Summary:
Margaret gives troubled Mr Thornton some of the comfort and kindness he needs. There's a canonical shadow on the horizon, but they don't know it yet, so let's let them enjoy this simple, happy night.
"There can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you in spite of you. So now you know what you've got to expect"
― Charles Dickens
-OO-
She did not know if he would come, or even if he had taken in what she said.
"Mr Thornton may call on me tonight, Dixon. I shall look after him myself, you can take the evening in your room."
Dixon opened her mouth to speak but Margaret gave her a look - at her most imperiously "Miss Beresford". Margaret could be very stubborn, even difficult at times, and sometimes not in total agreement with Dixon that she was more a family friend than a servant.
"Yes, Miss Margaret."
-OO-
When he came to the door she ran down to draw him in with an obvious pleasure and friendliness which he would be unable to misunderstand. That, even ill as he was, he had taken the time to change his shirt, make himself presentable for her, she found so moving that she sounded very tender as she said, "You did not need to change for me, Mr Thornton," and her smile was the one she had given him at the Marlborough dinner when she offered him her hand.
"I must disagree; I think I did," he replied. He looked a little better. Not so white around the mouth nor so dark beneath the eyes. He had recovered some of his spirit, too. "What am I doing here, Miss Hale?" he asked wearily. "You said yourself I'd be better off sleeping."
"You were right in what you said, Mr Thornton, we have made each other very unhappy at times. The thought that we have not been good for one another... how sad it was to hear you say that. But it need not be the end of the story. I am hoping that we might begin to be friends."
She saw him considering that, doubts and puzzlement showing up across the expressive face. She had laid the table in the parlour quite simply with a starched white cloth, and stoked up the fire. The small room looked so pleasant tonight, glowing with gentle light and warmth. Margaret had made this place, which he remembered as dark and dull, cosy, almost beautiful. He looked around meaning to admire it, as was polite; but there was the very place he had stood to make his awkward, painful proposal, a sour pang of memory which made his heart hurt. She was moving him this way and showing him to a comfortable chair by the fireside.
He remained standing - "Is your father in his study? I should pay him my respects."
"He has gone to Oxford with Mr Bell," she said, laying the table with spoons and forks she took from a drawer in the sideboard. She saw him startle, his eyes busy reflecting on it, darting quickly from side to side under his narrowed brows, but she continued calmly, "I have received a letter from him today; he sounds so happy, Mr Thornton! It is what he needed! He has been grieving so hard and so long. It will do him so much good. I shall be glad to have him home restored."
"But your maid is here?" he questioned, frowning.
"It's all right, Mr Thornton. You are a family friend, just as Mr Bell." She did not add, but was tempted, "... and thanks to your servants, I have no reputation to lose!"
She was ladling soup from a tureen onto two bowls on the table. "Come and eat. I think perhaps you have not been bothering to as much as you should."
"I sup with Mr Higgins an' the workers some nights. Did you hear about the factory canteen?" – courteously pulling out her chair for her and waiting till she seated herself, drawing up his own opposite. Some part of him was very aware of the strangeness of this. Sitting down to dine with Miss Margaret Hale. After all that had passed between them.
"I did. He said the idea came from you."
"Don't go recasting me from villain to hero just yet," he said, with a flash of sarcasm. "I do nothing without self-interest, you know me well."
"I do know you well," she countered with a smile, "and I also heard that, heartless Master that you are, you were concerned about little Tom having no dinner."
He tipped his head on one side. "I'd not realised how much Mr Higgins 'as to say to you. This is good soup, Miss Hale. Did you have a hand in it?"
"No," she confessed, laughing. "I thought you would probably prefer Dixon's soup over mine... but it is I who arranged it so nicely on the plates, which surely deserves a little moment of appreciation."
Gradually understanding that she carried no weapons to wound him with tonight, the coiled springs of his tension began slowly to release; she was winning a few little smiles, here and there. A man, enjoying a quiet evening meal, with a woman, by candlelight. And this was what she had intended. To give this troubled man time in a quiet place, with only food, and comfort, and herself.
There was rice pudding, sweet with honey, spiced with nutmeg, to follow, and fruit, and over it all she continued a calm discourse of un-alarming topical things – afterwards, she was to remember how she had talked of the price of ink, the latest acquisition at London Zoo, where she had been and he had not, and they had discussed the availability of onions; all as if it mattered, while her father went to sleep, happy, in Oxford.
"That was what Dixon would have called a 'nursery tea'," she commented, clearing the dishes away. Pleasingly, he had eaten it all. "Even when we were no longer small, this is what she gave us when we were tired, or unwell." She saw him track the truth she had given him so lightly there, but he didn't raise it.
He helped her carry the dishes down to the kitchen – "We will leave them for Dixon. She does not trust me not to chip them, in my daydreaming."
"This has been – kindly of you, Miss Hale. I should go now. It's late."
"I wish you would stay longer. I fear when you get back to the Mill you will not be able to resist your ledgers and bills and all this good will be undone. After dinner, Mr Thornton, my father enjoys a brandy and then he likes me to read to him. I was wondering if you would care for that? We have been following Mr Dickens' latest by instalment, but perhaps you have already read it?"
"I've not had much time for readin' lately," he said unemotionally.
She poured him a little brandy from the decanter, took the first chapter of the book from the shelves, settled herself in one chair and waited for him to take the other.
"Miss Hale," he said abruptly, "I've no wish to start on arguin' again – believe me I've not ...but I can't get quite past... that I wish you had said before – what you have told me tonight. I've not bin able to think of any reason you would not tell me unless you did not trust me, and that is a thought I find... difficult to bear."
He had had to work to find the words, but the very way this reserved man had spoken through his thoughts so carefully was deeply revealing. She laid down the book. She sighed. "Oh, Mr Thornton! I wish I had. It was a serious mistake on my part with serious results. I cannot explain myself. One day soon I will tell you the whole story, but not tonight. But I wonder, could you not have trusted me – to have a good reason for silence? Or at least, a reason I thought was good enough..."
She saw him struggling with that, trying to find an answer within himself; pitying him, she helped him.
"I think – we are both going to have to accept – that we did not do the right thing by one another. But we will do better." He was frowning and taciturn, deep in thought. She was experiencing a strange and powerful urge to stroke a dark and wayward lock of hair back from his forehead, just to touch him; to stroke the signs of stress away from his temples; it was so strong it caught her by surprise. This urge to – feel his skin with hers – even just her fingers to his brow – was so powerful.
Was this... desire? She knew the word of course but had assumed it was only for men to feel.
"What are you thinking, Miss Hale?" he asked her, deep and low, watching her eyes so intently focussed on him, wondering what meditations had taken her away into a dream.
She smiled, dipping her head and glancing up from beneath her lashes. "That I had better read to you..."
"Will you then forgive me?" he said abruptly. "I'm ashamed to say it but I believe my jealousy stood in the way of my reason," an astonishing confession which he had not even understood himself before the betraying word came out of his mouth.
"It is not a matter of forgiveness," she replied. "It really is not. Only of understanding." On an impulse, she held out her hand to him, as friends do when they meet; but it was not the handclasp of friends; their fingers touched and held the longest time before slipping apart with regret.
"Mr Thornton," she whispered, "One very last thing... you have never had any need to be jealous, if only you had known it."
And before he could reply, she picked up the pamphlet and opened it and began to read aloud, in her soft, clear voice, taking her time so every image would gently wash over him:
"This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind..."
She had not begun the book at the beginning. She knew instinctively that, wound up as he was, he would not really listen. Her aim was only to let him gradually sink under soothing words in the balm of her gentle woman's voice. How much gentleness had this solitary, driven man ever had? This was a man everyone looked to, relied upon; for strength, leadership, income, work and wages; but it was as if he were driving a coach with difficult horses, and no-one beside him to take a turn with the reins.
The thought wandered into her mind, was this how marriage to him would be? An easy companionship, giving him comfort, dining together, talking of olive trees and onions; settling down together to share a book by the fire...
At first he seemed to be paying attention, the glass balanced on his chest, his eyes half-open, occasionally flicking them to her face as she read, and then he set his empty glass down, turned his head to one side and they fell shut. She carried on for a while, until she knew from his breathing he was no longer aware, and then she laid the book aside and watched him sleep.
There. A little, pleased smile played about her lips. She thought looking after him was something she might do well, better than anyone else, as no-one seemed to understand him the way she did. He had a temper because he was emotional and it ran high in him at times; he could be scornful, sarcastic, and bitter but she knew him also to be thoughtful and kind. He was sensitive. He got hurt easily; and hid it well, so he was assumed to have no feelings and a heart of stone. Nothing could be more untrue.
And then there was the way he looked. Here was an opportunity to study him as never before; he always so sharp with watchfulness, and some of that remained even in sleep, a little frown about his brows. The beautiful mouth that could snarl in anger, or twist sardonically, or with a tenderness that stole more hearts than he realised, now had a shade of darkness around it like any man a few hours away from his last shave; the long lashes stirring lightly as he breathed, giving rest to his eyes - eyes that were sometimes the blue of a summer night, and sometimes the bitter grey of flint. His hands, strong and fine, lay relaxed beside him, his fingers slightly curled.
She did not know when he had become beautiful to her, but it had happened.
-OO-
Author's Note: The next chapter follows straight on from this scene and could be titled "Mr Thornton wakes up" :) don't worry, there's no more quarrelling to come. I won't say 'no more sadness for Margaret' but you can blame EG for that :) and she will have John by her side to help her through. Thank you so much to all who are following this story and anyone who has left a kind review (LM and AG in particular) - I am so grateful.