Pride and Power

by ThornfieldHall

It was a truth universally denied that a girl with an ailing family, had little wish for a husband. Unfortunately for Margaret Hale it was a truth universally acknowledged that that a single merchant in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. AKA the Jane Austen-esque regency AU no one asked for.

3. Snow brings friends

Even the new wallpaper everywhere, the installing of their furniture, the spreading of their home made throw pillows in the sitting rooms and the hanging of multiple of Margaret's sketches and paintings could not help Mrs Hale's dismay upon entering the house.

Margaret had done her very best while unpacking and arranging with Dixon for two full days, on the first day sleeping in her room which only held her bed and nothing else yet. She hadn't been able to sleep, the noises from the street foreign and the shapes of the walls too enclosing. Margaret had always had a hard time adjusting to new places, and reminisced on that first week she'd been with aunt Shaw when she had cried each night. But now at least she had found comfort in the fact that her time of discomfort was spent in solitude with Dixon so that her mother could arrive and feel comfortable.

They had closed all shutters and had even opted for coloured curtains so that when the shutters were opened, the greyness of the city wouldn't be as noticeable.

'Oh, Margaret! are we to live here?'

Margaret's heart echoed the dreariness of the tone in which this question was put. She could barely bring herself to reassure her mother that the house was still quite cosy and that they would quickly adjust. She convinced her mother that though the north was clouded and dreary, London could be so too.

'But then you knew London, and you knew that beyond the rain filled streets, there were houses filled with friends. Here… we are desolate and alone. Oh Dixon, what a place this is!'

'Indeed, ma'am, I'm sure it will be your death before long, and then I know who'll stay! Miss Hale, that's far too heavy for you to lift.'

'Not at all, thank you, Dixon,' replied Margaret, coldly. 'The best thing we can do for mamma is to get her room quite ready for her to go to bed, while I go and bring her a cup of coffee. And please be so kind not to mention the topic of death if you please. I have no desire for any of my parents to find their death soon and I see no reason as to why anyone should die. I've seen people of high age on these streets, and my parents are still decades removed from theirs. Just the thought makes my heart shake, do refrain from such comments. Besides, though it may reek of fish near the harbour, we still have the fresh sea air which has always been recommended for many health complaints. '

Mr. Hale was equally out of spirits, and equally came upon Margaret for sympathy.

'But Margaret, I do believe this is an unhealthier place than Helstone. Only suppose that your mother's health or yours should suffer. I wish I had gone into some country place in Wales; this is really terrible. The streets are much less safe or clean.'

Only the day before, Mr. Hale had been reckoning up with dismay how much their removal and fortnight at Heston had cost, and he found it had absorbed nearly all his little stock of ready money. There was no way to make their home more comfortable for the present until he had taken up his tutoring job.

At night when Margaret realised this, she felt inclined to sit down in a stupor of despair. The window of the bedroom she had condemned herself to, placed at the side of the oblong, looked out on the dull diry white walls of another house, with a bare courtyard filled with laundry lines. The only greenery existed of ivy curling around the fences. It was a depressing change from the outlook of her previous bedroom which had consisted of rose bushes near her window, and proud woodland in the distance.

Inside the room everything was in a state of disarray. All their efforts had been directed to make her mother's room comfortable. Margaret sat down tiredly on top of a box.

No! It wouldn't do well to sit here and mourn her situation. She needed to get on with life and make the best of it. The happier she tried to be, the more she could calm her parents. While sorting through the box she had initially set herself down upon, she discovered a letter of Edith which she had only half read in the bustle of their departure. It was to tell of their arrival at Corfu; their voyage along the Mediterranean, the music she was practicing, and dancing on board ship. Her cousin had quite the gay new life.

Margaret allowed herself to dream away, envisioning the home Edith had arrived at on Corfu with its trellised balcony, views over white cliffs and deep blue sea. Despite Edith's lack of graphic detail, Margaret let her fantasy run free with the details Edith had put in her enthusiastic letter. Edith had put in enough particulars for Margaret to imagine herself as Edith, as she arrived to the country by boat, her excitement at first seeing the villa, and her joyful talks with the wife of the other lately married captain's wife they shared the villa with. She imagined the carefree cloud of happiness Edith seemed to be living upon, and she was happy for her, she truly was. Though she wished herself to possess even an ounce of her cousin's happiness. A live in which her most arduous task was to copy and learn the newest and most popular English music seemed awfully dull, but just a small measure of comfort wouldn't be a thing she would mind.

Edith expressed an affectionate hope that, if the regiment stopped another year at Corfu, Margaret might come out and pay her a long visit. She asked Margaret if she remembered the day twelve month on which she, Edith, wrote-how it rained all day long in Harley Street; and how she would not put on her new gown to go to a stupid dinner, and get it all wet and splashed in going to the carriage; and how at that very dinner they had first met Captain Lennox.

Margaret remembered it with a smile. Edith and Mrs. Shaw had gone to dinner. Margaret had joined the party in the evening. The recollection of the plentiful luxury of all the arrangements, the stately handsomeness of the furniture, the size of the house, the peaceful, untroubled ease of the visitors-all came vividly before her, in strange contrast to the present time. The smooth sea of that old life closed up, without a mark left to tell where they had all been. The habitual dinners, the calls, the shopping, the dancing evenings, it seemed to have been sealed off forever. How recent that type of life had been! Yet how far removed was she from it now, never to return?!

She doubted if any one of that old set ever thought of her, except Henry Lennox. He too, she knew, would strive to forget her, because of the pain she had caused him. She had heard him often boast of his power of putting any disagreeable thought far away from him.

What if she had agreed to marry him? She would never have to worry about finding new friends and money like she did now. Never would she have had to work like she did the past week, or would work the coming time. How her prospects had changed, from being a wife with a life of leisure to one of a daughter of a clergyman who quitted. It was a bitter mortification to her in one sense; but she knew her father's purity of purpose, and that strengthened her to endure his errors. Her mother had often remarked how everyone with her father's blood suffered the curse of overthinking. Her father, Frederick and she had always been able to think and question things to the point of making their own lives incredibly difficult. But at the same time her mother could not help but love them all the same for their thoughtful, caring, pure consciences.

They were at the lowest now; they could not be worse. Edith's astonishment and her aunt Shaw's dismay would have to be met bravely, when their letters came. So Margaret rose up and began slowly to undress herself, after all the past hurry of the day she wanted to take her time to undress and brush out her hair. She fell asleep without bothering to put in her curlers.

Only two weeks passed before her mother caught a severe cold, unused to the stronger oceanic winds and the colder temperatures near the sea. Dixon herself was evidently under the weather as well, but Margaret knew taking care of her would be an insult. Girls came in to apply for a job, but were scolded by Dixon, for thinking that girls such as they could ever be trusted to work in a gentleman's house. Margaret sometimes rolled her eyes at Dixon's ridiculously high standards. No quadroon's nor Irish girls were welcome, despite them being as common in this town as English girls, and sometimes just as well schooled. But the women in this town weren't as unemployed or without choice of job as in the south. Women here often worked in the family business, in shops, in fish stores, taverns, or working at home mending sails and making clothes.

However because of their illness, Margaret had no time to ponder her life, what she thought of Liverpool or how awful her life was, because she was too busy with business like laundry, shopping and cleaning.

Mr. Hale met with several pupils, recommended to him by Mr Bell, or by the more immediate influence of Mr Thornton. They were mostly of the age when many boys would be still at school. Yet in Liverpool people were of the belief that young boys should be taught their trade from an early age, be it at sea, office, or warehouse. From the age of thirteen to fourteen these young boys were taught their trade and all their academic interests were cut short in the hopes of instilling a sense of commerce in them. But, once their trade was taught some parents, and some young men, who were aware of their shortcomings which made them less equipped for polite society, decided to remedy them by getting an education wherever they could. And the personal approach of a tutor suited them, for tutors could school them there where their gaps of knowledge were the greatest or most bothersome.

Some needed her father desperately to learn French, of which they had barely seen a proper basis in school which had long since gone out of their heads because of a lack of practice. Others needed to brush up their Latin, as their high placed business partners and aristocratic investors, yet others desired to know of economic theories to improve their understanding of the economy and the market.

Mr Thornton was almost the oldest of Mr. Hale's pupils and definitly the favourite. Often during dinnertime, Mr Hale quoted Mr Thornton's opinions or remarks he considered amusing.

Margaret often joked with her mother, how much of the time her father and Mr Thornton spent together was spend studying, and how much was spent talking to both their enjoyments.

Margaret had to admit she was astounded how easily her father took to the activity of the harbour town and the energy of the men of Liverpool. But Margaret and her mother were currently restricted to the territory around their house, as they were not yet released in any society which they could visit, nor could they roam freely and witness the vibrancy of the harbour or the energy of these people. But one thing was clear to Margaret, despite her father's talks with those who invested money in tutelage: there were many poor in the city, and there was much segregation and diversity, and it was much more noticeable than in London in Margaret's eyes. The question for her always was: has everything been done to make the sufferings of these poor creatures as small as possible?

In the end, after two weeks of looking to no avail, Margaret took it upon herself to find someone to assist Dixon. Dixon wasn't used to the rough independent way in which all the Liverpool girls, who made application for the servant's place, replied to her inquiries respecting their qualifications. They had even questioned her back again.

Margaret accordingly went up and down to butchers and grocers, seeking for a nonpareil of a girl; and lowering her hopes and expectations every week, as she found the difficulty of meeting with any one in this self-made town.

It was something of a trial for Margaret to go out by herself in this busy bustling place. Back in London Mrs. Shaw's sense of propriety and own dependence had always lead her to asking a footman to accompany Edith and Margaret, if they went beyond Harley Street or the immediate neighbourhood. Now Margaret was free and quite independent but walking in these busy streets was very different from the free walks and rambles of her forest life in Helstone.

Here in Liverpool, no street was ever really quiet. There was always someone walking somewhere, and in the distance you could constantly hear the ringing of the bells of ships arriving and departing. Margaret told herself that after living in a world city like London, she could not be frightened. But she had lived a secluded life, and she knew that her life had only played out in a certain region of the town. Therefore she had been in shock the first few times she encountered a dark face, or rough drunks staggering out of alehouses when she got into certain neighbourhoods during her earliest ventures.

She had been astounded when bumping into the bold, fearless faces, and loud laughs and jests, particularly aimed at all those who appeared to be above them in rank or station. The tones of their unrestrained voices, and their carelessness of all common rules of street politeness, frightened Margaret a little at first.

But after some weeks she started getting used to them, just as she got used to the girls who would comment on her dress, even touch her shawl or gown to ascertain the exact material, as they were trade women and knew fabrics well enough, despite not being able to afford the London fashions sometimes. Margaret felt quite charmed by love of dress, and their counting on her kindliness, that she gladly replied to these inquiries, that she even smiled when spoken to from time to time.

But she did however, remain uncomfortable because of the remarks of workmen who openly commented on her looks, something which had in London been seen as the greatest impertinence. She couldn't help but blush, even when she realised that because of how open they were and how much they jested, that they didn't mean anything with it.

For instance, one day, after walking past a couple of men who exclaimed they wished she was their sweetheart, which had lead Margaret to continue on her walk, wondering if she, in her present circumstances, would ever end up as someone's "sweetheart" or if she would end up an impoverished spinster forced to work, one of the lingerers pulled her out of her thinking by adding: 'Your bonny face, my lass, makes the day look brighter.' It only made her curse herself for thinking of her luxurious misery when some were so poor and pitiful that just seeing a fairly untroubled face brought them joy.

Not two days later, another such a remark got thrown her way. 'You may well smile, my lass; many a one would smile to have such a bonny face.' This man looked so careworn that Margaret could not help giving him an answering smile, glad to think that her looks, fairly plain as she considered them, should have the power to call up a pleasant thought. In the very least, it made Margaret accept that maybe she wasn't ugly, simply a different kind of beautiful than the people in her limited London circle fell for.

He seemed to understand her acknowledging glance, and a silent recognition was established between them she encountered him on the streets, despite the fact that they never exchanged words anymore. Once or twice, on Sundays, she saw him walking with a girl, evidently his daughter, who didn't seem too well.

Even the winters season had decided to be as different as a Helstone winter as possible. Barely any snow fell here, because of the proximity to the sea. Margaret had been looking out towards a white Christmas at Helstone, when she returned from London with her father, but even that seemed not to be in the charts. Until, one early December morning, Margaret woke up and found her window frosted over. As she walked towards her window and opened the shutters, she discovered to her delight that the freezing temperatures of the last week had finally brought frost and snow. She set out for a walk with her father, such coldness not being good for her mother, and they set out to one of the bigger parks.

In the park, she encountered the man she so often before had recognized on the street with his daughter. The man appeared surprised to finally see her with her father as well.

Margaret's spotting of them, went paired with Mr Bell encountering one of his pupils with his very young daughter, who ran through the snow in delight. The man greeted her father with the warmest of greetings, and took in Margaret with surprise.

'My my, and this is the daughter you've been talking about? How do you do miss?'

'Very well, and you?'

'Very well. I'm enjoying my rest, ice rocks are beginning to shape in the Harbour, we're now nearing real winter, I'm enjoying the calmer pace of work for the time being.'

'Yes, it is much a seasonal trade is it not? I have noticed the streets have grown quieter.'

'Yes, the floating population has gone to sunnier places for the season or gone fishing up North, desperate to grab money where possible.'

Margaret nodded, as the man and her father finished conversation, she smiled kindly towards the little girl.

'You should come to our pre-Christmas dinner, it's a yearly occasion my wife and I organise to try some new recipes for the festivities. Do take your wife and daughter, I'm sure my wife would be delighted to meet your entire family, she's been most interested in the man who convinced me to pick up books again. Goodbye, Mr Bell.'

Margaret allowed herself to laugh heartily.

'Are you the Mr Bell I've been hearing so much about lately, the one that's been tutoring the son of our employer?'

'That may very well be possible, I teach a lot of young men, but I don't know who your employer is', Mr Bell answered politely to the man with his daughter Margaret had seen before.

'I work at Ball& Hallaghar shipping comp'ny on th' docks. Yo're not of this country, I reckon?'

'No!' said Margaret, half sighing that they were still the outsiders. 'We come from the South—from Hampshire,' she continued.

'That's beyond London, I reckon? And I come fro' Burnley-ways, and forty mile to th' North. And yet, yo see, North and South has both met and made kind o' friends in this big seaside place.'

Margaret and Mr Hale had slackened their pace to walk alongside of the man and his daughter, whose steps were regulated by the feebleness of the latter. She now spoke to the girl, and there was a sound of tender pity in the tone of her voice as she did so that went right to the heart of the father.

'I'm afraid you are not very strong.'
'No,' said the girl, 'nor never will be.'
'But spring will be here shortly,' said Margaret in an attempt to cheer her on.
'Spring nor summer will do me good,' said the girl quietly.

The girl's father didn't disagree. 'I'm afeared hoo speaks truth. I'm afeared hoo's too far gone in

a waste. I shoul not of sent her off to work in the cotton mills closeby with 'er mum. By the time my wench was lost to me and my lass returned, her lungs were already filled.'

The girl whispered of an eternal spring in heaven, her father only sadly shaking his head.

'Poor lass, poor lass!' said her father in a low tone. 'I'm none so sure o' that; but it's a comfort to thee, poor lass, poor lass. Poor father! It'll be soon, I have no doubt.'

Margaret was shocked by his words-shocked but not repelled; rather attracted and interested.

'Where do you live? I think we must be neighbours, we meet so often on this road.' Mr Hale looked at his daughter in surprise, that she would have come in contact with a work force of his kind and stance.

'We put up at nine - Street, second turn to th' left at after yo've past th' Goulden Dragon.'

'And your name? I must not forget that.'

'I'm none ashamed o' my name. It's Nicholas Higgins. Hoo's called Bessy Higgins. Whatten yo' asking for?'

Margaret was surprised at this last question, for at Helstone it would have been an understood thing, that she was to call upon any poor neighbour whose name and habitation she had asked for.

'I thought… I meant to come and see you.' She suddenly felt rather shy of offering the visit, without having any reason go. As long as her father had been of the clergy, she had always been free to visit anyone in reduced circumstances or in need of something, her kindness and visits were seen as an extension of her father's job. But now, without any solid excuse or her father's former occupation It seemed all at once an impertinence on her part; she read this meaning too in the man's eyes.

'I'm none so fond of having strange folk in my house. Yo're a foreigner, as one may say, and maybe don't know many folk here, and my wench coul' do with some company;-yo may come if yo like.'

Margaret was half-amused, half-nettled at this answer. She was not sure if she would go where permission was given so like a favour conferred. But when they came to the town into a street Margaret had yet to learn the name of, the girl stopped a minute, and said, 'Yo'll not forget yo're to come and see us.'

Margaret went home, wondering at her new friends and the impeding dinner they'd been invited. Maybe after the awkward first month in which they had been restricted to their home, they would finally enter society and talk with someone who wasn't family. From that day Liverpool became a little bit brighter.

The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter, Mr. Hale came upstairs into the little drawing-room at an unusual hour. Inconspicuously examining objects in the room, which Margaret knew was a nervous thing he did when collecting courage to announce something.

'My dears! I've asked Mr. Thornton to come to tea to-night.'

Mrs. Hale was leaning back in her easy chair, with her eyes shut, and an expression of pain on her face which had become habitual to her of late. But she roused up into querulousness at this speech of her husband's.

'Mr. Thornton! Tonight! What in the world does the man want to come here for? And Dixon is washing my muslins and laces, and it's snowing none the less.'

Mrs. Hale, shuddered, and wrapped her shawl about her more closely. 'But, snow or sunshine, I suppose this man comes.'

'Oh, mamma, that shows you never saw Mr. Thornton. He looks like a person who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet with, enemies, winds, or circumstances. The more it rains and blows, the more certain we are to have him. But I'll go and help Dixon. I'm getting to be a famous clear-starcher. And he won't want any amusement beyond talking to papa. Papa, I am
really longing to see the Pythias to your Damon. You know I never saw him but once, and then we were so puzzled to know what to say to each other that we did not get on particularly well.' Margaret said in an attempt to calm and amuse her mother, and encourage her father, whose face had quite crumpled upon his wife's reaction.

'I don't know that you would ever like him, or think him agreeable, Margaret. He is not a lady's man.'

'I don't particularly admire ladies' men, papa', Margaret laughed. 'Besides, he comes here as your friend who has been kind to you, how could I not like someone who treats you with the respect you deserve? We will give him a warm welcome and some cocoa-nut cakes. Dixon will be flattered if we ask her to make some; and I will undertake to iron your caps, mamma.'

But despite her positivity in that instant, Margaret sorely regretted Thornton's coming. She already had a busy day set out for herself, filled with writing a letter to Edith, reading a good piece of Dante and visiting the Higginses as she had promised. Because the day before, after the walk with her father, she had already spent the remainder of the day managing the household and doing chores. Matter of fact her back still ached from the exhaustion of the previous day.

And now she was yet again forced to make the house ready for visitors, as she endured Dixon's copious complaints. Margaret had to remind herself of her father's regard for Mr. Thornton, to subdue the irritation of weariness that was stealing over her, and bringing on one of the bad headaches she had started suffering lately, she believed it was caused by the limited amount the rooms were aired because of the current temperatures in combination with the increased amount of smoke in the rooms because of the burning fire places.

As Margaret, after working for four hours, finally emerged from the backrooms into the comfortable sitting room of her mother, she got lectured by her saddened mother, who detested what her daughter had to do.

In Mr. Thornton's house, at this very same time, a similar, yet different, scene was going on. A large-boned lady, long past middle age, sat at work in a grim handsomely-furnished dining-room. Her features, like her frame, were strong and massive, rather than heavy. Her face moved slowly from one decided expression to another equally was handsomely dressed in stout black silk, of which not a thread was worn or discoloured. She was mending a large long table-cloth of the finest texture, holding it up against the light occasionally to discover thin places, which required her delicate care. There was not a book about in the room, very unlike the Hale household, with the exception of Matthew Henry's Bible Commentaries.

In some remote apartment, there was exercise upon the piano going on. Ms Thornton was practising a morceau de salon, playing it very rapidly; every third note, on an average, being either indistinct, or wholly missed out, and the loud chords at the end being half of them false, but not the less satisfactory to the performer, who was a true waste of the piano lessons that had been paid for her.

'John! Is that you?'

Her son opened the door and showed himself.

'What has brought you home so early? I thought you were going to tea with that friend of Mr. Bell's; that Mr. Hale.'

'So I am, mother; I am come home to dress!'

'Dress! humph! When I was a girl, young men were satisfied with dressing once in a day. Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an old parson?'

'Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies.'

'Wife and daughter! Do they teach too? What do they do? You have never mentioned them.'

'No! mother, because I have never seen Mrs Hale; I have only seen Miss Hale for half an hour.'

'Take care you don't get caught by a penniless girl, John.'

'I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know. But you mustn't speak of Miss Hale in that way. I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I believe that any one has ever given themselves that useless trouble, least of all her.'

'Well! I only say, take care. Perhaps our Liverpudlian girls have too much spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true, rich husbands are reckoned prizes and girls intend very much to catch them before they turn twenty.'

This made Mr Thornton laugh, thinking back on the uncomfortable meeting with Mr Hale's daughter. 'Mother, you urge me to confess. The only time I encountered her she seemed to treat me with haughtiness and aloofness as if she were a queen and I an unwashed vassal. She is in no danger of wanting me, and I am in no danger of falling for her. I must be a far cry from the aristocratic southern suitors she has been raised with. Now there, doesn't that calm you?'

'No! How can I be satisfied to know a renegade clergyman's daughter, turns up her nose at you! I would dress for none of them-a saucy set! if I were you.'

Mr Thornton shook his head in amusement.

'Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned. He is not saucy. Should you wish it, I shall tell you tonight how his wife is.' He shut the door and was gone.

Margaret after having lighted the chandelier and having her father hoist it to to the ceiling, hooking it in place, had set about lighting all the other candles in the room when she heard some commotion downstairs, alerting her that Mr Thornton had arrived. The tall figure was ushered into the drawing room. Margaret set about finishing her task as Mr Hale greeted his friend and introduced him to his wife. After all, Mr Thornton was here for them, not her. What use was it to call attention to herself?

Once she was done she turned towards the trio, Mrs Hale drawn back into her chair with her shawl, oh Margaret so desperately wished her mother wouldn't make such a sad ill sight. To just see her healthy and roaming about the room, being the graceful hostess she knew her mother once was.

Mr Thornton was appraising the room, Margaret analysed his gaze with fervour. What would he think? This rich local, of their tiny home which was so decidedly Southern in styling. She could only discern surprise and softness in his gaze, no judgement, no critical assessment.

She wondered what his house was like. Did he live like a bachelor with bare functional rooms? Or in a womanly house decorated by his female family members, possibly a wife?

Did it matter to her? She didn't know. She better occupy herself with filling the teacups. She flattened her pink gown and bent over the china. As she got to the third cup, she suddenly felt the hair on her arms stand upright. She was keenly aware of being observed, and straightened her back as she poured the last cup of tea with decided grace, deciding not to let her tiredness show.

As the cup filled to the brim, her bracelet decided to fall to her wrist. Margaret surpressed a sigh of annoyance and pushed it back up. It had been a gift of Edith, sent with her latest letter, with gems in it which were 'as true to the colour of the sea over here as possible'. She put down the tea pot and offered Mr Thornton his cup, trying to will her bracelet not to fall in the meantime. She offered him a small smile as a sign of greeting.

'Sugar?'

'No thank you.'

After giving everyone their cup, she sat down and allowed her shoulders to relax as she held her own warm cup. Her father did the talking and Margaret allowed herself to simply follow the conversation, enjoying the hesitating wise words of her father, and the decided deep voice of Mr Thorton. Besides she didn't know how much Mr Thornton, like so many other men, appreciated highly opinionated educated women, most didn't take too kindly with women mingling in such talks. But she forced herself to be attentive to her surroundings and immediately caught the moment when Mr Thornton was in need of another cup. As she gave him his cup back, once again filled with tea, his thumb and ring finger touched hers briefly. She tried not to pull back in shock, so as not to spill the content of the cup. She hadn't been touched by anyone but her parents in months. It made her stomach uneasy, but she was sure he didn't intend for it to mean anything. He was simply grasping the cup.

Realising she'd stood still for a second too long, she offered him one of Dixon's cacao cakes to not make the moment awkward. The moment slid by without anyone giving notice to it except she herself.

Mr Thornton accepted, and after having handed it to him, she sank back in the couch. She knew not how Mr Thornton had been watching her smile lovingly at her father as she offered him his tea and allowed their hands to touch. She knew not how he had a hard time diverting his eyes from her, or her nimble fingers as she put sugar in her father's tea. She knew not how immensely his need for human touch had grown, upon seeing her touch another being with those slim hands, until the urge had become too overpowering. He had been prepared to apologise for overstepping his boundaries and 'accidentally' touching her, until she pretended nothing had happened with her habitual cold indifference and offered him cake. Her head ached, and she knew she still looked pale from the exhaustion of this afternoon. Somehow Mr Thornton always managed to appear at times she felt the worst. But she had been prepared to be a pleasant hosted, if there had been a silence that called for her intervention, but there were none. So she retreated to her mother's side of the room with some of her sketching material. She just started on the hearth and after a little while she blinked. As she realized she was drawing the current scenario. Her father, slight of figure with soft and waving lines in his face with large eyelids and fine brows, a beauty almost feminine, sitting across Mr Thornton who was tall and massive, with few but firm lines in his face as if carved from marble, with his decided mouth which hid an amazing set of straight beautiful light reflecting teeth, and a straight brow with deep-set earnest eyes which were most intense and intent to penetrate the heart of whatever he was looking at.

Both men were smiling, and Margaret decided that if she had to like anything, it was his smile which so rarely appeared on his usually grave face, and it was in the way they smiled at one another it became evident how they felt towards each other.

Margaret was broken out of her analysis of what was happening in front of her, when she focussed on the discussion the two of them were having about the south.

'It is no boast of mine,' replied Mr. Thornton; 'it is plain matter-of-fact. I won't deny that I am proud of belonging to a town which give birth to such grandeur of conception. I would rather be a man toiling, suffering-nay, failing and successless-here, than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call more aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless ease. One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.'

Margaret, very homesick and missing the South. Felt as if her former life, all her former acquaintances, and everything she missed, was being called out. 'You are mistaken,' said Margaret, with colour rising to her cheeks as she realized the words had left her mouth and both men were now focussed on her.

'You do not know anything about the South. If there is less adventure or less progress, I suppose I must not say less excitement from the gambling spirit of trade, there is less suffering also. I see men here going about in the streets who look ground down by some pinching sorrow or care-who are not only sufferers but haters. Now, in the South we have our poor, but there is not that terrible expression in their countenances of a sullen sense of injustice which I see here. You do not know the South, Mr Thornton… So please do not speak of it,' she concluded, as she knew all too well her first words had been too strong and being angry with herself for having said so much.

'And may I say you do not know the North?' asked he, with such gentleness in his tone, as he saw that he had really hurt her. Margaret, for the first time since encountering her, seemed less stone faced and more human. The fragility in her gaze as she shook her shoulders touching him.

Margaret almost wanted to weep at his gentle tone.

Her father started talking again and Margaret listened, despite never having had an interest in trade or the North. But she hoped that if she listened enough, she could at least understand why her father seemed so at ease in this town, and why Mr Thornton was who he was.

'Is there necessity for calling it a battle between the two classes?' asked Mr. Hale. 'I know, from your using the term, it is one which gives a true idea of the real state of things to your mind.'

'It is true; and I believe it to be as much a necessity as that prudent wisdom and good conduct are always opposed to, and doing battle with ignorance and improvidence. It is one of the great beauties of our system, that any hard working man may raise himself into the power and position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour. I believe that everyone who rules himself to decency and sobriety of conduct, and attention to his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a employer or owner of a firm, but as an over-looker, a cashier, a book-keeper, a clerk, one on the side of authority and order.'

'So you consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I under-stand you rightly,' said Margaret having rediscoverd her voice.

Mr Thornton stared at her, surprised that she would ask such critical, yes, almost accusing questions. It annoyed him that he felt as if he was failing a test he hadn't willingly entered. Yet he was intrigued, that she was so interested and involved in men's ethics.

'As their own enemies, certainly,' said he, but in a moment, his straightforward honesty made him feel that his words were but a poor answer. He wished to make her understand, but knew that such a thing was best illustrated by telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a subject to speak about to strangers? Still, it was the simple straightforward way of explaining his meaning. Either his immense efforts of the last 16 years would be appreciated and valued, or one who had to climb would never be appreciated by the likes of them, and they already knew him to be a climber. So, putting aside the touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush of colour into his dark cheek, he decided to tell his story.

'I am not speaking without book', he began as he directed his speech to her. 'Sixteen years ago, my father died under very miserable circumstances. I was taken from school, and had to become a man (as well as I could) in a few days. I had such a mother as few are blest with; a woman of strong power, and firm resolve. We went into a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Liverpool, and where I got employment in a draper's shop (a capital place, by the way, for obtaining a knowledge of goods). Our income was but very little as you can imagine, out of which three people had to be kept. My mother managed so that I put by three out of these fifteen shillings regularly. This made the beginning; this taught me self-denial. And from the second I could, I entered the navy since during the war, the navy was in need of healthy young men, and more than willing to pay.

Now that I am able to afford my mother such comforts as her age, rather than her own wish, requires, I thank her silently on each occasion for the early training she gave me. Now when I feel that in my own case it is no good luck, nor merit, nor talent, but simply the habits of life which taught me to despise indulgences not thoroughly earned. I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is impressed on the countenances of the people of Liverpool, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure, at some former period of their lives. I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.'

Margaret froze, not quite knowing what to say. How to react on these hardships, which she wouldn't wish upon anyone. With pity? His was not a character that welcomed pity. But how high he had climbed, how hard it must have been. It was certainly a great feat, and awe inspiring. But he was telling her this to show that no man who couldn't reach a high enough wage, deserved pity. Which just felt wrong and couldn't possibly be true in her mind.

'But how about those unfortunate souls who had no mother like yours, who were never taught these values? Could everyone reach it, if they didn't possess or weren't taught these values by their family or anyone in their neighbourhood?'

'I suppose these traits come more naturally to some characters than to others. Believe me when I say my mother never had any need for these traits until our situation was such as I just recounted.'

Margaret nodded, admitting defeat on her theory for the time being. Her father however, seemed to share her hesitation to support Thornton's statement.

'But you have had the rudiments of a good education,' remarked Mr. Hale. 'The quick zest with which you are now reading Homer, shows me that you do not come to it as an unknown book; you have read it before, and are only recalling your old knowledge.'

Mr Thornton confirmed this, and the two continued their conversation. Margaret wished say something kind, after her questioning of him, but never did the conversation lend itself to it anymore.

And thus they parted, and as she bowed to him, she noticed his half put out hand, she was sorry she had yet missed another mark tonight. She really could do no good where Mr Thornton was concerned.

'Margaret, I believe you did give Mr Thornton offense when you refused to shake his hand. It is fashion here in trade towns.'

'I'm sorry papa, but to touch someone one is so unacquainted with, I'm not used to it! I believe I'm ill adjusted to the North. I'm sorry. But is that even the way of gentlemen in high society up in the North? I swear I have never heard of a man shaking a woman's hand.'

'Perhaps not in the high society, but as we now know, Mr Thornton doesn't come from the highest levels of society. He may just be doing what he is used to, and perceived you to disrespect the rules he grew up with.'

And just as Margaret felt awful for not having noticed Northern societal rules, Mr Thornton, on his walk home, felt ashamed at having forgotten that gentleman barely shook hands, let alone the hands of women! It just wasn't done. He didn't realise why he hadn't realised. Margaret's taking leave of him was just as she, a woman of her stance of her stance, was supposed to take leave of a gentleman.

She had probably noticed the hand, which really underlined his status as merchant who had rarely spent any time in the presence of the genteel.