Chapter Twenty

Margaret hesitated before following him out of the room, her mind reeling with the events of the previous ten minutes. It seemed impossible that so very much could happen in so little time. But indeed it had happened, and not how she expected. There was only one thing left to do.

She needed to find out why.

She found him in their bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, with his head in his hands, supported only by his elbows that were resting on his knees. He did not move as she entered, and she approached him timidly. He must have known she was there; her skirts were rustling far too much for it to go unnoticed. Nevertheless, when she touched his arm he jumped slightly as though burned.

"Please Margaret." He had said to her. "Let me be alone with my thoughts." And he had left the room and not returned until long after she had gone to bed.

At least, she assumed that's what had happened. Shortly after his departure, she got into bed and cried herself to sleep. When she woke (albeit much earlier than she normally would), she was alone in bed, but under the covers and in her chemise. Even if there would have been any doubt in her mind as to who had undressed her, the side of the bed he slept on was disturbed, and he had placed the dress she was wearing along side her wedding dress. It wasn't very hard to put the pieces together. But she had done as he had asked, and left him to his thoughts. It didn't stop her from being angry with him. Angry for avoiding her, angry for being so everlastingly confusing…angry for kissing her like that.

Not that she regretted it of course. No, she had very much enjoyed it. But there was more going on in John's mind than she could understand. Perhaps two months ago a kiss like that could have solved everything between them. One seemingly insignificant reckless abandon, such as was shown on that night, would have led invariably to their happily ever after. But something was different between them. And there was something about being ignored by John that always seemed to touch a nerve. Even months ago after she cruelly rejected his proposal, and she had deserved being ignored, it always upset her; only then she was overwhelmed by the guilt of her lie.

Perhaps one day, when John wasn't so very angry with her, she could finally tell him about Frederick. Her father had shown her a letter from her brother (come so very, very late), that announced he was safely back home in Spain. Perhaps now Margaret could tell him of that night at the train station, without putting either person at risk, and he might forgive her. At the very least he might be understanding of her reasoning.

But that was before their argument the night Margaret sought him out in a desperate hope of fixing whatever lay broken between them.

Calling up some of the determination she miraculously procured to confront him, Margaret went to find him after he came storming in from the mill one evening. He wasn't very hard to locate. After all, aside from the servants, they were the only two people in the house. And John seemed to making a lot of noise. The distinct tones of miscellaneous items crashing to the floor was unmistakable. Margaret paused for only a moment outside the door to their bedroom, a small amount of fear settling in her stomach as she listened.

Her assumptions proved to be correct: there was a collection of items littering the floor, some broken some shattered beyond repair. And there was John, pacing furiously in small circles again, pausing only to find something to throw. He didn't notice her, or if he did he said nothing of it. Margaret inched her way into the bedroom, closing the door silently behind her, and stared at him incredulously. This was a John unlike anything she had ever seen, and it frightened her. Not because of his anger, his intensifying need to destroy everything in sight, or even because she was afraid he might run out of things to smash and turn on her. No, it was the look in his eyes that frightened her. It was as though he were another man, for he was not himself. John was nothing like this. He was controlled, well-tempered, and always (sometimes brutally) honest. The more she thought about it, the more Margaret realized that he had not been himself for some time. He was completely different from the man she had married less than a month ago. Something had changed greatly within him since then, but Margaret did not know what. She could speculate, but she did not want to. She was frightened enough as it was.

"John?" she asked timidly, stepping around the broken ornaments so that she might be nearer to him. He turned sharply at the sound of her voice, and fixed her with a piercing scowl.

"Go away Margaret." He said, his tone barely disguising how truly irritated he probably was to have been interrupted. He paid her no more attention, and instead resumed his pacing. Many emotions surfaced within Margaret at his statement, but anger seemed to be the most prevalent. And she had been away long enough at his request.

"No." Her voice was calm again, but Margaret knew he would not mistake her anger, nor her defiance. He turned toward her again, and closed the distance between them with three large steps, not caring for the objects he strode on as he came.

"Leave me be." he said, his voice warning her of his impending wrath. But even as he loomed over her, entirely more intimidating and frightening than he had ever been to her, she cared nothing for his anger. She herself was quite angry with what occurred (or more accurately not occurred) between them. And she wanted to know why. About everything. Especially that kiss. She deserved to know why. After all, if she had kissed him…quite like that…and left without a word or a backward glance, he would be asking her why, she was certain. Because that wasn't something you did for no reason. At least, it wasn't something she would do with no reason.

"I will not." Came her reply. He made to move around her, perhaps towards the door, but Margaret stepped in front of him. "Even if you did leave, I would follow you." He was seething, she could see it on his face. She did not understand it.

"What do you want?" He snapped at her.

"I want to know why."

"Why what!" Margaret's temper was rising, and it wasn't hard to sense that John's was as well. She willed herself to have patience, but she could already tell that it wouldn't last very long.

"I think you know what."

"I do?" John replied, his voice dripping with disdain. "Please, do enlighten me, I think I must have forgotten." Margaret's eyes narrowed, and she took a step closer to him, all attempts at patience vanishing.

"I am not insulting you, John." She replied, her tone gaining a distinctive edge to it. "I am merely trying to understand you. Something I find to be quite challenging, since it would seem you are determined to do things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever."

"My actions are completely sound and justifiable."

"You are the only person who understands them!"

"Just because you do not understand my actions-" Margaret's temper burst into flames at the condescension in his voice, and she cut him off.

"Oh, I suppose it is because I am a woman, that I cannot comprehend a man's struggles? Or that, as a southerner, I must know nothing of the trials and hardship of life? Do not patronize me, John!"

"For God's sake, Margaret! I said no such thing!"

"Didn't you?" She challenged.

"Are you so determined to see the ways in which I've wronged you, that you cannot see anything else?"

"You will not let me see anything else! You cannot even bear two minutes in the same room with me John, you have left nothing else for me to see!" John said nothing, but approached her. Closer and closer he came, until Margaret could feel the anger radiating off his body in the mere two inches of space between them. As he bent his head, bringing his lips dangerously close to her own, she suddenly felt overwhelmingly apprehensive. But instead of kissing her (as she very much thought he was about to do), he leaned in next to her ear, so close to her that she could feel the warmth of his face and breath as he spoke.

"Follow me all you like Margaret, but I will not speak to you right now." A pang of despair shot through her as he straightened, his expression eloquently phrasing the disgust of which he was refusing to speak of. But she had been rendered speechless by his actions, and could think of nothing to say back in reply. And so when he grasped her upper arms and painfully pushed her aside before leaving with room with no more than the resounding echo of the door he slammed behind him, Margaret remained frozen in place but called out in anger:

"You will not speak to me at all!" But bore no sign of having been affected by his words save for the tears upon her face.

Things only decayed from that point. Margaret would be lying if she said she understood why. But on that account, she had as much luck in discovering his feelings as she had the first night. She desperately wished he would just tell her. Perhaps she had wronged him in some way, had deeply offended him and need only to beg for his forgiveness. Perhaps that was why he had refused to speak to her for nearly eight months.

Eight months.

The first few days of it had been bearable, only because Margaret had been so angry with him. She could handle the blatant cold-shoulder, the stern looks, the tension in his body in the few minutes she might see him in a day, because she had not wanted to see him very much anyway. But soon her anger died down, and she grew worried. Worried that something truly and wholly irreparable had been done. When it faded completely she knew, with all of her heart, that they were trapped somewhere without hope. There was nothing she could do. She tried-desperately-draw him out, to speak to him, about anything. But it always ended with the same result: silence, before he left her presence all together.

She had resigned herself to this. In the relatively short time they had been married, she had caused some great source of distress within him, that disturbed him so much he could not even look upon her face. And now, when he sent her away, rejected her as she rejected him, she understood completely why he loathed her to the extent he did. And the pain of it, of having him look at her with so much disdain, only intensified as time progressed. Eventually Margaret found herself not wanting to be around him anymore than he wanted to be around her. She had never felt so disliked in her entire life. The one comfort she had, the one bit of peace she could claim as her own was the occasional visit to the Higgins home to see Mary, the Boucher children, and if she were lucky sometimes she got to see Nicholas as well. She got the distinct impression that John did not care for her to venture out on her own away from the Mill, but since he would not bother to speak to her unless absolutely necessary, she would not bother him with the trivial details of her day to day life. In her mind, she rationalized that if he wanted to know where she was going, or did not approve of something she was doing, he need only open his mouth and say it…

Sometimes she liked to pretend that the reason he disapproved of her wandering about town was because the people of Milton still greatly disliked her, and that it was his own way of protecting her. But it was nonsense. She could get through town easily enough without John and his impenetrable reputation. It was obvious his reputation had done nothing good for her anyway. No, Margaret was still very much scorned upon, and disapproved of by the upper-crust society. And it suited her very well. All she had to do was dress herself down, place a shall around her head, and keep her head down if ever she went anywhere. Usually the only place she ever went was to the Princeton District, and in those areas the people were much more gracious in accepting her, especially when she dressed as they did.

Margaret never spoke of the finer aspects of her marriage to anyone, but she often felt as thought Nicholas already knew. He was unnervingly observant, and had and incredibly keen sense of judgment. He never asked her about her husband, nor did he ever mention him or the Mill in conversation if it could be helped. And to Margaret, his lack of curiosity spoke volumes of his awareness. But whatever his opinion in the matter, he never spoke a word of it to her, nor did anyone else in the Higgins house. Which was fine with Margaret, really. This was her own battle to fight. It was her marriage to fight for. And she had not given up on it yet, though sometimes she truly wished she could. She made a promise on their wedding night. A promise to herself, and a promise to God, that she would be what John wanted her to be, what John needed her to be. And even though she could not know what he wanted her to be since he would not speak to her, what he obviously needed was distance. Distance between them. Something that she could easily give, no matter how much it pained her. But now it seemed as though she could not reclaim the distance. Too long had passed with too much space. It seemed truly hopeless now, eight months later.

There was another unfortunate effect their marriage had on Margaret that she was loathe to admit: she was undeniably bitter. She had never known bitterness before, and did not like the extent to which it held her. But neither could she break free from it. She hated herself for hating John. She did not want to, but she could not help it. It had dug into the recesses of her heart, burying itself as deeply as it could. Bitterness and hatred. Perhaps she was turning into a proper Mrs. Thornton after all. It was no secret that John's mother did not like her, and still had yet to come back to her own house, although she did visit occasionally with Fanny.

Fanny was something entirely different. Margaret did not know what sort of change had occurred within her, or where it started, but she was very glad of the little time she got to spend with her sister-in-law. Fanny was not as secret about her knowledge of John's unusual behavior as Nicholas Higgins was, but she was never directly rude to him, nor even say very much when he was in the room. That is, if he was in the room at all, which he hardly ever was. But she did make the occasional remark of his character that could be deemed…less than courteous.

Although Margaret was eaten alive with her own bitterness and hatred at the man she now claimed as husband, she could not deny her love for him. It was a constant source of sadness for her. Oftentimes, she found herself so thoroughly depressed by her own marriage that she would not leave their room. Because in their room, she could pretend everything was well. She could pretend that they had a normal loving relationship. She could bury her face in his pillow and feel his desperate kiss upon her lips once more…but it was not to be. As she rolled over and looked at the rumpled pillow where his head had been only a few hours before, she felt anger rise up in her again.

Why did he even sleep there anymore? Why had he not banished her to her own room? Eight months he had not spoken a word to her, and yet insisted on sleeping by her side? It made no sense. She wasn't even his wife yet, not in the proper sense anyway. He had yet to claim that right. If he had already claimed her, she might understand why he kept her in his bed. But he had not. He had not made a single advance on her in any way. In fact, he had not intentionally touched her since the night they visited her father. Eight months ago. There were many times where Margaret woke in a tangle of limbs, pressed completely against him, and a few times she had even found herself laying almost completely on top of him. Each time she would stay still and quiet, hoping that she did not wake him up, and go back to sleep, pretending that she had not woken at all. Again, she rationalized that if he disliked it so very much, than he need only open his mouth and say so.

If she were completely honest with herself, Margaret would say that John's lack of sexual interest in her was something which caused her great distress. It was true, she had never lain with a man before, but she was no longer a blushing virgin bride. She was a married woman, and thus privy to all manner of unfortunate conversations in the drawing rooms of those few who braved disapprobation by sending an invitation to Margaret Thornton, the great whore of Milton. She laughed wryly at the way it still sounded in her head. The times where she had been referred to as thus were few and far in between, but it made her chuckle each time. It was such a ridiculous phrase she could not be angry over it. There were far more terrible lies circulating about her that she could be angry over if she wanted to be. She was not the same woman she used to be, of that she was certain. Gone were the naïve, and innocent hopes and dreams of a girl.

In it's place was the bitter regrets of a lonely old woman.

Confusion. Desperation. Joy. Terror. How many things could one person possibly feel at once? It was too much; he couldn't explain it. Everything he had ever wanted was there, right before him, but he couldn't take it. He wanted to take it-oh yes, he wanted to take it so very much. But he couldn't. For a moment-one glimmering moment of madness-he thought he could. So he tried. But he was wrong; he could not have this. It could never be his. It instilled a fear in him such as he had never known. A fear so unlike him, and yet so wholly encompassing that it drove him away from her.

And so he ran.

He ran from that room, from that woman, from himself. He ran from that moment. The moment he tried to take happiness into his own hands. The moment where everything came crashing down with a bitter realization: he was afraid of this. No, he was beyond afraid of this; he was terrified. Terrified of what was, and what could be. Terrified of her. But why? He could not answer that. Not entirely. There were things that he knew with his entire being, his very soul. And there were things he knew, that he could not understand. He knew he loved Margaret, wholly, completely, entirely…even with her faults. None of that mattered. Part of him still wanted to hate her, maybe it even did. He could no longer distinguish it. He knew he wanted nothing more than communicative mutual affection between them. And yet he was terrified of it, more so than he had been of anything else in his entire life. But there was something else as well. Something he placed more surety in than anything he knew:

There was something very, very wrong with him.

He had not meant to run quite so far. He only wanted to escape that moment, that terrible evening of insecurity. But he had come too far. There was something in his mind, which he actively fought with, that made him afraid of Margaret. So very afraid of Margaret. Something that convinced him to run in the first place. But now it seemed as though he could not control it himself. He was aware of it, and yet, completely unable to stop or change it. So he fought; he fought the demons in his mind, and had come out more battle-scarred than ever. Because he always lost. There was no way to win against himself. And now he had done something to Margaret that could not be fixed. Not with all good deeds and apologies in the world could he fix this.

He had seen her retreating into herself. He had seen every tear, heard every broken-hearted sob while she thought he was away. He had seen the anguish upon her face every time he spurned her. But most of all, he noticed when she no longer tried. For eight months he had battled with himself. For eight months he tried desperately to break free of the Hell he had somehow fallen into. But he couldn't. Every time he was around her, something in him changed, he could feel it. He could feel his fear of her grow. He could feel the sudden onset of anxiety, and the way his mind pushed her away. But he could do nothing but let it happen, and watch as her despondency grew day by day. It was not long before she began to avoid him as much as he had been avoiding her. Part of him was glad for it. Part of him was glad that she would not have him crushing her hopes. As for the other part…he could not rightly explain how the other part of him felt.

It did not help matters that the Mill was failing. It only made everything worse. For even if he could force himself to sit down with Margaret, even if he could push everything else away and sit down to have a conversation with her, his first words to her in nearly eight months would speak of their upcoming destitution. Margaret thought little enough of him already, and he did not think he could bear to see her despair, knowing that this was the very thing he had sworn to save her from. One of the largest deciding factors that led to their marriage. She had spoken the very words to him. "You married me, saved me from destitution." Oh, if only. For it would seem that she had married out of one destitution, and right into another. He sighed quietly, and feeling his entire body tremble with misery at thoughts of the months to come, he picked up a lock of hair that had fallen into Margaret's face while she slept, and twisted it gently in his fingers.

This was the only time he could be around her. The only time he didn't feel afraid, and he cherished every second. So much so, that he hardly slept. It wasn't as though he would have slept anywhere else. Even if he could have forced himself away from her side, sleep would not find him. It rarely ever did. His mind never settled enough for him to really sleep anymore. He supposed there was too much happening inside his head at once for him to get any proper sleep. But he had grown used to it over time. It was not hard to deal with. And in any case, he enjoyed these private moments with Margaret far too much to try and waste time sleeping when he knew he would not.

There were little moments of affection that he was certain she did not want him to know about. But it did not matter. He did know about them. He knew every time she touched him, inadvertently or no, and he cherished them all. The times she would take hold of his hand, intertwine their fingers together and use it as a makeshift pillow to rest her face on. The times she mapped every surface of his face, of his hair, with her own delicate fingertips. But the times he loved the most, were the times where her body would end up tangled with his own, and she would wake, notice where she was, and merely make herself more comfortable. It gave him hope. Hope that one day, he would break free from his prison, and they could be together. Properly. Have a normal, proper marriage and life, without the looming despondency that had long since claimed his household. But he knew it was not to be. Because there was only one thing he knew for certain anymore.

That there was something very, very wrong with him.

A/N: Well, a much longer chapter, that's for sure! I actually re-wrote several parts of this chapter multiple times before I came up with something I'm pleased with. I really am very nervous to hear how you feel about this. No, I can't tell you what's going on with John just yet. But I will, I promise. I mean, there's really no denying that there's something going on with him. And before you ask, "Are you really making John insane?" Why yes, yes I am. But all good things have a reason. So just be patient, and don't hate me for making him lose his mind.

So yeah, I really want to hear your thoughts! Things you loved, things you hated, things you want to see? Please tell me. I'm desperate, haha. And to all of you out there (you know who you are) who've been encouraging me not to send this soon, thank you most sincerely! I had not planned ending it soon, but you're encouragement keeps me from doubting myself.

As always, thank you to every single one of you who took the time to tell me how much you're enjoying this. =D