It was over some of the last pathetic letters of the Marchioness, that
St. Aubert was weeping, when he was observed by Emily, on the eve of
her departure from La Vallee, and it was her picture, which he had so
tenderly caressed. Her disastrous death may account for the emotion he
had betrayed, on hearing her named by La Voisin, and for his request to
be interred near the monument of the Villerois, where her remains were
deposited, but not those of her husband, who was buried, where he died,
in the north of France.
The confessor, who attended St. Aubert in his last moments, recollected
him to be the brother of the late Marchioness, when St. Aubert, from
tenderness to Emily, had conjured him to conceal the circumstance, and
to request that the abbess, to whose care he particularly recommended
her, would do the same; a request, which had been exactly observed.
Laurentini, on her arrival in France, had carefully concealed her
name and family, and, the better to disguise her real history, had,
on entering the convent, caused the story to be circulated, which had
imposed on sister Frances, and it is probable, that the abbess, who did
not preside in the convent, at the time of her noviciation, was also
entirely ignorant of the truth. The deep remorse, that seized on
the mind of Laurentini, together with the sufferings of disappointed
passion, for she still loved the Marquis, again unsettled her
intellects, and, after the first paroxysms of despair were passed, a
heavy and silent melancholy had settled upon her spirits, which suffered
few interruptions from fits of phrensy, till the time of her death.
During many years, it had been her only amusement to walk in the woods
near the monastery, in the solitary hours of night, and to play upon
a favourite instrument, to which she sometimes joined the delightful
melody of her voice, in the most solemn and melancholy airs of her
native country, modulated by all the energetic feeling, that dwelt in
her heart. The physician, who had attended her, recommended it to the
superior to indulge her in this whim, as the only means of soothing her
distempered fancy; and she was suffered to walk in the lonely hours of
night, attended by the servant, who had accompanied her from Italy; but,
as the indulgence transgressed against the rules of the convent, it was
kept as secret as possible; and thus the mysterious music of Laurentini
had combined with other circumstances, to produce a report, that not
only the chateau, but its neighbourhood, was haunted.
Soon after her entrance into this holy community, and before she had
shewn any symptoms of insanity there, she made a will, in which, after
bequeathing a considerable legacy to the convent, she divided the
remainder of her personal property, which her jewels made very valuable,
between the wife of Mons. Bonnac, who was an Italian lady and her
relation, and the nearest surviving relative of the late Marchioness
de Villeroi. As Emily St. Aubert was not only the nearest, but the sole
relative, this legacy descended to her, and thus explained to her the
whole mystery of her father's conduct.