When writing a fic that is largely built around the original plot and therefore tries to cover some of those major plot points, it is unavoidable to have some stuff in there, which will be very similar to the book/movie.

Such is the case with this chapter - you will probably recognize much of the dialogue, but I assure you that I did not keep in anything that was not needed later on in the story, so these are the scenes on which the rest of this will be built ;)

The chapter after this will be longer and will contain more original material.

Chapter 14

A few days after Mrs. Hale's funeral, John Boucher was found dead in the water canal beyond the town of Ashley.

After it had come out that he had been one of the people leading the riot at Marlborough Mills which broke the strike, he had been made an outcast by the other members of the worker's union.

That, on top of the fact that no mill in all of Milton was to take him on as a worker anymore, leaving his family without any income and his six children on the verge of starvation had been too much for him and he had ended his own life, face down in a sewer of cotton dye.

His wife, who had been sickly for months had not been able to bear this last blow and had succumbed to her illness a mere week later, leaving all of their children orphans.

Nicholas Higgins, being a union leader and experiencing a certain feeling of guilt and responsibility for the outcome of this whole ordeal, had quickly taken it upon himself to care for the children.

So, the small place in Francis Street was now home to eight people: Nicholas, Mary and six youngsters – all of whom were too young to work at the mills and provide an income for the family.

To make matters worse, Nicholas himself had been unable to find work after the strike. He was a known union leader and therefore considered a firebrand, so Hamper had not taken him back, nor had any of the other mill masters wanted to take him on, even though he was a skilled worker.

Margaret had resumed her regular visits to Princeton and she filled her baskets not only with bread and ham but also with little treats for the children, always happy to see a tiny smile on their faces. They had lost so much; they deserved every bit of happiness.

As Margaret sat with Nicholas at the small table in his dark little kitchen one day, he told her about his grief.

"Nicholas, have you been to Marlborough Mills for work?"

He snorted. "Aye, I've been to Thornton's. The overseer told me to be off. Told me to go away, sharpish."

She reached out and gently took his hand in both of hers. "Would you try again? I should be so glad if you would. Mr Thornton would judge you fairly I'm sure if given the chance."

"It would take my pride. I think I'd rather starve", he ground out stubbornly.

Margaret sighed. "Think about the children, Nicholas." He did not say anything to that, but she could tell that he was considering her words.

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John Thornton was on his way back to Marlborough Mills from a meeting with Mr. Latimer, and to say that his spirits were low would have been an understatement.

Things were not looking good for Marlborough Mills. In fact, they looked worse than John would have liked to admit.

After the strike, orders had not picked up quickly enough, and there was a huge bank loan that needed to be repaid. If he could not secure a rather big amount of money soon, he was not sure how long he would be able to keep the payroll safe and that would be the end of it.

With all of John's years of hard work on the line, Mr. Latimer had then suggested the option of partaking in a speculation scheme the other mill owners had agreed to, but John could not.

Not after having witnessed what gambling with money had done to his father. He would not risk the livelihood of all those people who depended on him on some stupid money scheme that could easily turn into a huge disaster.

As John passed the gates to the mill, his eyes fell on the last man he had wanted to see at that moment, or ever, for that matter: Nicholas Higgins, the known union leader who had been one of the initiators of the strike that had gotten John into this mess in the first place.

Higgins had been there this morning, when John had left for the club, he remembered, but he had been in a hurry, and when the man had told him he needed to speak to him, he had told him sharply that he could not stop for him.

He had not expected Higgins to still be here, almost three hours later, so he slowed his pace and looked the man up and down in astonishment.

"You are still here?"

"Yes, sir", Higgins said determinedly. "I want to speak to you."

"You better come in then." With that, John resumed walking in the direction of his office, with Higgins following closely behind.

As John sat behind his desk and picked up some letters to look at, trying to play out time, he noticed the man nervously fondling with his cap, he held in his hands. Slowly John leaned back in his chair, giving his face a stern look, which he hoped was intimidating enough.

"Well, so what do you want with me?"

Higgins took a step towards him. "My name is Higgins-"

"I know who you are! What do you want?"

"I want work."

It was all John could do not to laugh into the man's face in anger. "Work! You've got a nerve."

"Hamper'll tell you I'm a good worker!"

"I'm not sure you'd like to hear all of what Hamper would have to say about you", John snapped. "I've had to turn out a hundred of my best hands for following you and your union, and you think that I should take you on? Might as well set fire to the cotton waste and have done with it!"

Higgins turned defeatedly and was about to leave, when he reconsidered and turned around again, almost pleadingly. "I promise you, I'll not speak against you. If I found anything wrong, I'd give you a fair warning before taking action. I'm a steady man. I work 'ard."

"How do I know you're not just planning mischief?"

"I need work", Higgins said, an earnest expression on his face. "For the family of a man who killed himself, leaving six children behind."

This was growing tiresome. "If I were to believe you, and I can't say that I'm inclined to, I would advise you to seek other work and leave Milton."

"If it were warmer I would do so and never come back again but winter is coming and those children will starve. If you knew of any place away from mills, I would take anything for the sake of these children."

John felt anger rise in his chest at this statement. "Oh, so you would take wages less than others?", he snarled, staring Higgins down.

"They have no union of course. Your union would be down like a ton of bricks on my Irish for trying to feed their families, and yet you would that for these children? I'll not give you work. You're wasting your time."

With that, he picked up his quill and started jotting numbers into his accounting book without looking up at Higgins anymore, but then he heard the man murmur: "I knew I was. I was told to ask you by a woman. She thought you had a kindness about you. She was mistaken. But I'm not the first to be misled by a woman."

John's thoughts were spinning. What sort of woman would advise Higgins to come to him? The women in Princeton did not hold much regard for him, he was sure. But what woman of Higgins's acquaintance could think him, John, kind enough to encourage him to come to him for work?

He could only think of one woman who associated with the workers in Princeton and that could not be, now could it?

"Tell her to mind her own business next time and stop wasting your time and mine", he snapped at the other man, without looking up.

As Nicholas made his way back across the yard and disappeared through the gates, John stepped out of his office onto the platform of the sorting room and glanced out of the big window at the man's retreating form.

He turned to Williams, who was standing nearby. "How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?"

"He was outside the gate when I arrived, sir, and it's four now", his overseer replied.

John furrowed his brow. That would have been more than eight hours that the man had waited for him. Was he planning something? Or had he really been that desperate?

As John slowly made his way back to his office, he was deep in thought. He supposed that nothing would be lost if he made some inquiries about the man to see if he had spoken the truth.

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On the following day, as Margaret and her father were sitting together over lunch, Mr. Hale told her that he had asked Mr. Thornton to come over this evening for a lesson.

"I think I could do with some company", he admitted. "You know, Margaret, to keep my mind occupied. John is a wonderful friend and I am very much looking forward to a few hours of talking with him."

Margaret almost choked on the piece of trout she had been eating, as her heart gave a tiny flutter. Mr. Thornton – how was she going to face him?

Immediately her feelings started swinging back and forth between nervous anticipation and sheer panic. Over the course of the past two weeks, her nights had been sleepless, filled with much tossing and turning and thoughts of him, and even during the day rarely an hour passed, where her mind did not wander to the master of Marlborough Mills.

He had been so good to her. From the beginning of their acquaintance, she realized now, he had been nothing but kind to her. For a long time, Margaret had let their disastrous first encounter cloud her view of him, and it was only now, in retrospect, that she was able to see his actions in a new light.

There had been no ulterior motive to his behaviour towards her, to the way he had listened to her when she had spoken her opinions so plainly and how, even though they often disagreed, he had respected her all the same, which was more than could be said for herself.

She had looked down on him as a mere tradesman, and a crude and unrefined one at that. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

John Thornton was a good man and she realized with a pang that everything in his manner had suggested that he did indeed care for her. That his proposal back then had truly come from his heart.

Could he have loved her? Margaret did not know much about love. She had never experienced this feeling herself. Love for her parents, yes, and for Frederick. She loved Edith dearly and she had loved Bessy as a friend.

But the kind of love between a man and a woman was something she was wholly unfamiliar with. How was she supposed to recognize a feeling she did not know at all?

What if he had indeed loved her? And she had thrown his heart to the ground and trampled all over it with her words? How could she ever set this right?

Well, she could not, Margaret thought bitterly. It was too late for that and she was going to have to pay the price for her actions.

She was aware that even though he had covered for her in the Leonards Case, quite literally saving her life in the process once more, he still had seen her there. He knew the truth, and that was enough, she knew, to have lost his good opinion for all of eternity.

She had not known it would hurt so much. It was ironic, she mused painfully, that just as she had realized that she cared for him a great deal more than she had been willing to admit to herself, she had destroyed all future prospects of forming even so much as a friendship with him.

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That evening, at seven o clock sharp, the doorbell rang and Margaret made her way down the stairs nervously. When she opened the door and came face to face with the object of her every thought for these past weeks, her heart skipped a beat.

He was wearing his usual black frock coat and cravat and was holding his top hat in one hand and some books in the other. At the sound of the door opening, he raised his head and their eyes met.

For a moment neither of them moved as they just looked at each other. Then he gave her a curt nod, a rather stern expression on his face.

"Miss Hale."

"Mr. Thornton, it's – good to see you", she stammered and opened the door wider to let him enter.

She took his hat from him and placed it on the small side table. "Father is waiting in the sitting room", she told him quietly. At that, he walked past her without another word and made his way over to the staircase.

"Mr. Thornton?"

He turned back around at her, and Margaret swallowed hard. She had to say this. "I have to thank you-" she started, but he immediately cut her off.

"No. No thanks." His voice was very low and there was a roughness in it. When eyes met hers, his gaze chilled her to the bone.

"I did not do anything for you", he said, taking a few steps towards her, towering over her as he spoke with a lowered voice, as if trying not to be heard by anyone else in the house:

"Do you not realize the risk that you are taking, being so indiscreet? Have you no explanation for your behaviour that night at the station? You must imagine what I must think?"

She thought she heard a tinge of pain in the last statement and felt her chest tighten.

"Mr. Thornton, please", she whispered, "I am aware of what you must think of me. I know how it must have appeared, being with a stranger so late at night. The man you saw me with, he-" She broke off, unable to go on.

She could not. No matter what she was going through, she could not risk Fred's life over it. "The secret is another person's", she finally managed to say. "I cannot explain it without doing him harm."

She looked up at him, her eyes begging him to understand, when a noise was heard from upstairs. "Is that you John?", Mr. Hale called. "Come on up!"

Thornton made his way to the bottom of the stairs, but before he went up, he spun around to her once more, both his stare and his voice cold as ice.

"I have not the slightest wish to pry into the gentleman's secrets. I'm only concerned as your father's friend. I hope you realize that any foolish passion for you on my part is entirely over. I'm looking to the future." With that, he turned and was gone.

And it was at that moment – as she was left standing there, frozen, with hot, silent tears making their way down her cheeks – that Margaret knew.

She knew what it must have felt like for him that day, when she had spat those cruel words in his face and had turned him down. How his heart had crumbled and his world had turned into bleak nothingness.

Because that was what Margaret herself felt that very moment. His words hurt more than she could have ever put into words, even more so, because she knew that he had every right to think of her that way. Oh, how she wished she could have told him the truth, but that was impossible.

There was nothing left for her now, but to live with this unbearable pain of regret. Regret at having been too late, too blind. Regret at not having seen the truth that had been right in front of her.

For it was that minute, that Margaret Hale realized that she loved John Thornton, and that turning him down had been the biggest mistake she had ever made in her life.

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A few days later John made his way up the narrow, stony path to the graveyard above the city.

He had spent all of last night sitting over his ledgers, jotting down notes and numbers, calculating and weighing his options for the mill and realizing with every page he turned, how bleak his prospects really were.

It had been no wonder that, as the sun had risen above the many chimneys and Williams had arrived, he had found his master overtired and in a very foul mood, growling at him and bellowing instructions at the workers from the platform.

It had been around noontime, that John had realized that he needed a break. Needing to clear his head, he had decided to go for a walk. It did not do much to ease his mind, but at least moving his legs somewhat roused his body out of its state of fatigue.

He decided to make a quick stop at Mrs. Hale's grave, to pay his respects to the woman he had been rather fond of. He noticed that the gravesite was well taken care of. It was evident that Margaret Hale came here regularly.

She had circled the patch of soil with small white stones and planted beautiful, yellow flowers. He did not know what they were called, but they reminded him of her and the memory once again filled him with a dull ache.

He regretted the words he had spoken to her at their last encounter. He had seen in her eyes that he had hurt her, but it had been his own pain that had prompted him to respond to her expression of gratitude in the way he had.

His words had been an outright lie, of course, but she would never know that and he was not sure she even cared. She had never desired his admiration and regard for her, so what difference would it make for her to think he had changed his mind?

With a sigh, John turned away from Mrs. Hale's grave and swiftly walked up the path to his own family's resting place.

As he drew nearer, he immediately saw that something was different. There was something yellow glinting in the sun just where he knew the grave to be.

Quickly he passed through the rows of tombstones to get a better look and his breath caught in amazement.

The plain patch of soil had been turned into a beautiful little flowerbed, filled with the very same yellow flowers he had just admired moments before at Mrs. Hale's gravesite.

John bowed down in utter disbelief to run his fingers over the small yellow petals very softly, almost as if afraid they would crumble to dust under his touch. How was this possible?

It was clear that none other than Margaret Hale could have brought these flowers, but why? How did she even know where his family was buried?

Slowly he looked up from the flowers to the little wooden cross and noticed that it looked different as well. It looked less withered, the names on it more readable, as if someone had attempted to clean away the dirt and moss that had covered it.

He suddenly felt a strange pressure behind his eyes and had to swallow hard, as an unfamiliar warmth spread inside his chest.

It was the first time in his life that someone had done something like this for him. An act of kindness that had asked nothing in return.

He did not know what had made her do it, but one thing was clear to him: In some strange way, for some strange reason, she cared.

As he let his fingers trace over the names of his loved ones, now clearly visible in the sunlight, an array of feelings washed over him. He was unable to make sense of them, and yet, they filled him with something fuzzy and beautiful.

And as John made his way back down towards the city, he could not help a small smile from spreading across his face.

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NOTES:

Here's something else: As you can probably tell, the John Thornton in this story comes from a very dark place. I had to dig rather deep for this one (I'm actually a very cheerful person, I swear xD).

I drew a lot of inspiration from music throughout the process of fleshing out the plot and writing out the scenes, so if you're interested in the (mostly depressing) "soundtrack" of this story (and mainly John's mind), here's a spotify playlist of the music I used.

playlist/4n2dcPSsKFlcCDSH9WOn7t?si=bb1acf7fa59442f9