Hearing no response to this question, Aunt Bridget went on to say that what was coming would be a bond between me and my husband.
"It always is. It was in my case, anyway. The old colonel didn't behave very well after our marriage, and times and times I was telling myself I had made a rue bargain; but when Betsy came I thought, 'I might have done better, but I might have done worse, and he's the father of my offspring, anyway.'"
Hearing no response to this either, Aunt Bridget went on to talk of Alma and her mother. Was not this the woman I suspected with my husband—the young one with the big eyes and "the quality toss with her?" Then why did I have a person like that about the house?
"If you need bright and cheerful company, what's amiss with your aunt and your first cousin? Some people are selfish, but I thank the saints I don't know what selfishness is. I'm willing to do for you what I did for your poor mother, and I can't say more than that, can I?"
I must have made some kind of response, for Aunt Bridget went on to say it might be a sacrifice, but then she wouldn't be sorry to leave the Big House either.
"I'm twenty years there, and now I'm to be a servant to my own stepchild. Dear heart knows if I can bear it much longer. The way that Nessy is carrying on with your father is something shocking. I do believe she'll marry the man some day."
To escape from a painful topic I asked after my father's health.
"Worse and worse, but Conrad's news was like laughing-gas to the man. He would have come with me to-day, but the doctor wouldn't hear of it. He'll come soon though, and meantime he's talking and talking about a great entertainment."
"Entertainment?"
"To celebrate the forthcoming event, of course, though nobody is to know that except ourselves, it seems. Just a house-warming in honour of your coming home after your marriage—that's all it's to be on the outside, anyway."