“Well, she went away without warning, and forfeits her money accordingly. You know the law on that subject.”
“That’s all right,” said Kellock. “She didn’t mean nothing uncivil or improper, but the circumstances required her to act as she did.”
Trood nodded and left him. In common with most of the other responsible men in the Mill, he never addressed Kellock on the subject of Medora. Jordan noticed this, and felt that though people abstained from comment, his action had created a body of opinion that was to some extent unfriendly. None hesitated to regret the departure of Ned Dingle, and none attempted to conceal that regret in the presence of Kellock. A few men refused to recognise him farther, and when he saluted them as usual, cut him. Robert Life was one of these, and he found that those who came immediately under the influence of Nicholas Pinhey—the men at the glazing rollers—had been imbued with particular animosity. There Medora herself had worked.
As for her, she lived through a familiar experience, and discovered that anticipation is greater than reality, both for good and evil. She had built up a very elaborate picture of her return to Dene, and of the attitude of her circle. It was a vision wherein she occupied the centre, as a being mysterious and arresting, a figure to challenge hatred, or enthusiasm, a compelling heroine, who might provoke furious enemies, or win loyal friends, but could by no possibility leave anyone indifferent. She had pictured herself as the protagonist, the cynosure, the paramount object of interest. When she walked abroad in her London clothes, all eyes would be upon her, and she would move among them, gentle, indifferent, inscrutable, her secrets hidden, herself doubtless a subject of ceaseless and heated discussion.
But she missed the least consciousness of creating a sensation; she even missed the unpleasantness which she had designed to endure so finely, that Jordan might see the superb stuff of which she was really made. The limelight of public attention was wanting, and her return fell almost as flat as when she had come home from her honeymoon with Ned Dingle. So far as Medora could see, nobody really cared a button about her. She met with the same experiences as Jordan, but took them differently. He returned to his occupation and, in the full tide of work, was able to keep his mind free of his private affairs, and find other interests among his fellow craftsmen. But Medora had no distraction during this period. She possessed not even a house to look after, until Kellock found a house. Following on the first clash with her fellow creatures, and the discovery that some were amiable as usual, and some unprepared to recognise her, or have anything more to do with her, Medora began to be unspeakably bored with life and this flat anticlimax. The spring days dragged, and she knew not how to fill them. But her partner, perceiving this, set her a variety of tasks, and she found herself making notes for him from books, and copying extracts out of speeches delivered by the leaders of labour’s cause. At first she performed her tasks with energy, and Kellock praised her devotion; but he blamed her handwriting, which was very indifferent.
“Some day I’ll run to a typewriter,” he had promised.
The matter upon which he occupied her quite failed to interest Medora. It was dreary in itself and depressing in all that it implied, because their future, so far as she could see, held mighty little promise of much comfort or prosperity, if Jordan proposed to devote his life to these thorny and controversial subjects. It was magnificent, and might mean fame for him after he was dead; but promised remarkably little fun for Mrs. Kellock in the meantime.
Daisy Finch proved faithful and often came to see Medora at “The Waterman’s Arms.” She believed that the opposition need not be taken seriously.
“It’s only a nine days’ wonder,” declared Daisy. “When you’re married to Mr. Kellock, everybody will come round.”
Then Miss Finch plunged into her own affairs. She was betrothed to Kellock’s coucher at the Mill, one Harold Spry.