The Hill.
A/N: My continuation of the ending of North & South. I don't own anything. As always, reviews of any sort are always welcome.
(1.)
'Margaret!'
For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands. Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call upon her name.
'Margaret!'
Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered-panted out the words:-
'Take care.-If you do not speak-I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way.-Send me away at once, if I must go;-Margaret!-'
At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, hiding it even there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes. He clasped her close. But they both kept silence. At length she murmured in a broken voice:
'Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!'
'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.'
After a minute or two, he gently disengaged her hands from her face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to protect him from the rioters.
'Do you remember, love?' he murmured. 'And how I requited you with my insolence the next day?'
(2.)
At last he had her, sighing softly on his shoulder, lulled to sleep as the train continued north, home. His fingers wound around her small, delicate hand, the hand that had saved him once. He brought it to his lips and kissed it.
She stirred but did not wake.
He thought of his need, upon seeing her again, to bring her home. Margaret, whom he had always loved, who had lost so very much.
The wedding was anon, yet achieved at very little expense at her insistence.
She had walked to the church, her face full of colour and lovely, on that day.
Mrs. Thornton had come to admire her practicality and devotion. Twice now, she had saved her son.
(3.)
"Oh, Bessie." Margaret stood there on the hill, the saddest and most beautiful landscape in all the world, where many had been buried, but today she had come only to see one. She paused and bit her lip, sighing into the cool evening wind.
As she stood there with Bessie Higgins, Margaret could not help but think of all the friends she had known, and would never see again. Her own brother was lost to her, perhaps for ever, on some distant, foreign shore she did not know. Margret whispered questions, but they were not answered.
(4.)
There was something in his Mrs. Thornton's manner that troubled him a little, as she grew silent from time to time.
In the firelight, Mr. Thornton reached for her pale, delicate hand. She turned her head away from her book and smiled at him, lacing her fingers through his larger ones.
"Whatever made you change your mind?" He heard himself ask.
"My mind had never changed." Margaret's voice was soft. "I could not bear… to lose you, as well. It would not have been right… when you asked me before. It would not have been right." She choked.
"Shh," John Thornton reached for her, his palm pressed against her cheek. "I do not want you to be unhappy."
"I am not." She insisted, smiling and kissing his hand, his face. "I am not."
They lingered like that for a moment, until a sound at the door reminded them that they were not alone.
Reluctantly, Mr. Thornton released her. Margret tarried, delicately placing a kiss at the soft place where his jaw met his neck, then rose, too quickly, leaving him.
"John," Margaret looked up suddenly, her vision blurred, dizzy. The colour drained from her face as she gripped the back of a chair tightly, as if that could keep the world from spinning.
He looked up at her, alarmed.
"John," She spoke again, a plea, a whisper. He was at her side in an instant.
"What has happened?" He asked her, as her body collapsed and fell against him. His arms encircled her in an instant.
He heard his voice calling for the servants, his mother, but it was not him. He clasped his young wife against his chest, holding her there , praying she would last.
"I have sent for the doctor," Mr. Thornton advised his mother.
"There is no need for that." Mrs. Thornton shook her head. "She is well enough, no harm done." She gestured to the door. "She's asking for you, John."
"I don't understand." He asked, his voice very low.
"She was with child," Mrs. Thornton whispered. "These things happen," She said, touching his arm regretfully.
He entered the room, walking carefully, trying to understand what it was his mother had meant.
She averted her eyes instantly, unable to look at him, even as he sat beside her and took her hand.
"I do not know…" She admitted in a disconsolate breath, sitting in their bed, her hair worn loose like a girls. "To feel these children grow… then fade, and I do not know whether to name them, or bury them, or…"
(5.)
"A letter for you, Mrs. Thornton." Jane offered.
"From Edith?" Margaret studied the letter. "It is from Spain." she paused, turning it over in her hands. "Thank you." she smiled, but the smile quickly faded into a sense of presentiment and anxiety.
"Is something amiss, Margaret?" Mrs. Thornton inquired, looking up from her needlepoint.
"It is not from my brother Frederick."
With great care she opened the letter. Moments passed, taking the colour from her, leaving her pale as death.
"Margaret?" Mrs. Thornton repeated.
She had seen it printed somewhere, pandemic.
"There… there has been an outbreak of cholera." her voice wavered.
Mrs. Thornton put down her needlepoint, the sound it made against the mahogany table was deafening.
"My brother and his wife have…" she paused. "they were taken ill. Their daughter, Maria, is now an orphan, barely five years old."
"Go and fetch Mr. Thornton." she instructed Jane.
"No," Margaret said, her voice loud for a moment then taciturn, "No, I must write immediately, and leave sooner."
"Leave? Whatever for?"
"I must go and collect the child, and bring her here."
Mrs. Thornton reached for her daughter in law. "Margaret," she said firmly, placing her hands upon the younger Mrs. Thornton's arms. "My son would not want you to rush headlong into a cholera pandemic." she urged, then spoke softly. "The child will be sent for."
She left her then, and Margret sank down onto the couch, now feeling the true weight of her brother's death upon her.
"Go and fetch Mr. Thornton." Mrs. Thornton spoke to Jane in a low voice, unable to take her eyes away from Margaret, lest she run while her back was turned. "before his pretty wife does something reckless."
(6.)
She did not lament or mourn, but stood there as pale and perfect as a marble statue, wondering at the courtyard below, unmoving.
"Margret."
She turned to face him, and reached for him as he crossed the room, the distance between them, and embraced her.
"John," she murmured against his chest, and the salt tears poured from her. "It's Fred… Fred is gone."
He held her tighter.
(7.)
It was late, too late to be in the dark and saturnine railway station.
Margaret waited, almost too anxious to breathe.
The train, lumbering, slouched toward the platform in a cloud of grey smoke and noise.
She searched the crowd of strangers until at last she found her, the small, lost little thing, miles and miles away from the bright shores of Cadiz.
"Miss Maria Hale?" A pale, beautiful woman she knew she had never seen before spoke to her , with her father's wide, smiling eyes.
"Mrs. Thornton?" she spoke slowly, unsure of the words, the sound of them. English was not her first language, but she had learned it all the same.
"Come," Margaret smiled, taking child's hand and suitcase. "We must get you home. Have you eaten?" she asked as they left the station. "Such a long journey, you must be exhausted!" She was trying hard, perhaps too hard, to talk of simple, pleasant things.
(8.)
Margret stood at the door of what had become Maria's room.
The girl slept soundly, utterly exhausted, having come from a brighter, warmer place to the grey, smoke-filled streets of Milton.
Margret felt a familiar and on her shoulder and sighed, leaning into him.
"John."
"I would have gone with you, If you'd waited."
"I know," she said.
"How was she, when you met with her?"
"Tired… and so young… I wonder if she even understands." Margret found herself thinking of her own parents, a silent valediction. She found her hand coming to rest on her husbands, placed about her shoulder.
"Come," he urged her gently, his arm wound itself around her waist and they walked, vanishing into the hallway.