Chapter Three – Parental Duties

"A wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease." Elizabeth Gaskell.


Thornton went to the window of his office and watched Margaret leave a full hour after he had left the house. As she got to the gates, he saw her look back at the house, nod and smile broadly to his mother who stayed on at the window till she was out of sight and then return to her work.

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For the next full two hours after Margaret left, Hannah Thornton thought about the discussion they had just had, replaying the conversation, nodding and shaking her head as different thoughts coursed through her mind.

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"Imagine that.." she exclaimed, "what a surprise…" clasping her hands and tapping her forefingers together.

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One thing Hannah Thornton realised today is that keeping this promise to Maria Hale was not going as easy as she supposed; for Margaret had grown up with two mothers in London and Helstone who had taught her manners and courtesy and to keep house, but neither woman was here to guide her through the most significant and delicate moments in her life, to get a husband, belong to him, and secure her future. That lot has now fallen to Hannah whose dilemma will be to guide this young lady as she would her own daughter, when she knew full well that her own son desired her for wife, even though she may not have been her own choice of a wife for him. It was a delicate matter indeed!


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Someone once said your expectation determines your attitude, your attitude influences your actions, and your actions have consequences

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Expectations

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Mrs. Thornton made it her primary duty, her priority to see Fanny married and settled for the future. She acquired the accomplishments that made her eligible and came out when she turned seventeen and married Watson one month short of her nineteenth birthday with a generous dowry as part of the deal. Mrs. Thornton recalled only too well how much tea and cake she endured in tedious company chaperoning Fanny to balls, theatre and parties, and how much diligence Fanny paid to fashion in time for the Season. Mrs. Shaw was determined to see Edith married and she made sure they attended every possible concert, dinner, opera, picnic and party with Margaret tagging along, and her tenacity paid off when Captain Lennox started to court her. They got married just about the time the Hales moved to Milton.

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Mrs. Hale approached the matter with a passive indifference and had obviously delegated or rather abdicated the responsibility to her sister, Mrs. Shaw. She did not seem to be overly concerned about it either for when the family moved to Milton, for even if she was unwell, one would think she would have indicated her desire to see her daughter chaperoned and perhaps have asked for help from Mrs. Thornton earlier. It may well be that she viewed that their lack of fortune put Margaret at a disadvantage as she would not have much of a dowry to encourage eligible men to seek her hand in marriage. For women, if wealth was not inherited, it had to be got by marriage, for chances of earning wealth in trade was limited, particularly for women of the higher classes. Margaret Hale did not have wealth, so it was odd that she would reject a chance to be married.

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Margaret was clearly embarrassed that it seemed she had concocted a proposal by obligation rather than following a courtship. It did not matter that the suitor loved her, for her pride would always remind her that she acquired this situation by being compromised, and that of her own making. It smacked of desperation and she was mortified that anyone could think her capable of such scheming as her lack of fortune suggests she was unlikely to get a proposal any other way. She had even cited of the possibility of Thornton's indifference or even pity to justify refusing his proposal. "….What if he did not like me? What if he loved another?" she had said. Mrs. Thornton shudders to think how many men may have been compelled to marry women they hated and be separated from ones that he loved all because of propriety, obligation and honour. That situation would have been infinitely worse if Thornton had not loved Margaret but had his proposal accepted. Even thinking about of it nauseated Mrs. Thornton for he would have truly been miserable, and the agony of his current heartbreak would have paled in comparison.

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Nevertheless, it was his lack of attachment to any woman at the moment that could make him vulnerable and this is what concerned his mother the most. John Thornton had better be more vigilant in his contacts with ladies from now on lest some silly girl comes up with some harebrained scheme to be compromised with him in order to secure herself a fine husband.


Attitude

It was bewildering that Margaret herself had not shown much interest in getting married ever since she came to Milton. Her friendship with the workers was not likely to put her in the right social circles to make a suitable connection, and she did not attempt to cultivate any of the high society ladies' good opinion. Mrs. Thornton recalled how she had scoffed "…surely not all…" when she was told that Thornton was desired by all women in Milton, and that had angered Mrs. Thornton considerably. Hannah's own pride and joy, her son, youngest mill master, magistrate, handsome, wealthy and respectable to be disparaged by a poor young girl, an outsider from the south and a snob. Insufferable!

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A lady accept a man's suit because they either loved and esteemed the suitor; or wished to consolidate their place in society or improve their lot in life; or were just desperate not to become old maids. Very few ladies were encouraged to desire the intimacies of marriage. Such sports in ladies were seen as sinful, improper and base and should only be indulged by women of lower classes or fallen women.

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Clearly, Margaret did not love Thornton, and in rejecting him, was not looking at marriage in order to improve her position, yet she should be clever enough to know how vulnerable old spinsters were within their families.

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Nevertheless, Mrs. Thornton had always wondered why Margaret seemed to always disagree with Thornton and where the animosity stemmed from. It turned out her first impressions of Thornton was of a hot tempered and violent master who beat up a defenseless Stephens for smoking at the mill, and this made her dislike and challenge him at every turn and champion the lot of the weak. It is ironic that it was probably at that very same encounter that Thornton started to admire the woman that had the audacity to publicly reprimand him. Subsequent meetings made him seem uncaring and only after profit as a businessman, until her friends like Bessie Higgins made her realise how much she had misjudged him and they settled into a form of antagonistic friendship. The final straw was the Outwood incident, which eroded whatever remnants of regard he had for her.

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"John needs to control that temper of his," Mrs. Thornton admits, "but he is not a violent person, Miss Hale. He is passionate and proud, stern and intense, but had never used his fist against a soul until that day. It was unfortunate that you had to witness that, and I sincerely apologise on his behalf" she had offered to Margaret.

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It was even more baffling to Mrs. Thornton that Margaret could not have not known that a man was attracted to her such that a proposal would surprise her, for if she had seriously considered matrimony she would have realised that a man's intentions were not just for friendship. She said she had been surprised by a proposal from Henry Lennox, her cousin's brother-in-law and refused him as well. "Henry is a friend and we got on well together, but I did not see him as someone I wanted to marry" she had said.

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"So there were others" Mrs. Thornton said to herself "….hmmm. Another man, heartbroken as John. Miserable sod, this Henry Lennox. Perhaps he is thinking of renewing his suit. Who knows?"

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"So, where do things stand with this Mr. Lennox and how did your cousin take your rejection of her brother-in-law?" Mrs. Thornton inquired

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Margaret replied, "we have remained friends, but Edith is hopeful that I would change my mind. I doubt it. Henry is helping me with my brother's case, so I don't think he completely despises me"

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Mrs. Thornton admonished, "You do not want to gain a reputation of teasing and giving men false hopes and disappointment. It could ruin you".

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Margaret replied defensively "I was not aware that Henry and Mr. Thornton cared for me, so I did not knowingly give them false hope nor did I wish to cause them pain. I just felt I would get married some day, but I would like to love whomever I married. My parents married for love, and they were very happy. I would be very miserable if I did not love my husband. It will be difficult to cherish and obey someone I do not love, don't you think, ma'am?" Margaret asked

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Mrs. Thornton responded, "Love alone will not sustain you. You also need friendship and esteem to have a perfect union, and these come on gradually and with more acquaintance. You should not accept a man that all you feel for are pity and indifference, for even if he were to love you, you would make him miserable and inconstant, but heaven forbid a marriage of scorn or reproach for such union is no union at all, it is hateful.

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Margaret baulked at Mrs. Thornton's assessment because she had used hateful words when she refused Thornton's proposal that even made him say "you look as if you thought it tainted to be loved by me.." She had constantly castigated herself ever since for she neither felt scorn nor reproach for him at all in spite what she said. Perhaps she had felt some indifference but definitely not pity, and she has gradually begun to esteem him and see him as a friend, albeit a friend to her family despite her conduct and behaviour towards him.

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Even though she thought her parents were happy because they seemed to be friends, she was aware that her Aunt Shaw had taken her in to be a companion to Edith since she was nine in order to mitigate her father's lack of fortune and difficulties. She was her father's daughter and he missed her terribly, but Mrs. Hale had prevailed in getting her sent away for nine months each year only to return in the summer when Edith and Aunt Shaw went away to Europe. She had even overhead Dixon telling the cook once in Helstone "if Miss Beresford had not been in a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman, there was not knowing what she might not have become." When her father dissented and put the family in reduced circumstances and had to retrench to Milton, she was fairly certain that it was the combination of regret and disappointment that further afflicted her mother's spirits and Margaret had tried to mitigate any ill will by taking on servile duties in order to make life more bearable for her parents.

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When Margaret said she saw Thornton only as her father's friend and was not aware he loved her, Hannah wondered how John had managed to hide his attraction so well. John's attachment to Margaret was so strong and surely, Mr. and Mrs. Hale should have caught wind of it. "One wonders what goes on in that house at Crampton when John goes for his lessons" she thought "for women tend to be sensitive to such things, but perhaps because Mrs. Hale was ill, very little attention was paid to John's attraction to Margaret. A fox may be in the hen house and she probably would not have noticed."

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"Margaret, do you get to see John when he comes to your house for lessons with your father?" Mrs. Thornton asked.

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"Yes, I am invited to sit in with them in their discussions, and I pour tea for them. I have read some of the books and my father debates with my brother and I when we were growing up, so I am familiar to some of their philosophical discourse. Mr. Thornton also visited when my mother was ill and he brought her fruits all the time. We were always in company but we did not discuss anything of a personal nature" Margaret replied.

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The only other time Mrs. Thornton had seen John and Margaret together was at the annual Thornton dinner and they had argued, and even though Thornton was angry at her, it was unmistakable the way his eyes grazed over her admiringly all evening. Perhaps Hannah noticed this because she was his mother, for until the Hales turned up in Milton, he was all seriousness about the mill and the business. Suddenly he wants to learn about Socrates and Plato, Aristotle and Aristophanes, Euclid and all the Classics. She had felt sympathy for him having to cut his education short following his father's death, and saw this as an opportunity to exorcise some of his demons, but one wonders if he would have made the same effort had there not been an incentive in the person of Margaret Hale.

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The rules of courtship for women do not encourage intelligence or interest in politics for a lady to be attractive to suitors. Margaret was very clever and it showed in her discussions at the Thornton dinner in front of other masters and their wives. Mrs. Thornton advised her not to publicise her intelligence, as it could be detrimental in the long run. It drew a lot of criticism and did not endear her to the other women there. On a wider note, it made her look capable of scheming such that her protestations of naiveté would be received with considerable skepticism.

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Thornton on his part admired her for that very quality but as she had refused him, she cannot have his protection. "It is a man's world," Mrs. Thornton had said. "They hold all the power, so the protection a woman has is through men, be it a father, an uncle, a brother, a husband or a son." If life has taught Mrs. Thornton anything, it is that when the menfolk are unable to care for their families either through ill health, abandonment or death, their womenfolk have to do the work of men, but still give the credit to the men as people were not comfortable with the idea of strong women - a paradox, an oxymoron and a sure way to imbalance society. She had no one to protect her as a widow and had to make decisions like a man until her son was grown up enough to take over. For her, that meant being stern, unemotional and determined, and "not given to sentiments and vapours like weak-willed women with low spirits." The workers at the mill even called her the Dragon. Of course, she would have loved to bring up her children in gentility but did not have the good fortune for it but now she had the protection of her son.

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To her disadvantage, Margaret was outspoken and opinionated, spirited and stubborn and much too clever to attract most men, but then, a sensible man like Thornton would not want a silly wife. She probably felt that their disagreements made her unattractive to him. Margaret Hale was truly beautiful, Mrs. Thornton admitted, but different from any woman John may have known and perhaps that made her all the more alluring to him. "My poor son, he was like a moth to a flame" she cried to herself.

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In reality, people rarely commented about Margaret's beauty to her, even though she was very beautiful and elegant, with alabaster skin, ebony black hair, captivating green eyes, delicate hands, small waist and dainty ankles. Growing up in London, everyone had remarked about Edith's prettiness and charm and she was often overlooked. Even Frederick was more favoured than her, for when she asked her mother about what he was like as a baby, she had said "Why, Margaret, you must not be hurt, but he was much prettier than you were. I remember when I first saw you in Dixon's arms, I said, 'Dear, what an ugly little thing.' The police inspector that interviewed her over Leonards' death had described her as 'handsome', and that was perhaps one of the best compliments she had ever had about her features. Her intelligence and practicality became something she cherished about herself and now she was being told that this will not even endear her to a suitor.

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"Margaret" Mrs. Thornton had said in a gentle but firm tone "you have been brought up as a country vicar's daughter and a lady of court in London where you were expected to be delicate and weak and cared for by the menfolk. You are actually clever and strong and you have helped your family settle in Milton, which must be difficult, but you need the protection of your father. That is how things are done, in a world where men dominate and hold all the power, a women cannot be independent without the covering of a man."

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"My father was distraught by my mother's illness and I had to help the family in any way I could" Margaret defended, which was why she turned up at Marlborough Mills in the first place.

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"You certainly have to help your parents and support your family" Mrs. Thornton said, "but I believe you should have confided in your father all the same about the riots and the problem at Outwood station at the very least, considering that he sent you on that errand in the first place and it involved the police. It was not your place to take on these burdens all by yourself when you have a parent, a father for that matter. Margaret, you are bound to make mistakes first by virtue of your youth, and then by the constraints of your sex, so what I am asking you to do is to have regard for propriety so that you do not keep becoming the scapegoat on matters outside your control." Mrs. Thornton counseled.


Consequences.

Every lady of good breeding view intimacy with husbands as a duty mainly for the purpose of producing an heir. On the eve of Fanny's wedding to Watson, Mrs. Thornton had passed on her own mama's advice, "give little, give seldom and above all give grudgingly for your duty as his wife is to ration his passions. Pray, tell, …..what did prim and proper Maria Hale, daughter of titled gentry, wife of a clergyman tell her naïve innocent Margaret about a man's ardour? Hannah asked herself, ….for if she had but an inkling of it, surely she would not intimately cling to any man who was not kin. "Quite odd", for at first Margaret would not take Thornton's hand in greeting as "no gentleman would offer his hand to a lady in the south, it is improper, too familiar" she said. And then, "quite contrarily" she flings her arms around the same gentleman's neck to protect him."

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As for a son, no Mama knows who teaches him how to bed a woman. It is at a secret school known only to the brotherhood of men. Still, Mrs. Thornton was fairly certain her pious son has never had intimate relations with a woman for he always seemed aloof or shall we say immune to the attentions and flirtations from all..…yes,..…all the unmarried ladies of Milton until he encountered the elegant Miss Hale, and then he became helpless, ….. like a fly trapped in a spider's web.

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Yet even if he was experienced in such sports, heaven knows what thrills and sensations must have coursed through him that moment on the balcony to have a woman's body touch him in such a familiar way. "She pressed her breasts and thighs against his body for goodness sake! My poor boy did not stand a chance." Hannah exclaimed. "Margaret Hale has now ….stirred up,… no, ….awakened,… no, ….inflamed… passion in him, and then she refuses to have him. Little wonder he is sullen. Vexation, I tell you!"

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And when a man's passion is afire, well…

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No one, least of all Mrs. Thornton had ever realized that it was Margaret that made Thornton go out to face the mob in the first place until she mentioned it now. What the maid saw was that "the Master was on the balcony to meet the mob, and then the lady, Miss Hale came out and then threw her arms around the Master" and then the whole sordid mess happened. No one was privy to the event that prompted him to go out to the mob before the soldiers arrived and Hannah had always wondered what he thought to gain by it. "What was he thinking?… facing an armed and angry mob dressed in a frock coat and top hat to talk to them man to man….imagine that.." she asked herself. No, for it never did make an iota of sense to her, and knowing John, he was never going to tell. Margaret had just supplied that missing bit of the puzzle for it was her that put such a stupid notion into his head. When did talk ever stop a brawl in Milton talk less of a riot. Talk to them indeed! Mrs. Thornton said with exasperation

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Unbelievable! Yes, unbelievable that Thornton would do something so reckless at the prompting of a girl. He certainly loved her and craved her admiration, but men hardly listen to their womenfolk. One part of Hannah felt intense jealousy at this for if there was any doubt that she no longer had first place in her son's affections that doubt had just vanished 'like a puff of smoke' as she would say. Hannah supported him, but Margaret challenged him. Everyone knew that a man will one day transfer his love from a mother to a wife or heavens forbid, a mistress. Thornton has made up his mind that Margaret is the one for him and that's that.

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Her strong brave son, her Samson has now met his Delilah, for this woman could get him to do almost anything, even risk his life, and break his poor Mama's heart. Such love is dangerous in the wrong hands. "Tis like a blunderbuss in the hands of a blind man" as dear old grandpapa Thornton used to say. The only saving grace is that Margaret herself was not aware that she had this power over John, and it will be best to keep it that way, unless, or rather until she returns his love.

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But Hannah Thornton is sensible and she knows that such power as Margaret has may prove to be useful one day therefore .

Margaret was best kept as an ally than as a foe. Now, that is wisdom!


Someone once said a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.

Hannah had thought the Hales were a very close knit family and shared everything. Her son certainly told her everything, but it would seem that Margaret never confided in her parents about the riot and the proposal. She was devoted to her parents for sure but that commitment was not fully requited, for she did not seem to be a priority in any of their considerations. Little wonder her only friend and adviser in Milton would be a girl her own age, now deceased, and now finds herself alone with no counsel. The poor girl has borne this burden on her own along with her mother's illness and death and then the problems about her brother and Leonard's death. Hannah could not help but feel so much compassion for her young charge, and having experienced so much pain herself, she subconsciously wrapped her arms around herself as if to hug Margaret. "Poor, poor child" she whispered.


Hannah suddenly felt cold and saw that the log in the fireplace needed turning. She was surprised how much time had gone with her musing. John should be home in the next hour. She goes to the window and sees the light in John's office still on, as he worked late into the night again. His insistence on coming to lunch means he has to work the extra hours to catch up. She did not mind that in the least because it meant he always had a good lunch during his working day and was in a better mood in the evenings.

Plus, he gets to see Margaret.

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