The Mysteries of Udolpho
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