by EJourney
After walking through the whole mill without talking to anyone, Margaret wearied of the exertion. It did not tire her body so much as it did her mind and spirit which could not endure for too long the noise and the stale air, thick with what she guessed must be the smell of cotton. Like that first time, she found the mill oppressive but for a different reason. This was now her life, one that she had willingly chosen—and yet—walking around among these live, loud machines so closely that she could almost feel the vibrations they made—she felt trapped. She could never do what Mrs. Thornton did at the mill and she knew clearly then that, if she ever got involved in the mill, it was not what she wanted to do. Disconcerted at this realization, a sudden urge to run out of the mill overcame her. She must go someplace where she could be alone to reflect on her ambivalence towards the mill.
She hurried to catch up with Mrs. Thornton and said, "I think I will go back to the house. You are staying for a while, I suppose."
Mrs. Thornton nodded her head, raised her hand briefly, and motioned her away. She had forgotten Margaret was there. Margaret turned back, controlling her urge to run. At the door, she found Williams, ready to open the door for her.
"Would you like me to take you back to the house, ma'am?"
"No, Williams, it is such a short distance." She answered and, despite the disquiet in her breast, she was amused that he would offer to help her go across the yard. "Do you know where my husband is?"
"I believe he is at the dining hall, ma'am, meeting with a union representative."
Margaret nodded, gratified in the midst of her own confusing ambiguous feelings about the mill, that John was making an effort to communicate with the workers' union. "Thank you and you should probably return to your post in case Mrs. Thornton needs your help."
**************
Back at the house, she sat pensively in the armchair by the fireplace. It had been six months since she left London to live in this house. Mostly, it had been a happy time and she could think of nowhere else she would rather be than with John. But at the moment, she found herself confronting her ambivalence about the industry into which he had chosen to devote his time and energy, his life.
By most indications, his manufacturing business was approaching its former levels of production and he had hopes of actually making it grow. She hardly saw him at lunch anymore and he certainly had no time to occasionally accompany her on her walks, as he used to do. But he was always home at least an hour before dinner, eager for the smiles and caresses she lavished on him. For a few minutes, her apprehensions did not seem to matter as she reaffirmed in her mind that she was back in Milton, not for the mill, but for John.
On the first night the mill opened, John had come home, tired but exhilarated. She and Mrs. Thornton had been waiting for him and talking in the drawing room about the events of the day. He smiled broadly at both of them, "It has been a good day. Everything went smoothly, as if we never closed."
"I was confident it would," Mrs. Thornton declared with pride and self-assurance.
Margaret said nothing and merely gave him her half-smile, her eyes bright and moist. John walked towards her, peered closely at her face, and said tenderly, "You are not about to cry, are you?"
She shook her head but she could not look at him and answer. Her tears were indeed very close to the surface. He put an arm around her waist and turned to his mother, "I am taking my wife away for a while, mother. I know you two were talking but I need her right now."
He did not wait for an answer and led Margaret out of the room. Neither of them was aware that Mrs. Thornton glared after them, gripped by a quick succession of emotions.
*************
In their room, John led Margaret to the fireplace, sat in an armchair and pulled her onto his lap. "Did you miss me much today?" He murmured, enclosing her in an embrace, kissing her.
She laid her head on his shoulder and wound her arms around his neck, "I did see you a few times as we watched from the window."
"I know. I looked up the house a couple of times and saw you. You cannot imagine how much it gratified me to see you up here. It was exhilarating reopening the mill but, I realized your presence here made it much more so and more completely satisfying. I knew I had to work towards getting my own mill again but there was not much joy for me in that prospect before you came back to me."
She raised her head, pressing her cheek against his, "I am so happy that everything went well. You were so excited and triumphant when you came in, you nearly brought tears to my eyes."
He kissed her once more and remarked, smiling, "My wife cries when she's sad and she cries when she's happy and proud." Then, nuzzling his face against her neck as if he was trying to find some solace there, he continued wearily, "Yes, it has been a happy event although at this moment, I am merely exhausted and in need of your soothing embrace."
She held him closer, stroking his cheeks and his hair. She whispered, "I could ring for tea."
She felt his head shake lightly against her neck and settle more snugly against it. They held each other for some time, wordless and nearly still until his fast, shallow breathing gradually slowed down and deepened. Much later, he muttered against her neck. "Will you promise to wait for me here in this room when I come home every night?"
She nodded, kissed him, and laid her cheek on his.
Since then, Margaret waited for John in their bedroom, with a fire in the hearth and tea ready for him. Almost always after taking off his coat, he plopped himself into an armchair, stripped himself of his vest and tie and pulled her onto his lap to cuddle up by the fireplace before she served him tea. They treasured this time together. For John, to hold Margaret in his arms and submit to her tender ministrations and caresses was the sweetest way anyone could ever have of decompressing from the noisy and often intense activities at the mill. She soothed his nerves, high-strung in the days during and right after the resumption of mill operations, and she massaged his tense muscles when he complained of being particularly tired. By the time they descended to the dining room, he was reenergized for the rest of the evening.
Margaret waited impatiently for this time at dusk when the machines had stopped churning, all was tranquil and she could finally claim her husband for herself after a day when he seemed to belong to another world. She understood its draw for him, this world of machines and more modern ways of working, of intriguing new possibilities, of a type of commerce that spurred but was also changed by new inventions, of new industries that benefited many more than those engaged in actively pursuing them. Still, she could not help feeling that a world outside that of machinery—the one she had been brought up in, of books and ideas, music and art—was now even more important to hold on to.
**************
Margaret got up and walked towards the window to look down on the mill yard. When she entered it for the very first time, she could not believe that anyone would live next to the incessant flurry of a mill. But fate, ironic and obedient to no laws, played its trick again, thrusting her, probably for life, into the midst of that flurry. It never even occurred to her that day at the train station that, in coming home with John, it was this place she was returning to. It had not mattered to her then. Now that she had lived in it for some time and particularly after the sensation of being trapped when she was inside the mill only half an hour ago, she found herself having trouble getting accustomed to it.
The mill seemed to her all-encompassing in its reach, claiming body and mind of those involved in it. Those men and women moving in rhythm with the machines had blank unseeing expressions on their faces as if they could do their work just as efficiently with their eyes closed. For the first time, she saw more fully its hold on Mrs. Thornton who seemed to have forgotten her presence.
Margaret made a resolve that day. She could and would escape the confines of the mill, having been persuaded early on that it was not necessary that they lived next to it. With a child coming and, probably more in the future, she knew without
a doubt that she wanted her children alive to all the possibilities that awaited them and she worried that they might be constrained by growing up within the confines of a mill courtyard. There would not be other children to play with, no open spaces to run on, no new and strange little nooks or objects to explore; in fact, she thought the courtyard dangerous for little children. For them more than for herself, she wanted a life larger than what passed within the walls and gates of Marlborough Mills.
She, herself, could not escape nor did she want to, the fact that she chose to belong to a life that was tied not only to Milton but also to the mill. Indeed, she had learned to value the making of cotton as an occupation as worthy as any other. But she could not see herself actively involved in its operation. Not the way her mother-in-law was. Still, she did not believe she could remain detached from matters that concerned the mill. Her interest, however, was not in machines but in people and, although it did not matter to her whether they worked in the mills or elsewhere, she thought that if she were to be useful in Milton, it might as well be among those who worked at the mill. Marlborough Mills was not merely machines and cotton but people, workers who, though they appeared to her as extensions of the machines inside the mill, did have lives outside of it.
With those agreeable thoughts, Margaret began to feel more at ease with her ambivalence. She turned away from the window. It was time to go down to the kitchen to see Dixon. Perhaps, she thought as she descended down the stairs, when he felt more confident about the mill, John would come home occasionally for lunch, just as he did before the mill reopened.
XV. Transitions
Winter descended upon Milton as heavily as the summer did. For the first few weeks, it dumped snow and hail that once again forced people indoors. Confined throughout the day within the cold, gray rooms of the house and unable to go for her daily walks, Margaret was restless, impatient for the day to end and for John to come home. Her books were not enough to provide her the escape she sought and she could only spend a limited time a day on needlework before it bored her. But Margaret's restive mind often found some way to regain its equilibrium.
One afternoon, she decided it was time to rummage through the rest of her possessions that had been brought over from London. Stored in trunks still untouched since she and John returned from Cadiz, they were items she could not part with although she did not have much use for most of them. Some articles belonged to her parents. The rest were mementos of her life in Helstone which she had been loath to throw out and which she was now glad that she had not. Among these was a covered basket packed with sketchbooks, pieces of rag paper and linen, pencils, charcoal sticks, colored chalks, cakes of watercolors, and brushes—precisely the items she had hoped to find. She also unpacked a few tubes of oil paint purchased in Paris, nearly forgotten after being shoved in a drawer on their return to Milton.
She took the basket and the oil paints, placed these all on the floor by the window, walked around the room, and collected a few objects that were interesting to her, either for their form or color. They included a vase, a bowl of fruit, some bottles from her dresser, a colorful book, and a candlestick, all of which she deposited on the table by the window. She started doing sketches of each of these objects, sometimes more than once, filling several pages of one sketchbook fairly quickly. So absorbed was she in drawing lines and using color to define their forms that when Dixon came to light the oil lamps, she hardly took notice of her.
A little later, John opened the door slowly so as not to disturb her if she was resting. He saw her silhouetted by the window, bent over a sketchbook, with pencils, chalks and many other objects scattered on the table. She had not heard him come in. John approached her as noiselessly as he could so as not to startle her but Margaret looked up at the very moment he stopped and stood next to her. Her countenance registered some surprise at seeing him.
She turned towards the window and at the darkness outside, "My goodness! Is it that time already?"
He smiled indulgently at her, "Yes, it is nearly eight and time for dinner. Barely enough for you to get those smudges off your face and hands and dress up."
She got up slowly, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, shook her skirt of colored dust, and exclaimed, laughing, "I have made a mess in here." She glanced up at him and added, "And you are late today so the tea must be cold."
John raised her face with his hand and kissed her lightly on the lips. "I know. I am sorry. I went to meet with some new customers today. In any case, you seem to have been too busy to miss me this afternoon. I see you found your pencils and crayons."
She picked up a colored stick and said, "In fact, this is a chalk and not a crayon since there is no oil in it, mostly pigment. I have nearly forgotten what a pleasure it is to color with these chalks. Just look at those vibrant colors." She handed him the sketch she just finished as she walked towards the bathroom to wash her hands.
"This is beautiful. The colors do make the apples and grapes so alive that you are tempted to reach into the bowl and eat them. We should frame this and hang it."
She came back into the room wiping her face and hands with a towel. "That is really just a study and I did not mean for it to be framed. But I am glad you like it because I intend to do more. Those Paris art shows have inspired me and since this weather is not good for walking, I will have uninterrupted time to draw and even paint." She added, pouting a little, "But I do not have an easel. Do you know where I can get one?"
He hardly heard her question as he casually leafed through a few more drawings and smiled warmly at her, "I am happy to see your enthusiasm for drawing and painting. I am not an expert but what you have here look uncommonly good."
She wrinkled her nose at him, gratified. Then, forgetting about the easel, she turned around for his inspection. "This dress will have to do since I have no time to change. What do you think?"
"It seems fine to me. Let's go. I am starved," he answered and grasped her hand, pulling her behind him as he headed for the door.
**************
Margaret's pregnancy had become obvious by her first Christmas with John and Mrs. Thornton told her that it was time to begin her confinement. That meant that she could only attend family get-togethers and not be seen in public. Margaret was disappointed and thought it a quaint practice that served her no purpose. "Why should a woman hide the fact that she is with child?" She asked John irritably.
"No reason, my love."
"Do you think me ugly now that my stomach comes out to here?" She asked, holding her hands out in front of her.
"Not at all. Just as beautiful as ever. Sometimes, even more so."
"Will it embarrass you if your friends and business associates see me like this in public?"
"No, not me. It may embarrass them but that is their problem."
Margaret had organized a small celebration at the Dining Hall for Marlborough Mills children, those who worked there or had parents who did, and it aggravated her that her condition apparently precluded her from going to it. At first, she thought of defying convention and Mrs. Thornton. But she reconsidered and decided it was probably best to acquiesce and remain within Mrs. Thornton's good graces, this early in her marriage. She believed somebody from the family had to go, however, to hand out the packages that had already been wrapped and labeled with the children's names.
She asked John if he would go in her place. “Mary could go and help you.”
He appeared to hesitate but before he could reply, she said, "Perhaps, Hannah could do it," although she knew Mrs. Thornton would not agree.
Margaret really thought it a good idea if Mrs. Thornton went since there was a conceivable chance she might be more sympathetic towards the children if she saw them in a different setting, one associated with charity and sharing. Perhaps, they might even tug at that maternal spot in her heart.
"You know she would not," John replied, scowling. Then he grumbled, "Not exactly my job but I will do it."
Margaret had ex
pected precisely such an arrangement.
**************
One Sunday morning a few weeks after Christmas, John and Margaret lay lazily in bed, enjoying the luxury of getting up as late as they wanted. He was on his side facing his wife, stroking her pregnant belly when Margaret brought up a subject she had been mulling over for weeks. She had rehearsed many times in her mind what she would say to John but had put off talking about it until work at the mill had reached some degree of stability. Seeing him relaxed and refreshed from a good night's sleep, she decided it was time to tell him what had been bothering her since shortly after the mill reopened.
"Our child is coming in a couple of months," she began, smiling, as she covered the hand he had on her stomach with hers. "Some things will change."
John, still stroking her belly, looked at her expectantly and waited for her to say more. She lifted his hand and sat up. For a few moments, uneasiness written in her eyes, she stared at him and said nothing.
"Something is bothering you," he remarked as he turned on his back, crossed his arms under his head and gave her his full attention.
She regarded him for another long moment. "I have been thinking that a home next to the mill is not really the best place to bring up children."
"Yes?"
"I know that the mill means so much to you. But………"
"But………?"
"I want my children to see that life has more to offer besides making cotton, that there is a great big world out there for them to discover. If they choose to do something different, they should know that they are free to do so."
"So?"
"So, I want us to find a house outside of this compound, away from the mill."
