Dorothée’s spirits being now more composed, she rose, and unlocked the
door that led into the late Marchioness’s apartment, and Emily passed
into a lofty chamber, hung round with dark arras, and so spacious, that
the lamp she held up did not show its extent; while Dorothée, when she
entered, had dropped into a chair, where, sighing deeply, she scarcely
trusted herself with the view of a scene so affecting to her. It was
some time before Emily perceived, through the dusk, the bed on which
the Marchioness was said to have died; when, advancing to the upper end
of the room, she discovered the high canopied tester of dark green
damask, with the curtains descending to the floor in the fashion of a
tent, half drawn, and remaining apparently, as they had been left
twenty years before; and over the whole bedding was thrown a
counterpane, or pall, of black velvet, that hung down to the floor. Emily shuddered, as she held the lamp over it, and looked within the
dark curtains, where she almost expected to have seen a human face,
and, suddenly remembering the horror she had suffered upon discovering
the dying Madame Montoni in the turret-chamber of Udolpho, her spirits
fainted, and she was turning from the bed, when Dorothée, who had now
reached it, exclaimed, “Holy Virgin! methinks I see my lady stretched
upon that pall—as when last I saw her!”

Emily, shocked by this exclamation, looked involuntarily again within
the curtains, but the blackness of the pall only appeared; while
Dorothée was compelled to support herself upon the side of the bed, and
presently tears brought her some relief. “Ah!” said she, after she had wept awhile, “it was here I sat on that
terrible night, and held my lady’s hand, and heard her last words, and
saw all her sufferings—_here_ she died in my arms!”

“Do not indulge these painful recollections,” said Emily, “let us go. Show me the picture you mentioned, if it will not too much affect you.”

“It hangs in the oriel,” said Dorothée rising, and going towards a
small door near the bed’s head, which she opened, and Emily followed
with the light into the closet of the late Marchioness. “Alas! there she is, ma’amselle,” said Dorothée, pointing to a portrait
of a lady, “there is her very self! just as she looked when she came
first to the château. You see, madam, she was all blooming like you,
then—and so soon to be cut off!”

While Dorothée spoke, Emily was attentively examining the picture,
which bore a strong resemblance to the miniature, though the expression
of the countenance in each was somewhat different; but still she
thought she perceived something of that pensive melancholy in the
portrait, which so strongly characterised the miniature. “Pray, ma’amselle, stand beside the picture, that I may look at you
together,” said Dorothée, who, when the request was complied with,
exclaimed again at the resemblance. Emily also, as she gazed upon it,
thought that she had somewhere seen a person very like it, though she
could not now recollect who this was. In this closet were many memorials of the departed Marchioness; a robe
and several articles of her dress were scattered upon the chairs, as if
they had just been thrown off. On the floor were a pair of black satin
slippers, and, on the dressing-table, a pair of gloves and a long black
veil, which, as Emily took it up to examine, she perceived was dropping
to pieces with age. “Ah!” said Dorothée, observing the veil, “my lady’s hand laid it there;
it has never been moved since!”

Emily, shuddering, immediately laid it down again. “I well remember
seeing her take it off,” continued Dorothée, “it was on the night
before her death, when she had returned from a little walk I had
persuaded her to take in the gardens, and she seemed refreshed by it. I
told her how much better she looked, and I remember what a languid
smile she gave me; but, alas! she little thought, or I either, that she
was to die that night.”

Dorothée wept again, and then, taking up the veil, threw it suddenly
over Emily, who shuddered to find it wrapped round her, descending even
to her feet, and, as she endeavoured to throw it off, Dorothée
entreated that she would keep it on for one moment. “I thought,” added
she, “how like you would look to my dear mistress in that veil;—may
your life, ma’amselle, be a happier one than hers!”

Emily, having disengaged herself from the veil, laid it again on the
dressing-table, and surveyed the closet, where every object, on which
her eye fixed, seemed to speak of the Marchioness. In a large oriel
window of painted glass, stood a table, with a silver crucifix, and a
prayer-book open; and Emily remembered with emotion what Dorothée had
mentioned concerning her custom of playing on her lute in this window,
before she observed the lute itself, lying on a corner of the table, as
if it had been carelessly placed there by the hand, that had so often
awakened it. “This is a sad forlorn place!” said Dorothée, “for, when my dear lady
died, I had no heart to put it to rights, or the chamber either; and my
lord never came into the rooms after, so they remain just as they did
when my lady was removed for interment.”

While Dorothée spoke, Emily was still looking on the lute, which was a
Spanish one, and remarkably large; and then, with a hesitating hand,
she took it up, and passed her fingers over the chords. They were out
of tune, but uttered a deep and full sound. Dorothée started at their
well-known tones, and, seeing the lute in Emily’s hand, said, “This is
the lute my lady Marchioness loved so! I remember when last she played
upon it—it was on the night that she died. I came as usual to undress
her, and, as I entered the bed-chamber, I heard the sound of music from
the oriel, and perceiving it was my lady’s, who was sitting there, I
stepped softly to the door, which stood a little open, to listen; for
the music—though it was mournful—was so sweet! There I saw her, with
the lute in her hand, looking upwards, and the tears fell upon her
cheeks, while she sung a vesper hymn, so soft, and so solemn! and her
voice trembled, as it were, and then she would stop for a moment, and
wipe away her tears, and go on again, lower than before. O! I had often
listened to my lady, but never heard anything so sweet as this; it made
me cry, almost, to hear it. She had been at prayers, I fancy, for there
was the book open on the table beside her—aye, and there it lies open
still! Pray, let us leave the oriel, ma’amselle,” added Dorothée, “this
is a heart-breaking place!”

Having returned into the chamber, she desired to look once more upon
the bed, when, as they came opposite to the open door, leading into the
saloon, Emily, in the partial gleam, which the lamp threw into it,
thought she saw something glide along into the obscurer part of the
room.