Ah why did Fate his steps decoy
In stormy paths to roam,
Remote from all congenial joy!
BEATTIE
Emily, mean while, was still suffering anxiety as to the fate of
Valancourt; but Theresa, having, at length, found a person, whom she
could entrust on her errand to the steward, informed her, that the
messenger would return on the following day; and Emily promised to be at
the cottage, Theresa being too lame to attend her.
In the evening, therefore, Emily set out alone for the cottage, with a
melancholy foreboding, concerning Valancourt, while, perhaps, the gloom
of the hour might contribute to depress her spirits. It was a grey
autumnal evening towards the close of the season; heavy mists partially
obscured the mountains, and a chilling breeze, that sighed among the
beech woods, strewed her path with some of their last yellow leaves.
\These, circling in the blast and foretelling the death of the year,
gave an image of desolation to her mind, and, in her fancy, seemed to
announce the death of Valancourt. Of this she had, indeed, more than
once so strong a presentiment, that she was on the point of returning
home, feeling herself unequal to an encounter with the certainty she
anticipated, but, contending with her emotions, she so far commanded
them, as to be able to proceed.
While she walked mournfully on, gazing on the long volumes of vapour,
that poured upon the sky, and watching the swallows, tossed along the
wind, now disappearing among tempestuous clouds, and then emerging,
for a moment, in circles upon the calmer air, the afflictions and
vicissitudes of her late life seemed pourtrayed in these fleeting
images;--thus had she been tossed upon the stormy sea of misfortune for
the last year, with but short intervals of peace, if peace that could be
called, which was only the delay of evils. And now, when she had escaped
from so many dangers, was become independent of the will of those, who
had oppressed her, and found herself mistress of a large fortune, now,
when she might reasonably have expected happiness, she perceived that
she was as distant from it as ever.
She would have accused herself
of weakness and ingratitude in thus suffering a sense of the various
blessings she possessed to be overcome by that of a single misfortune,
had this misfortune affected herself alone; but, when she had wept for
Valancourt even as living, tears of compassion had mingled with those
of regret, and while she lamented a human being degraded to vice, and
consequently to misery, reason and humanity claimed these tears, and
fortitude had not yet taught her to separate them from those of love; in
the present moments, however, it was not the certainty of his guilt, but
the apprehension of his death (of a death also, to which she herself,
however innocently, appeared to have been in some degree instrumental)
that oppressed her.