Passage Through the Château to the Back Staircase
They had to descend the great staircase, and, after passing over a wide extent of the château, to ascend another, which led to the suite of rooms they were in quest of. They stepped cautiously along the open corridor, that ran round the great hall, and into which the chambers of the Count, Countess, and the Lady Blanche, opened, and, from thence, descending the chief staircase, they crossed the hall itself. Proceeding through the servants hall, where the dying embers of a wood fire still glimmered on the hearth, and the supper table was surrounded by chairs, that obstructed their passage, they came to the foot of the back staircase. Old Dorothée here paused, and looked around; “Let us listen,” said she, “if anything is stirring; Ma’amselle, do you hear any voice?” “None,” said Emily, “there certainly is no person up in the château, besides ourselves.”—“No, ma’amselle,” said Dorothée, “but I have never been here at this hour before, and, after what I know, my fears are not wonderful.”—“What do you know?” said Emily.—“O, ma’amselle, we have no time for talking now; let us go on. That door on the left is the one we must open.”
Dorothée’s Anxiety Entering the Late Marchioness’s Rooms
They proceeded, and, having reached the top of the staircase, Dorothée applied the key to the lock. “Ah,” said she, as she endeavour to turn it, “so many years have passed since this was opened, that I fear it will not move.” Emily was more successful, and they presently entered a spacious and ancient chamber.
Entering the Spacious Ancient Chamber of the Late Marchioness
“Alas!” exclaimed Dorothée, as she entered, “the last time I passed through this door—I followed my poor lady’s corpse!”
Emily, struck with the circumstance, and affected by the dusky and solemn air of the apartment, remained silent, and they passed on through a long suite of rooms, till they came to one more spacious than the rest, and rich in the remains of faded magnificence.
Dorothée Remembers the Marchioness’s Funeral Procession
“Alas!” exclaimed Dorothée, as she entered, “the last time I passed through this door—I followed my poor lady’s corpse!”
Entering the Grand Faded Salon of the Late Marchioness
“Let us rest here awhile, madam,” said Dorothée faintly, “we are going into the chamber, where my lady died! that door opens into it. Ah, ma’amselle! why did you persuade me to come?”
Emily drew one of the massy arm-chairs, with which the apartment was furnished, and begged Dorothée would sit down, and try to compose her spirits.
“How the sight of this place brings all that passed formerly to my mind!” said Dorothée; “it seems as if it was but yesterday since all that sad affair happened!”
“Hark! what noise is that?” said Emily.
Dorothée, half starting from her chair, looked round the apartment, and they listened—but, everything remaining still, the old woman spoke again upon the subject of her sorrow. “This saloon, ma’amselle, was in my lady’s time the finest apartment in the château, and it was fitted up according to her own taste. All this grand furniture, but you can now hardly see what it is for the dust, and our light is none of the best—ah! how I have seen this room lighted up in my lady’s time!—all this grand furniture came from Paris, and was made after the fashion of some in the Louvre there, except those large glasses, and they came from some outlandish place, and that rich tapestry. How the colours are faded already!—since I saw it last!”
Examining the Tapestry of Ancient Provençal Romances
“I understood, that was twenty years ago,” observed Emily.
“Thereabout, madam,” said Dorothée, “and well remembered, but all the time between then and now seems as nothing. That tapestry used to be greatly admired at, it tells the stories out of some famous book, or other, but I have forgot the name.”
Emily now rose to examine the figures it exhibited, and discovered, by verses in the Provençal tongue, wrought underneath each scene, that it exhibited stories from some of the most celebrated ancient romances.
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