Chapter X: Miss Rose Darling

You all know that crowded seaport town on the other side the water--Belport-on-the-Sea; and are therefore aware that its educational establishments, good, bad, and indifferent, are numerous. But I must ask you not to confound the one you are about to enter, Madame de Nino's, with any of those others, no matter what their merits may be. The small, select, and most costly establishment of Madame de Nino was of the very highest standing; it was intended solely for the reception of gentlemen's daughters--was really confined to them; and no pupil could be admitted to it without an undeniable introduction. It was perhaps the only French school to which anxious parents could confide a daughter free from doubt on the score of her associations: whatever her fellow-pupils might be in mind and manners, they were sure to be of gentle birth.

On that very same day that took Mrs. Darling down to Alnwick Hall on the visit to her widowed daughter, Madame de Nino's pupils were gathered in the large schoolroom. Class was over for the day, and the girls were tired enough. They hated Fridays. There was no dancing, no drawing, no walking; nothing but hard unbroken learning, writing, and practising.

Look at this class of elder girls, their ages varying from sixteen to twenty, sitting on a bench at the first-class table. Those in the middle sit very back, their spines crooked into a bow, those beyond them on either side sit rather forward, and the two end girls are turned, each sideways, an elbow on the desk; So that they form a semicircle. They are gossiping away in English, which is against the rules; but the teachers are also fatigued with the long and hot day, and do not pay attention. The studying for prizes had begun, and during that period the work was greatly augmented, both of pupils and teachers.

Look well at the three middle girls. We shall have little to do with the others, but a great deal with them. And they are noticeable besides, for two of them are beautiful, but so unlike in their beauty. The one is a very Hebe, with laughing blue eyes, brilliant complexion, and a shower of golden curls; and she is Mrs. Darling's youngest daughter, Rose. The other is Adeline de Castella, a name and face fit for a romance in history. She is graceful, charming, with dark-brown eyes and hair, and more exquisite features than were ever carved in marble. The third is Mary Carr, quiet and ladylike, whose good sense served to keep the wildness of Miss Rose Darling somewhat in check. For Rose was one of the wildest girls that had ever kept alive Madame de Nino's staid and most respectable school; wild, wilful, clever, careless; and vain as a peacock.

Had Rose been of a more sedate disposition, less given to random ways, Mrs. Darling might not have kept her at school so long, for Rose was eighteen. She was dreadfully rebellious over it, and perhaps the judiciousness of the measure, as a restriction, may be questioned. Mrs. Darling, by way of soothing the pill, allowed Rose to visit much; and when the girls came to this age Madame de Nino acquiesced in the parents' wishes, but Rose went out more than any previous pupil had ever been known to do. She had many friends sojourning in the town, and was courted on her own account, being excessively liked by every one.

Always in scrapes of one sort or another, or getting out of them, was she: and she had her own way in the school, and _would_ have it.

One of Miss Rose Darling's propensities was to be continually falling in love. Almost every time she went out, she would favour the envious girls, on her return, with a description of some fresh cavalier who had laid siege to her heart; for half her pleasure in the thing lay in these boasts to her companions. The last idea of the kind had prevailed longer than usual. A gentleman, whom she had only seen at church or in their walks, was the new gallant. Rose did not know his name, but he was very handsome, and she raved of him. The school called him her _fiancé_; not in the least to Rose's displeasure. On this evening, as you look at them, Rose is in a state of semi-explosion, because one of the other girls, Miss Caroline Davis, who had been fetched out that evening by her friends, was now telling Rose that she had seen this gentleman as she was being conducted back to Madame de Nino's.

"That comes of my being kept at school. Mamma ought to be punished. You be quiet, Mary Carr! I shall talk against my mother if I like. Where did you see him, Carry Davis?"

"In the Grand' Rue. He was strolling up it. My aunt bowed to him."

"I know he was watching for me! These horrid Friday evenings! I wish the school could take scarlet fever, or something of that sort, and then perhaps Madame might send us out every day! Your aunt must know him. Davis, if she bowed: didn't you ask his name?"

"No, I forgot to ask it."

"What an idiot you are! If I don't learn it in a day or two I shall go mad. He----"

"Hush!" whispered Caroline Davis. "See how those French are listening! They'll go and tell Mademoiselle that we are speaking English. There's a new pupil come in tonight," she added aloud, in the best French she could call up.

"Not a pupil," dissented Adeline de Castella. "She used to be a pupil, but is coming now on a sort of visit to Madame, during her mother's absence in England. They have been travelling lately in Italy."

"Who is she?" asked Rose. "What's her name?"

"Eleanor Seymour. Her mother is the Honourable Mrs. Seymour; she was the daughter of Lord Loftus," continued Adeline, who spoke English perfectly, and understood our grades of rank as well as we do. "Eleanor Seymour is one of the nicest girls I know; but I suppose she will not be Eleanor Seymour very long, for she is engaged to Mr. Marlborough."

"Who's Mr. Marlborough?" asked Rose again.

"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?"

Eleanor could not deny it. She burst into frightened, agitated tears.

"The disgrace of having encouraged the addresses of an iron man! It is iron: he made no scruple of avowing it. Indeed, you may well cry! Look at his people--all iron too: do you think they are fit to mate with ours? His father was nothing but a working man, and has made himself what he is by actual labour, and the son didn't blush when he said it to me! Besides--I hope I may be forgiven for plotting and planning for you--but I have always hoped that you would become the wife of John Seymour."

"_His_ wife," sobbed Eleanor. "Oh, mamma, John Seymour's nobody."

"Nobody!" echoed the indignant lady. "Lord John Seymour nobody!"

"But I don't like him, mother."

"Ugh!" growled Mrs. Seymour. "Listen. I have not accepted the proposals of this Mr. Marlborough; but I have not rejected them. I must say he seems liberal enough and rich enough; proposing I don't know what in the way of settlements: but these low-born people are often lavish. So now, if you have made up your mind to abandon your rank and your order, and every good that makes life valuable, and to enter a family who don't possess as much as a crest, you must do so. Mr. Marlborough obligingly assured me your happiness was centred in him."

Ah, what mattered the contempt of the tone, while that sweet feeling of joy diffused itself through Eleanor's heart?

"No reply now," continued Mrs. Seymour, sternly. "The decision lies with you; but I will not have you speak in haste. Take the night to reflect on the advantages you enjoy in your unblemished descent; reflect well before you take any step to sully it. Tomorrow you can announce your answer."

You need not ask what Eleanor's answer was. And so, when she entered on her visit at Madame de Nino's, she was an engaged girl; and the engagement was already known to the world.

Miss Seymour requested that she might be treated entirely as a pupil. She asked even to join the classes, laughingly saying to Madame de Nino that it would rub up what she had forgotten. She took her place in the schoolroom accordingly. Rose Darling saw a pale girl, with dark hair and a sweet countenance; and Rose criticized her mercilessly, as she did every one. Another of the schoolgirls, named Emma Mowbray, a surly, envious girl, whom no one liked, made ill-natured remarks on Eleanor. Miss Seymour certainly presented a contrast to some of them, with her beautifully arranged hair, her flowing muslin dress, and her delicate hands. Schoolgirls, as a whole, are careless of their appearance _in_ school; and, as a rule, they have red hands. Madame de Nino's pupils were no exception. Rose was vain, and therefore always well-dressed; Adeline de Castella was always well-dressed; but Emma Mowbray and others were not. Emma's hands, too, were red and coarse, and more so than even those of the careless schoolgirls. Adeline's were naturally beautiful; and Rose took so much care of hers, wearing gloves in bed in winter, with some mysterious pomade inside.

Rose made little acquaintance with Eleanor that day. She, Rose, went out to tea in the afternoon, and came back very cross: for she had not once set eyes on her _fiancé_. The story was told to Eleanor Seymour; who sympathized with her of course, having a lover of her own.

The next day was Sunday. The French girls were conducted at ten o'clock to mass; the English would leave the house as usual for church a quarter before eleven. Rose was dressed and waiting long before; her impatience on Sunday mornings was great. Rose was in mourning, and a source of secret chagrin that fact was, for she liked gay clothes better than sombre ones.

"And so would you be worrying if you had some one waiting for you at the church as I have," retorted Rose, in answer to a remark on her restless impatience, which had been proffered to Miss Seymour by Emma Mowbray.

"Waiting for you?" returned Eleanor, looking at Rose, but not understanding.

"She means her lover, Miss Seymour," said Emma Mowbray.

"Yes, I do; and I don't care if I avow it," cried Rose, her face glowing. "I know he loves me. He never takes his eyes off me in church, and every glance speaks of love."

"He looks up at the other schools as much as he looks at ours," said Emma Mowbray, who could rarely speak without a sneer. "Besides, he only returns the glances you give him: love or no love, he would be a sorry gallant not to do that."

"Last Thursday," cried Rose, unmindful of the reproof, "he smiled and took off his hat to me as the school passed him in the street."

"But little Annette Duval said she saw you nod to him first!" said Charlotte Singleton, the archdeacon's daughter.

"Annette Duval's a miserable little story-teller. I'll box her ears when she comes in from mass. The fact is, Miss Seymour," added Rose, turning to the stranger who had come amidst them, "the girls here are all jealous of me, and Emma Mowbray doubly jealous. He is one of the divinest fellows that ever walked upon the earth. You should see his eyes and his auburn hair."

"With a tinge of red in it," put in Emma Mowbray.

"Well; you must point him out to me," said Eleanor, and then hastened to change the conversation, for she had an instinctive dread of any sort of quarrelling, and disliked ill-nature. Emma Mowbray had not favourably impressed her: Rose had, in spite of her vanity and her random avowals. "You are in mourning, Miss Darling?"

"Yes, for my eldest sister's husband, Mr. Carleton St. John. But I have a new white bonnet, you see, though he has not been dead many weeks: and I don't care whether mamma finds it out or not. I told the milliner she need not specify in the bill whether the bonnet was white or black. Oh dear! where is Mademoiselle Clarisse?"

Mademoiselle Clarisse, the teacher who took them to church (and who took also a book hidden under her own arm to read surreptitiously during the sermon, not a word of which discourse could her French ears understand) came at last. As the school took its seats in the gallery of the church, the few who were in Rose's secret looked down with interest, for the gentleman in question was then coming up the middle aisle, accompanied by a lady and a little girl.

"There he is!" whispered Rose to Eleanor, next to whom she sat, and her voice was as one glow of exultation, and her cheeks flushed crimson. "Going into the pew below. There: he is handing in the little girl. Do you see?"

"Yes," replied Eleanor. "What of him?"

"It is he. He whom the girls tease me about, my _fiancé_, as they call him, I trust my future husband. That he loves me, I am positive."

Eleanor answered nothing. Her face was as red as Rose's just then; but Rose was too much occupied with something else to notice it. The gentleman--who was really a handsome young man--was looking up at the gallery, and a bright smile of recognition, meant for one of them, shone on his face. Rose naturally took it to herself.

"Did you see that? _did_ you see that?" she whispered right and left. "Emma Mowbray, who took first notice now?"

The service began. At its conclusion Rose pushed unceremoniously out of the pew, and the rest followed her, in spite of precedent, for the schools waited until last; and in spite of Mademoiselle Clarisse. But, on the previous Sunday, Rose had been too late to see him: he had left the church. On this, as the event proved, she was too early, for he had not come out; and Mademoiselle Clarisse, who was in a terrible humour with them for their rudeness, marched them home at a quick pace.

"If ever truth and faith were in man, I know they are in him!" raved Rose, when they got home, and were in the dressing-room. "He'll make the best husband in the world."

"You have not got him yet," cried Emma Mowbray.

"Bah! Did you see the look and smile he gave me? Did _you_ see it, Miss Seymour?--and I don't suppose you are prejudiced against me as these others are. There was true love in that smile, if ever I saw love. That ugly Mademoiselle Clarisse, to have dragged us on so! I wish she had been taken with apoplexy on the steps! He---- Where's Miss Seymour gone to?" broke off Rose, for Eleanor had quitted the dressing-room without taking off her things.

"I heard her say she was invited to dine at Mrs. Marlborough's," answered Mary Carr.

"I say! there's the dinner-bell. Make haste, all of you! I wonder they don't ring it before we get home!"

That afternoon Madame de Nino conducted the girls to church herself. A truly good Catholic, as she was, she was no bigot, and now and then sat in the English church. The young ladies did not thank her. They were obliged to be on church-behaviour then: there could be no inattention with her; no staring about, however divine might be the male part of the congregation; no rushing out early or stopping late, according to their own pleasure. Rose's lover was not there, and Rose fidgeted on her seat; but just as the service began, the lady and little girl they had noticed in the morning came up the aisle, and he followed by the side of Eleanor Seymour. The girls did not dare to bend forward to look at Rose, Madame being there. The tip of her pretty nose, all that could be seen of her, was very pale.

"The forward creature! the deceitful good-for-nothing!" broke from Rose Darling's lips when they got home. "You girls have called me bold, but look at that brazen Eleanor Seymour! She never saw him until this morning: I pointed him out to her in church for the first time; and she must go and make acquaintance with him in this barefaced manner! As sure as she lives, I'll expose her to Madame de Nino! A girl like that would contaminate the school! If our friends knew we were exposed to her companionship, they'd remove----"

Rose's passionate words were cut short by the entrance of Madame herself, who came in to give some instructions to the teachers, for she was going out for the evening. Rose, too angry to weigh her words or their possible consequences, went up to Madame, and said something in a fast, confused tone. Madame de Nino, a portly, dark-eyed, kind woman, concluded her directions, and then turned to Rose, who was a favoured pupil.

"What do you say, Mademoiselle Rose? Did I see the gentleman who was at church with Miss Seymour? Yes; a very prepossessing young man. I spoke with him today when they came for her."

A moment's puzzled wonder, and then a frightful thought took hold of Rose.

"Do you know him, Madame?" she gasped. "Who is he?"

"Young Mr. Marlborough. Mademoiselle Eleanor is betrothed to him."

Madame left the room. And the girls sat breathless with astonishment, scarcely daring to steal a glance at Rose Darling's white and stony features.

The weeks went on to the sultry days of August, and most of the girls were studying away might and main for the prizes. A day-pupil had temporarily entered the school, Anna Marlborough, the youngest of the Marlborough family, and the only one who had come abroad with her mother. It was not Madame de Nino's habit to admit day-pupils, but she had made an exception in favour of this child, who was to be in the town but a few weeks.

Will it be credited that Rose Darling was still pursuing her preposterous flirtation with George Marlborough, in the face of the discovery that he was engaged to Eleanor Seymour? But there was something to be urged in her favour, though you are no doubt surprised to hear me say it. Had a jury been trying Rose, they might have returned a verdict, "Guilty, with extenuating circumstances." Rose seemed bewitched. There is no doubt that a real, an ardent passion for George Marlborough had arisen in her heart, filling its every crevice; and she regarded Eleanor (she could not help it) with a fierce, jealous rivalry. But the girl, with all her random folly, was no fool; and but for certain events that arose, might have remained as quiescent as she could, until her ill-starred love died out.

It did not, and could not, contribute to any good resolutions she might have had strength and sense to form, to find herself on intimate terms with Mr. Marlborough, a frequent visitor to his house. _That_ mistake was, in the first instance, Eleanor Seymour's. Eleanor had been commissioned by Mrs. Marlborough to invite three or four of the young ladies to accompany her there to dinner; something was said in the school about her not _daring_ to ask Rose; and Eleanor invited Rose forthwith. Rose went. It had been more prudent had she stayed at home: but Rose was not one of the prudent sort: and the temptation was irresistible. Mrs. Marlborough was charmed with her, and so was George. Whether the gentleman detected Rose's feelings for himself, and was flattered, or whether he had no objection to a flirtation with a pretty girl, although engaged to another, certain it was he paid Rose considerable attention, and laughed and joked with her much.

_Joked_ with her. It was all done on his part in the spirit of joking, as Eleanor Seymour might have seen; but joking sometimes leads to something more. Messages from one to the other, begun in folly, often passed; and Anna Marlborough, a giddy girl of twelve, was the go-between. Just upon this, Rose's brother, Captain Darling, came to Belport; he soon struck up a friendship with Mr. Marlborough, and here was another link in Rose's chain. She would meet the two young men in the street, and leave the ranks, in defiance of rules, ostensibly to shake hands with Frank, really to talk nonsense with Mr. Marlborough. Even Eleanor Seymour, when out with the school, would conform to its rules and only bow and smile as he passed. Not so Rose. The girls would have gone the length of the street, two sometimes, before she caught them up, panting and flushed and looking radiant, and boasting of what George had said to her. It was of no use the teachers remonstrating and forbidding; do it she would, and do it she did.

This was what may be called the open, harmless stage of the affair. But it was to go on to another.

There was a large party given one night at a Scotch laird's, Sir Sandy Maxwell, and Miss Seymour and Rose were invited. You may be aware, perhaps, that it is the custom in French schools, generally speaking, for the pupils to visit or not, according to the directions left by the parents. This had been accorded to Rose by Mrs. Darling; and Eleanor Seymour was not as a schoolgirl--therefore Madame de Nino, though openly expressing her disapprobation of these large parties while young ladies were pursuing their studies, did not refuse. Emma Mowbray offered a bet to the school that Mr. Marlborough would dance more dances with Rose than with Eleanor; and so eager were the girls to hear the result, that those in the large _dortoir_ kept awake until they came home. It had struck one o'clock, and Madame was up in arms; she had only given them to half-past eleven, and they had kept the coach waiting all that time, while Madame's own maid, old Félicité, was inside it. After all, there was nothing to hear, for Mr. Marlborough had not made his appearance at the party.

Class was not over the next morning until very late; it always was late just before giving the prizes. It was the third Thursday in August, the _sorti_ day, and three of the girls were going with Eleanor to dine at Mrs. Marlborough's: Rose, Mary Carr, and Adeline de Castella. The invitations were left to Miss Seymour, and she always fixed on Rose, in a sort of bravado, but she never once chose Emma Mowbray; and this gave that young lady considerable offence, as was known to the school. They were to partake of the usual dinner at school by way of luncheon, the Marlboroughs not dining until six. While the cloth was being laid, the girls dispersed about, some in the courtyard, some in the garden, all in the shade, for it was very sultry. There was certainly something more than common the matter with Rose: she appeared half-crazy with joy.

"It is because she's going out," remarked Mary Carr to Eleanor.

"Is it, though!" put in Emma Mowbray; "that's only a little item in the cause. She has just had a love-letter from Mr. Marlborough."

Eleanor Seymour's cheek changed.

"Don't talk absurdities," said Mary Carr to the Mowbray girl.

"Absurdities!" she retorted, moving away. "If I can, I'll convince you."

A minute or two, and she came back with a letter in her hand--an open letter, addressed in George Marlborough's hand to Rose--and handed it to Mary Carr.

"Am I to read it?" asked the latter.

"If you choose. It is _pro bono publico_, Rose says." And Miss Carr read the letter aloud.

"My Dearest,

"You must have been surprised not to see me at Sir Sandy's. I was dressing to come, when a message arrived for me from the Hôtel du Nord; poor Priestley had met with a sad accident to his hand from the bursting of a gun. I have been sitting up with him until now, four o'clock a.m., but I write this to you before I sleep, for you have a right now to my every thought, to know every movement. You dine here today, my fair _fiancée_ also; but I wish you were coming alone.

"Ever yours only,

"George Marlborough."

Was there any mistake in the letter? Mary Carr had often heard of such. _Could_ it have been written to Rose? Alas, yes! it was all too plain. The writing was George Marlborough's; the address, "Miss Rose Darling, En Ville," was his; and the seal, "G.M.," was his also. Mary rose, and stood before Eleanor, shielding her from observation, as she beckoned to Anna Marlborough: while Emma Mowbray looked defiant, and asked whether they would believe her next time.

The child was dancing about the courtyard. She was young, and the school made her a sort of plaything: she came dancing up to Miss Carr.

"Now, Anna, I have something to ask you; and if you equivocate by so much as a word, I will acquaint Madame de Nino that there's a letter-carrier in the school; you would be expelled that same hour. Did you bring a note here from your brother this morning?"

"Yes, I did," stammered Anna. "Don't tell of me, please."

"I'll not tell, if you speak the truth. To whom did you bring it?"

"To Miss Darling."

"Did he send it to _her?_ What did he say when he gave it to you?"

"He told me to give it into her own hands when nobody was by, and to give his love with it," answered Anna. "Oh, pray don't tell of me, Miss Carr! It's nothing much more than usual; he often sends his love by me to Miss Darling."

"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."

Emma Mowbray peered through the trees. It was no "brodare," but Mr. Marlborough. He was bending down to Rose; she appeared to be crying, and he held her hand in his as he talked to her earnestly. Emma Mowbray glanced round at Eleanor, who was at the window, and saw it all. She was very pale and still, her lips compressed.

But Rose's stolen interview could have lasted only a few fleeting minutes. The hands of the clock were then pointing towards two, and as the hour struck she was amongst them, and they were being marshalled for the entrance to the prize-room. It was a pleasing sight when they went in, making their reverences to the assembled visitors. Two pretty young English girls walked first--sisters; and certainly the two prettiest of the elders walked last; Rose Darling and Adeline de Castella; both beautiful, but so unlike in their beauty. Adeline gained nine prizes; Rose only two. But Rose had been studying for another sort of prize.

The holidays succeeded--dull and quiet. Of the elder girls, Adeline, Rose, and Mary Carr alone remained, and there was, of course, Miss Seymour. Mrs. Marlborough was leaving the town; George was not. Eleanor, who seemed to be visibly declining, would not go out anywhere, so she did not meet him; but Rose, always out, met him constantly.

One afternoon, when Eleanor was growing paler day by day, a bit of folded paper was brought to her in the schoolroom. She opened it, and saw a few words in pencil--

"I am now waiting in the salon. You have been denied to me as usual; yet, Eleanor, let me entreat you to grant me, for this once, an interview. I leave by the boat for London tonight, but if I can see you now, my voyage may not be necessary. By the love we once bore each other, I beseech you, Eleanor, come.--G. M."

Eleanor read it, tore the paper deliberately in two, and handed the pieces to Clotilde. "Give that to the gentleman," she haughtily said. "There is no other answer."

Rose followed the maid from the room. "Clotilde," she whispered, "who is in the salon?"

"The handsome monsieur that was going to marry himself, as people said, with Mademoiselle Seymour," was the servant's rejoinder.

"Give me the answer," said Rose, taking the torn pieces from her hand. "I want to send a message to Madame, his mother, and will deliver this. I say, Clotilde, don't tell Madame that he's here."

The unsuspicious servant went about her business; and Miss Rose tripped to the salon, and stayed as long as she dared.

That same evening Eleanor Seymour was giving Mary Carr a description of Rome; they were seated in a corner of the small class-room; and Adeline de Castella corrected her when she was wrong, for _she_ knew Rome well. Mademoiselle Josephine (Mam'selle Fifine, the school called her in general), the only teacher remaining, was at her table in front of the window, writing letters. When it grew too dark to see, she closed her desk, turned round, and suddenly, as if surprised not to see her with the others, asked where Rose was.

The young ladies did not know. Rose had been upstairs in the bedroom since the afternoon. She came down for collation, and went up again directly.

Mam'selle Fifine began to scold; she was the crossest of all the teachers, except Mam'selle Clarisse. It was not likely Miss Rose was stopping upstairs in the dark; she must have got a light, which, as Mesdemoiselles knew well, was contrary to rules. And she told Miss Carr to go and desire her to come down.

Mary Carr rose with a yawn; they had been sitting there long, and she felt cramped. "Who will go with me?" she asked.

Both the young ladies responded, and all three stumbled up the dark staircase together. They found no light in the bedrooms, and could see nothing of Rose. Thinking it possible she might have fallen asleep on one of the beds, Adeline ran down and got a candle from one of the servants.

There was no Rose; but on her bed lay a sealed note, addressed to Miss Carr;--

"Dear Mary,

"I know you have been against me for some time. Miss Seymour and I were rivals--equals on a fair ground; you would have helped _her_ on, though it left me to a broken heart. I believe it has been a neck-and-neck race between us, but I have won. I hope mamma will reconcile herself to the step I am taking; I always longed to make a runaway marriage, it is so romantic; and if Frank flies out about it, I shan't care, for I shan't hear him. When next you see me I shall be

"Rose Marlborough."

"Look to Miss Seymour!" broke from the quivering lips of Adeline de Castella. And it was timely spoken, for Eleanor was fainting. Scarcely had she revived, when Mam'selle Fifine came up, angry at the delay.

The note they did not dare to show; but were obliged to confess to the absence of Rose, saying, _tout bonnement_, as Adeline called it, that they could not find her.

Rose not to be found! Madame de Nino was dining out, and Mam'selle Fifine was terrified out of her sober senses. In the midst of the hubbub that ensued, Julie, the head fille-de-chambre, put her head in at the door, and said, "The Honourable Mrs. Seymour."

At a time of less commotion they would have burst out laughing. Julie had been nurse in a nobleman's family in England; she had there become familiar with British titles, and was as fond of using them as she was of using her English. One day Ethel Daw's mother came to see her; a very fine lady, all flounces, and feathers, and gold chains. It was Julie's luck to show her to the salon; and she came to the schoolroom afterwards, flung open the door, and called out, "Mrs. Daw, Esquire." Julie did not hear the last of that. The girls called her ever after Squire Daw.

"The Honourable Mrs. Seymour."

With a sharp cry Eleanor started up, and flew into her mother's arms, sobbing convulsively.

"Oh, mamma, take me home! take me home!"

Mrs. Seymour was thunderstruck, not only at Eleanor's cry of pain, but at the change in her appearance. She had just returned from London. Mary Carr disclosed a little of the truth. She thought it best; and, indeed, was unable to evade the keen questioning of Mrs. Seymour. But Rose's note, with the information it contained, was buried in silence still. Mrs. Seymour took her daughter home at once; and there Eleanor told the whole--that Rose had really gone away with Mr. Marlborough. Mrs. Seymour folded her aristocratic hands, and distinctly desired that no further allusion to it should ever pass her daughter's lips, as it would not her own. It was a retribution on them, she said, for having trusted an "iron man."

Meanwhile, Adeline de Castella and Mary Carr kept their own counsel through sheer obligation: as they had not declared all they knew at once, they dared not declare it now. And Madame de Nino verily believed Rose had been spirited away to the skies.

It was three days afterwards. Mrs. Seymour sat in her drawing-room, the green Venetian shutters partially closed, and the blinds down, for Eleanor lay on the sofa quite prostrated. Mrs. Seymour was in a state of as much indignation as was consistent with her high birth and her proclaimed assertion that they were "well rid of him;" for, in spite of the "iron" drawback, she had grown to hug to her heart the prospect of this most desirable establishment for Eleanor.

Suddenly the door opened, and the iron man himself walked in. Eleanor struggled up from the sofa, and Mrs. Seymour rose in hauteur, all the blood of the Loftuses flashing from her light grey eyes. Then ensued a contest; each side struggling for the mastership; Mrs. Seymour refusing to hold commune with him, and Mr. Marlborough insisting upon being heard.

He had gone to England three days ago in search of her, he said; he then found she had left for France, and he had followed her. His object was to request that she would lay her commands on Eleanor to afford him an explanation. Eleanor had been his promised wife; and without offence on his part, without any known cause, her behaviour had suddenly changed to him. In vain he had sought an explanation of her; she would afford him none; and his only resource was to appeal to Mrs. Seymour. If Eleanor refused to fulfil her engagement with him, he could not insist upon it; but he must insist upon knowing the reason for the change: to that he had a right.

"You had better leave the room quietly, sir," said Mrs. Seymour in frigid tones. "It will not be pleasant to you if I call my servants."

"I will not leave it without an explanation," he replied. "Mrs. Seymour, you cannot refuse it; if Eleanor will not give it me in courtesy, I repeat that I must demand it as a right. Eleanor's conduct at the time seemed to imply that there was some cause of complaint against me. What was it? I declare to you solemnly that I was unconscious of it; that I was innocent of offence against her."

His words and manner were painfully earnest and truthful, and Mrs. Seymour hesitated.

"Has there been any mistake, Eleanor?" she hesitated, appealing to her daughter.

"Oh, let me know what it is," he implored, before Eleanor could speak. "Whatever it may be--mistake--cause--reality--let me know it."

"Well, sir," cried Mrs. Seymour, making a sudden resolution, "I will first ask you what you have done with that unfortunate young lady, whom you took away from her sheltering roof and her duties, three days ago?"

"I took no young lady away," replied Mr. Marlborough.

"What have you done with Miss Darling?"

"Not anything."

"You did not induce her to elope with you? You did not take her to London?"

"Indeed, no. I saw Miss Darling on the port the evening I went away, and left her there. She was with her brother. But this is no explanation, Mrs. Seymour. Eleanor," he added, walking up, and standing before her, "I once again appeal to you. What was the cause of your first and sudden coldness?"

"Speak out, Eleanor," said her mother. "I know almost as little as Mr. Marlborough, but I now think the matter should be cleared up, that we may come at the truth. There must be a strange mystery somewhere."

Eleanor pressed her thin hands upon her side in agitation. She could only speak in a whisper, in uneven sentences: and she told of the love-letter written to Rose the day following the dance at Sir Sandy Maxwell's.

"It was written to you, Eleanor," said Mr. Marlborough.

"I read that note," she answered, gasping for breath. "It was written to Rose."

"It was written to you, Eleanor. I have never written a loving note, as that was, to Rose Darling in my life; on my sacred word of honour."

"You have written several notes to Rose!"

"True; since; but never loving ones: they might all have been posted up on the schoolroom walls, and even Madame de Nino herself could not have found fault with them. If this note was given to Rose, Anna must have changed the envelopes. I remember directing one for her to Miss Darling that morning. Eleanor," he gravely said, "I fear you have been running your head against a chimera."

"Rose loves you," she whispered, her heart and voice alike softening.

"No; nonsense!"--but for all his denial there was a glow of consciousness on Mr. Marlborough's countenance. "Eleanor, I honestly believe that you have been listening to the folly talked by those schoolgirls, and taken it for gospel. Rose Darling is very pretty, and likes to be admired; and if I have been thrown a good deal with her, who threw me? You, Eleanor, by your coldness and avoidance of me. I don't deny that I have talked lightly and gaily with Rose, never seriously; I don't deny that----" I have kissed her, he was going to add in his candour, but thought it might be as well to leave that out before Mrs. Seymour. "But my love and my allegiance have never swerved from _you_, Eleanor."

She burst into happy tears. Mrs. Seymour cut them short sternly.

"Eleanor, this note that you talk of, left by Miss Darling on her bed the other night, must have been meant as a hoax upon you and the two credulous young ladies, your companions. I did think it a most strange thing that a young lady of position should be guilty of anything so vulgar as an elopement. Not but that it was excessively bad to make it the subject even of a jest."

"I suppose it must have been," sobbed Eleanor. "And it seemed so earnest!"

Mr. Marlborough could have disclosed _how_ earnest, had he chosen. In that interview in the salon with Rose, when he told her he was going away, he learnt how much she loved him. In the anguish of parting, Rose dropped words that sufficiently enlightened him--if he had not been enlightened before. He passed it all off as a jest; he said something to the effect that he had better take her with him to Gretna, all in jest, in simple folly: and he spoke in this light manner for Rose's sake: he would not suffer her to think she had betrayed her secret. What, then, was his astonishment when, in coming out of the permit office at night on the port, preparatory to stepping on board the boat, to see Rose! _She had taken his words seriously_. What he would have done to save the boat in his dilemma--for he must inevitably have lost it while he escorted Rose back to Madame de Nino's--he did not know; but at that moment who should come up but Captain Darling. He gave the young lady into her brother's charge, with a half-word of explanation; and he never supposed but that Rose had been safely lodged at school within the hour. But Mr. Marlborough was a man who could keep his counsel on these particulars, even to Eleanor, and he did keep it.

"Let this be a warning to your wedded life, Eleanor," observed Mrs. Seymour. "Never have any concealments from your husband. Had you frankly spoken to Mr. Marlborough of that first misdirected letter, which seems to have been the primary cause of all the mischief, the affair would have been cleared up at once."

"It's enough to make a man swear he will never use another envelope," exclaimed Mr. Marlborough, with his old happy smile of love. "But you need not have doubted me, Eleanor."

Meanwhile, where _was_ Rose? Madame de Nino, in the eleventh stage of desperation and perplexity, sent ten times a day to Captain Darling's lodgings; but he had disappeared also. Mam'selle Fifine, who of course came in for the blame, alternately sobbed and scolded aloud; and Adeline and Mary Carr felt sick with the weight of the secret they were keeping. This state of things, stormy within doors as the weather was without, lasted for three days, and then Rose returned, escorted by her brother.

But what a shocking plight she was in! Drenched with rain and sea-water; clothes soaked and clinging round her; quite prostrated with three days' sea-sickness; lying half-dead all that time in a rolling fishing-smack, the wind blowing great guns and she nearly dead with fright; nothing to eat and drink on board but salt herrings and sour beer, even supposing she could have eaten at all!--no wonder Rose forgot her good manners and told her brother he was a brute for taking her. Rose had happened to put on her best things, too: a white chip bonnet and pearl-grey damask dress. You should have seen them when she came in!

So it was quite a mistake. Miss Carr and Adeline found, a trick, no doubt, played them purposely by Rose, and there had been no elopement at all, or thought of one: nothing but a three-days' cruise round the coast with her brother, in the fishing-smack of some honest, rough, hard-working sailors! Captain Darling made a thousand apologies to Madame de Nino when he brought her home--the object that Rose presented upon his handing her out of the coach!--and laid it all to the fault of that treacherous wind; which had kept them at sea three days, when he had only contemplated treating her to a little excursion of an hour for the good of her health.

Madame was appeased at length. But Mam'selle Fifine is sore upon the point to this day. As she justly observed, there must have been something out of the common amiss with that particular fishing-boat. Granted the rough wind; but other boats made the port fast enough, so why not that one? Rose could or would give no explanation, and was as sullen as a bear for a whole month.

And ere that month had well run its course, news came down from Paris of the marriage of George Marlborough and Miss Seymour.