“It’s him that will have the ultimatum, I should think.”
So Medora went to Priory Farm, and since she knew very well how to please her aunt, made a point of doing so. Indeed, Mrs. Dolbear considered she was much improved.
“I never thought she would rise to children,” said Mary to her sister-in-law, “but of late, I may say, there’s hope in that direction. She’s more patient and quicker to see danger threatening a child. There was a time I wouldn’t have trusted her too far with Milly or Bobby, let alone Jenny; but all that’s altered. She may even be a good mother herself yet in fulness of time.”
Indeed, Medora shone at the farm, and displayed consideration for other people that might hardly have been predicted even by the sanguine. Mary Dolbear was one who gave everybody ample opportunities to be unselfish, and Medora not only perceived these opportunities, but took them. She had changed, and none realised how much better than Lydia. But still the wisdom of any meeting between her daughter and Ned seemed doubtful. She hesitated to bring it about, and was still hesitating when chance accomplished it.
Medora had been at Cornworthy for ten days and once Jordan came to tea during that time. He was full of some alterations in his lecture, but brought no news of interest to his future wife.
Then she went for a walk by the ponds above the Mill, where emerald reflections of alder and willow and birch were washed over the silver surface of the little mere, and a great wealth of green leapt again above the mats and tussocks of the sedge and rush. Golden kingcups flashed along the shallows, and bluebells wove their light into the banks above the water.
Medora was actually engaged in the innocent business of picking flowers when she came plump upon Ned. They met at a narrow beach running into the lake under a limestone crag; and he, too, was there on pleasure, for he was fishing. Strangely enough, each was possessed with the same idea, and seemed to think it necessary to explain to the other the situation in which they stood revealed.
Ned scowled and started; Medora blushed. While he stared, she spoke, without any preliminaries and as though no terrific events separated them. It seemed as if the trivial accident of being there picking flowers demanded first consideration.
“You mustn’t think I’m here for pleasure,” she said. “I’m only killing time. We’ve got to wait your will, and I’ve got to go on living as best as I can. We’re at your mercy.”
He, too, fastened on the moment.