St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Was this the letter you brought?" holding out the one she still retained in her hand.

"Yes, it was that. I'll never do it again," continued Anna, growing frightened, and bursting into tears.

Which caused Miss Mowbray to rate her for a "little fool;" and Anna ran away, glad to be released. Close upon that, up dashed Rose in agitation, having discovered the loss of her note. The note had not been declared by Rose to be pro bono public, and Emma Mowbray had dishonourably abstracted it from her apron pocket. Rose got possession of it again, but she was in a great passion with Emma Mowbray: in fact, with them all.

And poor Eleanor Seymour! She was white as marble when Mary turned to her. Sitting there, on the old wooden bench, so outwardly calm and still, she had heard the whole. Clasping Mary Carr's hands with a painful pressure, she burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping, and glided in at the porch-door to gain the staircase. "Make any excuse for me at the dinner-table, Mary," she whispered.

Need you be told that that letter was really written to Eleanor? The words "fair fiancée" in it alone related to Rose, and Mr. Marlborough had penned them in laughing allusion to the joke in the school. The plot was Emma Mowbray's, a little bit of revenge on Eleanor and Rose, both of whom she envied and disliked. She had made Anna her tool. The child, at her prompting, wrote a letter to Rose, and got her brother to direct and seal it; and Emma Mowbray opened the two envelopes cleverly by means of passing a penknife under the seals, and substituted the one note for the other. Thus Eleanor's letter was conveyed to Rose; the other Emma Mowbray burnt; and she promised a whole charrette full of good things to Anna to keep her counsel. Being a mischief-loving little damsel, Miss Anna did so; though she was nearly frightened out of it by Miss Carr.

This may sound very shallow, very weak, but I assure you the circumstances took place just as they are described. Had George Marlborough only put Eleanor's name in the note, the trick could not have been played. But he did not do so. And neither Rose nor Eleanor suspected for a moment that there was anything about the note not genuine; or that it had not been written to Rose.

They went to dinner at Mrs. Marlborough's--Eleanor with her beating heart of resentment and her outraged love, Rose radiant with happiness and beauty. The evening did not mend matters, but rather added very much to the broil. May the word be forgiven?--I was thinking of the French one. Eleanor, cold, haughty, contemptuous, was almost insulting to Mr. Marlborough; and Rose, it is to be feared, let him see, that evening, where her best love was given. He took more than one opportunity of asking Eleanor how he had offended her, but he could get no answer. If she had only given him a clue to it, how much trouble and misery would have been saved! but the very asking on his part seemed to Eleanor only adding insult to injury. You see they were all at cross-purposes, and just for the want of a little word of explanation.

From that hour there was no peace, no mutual understanding between Eleanor and Mr. Marlborough. He repeatedly sought an explanation of the sudden change in her behaviour, sometimes by letter, sometimes in words. She never would give an answer to either. She returned his letters in blank envelopes, or tore them to pieces before the messenger's eyes; she refused to see him if he called; she haughtily held aloof from him when they met. Mrs. Marlborough saw that something was wrong, but as neither of them made her their confidant, she did not interfere, and she supposed it to be only a lovers' quarrel. She had not known Eleanor long, having come to Belport only the week before that Sunday Rose first saw her at church. Rose alone seemed in a state of happiness, of ecstatic delight; and Anna now carried no end of notes and messages to and fro, and kept it secret from the school. Rose had committed one great folly--she had written to Mr. Marlborough after the receipt of that first letter. But then, it must be always remembered that no suspicion had yet crossed her mind that it was not written to her and meant for her. Rose fully believed--let it be her excuse--that Mr. Marlborough had transferred his affections from Eleanor to herself: the school believed it. Whether she really hoped she should succeed in supplanting Eleanor in the offer of marriage, in becoming afterwards his wife, cannot be told. The girls thought she did, and they were sharp observers. At any rate, Rose now deemed the field as legitimately open to her, as it was to Eleanor.

The day for awarding the prizes was a great day. The girls were attired in white, with blue sashes and blue neck-ribbons; and the hairdresser arrived very early in the morning to get done in time. A large company arrived by invitation; and just before the hour for going in, some of the girls saw Rose in the garden talking to a gentleman. Madéleine de Gassicourt, usually so short-sighted, espied her out.

"It must be her brodare wid her," cried Madeleine, who was not in the secret. "She will derange her hair before we do go in."