White Lies Part 19

"We miss our merry, spirited companion," said the baroness with a grim look at Rose. Both young ladies a.s.sented with ludicrous eagerness.

That night Rose came and slept with Josephine, and more than once she awoke with a start and seized Josephine convulsively and held her tight.

Accused of egoism! at first her whole nature rose in arms against the charge: but, after a while, coming as it did from so revered a person, it forced her to serious self-examination. The poor girl said to herself, "Mamma is a shrewd woman. Am I after all deceiving myself?

Would she be happy, and am I standing in the way?" In the morning she begged her sister to walk with her in the park, so that they might be safe from interruption.

There, she said sadly, she could not understand her own sister. "Why are you so calm and cold, while am I in tortures of anxiety? Have you made some resolve and not confided it to your Rose?"

"No, love," was the reply; "I am scarce capable of a resolution; I am a mere thing that drifts."

"Let me put it in other words, then. How will this end?"

"I hardly know."

"Do you mean to marry Monsieur Raynal, then? answer me that."

"No; but I should not wonder if he were to marry ME."

"But you said 'no.'"

"Yes, I said 'no' once."

"And don't you mean to say it again, and again, and again, till kingdom come?"

"What is the use? you heard him say he would not desist any the more, and I care too little about the matter to go on persisting, and persisting, and persisting."

"Why not, if he goes on pestering, and pestering, and pestering?"

"Ah, he is like you, all energy, at all hours; but I have so little where my heart is unconcerned: he seems, too, to have a wis.h.!.+ I have none either way, and my conscience says 'marry him!'"

"Your conscience say marry one man when you love another?"

"Heaven forbid! Rose, I love no one: I HAVE loved; but now my heart is dead and silent; only my conscience says, 'You are the cause of all your mother's trouble; you are the cause that Beaurepaire was sold. Now you can repair that mischief, and at the same time make a brave man happy, our benefactor happy.' It is a great temptation: I hardly know why I said 'no' at all; surprise, perhaps--or to please you, pretty one."

Rose groaned: "Are you then worth so little that you would throw yourself away on a man who does not love you, nor want you, and is quite as happy single?"

"No; not happy; he is only stout-hearted and good, and therefore content; and he is a character that it would be easy--in short, I feel my power here: I could make that man happy; he has n.o.body to write to even, when he is away--poor fellow!"

"I shall lose all patience," cried Rose; "you are at your old trick, thinking of everybody but yourself: I let you do it in trifles, but I love you too well to permit it when the happiness of your whole life is at stake. I must be satisfied on one point, or else this marriage shall never take place: just answer me this; if Camille Dujardin stood on one side, and Monsieur Raynal on the other, and both asked your hand, which would you take?"

"That will never be. Whose? Not his whom I despise. Esteem might ripen into love, but what must contempt end in?"

This reply gave Rose great satisfaction. To exhaust all awkward contingencies, she said, "One question more, and I have done. Suppose Camille should turn out--be not quite--what shall I say--inexcusable?"

At this unlucky gush, Josephine turned pale, then red, then pale again, and cried eagerly, "Then all the world should not part us. Why torture me with such a question? Ah! you have heard something." And in a moment the lava of pa.s.sion burst wildly through its thin sheet of ice. "I was blind. This is why you would save me from this unnatural marriage.

You are breaking the good news to me by degrees. There is no need.

Quick--quick--let me have it. I have waited three years; I am sick of waiting. Why don't you speak? Why don't you tell me? Then I will tell YOU. He is alive--he is well--he is coming. It was not he those soldiers saw; they were so far off. How could they tell? They saw a uniform but not a face. Perhaps he has been a prisoner, and so could not write; could not come: but he is coming now. Why do you groan? why do you turn pale? ah! I see; I have once more deceived myself. I was mad. He I love is still a traitor to France and me, and I am wretched forever. Oh! that I were dead! oh! that I were dead! No; don't speak to me: never mind me; this madness will pa.s.s as it has before, and leave me a dead thing among the living. Ah! sister, why did you wake me from my dream? I was drifting so calmly, so peacefully, so dead, and painless, drifting over the dead sea of the heart towards the living waters of grat.i.tude and duty. I was going to make more than one worthy soul happy; and seeing them happy, I should have been content and useful--what am I now?--and comforted other hearts, and died joyful--and young. For G.o.d is good; he releases the meek and patient from their burdens."

With this came a flood of tears; and she leaned against a bough with her forehead on her arm, bowed like a wounded lily.

"Accursed be that man's name, and MY tongue if ever I utter it again in your hearing!" cried Rose, weeping bitterly. "You are wiser than I, and every way better. O my darling, dry your tears! Here he comes: look!

riding across the park."

"Rose," cried Josephine, hastily, "I leave all to you. Receive Monsieur Raynal, and decline his offer if you think proper. It is you who love me best. My mother would give me up for a house; for an estate, poor dear."

"I would not give you for all the world."

"I know it. I trust all to you."

"Well, but don't go; stay and hear what I shall say."

"Oh, no; that poor man is intolerable to me NOW. Let me avoid his sight, and think of his virtues."

Rose was left alone, mistress of her sister's fate. She put her head into her hands and filled with anxiety and sudden doubt.

Like a good many more of us, she had been positive so long as the decision did not rest with her. But with power comes responsibility, with responsibility comes doubt. Easy to be an advocate in re incerta; hard to be the judge. And she had but a few seconds to think in; for Raynal was at hand. The last thing in her mind before he joined her was the terrible power of that base Camille over her sister. She despaired of curing Josephine, but a husband might. There's such divinity doth hedge a husband in innocent girls' minds.

"Well, little lady," began Raynal, "and how are you, and how is my mother-in-law that is to be--or is not to be, as your sister pleases; and how is SHE? have I frightened her away? There were two petticoats, and now there is but one."

"She left me to answer you."

"All the worse for me: I am not to your taste."

"Do not say that," said Rose, almost hysterically.

"Oh! it is no sacrilege. Not one in fifty likes me."

"But I do like you, sir."

"Then why won't you let me have your sister?"

"I have not quite decided that you shall not have her," faltered poor Rose. She murmured on, "I dare say you think me very unkind, very selfish; but put yourself in my place. I love my sister as no man can ever love her, I know: my heart has been one flesh and one soul with hers all my life. A stranger comes and takes her away from me as if she was I don't know what; his portmanteau; takes her to Egypt, oh! oh! oh!"

Raynal comforted her.

"What, do you think I am such a brute as to take that delicate creature about fighting with me? why, the hot sand would choke her, to begin.

No. You don't take my manoeuvre. I have no family; I try for a wife that will throw me in a mother and sister. You will live all together the same as before, of course; only you must let me make one of you when I am at home. And how often will that be? Besides, I am as likely to be knocked on the head in Egypt as not; you are worrying yourself for nothing, little lady."

He uttered the last topic of consolation in a broad, hearty, hilarious tone, like a trombone impregnated with cheerful views of fate.

"Heaven forbid!" cried Rose: "and I will, for even I shall pray for you now. What you will leave her at home? forgive me for not seeing all your worth: of course I knew you were an angel, but I had no idea you were a duck. You are just the man for my sister. She likes to obey: you are all for commanding. So you see. Then she never thinks of herself; any other man but you would impose on her good-nature; but you are too generous to do that. So you see. Then she esteems you so highly. And one whom I esteem (between you and me) has chosen you for her."

"Then say yes, and have done with it," suggested the straightforward soldier.

"Why should I say 'no?' you will make one another happy some day: you are both so good. Any other man but you would tear her from me; but you are too just, too kind. Heaven will reward you. No! I will. I will give you Josephine: ah, my dear brother-in-law, it is the most precious thing I have to give in the world."

"Thank you, then. So that is settled. Hum! no, it is not quite; I forgot; I have something for you to read; an anonymous letter. I got it this morning; it says your sister has a lover."