~Chapter 12~
Hannah Thornton sat in the front living room, her needlework in hand but her hands unusually idle. This was not the only out of place feature; Hannah also found that she could not stop the corners of her mouth from turning up into a smile, something she normally considered an alarming show of emotion. If one of the servants had happened upon the room, Hannah was not sure what answer she might have given to their query as to her good humor; for, it was not something to be discussed in polite company. John and his wife had retired quite early and she had accidentally learned while going to her room for another spool of white thread that they did not sleep. Her motherly mind skipped straight from the joy of her son at this development to the possibility of grandchildren in the not so distant future. Realizing she now grinned stupidly, Hannah molded her expression into a slightly more subdued smile. Why, she thought with a start, both Fanny and John will be having children. The grin soon returned.
Julia, who had gone to the master bedroom to ready Mrs. Margaret Thornton for bed, stood in the kitchen, sharing her experience with Molly and Samantha listening eagerly. Agnes also sat in the room but pretended, as the lady's maid, that she was far above such gossip.
"I knocked at the door to be sure the mistress did not wait for me to help her with her dress and hair," she continued, "And sure but the master answered, all gruff and angry at the interruption, saying the mistress would inform me each night if she were to require my service and that I should not come again to their door in the evening without such invitation."
"What else? What else?" Molly urged, laughing.
Samantha added, "Surely if you interrupted them, you ought to have heard more!"
"Aye," Julia continued, satisfied with her tale as she spotted Agnes trying to subtly shift so as to better hear her words, "As I walked away, I could hear them both –"
"Come, come!" Edward interrupted, happening upon the story telling, "We are not so low a household as to have staff telling such bawdy tales. Julia, you know better than this."
Julia bowed her head, "So sorry, Mr. Brown. It will not happen again." She mouthed, 'later' to Samantha and Molly.
As Edward left the kitchen he allowed his expression of grave disapproval to fall away and happiness at the situation of the master and mistress to take its place. It should be so.
Some time later, Margaret and John lay side by side on the master bed, both utterly content, if a little warm. Margaret lazily traced her fingertips up and down John's right arm, a movement that John found utterly relaxing.
"You are not hurt, then?" John asked.
Margaret turned her head and smiled at him. "No."
A long silence ensued before Margaret, thinking back to earlier that night, said, "John."
"Yes?"
"Do you think this fever will cause many deaths?"
John, not ready for this turn in the conversation, considered the question. "Obviously, I cannot know the answer, but I do worry that it will. Are you frightened by it, Margaret? I would gladly send you and mother away for a time." In truth, he added mentally, it would remove my greatest fear.
"No," Margaret answered, surprised, "I am only thinking of the working families and the starvation of which you spoke."
John remained silent for a time, his mind working over his wife's statement and considering the close connection that she felt to many of the workers. From their earliest meetings, his wife had criticized his lack of involvement in the lives of those he hired. At first, he had considered it an invasion of their privacy, and indeed, she had pushed too far once or twice for even Higgins to endure. However, John would readily admit that some of the recent innovations that he had adopted came of conversations with the laborers in the mill. Thus, perhaps it was in the best interest not only of John the husband but also John the mill owner to determine a way to keep the mill families fed even while too ill to work.
"We must feed them," John finally declared, causing Margaret to first rise to her elbows and then throw herself onto him in a spontaneous embrace.
"Do you mean it?" she cried. "Oh, John, thank you."
John basked in her pride.
"But however shall we feed them all?" Margaret asked, her mind working at top speed now that she had gained a blessing for her endeavor.
John yawned. "That, my Margaret, is a problem for tomorrow. I have every confidence that you will discover a solution."
"And what is my budget?" Margaret continued, barely registering the answer to her first query.
"I dare say we can spare a loaf of bread and some small amount of meat for each family," John answered, his eyelids drooping.
"However shall I know which families are in the most need and their residences?" Margaret wondered. When she received no answer, she glanced over and realized that John slept, lips slightly parted so that a whisper of breath escaped. Planting a kiss on those same lips, Margaret quietly offered, "Good night, John."
"Night, Margaret ," John slurred.
She lay for a long time in the darkness with ideas overflowing the banks of her mind, so that she repeated each mentally in the hopes of recalling them all in the morning. I shall never fall asleep at this rate, she lamented. But, eventually, she did.
Hannah woke late, surprised to be greeted upon opening her eyes not by the early tint of sunlight on the horizon but by the beast himself, yellow and hot in the morning sky. She realized a moment later that a noise had woken her, a knocking at her bedroom door.
"Yes?" she called.
"It is Agnes, mistress. Pardon me if I woke you, but I wanted to be sure you were well."
"Come in," Hannah commanded, thinking it well that the maid woke her or she might have slept the day away. All through dressing, Hannah reminded herself that she must be especially careful of the words and tone that she used with her daughter-in-law this day. Thus chastised, Hannah walked down the stairs to the first floor and found it empty of all but staff.
Excited by the plans of the previous night, Margaret woke early, dressed, ate, and immediately headed to the kitchen to talk over the feasibility of feeding the laboring families of Marlboro Mills, trying to ignore a dull ache in her stomach. She noted with happiness that Molly acted equally pleased by the idea, smiling and becoming flushed as Margaret talked. Indeed, Samantha and Julia also seemed to hang on her every word.
"I will ask Nicholas Higgins how many families are currently ill and then purchase enough baskets that we can fill and deliver," Margaret concluded.
"Aye, mistress," Molly replied, searching her mistress' face for some sign of the events of the night before.
Satisfied, Margaret headed for the mill, stopping only for her gloves and bonnet, as the weather appeared too warm for a coat. She stepped briskly across the yard, intent on completing her mission. Once inside, however, Margaret could not easily spot Higgins among the workers. He did not stand in his usual place. Is he ill? she wondered.
"Margaret!"
She turned at John's voice, her smile dying as she recognized the fury written across his face. Without attempting to speak to her, John took her arm and steered his wife out of the mill room, trying to control his emotion at the sight of her disobeying his wishes and mingling among the disease-ridden factory laborers. Only when they stood in the mill yard did John halt and take his wife by her shoulders. "What were you thinking, going in there?"
"I merely thought – "
"You did not think!" John accused, shaking her.
"It is you who are not thinking!" Margaret cried, dashing away tears of hurt. "You drag me about and shake me like an errant child. You berate me in the public yard. This day you are not - in any of the ways I have come to expect - my husband." Tearing free, Margaret stormed towards the gate, heading for the only place that might upset John more than the factory: the Higgins household.
Mary Higgins crouched in the cobblestone road that touched their front door, her aching head in her weary hands. The children were worse, the food from Margaret Thornton had run out, and to make matters still more dismal, Mary felt feverish herself. If Father cannot work, Mary despaired, We will all of us starve or have to beg help of the Thorntons, either of which would kill Father. A weak cry sounded from inside the house and Mary pushed herself up, praying God would have mercy on Milton. As she did so, a figure down the street called her name.
"Mary," Margaret greeted her friend, thinking how much more worn the girl looked than on her last visit. She took in the soiled dress, the red hands, and grey face. If Mary did not eat, sleep, and rest, she would lie beside her charges soon. "How are they?" she asked, as she drew near.
Mary merely shook her head and ushered Margaret into the house, noting with regret that Miss Margaret carried no basket with her today. She would have to go to the market herself, then, either now while Margaret watched the children or later and leave them on their own.
Despite the heat and light of the day, the windowless house remained chilly and so dark that Margaret had to wait a moment for her eyes to adjust once Mary closed the door. Inside, the children lay much as they had on Margaret's previous visit. Cora stood in the middle of the bed, wailing and holding her arms out for comfort.
"Go lie down, Mary," Margaret commanded. "I will care for the children." Mary debated for a moment heading to market now, but could not yet face the walk. Since no bed space remained unoccupied, Mary curled herself onto a blanket by the fire.
Margaret lifted Cora into her arms, rocking and soothing the girl until she quieted. The little girl's usually straight blonde hair curled with the moisture from her hot face and her chubby cheeks had such an unnatural blush that she appeared like a china doll. Margaret made the rounds from child to child, carrying Cora until she slept again. Seamus seemed the hottest; Margaret had to wait several minutes after touching his cheek before moving on to the next child. Anna appeared the most agitated, mumbling and tossing and turning. Once she had lain Cora back on the bed, Margaret took Anna in her lap, smoothing wet tendrils of hair from her forehead and brushing drops of water onto her dry, cracking lips.
"Mama?" Anna called, her eyelids fluttering.
"Hush, Anna," Margaret cooed, enveloping the little hand that opened and closed as if searching for something, "It is Miss Margaret. I have you."
"Mama?" Anna repeated, more desperately. Margaret felt choked at the sound of the child calling for her dead mother. She stroked Anna's palm with her thumb and the short fingers with their bitten off nails closed briefly over hers.
"I know you miss her," Margaret begged, a tear sliding free down her cheek, "But, Anna, baby, we need you here."
"Ma?"
Mary yawned, stretched, and rose, feeling no more rested but no more weary than when she had lain down. "She has been like that for a full day," she told Margaret.
"This sort of delirium means she is very ill," Margaret warned. "You must call a doctor."
"Aye," Mary agreed, thinking of the mostly empty earthenware cup sitting above the mantle for such occasions. She knew without counting that only enough money remained there for one doctor's visit. If she used it now, there would be nothing left. She glanced around the small room, her gaze resting for a moment on each child: Johnny, who had become man of his house and tried to remain a man for his siblings, Anna, made serious beyond her age by her parents' death, Patty and Keenan, twins who took their trouble-making to inhuman levels, Seamus, who shadowed his older brothers so that they seemed like triplets, and lastly little Cora, with her ready smile and giggling laugh that never failed to set off all the others. They had become Mary's own so that although she had long heard the other women talk of their first, second, and even third families, as epidemics such as this had killed all living children, Mary could not fathom losing this, her adopted first family.
"I must be going," Margaret admitted, lifting Anna off her lap and back into place on the bed. She smoothed the child's hair once more and kissed her burning forehead, frowning as the girl shivered. "Do you need anything?"
Meat. Bread. A doctor, Mary longed to say, but could not for the fierce pride rushing through her. Aye, Margaret was a friend, but she had no true understanding of the world in which the Higgins and Boucher families existed. In such a world, charity was a sign of weakness, of failure. For the sake of the children, Mary decided, I will ask Miss Margaret for help if we truly cannot get by without it and I will accept anything she offers, but I cannot do so now when we are not so very bad off.
Margaret, finished bidding her goodbyes to each ill child, gave Mary's hand a quick squeeze and saw herself out. She stood for a moment in the sunlight, letting the warmth and hope it brought wash over her. She smoothed a hand over her wrinkled skirts, put on the bonnet that she held and tied it under her chin. After these last hours, Margaret resolved to decide upon the best means of feeding all the families fallen into the hold of the fever and to execute it the very next day. She nodded to herself and began her walk back to Marlboro Mills, her hard shoes keeping time against the cobblestones.
Should I have asked?, Mary wondered, worrying immediately over Anna and Seamus' conditions. Perhaps if I hinted – no. But then, if they do not improve by tomorrow – Mary rushed to the door, swinging it wide and squinting to see how far Margaret Thornton had gone. Mary could not even spot her. Exhausted physically and emotionally, Mary sank down on the corner of the closest bed.
"Mama?" Anna called, opening the hand that lay above the coverlet as though waiting for something – for someone.