White Lies Part 40

The baroness said no more than politeness dictated. She did not press him to stay, but treated his departure as a matter of course. Riviere rode home late in the evening in high spirits.

The next day Rose varied her late deportment; she sang s.n.a.t.c.hes of melody, going about the house; it was for all the world like a bird chirping. In the middle of one chirp Jacintha interfered. "Hush, mademoiselle, your mamma! she is at the bottom of the corridor."

"What was I thinking of?" said Rose.

"Oh! I dare say you know, mademoiselle," replied the privileged domestic.

A letter of good news came from Aubertin. That summons to his nephew's funeral was an era in his harmless life.

The said nephew was a rich man and an oddity; one of those who love to surprise folk. Moreover, he had no children, and detected his nephews and nieces being unnaturally civil to him. "Waiting to cut me up," was his generous reading of them. So with this he made a will, and there defied, as far as in him lay, the laws of nature; for he set his wealth a-flowing backwards instead of forwards; he handed his property up to an ancestor, instead of down to posterity.

All this the doctor's pen set down with some humor, and in the calm spirit with which a genuine philosopher receives prosperity as well as adversity. Yet one natural regret escaped him; that all this wealth, since it was to come, had not come a year or two sooner.

All at Beaurepaire knew what their dear old friend meant.

His other news to them was that they might expect him any moment.

So here was another cause of rejoicing.

"I am so glad," said Josephine. "Now, perhaps, he will be able to publish his poor dear entomology, that the booksellers were all so unkind, so unfeeling about."

I linger on the brink of painful scenes to observe that a sweet and loving friendship, such as this was between the good doctor and three persons of another s.e.x, is one of the best treasures of the human heart.

Poverty had strengthened it; yet now wealth could not weaken it. With no tie of blood it yet was filial, sisterly, brotherly, national, chivalrous; happy, unalloyed sentiment, free from ups and downs, from heats and chills, from rivalry, from caprice; and, indeed, from all mortal accidents but one--and why say one? methinks death itself does but suspend these gentle, rare, unselfish amities a moment, then waft them upward to their abiding home.

CHAPTER XV.

It was a fair morning in June: the sky was a bright, deep, lovely, speckless blue: the flowers and bushes poured perfume, and sprinkled song upon the balmy air. On such a day, so calm, so warm, so bright, so scented, so tuneful, to live and to be young is to be happy. With gentle hand it wipes all other days out of the memory; it smiles, it smells, it sings, and clouds and rain and biting wind seem as far off and impossible as grief and trouble.

Camille and Josephine had stolen out, and strolled lazily up and down close under the house, drinking the sweet air, fragrant with perfume and melody; the blue sky, and love.

Rose was in the house. She had missed them; but she thought they must be near; for they seldom took long walks early in the day. Meeting Jacintha on the landing of the great staircase, she asked her where her sister was.

"Madame Raynal is gone for a walk. She has taken the colonel with her.

You know she always takes the colonel out with her now."

"That will do. You can finish your work."

Jacintha went into Camille's room.

Rose, who had looked as grave as a judge while Jacintha was present, bubbled into laughter. She even repeated Jacintha's words aloud, and chuckled over them. "You know she always takes the colonel out with her now--ha, ha, ha!"

"Rose!" sighed a distant voice.

She looked round, and saw the baroness at some distance in the corridor, coming slowly towards her, with eyes bent gloomily on the ground. Rose composed her features into a settled gravity, and went to meet her.

"I wish to speak with you," said the baroness; "let us sit down; it is cool here."

Rose ran and brought a seat without a back, but well stuffed, and set it against the wall. The old lady sat down and leaned back, and looked at Rose in silence a good while; then she said,--

"There is room for you; sit down, for I want to speak seriously to you."

"Yes, mamma; what is it?"

"Turn a little round, and let me see your face."

Rose complied; and began to feel a little uneasy.

"Perhaps you can guess what I am going to say to you?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, I am going to put a question to you."

"With all my heart, dear mamma."

"I invite you to explain to me the most singular, the most unaccountable thing that ever fell under my notice. Will you do this for your mother?"

"O mamma! of course I will do anything to please you that I can; but, indeed, I don't know what you mean."

"I am going to tell you."

The old lady paused. The young one, naturally enough, felt a chill of vague anxiety strike across her frame.

"Rose," said the old lady, speaking very gently but firmly, and leaning in a peculiar way on her words, while her eye worked like an ice gimlet on her daughter's face, "a little while ago, when my poor Raynal--our benefactor--was alive--and I was happy--you all chilled my happiness by your gloom: the whole house seemed a house of mourning--tell me now why was this."

"Mamma!" said Rose, after a moment's hesitation, "we could hardly be gay. Sickness in the house! And if Colonel Raynal was alive, still he was absent, and in danger."

"Oh! then it was out of regard for him we were all dispirited?"

"Why, I suppose so," said Rose, stoutly; but then colored high at her own want of candor. However, she congratulated herself that her mother's suspicion was confined to past events.

Her self-congratulation on that score was short; for the baroness, after eying her grimly for a second or two in silence, put her this awkward question plump.

"If so, tell me why is it that ever since that black day when the news of his DEATH reached us, the whole house has gone into black, and has gone out of mourning?"

"Mamma," stammered Rose, "what DO you mean?"

"Even poor Camille, who was so pale and wan, has recovered like magic."

"O mamma! is not that fancy?" said Rose, piteously. "Of what do you suspect me? Can you think I am unfeeling--ungrateful? I should not be YOUR daughter."

"No, no," said the baroness, "to do you justice, you attempt sorrow; as you put on black. But, my poor child, you do it with so little skill that one sees a horrible gayety breaking through that thin disguise: you are no true mourners: you are like the mutes or the undertakers at a funeral, forced grief on the surface of your faces, and frightful complacency below."

"Tra la! lal! la! la! Tra la! la! Tra la! la!" carolled Jacintha, in the colonel's room hard by.