The Master-Christian. Marie Corelli

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СКАЧАТЬ silently declares itself in the beauty of the skies, the blossoming of the flowers, and the loveliness of all things wherein man has no part,—and neither of them was yet transformed into that most fearsome product of modern days, the child-Atheist, for whom there is no greater God than Self.

      On this particular night when Papa Patoux returned to the bosom of his family, he, though a dull-witted man generally, did not fail to note the dove-like spirit of calm that reigned over his entire household. His wife's fat face was agreeably placid,—the children were in an orderly mood, and as he sat down to the neatly spread supper-table, he felt more convinced than ever that things were exceedingly well managed for him in this best of all possible worlds. Pausing in the act of conveying a large spoonful of steaming soup to his mouth he enquired—

      "And Monseigneur, the Cardinal Bonpre,—has he also been served?"

      Madame Patoux opened her round eyes wide at him.

      "But certainly! Dost thou think, my little cabbage, thou wouldst get thy food before Monseigneur? That would be strange indeed!"

      Papa Patoux swallowed his ladleful of soup in abashed silence.

      "It was a beautiful day in the fields," he presently observed—"There was a good smell in the earth, as if violets were growing,—and late in the autumn though it is, there was a skylark yet singing. It was a very blue heaven, too, as blue as the robe of the Virgin, with clouds as white as little angels clinging to it."

      Madame nodded. Some people might have thought Papa Patoux inclined to be poetical,—she did not. Henri and Babette listened.

      "The robe of Our Lady is always blue," said Babette.

      "And the angels' clothes are always white," added Henri.

      Madame Patoux said nothing, but passed a second helping of soup all round. Papa Patoux smiled blandly on his offspring.

      "Just so," he averred—"Blue and white are the colours of the sky, my little ones,—and Our Lady and the angels live in the sky!"

      "I wonder where?" muttered Henri with his mouth half full. "The sky is nothing but miles and miles of air, and in the air there are millions and millions of planets turning round and round, larger than our world,—ever so much larger,—and nobody knows which is the largest of them all!"

      "It is as thou sayest, my son," said Patoux confidently—"Nobody knows which is the largest of them all, but whichever it may be, that largest of them all belongs to Our Lady and the angels."

      Henri looked at Babette, but Babette was munching watercress busily, and did not return his enquiring glances. Papa Patoux, quite satisfied with his own reasoning, continued his supper in an amiable state of mind.

      "What didst thou serve to Monseigneur, my little one?" he asked his wife with a coaxing and caressing air, as though she were some delicate and dainty sylph of the woodlands, instead of being the lady of massive proportions which she undoubtedly was,—"Something of delicacy and fine flavour, doubtless?"

      Madame Patoux shook her head despondingly.

      "He would have nothing of that kind," she replied—"Soup maigre, and afterwards nothing but bread, dried figs, and apples to finish. Ah, Heaven! What a supper for a Cardinal-Archbishop! It is enough to make one weep!"

      Patoux considered the matter solemnly.

      "He is perhaps very poor?" he half queried.

      "Poor, he may be," responded Madame,—"But if he is, it is surely his own fault,—whoever heard of a poor Cardinal-Archbishop! Such men can all be rich if they choose."

      "Can they?" asked Henri with sudden vivacious eagerness. "How?"

      But his question was not answered, for just at that moment a loud knock came at the door of the inn, and a tall broadly built personage in close canonical attire appeared in the narrow little passage of entry, attended by another smaller and very much more insignificant-looking individual.

      Patoux hastily scrambled out of his chair.

      "The Archbishop!" he whispered to his wife—"He himself! Our own

       Archbishop!"

      Madame Patoux jumped up, and seizing her children, held one in each hand as she curtsied up and down.

      "Benedicite!" said the new-comer, lightly signing the cross in air with a sociable smile—"Do not disturb yourselves, my children! You have with you in this house the eminent Cardinal Bonpre?"

      "Ah, yes, Monseigneur!" replied Madame Patoux—"Only just now he has finished his little supper. Shall I show Monseigneur to his room?"

      "If you please," returned the Archbishop, still smiling benevolently—"And permit my secretary to wait with you here till I return."

      With this, and an introductory wave of his hand in the direction of the attenuated and sallow-faced personage who had accompanied him, he graciously permitted Madame Patoux to humbly precede him by a few steps, and then followed her with a soft, even tread, and a sound as of rustling silk in his garments, from which a faint odour of some delicate perfume seemed wafted as he moved.

      Left to entertain the Archbishop's secretary, Jean Patoux was for a minute or two somewhat embarrassed. Henri and Babette stared at the stranger with undisguised curiosity, and were apparently not favourably impressed by his appearance.

      "He has white eyelashes!" whispered Henri.

      "And yellow teeth," responded Babette.

      Meanwhile Patoux, having scratched his bullet-head sufficiently over the matter, offered his visitor a chair.

      "Sit down, sir," he said curtly.

      The secretary smiled pallidly and took the proffered accommodation. Patoux again meditated. He was not skilled in the art of polite conversation, and he found himself singularly at a loss.

      "It would be an objection no doubt, and an irreverance perhaps to smoke a pipe before you, Monsieur—Monsieur—"

      "Cazeau," finished the secretary with another pallid smile—"Claude

       Cazeau, a poor scribe,—at your service! And I beg of you, Monsieur

       Jean Patoux, to smoke at your distinguished convenience!"

      There was a faint tone of satire in his voice which struck Papa Patoux as exceedingly disagreeable, though he could not quite imagine why he found it so. He slowly reached for his pipe from the projecting shelf above the chimney, and as slowly proceeded to fill it with tobacco from a tin cannister close by.

      "I do not think I have ever seen you in the town, Monsieur Cazeau," he said—"Nor at Mass in the Cathedral either?"

      "No?" responded Cazeau easily, in a half-querying tone—"I do not much frequent the streets; and I only attend the first early mass on Sundays. My work for Monseigneur occupies my whole time."

      "Ah!" and Patoux, having stuffed his pipe sufficiently, lit it, and proceeded to smoke peaceably—"There must be much to do. Many poor and sick who need money, and clothes, and help in every way,—and to try and do good, and give comfort to СКАЧАТЬ