by EJourney
Margaret of the North
Text and Art by EJourney
Copyright 2012 EJourney
Any unauthorized use or reproduction constitutes an infringement of copyright.
Contents
Margaret of the North
I. Prologue
II. Uneasy Rapprochement
III. Rekindling
IV. Remembrances
V. Readjustments
VI. Rapport and Romance
VII. Romance and Rapture
VIII. Rapture and Discovery
IX. Reunion
X. Concerns
XI. Posterity
XII. Patterns
XIII. Restoration
XIV. Reopening
XV. Transitions
XVI. Reenchantment
XVII. Discord
XVIII. Dissonance
XIX. Confrontation
XX. Respite
XXI. Uncertain Rapprochement
XXII. Passage
XXIII. Celebration
XXIV. Growth
XXV. Comfort
XXVI. Realization
XXVII. Friendship
XXVIII. Epilogue
Appendices:
Afterword
Connect with the Author
I. Prologue
The train chugged out of the station in a shroud of grayish white smoke. As it gained speed and the smoke swirled up above, the May countryside slowly unveiled itself, vibrant with the young greens of fresh growth and luscious with a spectrum of yellows and reds on meadows glistening from the lingering moisture of winter. Margaret knew that it was not too long before this lush landscape, which she watched distractedly from her train window, would give way to more grayish white smoke, diffused but more pervasive, billowing not from the train but from the ever-churning machines in cotton mills that meant life for the denizens of the modernizing city of Milton. At that dense city, as different as it could be from the hamlet she grew up in, a city of stale, particulate-laden air and of somber shades of gray—from its atmosphere to its buildings to the mood of its inhabitants—Margaret had chosen, on this fateful day and at the age of 22, to make her home. There, she would marry, raise a family, and fashion a future for herself that she hoped to look back on with some measure of fondness as well as gratitude.
She smiled at her reflection on the train window and gazed with not a small measure of amazement at the image behind hers, a bit blurrier but unmistakable: the strong profile, tan complexion, dark hair, and aquiline nose. John Thornton was deep in thought, an arm resting on her shoulders, his head slightly bowed, and a smile playing on his lips. Margaret studied his reflection for some moments, incredulous at how quickly her fate changed; how the aching emptiness of resigning herself to the loss of his regard was supplanted by a wondrous, unbelievable happiness at regaining it. What sweeter bliss was there than getting what one's heart desired—after that desire had seemed so impossible that, just a short hour ago, one dared not hope at all?
Margaret had made a choice, a clear and inevitable one, in her mind, that sprung not from thinking through her alternatives. Instead, she merely yielded to sentiments that refused to be tamed any longer and to happenstances so favorable that they renewed her belief in a divine hand. She hardly ever made momentous decisions impulsively or suddenly. Encouraged from childhood to be reflective by an intellectual clergyman father whose collection of books she could explore at will, in a small hamlet in the country free of distractions from too many competing pursuits and compelling company, she was inclined to brood and mull a long time over her choices. But in her mind, returning to live permanently in Milton was not a question of making the right or wrong choice. It was, simply, the most natural thing to do, after nearly two years of sorrow and mourning, to seize happiness when it was right there before her. This happy choice was taking Margaret back to Milton for the second time on this day.
Neither Margaret nor John noticed when the train slowed once again and stopped. The train inspector knocked on the door of their compartment and opened it. "Good afternoon, Mr. Thornton, madam. May I see your ticket ma'am?"
John and Margaret were startled to find themselves at another train stop, bustling with people getting off the train, rushing out of the station. The inspector sensed Margaret's distraction and addressed her in a low but commanding voice. She straightened and glanced at him as he smiled at her apologetically, then she absentmindedly reached into her bag and handed him a train ticket.
"This is for London, ma'am. You are on the train to Milton."
Before she could reply with an apology and inquire about how to obtain a proper ticket, John addressed the inspector with a smile. "Inspector, Miss Hale is my fiancée and I am taking her back home to Milton. We are getting married. Her ticket, it is true, is for the opposite way but it costs the same, doesn't it? And what is the harm? Are we not almost there?"
His tone was calm but firm, assured that he would not be contradicted. The train inspector nodded, "Yes, sir, Mr. Thornton. I suppose it will do. I am sorry Miss Hale. I was just doing my duty."
"It's quite all right, Inspector. I understand. In fact, I thank you for being so accommodating."
The inspector bowed and, scanning the length of the train quickly, he stepped away. He blew his whistle and the train began to move and was soon speeding back to Milton, less than an hour away.
Margaret smiled gratefully at John. He drew her closer as he asked, "I hope it will be all right meeting my mother again?"
"I did see her this morning," she replied, "at the mill."
"You went to Marlborough Mills?" His voice registered both surprise and curiosity.
"Yes. How else would I find you so we could discuss business?" She answered, amused.
"Was Henry Lennox with you?"
"No, he went for some breakfast. We left London quite early." Margaret paused thoughtfully before adding, "She is a formidable woman, your mother, frank and sincere. I admire her for that. But I suspect she does not find it easy to like me."
"She will probably find fault in anyone I marry but particularly you, I'm afraid."
Margaret flashed him a worried look and said nothing. She was not surprised at what he said. After all, Mrs. Thornton did not think her, a Southerner with strange ideas, worthy of her son. But it bothered her and she turned away to hide the momentary apprehension in her eyes.
But John did catch it, fleeting though it was, and explained ruefully, "You are unlike the other women my mother meets in Milton and she may find you more daunting to deal with. I suppose mothers are anxious about being replaced in the affections of their sons when they marry." He added, his voice low and pleading for some tolerance, "Mine is no exception."
Margaret chose to remain silent. What, after all, could she say? She knew only too well how strongly attached Mrs. Thornton was to her son and how her life had revolved around him and his work. Margaret suspected that Mrs. Thornton would be unhappier than most mothers at her son's marriage to any woman and, if that woman was Margaret, her unhappiness would very likely be at its most profound. Margaret stared at the now wilting yellow rose on her lap. She had been so happy, ecstatic almost, in a way she had never known only moments before. She was not willing, just then, for such an exquisite sensation to be disturbed by concerns about Mrs. Thornton's distress. Margaret raised her head and turned her attention back to the scenery outside her window. The greenery was gradually metamorphosing into the structures on the outlying areas of a big industrial city.
She had been in that city earlier in the morning, accompanied by Henry Lennox in his capacity as adviser on the handling of her newly acquired wealth. She convinced herself that they came on important matters of business, to present a proposition to John Thor
nton that would keep Marlborough Mills in operation. But John Thornton was nowhere in Milton. Even his mother did not know where he was.
Margaret left barely two hours after she had arrived, certain yet again, as she had been a year ago after moving back to London, that she would never return to Milton. She left with a leaden heart, her spirits sinking to depths almost as low as when she lost her parents. It perplexed her, this profound disappointment, this unexpected feeling of dejection. Did she not convince herself before undertaking that journey to expect nothing? Not the success of the business proposition, much less the fulfillment of hopes she had kept buried in her heart, but which she could now admit she had also kept alive. When she left London for Milton on this fateful day, she thought herself prepared for Mr. Thornton's indifference, even rejection and yet, his mere absence had plunged her into inexplicable gloom.
But fate, God, or luck intervened and at a train station midway to London, Margaret's future took a blissful turn. Now she was on her way back to Milton but, this time, she was going to stay.
For those in the habit of brooding, the new and unexpected invites reflection. It is a way to relive an experience, to relish happy moments all over again and, consequently, convince themselves that what happened was indeed real. Both Margaret—who had been resigned to the certainty of mere regrets—and John—who had been anxious and restless in the uncertainty of how she would receive his proposal when he renewed it—felt compelled to replay in their minds the delicious unfolding of their happiness in all its freshness. The improbability of meeting and being reunited at a train station was such that it would bear reminiscing throughout their lives. Between them, they would talk about every look, every expression, every utterance, the tentative first kiss, and the passionate ones that came after. To their children and their grandchildren, they would focus on the wonder, the unexpectedness of it all, the unlikely setting, the sequence of coincidental events. But at this time, dazed and bewilderingly happy, they affirmed—with each recollection of events of the past hour or two and the plethora of emotions they elicited—that they were indeed in this train, together, on their way back to Milton.
**************
Margaret first came to Milton when her family had taken up residence there, for a relatively short 18 months. But what months they were! Packed with turmoil and sorrow, unknown to her, at 19, until then. Her father, in a matter of conscience, had given up his life in the clergy and decided that it was in this rapidly growing city that he could find meaning as well as gainful employment. Unhappily uprooted from a sheltered life in the idyllic south, Margaret found Milton strange, harsh—the lives of too many of its inhabitants attended by perpetual need and suffering; the baskets of food and the few coins she could offer too meager to ease the privation and despondency among the few she knew. Those months showed her how helpless she was in the face of pervasive poverty.
Those 18 months also claimed the lives of her parents and a friend she had made from among the workers. They marked the nearly simultaneous death of the parents of six children, one of them by suicide and the other by wasting away from grief. And, amidst all these, she had fallen in love, though unknowingly at first. John Thornton had proposed to her, professing love so strong, so new in her limited experience that she could not comprehend it. In retrospect years later, she concluded that the proposal was also ill-timed. It had come on the heels of the strikers' riot and his sister's irksome remark, echoing his mother's scornful notion that Margaret had set her sights on John to elevate herself and her family from their current pecuniary state. As yet naive about affairs of the heart, hurt and offended at such insinuations, Margaret dwelled upon her initial dislike of Mr. Thornton. Then, she fueled that dislike with the thought that the Thorntons held a disapproving and uncompromising disdain for workers.
She bluntly rejected Mr. Thornton's proposal although she had begun to take an interest in him, as each contentious encounter revealed to her his real character. Ruled by her mind and unwitting of her heart, she did not recognize what that interest meant. Her love blossomed in quiescence, guarded from her awareness, from people around her and, most of all, from Mr. Thornton. But such sentiments could not be repressed for too long and, being inclined to introspect, she arrived soon enough at the realization that his good opinion mattered much to her, that she valued it even more than her brother's. By then, it was too late. He had already caught her at a flagrant lie: She told police she was not at the train station the night of an unfortunate accident that led to the death of a man. It was a lie that she assumed cost her the high regard he had for her.
When her father passed away, Margaret had no choice but to return to London. There, with no demands on her for help and compassion, she had time for reflection, for looking inward and searching her soul, for acquiring wisdom and growing. She found it sadly ironic that it was the loss of people who needed her that allowed her that indulgence, impossible in Milton. Gradually, inevitably, solitary reflection replaced months of grieving for her parents and everyone she had known who could no longer abide the miseries wrought by poverty.
Margaret saw her life in Milton as sorrow couched in many guises—sorrow from death of loved ones, of friends, of strangers who touched her life; sorrow from witnessing desperation and neediness; sorrow from losing a genuine chance at happiness through ignorance and pride. In the end, she had to accept that much of it was beyond her capability to change, particularly with regards to the passing of loved ones and others whose miseries began long before she knew them. For that, she could only grieve and let the course of healing take as much time as it needed. Her heart was a slightly different matter. She did gain a clearer understanding of her desires. But she also realized she was left with only regrets at losing the person who had become dearest to her and she could only resign herself to it. It was a disconcerting, sobering insight that taught her to be wary of her own arrogance and less complacent about assuming she knew herself well.
Not everything concluded sadly in Margaret's soul-searching. It led her, as well, to one of those life-changing epiphanies: She was of age and free to take control of her future. The prospect of having to secure employment, should the small allowance she inherited from her parents be inadequate, never intimidated her. In working, she believed she could find more satisfaction than she did from whiling away her hours in her cousin's endless dinner parties and card games, as pleasant as they were. Then, a considerable, unforeseen legacy from Mr. Bell made that epiphany more intoxicating.
She realized that becoming a woman of means multiplied her choices and she could do exactly as she pleased. Were she inclined to, she could choose a life of independence, even solitude, or move to Spain to be near her brother and live ruled only by her conscience. Who knew, she thought with a mischievous smile, if in that more permissive country, she might meet some tall ardent Latin lover. She had surmised that Henry Lennox, an old friend she felt at ease with, was just waiting to renew his proposal. As fond as she had lately grown of him, she did not love him and could not persuade herself to marry merely for companionship or mutual benefit.
A few months into living within that new level of serenity and a mere couple days before her life took on its present turn, Margaret heard from Henry of the financial troubles at Marlborough Mills. That night, she was extremely restless, staying up nearly half the night agonizing whether she must do something. Although the ease with which her fortune grew might have bothered her conscience enough to induce her to directly help the families of workers out of a job, she could admit to herself, at least, that it was Mr. Thornton's misfortune that she was most anxious to relieve. It seemed logical to her that an offer of a loan to keep his business going was the best way to help others, in any case. After all, he could give employment to many. But she was sensitive of his pride and painfully cognizant that he could refuse to have any extensive dealings with her. So, she thought that someone in the profession like Henry must explain the proposition so that it would neither offend nor make Mr
. Thornton feel obliged to her.
The following day, she had a long discussion with Henry on how she could help restore Marlborough Mills into operation, reminding him that she was its landlord and keeping it going was in her best interests. Henry needed no convincing: the investment was a wise move, certain to earn her a higher interest than the bank could give her, and he was confident the business could only succeed.
Two days after learning about the sad fate of Marlborough Mills, Margaret and Henry had taken an early train to Milton, arriving there late morning. Though Henry understood that they were there on business, Margaret also wished, secretly, for a proper moment when, as seamlessly as she could, she would let Mr. Thornton know that she had a brother. She would tell him casually that this brother came to Milton when her mother had been ill but that his presence was concealed because his life was in danger. She was certain that Mr. Thornton—in whose fairness she had complete faith—would judge her more charitably once he realized that, in lying to the police, he was protecting her brother. Regaining his good opinion was essential to her peace of mind. If she had hoped for anything more, she did not deign articulate it to herself.
Despite her assumption that Mr. Thornton thought badly of her after catching her at a lie, Margaret wondered anyway whether—behind his inscrutable stare on the day they stood in front of each other bidding farewell, never to see each other again—there lurked a lingering regard for her that he could not conceal completely. In London, in the luxury of dull but carefree existence, solitude and reflection, the deep recesses of her heart nurtured a sliver of hope. Even as her mind accepted that regret was all that remained for her, she still secretly wished to put a spark to that regard once again.
From the train station, Margaret visited the mill alone. Henry, in less than good humor, went to a hotel restaurant for a late breakfast after she agreed that, if she saw Mr. Thornton, she would arrange a business meeting for the afternoon. She was grateful for the solitary walk. It allowed her time to think and compose herself. The mill was quiet and empty, more desolate than she remembered nearly two years ago when the machines stopped during the workers' strike. She walked around the mill lost in thought and deeply saddened. It seemed to her that cobwebs and dust were already taking over the place, untouched since the day the machines stopped permanently just a few days ago. How strange to see this mill, bustling with a life of its own when she last saw it, now so still and bled of its vibrancy. She found the stillness unnatural and disturbing, so different from the peaceful stillness that wrapped itself around her as she sat on the beach, staring out at an ocean so tranquil that it soothed her spirit. At that time, she had been bruised, restless, and numb from all that she had suffered and lost.
