Chapter One

Eleanor Grayson, daughter of a gentleman, had not, in her sixteen years of life, been much accustomed to rough manners, and when, on arriving at her cousins’ town house, she was greeted by a tall, bearded and badly turned out young man in a battered overcoat, she could not help feeling the impropriety of the meeting. Her aunt and uncle, though not equal in wealth to her own father, were by no means without fortune, and it was not their custom to allow trades people through their front door; the idea, therefore, that such a man could be admitted into the house via that entrance was, to Eleanor’s mind, quite absurd. She had only that minute been admitted into the house herself by her uncle’s servant, when, from the door leading to the drawing room, appeared the man in question. Upon seeing her he had given a hasty bow and, with a similar gesture aimed at her uncle who followed him, quitted the house most abruptly. In the greetings which followed between herself, her aunt and uncle and five cousins, Eleanor would forget the hasty meeting, and it was not until she found herself alone with the second eldest of her cousins, a girl her same age named Lillian, in the quiet hour before dinner, that she remembered to think of it.

The two girls, sitting together in an upstairs room with convenient views out over the street, had much to talk of and catch up on, as they had not been together these last two years. Their previous meeting had been at Eleanor’s uncle’s country house, where she had spent the summer with her cousins and had become particularly close with Lillian and her elder brother Thomas. The two years passed had not weakened the friendship, and through almost constant correspondence, the two girls in particular, had kept in close contact. The exchange of letters had been a most welcome distraction and comfort to both girls, though perhaps more so to Miss Grayson, who, having at home only the company of a severe and money-loving father and four similarly unfeeling elder brothers, had found her happiness at times most dependent on her correspondence with Miss Tennyson, and occasionally Mr Thomas Tennyson. Thus reunited the two fair cousins spent many minutes in happy recollections, and it was only when a pause presented itself that Eleanor recalled her plan of questioning her cousin on the young man from the entrance hall. She began by professing herself to be much surprised by the appearance of such a man, and that he should have been received by her uncle into his drawing room seemed to her most unnecessary. At these observations, Miss Lillian could give only a light laugh and say with much amusement to her cousin:

‘But Eleanor, do you really not know whom that gentleman was?’

‘Gentleman? Dearest Lilly you cannot be about to inform me of this young man’s respectability, surely?’

‘Indeed cousin, I find I must! For the young gentleman in question is none other than Captain Furling, a fellow of the utmost respectability! And with a large income to match! Indeed, he is thought by almost all to be quite eligible.’

‘Captain Furling? Not the Captain Furling, surely? The adventurer whom everyone has been talking so much about.’

‘The very same. He and father were acquainted some years ago, and he came today straight off his ship The Dashing Hart, to wait on my father and renew the acquaintance before returning to his estate in Devonshire. He hopes to come again within the month as he has some future business he wishes to discuss with my father.’

Eleanor again exclaimed her astonishment, and, after a short pause for reflection, supposed his coming straight from his voyage explained his disorderly countenance. Though she confessed she had been used to believe naval officers generally very tidy and disciplined in appearance. Lillian could not but agree with her cousin in this belief but suggested that a particularly difficult voyage may have rendered fine dress overly fastidious, and thus Mr Furling was excused all previous offenses, and the two girls readied themselves and went down to dinner.