THE RIGHT PLACE

Parodies and Other Such Poppycock

'So, you are to be married soon.'

This was how it all started. Seven seemingly harmless words that very nearly saw to it that John Thornton and Margaret Hale were never married.

It was an odd line for her father to have delivered, for it was neither a question nor a statement, but a tentative irresolution that lingered hesitantly on the threshold between both camps, a dithering foot in each, its tottering bottom potted on the fence in the middle. However, when it came to his daughter, she did not notice the minor chords that menaced his tune, for the one she hummed in her heart was abidingly melodious.

'Yes,' Margaret confirmed wistfully, the short response drawing her lips back as that word is known to do and affecting her to show a row of brilliant teeth that greeted the subject with a warm smile.

She never tired of talking of it, you see.

That would explain why a merry blush was once again flushing her cheeks as she thought on how happy she was, for it was an hourly, minutely, secondly (not a word, but you understand the sentiments), delight of hers these days, a pleasant pastime, to bask in the blissful joy that she held dear. The past two years had been marred by misfortune, so as far as Margaret was concerned, she was well and truly ready for her happy ending. Only, it was not an ending at all, but a beginning, a bright, beautiful beginning for a bride and her groom.

Immersed in the safe knowledge of this blessedness that was almost too perfect to contemplate, Margaret lifted a rose to her nose and inhaled its scent, the aroma of its sweet perfume leaving her quite giddy. Placing it with the others, she continued to assemble a posy to take to her fiancé to cheer up his mill office. It made her smirk to predict how he would regard them at first with sharp eyes and a terse mouth that mutely revealed his annoyance at such an intrusion upon his tidy and practical workplace. Nevertheless, when he saw the look of enchantment on hers, he would soon give way, and before he knew it, he would be turning to glance at them often with a satisfied grin, privately thinking on how they reminded him of her. He had promised her that their home would always play host to flowers and she knew he would be faithful to his word. Milton as a manufacturing city was not remotely green, and so, given that he still stubbornly believed that she had in reality been destined to marry a true country gamelan, but then fate had seen fit to bring her to him, he would do his darndest to ensure that she never had cause to miss her friend Flora because she had chosen instead to marry him.

After she had spoken, there was an expectant pause, during which her father thought, his eyebrows, which were flecked with thin white and blonde hairs, the latter now sparse in their numbers, were knitted together as he deliberated in a state of unease, the severity of their rumple a sign of the gloomy thoughts that agitated the mind contained within those fraying layers of skin and cogs.

'And you shall go and live with him? With Mr Thornton?' he asked after this period of private reflection, a cautious edge to his inquiry, and if Margaret listened intently, which she was always conscious to do, she could detect an ineffectually concealed layer of apprehension, perhaps even reluctance, lurking beneath the surface of what had, with great effort, she thought, been presented as a seemingly off-the-cuff tête-à-tête.

'Why, yes, Papa, of course,' she re-joined with a curious laugh, which was in itself mingled with a niggling disquiet as she took in his troubled demeanour, the girl pondering the strangeness of his reservation on this point, this quibble that ought not to be a qualm at all.

'John is to be my husband, my place will be with him,' she reminded her father simply, at a wonder as to why this fact should ever have been brought into question.

On hearing this, Mr Hale sniffed with an air of finality, and as if her words has ended a chapter as much as a conversation, he bowed his head and resumed reading his book, a look of entrenched despondency settling into the lines of his face.

'As you say, my dear…of course.'

John Thornton was hard at work in his mill office cataloguing his various mounds, or more like mountains, of paperwork. He had decided to dedicate this afternoon to getting his affairs in order, although that did sound like a rather solemn task with a sombre implication, when in fact, it was mercifully, quite the reverse. John was known to be a well-ordered sort of man, the kind that is always certain to warrant that every area of their life is structured and orderly to the point of painstaking precision. As reliable as a Swiss clock, one might say. Right down to the last, meticulous detail.

Nonetheless, today he was more conscious than ever that there should be a proper place for everything, and that everything should be in its proper place. For you see, he and Margaret were to marry in just under two weeks, and –

Forgive me, here he must pause to lean on the table to steady himself, for the exultation of such an event, one which he would never have expected to transpire just a few short months ago, was known to leave him feeling, despite his unrivalled strength, utterly weak at the knees.

At any rate, he and Margaret were to wed wonderfully soon, and she had agreed to allow him to arrange a clandestine honeymoon. John wished that he could take his bride on a grand tour, but alas, he was needed at the mill, and with the business still getting back on its feet, he could scarcely afford a wedding as well as an extravagant travel bill. Therefore, after thinking it over, it has occurred to him that he had heard Margaret talking of her happy memories of visiting the seaside with her cousin as a child, and as for himself, John had not seen the sea since…well, he could hardly remember. He was not even sure if he could recall whether it was blue or green, hot or cold, wet or…well, he knew it was wet. So, that was that. Once the idea had entered his head, the excited husband-to-be now planned to take her to the coast for a week, and he knew that he would be much better prepared to devote his every precious minute to enjoying the company of his new wife (at this he blushed beneath his bristles), if everything was as organised as possible before their departure. However, it was just as John had stood on a chair and was reaching for a box that sat high on a top shelf that his door flung open with a crash, almost causing him to topple down at the fright of it. Whirling around, John half expected to find a ruffian come to cause trouble. One of his dissipated past workers perhaps, disgruntled for being let go for smoking on the factory floor, or possibly one of the men he had put away for drunk and disorderly conduct had just been released and now had a bone to pick with the magistrate who sent him to goal. But much to John's surprise, before him stood not a man, but a woman, and far from being angry, she was aggrieved, her trembling countenance one of considerable anguish.

In the doorway, was none other than Margaret.

She simply stood there, rooted to the spot, her petite form shaking like a leaf with one hand on the door, the other clasped to her heart as if she were in pain. It would appear that she had come here in some haste, because her brown hat sat loosely on her head, insecurely attached by a few stray pins, and so it was not long before it fell limply to the floor without her knowing nor caring. John was understandably thrown by the irregularity of this startling scene, but before he had a chance to both welcome her and theorise as to the cause for this bizarre disturbance, Margaret announced through a series of blubs the reason for her impromptu visit.

'We cannot marry!' she cried, both in terms of the pitch of her voice and the fast-flowing river of tears which now blotted her cheeks. Margaret then faltered briefly while she considered whether she should add something further to her extraordinary proclamation. An explanation, perhaps, or more likely a refutation. However, with a sobbing choke, she called out, 'That is all I have to say,' before she turned and left her (former?) fiancé behind to soak up the news, and soak it up, he would, for the spot on which she had stood was now blemished by droplets of water from the tears she had shed in giving her speech.

Stilled like a pillar of Biblical salt, John was abandoned in the wake of her declaration, paralysed by the sheer alarm and astonishment of it all. He could hardly believe his own ears. Had she just ended their relationship? It was not until several seconds later that his usually quick mind, which was currently delayed by shock, informed him that his legs were not moving, and so, with great speed, he sprang off the chair with a clatter and chased after his (he refused to believe former) fiancée.

Running down the steps that led from his mill office, he tripped as he went, his long, heavy limbs proving to be a disadvantage. He could hardly command his faculties, his coordination non-existent as his thoughts sprinted and blundered in the darkness of his bewilderment. It was fortunate that it was a Sunday afternoon, and so the confined world that was the mill grounds was deserted. There were no workers about, and as for the house, his mother was at his sister's, and it had been decided that the servants should have the afternoon off in recognition of their sterling work in preparing for the master's forthcoming wedding.

A wedding that John prayed was still going to take place.

Once he reached the bottom step, John dashed after Margaret across the vast length of the factory floor, reminding him with a stab of remorse of the first time he had seen Margaret and she had witnessed him hurtling after Stephens, much like a hunter hounding its prey. John growled. He was not that man now. He was a better man, all thanks to her, and he would be damned if he would lose her.

It was not long before John stumbled into the blinding lustre of daylight, and shielding his eyes from the glare of the midday sun, his feet found a sense of permanency in the familiar footing of the flat plane that was the cobbled yard. After his sight had returned to its full clarity, he spotted Margaret again, hurrying towards the mill gate, and observing the swift rustling of her skirts that dragged behind her like tail, he could see that she was scurrying away like a little mouse being pursued by a beast of a cat. John wished she would slow down, and while the few seconds head start she had been afforded would usually be of no matter, he was reluctantly impressed by the speed at which she fled the scene. But at last, he caught up with her, and running around her so that he cut off her escape, he breathlessly wheezed her name.

'Marg ─'

Nevertheless, he was unable to finish, for she lifted up a palm and held it before him in a commanding hush, and blast it! ─ John had not yet mastered how to counter her superior ways, despite being a man with an innate sense of authority that came part and parcel with his impressive character.

'No, Mr Thornton!' she asserted, shaking her head vigorously, and while she tried her best to muster a strict tone, he could sense the despair quivering her chords. This was worrying enough, but it troubled him even more acutely to hear her address him so ceremoniously. His Miss Hale was known to call him Mr Thornton from time to time, usually by way of a playful coyness, but there was something less flirtatious and much more formal about the way she referred to him now.

'What the hell is going on?!' he demanded to know, not giving a damn (at least this one was just in his head), that he had cursed. John was already well aware that he was an uncouth fiend compared to Margaret, this unearthly creature who was too pure for this wretched world.

'Have I done something? Am I the cause of this unhappiness?' John asked with a breath baited with fear as he edged nearer with tremulous caution. It would not surprise him in the least to discover that he had offended her with his artless ways, his internal status as a gentleman precarious at the best of times. However, Margaret once again shook her head and bit her wobbling lip as she fixed her eyes on his cravat, negating to look him in the eye, lest her courage give way and collapse before him in a crumpled heap. John blustered in frustration.

'I will not discuss it,' Margaret went on, refusing to concede and jutting out her chin regally, as if that would deter him for a moment, not now that John knew the sweet, sensitive woman behind that stately veneer.

John's anxiety was now growing increasingly agitated, turning it into a dander fuelled by the accelerant of dread. 'Well, what if I insist?' he challenged, his eyes flashing with a passion that made her pulse race. 'You can hardly finish with a man without citing just cause! Am I to be given no reason at all?'

'I am sorry!' Margaret apologised, wavering as she swayed with the exhaustion of her emotions. 'I cannot debate it with you for fear that I shall injure us both more than I already have,' she explained with a whimper that she tried and failed pitifully to repress.

'We are not to marry and that is the end of it. So please do not make this any harder than it already is, for my heart is already breaking into a thousand pieces and I cannot bear it!' she declared, the weight of her sorrow causing her to double forward and lean against him for support, her port in a storm, and on seeing the way she trembled like a child, John did not waste a second in wrapping his arms around her and pulling his beloved close into the refuge of his embrace. Her resolve had encountered a knock that had left her shaking, he thought, but he would show her that he was unshakable in his devotion.

However, for all his noble feelings, John hardly knew what to say. How could he, when he did not even know what the matter was? All he could do was speak the truth.

'And so will mine, if you do not stop this nonsense at once and tell me what is the matter,' he told her, his voice devoid of sternness, but merely a softness that made her want to weep all the more.

'My heart will be cut up into a million pieces by the shards of misery if you walk away now and tell me we are not to be together after all we have been through. I will be left mutilated, mourning for my Margaret and the love we have declared, the life we almost shared.'

He could feel tears pricking behind his eyes and they stung him bitterly. But as they washed their watery film over his gaze, the mill and everything around became a haze, leaving Margaret his clear focal point, reminding John once again that nothing else mattered now, for she was his world entire. He could not help but unconsciously raise a hand to caress the nape of her neck with his fingers in soothing comfort, and it inspired his spirit to hear her quietly purr against him, her shoulders shuddering at the tenderness of his touch. It was then that John realised that Margaret had not changed her mind about marrying him, and whatever the impediment was, it was not for a lack of love on either side, because here he felt sure that there had never been two people in the history of the humanity who had cared for each other more than they did.

'Margaret,' he urged, cupping her face with his hands and gently urging her head back so that he could see her properly. At first, it seemed as if Margaret would not yield, her eyes remaining tightly closed for fear that looking into those hypotonic pools would melt her resolve, and so, with a fond smile, he gently kissed each of her eyes to stir them to open. When, after a moment, they did with a blink, John was sure to hold her gaze firm as he confided to her the sentiments of her heart. He was a private man, he always had been, but he would never keep anything from her.

'I love you,' he confessed, and that alone caused the breath to catch in her throat, but he was far from done. 'I need you, I need you badly, madly. I care about nothing in this life other than for us to belong to one another. Now, we have set a date, we are to be wed, and so I will do whatever it takes to ensure that you meet me at the altar. So, my darling girl, tell me, what has happened to distress you so?' John continued to hold her close, their eyes locked on one another, a current of intimacy flowing between them and tingling the hairs on their arms.

After a period of silence that was interspersed by panting from them both, during which she considered her answer and how honest she should be, Margaret agreed with herself that she could not, would not, lie to him, not again, not ever. She had to tell him the truth. She owed him that much.

'My father,' she bleated, a heavy burden falling away as she set the truth free.

John's focus flickered. This was not what he had been expecting. 'Your father?'

She nodded lamely. 'I cannot abandon him.'

John then let out a long breath of understanding. At last, it all made sense.

Leaning in closer, as if to tell a secret she had guarded for years, Margaret sniffed. 'My father has never been the strongest of men. I think you know that. My mother, she used to take care of him, she was his everything for all the years that they were married. Her company was his pleasure, her peace his solace, her reassurance his assurance, her very being his reason for being. But now she has left us, and with the tormenting fear that he will never see my brother again, I am all he has left.'

'I know,' John consoled, his thumbs rubbing her cheeks to wipe away the dew of distress which had thankfully ceased its needless spilling. It occurred to him then that he had never seen Margaret cry before. Not when her mother died. Not when Higgins had left for the south to start a new life and took the Boucher children with him. Not when her brother had almost been arrested on his return to Spain and she had come, once before, bursting into his office, fallen to her knees, and begged John for his help, allowing him to finally learn the truth about the man he had seen her with that night at the station. And, finally, not when Fanny had partaken of one too many glasses of champagne at her wedding, and on seeing the way her brother and the southern beauty had been stealing longing glances at each other from across the room, she had proclaimed to her hundred and more guests that they were in love. John's ire burnt fiercely at the recollection of it. All of Milton had stared at them agog with a mixture of shock, envy, disbelief and amusement, waiting for one or both of them to deny it, which, of course, they could not. Poor Margaret had paled to the colour of milk and fled the room, and so John had naturally sprinted after her, leading to a profession of love by moonlight, followed by a spontaneous proposal and her instant acceptance. So that is why John knew that Margaret must be in a very great deal of pain to cry now. He was about to respond, to calm her in whatever small way he could, but then she continued, determined that he should understand why she must call off their wedding and, in turn, destroy their combined hopes of happiness, hopes that were tied up, so securely, in one another.

'He is not himself. I have never seen him like this. He was happy for us, I know he was, and his consent and blessing were sincerely bestowed, but he cannot endure without me near. I have suggested he come and live with us since you so generously recommended that arrangement before, but he is too anxious to consider it. The upheaval would be too much in his present state, and he does not wish to leave the house where my mother last drew breath. He says that he took her away from her home before and he will not disturb her now she is at rest. I know that Marlborough House is not far away, and I know I can go every day to see him, but I fear that it is not enough. And it would not be fair to you. A husband deserves a commitment from his wife. He has the right to expect her nearness, that she should be with him, by his side, not just in his heart, but in his home.'

What came next was entirely unexpected.

'I agree,' John admitted openly.

'You…you do?'

'Yes, because, you see, I have given this some thought too.'

Margaret was not sure what to make of this, but her initial gladness in believing that the man she loved was attuned to her hopes and fears soon gave way to desolation as she realised that, for a man of such acute intellect, it could not have eluded him that there was no solution to be had.

'Then you will know there is nothing to be done. I cannot forsake him, John, not for my own selfish wants,' she rallied, but not in rebellion against him, but in revolt against the injustice of it all, her fists lightly thumping his shoulders, the highest point she could reach without standing on her toes. Margaret wanted desperately to cling to him and never let go, so instead she rested upon the sleeve of his shirt and inhaled, very possibly for the last time, the essence of him, that peculiar hint of ink, textile dye and cotton fluff that was particular to him. Something she would always remember him by.

However, it was John's turn to talk, and he was far from finished.

'Hush, my darling!' he allayed, his forehead bumping against her own as he tugged her nearer still, his hands mellifluously covering her ears so that he might drown out the noises around them, each clambering din fighting for their attention and distracting them from what really mattered, and that was what, or rather who, stood right before them. John yearned to dip his head to kiss her as he had grown used to over these past months, and while he knew that she would not resist, and while he trusted that he would again soon, John would not take such a liberty with Margaret. He would never presume to know her, he would never possess any portion of her, so he held back.

'Now, firstly, Margaret Hale, soon to be Thornton, there is not a selfish bone in your body, do you hear?' he avowed with a mock tone of exacting authority, and it would have been convincing too if it were not for the impish twinkle in his eyes.

'You have spent your life looking after others, always putting them first and never thinking of yourself. Well, no more. Now I will think of you, always, and my every endeavour will be dedicated solely to your happiness. So, you see, that is why I shall live with you,' he clarified, 'in Crampton,' his head nodding towards the other side of town.

Margaret wrinkled her nose. 'In Crampton?'' she repeated, dumbfounded. 'I do not understand.'

'You speak of uprooting your father, but why can I not be the one to make a move?' John tested, curling a graceful strand of chestnut hair around his finger and looping it behind her ear before gently stroking her lobe.

'I suppose that is true,' Margaret deliberated, still not quite sure. It was just that she had never heard of such an arrangement. Not in the north or in the south. But then again, she and John were hardly the most conventional pair.

'And you forget that Mr Hale is not only to be my father-in-law, but he is first and foremost my friend. I have never cared so much for a man as I have him, so why would I take away the one thing that brings him comfort and cheer and thoughtlessly take it for my own?' John snuffled, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers.

'Besides, if I come and live with you, it is not as if I will be relocating to another planet,' he laughed, privately thinking about how cosy he found the Hale's modest little haven in comparison to his own large yet rather impersonal residence.

'The mill is only a half-hour away. I can walk there in the morning and back to you in the evening. And there is no reason why you cannot sometimes come to me during the day as you do now. Moreover, it will not be forever. Your father will come round, I am sure of it. Once he sees us happily settled, and perhaps with a family of our own, new lives who will never replace those he has lost but will give him the chance to love anew, then I trust all will be well. We will be in our own home before we know it, but until then, dear heart, we can still make a life together, because all that matters is that we are together.'

As John spoke, he watched Margaret carefully, trying to assess what she thought of this plan, and it filled him with hope to see a slight smile crease her eyes and dimple her cheeks, until, at length, she nodded in agreement.

'There, then,' he pronounced, breathing a shuddering sigh of relief. 'So let us hear no more talk of cancelling our wedding, please,' he implored, 'I cannot bear it.'

Margaret let out a puff of disbelief. 'But would you really do this, John?' she entreated. 'For me?' It was true that Margaret had spent the majority of her life attending to the wants and whims of others, so it was incredible to her that anyone should wish to go to such lengths to secure her contentment.

'For us,' he refined, thinking how it was no longer he and her, two divided singulars, but we and us, two united plurals.

Taking her hand in his, John gently steered Margaret to walk with him. The sooner they went and spoke with her father and put this whole sorry misunderstanding behind them the better. But then he stopped, and peering ahead to ensure that nobody was watching from the street, he turned his back to the road. Concealed as they were, he tugged open the top of his shirt, and keeping Margaret's hand encased in his, John slipped it beneath the cotton fabric and laid it on the left side of his chest, before whispering:

'And besides, where does it matter where I live, my love, so long as my heart is in the right place?'

Author notes:

This story is a parody of Jane Austen's Emma, with particular reference to the 2009 adaptation
As some of you may have seen, I've taken most of my stories down from online, but they will be going back up later this year after I've done some planning/rearranging. I'm also not posting online generally at the moment, with most of my stories being emailed out to readers. If you'd like to join the email list, please let me know.