So the Viscountess, crazy with curiosity, dragged away her old sister, turning a deaf ear to her jeremiads.
“Good morning, Calyste,” said little Charlotte.
“Good morning, Charlotte,” replied Calyste, but he did not offer her his arm.
Both speechless with surprise, she at his coldness, he at his own cruelty, they went up the hollow ravine that is called a street at Saint-Nazaire, following the two sisters in silence. In an instant the girl of sixteen saw the castle in the air which her romantic hopes had built and furnished crumble into ruins. She and Calyste had so constantly played together during their childhood, they had been so intimately connected, that she imagined her future life secure. She had hurried on, carried away by heedless happiness, like a bird rushing down on a field of wheat; she was checked in her flight without being able to imagine what the obstacle could be.
“What is the matter, Calyste?” she asked, taking his hand.
“Nothing,” he replied, withdrawing his hand with terrible haste as he thought of his aunt’s schemes and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoëls.
Tears filled Charlotte’s eyes. She looked at the handsome youth without animosity; but she was to feel the first pangs of jealousy and know the dreadful rage of rivalry at the sight of the two Parisian beauties, which led her to suspect the cause of Calyste’s coldness.
Charlotte de Kergarouët was of middle height; she had rustic, rosy cheeks, a round face with wide-awake black eyes that affected intelligence, a quantity of brown hair, a round waist, flat back, and thin arms, and the crisp, decided tone of speech adopted by country-bred girls who do not wish to seem simpletons. She was the spoilt child of the family in consequence of her aunt’s preference for her. At this moment she was wearing the plaid tweed cloak lined with green silk that she had put on for the passage in the steamboat. Her traveling gown of cheap stuff, with a chaste gathered body and a finely pleated collar, would presently strike her as being hideous in comparison with the fresh morning dress worn by Béatrix and Camille. She would be painfully conscious of stockings soiled on the rocks and the boats she had jumped into, of old leather shoes, chosen especially that there might be nothing good to spoil on the journey, as is the manner and custom of provincial folk.
As to the Vicomtesse de Kergarouët, she was typically provincial. Tall, lean, faded, full of covert pretentiousness which only showed when it was wounded, a great talker, and by dint of talk picking up a few ideas as a billiard-player makes a cannon, which gave her a reputation for brilliancy; trying to snub Parisians by a display of blunt country shrewdness, and an assumption of perfect contentment constantly paraded; stooping in the hope of being picked up and furious at being left on her knees; fishing for compliments, as the English have it, and not always catching them; dressing in a style at once exaggerated and slatternly; fancying that a lack of politeness was lofty impertinence, and that she could distress people greatly by paying them no attention; refusing things she wished for to have them offered a second time and pressed on her beyond reason; her head full of extinct subjects, and much astonished to find herself behind the times; finally, hardly able to abstain for one hour from dragging in Nantes, and the small lions of Nantes, and the gossip of the upper ten of Nantes; complaining of Nantes and criticising Nantes, and then regarding as a personal affront the concurrence extorted from the politeness of those who rashly agreed with all she said.
Her manners, her speech, and her ideas had to some extent rubbed off on her four daughters.
To meet Camille Maupin and Madame de Rochefide! Here was fame for the future, and matter for a hundred conversations! She marched on the church as if to take it by storm, flourishing her handkerchief, which she unfolded to show the corners ponderously embroidered at home, and trimmed with worn-out lace. She had a rather stalwart gait, which did not matter in a woman of seven-and-forty.
“Monsieur le Chevalier,” said she, and she pointed to Calyste, who was following sulkily enough with Charlotte, “has informed us of your amiable offer; but my sister, my daughter, and I fear we shall incommode you.”
“Not I, sister; I shall not inconvenience these ladies,” said the old maid sharply. “I can surely find a horse in Saint-Nazaire to carry me home.”
Camille and Béatrix exchanged sidelong looks which Calyste noted, and that glance was enough to annihilate every memory of his youth, all his belief in the Kergarouët-Pen-Hoëls, and to wreck forever the schemes laid by the two families.
“Five can sit quite easily in the carriage,” replied Mademoiselle des Touches, on whom Jacqueline had turned her back. “Even if we were horribly squeezed, which is impossible, as you are all so slight, I should be amply compensated by the pleasure of doing a service to friends of Calyste’s. Your maid, madame, will find a seat; and your bundles, if you have any, can be put in the rumble; I have no servant with me.”
The Viscountess was profusely grateful, and blamed her sister Jacqueline, who had been in such a hurry for her niece that she would not give her time to travel by land in their carriage; to be sure, the post road was not only longer, but expensive; she must return immediately to Nantes, where she had left three more little kittens eager to have her back again—and she stroked her daughter’s chin. But Charlotte put on a little
