“There is a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
—SHAKESPEARE.
LATER the same evening, Elene was kneeling at the bedside in her little chamber. As she named in her prayer the poor neglected girl who waited on her and yet could not learn to love her, it occurred to her to wonder that Babette’s sleeping place, at the foot of her own bed, was still empty. Nor had she seen her since early in the day, when she had given her leave to go out. She blamed herself now for having done this without sufficient thought. In that crowded town, so full of strangers, what might not have happened to the unprotected girl? She rose from her knees, intending to go downstairs and inquire about her, but just then a knock at the door announced the return of the wanderer.
“Come in,” said Elene; and then, “Oh, Babette, how late you are!”
Babette came in and stood before her young mistress. In the light of the little oil lamp Elene saw, and not without misgivings, that her face was flushed and excited.
“Plait-il, ma’amselle,” she said.
“Well, what kept thee so late?” Elene asked rather sharply.
“Plait-il, ma’amselle,” spoken with a deprecating air, was all the answer she got.
“It pleases me that thou shouldst speak out, and tell me all the truth. Where hast thou been, Babette?” And now Elene spoke gently, for she was nearly always gentle with Babette. “Some day she will love me,” she used to say to herself.
“Plait-il, ma’amselle,” Babette reiterated, standing still like a statue of perplexity. Then, suddenly, she flung herself in a tumbled heap at the feet of Elene. “Oh, ma’amselle, forgive me, for God’s sake, and for M. Gaspard’s!”
Elene was terrified. Could it be that this foolish, ignorant girl, whose personal dislike of her she knew full well, had in some way or other betrayed the secret of their Faith? or, what was more likely, aided and abetted Philippe in so doing? “Stand up,” she said in the tense accents of sudden fear. “Speak at once. Hast thou done us any harm? Thou, or Philippe?”
Babette did not stand up, but she spoke, and quite frankly.
“Philippe! He never gives me more words than a curse, with a kick to follow it. And, mark you, ma’amselle, he will not lose M. Berbier’s favor—no, not even for the pleasure of doing a mischief to his betters. While, as for me—”
“Then for what art thou asking my pardon?”
“Because, ma’amselle, I have been a bad girl to you, and hated you. And you knew it.”
“I knew thou didst not love me. Though why, I never knew. I hope I gave thee no cause. If I did, I meant it not.”
“You did not, ma’amselle. You were always kind. It is—it is—M. Gaspard.” And Babette filled up the measure of her eccentricities by a fit of hearty crying.
“Dry thine eyes, child,” Elene said at last, “and tell me quietly what is all this about. I have no heart for trifling. Thou knowest we are all in great sorrow now, M. Gaspard especially.”
“It is M. Gaspard,” Babette repeated, while she so far obeyed her mistress as to scrub her eyes vigorously with her blue serge petticoat. “He did not care for me any more—nor think of me, though I saved his life—once he had you, ma’amselle. Not his fault. You are a demoiselle of quality—noble, beautiful, rich too I suppose. He could not help himself; nor you either. God has put a big wall, mountains high, between rich and poor, between peasant and noble. I’m not angry with M. Gaspard, and I don’t hate you anymore. I think, if I stayed, I might come to love you. And I want you to forgive me before I go away.”
At last she lifted up her face, which seemed, through her tears, to be blushing and smiling. “She looks quite pretty,” thought Elene in surprise. “Really, I don’t remember ever seeing Babette smile before. But why dost talk of going away?” she asked. “Where wouldst thou go?”
Babette stood up now. “If I knew you would forgive me—” she began.
“Indeed, my child, I do, and that willingly. But tell me what thou meanest. For we do not mean to send thee away. Our thought for thee is quite other.”
“Ma’amselle, with your good leave, and that of M. Berbier, my master, I—I am going to be married.”
“Thou!” was all Elene, in her amazement, could find to say.
“Why not?” asked Babette with a touch of self-assertion, or rather of self-respect, which marked the change in her.
“Thou! a mere child?”
“I am nigh as tall as ma’amselle, with respect be it spoken. I don’t know when I was born—who would have cared to take note of it?—but I am sure I must be fifteen, or thereabouts. Girls marry as young as that.”
“Who told thee so?”
“Capiton,” she answered with a blush.
“And who is Capiton?”
“Marc Capiton, a corporal in the battalion of Auvergne”—the last words spoken with a touch of pride.
“Is he the man? But how knowest thou, poor child, whether he is a good man and true? Or even whether he will be kind to thee?”
“Oh, yes; he is kind and good. Kinder than any one I ever knew—saving always M. Gaspard.”
“But where hast thou met him? and how canst thou know him so well?—all in one day?”
“Not all in one day, an it please you, ma’amselle. ‘Twas the day after we came that I saw him first.”
“How?”
“Ma’amselle remembers M. Berbier was good enough to say I had been useful on the journey, and he gave me a crown to spend in the shops. So I went out to buy a ribbon for a breast knot; but the streets were so full I was frightened. As I was coming home, three or four soldiers came by. They spoke to me, and were rude. At last one of them tried to snatch the ribbon out of my hand, ‘to wear as a favor,’ he said in his impudence. I bogged him to let me go, but he would not, till another, who was passing along, stopped and took my part. He said he knew from my speech I was an Auvergne’s, like themselves; and for Auvergne’s sake they must let me alone. So I got safe home; and thought not much of the matter, till today, when I was passing a wine-shop, he came out and spoke to me—oh, so kindly. I know what you are thinking, ma’amselle, about the wineshop; but indeed he was quite sober, though he may have had a cup or two. He told me that, on Tuesday, some of the gentlefolk, who wanted to see everything, forced their way in amongst the soldiers. Marc says the officers tried to stop them, but the men gave way readily and let them in. They got many a broad piece for their courtesy—and Marc fared well. He would have had me drink with him, but I refused. So he brought me to the Cathedral, where we sat down and had a long talk, there being no one about. Think of it! He knows Besogne, the village we were living near. He has been there, and once he saw Philippe, when he came there selling the salt. When he knew who I was, he asked me about him. He was so good-natured, I told him how I had come all the way to Toulouse just to see Philippe again, and how he would have none of me, but gave me ill words and curses. He answered me, that it was a shame, and that for his part he knew someone who would not treat a pretty girl like that, but would be good to her, and protect her, and make her his wife. Saith I, ‘And where is he?’ Saith he, Here beside thee, sitting on this bench.”
“And what saidst thou to that?”
“I don’t know. Nor what he said after. I know what he did.”
“But, Babette, a soldier! Where thinkest thou to live?”
“That will be all right, ma’amselle. He says, now the war is over, a man’s discharge is easy got. He will get his, and take me home to Auvergne, where we will live.”
“But how?”
“Oh, as other folk do, of course. He says, if he stayed on, he might, to be sure, be quartered upon some Huguenot, where there would be plenty to eat and drink and plenty of plunder; but he does not fancy that kind of business. He would rather go back to the old father and mother, and to the old fields and the bit of a vineyard. After out talk we went to an inn, where we had a fine hot supper; then he brought me to his lodging, and got the woman of the house to walk home with me, lest my master should be angry. But he said, for sure, that he would come for me in a day or two, and bring me to the priest. And I know he will keep his word.”
Elene was not quite so confident. But, after all, she herself knew very little of the world; and, besides, she had no real power either to protect Babette, to control her actions. She could only say she would tell M. Berbier all about it and ask for his advice.
Babette, whose tongue, once loosened towards her mistress, wagged freely enough, went on, “Marc is a good Catholic. Wherever he is, he always remembers his duty. He says, when we are married we will go to mass regularly, and live like Christians.”
This was the first word Elene had ever heard from Babette which showed any care about religion at all, so she rather welcomed it. The girl went on: “But for all that—shall I tell you what he said about Tuesday, ma’amselle? He said M. Brousson was a grand gentleman; and that, for his part, he had rather have been following him as his captain in a good fight with the Germans than standing there to see him hanged.”
This raised Marc a little, no doubt, in the opinion of Elene. Still he was an unknown quantity, and she could not but wonder that even a girl so ignorant and thoughtless as Babette could entrust her whole life to him, on so short and slight an acquaintance.
Babette however seemed bent at last upon explaining herself fully. “You see, ma’amselle,” she said, “since M. Gaspard left us, and turned into a gentleman, no one cared about me—no, not a straw. Father and mother cared for nothing but the work I did for them. They would have given me to that lout Battiste, who cared for nothing but himself. Like as not, he would have starved and beaten me. So I ran away, and, being a fool, came after Philippe, who treated me—as you know. M. Gaspard too would have none of me. For he had you—you. Oh, I am not blaming you, ma’amselle, nor M. Gaspard either! It had to be. It was God that did it. He made me a poor girl, and He made you and him the grand folk that treat us as the dust beneath your feet.”
“Oh, Babette, do not say that! Indeed! I would have loved thee if thou hadst let me.”
“After a fashion. Not as you love M. Gaspard.” The lamplight showed a sudden crimson on the cheek of Elene. “Nobody loved me,” Babette went on. “And also I loved nobody. At least except—Then there comes to me Marc Capiton, tall and straight and brave, and says, ‘Babette, I love thee!’ And then I too, I say to myself, ‘Hold up thy head, Babette, there is somebody loves thee after all!’ So of course I go to him.”
At this point the lamp went out suddenly, and the maidens found themselves in darkness. They sought their sleeping places as quickly as they could. Both had much to think of; but Babette slept long before Elene did, and as she slept Elene heard her murmur once and again, “Somebody loves me—somebody loves Babette.”
The girl with the deep nature, and the thoughtful, cultivated mind, thought with pity of the ignorant child who could call her slight fancy by the sacred name of love, and give herself into the keeping of a stranger with so little doubt or hesitation. But at last it came to her that after all “le bon Dieu” gives of His blessings to all His creatures according to their need, and to their power of receiving them. Not one is “forgotten before” Him—not one poor little sparrow—no, not even the fifth, the odd one, thrown carelessly in to the purchaser of four for two farthings. Perhaps He was remembering poor, sullen, ignorant Babette, and giving her the best gift she could understand at present—somebody to love and care for her. Perhaps by-and-by He might give her some better thing—even that knowledge of His own love which Elene had tried in vain to impart to her.
Thinking thus, she fell asleep, before it had even occurred to her that her own prospects might be affected, and her own difficulties increased, by this new development in the history of her handmaid. But in fact these prospects were so uncertain, and so perplexing, that she had little encouragement to ponder them, and much reason to leave them to Him in whose sight she—happier in this than Babette—knew that she was “of more value than many sparrows.”