Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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"You are pleased to be severe, Princesse," said the Marquis, "Is
sincerity so difficult to find?"

"The most difficult of virtues!" answered the Princesse, lightly
tapping out a little tune with the jewelled handle of her riding
whip on the arm of her chair, "That is why I like horses and dogs so
much--they are always honest. And for that reason I am now inclined
to like Abbe Vergniaud whom I never liked before. He has turned
honest! To-day indeed he has been as straightforward as if he were
not a man at all!--and I admire him for it. He and his son will be
my guests at the Chateau D'Agramont."

"What a very strange woman you are!" said Fontenelle, with a certain
languid admiration beginning to glimmer in his eyes, "You always do
things that nobody else would dare do--and yet . . . no lovers!"

She turned herself swiftly round and surveyed him with a bright
scorn that swept him as with a lightning flash from head to heel.

"Lovers! Who would be bored by them! Such delightful company! So
unselfish in their demands--so tender and careful of a woman's
feelings! Pouf! Cher ami!--you forget! I was the wife of the late
Prince D'Agramont!"

"That explains a great many of your moods certainly," said the
Marquis smiling.

"Does it not? Le beau Louis!--romantic Louis!--poet Louis!--musician
Louis!--Louis, who talked pretty philosophies by the hour,--Louis
who looked so beautiful by moonlight,--who seemed fastidious and
refined to a degree that was almost ethereal!--Louis who swore, with
passion flashing in his eyes, that I was the centre of the universe
to him, and that no other woman had ever occupied, would ever
occupy, or SHOULD ever occupy his thoughts!--yes, he was an ideal
lover and husband indeed!" said the Princesse smiling coldly, "I
gave him all my life and love, till one day, when I found I was
sharing his caresses with my plumpest dairymaid, who called him "HER
Louis"! Then I thought it was time to put an end to romance. TIENS!"
and she gave a little shrug and sigh, "It is sad to think he died of
over-eating."

The Marquis laughed.

"You are incorrigible, belle Loyse!" he said, "You should write
these things, not speak them."

"Really! And do I not write them? Yes, you know I do, and that you
envy me my skill. The Figaro is indebted to me for many admirable
essays. At the same time I do not give you permission to call me
Loyse."

"Forgive me!" and the Marquis folded his hands with an air of mock
penitence.

"Perhaps I will, presently," and she laughed, "But meanwhile I want
you to do something for me."

"Toujours a votre service, madame!" and Fontenelle bowed profoundly.

"How theatrical you look! You are alarmingly like Miraudin;--and one
MUST draw the line at Miraudin! This is a day of truth according to
the Abbe Vergniaud; how dare you say you are at my service when you
do not mean it?"

"Princesse, I protest . . ."

"Oh, protest as much as you like,--on the way to Rome!"

The Marquis started.

"To Rome?"

"Yes, to Rome. I am going, and I want someone to look after me. Will
you come? All Paris will say we have eloped together." She laughed
merrily.

The Marquis stood perplexed and silent.

"Well, what is it?" went on the Princesse gaily, "Is there some
faint sense of impropriety stealing over you? Not possible! Dear me,
your very muscles are growing rigid! You will not go?"

"Madame, if you will permit me to be frank with you,--I would rather
not!"

"A la bonheur!--then I have you!" And the Princesse rose, a dazzling
smile irradiating her features, "You have thrown open your heart!
You have begun to reform! You love Sylvie Hermenstein--yes!--you
positively LOVE her!"

"Princesse--" began the Marquis, "I assure you--"

"Assure me nothing!" and she looked him straight in the eyes, "I
know all about it! You will not journey with me because you think
the Comtesse Sylvie will hear of it, and put a wrong construction on
your courtesy. You wish to try for once, to give her no cause for
doubting you to be sans peur et sans reproche. You wish to make her
think you something better than a sort of Miraudin whose amorous
inclinations are not awakened by one woman, but by women! And so you
will not do anything which, though harmless in itself, may seem
equivocal. For this you refuse the friendly invitation of one of the
best known 'society leaders' in Europe! CHER Marquis!--it is a step
in the right direction! Adieu!"

"You are not going so soon," he said hurriedly, "Wait till I
explain . . ."

"There is nothing to explain!" and the pretty Princesse gave him her
hand with a beneficent air, "I am very pleased with you. You are
what the English call 'good boy'! Now I am going to see the Abbe and
place the Chateau D'Agramont at his disposal while he is waiting to
be excommunicated,--for of course he will be excommunicated--"

"What does it matter!--Who cares?" said the Marquis recklessly.

"It does not matter, and nobody cares--not in actual Paris. But very
very nice people in the suburbs, who are morally much worse than the
Abbe, will perhaps refuse to receive him. That is why my doors are
open to him, and also to his son."

"Original, as usual!"

"Perfectly! I am going to write a column for the Figaro on the
amazing little scene of this morning. Au revoir! My poor horse has
been waiting too long already,--I must finish my ride in the Bois,
and then go to Angela Sovrani; for all the dramatis personae of to-
day's melodrama are at her studio, I believe."

"Who is that boy with the Cardinal?" asked the Marquis suddenly.

"You have noticed him? I also. A wonderful face! A little acolyte,
no doubt. And so you will not go to Rome with me?"

"I think not," and Fontenelle smiled.

"Comme il vous plaira! I will tell Sylvie."

"The Comtesse Hermenstein is not in Paris."

"No!" and the Princesse laughed mischievously, "She is in Rome! She
must have arrived there this morning. Au revoir, Marquis!" Another
dazzling smile, and she was gone.

Fontenelle stood staring after her in amazement. Sylvie was in Rome
then? And he had just refused to accompany the Princesse D'Agramont
thither! A sudden access of irritation came over him, and he paced
the room angrily. Should he also go to Rome? Never! It would seem
too close a pursuit of a woman who had by her actions distinctly
shown that she wished to avoid him. Now he would prove to her that
he also had a will of his own. HE would leave Paris;--he would go--
yes, he would go to Africa! Everybody went to Africa. It was
becoming a fashionable pasture-land for disappointed lives. He would
lose himself in the desert,--and then--then Sylvie would be sorry
when she did not know where he was or what he was doing! But also,--
he in his turn would not know where Sylvie was, or what she was
doing! This was annoying. It was certain that she would not remain
in Rome a day longer than she chose to,--well!--then where would she
go? In Africa he would find some difficulty in tracing her
movements. On second thoughts he resolved that he would lose himself
in another fashion--and would go to Rome to do it!

"She shall not know I am there!" he said to himself, with a kind of
triumph in his own decision, "I shall amuse myself--I shall see her-
-but she shall not see me."

Satisfied with this as yet vague plan of entertainment, he began at
once making his arrangements for departure;--meanwhile, the
Princesse D'Agramont riding gracefully through the Bois on her
beautiful Arab, was amusing herself with her thoughts, and weighing
the PROS and CONS of the different lives of her friends, without
giving the slightest consideration to her own. Here was a strange
nature,--as a girl she had been intensely loving, generous and warm-
hearted, and she had adored her husband with exceptional faith and
devotion. But the handsome Prince's amours were legion, though he
had been fairly successful in concealing them from his wife, till
the unlucky day when she had found him making desperate love to a
common servant,--and after that her confidence, naturally, was at an
end. One discovery led to another,--and the husband around whom she
had woven her life's romance, sank degraded in her sight, never to
rise again. She was of far too dignified and proud a nature to allow
her sense of outrage and wrong to be made public, and though she
never again lived with D'Agramont as his wife, she carried herself
through all her duties as mistress of the household and hostess of
his guests, with a brave bright gaiety, which deceived even the
closest observer,--and the gossips of Paris used to declare that she
did not know the extent of her husband's follies. But she did know,-
-and while filled with utter disgust and loathing for his conduct
she nevertheless gave him no cause of complaint against herself. And
when he died of a fever brought on through over-indulgence in vice,
she conformed to all the strictest usages of society,--wore her
solemn widow's black for more than the accustomed period,--and then
cast it off,--not to dash into her fashionable "circle" again with a
splurge of colour, but rather to glide into it gracefully, a vision
of refinement, arrayed in such soft hues as may be seen in some rare
picture; and she took complete possession of it by her own unaided
charm. No one could really tell whether she grieved for D'Agramont's
death or not; no one but herself knew how she had loved him,--no one
guessed what agonies of pain and shame she had endured for his sake,
nor how she had wept herself half blind with despair when he died.
All this she shut up in her own heart, but the working of the secret
bitterness within her had made a great change in her disposition.
Her nature, once as loving and confiding as that of a little child,
had been so wronged in its tenderest fibres that now she could not
love at all.

"Why is it," she would ask herself, "that I am totally unable to
care for any living creature? That it is indifferent to me whether I
see any person once, or often, or never? Why are all men like
phantoms, drifting past my soul's immovability?"

The answer to her query would be, that having loved greatly once and
been deceived, it was impossible to love again. Some women,--the
best, and therefore the unhappiest--are born with this difficult
temperament.

Now, as she rode quietly along, sometimes allowing her horse to
prance upon the turf for the delight of its dewy freshness, she was
weaving quite a brilliant essay on modern morals out of the scene
she had witnessed at the Church of the Lorette that morning. She
well knew how to use that dangerous weapon, the pen,--she could
wield it like a wand to waken tears or laughter with equal ease, and
since her husband's death she had devoted a great deal of time to
authorship. Two witty novels, published under a nom-de-plume had
already startled the world of Paris, and she was busy with a third.
Such work amused her, and distracted her from dwelling too much on
the destroyed illusions of the past. The Figaro snatched eagerly at
everything she wrote; and it was for the Figaro that she busied her
brain now, considering what she should say of the Abbe Vergniaud's
confession.

"It is wisest to be a liar and remain in the Church? or tell the
truth and go out of the Church?" she mused, "Unfortunately, if all
priests told the truth as absolutely as the Abbe did this morning we
should have hardly any of them left."

She laughed a little, and stroked her horse's neck caressingly.

"Good Rex! You and your kind never tell lies; and yet you are said
to have no souls. Now I wonder why we, who are mean and cunning and
treacherous and hypocritical should have immortal souls, while
horses and dogs who are faithful and kind and honest should be
supposed to have none."

Rex gave a gay little prance forward as one who should say, "Yes,
but it is only you silly human beings who suppose such nonsense. We
know what WE know;--we have our own secrets!"

"Now the Church," went on Loyse D'Agramont, pursuing the tenor of
her thoughts, "is in a bad way all over the world. It is possible
that God is offended with it. It is possible, that after nearly two
thousand years of patience He is tired of having come down to us to
teach us the path of Heaven in vain. Something out of the common has
surely moved the Abbe Vergniaud to speak as he spoke to-day. He was
quite unlike himself and beyond himself; if all our preachers were
seized by the spirit of frankness in like manner--"

Here she broke off for she had arrived at Angela Sovrani's door, and
a servant coming out, assisted her to alight, and led her horse into
the courtyard there to await her leisure. She was an old friend of
Angela's and was accustomed to enter the house without announcement,
but on this occasion she hesitated, and after ascending the first
few steps leading to the studio paused and rang the bell. Angela
herself answered the summons.

"Loyse! Is it you! Oh, I am so glad!" and Angela caught her by both
hands,--"You cannot imagine the confusion and trouble we have been
in this morning!"

"Oh yes, I can!" answered the Princesse smiling, as she put an arm
round her friend's waist and entered the studio, "You have certainly
had an excitement! What of the courageous Abbe? Where is he?"

"Here!" And Angela's eyes expressed volumes,--"Here, with my uncle.
They are talking together--and that young man--Cyrillon--the son,
you know--"

"Is that his name?--Cyrillon?" queried the Princesse.

"Yes,--he has been brought up as a peasant. But he is not ignorant.
He has written books and music, so it appears--yet he still keeps to
his labour in the fields. He seems to be a kind of genius; another
sort of Maeterlinck--"

"Oh, capricious Destiny!" exclaimed the Princesse, "The dear Abbe
scandalises the Church by acknowledging his son to all men,--and
lo!--the son he was ashamed of all these years, turns out a prodigy!
The fault once confessed, brings a blessing! Angela, there is
something more than chance in this, if we could only fathom it!"

"This Cyrillon is all softness and penitence now,' Angela went on,
"He is overcome with grief at his murderous attempt,--and has asked
his father's pardon. And they are going away together out of Paris
till--"

"Till excommunication is pronounced," said the Princesse, "Yes, I
thought so! I came here to place my Chateau at the Abbe's disposal.
I am myself going to Rome; so he and his son can be perfectly at
home there. I admire the man's courage, and above all I admire his
truthfulness. But I cannot understand why he was at such pains to
keep silence all these years, and THEN to declare his fault? He must
have decided on his confession very suddenly?"

Angela's eyes grew dark and wistful.

"Yes," she answered slowly,--then with a sudden eagerness in her
manner she added, "Do you know, Loyse, I feel as if some very
strange influence had crept in among us! Pray do not think me
foolish, but I assure you I have had the most curious sensations
since my uncle, Cardinal Bonpre arrived from Rouen--bringing Manuel-
-"

"Manuel? Is that the boy I saw in the church this morning? The boy
who threw himself as a shield between Verginaud and the flying shot?
Yes? And do you not know who he is?"

"No," and Angela repeated the story of the way in which Manuel had
been found and rescued by the Cardinal; "You see," she continued,
"it is not possible to ask him any questions since he has declined
to tell us more than we already know."

"Strange!" And the Princesse D'Agramont knitted her delicate brows
perplexedly. "And you have had curious feelings since he came, you
say? What sort of feelings?"

"Well, you will only laugh at me," replied Angela, her cheeks paling
a little as she spoke, "but it really is as if some supernatural
being were present who could see all my inward thoughts,--and not
only mine, but the thoughts of everyone else. Someone too who impels
us to do what we have never thought of doing before--"

The Princesse opened her eyes in amazement.

"My dear girl! You must have been over-working to get such strange
fancies into your head! There is nothing supernatural left to us
nowadays except the vague idea of a God,--and even that we are
rather tired of!"

Angela trembled and grew paler than usual.

"Do not speak in that way," she urged, "The Abbe talked in just such
a light fashion until the other day here,--yet this morning I think-
-nay, I am sure he believes in something better than himself at
last."

The Princesse was silent for a minute.

"Well, what is to happen next?" she queried, "Excommunication of
course! All brave thinkers of every time have been excommunicated,
and many of our greatest and most valuable scientific works are on
the Index Expurgatorius. It is my ambition to get into that Index,--
I shall never rest till I win the honour of being beside Darwin's
'Origin of Species'!"

Angela smiled, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

"I hope the Abbe will go away at once," she said meditatively, "But
you have no idea how happy and at ease he is! He seems to be ready
for anything."

"What does Cardinal Bonpre think?" asked the Princesse.

"My uncle never thinks in any way except the way of Christ," replied
Angela. "He says, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee; arise and walk', to
every soul stricken with the palsy of pain and repentance. He helps
the fallen; he does not strike them down more heavily."

"Ah, so! And is he fit to be a Cardinal?" queried the Princesse
D'Agramont dubiously.

Angela gave her a quick look, but had no time to reply as at that
moment a servant entered and announced, "Monsignor Moretti!"

Angela started nervously.

"Moretti!" she said in a low tone, "I thought he had left Paris!"

Before she had time to say any more the visitor himself entered, a
tall spare priest with a dark narrow countenance of the true Tuscan
type,--a face in which the small furtive eyes twinkled with a
peculiarly hard brilliancy as though they were luminous pebbles. He
walked into the room with a kind of aggressive dignity common to
many Italians, and made a slight sign of the cross in air as the two
ladies saluted him.

"Pardon me, Mesdames, for this intrusion," he said in a harsh
metallic voice, "But I hear that the Abbe Vergniaud is in this
house,--and that Cardinal Felix Bonpre has received him here SINCE"
(and he emphasised the word "since") "the shameful scene of this
morning. My business in Paris is ended for the moment; and I am
returning to Italy to-night,--but I wish to know if the Abbe has
anything to say through me to His Holiness the Pope in extenuation
of his conduct before I perform the painful duty of narrating this
distressing affair at the Vatican."

"Will you see him for yourself, Monsignor?" said Angela quietly,
offering to lead the way out of the studio, "You will no doubt
obtain a more direct and explicit answer from the Abbe personally."

For a moment Moretti hesitated. Princesse D'Agramont saw his
indecision, and her smile had a touch of malice in it as she said,

"It is a little difficult to know how to address the Abbe to-day, is
it not, Monsignor? For of course he is no longer an Abbe--no longer
a priest of Holy Church! Helas! When anybody takes to telling the
truth in public the results are almost sure to be calamitous!"

Moretti turned upon her with swift asperity.

"Madame, you are no true daughter of the Church," he said, "and my
calling forbids me to enter into any discussion with you!"

The Princesse gave him a charming upward glance of her bright eyes,
and curtsied demurely, but he paid no heed to her obeisance, and
moving away, went at once with Angela towards the Cardinal's
apartments. In the antechamber he paused, hearing voices.

"Is there anyone with His Eminence, besides Vergniaud?" he asked.

"The Abbe's son Cyrillon," replied Angela timidly.

Moretti frowned.

"I will go in alone," he said, "You need not announce me. The Abbe
knows me well, and--" he added with a slight sneer, "he is likely to
know me better!"

Without further words he signed to Angela to retire, and passing
through the antechamber, he opened the door of the Cardinal's room
and entered abruptly.

XV.

The Cardinal was seated,--he rose as Moretti appeared.

"I beg your Eminence to spare yourself!" said Moretti suavely, with
a deep salutation, "And to pardon me for thus coming unannounced
into the presence of one so highly esteemed by the Holy Father as
Cardinal Bonpre!"

The Cardinal gave a gesture of courteous deprecation; and Monsignor
Moretti, lifting his, till then, partially lowered eyelids, flashed
an angry regard upon the Abbe Vergniaud, who resting his back
against the book-case behind him, met his glance with the most
perfect composure. Close to him stood his son and would-be murderer
Cyrillon,--his dark handsome face rendered even handsomer by the
wistful and softened expression of his eyes, which ever and anon
rested upon his father with a look of mingled wonder and respect.
There was a brief silence--of a few seconds at most,--and then
Moretti spoke again in a voice which thrilled with pent-up
indignation, but which he endeavoured to render calm and clear as he
addressed the Cardinal.

"Your Eminence is without doubt aware of the cause of my visit to
you. If, as I understand, your Eminence was present at Notre Dame de
Lorette this morning, and witnessed the regrettable conduct of the
faithless son of the Church here present--"

"Pardon! This is my affair." interposed Vergniaud, stepping forward,
"His Eminence, Cardinal Bonpre, is not at all concerned in the
matter of the difficult dispute which has arisen between me and my
own conscience. You call me faithless, Monsignor,--will you explain
what you mean by 'faithless' under these present conditions of
argument?"

"It shows the extent and hopelessness of your retrogression from all
good that you should presume to ask such a question," answered
Moretti, growing white under the natural darkness of his skin with
an impotency of rage he could scarcely suppress, "Your sermon this
morning was an open attack on the Church, and the amazing scene at
its conclusion is a scandal to Christianity!"

"The attack on the Church I admit," said the Abbe quietly, "I am not
the only preacher in the world who has so attacked it. Christ
Himself would attack it if He were to visit this earth again!"

Moretti turned angrily towards the Cardinal.

"Your Eminence permits this blasphemy to be uttered in your
presence?" he demanded.

"Nay, wherever and whenever I perceive blasphemy, my son, I shall
reprove it," said the Cardinal, fixing his mild eyes steadily on
Moretti's livid countenance, "I cannot at present admit that our
unhappy and repentant brother here has blasphemed. In his address to
his congregation to-day he denounced social hypocrisy, and also
pointed out certain failings in the Church which may possibly need
consideration and reform; but against the Gospel of Christ, or
against the Founder of our Faith I heard no word that could be
judged ill-fitting. As for the conclusion which so very nearly ended
in disaster and crime, there is nothing to be said beyond the fact
that both the persons concerned are profoundly sorry for their
sins."

"No sorrow can wipe out such infamy--" began Moretti hotly.

"Patience! Patience, my son!" and the Cardinal raised his hand with
a slight gesture of authority, "Surely we must believe the words of
our Blessed Lord, 'There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner that
repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons which have no need
of repentance'!"

"And on this old and well-worn phrase you excuse a confessed
heretic?" said Moretti, with a sneer.

"This old and well-worn phrase is the saying of our Master,"
answered the Cardinal firmly, "And it is as true as the truth of the
sunshine which, in its old and well-worn way, lights up this world
gloriously every morning! I would stake my very life on the depth
and the truth of Vergniaud's penitence! Who, seeing and knowing the
brand of disgrace he has voluntarily burnt into his own social name
and honour, could doubt his sincerity, or refuse to raise him up,
even as our Lord would have done, saying, 'Thy sins be forgiven
thee! Go, and sin no more!'?"

Moretti's furtive eyes disappeared for a moment under his
discoloured eyelids, which quivered rapidly like the throbbings in
the throat of an angry snake. Before he could speak again however,
Vergniaud interposed.

"Why trouble His Eminence with my crimes or heresies?" he said
quietly, "I am grateful to him from my soul for his gentleness and
charity of judgment--but I need no defence--not even from him. I am
answerable to God alone!--neither to Church nor Creed! It was
needful that I should speak as I spoke to-day--"

"Needful to scandalize the Church?" demanded Moretti sharply.

"The Church is not scandalized by a man who confesses himself an
unworthy member of it!" returned Vergniaud, "It is better to tell
the truth and go out of the Church than to remain in it as a liar
and a hypocrite."

"According to your own admission you have been a liar and a
hypocrite for twenty-five years!" said Moretti bitterly, "You should
have made your confession before, and have made it privately. There
is something unnatural and reprehensible in the sudden blazon you
have made to the public of your gross immorality."