CHAPTER III.
"I remembered it was your name-day, child Here are half a dozen eggs,"said one of the hen wives; and the little cross woman with the pedler'stray added a waxen St. Agnes, colored red and yellow to the very life nodoubt; and the old Cheap John had saved her a cage for the starling; andthe tinker had a cream cheese for her in a vine-leaf, and the sweetmeatseller brought her a beautiful gilded horn of sugarplums, and the cobblerhad made her actually a pair of shoes--red shoes, beautiful shoes to goto mass in and be a wonder in to all the neighborhood. And they throngedround her, and adored the silver waist buckles; and when Bebee got fairlyto her stall, and traffic began, she thought once more that nobody'sfeast day had ever dawned like hers.
When the chimes began to ring all over the city, she could hardly believethat the carillon was not saying its "Laus Deo" with some special meaningin its bells of her.
The morning went by as usual; the noise of the throngs about her like adriving of angry winds, but no more hurting her than the angels on theroof of St. Gudule are hurt by the storm when it breaks.
Hard words, fierce passions, low thoughts, evil deeds, passed by thechild without resting on her; her heart was in her flowers, and was likeone of them with the dew of daybreak on it.
There were many strangers in the city, and such are always sure to loiterin the Spanish square; and she sold fast and well her lilacs and herroses, and her knots of thyme and sweetbrier.
She was always a little sorry to see them go, her kindly pretty playmatesthat, nine times out of ten no doubt, only drooped and died in the handsthat purchased them, as human souls soil and shrivel in the grasp of thepassions that woo them.
The day was a busy one, and brought in good profit. Bebee had no lessthan fifty sous in her leather pouch when it was over,--a sum ofmagnitude in the green lane by Laeken.
A few of her moss-roses were still unsold, that was all, when the AveMaria began ringing over the town and the people dispersed to their homesor their pleasuring.
It was a warm gray evening: the streets were full; there were blossoms inall the balconies, and gay colors in all the dresses. The old tinker puthis tools together, and whispered to her,--
"Bebee, as it is your feast day, come and stroll in St. Hubert's gallery,and I will buy you a little gilt heart, or a sugar-apple stick, or aribbon, and we can see the puppet show afterwards, eh?"
But the children were waiting at home: she would not spend the evening inthe city; she only thought she would just kneel a moment in the cathedraland say a little prayer or two for a minute--the saints were so good ingiving her so many friends.
There is something very touching in the Flemish peasant's relation withhis Deity. It is all very vague to him: a jumble of veneration andfamiliarity, of sanctity and profanity, without any thought of beingfamiliar, or any idea of being profane.
There is a homely poetry, an innocent affectionateness in it,characteristic of the people. He talks to his good angel Michael, and tohis friend that dear little Jesus, much as he would talk to the shoemakerover the way, or the cooper's child in the doorway.
It is a very unreasonable, foolish, clumsy sort of religion, thistheology in wooden shoes; it is half grotesque, half pathetic; thegrandmothers pass it on to the grandchildren as they pass the bowl ofpotatoes round the stove in the long winter nights; it is as silly aspossible, but it comforts them as they carry fagots over the frozencanals or wear their eyes blind over the squares of lace; and it has init the supreme pathos of any perfect confidence, of any utterly childlikeand undoubting trust.
This had been taught to Bebee, and she went to sleep every night in thefirm belief that the sixteen little angels of the Flemish prayer keptwatch and ward over her bed. For the rest, being poetical, as these northfolks are not, and having in her--wherever it came from, poor littlesoul--a warmth of fancy and a spirituality of vision not at all northern,she had mixed up her religion with the fairies of Antoine's stories, andthe demons in which the Flemish folks are profound believers, and theflowers into which she put all manner of sentient life, until herreligion was a fantastic medley, so entangled that poor Father Francishad given up in despair any attempt to arrange it more correctly. Indeed,being of the peasantry himself, he was not so very full sure in his ownmind that demons were not bodily presences, quite as real and often muchmore tangible than saints. Anyway, he let her alone; and she believed inthe goodness of God as she believed in the shining of the sun.
People looked after her as she went through the twisting, picture-likestreets, where sunlight fell still between the peaked high roofs, andlamps were here and there lit in the bric-a-brac shops and the fruitstalls.
Her little muslin cap blew back like the wings of a white butterfly. Hersunny hair caught the last sun-rays. Her feet were fair in the brownwooden shoes. Under the short woollen skirts the grace of her prettylimbs moved freely. Her broad silver clasps shone like a shield, and shewas utterly unconscious that any one looked; she was simply and gravelyintent on reaching St. Gudule to say her one prayer and not keep thechildren waiting.
Some one leaning idly over a balcony in the street that is named afterMary of Burgundy saw her going thus. He left the balcony and went downhis stairs and followed her.
The sun-dazzle on the silver had first caught his sight; and then he hadlooked downward at the pretty feet.
These are the chances women call Fate.
Bebee entered the cathedral. It was quite empty. Far away at the west endthere was an old custodian asleep on a bench, and a woman kneeling. Thatwas all.
Bebee made her salutations to the high altar, and stole on into thechapel of the Saint Sacrament; it was the one that she loved best.
She said her prayer and thanked the saints for all their gifts andgoodness, her clasped hand against her silver shield, her basket on thepavement by her, abovehead the sunset rays streaming purple and crimsonand golden through the painted windows that are the wonder of the world.
When her prayer was done she still kneeled there; her head thrown back towatch the light, her hands clasped still, and on her upturned face thelook that made the people say, "What does she see?--the angels or thedead?"
She forgot everything. She forgot the cherries at home, and the childreneven. She was looking upward at the stories of the painted panes; she waslistening to the message of the dying sun-rays; she was feeling vaguely,wistfully, unutterably the tender beauty of the sacred place and theawful wonder of the world in which she with her sixteen years was allalone, like a little blue corn-flower among the wheat that goes for gristand the barley that makes men drunk.
For she was alone, though she had so many friends. Quite alone sometimes;for God had been cruel to her, and had made her a lark without song.
When the sun faded and the beautiful casements lost all glow andmeaning, Bebee rose with a startled look--had she been dreaming?--was itnight?--would the children be sorry, and go supperless to bed?
"Have you a rosebud left to sell to me?" a man's voice said not far off;it was low and sweet, as became the Sacrament Chapel.
Bebee looked up; she did not quite know what she saw: only dark eyessmiling into hers.
By the instinct of habit she sought in her basket and found threemoss-roses. She held them out to him.
"I do not sell flowers here, but I will _give_ them to you," she said, inher pretty grave childish fashion.
"I often want flowers," said the stranger, as he took the buds. "Where doyou sell yours?--in the market?"
"In the Grande Place."
"Will you tell me your name, pretty one?"
"I am Bebee."
There were people coming into the church. The bells were boomingabovehead for vespers. There was a shuffle of chairs and a stir of feet.Boys in white went to and fro, lighting the candles. Great clouds ofshadow drifted up into the roof and hid the angels.
She nodded her little head to him.
"Good night; I cannot stay. I have a cake at home to-night, and thechildren are waiting."
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sp; "Ah! that is important, no doubt, indeed. Will you buy some more cakesfor the children from me?"
He slid a gold piece in her hand. She looked at it in amaze. In the greenlanes by Laeken no one ever saw gold. Then she gave it him back.
"I will not take money in church, nor anywhere, except what the flowersare worth. Good night."
He followed her, and held back the heavy oak door for her, and went outinto the air with her.
It was dark already, but in the square there was still the cool brightprimrose-colored evening light.
Bebee's wooden shoes went pattering down the sloping and uneven stones.Her little gray figure ran quickly through the deep shade cast from thetowers and walls. Her dreams had drifted away. She was thinking of thechildren and the cake.
"You are in such a hurry because of the cake?" said her new customer, ashe followed her.
Bebee looked back at him with a smile in her blue eyes.
"Yes, they will be waiting, you know, and there are cherries too."
"It is a grand day with you, then?"
"It is my fete day: I am sixteen."
She was proud of this. She told it to the very dogs in the street.
"Ah, you feel old, I dare say?"
"Oh, quite old! They cannot call me a child any more."
"Of course not, it would be ridiculous. Are those presents in yourbasket?"
"Yes, every one of them." She paused a moment to lift the deadvine-leaves, and show him the beautiful shining red shoes. "Look! oldGringoire gave me these. I shall wear them at mass next Sunday. I neverhad a pair of shoes in my life."
"But how will you wear shoes without stockings?"
It was a snake cast into her Eden.
She had never thought of it.
"Perhaps I can save money and buy some," she answered after a sad littlepause. "But that I could not do till next year. They would cost severalfrancs, I suppose."
"Unless a good fairy gives them to you?"
Bebee smiled; fairies were real things to her--relations indeed. She didnot imagine that he spoke in jest.
"Sometimes I pray very much and things come," she said softly. "When theGloire de Dijon was cut back too soon one summer, and never blossomed,and we all thought it was dead, I prayed all day long for it, and neverthought of anything else; and by autumn it was all in new leaf, and nowits flowers are finer than ever."
"But you watered it whilst you prayed, I suppose?"
The sarcasm escaped her.
She was wondering to herself whether it would be vain and wicked to prayfor a pair of stockings: she thought she would go and ask Father Francis.
By this time they were in the Rue Royale, and half-way down it. Thelamps were lighted. A regiment was marching up it with a band playing.The windows were open, and people were laughing and singing in some ofthem. The light caught the white and gilded fronts of the houses. Thepleasure-seeking crowds loitered along in the warmth of the evening.
Bebee, suddenly roused from her thoughts by the loud challenge of themilitary music, looked round on the stranger, and motioned him back.
"Sir,--I do not know you,--why should you come with me? Do not do it,please. You make me talk, and that makes me late."
And she pushed her basket farther on her arm, and nodded to him and ranoff--as fleetly as a hare through fern--among the press of the people.
"To-morrow, little one," he answered her with a careless smile, and lether go unpursued. Above, from the open casement of a cafe, some young menand some painted women leaned out, and threw sweetmeats at him, as incarnival time.
"A new model,--that pretty peasant?" they asked him.
He laughed in answer, and went up the steps to join them; he dropped themoss-roses as he went, and trod on them, and did not wait.