“Here were fine doings in the castle, last night, ma’amselle,” said she, as soon as she entered the room,—“fine doings, indeed! Were you not frightened, ma’amselle, at not seeing me?”
“I was alarmed both on your account and on my own,” replied Emily—“What detained you?”
“Aye, I said so, I told him so; but it would not do. It was not my fault, indeed, ma’amselle, for I could not get out. That rogue Ludovico locked me up again.”
“Locked you up!” said Emily, with displeasure, “Why do you permit Ludovico to lock you up?”
“Holy Saints!” exclaimed Annette, “how can I help it! If he will lock the door, ma’amselle, and take away the key, how am I to get out, unless I jump through the window? But that I should not mind so much, if the casements here were not all so high; one can hardly scramble up to them on the inside, and one should break one’s neck, I suppose, going down on the outside. But you know, I dare say, ma’am, what a hurly-burly the castle was in last night; you must have heard some of the uproar.”
“What, were they disputing, then?” said Emily.
“No, ma’amselle, nor fighting, but almost as good, for I believe there was not one of the Signors sober; and what is more, not one of those fine ladies sober, either. I thought, when I saw them first, that all those fine silks and fine veils,—why, ma’amselle, their veils were worked with silver! and fine trimmings—boded no good—I guessed what they were!”
“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, “what will become of me!”
“Aye, ma’am, Ludovico said much the same thing of me. ‘Good God!’ said he, ‘Annette, what is to become of you, if you are to go running about the castle among all these drunken Signors?’
“‘O!’ says I, ‘for that matter, I only want to go to my young lady’s chamber, and I have only to go, you know, along the vaulted passage and across the great hall and up the marble staircase and along the north gallery and through the west wing of the castle and I am in the corridor in a minute.’ ‘Are you so?’ says he, ‘and what is to become of you, if you meet any of those noble cavaliers in the way?’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘if you think there is danger, then, go with me, and guard me; I am never afraid when you are by.’ ‘What!’ says he, ‘when I am scarcely recovered of one wound, shall I put myself in the way of getting another? for if any of the cavaliers meet you, they will fall a-fighting with me directly. No, no,’ says he, ‘I will cut the way shorter, than through the vaulted passage and up the marble staircase, and along the north gallery and through the west wing of the castle, for you shall stay here, Annette; you shall not go out of this room, tonight.’ So, with that I says—”