"Time enough for that, too. You can't expect the man to work miracles."
Then, with what courage was left me, I tried to say that I had been
taught to think of marriage as a sacrament, instituted by the Almighty
so that those who entered it might live together in union, peace and
love, whereas . . .
But I had to stop, for Aunt Bridget, who had been looking at me with her
hard lip curled, said:
"Tut! That's all right to go to church with on Sunday, but on weekdays
marriage is no moonshine, I can tell you. It's a practical matter. Just
an arrangement for making a home, and getting a family, and bringing up
children--that's what marriage is, if you ask me."
"But don't you think love is necessary?"
"Depends what you mean by love. If you mean what they talk about in
poetry and songs--bleeding hearts and sighs and kisses and all that
nonsense--no!" said my aunt, with a heavy bang on her ironing.
"That's what people mean when they talk about marrying for love, and it
generally ends in poverty and misery, and sensible women have nothing to
do with it. Look at me," she said, spitting on the bottom of her iron,
"do you think I married for love when I married the colonel? No indeed!
'Here's a quiet respectable man with a nice income,' I said, 'and if I
put my little bit to his little bit we'll get along comfortably if he
_is_ a taste in years,' I said. Look at your mother, though. She was one
of the marrying-for-love kind, and if we had let her have her way where
would she have been afterwards with her fifteen years as an invalid? And
where would you have been by this time? No," said Aunt Bridget, bringing
down her flat-iron with a still heavier bang, "a common-sense marriage,
founded on suitability of position and property, and all that, is the
only proper sort of match. And that's what's before you now, girl, so
for goodness' sake don't go about like the parish pan, letting every
busybody make mischief with you. My Betsy wouldn't if she had your
chance--I can tell you that much, my lady."
I did not speak. There was another bang or two of the flat-iron, and
then,
"Besides, love will come. Of course it will. It will come in time. If
you don't exactly love your husband when you marry him you'll love him
later on. A wife ought to teach herself to love her husband. I know I
had to, and if. . . ."
"But if she can't, Auntie?"
"Then she ought to be ashamed of herself, and say nothing about it."
It was useless to say more, so I rose to go.
"Yes, go," said Aunt Bridget. "I'm so bothered with other people's
business that my head's all through-others. And, Mary O'Neill," she
said, looking after me as I passed through the door, "for mercy's sake
do brighten up a hit, and don't look as if marrying a husband was like
taking a dose of jalap. It isn't as bad as that, anyway."
It served me right. I should have known better. My aunt and I spoke
different languages; we stood on different ground.