The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe (adult books to read .txt) 📕

As she inspired the pure breeze, health spread a deeper blush upon her countenance, and pleasure danced in her eyes.

‘Who could first invent convents!’ said she, ‘and who could first persuade people to go into them? and to make religion a pretence, too, where all that should inspire it, is so carefully shut out! God is best pleased with the homage of a grateful heart, and, when we view his glories, we feel most grateful. I never felt so much devotion, during the many dull years I was in the convent, as I have done in the few hours, that I have been here, where I need only look on all around me—to adore God in my inmost heart!’

Saying this, she left the window, bounded along the gallery, and, in the next moment, was in the breakfast room, where the Count was already seated. The cheerfulness of a bright sunshine had dispersed the melancholy glooms of his reflections, a pleasant smile was on his countenance, and he spoke in an enlivening voice to Blanche, whose heart echoed back the tones. Henri and, soon after, the Countess with Mademoiselle Bearn appeared, and the whole party seemed to acknowledge the influence of the scene; even the Countess was so much reanimated as to receive the civilities of her husband with complacency, and but once forgot her good-humour, which was when she asked whether they had any neighbours, who were likely to make THIS

BARBAROUS SPOT more tolerable, and whether the Count believed it possible for her to exist here, without some amusement?

Soon after breakfast the party dispersed; the Count, ordering his steward to attend him in the library, went to survey the condition of his premises, and to visit some of his tenants; Henri hastened with alacrity to the shore to examine a boat, that was to bear them on a little voyage in the evening and to superintend the adjustment of a silk awning; while the Countess, attended by Mademoiselle Bearn, retired to an apartment on the modern side of the chateau, which was fitted up with airy elegance; and, as the windows opened upon balconies, that fronted the sea, she was there saved from a view of the HORRID Pyrenees. Here, while she reclined on a sofa, and, casting her languid eyes over the ocean, which appeared beyond the wood-tops, indulged in the luxuries of ENNUI, her companion read aloud a sentimental novel, on some fashionable system of philosophy, for the Countess was herself somewhat of a PHILOSOPHER, especially as to INFIDELITY, and among a certain circle her opinions were waited for with impatience, and received as doctrines.

The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, hastened to indulge, amidst the wild wood-walks around the chateau, her new enthusiasm, where, as she wandered under the shades, her gay spirits gradually yielded to pensive complacency. Now, she moved with solemn steps, beneath the gloom of thickly interwoven branches, where the fresh dew still hung upon every flower, that peeped from among the grass; and now tripped sportively along the path, on which the sunbeams darted and the checquered foliage trembled—where the tender greens of the beech, the acacia and the mountain-ash, mingling with the solemn tints of the cedar, the pine and cypress, exhibited as fine a contrast of colouring, as the majestic oak and oriental plane did of form, to the feathery lightness of the cork tree and the waving grace of the poplar.

Having reached a rustic seat, within a deep recess of the woods, she rested awhile, and, as her eyes caught, through a distant opening, a glimpse of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, with the white sail, gliding on its bosom, or of the broad mountain, glowing beneath the mid-day sun, her mind experienced somewhat of that exquisite delight, which awakens the fancy, and leads to poetry. The hum of bees alone broke the stillness around her, as, with other insects of various hues, they sported gaily in the shade, or sipped sweets from the fresh flowers: and, while Blanche watched a butter-fly, flitting from bud to bud, she indulged herself in imagining the pleasures of its short day, till she had composed the following stanzas.

THE BUTTER-FLY TO HIS LOVE

What bowery dell, with fragrant breath, Courts thee to stay thy airy flight; Nor seek again the purple heath,

So oft the scene of gay delight?

Long I’ve watch’d i’ the lily’s bell, Whose whiteness stole the morning’s beam; No fluttering sounds thy coming tell, No waving wings, at distance, gleam.

But fountain fresh, nor breathing grove, Nor sunny mead, nor blossom’d tree,

So sweet as lily’s cell shall prove,—

The bower of constant love and me.

When April buds begin to blow,

The prim-rose, and the hare-bell blue, That on the verdant moss bank grow,

With violet cups, that weep in dew;

When wanton gales breathe through the shade, And shake the blooms, and steal their sweets, And swell the song of ev’ry glade,

I range the forest’s green retreats: There, through the tangled wood-walks play, Where no rude urchin paces near,

Where sparely peeps the sultry day,

And light dews freshen all the air.

High on a sunbeam oft I sport

O’er bower and fountain, vale and hill; Oft ev’ry blushing flow’ret court,

That hangs its head o’er winding rill.

But these I’ll leave to be thy guide, And shew thee, where the jasmine spreads Her snowy leaf, where may-flow’rs hide, And rose-buds rear their peeping heads.

With me the mountain’s summit scale, And taste the wild-thyme’s honied bloom, Whose fragrance, floating on the gale, Oft leads me to the cedar’s gloom.

Yet, yet, no sound comes in the breeze!

What shade thus dares to tempt thy stay?

Once, me alone thou wish’d to please, And with me only thou wouldst stray.

But, while thy long delay I mourn,

And chide the sweet shades for their guile, Thou may’st be true, and they forlorn, And fairy favours court thy smile.

The tiny queen of fairyland,

Who knows thy speed, hath sent thee far, To bring, or ere the night-watch stand, Rich essence for her shadowy car:

Perchance her acorn-cups to fill

With nectar from the Indian rose,

Or gather, near some haunted rill,

May-dews, that lull to sleep Love’s woes: Or, o’er the mountains, bade thee fly, To tell her fairy love to speed,

When ev’ning steals upon the sky,

To dance along the twilight mead.

But now I see thee sailing low,

Gay as the brightest flow’rs of spring, Thy coat of blue and jet I know,

And well thy gold and purple wing.

Borne on the gale, thou com’st to me; O! welcome, welcome to my home!

In lily’s cell we’ll live in glee,

Together o’er the mountains roam!

When Lady Blanche returned to the chateau, instead of going to the apartment of the Countess, she amused herself with wandering over that part of the edifice, which she had not yet examined, of which the most antient first attracted her curiosity; for, though what she had seen of the modern was gay and elegant, there was something in the former more interesting to her imagination. Having passed up the great staircase, and through the oak gallery, she entered upon a long suite of chambers, whose walls were either hung with tapestry, or wainscoted with cedar, the furniture of which looked almost as antient as the rooms themselves; the spacious fire-places, where no mark of social cheer remained, presented an image of cold desolation; and the whole suite had so much the air of neglect and desertion, that it seemed, as if the venerable persons, whose portraits hung upon the walls, had been the last to inhabit them.

On leaving these rooms, she found herself in another gallery, one end of which was terminated by a back staircase, and the other by a door, that seemed to communicate with the north-side of the chateau, but which being fastened, she descended the staircase, and, opening a door in the wall, a few steps down, found herself in a small square room, that formed part of the west turret of the castle. Three windows presented each a separate and beautiful prospect; that to the north, overlooking Languedoc; another to the west, the hills ascending towards the Pyrenees, whose awful summits crowned the landscape; and a third, fronting the south, gave the Mediterranean, and a part of the wild shores of Rousillon, to the eye.

Having left the turret, and descended the narrow staircase, she found herself in a dusky passage, where she wandered, unable to find her way, till impatience yielded to apprehension, and she called for assistance. Presently steps approached, and light glimmered through a door at the other extremity of the passage, which was opened with caution by some person, who did not venture beyond it, and whom Blanche observed in silence, till the door was closing, when she called aloud, and, hastening towards it, perceived the old housekeeper. ‘Dear ma’amselle! is it you?’ said Dorothee, ‘How could you find your way hither?’ Had Blanche been less occupied by her own fears, she would probably have observed the strong expressions of terror and surprise on Dorothee’s countenance, who now led her through a long succession of passages and rooms, that looked as if they had been uninhabited for a century, till they reached that appropriated to the housekeeper, where Dorothee entreated she would sit down and take refreshment. Blanche accepted the sweet meats, offered to her, mentioned her discovery of the pleasant turret, and her wish to appropriate it to her own use. Whether Dorothee’s taste was not so sensible to the beauties of landscape as her young lady’s, or that the constant view of lovely scenery had deadened it, she forbore to praise the subject of Blanche’s enthusiasm, which, however, her silence did not repress. To Lady Blanche’s enquiry of whither the door she had found fastened at the end of the gallery led, she replied, that it opened to a suite of rooms, which had not been entered, during many years, ‘For,’ added she, ‘my late lady died in one of them, and I could never find in my heart to go into them since.’

Blanche, though she wished to see these chambers, forbore, on observing that Dorothee’s eyes were filled with tears, to ask her to unlock them, and, soon after, went to dress for dinner, at which the whole party met in good spirits and good humour, except the Countess, whose vacant mind, overcome by the languor of idleness, would neither suffer her to be happy herself, or to contribute to the happiness of others. Mademoiselle Bearn, attempting to be witty, directed her badinage against Henri, who answered, because he could not well avoid it, rather than from any inclination to notice her, whose liveliness sometimes amused, but whose conceit and insensibility often disgusted him.

The cheerfulness, with which Blanche rejoined the party, vanished, on her reaching the margin of the sea; she gazed with apprehension upon the immense expanse of waters, which, at a distance, she had beheld only with delight and astonishment, and it was by a strong effort, that she so far overcame her fears as to follow her father into the boat.

As she silently surveyed the vast horizon, bending round the distant verge of the ocean, an emotion of sublimest rapture struggled to overcome a sense of personal danger. A light breeze played on the water, and on the silk awning of the boat, and waved the foliage of the receding woods, that crowned the cliffs, for many miles, and which the Count surveyed with the pride of conscious property, as well as with the eye of taste.

At some distance, among these woods, stood a pavilion, which had once been the scene of social gaiety, and which