White Lies. A story

Chapter I

Josephixe Raynal is no stranger to you : most of you know more about her than about any other woman of your acquaintance. Bring your know ledge to my aid. Imagine, as the weary hours and days and weeks roll over her head, what this loving woman feels for her lover whom she has dismissed ; what this grateful woman feels for the benefactor she has unwittingly wronged — but will never wrong with her eyes open ; what this woman, pure as snow, and proud as fire, feels at the appearance of frailty into which circumstances have betrayed her. Put down the book a moment : shut your eyes : and imagine this strange form of human suffering. Dr. St. Aubin received one day a note from a publishing bookseller, to inquire whether he still thought of giving the Avorld his valuable work on insects. The doctor was amazed, ' My valuable work !

Why Laure they all refused it, and this one in particular recoiled from me as if my insects could sting on paper.' vol. m. B The publisher went on to say, ' Studies of this class are gaining ground, and I think we might venture before the public' This led to a correspondence, in which the con vert to insects explained that the work must be published at the author's expense, the publisher contenting himself with the profits. The author thirsting for the public consented. Then the publisher wrote again to say that the work must be spiced. A little politics must be flung in : nothing goes down else. The author ansvAered in some heat that he would not dilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nor defile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down, despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of trade and nothing else.

In short, St. Aubin went to Paris to hatch his Phœnix. He had not been there a Aveek, when a small deputation called on him, and informed him he had been elected honorary member of a certain scientific society. ' Hallo !' thought he, and bowed as gentlemen used and as dancing masters use. Fair speeches on both sides ! Exit deputation. Next invitations poured in. He accepted them. He shone at parties. Compliments were gracefully insinuated to his face. Science seemed really to be coming into fashion. But when a lovely young woman or two began with the pliancy of their sex to find they had for many years secretly taken a warm interest in butterflies — out of their own species — the natu ralist smelt a rat. ' I see,' said he, ' entomology — a form of idiocy in a poor man — is a graceful deviation of the intellect in a rich one.' Philosopher without bile, he saAv through this, and let it amuse, not shock him.

His species had another trait in reserve for him. He took a world of trouble to find out the cir cumstances of his nephew's nephews and nieces : then he made arrangements for distributing a large part of his legacy among them. His inten tions and the proportions of his generosity tran spired. Silent till now, they all fell to and abused him : each looking only to the amount of his individual share, not at the sum total the doctor was giving way to an ungrateful lot. The donor was greatly amused, and noted down the incident and some of the remarks in his com monplace book, under this head, ' Man.' Paris is full of seductions, some of them innocent. It netted the doctor, and held him fast. He was disturbed from time to time by ill accounts of Josephine's health : and if he had thought with the baroness that her illness was of the body, he would have come to her. side at once : as it was, he hoped more from time than from li drugs in her case ; and as he had a vague suspicion he was not desirous the baroness should share, he was rather disposed to keep out of her way.

He wrote, therefore, briefly and reservedly, assuring Madame de Beaurepaire that Madame Raynal had no organic disease, and would out grow these fluctuations of health : he prescribed some mild tonics. The despair of Josephine's mind was so terrible that Laure would gladly have compounded for a bodily illness : she feared for her sister's reason : and, though it added another anxiety, she was scarcely sorry when she discovered that symptoms which looked like bile attacked her frequently. ' I shall tell our mother of this.' ' I would not tell her a word about it,' observed Jacintha quietly. She happened to be present. ' Why not ? she has already noticed how ill my sister is.' ' Mademoiselle Laure, take my advice, and don't go and worry her : it can do no good.' Jacintha spoke so firmly, and seemed so con fident, that Laure drew her aside. ' Jacintha I am so anxious about her, and perhaps our mother may knoAv some remedy : she is more experienced than we are.' ' There is no remedy wanted.

You are making a fuss about nothing mademoiselle.' 'How do you know that Jacintha? Did you ever see anyone suffer as she does ?' WHITE LIES. 5 ' Plenty !' ' Jacintha ! be frank with me : did they die ? ' No.' ' None of them ?' ' Not one.' ' Then there is no danger, you think ?' ' Not an atom.' ' Bless you for saying so, good Jacintha ! And how confidently you speak : your tone and manner reassure me. Yet after all, my poor Jacintha, you are not a doctor.' ' No mademoiselle, but women in my way of life see a many things, and hear a many things that don't come to a young lady's knowledge like you.' ' Oh, do they ?' The above symptom disappeared : but a more serious cause of fear remained in Josephine's utter listlessness and frightful apathy : she seemed a creature descending inch by inch into the tomb.

She shunned all company : even Laure's at times. She seldom spoke. One day she said ' not dead yet!' half to herself, and in such a tone, that Laure's heart died within her. The house fell into silence and gloom. Jacintha, naturally so bustling and cheerful, became silent, thoughtful and moody. She had never been so affected by their former troubles. Laure caught her eye at times, dwelling with a singular expression of pity and interest on Josephine. ' Good creature !' thought Laure, ' she sees my sister is unhappy : and that makes her more attentive and devoted to her than ever.' One day these three were together in Josephine's room. Josejfliine was mechanically combing her long hair, when all of a sudden, she stretched out her hand, and cried hastily — ' Laure !' Laure ran to her, and coming behind her saw in the glass that her lips were colourless.

She screamed to Jacintha, and between them they supported Josephine to the bed. She had hardly touched it when she fainted dead aAvay. ' Mamma ! mamma !' cried Laure in her terror. 'Hush!' cried Jacintha, ' hold your tongue ; it is only a faint. Help me loosen her : don't make any noise, whatever.' They loosened her stays, and applied the usual remedies, but it was some time before she came to. At last the colour came back to her lips, then to her cheek, and the light to her eye. She smiled feebly on Jacintha and Laure. ' I have been insensible, haAe I not ?' 'Yes love, and frightened us — a little — not much — oh dear ! oh dear !' ' Don't be alarmed, sweet one — I am better.' 'Noav may I go and tell mamma?' asked Laure. 'No! mademoiselle,' was Jacintha's reply. 'What makes you so bent on tormenting my mistress ?' ' But Jacintha ; I am frightened : it is not as if my sister was subject to fainting fits.

I never saw her faint but once before.' ' And I will never do it again, since it frightens you.' Then Josephine said to her sister in a Ioav voice, and in the Italian language, ' I hoped it was death, my sister ; but he comes not to the wretched.' ' If you hoped that,' replied Laure in the same language, ' you do not love your poor sister who so loves you.' While the Italian was going on, Jacintha's dark eyes glanced suspiciously on each speaker in turn. But her suspicions were all Avide of the mark. ' Now may I go and tell mamma ?' ' No mademoiselle. Madame Raynal do take my side, and forbid her.' ' Why what is it to you ?' ' 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 give me a reason.' This to some of us might appear reasonable, but not to Jacintha : it even hurt her feelings. ' Mademoiselle,' she said, ' when you were little and used to ask me for anything, did I ever say to you " give me a reason first ?" ' There ! she is right Laure.

We should not make terms with tried friends. Come, we will pay her devotion this compliment. It is such a small favour.' ' And I shall take it as a great one.' ' Enough : we will not tell our mother.' Laure acquiesced, but with a sigh. ' I did so hope that all our concealments from her were ended : but now we have begun concealing, some thing keeps always happening to make us go on. Well one comfort Doctor St. Aubin will be here next month, and then I shall tell him ; there is no objection to that I suppose.' ' What day does the doctor come ?' was all Jacintha's answer. ' We don't knoAv yet : but he Avill write first.' An improvement took place in Josephine's health about this time. A slight tint came to her cheek, and faint and fitful glows to her heart. The powers of life in her received a support : she was conscious of it.

She said one day to Laure, ' Sister, I no longer wish to die : is it not strange ? Something seems to bid me live. Is Heaven strengthening me to suffer more ?' ' No, sister,' said Laure ; ' time is blunting your anguish. And it is for my sake you wish to live, bless you ! — for mine, who would follow you to the tomb, my best beloved of all the world !' ' Yes Laure, you love your poor sister too well. I fear you love me better than you do Edouard.' ' He has no troubles. Yes, my poor patient saint, my life seems to me too small a thing to give you.' ' It is very consoling to be loved so,' sobbed J ose phine. ' Oh ! that none other but you had ever loved me. I have caused the despair of one who loved me well, too. Oh ! my sister ! — my sister !' This Avas the only time she had ever alluded for months past to Camille.

She guarded the avenues of her heart, poor soul. She fought for her purity as sternly, as keenly, as heroes ever fought for glory, or martyrs for truth. Josephine's appearance improved still more. Her IioHoav cheeks recovered their plump smooth ness, and her beauty its bloom, and her person grew more noble and statue-like than ever, and within she felt a sense of indomitable vitality. Her appetite had for some months been excessively feeble and uncertain, and her food tasteless ; but of late by what she conceived to be a reaction such as is common after youth has shaken off a long sick ness, her appetite had been not only healthy but eager. The baroness observed this, and it re lieved her of a large portion of her anxiety. One day at dinner her maternal heart AAras so pleased Avith Josephine's performance that she took it as a personal favour. ' Well done, my daughter ! that gives your mother pleasure to see you eat again.

Soup and bouillon : and now twice you have been to Laure for some of that pate, which does you so much credit, Jacintha.' b Josephine coloured high at this compliment. ' It is true,' said she, ' I eat like a pig :' and, with a furtive glance at the said pate, she laid doAvn her knife and fork, and ate no more of any thing. 'The doctor will be angry with me,' said the baroness. ' I have tormented him away from Paris, and when he comes he will find her as well as ever.' ' Madam the baroness,' said Jacintha, hastily, .'• when does the doctor come, if I may make so bold, that I may get his room ready ?' ' Well thought of, Jacintha. He comes the day after to-morrow in the afternoon.' At night when the young ladies went up to bed, what did they find but a little cloth laid on a little table in Josephine's room, and the remains of the pate she had liked.

Laure burst out laughing — ' Look at that dear duck of a goose, Jacintha ! Our mother's flattery sank deep : she thinks we can eat her pates at all hours of the day and night. Shall I send it away ?' ' No !' said Josephine ; ' that would hurt her culinary pride, and perhaps her affection ; only cover it up dear: for just now I am not in the humour : it rather turns my stomach.' It was covered up. The sisters retired to rest. In the morning Laure lifted the cover and found the plate cleared, polished. She was astounded. The large tapestried chamber, once occupied by Camille Dujardin, was now turned into a sitting room, and it was a favourite room on account of the beautiful view from the windows. It had also a large side window looking westward, as well as four windows looking south : and this suited the baroness ; her sight was dim.

Josephine sat there alone with some work on a certain day in her hand : but the needle 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 to come from a heart full of sighs. She turned hastily round— it was Jacintha. Josephine, as we know, had a woman's eye for reading faces, and she was instantly struck by two things, by a certain gravity in Jacintha's gaze, and a flutter which the young Avoman was sup pressingwith tolerable, but not complete success. Disguising the uneasiness this discovery gave her, she looked Jacintha 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 to take Josephine off her guard— but the calm face was impenetrable.

So then Jacintha added, ' to ©ur misfortune,' throwing in still more meaning. 'To our misfortune? That dear old friend— what do you mean ?' WHITE LIES. ' It is not so easy to say what I mean.' ' And it is impossible for me to divine it, my 2)oor Jacintha !' ' Madam,' said the other firmly, ' do not jest, I entreat you ! the case is too serious. That old man makes me shake. You are never safe with him. So long as his head is in the clouds, you might take his shoes off, and on he'd walk and never know it ; but every now and then he comes out of the clouds all in one moment, without a word of warning, and when he does his eye is on everything, like a bird's. Then he is so old. He has seen a heap. Take my word for it, the old are more knowing than the young, 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 the dessert ; and that is what the doctor has done, and now he is coming here.' ' Well, and what follows ?' ' Mademoiselle Laure will go telling him everything : and if she tell him half what there is to tell, your secret will be no secret.' ' My secret !' gasped Josephine, turning pale. ' Don't look so madame ?— don't be frightened at poor Jacintha. Sooner or later, you must trust somebody besides Mademoiselle Laure.' Josephine looked at her with inquiring, frightened eyes. ' Mademoiselle ! — I beg pardon madame — I carried you in my arms when I Avas a child. When I Avas 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, and kissed me you would.

Ah mademoiselle I wish those days could come back !' ' Ah ! would they could ! — Avould they could !' ' And if ever I had the least pain, or sickness, your dear little face Avould turn as sorroAvful, and all the pretty colour leave it for Jacintha ; and now you are in trouble, in sore trouble — but you turn away from me, you dare not trust me that would be cut in pieces ere I would betray you. Ah mademoiselle, you are wrong. The rioor can feel : they have all "seen trouble, and a servant is the best of t friends where she has the heart to love her mistress : and do not I love you ? Ah made moiselle ! do not turn from her who has carried you in her arms, and laid you to sleep upon her bosom, many's and many's the time.' Josephine panted audibly. She held out her hand eloquently towards Jacintha, but she turned her head away, and trembled.

Jacintha cast a hasty glance round the room. Then she trembled too at what she was going to say, and the effect it might have on the young lady. As for Josephine, terrible as the conversation had become, she made no attempt to evade it, for she must learn Iioav far Jacintha penetrated her secret. Jacintha in a hurried quivering voice hissed into Josephine's ear these words : ' When the news of Colonel Raynal's death came, you wept, but the colour came back 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 man than should be. Ever since one day you all went to Frejus together, you were a changed woman. I have seen you look at him, as — as a wife looks at her man. I have seen him — ' ' Hush ! Jacintha. Do not tell me what you have seen — oh ! do not remind me 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 ! !' muttered Jacintha in utter amazement. Then Josephine drooped her head on this faith ful creature's shoulder, and told her with many sobs the story I have told you ; she told it very briefly, for it was to a woman, who, though little educated was full of feeling and shrewdness, and needed but the bare facts : she could add the rest from her own heart and experience : could tell the storm of feelings through which these two un happy lovers must have passed. Her frequent sighs 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 Avas worse — the more fool I — I deserAe to have my head cut off.' It was Josephine's turn to be amazed. ' It could have been worse ?' said she. ' How ? tell me :' added she bitterly. ' It would be a consolation to me, could I see that.' Jacintha coloured and evaded this question, and begged her to go on — to keep nothing back from her.

Josephine assured her she had reAealed all. Jacintha looked at her a moment in silence. ' It is then as I half suspected ?' ' What ?' ' 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 Laure from talking too much to him ?' ' No. Jacintha, be not uneasy. Laure is to be trusted. She is wise — wiser than I am.' ' You are neither of you wise. You know nothing. Ah ! my poor young mistress, you are but a child still. You have a deep water to wade through,' said Jacintha so solemnly that Josephine trembled. ' A deep water, and do not see it even. You have told me what is past, now I must tell you what is coming ; Heaven help me !' Josephine trembled. ' Give me your dear band to hold, mademoiselle, if you believe I love you.' .

WHITE LIES. ' There dear Jacintha.' She trembled. ' Have you no misgiving ?' ' Alas ! I am full of this, at your words, at your manner, they fly around me in croAvds.' ' Have you no one ?' 'No!' ' Turn your head from me a bit, my sweet young lady : I am an honest woman, though I am not so innocent as you, and I am forced against my will to speak my mind plainer than I am used to.' Then followed a conversation : to detail which might anticipate our story ; suffice it to say, that it gave Josephine another confidante. Laure, coming into the room rather suddenly, found her sister weeping on Jacintha's bosom, and Jacintha crying and sobbing over her.

Chapter II

Doctor St. Aubin, on his arrival, was agreeably surprised at Madame Raynal's appearance. ' She looks much as usual,' said he. ' She is even grown a little. How is your appetite, my child ?' ' Very good, doctor.' ' Oh, as to her appetite,' cried the baroness, ' it is immense.' ' Indeed !' ' It was,' explained Josephine, 'just when I began to get better ; but now it is much as usual.' This answer had been arranged beforehand by Jacintha. She added : ' The fact is, we wanted to see you doctor, and my ridiculous ailments were a good excuse for tearing you from Paris.' ' And noAv we have succeeded,' said Laure, ' let us throw off the mask, and talk of other things — above all, of Paris and your eclat.' ' For all that,' persisted the baroness, ' she was ill, when I first wrote, and very ill, too.' 'Madam Raynal,' said the doctor solemnly ' your conduct has been irregular, to say the least ; once ill, and your illness announced to your medical adviser, you had no right to get well but by his prescriptions.

As, then, you have shown yourself unfit to conduct a malady, it becomes my painful duty to forbid you henceforth ever to be ill at all, without my permission first obtained in writing.' This badinage was greatly relished by Laure : but not at all by the baroness. The doctor stayed a month at Beaurepaire, then off to Paris again : and being now a rich man, and not too old to enjoy innocent pleasures, he fell into a habit of running backwards and forwards between the tAvo places, spending a month or so at each alternately. So the days rolled on. Jose phine fell into a state that almost defies descrip tion. Her heart wyas full of deadly weunds : yet his seemed by some mysterious half healing balm to throb and ache, but bleed no more. Beams of strange unreasonable complacency would shoot across her : the next moment reflec tion would come, she would droop her head, and sigh piteously.

Then all Avould merge in a Avild terror of detection. She seemed on the borders of a river of bliss — bliss, new, divine, and inexhaustible : and on the other bank mocking malignant fiends dared her to enter that heavenly stream. Nature Avas strong in this young woman : and at this part of her eventful career Nature threw herself with giant force into the scale of life. The jpast to her was full of regrets : the future full of terrors, and empty of hope. Yet she did not, could not succumb. Instead of the listlessness and languor of a few months back, she had noAAr more energy than ever ; at times it mounted to irritation. An activity possessed her : it broke out in many feminine Avays. Among the rest she was seized with vvliat we men should call a cacoethes of the needle ; ' a raging desire ' for work.

Her fingers itched for work. She wras at it all day. As de votees retire apart to pray, so she to stitch. On a wet day she would often slip into the kitchen, and ply the needle beside Jacintha : on a dry day she would hide in the old oak tree, and sit like a mouse, and ply the tools of her craft, and make things of no mortal use to man or woman, and she tried little fringes of muslin upon her white hand, and held it up in front of her, and smiled, and then moaned. It was winter, and Laure used sometimes to bring her out a thick shawl, as she sat in the old oak tree stitching, but Josephine nearly always declined it. She Avas impervious to cold. Then, her purse being better filled than formerly, she visited the poor more than ever, and above all the young couples : and took a warm interest in their household matters, and gave them muslin articles of her own making, and sometimes sniffed the soup in a young housewife's pot, and took a fancy to it, and if invited to taste it paid her the compliment of eating a good plateful of it, and said it was better soup than the chateau produced ; and thought so ; and whenever some peevish little brat set up a yell in its cradle, and the father shook his fist at the destroyer of his peace, Madame Raynal's lovely face filled with concern not for the sufferer but the yeller, and she flew to it and rocked it and coaxed it and consoled it, and the young housewife smiled and stopped its mouth by other means.

And, besides the five-franc pieces she gave the infants to hold, these visits of Madame Raynal were always folloAved by one from Jacintha with a basket of provisions on her stalwart arm, and honest Sir John Burgoyne peeping out at the corner. Kind and beneficent as she was, her temper deteriorated a little — it came down from angelic almost to human. Laure and Jacintha were struck with the change, assented to everything she said, and en couraged her in everything it pleased her caprice to do. Meantime the baroness lived on her son Raynal's letters : (they came regularly twice a month). Laure too had a correspondence, a constant source of delight to her. Edouard Riviere was posted at a great distance, and could not visit her : but their love advanced nevertheless rapidly. Every day he wrote down for his Laure the acts of the day, and twice a week sent the budget to his sweetheart, and told her at the same time every feeling of his heart, She was less fortunate than he ; she had to carry a heavy secret ; but still she found plenty to tell him, and tender feelings too to vent on him in her oAvn arch, shy, fitful way.

Letters can enchain hearts ; it was by letters that these two found themselves imperceptibly betrothed. Their union was looked forward to as certain, and not very distant. Meantime, it was always a comfort and a joy to slip out of sight and chat to the beloved one on paper. On this side, at least, all was bright. One day, Dr. St. Aubin, coming back from Paris to Beaurepaire rather suddenly, found nobody at home but the baroness. Josephine and Laure were gone to Frejus — had been there more than a week. She wras ailing again : so as Frejus had agreed with her once, Laure thought it might again. ' I will send for them back now you are come.' ' No !' said the doctor, ' why do that ? I will go over there and see them.' Accordingly, a day or tAAe after this, St. Aubin hired a carriage, and went off early in the morning to Frejus.