White Lies Part 22

"Wherever my country calls me."

"Your address, then, colonel, that we may know where to put our finger on a tried soldier when we want one."

"I am going to Beaurepaire."

"Beaurepaire? I never heard of it."

"You never heard of Beaurepaire? it is in Brittany, forty-five leagues from Paris, forty-three leagues and a half from here."

"Good! Health and honor to you, colonel."

"The same to you, lieutenant; or a soldier's death."

The new colonel read the precious doc.u.ment across his horse's mane, and then he was going to put one of the epaulets on his right shoulder, bare at present: but he reflected.

"No; she should make him a colonel with her own dear hand. He put them in his pocket. He would not even look at them till she had seen them.

Oh, how happy he was not only to come back to her alive, but to come back to her honored."

His wound smarted, his limbs ached, but no pain past or present could lay hold of his mind. In his great joy he remembered past suffering and felt present pain--yet smiled. Only every now and then he pined for wings to shorten the weary road.

He was walking his horse quietly, drooping a little over his saddle, when another officer well mounted came after him and pa.s.sed him at a hand gallop with one hasty glance at his uniform, and went tearing on like one riding for his life.

"Don't I know that face?" said Dujardin.

He cudgelled his memory, and at last he remembered it was the face of an old comrade. At least it strongly reminded him of one Jean Raynal who had saved his life in the Arno, when they were lieutenants together.

Yes, it was certainly Raynal, only bronzed by service in some hot country.

"Ah!" thought Camille; "I suppose I am more changed than he is; for he certainly did not recognize me at all. Now I wonder what that fellow has been doing all this time. What a hurry he was in! a moment more and I should have hailed him. Perhaps I may fall in with him at the next town."

He touched his horse with the spur, and cantered gently on, for trotting shook him more than he could bear. Even when he cantered he had to press his hand against his bosom, and often with the motion a bitterer pang than usual came and forced the water from his eyes; and then he smiled.

His great love and his high courage made this reply to the body's anguish. And still his eyes looked straight forward as at some object in the distant horizon, while he came gently on, his hand pressed to his bosom, his head drooping now and then, smiling patiently, upon the road to Beaurepaire.

Oh! if anybody had told him that in five days his Josephine was to be married; and that the bronzed comrade, who had just galloped past him, was to marry her!

At Beaurepaire they were making and altering wedding-dresses. Rose was excited, and even Josephine took a calm interest. Dress never goes for nothing with her s.e.x. The chairs and tables were covered, and the floor was littered. The baroness was presiding over the rites of vanity, and telling them what she wore at her wedding, under Louis XV., with strict accuracy, and what we men should consider a wonderful effort of memory, when the Commandant Raynal came in like a cannon-ball, without any warning, and stood among them in a stiff, military att.i.tude.

Exclamations from all the party, and then a kind greeting, especially from the baroness.

"We have been so dull without you, Jean."

"And I have missed you once or twice, mother-in-law, I can tell you.

Well, I have got bad news; but you must consider we live in a busy time.

To-morrow I start for Egypt."

Loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns from the baroness and Rose. Josephine put down her work quietly.

The baroness sighed deeply, and the tears came into her eyes. "Oh, you must not be down-hearted, old lady," shouted Raynal. "Why, I am as likely to come back from Egypt as not. It is an even chance, to say the least."

This piece of consolation completed the baroness's unhappiness. She really had conceived a great affection for Raynal, and her heart had been set on the wedding.

"Take away all that finery, girls," said she bitterly; "we shall not want it for years. I shall not be alive when he comes home from Egypt.

I never had a son--only daughters--the best any woman ever had; but a mother is not complete without a son, and I shall never live to have one now."

"I hate General Bonaparte," said Rose viciously.

"Hate my general?" groaned Raynal, looking down with a sort of superst.i.tious awe and wonder at the lovely vixen. "Hate the best soldier the world ever saw?"

"What do I care for his soldiership? He has put off our wedding. For how many years did you say?"

"No; he has put it on."

In answer to the astonished looks this excited, he explained that the wedding was to have been in a week, but now it must be to-morrow at ten o'clock.

The three ladies set up their throats together. "Tomorrow?"

"To-morrow. Why, what do you suppose I left Paris for yesterday? left my duties even."

"What, monsieur?" asked Josephine, timidly, "did you ride all that way, and leave your duties MERELY TO MARRY ME?" and she looked a little pleased.

"You are worth a great deal more trouble than that," said Raynal simply.

"Besides, I had pa.s.sed my word, and I always keep my word."

"So do I," said Josephine, a little proudly. "I will not go from it now, if you insist; but I confess to you, that such a proposal staggers me; so sudden--no preliminaries--no time to reflect; in short, there are so many difficulties that I must request you to reconsider the matter."

"Difficulties," shouted Raynal with merry disdain; "there are none, unless you sit down and make them; we do more difficult things than this every day of our lives: we pa.s.sed the bridge of Arcola in thirteen minutes; and we had not the consent of the enemy, as we have yours--have we not?"

Her only reply was a look at her mother, to which the baroness replied by a nod; then turning to Raynal, "This empress.e.m.e.nt is very flattering; but I see no possibility: there is an etiquette we cannot altogether defy: there are preliminaries before a daughter of Beaurepaire can become a wife."

"There used to be all that, madam," laughed Raynal, putting her down good-humoredly; "but it was in the days when armies came out and touched their caps to one another, and went back into winter quarters. Then the struggle was who could go slowest; now the fight is who can go fastest.

Time and Bonaparte wait for n.o.body; and ladies and other strong places are taken by storm, not undermined a foot a month as under Noah Quartorze: let me cut this short, as time is short."

He then drew a little plan of a wedding campaign. "The carriages will be here at 9 A.M.," said he; "they will whisk us down to the mayor's house by a quarter to ten: Picard, the notary, meets us there with the marriage contract, to save time; the contract signed, the mayor will do the marriage at quick step out of respect for me--half an hour--quarter past ten; breakfast in the same house an hour and a quarter:--we mustn't hurry a wedding breakfast--then ten minutes or so for the old fogies to waste in making speeches about our virtues--my watch will come out--my charger will come round--I rise from the table--embrace my dear old mother--kiss my wife's hand--into the saddle--canter to Paris--roll to Toulon--sail to Egypt. But I shall leave a wife and a mother behind me: they will both send me a kind word now and then; and I will write letters to you all from Egypt, and when I come home, my wife and I will make acquaintance, and we will all be happy together: and if I am killed out there, don't you go and fret your poor little hearts about it; it is a soldier's lot sooner or later. Besides, you will find I have taken care of you; n.o.body shall come and turn you out of your quarters, even though Jean Raynal should be dead; I have got to meet Picard at Riviere's on that very business--I am off."

He was gone as brusquely as he came.

"Mother! sister!" cried Josephine, "help me to love this man."

"You need no help," cried the baroness, with enthusiasm, "not love him, we should all be monsters."

Raynal came to supper looking bright and cheerful. "No more work to-day.

I have nothing to do but talk; fancy that."

This evening Josephine de Beaurepaire, who had been silent and thoughtful, took a quiet opportunity, and purred in his ear, "Monsieur!"

"Mademoiselle!" rang the trombone.

"Am I not to go to Egypt?"