CHAPTER XIX.
To return for a moment to Rose. She parted from Edouard, and went in atthe front door: but the next moment she opened it softly and watched herlover unseen. "Dear Edouard!" she murmured: and then she thought, "howsad it is that I must deceive him, even to-night: must make up an excuseto get him from me, when we were so happy together. Ah! he little knowshow I shall welcome our wedding-day. When once I can see my poor martyron the road to peace and content under the good doctor's care. And oh!the happiness of having no more secrets from him I love! Dear Edouard!when once we are married, I never, never, will have a secret from youagain--I swear it."
As a comment on these words she now stepped cautiously out, and peeredin every direction.
"St--st!" she whispered. No answer came to this signal.
Rose returned into the house and bolted the door inside. She went upto the tapestried room, and found the doctor in the act of wishingJosephine good-night. The baroness, fatigued a little by her walk, hadmounted no higher than her own bedroom, which was on the first floorjust under the tapestried room. Rose followed the doctor out. "Dearfriend, one word. Josephine talked of telling Raynal. You have notencouraged her to do that?"
"Certainly not, while he is in Egypt."
"Still less on his return. Doctor, you don't know that man. Josephinedoes not know him. But I do. He would kill her if he knew. He would killher that minute. He would not wait: he would not listen to excuses: heis a man of iron. Or if he spared her he would kill Camille: and thatwould destroy her by the cruellest of all deaths! My friend, I am awicked, miserable girl. I am the cause of all this misery!"
She then told Aubertin all about the anonymous letter, and what Raynalhad said to her in consequence.
"He never would have married her had he known she loved another. Heasked me was it so. I told him a falsehood. At least I equivocated, andto equivocate with one so loyal and simple was to deceive him. I am theonly sinner: that sweet angel is the only sufferer. Is this the justiceof Heaven? Doctor, my remorse is great. No one knows what I feel when Ilook at my work. Edouard thinks I love her so much better than I dohim. He is wrong: it is not love only, it is pity: it is remorse for thesorrow I have brought on her, and the wrong I have done poor Raynal."
The high-spirited girl was greatly agitated: and Aubertin, though he didnot acquit her of all blame, soothed her, and made excuses for her.
"We must not always judge by results," said he. "Things turnedunfortunately. You did for the best. I forgive you for one. That is, Iwill forgive you if you promise not to act again without my advice."
"Oh, never! never!"
"And, above all, no imprudence about that child. In three little weeksthey will be together without risk of discovery. Well, you don't answerme."
Rose's blood turned cold. "Dear friend," she stammered, "I quite agreewith you."
"Promise, then."
"Not to let Josephine go to Frejus?" said Rose hastily. "Oh, yes! Ipromise."
"You are a good girl," said Aubertin. "You have a will of your own. Butyou can submit to age and experience." The doctor then kissed her, andbade her farewell.
"I leave for Paris at six in the morning," he said. "I will not try yourpatience or hers unnecessarily. Perhaps it will not be three weeks ereshe sees her child under her friend's roof."
The moment Rose was alone, she sat down and sighed bitterly. "Thereis no end to it," she sobbed despairingly. "It is like a spider's web:every struggle to be free but multiplies the fine yet irresistiblethread that seems to bind me. And to-night I thought to be so happy;instead of that, he has left me scarce the heart to do what I have todo."
She went back to the room, opened a window, and put out a whitehandkerchief, then closed the window down on it.
Then she went to Josephine's bedroom-door: it opened on the tapestriedroom.
"Josephine," she cried, "don't go to bed just yet."
"No, love. What are you doing? I want to talk to you. Why did you saypromise? and what did you mean by looking at me so? Shall I come out toyou?"
"Not just yet," said Rose; she then glided into the corridor, and passedher mother's room and the doctor's, and listened to see if all wasquiet. While she was gone Josephine opened her door; but not seeing Rosein the sitting-room, retired again.
Rose returned softly, and sat down with her head in her hand, in a calmattitude belied by her glancing eye, and the quick tapping of her otherhand upon the table.
Presently she raised her head quickly; a sound had reached her ear,--asound so slight that none but a high-strung ear could have caught it. Itwas like a mouse giving a single scratch against a stone wall.
Rose coughed slightly.
On this a clearer sound was heard, as of a person scratching wood withthe finger-nail. Rose darted to the side of the room, pressed againstthe wall, and at the same time put her other hand against the rim of oneof the panels and pushed it laterally; it yielded, and at the openingstood Jacintha in her cloak and bonnet.
"Yes," said Jacintha, "under my cloak--look!"
"Ah! you found the things on the steps?"
"Yes! I nearly tumbled over them. Have you locked that door?"
"No, but I will." And Rose glided to the door and locked it. Then sheput the screen up between Josephine's room and the open panel: then sheand Jacintha were wonderfully busy on the other side the screen, butpresently Rose said, "This is imprudent; you must go down to the foot ofthe stairs and wait till I call you."
Jacintha pleaded hard against this arrangement, and represented thatthere was no earthly chance of any one coming to that part of thechateau.
"No matter; I will be guarded on every side."
"Mustn't I stop and just see her happy for once?"
"No, my poor Jacintha, you must hear it from my lips."
Jacintha retired to keep watch as she was bid. Rose went to Josephine'sroom, and threw her arms round her neck and kissed her vehemently.Josephine returned her embrace, then held her out at arm's length andlooked at her.
"Your eyes are red, yet your little face is full of joy. There, yousmile."
"I can't help that; I am so happy."
"I am glad of it. Are you coming to bed?"
"Not yet. I invite you to take a little walk with me first. Come!"and she led the way slowly, looking back with infinite archness andtenderness.
"You almost frighten me," said Josephine; "it is not like you to be alljoy when I am sad. Three whole weeks more!"
"That is it. Why are you sad? because the doctor would not let you go toFrejus. And why am I not sad? because I had already thought of a way tolet you see Edouard without going so far."
"Rose! O Rose! O Rose!"
"This way--come!" and she smiled and beckoned with her finger, whileJosephine followed like one under a spell, her bosom heaving, her eyeglancing on every side, hoping some strange joy, yet scarce daring tohope.
Rose drew back the screen, and there was a sweet little berceau that hadonce been Josephine's own, and in it, sunk deep in snow-white lawn, wasa sleeping child, that lay there looking as a rose might look could itfall upon new-fallen snow.
At sight of it Josephine uttered a little cry, not loud but deep--ay, acry to bring tears into the eye of the hearer, and she stood tremblingfrom head to foot, her hands clasped, and her eye fascinated and fixedon the cradle.
"My child under this roof! What have you done?" but her eye, fascinatedand fixed, never left the cradle.
"I saw you languishing, dying, for want of him."
"Oh, if anybody should come?" But her eye never stirred an inch from thecradle.
"No, no, no! the door is locked. Jacintha watches below; there is nodan--Ah, oh, poor sister!"
For, as Rose was speaking, the young mother sprang silently upon herchild. You would have thought she was going to kill him; her head reareditself again and again like a crested snake's, and again and again andagain and again plunged down upon the child, and she kissed his littlebody from head to foot with soft violence, and
murmured, through herstreaming tears, "My child! my darling! my angel! oh, my poor boy! mychild! my child!"
I will ask my female readers of every degree to tell their brothers andhusbands all the young noble did: how she sat on the floor, and had herchild on her bosom; how she smiled over it through her tears; how shepurred over it; how she, the stately one, lisped and prattled over it;and how life came pouring into her heart from it.
Before she had had it in her arms five minutes, her pale cheek was asred as a rose, and her eyes brighter than diamonds.
"Bless you, Rose! bless you! bless you! in one moment you have made meforget all I ever suffered in my life."
"There is a cold draught," cried she presently, with maternal anxiety;"close the panel, Rose."
"No, dear; or I could not call to Jacintha, or she to me; but I willshift the screen round between him and the draught. There, now, come tohis aunt--a darling!"
Then Rose sat on the floor too, and Josephine put her boy on aunt'slap, and took a distant view of him. But she could not bear so vast aseparation long. She must have him to her bosom again.
Presently my lord, finding himself hugged, opened his eyes, and, as anatural consequence, his mouth.
"Oh, that will never do," cried Rose, and they put him back in thecradle with all expedition, and began to rock it. Young master wasnot to be altogether appeased even by that. So Rose began singing anold-fashioned Breton chant or lullaby.
Josephine sang with her, and, singing, watched with a smile her boy dropoff by degrees to sleep under the gentle motion and the lulling song.They sang and rocked till the lids came creeping down, and hid thegreat blue eyes; but still they sang and rocked, lulling the boy, andgladdening their own hearts; for the quaint old Breton ditty was tunableas the lark that carols over the green wheat in April; and the words sosimple and motherly, that a nation had taken them to heart. Such songsbind ages together and make the lofty and the low akin by the great tiesof music and the heart. Many a Breton peasant's bosom in the olden timehad gushed over her sleeping boy as the young dame's of Beaurepairegushed now--in this quaint, tuneful lullaby.
Now, as they kneeled over the cradle, one on each side, and rocked it,and sang that ancient chant, Josephine, who was opposite the screen,happening to raise her eyes, saw a strange thing.
There was the face of a man set close against the side of the screen,and peeping and peering out of the gloom. The light of her candle fellfull on this face; it glared at her, set pale, wonder-struck, and vividin the surrounding gloom.
Horror! It was her husband's face.
At first she was quite stupefied, and looked at it with soul and sensesbenumbed. Then she trembled, and put her hand to her eyes; for shethought it a phantom or a delusion of the mind. No: there it glaredstill. Then she trembled violently, and held out her left hand, thefingers working convulsively, to Rose, who was still singing.
But, at the same moment, the mouth of this face suddenly opened in along-drawn breath. At this, Josephine uttered a violent shriek, andsprang to her feet, with her right hand quivering and pointing at thatpale face set in the dark.
Rose started up, and, wheeling her head round, saw Raynal's gloomyface looking over her shoulder. She fell screaming upon her knees, and,almost out of her senses, began to pray wildly and piteously for mercy.
Josephine uttered one more cry, but this was the faint cry of nature,sinking under the shock of terror. She swooned dead away, and fellsenseless on the floor ere Raynal could debarrass himself of the screen,and get to her.
This, then, was the scene that met Edouard's eyes. His affianced brideon her knees, white as a ghost, trembling, and screaming, rather thancrying, for mercy. And Raynal standing over his wife, showing by theworking of his iron features that he doubted whether she was worthy heshould raise her.
One would have thought nothing could add to the terror of this scene.Yet it was added to. The baroness rang her bell violently in the roombelow. She had heard Josephine's scream and fall.
At the ringing of this shrill bell Rose shuddered like a maniac, andgrovelled on her knees to Raynal, and seized his very knees and imploredhim to show some pity.
"O sir! kill us! we are culpable"--
Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! pealed the baroness's bell again.
"But do not tell our mother. Oh, if you are a man! do not! do not! Showus some pity. We are but women. Mercy! mercy! mercy!"
"Speak out then," groaned Raynal. "What does this mean? Why has my wifeswooned at sight of me?--whose is this child?"
"Whose?" stammered Rose. Till he said that, she never thought thereCOULD be a doubt whose child.
Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring!
"Oh, my God!" cried the poor girl, and her scared eyes glanced every waylike some wild creature looking for a hole, however small, to escape by.
Edouard, seeing her hesitation, came down on her other side. "Whose isthe child, Rose?" said he sternly.
"You, too? Why were we born? mercy! oh! pray let me go to my sister."
Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! went the terrible bell.
The men were excited to fury by Rose's hesitation; they each seized anarm, and tore her screaming with fear at their violence, from her kneesup to her feet between them with a single gesture.
"Whose is the child?"
"You hurt me!" said she bitterly to Edouard, and she left crying and wasterribly calm and sullen all in a moment.
"Whose is the child?" roared Edouard and Raynal, in one raging breath."Whose is the child?"
"It is mine."
White Lies Page 19