White Lies

C >> Charles Reade >> White Lies


The doctor was silent and ill at ease.

She saw he had something weighty on his mind. "The air would have done
me no harm," said she.

"Neither will a few words with me."

"Oh, no, dear friend. Only I think I should have liked a little walk
this evening."

"Josephine," said the doctor quietly, "when you were a child I saved
your life."

"I have often heard my mother speak of it. I was choked by the croup,
and you had the courage to lance my windpipe."

"Had I?" said the doctor, with a smile. He added gravely, "It seems then
that to be cruel is sometimes kindness. It is the nature of men to love
those whose life they save."

"And they love you."

"Well, our affection is not perfect. I don't know which is most to
blame, but after all these years I have failed to inspire you with
confidence." The doctor's voice was sad, and Josephine's bosom panted.

"Pray do not say so," she cried. "I would trust you with my life."

"But not with your secret."

"My secret! What secret? I have no secrets."

"Josephine, you have now for full twelve months suffered in body and
mind, yet you have never come to me for counsel, for comfort, for an old
man's experience and advice, nor even for medical aid."

"But, dear friend, I assure you"--

"We DO NOT deceive our friend. We CANNOT deceive our doctor."

Josephine trembled, but defended herself after the manner of her sex.
"Dear doctor," said she, "I love you all the better for this. Your
regard for me has for once blinded your science. I am not so robust as
you have known me, but there is nothing serious the matter with me. Let
us talk of something else. Besides, it is not interesting to talk about
one's self."

"Very well; since there is nothing serious or interesting in your case,
we will talk about something that is both serious and interesting."

"With all my heart;" and she smiled with a sense of relief.

But the doctor leaned over the table to her, and said in a cautious and
most emphatic whisper, "We will talk about YOUR CHILD."

The work dropped from Josephine's hands: she turned her face wildly on
Aubertin, and faltered out, "M--my child?"

"My words are plain," replied he gravely. "YOUR CHILD."

When the doctor repeated these words, when Josephine looking in his face
saw he spoke from knowledge, however acquired, and not from guess, she
glided down slowly off the sofa and clasped his knees as he stood before
her, and hid her face in an agony of shame and terror on his knees.

"Forgive me," she sobbed. "Pray do not expose me! Do not destroy me."

"Unhappy young lady," said he, "did you think you had deceived me, or
that you are fit to deceive any but the blind? Your face, your anguish
after Colonel Dujardin's departure, your languor, and then your sudden
robustness, your appetite, your caprices, your strange sojourn at
Frejus, your changed looks and loss of health on your return! Josephine,
your old friend has passed many an hour thinking of you, divining your
folly, following your trouble step by step. Yet you never invited him to
aid you."

Josephine faltered out a lame excuse. If she had revered him less she
could have borne to confess to him. She added it would be a relief to
her to confide in him.

"Then tell me all," said he.

She consented almost eagerly, and told him--nearly all. The old man was
deeply affected. He murmured in a broken voice, "Your story is the story
of your sex, self-sacrifice, first to your mother, then to Camille, now
to your husband."

"And he is well worthy of any sacrifice I can make," said Josephine.
"But oh, how hard it is to live!"

"I hope to make it less hard to you ere long," said the doctor quietly.
He then congratulated himself on having forced Josephine to confide in
him. "For," said he, "you never needed an experienced friend more than
at this moment. Your mother will not always be so blind as of late.
Edouard is suspicious. Jacintha is a shrewd young woman, and very
inquisitive."

Josephine was not at the end of her concealments: she was ashamed to let
him know she had made a confidant of Jacintha and not of him. She held
her peace.

"Then," continued Aubertin, "there is the terrible chance of Raynal's
return. But ere I take on me to advise you, what are your own plans?"

"I don't know," said Josephine helplessly.

"You--don't--know!" cried the doctor, looking at her in utter amazement.

"It is the answer of a mad woman, is it not? Doctor, I am little better.
My foot has slipped on the edge of a precipice. I close my eyes, and let
myself glide down it. What will become of me?"

"All shall be well," said Aubertin, "provided you do not still love that
man."

Josephine did not immediately reply: her thoughts turned inwards. The
good doctor was proceeding to congratulate her on being cured of a fatal
passion, when she stopped him with wonder in her face. "Not love him!
How can I help loving him? I was his betrothed. I wronged him in my
thoughts. War, prison, anguish, could not kill him; he loved me so. He
struggled bleeding to my feet; and could I let him die, after all? Could
I be crueller than prison, and torture, and despair?"

The doctor sighed deeply; but, arming himself with the necessary
resolution, he sternly replied, "A woman of your name cannot vacillate
between love and honor; such vacillations have but one end. I will not
let you drift a moral wreck between passion and virtue; and that is what
it will come to if you hesitate now."

"Hesitate! Who can say I have hesitated where my honor was concerned?
You can read our bodies then, but not our hearts. What! you see me so
pale, forlorn, and dead, and that does not tell you I have bid Camille
farewell forever? That we might be safer still I have not even told him
he is a father: was ever woman so cruel as I am? I have written him but
one letter, and in that I must deceive him. I told him I thought I might
one day be happy, if I could hear that he did not give way to despair. I
told him we must never meet again in this world. So now come what will:
show me my duty and I will do it. This endless deceit burns my heart.
Shall I tell my husband? It will be but one pang more, one blush more
for me. But my mother!" and, thus appealed to, Dr. Aubertin felt, for
the first time, all the difficulty of the situation he had undertaken to
cure. He hesitated, he was embarrassed.

"Ah," said Josephine, "you see." Then, after a short silence, she said
despairingly, "This is my only hope: that poor Raynal will be long
absent, and that ere he returns mamma will lie safe from sorrow and
shame in the little chapel. Doctor, when a woman of my age forms
such wishes as these, I think you might pity her, and forgive her
ill-treatment of you, for she cannot be very happy. Ah me! ah me! ah
me!"

"Courage, poor soul! All is now in my hands, and I will save you," said
the doctor, his voice trembling in spite of him. "Guilt lies in the
intention. A more innocent woman than you does not breathe. Two courses
lay open to you: to leave this house with Camille Dujardin, or to
dismiss him, and live for your hard duty till it shall please Heaven to
make that duty easy (no middle course was tenable for a day); of these
two paths you chose the right one, and, having chosen, I really think
you are not called on to reveal your misfortune, and make those unhappy
to whose happiness you have sacrificed your own for years to come."

"Forever," said Josephine quietly.

"The young use that word lightly. The old have almost ceased to use it.
They have seen how few earthly things can conquer time."

He resumed, "You think only of others, Josephine, but I shall think
of you as well. I shall not allow your life to be wasted in a needless
struggle against nature." Then turning to Rose, who had glided into the
room, and stood amazed, "Her griefs were as many before her child was
born, yet her health stood firm. Why? because nature was on her side.
Now she is sinking into the grave. Why? because she is defying nature.
Nature intended her to be pressing her child to her bosom day and night;
instead of that, a peasant woman at Frejus nurses the child, and the
mother pines at Beaurepaire."

At this, Josephine leaned her face on her hands on the doctor's
shoulder. In this attitude she murmured to him, "I have never seen him
since I left Frejus." Dr. Aubertin sighed for her. Emboldened by this,
she announced her intention of going to Frejus the very next day to
see her little Henri. But to this Dr. Aubertin demurred. "What,
another journey to Frejus?" said he, "when the first has already roused
Edouard's suspicions; I can never consent to that."

Then Josephine surprised them both. She dropped her coaxing voice and
pecked the doctor like an irritated pigeon. "Take care," said she,
"don't be too cruel to me. You see I am obedient, resigned. I have given
up all I lived for: but if I am never to have my little boy's arms round
me to console me, then--why torment me any longer? Why not say to me,
'Josephine, you have offended Heaven; pray for pardon, and die'?"

Then the doctor was angry in his turn. "Oh, go then," said he, "go to
Frejus; you will have Edouard Riviere for a companion this time. Your
first visit roused his suspicions. So before you go tell your mother
all; for since she is sure to find it out, she had better hear it from
you than from another."

"Doctor, have pity on me," said Josephine.

"You have no heart," said Rose. "She shall see him though, in spite of
you."

"Oh, yes! he has a heart," said Josephine: "he is my best friend. He
will let me see my boy."

All this, and the tearful eyes and coaxing yet trembling voice, was
hard to resist. But Aubertin saw clearly, and stood firm. He put his
handkerchief to his eyes a moment: then took the pining young mother's
hand. "And, do you think," said he, "I do not pity you and love your
boy? Ah! he will never want a father whilst I live; and from this moment
he is under my care. I will go to see him; I will bring you news, and
all in good time; I will place him where you shall visit him without
imprudence; but, for the present, trust a wiser head than yours or
Rose's; and give me your sacred promise not to go to Frejus."

Weighed down by his good-sense and kindness, Josephine resisted no
longer in words. She just lifted her hands in despair and began to cry.
It was so piteous, Aubertin was ready to yield in turn, and consent to
any imprudence, when he met with an unexpected ally.

"Promise," said Rose, doggedly.

Josephine looked at her calmly through her tears.

"Promise, dear," repeated Rose, and this time with an intonation so
fine that it attracted Josephine's notice, but not the doctor's. It was
followed by a glance equally subtle.

"I promise," said Josephine, with her eye fixed inquiringly on her
sister.

For once she could not make the telegraph out: but she could see it was
playing, and that was enough. She did what Rose bid her; she promised
not to go to Frejus without leave.

Finding her so submissive all of a sudden, he went on to suggest that
she must not go kissing every child she saw. "Edouard tells me he saw
you kissing a beggar's brat. The young rogue was going to quiz you about
it at the dinner-table; luckily, he told me his intention, and I
would not let him. I said the baroness would be annoyed with you
for descending from your dignity--and exposing a noble family to
fleas--hush! here he is."

"Tiresome!" muttered Rose, "just when"--

Edouard came forward with a half-vexed face.

However, he turned it off into play. "What have you been saying to her,
monsieur, to interest her so? Give me a leaf out of your book. I need
it."

The doctor was taken aback for a moment, but at last he said slyly, "I
have been proposing to her to name the day. She says she must consult
you before she decides that."

"Oh, you wicked doctor!--and consult HIM of all people!"

"So be off, both of you, and don't reappear before me till it is
settled."

Edouard's eyes sparkled. Rose went out with a face as red as fire.

It was a balmy evening. Edouard was to leave them for a week the next
day. They were alone: Rose was determined he should go away quite happy.
Everything was in Edouard's favor: he pleaded his cause warmly: she
listened tenderly: this happy evening her piquancy and archness seemed
to dissolve into tenderness as she and Edouard walked hand in hand under
the moon: a tenderness all the more heavenly to her devoted lover, that
she was not one of those angels who cloy a man by invariable sweetness.

For a little while she forgot everything but her companion. In that soft
hour he won her to name the day, after her fashion.

"Josephine goes to Paris with the doctor in about three weeks," murmured
she.

"And you will stay behind, all alone?"

"Alone? that shall depend on you, monsieur."

On this Edouard caught her for the first time in his arms.

She made a faint resistance.

"Seal me that promise, sweet one!"

"No! no!--there!"

He pressed a delicious first kiss upon two velvet lips that in their
innocence scarcely shunned the sweet attack.

For all that, the bond was no sooner sealed after this fashion, than the
lady's cheek began to burn.

"Suppose we go in NOW?" said she, dryly.

"Ah, not yet."

"It is late, dear Edouard."

And with these words something returned to her mind with its full force:
something that Edouard had actually made her forget. She wanted to get
rid of him now.

"Edouard," said she, "can you get up early in the morning? If you can,
meet me here to-morrow before any of them are up; then we can talk
without interruption."

Edouard was delighted.

"Eight o'clock?"

"Sooner if you like. Mamma bade me come and read to her in her room
to-night. She will be waiting for me. Is it not tiresome?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, we must not mind that, dear; in three weeks' time we are to have
too much of one another, you know, instead of too little."

"Too much! I shall never have enough of you. I shall hate the night
which will rob me of the sight of you for so many hours in the
twenty-four."

"If you can't see me, perhaps you may hear me; my tongue runs by night
as well as by day."

"Well, that is a comfort," said Edouard, gravely. "Yes, little quizzer,
I would rather hear you scold than an angel sing. Judge, then, what
music it is when you say you love me!"

"I love you, Edouard."

Edouard kissed her hand warmly, and then looked irresolutely at her
face.

"No, no!" said she, laughing and blushing. "How rude you are. Next time
we meet."

"That is a bargain. But I won't go till you say you love me again.

"Edouard, don't be silly. I am ashamed of saying the same thing so
often--I won't say it any more. What is the use? You know I love you.
There, I HAVE said it: how stupid!"

"Adieu, then, my wife that is to be."

"Adieu! dear Edouard."

"My hus--go on--my hus--"

"My huswife that shall be."

Then they walked very slowly towards the house, and once more Rose left
quizzing, and was all tenderness.

"Will you not come in, and bid them 'good-night'?"

"No, my own; I am in heaven. Common faces--common voices would bring me
down to earth. Let me be alone;--your sweet words ringing in my ear. I
will dilute you with nothing meaner than the stars. See how bright they
shine in heaven; but not so bright as you shine in my heart."

"Dear Edouard, you flatter me, you spoil me. Alas! why am I not more
worthy of your love?"

"More worthy! How can that be?"

Rose sighed.

"But I will atone for all. I will make you a better--(here she
substituted a full stop for a substantive)--than you expect. You will
see else."

She lingered at the door: a proof that if Edouard, at that particular
moment, had seized another kiss, there would have been no very violent
opposition or offence.

But he was not so impudent as some. He had been told to wait till
the next meeting for that. He prayed Heaven to bless her, and so the
affianced lovers parted for the night.

It was about nine o'clock. Edouard, instead of returning to his
lodgings, started down towards the town, to conclude a bargain with the
innkeeper for an English mare he was in treaty for. He wanted her
for to-morrow's work; so that decided him to make the purchase. In
purchases, as in other matters, a feather turns the balanced scale. He
sauntered leisurely down. It was a very clear night; the full moon and
the stars shining silvery and vivid. Edouard's heart swelled with joy.
He was loved after all, deeply loved; and in three short weeks he was
actually to be Rose's husband: her lord and master. How like a heavenly
dream it all seemed--the first hopeless courtship, and now the wedding
fixed! But it was no dream; he felt her soft words still murmur music at
his heart, and the shadow of her velvet lips slept upon his own.

He had strolled about a league when he heard the ring of a horse's hoofs
coming towards him, accompanied by a clanking noise; it came nearer and
nearer, till it reached a hill that lay a little ahead of Edouard; then
the sounds ceased; the cavalier was walking his horse up the hill.

Presently, as if they had started from the earth, up popped between
Edouard and the sky, first a cocked hat that seemed in that light to be
cut with a razor out of flint; then the wearer, phosphorescent here and
there; so brightly the keen moonlight played on his epaulets and steel
scabbard. A step or two nearer, and Edouard gave a great shout; it was
Colonel Raynal.

After the first warm greeting, and questions and answers, Raynal told
him he was on his way to the Rhine with despatches.

"To the Rhine?"

"I am allowed six days to get there. I made a calculation, and found I
could give Beaurepaire half a day. I shall have to make up for it by
hard riding. You know me; always in a hurry. It is Bonaparte's fault
this time. He is always in a hurry too."

"Why, colonel," said Edouard, "let us make haste then. Mind they go
early to rest at the chateau."

"But you are not coming my way, youngster?"

"Not coming your way? Yes, but I am. Yours is a face I don't see every
day, colonel; besides I would not miss THEIR faces, especially the
baroness's and Madame Raynal's, at sight of you; and, besides,"--and the
young gentleman chuckled to himself, and thought of Rose's words, "the
next time we meet;" well, this will be the next time. "May I jump up
behind?"

Colonel Raynal nodded assent. Edouard took a run, and lighted like a
monkey on the horse's crupper. He pranced and kicked at this unexpected
addition; but the spur being promptly applied to his flanks, he bounded
off with a snort that betrayed more astonishment than satisfaction, and
away they cantered to Beaurepaire, without drawing rein.

"There," said Edouard, "I was afraid they would be gone to bed; and they
are. The very house seems asleep--fancy--at half-past ten."

"That is a pity," said Raynal, "for this chateau is the stronghold of
etiquette. They will be two hours dressing before they will come out and
shake hands. I must put my horse into the stable. Go you and give the
alarm."

"I will, colonel. Stop, first let me see whether none of them are up,
after all."

And Edouard walked round the chateau, and soon discovered a light at one
window, the window of the tapestried room. Running round the other
way he came slap upon another light: this one was nearer the ground. A
narrow but massive door, which he had always seen not only locked but
screwed up, was wide open; and through the aperture the light of a
candle streamed out and met the moonlight streaming in.

"Hallo!" cried Edouard.

He stopped, turned, and looked in.

"Hallo!" he cried again much louder.

A young woman was sleeping with her feet in the silvery moonlight, and
her head in the orange-colored blaze of a flat candle, which rested on
the next step above of a fine stone staircase, whose existence was now
first revealed to the inquisitive Edouard.

Coming plump upon all this so unexpectedly, he quite started.

"Why, Jacintha!"

He touched her on the shoulder to wake her. No. Jacintha was sleeping as
only tired domestics can sleep. He might have taken the candle and burnt
her gown off her back. She had found a step that fitted into the small
of her back, and another that supported her head, and there she was fast
as a door.

At this moment Raynal's voice was heard calling him.

"There is a light in that bedroom."

"It is not a bedroom, colonel; it is our sitting-room now. We shall find
them all there, or at least the young ladies; and perhaps the doctor.
The baroness goes to bed early. Meantime I can show you one of our
dramatis personae, and an important one too. She rules the roost."

He took him mysteriously and showed him Jacintha.

Moonlight by itself seems white, and candlelight by itself seems yellow;
but when the two come into close contrast at night, candle turns a
reddish flame, and moonlight a bluish gleam.

So Jacintha, with her shoes in this celestial sheen, and her face in
that demoniacal glare, was enough to knock the gazer's eye out.

"Make a good sentinel--this one," said Raynal--"an outlying picket for
instance, on rough ground, in front of the enemy's riflemen."

"Ha! ha! colonel! Let us see where this staircase leads. I have an idea
it will prove a short cut."

"Where to?"

"To the saloon, or somewhere, or else to some of Jacintha's haunts.
Serve her right for going to sleep at the mouth of her den."

"Forward then--no, halt! Suppose it leads to the bedrooms? Mind this
is a thundering place for ceremony. We shall get drummed out of the
barracks if we don't mind our etiquette."

At this they hesitated; and Edouard himself thought, on the whole, it
would be better to go and hammer at the front door.

Now while they hesitated, a soft delicious harmony of female voices
suddenly rose, and seemed to come and run round the walls. The men
looked at one another in astonishment; for the effect was magical. The
staircase being enclosed on all sides with stone walls and floored with
stone, they were like flies inside a violoncello; the voices rang above,
below, and on every side of the vibrating walls. In some epochs spirits
as hardy as Raynal's, and wits as quick as Riviere's, would have fled
then and there to the nearest public, and told over cups how they had
heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long since dead, holding their revel,
and the conscious old devil's nest of a chateau quivering to the ghostly
strains.

But this was an incredulous age. They listened, and listened, and
decided the sounds came from up-stairs.

"Let us mount, and surprise these singing witches," said Edouard.

"Surprise them! what for? It is not the enemy--for once. What is the
good of surprising our friends?"

Storming parties and surprises were no novelty and therefore no treat to
Raynal.

"It will be so delightful to see their faces at first sight of you. O
colonel, for my sake! Don't spoil it by going tamely in at the front
door, after coming at night from Egypt for half an hour."

Raynal grumbled something about its being a childish trick; but to
please Edouard consented at last; only stipulated for a light: "or
else," said he, "we shall surprise ourselves instead with a broken neck,
going over ground we don't know to surprise the natives--our skirmishers
got nicked that way now and then in Egypt."

"Yes, colonel, I will go first with Jacintha's candle." Edouard mounted
the stairs on tiptoe. Raynal followed. The solid stone steps did not
prate. The men had mounted a considerable way, when puff a blast of wind
came through a hole, and out went Edouard's candle. He turned sharply
round to Raynal. "Peste!" said he in a vicious whisper. But the other
laid his hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Look to the front." He
looked, and, his own candle being out, saw a glimmer on ahead. He
crept towards it. It was a taper shooting a feeble light across a small
aperture. They caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a small apartment.
Yet Edouard recognized the carpet of the tapestried room--which was a
very large room. Creeping a yard nearer, he discovered that it was the
tapestried room, and that what had seemed the further wall was only the
screen, behind which were lights, and two women singing a duet.

He whispered to Raynal, "It is the tapestried room."

"Is it a sitting-room?" whispered Raynal.

"Yes! yes! Mind and not knock your foot against the wood."

And Raynal went softly up and put his foot quietly through the aperture,
which he now saw was made by a panel drawn back close to the ground;
and stood in the tapestried chamber. The carpet was thick; the voices
favored the stealthy advance; the floor of the old house was like a
rock; and Edouard put his face through the aperture, glowing all over
with anticipation of the little scream of joy that would welcome his
friend dropping in so nice and suddenly from Egypt.

The feeling was rendered still more piquant by a sharp curiosity that
had been growing on him for some minutes past. For why was this passage
opened to-night?--he had never seen it opened before. And why was
Jacintha lying sentinel at the foot of the stairs?