And Miss Oldcastle drew herself up with more expression of pride than I had yet seen in her, revealing to me that perhaps I had hitherto quite misunderstood the source of her apparent haughtiness. I could not reply for indignation. My silence must have been the cause of what she said next.
“Ah! you think I have no right to speak so about my own mother! Well! well! But indeed I would not have done so a month ago.”
“If I am silent, Miss Oldcastle, it is that my sympathy is too strong for me. There are mothers and mothers. And for a mother not to be a mother is too dreadful.”
She made no reply. I resumed.
“It will seem cruel, perhaps;—certainly in saying it, I lay myself open to the rejoinder that talk is SO easy;—still I shall feel more honest when I have said it: the only thing I feel should be altered in your conduct—forgive me—is that you should DARE your mother. Do not think, for it is an unfortunate phrase, that my meaning is a vulgar one. If it were, I should at least know better than to utter it to you. What I mean is, that you ought to be able to be and do the same before your mother’s eyes, that you are and do when she is out of sight. I mean that you should look in your mother’s eyes, and do what is RIGHT.”
“I KNOW that—know it WELL.” (She emphasized the words as I do.) “But you do not know what a spell she casts upon me; how impossible it is to do as you say.”
“Difficult, I allow. Impossible, not. You will never be free till you do so.”
“You are too hard upon me. Besides, though you will scarcely be able to believe it now, I DO honour her, and cannot help feeling that by doing as I do, I avoid irreverence, impertinence, rudeness—whichever is the right word for what I mean.”
“I understand you perfectly. But the truth is more than propriety of behaviour, even to a parent; and indeed has in it a deeper reverence, or the germ of it at least, than any adherence to the mere code of respect. If you once did as I want you to do, you would find that in reality you both revered and loved your mother more than you do now.”
“You may be right. But I am certain you speak without any real idea of the difficulty.”