The Convenient Marriage Read Online Free PDF Page B

cloak aside, and plumped down on the stool beside her mother’s sopha. ‘I’ve b-been to see Lord Rule!’ she announced.
    ‘I knew it!’ said Elizabeth, in the voice of Cassandra.
    Lady Winwood sank back upon her cushions with closed eyes. Charlotte, observing her alarming rigidity, shrieked: ‘Unnatural girl! Have you no consideration for our dearest Mama? Lizzie, hartshorn!’
    The hartshorn, the vinaigrette, and some Hungary Water applied to the temples restored the afflicted Lady Winwood to life. She opened her eyes and found just strength to utter: ‘What did the child say?’
    Charlotte, fondly clasping her mother’s frail hand, said: ‘Mama, do not agitate yourself, I beg of you!’
    ‘You n-need not be agitated, M-mama,’ Horatia told her penitently. ‘It is quite true that I’ve b-been to see Lord Rule, but –’
    ‘Then all is at an end!’ said Lady Winwood fatalistically. ‘We may as well prepare to enter the Debtors’ Prison. I am sure I do not mind for myself, for my Days are Numbered, but my beautiful Lizzie, my sweetest Charlotte –’
    ‘M-mama, if only you w-would listen to me!’ broke in Horatia. ‘I have explained everything to L-Lord Rule, and –’
    ‘Merciful heavens!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Not – not Edward?’
    ‘Yes, Edward. Of course I told him about Edward. And he is n-not going to marry you, Lizzie, but he p-promised he would be Edward’s P-patron instead –’
    Lady Winwood had recourse to the vinaigrette again, and desired feebly to be told what she had ever done to deserve such calamity.
    ‘And I explained how n-nothing would induce Charlotte to m-marry him, and he did not seem to m-mind that.’
    ‘I shall die,’ said Charlotte with resolution, ‘of Mortification!’
    ‘Oh, Horry dear!’ sighed Elizabeth, between tears and laughter.
    ‘And I asked him,’ concluded Horatia triumphantly, ‘if he would marry m-me instead. And he is g-going to!’
    Her relatives were bereft of speech. Even Lady Winwood apparently considered that the situation had gone beyond the powers of her vinaigrette to mend, for she allowed it to slip from her hand to the floor while she stared in a bemused way at her youngest-born.
    It was Charlotte who found her voice first. ‘Horatia, do you say that you had the Indelicacy, the Impropriety, the – the Forwardness, to ask Lord Rule to marry you?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Horatia staunchly. ‘I had to.’
    ‘And – and –’ Charlotte groped for words – ‘he consented to – to marry you in place of Lizzie?’
    Horatia nodded.
    ‘He cannot,’ said Charlotte, ‘have noticed the Stammer.’
    Horatia put up her chin. ‘I s-spoke to him about the S-stammer, and he said he l-liked it!’
    Elizabeth rose up from her chair and clasped Horatia in her arms. ‘Oh, why should he not? Dearest, dearest, never could I permit you to sacrifice yourself for me!’
    Horatia suffered the embrace. ‘Well, to tell you the truth, Lizzie, I would like to m-marry him. But I c-can’t help wondering whether you are quite sure you d-don’t want to?’ She searched her sister’s face. ‘D-do you really like Edward better?’
    ‘Oh, my love!’
    ‘Well, I c-can’t understand it,’ said Horatia.
    ‘It is not to be supposed,’ stated Charlotte flatly, ‘that Lord Rule was in earnest. Depend upon it, he thinks Horry a Mere Child.’
    ‘N-no, he does not!’ said Horatia, firing up. ‘He w-was in earnest, and he is c-coming to tell M-mama at three this afternoon.’
    ‘I beg that no one will expect me to face Lord Rule!’ said Lady Winwood. ‘I am ready to sink into the ground!’
    ‘Will he come?’ demanded Charlotte. ‘What irremediable harm may not Horry’s impropriety have wrought? We must ask ourselves, will Lord Rule desire to ally himself with a Family one of whose members has shown herself so dead to all feelings of Modesty and Female Reserve?’
    ‘Charlotte, you shall not say that!’ said Elizabeth with unwonted stringency. ‘What