Page 1 of A Marriage is Arranged

“Very well, Mama,” said Louise Grey in her pleasant, low voice, “If I have been pledged to marry him, there’s no more to be said.”

But it seemed there was a great deal more to be said. Her Mama reiterated once again that the promise of marriage between her daughter and Gareth Wandsworth, the Earl of Shrewsbury, was of very long standing.

“Christopher, the present Earl’s father, was your poor Papa’s greatest friend at Eton and Oxford. They were constantly together and would have remained so, I’m sure, had it not been for his father sending him overseas to attend to the family’s tea business in wherever it was….”

“China, I think, Mama,” prompted her dutiful daughter.

“… Yes, China. A heathen place.” Her mother shuddered.

Louise had heard this all before but she knew that once her mother had begun upon her interminable exposition there was no stopping her.

“Christopher came back to London to be married, and then both he and his wife went back to China. Your Papa told me he tried to convince his friend to stay in London, but it seems he had no choice but to go and oversee the family business. His father, the Earl, had suffered severe losses on the ’Change. To put it bluntly, they were dependent on the money from their tea business over there and could not trust the people on the spot. Rightly so, as it turned out .

“Your father and I were married a few years later. He and Christopher carried on as lively a correspondence as the distance would allow, and in due course his friend wrote that his wife had presented him with a son, Gareth. He must have been nearly seven years old by the time you were born. Your father immediately wrote proposing that you and Gareth be pledged to each other. His friend sent a delighted reply saying he thought that a wonderful way of cementing the friendship between the two families.”

She stopped and took a breath. “Of course,” she continued, “arranged marriages were more common then than now. In fact, the marriage that brought Christopher back from China was arranged. Your papa told me his friend had never seen the girl before their betrothal. From his letters, though, they seemed happy enough, and so will you be, my dear, if you put your mind to it.”

She seemed to be waiting for an answer, so Louise dutifully replied, “Yes, Mama.”

Her mother nodded with satisfaction. “Well, to finish the story, Gareth was sent back to England with his tutor when he was ready for Eton and the poor child never saw his parents again. They were both killed in an argument about something.”

“Opium, I think, Mama,” supplied her daughter.

“Yes, though what that has to do with tea I cannot imagine.”

Since Louise did not wish to prolong the conversation, she said nothing. She had read about the history of trade between Britain and China for the last twenty-five years and the growing animosity between the two countries. The British public had an insatiable appetite for silks and tea, and a barter system had grown up, exchanging opium imported by the British from India for those commodities. There had been an article about it in The Times quite recently, warning of the Qing Dynasty’s opposition to the trade. The drug had caused problems in China from the start. She could have explained it, but chose not to, for her mother, she knew, was not really interested.

“When your poor dear Papa heard about his friend’s death, he was cut up for weeks! He positively dwindled before our eyes! He was never the same afterwards.”

The widow dabbed the corners of her eyes with a delicate lace handkerchief.

“I’m sure that contributed to his own death in the end! The sorrow must have weakened him. It’s impossible that a paltry cold could have seen him off otherwise! So when the very last thing he asked me to do was to make sure you married the son of his old friend, what could I do but write to the family? We’d lost contact with them after Christopher died, but I looked them up in Debrett’s and they were still at the same address. I thought they would be; it’s been the family’s place in London for generations.”

Again, she seemed to be expecting some sort of a response, but Louise could add nothing to the old story. So she simply muttered something that sounded like acquiescence. But as she disentangled the long fringe of her mother’s silk shawl from the legs of her chair, she wondered what on earth could have persuaded the Earl to even consider his father’s pledge made all those years ago. Why on earth should he want to marry her ?