The Mysteries of Udolpho

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.