Margaret inclined her head. “As you have said, sir, I was an outsider. I do not imagine I have the answers you seek.”
“Mrs Thornton—” Crenshaw spoke to Margaret but glanced to John with an apologetic smile—“I beg to differ. You seem to have rather deep opinions on the matter, and I would wager they might be more objective and informed than the perspectives of many others. This point interests me very much. Do you think last year’s strike could have been prevented, had this matter been resolved somehow?”
She hesitated, blinking those dark lashes. “Naturally, it would have… but I am sure that such a solution is beyond my powers to offer, sir.”
“But you were sympathetic to both sides, were you not?” Lennox put in. “Surely you did not condone the way the masters had been treating their workers?”
“Of course not, but neither can I approve of violence and open rebellion in the streets,” she answered quickly. “I can only summarise by stating that there was provocation on both sides.”
“Was not Mr Thornton the man who gained a reputation for not bargaining with the unions when he brought in Irish workers?” Crenshaw laughed. “Provocation, indeed!”
Margaret’s cheeks deepened to a crimson blush, and she glanced guiltily in his direction. John leaned back in his chair. It was not his place to answer, but his expression was calculated to intimidate Crenshaw and Lennox into silence, if possible. It was not to be—in fact, his growing irritation only seemed to fuel their improper curiosity.
Margaret fingered her glass. “I think all sides learned a great deal from those strikes,” she faltered. “And all are still paying the price.”
“What can you mean by that, Mrs Thornton?” Mr Harvey asked. The rest of the table seemed intent upon the subject as well.
Margaret risked another glance down towards John, who had leaned forward again to catch her expression. She paused, and looked as if she would make no answer, but Harvey spoke up again.
“Perhaps I should ask more specifically regarding my own question, Mrs Thornton. Mr Lennox asked earlier if you thought the general living conditions in Milton have worsened the influenza outbreak. Do you think the lingering effects of the strike and the poor pay of the workers have exacerbated the issue?”
“I…” she shook her head again. “I do not feel it is my place to speak on that.”
John could contain himself no longer. “I must correct one point, sir, as Mrs Thornton has demurred. These questions have no basis, for we have already established that my workers are better paid than others, and the strike, as you have said, was a year ago.”
“Forgive me, Mr Thornton, but I spoke in reflection of Mrs Thornton’s statement about the cost of living in the city in comparison to such pay, for they must live where they work, is that not correct? Mrs Thornton, you mentioned extreme privation—have you indeed seen cases where a family was close to starving?”
John’s face heated in anger. What sort of gentleman openly interrogated a lady at dinner and then cut off her husband when he attempted to speak in her defence? And what sort of host did not redirect the conversation?
Margaret was staring at the table now, blinking as if she wished she could refuse to answer. Every eye was on her, however, and John could say nothing without making matters even more uncomfortable.
“I… have seen it,” she confessed. “The wife and children of a man driven mad with desperation during the strike—he despaired and took his own life.”
A few voices hummed indistinctly.
“Good heavens,” Lennox murmured in sympathy. “The children did not starve, did they?”
“They became orphans—the mother did not long outlive her husband.”
“But surely, someone must have been in a position to offer some aid!” cried the gentleman. “Who is it to take an interest in the orphans of factory workers? What of the mill owners or the Union?”
“In the end, it was neither,” she answered, a hint of pride glowing in her cheeks. “A neighbour, a kind soul who had neither liking for, nor responsibility to the dead man, took all six children as his own.”
John watched as a few heads shook—some in gloomy doubt, but some in clear approval.
“I take it this is a friend of yours, Mrs Thornton. The man is to be commended,” Lennox smiled, even raised his glass slightly.
“Indeed,” Crenshaw agreed, “but this is a great wrong! Why was there not someone of better resources to take up the task? What of their precious Union? What is it for, but to see to the workers? And what of the bosses, who were certainly making their own fortune off the dead man while he lived? Have they not the responsibility to look after their own workers?”
Margaret gazed back in silent attendance, not fluttering even an eyelash. Crenshaw tilted his head, but when she seemed as if she intended no answer, he sighed and drained the contents of his wineglass.
“Do you not agree?” Lennox prompted softly at Margaret’s elbow.
She swallowed and looked to her companion. “Yes… I mean, no… perhaps another could have… it is not so simple as you say.”
“Who was the man’s employer, Mrs Thornton?”
She glanced up, then her gaze fell to the table again. “Mr Thornton.”
~
The last of the guests finally received their coats and bade their hosts a good evening. Margaret rested her hand on John’s arm, but it was stiff and unreceptive to her touch. She had puzzled over his behaviour all night, but there was no opportunity to ask what had troubled him. There was an indignant set to his chin as he made his short bows. His manners had been abrupt after dinner, his attitude speaking clearly that he would rather be anywhere else in the world than in the same room with these Londoners.
For her own part, she had forced a smile and made light of his dry quips, as if it were his natural caprices surfacing rather than a simmering resentment towards some unknown object. She had so wished for everyone to be impressed by him—his manners were always impeccable, his intelligence and good sense unparalleled among his peers. With ladies he was always gracious, with gentleman always witty and clever. Why should he alter so materially in the presence of Edith’s guests?
He was no longer looking at the door as it closed. Neither was anyone else, for everyone had sensed a growing discomfort among the residents of the house. The party all made paltry excuses to retire at once, claiming fatigue or some grand schemes for the morrow.
Margaret, eager to speak with John alone, bade her cousin a good evening as gracefully as she could, and asked her husband to escort her up the stairs. He gave her his arm, still refusing to meet her eyes. At her door, he released her with a tight, “Good evening.”
“John, will you not come in? I have not seen you all week and we have hardly spoken today.”
He looked down the hall towards the stair, raised his hand in a gesture of acceptance, but stopped just inside the door. She smiled in welcome and reached to touch him, but he put his hands stiffly behind his back, as if he were a martyr waiting for the pyres to be lighted.
“John, what is troubling you? I have seldom seen you look so unhappy.”
His eyes widened incredulously. “You ask what troubles me? Do you not know?”
She shook her head. “That conversation at dinner was unpleasant, but—”
“I had little idea that you thought so poorly of me, Margaret.”
“Poorly? What can you mean? I spoke only the truth in response to their questions. I did not intend any of it as a condemnation of you.”
“Did you not! You cast every recrimination you could think of in my direction. I had forgotten, I suppose, and I should not have. Boucher’s death was my fault, as was that of your friend Bessie Higgins. The union was right to revolt, their children are all mine to look after, and I deserved what I got. I am a hard-hearted tyrant, bent only upon profit, and I care too little to do anything for anyone! That is what your friends all think of me after this evening.”
She cringed in pained refl
ection. Oh, dear. Not this old debate again! She began cautiously, attempting to soothe him. “They are not my friends.”
“Are they not? What of Henry Lennox?”
“Henry? He is a friend, and has been for a long time.”
“Yes, a good deal longer than you and I have known one another.”
“John! Surely you are not jealous of him! I told you once before that I would not marry him when he asked me.”
“You did not marry me the first time I asked, either. I wonder, would he have had the same results as I upon a second attempt? Are you sorry you did not wait a week?”
The fire erupted in her core. “How dare you accuse me of changeable sentiments! I misunderstood you before and then came to see my own error. That was not the case with Henry, and you know it very well!”
“I understood from the beginning that he wished to have you for his own. He has done well, cultivating the seeds of discontent while I was away. I daresay he found fertile enough ground for it.”
She clenched her teeth, her fingers knotting. “If he has, it is because you have done the ploughing yourself! I have never seen you so insolent as you were this evening. At least Henry never lost his countenance over something so silly and humiliated me in public!”
“‘Silly!’ If that is how you and that leech perceive the insults done my character tonight, then perhaps he is not a true man, and your esteem not a thing to be desired after all. You prefer a whelp who performs well at dinner parties to a man who has earned the right to his self-respect?”
Her jaw fell. “Insults to your character! We only spoke of facts. Are they so difficult for you to hear? Listen to yourself! You sound like a puerile braggart who deserves his bruises for provoking a larger fellow. Can you really be so insufferably small-minded that you must strut about as a cock claiming his territory?”
He spun towards her and hissed, “Aye, and do I not have the right? You are my wife. If Lennox has forgotten that fact, perhaps I may remind him!”
She restrained her impulse to cry out his name as a frustrated epithet. Seething, she clenched her fists and sought the last shreds of his tattered reason. “That will not be necessary! Am I not my own person, and do you have no faith in my dignity? This is not about Henry Lennox, whatever you have persuaded yourself to believe.”
“No, I suppose it is not.” He turned sharply and paced by her door. “I think I am beginning to understand my own place better than I have ever done before. I was a fool, but no longer.”
“What can you mean by that?”
“I mean that these are your people. I never shall measure up in their eyes. Oh, they will ask me all manner of questions, perhaps even find my experience and knowledge useful to themselves, but I shall always be a dirty tradesman who dared to step over the lines of class.”
“You are wrong!”
“Am I? Was your family so eager to embrace me?”
“I… well, not at first, perhaps, but only because they did not know you as I do. I had hoped you would make a better impression upon them, but tonight you showed yourself to be an easily offended, taciturn, and imperious capitalist who thinks solely in terms of trade. I know that is not the truth!”
“Do you?” he crossed his arms in contempt.
She shook her head, pleading with him to understand. “Why could you not show them the intelligent, thoughtful man I know?”
“Perhaps he does not truly exist. Besides, that is not what they came to see. They desired a spectacle, and I suppose I performed as they expected. And you, my own wife, played right into their hands!”
“I had no such intention. How could I fail to respond to direct questions? I spoke only the truth.”
He scowled. “And you enjoyed the opportunity to air your opinions, as you could not do in Milton of late. Opinions you may have, I would not begrudge you that. I know we do not agree in every particular, but I never expected you to disrespect me, and everything I have ever done, in so public a setting. I suppose I should have!”
“Disrespect you! How have I done so?”
But he would not heed, for his temper was already high. “Poor Margaret Hale, the victim of her careless father and unfortunate timing,” he snarled with derision.
“John! How dare—”
“You never liked Milton, you were never comfortable with my position, and there have been few enough pleasant times in our marriage to smooth the way.”
“That is not the whole truth.” She tried to reach for his arm, but he pulled away. Her hand dropped, and she stood awkward and alone. “It is true that there are certain matters on which we do not agree, but—”
“Why did you marry me, Margaret? Was it a moment of weakness? Sentimentality? Fleeting passion?”
She drew back, the blood draining from her face even as the fury tumbled in her heart. “How could you say such a thing to me?”
“Can you deny that you have been unhappy?” He turned to glare at her, his face pinched in pained laughter. “I thought we would do well together. I had even fooled myself into thinking we had something that might endure, that I could love you enough to raise you from all your griefs. But now I understand it was a mistake, nothing more than a trick of timing and vulnerability on both our parts.”
She was shaking her head, tears spilling over her cheeks. “A mistake?” she whispered.
“And there is nothing we can do about it now. It is too late, and we have known one another too well to reverse what is in the past. I cannot give you your freedom, but I can give you what you wish—a life in London, free from the stink of the factories and the harsh reality of poverty surrounding you. You may live comfortably among your relations, well supplied with funds even, so long as I have work.”
Her throat was burning now, and she could scarcely make out his twisted visage for the sheet of sorrow clouding her eyes. “What are you saying, John?”
“You know very well what I am saying, Margaret! I will keep our vows to my death, but I will not require you to live with me. Stay here with your simpering cousin and her foolish husband. Take tea and walk to the park with that snake Lennox. I suppose it is as well that our child did not survive, for that is one less thread binding you to me. Enjoy the company of another and think as little of me as you wish. You may have everything else but his bed and his name, but as you have shown little inclination for a man’s company of late, and even less for honouring the same man’s place in your life, I doubt those constraints will trouble you.”
This accusation broke the final regret in Margaret’s heart. Until that moment, she had been ready to plead, to cajole, to fall to the ground and kiss his boots in supplication, but that bitter allegation, the fury snapping in his eyes, kindled a defiant passion in her own. “You think so little of me? Then perhaps you should go, sir. Free yourself from all responsibility regarding me, for I will not accept a farthing of yours in support!”
His chest heaved, and his fists balled as he glared back at her. “Very well! I leave in the morning, and you need not fear I will be visiting you often.”
Twenty
“Ma’am,” Jane bobbed her curtsey before Hannah’s sewing chair, extending a note to her mistress. “Mr Thornton is not receiving visitors. He sent it back.”
Hannah took her own note, still sealed just as it had been when she sent it, and gazed up to the girl in confusion. “You could have left it, as you have done before.”
Jane’s eyes widened in helpless appeal. “He wouldna’ allow it, ma’am! I made to drop it on his desk, an’ he bellowed somethin’ fierce! I were afraid to go against wha’ he said, ma’am.”
Hannah scowled. It had been over a week since John’s latest return from London, and still he had not acknowledged her repeated requests to join them for tea or dinner. In fact, the only greeting she had from him was a short note explaining that he was too unwell to attend services on Sunday, and not to risk sickness herself by calling on him.
That was a thin bit of fiction, for everyone said the mas
ter of the mill was certainly not lying abed sick. Word had it that he had been a raging despot all week, and even Williams was judiciously avoiding any contact with the awakened tyrant.
“Very well, Jane,” Hanna muttered. “I will call on him myself. Please see that the doctor’s tea is ready when he comes home.”
Hannah wrapped herself in her new lavender cloak—a gift from Robert, as she now called him—and ventured the ten-minute walk to Marlborough Street. She entered the gates just as the break whistle blew and stepped aside to allow the greater part of the throng to pass. The machines were quiet, and the sounds of voices and feet were the only clamour reaching her ears.
As they scuffled by, she realised that most of the workers fleeing the mill doors for their break had their heads down, hands stuffed into pockets or crossed over chests. They did not speak to one another, so the shouted words she could hear from within were not theirs… she sighed. She had drawn near enough now to make out the words and recognise the savage voice, boiling from her own son’s throat. She shook her head as the last of the crowd filed out before her.
When she was able to push her way inside, she found him. John had kept back some of the weavers and was storming about a bad lot of cloth, now ruined because a machine had been run when it should have been stopped and mended. Heads hung universally low, eyes darted from one man to another, save for the worker who stood nearest John. Higgins, his face red, was giving answer for accusation, defending his lads the best he could against the master’s fury.
“I do not care if the line was running!” John barked. “I see a dozen yards of ruined cloth!”
“Only one edge!” Higgins shot back, his own stance squared for combat. “’Tis more than suitable for piecework, and ‘twould’a made a bigger fuss to shut th’ line down twenty minutes before th’ dinner break!”
John rounded on the man, his eyes spitting rage at the piquant old fellow who would dare defy him. He opened his mouth, and Hannah did not doubt that his next words would have dismissed Higgins and that entire crew from Marlborough Mills, but he stopped just before uttering them. His face hardened when he noticed his mother, and his shoulders dropped.
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