THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO
PART 43
CHAPTER XVII
But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught,
return
To plague the inventor: thus even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd
chalice
To our own lips.
MACBETH
Some circumstances of an extraordinary nature now
withdrew Emily from her own sorrows, and excited emotions, which partook of
both surprise and horror.
A few days followed that, on which Signora
Laurentini died, her will was opened at the monastery, in the presence of the
superiors and Mons. Bonnac, when it was found, that one third of her personal
property was bequeathed to the nearest surviving relative of the late
Marchioness de Villeroi, and that Emily was the person.
With the secret of Emily's family the abbess had
long been acquainted, and it was in observance of the earnest request of St.
Aubert, who was known to the friar, that attended him on his death-bed, that
his daughter had remained in ignorance of her relationship to the Marchioness.
But some hints, which had fallen from Signora Laurentini, during her last
interview with Emily, and a confession of a very extraordinary nature, given in
her dying hours, had made the abbess think it necessary to converse with her
young friend, on the topic she had not before ventured to introduce; and it was
for this purpose, that she had requested to see her on the morning that
followed her interview with the nun. Emily's indisposition had then prevented
the intended conversation; but now, after the will had been examined, she
received a summons, which she immediately obeyed, and became informed of
circumstances, that powerfully affected her. As the narrative of the abbess
was, however, deficient in many particulars, of which the reader may wish to be
informed, and the history of the nun is materially connected with the fate of
the Marchioness de Villeroi, we shall omit the conversation, that passed in the
parlour of the convent, and mingle with our relation a brief history of
LAURENTINI DI UDOLPHO,
Who was the only child of her parents, and heiress
of the ancient house of Udolpho, in the territory of Venice. It was the first
misfortune of her life, and that which led to all her succeeding misery, that
the friends, who ought to have restrained her strong passions, and mildly
instructed her in the art of governing them, nurtured them by early indulgence.
But they cherished their own failings in her; for their conduct was not the
result of rational kindness, and, when they either indulged, or opposed the
passions of their child, they gratified their own. Thus they indulged her with
weakness, and reprehended her with violence; her spirit was exasperated by
their vehemence, instead of being corrected by their wisdom; and their
oppositions became contest for victory, in which the due tenderness of the
parents, and the affectionate duties of the child, were equally forgotten; but,
as returning fondness disarmed the parents' resentment soonest, Laurentini was
suffered to believe that she had conquered, and her passions became stronger by
every effort, that had been employed to subdue them.
The death of her father and mother in the same year
left her to her own discretion, under the dangerous circumstances attendant on
youth and beauty. She was fond of company, delighted with admiration, yet
disdainful of the opinion of the world, when it happened to contradict her
inclinations; had a gay and brilliant wit, and was mistress of all the arts of
fascination. Her conduct was such as might have been expected, from the
weakness of her principles and the strength of her passions.
Among her numerous admirers was the late Marquis de
Villeroi, who, on his tour through Italy, saw Laurentini at Venice, where she
usually resided, and became her passionate adorer. Equally captivated by the
figure and accomplishments of the Marquis, who was at that period one of the
most distinguished noblemen of the French court, she had the art so effectually
to conceal from him the dangerous traits of her character and the blemishes of
her late conduct, that he solicited her hand in marriage.
Before the nuptials were concluded, she retired to
the castle of Udolpho, whither the Marquis followed, and, where her conduct,
relaxing from the propriety, which she had lately assumed, discovered to him
the precipice, on which he stood. A minuter enquiry than he had before thought
it necessary to make, convinced him, that he had been deceived in her
character, and she, whom he had designed for his wife, afterwards became his
mistress.
Having passed some weeks at Udolpho, he was called
abruptly to France, whither he returned with extreme reluctance, for his heart
was still fascinated by the arts of Laurentini, with whom, however, he had on
various pretences delayed his marriage; but, to reconcile her to this
separation, he now gave repeated promises of returning to conclude the
nuptials, as soon as the affair, which thus suddenly called him to France,
should permit.
Soothed, in some degree, by these assurances, she
suffered him to depart; and, soon after, her relative, Montoni, arriving at
Udolpho, renewed the addresses, which she had before refused, and which she now
again rejected. Meanwhile, her thoughts were constantly with the Marquis de
Villeroi, for whom she suffered all the delirium of Italian love, cherished by
the solitude, to which she confined herself; for she had now lost all taste for
the pleasures of society and the gaiety of amusement. Her only indulgences were
to sigh and weep over a miniature of the Marquis; to visit the scenes, that had
witnessed their happiness, to pour forth her heart to him in writing, and to
count the weeks, the days, which must intervene before the period that he had
mentioned as probable for his return. But this period passed without bringing
him; and week after week followed in heavy and almost intolerable expectation.
During this interval, Laurentini's fancy, occupied incessantly by one idea,
became disordered; and, her whole heart being devoted to one object, life
became hateful to her, when she believed that object lost.
Several months passed, during which she heard
nothing from the Marquis de Villeroi, and her days were marked, at intervals,
with the phrensy of passion and the sullenness of despair. She secluded herself
from all visitors, and, sometimes, remained in her apartment, for weeks
together, refusing to speak to every person, except her favourite female
attendant, writing scraps of letters, reading, again and again, those she had
received from the Marquis, weeping over his picture, and speaking to it, for
many hours, upbraiding, reproaching and caressing it alternately.
At length, a report reached her, that the Marquis
had married in France, and, after suffering all the extremes of love, jealousy
and indignation, she formed the desperate resolution of going secretly to that
country, and, if the report proved true, of attempting a deep revenge. To her
favourite woman only she confided the plan of her journey, and she engaged her
to partake of it. Having collected her jewels, which, descending to her from
many branches of her family, were of immense value, and all her cash, to a very
large amount, they were packed in a trunk, which was privately conveyed to a
neighbouring town, whither Laurentini, with this only servant, followed, and
thence proceeded secretly to Leghorn, where they embarked for France.
When, on her arrival in Languedoc, she found, that
the Marquis de Villeroi had been married, for some months, her despair almost
deprived her of reason, and she alternately projected and abandoned the horrible
design of murdering the Marquis, his wife and herself. At length she contrived
to throw herself in his way, with an intention of reproaching him, for his
conduct, and of stabbing herself in his presence; but, when she again saw him,
who so long had been the constant object of her thoughts and affections,
resentment yielded to love; her resolution failed; she trembled with the
conflict of emotions, that assailed her heart, and fainted away.
The Marquis was not proof against her beauty and
sensibility; all the energy, with which he had first loved, returned, for his
passion had been resisted by prudence, rather than overcome by indifference;
and, since the honour of his family would not permit him to marry her, he had
endeavoured to subdue his love, and had so far succeeded, as to select the then
Marchioness for his wife, whom he loved at first with a tempered and rational
affection. But the mild virtues of that amiable lady did not recompense him for
her indifference, which appeared, notwithstanding her efforts to conceal it;
and he had, for some time, suspected that her affections were engaged by
another person, when Laurentini arrived in Languedoc. This artful Italian soon
perceived, that she had regained her influence over him, and, soothed by the
discovery, she determined to live, and to employ all her enchantments to win
his consent to the diabolical deed, which she believed was necessary to the
security of her happiness. She conducted her scheme with deep dissimulation and
patient perseverance, and, having completely estranged the affections of the
Marquis from his wife, whose gentle goodness and unimpassioned manners had
ceased to please, when contrasted with the captivations of the Italian, she
proceeded to awaken in his mind the jealousy of pride, for it was no longer
that of love, and even pointed out to him the person, to whom she affirmed the
Marchioness had sacrificed her honour; but Laurentini had first extorted from
him a solemn promise to forbear avenging himself upon his rival. This was an important
part of her plan, for she knew, that, if his desire of vengeance was restrained
towards one party, it would burn more fiercely towards the other, and he might
then, perhaps, be prevailed on to assist in the horrible act, which would
release him from the only barrier, that with-held him from making her his wife.
The innocent Marchioness, meanwhile, observed, with
extreme grief, the alteration in her husband's manners. He became reserved and
thoughtful in her presence; his conduct was austere, and sometimes even rude;
and he left her, for many hours together, to weep for his unkindness, and to
form plans for the recovery of his affection. His conduct afflicted her the
more, because, in obedience to the command of her father, she had accepted his
hand, though her affections were engaged to another, whose amiable disposition,
she had reason to believe, would have ensured her happiness. This circumstance
Laurentini had discovered, soon after her arrival in France, and had made ample
use of it in assisting her designs upon the Marquis, to whom she adduced such
seeming proof of his wife's infidelity, that, in the frantic rage of wounded
honour, he consented to destroy his wife. A slow poison was administered, and
she fell a victim to the jealousy and subtlety of Laurentini and to the guilty
weakness of her husband.
But the moment of Laurentini's triumph, the moment,
to which she had looked forward for the completion of all her wishes, proved
only the commencement of a suffering, that never left her to her dying hour.
The passion of revenge, which had in part
stimulated her to the commission of this atrocious deed, died, even at the
moment when it was gratified, and left her to the horrors of unavailing pity
and remorse, which would probably have empoisoned all the years she had
promised herself with the Marquis de Villeroi, had her expectations of an
alliance with him been realized. But he, too, had found the moment of his
revenge to be that of remorse, as to himself, and detestation, as to the
partner of his crime; the feeling, which he had mistaken for conviction, was no
more; and he stood astonished, and aghast, that no proof remained of his wife's
infidelity, now that she had suffered the punishment of guilt. Even when he was
informed, that she was dying, he had felt suddenly and unaccountably reassured
of her innocence, nor was the solemn assurance she made him in her last hour,
capable of affording him a stronger conviction of her blameless conduct.
In the first horrors of remorse and despair, he
felt inclined to deliver up himself and the woman, who had plunged him into
this abyss of guilt, into the hands of justice; but, when the paroxysm of his
suffering was over, his intention changed. Laurentini, however, he saw only
once afterwards, and that was, to curse her as the instigator of his crime, and
to say, that he spared her life only on condition, that she passed the rest of
her days in prayer and penance. Overwhelmed with disappointment, on receiving
contempt and abhorrence from the man, for whose sake she had not scrupled to
stain her conscience with human blood, and, touched with horror of the
unavailing crime she had committed, she renounced the world, and retired to the
monastery of St. Claire, a dreadful victim to unresisted passion.
The Marquis, immediately after the death of his
wife, quitted Chateau-le-Blanc, to which he never returned, and endeavoured to
lose the sense of his crime amidst the tumult of war, or the dissipations of a
capital; but his efforts were vain; a deep dejection hung over him ever after,
for which his most intimate friend could not account, and he, at length, died,
with a degree of horror nearly equal to that, which Laurentini had suffered.
The physician, who had observed the singular appearance of the unfortunate
Marchioness, after death, had been bribed to silence; and, as the surmises of a
few of the servants had proceeded no further than a whisper, the affair had
never been investigated. Whether this whisper ever reached the father of the
Marchioness, and, if it did, whether the difficulty of obtaining proof deterred
him from prosecuting the Marquis de Villeroi, is uncertain; but her death was
deeply lamented by some part of her family, and particularly by her brother, M.
St. Aubert; for that was the degree of relationship, which had existed between
Emily's father and the Marchioness; and there is no doubt, that he suspected
the manner of her death. Many letters passed between the Marquis and him, soon
after the decease of his beloved sister, the subject of which was not known,
but there is reason to believe, that they related to the cause of her death;
and these were the papers, together with some letters of the Marchioness, who
had confided to her brother the occasion of her unhappiness, which St. Aubert
had so solemnly enjoined his daughter to destroy: and anxiety for her peace had
probably made him forbid her to enquire into the melancholy story, to which
they alluded. Such, indeed, had been his affliction, on the premature death of
this his favourite sister, whose unhappy marriage had from the first excited
his tenderest pity, that he never could hear her named, or mention her himself
after her death, except to Madame St. Aubert. From Emily, whose sensibility he
feared to awaken, he had so carefully concealed her history and name, that she
was ignorant, till now, that she ever had such a relative as the Marchioness de
Villeroi; and from this motive he had enjoined silence to his only surviving
sister, Madame Cheron, who had scrupulously observed his request.
It was over some of the last pathetic letters of
the Marchioness, that St. Aubert was weeping, when he was observed by Emily, on
the eve of her departure from La Vallee, and it was her picture, which he had
so tenderly caressed. Her disastrous death may account for the emotion he had
betrayed, on hearing her named by La Voisin, and for his request to be interred
near the monument of the Villerois, where her remains were deposited, but not
those of her husband, who was buried, where he died, in the north of France.
The confessor, who attended St. Aubert in his last
moments, recollected him to be the brother of the late Marchioness, when St.
Aubert, from tenderness to Emily, had conjured him to conceal the circumstance,
and to request that the abbess, to whose care he particularly recommended her,
would do the same; a request, which had been exactly observed.
Laurentini, on her arrival in France, had carefully
concealed her name and family, and, the better to disguise her real history,
had, on entering the convent, caused the story to be circulated, which had
imposed on sister Frances, and it is probable, that the abbess, who did not
preside in the convent, at the time of her noviciation, was also entirely
ignorant of the truth. The deep remorse, that seized on the mind of Laurentini,
together with the sufferings of disappointed passion, for she still loved the
Marquis, again unsettled her intellects, and, after the first paroxysms of
despair were passed, a heavy and silent melancholy had settled upon her
spirits, which suffered few interruptions from fits of phrensy, till the time
of her death. During many years, it had been her only amusement to walk in the
woods near the monastery, in the solitary hours of night, and to play upon a
favourite instrument, to which she sometimes joined the delightful melody of
her voice, in the most solemn and melancholy airs of her native country,
modulated by all the energetic feeling, that dwelt in her heart. The physician,
who had attended her, recommended it to the superior to indulge her in this whim,
as the only means of soothing her distempered fancy; and she was suffered to
walk in the lonely hours of night, attended by the servant, who had accompanied
her from Italy; but, as the indulgence transgressed against the rules of the
convent, it was kept as secret as possible; and thus the mysterious music of
Laurentini had combined with other circumstances, to produce a report, that not
only the chateau, but its neighbourhood, was haunted.
Soon after her entrance into this holy community,
and before she had shewn any symptoms of insanity there, she made a will, in
which, after bequeathing a considerable legacy to the convent, she divided the
remainder of her personal property, which her jewels made very valuable,
between the wife of Mons. Bonnac, who was an Italian lady and her relation, and
the nearest surviving relative of the late Marchioness de Villeroi. As Emily
St. Aubert was not only the nearest, but the sole relative, this legacy
descended to her, and thus explained to her the whole mystery of her father's
conduct.
The resemblance between Emily and her unfortunate
aunt had frequently been observed by Laurentini, and had occasioned the
singular behaviour, which had formerly alarmed her; but it was in the nun's
dying hour, when her conscience gave her perpetually the idea of the
Marchioness, that she became more sensible, than ever, of this likeness, and,
in her phrensy, deemed it no resemblance of the person she had injured, but the
original herself. The bold assertion, that had followed, on the recovery of her
senses, that Emily was the daughter of the Marchioness de Villeroi, arose from
a suspicion that she was so; for, knowing that her rival, when she married the
Marquis, was attached to another lover, she had scarcely scrupled to believe, that
her honour had been sacrificed, like her own, to an unresisted passion.
Of a crime, however, to which Emily had suspected,
from her phrensied confession of murder, that she had been instrumental in the
castle of Udolpho, Laurentini was innocent; and she had herself been deceived,
concerning the spectacle, that formerly occasioned her so much terror, and had
since compelled her, for a while, to attribute the horrors of the nun to a
consciousness of a murder, committed in that castle.
It may be remembered, that, in a chamber of
Udolpho, hung a black veil, whose singular situation had excited Emily's
curiosity, and which afterwards disclosed an object, that had overwhelmed her
with horror; for, on lifting it, there appeared, instead of the picture she had
expected, within a recess of the wall, a human figure of ghastly paleness,
stretched at its length, and dressed in the habiliments of the grave. What
added to the horror of the spectacle, was, that the face appeared partly
decayed and disfigured by worms, which were visible on the features and hands.
On such an object, it will be readily believed, that no person could endure to
look twice. Emily, it may be recollected, had, after the first glance, let the
veil drop, and her terror had prevented her from ever after provoking a renewal
of such suffering, as she had then experienced. Had she dared to look again,
her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have
perceived, that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax. The history
of it is somewhat extraordinary, though not without example in the records of
that fierce severity, which monkish superstition has sometimes inflicted on
mankind. A member of the house of Udolpho, having committed some offence
against the prerogative of the church, had been condemned to the penance of
contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen image, made to resemble
a human body in the state, to which it is reduced after death. This penance,
serving as a memento of the condition at which he must himself arrive, had been
designed to reprove the pride of the Marquis of Udolpho, which had formerly so
much exasperated that of the Romish church; and he had not only superstitiously
observed this penance himself, which, he had believed, was to obtain a pardon
for all his sins, but had made it a condition in his will, that his descendants
should preserve the image, on pain of forfeiting to the church a certain part
of his domain, that they also might profit by the humiliating moral it conveyed.
The figure, therefore, had been suffered to retain its station in the wall of
the chamber, but his descendants excused themselves from observing the penance,
to which he had been enjoined.
This image was so horribly natural, that it is not
surprising Emily should have mistaken it for the object it resembled, nor,
since she had heard such an extraordinary account, concerning the disappearing
of the late lady of the castle, and had such experience of the character of
Montoni, that she should have believed this to be the murdered body of the lady
Laurentini, and that he had been the contriver of her death.
The situation, in which she had discovered it,
occasioned her, at 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 Dorothee 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, or 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 chateau 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
shewn her.
Count De Villefort's surprise at the delay of an
answer to his letter, which had been directed to Valancourt, at Estuviere, 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 chateau 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 Vallee, 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 moon-light 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 moon-light'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 stair-case 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 chateau, 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 forever? 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 you have mentioned; the emotion I now suffer may assure
you of the truth of this, and, that, though I had ceased to esteem, I had not
taught myself entirely to forget you.'
'This moment,' said Valancourt, in a low voice, and
leaning for support against the window—'this moment brings with it a conviction
that overpowers me!—I am dear to you then—still dear to you, my Emily!'
'Is it necessary that I should tell you so?' she
replied, 'is it necessary, that I should say—these are the first moments of joy
I have known, since your departure, and that they repay me for all those of
pain I have suffered in the interval?'
Valancourt sighed deeply, and was unable to reply;
but, as he pressed her hand to his lips, the tears, that fell over it, spoke a
language, which could not be mistaken, and to which words were inadequate.
Emily, somewhat tranquillized, proposed returning
to the chateau, and then, for the first time, recollected that the Count had
invited Valancourt thither to explain his conduct, and that no explanation had
yet been given. But, while she acknowledged this, her heart would not allow her
to dwell, for a moment, on the possibility of his unworthiness; his look, his
voice, his manner, all spoke the noble sincerity, which had formerly
distinguished him; and she again permitted herself to indulge the emotions of a
joy, more surprising and powerful, than she had ever before experienced.
Neither Emily, or Valancourt, were conscious how
they reached the chateau, whither they might have been transferred by the spell
of a fairy, for any thing they could remember; and it was not, till they had
reached the great hall, that either of them recollected there were other
persons in the world besides themselves. The Count then came forth with
surprise, and with the joyfulness of pure benevolence, to welcome Valancourt,
and to entreat his forgiveness of the injustice he had done him; soon after
which, Mons. Bonnac joined this happy group, in which he and Valancourt were
mutually rejoiced to meet.
When the first congratulations were over, and the
general joy became somewhat more tranquil, the Count withdrew with Valancourt
to the library, where a long conversation passed between them, in which the
latter so clearly justified himself of the criminal parts of the conduct,
imputed to him, and so candidly confessed and so feelingly lamented the
follies, which he had committed, that the Count was confirmed in his belief of
all he had hoped; and, while he perceived so many noble virtues in Valancourt,
and that experience had taught him to detest the follies, which before he had
only not admired, he did not scruple to believe, that he would pass through
life with the dignity of a wise and good man, or to entrust to his care the
future happiness of Emily St. Aubert, for whom he felt the solicitude of a
parent. Of this he soon informed her, in a short conversation, when Valancourt
had left him. While Emily listened to a relation of the services, that
Valancourt had rendered Mons. Bonnac, her eyes overflowed with tears of
pleasure, and the further conversation of Count De Villefort perfectly dissipated
every doubt, as to the past and future conduct of him, to whom she now
restored, without fear, the esteem and affection, with which she had formerly
received him.
When they returned to the supper-room, the Countess
and Lady Blanche met Valancourt with sincere congratulations; and Blanche,
indeed, was so much rejoiced to see Emily returned to happiness, as to forget,
for a while, that Mons. St. Foix was not yet arrived at the chateau, though he
had been expected for some hours; but her generous sympathy was, soon after,
rewarded by his appearance. He was now perfectly recovered from the wounds,
received, during his perilous adventure among the Pyrenees, the mention of
which served to heighten to the parties, who had been involved in it, the sense
of their present happiness. New congratulations passed between them, and round
the supper-table appeared a group of faces, smiling with felicity, but with a
felicity, which had in each a different character. The smile of Blanche was
frank and gay, that of Emily tender and pensive; Valancourt's was rapturous,
tender and gay alternately; Mons. St. Foix's was joyous, and that of the Count,
as he looked on the surrounding party, expressed the tempered complacency of
benevolence; while the features of the Countess, Henri, and Mons. Bonnac,
discovered fainter traces of animation. Poor Mons. Du Pont did not, by his
presence, throw a shade of regret over the company; for, when he had
discovered, that Valancourt was not unworthy of the esteem of Emily, he
determined seriously to endeavour at the conquest of his own hopeless
affection, and had immediately withdrawn from Chateau-le-Blanc—a conduct, which
Emily now understood, and rewarded with her admiration and pity.
The Count and his guests continued together till a
late hour, yielding to the delights of social gaiety, and to the sweets of
friendship. When Annette heard of the arrival of Valancourt, Ludovico had some
difficulty to prevent her going into the supper-room, to express her joy, for
she declared, that she had never been so rejoiced at any ACCIDENT as this,
since she had found Ludovico himself.
CHAPTER XIX
Now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run
Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd welkin low doth bend,
And, from thence, can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
MILTON
The marriages of the Lady Blanche and Emily St.
Aubert were celebrated, on the same day, and with the ancient baronial
magnificence, at Chateau-le-Blanc. The feasts were held in the great hall of
the castle, which, on this occasion, was hung with superb new tapestry,
representing the exploits of Charlemagne and his twelve peers; here, were seen
the Saracens, with their horrible visors, advancing to battle; and there, were
displayed the wild solemnities of incantation, and the necromantic feats,
exhibited by the magician JARL before the Emperor. The sumptuous banners of the
family of Villeroi, which had long slept in dust, were once more unfurled, to
wave over the gothic points of painted casements; and music echoed, in many a
lingering close, through every winding gallery and colonnade of that vast
edifice.
As Annette looked down from the corridor upon the
hall, whose arches and windows were illuminated with brilliant festoons of
lamps, and gazed on the splendid dresses of the dancers, the costly liveries of
the attendants, the canopies of purple velvet and gold, and listened to the gay
strains that floated along the vaulted roof, she almost fancied herself in an
enchanted palace, and declared, that she had not met with any place, which
charmed her so much, since she read the fairy tales; nay, that the fairies
themselves, at their nightly revels in this old hall, could display nothing
finer; while old Dorothee, as she surveyed the scene, sighed, and said, the
castle looked as it was wont to do in the time of her youth.
After gracing the festivities of Chateau-le-Blanc,
for some days, Valancourt and Emily took leave of their kind friends, and
returned to La Vallee, where the faithful Theresa received them with unfeigned
joy, and the pleasant shades welcomed them with a thousand tender and affecting
remembrances; and, while they wandered together over the scenes, so long
inhabited by the late Mons. and Madame St. Aubert, and Emily pointed out, with
pensive affection, their favourite haunts, her present happiness was
heightened, by considering, that it would have been worthy of their
approbation, could they have witnessed it.
Valancourt led her to the plane-tree on the
terrace, where he had first ventured to declare his love, and where now the
remembrance of the anxiety he had then suffered, and the retrospect of all the
dangers and misfortunes they had each encountered, since last they sat together
beneath its broad branches, exalted the sense of their present felicity, which,
on this spot, sacred to the memory of St. Aubert, they solemnly vowed to
deserve, as far as possible, by endeavouring to imitate his benevolence,—by
remembering, that superior attainments of every sort bring with them duties of
superior exertion,—and by affording to their fellow-beings, together with that
portion of ordinary comforts, which prosperity always owes to misfortune, the
example of lives passed in happy thankfulness to GOD, and, therefore, in
careful tenderness to his creatures.
Soon after their return to La Vallee, the brother
of Valancourt came to congratulate him on his marriage, and to pay his respects
to Emily, with whom he was so much pleased, as well as with the prospect of
rational happiness, which these nuptials offered to Valancourt, that he
immediately resigned to him a part of the rich domain, the whole of which, as
he had no family, would of course descend to his brother, on his decease.
The estates, at Tholouse, were disposed of, and
Emily purchased of Mons. Quesnel the ancient domain of her late father, where,
having given Annette a marriage portion, she settled her as the housekeeper,
and Ludovico as the steward; but, since both Valancourt and herself preferred
the pleasant and long-loved shades of La Vallee to the magnificence of
Epourville, they continued to reside there, passing, however, a few months in
the year at the birth-place of St. Aubert, in tender respect to his memory.
The legacy, which had been bequeathed to Emily by
Signora Laurentini, she begged Valancourt would allow her to resign to Mons.
Bonnac; and Valancourt, when she made the request, felt all the value of the
compliment it conveyed. The castle of Udolpho, also, descended to the wife of
Mons. Bonnac, who was the nearest surviving relation of the house of that name,
and thus affluence restored his long-oppressed spirits to peace, and his family
to comfort.
O! how joyful it is to tell of happiness, such as
that of Valancourt and Emily; to relate, that, after suffering under the
oppression of the vicious and the disdain of the weak, they were, at length,
restored to each other—to the beloved landscapes of their native country,—to
the securest felicity of this life, that of aspiring to moral and labouring for
intellectual improvement—to the pleasures of enlightened society, and to the
exercise of the benevolence, which had always animated their hearts; while the
bowers of La Vallee became, once more, the retreat of goodness, wisdom and
domestic blessedness!
O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the
vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient
and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by
injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!
And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale,
has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its
moral, taught him to sustain it—the effort, however humble, has not been vain,
nor is the writer unrewarded.
The End of The Mysteries of Udolpho
