Poor Margaret! she hardly has time to taste the happiness of loving and being loved before sad news arrives for her; but at least she does not have to face it alone. Meanwhile Thornton is facing his own troubles, which are mounting.

"...I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world."
― Charles Dickens

-OO-

When would he come to her today? She awoke already longing to see him, she could hardly bear to wait, she was restless and pacing, flying to the window and then back again. It seemed she had fallen desperately in love with Mr Thornton. She felt she must have always been going to fall in love with him from their first volcanic meeting and its flash of fire to fire. There had been a few, dangerous rifts to leap, but they had done it, hand in hand, and here they were, arrived in a new world.

And this was what love was – a sweet ache of tenderness if he was hurt, or tired, or struggling, a fierce urge to comfort him. An anger that rained down flaming arrows on anyone who harmed him, or thought they had a claim to him. The flutters inside her as she looked out of the window for the hundredth time, wondering if he might be coming to her door, or, if not now, tonight. The urge to look at him and look at him until her eyes closed in fatigue. To feel his arms around her, his warmth, his hard male strength. To touch him like she had last night, and to touch him more, and differently.

She knew he was hers, and, yes, there was pride in that. This man – who commanded men and mechanical empires - could have had anyone; but long ago, he had chosen her and he had never changed his mind. She was so happy; she had never known happiness like it.

But when someone did come along the street to her door, it was not Mr Thornton and happiness folded in on itself and fled far away.

-OO-

Thornton reeled a little on his feet. He sagged into the wooden doorframe, one clenched fist flying to his mouth with the shock. "Mr Hale – dead?"

Higgins nodded, heavy with sadness. "Will you go to her, Master? She'll be needing all the friends she can muster, god knows she will."

The Master was already gone.

He speedily changed his work coat for another, casting a glance at his mother as she entered.

"Is there trouble, John?" she said immediately, knowing this was out of step.

"Miss Hale's father," he said, between compressed lips, shrugging the jacket over his arms and pulling the sleeves precisely to match.

"Not...?"

He nodded, tightly.

She assimilated that, dark, sharp eyes glancing this way then that, debating if to speak. "Must you get involved? She will have her own people around her."

He did not answer that, fingers wrenching his cravat into place.

His mother sighed, "Both parents gone! Milton has brought her so much unhappiness. It has not been a lucky place for her, that's for sure. The sooner she leaves, the better."

He stopped at the door, with his back to her. "Mother – you must know... that I'll not have her leave at all."

A bitterer blow by far for Hannah Thornton than the distant misfortune of an elderly parson's death. Her hand flew to cover her mouth. "Tell me you have not – "

"Nothing has been settled. But it's too late to prevent me being involved with Miss Hale. You know that."

"Of all the young women you could have, John! Why this one?" she cried, "Why?"

"I've only ever wanted her. I'm sorry it doesn't please you, but that is how it is."

He added, "You can help me today, if you care to – go to the mill this morning and do what you can. You know its workings nearly as well as I do. I'd be glad if you would."

-OO-

Mr Bell had said little, knowing there was nothing that could help her through this first phase of the shock, the disbelief. She had cried a little at first, and asked questions, and then she had subsided into this frozen state. Sitting by the window, looking out. Dixon was in and out, teary and fussing and bringing tea and small plain fare, all ignored. She just sat, her white face turned towards the street, looking through a pane of glass.

And there he was. She spotted first the shape of his dark hat and his coat, a long way off, but she would know his figure and his manner anywhere. Dark and grim, shouldering past the people on the cobbled grey street, brushing them aside, only one thought on his mind as he grew larger and larger into her view.

Mr Bell saw her get up and run down the stairs without a word. He looked out of the window himself, saw the man taking the steps to the door in brisk firm strides, taking off his tall black hat as he stood there, and then the door flew open and he went inside.

Thornton.

Bell punched a light fist into his palm, sucked in his cheeks, frowning.

So this was how it was. He had seen it coming a while ago, but hoped it would fade and die.

-OO-

"My poor father! Can you believe it? I cannot. I can not believe I shall never see him again."

Against him she let herself give way, sobbing and sobbing with such an outpouring of grief, shock, sorrow. He held her as close as she wanted to be, right inside the circle of his arms, his bowed head resting on her hair. If he could have taken her pain and suffered it for her he would have done it in a heartbeat. There was room in him for no trace of desire, and he did not even think of it.

"Margaret," he said at last, as she was shivering violently, "Let me take you upstairs," though it meant leaving hold of her, "you are cold."

Bell was in the parlour. Acknowledged him with a grim nod. "Well, Thornton, this is a bad day for us all."

She would not let go of him. He settled her gently in a chair, her father's chair, and knelt beside her so she would have his hand at least.

"There'll be arrangements to be made, Thornton."

The man gave a tight, brief nod. "See to them, then, will you, Bell?"

Bell had a moment of irritation. Giving him orders, now. Another man – after all, this was his tenant - might have been more... respectful, considering the... particular circumstances, but that was Thornton for you. Uncompromising. Not a Groveller , a Creeper, or a Fawner, things Bell particularly disliked as it happened. Never any man's inferior was Thornton, in his own head at least, and now, all his attention focussed in on Margaret. He had matters of business to discuss with the man, who looked like to default on the rent, the end for him, and so this would be an uncomfortable discussion; but now was not the time.

He picked up his hat from the table. He said briskly, "Do what you can, then, Thornton. You know where I am if you need me. I must see you this afternoon in any case."

When they were alone at last, Margaret lifted her pale face to his, marked with the shining trails of tears. He wanted to kiss them away; to rub his cheek against hers till his skin was as wet as hers; he brushed them away with his thumb.

"I don't know what I shall do, Mr Thornton," she said, so pitifully it broke his heart.

"Don't worry about that," he said. "Me an' Mr Bell'll look after you." His mind was already busy on plans, how they would get through this. He had hands, he had a brain and legs, he could work, couldn't he? He could beg Hamper or Henderson for work if he had to, they had some goodwill with him. Slickson would be a last resort.

He wondered if he could work nights as well. There were bakers who needed hands from well before dawn, setting dough to prove for the ovens at daybreak. He knew he could do that. God knew he hardly slept these days anyway.

"Oh, my poor father! How can I bear it? I was so happy last night. And all the while .."

She turned great, distraught eyes on him. "You should have stayed with me last night, Mr Thornton. Now you never will."

He shook his head, unsmiling but not cold. "Remember this? 'You are not at the age where you can say such a thing...'"

She did not appear to be listening to him anyway. Even if she never remembered a word of this or any thing that happened, all he could do was be there. Stand when she stood, watch her when she paced. Listen to her sadness and her anger, for she blamed her father for going to Oxford at all, blamed Mr Bell for suggesting it, blamed herself for not preventing it, fragmented, irrational accusations, a universal raging at grief since the first human suffered the loss of another in the first age and set sad cairns to mark the end of joy.

"You need to rest, Miss Hale. Let me get Dixon to help you to your room," but she would not go, and finally consented to sit, shaking, in her father's chair covered with a blanket he found, and eventually she fell asleep, worn out by the raging storm.

He watched over her for a little while to be sure she did not need him, then he went downstairs, frowning with irritation when he heard great, snuffly sobs from the kitchen and he opened the door on his way past.

"Enough of that, Miss Dixon. Miss Hale is going to be in need of you. You'll not be any help to her like this."

Startled to see him, she was scrabbling for a cloth to wipe her face. "Poor, poor Miss Margaret! I never thought I'd see the day – orphaned! What will become of her?"

"She'll deal with it," he said, "people do."

Tonight he would tell her all his feelings. He would ask her to marry him and promise to keep her safe until mountains turned to valleys and the stars blinked out one by one in the sky. He would love her so...

But first he had to get through another day at the mill, and the appointment which awaited him.

-OO-

"Oh... Dixon..." Margaret sat up, opening her eyes. "Have I slept long?" She looked weighed down with sadness, and washed out with tiredness, but she seemed somewhat more like herself.

"Not long, Miss Margaret," Dixon bustled to the table, falsely bright. "Now, that kindly Mr Bell called in and said he'd be back tonight and you're to send for him if you need him before. What a nice polite gentleman he is! Handsome, too! Your Aunt sent word she'll be here tomorrow. Won't it be nice to see Mrs Shaw, Miss Margaret? I expect she'll have in mind to take us home with her – " with a beam of approval. "And – " her voice dipped – "that man from the mill left this."

It was perfectly obvious what Dixon thought of the Master of Marlborough, dislike coloured in with a good shade of fear. She was handing a note to Margaret as if it were a dirty cloth.

"I must go back to Marlborough for a while. If you want me before tonight, send the maid or get a message to me and I'll come." - signed only with his initials.

-OO-

Author's notes:

I know, I know. It's sad, isn't it. Poor Margaret! But this time, she has John to help her through.

There is, unfortunately, a little more sadness to come in the next chapter. (It's not me! It's in the book! He does lose the Mill!) In my version however, the sadness will only last about, oh, ten minutes ;)