White Lies Part 70

"And Edouard has never been here since," said Josephine.

"And never will, madame."

"Yes, he shall! there must be some limit even to my feebleness, and my sister's devotion. You shall take a line to him from me. I will write it this moment."

The letter was written. But it was never sent. Rose found Josephine and Jacintha together; saw a letter was being written, asked to see it; on Josephine's hesitating, s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of her hand, read it, tore it to pieces, and told Jacintha to leave the room. She hated the sight of poor Jacintha, who had slept at the very moment when all depended on her watchfulness.

"So you were going to send to HIM, unknown to me."

"Forgive me, Rose." Rose burst out crying.

"O Josephine! is it come to this? Would you deceive ME?"

"You have deceived ME! Yes! it has come to that. I know all. Twill not consent to destroy ALL I love."

She then begged hard for leave to send the letter.

Rose gave an impetuous refusal. "What could you say to him? foolish thing, don't you know him, and his vanity? When you had exposed yourself to him, and showed him I had insulted him for you, do you think he would forgive me? No! this is to make light of my love--to make me waste the sacrifice I have made. I feel that sacrifice as much as you do, more perhaps, and I would rather die in a convent than waste that night of shame and agony. Come, promise me, no more attempts of that kind, or we are sisters no more, friends no more, one heart and one blood no more."

The weaker nature, weakened still more by ill-health and grief, was terrified into submission, or rather temporized. "Kiss me then," said Josephine, "and love me to the end. Ah, if I was only in my grave!"

Rose kissed her with many sighs, but Josephine smiled. Rose eyed her with suspicion. That deep smile; what did it mean? She had formed some resolution. "She is going to deceive me somehow," thought Rose.

From that day she watched Josephine like a spy. Confidence was gone between them. Suspicion took its place.

Rose was right in her misgivings. The moment Josephine saw that Edouard's happiness and Rose's were to be sacrificed for her whom nothing could make happy, the poor thing said to herself, "I CAN DIE."

And that was the happy thought that made her smile.

The doctor gave her laudanum: he found she could not sleep: and he thought it all-important that she should sleep.

Josephine, instead of taking these small doses, saved them all up, secreted them in a phial, and so, from the sleep of a dozen nights, collected the sleep of death: and now she was tranquil. This young creature that could not bear to give pain to any one else, prepared her own death with a calm resolution the heroes of our s.e.x have not often equalled. It was so little a thing to her to strike Josephine. Death would save her honor, would spare her the frightful alternative of deceiving her husband, or of telling him she was another's. "Poor Raynal," said she to herself, "it is so cruel to tie him to a woman who can never be to him what he deserves. Rose would then prove her innocence to Edouard. A few tears for a weak, loving soul, and they would all be happy and forget her."

One day the baroness, finding herself alone with Rose and Dr. Aubertin, asked the latter what he thought of Josephine's state.

"Oh, she was better: had slept last night without her usual narcotic."

The baroness laid down her knitting and said, with much meaning, "And I tell you, you will never cure her body till you can cure her mind. My poor child has some secret sorrow."

"Sorrow!" said Aubertin, stoutly concealing the uneasiness these words created, "what sorrow?"

"Oh, she has some deep sorrow. And so have you, Rose."

"Me, mamma! what DO you mean?"

The baroness's pale cheek flushed a little. "I mean," said she, "that my patience is worn out at last; I cannot live surrounded by secrets.

Raynal's gloomy looks when he left us, after staying but one hour; Josephine ill from that day, and bursting into tears at every word; yourself pale and changed, hiding an unaccountable sadness under forced smiles--Now, don't interrupt me. Edouard, who was almost like a son, gone off, without a word, and never comes near us now."

"Really you are ingenious in tormenting yourself. Josephine is ill!

Well, is it so very strange? Have you never been ill? Rose is pale! you ARE pale, my dear; but she has nursed her sister for a month; is it a wonder she has lost color? Edouard is gone a journey, to inherit his uncle's property: a million francs. But don't you go and fall ill, like Josephine; turn pale, like Rose; and make journeys in the region of fancy, after Edouard Riviere, who is tramping along on the vulgar high road."

This tirade came from Aubertin, and very clever he thought himself.

But he had to do with a shrewd old lady, whose suspicions had long smouldered; and now burst out. She said quietly, "Oh, then Edouard is not in this part of the world. That alters the case: where IS he?"

"In Normandy, probably," said Rose, blushing.

The baroness looked inquiringly towards Aubertin. He put on an innocent face and said nothing.

"Very good," said the baroness. "It's plain I am to learn nothing from you two. But I know somebody who will be more communicative. Yes: this uncomfortable smiling, and unreasonable crying, and interminable whispering; these appearances of the absent, and disappearances of the present; I shall know this very day what they all mean."

"Really, I do not understand you."

"Oh, never mind; I am an old woman, and I am in my dotage. For all that, perhaps you will allow me two words alone with my daughter."

"I retire, madame," and he disappeared with a bow to her, and an anxious look at Rose. She did not need this; she clenched her teeth, and braced herself up to stand a severe interrogatory.

Mother and daughter looked at one another, as if to measure forces, and then, instead of questioning her as she had intended, the baroness sank back in her chair and wept aloud. Rose was all unprepared for this. She almost screamed in a voice of agony, "O mamma! mamma! O G.o.d! kill me where I stand for making my mother weep!"

"My girl," said the baroness in a broken voice, and with the most touching dignity, "may you never know what a mother feels who finds herself shut out from her daughters' hearts. Sometimes I think it is my fault; I was born in a severer age. A mother nowadays seems to be a sort of elder sister. In my day she was something more. Yet I loved my mother as well, or better than I did my sisters. But it is not so with those I have borne in my bosom, and nursed upon my knee."

At this Rose flung herself, sobbing and screaming, at her mother's knees. The baroness was alarmed. "Come, dearest, don't cry like that. It is not too late to take your poor old mother into your confidence. What is this mystery? and why this sorrow? How comes it I intercept at every instant glances that were not intended for me? Why is the very air loaded with signals and secrecy? (Rose replied only by sobs.) Is some deceit going on? (Rose sobbed.) Am I to have no reply but these sullen sobs? will you really tell me nothing?"

"I've nothing to tell," sobbed Rose.

"Well, then, will you do something for me?"

Such a proposal was not only a relief, but a delight to the deceiving but loving daughter. She started up crying, "Oh, yes, mamma; anything, everything. Oh, thank you!" In the ardor of her grat.i.tude, she wanted to kiss her mother; but the baroness declined the embrace politely, and said, coldly and bitterly, "I shall not ask much; I should not venture now to draw largely on your affection; it's only to write a few lines for me."

Rose got paper and ink with great alacrity, and sat down all beaming, pen in hand.

The baroness dictated the letter slowly, with an eye gimleting her daughter all the time.

"Dear--Monsieur--Riviere."

The pen fell from Rose's hand, and she turned red and then pale.

"What! write to him?"

"Not in your own name; in mine. But perhaps you prefer to give me the trouble."

"Cruel! cruel!" sighed Rose, and wrote the words as requested.

The baroness dictated again,--

"Oblige me by coming here at your very earliest convenience."

"But, mamma, if he is in Normandy," remonstrated Rose, fighting every inch of the ground.