White Lies Part 75

"Yes, Edouard, you shall not be miserable like me; she was guilty. You do not understand me yet, my poor mother--and she was so happy this morning--I was the liar, the coward, the double-faced wife, the miserable mother that denied her child. Now will you let me die? Now do you see that I can't and won't live upon shame and despair? Ah, Monsieur Raynal, my dear friend, you were always generous: you will pity and kill me. I have dishonored the name you gave me to keep: I am neither Beaurepaire nor Raynal. Do pray kill me, monsieur--Jean, do pray release me from my life!"

And she crawled to his knees and embraced them, and kissed his hand, and pleaded more piteously for death, than others have begged for life.

Raynal stood like a rock: he was pale, and drew his breath audibly, but not a word. Then came a sight scarce less terrible than Josephine's despair. The baroness, looking and moving twenty years older than an hour before, tottered across the room to Raynal.

"Sir, you whom I have called my son, but whom I will never presume so to call again, I thought I had lived long enough never to have to blush again. I loved you, monsieur. I prayed every day for you. But she who WAS my daughter was not of my mind. Monsieur, I have never knelt but to G.o.d and to my king, and I kneel to you: forgive us, sir, forgive us!"

She tried to go down on her knees. He raised her with his strong arm, but he could not speak. She turned on the others.

"So this is the secret you were hiding from me! This secret has not killed you all. Oh! I shall not live under its shame so long as you have. Chateau of Beaurepaire--nest of treason, ingrat.i.tude, and immodesty--I loathe you as much as once I loved you. I will go and hide my head, and die elsewhere."

"Stay, madame!" said he, in a voice whose depth and dignity was such that it seemed impossible to disobey it. "It was sudden--I was shaken--but I am myself again."

"Oh, show some pity!" cried Rose.

"I shall try to be just."

There was a long, trembling silence; and during that silence and terrible agitation, one figure stood firm among those quaking, beating hearts, like a rock with the waves breaking round it--the MAN OF PRINCIPLE among the creatures of impulse.

He raised Josephine from her knees, and placed her all limp and powerless in an arm-chair. To her frenzy had now succeeded a sickness and feebleness like unto death.

"Widow Dujardin," said he, in a broken voice, "listen to me."

She moaned a sort of a.s.sent.

"Your mistake has been not trusting me. I was your friend, and not a selfish friend. I was not enough in love with you to destroy your happiness. Besides, I despise that sort of love. If you had told me all, I would have spared you this misery. By the present law, civil contracts of marriage can be dissolved by mutual consent."

At this the baroness uttered some sign of surprise.

"Ah!" continued Raynal, sadly, "you are aristocrats, and cannot keep pace with the times. This very day our mere contract shall be formally dissolved. Indeed, it ceases to exist since both parties are resolved to withdraw from it. So, if you married Dujardin in a church, you are Madame Dujardin at this moment, and his child is legitimate. What does she say?"

This question was to Rose, for what Josephine uttered sounded like a mere articulate moan. But Rose's quick ear had caught words, and she replied, all in tears, "My poor sister is blessing you, sir. We all bless you."

"She does not understand my position," said Raynal. He then walked up to Josephine, and leaning over her arm, and speaking rather loud, under the impression that her senses were blunted by grief, he said, "Look here: Colonel Dujardin, your husband, deliberately, and with his eyes open, sacrificed his life for me, and for his own heroic sense of honor. Now, it is my turn. If that hero stood here, and asked me for all the blood in my body, I would give it him. He is gone; but, dying for me, he has left me his widow and his child; they remain under my wing. To protect them is my pride, and my only consolation. I am going to the mayor to annul our unlucky contract in due form, and make us brother and sister instead. But," turning to the baroness, "don't you think to escape me as your daughter has done: no, no, old lady, once a mother, always a mother. Stir from your son's home if you dare!"

And with these words, in speaking which his voice had recovered its iron firmness, he strode out at the door, superb in manhood and principle, and every eye turned with wonder and admiration after him. Even when he was gone they gazed at the door by which a creature so strangely n.o.ble had disappeared.

The baroness was about to follow him without taking any notice of Josephine. But Rose caught her by the gown. "O mother, speak to poor Josephine: bid her live."

The baroness only made a gesture of horror and disgust, and turned her back on them both.

Josephine, who had tottered up from her seat at Rose's words, sank heavily down again, and murmured, "Ah! the grave holds all that love me now."

Rose ran to her side. "Cruel Josephine! what, do not I love you? Mother, will you not help me persuade her to live? Oh! if she dies, I will die too; you will kill both your children."

Stern and indignant as the baroness was, yet these words pierced her heart. She turned with a piteous, half apologetic air to Edouard and Aubertin. "Gentlemen," said she, "she has been foolish, not guilty.

Heaven pardons the best of us. Surely a mother may forgive her child."

And with this nature conquered utterly; and she held out her arms, wide, wide, as is a mother's heart. Her two erring children rushed sobbing violently into them; and there was not a dry eye in the room for a long time.

After this, Josephine's heart almost ceased to beat. Fear and misgivings, and the heavy sense of deceit gnawing an honorable heart, were gone. Grief reigned alone in the pale, listless, bereaved widow.

The marriage was annulled before the mayor; and, three days afterwards, Raynal, by his influence, got the consummated marriage formally allowed in Paris.

With a delicacy for which one would hardly have given him credit, he never came near Beaurepaire till all this was settled; but he brought the doc.u.ment from Paris that made Josephine the widow Dujardin, and her boy the heir of Beaurepaire; and the moment she was really Madame Dujardin he avoided her no longer; and he became a comfort to her instead of a terror.

The dissolution of the marriage was a great tie between them. So much that, seeing how much she looked up to Raynal, the doctor said one day to the baroness, "If I know anything of human nature, they will marry again, provided none of you give her a hint which way her heart is turning."

They, who have habituated themselves to live for others, can suffer as well as do great things. Josephine kept alive. A pa.s.sion such as hers, in a selfish nature, must have killed her.

Even as it was, she often said, "It is hard to live."

Then they used to talk to her of her boy. Would she leave him--Camille's boy--without a mother? And these words were never spoken to her quite in vain.

Her mother forgave her entirely, and loved her as before. Who could be angry with her long? The air was no longer heavy with lies. Wretched as she was, she breathed lighter. Joy and hope were gone. Sorrowful peace was coming. When the heart comes to this, nothing but Time can cure; but what will not Time do? What wounds have I seen him heal! His cures are incredible.

The little party sat one day, peaceful, but silent and sad, in the Pleasaunce, under the great oak.

Two soldiers came to the gate. They walked feebly, for one was lame, and leaned upon the other, who was pale and weak, and leaned upon a stick.

"Soldiers," said Raynal, "and invalided."

"Give them food and wine," said Josephine.

Rose went towards them; but she had scarcely taken three steps ere she cried out,--

"It is Dard! it is poor Dard! Come in, Dard, come in."

Dard limped towards them, leaning upon Sergeant La Croix. A bit of Dard's heel had been shot away, and of La Croix's head.

Rose ran to the kitchen.

"Jacintha, bring out a table into the Pleasaunce, and something for two guests to eat."

The soldiers came slowly to the Pleasaunce, and were welcomed, and invited to sit down, and received with respect; for France even in that day honored the humblest of her brave.

Soon Jacintha came out with a little round table in her hands, and affected a composure which was belied by her shaking hands and her glowing cheek.

After a few words of homely welcome--not eloquent, but very sincere--she went off again with her ap.r.o.n to her eyes. She reappeared with the good cheer, and served the poor fellows with radiant zeal.

"What regiment?" asked Raynal.

Dard was about to answer, but his superior stopped him severely; then, rising with his hand to his forehead, he replied, with pride, "Twenty-fourth brigade, second company. We were cut up at Philipsburg, and incorporated with the 12th."

Raynal instantly regretted his question; for Josephine's eye fixed on Sergeant La Croix with an expression words cannot paint. Yet she showed more composure, real or forced, than he expected.

"Heaven sends him," said she. "My friend, tell me, were you--ah!"