With this came a flood of tears; and she leaned against a bough with her forehead on her arm, bowed like a wounded lily.
“Accursed be that man’s name, and MY tongue if ever I utter it again in your hearing!” cried Rose, weeping bitterly. “You are wiser than I, and every way better. O my darling, dry your tears! Here he comes: look! riding across the park.”
“Rose,” cried Josephine, hastily, “I leave all to you. Receive Monsieur Raynal, and decline his offer if you think proper. It is you who love me best. My mother would give me up for a house; for an estate, poor dear.”
“I would not give you for all the world.”
“I know it. I trust all to you.”
“Well, but don’t go; stay and hear what I shall say.”
“Oh, no; that poor man is intolerable to me NOW. Let me avoid his sight, and think of his virtues.”
Rose was left alone, mistress of her sister’s fate. She put her head into her hands and filled with anxiety and sudden doubt.
Like a good many more of us, she had been positive so long as the decision did not rest with her. But with power comes responsibility, with responsibility comes doubt. Easy to be an advocate in re incerta; hard to be the judge. And she had but a few seconds to think in; for Raynal was at hand. The last thing in her mind before he joined her was the terrible power of that base Camille over her sister. She despaired of curing Josephine, but a husband might. There’s such divinity doth hedge a husband in innocent girls’ minds.
“Well, little lady,” began Raynal, “and how are you, and how is my mother-in-law that is to be—or is not to be, as your sister pleases; and how is SHE? have I frightened her away? There were two petticoats, and now there is but one.”
“She left me to answer you.”
“All the worse for me: I am not to your taste.”
“Do not say that,” said Rose, almost hysterically.
“Oh! it is no sacrilege. Not one in fifty likes me.”
“But I do like you, sir.”
“Then why won’t you let me have your sister?”
“I have not quite decided that you shall not have her,” faltered poor Rose. She murmured on, “I dare say you think me very unkind, very selfish; but put yourself in my place. I love my sister as no man can ever love her, I know: my heart has been one flesh and one soul with hers all my life. A stranger comes and takes her away from me as if she was I don’t know what; his portmanteau; takes her to Egypt, oh! oh! oh!”
Raynal comforted her.
“What, do you think I am such a brute as to take that delicate creature about fighting with me? why, the hot sand would choke her, to begin. No. You don’t take my manoeuvre. I have no family; I try for a wife that will throw me in a mother and sister. You will live all together the same as before, of course; only you must let me make one of you when I am at home. And how often will that be? Besides, I am as likely to be knocked on the head in Egypt as not; you are worrying yourself for nothing, little lady.”
He uttered the last topic of consolation in a broad, hearty, hilarious tone, like a trombone impregnated with cheerful views of fate.
“Heaven forbid!” cried Rose: “and I will, for even I shall pray for you now. What you will leave her at home? forgive me for not seeing all your worth: of course I knew you were an angel, but I had no idea you were a duck. You are just the man for my sister. She likes to obey: you are all for commanding. So you see. Then she never thinks of herself; any other man but you would impose on her good-nature; but you are too generous to do that. So you see. Then she esteems you so highly. And one whom I esteem (between you and me) has chosen you for her.”
“Then say yes, and have done with it,” suggested the straightforward soldier.
“Why should I say ‘no?’ you will make one another happy some day: you are both so good. Any other man but you would tear her from me; but you are too just, too kind. Heaven will reward you. No! I will. I will give you Josephine: ah, my dear brother-in-law, it is the most precious thing I have to give in the world.”
“Thank you, then. So that is settled. Hum! no, it is not quite; I forgot; I have something for you to read; an anonymous letter. I got it this morning; it says your sister has a lover.”
The letter ran to this tune: a friend who had observed the commandant’s frequent visits at Beaurepaire wrote to warn him against traps. Both the young ladies of Beaurepaire were doubtless at the new proprietor’s service to pick and choose from. But for all that each of them had a lover, and though these lovers had their orders to keep out of the way till monsieur should be hooked, he might be sure that if he married either, the man of her heart would come on the scene soon after, perhaps be present at the wedding.
In short, it was one of those poisoned arrows a coarse vindictive coward can shoot.
It was the first anonymous letter Rose had ever seen. It almost drove her mad on the spot. Raynal was sorry he had let her see it.
She turned red and white by turns, and gasped for breath.
“Why am I not a man?—why don’t I wear a sword? I would pass it through this caitiff’s heart. The cowardly slave!—the fiend! for who but a fiend could slander an angel like my Josephine? Hooked? Oh! she will never marry you if she sees this.”
“Then don’t let her see it: and why take it to heart like that? I don’t trust to the word of a man who owns that his story is a thing he dares not sign his name to; at all events, I shall not put his word against yours. But it is best to understand one another in time. I am a plain man, but not a soft one. I should not be an easygoing husband like some I see about: I’d have no wasps round my honey; if my wife took a lover I would not lecture THE WOMAN—what is the use?—I’d kill THE MAN then and there, in-doors or out, as I would kill a snake. If she took another, I’d send him after the first, and so on till one killed me.”
“And serve the wretches right.”
“Yes; but for my own sake I don’t choose to marry a woman that loves any other man. So tell me the plain truth; come.”
Rose turned chill in her inside. “I have no lover,” she stammered. “I have a young fool that comes and teases me: but it is no secret. He is away, but why? he is on a sickbed, poor little fellow!”
“But your sister? She could not have a lover unknown to you.”
“I defy her. No, sir; I have not seen her speak three words to any young man except Monsieur Riviere this three years past.”
“That is enough;” and he tore the letter quietly to atoms.
Then Rose saw she could afford a little more candor. “Understand me; I can’t speak of what happened when I was a child. But if ever she had a girlish attachment, he has not followed it up, or surely I should have seen something of him all these years.”
“Of course. Oh! as for flirtations, let them pass: a lovely girl does not grow up without one or two whispering some nonsense into her ear. Why, I myself should have flirted no doubt; but I never had the time. Bonaparte gives you time to eat and drink, but not to sleep or flirt, and that reminds me I have fifty miles to ride, so good-by, sister-in-law, eh?”
“Adieu, brother-in-law.”
Left alone, Rose had some misgivings. She had equivocated with one whose upright, candid nature ought to have protected him: but an enemy had accused Josephine; and it came so natural to shield her. “Did he really think I would expose my own sister?” said she to herself, angrily. Was not this anger secret self-discontent?
“Well, love,” said Josephine, demurely, “have you dismissed him?”
“No.”
Josephine smiled feebly. “It is easy to say ‘say no;’ but it is not so easy to say ‘no,’ especially when you feel you ought to say ‘yes,’ and have no wish either way except to give pleasure to others.”
“But I am not such skim milk as all that,” replied Rose: “I have always a strong wish where you are concerned, and your happiness. I hesitated whilst I was in doubt, but I doubt no longer: I have had a long talk with him. He has shown me his whole heart: he is the best, the noblest of creatures: he has no littleness or meanness. And then he is a thorough man; I know that by his being the very opposite of a woman in his ways. Now you are a thorough woman, and so you will suit one another to a T. I have decided: so no more doubts, love; no more tears; no more disputes. We are all of one mind, and I do think I have secured your happiness. It will not come in a day, perhaps, but it will come. So then in one little fortnight you marry Monsieur Raynal.”
“What!” said Josephine, “you have actually settled that?”
“Yes.”
“But are you sure I can make him as happy as he deserves?”
“Positive.”
“I think so too; still”—
“It is settled, dear,” said Rose soothingly.
“Oh, the comfort of that! you relieve me of a weight; you give me peace. I shall have duties; I shall do some good in the world. They were all for it but you before, were they not?”
“Yes, and now I am strongest for it of them all. Josephine, it is settled.”
Josephine looked at her for a moment in silence, then said eagerly, “Bless you, dear Rose; you have saved your sister;” then, after a moment, in a very different voice, “O Camille! Camille! why have you deserted me?”
And with this she fell to sobbing terribly. Rose wept on her neck, but said nothing. She too was a woman, and felt that this was the last despairing cry of love giving up a hopeless struggle.
They sat twined together in silence till Jacintha came to tell them it was close upon dinner-time; so then they hastened to dry their tears and wash their red eyes, for fear their mother should see what they had been at, and worry herself.
“Well, mademoiselle, these two consent; but what do you say? for after all, it is you I am courting, and not them. Have you the courage to venture on a rough soldier like me?”
This delicate question was put point-blank before the three ladies.
“Sir,” replied Josephine timidly, “I will be as frank, as straightforward as you are. I thank you for the honor you do me.”
Raynal looked perplexed.
“And does that mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”
“Which you please,” said Josephine, hanging her sweet head.
The wedding was fixed for that day fortnight. The next morning wardrobes were ransacked. The silk, muslin, and lace of their prosperous days were looked out: grave discussions were held over each work of art. Rose was active, busy, fussy. The baroness threw in the weight of her judgment and experience.
Josephine managed to smile whenever either Rose or the baroness looked at all fixedly at her.
So glided the peaceful days. So Josephine drifted towards the haven of wedlock.
At Bayonne, a garrison town on the south frontier of France, two sentinels walked lethargically, crossing and recrossing before the governor’s house. Suddenly their official drowsiness burst into energy; for a pale, grisly man, in rusty, defaced, dirty, and torn regimentals, was walking into the courtyard as if it belonged to him. The sentinels lowered their muskets, and crossed them with a clash before the gateway.
The scarecrow did not start back. He stopped and looked down with a smile at the steel barrier the soldiers had improvised for him, then drew himself a little up, carried his hand carelessly to his cap, which was nearly in two, and gave the name of an officer in the French army.
If you or I, dressed like a beggar who years ago had stolen regimentals and worn them down to civil garments, had addressed these soldiers with these very same words, the bayonets would have kissed closer, or perhaps the points been turned against our sacred and rusty person: but there is a freemasonry of the sword. The light, imperious hand that touched that battered cap, and the quiet clear tone of command told. The sentinels slowly recovered their pieces, but still looked uneasy and doubtful in their minds. The battered one saw this, and gave a sort of lofty smile; he turned up his cuffs and showed his wrists, and drew himself still higher.
The sentinels shouldered their pieces sharp, then dropped them simultaneously with a clatter and ring upon the pavement.
“Pass, captain.”
The rusty figure rang the governor’s bell. A servant came and eyed him with horror and contempt. He gave his name, and begged to see the governor. The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs to tell his master. At the name the governor reflected, then frowned, then bade his servant reach him down a certain book. He inspected it. “I thought so: any one with him?”
“No, your excellency.”
“Load my pistols, put them on the table, show him in, and then order a guard to the door.”
The governor was a stern veteran with a powerful brow, a shaggy eyebrow, and a piercing eye. He never rose, but leaned his chin on his hand, and his elbow on a table that stood between them, and eyed his visitor very fixedly and strangely. “We did not expect to see you on this side the Pyrenees,” said he gravely.
“Nor I myself, governor.”
“What do you come for?”
“A suit of regimentals, and money to take me to Paris.”
“And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal’s guard, and bid them shoot you in the courtyard?”
“It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things considered,” said the other coolly, but bitterly.
The governor looked for the book he had lately consulted, found the page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the blood rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye dwelt stern yet sorrowful on the governor.
“I have read your book, now read mine.” He drew off his coat and showed his wrists and arms, blue and waled. “Can you read that, sir?”
“No.”
“All the better for you: Spanish fetters, general.” He showed a white scar on his shoulder. “Can you read that? This is what I cut out of it,” and he handed the governor a little round stone as big and almost as regular as a musket-ball.
“Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket.”
“Can you read this?” and he showed him a long cicatrix on his other arm.
“Knife I think,” said the governor.
“You are right, sir: Spanish knife. Can you read this?” and opening his bosom he showed a raw wound on his breast.
“Oh, the devil!” cried the governor.
The wounded man put his rusty coat on again, and stood erect, and haughty, and silent.
The general eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through this man. The more he looked the less could the scarecrow veil the hero from his practised eye. He said there must be some mistake, or else he was in his dotage; after a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Be seated, if you please, and tell me what you have been doing all these years.”
“Suffering.”
“Not all the time, I suppose.”
“Without intermission.”
“But what? suffering what?”
“Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair, prison, all that man can suffer.”
“Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this.”
“I should have died a dozen deaths but for one thing; I had promised her to live.”
There was a pause. Then the old soldier said gravely, but more kindly, to the young one, “Tell me the facts, captain” (the first time he had acknowledged his visitor’s military rank).
An hour had scarce elapsed since the rusty figure was stopped by the sentinels at the gate, when two glittering officers passed out under the same archway, followed by a servant carrying a furred cloak. The sentinels presented arms. The elder of these officers was the governor: the younger was the late scarecrow, in a brand-new uniform belonging to the governor’s son. He shone out now in his true light; the beau ideal of a patrician soldier; one would have said he had been born with a sword by his side and drilled by nature, so straight and smart, yet easy he was in every movement. He was like a falcon, eye and all, only, as it were, down at the bottom of the hawk’s eye lay a dove’s eye. That compound and varying eye seemed to say, I can love, I can fight: I can fight, I can love, as few of you can do either.
The old man was trying to persuade him to stay at Bayonne, until his wound should be cured.
“No, general, I have other wounds to cure of longer standing than this one.”
“Well, promise me to lay up at Paris.”
“General, I shall stay an hour at Paris.”
“An hour in Paris! Well, at least call at the War Office and present this letter.”
That same afternoon, wrapped in the governor’s furred cloak, the young officer lay at his full length in the coupe of the diligence, the whole of which the governor had peremptorily demanded for him, and rolled day and night towards Paris.
He reached it worn with fatigue and fevered by his wound, but his spirit as indomitable as ever. He went to the War Office with the governor’s letter. It seemed to create some little sensation; one functionary came and said a polite word to him, then another. At last to his infinite surprise the minister himself sent down word he wished to see him; the minister put several questions to him, and seemed interested in him and touched by his relation.
“I think, captain, I shall have to send to you: where do you stay in Paris?”
“Nowhere, monsieur; I leave Paris as soon as I can find an easy-going horse.”
“But General Bretaux tells me you are wounded.”
“Not dangerously.”
“Pardon me, captain, but is this prudent? is it just to yourself and your friends?”
“Yes, I owe it to those who perhaps think me dead.”
“You can write to them.”
“I grudge so great, so sacred a joy to a letter. No! after all I have suffered I claim to be the one to tell her I have kept my word: I promised to live, and I live.”
“HER? then I say no more, only tell me what road you take.”
“The road to Brittany.”
As the young officer was walking his horse by the roadside about a league and a half from Paris, he heard a clatter behind him, and up galloped an aide-de-camp and drew up alongside, bringing his horse nearly on his haunches.
He handed him a large packet sealed with the arms of France. The other tore it open; and there was his brevet as colonel. His cheek flushed and his eye glittered with joy. The aide-de-camp next gave him a parcel: “Your epaulets, colonel! We hear you are going into the wilds where epaulets don’t grow. You are to join the army of the Rhine as soon as your wound is well.”
“Wherever my country calls me.”
“Your address, then, colonel, that we may know where to put our finger on a tried soldier when we want one.”
“I am going to Beaurepaire.”
“Beaurepaire? I never heard of it.”
“You never heard of Beaurepaire? it is in Brittany, forty-five leagues from Paris, forty-three leagues and a half from here.”
“Good! Health and honor to you, colonel.”
“The same to you, lieutenant; or a soldier’s death.”
The new colonel read the precious document across his horse’s mane, and then he was going to put one of the epaulets on his right shoulder, bare at present: but he reflected.
“No; she should make him a colonel with her own dear hand. He put them in his pocket. He would not even look at them till she had seen them. Oh, how happy he was not only to come back to her alive, but to come back to her honored.”
His wound smarted, his limbs ached, but no pain past or present could lay hold of his mind. In his great joy he remembered past suffering and felt present pain—yet smiled. Only every now and then he pined for wings to shorten the weary road.
He was walking his horse quietly, drooping a little over his saddle, when another officer well mounted came after him and passed him at a hand gallop with one hasty glance at his uniform, and went tearing on like one riding for his life.
“Don’t I know that face?” said Dujardin.
He cudgelled his memory, and at last he remembered it was the face of an old comrade. At least it strongly reminded him of one Jean Raynal who had saved his life in the Arno, when they were lieutenants together.
Yes, it was certainly Raynal, only bronzed by service in some hot country.
“Ah!” thought Camille; “I suppose I am more changed than he is; for he certainly did not recognize me at all. Now I wonder what that fellow has been doing all this time. What a hurry he was in! a moment more and I should have hailed him. Perhaps I may fall in with him at the next town.”
He touched his horse with the spur, and cantered gently on, for trotting shook him more than he could bear. Even when he cantered he had to press his hand against his bosom, and often with the motion a bitterer pang than usual came and forced the water from his eyes; and then he smiled. His great love and his high courage made this reply to the body’s anguish. And still his eyes looked straight forward as at some object in the distant horizon, while he came gently on, his hand pressed to his bosom, his head drooping now and then, smiling patiently, upon the road to Beaurepaire.
Oh! if anybody had told him that in five days his Josephine was to be married; and that the bronzed comrade, who had just galloped past him, was to marry her!
At Beaurepaire they were making and altering wedding-dresses. Rose was excited, and even Josephine took a calm interest. Dress never goes for nothing with her sex. The chairs and tables were covered, and the floor was littered. The baroness was presiding over the rites of vanity, and telling them what she wore at her wedding, under Louis XV., with strict accuracy, and what we men should consider a wonderful effort of memory, when the Commandant Raynal came in like a cannon-ball, without any warning, and stood among them in a stiff, military attitude. Exclamations from all the party, and then a kind greeting, especially from the baroness.
“We have been so dull without you, Jean.”
“And I have missed you once or twice, mother-in-law, I can tell you. Well, I have got bad news; but you must consider we live in a busy time. To-morrow I start for Egypt.”
Loud ejaculations from the baroness and Rose. Josephine put down her work quietly.
The baroness sighed deeply, and the tears came into her eyes. “Oh, you must not be down-hearted, old lady,” shouted Raynal. “Why, I am as likely to come back from Egypt as not. It is an even chance, to say the least.”
This piece of consolation completed the baroness’s unhappiness. She really had conceived a great affection for Raynal, and her heart had been set on the wedding.
“Take away all that finery, girls,” said she bitterly; “we shall not want it for years. I shall not be alive when he comes home from Egypt. I never had a son—only daughters—the best any woman ever had; but a mother is not complete without a son, and I shall never live to have one now.”
“I hate General Bonaparte,” said Rose viciously.
“Hate my general?” groaned Raynal, looking down with a sort of superstitious awe and wonder at the lovely vixen. “Hate the best soldier the world ever saw?”
“What do I care for his soldiership? He has put off our wedding. For how many years did you say?”
“No; he has put it on.”
In answer to the astonished looks this excited, he explained that the wedding was to have been in a week, but now it must be to-morrow at ten o’clock.
The three ladies set up their throats together. “Tomorrow?”
“To-morrow. Why, what do you suppose I left Paris for yesterday? left my duties even.”
“What, monsieur?” asked Josephine, timidly, “did you ride all that way, and leave your duties MERELY TO MARRY ME?” and she looked a little pleased.
“You are worth a great deal more trouble than that,” said Raynal simply. “Besides, I had passed my word, and I always keep my word.”
“So do I,” said Josephine, a little proudly. “I will not go from it now, if you insist; but I confess to you, that such a proposal staggers me; so sudden—no preliminaries—no time to reflect; in short, there are so many difficulties that I must request you to reconsider the matter.”
“Difficulties,” shouted Raynal with merry disdain; “there are none, unless you sit down and make them; we do more difficult things than this every day of our lives: we passed the bridge of Arcola in thirteen minutes; and we had not the consent of the enemy, as we have yours—have we not?”
Her only reply was a look at her mother, to which the baroness replied by a nod; then turning to Raynal, “This empressement is very flattering; but I see no possibility: there is an etiquette we cannot altogether defy: there are preliminaries before a daughter of Beaurepaire can become a wife.”
“There used to be all that, madam,” laughed Raynal, putting her down good-humoredly; “but it was in the days when armies came out and touched their caps to one another, and went back into winter quarters. Then the struggle was who could go slowest; now the fight is who can go fastest. Time and Bonaparte wait for nobody; and ladies and other strong places are taken by storm, not undermined a foot a month as under Noah Quartorze: let me cut this short, as time is short.”
He then drew a little plan of a wedding campaign. “The carriages will be here at 9 A.M.,” said he; “they will whisk us down to the mayor’s house by a quarter to ten: Picard, the notary, meets us there with the marriage contract, to save time; the contract signed, the mayor will do the marriage at quick step out of respect for me—half an hour—quarter past ten; breakfast in the same house an hour and a quarter:—we mustn’t hurry a wedding breakfast—then ten minutes or so for the old fogies to waste in making speeches about our virtues—my watch will come out—my charger will come round—I rise from the table—embrace my dear old mother—kiss my wife’s hand—into the saddle—canter to Paris—roll to Toulon—sail to Egypt. But I shall leave a wife and a mother behind me: they will both send me a kind word now and then; and I will write letters to you all from Egypt, and when I come home, my wife and I will make acquaintance, and we will all be happy together: and if I am killed out there, don’t you go and fret your poor little hearts about it; it is a soldier’s lot sooner or later. Besides, you will find I have taken care of you; nobody shall come and turn you out of your quarters, even though Jean Raynal should be dead; I have got to meet Picard at Riviere’s on that very business—I am off.”
He was gone as brusquely as he came.
“Mother! sister!” cried Josephine, “help me to love this man.”
“You need no help,” cried the baroness, with enthusiasm, “not love him, we should all be monsters.”
Raynal came to supper looking bright and cheerful. “No more work to-day. I have nothing to do but talk; fancy that.”
This evening Josephine de Beaurepaire, who had been silent and thoughtful, took a quiet opportunity, and purred in his ear, “Monsieur!”
“Mademoiselle!” rang the trombone.
“Am I not to go to Egypt?”
“No.”
Josephine drew back at this brusque reply like a sensitive plant. But she returned to the attack.
“But is it not a wife’s duty to be by her husband’s side to look after his comfort—to console him when others vex him—to soothe him when he is harassed?”
“Her first duty is to obey him.”
“Certainly.”
“Well, when I am your husband, I shall bid you stay with your mother and sister while I go to Egypt.”
“I shall obey you.”
He told her bluntly he thought none the worse of her for making the offer; but should not accept it.
Camille Dujardin slept that night at a roadside inn about twelve miles from Beaurepaire, and not more than six from the town where the wedding was to take place next day.
It was a close race.
And the racers all unconscious of each other, yet spurred impartially by events that were now hurrying to a climax.
The next day at sharp nine two carriages were at the door.
But the ladies were not ready. Thus early in the campaign did they throw all into disorder. For so nicely had Raynal timed the several events that this threw him all into confusion. He stamped backwards and forwards, and twisted his mustaches, and swore. This enforced unpunctuality was a new torture to him. Jacintha told them he was angry, and that made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers strayed wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings; they were not ready till half-past nine. Conscious they deserved a scolding, they sent Josephine down first to mollify. She dawned upon the honest soldier so radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress, with her coronet of pearls (an heirloom), and her bridal veil parted, and the flush of conscious beauty on her cheek, that instead of scolding her, he actually blurted out, “Well! by St. Denis it was worth waiting half an hour for.”
He recovered a quarter of an hour by making the driver gallop. Then occasional shrieks issued from the carriage that held the baroness. That ancient lady feared annihilation: she had not come down from a galloping age.
They drove into the town, drew up at the mayor’s house, were received with great ceremony by that functionary and Picard, and entered the house.
When their carriages rattled into the street from the north side, Colonel Dujardin had already entered it from the south, and was riding at a foot’s pace along the principal street. The motion of his horse now shook him past endurance. He dismounted at an inn a few doors from the mayor’s house, and determined to do the rest of the short journey on foot. The landlord bustled about him obsequiously. “You are faint, colonel; you have travelled too far. Let me order you an excellent breakfast.”
“No. I want a carriage; have you one?”
“I have two; but, unluckily, they are both engaged for the day, and by people of distinction. Commandant Raynal is married to-day.”
“Ah! I wish him joy,” said Camille, heartily. He then asked the landlord to open the window, as he felt rather faint. The landlord insisted on breakfast, and Camille sat down to an omelet and a bottle of red wine. Then he lay awhile near the window, revived by the air, and watched the dear little street he had not seen for years. He felt languid, but happy, celestially happy.
She was a few doors from him, and neither knew it.
A pen was put into her white hand, and in another moment she had signed a marriage contract.
“Now to the church,” cried the baroness, gayly. To get to the church, they must pass by the window Camille reclined at.
“Oh! there’s no time for that,” said Raynal. And as the baroness looked horrified and amazed, Picard explained: “The state marries its citizens now, with reason: since marriage is a civil contract.”
“Marriage a civil contract!” repeated the baroness. “What, is it then no longer one of the holy sacraments? What horrible impiety shall we come to next? Unhappy France! Such a contract would never be a marriage in my eyes: and what would become of an union the Church had not blessed?”
“Madame,” said Picard, “the Church can bless it still; but it is only the mayor here that can DO it.”
All this time Josephine was blushing scarlet, and looking this way and that, with a sort of instinctive desire to fly and hide, no matter where, for a week or so.
“Haw! haw! haw!” roared Raynal; “here is a pretty mother. Wants her daughter to be unlawfully married in a church, instead of lawfully in a house. Give me the will!”
“Look here, mother-in-law: I have left Beaurepaire to my lawful wife.”
“Otherwise,” put in Picard, “in case of death, it would pass to his heir-at-law.”
“And HE would turn you all out, and that does not suit me. Now there stands the only man who can make mademoiselle my LAWFUL wife. So quick march, monsieur the mayor, for time and Bonaparte wait for no man.”
“Stay a minute, young people,” said the mayor. “We should soothe respectable prejudices, not crush them. Madam, I am at least as old as you, and have seen many changes. I perfectly understand your feelings.”
“Ah, monsieur! oh!”
“Calm yourself, dear madam; the case is not so bad as you think. It is perfectly true that in republican France the civil magistrate alone can bind French citizens in lawful wedlock. But this does not annihilate the religious ceremony. You can ask the Church’s blessing on my work; and be assured you are not the only one who retains that natural prejudice. Out of every ten couples that I marry, four or five go to church afterwards and perform the ancient ceremonies. And they do well. For there before the altar the priest tells them what it is not my business to dilate upon—the grave moral and religious duties they have undertaken along with this civil contract. The state binds, but the Church still blesses, and piously assents to that”—
“From which she has no power to dissent.”
“Monsieur Picard, do you consider it polite to interrupt the chief magistrate of the place while he is explaining the law to a citizen?”
(This closed Picard.)
“I married a daughter last year,” continued the worthy mayor.
“What, after this fashion?”
“I married her myself, as I will marry yours, if you will trust me with her. And after I have made them one, there is nothing to prevent them adjourning to the church.”
“I beg your pardon,” cried Raynal, “there are two things to prevent it: a couple that wait for no man: Time and Bonaparte. Come, sir; marry us, and have done with it.”
The mayor assented. He invited Josephine to stand before him. She trembled and wept a little: Rose clung to her and wept, and the good mayor married the parties off hand.
“Is that all?” asked the baroness; “it is terribly soon done.”
“It is done effectively, madam,” said the mayor, with a smile. “Permit me to tell you that his Holiness the Pope cannot undo my work.”
Picard grinned slyly, and whispered something into Raynal’s ear.
“Oh! indeed,” said Raynal aloud and carelessly. “Come, Madame Raynal, to breakfast: follow us, the rest of you.”
They paired, and followed the bride and bridegroom into the breakfast-room.
The light words Picard whispered were five in number.
Now if the mayor had not snubbed Picard just before, he would have uttered those jocose but true words aloud. There was no particular reason why he should not. And if he had,—The threads of the web of life, how subtle they are! The finest cotton of Manchester, the finer meshes of the spider, seem three-inch cables by comparison with those moral gossamers which vulgar eyes cannot see at all, the “somethings, nothings,” on which great fates have hung.
It was a cheerful breakfast, thanks to Raynal, who would be in high spirits, and would not allow a word of regret from any one. Madame Raynal sat by his side, looking up at him every now and then with innocent admiration. A merry wedding breakfast.
But if men and women could see through the walls of houses!
Two doors off sat the wounded colonel alone, recruiting the small remnant of his sore tried strength, that he might struggle on to Beaurepaire, and lose in one moment years of separation, pain, prison, anguish, martyrdom, in one great gush of joy without compare.
The wedding breakfast was ended. The time was drawing near to part. There was a silence. It was broken by Madame Raynal. She asked Raynal very timidly if he had reflected. “On what?” said he.
“About taking me to Egypt.”
“No: I have not given it a thought since I said ‘no.’”
“Yet permit me to say that it is my duty to be by your side, my husband.” And she colored at this word, being the first time she had ever used it. Raynal was silent. She murmured on, “I would not be an encumbrance to you, sir: I should not be useless. Gentlemen, I could add more to his comfort than he gives me credit for.”
Warm assent of the mayor and notary to this hint.
“I give you credit for being an angel,” said Raynal warmly.
He hesitated. Rose was trembling, her fork shaking in her poor little hand.
She cast a piteous glance at him. He saw it.
“You shall go with me next time,” said he. “Let us speak of it no more.”
Josephine bowed her head. “At least give me something to do for you while you are away. Tell me what I can do for my absent friend to show my gratitude, my regard, my esteem.”
“Well, let me think. I saw a plain gray dress at Beaurepaire.”
“Yes, monsieur. My gray silk, Rose.”
“I like that dress.”
“Do you? Then the moment I reach home after losing you I shall put it on, and it shall be my constant wear. I see; you are right; gray becomes a wife whose husband is not dead, but is absent, and alas! in hourly danger.”
“Now look at that!” cried Raynal to the company. “That is her all over: she can see six meanings where another would see but one. I never thought of that, I swear. I like modest colors, that is all. My mother used to be all for modest wives wearing modest colors.”
“I am of her mind, sir. Is there nothing more difficult you will be so good as give me to do?”
“No; there is only one order more, and that will be easier still to such a woman as you. I commit to your care the name of Raynal. It is not so high a name as yours, but it is as honest. I am proud of it: I am jealous of it. I shall guard it for you in Egypt: you guard it in France for me.”
“With my life,” cried Josephine, lifting her eyes and her hand to heaven.
Soon after this Raynal ordered his charger.
The baroness began to cry. “The young people may hope to see you again,” said she; “but there are two chances against your poor old mother.”
“Courage, mother!” cried the stout soldier. “No, no; you won’t play me such a trick: once is enough for that game.”
“Brother!” cried Rose, “do not go without kissing your little sister, who loves you and thanks you.” He kissed her. “Bravo, generous soul!” she cried, with her arms round his neck. “God protect you, and send you back safe to us!”
“Amen!” cried all present by one impulse, even the cold notary.
Raynal’s mustache quivered. He kissed Josephine hastily on the brow, the baroness on both cheeks; shook the men’s hands warmly but hastily, and strode out without looking behind him. He was moved for once.
They all followed him to the door of the house. He was tightening his horse’s girths. He flung himself with all the resolution of his steel nature into the saddle, and, with one grand wave of his cocked hat to the tearful group, he spurred away for Egypt.