Until Aggie was fifteen everything went along as 'normal'. Natalie was the child everyone protected. Dad had been slowiy tutoring Hennry about what he needed to know about running the farm. Making us think that Henry might be the heir though Aggie was never told that the will had been changed. Henry was not learning as quickly as my father had expected and was getting frustrated with Henry. Father kept threatening Henry that he would start teaching Aggie it he didn't catch on. This reunited animosity between the two oldest children that seemed the least grown up. I just watched things happen and wasn't noticed unless I tried to calm them down. I quickly that I should stop doing this.
At first, I didn't mind being ignored. But as time went on, it began to bother me. I didn't know how to change this. I think everyone doting on Natalie gave her low self-confidence and soon she stopped trying new things or speaking up for herself. She almost seemed a mute everywhere but in our bedroom.
At night, I tried my best to keep Natalie talking about things she wanted to do and how to tell Aggie and Daniel to let her do them. But she was naturally shy and she always seemed to become very small around her older siblings. Ever time she tried to assert herself, she'd try one and then back down. I also told her about how I felt about being left out of everything. She just shrugged and didn't seem to know what to say, for we were sort of in the same boat.
Mother began training Aggie for society parties, away from our house, that she would attend after her coming-out party. She taught her usually pompous, but now nervous, daughter how to greet guests with titles, the steps to the fancy dances that adults did at these parties, and the right silverware to use for the different courses. Also, the polite way to take appetizers off trays. For the dances she used Henry as her partner. I watched through the open doors, a little jealous that I couldn't join in.
At the balls my hosted, we were sometimes, but not often, allowed to attend the first hour of dancing after we ate dinner with our guests. We tried to copy the adults' steps as we hid in a corner of the room where my mother placed us. After that hour, we were sent to bed.
When debutante ball day arrived, Aggie was dressed in a new gown of different shades of rose that mother thought brought out her coloring best. Her hair was up in a bun with curled tendrils on each side of her face. In front of the bun was a tiara to match her earrings and bracelet.
The three of us dressed nicely but not to out shine Aggie. We were told to not draw attention to ourselves and to help direct he eligible boys toward Aggie, if they weren't going to her themselves.
The ballroom was decorated to match Aggie's dress as much as possible. The lights in the sconces had colored screens to give them a pinkish glow and the linens matched one of the shades in her dress. The chandeliers over the dance floor were the only lights that weren't dimmed. That was to prevent any dancers from tripping. She would have one dance with each boy my mother motioned to us to point towards her. Any boy she danced with a second time would be accepted as a suitor.
When my mother saw her choose a boy for the second time, she would hand the boy's mother an invitation for her son to visit her at our house. If the boy passed the house meeting, then his mother was called to join mother and the possible new couple on a walk through the park. If more than one boy received this honor, then there would be a discussion about which one would be the best choice for a possible engagement. It seemed more important to my mother that the boy was rich than that Aggie liked one boy more than the other. Money was always more important to my parents, it seemed, than their children's happiness. I think my mother thought that since her arranged marriage to my father ended int love that this would happen for her daughters also. This showed my mother refused to believe that despite so many unhappy marriages between her friends, that this wouldn't happen to her children. I bit of wishful thinking on her part.
It seemed to me an odd way to pick a husband, but gave the adults the benefit of the doubt that they knew what they were doing. I was glad I was five years away from this stress. Hoping the method would change by then.