Summary:
Mr Thornton takes his lovely young wife to Milton Fair. The new light she sees him waken feelings in her... maybe it WILL be their 'lucky night'? This is a very happy chapter and nothing bad happens at all except Mr Thornton gets a slightly sticky hand
O dear, what can the matter be?
Johnny's so long at the fair.
He promised he'd buy me a fairing should please me,
And then for a kiss, oh! he vowed he would tease me,
He promised he'd bring me a bunch of blue ribbons,
To tie up my bonny brown hair.
- trad
ooOoo
It was nearly the longest day of the year and more than an hour of full daylight left when John Thornton and his young wife walked from Marlborough Mill to Fairfield. They walked among others, and although Margaret was wearing a most simple dress of white cotton with a warm cherry wrap, and the Master in his work clothes, they stood out among the working people who were thronging to the fair. Many recognised the Master and acknowledged him with a tip of the cap and a greeting; some Margaret smiled at, families she knew and had taken food and any comforts she could.
As they neared the collection of pavilions and stalls, Margaret was warmly enveloped in the rich aromas of spit-roasting meats, and woodsmoke, and the commotion of sounds - shouts of exhortation to spend money on the various games, the loud tinny sound of the hurdy-gurdy playing as the carousel turned. To her delight she heard some music of the kind she liked and found an arena with beribboned Morris men capering about; the catchy tunes of the accordionist would have held her longer but John drew her on after a while.
"I can't stand it," he despaired, "grown men skipping about tappin' each other wi'little bells."
"Win a 'andsome necklace for your pretty lady, Sire!" Here was a rotund gentleman with a kerchief around his neck and jingling a leather pouch of coins, targetting John Thornton in canny appeal to a gentleman's natural desire to demonstrate his skills in front of his woman. To her delight Margaret saw John feel in his pocket for small money he had brought for the purpose, tossed one to the proprietor and received in return three hoops, which he proceeded to hurl towards upright posts on a board. He missed with the first, was close with the second; the third half caught and hung for a tantalising second before clattering sullenly to the floor.
Margaret praised and consoled him equally but he was offering another coin and taking three more hoops.
"I think I've got it now," he told her with a little grin; aimed, tossed.
Launched with a deft flick of his wrist, the first hoop sailed through the air and fitted itself cleanly over a spike. A small crowd had gathered to watch arrogant, glowering Master at play – an unusual sight – my, 'ow bein' wed's softened old Thornton up, ye'd never ha'believed it - a ragged cheer went up. The second wobbled as it hit and nearly went astray, then fell down to snugly lie around the base. This time the cheer was louder. Margaret squeezed her eyes shut, she could hardly bear to watch – then opened them just in time to see the third, perfectly aimed, flying clean and true to its home.
A massive cheer went up - one brave fellow even dared clap the Master on the back – then quickly melted away into the anonymous crowd, stunned by his own audacity. Softened up or not, Master was still Master and not over-fond of familiarity.
"Oh John!" Margaret smiled at him, thrilled and proud.
He was actually grinning in a moment of straightforward delight, pleased with himself. "I won't deny I've some skill with spindles an' threads an' all manner of parts which must be fitted into other parts. Took a moment to get my eye in," he was taking a necklace from a selection offered, and looped it around her neck. "There you are, my lady. Fine jewels and gold," with a sweet little smile.
Margaret thought she had never been so delighted with a gift; shiny blue and green glass stones with a golden clasp, the value of nothing but the worth of much; displayed on the white breast of her dress with pride.
The stall owner was making capital out of it, singling out one likely-looking lad, then another - "Come an' win your lady a fine necklace like wot this gentleman done! That's put a twinkle in 'er eye I don't doubt it! It'll be yer lucky night, sir," he bowed and winked to Thornton, which her husband was glad Margaret seemed not to notice, or, likely, understand.
He won her a coconut at the Coconut Shy with his third ball – drawing back his arm and launching it hard – there was a thwack of wood on target and the thing toppled to the grass with a thud – they looked doubtfully at the brown hairy object they were presented with, decided it was too much trouble to carry, so Margaret gave it to some children who were tagging along, hoping for bounty.
They bought a sackful of toffee-apples to distribute among the children, and sweet treats of marzipan and boiled sugar, and filled a basket for the Boucher/Higgins children, adding in some wooden toys – an acrobat tumbling down a ladder, a set of marbles, a couple of skipping ropes, and, though John demurred at this, a hobby horse with a bulging stuffed head and a terrifying grin, complete with ragged woollen mane and bright red bridle.
"I suppose you're goin' to mek me carry that," he rolled his eyes, but took it from her anyway. He had delved into his pocket so uncomplainingly for coins for whatever took her fancy, and smiled down with such blue-eyed gentleness at small children, who, blissfully unaware that this was the terrifying Master of the Mill whose whim ruled their parents, had no awe of him at all. He was even offered a kiss from one tiny girl, grubby in her cotton frock with bare brown feet; he leaned down and gravely shook her little hand instead. He didn't even wipe his hand on his kerchief till she'd gone, and only then because it was distinctly sticky, presumably from the toffee-apple handout. He was good with children, he had a fondness for them, a rare soft spot. Margaret gazed at him, utterly in love.
He won his wife a horrifying china cat from a stall by tossing sticks through a ring suspended from a cord, which was so easy for him that "do you want a dog to go with it?" he asked, head on one side, hands in his pockets, just a little swagger about him, which she found endearing and somehow very ... attractive.
"No, no!" she protested, laughing (though the little ornament was already very dear to her, clutched protectively in her hand) – "As it is I am picturing your mother's face when I place this so proudly in her cabinet, alongside the Doulton dishes."
They walked around all the stalls a second time, buying fresh raspberries and strawberries – "These will be so refeshing when we get home!" Margaret was thrilled. Then she clutched his arm – "John – please don't win me a parrot."
He jingled the coins in his pocket and eyed up the shooting range, where little wooden men must be knocked down. "Are you sure? I reckon I'd – "
"That's what I'm afraid of," she said, "I already know you're about to tell me there's some equivalent Mill thing you skilfully perform every day," she gave him a teasing little smile, "and you'd knock them all down in five shots and then we'd have to have a parrot and I'd be unhappy about it all the rest of the night." She could not bear the sight of the beautiful birds in their cages.
His soft, smiling eye dwelt on her. "Well, we'd not want you unhappy... not for a moment, if I can help it." Suddenly full of love - "Ahhh Margaret – your lovely, tender heart! I would win 'em all and set them free for you," he added, utterly tender-hearted himself where his lovely girl was concerned, "but sadly they'd not long survive in the wild," and he drew her on so she would quickly forget.
He took part in a match with some hands from the Mill, rolling wooden balls along a chute to fell painted striped skittles a foot tall; it was taking some time so Margaret wandered a little way away, first to a stand where two crude puppets with fierce faces and bright red mouths fought a clashing battle, squawking. There was wide-eyed awe from the rapt little audience of children seated on the grass; but Margaret found it creepy and not at all suitable for children in its brutish horror and she moved on to where some musicians were setting up.
When John joined her, she noticed first his abashed expression, lips twisted in a guilty smirk, dangling a huge ham from the hand that wasn't holding the hobby-horse.
"Oh goodness, John... what are we going to do with that? Hush, listen - " He stood beside her to watch the fiddler bending and dipping as he vigorously bowed, accompanied by the strumming of a melodious guitar, and caught a snatch of the words, sung sweetly by a pretty young girl.
"'Ahh...it's your song!"
"Yes," she replied, laughing, "but it's not just a happy accident... I asked them to sing it for you. Listen in particular to the final verse - " They stood side by side listening to the end of The Oak and the Ash, hands touching in secret. Mr Thornton dropped a generous handful of coins into the hat when it was over.
"Well... you did get to marry he who was North country bred..." was his comment.
"I did, and I am so happy with him." She looked wonderingly at the huge ham. "Did you win this at skittles? Whatever shall we do with it? Would your mother like it? " she said doubtfully.
"I thought we'd give it to the mill canteen. Or you can tek it to Princeton, make their night before they 'ave to face another day of misery working for me in my mill," he rolled his eyes, but teasingly. Secretly he was so proud of her for her compassion and sweetness, a true philanthropy in her nature rather than piety and the appearance of virtue. She was making him look at things in new ways; leading him further and faster down a path on which he had taken barely one step when he had met her.
"Oh Mr Thornton! you will have to hire a carriage for all our purchases and prizes..." her starry eyes lifted to his, reflecting all the lights in the trees and the lightness in her heart.
The night was darkening now and little lamps springing up all over, a gypsy camp in a fairy tale. There were fewer children around now and more young lovers, walking hand in hand. Girls with their lads, laughing, in love. Exchanging kisses as they walked, come to visit the fair with their darlings.
"Are you ready to go home now, Miss Margaret?" her own darling was looking at her, head on one side.
"Let's not travel in the carriage, John. I would like us to walk." He went to see to the dispatch of all their prizes and purchases to Marlborough House, and she moved a little way away to admire the huge carousel, painted in red and green and gold, with its gilded horses on golden spindles, slowly revolving to the jerky tunes. On each horse sat one person, or sometimes two, a man with his lady set before him, one arm around her waist, rising and falling gently with the motion of the ride.
Margaret longed for one moment to be so free as to sit astride with Mr Thornton behind her, keeping her safe; but this was something she could not have. She felt momentarily resentful, not wanting to be proper! She had been about seven when she had first noticed a disadvantage of privilege, watching little village girls turn cartwheels in the street with their bloomers on show and she walking sedately home from church, the right way up, in her modest dress and nice shoes, holding her prayerbook.
One of the couples was a young spinner she knew from Marlborough; set before her husband on their horse, her figure plainly speaking her condition. She saw Margaret and shyly waved to her; Margaret smiled back; something about it affected her... it was clear from the curve of belly in her thin shape that this young girl was accustomed to give her young man what she had refused Mr Thornton last night, and yet she was smiling happily and waving and letting him hold her, his arm possessively around her waist with such easy familiarity, a sturdy little unit of two, soon to be three.
Natural... all humans... for all time...
Thornton was back with her, watching the doughty woman at the centre of the revolving platform, slowly turning a handle crank on the central pole. It looked like a weighty job, though no doubt heavily geared. He realised at once it required the same result as his own systems at Marlborough Mill and his mind worked quickly on how to apply the principle of steam to the process of turning a flywheel banded to a plinth on a spindle - such as might be useful for such an application as this... but the idea fled him and was lost to him forever as Margaret looked up at him and smiled.
"I have had a lovely evening."
"That is just what I wanted you to have."
Margaret had to look straight in front of her, or up at John's face, as they walked through the fields to the road; so many young couples, loosened by ale, behaving in a way unfit for observers... not just holding hands but fondling - ! kissing... she saw one young man smack his girl's behind and instead of anger she laughed and joked with him... even after this it was a shock to her when they walked past a barn and she heard laughter and breathless moans and sounds that made her want to cover her ears – Mr Thornton said nothing and did not appear to notice but drew her on a little faster and raised his voice to tell her of the Frost Fairs, held on the frozen Thames, in living memory of some folks still in the world today.
She was joining in the conversation, "Why will the Thames not freeze over these latter years? I would have loved to go to a Frost Fair when I was in London!" but her mind was elsewhere. All those girls with their lovers... unafraid to go home with them at nights... laughing .. knowing they would turn to them shortly in their shared bed...
"A very good question," he was saying, slipping his hand secretly into hers, thrilling to her soft skin against his as he answered her, "An' by coincidence, one your father and I were discussing the other day. He showed me a paper on some recent scientific research, speculating why the Thames no longer habitually freezes, an' whether and why the atmosphere might more likely to be trapping in heat – " his eyes, puzzled, speculating, were on all the tall chimneys of Milton, arisen overnight like a sudden forest of thin stone towers prickling the skyline, each one with its white pennant of flying smoke heading up and up and up...
He realised she was not listening. Seeing they had left crowds behind as they neared the better areas of town, he slipped his hand around her waist, proprietary, loving. She belongs to me, this darling girl... and I to her.
It was love and thoughtfulness which made him suggest, "Would you like to call on your father as we pass? He would be glad to see you, I don't doubt. An' if you're really lucky... I might read you some extracts from his Fourier on The Science of Molecular Mechanisms Trapping Heat Around the Earth, would you like that, Miss Margaret?" he teased.
"I am really lucky," she answered, not talking about extracts from Fourier, "I am the luckiest woman in the world, because I have found my own true heart, and I will waste not one second nor one element of the love we share," and her eyes flashed to his with a tiny look, a moment of flirtation he could not mistake before she modestly lowered them, but even that was a tease of a kind, and he lost his breath, turning her swiftly down the alley which would lead them home.
ooOoo
Notes:
I wanted to check the sort of thing J&M might have seen at a typical fair in their time - all these games they play here were around in the mid 1800s near as I can tell - and along the way discovered that Thomas Bradshaw invented the first steam-powered carousel in 1861 – not too much of a stretch that our clever Mr Thornton might have had the same idea ten years before, standing there beside it, looking and thinking! Before that carousels were turned by some lucky worker with a crank (as here) or by pulling on ropes - or a poor donkey :( (I am very fond of donkeys.)
Now it sounds unlikely doesn't it, that Mr T might have been pondering on the causes of the earth's heat rising - who knew that the Victorians had already started wondering about global warming, I certainly didn't. Joseph Fourier wrote a paper in 1824, hypothesising that gases in the atmosphere might create barriers which acted to trap heat. In 1837 he wrote another, linking the heat of the earth (greater than he calculated it should be given the distance from the sun) to 'natural evolution, and human industry.' Such as Mr Thornton's mill, and all the others which sprang up in the Industrial Revolution... I am quite sure Mr Thornton and Mr Hale, so curious about everything, would have read and discussed this startling idea!