For a moment, she continued silently observing it, till, ashamed of her ridiculous apprehensions, she recollected courage enough to demand who was there.'O my young lady, is it you?' said the old housekeeper, who was come to shut the windows, 'I am glad it is you.'
The manner, in which she spoke this, with a faint breath, rather surprised Blanche, who said, 'You seemed frightened, Dorothee, what is the matter?'
'No, not frightened, ma'amselle,' replied Dorothee, hesitating and trying to appear composed, 'but I am old, and--a little matter startles me.' The Lady Blanche smiled at the distinction.'I am glad, that my lord the Count is come to live at the chateau, ma'amselle,' continued Dorothee, 'for it has been many a year deserted, and dreary enough; now, the place will look a little as it used to do, when my poor lady was alive.' Blanche enquired how long it was, since the Marchioness died? 'Alas! my lady,' replied Dorothee, 'so long--that I have ceased to count the years! The place, to my mind, has mourned ever since, and I am sure my lord's vassals have! But you have lost yourself, ma'amselle,--shall I shew you to the other side of the chateau?'
Blanche enquired how long this part of the edifice had been built.
'Soon after my lord's marriage, ma'am,' replied Dorothee.'The place was large enough without this addition, for many rooms of the old building were even then never made use of, and my lord had a princely household too; but he thought the antient mansion gloomy, and gloomy enough it is!' Lady Blanche now desired to be shewn to the inhabited part of the chateau; and, as the passages were entirely dark, Dorothee conducted her along the edge of the lawn to the opposite side of the edifice, where, a door opening into the great hall, she was met by Mademoiselle Bearn.'Where have you been so long?' said she, 'I had begun to think some wonderful adventure had befallen you, and that the giant of this enchanted castle, or the ghost, which, no doubt, haunts it, had conveyed you through a trap-door into some subterranean vault, whence you was never to return.'
'No,' replied Blanche, laughingly, 'you seem to love adventures so well, that I leave them for you to achieve.'
'Well, I am willing to achieve them, provided I am allowed to describe them.'
'My dear Mademoiselle Bearn,' said Henri, as he met her at the door of the parlour, 'no ghost of these days would be so savage as to impose silence on you.Our ghosts are more civilized than to condemn a lady to a purgatory severer even, than their own, be it what it may.'
Mademoiselle Bearn replied only by a laugh; and, the Count now entering the room, supper was served, during which he spoke little, frequently appeared to be abstracted from the company, and more than once remarked, that the place was greatly altered, since he had last seen it.'Many years have intervened since that period,' said he;'and, though the grand features of the scenery admit of no change, they impress me with sensations very different from those I formerly experienced.'
'Did these scenes, sir,' said Blanche, 'ever appear more lovely, than they do now? To me this seems hardly possible.' The Count, regarding her with a melancholy smile, said, 'They once were as delightful to me, as they are now to you; the landscape is not changed, but time has changed me; from my mind the illusion, which gave spirit to the colouring of nature, is fading fast! If you live, my dear Blanche, to re-visit this spot, at the distance of many years, you will, perhaps, remember and understand the feelings of your father.'
Lady Blanche, affected by these words, remained silent; she looked forward to the period, which the Count anticipated, and considering, that he, who now spoke, would then probably be no more, her eyes, bent to the ground, were filed with tears.She gave her hand to her father, who, smiling affectionately, rose from his chair, and went to a window to conceal his emotion.
The fatigues of the day made the party separate at an early hour, when Blanche retired through a long oak gallery to her chamber, whose spacious and lofty walls, high antiquated casements, and, what was the effect of these, its gloomy air, did not reconcile her to its remote situation, in this antient building.The furniture, also, was of antient date; the bed was of blue damask, trimmed with tarnished gold lace, and its lofty tester rose in the form of a canopy, whence the curtains descended, like those of such tents as are sometimes represented in old pictures, and, indeed, much resembling those, exhibited on the faded tapestry, with which the chamber was hung.To Blanche, every object here was matter of curiosity; and, taking the light from her woman to examine the tapestry, she perceived, that it represented scenes from the wars of Troy, though the almost colourless worsted now mocked the glowing actions they once had painted.She laughed at the ludicrous absurdity she observed, till, recollecting, that the hands, which had wove it, were, like the poet, whose thoughts of fire they had attempted to express, long since mouldered into dust, a train of melancholy ideas passed over her mind, and she almost wept.
Having given her woman a strict injunction to awaken her, before sun-rise, she dismissed her; and then, to dissipate the gloom, which reflection had cast upon her spirits, opened one of the high casements, and was again cheered by the face of living nature.The shadowy earth, the air, and ocean--all was still.Along the deep serene of the heavens, a few light clouds floated slowly, through whose skirts the stars now seemed to tremble, and now to emerge with purer splendour.Blanche's thoughts arose involuntarily to the Great Author of the sublime objects she contemplated, and she breathed a prayer of finer devotion, than any she had ever uttered beneath the vaulted roof of a cloister.At this casement, she remained till the glooms of midnight were stretched over the prospect.She then retired to her pillow, and, 'with gay visions of to-morrow,' to those sweet slumbers, which health and happy innocence only know.
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.