“Yes—I knew then,” she continued, in a low voice and still looking down. “I knew how much it had all meant. And I began to hate you. Don’t be horrified, child. I loved you just as much, but I hated you, too. How funny that sounds! But I can’t say it any other way. It wasn’t you I hated—at least it wasn’t the same you that I loved. It was your face, and your freshness, and your youth—and that walk of yours. I wanted you to be all covered up, so that no one could see you—then I should have loved you just as much and in just the same way as ever. Do you understand? I want you to understand. You must, or I shall never be a happy woman again. What I suffered! So I made you suffer, too. Do you know what I thought? You must know everything now. I thought that if I could separate you and Jack and make you marry some one else—since you couldn’t marry him—why, then you’d have been away somewhere else, and I could feel again that I was quite beautiful. Only for a month—one month! If I could only have that feeling of being perfectly beautiful again—just for one month.”
She bowed her head again and hid her face in the pillow, for she was blushing with shame—the good red shame that honest blood brings from a sinful heart. The sight of the blush pained Katharine far more than the thought of what caused it.
“Mother dear—” she stroked the golden hair—“it’s all over now. What does it matter? You don’t hate me now!”
“Hate you! Ah, Katharine—I never hated you without loving you just as much. I never said those hateful things but what the loving ones fought them and came out when I was all alone. The moment you were gone, it was all different. The moment I didn’t have to look at you—and think of myself, and the little wrinkles. Oh, the vile, horrid little wrinkles—what they’ve cost me! And what they’ve made me do! And they’re growing deeper—to punish me—pity me, dear, if you can’t forgive me—”
“Ah—don’t talk like that! I never guessed it, and now—why, I shall never think of it again. Unless I have a daughter some day—and then I daresay I shall feel just as you’ve felt. It seems so natural, somehow—now that you’ve explained it.”
“Does it? Does it seem natural to you? Are you sure you understand?” Mrs. Lauderdale looked up anxiously.
“Of course I understand!” answered Katharine, reassuring her. “You’ve always been the most beautiful woman everywhere, and just for a little while you thought you weren’t, because you were tired and not looking well. You remember how tired you used to be last winter, mother, when you were working so hard and then dancing every night, into the bargain. It was no wonder! But you are, you know—you’re quite the most beautiful creature I ever saw, and you always will be.”
Yet Katharine in her heart, though she was comforting her mother and really helping her with every word she said, was by no means sure that she quite understood it all. At least, it was very strange to her, being altogether foreign to her own nature. With all his faults, her father had scarcely a trace of personal vanity, and she had inherited much of her character from him. The absence of avarice, as a mainspring which directed his life, and the presence of a certain delicacy of human feeling, together with a good share of her mother’s wit, were the chief causes of the wide difference between her and Alexander. It was hard for one so very proud and so little vain to understand how, in her mother, vanity could so easily have driven pride out. Yet she did her best to imagine herself in a like position, and was quite willing to believe that she might have acted in the same way.
“Thank you, dear child,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, simply. “I don’t know why I’ve told you all this just this morning. I’ve been trying to for a long time. But I hadn’t the courage, I suppose. And now—somehow—we’re more alone in the world than we were, since the dear old uncle has gone—and we shall be more to each other. I feel it. I don’t know whether you do.”
“Yes—I do.” And Katharine’s thoughts again went back to that strange death-scene in the night, in the white room with the soft, warm light. “We shall miss him more, by and by. He was a very live man. Do you know what I mean? Whatever one did, one always felt that he was there. It wasn’t because he was so rich—though, of course, we all have had the sensation of a great power behind us—a sort of overwhelming reserve against fate, don’t you know? But it really wasn’t that. He was such a man! Do you know? I can’t fancy that uncle Robert ever did a bad thing in his life. I don’t mean starchy, stodgy goodness. He swore at papa most tremendously yesterday—only yesterday—just think!” She paused a moment sadly. “No,” she continued, “I don’t mean that. He always seemed to go straight when every one else went crooked—straight to the end, as well as he could. Oh, mother—I saw him die, you know! I didn’t know death was like that!”