Mary shook her head. "It's no use. Richard is so ... well, so queer in some ways, Tilly. Besides, you know, I don't think it would be right of me to really pit my will against his."
"Poor little you!—Oh! men are queer fish, Mary, aren't they? Not that I can complain; I drew a prize in the lucky-bag when I took that old Jawkins in there. But when I look round me, or think back, and see what we women put up with! There was poor old ma; she 'ad to be man for both. And Jinn, Mary, who didn't dare to call 'er soul 'er own. And milady Agnes is travelling the selfsame road—why, she 'as to cock 'er eye at Henry nowadays before she trusts 'erself to say whether it's beef or mutton she's eating! And now 'ere's you, love, carted off with never a with-your-leave or by-your-leave, just because the doctor's tired of it and thinks 'e'd like a change. There's no question of whether you're tired or not—oh, my, no!"
"But he has to earn the money, Tilly. It isn't quite fair to put it that way," protested her friend.
"Well! I don't know, Mary, I'm sure," and Tilly's plump person rose and sank in a prodigious sigh. "But if I was 'is wife 'e wouldn't get off so easy—I know that! It makes me just boil."
Mary answered with a rueful smile. She could never be angry with Richard in cold blood, or for long together.
As time went on, though, and the break-up of her home began—by the auctioneer's man appearing to paw over and appraise the furniture—a certain dull resentment did sometimes come uppermost. Under its sway she had forcibly to remind herself what a good husband Richard had always been; had to tell off his qualities one by one, instead of taking them as hitherto for granted. No, her quarrel, she began to see, was not so much with him as with the Powers above. Why should HER husband alone not be as robust and hardy as all the other husbands in the place? None of THEIR healths threatened to fail, nor did any of them find the conditions of the life intolerable. That was another shabby trick Fate had played Richard in not endowing him with worldly wisdom, and a healthy itch to succeed. Instead of that, he had been blessed with ideas and impulses that stood directly in his way.—And it was here that Mary bore more than one of her private ambitions for him to its grave. A new expression came into her eyes, too—an unsure, baffled look. Life was not, after all, going to be the simple, straightforward affair she had believed. Thus far, save for the one unhappy business with Purdy, wrongs and complications had passed her by. Now she saw that no more than anyone else could she hope to escape them.
Out of this frame of mind she wrote a long, confidential letter to John: John must not be left in ignorance of what hung over her; it was also a relief to unbosom herself to one of her own family. And John was good enough to travel up expressly to talk things over with her, and, as he put it, to "call Richard to order." Like every one else he showed the whites of his eyes at the latter's flimsy reasons for seeking a change. But when, in spite of her warning, he bearded his brother-in-law with a jocose and hearty: "Come, come, my dear Mahony! what's all this? You're actually thinking of giving us the slip?" Richard took his interference so badly, became so agitated over the head of the harmless question that John's airy remonstrance died in his throat.
"Mad as a March hare!" was his private verdict, as he shook down his ruffled plumes. To Mary he said ponderously: "Well, upon my soul, my dear girl, I don't know—I am frankly at a loss what to say. Measured by every practical standard, the step he contemplates is little short of suicidal. I fear he will live to regret it."
And Mary, who had not expected anything from John's intervention, and also knew the grounds for Richard's heat—Mary now resigned herself, with the best grace she could muster, to the inevitable.