Northern Rain

by Nicole Clarkston

  Seizing that thought, he spun on his heel. “You care so much for the workers, Margaret. Help me! Come work at my side, show me how I can do better!”

  She shook her head gently, her eyes down again. “You do not need me, John. What you need, I cannot give you.”

  “That is untrue, and you know it! I have seen how they adore you, how your every suggestion would be met with acclaim and how you would intuitively see the needs that I have missed. I beg you, Margaret, please hear me!”

  “John, my very presence would be a declaration to them that you cared more for your own felicity than for the food on their tables. They would turn on you, and on me, if the mill continues so.”

  “Now, that is an uncharitable remark!” he retorted. “What of your vaunted faith in all of humanity?”

  “Have you not yourself tried to tell me that I am too trusting? Only today have I learnt that you were right!” She clenched her eyes shut and turned her face away, not wishing to bring up yet another subject which she found painful.

  John, however, scarcely noticed her visible flinch. One thing only mattered to him. “You speak of trust. Do you trust me, Margaret?”

  “Do you trust me, John?” she countered boldly.

  He stared, incredulous. No other woman he had ever known- not even his own mother- would so confidently and fearlessly demand his respect. Then again, no other woman was Margaret. He could have wept in bitter frustration.

  Instead, he closed his eyes and bit down hard on his upper lip, refraining from unleashing his grief and disappointment on her. Slowly he took a long breath, then another. At length, he answered her in broken tones, “You know I do, Margaret. I trust you with my life and my heart. I have no choice! For I have been yours from long ago.”

  The flinty heat in her eyes cooled, replaced by gentle affection. “Then please, John, I beg you would heed my words. I speak out of my concern…” she broke off when he closed the distance between them with a swift stride.

  He pulled her suddenly close once more, one hand stroking her cheek and the other pinning her body near his own. “Say it, Margaret. I need to hear you say it!”

  Her core quivered as she gazed up at him, panting in his need, and in pity she acquiesced. “… out of my love, then. I do love you, John! I do wish to marry you, but….”

  “Oh, Margaret!” he cried, clasping her close. He could bear no more of her denials, and he silenced her in the best way he knew. Willingly she clung to him as he showed her, by the only means available to him, what she meant to him. Tremblingly he held her, daring to taste the pleasures of intimacy with the woman he cherished.

  His heart raced ever faster when Margaret began truly to respond as fervently as he. She met each brush of his lips with tenderness of her own, and when, after a moment, he felt her curious fingers settle upon his face, he could not suppress a shudder of ecstasy. “Margaret,” he whispered between kisses; her name a muffled mantra of sorts, serving to soothe his battered heart.

  Only a moment later, gentle pressure from her fingers pushed him away. Robbed of her sweet lips, he began almost to sob in his deprivation. “Margaret, please!” He pressed her form scandalously close to his own, but his thoughts were only on the heart she refused to fully surrender.

  Burying his face in her glorious hair- the hair he had so ached to touch- he choked out his plea. “How can you deny what you feel? Marry me, Margaret. Be my wife, build a future with me! Do you not long for the same?”

  Margaret hid her face against his chest, fearing that if she looked on his broken expression, she would never hold true to her resolve. “I do, John. I am not refusing you; only asking that we wait.”

  “For how long?” he demanded. “Until distance comes between us, and your feelings have cooled? Until I have gone grey, and you have found some other?”

  “If you are so fearful that I will cease to love you, John, you ought not to be asking me to marry.” She pulled back to look at him once more, her fingers trailing distractingly along the lines of his cravat where she had been resting her cheek. “I will love you always, John Thornton,” she vowed.

  He shuddered in agonized relief. “Then what difference does it make when we wed?”

  “Indeed. What difference does it make, John?” she allowed a glimmer of a smile, tinged with regret. “My heart is yours. I only ask that we not appear to act rashly, John- for your good, and that of the workers. I could not see harm befall you or them merely because I was impatient.”

  He shook his head slowly in combined frustration and awe. “What of your own reputation, Margaret? Perhaps you do not know the things which are being whispered about town.”

  She rested her head again on his chest, savouring this one small consolation. “I have heard. Surely, it is not the first time things have been rumoured about me.”

  “Which makes it all the more important that we confront the lies! Once may be overlooked in time, when your general conduct is shown to be above reproach. Twice- people will start to believe the rumours. I cannot allow you to be injured, Margaret. If we marry soon, all will be forgotten! It will be understood that we had been quietly courting- for I was attempting to court you, though clumsily so. If, however, the slander is allowed to propagate, with no marked and immediate response from us, it could follow us even after we are wed. It could be years before we might put it behind us!”

  “Then,” she swallowed an anguished lump in her throat, “we must make, as you say, some marked response. We ought not to see each other so often, John.”

  His face greyed. “What? You cannot be serious!”

  She closed tear-filled eyes. “I am afraid so, John. It is the only way, I think.”

  He seized her shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Tell me to my face. You truly wish me not to come here any longer?”

  She bit her lower lip as her eyes tried to slide away from his. “Perhaps that is too extreme- if you were to appear to drop my father’s acquaintance, it would only make matters worse. I think, however, we ought not to be seen together in public for now.”

  “So I may have the honour of passing you in the hall for my lessons with your father, and the distinction of glimpsing your back in Sunday service, and that is all?” he asked bitterly.

  She glanced uncomfortably at the window, noting that, fortunately, the drapes had been drawn for the night. “In the privacy of my own home… but you must not stay longer than you always have, John. I should think such a thing would be noticed, since others are now looking for it.”

  His tall, stately bearing had begun to wither. He stood now, his shoulders drooping, his face dejected. “Margaret, are you agreeing to a secret engagement? I have always thought such a thing shameful, but if you truly have such fears….”

  “I am agreeing to marry you when circumstances are more favourable,” she answered cautiously.

  He pulled her close, nestling her under his chin with a wry and painful little laugh. “If any other woman were to say such a thing to me, I would assume her motives to be mercenary. Why does everything always come down to the vulgar and disgraceful pursuit of money?”

  Margaret, secure for now with his strong arms around her, gave a tearful chuckle. “You have changed, John Thornton! You are no longer the fearsome captain of industry I first met.”

  “I am the same as I ever was, Margaret- though, perhaps I only allowed you to see those bits of my character I thought most under my control. You terrified me from the beginning, Margaret! I had never felt so small or insignificant in my life as when I looked into your eyes and did not care for my own reflection.”

  “That was my own pride you saw,” she confessed. “I thought myself immune to such a feeling, but it proved my greatest vulnerability. It has cost me… oh! If I had accepted you when you first spoke, we would not now be concerned for what others might think. Mr Hamilton, the Drapers- none of it could have touched us! I could have stood by your side in your troubles, instead of havi
ng to step back.”

  “You cannot be blamed,” he pressed a kiss to her hair. “I thoroughly shocked and offended you that day, I am sure of it. I hate to remember how badly I misunderstood you. To have your love and forgiveness now makes up for all the past. Margaret,” he changed subjects abruptly, “tell me I may at least speak to your father. He deserves to know!”

  She blinked, staring thoughtfully at the cravat she was fingering. “I think it hardly necessary just now, John. He knows your intentions, and none could have a higher opinion of your honour.”

  “I should like to preserve his opinion of me, if I may.”

  It was a moment before she answered. “I would prefer that you did not tonight, John. I can talk to him, if you think it important that he understand matters. I would rather that you had the honour of properly addressing him when we are prepared to consider our betrothal official.”

  He sighed and tightened his arms about her. “I was afraid you would feel that way. I do not like to come as the thief in the night, robbing a man of his daughter beneath his very nose. Is this all I am to have of you for now? A stolen kiss or two before I must again leave you for days on end?”

  “You needn’t steal anything,” she assured him, lifting her chin to his with a new bravery.

  This time, their embrace was long and precious, uninterrupted by more melancholy words before his departure. He ruthlessly pushed aside his sorrow for now- that would be unveiled and parsed over, alone in his own chamber… later. Just now, the love of his life was in his arms, and allowing him the liberties she would grant only to the man she intended to marry.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hannah’s dark brow quirked over her square sewing glasses as she heard her son’s step in the hall. His tread was measured and heavy, and if she listened very carefully she could discern a faint shuffling of his toes. Her pulse quickened apprehensively. None knew his ways so well, and before she ever saw his face, she knew his mood.

  She began to set her needlework aside, her eyes never leaving the doorway. John had stopped in the outer hall, his profile silhouetted against the dim candlelight she permitted in that corridor. He stood as though reluctant, but at last he turned toward her.

  Slowly, wordlessly, he trudged to her seat. Reaching into the pocket of his waistcoat, he withdrew his clenched fingers and deposited what he found there on her side table. The object dropped with a clear metallic ring, rocking once or twice before settling. Hannah’s eyes fell upon the diamond band and she briefly closed them, blocking out temporarily the sight of her son’s stricken visage.

  Without a word, he turned to go. Summoning her motherly courage, Hannah rose and found her voice. “John, wait!”

  He stilled, his face turned away from her. “You knew, did you not Mother?”

  She froze, hesitant. Her hand, outstretched in mute entreaty, dropped.

  He slowly turned round. “You knew what she would say?”

  Hannah groaned. His agony was palpable, his disappointment sharp and bitter. She fought a sympathetic pang of her own. “Yes, dear John, I knew,” she admitted.

  “And yet,” he looked her full in the face at last, “This afternoon I found that ring tucked safely in its box and placed upon my desk. Why?” His voice trembled in such pain that she reached a hand to him once more.

  “I knew,” she answered after some hesitation, “that she did not wish to refuse you. I knew that if she wounded you this time, it would hurt her as much… perhaps more.”

  “Yet you tacitly encouraged me to speak!”

  “You were honour-bound to do so, John. I believed, and do still, that your assurances will bring her comfort in the months to come. I cannot help but wonder if her resolve might soften, once she has come to cherish hopes for a shared future with you.”

  “We both know Margaret better than that.” His voice quavered but a little. “When once she fancies that she is in the right, that she is doing a service to another, she will not be swayed.”

  “You cannot say, after all, that you have not in the end won her loyalty,” answered the sage Mrs Thornton.

  His shoulders shook in something akin to a mournful laugh. “What good is that without her hand?”

  “John,” she crooned comfortingly, much as she had in the days of old. She reached for him, and he came to her as he always had. He eased her gently into her old chair- the only piece of furniture in the house which was not elegant and new- and then took his place at her feet. Just as when he had been a boy, she drew his head to her knee and rested cool fingers at his weary temples.

  When she sensed a little of the tension ebbing from him, she ventured to question him. “She did not refuse you outright?”

  “No, not utterly. Not as before.”

  Unseen by him, she closed her eyes in relief. “That is well. What hope did she offer?”

  “A futile one, I fear. She wishes to see me achieve the impossible- oh, not out of vanity, but because she honestly believes it necessary for my ultimate good. How can she ask me to wait for something which may never come about?”

  “Why should she not have faith in you?” queried his mother stoutly. “I have always done so.”

  “She ought to know that I care nothing for the mill by comparison!” he cried in anguish. “That even now, it is slipping through my fingers, and I wish only for her to hear my sorrows and encourage me in my distress!”

  Mrs Thornton’s hand upon her son’s brow stilled. A wave of her old jealousy loomed. Why should this fine son of hers, whom she had loved and counseled with all of the wisdom and tenderness she possessed, wish to turn from her gentle mercies to a mere girl? A girl who had only very recently come to regard him with any esteem at all!

  Where was Margaret Hale, her savage old self demanded, when John was working long hours for a pittance in the draper’s shop? Where was she when he swallowed his pride and used all of his hard-earned savings to pay off his father’s creditors?

  She drew a trembling breath, scolding herself. Oughtn’t she to have expected this? What man did not in the end betray the mother who bore him for another? But my John, that stubborn voice insisted, John is different!

  She arched her spine, raising her chin proudly. Her teeth clenched, she bade that quarrelsome inner voice to depart. No loathsome spirit of jealousy should be found in her! A mother’s sacrifices were never ceasing, and her delights ever multiplied with her sorrows. Her son’s joys and hopes were now to be hers to treasure as well. She would lift up another, while she herself must diminish.

  An unfamiliar mist grew over her eyes as she made to herself this bittersweet proclamation. Her hand trembled, then caressed her son’s hair once more. No longer was this child of hers a mere boy, running to her with his hurts. He was a man- the man his father ought to have been, if she confessed it to herself- and he desired no more than what was natural and right.

  Miss Hale was not so bad- certainly she had underestimated the lass. She could do far worse, she consoled herself, than to foster that girl as her future daughter. A young woman who could deny the stirrings of her own heart, stepping aside with the hope that the man she loved might prosper, was one who understood the sort of sacrifice that Hannah was only now coming to know.

  At last she answered him, her voice uncertain and wavering. “Is it so certain,” she ventured, “that the mill will fail?”

  He lifted his head, his gentle blue eyes searching hers. “Not certain, no, but there is a high probability. I know not how to surmount my present difficulties. I have time yet, but I fear I only delay the inevitable.”

  “But you do have time! Why, there is no need to fret about what may happen in half a year. Many things could change in that time!”

  “And many will not. What irreparable damage might be done to the business if I extend myself to the brink, hoping against hope that something might turn up?” He sighed. “It would be better to sell up right away, preserving what little I have left and leaving t
he mill to another. At least in that circumstance, operations may continue almost immediately and the hands are not left to starve.”

  “And,” guessed his mother, “Miss Hale might find no further impediments to an engagement? Do you suppose she would accept you if you had no income?”

  He gave a wry laugh. “I might say that would be the surest way to guarantee her acceptance. There would be no mill and no workers dependent upon my success or failure, and she might feel free to start over with me. She would not fear hardship of that nature.”

  Mrs Thornton was quiet a moment. “So… she did admit to her feelings?”

  His face softened and his gaze grew distant. “She did.” The warmth which briefly lit his eyes faded in only a moment. “If not for her misguided nobility, she would be mine even now, and that ring in its rightful place on her hand!”

  Hannah’s spirits rose and she found herself in the unfamiliar position of defending Margaret Hale to her son. “Do not judge her harshly!” she chided. “It cost her a deal to answer you as she did. She is right in asking for delay just now, but only for your interests. Her own, it is true, would be better served by accepting immediately, but she was more concerned for you, my son. Do not abrogate the honour she tries to do you by your rash words.”

  He gazed at her in wide-eyed astonishment. “Mother! Whence came these new sentiments?”

  She stiffened slightly. “I may as well accept her,” she reasoned. “She seems, after all, a sensible young lady.”

  A shadow of his cheerful, crooked smile played at his mouth. “You would not mind sharing a home with her?”

  Her chin lifted yet higher. “Give me some time as well, son John.”

  He almost chuckled, but his eyes dimmed once more. “I have no choice, Mother. I fear you shall have more time, even, than you desire.”

  “Nay, John,” she assured him confidently. “You will find a way. I have more faith than ever now that you will succeed.”

  He sighed. “I hope you are correct, Mother.” He blinked a few times and rose to his feet.