CHAPTER XVII.
Edouard Riviere contrived one Saturday to work off all arrears ofbusiness, and start for Beaurepaire. He had received a very kind letterfrom Rose, and his longing to see her overpowered him. On the road hiseyes often glittered, and his cheek flushed with expectation. At last hegot there. His heart beat: for four months he had not seen her. Heran up into the drawing-room, and there found the baroness alone; shewelcomed him cordially, but soon let him know Rose and her sister wereat Frejus. His heart sank. Frejus was a long way off. But this was notall. Rose's last letter was dated from Beaurepaire, yet it must havebeen written at Frejus. He went to Jacintha, and demanded an explanationof this. The ready Jacintha said it looked as if she meant to be homedirectly; and added, with cool cunning, "That is a hint for me to gettheir rooms ready."
"This letter must have come here enclosed in another," said Edouard,sternly.
"Like enough," replied Jacintha, with an appearance of sovereignindifference.
Edouard looked at her, and said, grimly, "I will go to Frejus."
"So I would," said Jacintha, faltering a little, but not perceptibly;"you might meet them on the road, if so be they come the same road;there are two roads, you know."
Edouard hesitated; but he ended by sending Dard to the town on his ownhorse, with orders to leave him at the inn, and borrow a fresh horse. "Ishall just have time," said he. He rode to Frejus, and inquired at theinns and post-office for Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire. They did not knowher; then he inquired for Madame Raynal. No such name known. He rode bythe seaside upon the chance of their seeing him. He paraded on horsebackthroughout the place, in hopes every moment that a window would open,and a fair face shine at it, and call him. At last his time was up, andhe was obliged to ride back, sick at heart, to Beaurepaire. He told thebaroness, with some natural irritation, what had happened. She was asmuch surprised as he was.
"I write to Madame Raynal at the post-office, Frejus," said she.
"And Madame Raynal gets your letters?"
"Of course she does, since she answers them; you cannot have inquired atthe post."
"Why, it was the first place I inquired at, and neither Mademoiselle deBeaurepaire nor Madame Raynal were known there."
Jacintha, who could have given the clew, seemed so puzzled herself, thatthey did not even apply to her. Edouard took a sorrowful leave of thebaroness, and set out on his journey home.
Oh! how sad and weary that ride seemed now by what it had been coming.His disappointment was deep and irritating; and ere he had ridden halfway a torturer fastened on his heart. That torture is suspicion; a vagueand shadowy, but gigantic phantom that oppresses and rends the mind moreterribly than certainty. In this state of vague, sickening suspicion, heremained some days: then came an affectionate letter from Rose, whohad actually returned home. In this she expressed her regret anddisappointment at having missed him; blamed herself for misleading him,but explained that their stay at Frejus had been prolonged from day today far beyond her expectation. "The stupidity of the post-office wasmore than she could account for," said she. But, what went farthest toconsole Edouard, was, that after this contretemps she never ceased toinvite him to come to Beaurepaire. Now, before this, though she saidmany kind and pretty things in her letters, she had never invited him tovisit the chateau; he had noticed this. "Sweet soul," thought he, "shereally is vexed. I must be a brute to think any more about it. Still"--
So this wound was skinned over.
At last, what he called his lucky star ordained that he should betransferred to the very post his Commandant Raynal had once occupied. Hesought and obtained permission to fix his quarters in the little villagenear Beaurepaire, and though this plan could not be carried out forthree months, yet the prospect of it was joyful all that time--joyful toboth lovers. Rose needed this consolation, for she was very unhappy: herbeloved sister, since their return from Frejus, had gone back. The flushof health was faded, and so was her late energy. She fell intodeep depression and languor, broken occasionally by fits of nervousirritation.
She would sit for hours together at one window languishing and fretting.Can the female reader guess which way that window looked?
Now, Edouard was a favorite of Josephine's; so Rose hoped he would helpto distract her attention from those sorrows which a lapse of yearsalone could cure.
On every account, then, his visit was looked forward to with hope andjoy.
He came. He was received with open arms. He took up his quarters athis old lodgings, but spent his evenings and every leisure hour at thechateau.
He was very much in love, and showed it. He adhered to Rose like aleech, and followed her about like a little dog.
This would have made her very happy if there had been nothing great todistract her attention and her heart; but she had Josephine, whose deepdepression and fits of irritation and terror filled her with anxiety;and so Edouard was in the way now and then. On these occasions he wastoo vain to see what she was too polite to show him offensively.
But on this she became vexed at his obtuseness.
"Does he think I can be always at his beck and call?" thought she.
"She is always after her sister," said he.
He was just beginning to be jealous of Josephine when the followingincident occurred:--
Rose and the doctor were discussing Josephine. Edouard pretended to bereading a book, but he listened to every word.
Dr. Aubertin gave it as his opinion that Madame Raynal did not makeenough blood.
"Oh! if I thought that!" cried Rose.
"Well, then, it is so, I assure you."
"Doctor," said Rose, "do you remember, one day you said healthy bloodcould be drawn from robust veins and poured into a sick person's?"
"It is a well-known fact," said Aubertin.
"I don't believe it," said Rose, dryly.
"Then you place a very narrow limit to science," said the doctor,coldly.
"Did you ever see it done?" asked Rose, slyly.
"I have not only seen it done, but have done it myself."
"Then do it for us. There's my arm; take blood from that for dearJosephine!" and she thrust a white arm out under his eye with such abold movement and such a look of fire and love as never beamed fromcommon eyes.
A keen, cold pang shot through the human heart of Edouard Riviere.
The doctor started and gazed at her with admiration: then he hung hishead. "I could not do it. I love you both too well to drain either oflife's current."
Rose veiled her fire, and began to coax. "Once a week; just once a week,dear, dear doctor; you know I should never miss it. I am so full of thathealth, which Heaven denies to her I love."
"Let us try milder measures first," said the doctor. "I have most faithin time."
"What if I were to take her to Frejus? hitherto, the sea has always donewonders for her."
"Frejus, by all means," said Edouard, mingling suddenly in theconversation; "and this time I will go with you, and then I shall findout where you lodged before, and how the boobies came to say they didnot know you."
Rose bit her lip. She could not help seeing then how much dear Edouardwas in her way and Josephine's. Their best friends are in the way of allwho have secrets. Presently the doctor went to his study. Then Edouardlet fall a mock soliloquy. "I wonder," said he, dropping out his wordsone by one, "whether any one will ever love me well enough to give adrop of their blood for me."
"If you were in sickness and sorrow, who knows?" said Rose, coloring up.
"I would soon be in sickness and sorrow if I thought that."
"Don't jest with such matters, monsieur."
"I am serious. I wish I was as ill as Madame Raynal is, to be loved asshe is."
"You must resemble her in some other things to be loved as she is.
"You have often made me feel that of late, dear Rose."
This touched her. But she fought down the kindly feeling. "I am glad ofit," said she, out of perverseness. She added after a while, "Edouard,you ar
e naturally jealous."
"Not the least in the world, Rose, I assure you. I have many faults, butjealous I am not."
"Oh, yes, you are, and suspicious, too; there is something in yourcharacter that alarms me for our happiness."
"Well, if you come to that, there are things in YOUR conduct I couldwish explained."
"There! I said so. You have not confidence in me."
"Pray don't say that, dear Rose. I have every confidence in you; onlyplease don't ask me to divest myself of my senses and my reason."
"I don't ask you to do that or anything else for me; good-by, for thepresent."
"Where are you going now? tic! tic! I never can get a word in peace withyou."
"I am not going to commit murder. I'm only going up-stairs to mysister."
"Poor Madame Raynal, she makes it very hard for me not to dislike her."
"Dislike my Josephine?" and Rose bristled visibly.
"She is an angel, but I should hate an angel if it came forever betweenyou and me."
"Excuse me, she was here long before you. It is you that came betweenher and me."
"I came because I was told I should be welcome," said Edouard bitterly,and equivocating a little; he added, "and I dare say I shall go when Iam told I am one too many."
"Bad heart! who says you are one too many in the house? But you aretoo exigent, monsieur; you assume the husband, and you tease me. It isselfish; can you not see I am anxious and worried? you ought to be kindto me, and soothe me; that is what I look for from you, and, instead ofthat, I declare you are getting to be quite a worry."
"I should not be if you loved me as I love you. I give YOU no rival.Shall I tell you the cause of all this? you have secrets."
"What secrets?"
"Is it me you ask? am I trusted with them? Secrets are a bond that noteven love can overcome. It is to talk secrets you run away from meto Madame Raynal. Where did you lodge at Frejus, Mademoiselle theReticent?"
"In a grotto, dry at low water, Monsieur the Inquisitive."
"That is enough: since you will not tell me, I will find it out before Iam a week older."
This alarmed Rose terribly, and drove her to extremities. She decided toquarrel.
"Sir," said she, "I thank you for playing the tyrant a littleprematurely; it has put me on my guard. Let us part; you and I are notsuited to each other, Edouard Riviere."
He took this more humbly than she expected. "Part!" said he, inconsternation; "that is a terrible word to pass between you and me.Forgive me! I suppose I am jealous."
"You are; you are actually jealous of my sister. Well, I tell youplainly I love you, but I love my sister better. I never could love anyman as I do her; it is ridiculous to expect such a thing."
"And do you think I could bear to play second fiddle to her all mylife?"
"I don't ask you. Go and play first trumpet to some other lady."
"You speak your wishes so plainly now, I have nothing to do but toobey."
He kissed her hand and went away disconsolately.
Rose, instead of going to Josephine, her determination to do which hadmainly caused the quarrel, sat sadly down, and leaned her head on herhand. "I am cruel. I am ungrateful. He has gone away broken-hearted.And what shall I do without him?--little fool! I love him better than heloves me. He will never forgive me. I have wounded his vanity; and theyare vainer than we are. If we meet at dinner I will be so kind to him,he will forget it all. No! Edouard will not come to dinner. He is not aspaniel that you can beat, and then whistle back again. Something tellsme I have lost him, and if I have, what shall I do? I will write him anote. I will ask him to forgive me."
She sat down at the table, and took a sheet of notepaper and began towrite a few conciliatory words. She was so occupied in making these kindenough, and not too kind, that a light step approached her unobserved.She looked up and there was Edouard. She whipped the paper off thetable.
A look of suspicion and misery crossed Edouard's face.
Rose caught it, and said, "Well, am I to be affronted any more?"
"No, Rose. I came back to beg you to forget what passed just now," saidhe.
Rose's eye flashed; his return showed her her power. She abused itdirectly.
"How can I forget it if you come reminding me?"
"Dear Rose, now don't be so unkind, so cruel--I have not come back totease you, sweet one. I come to know what I can do to please you; tomake you love me again?" and he was about to kneel graciously on oneknee.
"I'll tell you. Don't come near me for a month."
Edouard started up, white as ashes with mortification and wounded love.
"This is how you treat me for humbling myself, when it is you that oughtto ask forgiveness."
"Why should I ask what I don't care about?"
"What DO you care about?--except that sister of yours? You have noheart. And on this cold-blooded creature I have wasted a love an empressmight have been proud of inspiring. I pray Heaven some man may sportwith your affections, you heartless creature, as you have played withmine, and make you suffer what I suffer now!"
And with a burst of inarticulate grief and rage he flung out of theroom.
Rose sank trembling on the sofa a little while: then with a mightyeffort rose and went to comfort her sister.
Edouard came no more to Beaurepaire.
There is an old French proverb, and a wise one, "Rien n'est certain quel'imprevu;" it means you can make sure of nothing but this, that matterswill not turn as you feel sure they will. And, even for this reason,you, who are thinking of suicide because trade is declining, speculationfailing, bankruptcy impending, or your life going to be blighted foreverby unrequited love--DON'T DO IT. Whether you are English, American,French, or German, listen to a man that knows what is what, and DON'T DOIT. I tell you none of those horrors, when they really come, will affectyou as you fancy they will. The joys we expect are not a quarterso bright, nor the troubles half so dark as we think they will be.Bankruptcy coming is one thing, come is quite another: and no heartor life was ever really blighted at twenty years of age. The love-sickgirls that are picked out of the canal alive, all, without exception,marry another man, have brats, and get to screech with laughter whenthey think of sweetheart No. 1, generally a blockhead, or else ablackguard, whom they were fools enough to wet their clothes for, letalone kill their souls. This happens INVARIABLY. The love-sick girlsthat are picked out of the canal dead have fled from a year's miseryto eternal pain, from grief that time never failed to cure, to anguishincurable. In this world "Rien n'est certain que l'imprevu."
Edouard and Rose were tender lovers, at a distance. How much happier andmore loving they thought they should be beneath the same roof. They cametogether: their prominent faults of character rubbed: the secretthat was in the house did its work: and altogether, they quarrelled.L'imprevu.
Dard had been saying to Jacintha for ever so long, "When granny dies, Iwill marry you."
Granny died. Dard took possession of her little property. Up came aglittering official, and turned him out; he was not her heir. Perrin,the notary, was. He had bought the inheritance of her two sons, longsince dead.
Dard had not only looked on the cottage and cow, as his, but had spokenof them as such for years. The disappointment and the irony of comradesate into him.
"I will leave this cursed place," said he.
Josephine instantly sent for him to Beaurepaire. He came, and wasfactotum with the novelty of a fixed salary. Jacintha accommodated himwith a new little odd job or two. She set him to dance on the oak floorswith a brush fastened to his right foot; and, after a rehearsal or two,she made him wait at table. Didn't he bang the things about: and whenhe brought a lady a dish, and she did not instantly attend, he gave herelbow a poke to attract attention: then she squeaked; and he grinnedat her double absurdity in minding a touch, and not minding the realbusiness of the table.
But his wrongs rankled in him. He vented antique phrases such as, "Iwant a change;" "This village is the last place th
e Almighty made," etc.
Then he was attacked with a moral disease: affected the company ofsoldiers. He spent his weekly salary carousing with the military, aclass of men so brilliant that they are not expected to pay for theirshare of the drink; they contribute the anecdotes and the familiarappeals to Heaven: and is not that enough?
Present at many recitals, the heroes of which lost nothing by beingtheir own historians, Dard imbibed a taste for military adventure. Hisvery talk, which used to be so homely, began now to be tinselled withbig swelling words of vanity imported from the army. I need hardly saythese bombastical phrases did not elevate his general dialect: they layfearfully distinct upon the surface, "like lumps of marl upon a barrensoil, encumbering the ground they could not fertilize."
Jacintha took leave to remind him of an incident connected withwarfare--wounds.
"Do you remember how you were down upon your luck when you did but cutyour foot? Why, that is nothing in the army. They never go out to fightbut some come back with arms off, and some with legs off and some withheads; and the rest don't come back at all: and how would you likethat?"
This intrusion of statistics into warfare at first cooled Dard'simpatience for the field. But presently the fighting half of his heartreceived an ally in one Sergeant La Croix (not a bad name for a militaryaspirant). This sergeant was at the village waiting to march with thenew recruits to the Rhine. Sergeant La Croix was a man who, by force ofeloquence, could make soldiering appear the most delightful as well asglorious of human pursuits. His tongue fired the inexperienced soul witha love of arms, as do the drums and trumpets and tramp of soldiers,and their bayonets glittering in the sun. He would have been worth hisweight in fustian here, where we recruit by that and jargon; he wassuperfluous in France, where they recruited by force: but he wasornamental: and he set Dard and one or two more on fire. Indeed, soabsorbing was his sense of military glory, that there was no room leftin him for that mere verbal honor civilians call veracity.
To speak plainly, the sergeant was a fluent, fertile, interesting,sonorous, prompt, audacious liar: and such was his success, that Dardand one or two more became mere human fiction pipes--of comparativelysmall diameter--irrigating a rural district with false views of militarylife, derived from that inexhaustible reservoir, La Croix.
At last the long-threatened conscription was levied: every person fit tobear arms, and not coming under the allowed exceptions, drew a number:and at a certain hour the numbers corresponding to these were depositedin an urn, and one-third of them were drawn in presence of theauthorities. Those men whose numbers were drawn had to go for soldiers.Jacintha awaited the result in great anxiety. She could not sit at homefor it; so she went down the road to meet Dard, who had promised tocome and tell her the result as soon as known. At last she saw himapproaching in a disconsolate way. "O Dard! speak! are we undone? areyou a dead man?" cried she. "Have they made a soldier of you?"
"No such luck: I shall die a man of all work," grunted Dard.
"And you are sorry? you unnatural little monster! you have no feelingfor me, then."
"Oh, yes, I have; but glory is No. 1 with me now."
"How loud the bantams crow! You leave glory to fools that be six feethigh."
"General Bonaparte isn't much higher than I am, and glory sits upon hisbrow. Why shouldn't glory sit upon my brow?"
"Because it would weigh you down, and smother you, you little fool."She added, "And think of me, that couldn't bear you to be killed at anyprice, glory or no glory."
Then, to appease her fears, Dard showed her his number, 99; and assuredher he had seen the last number in the functionary's hand before he cameaway, and it was sixty something.
This ocular demonstration satisfied Jacintha; and she ordered Dard tohelp her draw the water.
"All right," said he, "there is no immortal glory to be picked upto-day, so I'll go in for odd jobs."
While they were at this job a voice was heard hallooing. Dard lookedup, and there was a rigid military figure, with a tremendousmustache, peering about. Dard was overjoyed. It was his friend, hisboon-companion. "Come here, old fellow," cried he, "ain't I glad tosee you, that is all?" La Croix marched towards the pair. "What are youskulking here for, recruit ninety-nine?" said he, sternly, dropping theboon-companion in the sergeant; "the rest are on the road."
"The rest, old fellow! what do you mean? why, I was not drawn."
"Yes, you were."
"No, I wasn't."
"Thunder of war, but I say you were. Yours was the last number."
"That is an unlucky guess of yours, for I saw the last number. Lookhere," and he fumbled in his pocket, and produced his number.
La Croix instantly fished out a corresponding number.
"Well, and here you are; this was the last number drawn."
Dard burst out laughing.
"You goose!" said he, "that is sixty-six--look at it."
"Sixty-six!" roared the sergeant; "no more than yours is--they are bothsixty-sixes when you play tricks with them, and turn them up like that;but they are both ninety-nines when you look at them fair."
Dard scratched his head.
"Come," said the corporal, briskly, "make up his bundle, girl, and letus be off; we have got our marching orders; going to the Rhine."
"And do you think that I will let him go?" screamed Jacintha. "No! Iwill say one word to Madame Raynal, and she will buy him a substitutedirectly."
Dard stopped her sullenly. "No! I have told all in the village that Iwould go the first chance: it is come, and I'll go. I won't stay to belaughed at about this too. If I was sure to be cut in pieces, I'd go.Give over blubbering, girl, and get us a bottle of the best wine, andwhile we are drinking it, the sergeant and I, you make up my bundle. Ishall never do any good here."
Jacintha knew the obstinate toad. She did as she was bid, and soonthe little bundle was ready, and the two men faced the wine; La Croix,radiant and bellicose; Dard, crestfallen but dogged (for there was alittle bit of good stuff at the bottom of the creature); and Jacintharocking herself, with her apron over her head.
"I'll give you a toast," said La Croix. "Here's gunpowder."
Jacintha promptly honored the toast with a flood of tears.
"Drop that, Jacintha," said Dard, angrily; "do you think that isencouraging? Sergeant, I told this poor girl all about glory before youcame, but she was not ripe for it: say something to cheer her up, for Ican't."
"I can," cried this trumpet of battle, emptying its glass. "Attention,young woman."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! yes, sir."
"A French soldier is a man who carries France in his heart"--
"But if the cruel foreign soldiers kill him? Oh!"
"Why, in that case, he does not care a straw. Every man must die; horseslikewise, and dogs, and donkeys, when they come to the end oftheir troubles; but dogs and donkeys and chaps in blouses can't diegloriously; as Dard may, if he has any luck at all: so, from this hour,if there was twice as little of him, be proud of him, for from thistime he is a part of France and her renown. Come, recruit ninety-nine,shoulder your traps at duty's call, and let us go forth in form.Attention! Quick--march! Halt! is that the way I showed you to march?Didn't I tell you to start from the left? Now try again. QUICK--march!left--right--left--right--left--right--NOW you've--GOT it--DRATye,--KEEP it--left--right--left--right--left--right." And with no moreado the sergeant marched the little odd-job man to the wars.
VIVE LA FRANCE!
White Lies Page 17