Sophy made no answer, but her moody attitude relaxed, and Albinia took comfort in the hope that she might have been gracious if she had known how to set about it.
‘I suppose Miss Belmarche is a Roman Catholic,’ she said, wishing to account for this wonderful ignorance, and addressing herself to Sophy; but Lucy, whom she thought she had effectually put down, was up again in a moment like a Jack-in-a-box.
‘O yes, but not Genevieve. Her papa made it his desire that she should be brought up a Protestant. Wasn’t it funny? You know Genevieve is Madame Belmarche’s grand-daughter, and Mr. Durant was a dancing-master.’
‘Madame Belmarche’s father and brother were guillotined,’ continued Sophy.
‘Ah! then she is an emigrant?’
‘Yes. Miss Belmarche has always kept school here. Our own mamma, and Aunt Maria went to school to her, and Miss Celeste Belmarche married Mr. Durant, a dancing-master—she was French teacher in a school in London where he taught, and Madame Belmarche did not approve, for she and her husband were something very grand in France, so they waited and waited ever so long, and when at last they did marry, they were quite old, and she died very soon; and they say he never was happy again, and pined away till he really did die of grief, and so Genevieve came to her grandmamma to be brought up.’
‘Poor child! How old is she?’
‘Fifteen,’ said Lucy. ‘She teaches in the school. She is not at all pretty, and such a queer little thing.’
‘Was her father French?’
‘No,’ said Sophy.