She gave a swift nod and forced a smile to her lips. It was well he was happy, she reminded herself as she felt the throb of her heart resume its normal pattern.
*****
Without the expected addition of Margaret at the dinner table, the established residents of the Thornton household ate their meal together much as they had for years, although with palpable silence this particular evening.
Mr. Thornton made no delay afterwards to take the family coach to Crampton. He joined his wife in the parlor, where brother and sister quietly shared accounts of the years spent living separate lives. He smiled to hear the siblings’ exchange of Helstone memories centered on playful traditions and eccentric and cantankerous villagers.
Mr. Hale slumped in a chair in the shadowy periphery of the candle-lit room. His wife slept peacefully at present, but her struggle with pain and weakness drove terror deep into his heart. The voices of his children drifted in and out of his dazed consciousness, his eyes lifting to their faces at the call to mind of the indelible characters of his former life.
Frederick asked a good many questions of Mr. Thornton about his experience in trade and relayed his own eager plans to become an essential partner (and fond son-in-law) at Barbour and Company in Cadiz.
The Milton manufacturer answered with simple wisdom the conjectures of inexperience as he kept a wary eye on the despondent figure of his good friend, so recently his father-in-law. He knew by Margaret’s manner that she also did not forget the one who neither spoke nor moved in his chair.
When the newlyweds prepared to leave, Margaret kissed her father and brother good-night with a solemn heart and promised to return in the morning. Until her husband had arrived, she had been absorbed in her role as daughter and sister. She marveled at the change wrought within her, for only days ago she had been a maiden, living within these walls; she was no longer that girl, but wholly a woman who knew what it was to be loved by a man. She belonged to him.
No pang of wistfulness for the past made her long to stay behind. Instead, the stirring of excitement lifted the heaviness in her heart as she travelled with him in the carriage through the darkened streets.
A tingle of nerves set her stomach fluttering as the coach stopped by the great house in the silent mill yard. She wondered about the welcome she would receive from the occupants within the lighted windows and what arrangements had been made for her living quarters.
They climbed together the scrubbed, granite steps leading to the front entrance. The new bride caught the glint of mischief in her husband’s eyes a second before he whisked her off her feet. “John!” she gasped as she clung to his neck, feeling her smile grow broader at his own wide grin, neither of them forgetting that this was the place where such fateful drama had unfolded between them, midst the fury of countless strangers.
The newly married master carried his bride across the threshold and set her down in his house with great satisfaction. “Welcome to your new home,” he muttered with a swell of jubilation in his breast, giving her a quick kiss for good measure.
A smiling blush still suffused the girl’s face as she entered the drawing room on her husband’s arm, raising the sober widow’s brow.
Margaret received a kindly, if not altogether warm, greeting from her reserved mother-in-law. The requisite kiss on the cheek and polite words of concern for her mother’s health were given by both older woman and daughter.
“You have arrived in time for our evening round. It is has been my custom to read a chapter of Scripture before we all retire,” Hannah Thornton announced with practiced pleasantness, as she looked to the new mistress of the house.
“By all means … please continue. It sounds a fine tradition,” Margaret faltered, unprepared for the deference paid to her by the stern matriarch.
The servants gathered into the room while Mrs. Thornton searched for her place in the heavy, leather-bound book. After reading a few sober verses from Jeremiah, she closed the book and the servants silently turned to leave.
“Sarah will be your lady’s maid,” Fanny addressed Margaret, indicating a slender girl of similar age who made a slight curtsy at the call of her name, glancing nervously at the master’s wife.
Fanny led the way toward the stairs behind the papered walls with her own attendant and Sarah in her wake.
Margaret began to hesitantly follow, casting a bewildered look at her husband.
He gave her a reassuring smile and watched wistfully as she disappeared from view.
The proud mother rejoiced inwardly to have this private audience with her son, as they had always done. She listened to his brief account of Mrs. Hale’s condition, the stupor of the old vicar, and the brother hidden from public view.
The somber reality of the troubles Margaret would face weighed heavily in John’s mind as he bade his mother good-night. But nothing could stay the rise of elation he felt as he climbed the stairs to seek his wife in their private living quarters.
He hesitated only a moment before he opened the dark paneled door of his bedroom without knocking.
Margaret heard his entry and looked up to see his reflection in the mirror of the dressing table at which she sat. “Thank you, Sarah. That will be all,” she announced kindly, dismissing the maid who had been brushing her hair.
The girl laid the brush down without a word, and escaped past the imposing figure of the master with downcast eyes.
Margaret rose from her seat to face her husband. His heart twisted at the sight of her full beauty, rendering him speechless and immobile. She looked soft and beguiling in some delicate creation of pale blue silk, her hair falling luxuriously over her shoulders. He could not breathe.
“Do you have all that you require?” he asked, discovering his voice as he stepped forward to take her hands in his, his body aching to feel the press of her form against own. The intervening hours since the morning’s blissful tryst now seemed an arduous separation.
“There is a sitting room for your use,” he continued with creased brow, a sense of doubt suddenly clouding his stubborn insistence that she should share his bed every evening.
She laid a hand on his forearm. “I am well pleased with the arrangements,” she said with blushing timidity. “Truly,” she assured him, lifting lowered eyes to meet his.
“Margaret,” he breathed, taking her into his arms, the pounding of his heart sounding the joy he felt to have her in his room at last.
“I will not … ask anything of you this evening,” he falteringly promised in whispered tones as he held her soft form against him. He detected the merest of nods from the head at his shoulder and pulled her tighter against him for a moment before slowly releasing his grasp.
He saw the weary sadness in her eyes at this acknowledgment of her sorrow. A spark of guilt cast a shadow over his blithe happiness. “Perhaps I should not have taken you to Scarborough….”
“No,” she answered, surprising him with her earnest avowal as she grasped his arm. “No matter what happens … I am resolved I shall not regret the time we spent away. My mother wished us to go …” she declared, holding her gaze to his so that he would understand.
He took her into his arms again and held her close. “Then you make me confess that I cannot regret it either,” he said near her ear, knowing he would treasure the memory of those days forever.
They kept silence for a few precious moments. Slowly, he released her and invited her to his bed with a gesture of his hand.
She moved to take the side he indicated as he returned nearer his own space and began to undress by the wardrobe that had stood silent witness for years to his solitary routines. Nothing would be the same as before. It was a scintillating pleasure merely to have her in his room.
He snuffed out the light and crawled under the vast bedcovers in darkness. His ears pricked as a rustle of sheets broke the stillness and his heart leapt for joy as she sought a place in his arms and nestled her head at his breast.
“Margaret,” he rasped with emotion as
he clasped her body close and rubbed his chin rapturously against the silky softness of her hair. All the vicissitudes and vagaries of mortal sorrows vanished in this moment. Here was all he needed of heaven, the divine promise of love undiminished, distilled into the presence of one who had been sent, he was certain of it, to satisfy the needful clamoring of his soul.
He still held her, long after her breathing had slowed and she had slipped into peaceful slumber. His arm wrapped around her in joyous wonder at his privilege until, at last, sleep crept in to loosen the grasp of waking contentment and coax him into the realm of dreams.
*****
A clank of metal and a dull roar sounded in Margaret’s ears, filtering through the haze of consciousness to slowly rouse the drowsy sleeper. Someone stirred within this room. She heard the faint slosh of water and an abrasive scraping not far away.
John stilled his hand as he detected movement from the bed. He laid his razor down beside the water basin and held his breath as the waking sleeper turned her head. He stepped toward the bed at the first motion of her arms.
“You’re up,” she noted groggily as he sat down on the bed beside her.
“Yes,” he answered softly, enchanted by the restful flush of her face and the careless way her hair tumbled over shoulders and pillows. It had taken every ounce of his willpower this morning to leave the blissful warmth of his bed. “Did I wake you?” he asked, lines of concern gathering on his forehead.
“No … I don’t know … the mill … work has already started?” she answered in sleepy confusion.
“The steam engines are started early. They must be at full power by the time the men arrive. Did the sound awaken you?” he asked with the haunting fear that he had selfishly stolen her from some destiny more serene and comfortable than that of a manufacturer’s wife. All the raw noise and uncouth environs of industry that he took as a matter of course would be new and unfamiliar to her. The pang of unworthiness that had plagued him from the first moment he had dared to dream of her began again to insidiously creep through his veins.
“Perhaps … I believe so….”
His frown deepened. “There is a room down the hall, near Fanny’s, that is farther from the noise.…”
“No … no,” she interrupted, sitting up to face him. “It is a faint noise. It’s merely strange to me at present. I’m certain I shall get used to it,” she assured him.
Her reply did much to calm her husband’s rising distress. “You should go back to sleep, it is early yet, while I have much to attend to,” he gently urged. “I will tell my mother that you mean to spend the day in Crampton. You are not obliged to stay here,” he reminded her with some reluctance as he took her hands fondly into his own.
“You are very kind,” she answered as her gaze drifted over the shape of his firm form beneath gauzy cotton, falling with fascinated interest upon the base of his flexile throat which rose as a bronze column from the white fabric draping open at his chest.
The spicy aromatic scent of him, freshly shaved, aroused her senses. She longed to be near him at this moment, to feel the comfort of his strength this morning. “I feel a little selfish today,” she murmured, moving her thumb distractedly over the ridges of his fingers as she struggled to explain something of the conflicting emotions of desire and duty that wrestled within her breast.
“Selfish?” he echoed with taut expectation, striving mightily to restrain the urge to taste and feel all that his eyes roved over of her loveliness and inviting tenderness.
“I am glad to be home again in Milton (how sweetly those words sounded to his ears!) … but a portion of me wishes to be back in Scarborough,” she finished, feeling the warm blush come furiously into her cheeks. She could not look at him.
The boundaries he had firmly set for himself shifted at this utterance. The power to speak left him for a moment as a racing, eager hope dared to imagine that her secret longings mirrored his own.
“Not selfish,” he murmured as he reached to raise her blushing face to his. “Not selfish at all,” he affirmed, looking into the depth of those eyes that gleamed with beautiful timidity and pleading hope.
He brought his mouth nearer hers. The mere brush of lips — tentative and slow, as if it were the very first time they had met thus — made his body shudder in aching longing for the tender passion they had shared before. It was his right; she was his wife.
Her kisses, sweetly mingled with his own restrained ardor, were yet edged with a faint urgency that turned his blood to fire and unwound the bonds of measured expression. His kisses grew more fervent.
She returned his passion. A small hand skimmed the curve of his shoulder to clutch about his neck, shattering every pretense of constraint and sending the scorching impulse of need through his veins. How much he had longed to take her as his wife in this very bed!
He pressed her back against the soft cushion of pillows to show her — if it were possible in one act of loving — what she meant to him and would mean to him the remainder of his days.
*****
It was nearly nine when, after having patiently allowed the young ladies’ maid to assist her into her dress, Margaret stepped onto the crimson-patterned carpet of the still hallway. She crept down the stairs, conscious that this was the first time that she had done so, although her husband had trod the same passageway countless times. She slowed to study with curiosity the portraits and framed silhouettes along the wall.
She entered the empty drawing room with the nervous hesitation of a visitor and stole to the window for a moment to stare at the movement of men and carts below, a testament to the industry of the great brick mill behind. She lifted her gaze to the factory with a soft smile of pride and sought for the window that might be his, surprised at her pang of longing to go to him. A rush of emotions swept over her — love, excitement, uncertainty, gratitude, sorrow. But gnawing fear encroached upon the happier feelings that might have been hers today, were circumstances different.
An irascible melancholy settled deep within as she thought of the painful truth that must be faced. She turned with a sigh to find her way to the breakfast room.
Margaret trod softly as she peeked around each new corner, slowing her steps as she caught sight of the dark-clad figure of her mother-in-law, sipping a cup of tea at a square table draped in cream linen.
“Good morning,” the new bride ventured, calling out in a politely cheerful tone.
The older women turned her head, her agile eyes appraising at once. “Good morning,” she returned, the trace of a smile softening the rigid line of her lips. “Did you sleep well?” she asked, endeavoring to match in the girl’s demeanor the same contented deportment that she had discerned in her son this morning.
“Very well, thank you,” Margaret answered her mother-in-law’s expected inquiry, blushing to tacitly acknowledge her complacency in sharing a bed with her son.
Both women were relieved for a moment from conversation as the maid entered to bring Margaret a breakfast of poached egg and toast with marmalade.
The young bride sipped her tea and tasted a bite of her egg before renewing communication. “I’m sorry I shall not be able to spend the day learning some of the regimens of this grand house, but I.…”
“John has explained all to me,” Mrs. Thornton interrupted gently. “It is well for you to attend to your mother. There will be time enough to learn the workings of this house.”
“Thank you,” Margaret replied, feeling a small burden of apprehension lift from her shoulders.
They talked very little while Margaret finished her breakfast.
“I hope you will find your mother improving. If there is anything I can do to be of aid …” the older woman offered as Margaret excused herself and rose from the table.
“I thank you for your kindness,” the girl gratefully replied.
Fanny entered the room at this moment with her traditional morning languor. Obligated to make her appearance before ten by her mother’s rules, she felt it wa
s entirely unfashionable to be up at the same early hours kept by a servant or common laborer.
“Good morning, Fanny. I’m sorry not to join you for your tea, but I was just leaving. I believe you know my mother is not well,” the new Mrs. Thornton relayed.
“I’m sorry your mother is ill, how unfortunate a time … will you take the carriage? It is a long way to Crampton,” Fanny encouraged, assuming her sister-in-law would take every advantage now available to her.
“I’m sure there is no need. The walk will do me good,” she answered with an uncomfortable smile.
The walk did indeed give Margaret time to gather her thoughts and renew her strength. Immersed in the bustle of human activity outside the pleasant walls of domestic tranquility, she felt her own purpose draw clearer. Grateful for the ready help promised by her new relations, she faced the future with renewed fortitude.
She was full of bright confidence to offer sustenance of spirit to her family when she arrived within paces of her parents’ home. She looked up in time to see Dr. Donaldson’s tall figure exit the door, black bag in hand.
Margaret froze in fear for a moment. She studied the grim lines of his face with fainting heart as the family doctor descended the steps.
“Dr. Donaldson,” she called out as she resumed her approach. “My mother … how does she fare?” she asked with a forced calm that belied the turbulent beating of her heart.
“I’m afraid your mother took a turn for the worse last evening,” he gravely declared, knowing the girl would demand the truth. “Morphine gives her sleep for now. But if she should have such a spell again.…”
“I understand,” Margaret answered in a tight voice, the color drained from her face. “Thank you for your care,” she offered with a brave nod as the kindly old doctor tipped his hat and continued on his way to his next patient.
In Consequence: A Retelling of North and South Page 39