January, 7th
Margaret:
Today is Friday and I really want to burn some energy. Life at home is becoming intolerable, with my mother crying and suffering and my father nursing his own denial. I need a break to focus my mind and body on something else, recharge and plunge right back. My mother encourages me to come to the gym to exercise a little. I phone Bessy but she's not coming... I check my watch and I rush to the volleyball game.
I arrive a few minutes late and the teams are already split so I stand on the sidelines until the referee assigns me to one side. I step into the court and notice that Mr. Thornton is playing volleyball this evening with the other team.
Of course.
Since the night of the party I have seen him a few times here and there. I've been at home at the time of his lesson and opened the door for him, we crossed each other one Saturday in a small bookstore a little far from home and two days later in a convenience store, and once my father sent me to Marlborough Mills on an errand. Only once did we exchange more than a greeting and it was when he informed me that I should read more classics and less best sellers. Not that I care much but the animosity he always displays towards my tastes and opinions is a little unnerving, and I confess I am more than willing to repay him with his own currency.
Mr. Thornton makes a powerful and elegant jump serve and right now, with the score 3-1 in the first set, I'm convinced my team doesn't stand a chance.
Daniel:
Although I am a computer engineer, probably the profession with highest rates of obesity, I'm a rather athletic person. I enjoy sports and it shows in my waistline.
Lately I've been playing basketball at the Sports Centre, Tuesdays and Fridays and sometimes (like today) I persuade John to come with me. John and I go a long way as a teammates, the standout probably that glorious rugby championship when our humble Darkshire team upset the favorite rich kids from the south. Almost two decades ago now... unbelievable how time flies.
We change and go to the basketball court only to find a crew at work there. It seems that a pipe broke and they are fixing it, so tonight's game was obviously suspended without any notice. I suggest going to the treadmills but John finds that boring and we move to the volleyball court, where I know there is an open game on Fridays too.
The people there is so miscellaneous that I can't say, at a glance, whether it's going to be worthwhile or it will just suck. My friend shrugs and we stay. I see a couple of good looking girls so I think this move might have some potential. The referee decides who plays in what team, and we both get in team A. Other guys from basketball who drifted here too are in team B. Chicks are evenly distributed. Teenage boys and menopausal women too.
The game starts with a team B rally and they score. They lose the next rally and when we've won two in a row another player arrives. It's a tall girl wearing volleyball clothes: dark pink top, black shorts, white long socks and shoes. She has her dark hair in a ponytail and a headband matching her top. Initial assessment: young and pretty.
I pass the ball back to the Thorn and I notice he is transfixed. I guess he knows the girl but I have no idea of who she is. He shakes it off and jump serves; Trevor, a guy from basketball returns it with a swift bump, but I block and kill for a 3-1 score.
John serves again but hits the ball too hard and it falls outside team B's court. They score on our fault and it's her turn to serve, which she does on a neat topspin.
Girl can play, evidently. Do I know her?
We win the first set 30-12 and change court sides. I think John will say hello to the girl but he doesn't get near and neither does she. Once in our old side of the court she gathers her teammates around and talks moving her hands ostensibly talking strategy and boosting spirits, and under my breath I ask my friend about her.
John grumbles a reply - which means he's awfully interested in her, whoever she is. Team B is still holding their meeting and we have another moment in which my friend tells me this girl was at his party. I look at her intently: for sure she has a nice rack and great legs but I have no clue. I'd remember those legs and that neck, I think. That neck needs a hickey.
Whatever she said seems to work and Team B wins the second set 30-25 and now she looks very pleased with herself. When her team scores she smiles and her apple red cheeks make her look like a cute sixteen year old girl. After twenty minutes of exercise she's flushed and her skin is glowing with sweat. My friend keeps a blank face but his eyes keep going to her, and one doesn't need to be a mind reader to guess what he's thinking right now.
Oh boy, this is going to be fun.
To no one's surprise Team A wins in four sets, and although Team B puts up a fight its fate was sealed the moment the Thorn and I got on the same team. I don't know if volleyball players shake hands at the end of a game but we basketball players usually do it and out of habit we form two lines and start the greeting. Normally we do more of a shoulder bump though with ladies present we stick with the classic handshake. The girl in pink is one of the last people in the line and when she and my friend shake hands I don't hear they say anything in particular.
Tonight, as every Friday night, there are a few young (and not so young) ladies milling around the pub, well known faces and well known intentions.
-"Novelty is not something we see often in Milton", I say referring in general to the ladies present and to one absent in particular. John, who seldom pays them any attention, nods in agreement.
-"It's not novelty the lure for me, though", he replies, "it's that lately... I don't know, Danny, women seem either too forthcoming or too afraid of me." He shakes his head in tired exasperation, "have they always been like that? It's quite the mood killer."
Only alcohol can make my friend admit that he's aware that he intimidates people. It affects men and women alike and I've witnessed how his business works so smoothly partly because of people being unable to say him no. I've also seen how women just throw themselves at his feet and he needs no more than a blink to get the full service. This might sound like a great prospect for a kid but for men our age boredom is the only possible outcome.
This is, however, a problem I never encountered myself.
-"Dunno wacha talkin'bout, mate" my inebriated self is a little more honest than my normal self, "as long as I can get it up and get it in ya won't hear me complainin'"
He chuckles but continues. "The girl at the volleyball game, I can say two things about her: she's neither afraid of me nor seeking me out," John lets out a sigh and raises his eyebrows. "That's refreshing. And quite stimulating," he adds, "to have a non relative woman who can look me in the eye and speak her mind. Whatever she has to say. The other one who does it is Louise, a friend of my mother's, but at age seventy-five some things are out of the question".
The subject is broached and I learn that she's the daughter of John's teacher (being a school dropout is a chip in his shoulder if there ever was one), not as young as I thought, and indeed I remember her from the party. She was a gorgeous lady who looked like a queen; Fanny seemed quite jealous and a few blokes embarrassed themselves to catch her attention but she ignored them all. To this I thought she was haughty but now I give her might be naïve. John tells me that they are from Oxford and she has no idea of what life is like in a place like Milton (a trait she apparently shares with her parents), that she has strong opinions and doesn't care about annoying him, and it becomes evident that for those and/or other reasons John thinks very highly of her. Probably anyone who is gutsy will have my friend's respect: if it comes in a neat package with looks and brains (as he tells me it's the case), then he will be up for grabs sooner than later.
And I must say, though I wouldn't do it aloud, that I'm happy for him. He's been quite lonely and burned by the affair with Chloe and if this girl is the answer, then so be it.
-"Are you going to ask her out?" John would never share his wooing plans with me but I ask anyway.
He frowns and for the first time ever he seems dubious about his chances with a female of his interest.
-"Thing is, I don't think she'd have me, Daniel." His eyes go back to the game on the screen.
The notion is ridiculous and I laugh outright. Turning down John Thornton? Really? Who the hell she'd think she is?
John Thornton:
Waterfowl is something I find rather ugly yet the word my mind uses to describe Margaret Hale, my teacher's pretty daughter, is a swan. Her movements are fluid yet economical, her whole body involved in each motion: her neck, shoulders and arms, especially her hands and the whole posture of her torso and her long legs, they are a continuation of her facial expressions and her ideas. This is something completely unlike every one and all women I've ever met.
I am intrigued, I am fascinated by such combination of strong personality and beauty in motion. I definitely look forward to the rare chance to see her after the lesson even if she doesn't seem to like me much. And that sort of makes sense to me, because... what business could someone like me have with such a creature?
Daniel tells me about asking her on a date but I wouldn't do that. But I get to think that if Daniel and I hadn't been on the same team I would have let her win. Seeing her face after scoring a point was priceless and I wonder if she had spoken to me if her team had won.
A/N: I'm not sure a modern John Thornton would feel so inferior to Margaret as the original does but that's fan fiction's idea. His choice of the word "creature" was taken from the original, where he discusses Margaret with his mother. His actual description of her was inspired from Risto Pakarinen's (From the desk of Risto Pakarinen) "How I kneed her".