Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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"Alas, the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown
And, if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring!"
[Footnote: Byron]

During the time that matters were thus pending in Rome, Claude
Cazeau, well satisfied with himself, and the importance of being
entrusted with a special message from the Vatican to the Archbishop
of Rouen, returned to the Normandy capital with many ambitious
speculations rife in his brain, and schemes for improving the
position of confidence with which he had, by the merest chance, and
the fluctuations of the Pope's hunxour, been suddenly thrust. He
took the Patoux family by surprise on the evening of his arrival in
Rouen, and much to his secret satisfaction found Martine Doucet in
their company. The children were gone to bed, and the appearance of
Cazeau in Papa Patoux's kitchen was evidently not altogether the
most agreeable circumstance that could have happened at the Hotel
Poitiers. He was civilly received, however, and when he expressed
his pleasure at seeing Madame Doucet present, that worthy female
lifted her eyes from her knitting and gave him a suspicious glance
of exceeding disfavour.

"I do not see what pleasure my company can give you, Monsieur," she
said curtly, "I am only a poor marketwoman!"

"But you have been singularly favoured by the protection and
confidence of a great Cardinal,--" began Cazeau.

"Protection--confidence--!" echoed Martine snappishly, "Nom de
Jesus! What is the man talking about! I never set eyes on the
Cardinal in my life. But that he cured my Fabien is enough to make
me think of him as a saint for ever,--though it seems there are some
that would almost make him out to be a devil for having done a good
deed! And ever since my boy was cured I have lived a life of torture
and trouble--yes, truly!--torn between two things, our Blessed Lord
and the Church! But I am trying my best to keep fast hold of our
Lord, whatever the Church may do to me!"

"Dear me!" said Cazeau blandly, turning with a smile and
propitiatory air to Patoux who sat silently smoking, "Madame Doucet
seems a little--what shall we say?--unduly excited? Yet surely the
recovery of her child should fill her with thanksgiving and make her
a faithful and devout servant--" "Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted
Madame Patoux, "Believe me, Martine is thankful enough, and devout
enough,--but truly it has been very hard for her to suffer the
things that have been said to her of late,--how that the child could
never have been really crippled at all, but simply shamming,--how
that it was all a trick got up between herself and the priests for
the purpose of bringing visitors and their money to Rouen,--for of
course since the miracle was noised abroad there have been many
pilgrimages to Notre Dame, it having got about that there was some
mysterious spirit or angel in one of the shrines,--for look you, our
Archbishop, when he came to visit the Cardinal here in this very
hotel, distinctly remembers that His Eminence assured him he had
heard strange music in the Cathedral, when truly there was no organ
unlocked, and no organist on duty,--and then there was something
about the boy that His Eminence found lost that night . . ."

"Stop! Stop!" said Cazeau, growing impatient, "Your eloquence is so
impressive, Madame, and you say so much that is excellent in one
breath, that you must pardon my inferior capacity in not being able
to follow you quite coherently! There are conflicting statements,
you say--"

"No, there are none," said Patoux himself, drawing his pipe out of
his mouth slowly, and looking intently at its well-sucked stem--"It
is all the same sort of thing. A child is sick--a child is cured--
and it is either God or the Devil who has done it. Some people
prefer to think it is the Devil,--some give the praise to God. It
was exactly like that whenever our Lord did a good deed. Half the
folks said he was God,--the other half that he had a devil.
Jerusalem was like Rouen, Rouen is like Jerusalem. Jerusalem was
ancient and wicked; Rouen is modern and wickeder,--that's all! As
for music in the church, we have only the Archbishop's warrant that
the Cardinal ever said anything about hearing music."

"'ONLY' the Archbishop's warrant!" echoed Cazeau meaningly.

"I said 'ONLY', Monsieur!--Make the best of it!" answered Patoux,
sticking his pipe into his mouth again, and resuming his smoke with
undisturbed tranquillity.

Cazeau hummed and hawed,--he was irritated yet vaguely amused too at
the singular self-assertion of these common folk who presumed to
take their moral measurement of an Archbishop! It is a strange fact,
but these same common folk always DO take these sorts of
measurements.

"The inconsistencies--(if there are any--) in the story will soon be
cleared up," he said, with a benevolent assumption of authority, "At
least, I hope so! I am glad to say that I am entrusted with a
message to the Archbishop from our Holy Father, the Pope,--and I
have also His Holiness's instructions to request you, Madame Doucet,
together with your son Fabien, to accompany me back to Rome!"

Martine Doucet bounced up from her chair, and let fall her knitting.

"Me--me!" she cried, "ME go to Rome! Never! Wild horses will not
drag me there, nor shall you take my Fabien either! What should I do
in Rome?"

"Testify personally to the truth of the Cardinal's miracle,"
answered Cazeau, gazing coldly at her excited face as though he saw
something altogether strange and removed from human semblance. "And
bring your child into the Holy Presence and relate his history. It
will be nothing but an advantage to you,--for you will obtain a
patient hearing, and the priceless boon of the Papal benediction!"

"Grand merci!" said Martine, "But I have lived more than half my
time without the Papal benediction, and I can work out the rest of
my days in the same way! Look you!--there is a great English Duke I
am told, who has an only son sorely afflicted, and he has taken this
son to every place in the world where the Church is supposed to work
miracles for the healing of the sick and the helpless,--all to no
use, for the poor boy is as sick and helpless as ever. How is that?
What has the Papal benediction done for him?"

"Woman, your tongue overrules your senses!" said Cazeau, with rising
temper, "You rail against the Church like an ungrateful heathen,
even though you owe your son's recovery to the Church! For what is
Cardinal Bonpre but a Prince of the Church?"

Martine stuck her arms akimbo, and surveyed him disdainfully.

"OH--HE!" she cried, "My tongue overrules my senses, Monsieur Clause
Cazeau! Take care that your cunning does not overrule yourself! Did
I ever deny the worth and the goodness of Cardinal Bonpre? Though if
I were to speak the whole truth, and if I were to believe the
nonsense-talk of a child, I should perhaps give the credit of the
miracle to the stray boy whom the Cardinal found outside the
Cathedral door--"Cazeau started--"For Fabien says that he began to
feel strong the moment that little lad touched him!"

"The boy!" exclaimed Cazeau--"The boy!"

A curious silence ensued. Jean Patoux lifting his drowsy eyes gazed
fixedly at the whitewashed ceiling,--Madame, his wife, stood beside
him watching the changes on Cazeau's yellow face--and Martine sat
down to take breath after her voluble outburst.

"The boy!" muttered Cazeau again--then he broke into a harsh laugh.

"What folly!" he exclaimed, "As if a little tramp of the streets
could have anything to do with a Church miracle! Martine Doucet, if
you were to say such a thing at the Vatican--"

"_I_ have not said it," said Martine angrily, "I only told you what
my Fabien says. I am not answerable for the thoughts of the child!
That he is well and strong--that he has the look and the soul of an
angel, is enough for me to praise God all my life. But I shall never
say the Laus Deo at the Vatican,--you will have no chance to trap me
in that way!"

Cazeau stared at her haughtily.

"You must be mad!" he said, "No one wishes to 'trap' you, as you
express it! The miracle of healing performed on your child is a very
remarkable one,--it should not be any surprise to you that the Head
of the Church seeks to know all the details of it thoroughly, in
order to ratify and confirm it, and perhaps bestow new honour on the
eminent Cardinal--"

"I rather doubt that!" interposed Patoux slowly, "For I gather from
our Archbishop that the Holy Father was suspicious of some trick
rather than an excess of sanctity!"

Cazeau reddened through his pallid skin.

"I know nothing of that!" he said curtly, "But my orders are
imperative, and I shall seek the assistance of the Archbishop to
enforce and carry them out! For the moment I have the honour to wish
you good-night, Monsieur Patoux!--and you also, Mesdames!"

And he departed abruptly, in an anger which he was at no pains to
disguise. Personally he cared nothing about the miracle or how it
had been accomplished, but he cared very much for his own
advancement,--and he saw, or thought he saw, a chance of very
greatly improving his position among the ecclesiastical authorities
if he only kept a cool head and a clear mind. He recognised that
there was a desire on the part of the Pope to place Cardinal Bonpre
under close observance and restraint on account of his having
condoned the Abbe Vergniaud's confession to his congregation in
Paris; and he rightly judged that anything he could do to aid the
accomplishment of that end would not be without its reward. And the
few words which Martine Doucet had let drop concerning the stray boy
who now lived under the Cardinal's protection, had given him a new
idea which he resolved to act upon when he returned to Rome. For it
was surely very strange that an eminent Prince of the Church should
allow himself to be constantly attended by a little tramp rescued
from the street! There was something in it more than common,--and
Cazeau decided that he would suggest a close enquiry being made on
this point.

Crossing the square opposite the Hotel Poitiers, he hesitated before
turning the corner of the street which led towards the avenue where
the Archbishop's house was situated. The night was fine and calm--
the air singularly balmy,--and he suddenly decided to take a stroll
by the river before finally returning to his rooms for the night.
There is one very quiet bit of the Seine in Rouen where the water
flows between unspoilt grassy banks, which in summer are a frequent
resort for lovers to dream the dreams which so often come to
nothing,--and here Cazeau betook himself to smoke and meditate on
the brilliancy of his future prospects. The river had been high in
flood during the week, and the grass which sloped towards the water
was still wet, and heavy to the tread. But Cazeau limited his walk
to the broad summit of the bank, being aware that the river just
below flowed over a muddy quicksand, into which, should a man chance
to fall, it would be death and fast burial at one and the same
moment. And Cazeau set a rather exorbitant value on his own life, as
most men do whose lives are of no sort of consequence to the world.
So he was careful to walk where there was the least danger of
slipping,--and as he lit an excellent cigar, and puffed the faint
blue rings of smoke out into the clear moonlit atmosphere, he was in
a very agreeable frame of mind. He was crafty and clever in his
way,--one of those to whom the Yankee term "cute" would apply in its
fullest sense,--and he had the happy knack of forgetting his own
mistakes and follies, and excusing his own sins with as much ease as
though he were one of the "blood-royal" of nations. Vices he had in
plenty in common with most men,--except that his particular form of
licentiousness was distinguished by a callousness and cruelty in
which there was no touch of redeeming quality. As a child he had
loved to tear the wings off flies and other insects, and one of his
keenest delights in boyhood had been to watch the writhings of frogs
into whose soft bodies he would stick long pins,--the frogs would
live under this treatment four and five hours--sometimes longer, and
while observing their agonies he enjoyed "that contented mind which
is a perpetual feast." Now that he was a man, he delighted in
torturing human beings after the same methods applied mentally,
whenever he could find a vulnerable part through which to thrust a
sharp spear of pain.

"The eminent Cardinal Bonpre!" he mused now; "What is he to me! If I
could force the Archbishop of Rouen into high favour at the Vatican
instead of this foolish old Saint Felix, it would be a better thing
for my future. After all, it was at Rouen that the miracle was
performed--the city should have some credit! And Bonpre has condoned
a heretic . . . he is growing old and feeble--possibly he is losing his
wits. And then there is that boy . . ."

He started violently as a fantastic shadow suddenly crossed his
path, in the moonlight, and a peal of violent laughter assailed his
ears.

"Enfin! Toi, mon Claude!--enfin!--Grace a Dieu! Enfin!"

And the crazed creature, known as Marguerite, "La Folle", stood
before him, her long black hair streaming over her bare chest and
gaunt arms, her eyes dilated, and glowing with the mingled light of
madness and despair.

Cazeau turned a livid white in the moon-rays;--his blood grew icy
cold. What! After two years of dodging about the streets of Rouen to
avoid meeting this wretched woman whom he had tricked and betrayed,
had she found him at last!

"When did you come back from the fair?" cried the girl shrilly, "I
lost you there, you know-and you man-aged to lose ME--but I have
waited!--waited patiently for news of you! . . . and when none came, I
still waited, making myself beautiful! . . . see!--" And she thrust her
fingers through her long hair, throwing it about in wilder disorder
than ever. "You thought you had killed me--and you were glad!--it
makes all men glad to kill women when they can! But I--I was not
killed so easily,--I have lived!--for this night--just for this
night! Listen!" and she sprang forward and threw herself violently
against his breast, "Do you love me now? Tell me again--as you told
me at the fair--you love me?"

He staggered under her weight--and tried for a moment to thrust her
back, but she held him in a grip of iron, looking up at him with her
great feverish dark eyes, and grasping his shoulders with thin
burning hands. He trembled;--he was beginning to grow horribly
afraid. What devil had sent this woman whom he had ruined so long as
two years ago, across his path to-night? Would it be possible to
soothe her?

"Marguerite--" he began.

"Yes, yes, Marguerite! Say it again!" she cried wildly, "Marguerite!
Say it again! Sweet--sweet and tenderly as you said it then! Poor
Marguerite! Your pale ugly face seemed the face of a god to her
once, because she thought you loved her--we all find men so
beautiful when we think they love us! Yes--your cold eyes and cruel
lips and hard brow!--it was quite a different face at the fair! So
was mine a different face--but you!--YOU have made mine what it is
now!--look at it! What!--you thought you could murder a woman and
never be found out! You thought you could kill poor Marguerite, and
that no one would ever know--"

"Hush, hush!" said Cazeau, his teeth chattering with the cold of his
inward terror, "I never killed you, Marguerite!--I loved you--yes,
listen!" For she was looking up at him with an attentive, almost
sane expression in her eyes. "I meant to write to you after the
fair,--and come to you . . ."

"Hush, hush!" said the girl, "Let me hear this!--this is strange
news! He meant to write to me--yet he let me die by inches in an
agony of waiting!--till I dropped into the darkness where I am now!
He meant to come to me--oh, it was very easy to come if he had
chosen to come,--before I wandered away into all this strangeness--
this shadow--this confusion and fire! But you see, it is too late
now," and she began to laugh again, "Too late! I have a strange idea
that I am dead, though I seem alive--I am in my grave; and so you
must die also and be buried with me! Yes, you must certainly die!--
when one is cruel and false and treacherous one is not wanted in the
world!--better to go out of it--and it is quite easy,--see!--this
way!--"

And before he realised her intention she sprang back a step--then
drew a knife from her bosom, and with a sort of exultant shriek,
stabbed him furiously once--twice--thrice . . . crying out--"This for
your lie! This for my sorrow!--This for your love!--"

Reeling back with the agony of her murderous blows he made a fierce
effort to tear the knife from her hands, but she suddenly threw it a
long way from her towards the river, where it fell with a light
splash, and rushing at him twined her arms close about his neck,
while her mad laughter, piercing and terrible, rang out through the
quiet air.

"Together!" she said, "That day at the fair we were together, and
now--we shall be together again! Come!--Come! I have waited long
enough!--your promised letter never came--you have kept me waiting a
long long while--but now I will wait no longer! I have found you!--I
will never let you go!"

Furiously, despite his wounds, he fought with her,--tried to thrust
her away from him,--and beat her backwards and downwards,--but she
had the strength of ten women in her maddened frame, and she clung
to him with the tenacity of some savage beast. All around them was
perfectly quiet,--there was not a soul in sight,--there was no place
near where a shout for help could have been heard. Struggling still,
dizzy, blind and breathless, he did not see that they were nearing
the edge of the slippery bank--all his efforts were concentrated in
an endeavour to shake off the infuriated creature, made more
powerful in her very madness by the just sense of her burning wrong
and his callous treachery--when all at once his foot slipped and he
fell to the ground. She pounced on him like a tigress, and fastened
her fingers on his throat,--clutching his flesh and breathlessly
muttering, "Never!--never! Never can you hide away from me any more!
Together--together! I will never let you go!--" till, as his eyes
rolled up in agony and his jaw relaxed, she uttered a shout of
ecstasy to see him die! He sank heavily under her fierce grasp which
she never relaxed for an instant, and his dead weight dragged her
unconsciously down--down!--she not heeding or knowing whither she
was moving,--down--still down!--till, as she clung to his inert
body, madly determining not to let it go, she fell,--fast grappling
her betrayer's corpse,--into the ominous stillness of the river. The
flood opened, as it were, to receive the two,--the dead and the
living--there was a slight ripple as though a mouth in the water
smiled--then the usual calm surface reflected the moon once more,
and there was no sign of trouble. Nothing struggled,--nothing
floated,--all was perfectly tranquil. The bells chimed from all the
churches in the city a quarter to midnight, and their pretty echoes
were wafted across the water,--no other sound disturbed the
silence,--not a trace of the struggle was left, save just one
smeared track of grass and slime, which, if examined carefully,
might have been found sprinkled with blood. But with the morning the
earth would have swallowed those drops of human life as silently as
the river-quicksand had sucked down the bodies of the betrayed and
the betrayer;--in neither case would Nature have any hint to give of
the tragedy enacted. Nature is a dumb witness to many dramas,--and
it may be that she has eyes and ears and her own way of keeping
records. Sometimes she gives up long-buried secrets, sometimes she
holds them fast;--biding her time until the Judgment Day, when not
only the crime shall be disclosed but the Cause of the crime's
committal. And it may chance in certain cases, such as those of men
who have deliberately ruined the lives of trusting and loving women,
that the Cause may be proved a more criminal thing than the crime!

That night Martine Doucet slept badly, and had horrible dreams of
being dragged by force to Rome, and there taken before the Pope who
at once deprived her of her son Fabien, and ordered her to be shot
in one of the public squares for neglecting to attend Mass
regularly. And Jean Patoux and his wife, reposing on their virtuous
marital couch, conversed a long time about the unexpected and
unwelcome visit of Claude Cazeau, and the mission he had declared
himself entrusted with from the Vatican,--"And you may depend upon
it," said Madame sententiously, "that he will get his way by fair
means or foul! I am thankful that neither of OUR children were
subjects for a Church-miracle!--the trouble of the remedy seems more
troublesome than the sickness!"

"No, no," said her husband, "Thou dost not judge these things
rightly, my little one! God worked the remedy, as He works all good
things,--and there would be no trouble about it if it were not for
the men's strange way of taking it. Did ever our Lord do a good or a
kind deed without being calumniated for it? Did not all those men-
fools in Jerusalem go about 'secretly seeking how they might betray
him'? That is a lesson for us all,--and never forget, petite, that
for showing them the straight way to Heaven He was crucified!"

The next day a telegram was despatched from the Archbishop of Rouen
to Monsignor Moretti at the Vatican:--

"Claude Cazeau visited Hotel Poitiers last night, but has since
mysteriously disappeared. Every search and enquiry being made.
Strongly suspect foul play."

XXVI.

November was now drawing to a close, and St. Cecilia's Day dawned in
a misty sunrise, half cloud, half light, like smoke and flame
intermingled. Aubrey Leigh, on waking that morning, had almost
decided to leave Rome before the end of the month. He had learned
all that was necessary for him to know;--he had not come to study
the antiquities, or the dark memories of dead empires, for he would
have needed to live at least ten years in the city to gain even a
surface knowledge of all the Romes, built one upon another, in the
Rome of to-day. His main object had been to discover whether the
Holy See existed as a grand and pure institution for the uplifting
and the saving of the souls of men; or whether it had degenerated
into an unscrupulous scheme for drawing the money out of their
pockets. He had searched this problem and solved it. He had
perceived the trickery, the dissimulation and hypocrisy of Roman
priestcraft. He had seen the Pope officiate at High Mass in the
Sistine Chapel, having procured the "introduction from very high
quarters" which, even according to ordinary guide-books, is
absolutely necessary,--the "high quarters" in this instance being
Monsignor Gherardi. Apart from this absurdity,--this impious idea of
needing an "introduction" to a sacred service professedly held for
the worship of the Divine, by the Representative of Christ on earth,
he had watched with sickening soul all the tawdry ceremonial so far
removed from the simplicity of Christ's commands,--he had stared
dully, till his brows ached, at the poor, feeble, scraggy old man
with the pale, withered face and dark eyes, who was chosen to
represent a "Manifestation of the Deity" to his idolatrous
followers;--and as he thought of all the poverty, sorrow, pain,
perplexity, and bewilderment of the "lost sheep" who were wandering
to and fro in the world, scarcely able to fight the difficulties of
their daily lot, and unable to believe in God because they were
never allowed to understand or to experience any of His goodness,
such a passion of protest arose in him, that he could have sprung on
the very steps of the altar and cried aloud to the aged Manager of
the Stage-scene there, "Away with this sham of Christianity! Give us
the true message of Christ, undefiled! Sell these useless broidered
silks,--these flaunting banners;--take the silver, gold, and bank-
notes which hysterical pilgrims cast at your feet!--this Peter's
Pence, amounting to millions, whose exact total you alone know,--and
come out into the highways and byways of the cities of all lands,--
call to you the lame, the halt, the blind, the sickly, and
diseased,--give comfort where comfort is needed,--defend the
innocent--protect the just, and silence the Voce de la Verita which
published under your authority, callously advocates murder!"

And though he felt all this, he could only remain a dumb spectator
of the Show in which not the faintest shadow of Christianity
according to Christ, appeared--and when the theatrical pageant was
over, he hurried out into the fresh air half stupefied with the
heavy sense of shame that such things could be, and no man found
true enough to the commands of the Divine Master to shake the world
with strong condemnation.

"Twelve fishermen were enough to preach the Gospel," he thought,
"Yet now there cannot be found twelve faithful souls who will
protest against its falsification!"