“After you settle in, Mrs. Dixon, I’d like to show you where we will set the entire affair, the altar, the chairs, and the tables. There will be bars on four ends and at least fifty people serving and caring for our guests. I have three different service uniforms on a table in the Foxworth ballroom from which you can choose. Afterward, perhaps at dinner, I’d like to discuss the music and complete the menu with you.

“That banging and knocking you hear is coming from the area for the wedding. I’m having a stage constructed and painted. As to the supervision of the food preparation, I have a wonderful cook, Marion Wilson, whom”—he leaned in to whisper—“I stole away from an English lord. She’s quite familiar with planning large events, and she will have an army of assistants.

“Mrs. Steiner, who has been with me a while now, will escort you to your chambers, and Lucas will see to your luggage.”

He finally stopped to take a breath, but before my mother could utter a word, he turned to my father and said, “Aren’t we lucky to have so fine a day for all this, Harrington?”

“You mean you didn’t arrange it?” my father said, and Garland laughed.

He shifted his eyes. “Of course, I should offer you something to help you relax a bit first, Harrington. The women can see to the chambers. Better than we can, I’m sure,” he added, laughing. “My mother used to tell me I could sleep in a pigsty. Sometimes, when you do as much traveling as I do, you don’t sleep in quarters much better than that, but you’re too exhausted to care.

“So? We can go to my study and wait for them before touring the grounds? Talk a little bank business, perhaps. Mrs. Dixon wouldn’t mind?”

“No. I’m sure it’s fine,” my father said before my mother could reply.

My mother smirked. I thought she was going to complain, but when we entered and she saw the art, the family portraits, the impressive stairways, the ceilings, and the vastness of it all, she was struck speechless. Mrs. Steiner barely glanced at me and led us up to our bedrooms. My mother gasped at the height of the bedroom ceiling. Her eyes were scanning everything like someone who had been kept in the dark for years. Not a single work of art, sculpture, sconce, or chandelier escaped her interest and questions. Just before Mrs. Steiner brought her to what would be her and my father’s room, she turned to me.

“Have you even an iota of an idea of the wealth displayed just in this part of the house?”