Chapter V (2)

To their surprise they found the baroness walking up and down the room with unusual alacrity for a person of her years. She no sooner caught sight of Josephine than she threw her arms open to her with joyful vivacity, and kissed her warmly. “My love, you have saved us. I am a happy old woman. If I had all France to pick from I could not have found a man so worthy of my Josephine. He is brave, he is handsome, he is young, he is a rising man, he is a good son, and good sons make good husbands--and--I shall die at Beaurepaire, shall I not, Madame the Commandante?”

Josephine held her mother round the neck, but never spoke. After a silence she held her tighter, and cried a little.

“What is it?” asked the baroness confidentially of Rose, but without showing any very profound concern.

“Mamma! mamma! she does not love him.”

“Love him? She would be no daughter of mine if she loved a man at sight. A modest woman loves her husband only.”

“But she scarcely knows Monsieur Raynal.”

“She knows more of him than I knew of your father when I married him. She knows his virtues and appreciates them. I have heard her, have I not, love? Esteem soon ripens into love when they are once fairly married.”

“Mother, does her silence then tell you nothing? Her tears--are they nothing to you?”

“Silly child! These are tears that do not scald. The sweet soul weeps because she now for the first time sees she will have to leave her mother. Alas! my eldest, it is inevitable. Mothers are not immortal. While they are here it is their duty to choose good husbands for their daughters. My youngest, I believe, has chosen for herself--like the nation. But for my eldest I choose. We shall see which chooses the best. Meantime we stay at Beaurepaire, thanks to my treasure here.”

“Josephine! Josephine! you don’t say one word,” cried Rose in dismay.

“What CAN I say? I love my mother and I love you. You draw me different ways. I want you to be both happy.”

“Then if you will not speak out I must. Mother, do not deceive yourself: it is duty alone that keeps her silent: this match is odious to her.”

“Then we are ruined. Josephine, is this match odious to you?”

“Not exactly odious: but I am very, very indifferent.”

“There!” cried Rose triumphantly.

“There!” cried the baroness in the same breath, triumphantly. “She esteems his character; but his person is indifferent to her: in other words, she is a modest girl, and my daughter; and let me tell you, Rose, that but for the misfortunes of our house, both my daughters would be married as I was, without knowing half as much of their husbands as Josephine knows of this brave, honest, generous, filial gentleman.”

“Well, then, since she will not speak out, I will. Pity me: I love her so. If this stranger, whom she does not love, takes her away from us, he will kill me. I shall die; oh!”

Josephine left her mother and went to console Rose.

The baroness lost her temper at this last stroke of opposition. “Now the truth comes out, Rose; this is selfishness. Do not deceive YOURself--selfishness!”

“Mamma!”

“You are only waiting to leave me yourself. Yet your eldest sister, forsooth, must be kept here for you,--till then.” She added more gently, “Let me advise you to retire to your own room, and examine your heart fairly. You will find there is a strong dash of egoism in all this.”

“If I do”--

“You will retract your opposition.”

“My heart won’t let me; but I will despise myself, and be silent.”

And the young lady, who had dried her eyes the moment she was accused of selfishness, walked, head erect, from the room. Josephine cast a deprecating glance at her mother. “Yes, my angel!” said the latter, “I was harsh. But we are no longer of one mind, and I suppose never shall be again.”

“Oh, yes, we shall. Be patient! Mother--you shall not leave Beaurepaire.”

The baroness colored faintly at these four last words of her daughter, and hung her head.

Josephine saw that, and darted to her and covered her with kisses.

That day the doctor scolded them both. “You have put your mother into a high fever,” said he; “here’s a pulse; I do wish you would be more considerate.”

The commandant did not come to dinner as usual. The evening passed heavily; their hearts were full of uncertainty.

“We miss our merry, spirited companion,” said the baroness with a grim look at Rose. Both young ladies assented 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 wish! 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 nobody 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 passion 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 pass 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 gratitude 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 God 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.”

The letter ran to this tune: a friend who had observed the commandant’s frequent visits at Beaurepaire wrote to warn him against traps. Both the young ladies of Beaurepaire were doubtless at the new proprietor’s service to pick and choose from. But for all that each of them had a lover, and though these lovers had their orders to keep out of the way till monsieur should be hooked, he might be sure that if he married either, the man of her heart would come on the scene soon after, perhaps be present at the wedding.

In short, it was one of those poisoned arrows a coarse vindictive coward can shoot.

It was the first anonymous letter Rose had ever seen. It almost drove her mad on the spot. Raynal was sorry he had let her see it.

She turned red and white by turns, and gasped for breath.

“Why am I not a man?--why don’t I wear a sword? I would pass it through this caitiff’s heart. The cowardly slave!--the fiend! for who but a fiend could slander an angel like my Josephine? Hooked? Oh! she will never marry you if she sees this.”

“Then don’t let her see it: and why take it to heart like that? I don’t trust to the word of a man who owns that his story is a thing he dares not sign his name to; at all events, I shall not put his word against yours. But it is best to understand one another in time. I am a plain man, but not a soft one. I should not be an easygoing husband like some I see about: I’d have no wasps round my honey; if my wife took a lover I would not lecture THE WOMAN--what is the use?--I’d kill THE MAN then and there, in-doors or out, as I would kill a snake. If she took another, I’d send him after the first, and so on till one killed me.”

“And serve the wretches right.”

“Yes; but for my own sake I don’t choose to marry a woman that loves any other man. So tell me the plain truth; come.”

Rose turned chill in her inside. “I have no lover,” she stammered. “I have a young fool that comes and teases me: but it is no secret. He is away, but why? he is on a sickbed, poor little fellow!”

“But your sister? She could not have a lover unknown to you.”

“I defy her. No, sir; I have not seen her speak three words to any young man except Monsieur Riviere this three years past.”

“That is enough;” and he tore the letter quietly to atoms.

Then Rose saw she could afford a little more candor. “Understand me; I can’t speak of what happened when I was a child. But if ever she had a girlish attachment, he has not followed it up, or surely I should have seen something of him all these years.”

“Of course. Oh! as for flirtations, let them pass: a lovely girl does not grow up without one or two whispering some nonsense into her ear. Why, I myself should have flirted no doubt; but I never had the time. Bonaparte gives you time to eat and drink, but not to sleep or flirt, and that reminds me I have fifty miles to ride, so good-by, sister-in-law, eh?”

“Adieu, brother-in-law.”

Left alone, Rose had some misgivings. She had equivocated with one whose upright, candid nature ought to have protected him: but an enemy had accused Josephine; and it came so natural to shield her. “Did he really think I would expose my own sister?” said she to herself, angrily. Was not this anger secret self-discontent?

“Well, love,” said Josephine, demurely, “have you dismissed him?”

“No.”

Josephine smiled feebly. “It is easy to say ‘say no;’ but it is not so easy to say ‘no,’ especially when you feel you ought to say ‘yes,’ and have no wish either way except to give pleasure to others.”

“But I am not such skim milk as all that,” replied Rose: “I have always a strong wish where you are concerned, and your happiness. I hesitated whilst I was in doubt, but I doubt no longer: I have had a long talk with him. He has shown me his whole heart: he is the best, the noblest of creatures: he has no littleness or meanness. And then he is a thorough man; I know that by his being the very opposite of a woman in his ways. Now you are a thorough woman, and so you will suit one another to a T. I have decided: so no more doubts, love; no more tears; no more disputes. We are all of one mind, and I do think I have secured your happiness. It will not come in a day, perhaps, but it will come. So then in one little fortnight you marry Monsieur Raynal.”

“What!” said Josephine, “you have actually settled that?”

“Yes.”

“But are you sure I can make him as happy as he deserves?”

“Positive.”

“I think so too; still”--

“It is settled, dear,” said Rose soothingly.

“Oh, the comfort of that! you relieve me of a weight; you give me peace. I shall have duties; I shall do some good in the world. They were all for it but you before, were they not?”

“Yes, and now I am strongest for it of them all. Josephine, it is settled.”

Josephine looked at her for a moment in silence, then said eagerly, “Bless you, dear Rose; you have saved your sister;” then, after a moment, in a very different voice, “O Camille! Camille! why have you deserted me?”

And with this she fell to sobbing terribly. Rose wept on her neck, but said nothing. She too was a woman, and felt that this was the last despairing cry of love giving up a hopeless struggle.

They sat twined together in silence till Jacintha came to tell them it was close upon dinner-time; so then they hastened to dry their tears and wash their red eyes, for fear their mother should see what they had been at, and worry herself.

“Well, mademoiselle, these two consent; but what do you say? for after all, it is you I am courting, and not them. Have you the courage to venture on a rough soldier like me?”

This delicate question was put point-blank before the three ladies.

“Sir,” replied Josephine timidly, “I will be as frank, as straightforward as you are. I thank you for the honor you do me.”

Raynal looked perplexed.

“And does that mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

“Which you please,” said Josephine, hanging her sweet head.

The wedding was fixed for that day fortnight. The next morning wardrobes were ransacked. The silk, muslin, and lace of their prosperous days were looked out: grave discussions were held over each work of art. Rose was active, busy, fussy. The baroness threw in the weight of her judgment and experience.

Josephine managed to smile whenever either Rose or the baroness looked at all fixedly at her.

So glided the peaceful days. So Josephine drifted towards the haven of wedlock.