The Mysteries of Udolpho Read online

  They returned pensively to the chateau, Emily musing on the incident which had just occurred; St Aubert reflecting, with placid gratitude, on the blessings he possessed; and Madame St Aubert somewhat disturbed, and perplexed, by the loss of her daughter’s picture. As they drew near the house, they observed an unusual bustle about it; the sound of voices was distinctly heard, servants and horses were seen passing between the trees, and, at length, the wheels of a carriage rolled along. Having come within view of the front of the chateau, a landau, with smoking horses, appeared on the little lawn before it. St Aubert perceived the liveries of his brother-in-law, and in the parlour he found Monsieur and Madame Quesnel already entered. They had left Paris some days before, and were on the way to their estate, only ten leagues distant from La Vallée, and which Monsieur Quesnel had purchased several years before of St Aubert. This gentleman was the only brother of Madame St Aubert, but the ties of relationship having never been strengthened by congeniality of character, the intercourse between them had not been frequent. M. Quesnel had lived altogether in the world; his aim had been consequence; splendour was the object of his taste; and his address and knowledge of character had carried him forward to the attainment of almost all that he had courted. By a man of such a disposition, it is not surprising that the virtues of St Aubert should be overlooked; or that his pure taste, simplicity, and moderated wishes, were considered as marks of a weak intellect, and of confined views. The marriage of his sister with St Aubert had been mortifying to his ambition, for he had designed that the matrimonial connection she formed should assist him to attain the consequence which he so much desired; and some offers were made her by persons whose rank and fortune flattered his warmest hope. But his sister, who was then addressed also by St Aubert, perceived, or thought she perceived, that happiness and splendour were not the same, and she did not hesitate to forego the last for the attainment of the former. Whether Monsieur Quesnel thought them the same, or not, he would readily have sacrificed his sister’s peace to the gratification of his own ambition; and, on her marriage with St Aubert, expressed in private his contempt of her spiritless conduct, and of the connection which it permitted. Madame St Aubert, though she concealed this insult from her husband, felt, perhaps, for the first time, resentment lighted in her heart; and, though a regard for her own dignity, united with considerations of prudence, restrained her expression of this resentment, there was ever after a mild reserve in her manner towards M. Quesnel, which he both understood and felt.

  In his own marriage he did not follow his sister’s example. His lady was an Italian, and an heiress by birth; and, by nature and education, was a vain and frivolous woman.

  They now determined to pass the night with St Aubert; and as the chateau was not large enough to accommodate their servants, the latter were dismissed to the neighbouring village. When the first compliments were over, and the arrangements for the night made, M. Quesnel began the display of his intelligence and his connections; while St Aubert, who had been long enough in retirement to find these topics recommended by their novelty, listened, with a degree of patience and attention, which his guest mistook for the humility of wonder. The latter, indeed, described the few festivities which the turbulence of that period permitted to the court of Henry the Third,11 with a minuteness, that somewhat recompensed for his ostentation; but, when he came to speak of the character of the Duke de Joyeuse, of a secret treaty, which he knew to be negociating with the Porte, and of the light in which Henry of Navarre was received, M. St Aubert recollected enough of his former experience to be assured, that his guest could be only of an inferior class of politicians; and that, from the importance of the subjects upon which he committed himself, he could not be of the rank to which he pretended to belong. The opinions delivered by M. Quesnel, were such as St Aubert forbore to reply to, for he knew that his guest had neither humanity to feel, nor discernment to perceive, what is just.

  Madame Quesnel, meanwhile, was expressing to Madame St Aubert her astonishment, that she could bear to pass her life in this remote corner of the world, as she called it, and describing, from a wish, probably, of exciting envy, the splendour of the balls, banquets, and processions which had just been given by the court, in honour of the nuptials of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain, the sister of the Queen. She described with equal minuteness the magnificence she had seen, and that from which she had been excluded; while Emily’s vivid fancy, as she listened with the ardent curiosity of youth, heightened the scenes she heard of; and Madame St Aubert, looking on her family, felt, as a tear stole to her eye, that though splendour may grace happiness, virtue only can bestow it.

  ‘It is now twelve years, St Aubert,’ said M. Quesnel, ‘since I purchased your family estate.’ – ‘Somewhere thereabout,’ replied St Aubert, suppressing a sigh. ‘It is near five years since I have been there,’ resumed Quesnel; ‘for Paris and its neighbourhood is the only place in the world to live in, and I am so immersed in politics, and have so many affairs of moment on my hands, that I find it difficult to steal away even for a month or two.’ St Aubert remaining silent, M. Quesnel proceeded: ‘I have sometimes wondered how you, who have lived in the capital, and have been accustomed to company, can exist elsewhere; – especially in so remote a country as this, where you can neither hear nor see any thing, and can in short be scarcely conscious of life.’

  ‘I live for my family and myself,’ said St Aubert; ‘I am now contented to know only happiness; – formerly I knew life.’

  ‘I mean to expend thirty or forty thousand livres12 on improvements,’ said M. Quesnel, without seeming to notice the words of St Aubert; ‘for I design, next summer, to bring here my friends, the Duke de Durefort and the Marquis Ramont, to pass a month or two with me.’ To St Aubert’s enquiry, as to these intended improvements, he replied, that he should take down the old east wing of the chateau, and raise upon the site a set of stables. ‘Then I shall build,’ said he, ‘a salle à manger,a salon,a salle au commune ,13 and a number of rooms for servants; for at present there is not accommodation for a third part of my own people.’

  ‘It accommodated our father’s household,’ said St Aubert, grieved that the old mansion was to be thus improved, ‘and that was not a small one.’

  ‘Our notions are somewhat enlarged since those days,’ said M. Quesnel; – ‘what was then thought a decent style of living would not now be endured.’ Even the calm St Aubert blushed at these words, but his anger soon yielded to contempt. ‘The ground about the chateau is encumbered with trees; I mean to cut some of them down.’

  ‘Cut down the trees too!’ said St Aubert.

  ‘Certainly. Why should I not? they interrupt my prospects. There is a chesnut which spreads its branches before the whole south side of the chateau, and which is so ancient that they tell me the hollow of its trunk will hold a dozen men. Your enthusiasm will scarcely contend that there can be either use, or beauty, in such a sapless old tree as this.’

  ‘Good God!’ exclaimed St Aubert, ‘you surely will not destroy that noble chesnut, which has flourished for centuries, the glory of the estate! It was in its maturity when the present mansion was built. How often, in my youth, I have climbed among its broad branches, and sat embowered amidst a world of leaves, while the heavy shower has pattered above, and not a rain drop reached me! How often I have sat with a book in my hand, sometimes reading, and sometimes looking out between the branches upon the wide landscape, and the setting sun, till twilight came, and brought the birds home to their little nests among the leaves! How often – but pardon me,’ added St Aubert, recollecting that he was speaking to a man who could neither comprehend, nor allow for his feelings, ‘I am talking of times and feelings as old-fashioned as the taste that would spare that venerable tree.’

  ‘It will certainly come down,’ said M. Quesnel; ‘I believe I shall plant some Lombardy poplars among the clumps of chesnut, that I shall leave of the avenue; Madame Quesnel is partial to the poplar, and tells me how much it a
dorns a villa of her uncle, not far from Venice.’

  ‘On the banks of the Brenta, indeed,’ continued St Aubert, ‘where its spiry form is intermingled with the pine, and the cypress, and where it plays over light and elegant porticos and colonnades, it, unquestionably, adorns the scene, but among the giants of the forest, and near a heavy gothic mansion—’

  ‘Well, my good sir,’ said M. Quesnel, ‘I will not dispute with you. You must return to Paris before our ideas can at all agree. But à-propos of Venice; I have some thoughts of going thither, next summer; events may call me to take possession of that same villa, too, which they tell me is the most charming that can be imagined. In that case I shall leave the improvements I mention to another year, and I may, perhaps, be tempted to stay some time in Italy.’

  Emily was somewhat surprised to hear him talk of being tempted to remain abroad, after he had mentioned his presence to be so necessary at Paris, that it was with difficulty he could steal away for a month or two; but St Aubert understood the self-importance of the man too well to wonder at this trait; and the possibility, that these projected improvements might be deferred, gave him a hope, that they might never take place.

  Before they separated for the night, M. Quesnel desired to speak with St Aubert alone, and they retired to another room, where they remained a considerable time. The subject of this conversation was not known; but, whatever it might be, St Aubert, when he returned to the supper-room, seemed much disturbed, and a shade of sorrow sometimes fell upon his features, that alarmed Madame St Aubert. When they were alone she was tempted to enquire the occasion of it, but the delicacy of mind, which had ever appeared in his conduct, restrained her: she considered that, if St Aubert wished her to be acquainted with the subject of his concern, he would not wait for her enquiries.

  On the following day, before M. Quesnel departed, he had a second conference with St Aubert.

  The guests, after dining at the chateau, set out in the cool of the day for Epourville, whither they gave him and Madame St Aubert a pressing invitation, prompted rather by the vanity of displaying their splendour, than by a wish to make their friends happy.

  Emily returned, with delight, to the liberty which their presence had restrained, to her books, her walks, and the rational conversation of M. and Madame St Aubert, who seemed to rejoice, no less, that they were delivered from the shackles, which arrogance and frivolity had imposed.

  Madame St Aubert excused herself from sharing their usual evening walk, complaining that she was not quite well, and St Aubert and Emily went out together.

  They chose a walk towards the mountains, intending to visit some old pensioners of St Aubert, which, from his very moderate income, he contrived to support, though it is probable M. Quesnel, with his very large one, could not have afforded this.

  After distributing to his pensioners their weekly stipends, listening patiently to the complaints of some, redressing the grievances of others, and softening the discontents of all, by the looks of sympathy, and the smile of benevolence, St Aubert returned home through the woods,

  ____‘where

  At fall of eve the fairy-people throng,

  In various games and revelry to pass

  The summer night, as village stories tell.’*

  ‘The evening gloom of woods was always delightful to me,’ said St Aubert, whose mind now experienced the sweet calm, which results from the consciousness of having done a beneficent action, and which disposes it to receive pleasure from every surrounding object. ‘I remember that in my youth this gloom used to call forth to my fancy a thousand fairy visions, and romantic images; and, I own, I am not yet wholly insensible of that high enthusiasm, which wakes the poet’s dream. I can linger, with solemn steps, under the deep shades, send forward a transforming eye into the distant obscurity, and listen with thrilling delight to the mystic murmuring of the woods.’

  ‘O my dear father,’ said Emily, while a sudden tear started to her eye, ‘how exactly you describe what I have felt so often, and which I thought nobody had ever felt but myself ! But hark! here comes the sweeping sound over the wood-tops; – now it dies away; – how solemn the stillness that succeeds! Now the breeze swells again. It is like the voice of some supernatural being – the voice of the spirit of the woods, that watches over them by night. Ah! what light is yonder? But it is gone. And now it gleams again, near the root of that large chesnut: look, sir!’

  ‘Are you such an admirer of nature,’ said St Aubert, ‘and so little acquainted with her appearances as not to know that for the glow-worm? But come,’ added he gaily, ‘step a little further, and we shall see fairies, perhaps; they are often companions. The glow-worm lends his light, and they in return charm him with music, and the dance. Do you see nothing tripping yonder?’

  Emily laughed. ‘Well, my dear sir,’ said she, ‘since you allow of this alliance, I may venture to own I have anticipated you; and almost dare venture to repeat some verses I made one evening in these very woods.’

  ‘Nay,’ replied St Aubert, ‘dismiss the almost, and venture quite; let us hear what vagaries fancy has been playing in your mind. If she has given you one of her spells, you need not envy those of the fairies.’

  ‘If it is strong enough to enchant your judgment, sir,’ said Emily, ‘while I disclose her images, I need not envy them. The lines go in a sort of tripping measure, which I thought might suit the subject well enough, but I fear they are too irregular.

  THE GLOW - WORM15

  How pleasant is the green-wood’s deep-matted shade

  On a mid-summer’s eve, when the fresh rain is o’er;

  When the yellow beams slope, and sparkle thro’ the glade,

  And swiftly in the thin air the light swallows soar!

  But sweeter, sweeter still, when the sun sinks to rest,

  And twilight comes on, with the fairies so gay

  Tripping through the forest-walk, where flow’rs, unprest,

  Bow not their tall heads beneath their frolic play.

  To music’s softest sounds they dance away the hour,

  Till moon-light steals down among the trembling leaves,

  And checquers all the ground, and guides them to the bow’r,

  The long haunted bow’r, where the nightingale grieves.

  Then no more they dance, till her sad song is done,

  But, silent as the night, to her mourning attend;

  And often as her dying notes their pity have won,

  They vow all her sacred haunts from mortals to defend.

  When, down among the mountains, sinks the ev’ning star,

  And the changing moon forsakes this shadowy sphere,

  How cheerless would they be, tho’ they fairies are,

  If I, with my pale light, came not near!

  Yet cheerless tho’ they’d be, they’re ungrateful to my love!

  For, often when the traveller’s benighted on his way,

  And I glimmer in his path, and would guide him thro’ the grove,

  They bind me in their magic spells to lead him far astray;

  And in the mire to leave him, till the stars are all burnt out,

  While, in strange-looking shapes, they frisk about the ground,

  And, afar in the woods, they raise a dismal shout,

  Till I shrink into my cell again for terror of the sound!

  But, see where all the tiny elves come dancing in a ring,

  With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the horn,

  And the timbrel so clear, and the lute with dulcet string;

  Then round about the oak they go till peeping of the morn.

  Down yonder glade two lovers steal, to shun the fairy-queen,

  Who frowns upon their plighted vows, and jealous is of me,

  That yester-eve I lighted them, along the dew green,

  To seek the purple flow’r, whose juice from all her spells can free.

  And now, to punish me, she keeps afar her jocund band,

  With the merry, merry pipe,
and the tabor, and the lute;

  If I creep near yonder oak she will wave her fairy wand,

  And to me the dance will cease, and the music all be mute.

  O! had I but that purple flow’r whose leaves her charms can foil,

  And knew like fays16 to draw the juice, and throw it on the wind,

  I’d be her slave no longer, nor the traveller beguile,

  And help all faithful lovers, nor fear the fairy kind!

  But soon the vapour of the woods will wander afar,

  And the fickle moon will fade, and the stars disappear.

  Then, cheerless will they be, tho’ they fairies are,

  If I, with my pale light, come not near!

  Whatever St Aubert might think of the stanzas, he would not deny his daughter the pleasure of believing that he approved them; and, having given his commendation, he sunk into a reverie, and they walked on in silence.

  _______‘A faint erroneous ray

  Glanc’d from th’ imperfect surfaces of things,

  Flung half an image on the straining eye;

  While waving woods, and villages, and streams,

  And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain

  The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,

  Uncertain if beheld.’*

  St Aubert continued silent till he reached the chateau, where his wife had retired to her chamber. The languor and dejection, that had lately oppressed her, and which the exertion called forth by the arrival of her guests had suspended, now returned with increased effect. On the following day, symptoms of fever appeared, and St Aubert, having sent for medical advice, learned, that her disorder was a fever of the same nature as that, from which he had lately recovered. She had, indeed, taken the infection, during her attendance upon him, and, her constitution being too weak to throw out the disease immediately, it had lurked in her veins, and occasioned the heavy languor of which she had complained. St Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every other consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in company with Madame St Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment, that this illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to re-animate with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The physician, when asked by St Aubert for his opinion of the disorder, replied, that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he could not ascertain. Madame St Aubert seemed to have formed a more decided one; but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed them upon her anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of tenderness, as if she anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and that seemed to say, it was for their sakes only, for their sufferings, that she regretted life. On the seventh day, the disorder was at its crisis. The physician assumed a graver manner, which she observed, and took occasion, when her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell him, that she perceived her death was approaching. ‘Do not attempt to deceive me,’ said she, ‘I feel that I cannot long survive. I am prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it. Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to induce you to flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour to teach them resignation by my example.’