50:36 – 50:49 (A Proposal Scene)
BBC version with a tiny sprinkling of the original book version. What happens between the moment the train departs the station and John and Margaret's delighted kisses at the very end of the film? Like every other JT/MH shipper, I have put words in their mouths! Let me show you them! (50:36: John closes the door and the train departs. 50:49: cut to carriage interior with two happy people in it.)
John slowly set the carpetbag on the seat and sat down beside it.
He looked at the woman seated across from him in the small swaying railway carriage.
'Margaret.' He stopped. Margaret. Great God. 'Margaret. Am I dreaming? Can you… do you care for me?'
She blushed but her eyes shone clear and bright. 'Yes, I do. Of course I do; how could I…' She raised her hand to her lips and trailed off, her blush deepening.
He had kissed Margaret Hale, kissed her and kissed her. More astonishing still, she had kissed him first, capturing his hand like a treasured thing and pressing it to her lips. And here she sat before him, having flown to him in an instant like a dear, fearless, trusting Margaret.
She began again. 'It seems like a dream to me, too. To have been balked of you in Milton, and to look up and see you there where I least expected to see you, looking… looking like someone in a dream.' Her eyes strayed to his open collar, then to his mouth and his eyes, until she held his gaze with a look like wonder. 'Mr Thornton,' she said very softly. 'I am not worthy.'
That stung him out of his own wonderment and he leaned back and shook his head. 'No, that is too much. Do not mock my own feeling of unworthiness.'
Her chin went up and her gaze sharpened, and she was the proud, sure woman he loved so well. 'No, indeed. Perhaps we will have to agree that there will be no talk of unworthiness between us. My regard for you is too great for me to tolerate such a speech from you. And as for the other, I will say nothing more of my own faults just at present.
'Only… ' she paused. 'Only there is one matter I should like to speak to you about. I cannot help wanting to speak to you of it. I think you know what I refer to.'
'Do you mean the matter of your brother's visit to Milton when your mother lay ill?'
She started. 'Yes! How did you know? Did Mr Bell tell you that it was Frederick you saw me with that night, and that it was Frederick for whom I told that dreadful, shameless lie? Oh, Mr Thornton! How bitterly I have repented my weakness. I was so frightened, but that can be no excuse. Even now my heart shrinks from what I did.'
'Margaret! You were frightened for your brother's life! You had, as I understand it, real reason to fear for him. I am at a loss to discover how protecting him as you did could be an unalloyed sin. You speak of your heart. Ever since I have known the facts of the matter, I have been conscious only of the beauty of such a heart, of such a mind, that would sacrifice its own peace to protect a brother. Oh, Margaret. Margaret. If such a heart could be—'
He stopped. He was on the verge of grave presumption. He had to get it right this time, and he had to do it now or his own heart would burst.
Sliding to his knees in the cramped space between the seats, he looked at her hands, soft, small, resting in her lap. He reached out to take her right hand in his and raised his eyes to her lovely, blushing face.
Gently as he could, he spoke. 'Margaret. I tried not to love you, when I had lost even my smallest hope of your ever caring for me. And that is all my hope ever was—the very smallest, most unreasonable wisp of a thing. Hope died, but love…' He shook his head. 'I spoke to you of love once before, crudely, and in anger, forcing my feelings upon you. Please forgive me but I must speak again. Margaret—Miss Hale—I love you with every atom of my being. My life has been better every day I have known you. Will you honour me beyond all reckoning… will you be my wife?'
Her face as he spoke was all colour and softness—but as the last words left his lips, he spied a tear! It dropped from her bright eye, then its twin slipped from her other eye. John's heart thumped; he could feel his own face flush hot. He had grieved her! She wasn't angry this time, but unhappy! How could he have behaved—again!—in such a boorish, ungentlemanly manner—
He started to his feet, only to feel himself checked by her grasp tightening on his hand. Her other hand came up and fastened on his arm, and she tugged him down beside her on the seat.
Eyes flashing, she leaned towards him. 'John Thornton! That was the most beautiful speech I have heard in my life—do not retreat in its wake!'
'Have I not made you unhappy?' he asked, brushing a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb.
She swiped impatiently at the residue of the tear on her other cheek. 'I have only the tiniest unhappiness at the moment—in that I am forbidden to say how unworthy I feel of your regard. Everything else is…' She breathed in and out slowly. 'I have come to admire you more than any man I have ever known. I never thought you could still have the least good opinion or friendliness towards me, and to find that you still—love me—is… overwhelming, to put it mildly.' She looked down at his hand, which she held clasped on the seat between them.
John fought against the chill of disappointment he felt creeping into his heart at these words. I have come to admire you. Her admiration, so warmly expressed, was surely beyond his deserts. How could he be greedy for more? But she still hasn't answered…
Perhaps she sensed, nestled close as she was to him, a slight wariness and reserve creeping in to his demeanour. Later, when they spoke of this day, he never asked if she felt it and she never mentioned it. Neither of them was the sort to anatomise the wellsprings of their happiness—both preferred simply to feel the unending swell of joy and contentment each felt in the other's embrace.
Whatever she sensed at that moment, when she spoke again it was to make him the happiest man alive.
'I have hardly let myself know my own heart until today. Don't you see? My own, my dearest John. I did not love you, before. But now I do, and I find that I have done for many months now. I love you. I think… I think I adore you.' At that she looked down for a moment, blushing. Raising her head, eyes glowing, she said, 'I can imagine no greater joy than that of becoming your wife. So yes, John. Yes, with all my heart, I will marry you.'
And for a little while, there were no more words spoken between them.