Mr Thornton wakes and finds Margaret watching over him. Will he go, will he stay...
-OO-
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe
Love is a banquet on which we feed
Because the night belongs to lovers
– Patti Smith
-OO-
He startled awake after only a quarter hour; she cursed the clock which had struck downstairs so inopportunely. He jerked up, tensely alert from the moment his eyes flew open; and the first thing he saw was Margaret. He was with Margaret...
How had this happened, the stuff of dreams, or fantasy. Without quite knowing it he was warily waiting for his luck to change, as it usually did. Falling asleep while she was reading to him had been extraordinarily ill-mannered. Would she feel insulted and be harsh with him? He did not think he could bear it if she were. Yet she was giving him that dreamy little smile of hers, radiating sweetness as she did sometimes, though usually not for him. Her delicate pearl earrings caught the light as she moved.
He was about to tell her she looked beautiful, and stopped himself, and immediately wondered where his sense had gone. The brandy she had given him had loosened some of his tight inhibitions it seemed; he would have to be careful. Even so, he knew he had been looking at her as if he had seen something beautiful and that she would read his mind.
Indeed, Margaret could not mistake that look. Two little curves showed in her cheeks as she smiled more, her lips forming a sweet bow. "You don't mind my dress, Mr Thornton?"
"Your... dress?" he said quizzically; she was wearing a plain white blouse and a long dark skirt which he had not really noticed before.
"I was remembering something Bessy Higgins said. She said I was going to need better clothes..."
Giving up on understanding that, he pushed his hands down on the arms of his chair, ready to get up. "Miss Hale – I must go. I really must. I should not be here at all."
"Mr Thornton – would you stay here tonight?"
His reaction was immediate, and abrupt; he leapt to his feet and stared.
"I mean to sleep," she said, quickly. "I had no thought to seduce you, if that's what you are thinking!" her eyes sparkled with a little mischief, hoping they had reached a new understanding and could laugh at such a thought, but his lips pressed tightly together.
"I did not think that," he said with some heat, "Yet you must know we have already gone beyond what is proper."
"How have we? We have taken a meal together, been companionable, read some chapters of a most respectable book..."
"It is after midnight and we are alone in the house."
He was frowning so hard she feared he would bring back his headache.
Her face sombered too, all merriness gone from her eyes, leaving them distant and wintry, the way she had always looked when she disliked him more. "Dixon is in the house, and would be here in a moment if I had need to call her. But I am saddened, Mr Thornton, and just a little angered. I think now you do disapprove of me. You are thinking, 'I was right all along. She is not a decent woman.'"
He said immediately, "I was not thinking that. Don't try to guess my thoughts, Miss Hale. It has not worked so well for either of us before. It's not myself I'm thinking of. It's you it would harm if anyone knew I was here at this hour."
"But you will sleep better here, and wake refreshed for your fight. I wish you would stay here with me tonight."
She added, after a moment, "I am a little worried about you, you see. You are not quite yourself, are you? I think you need to be where you are safe."
His puzzled eyes, irresolute, tempted, moved under his lids. "I won't forget that you asked," he promised, low. "'an' the kindness of it. It's just that... the real world won't wait for me, Miss Hale. I am about to lose the Mill, I must fight for it. So much depends on it."
She knew, in that instinctive way women have when they are loved, that she had influence over this powerful man who took no-one's orders, she was a vulnerability he had. She had found his heart beneath thin skin and pierced it, sweet and deadly. She knew she could make him stay. She came nearer, all softness and light.
He backed up as fast as if she had shot him. "And more than that, Miss Hale – " she saw a little shining line of sweat disappearing into the open collar of his shirt, which he further loosened with his hand. "You want me to be honest, and so I will add... You may trust me... but you don't know men very well... if you don't know that I can't trust myself."
She knew she could trust him, whatever he said. But it seemed to be worrying him. All she could do was let him go, as he had asked.
"It seems I cannot persuade you," she replied, sadly. Her eyes were so large, fringed with long lashes that wavered gently up and down as she looked at him. "But if you must leave – then - would you first sit here with me for a moment?"
He hesitated for so long – but then, as if he were under a spell, his feet began to take him where she sat so gracefully on the long sofa waiting for him, looking up at him, not smiling now, thoughtful, but warm. He supposed it was all right; she had given him permission, after all, and he saw such kindness in her face. And he was so tired she was likely safe.
As he had in dreams, he slipped his arm behind her along the back of the settle. His long fingers curved carefully around her shoulder, gently caressing the warm silk of her blouse, feeling her skin's heat beneath, shockingly intimate. For the longest moment their eyes dwelt on one another, serious, intense.
"This is where you belong, Mr Thornton," she whispered.
He forgot to breathe for a moment. He wanted so much to touch her and she seemed to want him to, so he thought he could, if only he was careful. Turning to face her, he lifted a hand and tenderly, delicately, stroked an escaped strand of her hair away from her cheek. He would never tire of her smiling at him; he took such comfort from it. Someone liked him, she liked him. He had not felt very liked lately, or cared for, or wanted, and he had been crushed by it; though he thought he had never let it show.
She teased the lock of hair that had fallen on his forehead, the one he got tired of flipping out of his own eyes, gently rubbing it between her finger and thumb.
"I have been wanting to do that for hours!" she confessed.
"Does it annoy you?" he murmured, not really listening; he was totally absorbed in his fingers stroking her delicate ear, the soft sweet skin of her cheek.
"If you had slept longer... I thought I might not be able to help myself -" mischievous.
His look queried her, quizzical.
"You are very beautiful to me, Mr Thornton," she told him, and the corner of his mouth upturned lopsidedly, amused at her choice of word. She joined her hand with his, stroked his palm gently. Then his wrist – pausing there to see if her fingers could close around it (they could not) - and she sent her fingertips slowly up his forearm, caressing his soft dark hairs which strangely excited her. Tracing the long blue vein from the milky skin of his wrist to the inside of his elbow, carefully, as if he were something precious. All this he let her do, watching her with eyes that flickered in sympathy with the gutting candles.
His were slender arms but finely muscled and very strong; she had once seen him cross the yard in five paces to a young woman who had fainted too near a moving trolley, scooping her up in one movement, striding quickly to safety with her in his arms as easily as if she were a sleeping child.
(The little piecer girls had swooned breathlessly over it for weeks – 'when Master carried Flo across yard in his arms...')
She had laughed with Nicholas Higgins that she was surprised the Master did not come out to a carefully positioned line of fainted girls every time he left the office, if that was what it led to. But she had felt strangely wistful watching him take up that young woman and walk away with her. It was likely, though she had not owned it at the time, she had been as envious of Flo as any of them. He had carried Margaret herself once, and she had not known a moment of it.
But she had not even had to get herself struck unconscious this time; tonight, now, he had willingly given himself into her hands: and the nearness of him, his male beauty and his strength, was awakening sensations she had never known before, a sweet liquid melting, a throbbing that she liked.. it was so pleasurable ... and becoming more so - she wanted -
What she was hungry for she could not name.
Seeing her flushed and hazy, the restless rise and fall of her breasts, he realised with a shock what had been sparked off in her. He knew exactly what she was going through. After all he had been in its power so many times himself, something men battle with daily from boyhood; he knew well that once set on its course it would demand to run to the end.
And he had a fight on his hands himself, struggling against an indecent animal urge to bare her body and his own just enough to force his raging hardness where she would yield to him. And yet even while his powerful sexual need made its insistent demands he also knew he must protect her from her own; she was innocent, she did not truly understand where things were going, he would have to draw them away from it.
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Ahhh, Margaret..." he sighed. "It's all right," he whispered. "I know. I do know."
He was gently gathering her in his arms, turning her to him. She closed her eyes, tense, thrilled, wondering if he would kiss her, but he only breathed out slowly through pursed lips and laid his head on her bodice, his cheek pressed over her heart, where a sweet softness pillowed him.
His fingers moved gently on her bare forearm, giving her comfort while taking his own; becalming them, bringing them back from the madness. Still touching, but peaceably. She looked down at the dark head on her breast, feeling his warm breath on her bare skin, she stroked his hair and his cheek. It was a curious moment of stillness, a pause between two worlds.
After a long while he lifted his head to look at her. "You are making it the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but... I still must go, Miss Hale," he murmured, with a touch of humour.
"I think it was not me who was in danger here tonight, Mr Thornton," she murmured ruefully, pink of cheek and looking at her lap, giving him a little upwards smiling glance.
He had been so gentlemanly. She supposed she was glad of it.
But the happiness of this night was over. It was time to take their leave.
"Should I stay?" he asked her, suddenly unsure, wanting her direction.
"You have said you must go. It would not be right of me to prevent you," and then, lest he thought that sulky or resentful, she turned on him a radiant smile full of sweetness and charm. "Tomorrow, you would not thank me for insisting you abandon your honour and your duty."
With this she released him, and it was hard to do, it would have taken a lesser love to give him permission to stay.
He drew on his dark coat over billowing white sleeves and stood in front of her. Dressed and correct; becoming the Master again, when half-dressed in her arms he had been just a man. They touched hands one more time, twining their fingers together. She brought his hand to her mouth to kiss it. He made her a little courtly bow.
"Thank you, Miss Hale." Such simple words; but which, said on a quiet scale of emotion, gently up and down, perfectly conveyed the story of this one sweet night.
He ran down the stairs on quick steps. At the bottom, a door opened a crack and the face of Dixon the maid looked out, bristly with suspicion. "Is Miss Hale all right?"
He did not even turn round to reply. "Of course she is," he said, with contempt.
-OO-
He was bitterly to regret that he had not stayed, for then he would have been there with her when the morning's news came.
Author's notes:
It is a shame Mrs Gaskell threw a few more problems their way which we must address ... and so poor Margaret must wait a little longer for Mr Thornton to stride off with her in his arms... but not too much longer we hope!
Any new members for our lovely forum, the Mill at Milton? ... if you write, read or just love N&S/John and Margaret, come and join us to discuss them! we love new members and you could be our FIRST from this site ... the link is in my profile :) xx Sebastian