A Radical Arrangement Read Online Free Page A

speak, then paused. “You are exhausted,” she answered finally. “Try to sleep. We will talk in the morning.”
    There was no reply. Margaret was fighting tears and a growing terror. Disobeying her parents’ wishes was nearly as frightening as what they wanted her to do. She was overcome by the strong emotions of this new dilemma.
    Mrs. Mayfield gazed at her muffled form for a moment, a spark of something like sympathy in her rather hard eyes, then left the room and walked downstairs to the library. There she found her husband alone. “Has Sir Justin gone already?” she asked. “I supposed I would find him still with you. Ralph, I’m afraid we have a problem. Margaret is insisting that she will not marry Keighley. We can bring her round, of course, but it may take a little—”
    “It doesn’t signify,” replied Mr. Mayfield wearily. “He categorically refuses to have her .”
    His wife’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
    “He won’t offer for her. Told me some rigmarole about Margaret’s running from him and falling, for no reason. Patently false, of course, but he says he won’t marry. He walked out on me.”
    “We must make him.”
    “How do you propose to do that? We have no influence with such a man. He doesn’t even like us.”
    Mrs. Mayfield drew herself up alarmingly. “I shall go and talk to him, first thing tomorrow. He can’t get away with this, not with my daughter.”
    Her husband shrugged. “You may try, certainly. But he won’t listen to you.”
    “He must.” The couple’s eyes met for a long moment. “What will we do if he does not, Ralph?”
    He shrugged again. “I suppose young Philip…”
    “Will withdraw, of course. What would you do?”
    Mr. Mayfield seemed uneasy about this question. “Perhaps we could find someone else to take her.”
    His wife laughed harshly. “A nobody? A tuft hunter satisfied with our consequence? No, it must be Keighley. It is his duty .”
    “He does not think so.”
    “I shall make him.”
    Mr. Mayfield looked skeptical, but he said only, “I hope you may, my dear.”
    Margaret did not fall asleep when her mother left her; she was far too upset. She tossed and turned in the bed like an animal caught in a trap and wondered what she could do. She knew she had not moved her mother. Tomorrow both her parents would exert their authority, and as she had never resisted it in her life before, she could not imagine doing so now. She would have to marry Sir Justin Keighley.
    This thought drew a small moan. She could not! She really did hate and fear the man. Her feelings toward him were stronger than any she had ever experienced. Indeed, he seemed, in one short evening, to have turned her whole life upside down. What she was feeling now was immeasurably more intense than anything she had known. Her anger at her mother, her obstinate certainty about what she did not want, her fear for the future—all were dauntingly exaggerated. Her mind whirled with the violence of her own reactions. What was happening to her?
    It was at this moment that she thought of Philip. For some reason he had been absent from her thoughts throughout this awful evening, but now he recurred, and Margaret at once felt a vast relief. Philip would save her. They were, after all, engaged. He had said he admired and respected her. Surely all would be well again if she married him, as she had meant to do, instead of… She shuddered; she could not even think his name.
    Margaret breathed a great sigh. Why had her mother not thought of this solution? It was so easy and simple. But it didn’t matter. She had thought of it, and first thing tomorrow morning she would speak to Philip. Then everything would be just as it had been, and she could go back to living her quiet, tranquil life and not worry about these new, frightening feelings. They were all Sir Justin Keighley’s fault. Margaret could not understand what he had done to her, but she knew where the blame lay. If she could only