I just finished reading the book for the first time.
Fascinating.
It seems clear in the book Kitty really thought Charlie was the father - though she wasn't quite certain.
I kind of like the "Lucifer principle" sociobiology theory. (Book by Howard Bloom.) And this novel had that in spades. All that peer pressure and social status ("pecking order") motivational concerns of Kitty and her mother, and even Charlie.
In this book Kitty never actually loved her quiet man husband - nor her own father who was just the same! Only at the end was she determined to LEARN to love her own father.
An interesting differing view of human female nature is that short story "The Quiet Man" first published in 1933 (vs. 1925 for this book) by an Irish author employed in British service, Maurice Walsh. In his story the courted woman married another small and quiet man (John Wayne cast in the movie was completely different!) who nonetheless fell "head over heels in love" with her own husband the first time their marriage was consummated. (But then she STILL had her own pecking order status concerns with how he acted around her bully and higher social status brother.)
For Kitty, obviously, this never happened with Walter - just "romantic" foolishness she had over Charlie and then reinforced after she had such "great sex" with him.
After reading the book I don't think Kitty was stupid, silly, or insane. She was just the product of her own family with a very dominant mother and the society she grew up in and really didn't bother thinking about or understanding anything deeper. It was merely shallowness begetting ever more shallowness.
Poor Walter was really the dumb one, after all. And he realized this with his last words to Kitty (in the book) "The dog it was that died."
Waddington finally told Kitty these words were from Goldsmith's elegy - the last four verses:
This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.
Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.
The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
http://graduate.engl.virginia.edu/enec981/dictionary/24goldsmithD2.html
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