A Little Hope

"New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing." - Charles Dickens

-OO-

Not long afterwards, Thornton was surprised to find Margaret Hale being shown into the drawing room at Marlborough House. He leapt up from his chair, laying down his newspaper.

"If you're looking for my mother, Miss Hale, she's gone to the Mill – talkin' pep into the young spinners. Always lovesick for some lad and it does interfere with the speed of their work however much I stand behind 'em glowering. I'm keepin' well out of the way." He thought she might smile at that with him, but she did not, and he noticed she was pale and breathing fast; her chest, which he was trying not to look at, moving up and down rapidly.

In an altered tone, he said, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"I came to thank her for the water mattress she so kindly sent for my – my mother," she was turning around and around the room in her distress.

"I'll tell her you called and your message... Will you not sit down for a moment? Clearly something has upset you." He waited for her to sit, and seated himself nearby.

She burst out with, "My mother is so ill. I had to leave the house for a while. I could not bear it."

"I'm sorry. Tell me, Miss Hale... " speaking quietly, leaning forward, his white-shirted arm leaning on his knees, "Were you able to give her the card you bought her at the Exhibition?"

She shook her head, a storm of tears threatening. "She could not even look at it. She had another very bad turn, the worst yet, while I was there, enjoying myself in the sun. While you and I sat there watching swans and rowing-boats, my mother was dying."

Frowning, he countered, "But she would have been happy to know that you were sitting in sunshine, talking nonsense of birds an' boats. She would have liked, surely, to picture you walkin' in the world when she had so little time left in it."

Now she was really weeping. He found it hard to watch, and stood to look out of the window, to give her some privacy. Then, when it became unbearable to hear her suffer uncomforted, he went near her and gently touched her shoulder. To his surprise she turned to him at once and he found his arms going around her as if it were only natural, her head against his chest, crying a warm river of tears onto his shirtfront.

Dear god, would he ever get free of this yearning. Were his male urges so shameless he was even delighted her grief had given him this opportunity to feel her softness against him and breathe in her gentle fragrance? Flowers and herself. He soothed her and tried to think of anything but his desires and he murmured nonsense and he let her soak his shirt with tears he could feel against his skin.

Every time he was nice to her, she responded so sweetly, so warmly. Every time. Birds and boats and sunshine on her face... for the first time he allowed himself to wonder... would she, might she, accept his courtship now, if he began on it again more gently? Not today, of course not today.

"Oh, I am sorry!" she gasped, coming to herself, removing herself from him. "What must you think of me?" She could not believe what she had done. She had thrown herself against this unsafe, arrogant man and made him embrace her, so close she had felt the beat of his heart. She could actually see a damp patch on his shirt where her cheek had lain. She was so abashed she did not know where to look. It had been shocking behaviour from a young woman alone with a man, still less this man.

"It's all right," he said, his arms empty. "These are sad times. No-one would think a little comfort unreasonable. Don't give it another thought, Miss Hale."

And so it was, from within this frame of comfort sought and kindness given, a little flame of hope lit up John's Thornton's darkest place. He told himself not to let it take hold, but it was useless, he could not help but feel a kind of happiness every time he thought of her afterwards, because it seemed to him on that day that maybe there was still a chance for him.

-OO-

Though that hope was to last little more than hours and he had been right to rein it before it should ever become an expectation, because tomorrow afternoon, bearing fruit, he would be turned away from her door, and tomorrow night he would set out on a fateful walk past Outwood Station.


Author's notes: a short chapter I know but another will soon follow. Always grateful for any reviews!

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