JUST FOR ONE DAY

Chapter Three

It was several hours later that John found himself pacing back and forth in his mill office, unable to settle, unable to work, unable to concentrate, unable….

Unable to think of anything but her.

What to do? What to say? What to –

Damn, dash and darn it! This was no time to dilly-dally like a lily-livered coward!

With swift and decisive action, John snatched up his coat, and after firmly closing his office door, the master strode across the cobbles of his factory yard with more oomph than a steam engine hurtling along its single-minded tracks at full speed. Before he had even had the chance to glance up, John found himself on the busy thoroughfare that was Marlborough Street, and without having to think, his feet swerved a few notches to the side, and just like that, he was off, heading towards Crampton, the epicentre of all his joys and woes from the past few months.

Walking fast and at a punishing pace that made his legs grumble with a gnawing ache, John kept his head low and minded his own business, his thoughts too harassed to stop and speak to any passers-by who might hassle him, his feet unyielding in their dogged mission to get him to his destination as summarily as possible.

At times, he seriously thought of turning back, of admitting defeat and giving in to the waves of self-doubt which engulfed him, the overpowering tides of self-loathing overwhelming his confidence and drowning it in a sea of insecure dread. What would he say to her? What could he say? What did he want to say? And Lord help him, what would she have to say in return?

It was all looking so laughably impossible, his quest a ludicrous one built upon the precarious foundations of foolhardy hope. But just as he was about to give in to his fears and head home, John found himself unconsciously trotting up the steps of his tutor's house, and again, before he had time to discern what he was about, he had raised a fist to the door and announced his reckless arrival.

The sound of his solid hand beating a hard rat-a-tat-tat against the wood caused John to jolt, and as if waking from a dream, the realisation of what he was doing hit him like a ton of bricks, and oh-help, he suddenly felt dreadfully queasy.

But John was no quitter, no, so there he waited with bated breath, guessing at whom might answer his call, all the while wishing it would be −

A moment later, the door opened, just a smidgen, and peering around the frame, John's heart sank to see in the dim shade of an unlit passageway, that it was none other than Mr Hale.

The man stared at his visitor for a few seconds before screwing up his beady eyes, almost as if the effort of contemplating his arrival was too much for his mind to cope with. 'Oh, John…,' came a feeble voice that was neither here nor there.

John coughed, trying desperately to swallow the ball of apprehension which had become wedged in his gullet and squished his Adam's apple. 'Good evening, sir. I…I have come to offer my condolences once again and see if there is anything that I might do for you…for any of you,' he explained with a manner of bashful hopefulness.

Mr Hale blinked rapidly. 'Oh,' he mumbled. 'Oh, I see.'

Taking off his spectacles, the parson began to polish them distractedly, the man hardly aware of what he was doing, since he had repeated this monotonous action more than twenty times in the past half hour alone for some unknown reason. 'That is very kind, my boy, most considerate. It is just…,' he trailed off, casting a preoccupied glance behind him.

John's eyes followed to look behind Mr Hale, but there was nobody and nothing to be seen.

Some time passed while Mr Hale continued to stare behind him, his attention fixated on the shadows.

'Mr Hale?' John prompted with mounting concern.

The tutor revolved to peer at him, his face pale, almost as if he had just seen someone, somebody who should no longer have been there. 'Hmm, it is just that I am not sure, really, I…I am not sure,' he pondered feebly. 'You are best speaking to Margaret, she will know,' he said at last, absently opening the door and beckoning for his visitor to come on in.

It was just then, that John felt the strangest feeling in his body that he had ever experienced in all of his twenty-nine years, seven months, two weeks, and one day. While his mind was arrested and held back by the chains of terror, afraid of further melancholy and mortification at the mercy of Miss Hale, the rational part of his being, his clever mind, was forced to abdicate command, since through some weird and wonderful means, his heart prevailed, and tugging him towards the one he loved, John found himself dragged across the threshold and into the house which had brought him such gladness and anguish at the hands of a mere slip of a girl.

Shuffling down the corridor, his senses attuned to any slight hint of her presence, John noted how eerily cold it was, the fires no doubt neglected in the wake of today's despair. Trudging off towards the stairs, Mr Hale pointed towards the downstairs study, a room which John knew all too well, since it had been the place where he had first met his muse and his passion had been aroused, only for her to smash his hopes to smithereens within those same four walls, her pretty and impertinent lips declaring that she would never love him, for how could she, when she did not even like him?

'She is in there,' Mr Hale informed his pupil lamely, and before John could reply, the man had vanished like a ghost.

Turning back towards the closed door which stood before him in callous obstruction, John felt his thighs tremble with trepidation.

Heck!

What was he doing?

And why was he doing it?

Furrowing his brow, John could not fathom whether his desire to see Margaret was conceived of noble compassion or self-seeking self-indulgence. Which was it? Was he really here to offer her his altruistic help? Or was the obnoxious truth that he had simply come to satisfy his own selfish longings?

John grunted.

It was too late now. He was here. He was precisely where he was supposed to be. And he was going to see her, and what happened next, well, that was up to Margaret.

After taking a deep breath, John grasped a hold of the handle, and with the muscles of his well-endowed arm flexing, he gave it a purposeful shove. As the door swung ajar, John had to squint, for the room was shrouded in a cloak of depressing gloom, and as his eyes scanned the scene, they began to panic, because there was nobody there. Rearing his head back towards the stairs, John was about to call out to Mr Hale, but before he did, he heard a noise which devastated him more than you or I could ever hope to sympathise with, and that was the sound of someone sobbing.

With his eyes now alert and wide with anxiety, John looked again, and oh-my, there, on the floor, sat Margaret, the morose darkness of her dress affecting her to blend in with her bleak surroundings. She was crouched on the ground, hovering before a barren hearth, her black skirts fanned out in a circle around her, almost like a haunting halo of grief. There was such little light in the room that John could hardly make her out, the sound of her whimpering the only sign that she was truly cowered before him. There were a few rays of weak winter sunlight which poured through the gaps in the drawn curtains, and casting speckles of sheer light upon her head, the brown and burgundy curls of her hair glinted like a vivid tapestry of interwoven colours, reminding John that beneath her veil of lamentation, Margaret was a woman of striking character.

Almost lying down with her knees curled beneath her, her head was lowered, and with a handkerchief clasped in one hand and something he could not quite distinguish clutched in the other, something long, black and leather, Margaret was quietly crying her sweet heart out in what she thought was the sanctuary of a lonely room.

Frozen in place, John did not know what to do, his whole being pleading with him to disown his doubts and go to her. However, whether it be a blessing or a blight, he did not have to skulk in the limbo of uncertainty for long, because at that moment, Margaret glanced up, and for the second time that day, she looked right at him, her eyes broad and brimming with the disarray of complex and most likely conflicting emotions, but which ones howled the loudest in her heart, John could not deduce.

John was about to speak, his throat cracking in its withering dryness, but before he could even spit out one syllable, Margaret had startled at the shock of his sudden appearance, and within a trice, she had leapt to her feet. Spinning around so that her back was to him, John could see that she was embarrassed to be caught in a state of such degrading sorrow, not that he considered it so. With her hands rising to her face to scrub at her cheeks, she sniffed, failing pitifully in a hurried attempt to regain her composure. At last, she whirled round again, and John nearly choked to see the torrent of tears which ran down her face, her beautiful features which were usually so rosy with fiery indignation, now as white as milk.

Allowing his tender gaze to rest upon her, he refused to look away, since John was determined to prove to Margaret that he was here for her, no matter what. Nevertheless, he was confused by the quivering changeability in her eyes, those opaque orbs of blue darting erratically between despondency and dander, her soul at war with itself over how to feel about this most unexpected disturbance. With her arms encircling her middle in a self-soothing embrace, Margaret's head shook vehemently from side-to-side in displeasure.

John felt himself stagger forwards with an instinctive need to comfort her, an impulsive desire to be near her, but he soon stopped when she stumbled backwards with violent movements, almost as if she had been burnt by his shadow, his very aura of adulation too much for her to bear.

Again, he attempted to try and talk to Margaret, to ask his darling dove what he could do to calm and console her, but before he had the chance to splutter even one remark, John felt a knife slice through his heart, and his ears bled as they heeded what sounded like a fresh rejection from the woman who would never be his own.

'No!' came a terse rejection.

John halted, the man absolutely horrified. He could hardly breathe. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Everything was silent while they both stood like a pair of motionless sculptures at either side of the study, simply staring at each other confrontationally, their chests heaving, their minds reeling, their hearts screaming out at the top of their lungs to just be allowed to be together.

In a state of stalemate, they each waited for the other to make the next move.

After a while, John finally found his voice, and with a rasping query, all he could manage was a pathetic: 'Excuse me?' his bewildered words echoing those he had uttered on that very day when he had been at a loss of how to react to her instantaneous spurn of his declarations of love everlasting.

Margaret let out a shrill gasp at the sound of his delicious voice, and as her eyes fluttered closed, her head fell back and her slender body shivered from tip to toe to find herself once again alone in this historic room with him.

Slanting her neck so that her head slowly came back up, and with her eyes falling upon him once more, John detected a flash of resentment flit across her face, and he was not afraid to admit that it unnerved him, leaving him feeling terribly small.

'I said no!' she reiterated, her hands slicing through the air as if to draw an imaginary boundary between them which he was not permitted to cross, not in word, not in deed.

Then all of a sudden, Margaret scoffed noisily, and throwing her hands up into the air, she shot John a look of such naked distress that it struck him like a punch to the gut, the man being left winded and appallingly worried. Unable to stand any of this a moment longer, he lurched forwards, the rumble of fresh words escaping his tongue, but they soon fizzled and faded into oblivion in response to the echo of the harsh retort which resounded from her floret lips, rebuttals which rang in the air like a clanging bell of doom.

'Don't you dare!' she challenged, the girl mustering every ounce of her strength to sound as brave as she could, but alas, valour deserted her, and her words trickled from her mouth as nothing more than a bleating entreaty, her eyes glassy with the dewdrops of water which dripped from the tap of human despair.

John swayed backwards in inebriated alarm. 'I don't under−'

But he was unable to finish.

'Whatever you have come to say to me, Mr Thornton,…I do not want to hear it!' she advised him irately.

Pulling herself to her full height, something which was ridiculous given their difference in stature, Margaret marched straight up to John. Only coming to a standstill mere inches away from him, his figure towering over hers as their bodies brushed against one another in stirring closeness, she stared up at the man who loved her more than life itself, and with her bottom lip wobbling in sorrow, the kind that only the most gentle hearted of women can suffer to know, an inconsolable Margaret whispered the seemingly fatal plea:

'Please…don't!'