While Dorothee 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. Dorothee 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 any thing 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 Dorothee, '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. Her spirits had been much affected by the surrounding scene, or it
is probable this circumstance, whether real or imaginary, would not have
affected her in the degree it did; but she endeavoured to conceal her
emotion from Dorothee, who, however, observing her countenance change,
enquired if she was ill. 'Let us go,' said Emily, faintly, 'the air of these rooms is
unwholesome;' but, when she attempted to do so, considering that she
must pass through the apartment where the phantom of her terror had
appeared, this terror increased, and, too faint to support herself, she
sad down on the side of the bed.
Dorothee, believing that she was only affected by a consideration of the
melancholy catastrophe, which had happened on this spot, endeavoured
to cheer her; and then, as they sat together on the bed, she began to
relate other particulars concerning it, and this without reflecting,
that it might increase Emily's emotion, but because they were
particularly interesting to herself. 'A little before my lady's death,'
said she, 'when the pains were gone off, she called me to her, and
stretching out her hand to me, I sat down just there--where the curtain
falls upon the bed. How well I remember her look at the time--death
was in it!--I can almost fancy I see her now.--There she lay,
ma'amselle--her face was upon the pillow there! This black counterpane
was not upon the bed then; it was laid on, after her death, and she was
laid out upon it.'