A Radical Arrangement

[vintageromancereader]

A Matchless Dilemma

Sir Justin Keighley was everything that repelled Margaret Mayfield in a man. He was shocking in his opinions, arrogant in his manner, rude in his actions, and completely without respect for the common decencies of civilized society.

Margaret was everything that Sir Justin detested in a woman. She was shy, retiring, obedient to her parents, almost embarrassed by her own beauty, and ignorant of virtually every phase of real life in the real world.

Needless to say, they both did everything in their power to escape being matched with each other. Somehow everything was not enough....

Original Publisher: Signet
Original Year of Publication: 1983
Page Count: 222

This book has to have one of the most ludicrous setups I've ever encountered. Margaret Mayfield, the shy and unassuming (and very pale) daughter of the local gentry family attends a dinner party one July evening at her family's country home in Cornwall. This is an annual event, and they invite all of the local notables - including Sir Justin Keighley, who is too important to be snubbed. He is massively disliked by the Mayfields, however, because they consider him a political radical. They have warned Margaret about him to the point where she's afraid of his very presence.

After this dinner, the local squire insists on tromping down to Lord Mayfield's barn to inspect his new cow, and Sir Justin suggests they all go, because he enjoys the scandal his words stir up. Margaret doesn't want to go, so she basically slips behind the group and decides not to ruin her dress by going all the way down to the muck of the barn; she'll just wait for the others to come back and slip back into their party. Sir Justin notices her, though, and stays behind as well, and teases her for being so reticent. She doesn't respond, and just when he figures that it's not worth even trying to draw her out, she basically goes insane, beating him away without provocation and launching herself into a locked summerhouse on the property. She's in such a rage that she knocks herself out, and of course the party troops back from the barn to find him kneeling over her.

Lord and Lady Mayfield go beserk (obvs Margaret comes by it honestly) and insist that he's completely and totally ruined her and thus, must marry her. He refuses. When she comes around, Margaret is horrified by the idea of marrying him, and she refuses as well. Her protestations fall on deaf ears, so she decides to run away. She has to get out of town, but she doesn't dare go to London, knowing the scandal it will create. The only other place she knows is Penzance, in Cornwall, so she sets off by herself.

Meanwhile, Lady Mayfield has marched herself over to Justin's property to bend him to her will. Margaret's sudden disappearance is her trump card; she plays like she and her husband have disowned their daughter, leaving her to her fate. She's guessed Margaret's direction, and tells Justin that his refusal of her has driven her away, and if he cares an ounce for her, he'll go after her himself, because they aren't going to.

Justin hesitates; he sees the trap Lady Mayfield has set for him, but staunchly refuses to find himself boxed into a marriage he doesn't want. He decides to go after Margaret, figuring she couldn't have gotten too far; he'll bring her back to her parents' door and make it clear to one and all he'll have nothing to do with her.

So, yes - ridiculous. I got this far into the book and was just kinda rolling my eyes. Margaret truly was too stupid to live. She'd never done anything for herself and was terrified at the idea of striking off on her own, but she was even more terrified of going home and being forced into a union with a man she believed was a monster, thanks to her mother's ridiculous tales. She'd described as being very blonde and pale and malleable, and indeed, she has no personality to speak of.

But obviously I am such a sucker for Cornwall that I carried on, wondering if we'd get any scenery porn as we did in The Bride Insists and The Marriage Wager.

So Justin catches up with Margaret and starts berating her - so she turns around and shoots him in the shoulder, and suddenly things get interesting.

She didn't mean to shoot him, she only wanted to scare him, but he immediately collapses in the middle of the road, and she panics. She manages to pull herself together, and tells the approaching villager that Justin is her brother and that they were robbed by highwaymen. She's astounded at how easy it is to lie to these people, because she's never lied in her life, but they take her at her word and help her bring Justin to their village to recover.

They set up house at the Red Fern inn, with the Appleby family. The local midwife, Mrs. Dowling, removes the bullet from Justin's shoulder, and Margaret feels so guilty about shooting him (not to mention she'd told everyone that he's her brother) that she stays and nurses him. She alternates dealing with him and walking along the shores of the sea in the village, and she slowly turns into her own person, realizing that she can make decisions and deal with things without anyone's help.

Justin is furious when he wakes up, but he's also constrained by his wounded shoulder, so he eventually makes nice with Margaret, basically because he has nothing better to do. He's noticed the color in her cheeks and the fullness of her figure, and is impressed when she talks back to him. Turns out a Margaret Mayfield with a personality is rather pleasant to be around.

She discovers that he's not a monster, and that her parents have greatly overstated his foibles. They eventually start talking politics and family, and he tells her about how he grew up, and why he's as passionate about his causes as he is. He even takes her into the village and shows her that yes, poverty is a real thing, and it's really, really terrible, and she is duly affected by this realization.

They are becoming attached to one another, but they each fight it. We follow Margaret as she struggles to come to terms with her new assertiveness, and the stirrings this man is causing in her heart and in her mind. Mrs. Dowling is the one who basically tells her that it's obvious to one and all that they're in love with each other, and that Margaret needs to bring it to a head. If she wants to marry Justin, she's the one who's going to have to speak up - which is exactly what she does one evening, only to have her father burst in - again, at just the wrong moment - and basically ruin everything.

Everyone's irate, and Justin blurts out that he'd never marry Margaret no matter how much her father wishes he could make him. This breaks Margaret's heart, but she is not suddenly cowed by her father's appearance. She takes Justin's rejection in stride, but will not be bullied into leaving just to save face. Only when Justin disappears does Lord Mayfield finally convince his daughter to go home with him, after making sure that any word she leaves with the Applebys is swiftly destroyed, so that Keighley will not be able to find her if he ever comes back.

Justin was in a boating accident, re-injures his shoulder, and is truly on the brink of death by the time the Applebys find him again. Mrs. Dowling sends the youngest Appleby in search of Margaret; upon learning that nobody knows who she really is or where she went, she basically tells him to just ask along the way to discover her route.

Margaret returns home, but she stands up to her family and forces them to leave her be. She'll tell whatever story they want to tell to chase away the scandal, but she truly doesn't care what the neighbors think. She knows herself, and what happened with Justin in Cornwall, and all that matters to her are her own thoughts and feelings on the matter.

It takes the Appleby boy a week to find her, but she immediately sets off to return with him to his village, walking away even when her parents threaten to disown her. She returns to Cornwall and sits with Justin until his fever breaks and he comes out of his delirium, and is more than happy to accept the proposal he freely offers her.

The was a really sweet book. Once the pair made it to Cornwall, and realized they were stuck together (a bit of forced proximity), they started to really get to know each other, past their preconceived notions. Both love the Cornish countryside and have an inescapable pull with the sea, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and their time together is very sweet and gentle. Margaret basically grows up once she realizes there is a world beyond the one her parents have carefully curated for her, and grows a backbone. She faces up to both Justin and her father, and in the end discovers what is truly important to her.

Justin doesn't have quite as far to go, but his deepening regard for Margaret is written quite nicely. Mrs. Dowling was a hoot, and the Applebys were the sort of warm and friendly family Margaret never had.

This is a straight up traditional Regency romance, so the romantic relationship is written very opaquely. It basically takes these two 200 pages to kiss (in a 247-page novel), and they celebrate their engagement in the final chapter with even more kisses. It's very sweet and gentle and a sort of comfort read, exactly what I needed right now.

If you can get past the ridiculous setup, it'd definitely worth reading. I'd recommend reading in one sitting, though, because stopping and starting with a plot that doesn't really move very quickly would probably be incredibly frustrating.

⭐⭐⭐