The Mysteries of Udolpho
festivities, was desirous of being ranked in the number of her most
intimate friends. For this purpose she paid her the most obsequious
attention, and made a point of being disengaged, whenever she received
an invitation from Madame Clairval, of whom she talked, wherever she
went, and derived much self-consequence from impressing a belief on her
general acquaintance, that they were on the most familiar footing.
The entertainments of this evening consisted of a ball and supper; it
was a fancy ball, and the company danced in groups in the gardens,
which were very extensive. The high and luxuriant trees, under which
the groups assembled, were illuminated with a profusion of lamps,
disposed with taste and fancy. The gay and various dresses of the
company, some of whom were seated on the turf, conversing at their
ease, observing the _cotillons_, taking refreshments, and sometimes
touching sportively a guitar; the gallant manners of the gentlemen, the
exquisitely capricious air of the ladies; the light fantastic steps of
their dances; the musicians, with the lute, the hautboy, and the tabor,
seated at the foot of an elm, and the sylvan scenery of woods around
were circumstances, that unitedly formed a characteristic and striking
picture of French festivity. Emily surveyed the gaiety of the scene
with a melancholy kind of pleasure, and her emotion may be imagined
when, as she stood with her aunt, looking at one of the groups, she
perceived Valancourt; saw him dancing with a young and beautiful lady,
saw him conversing with her with a mixture of attention and
familiarity, such as she had seldom observed in his manner. She turned
hastily from the scene, and attempted to draw away Madame Cheron, who
was conversing with Signor Cavigni, and neither perceived Valancourt,
nor was willing to be interrupted. A faintness suddenly came over
Emily, and, unable to support herself, she sat down on a turf bank
beneath the trees, where several other persons were seated. One of
these, observing the extreme paleness of her countenance, enquired if
she was ill, and begged she would allow him to fetch her a glass of
water, for which politeness she thanked him, but did not accept it. Her
apprehension lest Valancourt should observe her emotion made her
anxious to overcome it, and she succeeded so far as to recompose her
countenance. Madame Cheron was still conversing with Cavigni; and the
Count Bauvillers, who had addressed Emily, made some observations upon
the scene, to which she answered almost unconsciously, for her mind was
still occupied with the idea of Valancourt, to whom it was with extreme
uneasiness that she remained so near. Some remarks, however, which the
Count made upon the dance obliged her to turn her eyes towards it, and,
at that moment, Valancourt’s met hers. Her colour faded again, she
felt, that she was relapsing into faintness, and instantly averted her
looks, but not before she had observed the altered countenance of
Valancourt, on perceiving her. She would have left the spot
immediately, had she not been conscious, that this conduct would have
shown him more obviously the interest he held in her heart; and, having
tried to attend to the Count’s conversation, and to join in it, she, at
length, recovered her spirits. But, when he made some observation on
Valancourt’s partner, the fear of showing that she was interested in
the remark, would have betrayed it to him, had not the Count, while he
spoke, looked towards the person of whom he was speaking. “The lady,”
said he, “dancing with that young Chevalier, who appears to be
accomplished in everything, but in dancing, is ranked among the
beauties of Thoulouse. She is handsome, and her fortune will be very
large. I hope she will make a better choice in a partner for life than
she has done in a partner for the dance, for I observe he has just put
the set into great confusion; he does nothing but commit blunders. I am
surprised, that, with his air and figure, he has not taken more care to
accomplish himself in dancing.”
Emily, whose heart trembled at every word, that was now uttered,
endeavoured to turn the conversation from Valancourt, by enquiring the
name of the lady, with whom he danced; but, before the Count could
reply, the dance concluded, and Emily, perceiving that Valancourt was
coming towards her, rose and joined Madame Cheron.
“Here is the Chevalier Valancourt, madam,” said she in a whisper, “pray
let us go.” Her aunt immediately moved on, but not before Valancourt
had reached them, who bowed lowly to Madame Cheron, and with an earnest
and dejected look to Emily, with whom, notwithstanding all her effort,
an air of more than common reserve prevailed. The presence of Madame
Cheron prevented Valancourt from remaining, and he passed on with a
countenance, whose melancholy reproached her for having increased it.
Emily was called from the musing fit, into which she had fallen, by the
Count Bauvillers, who was known to her aunt.
“I have your pardon to beg, ma’amselle,” said he, “for a rudeness,
which you will readily believe was quite unintentional. I did not know,
that the Chevalier was your acquaintance, when I so freely criticised
his dancing.” Emily blushed and smiled, and Madame Cheron spared her
the difficulty of replying. “If you mean the person, who has just
passed us,” said she, “I can assure you he is no acquaintance of either
mine, or ma’amselle St. Aubert’s: I know nothing of him.”
“O! that is the Chevalier Valancourt,” said Cavigni carelessly, and
looking back. “You know him then?” said Madame Cheron. “I am not
acquainted with him,” replied Cavigni. “You don’t know, then, the
reason I have to call him impertinent;—he has had the presumption to
admire my niece!”
“If every man deserves the title of impertinent, who admires ma’amselle
St. Aubert,” replied Cavigni, “I fear there are a great many
impertinents, and I am willing to acknowledge myself one of the
number.”
“O Signor!” said Madame Cheron, with an affected smile, “I perceive you
have learnt the art of complimenting, since you came into France. But
it is cruel to compliment children, since they mistake flattery for
truth.”
Cavigni turned away his face for a moment, and then said with a studied
air, “Whom then are we to compliment, madam? for it would be absurd to
compliment a woman of refined understanding; _she_ is above all
praise.” As he finished the sentence he gave Emily a sly look, and the
smile, that had lurked in his eye, stole forth. She perfectly
understood it, and blushed for Madame Cheron, who replied, “You are
perfectly right, signor, no woman of understanding can endure
compliment.”
“I have heard Signor Montoni say,” rejoined Cavigni, “that he never
knew but one woman who deserved it.”
“Well!” exclaimed Madame Cheron, with a short laugh, and a smile of
unutterable complacency, “and who could she be?”
“O!” replied Cavigni, “it is impossible to mistake her, for certainly
there is not more than one woman in the world, who has both the merit
to deserve compliment and the wit to refuse it. Most women reverse the
case entirely.” He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper than
before for her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.
“Well, signor!” said Madame Cheron, “I protest you are a Frenchman; I
never heard a foreigner say anything half so gallant as that!”
“True, madam,” said the Count, who had been some time silent, and with
a low bow, “but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly lost,
but for the ingenuity that discovered the application.”
Madame Cheron did not perceive the meaning of this too satirical
sentence, and she, therefore, escaped the pain, which Emily felt on her
account. “O! here comes Signor Montoni himself,” said her aunt, “I
protest I will tell him all the fine things you have been saying to
me.” The Signor, however, passed at this moment into another walk.
“Pray, who is it, that has so much engaged your friend this evening?”
asked Madame Cheron, with an air of chagrin, “I have not seen him
once.”
“He had a very particular engagement with the Marquis La Rivière,”
replied Cavigni, “which has detained him, I perceive, till this moment,
or he would have done himself the honour of paying his respects to you,
madam, sooner, as he commissioned me to say. But, I know not how it
is—your conversation is so fascinating—that it can charm even memory, I
think, or I should certainly have delivered my friend’s apology
before.”
“The apology, sir, would have been more satisfactory from himself,”
said Madame Cheron, whose vanity was more mortified by Montoni’s
neglect, than flattered by Cavigni’s compliment. Her manner, at this
moment, and Cavigni’s late conversation, now awakened a suspicion in
Emily’s mind, which, notwithstanding that some recollections served to
confirm it, appeared preposterous. She thought she perceived, that
Montoni was paying serious addresses to her aunt, and that she not only
accepted them, but was jealously watchful of any appearance of neglect
on his part.—That Madame Cheron at her years should elect a second
husband was ridiculous, though her vanity made it not impossible; but
that Montoni, with his discernment, his figure, and pretensions, should
make a choice of Madame Cheron—appeared most wonderful. Her thoughts,
however, did not dwell long on the subject; nearer interests pressed
upon them; Valancourt, rejected of her aunt, and Valancourt dancing
with a gay and beautiful partner, alternately tormented her mind. As
she passed along the gardens she looked timidly forward, half fearing
and half hoping that he might appear in the crowd; and the
disappointment she felt on not seeing him, told her, that she had hoped
more than she had feared.
Montoni soon after joined the party. He muttered over some short speech
about regret for having been so long detained elsewhere, when he knew
he should have the pleasure of seeing Madame Cheron here; and she,
receiving the apology with the air of a pettish girl, addressed herself
entirely to Cavigni, who looked archly at Montoni, as if he would have
said, “I will not triumph over you too much; I will have the goodness
to bear my honours meekly; but look sharp, Signor, or I shall certainly
run away with your prize.”
The supper was served in different pavilions in the gardens, as well as
in one large saloon of the château, and with more of taste, than either
of splendour, or even of plenty. Madame Cheron and her party supped
with Madame Clairval in the saloon, and Emily, with difficulty,
disguised her emotion, when she saw Valancourt placed at the same table
with herself. There, Madame Cheron having surveyed him with high
displeasure, said to some person who sat next to her, “Pray, who _is_
that young man?” “It is the Chevalier Valancourt,” was the answer.
“Yes, I am not ignorant of his name, but who is this Chevalier
Valancourt that thus intrudes himself at this table?” The attention of
the person, to whom she spoke, was called off before she received a
second reply. The table, at which they sat, was very long, and,
Valancourt being seated, with his partner, near the bottom, and Emily
near the top, the distance between them may account for his not
immediately perceiving her. She avoided looking to that end of the
table, but whenever her eyes happened to glance towards it, she
observed him conversing with his beautiful companion, and the
observation did not contribute to restore her peace, any more than the
accounts she heard of the fortune and accomplishments of this same
lady.
Madame Cheron, to whom these remarks were sometimes addressed, because
they supported topics for trivial conversation, seemed indefatigable in
her attempts to depreciate Valancourt, towards whom she felt all the
petty resentment of a narrow pride. “I admire the lady,” said she, “but