First published on AO3
John Thornton gets a glimpse of something he shouldn't, which stirs his unwanted love for Margaret Hale more strongly than ever. But in a secret garden, everything blooms...
It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful
things to happen.
John Thornton was waiting for his tutor in the little salon of the Hales' Crampton house. A restless, energetic man, he was poor at waiting and it was more usual for him to be pacing around the room on fast feet, but on this occasion he was sitting very still in an armchair, transfixed.
He had flopped into the chair, dizzy, when he had realised that from a rail over some shelves in one corner of the room hung a woman's night-dress.
It was made from cotton lawn of the purest white; his expert cotton-manufacturer's eye had assessed it automatically and returned the result that it was the weight of about 2 ounces per square yard, with a fine thread count, and would have been expensive. It had twenty tiny pearl buttons down the front and a ribbon ornament at the neck, which was set low, as might be appropriate for the bedroom but nowhere else.
It was the length and breadth to fit the slender yet curvaceous body of Margaret Hale, the woman he had never stopped loving, though this, he thought, was his secret alone.
Seeing this intimate garment of hers had had an immediate effect on him. Blood had rushed to his head then immediately deserted it for where it might be needed to ensure the survival of the human race, which was now responding in a highly inappropriate way.
This was serious. And dreadful. He could not, he absolutely could not, be sitting in the Hales' room with an erection.
It's Dixon's nightshirt , he told himself in desperation. Dixon the large, cross maid who did not like him. Dixon with her not-unpleasant face which was however shaped and shiny like a currant bun. It's not Margaret's at all. Margaret would never allow such a private garment to be on display for all to see in a public room of their house.
He ordered and implored himself to believe it was Dixon's, but it was no good, his excitable self knew with every throbbing pulse that it was Margaret's and that every night it draped her naked body with its softness and assumed her shape.
It's just a piece of fabric. Maybe spun in his own factory. He tried to take his mind slowly through every process that material would have gone through, from arriving as a package of raw cotton to the Mill yard, unpacked, cleaned, dried, taken to the carding room, pulled through mechanical combs, then spun into strands for building into cloth on the busy clacking looms in the weaving shed.
This was soothing, and almost working, until his treacherous mind ambushed him with an image he had been working so hard to suppress:
It was just a piece of fabric, but it was one which had the astonishing privilege of touching Margaret Hale's naked body every night, clinging to her warm bare skin, and it didn't even care.
Ah, dear god in heaven, now things were worse. He risked a glance down at his lap, grimaced, reached for a cushion and laid it over himself. No, no! That looked absurd – imagine Richard Hale, or even – Margaret herself! – entering the room and stopping in astonishment to see the Master of Marlborough Mill sitting in a chair with a big cushion on his lap.
He tossed the cushion off in despair. It definitely is Dixon's. Or his mother's. Yes, that was it! It was his mother's nightshirt, except she was taller and bonier than Margaret, and did not fill out any garment with such soft, sweet curves –
At that moment, the nightdress lifted itself in a gust of breeze from the window and stepped towards him. The hem even lifted slightly, teasing him on what it might be about to show! Now the damned thing, dangling from its hanger, had become Margaret, standing in front of him, maddening him in her undress – her sweet face lifted to his – a glow in her beautiful eyes – her full lips waiting for his kiss - welcoming him as she never had.
As she never had. In desperation now he forced his mind back to that awful, dreadful proposal, here in this very room, where he had begun on asking her to marry him - she had said no, of course – she had said 'No!' in such horrified, offended terms, so clearly finding him unpleasant and unworthy that he had been sad for months, desperately sad and lonely – ah yes, this was better – his erection, unwanted, rejected, despised, fell back to sleep.
But what if... she had said yes. In fantasy she would say, yes, I would be so happy to marry you, John - a little wistful smile tweaked his mouth as he heard those words in her voice, and not for the first time, he had tormented himself with this many times before; and then every night he would be undressing her. She had been nicer to him lately – sometimes he felt there was a softness in her eyes on him when she thought he wasn't noticing her (but he always noticed her!) – what if...
If she had accepted him... on the night of their wedding she might wear this very nightdress. He could imagine drawing it down off her shoulders and underneath she would be naked and his palms would caress her and gradually it would slip down and her beautiful breasts –
Oh no, no, please god no!
And at that moment the door was opened and she was there.
Actually there, flesh and blood, no fantasy – a mortifying moment! He leapt to his feet, unaware he had gone ashy-pale.
"Why, Mr Thornton!" she gasped, unsmiling, clearly surprised to find him there, but polite – "Oh, I am sorry, did you not get Papa's note?"
He cleared his throat, "I am sorry also, Miss Hale, I see I am a surprise to you. I fear no such note reached me. I presume it was to say your father is out tonight and that I should not come for my lesson." He was impressed by his own self to find his voice so normal. And she was a lady; her gaze remained trained to his face, not dipping down to the danger area, which was becoming less dangerous all the time in his anxiety.
She was stepping into the room, all air and light, wearing a cotton day-dress, her hair loosely pinned up. So pretty; his foul desires, now outplayed by the sweetness of his secret love, vanished clean away.
"I am so sorry you had a wasted trip, Mr Thornton!" her eyes expressed her regret, fervently asking his forgiveness, and warm too with that peculiar softness he had seen from her lately when she looked at him.
Relieved, on surer ground, he began to look round for his hat. She began to look round for it too – and her eye was caught – by her own nightgown, hanging there as bold as anything.
Her cheeks flooded with the colour of a sweet pink summer rose.
That he had seen her most intimate underwear! Even if he, a delicately-mannered man for the most part, had tried not to look at it, it was right there in front of him. She did not dare meet his eyes; hers cast around the room, looking anywhere but at him.
He was awfully aware of the cause of her confusion, and saved her gracefully with a sudden random burst of conversation, namely the changeability of the weather and how he had not known to come with his big coat or his lighter one, and he hoped her father was not indisposed –
Gratefully, she picked up on it and joined in, "Oh no, he is well, thank you – he has been called to the house of a friend who has been unwell and wished to see him – he was sorry to miss your lesson, which he always enjoys - here is your hat, Mr Thornton – "
"Thank you," he took it from her, taking care not to touch her fingers, which was not appropriate now, never so now that he had offered her himself and been refused. That bridge was burned and could never be travelled again. Before that time, when all things were still possible, a simple touch of fingers had been a sort of... question, and, at least at the time of the dinner party at Marlborough House, not outright spurned.
"And so you have a spare hour you did not know you had," she said, looking down at her feet, "That must be unusual for you."
He agreed that it was. It just crossed his mind to wonder if – if she would like to spend that hour with him - ? was she – could she be - in her sweet innocent way, suggesting it? He was trying to get up the courage to ask, but the moment was gone, and anyway sanity had already prevailed and he was so glad he had not; how inappropriate it would have been, and he so very vulnerable to the hurt she could unknowingly inflict on him. He might as well have handed her a sword himself and asked her to spear him with it as to offer her the chance to wound him with a refusal – a haughty dashing of his sad hopes that she might like to be with him for a while.
His mood and his excited body deflated, he made her a farewell and then took the stairs down in quick strides and out of the front door.
Then he stood for a moment in the street.
He was a brave man, he knew he was. He had no time for cowards who did not dare to take risks on their own account. It was just that where she was concerned...
Why not ask her? All she could do was say No and he would have to take it like a man and move on.
He had stood there so long he had to move, either forward or back. Decision made, for good or bad, he turned to the house and took a stride and stopped dead, as she, now attired in dark coat and hat was flying down the steps and was nearly on top of him.
"Oh Mr Thornton," she said breathlessly, "I am so glad I caught you. I believe you have left... one of your gloves," and with her huge eyes on his face, very wide and candid, she was handing it to him.
He looked down at it, turning it over in his fingers. "This is ...one of your father's?" he said uncertainly, not wanting her to feel corrected.
"Oh!" she said, with every appearance of surprise, and took it back from him. "I don't know how I can have... mistaken them so. Yours are larger and of finer leather than Papa's – I see it cannot be yours now I come to look at it in the light," and she laid it on the bottom step.
They stood there for a moment longer, facing one another. He was rocking slightly on his feet, she looking down at hers, and occasionally glancing up to his face.
"Well," she said at last, "- I suppose I had better – "
"I suppose so – " he said, and, about to make her a courteous farewell he heard himself recklessly add, "Unless you wanted to – "
" - Oh yes! Yes, I would love to," she eagerly agreed, leaving him not knowing what he had suggested that she was so happy to go along with, knowing she didn't either, but it didn't matter because she was walking at his side, almost bouncing up and down on her toes with what seemed like pure joy and his poor bitter shrunken heart had just unfurled itself and flowered with happiness and hope.
He smiled at her, sideways. She smiled back, a little, tentative smile, her long lashes first hiding, then slowly revealing, the excited, happy sparkle in her eyes.
They walked on for a little way. "Where are we going?" she finally seemed to feel she had better ask.
"When I was a boy... I used to take Fanny to feed the ducks, would you like to do that? It has been many years since then, and I have a fancy to, today."
Her face was solemn as it lifted to his; then it broke into one of her warmest smiles that lit all her face with joy and made him catch his breath. "Mr Thornton – I would love that! Ducks!"
They stopped first at a bakery shop on Kilnorth Street: "Wait here," he said – she watched his dark head across the counter from the bread-seller, obviously holding a short conversation - and emerged a few moments later with a paper bag.
"Are we going to the canal?"
"No," he said, "somewhere better."
After five minutes walking they came to a wall; just an ordinary high, grey, grimy Milton street wall; one with an ancient wooden door in it, studded with iron nails and bars. Margaret watched as Mr Thornton took a ring of keys from his belt and slipped one into the lock and turned it.
With a courteous nod, he stood aside to allow her to enter first.
She stepped into beauty and gasped. It was as if she had passed through a door into a magic world.
"It's a garden!"
He had been waiting for her reaction, and it was all he could have hoped for.
They walked together through a colonnade of trees laden with cherry blossom, and came out to a soft green grass like velvet under their feet; rosebeds along the border and golden mimosa and purple flowering wisteria climbing the walls surrounding this little paradise – and in the middle, a pond. Busy with pondskaters, green with lily-pads and yellow marsh-marigolds on the banks amid the rockeries.
There was a seat by the pond's edge and they sat and he listened with a smile to her marvelling and exclaiming –
"You would never know this wonderful garden is here, I must have passed that doorway a hundred times and never given it a thought! How did you – "
"I found this place by chance when I was a boy, you know how boys climb things in their curiosity and needing to know what's on the other side of things... used to bring Fanny here when she was small...I'd to lift her onto the top of the wall and hold her there with one hand while I scrambled up myself – "
"Didn't she ever scrape her knees - or fall?" Margaret gasped.
"Of course not – well - only once," he confessed, with a little rueful glance. "She wasn't hurt," he went on to assure her, "little girls are made of rubber and she bounced..." which made her laugh and her laughter infected him so he laughed too, and her eyes dwelled wonderingly on his face; she had never, in all the time she had known him, seen him more than smile; and so few of those lately.
"In those days," he continued, "after my work I'd call at the baker's, that very same shop and the very same man, and beg for any scraps and crusts and crumbs; he is a decent man and would give me mostly a full bag. Sometimes there were entire buns in there, a little stale, but we were in need of everything we could get. I confess, I'd take Fanny with me at such times; you can imagine what the sight of a thin little fair girl, big-eyed at the sights of treats she never got at home, would do to even the sternest of men. And then we'd come to this garden, and sit where you and I are sitting now, and she would eat her bun and I mine, and save one for Mother, and then we would tip out the crumbs for the ducks – though god knows we could have eaten them ourselves - why do you look so sad, Miss Hale, this is a happy story, is it not?"
She said in a small voice, "I can't bear to think of you hungry."
"Well, I'm not hungry now," he said to comfort her. His stomach chose that very moment to growl, a loud rumbling, rising in pitch until it was an urgent, long drawn-out squeak. Her expression seemed to freeze; it was terribly improper to have heard such an intimate noise coming from inside a man's body! – she risked a little look at his face, which wore a rueful, abashed look as he clutched himself to hush it; a peal of laughter burst out of her, and a smile crinkled up his mouth and made his blue eyes blaze.
"I think you are hungry, Mr Thornton, and you should eat a bun from that bag, and I will feed the ducks with the other – though as I have not seen a single duck so far, I am beginning to think you invented the ducks just to entice me to come and sit here with you and eat buns..."
He was beginning to realise this was the happiest he had been for weeks – months – years. "Be patient, Miss Hale. I'd hardly promise you ducks if there were no ducks... I'd not do that to you – "
He rustled the bag loudly, opened it slowly, releasing a warm aroma of fresh-baked bread, rich with nutmeg and cinnamon and cloves. He offered her the bag and she took out of it a bun still delightfully warm from the oven. And now she could hear a great flapping and fussing and squawking and one, two, three, five ducks flew down out of the sky and landed splashily on the water, quacking.
She gasped – surely he was a magician! – and a smile spread from cheek to cheek, creasing them with delight, lighting her eyes with a sparkle which gladdened his heart, which was having a good day today. They sat in companionable silence, tearing tiny pieces of bread and throwing it to the water, watching funny jerky beaks snatch and gulp. One duck, prettily feathered in shining greens and blues, put his big webbed foot on the rocks and began to climb out of the water, his triangular yellow feet paddling up and down on the grass, coming determinedly towards her, followed by another duck of a speckled mousy-brown, and the two of them stopped in front of the bench, heads tilted to stare up at her, expectant.
She gasped and clutched Mr Thornton's sleeve.
"It's all right," he said calmly, "They won't hurt you," and aimed his morsels of bread a few feet away from their bench. "Though I wouldn't advise feedin' 'em by hand," he added, "Fanny tried that once and got her poor little finger pecked, and she would not believe it was an accident but that the duck was angry with her and would follow her home snapping at her heels and probably come into the bedroom at night."
"Poor Fanny! Dropped from a wall, pecked by a monstrous bird – did she come willingly on these outings of yours, Mr Thornton?"
"They were the happiest times we ever had," he said unemotionally. He was keeping very still, lest she notice her hand on his arm and take it away; which she presently did, but they were closer on the bench now, and he was hurting inside with the joy of it. He could smell her warm and delicate perfume; presumably she could smell his, too. The thought seemed so intimate he hoped it would have no effect on his body, which was behaving badly today, seeming to think it might be called into action at any time.
"Why are they so different?" she asked, desperate for him not to notice how close they were sitting now and move away. The buns smelt delicious, but far, far more enticing were the tiny wafts of warm Mr Thornton she was getting – citrus and sandalwood and -
He sloped a glance towards her. "The more colourful of the two is a male bird; the plainer one, a female." It seemed a shocking thing, just to say the word male in front of her. So shocking that -
Oh dear, trouble stirring again.
Still, he reasoned, if she did not understand the difference between male and female ducks, hopefully she would not know the meaning of the shape of him, which he knew she was far too well-bred to be examining.
The ducks waited patiently, heads on one side, bright black boot-button eyes trained on their faces; and realising there was no more to come, picking one big foot up at a time, turned themselves around and waddled their bulky bodies ponderously to the water, and immediately transformed into the most elegant creatures of pure grace and beauty, gliding smoothly away.
One turned itself entirely upside down, tufted bottom in the air, feet waving, and Margaret laughed – it was as if it had performed a trick to amuse her, or was cheekily saluting her in farewell! Sadly she watched as, dinnertime over, they took flight and were gone into the sky whence they had come.
"I believe this has been one of the happiest times I, also, have had, Mr Thornton," she said, gravely.
"I am so glad it pleased you. We should go..." he was conscious he had taken this young woman away from her home and brought her to a secret garden, one to which he held the key: and he had locked them in, of course – locked in with him! oh dear god what might she think - !
A little frown crossed his brow. She noticed it.
"We will go, in a moment, if we must... but I have a question, Mr Thornton, we did not have to scale the walls today, did we?"
He smiled a little. "Indeed, no." Imagine picking her up, helping her to the top of the wall - carrying her in his arms through the archway of trees - setting her down beside him and keeping hold of her hand - but he must not think in that way, it seemed disrespectful that he was thinking of such intimacy and she did not know it.
"You have a key to this garden."
His eyes narrowed in and focussed on the past - "Fanny and I got caught in here one time, by a very angry man who shouted and frightened her. I... made it known to him that he had been unreasonable to scare a little girl so, and he... backed down; but she never again wanted to come. I made a vow to myself then that I would never have to beg any man's permission to innocently sit in a garden in this ugly grey town, nor have to skulk and scale high walls to get there. When I became a man, when I had the means, I remembered the happy times I had had here with Fanny in an unhappy time of our life, and I acquired it ..."
"You own it!"
He gave a little nod. "I come here sometimes, for the peace of it. A gardener tends it; I'd not have the time." He added, looking over the neat borders, the beds of flowers, the little wilderness in one corner where birds nested and squirrels ran, this place where he had spent hours alone in an agony of thoughts of her, "I wish I did have the time...I would like to."
He thought of something then, and said: "If you would like to come here sometimes, Miss Hale – I'd gladly have a key made for you. You'd not need to fear bumping into me all the time," he added, smiling a little to show he meant no barb by it, "I'm not here often; but I like to know it is here and I would like to think of you in it, enjoying its beauty. You would have it to yourself, I promise."
Her eyes dwelt wonderingly on his face. "That is kind of you, Mr Thornton. I would accept; I may accept; but I don't think it will have the same magic if I am here on my own."
His delicate dark eyebrows lifted a little and turned aslant. He could not think how to reply to that. It sounded as if she had meant - but he could not bear hope; hope led to anguish while indifference was kind.
"We really must go. I have kept you out so long. Your father will be home, and wondering."
He was about to rise, when she caught his arm again and tugged him down again to sit with her, her face urgent and anxious –
"Mr Thornton – I know you are right and we must go – but there is something I have been meaning to say to you – and we so seldom get the chance to speak alone - "
"Yes?" he slowly replied, head turned to frowningly examine her face. Oh, her pretty lips, which she was biting a little in her anxiety. He ached – he yearned – to kiss her – which would make the perfect end to this perfect hour.
She said rapidly, "When you asked me to – when you told me you had feelings – " seeing his frown darken more, she added, "Please hear me out, Mr Thornton – I want to apologise, that is all. For the cruel way I spoke to you. For the hurtful things - "
"No," he stopped her with a forceful voice which overrode hers, "No, Miss Hale. I beg you not to put yourself through this. I am glad you spoke of this matter, as it happens, as for some time I have been wondering how to raise it, without stirring up anything anything... difficult between us. We get along a little better these days and I'd not wish to spoil that; but please understand, Miss Hale, I deserved everything you said that day." He paused, and looked out over the garden, lost in the past. "I... made a serious error of judgement. It was quite wrong of me to cause you such distress and to put you in the position of having to speak as you did to me. You hardly knew me at the time, why did I ever even think you would welcome the thought of marriage with me? " he shook his head at his own foolishness, in despair.
"Why did you?" she said, in a whisper. This garden, a place out of time, a little haven of peace and beauty hidden inside its secret walls while busy Milton flowed about it, carried on its own business around them throughout. A bee flew into a flower and wriggled its way around. A sparrow perched on a bush, rustling the leaves. A carp in the pond, long lurking, raised its fishmouth to the surface to find a crumb the ducks had left behind.
This was painful for him, but he owed it to her, he knew it. He set his chin and continued hardily, "I – misunderstood your gesture when you tried to defend me in front of an angry mob. Something that you would have done for any man, I decided to take as a sign of particular attachment to me." With lightning speed the memory played; but he knew he would not mention the role his mother had played in prompting his misunderstanding; what would be the point of that? It was he himself who had walked out of that door and through hers and ambushed her with a strange and complex twist, the blood of the wound she had taken for him hardly dried on her head. "It was an impulse born less of reason than of imagination – of wishing it might be so."
"Because I was so frightened for you, you thought I had feelings for you, too," she said, thinking it through. Understanding it in a way she never had before. "You came to me in hopes that it were so."
"I - Yes," he said, defeated, and waited for her to pity him, while knowing that enduring her kindness and pity was the price he had to pay for that mistake. A mistake which had distressed her and harmed her and made her afterwards feel guilt, when it was, none of it, her fault. He set his jaw and prepared to withstand it, without martyrdom, without tears.
He wondered for a moment if he were crying after all, despite his resolve to be brave; he blinked his eyes and wiped them with his hand, but still saw the same thing in front of him; Margaret Hale's looked blurry and unfocussed to him because her own had filled with tears, which darkened her lashes and trembled on the brink of her cheek.
"I am so sorry, Margaret," he said quietly. "Please don't cry... it is all right now. I would not offend you so again, I promise. Come, we are friends now, are we not? If you think of this day ever again, don't think of this - only remember the ducks..."
She reached out a hand and clumsily patted his, which was laid, rather tightly clenched, on his knees. After an astonished moment, without breaking the contact for even a moment he turned his hand over, palm up, and she slipped her hand over it, the rosy little pads of her fingers gently caressing him.
"As you said," she said tremulously, "I hardly knew you then. But, Mr Thornton – here is the funny thing. I know you better now, and I would welcome your feelings, if you have any left for me."
Stunned, he was looking down at her hand on his. He closed his fingers gently around hers. Their bare warm skin tenderly touched, palm to palm; unbeknownst to them, their lifelines leaped from each to each and entangled, never to be undone.
After a moment, she met his waiting mouth with her own; the day had, after all, its perfect end.
Even when John Thornton was nightly gifted the sight of his wife Margaret, in her pretty nightdress, lovingly holding out her arms to welcome him to their bed, even when her kisses for him were daily and nightly and all times in between, he was never to forget that moment their hands first touched in love and wonder and surprise.
END
Notes:
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