He had been in the habit of availing himself of his brother’s hospitality, claiming that the library on Harley Street was far more comfortable than his chambers, when he could choose where he worked. Such he had been doing today, and a thin cloud of sweet tobacco smoke hovered in the room behind him.
He called her name again, his brow furrowed, and he spoke gently when she stopped. “Margaret? Is something amiss?”
“It is nothing,” she insisted, denying her words with her eyes as she glanced down again to her note. “I must speak with Edith.”
“Certainly not. You are in no condition to be rushing about the house. Why, your face is quite flushed, and your hands are shaking. Come, you must sit down, and I will send one of the maids for her.”
“Oh, no, I am well! It is a matter of the gravest import, really. I must ask a favour of her.”
“I believe she is with her child just now, is she not? Surely, she should not be disturbed. Will not another suit?”
“Perhaps Captain Lennox—” she hesitated—“I must beg one of their errand boys to carry a letter, and it must go straightaway!”
Henry’s eyes fell again to the note in her hand. “To Milton, I presume?”
“Yes. Oh, do please call for someone so they will be ready to take it the moment I am finished writing! I shall not be more than ten minutes.”
“Of course, Margaret, of course! But I do not like to see you so distraught. Has something happened? Am I not a friend, that you cannot tell me of your troubles?”
“Yes, yes, indeed, but this is something else entirely. Forgive me, Henry, but I really must write my letter. You will send someone to me, or ask the captain to?”
“Margaret—” his voice deepened, and he caught her hand even as she tried to spin away. “Stay a moment, please.”
She stopped, looking in some bewilderment at the serious expression, the uncomfortable manner so foreign to him.
“You will laugh, Margaret, but your disposition just now frightens me terribly.”
“Frightens you? You have nothing to fear. The matter is a private one.”
“Nothing that unsettles you so greatly can be only your concern. Do you not know that others would share your distress? That in seeing you so, none who calls himself your friend could be easy until all is well?”
She had no answer for this and gazed back in mute confusion.
“Moreover, there is a sense of foreboding in your manner. I fear—can I be wrong to do so?—that this agitation is only a herald of sadder things to come. You are not thinking of leaving us here in London, are you?”
“I… I do not… perhaps. I have received some news I cannot ignore.”
“About Mr Thornton, naturally?”
She looked down to her note, dragging the fingers of her other hand across the edge of the paper, then raised her eyes. “He is my husband, Henry.”
“Ah! And therefore, he receives the lion’s share of your devotion, while we who care for you must wait upon the crumbs of your regard.”
“Have I offended you somehow? Is it not right that I should sometime go back to him?”
Henry looked away with a sigh. “Only if such a one is deserving and can properly appreciate the gift bestowed.”
She stiffened. “What do you mean by that?”
His lips thinned, and he was silent for a moment before he met her eyes. “Margaret, though you have not spoken of it yourself, I have heard something of your disappointment of a few months ago. I heard how your very life was on the edge of the surgeon’s scalpel; how afterward, grieved though you were, you were scarcely permitted the comfort of friends to visit during your recovery.”
Margaret’s cheeks flushed hotly. “You take great freedoms with my private affairs!”
“Again, I ask you; can they truly be private? Is your trouble any less my own, though I was not the man at your side to share in it? Would I be any less stricken, had death or despair claimed you?”
She shrank somewhat, looking down in mortification at the floor. “Sir, you forget yourself.”
“I think, rather, that I was late in coming to my senses. Would I not have spared you what you have suffered? Would I not have given you every consideration, brought to you every cheerful thing to lift your spirits? Is it possible even that the matter would have been brought to a different conclusion if you were not suffering in that dreary city?”
She shook her head. “Henry, you must not do this! I chose Mr Thornton, and it is a choice I will honour all my life.”
“Even in this, you deceive yourself. Your heart is not in it, Margaret. If it were, you would not have stayed so long in this house.”
“My heart,” she repeated, very softly, as if testing the words. “I have been blind and foolish.”
“Do not speak so harshly of yourself! I will not hear it. You have regrets, it is true, but you are not without a means to happiness.” As he spoke, he extended his hand, a hopeful smile beckoning.
She narrowed her eyes, and her tones became brittle. “I have been blind, but no longer. Henry, I will thank you never to speak to me in such a way again. It is an offence against all that is natural and right, an injustice against the laws of God and man, and a violence done to my own feelings.”
He shook his head, a beseeching expression crossing his face as he reached to clasp her hand. “Margaret, you cannot hide behind such simplistic ideals. You are upright and noble, but the world is not so. You must see—”
“Mr Lennox!” She drew back, and her head raised in that old genteel grandeur of hers. “Pray, do not touch me again, or I shall be forced to strike you. I shall spare you the humiliation of discovery, for your incautious words I will keep to myself, unless it is right to share them with the one I am bound to by law and by affection. I hope one day we shall meet again as casual acquaintances, but I must now quit your presence.”
She whirled in a sweep of her dark skirts, but his mournful cry gave her pause. “I never intended to offend! Please, Margaret!”
She froze, and her tones were hard when she replied. “My name is Mrs Thornton.”
She could not—would not—look on his face, but she could imagine it well enough. “We are friends, Margaret! Please, accept my humblest apologies!”
She tilted her head but did not turn back to him. “Perhaps one day I shall. I have valued your friendship, but this I cannot accept. However, your professions today have enlightened me to a conviction which has too long lain dormant. I know now what I must do.”
He was silent, but she heard his pleading gasp, and had some little mercy. She turned to look him full in the eye, the haughty grace of old flooding into her limbs. “I bid you farewell, sir.”
No further protests did she care for, and she threw back her shoulders as her determined, even steps carried her to her own room. “Dixon!—” she commanded as soon as the door had closed behind her—“we must pack at once. I should like to change into my green travelling suit now—yes, the new one—for I shall be on the Milton train this very afternoon.”
Dixon started from her chair, her round cheeks flushed with awe. She blinked, swallowed, and then closed her mouth. Then, for the first time, she bobbed Margaret a curtsey and answered, “Yes, Missus.”
~
He was of positively no use at the mill. What good was one who managed the forward progression of a business that was even now heaving its last gasps? He had enough put by to pay everyone—just—but after that, there was no point in striving. And he was weary.
It went beyond the mere bone fatigue of a long day. This was months, years perhaps, of cumulative exhaustion, held at bay by the hope of ambition and the lure of success. That being a vain notion, and without his mother to daily lift his head or Margaret to soothe his anxious heart by night, he was a beaten man.
He stood at the scaffolding from which he had observed countless hours of productivity, his clear eyes discerning every nuance of his mill. Today, however… he blinked and drew a long breath. It had been s
everal minutes since a conscious thought had passed through his mind. What was the use?
He turned, and without purpose, trod his slow, measured way down the steps. He avoided Higgins’ gaze, a wave of his hand sufficing to inform the other that he was stepping out. The only trouble was that he was uncertain where to go.
Five minutes saw him aimlessly wandering back into his own house in the middle of the afternoon. His arms sagged at his sides as he took in all the work which must now be done; the sorting and selling off of possessions he could no longer afford to house, the packing up of those essentials he would keep, and the removal to… somewhere. And sometime in the midst of all that, he must tell his wife that there was nothing for her to come home to, even if she should wish it. He released a long, ragged breath, and sank into the nearest chair to rub his eyes.
Some while later, he heard a woman’s voice in the passage. He would have paid it little enough notice, but he had dismissed all but his man of all work and one kitchen girl only two days before. That light, youthful voice could not have belonged to either of them, and there was none present to answer the door to anyone else. Could it be…?
He jerked to his feet, irrational hope beating in his chest that perhaps Margaret had come at last, without sending word or requesting his escort from London. In a mere two strides, that hope shattered when Mrs Wright’s slender form appeared in the passage. He stopped, bewildered.
“Oh! Mr Thornton!” she laughed. “Forgive me, sir, I had not expected to find you here at this time of day. Mrs Watson was resting this afternoon, so I came to call on Mrs Thornton.”
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Mrs Thornton?”
“Why, yes, of course.” She approached nearer, still smiling. “I was fortunate enough to make her acquaintance on my last visit to Milton, you must recall. I hope you will forgive me for simply entering, but no one was answering to my knock, and the door did not seem quite closed. I thought perhaps I might be pardoned for my eagerness to meet her again if I came in.”
He shook his head, his voice low. “She is not here.”
“Oh, dear,” she lamented. “Then I have indeed trespassed. I beg your pardon, Mr Thornton. Might I call upon her later?”
“She is in London.”
“Ah.” Her eyes then swept the room behind his shoulders, then fell about the lamps, the sofa back, and at last rested on the small table near him and lingered for several seconds. Unable to help himself, he too glanced down, but could see nothing remarkable save a fine layer of dust already settled upon its polished surface.
“I had heard a rumour,” she murmured, “that you are intending to sell off and leave Milton. I should be very sorry to hear it is true.”
He turned away, not caring if he seemed rude to a lady. “Why should that trouble you?”
“Why should it not? Come, John Thornton, we were friends in our youth, were we not? I would like to hope we are still so. I dearly hope your resentment towards my husband and his family does not extend to me.”
He stopped, turned slowly back, and stared, but no words came.
“Ah! It is as I expected. You do not despise me, but you will think of me only as Harold Wright’s wife. I do have my own thoughts, of course. I believe every woman does.”
“And yours are?”
She trailed her fingers over the back of the sofa, admiring its burnished wood and luxuriant fabric. “I think it all a waste. It is a hard circumstance, very hard, which would see the ruin of such a fine man as yourself. I am not so modest and shy as I was when a girl, and I suffer no qualms in saying as much. I never saw a man with more right to success, John Thornton, but fate has been most cruel.”
“Right to success! You speak as if reward were measured in equal proportion to merit.”
“Should it not be?”
“I once thought as such. You are wrong, Mrs Wright, for success and achievement are not given where they are due. They are stolen by the unjust.”
She looked hurt. “There you go again, assuming I would be your enemy. I wish to befriend you once more, John Thornton. The years have been kinder to you than you will confess, for the man I now see has been shaped and hardened by struggle, and his character sifted and refined by bearing up with honour when others would have cast him aside.”
Her words stoked some ember in his breast. They were the only words of affirmation he had heard spoken over what he felt to be his virtues in… far too long. His lips twitched involuntarily into a hesitant approximation of a smile.
“The… the years have been kind to you as well, Mrs Wright,” he answered roughly. “It was good of you to call.” He turned away again, backing once more behind the sofa.
“Are you so ready to dismiss me, John Thornton?”
He glanced back in surprise. “Was there another purpose to your visit, apart from calling on my wife?”
A guilty blush stained her cheeks, and she looked down. “Everyone in Milton knows she has been away in London these many weeks, and that Mrs Donaldson has not called in almost as long.”
His ears burned in humiliation. “Then, I do not understand.”
“And you must be longing for some company, is that not so? The comfort of a friend?”
“A friend would not be unwelcome, but—”
“Do you suppose,” she interrupted, “that those who marry must remain happily in that state? Or is it more common that discontent enters into their union?”
“Mrs Wright, I will thank you to not enquire into my personal affairs.”
“It was not your affairs of which I spoke, but my own.” She had begun to slowly circle the sofa, closing the distance between them, but in such a calm, unassuming way that he was not startled back.
“I was too young for marriage, and so was Mr Wright, but it was… convenient at the time. Our families desired the alliance, but had I the choosing of my own destiny, I would have waited.” She lifted her eyes to him, a significance in her expression that sent shivers down his spine.
“Do you remember, all those years ago, when we saw you in that draper’s shop?” she asked, her tones so low he almost had to lean close to hear her words.
“No.”
She gazed up in faint disappointment, then smiled. “Sly creature. Yes, you do. I recall how embarrassed you were, as if it were yesterday, but you had no cause to be. It was then that I began to regret, and to wonder what sort of man you would make of yourself. Imagine how sharp my frustration when I saw you had become all that a woman’s heart could have hoped for!”
His skin was prickling now, his pulse beginning to race. “Mrs Wright, take care. Your words are heedless and provocative. What is more, they are deceptive. I am no paragon, and I will thank you not to beguile me with your assumptions. I am not worthy of such unguarded esteem.”
“You think so little of yourself! I suppose it is Mrs Thornton who has taught you this. She would not be pleased by a working man, I expect, but the error is her own.”
“Mrs Wright, you go too far!” he protested, seeing with some alarm that she had drawn within inches of him and was even now reaching to touch his hand. Yet he was too stunned, too horrified to move away. That Woman, whose sex was the keeper of virtue and modesty against the devices of fallen Man, could approach him with so blatant intent to bewitch, astonished and troubled him to his very marrow.
Her hand closed over his, but she pressed him no further. “I meant no insult, sir. I only think it regrettable that a man such as you would not be appreciated in his own home by someone who would offer him the respect he is due.”
For one brief, stabbing instant, his heart trembled. For so long had he felt inadequate beside all to which he had aspired. To hear another salving his wounded pride was nearly intoxicating. It would be so easy to listen, and he longed so achingly to believe…. He felt his eyelids drift lower, could sense the feathery breath as her face tipped up.
His eyes closed, and he could see at last the cold, brittle darkness he had struggled so long to che
ck, as the rocks hold back the tide until the storm rages. It washed over him, scoring and eroding the last vestiges of his own strength, and he verily shook at its might. Then it was gone, the waters still roiling about his feet, leaving him bared and helpless. He gasped, his figure began to stoop, and he felt gentle fingers begin to trace the lines of his face.
As if it truly were the sea and sand crumbling beneath him, he felt unsteady. The tide was drifting back, and his deceived eyes drew his body along with it… until the shoals fell away from the precipice, and only a small, bright shard of light remained behind.
Like a gem hidden in the sand, it shone through his despair. It alone would not be taken in, and it alone lodged steady in its place. Whether it was his last glimmer of hope and dignity too long hidden from view, some angelic salvation in the moment, or his own tortured imagination, he could not know. But it was enough.
“No,” he whispered.
Her hand stilled but did not fall away from his cheek at once. He would have to fight for his victory.
“What was that?” she asked softly, a hint of affectionate laughter in her tones. “Are you now become modest?”
He opened his eyes. “No,” he repeated, in a full voice this time.
Her brow puckered in dismay. “It would not be so very shocking, you know,” she purred. “Why, in London—”
“No!” he thundered, offended that she continued to tempt and press what he had already rejected. “Leave at once!”
She drew her shoulders back, frowning. “And this is why you are failing, John Thornton. You will not take what opportunities are offered you. Do you not know what a fool you look before everyone? But surely, you are no such creature.”
She drew his hand up, almost as if she would kiss his fingers, but he angrily snatched it from her grasp. “Indeed, a fool perhaps I am, but I belong to another, and so do you.”
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