Dingle, satisfied with his pupil, put on his coat when the dinner bell rang, the steam pulses of the works subsided and the power stopped. He took his basket and descended a long flight of steps to the vat room, where Kellock, Life and the other paper makers had just knocked off work. Others joined them, for the vast and airy vat room was a favourite place for dinner; but Medora did not come. For several weeks now she had ceased to meet Ned at the hour of the mid-day meal. The fact was, of course, noted and debated behind Dingle’s back; but none spoke of it in front of him.
The change in Medora at this stage of her existence was obvious enough to all; while that which marked her husband did not appear so clearly. The reason had been easy to see, though few knew enough about them to see it. Medora, while really disingenuous, revealed her tribulation, because she desired everybody to perceive it; while Ned, naturally an open and simple creature, endeavoured with the instinct of a decent male to hide his worries from the public eye. He failed, however, because he was not built to play a part, while Medora succeeded to perfection. Thus she created an impression of secret woes that did not really exist, while Ned attempted to conceal anxieties which were real enough. His temper suffered under a strain that he was not created to endure, for his wife’s attitude, having first puzzled him, began to anger him. He lost his temper with her on certain occasions and her sublime patience under his rough tongue by no means turned his wrath from her. For nothing is more maddening, if you are the smiter, than to have the other cheek turned to you by a sufferer, who displays obvious gusto at your chastisement. Ned soon saw that Medora liked him to be violent and brutal. It was meat and drink to her to see him in a rage. He guessed, and not wrongly, that if he had beaten her, she must have relished the pain—not for itself, but for the exquisite pleasure of relating her sufferings to other people afterwards.
She was changed, as any woman is who for pleasure or profit plays a part. Indeed many persist in such histrionics when profit has long ceased, for simple artistic delight at the impersonation. It is natural to prefer a rôle which we can perform to perfection, before others wherein we are not so effective.
The suffering and wronged and ill-treated heroine proved an impersonation that suited Medora’s temperament exactly, and having once assumed it, she promised to persist in it beyond the limits of her husband’s patience. She would doubtless tire sooner or later, since it is the instinct of every actor to desire new parts and new successes; but she was not going to tire of it while she made such a hit, won so much attention and created such a dramatic and exciting atmosphere about her. In fact Medora now felt herself to be the centre of her own little stage, and the experience so much delighted her that it was difficult sometimes to retain the air of crushed, Christian resignation proper to the character.
But the situation she had created out of nothing real, now developed and began to take unto itself dangerous elements of reality. Such theatricals do not stand still, and instead of subsiding, as Lydia hoped it would, Mrs. Dingle’s objections and grievances, woven of gossamer at first, began to grow tougher. She guessed that she would catch more than herself in these elaborate reticulations, and she persisted until she found another was becoming entangled also.
At first, to do her justice, Medora hesitated here. But she could not pour her woes into Kellock’s ears without a reaction from him, and his attitude towards her confession naturally influenced her. For, while some of her elders suspected, according to the measure of their wits, that Medora was acting, one man saw no shadow of deception. Every word rang true on his ear, for circumstances combined hopelessly to hoodwink him. His own serious nature, from which any powers of illusion or sleight were excluded, read nothing but the face value into Medora’s woeful countenance and the word value into her hopeless speeches. Not for him to answer mock heroics with banter, or reply to burlesque with irony. Had he been made of different stuff, he might have saved Medora from herself at this season; but being himself, the admirable man was terribly perturbed and indeed found himself beset with sore questions and problems from which both his character and personal attitude to the girl precluded escape. For he loved her, and the fact that she was an unhappy woman did not lessen his love; while, beyond that, his altruistic instincts must have brought him into a delicate complication in any case when once invited to participate. And now he did enter, with motives that could not honestly be considered mixed, for he was thus far influenced only by a conviction that it might be possible to help both sufferers to a better understanding. He knew that he enjoyed a far larger measure of intellect than Ned, and he felt that to shirk an effort for Medora’s sake would be cowardly. He had indeed convinced himself that it was his duty to act.
He proceeded to tackle Ned, but he approached the task without the attitude of mind vital to success. For success in such a ticklish matter demanded in Kellock a standpoint of absolute impartiality. He must, if he were to do any good whatever, come to Dingle with a mind as open and unprejudiced as possible; whereas, though he knew it not, Jordan’s mind by no means stood in that relation to the pair. Had it done so, he had probably not interfered; for in truth it could not be altruism alone that prompted him to the step he was now about to take, but a very active and sincere sympathy for Medora in her alleged griefs. He believed her with all his heart and he had a great deal more concern for Mrs. Dingle’s point of view, which he accepted, than for her husband’s, which he had neither heard nor considered.
The men had eaten their dinner, and Ned, out of a cheerful demeanour, which he brought from his work, presently sank into taciturnity. From no will to do so, but powerlessness to prevent it, he showed those about him that his thoughts were not pleasant. Indeed the most casual had noticed that he was of late only himself in the engine house, and that nothing but work sufficed to take him out of himself. Away from it, he brooded and did not chatter and jest as of old.
To-day he was more than usually abstracted and Kellock seized the opportunity. Ned’s meal was finished in ten minutes and when he began to stuff his pipe, the other asked him to come for a stroll up the valley.
“Let’s go up to the ponds and see if there are any birds about, Ned,” he said.