willing. Your sisters will be well settled by the time you come home. Papa and I will have had a nice respite too. Some much-needed peace—likely some lovely time together in Bath—before you come back.”
Prim could not speak as she digested her mother’s speech. She could only stare. Only withstand the ripples of shock reverberating through her.
She felt ill. As though she might lose the contents of her stomach all over her mother’s slippers. Prim pressed a hand to her belly, waiting for the wave of nausea to subside.
When she finally recovered her voice, she managed to say, “Aunt Bernice is over”—she quickly calculated—“sixty years.”
“Close to seventy, yes. I’m aware of her age.”
“The women in our family live famously long lives.”
“Yes. I’m aware we’ve been blessed with long age.”
“What if . . .” Prim started haltingly, because she wouldn’t wish her great-aunt’s life to be shortened in any way. “What if she lives another ten years? Or longer? What if she lives to ninety? She very well could.”
“Well, then you shall serve as a companion to her in her golden years.”
“I could be near forty before I return home!”
“At that time, you would then return to care for me and Papa. My eyesight is already poor. I’m certain I shall need you to read to me.”
She knew how Society worked. Marriage would be less of an option for a woman of forty. She would be deemed a spinster—thoroughly on the shelf and relegated to fetching drinks and shawls for her mother. She would be that daughter with no life of her own. Society was full of them. She would live out her life in service to her aging parents, and then when they were gone, she would have to rely on the kindness of her sisters to give her a home.
Someone please wake me from this nightmare.
While she did not feel driven to immediately marry, if she did not, she would then be stuck at the mercy of her family.
An altogether intolerable situation.
Marry a man and place yourself at his mercy, or remain forever at the mercy of your parents. Both, she realized, were intolerable.
Unless, of course, one married for love and affection. Unless one married someone one truly liked, someone who was a friend first.
Not that she had that option.
“Yes, well, you will stay with us. Let us face it, Primrose, you are not the manner of female a gentleman looks for as a wife.”
It stung.
“So I will never have a season.”
“I think it fair to dismiss that possibility altogether now.”
“What of marrying me off? Has that not always been your goal?”
That was all her mother had ever talked about—getting her four daughters wed.
“You’ve proven tonight just how ineligible you are. Not every girl is suited to wifery. I’ll not have you marry someone and then reveal just how poor a wife you are. I’ll not endure that shame.”
“You think so little of me that you would send me away over this one . . . blunder?”
Mama laughed harshly. “Blunder? You did not wear mismatched shoes or spill tea on your dress, Primrose. You, my girl, have always courted trouble. You are a scandal waiting to happen.” Mama gave a single brusque nod. “Yes. You gone will make life so much easier.”
You gone will make life so much easier. It stung.
When she didn’t think her mother could do or say anything else to hurt her, that still managed to sting. It was a painful lesson to discover she was not quite as invulnerable as she thought.
Mama continued, “You must miss Violet’s wedding, of course, but naught to do about that. I will tell everyone Aunt Bernice was in urgent need of you. At any rate, I will breathe so much easier if I don’t have you to worry about amid the festivities.”
Prim sucked in a breath. Another blow.
“I’ll not go,” she announced, propping her hands on her hips.
Mama stilled. “I beg your pardon?”
“I will not go.” Certainly, they would not send her against her will. Papa would not force her.
“Impudent chit. Who do you think you are?”
Prim lifted her chin much in the manner she had witnessed her mother do over the years. “I’m your daughter.”
“Then be dutiful!” Mama slammed her fist in one open palm. Prim jerked from the force of it, as though she felt that blow on her body. “You’ve proven yourself unworthy. Make amends. And then after you’ve attended yourself most loyally to Aunt Bernice, you will come home to serve me as a companion