'It much surprises me, Signor,' said Bertolini, 'that you have so long neglected this castle; it is a n.o.ble edifice.'

'It suits our purpose,' replied Montoni, 'and IS a n.o.ble edifice. You know not, it seems, by what mischance it came to me.'

'It was a lucky mischance, be it what it may, Signor,' replied Bertolini, smiling. 'I would, that one so lucky had befallen me.'

Montoni looked gravely at him. 'If you will attend to what I say,' he resumed, 'you shall hear the story.'

The countenances of Bertolini and Verezzi expressed something more than curiosity; Cavigni, who seemed to feel none, had probably heard the relation before.

'It is now near twenty years,' said Montoni, 'since this castle came into my possession. I inherit it by the female line. The lady, my predecessor, was only distantly related to me; I am the last of her family. She was beautiful and rich; I wooed her; but her heart was fixed upon another, and she rejected me. It is probable, however, that she was herself rejected of the person, whoever he might be, on whom she bestowed her favour, for a deep and settled melancholy took possession of her; and I have reason to believe she put a period to her own life.

I was not at the castle at the time; but, as there are some singular and mysterious circ.u.mstances attending that event, I shall repeat them.'

'Repeat them!' said a voice.

Montoni was silent; the guests looked at each other, to know who spoke; but they perceived, that each was making the same enquiry. Montoni, at length, recovered himself. 'We are overheard,' said he: 'we will finish this subject another time. Pa.s.s the goblet.'

The cavaliers looked round the wide chamber.

'Here is no person, but ourselves,' said Verezzi: 'pray, Signor, proceed.'

'Did you hear any thing?' said Montoni.

'We did,' said Bertolini.

'It could be only fancy,' said Verezzi, looking round again. 'We see no person besides ourselves; and the sound I thought I heard seemed within the room. Pray, Signor, go on.'

Montoni paused a moment, and then proceeded in a lowered voice, while the cavaliers drew nearer to attend.

'Ye are to know, Signors, that the Lady Laurentini had for some months shewn symptoms of a dejected mind, nay, of a disturbed imagination. Her mood was very unequal; sometimes she was sunk in calm melancholy, and, at others, as I have been told, she betrayed all the symptoms of frantic madness. It was one night in the month of October, after she had recovered from one of those fits of excess, and had sunk again into her usual melancholy, that she retired alone to her chamber, and forbade all interruption. It was the chamber at the end of the corridor, Signors, where we had the affray, last night. From that hour, she was seen no more.'

'How! seen no more!' said Bertolini, 'was not her body found in the chamber?'

'Were her remains never found?' cried the rest of the company all together.

'Never!' replied Montoni.

'What reasons were there to suppose she destroyed herself, then?' said Bertolini.--'Aye, what reasons?' said Verezzi.--'How happened it, that her remains were never found? Although she killed herself, she could not bury herself.' Montoni looked indignantly at Verezzi, who began to apologize. 'Your pardon, Signor,' said he: 'I did not consider, that the lady was your relative, when I spoke of her so lightly.'

Montoni accepted the apology.

'But the Signor will oblige us with the reasons, which urged him to believe, that the lady committed suicide.'

'Those I will explain hereafter,' said Montoni: 'at present let me relate a most extraordinary circ.u.mstance. This conversation goes no further, Signors. Listen, then, to what I am going to say.'

'Listen!' said a voice.

They were all again silent, and the countenance of Montoni changed.

'This is no illusion of the fancy,' said Cavigni, at length breaking the profound silence.--'No,' said Bertolini; 'I heard it myself, now. Yet here is no person in the room but ourselves!'

'This is very extraordinary,' said Montoni, suddenly rising. 'This is not to be borne; here is some deception, some trick. I will know what it means.'

All the company rose from their chairs in confusion.

'It is very odd!' said Bertolini. 'Here is really no stranger in the room. If it is a trick, Signor, you will do well to punish the author of it severely.'

'A trick! what else can it be?' said Cavigni, affecting a laugh.

The servants were now summoned, and the chamber was searched, but no person was found. The surprise and consternation of the company increased. Montoni was discomposed. 'We will leave this room,' said he, 'and the subject of our conversation also; it is too solemn.' His guests were equally ready to quit the apartment; but the subject had roused their curiosity, and they entreated Montoni to withdraw to another chamber, and finish it; no entreaties could, however, prevail with him. Notwithstanding his efforts to appear at ease, he was visibly and greatly disordered.

'Why, Signor, you are not superst.i.tious,' cried Verezzi, jeeringly; 'you, who have so often laughed at the credulity of others!'

'I am not superst.i.tious,' replied Montoni, regarding him with stern displeasure, 'though I know how to despise the common-place sentences, which are frequently uttered against superst.i.tion. I will enquire further into this affair.' He then left the room; and his guests, separating for the night, retired to their respective apartments.

CHAPTER VIII

He wears the rose of youth upon his cheek.

SHAKESPEARE

We now return to Valancourt, who, it may be remembered, remained at Tholouse, some time after the departure of Emily, restless and miserable. Each morrow that approached, he designed should carry him from thence; yet to-morrow and to-morrow came, and still saw him lingering in the scene of his former happiness. He could not immediately tear himself from the spot, where he had been accustomed to converse with Emily, or from the objects they had viewed together, which appeared to him memorials of her affection, as well as a kind of surety for its faithfulness; and, next to the pain of bidding her adieu, was that of leaving the scenes which so powerfully awakened her image. Sometimes he had bribed a servant, who had been left in the care of Madame Montoni's chateau, to permit him to visit the gardens, and there he would wander, for hours together, rapt in a melancholy, not unpleasing. The terrace, and the pavilion at the end of it, where he had taken leave of Emily, on the eve of her departure from Tholouse, were his most favourite haunts.

There, as he walked, or leaned from the window of the building, he would endeavour to recollect all she had said, on that night; to catch the tones of her voice, as they faintly vibrated on his memory, and to remember the exact expression of her countenance, which sometimes came suddenly to his fancy, like a vision; that beautiful countenance, which awakened, as by instantaneous magic, all the tenderness of his heart, and seemed to tell with irresistible eloquence--that he had lost her forever! At these moments, his hurried steps would have discovered to a spectator the despair of his heart. The character of Montoni, such as he had received from hints, and such as his fears represented it, would rise to his view, together with all the dangers it seemed to threaten to Emily and to his love. He blamed himself, that he had not urged these more forcibly to her, while it might have been in his power to detain her, and that he had suffered an absurd and criminal delicacy, as he termed it, to conquer so soon the reasonable arguments he had opposed to this journey. Any evil, that might have attended their marriage, seemed so inferior to those, which now threatened their love, or even to the sufferings, that absence occasioned, that he wondered how he could have ceased to urge his suit, till he had convinced her of its propriety; and he would certainly now have followed her to Italy, if he could have been spared from his regiment for so long a journey. His regiment, indeed, soon reminded him, that he had other duties to attend, than those of love.

A short time after his arrival at his brother's house, he was summoned to join his brother officers, and he accompanied a battalion to Paris; where a scene of novelty and gaiety opened upon him, such as, till then, he had only a faint idea of. But gaiety disgusted, and company fatigued, his sick mind; and he became an object of unceasing raillery to his companions, from whom, whenever he could steal an opportunity, he escaped, to think of Emily. The scenes around him, however, and the company with whom he was obliged to mingle, engaged his attention, though they failed to amuse his fancy, and thus gradually weakened the habit of yielding to lamentation, till it appeared less a duty to his love to indulge it. Among his brother-officers were many, who added to the ordinary character of a French soldier's gaiety some of those fascinating qualities, which too frequently throw a veil over folly, and sometimes even soften the features of vice into smiles. To these men the reserved and thoughtful manners of Valancourt were a kind of tacit censure on their own, for which they rallied him when present, and plotted against him when absent; they gloried in the thought of reducing him to their own level, and, considering it to be a spirited frolic, determined to accomplish it.

Valancourt was a stranger to the gradual progress of scheme and intrigue, against which he could not be on his guard. He had not been accustomed to receive ridicule, and he could ill endure its sting; he resented it, and this only drew upon him a louder laugh. To escape from such scenes, he fled into solitude, and there the image of Emily met him, and revived the pangs of love and despair. He then sought to renew those tasteful studies, which had been the delight of his early years; but his mind had lost the tranquillity, which is necessary for their enjoyment. To forget himself and the grief and anxiety, which the idea of her recalled, he would quit his solitude, and again mingle in the crowd--glad of a temporary relief, and rejoicing to s.n.a.t.c.h amus.e.m.e.nt for the moment.

Thus pa.s.sed weeks after weeks, time gradually softening his sorrow, and habit strengthening his desire of amus.e.m.e.nt, till the scenes around him seemed to awaken into a new character, and Valancourt, to have fallen among them from the clouds.

His figure and address made him a welcome visitor, wherever he had been introduced, and he soon frequented the most gay and fashionable circles of Paris. Among these, was the a.s.sembly of the Countess Lacleur, a woman of eminent beauty and captivating manners. She had pa.s.sed the spring of youth, but her wit prolonged the triumph of its reign, and they mutually a.s.sisted the fame of each other; for those, who were charmed by her loveliness, spoke with enthusiasm of her talents; and others, who admired her playful imagination, declared, that her personal graces were unrivalled. But her imagination was merely playful, and her wit, if such it could be called, was brilliant, rather than just; it dazzled, and its fallacy escaped the detection of the moment; for the accents, in which she p.r.o.nounced it, and the smile, that accompanied them, were a spell upon the judgment of the auditors. Her pet.i.ts soupers were the most tasteful of any in Paris, and were frequented by many of the second cla.s.s of literati. She was fond of music, was herself a scientific performer, and had frequently concerts at her house. Valancourt, who pa.s.sionately loved music, and who sometimes a.s.sisted at these concerts, admired her execution, but remembered with a sigh the eloquent simplicity of Emily's songs and the natural expression of her manner, which waited not to be approved by the judgment, but found their way at once to the heart.

Madame La Comtesse had often deep play at her house, which she affected to restrain, but secretly encouraged; and it was well known among her friends, that the splendour of her establishment was chiefly supplied from the profits of her tables. But her pet.i.ts soupers were the most charming imaginable! Here were all the delicacies of the four quarters of the world, all the wit and the lighter efforts of genius, all the graces of conversation--the smiles of beauty, and the charm of music; and Valancourt pa.s.sed his pleasantest, as well as most dangerous hours in these parties.

His brother, who remained with his family in Gascony, had contented himself with giving him letters of introduction to such of his relations, residing at Paris, as the latter was not already known to.

All these were persons of some distinction; and, as neither the person, mind, or manners of Valancourt the younger threatened to disgrace their alliance, they received him with as much kindness as their nature, hardened by uninterrupted prosperity, would admit of; but their attentions did not extend to acts of real friendship; for they were too much occupied by their own pursuits, to feel any interest in his; and thus he was set down in the midst of Paris, in the pride of youth, with an open, unsuspicious temper and ardent affections, without one friend, to warn him of the dangers, to which he was exposed. Emily, who, had she been present, would have saved him from these evils by awakening his heart, and engaging him in worthy pursuits, now only increased his danger;--it was to lose the grief, which the remembrance of her occasioned, that he first sought amus.e.m.e.nt; and for this end he pursued it, till habit made it an object of abstract interest.

There was also a Marchioness Champfort, a young widow, at whose a.s.semblies he pa.s.sed much of his time. She was handsome, still more artful, gay and fond of intrigue. The society, which she drew round her, was less elegant and more vicious, than that of the Countess Lacleur: but, as she had address enough to throw a veil, though but a slight one, over the worst part of her character, she was still visited by many persons of what is called distinction. Valancourt was introduced to her parties by two of his brother officers, whose late ridicule he had now forgiven so far, that he could sometimes join in the laugh, which a mention of his former manners would renew.

The gaiety of the most splendid court in Europe, the magnificence of the palaces, entertainments, and equipages, that surrounded him--all conspired to dazzle his imagination, and re-animate his spirits, and the example and maxims of his military a.s.sociates to delude his mind.

Emily's image, indeed, still lived there; but it was no longer the friend, the monitor, that saved him from himself, and to which he retired to weep the sweet, yet melancholy, tears of tenderness. When he had recourse to it, it a.s.sumed a countenance of mild reproach, that wrung his soul, and called forth tears of unmixed misery; his only escape from which was to forget the object of it, and he endeavoured, therefore, to think of Emily as seldom as he could.

Thus dangerously circ.u.mstanced was Valancourt, at the time, when Emily was suffering at Venice, from the persecuting addresses of Count Morano, and the unjust authority of Montoni; at which period we leave him.

CHAPTER IX