Lost in this melancholy reverie, and shedding frequent tears, Emily was
at length roused by Montoni, and she followed him to the cabin, where
refreshments were spread, and her aunt was seated alone. The countenance
of Madame Montoni was inflamed with resentment, that appeared to be
the consequence of some conversation she had held with her husband, who
regarded her with a kind of sullen disdain, and both preserved, for some
time, a haughty silence. Montoni then spoke to Emily of Mons. Quesnel:
'You will not, I hope, persist in disclaiming your knowledge of the
subject of my letter to him?'
'I had hoped, sir, that it was no longer necessary for me to disclaim
it,' said Emily, 'I had hoped, from your silence, that you was convinced
of your error.' 'You have hoped impossibilities then,' replied Montoni; 'I might as
reasonably have expected to find sincerity and uniformity of conduct in
one of your sex, as you to convict me of error in this affair.'
Emily blushed, and was silent; she now perceived too clearly, that she
had hoped an impossibility, for, where no mistake had been committed no
conviction could follow; and it was evident, that Montoni's conduct had
not been the consequence of mistake, but of design. Anxious to escape from conversation, which was both afflicting and
humiliating to her, she soon returned to the deck, and resumed her
station near the stern, without apprehension of cold, for no vapour rose
from the water, and the air was dry and tranquil; here, at least, the
benevolence of nature allowed her the quiet which Montoni had denied her
elsewhere. It was now past midnight. The stars shed a kind of twilight,
that served to shew the dark outline of the shores on either hand, and
the grey surface of the river; till the moon rose from behind a high
palm grove, and shed her mellow lustre over the scene. The vessel glided
smoothly on: amid the stillness of the hour Emily heard, now and then,
the solitary voice of the barge-men on the bank, as they spoke to their
horses; while, from a remote part of the vessel, with melancholy song,
The sailor sooth'd,
Beneath the trembling moon, the midnight wave.
Emily, meanwhile, anticipated her reception by Mons, and Madame Quesnel;
considered what she should say on the subject of La Vallee; and then, to
with-hold her mind from more anxious topics, tried to amuse herself by
discriminating the faint-drawn features of the landscape, reposing in
the moon-light. While her fancy thus wandered, she saw, at a distance,
a building peeping between the moon-light trees, and, as the barge
approached, heard voices speaking, and soon distinguished the lofty
portico of a villa, overshadowed by groves of pine and sycamore, which
she recollected to be the same, that had formerly been pointed out to
her, as belonging to Madame Quesnel's relative.