Notes: Alright, so I set out to write an epilogue and it got a bit out of control. So, you get an extra chapter and and epilogue! P.S. You guys asked for an epilogue with full knowledge of the remaining plot points of N&S. Get ready for a bit of a bumpy ride ... with a HEA I promise
For all of Margaret and John's impatience to marry and begin their lives together, they were forced to endure a full two months of engagement before the blessed event could occur. Between Mrs. Thornton's insistence on a wedding fitting of John's station, and the remainder of Margaret's six months of full mourning for her mother, they simply could not set an earlier date.
The date was merely the first of many aspects of the wedding that the couple found themselves required to compromise on. On their cold walk back to Crampton on the day of their engagement, Margaret described her girlhood fancy of an ideal wedding to John as a simple affair involving her favorite gown, a summer's day, a tree-lined walk, a minimum of bridesmaids, and no wedding breakfast. John would have gladly granted all of her wishes save one, he would not wait for a summer day.
In the end, she was required — both by Mrs. Thornton and Fanny's insistence and by the constraints of mourning attire — to have a new gown made up of dove gray satin for the occasion. The March morning of their wedding dawned with a spattering of frozen rain that put any walk in her wedding finery out of the question. Her bridesmaids she was thankfully able to limit to Fanny and her cousin Edith — recently returned from Corfu, but Mother would not budge on the wedding breakfast. She insisted that if Margaret was to take her place as John's wife, she must submit to a grand breakfast for the other masters and their families.
Although Margaret had lived in Milton for some time, Mrs. Thornton was insistent that the breakfast would be her first introduction to Milton society as someone worthy of note. John, of course, thought this was ridiculous as Milton society had done little else other than take note of Margaret since that night at the Outwood station. Although his mother had managed to surpass her habitually superb skills as a hostess — aware perhaps that this would be her final event as sole mistress of Marlborough Mills — John found the affair tiresome at best. He had spent long hours mired in the duties of a host when all he wanted to do was whisk Margaret away to some secluded spot and enjoy his wife's company. Alone. Instead he found himself having the same conversations about business and politics with the same people as he could any given day at the club.
Family stress, of course, far outweighed the tedium of their guests. The quarrel between Mother and her aunt that Margaret prophesied manifested in the form of bickering and snide comments beginning the moment that grand lady arrived for a family dinner at Marlborough Mills the evening prior to the wedding and continued through the celebrations. The shouting, thankfully, they postponed until after all but family had left the house after the wedding breakfast. Mrs. Shaw took as vehement a dislike as it was possible for one of her gentle nature to do, against Milton. It was noisy, and smoky, and the poor people whom she saw in the streets were dirty, and the rich ladies over-dressed, and not a man that she saw, high or low, had his clothes made to fit him. On her part, Mother saw in Mrs. Shaw all of the defects of character that rankled her about Margaret but pushed to the extreme. She was a uselessly fine woman, all fashion and no substance, who waltzed in expecting to be attended to as a queen among paupers.
Small barbs along these lines had been flying between the two matrons throughout the day, but it wasn't until they were alone as a family party that the heart of the discord came out. Mrs. Shaw did not think John was a suitable husband for Margaret, and Mother's opinions about Margaret were not far removed. The ladies shouted and blustered, Mr. Hale tried ineffectually to rationalize with them, Edith wept, Captain Lennox did little more than hold his wife, and Fanny eagerly attended to the argument with glee — no doubt ready to relay the proceedings to her friends. Margaret once again found need to shout that she loved him, John's heart again soared at such an impassioned declaration and he joined the fray by shouting his own love for Margaret. While this tactic worked to effectively end quarrels between the lovers, it proved to have little effect on the aggrieved matrons. In the end, John had to call upon all of his experience in arbitration as a magistrate and businessman to calm the combatants.
Before the party broke up, Mr. Hale made one last attempt at festivity in an impassioned toast to his daughter and her bridegroom, wishing them all of the joy, happiness, and love he himself had found with his dearest Maria. Margaret, thankfully, was too moved by his speech and occupied with hugging her father to notice the daggers Mother glared at him or the veiled accusation that Mrs. Shaw laid that his dear Maria would still be with us had he not uprooted them all to Milton. John felt bad for Mr. Hale as he bid the group a good evening because it was now left to his poor father-in-law to play host to that vile woman alone.
The day had been long and weary. It was full of compromises to propriety, society, and family and John could not help but reflect bitterly that none were entirely satisfied with the effect. It wasn't until the door to his bedchamber shut that that bitterness ebbed away into joy. In fact it was no longer his bedchamber but theirs. There were small changes that were noticeable to the eye of someone who had retired here alone every evening for years — the furniture had been shifted to accommodate her mother's dressing table, some new personal effects were scattered about the room, there was a dressing screen in the corner that he hoped would see little use — but the largest change, the change that sent his pulse racing, was his wife, quietly seated at the dressing table brushing out her hair. Her hand stilled as he entered and she met his eyes in the mirror and smiled.
That smile was everything to him. All of the troubles and frustrations of the day were entirely worth it because here, now, and forever she was his wife. Had he seen his own responding smile in the mirror he may have been astonished by the transformation it gave his face, but he could not look away from Margaret's radiant smile. He drew closer without breaking eye contact in the mirror and placed his hands on her shoulders, lightly brushing his thumbs across the delicate skin of her neck. "When I first saw you, I could not imagine a more superb woman than Margaret Hale," he began in a husky whisper and her smile widened, "but you, Margaret Thornton are the most beautiful creature I have ever beheld." He leaned down and dropped a kiss into her loose hair. She shifted in his arms to face him.
"I'm afraid you were much quicker to find my merits than I was to see yours. I recall reporting to my mother after that first meeting that you were neither exactly plain, nor yet handsome," she said apologetically.
John smiled down at her, "that's a far step above the great rough fellow, with not a grace or a refinement I felt myself to be in your presence."
"No! Never that," Margaret said in reproach, then in a soft sultry voice that he knew would be forever reserved for himself she added, "and now I cannot imagine anyone more handsome, noble, or dear to me."
John was overcome and left with no recourse but to pull her up into his arms and kiss her passionately. He felt the same momentary thrill of illicit pleasure that had struck him with every stolen kiss during their engagement before he recalled that they were lawfully married, joined as man and wife and no one could condemn him for his current actions. Gradually the kiss subdued to soft tender kisses until at last he clasped her to his chest and held her tight. "I love you," he whispered into her hair.
"I love you too," she replied softly into his cravat. After a moment, she said in a tremulous voice, "I am sorry ... about my aunt ..."
"Hush, love," he said softly and trailed his hand up and down her back reverently, "neither of us are responsible for the words or actions of our family today, though I will have some strong words with my mother about the respect she owes you."
Margaret leaned back slightly to look up into his eyes, "she at least has known me long enough to form such a decided opinion." John began to protest, but Margaret quelled him with a look and a hand on his chest. "We both know that I am not blameless for your mother's opinion of me. The injustice of my aunt's ire is that she does not know you, she has made a hasty and prejudiced judgment against you and all of Milton ..." Margaret took a shaky breath and buried her head in his neck "... much as I was guilty of when we first moved here."
John continued to caress her back as he responded soothingly, "Margaret, am I not guilty of my own early hasty judgments? I will admit that when we first met I perhaps thought you haughty and elegant and needlessly fine; much as my mother accused you of today — although I both admired and resented those same attributes. And when I first saw you with Frederick that night ... I will not insult you by repeating the hasty conclusions I jumped to." He felt rather than heard Margaret's responding gasp and continued on before she could dwell farther on that. "The point is, none of us are without fault but we've both grown in sentiment and understanding since then. You have made me a better man, Margaret, and I fully expect that you shall continue to do so for the rest of my life." He could have said more, could have expounded at length on Margaret's virtues, but Margaret slid her hands to his neck, raised herself on her tiptoes, and kissed him tenderly. In the past she had always enjoyed his kisses, but this was the first time she had actively kissed him and his heart stuttered.
This kiss took on a tenor apart from their previous kisses. It was in turns languorous, scorching, achingly tender, and passionate. Their hands roamed, clutched, caressed, and explored. He paused the kiss only long enough to look searchingly in her eyes as he toyed with the first of the buttons along her back. She nodded her agreement and her own hands set to work on his cravat. A lifetime later — or was it the blink of an eye? — he was leading his Margaret to their marriage bed; holding her in his arms; worshiping her with his body.
Hours later John lay awake in bed. Margaret's sleeping form was pressed against the length of his side, flesh on flesh, warming him with her soothing presence. Some small irrational part of him was afraid to fall asleep lest he wake up to find it all a dream. He had spent countless nights dreaming of this — Margaret, soft and willing in his arms, in his bed, in his life — and now that she was here he could scarce believe it was real. And so there he lay, basking in this new sense of pure happiness, of heartfelt delight, of pure and total connection to another human being.
He could not help but laugh at himself for such fanciful notions. He'd had little use for the poetic in his daily life, only Margaret had the power to bring out such romantic drivel as he would have labeled it not two years prior. The low rumble of his laughter must have roused Margaret, as she stirred and shifted more weight onto him. Her right arm resettled itself across his chest and her delicate taper fingers idly caressed his arm. She sighed contentedly and settled again into peaceful slumber. He kissed the top of her head where it rested on his shoulder and breathed in her scent. This is real, he thought to himself as he finally drifted off to sleep in the comforting embrace of his wife.