White Lies

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER XVI.

  Dr. Aubertin received one day a note from a publishing bookseller, toinquire whether he still thought of giving the world his valuable workon insects. The doctor was amazed. "My valuable work! Why, Rose, theyall refused it, and this person in particular recoiled from it as if myinsects could sting on paper."

  The above led to a correspondence, in which the convert to insectsexplained that the work must be published at the author's expense, thepublisher contenting himself with the profits. The author, thirsting forthe public, consented. Then the publisher wrote again to say that theimmortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics flung in: "Nothinggoes down, else." The author answered in some heat that he would notdilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nordefile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down,despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of tradeand nothing else. It ended in Aubertin going to Paris to hatch hisPhoenix. He had not been there a week, when a small deputation called onhim, and informed him he had been elected honorary member of a certainscientific society. The compliment was followed by others, till at lastcertain ladies, with the pliancy of their sex, find out they had alwayssecretly cared for butterflies. Then the naturalist smelt a rat, or, inother words, began to scent that entomology, a form of idiocy in a poorman, is a graceful decoration of the intellect in a rich one.

  Philosopher without bile, he saw through this, and let it amuse, notshock him. His own species, a singularly interesting one in my opinion,had another trait in reserve for him.

  He took a world of trouble to find out the circumstances of his nephew'snephews and nieces: then he made arrangements for distributing a largepart of his legacy among them. His intentions and the proportions of hisgenerosity transpired.

  Hitherto they had been silent, but now they all fell-to and abused him:each looking only to the amount of his individual share, not at the sumtotal the doctor was giving way to an ungrateful lot.

  The donor was greatly amused, and noted down the incident and someof the remarks in his commonplace book, under the general head of"Bestiarium;" and the particular head of "Homo."

  Paris with its seductions netted the good doctor, and held him two orthree months; would have detained him longer, but for alarming accountsthe baroness sent of Josephine's health. These determined him to returnto Beaurepaire; and, must I own it, the announcement was no longerhailed at Beaurepaire with universal joy as heretofore.

  Josephine Raynal, late Dujardin, is by this time no stranger to myintelligent reader. I wish him to bring his knowledge of her characterand her sensibility to my aid. Imagine, as the weary hours and days andweeks roll over her head, what this loving woman feels for her loverwhom she has dismissed; what this grateful wife feels for the benefactorshe has unwittingly wronged; but will never wrong with her eyes open;what this lady pure as snow, and proud as fire, feels at the seemingfrailty into which a cruel combination of circumstances has entrappedher.

  Put down the book a moment: shut your eyes: and imagine this strange andcomplicated form of human suffering.

  Her mental sufferings were terrible; and for some time Rose feared forher reason. At last her agonies subsided into a listlessness and apathylittle less alarming. She seemed a creature descending inch by inch intothe tomb. Indeed, I fully believe she would have died of despair: butone of nature's greatest forces stepped into the arena and fought on theside of life. She was affected with certain bilious symptoms that addedto Rose's uneasiness, but Jacintha assured her it was nothing, and wouldretire and leave the sufferer better. Jacintha, indeed, seemed now totake a particular interest in Josephine, and was always about her withlooks of pity and interest.

  "Good creature!" thought Rose, "she sees my sister is unhappy: and thatmakes her more attentive and devoted to her than ever."

  One day these three were together in Josephine's room. Josephine wasmechanically combing her long hair, when all of a sudden she stretchedout her hand and cried, "Rose!"

  Rose ran to her, and coming behind her saw in the glass that herlips were colorless. She screamed to Jacintha, and between them theysupported Josephine to the bed. She had hardly touched it when shefainted dead away. "Mamma! mamma!" cried Rose in her terror.

  "Hush!" cried Jacintha roughly, "hold your tongue: it is only a faint.Help me loosen her: don't make any noise, whatever." They loosened herstays, and applied the usual remedies, but it was some time before shecame-to. At last the color came back to her lips, then to her cheek, andthe light to her eye. She smiled feebly on Jacintha and Rose, and askedif she had not been insensible.

  "Yes, love, and frightened us--a little--not much--oh, dear! oh, dear!"

  "Don't be alarmed, sweet one, I am better. And I will never do it again,since it frightens you." Then Josephine said to her sister in a lowvoice, and in the Italian language, "I hoped it was death, my sister;but he comes not to the wretched."

  "If you hoped that," replied Rose in the same language, "you do not loveyour poor sister who so loves you."

  While the Italian was going on, Jacintha's dark eyes glancedsuspiciously on each speaker in turn. But her suspicions were all wideof the mark.

  "Now may I go and tell mamma?" asked Rose.

  "No, mademoiselle, you shall not," said Jacintha. "Madame Raynal, dotake my side, and forbid her."

  "Why, what is it to you?" said Rose, haughtily.

  "If it was not something to me, should I thwart my dear young lady?"

  "No. And you shall have your own way, if you will but condescend to giveme a reason."

  This to some of us might appear reasonable, but not to Jacintha: it evenhurt her feelings.

  "Mademoiselle Rose," she said, "when you were little and used to ask mefor anything, did I ever say to you, 'Give me a REASON first'?"

  "There! she is right," said Josephine. "We should not make terms withtried friends. Come, we will pay her devotion this compliment. It issuch a small favor. For my part I feel obliged to her for asking it."

  Josephine's health improved steadily from that day. Her hollow cheeksrecovered their plump smoothness, and her beauty its bloom, and herperson grew more noble and statue-like than ever, and within she felta sense of indomitable vitality. Her appetite had for some time beenexcessively feeble and uncertain, and her food tasteless; but of late,by what she conceived to be a reaction such as is common after youth hasshaken off a long sickness, her appetite had been not only healthybut eager. The baroness observed this, and it relieved her of a largeportion of her anxiety. One day at dinner her maternal heart was sopleased with Josephine's performance that she took it as a personalfavor, "Well done, Josephine," said she; "that gives your motherpleasure to see you eat again. Soup and bouillon: and now twice youhave been to Rose for some of that pate, which does you so much credit,Jacintha."

  Josephine colored high at this compliment.

  "It is true," said she, "I eat like a pig;" and, with a furtive glanceat the said pate, she laid down her knife and fork, and ate no more ofanything. The baroness had now a droll misgiving.

  "The doctor will be angry with me," said she: "he will find her as wellas ever."

  "Madame," said Jacintha hastily, "when does the doctor come, if I maymake so bold, that I may get his room ready, you know?"

  "Well thought of, Jacintha. He comes the day after to-morrow, in theafternoon."

  At night when the young ladies went up to bed, what did they find but alittle cloth laid on a little table in Josephine's room, and the remainsof the pate she had liked. Rose burst out laughing. "Look at that dearduck of a goose, Jacintha! Our mother's flattery sank deep: she thinkswe can eat her pates at all hours of the day and night. Shall I send itaway?"

  "No," said Josephine, "that would hurt her culinary pride, and perhapsher affection: only cover it up, dear, for just now I am not in thehumor: it rather turns me."

  It was covered up. The sisters retired to rest. In the morning Roselifted the cover and found the plate cleared, polished. She wasastounded
.

  The large tapestried chamber, once occupied by Camille Dujardin, wasnow turned into a sitting-room, and it was a favorite on account of thebeautiful view from the windows.

  One day Josephine sat there alone with some work in her hand; but theneedle often stopped, and the fair head drooped. She heaved a deep sigh.To her surprise it was echoed by a sigh that, like her own, seemed tocome from a heart full of sighs.

  She turned hastily round and saw Jacintha.

  Now Josephine had all a woman's eye for reading faces, and she wasinstantly struck by a certain gravity in Jacintha's gaze, and a flutterwhich the young woman was suppressing with tolerable but not completesuccess.

  Disguising the uneasiness this discovery gave her, she looked hervisitor full in the face, and said mildly, but a little coldly, "Well,Jacintha?"

  Jacintha lowered her eyes and muttered slowly,--

  "The doctor--comes--to-day," then raised her eyes all in a moment totake Josephine off her guard; but the calm face was impenetrable.So then Jacintha added, "to our misfortune," throwing in still moremeaning.

  "To our misfortune? A dear old friend--like him?"

  Jacintha explained. "That old man makes me shake. You are never safewith him. So long as his head is in the clouds, you might take his shoesoff, and on he'd walk and never know it; but every now and then he comesout of the clouds all in one moment, without a word of warning, and whenhe does his eye is on everything, like a bird's. Then he is so old: hehas seen a heap. Take my word for it, the old are more knowing than theyoung, let them be as sharp as you like: the old have seen everything.WE have only heard talk of the most part, with here and there a glimpse.To know life to the bottom you must live it out, from the soup to thedessert; and that is what the doctor has done, and now he is cominghere. And Mademoiselle Rose will go telling him everything; and if shetells him half what she has seen, your secret will be no secret to thatold man."

  "My secret!" gasped Josephine, turning pale.

  "Don't look so, madame: don't be frightened at poor Jacintha. Sooner orlater you MUST trust somebody besides Mademoiselle Rose."

  Josephine looked at her with inquiring, frightened eyes.

  Jacintha drew nearer to her.

  "Mademoiselle,--I beg pardon, madame,--I carried you in my arms when Iwas a child. When I was a girl you toddled at my side, and held my gown,and lisped my name, and used to put your little arms round my neck, andkissed me, you would; and if ever I had the least pain or sickness yourdear little face would turn as sorrowful, and all the pretty color leaveit for Jacintha; and now you are in trouble, in sore trouble, yet youturn away from me, you dare not trust me, that would be cut in piecesere I would betray you. Ah, mademoiselle, you are wrong. The poor canfeel: they have all seen trouble, and a servant is the best of friendswhere she has the heart to love her mistress; and do not I love you?Pray do not turn from her who has carried you in her arms, and laid youto sleep upon her bosom, many's and many's the time."

  Josephine panted audibly. She held out her hand eloquently to Jacintha,but she turned her head away and trembled.

  Jacintha cast a hasty glance round the room. Then she trembled too atwhat she was going to say, and the effect it might have on the younglady. As for Josephine, terrible as the conversation had become, shemade no attempt to evade it: she remained perfectly passive. It was thebest way to learn how far Jacintha had penetrated her secret, if at all.

  Jacintha looked fearfully round and whispered in Josephine's ear, "Whenthe news of Colonel Raynal's death came, you wept, but the color cameback to your cheek. When the news of his life came, you turned to stone.Ah! my poor young lady, there has been more between you and THAT MANthan should be. Ever since one day you all went to Frejus together, youwere a changed woman. I have seen you look at him as--as a wife looks ather man. I have seen HIM"--

  "Hush, Jacintha! Do not tell me what you have seen: oh! do not remindme of joys I pray God to help me forget. He was my husband, then!--oh,cruel Jacintha, to remind me of what I have been, of what I am! Ah me!ah me! ah me!"

  "Your husband!" cried Jacintha in utter amazement.

  Then Josephine drooped her head on this faithful creature's shoulder,and told her with many sobs the story I have told you. She told it verybriefly, for it was to a woman who, though little educated, was full offeeling and shrewdness, and needed but the bare facts: she could add therest from her own heart and experience: could tell the storm of feelingsthrough which these two unhappy lovers must have passed. Her frequentsighs of pity and sympathy drew Josephine on to pour out all her griefs.When the tale was ended she gave a sigh of relief.

  "It might have been worse: I thought it was worse the more fool I. Ideserve to have my head cut off." This was Jacintha's only comment atthat time.

  It was Josephine's turn to be amazed. "It could have been worse?" saidshe. "How? tell me," added she bitterly. "It would be a consolation tome, could I see that."

  Jacintha colored and evaded this question, and begged her to go on, tokeep nothing back from her. Josephine assured her she had revealed all.Jacintha looked at her a moment in silence.

  "It is then as I half suspected. You do not know all that is before you.You do not see why I am afraid of that old man."

  "No, not of him in particular."

  "Nor why I want to keep Mademoiselle Rose from prattling to him?"

  "No. I assure you Rose is to be trusted; she is wise--wiser than I am."

  "You are neither of you wise. You neither of you know anything. My pooryoung mistress, you are but a child still. You have a deep water to wadethrough," said Jacintha, so solemnly that Josephine trembled. "A deepwater, and do not see it even. You have told me what is past, now I musttell you what is coming. Heaven help me! But is it possible you have nomisgiving? Tell the truth, now."

  "Alas! I am full of them; at your words, at your manner, they fly aroundme in crowds."

  "Have you no ONE?"

  "No."

  "Then turn your head from me a bit, my sweet young lady; I am an honestwoman, though I am not so innocent as you, and I am forced against mywill to speak my mind plainer than I am used to."

  Then followed a conversation, to detail which might anticipate ourstory; suffice it to say, that Rose, coming into the room rathersuddenly, found her sister weeping on Jacintha's bosom, and Jacinthacrying and sobbing over her.

  She stood and stared in utter amazement.

  Dr. Aubertin, on his arrival, was agreeably surprised at Madame Raynal'sappearance. He inquired after her appetite.

  "Oh, as to her appetite," cried the baroness, "that is immense."

  "Indeed!"

  "It was," explained Josephine, "just when I began to get better, butnow it is as much as usual." This answer had been arranged beforehand byJacintha. She added, "The fact is, we wanted to see you, doctor, andmy ridiculous ailments were a good excuse for tearing you fromParis."--"And now we have succeeded," said Rose, "let us throw off themask, and talk of other things; above all, of Paris, and your eclat."

  "For all that," persisted the baroness, "she was ill, when I firstwrote, and very ill too."

  "Madame Raynal," said the doctor solemnly, "your conduct has beenirregular; once ill, and your illness announced to your medical adviser,etiquette forbade you to get well but by his prescriptions. Since, then,you have shown yourself unfit to conduct a malady, it becomes mypainful duty to forbid you henceforth ever to be ill at all, without mypermission first obtained in writing."

  This badinage was greatly relished by Rose, but not at all by thebaroness, who was as humorless as a swan.

  He stayed a month at Beaurepaire, then off to Paris again: and being nowa rich man, and not too old to enjoy innocent pleasures, he got a habitof running backwards and forwards between the two places, spending amonth or so at each alternately. So the days rolled on. Josephine fellinto a state that almost defies description; her heart was full ofdeadly wounds, yet it seemed, by some mysterious, half-healing balm,to throb and ache, but bleed no more. Beams of strange
, unreasonablecomplacency would shoot across her; the next moment reflection wouldcome, she would droop her head, and sigh piteously. Then all would mergein a wild terror of detection. She seemed on the borders of a river ofbliss, new, divine, and inexhaustible: and on the other bank mockingmalignant fiends dared her to enter that heavenly stream. The past toher was full of regrets; the future full of terrors, and empty of hope.Yet she did not, could not succumb. Instead of the listlessness andlanguor of a few months back, she had now more energy than ever; attimes it mounted to irritation. An activity possessed her: it broke outin many feminine ways. Among the rest she was seized with what we mencall a cacoethes of the needle: "a raging desire" for work. Her fingersitched for work. She was at it all day. As devotees retire to pray, soshe to stitch. On a wet day she would often slip into the kitchen, andply the needle beside Jacintha: on a dry day she would hide in the oldoak-tree, and sit like a mouse, and ply the tools of her craft, and makethings of no mortal use to man or woman; and she tried little fringes ofmuslin upon her white hand, and held it up in front of her, and smiled,and then moaned. It was winter, and Rose used sometimes to bring her outa thick shawl, as she sat in the old oak-tree stitching, but Josephinenearly always declined it. SHE WAS NEARLY IMPERVIOUS TO COLD.

  Then, her purse being better filled than formerly, she visited thepoor more than ever, and above all the young couples; and took a warminterest in their household matters, and gave them muslin articles ofher own making, and sometimes sniffed the soup in a young housewife'spot, and took a fancy to it, and, if invited to taste it, paid her thecompliment of eating a good plateful of it, and said it was much bettersoup than the chateau produced, and, what is stranger, thought so: and,whenever some peevish little brat set up a yell in its cradle and thefather naturally enough shook his fist at the destroyer of his peace,Madame Raynal's lovely face filled with concern not for the sufferer butthe pest, and she flew to it and rocked it and coaxed it and consoledit, till the young housewife smiled and stopped its mouth by othermeans. And, besides the five-franc pieces she gave the infants to hold,these visits of Madame Raynal were always followed by one from Jacinthawith a basket of provisions on her stalwart arm, and honest Sir JohnBurgoyne peeping out at the corner. Kind and beneficent as she was,her temper deteriorated considerably, for it came down from angelicto human. Rose and Jacintha were struck with the change, assented toeverything she said, and encouraged her in everything it pleased hercaprice to do. Meantime the baroness lived on her son Raynal's letters(they came regularly twice a month). Rose too had a correspondence,a constant source of delight to her. Edouard Riviere was posted at adistance, and could not visit her; but their love advanced rapidly.Every day he wrote down for his Rose the acts of the day, and twice aweek sent the budget to his sweetheart, and told her at the same timeevery feeling of his heart. She was less fortunate than he; she had tocarry a heavy secret; but still she found plenty to tell him, and tenderfeelings too to vent on him in her own arch, shy, fitful way. Letterscan enchain hearts; it was by letters that these two found themselvesimperceptibly betrothed. Their union was looked forward to as certain,and not very distant. Rose was fairly in love.

  One day, Dr. Aubertin, coming back from Paris to Beaurepaire rathersuddenly, found nobody at home but the baroness. Josephine and Rose weregone to Frejus; had been there more than a week. She was ailing again;so as Frejus had agreed with her once, Rose thought it might again. "Shewould send for them back directly."

  "No," said the doctor, "why do that? I will go over there and see them."Accordingly, a day or two after this, he hired a carriage, and went offearly in the morning to Frejus. In so small a place he expected to findthe young ladies at once; but, to his surprise, no one knew them nor hadheard of them. He was at a nonplus, and just about to return home andlaugh at himself and the baroness for this wild-goose chase, when hefell in with a face he knew, one Mivart, a surgeon, a young man of sometalent, who had made his acquaintance in Paris. Mivart accosted him withgreat respect; and, after the first compliments, informed him that hehad been settled some months in this little town, and was doing a fairstroke of business.

  "Killing some, and letting nature cure others, eh?" said the doctor;then, having had his joke, he told Mivart what had brought him toFrejus.

  "Are they pretty women, your friends? I think I know all the prettywomen about," said Mivart with levity. "They are not pretty,"replied Aubertin. Mivart's interest in them faded visibly out of hiscountenance. "But they are beautiful. The elder might pass for Venus,and the younger for Hebe."

  "I know them then!" cried he; "they are patients of mine."

  The doctor colored. "Ah, indeed!"

  "In the absence of your greater skill," said Mivart, politely; "it isMadame Aubertin and her sister you are looking for, is it not?"

  Aubertin groaned. "I am rather too old to be looking for a MadameAubertin," said he; "no; it is Madame Raynal, and Mademoiselle deBeaurepaire."

  Mivart became confidential. "Madame Aubertin and her sister," said he,"are so lovely they make me ill to look at them: the deepest blue eyesyou ever saw, both of them; high foreheads; teeth like ivory mixed withpearl; such aristocratic feet and hands; and their arms--oh!" and by wayof general summary the young surgeon kissed the tips of his fingers,and was silent; language succumbed under the theme. The doctor smiledcoldly.

  Mivart added, "If you had come an hour sooner, you might have seenMademoiselle Rose; she was in the town."

  "Mademoiselle Rose? who is that?"

  "Why, Madame Aubertin's sister."

  At this Dr. Aubertin looked first very puzzled, then very grave.

  "Hum!" said he, after a little reflection, "where do these paragonslive?"

  "They lodge at a small farm; it belongs to a widow; her name is Roth."They parted. Dr. Aubertin walked slowly towards his carriage, his handsbehind him, his eyes on the ground. He bade the driver inquire wherethe Widow Roth lived, and learned it was about half a league out of thetown. He drove to the farmhouse; when the carriage drove up, a younglady looked out of the window on the first floor. It was Rose deBeaurepaire. She caught the doctor's eye, and he hers. She came down andwelcomed him with a great appearance of cordiality, and asked him, witha smile, how he found them out.

  "From your medical attendant," said the doctor, dryly.

  Rose looked keenly in his face.

  "He said he was in attendance on two paragons of beauty, blue eyes,white teeth and arms."

  "And you found us out by that?" inquired Rose, looking still more keenlyat him.

  "Hardly; but it was my last chance of finding you, so I came. Where isMadame Raynal?"

  "Come into this room, dear friend. I will go and find her."

  Full twenty minutes was the doctor kept waiting, and then in came Rose,gayly crying, "I have hunted her high and low, and where do you think mylady was? sitting out in the garden--come."

  Sure enough, they found Josephine in the garden, seated on a low chair.She smiled when the doctor came up to her, and asked after her mother.There was an air of languor about her; her color was clear, delicate,and beautiful.

  "You have been unwell, my child."

  "A little, dear friend; you know me; always ailing, and tormenting thoseI love."

  "Well! but, Josephine, you know this place and this sweet air always setyou up. Look at her now, doctor; did you ever see her look better? Seewhat a color. I never saw her look more lovely."

  "I never saw her look SO lovely; but I have seen her look better. Yourpulse. A little languid?"

  "Yes, I am a little."

  "Do you stay at Beaurepaire?" inquired Rose; "if so, we will come home."

  "On the contrary, you will stay here another fortnight," said thedoctor, authoritatively.

  "Prescribe some of your nice tonics for me, doctor," said Josephine,coaxingly.

  "No! I can't do that; you are in the hands of another practitioner."

  "What does that matter? You were at Paris."

  "It is not the etiquette in our profession to
interfere with anotherman's patients."

  "Oh, dear! I am so sorry," began Josephine.

  "I see nothing here that my good friend Mivart is not competent to dealwith," said the doctor, coldly.

  Then followed some general conversation, at the end of which the doctoronce more laid his commands on them to stay another fortnight where theywere, and bade them good-by.

  He was no sooner gone than Rose went to the door of the kitchen, andcalled out, "Madame Jouvenel! Madame Jouvenel! you may come into thegarden again."

  The doctor drove away; but, instead of going straight to Beaurepaire,he ordered the driver to return to the town. He then walked to Mivart'shouse.

  In about a quarter of an hour he came out of it, looking singularlygrave, sad, and stern.