“It only hurts her—it don’t hurt him. They’ll say I’m bullying a woman, next, and putting him in the right.”
“Only the ignorant would talk like that. But I know your mother-in-law, and I also know Medora. The females of that family want very careful handling, Ned; and in confidence, I may tell you that Mrs. Trivett is being very carefully handled—by me. But Medora is not being carefully handled—quite the contrary. Kellock don’t understand the female mind—how could he with a face like his?”
“What’s that to me?”
“That’s the question. Not that I want an answer. I’m only wishful to put certain facts before you.”
“How did she ever think, in her silliest moments, that man would have any lasting use for her?”
“He got on her blind side, I suppose; for even a remarkable woman, like Medora, has her blind side. Who hasn’t? But the interesting thing for you—and only for you—to consider, is that Medora sees straight again.”
“That’s her mother says that. I don’t believe it. She’s a lot too conceited to admit that she made an infernal fool of herself. She’d rather go miserable to her grave than give herself away.”
“You naturally think so, having no idea what a power there is in the clash of opposite characters. Medora is proud, and has a right to be, because she is beautiful and very fine stuff, given the right nature to mould her. And she thought—mistaken girl—because you were easy and good tempered, and liked to see her happy, that you weren’t strong enough. That’s why, in a moment of youthful folly, she went over to Kellock, before she knew anything whatever about the man’s true character. Now, of course, she finds her mistake. And don’t think I’m getting this from Mrs. Trivett. One wouldn’t take her opinion, being the girl’s mother. No, I had it from Medora herself. I happened by chance to meet her, and gave her ‘good day,’ for I don’t make other people’s quarrels mine; and we had a bit of a yarn; and I won’t disguise from you, Ned, that I saw the punishment was fitting the crime all right. She’s got a good brain, and every day that passes over her head is enlarging that brain. She’ll be a valuable wife for somebody some day; but not for Kellock. She sees Kellock now in the cold light of truth. She don’t run him down, or anything rude like that; but she just talks about him and his character like a sister might. My word, she’s clever! She said that living with Kellock would be like living in moonlight. Did you ever hear a sharper thought? That just describes it. And where’s the woman that wants to live in moonlight? You see, she knows. She didn’t come to Kellock without experience of the other thing. After you, of course, a cold creature like him is like milk after treble X. I feel it myself. Not a word against Kellock, mind you—he was utterly misled, and came a cropper, too; but he’s got the virtues of his failings, and being ice, he behaved as such, and has always treated her just the same as he’d have treated his maiden aunt—except he’d have kissed his aunt, but not Medora. So I put it before you, and leave you to turn over the peculiar circumstances, Ned. As I say, the punishment is going on very steady, and your tactics couldn’t be beat in my judgment. They deserve to suffer; and she does; and if Kellock weren’t so darned busy about what matters to him more, he’d be suffering too.”
“He will, when I knock all his savings out of him.”
“No, he won’t—that would only hit her. He’s got no use for money. He don’t want more than the clothes he stands up in. But it ain’t my business to bother you about what you’re very well equal to manage yourself. I really came for quite a different reason, and that’s the Mill. Bulstrode is going. He can’t stick Ernest Trood, and Trood can’t stick him. It happened yesterday, and in a month from now we must have a new beaterman. You might not have heard that. Not that you’ll come back, of course; but in your wanderings you may have heard of somebody?”