St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Mary Anne Darling lay down again, and curled the clothes round her with a pettish movement, feeling excessively aggrieved. But that was nothing new. She and Margaret had suffered all their lives through Charlotte, and had never rebelled. Miss Norris had been first and foremost; had received all the love, all the consideration, all the care; the house had only seemed to go on in reference to the well-being and convenience of its eldest daughter.

Brought up to this from their earliest years, Mary Anne and Margaret Darling had accepted it as one of life's obligations. But the young lady was feeling now that she was being unjustly censured. If there did exist any objection to Mr. Carleton St. John, Charlotte should be blamed for falling in love with him, or else be made to relinquish him. But Miss Darling did not believe in any objection: she thought her mother only wished to keep Charlotte to herself in her jealous affection--that she could not bear to part with her.

"I never knew anything so unreasonable," grumbled the young lady, giving the pillow a fierce poke upwards. "Charlotte was sure to marry sometime, and but for her mother's great watchfulness, she'd have been married before this. I cannot understand mamma. What though Charlotte is the apple of her eye, ought she to wish to prevent her fulfilling woman's proper destiny? The love of most mothers causes them to wish their daughters to marry; some to go the length of scheming for it: in this case it is schemed against. It is very selfish, very inconsistent; and yet mamma is not a selfish woman! I can't understand her."

Mrs. Darling's opposition was not yet over. She sat the next day in her own room, thinking what an ill-used woman she was, calling up every little remembered cross of her past life; as many of us are prone to do in moments of annoyance, when things wear a gloomy aspect. She had married--a girl not out of her teens--Mr. Norris, of Norris Court, a gentleman whose standing in the county was almost as good as that of the St. Johns of Alnwick. But ere she had well realized her position as the wife of a wealthy man, the mistress of a place so charming as Norris Court; almost ere her baby was born, Mr. Norris died, and the whole thing seemed to pass from her as a dream. Had the child proved a boy she had been well off, and Norris Court still been hers as a residence; proving a girl, it lapsed from her to the next male heir in the entail. She turned out of it with her baby, the little Charlotte, and a small income of a few hundreds a year. These hundreds, at her own death, would be Charlotte's. The pretty house she had since called her home was in point of fact Charlotte's, not hers. It had come to Charlotte on her father's death, but she had it to reside in for her life. Norris Court was two miles distant from Alnwick; and Mrs. Norris in her young widowhood had quarrelled with its new possessors. The breach had never been healed, so that Charlotte was a stranger to her forefathers' home. Except for this cottage and the few hundreds a year, all in expectation, Charlotte Norris had nothing. How Mrs. Norris had bewailed these past untoward circumstances, her own heart alone knew.

Her own subsequent marriage with Colonel Darling had not greatly improved her circumstances in the long-run. At the Colonel's death, the chief portion of what he had passed to their son. A little was settled on the daughters, and Mrs. Darling had a certain benefit for life. But altogether her income was not a large one, especially considering her many wants, and that she was not one who could make a sovereign go as far as most people; and Mrs. Darling was in the habit of thinking that fate might have been kinder to her. In the lost glories of Norris Court, present benefits, real though they were, were overlooked. But for these comparisons, bred of discontent, some of us would get on better in the world than we do.

She sat in her own room, glancing back at these past grievances, dwelling on others that were more recent. It was the day following the fête. The interview with Mr. Carleton St. John was over, and Charlotte was his promised wife. Mrs. Darling had done what she could to oppose it--to the secret surprise of Mr. St. John; but her opposition was untenable, and had broken down. "If you have any tangible objection to me, name it, and let me combat it as I best may," said Mr. St. John. But apparently Mrs. Darling could bring forward none, save the foolishly fond one that she could not part with Charlotte; and the engagement took place. As Mrs. Darling sat now, alone, her mind was still busy with a hundred wild schemes for its frustration.

But she saw clearly that they would all be worse than useless; that unless there was some special interposition of Providence, Charlotte would go to Alnwick. What was the secret of her opposition? Ah, my reader, you must turn over many pages ere you arrive at that. She had one very great and good reason for dreading the marriage of her daughter with George St. John of Alnwick.

Charlotte happened to come into the room as she sat there. Mrs. Darling held out her hand; and Charlotte--who might have looked radiant with happiness but that she and her countenance were of an undemonstrative nature in general--came and sat on a stool at her feet, her dress, bright mauve muslin, floating around, her delicate hands raised from their open lace sleeves to her mother's knee.

"I must say a few words to you, Charlotte. Promise to hear me patiently and calmly."

"Of course I will, mamma."