The Master-Christian. Marie Corelli
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—sh!" 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 snatching 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, nobody 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 compassionately—"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 hardship. 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 glass "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 passage 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 God,—though one could hardly say that God 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.