'She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them'
- Othello

-OO-

Margaret was ready at the door when the Master of Marlborough Mill called at 5 precisely. She smiled at him; he inclined his head in greeting.

"I am glad to see you warmly dressed," he observed; she in her dark woollen coat with a contrasting collar, gloves and a hat. Plainly attired, which made her beauty even more significant; her pale clear skin, huge grey eyes, sweet pink lips. He felt a surge of emotions; he concentrated on calmer thoughts, for example that it was still quite cold: late Spring, and the benign airs of summer, hovering at times, had not yet broken the sternness of April.

"And I am glad you have left off your smartest clothes, since we are going for a walk. Though you looked very well in them," she added. He was a handsome man and had the appearance of one born to fine clothing, but she found him even more attractive when he looked what her Aunt would call 'rough' – hair tousled, clothes softened after a day of wear.

He looked down at himself. "Forgive me; I came straight from the Mill and must return before the close of the day."

She smiled at him, happy to be leaving the house to walk with Mr Thornton, and talk with him about somethings and nothings. So much unwritten as yet and she felt excited by possibilities.

He glanced at the door behind them: "Will your father accompany us?"

"He has matters to see to here, he says. He asked me to present his apologies and to wish us a pleasant walk. I did not dare ask Dixon," she confessed with a little smily upwards look. "Father is happy for me to walk outdoors with you, though we should perhaps not be too long."

"We'd better walk fast then," he said and they set off together through the streets until they opened out at the foot of the hillside path above the canal.

"Fast," she was trying it out his way. He gave her a little glance.

"How do you say it? Fast. No, I've no plans to acquire London ways," he said, decisively.

"I like it your way," she smiled. "You walk fast and spend your days workin'. I have learned to find this Northern way of speaking very warm and attractive. Though I think it too hard for me to acquire naturally, I moved here too late alas!"

He was amused by her quick pick-up on his accent. They were climbing the stone steps now that led to the hillside where she had first met Bessy Higgins and her father; walking past the cemetery, and onto the flatter green space at the top.

"Shall we sit here and talk awhile?" she asked. There were few other people out at this time of day, and all far-off. He handed her onto a seat at the top of the hill, after first dusting it off with his handkerchief, and together they looked out at the views.

Margaret removed her hat, whose wide brim was obscuring her view, and held it in her lap. She was overly conscious of Mr Thornton sitting beside her, although he had very correctly seated himself at a proper distance, and had to tune herself into what he was saying: he was pointing out to her various sights of interest on the industrial landscape beneath them.

"Can you see Marlborough Mill there, Miss Hale?" he had to turn her gently to the right aspect to pick out one chimney of many, an electric touch.

"Do you not wonder if it is not falling apart in your absence?" she mused.

He shrugged. "Mother will be in and out, surprisin' em with her little visits. Most are more scared of Mother than of me. Overseer's there too." He added, "There's smoke coming out of chimney, anyhow. I'll tek that as a good sign."

"Do you like running your Mill, Mr Thornton?"

He stretched out his long legs, leaned against the back of the bench. He was quite tired, after bending over machines all day; there had been some issues they had spent most of the day trying to fix. "There's a good deal of satisfaction in it. Frustrations too. The men always want more money, course they do, 's natural, they have another mouth to feed every year that passes. But I can't raise wages every year - fine balance between profit an' loss... That's when they start their rumblin' about strikes, knowing it terrifies us Masters. I try to deal with them honestly, and I hide nothing. An' when I can I invest in protections for health, or a few minutes extra break here and there outside what the law commands. So perhaps I have a little more loyalty from my men than some Masters -"

She smiled. "I have heard some speak warmly of you."

He gave her a little glance. " - but, as you saw for yourself, that counts for nothing at times."

They were both quiet for a moment, remembering...

"Forgive me, Miss Hale," he said abruptly, "but I have always wondered – " his hand hovered near her forehead, waiting for permission; she leaned a little his way, trustfully, her eyes dwelling on his quiet face, set in its pensive, fine-drawn lines. With gentle fingers, barely touching her, he drew her hair aside, found immediately what he was looking for but had desperately hoped not to see.

He sighed, his hand falling away. His expression was bleak.

"It's all right, Mr Thornton," she said gently. "It does not show, you see how my hair covers it. No-one would know it is there."

He frowned out over the landscape, the scene playing clear and sharp in his memory. The sound the rock made as it hit her full on her pale, delicate temple. The way she crumpled so lightly like a broken toy and lay as if lifeless at his feet. The bright, flowing blood...

She had been so brave. She had nearly died for protecting him. His hands clenched on his thighs.

She reached out and covered the nearest hand with her own. "I beg you not to give it more thought. I followed you down of my own will. I sent you down!"

Be a man and go down there and talk to them! she had urged him, not understanding the violence she was exposing him to. He had known, and he had still gone, to do the right thing, to be brave in her eyes, she did not know which.

He looked down at their interleaved hands. Her fingers chilly on his warmer ones. At the same moment, they withdrew them and for a moment did not want to risk a look at one another.

"Afterwards," he said, "I thought about it and could only think you had followed because you were anxious for me. "

He could not continue, and worse than that, he wished he had never started. He cursed himself. It lay too close to something they could still hardly think about without pain, let alone speak of.

Her quick thoughts had flown along with his; she knew what he was thinking and what he needed to know. A little perplexed frown played across her face.

She began, "It feels so strange to me be here alone with a man and it is making it hard for me to explain myself - "

He looked startled at that, and immediately withdrew into that frowning inner place again. "I am sorry, Miss Hale," he said stiffly. "You would have been more comfortable had we met again at your father's house. I should've realised."

Now it was her turn to be surprised, "Oh, no, that is not what I meant at all, Mr Thornton!"

He was thinking this had been another very poor move on his part. Why could he not seem to get it right with her? He never seemed to get things so wrong with anyone else, his manners were good, and by all but the highest he was considered a gentleman. And yet he had taken this young woman from the safety of her father's house without a thought and brought her up here where to her they must seem alone in the world. He knew she was safe; that so long as she was with him he would protect her so fiercely no threat could come near, that he would fight to the death for her with the superhuman strength of love, but she did not know. For all she knew, she was not even safe from him.

But she was setting that straight decisively: "I think you have mistaken me. I am perfectly comfortable. I am just trying to explain that it is difficult to know what subjects we may, and may not, discuss. It is not easy for me to speak with a gentleman this way, not being used to it. I have not yet learned what is considered acceptable. And for a woman, it is so easy to be thought not proper."

"If it makes you feel better, Miss Hale, it is not easy for a man either. Being too forward towards a woman would be worse than ill-mannered, it would be ungentlemanly."

She bent upon him a stern little frown. "It is much more difficult being a woman, Mr Thornton. We must constantly watch ourselves that we don't do or say the wrong thing. If you were too forward at least you would not lose your reputation and be considered unfit for decent folk to associate with."

"That may be true," he countered, "and, I agree, unfair; but one wrong step from me towards a woman and I might lose any chance I had with her, and that could not be borne."

That had definitely been too forward, but before he could even wonder at his recklessness, he saw that it had caused a flash of her eyes and a tremor of her lips, uncertain at first, then spreading into a pleased little smile.

She collected herself and said, correctly enough, "We are, how did you put it yesterday, just two people talking and seeing if they get along . So let us assume I am not being improper if I answer your question, because I have something very important to say to you about why on the day of the strike I ran down to face the men with you."

"It's all right, Miss Hale," he said, watching her. "We don't 'ave to speak about it. I didn't intend bringing it up, an' I wish I hadn't."

"You were thinking, 'if she had not done that, I would never have been misled about her feelings – I would never have made her a proposal, " she said, and his reaction to that was violent in the way he moved.

"No. I was not thinking that Miss Hale. I was not blaming you; my actions were my own. Nothing you did was at fault."

"Well," she said, "we cannot untangle our history and make sense of it if each of us is so determined to take the blame at every turn, Mr Thornton! Because – " she risked a little glance at his haughty long-nosed profile, hawkish and grim, and stopped. "Ah, but I cannot carry on if you look so stern!"

"Don't tease me, Miss Hale. You'll say it if you wish, or not." Thinking that had come out harsher than he had meant, he added, "My sister can make quite a game of teasing me, you'll never guess who I met in town today, John! John, it was someone with a particular interest in you! I'm sure you'll never guess, John! and I can assure you, I'm very practised at being irritatingly silent."

"Oh, that I can believe," she said, laughing a little, intrigued at this little snatch of Thornton family life, which he had quoted so naturally and with such lilting Fannyish inflection she felt sure this conversation had actually taken place, "But I'm not going to tease you. I am not even sure what I'm going to say... I am thinking aloud as I speak."

"Take your time," he said, as she took in a deep breath. The breeze was fluttering strands of her hair, it looked so soft and clean. He wanted to touch it again; the urge was so strong he shoved his hands under his thighs as if to keep them warm. At least while she was speaking he had an excuse to look at her, a balm to his anxiousness; he was finding these memories an ordeal.

"Since it was the prompt for your proposal, you must have found it hard to hear 'I would have done the same for any man –' " His brows drew sharply down; he looked suddenly so stricken, either at the reawakening of that torturous memory or that she cared so little she could find such painful words easy to repeat, that she experienced a powerful, impossible urge to take him to her arms and comfort him. He had such high, tight defences which made him difficult to read; but because she was learning him little by little, she knew his frown was his mask for vulnerability, which he seemed to feel it unthinkable ever to show.

She continued, "I have not wanted to revisit any of this myself, particularly those words, which actually torment me at times, but the important thing you should know ... of course I would not have done the same for any man."

She said it with great emphasis, paused a moment to let him take it in, and sidelong watched the play of expression on his face. "You were right all along, Mr Thornton. When you flew down to face that mob, I looked out of the window and I saw such ugliness on their faces. I knew you were in terrible danger, and I could not bear it. Not because you were any man. Because you were this one man, and I was terrified for you."

He drew in such a breath at that; as if he had been holding it and only now could take in air.

He said, "I -" but he had no words, and stopped, and continued, "But instead it was you who was in danger. You who got hurt. You bear a scar which will stay with you for life."

She said with great vehemence, "If it stopped them stoning you to death, don't you think it is worth it?"

There was a moment's silence.

"To me it is more than worth it. I would prefer an existence with one small scar and you alive to be here with me today," she said. "So we do not need to think of it again," and she smiled at him so sweetly he felt an immense weight lift from him and even a happiness, which seemed to make his stomach painful as if with a great hunger.

"We should go back," he said, though it was the last thing he wanted, he already felt desolate that his time with her was over. All time between their time was wasted time. He stood, smoothing down the legs of his trousers and looked at her, gracefully rising from the seat, the round curve of her sweet profile, intent now on gathering her skirts, her hat. At that moment, with her all perfectly unaware as she gazed out for one last look across the view, he knew that whether she liked him or no, he loved her desperately and he loved her forever.

"Miss Hale!" burst out of him.

"Yes?" she glanced at him, surprised by his tone, wondering at the intense blaze of his eyes, half-shuttered under geometrically slanting brows.

He had caught himself before he damaged any of this fragile new closeness with his untimely longings and his yearnings, which certainly would make her uncomfortable. "Miss Hale – I'll not have any time tomorrow, it is the busiest day at the Mill, sorting and accounting, but – might you be free on Sunday?

"I believe I could be so, Mr Thornton," she replied, warm and gentle.

"I thought you and your father might like to go to Helstone? Tek me wi'you and show me this Paradise. Which is so different from Milton that it caused you a depression which lasted for months..." he gave her a tease of a look.

"Oh yes!" she said with enormous pleasure. "I would so love that!" How... sweet of him to think of such a thing. He was so thoughtful in what might please her. She was suddenly so happy, and excited. Helstone with Mr Thornton and Papa!

Far off, she watched some children laughing and laughing as they rolled down the hill like pastry-pins pushed down a slope.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to run down this hill, Mr Thornton?" she said, marvelling. "How free it would feel just to pick up my skirts – for us to abandon propriety and just run - the way we did when we were children?"

He was looking at her with some humour. "Miss Hale, you are full of surprises. But it would be a short run, I fear. In those skirts, I've no doubt you would trip on your fifth step and have to be rescued."

She smiled that dear little smile of hers where her cheeks demonstrated two perfect indented curves. He knew and she knew they were both thinking of in what manner she would be rescued, and by whom.

"Mr Thornton, this has been the nicest walk I have ever had on this hill," she said. "The nicest I ever had in my life."

They had hardly walked, had no brisk exercise, and taken in none of the beauties of nature. But something more refreshing still had taken place.

"I am glad you think so." He could not find any words that did not sound trite, so he simply dwelt on her a look of unmistakeable tenderness.

For a moment their eyes met and understood a new agreement. They had moved out of one place and forwards to another. Onwards, to somewhere not yet travelled; always towards hope.

-OO-

Note: So next they go to Helstone, with kindly Mr Hale along for the ride, enjoying watching his daughter and his dear John fall in love.

I did some (minimal!) research into what was and was not allowed between a courting couple at this time, though who knows what actually went on despite the 'rules', and the series itself did not always stick to them (thank goodness) what with (most blatantly) the long-drawn out kiss in public at the railway station, so with those examples in mind I did not, eg, feel it necessary to have Dixon toiling up the hill after them to chaperone a walk.