Hail, mildly-pleasing Solitude!
Companion of the wise and good!
Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born.
But chief when evening scenes decay
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful, soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.
THOMSON
Emily’s injunctions to Annette to be silent on the subject of her
terror were ineffectual, and the occurrence of the preceding night
spread such alarm among the servants, who now all affirmed, that they
had frequently heard unaccountable noises in the château, that a report
soon reached the Count of the north side of the castle being haunted.
He treated this, at first, with ridicule, but, perceiving, that it was
productive of serious evil, in the confusion it occasioned among his
household, he forbade any person to repeat it, on pain of punishment.
The arrival of a party of his friends soon withdrew his thoughts
entirely from this subject, and his servants had now little leisure to
brood over it, except, indeed, in the evenings after supper, when they
all assembled in their hall, and related stories of ghosts, till they
feared to look round the room; started, if the echo of a closing door
murmured along the passage, and refused to go singly to any part of the
castle.
On these occasions Annette made a distinguished figure. When she told
not only of all the wonders she had witnessed, but of all that she had
imagined, in the castle of Udolpho, with the story of the strange
disappearance of Signora Laurentini, she made no trifling impression on
the mind of her attentive auditors. Her suspicions, concerning Montoni,
she would also have freely disclosed, had not Ludovico, who was now in
the service of the Count, prudently checked her loquacity, whenever it
pointed to that subject.
Among the visitors at the château was the Baron de Saint Foix, an old
friend of the Count, and his son, the Chevalier St. Foix, a sensible
and amiable young man, who, having in the preceding year seen the Lady
Blanche, at Paris, had become her declared admirer. The friendship,
which the Count had long entertained for his father, and the equality
of their circumstances made him secretly approve of the connection;
but, thinking his daughter at this time too young to fix her choice for
life, and wishing to prove the sincerity and strength of the
Chevalier’s attachment, he then rejected his suit, though without
forbidding his future hope. This young man now came, with the Baron,
his father, to claim the reward of a steady affection, a claim, which
the Count admitted and which Blanche did not reject.
While these visitors were at the château, it became a scene of gaiety
and splendour. The pavilion in the woods was fitted up and frequented,
in the fine evenings, as a supper-room, when the hour usually concluded
with a concert, at which the Count and Countess, who were scientific
performers, and the Chevaliers Henri and St. Foix, with the Lady
Blanche and Emily, whose voices and fine taste compensated for the want
of more skilful execution, usually assisted. Several of the Count’s
servants performed on horns and other instruments, some of which,
placed at a little distance among the woods, spoke, in sweet response,
to the harmony, that proceeded from the pavilion.
At any other period, these parties would have been delightful to Emily;
but her spirits were now oppressed with a melancholy, which she
perceived that no kind of what is called amusement had power to
dissipate, and which the tender and, frequently, pathetic, melody of
these concerts sometimes increased to a very painful degree.
She was particularly fond of walking in the woods, that hung on a
promontory, overlooking the sea. Their luxuriant shade was soothing to
her pensive mind, and, in the partial views, which they afforded of the
Mediterranean, with its winding shores and passing sails, tranquil
beauty was united with grandeur. The paths were rude and frequently
overgrown with vegetation, but their tasteful owner would suffer little
to be done to them, and scarcely a single branch to be lopped from the
venerable trees. On an eminence, in one of the most sequestered parts
of these woods, was a rustic seat, formed of the trunk of a decayed
oak, which had once been a noble tree, and of which many lofty branches
still flourishing united with beech and pines to over-canopy the spot.
Beneath their deep umbrage, the eye passed over the tops of other
woods, to the Mediterranean, and, to the left, through an opening, was
seen a ruined watch-tower, standing on a point of rock, near the sea,
and rising from among the tufted foliage.
Hither Emily often came alone in the silence of evening, and, soothed
by the scenery and by the faint murmur, that rose from the waves, would
sit, till darkness obliged her to return to the château. Frequently,
also, she visited the watch-tower, which commanded the entire prospect,
and, when she leaned against its broken walls, and thought of
Valancourt, she not once imagined, what was so true, that this tower
had been almost as frequently his resort, as her own, since his
estrangement from the neighbouring château.
One evening, she lingered here to a late hour. She had sat on the steps
of the building, watching, in tranquil melancholy, the gradual effect
of evening over the extensive prospect, till the grey waters of the
Mediterranean and the massy woods were almost the only features of the
scene, that remained visible; when, as she gazed alternately on these,
and on the mild blue of the heavens, where the first pale star of
evening appeared, she personified the hour in the following lines:—
SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR
Last of the Hours, that track the fading Day,
I move along the realms of twilight air,
And hear, remote, the choral song decay
Of sister-nymphs, who dance around his car.
Then, as I follow through the azure void,
His partial splendour from my straining eye
Sinks in the depth of space; my only guide
His faint ray dawning on the farthest sky;
Save that sweet, lingering strain of gayer Hours,
Whose close my voice prolongs in dying notes,
While mortals on the green earth own its pow’rs,
As downward on the evening gale it floats.
When fades along the West the Sun’s last beam,
As, weary, to the nether world he goes,
And mountain-summits catch the purple gleam,
And slumbering ocean faint and fainter glows,
Silent upon the globe’s broad shade I steal,
And o’er its dry turf shed the cooling dews,
And ev’ry fever’d herb and flow’ret heal,
And all their fragrance on the air diffuse.
Where’er I move, a tranquil pleasure reigns;
O’er all the scene the dusky tints I send,
That forests wild and mountains, stretching plains
And peopled towns, in soft confusion blend.
Wide o’er the world I waft the fresh’ning wind,
Low breathing through the woods and twilight vale,
In whispers soft, that woo the pensive mind
Of him, who loves my lonely steps to hail.
His tender oaten reed I watch to hear,
Stealing its sweetness o’er some plaining rill,
Or soothing ocean’s wave, when storms are near,
Or swelling in the breeze from distant hill!
I wake the fairy elves, who shun the light;
When, from their blossom’d beds, they slily peep,
And spy my pale star, leading on the night,—
Forth to their games and revelry they leap;
Send all the prison’d sweets abroad in air,
That with them slumber’d in the flow’ret’s cell;
Then to the shores and moonlight brooks repair,
Till the high larks their matin-carol swell.
The wood-nymphs hail my airs and temper’d shade,
With ditties soft and lightly sportive dance,
On river margin of some bow’ry glade,
And strew their fresh buds as my steps advance:
But, swift I pass, and distant regions trace,
For moonbeams silver all the eastern cloud,
And Day’s last crimson vestige fades apace;
Down the steep west I fly from Midnight’s shroud.
The moon was now rising out of the sea. She watched its gradual
progress, the extending line of radiance it threw upon the waters, the
sparkling oars, the sail faintly silvered, and the wood-tops and the
battlements of the watch-tower, at whose foot she was sitting, just
tinted with the rays. Emily’s spirits were in harmony with this scene.
As she sat meditating, sounds stole by her on the air, which she
immediately knew to be the music and the voice she had formerly heard
at midnight, and the emotion of awe, which she felt, was not unmixed
with terror, when she considered her remote and lonely situation. The
sounds drew nearer. She would have risen to leave the place, but they
seemed to come from the way she must have taken towards the château,
and she awaited the event in trembling expectation. The sounds
continued to approach, for some time, and then ceased. Emily sat
listening, gazing and unable to move, when she saw a figure emerge from
the shade of the woods and pass along the bank, at some little distance
before her. It went swiftly, and her spirits were so overcome with awe,
that, though she saw, she did not much observe it.
Having left the spot, with a resolution never again to visit it alone,
at so late an hour, she began to approach the château, when she heard
voices calling her from the part of the wood, which was nearest to it.
They were the shouts of the Count’s servants, who were sent to search
for her; and when she entered the supper-room, where he sat with Henri
and Blanche, he gently reproached her with a look, which she blushed to
have deserved.
This little occurrence deeply impressed her mind, and, when she
withdrew to her own room, it recalled so forcibly the circumstances she
had witnessed, a few nights before, that she had scarcely courage to
remain alone. She watched to a late hour, when, no sound having renewed
her fears, she, at length, sunk to repose. But this was of short
continuance, for she was disturbed by a loud and unusual noise, that
seemed to come from the gallery, into which her chamber opened. Groans
were distinctly heard, and, immediately after, a dead weight fell
against the door, with a violence, that threatened to burst it open.
She called loudly to know who was there, but received no answer,
though, at intervals, she still thought she heard something like a low
moaning. Fear deprived her of the power to move. Soon after, she heard
footsteps in a remote part of the gallery, and, as they approached, she
called more loudly than before, till the steps paused at her door. She
then distinguished the voices of several of the servants, who seemed
too much engaged by some circumstance without, to attend to her calls;
but, Annette soon after entering the room for water, Emily understood,
that one of the maids had fainted, whom she immediately desired them to
bring into her room, where she assisted to restore her. When this girl
had recovered her speech, she affirmed, that, as she was passing up the
back staircase, in the way to her chamber, she had seen an apparition
on the second landing-place; she held the lamp low, she said, that she
might pick her way, several of the stairs being infirm and even
decayed, and it was upon raising her eyes, that she saw this
appearance. It stood for a moment in the corner of the landing-place,
which she was approaching, and then, gliding up the stairs, vanished at
the door of the apartment, that had been lately opened. She heard
afterwards a hollow sound.
“Then the devil has got a key to that apartment,” said Dorothée, “for
it could be nobody but he; I locked the door myself!”
The girl, springing down the stairs and passing up the great staircase,
had run, with a faint scream, till she reached the gallery, where she
fell, groaning, at Emily’s door.
Gently chiding her for the alarm she had occasioned, Emily tried to
make her ashamed of her fears; but the girl persisted in saying, that
she had seen an apparition, till she went to her own room, whither she
was accompanied by all the servants present, except Dorothée, who, at
Emily’s request, remained with her during the night. Emily was
perplexed, and Dorothée was terrified, and mentioned many occurrences
of former times, which had long since confirmed her superstitions;
among these, according to her belief, she had once witnessed an
appearance, like that just described, and on the very same spot, and it
was the remembrance of it, that had made her pause, when she was going
to ascend the stairs with Emily, and which had increased her reluctance
to open the north apartments. Whatever might be Emily’s opinions, she
did not disclose them, but listened attentively to all that Dorothée
communicated, which occasioned her much thought and perplexity.
From this night the terror of the servants increased to such an excess,
that several of them determined to leave the château, and requested
their discharge of the Count, who, if he had any faith in the subject
of their alarm, thought proper to dissemble it, and, anxious to avoid
the inconvenience that threatened him, employed ridicule and then
argument to convince them they had nothing to apprehend from
supernatural agency. But fear had rendered their minds inaccessible to
reason; and it was now, that Ludovico proved at once his courage and
his gratitude for the kindness he had received from the Count, by
offering to watch, during a night, in the suite of rooms, reputed to be
haunted. He feared, he said, no spirits, and, if anything of human form
appeared—he would prove that he dreaded that as little.
The Count paused upon the offer, while the servants, who heard it,
looked upon one another in doubt and amazement, and Annette, terrified
for the safety of Ludovico, employed tears and entreaties to dissuade
him from his purpose.
“You are a bold fellow,” said the Count, smiling, “Think well of what
you are going to encounter, before you finally determine upon it.
However, if you persevere in your resolution, I will accept your offer,
and your intrepidity shall not go unrewarded.”
“I desire no reward, your _Excellenza_,” replied Ludovico, “but your
approbation. Your _Excellenza_ has been sufficiently good to me
already; but I wish to have arms, that I may be equal to my enemy, if
he should appear.”
“Your sword cannot defend you against a ghost,” replied the Count,
throwing a glance of irony upon the other servants, “neither can bars,
nor bolts; for a spirit, you know, can glide through a keyhole as
easily as through a door.”
“Give me a sword, my lord Count,” said Ludovico, “and I will lay all
the spirits, that shall attack me, in the red sea.”
“Well,” said the Count, “you shall have a sword, and good cheer, too;
and your brave comrades here will, perhaps, have courage enough to
remain another night in the château, since your boldness will
certainly, for this night, at least, confine all the malice of the
spectre to yourself.”
Curiosity now struggled with fear in the minds of several of his fellow
servants, and, at length, they resolved to await the event of
Ludovico’s rashness.
Emily was surprised and concerned, when she heard of his intention, and
was frequently inclined to mention what she had witnessed in the north
apartments to the Count, for she could not entirely divest herself of
fears for Ludovico’s safety, though her reason represented these to be
absurd. The necessity, however, of concealing the secret, with which
Dorothée had entrusted her, and which must have been mentioned, with
the late occurrence, in excuse for her having so privately visited the
north apartments, kept her entirely silent on the subject of her
apprehension; and she tried only to sooth Annette, who held, that
Ludovico was certainly to be destroyed; and who was much less affected
by Emily’s consolatory efforts, than by the manner of old Dorothée, who
often, as she exclaimed Ludovico, sighed, and threw up her eyes to
heaven.