by EJourney
"Sincerely? So would I but it seems we are being given one and I am actually happy about it. It is, after all, a new life you and I nurtured together."
"Yes, I see, a new life that affirms what you and I are to each other." He smiled, "I like that way of looking at it very much but I still wonder how a child will change our lives."
"Well, it will be different, I am sure. This gift, this new creation—yours and mine—" she paused to give themselves more time to relish the thought. "We must take responsibility for it, for quite a few years. But I hope we will always have a place like this of our own, a sanctuary of sorts, for just you and me."
"I would like that very much. I know that you will be devoting much time to our child." He smiled and corrected himself, "our children. But I want a time and place alone with you."
"Well, you will be out at the mill working much of the day and we will each have our own routines that would have to accommodate a child sooner than we expected. But evenings and early mornings will be ours alone in here as they have been the last few weeks."
"Has it only been that long?" He exclaimed rhetorically and then added. "It's true I am eager to start work on reopening the mill."
"I know you are. It has been more than three months and you have probably never been away from it longer than a few days."
"True. And yet, I waited so long for you, for wonderful moments like these with you and I want to delay changing things as they are now."
"They will not change right away, not for seven or eight months, for me, anyway. You will probably open the mill before that."
"I am hoping around November, before the holidays."
"Is there much more to be done?"
"There is but if I devote several hours everyday to all that must be done, I am confident I can do it. The debt to the bank has been settled and I am now working on rehiring workers and getting the machinery in good running order. Higgins will be coming any day now to help."
Margaret nodded but swayed towards him, feeling somewhat faint as fatigue and hunger returned. He looked at her pale face and gathered her in his arms, listening closely to her breathing, watching for signs that she might faint again. She leaned against him heavily and he could feel her bosom heaving against his chest, steadily, regularly, and in rhythm with his own breathing. He began to relax. Not long after, Dixon arrived, carrying a tray with breakfast for both of them. She seemed very pleased, her cheeks plumped up in a huge smile.
Later, somewhat revived but still weak, Margaret snuggled back into John's embrace and whispered, "The past months will always be a part of us even as we settle into a routine or go through other changes, don't you think?"
"Yes," he replied simply, his voice somewhat muffled against her hair.
"I am certain of it. I have left Helstone behind but I know that it will forever be with me. It was, to me, the best place on earth, nurturing my early years with simple pleasures, and my memories of it helped me endure the move to this city that was very different, that was at first quite strange to me."
He raised his head, tilted hers up to face him and, gazing into her eyes again, asked softly but eagerly, needing reassurance that she was happy. "Is Milton still so strange?"
"I have adapted to Milton."
Still anxious, he asked, "But are you happy here?"
"I have returned once to Helstone since I left it and I realized then that, happy as I was there, I have changed and couldn't really go back." She gazed at him and stroked his cheeks lovingly. "Am I happy here? How could I not be when you are here? My life is with you now and it happens to be in Milton. This is where our first child will be born," and with an arched eyebrow and eyes twinkling impishly at him, she ended, "as will the other three who will follow."
John smiled tenderly back at her, grasped her hands, pressed each one to his cheeks and then to his lips.
Margaret asked, "Do you suppose the household has been told the good news?"
"Do you doubt it? Did you see the big smile on Dixon's face?"
The household was told. Dixon was indeed discreet when she needed to be but the arrival of a new addition to her mistress' family was an occasion to celebrate and, in her mind, celebrations were to be shared. A child borne to her mistress had another special significance for her. It meant that she and Margaret, who were still foreigners to some members of the household, were there to stay. Although her mistress never said anything, Dixon was aware that Mrs. Thornton had not exactly given Margaret a warm welcome and she had remained persistently cold. Her attitude towards her son's wife was not lost on the servants and it rubbed off on a few of them, Jane, in particular. A child provided reassurance, in Dixon's mind, and she grew more confident of her place in the household.
Dixon promptly demonstrated her sense of an enduring, perhaps even elevated, status in the household by taking over the kitchen and supervising the preparation of a dinner more elaborate than the servants were used to in order to celebrate the coming of her young mistress's first child. Margaret's inheritance had an unexpectedly humbling effect on Dixon. In serving a mistress who actually owned much wealth and knowing that—with a generous pension accumulating and waiting for her—she, herself, no longer needed to struggle, Dixon began to feel that it was of no great consequence how she was perceived by her peers, that having others observe her "position" as lady's maid no longer mattered. In this vein, she planned to produce a feast for every member of the household to share, masters as well as servants.
The servants grumbled at having to do things differently from what they were used to but Jane, who ordinarily supervised the cooking, did not mind Dixon taking over. She never liked this part of her duties but had to take it on in order to work for the Thorntons. Mrs. Thornton, who thought their tastes in food simple, took pride in purchasing the best meats and produce available but never saw the need to employ a cook and only used to hire one for short periods when she had her annual parties. In any case, Jane thought that Dixon had already interfered a few times in the kitchen to cook her mistress's favored dishes. The grumbling servants learned soon enough that Dixon was preparing her festive dishes not only for the master and mistress but also for the household staff to partake. The promise of a feast was inducement enough and they followed her instructions with alacrity. From then on, none of the servants complained when Dixon took over the kitchen.
XII. Patterns
Some semblance of a routine slowly took hold once again of the day-to-day life at the Thornton household. Margaret's pregnancy inevitably changed some of the habits she and John had begun to fall into in the first three months of married life. Dixon understood Dr. Donaldson's advice on preventing Margaret's nausea and fainting as a sacred standing order. For a few more weeks at least, she was to bring her mistress a breakfast of tea and toast to their bedroom every morning. She did exactly that after asking Margaret what time she wanted it served.
On the first two mornings, John kept Margaret company as she sipped her tea and nibbled on her toast. As they talked, she offered him tea from her cup which he accepted without much hesitation. On the second morning, after he went to have a full breakfast in the dining room and Dixon returned to the bedroom to take away the tray and dirty dishes, Margaret asked for another cup and more tea to be brought in for John on subsequent mornings. A few days later, John sighed and bemoaned that breakfast was too lonely to have in the dining room all by himself. Margaret immediately rang for Dixon to bring toast, eggs and sausages for him. From that time, breakfast in bed and a pleasant morning tête-à-tête became a ritual that started the day for them before John went to work at the mill.
The routine Margaret followed varied from day to day and depended partly on how bothersome her morning sickness was. She devoted nearly half the day to the numerous tasks of running the household smoothly although it ran well enough without much direction from her: Dixon had fallen back into the role she first assumed with Mrs. Hale of being head housekeeper, making many little decisions on her own and not b
othering her mistress about them. Dixon prided herself in knowing her mistress very well. For the most part, her decisions were the same Margaret would have made so Margaret thought it only natural for Dixon to take over most minute responsibilities Mrs. Thornton had discharged herself.
Before Dixon took over those responsibilities, Margaret felt she spent more time than she cared on household chores and, yet, once freed up from many of them, she worried about being an indifferent mistress and about Mrs. Thornton's disapproval. She did not dwell too long on these worries, however—at least while Mrs. Thornton was away—as long as the house was maintained in as orderly a fashion as before. The other servants initially heeded Dixon with much resentment or some resistance until the unflappable Dixon reminded them that she took her directions directly from Mrs. Margaret, an assertion not exactly true.
Margaret resumed her daily walk the day after her fainting spell. The doctor assured her that not only was it safe, it was good for her and might actually facilitate childbirth. These days, in her condition, John tried to take the time from his often solitary work at the mill to go with Margaret on her walk, usually in late afternoon, and when he could not, he insisted on having someone accompany her. At first, Dixon went in John's place but Margaret found her too slow and unable to go the distance she usually walked. She tried to convince John that she could go on her own but he was too anxious, concerned that she could faint again or be stricken some other way while she was out alone.
One afternoon, seated in his office for a short break from contacting and rehiring workers with Nicholas Higgins using the list Higgins had given him when the mill closed, John happened upon a solution. When he and Nicholas reconvened, he asked, "Would Mary be interested in assisting Dixon at our house? Dixon has taken over the management of the kitchen and needs assistance with meal preparation and attending to Margaret's personal needs."
Nicholas replied with some amusement. "I will talk to Mary. She will be happy to do it and would likely prefer it to working in the dining hall. But I would never have thought, from what Mary told me of her previous time working for the Hales, that Mrs. Margaret needed any kind of assistance."
John smiled and it seemed to Nicholas that his eyes, which lighted up every time they talked about Margaret, had an added glitter. "We are expecting a baby and I want someone to go with her on her walks. You know my wife, Higgins. Those walks are nearly a necessity to her."
Nicholas grinned, "A child! A Thornton heir or heiress, maybe. What good news! I will tell Mary to go and see Mrs. Margaret tomorrow. I am sure she will prefer working for her than cooking in the hall. Actually, it seems an ideal set-up for Mary."
Margaret thought that it was likewise an ideal set-up for her because she already knew Mary's character and what she was capable of. Two days after John talked to Nicholas, Mary Higgins started working in the Thornton household. She became Margaret's companion on her walk, an arrangement which proved satisfactory to Dixon who was increasingly involved in managing the whole house.
Although attending to her responsibilities and taking her daily walk occupied the greater part of her day, Margaret made certain to devote some time for reading, anticipating the end of the day when John came home. She had purchased some books in Paris—many of them literary works in French by the well-known writers Honoré de Balzac and George Sand—that she had been devouring since their return to Milton.
To her delight, she found John particularly keen to hear about them. While he refreshed himself with some tea, he spent long minutes listening and asking detailed questions about what she had read that day. She suspected that, not having much time lately for reading, he depended on her recounting to keep him connected to a world apart from the making of cotton—a world chronicled in those books. He had experienced part of that world with much pleasure just a few months ago. Consequently, Margaret made her descriptions vivid and detailed. When she thought certain passages too meaningful to merely summarize, she marked them and read them to John. When the passages were in French, she would read them first in French before translating them.
After Margaret finished reading the first of those books, Balzac's Eugenie Grandet, John said, "Thank you so much! Merci beaucoup, is it? That was a wonderful story and your retelling transported me to the time and place where the story happened."
"I am glad you liked it although I did not think that you were at all interested in fiction. You and Papa seemed to me to always have been talking about the great classical thinkers."
"That is true but they are all grappling with truths, possibly universal, about the human condition. Only, Balzac couches it in fiction. In my mind, that makes it no less true."
Margaret smiled with satisfaction, "Well, then, what do you want me to read next?"
"Would you mind alternating one of the books on Spain that we brought home from Cadiz for every French book you read?" John replied, referring to the books in English Frederick had recommended on places, cultural traditions and art in Spain.
"Not at all. I would be happy to," Margaret readily acquiesced. She became thoughtful for a moment and then added, "Did you know that I have much experience being a reader and storyteller? I spent many months reading to my father when he was inconsolable and listless after Mama died."
He smiled sympathetically and gathered her into his arms where she was content for some minutes to be silent, to relish his nearness.
"Tell me about the rest of your day. Anything interesting you saw on your walk?" Listening to Margaret talk about the books she had read was not enough for John. He also asked about many other things—mundane matters, news from London and Cadiz, her thoughts when she rested or did some needlework. If he could not be with Margaret to share her day, he wanted to go through it vicariously with her.
Margaret was equally curious to know how his day went. She knew that John was still reluctant to talk about what he was doing to revitalize the mill so she asked him, instead, about people he saw and to describe them in detail. If he seemed inclined to, she asked him about the chronology of his day at the mill or elsewhere he had been. They always found something to talk about. And yet, the substance of what passed between them in the evening—what they said to each other as they talked through tea, through dinner, through their time alone in the sanctuary of their bedroom—was not what mattered most to them. Rather, what they treasured was everything else that did not need words, that was merely sensed or felt—the little caresses and kisses lavishly bestowed through their conversations, the brief gestures of tenderness, the sheer delight they had in each other's immediate presence, the enchantment of moments together after long hours of being apart.
**************
Mrs. Thornton returned at the end of August as summer began to wane. She was relieved to be home. But almost from her first day back, she began to feel the unease of living in a house she felt was no longer fully her own and where she must now submit to someone else's decisions over matters in which her word used to be law. On the surface, nothing in the house had physically changed; the furniture and decorations and their placement were as they had been when she left. All the household rituals—meals, shopping, cleaning and washing—were done according to the schedule and the manner she had set up. Margaret, only too conscious of having some adjusting to do in a household with established efficient routines, was reluctant to interfere, much less make major changes. But changes were inevitable and on her first morning back, Mrs. Thornton had to deal with one of them. John came down for breakfast later than usual before his marriage and only had a cup of tea.
"Is that all you will have? Won't you need more if you are working at the mill?"
"I had breakfast in our room with Margaret. In fact, she won't be coming down for a while."
"Why? Is she ill?" In a slightly mocking tone that she did not bother to hide, she added, "Does she have low spirits like her mother?"
John, irritated, replied, "No, mother, she is not ill and her spirits are fine. Dr. Donaldson advised brea
kfast in bed for the next two months to manage nausea. She is pregnant."
Mrs. Thornton was dumbfounded and could not help remarking, "So soon? Even Fanny is not yet pregnant and she married more than a year ago."
John, somewhat surprised at his mother's reaction, replied half laughing as he got up, "I thought mothers were impatient for their married sons to have children. Cheer up, Mother, I am preserving the lineage. Is that not every mother's dream for her sons? Besides, I am not getting any younger and I most certainly want to be around to see my children grow. Fanny will have hers in due time."
"Well, anyway, I never had nausea when I was pregnant."
"Everyone is different, mother. Dr. Donaldson says Margaret should be able to resume her regular activities once those spells are over. In any case, she has them only in the morning, goes through her household routine, and usually goes out for a walk later in the day." He picked up his hat but stopped before he walked out the door, "I will be back to have luncheon with both of you."
Mrs. Thornton was left staring thoughtfully at her unfinished cup of tea. John had always waited for her to finish breakfast before leaving for work. She sighed and got up to talk to the servants about lunch and to check on what needed to be done for the day. But she halted in her steps. She was no longer mistress of this house. A feeling of dread overcame her but she gritted her teeth and walked briskly into the drawing room. She looked around the room, saw her sewing basket and, without much enthusiasm, picked up her embroidery. How was she to occupy herself? She understood clearer than ever before, that she, too, had a great deal of adjustment to do, now that John was married. She wished mightily then that the mill were open. There, at least, she could be useful. There, she had important work to do that Margaret could not take away from her.
Mrs. Thornton was puzzled at her reaction to the news that Margaret was pregnant because she was eager for Fanny to have children. Perhaps, she thought, she was merely vexed at having to adjust to yet another change. In any case, she would have to wait and see when the child was born how she would regard it but, for now, such preoccupation was a waste of her time.
