The Act of Convenience

Chapter Two

Four days had past and Rachel had not been told anything. She asked her father one evening what was going on. He dismissed her question with a simple statement implying that it was not yet confirmed, and he would tell her as soon as he had the word to do so.

"The word to do so...what could that mean? If father is in charge of his business and this household, from where and whom is he waiting for the word?" Rachel anxiously rambled as her and her two sisters sat around the parlor. Lizzie sewing, Jenny reading, and Rachel, who was too distracted to participate in such activities today, was laying on the chase, thinking, wondering, and most of all rambling.

"Not an ounce of news or information, not one thing in four days. I thought that if something were important father would tell me immediately and without hesitation," she paused to take a breath, "maybe it is not important, perhaps it is only suspense doing me in."

"If is nothing, then why do you let it burden you so?" Lizzie spoke up, her twelve year old mind often comprehending and producing wisdom beyond its years.

"Because it might be something of great importance and we are all oblivious to what it might be." Rachel said as Jenny and Lizzie gave eachother a certain look. It was the kind of look that leaves the third party more anxious than she was a second before, "What? Do you know something I do not?" Rachel questioned her sisters.

"We should not say-"

"That is if we knew something, if anything." Jenny interrupted Lizzie.

"Only someone that knows something would say such a thing." Rachel stood up and walked over to where sisters sat, "What is it?"  She kneeled before them, begging, pleading for them to tell her some news, hoping it would ease her conscience.

"As you said, if father thought it were of great importance, he would tell you." Jenny said taking on a mature tone.

Lizzie ignored Jenny, "We heard mother and father talking the other day."

"Lizzie don't!"

Lizzie defied her sister, "They said something about a marriage. Mother was crying and father said something about how he thought she would be happy with the arrangement because she always wanted you to marry well. I heard mother said not like this...not under such circumstances."

And there was the final piece of the puzzle, the one thing Rachel kept telling herself this great something wasn't, "an arranged marriage." she whispered.

"It still might not be..." Jenny tried persuading the assumptions.

"What else could that mean?" Rachel snapped.

Lizzie and Jenny fell silent.

"I am sorry...I just...I need to-I need to go talk to father." Rachel walked out of the room and straight down the hall to her father's study. She tried to collect her thoughts, and took a deep breath before knocking on the door. She felt a great knot within her stomach when he told her to come in.

She didn't want it to be true. It couldn't be true.

He must have seen the fear, the questions, the anxiousness all swirling around her as she walked in. He quickly dismissed Luke and he told Rachel to sit down.

Her already fair skin was an unusual shade of pale as she questioned what she should say.

"I have some good news for you Rachel." Her father quickly began, throwing Rachel off guard.

"Oh?" She said, guessing he was referring to what she just found out...to her it was certainly not good news.

"Yes, do you remember yours and Jenny's friends from Chicago, you were very little girls. But you should recall Mary and Emma Jackson?"