"Do you want to tell me, sweetheart?" she asked.
"I hate her," Amy said. "I don't want Papa to marry her."
"Whom?"Jane asked. "Whom is Papa going to marry?"
"The pretty lady," Amy said. "Miss Jamieson."
"No," Jane said. "I don't think so, sweetheart. Papa is not going to marry Miss Jamieson."
"He made me stay in my room tonight because I was rude to her," Amy said. "And I was not even allowed to paint."
Jane smoothed the hair from Amy's forehead and kissed it. "Did he?" she said. "And were you rude, Amy? If you were, Papa punished you because he loves you and wants you to be the best little girl you possibly can be. It is not because he is going to marry Miss Jamieson."
"Promise?" the child begged, looking up with pleading eyes.
Jane hesitated. "I cannot quite do that, sweetheart," she said. "But I am as sure as I can be. Would it be so bad if he did? Would you not like to have a new mama?"
The child's eyes widened in horror."No!" she said, and she began to cry again. "Not another mama, Aunt Jane. I don't want another mama. She will hate me!"
"Hate you?" Jane said. "Whatever gave you that idea, Amy? Mamas always love their little girls. Your mama loved you. Do you not believe a new mama would do so too?"
"No," Amy wailed. "Mama hated me. She said I was ugly and a nuisance and I wasn't a boy. She said Papa did not love me because I was not a boy. But that is not true. Papa loves me. He does love me, Aunt Jane, doesn't he? Papa does love me."
She was crying with loud sobs again. Jane hugged her close, rubbing a hand soothingly over her back.
Chapter Fifteen
Jane said nothing for a long while. She felt almost paralyzed by shock. And what could she say to undo the harm that a mother had done to a child who was no more than three years old when she died?
"Of course Papa loves you, sweetheart," she said eventually. "You do not really need me to say that, do you? You know it for yourself. And I know that Papa could not possibly love you or Claire one bit more if you were boys. Of course Papa loves you."
"Am I ugly, Aunt Jane?" the child asked, her sobs having subsided again.
"You certainly are not, Amy," Jane said. She chose her words with care. It was important to be quite honest with the girl, she knew. "You are not pretty either, you know, not in the way Claire is. But I am going to tell you something important. You are going to grow up to be a very handsome young lady. I will wager that by the time you are sixteenPapawill be beating the young men back from the door."
Amy snorted with mirth, her laughter somehow getting all tied up with a leftover sob.
"And handsome ladies usually stay handsome all their lives," Jane said. "Pretty ladies have to work hard to keep their prettiness once they grow older."
"Older than twenty?"Amy asked.
"Yes," Jane agreed gravely.
"Aunt Jane," the child asked, her hands playing with a button on Jane's nightgown, "do you love me?"
"Well, Amy," Jane said, her voice amazed, "of course I do. Did you not know it without asking me?"
"Do you love Claire more than me?" Amy asked timidly.
"No, I do not," Jane said.
"She is prettier than I am," said Amy.
"Yes, she is," Jane agreed. "And you are more handsome than she. But I will tell you a little secret, sweetheart. I would love both you and Claire even if you were as ugly as…As what?"
"A wicked witch?" the child suggested.
"A wicked witch," Jane said. "And I would love you equally. You and Claire are very different from each other, and both of you are very dear. You do not ever have to compete with Claire, you know."
