“I dare say it is. You’ve got to wait the will of other people now, Medora; and it’s a thing you never much liked doing.”
“But I’m not friendless—I’m not friendless,” she said fiercely. “To hear Jordan talk, you’d think he’s the only thing that stands between me and the streets; and I won’t have it. People don’t hate me—not all of them. But you’d imagine that, without Jordan, there’d be no place on earth for me now.”
“I thought he was very gentle and proper in his treatment,” said Mrs. Trivett.
“I can’t explain. I only mean that he seems to think that if it wasn’t for his watchful care, and coming between me and every wind that blows, I’d be torn to pieces by my fellow creatures. And what about him? If I did wrong, what about him?”
“It’s rather late in the day to talk like that.”
“I want him to see all the same that I’m not a lone, friendless, outcast creature, without anyone to care for me. I don’t like to be championed by him, as if I was a fallen woman, and he was a saint. I won’t have it, I tell you. I’m not a fallen woman any more than he’s a fallen man, and I want him to know the world isn’t against me any more than it’s against him.”
Lydia was surprised.
“This all seems silly nonsense to me,” she said. “If you had anything to do, you’d not waste time worrying over things like that.”
“You can’t understand, mother. It’s like being patronised in a sort of way, and Jordan shan’t patronise me. At any rate, I want to come to Priory Farm for a bit—just to show him I’m not dependent on him, and have got a few good relations in the world. Surely, I might do that—just for a week or two—till he has got this blessed lecture off his mind? I know all he is, and I love the ground he walks on; but, along of one thing and another, he’s not quite taking me in the right spirit for the moment, and I do think it would be a very wise thing if I was to come to you for a week or so. Please let me. They won’t mind there. They’d do anything you wished. It would show Jordan in a ladylike way, without any unpleasantness, that I’m somebody still.”
“Surely to God, you don’t want to leave him?” asked Lydia.