She waved that question down as well. “I’ve kowtowed to her so long, I wouldn’t have the nerve to stand up to her now. For one thing, I live on the property and I’d never hear the end of it.”

“You’re her assistant?”

Bettina laughed. “Oh no. You couldn’t pay me to do a job like that. I help her out of gratitude.”

“For what?”

“Cornelia may be difficult, but she can be kindhearted and generous. She did me a great service many years ago.”

“Which was what?”

“I was abandoned as a child. I grew up in an orphanage. She and your grandfather took me in and raised me as their own. She fostered other children, too, but I was the first.”

“Good news for you. I’m an orphan myself and she didn’t take me in.”

Bettina’s smile faded and she looked at me with concern. “I hope you’ll forgive my saying so, dear, but you seem bitter.”

“No, no. I’m bitter by nature. I always sound like this.”

“Well, I hope I haven’t offended you.”

“Not at all. Why don’t you tell me the story? I’d be fascinated.”

“There’s not much to it. From the ages of five to ten I lived in an institution, the Children’s Haven of Saint Jerome Emiliana. He was the patron saint of orphaned and abandoned little ones. My parents both died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. Any orphanage creates a loose association of pseudo-brothers and -sisters, so I suppose I had a family of sorts. We were fed and we had shelter, but there was little love or affection and no real bond with others. As harsh as this sounds, the nuns were cold. They entered the convent, leaving their families behind, for who knows what reasons. The devout ones didn’t always make it. They became novitiates out of a passion for the church, but the life wasn’t as they imagined it. They were often miserable: home-sick and frightened. Passion doesn’t carry you far, because it’s transitory. The nuns who stayed, those who felt truly at home there, had little to give. Distance suited them.

“When your grandparents plucked me out of that environment they changed the course of my life. I don’t know what would have become of me if I’d remained in the institution until I was of age.”

“You’d have been marked for life like me,” I said.

“What are you talking about, ‘marked for life’? You were raised by your mother’s sister, Virginia. Wasn’t that the case?”

“A mixed blessing if there ever was one.”

“A blessing that counts nonetheless,” she said. She paused to glance at her watch. “I better skedaddle before Cornelia realizes I’m gone. Shall I tell Tasha we can expect you on the twenty-eighth?”

“I’m still thinking about it.”