over her, and went down to walk upon the ramparts,
the only walk, indeed, which was open to her, though she often wished,
that she might be permitted to ramble among the woods below, and still
more, that she might sometimes explore the sublime scenes of the
surrounding country. But, as Montoni would not suffer her to pass the
gates of the castle, she tried to be contented with the romantic views
she beheld from the walls. The peasants, who had been employed on the
fortifications, had left their work, and the ramparts were silent and
solitary. Their lonely appearance, together with the gloom of a
lowering sky, assisted the musings of her mind, and threw over it a
kind of melancholy tranquillity, such as she often loved to indulge.
She turned to observe a fine effect of the sun, as his rays, suddenly
streaming from behind a heavy cloud, lighted up the west towers of the
castle, while the rest of the edifice was in deep shade, except, that,
through a lofty gothic arch, adjoining the tower, which led to another
terrace, the beams darted in full splendour, and showed the three
strangers she had observed in the morning. Perceiving them, she
started, and a momentary fear came over her, as she looked up the long
rampart, and saw no other persons. While she hesitated, they
approached. The gate at the end of the terrace, whither they were
advancing, she knew, was always locked, and she could not depart by the
opposite extremity, without meeting them; but, before she passed them,
she hastily drew a thin veil over her face, which did, indeed, but ill
conceal her beauty. They looked earnestly at her, and spoke to each
other in bad Italian, of which she caught only a few words; but the
fierceness of their countenances, now that she was near enough to
discriminate them, struck her yet more than the wild singularity of
their air and dress had formerly done. It was the countenance and
figure of him, who walked between the other two, that chiefly seized
her attention, which expressed a sullen haughtiness and a kind of dark
watchful villany, that gave a thrill of horror to her heart. All this
was so legibly written on his features, as to be seen by a single
glance, for she passed the group swiftly, and her timid eyes scarcely
rested on them a moment. Having reached the terrace, she stopped, and
perceived the strangers standing in the shadow of one of the turrets,
gazing after her, and seemingly, by their action, in earnest
conversation. She immediately left the rampart, and retired to her
apartment.
In the evening, Montoni sat late, carousing with his guests in the
cedar chamber. His recent triumph over Count Morano, or, perhaps, some
other circumstance, contributed to elevate his spirits to an unusual
height. He filled the goblet often, and gave a loose to merriment and
talk. The gaiety of Cavigni, on the contrary, was somewhat clouded by
anxiety. He kept a watchful eye upon Verezzi, whom, with the utmost
difficulty, he had hitherto restrained from exasperating Montoni
further against Morano, by a mention of his late taunting words.
One of the company exultingly recurred to the event of the preceding
evening. Verezzi’s eyes sparkled. The mention of Morano led to that of
Emily, of whom they were all profuse in the praise, except Montoni, who
sat silent, and then interrupted the subject.
When the servants had withdrawn, Montoni and his friends entered into
close conversation, which was sometimes checked by the irascible temper
of Verezzi, but in which Montoni displayed his conscious superiority,
by that decisive look and manner, which always accompanied the vigour
of his thought, and to which most of his companions submitted, as to a
power, that they had no right to question, though of each other’s
self-importance they were jealously scrupulous. Amidst this
conversation, one of them imprudently introduced again the name of
Morano; and Verezzi, now more heated by wine, disregarded the
expressive looks of Cavigni, and gave some dark hints of what had
passed on the preceding night. These, however, Montoni did not appear
to understand, for he continued silent in his chair, without
discovering any emotion, while, the choler of Verezzi increasing with
the apparent insensibility of Montoni, he at length told the suggestion
of Morano, that this castle did not lawfully belong to him, and that he
would not willingly leave another murder on his conscience.
“Am I to be insulted at my own table, and by my own friends?” said
Montoni, with a countenance pale in anger. “Why are the words of that
madman repeated to me?” Verezzi, who had expected to hear Montoni’s
indignation poured forth against Morano, and answered by thanks to
himself, looked with astonishment at Cavigni, who enjoyed his
confusion. “Can you be weak enough to credit the assertions of a
madman?” rejoined Montoni, “or, what is the same thing, a man possessed
by the spirit of vengeance? But he has succeeded too well; you believe
what he said.”
“Signor,” said Verezzi, “we believe only what we know.”—“How!”
interrupted Montoni, sternly: “produce your proof.”
“We believe only what we know,” repeated Verezzi, “and we know nothing
of what Morano asserts.” Montoni seemed to recover himself. “I am
hasty, my friends,” said he, “with respect to my honour; no man shall
question it with impunity—you did not mean to question it. These
foolish words are not worth your remembrance, or my resentment.
Verezzi, here is to your first exploit.”
“Success to your first exploit,” re-echoed the whole company.
“Noble Signor,” replied Verezzi, glad to find he had escaped Montoni’s
resentment, “with my good will, you shall build your ramparts of gold.”
“Pass the goblet,” cried Montoni. “We will drink to Signora St.
Aubert,” said Cavigni. “By your leave we will first drink to the lady
of the castle.” said Bertolini.—Montoni was silent. “To the lady of the
castle,” said his guests. He bowed his head.
“It much surprises me, Signor,” said Bertolini, “that you have so long
neglected this castle; it is a noble edifice.”
“It suits our purpose,” replied Montoni, “and _is_ a noble edifice. You
know not, it seems, by what mischance it came to me.”
“It was a lucky mischance, be it what it may, Signor,” replied
Bertolini, smiling. “I would, that one so lucky had befallen me.”
Montoni looked gravely at him. “If you will attend to what I say,” he
resumed, “you shall hear the story.”
The countenances of Bertolini and Verezzi expressed something more than
curiosity; Cavigni, who seemed to feel none, had probably heard the
relation before.
“It is now near twenty years,” said Montoni, “since this castle came
into my possession. I inherit it by the female line. The lady, my
predecessor, was only distantly related to me; I am the last of her
family. She was beautiful and rich; I wooed her; but her heart was
fixed upon another, and she rejected me. It is probable, however, that
she was herself rejected of the person, whoever he might be, on whom
she bestowed her favour, for a deep and settled melancholy took
possession of her; and I have reason to believe she put a period to her
own life. I was not at the castle at the time; but, as there are some
singular and mysterious circumstances attending that event, I shall
repeat them.”
“Repeat them!” said a voice.
Montoni was silent; the guests looked at each other, to know who spoke;
but they perceived, that each was making the same enquiry. Montoni, at
length, recovered himself. “We are overheard,” said he: “we will finish
this subject another time. Pass the goblet.”
The cavaliers looked round the wide chamber.
“Here is no person, but ourselves,” said Verezzi: “pray, Signor,
proceed.”
“Did you hear anything?” said Montoni.
“We did,” said Bertolini.
“It could be only fancy,” said Verezzi, looking round again. “We see no
person besides ourselves; and the sound I thought I heard seemed within
the room. Pray, Signor, go on.”
Montoni paused a moment, and then proceeded in a lowered voice, while
the cavaliers drew nearer to attend.
“Ye are to know, Signors, that the Lady Laurentini had for some months
shown symptoms of a dejected mind, nay, of a disturbed imagination. Her
mood was very unequal; sometimes she was sunk in calm melancholy, and,
at others, as I have been told, she betrayed all the symptoms of
frantic madness. It was one night in the month of October, after she
had recovered from one of those fits of excess, and had sunk again into
her usual melancholy, that she retired alone to her chamber, and
forbade all interruption. It was the chamber at the end of the
corridor, Signors, where we had the affray, last night. From that hour,
she was seen no more.”
“How! seen no more!” said Bertolini, “was not her body found in the
chamber?”
“Were her remains never found?” cried the rest of the company all
together.
“Never!” replied Montoni.
“What reasons were there to suppose she destroyed herself, then?” said
Bertolini.—“Aye, what reasons?” said Verezzi.—“How happened it, that
her remains were never found? Although she killed herself, she could
not bury herself.” Montoni looked indignantly at Verezzi, who began to
apologise.
“Your pardon, Signor,” said he: “I did not consider, that the lady was
your relative, when I spoke of her so lightly.”
Montoni accepted the apology.
“But the Signor will oblige us with the reasons, which urged him to
believe, that the lady committed suicide.”
“Those I will explain hereafter,” said Montoni: “at present let me
relate a most extraordinary circumstance. This conversation goes no
further, Signors. Listen, then, to what I am going to say.”
“Listen!” said a voice.
They were all again silent, and the countenance of Montoni changed.
“This is no illusion of the fancy,” said Cavigni, at length breaking
the profound silence.—“No,” said Bertolini; “I heard it myself, now.
Yet here is no person in the room but ourselves!”
“This is very extraordinary,” said Montoni, suddenly rising. “This is
not to be borne; here is some deception, some trick. I will know what
it means.”
All the company rose from their chairs in confusion.
“It is very odd!” said Bertolini. “Here is really no stranger in the
room. If it is a trick, Signor, you will do well to punish the author
of it severely.”
“A trick! what else can it be?” said Cavigni, affecting a laugh.
The servants were now summoned, and the chamber was searched, but no
person was found. The surprise and consternation of the company
increased. Montoni was discomposed. “We will leave this room,” said he,
“and the subject of our conversation also; it is too solemn.” His
guests were equally ready to quit the apartment; but the subject had
roused their curiosity, and they entreated Montoni to withdraw to
another chamber, and finish it; no entreaties could, however, prevail
with him. Notwithstanding his efforts to appear at ease, he was visibly
and greatly disordered.
“Why, Signor, you are not superstitious,” cried Verezzi, jeeringly;
“you, who have so often laughed at the credulity of others!”
“I am not superstitious,” replied Montoni, regarding him with stern
displeasure, “though I know how to despise the common-place sentences,
which are frequently uttered against superstition. I will enquire
further into this affair.” He then left the room; and his guests,
separating for the night, retired to their respective apartments.
CHAPTER VIII
He wears the rose of youth upon his cheek.
SHAKESPEARE
We now return to Valancourt, who, it may be remembered, remained at
Thoulouse, some time after the departure of Emily, restless and
miserable. Each morrow that approached, he designed should carry him
from thence; yet tomorrow and tomorrow came, and still saw him
lingering in the scene of his former happiness. He could not
immediately tear himself from the spot, where he had been accustomed to
converse with Emily, or from the objects they had viewed together,
which appeared to him memorials of her affection, as well as a kind of
surety for its faithfulness; and, next to the pain of bidding her
adieu, was that of leaving the scenes which so powerfully awakened her
image. Sometimes he had bribed a servant, who had been left in the care
of Madame Montoni’s château, to permit him to visit the gardens, and
there he would wander, for hours together, rapt in a melancholy, not
unpleasing. The terrace, and the pavilion at the end of it, where he
had taken leave of Emily, on the eve of her departure from Thoulouse,
were his most favourite haunts. There, as he walked, or leaned from the
window of the building, he would endeavour to recollect all she had
said, on that night; to catch the tones of her voice, as they faintly
vibrated on his memory, and to remember the exact expression of her
countenance, which sometimes came suddenly to his fancy, like a vision;
that beautiful countenance, which awakened, as by instantaneous magic,
all the tenderness of his heart, and seemed to tell with irresistible
eloquence—that he had lost her for ever! At these moments, his hurried
steps would have discovered to a spectator the despair of his heart.
The character of Montoni, such as he had received from hints, and such
as his fears represented it, would rise to his view, together with all
the dangers it seemed to threaten to Emily and to his love. He blamed
himself, that he had not urged these more forcibly to her, while it
might have been in his power to detain her, and that he had suffered an
absurd and criminal delicacy, as he termed it, to conquer so soon the
reasonable arguments he had opposed to this journey. Any evil, that
might have attended their marriage, seemed so inferior to those, which
now threatened their love, or even to the sufferings, that absence
occasioned, that he wondered how he could have ceased to urge his suit,
till he had convinced her of its propriety; and he would certainly now
have followed her to Italy, if he could have been spared from his
regiment for so long a journey. His regiment, indeed, soon reminded
him, that he had other duties to attend, than those of love.
A short time after his arrival at his brother’s house, he was summoned
to join his brother officers, and he accompanied a battalion to Paris;
where a scene of novelty and gaiety opened upon him, such as, till
then, he had only a faint idea of. But gaiety disgusted, and company
fatigued, his sick mind; and he became an object of unceasing raillery
to his companions, from whom, whenever he could steal an opportunity,
he escaped, to think of Emily. The scenes around him, however, and the
company with whom he was obliged to mingle, engaged his attention,
though they failed to amuse his fancy, and thus gradually weakened the
habit of yielding to lamentation, till it appeared less a duty to his
love to indulge it. Among his brother-officers were many, who added to
the ordinary character of a French soldier’s gaiety some of those
fascinating qualities, which too frequently throw a veil over folly,
and sometimes even soften the features of vice into smiles. To these
men the reserved and thoughtful manners of Valancourt were a kind of
tacit censure on their own, for which they rallied him when present,
and plotted against him when absent; they gloried in the thought of
reducing him to their own level, and, considering it to be a spirited
frolic, determined to accomplish it.
Valancourt was a stranger to the gradual progress of scheme and
intrigue, against which he could not be on his guard. He had not been
accustomed to receive ridicule, and he could ill endure its sting; he
resented it, and this only drew upon him a louder laugh. To escape from
such scenes, he fled into solitude, and there the image of Emily met
him, and revived the pangs of love and despair. He then sought to renew
those tasteful studies, which had been the delight of his early years;
but his mind had lost the tranquillity, which is necessary for their
enjoyment. To forget himself and the grief and anxiety, which the idea
of her recalled, he would quit his solitude, and again mingle in the
crowd—glad of a temporary relief, and rejoicing to snatch amusement for
the moment.
Thus passed weeks after weeks, time gradually softening his sorrow, and
habit strengthening his desire of amusement, till the scenes around him
seemed to awaken into a new character, and Valancourt, to have fallen
among them from the clouds.
His figure and address made him a welcome visitor, wherever he had been
introduced, and he soon frequented the most gay and fashionable circles
of Paris. Among these, was the assembly of the Countess Lacleur, a
woman of eminent beauty and captivating manners. She had passed the
spring of youth, but her wit prolonged the triumph of its reign, and
they mutually assisted the fame of each other; for those, who were
charmed by her loveliness, spoke with enthusiasm of her talents; and
others, who admired her playful imagination, declared, that her
personal graces were unrivalled. But her imagination was merely
playful, and her wit, if such it could be called, was brilliant, rather
than just; it dazzled, and its fallacy escaped the detection of the
moment; for the accents, in which she pronounced it, and the smile,
that accompanied them, were a spell upon the judgment of the auditors.
Her _petits soupers_ were the most tasteful of any in Paris, and were
frequented by many of the second class of literati. She was fond of
music, was herself a scientific performer, and had frequently concerts
at her house. Valancourt, who passionately loved music, and who
sometimes assisted at these concerts, admired her execution, but
remembered with a sigh the eloquent simplicity of Emily’s songs and the
natural expression of her manner, which waited not to be approved by
the judgment, but found their way at once to the heart.
Madame _La Comtesse_ had often deep play at her house, which she
affected to restrain, but secretly encouraged; and it was well known
among her friends, that the splendour of her establishment was chiefly
supplied from the profits of her tables. But her _petits soupers_ were
the most charming imaginable! Here were all the delicacies of the four
quarters of the world, all the wit and the lighter efforts of genius,
all the graces of conversation—the smiles of beauty, and the charm of
music; and Valancourt passed his pleasantest, as well as most dangerous
hours in these parties.
His brother, who remained with his family in Gascony, had contented
himself with giving him letters of introduction to such of his
relations, residing at Paris, as the latter was not already known to.
All these were persons of some distinction; and, as neither the person,
mind, nor manners of Valancourt the younger threatened to disgrace
their alliance, they received him with as much kindness as their
nature, hardened by uninterrupted prosperity, would admit of; but their
attentions did not extend to acts of real friendship; for they were too
much occupied by their own pursuits, to feel any interest in his; and
thus he was set down in the midst of Paris, in the pride of youth, with
an open, unsuspicious temper and ardent affections, without one friend,
to warn him of the dangers, to which he was exposed. Emily, who, had
she been present, would have saved him from these evils by awakening
his heart, and engaging him in worthy pursuits, now only increased his
danger;—it was to lose the grief, which the remembrance of her
occasioned, that he first sought amusement; and for this end he pursued
it, till habit made it an object of abstract interest.
There was also a Marchioness Champfort, a young widow, at whose
assemblies he passed much of his time. She was handsome, still more
artful, gay and fond of intrigue. The society, which she drew round
her, was less elegant and more vicious, than that of the Countess
Lacleur: but, as she had address enough to throw a veil, though but a
slight one, over the worst part of her character, she was still visited
by many persons of what is called distinction. Valancourt was
introduced to her parties by two of his brother officers, whose late
ridicule he had now forgiven so far, that he could sometimes join in
the laugh, which a mention of his former manners would renew.
The gaiety of the most splendid court in Europe, the magnificence of
the palaces, entertainments, and equipages, that surrounded him—all
conspired to dazzle his imagination, and reanimate his spirits, and the
example and maxims of his military associates to delude his mind.
Emily’s image, indeed, still lived there; but it was no longer the
friend, the monitor, that saved him from himself, and to which he
retired to weep the sweet, yet melancholy, tears of tenderness. When he
had recourse to it, it assumed a countenance of mild reproach, that
wrung his soul, and called forth tears of unmixed misery; his only
escape from which was to forget the object of it, and he endeavoured,
therefore, to think of Emily as seldom as he could.
Thus dangerously circumstanced was Valancourt, at the time, when Emily
was suffering at Venice, from the persecuting addresses of Count
Morano, and the unjust authority of Montoni; at which period we leave
him.
CHAPTER IX
The image of a wicked, heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast.
KING JOHN
Leaving the gay scenes of Paris, we return to those of the gloomy
Apennine, where Emily’s thoughts were still faithful to Valancourt.
Looking to him as to her only hope, she recollected, with jealous
exactness, every assurance and every proof she had witnessed of his
affection; read again and again the letters she had received from him;
weighed, with intense anxiety, the force of every word, that spoke of
his attachment; and dried her tears, as she trusted in his truth.
Montoni, meanwhile, had made strict enquiry concerning the strange
circumstance of his alarm, without obtaining information; and was, at
length, obliged to account for it by the reasonable supposition, that
it was a mischievous trick played off by one of his domestics. His
disagreements with Madame Montoni, on the subject of her settlements,
were now more frequent than ever; he even confined her entirely to her
own apartment, and did not scruple to threaten her with much greater
severity, should she persevere in a refusal.
Reason, had she consulted it, would now have perplexed her in the
choice of a conduct to be adopted. It would have pointed out the danger
of irritating by further opposition a man, such as Montoni had proved
himself to be, and to whose power she had so entirely committed
herself; and it would also have told her, of what extreme importance to
her future comfort it was, to reserve for herself those possessions,
which would enable her to live independently of Montoni, should she
ever escape from his immediate control. But she was directed by a more
decisive guide than reason—the spirit of revenge, which urged her to
oppose violence to violence, and obstinacy to obstinacy.
Wholly confined to the solitude of her apartment, she was now reduced
to solicit the society she had lately rejected; for Emily was the only
person, except Annette, with whom she was permitted to converse.
Generously anxious for her peace, Emily, therefore, tried to persuade,
when she could not convince, and sought by every gentle means to induce
her to forbear that asperity of reply, which so greatly irritated
Montoni. The pride of her aunt did sometimes soften to the soothing
voice of Emily, and there even were moments, when she regarded her
affectionate attentions with goodwill.
The scenes of terrible contention, to which Emily was frequently
compelled to be witness, exhausted her spirits more than any
circumstances, that had occurred since her departure from Thoulouse.
The gentleness and goodness of her parents, together with the scenes of
her early happiness, often stole on her mind, like the visions of a
higher world; while the characters and circumstances, now passing
beneath her eye, excited both terror and surprise. She could scarcely
have imagined, that passions so fierce and so various, as those which
Montoni exhibited, could have been concentrated in one individual; yet
what more surprised her, was, that, on great occasions, he could bend
these passions, wild as they were, to the cause of his interest, and
generally could disguise in his countenance their operation on his
mind; but she had seen him too often, when he had thought it
unnecessary to conceal his nature, to be deceived on such occasions.
Her present life appeared like the dream of a distempered imagination,
or like one of those frightful fictions, in which the wild genius of
the poets sometimes delighted. Reflection brought only regret, and
anticipation terror. How often did she wish to “steal the lark’s wing,
and mount the swiftest gale,” that Languedoc and repose might once more
be hers!
Of Count Morano’s health she made frequent enquiry; but Annette heard
only vague reports of his danger, and that his surgeon had said he
would never leave the cottage alive; while Emily could not but be
shocked to think, that she, however innocently, might be the means of
his death; and Annette, who did not fail to observe her emotion,
interpreted it in her own way.
But a circumstance soon occurred, which entirely withdrew Annette’s
attention from this subject, and awakened the surprise and curiosity so
natural to her. Coming one day to Emily’s apartment, with a countenance
full of importance, “What can all this mean, ma’amselle?” said she.
“Would I was once safe in Languedoc again, they should never catch me
going on my travels any more! I must think it a fine thing, truly, to
come abroad, and see foreign parts! I little thought I was coming to be
catched up in an old castle, among such dreary mountains, with the
chance of being murdered, or, what is as good, having my throat cut!”
“What can all this mean, indeed, Annette?” said Emily, in astonishment.
“Aye, ma’amselle, you may look surprised; but you won’t believe it,
perhaps, till they have murdered you, too. You would not believe about
the ghost I told you of, though I showed you the very place, where it
used to appear!—You will believe nothing, ma’amselle.”
“Not till you speak more reasonably, Annette; for Heaven’s sake,
explain your meaning. You spoke of murder!”
“Aye, ma’amselle, they are coming to murder us all, perhaps; but what
signifies explaining?—you will not believe.”
Emily again desired her to relate what she had seen, or heard.
“O, I have seen enough, ma’am, and heard too much, as Ludovico can
prove. Poor soul! they will murder him, too! I little thought, when he
sung those sweet verses under my lattice, at Venice!”—Emily looked
impatient and displeased. “Well, ma’amselle, as I was saying, these
preparations about the castle, and these strange-looking people, that
are calling here every day, and the Signor’s cruel usage of my lady,
and his odd goings-on—all these, as I told Ludovico, can bode no good.
And he bid me hold my tongue. So, says I, the Signor’s strangely
altered, Ludovico, in this gloomy castle, to what he was in France;
there, all so gay! Nobody so gallant to my lady, then; and he could
smile, too, upon a poor servant, sometimes, and jeer her, too,
good-naturedly enough. I remember once, when he said to me, as I was
going out of my lady’s dressing-room—Annette, says he—”
“Never mind what the Signor said,” interrupted Emily; “but tell me, at
once, the circumstance, which has thus alarmed you.”
“Aye, ma’amselle,” rejoined Annette, “that is just what Ludovico said:
says he, Never mind what the Signor says to you. So I told him what I
thought about the Signor. He is so strangely altered, said I: for now
he is so haughty, and so commanding, and so sharp with my lady; and, if
he meets one, he’ll scarcely look at one, unless it be to frown. So
much the better, says Ludovico, so much the better. And to tell you the
truth, ma’amselle, I thought this was a very ill-natured speech of
Ludovico: but I went on. And then, says I, he is always knitting his
brows; and if one speaks to him, he does not hear; and then he sits up
counselling so, of a night, with the other Signors—there they are, till
long past midnight, discoursing together! Aye, but says Ludovico, you
don’t know what they are counselling about. No, said I, but I can
guess—it is about my young lady. Upon that, Ludovico burst out
a-laughing, quite loud; so he put me in a huff, for I did not like that
either I or you, ma’amselle, should be laughed at; and I turned away
quick, but he stopped me. ‘Don’t be affronted, Annette,’ said he, ‘but
I cannot help laughing;’ and with that he laughed again. ‘What!’ says
he, ‘do you think the Signors sit up, night after night, only to
counsel about thy young lady! No, no, there is something more in the
wind than that. And these repairs about the castle, and these
preparations about the ramparts—they are not making about young
ladies.’ Why, surely, said I, the Signor, my master, is not going to
make war? ‘Make war!’ said Ludovico, ‘what, upon the mountains and the
woods? for here is no living soul to make war upon that I see.’
‘What are these preparations for, then?’ said I; why surely nobody is
coming to take away my master’s castle! ‘Then there are so many
ill-looking fellows coming to the castle every day,’ says Ludovico,
without answering my question, ‘and the Signor sees them all, and talks
with them all, and they all stay in the neighbourhood! By holy St.
Marco! some of them are the most cut-throat-looking dogs I ever set my
eyes upon.’
“I asked Ludovico again, if he thought they were coming to take away my
master’s castle; and he said, No, he did not think they were, but he
did not know for certain. ‘Then yesterday,’ said he, but you must not
tell this, ma’amselle, ‘yesterday, a party of these men came, and left
all their horses in the castle stables, where, it seems, they are to
stay, for the Signor ordered them all to be entertained with the best
provender in the manger; but the men are, most of them, in the
neighbouring cottages.’
“So, ma’amselle, I came to tell you all this, for I never heard
anything so strange in my life. But what can these ill-looking men be
come about, if it is not to murder us? And the Signor knows this, or
why should he be so civil to them? And why should he fortify the
castle, and counsel so much with the other Signors, and be so
thoughtful?”
“Is this all you have to tell, Annette?” said Emily. “Have you heard
nothing else, that alarms you?”
“Nothing else, ma’amselle!” said Annette; “why, is not this enough?”
“Quite enough for my patience, Annette, but not quite enough to
convince me we are all to be murdered, though I acknowledge here is
sufficient food for curiosity.” She forbore to speak her apprehensions,
because she would not encourage Annette’s wild terrors; but the present
circumstances of the castle both surprised, and alarmed her. Annette,
having told her tale, left the chamber, on the wing for new wonders.
In the evening, Emily had passed some melancholy hours with Madame
Montoni, and was retiring to rest, when she was alarmed by a strange
and loud knocking at her chamber door, and then a heavy weight fell
against it, that almost burst it open. She called to know who was
there, and receiving no answer, repeated the call; but a chilling
silence followed. It occurred to her—for, at this moment, she could not
reason on the probability of circumstances—that some one of the
strangers, lately arrived at the castle, had discovered her apartment,
and was come with such intent, as their looks rendered too possible—to
rob, perhaps to murder, her. The moment she admitted this possibility,
terror supplied the place of conviction, and a kind of instinctive
remembrance of her remote situation from the family heightened it to a
degree, that almost overcame her senses. She looked at the door, which
led to the staircase, expecting to see it open, and listening, in
fearful silence, for a return of the noise, till she began to think it
had proceeded from this door, and a wish of escaping through the
opposite one rushed upon her mind. She went to the gallery door, and
then, fearing to open it, lest some person might be silently lurking
for her without, she stopped, but with her eyes fixed in expectation
upon the opposite door of the staircase. As thus she stood, she heard a
faint breathing near her, and became convinced, that some person was on
the other side of the door, which was already locked. She sought for
other fastening, but there was none.
While she yet listened, the breathing was distinctly heard, and her
terror was not soothed, when, looking round her wide and lonely
chamber, she again considered her remote situation. As she stood
hesitating whether to call for assistance, the continuance of the
stillness surprised her; and her spirits would have revived, had she
not continued to hear the faint breathing, that convinced her, the
person, whoever it was, had not quitted the door.
At length, worn out with anxiety, she determined to call loudly for
assistance from her casement, and was advancing to it, when, whether
the terror of her mind gave her ideal sounds, or that real ones did
come, she thought footsteps were ascending the private staircase; and,
expecting to see its door unclose, she forgot all other cause of alarm,
and retreated towards the corridor. Here she endeavoured to make her
escape, but, on opening the door, was very near falling over a person,
who lay on the floor without. She screamed, and would have passed, but
her trembling frame refused to support her; and the moment, in which
she leaned against the wall of the gallery, allowed her leisure to
observe the figure before her, and to recognise the features of
Annette. Fear instantly yielded to surprise. She spoke in vain to the
poor girl, who remained senseless on the floor, and then, losing all
consciousness of her own weakness, hurried to her assistance.
When Annette recovered, she was helped by Emily into the chamber, but
was still unable to speak, and looked round her, as if her eyes
followed some person in the room. Emily tried to sooth her disturbed
spirits, and forbore, at present, to ask her any questions; but the
faculty of speech was never long withheld from Annette, and she
explained, in broken sentences, and in her tedious way, the occasion of
her disorder. She affirmed, and with a solemnity of conviction, that
almost staggered the incredulity of Emily, that she had seen an
apparition, as she was passing to her bedroom, through the corridor.
“I had heard strange stories of that chamber before,” said Annette:
“but as it was so near yours, ma’amselle, I would not tell them to you,
because they would frighten you. The servants had told me, often and
often, that it was haunted, and that was the reason why it was shut up:
nay, for that matter, why the whole string of these rooms, here, are
shut up. I quaked whenever I went by, and I must say, I did sometimes
think I heard odd noises within it. But, as I said, as I was passing
along the corridor, and not thinking a word about the matter, or even
of the strange voice that the Signors heard the other night, all of a
sudden comes a great light, and, looking behind me, there was a tall
figure, (I saw it as plainly, ma’amselle, as I see you at this moment),
a tall figure gliding along (Oh! I cannot describe how!) into the room,
that is always shut up, and nobody has the key of it but the Signor,
and the door shut directly.”
“Then it doubtless was the Signor,” said Emily.
“O no, ma’amselle, it could not be him, for I left him busy
a-quarrelling in my lady’s dressing-room!”
“You bring me strange tales, Annette,” said Emily: “it was but this
morning, that you would have terrified me with the apprehension of
murder; and now you would persuade me, you have seen a ghost! These
wonderful stories come too quickly.”
“Nay, ma’amselle, I will say no more, only, if I had not been
frightened, I should not have fainted dead away so. I ran as fast as I
could, to get to your door; but, what was worst of all, I could not
call out; then I thought something must be strangely the matter with
me, and directly I dropt down.”
“Was it the chamber where the black veil hangs?” said Emily. “O! no,
ma’amselle, it was one nearer to this. What shall I do, to get to my
room? I would not go out into the corridor again, for the whole world!”
Emily, whose spirits had been severely shocked, and who, therefore, did
not like the thought of passing the night alone, told her she might
sleep where she was. “O, no, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “I would not
sleep in the room now for a thousand sequins!”
Wearied and disappointed, Emily first ridiculed, though she shared, her
fears, and then tried to sooth them; but neither attempt succeeded, and
the girl persisted in believing and affirming, that what she had seen
was nothing human. It was not till some time after Emily had recovered
her composure, that she recollected the steps she had heard on the
staircase—a remembrance, however, which made her insist that Annette
should pass the night with her, and, with much difficulty, she, at
length, prevailed, assisted by that part of the girl’s fear, which
concerned the corridor.
Early on the following morning, as Emily crossed the hall to the
ramparts, she heard a noisy bustle in the courtyard, and the clatter of
horses’ hoofs. Such unusual sounds excited her curiosity; and, instead
of going to the ramparts, she went to an upper casement, from whence
she saw, in the court below, a large party of horsemen, dressed in a
singular, but uniform, habit, and completely, though variously, armed.
They wore a kind of short jacket, composed of black and scarlet, and
several of them had a cloak, of plain black, which, covering the person
entirely, hung down to the stirrups. As one of these cloaks glanced
aside, she saw, beneath, daggers, apparently of different sizes, tucked
into the horseman’s belt. She further observed, that these were
carried, in the same manner, by many of the horsemen without cloaks,
most of whom bore also pikes, or javelins. On their heads, were the
small Italian caps, some of which were distinguished by black feathers.
Whether these caps gave a fierce air to the countenance, or that the
countenances they surmounted had naturally such an appearance, Emily
thought she had never, till then, seen an assemblage of faces so savage
and terrific. While she gazed, she almost fancied herself surrounded by
banditti; and a vague thought glanced athwart her fancy—that Montoni
was the captain of the group before her, and that this castle was to be
the place of rendezvous. The strange and horrible supposition was but
momentary, though her reason could supply none more probable, and
though she discovered, among the band, the strangers she had formerly
noticed with so much alarm, who were now distinguished by the black
plume.
While she continued gazing, Cavigni, Verezzi, and Bertolini came forth
from the hall, habited like the rest, except that they wore hats, with
a mixed plume of black and scarlet, and that their arms differed from
those of the rest of the party. As they mounted their horses, Emily was
struck with the exulting joy, expressed on the visage of Verezzi, while
Cavigni was gay, yet with a shade of thought on his countenance; and,
as he managed his horse with dexterity, his graceful and commanding
figure, which exhibited the majesty of a hero, had never appeared to
more advantage. Emily, as she observed him, thought he somewhat
resembled Valancourt, in the spirit and dignity of his person; but she
looked in vain for the noble, benevolent countenance—the soul’s
intelligence, which overspread the features of the latter.
As she was hoping, she scarcely knew why, that Montoni would accompany
the party, he appeared at the hall door, but un-accoutred. Having
carefully observed the horsemen, conversed awhile with the cavaliers,
and bidden them farewell, the band wheeled round the court, and, led by
Verezzi, issued forth under the portcullis; Montoni following to the
portal, and gazing after them for some time. Emily then retired from
the casement, and, now certain of being unmolested, went to walk on the
ramparts, from whence she soon after saw the party winding among the
mountains to the west, appearing and disappearing between the woods,
till distance confused their figures, consolidated their numbers, and
only a dingy mass appeared moving along the heights.
Emily observed, that no workmen were on the ramparts, and that the
repairs of the fortifications seemed to be completed. While she
sauntered thoughtfully on, she heard distant footsteps, and, raising
her eyes, saw several men lurking under the castle walls, who were
evidently not workmen, but looked as if they would have accorded well
with the party which was gone. Wondering where Annette had hid herself
so long, who might have explained some of the late circumstances, and
then considering that Madame Montoni was probably risen, she went to
her dressing-room, where she mentioned what had occurred; but Madame
Montoni either would not, or could not, give any explanation of the
event. The Signor’s reserve to his wife, on this subject, was probably
nothing more than usual; yet, to Emily, it gave an air of mystery to
the whole affair, that seemed to hint there was danger, if not villany,
in his schemes.
Annette presently came, and, as usual, was full of alarm; to her lady’s
eager enquiries of what she had heard among the servants, she replied:
“Ah, madam! nobody knows what it is all about, but old Carlo; he knows
well enough, I dare say, but he is as close as his master. Some say the
Signor is going out to frighten the enemy, as they call it: but where
is the enemy? Then others say, he is going to take away somebody’s
castle: but I am sure he has room enough in his own, without taking
other people’s; and I am sure I should like it a great deal better, if
there were more people to fill it.”
“Ah! you will soon have your wish, I fear,” replied Madame Montoni.
“No, madam, but such ill-looking fellows are not worth having. I mean
such gallant, smart, merry fellows as Ludovico, who is always telling
droll stories, to make one laugh. It was but yesterday, he told me such
a _humoursome_ tale! I can’t help laughing at it now.—Says he—”
“Well, we can dispense with the story,” said her lady.
“Ah!” continued Annette, “he sees a great way further than other
people! Now he sees into all the Signor’s meaning, without knowing a
word about the matter!”
“How is that?” said Madame Montoni.
“Why he says—but he made me promise not to tell, and I would not
disoblige him for the world.”
“What is it he made you promise not to tell?” said her lady, sternly.
“I insist upon knowing immediately—what is it he made you promise?”
“O madam,” cried Annette, “I would not tell for the universe!”
“I insist upon your telling this instant,” said Madame Montoni.
“O dear madam! I would not tell for a hundred sequins! You would not
have me forswear myself madam!” exclaimed Annette.
“I will not wait another moment,” said Madame Montoni. Annette was
silent.
“The Signor shall be informed of this directly,” rejoined her mistress;
“he will make you discover all.”
“It is Ludovico, who has discovered,” said Annette: “but for mercy’s
sake, madam, don’t tell the Signor, and you shall know all directly.”
Madame Montoni said, that she would not.
“Well then, madam, Ludovico says, that the Signor, my master,
is—is—that is, he only thinks so, and anybody, you know, madam, is free
to think—that the Signor, my master, is—is—”
“Is what?” said her lady, impatiently.
“That the Signor, my master, is going to be—a great robber—that is—he
is going to rob on his own account;—to be, (but I am sure I don’t
understand what he means) to be a—captain of—robbers.”
“Art thou in thy senses, Annette?” said Madame Montoni; “or is this a
trick to deceive me? Tell me, this instant, what Ludovico _did_ say to
thee;—no equivocation;—this instant.”
“Nay, madam,” cried Annette, “if this is all I am to get for having
told the secret—” Her mistress thus continued to insist, and Annette to
protest, till Montoni, himself, appeared, who bade the latter leave the
room, and she withdrew, trembling for the fate of her story. Emily also
was retiring, but her aunt desired she would stay; and Montoni had so
often made her a witness of their contention, that he no longer had
scruples on that account.
“I insist upon knowing this instant, Signor, what all this means:” said
his wife—“what are all these armed men, whom they tell me of, gone out
about?” Montoni answered her only with a look of scorn; and Emily
whispered something to her. “It does not signify,” said her aunt: “I
will know; and I will know, too, what the castle has been fortified
for.”
“Come, come,” said Montoni, “other business brought me here. I must be
trifled with no longer. I have immediate occasion for what I
demand—those estates must be given up, without further contention; or I
may find a way—”
“They never shall be given up,” interrupted Madame Montoni: “they never
shall enable you to carry on your wild schemes;—but what are these? I
will know. Do you expect the castle to be attacked? Do you expect
enemies? Am I to be shut up here, to be killed in a siege?”
“Sign the writings,” said Montoni, “and you shall know more.”
“What enemy can be coming?” continued his wife. “Have you entered into
the service of the state? Am I to be blocked up here to die?”
“That may possibly happen,” said Montoni, “unless you yield to my
demand: for, come what may, you shall not quit the castle till then.”
Madame Montoni burst into loud lamentation, which she as suddenly
checked, considering, that her husband’s assertions might be only
artifices, employed to extort her consent. She hinted this suspicion,
and, in the next moment, told him also, that his designs were not so
honourable as to serve the state, and that she believed he had only
commenced a captain of banditti, to join the enemies of Venice, in
plundering and laying waste the surrounding country.
Montoni looked at her for a moment with a steady and stern countenance;
while Emily trembled, and his wife, for once, thought she had said too
much. “You shall be removed, this night,” said he, “to the east turret:
there, perhaps, you may understand the danger of offending a man, who
has an unlimited power over you.”
Emily now fell at his feet, and, with tears of terror, supplicated for
her aunt, who sat, trembling with fear, and indignation; now ready to
pour forth execrations, and now to join the intercessions of Emily.
Montoni, however, soon interrupted these entreaties with a horrible
oath; and, as he burst from Emily, leaving his cloak, in her hand, she
fell to the floor, with a force, that occasioned her a severe blow on
the forehead. But he quitted the room, without attempting to raise her,
whose attention was called from herself, by a deep groan from Madame
Montoni, who continued otherwise unmoved in her chair, and had not
fainted. Emily, hastening to her assistance, saw her eyes rolling, and
her features convulsed.
Having spoken to her, without receiving an answer, she brought water,
and supported her head, while she held it to her lips; but the
increasing convulsions soon compelled Emily to call for assistance. On
her way through the hall, in search of Annette, she met Montoni, whom
she told what had happened, and conjured to return and comfort her
aunt; but he turned silently away, with a look of indifference, and
went out upon the ramparts. At length she found old Carlo and Annette,
and they hastened to the dressing-room, where Madame Montoni had fallen
on the floor, and was lying in strong convulsions. Having lifted her
into the adjoining room, and laid her on the bed, the force of her
disorder still made all their strength necessary to hold her, while
Annette trembled and sobbed, and old Carlo looked silently and
piteously on, as his feeble hands grasped those of his mistress, till,
turning his eyes upon Emily, he exclaimed, “Good God! Signora, what is
the matter?”
Emily looked calmly at him, and saw his enquiring eyes fixed on her:
and Annette, looking up, screamed loudly; for Emily’s face was stained
with blood, which continued to fall slowly from her forehead: but her
attention had been so entirely occupied by the scene before her, that
she had felt no pain from the wound. She now held a handkerchief to her
face, and, notwithstanding her faintness, continued to watch Madame
Montoni, the violence of whose convulsions was abating, till at length
they ceased, and left her in a kind of stupor.
“My aunt must remain quiet,” said Emily. “Go, good Carlo; if we should
want your assistance, I will send for you. In the mean time, if you
have an opportunity, speak kindly of your mistress to your master.”
“Alas!” said Carlo, “I have seen too much! I have little influence with
the Signor. But do, dear young lady, take some care of yourself; that
is an ugly wound, and you look sadly.”
“Thank you, my friend, for your consideration,” said Emily, smiling
kindly: “the wound is trifling, it came by a fall.”
Carlo shook his head, and left the room; and Emily, with Annette,
continued to watch by her aunt. “Did my lady tell the Signor what
Ludovico said, ma’amselle?” asked Annette in a whisper; but Emily
quieted her fears on the subject.
“I thought what this quarrelling would come to,” continued Annette: “I
suppose the Signor has been beating my lady.”
“No, no, Annette, you are totally mistaken, nothing extraordinary has
happened.”
“Why, extraordinary things happen here so often, ma’amselle, that there
is nothing in them. Here is another legion of those ill-looking
fellows, come to the castle, this morning.”
“Hush! Annette, you will disturb my aunt; we will talk of that by and
bye.”
They continued watching silently, till Madame Montoni uttered a low
sigh, when Emily took her hand, and spoke soothingly to her; but the
former gazed with unconscious eyes, and it was long before she knew her
niece. Her first words then enquired for Montoni; to which Emily
replied by an entreaty, that she would compose her spirits, and consent
to be kept quiet, adding, that, if she wished any message to be
conveyed to him, she would herself deliver it. “No,” said her aunt
faintly, “no—I have nothing new to tell him. Does he persist in saying
I shall be removed from my chamber?”
Emily replied that he had not spoken on the subject since Madame
Montoni heard him; and then she tried to divert her attention to some
other topic; but her aunt seemed to be inattentive to what she said,
and lost in secret thoughts. Emily, having brought her some
refreshment, now left her to the care of Annette, and went in search of
Montoni, whom she found on a remote part of the rampart, conversing
among a group of the men described by Annette. They stood round him
with fierce, yet subjugated, looks, while he, speaking earnestly, and
pointing to the walls, did not perceive Emily, who remained at some
distance, waiting till he should be at leisure, and observing
involuntarily the appearance of one man, more savage than his fellows,
who stood resting on his pike, and looking, over the shoulders of a
comrade, at Montoni, to whom he listened with uncommon earnestness.
This man was apparently of low condition; yet his looks appeared not to
acknowledge the superiority of Montoni, as did those of his companions;
and sometimes they even assumed an air of authority, which the decisive
manner of the Signor could not repress. Some few words of Montoni then
passed in the wind; and, as the men were separating, she heard him say,
“This evening, then, begin the watch at sunset.”
“At sunset, Signor,” replied one or two of them, and walked away; while
Emily approached Montoni, who appeared desirous of avoiding her: but,
though she observed this, she had courage to proceed. She endeavoured
to intercede once more for her aunt, represented to him her sufferings,
and urged the danger of exposing her to a cold apartment in her present
state. “She suffers by her own folly,” said Montoni, “and is not to be
pitied;—she knows how she may avoid these sufferings in future—if she
is removed to the turret, it will be her own fault. Let her be
obedient, and sign the writings you heard of, and I will think no more
of it.”
When Emily ventured still to plead, he sternly silenced and rebuked her
for interfering in his domestic affairs, but, at length, dismissed her
with this concession—That he would not remove Madame Montoni, on the
ensuing night, but allow her till the next to consider, whether she
would resign her settlements, or be imprisoned in the east turret of
the castle, “where she shall find,” he added, “a punishment she may not
expect.”
Emily then hastened to inform her aunt of this short respite and of the
alternative, that awaited her, to which the latter made no reply, but
appeared thoughtful, while Emily, in consideration of her extreme
languor, wished to sooth her mind by leading it to less interesting
topics: and, though these efforts were unsuccessful, and Madame Montoni
became peevish, her resolution, on the contended point, seemed somewhat
to relax, and Emily recommended, as her only means of safety, that she
should submit to Montoni’s demand. “You know not what you advise,” said
her aunt. “Do you understand, that these estates will descend to you at
my death, if I persist in a refusal?”
“I was ignorant of that circumstance, madam,” replied Emily, “but the
knowledge of it cannot withhold me from advising you to adopt the
conduct, which not only your peace, but, I fear, your safety requires,
and I entreat, that you will not suffer a consideration comparatively
so trifling, to make you hesitate a moment in resigning them.”
“Are you sincere, niece?” “Is it possible you can doubt it, madam?” Her
aunt appeared to be affected. “You are not unworthy of these estates,
niece,” said she: “I would wish to keep them for your sake—you show a
virtue I did not expect.”
“How have I deserved this reproof, madam?” said Emily sorrowfully.
“Reproof!” replied Madame Montoni: “I meant to praise your virtue.”
“Alas! here is no exertion of virtue,” rejoined Emily, “for here is no
temptation to be overcome.”
“Yet Monsieur Valancourt—” said her aunt. “O, madam!” interrupted
Emily, anticipating what she would have said, “do not let me glance on
that subject: do not let my mind be stained with a wish so shockingly
self-interested.” She immediately changed the topic, and continued with
Madame Montoni, till she withdrew to her apartment for the night.
At that hour, the castle was perfectly still, and every inhabitant of
it, except herself, seemed to have retired to rest. As she passed along
the wide and lonely galleries, dusky and silent, she felt forlorn and
apprehensive of—she scarcely knew what; but when, entering the
corridor, she recollected the incident of the preceding night, a dread
seized her, lest a subject of alarm, similar to that, which had
befallen Annette, should occur to her, and which, whether real, or
ideal, would, she felt, have an almost equal effect upon her weakened
spirits. The chamber, to which Annette had alluded, she did not exactly
know, but understood it to be one of those she must pass in the way to
her own; and, sending a fearful look forward into the gloom, she
stepped lightly and cautiously along, till, coming to a door, from
whence issued a low sound, she hesitated and paused; and, during the
delay of that moment, her fears so much increased, that she had no
power to move from the spot. Believing, that she heard a human voice
within, she was somewhat revived; but, in the next moment, the door was
opened, and a person, whom she conceived to be Montoni, appeared, who
instantly started back, and closed it, though not before she had seen,
by the light that burned in the chamber, another person, sitting in a
melancholy attitude by the fire. Her terror vanished, but her
astonishment only began, which was now roused by the mysterious secrecy
of Montoni’s manner, and by the discovery of a person, whom he thus
visited at midnight, in an apartment, which had long been shut up, and
of which such extraordinary reports were circulated.
While she thus continued hesitating, strongly prompted to watch
Montoni’s motions, yet fearing to irritate him by appearing to notice
them, the door was again opened cautiously, and as instantly closed as
before. She then stepped softly to her chamber, which was the next but
one to this, but, having put down her lamp, returned to an obscure
corner of the corridor, to observe the proceedings of this half-seen
person, and to ascertain, whether it was indeed Montoni.
Having waited in silent expectation for a few minutes, with her eyes
fixed on the door, it was again opened, and the same person appeared,
whom she now knew to be Montoni. He looked cautiously round, without
perceiving her, then, stepping forward, closed the door, and left the
corridor. Soon after, Emily heard the door fastened on the inside, and
she withdrew to her chamber, wondering at what she had witnessed.
It was now twelve o’clock. As she closed her casement, she heard
footsteps on the terrace below, and saw imperfectly, through the gloom,
several persons advancing, who passed under the casement. She then
heard the clink of arms, and, in the next moment, the watch-word; when,
recollecting the command she had overheard from Montoni, and the hour
of the night, she understood, that these men were, for the first time,
relieving guard in the castle. Having listened till all was again
still, she retired to sleep.
CHAPTER X
And shall no lay of death
With pleasing murmur sooth
Her parted soul?
Shall no tear wet her grave?
SAYERS
On the following morning, Emily went early to the apartment of Madame
Montoni, who had slept well, and was much recovered. Her spirits had
also returned with her health, and her resolution to oppose Montoni’s
demands revived, though it yet struggled with her fears, which Emily,
who trembled for the consequence of further opposition, endeavoured to
confirm.
Her aunt, as has been already shown, had a disposition, which delighted
in contradiction, and which taught her, when unpleasant circumstances
were offered to her understanding, not to enquire into their truth, but
to seek for arguments, by which she might make them appear false. Long
habit had so entirely confirmed this natural propensity, that she was
not conscious of possessing it. Emily’s remonstrances and
representations, therefore, roused her pride, instead of alarming, or
convincing her judgment, and she still relied upon the discovery of
some means, by which she might yet avoid submitting to the demand of
her husband. Considering, that, if she could once escape from his
castle, she might defy his power, and, obtaining a decisive separation,
live in comfort on the estates, that yet remained for her, she
mentioned this to her niece, who accorded with her in the wish, but
differed from her, as to the probability of its completion. She
represented the impossibility of passing the gates, secured and guarded
as they were, and the extreme danger of committing her design to the
discretion of a servant, who might either purposely betray, or
accidentally disclose it.—Montoni’s vengeance would also disdain
restraint, if her intention was detected: and, though Emily wished, as
fervently as she could do, to regain her freedom, and return to France,
she consulted only Madame Montoni’s safety, and persevered in advising
her to relinquish her settlement, without braving further outrage.
The struggle of contrary emotions, however, continued to rage in her
aunt’s bosom, and she still brooded over the chance of effecting an
escape. While she thus sat, Montoni entered the room, and, without
noticing his wife’s indisposition, said, that he came to remind her of
the impolicy of trifling with him, and that he gave her only till the
evening to determine, whether she would consent to his demand, or
compel him, by a refusal, to remove her to the east turret. He added,
that a party of cavaliers would dine with him, that day, and that he
expected that she would sit at the head of the table, where Emily,
also, must be present. Madame Montoni was now on the point of uttering
an absolute refusal, but, suddenly considering, that her liberty,
during this entertainment, though circumscribed, might favour her
further plans, she acquiesced, with seeming reluctance, and Montoni,
soon after, left the apartment. His command struck Emily with surprise
and apprehension, who shrank from the thought of being exposed to the
gaze of strangers, such as her fancy represented these to be, and the
words of Count Morano, now again recollected, did not sooth her fears.
When she withdrew to prepare for dinner, she dressed herself with even
more simplicity than usual, that she might escape observation—a policy,
which did not avail her, for, as she repassed to her aunt’s apartment,
she was met by Montoni, who censured what he called her prudish
appearance, and insisted, that she should wear the most splendid dress
she had, even that, which had been prepared for her intended nuptials
with Count Morano, and which, it now appeared, her aunt had carefully
brought with her from Venice. This was made, not in the Venetian, but,
in the Neapolitan fashion, so as to set off the shape and figure, to
the utmost advantage. In it, her beautiful chestnut tresses were
negligently bound up in pearls, and suffered to fall back again on her
neck. The simplicity of a better taste, than Madame Montoni’s, was
conspicuous in this dress, splendid as it was, and Emily’s unaffected
beauty never had appeared more captivatingly. She had now only to hope,
that Montoni’s order was prompted, not by any extraordinary design, but
by an ostentation of displaying his family, richly attired, to the eyes
of strangers; yet nothing less than his absolute command could have
prevailed with her to wear a dress, that had been designed for such an
offensive purpose, much less to have worn it on this occasion. As she
descended to dinner, the emotion of her mind threw a faint blush over
her countenance, and heightened its interesting expression; for
timidity had made her linger in her apartment, till the utmost moment,
and, when she entered the hall, in which a kind of state dinner was
spread, Montoni and his guests were already seated at the table. She
was then going to place herself by her aunt; but Montoni waved his
hand, and two of the cavaliers rose, and seated her between them.
The eldest of these was a tall man, with strong Italian features, an
aquiline nose, and dark penetrating eyes, that flashed with fire, when
his mind was agitated, and, even in its state of rest, retained
somewhat of the wildness of the passions. His visage was long and
narrow, and his complexion of a sickly yellow.
The other, who appeared to be about forty, had features of a different
cast, yet Italian, and his look was slow, subtle and penetrating; his
eyes, of a dark grey, were small, and hollow; his complexion was a
sun-burnt brown, and the contour of his face, though inclined to oval,
was irregular and ill-formed.
Eight other guests sat round the table, who were all dressed in a
uniform, and had all an expression, more or less, of wild fierceness,
of subtle design, or of licentious passions. As Emily timidly surveyed
them, she remembered the scene of the preceding morning, and again
almost fancied herself surrounded by banditti; then, looking back to
the tranquillity of her early life, she felt scarcely less
astonishment, than grief, at her present situation. The scene, in which
they sat, assisted the illusion; it was an ancient hall, gloomy from
the style of its architecture, from its great extent, and because
almost the only light it received was from one large gothic window, and
from a pair of folding doors, which, being open, admitted likewise a
view of the west rampart, with the wild mountains of the Apennine
beyond.
The middle compartment of this hall rose into a vaulted roof, enriched
with fretwork, and supported, on three sides, by pillars of marble;
beyond these, long colonnades retired in gloomy grandeur, till their
extent was lost in twilight. The lightest footsteps of the servants, as
they advanced through these, were returned in whispering echoes, and
their figures, seen at a distance imperfectly through the dusk,
frequently awakened Emily’s imagination. She looked alternately at
Montoni, at his guests and on the surrounding scene; and then,
remembering her dear native province, her pleasant home and the
simplicity and goodness of the friends, whom she had lost, grief and
surprise again occupied her mind.
When her thoughts could return from these considerations, she fancied
she observed an air of authority towards his guests, such as she had
never before seen him assume, though he had always been distinguished
by a haughty carriage; there was something also in the manners of the
strangers, that seemed perfectly, though not servilely, to acknowledge
his superiority.
During dinner, the conversation was chiefly on war and politics. They
talked with energy of the state of Venice, its dangers, the character
of the reigning Doge and of the chief senators; and then spoke of the
state of Rome. When the repast was over, they rose, and, each filling
his goblet with wine from the gilded ewer, that stood beside him, drank
“Success to our exploits!” Montoni was lifting his goblet to his lips
to drink this toast, when suddenly the wine hissed, rose to the brim,
and, as he held the glass from him, it burst into a thousand pieces.
To him, who constantly used that sort of Venice glass, which had the
quality of breaking, upon receiving poisoned liquor, a suspicion, that
some of his guests had endeavoured to betray him, instantly occurred,
and he ordered all the gates to be closed, drew his sword, and, looking
round on them, who stood in silent amazement, exclaimed, “Here is a
traitor among us; let those, that are innocent, assist in discovering
the guilty.”
Indignation flashed from the eyes of the cavaliers, who all drew their
swords; and Madame Montoni, terrified at what might ensue, was
hastening from the hall, when her husband commanded her to stay; but
his further words could not now be distinguished, for the voice of
every person rose together. His order, that all the servants should
appear, was at length obeyed, and they declared their ignorance of any
deceit—a protestation which could not be believed; for it was evident,
that, as Montoni’s liquor, and his only, had been poisoned, a
deliberate design had been formed against his life, which could not
have been carried so far towards its accomplishment, without the
connivance of the servant, who had the care of the wine ewers.
This man, with another, whose face betrayed either the consciousness of
guilt, or the fear of punishment, Montoni ordered to be chained
instantly, and confined in a strong room, which had formerly been used
as a prison. Thither, likewise, he would have sent all his guests, had
he not foreseen the consequence of so bold and unjustifiable a
proceeding. As to those, therefore, he contented himself with swearing,
that no man should pass the gates, till this extraordinary affair had
been investigated, and then sternly bade his wife retire to her
apartment, whither he suffered Emily to attend her.
In about half an hour, he followed to the dressing-room; and Emily
observed, with horror, his dark countenance and quivering lip, and
heard him denounce vengeance on her aunt.
“It will avail you nothing,” said he to his wife, “to deny the fact; I
have proof of your guilt. Your only chance of mercy rests on a full
confession;—there is nothing to hope from sullenness, or falsehood;
your accomplice has confessed all.”
Emily’s fainting spirits were roused by astonishment, as she heard her
aunt accused of a crime so atrocious, and she could not, for a moment,
admit the possibility of her guilt. Meanwhile Madame Montoni’s
agitation did not permit her to reply; alternately her complexion
varied from livid paleness to a crimson flush; and she trembled,—but,
whether with fear, or with indignation, it were difficult to decide.
“Spare your words,” said Montoni, seeing her about to speak, “your
countenance makes full confession of your crime.—You shall be instantly
removed to the east turret.”
“This accusation,” said Madame Montoni, speaking with difficulty, “is
used only as an excuse for your cruelty; I disdain to reply to it. You
do not believe me guilty.”
“Signor!” said Emily solemnly, “this dreadful charge, I would answer
with my life, is false. Nay, Signor,” she added, observing the severity
of his countenance, “this is no moment for restraint, on my part; I do
not scruple to tell you, that you are deceived—most wickedly deceived,
by the suggestion of some person, who aims at the ruin of my aunt:—it
is impossible, that you could yourself have imagined a crime so
hideous.”
Montoni, his lips trembling more than before, replied only, “If you
value your own safety,” addressing Emily, “you will be silent. I shall
know how to interpret your remonstrances, should you persevere in
them.”
Emily raised her eyes calmly to heaven. “Here is, indeed, then, nothing
to hope!” said she.
“Peace!” cried Montoni, “or you shall find there is something to fear.”
He turned to his wife, who had now recovered her spirits, and who
vehemently and wildly remonstrated upon this mysterious suspicion: but
Montoni’s rage heightened with her indignation, and Emily, dreading the
event of it, threw herself between them, and clasped his knees in
silence, looking up in his face with an expression, that might have
softened the heart of a fiend. Whether his was hardened by a conviction
of Madame Montoni’s guilt, or that a bare suspicion of it made him
eager to exercise vengeance, he was totally and alike insensible to the
distress of his wife, and to the pleading looks of Emily, whom he made
no attempt to raise, but was vehemently menacing both, when he was
called out of the room by some person at the door. As he shut the door,
Emily heard him turn the lock and take out the key; so that Madame
Montoni and herself were now prisoners; and she saw that his designs
became more and more terrible. Her endeavours to explain his motives
for this circumstance were almost as ineffectual as those to sooth the
distress of her aunt, whose innocence she could not doubt; but she, at
length, accounted for Montoni’s readiness to suspect his wife by his
own consciousness of cruelty towards her, and for the sudden violence
of his present conduct against both, before even his suspicions could
be completely formed, by his general eagerness to effect suddenly
whatever he was led to desire and his carelessness of justice, or
humanity, in accomplishing it.
Madame Montoni, after some time, again looked round, in search of a
possibility of escape from the castle, and conversed with Emily on the
subject, who was now willing to encounter any hazard, though she
forbore to encourage a hope in her aunt, which she herself did not
admit. How strongly the edifice was secured, and how vigilantly
guarded, she knew too well; and trembled to commit their safety to the
caprice of the servant, whose assistance they must solicit. Old Carlo
was compassionate, but he seemed to be too much in his master’s
interest to be trusted by them; Annette could of herself do little, and
Emily knew Ludovico only from her report. At present, however, these
considerations were useless, Madame Montoni and her niece being shut up
from all intercourse, even with the persons, whom there might be these
reasons to reject.
In the hall, confusion and tumult still reigned. Emily, as she listened
anxiously to the murmur, that sounded along the gallery, sometimes
fancied she heard the clashing of swords, and, when she considered the
nature of the provocation, given by Montoni, and his impetuosity, it
appeared probable, that nothing less than arms would terminate the
contention. Madame Montoni, having exhausted all her expressions of
indignation, and Emily, hers of comfort, they remained silent, in that
kind of breathless stillness, which, in nature, often succeeds to the
uproar of conflicting elements; a stillness, like the morning, that
dawns upon the ruins of an earthquake.
An uncertain kind of terror pervaded Emily’s mind; the circumstances of
the past hour still came dimly and confusedly to her memory; and her
thoughts were various and rapid, though without tumult.
From this state of waking visions she was recalled by a knocking at the
chamber-door, and, enquiring who was there, heard the whispering voice
of Annette.
“Dear madam, let me come in, I have a great deal to say,” said the poor
girl.
“The door is locked,” answered the lady.
“Yes, ma’am, but do pray open it.”
“The Signor has the key,” said Madame Montoni.
“O blessed Virgin! what will become of us?” exclaimed Annette.
“Assist us to escape,” said her mistress. “Where is Ludovico?”
“Below in the hall, ma’am, amongst them all, fighting with the best of
them!”
“Fighting! Who are fighting?” cried Madame Montoni.
“Why the Signor, ma’am, and all the Signors, and a great many more.”
“Is any person much hurt?” said Emily, in a tremulous voice. “Hurt!
Yes, ma’amselle,—there they lie bleeding, and the swords are clashing,
and—O holy saints! Do let me in, ma’am, they are coming this way—I
shall be murdered!”
“Fly!” cried Emily, “fly! we cannot open the door.”
Annette repeated, that they were coming, and in the same moment fled.
“Be calm, madam,” said Emily, turning to her aunt, “I entreat you to be
calm, I am not frightened—not frightened in the least, do not you be
alarmed.”
“You can scarcely support yourself,” replied her aunt; “Merciful God!
what is it they mean to do with us?”
“They come, perhaps, to liberate us,” said Emily, “Signor Montoni
perhaps is—is conquered.”
The belief of his death gave her spirits a sudden shock, and she grew
faint as she saw him in imagination, expiring at her feet.
“They are coming!” cried Madame Montoni—“I hear their steps—they are at
the door!”
Emily turned her languid eyes to the door, but terror deprived her of
utterance. The key sounded in the lock; the door opened, and Montoni
appeared, followed by three ruffian-like men. “Execute your orders,”
said he, turning to them, and pointing to his wife, who shrieked, but
was immediately carried from the room; while Emily sunk, senseless, on
a couch, by which she had endeavoured to support herself. When she
recovered, she was alone, and recollected only, that Madame Montoni had
been there, together with some unconnected particulars of the preceding
transaction, which were, however, sufficient to renew all her terror.
She looked wildly round the apartment, as if in search of some means of
intelligence, concerning her aunt, while neither her own danger, nor an
idea of escaping from the room, immediately occurred.
When her recollection was more complete, she raised herself and went,
but with only a faint hope, to examine whether the door was unfastened.
It was so, and she then stepped timidly out into the gallery, but
paused there, uncertain which way she should proceed. Her first wish
was to gather some information, as to her aunt, and she, at length,
turned her steps to go to the lesser hall, where Annette and the other
servants usually waited.
Everywhere, as she passed, she heard, from a distance, the uproar of
contention, and the figures and faces, which she met, hurrying along
the passages, struck her mind with dismay. Emily might now have
appeared, like an angel of light, encompassed by fiends. At length, she
reached the lesser hall, which was silent and deserted, but, panting
for breath, she sat down to recover herself. The total stillness of
this place was as awful as the tumult, from which she had escaped: but
she had now time to recall her scattered thoughts, to remember her
personal danger, and to consider of some means of safety. She
perceived, that it was useless to seek Madame Montoni, through the wide
extent and intricacies of the castle, now, too, when every avenue
seemed to be beset by ruffians; in this hall she could not resolve to
stay, for she knew not how soon it might become their place of
rendezvous; and, though she wished to go to her chamber, she dreaded
again to encounter them on the way.
Thus she sat, trembling and hesitating, when a distant murmur broke on
the silence, and grew louder and louder, till she distinguished voices
and steps approaching. She then rose to go, but the sounds came along
the only passage, by which she could depart, and she was compelled to
await in the hall, the arrival of the persons, whose steps she heard.
As these advanced, she distinguished groans, and then saw a man borne
slowly along by four others. Her spirits faltered at the sight, and she
leaned against the wall for support. The bearers, meanwhile, entered
the hall, and, being too busily occupied to detain, or even notice
Emily, she attempted to leave it, but her strength failed, and she
again sat down on the bench. A damp chillness came over her; her sight
became confused; she knew not what had passed, or where she was, yet
the groans of the wounded person still vibrated on her heart. In a few
moments, the tide of life seemed again to flow; she began to breathe
more freely, and her senses revived. She had not fainted, nor had ever
totally lost her consciousness, but had contrived to support herself on
the bench; still without courage to turn her eyes upon the unfortunate
object, which remained near her, and about whom the men were yet too
much engaged to attend to her.
When her strength returned, she rose, and was suffered to leave the
hall, though her anxiety, having produced some vain enquiries,
concerning Madame Montoni, had thus made a discovery of herself.
Towards her chamber she now hastened, as fast as her steps would bear
her, for she still perceived, upon her passage, the sounds of confusion
at a distance, and she endeavoured, by taking her way through some
obscure rooms, to avoid encountering the persons, whose looks had
terrified her before, as well as those parts of the castle, where the
tumult might still rage.
At length, she reached her chamber, and, having secured the door of the
corridor, felt herself, for a moment, in safety. A profound stillness
reigned in this remote apartment, which not even the faint murmur of
the most distant sounds now reached. She sat down, near one of the
casements, and, as she gazed on the mountain-view beyond, the deep
repose of its beauty struck her with all the force of contrast, and she
could scarcely believe herself so near a scene of savage discord. The
contending elements seemed to have retired from their natural spheres,
and to have collected themselves into the minds of men, for there alone
the tempest now reigned.
Emily tried to tranquillize her spirits, but anxiety made her
constantly listen for some sound, and often look out upon the ramparts,
where all, however, was lonely and still. As a sense of her own
immediate danger had decreased, her apprehension concerning Madame
Montoni heightened, who, she remembered, had been fiercely threatened
with confinement in the east turret, and it was possible, that her
husband had satisfied his present vengeance with this punishment. She,
therefore, determined, when night should return, and the inhabitants of
the castle should be asleep, to explore the way to the turret, which,
as the direction it stood in was mentioned, appeared not very difficult
to be done. She knew, indeed, that although her aunt might be there,
she could afford her no effectual assistance, but it might give her
some comfort even to know, that she was discovered, and to hear the
sound of her niece’s voice; for herself, any certainty, concerning
Madame Montoni’s fate, appeared more tolerable, than this exhausting
suspense.
Meanwhile, Annette did not appear, and Emily was surprised, and
somewhat alarmed for her, whom, in the confusion of the late scene,
various accidents might have befallen, and it was improbable, that she
would have failed to come to her apartment, unless something
unfortunate had happened.
Thus the hours passed in solitude, in silence, and in anxious
conjecturing. Being not once disturbed by a message, or a sound, it
appeared, that Montoni had wholly forgotten her, and it gave her some
comfort to find, that she could be so unnoticed. She endeavoured to
withdraw her thoughts from the anxiety, that preyed upon them, but they
refused control; she could neither read, nor draw, and the tones of her
lute were so utterly discordant with the present state of her feelings,
that she could not endure them for a moment.
The sun, at length, set behind the western mountains; his fiery beams
faded from the clouds, and then a dun melancholy purple drew over them,
and gradually involved the features of the country below. Soon after,
the sentinels passed on the rampart to commence the watch.
Twilight had now spread its gloom over every object; the dismal
obscurity of her chamber recalled fearful thoughts, but she remembered,
that to procure a light she must pass through a great extent of the
castle, and, above all, through the halls, where she had already
experienced so much horror. Darkness, indeed, in the present state of
her spirits, made silence and solitude terrible to her; it would also
prevent the possibility of her finding her way to the turret, and
condemn her to remain in suspense, concerning the fate of her aunt; yet
she dared not to venture forth for a lamp.
Continuing at the casement, that she might catch the last lingering
gleam of evening, a thousand vague images of fear floated on her fancy.
“What if some of these ruffians,” said she, “should find out the
private staircase, and in the darkness of night steal into my chamber!”
Then, recollecting the mysterious inhabitant of the neighbouring
apartment, her terror changed its object. “He is not a prisoner,” said
she, “though he remains in one chamber, for Montoni did not fasten the
door, when he left it; the unknown person himself did this; it is
certain, therefore, he can come out when he pleases.”
She paused, for, notwithstanding the terrors of darkness, she
considered it to be very improbable, whoever he was, that he could have
any interest in intruding upon her retirement; and again the subject of
her emotion changed, when, remembering her nearness to the chamber,
where the veil had formerly disclosed a dreadful spectacle, she doubted
whether some passage might not communicate between it and the insecure
door of the staircase.
It was now entirely dark, and she left the casement. As she sat with
her eyes fixed on the hearth, she thought she perceived there a spark
of light; it twinkled and disappeared, and then again was visible. At
length, with much care, she fanned the embers of a wood fire, that had
been lighted in the morning, into flame, and, having communicated it to
a lamp, which always stood in her room, felt a satisfaction not to be
conceived, without a review of her situation. Her first care was to
guard the door of the staircase, for which purpose she placed against
it all the furniture she could move, and she was thus employed, for
some time, at the end of which she had another instance how much more
oppressive misfortune is to the idle, than to the busy; for, having
then leisure to think over all the circumstances of her present
afflictions, she imagined a thousand evils for futurity, and these real
and ideal subjects of distress alike wounded her mind.
Thus heavily moved the hours till midnight, when she counted the sullen
notes of the great clock, as they rolled along the rampart, unmingled
with any sound, except the distant foot-fall of a sentinel, who came to
relieve guard. She now thought she might venture towards the turret,
and, having gently opened the chamber door to examine the corridor, and
to listen if any person was stirring in the castle, found all around in
perfect stillness. Yet no sooner had she left the room, than she
perceived a light flash on the walls of the corridor, and, without
waiting to see by whom it was carried, she shrunk back, and closed her
door. No one approaching, she conjectured, that it was Montoni going to
pay his midnight visit to her unknown neighbour, and she determined to
wait, till he should have retired to his own apartment.
When the chimes had tolled another half hour, she once more opened the
door, and, perceiving that no person was in the corridor, hastily
crossed into a passage, that led along the south side of the castle
towards the staircase, whence she believed she could easily find her
way to the turret. Often pausing on her way, listening apprehensively
to the murmurs of the wind, and looking fearfully onward into the gloom
of the long passages, she, at length, reached the staircase; but there
her perplexity began. Two passages appeared, of which she knew not how
to prefer one, and was compelled, at last, to decide by chance, rather
than by circumstances. That she entered, opened first into a wide
gallery, along which she passed lightly and swiftly; for the lonely
aspect of the place awed her, and she started at the echo of her own
steps.
On a sudden, she thought she heard a voice, and, not distinguishing
from whence it came, feared equally to proceed, or to return. For some
moments, she stood in an attitude of listening expectation, shrinking
almost from herself and scarcely daring to look round her. The voice
came again, but, though it was now near her, terror did not allow her
to judge exactly whence it proceeded. She thought, however, that it was
the voice of complaint, and her belief was soon confirmed by a low
moaning sound, that seemed to proceed from one of the chambers, opening
into the gallery. It instantly occurred to her, that Madame Montoni
might be there confined, and she advanced to the door to speak, but was
checked by considering, that she was, perhaps, going to commit herself
to a stranger, who might discover her to Montoni; for, though this
person, whoever it was, seemed to be in affliction, it did not follow,
that he was a prisoner.
While these thoughts passed over her mind, and left her still in
hesitation, the voice spoke again, and, calling “Ludovico,” she then
perceived it to be that of Annette; on which, no longer hesitating, she
went in joy to answer her.
“Ludovico!” cried Annette, sobbing—“Ludovico!”
“It is not Ludovico, it is I—Mademoiselle Emily.”
Annette ceased sobbing, and was silent.
“If you can open the door, let me in,” said Emily, “here is no person
to hurt you.”
“Ludovico!—O, Ludovico!” cried Annette.
Emily now lost her patience, and her fear of being overheard
increasing, she was even nearly about to leave the door, when she
considered, that Annette might, possibly, know something of the
situation of Madame Montoni, or direct her to the turret. At length,
she obtained a reply, though little satisfactory, to her questions, for
Annette knew nothing of Madame Montoni, and only conjured Emily to tell
her what was become of Ludovico. Of him she had no information to give,
and she again asked who had shut Annette up.
“Ludovico,” said the poor girl, “Ludovico shut me up. When I ran away
from the dressing-room door today, I went I scarcely knew where, for
safety; and, in this gallery, here, I met Ludovico, who hurried me into
this chamber, and locked me up to keep me out of harm, as he said. But
he was in such a hurry himself, he hardly spoke ten words, but he told
me he would come, and let me out, when all was quiet, and he took away
the key with him. Now all these hours are passed, and I have neither
seen, nor heard a word of him; they have murdered him—I know they
have!”
Emily suddenly remembered the wounded person, whom she had seen borne
into the servants’ hall, and she scarcely doubted, that he was
Ludovico, but she concealed the circumstance from Annette, and
endeavoured to comfort her. Then, impatient to learn something of her
aunt, she again enquired the way to the turret.
“O! you are not going, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “for Heaven’s sake,
do not go, and leave me here by myself.”
“Nay, Annette, you do not think I can wait in the gallery all night,”
replied Emily. “Direct me to the turret; in the morning I will
endeavour to release you.”
“O holy Mary!” exclaimed Annette, “am I to stay here by myself all
night! I shall be frightened out of my senses, and I shall die of
hunger; I have had nothing to eat since dinner!”
Emily could scarcely forbear smiling at the heterogeneous distresses of
Annette, though she sincerely pitied them, and said what she could to
sooth her. At length, she obtained something like a direction to the
east turret, and quitted the door, from whence, after many intricacies
and perplexities, she reached the steep and winding stairs of the
turret, at the foot of which she stopped to rest, and to reanimate her
courage with a sense of her duty. As she surveyed this dismal place,
she perceived a door on the opposite side of the staircase, and,
anxious to know whether it would lead her to Madame Montoni, she tried
to undraw the bolts, which fastened it. A fresher air came to her face,
as she unclosed the door, which opened upon the east rampart, and the
sudden current had nearly extinguished her light, which she now removed
to a distance; and again, looking out upon the obscure terrace, she
perceived only the faint outline of the walls and of some towers,
while, above, heavy clouds, borne along the wind, seemed to mingle with
the stars, and wrap the night in thicker darkness. As she gazed, now
willing to defer the moment of certainty, from which she expected only
confirmation of evil, a distant footstep reminded her, that she might
be observed by the men on watch, and, hastily closing the door, she
took her lamp, and passed up the staircase. Trembling came upon her, as
she ascended through the gloom. To her melancholy fancy this seemed to
be a place of death, and the chilling silence, that reigned, confirmed
its character. Her spirits faltered. “Perhaps,” said she, “I am come
hither only to learn a dreadful truth, or to witness some horrible
spectacle; I feel that my senses would not survive such an addition of
horror.”
The image of her aunt murdered—murdered, perhaps, by the hand of
Montoni, rose to her mind; she trembled, gasped for breath—repented
that she had dared to venture hither, and checked her steps. But, after
she had paused a few minutes, the consciousness of her duty returned,
and she went on. Still all was silent. At length a track of blood, upon
a stair, caught her eye; and instantly she perceived, that the wall and
several other steps were stained. She paused, again struggled to
support herself, and the lamp almost fell from her trembling hand.
Still no sound was heard, no living being seemed to inhabit the turret;
a thousand times she wished herself again in her chamber; dreaded to
enquire farther—dreaded to encounter some horrible spectacle, and yet
could not resolve, now that she was so near the termination of her
efforts, to desist from them. Having again collected courage to
proceed, after ascending about half way up the turret, she came to
another door, but here again she stopped in hesitation; listened for
sounds within, and then, summoning all her resolution, unclosed it, and
entered a chamber, which, as her lamp shot its feeble rays through the
darkness, seemed to exhibit only dew-stained and deserted walls. As she
stood examining it, in fearful expectation of discovering the remains
of her unfortunate aunt, she perceived something lying in an obscure
corner of the room, and, struck with a horrible conviction, she became,
for an instant, motionless and nearly insensible. Then, with a kind of
desperate resolution, she hurried towards the object that excited her
terror, when, perceiving the clothes of some person, on the floor, she
caught hold of them, and found in her grasp the old uniform of a
soldier, beneath which appeared a heap of pikes and other arms.
Scarcely daring to trust her sight, she continued, for some moments, to
gaze on the object of her late alarm, and then left the chamber, so
much comforted and occupied by the conviction, that her aunt was not
there, that she was going to descend the turret, without enquiring
farther; when, on turning to do so, she observed upon some steps on the
second flight an appearance of blood, and remembering, that there was
yet another chamber to be explored, she again followed the windings of
the ascent. Still, as she ascended, the track of blood glared upon the
stairs.
It led her to the door of a landing-place, that terminated them, but
she was unable to follow it farther. Now that she was so near the
sought-for certainty, she dreaded to know it, even more than before,
and had not fortitude sufficient to speak, or to attempt opening the
door.
Having listened, in vain, for some sound, that might confirm, or
destroy her fears, she, at length, laid her hand on the lock, and,
finding it fastened, called on Madame Montoni; but only a chilling
silence ensued.
“She is dead!” she cried,—“murdered!—her blood is on the stairs!”
Emily grew very faint; could support herself no longer, and had
scarcely presence of mind to set down the lamp, and place herself on a
step.
When her recollection returned, she spoke again at the door, and again
attempted to open it, and, having lingered for some time, without
receiving any answer, or hearing a sound, she descended the turret,
and, with all the swiftness her feebleness would permit, sought her own
apartment.
As she turned into the corridor, the door of a chamber opened, from
whence Montoni came forth; but Emily, more terrified than ever to
behold him, shrunk back into the passage soon enough to escape being
noticed, and heard him close the door, which she had perceived was the
same she formerly observed. Having here listened to his departing
steps, till their faint sound was lost in distance, she ventured to her
apartment, and, securing it once again, retired to her bed, leaving the
lamp burning on the hearth. But sleep was fled from her harassed mind,
to which images of horror alone occurred. She endeavoured to think it
possible, that Madame Montoni had not been taken to the turret; but,
when she recollected the former menaces of her husband and the terrible
spirit of vengeance, which he had displayed on a late occasion; when
she remembered his general character, the looks of the men, who had
forced Madame Montoni from her apartment, and the written traces on the
stairs of the turret—she could not doubt, that her aunt had been
carried thither, and could scarcely hope, that she had not been carried
to be murdered.
The grey of morning had long dawned through her casements, before Emily
closed her eyes in sleep; when wearied nature, at length, yielded her a
respite from suffering.
CHAPTER XI
Who rears the bloody hand?
SAYERS
Emily remained in her chamber, on the following morning, without
receiving any notice from Montoni, or seeing a human being, except the
armed men, who sometimes passed on the terrace below. Having tasted no
food since the dinner of the preceding day, extreme faintness made her
feel the necessity of quitting the asylum of her apartment to obtain
refreshment, and she was also very anxious to procure liberty for
Annette. Willing, however, to defer venturing forth, as long as
possible, and considering, whether she should apply to Montoni, or to
the compassion of some other person, her excessive anxiety concerning
her aunt, at length, overcame her abhorrence of his presence, and she
determined to go to him, and to entreat, that he would suffer her to
see Madame Montoni.
Meanwhile, it was too certain, from the absence of Annette, that some
accident had befallen Ludovico, and that she was still in confinement;
Emily, therefore, resolved also to visit the chamber, where she had
spoken to her, on the preceding night, and, if the poor girl was yet
there, to inform Montoni of her situation.
It was near noon, before she ventured from her apartment, and went
first to the south gallery, whither she passed without meeting a single
person, or hearing a sound, except, now and then, the echo of a distant
footstep.
It was unnecessary to call Annette, whose lamentations were audible
upon the first approach to the gallery, and who, bewailing her own and
Ludovico’s fate, told Emily, that she should certainly be starved to
death, if she was not let out immediately. Emily replied, that she was
going to beg her release of Montoni; but the terrors of hunger now
yielded to those of the Signor, and, when Emily left her, she was
loudly entreating, that her place of refuge might be concealed from
him.
As Emily drew near the great hall, the sounds she heard and the people
she met in the passages renewed her alarm. The latter, however, were
peaceable, and did not interrupt her, though they looked earnestly at
her, as she passed, and sometimes spoke. On crossing the hall towards
the cedar room, where Montoni usually sat, she perceived, on the
pavement, fragments of swords, some tattered garments stained with
blood, and almost expected to have seen among them a dead body; but
from such a spectacle she was, at present, spared. As she approached
the room, the sound of several voices issued from within, and a dread
of appearing before many strangers, as well as of irritating Montoni by
such an intrusion, made her pause and falter from her purpose. She
looked up through the long arcades of the hall, in search of a servant,
who might bear a message, but no one appeared, and the urgency of what
she had to request made her still linger near the door. The voices
within were not in contention, though she distinguished those of
several of the guests of the preceding day; but still her resolution
failed, whenever she would have tapped at the door, and she had
determined to walk in the hall, till some person should appear, who
might call Montoni from the room, when, as she turned from the door, it
was suddenly opened by himself. Emily trembled, and was confused, while
he almost started with surprise, and all the terrors of his countenance
unfolded themselves. She forgot all she would have said, and neither
enquired for her aunt, nor entreated for Annette, but stood silent and
embarrassed.
After closing the door he reproved her for a meanness, of which she had
not been guilty, and sternly questioned her what she had overheard; an
accusation, which revived her recollection so far, that she assured him
she had not come thither with an intention to listen to his
conversation, but to entreat his compassion for her aunt, and for
Annette. Montoni seemed to doubt this assertion, for he regarded her
with a scrutinizing look; and the doubt evidently arose from no
trifling interest. Emily then further explained herself, and concluded
with entreating him to inform her, where her aunt was placed, and to
permit, that she might visit her; but he looked upon her only with a
malignant smile, which instantaneously confirmed her worst fears for
her aunt, and, at that moment, she had not courage to renew her
entreaties.
“For Annette,” said he,—“if you go to Carlo, he will release the girl;
the foolish fellow, who shut her up, died yesterday.” Emily
shuddered.—“But my aunt, Signor”—said she, “O tell me of my aunt!”
“She is taken care of,” replied Montoni hastily, “I have no time to
answer idle questions.”
He would have passed on, but Emily, in a voice of agony, that could not
be wholly resisted, conjured him to tell her, where Madame Montoni was;
while he paused, and she anxiously watched his countenance, a trumpet
sounded, and, in the next moment, she heard the heavy gates of the
portal open, and then the clattering of horses’ hoofs in the court,
with the confusion of many voices. She stood for a moment hesitating
whether she should follow Montoni, who, at the sound of the trumpet,
had passed through the hall, and, turning her eyes whence it came, she
saw through the door, that opened beyond a long perspective of arches
into the courts, a party of horsemen, whom she judged, as well as the
distance and her embarrassment would allow, to be the same she had seen
depart, a few days before. But she staid not to scrutinize, for, when
the trumpet sounded again, the chevaliers rushed out of the cedar room,
and men came running into the hall from every quarter of the castle.
Emily once more hurried for shelter to her own apartment. Thither she
was still pursued by images of horror. She reconsidered Montoni’s
manner and words, when he had spoken of his wife, and they served only
to confirm her most terrible suspicions. Tears refused any longer to
relieve her distress, and she had sat for a considerable time absorbed
in thought, when a knocking at the chamber door aroused her, on opening
which she found old Carlo.
“Dear young lady,” said he, “I have been so flurried, I never once
thought of you till just now. I have brought you some fruit and wine,
and I am sure you must stand in need of them by this time.”
“Thank you, Carlo,” said Emily, “this is very good of you. Did the
Signor remind you of me?”
“No, Signora,” replied Carlo, “his _Excellenza_ has business enough on
his hands.” Emily then renewed her enquiries, concerning Madame
Montoni, but Carlo had been employed at the other end of the castle,
during the time, that she was removed, and he had heard nothing since,
concerning her.
While he spoke, Emily looked steadily at him, for she scarcely knew
whether he was really ignorant, or concealed his knowledge of the truth
from a fear of offending his master. To several questions, concerning
the contentions of yesterday, he gave very limited answers; but told,
that the disputes were now amicably settled, and that the Signor
believed himself to have been mistaken in his suspicions of his guests.
“The fighting was about that, Signora,” said Carlo; “but I trust I
shall never see such another day in this castle, though strange things
are about to be done.”
On her enquiring his meaning, “Ah, Signora!” added he, “it is not for
me to betray secrets, or tell all I think, but time will tell.”
She then desired him to release Annette, and, having described the
chamber in which the poor girl was confined, he promised to obey her
immediately, and was departing, when she remembered to ask who were the
persons just arrived. Her late conjecture was right; it was Verezzi,
with his party.
Her spirits were somewhat soothed by this short conversation with
Carlo; for, in her present circumstances, it afforded some comfort to
hear the accents of compassion, and to meet the look of sympathy.
An hour passed before Annette appeared, who then came weeping and
sobbing. “O Ludovico—Ludovico!” cried she.
“My poor Annette!” said Emily, and made her sit down.
“Who could have foreseen this, ma’amselle? O miserable, wretched,
day—that ever I should live to see it!” and she continued to moan and
lament, till Emily thought it necessary to check her excess of grief.
“We are continually losing dear friends by death,” said she, with a
sigh, that came from her heart. “We must submit to the will of
Heaven—our tears, alas! cannot recall the dead!”
Annette took the handkerchief from her face.
“You will meet Ludovico in a better world, I hope,” added Emily.
“Yes—yes,—ma’amselle,” sobbed Annette, “but I hope I shall meet him
again in this—though he is so wounded!”
“Wounded!” exclaimed Emily, “does he live?”
“Yes, ma’am, but—but he has a terrible wound, and could not come to let
me out. They thought him dead, at first, and he has not been rightly
himself, till within this hour.”
“Well, Annette, I rejoice to hear he lives.”
“Lives! Holy Saints! why he will not die, surely!”
Emily said she hoped not, but this expression of hope Annette thought
implied fear, and her own increased in proportion, as Emily endeavoured
to encourage her. To enquiries, concerning Madame Montoni, she could
give no satisfactory answers.
“I quite forgot to ask among the servants, ma’amselle,” said she, “for
I could think of nobody but poor Ludovico.”
Annette’s grief was now somewhat assuaged, and Emily sent her to make
enquiries, concerning her lady, of whom, however, she could obtain no
intelligence, some of the people she spoke with being really ignorant
of her fate, and others having probably received orders to conceal it.
This day passed with Emily in continued grief and anxiety for her aunt;
but she was unmolested by any notice from Montoni; and, now that
Annette was liberated, she obtained food, without exposing herself to
danger, or impertinence.
Two following days passed in the same manner, unmarked by any
occurrence, during which she obtained no information of Madame Montoni.
On the evening of the second, having dismissed Annette, and retired to
bed, her mind became haunted by the most dismal images, such as her
long anxiety, concerning her aunt, suggested; and, unable to forget
herself, for a moment, or to vanquish the phantoms, that tormented her,
she rose from her bed, and went to one of the casements of her chamber,
to breathe a freer air.
All without was silent and dark, unless that could be called light,
which was only the faint glimmer of the stars, showing imperfectly the
outline of the mountains, the western towers of the castle and the
ramparts below, where a solitary sentinel was pacing. What an image of
repose did this scene present! The fierce and terrible passions, too,
which so often agitated the inhabitants of this edifice, seemed now
hushed in sleep;—those mysterious workings, that rouse the elements of
man’s nature into tempest—were calm. Emily’s heart was not so; but her
sufferings, though deep, partook of the gentle character of her mind.
Hers was a silent anguish, weeping, yet enduring; not the wild energy
of passion, inflaming imagination, bearing down the barriers of reason
and living in a world of its own.
The air refreshed her, and she continued at the casement, looking on
the shadowy scene, over which the planets burned with a clear light,
amid the deep blue æther, as they silently moved in their destined
course. She remembered how often she had gazed on them with her dear
father, how often he had pointed out their way in the heavens, and
explained their laws; and these reflections led to others, which, in an
almost equal degree, awakened her grief and astonishment.
They brought a retrospect of all the strange and mournful events, which
had occurred since she lived in peace with her parents. And to Emily,
who had been so tenderly educated, so tenderly loved, who once knew
only goodness and happiness—to her, the late events and her present
situation—in a foreign land—in a remote castle—surrounded by vice and
violence—seemed more like the visions of a distempered imagination,
than the circumstances of truth. She wept to think of what her parents
would have suffered, could they have foreseen the events of her future
life.
While she raised her streaming eyes to heaven, she observed the same
planet, which she had seen in Languedoc, on the night, preceding her
father’s death, rise above the eastern towers of the castle, while she
remembered the conversation, which has passed, concerning the probable
state of departed souls; remembered, also, the solemn music she had
heard, and to which the tenderness of her spirits had, in spite of her
reason, given a superstitious meaning. At these recollections she wept
again, and continued musing, when suddenly the notes of sweet music
passed on the air. A superstitious dread stole over her; she stood
listening, for some moments, in trembling expectation, and then
endeavoured to recollect her thoughts, and to reason herself into
composure; but human reason cannot establish her laws on subjects, lost
in the obscurity of imagination, any more than the eye can ascertain
the form of objects, that only glimmer through the dimness of night.
Her surprise, on hearing such soothing and delicious sounds, was, at
least, justifiable; for it was long—very long, since she had listened
to anything like melody. The fierce trumpet and the shrill fife were
the only instruments she had heard, since her arrival at Udolpho.
When her mind was somewhat more composed, she tried to ascertain from
what quarter the sounds proceeded, and thought they came from below;
but whether from a room of the castle, or from the terrace, she could
not with certainty judge. Fear and surprise now yielded to the
enchantment of a strain, that floated on the silent night, with the
most soft and melancholy sweetness. Suddenly, it seemed removed to a
distance, trembled faintly, and then entirely ceased.
She continued to listen, sunk in that pleasing repose, which soft music
leaves on the mind—but it came no more. Upon this strange circumstance
her thoughts were long engaged, for strange it certainly was to hear
music at midnight, when every inhabitant of the castle had long since
retired to rest, and in a place, where nothing like harmony had been
heard before, probably, for many years. Long suffering had made her
spirits peculiarly sensible to terror, and liable to be affected by the
illusions of superstition.—It now seemed to her, as if her dead father
had spoken to her in that strain, to inspire her with comfort and
confidence, on the subject, which had then occupied her mind. Yet
reason told her, that this was a wild conjecture, and she was inclined
to dismiss it; but, with the inconsistency so natural, when imagination
guides the thoughts, she then wavered towards a belief as wild. She
remembered the singular event, connected with the castle, which had
given it into the possession of its present owner; and, when she
considered the mysterious manner, in which its late possessor had
disappeared, and that she had never since been heard of, her mind was
impressed with a high degree of solemn awe; so that, though there
appeared no clue to connect that event with the late music, she was
inclined fancifully to think they had some relation to each other. At
this conjecture, a sudden chillness ran through her frame; she looked
fearfully upon the duskiness of her chamber, and the dead silence, that
prevailed there, heightened to her fancy its gloomy aspect.
At length, she left the casement, but her steps faltered, as she
approached the bed, and she stopped and looked round. The single lamp,
that burned in her spacious chamber, was expiring; for a moment, she
shrunk from the darkness beyond; and then, ashamed of the weakness,
which, however, she could not wholly conquer, went forward to the bed,
where her mind did not soon know the soothings of sleep. She still
mused on the late occurrence, and looked with anxiety to the next
night, when, at the same hour, she determined to watch whether the
music returned. “If those sounds were human,” said she, “I shall
probably hear them again.”
CHAPTER XII
Then, oh, you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience; and, in ripen’d time,
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
In countenance.
SHAKESPEARE
Annette came almost breathless to Emily’s apartment in the morning. “O
ma’amselle!” said she, in broken sentences, “what news I have to tell!
I have found out who the prisoner is—but he was no prisoner,
neither;—he that was shut up in the chamber I told you of. I must think
him a ghost, forsooth!”
“Who was the prisoner?” enquired Emily, while her thoughts glanced back
to the circumstance of the preceding night.
“You mistake, ma’am,” said Annette; “he was not a prisoner, after all.”
“Who is the person, then?”
“Holy Saints!” rejoined Annette; “How I was surprised! I met him just
now, on the rampart below, there. I never was so surprised in my life!
Ah! ma’amselle! this is a strange place! I should never have done
wondering, if I was to live here a hundred years. But, as I was saying,
I met him just now on the rampart, and I was thinking of nobody less
than of him.”
“This trifling is insupportable,” said Emily; “pr’ythee, Annette, do
not torture my patience any longer.”
“Nay, ma’amselle, guess—guess who it was; it was somebody you know very
well.”
“I cannot guess,” said Emily impatiently.
“Nay, ma’amselle, I’ll tell you something to guess by—A tall Signor,
with a longish face, who walks so stately, and used to wear such a high
feather in his hat; and used often to look down upon the ground, when
people spoke to him; and to look at people from under his eyebrows, as
it were, all so dark and frowning. You have seen him, often and often,
at Venice, ma’am. Then he was so intimate with the Signor, too. And,
now I think of it, I wonder what he could be afraid of in this lonely
old castle, that he should shut himself up for. But he is come abroad
now, for I met him on the rampart just this minute. I trembled when I
saw him, for I always was afraid of him, somehow; but I determined I
would not let him see it; so I went up to him, and made him a low
curtesy, ‘You are welcome to the castle, Signor Orsino,’ said I.”
“O, it was Signor Orsino, then!” said Emily.
“Yes, ma’amselle, Signor Orsino, himself, who caused that Venetian
gentleman to be killed, and has been popping about from place to place,
ever since, as I hear.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, recovering from the shock of this
intelligence; “and is _he_ come to Udolpho! He does well to endeavour
to conceal himself.”
“Yes, ma’amselle, but if that was all, this desolate place would
conceal him, without his shutting himself up in one room. Who would
think of coming to look for him here? I am sure I should as soon think
of going to look for anybody in the other world.”
“There is some truth in that,” said Emily, who would now have concluded
it was Orsino’s music, which she had heard, on the preceding night, had
she not known, that he had neither taste, nor skill in the art. But,
though she was unwilling to add to the number of Annette’s surprises,
by mentioning the subject of her own, she enquired, whether any person
in the castle played on a musical instrument?
“O yes, ma’amselle! there is Benedetto plays the great drum to
admiration; and then, there is Launcelot the trumpeter; nay, for that
matter, Ludovico himself can play on the trumpet;—but he is ill now. I
remember once—”
Emily interrupted her; “Have you heard no other music since you came to
the castle—none last night?”
“Why, did _you_ hear any last night, ma’amselle?”
Emily evaded this question, by repeating her own.
“Why, no, ma’am,” replied Annette; “I never heard any music here, I
must say, but the drums and the trumpet; and, as for last night, I did
nothing but dream I saw my late lady’s ghost.”
“Your _late_ lady’s,” said Emily in a tremulous voice; “you have heard
more, then. Tell me—tell me all, Annette, I entreat; tell me the worst
at once.”
“Nay, ma’amselle, you know the worst already.”
“I know nothing,” said Emily.
“Yes, you do, ma’amselle; you know, that nobody knows anything about
her; and it is plain, therefore, she is gone, the way of the first lady
of the castle—nobody ever knew anything about her.”
Emily leaned her head upon her hand, and was, for some time, silent;
then, telling Annette she wished to be alone, the latter left the room.
The remark of Annette had revived Emily’s terrible suspicion,
concerning the fate of Madame Montoni; and she resolved to make another
effort to obtain certainty on this subject, by applying to Montoni once
more.
When Annette returned, a few hours after, she told Emily, that the
porter of the castle wished very much to speak with her, for that he
had something of importance to say; her spirits had, however, of late
been so subject to alarm, that any new circumstance excited it; and
this message from the porter, when her first surprise was over, made
her look round for some lurking danger, the more suspiciously, perhaps,
because she had frequently remarked the unpleasant air and countenance
of this man. She now hesitated, whether to speak with him, doubting
even, that this request was only a pretext to draw her into some
danger; but a little reflection showed her the improbability of this,
and she blushed at her weak fears.
“I will speak to him, Annette,” said she; “desire him to come to the
corridor immediately.”
Annette departed, and soon after returned.
“Barnardine, ma’amselle,” said she, “dare not come to the corridor,
lest he should be discovered, it is so far from his post; and he dare
not even leave the gates for a moment now; but, if you will come to him
at the portal, through some roundabout passages he told me of, without
crossing the courts, he has that to tell, which will surprise you. But
you must not come through the courts, lest the Signor should see you.”
Emily, neither approving these “roundabout passage,” nor the other part
of the request, now positively refused to go. “Tell him,” said she, “if
he has anything of consequence to impart, I will hear him in the
corridor, whenever he has an opportunity of coming thither.”
Annette went to deliver this message, and was absent a considerable
time. When she returned, “It won’t do, ma’amselle,” said she.
“Barnardine has been considering all this time what can be done, for it
is as much as his place is worth to leave his post now. But, if you
will come to the east rampart in the dusk of the evening, he can,
perhaps, steal away, and tell you all he has to say.”
Emily was surprised and alarmed, at the secrecy which this man seemed
to think so necessary, and hesitated whether to meet him, till,
considering, that he might mean to warn her of some serious danger, she
resolved to go.
“Soon after sunset,” said she, “I will be at the end of the east
rampart. But then the watch will be set,” she added, recollecting
herself, “and how can Barnardine pass unobserved?”
“That is just what I said to him, ma’am, and he answered me, that he
had the key of the gate, at the end of the rampart, that leads towards
the courts, and could let himself through that way; and as for the
sentinels, there were none at this end of the terrace, because the
place is guarded enough by the high walls of the castle, and the east
turret; and he said those at the other end were too far off to see him,
if it was pretty duskyish.”
“Well,” said Emily, “I must hear what he has to tell; and, therefore,
desire you will go with me to the terrace, this evening.”
“He desired it might be pretty duskyish, ma’amselle,” repeated Annette,
“because of the watch.”
Emily paused, and then said she would be on the terrace, an hour after
sunset;—“and tell Barnardine,” she added, “to be punctual to the time;
for that I, also, may be observed by Signor Montoni. Where is the
Signor? I would speak with him.”
“He is in the cedar chamber, ma’am, counselling with the other Signors.
He is going to give them a sort of treat today, to make up for what
passed at the last, I suppose; the people are all very busy in the
kitchen.”
Emily now enquired, if Montoni expected any new guests? and Annette
believed that he did not. “Poor Ludovico!” added she, “he would be as
merry as the best of them, if he was well; but he may recover yet.
Count Morano was wounded as bad, as he, and he is got well again, and
is gone back to Venice.”
“Is he so?” said Emily, “when did you hear this?”
“I heard it last night, ma’amselle, but I forgot to tell it.”
Emily asked some further questions, and then, desiring Annette would
observe and inform her, when Montoni was alone, the girl went to
deliver her message to Barnardine.
Montoni was, however, so much engaged, during the whole day, that Emily
had no opportunity of seeking a release from her terrible suspense,
concerning her aunt. Annette was employed in watching his steps, and in
attending upon Ludovico, whom she, assisted by Caterina, nursed with
the utmost care; and Emily was, of course, left much alone. Her
thoughts dwelt often on the message of the porter, and were employed in
conjecturing the subject, that occasioned it, which she sometimes
imagined concerned the fate of Madame Montoni; at others, that it
related to some personal danger, which threatened herself. The cautious
secrecy which Barnardine observed in his conduct, inclined her to
believe the latter.
As the hour of appointment drew near, her impatience increased. At
length, the sun set; she heard the passing steps of the sentinels going
to their posts; and waited only for Annette to accompany her to the
terrace, who, soon after, came, and they descended together. When Emily
expressed apprehensions of meeting Montoni, or some of his guests, “O,
there is no fear of that, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “they are all set
in to feasting yet, and that Barnardine knows.”
They reached the first terrace, where the sentinels demanded who
passed; and Emily, having answered, walked on to the east rampart, at
the entrance of which they were again stopped; and, having again
replied, were permitted to proceed. But Emily did not like to expose
herself to the discretion of these men, at such an hour; and, impatient
to withdraw from the situation, she stepped hastily on in search of
Barnardine. He was not yet come. She leaned pensively on the wall of
the rampart, and waited for him. The gloom of twilight sat deep on the
surrounding objects, blending in soft confusion the valley, the
mountains, and the woods, whose tall heads, stirred by the evening
breeze, gave the only sounds, that stole on silence, except a faint,
faint chorus of distant voices, that arose from within the castle.
“What voices are those?” said Emily, as she fearfully listened.
“It is only the Signor and his guests, carousing,” replied Annette.
“Good God!” thought Emily, “can this man’s heart be so gay, when he has
made another being so wretched; if, indeed, my aunt is yet suffered to
feel her wretchedness? O! whatever are my own sufferings, may my heart
never, never be hardened against those of others!”
She looked up, with a sensation of horror, to the east turret, near
which she then stood; a light glimmered through the grates of the lower
chamber, but those of the upper one were dark. Presently, she perceived
a person moving with a lamp across the lower room; but this
circumstance revived no hope, concerning Madame Montoni, whom she had
vainly sought in that apartment, which had appeared to contain only
soldiers’ accoutrements. Emily, however, determined to attempt the
outer door of the turret, as soon as Barnardine should withdraw; and,
if it was unfastened, to make another effort to discover her aunt.
The moments passed, but still Barnardine did not appear; and Emily,
becoming uneasy, hesitated whether to wait any longer. She would have
sent Annette to the portal to hasten him, but feared to be left alone,
for it was now almost dark, and a melancholy streak of red, that still
lingered in the west, was the only vestige of departed day. The strong
interest, however, which Barnardine’s message had awakened, overcame
other apprehensions, and still detained her.
While she was conjecturing with Annette what could thus occasion his
absence, they heard a key turn in the lock of the gate near them, and
presently saw a man advancing. It was Barnardine, of whom Emily hastily
enquired what he had to communicate, and desired, that he would tell
her quickly, “for I am chilled with this evening air,” said she.
“You must dismiss your maid, lady,” said the man in a voice, the deep
tone of which shocked her, “what I have to tell is to you only.”
Emily, after some hesitation, desired Annette to withdraw to a little
distance. “Now, my friend, what would you say?”
He was silent a moment, as if considering, and then said,—
“That which would cost me my place, at least, if it came to the
Signor’s ears. You must promise, lady, that nothing shall ever make you
tell a syllable of the matter; I have been trusted in this affair, and,
if it was known, that I betrayed my trust, my life, perhaps, might
answer it. But I was concerned for you, lady, and I resolved to tell
you.” He paused.—
Emily thanked him, assured him that he might repose on her discretion,
and entreated him to dispatch.
“Annette told us in the hall how unhappy you were about Signora
Montoni, and how much you wished to know what was become of her.”
“Most true,” said Emily eagerly, “and you can inform me. I conjure you
tell me the worst, without hesitation.” She rested her trembling arm
upon the wall.
“I can tell you,” said Barnardine, and paused.—
Emily had no power to enforce her entreaties.
“I _can_ tell you,” resumed Barnardine,—“but—”
“But what?” exclaimed Emily, recovering her resolution.
“Here I am, ma’amselle,” said Annette, who, having heard the eager
tone, in which Emily pronounced these words, came running towards her.
“Retire!” said Barnardine, sternly; “you are not wanted;” and, as Emily
said nothing, Annette obeyed.
“I _can_ tell you,” repeated the porter,—“but I know not how—you were
afflicted before.—”
“I am prepared for the worst, my friend,” said Emily, in a firm and
solemn voice. “I can support any certainty better than this suspense.”
“Well, Signora, if that is the case, you shall hear.—You know, I
suppose, that the Signor and his lady used sometimes to disagree. It is
none of my concerns to enquire what it was about, but I believe you
know it was so.”
“Well,” said Emily, “proceed.”
“The Signor, it seems, had lately been very wrath against her. I saw
all, and heard all,—a great deal more than people thought for; but it
was none of my business, so I said nothing. A few days ago, the Signor
sent for me. ‘Barnardine,’ says he, ‘you are—an honest man, I think I
can trust you.’ I assured his _Excellenza_ that he could. ‘Then,’ says
he, as near as I can remember, ‘I have an affair in hand, which I want
you to assist me in.’—Then he told me what I was to do; but that I
shall say nothing about—it concerned only the Signora.”
“O Heavens!” exclaimed Emily—“what have you done?”
Barnardine hesitated, and was silent.
“What fiend could tempt him, or you, to such an act!” cried Emily,
chilled with horror, and scarcely able to support her fainting spirits.
“It was a fiend,” said Barnardine in a gloomy tone of voice. They were
now both silent;—Emily had not courage to enquire further, and
Barnardine seemed to shrink from telling more. At length he said, “It
is of no use to think of the past; the Signor was cruel enough, but he
would be obeyed. What signified my refusing? He would have found
others, who had no scruples.”
“You have murdered her, then!” said Emily, in a hollow and inward
voice—“I am talking with a murderer!” Barnardine stood silent; while
Emily turned from him, and attempted to leave the place.
“Stay, lady!” said he, “You deserve to think so still—since you can
believe me capable of such a deed.”
“If you are innocent, tell me quickly,” said Emily, in faint accents,
“for I feel I shall not be able to hear you long.”
“I will tell you no more,” said he, and walked away. Emily had just
strength enough to bid him stay, and then to call Annette, on whose arm
she leaned, and they walked slowly up the rampart, till they heard
steps behind them. It was Barnardine again.
“Send away the girl,” said he, “and I will tell you more.”
“She must not go,” said Emily; “what you have to say, she may hear.”
“May she so, lady?” said he. “You shall know no more, then;” and he was
going, though slowly, when Emily’s anxiety, overcoming the resentment
and fear, which the man’s behaviour had roused, she desired him to
stay, and bade Annette retire.
“The Signora is alive,” said he, “for me. She is my prisoner, though;
his _Excellenza_ has shut her up in the chamber over the great gates of
the court, and I have the charge of her. I was going to have told you,
you might see her—but now—”
Emily, relieved from an unutterable load of anguish by this speech, had
now only to ask Barnardine’s forgiveness, and to conjure, that he would
let her visit her aunt.
He complied with less reluctance, than she expected, and told her,
that, if she would repair, on the following night, when the Signor was
retired to rest, to the postern-gate of the castle, she should,
perhaps, see Madame Montoni.
Amid all the thankfulness, which Emily felt for this concession, she
thought she observed a malicious triumph in his manner, when he
pronounced the last words; but, in the next moment, she dismissed the
thought, and, having again thanked him, commended her aunt to his pity,
and assured him, that she would herself reward him, and would be
punctual to her appointment, she bade him good night, and retired,
unobserved, to her chamber. It was a considerable time, before the
tumult of joy, which Barnardine’s unexpected intelligence had
occasioned, allowed Emily to think with clearness, or to be conscious
of the real dangers, that still surrounded Madame Montoni and herself.
When this agitation subsided, she perceived, that her aunt was yet the
prisoner of a man, to whose vengeance, or avarice, she might fall a
sacrifice; and, when she further considered the savage aspect of the
person, who was appointed to guard Madame Montoni, her doom appeared to
be already sealed, for the countenance of Barnardine seemed to bear the
stamp of a murderer; and, when she had looked upon it, she felt
inclined to believe, that there was no deed, however black, which he
might not be prevailed upon to execute. These reflections brought to
her remembrance the tone of voice, in which he had promised to grant
her request to see his prisoner; and she mused upon it long in
uneasiness and doubt. Sometimes, she even hesitated, whether to trust
herself with him at the lonely hour he had appointed; and once, and
only once, it struck her, that Madame Montoni might be already
murdered, and that this ruffian was appointed to decoy herself to some
secret place, where her life also was to be sacrificed to the avarice
of Montoni, who then would claim securely the contested estates in
Languedoc. The consideration of the enormity of such guilt did, at
length, relieve her from the belief of its probability, but not from
all the doubts and fears, which a recollection of Barnardine’s manner
had occasioned. From these subjects, her thoughts, at length, passed to
others; and, as the evening advanced, she remembered, with somewhat
more than surprise, the music she had heard, on the preceding night,
and now awaited its return, with more than curiosity.
She distinguished, till a late hour, the distant carousals of Montoni
and his companions—the loud contest, the dissolute laugh and the choral
song, that made the halls re-echo. At length, she heard the heavy gates
of the castle shut for the night, and those sounds instantly sunk into
a silence, which was disturbed only by the whispering steps of persons,
passing through the galleries to their remote rooms. Emily now judging
it to be about the time, when she had heard the music, on the preceding
night, dismissed Annette, and gently opened the casement to watch for
its return. The planet she had so particularly noticed, at the
recurrence of the music, was not yet risen; but, with superstitious
weakness, she kept her eyes fixed on that part of the hemisphere, where
it would rise, almost expecting, that, when it appeared, the sounds
would return. At length, it came, serenely bright, over the eastern
towers of the castle. Her heart trembled, when she perceived it, and
she had scarcely courage to remain at the casement, lest the returning
music should confirm her terror, and subdue the little strength she yet
retained. The clock soon after struck one, and, knowing this to be
about the time, when the sounds had occurred, she sat down in a chair,
near the casement, and endeavoured to compose her spirits; but the
anxiety of expectation yet disturbed them. Everything, however,
remained still; she heard only the solitary step of a sentinel, and the
lulling murmur of the woods below, and she again leaned from the
casement, and again looked, as if for intelligence, to the planet,
which was now risen high above the towers.
Emily continued to listen, but no music came. “Those were surely no
mortal sounds!” said she, recollecting their entrancing melody. “No
inhabitant of this castle could utter such; and, where is the feeling,
that could modulate such exquisite expression? We all know, that it has
been affirmed celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth.
Father Pierre and Father Antoine declared, that they had sometimes
heard them in the stillness of night, when they alone were waking to
offer their orisons to heaven. Nay, my dear father himself, once said,
that, soon after my mother’s death, as he lay watchful in grief, sounds
of uncommon sweetness called him from his bed; and, on opening his
window, he heard lofty music pass along the midnight air. It soothed
him, he said; he looked up with confidence to heaven, and resigned her
to his God.”
Emily paused to weep at this recollection. “Perhaps,” resumed she,
“perhaps, those strains I heard were sent to comfort,—to encourage me!
Never shall I forget those I heard, at this hour, in Languedoc!
Perhaps, my father watches over me, at this moment!” She wept again in
tenderness. Thus passed the hour in watchfulness and solemn thought;
but no sounds returned; and, after remaining at the casement, till the
light tint of dawn began to edge the mountain-tops and steal upon the
night-shade, she concluded, that they would not return, and retired
reluctantly to repose.
VOLUME 3
CHAPTER I
I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ the time,
The moment on ’t; for ’t must be done tonight.
MACBETH
Emily was somewhat surprised, on the following day, to find that
Annette had heard of Madame Montoni’s confinement in the chamber over
the portal, as well as of her purposed visit there, on the approaching
night. That the circumstance, which Barnardine had so solemnly enjoined
her to conceal, he had himself told to so indiscreet a hearer as
Annette, appeared very improbable, though he had now charged her with a
message, concerning the intended interview. He requested, that Emily
would meet him, unattended, on the terrace, at a little after midnight,
when he himself would lead her to the place he had promised; a
proposal, from which she immediately shrunk, for a thousand vague fears
darted athwart her mind, such as had tormented her on the preceding
night, and which she neither knew how to trust, nor to dismiss. It
frequently occurred to her, that Barnardine might have deceived her,
concerning Madame Montoni, whose murderer, perhaps, he really was; and
that he had deceived her by order of Montoni, the more easily to draw
her into some of the desperate designs of the latter. The terrible
suspicion, that Madame Montoni no longer lived, thus came, accompanied
by one not less dreadful for herself. Unless the crime, by which the
aunt had suffered, was instigated merely by resentment, unconnected
with profit, a motive, upon which Montoni did not appear very likely to
act, its object must be unattained, till the niece was also dead, to
whom Montoni knew that his wife’s estates must descend. Emily
remembered the words, which had informed her, that the contested
estates in France would devolve to her, if Madame Montoni died, without
consigning them to her husband, and the former obstinate perseverance
of her aunt made it too probable, that she had, to the last, withheld
them. At this instant, recollecting Barnardine’s manner, on the
preceding night, she now believed, what she had then fancied, that it
expressed malignant triumph. She shuddered at the recollection, which
confirmed her fears, and determined not to meet him on the terrace.
Soon after, she was inclined to consider these suspicions as the
extravagant exaggerations of a timid and harassed mind, and could not
believe Montoni liable to such preposterous depravity as that of
destroying, from one motive, his wife and her niece. She blamed herself
for suffering her romantic imagination to carry her so far beyond the
bounds of probability, and determined to endeavour to check its rapid
flights, lest they should sometimes extend into madness. Still,
however, she shrunk from the thought of meeting Barnardine, on the
terrace, at midnight; and still the wish to be relieved from this
terrible suspense, concerning her aunt, to see her, and to sooth her
sufferings, made her hesitate what to do.
“Yet how is it possible, Annette, I can pass to the terrace at that
hour?” said she, recollecting herself, “the sentinels will stop me, and
Signor Montoni will hear of the affair.”
“O ma’amselle! that is well thought of,” replied Annette. “That is what
Barnardine told me about. He gave me this key, and bade me say it
unlocks the door at the end of the vaulted gallery, that opens near the
end of the east rampart, so that you need not pass any of the men on
watch. He bade me say, too, that his reason for requesting you to come
to the terrace was, because he could take you to the place you want to
go to, without opening the great doors of the hall, which grate so
heavily.”
Emily’s spirits were somewhat calmed by this explanation, which seemed
to be honestly given to Annette. “But why did he desire I would come
alone, Annette?” said she.
“Why that was what I asked him myself, ma’amselle. Says I, ‘Why is my
young lady to come alone?—Surely I may come with her!—What harm can _I_
do?’ But he said ‘No—no—I tell you not,’ in his gruff way. Nay, says I,
I have been trusted in as great affairs as this, I warrant, and it’s a
hard matter if I can’t keep a secret now. Still he would say nothing
but—‘No—no—no.’ Well, says I, if you will only trust me, I will tell
you a great secret, that was told me a month ago, and I have never
opened my lips about it yet—so you need not be afraid of telling me.
But all would not do. Then, ma’amselle, I went so far as to offer him a
beautiful new sequin, that Ludovico gave me for a keepsake, and I would
not have parted with it for all St. Marco’s Place; but even that would
not do! Now what can be the reason of this? But I know, you know,
ma’am, who you are going to see.”
“Pray did Barnardine tell you this?”
“He! No, ma’amselle, that he did not.”
Emily enquired who did, but Annette showed, that she _could_ keep a
secret.
During the remainder of the day, Emily’s mind was agitated with doubts
and fears and contrary determinations, on the subject of meeting this
Barnardine on the rampart, and submitting herself to his guidance, she
scarcely knew whither. Pity for her aunt and anxiety for herself
alternately swayed her determination, and night came, before she had
decided upon her conduct. She heard the castle clock strike
eleven—twelve—and yet her mind wavered. The time, however, was now
come, when she could hesitate no longer: and then the interest she felt
for her aunt overcame other considerations, and, bidding Annette follow
her to the outer door of the vaulted gallery, and there await her
return, she descended from her chamber. The castle was perfectly still,
and the great hall, where so lately she had witnessed a scene of
dreadful contention, now returned only the whispering footsteps of the
two solitary figures gliding fearfully between the pillars, and gleamed
only to the feeble lamp they carried. Emily, deceived by the long
shadows of the pillars and by the catching lights between, often
stopped, imagining she saw some person, moving in the distant obscurity
of the perspective; and, as she passed these pillars, she feared to
turn her eyes toward them, almost expecting to see a figure start out
from behind their broad shaft. She reached, however, the vaulted
gallery, without interruption, but unclosed its outer door with a
trembling hand, and, charging Annette not to quit it and to keep it a
little open, that she might be heard if she called, she delivered to
her the lamp, which she did not dare to take herself because of the men
on watch, and, alone, stepped out upon the dark terrace. Everything was
so still, that she feared, lest her own light steps should be heard by
the distant sentinels, and she walked cautiously towards the spot,
where she had before met Barnardine, listening for a sound, and looking
onward through the gloom in search of him. At length, she was startled
by a deep voice, that spoke near her, and she paused, uncertain whether
it was his, till it spoke again, and she then recognised the hollow
tones of Barnardine, who had been punctual to the moment, and was at
the appointed place, resting on the rampart wall. After chiding her for
not coming sooner, and saying that he had been waiting nearly half an
hour, he desired Emily, who made no reply, to follow him to the door
through which he had entered the terrace.
While he unlocked it, she looked back to that she had left, and,
observing the rays of the lamp stream through a small opening, was
certain, that Annette was still there. But her remote situation could
little befriend Emily, after she had quitted the terrace; and, when
Barnardine unclosed the gate, the dismal aspect of the passage beyond,
shown by a torch burning on the pavement, made her shrink from
following him alone, and she refused to go, unless Annette might
accompany her. This, however, Barnardine absolutely refused to permit,
mingling at the same time with his refusal such artful circumstances to
heighten the pity and curiosity of Emily towards her aunt, that she, at
length, consented to follow him alone to the portal.
He then took up the torch, and led her along the passage, at the
extremity of which he unlocked another door, whence they descended, a
few steps, into a chapel, which, as Barnardine held up the torch to
light her, Emily observed to be in ruins, and she immediately
recollected a former conversation of Annette, concerning it, with very
unpleasant emotions. She looked fearfully on the almost roofless walls,
green with damps, and on the gothic points of the windows, where the
ivy and the briony had long supplied the place of glass, and ran
mantling among the broken capitals of some columns, that had once
supported the roof. Barnardine stumbled over the broken pavement, and
his voice, as he uttered a sudden oath, was returned in hollow echoes,
that made it more terrific. Emily’s heart sunk; but she still followed
him, and he turned out of what had been the principal aisle of the
chapel. “Down these steps, lady,” said Barnardine, as he descended a
flight, which appeared to lead into the vaults; but Emily paused on the
top, and demanded, in a tremulous tone, whither he was conducting her.
“To the portal,” said Barnardine.
“Cannot we go through the chapel to the portal?” said Emily.
“No, Signora, that leads to the inner court, which I don’t choose to
unlock. This way, and we shall reach the outer court presently.”
Emily still hesitated; fearing not only to go on, but, since she had
gone thus far, to irritate Barnardine by refusing to go further.
“Come, lady,” said the man, who had nearly reached the bottom of the
flight, “make a little haste; I cannot wait here all night.”
“Whither do these steps lead?” said Emily, yet pausing.
“To the portal,” repeated Barnardine, in an angry tone, “I will wait no
longer.” As he said this, he moved on with the light, and Emily,
fearing to provoke him by further delay, reluctantly followed. From the
steps, they proceeded through a passage, adjoining the vaults, the
walls of which were dropping with unwholesome dews, and the vapours,
that crept along the ground, made the torch burn so dimly, that Emily
expected every moment to see it extinguished, and Barnardine could
scarcely find his way. As they advanced, these vapours thickened, and
Barnardine, believing the torch was expiring, stopped for a moment to
trim it. As he then rested against a pair of iron gates, that opened
from the passage, Emily saw, by uncertain flashes of light, the vaults
beyond, and, near her, heaps of earth, that seemed to surround an open
grave. Such an object, in such a scene, would, at any time, have
disturbed her; but now she was shocked by an instantaneous
presentiment, that this was the grave of her unfortunate aunt, and that
the treacherous Barnardine was leading herself to destruction. The
obscure and terrible place, to which he had conducted her, seemed to
justify the thought; it was a place suited for murder, a receptacle for
the dead, where a deed of horror might be committed, and no vestige
appear to proclaim it. Emily was so overwhelmed with terror, that, for
a moment, she was unable to determine what conduct to pursue. She then
considered that it would be vain to attempt an escape from Barnardine
by flight, since the length and the intricacy of the way she had passed
would soon enable him to overtake her, who was unacquainted with the
turnings, and whose feebleness would not suffer her to run long with
swiftness. She feared equally to irritate him by a disclosure of her
suspicions, which a refusal to accompany him further certainly would
do; and, since she was already as much in his power as it was possible
she could be, if she proceeded, she, at length, determined to suppress,
as far as she could, the appearance of apprehension, and to follow
silently whither he designed to lead her. Pale with horror and anxiety,
she now waited till Barnardine had trimmed the torch, and, as her sight
glanced again upon the grave, she could not forbear enquiring, for whom
it was prepared. He took his eyes from the torch, and fixed them upon
her face without speaking. She faintly repeated the question, but the
man, shaking the torch, passed on; and she followed, trembling, to a
second flight of steps, having ascended which, a door delivered them
into the first court of the castle. As they crossed it, the light
showed the high black walls around them, fringed with long grass and
dank weeds, that found a scanty soil among the mouldering stones; the
heavy buttresses, with, here and there, between them, a narrow grate,
that admitted a freer circulation of air to the court, the massy iron
gates, that led to the castle, whose clustering turrets appeared above,
and, opposite, the huge towers and arch of the portal itself. In this
scene the large, uncouth person of Barnardine, bearing the torch,
formed a characteristic figure. This Barnardine was wrapt in a long
dark cloak, which scarcely allowed the kind of half-boots, or sandals,
that were laced upon his legs, to appear, and showed only the point of
a broad sword, which he usually wore, slung in a belt across his
shoulders. On his head was a heavy flat velvet cap, somewhat resembling
a turban, in which was a short feather; the visage beneath it showed
strong features, and a countenance furrowed with the lines of cunning
and darkened by habitual discontent.
The view of the court, however, reanimated Emily, who, as she crossed
silently towards the portal, began to hope, that her own fears, and not
the treachery of Barnardine, had deceived her. She looked anxiously up
at the first casement, that appeared above the lofty arch of the
portcullis; but it was dark, and she enquired, whether it belonged to
the chamber where Madame Montoni was confined. Emily spoke low, and
Barnardine, perhaps, did not hear her question, for he returned no
answer; and they, soon after, entered the postern door of the gateway,
which brought them to the foot of a narrow staircase that wound up one
of the towers.
“Up this staircase the Signora lies,” said Barnardine.
“Lies!” repeated Emily faintly, as she began to ascend.
“She lies in the upper chamber,” said Barnardine.
As they passed up, the wind, which poured through the narrow cavities
in the wall, made the torch flare, and it threw a stronger gleam upon
the grim and sallow countenance of Barnardine, and discovered more
fully the desolation of the place—the rough stone walls, the spiral
stairs, black with age, and a suit of ancient armour, with an iron
visor, that hung upon the walls, and appeared a trophy of some former
victory.
Having reached a landing-place, “You may wait here, lady,” said he,
applying a key to the door of a chamber, “while I go up, and tell the
Signora you are coming.”
“That ceremony is unnecessary,” replied Emily, “my aunt will rejoice to
see me.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Barnardine, pointing to the room he
had opened: “Come in here, lady, while I step up.”
Emily, surprised and somewhat shocked, did not dare to oppose him
further, but, as he was turning away with the torch, desired he would
not leave her in darkness. He looked around, and, observing a tripod
lamp, that stood on the stairs, lighted and gave it to Emily, who
stepped forward into a large old chamber, and he closed the door. As
she listened anxiously to his departing steps, she thought he
descended, instead of ascending, the stairs; but the gusts of wind,
that whistled round the portal, would not allow her to hear distinctly
any other sound. Still, however, she listened, and, perceiving no step
in the room above, where he had affirmed Madame Montoni to be, her
anxiety increased, though she considered, that the thickness of the
floor in this strong building might prevent any sound reaching her from
the upper chamber. The next moment, in a pause of the wind, she
distinguished Barnardine’s step descending to the court, and then
thought she heard his voice; but, the rising gust again overcoming
other sounds, Emily, to be certain on this point, moved softly to the
door, which, on attempting to open it, she discovered was fastened. All
the horrid apprehensions, that had lately assailed her, returned at
this instant with redoubled force, and no longer appeared like the
exaggerations of a timid spirit, but seemed to have been sent to warn
her of her fate. She now did not doubt, that Madame Montoni had been
murdered, perhaps in this very chamber; or that she herself was brought
hither for the same purpose. The countenance, the manners and the
recollected words of Barnardine, when he had spoken of her aunt,
confirmed her worst fears. For some moments, she was incapable of
considering of any means, by which she might attempt an escape. Still
she listened, but heard footsteps neither on the stairs, nor in the
room above; she thought, however, that she again distinguished
Barnardine’s voice below, and went to a grated window, that opened upon
the court, to enquire further. Here, she plainly heard his hoarse
accents, mingling with the blast, that swept by, but they were lost
again so quickly, that their meaning could not be interpreted; and then
the light of a torch, which seemed to issue from the portal below,
flashed across the court, and the long shadow of a man, who was under
the arch-way, appeared upon the pavement. Emily, from the hugeness of
this sudden portrait, concluded it to be that of Barnardine; but other
deep tones, which passed in the wind, soon convinced her he was not
alone, and that his companion was not a person very liable to pity.
When her spirits had overcome the first shock of her situation, she
held up the lamp to examine, if the chamber afforded a possibility of
an escape. It was a spacious room, whose walls, wainscoted with rough
oak, showed no casement but the grated one, which Emily had left, and
no other door than that, by which she had entered. The feeble rays of
the lamp, however, did not allow her to see at once its full extent;
she perceived no furniture, except, indeed, an iron chair, fastened in
the centre of the chamber, immediately over which, depending on a chain
from the ceiling, hung an iron ring. Having gazed upon these, for some
time, with wonder and horror, she next observed iron bars below, made
for the purpose of confining the feet, and on the arms of the chair
were rings of the same metal. As she continued to survey them, she
concluded, that they were instruments of torture, and it struck her,
that some poor wretch had once been fastened in this chair, and had
there been starved to death. She was chilled by the thought; but, what
was her agony, when, in the next moment, it occurred to her, that her
aunt might have been one of these victims, and that she herself might
be the next! An acute pain seized her head, she was scarcely able to
hold the lamp, and, looking round for support, was seating herself,
unconsciously, in the iron chair itself; but suddenly perceiving where
she was, she started from it in horror, and sprung towards a remote end
of the room. Here again she looked round for a seat to sustain her, and
perceived only a dark curtain, which, descending from the ceiling to
the floor, was drawn along the whole side of the chamber. Ill as she
was, the appearance of this curtain struck her, and she paused to gaze
upon it, in wonder and apprehension.
It seemed to conceal a recess of the chamber; she wished, yet dreaded,
to lift it, and to discover what it veiled: twice she was withheld by a
recollection of the terrible spectacle her daring hand had formerly
unveiled in an apartment of the castle, till, suddenly conjecturing,
that it concealed the body of her murdered aunt, she seized it, in a
fit of desperation, and drew it aside. Beyond, appeared a corpse,
stretched on a kind of low couch, which was crimsoned with human blood,
as was the floor beneath. The features, deformed by death, were ghastly
and horrible, and more than one livid wound appeared in the face.
Emily, bending over the body, gazed, for a moment, with an eager,
frenzied eye; but, in the next, the lamp dropped from her hand, and she
fell senseless at the foot of the couch.
When her senses returned, she found herself surrounded by men, among
whom was Barnardine, who were lifting her from the floor, and then bore
her along the chamber. She was sensible of what passed, but the extreme
languor of her spirits did not permit her to speak, or move, or even to
feel any distinct fear. They carried her down the staircase, by which
she had ascended; when, having reached the arch-way, they stopped, and
one of the men, taking the torch from Barnardine, opened a small door,
that was cut in the great gate, and, as he stepped out upon the road,
the light he bore showed several men on horseback, in waiting. Whether
it was the freshness of the air, that revived Emily, or that the
objects she now saw roused the spirit of alarm, she suddenly spoke, and
made an ineffectual effort to disengage herself from the grasp of the
ruffians, who held her.
Barnardine, meanwhile, called loudly for the torch, while distant
voices answered, and several persons approached, and, in the same
instant, a light flashed upon the court of the castle. Again he
vociferated for the torch, and the men hurried Emily through the gate.
At a short distance, under the shelter of the castle walls, she
perceived the fellow, who had taken the light from the porter, holding
it to a man, busily employed in altering the saddle of a horse, round
which were several horsemen, looking on, whose harsh features received
the full glare of the torch; while the broken ground beneath them, the
opposite walls, with the tufted shrubs, that overhung their summits,
and an embattled watch-tower above, were reddened with the gleam,
which, fading gradually away, left the remoter ramparts and the woods
below to the obscurity of night.
“What do you waste time for, there?” said Barnardine with an oath, as
he approached the horsemen. “Dispatch—dispatch!”
“The saddle will be ready in a minute,” replied the man who was
buckling it, at whom Barnardine now swore again, for his negligence,
and Emily, calling feebly for help, was hurried towards the horses,
while the ruffians disputed on which to place her, the one designed for
her not being ready. At this moment a cluster of lights issued from the
great gates, and she immediately heard the shrill voice of Annette
above those of several other persons, who advanced. In the same moment,
she distinguished Montoni and Cavigni, followed by a number of
ruffian-faced fellows, to whom she no longer looked with terror, but
with hope, for, at this instant, she did not tremble at the thought of
any dangers, that might await her within the castle, whence so lately,
and so anxiously she had wished to escape. Those, which threatened her
from without, had engrossed all her apprehensions.
A short contest ensued between the parties, in which that of Montoni,
however, were presently victors, and the horsemen, perceiving that
numbers were against them, and being, perhaps, not very warmly
interested in the affair they had undertaken, galloped off, while
Barnardine had run far enough to be lost in the darkness, and Emily was
led back into the castle. As she repassed the courts, the remembrance
of what she had seen in the portal-chamber came, with all its horror,
to her mind; and when, soon after, she heard the gate close, that shut
her once more within the castle walls, she shuddered for herself, and,
almost forgetting the danger she had escaped, could scarcely think,
that anything less precious than liberty and peace was to be found
beyond them.
Montoni ordered Emily to await him in the cedar parlour, whither he
soon followed, and then sternly questioned her on this mysterious
affair. Though she now viewed him with horror, as the murderer of her
aunt, and scarcely knew what she said in reply to his impatient
enquiries, her answers and her manner convinced him, that she had not
taken a voluntary part in the late scheme, and he dismissed her upon
the appearance of his servants, whom he had ordered to attend, that he
might enquire further into the affair, and discover those, who had been
accomplices in it.
Emily had been some time in her apartment, before the tumult of her
mind allowed her to remember several of the past circumstances. Then,
again, the dead form, which the curtain in the portal-chamber had
disclosed, came to her fancy, and she uttered a groan, which terrified
Annette the more, as Emily forbore to satisfy her curiosity, on the
subject of it, for she feared to trust her with so fatal a secret, lest
her indiscretion should call down the immediate vengeance of Montoni on
herself.
Thus compelled to bear within her own mind the whole horror of the
secret, that oppressed it, her reason seemed to totter under the
intolerable weight. She often fixed a wild and vacant look on Annette,
and, when she spoke, either did not hear her, or answered from the
purpose. Long fits of abstraction succeeded; Annette spoke repeatedly,
but her voice seemed not to make any impression on the sense of the
long agitated Emily, who sat fixed and silent, except that, now and
then, she heaved a heavy sigh, but without tears.
Terrified at her condition, Annette, at length, left the room, to
inform Montoni of it, who had just dismissed his servants, without
having made any discoveries on the subject of his enquiry. The wild
description, which this girl now gave of Emily, induced him to follow
her immediately to the chamber.
At the sound of his voice, Emily turned her eyes, and a gleam of
recollection seemed to shoot athwart her mind, for she immediately rose
from her seat, and moved slowly to a remote part of the room. He spoke
to her in accents somewhat softened from their usual harshness, but she
regarded him with a kind of half curious, half terrified look, and
answered only “yes,” to whatever he said. Her mind still seemed to
retain no other impression, than that of fear.
Of this disorder Annette could give no explanation, and Montoni, having
attempted, for some time, to persuade Emily to talk, retired, after
ordering Annette to remain with her, during the night, and to inform
him, in the morning, of her condition.
When he was gone, Emily again came forward, and asked who it was, that
had been there to disturb her. Annette said it was the Signor—Signor
Montoni. Emily repeated the name after her, several times, as if she
did not recollect it, and then suddenly groaned, and relapsed into
abstraction.
With some difficulty, Annette led her to the bed, which Emily examined
with an eager, frenzied eye, before she lay down, and then, pointing,
turned with shuddering emotion, to Annette, who, now more terrified,
went towards the door, that she might bring one of the female servants
to pass the night with them; but Emily, observing her going, called her
by name, and then in the naturally soft and plaintive tone of her
voice, begged, that she, too, would not forsake her.—“For since my
father died,” added she, sighing, “everybody forsakes me.”
“Your father, ma’amselle!” said Annette, “he was dead before you knew
me.”
“He was, indeed!” rejoined Emily, and her tears began to flow. She now
wept silently and long, after which, becoming quite calm, she at length
sunk to sleep, Annette having had discretion enough not to interrupt
her tears. This girl, as affectionate as she was simple, lost in these
moments all her former fears of remaining in the chamber, and watched
alone by Emily, during the whole night.
CHAPTER II
unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions, hold
Th’ immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook!
IL PENSEROSO
Emily’s mind was refreshed by sleep. On waking in the morning, she
looked with surprise on Annette, who sat sleeping in a chair beside the
bed, and then endeavoured to recollect herself; but the circumstances
of the preceding night were swept from her memory, which seemed to
retain no trace of what had passed, and she was still gazing with
surprise on Annette, when the latter awoke.
“O dear ma’amselle! do you know me?” cried she.
“Know you! Certainly,” replied Emily, “you are Annette; but why are you
sitting by me thus?”
“O you have been very ill, ma’amselle,—very ill indeed! and I am sure I
thought—”
“This is very strange!” said Emily, still trying to recollect the
past.—“But I think I do remember, that my fancy has been haunted by
frightful dreams. Good God!” she added, suddenly starting—“surely it
was nothing more than a dream!”
She fixed a terrified look upon Annette, who, intending to quiet her,
said “Yes, ma’amselle, it was more than a dream, but it is all over
now.”
“She _is_ murdered, then!” said Emily in an inward voice, and
shuddering instantaneously. Annette screamed; for, being ignorant of
the circumstance to which Emily referred, she attributed her manner to
a disordered fancy; but, when she had explained to what her own speech
alluded, Emily, recollecting the attempt that had been made to carry
her off, asked if the contriver of it had been discovered. Annette
replied, that he had not, though he might easily be guessed at; and
then told Emily she might thank her for her deliverance, who,
endeavouring to command the emotion, which the remembrance of her aunt
had occasioned, appeared calmly to listen to Annette, though, in truth,
she heard scarcely a word that was said.
“And so, ma’amselle,” continued the latter, “I was determined to be
even with Barnardine for refusing to tell me the secret, by finding it
out myself; so I watched you, on the terrace, and, as soon as he had
opened the door at the end, I stole out from the castle, to try to
follow you; for, says I, I am sure no good can be planned, or why all
this secrecy? So, sure enough, he had not bolted the door after him,
and, when I opened it, I saw, by the glimmer of the torch, at the other
end of the passage, which way you were going. I followed the light, at
a distance, till you came to the vaults of the chapel, and there I was
afraid to go further, for I had heard strange things about these
vaults. But then, again, I was afraid to go back, all in darkness, by
myself; so by the time Barnardine had trimmed the light, I had resolved
to follow you, and I did so, till you came to the great court, and
there I was afraid he would see me; so I stopped at the door again, and
watched you across to the gates, and, when you were gone up the stairs,
I whipt after. There, as I stood under the gateway, I heard horses’
feet without, and several men talking; and I heard them swearing at
Barnardine for not bringing you out, and just then, he had like to have
caught me, for he came down the stairs again, and I had hardly time to
get out of his way. But I had heard enough of his secret now, and I
determined to be even with him, and to save you, too, ma’amselle, for I
guessed it to be some new scheme of Count Morano, though he was gone
away. I ran into the castle, but I had hard work to find my way through
the passage under the chapel, and what is very strange, I quite forgot
to look for the ghosts they had told me about, though I would not go
into that place again by myself for all the world! Luckily the Signor
and Signor Cavigni were up, so we had soon a train at our heels,
sufficient to frighten that Barnardine and his rogues, all together.”
Annette ceased to speak, but Emily still appeared to listen. At length
she said, suddenly, “I think I will go to him myself;—where is he?”
Annette asked who was meant.
“Signor Montoni,” replied Emily. “I would speak with him;” and Annette,
now remembering the order he had given, on the preceding night,
respecting her young lady, rose, and said she would seek him herself.
This honest girl’s suspicions of Count Morano were perfectly just;
Emily, too, when she thought on the scheme, had attributed it to him;
and Montoni, who had not a doubt on this subject, also, began to
believe, that it was by the direction of Morano, that poison had
formerly been mingled with his wine.
The professions of repentance, which Morano had made to Emily, under
the anguish of his wound, was sincere at the moment he offered them;
but he had mistaken the subject of his sorrow, for, while he thought he
was condemning the cruelty of his late design, he was lamenting only
the state of suffering, to which it had reduced him. As these
sufferings abated, his former views revived, till, his health being
re-established, he again found himself ready for enterprise and
difficulty. The porter of the castle, who had served him, on a former
occasion, willingly accepted a second bribe; and, having concerted the
means of drawing Emily to the gates, Morano publicly left the hamlet,
whither he had been carried after the affray, and withdrew with his
people to another at several miles distance. From thence, on a night
agreed upon by Barnardine, who had discovered from the thoughtless
prattle of Annette, the most probable means of decoying Emily, the
Count sent back his servants to the castle, while he awaited her
arrival at the hamlet, with an intention of carrying her immediately to
Venice. How this, his second scheme, was frustrated, has already
appeared; but the violent, and various passions with which this Italian
lover was now agitated, on his return to that city, can only be
imagined.
Annette having made her report to Montoni of Emily’s health and of her
request to see him, he replied, that she might attend him in the cedar
room, in about an hour. It was on the subject, that pressed so heavily
on her mind, that Emily wished to speak to him, yet she did not
distinctly know what good purpose this could answer, and sometimes she
even recoiled in horror from the expectation of his presence. She
wished, also, to petition, though she scarcely dared to believe the
request would be granted, that he would permit her, since her aunt was
no more, to return to her native country.
As the moment of interview approached, her agitation increased so much,
that she almost resolved to excuse herself under what could scarcely be
called a pretence of illness; and, when she considered what could be
said, either concerning herself, or the fate of her aunt, she was
equally hopeless as to the event of her entreaty, and terrified as to
its effect upon the vengeful spirit of Montoni. Yet, to pretend
ignorance of her death, appeared, in some degree, to be sharing its
criminality, and, indeed, this event was the only ground, on which
Emily could rest her petition for leaving Udolpho.
While her thoughts thus wavered, a message was brought, importing, that
Montoni could not see her, till the next day; and her spirits were then
relieved, for a moment, from an almost intolerable weight of
apprehension. Annette said, she fancied the Chevaliers were going out
to the wars again, for the courtyard was filled with horses, and she
heard, that the rest of the party, who went out before, were expected
at the castle. “And I heard one of the soldiers, too,” added she, “say
to his comrade, that he would warrant they’d bring home a rare deal of
booty.—So, thinks I, if the Signor can, with a safe conscience, send
his people out a-robbing—why it is no business of mine. I only wish I
was once safe out of this castle; and, if it had not been for poor
Ludovico’s sake, I would have let Count Morano’s people run away with
us both, for it would have been serving you a good turn, ma’amselle, as
well as myself.”
Annette might have continued thus talking for hours for any
interruption she would have received from Emily, who was silent,
inattentive, absorbed in thought, and passed the whole of this day in a
kind of solemn tranquillity, such as is often the result of faculties
overstrained by suffering.
When night returned, Emily recollected the mysterious strains of music,
that she had lately heard, in which she still felt some degree of
interest, and of which she hoped to hear again the soothing sweetness.
The influence of superstition now gained on the weakness of her
long-harassed mind; she looked, with enthusiastic expectation, to the
guardian spirit of her father, and, having dismissed Annette for the
night, determined to watch alone for their return. It was not yet,
however, near the time when she had heard the music on a former night,
and anxious to call off her thoughts from distressing subjects, she sat
down with one of the few books, that she had brought from France; but
her mind, refusing control, became restless and agitated, and she went
often to the casement to listen for a sound. Once, she thought she
heard a voice, but then, everything without the casement remaining
still, she concluded, that her fancy had deceived her.
Thus passed the time, till twelve o’clock, soon after which the distant
sounds, that murmured through the castle, ceased, and sleep seemed to
reign over all. Emily then seated herself at the casement, where she
was soon recalled from the reverie, into which she sunk, by very
unusual sounds, not of music, but like the low mourning of some person
in distress. As she listened, her heart faltered in terror, and she
became convinced, that the former sound was more than imaginary. Still,
at intervals, she heard a kind of feeble lamentation, and sought to
discover whence it came. There were several rooms underneath, adjoining
the rampart, which had been long shut up, and, as the sound probably
rose from one of these, she leaned from the casement to observe,
whether any light was visible there. The chambers, as far as she could
perceive, were quite dark, but, at a little distance, on the rampart
below, she thought she saw something moving.
The faint twilight, which the stars shed, did not enable her to
distinguish what it was; but she judged it to be a sentinel, on watch,
and she removed her light to a remote part of the chamber, that she
might escape notice, during her further observation.
The same object still appeared. Presently, it advanced along the
rampart, towards her window, and she then distinguished something like
a human form, but the silence, with which it moved, convinced her it
was no sentinel. As it drew near, she hesitated whether to retire; a
thrilling curiosity inclined her to stay, but a dread of she scarcely
knew what warned her to withdraw.
While she paused, the figure came opposite to her casement, and was
stationary. Everything remained quiet; she had not heard even a
foot-fall; and the solemnity of this silence, with the mysterious form
she saw, subdued her spirits, so that she was moving from the casement,
when, on a sudden, she observed the figure start away, and glide down
the rampart, after which it was soon lost in the obscurity of night.
Emily continued to gaze, for some time, on the way it had passed, and
then retired within her chamber, musing on this strange circumstance,
and scarcely doubting, that she had witnessed a supernatural
appearance.
When her spirits recovered composure, she looked round for some other
explanation. Remembering what she had heard of the daring enterprises
of Montoni, it occurred to her, that she had just seen some unhappy
person, who, having been plundered by his banditti, was brought hither
a captive; and that the music she had formerly heard, came from him.
Yet, if they had plundered him, it still appeared improbable, that they
should have brought him to the castle, and it was also more consistent
with the manners of banditti to murder those they rob, than to make
them prisoners. But what, more than any other circumstance,
contradicted the supposition, that it was a prisoner, was that it
wandered on the terrace, without a guard: a consideration, which made
her dismiss immediately her first surmise.
Afterwards, she was inclined to believe, that Count Morano had obtained
admittance into the castle; but she soon recollected the difficulties
and dangers, that must have opposed such an enterprise, and that, if he
had so far succeeded, to come alone and in silence to her casement at
midnight was not the conduct he would have adopted, particularly since
the private staircase, communicating with her apartment, was known to
him; neither would he have uttered the dismal sounds she had heard.
Another suggestion represented, that this might be some person, who had
designs upon the castle; but the mournful sounds destroyed, also, that
probability. Thus, enquiry only perplexed her. Who, or what, it could
be that haunted this lonely hour, complaining in such doleful accents
and in such sweet music (for she was still inclined to believe, that
the former strains and the late appearance were connected), she had no
means of ascertaining; and imagination again assumed her empire, and
roused the mysteries of superstition.
She determined, however, to watch on the following night, when her
doubts might, perhaps, be cleared up; and she almost resolved to
address the figure, if it should appear again.
CHAPTER III
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting, by a new-made grave.
MILTON
On the following day, Montoni sent a second excuse to Emily, who was
surprised at the circumstance. “This is very strange!” said she to
herself. “His conscience tells him the purport of my visit, and he
defers it, to avoid an explanation.” She now almost resolved to throw
herself in his way, but terror checked the intention, and this day
passed, as the preceding one, with Emily, except that a degree of awful
expectation, concerning the approaching night, now somewhat disturbed
the dreadful calmness that had pervaded her mind.
Towards evening, the second part of the band, which had made the first
excursion among the mountains, returned to the castle, where, as they
entered the courts, Emily, in her remote chamber, heard their loud
shouts and strains of exultation, like the orgies of furies over some
horrid sacrifice. She even feared they were about to commit some
barbarous deed; a conjecture from which, however, Annette soon relieved
her, by telling, that the people were only exulting over the plunder
they had brought with them. This circumstance still further confirmed
her in the belief, that Montoni had really commenced to be a captain of
banditti, and meant to retrieve his broken fortunes by the plunder of
travellers! Indeed, when she considered all the circumstances of his
situation—in an armed, and almost inaccessible castle, retired far
among the recesses of wild and solitary mountains, along whose distant
skirts were scattered towns, and cities, whither wealthy travellers
were continually passing—this appeared to be the situation of all
others most suited for the success of schemes of rapine, and she
yielded to the strange thought, that Montoni was become a captain of
robbers. His character also, unprincipled, dauntless, cruel and
enterprising, seemed to fit him for the situation. Delighting in the
tumult and in the struggles of life, he was equally a stranger to pity
and to fear; his very courage was a sort of animal ferocity; not the
noble impulse of a principle, such as inspirits the mind against the
oppressor, in the cause of the oppressed; but a constitutional
hardiness of nerve, that cannot feel, and that, therefore, cannot fear.
Emily’s supposition, however natural, was in part erroneous, for she
was a stranger to the state of this country and to the circumstances,
under which its frequent wars were partly conducted. The revenues of
the many states of Italy being, at that time, insufficient to the
support of standing armies, even during the short periods, which the
turbulent habits both of the governments and the people permitted to
pass in peace, an order of men arose not known in our age, and but
faintly described in the history of their own. Of the soldiers,
disbanded at the end of every war, few returned to the safe, but
unprofitable occupations, then usual in peace. Sometimes they passed
into other countries, and mingled with armies, which still kept the
field. Sometimes they formed themselves into bands of robbers, and
occupied remote fortresses, where their desperate character, the
weakness of the governments which they offended, and the certainty,
that they could be recalled to the armies, when their presence should
be again wanted, prevented them from being much pursued by the civil
power; and, sometimes, they attached themselves to the fortunes of a
popular chief, by whom they were led into the service of any state,
which could settle with him the price of their valour. From this latter
practice arose their name—_Condottieri_; a term formidable all over
Italy, for a period, which concluded in the earlier part of the
seventeenth century, but of which it is not so easy to ascertain the
commencement.
Contests between the smaller states were then, for the most part,
affairs of enterprise alone, and the probabilities of success were
estimated, not from the skill, but from the personal courage of the
general, and the soldiers. The ability, which was necessary to the
conduct of tedious operations, was little valued. It was enough to know
how a party might be led towards their enemies, with the greatest
secrecy, or conducted from them in the compactest order. The officer
was to precipitate himself into a situation, where, but for his
example, the soldiers might not have ventured; and, as the opposed
parties knew little of each other’s strength, the event of the day was
frequently determined by the boldness of the first movements. In such
services the _Condottieri_ were eminent, and in these, where plunder
always followed success, their characters acquired a mixture of
intrepidity and profligacy, which awed even those whom they served.
When they were not thus engaged, their chief had usually his own
fortress, in which, or in its neighbourhood, they enjoyed an irksome
rest; and, though their wants were, at one time, partly supplied from
the property of the inhabitants, the lavish distribution of their
plunder at others, prevented them from being obnoxious; and the
peasants of such districts gradually shared the character of their
warlike visitors. The neighbouring governments sometimes professed, but
seldom endeavoured, to suppress these military communities; both
because it was difficult to do so, and because a disguised protection
of them ensured, for the service of their wars, a body of men, who
could not otherwise be so cheaply maintained, or so perfectly
qualified. The commanders sometimes even relied so far upon this policy
of the several powers, as to frequent their capitals; and Montoni,
having met them in the gaming parties of Venice and Padua, conceived a
desire to emulate their characters, before his ruined fortunes tempted
him to adopt their practices. It was for the arrangement of his present
plan of life, that the midnight councils were held at his mansion in
Venice, and at which Orsino and some other members of the present
community then assisted with suggestions, which they had since executed
with the wreck of their fortunes.
On the return of night, Emily resumed her station at the casement.
There was now a moon; and, as it rose over the tufted woods, its yellow
light served to show the lonely terrace and the surrounding objects,
more distinctly, than the twilight of the stars had done, and promised
Emily to assist her observations, should the mysterious form return. On
this subject, she again wavered in conjecture, and hesitated whether to
speak to the figure, to which a strong and almost irresistible interest
urged her; but terror, at intervals, made her reluctant to do so.
“If this is a person who has designs upon the castle,” said she, “my
curiosity may prove fatal to me; yet the mysterious music, and the
lamentations I heard, must surely have proceeded from him: if so, he
cannot be an enemy.”
She then thought of her unfortunate aunt, and, shuddering with grief
and horror, the suggestions of imagination seized her mind with all the
force of truth, and she believed, that the form she had seen was
supernatural. She trembled, breathed with difficulty, an icy coldness
touched her cheeks, and her fears for a while overcame her judgment.
Her resolution now forsook her, and she determined, if the figure
should appear, not to speak to it.
Thus the time passed, as she sat at her casement, awed by expectation,
and by the gloom and stillness of midnight; for she saw obscurely in
the moonlight only the mountains and woods, a cluster of towers, that
formed the west angle of the castle, and the terrace below; and heard
no sound, except, now and then, the lonely watch-word, passed by the
sentinels on duty, and afterwards the steps of the men who came to
relieve guard, and whom she knew at a distance on the rampart by their
pikes, that glittered in the moonbeam, and then, by the few short
words, in which they hailed their fellows of the night. Emily retired
within her chamber, while they passed the casement. When she returned
to it, all was again quiet. It was now very late, she was wearied with
watching, and began to doubt the reality of what she had seen on the
preceding night; but she still lingered at the window, for her mind was
too perturbed to admit of sleep. The moon shone with a clear lustre,
that afforded her a complete view of the terrace; but she saw only a
solitary sentinel, pacing at one end of it; and, at length, tired with
expectation, she withdrew to seek rest.
Such, however, was the impression, left on her mind by the music, and
the complaining she had formerly heard, as well as by the figure, which
she fancied she had seen, that she determined to repeat the watch, on
the following night.
Montoni, on the next day, took no notice of Emily’s appointed visit,
but she, more anxious than before to see him, sent Annette to enquire,
at what hour he would admit her. He mentioned eleven o’clock, and Emily
was punctual to the moment; at which she called up all her fortitude to
support the shock of his presence and the dreadful recollections it
enforced. He was with several of his officers, in the cedar room; on
observing whom she paused; and her agitation increased, while he
continued to converse with them, apparently not observing her, till
some of his officers, turning round, saw Emily, and uttered an
exclamation. She was hastily retiring, when Montoni’s voice arrested
her, and, in a faultering accent, she said,—“I would speak with you,
Signor Montoni, if you are at leisure.”
“These are my friends,” he replied, “whatever you would say, they may
hear.”
Emily, without replying, turned from the rude gaze of the chevaliers,
and Montoni then followed her to the hall, whence he led her to a small
room, of which he shut the door with violence. As she looked on his
dark countenance, she again thought she saw the murderer of her aunt;
and her mind was so convulsed with horror, that she had not power to
recall thought enough to explain the purport of her visit; and to trust
herself with the mention of Madame Montoni was more than she dared.
Montoni at length impatiently enquired what she had to say? “I have no
time for trifling,” he added, “my moments are important.”
Emily then told him, that she wished to return to France, and came to
beg, that he would permit her to do so.—But when he looked surprised,
and enquired for the motive of the request, she hesitated, became paler
than before, trembled, and had nearly sunk at his feet. He observed her
emotion, with apparent indifference, and interrupted the silence by
telling her, he must be gone. Emily, however, recalled her spirits
sufficiently to enable her to repeat her request. And, when Montoni
absolutely refused it, her slumbering mind was roused.
“I can no longer remain here with propriety, sir,” said she, “and I may
be allowed to ask, by what right you detain me.”
“It is my will that you remain here,” said Montoni, laying his hand on
the door to go; “let that suffice you.”
Emily, considering that she had no appeal from this will, forbore to
dispute his right, and made a feeble effort to persuade him to be just.
“While my aunt lived, sir,” said she, in a tremulous voice, “my
residence here was not improper; but now, that she is no more, I may
surely be permitted to depart. My stay cannot benefit you, sir, and
will only distress me.”
“Who told you, that Madame Montoni was dead?” said Montoni, with an
inquisitive eye. Emily hesitated, for nobody had told her so, and she
did not dare to avow the having seen that spectacle in the
portal-chamber, which had compelled her to the belief.
“Who told you so?” he repeated, more sternly.
“Alas! I know it too well,” replied Emily: “spare me on this terrible
subject!”
She sat down on a bench to support herself.
“If you wish to see her,” said Montoni, “you may; she lies in the east
turret.”
He now left the room, without awaiting her reply, and returned to the
cedar chamber, where such of the chevaliers as had not before seen
Emily, began to rally him, on the discovery they had made; but Montoni
did not appear disposed to bear this mirth, and they changed the
subject.
Having talked with the subtle Orsino, on the plan of an excursion,
which he meditated for a future day, his friend advised, that they
should lie in wait for the enemy, which Verezzi impetuously opposed,
reproached Orsino with want of spirit, and swore, that, if Montoni
would let him lead on fifty men, he would conquer all that should
oppose him.
Orsino smiled contemptuously; Montoni smiled too, but he also listened.
Verezzi then proceeded with vehement declamation and assertion, till he
was stopped by an argument of Orsino, which he knew not how to answer
better than by invective. His fierce spirit detested the cunning
caution of Orsino, whom he constantly opposed, and whose inveterate,
though silent, hatred he had long ago incurred. And Montoni was a calm
observer of both, whose different qualifications he knew, and how to
bend their opposite character to the perfection of his own designs. But
Verezzi, in the heat of opposition, now did not scruple to accuse
Orsino of cowardice, at which the countenance of the latter, while he
made no reply, was overspread with a livid paleness; and Montoni, who
watched his lurking eye, saw him put his hand hastily into his bosom.
But Verezzi, whose face, glowing with crimson, formed a striking
contrast to the complexion of Orsino, remarked not the action, and
continued boldly declaiming against cowards to Cavigni, who was slily
laughing at his vehemence, and at the silent mortification of Orsino,
when the latter, retiring a few steps behind, drew forth a stilletto to
stab his adversary in the back. Montoni arrested his half-extended arm,
and, with a significant look, made him return the poniard into his
bosom, unseen by all except himself; for most of the party were
disputing at a distant window, on the situation of a dell where they
meant to form an ambuscade.
When Verezzi had turned round, the deadly hatred, expressed on the
features of his opponent, raising, for the first time, a suspicion of
his intention, he laid his hand on his sword, and then, seeming to
recollect himself, strode up to Montoni.
“Signor,” said he, with a significant look at Orsino, “we are not a
band of assassins; if you have business for brave men, employ me on
this expedition: you shall have the last drop of my blood; if you have
only work for cowards—keep him,” pointing to Orsino, “and let me quit
Udolpho.”
Orsino, still more incensed, again drew forth his stilletto, and rushed
towards Verezzi, who, at the same instant, advanced with his sword,
when Montoni and the rest of the party interfered and separated them.
“This is the conduct of a boy,” said Montoni to Verezzi, “not of a man:
be more moderate in your speech.”
“Moderation is the virtue of cowards,” retorted Verezzi; “they are
moderate in everything—but in fear.”
“I accept your words,” said Montoni, turning upon him with a fierce and
haughty look, and drawing his sword out of the scabbard.
“With all my heart,” cried Verezzi, “though I did not mean them for
you.”
He directed a pass at Montoni; and, while they fought, the villain
Orsino made another attempt to stab Verezzi, and was again prevented.
The combatants were, at length, separated; and, after a very long and
violent dispute, reconciled. Montoni then left the room with Orsino,
whom he detained in private consultation for a considerable time.
Emily, meanwhile, stunned by the last words of Montoni, forgot, for the
moment, his declaration, that she should continue in the castle, while
she thought of her unfortunate aunt, who, he had said, was laid in the
east turret. In suffering the remains of his wife to lie thus long
unburied, there appeared a degree of brutality more shocking than she
had suspected even Montoni could practise.
After a long struggle, she determined to accept his permission to visit
the turret, and to take a last look of her ill-fated aunt: with which
design she returned to her chamber, and, while she waited for Annette
to accompany her, endeavoured to acquire fortitude sufficient to
support her through the approaching scene; for, though she trembled to
encounter it, she knew that to remember the performance of this last
act of duty would hereafter afford her consoling satisfaction.
Annette came, and Emily mentioned her purpose, from which the former
endeavoured to dissuade her, though without effect, and Annette was,
with much difficulty, prevailed upon to accompany her to the turret;
but no consideration could make her promise to enter the chamber of
death.
They now left the corridor, and, having reached the foot of the
staircase, which Emily had formerly ascended, Annette declared she
would go no further, and Emily proceeded alone. When she saw the track
of blood, which she had before observed, her spirits fainted, and,
being compelled to rest on the stairs, she almost determined to proceed
no further. The pause of a few moments restored her resolution, and she
went on.
As she drew near the landing-place, upon which the upper chamber
opened, she remembered, that the door was formerly fastened, and
apprehended, that it might still be so. In this expectation, however,
she was mistaken; for the door opened at once, into a dusky and silent
chamber, round which she fearfully looked, and then slowly advanced,
when a hollow voice spoke. Emily, who was unable to speak, or to move
from the spot, uttered no sound of terror. The voice spoke again; and,
then, thinking that it resembled that of Madame Montoni, Emily’s
spirits were instantly roused; she rushed towards a bed, that stood in
a remote part of the room, and drew aside the curtains. Within,
appeared a pale and emaciated face. She started back, then again
advanced, shuddered as she took up the skeleton hand, that lay
stretched upon the quilt; then let it drop, and then viewed the face
with a long, unsettled gaze. It was that of Madame Montoni, though so
changed by illness, that the resemblance of what it had been, could
scarcely be traced in what it now appeared. She was still alive, and,
raising her heavy eyes, she turned them on her niece.
“Where have you been so long?” said she, in the same tone, “I thought
you had forsaken me.”
“Do you indeed live,” said Emily, at length, “or is this but a terrible
apparition?” She received no answer, and again she snatched up the
hand. “This is substance,” she exclaimed, “but it is cold—cold as
marble!” She let it fall. “O, if you really live, speak!” said Emily,
in a voice of desperation, “that I may not lose my senses—say you know
me!”
“I do live,” replied Madame Montoni, “but—I feel that I am about to
die.”
Emily clasped the hand she held, more eagerly, and groaned. They were
both silent for some moments. Then Emily endeavoured to soothe her, and
enquired what had reduced her to this present deplorable state.
Montoni, when he removed her to the turret under the improbable
suspicion of having attempted his life, had ordered the men employed on
the occasion, to observe a strict secrecy concerning her. To this he
was influenced by a double motive. He meant to debar her from the
comfort of Emily’s visits, and to secure an opportunity of privately
dispatching her, should any new circumstances occur to confirm the
present suggestions of his suspecting mind. His consciousness of the
hatred he deserved it was natural enough should at first lead him to
attribute to her the attempt that had been made upon his life; and,
though there was no other reason to believe that she was concerned in
that atrocious design, his suspicions remained; he continued to confine
her in the turret, under a strict guard; and, without pity or remorse,
had suffered her to lie, forlorn and neglected, under a raging fever,
till it had reduced her to the present state.
The track of blood, which Emily had seen on the stairs, had flowed from
the unbound wound of one of the men employed to carry Madame Montoni,
and which he had received in the late affray. At night these men,
having contented themselves with securing the door of their prisoner’s
room, had retired from guard; and then it was, that Emily, at the time
of her first enquiry, had found the turret so silent and deserted.
When she had attempted to open the door of the chamber, her aunt was
sleeping, and this occasioned the silence, which had contributed to
delude her into a belief, that she was no more; yet had her terror
permitted her to persevere longer in the call, she would probably have
awakened Madame Montoni, and have been spared much suffering. The
spectacle in the portal-chamber, which afterwards confirmed Emily’s
horrible suspicion, was the corpse of a man, who had fallen in the
affray, and the same which had been borne into the servants’ hall,
where she took refuge from the tumult. This man had lingered under his
wounds for some days; and, soon after his death, his body had been
removed on the couch, on which he died, for interment in the vault
beneath the chapel, through which Emily and Barnardine had passed to
the chamber.
Emily, after asking Madame Montoni a thousand questions concerning
herself, left her, and sought Montoni; for the more solemn interest she
felt for her aunt, made her now regardless of the resentment her
remonstrances might draw upon herself, and of the improbability of his
granting what she meant to entreat.
“Madame Montoni is now dying, sir,” said Emily, as soon as she saw
him—“Your resentment, surely will not pursue her to the last moment!
Suffer her to be removed from that forlorn room to her own apartment,
and to have necessary comforts administered.”
“Of what service will that be, if she is dying?” said Montoni, with
apparent indifference.
“The service, at leave, of saving you, sir, from a few of those pangs
of conscience you must suffer, when you shall be in the same
situation,” said Emily, with imprudent indignation, of which Montoni
soon made her sensible, by commanding her to quit his presence. Then,
forgetting her resentment, and impressed only by compassion for the
piteous state of her aunt, dying without succour, she submitted to
humble herself to Montoni, and to adopt every persuasive means, that
might induce him to relent towards his wife.
For a considerable time he was proof against all she said, and all she
looked; but at length the divinity of pity, beaming in Emily’s eyes,
seemed to touch his heart. He turned away, ashamed of his better
feelings, half sullen and half relenting; but finally consented, that
his wife should be removed to her own apartment, and that Emily should
attend her. Dreading equally, that this relief might arrive too late,
and that Montoni might retract his concession, Emily scarcely staid to
thank him for it, but, assisted by Annette, she quickly prepared Madame
Montoni’s bed, and they carried her a cordial, that might enable her
feeble frame to sustain the fatigue of a removal.
Madame was scarcely arrived in her own apartment, when an order was
given by her husband, that she should remain in the turret; but Emily,
thankful that she had made such dispatch, hastened to inform him of it,
as well as that a second removal would instantly prove fatal, and he
suffered his wife to continue where she was.
During this day, Emily never left Madame Montoni, except to prepare
such little nourishing things as she judged necessary to sustain her,
and which Madame Montoni received with quiet acquiescence, though she
seemed sensible that they could not save her from approaching
dissolution, and scarcely appeared to wish for life. Emily meanwhile
watched over her with the most tender solicitude, no longer seeing her
imperious aunt in the poor object before her, but the sister of her
late beloved father, in a situation that called for all her compassion
and kindness. When night came, she determined to sit up with her aunt,
but this the latter positively forbade, commanding her to retire to
rest, and Annette alone to remain in her chamber. Rest was, indeed,
necessary to Emily, whose spirits and frame were equally wearied by the
occurrences and exertions of the day; but she would not leave Madame
Montoni, till after the turn of midnight, a period then thought so
critical by the physicians.
Soon after twelve, having enjoined Annette to be wakeful, and to call
her, should any change appear for the worse, Emily sorrowfully bade
Madame Montoni good night, and withdrew to her chamber. Her spirits
were more than usually depressed by the piteous condition of her aunt,
whose recovery she scarcely dared to expect. To her own misfortunes she
saw no period, inclosed as she was, in a remote castle, beyond the
reach of any friends, had she possessed such, and beyond the pity even
of strangers; while she knew herself to be in the power of a man
capable of any action, which his interest, or his ambition, might
suggest.
Occupied by melancholy reflections and by anticipations as sad, she did
not retire immediately to rest, but leaned thoughtfully on her open
casement. The scene before her of woods and mountains, reposing in the
moonlight, formed a regretted contrast with the state of her mind; but
the lonely murmur of these woods, and the view of this sleeping
landscape, gradually soothed her emotions and softened her to tears.
She continued to weep, for some time, lost to everything, but to a
gentle sense of her misfortunes. When she, at length, took the
handkerchief from her eyes, she perceived, before her, on the terrace
below, the figure she had formerly observed, which stood fixed and
silent, immediately opposite to her casement. On perceiving it, she
started back, and terror for some time overcame curiosity;—at length,
she returned to the casement, and still the figure was before it, which
she now compelled herself to observe, but was utterly unable to speak,
as she had formerly intended. The moon shone with a clear light, and it
was, perhaps, the agitation of her mind, that prevented her
distinguishing, with any degree of accuracy, the form before her. It
was still stationary, and she began to doubt, whether it was really
animated.
Her scattered thoughts were now so far returned as to remind her, that
her light exposed her to dangerous observation, and she was stepping
back to remove it, when she perceived the figure move, and then wave
what seemed to be its arm, as if to beckon her; and, while she gazed,
fixed in fear, it repeated the action. She now attempted to speak, but
the words died on her lips, and she went from the casement to remove
her light; as she was doing which, she heard, from without, a faint
groan. Listening, but not daring to return, she presently heard it
repeated.
“Good God!—what can this mean!” said she.
Again she listened, but the sound came no more; and, after a long
interval of silence, she recovered courage enough to go to the
casement, when she again saw the same appearance! It beckoned again,
and again uttered a low sound.
“That groan was surely human!” said she. “I _will_ speak.” “Who is it,”
cried Emily in a faint voice, “that wanders at this late hour?”
The figure raised its head but suddenly started away, and glided down
the terrace. She watched it, for a long while, passing swiftly in the
moonlight, but heard no footstep, till a sentinel from the other
extremity of the rampart walked slowly along. The man stopped under her
window, and, looking up, called her by name. She was retiring
precipitately, but, a second summons inducing her to reply, the soldier
then respectfully asked if she had seen anything pass. On her
answering, that she had; he said no more, but walked away down the
terrace, Emily following him with her eyes, till he was lost in the
distance. But, as he was on guard, she knew he could not go beyond the
rampart, and, therefore, resolved to await his return.
Soon after, his voice was heard, at a distance, calling loudly; and
then a voice still more distant answered, and, in the next moment, the
watch-word was given, and passed along the terrace. As the soldiers
moved hastily under the casement, she called to enquire what had
happened, but they passed without regarding her.
Emily’s thoughts returning to the figure she had seen, “It cannot be a
person, who has designs upon the castle,” said she; “such a one would
conduct himself very differently. He would not venture where sentinels
were on watch, nor fix himself opposite to a window, where he perceived
he must be observed; much less would he beckon, or utter a sound of
complaint. Yet it cannot be a prisoner, for how could he obtain the
opportunity to wander thus?”
If she had been subject to vanity, she might have supposed this figure
to be some inhabitant of the castle, who wandered under her casement in
the hope of seeing her, and of being allowed to declare his admiration;
but this opinion never occurred to Emily, and, if it had, she would
have dismissed it as improbable, on considering, that, when the
opportunity of speaking had occurred, it had been suffered to pass in
silence; and that, even at the moment in which she had spoken, the form
had abruptly quitted the place.
While she mused, two sentinels walked up the rampart in earnest
conversation, of which she caught a few words, and learned from these,
that one of their comrades had fallen down senseless. Soon after, three
other soldiers appeared slowly advancing from the bottom of the
terrace, but she heard only a low voice, that came at intervals. As
they drew near, she perceived this to be the voice of him, who walked
in the middle, apparently supported by his comrades; and she again
called to them, enquiring what had happened. At the sound of her voice,
they stopped, and looked up, while she repeated her question, and was
told, that Roberto, their fellow of the watch, had been seized with a
fit, and that his cry, as he fell, had caused a false alarm.
“Is he subject to fits?” said Emily.
“Yes, Signora,” replied Roberto; “but if I had not, what I saw was
enough to have frightened the Pope himself.”
“What was it?” enquired Emily, trembling.
“I cannot tell what it was, lady, or what I saw, or how it vanished,”
replied the soldier, who seemed to shudder at the recollection.
“Was it the person, whom you followed down the rampart, that has
occasioned you this alarm?” said Emily, endeavouring to conceal her
own.
“Person!” exclaimed the man,—“it was the devil, and this is not the
first time I have seen him!”
“Nor will it be the last,” observed one of his comrades, laughing.
“No, no, I warrant not,” said another.
“Well,” rejoined Roberto, “you may be as merry now, as you please; you
were none so jocose the other night, Sebastian, when you were on watch
with Launcelot.”
“Launcelot need not talk of that,” replied Sebastian, “let him remember
how he stood trembling, and unable to give the _word_, till the man was
gone. If the man had not come so silently upon us, I would have seized
him, and soon made him tell who he was.”
“What man?” enquired Emily.
“It was no man, lady,” said Launcelot, who stood by, “but the devil
himself, as my comrade says. What man, who does not live in the castle,
could get within the walls at midnight? Why, I might just as well
pretend to march to Venice, and get among all the Senators, when they
are counselling; and I warrant I should have more chance of getting out
again alive, than any fellow, that we should catch within the gates
after dark. So I think I have proved plainly enough, that this can be
nobody that lives out of the castle; and now I will prove, that it can
be nobody that lives in the castle—for, if he did—why should he be
afraid to be seen? So after this, I hope nobody will pretend to tell me
it was anybody. No, I say again, by holy Pope! it was the devil, and
Sebastian, there, knows this is not the first time we have seen him.”
“When did you see the figure, then, before?” said Emily half smiling,
who, though she thought the conversation somewhat too much, felt an
interest, which would not permit her to conclude it.
“About a week ago, lady,” said Sebastian, taking up the story.
“And where?”
“On the rampart, lady, higher up.”
“Did you pursue it, that it fled?”
“No, Signora. Launcelot and I were on watch together, and everything
was so still, you might have heard a mouse stir, when, suddenly,
Launcelot says—Sebastian! do you see nothing? I turned my head a little
to the left, as it might be—thus. No, says I. Hush! said
Launcelot,—look yonder—just by the last cannon on the rampart! I
looked, and then thought I did see something move; but there being no
light, but what the stars gave, I could not be certain. We stood quite
silent, to watch it, and presently saw something pass along the castle
wall just opposite to us!”
“Why did you not seize it, then?” cried a soldier, who had scarcely
spoken till now.
“Aye, why did you not seize it?” said Roberto.
“You should have been there to have done that,” replied Sebastian. “You
would have been bold enough to have taken it by the throat, though it
had been the devil himself; we could not take such a liberty, perhaps,
because we are not so well acquainted with him, as you are. But, as I
was saying, it stole by us so quickly, that we had not time to get rid
of our surprise, before it was gone. Then, we knew it was in vain to
follow. We kept constant watch all that night, but we saw it no more.
Next morning, we told some of our comrades, who were on duty on other
parts of the ramparts, what we had seen; but they had seen nothing, and
laughed at us, and it was not till tonight, that the same figure walked
again.”
“Where did you lose it, friend?” said Emily to Roberto.
“When I left you, lady,” replied the man, “you might see me go down the
rampart, but it was not till I reached the east terrace, that I saw
anything. Then, the moon shining bright, I saw something like a shadow
flitting before me, as it were, at some distance. I stopped, when I
turned the corner of the east tower, where I had seen this figure not a
moment before,—but it was gone! As I stood, looking through the old
arch which leads to the east rampart, and where I am sure it had
passed, I heard, all of a sudden, such a sound!—it was not like a
groan, or a cry, or a shout, or anything I ever heard in my life. I
heard it only once, and that was enough for me; for I know nothing that
happened after, till I found my comrades, here, about me.”
“Come,” said Sebastian, “let us go to our posts—the moon is setting.
Good night, lady!”
“Aye, let us go,” rejoined Roberto. “Good night, lady.”
“Good night; the holy mother guard you!” said Emily, as she closed her
casement and retired to reflect upon the strange circumstance that had
just occurred, connecting which with what had happened on former
nights, she endeavoured to derive from the whole something more
positive, than conjecture. But her imagination was inflamed, while her
judgment was not enlightened, and the terrors of superstition again
pervaded her mind.
CHAPTER IV
There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights, seen by the watch.
JULIUS CÆSAR
In the morning, Emily found Madame Montoni nearly in the same
condition, as on the preceding night; she had slept little, and that
little had not refreshed her; she smiled on her niece, and seemed
cheered by her presence, but spoke only a few words, and never named
Montoni, who, however, soon after, entered the room. His wife, when she
understood that he was there, appeared much agitated, but was entirely
silent, till Emily rose from a chair at the bedside, when she begged,
in a feeble voice, that she would not leave her.
The visit of Montoni was not to sooth his wife, whom he knew to be
dying, or to console, or to ask her forgiveness, but to make a last
effort to procure that signature, which would transfer her estates in
Languedoc, after her death, to him rather than to Emily. This was a
scene, that exhibited, on his part, his usual inhumanity, and, on that
of Madame Montoni, a persevering spirit, contending with a feeble
frame; while Emily repeatedly declared to him her willingness to resign
all claim to those estates, rather than that the last hours of her aunt
should be disturbed by contention. Montoni, however, did not leave the
room, till his wife, exhausted by the obstinate dispute, had fainted,
and she lay so long insensible, that Emily began to fear that the spark
of life was extinguished. At length, she revived, and, looking feebly
up at her niece, whose tears were falling over her, made an effort to
speak, but her words were unintelligible, and Emily again apprehended
she was dying. Afterwards, however, she recovered her speech, and,
being somewhat restored by a cordial, conversed for a considerable
time, on the subject of her estates in France, with clearness and
precision. She directed her niece where to find some papers relative to
them, which she had hitherto concealed from the search of Montoni, and
earnestly charged her never to suffer these papers to escape her.
Soon after this conversation, Madame Montoni sunk into a dose, and
continued slumbering, till evening, when she seemed better than she had
been since her removal from the turret. Emily never left her, for a
moment, till long after midnight, and even then would not have quitted
the room, had not her aunt entreated, that she would retire to rest.
She then obeyed, the more willingly, because her patient appeared
somewhat recruited by sleep; and, giving Annette the same injunction,
as on the preceding night, she withdrew to her own apartment. But her
spirits were wakeful and agitated, and, finding it impossible to sleep,
she determined to watch, once more, for the mysterious appearance, that
had so much interested and alarmed her.
It was now the second watch of the night, and about the time when the
figure had before appeared. Emily heard the passing steps of the
sentinels, on the rampart, as they changed guard; and, when all was
again silent, she took her station at the casement, leaving her lamp in
a remote part of the chamber, that she might escape notice from
without. The moon gave a faint and uncertain light, for heavy vapours
surrounded it, and, often rolling over the disk, left the scene below
in total darkness. It was in one of these moments of obscurity, that
she observed a small and lambent flame, moving at some distance on the
terrace. While she gazed, it disappeared, and, the moon again emerging
from the lurid and heavy thunder clouds, she turned her attention to
the heavens, where the vivid lightnings darted from cloud to cloud, and
flashed silently on the woods below. She loved to catch, in the
momentary gleam, the gloomy landscape. Sometimes, a cloud opened its
light upon a distant mountain, and, while the sudden splendour
illumined all its recesses of rock and wood, the rest of the scene
remained in deep shadow; at others, partial features of the castle were
revealed by the glimpse—the ancient arch leading to the east rampart,
the turret above, or the fortifications beyond; and then, perhaps, the
whole edifice with all its towers, its dark massy walls and pointed
casements would appear, and vanish in an instant.
Emily, looking again upon the rampart, perceived the flame she had seen
before; it moved onward; and, soon after, she thought she heard a
footstep. The light appeared and disappeared frequently, while, as she
watched, it glided under her casements, and, at the same instant, she
was certain, that a footstep passed, but the darkness did not permit
her to distinguish any object except the flame. It moved away, and
then, by a gleam of lightning, she perceived some person on the
terrace. All the anxieties of the preceding night returned. This person
advanced, and the playing flame alternately appeared and vanished.
Emily wished to speak, to end her doubts, whether this figure were
human or supernatural; but her courage failed as often as she attempted
utterance, till the light moved again under the casement, and she
faintly demanded, who passed.
“A friend,” replied a voice.
“What friend?” said Emily, somewhat encouraged “who are you, and what
is that light you carry?”
“I am Anthonio, one of the Signor’s soldiers,” replied the voice.
“And what is that tapering light you bear?” said Emily, “see how it
darts upwards,—and now it vanishes!”
“This light, lady,” said the soldier, “has appeared tonight as you see
it, on the point of my lance, ever since I have been on watch; but what
it means I cannot tell.”
“This is very strange!” said Emily.
“My fellow-guard,” continued the man, “has the same flame on his arms;
he says he has sometimes seen it before. I never did; I am but lately
come to the castle, for I have not been long a soldier.”
“How does your comrade account for it?” said Emily.
“He says it is an omen, lady, and bodes no good.”
“And what harm can it bode?” rejoined Emily.
“He knows not so much as that, lady.”
Whether Emily was alarmed by this omen, or not, she certainly was
relieved from much terror by discovering this man to be only a soldier
on duty, and it immediately occurred to her, that it might be he, who
had occasioned so much alarm on the preceding night. There were,
however, some circumstances, that still required explanation. As far as
she could judge by the faint moonlight, that had assisted her
observation, the figure she had seen did not resemble this man either
in shape or size; besides, she was certain it had carried no arms. The
silence of its steps, if steps it had, the moaning sounds, too, which
it had uttered, and its strange disappearance, were circumstances of
mysterious import, that did not apply, with probability, to a soldier
engaged in the duty of his guard.
She now enquired of the sentinel, whether he had seen any person
besides his fellow watch, walking on the terrace, about midnight; and
then briefly related what she had herself observed.
“I was not on guard that night, lady,” replied the man, “but I heard of
what happened. There are amongst us, who believe strange things.
Strange stories, too, have long been told of this castle, but it is no
business of mine to repeat them; and, for my part, I have no reason to
complain; our Chief does nobly by us.”
“I commend your prudence,” said Emily. “Good night, and accept this
from me,” she added, throwing him a small piece of coin, and then
closing the casement to put an end to the discourse.
When he was gone, she opened it again, listened with a gloomy pleasure
to the distant thunder, that began to murmur among the mountains, and
watched the arrowy lightnings, which broke over the remoter scene. The
pealing thunder rolled onward, and then, reverbed by the mountains,
other thunder seemed to answer from the opposite horizon; while the
accumulating clouds, entirely concealing the moon, assumed a red
sulphureous tinge, that foretold a violent storm.
Emily remained at her casement, till the vivid lightning, that now,
every instant, revealed the wide horizon and the landscape below, made
it no longer safe to do so, and she went to her couch; but, unable to
compose her mind to sleep, still listened in silent awe to the
tremendous sounds, that seemed to shake the castle to its foundation.
She had continued thus for a considerable time, when, amidst the uproar
of the storm, she thought she heard a voice, and, raising herself to
listen, saw the chamber door open, and Annette enter with a countenance
of wild affright.
“She is dying, ma’amselle, my lady is dying!” said she.
Emily started up, and ran to Madame Montoni’s room. When she entered,
her aunt appeared to have fainted, for she was quite still, and
insensible; and Emily with a strength of mind, that refused to yield to
grief, while any duty required her activity, applied every means that
seemed likely to restore her. But the last struggle was over—she was
gone for ever.
When Emily perceived, that all her efforts were ineffectual, she
interrogated the terrified Annette, and learned, that Madame Montoni
had fallen into a doze soon after Emily’s departure, in which she had
continued, until a few minutes before her death.
“I wondered, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “what was the reason my lady
did not seem frightened at the thunder, when I was so terrified, and I
went often to the bed to speak to her, but she appeared to be asleep;
till presently I heard a strange noise, and, on going to her, saw she
was dying.”
Emily, at this recital, shed tears. She had no doubt but that the
violent change in the air, which the tempest produced, had effected
this fatal one, on the exhausted frame of Madame Montoni.
After some deliberation, she determined that Montoni should not be
informed of this event till the morning, for she considered, that he
might, perhaps, utter some inhuman expressions, such as in the present
temper of her spirits she could not bear. With Annette alone,
therefore, whom she encouraged by her own example, she performed some
of the last solemn offices for the dead, and compelled herself to watch
during the night, by the body of her deceased aunt. During this solemn
period, rendered more awful by the tremendous storm that shook the air,
she frequently addressed herself to Heaven for support and protection,
and her pious prayers, we may believe, were accepted of the God, that
giveth comfort.
CHAPTER V
The midnight clock has toll’d; and hark, the bell
Of death beats slow! heard ye the note profound?
It pauses now; and now with rising knell
Flings to the hollow gale its sullen sound.
MASON
When Montoni was informed of the death of his wife, and considered that
she had died without giving him the signature so necessary to the
accomplishment of his wishes, no sense of decency restrained the
expression of his resentment. Emily anxiously avoided his presence, and
watched, during two days and two nights, with little intermission, by
the corpse of her late aunt. Her mind deeply impressed with the unhappy
fate of this object, she forgot all her faults, her unjust and
imperious conduct to herself; and, remembering only her sufferings,
thought of her only with tender compassion. Sometimes, however, she
could not avoid musing upon the strange infatuation that had proved so
fatal to her aunt, and had involved herself in a labyrinth of
misfortune, from which she saw no means of escaping,—the marriage with
Montoni. But, when she considered this circumstance, it was “more in
sorrow than in anger,”—more for the purpose of indulging lamentation,
than reproach.
In her pious cares she was not disturbed by Montoni, who not only
avoided the chamber, where the remains of his wife were laid, but that
part of the castle adjoining to it, as if he had apprehended a
contagion in death. He seemed to have given no orders respecting the
funeral, and Emily began to fear he meant to offer a new insult to the
memory of Madame Montoni; but from this apprehension she was relieved,
when, on the evening of the second day, Annette informed her, that the
interment was to take place that night. She knew, that Montoni would
not attend; and it was so very grievous to her to think that the
remains of her unfortunate aunt would pass to the grave without one
relative, or friend to pay them the last decent rites, that she
determined to be deterred by no considerations for herself, from
observing this duty. She would otherwise have shrunk from the
circumstance of following them to the cold vault, to which they were to
be carried by men whose air and countenances seemed to stamp them for
murderers, at the midnight hour of silence and privacy, which Montoni
had chosen for committing, if possible, to oblivion the reliques of a
woman, whom his harsh conduct had, at least, contributed to destroy.
Emily, shuddering with emotions of horror and grief, assisted by
Annette, prepared the corpse for interment; and, having wrapt it in
cerements, and covered it with a winding-sheet, they watched beside it,
till past midnight, when they heard the approaching footsteps of the
men, who were to lay it in its earthy bed. It was with difficulty that
Emily overcame her emotion, when, the door of the chamber being thrown
open, their gloomy countenances were seen by the glare of the torch
they carried, and two of them, without speaking, lifted the body on
their shoulders, while the third preceding them with the light,
descended through the castle towards the grave, which was in the lower
vault of the chapel within the castle walls.
They had to cross two courts, towards the east wing of the castle,
which, adjoining the chapel, was, like it, in ruins: but the silence
and gloom of these courts had now little power over Emily’s mind,
occupied as it was, with more mournful ideas; and she scarcely heard
the low and dismal hooting of the night-birds, that roosted among the
ivied battlements of the ruin, or perceived the still flittings of the
bat, which frequently crossed her way. But, when, having entered the
chapel, and passed between the mouldering pillars of the aisles, the
bearers stopped at a flight of steps, that led down to a low arched
door, and, their comrade having descended to unlock it, she saw
imperfectly the gloomy abyss beyond;—saw the corpse of her aunt carried
down these steps, and the ruffian-like figure, that stood with a torch
at the bottom to receive it—all her fortitude was lost in emotions of
inexpressible grief and terror. She turned to lean upon Annette, who
was cold and trembling like herself, and she lingered so long on the
summit of the flight, that the gleam of the torch began to die away on
the pillars of the chapel, and the men were almost beyond her view.
Then, the gloom around her awakening other fears, and a sense of what
she considered to be her duty overcoming her reluctance, she descended
to the vaults, following the echo of footsteps and the faint ray, that
pierced the darkness, till the harsh grating of a distant door, that
was opened to receive the corpse, again appalled her.
After the pause of a moment, she went on, and, as she entered the
vaults, saw between the arches, at some distance, the men lay down the
body near the edge of an open grave, where stood another of Montoni’s
men and a priest, whom she did not observe, till he began the burial
service; then, lifting her eyes from the ground, she saw the venerable
figure of the friar, and heard him in a low voice, equally solemn and
affecting, perform the service for the dead. At the moment, in which
they let down the body into the earth, the scene was such as only the
dark pencil of a Domenichino, perhaps, could have done justice to. The
fierce features and wild dress of the _condottieri_, bending with their
torches over the grave, into which the corpse was descending, were
contrasted by the venerable figure of the monk, wrapt in long black
garments, his cowl thrown back from his pale face, on which the light
gleaming strongly showed the lines of affliction softened by piety, and
the few grey locks, which time had spared on his temples: while, beside
him, stood the softer form of Emily, who leaned for support upon
Annette; her face half averted, and shaded by a thin veil, that fell
over her figure; and her mild and beautiful countenance fixed in grief
so solemn as admitted not of tears, while she thus saw committed
untimely to the earth her last relative and friend. The gleams, thrown
between the arches of the vaults, where, here and there, the broken
ground marked the spots in which other bodies had been recently
interred, and the general obscurity beyond were circumstances, that
alone would have led on the imagination of a spectator to scenes more
horrible than even that which was pictured at the grave of the
misguided and unfortunate Madame Montoni.
When the service was over, the friar regarded Emily with attention and
surprise, and looked as if he wished to speak to her, but was
restrained by the presence of the _condottieri_, who, as they now led
the way to the courts, amused themselves with jokes upon his holy
order, which he endured in silence, demanding only to be conducted
safely to his convent, and to which Emily listened with concern and
even horror. When they reached the court, the monk gave her his
blessing, and, after a lingering look of pity, turned away to the
portal, whither one of the men carried a torch; while Annette, lighting
another, preceded Emily to her apartment. The appearance of the friar
and the expression of tender compassion, with which he had regarded
her, had interested Emily, who, though it was at her earnest
supplication, that Montoni had consented to allow a priest to perform
the last rites for his deceased wife, knew nothing concerning this
person, till Annette now informed her, that he belonged to a monastery,
situated among the mountains at a few miles distance. The Superior, who
regarded Montoni and his associates, not only with aversion, but with
terror, had probably feared to offend him by refusing his request, and
had, therefore, ordered a monk to officiate at the funeral, who, with
the meek spirit of a christian, had overcome his reluctance to enter
the walls of such a castle, by the wish of performing what he
considered to be his duty, and, as the chapel was built on consecrated
ground, had not objected to commit to it the remains of the late
unhappy Madame Montoni.
Several days passed with Emily in total seclusion, and in a state of
mind partaking both of terror for herself, and grief for the departed.
She, at length, determined to make other efforts to persuade Montoni to
permit her return to France. Why he should wish to detain her, she
could scarcely dare to conjecture; but it was too certain that he did
so, and the absolute refusal he had formerly given to her departure
allowed her little hope, that he would now consent to it. But the
horror, which his presence inspired, made her defer, from day to day,
the mention of this subject; and at last she was awakened from her
inactivity only by a message from him, desiring her attendance at a
certain hour. She began to hope he meant to resign, now that her aunt
was no more, the authority he had usurped over her; till she
recollected, that the estates, which had occasioned so much contention,
were now hers, and she then feared Montoni was about to employ some
stratagem for obtaining them, and that he would detain her his
prisoner, till he succeeded. This thought, instead of overcoming her
with despondency, roused all the latent powers of her fortitude into
action; and the property, which she would willingly have resigned to
secure the peace of her aunt, she resolved, that no common sufferings
of her own should ever compel her to give to Montoni. For Valancourt’s
sake also she determined to preserve these estates, since they would
afford that competency, by which she hoped to secure the comfort of
their future lives. As she thought of this, she indulged the tenderness
of tears, and anticipated the delight of that moment, when, with
affectionate generosity, she might tell him they were his own. She saw
the smile, that lighted up his features—the affectionate regard, which
spoke at once his joy and thanks; and, at this instant, she believed
she could brave any suffering, which the evil spirit of Montoni might
be preparing for her. Remembering then, for the first time since her
aunt’s death, the papers relative to the estates in question, she
determined to search for them, as soon as her interview with Montoni
was over.
With these resolutions she met him at the appointed time, and waited to
hear his intention before she renewed her request. With him were Orsino
and another officer, and both were standing near a table, covered with
papers, which he appeared to be examining.
“I sent for you, Emily,” said Montoni, raising his head, “that you
might be a witness in some business, which I am transacting with my
friend Orsino. All that is required of you will be to sign your name to
this paper:” he then took one up, hurried unintelligibly over some
lines, and, laying it before her on the table, offered her a pen. She
took it, and was going to write—when the design of Montoni came upon
her mind like a flash of lightning; she trembled, let the pen fall, and
refused to sign what she had not read. Montoni affected to laugh at her
scruples, and, taking up the paper, again pretended to read; but Emily,
who still trembled on perceiving her danger, and was astonished, that
her own credulity had so nearly betrayed her, positively refused to
sign any paper whatever. Montoni, for some time, persevered in
affecting to ridicule this refusal; but, when he perceived by her
steady perseverance, that she understood his design, he changed his
manner, and bade her follow him to another room. There he told her,
that he had been willing to spare himself and her the trouble of
useless contest, in an affair, where his will was justice, and where
she should find it law; and had, therefore, endeavoured to persuade,
rather than to compel, her to the practice of her duty.
“I, as the husband of the late Signora Montoni,” he added, “am the heir
of all she possessed; the estates, therefore, which she refused to me
in her life-time, can no longer be withheld, and, for your own sake, I
would undeceive you, respecting a foolish assertion she once made to
you in my hearing—that these estates would be yours, if she died
without resigning them to me. She knew at that moment, she had no power
to withhold them from me, after her decease; and I think you have more
sense, than to provoke my resentment by advancing an unjust claim. I am
not in the habit of flattering, and you will, therefore, receive, as
sincere, the praise I bestow, when I say, that you possess an
understanding superior to that of your sex; and that you have none of
those contemptible foibles, that frequently mark the female
character—such as avarice and the love of power, which latter makes
women delight to contradict and to tease, when they cannot conquer. If
I understand your disposition and your mind, you hold in sovereign
contempt these common failings of your sex.”
Montoni paused; and Emily remained silent and expecting; for she knew
him too well, to believe he would condescend to such flattery, unless
he thought it would promote his own interest; and, though he had
forborne to name vanity among the foibles of women, it was evident,
that he considered it to be a predominant one, since he designed to
sacrifice to hers the character and understanding of her whole sex.
“Judging as I do,” resumed Montoni, “I cannot believe you will oppose,
where you know you cannot conquer, or, indeed, that you would wish to
conquer, or be avaricious of any property, when you have not justice on
your side. I think it proper, however, to acquaint you with the
alternative. If you have a just opinion of the subject in question, you
shall be allowed a safe conveyance to France, within a short period;
but, if you are so unhappy as to be misled by the late assertion of the
Signora, you shall remain my prisoner, till you are convinced of your
error.”
Emily calmly said,
“I am not so ignorant, Signor, of the laws on this subject, as to be
misled by the assertion of any person. The law, in the present
instance, gives me the estates in question, and my own hand shall never
betray my right.”
“I have been mistaken in my opinion of you, it appears,” rejoined
Montoni, sternly. “You speak boldly, and presumptuously, upon a
subject, which you do not understand. For once, I am willing to pardon
the conceit of ignorance; the weakness of your sex, too, from which, it
seems, you are not exempt, claims some allowance; but, if you persist
in this strain—you have everything to fear from my justice.”
“From your justice, Signor,” rejoined Emily, “I have nothing to fear—I
have only to hope.”
Montoni looked at her with vexation, and seemed considering what to
say. “I find that you are weak enough,” he resumed, “to credit the idle
assertion I alluded to! For your own sake I lament this; as to me, it
is of little consequence. Your credulity can punish only yourself; and
I must pity the weakness of mind, which leads you to so much suffering
as you are compelling me to prepare for you.”
“You may find, perhaps, Signor,” said Emily, with mild dignity, “that
the strength of my mind is equal to the justice of my cause; and that I
can endure with fortitude, when it is in resistance of oppression.”
“You speak like a heroine,” said Montoni, contemptuously; “we shall see
whether you can suffer like one.”
Emily was silent, and he left the room.
Recollecting, that it was for Valancourt’s sake she had thus resisted,
she now smiled complacently upon the threatened sufferings, and retired
to the spot, which her aunt had pointed out as the repository of the
papers, relative to the estates, where she found them as described;
and, since she knew of no better place of concealment, than this,
returned them, without examining their contents, being fearful of
discovery, while she should attempt a perusal.
To her own solitary chamber she once more returned, and there thought
again of the late conversation with Montoni, and of the evil she might
expect from opposition to his will. But his power did not appear so
terrible to her imagination, as it was wont to do: a sacred pride was
in her heart, that taught it to swell against the pressure of
injustice, and almost to glory in the quiet sufferance of ills, in a
cause, which had also the interest of Valancourt for its object. For
the first time, she felt the full extent of her own superiority to
Montoni, and despised the authority, which, till now, she had only
feared.
As she sat musing, a peal of laughter rose from the terrace, and, on
going to the casement, she saw, with inexpressible surprise, three
ladies, dressed in the gala habit of Venice, walking with several
gentlemen below. She gazed in an astonishment that made her remain at
the window, regardless of being observed, till the group passed under
it; and, one of the strangers looking up, she perceived the features of
Signora Livona, with whose manners she had been so much charmed, the
day after her arrival at Venice, and who had been there introduced at
the table of Montoni. This discovery occasioned her an emotion of
doubtful joy; for it was matter of joy and comfort to know, that a
person, of a mind so gentle, as that of Signora Livona seemed to be,
was near her; yet there was something so extraordinary in her being at
this castle, circumstanced as it now was, and evidently, by the gaiety
of her air, with her own consent, that a very painful surmise arose,
concerning her character. But the thought was so shocking to Emily,
whose affection the fascinating manners of the Signora had won, and
appeared so improbable, when she remembered these manners, that she
dismissed it almost instantly.
On Annette’s appearance, however, she enquired, concerning these
strangers; and the former was as eager to tell, as Emily was to learn.
“They are just come, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “with two Signors from
Venice, and I was glad to see such Christian faces once again.—But what
can they mean by coming here? They must surely be stark mad to come
freely to such a place as this! Yet they do come freely, for they seem
merry enough, I am sure.”
“They were taken prisoners, perhaps?” said Emily.
“Taken prisoners!” exclaimed Annette; “no, indeed, ma’amselle, not
they. I remember one of them very well at Venice: she came two or three
times, to the Signor’s you know, ma’amselle, and it was said, but I did
not believe a word of it—it was said, that the Signor liked her better
than he should do. Then why, says I, bring her to my lady? Very true,
said Ludovico; but he looked as if he knew more, too.”
Emily desired Annette would endeavour to learn who these ladies were,
as well as all she could concerning them; and she then changed the
subject, and spoke of distant France.
“Ah, ma’amselle! we shall never see it more!” said Annette, almost
weeping.—“I must come on my travels, forsooth!”
Emily tried to sooth and to cheer her, with a hope, in which she
scarcely herself indulged.
“How—how, ma’amselle, could you leave France, and leave Mons.
Valancourt, too?” said Annette, sobbing. “I—I—am sure, if Ludovico had
been in France, I would never have left it.”
“Why do you lament quitting France, then?” said Emily, trying to smile,
“since, if you had remained there, you would not have found Ludovico.”
“Ah, ma’amselle! I only wish I was out of this frightful castle,
serving you in France, and I would care about nothing else!”
“Thank you, my good Annette, for your affectionate regard; the time
will come, I hope, when you may remember the expression of that wish
with pleasure.”
Annette departed on her business, and Emily sought to lose the sense of
her own cares, in the visionary scenes of the poet; but she had again
to lament the irresistible force of circumstances over the taste and
powers of the mind; and that it requires a spirit at ease to be
sensible even to the abstract pleasures of pure intellect. The
enthusiasm of genius, with all its pictured scenes, now appeared cold,
and dim. As she mused upon the book before her, she involuntarily
exclaimed, “Are these, indeed, the passages, that have so often given
me exquisite delight? Where did the charm exist?—Was it in my mind, or
in the imagination of the poet? It lived in each,” said she, pausing.
“But the fire of the poet is vain, if the mind of his reader is not
tempered like his own, however it may be inferior to his in power.”
Emily would have pursued this train of thinking, because it relieved
her from more painful reflection, but she found again, that thought
cannot always be controlled by will; and hers returned to the
consideration of her own situation.
In the evening, not choosing to venture down to the ramparts, where she
would be exposed to the rude gaze of Montoni’s associates, she walked
for air in the gallery, adjoining her chamber; on reaching the further
end of which she heard distant sounds of merriment and laughter. It was
the wild uproar of riot, not the cheering gaiety of tempered mirth; and
seemed to come from that part of the castle, where Montoni usually was.
Such sounds, at this time, when her aunt had been so few days dead,
particularly shocked her, consistent as they were with the late conduct
of Montoni.
As she listened, she thought she distinguished female voices mingling
with the laughter, and this confirmed her worst surmise, concerning the
character of Signora Livona and her companions. It was evident, that
they had not been brought hither by compulsion; and she beheld herself
in the remote wilds of the Apennine, surrounded by men, whom she
considered to be little less than ruffians, and their worst associates,
amid scenes of vice, from which her soul recoiled in horror. It was at
this moment, when the scenes of the present and the future opened to
her imagination, that the image of Valancourt failed in its influence,
and her resolution shook with dread. She thought she understood all the
horrors, which Montoni was preparing for her, and shrunk from an
encounter with such remorseless vengeance, as he could inflict. The
disputed estates she now almost determined to yield at once, whenever
he should again call upon her, that she might regain safety and
freedom; but then, the remembrance of Valancourt would steal to her
heart, and plunge her into the distractions of doubt.
She continued walking in the gallery, till evening threw its melancholy
twilight through the painted casements, and deepened the gloom of the
oak wainscoting around her; while the distant perspective of the
corridor was so much obscured, as to be discernible only by the
glimmering window, that terminated it.
Along the vaulted halls and passages below, peals of laughter echoed
faintly, at intervals, to this remote part of the castle, and seemed to
render the succeeding stillness more dreary. Emily, however, unwilling
to return to her more forlorn chamber, whither Annette was not yet
come, still paced the gallery. As she passed the door of the apartment,
where she had once dared to lift the veil, which discovered to her a
spectacle so horrible, that she had never after remembered it, but with
emotions of indescribable awe, this remembrance suddenly recurred. It
now brought with it reflections more terrible, than it had yet done,
which the late conduct of Montoni occasioned; and, hastening to quit
the gallery, while she had power to do so, she heard a sudden step
behind her.—It might be that of Annette; but, turning fearfully to
look, she saw, through the gloom, a tall figure following her, and all
the horrors of that chamber rushed upon her mind. In the next moment,
she found herself clasped in the arms of some person, and heard a deep
voice murmur in her ear.
When she had power to speak, or to distinguish articulated sounds, she
demanded who detained her.
“It is I,” replied the voice—“Why are you thus alarmed?”
She looked on the face of the person who spoke, but the feeble light,
that gleamed through the high casement at the end of the gallery, did
not permit her to distinguish the features.
“Whoever you are,” said Emily, in a trembling voice, “for heaven’s sake
let me go!”
“My charming Emily,” said the man, “why will you shut yourself up in
this obscure place, when there is so much gaiety below? Return with me
to the cedar parlour, where you will be the fairest ornament of the
party;—you shall not repent the exchange.”
Emily disdained to reply, and still endeavoured to liberate herself.
“Promise, that you will come,” he continued, “and I will release you
immediately; but first give me a reward for so doing.”
“Who are you?” demanded Emily, in a tone of mingled terror and
indignation, while she still struggled for liberty—“who are you, that
have the cruelty thus to insult me?”
“Why call me cruel?” said the man, “I would remove you from this dreary
solitude to a merry party below. Do you not know me?”
Emily now faintly remembered, that he was one of the officers who were
with Montoni when she attended him in the morning. “I thank you for the
kindness of your intention,” she replied, without appearing to
understand him, “but I wish for nothing so much as that you would leave
me.”
“Charming Emily!” said he, “give up this foolish whim for solitude, and
come with me to the company, and eclipse the beauties who make part of
it; you, only, are worthy of my love.” He attempted to kiss her hand,
but the strong impulse of her indignation gave her power to liberate
herself, and she fled towards the chamber. She closed the door, before
he reached it, having secured which, she sunk in a chair, overcome by
terror and by the exertion she had made, while she heard his voice, and
his attempts to open the door, without having the power to raise
herself. At length, she perceived him depart, and had remained,
listening, for a considerable time, and was somewhat revived by not
hearing any sound, when suddenly she remembered the door of the private
staircase, and that he might enter that way, since it was fastened only
on the other side. She then employed herself in endeavouring to secure
it, in the manner she had formerly done. It appeared to her, that
Montoni had already commenced his scheme of vengeance, by withdrawing
from her his protection, and she repented of the rashness, that had
made her brave the power of such a man. To retain the estates seemed to
be now utterly impossible, and to preserve her life, perhaps her
honour, she resolved, if she should escape the horrors of this night,
to give up all claims to the estates, on the morrow, provided Montoni
would suffer her to depart from Udolpho.
When she had come to this decision, her mind became more composed,
though she still anxiously listened, and often started at ideal sounds,
that appeared to issue from the staircase.
Having sat in darkness for some hours, during all which time Annette
did not appear, she began to have serious apprehensions for her; but,
not daring to venture down into the castle, was compelled to remain in
uncertainty, as to the cause of this unusual absence.
Emily often stole to the staircase door to listen if any step
approached, but still no sound alarmed her: determining, however, to
watch, during the night, she once more rested on her dark and desolate
couch, and bathed the pillow with innocent tears. She thought of her
deceased parents and then of the absent Valancourt, and frequently
called upon their names; for the profound stillness, that now reigned,
was propitious to the musing sorrow of her mind.
While she thus remained, her ear suddenly caught the notes of distant
music, to which she listened attentively, and, soon perceiving this to
be the instrument she had formerly heard at midnight, she rose, and
stepped softly to the casement, to which the sounds appeared to come
from a lower room.
In a few moments, their soft melody was accompanied by a voice so full
of pathos, that it evidently sang not of imaginary sorrows. Its sweet
and peculiar tones she thought she had somewhere heard before; yet, if
this was not fancy, it was, at most, a very faint recollection. It
stole over her mind, amidst the anguish of her present suffering, like
a celestial strain, soothing, and reassuring her;—“Pleasant as the gale
of spring, that sighs on the hunter’s ear, when he awakens from dreams
of joy, and has heard the music of the spirits of the hill.”*
(*Note: Ossian. [A. R.])
But her emotion can scarcely be imagined, when she heard sung, with the
taste and simplicity of true feeling, one of the popular airs of her
native province, to which she had so often listened with delight, when
a child, and which she had so often heard her father repeat! To this
well-known song, never, till now, heard but in her native country, her
heart melted, while the memory of past times returned. The pleasant,
peaceful scenes of Gascony, the tenderness and goodness of her parents,
the taste and simplicity of her former life—all rose to her fancy, and
formed a picture, so sweet and glowing, so strikingly contrasted with
the scenes, the characters and the dangers, which now surrounded
her—that her mind could not bear to pause upon the retrospect, and
shrunk at the acuteness of its own sufferings.
Her sighs were deep and convulsed; she could no longer listen to the
strain, that had so often charmed her to tranquillity, and she withdrew
from the casement to a remote part of the chamber. But she was not yet
beyond the reach of the music; she heard the measure change, and the
succeeding air called her again to the window, for she immediately
recollected it to be the same she had formerly heard in the
fishing-house in Gascony. Assisted, perhaps, by the mystery, which had
then accompanied this strain, it had made so deep an impression on her
memory, that she had never since entirely forgotten it; and the manner,
in which it was now sung, convinced her, however unaccountable the
circumstances appeared, that this was the same voice she had then
heard. Surprise soon yielded to other emotions; a thought darted, like
lightning, upon her mind, which discovered a train of hopes, that
revived all her spirits. Yet these hopes were so new, so unexpected, so
astonishing, that she did not dare to trust, though she could not
resolve to discourage them. She sat down by the casement, breathless,
and overcome with the alternate emotions of hope and fear; then rose
again, leaned from the window, that she might catch a nearer sound,
listened, now doubting and then believing, softly exclaimed the name of
Valancourt, and then sunk again into the chair. Yes, it was possible,
that Valancourt was near her, and she recollected circumstances, which
induced her to believe it was his voice she had just heard. She
remembered he had more than once said that the fishing-house, where she
had formerly listened to this voice and air, and where she had seen
pencilled sonnets, addressed to herself, had been his favourite haunt,
before he had been made known to her; there, too, she had herself
unexpectedly met him. It appeared, from these circumstances, more than
probable, that he was the musician, who had formerly charmed her
attention, and the author of the lines, which had expressed such tender
admiration;—who else, indeed, could it be? She was unable, at that
time, to form a conjecture, as to the writer, but, since her
acquaintance with Valancourt, whenever he had mentioned the
fishing-house to have been known to him, she had not scrupled to
believe that he was the author of the sonnets.
As these considerations passed over her mind, joy, fear and tenderness
contended at her heart; she leaned again from the casement to catch the
sounds, which might confirm, or destroy her hope, though she did not
recollect to have ever heard him sing; but the voice, and the
instrument, now ceased.
She considered for a moment whether she should venture to speak: then,
not choosing, lest it should be he, to mention his name, and yet too
much interested to neglect the opportunity of enquiring, she called
from the casement, “Is that song from Gascony?” Her anxious attention
was not cheered by any reply; everything remained silent. Her
impatience increasing with her fears, she repeated the question; but
still no sound was heard, except the sighings of the wind among the
battlements above; and she endeavoured to console herself with a
belief, that the stranger, whoever he was, had retired, before she had
spoken, beyond the reach of her voice, which, it appeared certain, had
Valancourt heard and recognised, he would instantly have replied to.
Presently, however, she considered, that a motive of prudence, and not
an accidental removal, might occasion his silence; but the surmise that
led to this reflection, suddenly changed her hope and joy to terror and
grief; for, if Valancourt were in the castle, it was too probable that
he was here a prisoner, taken with some of his countrymen, many of whom
were at that time engaged in the wars of Italy, or intercepted in some
attempt to reach her. Had he even recollected Emily’s voice, he would
have feared, in these circumstances, to reply to it, in the presence of
the men, who guarded his prison.
What so lately she had eagerly hoped she now believed she
dreaded;—dreaded to know, that Valancourt was near her; and, while she
was anxious to be relieved from her apprehension for his safety, she
still was unconscious, that a hope of soon seeing him, struggled with
the fear.
She remained listening at the casement, till the air began to freshen,
and one high mountain in the east to glimmer with the morning; when,
wearied with anxiety, she retired to her couch, where she found it
utterly impossible to sleep, for joy, tenderness, doubt and
apprehension, distracted her during the whole night. Now she rose from
the couch, and opened the casement to listen; then she would pace the
room with impatient steps, and, at length, return with despondence to
her pillow. Never did hours appear to move so heavily, as those of this
anxious night; after which she hoped that Annette might appear, and
conclude her present state of torturing suspense.
CHAPTER VI
Might we but hear
The folded flocks penn’d in their wattled cotes,
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night watches to his feathery dames,
’Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
MILTON
In the morning Emily was relieved from her fears for Annette, who came
at an early hour.
“Here were fine doings in the castle, last night, ma’amselle,” said
she, as soon as she entered the room,—“fine doings, indeed! Were you
not frightened, ma’amselle, at not seeing me?”
“I was alarmed both on your account and on my own,” replied Emily—“What
detained you?”
“Aye, I said so, I told him so; but it would not do. It was not my
fault, indeed, ma’amselle, for I could not get out. That rogue Ludovico
locked me up again.”
“Locked you up!” said Emily, with displeasure, “Why do you permit
Ludovico to lock you up?”
“Holy Saints!” exclaimed Annette, “how can I help it! If he will lock
the door, ma’amselle, and take away the key, how am I to get out,
unless I jump through the window? But that I should not mind so much,
if the casements here were not all so high; one can hardly scramble up
to them on the inside, and one should break one’s neck, I suppose,
going down on the outside. But you know, I dare say, ma’am, what a
hurly-burly the castle was in last night; you must have heard some of
the uproar.”
“What, were they disputing, then?” said Emily.
“No, ma’amselle, nor fighting, but almost as good, for I believe there
was not one of the Signors sober; and what is more, not one of those
fine ladies sober, either. I thought, when I saw them first, that all
those fine silks and fine veils,—why, ma’amselle, their veils were
worked with silver! and fine trimmings—boded no good—I guessed what
they were!”
“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, “what will become of me!”
“Aye, ma’am, Ludovico said much the same thing of me. ‘Good God!’ said
he, ‘Annette, what is to become of you, if you are to go running about
the castle among all these drunken Signors?’
“‘O!’ says I, ‘for that matter, I only want to go to my young lady’s
chamber, and I have only to go, you know, along the vaulted passage and
across the great hall and up the marble staircase and along the north
gallery and through the west wing of the castle and I am in the
corridor in a minute.’ ‘Are you so?’ says he, ‘and what is to become of
you, if you meet any of those noble cavaliers in the way?’ ‘Well,’ says
I, ‘if you think there is danger, then, go with me, and guard me; I am
never afraid when you are by.’ ‘What!’ says he, ‘when I am scarcely
recovered of one wound, shall I put myself in the way of getting
another? for if any of the cavaliers meet you, they will fall
a-fighting with me directly. No, no,’ says he, ‘I will cut the way
shorter, than through the vaulted passage and up the marble staircase,
and along the north gallery and through the west wing of the castle,
for you shall stay here, Annette; you shall not go out of this room,
tonight.’ So, with that I says—”
“Well, well,” said Emily, impatiently, and anxious to enquire on
another subject,—“so he locked you up?”
“Yes, he did indeed, ma’amselle, notwithstanding all I could say to the
contrary; and Caterina and I and he staid there all night. And in a few
minutes after I was not so vexed, for there came Signor Verezzi roaring
along the passage, like a mad bull, and he mistook Ludovico’s hall, for
old Carlo’s; so he tried to burst open the door, and called out for
more wine, for that he had drunk all the flasks dry, and was dying of
thirst. So we were all as still as night, that he might suppose there
was nobody in the room; but the Signor was as cunning as the best of
us, and kept calling out at the door, ‘Come forth, my ancient hero!’
said he, ‘here is no enemy at the gate, that you need hide yourself:
come forth, my valorous Signor Steward!’ Just then old Carlo opened his
door, and he came with a flask in his hand; for, as soon as the Signor
saw him, he was as tame as could be, and followed him away as naturally
as a dog does a butcher with a piece of meat in his basket. All this I
saw through the key-hole. ‘Well, Annette,’ said Ludovico, jeeringly,
‘shall I let you out now?’ ‘O no,’ says I, ‘I would not—’”
“I have some questions to ask you on another subject,” interrupted
Emily, quite wearied by this story. “Do you know whether there are any
prisoners in the castle, and whether they are confined at this end of
the edifice?”
“I was not in the way, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “when the first
party came in from the mountains, and the last party is not come back
yet, so I don’t know, whether there are any prisoners; but it is
expected back tonight, or tomorrow, and I shall know then, perhaps.”
Emily enquired if she had ever heard the servants talk of prisoners.
“Ah ma’amselle!” said Annette archly, “now I dare say you are thinking
of Monsieur Valancourt, and that he may have come among the armies,
which, they say, are come from our country, to fight against this
state, and that he has met with some of _our_ people, and is taken
captive. O Lord! how glad I should be, if it was so!”
“Would you, indeed, be glad?” said Emily, in a tone of mournful
reproach.
“To be sure I should, ma’am,” replied Annette, “and would not you be
glad too, to see Signor Valancourt? I don’t know any chevalier I like
better, I have a very great regard for the Signor, truly.”
“Your regard for him cannot be doubted,” said Emily, “since you wish to
see him a prisoner.”
“Why no, ma’amselle, not a prisoner either; but one must be glad to see
him, you know. And it was only the other night I dreamt—I dreamt I saw
him drive into the castle-yard all in a coach and six, and dressed out,
with a laced coat and a sword, like a lord as he is.”
Emily could not forbear smiling at Annette’s ideas of Valancourt, and
repeated her enquiry, whether she had heard the servants talk of
prisoners.
“No, ma’amselle,” replied she, “never; and lately they have done
nothing but talk of the apparition, that has been walking about of a
night on the ramparts, and that frightened the sentinels into fits. It
came among them like a flash of fire, they say, and they all fell down
in a row, till they came to themselves again; and then it was gone, and
nothing to be seen but the old castle walls; so they helped one another
up again as fast as they could. You would not believe, ma’amselle,
though I showed you the very cannon, where it used to appear.”
“And are you, indeed, so simple, Annette,” said Emily, smiling at this
curious exaggeration of the circumstances she had witnessed, “as to
credit these stories?”
“Credit them, ma’amselle! why all the world could not persuade me out
of them. Roberto and Sebastian and half a dozen more of them went into
fits! To be sure, there was no occasion for that; I said, myself, there
was no need of that, for, says I, when the enemy comes, what a pretty
figure they will cut, if they are to fall down in fits, all of a row!
The enemy won’t be so civil, perhaps, as to walk off, like the ghost,
and leave them to help one another up, but will fall to, cutting and
slashing, till he makes them all rise up dead men. No, no, says I,
there is reason in all things: though I might have fallen down in a fit
that was no rule for them, being, because it is no business of mine to
look gruff, and fight battles.”
Emily endeavoured to correct the superstitious weakness of Annette,
though she could not entirely subdue her own; to which the latter only
replied, “Nay, ma’amselle, you will believe nothing; you are almost as
bad as the Signor himself, who was in a great passion when they told of
what had happened, and swore that the first man, who repeated such
nonsense, should be thrown into the dungeon under the east turret. This
was a hard punishment too, for only talking nonsense, as he called it,
but I dare say he had other reasons for calling it so, than you have,
ma’am.”
Emily looked displeased, and made no reply. As she mused upon the
recollected appearance, which had lately so much alarmed her, and
considered the circumstances of the figure having stationed itself
opposite to her casement, she was for a moment inclined to believe it
was Valancourt, whom she had seen. Yet, if it was he, why did he not
speak to her, when he had the opportunity of doing so—and, if he was a
prisoner in the castle, and he could be here in no other character, how
could he obtain the means of walking abroad on the rampart? Thus she
was utterly unable to decide, whether the musician and the form she had
observed, were the same, or, if they were, whether this was Valancourt.
She, however, desired that Annette would endeavour to learn whether any
prisoners were in the castle, and also their names.
“O dear, ma’amselle!” said Annette, “I forget to tell you what you bade
me ask about, the ladies, as they call themselves, who are lately come
to Udolpho. Why that Signora Livona, that the Signor brought to see my
late lady at Venice, is his mistress now, and was little better then, I
dare say. And Ludovico says (but pray be secret, ma’am) that his
_Excellenza_ introduced her only to impose upon the world, that had
begun to make free with her character. So when people saw my lady
notice her, they thought what they had heard must be scandal. The other
two are the mistresses of Signor Verezzi and Signor Bertolini; and
Signor Montoni invited them all to the castle; and so, yesterday, he
gave a great entertainment; and there they were, all drinking Tuscany
wine and all sorts, and laughing and singing, till they made the castle
ring again. But I thought they were dismal sounds, so soon after my
poor lady’s death too; and they brought to my mind what she would have
thought, if she had heard them—but she cannot hear them now, poor soul!
said I.”
Emily turned away to conceal her emotion, and then desired Annette to
go, and make enquiry, concerning the prisoners, that might be in the
castle, but conjured her to do it with caution, and on no account to
mention her name, or that of Monsieur Valancourt.
“Now I think of it, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “I do believe there are
prisoners, for I overheard one of the Signor’s men, yesterday, in the
servants hall, talking something about ransoms, and saying what a fine
thing it was for his _Excellenza_ to catch up men, and they were as
good booty as any other, because of the ransoms. And the other man was
grumbling, and saying it was fine enough for the Signor, but none so
fine for his soldiers, because, said he, we don’t go shares there.”
This information heightened Emily’s impatience to know more, and
Annette immediately departed on her enquiry.
The late resolution of Emily to resign her estates to Montoni, now gave
way to new considerations; the possibility, that Valancourt was near
her, revived her fortitude, and she determined to brave the threatened
vengeance, at least, till she could be assured whether he was really in
the castle. She was in this temper of mind, when she received a message
from Montoni, requiring her attendance in the cedar parlour, which she
obeyed with trembling, and, on her way thither, endeavoured to animate
her fortitude with the idea of Valancourt.
Montoni was alone. “I sent for you,” said he, “to give you another
opportunity of retracting your late mistaken assertions concerning the
Languedoc estates. I will condescend to advise, where I may command.—If
you are really deluded by an opinion, that you have any right to these
estates, at least, do not persist in the error—an error, which you may
perceive, too late, has been fatal to you. Dare my resentment no
further, but sign the papers.”
“If I have no right in these estates, sir,” said Emily, “of what
service can it be to you, that I should sign any papers, concerning
them? If the lands are yours by law, you certainly may possess them,
without my interference, or my consent.”
“I will have no more argument,” said Montoni, with a look that made her
tremble. “What had I but trouble to expect, when I condescended to
reason with a baby! But I will be trifled with no longer: let the
recollection of your aunt’s sufferings, in consequence of her folly and
obstinacy, teach you a lesson.—Sign the papers.”
Emily’s resolution was for a moment awed:—she shrunk at the
recollections he revived, and from the vengeance he threatened; but
then, the image of Valancourt, who so long had loved her, and who was
now, perhaps, so near her, came to her heart, and, together with the
strong feelings of indignation, with which she had always, from her
infancy, regarded an act of injustice, inspired her with a noble,
though imprudent, courage.
“Sign the papers,” said Montoni, more impatiently than before.
“Never, sir,” replied Emily; “that request would have proved to me the
injustice of your claim, had I even been ignorant of my right.”
Montoni turned pale with anger, while his quivering lip and lurking eye
made her almost repent the boldness of her speech.
“Then all my vengeance falls upon you,” he exclaimed, with a horrible
oath. “And think not it shall be delayed. Neither the estates in
Languedoc, nor Gascony, shall be yours; you have dared to question my
right,—now dare to question my power. I have a punishment which you
think not of; it is terrible! This night—this very night—”
“This night!” repeated another voice.
Montoni paused, and turned half round, but, seeming to recollect
himself, he proceeded in a lower tone.
“You have lately seen one terrible example of obstinacy and folly; yet
this, it appears, has not been sufficient to deter you.—I could tell
you of others—I could make you tremble at the bare recital.”
He was interrupted by a groan, which seemed to rise from underneath the
chamber they were in; and, as he threw a glance round it, impatience
and rage flashed from his eyes, yet something like a shade of fear
passed over his countenance. Emily sat down in a chair, near the door,
for the various emotions she had suffered, now almost overcame her; but
Montoni paused scarcely an instant, and, commanding his features,
resumed his discourse in a lower, yet sterner voice.
“I say, I could give you other instances of my power and of my
character, which it seems you do not understand, or you would not defy
me.—I could tell you, that, when once my resolution is taken—but I am
talking to a baby. Let me, however, repeat, that terrible as are the
examples I could recite, the recital could not now benefit you; for,
though your repentance would put an immediate end to opposition, it
would not now appease my indignation.—I will have vengeance as well as
justice.”
Another groan filled the pause which Montoni made.
“Leave the room instantly!” said he, seeming not to notice this strange
occurrence. Without power to implore his pity, she rose to go, but
found that she could not support herself; awe and terror overcame her,
and she sunk again into the chair.
“Quit my presence!” cried Montoni. “This affectation of fear ill
becomes the heroine who has just dared to brave my indignation.”
“Did you hear nothing, Signor?” said Emily, trembling, and still unable
to leave the room.
“I heard my own voice,” rejoined Montoni, sternly.
“And nothing else?” said Emily, speaking with difficulty.—“There again!
Do you hear nothing now?”
“Obey my order,” repeated Montoni. “And for these fool’s tricks—I will
soon discover by whom they are practised.”
Emily again rose, and exerted herself to the utmost to leave the room,
while Montoni followed her; but, instead of calling aloud to his
servants to search the chamber, as he had formerly done on a similar
occurrence, passed to the ramparts.
As, in her way to the corridor, she rested for a moment at an open
casement, Emily saw a party of Montoni’s troops winding down a distant
mountain, whom she noticed no further than as they brought to her mind
the wretched prisoners they were, perhaps, bringing to the castle. At
length, having reached her apartment, she threw herself upon the couch,
overcome with the new horrors of her situation. Her thoughts lost in
tumult and perplexity, she could neither repent of, nor approve, her
late conduct; she could only remember, that she was in the power of a
man, who had no principle of action—but his will; and the astonishment
and terrors of superstition, which had, for a moment, so strongly
assailed her, now yielded to those of reason.
She was, at length, roused from the reverie which engaged her, by a
confusion of distant voices, and a clattering of hoofs, that seemed to
come, on the wind, from the courts. A sudden hope, that some good was
approaching, seized her mind, till she remembered the troops she had
observed from the casement, and concluded this to be the party, which
Annette had said were expected at Udolpho.
Soon after, she heard voices faintly from the halls, and the noise of
horses’ feet sunk away in the wind; silence ensued. Emily listened
anxiously for Annette’s step in the corridor, but a pause of total
stillness continued, till again the castle seemed to be all tumult and
confusion. She heard the echoes of many footsteps, passing to and fro
in the halls and avenues below, and then busy tongues were loud on the
rampart. Having hurried to her casement, she perceived Montoni, with
some of his officers, leaning on the walls, and pointing from them;
while several soldiers were employed at the further end of the rampart
about some cannon; and she continued to observe them, careless of the
passing time.
Annette at length appeared, but brought no intelligence of Valancourt,
“For, ma’amselle,” said she, “all the people pretend to know nothing
about any prisoners. But here is a fine piece of business! The rest of
the party are just arrived, ma’am; they came scampering in, as if they
would have broken their necks; one scarcely knew whether the man, or
his horse would get within the gates first. And they have brought
word—and such news! they have brought word, that a party of the enemy,
as they call them, are coming towards the castle; so we shall have all
the officers of justice, I suppose, besieging it! all those
terrible-looking fellows one used to see at Venice.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Emily, fervently, “there is yet a hope left for
me, then!”
“What mean you, ma’amselle? Do you wish to fall into the hands of those
sad-looking men! Why I used to shudder as I passed them, and should
have guessed what they were, if Ludovico had not told me.”
“We cannot be in worse hands than at present,” replied Emily,
unguardedly; “but what reason have you to suppose these are officers of
justice?”
“Why _our_ people, ma’am, are all in such a fright, and a fuss; and I
don’t know anything but the fear of justice, that could make them so. I
used to think nothing on earth could fluster them, unless, indeed, it
was a ghost, or so; but now, some of them are for hiding down in the
vaults under the castle; but you must not tell the Signor this,
ma’amselle, and I overheard two of them talking—Holy Mother! what makes
you look so sad, ma’amselle? You don’t hear what I say!”
“Yes, I do, Annette; pray proceed.”
“Well, ma’amselle, all the castle is in such hurly-burly. Some of the
men are loading the cannon, and some are examining the great gates, and
the walls all round, and are hammering and patching up, just as if all
those repairs had never been made, that were so long about. But what is
to become of me and you, ma’amselle, and Ludovico? O! when I hear the
sound of the cannon, I shall die with fright. If I could but catch the
great gate open for one minute, I would be even with it for shutting me
within these walls so long!—it should never see me again.”
Emily caught the latter words of Annette. “O! if you could find it
open, but for one moment!” she exclaimed, “my peace might yet be
saved!” The heavy groan she uttered, and the wildness of her look,
terrified Annette, still more than her words; who entreated Emily to
explain the meaning of them, to whom it suddenly occurred, that
Ludovico might be of some service, if there should be a possibility of
escape, and who repeated the substance of what had passed between
Montoni and herself, but conjured her to mention this to no person
except to Ludovico. “It may, perhaps, be in his power,” she added, “to
effect our escape. Go to him, Annette, tell him what I have to
apprehend, and what I have already suffered; but entreat him to be
secret, and to lose no time in attempting to release us. If he is
willing to undertake this he shall be amply rewarded. I cannot speak
with him myself, for we might be observed, and then effectual care
would be taken to prevent our flight. But be quick, Annette, and, above
all, be discreet—I will await your return in this apartment.”
The girl, whose honest heart had been much affected by the recital, was
now as eager to obey, as Emily was to employ her, and she immediately
quitted the room.
Emily’s surprise increased, as she reflected upon Annette’s
intelligence. “Alas!” said she, “what can the officers of justice do
against an armed castle? these cannot be such.” Upon further
consideration, however, she concluded, that, Montoni’s bands having
plundered the country round, the inhabitants had taken arms, and were
coming with the officers of police and a party of soldiers, to force
their way into the castle. “But they know not,” thought she, “its
strength, or the armed numbers within it. Alas! except from flight, I
have nothing to hope!”
Montoni, though not precisely what Emily apprehended him to be—a
captain of banditti—had employed his troops in enterprises not less
daring, or less atrocious, than such a character would have undertaken.
They had not only pillaged, whenever opportunity offered, the helpless
traveller, but had attacked, and plundered the villas of several
persons, which, being situated among the solitary recesses of the
mountains, were totally unprepared for resistance. In these expeditions
the commanders of the party did not appear, and the men, partly
disguised, had sometimes been mistaken for common robbers, and, at
others, for bands of the foreign enemy, who, at that period, invaded
the country. But, though they had already pillaged several mansions,
and brought home considerable treasures, they had ventured to approach
only one castle, in the attack of which they were assisted by other
troops of their own order; from this, however, they were vigorously
repulsed, and pursued by some of the foreign enemy, who were in league
with the besieged. Montoni’s troops fled precipitately towards Udolpho,
but were so closely tracked over the mountains, that, when they reached
one of the heights in the neighbourhood of the castle, and looked back
upon the road, they perceived the enemy winding among the cliffs below,
and at not more than a league distant. Upon this discovery, they
hastened forward with increased speed, to prepare Montoni for the
enemy; and it was their arrival, which had thrown the castle into such
confusion and tumult.
As Emily awaited anxiously some information from below, she now saw
from her casements a body of troops pour over the neighbouring heights;
and, though Annette had been gone a very short time, and had a
difficult and dangerous business to accomplish, her impatience for
intelligence became painful: she listened; opened her door; and often
went out upon the corridor to meet her.
At length, she heard a footstep approach her chamber; and, on opening
the door, saw, not Annette, but old Carlo! New fears rushed upon her
mind. He said he came from the Signor, who had ordered him to inform
her, that she must be ready to depart from Udolpho immediately, for
that the castle was about to be besieged; and that mules were preparing
to convey her, with her guides, to a place of safety.
“Of safety!” exclaimed Emily, thoughtlessly; “has, then, the Signor so
much consideration for me?”
Carlo looked upon the ground, and made no reply. A thousand opposite
emotions agitated Emily, successively, as she listened to old Carlo;
those of joy, grief, distrust and apprehension, appeared, and vanished
from her mind, with the quickness of lightning. One moment, it seemed
impossible, that Montoni could take this measure merely for her
preservation; and so very strange was his sending her from the castle
at all, that she could attribute it only to the design of carrying into
execution the new scheme of vengeance, with which he had menaced her.
In the next instant, it appeared so desirable to quit the castle, under
any circumstances, that she could not but rejoice in the prospect,
believing that change must be for the better, till she remembered the
probability of Valancourt being detained in it, when sorrow and regret
usurped her mind, and she wished, much more fervently than she had yet
done, that it might not be his voice which she had heard.
Carlo having reminded her, that she had no time to lose, for that the
enemy were within sight of the castle, Emily entreated him to inform
her whither she was to go; and, after some hesitation, he said he had
received no orders to tell; but, on her repeating the question,
replied, that he believed she was to be carried into Tuscany.
“To Tuscany!” exclaimed Emily—“and why thither?”
Carlo answered, that he knew nothing further, than that she was to be
lodged in a cottage on the borders of Tuscany, at the feet of the
Apennines—“Not a day’s journey distant,” said he.
Emily now dismissed him; and, with trembling hands, prepared the small
package, that she meant to take with her; while she was employed about
which Annette returned.
“O ma’amselle!” said she, “nothing can be done! Ludovico says the new
porter is more watchful even than Barnardine was, and we might as well
throw ourselves in the way of a dragon, as in his. Ludovico is almost
as broken-hearted as you are, ma’am, on my account, he says, and I am
sure I shall never live to hear the cannon fire twice!”
She now began to weep, but revived upon hearing of what had just
occurred, and entreated Emily to take her with her.
“That I will do most willingly,” replied Emily, “if Signor Montoni
permits it;” to which Annette made no reply, but ran out of the room,
and immediately sought Montoni, who was on the terrace, surrounded by
his officers, where she began her petition. He sharply bade her go into
the castle, and absolutely refused her request. Annette, however, not
only pleaded for herself, but for Ludovico; and Montoni had ordered
some of his men to take her from his presence, before she would retire.
In an agony of disappointment, she returned to Emily, who foreboded
little good towards herself, from this refusal to Annette, and who,
soon after, received a summons to repair to the great court, where the
mules, with her guides, were in waiting. Emily here tried in vain to
sooth the weeping Annette, who persisted in saying, that she should
never see her dear young lady again; a fear, which her mistress
secretly thought too well justified, but which she endeavoured to
restrain, while, with apparent composure, she bade this affectionate
servant farewell. Annette, however, followed to the courts, which were
now thronged with people, busy in preparation for the enemy; and,
having seen her mount her mule and depart, with her attendants, through
the portal, turned into the castle and wept again.
Emily, meanwhile, as she looked back upon the gloomy courts of the
castle, no longer silent as when she had first entered them, but
resounding with the noise of preparation for their defence, as well as
crowded with soldiers and workmen, hurrying to and fro; and, when she
passed once more under the huge portcullis, which had formerly struck
her with terror and dismay, and, looking round, saw no walls to confine
her steps—felt, in spite of anticipation, the sudden joy of a prisoner,
who unexpectedly finds himself at liberty. This emotion would not
suffer her now to look impartially on the dangers that awaited her
without; on mountains infested by hostile parties, who seized every
opportunity for plunder; and on a journey commenced under the guidance
of men, whose countenances certainly did not speak favourably of their
dispositions. In the present moments, she could only rejoice, that she
was liberated from those walls, which she had entered with such dismal
forebodings; and, remembering the superstitious presentiment, which had
then seized her, she could now smile at the impression it had made upon
her mind.
As she gazed, with these emotions, upon the turrets of the castle,
rising high over the woods, among which she wound, the stranger, whom
she believed to be confined there, returned to her remembrance, and
anxiety and apprehension, lest he should be Valancourt, again passed
like a cloud upon her joy. She recollected every circumstance,
concerning this unknown person, since the night, when she had first
heard him play the song of her native province;—circumstances, which
she had so often recollected, and compared before, without extracting
from them anything like conviction, and which still only prompted her
to believe, that Valancourt was a prisoner at Udolpho. It was possible,
however, that the men, who were her conductors, might afford her
information, on this subject; but, fearing to question them
immediately, lest they should be unwilling to discover any circumstance
to her in the presence of each other, she watched for an opportunity of
speaking with them separately.
Soon after, a trumpet echoed faintly from a distance; the guides
stopped, and looked toward the quarter whence it came, but the thick
woods, which surrounded them, excluding all view of the country beyond,
one of the men rode on to the point of an eminence, that afforded a
more extensive prospect, to observe how near the enemy, whose trumpet
he guessed this to be, were advanced; the other, meanwhile, remained
with Emily, and to him she put some questions, concerning the stranger
at Udolpho. Ugo, for this was his name, said, that there were several
prisoners in the castle, but he neither recollected their persons, nor
the precise time of their arrival, and could therefore give her no
information. There was a surliness in his manner, as he spoke, that
made it probable he would not have satisfied her enquiries, even if he
could have done so.
Having asked him what prisoners had been taken, about the time, as
nearly as she could remember, when she had first heard the music, “All
that week,” said Ugo, “I was out with a party, upon the mountains, and
knew nothing of what was doing at the castle. We had enough upon our
hands, we had warm work of it.”
Bertrand, the other man, being now returned, Emily enquired no further,
and, when he had related to his companion what he had seen, they
travelled on in deep silence; while Emily often caught, between the
opening woods, partial glimpses of the castle above—the west towers,
whose battlements were now crowded with archers, and the ramparts
below, where soldiers were seen hurrying along, or busy upon the walls,
preparing the cannon.
Having emerged from the woods, they wound along the valley in an
opposite direction to that, from whence the enemy were approaching.
Emily now had a full view of Udolpho, with its grey walls, towers and
terraces, high over-topping the precipices and the dark woods, and
glittering partially with the arms of the _Condottieri_, as the sun’s
rays, streaming through an autumnal cloud, glanced upon a part of the
edifice, whose remaining features stood in darkened majesty. She
continued to gaze, through her tears, upon walls that, perhaps,
confined Valancourt, and which now, as the cloud floated away, were
lighted up with sudden splendour, and then, as suddenly were shrouded
in gloom; while the passing gleam fell on the wood-tops below, and
heightened the first tints of autumn, that had begun to steal upon the
foliage. The winding mountains, at length, shut Udolpho from her view,
and she turned, with mournful reluctance, to other objects. The
melancholy sighing of the wind among the pines, that waved high over
the steeps, and the distant thunder of a torrent assisted her musings,
and conspired with the wild scenery around, to diffuse over her mind
emotions solemn, yet not unpleasing, but which were soon interrupted by
the distant roar of cannon, echoing among the mountains. The sounds
rolled along the wind, and were repeated in faint and fainter
reverberation, till they sunk in sullen murmurs. This was a signal,
that the enemy had reached the castle, and fear for Valancourt again
tormented Emily. She turned her anxious eyes towards that part of the
country, where the edifice stood, but the intervening heights concealed
it from her view; still, however, she saw the tall head of a mountain,
which immediately fronted her late chamber, and on this she fixed her
gaze, as if it could have told her of all that was passing in the scene
it overlooked. The guides twice reminded her, that she was losing time
and that they had far to go, before she could turn from this
interesting object, and, even when she again moved onward, she often
sent a look back, till only its blue point, brightening in a gleam of
sunshine, appeared peeping over other mountains.
The sound of the cannon affected Ugo, as the blast of the trumpet does
the war-horse; it called forth all the fire of his nature; he was
impatient to be in the midst of the fight, and uttered frequent
execrations against Montoni for having sent him to a distance. The
feelings of his comrade seemed to be very opposite, and adapted rather
to the cruelties, than to the dangers of war.
Emily asked frequent questions, concerning the place of her
destination, but could only learn, that she was going to a cottage in
Tuscany; and, whenever she mentioned the subject, she fancied she
perceived, in the countenances of these men, an expression of malice
and cunning, that alarmed her.
It was afternoon, when they had left the castle. During several hours,
they travelled through regions of profound solitude, where no bleat of
sheep, or bark of watch-dog, broke on silence, and they were now too
far off to hear even the faint thunder of the cannon. Towards evening,
they wound down precipices, black with forests of cypress, pine and
cedar, into a glen so savage and secluded, that, if Solitude ever had
local habitation, this might have been “her place of dearest
residence.” To Emily it appeared a spot exactly suited for the retreat
of banditti, and, in her imagination, she already saw them lurking
under the brow of some projecting rock, whence their shadows,
lengthened by the setting sun, stretched across the road, and warned
the traveller of his danger. She shuddered at the idea, and, looking at
her conductors, to observe whether they were armed, thought she saw in
them the banditti she dreaded!
It was in this glen, that they proposed to alight, “For,” said Ugo,
“night will come on presently, and then the wolves will make it
dangerous to stop.” This was a new subject of alarm to Emily, but
inferior to what she suffered from the thought of being left in these
wilds, at midnight, with two such men as her present conductors. Dark
and dreadful hints of what might be Montoni’s purpose in sending her
hither, came to her mind. She endeavoured to dissuade the men from
stopping, and enquired, with anxiety, how far they had yet to go.
“Many leagues yet,” replied Bertrand. “As for you, Signora, you may do
as you please about eating, but for us, we will make a hearty supper,
while we can. We shall have need of it, I warrant, before we finish our
journey. The sun’s going down apace; let us alight under that rock,
yonder.”
His comrade assented, and, turning the mules out of the road, they
advanced towards a cliff, overhung with cedars, Emily following in
trembling silence. They lifted her from her mule, and, having seated
themselves on the grass, at the foot of the rocks, drew some homely
fare from a wallet, of which Emily tried to eat a little, the better to
disguise her apprehensions.
The sun was now sunk behind the high mountains in the west, upon which
a purple haze began to spread, and the gloom of twilight to draw over
the surrounding objects. To the low and sullen murmur of the breeze,
passing among the woods, she no longer listened with any degree of
pleasure, for it conspired with the wildness of the scene and the
evening hour, to depress her spirits.
Suspense had so much increased her anxiety, as to the prisoner at
Udolpho, that, finding it impracticable to speak alone with Bertrand,
on that subject, she renewed her questions in the presence of Ugo; but
he either was, or pretended to be entirely ignorant, concerning the
stranger. When he had dismissed the question, he talked with Ugo on
some subject, which led to the mention of Signor Orsino and of the
affair that had banished him from Venice; respecting which Emily had
ventured to ask a few questions. Ugo appeared to be well acquainted
with the circumstances of that tragical event, and related some minute
particulars, that both shocked and surprised her; for it appeared very
extraordinary how such particulars could be known to any, but to
persons, present when the assassination was committed.
“He was of rank,” said Bertrand, “or the State would not have troubled
itself to enquire after his assassins. The Signor has been lucky
hitherto; this is not the first affair of the kind he has had upon his
hands; and to be sure, when a gentleman has no other way of getting
redress—why he must take this.”
“Aye,” said Ugo, “and why is not this as good as another? This is the
way to have justice done at once, without more ado. If you go to law,
you must stay till the judges please, and may lose your cause, at last.
Why the best way, then, is to make sure of your right, while you can,
and execute justice yourself.”
“Yes, yes,” rejoined Bertrand, “if you wait till justice is done
you—you may stay long enough. Why if I want a friend of mine properly
served, how am I to get my revenge? Ten to one they will tell me he is
in the right, and I am in the wrong. Or, if a fellow has got possession
of property, which I think ought to be mine, why I may wait, till I
starve, perhaps, before the law will give it me, and then, after all,
the judge may say—the estate is his. What is to be done then?—Why the
case is plain enough, I must take it at last.”
Emily’s horror at this conversation was heightened by a suspicion, that
the latter part of it was pointed against herself, and that these men
had been commissioned by Montoni to execute a similar kind of
_justice_, in his cause.
“But I was speaking of Signor Orsino,” resumed Bertrand, “he is one of
those, who love to do justice at once. I remember, about ten years ago,
the Signor had a quarrel with a cavaliero of Milan. The story was told
me then, and it is still fresh in my head. They quarrelled about a
lady, that the Signor liked, and she was perverse enough to prefer the
gentleman of Milan, and even carried her whim so far as to marry him.
This provoked the Signor, as well it might, for he had tried to talk
reason to her a long while, and used to send people to serenade her,
under her windows, of a night; and used to make verses about her, and
would swear she was the handsomest lady in Milan—But all would not
do—nothing would bring her to reason; and, as I said, she went so far
at last, as to marry this other cavaliero. This made the Signor wrath,
with a vengeance; he resolved to be even with her though, and he
watched his opportunity, and did not wait long, for, soon after the
marriage, they set out for Padua, nothing doubting, I warrant, of what
was preparing for them. The cavaliero thought, to be sure, he was to be
called to no account, but was to go off triumphant; but he was soon
made to know another sort of story.”
“What then, the lady had promised to have Signor Orsino?” said Ugo.
“Promised! No,” replied Bertrand, “she had not wit enough even to tell
him she liked him, as I heard, but the contrary, for she used to say,
from the first, she never meant to have him. And this was what provoked
the Signor, so, and with good reason, for, who likes to be told that he
is disagreeable? and this was saying as good. It was enough to tell him
this; she need not have gone, and married another.”
“What, she married, then, on purpose to plague the Signor?” said Ugo.
“I don’t know as for that,” replied Bertrand, “they said, indeed, that
she had had a regard for the other gentleman a great while; but that is
nothing to the purpose, she should not have married him, and then the
Signor would not have been so much provoked. She might have expected
what was to follow; it was not to be supposed he would bear her ill
usage tamely, and she might thank herself for what happened. But, as I
said, they set out for Padua, she and her husband, and the road lay
over some barren mountains like these. This suited the Signor’s purpose
well. He watched the time of their departure, and sent his men after
them, with directions what to do. They kept their distance, till they
saw their opportunity, and this did not happen, till the second day’s
journey, when, the gentleman having sent his servants forward to the
next town, maybe to have horses in readiness, the Signor’s men
quickened their pace, and overtook the carriage, in a hollow, between
two mountains, where the woods prevented the servants from seeing what
passed, though they were then not far off. When we came up, we fired
our tromboni, but missed.”
Emily turned pale, at these words, and then hoped she had mistaken
them; while Bertrand proceeded:
“The gentleman fired again, but he was soon made to alight, and it was
as he turned to call his people, that he was struck. It was the most
dexterous feat you ever saw—he was struck in the back with three
stillettos at once. He fell, and was dispatched in a minute; but the
lady escaped, for the servants had heard the firing, and came up before
she could be taken care of. ‘Bertrand,’ said the Signor, when his men
returned—”
“Bertrand!” exclaimed Emily, pale with horror, on whom not a syllable
of this narrative had been lost.
“Bertrand, did I say?” rejoined the man, with some confusion—“No,
Giovanni. But I have forgot where I was;—‘Bertrand,’ said the Signor—
“Bertrand, again!” said Emily, in a faltering voice, “Why do you repeat
that name?”
Bertrand swore. “What signifies it,” he proceeded, “what the man was
called—Bertrand, or Giovanni—or Roberto? it’s all one for that. You
have put me out twice with that—question. Bertrand, or Giovanni—or what
you will—‘Bertrand,’ said the Signor, ‘if your comrades had done their
duty, as well as you, I should not have lost the lady. Go, my honest
fellow, and be happy with this.’ He gave him a purse of gold—and little
enough too, considering the service he had done him.”
“Aye, aye,” said Ugo, “little enough—little enough.”
Emily now breathed with difficulty, and could scarcely support herself.
When first she saw these men, their appearance and their connection
with Montoni had been sufficient to impress her with distrust; but now,
when one of them had betrayed himself to be a murderer, and she saw
herself, at the approach of night, under his guidance, among wild and
solitary mountains, and going she scarcely knew whither, the most
agonizing terror seized her, which was the less supportable from the
necessity she found herself under of concealing all symptoms of it from
her companions. Reflecting on the character and the menaces of Montoni,
it appeared not improbable, that he had delivered her to them, for the
purpose of having her murdered, and of thus securing to himself,
without further opposition, or delay, the estates, for which he had so
long and so desperately contended. Yet, if this was his design, there
appeared no necessity for sending her to such a distance from the
castle; for, if any dread of discovery had made him unwilling to
perpetrate the deed there, a much nearer place might have sufficed for
the purpose of concealment. These considerations, however, did not
immediately occur to Emily, with whom so many circumstances conspired
to rouse terror, that she had no power to oppose it, or to enquire
coolly into its grounds; and, if she had done so, still there were many
appearances which would too well have justified her most terrible
apprehensions. She did not now dare to speak to her conductors, at the
sound of whose voices she trembled; and when, now and then, she stole a
glance at them, their countenances, seen imperfectly through the gloom
of evening, served to confirm her fears.
The sun had now been set some time; heavy clouds, whose lower skirts
were tinged with sulphureous crimson, lingered in the west, and threw a
reddish tint upon the pine forests, which sent forth a solemn sound, as
the breeze rolled over them. The hollow moan struck upon Emily’s heart,
and served to render more gloomy and terrific every object around
her,—the mountains, shaded in twilight—the gleaming torrent, hoarsely
roaring—the black forests, and the deep glen, broken into rocky
recesses, high overshadowed by cypress and sycamore and winding into
long obscurity. To this glen, Emily, as she sent forth her anxious eye,
thought there was no end; no hamlet, or even cottage, was seen, and
still no distant bark of watch-dog, or even faint, far-off halloo came
on the wind. In a tremulous voice, she now ventured to remind the
guides, that it was growing late, and to ask again how far they had to
go: but they were too much occupied by their own discourse to attend to
her question, which she forbore to repeat, lest it should provoke a
surly answer. Having, however, soon after, finished their supper, the
men collected the fragments into their wallet, and proceeded along this
winding glen, in gloomy silence; while Emily again mused upon her own
situation, and concerning the motives of Montoni for involving her in
it. That it was for some evil purpose towards herself, she could not
doubt; and it seemed, that, if he did not intend to destroy her, with a
view of immediately seizing her estates, he meant to reserve her a
while in concealment, for some more terrible design, for one that might
equally gratify his avarice and still more his deep revenge. At this
moment, remembering Signor Brochio and his behaviour in the corridor, a
few preceding nights, the latter supposition, horrible as it was,
strengthened in her belief. Yet, why remove her from the castle, where
deeds of darkness had, she feared, been often executed with
secrecy?—from chambers, perhaps
With many a foul, and midnight murder stain’d.
The dread of what she might be going to encounter was now so excessive,
that it sometimes threatened her senses; and, often as she went, she
thought of her late father and of all he would have suffered, could he
have foreseen the strange and dreadful events of her future life; and
how anxiously he would have avoided that fatal confidence, which
committed his daughter to the care of a woman so weak as was Madame
Montoni. So romantic and improbable, indeed, did her present situation
appear to Emily herself, particularly when she compared it with the
repose and beauty of her early days, that there were moments, when she
could almost have believed herself the victim of frightful visions,
glaring upon a disordered fancy.
Restrained by the presence of her guides from expressing her terrors,
their acuteness was, at length, lost in gloomy despair. The dreadful
view of what might await her hereafter rendered her almost indifferent
to the surrounding dangers. She now looked, with little emotion, on the
wild dingles, and the gloomy road and mountains, whose outlines were
only distinguishable through the dusk;—objects, which but lately had
affected her spirits so much, as to awaken horrid views of the future,
and to tinge these with their own gloom.
It was now so nearly dark, that the travellers, who proceeded only by
the slowest pace, could scarcely discern their way. The clouds, which
seemed charged with thunder, passed slowly along the heavens, showing,
at intervals, the trembling stars; while the groves of cypress and
sycamore, that overhung the rocks, waved high in the breeze, as it
swept over the glen, and then rushed among the distant woods. Emily
shivered as it passed.
“Where is the torch?” said Ugo, “it grows dark.”
“Not so dark yet,” replied Bertrand, “but we may find our way, and ’tis
best not light the torch, before we can help, for it may betray us, if
any straggling party of the enemy is abroad.”
Ugo muttered something, which Emily did not understand, and they
proceeded in darkness, while she almost wished, that the enemy might
discover them; for from change there was something to hope, since she
could scarcely imagine any situation more dreadful than her present
one.
As they moved slowly along, her attention was surprised by a thin
tapering flame, that appeared, by fits, at the point of the pike, which
Bertrand carried, resembling what she had observed on the lance of the
sentinel, the night Madame Montoni died, and which he had said was an
omen. The event immediately following it appeared to justify the
assertion, and a superstitious impression had remained on Emily’s mind,
which the present appearance confirmed. She thought it was an omen of
her own fate, and watched it successively vanish and return, in gloomy
silence, which was at length interrupted by Bertrand.
“Let us light the torch,” said he, “and get under shelter of the
woods;—a storm is coming on—look at my lance.”
He held it forth, with the flame tapering at its point.*
(*Note: See the Abbé Berthelon on Electricity. [A. R.])
“Aye,” said Ugo, “you are not one of those, that believe in omens: we
have left cowards at the castle, who would turn pale at such a sight. I
have often seen it before a thunder-storm, it is an omen of that, and
one is coming now, sure enough. The clouds flash fast already.”
Emily was relieved by this conversation from some of the terrors of
superstition, but those of reason increased, as, waiting while Ugo
searched for a flint, to strike fire, she watched the pale lightning
gleam over the woods they were about to enter, and illumine the harsh
countenances of her companions. Ugo could not find a flint, and
Bertrand became impatient, for the thunder sounded hollowly at a
distance, and the lightning was more frequent. Sometimes, it revealed
the nearer recesses of the woods, or, displaying some opening in their
summits, illumined the ground beneath with partial splendour, the thick
foliage of the trees preserving the surrounding scene in deep shadow.
At length, Ugo found a flint, and the torch was lighted. The men then
dismounted, and, having assisted Emily, led the mules towards the
woods, that skirted the glen, on the left, over broken ground,
frequently interrupted with brush-wood and wild plants, which she was
often obliged to make a circuit to avoid.
She could not approach these woods, without experiencing keener sense
of her danger. Their deep silence, except when the wind swept among
their branches, and impenetrable glooms shown partially by the sudden
flash, and then, by the red glare of the torch, which served only to
make “darkness visible,” were circumstances, that contributed to renew
all her most terrible apprehensions; she thought, too, that, at this
moment, the countenances of her conductors displayed more than their
usual fierceness, mingled with a kind of lurking exultation, which they
seemed endeavouring to disguise. To her affrighted fancy it occurred,
that they were leading her into these woods to complete the will of
Montoni by her murder. The horrid suggestion called a groan from her
heart, which surprised her companions, who turned round quickly towards
her, and she demanded why they led her thither, beseeching them to
continue their way along the open glen, which she represented to be
less dangerous than the woods, in a thunder-storm.
“No, no,” said Bertrand, “we know best where the danger lies. See how
the clouds open over our heads. Besides, we can glide under cover of
the woods with less hazard of being seen, should any of the enemy be
wandering this way. By holy St. Peter and all the rest of them, I’ve as
stout a heart as the best, as many a poor devil could tell, if he were
alive again—but what can we do against numbers?”
“What are you whining about?” said Ugo, contemptuously, “who fears
numbers! Let them come, though they were as many as the Signor’s castle
could hold; I would show the knaves what fighting is. For you—I would
lay you quietly in a dry ditch, where you might peep out, and see me
put the rogues to flight.—Who talks of fear!”
Bertrand replied, with a horrible oath, that he did not like such
jesting, and a violent altercation ensued, which was, at length,
silenced by the thunder, whose deep volley was heard afar, rolling
onward till it burst over their heads in sounds, that seemed to shake
the earth to its centre. The ruffians paused, and looked upon each
other. Between the boles of the trees, the blue lightning flashed and
quivered along the ground, while, as Emily looked under the boughs, the
mountains beyond, frequently appeared to be clothed in livid flame. At
this moment, perhaps, she felt less fear of the storm, than did either
of her companions, for other terrors occupied her mind.
The men now rested under an enormous chesnut-tree, and fixed their
pikes in the ground, at some distance, on the iron points of which
Emily repeatedly observed the lightning play, and then glide down them
into the earth.
“I would we were well in the Signor’s castle!” said Bertrand, “I know
not why he should send us on this business. Hark! how it rattles above,
there! I could almost find in my heart to turn priest, and pray. Ugo,
hast got a rosary?”
“No,” replied Ugo, “I leave it to cowards like thee, to carry
rosaries—I carry a sword.”
“And much good may it do thee in fighting against the storm!” said
Bertrand.
Another peal, which was reverberated in tremendous echoes among the
mountains, silenced them for a moment. As it rolled away, Ugo proposed
going on. “We are only losing time here,” said he, “for the thick
boughs of the woods will shelter us as well as this chesnut-tree.”
They again led the mules forward, between the boles of the trees, and
over pathless grass, that concealed their high knotted roots. The
rising wind was now heard contending with the thunder, as it rushed
furiously among the branches above, and brightened the red flame of the
torch, which threw a stronger light forward among the woods, and showed
their gloomy recesses to be suitable resorts for the wolves, of which
Ugo had formerly spoken.
At length, the strength of the wind seemed to drive the storm before
it, for the thunder rolled away into distance, and was only faintly
heard. After travelling through the woods for nearly an hour, during
which the elements seemed to have returned to repose, the travellers,
gradually ascending from the glen, found themselves upon the open brow
of a mountain, with a wide valley, extending in misty moonlight, at
their feet, and above, the blue sky, trembling through the few thin
clouds, that lingered after the storm, and were sinking slowly to the
verge of the horizon.
Emily’s spirits, now that she had quitted the woods, began to revive;
for she considered, that, if these men had received an order to destroy
her, they would probably have executed their barbarous purpose in the
solitary wild, from whence they had just emerged, where the deed would
have been shrouded from every human eye. Reassured by this reflection,
and by the quiet demeanour of her guides, Emily, as they proceeded
silently, in a kind of sheep track, that wound along the skirts of the
woods, which ascended on the right, could not survey the sleeping
beauty of the vale, to which they were declining, without a momentary
sensation of pleasure. It seemed varied with woods, pastures, and
sloping grounds, and was screened to the north and the east by an
amphitheatre of the Apennines, whose outline on the horizon was here
broken into varied and elegant forms; to the west and the south, the
landscape extended indistinctly into the lowlands of Tuscany.
“There is the sea yonder,” said Bertrand, as if he had known that Emily
was examining the twilight view, “yonder in the west, though we cannot
see it.”
Emily already perceived a change in the climate, from that of the wild
and mountainous tract she had left; and, as she continued descending,
the air became perfumed by the breath of a thousand nameless flowers
among the grass, called forth by the late rain. So soothingly beautiful
was the scene around her, and so strikingly contrasted to the gloomy
grandeur of those, to which she had long been confined, and to the
manners of the people, who moved among them, that she could almost have
fancied herself again at La Vallée, and, wondering why Montoni had sent
her hither, could scarcely believe, that he had selected so enchanting
a spot for any cruel design. It was, however, probably not the spot,
but the persons, who happened to inhabit it, and to whose care he could
safely commit the execution of his plans, whatever they might be, that
had determined his choice.
She now ventured again to enquire, whether they were near the place of
their destination, and was answered by Ugo, that they had not far to
go. “Only to the wood of chesnuts in the valley yonder,” said he,
“there, by the brook, that sparkles with the moon; I wish I was once at
rest there, with a flask of good wine, and a slice of Tuscany bacon.”
Emily’s spirits revived, when she heard, that the journey was so nearly
concluded, and saw the wood of chesnuts in an open part of the vale, on
the margin of the stream.
In a short time they reached the entrance of the wood, and perceived,
between the twinkling leaves, a light, streaming from a distant cottage
window. They proceeded along the edge of the brook to where the trees,
crowding over it, excluded the moonbeams, but a long line of light,
from the cottage above, was seen on its dark tremulous surface.
Bertrand now stepped on first, and Emily heard him knock, and call
loudly at the door. As she reached it, the small upper casement, where
the light appeared, was unclosed by a man, who, having enquired what
they wanted, immediately descended, let them into a neat rustic cot,
and called up his wife to set refreshments before the travellers. As
this man conversed, rather apart, with Bertrand, Emily anxiously
surveyed him. He was a tall, but not robust, peasant, of a sallow
complexion, and had a shrewd and cunning eye; his countenance was not
of a character to win the ready confidence of youth, and there was
nothing in his manner, that might conciliate a stranger.
Ugo called impatiently for supper, and in a tone as if he knew his
authority here to be unquestionable. “I expected you an hour ago,” said
the peasant, “for I have had Signor Montoni’s letter these three hours,
and I and my wife had given you up, and gone to bed. How did you fare
in the storm?”
“Ill enough,” replied Ugo, “ill enough and we are like to fare ill
enough here, too, unless you will make more haste. Get us more wine,
and let us see what you have to eat.”
The peasant placed before them all that his cottage afforded—ham, wine,
figs, and grapes of such size and flavour, as Emily had seldom tasted.
After taking refreshment, she was shown by the peasant’s wife to her
little bed-chamber, where she asked some questions concerning Montoni,
to which the woman, whose name was Dorina, gave reserved answers,
pretending ignorance of his _Excellenza_’s intention in sending Emily
hither, but acknowledging that her husband had been apprized of the
circumstance. Perceiving that she could obtain no intelligence
concerning her destination, Emily dismissed Dorina, and retired to
repose; but all the busy scenes of her past and the anticipated ones of
the future came to her anxious mind, and conspired with the sense of
her new situation to banish sleep.
CHAPTER VII
Was nought around but images of rest,
Sleep-soothing groves and quiet lawns between,
And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kept,
From poppies breath’d, and banks of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets play’d,
And hurled everywhere their water’s sheen,
That, as they bicker’d through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
THOMSON
When Emily, in the morning, opened her casement, she was surprised to
observe the beauties, that surrounded it. The cottage was nearly
embowered in the woods, which were chiefly of chesnut intermixed with
some cypress, larch and sycamore. Beneath the dark and spreading
branches appeared to the north and to the east the woody Apennines,
rising in majestic amphitheatre, not black with pines, as she had been
accustomed to see them, but their loftiest summits crowned with ancient
forests of chesnut, oak, and oriental plane, now animated with the rich
tints of autumn, and which swept downward to the valley
uninterruptedly, except where some bold rocky promontory looked out
from among the foliage, and caught the passing gleam. Vineyards
stretched along the feet of the mountains, where the elegant villas of
the Tuscan nobility frequently adorned the scene, and overlooked slopes
clothed with groves of olive, mulberry, orange and lemon. The plain, to
which these declined, was coloured with the riches of cultivation,
whose mingled hues were mellowed into harmony by an Italian sun. Vines,
their purple clusters blushing between the russet foliage, hung in
luxuriant festoons from the branches of standard fig and cherry trees,
while pastures of verdure, such as Emily had seldom seen in Italy,
enriched the banks of a stream that, after descending from the
mountains, wound along the landscape, which it reflected, to a bay of
the sea. There, far in the west, the waters, fading into the sky,
assumed a tint of the faintest purple, and the line of separation
between them was, now and then, discernible only by the progress of a
sail, brightened with the sunbeam, along the horizon.
The cottage, which was shaded by the woods from the intenser rays of
the sun, and was open only to his evening light, was covered entirely
with vines, fig-trees and jessamine, whose flowers surpassed in size
and fragrance any that Emily had seen. These and ripening clusters of
grapes hung round her little casement. The turf, that grew under the
woods, was inlaid with a variety of wild flowers and perfumed herbs,
and, on the opposite margin of the stream, whose current diffused
freshness beneath the shades, rose a grove of lemon and orange trees.
This, though nearly opposite to Emily’s window, did not interrupt her
prospect, but rather heightened, by its dark verdure, the effect of the
perspective; and to her this spot was a bower of sweets, whose charms
communicated imperceptibly to her mind somewhat of their own serenity.
She was soon summoned to breakfast, by the peasant’s daughter, a girl
about seventeen, of a pleasant countenance, which, Emily was glad to
observe, seemed animated with the pure affections of nature, though the
others, that surrounded her, expressed, more or less, the worst
qualities—cruelty, ferocity, cunning and duplicity; of the latter style
of countenance, especially, were those of the peasant and his wife.
Maddelina spoke little, but what she said was in a soft voice, and with
an air of modesty and complacency, that interested Emily, who
breakfasted at a separate table with Dorina, while Ugo and Bertrand
were taking a repast of Tuscany bacon and wine with their host, near
the cottage door; when they had finished which, Ugo, rising hastily,
enquired for his mule, and Emily learned that he was to return to
Udolpho, while Bertrand remained at the cottage; a circumstance, which,
though it did not surprise, distressed her.
When Ugo was departed, Emily proposed to walk in the neighbouring
woods; but, on being told, that she must not quit the cottage, without
having Bertrand for her attendant, she withdrew to her own room. There,
as her eyes settled on the towering Apennines, she recollected the
terrific scenery they had exhibited and the horrors she had suffered,
on the preceding night, particularly at the moment when Bertrand had
betrayed himself to be an assassin; and these remembrances awakened a
train of images, which, since they abstracted her from a consideration
of her own situation, she pursued for some time, and then arranged in
the following lines; pleased to have discovered any innocent means, by
which she could beguile an hour of misfortune.
THE PILGRIM*
Slow o’er the Apennine, with bleeding feet,
A patient Pilgrim wound his lonely way,
To deck the Lady of Loretto’s seat
With all the little wealth his zeal could pay.
From mountain-tops cold died the evening ray,
And, stretch’d in twilight, slept the vale below;
And now the last, last purple streaks of day
Along the melancholy West fade slow.
High o’er his head, the restless pines complain,
As on their summit rolls the breeze of night;
Beneath, the hoarse stream chides the rocks in vain:
The Pilgrim pauses on the dizzy height.
Then to the vale his cautious step he press’d,
For there a hermit’s cross was dimly seen,
Cresting the rock, and there his limbs might rest,
Cheer’d in the good man’s cave, by faggot’s sheen,
On leafy beds, nor guile his sleep molest.
Unhappy Luke! he trusts a treacherous clue!
Behind the cliff the lurking robber stood;
No friendly moon his giant shadow threw
Athwart the road, to save the Pilgrim’s blood;
On as he went a vesper-hymn he sang,
The hymn, that nightly sooth’d him to repose.
Fierce on his harmless prey the ruffian sprang!
The Pilgrim bleeds to death, his eye-lids close.
Yet his meek spirit knew no vengeful care,
But, dying, for his murd’rer breath’d—a sainted pray’r!
(*Note: This poem and that entitled _The Traveller_ in vol. ii, have
already appeared in a periodical publication. [A. R.])
Preferring the solitude of her room to the company of the persons below
stairs, Emily dined above, and Maddelina was suffered to attend her,
from whose simple conversation she learned, that the peasant and his
wife were old inhabitants of this cottage, which had been purchased for
them by Montoni, in reward of some service, rendered him, many years
before, by Marco, to whom Carlo, the steward at the castle, was nearly
related. “So many years ago, Signora,” added Maddelina, “that I know
nothing about it; but my father did the Signor a great good, for my
mother has often said to him, this cottage was the least he ought to
have had.”
To the mention of this circumstance Emily listened with a painful
interest, since it appeared to give a frightful colour to the character
of Marco, whose service, thus rewarded by Montoni, she could scarcely
doubt have been criminal; and, if so, had too much reason to believe,
that she had been committed into his hands for some desperate purpose.
“Did you ever hear how many years it is,” said Emily, who was
considering of Signora Laurentini’s disappearance from Udolpho, “since
your father performed the services you spoke of?”
“It was a little before he came to live at the cottage, Signora,”
replied Maddelina, “and that is about eighteen years ago.”
This was near the period, when Signora Laurentini had been said to
disappear, and it occurred to Emily, that Marco had assisted in that
mysterious affair, and, perhaps, had been employed in a murder! This
horrible suggestion fixed her in such profound reverie, that Maddelina
quitted the room, unperceived by her, and she remained unconscious of
all around her, for a considerable time. Tears, at length, came to her
relief, after indulging which, her spirits becoming calmer, she ceased
to tremble at a view of evils, that might never arrive; and had
sufficient resolution to endeavour to withdraw her thoughts from the
contemplation of her own interests. Remembering the few books, which
even in the hurry of her departure from Udolpho she had put into her
little package, she sat down with one of them at her pleasant casement,
whence her eyes often wandered from the page to the landscape, whose
beauty gradually soothed her mind into gentle melancholy.
Here, she remained alone, till evening, and saw the sun descend the
western sky, throw all his pomp of light and shadow upon the mountains,
and gleam upon the distant ocean and the stealing sails, as he sunk
amidst the waves. Then, at the musing hour of twilight, her softened
thoughts returned to Valancourt; she again recollected every
circumstance, connected with the midnight music, and all that might
assist her conjecture, concerning his imprisonment at the castle, and,
becoming confirmed in the supposition, that it was his voice she had
heard there, she looked back to that gloomy abode with emotions of
grief and momentary regret.
Refreshed by the cool and fragrant air, and her spirits soothed to a
state of gentle melancholy by the still murmur of the brook below and
of the woods around, she lingered at her casement long after the sun
had set, watching the valley sinking into obscurity, till only the
grand outline of the surrounding mountains, shadowed upon the horizon,
remained visible. But a clear moonlight, that succeeded, gave to the
landscape, what time gives to the scenes of past life, when it softens
all their harsher features, and throws over the whole the mellowing
shade of distant contemplation. The scenes of La Vallée, in the early
morn of her life, when she was protected and beloved by parents equally
loved, appeared in Emily’s memory tenderly beautiful, like the prospect
before her, and awakened mournful comparisons. Unwilling to encounter
the coarse behaviour of the peasant’s wife, she remained supperless in
her room, while she wept again over her forlorn and perilous situation,
a review of which entirely overcame the small remains of her fortitude,
and, reducing her to temporary despondence, she wished to be released
from the heavy load of life, that had so long oppressed her, and prayed
to Heaven to take her, in its mercy, to her parents.
Wearied with weeping, she, at length, lay down on her mattress, and
sunk to sleep, but was soon awakened by a knocking at her chamber door,
and, starting up in terror, she heard a voice calling her. The image of
Bertrand, with a stilletto in his hand, appeared to her alarmed fancy,
and she neither opened the door nor answered, but listened in profound
silence, till, the voice repeating her name in the same low tone, she
demanded who called. “It is I, Signora,” replied the voice, which she
now distinguished to be Maddelina’s, “pray open the door. Don’t be
frightened, it is I.”
“And what brings you here so late, Maddelina?” said Emily, as she let
her in.
“Hush! signora, for heaven’s sake hush!—if we are overheard I shall
never be forgiven. My father and mother and Bertrand are all gone to
bed,” continued Maddelina, as she gently shut the door, and crept
forward, “and I have brought you some supper, for you had none, you
know, Signora, below stairs. Here are some grapes and figs and half a
cup of wine.” Emily thanked her, but expressed apprehension lest this
kindness should draw upon her the resentment of Dorina, when she
perceived the fruit was gone. “Take it back, therefore, Maddelina,”
added Emily, “I shall suffer much less from the want of it, than I
should do, if this act of good-nature was to subject you to your
mother’s displeasure.”
“O Signora! there is no danger of that,” replied Maddelina, “my mother
cannot miss the fruit, for I saved it from my own supper. You will make
me very unhappy, if you refuse to take it, Signora.” Emily was so much
affected by this instance of the good girl’s generosity, that she
remained for some time unable to reply, and Maddelina watched her in
silence, till, mistaking the cause of her emotion, she said, “Do not
weep so, Signora! My mother, to be sure, is a little cross, sometimes,
but then it is soon over,—so don’t take it so much to heart. She often
scolds me, too, but then I have learned to bear it, and, when she has
done, if I can but steal out into the woods, and play upon my sticcado,
I forget it all directly.”
Emily, smiling through her tears, told Maddelina, that she was a good
girl, and then accepted her offering. She wished anxiously to know,
whether Bertrand and Dorina had spoken of Montoni, or of his designs,
concerning herself, in the presence of Maddelina, but disdained to
tempt the innocent girl to a conduct so mean, as that of betraying the
private conversations of her parents. When she was departing, Emily
requested, that she would come to her room as often as she dared,
without offending her mother, and Maddelina, after promising that she
would do so, stole softly back again to her own chamber.
Thus several days passed, during which Emily remained in her own room,
Maddelina attending her only at her repast, whose gentle countenance
and manners soothed her more than any circumstance she had known for
many months. Of her pleasant embowered chamber she now became fond, and
began to experience in it those feelings of security, which we
naturally attach to home. In this interval also, her mind, having been
undisturbed by any new circumstance of disgust, or alarm, recovered its
tone sufficiently to permit her the enjoyment of her books, among which
she found some unfinished sketches of landscapes, several blank sheets
of paper, with her drawing instruments, and she was thus enabled to
amuse herself with selecting some of the lovely features of the
prospect, that her window commanded, and combining them in scenes, to
which her tasteful fancy gave a last grace. In these little sketches
she generally placed interesting groups, characteristic of the scenery
they animated, and often contrived to tell, with perspicuity, some
simple and affecting story, when, as a tear fell over the pictured
griefs, which her imagination drew, she would forget, for a moment, her
real sufferings. Thus innocently she beguiled the heavy hours of
misfortune, and, with meek patience, awaited the events of futurity.
A beautiful evening, that had succeeded to a sultry day, at length
induced Emily to walk, though she knew that Bertrand must attend her,
and, with Maddelina for her companion, she left the cottage, followed
by Bertrand, who allowed her to choose her own way. The hour was cool
and silent, and she could not look upon the country around her without
delight. How lovely, too, appeared the brilliant blue that coloured all
the upper region of the air, and, thence fading downward, was lost in
the saffron glow of the horizon! Nor less so were the varied shades and
warm colouring of the Apennines, as the evening sun threw his slanting
rays athwart their broken surface. Emily followed the course of the
stream, under the shades, that overhung its grassy margin. On the
opposite banks, the pastures were animated with herds of cattle of a
beautiful cream-colour; and, beyond, were groves of lemon and orange,
with fruit glowing on the branches, frequent almost as the leaves,
which partly concealed it. She pursued her way towards the sea, which
reflected the warm glow of sunset, while the cliffs, that rose over its
edge, were tinted with the last rays. The valley was terminated on the
right by a lofty promontory, whose summit, impending over the waves,
was crowned with a ruined tower, now serving for the purpose of a
beacon, whose shattered battlements and the extended wings of some
sea-fowl, that circled near it, were still illumined by the upward
beams of the sun, though his disk was now sunk beneath the horizon;
while the lower part of the ruin, the cliff on which it stood and the
waves at its foot, were shaded with the first tints of twilight.
Having reached this headland, Emily gazed with solemn pleasure on the
cliffs, that extended on either hand along the sequestered shores, some
crowned with groves of pine, and others exhibiting only barren
precipices of greyish marble, except where the crags were tufted with
myrtle and other aromatic shrubs. The sea slept in a perfect calm; its
waves, dying in murmurs on the shores, flowed with the gentlest
undulation, while its clear surface reflected in softened beauty the
vermeil tints of the west. Emily, as she looked upon the ocean, thought
of France and of past times, and she wished, Oh! how ardently, and
vainly—wished! that its waves would bear her to her distant native
home!
“Ah! that vessel,” said she, “that vessel, which glides along so
stately, with its tall sails reflected in the water is, perhaps, bound
for France! Happy—happy bark!” She continued to gaze upon it, with warm
emotion, till the grey of twilight obscured the distance, and veiled it
from her view. The melancholy sound of the waves at her feet assisted
the tenderness, that occasioned her tears, and this was the only sound,
that broke upon the hour, till, having followed the windings of the
beach, for some time, a chorus of voices passed her on the air. She
paused a moment, wishing to hear more, yet fearing to be seen, and, for
the first time, looked back to Bertrand, as her protector, who was
following, at a short distance, in company with some other person.
Reassured by this circumstance, she advanced towards the sounds, which
seemed to arise from behind a high promontory, that projected athwart
the beach. There was now a sudden pause in the music, and then one
female voice was heard to sing in a kind of chant. Emily quickened her
steps, and, winding round the rock, saw, within the sweeping bay,
beyond, which was hung with woods from the borders of the beach to the
very summit of the cliffs, two groups of peasants, one seated beneath
the shades, and the other standing on the edge of the sea, round the
girl, who was singing, and who held in her hand a chaplet of flowers,
which she seemed about to drop into the waves.
Emily, listening with surprise and attention, distinguished the
following invocation delivered in the pure and elegant tongue of
Tuscany, and accompanied by a few pastoral instruments.
TO A SEA-NYMPH
O nymph! who loves to float on the green wave,
When Neptune sleeps beneath the moonlight hour,
Lull’d by the music’s melancholy pow’r,
O nymph, arise from out thy pearly cave!
For Hesper beams amid the twilight shade,
And soon shall Cynthia tremble o’er the tide,
Gleam on these cliffs, that bound the ocean’s pride,
And lonely silence all the air pervade.
Then, let thy tender voice at distance swell,
And steal along this solitary shore,
Sink on the breeze, till dying—heard no more—
Thou wak’st the sudden magic of thy shell.
While the long coast in echo sweet replies,
Thy soothing strains the pensive heart beguile,
And bid the visions of the future smile,
O nymph! from out thy pearly cave—arise!
(Chorus)—_Arise!_
(Semi-chorus)—_Arise!_
The last words being repeated by the surrounding group, the garland of
flowers was thrown into the waves, and the chorus, sinking gradually
into a chant, died away in silence.
“What can this mean, Maddelina?” said Emily, awakening from the
pleasing trance, into which the music had lulled her. “This is the eve
of a festival, Signora,” replied Maddelina; “and the peasants then
amuse themselves with all kinds of sports.”
“But they talked of a sea-nymph,” said Emily: “how came these good
people to think of a sea-nymph?”
“O, Signora,” rejoined Maddelina, mistaking the reason of Emily’s
surprise, “nobody _believes_ in such things, but our old songs tell of
them, and, when we are at our sports, we sometimes sing to them, and
throw garlands into the sea.”
Emily had been early taught to venerate Florence as the seat of
literature and of the fine arts; but, that its taste for classic story
should descend to the peasants of the country, occasioned her both
surprise and admiration. The Arcadian air of the girls next attracted
her attention. Their dress was a very short full petticoat of light
green, with a boddice of white silk; the sleeves loose, and tied up at
the shoulders with ribbons and bunches of flowers. Their hair, falling
in ringlets on their necks, was also ornamented with flowers, and with
a small straw hat, which, set rather backward and on one side of the
head, gave an expression of gaiety and smartness to the whole figure.
When the song had concluded, several of these girls approached Emily,
and, inviting her to sit down among them, offered her, and Maddelina,
whom they knew, grapes and figs.
Emily accepted their courtesy, much pleased with the gentleness and
grace of their manners, which appeared to be perfectly natural to them;
and when Bertrand, soon after, approached, and was hastily drawing her
away, a peasant, holding up a flask, invited him to drink; a
temptation, which Bertrand was seldom very valiant in resisting.
“Let the young lady join in the dance, my friend,” said the peasant,
“while we empty this flask. They are going to begin directly. Strike
up! my lads, strike up your tambourines and merry flutes!”
They sounded gaily; and the younger peasants formed themselves into a
circle, which Emily would readily have joined, had her spirits been in
unison with their mirth. Maddelina, however, tripped it lightly, and
Emily, as she looked on the happy group, lost the sense of her
misfortunes in that of a benevolent pleasure. But the pensive
melancholy of her mind returned, as she sat rather apart from the
company, listening to the mellow music, which the breeze softened as it
bore it away, and watching the moon, stealing its tremulous light over
the waves and on the woody summits of the cliffs, that wound along
these Tuscan shores.
Meanwhile, Bertrand was so well pleased with his first flask, that he
very willingly commenced the attack on a second, and it was late before
Emily, not without some apprehension, returned to the cottage.
After this evening, she frequently walked with Maddelina, but was never
unattended by Bertrand; and her mind became by degrees as tranquil as
the circumstances of her situation would permit. The quiet, in which
she was suffered to live, encouraged her to hope, that she was not sent
hither with an evil design; and, had it not appeared probable, that
Valancourt was at this time an inhabitant of Udolpho, she would have
wished to remain at the cottage, till an opportunity should offer of
returning to her native country. But, concerning Montoni’s motive for
sending her into Tuscany, she was more than ever perplexed, nor could
she believe that any consideration for her safety had influenced him on
this occasion.
She had been some time at the cottage, before she recollected, that, in
the hurry of leaving Udolpho, she had forgotten the papers committed to
her by her late aunt, relative to the Languedoc estates; but, though
this remembrance occasioned her much uneasiness, she had some hope,
that, in the obscure place, where they were deposited, they would
escape the detection of Montoni.
CHAPTER VIII
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer, by small and small,
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken.
RICHARD II
We now return, for a moment, to Venice, where Count Morano was
suffering under an accumulation of misfortunes. Soon after his arrival
in that city, he had been arrested by order of the Senate, and, without
knowing of what he was suspected, was conveyed to a place of
confinement, whither the most strenuous enquiries of his friends had
been unable to trace him. Who the enemy was, that had occasioned him
this calamity, he had not been able to guess, unless, indeed, it was
Montoni, on whom his suspicions rested, and not only with much apparent
probability, but with justice.
In the affair of the poisoned cup, Montoni had suspected Morano; but,
being unable to obtain the degree of proof, which was necessary to
convict him of a guilty intention, he had recourse to means of other
revenge, than he could hope to obtain by prosecution. He employed a
person, in whom he believed he might confide, to drop a letter of
accusation into the _Denunzie secrete_, or lions’ mouths, which are
fixed in a gallery of the Doge’s palace, as receptacles for anonymous
information, concerning persons, who may be disaffected towards the
state. As, on these occasions, the accuser is not confronted with the
accused, a man may falsely impeach his enemy, and accomplish an unjust
revenge, without fear of punishment, or detection. That Montoni should
have recourse to these diabolical means of ruining a person, whom he
suspected of having attempted his life, is not in the least surprising.
In the letter, which he had employed as the instrument of his revenge,
he accused Morano of designs against the state, which he attempted to
prove, with all the plausible simplicity of which he was master; and
the Senate, with whom a suspicion was, at that time, almost equal to a
proof, arrested the Count, in consequence of this accusation; and,
without even hinting to him his crime, threw him into one of those
secret prisons, which were the terror of the Venetians, and in which
persons often languished, and sometimes died, without being discovered
by their friends.
Morano had incurred the personal resentment of many members of the
state; his habits of life had rendered him obnoxious to some; and his
ambition, and the bold rivalship, which he discovered, on several
public occasions,—to others; and it was not to be expected, that mercy
would soften the rigour of a law, which was to be dispensed from the
hands of his enemies.
Montoni, meantime, was beset by dangers of another kind. His castle was
besieged by troops, who seemed willing to dare everything, and to
suffer patiently any hardships in pursuit of victory. The strength of
the fortress, however, withstood their attack, and this, with the
vigorous defence of the garrison and the scarcity of provision on these
wild mountains, soon compelled the assailants to raise the siege.
When Udolpho was once more left to the quiet possession of Montoni, he
dispatched Ugo into Tuscany for Emily, whom he had sent from
considerations of her personal safety, to a place of greater security,
than a castle, which was, at that time, liable to be overrun by his
enemies. Tranquillity being once more restored to Udolpho, he was
impatient to secure her again under his roof, and had commissioned Ugo
to assist Bertrand in guarding her back to the castle. Thus compelled
to return, Emily bade the kind Maddelina farewell, with regret, and,
after about a fortnight’s stay in Tuscany, where she had experienced an
interval of quiet, which was absolutely necessary to sustain her
long-harassed spirits, began once more to ascend the Apennines, from
whose heights she gave a long and sorrowful look to the beautiful
country, that extended at their feet, and to the distant Mediterranean,
whose waves she had so often wished would bear her back to France. The
distress she felt, on her return towards the place of her former
sufferings, was, however, softened by a conjecture, that Valancourt was
there, and she found some degree of comfort in the thought of being
near him, notwithstanding the consideration, that he was probably a
prisoner.
It was noon when she had left the cottage, and the evening was closed,
long before she came within the neighbourhood of Udolpho. There was a
moon, but it shone only at intervals, for the night was cloudy, and,
lighted by the torch, which Ugo carried, the travellers paced silently
along, Emily musing on her situation, and Bertrand and Ugo anticipating
the comforts of a flask of wine and a good fire, for they had perceived
for some time the difference between the warm climate of the lowlands
of Tuscany and the nipping air of these upper regions. Emily was, at
length, roused from her reverie by the far-off sound of the castle
clock, to which she listened not without some degree of awe, as it
rolled away on the breeze. Another and another note succeeded, and died
in sullen murmur among the mountains:—to her mournful imagination it
seemed a knell measuring out some fateful period for her.
“Aye, there is the old clock,” said Bertrand, “there he is still; the
cannon have not silenced him!”
“No,” answered Ugo, “he crowed as loud as the best of them in the midst
of it all. There he was roaring out in the hottest fire I have seen
this many a day! I said that some of them would have a hit at the old
fellow, but he escaped, and the tower too.”
The road winding round the base of a mountain, they now came within
view of the castle, which was shown in the perspective of the valley by
a gleam of moonshine, and then vanished in shade; while even a
transient view of it had awakened the poignancy of Emily’s feelings.
Its massy and gloomy walls gave her terrible ideas of imprisonment and
suffering: yet, as she advanced, some degree of hope mingled with her
terror; for, though this was certainly the residence of Montoni, it was
possibly, also, that of Valancourt, and she could not approach a place,
where he might be, without experiencing somewhat of the joy of hope.
They continued to wind along the valley, and, soon after, she saw again
the old walls and moonlit towers, rising over the woods: the strong
rays enabled her, also, to perceive the ravages, which the siege had
made,—with the broken walls, and shattered battlements, for they were
now at the foot of the steep, on which Udolpho stood. Massy fragments
had rolled down among the woods, through which the travellers now began
to ascend, and there mingled with the loose earth, and pieces of rock
they had brought with them. The woods, too, had suffered much from the
batteries above, for here the enemy had endeavoured to screen
themselves from the fire of the ramparts. Many noble trees were
levelled with the ground, and others, to a wide extent, were entirely
stripped of their upper branches. “We had better dismount,” said Ugo,
“and lead the mules up the hill, or we shall get into some of the
holes, which the balls have left. Here are plenty of them. Give me the
torch,” continued Ugo, after they had dismounted, “and take care you
don’t stumble over anything, that lies in your way, for the ground is
not yet cleared of the enemy.”
“How!” exclaimed Emily, “are any of the enemy here, then?”
“Nay, I don’t know for that, now,” he replied, “but when I came away I
saw one or two of them lying under the trees.”
As they proceeded, the torch threw a gloomy light upon the ground, and
far among the recesses of the woods, and Emily feared to look forward,
lest some object of horror should meet her eye. The path was often
strewn with broken heads of arrows, and with shattered remains of
armour, such as at that period was mingled with the lighter dress of
the soldiers. “Bring the light hither,” said Bertrand, “I have stumbled
over something, that rattles loud enough.” Ugo holding up the torch,
they perceived a steel breastplate on the ground, which Bertrand
raised, and they saw, that it was pierced through, and that the lining
was entirely covered with blood; but upon Emily’s earnest entreaties
that they would proceed, Bertrand, uttering some joke upon the
unfortunate person, to whom it had belonged, threw it hard upon the
ground, and they passed on.
At every step she took, Emily feared to see some vestige of death.
Coming soon after to an opening in the woods, Bertrand stopped to
survey the ground, which was encumbered with massy trunks and branches
of the trees, that had so lately adorned it, and seemed to have been a
spot particularly fatal to the besiegers; for it was evident from the
destruction of the trees, that here the hottest fire of the garrison
had been directed. As Ugo held again forth the torch, steel glittered
between the fallen trees; the ground beneath was covered with broken
arms, and with the torn vestments of soldiers, whose mangled forms
Emily almost expected to see; and she again entreated her companions to
proceed, who were, however, too intent in their examination, to regard
her, and she turned her eyes from this desolated scene to the castle
above, where she observed lights gliding along the ramparts. Presently,
the castle clock struck twelve, and then a trumpet sounded, of which
Emily enquired the occasion.
“O! they are only changing watch,” replied Ugo. “I do not remember this
trumpet,” said Emily, “it is a new custom.” “It is only an old one
revived, lady; we always use it in time of war. We have sounded it, at
midnight, ever since the place was besieged.”
“Hark!” said Emily, as the trumpet sounded again; and, in the next
moment, she heard a faint clash of arms, and then the watchword passed
along the terrace above, and was answered from a distant part of the
castle; after which all was again still. She complained of cold, and
begged to go on. “Presently, lady,” said Bertrand, turning over some
broken arms with the pike he usually carried. “What have we here?”
“Hark!” cried Emily, “what noise was that?”
“What noise was it?” said Ugo, starting up and listening.
“Hush!” repeated Emily. “It surely came from the ramparts above:” and,
on looking up, they perceived a light moving along the walls, while, in
the next instant, the breeze swelling, the voice sounded louder than
before.
“Who goes yonder?” cried a sentinel of the castle. “Speak or it will be
worse for you.” Bertrand uttered a shout of joy. “Hah! my brave
comrade, is it you?” said he, and he blew a shrill whistle, which
signal was answered by another from the soldier on watch; and the
party, then passing forward, soon after emerged from the woods upon the
broken road, that led immediately to the castle gates, and Emily saw,
with renewed terror, the whole of that stupendous structure. “Alas!”
said she to herself, “I am going again into my prison!”
“Here has been warm work, by St. Marco!” cried Bertrand, waving a torch
over the ground; “the balls have torn up the earth here with a
vengeance.”
“Aye,” replied Ugo, “they were fired from that redoubt, yonder, and
rare execution they did. The enemy made a furious attack upon the great
gates; but they might have guessed they could never carry it there;
for, besides the cannon from the walls, our archers, on the two round
towers, showered down upon them at such a rate, that, by holy Peter!
there was no standing it. I never saw a better sight in my life; I
laughed, till my sides aked, to see how the knaves scampered. Bertrand,
my good fellow, thou shouldst have been among them; I warrant thou
wouldst have won the race!”
“Hah! you are at your old tricks again,” said Bertrand in a surly tone.
“It is well for thee thou art so near the castle; thou knowest I have
killed my man before now.” Ugo replied only by a laugh, and then gave
some further account of the siege, to which as Emily listened, she was
struck by the strong contrast of the present scene with that which had
so lately been acted here.
The mingled uproar of cannon, drums, and trumpets, the groans of the
conquered, and the shouts of the conquerors were now sunk into a
silence so profound, that it seemed as if death had triumphed alike
over the vanquished and the victor. The shattered condition of one of
the towers of the great gates by no means confirmed the _valiant_
account just given by Ugo of the scampering party, who, it was evident,
had not only made a stand, but had done much mischief before they took
to flight; for this tower appeared, as far as Emily could judge by the
dim moonlight that fell upon it, to be laid open, and the battlements
were nearly demolished. While she gazed, a light glimmered through one
of the lower loop-holes, and disappeared; but, in the next moment, she
perceived through the broken wall, a soldier, with a lamp, ascending
the narrow staircase, that wound within the tower, and, remembering
that it was the same she had passed up, on the night, when Barnardine
had deluded her with a promise of seeing Madame Montoni, fancy gave her
somewhat of the terror she had then suffered. She was now very near the
gates, over which the soldier having opened the door of the
portal-chamber, the lamp he carried gave her a dusky view of that
terrible apartment, and she almost sunk under the recollected horrors
of the moment, when she had drawn aside the curtain, and discovered the
object it was meant to conceal.
“Perhaps,” said she to herself, “it is now used for a similar purpose;
perhaps, that soldier goes, at this dead hour, to watch over the corpse
of his friend!” The little remains of her fortitude now gave way to the
united force of remembered and anticipated horrors, for the melancholy
fate of Madame Montoni appeared to foretell her own. She considered,
that, though the Languedoc estates, if she relinquished them, would
satisfy Montoni’s avarice, they might not appease his vengeance, which
was seldom pacified but by a terrible sacrifice; and she even thought,
that, were she to resign them, the fear of justice might urge him
either to detain her a prisoner, or to take away her life.
They were now arrived at the gates, where Bertrand, observing the light
glimmer through a small casement of the portal-chamber, called aloud;
and the soldier, looking out, demanded who was there. “Here, I have
brought you a prisoner,” said Ugo, “open the gate, and let us in.”
“Tell me first who it is, that demands entrance,” replied the soldier.
“What! my old comrade,” cried Ugo, “don’t you know me? not know Ugo? I
have brought home a prisoner here, bound hand and foot—a fellow, who
has been drinking Tuscany wine, while we here have been fighting.”
“You will not rest till you meet with your match,” said Bertrand
sullenly. “Hah! my comrade, is it you?” said the soldier—“I’ll be with
you directly.”
Emily presently heard his steps descending the stairs within, and then
the heavy chain fall, and the bolts undraw of a small postern door,
which he opened to admit the party. He held the lamp low, to show the
step of the gate, and she found herself once more beneath the gloomy
arch, and heard the door close, that seemed to shut her from the world
for ever. In the next moment, she was in the first court of the castle,
where she surveyed the spacious and solitary area, with a kind of calm
despair; while the dead hour of the night, the gothic gloom of the
surrounding buildings, and the hollow and imperfect echoes, which they
returned, as Ugo and the soldier conversed together, assisted to
increase the melancholy forebodings of her heart. Passing on to the
second court, a distant sound broke feebly on the silence, and
gradually swelling louder, as they advanced, Emily distinguished voices
of revelry and laughter, but they were to her far other than sounds of
joy. “Why, you have got some Tuscany wine among you, _here_,” said
Bertrand, “if one may judge by the uproar that is going forward. Ugo
has taken a larger share of that than of fighting, I’ll be sworn. Who
is carousing at this late hour?”
“His _Excellenza_ and the Signors,” replied the soldier: “it is a sign
you are a stranger at the castle, or you would not need to ask the
question. They are brave spirits, that do without sleep—they generally
pass the night in good cheer; would that we, who keep the watch, had a
little of it! It is cold work, pacing the ramparts so many hours of the
night, if one has no good liquor to warm one’s heart.”
“Courage, my lad, courage ought to warm your heart,” said Ugo.
“Courage!” replied the soldier sharply, with a menacing air, which Ugo
perceiving, prevented his saying more, by returning to the subject of
the carousal. “This is a new custom,” said he; “when I left the castle,
the Signors used to sit up counselling.”
“Aye, and for that matter, carousing too,” replied the soldier, “but,
since the siege, they have done nothing but make merry: and if I was
they, I would settle accounts with myself, for all my hard fighting,
the same way.”
They had now crossed the second court, and reached the hall door, when
the soldier, bidding them good night, hastened back to his post; and,
while they waited for admittance, Emily considered how she might avoid
seeing Montoni, and retire unnoticed to her former apartment, for she
shrunk from the thought of encountering either him, or any of his
party, at this hour. The uproar within the castle was now so loud,
that, though Ugo knocked repeatedly at the hall door, he was not heard
by any of the servants, a circumstance, which increased Emily’s alarm,
while it allowed her time to deliberate on the means of retiring
unobserved; for, though she might, perhaps, pass up the great staircase
unseen, it was impossible she could find the way to her chamber,
without a light, the difficulty of procuring which, and the danger of
wandering about the castle, without one, immediately struck her.
Bertrand had only a torch, and she knew, that the servants never
brought a taper to the door, for the hall was sufficiently lighted by
the large tripod lamp, which hung in the vaulted roof; and, while she
should wait till Annette could bring a taper, Montoni, or some of his
companions, might discover her.
The door was now opened by Carlo; and Emily, having requested him to
send Annette immediately with a light to the great gallery, where she
determined to await her, passed on with hasty steps towards the
staircase; while Bertrand and Ugo, with the torch, followed old Carlo
to the servants’ hall, impatient for supper and the warm blaze of a
wood fire. Emily, lighted only by the feeble rays, which the lamp above
threw between the arches of this extensive hall, endeavoured to find
her way to the staircase, now hid in obscurity; while the shouts of
merriment, that burst from a remote apartment, served, by heightening
her terror, to increase her perplexity, and she expected, every
instant, to see the door of that room open, and Montoni and his
companions issue forth. Having, at length, reached the staircase, and
found her way to the top, she seated herself on the last stair, to
await the arrival of Annette; for the profound darkness of the gallery
deterred her from proceeding farther, and, while she listened for her
footstep, she heard only distant sounds of revelry, which rose in
sullen echoes from among the arcades below. Once she thought she heard
a low sound from the dark gallery behind her; and, turning her eyes,
fancied she saw something luminous move in it; and, since she could
not, at this moment, subdue the weakness that caused her fears, she
quitted her seat, and crept softly down a few stairs lower.
Annette not yet appearing, Emily now concluded, that she was gone to
bed, and that nobody chose to call her up; and the prospect, that
presented itself, of passing the night in darkness, in this place, or
in some other equally forlorn (for she knew it would be impracticable
to find her way through the intricacies of the galleries to her
chamber), drew tears of mingled terror and despondency from her eyes.
While thus she sat, she fancied she heard again an odd sound from the
gallery, and she listened, scarcely daring to breathe, but the
increasing voices below overcame every other sound. Soon after, she
heard Montoni and his companions burst into the hall, who spoke, as if
they were much intoxicated, and seemed to be advancing towards the
staircase. She now remembered, that they must come this way to their
chambers, and, forgetting all the terrors of the gallery, hurried
towards it with an intention of secreting herself in some of the
passages, that opened beyond, and of endeavouring, when the Signors
were retired, to find her way to her own room, or to that of Annette,
which was in a remote part of the castle.
With extended arms, she crept along the gallery, still hearing the
voices of persons below, who seemed to stop in conversation at the foot
of the staircase, and then pausing for a moment to listen, half fearful
of going further into the darkness of the gallery, where she still
imagined, from the noise she had heard, that some person was lurking,
“They are already informed of my arrival,” said she, “and Montoni is
coming himself to seek me! In the present state of his mind, his
purpose must be desperate.” Then, recollecting the scene, that had
passed in the corridor, on the night preceding her departure from the
castle, “O Valancourt!” said she, “I must then resign you for ever. To
brave any longer the injustice of Montoni, would not be fortitude, but
rashness.” Still the voices below did not draw nearer, but they became
louder, and she distinguished those of Verezzi and Bertolini above the
rest, while the few words she caught made her listen more anxiously for
others. The conversation seemed to concern herself; and, having
ventured to step a few paces nearer to the staircase, she discovered,
that they were disputing about her, each seeming to claim some former
promise of Montoni, who appeared, at first, inclined to appease and to
persuade them to return to their wine, but afterwards to be weary of
the dispute, and, saying that he left them to settle it as they could,
was returning with the rest of the party to the apartment he had just
quitted. Verezzi then stopped him. “Where is she? Signor,” said he, in
a voice of impatience: “tell us where she is.” “I have already told you
that I do not know,” replied Montoni, who seemed to be somewhat
overcome with wine; “but she is most probably gone to her apartment.”
Verezzi and Bertolini now desisted from their enquiries, and sprang to
the staircase together, while Emily, who, during this discourse, had
trembled so excessively, that she had with difficulty supported
herself, seemed inspired with new strength, the moment she heard the
sound of their steps, and ran along the gallery, dark as it was, with
the fleetness of a fawn. But, long before she reached its extremity,
the light, which Verezzi carried, flashed upon the walls; both
appeared, and, instantly perceiving Emily, pursued her. At this moment,
Bertolini, whose steps, though swift, were not steady, and whose
impatience overcame what little caution he had hitherto used, stumbled,
and fell at his length. The lamp fell with him, and was presently
expiring on the floor; but Verezzi, regardless of saving it, seized the
advantage this accident gave him over his rival, and followed Emily, to
whom, however, the light had shown one of the passages that branched
from the gallery, and she instantly turned into it. Verezzi could just
discern the way she had taken, and this he pursued; but the sound of
her steps soon sunk in distance, while he, less acquainted with the
passage, was obliged to proceed through the dark, with caution, lest he
should fall down a flight of steps, such as in this extensive old
castle frequently terminated an avenue. This passage at length brought
Emily to the corridor, into which her own chamber opened, and, not
hearing any footstep, she paused to take breath, and consider what was
the safest design to be adopted. She had followed this passage, merely
because it was the first that appeared, and now that she had reached
the end of it, was as perplexed as before. Whither to go, or how
further to find her way in the dark, she knew not; she was aware only
that she must not seek her apartment, for there she would certainly be
sought, and her danger increased every instant, while she remained near
it. Her spirits and her breath, however, were so much exhausted, that
she was compelled to rest, for a few minutes, at the end of the
passage, and still she heard no steps approaching. As thus she stood,
light glimmered under an opposite door of the gallery, and, from its
situation, she knew, that it was the door of that mysterious chamber,
where she had made a discovery so shocking, that she never remembered
it but with the utmost horror. That there should be light in this
chamber, and at this hour, excited her strong surprise, and she felt a
momentary terror concerning it, which did not permit her to look again,
for her spirits were now in such a state of weakness, that she almost
expected to see the door slowly open, and some horrible object appear
at it. Still she listened for a step along the passage, and looked up
it, where, not a ray of light appearing, she concluded, that Verezzi
had gone back for the lamp; and, believing that he would shortly be
there, she again considered which way she should go, or rather which
way she could find in the dark.
A faint ray still glimmered under the opposite door, but so great, and,
perhaps, so just was her horror of that chamber, that she would not
again have tempted its secrets, though she had been certain of
obtaining the light so important to her safety. She was still breathing
with difficulty, and resting at the end of the passage, when she heard
a rustling sound, and then a low voice, so very near her, that it
seemed close to her ear; but she had presence of mind to check her
emotions, and to remain quite still; in the next moment, she perceived
it to be the voice of Verezzi, who did not appear to know, that she was
there, but to have spoken to himself. “The air is fresher here,” said
he: “this should be the corridor.” Perhaps, he was one of those heroes,
whose courage can defy an enemy better than darkness, and he tried to
rally his spirits with the sound of his own voice. However this might
be, he turned to the right, and proceeded, with the same stealing
steps, towards Emily’s apartment, apparently forgetting, that, in
darkness, she could easily elude his search, even in her chamber; and,
like an intoxicated person, he followed pertinaciously the one idea,
that had possessed his imagination.
The moment she heard his steps steal away, she left her station and
moved softly to the other end of the corridor, determined to trust
again to chance, and to quit it by the first avenue she could find;
but, before she could effect this, light broke upon the walls of the
gallery, and, looking back, she saw Verezzi crossing it towards her
chamber. She now glided into a passage, that opened on the left,
without, as she thought, being perceived; but, in the next instant,
another light, glimmering at the further end of this passage, threw her
into new terror. While she stopped and hesitated which way to go, the
pause allowed her to perceive, that it was Annette, who advanced, and
she hurried to meet her: but her imprudence again alarmed Emily, on
perceiving whom, she burst into a scream of joy, and it was some
minutes, before she could be prevailed with to be silent, or to release
her mistress from the ardent clasp, in which she held her. When, at
length, Emily made Annette comprehend her danger, they hurried towards
Annette’s room, which was in a distant part of the castle. No
apprehensions, however, could yet silence the latter. “Oh dear
ma’amselle,” said she, as they passed along, “what a terrified time
have I had of it! Oh! I thought I should have died a hundred times! I
never thought I should live to see you again! and I never was so glad
to see anybody in my whole life, as I am to see you now.” “Hark!” cried
Emily, “we are pursued; that was the echo of steps!” “No, ma’amselle,”
said Annette, “it was only the echo of a door shutting; sound runs
along these vaulted passages so, that one is continually deceived by
it; if one does but speak, or cough, it makes a noise as loud as a
cannon.” “Then there is the greater necessity for us to be silent,”
said Emily: “pr’ythee say no more, till we reach your chamber.” Here,
at length, they arrived, without interruption, and, Annette having
fastened the door, Emily sat down on her little bed, to recover breath
and composure. To her enquiry, whether Valancourt was among the
prisoners in the castle, Annette replied, that she had not been able to
hear, but that she knew there were several persons confined. She then
proceeded, in her tedious way, to give an account of the siege, or
rather a detail of her terrors and various sufferings, during the
attack. “But,” added she, “when I heard the shouts of victory from the
ramparts, I thought we were all taken, and gave myself up for lost,
instead of which, _we_ had driven the enemy away. I went then to the
north gallery, and saw a great many of them scampering away among the
mountains; but the rampart walls were all in ruins, as one may say, and
there was a dismal sight to see down among the woods below, where the
poor fellows were lying in heaps, but were carried off presently by
their comrades. While the siege was going on, the Signor was here, and
there, and everywhere, at the same time, as Ludovico told me, for he
would not let me see anything hardly, and locked me up, as he has often
done before, in a room in the middle of the castle, and used to bring
me food, and come and talk with me as often as he could; and I must
say, if it had not been for Ludovico, I should have died outright.”
“Well, Annette,” said Emily, “and how have affairs gone on, since the
siege?”
“O! sad hurly-burly doings, ma’amselle,” replied Annette; “the Signors
have done nothing but sit and drink and game, ever since. They sit up,
all night, and play among themselves, for all those riches and fine
things, they brought in, some time since, when they used to go out
a-robbing, or as good, for days together; and then they have dreadful
quarrels about who loses, and who wins. That fierce Signor Verezzi is
always losing, as they tell me, and Signor Orsino wins from him, and
this makes him very wroth, and they have had several hard set-to’s
about it. Then, all those fine ladies are at the castle still; and I
declare I am frighted, whenever I meet any of them in the passages—”
“Surely, Annette,” said Emily starting, “I heard a noise: listen.”
After a long pause, “No, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “it was only the
wind in the gallery; I often hear it, when it shakes the old doors, at
the other end. But won’t you go to bed, ma’amselle? you surely will not
sit up starving, all night.” Emily now laid herself down on the
mattress, and desired Annette to leave the lamp burning on the hearth;
having done which, the latter placed herself beside Emily, who,
however, was not suffered to sleep, for she again thought she heard a
noise from the passage; and Annette was again trying to convince her,
that it was only the wind, when footsteps were distinctly heard near
the door. Annette was now starting from the bed, but Emily prevailed
with her to remain there, and listened with her in a state of terrible
expectation. The steps still loitered at the door, when presently an
attempt was made on the lock, and, in the next instant, a voice called.
“For heaven’s sake, Annette, do not answer,” said Emily softly, “remain
quite still; but I fear we must extinguish the lamp, or its glare will
betray us.” “Holy Virgin!” exclaimed Annette, forgetting her
discretion, “I would not be in darkness now for the whole world.” While
she spoke, the voice became louder than before, and repeated Annette’s
name; “Blessed Virgin!” cried she suddenly, “it is only Ludovico.” She
rose to open the door, but Emily prevented her, till they should be
more certain, that it was he alone; with whom Annette, at length,
talked for some time, and learned, that he was come to enquire after
herself, whom he had let out of her room to go to Emily, and that he
was now returned to lock her in again. Emily, fearful of being
overheard, if they conversed any longer through the door, consented
that it should be opened, and a young man appeared, whose open
countenance confirmed the favourable opinion of him, which his care of
Annette had already prompted her to form. She entreated his protection,
should Verezzi make this requisite; and Ludovico offered to pass the
night in an old chamber, adjoining, that opened from the gallery, and,
on the first alarm, to come to their defence.
Emily was much soothed by this proposal; and Ludovico, having lighted
his lamp, went to his station, while she, once more, endeavoured to
repose on her mattress. But a variety of interests pressed upon her
attention, and prevented sleep. She thought much on what Annette had
told her of the dissolute manners of Montoni and his associates, and
more of his present conduct towards herself, and of the danger, from
which she had just escaped. From the view of her present situation she
shrunk, as from a new picture of terror. She saw herself in a castle,
inhabited by vice and violence, seated beyond the reach of law or
justice, and in the power of a man, whose perseverance was equal to
every occasion, and in whom passions, of which revenge was not the
weakest, entirely supplied the place of principles. She was compelled,
once more, to acknowledge, that it would be folly, and not fortitude,
any longer to dare his power; and, resigning all hopes of future
happiness with Valancourt, she determined, that, on the following
morning, she would compromise with Montoni, and give up her estates, on
condition, that he would permit her immediate return to France. Such
considerations kept her waking for many hours; but, the night passed,
without further alarm from Verezzi.
On the next morning, Emily had a long conversation with Ludovico, in
which she heard circumstances concerning the castle, and received hints
of the designs of Montoni, that considerably increased her alarms. On
expressing her surprise, that Ludovico, who seemed to be so sensible of
the evils of his situation, should continue in it, he informed her,
that it was not his intention to do so, and she then ventured to ask
him, if he would assist her to escape from the castle. Ludovico assured
her of his readiness to attempt this, but strongly represented the
difficulty of the enterprise, and the certain destruction which must
ensue, should Montoni overtake them, before they had passed the
mountains; he, however, promised to be watchful of every circumstance,
that might contribute to the success of the attempt, and to think upon
some plan of departure.
Emily now confided to him the name of Valancourt, and begged he would
enquire for such a person among the prisoners in the castle; for the
faint hope, which this conversation awakened, made her now recede from
her resolution of an immediate compromise with Montoni. She determined,
if possible, to delay this, till she heard further from Ludovico, and,
if his designs were found to be impracticable, to resign the estates at
once. Her thoughts were on this subject, when Montoni, who was now
recovered from the intoxication of the preceding night, sent for her,
and she immediately obeyed the summons. He was alone. “I find,” said
he, “that you were not in your chamber, last night; where were you?”
Emily related to him some circumstances of her alarm, and entreated his
protection from a repetition of them. “You know the terms of my
protection,” said he; “if you really value this, you will secure it.”
His open declaration, that he would only conditionally protect her,
while she remained a prisoner in the castle, showed Emily the necessity
of an immediate compliance with his terms; but she first demanded,
whether he would permit her immediately to depart, if she gave up her
claim to the contested estates. In a very solemn manner he then assured
her, that he would, and immediately laid before her a paper, which was
to transfer the right of those estates to himself.
She was, for a considerable time, unable to sign it, and her heart was
torn with contending interests, for she was about to resign the
happiness of all her future years—the hope, which had sustained her in
so many hours of adversity.
After hearing from Montoni a recapitulation of the conditions of her
compliance, and a remonstrance, that his time was valuable, she put her
hand to the paper; when she had done which, she fell back in her chair,
but soon recovered, and desired, that he would give orders for her
departure, and that he would allow Annette to accompany her. Montoni
smiled. “It was necessary to deceive you,” said he,—“there was no other
way of making you act reasonably; you shall go, but it must not be at
present. I must first secure these estates by possession: when that is
done, you may return to France if you will.”
The deliberate villany, with which he violated the solemn engagement he
had just entered into, shocked Emily as much, as the certainty, that
she had made a fruitless sacrifice, and must still remain his prisoner.
She had no words to express what she felt, and knew, that it would have
been useless, if she had. As she looked piteously at Montoni, he turned
away, and at the same time desired she would withdraw to her apartment;
but, unable to leave the room, she sat down in a chair near the door,
and sighed heavily. She had neither words nor tears.
“Why will you indulge this childish grief?” said he. “Endeavour to
strengthen your mind, to bear patiently what cannot now be avoided; you
have no real evil to lament; be patient, and you will be sent back to
France. At present retire to your apartment.”
“I dare not go, sir,” said she, “where I shall be liable to the
intrusion of Signor Verezzi.” “Have I not promised to protect you?”
said Montoni. “You have promised, sir,”—replied Emily, after some
hesitation. “And is not my promise sufficient?” added he sternly. “You
will recollect your former promise, Signor,” said Emily, trembling,
“and may determine for me, whether I ought to rely upon this.” “Will
you provoke me to declare to you, that I will not protect you then?”
said Montoni, in a tone of haughty displeasure. “If that will satisfy
you, I will do it immediately. Withdraw to your chamber, before I
retract my promise; you have nothing to fear there.” Emily left the
room, and moved slowly into the hall, where the fear of meeting
Verezzi, or Bertolini, made her quicken her steps, though she could
scarcely support herself; and soon after she reached once more her own
apartment. Having looked fearfully round her, to examine if any person
was there, and having searched every part of it, she fastened the door,
and sat down by one of the casements. Here, while she looked out for
some hope to support her fainting spirits, which had been so long
harassed and oppressed, that, if she had not now struggled much against
misfortune, they would have left her, perhaps, for ever, she
endeavoured to believe, that Montoni did really intend to permit her
return to France as soon as he had secured her property, and that he
would, in the mean time, protect her from insult; but her chief hope
rested with Ludovico, who, she doubted not, would be zealous in her
cause, though he seemed almost to despair of success in it. One
circumstance, however, she had to rejoice in. Her prudence, or rather
her fears, had saved her from mentioning the name of Valancourt to
Montoni, which she was several times on the point of doing, before she
signed the paper, and of stipulating for his release, if he should be
really a prisoner in the castle. Had she done this, Montoni’s jealous
fears would now probably have loaded Valancourt with new severities,
and have suggested the advantage of holding him a captive for life.
Thus passed the melancholy day, as she had before passed many in this
same chamber. When night drew on, she would have withdrawn herself to
Annette’s bed, had not a particular interest inclined her to remain in
this chamber, in spite of her fears; for, when the castle should be
still, and the customary hour arrived, she determined to watch for the
music, which she had formerly heard. Though its sounds might not enable
her positively to determine, whether Valancourt was there, they would
perhaps strengthen her opinion that he was, and impart the comfort, so
necessary to her present support. But, on the other hand, if all should
be silent! She hardly dared to suffer her thoughts to glance that way,
but waited, with impatient expectation, the approaching hour.
The night was stormy; the battlements of the castle appeared to rock in
the wind, and, at intervals, long groans seemed to pass on the air,
such as those, which often deceive the melancholy mind, in tempests,
and amidst scenes of desolation. Emily heard, as formerly, the
sentinels pass along the terrace to their posts, and, looking out from
her casement, observed, that the watch was doubled; a precaution, which
appeared necessary enough, when she threw her eyes on the walls, and
saw their shattered condition. The well-known sounds of the soldiers’
march, and of their distant voices, which passed her in the wind, and
were lost again, recalled to her memory the melancholy sensation she
had suffered, when she formerly heard the same sounds; and occasioned
almost involuntary comparisons between her present, and her late
situation. But this was no subject for congratulations, and she wisely
checked the course of her thoughts, while, as the hour was not yet
come, in which she had been accustomed to hear the music, she closed
the casement, and endeavoured to await it in patience. The door of the
staircase she tried to secure, as usual, with some of the furniture of
the room; but this expedient her fears now represented to her to be
very inadequate to the power and perseverance of Verezzi; and she often
looked at a large and heavy chest, that stood in the chamber, with
wishes that she and Annette had strength enough to move it. While she
blamed the long stay of this girl, who was still with Ludovico and some
other of the servants, she trimmed her wood fire, to make the room
appear less desolate, and sat down beside it with a book, which her
eyes perused, while her thoughts wandered to Valancourt, and her own
misfortunes. As she sat thus, she thought, in a pause of the wind, she
distinguished music, and went to the casement to listen, but the loud
swell of the gust overcame every other sound. When the wind sunk again,
she heard distinctly, in the deep pause that succeeded, the sweet
strings of a lute; but again the rising tempest bore away the notes,
and again was succeeded by a solemn pause. Emily, trembling with hope
and fear, opened her casement to listen, and to try whether her own
voice could be heard by the musician; for to endure any longer this
state of torturing suspense concerning Valancourt, seemed to be utterly
impossible. There was a kind of breathless stillness in the chambers,
that permitted her to distinguish from below the tender notes of the
very lute she had formerly heard, and with it, a plaintive voice, made
sweeter by the low rustling sound, that now began to creep along the
wood-tops, till it was lost in the rising wind. Their tall heads then
began to wave, while, through a forest of pine, on the left, the wind,
groaning heavily, rolled onward over the woods below, bending them
almost to their roots; and, as the long-resounding gale swept away,
other woods, on the right, seemed to answer the “loud lament;” then,
others, further still, softened it into a murmur, that died into
silence. Emily listened, with mingled awe and expectation, hope and
fear; and again the melting sweetness of the lute was heard, and the
same solemn-breathing voice. Convinced that these came from an
apartment underneath, she leaned far out of her window, that she might
discover whether any light was there; but the casements below, as well
as those above, were sunk so deep in the thick walls of the castle,
that she could not see them, or even the faint ray, that probably
glimmered through their bars. She then ventured to call; but the wind
bore her voice to the other end of the terrace, and then the music was
heard as before, in the pause of the gust. Suddenly, she thought she
heard a noise in her chamber, and she drew herself within the casement;
but, in a moment after, distinguishing Annette’s voice at the door, she
concluded it was her she had heard before, and she let her in. “Move
softly, Annette, to the casement,” said she, “and listen with me; the
music is returned.” They were silent till, the measure changing,
Annette exclaimed, “Holy Virgin! I know that song well; it is a French
song, one of the favourite songs of my dear country.” This was the
ballad Emily had heard on a former night, though not the one she had
first listened to from the fishing-house in Gascony. “O! it is a
Frenchman, that sings,” said Annette: “it must be Monsieur Valancourt.”
“Hark! Annette, do not speak so loud,” said Emily, “we may be
overheard.” “What! by the Chevalier?” said Annette. “No,” replied Emily
mournfully, “but by somebody, who may report us to the Signor. What
reason have you to think it is Monsieur Valancourt, who sings? But
hark! now the voice swells louder! Do you recollect those tones? I fear
to trust my own judgment.” “I never happened to hear the Chevalier
sing, Mademoiselle,” replied Annette, who, as Emily was disappointed to
perceive, had no stronger reason for concluding this to be Valancourt,
than that the musician must be a Frenchman. Soon after, she heard the
song of the fishing-house, and distinguished her own name, which was
repeated so distinctly, that Annette had heard it also. She trembled,
sunk into a chair by the window, and Annette called aloud, “Monsieur
Valancourt! Monsieur Valancourt!” while Emily endeavoured to check her,
but she repeated the call more loudly than before, and the lute and the
voice suddenly stopped. Emily listened, for some time, in a state of
intolerable suspense; but, no answer being returned, “It does not
signify, Mademoiselle,” said Annette; “it is the Chevalier, and I will
speak to him.” “No, Annette,” said Emily, “I think I will speak myself;
if it is he, he will know my voice, and speak again.” “Who is it,” said
she, “that sings at this late hour?”
A long silence ensued, and, having repeated the question, she perceived
some faint accents, mingling in the blast, that swept by; but the
sounds were so distant, and passed so suddenly, that she could scarcely
hear them, much less distinguish the words they uttered, or recognise
the voice. After another pause, Emily called again; and again they
heard a voice, but as faintly as before; and they perceived, that there
were other circumstances, besides the strength, and direction of the
wind, to content with; for the great depth, at which the casements were
fixed in the castle walls, contributed, still more than the distance,
to prevent articulated sounds from being understood, though general
ones were easily heard. Emily, however, ventured to believe, from the
circumstance of her voice alone having been answered, that the stranger
was Valancourt, as well as that he knew her, and she gave herself up to
speechless joy. Annette, however, was not speechless. She renewed her
calls, but received no answer; and Emily, fearing, that a further
attempt, which certainly was, as present, highly dangerous, might
expose them to the guards of the castle, while it could not perhaps
terminate her suspense, insisted on Annette’s dropping the enquiry for
this night; though she determined herself to question Ludovico, on the
subject, in the morning, more urgently than she had yet done. She was
now enabled to say, that the stranger, whom she had formerly heard, was
still in the castle, and to direct Ludovico to that part of it, in
which he was confined.
Emily, attended by Annette, continued at the casement, for some time,
but all remained still; they heard neither lute nor voice again, and
Emily was now as much oppressed by anxious joy, as she lately was by a
sense of her misfortunes. With hasty steps she paced the room, now half
calling on Valancourt’s name, then suddenly stopping, and now going to
the casement and listening, where, however, she heard nothing but the
solemn waving of the woods. Sometimes her impatience to speak to
Ludovico prompted her to send Annette to call him; but a sense of the
impropriety of this at midnight restrained her. Annette, meanwhile, as
impatient as her mistress, went as often to the casement to listen, and
returned almost as much disappointed. She, at length, mentioned Signor
Verezzi, and her fear, lest he should enter the chamber by the
staircase, door. “But the night is now almost past, Mademoiselle,” said
she, recollecting herself; “there is the morning light, beginning to
peep over those mountains yonder in the east.”
Emily had forgotten, till this moment, that such a person existed as
Verezzi, and all the danger that had appeared to threaten her; but the
mention of his name renewed her alarm, and she remembered the old
chest, that she had wished to place against the door, which she now,
with Annette, attempted to move, but it was so heavy, that they could
not lift it from the floor. “What is in this great old chest,
Mademoiselle,” said Annette, “that makes it so weighty?” Emily having
replied, “that she found it in the chamber, when she first came to the
castle, and had never examined it.”—“Then I will, ma’amselle,” said
Annette, and she tried to lift the lid; but this was held by a lock,
for which she had no key, and which, indeed, appeared, from its
peculiar construction, to open with a spring. The morning now glimmered
through the casements, and the wind had sunk into a calm. Emily looked
out upon the dusky woods, and on the twilight mountains, just stealing
in the eye, and saw the whole scene, after the storm, lying in profound
stillness, the woods motionless, and the clouds above, through which
the dawn trembled, scarcely appearing to move along the heavens. One
soldier was pacing the terrace beneath, with measured steps; and two,
more distant, were sunk asleep on the walls, wearied with the night’s
watch. Having inhaled, for a while, the pure spirit of the air, and of
vegetation, which the late rains had called forth; and having listened,
once more, for a note of music, she now closed the casement, and
retired to rest.
CHAPTER IX
Thus on the chill Lapponian’s dreary land,
For many a long month lost in snow profound,
When Sol from Cancer sends the seasons bland,
And in their northern cave the storms hath bound;
From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound,
Torrents are hurl’d, green hills emerge, and lo,
The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crown’d;
Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go;
And wonder, love, and joy, the peasant’s heart o’erflow.
BEATTIE
Several of her succeeding days passed in suspense, for Ludovico could
only learn from the soldiers, that there was a prisoner in the
apartment, described to him by Emily, and that he was a Frenchman, whom
they had taken in one of their skirmishes, with a party of his
countrymen. During this interval, Emily escaped the persecutions of
Bertolini, and Verezzi, by confining herself to her apartment; except
that sometimes, in an evening, she ventured to walk in the adjoining
corridor. Montoni appeared to respect his last promise, though he had
prophaned his first; for to his protection only could she attribute her
present repose; and in this she was now so secure, that she did not
wish to leave the castle, till she could obtain some certainty
concerning Valancourt; for which she waited, indeed, without any
sacrifice of her own comfort, since no circumstance had occurred to
make her escape probable.
On the fourth day, Ludovico informed her, that he had hopes of being
admitted to the presence of the prisoner; it being the turn of a
soldier, with whom he had been for some time familiar, to attend him on
the following night. He was not deceived in his hope; for, under
pretence of carrying in a pitcher of water, he entered the prison,
though, his prudence having prevented him from telling the sentinel the
real motive of his visit, he was obliged to make his conference with
the prisoner a very short one.
Emily awaited the result in her own apartment, Ludovico having promised
to accompany Annette to the corridor, in the evening; where, after
several hours impatiently counted, he arrived. Emily, having then
uttered the name of Valancourt, could articulate no more, but hesitated
in trembling expectation. “The Chevalier would not entrust me with his
name, Signora,” replied Ludovico; “but, when I just mentioned yours, he
seemed overwhelmed with joy, though he was not so much surprised as I
expected.” “Does he then remember me?” she exclaimed.
“O! it is Mons. Valancourt,” said Annette, and looked impatiently at
Ludovico, who understood her look, and replied to Emily: “Yes, lady,
the Chevalier does, indeed, remember you, and, I am sure, has a very
great regard for you, and I made bold to say you had for him. He then
enquired how you came to know he was in the castle, and whether you
ordered me to speak to him. The first question I could not answer, but
the second I did; and then he went off into his ecstasies again. I was
afraid his joy would have betrayed him to the sentinel at the door.”
“But how does he look, Ludovico?” interrupted Emily: “is he not
melancholy and ill with this long confinement?”—“Why, as to melancholy,
I saw no symptom of that, lady, while I was with him, for he seemed in
the finest spirits I ever saw anybody in, in all my life. His
countenance was all joy, and, if one may judge from that, he was very
well; but I did not ask him.” “Did he send me no message?” said Emily.
“O yes, Signora, and something besides,” replied Ludovico, who searched
his pockets. “Surely, I have not lost it,” added he. “The Chevalier
said, he would have written, madam, if he had had pen and ink, and was
going to have sent a very long message, when the sentinel entered the
room, but not before he had give me this.” Ludovico then drew forth a
miniature from his bosom, which Emily received with a trembling hand,
and perceived to be a portrait of herself—the very picture, which her
mother had lost so strangely in the fishing-house at La Vallée.
Tears of mingled joy and tenderness flowed to her eyes, while Ludovico
proceeded—“‘Tell your lady,’ said the Chevalier, as he gave me the
picture, ‘that this has been my companion, and only solace in all my
misfortunes. Tell her, that I have worn it next my heart, and that I
sent it her as the pledge of an affection, which can never die; that I
would not part with it, but to her, for the wealth of worlds, and that
I now part with it, only in the hope of soon receiving it from her
hands. Tell her—’ Just then, Signora, the sentinel came in, and the
Chevalier said no more; but he had before asked me to contrive an
interview for him with you; and when I told him, how little hope I had
of prevailing with the guard to assist me, he said, that was not,
perhaps, of so much consequence as I imagined, and bade me contrive to
bring back your answer, and he would inform me of more than he chose to
do then. So this, I think, lady, is the whole of what passed.”
“How, Ludovico, shall I reward you for your zeal?” said Emily: “but,
indeed, I do not now possess the means. When can you see the Chevalier
again?” “That is uncertain, Signora,” replied he. “It depends upon who
stands guard next: there are not more than one or two among them, from
whom I would dare to ask admittance to the prison-chamber.”
“I need not bid you remember, Ludovico,” resumed Emily, “how very much
interested I am in your seeing the Chevalier soon; and, when you do so,
tell him, that I have received the picture, and, with the sentiments he
wished. Tell him I have suffered much, and still suffer—” She paused.
“But shall I tell him you will see him, lady?” said Ludovico. “Most
certainly I will,” replied Emily. “But when, Signora, and where?” “That
must depend upon circumstances,” returned Emily. “The place, and the
hour, must be regulated by his opportunities.”
“As to the place, mademoiselle,” said Annette, “there is no other place
in the castle, besides this corridor, where _we_ can see him in safety,
you know; and, as for the hour,—it must be when all the Signors are
asleep, if that ever happens!” “You may mention these circumstances to
the Chevalier, Ludovico,” said she, checking the flippancy of Annette,
“and leave them to his judgment and opportunity. Tell him, my heart is
unchanged. But, above all, let him see you again as soon as possible;
and, Ludovico, I think it is needless to tell you I shall very
anxiously look for you.” Having then wished her good night, Ludovico
descended the staircase, and Emily retired to rest, but not to sleep,
for joy now rendered her as wakeful, as she had ever been from grief.
Montoni and his castle had all vanished from her mind, like the
frightful vision of a necromancer, and she wandered, once more, in
fairy scenes of unfading happiness:
As when, beneath the beam
Of summer moons, the distant woods among,
Or by some flood, all silver’d with the gleam,
The soft embodied Fays thro’ airy portals stream.
A week elapsed, before Ludovico again visited the prison; for the
sentinels, during that period, were men, in whom he could not confide,
and he feared to awaken curiosity, by asking to see their prisoner. In
this interval, he communicated to Emily terrific reports of what was
passing in the castle; of riots, quarrels, and of carousals more
alarming than either; while from some circumstances, which he
mentioned, she not only doubted, whether Montoni meant ever to release
her, but greatly feared, that he had designs, concerning her,—such as
she had formerly dreaded. Her name was frequently mentioned in the
conversations, which Bertolini and Verezzi held together, and, at those
times, they were frequently in contention. Montoni had lost large sums
to Verezzi, so that there was a dreadful possibility of his designing
her to be a substitute for the debt; but, as she was ignorant, that he
had formerly encouraged the hopes of Bertolini also, concerning
herself, after the latter had done him some signal service, she knew
not how to account for these contentions between Bertolini and Verezzi.
The cause of them, however, appeared to be of little consequence, for
she thought she saw destruction approaching in many forms, and her
entreaties to Ludovico to contrive an escape and to see the prisoner
again, were more urgent than ever.
At length, he informed her, that he had again visited the Chevalier,
who had directed him to confide in the guard of the prison, from whom
he had already received some instances of kindness, and who had
promised to permit his going into the castle for half an hour, on the
ensuing night, when Montoni and his companions should be engaged at
their carousals. “This was kind, to be sure,” added Ludovico: “but
Sebastian knows he runs no risk in letting the Chevalier out, for, if
he can get beyond the bars and iron doors of the castle, he must be
cunning indeed. But the Chevalier desired me, Signora, to go to you
immediately, and to beg you would allow him to visit you, this night,
if it was only for a moment, for that he could no longer live under the
same roof, without seeing you; the hour, he said, he could not mention,
for it must depend on circumstances (just as you said, Signora); and
the place he desired you would appoint, as knowing which was best for
your own safety.”
Emily was now so much agitated by the near prospect of meeting
Valancourt, that it was some time, before she could give any answer to
Ludovico, or consider of the place of meeting; when she did, she saw
none, that promised so much security, as the corridor, near her own
apartment, which she was checked from leaving, by the apprehension of
meeting any of Montoni’s guests, on their way to their rooms; and she
dismissed the scruples, which delicacy opposed, now that a serious
danger was to be avoided by encountering them. It was settled,
therefore, that the Chevalier should meet her in the corridor, at that
hour of the night, which Ludovico, who was to be upon the watch, should
judge safest: and Emily, as may be imagined, passed this interval in a
tumult of hope and joy, anxiety and impatience. Never, since her
residence in the castle, had she watched, with so much pleasure, the
sun set behind the mountains, and twilight shade, and darkness veil the
scene, as on this evening. She counted the notes of the great clock,
and listened to the steps of the sentinels, as they changed the watch,
only to rejoice, that another hour was gone. “O, Valancourt!” said she,
“after all I have suffered; after our long, long separation, when I
thought I should never—never see you more—we are still to meet again!
O! I have endured grief, and anxiety, and terror, and let me, then, not
sink beneath this joy!” These were moments, when it was impossible for
her to feel emotions of regret, or melancholy, for any ordinary
interests;—even the reflection, that she had resigned the estates,
which would have been a provision for herself and Valancourt for life,
threw only a light and transient shade upon her spirits. The idea of
Valancourt, and that she should see him so soon, alone occupied her
heart.
At length the clock struck twelve; she opened the door to listen, if
any noise was in the castle, and heard only distant shouts of riot and
laughter, echoed feebly along the gallery. She guessed, that the Signor
and his guests were at the banquet. “They are now engaged for the
night,” said she; “and Valancourt will soon be here.” Having softly
closed the door, she paced the room with impatient steps, and often
went to the casement to listen for the lute; but all was silent, and,
her agitation every moment increasing, she was at length unable to
support herself, and sat down by the window. Annette, whom she
detained, was, in the meantime, as loquacious as usual; but Emily heard
scarcely anything she said, and having at length risen to the casement,
she distinguished the chords of the lute, struck with an expressive
hand, and then the voice, she had formerly listened to, accompanied it.
Now rising love they fann’d, now pleasing dole
They breath’d in tender musings through the heart;
And now a graver, sacred strain they stole,
As when seraphic hands a hymn impart!
Emily wept in doubtful joy and tenderness; and, when the strain ceased,
she considered it as a signal, that Valancourt was about to leave the
prison. Soon after, she heard steps in the corridor;—they were the
light, quick steps of hope; she could scarcely support herself, as they
approached, but opening the door of the apartment, she advanced to meet
Valancourt, and, in the next moment, sunk in the arms of a stranger.
His voice—his countenance instantly convinced her, and she fainted
away.
On reviving, she found herself supported by the stranger, who was
watching over her recovery, with a countenance of ineffable tenderness
and anxiety. She had no spirits for reply, or enquiry; she asked no
questions, but burst into tears, and disengaged herself from his arms;
when the expression of his countenance changed to surprise and
disappointment, and he turned to Ludovico, for an explanation; Annette
soon gave the information, which Ludovico could not. “O, sir!” said
she, in a voice, interrupted with sobs; “O, sir! you are not the other
Chevalier. We expected Monsieur Valancourt, but you are not he! O
Ludovico! how could you deceive us so? my poor lady will never recover
it—never!” The stranger, who now appeared much agitated, attempted to
speak, but his words faltered; and then striking his hand against his
forehead, as if in sudden despair, he walked abruptly to the other end
of the corridor.
Suddenly, Annette dried her tears, and spoke to Ludovico. “But,
perhaps,” said she, “after all, the other Chevalier is not this:
perhaps the Chevalier Valancourt is still below.” Emily raised her
head. “No,” replied Ludovico, “Monsieur Valancourt never was below, if
this gentleman is not he.” “If you, sir,” said Ludovico, addressing the
stranger, “would but have had the goodness to trust me with your name,
this mistake had been avoided.” “Most true,” replied the stranger,
speaking in broken Italian, “but it was of the utmost consequence to
me, that my name should be concealed from Montoni. Madam,” added he
then, addressing Emily in French, “will you permit me to apologise for
the pain I have occasioned you, and to explain to you alone my name,
and the circumstance, which has led me into this error? I am of
France;—I am your countryman;—we are met in a foreign land.” Emily
tried to compose her spirits; yet she hesitated to grant his request.
At length, desiring, that Ludovico would wait on the staircase, and
detaining Annette, she told the stranger, that her woman understood
very little Italian, and begged he would communicate what he wished to
say, in that language.—Having withdrawn to a distant part of the
corridor, he said, with a long-drawn sigh, “You, madam, are no stranger
to me, though I am so unhappy as to be unknown to you.—My name is Du
Pont; I am of France, of Gascony, your native province, and have long
admired,—and, why should I affect to disguise it?—have long loved you.”
He paused, but, in the next moment, proceeded. “My family, madam, is
probably not unknown to you, for we lived within a few miles of La
Vallée, and I have, sometimes, had the happiness of meeting you, on
visits in the neighbourhood. I will not offend you by repeating how
much you interested me; how much I loved to wander in the scenes you
frequented; how often I visited your favourite fishing-house, and
lamented the circumstance, which, at that time, forbade me to reveal my
passion. I will not explain how I surrendered to temptation, and became
possessed of a treasure, which was to me inestimable; a treasure, which
I committed to your messenger, a few days ago, with expectations very
different from my present ones. I will say nothing of these
circumstances, for I know they will avail me little; let me only
supplicate from you forgiveness, and the picture, which I so unwarily
returned. Your generosity will pardon the theft, and restore the prize.
My crime has been my punishment; for the portrait I stole has
contributed to nourish a passion, which must still be my torment.”
Emily now interrupted him. “I think, sir, I may leave it to your
integrity to determine, whether, after what has just appeared,
concerning Mons. Valancourt, I ought to return the picture. I think you
will acknowledge, that this would not be generosity; and you will allow
me to add, that it would be doing myself an injustice. I must consider
myself honoured by your good opinion, but”—and she hesitated,—“the
mistake of this evening makes it unnecessary for me to say more.”
“It does, madam,—alas! it does!” said the stranger, who, after a long
pause, proceeded.—“But you will allow me to show my disinterestedness,
though not my love, and will accept the services I offer. Yet, alas!
what services can I offer? I am myself a prisoner, a sufferer, like
you. But, dear as liberty is to me, I would not seek it through half
the hazards I would encounter to deliver you from this recess of vice.
Accept the offered services of a friend; do not refuse me the reward of
having, at least, attempted to deserve your thanks.”
“You deserve them already, sir,” said Emily; “the wish deserves my
warmest thanks. But you will excuse me for reminding you of the danger
you incur by prolonging this interview. It will be a great consolation
to me to remember, whether your friendly attempts to release me succeed
or not, that I have a countryman, who would so generously protect
me.”—Monsieur Du Pont took her hand, which she but feebly attempted to
withdraw, and pressed it respectfully to his lips. “Allow me to breathe
another fervent sigh for your happiness,” said he, “and to applaud
myself for an affection, which I cannot conquer.” As he said this,
Emily heard a noise from her apartment, and, turning round, saw the
door from the staircase open, and a man rush into her chamber. “I will
teach you to conquer it,” cried he, as he advanced into the corridor,
and drew a stiletto, which he aimed at Du Pont, who was unarmed, but
who, stepping back, avoided the blow, and then sprung upon Verezzi,
from whom he wrenched the stiletto. While they struggled in each
other’s grasp, Emily, followed by Annette, ran further into the
corridor, calling on Ludovico, who was, however, gone from the
staircase, and, as she advanced, terrified and uncertain what to do, a
distant noise, that seemed to arise from the hall, reminded her of the
danger she was incurring; and, sending Annette forward in search of
Ludovico, she returned to the spot where Du Pont and Verezzi were still
struggling for victory. It was her own cause which was to be decided
with that of the former, whose conduct, independently of this
circumstance, would, however, have interested her in his success, even
had she not disliked and dreaded Verezzi. She threw herself in a chair,
and supplicated them to desist from further violence, till, at length,
Du Pont forced Verezzi to the floor, where he lay stunned by the
violence of his fall; and she then entreated Du Pont to escape from the
room, before Montoni, or his party, should appear; but he still refused
to leave her unprotected; and, while Emily, now more terrified for him,
than for herself, enforced the entreaty, they heard steps ascending the
private staircase.
“O you are lost!” cried she, “these are Montoni’s people.” Du Pont made
no reply, but supported Emily, while, with a steady, though eager,
countenance, he awaited their appearance, and, in the next moment,
Ludovico, alone, mounted the landing-place. Throwing a hasty glance
round the chamber, “Follow me,” said he, “as you value your lives; we
have not an instant to lose!”
Emily enquired what had occurred, and whither they were to go?
“I cannot stay to tell you now, Signora,” replied Ludovico: “fly! fly!”
She immediately followed him, accompanied by Mons. Du Pont, down the
staircase, and along a vaulted passage, when suddenly she recollected
Annette, and enquired for her. “She awaits us further on, Signora,”
said Ludovico, almost breathless with haste; “the gates were open, a
moment since, to a party just come in from the mountains: they will be
shut, I fear, before we can reach them! Through this door, Signora,”
added Ludovico, holding down the lamp, “take care, here are two steps.”
Emily followed, trembling still more, than before she had understood,
that her escape from the castle, depended upon the present moment;
while Du Pont supported her, and endeavoured, as they passed along, to
cheer her spirits.
“Speak low, Signor,” said Ludovico, “these passages send echoes all
round the castle.”
“Take care of the light,” cried Emily, “you go so fast, that the air
will extinguish it.”
Ludovico now opened another door, where they found Annette, and the
party then descended a short flight of steps into a passage, which,
Ludovico said, led round the inner court of the castle, and opened into
the outer one. As they advanced, confused and tumultuous sounds, that
seemed to come from the inner court, alarmed Emily. “Nay, Signora,”
said Ludovico, “our only hope is in that tumult; while the Signor’s
people are busied about the men, who are just arrived, we may, perhaps,
pass unnoticed through the gates. But hush!” he added, as they
approached the small door, that opened into the outer court, “if you
will remain here a moment, I will go to see whether the gates are open,
and anybody is in the way. Pray extinguish the light, Signor, if you
hear me talking,” continued Ludovico, delivering the lamp to Du Pont,
“and remain quite still.”
Saying this, he stepped out upon the court, and they closed the door,
listening anxiously to his departing steps. No voice, however, was
heard in the court, which he was crossing, though a confusion of many
voices yet issued from the inner one. “We shall soon be beyond the
walls,” said Du Pont softly to Emily, “support yourself a little
longer, Madam, and all will be well.”
But soon they heard Ludovico speaking loud, and the voice also of some
other person, and Du Pont immediately extinguished the lamp. “Ah! it is
too late!” exclaimed Emily, “what is to become of us?” They listened
again, and then perceived, that Ludovico was talking with a sentinel,
whose voices were heard also by Emily’s favourite dog, that had
followed her from the chamber, and now barked loudly. “This dog will
betray us!” said Du Pont, “I will hold him.” “I fear he has already
betrayed us!” replied Emily. Du Pont, however, caught him up, and,
again listening to what was going on without, they heard Ludovico say,
“I’ll watch the gates the while.”
“Stay a minute,” replied the sentinel, “and you need not have the
trouble, for the horses will be sent round to the outer stables, then
the gates will be shut, and I can leave my post.” “I don’t mind the
trouble, comrade,” said Ludovico, “you will do such another good turn
for me, some time. Go—go, and fetch the wine; the rogues, that are just
come in, will drink it all else.”
The soldier hesitated, and then called aloud to the people in the
second court, to know why they did not send out the horses, that the
gates might be shut; but they were too much engaged, to attend to him,
even if they had heard his voice.
“Aye—aye,” said Ludovico, “they know better than that; they are sharing
it all among them; if you wait till the horses come out, you must wait
till the wine is drunk. I have had my share already, but, since you do
not care about yours, I see no reason why I should not have that too.”
“Hold, hold, not so fast,” cried the sentinel, “do watch then, for a
moment: I’ll be with you presently.”
“Don’t hurry yourself,” said Ludovico, coolly, “I have kept guard
before now. But you may leave me your trombone,* that, if the castle
should be attacked, you know, I may be able to defend the pass, like a
hero.”
(*Note: A kind of blunderbuss. [A. R.])
“There, my good fellow,” returned the soldier, “there, take it—it has
seen service, though it could do little in defending the castle. I’ll
tell you a good story, though, about this same trombone.”
“You’ll tell it better when you have had the wine,” said Ludovico.
“There! they are coming out from the court already.”
“I’ll have the wine, though,” said the sentinel, running off. “I won’t
keep you a minute.”
“Take your time, I am in no haste,” replied Ludovico, who was already
hurrying across the court, when the soldier came back. “Whither so
fast, friend—whither so fast?” said the latter. “What! is this the way
you keep watch! I must stand to my post myself, I see.”
“Aye, well,” replied Ludovico, “you have saved me the trouble of
following you further, for I wanted to tell you, if you have a mind to
drink the Tuscany wine, you must go to Sebastian, he is dealing it out;
the other that Federico has, is not worth having. But you are not
likely to have any, I see, for they are all coming out.”
“By St. Peter! so they are,” said the soldier, and again ran off, while
Ludovico, once more at liberty, hastened to the door of the passage,
where Emily was sinking under the anxiety this long discourse had
occasioned; but, on his telling them the court was clear, they followed
him to the gates, without waiting another instant, yet not before he
had seized two horses, that had strayed from the second court, and were
picking a scanty meal among the grass, which grew between the pavement
of the first.
They passed, without interruption, the dreadful gates, and took the
road that led down among the woods, Emily, Monsieur Du Pont and Annette
on foot, and Ludovico, who was mounted on one horse, leading the other.
Having reached them, they stopped, while Emily and Annette were placed
on horseback with their two protectors, when, Ludovico leading the way,
they set off as fast as the broken road, and the feeble light, which a
rising moon threw among the foliage, would permit.
Emily was so much astonished by this sudden departure, that she
scarcely dared to believe herself awake; and she yet much doubted
whether this adventure would terminate in escape,—a doubt, which had
too much probability to justify it; for, before they quitted the woods,
they heard shouts in the wind, and, on emerging from them, saw lights
moving quickly near the castle above. Du Pont whipped his horse, and
with some difficulty compelled him to go faster.
“Ah! poor beast,” said Ludovico, “he is weary enough;—he has been out
all day; but, Signor, we must fly for it, now; for yonder are lights
coming this way.”
Having given his own horse a lash, they now both set off on a full
gallop; and, when they again looked back, the lights were so distant as
scarcely to be discerned, and the voices were sunk into silence. The
travellers then abated their pace, and, consulting whither they should
direct their course, it was determined they should descend into
Tuscany, and endeavour to reach the Mediterranean, where they could
readily embark for France. Thither Du Pont meant to attend Emily, if he
should learn, that the regiment he had accompanied into Italy, was
returned to his native country.
They were now in the road, which Emily had travelled with Ugo and
Bertrand; but Ludovico, who was the only one of the party, acquainted
with the passes of these mountains, said, that, a little further on, a
by-road, branching from this, would lead them down into Tuscany with
very little difficulty; and that, at a few leagues distance, was a
small town, where necessaries could be procured for their journey.
“But, I hope,” added he, “we shall meet with no straggling parties of
banditti; some of them are abroad, I know. However, I have got a good
trombone, which will be of some service, if we should encounter any of
those brave spirits. You have no arms, Signor?” “Yes,” replied Du Pont,
“I have the villain’s stilletto, who would have stabbed me—but let us
rejoice in our escape from Udolpho, nor torment ourselves with looking
out for dangers, that may never arrive.”
The moon was now risen high over the woods, that hung upon the sides of
the narrow glen, through which they wandered, and afforded them light
sufficient to distinguish their way, and to avoid the loose and broken
stones, that frequently crossed it. They now travelled leisurely, and
in profound silence; for they had scarcely yet recovered from the
astonishment, into which this sudden escape had thrown them.—Emily’s
mind, especially, was sunk, after the various emotions it had suffered,
into a kind of musing stillness, which the reposing beauty of the
surrounding scene and the creeping murmur of the night-breeze among the
foliage above contributed to prolong. She thought of Valancourt and of
France, with hope, and she would have thought of them with joy, had not
the first events of this evening harassed her spirits too much, to
permit her now to feel so lively a sensation. Meanwhile, Emily was
alone the object of Du Pont’s melancholy consideration; yet, with the
despondency he suffered, as he mused on his recent disappointment, was
mingled a sweet pleasure, occasioned by her presence, though they did
not now exchange a single word. Annette thought of this wonderful
escape, of the bustle in which Montoni and his people must be, now that
their flight was discovered; of her native country, whither she hoped
she was returning, and of her marriage with Ludovico, to which there no
longer appeared any impediment, for poverty she did not consider such.
Ludovico, on his part, congratulated himself, on having rescued his
Annette and Signora Emily from the danger, that had surrounded them; on
his own liberation from people, whose manners he had long detested; on
the freedom he had given to Monsieur Du Pont; on his prospect of
happiness with the object of his affections, and not a little on the
address, with which he had deceived the sentinel, and conducted the
whole of this affair.
Thus variously engaged in thought, the travellers passed on silently,
for above an hour, a question only being, now and then, asked by Du
Pont, concerning the road, or a remark uttered by Annette, respecting
objects, seen imperfectly in the twilight. At length, lights were
perceived twinkling on the side of a mountain, and Ludovico had no
doubt, that they proceeded from the town he had mentioned, while his
companions, satisfied by this assurance, sunk again into silence.
Annette was the first who interrupted this. “Holy Peter!” said she,
“What shall we do for money on our journey? for I know neither I, nor
my lady, have a single sequin; the Signor took care of that!”
This remark produced a serious enquiry, which ended in as serious an
embarrassment, for Du Pont had been rifled of nearly all his money,
when he was taken prisoner; the remainder he had given to the sentinel,
who had enabled him occasionally to leave his prison-chamber; and
Ludovico, who had for some time found a difficulty, in procuring any
part of the wages due to him, had now scarcely cash sufficient to
procure necessary refreshment at the first town, in which they should
arrive.
Their poverty was the more distressing, since it would detain them
among the mountains, where, even in a town, they could scarcely
consider themselves safe from Montoni. The travellers, however, had
only to proceed and dare the future; and they continued their way
through lonely wilds and dusky valleys, where the overhanging foliage
now admitted, and then excluded the moonlight; wilds so desolate, that
they appeared, on the first glance, as if no human being had ever trod
them before. Even the road, in which the party were, did but slightly
contradict this error, for the high grass and other luxuriant
vegetation, with which it was overgrown, told how very seldom the foot
of a traveller had passed it.
At length, from a distance, was heard the faint tinkling of a
sheep-bell; and, soon after, the bleat of flocks, and the party then
knew, that they were near some human habitation, for the light, which
Ludovico had fancied to proceed from a town, had long been concealed by
intervening mountains. Cheered by this hope, they quickened their pace
along the narrow pass they were winding, and it opened upon one of
those pastoral valleys of the Apennines, which might be painted for a
scene of Arcadia, and whose beauty and simplicity are finely contrasted
by the grandeur of the snowtopped mountains above.
The morning light, now glimmering in the horizon, showed faintly, at a
little distance, upon the brow of a hill, which seemed to peep from
“under the opening eye-lids of the morn,” the town they were in search
of, and which they soon after reached. It was not without some
difficulty, that they there found a house, which could afford shelter
for themselves and their horses; and Emily desired they might not rest
longer than was necessary for refreshment. Her appearance excited some
surprise, for she was without a hat, having had time only to throw on
her veil before she left the castle, a circumstance, that compelled her
to regret again the want of money, without which it was impossible to
procure this necessary article of dress.
Ludovico, on examining his purse, found it even insufficient to supply
present refreshment, and Du Pont, at length, ventured to inform the
landlord, whose countenance was simple and honest, of their exact
situation, and requested, that he would assist them to pursue their
journey; a purpose, which he promised to comply with, as far as he was
able, when he learned that they were prisoners escaping from Montoni,
whom he had too much reason to hate. But, though he consented to lend
them fresh horses to carry them to the next town, he was too poor
himself to trust them with money, and they were again lamenting their
poverty, when Ludovico, who had been with his tired horses to the
hovel, which served for a stable, entered the room, half frantic with
joy, in which his auditors soon participated. On removing the saddle
from one of the horses, he had found beneath it a small bag,
containing, no doubt, the booty of one of the _Condottieri_, who had
returned from a plundering excursion, just before Ludovico left the
castle, and whose horse having strayed from the inner court, while his
master was engaged in drinking, had brought away the treasure, which
the ruffian had considered the reward of his exploit.
On counting over this, Du Pont found, that it would be more than
sufficient to carry them all to France, where he now determined to
accompany Emily, whether he should obtain intelligence of his regiment,
or not; for, though he had as much confidence in the integrity of
Ludovico, as his small knowledge of him allowed, he could not endure
the thought of committing her to his care for the voyage; nor, perhaps,
had he resolution enough to deny himself the dangerous pleasure, which
he might derive from her presence.
He now consulted them, concerning the sea-port, to which they should
direct their way, and Ludovico, better informed of the geography of the
country, said, that Leghorn was the nearest port of consequence, which
Du Pont knew also to be the most likely of any in Italy to assist their
plan, since from thence vessels of all nations were continually
departing. Thither, therefore, it was determined, that they should
proceed.
Emily, having purchased a little straw hat, such as was worn by the
peasant girls of Tuscany, and some other little necessary equipments
for the journey, and the travellers, having exchanged their tired
horses for others better able to carry them, recommenced their joyous
way, as the sun was rising over the mountains, and, after travelling
through this romantic country, for several hours, began to descend into
the vale of Arno. And here Emily beheld all the charms of sylvan and
pastoral landscape united, adorned with the elegant villas of the
Florentine nobles, and diversified with the various riches of
cultivation. How vivid the shrubs that embowered the slopes, with the
woods, that stretched amphitheatrically along the mountains! and, above
all, how elegant the outline of these waving Apennines, now softening
from the wildness, which their interior regions exhibited! At a
distance, in the east, Emily discovered Florence, with its towers
rising on the brilliant horizon, and its luxuriant plain, spreading to
the feet of the Apennines, speckled with gardens and magnificent
villas, or coloured with groves of orange and lemon, with vines, corn,
and plantations of olives and mulberry; while, to the west, the vale
opened to the waters of the Mediterranean, so distant, that they were
known only by a bluish line, that appeared upon the horizon, and by the
light marine vapour, which just stained the æther above.
With a full heart, Emily hailed the waves, that were to bear her back
to her native country, the remembrance of which, however, brought with
it a pang; for she had there no home to receive, no parents to welcome
her, but was going, like a forlorn pilgrim, to weep over the sad spot,
where he, who _was_ her father, lay interred. Nor were her spirits
cheered, when she considered how long it would probably be before she
should see Valancourt, who might be stationed with his regiment in a
distant part of France, and that, when they did meet, it would be only
to lament the successful villany of Montoni; yet, still she would have
felt inexpressible delight at the thought of being once more in the
same country with Valancourt, had it even been certain, that she could
not see him.
The intense heat, for it was now noon, obliged the travellers to look
out for a shady recess, where they might rest, for a few hours, and the
neighbouring thickets, abounding with wild grapes, raspberries, and
figs, promised them grateful refreshment. Soon after, they turned from
the road into a grove, whose thick foliage entirely excluded the
sunbeams, and where a spring, gushing from the rock, gave coolness to
the air; and, having alighted and turned the horses to graze, Annette
and Ludovico ran to gather fruit from the surrounding thickets, of
which they soon returned with an abundance. The travellers, seated
under the shade of a pine and cypress grove and on turf, enriched with
such a profusion of fragrant flowers, as Emily had scarcely ever seen,
even among the Pyrenees, took their simple repast, and viewed, with new
delight, beneath the dark umbrage of gigantic pines, the glowing
landscape stretching to the sea.
Emily and Du Pont gradually became thoughtful and silent; but Annette
was all joy and loquacity, and Ludovico was gay, without forgetting the
respectful distance, which was due to his companions. The repast being
over, Du Pont recommended Emily to endeavour to sleep, during these
sultry hours, and, desiring the servants would do the same, said he
would watch the while; but Ludovico wished to spare him this trouble;
and Emily and Annette, wearied with travelling, tried to repose, while
he stood guard with his trombone.
When Emily, refreshed by slumber, awoke, she found the sentinel asleep
on his post and Du Pont awake, but lost in melancholy thought. As the
sun was yet too high to allow them to continue their journey, and as it
was necessary, that Ludovico, after the toils and trouble he had
suffered, should finish his sleep, Emily took this opportunity of
enquiring by what accident Du Pont became Montoni’s prisoner, and he,
pleased with the interest this enquiry expressed and with the excuse it
gave him for talking to her of himself, immediately answered her
curiosity.
“I came into Italy, madam,” said Du Pont, “in the service of my
country. In an adventure among the mountains our party, engaging with
the bands of Montoni, was routed, and I, with a few of my comrades, was
taken prisoner. When they told me, whose captive I was, the name of
Montoni struck me, for I remembered, that Madame Cheron, your aunt, had
married an Italian of that name, and that you had accompanied them into
Italy. It was not, however, till some time after, that I became
convinced this was the same Montoni, or learned that you, madam, was
under the same roof with myself. I will not pain you by describing what
were my emotions upon this discovery, which I owed to a sentinel, whom
I had so far won to my interest, that he granted me many indulgences,
one of which was very important to me, and somewhat dangerous to
himself; but he persisted in refusing to convey any letter, or notice
of my situation to you, for he justly dreaded a discovery and the
consequent vengeance of Montoni. He however enabled me to see you more
than once. You are surprised, madam, and I will explain myself. My
health and spirits suffered extremely from want of air and exercise,
and, at length, I gained so far upon the pity, or the avarice of the
man, that he gave me the means of walking on the terrace.”
Emily now listened, with very anxious attention, to the narrative of Du
Pont, who proceeded:
“In granting this indulgence, he knew, that he had nothing to apprehend
from a chance of my escaping from a castle, which was vigilantly
guarded, and the nearest terrace of which rose over a perpendicular
rock; he showed me also,” continued Du Pont, “a door concealed in the
cedar wainscot of the apartment where I was confined, which he
instructed me how to open; and which, leading into a passage, formed
within the thickness of the wall, that extended far along the castle,
finally opened in an obscure corner of the eastern rampart. I have
since been informed, that there are many passages of the same kind
concealed within the prodigious walls of that edifice, and which were,
undoubtedly, contrived for the purpose of facilitating escapes in time
of war. Through this avenue, at the dead of night, I often stole to the
terrace, where I walked with the utmost caution, lest my steps should
betray me to the sentinels on duty in distant parts; for this end of
it, being guarded by high buildings, was not watched by soldiers. In
one of these midnight wanderings, I saw light in a casement that
overlooked the rampart, and which, I observed, was immediately over my
prison-chamber. It occurred to me, that you might be in that apartment,
and, with the hope of seeing you, I placed myself opposite to the
window.”
Emily, remembering the figure that had formerly appeared on the
terrace, and which had occasioned her so much anxiety, exclaimed, “It
was you then, Monsieur Du Pont, who occasioned me much foolish terror;
my spirits were, at that time, so much weakened by long suffering, that
they took alarm at every hint.” Du Pont, after lamenting, that he had
occasioned her any apprehension, added, “As I rested on the wall,
opposite to your casement, the consideration of your melancholy
situation and of my own called from me involuntary sounds of
lamentation, which drew you, I fancy, to the casement; I saw there a
person, whom I believed to be you. O! I will say nothing of my emotion
at that moment; I wished to speak, but prudence restrained me, till the
distant foot-step of a sentinel compelled me suddenly to quit my
station.
“It was some time, before I had another opportunity of walking, for I
could only leave my prison, when it happened to be the turn of one man
to guard me; meanwhile I became convinced from some circumstances
related by him, that your apartment was over mine, and, when again I
ventured forth, I returned to your casement, where again I saw you, but
without daring to speak. I waved my hand, and you suddenly disappeared;
then it was, that I forgot my prudence, and yielded to lamentation;
again you appeared—you spoke—I heard the well-known accent of your
voice! and, at that moment, my discretion would have forsaken me again,
had I not heard also the approaching steps of a soldier, when I
instantly quitted the place, though not before the man had seen me. He
followed down the terrace and gained so fast upon me, that I was
compelled to make use of a stratagem, ridiculous enough, to save
myself. I had heard of the superstition of many of these men, and I
uttered a strange noise, with a hope, that my pursuer would mistake it
for something supernatural, and desist from pursuit. Luckily for myself
I succeeded; the man, it seems, was subject to fits, and the terror he
suffered threw him into one, by which accident I secured my retreat. A
sense of the danger I had escaped, and the increased watchfulness,
which my appearance had occasioned among the sentinels, deterred me
ever after from walking on the terrace; but, in the stillness of night,
I frequently beguiled myself with an old lute, procured for me by a
soldier, which I sometimes accompanied with my voice, and sometimes, I
will acknowledge, with a hope of making myself heard by you; but it was
only a few evenings ago, that this hope was answered. I then thought I
heard a voice in the wind, calling me; yet, even then I feared to
reply, lest the sentinel at the prison door should hear me. Was I
right, madam, in this conjecture—was it you who spoke?”
“Yes,” said Emily, with an involuntary sigh, “you were right indeed.”
Du Pont, observing the painful emotions, which this question revived,
now changed the subject. “In one of my excursions through the passage,
which I have mentioned, I overheard a singular conversation,” said he.
“In the passage!” said Emily, with surprise.
“I heard it in the passage,” said Du Pont, “but it proceeded from an
apartment, adjoining the wall, within which the passage wound, and the
shell of the wall was there so thin, and was also somewhat decayed,
that I could distinctly hear every word, spoken on the other side. It
happened that Montoni and his companions were assembled in the room,
and Montoni began to relate the extraordinary history of the lady, his
predecessor, in the castle. He did, indeed, mention some very
surprising circumstances, and whether they were strictly true, his
conscience must decide; I fear it will determine against him. But you,
madam, have doubtless heard the report, which he designs should
circulate, on the subject of that lady’s mysterious fate.”
“I have, sir,” replied Emily, “and I perceive, that you doubt it.”
“I doubted it before the period I am speaking of,” rejoined Du
Pont;—“but some circumstances, mentioned by Montoni, greatly
contributed to my suspicions. The account I then heard, almost
convinced me, that he was a murderer. I trembled for you;—the more so
that I had heard the guests mention your name in a manner, that
threatened your repose; and, knowing, that the most impious men are
often the most superstitious, I determined to try whether I could not
awaken their consciences, and awe them from the commission of the crime
I dreaded. I listened closely to Montoni, and, in the most striking
passages of his story, I joined my voice, and repeated his last words,
in a disguised and hollow tone.”
“But were you not afraid of being discovered?” said Emily.
“I was not,” replied Du Pont; “for I knew, that, if Montoni had been
acquainted with the secret of this passage, he would not have confined
me in the apartment, to which it led. I knew also, from better
authority, that he was ignorant of it. The party, for some time,
appeared inattentive to my voice; but, at length, were so much alarmed,
that they quitted the apartment; and, having heard Montoni order his
servants to search it, I returned to my prison, which was very distant
from this part of the passage.” “I remember perfectly to have heard of
the conversation you mention,” said Emily; “it spread a general alarm
among Montoni’s people, and I will own I was weak enough to partake of
it.”
Monsieur Du Pont and Emily thus continued to converse of Montoni, and
then of France, and of the plan of their voyage; when Emily told him,
that it was her intention to retire to a convent in Languedoc, where
she had been formerly treated with much kindness, and from thence to
write to her relation Monsieur Quesnel, and inform him of her conduct.
There, she designed to wait, till La Vallée should again be her own,
whither she hoped her income would some time permit her to return; for
Du Pont now taught her to expect, that the estate, of which Montoni had
attempted to defraud her, was not irrecoverably lost, and he again
congratulated her on her escape from Montoni, who, he had not a doubt,
meant to have detained her for life. The possibility of recovering her
aunt’s estates for Valancourt and herself lighted up a joy in Emily’s
heart, such as she had not known for many months; but she endeavoured
to conceal this from Monsieur Du Pont, lest it should lead him to a
painful remembrance of his rival.
They continued to converse, till the sun was declining in the west,
when Du Pont awoke Ludovico, and they set forward on their journey.
Gradually descending the lower slopes of the valley, they reached the
Arno, and wound along its pastoral margin, for many miles, delighted
with the scenery around them, and with the remembrances, which its
classic waves revived. At a distance, they heard the gay song of the
peasants among the vineyards, and observed the setting sun tint the
waves with yellow lustre, and twilight draw a dusky purple over the
mountains, which, at length, deepened into night. Then the _lucciola_,
the fire-fly of Tuscany, was seen to flash its sudden sparks among the
foliage, while the _cicala_, with its shrill note, became more
clamorous than even during the noon-day heat, loving best the hour when
the English beetle, with less offensive sound,
winds
His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises ’midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.
COLLINS
The travellers crossed the Arno by moonlight, at a ferry, and, learning
that Pisa was distant only a few miles down the river, they wished to
have proceeded thither in a boat, but, as none could be procured, they
set out on their wearied horses for that city. As they approached it,
the vale expanded into a plain, variegated with vineyards, corn, olives
and mulberry groves; but it was late, before they reached its gates,
where Emily was surprised to hear the busy sound of footsteps and the
tones of musical instruments, as well as to see the lively groups, that
filled the streets, and she almost fancied herself again at Venice; but
here was no moonlight sea—no gay gondolas, dashing the waves,—no
_Palladian_ palaces, to throw enchantment over the fancy and lead it
into the wilds of fairy story. The Arno rolled through the town, but no
music trembled from balconies over its waters; it gave only the busy
voices of sailors on board vessels just arrived from the Mediterranean;
the melancholy heaving of the anchor, and the shrill boatswain’s
whistle;—sounds, which, since that period, have there sunk almost into
silence. They then served to remind Du Pont, that it was probable he
might hear of a vessel, sailing soon to France from this port, and thus
be spared the trouble of going to Leghorn. As soon as Emily had reached
the inn, he went therefore to the quay, to make his enquiries; but,
after all the endeavours of himself and Ludovico, they could hear of no
bark, destined immediately for France, and the travellers returned to
their resting-place. Here also, Du Pont endeavoured to learn where his
regiment then lay, but could acquire no information concerning it. The
travellers retired early to rest, after the fatigues of this day; and,
on the following, rose early, and, without pausing to view the
celebrated antiquities of the place, or the wonders of its hanging
tower, pursued their journey in the cooler hours, through a charming
country, rich with wine, and corn and oil. The Apennines, no longer
awful, or even grand, here softened into the beauty of sylvan and
pastoral landscape; and Emily, as she descended them, looked down
delighted on Leghorn, and its spacious bay, filled with vessels, and
crowned with these beautiful hills.
She was no less surprised and amused, on entering this town, to find it
crowded with persons in the dresses of all nations; a scene, which
reminded her of a Venetian masquerade, such as she had witnessed at the
time of the Carnival; but here was bustle without gaiety, and noise
instead of music, while elegance was to be looked for only in the
waving outlines of the surrounding hills.
Monsieur Du Pont, immediately on their arrival, went down to the quay,
where he heard of several French vessels, and of one, that was to sail,
in a few days, for Marseilles, from whence another vessel could be
procured, without difficulty, to take them across the gulf of Lyons
towards Narbonne, on the coast not many leagues from which city he
understood the convent was seated, to which Emily wished to retire. He,
therefore, immediately engaged with the captain to take them to
Marseilles, and Emily was delighted to hear, that her passage to France
was secured. Her mind was now relieved from the terror of pursuit, and
the pleasing hope of soon seeing her native country—that country which
held Valancourt, restored to her spirits a degree of cheerfulness, such
as she had scarcely known, since the death of her father. At Leghorn
also, Du Pont heard of his regiment, and that it had embarked for
France; a circumstance, which gave him great satisfaction, for he could
now accompany Emily thither, without reproach to his conscience, or
apprehension of displeasure from his commander. During these days, he
scrupulously forbore to distress her by a mention of his passion, and
she was compelled to esteem and pity, though she could not love him. He
endeavoured to amuse her by showing the environs of the town, and they
often walked together on the sea-shore, and on the busy quays, where
Emily was frequently interested by the arrival and departure of
vessels, participating in the joy of meeting friends, and, sometimes,
shedding a sympathetic tear to the sorrow of those, that were
separating. It was after having witnessed a scene of the latter kind,
that she arranged the following stanzas:
THE MARINER
Soft came the breath of spring; smooth flow’d the tide;
And blue the heaven in its mirror smil’d;
The white sail trembled, swell’d, expanded wide,
The busy sailors at the anchor toil’d.
With anxious friends, that shed the parting tear,
The deck was throng’d—how swift the moments fly!
The vessel heaves, the farewell signs appear;
Mute is each tongue, and eloquent each eye!
The last dread moment comes!—The sailor youth
Hides the big drop, then smiles amid his pain,
Sooths his sad bride, and vows eternal truth,
“Farewell, my love—we shall—shall meet again!”
Long on the stern, with waving hand, he stood;
The crowded shore sinks, lessening, from his view,
As gradual glides the bark along the flood;
His bride is seen no more—“Adieu!—adieu!”
The breeze of Eve moans low, her smile is o’er,
Dim steals her twilight down the crimson’d west,
He climbs the top-most mast, to seek once more
The far-seen coast, where all his wishes rest.
He views its dark line on the distant sky,
And Fancy leads him to his little home,
He sees his weeping love, he hears her sigh,
He sooths her griefs, and tells of joys to come.
Eve yields to night, the breeze to wintry gales,
In one vast shade the seas and shores repose;
He turns his aching eyes,—his spirit fails,
The chill tear falls;—sad to the deck he goes!
The storm of midnight swells, the sails are furl’d,
Deep sounds the lead, but finds no friendly shore,
Fast o’er the waves the wretched bark is hurl’d,
“O Ellen, Ellen! we must meet no more!”
Lightnings, that show the vast and foamy deep,
The rending thunders, as they onward roll,
The loud, loud winds, that o’er the billows sweep—
Shake the firm nerve, appall the bravest soul!
Ah! what avails the seamen’s toiling care!
The straining cordage bursts, the mast is riv’n;
The sounds of terror groan along the air,
Then sink afar;—the bark on rocks is driv’n!
Fierce o’er the wreck the whelming waters pass’d,
The helpless crew sunk in the roaring main!
Henry’s faint accents trembled in the blast—
“Farewell, my love!—we ne’er shall meet again!”
Oft, at the calm and silent evening hour,
When summer-breezes linger on the wave,
A melancholy voice is heard to pour
Its lonely sweetness o’er poor Henry’s grave!
And oft, at midnight, airy strains are heard
Around the grove, where Ellen’s form is laid;
Nor is the dirge by village-maidens fear’d,
For lovers’ spirits guard the holy shade!
CHAPTER X
Oh! the joy
Of young ideas painted on the mind
In the warm glowing colours fancy spreads
On objects not yet known, when all is new,
And all is lovely!
SACRED DRAMAS
We now return to Languedoc and to the mention of Count De Villefort,
the nobleman, who succeeded to an estate of the Marquis De Villeroi
situated near the monastery of St. Claire. It may be recollected, that
this château was uninhabited, when St. Aubert and his daughter were in
the neighbourhood, and that the former was much affected on discovering
himself to be so near Château-le-Blanc, a place, concerning which the
good old La Voisin afterwards dropped some hints, that had alarmed
Emily’s curiosity.
It was in the year 1584, the beginning of that, in which St. Aubert
died, that Francis Beauveau, Count De Villefort, came into possession
of the mansion and extensive domain called Château-le-Blanc, situated
in the province of Languedoc, on the shore of the Mediterranean. This
estate, which, during some centuries, had belonged to his family, now
descended to him, on the decease of his relative, the Marquis De
Villeroi, who had been latterly a man of reserved manners and austere
character; circumstances, which, together with the duties of his
profession, that often called him into the field, had prevented any
degree of intimacy with his cousin, the Count De Villefort. For many
years, they had known little of each other, and the Count received the
first intelligence of his death, which happened in a distant part of
France, together with the instruments, that gave him possession of the
domain Château-le-Blanc; but it was not till the following year, that
he determined to visit that estate, when he designed to pass the autumn
there. The scenes of Château-le-Blanc often came to his remembrance,
heightened by the touches, which a warm imagination gives to the
recollection of early pleasures; for, many years before, in the
life-time of the Marchioness, and at that age when the mind is
particularly sensible to impressions of gaiety and delight, he had once
visited this spot, and, though he had passed a long intervening period
amidst the vexations and tumults of public affairs, which too
frequently corrode the heart, and vitiate the taste, the shades of
Languedoc and the grandeur of its distant scenery had never been
remembered by him with indifference.
During many years, the château had been abandoned by the late Marquis,
and, being inhabited only by an old steward and his wife, had been
suffered to fall much into decay. To superintend the repairs, that
would be requisite to make it a comfortable residence, had been a
principal motive with the Count for passing the autumnal months in
Languedoc; and neither the remonstrances, nor the tears of the
Countess, for, on urgent occasions, she could weep, were powerful
enough to overcome his determination. She prepared, therefore, to obey
the command, which she could not conquer, and to resign the gay
assemblies of Paris,—where her beauty was generally unrivalled and won
the applause, to which her wit had but feeble claim—for the twilight
canopy of woods, the lonely grandeur of mountains and the solemnity of
gothic halls and of long, long galleries, which echoed only the
solitary step of a domestic, or the measured clink, that ascended from
the great clock—the ancient monitor of the hall below. From these
melancholy expectations she endeavoured to relieve her spirits by
recollecting all that she had ever heard, concerning the joyous vintage
of the plains of Languedoc; but there, alas! no airy forms would bound
to the gay melody of Parisian dances, and a view of the rustic
festivities of peasants could afford little pleasure to a heart, in
which even the feelings of ordinary benevolence had long since decayed
under the corruptions of luxury.
The Count had a son and a daughter, the children of a former marriage,
who, he designed, should accompany him to the south of France; Henri,
who was in his twentieth year, was in the French service; and Blanche,
who was not yet eighteen, had been hitherto confined to the convent,
where she had been placed immediately on her father’s second marriage.
The present Countess, who had neither sufficient ability, nor
inclination, to superintend the education of her daughter-in-law, had
advised this step, and the dread of superior beauty had since urged her
to employ every art, that might prevail on the Count to prolong the
period of Blanche’s seclusion; it was, therefore, with extreme
mortification, that she now understood he would no longer submit on
this subject, yet it afforded her some consolation to consider, that,
though the Lady Blanche would emerge from her convent, the shades of
the country would, for some time, veil her beauty from the public eye.
On the morning, which commenced the journey, the postillions stopped at
the convent, by the Count’s order, to take up Blanche, whose heart beat
with delight, at the prospect of novelty and freedom now before her. As
the time of her departure drew nigh, her impatience had increased, and
the last night, during which she counted every note of every hour, had
appeared the most tedious of any she had ever known. The morning light,
at length, dawned; the matin-bell rang; she heard the nuns descending
from their chambers, and she started from a sleepless pillow to welcome
the day, which was to emancipate her from the severities of a cloister,
and introduce her to a world, where pleasure was ever smiling, and
goodness ever blessed—where, in short, nothing but pleasure and
goodness reigned! When the bell of the great gate rang, and the sound
was followed by that of carriage wheels, she ran, with a palpitating
heart, to her lattice, and, perceiving her father’s carriage in the
court below, danced, with airy steps, along the gallery, where she was
met by a nun with a summons from the abbess. In the next moment, she
was in the parlour, and in the presence of the Countess who now
appeared to her as an angel, that was to lead her into happiness. But
the emotions of the Countess, on beholding her, were not in unison with
those of Blanche, who had never appeared so lovely as at this moment,
when her countenance, animated by the lightning smile of joy, glowed
with the beauty of happy innocence.
After conversing for a few minutes with the abbess, the Countess rose
to go. This was the moment, which Blanche had anticipated with such
eager expectation, the summit from which she looked down upon the
fairy-land of happiness, and surveyed all its enchantment; was it a
moment, then, for tears of regret? Yet it was so. She turned, with an
altered and dejected countenance, to her young companions, who were
come to bid her farewell, and wept! Even my lady abbess, so stately and
so solemn, she saluted with a degree of sorrow, which, an hour before,
she would have believed it impossible to feel, and which may be
accounted for by considering how reluctantly we all part, even with
unpleasing objects, when the separation is consciously for ever. Again,
she kissed the poor nuns and then followed the Countess from that spot
with tears, which she expected to leave only with smiles.
But the presence of her father and the variety of objects, on the road,
soon engaged her attention, and dissipated the shade, which tender
regret had thrown upon her spirits. Inattentive to a conversation,
which was passing between the Countess and a Mademoiselle Bearn, her
friend, Blanche sat, lost in pleasing reverie, as she watched the
clouds floating silently along the blue expanse, now veiling the sun
and stretching their shadows along the distant scene, and then
disclosing all his brightness. The journey continued to give Blanche
inexpressible delight, for new scenes of nature were every instant
opening to her view, and her fancy became stored with gay and beautiful
imagery.
It was on the evening of the seventh day, that the travellers came
within view of Château-le-Blanc, the romantic beauty of whose situation
strongly impressed the imagination of Blanche, who observed, with
sublime astonishment, the Pyrenean mountains, which had been seen only
at a distance during the day, now rising within a few leagues, with
their wild cliffs and immense precipices, which the evening clouds,
floating round them, now disclosed, and again veiled. The setting rays,
that tinged their snowy summits with a roseate hue, touched their lower
points with various colouring, while the bluish tint, that pervaded
their shadowy recesses, gave the strength of contrast to the splendour
of light. The plains of Languedoc, blushing with the purple vine and
diversified with groves of mulberry, almond and olives, spread far to
the north and the east; to the south, appeared the Mediterranean, clear
as crystal, and blue as the heavens it reflected, bearing on its bosom
vessels, whose white sails caught the sunbeams, and gave animation to
the scene. On a high promontory, washed by the waters of the
Mediterranean, stood her father’s mansion, almost secluded from the eye
by woods of intermingled pine, oak and chesnut, which crowned the
eminence, and sloped towards the plains, on one side; while, on the
other, they extended to a considerable distance along the sea-shores.
As Blanche drew nearer, the gothic features of this ancient mansion
successively appeared—first an embattled turret, rising above the
trees—then the broken arch of an immense gateway, retiring beyond them;
and she almost fancied herself approaching a castle, such as is often
celebrated in early story, where the knights look out from the
battlements on some champion below, who, clothed in black armour,
comes, with his companions, to rescue the fair lady of his love from
the oppression of his rival; a sort of legends, to which she had once
or twice obtained access in the library of her convent, that, like many
others, belonging to the monks, was stored with these reliques of
romantic fiction.
The carriages stopped at a gate, which led into the domain of the
château, but which was now fastened; and the great bell, that had
formerly served to announce the arrival of strangers, having long since
fallen from its station, a servant climbed over a ruined part of the
adjoining wall, to give notice to those within of the arrival of their
lord.
As Blanche leaned from the coach window, she resigned herself to the
sweet and gentle emotions, which the hour and the scenery awakened. The
sun had now left the earth, and twilight began to darken the mountains;
while the distant waters, reflecting the blush that still glowed in the
west, appeared like a line of light, skirting the horizon. The low
murmur of waves, breaking on the shore, came in the breeze, and, now
and then, the melancholy dashing of oars was feebly heard from a
distance. She was suffered to indulge her pensive mood, for the
thoughts of the rest of the party were silently engaged upon the
subjects of their several interests. Meanwhile, the Countess,
reflecting, with regret, upon the gay parties she had left at Paris,
surveyed, with disgust, what she thought the gloomy woods and solitary
wildness of the scene; and, shrinking from the prospect of being shut
up in an old castle, was prepared to meet every object with
displeasure. The feelings of Henri were somewhat similar to those of
the Countess; he gave a mournful sigh to the delights of the capital,
and to the remembrance of a lady, who, he believed, had engaged his
affections, and who had certainly fascinated his imagination; but the
surrounding country, and the mode of life, on which he was entering,
had, for him, at least, the charm of novelty, and his regret was
softened by the gay expectations of youth. The gates being at length
unbarred, the carriage moved slowly on, under spreading chesnuts, that
almost excluded the remains of day, following what had been formerly a
road, but which now, overgrown with luxuriant vegetation, could be
traced only by the boundary, formed by trees, on either side, and which
wound for near half a mile among the woods, before it reached the
château. This was the very avenue that St. Aubert and Emily had
formerly entered, on their first arrival in the neighbourhood, with the
hope of finding a house, that would receive them, for the night, and
had so abruptly quitted, on perceiving the wildness of the place, and a
figure, which the postillion had fancied was a robber.
“What a dismal place is this!” exclaimed the Countess, as the carriage
penetrated the deeper recesses of the woods. “Surely, my lord, you do
not mean to pass all the autumn in this barbarous spot! One ought to
bring hither a cup of the waters of Lethe, that the remembrance of
pleasanter scenes may not heighten, at least, the natural dreariness of
these.”
“I shall be governed by circumstances, madam,” said the Count, “this
barbarous spot was inhabited by my ancestors.”
The carriage now stopped at the château, where, at the door of the
great hall, appeared the old steward and the Parisian servants, who had
been sent to prepare the château, waiting to receive their lord. Lady
Blanche now perceived, that the edifice was not built entirely in the
gothic style, but that it had additions of a more modern date; the
large and gloomy hall, however, into which she now entered, was
entirely gothic, and sumptuous tapestry, which it was now too dark to
distinguish, hung upon the walls, and depictured scenes from some of
the ancient Provençal romances. A vast gothic window, embroidered with
_clematis_ and eglantine, that ascended to the south, led the eye, now
that the casements were thrown open, through this verdant shade, over a
sloping lawn, to the tops of dark woods, that hung upon the brow of the
promontory. Beyond, appeared the waters of the Mediterranean,
stretching far to the south, and to the east, where they were lost in
the horizon; while, to the north-east, they were bounded by the
luxuriant shores of Languedoc and Provence, enriched with wood, and gay
with vines and sloping pastures; and, to the south-west, by the
majestic Pyrenees, now fading from the eye, beneath the gradual gloom.
Blanche, as she crossed the hall, stopped a moment to observe this
lovely prospect, which the evening twilight obscured, yet did not
conceal. But she was quickly awakened from the complacent delight,
which this scene had diffused upon her mind, by the Countess, who,
discontented with every object around, and impatient for refreshment
and repose, hastened forward to a large parlour, whose cedar wainscot,
narrow, pointed casements, and dark ceiling of carved cypress wood,
gave it an aspect of peculiar gloom, which the dingy green velvet of
the chairs and couches, fringed with tarnished gold, had once been
designed to enliven.
While the Countess enquired for refreshment, the Count, attended by his
son, went to look over some part of the château, and Lady Blanche
reluctantly remained to witness the discontent and ill-humour of her
step-mother.
“How long have you lived in this desolate place?” said her ladyship, to
the old housekeeper, who came to pay her duty.
“Above twenty years, your ladyship, on the next feast of St. Jerome.”
“How happened it, that you have lived here so long, and almost alone,
too? I understood, that the château had been shut up for some years?”
“Yes, madam, it was for many years after my late lord, the Count, went
to the wars; but it is above twenty years, since I and my husband came
into his service. The place is so large, and has of late been so
lonely, that we were lost in it, and, after some time, we went to live
in a cottage at the end of the woods, near some of the tenants, and
came to look after the château, every now and then. When my lord
returned to France from the wars, he took a dislike to the place, and
never came to live here again, and so he was satisfied with our
remaining at the cottage. Alas—alas! how the château is changed from
what it once was! What delight my late lady used to take in it! I well
remember when she came here a bride, and how fine it was. Now, it has
been neglected so long, and is gone into such decay! I shall never see
those days again!”
The Countess appearing to be somewhat offended by the thoughtless
simplicity, with which the old woman regretted former times, Dorothée
added—“But the château will now be inhabited, and cheerful again; not
all the world could tempt me to live in it alone.”
“Well, the experiment will not be made, I believe,” said the Countess,
displeased that her own silence had been unable to awe the loquacity of
this rustic old housekeeper, now spared from further attendance by the
entrance of the Count, who said he had been viewing part of the
château, and found, that it would require considerable repairs and some
alterations, before it would be perfectly comfortable, as a place of
residence. “I am sorry to hear it, my lord,” replied the Countess. “And
why sorry, madam?” “Because the place will ill repay your trouble; and
were it even a paradise, it would be insufferable at such a distance
from Paris.”
The Count made no reply, but walked abruptly to a window. “There are
windows, my lord, but they neither admit entertainment, nor light; they
show only a scene of savage nature.”
“I am at a loss, madam,” said the Count, “to conjecture what you mean
by savage nature. Do those plains, or those woods, or that fine expanse
of water, deserve the name?”
“Those mountains certainly do, my lord,” rejoined the Countess,
pointing to the Pyrenees, “and this château, though not a work of rude
nature, is, to my taste, at least, one of savage art.” The Count
coloured highly. “This place, madam, was the work of my ancestors,”
said he, “and you must allow me to say, that your present conversation
discovers neither good taste, nor good manners.” Blanche, now shocked
at an altercation, which appeared to be increasing to a serious
disagreement, rose to leave the room, when her mother’s woman entered
it; and the Countess, immediately desiring to be shown to her own
apartment, withdrew, attended by Mademoiselle Bearn.
Lady Blanche, it being not yet dark, took this opportunity of exploring
new scenes, and, leaving the parlour, she passed from the hall into a
wide gallery, whose walls were decorated by marble pilasters, which
supported an arched roof, composed of a rich mosaic work. Through a
distant window, that seemed to terminate the gallery, were seen the
purple clouds of evening and a landscape, whose features, thinly veiled
in twilight, no longer appeared distinctly, but, blended into one grand
mass, stretched to the horizon, coloured only with a tint of solemn
grey.
The gallery terminated in a saloon, to which the window she had seen
through an open door, belonged; but the increasing dusk permitted her
only an imperfect view of this apartment, which seemed to be
magnificent and of modern architecture; though it had been either
suffered to fall into decay, or had never been properly finished. The
windows, which were numerous and large, descended low, and afforded a
very extensive, and what Blanche’s fancy represented to be, a very
lovely prospect; and she stood for some time, surveying the grey
obscurity and depicturing imaginary woods and mountains, valleys and
rivers, on this scene of night; her solemn sensations rather assisted,
than interrupted, by the distant bark of a watch-dog, and by the
breeze, as it trembled upon the light foliage of the shrubs. Now and
then, appeared for a moment, among the woods, a cottage light; and, at
length, was heard, afar off, the evening bell of a convent, dying on
the air. When she withdrew her thoughts from these subjects of fanciful
delight, the gloom and silence of the saloon somewhat awed her; and,
having sought the door of the gallery, and pursued, for a considerable
time, a dark passage, she came to a hall, but one totally different
from that she had formerly seen. By the twilight, admitted through an
open portico, she could just distinguish this apartment to be of very
light and airy architecture, and that it was paved with white marble,
pillars of which supported the roof, that rose into arches built in the
Moorish style. While Blanche stood on the steps of this portico, the
moon rose over the sea, and gradually disclosed, in partial light, the
beauties of the eminence, on which she stood, whence a lawn, now rude
and overgrown with high grass, sloped to the woods, that, almost
surrounding the château, extended in a grand sweep down the southern
sides of the promontory to the very margin of the ocean. Beyond the
woods, on the north-side, appeared a long tract of the plains of
Languedoc; and, to the east, the landscape she had before dimly seen,
with the towers of a monastery, illumined by the moon, rising over dark
groves.
The soft and shadowy tint, that overspread the scene, the waves,
undulating in the moonlight, and their low and measured murmurs on the
beach, were circumstances, that united to elevate the unaccustomed mind
of Blanche to enthusiasm.
“And have I lived in this glorious world so long,” said she, “and never
till now beheld such a prospect—never experienced these delights! Every
peasant girl, on my father’s domain, has viewed from her infancy the
face of nature; has ranged, at liberty, her romantic wilds, while I
have been shut in a cloister from the view of these beautiful
appearances, which were designed to enchant all eyes, and awaken all
hearts. How can the poor nuns and friars feel the full fervour of
devotion, if they never see the sun rise, or set? Never, till this
evening, did I know what true devotion is; for, never before did I see
the sun sink below the vast earth! Tomorrow, for the first time in my
life, I will see it rise. O, who would live in Paris, to look upon
black walls and dirty streets, when, in the country, they might gaze on
the blue heavens, and all the green earth!”
This enthusiastic soliloquy was interrupted by a rustling noise in the
hall; and, while the loneliness of the place made her sensible to fear,
she thought she perceived something moving between the pillars. For a
moment, she continued silently observing it, till, ashamed of her
ridiculous apprehensions, she recollected courage enough to demand who
was there. “O my young lady, is it you?” said the old housekeeper, who
was come to shut the windows, “I am glad it is you.” The manner, in
which she spoke this, with a faint breath, rather surprised Blanche,
who said, “You seemed frightened, Dorothée, what is the matter?”
“No, not frightened, ma’amselle,” replied Dorothée, hesitating and
trying to appear composed, “but I am old, and—a little matter startles
me.” The Lady Blanche smiled at the distinction. “I am glad, that my
lord the Count is come to live at the château, ma’amselle,” continued
Dorothée, “for it has been many a year deserted, and dreary enough;
now, the place will look a little as it used to do, when my poor lady
was alive.” Blanche enquired how long it was, since the Marchioness
died? “Alas! my lady,” replied Dorothée, “so long—that I have ceased to
count the years! The place, to my mind, has mourned ever since, and I
am sure my lord’s vassals have! But you have lost yourself,
ma’amselle,—shall I show you to the other side of the château?”
Blanche enquired how long this part of the edifice had been built.
“Soon after my lord’s marriage, ma’am,” replied Dorothée. “The place
was large enough without this addition, for many rooms of the old
building were even then never made use of, and my lord had a princely
household too; but he thought the ancient mansion gloomy, and gloomy
enough it is!” Lady Blanche now desired to be shown to the inhabited
part of the château; and, as the passages were entirely dark, Dorothée
conducted her along the edge of the lawn to the opposite side of the
edifice, where, a door opening into the great hall, she was met by
Mademoiselle Bearn. “Where have you been so long?” said she, “I had
begun to think some wonderful adventure had befallen you, and that the
giant of this enchanted castle, or the ghost, which, no doubt, haunts
it, had conveyed you through a trap-door into some subterranean vault,
whence you were never to return.”
“No,” replied Blanche, laughingly, “you seem to love adventures so
well, that I leave them for you to achieve.”
“Well, I am willing to achieve them, provided I am allowed to describe
them.”
“My dear Mademoiselle Bearn,” said Henri, as he met her at the door of
the parlour, “no ghost of these days would be so savage as to impose
silence on you. Our ghosts are more civilized than to condemn a lady to
a purgatory severer even, than their own, be it what it may.”
Mademoiselle Bearn replied only by a laugh; and, the Count now entering
the room, supper was served, during which he spoke little, frequently
appeared to be abstracted from the company, and more than once
remarked, that the place was greatly altered, since he had last seen
it. “Many years have intervened since that period,” said he; “and,
though the grand features of the scenery admit of no change, they
impress me with sensations very different from those I formerly
experienced.”
“Did these scenes, sir,” said Blanche, “ever appear more lovely, than
they do now? To me this seems hardly possible.” The Count, regarding
her with a melancholy smile, said, “They once were as delightful to me,
as they are now to you; the landscape is not changed, but time has
changed me; from my mind the illusion, which gave spirit to the
colouring of nature, is fading fast! If you live, my dear Blanche, to
revisit this spot, at the distance of many years, you will, perhaps,
remember and understand the feelings of your father.”
Lady Blanche, affected by these words, remained silent; she looked
forward to the period, which the Count anticipated, and considering,
that he, who now spoke, would then probably be no more, her eyes, bent
to the ground, were filed with tears. She gave her hand to her father,
who, smiling affectionately, rose from his chair, and went to a window
to conceal his emotion.
The fatigues of the day made the party separate at an early hour, when
Blanche retired through a long oak gallery to her chamber, whose
spacious and lofty walls, high antiquated casements, and, what was the
effect of these, its gloomy air, did not reconcile her to its remote
situation, in this ancient building. The furniture, also, was of
ancient date; the bed was of blue damask, trimmed with tarnished gold
lace, and its lofty tester rose in the form of a canopy, whence the
curtains descended, like those of such tents as are sometimes
represented in old pictures, and, indeed, much resembling those,
exhibited on the faded tapestry, with which the chamber was hung. To
Blanche, every object here was matter of curiosity; and, taking the
light from her woman to examine the tapestry, she perceived, that it
represented scenes from the wars of Troy, though the almost colourless
worsted now mocked the glowing actions they once had painted. She
laughed at the ludicrous absurdity she observed, till, recollecting,
that the hands, which had wove it, were, like the poet, whose thoughts
of fire they had attempted to express, long since mouldered into dust,
a train of melancholy ideas passed over her mind, and she almost wept.
Having given her woman a strict injunction to awaken her, before
sunrise, she dismissed her; and then, to dissipate the gloom, which
reflection had cast upon her spirits, opened one of the high casements,
and was again cheered by the face of living nature. The shadowy earth,
the air, and ocean—all was still. Along the deep serene of the heavens,
a few light clouds floated slowly, through whose skirts the stars now
seemed to tremble, and now to emerge with purer splendour. Blanche’s
thoughts arose involuntarily to the Great Author of the sublime objects
she contemplated, and she breathed a prayer of finer devotion, than any
she had ever uttered beneath the vaulted roof of a cloister. At this
casement, she remained till the glooms of midnight were stretched over
the prospect. She then retired to her pillow, and, “with gay visions of
tomorrow,” to those sweet slumbers, which health and happy innocence
only know.
Tomorrow, to fresh woods and pastures new.
CHAPTER XI
What transport to retrace our early plays,
Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied
The woods, the mountains and the warbling maze
Of the wild brooks!
THOMSON
Blanche’s slumbers continued, till long after the hour, which she had
so impatiently anticipated, for her woman, fatigued with travelling,
did not call her, till breakfast was nearly ready. Her disappointment,
however, was instantly forgotten, when, on opening the casement, she
saw, on one hand, the wide sea sparkling in the morning rays, with its
stealing sails and glancing oars; and, on the other, the fresh woods,
the plains far-stretching and the blue mountains, all glowing with the
splendour of day.
As she inspired the pure breeze, health spread a deeper blush upon her
countenance, and pleasure danced in her eyes.
“Who could first invent convents!” said she, “and who could first
persuade people to go into them? and to make religion a pretence, too,
where all that should inspire it, is so carefully shut out! God is best
pleased with the homage of a grateful heart, and, when we view his
glories, we feel most grateful. I never felt so much devotion, during
the many dull years I was in the convent, as I have done in the few
hours, that I have been here, where I need only look on all around
me—to adore God in my inmost heart!”
Saying this, she left the window, bounded along the gallery, and, in
the next moment, was in the breakfast room, where the Count was already
seated. The cheerfulness of a bright sunshine had dispersed the
melancholy glooms of his reflections, a pleasant smile was on his
countenance, and he spoke in an enlivening voice to Blanche, whose
heart echoed back the tones. Henri and, soon after, the Countess with
Mademoiselle Bearn appeared, and the whole party seemed to acknowledge
the influence of the scene; even the Countess was so much reanimated as
to receive the civilities of her husband with complacency, and but once
forgot her good-humour, which was when she asked whether they had any
neighbours, who were likely to make _this barbarous spot _ more
tolerable, and whether the Count believed it possible for her to exist
here, without some amusement?
Soon after breakfast the party dispersed; the Count, ordering his
steward to attend him in the library, went to survey the condition of
his premises, and to visit some of his tenants; Henri hastened with
alacrity to the shore to examine a boat, that was to bear them on a
little voyage in the evening and to superintend the adjustment of a
silk awning; while the Countess, attended by Mademoiselle Bearn,
retired to an apartment on the modern side of the château, which was
fitted up with airy elegance; and, as the windows opened upon
balconies, that fronted the sea, she was there saved from a view of the
_horrid_ Pyrenees. Here, while she reclined on a sofa, and, casting her
languid eyes over the ocean, which appeared beyond the wood-tops,
indulged in the luxuries of _ennui_, her companion read aloud a
sentimental novel, on some fashionable system of philosophy, for the
Countess was herself somewhat of a _philosopher_, especially as to
_infidelity_, and among a certain circle her opinions were waited for
with impatience, and received as doctrines.
The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, hastened to indulge, amidst the wild
wood-walks around the château, her new enthusiasm, where, as she
wandered under the shades, her gay spirits gradually yielded to pensive
complacency. Now, she moved with solemn steps, beneath the gloom of
thickly interwoven branches, where the fresh dew still hung upon every
flower, that peeped from among the grass; and now tripped sportively
along the path, on which the sunbeams darted and the checquered foliage
trembled—where the tender greens of the beech, the acacia and the
mountain-ash, mingling with the solemn tints of the cedar, the pine and
cypress, exhibited as fine a contrast of colouring, as the majestic oak
and oriental plane did of form, to the feathery lightness of the cork
tree and the waving grace of the poplar.
Having reached a rustic seat, within a deep recess of the woods, she
rested awhile, and, as her eyes caught, through a distant opening, a
glimpse of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, with the white sail,
gliding on its bosom, or of the broad mountain, glowing beneath the
mid-day sun, her mind experienced somewhat of that exquisite delight,
which awakens the fancy, and leads to poetry. The hum of bees alone
broke the stillness around her, as, with other insects of various hues,
they sported gaily in the shade, or sipped sweets from the fresh
flowers: and, while Blanche watched a butter-fly, flitting from bud to
bud, she indulged herself in imagining the pleasures of its short day,
till she had composed the following stanzas.
THE BUTTER-FLY TO HIS LOVE
What bowery dell, with fragrant breath,
Courts thee to stay thy airy flight;
Nor seek again the purple heath,
So oft the scene of gay delight?
Long I’ve watch’d i’ the lily’s bell,
Whose whiteness stole the morning’s beam;
No fluttering sounds thy coming tell,
No waving wings, at distance, gleam.
But fountain fresh, nor breathing grove,
Nor sunny mead, nor blossom’d tree,
So sweet as lily’s cell shall prove,—
The bower of constant love and me.
When April buds begin to blow,
The prim-rose, and the hare-bell blue,
That on the verdant moss bank grow,
With violet cups, that weep in dew;
When wanton gales breathe through the shade,
And shake the blooms, and steal their sweets,
And swell the song of ev’ry glade,
I range the forest’s green retreats:
There, through the tangled wood-walks play,
Where no rude urchin paces near,
Where sparely peeps the sultry day,
And light dews freshen all the air.
High on a sunbeam oft I sport
O’er bower and fountain, vale and hill;
Oft ev’ry blushing flow’ret court,
That hangs its head o’er winding rill.
But these I’ll leave to be thy guide,
And show thee, where the jasmine spreads
Her snowy leaf, where may-flow’rs hide,
And rose-buds rear their peeping heads.
With me the mountain’s summit scale,
And taste the wild-thyme’s honied bloom,
Whose fragrance, floating on the gale,
Oft leads me to the cedar’s gloom.
Yet, yet, no sound comes in the breeze!
What shade thus dares to tempt thy stay?
Once, me alone thou wish’d to please,
And with me only thou wouldst stray.
But, while thy long delay I mourn,
And chide the sweet shades for their guile,
Thou may’st be true, and they forlorn,
And fairy favours court thy smile.
The tiny queen of fairy-land,
Who knows thy speed, hath sent thee far,
To bring, or ere the night-watch stand,
Rich essence for her shadowy car:
Perchance her acorn-cups to fill
With nectar from the Indian rose,
Or gather, near some haunted rill,
May-dews, that lull to sleep Love’s woes:
Or, o’er the mountains, bade thee fly,
To tell her fairy love to speed,
When ev’ning steals upon the sky,
To dance along the twilight mead.
But now I see thee sailing low,
Gay as the brightest flow’rs of spring,
Thy coat of blue and jet I know,
And well thy gold and purple wing.
Borne on the gale, thou com’st to me;
O! welcome, welcome to my home!
In lily’s cell we’ll live in glee,
Together o’er the mountains roam!
When Lady Blanche returned to the château, instead of going to the
apartment of the Countess, she amused herself with wandering over that
part of the edifice, which she had not yet examined, of which the most
ancient first attracted her curiosity; for, though what she had seen of
the modern was gay and elegant, there was something in the former more
interesting to her imagination. Having passed up the great staircase,
and through the oak gallery, she entered upon a long suite of chambers,
whose walls were either hung with tapestry, or wainscoted with cedar,
the furniture of which looked almost as ancient as the rooms
themselves; the spacious fire-places, where no mark of social cheer
remained, presented an image of cold desolation; and the whole suite
had so much the air of neglect and desertion, that it seemed, as if the
venerable persons, whose portraits hung upon the walls, had been the
last to inhabit them.
On leaving these rooms, she found herself in another gallery, one end
of which was terminated by a back staircase, and the other by a door,
that seemed to communicate with the north-side of the château, but
which being fastened, she descended the staircase, and, opening a door
in the wall, a few steps down, found herself in a small square room,
that formed part of the west turret of the castle. Three windows
presented each a separate and beautiful prospect; that to the north,
overlooking Languedoc; another to the west, the hills ascending towards
the Pyrenees, whose awful summits crowned the landscape; and a third,
fronting the south, gave the Mediterranean, and a part of the wild
shores of Rousillon, to the eye.
Having left the turret, and descended the narrow staircase, she found
herself in a dusky passage, where she wandered, unable to find her way,
till impatience yielded to apprehension, and she called for assistance.
Presently steps approached, and light glimmered through a door at the
other extremity of the passage, which was opened with caution by some
person, who did not venture beyond it, and whom Blanche observed in
silence, till the door was closing, when she called aloud, and,
hastening towards it, perceived the old housekeeper. “Dear ma’amselle!
is it you?” said Dorothée, “How could you find your way hither?” Had
Blanche been less occupied by her own fears, she would probably have
observed the strong expressions of terror and surprise on Dorothée’s
countenance, who now led her through a long succession of passages and
rooms, that looked as if they had been uninhabited for a century, till
they reached that appropriated to the housekeeper, where Dorothée
entreated she would sit down and take refreshment. Blanche accepted the
sweet meats, offered to her, mentioned her discovery of the pleasant
turret, and her wish to appropriate it to her own use. Whether
Dorothée’s taste was not so sensible to the beauties of landscape as
her young lady’s, or that the constant view of lovely scenery had
deadened it, she forbore to praise the subject of Blanche’s enthusiasm,
which, however, her silence did not repress. To Lady Blanche’s enquiry
of whither the door she had found fastened at the end of the gallery
led, she replied, that it opened to a suite of rooms, which had not
been entered, during many years, “For,” added she, “my late lady died
in one of them, and I could never find in my heart to go into them
since.”
Blanche, though she wished to see these chambers, forbore, on observing
that Dorothée’s eyes were filled with tears, to ask her to unlock them,
and, soon after, went to dress for dinner, at which the whole party met
in good spirits and good humour, except the Countess, whose vacant
mind, overcome by the languor of idleness, would neither suffer her to
be happy herself, nor to contribute to the happiness of others.
Mademoiselle Bearn, attempting to be witty, directed her badinage
against Henri, who answered, because he could not well avoid it, rather
than from any inclination to notice her, whose liveliness sometimes
amused, but whose conceit and insensibility often disgusted him.
The cheerfulness, with which Blanche rejoined the party, vanished, on
her reaching the margin of the sea; she gazed with apprehension upon
the immense expanse of waters, which, at a distance, she had beheld
only with delight and astonishment, and it was by a strong effort, that
she so far overcame her fears as to follow her father into the boat.
As she silently surveyed the vast horizon, bending round the distant
verge of the ocean, an emotion of sublimest rapture struggled to
overcome a sense of personal danger. A light breeze played on the
water, and on the silk awning of the boat, and waved the foliage of the
receding woods, that crowned the cliffs, for many miles, and which the
Count surveyed with the pride of conscious property, as well as with
the eye of taste.
At some distance, among these woods, stood a pavilion, which had once
been the scene of social gaiety, and which its situation still made one
of romantic beauty. Thither, the Count had ordered coffee and other
refreshment to be carried, and thither the sailors now steered their
course, following the windings of the shore round many a woody
promontory and circling bay; while the pensive tones of horns and other
wind instruments, played by the attendants in a distant boat, echoed
among the rocks, and died along the waves. Blanche had now subdued her
fears; a delightful tranquillity stole over her mind, and held her in
silence; and she was too happy even to remember the convent, or her
former sorrows, as subjects of comparison with her present felicity.
The Countess felt less unhappy than she had done, since the moment of
her leaving Paris; for her mind was now under some degree of restraint;
she feared to indulge its wayward humours, and even wished to recover
the Count’s good opinion. On his family, and on the surrounding scene,
he looked with tempered pleasure and benevolent satisfaction, while his
son exhibited the gay spirits of youth, anticipating new delights, and
regretless of those, that were passed.
After near an hour’s rowing, the party landed, and ascended a little
path, overgrown with vegetation. At a little distance from the point of
the eminence, within the shadowy recess of the woods, appeared the
pavilion, which Blanche perceived, as she caught a glimpse of its
portico between the trees, to be built of variegated marble. As she
followed the Countess, she often turned her eyes with rapture towards
the ocean, seen beneath the dark foliage, far below, and from thence
upon the deep woods, whose silence and impenetrable gloom awakened
emotions more solemn, but scarcely less delightful.
The pavilion had been prepared, as far as was possible, on a very short
notice, for the reception of its visitors; but the faded colours of its
painted walls and ceiling, and the decayed drapery of its once
magnificent furniture, declared how long it had been neglected, and
abandoned to the empire of the changing seasons. While the party
partook of a collation of fruit and coffee, the horns, placed in a
distant part of the woods, where an echo sweetened and prolonged their
melancholy tones, broke softly on the stillness of the scene. This spot
seemed to attract even the admiration of the Countess, or, perhaps, it
was merely the pleasure of planning furniture and decorations, that
made her dwell so long on the necessity of repairing and adorning it;
while the Count, never happier than when he saw her mind engaged by
natural and simple objects, acquiesced in all her designs, concerning
the pavilion. The paintings on the walls and coved ceiling were to be
renewed, the canopies and sofas were to be of light green damask;
marble statues of wood-nymphs, bearing on their heads baskets of living
flowers, were to adorn the recesses between the windows, which,
descending to the ground, were to admit to every part of the room, and
it was of octagonal form, the various landscape. One window opened upon
a romantic glade, where the eye roved among the woody recesses, and the
scene was bounded only by a lengthened pomp of groves; from another,
the woods receding disclosed the distant summits of the Pyrenees; a
third fronted an avenue, beyond which the grey towers of
Château-le-Blanc, and a picturesque part of its ruin were seen
partially among the foliage; while a fourth gave, between the trees, a
glimpse of the green pastures and villages, that diversify the banks of
the Aude. The Mediterranean, with the bold cliffs, that overlooked its
shores, were the grand objects of a fifth window, and the others gave,
in different points of view, the wild scenery of the woods.
After wandering, for some time, in these, the party returned to the
shore and embarked; and, the beauty of the evening tempting them to
extend their excursion, they proceeded further up the bay. A dead calm
had succeeded the light breeze, that wafted them hither, and the men
took to their oars. Around, the waters were spread into one vast
expanse of polished mirror, reflecting the grey cliffs and feathery
woods, that over-hung its surface, the glow of the western horizon and
the dark clouds, that came slowly from the east. Blanche loved to see
the dipping oars imprint the water, and to watch the spreading circles
they left, which gave a tremulous motion to the reflected landscape,
without destroying the harmony of its features.
Above the darkness of the woods, her eye now caught a cluster of high
towers, touched with the splendour of the setting rays; and, soon
after, the horns being then silent, she heard the faint swell of choral
voices from a distance.
“What voices are those, upon the air?” said the Count, looking round,
and listening; but the strain had ceased. “It seemed to be a
vesper-hymn, which I have often heard in my convent,” said Blanche.
“We are near the monastery, then,” observed the Count; and, the boat
soon after doubling a lofty head-land, the monastery of St. Claire
appeared, seated near the margin of the sea, where the cliffs, suddenly
sinking, formed a low shore within a small bay, almost encircled with
woods, among which partial features of the edifice were seen;—the great
gate and gothic window of the hall, the cloisters and the side of a
chapel more remote; while a venerable arch, which had once led to a
part of the fabric, now demolished, stood a majestic ruin detached from
the main building, beyond which appeared a grand perspective of the
woods. On the grey walls, the moss had fastened, and, round the pointed
windows of the chapel, the ivy and the briony hung in many a fantastic
wreath.
All without was silent and forsaken; but, while Blanche gazed with
admiration on this venerable pile, whose effect was heightened by the
strong lights and shadows thrown athwart it by a cloudy sunset, a sound
of many voices, slowly chanting, arose from within. The Count bade his
men rest on their oars. The monks were singing the hymn of vespers, and
some female voices mingled with the strain, which rose by soft degrees,
till the high organ and the choral sounds swelled into full and solemn
harmony. The strain, soon after, dropped into sudden silence, and was
renewed in a low and still more solemn key, till, at length, the holy
chorus died away, and was heard no more.—Blanche sighed, tears trembled
in her eyes, and her thoughts seemed wafted with the sounds to heaven.
While a rapt stillness prevailed in the boat, a train of friars, and
then of nuns, veiled in white, issued from the cloisters, and passed,
under the shade of the woods, to the main body of the edifice.
The Countess was the first of her party to awaken from this pause of
silence.
“These dismal hymns and friars make one quite melancholy,” said she;
“twilight is coming on; pray let us return, or it will be dark before
we get home.”
The count, looking up, now perceived, that the twilight of evening was
anticipated by an approaching storm. In the east a tempest was
collecting; a heavy gloom came on, opposing and contrasting the glowing
splendour of the setting sun. The clamorous sea-fowl skimmed in fleet
circles upon the surface of the sea, dipping their light pinions in the
wave, as they fled away in search of shelter. The boatmen pulled hard
at their oars; but the thunder, that now muttered at a distance, and
the heavy drops, that began to dimple the water, made the Count
determine to put back to the monastery for shelter, and the course of
the boat was immediately changed. As the clouds approached the west,
their lurid darkness changed to a deep ruddy glow, which, by
reflection, seemed to fire the tops of the woods and the shattered
towers of the monastery.
The appearance of the heavens alarmed the Countess and Mademoiselle
Bearn, whose expressions of apprehension distressed the Count, and
perplexed his men; while Blanche continued silent, now agitated with
fear, and now with admiration, as she viewed the grandeur of the
clouds, and their effect on the scenery, and listened to the long, long
peals of thunder, that rolled through the air.
The boat having reached the lawn before the monastery, the Count sent a
servant to announce his arrival, and to entreat shelter of the
Superior, who, soon after, appeared at the great gate, attended by
several monks, while the servant returned with a message, expressive at
once of hospitality and pride, but of pride disguised in submission.
The party immediately disembarked, and, having hastily crossed the
lawn—for the shower was now heavy—were received at the gate by the
Superior, who, as they entered, stretched forth his hands and gave his
blessing; and they passed into the great hall, where the lady abbess
waited, attended by several nuns, clothed, like herself, in black, and
veiled in white. The veil of the abbess was, however, thrown half back,
and discovered a countenance, whose chaste dignity was sweetened by the
smile of welcome, with which she addressed the Countess, whom she led,
with Blanche and Mademoiselle Bearn, into the convent parlour, while
the Count and Henri were conducted by the Superior to the refectory.
The Countess, fatigued and discontented, received the politeness of the
abbess with careless haughtiness, and had followed her, with indolent
steps, to the parlour, over which the painted casements and wainscot of
larch-wood threw, at all times, a melancholy shade, and where the gloom
of evening now loured almost to darkness.
While the lady abbess ordered refreshment, and conversed with the
Countess, Blanche withdrew to a window, the lower panes of which, being
without painting, allowed her to observe the progress of the storm over
the Mediterranean, whose dark waves, that had so lately slept, now came
boldly swelling, in long succession, to the shore, where they burst in
white foam, and threw up a high spray over the rocks. A red sulphureous
tint overspread the long line of clouds, that hung above the western
horizon, beneath whose dark skirts the sun looking out, illumined the
distant shores of Languedoc, as well as the tufted summits of the
nearer woods, and shed a partial gleam on the western waves. The rest
of the scene was in deep gloom, except where a sunbeam, darting between
the clouds, glanced on the white wings of the sea-fowl, that circled
high among them, or touched the swelling sail of a vessel, which was
seen labouring in the storm. Blanche, for some time, anxiously watched
the progress of the bark, as it threw the waves in foam around it, and,
as the lightnings flashed, looked to the opening heavens, with many a
sigh for the fate of the poor mariners.
The sun, at length, set, and the heavy clouds, which had long impended,
dropped over the splendour of his course; the vessel, however, was yet
dimly seen, and Blanche continued to observe it, till the quick
succession of flashes, lighting up the gloom of the whole horizon,
warned her to retire from the window, and she joined the Abbess, who,
having exhausted all her topics of conversation with the Countess, had
now leisure to notice her.
But their discourse was interrupted by tremendous peals of thunder; and
the bell of the monastery soon after ringing out, summoned the
inhabitants to prayer. As Blanche passed the window, she gave another
look to the ocean, where, by the momentary flash, that illumined the
vast body of the waters, she distinguished the vessel she had observed
before, amidst a sea of foam, breaking the billows, the mast now bowing
to the waves, and then rising high in air.
She sighed fervently as she gazed, and then followed the Lady Abbess
and the Countess to the chapel. Meanwhile, some of the Count’s
servants, having gone by land to the château for carriages, returned
soon after vespers had concluded, when, the storm being somewhat
abated, the Count and his family returned home. Blanche was surprised
to discover how much the windings of the shore had deceived her,
concerning the distance of the château from the monastery, whose vesper
bell she had heard, on the preceding evening, from the windows of the
west saloon, and whose towers she would also have seen from thence, had
not twilight veiled them.
On their arrival at the château, the Countess, affecting more fatigue,
than she really felt, withdrew to her apartment, and the Count, with
his daughter and Henri, went to the supper-room, where they had not
been long, when they heard, in a pause of the gust, a firing of guns,
which the Count understanding to be signals of distress from some
vessel in the storm, went to a window, that opened towards the
Mediterranean, to observe further; but the sea was now involved in
utter darkness, and the loud howlings of the tempest had again overcome
every other sound. Blanche, remembering the bark, which she had before
seen, now joined her father, with trembling anxiety. In a few moments,
the report of guns was again borne along the wind, and as suddenly
wafted away; a tremendous burst of thunder followed, and, in the flash,
that had preceded it, and which seemed to quiver over the whole surface
of the waters, a vessel was discovered, tossing amidst the white foam
of the waves at some distance from the shore. Impenetrable darkness
again involved the scene, but soon a second flash showed the bark, with
one sail unfurled, driving towards the coast. Blanche hung upon her
father’s arm, with looks full of the agony of united terror and pity,
which were unnecessary to awaken the heart of the Count, who gazed upon
the sea with a piteous expression, and, perceiving, that no boat could
live in the storm, forbore to send one; but he gave orders to his
people to carry torches out upon the cliffs, hoping they might prove a
kind of beacon to the vessel, or, at least, warn the crew of the rocks
they were approaching. While Henri went out to direct on what part of
the cliffs the lights should appear, Blanche remained with her father,
at the window, catching, every now and then, as the lightnings flashed,
a glimpse of the vessel; and she soon saw, with reviving hope, the
torches flaming on the blackness of night, and, as they waved over the
cliffs, casting a red gleam on the gasping billows. When the firing of
guns was repeated, the torches were tossed high in the air, as if
answering the signal, and the firing was then redoubled; but, though
the wind bore the sound away, she fancied, as the lightnings glanced,
that the vessel was much nearer the shore.
The Count’s servants were now seen, running to and fro, on the rocks;
some venturing almost to the point of the crags, and bending over, held
out their torches fastened to long poles; while others, whose steps
could be traced only by the course of the lights, descended the steep
and dangerous path, that wound to the margin of the sea, and, with loud
halloos, hailed the mariners, whose shrill whistle, and then feeble
voices, were heard, at intervals, mingling with the storm. Sudden
shouts from the people on the rocks increased the anxiety of Blanche to
an almost intolerable degree: but her suspense, concerning the fate of
the mariners, was soon over, when Henri, running breathless into the
room, told that the vessel was anchored in the bay below, but in so
shattered a condition, that it was feared she would part before the
crew could disembark. The Count immediately gave orders for his own
boats to assist in bringing them to shore, and that such of these
unfortunate strangers as could not be accommodated in the adjacent
hamlet should be entertained at the château. Among the latter, were
Emily St. Aubert, Monsieur Du Pont, Ludovico and Annette, who, having
embarked at Leghorn and reached Marseilles, were from thence crossing
the Gulf of Lyons, when this storm overtook them. They were received by
the Count with his usual benignity, who, though Emily wished to have
proceeded immediately to the monastery of St. Claire, would not allow
her to leave the château, that night; and, indeed, the terror and
fatigue she had suffered would scarcely have permitted her to go
farther.
In Monsieur Du Pont the Count discovered an old acquaintance, and much
joy and congratulation passed between them, after which Emily was
introduced by name to the Count’s family, whose hospitable benevolence
dissipated the little embarrassment, which her situation had occasioned
her, and the party were soon seated at the supper-table. The unaffected
kindness of Blanche and the lively joy she expressed on the escape of
the strangers, for whom her pity had been so much interested, gradually
revived Emily’s languid spirits; and Du Pont, relieved from his terrors
for her and for himself, felt the full contrast, between his late
situation on a dark and tremendous ocean, and his present one, in a
cheerful mansion, where he was surrounded with plenty, elegance and
smiles of welcome.
Annette, meanwhile, in the servants’ hall, was telling of all the
dangers she had encountered, and congratulating herself so heartily
upon her own and Ludovico’s escape, and on her present comforts, that
she often made all that part of the château ring with merriment and
laughter. Ludovico’s spirits were as gay as her own, but he had
discretion enough to restrain them, and tried to check hers, though in
vain, till her laughter, at length, ascended to _my Lady’s_ chamber,
who sent to enquire what occasioned so much uproar in the château, and
to command silence.
Emily withdrew early to seek the repose she so much required, but her
pillow was long a sleepless one. On this her return to her native
country, many interesting remembrances were awakened; all the events
and sufferings she had experienced, since she quitted it, came in long
succession to her fancy, and were chased only by the image of
Valancourt, with whom to believe herself once more in the same land,
after they had been so long, and so distantly separated, gave her
emotions of indescribable joy, but which afterwards yielded to anxiety
and apprehension, when she considered the long period, that had
elapsed, since any letter had passed between them, and how much might
have happened in this interval to affect her future peace. But the
thought that Valancourt might be now no more, or, if living, might have
forgotten her, was so very terrible to her heart, that she would
scarcely suffer herself to pause upon the possibility. She determined
to inform him, on the following day, of her arrival in France, which it
was scarcely possible he could know but by a letter from herself, and,
after soothing her spirits with the hope of soon hearing, that he was
well, and unchanged in his affections, she, at length, sunk to repose.
CHAPTER XII
Oft woo’d the gleam of Cynthia, silver-bright,
In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly,
With Freedom by my side, and soft-ey’d Melancholy.
GRAY
The Lady Blanche was so much interested for Emily, that, upon hearing
she was going to reside in the neighbouring convent, she requested the
Count would invite her to lengthen her stay at the château. “And you
know, my dear sir,” added Blanche, “how delighted I shall be with such
a companion; for, at present, I have no friend to walk, or to read
with, since Mademoiselle Bearn is my mamma’s friend only.”
The Count smiled at the youthful simplicity, with which his daughter
yielded to first impressions; and, though he chose to warn her of their
danger, he silently applauded the benevolence, that could thus readily
expand in confidence to a stranger. He had observed Emily, with
attention, on the preceding evening, and was as much pleased with her,
as it was possible he could be with any person, on so short an
acquaintance. The mention, made of her by Mons. Du Pont, had also given
him a favourable impression of Emily; but, extremely cautious as to
those, whom he introduced to the intimacy of his daughter, he
determined, on hearing that the former was no stranger at the convent
of St. Claire, to visit the abbess, and, if her account corresponded
with his wish, to invite Emily to pass some time at the château. On
this subject, he was influenced by a consideration of the Lady
Blanche’s welfare, still more than by either a wish to oblige her, or
to befriend the orphan Emily, for whom, however, he felt considerably
interested.
On the following morning, Emily was too much fatigued to appear; but
Mons. Du Pont was at the breakfast-table, when the Count entered the
room, who pressed him, as his former acquaintance, and the son of a
very old friend, to prolong his stay at the château; an invitation,
which Du Pont willingly accepted, since it would allow him to be near
Emily; and, though he was not conscious of encouraging a hope, that she
would ever return his affection, he had not fortitude enough to
attempt, at present, to overcome it.
Emily, when she was somewhat recovered, wandered with her new friend
over the grounds belonging to the château, as much delighted with the
surrounding views, as Blanche, in the benevolence of her heart, had
wished; from thence she perceived, beyond the woods, the towers of the
monastery, and remarked, that it was to this convent she designed to
go.
“Ah!” said Blanche with surprise, “I am but just released from a
convent, and would you go into one? If you could know what pleasure I
feel in wandering here, at liberty,—and in seeing the sky and the
fields, and the woods all round me, I think you would not.” Emily,
smiling at the warmth, with which the Lady Blanche spoke, observed,
that she did not mean to confine herself to a convent for life.
“No, you may not intend it now,” said Blanche; “but you do not know to
what the nuns may persuade you to consent: I know how kind they will
appear, and how happy, for I have seen too much of their art.”
When they returned to the château, Lady Blanche conducted Emily to her
favourite turret, and from thence they rambled through the ancient
chambers, which Blanche had visited before. Emily was amused by
observing the structure of these apartments, and the fashion of their
old but still magnificent furniture, and by comparing them with those
of the castle of Udolpho, which were yet more antique and grotesque.
She was also interested by Dorothée the housekeeper, who attended them,
whose appearance was almost as antique as the objects around her, and
who seemed no less interested by Emily, on whom she frequently gazed
with so much deep attention, as scarcely to hear what was said to her.
While Emily looked from one of the casements, she perceived, with
surprise, some objects, that were familiar to her memory;—the fields
and woods, with the gleaming brook, which she had passed with La
Voisin, one evening, soon after the death of Monsieur St. Aubert, in
her way from the monastery to her cottage; and she now knew this to be
the château, which he had then avoided, and concerning which he had
dropped some remarkable hints.
Shocked by this discovery, yet scarcely knowing why, she mused for some
time in silence, and remembered the emotion, which her father had
betrayed on finding himself so near this mansion, and some other
circumstances of his conduct, that now greatly interested her. The
music, too, which she had formerly heard, and, respecting which La
Voisin had given such an odd account, occurred to her, and, desirous of
knowing more concerning it, she asked Dorothée whether it returned at
midnight, as usual, and whether the musician had yet been discovered.
“Yes, ma’amselle,” replied Dorothée, “that music is still heard, but
the musician has never been found out, nor ever will, I believe; though
there are some people, who can guess.”
“Indeed!” said Emily, “then why do they not pursue the enquiry?”
“Ah, young lady! enquiry enough has been made—but who can pursue a
spirit?”
Emily smiled, and, remembering how lately she had suffered herself to
be led away by superstition, determined now to resist its contagion;
yet, in spite of her efforts, she felt awe mingle with her curiosity,
on this subject; and Blanche, who had hitherto listened in silence, now
enquired what this music was, and how long it had been heard.
“Ever since the death of my lady, madam,” replied Dorothée.
“Why, the place is not haunted, surely?” said Blanche, between jesting
and seriousness.
“I have heard that music almost ever since my dear lady died,”
continued Dorothée, “and never before then. But that is nothing to some
things I could tell of.”
“Do, pray, tell them, then,” said Lady Blanche, now more in earnest
than in jest. “I am much interested, for I have heard sister Henriette,
and sister Sophie, in the convent, tell of such strange appearances,
which they themselves had witnessed!”
“You never heard, my lady, I suppose, what made us leave the château,
and go and live in a cottage,” said Dorothée. “Never!” replied Blanche
with impatience.
“Nor the reason, that my lord, the Marquis”—Dorothée checked herself,
hesitated, and then endeavoured to change the topic; but the curiosity
of Blanche was too much awakened to suffer the subject thus easily to
escape her, and she pressed the old housekeeper to proceed with her
account, upon whom, however, no entreaties could prevail; and it was
evident, that she was alarmed for the imprudence, into which she had
already betrayed herself.
“I perceive,” said Emily, smiling, “that all old mansions are haunted;
I am lately come from a place of wonders; but unluckily, since I left
it, I have heard almost all of them explained.”
Blanche was silent; Dorothée looked grave, and sighed; and Emily felt
herself still inclined to believe more of the wonderful, than she chose
to acknowledge. Just then, she remembered the spectacle she had
witnessed in a chamber of Udolpho, and, by an odd kind of coincidence,
the alarming words, that had accidentally met her eye in the MS.
papers, which she had destroyed, in obedience to the command of her
father; and she shuddered at the meaning they seemed to impart, almost
as much as at the horrible appearance, disclosed by the black veil.
The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, unable to prevail with Dorothée to explain
the subject of her late hints, had desired, on reaching the door, that
terminated the gallery, and which she found fastened on the preceding
day, to see the suite of rooms beyond. “Dear young lady,” said the
housekeeper, “I have told you my reason for not opening them; I have
never seen them, since my dear lady died; and it would go hard with me
to see them now. Pray, madam, do not ask me again.”
“Certainly I will not,” replied Blanche, “if that is really your
objection.”
“Alas! it is,” said the old woman: “we all loved her well, and I shall
always grieve for her. Time runs round! it is now many years, since she
died; but I remember everything, that happened then, as if it was but
yesterday. Many things, that have passed of late years, are gone quite
from my memory, while those so long ago, I can see as if in a glass.”
She paused, but afterwards, as they walked up the gallery, added to
Emily, “this young lady sometimes brings the late Marchioness to my
mind; I can remember, when she looked just as blooming, and very like
her, when she smiles. Poor lady! how gay she was, when she first came
to the château!”
“And was she not gay, afterwards?” said Blanche.
Dorothée shook her head; and Emily observed her, with eyes strongly
expressive of the interest she now felt. “Let us sit down in this
window,” said the Lady Blanche, on reaching the opposite end of the
gallery: “and pray, Dorothée, if it is not painful to you, tell us
something more about the Marchioness. I should like to look into the
glass you spoke of just now, and see a few of the circumstances, which
you say often pass over it.”
“No, my lady,” replied Dorothée; “if you knew as much as I do, you
would not, for you would find there a dismal train of them; I often
wish I could shut them out, but they will rise to my mind. I see my
dear lady on her death-bed,—her very look,—and remember all she said—it
was a terrible scene!”
“Why was it so terrible?” said Emily with emotion.
“Ah, dear young lady! is not death always terrible?” replied Dorothée.
To some further enquiries of Blanche Dorothée was silent; and Emily,
observing the tears in her eyes, forbore to urge the subject, and
endeavoured to withdraw the attention of her young friend to some
object in the gardens, where the Count, with the Countess and Monsieur
Du Pont, appearing, they went down to join them.
When he perceived Emily, he advanced to meet her, and presented her to
the Countess, in a manner so benign, that it recalled most powerfully
to her mind the idea of her late father, and she felt more gratitude to
him, than embarrassment towards the Countess, who, however, received
her with one of those fascinating smiles, which her caprice sometimes
allowed her to assume, and which was now the result of a conversation
the Count had held with her, concerning Emily. Whatever this might be,
or whatever had passed in his conversation with the lady abbess, whom
he had just visited, esteem and kindness were strongly apparent in his
manner, when he addressed Emily, who experienced that sweet emotion,
which arises from the consciousness of possessing the approbation of
the good; for to the Count’s worth she had been inclined to yield her
confidence almost from the first moment, in which she had seen him.
Before she could finish her acknowledgments for the hospitality she had
received, and mention of her design of going immediately to the
convent, she was interrupted by an invitation to lengthen her stay at
the château, which was pressed by the Count and the Countess, with an
appearance of such friendly sincerity, that, though she much wished to
see her old friends at the monastery, and to sigh, once more, over her
father’s grave, she consented to remain a few days at the château.
To the abbess, however, she immediately wrote, mentioning her arrival
in Languedoc and her wish to be received into the convent, as a
boarder; she also sent letters to Monsieur Quesnel and to Valancourt,
whom she merely informed of her arrival in France; and, as she knew not
where the latter might be stationed, she directed her letter to his
brother’s seat in Gascony.
In the evening, Lady Blanche and Mons. Du Pont walked with Emily to the
cottage of La Voisin, which she had now a melancholy pleasure in
approaching, for time had softened her grief for the loss of St.
Aubert, though it could not annihilate it, and she felt a soothing
sadness in indulging the recollections, which this scene recalled. La
Voisin was still living, and seemed to enjoy, as much as formerly, the
tranquil evening of a blameless life. He was sitting at the door of his
cottage, watching some of his grandchildren, playing on the grass
before him, and, now and then, with a laugh, or a commendation,
encouraging their sports. He immediately recollected Emily, whom he was
much pleased to see, and she was as rejoiced to hear, that he had not
lost one of his family, since her departure.
“Yes, ma’amselle,” said the old man, “we all live merrily together
still, thank God! and I believe there is not a happier family to be
found in Languedoc, than ours.”
Emily did not trust herself in the chamber, where St. Aubert died; and,
after half an hour’s conversation with La Voisin and his family, she
left the cottage.
During these the first days of her stay at Château-le-Blanc, she was
often affected, by observing the deep, but silent melancholy, which, at
times, stole over Du Pont; and Emily, pitying the self-delusion, which
disarmed him of the will to depart, determined to withdraw herself as
soon as the respect she owed the Count and Countess De Villefort would
permit. The dejection of his friend soon alarmed the anxiety of the
Count, to whom Du Pont, at length, confided the secret of his hopeless
affection, which, however, the former could only commiserate, though he
secretly determined to befriend his suit, if an opportunity of doing so
should ever occur. Considering the dangerous situation of Du Pont, he
but feebly opposed his intention of leaving Château-le-Blanc, on the
following day, but drew from him a promise of a longer visit, when he
could return with safety to his peace. Emily herself, though she could
not encourage his affection, esteemed him both for the many virtues he
possessed, and for the services she had received from him; and it was
not without tender emotions of gratitude and pity, that she now saw him
depart for his family seat in Gascony; while he took leave of her with
a countenance so expressive of love and grief, as to interest the Count
more warmly in his cause than before.
In a few days, Emily also left the château, but not before the Count
and Countess had received her promise to repeat her visit very soon;
and she was welcomed by the abbess, with the same maternal kindness she
had formerly experienced, and by the nuns, with much expression of
regard. The well-known scenes of the convent occasioned her many
melancholy recollections, but with these were mingled others, that
inspired gratitude for having escaped the various dangers, that had
pursued her, since she quitted it, and for the good, which she yet
possessed; and, though she once more wept over her father’s grave, with
tears of tender affection, her grief was softened from its former
acuteness.
Some time after her return to the monastery, she received a letter from
her uncle, Mons. Quesnel, in answer to information that she had arrived
in France, and to her enquiries, concerning such of her affairs as he
had undertaken to conduct during her absence, especially as to the
period for which La Vallée had been let, whither it was her wish to
return, if it should appear, that her income would permit her to do so.
The reply of Mons. Quesnel was cold and formal, as she expected,
expressing neither concern for the evils she suffered, nor pleasure,
that she was now removed from them; nor did he allow the opportunity to
pass, of reproving her for her rejection of Count Morano, whom he
affected still to believe a man of honour and fortune; nor of
vehemently declaiming against Montoni, to whom he had always, till now,
felt himself to be inferior. On Emily’s pecuniary concerns, he was not
very explicit; he informed her, however, that the term, for which La
Vallée had been engaged, was nearly expired; but, without inviting her
to his own house, added, that her circumstances would by no means allow
her to reside there, and earnestly advised her to remain, for the
present, in the convent of St. Claire.
To her enquiries respecting poor old Theresa, her late father’s
servant, he gave no answer. In the postscript to his letter, Monsieur
Quesnel mentioned M. Motteville, in whose hands the late St. Aubert had
placed the chief of his personal property, as being likely to arrange
his affairs nearly to the satisfaction of his creditors, and that Emily
would recover much more of her fortune, than she had formerly reason to
expect. The letter also inclosed to Emily an order upon a merchant at
Narbonne, for a small sum of money.
The tranquillity of the monastery, and the liberty she was suffered to
enjoy, in wandering among the woods and shores of this delightful
province, gradually restored her spirits to their natural tone, except
that anxiety would sometimes intrude, concerning Valancourt, as the
time approached, when it was possible that she might receive an answer
to her letter.
CHAPTER XIII
As when a wave, that from a cloud impends,
And, swell’d with tempests, on the ship descends,
White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud,
Howl o’er the masts, and sing through ev’ry shroud:
Pale, trembling, tir’d, the sailors freeze with fears,
And instant death on ev’ry wave appears.
POPE’S HOMER
The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, who was left much alone, became impatient
for the company of her new friend, whom she wished to observe sharing
in the delight she received from the beautiful scenery around. She had
now no person, to whom she could express her admiration and communicate
her pleasures, no eye, that sparkled to her smile, or countenance, that
reflected her happiness; and she became spiritless and pensive. The
Count, observing her dissatisfaction, readily yielded to her
entreaties, and reminded Emily of her promised visit; but the silence
of Valancourt, which was now prolonged far beyond the period, when a
letter might have arrived from Estuvière, oppressed Emily with severe
anxiety, and, rendering her averse to society, she would willingly have
deferred her acceptance of this invitation, till her spirits should be
relieved. The Count and his family, however, pressed to see her; and,
as the circumstances, that prompted her wish for solitude, could not be
explained, there was an appearance of caprice in her refusal, which she
could not persevere in, without offending the friends, whose esteem she
valued. At length, therefore, she returned upon a second visit to
Château-le-Blanc. Here the friendly manner of Count De Villefort
encouraged Emily to mention to him her situation, respecting the
estates of her late aunt, and to consult him on the means of recovering
them. He had little doubt, that the law would decide in her favour,
and, advising her to apply to it, offered first to write to an advocate
at Avignon, on whose opinion he thought he could rely. His kindness was
gratefully accepted by Emily, who, soothed by the courtesy she daily
experienced, would have been once more happy, could she have been
assured of Valancourt’s welfare and unaltered affection. She had now
been above a week at the château, without receiving intelligence of
him, and, though she knew, that, if he was absent from his brother’s
residence, it was scarcely probable her letter had yet reached him, she
could not forbear to admit doubts and fears, that destroyed her peace.
Again she would consider of all, that might have happened in the long
period, since her first seclusion at Udolpho, and her mind was
sometimes so overwhelmed with an apprehension, that Valancourt was no
more, or that he lived no longer for her, that the company even of
Blanche became intolerably oppressive, and she would sit alone in her
apartment for hours together, when the engagements of the family
allowed her to do so, without incivility.
In one of these solitary hours, she unlocked a little box, which
contained some letters of Valancourt, with some drawings she had
sketched, during her stay in Tuscany, the latter of which were no
longer interesting to her; but, in the letters, she now, with
melancholy indulgence, meant to retrace the tenderness, that had so
often soothed her, and rendered her, for a moment, insensible of the
distance, which separated her from the writer. But their effect was now
changed; the affection they expressed appealed so forcibly to her
heart, when she considered that it had, perhaps, yielded to the powers
of time and absence, and even the view of the hand-writing recalled so
many painful recollections, that she found herself unable to go through
the first she had opened, and sat musing, with her cheek resting on her
arm, and tears stealing from her eyes, when old Dorothée entered the
room to inform her, that dinner would be ready, an hour before the
usual time. Emily started on perceiving her, and hastily put up the
papers, but not before Dorothée had observed both her agitation and her
tears.
“Ah, ma’amselle!” said she, “you, who are so young,—have you reason for
sorrow?”
Emily tried to smile, but was unable to speak.
“Alas! dear young lady, when you come to my age, you will not weep at
trifles; and surely you have nothing serious, to grieve you.”
“No, Dorothée, nothing of any consequence,” replied Emily. Dorothée,
now stooping to pick up something, that had dropped from among the
papers, suddenly exclaimed, “Holy Mary! what is it I see?” and then,
trembling, sat down in a chair, that stood by the table.
“What is it you do see?” said Emily, alarmed by her manner, and looking
round the room.
“It is herself,” said Dorothée, “her very self! just as she looked a
little before she died!”
Emily, still more alarmed, began now to fear, that Dorothée was seized
with sudden frenzy, but entreated her to explain herself.
“That picture!” said she, “where did you find it, lady? it is my
blessed mistress herself!”
She laid on the table the miniature, which Emily had long ago found
among the papers her father had enjoined her to destroy, and over which
she had once seen him shed such tender and affecting tears; and,
recollecting all the various circumstances of his conduct, that had
long perplexed her, her emotions increased to an excess, which deprived
her of all power to ask the questions she trembled to have answered,
and she could only enquire, whether Dorothée was certain the picture
resembled the late marchioness.
“O, ma’amselle!” said she, “how came it to strike me so, the instant I
saw it, if it was not my lady’s likeness? Ah!” added she, taking up the
miniature, “these are her own blue eyes—looking so sweet and so mild;
and there is her very look, such as I have often seen it, when she had
sat thinking for a long while, and then, the tears would often steal
down her cheeks—but she never would complain! It was that look so meek,
as it were, and resigned, that used to break my heart and make me love
her so!”
“Dorothée!” said Emily solemnly, “I am interested in the cause of that
grief, more so, perhaps, than you may imagine; and I entreat, that you
will no longer refuse to indulge my curiosity;—it is not a common one.”
As Emily said this, she remembered the papers, with which the picture
had been found, and had scarcely a doubt, that they had concerned the
Marchioness de Villeroi; but with this supposition came a scruple,
whether she ought to enquire further on a subject, which might prove to
be the same, that her father had so carefully endeavoured to conceal.
Her curiosity, concerning the Marchioness, powerful as it was, it is
probable she would now have resisted, as she had formerly done, on
unwarily observing the few terrible words in the papers, which had
never since been erased from her memory, had she been certain that the
history of that lady was the subject of those papers, or, that such
simple particulars only as it was probable Dorothée could relate were
included in her father’s command. What was known to her could be no
secret to many other persons; and, since it appeared very unlikely,
that St. Aubert should attempt to conceal what Emily might learn by
ordinary means, she at length concluded, that, if the papers had
related to the story of the Marchioness, it was not those circumstances
of it, which Dorothée could disclose, that he had thought sufficiently
important to wish to have concealed. She, therefore, no longer
hesitated to make the enquiries, that might lead to the gratification
of her curiosity.
“Ah, ma’amselle!” said Dorothée, “it is a sad story, and cannot be told
now: but what am I saying? I never will tell it. Many years have
passed, since it happened; and I never loved to talk of the Marchioness
to anybody, but my husband. He lived in the family, at that time, as
well as myself, and he knew many particulars from me, which nobody else
did; for I was about the person of my lady in her last illness, and saw
and heard as much, or more than my lord himself. Sweet saint! how
patient she was! When she died, I thought I could have died with her!”
“Dorothée,” said Emily, interrupting her, “what you shall tell, you may
depend upon it, shall never be disclosed by me. I have, I repeat it,
particular reasons for wishing to be informed on this subject, and am
willing to bind myself, in the most solemn manner, never to mention
what you shall wish me to conceal.”
Dorothée seemed surprised at the earnestness of Emily’s manner, and,
after regarding her for some moments, in silence, said, “Young lady!
that look of yours pleads for you—it is so like my dear mistress’s,
that I can almost fancy I see her before me; if you were her daughter,
you could not remind me of her more. But dinner will be ready—had you
not better go down?”
“You will first promise to grant my request,” said Emily.
“And ought not you first to tell me, ma’amselle, how this picture fell
into your hands, and the reasons you say you have for curiosity about
my lady?”
“Why, no, Dorothée,” replied Emily, recollecting herself, “I have also
particular reasons for observing silence, on these subjects, at least,
till I know further; and, remember, I do not promise ever to speak upon
them; therefore, do not let me induce you to satisfy my curiosity, from
an expectation, that I shall gratify yours. What I may judge proper to
conceal, does not concern myself alone, or I should have less scruple
in revealing it: let a confidence in my honour alone persuade you to
disclose what I request.”
“Well, lady!” replied Dorothée, after a long pause, during which her
eyes were fixed upon Emily, “you seem so much interested,—and this
picture and that face of yours make me think you have some reason to be
so,—that I will trust you—and tell some things, that I never told
before to anybody, but my husband, though there are people, who have
suspected as much. I will tell you the particulars of my lady’s death,
too, and some of my own suspicions; but you must first promise me by
all the saints—”
Emily, interrupting her, solemnly promised never to reveal what should
be confided to her, without Dorothée’s consent.
“But there is the horn, ma’amselle, sounding for dinner,” said
Dorothée; “I must be gone.”
“When shall I see you again?” enquired Emily.
Dorothée mused, and then replied, “Why, madam, it may make people
curious, if it is known I am so much in your apartment, and that I
should be sorry for; so I will come when I am least likely to be
observed. I have little leisure in the day, and I shall have a good
deal to say; so, if you please, ma’am, I will come, when the family are
all in bed.”
“That will suit me very well,” replied Emily: “Remember, then,
tonight—”
“Aye, that is well remembered,” said Dorothée, “I fear I cannot come
tonight, madam, for there will be the dance of the vintage, and it will
be late, before the servants go to rest; for, when they once set in to
dance, they will keep it up, in the cool of the air, till morning; at
least, it used to be so in my time.”
“Ah! is it the dance of the vintage?” said Emily, with a deep sigh,
remembering, that it was on the evening of this festival, in the
preceding year, that St. Aubert and herself had arrived in the
neighbourhood of Château-le-Blanc. She paused a moment, overcome by the
sudden recollection, and then, recovering herself, added—“But this
dance is in the open woods; you, therefore, will not be wanted, and can
easily come to me.”
Dorothée replied, that she had been accustomed to be present at the
dance of the vintage, and she did not wish to be absent now; “but if I
can get away, madam, I will,” said she.
Emily then hastened to the dining-room, where the Count conducted
himself with the courtesy, which is inseparable from true dignity, and
of which the Countess frequently practised little, though her manner to
Emily was an exception to her usual habit. But, if she retained few of
the ornamental virtues, she cherished other qualities, which she seemed
to consider invaluable. She had dismissed the grace of modesty, but
then she knew perfectly well how to manage the stare of assurance; her
manners had little of the tempered sweetness, which is necessary to
render the female character interesting, but she could occasionally
throw into them an affectation of spirits, which seemed to triumph over
every person, who approached her. In the country, however, she
generally affected an elegant languor, that persuaded her almost to
faint, when her favourite read to her a story of fictitious sorrow; but
her countenance suffered no change, when living objects of distress
solicited her charity, and her heart beat with no transport to the
thought of giving them instant relief;—she was a stranger to the
highest luxury, of which, perhaps, the human mind can be sensible, for
her benevolence had never yet called smiles upon the face of misery.
In the evening, the Count, with all his family, except the Countess and
Mademoiselle Bearn, went to the woods to witness the festivity of the
peasants. The scene was in a glade, where the trees, opening, formed a
circle round the turf they highly overshadowed; between their branches,
vines, loaded with ripe clusters, were hung in gay festoons; and,
beneath, were tables, with fruit, wine, cheese and other rural
fare,—and seats for the Count and his family. At a little distance,
were benches for the elder peasants, few of whom, however, could
forbear to join the jocund dance, which began soon after sunset, when
several of sixty tripped it with almost as much glee and airy
lightness, as those of sixteen.
The musicians, who sat carelessly on the grass, at the foot of a tree,
seemed inspired by the sound of their own instruments, which were
chiefly flutes and a kind of long guitar. Behind, stood a boy,
flourishing a tamborine, and dancing a solo, except that, as he
sometimes gaily tossed the instrument, he tripped among the other
dancers, when his antic gestures called forth a broader laugh, and
heightened the rustic spirit of the scene.
The Count was highly delighted with the happiness he witnessed, to
which his bounty had largely contributed, and the Lady Blanche joined
the dance with a young gentleman of her father’s party. Du Pont
requested Emily’s hand, but her spirits were too much depressed, to
permit her to engage in the present festivity, which called to her
remembrance that of the preceding year, when St. Aubert was living, and
of the melancholy scenes, which had immediately followed it.
Overcome by these recollections, she, at length, left the spot, and
walked slowly into the woods, where the softened music, floating at a
distance, soothed her melancholy mind. The moon threw a mellow light
among the foliage; the air was balmy and cool, and Emily, lost in
thought, strolled on, without observing whither, till she perceived the
sounds sinking afar off, and an awful stillness round her, except that,
sometimes, the nightingale beguiled the silence with
Liquid notes, that close the eye of day.
At length, she found herself near the avenue, which, on the night of
her father’s arrival, Michael had attempted to pass in search of a
house, which was still nearly as wild and desolate as it had then
appeared; for the Count had been so much engaged in directing other
improvements, that he had neglected to give orders, concerning this
extensive approach, and the road was yet broken, and the trees
overloaded with their own luxuriance.
As she stood surveying it, and remembering the emotions, which she had
formerly suffered there, she suddenly recollected the figure, that had
been seen stealing among the trees, and which had returned no answer to
Michael’s repeated calls; and she experienced somewhat of the fear,
that had then assailed her, for it did not appear improbable, that
these deep woods were occasionally the haunt of banditti. She,
therefore, turned back, and was hastily pursuing her way to the
dancers, when she heard steps approaching from the avenue; and, being
still beyond the call of the peasants on the green, for she could
neither hear their voices, nor their music, she quickened her pace; but
the persons following gained fast upon her, and, at length,
distinguishing the voice of Henri, she walked leisurely, till he came
up. He expressed some surprise at meeting her so far from the company;
and, on her saying, that the pleasant moonlight had beguiled her to
walk farther than she intended, an exclamation burst from the lips of
his companion, and she thought she heard Valancourt speak! It was,
indeed, he! and the meeting was such as may be imagined, between
persons so affectionate, and so long separated as they had been.
In the joy of these moments, Emily forgot all her past sufferings, and
Valancourt seemed to have forgotten, that any person but Emily existed;
while Henri was a silent and astonished spectator of the scene.
Valancourt asked a thousand questions, concerning herself and Montoni,
which there was now no time to answer; but she learned, that her letter
had been forwarded to him, at Paris, which he had previously quitted,
and was returning to Gascony, whither the letter also returned, which,
at length, informed him of Emily’s arrival, and on the receipt of which
he had immediately set out for Languedoc. On reaching the monastery,
whence she had dated her letter, he found, to his extreme
disappointment, that the gates were already closed for the night; and
believing, that he should not see Emily, till the morrow, he was
returning to his little inn, with the intention of writing to her, when
he was overtaken by Henri, with whom he had been intimate at Paris, and
was led to her, whom he was secretly lamenting that he should not see,
till the following day.
Emily, with Valancourt and Henri, now returned to the green, where the
latter presented Valancourt to the Count, who, she fancied, received
him with less than his usual benignity, though it appeared, that they
were not strangers to each other. He was invited, however, to partake
of the diversions of the evening; and, when he had paid his respects to
the Count, and while the dancers continued their festivity, he seated
himself by Emily, and conversed, without restraint. The lights, which
were hung among the trees, under which they sat, allowed her a more
perfect view of the countenance she had so frequently in absence
endeavoured to recollect, and she perceived, with some regret, that it
was not the same as when last she saw it. There was all its wonted
intelligence and fire; but it had lost much of the simplicity, and
somewhat of the open benevolence, that used to characterise it. Still,
however, it was an interesting countenance; but Emily thought she
perceived, at intervals, anxiety contract, and melancholy fix the
features of Valancourt; sometimes, too, he fell into a momentary
musing, and then appeared anxious to dissipate thought; while, at
others, as he fixed his eyes on Emily, a kind of sudden distraction
seemed to cross his mind. In her he perceived the same goodness and
beautiful simplicity, that had charmed him, on their first
acquaintance. The bloom of her countenance was somewhat faded, but all
its sweetness remained, and it was rendered more interesting, than
ever, by the faint expression of melancholy, that sometimes mingled
with her smile.
At his request, she related the most important circumstances, that had
occurred to her, since she left France, and emotions of pity and
indignation alternately prevailed in his mind, when he heard how much
she had suffered from the villany of Montoni. More than once, when she
was speaking of his conduct, of which the guilt was rather softened,
than exaggerated, by her representation, he started from his seat, and
walked away, apparently overcome as much by self-accusation as by
resentment. Her sufferings alone were mentioned in the few words, which
he could address to her, and he listened not to the account, which she
was careful to give as distinctly as possible, of the present loss of
Madame Montoni’s estates, and of the little reason there was to expect
their restoration. At length, Valancourt remained lost in thought, and
then some secret cause seemed to overcome him with anguish. Again he
abruptly left her. When he returned, she perceived that he had been
weeping, and tenderly begged, that he would compose himself. “My
sufferings are all passed now,” said she, “for I have escaped from the
tyranny of Montoni, and I see you well—let me also see you happy.”
Valancourt was more agitated than before. “I am unworthy of you,
Emily,” said he, “I am unworthy of you;”—words, by his manner of
uttering which Emily was then more shocked than by their import. She
fixed on him a mournful and enquiring eye. “Do not look thus on me,”
said he, turning away and pressing her hand; “I cannot bear those
looks.”
“I would ask,” said Emily, in a gentle, but agitated voice, “the
meaning of your words; but I perceive, that the question would distress
you now. Let us talk on other subjects. Tomorrow, perhaps, you may be
more composed. Observe those moonlight woods, and the towers, which
appear obscurely in the perspective. You used to be a great admirer of
landscape, and I have heard you say, that the faculty of deriving
consolation, under misfortune, from the sublime prospects, which
neither oppression, nor poverty withhold from us, was the peculiar
blessing of the innocent.” Valancourt was deeply affected. “Yes,”
replied he, “I had once a taste for innocent and elegant delights—I had
once an uncorrupted heart.” Then, checking himself, he added, “Do you
remember our journey together in the Pyrenees?”
“Can I forget it?” said Emily.—“Would that I could!” he replied;—“that
was the happiest period of my life. I then loved, with enthusiasm,
whatever was truly great, or good.” It was some time before Emily could
repress her tears, and try to command her emotions. “If you wish to
forget that journey,” said she, “it must certainly be my wish to forget
it also.” She paused, and then added, “You make me very uneasy; but
this is not the time for further enquiry;—yet, how can I bear to
believe, even for a moment, that you are less worthy of my esteem than
formerly? I have still sufficient confidence in your candour, to
believe, that, when I shall ask for an explanation, you will give it
me.”—“Yes,” said Valancourt, “yes, Emily: I have not yet lost my
candour: if I had, I could better have disguised my emotions, on
learning what were your sufferings—your virtues, while I—I—but I will
say no more. I did not mean to have said even so much—I have been
surprised into the self-accusation. Tell me, Emily, that you will not
forget that journey—will not wish to forget it, and I will be calm. I
would not lose the remembrance of it for the whole earth.”
“How contradictory is this!” said Emily;—“but we may be overheard. My
recollection of it shall depend upon yours; I will endeavour to forget,
or to recollect it, as you may do. Let us join the Count.”—“Tell me
first,” said Valancourt, “that you forgive the uneasiness I have
occasioned you, this evening, and that you will still love me.”—“I
sincerely forgive you,” replied Emily. “You best know whether I shall
continue to love you, for you know whether you deserve my esteem. At
present, I will believe that you do. It is unnecessary to say,” added
she, observing his dejection, “how much pain it would give me to
believe otherwise.—The young lady, who approaches, is the Count’s
daughter.”
Valancourt and Emily now joined the Lady Blanche; and the party, soon
after, sat down with the Count, his son, and the Chevalier Du Pont, at
a banquet, spread under a gay awning, beneath the trees. At the table
also were seated several of the most venerable of the Count’s tenants,
and it was a festive repast to all but Valancourt and Emily. When the
Count retired to the château, he did not invite Valancourt to accompany
him, who, therefore, took leave of Emily, and retired to his solitary
inn for the night: meanwhile, she soon withdrew to her own apartment,
where she mused, with deep anxiety and concern, on his behaviour, and
on the Count’s reception of him. Her attention was thus so wholly
engaged, that she forgot Dorothée and her appointment, till morning was
far advanced, when, knowing that the good old woman would not come, she
retired, for a few hours, to repose.
On the following day, when the Count had accidentally joined Emily in
one of the walks, they talked of the festival of the preceding evening,
and this led him to a mention of Valancourt. “That is a young man of
talents,” said he; “you were formerly acquainted with him, I perceive.”
Emily said, that she was. “He was introduced to me, at Paris,” said the
Count, “and I was much pleased with him, on our first acquaintance.” He
paused, and Emily trembled, between the desire of hearing more and the
fear of showing the Count, that she felt an interest on the subject.
“May I ask,” said he, at length, “how long you have known Monsieur
Valancourt?”—“Will you allow me to ask your reason for the question,
sir?” said she; “and I will answer it immediately.”—“Certainly,” said
the Count, “that is but just. I will tell you my reason. I cannot but
perceive, that Monsieur Valancourt admires you; in that, however, there
is nothing extraordinary; every person, who sees you, must do the same.
I am above using common-place compliments; I speak with sincerity. What
I fear, is, that he is a favoured admirer.”—“Why do you fear it, sir?”
said Emily, endeavouring to conceal her emotion.—“Because,” replied the
Count, “I think him not worthy of your favour.” Emily, greatly
agitated, entreated further explanation. “I will give it,” said he, “if
you will believe, that nothing but a strong interest in your welfare
could induce me to hazard that assertion.”—“I must believe so, sir,”
replied Emily.
“But let us rest under these trees,” said the Count, observing the
paleness of her countenance; “here is a seat—you are fatigued.” They
sat down, and the Count proceeded. “Many young ladies, circumstanced as
you are, would think my conduct, on this occasion, and on so short an
acquaintance, impertinent, instead of friendly; from what I have
observed of your temper and understanding, I do not fear such a return
from you. Our acquaintance has been short, but long enough to make me
esteem you, and feel a lively interest in your happiness. You deserve
to be very happy, and I trust that you will be so.” Emily sighed
softly, and bowed her thanks. The Count paused again. “I am
unpleasantly circumstanced,” said he; “but an opportunity of rendering
you important service shall overcome inferior considerations. Will you
inform me of the manner of your first acquaintance with the Chevalier
Valancourt, if the subject is not too painful?”
Emily briefly related the accident of their meeting in the presence of
her father, and then so earnestly entreated the Count not to hesitate
in declaring what he knew, that he perceived the violent emotion,
against which she was contending, and, regarding her with a look of
tender compassion, considered how he might communicate his information
with least pain to his anxious auditor.
“The Chevalier and my son,” said he, “were introduced to each other, at
the table of a brother officer, at whose house I also met him, and
invited him to my own, whenever he should be disengaged. I did not then
know, that he had formed an acquaintance with a set of men, a disgrace
to their species, who live by plunder and pass their lives in continual
debauchery. I knew several of the Chevalier’s family, resident at
Paris, and considered them as sufficient pledges for his introduction
to my own. But you are ill; I will leave the subject.”—“No, sir,” said
Emily, “I beg you will proceed: I am only distressed.”—“_Only!_” said
the Count, with emphasis; “however, I will proceed. I soon learned,
that these, his associates, had drawn him into a course of dissipation,
from which he appeared to have neither the power, nor the inclination,
to extricate himself. He lost large sums at the gaming-table; he became
infatuated with play; and was ruined. I spoke tenderly of this to his
friends, who assured me, that they had remonstrated with him, till they
were weary. I afterwards learned, that, in consideration of his talents
for play, which were generally successful, when unopposed by the tricks
of villany,—that in consideration of these, the party had initiated him
into the secrets of their trade, and allotted him a share of their
profits.” “Impossible!” said Emily suddenly; “but—pardon me, sir, I
scarcely know what I say; allow for the distress of my mind. I must,
indeed, I must believe, that you have not been truly informed. The
Chevalier had, doubtless, enemies, who misrepresented him.”—“I should
be most happy to believe so,” replied the Count, “but I cannot. Nothing
short of conviction, and a regard for your happiness, could have urged
me to repeat these unpleasant reports.”
Emily was silent. She recollected Valancourt’s sayings, on the
preceding evening, which discovered the pangs of self-reproach, and
seemed to confirm all that the Count had related. Yet she had not
fortitude enough to dare conviction. Her heart was overwhelmed with
anguish at the mere suspicion of his guilt, and she could not endure a
belief of it. After a silence, the Count said, “I perceive, and can
allow for, your want of conviction. It is necessary I should give some
proof of what I have asserted; but this I cannot do, without subjecting
one, who is very dear to me, to danger.”—“What is the danger you
apprehend, sir?” said Emily; “if I can prevent it, you may safely
confide in my honour.”—“On your honour I am certain I can rely,” said
the Count; “but can I trust your fortitude? Do you think you can resist
the solicitation of a favoured admirer, when he pleads, in affliction,
for the name of one, who has robbed him of a blessing?”—“I shall not be
exposed to such a temptation, sir,” said Emily, with modest pride, “for
I cannot favour one, whom I must no longer esteem. I, however, readily
give my word.” Tears, in the mean time, contradicted her first
assertion; and she felt, that time and effort only could eradicate an
affection, which had been formed on virtuous esteem, and cherished by
habit and difficulty.
“I will trust you then,” said the Count, “for conviction is necessary
to your peace, and cannot, I perceive, be obtained, without this
confidence. My son has too often been an eye-witness of the Chevalier’s
ill conduct; he was very near being drawn in by it; he was, indeed,
drawn in to the commission of many follies, but I rescued him from
guilt and destruction. Judge then, Mademoiselle St. Aubert, whether a
father, who had nearly lost his only son by the example of the
Chevalier, has not, from conviction, reason to warn those, whom he
esteems, against trusting their happiness in such hands. I have myself
seen the Chevalier engaged in deep play with men, whom I almost
shuddered to look upon. If you still doubt, I will refer you to my
son.”
“I must not doubt what you have yourself witnessed,” replied Emily,
sinking with grief, “or what you assert. But the Chevalier has,
perhaps, been drawn only into a transient folly, which he may never
repeat. If you had known the justness of his former principles, you
would allow for my present incredulity.”
“Alas!” observed the Count, “it is difficult to believe that, which
will make us wretched. But I will not sooth you by flattering and false
hopes. We all know how fascinating the vice of gaming is, and how
difficult it is, also, to conquer habits; the Chevalier might, perhaps,
reform for a while, but he would soon relapse into dissipation—for I
fear, not only the bonds of habit would be powerful, but that his
morals are corrupted. And—why should I conceal from you, that play is
not his only vice? he appears to have a taste for every vicious
pleasure.”
The Count hesitated and paused; while Emily endeavoured to support
herself, as, with increasing perturbation, she expected what he might
further say. A long pause of silence ensued, during which he was
visibly agitated; at length, he said, “It would be a cruel delicacy,
that could prevail with me to be silent—and I will inform you, that the
Chevalier’s extravagance has brought him twice into the prisons of
Paris, from whence he was last extricated, as I was told upon
authority, which I cannot doubt, by a well-known Parisian Countess,
with whom he continued to reside, when I left Paris.”
He paused again; and, looking at Emily, perceived her countenance
change, and that she was falling from the seat; he caught her, but she
had fainted, and he called loudly for assistance. They were, however,
beyond the hearing of his servants at the château, and he feared to
leave her while he went thither for assistance, yet knew not how
otherwise to obtain it; till a fountain at no great distance caught his
eye, and he endeavoured to support Emily against the tree, under which
she had been sitting, while he went thither for water. But again he was
perplexed, for he had nothing near him, in which water could be
brought; but while, with increased anxiety, he watched her, he thought
he perceived in her countenance symptoms of returning life.
It was long, however, before she revived, and then she found herself
supported—not by the Count, but by Valancourt, who was observing her
with looks of earnest apprehension, and who now spoke to her in a tone,
tremulous with his anxiety. At the sound of his well-known voice, she
raised her eyes, but presently closed them, and a faintness again came
over her.
The Count, with a look somewhat stern, waved him to withdraw; but he
only sighed heavily, and called on the name of Emily, as he again held
the water, that had been brought, to her lips. On the Count’s repeating
his action, and accompanying it with words, Valancourt answered him
with a look of deep resentment, and refused to leave the place, till
she should revive, or to resign her for a moment to the care of any
person. In the next instant, his conscience seemed to inform him of
what had been the subject of the Count’s conversation with Emily, and
indignation flashed in his eyes; but it was quickly repressed, and
succeeded by an expression of serious anguish, that induced the Count
to regard him with more pity than resentment, and the view of which so
much affected Emily, when she again revived, that she yielded to the
weakness of tears. But she soon restrained them, and, exerting her
resolution to appear recovered, she rose, thanked the Count and Henri,
with whom Valancourt had entered the garden, for their care, and moved
towards the château, without noticing Valancourt, who, heart-struck by
her manner, exclaimed in a low voice—“Good God! how have I deserved
this?—what has been said, to occasion this change?”
Emily, without replying, but with increased emotion, quickened her
steps. “What has thus disordered you, Emily?” said he, as he still
walked by her side: “give me a few moments’ conversation, I entreat
you;—I am very miserable!”
Though this was spoken in a low voice, it was overheard by the Count,
who immediately replied, that Mademoiselle St. Aubert was then too much
indisposed, to attend to any conversation, but that he would venture to
promise she would see Monsieur Valancourt on the morrow, if she was
better.
Valancourt’s cheek was crimsoned: he looked haughtily at the Count, and
then at Emily, with successive expressions of surprise, grief and
supplication, which she could neither misunderstand, nor resist, and
she said languidly—“I shall be better tomorrow, and if you wish to
accept the Count’s permission, I will see you then.”
“See me!” exclaimed Valancourt, as he threw a glance of mingled pride
and resentment upon the Count; and then, seeming to recollect himself,
he added—“But I will come, madam; I will accept the Count’s
_permission_.”
When they reached the door of the château, he lingered a moment, for
his resentment was now fled; and then, with a look so expressive of
tenderness and grief, that Emily’s heart was not proof against it, he
bade her good morning, and, bowing slightly to the Count, disappeared.
Emily withdrew to her own apartment, under such oppression of heart as
she had seldom known, when she endeavoured to recollect all that the
Count had told, to examine the probability of the circumstances he
himself believed, and to consider of her future conduct towards
Valancourt. But, when she attempted to think, her mind refused control,
and she could only feel that she was miserable. One moment, she sunk
under the conviction, that Valancourt was no longer the same, whom she
had so tenderly loved, the idea of whom had hitherto supported her
under affliction, and cheered her with the hope of happier days,—but a
fallen, a worthless character, whom she must teach herself to
despise—if she could not forget. Then, unable to endure this terrible
supposition, she rejected it, and disdained to believe him capable of
conduct, such as the Count had described, to whom she believed he had
been misrepresented by some artful enemy; and there were moments, when
she even ventured to doubt the integrity of the Count himself, and to
suspect, that he was influenced by some selfish motive, to break her
connection with Valancourt. But this was the error of an instant, only;
the Count’s character, which she had heard spoken of by Du Pont and
many other persons, and had herself observed, enabled her to judge, and
forbade the supposition; had her confidence, indeed, been less, there
appeared to be no temptation to betray him into conduct so treacherous,
and so cruel. Nor did reflection suffer her to preserve the hope, that
Valancourt had been mis-represented to the Count, who had said, that he
spoke chiefly from his own observation, and from his son’s experience.
She must part from Valancourt, therefore, for ever—for what of either
happiness or tranquillity could she expect with a man, whose tastes
were degenerated into low inclinations, and to whom vice was become
habitual? whom she must no longer esteem, though the remembrance of
what he once was, and the long habit of loving him, would render it
very difficult for her to despise him. “O Valancourt!” she would
exclaim, “having been separated so long—do we meet, only to be
miserable—only to part for ever?”
Amidst all the tumult of her mind, she remembered pertinaciously the
seeming candour and simplicity of his conduct, on the preceding night;
and, had she dared to trust her own heart, it would have led her to
hope much from this. Still she could not resolve to dismiss him for
ever, without obtaining further proof of his ill conduct; yet she saw
no probability of procuring it, if, indeed, proof more positive was
possible. Something, however, it was necessary to decide upon, and she
almost determined to be guided in her opinion solely by the manner,
with which Valancourt should receive her hints concerning his late
conduct.
Thus passed the hours till dinner-time, when Emily, struggling against
the pressure of her grief, dried her tears, and joined the family at
table, where the Count preserved towards her the most delicate
attention; but the Countess and Mademoiselle Bearn, having looked, for
a moment, with surprise, on her dejected countenance, began, as usual,
to talk of trifles, while the eyes of Lady Blanche asked much of her
friend, who could only reply by a mournful smile.
Emily withdrew as soon after dinner as possible, and was followed by
the Lady Blanche, whose anxious enquiries, however, she found herself
quite unequal to answer, and whom she entreated to spare her on the
subject of her distress. To converse on any topic, was now, indeed, so
extremely painful to her, that she soon gave up the attempt, and
Blanche left her, with pity of the sorrow, which she perceived she had
no power to assuage.
Emily secretly determined to go to her convent in a day or two; for
company, especially that of the Countess and Mademoiselle Bearn, was
intolerable to her, in the present state of her spirits; and, in the
retirement of the convent, as well as the kindness of the abbess, she
hoped to recover the command of her mind, and to teach it resignation
to the event, which, she too plainly perceived, was approaching.
To have lost Valancourt by death, or to have seen him married to a
rival, would, she thought, have given her less anguish, than a
conviction of his unworthiness, which must terminate in misery to
himself, and which robbed her even of the solitary image her heart so
long had cherished. These painful reflections were interrupted, for a
moment, by a note from Valancourt, written in evident distraction of
mind, entreating, that she would permit him to see her on the
approaching evening, instead of the following morning; a request, which
occasioned her so much agitation, that she was unable to answer it. She
wished to see him, and to terminate her present state of suspense, yet
shrunk from the interview, and, incapable of deciding for herself, she,
at length, sent to beg a few moments’ conversation with the Count in
his library, where she delivered to him the note, and requested his
advice. After reading it, he said, that, if she believed herself well
enough to support the interview, his opinion was, that, for the relief
of both parties, it ought to take place, that evening.
“His affection for you is, undoubtedly, a very sincere one,” added the
Count; “and he appears so much distressed, and you, my amiable friend,
are so ill at ease—that the sooner the affair is decided, the better.”
Emily replied, therefore, to Valancourt, that she would see him, and
then exerted herself in endeavours to attain fortitude and composure,
to bear her through the approaching scene—a scene so afflictingly the
reverse of any, to which she had looked forward!
VOLUME 4
CHAPTER I
Is all the council that we two have shared,
the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—Oh! and is all forgot?
And will you rend our ancient love asunder?
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
In the evening, when Emily was at length informed, that Count De
Villefort requested to see her, she guessed that Valancourt was below,
and, endeavouring to assume composure and to recollect all her spirits,
she rose and left the apartment; but on reaching the door of the
library, where she imagined him to be, her emotion returned with such
energy, that, fearing to trust herself in the room, she returned into
the hall, where she continued for a considerable time, unable to
command her agitated spirits.
When she could recall them, she found in the library Valancourt, seated
with the Count, who both rose on her entrance; but she did not dare to
look at Valancourt, and the Count, having led her to a chair,
immediately withdrew.
Emily remained with her eyes fixed on the floor, under such oppression
of heart, that she could not speak, and with difficulty breathed; while
Valancourt threw himself into a chair beside her, and, sighing heavily,
continued silent, when, had she raised her eyes, she would have
perceived the violent emotions, with which he was agitated.
At length, in a tremulous voice, he said, “I have solicited to see you
this evening, that I might, at least, be spared the further torture of
suspense, which your altered manner had occasioned me, and which the
hints I have just received from the Count have in part explained. I
perceive I have enemies, Emily, who envied me my late happiness, and
who have been busy in searching out the means to destroy it: I
perceive, too, that time and absence have weakened the affection you
once felt for me, and that you can now easily be taught to forget me.”
His last words faltered, and Emily, less able to speak than before,
continued silent.
“O what a meeting is this!” exclaimed Valancourt, starting from his
seat, and pacing the room with hurried steps, “what a meeting is this,
after our long—long separation!” Again he sat down, and, after the
struggle of a moment, he added in a firm but despairing tone, “This is
too much—I cannot bear it! Emily, will you not speak to me?”
He covered his face with his hand, as if to conceal his emotion, and
took Emily’s, which she did not withdraw. Her tears could no longer be
restrained; and, when he raised his eyes and perceived that she was
weeping, all his tenderness returned, and a gleam of hope appeared to
cross his mind, for he exclaimed, “O! you do pity me, then, you do love
me! Yes, you are still my own Emily—let me believe those tears, that
tell me so!”
Emily now made an effort to recover her firmness, and, hastily drying
them, “Yes,” said she, “I do pity you—I weep for you—but, ought I to
think of you with affection? You may remember, that yester-evening I
said, I had still sufficient confidence in your candour to believe,
that, when I should request an explanation of your words, you would
give it. This explanation is now unnecessary, I understand them too
well; but prove, at least, that your candour is deserving of the
confidence I give it, when I ask you, whether you are conscious of
being the same estimable Valancourt—whom I once loved.”
“Once loved!” cried he,—“the same—the same!” He paused in extreme
emotion, and then added, in a voice at once solemn, and dejected,—“No—I
am not the same!—I am lost—I am no longer worthy of you!”
He again concealed his face. Emily was too much affected by this honest
confession to reply immediately, and, while she struggled to overcome
the pleadings of her heart, and to act with the decisive firmness,
which was necessary for her future peace, she perceived all the danger
of trusting long to her resolution, in the presence of Valancourt, and
was anxious to conclude an interview, that tortured them both; yet,
when she considered, that this was probably their last meeting, her
fortitude sunk at once, and she experienced only emotions of tenderness
and of despondency.
Valancourt, meanwhile, lost in emotions of remorse and grief, which he
had neither the power, nor the will to express, sat insensible almost
of the presence of Emily, his features still concealed, and his breast
agitated by convulsive sighs.
“Spare me the necessity,” said Emily, recollecting her fortitude,
“spare me the necessity of mentioning those circumstances of your
conduct, which oblige me to break our connection for ever.—We must
part, I now see you for the last time.”
“Impossible!” cried Valancourt, roused from his deep silence, “You
cannot mean what you say!—you cannot mean to throw me from you for
ever!”
“We must part,” repeated Emily, with emphasis,—“and that for ever! Your
own conduct has made this necessary.”
“This is the Count’s determination,” said he haughtily, “not yours, and
I shall enquire by what authority he interferes between us.” He now
rose, and walked about the room in great emotion.
“Let me save you from this error,” said Emily, not less agitated—“it is
my determination, and, if you reflect a moment on your late conduct,
you will perceive, that my future peace requires it.”
“Your future peace requires, that we should part—part for ever!” said
Valancourt, “How little did I ever expect to hear you say so!”
“And how little did I expect, that it would be necessary for me to say
so!” rejoined Emily, while her voice softened into tenderness, and her
tears flowed again.—“That you—you, Valancourt, would ever fall from my
esteem!”
He was silent a moment, as if overwhelmed by the consciousness of no
longer deserving this esteem, as well as the certainty of having lost
it, and then, with impassioned grief, lamented the criminality of his
late conduct and the misery to which it had reduced him, till, overcome
by a recollection of the past and a conviction of the future, he burst
into tears, and uttered only deep and broken sighs.
The remorse he had expressed, and the distress he suffered could not be
witnessed by Emily with indifference, and, had she not called to her
recollection all the circumstances, of which Count De Villefort had
informed her, and all he had said of the danger of confiding in
repentance, formed under the influence of passion, she might perhaps
have trusted to the assurances of her heart, and have forgotten his
misconduct in the tenderness, which that repentance excited.
Valancourt, returning to the chair beside her, at length, said, in a
calm voice, “’Tis true, I am fallen—fallen from my own esteem! but
could you, Emily, so soon, so suddenly resign, if you had not before
ceased to love me, or, if your conduct was not governed by the designs,
I will say, the selfish designs of another person! Would you not
otherwise be willing to hope for my reformation—and could you bear, by
estranging me from you, to abandon me to misery—to myself!”—Emily wept
aloud.—“No, Emily—no—you would not do this, if you still loved me. You
would find your own happiness in saving mine.”
“There are too many probabilities against that hope,” said Emily, “to
justify me in trusting the comfort of my whole life to it. May I not
also ask, whether you could wish me to do this, if you really loved
me?”
“Really loved you!” exclaimed Valancourt—“is it possible you can doubt
my love! Yet it is reasonable, that you should do so, since you see,
that I am less ready to suffer the horror of parting with you, than
that of involving you in my ruin. Yes, Emily—I am ruined—irreparably
ruined—I am involved in debts, which I can never discharge!”
Valancourt’s look, which was wild, as he spoke this, soon settled into
an expression of gloomy despair; and Emily, while she was compelled to
admire his sincerity, saw, with unutterable anguish, new reasons for
fear in the suddenness of his feelings and the extent of the misery, in
which they might involve him. After some minutes, she seemed to contend
against her grief and to struggle for fortitude to conclude the
interview. “I will not prolong these moments,” said she, “by a
conversation, which can answer no good purpose. Valancourt, farewell!”
“You are not going?” said he, wildly interrupting her—“You will not
leave me thus—you will not abandon me even before my mind has suggested
any possibility of compromise between the last indulgence of my despair
and the endurance of my loss!” Emily was terrified by the sternness of
his look, and said, in a soothing voice, “You have yourself
acknowledged, that it is necessary we should part;—if you wish, that I
should believe you love me, you will repeat the
acknowledgment.”—“Never—never,” cried he—“I was distracted when I made
it. O! Emily—this is too much;—though you are not deceived as to my
faults, you must be deluded into this exasperation against them. The
Count is the barrier between us; but he shall not long remain so.”
“You are, indeed, distracted,” said Emily, “the Count is not your
enemy; on the contrary, he is my friend, and that might, in some
degree, induce you to consider him as yours.”—“Your friend!” said
Valancourt, hastily, “how long has he been your friend, that he can so
easily make you forget your lover? Was it he, who recommended to your
favour the Monsieur Du Pont, who, you say, accompanied you from Italy,
and who, I say, has stolen your affections? But I have no right to
question you;—you are your own mistress. Du Pont, perhaps, may not long
triumph over my fallen fortunes!” Emily, more frightened than before by
the frantic looks of Valancourt, said, in a tone scarcely audible, “For
heaven’s sake be reasonable—be composed. Monsieur Du Pont is not your
rival, nor is the Count his advocate. You have no rival; nor, except
yourself, an enemy. My heart is wrung with anguish, which must increase
while your frantic behaviour shows me, more than ever, that you are no
longer the Valancourt I have been accustomed to love.”
He made no reply, but sat with his arms rested on the table and his
face concealed by his hands; while Emily stood, silent and trembling,
wretched for herself and dreading to leave him in this state of mind.
“O excess of misery!” he suddenly exclaimed, “that I can never lament
my sufferings, without accusing myself, nor remember you, without
recollecting the folly and the vice, by which I have lost you! Why was
I forced to Paris, and why did I yield to allurements, which were to
make me despicable for ever! O! why cannot I look back, without
interruption, to those days of innocence and peace, the days of our
early love!”—The recollection seemed to melt his heart, and the frenzy
of despair yielded to tears. After a long pause, turning towards her
and taking her hand, he said, in a softened voice, “Emily, can you bear
that we should part—can you resolve to give up a heart, that loves you
like mine—a heart, which, though it has erred—widely erred, is not
irretrievable from error, as, you well know, it never can be
retrievable from love?” Emily made no reply, but with her tears. “Can
you,” continued he, “can you forget all our former days of happiness
and confidence—when I had not a thought, that I might wish to conceal
from you—when I had no taste—no pleasures, in which you did not
participate?”
“O do not lead me to the remembrance of those days,” said Emily,
“unless you can teach me to forget the present; I do not mean to
reproach you; if I did, I should be spared these tears; but why will
you render your present sufferings more conspicuous, by contrasting
them with your former virtues?”
“Those virtues,” said Valancourt, “might, perhaps, again be mine, if
your affection, which nurtured them, was unchanged;—but I fear, indeed,
I see, that you can no longer love me; else the happy hours, which we
have passed together, would plead for me, and you could not look back
upon them unmoved. Yet, why should I torture myself with the
remembrance—why do I linger here? Am I not ruined—would it not be
madness to involve you in my misfortunes, even if your heart was still
my own? I will not distress you further. Yet, before I go,” added he,
in a solemn voice, “let me repeat, that, whatever may be my
destiny—whatever I may be doomed to suffer, I must always love you—most
fondly love you! I am going, Emily, I am going to leave you—to leave
you, for ever!” As he spoke the last words, his voice trembled, and he
threw himself again into the chair, from which he had risen. Emily was
utterly unable to leave the room, or to say farewell. All impression of
his criminal conduct and almost of his follies was obliterated from her
mind, and she was sensible only of pity and grief.
“My fortitude is gone,” said Valancourt at length; “I can no longer
even struggle to recall it. I cannot now leave you—I cannot bid you an
eternal farewell; say, at least, that you will see me once again.”
Emily’s heart was somewhat relieved by the request, and she endeavoured
to believe, that she ought not to refuse it. Yet she was embarrassed by
recollecting, that she was a visitor in the house of the Count, who
could not be pleased by the return of Valancourt. Other considerations,
however, soon overcame this, and she granted his request, on the
condition, that he would neither think of the Count, as his enemy, nor
Du Pont as his rival. He then left her, with a heart, so much lightened
by this short respite, that he almost lost every former sense of
misfortune.
Emily withdrew to her own room, that she might compose her spirits and
remove the traces of her tears, which would encourage the censorious
remarks of the Countess and her favourite, as well as excite the
curiosity of the rest of the family. She found it, however, impossible
to tranquillize her mind, from which she could not expel the
remembrance of the late scene with Valancourt, or the consciousness,
that she was to see him again, on the morrow. This meeting now appeared
more terrible to her than the last, for the ingenuous confession he had
made of his ill conduct and his embarrassed circumstances, with the
strength and tenderness of affection, which this confession discovered,
had deeply impressed her, and, in spite of all she had heard and
believed to his disadvantage, her esteem began to return. It frequently
appeared to her impossible, that he could have been guilty of the
depravities, reported of him, which, if not inconsistent with his
warmth and impetuosity, were entirely so with his candour and
sensibility. Whatever was the criminality, which had given rise to the
reports, she could not now believe them to be wholly true, nor that his
heart was finally closed against the charms of virtue. The deep
consciousness, which he felt as well as expressed of his errors, seemed
to justify the opinion; and, as she understood not the instability of
youthful dispositions, when opposed by habit, and that professions
frequently deceive those, who make, as well as those, who hear them,
she might have yielded to the flattering persuasions of her own heart
and the pleadings of Valancourt, had she not been guided by the
superior prudence of the Count. He represented to her, in a clear
light, the danger of her present situation, that of listening to
promises of amendment, made under the influence of strong passion, and
the slight hope, which could attach to a connection, whose chance of
happiness rested upon the retrieval of ruined circumstances and the
reform of corrupted habits. On these accounts, he lamented, that Emily
had consented to a second interview, for he saw how much it would shake
her resolution and increase the difficulty of her conquest.
Her mind was now so entirely occupied by nearer interests, that she
forgot the old housekeeper and the promised history, which so lately
had excited her curiosity, but which Dorothée was probably not very
anxious to disclose, for night came; the hours passed; and she did not
appear in Emily’s chamber. With the latter it was a sleepless and
dismal night; the more she suffered her memory to dwell on the late
scenes with Valancourt, the more her resolution declined, and she was
obliged to recollect all the arguments, which the Count had made use of
to strengthen it, and all the precepts, which she had received from her
deceased father, on the subject of self-command, to enable her to act,
with prudence and dignity, on this the most severe occasion of her
life. There were moments, when all her fortitude forsook her, and when,
remembering the confidence of former times, she thought it impossible,
that she could renounce Valancourt. His reformation then appeared
certain; the arguments of Count De Villefort were forgotten; she
readily believed all she wished, and was willing to encounter any evil,
rather than that of an immediate separation.
Thus passed the night in ineffectual struggles between affection and
reason, and she rose, in the morning, with a mind, weakened and
irresolute, and a frame, trembling with illness.