Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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"Thanks to your goodness, my lord Cardinal," the boy replied, "I
slept so well that I thought I was in Heaven! I heard the angels
singing in my dreams;--yes!--I heard all the music of a happy world,
in which there never had been known a sin or sorrow!"

He rested his fair head lightly against the Cardinal's arm and
smiled. Madame Patoux gazed at him in fascinated silence,--gazed and
gazed,--till she found her eyes suddenly full of tears. Then she
turned away to hide them,--but not before Cardinal Bonpre had
observed her emotion.

"Well, good MOTHER" he said with gentle emphasis on the word--"Would
you have me forsake this child that I have found?"

"No, Monseigneur,--no," said Madame Patoux very softly and
tremulously--"It is almost as if he were a little lost Angel sent to
comfort you."

A curious thrill went through the Cardinal. An angel to comfort him!
He looked down at Manuel who still clung caressingly to his arm, and
who met his earnest scrutiny with a sweet candid smile.

"Where did you come from, Manuel?" asked Bonpre suddenly.

"I cannot tell you," the boy answered, straightly, yet simply.

The Cardinal paused a moment, his keen penetrating eyes dwelling
kindly on the noble young face beside him.

"You do not wish to tell me,--is that so?" he pursued.

"Yes," said Manuel quietly--"I do not wish to tell you. And if,
because of this, you regret your kindness to me, my lord Cardinal, I
will go away at once and trouble you no more."

But at these words the Cardinal felt such a sharp consciousness of
pain and loss that his nerves ached with positive fear.

"Nay, nay, my child," he said anxiously--"I cannot let you go. It
shall be as you please,--I will not think that you could do yourself
or me a wrong by concealing what would be right for you to tell. It
is true that you are alone in the world?"

"Quite, quite alone!" answered Manuel, a faint shadow darkening the
serenity of his eyes--"No one was ever more alone than I!"

Madame Patoux drew nearer and listened.

"And there is no person living who has the right to claim you?"

"None!"

"And is it not strange, Monseigneur," murmured Madame Patoux at this
juncture--"The little lad does not speak as if he were ignorant! It
is as though he had been well taught and carefully nurtured."

Manuel's deep eyes dwelt upon her with a meditative sweetness.

"I have taught myself;" he said simply--"Not out of books, perhaps,
but out of nature. The trees and rivers, the flowers and birds have
talked to me and explained many things;--I have learned all I know
from what God has told me."

His voice was so gentle and tender that Madame Patoux was infinitely
touched by its soft plaintiveness.

"Poor child!" she murmured,--"He has no doubt been wandering through
the country, without a soul to help him. Alas, that troubles should
begin for one so young! Perhaps he does not even know a prayer!"

"Oh yes!" said Manuel quickly--"Prayer is like thought,--God is so
good that it is only natural to thank and praise Him. Is it not so?"

"It should be natural, my boy," answered the Cardinal slowly and
with a slight accent of melancholy,--"But for many of us in these
days I fear it is more natural still to forget than to remember. Too
often we take gifts and ignore the giver. But come now and breakfast
in my room;--for the present you shall remain with me, and I will
see what can best be done for your future welfare."

And turning to Madame Patoux he added smilingly--"You, my daughter,
with children of your own to care for, will no longer blame me for
my interest in this child, who is without protection in a somewhat
rough world. We of the Church dare not 'offend one of these little
ones'."

"Ah, Monseigneur!" murmured Madame,--"If all in the Church were like
you, some poor folks would believe in God more willingly. But when
people are starving and miserable, it is easy to understand that
often they will curse the priests and even religion itself, for
making such a mock of them as to keep on telling them about the joys
of heaven, when they are tormented to the very day of their death on
earth, and are left without hope or rescue of any kind--"

But the Cardinal had disappeared with his young charge and Madame's
speech was lost upon him. She had therefore to content herself with
relating the story of "Monseigneur's foundling" to her husband, who
just then came into the kitchen to take his breakfast before
starting off to work in his market-garden. He listened with interest
and attention.

"A boy is always a trouble," he said sententiously--"And it is
likely that so Monseigneur will find it. How old would the child
be?"

"About twelve, I should say," answered Madame--"But beautiful as a
little angel, Jean!"

"That's a pity!" and Patoux shook his head ominously--"Tis bad
enough when a girl is beautiful,--but a boy!--Well, well!
Monseigneur is a wise man, and a saint they say,--he knows best,--
but I fear he has taken a burden upon himself which he will very
soon regret! What dost thou think of it, petite?"

Madame hesitated a moment before replying.

"Truly, I do not know what to think," she answered--"For myself, I
have not spoken to the child. I have seen him,--yes!--and at the
sight of him a something in my throat rose up and choked me as it
were,--and stopped me from saying a rough word. Such a lonely gentle
lad!--one could not be harsh with him, and yet--"

"Yet! Oh, yes, I know!" said Patoux, finishing his coffee at a gulp
and smiling,--"Women will always be women,--and a handsome face in
girl or boy is enough to make fools of them all. Where are the
children? Are they gone to school?"

"Yes--they went before the Cardinal was up. 'Tis a Saturday, and
they will be back early,--they are going to bring little Fabien
Doucet to Monseigneur."

"What for?" enquired Patoux, his round eyes opening widely in
amazement.

"Oh, for a strange fancy! That he may bless the child and pray Our
Lady to cure him of his lameness. It was Babette's whim. I told her
the Cardinal was a saint,--and she said,--well! she said she would
never believe it unless he worked a miracle! The wicked mischief
that girl is!--as bad as Henri, who puts a doubt on everything!"

"'Tis the school," said Jean gloomily--"I must speak to Pere
Laurent."

"Truly that would be well," said Madame--"He may explain what we
cannot. All the same, you may be sure the children WILL bring Fabien
Doucet to Monseigneur;--they have made up their minds about it,--and
if the little miserable's lameness gets no better, we shall have
work enough in future to make the saints respected!"

Patoux muttered something inaudible, and went his way. Life was in
his opinion, a very excellent thing,--nevertheless there were a few
details about it which occasionally troubled him, and one of these
details was decidedly the "national education" question. It struck
him as altogether remarkable that the State should force him to send
his children to school whether he liked it or no; and moreover that
the system of instruction at the said school should be totally
opposed to his own ideas. He would have certainly wished his son to
learn to read and write, and then to have been trained as a thorough
florist and gardener;--while for his daughter he also desired
reading and writing as a matter of course, and then a complete
education in cooking and domestic economy, so that she might be a
useful and efficient wife and mother when the proper time for such
duties came. Astronomy he felt they could both do without, and most
of the "physical sciences." Religion he considered an absolute
necessity, and this was the very thing that was totally omitted from
the national course of education. He was well aware that there are
countless numbers of unhappy people nowadays who despise religion
and mock at the very idea of a God. Every day he saw certain works
exposed for sale on the out-of-door bookstalls which in their very
titles proclaimed the hideous tone of blasphemy which in France is
gradually becoming universal,--but this did not affect his own sense
of what was right and just. He was a very plain common man, but he
held holy things in reverence, and instinctively felt that, if the
world were in truth a bad place, it was likely to become much worse
if all faith in God were taken out of it. And when he reached his
plot of ground that morning, and set to work as usual, he was, for a
non-reflective man, very much absorbed in thought. His heavy
tramping feet over the soil startled some little brown birds from
their hidden nests, and sent them flying to and fro through the
clear air uttering sharp chirrups of terror,--and, leaning on his
spade, he paused and looked at them meditatively.

"Everything is afraid," he said,--"Birds, beasts, and men,--all are
afraid of something and cannot tell what it is that frightens them.
It seems hard sometimes that there should be so much trouble and
struggle just to live--however, the good God knows best,--and if we
could not think and hope and believe He knew best, we might just as
well light up a charcoal fire, shut all the doors and windows, and
say 'Bon jour! Bon jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!--for if YOU do not
know YOUR business, it is evident we do not know ours, and therefore
'tis best for both our sakes to make an end of sheer Stupidity!'"

He chuckled at his own reasoning, and moistening his hands
vigorously, seized his spade and began to bank up a ridge of celery,
singing "Bon jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!" under his breath without
the slightest idea of irreverence. And looking up at the bright sky
occasionally, he wished he had seen the stray boy rescued from the
streets by Cardinal Bonpre.

"That he will be a trouble, there is no doubt," he said as he turned
and patted the rich dark earth--"Never was there a boy born yet into
the world that was not a trouble except our Lord, and even in His
case His own people did not know what to make of Him!"

Meantime, while Jean Patoux dug in his garden, and sang and
soliloquized, his two children, Henri and Babette, their school
hours being ended, had run off to the market, and were talking
vivaciously with a big brown sturdy woman, who was selling poultry
at a stall, under a very large patched red umbrella. She was Martine
Doucet, reported to have the worst temper and most vixenish tongue
in all the town, though there were some who said her sourness of
humour only arose from the hardships of her life, and the many
troubles she had been fated to endure. Her husband, a fine handsome
man, earning good weekly wages as a stone-mason, had been killed by
a fall from a ladder, while engaged in helping to build one of the
new houses on the Boulevards, and her only child Fabien, a boy of
ten had, when a baby, tumbled from the cart in which his mother was
taking her poultry to market, and though no injury was apparent at
the time, had, from the effects of the fall, grown into a poor
little twisted mite of humanity with a bent spine, and one useless
leg which hung limply from his body, while he could scarcely hobble
about on the other, even with the aid of a crutch. He had a soft,
pretty, plaintive face of his own, the little Fabien, and very
gentle ways,--but he was sensitively conscious of his misfortune,
and in his own small secret soul he was always praying that he might
die while he was yet a child, and not grow up to be a burden to his
mother. Martine, however, adored him; and it was through her intense
love for this child of hers that she had, in a strange vengeful sort
of mood abandoned God, and flung an open and atheistical defiance in
the face of her confessor, who, missing her at mass, had ventured to
call upon her and seriously reproach her for neglecting the duties
of her religion. Martine had whirled round upon him,--a veritable
storm in petticoats.

"Religion!" she cried--"Oh--he! What good has it done for ME, if you
please! When I said my prayers night and morning, went to mass and
confession, and told my rosary every Mary-Feast, what happened? Was
not my man killed and my child crippled? And then,--(not to lose
faith--) did I not give the saints every chance of behaving
themselves? For my child's sake did I not earn good money and pay it
to the Church in special masses that he might be cured of his
lameness? And Novenas in plenty, and candles in plenty to the
Virgin, and fastings of my own and penitences? And is the child not
as lame as ever? Look at him!--the dear angel!--with never an evil
thought or a wicked way,--and will you try to make me believe there
is a good God, when He will not help a poor little creature like
that, to be happy, though He is prayed to night and morning for it!
No--no! Churches are kept up for priests to make a fat living out
of,--but there is never a God in them that I can see;--and as for
the Christ, who had only to be asked in order to heal the sick,
there is not so much as a ghost of Him anywhere! If what you priests
tell us were true, poor souls such as I am, would get comfort and
help in our sorrows, but it is all a lie!--the whole thing!--and
when we are in trouble, we have got to bear it as best we can,
without so much as a kind word from our neighbours, let alone any
pity from the saints. Go to mass again? Not I!--nor to confession
either!--and no more of my earnings will click into your great brass
collection plate, mon reverend! Ah no!--I have been a foolish woman
indeed, to trust so long in a God who for all my tears and prayers
never gives me a sign or a hope of an answer,--and though I suppose
this wretched world of ours was made by somebody, whoever it is that
has done it is a cruel creature at best, so _I_ say,--without as
much good feeling as there is in the heart of an ordinary man, and
without the sense of the man either! For who that thinks twice about
it would make a world where everything is only born to die?--and for
no other use at all! Bah! It is sheer folly and wickedness to talk
to me of a God!--a God, if there were one, would surely be far above
torturing the creatures He has made, all for nothing!"

And the priest who heard this blasphemous and savage tirade on the
part of Martine Doucet, retreated from her in amazement and horror,
and presently gave out that she was possessed of a devil, and was
unfit to be admitted to the Holy Sacrament. Whereat, when she heard
of it, Martine laughed loudly and ferociously.

"Look you!--what a charitable creature a priest is!" she cried--"If
you don't do the things he considers exactly right and fitting, he
tells your neighbours that the devil has got you!--and so little
does he care to pick you out of the clutches of this same devil,
that he refuses you the Sacrament, though THAT is said to drive away
Satan by the mere touch of it! But wait till I ASK to have the
Sacrament given to me!--it will be time enough then to refuse it!
Many a fat chicken of my stock has the reverend father had as a free
gift to boil in his soup maigre!" and again she laughed angrily--"
But no more of them does he get to comfort his stomach while doing
penance for his soul!--the hypocrite! He must find another silly
woman to cheat with his stories of a good God who never does
anything but kill and curse us every one!--he has had all that he
will ever get out of Martine Doucet!"

It was to this redoubtable virago that Henri and Babette had betaken
themselves in the market place directly school was over. She always
held the same stall in the same position on market days,--and she
sat under her red umbrella on a rough wooden bench, knitting
rapidly, now keeping an eye on her little lame son, coiled up in a
piece of matting beside her, and anon surveying her stock-in-trade
of ducks and geese and fowls, which were heaped on her counter,
their wrung necks drooping limply from the board, and their yellow
feet tied helplessly together and shining like bits of dull gold in
the warm light of the September sun. She listened with an impassive
countenance while Babette poured out her story of the great
Cardinal,--the Cardinal Felix Bonpre, whom people said was a saint,-
-how he had come unexpectedly to stay two nights at the Hotel
Poitiers,--how "petite maman" had declared he was so good that even
angels might visit him,--how kind and gentle and grand he seemed,--
"Yes," said Babette somewhat eagerly, "there was no doubt that he
LOOKED good,--and we have told him all about Fabien and he has
promised to bless him and ask Our Lord to cure his lameness."

"Well, and of what use is that, mignonne?" demanded Martine,
clicking her knitting-needles violently and stooping over her work
to wink away the sudden tears that had risen in her bold brown eyes
at Babette's enthusiastic desire to benefit her afflicted child.--
"Asking our Lord is poor business,--you may ask and ask, but you
never get answered!"

Babette hung her curly brown head despondingly, and looked
appealingly at her brother. Now Henri was a decided cynic;--but his
sister exercised a weird fascination over him,--a sort of power to
command which he always felt more or less constrained to obey. He
stared solemnly at Martine, and then at the little Fabien, who, half
rising from his mat, had listened with a visibly painful interest to
Babette's story.

"I think you might let us take Fabien and see if a Cardinal CAN do
anything," he said with a kind of judicial air, as of one who,
though considering the case hopeless, had no objection to try a last
desperate remedy. "This one is a very old man, and he must know a
good deal. He could not do any harm. And I am sure Babette would
like to find out if there is any use at all in a Cardinal. I should
like it too. You see we went into Notre Dame last night,--Babette
and I,--and everything was dark,--all the candles were out at Our
Lady's statue--and we had only ten centimes between us. And the
candles are ten centimes each. So we could only light one. But we
lit that one, and said an Ave for Fabien. And the candle was all by
itself in the Cathedral. And now I think we ought to take him to the
Cardinal."

Martine shook her head, pursed up her lips, and knitted more
violently than ever.

"It is all no use--no use!" she muttered--"There is no God,--or if
there is, He must be deaf as well as blind!"

But here suddenly the weak plaintive voice of Fabien himself piped
out--

"Oh, mother, let me go!"

Martine looked down at him.

"Let thee go? To see the Cardinal? Why he is nought but an old man,
child, as helpless as any of us. What dost thou think he can do for
thee?"

"Nothing!" and the boy clambered up on his crutch, and stood
appealingly before his mother, his fair curls blowing back in the
breeze,--"But I SHOULD like to see him. Oh, do let me go!"

Babette caught him by the hand.

"Yes, oh yes, Martine!" she exclaimed--"Let him come with us!"

Martine hesitated a moment longer, but she could never altogether
resist an imploring look in her boy's eyes, or refuse any request he
made of her,--and gradually the hard lines of her mouth relaxed into
a half smile. Babette at once perceived this, and eagerly accepted
it as a sign that she had gained her point.

"Come, Fabien!" she exclaimed delightedly--"Thy mother says yes! We
will not be long gone, Martine! And perhaps we will bring him home
quite well!"

Martine shook her head sorrowfully, and paused for a while in her
knitting to watch the three children crossing the market-place
together, Henri supporting her little son on one side, Babette on
the other, both carefully aiding his slow and halting movements over
the rough cobbles of the uneven pavement. Then as they all turned a
corner and disappeared, she sighed, and a couple of bright tears
splashed down on her knitting. But the next moment her eyes were as
bold and keen and defiant as ever while she stood up to attend to
two or three customers who just then approached her stall, and her
voice was as shrill and sharp as any woman's voice could be in the
noisy business of driving a bargain. Having disposed of three or
four fat geese and fowls at a good profit, she chinked and counted
the money in her apron pockets, hummed a tune, and looked up at the
genial sky with an expression of disfavour.

"Oh, yes, 'tis a fine day!" she muttered,--"And the heavens look as
if the saints lived in them;--but by and by the clouds will come,
and the cold!--the sleet, the snow, the frost and the bitterness of
winter!--and honest folk will starve while thieves make a good
living!--that is the way the wise God arranges things in this
world."

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 hoarsely--"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 hell 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 God, 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 superstitions of an old creature
who was so steeped in ignorance as to think that a votive candle
could rescue her soul from a possible hell. 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 lustrous, but wild, and with a hunted expression in
them,--and her dress was composed of the strangest remnants of oddly
assorted 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 snatched 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!"