The Master-Christian Part 8

She gave a short laugh of scorn, and resumed the clicking of her needles, not raising her eyes from her work even when her neighbour, the old woman who sold vegetables at the next stall, ventured to address her.

"Where is thy unfortunate boy gone to, Martine?" she enquired,--"Is it wise to let him be with the Patoux children? They are strong and quick and full of mischief,--they might do him fresh injury in play without meaning it."

"I will trust them," answered Martine curtly,--"They have taken him to see a Cardinal."

"A Cardinal!" and the old woman craned her withered neck forward in amazement and began to laugh feebly,--"Nom de Jesus! That is strange!

What does the Cardinal want with him?"

"Nothing," said Martine gruffly--"It seems that he is an old man who is kind to children, and the girl Babette has a fancy to get his blessing for my Fabien,--that is all."

"And that is little enough," responded the old vegetable-vendor, still laughing, or rather chuckling hoa.r.s.ely--"A blessing is not worth much nowadays, is it Martine? It never puts an extra ounce of meat in the pot-au-feu,--and yet it is all one gets out of the priests for all the prayers and the praise. Last time I went to confession I accused myself of the sin of envy. I said 'Look here, my father, I am a widow and very old; and I have rheumatism in all my bones, and I have only a bit of matting to sleep on at home, and if I have a bad day with the market I can buy no food. And there is a woman living near me who has a warm house, with a stove in it,--and blankets to cover her, and a bit of money put by, and I envy her her blankets and her stove and her house and her money. Is that a sin?' And he said it was a sin; but that he would absolve me from it if I said ten Paters and ten Aves before Our Lady of Bon-Secours. And then he gave me his blessing,--but no blankets and no stove and no money. And I have not said ten Paters and Aves yet, because my bones have ached too much all the week for me to walk up the hill to Bon-Secours. And the blessing has been no use to me at all."

"Nor is it likely to be!" scoffed Martine--"I thought you had given up all that Church-nonsense long ago."

"Nay--nay--not altogether,"--murmured the old woman timidly--"I am very old,--and one never knows--there may be truth in some of it. It is the burning and the roasting in h.e.l.l that I think of,--you know that is very likely to happen, Martine!--because you see, in this life we have nothing but trouble,--so whoever made us must like to see us suffering;--it must be a pleasure to G.o.d, and so it is sure to go on and on always. And I am afraid!--and if a candle now and then to St.

Joseph would help matters, I am not the one to grudge it,--it is better to burn a candle than burn one's self!"

Martine laughed loudly, but made no answer. She could not waste her time arguing against the ridiculous superst.i.tions of an old creature who was so steeped in ignorance as to think that a votive candle could rescue her soul from a possible h.e.l.l. She went on knitting in silence till a sudden shadow came between her and the sunlight, and a girl's voice, harsh, yet with a certain broken sweetness in it, said--

"A fine morning's killing, aye! All their necks wrung,--all dead birds!

Once they could fly--fly and swim! Fly and swim! All dead now--and sold cheap in the open market!"

A shrill laugh finished this outburst, but Martine knew who it was that spoke, and maintained her equanimity.

"Is that you again, Marguerite?" she said, not unkindly--"You will tire yourself to death wandering about the streets all day."

Marguerite Valmond, "la folle" as she was called by the townsfolk, shook her head and smiled cunningly. She was a tall girl, with black hair disordered and falling loosely about her pale face,--her eyes were dark and l.u.s.trous, but wild, and with a hunted expression in them,--and her dress was composed of the strangest remnants of oddly a.s.sorted materials and colours pinned about her without any order or symmetry, the very idea of decent clothing being hardly considered, as her bosom was half exposed and her legs were bare. She wore no head-covering, and her whole aspect was that of one who had suddenly awakened from a hideous dream and was striving to forget its horrors.

"I shall never be tired!" she said--"If I could be tired I should sleep,--but I never sleep! I am looking for HIM, you know!--it was at the fair I lost him--you remember the great fair? And when I find him I shall kill him! It is quite easy to kill--you take a sharp glittering thing, so!" and she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a knife that lay on Martine's counter--"And you plunge it--so!" and she struck it down with singular fury through the breast of one of the "dead birds" which were Martine's stock-in-trade. Then she threw the knife on the ground--rubbed her hands together, tossed her head, and laughed again--"That is how I shall do it when I meet him!"

Martine said nothing. She simply removed the one stabbed bird from among the others, and setting it aside, picked up the knife from the ground and went on knitting as calmly as ever.

"I am going to see the Archbishop," proceeded Marguerite, tossing back her dishevelled locks and making one or two fantastic dance-steps as she spoke--"The great Archbishop of this wonderful city of Rouen! I want to ask him how it happened that G.o.d made men. It was a mistake which He must be sorry for! The Archbishop knows everything;--he will tell me about it. Ah!--what a beautiful mistake is the Archbishop himself!--and how soon women find it out! Bon jour, Martine!"

"Bon jour, Marguerite!" responded Martine quietly.

Singing to herself, the crazed girl sauntered off. Several of the market women looked after her.

"She killed her child, they say," muttered the old vegetable-seller--"But no one knows--"

"Sh--sh--s.h.!.+" hissed Martine angrily--"What one does not know one should not say. Mayhap there never was a child at all. Whatever the wrong was, she has suffered for it;--and if the man who led her astray ever comes nigh her, his life is not worth a centime."

"Rough justice!" said one of the market porters, who had just paused close by to light his pipe.

"Aye, rough justice!" echoed Martine--"When justice is not given to the people, the people take it for themselves! And if a man deals ill by a woman, he has murdered her as surely as if he had put a knife through her;--and 'tis but even payment when he gets the knife into himself.

Things in this life are too easy for men and too hard for women; men make the laws for their own convenience, and never a thought of us at all in the making. They are a selfish lot!"

The porter laughed carelessly, and having lit his pipe to his satisfaction went his way.

A great many more customers now came to Martine's stall, and for upwards of an hour there was shrill argument and driving of bargains till she had pretty well cleared her counter of all its stock. Then she sat down again and looked to right and left of the market-place for any sign of the Patoux children returning with her little son, but there was not a glimpse of them anywhere.

"I wonder what they are doing!" she thought--"And I wonder what sort of a Cardinal it is they have taken the child to see! These great princes of the Church care nothing for the poor,--the very Pope allows half Italy to starve while he shuts himself up with his treasures in the Vatican;--what should a great Cardinal care for my poor little Fabien!

If the stories of the Christ were true, and one could only take the child to Him, then indeed there might be a chance of cure!--but it is all a lie,--and the worst of the lie is that it would give us all so much comfort and happiness if it were only true! It is like holding out a rope to a drowning man and s.n.a.t.c.hing it away again. And when the rope goes, the sooner one sinks under the waves the better!"

VI.

The Cardinal was still in his room alone with the boy Manuel, when Madame Patoux, standing at her door under the waving tendrils of the "creeping jenny" and shading her eyes from the radiance of the sun, saw her children approaching with Fabien Doucet between them.

"Little wretches that they are!" she murmured--"Once let them get an idea into their heads and nothing will knock it out! Now I shall have to tell Monseigneur that they are here,--what an impertinence it seems!--and yet he is so gentle, and has such a good heart that perhaps he will not mind . . ."

Here she broke off her soliloquy as the children came up, Babette eagerly demanding to know where the Cardinal was. Madame Patoux set her arms akimbo and surveyed the little group of three half-pityingly, half derisively.

"The Cardinal has not left his room since breakfast," she answered--"He is playing Providence already to a poor lad lost in the streets, and for that matter lost in the world, without father or mother to look after him,--he was found in Notre Dame last night,--"

"Why, mother," interrupted Henri--"how could a boy get into Notre Dame last night? When Babette and I went there, n.o.body was in the church at all,--and we left one candle burning all alone in the darkness,--and when we came out the Suisse swore at us for having gone in, and then locked the door."

"Well, if one must be so exact, the boy was not found actually in Notre Dame, obstinate child," returned his mother impatiently--"It happened at midnight,--the good Cardinal heard someone crying and went to see who it was. And he found a poor boy outside the Cathedral weeping as if his heart were breaking, and leaning his head against the hard door for a pillow. And he brought him back and gave him his own bed to sleep in;--and the lad is with him now."

Little Fabien Doucet, leaning on his crutch, looked up with interest.

"Is he lame like me?" he asked.

"No, child," replied Madame compa.s.sionately--"He is straight and strong. In truth a very pretty boy."

Fabien sighed. Babette made a dash forward.

"I will go and see him!" she said--"And I will call Monseigneur."

"Babette! How dare you! Babette!"

But Babette had scurried defiantly past her mother, and breathless with a sense of excitement and disobedience intermingled, had burst into the Cardinal's room without knocking. There on the threshold she paused,--somewhat afraid at her own boldness,--and startled too at the sight of Manuel, who was seated near the window opposite the Cardinal, and who turned his deep blue eyes upon her with a look of enquiry. The Cardinal himself rose and turned to greet her, and as the wilful little maid met his encouraging glance and noted the benign sweetness of his expression she trembled,--and losing nerve, began to cry.

"Monseigneur . . . Monseigneur . . ." she stammered.

"Yes, my child,--what is it?" said the Cardinal kindly--"Do not be afraid,--I am at your service. You have brought the little friend you spoke to me of yesterday?"

Babette peeped shyly at him through her tears, and drooping her head, answered with a somewhat smothered "Yes."

"That is well,--I will go to him at once,"--and the Cardinal paused a moment looking at Manuel, who as if responding to his unuttered wish, rose and approached him--"And you, Manuel--you will also come. You see, my child," went on the good prelate addressing Babette, the while he laid a gently caressing hand on her hair--"Another little friend has come to me who is also very sad,--and though he is not crippled or ill, he is all alone in the world, which is, for one so young, a great hards.h.i.+p. You must be sorry for him too, as well as for your own poor playmate."

But Babette was seized with an extraordinary timidity, and had much ado to keep back the tears that rose in her throat and threatened to break out in a burst of convulsive sobbing. She did not know in the least what was the matter with her,--she was only conscious of an immense confusion and shyness which were quite new to her ordinarily bold and careless nature. Manuel's face frightened yet fascinated her; he looked, she thought, like the beautiful angel of the famous stained gla.s.s "Annunciation" window in the crumbling old church of St. Maclou.

She dared not speak to him,--she could only steal furtive glances at him from under the curling length of her dark tear-wet lashes,--and when the Cardinal took her by the hand and descended the staircase with her to the pa.s.sage where the crippled Fabien waited, she could not forbear glancing back every now and then over her shoulder at the slight, supple, almost aerial figure of the boy, who, noiselessly, and with a light gliding step, followed. And now Madame Patoux came forward;--a bulky, anxious figure of gesticulation and apology.

"Alas, Monseigneur!" she began plaintively--"It is too shameful that your quiet should be disturbed in this way, but if you could only know the obstinacy of these children! Ah yes!--if you knew all, you would pity their parents!--you would indeed! And this is the unhappy little creature they have brought to you, Monseigneur,--a sad sight truly!--and afflicted sorely by the will of G.o.d,--though one could hardly say that G.o.d was anywhere about when he fell, poor baby, from his mother's cart and twisted his body awry,--one would rather think the devil was in the business, asking your pardon, Monseigneur; for surely the turning of a human creature into a useless lump has little of good, or divine kindness in it! Now make thy best bow to the Cardinal," went on Madame with a gasp for breath in her voluble speech, addressing the little cripple--"And it is a pity them hast no time to confess thy sins and take the Sacrament before so holy a man lay hands on thee!"

But at these words Cardinal Bonpre turned to her with a reproving gesture.