Emily turned to look within the dusky curtains, as if she could have
seen the countenance of which Dorothee spoke. The edge of the white
pillow only appeared above the blackness of the pall, but, as her eyes
wandered over the pall itself, she fancied she saw it move. Without
speaking, she caught Dorothee's arm, who, surprised by the action, and
by the look of terror that accompanied it, turned her eyes from Emily to
the bed, where, in the next moment she, too, saw the pall slowly lifted,
and fall again. Emily attempted to go, but Dorothee stood fixed and gazing upon the bed;
and, at length, said--'It is only the wind, that waves it, ma'amselle;
we have left all the doors open: see how the air waves the lamp,
too.--It is only the wind.'
She had scarcely uttered these words, when the pall was more violently
agitated than before; but Emily, somewhat ashamed of her terrors,
stepped back to the bed, willing to be convinced that the wind only had
occasioned her alarm; when, as she gazed within the curtains, the
pall moved again, and, in the next moment, the apparition of a human
countenance rose above it.
Screaming with terror, they both fled, and got out of the chamber as
fast as their trembling limbs would bear them, leaving open the doors
of all the rooms, through which they passed. When they reached the
stair-case, Dorothee threw open a chamber door, where some of the female
servants slept, and sunk breathless on the bed; while Emily, deprived of
all presence of mind, made only a feeble attempt to conceal the occasion
of her terror from the astonished servants; and, though Dorothee, when
she could speak, endeavoured to laugh at her own fright, and was joined
by Emily, no remonstrances could prevail with the servants, who had
quickly taken the alarm, to pass even the remainder of the night in a
room so near to these terrific chambers.
Dorothee having accompanied Emily to her own apartment, they then began
to talk over, with some degree of coolness, the strange circumstance,
that had just occurred; and Emily would almost have doubted her own
perceptions, had not those of Dorothee attested their truth. Having
now mentioned what she had observed in the outer chamber, she asked the
housekeeper, whether she was certain no door had been left unfastened,
by which a person might secretly have entered the apartments? Dorothee
replied, that she had constantly kept the keys of the several doors
in her own possession; that, when she had gone her rounds through the
castle, as she frequently did, to examine if all was safe, she had tried
these doors among the rest, and had always found them fastened. It
was, therefore, impossible, she added, that any person could have
got admittance into the apartments; and, if they could--it was very
improbable they should have chose to sleep in a place so cold and
forlorn.