"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
tell me about it. Ah!--what a beautiful mistake is the Archbishop
himself!--and how soon women find it 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!"