St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"I don't know him," said Adeline. "He is very rich, I believe; he is staying at Belport."

"Le souper, mesdemoiselles," called out Mademoiselle Henriette, the head-teacher.

As Adeline de Castella said, Eleanor's mother was the Honourable Mrs. Seymour and the daughter of Lord Loftus. Being this, Mrs. Seymour held her head higher, and was allowed to do it, than any one else in the Anglo-French watering-place, and prided herself on her "blood." It sometimes happens that where this "blood" predominates, other requisites are in scarcity; and it was so with Mrs. Seymour. She was so poor that she hardly knew how to live: her aristocratic relatives helped her out, and they had paid Eleanor's heavy school bills, and so she got along somehow. Her husband, Captain Seymour, dead this many a year ago, had been of even higher connections than herself; also poor. Lord Loftus had never forgiven his daughter for marrying the portionless young officer; and to be even with her, erased her name from his will. She was a tall, faded lady now, with a hooked nose and supercilious grey eyes.

When Eleanor left school--as accomplished a young lady as ever Madame de Nino's far-famed establishment turned out--she went on a visit to her aristocratic relatives on both sides, and then travelled to Italy and other places with her mother. This spring they had returned, having been away two years, and settled down in the old place. The tattlers said (and if you want tattle in perfection, go to any of these idle continental watering-places) that Eleanor would never get the opportunity of changing away the name of Seymour: men of rank would not be very likely to seek one situated as she was, and Mrs. Seymour would never allow Eleanor to marry any other. The battle was soon to come.

There came into Belport one day, on his road to Paris, a good-looking young fellow named George Marlborough. Mrs. Seymour was introduced to him at the house of a friend, and though she bowed (figuratively) to his personal attractions, she turned up her haughty nose afterwards when alone with Eleanor, and spoke of him contemptuously. One of the rich commoners of England, indeed! she slightingly said; she hated commoners, especially these rich ones, for they were apt to forget the broad gulf that lay between them and the aristocracy. The old Marlborough, Mr. George's father, had begun life as a clerk or a servant--she could not tell which, neither did it matter--and had plodded on, until he was the proprietor of an extensive trade, and of great wealth. Iron works, or coal works; or it might be cotton works; something down in the North, she believed; and this George, the eldest son, had been brought up to be an iron man too--if it was iron. She desired Eleanor to be very distant with him, if they met again: he had seemed inclined to talk to her.

Now poor Eleanor Seymour found this difficult to obey. Mr. George Marlborough remained in the town instead of going on to Paris, and was continually meeting Eleanor. She, poor girl, had not inherited her mother's exclusive notions; labour as Mrs. Seymour would, she had never been able to beat them into her; and Eleanor grew to like these meetings just as much as Mr. Marlborough did. It was the old tale--they fell in love with each other.

Mrs. Seymour, when the news was broken to her, lifted her haughty eyelids on George Marlborough, and expressed a belief that the world was coming to an end. It might not have been disclosed to her quite so soon, but that she was about to depart for England on a lengthened visit to an elder sister, from whom she cherished expectations, during which absence Eleanor was to be the guest of Madame de Nino. Mr. Marlborough, who had never once been admitted within Mrs. Seymour's house, took the opportunity of asking for an interview one evening that he had walked from the pier in attendance on them, by Eleanor's side. With a slight gesture of surprise, a movement of her drooping eyelids, the lady led the way to the drawing-room, and Eleanor escaped upstairs.

She sat in her own room, listening. About ten minutes elapsed--it seemed to Eleanor as many hours--and then the drawing-room bell was rung. Not loud and fast, as though her mother were in anger, but quietly. The next moment she heard Mr. Marlborough's step, as he was shown out of the house. Was he rejected? Eleanor thought so.

The bell rang sharply now, and a summons came for Eleanor. She trembled from head to foot as she went down.

"Eleanor!" began her mother, in her sternest tone, "you knew of this application to me?"