Northern Rain

by Nicole Clarkston

  “Well,” Edith brightened again and clasped Margaret’s hand. “That’s enough of all of that. Come, Sholto will be not nearly so enchanting once he grows hungry, so you must come see him now!”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Miss Hamilton, please.” John gave his hat to the butler as he stepped into the elegantly appointed home.

  “She is in the drawing room, Mr Thornton,” the man informed him, “but Mr Hamilton desired to speak with you immediately upon your arrival.”

  “I am afraid my business is with Miss Hamilton first,” John insisted with a winsome smile. “I believe it is the custom to first obtain a lady’s permission before approaching her father.”

  This seemed to give the old butler pause. He had his instructions, but he also knew his master’s desire, and that was to see the couple in question come to an unimpeded arrangement. He straightened his shoulders. “This way, sir.”

  He followed to a sumptuously decorated room, and discovered the lady he sought. She was seated demurely by the window, the light glinting handsomely off her hair and illuminating her classical features. The door closed behind him, and he offered her his most charming smile. “Miss Hamilton. You are looking well today.”

  She rose, blushing most becomingly, and approached. “And you, Mr Thornton. I am glad to see you so well recovered. It has been too long since last we met.”

  “Indeed it has. I beg you would overlook that unforgivable lapse of time. I have been rather preoccupied.”

  “It is quite understandable, Mr Thornton,” she looked away with fluttering lashes. “I believe you have been several times in my father’s company.”

  “I have,” he agreed. “Miss Hamilton, if I may be so blunt, I had something of rather great import to speak of with you.”

  Her eyes warmed. “By all means, Mr Thornton. Will you be seated?”

  He bowed very slightly in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Miss Hamilton.”

  ~

  Thomas Bell grimaced sourly as he disembarked from the obnoxious, foul-smelling beast which comprised modern transportation. The convenience of quick travel was scarcely compensation for the abominable shrieking and smoking of the lumbering behemoth at the head of the train! Waving his handkerchief before his face, he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the belching stacks as he walked by. This was why he did not live in Milton. The entire city was like this!

  He coughed violently as his exertions began anew. Walking always set him off this winter. For four and one half weeks he had been bed-ridden, unable to move past his own door without a crippling bout of coughing. The burning cinder now trickling into his already beleaguered lungs made up most of the breathable air in this god-forsaken place, and though he had scarcely arrived, he looked forward to his departure back to his beloved Oxford.

  He hailed a cab and paid a handsome tip to a young lad who set his luggage aboard. “M-Marlborough M-Mills, please,” he coughed out of the window.

  Settling against the squabs, he tried to quell the rattling in his chest. It was good to be up and about again, but he would not have stirred even yet from his home had not the affair been an urgent one. Nothing less than securing the happiness and fortune of his beloved god-daughter could have brought him hither.

  Presently the carriage rolled by the side entrance to his property. The gate stood open, unguarded and desolate. He could see even from the street the devastation to the buildings. Good heavens! Had he any notion it had been this bad, he would have forwarded Thornton some small defrayal; an instalment, as it were, on his coming good fortune. This was truly dreadful! Even if the repair work began immediately, it would be many weeks before the mill was operational again! And why had it not yet begun? He thought Hamilton was attending to that!

  He sat back, berating himself and his changeable health. He ought to have done more sooner, but he had spent half of his days either doubled over gasping for breath, or drugged on morphine to ease his cough and allow him at least a brief spell of rest. Well, there was no time quite like the present to make an amend.

  The carriage drew to a halt and the driver got down to help him out. Nodding his thanks, he mounted the steps and dropped the knocker on the heavy oaken door. It was opened a moment later by Mrs Thornton herself.

  “Mr Bell!” She looked past him, searching perhaps to see if he had come alone. “Do come in. We had not expected you.”

  “You had not? Why, I wrote to Hamilton not three days ago! Oh, perhaps he wished to keep it a surprise. I am also a day or two earlier than I originally expected to be,” he explained.

  “Indeed,” answered the slightly confused Hannah Thornton. “We have heard nothing from Mr Hamilton regarding your arrival. We knew only that your agent had seen to the transfer of the lease.”

  “Ah, yes, that was most regrettable,” sighed Bell, but immediately his traitorous lungs seized and bent him over in a new fit of coughing.

  Hannah started. She had heard that Mr Bell had been unwell, but she had assumed him to be exaggerating his complaint. It did not look to her now to be any sort of ruse- the man was truly ill. “You must come have something to drink,” she ordered.

  He allowed her to lead him to the drawing room and took a seat, still convulsing with every attempted breath. In a few moments, she had returned and pressed a glass of cool brandy into his hand.

  “Thank you,” he gasped. He drank, and soon found his throat soothed. As he began to recover somewhat, he took in his surroundings in surprise. “Why, Mrs Thornton, are you redecorating? What mean these crates of belongings?”

  She gaped at him. The old fool was senile! “Mr Bell,” she spoke slowly and firmly, “we must remove. The lease belongs to Mr Hamilton now.”

  “Well, yes, technically,” he shrugged. “But that was only out of necessity, Mrs Thornton. A temporary measure, of course.”

  “Mr Bell, I do not see what is so temporary about it! He is taking over the mill and the entire property.”

  “Well, yes, in name. Thornton will go on working it, naturally. I thought that was all settled!”

  “What is settled,” Hannah’s patience was leaving her rather quickly, “is that Mr Hamilton wished to engage John to a five-year contract and marriage to his daughter!”

  Bell, who had just been taking another sip of his drink, sputtered in surprise. “I thought he was to marry my god-daughter! Why, that was the whole point!”

  Hannah rolled her eyes and clamped her teeth together. “No, Mr Bell, that was not. It was John’s wish, but Mr Hamilton desired otherwise.”

  “But Margaret wrote to me of the explosion! Oh, I confess, she did not come out directly and announce her engagement to Thornton, but… well, Mrs Thornton, I remember how they used to look at one another, and if she took it upon herself to apprise me of Thornton’s affairs…. Well! You can see how I would have drawn that conclusion. Oh, I am dearly sorry if I have misread it all. Why, that changes everything!”

  “Miss Hale and my son do wish to marry,” she clarified. “Present circumstances, however, make it impossible.”

  His brow clouded. “Mrs Thornton, please, you make no sense. Either they intend to marry, or they do not! Do come to the point quickly, for I still have the head-ache from that dreadful train!”

  She blew air through her clenched teeth. “John and Miss Hale had an understanding, but after the mill disaster and Miss Hale’s unfortunate connection to that bank fraud-”

  “Oh, rubbish!” interrupted the old gentleman. “That is easily dealt with, for Margaret would have had nothing to do with that! Besides, I have one or two ideas regarding that she will like very much, I think.”

  “Y-yes,” she growled, annoyed at his disruption. “As I was saying, Mr Hamilton found the situation to his advantage. He offered a conditional witness statement in Miss Hale’s behalf, provided that John renounce their engagement. He hoped to force John to a contract to work here for him and also wished to wed his own daughter to my son.”
>
  Bell lowered his glass, his face quite pale. “Mrs Thornton, are you certain?”

  “Indeed I am! John was most vexed, to put it mildly.”

  Bell began blinking rapidly, his complexion changing colours. He cursed under his breath, entirely forgetting that he was in the presence of a lady. “I trusted him! How could he… oh! If I could lay hands on him…” he continued to mumble and sputter indictments against his associate as his thoughts jumbled together.

  “Thornton would not have agreed to all of this!” he at last comfortably assured himself. “Why, he has proven his mettle before, am I not right? Hamilton may have wanted the property, but I made it clear… and Thornton to capitulate to such a demand! Mrs Thornton, what was the last thing they said to one another?”

  She arched a brow, unable to follow the old codger’s ramblings. “Mr Hamilton was here yesterday. They quarreled rather loudly, and he gave John until noon today to sign the contract and make an offer to Miss Hamilton, or he would denounce Miss Hale to the magistrate.”

  “Merciful heavens!” Bell breathed. He snatched the watch from his pocket and stared at it. “Mrs Thornton, where is he now?”

  “I believe,” she intoned heavily, “that he has gone to speak to Mr Hamilton. I do not know what he planned to say.”

  “By Jove,” he wheezed. “I’ve not an instant to lose!”

  ~

  The oversized door rumbled closed behind him, and Thornton stood dazed and breathless on the front steps of the massive home. It was done.

  Margaret would be safe, but the cost…. Oh, the cost!

  He clenched his eyes, his entire being recoiling in horror at what he had been required to do. How could he even look himself in the mirror? Slowly, leadenly, he made the heavy descent down to the street.

  He watched only the wet cobblestones as he walked, his conscience too overwrought by disgrace to lift his countenance to the passersby on the street. He needed to stop first to see his mother, to reveal to her the depth to which her son had lowered himself, and then… and then to Margaret. He owed her an explanation. A pained gasp shuddered from him.

  “Thornton! Thornton, by heaven, there you are!” quavered a failing voice.

  He stopped and raised his head, finally noticing the hired cab bearing down upon him. A fine brown hat waved frantically from the window and a spidery grey head poked out just beside it. He squinted. “Mr Bell?”

  The old man leaped athletically from the cab, but soon nearly toppled over in a fit of coughing. “Thor-” he hacked repeatedly, never managing to pronounce his full name.

  Thornton rushed to his side. “Mr Bell! You should not be on the street, sir. You are very ill!”

  Bell waved him off, sputtering impatiently. He held up a hand for a moment of patience, during which he exerted his whole effort to force his breathing to regulate. Shaking and white, he finally raised himself to a stooped but somewhat more upright posture. “Thornton!” he gasped. “Tell me you have not yet been to Hamilton’s!”

  “I have just come from there, sir,” he answered thickly.

  “Surely not!” the old man lamented. “I had not thought you would do so! Oh, if I had only come sooner!” Bell sagged in his weakness, his hand clutching his aching chest.

  “Mr Bell,” Thornton grasped the old man’s upper arm. “You must mount the carriage again. I will see you back to the mill. Truly, sir, you seem very unwell.”

  “I am well enough at the present!” Bell snapped. “Tell me, Thornton, that you did not break my god-daughter’s heart. You did not sign any contract, did you?”

  John Thornton stared at the raving old academic, completely befuddled. “Break Margaret’s heart? I should hope I have not! I am sorry to say that she will be most disappointed in me, though. What I asked of that poor girl-”

  “But the contract!” Bell fairly pleaded. “If you spoke for that daughter of Hamilton’s, I think that can be dealt with, but tell me you signed nothing!”

  “Of course I did neither! I may be ruined beyond hope of recovery and have in the name of passion forsaken my dignity, but I have still some measure of my independence!”

  Bell sagged against the carriage, grasping the door for support. “Thank heavens! By thunder, Thornton, had I known Hamilton would try to take you in, I should never have brought him in to all of this!”

  “Mr Bell,” Thornton insisted firmly, “you must return to your carriage. I fear your spirits are so agitated that you make no sense whatever.”

  Bell relented at last, but motioned very firmly for the younger man to accompany him. Thornton instructed the driver to return them to the mill. Once they had both settled inside, with the doors closed, Bell allowed his head to drop back against the padded seat. “Now, then, Thornton, we must first talk about the repairs to the mill. How much will the reconstruction cost, and how quickly can it be done? I think the work ought to recommence immediately, and I am sorry to find that it has not already begun!”

  Thornton was kneading his brow in confusion. “Mr Bell, I have nothing further to do with Marlborough Mills. It is in Mr Hamilton’s name. Even if you are put out with him now, you cannot rescind the contract!”

  “I bleeding well can!” Bell raged unexpectedly, then stopped shortly as his body convulsed with more suppressed coughing.

  “The terms are only temporary,” Bell recovered after a moment. “My attorney spoke with the underwriters of the insurance policy and they were satisfied- as long as you were technically under the authority of another for the time being- but that agreement was to terminate as soon as the repairs were complete and you assumed proper ownership! I am afraid you will have to purchase your own policy after that, if you wish.”

  Thornton’s head was starting to swim. “Assume ownership! Mr Bell, do forgive me sir, but I think you must lie down as soon as possible.”

  “Lie down! My boy, what the devil did Hamilton tell you?”

  Thornton shook his head in bewilderment. “That he intended to put the business in his daughter’s name, and that he would repay some of the debts the mill had incurred in exchange for a five-year agreement. He then hoped to purchase the property in the future for a pittance so that he might have his way with it.”

  “Bah! The scoundrel!” Bell spat. “That was all a sham, Thornton! Why, the only way he could have succeeded is if you had cooperated and he had you bound by a legal contract- and also persuaded you into wedding the wrong woman, thus blocking you from the deed! I suppose he thought to press the matter with you before I could make it up here to find him out. Thank heaven you are so thick-headed, Thornton! Now, of course, I may proceed as I originally planned.”

  “And what,” Thornton asked wearily, his head spinning from Bell’s ramblings, “might that be, sir?”

  “Why, to give you and Margaret the mill as your wedding gift, of course! It would have become hers anyway at my death, for I have no other heirs, but when I realized there was something more serious between the two of you, I thought it all a fine idea.

  “I foolishly thought to keep it a surprise, however, and as I had been corresponding with Hamilton, it seemed natural enough to engage his assistance until such time as I had recovered well enough to make the journey myself. He seemed quite willing to help, particularly when I told him that Margaret was my heir, and… why, what has come over you, Thornton? You look positively daft!”

  Thornton had, indeed, changed complexion and expression so frequently during Bell’s explanation that he now merely sat, a dreamy and perhaps somewhat fatuous look gracing his stern features. “Mr Bell,” his voice shook with the tremours of lingering doubt, “can you be serious?”

  “I most certainly am! I must tell you, Thornton, that girl has my heart. Just after my last visit to Milton, I made certain to change my will so that all of my monies and properties will eventually pass to her. I charge you most solemnly to take proper care of her, or I shall defy the edicts of the Church and come back from the grave t
o haunt you!”

  “Then,” the single-minded suitor breathed, “I need not find another situation… we may marry right away! There remain no further impediments!” Seized with frenzied inspiration, he at once leapt to the window. “Driver! Please take us instead to Crampton!”

  ~

  They found the homey little dwelling in Crampton more barren and melancholy than they had ever seen. Dixon’s lined face looked puffy about the eyes, but she uttered nary a word about her own cares as she stepped aside for them to enter. It was Mr Hale’s grey face and haggard, sunken cheeks which truly caused his visitors some alarm.

  He had been sitting alone by the hearth fire, a letter in his hand which Thornton thought looked to be written in Margaret’s elegant penmanship. He turned in surprise at their entry. “John?” He stood. “Thomas? I had not thought to see you!”

  Bell was beginning to cough once more, and Thornton helped him unceremoniously to a seat. With a quick glance back at Dixon, he requested a drink for the old man. “Mr Hale, sir, I came to speak with Margaret,” he explained as soon as he was able.

  Mr Hale’s face drooped. “I am afraid she has gone, John.”

  He blinked, stunned. “Gone!” He looked back to Bell for confirmation that he had heard correctly. “Surely she is only visiting the Higgins family,” he consoled himself.

  But Hale was shaking his head. “She left two days ago, John. She did not wish you to know. She feared that her presence might bring you to ruin, and so she has gone!”

  The floor seemed suddenly unstable as he moved, disbelievingly, to Margaret’s father. “I cannot believe she would go! Has she so lost faith that she would not tell me?”