As they stepped along the passage, leading into the great hall, a sound
of lamentation was heard, which seemed to come from the hall itself,
and they stopped in new alarm to listen, when Emily presently
distinguished the voice of Annette, whom she found crossing the hall,
with another female servant, and so terrified by the report, which the
other maids had spread, that, believing she could be safe only where
her lady was, she was going for refuge to her apartment. Emily’s
endeavours to laugh, or to argue her out of these terrors, were equally
vain, and, in compassion to her distress, she consented that she should
remain in her room during the night. CHAPTER V

Hail, mildly-pleasing Solitude! Companion of the wise and good! Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born. But chief when evening scenes decay
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful, soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine. THOMSON


Emily’s injunctions to Annette to be silent on the subject of her
terror were ineffectual, and the occurrence of the preceding night
spread such alarm among the servants, who now all affirmed, that they
had frequently heard unaccountable noises in the château, that a report
soon reached the Count of the north side of the castle being haunted. He treated this, at first, with ridicule, but, perceiving, that it was
productive of serious evil, in the confusion it occasioned among his
household, he forbade any person to repeat it, on pain of punishment. The arrival of a party of his friends soon withdrew his thoughts
entirely from this subject, and his servants had now little leisure to
brood over it, except, indeed, in the evenings after supper, when they
all assembled in their hall, and related stories of ghosts, till they
feared to look round the room; started, if the echo of a closing door
murmured along the passage, and refused to go singly to any part of the
castle. On these occasions Annette made a distinguished figure. When she told
not only of all the wonders she had witnessed, but of all that she had
imagined, in the castle of Udolpho, with the story of the strange
disappearance of Signora Laurentini, she made no trifling impression on
the mind of her attentive auditors. Her suspicions, concerning Montoni,
she would also have freely disclosed, had not Ludovico, who was now in
the service of the Count, prudently checked her loquacity, whenever it
pointed to that subject. Among the visitors at the château was the Baron de Saint Foix, an old
friend of the Count, and his son, the Chevalier St. Foix, a sensible
and amiable young man, who, having in the preceding year seen the Lady
Blanche, at Paris, had become her declared admirer. The friendship,
which the Count had long entertained for his father, and the equality
of their circumstances made him secretly approve of the connection;
but, thinking his daughter at this time too young to fix her choice for
life, and wishing to prove the sincerity and strength of the
Chevalier’s attachment, he then rejected his suit, though without
forbidding his future hope. This young man now came, with the Baron,
his father, to claim the reward of a steady affection, a claim, which
the Count admitted and which Blanche did not reject. While these visitors were at the château, it became a scene of gaiety
and splendour. The pavilion in the woods was fitted up and frequented,
in the fine evenings, as a supper-room, when the hour usually concluded
with a concert, at which the Count and Countess, who were scientific
performers, and the Chevaliers Henri and St. Foix, with the Lady
Blanche and Emily, whose voices and fine taste compensated for the want
of more skilful execution, usually assisted. Several of the Count’s
servants performed on horns and other instruments, some of which,
placed at a little distance among the woods, spoke, in sweet response,
to the harmony, that proceeded from the pavilion. At any other period, these parties would have been delightful to Emily;
but her spirits were now oppressed with a melancholy, which she
perceived that no kind of what is called amusement had power to
dissipate, and which the tender and, frequently, pathetic, melody of
these concerts sometimes increased to a very painful degree. She was particularly fond of walking in the woods, that hung on a
promontory, overlooking the sea. Their luxuriant shade was soothing to
her pensive mind, and, in the partial views, which they afforded of the
Mediterranean, with its winding shores and passing sails, tranquil
beauty was united with grandeur. The paths were rude and frequently
overgrown with vegetation, but their tasteful owner would suffer little
to be done to them, and scarcely a single branch to be lopped from the
venerable trees. On an eminence, in one of the most sequestered parts
of these woods, was a rustic seat, formed of the trunk of a decayed
oak, which had once been a noble tree, and of which many lofty branches
still flourishing united with beech and pines to over-canopy the spot. Beneath their deep umbrage, the eye passed over the tops of other
woods, to the Mediterranean, and, to the left, through an opening, was
seen a ruined watch-tower, standing on a point of rock, near the sea,
and rising from among the tufted foliage. Hither Emily often came alone in the silence of evening, and, soothed
by the scenery and by the faint murmur, that rose from the waves, would
sit, till darkness obliged her to return to the château. Frequently,
also, she visited the watch-tower, which commanded the entire prospect,
and, when she leaned against its broken walls, and thought of
Valancourt, she not once imagined, what was so true, that this tower
had been almost as frequently his resort, as her own, since his
estrangement from the neighbouring château. One evening, she lingered here to a late hour. She had sat on the steps
of the building, watching, in tranquil melancholy, the gradual effect
of evening over the extensive prospect, till the grey waters of the
Mediterranean and the massy woods were almost the only features of the
scene, that remained visible; when, as she gazed alternately on these,
and on the mild blue of the heavens, where the first pale star of
evening appeared, she personified the hour in the following lines:—

SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR

Last of the Hours, that track the fading Day,
I move along the realms of twilight air,
And hear, remote, the choral song decay
Of sister-nymphs, who dance around his car. Then, as I follow through the azure void,
His partial splendour from my straining eye
Sinks in the depth of space; my only guide
His faint ray dawning on the farthest sky;

Save that sweet, lingering strain of gayer Hours,
Whose close my voice prolongs in dying notes,
While mortals on the green earth own its pow’rs,
As downward on the evening gale it floats.