He had left me penniless unless I consented to marry Isabella Gayerson.

The estate was bequeathed in trust, to be administered by said trustees during my lifetime, unless I acceded to a certain matrimonial arrangement entertained for me.

Those were the exact words.

So Isabella had no cause to blush when the will was published abroad.

And we may be sure that the whole county knew it soon enough, and vowed that they had always thought so.
"If one may inquire the nature of the matrimonial arrangement so vaguely specified ?"...