I wish I could make you realize the ecstatic rhapsody in those first days of wedded love: such emotions as I experienced one can only experience once in a lifetime: for the novelty wears away; they also disappear. I wish I could make you feel as I felt, as we roved together, like children, hand in hand, through those flowery glades, and through the blooming gardens of this old castle—sometimes reading, sometimes talking, always loving, and picturing a continued increase of happiness, and everlasting bliss.
Alas! poor frail human nature! Poor frail, inconstant mortals! What a strange mockery does it not seem to our own hearts to look back after years have changed these delusions of fancy, and stripped them of their false lustre; what a mockery does it not seem to think over what we once thought—and see the folly of dreaming of affections unaltered, and hearts that never could grow cold?
Old Pasiphae was my attendant. I preferred her to another, a younger girl, who had come to the castle to engage in my service. She was a very odd woman, and strongly infected with the popular superstitions of that section of the country. She was avoided by the other domestics as a half lunatic: for low, ignorant, or vulgar minds, always attribute eccentricity of mind or manner to mental perturbation; and, surely, the wise have every inducement to become insane, if they pay attention or depend for happiness on the stupid fools of which the greater portion of mankind are composed.
The chateau was built with two wings each side of the main building: the right wing was always closed, bolted and barred. I had been married two months, when curiosity induced me, one day, to ask Monsieur de Serval the reason why that part of the mansion was unopened, unoccupied, and neglected. He answered carelessly, that the castle was so large, he had not thought it necessary to refit that side of it;—it was more decayed than the rest. This reply satisfied me for the moment, but woman’s curiosity was on the alert, and I wished, I scarce know why, to see the interior of that gloomy side of the chateau.
Six months had glided swiftly on since my marriage. Oh, days of hope! oh, hours of happiness! with what mournful pleasure do I retrace your flight! and with what lingering sadness detail the strange contrast which time developed all too quickly to my wondering eyes!
I had heard several times from my worthy teacher. No tidings had reached him of Blanche. He had heard nothing; knew not if she were dead or alive. This distressed me, even amid my own joy. Madame Bonni was well, and often sent her love; and the theatrical world, they said, still mourned my irreparable loss;—the journals still dwelt upon my merits.
It was at this moment of time that Rinaldo left me for three days, for a hunting party, to come off some fifty miles from the castle. He bade me farewell with great tenderness, and departed. This was a favorable opportunity, I thought, for the execution of my long-cherished project of gaining admission to the closed and, I imagined, haunted rooms. The key my husband always kept locked up in a small casket, and I knew where the key of that was to be found.
Having unlocked the casket and obtained the key, I took a lamp from my dressing table, and directed my steps to that quarter of the house. The quivering flame was often nearly extinguished by gusts of wind, and the shaking of the great oriel windows reminded me of the tread of ghosts. My feet often faltered from fear; but I continued on, and reached the great door in the centre of the long gallery, which gave admission to the interdicted apartments.
When I inserted the key in the lock, and unlocked the door which gave entrance to these deserted rooms, my heart quite failed me, and I regretted my curiosity. What was there to see about old unfurnished, desolate apartments? How foolish of me to pry into nothing! Yet an impulse I could not overcome bade me go onward; and accordingly I pushed open the door, which opened harshly. I went in; the first room was a large anti-chamber, like that on the other side of the house, naked and lonely. Crossing this, I opened another door, which led, as I supposed, into a similar apartment, when, to my utter amazement, I beheld what struck me dumb with astonishment.