The Master-Christian. Marie Corelli

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!"

      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 God made men. It was a mistake which He must be sorry for! The Archbishop knows everything;—he will