Summary:
The dinner party at Marlborough House continues. Circumstance and Mrs Thornton's seating plan may have kept John and Margaret apart, but it is all to no avail - it's quite hopeless - they are falling deeper and deeper in love.
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You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you - Song of Solomon
Mr Thornton walked in to dinner with Ann Latimer on his arm and took his seat at the head of the table, with Ann on his left and his mother to the right. Way down the other end in another country, he could see Margaret, George Watson to one side of her and her father the other.
"Are you matchmaking, Mother?" he murmured sotto voce to her at a suitable moment, when Miss Latimer had turned to talk with Dr Donaldson on her left.
His mother took a meagre spoonful from her dish and gave him a very direct look. "If you mean am I tryin' to tempt your fine lady away from you and towards Mr Watson, the answer is No, John - I'm hoping he will be a good prospect for Fanny."
"Well, I'd certainly be glad to see Fanny settled. But I was thinking more of your intentions regardin' me." He did not look to his left but she knew his thought.
"John, you'll do what you'll do," was her only reply, and her eyes rolled in exasperation, which he took as a good sign.
The table was beautifully laid with silver candlebras, with crystal glasses, a rich red damask runner and snow-white linen. Margaret was speaking nicely with Mr Watson, admiring the clarity of the consommé, and her father smiled genially and had a bookish conversation with Dr Donaldson's wife, on his right. From time to time, dark blue eyes flew to grey from each end of the table but never dwelled. It was enough to make that little contact occasionally, and reaffirm that of those in this room, these two were special to one another.
"How do you like the music, Miss Hale?" Fanny spoke across to her, a trifle provocative, "Does it come anywhere even close to your fine London quartets?"
Margaret gave her a quick light smile. "I am sure it at least matches them, though I do not pretend any acquaintance with high music. In Helstone we did not get much beyond the simple old tunes of the country."
George Watson, "I did not realise you had such a fine appreciation of music, Miss Thornton!" having sensed a possible opening for himself with the pretty sister of the influential Master of the mill. He felt Mrs Thornton would approve of it; and Fanny herself seemed welcoming and amiable, beautifully filleting her sole while chatting pleasantly. Suddenly she looked very pretty in the light from the sconces and the overhanging candelabra, shining blonde hair and blue eyes like her brother's but with less trouble and care to give them a darker view.
"Music is life to me, Mr Watson! I cannot imagine a life without music."
"Have you ever bin to one o' them concerts at Town Hall?" rumbled wealthy Mr Watson, "I've always meant to go. I would be glad of a companion," and Fanny looked well pleased with the catch she suddenly realised she had made.
Mr Thornton turned back to Miss Latimer, as he must, and enquired as to the health of her pet dog, Valentine. Encouraged, she told him a good deal about Valentine, while he tried not to let his eyes continually rove to the foot of the table, where he could hear Margaret's light sweet voice from time to time. What was she laughing at? She should be talking with him.
"'Eard you 'ad troubles at Mill past month, Thornton," Watson called up the table, a little flushed. In his great enjoyment of the evening, he had taken too much of the wine being passed around in its crystal decanter.
Thornton went very still, then turned his head to stare freezingly. "It was nothin' I couldn't handle."
He had not wanted that to come out in front of his mother or Margaret; his desperate struggle of the past couple of months - how bankruptcy had been narrowly averted with some canny deals and judicious trading which had kept him up all night to fight to balance the books. He did not really know how he had pulled it off; if you had asked him if it was within his powers, he would have said no, not in any man's; and yet somehow he had found the depths of reserve, somehow he had come up with the resource to dodge disaster, and It was done now; the effects of the strike had more or less been wiped out and they were putting on girth again like a snowball rolling down a hill; but it had been an anxious time, and more than anxious, how could he have had the impudence to throw his heart at Margaret's feet if he did not have the means to look after her?
Just then Mr Hale suddenly struck up loud and clear to gain the attention of the whole table, telling a mildly amusing story about one of his pupils who kept losing his books.
Thornton was grateful for loyal Mr Hale guarding his back. He saw Margaret's eyes on him, anxious and wide. He took a tiny sip from his wineglass, watching her as he did so with a very private little smile, until she smiled back at him. It was all right, Margaret. It was nothing I couldn't handle.
The roast beef was brought in on its silver platter, to a fanfare of admiration.
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After the meal, the after-dinner drinks and coffee, the quartet packed up and left, which the Donaldsons and the Latimers rightly took as their cue to thank Mrs Thornton effusively for what had, after all, been a very pleasant occasion. If Miss Latimer might have left with stars in her eyes after her evening spent beside the unexpectedly charming and eyecatchingly handsome Master of Marlborough Mill, her disappointed mother thoroughly dampened her spirits by commenting that 'Mr Thornton's eye had wandered in another direction rather too often for there to be much hope in it'.
Mrs Thornton stood waiting to receive her due thanks as hostess from her guests. She watched Miss Hale approach, all sunshine and roses, and greeted her with an iron smile.
"Thank you for a lovely evening, Mrs Thornton," the girl said with great warmth. "I have had such a nice time."
"And was the fare to your liking, Miss Hale?" Hannah Thornton asked with a dark gleam in her eye. "My son gave me very clear directions as to what would find favour with you."
Margaret's cheeks blossomed with the pinking of dawn at the mention of him. "How thoughtful he is! It did indeed – I can't remember when we last dined so well. Also," she added, "keeping company with our friends has been such a joy to me tonight, Mrs Thornton – Father and I see few people. I cannot thank you enough."
"Miss Hale – "
Margaret had not noticed Mr Thornton coming up quietly behind her – she turned her head at his voice, her head dipping in a little acknowledgement, surprise and delight beginning to shape a little crease in her cheeks. So Hannah Thornton had a moment, stopped in time, to observe them together. Her son, so beautifully turned-out in his black coat with tails, a snow-white shirt and cream silk cravat, the picture of gentlemanly fineness. Margaret Hale in her butter-yellow dress, shining like the sun. His dark head bending over her, her heart-shaped face uplifted, both of them very still, a little tableau of two lovers silhouetted on a vase. Her son's eyes, darkened by nightfall, looking down with such tenderness as if she were uniquely precious; the girl looking up, misty-eyed and dreamy in a haze of wonder.
Hannah's eyes heaved up and down exasperatedly. Oh dear god in heaven. Preserve us from lovers!
"You are not leaving?" her son was murmuring to his lady, the tilt of his brows expressing a wistful regret. "Perhaps, if you are not too tired, you and your father would stay awhile?"
"I would like that more than anything," she gently smiled back at him, "though I wonder if your mother would not prefer to see all her guests gone so she can rest after all her work today?"
Two pairs of eyes turned to her, waiting... The hostess sighed. "If you must, John, if you really must. But at least keep Mr Watson back, to give Fanny some company." She said this with irony, as clearly these two were going to dreamily stare into each others' eyes for the rest of the night, and she would not see poor Fanny sidelined; added to which she felt the very marriageable Mr Watson's attention had been thoroughly caught by her daughter, who had behaved charmingly tonight. "Set up the card table over there, perhaps, to give you all something to do other than dreamin'. But you haven't forgotten you have work at the mill tomorrow? I'd not be too late if I were you."
Fanny, John, George and Margaret sat around a small table and began a game of Whist, playing in pairs. Richard Hale sat in a comfortable chair with Hannah Thornton beside him.
"What a joy it is to see our two young people getting on so well, don't you think, Mrs Thornton?" he amiably observed.
Mrs Thornton's eyebrows shot up nearly to her hairline. "They say 'all the world loves a lover' but I've always found them highly irritating myself. And in this particular case, I'm not sure joy's the word I'd use to describe it, Mr Hale!"
His mild eye turned to her. "Oh dear. You don't think John and Margaret make a good match?"
"I will speak plainly, as is our way," she said, "and I am not sure about it at all. John is tempestuous and Margaret, from what I know of her, is wilful."
"'They are in the very wrath of love, and they will go together." Mr Hale smilingly quoted, earning him an exasperated stare from Mrs Thornton, "But I am surprised at your doubts, Mrs Thornton; I have seen them often lately, and they are quite lovely together! It quite uplifts my heart. Margaret is cheerful and bright and tries to please him; he is gentle with her and makes every effort that she should be happy. That seems to me the very best of matches, in that they bring out all that is fine in each other."
"Well," Mrs Thornton said tartly, "whether or not it is all so lovely, unless you will stand in the way of the match, it seems it will go ahead. My son has quite lost his head over your daughter."
"Margaret is a good girl with a kind and loving heart," Mr Hale said, "and your son is my best friend in Milton, a very fine and decent man. She seems to have a warm affection for him, and it is a delight to me that she has. If he should ask me for permission to ask for Margaret's hand, I certainly would not stand in their way. I could have hoped for no better man for Margaret than John."
This fondness for her son took away what was sharply building up in her to express... so after a moment she said only, "Will you not miss your daughter when John takes her away from you?"
Mr Hale gazed at her with round-eyed astonishment. "Nothing could take Margaret away from me, Mrs Thornton! She will still be every bit as much my Margaret as she has always been. Marriage will not change that. I would not keep Margaret all to myself even if I could, the very idea is offensive to me. It is natural for her to move to the next part of her life; I am expecting mine to be enhanced by seeing her happily settled."
Hannah Thornton was somewhat humbled by that. She did not feel she could be so generous, not one whit of it. She gazed in silence at the card game and Richard Hale observed with her. Margaret, laughing, was dashing her last card down in triumph; John, counting tricks, scooping a pile towards his side of the table. George Watson interjected a noise of frustration, and Fanny squeaked, "Oh Mr Watson! We must get our revenge this hand. They are winning so easily!"
Mr Hale had nodded off in his chair by the time the game ended, but he awoke when his friend John Thornton approached him, saying quietly,
"Would you allow me to walk you and your daughter home, Sir?"
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Notes:
As always, I do thank anyone following this story, especially anyone leaving a review - it means a lot!