Whether
Dorothée’s taste was not so sensible to the beauties of landscape as
her young lady’s, or that the constant view of lovely scenery had
deadened it, she forbore to praise the subject of Blanche’s enthusiasm,
which, however, her silence did not repress. To Lady Blanche’s enquiry
of whither the door she had found fastened at the end of the gallery
led, she replied, that it opened to a suite of rooms, which had not
been entered, during many years, “For,” added she, “my late lady died
in one of them, and I could never find in my heart to go into them
since.”

Blanche, though she wished to see these chambers, forbore, on observing
that Dorothée’s eyes were filled with tears, to ask her to unlock them,
and, soon after, went to dress for dinner, at which the whole party met
in good spirits and good humour, except the Countess, whose vacant
mind, overcome by the languor of idleness, would neither suffer her to
be happy herself, nor to contribute to the happiness of others. Mademoiselle Bearn, attempting to be witty, directed her badinage
against Henri, who answered, because he could not well avoid it, rather
than from any inclination to notice her, whose liveliness sometimes
amused, but whose conceit and insensibility often disgusted him. The cheerfulness, with which Blanche rejoined the party, vanished, on
her reaching the margin of the sea; she gazed with apprehension upon
the immense expanse of waters, which, at a distance, she had beheld
only with delight and astonishment, and it was by a strong effort, that
she so far overcame her fears as to follow her father into the boat. As she silently surveyed the vast horizon, bending round the distant
verge of the ocean, an emotion of sublimest rapture struggled to
overcome a sense of personal danger. A light breeze played on the
water, and on the silk awning of the boat, and waved the foliage of the
receding woods, that crowned the cliffs, for many miles, and which the
Count surveyed with the pride of conscious property, as well as with
the eye of taste. At some distance, among these woods, stood a pavilion, which had once
been the scene of social gaiety, and which its situation still made one
of romantic beauty. Thither, the Count had ordered coffee and other
refreshment to be carried, and thither the sailors now steered their
course, following the windings of the shore round many a woody
promontory and circling bay; while the pensive tones of horns and other
wind instruments, played by the attendants in a distant boat, echoed
among the rocks, and died along the waves. Blanche had now subdued her
fears; a delightful tranquillity stole over her mind, and held her in
silence; and she was too happy even to remember the convent, or her
former sorrows, as subjects of comparison with her present felicity. The Countess felt less unhappy than she had done, since the moment of
her leaving Paris; for her mind was now under some degree of restraint;
she feared to indulge its wayward humours, and even wished to recover
the Count’s good opinion. On his family, and on the surrounding scene,
he looked with tempered pleasure and benevolent satisfaction, while his
son exhibited the gay spirits of youth, anticipating new delights, and
regretless of those, that were passed. After near an hour’s rowing, the party landed, and ascended a little
path, overgrown with vegetation. At a little distance from the point of
the eminence, within the shadowy recess of the woods, appeared the
pavilion, which Blanche perceived, as she caught a glimpse of its
portico between the trees, to be built of variegated marble. As she
followed the Countess, she often turned her eyes with rapture towards
the ocean, seen beneath the dark foliage, far below, and from thence
upon the deep woods, whose silence and impenetrable gloom awakened
emotions more solemn, but scarcely less delightful. The pavilion had been prepared, as far as was possible, on a very short
notice, for the reception of its visitors; but the faded colours of its
painted walls and ceiling, and the decayed drapery of its once
magnificent furniture, declared how long it had been neglected, and
abandoned to the empire of the changing seasons. While the party
partook of a collation of fruit and coffee, the horns, placed in a
distant part of the woods, where an echo sweetened and prolonged their
melancholy tones, broke softly on the stillness of the scene. This spot
seemed to attract even the admiration of the Countess, or, perhaps, it
was merely the pleasure of planning furniture and decorations, that
made her dwell so long on the necessity of repairing and adorning it;
while the Count, never happier than when he saw her mind engaged by
natural and simple objects, acquiesced in all her designs, concerning
the pavilion. The paintings on the walls and coved ceiling were to be
renewed, the canopies and sofas were to be of light green damask;
marble statues of wood-nymphs, bearing on their heads baskets of living
flowers, were to adorn the recesses between the windows, which,
descending to the ground, were to admit to every part of the room, and
it was of octagonal form, the various landscape. One window opened upon
a romantic glade, where the eye roved among the woody recesses, and the
scene was bounded only by a lengthened pomp of groves; from another,
the woods receding disclosed the distant summits of the Pyrenees; a
third fronted an avenue, beyond which the grey towers of
Château-le-Blanc, and a picturesque part of its ruin were seen
partially among the foliage; while a fourth gave, between the trees, a
glimpse of the green pastures and villages, that diversify the banks of
the Aude. The Mediterranean, with the bold cliffs, that overlooked its
shores, were the grand objects of a fifth window, and the others gave,
in different points of view, the wild scenery of the woods. After wandering, for some time, in these, the party returned to the
shore and embarked; and, the beauty of the evening tempting them to
extend their excursion, they proceeded further up the bay. A dead calm
had succeeded the light breeze, that wafted them hither, and the men
took to their oars. Around, the waters were spread into one vast
expanse of polished mirror, reflecting the grey cliffs and feathery
woods, that over-hung its surface, the glow of the western horizon and
the dark clouds, that came slowly from the east. Blanche loved to see
the dipping oars imprint the water, and to watch the spreading circles
they left, which gave a tremulous motion to the reflected landscape,
without destroying the harmony of its features. Above the darkness of the woods, her eye now caught a cluster of high
towers, touched with the splendour of the setting rays; and, soon
after, the horns being then silent, she heard the faint swell of choral
voices from a distance. “What voices are those, upon the air?” said the Count, looking round,
and listening; but the strain had ceased.