'Ever since the death of my lady, madam,' replied Dorothee. 'Why, the place is not haunted, surely?' said Blanche, between jesting
and seriousness. 'I have heard that music almost ever since my dear lady died,' continued
Dorothee, 'and never before then. But that is nothing to some things I
could tell of.' 'Do, pray, tell them, then,' said Lady Blanche, now more in earnest than
in jest. 'I am much interested, for I have heard sister Henriette, and
sister Sophie, in the convent, tell of such strange appearances, which
they themselves had witnessed!'
'You never heard, my lady, I suppose, what made us leave the chateau,
and go and live in a cottage,' said Dorothee. 'Never!' replied Blanche
with impatience. 'Nor the reason, that my lord, the Marquis'--Dorothee checked herself,
hesitated, and then endeavoured to change the topic; but the curiosity
of Blanche was too much awakened to suffer the subject thus easily to
escape her, and she pressed the old house-keeper to proceed with her
account, upon whom, however, no entreaties could prevail; and it was
evident, that she was alarmed for the imprudence, into which she had
already betrayed herself. 'I perceive,' said Emily, smiling, 'that all old mansions are haunted; I
am lately come from a place of wonders; but unluckily, since I left it,
I have heard almost all of them explained.'
Blanche was silent; Dorothee looked grave, and sighed; and Emily felt
herself still inclined to believe more of the wonderful, than she
chose to acknowledge. Just then, she remembered the spectacle she had
witnessed in a chamber of Udolpho, and, by an odd kind of coincidence,
the alarming words, that had accidentally met her eye in the MS. papers,
which she had destroyed, in obedience to the command of her father; and
she shuddered at the meaning they seemed to impart, almost as much as at
the horrible appearance, disclosed by the black veil.
The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, unable to prevail with Dorothee to explain
the subject of her late hints, had desired, on reaching the door, that
terminated the gallery, and which she found fastened on the preceding
day, to see the suite of rooms beyond. 'Dear young lady,' said the
housekeeper, 'I have told you my reason for not opening them; I have
never seen them, since my dear lady died; and it would go hard with me
to see them now. Pray, madam, do not ask me again.'
'Certainly I will not,' replied Blanche, 'if that is really your
objection.' 'Alas! it is,' said the old woman: 'we all loved her well, and I shall
always grieve for her. Time runs round! it is now many years, since she
died; but I remember every thing, that happened then, as if it was but
yesterday. Many things, that have passed of late years, are gone quite
from my memory, while those so long ago, I can see as if in a glass.'
She paused, but afterwards, as they walked up the gallery, added to
Emily, 'this young lady sometimes brings the late Marchioness to my
mind; I can remember, when she looked just as blooming, and very like
her, when she smiles. Poor lady! how gay she was, when she first came to
the chateau!' 'And was she not gay, afterwards?' said Blanche.