Summary:

John requests his mother to arrange a dinner-party at short notice and asks his mother to invite the Hales. She is delighted ;)

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love - Song of Solomon

-OO-

"You look tired, John," Mrs Thornton said, motherishly fussing over him as he took a seat at the dining table - far too late to dine - so she had arranged a peasant's supper for him, potato soup and bread, which he was spooning up hungrily. "And no wonder, when you will work such long hours!"

"There was a problem I'd to see to. One of the machines was trackin' off. Its production all had to be rejected. We found the problem but it took time."

"Rejected!"

"It's all right Mother. We'll use it for flour sacks and the like and sell it break-even. Still, it could have come at a better time," he sighed. They had been going through a rocky patch which he had just about overcome and this would set them back.

"Maybe if you didn't spend all your time gallivantin' off day-tripping down South," she tartly suggested.

He smiled, but did not reply. She couldn't hold back any longer – "So, have you news for me, John? Is she going to have you this time?"

"I haven't asked her," he said evenly. "I said you'd be the first to know, an' you will."

"But you are courting her? The news is everywhere, John!"

He took it good-temperedly. "I don't know what news that'd be."

"Walking on the hill - alone! Taking her and her father on a holiday! Visitin' her every chance you get!"

"I haven't seen her in two days. As a matter of fact, I want you to hold a dinner here tomorrow, Mother. For the Hales, and a few others of your choosin'. Will you do that for me?"

"Tomorrow!"

"It needn't be elaborate. I doubt Miss Hale is impressed by Bacchanalian feasts."

"Well, that'll be no work at all then, John," his mother rolled her eyes, her most sarcastic tone. "Tell me – what do you think your fine lady, that delicate wisp of a girl, would prefer set before her at table?"

Taking her at face value, he considered, "Well, I don't know, Mother. I leave those things to you, you do it so well. Consommé? Sole, perhaps. Maybe a sirloin?"

"It's soundin' simpler all the time, John."

There'd be extra work all through the house and a bustle all day and grumpy servants and careful shopping and planning to keep her busy all day... but on the whole, Mrs Thornton did not feel too displeased at the idea of a party, as she had some introductions in mind.

-OO-

Margaret was tired after their long Helstone day and spent the next quietly, full of daydreams and happy thoughts. She was coming to know Mr Thornton so much better that she wondered if any of her first impressions of him had been accurate at all. It seemed he was a very different man in friendship than in enmity, if such one could call their wary, tempestuous stand-off, the angry vivid mosaic of their history, patched here and there with love.

It had got to 5 in the afternoon when she realised she had not heard from him all day. A little needle of anxiety pricked her. She looked at the yellow rose on her dressing-table, held it to her nose to inhale the faint scent of a Helstone summer, like putting one's ear to a seashell in London and hearing the far-off rhythm of the sea.

She woke the next morning and still had heard nothing; but her fears were groundless as mid-morning a letter was brought.

-OO-

Miss Hale,

Circumstances have prevented me calling on you – it was necessary for me to remain at the mill to oversee some issues I could not delegate.

Please accept my apologies. My silence has not been for any lack of desire to see you, far from it, and I hope you did not take it so.

I am afraid you and your father may receive an invitation from my mother to dine at Marlborough House tonight, but I hope you will be able to attend; as it will give me a chance to behave better than last time.

John

-OO-

He had hoped she would see a little humour in that. Maybe they were getting to the place where they could smile instead of weep at some of their history? The last dinner party had started so well – with Miss Hale smiling at him, willingly giving him her hand which she had so haughtily refused before – and then he had been called away by Slickson and never got back to her – and then over dinner that wicked stirrer Bell had pricked them till they burst into anger with one another. No, now he came to think of it, there was little in it they could laugh about.

He sighed, tight with anxiety. When he was with her, he felt he could not mistake her feelings, her warmth and happy spirits and even her words spoke so freely of her state of mind. As soon as they were apart, the past came back to haunt him and he feared there was too much to make up for and she would slip away from him again. It all seemed too good to be true, that she could really like him. What was there to like? He knew he was considered difficult, unfriendly, argumentative by nature. And he was prone to the lonely, desperate feeling that however hard he tried he would never be good enough for her. She was everything any man could dream of – beautiful, kind, spirited, a very gentlewoman, a class above him and more. Yet she had allowed him to lift her into the cart, his arms locked around her, taking her light weight, her body for a moment pressed thrillingly to his, which had given him some very happy thoughts that night. He looked at the yellow rose on his desk and wondered if it was as precious to her as his was to him; being who she was, she would have behaved as sweetly and gratefully receiving it whether she cared or not, he knew she would.

That question was to be answered when she, followed by his teacher Mr Hale, entered the drawing room at Marlborough House, and all his senses lit up to see her so beautiful in pale yellow dress with a deep sweetheart neckline, with one dainty lacquered petal from her golden rose arranged artfully in her hair as a decoration, the only one she wore. She seemed to bring a glow with her into the room. It was catching; everyone seemed to smile a little more, chat became gayer, the party was suddenly full of possibilities and fun.

She turned first to his mother, the hostess, and thanked her with such sweet and genuine charm he wondered sarcastically how his mother could muster the vastness of energy it must take to dislike her so. And then she circulated as one should, but he felt she had one eye to where he was, and eventually he was able to break away from Latimer and his dull daughter and cross the room to her, and she was waiting for him smiling, and all his doubts of the two empty days fled away as she took the hand he extended to her and held it warmly, the ribbon from her bracelet flowing over their joined hands.

"I am glad to see you, Mr Thornton," she murmured, looking up into his eyes.

"I doubt as glad as I am to see you, Miss Hale. I missed you yesterday. Though I see you have pulled your rose to shreds already."

"How dare you suggest it!" she reproved him smiling, adding, "One petal detached, so I thought I would make something of it, though I fear it will not last; so if it should drop into someone's soup I depend on you to tell me."

He looked consideringly at her shining hair, in its waves and shades of chestnut and oak, with the one golden petal adorning it. "It will not wish to leave you, Miss Hale; it looks beautiful where it is, and it is lucky, I envy it..."

She smiled at him with such sparkling delight that it was all he could do from blurting it out here and now, will you not marry me, Miss Hale, I am so sick with love! and then there might be no more fears and doubts rising up in his treacherous mind at nights.

"I had become used to seeing you daily. I did understand," she added hastily. "I know you must give all the time to the Mill that it needs."

They were still lightly touching hands and not just his mother was looking their way but Fanny, and Latimer, and Latimer's daughter, and George Watson... wistfully, they released one another.

"Where am I to be seated at dinner?" she asked; she had been wondering all the way here.

"Oh, I don't know," he said, his head tilting, a quizzical flicker of his eyes. "Mother and Fanny arranged it... they'll not take any interference from a mere man."

"In that case, Mr Thornton," she said, gay with mischief, "I think we can be sure we will be at opposite ends of the table!"

There was a musical quartet playing quietly – Mrs Thornton prided herself on the elegance of her dinner parties - and little conversations going on in the various groups forming and de-forming around the room under the chandelier, the pattern of a social dance they all knew.

"Now THAT is the most beautiful woman in Milton," said George Watson, the banker, to Mrs Thornton. "(Exceptin' yourself, and Miss Thornton, of course..) Who is she?"

Hannah Thornton sighed. "That is Miss Margaret Hale... you surely know Mr Hale, the lecturer? That is his daughter."

"Oh, of course, of course... Have I mistook things – or is your son rather tekken with her?"

"I am very afraid," Hannah said darkly, "that he is."

-OO-

Author's notes:

Thank you to everyone who is following this story and those who have left comments, it is so very much appreciated!