White Lies Part 41

The ladies looked at one another: Rose in great confusion.

"Tra la! la! la! Tra lal! lal! la! la! la!"

"Jacintha!" screamed Rose angrily.

"Hush! not a word," said the baroness. "Why remonstrate with HER?

Servants are but chameleons: they take the color of those they serve. Do not cry. I wanted your confidence, not your tears, love. There, I will not twice in one day ask you for your heart: it would be to lower the mother, and give the daughter the pain of refusing it, and the regret, sure to come one day, of having refused it. I will discover the meaning of it all by myself." She went away with a gentle sigh; and Rose was cut to the heart by her words; she resolved, whatever it might cost her and Josephine, to make a clean breast this very day. As she was one of those who act promptly, she went instantly in search of her sister, to gain her consent, if possible.

Now, the said Josephine was in the garden walking with Camille, and uttering a wife's tender solicitudes.

"And must you leave me? must you risk your life again so soon; the life on which mine depends?"

"My dear, that letter I received from headquarters two days ago, that inquiry whether my wound was cured. A hint, Josephine--a hint too broad for any soldier not to take."

"Camille, you are very proud," said Josephine, with an accent of reproach, and a look of approval.

"I am obliged to be. I am the husband of the proudest woman in France."

"Hush! not so loud: there is Dard on the gra.s.s."

"Dard!" muttered the soldier with a word of meaning. "Josephine," said he after a pause, and a little peevishly, "how much longer are we to lower our voices, and turn away our eyes from each other, and be ashamed of our happiness?"

"Five months longer, is it not?" answered Josephine quietly.

"Five months longer!"

Josephine was hurt at this, and for once was betrayed into a serious and merited remonstrance.

"Is this just?" said she. "Think of two months ago: yes, but two months ago, you were dying. You doubted my love, because it could not overcome my virtue and my grat.i.tude: yet you might have seen it was destroying my life. Poor Raynal, my husband, my benefactor, died. Then I could do more for you, if not with delicacy, at least with honor; but no! words, and looks, and tender offices of love were not enough, I must give stronger proof. Dear Camille, I have been reared in a strict school: and perhaps none of your s.e.x can know what it cost me to go to Frejus that day with him I love."

"My own Josephine!"

"I made but one condition: that you would not rob me of my mother's respect: to her our hasty marriage would appear monstrous, heartless.

You consented to be secretly happy for six months. One fortnight has pa.s.sed, and you are discontented again."

"Oh, no! do not think so. It is every word true. I am an ungrateful villain."

"How dare you say so? and to me! No! but you are a man."

"So I have been told; but my conduct to you, sweet one, has not been that of a man from first to last. Yet I could die for you, with a smile on my lips. But when I think that once I lifted this sacrilegious hand against your life--oh!"

"Do not be silly, Camille. I love you all the better for loving me well enough to kill me. What woman would not? I tell you, you foolish thing, you are a man: monseigneur is one of the lordly s.e.x, that is accustomed to have everything its own way. My love, in a world that is full of misery, here are two that are condemned to be secretly happy a few months longer: a hard fate for one of your s.e.x, it seems: but it is so much sweeter than the usual lot of mine, that really I cannot share your misery," and she smiled joyously.

"Then share my happiness, my dear wife."

"I do; only mine is deep, not loud."

"Why, Dard is gone, and we are out of doors; will the little birds betray us?"

"The lower windows are open, and I saw Jacintha in one of the rooms."

"Jacintha? we are in awe of the very servants. Well, if I must not say it loud I will say it often," and putting his mouth to her ear, he poured a burning whisper of love into it--"My love! my angel! my wife!

my wife! my wife!"

She turned her swimming eyes on him.

"My husband!" she whispered in return.

Rose came out, and found them billing and cooing. "You MUST not be so happy, you two," said she authoritatively.

"How can we help it?" asked Camille.

"You must and shall help it, somehow," retorted this little tyrant.

"Mamma suspects. She has given me such a cross-examination, my blood runs cold. No, on second thoughts, kiss her again, and you may both be as happy as you like; for I am going to tell mamma all, and no power on earth shall hinder me."

"Rose," said Camille, "you are a sensible girl; and I always said so."

But Josephine was horrified. "What! tell my mother that within a month of my husband's death?"--

"Don't say your husband," put in Camille wincing; "the priest never confirmed that union; words spoken before a magistrate do not make a marriage in the sight of Heaven."

Josephine cut him short. "Amongst honorable men and women all oaths are alike sacred: and Heaven's eye is in a magistrate's room as in a church.

A daughter of Beaurepaire gave her hand to him, and called herself his wife. Therefore, she was his wife: and is his widow. She owes him everything; the house you are all living in among the rest. She ought to be proud of her brief connection with that pure, heroic spirit, and, when she is so little n.o.ble as to disown him, then say that grat.i.tude and justice have no longer a place among mankind."

"Come into the chapel," said Camille, with a voice that showed he was hurt.

They entered the chapel, and there they saw something that thoroughly surprised them: a marble monument to the memory of Raynal. It leaned at present against the wall below the place prepared to receive it.

The inscription, short, but emphatic, and full of feeling, told of the battles he had fought in, including the last fatal skirmish, and his marriage with the heiress of Beaurepaire; and, in a few soldier-like words, the uprightness, simplicity, and generosity of his character.

They were so touched by this unexpected trait in Camille that they both threw their arms round his neck by one impulse. "Am I wrong to be proud of him?" said Josephine, triumphantly.

"Well, don't say too much to me," said Camille, looking down confused.

"One tries to be good; but it is very hard--to some of us--not to you, Josephine; and, after all, it is only the truth that we have written on that stone. Poor Raynal! he was my old comrade; he saved me from death, and not a soldier's death--drowning; and he was a better man than I am, or ever shall be. Now he is dead, I can say these things. If I had said them when he was alive, it would have been more to my credit."

They all three went back towards the house; and on the way Rose told them all that had pa.s.sed between the baroness and her. When she came to the actual details of that conversation, to the words, and looks, and tones, Josephine's uneasiness rose to an overpowering height; she even admitted that further concealment would be very difficult.

"Better tell her than let her find out," said Rose. "We must tell her some day."

At last, after a long and agitated discussion, Josephine consented; but Rose must be the one to tell. "So then, you at least will make your peace with mamma," argued Josephine, "and let us go in and do this before our courage fails; besides, it is going to rain, and it has turned cold. Where have all these clouds come from? An hour ago there was not one in the sky."

They went, with hesitating steps and guilty looks, to the saloon. Their mother was not there. Here was a reprieve.

Rose had an idea. She would take her to the chapel, and show her the monument, and that would please her with poor Camille. "After that,"

said Rose, "I will begin by telling her all the misery you have both gone through; and, when she pities you, then I will show her it was all my fault your misery ended in a secret marriage."

The confederates sat there in a chilly state, waiting for the baroness.

At last, as she did not come, Rose got up to go to her. "When the mind is made up, it is no use being cowardly, and putting off," said she, firmly. For all that, her cheek had but little color left in it, when she left her chair with this resolve.

Now as Rose went down the long saloon to carry out their united resolve, Jacintha looked in; and, after a hasty glance to see who was present, she waited till Rose came up to her, and then whipped a letter from under her ap.r.o.n and gave it her.