The Mysteries of Udolpho
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