A servant now appeared with Annette, and conducted Emily to her chamber,
which was in a remote part of the castle, and at the very end of the
corridor, from whence the suite of apartments opened, through which they
had been wandering. The lonely aspect of her room made Emily unwilling
that Annette should leave her immediately, and the dampness of it
chilled her with more than fear. She begged Caterina, the servant of the
castle, to bring some wood and light a fire.
'Aye, lady, it's many a year since a fire was lighted here,' said
Caterina. 'You need not tell us that, good woman,' said Annette; 'every room in
the castle feels like a well. I wonder how you contrive to live here;
for my part, I wish myself at Venice again.' Emily waved her hand for
Caterina to fetch the wood.
'I wonder, ma'am, why they call this the double chamber?' said Annette,
while Emily surveyed it in silence and saw that it was lofty and
spacious, like the others she had seen, and, like many of them, too, had
its walls lined with dark larch-wood. The bed and other furniture was
very ancient, and had an air of gloomy grandeur, like all that she
had seen in the castle. One of the high casements, which she opened,
overlooked a rampart, but the view beyond was hid in darkness.
In the presence of Annette, Emily tried to support her spirits, and to
restrain the tears, which, every now and then, came to her eyes. She
wished much to enquire when Count Morano was expected at the castle,
but an unwillingness to ask unnecessary questions, and to mention family
concerns to a servant, withheld her. Meanwhile, Annette's thoughts were
engaged upon another subject: she dearly loved the marvellous, and
had heard of a circumstance, connected with the castle, that highly
gratified this taste. Having been enjoined not to mention it, her
inclination to tell it was so strong, that she was every instant on the
point of speaking what she had heard. Such a strange circumstance, too,
and to be obliged to conceal it, was a severe punishment; but she knew,
that Montoni might impose one much severer, and she feared to incur it
by offending him.
Caterina now brought the wood, and its bright blaze dispelled, for a
while, the gloom of the chamber. She told Annette, that her lady
had enquired for her, and Emily was once again left to her own sad
reflections. Her heart was not yet hardened against the stern manners
of Montoni, and she was nearly as much shocked now, as she had been when
she first witnessed them. The tenderness and affection, to which she had
been accustomed, till she lost her parents, had made her particularly
sensible to any degree of unkindness, and such a reverse as this no
apprehension had prepared her to support.