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 embarra.s.sed. 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 Ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 all the unhappy souls in Rouen is a hard task, even for an Archbishop."
Cazeau linked his thin hands together with an action of pious fervour and a.s.sented.
"There is a broken-hearted creature near us," pursued Patoux leisurely--"We call her Marguerite La Folle;--I have often thought I would ask Pere Laurent to speak to Monseigneur for her, that she might be released from the devils that are tearing her. She was a good girl till a year or two ago,--then some villain got the ruin of her, and she lost her wits over it. Ah,"tis a sad sight to see her now--poor Marguerite Valmond!"
"Ha!" cried Henri suddenly, pointing a grimy finger at Cazeau--"Why did you jump? Did something hurt you?"
Cazeau had indeed "jumped," as Henri put it,--that is, he had sprung up from his chair suddenly and as suddenly sat down again with an air of impatience and discomfort. He rapidly overcame whatever emotion moved him, however, and stretched his thin mouth in a would-be amiable grin at the observant Henri.
"You are a sharp boy!" he observed condescendingly--"and tall for your age, no doubt. How old are you?"
"Eleven," replied Henri--"But that has nothing to do with your jumping."
"True," and the secretary wriggled in his chair, pretending to be much amused--"But my jumping had nothing to do with you either, my small friend! I had a thought,--a sudden thought,--of a duty forgotten."
"Oh, it was a thought, was it?" and Henri looked incredulous. "Do thoughts always make you jump?"
"Tais-toi! Tais-toi!" murmured Patoux gently, between two whiffs of his pipe--"Excuse him, Monsieur Cazeau,--he is but a child."
Cazeau writhed amicably.
"A delightful child," he murmured--"And the little girl--his sister--is also charming--Ah, what fine dark eyes!--what hair! Will she not come and speak to me?"
He held out a hand invitingly towards Babette, but she merely made a grimace at him and retired backwards. Patoux smiled benevolently.
"She does not like strangers," he explained.
"Good--very good! That is right! Little girls should always run away from strangers, especially strangers of my s.e.x," observed Cazeau with a sn.i.g.g.e.ring laugh--"And do these dear children go to school?"
Patoux took his pipe out of his mouth altogether, and stared solemnly at the ceiling.
"Without doubt!--they are compelled to go to school," he answered slowly; "but if I could have had my way, they should never have gone.
They learn mischief there in plenty, but no good that I can see. They know much about geography, and the stars, and anatomy, and what they call physical sciences;--but whether they have got it into their heads that the good G.o.d wants them to live straight, clean, honest, wholesome lives, is more than I am certain of. However, I trust Pere Laurent will do what he can."
"Pere Laurent?" echoed Cazeau, with a wide smile--"You have a high opinion of Pere Laurent? Ah, yes, a good man!--but ignorant--alas! very ignorant!"
Papa Patoux brought his eyes down from the ceiling and fixed them enquiringly on Cazeau.
"Ignorant?" he began, when at this juncture Madame Patoux entered, and taking possession of Henri and Babette, informed Monsieur Cazeau that the Archbishop would be for some time engaged in conversation with Cardinal Bonpre, and that therefore he, Monsieur Cazeau, need not wait,--Monseigneur would return to his house alone. Whereupon the secretary rose, evidently glad to be set at liberty, and took his leave of the Patoux family. On the threshold, however, he paused, looking back somewhat frowningly at Jean Patoux himself.
"I should not, if I were you, trouble Monseigneur concerning the case you told me of--that of--of Marguerite Valmond,"--he observed--"He has a horror of evil women."
With that he departed, walking across the Square towards the Archbishop"s house in a stealthy sort of fashion, as though he were a burglar meditating some particularly daring robbery.
"He is a rat--a rat!" exclaimed Henri, suddenly executing a sort of reasonless war-dance round the kitchen--"One wants a cat to catch him!"
"Rats are nice," declared Babette, for she remembered having once had a tame white rat which sat on her knee and took food from her hand,--"Monsieur Cazeau is a man; and men are not nice."
Patoux burst into a loud laugh.
"Men are not nice!" he echoed--"What dost thou know about it, thou little droll one?"
"What I see," responded Babette severely, with an elderly air, as of a person who has suffered by bitter experience; and, undeterred by her parents" continued laughter she went on--
"Men are ugly. They are dirty. They say "Come here my little girl, and I will give you something,"--then when I go to them they try and kiss me. And I will not kiss them, because their mouths smell bad. They stroke my hair and pull it all the wrong way. And it hurts. And when I don"t like my hair pulled the wrong way, they tell me I will be a great coquette. A coquette is to be like Diane de Poitiers. Shall I be like Diane de Poitiers?"
"The saints forbid!" cried Madame Patoux,--"And talk no more nonsense, child,--it"s bed-time. Come,--say good-night to thy father, Henri;--give them thy blessing, Jean--and let me get them into their beds before the Archbishop leaves the house, or they will be asking him as many questions as there are in the catechism."
Thus enjoined, Papa Patoux kissed his children affectionately, signing the cross on their brows as they came up to him in turn, after the fashion of his own father, who had continued this custom up to his dying day. What they thought of the benediction in itself might be somewhat difficult to define, but it can be safely a.s.serted that a pa.s.sion of tears on the part of Babette, and a fit of demoniacal howling from Henri, would have been the inevitable result if Papa Patoux had refused to bestow it on them. Whether there were virtue in it or not, their father"s mute blessing sent them to bed peaceably and in good humour with each other, and they trotted off very contentedly beside their mother, hushing their footsteps and lowering their voices as they pa.s.sed the door of the room occupied by Cardinal Bonpre.
"The Archbishop is not an angel, is he?" asked Babette whisperingly.
Her mother smiled broadly.
"Not exactly, my little one. Why such a foolish question?"
"You said that Cardinal Bonpre was a saint, and that perhaps we should see an angel come down from heaven to visit him," replied Babette.
"Well, you could not have thought the Archbishop came from heaven,"
interpolated Henri, scornfully,--"He came from his own house over the way with his own secretary behind him. Do angels keep secretaries?"
Babette laughed aloud,--the idea was grotesque. The two children were just then ascending the wooden stairs to their bedroom, the mother carrying a lighted candle behind them, and at that moment the rich sonorous voice of the Archbishop, raised to a high and somewhat indignant tone, reached them with these words--"I consider that you altogether mistake your calling and position."
Then the voice died away into inaudible murmurings.