This chapter contains two original characters of mine from A Mother's Final Gift. Neither of them feature heavily in this story, but it is worth knowing who they are.

One is Mr Whitehall, a slightly airy young man who lives down the road from Margaret, and who falls in love with her. Whitehall's character, even if he is briefly mentioned here, is there to represent a contrast to John. While John is strong, silent and introverted, Whitehall is the opposite in every way.

The other is Mr Armitage, who is meant to be like Richard Armitage in many ways, except, in this version, he's not nice, almost like what John would be if he weren't a good man. I had an extended scene at the Thornton's dinner party in which a fictional young man called, Armitage, appeared. He is a fellow mill owner, and is decidedly handsome, confident and utterly smug with himself. Again, he is a contrast to John, and while he is slimy and pervy, John is none of these, leading him to feel simultaneously envious of the man's natural charisma, whilst also despising his vices.


HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Part 2 of 4

From Before We Were Us


It so happened that the 14th of February coincided with John's usual night for attending the Hale's for his weekly lesson, and so off he went, only now, he had a further reason to take him there, a private and personal one that hastened his step, his feet itching with anticipation.

When he arrived, his keen eyes had searched every table-top in sight to try and ascertain whether his card had arrived. However, much to his dissatisfaction, every surface appeared to either be scattered with nothing more than books and irrelevant papers, or worse, laid bare, tidied as the recently varnished wood gleamed proudly in vacant orderliness. There was a chance, of course, that it was delayed, as he had only sent it this afternoon, but he had paid for a speedy delivery, and as a man who always got what he paid for, he felt sure it should have come by now.

It was not until the lesson had concluded, and the small party had taken to their usual seats dotted around the Hale's parlour to partake in tea and conversation, that John spied what he was looking for. Sitting across from him, Margaret had collected up a stack of letters which must have arrived by the evening post, and so she commenced sorting through them, giving herself something to do, because just like John, she was not one to sit idle. There could easily have been six or seven missives tucked away in a neat pile within her elegant hands, each one of no interest to him, but then he spotted his card hidden amongst them, awaiting her touch, awaiting her opening, prayerfully awaiting her admiration.

It was hard to miss, his card, that is, because the envelope was a deep shade of red. John had deliberated for some time about which colour to select, given that the alternatives before him had been ridiculously and excessively vast. Wasteful, even. There had been the option to have something cream, and being a serious man with sober tastes, he had at first deemed this an appropriate choice, but then he had hesitated, and his eyes had fallen upon the hale and hearty ruby hue. He knew that red had connotations of vulgarity, being associated with wanton women, and that was most certainly not the image he wanted to promote, not when he was attempting to court an innocent young lady who had presumably never so much as been kissed before.

Nevertheless, there was something about it which had lured him, and John had realised that far from being inappropriate, red was perfect, because it was the colour of passion, of power, and of the blood that flows through the veins and stirs a man, erupting from his heart, the very epicentre in John which had lain in lonely dormancy for years, but now, it was awakened, roused to life by her. Indeed, there was no better way for Margaret to be introduced to the ardour of his feelings than by the nuances, the sciences, of colour. Besides, the shop bell had rung, announcing the arrival of another customer, so John had felt obliged to make his decision fast so that he could avoid being observed by a prying audience, and so that had been that.

John could feel his brow begin to swelter and sweat as Margaret noticed the curious envelope that differed from the usual nondescript items in her clasp. Cocking her head, she selected it, and then her eyes immediately widened in surprise as she read to whom it was addressed. John sensed his throat constricting, like the viper of dread had him squirming in its clutches. Oh, help! She wasn't going to open it here, now, in front of people, was she? That had not been his intention at all when he had imagined her reading it undisturbed and undetected, savouring every carefully chosen line and trying to understand what they meant, of what they revealed, of how they defined what she had come to mean to him in so few words.

With a giddy glint in her eye, Margaret ripped it open impatiently, taking out the card with one, clean swipe, her wayward bracelet clanging against her wrist. But alas, John was unable to gauge her reaction, since at that precise moment, Mrs Hale entered the room, stepping right in front of him like a blockade. All at once, John and Mr Hale stood and nodded to her in gentlemanly greeting, and the genteel lady smiled back and swept past them regally, reminding him of another woman who was equally, if not more, majestic. John had not had the pleasure of Mrs Hale's company in some time, what with her being ill, or a lady of low spirits, as his mother would say, so he felt it only correct that he pay her due deference. Nonetheless, as gracious as the mistress of the house was, her timing left a lot to be desired.

As she strolled across the room with a dainty tread, Mrs Hale noticed her daughter sitting quietly in a corner with her head bent low in contemplation as she clutched onto something and focused on it with unwavering concentration.

'Margaret, my dear, what do you have there?' her mother enquired as she lifted the corners of her skirts and lowered herself into her seat with seamless grace.

Margaret startled, having forgotten she was in company, causing her to drop her card on the floor in a fluster. Thinking quickly, she lifted her foot and deftly hid the item beneath the folds of her dress, hoping that by doing so, it would disappear into thin air, almost as if she were a magician, the card her rabbit.

'Oh!' she cried breathlessly, her eyelashes fluttering like the wings of a bird. 'Nothing, Mamma, nothing,' she fibbed, filching up her correspondence and tucking it under a cushion at her side with impressive sleight of hand.

John grumbled. Nothing, was it?!

Mrs Hale eyed her daughter charily and then narrowed her left eye with the knowing wisdom of motherhood, for her maternal senses were tingling. 'I see you are blushing, my pet,' she said, aware of Margaret's tell-tale signs of embarrassment. Her daughter had always been the same, ever since she was a babe, teetering about on her wobbly legs. Whenever Margaret had been caught getting up to mischief, she had always blinked and blushed, and nothing had changed now that she was nineteen.

'Do tell,' her father invited as he assessed the variety of fine cakes that sat before him, their fluffy creams and sponges too mouth-watering to refuse.

Margaret sighed loudly in defeat, and being the dutiful daughter that she was, she rose from her chair at once and went to hand her curious message to her mother. As Mrs Hale examined it, her lips pursed, and Margaret began to nibble at her thumbnail nervously, awaiting her mother's verdict.

'What do we have here?' her mother asked quietly, a distinct tone of disapprobation to her voice.

The daughter shuffled uneasily and folded her arms, but not before a single hand rose to her neck and scratched at a rash that was beginning to itch with a red flush. John observed this, and he himself reddened to think that all he wanted to do in that moment was press his mouth to that patch of skin so that he could cool and calm the hot prickling of her flesh with his moist, virgin lips.

God help him! What was happening to him? Ever since last night, since he had seen her in that dress, and his eyes had been permitted to fall upon her perfect porcelain skin, permitting him insight into those nooks and crannies that had previously been denied his approbation, all John could do was think about touching her. He knew it was wrong, but at the same time, he was not sorry in the least. He had no wish to possess her, to spoil her, but just to hold Margaret close and let his hands travel over her with gentle exploration, because he had never known a woman before, but oh! – how he wanted to know her.

John had never felt this way before, but now, his fingers ached for her. It had happened after they had held hands last night, and his skin was forever scarred by the beauty of her, doomed to eternally shiver for Margaret's touch in devout worship. Now he had no choice but to accept that every slight move Margaret made both fascinated and frustrated him in turn, and John knew that would never change.

'I believe it is called a Valentine's card, Mamma,' Margaret confessed. If truth be told, the young lady understood next to nothing about the concept, but she had seen them in a shop window over the past few days, a gaggle of girls always to be found loitering outside and tittering over them. She had laughed to see the mothers shooing their daughters along and the mistresses chasing after their absentee scullery maids, the hoard of women taking up the high street with their copious starched petticoats and making a tremendous bruhaha with their belligerent squawks. Perhaps if they had not made quite such a fuss, then Margaret would not have been minded to notice or care.

To be sure, only this very afternoon, Margaret's green curiosity had been piqued when she spotted a tall man in a tall hat through the glass standing by the counter purchasing a card, presumably for his sweetheart. Margaret had considered this rather lovely, and she had wondered whether a man would ever buy such a keepsake for her, or whether she was too plain to merit one. However, she had not had the chance to watch him further or ascertain his identity, as Dixon had then appeared, as if from nowhere, with a burden of brown parcels to thrust into Margaret's arms for her to carry home.

Mr Hale, who was preoccupied with eating an appetising treat of lemon, made a strange sort of noise that may have denoted interest, but it was hard to tell amidst all his munching. 'I did not know you were courting, Margaret,' said he, assuming that he had either forgotten the fact, or what was more likely, it had been a secret between ladies, that until now, had remained surreptitiously between his wife and daughter.

Margaret let out a peeved, 'huh,' of exasperation. 'I am not!' she contended, as if the very idea were an insult. 'I would have told you.'

'Then who is it from? It does not say who the sender is,' her mother questioned, turning the card over again and again as she studied it for clues. She had speculated that it might be from Frederick, as a gesture of sibling fondness from a brother to a sister, but no, she would have recognised his handwriting, particularly given how written correspondence was the only way the poor mother had been able to speak to her son for these many years.

'I do not know,' Margaret confessed self-consciously. She so hated to imagine that her parents thought her immodest, that she had been conducting a relationship with a man behind their back.

'Then what can a fellow mean by it?' Mr Hale laughed, shaking his head at the twaddle of it all.

But now, it was John's turn to pipe up. 'It is a declaration,' he said, his words sudden and sharp in their abruptness, causing everybody to gawk at him in surprise. 'It is a chance for a man to tell a woman how he feels in a more private, poetic way.'

'Well, it seems bizarre to me,' Mr Hale chimed in, selecting another one of Dixon's scrumptious delights, this one being drenched in icing, his absolute favourite. Picking up a book, Mr Hale began to flick through the pages, planning his lesson with John for the following week, his attention already waning, but not before he made one final comment. 'I should think that if a man loved a lady, he would simply say so.'

John felt his pride well and truly wounded. 'Perhaps it is for those who feel shy, who feel like they do not know how to speak to a woman, men who are afraid to make their feelings known for fear that they will make a hash of it and be rejected,' John argued in defence of the whole sorry and stupid thing.

He would be lying if he said he had planned as far ahead as proposing to Margaret at this point, but John felt positively sick at the thought of how ill prepared he would be, come the time. All he could hope, was that no writer was at hand to pen his appalling avowals into a penny dreadful, and knowing his luck, his clumsy confessions would be read and reread for hundreds of years to come by people who could find nothing better to read.

'Men can be bold in many areas of their life, they have to be, but when it comes to affairs of the heart, they may feel untrained, unqualified, leaving them unsure of themselves, at a loss of what to do or say. It can be − I mean, I imagine, that it can be a very helpless feeling.'

'That is all very well, I dare say,' Mr Hale mused, 'but how is a woman supposed to respond and reciprocate if she does not even know from whom the card was sent? It leaves her wholly in the dark.'

'That is true,' John admitted, realising his own folly. It was a fair argument. What was the point of sending a woman a love note if she had no notion from whence it came? Surely a man would still need to confess his part in it all and affirm his feelings if he wanted her to know the truth. So at the end of the day, was he not just making more work for himself by not being direct with his declarations in the first place?

'I see what you are saying, but have you considered that it allows a follower to find out whether a woman is open to the idea of accepting a suitor at all, no matter who the man might be? If she is, if she is ready to contemplate marriage, that gives him hope. And if she can guess the identity of her admirer, that gives him further hope, still, for she will be unwittingly conceding that she considers him a contender for her heart. And if she welcomes this knowledge, if she wants him to continue in his pursuit of her good opinion, then that surely must give him the greatest hope of all,' John said with animation, his heart pounding to envisage such a glorious outcome. He could just see her, standing before him, all soft and coy, holding her card, and perhaps if he were lucky, reaching out her hand to him, offering it as a token of affection for him to hold dear and cherish always.

Margaret, who had been watching him in silent captivation, raised her eyebrows to John suspiciously. 'You seem to know a great deal about this subject, Mr Thornton.'

The mill master scowled and blew through his nose like an angry bull. 'I assure you that I do not,' he bit back, a black cloud darkening his features. 'It is my sister who is the expert on the matter. I am merely repeating what she has said of it.'

'Well, I do not think it right,' Margaret pronounced, finally offering her ruling to the group before her, and John's heart sank, so fast and ferociously that one would think she had tied a sack of rocks to it and condemned his hopes to the bottom of the ocean.

Elevating her chin haughtily, she went to retrieved the card from her mother. It was hers, after all, so she had every intention of claiming it back. John worried for a moment that she was about to toss it into the fire, because she strolled towards it with premeditated steps, but no, Margaret merely came to a stop and stared at the hearth, the flickering flames inciting her eyes to dance.

Mrs Hale bobbed her head from side to side in vacillation. 'I am not so sure. I received one or two of these when I was a girl,' she disputed. It was true, the young Miss Beresford, a lady who had attracted the attention of many an eligible beau, had indeed accepted more than one card of this nature from interested parties when she had first entered into society. However, Margaret was different. She was a sheltered girl, she did not know any men, so who on earth would be sending her such a thing?

Sensing Mr Thornton's discomfiture, Mrs Hale thought it best that they stop talking about this imprudent matter in front of him forthwith. He was a peculiar man. In one sense, he had such a presence. He was so large, so prominent, that he dominated the room, especially when said room was terribly small in its proportions. Yet, at the same time, he was unobtrusive, reserved, and so, she often forgot that he was even there. Not only that, but Mr Thornton seemed to fit into their lives effortlessly, and he was here so often, not to mention that he was infinitely thoughtful in his friendship, that Mrs Hale often overlooked the fact that he was not family. But still, it would not do to talk of such things before him, for not only was it unsuitable, but Mr Thornton could hardly have any interest in such an immaterial issue as Margaret's secret suitor. However, right before she was about to deliver a remark that would shift the conversation in an entirely different direction, her husband interrupted, most unhelpfully, as it would turn out.

'Why do you not think it is right, my dear?' her father asked, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his aching tummy, that third delicacy being an indulgence too far for his stomach to stomach.

Mrs Hale grumbled. Men! They had a habit of keeping quiet when you needed them to speak and then speaking when you needed them to be quiet.

Margaret was silent for a while as she thought on this. 'Love…not that I know anything of it, ' she clarified hastily with a nervous dip of her head, 'should surely be honest. This may be romantic,' she advocated, holding up the card as if it were a piece of evidence in one of John's courts, 'it may be somewhat fun and flirtatious, but it is not right. If a man cares for a woman, he should tell her, openly, and in no uncertain terms about how he feels. For you see, how can one expect openness in marriage, if one cannot be open from the very beginning?'

John was not at all satisfied with this unworldly assessment, especially given the fact that Margaret was entirely right, and what was worse, her judgement served to criticise his own rash actions in this case, and that stung him bitterly. 'What if he does not have the words? What if he does not know where to start? Not everybody has your self-assurance, Miss Hale. Perhaps you should teach a class in such things, then there would be no need for a man to send a card at all.' John knew he was growing increasingly immature and petulant by the minute, but she could do that to him, get under his skin and into his head, driving him to distraction. And what was worse, he liked it!

The young woman whipped round to face him, and standing tall and towering over him as he sat, (a disconcerting occurrence to say the least), Margaret swiftly batted back his claim with certainty of conviction, her composure and confidence leaving John in awe.

'If a man is unsure of how best to express himself, he should keep it simple. Not all women admire pretentious declarations that may be ostentatious in their presentation, but are disappointingly hollow in their substance. No, some women prefer straightforwardness and sincerity,' she rebuked. 'At any rate, regardless of what you say, she will hear through his tongue-tied speeches and heed the earnestness of his sentiments all the same. Faint heart, Mr Thornton, never won fair maiden,' she reminded him, and John felt duly humiliated.

'Agreed,' said her mother, forgetting her earlier scheme to deviate from the topic, her daughter's speech galvanizing her. 'But we must ascertain from whom it is from,' she insisted, giving her husband a telling look. 'We cannot have your reputation put in jeopardy by the mystery of it, Margaret.'

John was feeling wretched. He did not know what he wanted to transpire. Half of him wished that they would hurry up and guess he was the sender, no matter how mortifying the initial awareness might be, the three of them judging him as a suitor, appraising his suitability to be Margaret's man. He had sent the card because he wanted the opportunity to express his growing feelings for Margaret, and so, did it not make sense that there should be some revelation, that she should come to realise who her admirer was? Yes, an impatient and impulsive part of him wanted her to know, but at the same time, the discovery of his affections was the very worst scenario he could contemplate.

For a start, she had made it abundantly clear that she did not approve of the card, yet whether that be the demonstrative sentiments it contained, or the secretive manner in which it was offered, or indeed, both, John was not sure. What was more, her mother had just mentioned something that he had not even considered, much to his shame. It had not occurred to John that the obscurity of it all might damage Margaret's blameless reputation in some unintentional way. Even now, her parents suspected that there was more to this than their daughter was telling them, that she was disguising the truth about what this all meant. And then what if word of this spread and people believed her to be immodest? John was furious with himself. He, a man who was notorious for his meticulous cognition, had allowed himself to become so blinded by infatuation that he had acted in restless irrationality. To be sure, far from flattering Margaret, he had likely offended her, injured her, even, and for that, he should be strung up with the string of Cupid's damn arrow. Not only that, but he found it disheartening to realise that none of them had even considered it could be him, confirming once and for all his deepest fear, and that was that John Thornton would never, could never, be good enough for Margaret Hale.

'Do you really have no idea who could have sent it, Miss Hale?' he asked unexpectedly, desperate to draw out of her even the slightest degree of hope that signified that she thought of him in the way he thought of her, constantly, fervently. 'Nobody comes to mind at all?'

'I do not know,' Margaret said reluctantly, puzzled by his interest. 'It could be a lark. Perhaps Edith? Or it could be that the Captain felt it right to send me one as well as his wife as a mark of friendship. Or it could be…Henry,' she whispered.

Margaret had wondered at first whether it had been Henry when she had first read the card, but she had soon dismissed such a notion, since Mr Lennox, as affable a man as he was, could never be described as romantic. John had been the only one to overhear this last remark, and as his ears twitched, the tips turned scarlet in fury.

'No, it would not be the Captain, he is not the type. It is a man from Milton, I wager,' Mrs Hale surmised, leaning closer to inspect the postmark. 'Could it be young Mr Whitehall from down the street? He seems rather taken with you.'

Margaret laughed fondly, picturing the dear young man along the road from them. Mr Whitehall was as pleasant as they came, a little wet behind the ears, but kind and temperate. However, Margaret felt sure it was not him. He was only a few months older than she, not that such a thing mattered, she supposed, but it did not sit right with her intuition. There had been something almost revering about the card, the indent of the ink suggesting that the writer had used a degree of force to pen their words, implying an intensity of purpose and meaning. This had been written by a passionate man, not an average one. No, it occurred to Margaret that Mr Whitehall possessed neither strength of body nor of will, so it would be unlikely to be him.

'Oh, no!' she said dismissively. 'I should think not.'

It was Mr Hale's turn to guess. Mr Hale was not usually one to partake in such trivialities, but for some reason, the heat of the fire and the lateness of the hour had made him livelier than usual, affecting an energy in him that his wife and daughter had not seen since their relocation to Milton.

'And what of that man at the dinner party?' he proposed. Mr Hale recalled the distinguished chap who had been at the Thornton's gathering the night before. He had recently acquired a mill in the neighbouring town, and if the father's memory was not failing him, then he had been sure the gentleman had spent a significant amount of time talking to his daughter. His wife would not know of it, of course, given that she had not attended, but he knew who would possibly remember.

'John? Mr Hale ventured, bringing his friend into the conversation as a key witness. 'What was his name, Armitage, no? Do you remember him?'

John growled under his breath. 'Aye, I do...unfortunately,' he snarled.

How could he forget? The slick git who had monopolised Margaret's attention for half the evening. John had wanted nothing more than to get her alone and talk to her, to apologise for his harsh remarks at the table and reassure the benevolent young lady that he was not a hard-hearted beast, but a man of feeling, somebody who was capable of compassion, even if his austere mannerisms said otherwise. He had wanted to compliment Margaret on her appearance, on her courage for standing up to him in his own home, to tell her how much he admired everything about her.

Nonetheless, John had been forced to stand back and watch as the annoyingly handsome and ingratiating Mr Armitage had managed to weasel his way to Margaret's side and steal her away. John would not have minded so much, but it had irritated him beyond belief to see the way she had hung on his every word, her roseate lips parted as she laughed and joked with him, her eyes sparkling as she drank in his intoxicating company. That had hurt more than he could say, because she never looked at John like that, never, and no matter how hard he tried to coax a smile from Margaret, it never seemed to work, and she always ended up being more dissatisfied with him than ever.

And what was worse, was that the rogue was clearly not a man of honour, since he repetitively eyed Margaret with a licentious gaze that raked over her body every time she turned away from him, and it had taken all of John's self-control not to call the rascal out and punch him squarely in his chiselled jaw. Oh, yes, John remembered him alright, it was forgetting him that was the problem.

'Margaret, what say you?' her mother called, stirring John and recalling him back to the present. 'It sounds from what your father was saying that you and this man were talking for some time that night,' Mrs Hale repeated, more than a little irked that she had not been told about this already, because if there was an eligible man keen on her daughter, she ought to know so that she could facilitate the furthering of their acquaintance if she deemed it advantageous to do so.

Margaret looked uneasy as she thought back to the night before and to the man of whom they were discussing. She remembered him well. At first, she had liked him, very much so. He had been attentive, interested in what she had to say, sympathetic to her points of view, and there was no denying that he was devastatingly handsome. Nevertheless, there had been something smarmy and false about him, and despite her naivety, Margaret had not felt comfortable in his company. She had been sure that she had seen Mr Thornton lingering close by and watching them, and so she had turned to catch his eye more than once, hoping he would come to her rescue and whisk her away, but he never did. In the end, she had been glad when Fanny Thornton had marched in front of her and both demanded and dominated the man's attention for the rest of the night, allowing Margaret to make her discreet escape.

Recalling all of this, Margaret shook her head decidedly. 'I should not think so, Mamma. I mean, why would he send me such a thing? I hardly know him, and I do not think we would suit each other,' she said honestly.

Then again, she did wonder. The card had yellow roses on it, her favourite, but nobody in Milton knew of this other than Mrs Hamper. The ladies had been talking last night at the party, and when they had been discussing table decorations, Margaret had been asked what her preferred flora was, to which she had said roses, yellow roses, like the ones she had left behind in Helstone. She had only told Mrs Hamper this, there was nobody else privy to their exchange, but then now that she thought about it, Margaret remembered that there had been a group of men standing not far behind them, talking about the strike, and who was to say that Mr Armitage was not one of them?

Still, it did not feel right. The card contained fondness, even she could tell that, as inexperienced as she was. There was not only the roses, but the passionate tone of the envelope, a detail which had not eluded her attention. Then there was the indentation of the writing, as already noted, not forgetting the way in which her name had been embedded into the page, almost as if the author's hand shook with fervour when he wrote it. But most of all, there was the poem, and something about it told Margaret that the man who had sent the card had not done so in jest, nor as an act of mere friendship, but as a sign of true and loyal affection.

Mr and Mrs Hale looked at each other as they pondered where to go from here. 'Well, I cannot think of anybody else, can you, Margaret?' they asked, shrugging their shoulders.

Turning to face the fire once more, Margaret held the card close to her breast and ran her fingers across the delicate lace, her pinkie tracing the bold letters which etched the sheet so earnestly.

'No,' she said at last, 'I cannot think of anyone.'


As Mr Hale sat down on his bed and pulled back the covers to slip between their silky comfort, he grinned nostalgically.

'Do you remember when I sent you a card, my love?' he asked aloud. 'Many, many moons ago.'

Mrs Hale was sitting at her dresser brushing her hair, the number of grey strands that had emerged over the past few months too alarming to contemplate.

'Yes, my love, I do,' she reminisced, ignoring the sharp pang in her chest when she spoke, a new and ominous phenomenon that was growing increasingly recurrent. 'I also recall how you did not sign it, and how you left me guessing for weeks.'

Mr Hale chuckled. 'I was shy,' he told her. 'I never thought you'd say yes, my darling girl.'

'But I did,' she reminded him tenderly, thinking on their many years of wedded bliss. 'And I have never regretted it. I hoped it was you, Richard, I truly did, and was relieved to find that it was in the end. It showed you loved me, even if you were scared to tell me.'

Her husband smiled as he patted down the unoccupied side of the bed to welcome his wife as she came to him, unable to believe that she was still every bit as beautiful as the day they had met. 'You do know who Margaret's card is from, Maria?'

The wife nodded. 'Yes, I do. It could not have been more obvious, the poor pet. But she has to realise it for herself. I do feel for her so. Margaret has never been in love before, dear child, so it may take her longer than he'd like for her to understand not only him, but herself, but I daresay she'll get there in the end.'

'And you do not mind?' Mr Hale checked. 'You do not mind the thought of him for her?' he questioned, hopeful that her answer was the same as his, because as far as Mr Hale was concerned, he could not think of anyone nobler to give his daughter away to at the altar, trusting that he would protect and provide for her long after the father was gone.

Mrs Hale lay back against her pillows and thought for a good few minutes, not wanting to rush her answer, but then she merely leaned over and kissed her husband on the cheek before resting her head on his shoulder in preparation for sleep.

'No, I do not. I think he shall make her a fine husband. But again, our little girl will need to realise that for herself if she wants to truly become a woman, and in time, his wife.'