“It is strange,” said Emily, “but there are moments, when her countenance has appeared familiar to my memory! You will think me fanciful, and I think myself so, for I certainly never saw sister Agnes, before I came to this convent, and I must, therefore, have seen some person, whom she strongly resembles, though of this I have no recollection.”
“You have been interested by the deep melancholy of her countenance,” said Frances, “and its impression has probably deluded your imagination; for I might as reasonably think I perceive a likeness between you and Agnes, as you, that you have seen her anywhere but in this convent, since this has been her place of refuge, for nearly as many years as make your age.”
“Indeed!” said Emily.
“Yes,” rejoined Frances, “and why does that circumstance excite your surprise?”
Emily did not appear to notice this question, but remained thoughtful, for a few moments, and then said, “It was about that same period that the Marchioness de Villeroi expired.”
“That is an odd remark,” said Frances.
Emily, recalled from her reverie, smiled, and gave the conversation another turn, but it soon came back to the subject of the unhappy nun, and Emily remained in the cell of sister Frances, till the midnight bell aroused her; when, apologising for having interrupted the sister’s repose, till this late hour, they quitted the cell together. Emily returned to her chamber, and the nun, bearing a glimmering taper, went to her devotion in the chapel.
Several days followed, during which Emily saw neither the Count, nor any of his family; and, when, at length, he appeared, she remarked, with concern, that his air was unusually disturbed.
“My spirits are harassed,” said he, in answer to her anxious enquiries, “and I mean to change my residence, for a little while, an experiment, which, I hope, will restore my mind to its usual tranquillity. My daughter and myself will accompany the Baron St. Foix to his château. It lies in a valley of the Pyrenees, that opens towards Gascony, and I have been thinking, Emily, that, when you set out for La Vallée, we may go part of the way together; it would be a satisfaction to me to guard you towards your home.”
She thanked the Count for his friendly consideration, and lamented, that the necessity for her going first to Toulouse would render this plan impracticable. “But, when you are at the Baron’s residence,” she added, “you will be only a short journey from La Vallée, and I think, sir, you will not leave the country without visiting me; it is unnecessary to say with what pleasure I should receive you and the Lady Blanche.”
“I do not doubt it,” replied the Count, “and I will not deny myself and Blanche the pleasure of visiting you, if your affairs should allow you to be at La Vallée, about the time when we can meet you there.”
When Emily said that she should hope to see the Countess also, she was not sorry to learn that this lady was going, accompanied by Mademoiselle Bearn, to pay a visit, for a few weeks, to a family in lower Languedoc.
The Count, after some further conversation on his intended journey and on the arrangement of Emily’s, took leave; and many days did not succeed this visit, before a second letter from M. Quesnel informed her, that he was then at Toulouse, that La Vallée was at liberty, and that he wished her to set off for the former place, where he awaited her arrival, with all possible dispatch, since his own affairs pressed him to return to Gascony. Emily did not hesitate to obey him, and, having taken an affecting leave of the Count’s family, in which M. Du Pont was still included, and of her friends at the convent, she set out for Toulouse, attended by the unhappy Annette, and guarded by a steady servant of the Count.
XLVIII
Lull’d in the countless chambers of the brain,
Pleasures of Memory
Our thoughts are link’d by many a hidden chain:
Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
Emily pursued her journey, without any accident, along the plains of Languedoc towards the northwest; and, on this her return to Toulouse, which she had last left with Madame Montoni, she thought much on the melancholy fate of her aunt, who, but for her own imprudence, might now have been living in happiness there! Montoni, too, often rose to her fancy, such as she had seen him in his days of triumph, bold, spirited and commanding; such also as she had since beheld him in his days of vengeance; and now, only a few short months had passed—and he had no longer the power, or the will to afflict;—he had become a clod of earth, and his life was vanished like a shadow! Emily could have wept at his fate, had she not remembered his crimes; for that of her unfortunate aunt she did weep, and all sense of her errors was overcome by the recollection of her misfortunes.
Other thoughts and other emotions succeeded, as Emily drew near the well-known scenes of her early love, and considered, that Valancourt was lost to her and to himself, forever. At length, she came to the brow of the hill, whence, on her departure for Italy, she had given a farewell look to this beloved landscape, amongst whose woods and fields she had so often walked with Valancourt, and where he was then to inhabit, when she would be far, far away! She saw, once more, that chain of the Pyrenees, which
