The distress in her tone deepened.
“I used to think Ruth a good quiet girl, but since the trick she played me over her marriage I haven’t known what to think. I’ve lain awake o’ nights worrying over it. You’ve heard the whole tale from Mr. Malory. Gentle she was until then, and a good daughter to me, I must say, and then ... gone in a night withouten a sign, and never a word to me in explanation since. What’s a mother to make of that?”
I could have laughed at the poor woman’s perplexity. I thought of the hen whose brood of ducklings takes suddenly to the water.
“But has she never alluded to her ... her elopement?”
“Never a word, I tell you. I asked her once, and she put on a look as black as night, and I never asked her again. I’ve sometimes wished Mr. Malory could speak to her, I’ve a fancy she might answer him freer; and yet I don’t know.”
“I’ve never fully understood,” I said, wishing to make the most of my opportunity, “whether she cares at all for her husband or not?”
“Small wonder that you haven’t understood,” said Mrs. Pennistan tartly, “when her own mother is kept out in the dark. It’s my belief she hates him, and it’s my knowledge that he ill-treats her, but at the same time it’s my instinct she loves him in a way. It sounds a hard thing to say of one’s child, but I’ve always held Ruth was a coarse, rough creature at times under her smoothness.”
She instantly repented of her words.
“There, what am I saying of my own kith and kin? I get mad when I get thinking of my girl, so you mustn’t lay too much store by my talk. Pennistan’d give it me if he heard me.”
I persisted.