When Mme. Granson reached home, she had a warm explanation with her son. He could not be made to understand the connection between his political opinions and his love. It was the first quarrel which had troubled the peace of the poor little household.
Next morning, at nine o’clock, Mlle. Cormon, packed into the cariole with Josette by her side, drove up the Rue Saint-Blaise on her way to the Prébaudet, looking like a pyramid above an ocean of packages. And the event which was to surprise her there and hasten on her marriage was unseen as yet by Mme. Granson, or du Bousquier, or M. de Valois, or by Mlle. Cormon herself. Chance is the greatest artist of all.
On the morrow of mademoiselle’s arrival at the Prébaudet, she was very harmlessly engaged in taking her eight o’clock breakfast, while she listened to the reports of her bailiff and gardener, when Jacquelin, in a great flurry, burst into the dining-room.
“Mademoiselle,” cried he, “M. l’Abbé has sent an express messenger to you; that boy of Mother Grosmort’s has come with a letter. The lad left Alençon before daybreak, and yet here he is! He came almost as fast as Penelope. Ought he to have a glass of wine?”
“What can have happened, Josette? Can uncle be—”
“He would not have written if he was,” said the woman, guessing her mistress’ fears.
Mlle. Cormon glanced over the first few lines.
“Quick! quick!” she cried. “Tell Jacquelin to put Penelope in.—Get ready, child, have everything packed in half an hour, we are going back to town,” she added, turning to Josette.
“Jacquelin!” called Josette, excited by the expression of Mlle. Cormon’s face. Jacquelin on receiving his orders came back to the house to expostulate.
“But, mademoiselle, Penelope has only just been fed.”
“Eh! what does that matter to me? I want to start this moment.”
“But, mademoiselle, it is going to rain.”
“Very well. We shall be wet through.”
“The house is on fire,” muttered Josette, vexed because her mistress said nothing, but read her letter through to the end, and then began again at the beginning.
“Just finish your coffee at any rate. Don’t upset yourself! See how red you are in the face.”
“Red in the face, Josette!” exclaimed Mlle. Cormon, going up to the mirror; and as the quick-silvered sheet had come away from the glass, she beheld her countenance doubly distorted. “Oh, dear!” she thought, “I shall look ugly!—Come, come, Josette, child, help me to dress. I want to be ready before Jacquelin puts Penelope in. If you cannot put all the things into the chaise, I would rather leave them here than lose a minute.”
If you have fully comprehended the degree of monomania to which Mlle. Cormon had been driven by her desire to marry, you will share her excitement. Her worthy uncle informed her that M. de Troisville, a retired soldier from the Russian service, the grandson of one of his best friends, wishing to settle down in Alençon, had asked for his hospitality for the sake of the Abbé’s old friendship with the mayor, his grandfather, the Vicomte de Troisville of the reign of Louis XV. M. de Sponde, in alarm, begged his niece to come home at once to help him to entertain the guest and to do the honors of the house; for as there had been some delay in forwarding the letter, M. de Troisville might be expected to drop in upon him that very evening.
How was it possible after reading that letter to give any attention to affairs at the Prébaudet? The tenant and the bailiff, beholding their mistress’ dismay, lay low and waited for orders. When they stopped her passage to ask for instructions. Mlle. Cormon, the despotic old maid, who saw to everything herself at the Prébaudet, answered them with an “As you please,” which struck them dumb with amazement. This was the mistress who carried administrative zeal to such lengths that she counted the fruit and entered it under headings, so that she could regulate the consumption by the quantity of each sort!
“I must be dreaming, I think,” said Josette, when she saw her mistress flying upstairs like some elephant on which God should have bestowed wings.
In a little while, in spite of the pelting rain, mademoiselle was driving away from the Prébaudet, leaving her people to have things all their own way. Jacquelin dared not take it upon himself to drive the placid Penelope any faster than her usual jog-trot pace; and the old mare, something like the fair queen after whom she was named, seemed to take a step back for every step forward. Beholding this, mademoiselle bade Jacquelin, in a vinegar voice, to urge the poor astonished beast to a gallop, and to use the whip if necessary, so appalling was the thought that M. de Troisville might arrive before the house was ready for him. A grandson of an old friend of her uncle’s could not be much over forty, she thought; a military man must infallibly be a bachelor. She vowed inwardly that, with her uncle’s help, M. de Troisville should not depart in the estate in which he entered the Maison Cormon. Penelope galloped; but mademoiselle, absorbed in dresses and dreams of a wedding night, told Jacquelin again and again that he was standing still. She fidgeted in her seat, without vouchsafing any answer to Josette’s questions, and talked to herself as if she were resolving mighty matters in her mind.
At last the cariole turned into the long street of Alençon, known as the Rue Saint-Blaise if you come in on the side of Mortagne, the Rue de la Porte de Séez by the time you reach the sign of the
