~Chapter 9~
Left by himself with Margaret gone off to speak to Mr. Thornton, Frederick wandered into the front room where Mrs. Thornton sat embroidering. "Good morning, madam," Fred began, "I do not believe we have had the pleasure of meeting. I am Frederick Hale."
Hannah broke off from glaring at the intruder as his name registered. "Hale?"
"I am Margaret's brother."
Hannah sputtered, "I- how-why did I not know that the Hales had a son?"
Frederick shrugged, suddenly fearing that Margaret had not shared the story of his existence for good reason and that either the woman before him or one of the household servants might carry his tale to the authorities. He would not risk his life to fulfill idle curiosity. "I am the black sheep of the family, I am afraid," he finally offered.
Hannah did not press for more details, absorbed with the question of what this new revelation meant for her son. They were interrupted from further conversation when Margaret flew into the house, her face pink with fury and her hair a mess of newly escaped tendrils.
"Margaret?" Frederick asked, rising from his seat and taking a step towards her. She shook her head, unable to vocalize the anger that threatened to spill forth, and headed to the library to calm down.
In the dining hall, Mary Higgins rushed forward as soon as she realized what, or rather whom, Mr. Thornton carried. "What happened?" she cried, much too upset in the moment to properly address the master.
"Fever," John replied brusquely. "It is spreading through the mill. Try to keep him away from the other children."
Mary laughed bitterly at that, thinking how with only two rooms and two beds in the house there would be little chance of any separation at all. She reached out and accepted the little boy from Mr. Thornton. "Father should not 've let you start at the mill," she said to the still unconscious child. "He told you you dinna have to." Shifting him onto her hip, Mary moved towards the door and John opened it before her.
"Will you allow me to call you a carriage?" he asked, thinking of the long walk ahead of her.
She smiled at that, somewhat ruefully. "Did you call one for the others you sent off for today?" Then, at his surprised expression, continued, "Aye, I've already news of that."
"No," he replied.
"Then, no, master," she answered, starting off towards the gate.
"Would you have let my wife call a carriage?" John queried, thinking of Margaret's reaction to the girl carrying the child that distance.
"Perhaps," Mary returned, "But she is no' here is she?" John let her go then, watching until she exited the gate and then heading for the house, sure he owed his wife an explanation.
"Margaret?" he asked his mother and Frederick. Both shook their heads, not knowing, Hannah wondering at his lack of reaction to the presence of Margaret's brother. She remembered that he had promised to inform her of the reason for Margaret's attack. Perhaps he already knew that she was leaving. Her heart twisted with sorrow for her son.
John hurried down the hall and stopped in the library doorway, thinking to find her there. He was right. "Margaret," he breathed; she turned and he could read the tempest in her eyes. "Margaret," he started again, apologetically. She stepped forward and slammed the door in his sorry face. He stood frozen by her unexpected reaction, then returned to the mill, his own face adopting her expression.
Margaret sighed in relief when she opened the door half an hour later to find an empty hall. She still harbored too much anger to accept an apology, yet she longed to know what had happened to Johnny Boucher and so paced by the window in the front sitting room, thoroughly distracting Fred and Hannah from their attempts at polite conversation. Finally, the mill whistle sounded the end of the day and Margaret excused herself and slipped from the house.
"Nicholas!" she called, spotting him among the flood of workers pouring towards the gate. He wrestled his way through to her.
"Miss Margaret," he returned, taking his hat in his hands before her.
"Johnny?" she asked.
"He has a bit o' fever that is workin' its way through the mill," Nicholas replied, his eyes drifting towards the gate and the road that would take him to his family.
"Could I bring a basket by tomorrow?"
"Aye," he responded, "If Thornton thinks it right."
Margaret sucked in her cheeks to keep her anger in check. "I will bring a basket tomorrow," she declared.
Nicholas nodded, too distracted to interpret her reaction. "G'night, Miss Margaret."
"Good night, Nicholas." Margaret found when she turned that she faced John Thornton, who watched her from a few yards away, his blue eyes piercing. Averting her gaze, Margaret returned to the house.
Supper that night was a brutal affair, full of awkward silences and unspoken tension. Margaret asked her brother for anything she wished to have passed whether it sat within his reach or not. John did not speak at all, but gripped his utensils so tightly that the scab on one knuckle reopened itself. Hannah, who found her tooth aching slightly from bearing the burden of conversing with Mr. Hale, joined her son in his silence. Thus, only Frederick spoke, chattering on about the architecture, food, and culture in Cadiz. Had he realized how the subject depressed his listeners, he might also have been mute.
After supper, Fred pulled Margaret to the side. "I must speak with you," he started. "I love you, Margaret. You are my only sister. If you truly need a week to prepare yourself, I am willing to risk my safety in order to give you that time. However, every moment I am listening for the sound of horses, the sound of marching, the sound of my demise." Here he gripped her hand in urgent fingers. "Please, Margaret. Is there not any way you could be ready by tomorrow evening?" Margaret saw at once his distress and thought of the young bride, Dolores, he left in Cadiz to travel through such danger for her. She felt at once the weight that her selfishness had brought down upon his shoulders.
"Of course, Fred!" she promised.
Internally, John battled between two opposing sides, wishing to simultaneously ask pardon of Margaret for his offenses and to remain at odds with her so as to cushion the blow of her leaving. A hundred times that night he bit his tongue to halt the words of apology. Even after Margaret retired to her bedroom, John stood outside the door for a few long minutes with his hand poised as if to knock. Heavy hearted, he retreated to his bedroom, kicking off his shoes and jerking his cravat off to free his neck. He sank down not on his bed but the armchair by the fireplace, resting his head in his hands in despair. She would be gone before the week was out, John was sure of it now. Instead of begging Margaret to stay, John had managed to drive her away more completely. He ached at the divide between them, which could only grow now that they would be permanently separated; yet, there was no purpose in healing the rift when Margaret did not care for him enough to stay. He breathed raggedly. Since it would make no difference, John resolved not to lower himself in begging her forgiveness. Thus, when the crack around his door began to lighten, John rose from his sleepless night of self-torture and traveled again to the mill.
Margaret slept poorly, her wakefulness fueled by churning emotions. She rose early enough to watch from her window as Mr. Thornton walked to the mill but dropped the curtain back into place when he glanced back at the house. She wore her favorite blue dress in honor of her last day in Milton. After breaking her fast, Margaret asked Edward to make up a basket for a large family and set out before the rest of the household woke, anxious to bid farewell to the makeshift family that she had come to love. The walk from Marlboro Mills to the Higgins household refreshed Margaret. The sun managed to peek from between the soot-darkened clouds, warming the breeze that tugged at Margaret's straw bonnet and blue skirts, seeking to slow her stride. Even the dirty, crowded housing in which Higgins, Mary, and the Boucher children lived appeared more pleasant with the green and gold of new spring weeds sprouting up along the dusty roadside. Margaret was almost sorry to knock at the Higgins' door and be ushered inside by Mary, but smiled at the sight of little Johnny sitting in bed spooning broth into his mouth eagerly.
"How is he?" she asked Mary, who had hurried back to tend the laundry that bubbled in the kettle over the fire.
"Too soon to tell," Mary replied, "Though father is not much worried about him. He thinks the most great danger is to the littlest ones." Margaret glanced at the five children who all played on or about the bed on which their ill brother sat. Why, Anna even then squeezed herself a little closer to the older brother after whom she modeled herself.
"Should you not keep them apart?" Margaret asked.
"And how, pray tell, would I be doing a thing like that?" Mary returned in exasperation. "I've little enough time as it is to keep up with chores and I've not the mind to leave Johnny alone to take them out or to let them out on their own, young as they are. Anna could hardly manage Patty and Keenan, much less Seamus and Cora."
Margaret pressed her hand into Mary's shoulder, recognizing the fear and exhaustion in her words. "I am sorry, Mary. You are right of course."
"I'm surprised the master let you come," Mary continued, "worried like he was about the fever spreading." Margaret flushed at the statement but did not allow herself to feel guilt for her actions. After all, if he had only taken the time to explain himself, she would have known his wishes on the subject. As she was thinking this, Margaret felt a tug on her skirt and looked down to find Cora, the youngest Boucher at 4 years of age, staring solemnly at her.
"Good morning, Cora," she said, sinking down to the little girl's level. Cora kept her hold on the silky fabric of the skirt, brushing it against her cheek.
"Where is that man?" Cora asked, direct as an arrow despite the distraction of the fabric.
"What man?"
"Who comed with you last," Cora elaborated patiently.
"Mr. Thornton?" Cora nodded. "He is working at the mill where Nicholas is. Why?"
Cora's plump little cheeks pinked as she grinned. "Johnny says he liiiiiiiiiiikes you." She scampered a ways away, pleased with the mischief she spread.
Margaret's eyes snapped up to the bed where Johnny sat shooting his sister a glare. He met her eyes and shrugged. "Nic'las says I must say what's true," he declared, puffing his chest up in preparation of needing a defense.
Margaret nodded. "You may say what you like, Johnny, but I am afraid this time you are mistaken." He opened his mouth to protest, so Margaret hurriedly went on. "Now this is my last day in Milton, so I am going to need lots of hugs."
"Why?" Anna demanded, forgetting her desire to become joined at the hip with her brother and crawling over the bed to reach Margaret. Patty, Keenan, and Seamus paid the conversation little mind, but Anna, Johnny, and Cora stared at Margaret incredulously.
Margaret smiled, working hard to keep the tears from her eyes and voice. "My brother has come from Spain to take me home with him so that we can be a family together. Family should stay together, do you not agree?"
Anna crossed her little arms. "You can be a family together here."
"No, Anna," Margaret corrected her, gently. "I must go with him, for he has a wife and a life in Spain."
"Wife. Life," Cora sang out, pleased at the rhyme.
Anna remained unsatisfied. "We could be your family," she offered.
Margaret could not keep the tears then from crowding into her eyes. She gathered the little girl into her arms and whispered, "I wish I could stay with you, Anna. I do." She continued in a louder voice, "Now who wants a story?" All the children gathered around her then and Margaret began to recite every nursery rhyme and fairy tale that she had ever heard or read. Only when Mary announced dinner did Margaret manage to tear herself away and head back to the house. Once it came into view, Margaret could not help but consider with mixed emotions the many memories of that house and its inhabitants that she would carry with her by carriage, train, and boat to far away Cadiz. These thoughts followed her through a silent dinner and up the stairs where she began to pack, folding each dress she had worn and shedding more than one tear at the thought of never wearing them again in Milton.
Edward trudged up the stairs, unable to fathom how the Thornton's marriage had gone from such hope to this disastrous end which he was entrusted with bringing to fruition. He knocked at Mrs. Margaret Thornton's bedroom door.
"Yes?" she called from within.
"It is Edward, madam. The carriage stands ready and I am charged with carrying down your trunk if you are prepared."
The door opened, revealing the pale, solemn face of Margaret Thornton, nee Hale. "I am ready," she stated, leaving him with the trunk and walking woodenly down the now familiar path from the bedroom to the stairs and down into the front hall. Gathering her bonnet, coat, and gloves, Margaret headed out the door for the last time. She waited in the yard as Edward brought down and loaded her trunk, not watching the proceedings but focused on the mill, from which Mr. Thornton had not emerged.
John stood in his office, very aware of the scene unfolding in the mill yard below him. His carefully schooled his face into an emotionless expression, but felt every preparation like a blow to his gut. She would leave, wearing the same dress in which she had married him. She would climb into the carriage and drive off to the train station and from there head to London and then the coast where she would meet a boat to take her forever from this country and her husband. And John stood in his office, unable to bear a moment more in her presence if she were not going to stay.
"We are ready," Frederick declared, startling Margaret from her thoughts. She took her brother's hand as he helped her up into the carriage. This was it, then. There would be no goodbye from Mr. Thornton. From John.
"Wait!" Margaret cried, leaping down from the carriage and running across the yard into the mill. She raced up the steps and entered Mr. Thornton's office breathless.
"Have you come to say goodbye, then?" John asked, keeping his back to her, his voice rough with emotion despite his best efforts.
"Ask me to stay!" she begged, breathless from running and from the separate pounding of her heart at her own brazenness. She felt elation. Freedom. But also terrible fear. "I would wish to stay in Milton-" She corrected herself, "I would wish to stay with you but I cannot if you do not want it so."
John spun around at that, shock wiping his face clear of any emotion. He could not speak.
Believing his silence to be her answer, Margaret turned for the door, desperate sobs breaking free. He does not want me, her heart cried.
John stopped his wife with a hand on her arm. He pulled her back to face him, lifting her chin so that her chocolate eyes met his. "Margaret," he breathed, stepping still closer and wiping at her tears with a hand. "Stay." He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. "Please stay," he whispered.