Lovers All Untrue by Norah Lofts

This is one of Lofts best novels. It is loosely based on the story of the Scottish Madeline Smith. Marion Draper is a Victorian girl, living in Bereham Norfolk during the 19th century. Her father is from the genteel middle class, owning a maltings, which prepares hops for brewing. He is not very rich, but comfortably off and the family consists of him, his wife, who is shy and not in good health, and his 2 daughters Marion and the less intelligent Ellen. Papa Draper keeps his family close and rarely lets the girls socialise more than a minimum with the local families. HIs wife is dominated over by him, but Marion is rebellious, though she knows how hard it is to break free from the strict propreity of life for a girl in Victorian England. She loves to read and study, but her father does not want to give her much education, and when she leaves school and suggests that she might work in the business' office, he refuses to consider it. Marion seeks escape in novels but her father disapproves of them. Ellen is much less clever and does not resent their father's strict rule as much. Marion at 17 is increasingly bored and restless, especially when their father forbids them to join the local music society. Soon afterwards, the local VIcar sets up a literary society, and Marion manages to get permission to join it, with Ellen. The girls have a friend, Angela, the daughter of the local solicitor, who is connected with various country gentry and military families. Angela has been having a secret flirtation with a young man from the music society, Jean Brissac, who is French - even though he works as an asistant to the local chemist. Angela's romance is discovered and her father sends her away to relatives in the country, to break it up, and Marion and Ellen are shocked to find that Angela's "Frenchman of good family" is actually just a chemist's assistant and is only a distant relative of the French genteel family. However, when they meet him, Marion is taken with his Byronic good looks and charm. She and Ellen are asked by Angela to convey to him that she has had to go away, and while they are doing this, Marion finds herself becoming attracted to him.