‘We then got my lord out of the room; he went into his library, and threw himself on the floor, and there he staid, and would hear no reason, that was talked to him. When my lady recovered, she enquired for him, but, afterwards, said she could not bear to see his grief, and desired we would let her die quietly. She died in my arms, ma’amselle, and she went off as peacefully as a child, for all the violence of her disorder was passed.’
Dorothé paused, and wept, and Emily wept with her; for she was much affected by the goodness of the late Marchioness, and by the meek patience, with which she had suffered.
‘When the doctor came,’ resumed Dorothée, ‘alas! he came too late; he appeared greatly shocked to see her, for soon after her death a frightful blackness spread all over her face. When he had sent the attendants out of the room, he asked me several odd questions about the Marchioness, particularly concerning the manner, in which she had been seized, and he often shook his head at my answers, and seemed to mean more, than he chose to say. But I understood him too well. However, I kept my remarks to myself, and only told them to my husband, who bade me hold my tongue. Some of the other servants, however, suspected what I did, and strange reports were whispered about the neighbourhood, but nobody dared to make any stir about them. When my lord heard that my lady was dead, he shut himself up, and would see nobody but the doctor, who used to be with him alone, sometimes for an hour together; and, after that, the doctor never talked with me again about my lady. When she was buried in the church of the convent, at a little distance yonder, if the moon was up you might see the towers here, ma’amselle, all my lord’s vassals followed the funeral, and there was not a dry eye among them, for she had done a deal of good among the poor. My lord, the Marquis, I never saw any body so melancholy as he was afterwards, and sometimes he would be in such fits of violence, that we almost thought he had lost his senses.
He did not stay long at the chateau, but joined his regiment, and, soon after, all the servants, except my husband and I, received notice to go, for my lord went to the wars, I never saw him after, for he would not return to the chateau, though it is such a fine place, and never finished those fine rooms he was building on the west side of it, and it has, in a manner, been shut up ever since, till my lord the Count came here.’
‘The death of the Marchioness appears extraordinary,’ said Emily, who was anxious to know more than she dared to ask.
‘Yes, madam,’ replied Dorothé, ‘it was extraordinary; I have told you all I saw, and you may easily guess what I think. I cannot say more, because I would not spread reports, that might offend my lord the Count.’
‘You are very right,’ said Emily; – ‘where did the Marquis die?’ – ‘In the north of France, I believe, ma’amselle,’ replied Dorothée. ‘I was very glad, when I heard my lord the Count was coming, for this had been a sad desolate place, these many years, and we heard such strange noises, sometimes, after my lady’s death, that, as I told you before, my husband and I left it for a neighbouring cottage. And now, lady, I have told you all this sad history, and all my thoughts, and you have promised, you know, never to give the least hint about it.’ – ‘I have,’ said Emily, ‘and I will be faithful to my promise, Dorothée; – what you have told has interested me more than you can imagine. I only wish I could prevail upon you to tell the name of the chevalier, whom you thought so deserving of the Marchioness.’
Dorothé, however, steadily refused to do this, and then returned to the notice of Emily’s likeness to the late Marchioness. ‘There is another picture of her,’ added she, ‘hanging in a room of the suite, which was shut up. It was drawn, as I have heard, before she was married, and is much more like you than the miniature.’ When Emily expressed a strong desire to see this, Dorothé replied, that she did not like to open those rooms; but Emily reminded her, that the Count had talked the other day of ordering them to be opened; of which Dorothée seemed to consider much, and then she owned, that she should feel less, if she went into them with Emily first, than otherwise, and at length promised to shew the picture.
The night was too far advanced and Emily was too much affected by the narrative of the scenes, which had passed in those apartments, to wish to visit them at this hour, but she requested that Dorothé would return on the following night, when they were not likely to be observed, and conduct her thither. Besides her wish to examine the portrait, she felt a thrilling curiosity to see the chamber, in which the Marchioness had died, and which Dorothé had said remained, with the bed and furniture, just as when the corpse was removed for interment. The solemn emotions, which the expectation of viewing such a scene had awakened, were in unison with the present tone of her mind, depressed by severe disappointment. Cheerful objects rather added to, than removed this depression; but, perhaps, she yielded too much to her melancholy inclination, and imprudently lamented the misfortune, which no virtue of her own could have taught her to avoid, though no effort of reason could make her look unmoved upon the self-degradation of him, whom she had once esteemed and loved.
Dorothé promised to return, on the following night, with the keys of the chambers, and then wished Emily good repose, and departed. Emily, however, continued at the window, musing upon the melancholy fate of the Marchioness and listening, in awful expectation, for a return of the music. But the stillness of the night remained long unbroken, except by the murmuring sounds of the woods, as they waved in the breeze, and then by the distant bell of the convent, striking one. She now withdrew from the window, and, as she sat at her bed-side, indulging melancholy reveries, which the loneliness of the hour assisted, the stillness was suddenly interrupted not by music, but by very uncommon sounds, that seemed to come either from the room, adjoining her own, or from one below. The terrible catastrophe, that had been related to her, together with the mysterious circumstances, said to have since occurred in the chateau, had so much shocked her spirits, that she now sunk, for a moment, under the weakness of superstition. The sounds, however, did not return, and she retired, to forget in sleep the disastrous story she had heard.
CHAPTER IV
‘Now it is the time of night,
That, the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way path to glide.’
SHAKESPEARE [Midsummer Night’s Dream]1
On the next night, about the same hour as before, Dorothé came to Emily’s chamber, with the keys of that suite of rooms, which had been particularly appropriated to the late Marchioness. These extended along the north side of the chateau, forming part of the old building; and, as Emily’s room was in the south, they had to pass over a great extent of the castle, and by the chambers of several of the family, whose observations Dorothé was anxious to avoid, since it might excite enquiry and raise reports, such as would displease the Count. She, therefore, requested, that Emily would wait half an hour, before they ventured forth, that they might be certain all the servants were gone to bed. It was nearly one, before the chateau was perfectly still, or Dorothé thought it prudent to leave the chamber. In this interval, her spirits seemed to be greatly affected by the remembrance of past events, and by the prospect of entering again upon places, where these had occurred, and in which she had not been for so many years. Emily too was affected, but her feelings had more of solemnity, and less of fear. From the silence, into which reflection and expectation had thrown them, they, at length, roused themselves, and left the chamber. Dorothé at first, carried the lamp, but her hand trembled so much with infirmity and alarm, that Emily took it from her, and offered her arm, to support her feeble steps.
They had to descend the great stair-case, and, after passing over a wide extent of the chateau, to ascend another, which led to the suite of rooms they were in quest of. They stepped cautiously along the open corridor, that ran round the great hall, and into which the chambers of the Count, Countess, and the Lady Blanche, opened, and, from thence, descending the chief stair-case, they crossed the hall itself. Proceeding through
the servants hall, where the dying embers of a wood fire still glimmered on the hearth, and the supper table was surrounded by chairs, that obstructed their passage, they came to the foot of the back stair-case. Old Dorothé here paused, and looked around; ‘Let us listen,’ said she, ‘if any thing is stirring; Ma’amselle, do you hear any voice?’ ‘None,’ said Emily, ‘there certainly is no person up in the chateau, besides ourselves.’ – ‘No, ma’amselle,’ said Dorothé, ‘but I have never been here at this hour before, and, after what I know, my fears are not wonderful.’—‘What do you know?’ said Emily.—‘O ma’amselle, we have no time for talking now; let us go on. That door on the left is the one we must open.’
They proceeded, and, having reached the top of the stair-case, Dorothé applied the key to the lock. ‘Ah,’ said she, as she endeavoured to turn it, ‘so many years have passed since this was opened, that I fear it will not move.’ Emily was more successful, and they presently entered a spacious and ancient chamber.
‘Alas!’ exclaimed Dorothé, as she entered, ‘the last time I passed through this door – I followed my poor lady’s corpse!’
Emily, struck with the circumstance, and affected by the dusky and solemn air of the apartment, remained silent, and they passed on through a long suite of rooms, till they came to one more spacious than the rest, and rich in the remains of faded magnificence.
‘Let us rest here awhile, madam,’ said Dorothé faintly, ‘we are going into the chamber, where my lady died! that door opens into it. Ah, ma’amselle! why did you persuade me to come?’
Emily drew one of the massy arm-chairs, with which the apartment was furnished, and begged Dorothé would sit down, and try to compose her spirits.
‘How the sight of this place brings all that passed formerly to my mind!’ said Dorothé; ‘it seems as if it was but yesterday since all that sad affair happened!’
‘Hark! what noise is that?’ said Emily.
Dorothé, half starting from her chair, looked round the apartment, and they listened – but, every thing remaining still, the old woman spoke again upon the subject of her sorrow. ‘This saloon, ma’amselle, was in my lady’s time the finest apartment in the chateau, and it was fitted up according to her own taste. All this grand furniture, but you can now hardly see what it is for the dust, and our light is none of the best – ah! how I have seen this room lighted up in my lady’s time! – all this grand furniture came from Paris, and was made after the fashion of some in the Louvre there, except those large glasses, and they came from some outlandish place, and that rich tapestry. How the colours are faded already! – since I saw it last!’
‘I understood, that was twenty years ago,’ observed Emily.
‘Thereabout, madam,’ said Dorothé, ‘and well remembered, but all the time between then and now seems as nothing. That tapestry used to be greatly admired at, it tells the stories out of some famous book, or other, but I have forgot the name.’
Emily now rose to examine the figures it exhibited, and discovered, by verses in the Provençal tongue, wrought underneath each scene, that it exhibited stories from some of the most celebrated ancient romances.
Dorothée’s spirits being now more composed, she rose, and unlocked the door that led into the late Marchioness’s apartment, and Emily passed into a lofty chamber, hung round with dark arras, and so spacious, that the lamp she held up did not shew its extent; while Dorothé, when she entered, had dropped into a chair, where, sighing deeply, she scarcely trusted herself with the view of a scene so affecting to her. It was some time before Emily perceived, through the dusk, the bed on which the Marchioness was said to have died; when, advancing to the upper end of the room, she discovered the high canopied tester of dark green damask, with the curtains descending to the floor in the fashion of a tent, half drawn, and remaining apparently, as they had been left twenty years before; and over the whole bedding was thrown a counterpane, or pall, of black velvet, that hung down to the floor. Emily shuddered, as she held the lamp over it, and looked within the dark curtains, where she almost expected to have seen a human face, and, suddenly remembering the horror she had suffered upon discovering the dying Madame Montoni in the turret-chamber of Udolpho, her spirits fainted, and she was turning from the bed, when Dorothé, who had now reached it, exclaimed, ‘Holy Virgin! methinks I see my lady stretched upon that pall – as when last I saw her!’
Emily, shocked by this exclamation, looked involuntarily again within the curtains, but the blackness of the pall only appeared; while Dorothé was compelled to support herself upon the side of the bed, and presently tears brought her some relief.
‘Ah!’ said she, after she had wept awhile, ‘it was here I sat on that terrible night, and held my lady’s hand, and heard her last words, and saw all her sufferings – here she died in my arms!’
‘Do not indulge these painful recollections,’ said Emily, ‘let us go. Shew me the picture you mentioned, if it will not too much affect you.’
‘It hangs in the oriel,’ said Dorothé rising, and going towards a small door near the bed’s head, which she opened, and Emily followed with the light, into the closet of the late Marchioness.
‘Alas! there she is, ma’amselle,’ said Dorothé, pointing to a portrait of a lady, ‘there is her very self ! just as she looked when she came first to the chateau. You see, madam, she was all blooming like you, then – and so soon to be cut off !’
While Dorothé spoke, Emily was attentively examining the picture, which bore a strong resemblance to the miniature, though the expression of the countenance in each was somewhat different; but still she thought she perceived something of that pensive melancholy in the portrait, which so strongly characterised the miniature.
‘Pray, ma’amselle, stand beside the picture, that I may look at you together,’ said Dorothé, who, when the request was complied with, exclaimed again at the resemblance. Emily also, as she gazed upon it, thought that she had somewhere seen a person very like it, though she could not now recollect who this was.
In this closet were many memorials of the departed Marchioness; a robe and several articles of her dress were scattered upon the chairs, as if they had just been thrown off. On the floor, were a pair of black sattin slippers, and, on the dressing-table, a pair of gloves and a long black veil, which, as Emily took it up to examine, she perceived was dropping to pieces with age.
‘Ah!’ said Dorothé, observing the veil, ‘my lady’s hand laid it there; it has never been moved since!’
Emily, shuddering, immediately laid it down again. ‘I well remember seeing her take it off,’ continued Dorothé, ‘it was on the night before her death, when she had returned from a little walk I had persuaded her to take in the gardens, and she seemed refreshed by it. I told her how much better she looked, and I remember what a languid smile she gave me; but, alas! she little thought, or I either, that she was to die, that night.’
Dorothé wept again, and then, taking up the veil, threw it suddenly over Emily, who shuddered to find it wrapped round her, descending even to her feet, and, as she endeavoured to throw it off, Dorothé intreated that she would keep it on for one moment. ‘I thought,’ added she, ‘how like you would look to my dear mistress in that veil; – may your life, ma’amselle, be a happier one than hers!’
Emily, having disengaged herself from the veil, laid it again on the dressing-table, and surveyed the closet, where every object, on which her eye fixed, seemed to speak of the Marchioness. In a large oriel window of painted glass, stood a table, with a silver crucifix, and a prayer-book open; and Emily remembered with emotion what Dorothé had mentioned concerning her custom of playing on her lute in this window, before she observed the lute itself, lying on a corner of the table, as if it had been carelessly placed there by the hand, that had so often awakened it.
‘This is a sad forlorn place!’ said Dorothé, ‘for, when my dear lady died, I had no heart to put it to rights, or the chamber either; and my lord never came into the rooms after, so they remain just
as they did when my lady was removed for interment.’
While Dorothé spoke, Emily was still looking on the lute, which was a Spanish one, and remarkably large; and then, with a hesitating hand, she took it up, and passed her fingers over the chords. They were out of tune, but uttered a deep and full sound. Dorothé started at their well-known tones, and, seeing the lute in Emily’s hand, said, ‘This is the lute my lady Marchioness loved so! I remember when last she played upon it – it was on the night that she died. I came as usual to undress her, and, as I entered the bed-chamber, I heard the sound of music from the oriel, and perceiving it was my lady’s, who was sitting there, I stepped softly to the door, which stood a little open, to listen; for the music – though it was mournful – was so sweet! There I saw her, with the lute in her hand, looking upwards, and the tears fell upon her cheeks, while she sung a vesper hymn, so soft, and so solemn! and her voice trembled, as it were, and then she would stop for a moment, and wipe away her tears, and go on again, lower than before. O! I had often listened to my lady, but never heard any thing so sweet as this, it made me cry, almost, to hear it. She had been at prayers, I fancy, for there was the book open on the table beside her – aye, and there it lies open still! Pray, let us leave the oriel, ma’amselle,’ added Dorothé, ‘this is a heart-breaking place!’
Having returned into the chamber, she desired to look once more upon the bed, when, as they came opposite to the open door, leading into the saloon, Emily, in the partial gleam, which the lamp threw into it, thought she saw something glide along into the obscurer part of the room. Her spirits had been much affected by the surrounding scene, or it is probable this circumstance, whether real or imaginary, would not have affected her in the degree it did; but she endeavoured to conceal her emotion from Dorothé, who, however, observing her countenance change, enquired if she was ill.