The tears gathered in Bertilla’s eyes and she stood irresolute, looking at the door that had closed behind her mother.
She had always felt unwanted ever since her father had died, but she had not realised that her mother positively disliked her.
“You will be very pretty when you are grown up, my dear,” her father had said to her once, “but thank goodness, as you are such a different type from your mother, there need be no rivalry between you.”
Bertilla had at the time been surprised that he should imply that there could ever be such a thing.
‘I am certain that I could not rival anyone as beautiful as my mother,’ she had said to herself.
And surely it was absurd to think that there could ever be any competition between a mother and her daughter?
Now she knew instinctively that her mot
