The Mysteries of Udolpho
first, much surprise and perplexity; but the vigilance, with which the
doors of the chamber, where it was deposited, were afterwards secured,
had compelled her to believe, that Montoni, not daring to confide the
secret of her death to any person, had suffered her remains to decay in
this obscure chamber. The ceremony of the veil, however, and the
circumstance of the doors having been left open, even for a moment, had
occasioned her much wonder and some doubts; but these were not
sufficient to overcome her suspicion of Montoni; and it was the dread
of his terrible vengeance, that had sealed her lips in silence,
concerning what she had seen in the west chamber.
Emily, in discovering the Marchioness de Villeroi to have been the
sister of Mons. St. Aubert, was variously affected; but, amidst the
sorrow, which she suffered for her untimely death, she was released
from an anxious and painful conjecture, occasioned by the rash
assertion of Signora Laurentini, concerning her birth and the honour of
her parents. Her faith in St. Aubert’s principles would scarcely allow
her to suspect that he had acted dishonourably; and she felt such
reluctance to believe herself the daughter of any other, than her, whom
she had always considered and loved as a mother, that she would hardly
admit such a circumstance to be possible; yet the likeness, which it
had frequently been affirmed she bore to the late Marchioness, the
former behaviour of Dorothée the old housekeeper, the assertion of
Laurentini, and the mysterious attachment, which St. Aubert had
discovered, awakened doubts, as to his connection with the Marchioness,
which her reason could neither vanquish, nor confirm. From these,
however, she was now relieved, and all the circumstances of her
father’s conduct were fully explained: but her heart was oppressed by
the melancholy catastrophe of her amiable relative, and by the awful
lesson, which the history of the nun exhibited, the indulgence of whose
passions had been the means of leading her gradually to the commission
of a crime, from the prophecy of which in her early years she would
have recoiled in horror, and exclaimed—that it could not be!—a crime,
which whole years of repentance and of the severest penance had not
been able to obliterate from her conscience.
CHAPTER XVIII
Then, fresh tears
Stood on her cheek, as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gather’d lily almost wither’d
SHAKESPEARE
After the late discoveries, Emily was distinguished at the château by
the Count and his family, as a relative of the house of Villeroi, and
received, if possible, more friendly attention, than had yet been shown
her.
Count De Villefort’s surprise at the delay of an answer to his letter,
which had been directed to Valancourt, at Estuvière, was mingled with
satisfaction for the prudence, which had saved Emily from a share of
the anxiety he now suffered, though, when he saw her still drooping
under the effect of his former error, all his resolution was necessary
to restrain him from relating the truth, that would afford her a
momentary relief. The approaching nuptials of the Lady Blanche now
divided his attention with this subject of his anxiety, for the
inhabitants of the château were already busied in preparations for that
event, and the arrival of Mons. St. Foix was daily expected. In the
gaiety, which surrounded her, Emily vainly tried to participate, her
spirits being depressed by the late discoveries, and by the anxiety
concerning the fate of Valancourt, that had been occasioned by the
description of his manner, when he had delivered the ring. She seemed
to perceive in it the gloomy wildness of despair; and, when she
considered to what that despair might have urged him, her heart sunk
with terror and grief. The state of suspense, as to his safety, to
which she believed herself condemned, till she should return to La
Vallée, appeared insupportable, and, in such moments, she could not
even struggle to assume the composure, that had left her mind, but
would often abruptly quit the company she was with, and endeavour to
sooth her spirits in the deep solitudes of the woods, that overbrowed
the shore. Here, the faint roar of foaming waves, that beat below, and
the sullen murmur of the wind among the branches around, were
circumstances in unison with the temper of her mind; and she would sit
on a cliff, or on the broken steps of her favourite watch-tower,
observing the changing colours of the evening clouds, and the gloom of
twilight draw over the sea, till the white tops of billows, riding
towards the shore, could scarcely be discerned amidst the darkened
waters. The lines, engraved by Valancourt on this tower, she frequently
repeated with melancholy enthusiasm, and then would endeavour to check
the recollections and the grief they occasioned, and to turn her
thoughts to indifferent subjects.
One evening, having wandered with her lute to this her favourite spot,
she entered the ruined tower, and ascended a winding staircase, that
led to a small chamber, which was less decayed than the rest of the
building, and whence she had often gazed, with admiration, on the wide
prospect of sea and land, that extended below. The sun was now setting
on that tract of the Pyrenees, which divided Languedoc from Rousillon,
and, placing herself opposite to a small grated window, which, like the
wood-tops beneath, and the waves lower still, gleamed with the red glow
of the west, she touched the chords of her lute in solemn symphony, and
then accompanied it with her voice, in one of the simple and affecting
airs, to which, in happier days, Valancourt had often listened in
rapture, and which she now adapted to the following lines.
TO MELANCHOLY
Spirit of love and sorrow—hail!
Thy solemn voice from far I hear,
Mingling with ev’ning’s dying gale:
Hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear!
O! at this still, this lonely hour,
Thine own sweet hour of closing day,
Awake thy lute, whose charmful pow’r
Shall call up Fancy to obey:
To paint the wild romantic dream,
That meets the poet’s musing eye,
As, on the bank of shadowy stream,
He breathes to her the fervid sigh.
O lonely spirit! let thy song
Lead me through all thy sacred haunt;
The minister’s moonlight aisles along,
Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt.
I hear their dirges faintly swell!
Then, sink at once in silence drear,
While, from the pillar’d cloister’s cell,
Dimly their gliding forms appear!
Lead where the pine-woods wave on high,
Whose pathless sod is darkly seen,
As the cold moon, with trembling eye,
Darts her long beams the leaves between.
Lead to the mountain’s dusky head,
Where, far below, in shade profound,
Wide forests, plains and hamlets spread,
And sad the chimes of vesper sound,
Or guide me, where the dashing oar
Just breaks the stillness of the vale,
As slow it tracks the winding shore,
To meet the ocean’s distant sail:
To pebbly banks, that Neptune laves,
With measur’d surges, loud and deep,
Where the dark cliff bends o’er the waves,
And wild the winds of autumn sweep.
There pause at midnight’s spectred hour,
And list the long-resounding gale;
And catch the fleeting moonlight’s pow’r,
O’er foaming seas and distant sail.
The soft tranquillity of the scene below, where the evening breeze
scarcely curled the water, or swelled the passing sail, that caught the
last gleam of the sun, and where, now and then, a dipping oar was all
that disturbed the trembling radiance, conspired with the tender melody
of her lute to lull her mind into a state of gentle sadness, and she
sung the mournful songs of past times, till the remembrances they
awakened were too powerful for her heart, her tears fell upon the lute,
over which she drooped, and her voice trembled, and was unable to
proceed.
Though the sun had now sunk behind the mountains, and even his
reflected light was fading from their highest points, Emily did not
leave the watch-tower, but continued to indulge her melancholy reverie,
till a footstep, at a little distance, startled her, and, on looking
through the grate, she observed a person walking below, whom, however,
soon perceiving to be Mons. Bonnac, she returned to the quiet
thoughtfulness his step had interrupted. After some time, she again
struck her lute, and sung her favourite air; but again a step disturbed
her, and, as she paused to listen, she heard it ascending the staircase
of the tower. The gloom of the hour, perhaps, made her sensible to some
degree of fear, which she might not otherwise have felt; for, only a
few minutes before, she had seen Mons. Bonnac pass. The steps were
quick and bounding, and, in the next moment, the door of the chamber
opened, and a person entered, whose features were veiled in the
obscurity of twilight; but his voice could not be concealed, for it was
the voice of Valancourt! At the sound, never heard by Emily, without
emotion, she started, in terror, astonishment and doubtful pleasure,
and had scarcely beheld him at her feet, when she sunk into a seat,
overcome by the various emotions, that contended at her heart, and
almost insensible to that voice, whose earnest and trembling calls
seemed as if endeavouring to save her. Valancourt, as he hung over
Emily, deplored his own rash impatience, in having thus surprised her:
for when he had arrived at the château, too anxious to await the return
of the Count, who, he understood, was in the grounds, he went himself
to seek him, when, as he passed the tower, he was struck by the sound
of Emily’s voice, and immediately ascended.
It was a considerable time before she revived, but, when her
recollection returned, she repulsed his attentions, with an air of
reserve, and enquired, with as much displeasure as it was possible she
could feel in these first moments of his appearance, the occasion of
his visit.
“Ah Emily!” said Valancourt, “that air, those words—alas! I have, then,
little to hope—when you ceased to esteem me, you ceased also to love
me!”
“Most true, sir,” replied Emily, endeavouring to command her trembling
voice; “and if you had valued my esteem, you would not have given me
this new occasion for uneasiness.”
Valancourt’s countenance changed suddenly from the anxieties of doubt
to an expression of surprise and dismay: he was silent a moment, and
then said, “I had been taught to hope for a very different reception!
Is it, then, true, Emily, that I have lost your regard for ever? am I
to believe, that, though your esteem for me may return—your affection
never can? Can the Count have meditated the cruelty, which now tortures
me with a second death?”
The voice, in which he spoke this, alarmed Emily as much as his words
surprised her, and, with trembling impatience, she begged that he would
explain them.
“Can any explanation be necessary?” said Valancourt, “do you not know
how cruelly my conduct has been misrepresented? that the actions of
which you once believed me guilty (and, O Emily! how could you so
degrade me in your opinion, even for a moment!) those actions—I hold in
as much contempt and abhorrence as yourself? Are you, indeed, ignorant,
that Count de Villefort has detected the slanders, that have robbed me
of all I hold dear on earth, and has invited me hither to justify to
you my former conduct? It is surely impossible you can be uninformed of
these circumstances, and I am again torturing myself with a false
hope!”
The silence of Emily confirmed this supposition; for the deep twilight
would not allow Valancourt to distinguish the astonishment and doubting
joy, that fixed her features. For a moment, she continued unable to
speak; then a profound sigh seemed to give some relief to her spirits,
and she said,
“Valancourt! I was, till this moment, ignorant of all the circumstances