The Mysteries of Udolpho
wandered over the pall itself, she fancied she saw it move. Without
speaking, she caught Dorothée’s arm, who, surprised by the action, and
by the look of terror that accompanied it, turned her eyes from Emily
to the bed, where, in the next moment she, too, saw the pall slowly
lifted, and fall again.
Emily attempted to go, but Dorothée stood fixed and gazing upon the
bed; and, at length, said—“It is only the wind, that waves it,
ma’amselle; we have left all the doors open: see how the air waves the
lamp, too.—It is only the wind.”
She had scarcely uttered these words, when the pall was more violently
agitated than before; but Emily, somewhat ashamed of her terrors,
stepped back to the bed, willing to be convinced that the wind only had
occasioned her alarm; when, as she gazed within the curtains, the pall
moved again, and, in the next moment, the apparition of a human
countenance rose above it.
Screaming with terror, they both fled, and got out of the chamber as
fast as their trembling limbs would bear them, leaving open the doors
of all the rooms, through which they passed. When they reached the
staircase, Dorothée threw open a chamber door, where some of the female
servants slept, and sunk breathless on the bed; while Emily, deprived
of all presence of mind, made only a feeble attempt to conceal the
occasion of her terror from the astonished servants; and, though
Dorothée, when she could speak, endeavoured to laugh at her own fright,
and was joined by Emily, no remonstrances could prevail with the
servants, who had quickly taken the alarm, to pass even the remainder
of the night in a room so near to these terrific chambers.
Dorothée having accompanied Emily to her own apartment, they then began
to talk over, with some degree of coolness, the strange circumstance,
that had just occurred; and Emily would almost have doubted her own
perceptions, had not those of Dorothée attested their truth. Having now
mentioned what she had observed in the outer chamber, she asked the
housekeeper, whether she was certain no door had been left unfastened,
by which a person might secretly have entered the apartments? Dorothée
replied, that she had constantly kept the keys of the several doors in
her own possession; that, when she had gone her rounds through the
castle, as she frequently did, to examine if all was safe, she had
tried these doors among the rest, and had always found them fastened.
It was, therefore, impossible, she added, that any person could have
got admittance into the apartments; and, if they could—it was very
improbable they should have chosen to sleep in a place so cold and
forlorn.
Emily observed, that their visit to these chambers had, perhaps, been
watched, and that some person, for a frolic, had followed them into the
rooms, with a design to frighten them, and, while they were in the
oriel, had taken the opportunity of concealing himself in the bed.
Dorothée allowed, that this was possible, till she recollected, that,
on entering the apartments, she had turned the key of the outer door,
and this, which had been done to prevent their visit being noticed by
any of the family, who might happen to be up, must effectually have
excluded every person, except themselves, from the chambers; and she
now persisted in affirming, that the ghastly countenance she had seen
was nothing human, but some dreadful apparition.
Emily was very solemnly affected. Of whatever nature might be the
appearance she had witnessed, whether human or supernatural, the fate
of the deceased Marchioness was a truth not to be doubted; and this
unaccountable circumstance, occurring in the very scene of her
sufferings, affected Emily’s imagination with a superstitious awe, to
which, after having detected the fallacies at Udolpho, she might not
have yielded, had she been ignorant of the unhappy story, related by
the housekeeper. Her she now solemnly conjured to conceal the
occurrence of this night, and to make light of the terror she had
already betrayed, that the Count might not be distressed by reports,
which would certainly spread alarm and confusion among his family.
“Time,” she added, “may explain this mysterious affair; meanwhile let
us watch the event in silence.”
Dorothée readily acquiesced; but she now recollected that she had left
all the doors of the north suite of rooms open, and, not having courage
to return alone to lock even the outer one, Emily, after some effort,
so far conquered her own fears, that she offered to accompany her to
the foot of the back staircase, and to wait there while Dorothée
ascended, whose resolution being reassured by this circumstance, she
consented to go, and they left Emily’s apartment together.
No sound disturbed the stillness, as they passed along the halls and
galleries; but, on reaching the foot of the back staircase, Dorothée’s
resolution failed again; having, however, paused a moment to listen,
and no sound being heard above, she ascended, leaving Emily below, and,
scarcely suffering her eye to glance within the first chamber, she
fastened the door, which shut up the whole suite of apartments, and
returned to Emily.
As they stepped along the passage, leading into the great hall, a sound
of lamentation was heard, which seemed to come from the hall itself,
and they stopped in new alarm to listen, when Emily presently
distinguished the voice of Annette, whom she found crossing the hall,
with another female servant, and so terrified by the report, which the
other maids had spread, that, believing she could be safe only where
her lady was, she was going for refuge to her apartment. Emily’s
endeavours to laugh, or to argue her out of these terrors, were equally
vain, and, in compassion to her distress, she consented that she should
remain in her room during the night.
CHAPTER V
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