After dinner, St. Aubert stole from the room to view once more the old
chesnut which Quesnel talked of cutting down. As he stood under its
shade, and looked up among its branches, still luxuriant, and saw here
and there the blue sky trembling between them; the pursuits and events
of his early days crowded fast to his mind, with the figures and
characters of friends--long since gone from the earth; and he now felt
himself to be almost an insulated being, with nobody but his Emily for
his heart to turn to.
He stood lost amid the scenes of years which fancy called up, till the
succession closed with the picture of his dying wife, and he started
away, to forget it, if possible, at the social board.
St. Aubert ordered his carriage at an early hour, and Emily observed,
that he was more than usually silent and dejected on the way home; but
she considered this to be the effect of his visit to a place which spoke
so eloquently of former times, nor suspected that he had a cause of
grief which he concealed from her.
On entering the chateau she felt more depressed than ever, for she more
than ever missed the presence of that dear parent, who, whenever she
had been from home, used to welcome her return with smiles and fondness;
now, all was silent and forsaken.
But what reason and effort may fail to do, time effects. Week after week
passed away, and each, as it passed, stole something from the harshness
of her affliction, till it was mellowed to that tenderness which the
feeling heart cherishes as sacred. St. Aubert, on the contrary, visibly
declined in health; though Emily, who had been so constantly with him,
was almost the last person who observed it. His constitution had never
recovered from the late attack of the fever, and the succeeding shock
it received from Madame St. Aubert's death had produced its present
infirmity. His physician now ordered him to travel; for it was
perceptible that sorrow had seized upon his nerves, weakened as they had
been by the preceding illness; and variety of scene, it was probable,
would, by amusing his mind, restore them to their proper tone.
For some days Emily was occupied in preparations to attend him; and he,
by endeavours to diminish his expences at home during the journey--a
purpose which determined him at length to dismiss his domestics. Emily
seldom opposed her father's wishes by questions or remonstrances, or she
would now have asked why he did not take a servant, and have represented
that his infirm health made one almost necessary. But when, on the eve
of their departure, she found that he had dismissed Jacques, Francis,
and Mary, and detained only Theresa the old housekeeper, she was
extremely surprised, and ventured to ask his reason for having done so.
'To save expences, my dear,' he replied--'we are going on an expensive
excursion.' The physician had prescribed the air of Languedoc and Provence; and St.
Aubert determined, therefore, to travel leisurely along the shores of
the Mediterranean, towards Provence.