Chapter: CHAPTER XI



 Who rears the bloody hand?
     SAYERS

Emily remained in her chamber, on the following morning, without
receiving any notice from Montoni, or seeing a human being, except the
armed men, who sometimes passed on the terrace below. Having tasted no
food since the dinner of the preceding day, extreme faintness made her
feel the necessity of quitting the asylum of her apartment to obtain
refreshment, and she was also very anxious to procure liberty for
Annette. Willing, however, to defer venturing forth, as long as
possible, and considering, whether she should apply to Montoni, or to
the compassion of some other person, her excessive anxiety concerning
her aunt, at length, overcame her abhorrence of his presence, and she
determined to go to him, and to entreat, that he would suffer her to see
Madame Montoni.

Meanwhile, it was too certain, from the absence of Annette, that some
accident had befallen Ludovico, and that she was still in confinement;
Emily, therefore, resolved also to visit the chamber, where she had
spoken to her, on the preceding night, and, if the poor girl was yet
there, to inform Montoni of her situation.

It was near noon, before she ventured from her apartment, and went
first to the south gallery, whither she passed without meeting a single
person, or hearing a sound, except, now and then, the echo of a distant
footstep.

It was unnecessary to call Annette, whose lamentations were audible
upon the first approach to the gallery, and who, bewailing her own and
Ludovico's fate, told Emily, that she should certainly be starved to
death, if she was not let out immediately. Emily replied, that she
was going to beg her release of Montoni; but the terrors of hunger now
yielded to those of the Signor, and, when Emily left her, she was loudly
entreating, that her place of refuge might be concealed from him.

As Emily drew near the great hall, the sounds she heard and the people
she met in the passages renewed her alarm. The latter, however, were
peaceable, and did not interrupt her, though they looked earnestly at
her, as she passed, and sometimes spoke. On crossing the hall towards
the cedar room, where Montoni usually sat, she perceived, on the
pavement, fragments of swords, some tattered garments stained with
blood, and almost expected to have seen among them a dead body; but
from such a spectacle she was, at present, spared. As she approached
the room, the sound of several voices issued from within, and a dread
of appearing before many strangers, as well as of irritating Montoni
by such an intrusion, made her pause and falter from her purpose. She
looked up through the long arcades of the hall, in search of a servant,
who might bear a message, but no one appeared, and the urgency of what
she had to request made her still linger near the door. The voices
within were not in contention, though she distinguished those of several
of the guests of the preceding day; but still her resolution failed,
whenever she would have tapped at the door, and she had determined to
walk in the hall, till some person should appear, who might call Montoni
from the room, when, as she turned from the door, it was suddenly opened
by himself. Emily trembled, and was confused, while he almost started
with surprise, and all the terrors of his countenance unfolded
themselves. She forgot all she would have said, and neither enquired for
her aunt, or entreated for Annette, but stood silent and embarrassed.

After closing the door he reproved her for a meanness, of which she had
not been guilty, and sternly questioned her what she had overheard; an
accusation, which revived her recollection so far, that she assured
him she had not come thither with an intention to listen to his
conversation, but to entreat his compassion for her aunt, and for
Annette. Montoni seemed to doubt this assertion, for he regarded her
with a scrutinizing look; and the doubt evidently arose from no trifling
interest. Emily then further explained herself, and concluded with
entreating him to inform her, where her aunt was placed, and to permit,
that she might visit her; but he looked upon her only with a malignant
smile, which instantaneously confirmed her worst fears for her aunt,
and, at that moment, she had not courage to renew her entreaties.

'For Annette,' said he,--'if you go to Carlo, he will release the
girl; the foolish fellow, who shut her up, died yesterday.' Emily
shuddered.--'But my aunt, Signor'--said she, 'O tell me of my aunt!'

'She is taken care of,' replied Montoni hastily, 'I have no time to
answer idle questions.'

He would have passed on, but Emily, in a voice of agony, that could not
be wholly resisted, conjured him to tell her, where Madame Montoni was;
while he paused, and she anxiously watched his countenance, a trumpet
sounded, and, in the next moment, she heard the heavy gates of the
portal open, and then the clattering of horses' hoofs in the court, with
the confusion of many voices. She stood for a moment hesitating whether
she should follow Montoni, who, at the sound of the trumpet, had passed
through the hall, and, turning her eyes whence it came, she saw through
the door, that opened beyond a long perspective of arches into the
courts, a party of horsemen, whom she judged, as well as the distance
and her embarrassment would allow, to be the same she had seen depart, a
few days before. But she staid not to scrutinize, for, when the trumpet
sounded again, the chevaliers rushed out of the cedar room, and men came
running into the hall from every quarter of the castle. Emily once more
hurried for shelter to her own apartment. Thither she was still pursued
by images of horror. She re-considered Montoni's manner and words, when
he had spoken of his wife, and they served only to confirm her most
terrible suspicions. Tears refused any longer to relieve her distress,
and she had sat for a considerable time absorbed in thought, when a
knocking at the chamber door aroused her, on opening which she found old
Carlo.

'Dear young lady,' said he, 'I have been so flurried, I never once
thought of you till just now. I have brought you some fruit and wine,
and I am sure you must stand in need of them by this time.'

'Thank you, Carlo,' said Emily, 'this is very good of you Did the Signor
remind you of me?'

'No, Signora,' replied Carlo, 'his excellenza has business enough on his
hands.' Emily then renewed her enquiries, concerning Madame Montoni, but
Carlo had been employed at the other end of the castle, during the time,
that she was removed, and he had heard nothing since, concerning her.

While he spoke, Emily looked steadily at him, for she scarcely knew
whether he was really ignorant, or concealed his knowledge of the truth
from a fear of offending his master. To several questions, concerning
the contentions of yesterday, he gave very limited answers; but told,
that the disputes were now amicably settled, and that the Signor
believed himself to have been mistaken in his suspicions of his guests.
'The fighting was about that, Signora,' said Carlo; 'but I trust I shall
never see such another day in this castle, though strange things are
about to be done.'

On her enquiring his meaning, 'Ah, Signora!' added he, 'it is not for me
to betray secrets, or tell all I think, but time will tell.'

She then desired him to release Annette, and, having described the
chamber in which the poor girl was confined, he promised to obey her
immediately, and was departing, when she remembered to ask who were the
persons just arrived. Her late conjecture was right; it was Verezzi,
with his party.

Her spirits were somewhat soothed by this short conversation with Carlo;
for, in her present circumstances, it afforded some comfort to hear the
accents of compassion, and to meet the look of sympathy.

An hour passed before Annette appeared, who then came weeping and
sobbing. 'O Ludovico--Ludovico!' cried she.

'My poor Annette!' said Emily, and made her sit down.

'Who could have foreseen this, ma'amselle? O miserable, wretched,
day--that ever I should live to see it!' and she continued to moan and
lament, till Emily thought it necessary to check her excess of grief.
'We are continually losing dear friends by death,' said she, with
a sigh, that came from her heart. 'We must submit to the will of
Heaven--our tears, alas! cannot recall the dead!'

Annette took the handkerchief from her face.

'You will meet Ludovico in a better world, I hope,' added Emily.

'Yes--yes,--ma'amselle,' sobbed Annette, 'but I hope I shall meet him
again in this--though he is so wounded!'

'Wounded!' exclaimed Emily, 'does he live?'

'Yes, ma'am, but--but he has a terrible wound, and could not come to
let me out. They thought him dead, at first, and he has not been rightly
himself, till within this hour.'

'Well, Annette, I rejoice to hear he lives.'

'Lives! Holy Saints! why he will not die, surely!'

Emily said she hoped not, but this expression of hope Annette thought
implied fear, and her own increased in proportion, as Emily endeavoured
to encourage her. To enquiries, concerning Madame Montoni, she could
give no satisfactory answers.

'I quite forgot to ask among the servants, ma'amselle,' said she, 'for I
could think of nobody but poor Ludovico.'

Annette's grief was now somewhat assuaged, and Emily sent her to make
enquiries, concerning her lady, of whom, however, she could obtain no
intelligence, some of the people she spoke with being really ignorant of
her fate, and others having probably received orders to conceal it.

This day passed with Emily in continued grief and anxiety for her aunt;
but she was unmolested by any notice from Montoni; and, now that Annette
was liberated, she obtained food, without exposing herself to danger, or
impertinence.

Two following days passed in the same manner, unmarked by any
occurrence, during which she obtained no information of Madame Montoni.
On the evening of the second, having dismissed Annette, and retired to
bed, her mind became haunted by the most dismal images, such as her long
anxiety, concerning her aunt, suggested; and, unable to forget herself,
for a moment, or to vanquish the phantoms, that tormented her, she
rose from her bed, and went to one of the casements of her chamber, to
breathe a freer air.

All without was silent and dark, unless that could be called light,
which was only the faint glimmer of the stars, shewing imperfectly
the outline of the mountains, the western towers of the castle and the
ramparts below, where a solitary sentinel was pacing. What an image of
repose did this scene present! The fierce and terrible passions, too,
which so often agitated the inhabitants of this edifice, seemed now
hushed in sleep;--those mysterious workings, that rouse the elements of
man's nature into tempest--were calm. Emily's heart was not so; but her
sufferings, though deep, partook of the gentle character of her mind.
Hers was a silent anguish, weeping, yet enduring; not the wild energy of
passion, inflaming imagination, bearing down the barriers of reason and
living in a world of its own.

The air refreshed her, and she continued at the casement, looking on the
shadowy scene, over which the planets burned with a clear light, amid
the deep blue aether, as they silently moved in their destined course.
She remembered how often she had gazed on them with her dear father, how
often he had pointed out their way in the heavens, and explained their
laws; and these reflections led to others, which, in an almost equal
degree, awakened her grief and astonishment.

They brought a retrospect of all the strange and mournful events, which
had occurred since she lived in peace with her parents. And to Emily,
who had been so tenderly educated, so tenderly loved, who once knew
only goodness and happiness--to her, the late events and her present
situation--in a foreign land--in a remote castle--surrounded by vice
and violence--seemed more like the visions of a distempered imagination,
than the circumstances of truth. She wept to think of what her parents
would have suffered, could they have foreseen the events of her future
life.

While she raised her streaming eyes to heaven, she observed the same
planet, which she had seen in Languedoc, on the night, preceding her
father's death, rise above the eastern towers of the castle, while she
remembered the conversation, which has passed, concerning the probable
state of departed souls; remembered, also, the solemn music she had
heard, and to which the tenderness of her spirits had, in spite of her
reason, given a superstitious meaning. At these recollections she wept
again, and continued musing, when suddenly the notes of sweet music
passed on the air. A superstitious dread stole over her; she stood
listening, for some moments, in trembling expectation, and then
endeavoured to re-collect her thoughts, and to reason herself into
composure; but human reason cannot establish her laws on subjects, lost
in the obscurity of imagination, any more than the eye can ascertain the
form of objects, that only glimmer through the dimness of night.

Her surprise, on hearing such soothing and delicious sounds, was, at
least, justifiable; for it was long--very long, since she had listened
to any thing like melody. The fierce trumpet and the shrill fife were
the only instruments she had heard, since her arrival at Udolpho.

When her mind was somewhat more composed, she tried to ascertain from
what quarter the sounds proceeded, and thought they came from below; but
whether from a room of the castle, or from the terrace, she could not
with certainty judge. Fear and surprise now yielded to the enchantment
of a strain, that floated on the silent night, with the most soft
and melancholy sweetness. Suddenly, it seemed removed to a distance,
trembled faintly, and then entirely ceased.

She continued to listen, sunk in that pleasing repose, which soft music
leaves on the mind--but it came no more. Upon this strange circumstance
her thoughts were long engaged, for strange it certainly was to hear
music at midnight, when every inhabitant of the castle had long since
retired to rest, and in a place, where nothing like harmony had been
heard before, probably, for many years. Long-suffering had made her
spirits peculiarly sensible to terror, and liable to be affected by the
illusions of superstition.--It now seemed to her, as if her dead father
had spoken to her in that strain, to inspire her with comfort and
confidence, on the subject, which had then occupied her mind. Yet reason
told her, that this was a wild conjecture, and she was inclined to
dismiss it; but, with the inconsistency so natural, when imagination
guides the thoughts, she then wavered towards a belief as wild. She
remembered the singular event, connected with the castle, which had
given it into the possession of its present owner; and, when she
considered the mysterious manner, in which its late possessor had
disappeared, and that she had never since been heard of, her mind was
impressed with an high degree of solemn awe; so that, though there
appeared no clue to connect that event with the late music, she was
inclined fancifully to think they had some relation to each other. At
this conjecture, a sudden chillness ran through her frame; she looked
fearfully upon the duskiness of her chamber, and the dead silence, that
prevailed there, heightened to her fancy its gloomy aspect.

At length, she left the casement, but her steps faltered, as she
approached the bed, and she stopped and looked round. The single lamp,
that burned in her spacious chamber, was expiring; for a moment, she
shrunk from the darkness beyond; and then, ashamed of the weakness,
which, however, she could not wholly conquer, went forward to the bed,
where her mind did not soon know the soothings of sleep. She still mused
on the late occurrence, and looked with anxiety to the next night, when,
at the same hour, she determined to watch whether the music returned.
'If those sounds were human,' said she, 'I shall probably hear them
again.'

 Em wakes up from a little nappy-nap and decides to finally ask Montoni about letting Annette out of the room. Nice of her to be in such a hurry. She sees remnants of the battle strewn all about. Em runs into Montoni in the hallway. He's worried that she overheard something he was saying, but promises to get Annette out of the room. When Annette finally gets out, she's all shaken up about Ludovico. It seems he's received a near-mortal wound. Em's indulging in her favorite habit when she hears some strange music from afar. It's actually comforting to the poor girl, who's reminded of her dearly departed dad.

