Chapter: CHAPTER IX



  Can Music's voice, can Beauty's eye,
  Can Painting's glowing hand supply
  A charm so suited to my mind,
  As blows this hollow gust of wind?
  As drops this little weeping rill,
  Soft tinkling down the moss-grown hill;
 While, through the west, where sinks the crimson day,
 Meek Twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray?
     MASON

Emily, some time after her return to La Vallee, received letters from
her aunt, Madame Cheron, in which, after some common-place condolement
and advice, she invited her to Tholouse, and added, that, as her late
brother had entrusted Emily's EDUCATION to her, she should consider
herself bound to overlook her conduct. Emily, at this time, wished
only to remain at La Vallee, in the scenes of her early happiness, now
rendered infinitely dear to her, as the late residence of those, whom
she had lost for ever, where she could weep unobserved, retrace their
steps, and remember each minute particular of their manners. But she was
equally anxious to avoid the displeasure of Madame Cheron.

Though her affection would not suffer her to question, even a moment,
the propriety of St. Aubert's conduct in appointing Madame Cheron for
her guardian, she was sensible, that this step had made her happiness
depend, in a great degree, on the humour of her aunt. In her reply, she
begged permission to remain, at present, at La Vallee, mentioning the
extreme dejection of her spirits, and the necessity she felt for quiet
and retirement to restore them. These she knew were not to be found at
Madame Cheron's, whose inclinations led her into a life of dissipation,
which her ample fortune encouraged; and, having given her answer, she
felt somewhat more at ease.

In the first days of her affliction, she was visited by Monsieur
Barreaux, a sincere mourner for St. Aubert. 'I may well lament my
friend,' said he, 'for I shall never meet with his resemblance. If I
could have found such a man in what is called society, I should not have
left it.'

M. Barreaux's admiration of her father endeared him extremely to Emily,
whose heart found almost its first relief in conversing of her parents,
with a man, whom she so much revered, and who, though with such an
ungracious appearance, possessed to much goodness of heart and delicacy
of mind.

Several weeks passed away in quiet retirement, and Emily's affliction
began to soften into melancholy. She could bear to read the books she
had before read with her father; to sit in his chair in the library--to
watch the flowers his hand had planted--to awaken the tones of that
instrument his fingers had pressed, and sometimes even to play his
favourite air.

When her mind had recovered from the first shock of affliction,
perceiving the danger of yielding to indolence, and that activity alone
could restore its tone, she scrupulously endeavoured to pass all her
hours in employment. And it was now that she understood the full value
of the education she had received from St. Aubert, for in cultivating
her understanding he had secured her an asylum from indolence, without
recourse to dissipation, and rich and varied amusement and information,
independent of the society, from which her situation secluded her. Nor
were the good effects of this education confined to selfish advantages,
since, St. Aubert having nourished every amiable qualify of her heart,
it now expanded in benevolence to all around her, and taught her, when
she could not remove the misfortunes of others, at least to soften them
by sympathy and tenderness;--a benevolence that taught her to feel for
all, that could suffer.

Madame Cheron returned no answer to Emily's letter, who began to
hope, that she should be permitted to remain some time longer in her
retirement, and her mind had now so far recovered its strength, that she
ventured to view the scenes, which most powerfully recalled the images
of past times. Among these was the fishing-house; and, to indulge still
more the affectionate melancholy of the visit, she took thither her
lute, that she might again hear there the tones, to which St. Aubert and
her mother had so often delighted to listen. She went alone, and at that
still hour of the evening which is so soothing to fancy and to grief.
The last time she had been here she was in company with Monsieur and
Madame St. Aubert, a few days preceding that, on which the latter was
seized with a fatal illness. Now, when Emily again entered the woods,
that surrounded the building, they awakened so forcibly the memory of
former times, that her resolution yielded for a moment to excess of
grief. She stopped, leaned for support against a tree, and wept for some
minutes, before she had recovered herself sufficiently to proceed. The
little path, that led to the building, was overgrown with grass and the
flowers which St. Aubert had scattered carelessly along the border
were almost choked with weeds--the tall thistle--the fox-glove, and the
nettle. She often paused to look on the desolate spot, now so silent and
forsaken, and when, with a trembling hand, she opened the door of the
fishing-house, 'Ah!' said she, 'every thing--every thing remains as when
I left it last--left it with those who never must return!' She went to
a window, that overhung the rivulet, and, leaning over it, with her eyes
fixed on the current, was soon lost in melancholy reverie. The lute
she had brought lay forgotten beside her; the mournful sighing of the
breeze, as it waved the high pines above, and its softer whispers among
the osiers, that bowed upon the banks below, was a kind of music more
in unison with her feelings. It did not vibrate on the chords of
unhappy memory, but was soothing to the heart as the voice of Pity. She
continued to muse, unconscious of the gloom of evening, and that the
sun's last light trembled on the heights above, and would probably have
remained so much longer, if a sudden footstep, without the building,
had not alarmed her attention, and first made her recollect that she was
unprotected. In the next moment, a door opened, and a stranger appeared,
who stopped on perceiving Emily, and then began to apologize for his
intrusion. But Emily, at the sound of his voice, lost her fear in a
stronger emotion: its tones were familiar to her ear, and, though she
could not readily distinguish through the dusk the features of the
person who spoke, she felt a remembrance too strong to be distrusted.

He repeated his apology, and Emily then said something in reply, when
the stranger eagerly advancing, exclaimed, 'Good God! can it be--surely
I am not mistaken--ma'amselle St. Aubert?--is it not?'

'It is indeed,' said Emily, who was confirmed in her first conjecture,
for she now distinguished the countenance of Valancourt, lighted up with
still more than its usual animation. A thousand painful recollections
crowded to her mind, and the effort, which she made to support herself,
only served to increase her agitation. Valancourt, meanwhile, having
enquired anxiously after her health, and expressed his hopes, that M.
St. Aubert had found benefit from travelling, learned from the flood of
tears, which she could no longer repress, the fatal truth. He led her
to a seat, and sat down by her, while Emily continued to weep, and
Valancourt to hold the hand, which she was unconscious he had taken,
till it was wet with the tears, which grief for St. Aubert and sympathy
for herself had called forth.

'I feel,' said he at length, 'I feel how insufficient all attempt at
consolation must be on this subject. I can only mourn with you, for I
cannot doubt the source of your tears. Would to God I were mistaken!'

Emily could still answer only by tears, till she rose, and begged they
might leave the melancholy spot, when Valancourt, though he saw her
feebleness, could not offer to detain her, but took her arm within his,
and led her from the fishing-house. They walked silently through the
woods, Valancourt anxious to know, yet fearing to ask any particulars
concerning St. Aubert; and Emily too much distressed to converse.
After some time, however, she acquired fortitude enough to speak of her
father, and to give a brief account of the manner of his death; during
which recital Valancourt's countenance betrayed strong emotion, and,
when he heard that St. Aubert had died on the road, and that Emily
had been left among strangers, he pressed her hand between his, and
involuntarily exclaimed, 'Why was I not there!' but in the next moment
recollected himself, for he immediately returned to the mention of her
father; till, perceiving that her spirits were exhausted, he gradually
changed the subject, and spoke of himself. Emily thus learned that,
after they had parted, he had wandered, for some time, along the shores
of the Mediterranean, and had then returned through Languedoc into
Gascony, which was his native province, and where he usually resided.

When he had concluded his little narrative, he sunk into a silence,
which Emily was not disposed to interrupt, and it continued, till they
reached the gate of the chateau, when he stopped, as if he had known
this to be the limit of his walk. Here, saying, that it was his
intention to return to Estuviere on the following day, he asked her if
she would permit him to take leave of her in the morning; and Emily,
perceiving that she could not reject an ordinary civility, without
expressing by her refusal an expectation of something more, was
compelled to answer, that she should be at home.

She passed a melancholy evening, during which the retrospect of all
that had happened, since she had seen Valancourt, would rise to her
imagination; and the scene of her father's death appeared in tints
as fresh, as if it had passed on the preceding day. She remembered
particularly the earnest and solemn manner, in which he had required her
to destroy the manuscript papers, and, awakening from the lethargy,
in which sorrow had held her, she was shocked to think she had not yet
obeyed him, and determined, that another day should not reproach her
with the neglect.

 There's a new sheriff in town, Emily, and it's Madame Cheron. The good Madame invites Emily to her estates in Tholouse, but Em hopes to put her off for as long as possible. Emily heads over to the old fishing-house to be mopey, and who should she run into but Valancourt. It's a total coincidence that he's wandering around near her house. Emily fills Valancourt in on what happened while he was off traipsing around the country. Valancourt says he's taking off the next day, but will Emily be around tomorrow morning? He sure would like to see her. Emily's down with that, but seeing Valancourt reminds her of her father's death. Time to burn those papers, girl.

