MASTERS, MAGISTRATES, MUTINEERS & MEN
Chapter 7: The Rose
Despite her many tears and best efforts to toss and turn, sleep evaded Margaret Hale. Her mind and heart were too full, clenched tight with fears and doubts, and she could find no rest no matter how she forced her eyes shut. It was only in the deep grey moments, just before dawn, that she finally drifted off to the blessed reprieve of sleep. Even then, her mind carried on without her permission. Her dreams were many and vibrant. They meandered the cluttered, fraught paths of her youth, as shaded and peregrine as the forest paths in Helstone. Some were conjured memories, other images woven out of the fantastic and whimsical.
It was there, in that hallowed space of the unconscious, that she saw her mother's face again. At first, it was the smiling face of the mother of her childhood, there taking tea in the garden and watching Margaret play in the grass. Margaret chased patches of sunlight dancing across the ground from the trees waving in the wind. She listened to her mother's laughter as she tumbled onto a crop of daisies. Slowly, the patches of sunlight faded into greater and greater expanses of shadow. The sun vanished away, leaving her in the grey twilight of Helstone than it was her mother's tears, rather than laughter, than rent the air and echoed through the forest. Her mother pleaded for Frederick, called for her son, cried for him to come to her. Margaret longed to comfort her mother, to bring reprieve to her sorrow, and to mend all that was broken.
Just when Margaret thought she could not bear it, that her heart would break, Frederick came. Dashing in his uniform, grinning broadly as he swept his mother up in his embrace. Her father was there, too, standing tall and straight and proud. There was a grace to his step and a confidence in his manner that Margaret had never seen before. He came to shake his son's hand and place his arm around his wife's shoulders. Then, all three turned to face Margaret, their arms outstretched, begging her to come home to them.
And there were roses. So many roses. Growing up the sides of the house, through the forest, over the sides of the garden table and even pouring over onto the road beyond, growing in places they ought not be. It was this which reminded her she was in a dream.
For a moment, the briefest of stolen glimpses, her family was whole and her heart overflowed.
When she woke, it was as if she had plunged headlong into the frozen Thames. This was not her beloved room in Helstone. There was no forest outside her window and the morning air did not waft with the fragrance of roses. She blinked into the grey, chalky expanse of Milton beyond her curtains, the walls of the Crampton house all around, as sturdy and unmovable as a prison cell, and the shock of it made her gasp for breath.
Her mother was not here. Neither was Frederick. It had been a dream. A terrible, wonderful dream. A fabrication of her own imaginings – all the more deceptive for its sense of realness. Yet, the Hales had never been in Helstone together. Not like that. Nor would they ever be. It was as much a lie as her belief in Fred's innocence or her reliance on her own judgement had been.
She struggled to calm the beating of her heart and regain a sense of her own feet beneath her, rooting her, on the wooden floorboards of the Crampton house. The chime of a clock told her she had slept far longer than was her wont. She needed to rise, to face the day, but she felt paralyzed. Every limb of her body was sapped of strength, as only a soul wearied with heavy grief can be. She needed exertion, more for the fortitude of her mind than strength of limb, but her feet refused her. With a great, determined gasp, she forced herself to stand.
There waited her black dress – as somber an stark as a churchyard- and she waited another moment before she forced herself to don the garment -as if her swollen eyes and languid movements were not enough of an expression of her grief- she must also wear her sadness in every fold and ruffle of her velvet dress.
It was a terrible thing- the waiting. She longed to do something, do anything. Yet what was there to be done? Any day could be the last for her brother, the final end to his life and Margaret would not know until it was over. What were his thoughts, his feelings on this dawn? What would they be on the morrow? Was he, at this moment, taking his last breath or did he have another day to wake?
Sometimes death is quick and violent- a sudden, jarring departure from the land of the living. Sometimes death is slow and laborious. Bits and pieces of a person's old life vanish, as slow as melting snow, until one cannot be sure when the end began or finished.
Her mother, and Bessy Higgins as well, had died slowly, piece by piece, already long diminished by the moment of their final breaths. By the time of their end, the final stroke of death was far nearer a mercy than a punishment and they had long since ceased to really live.
Similarly, Fred's death had been in pieces. His first death occurred when he went to sea and Helstone lost the presence, the laughter, of its son and brother. Distance and time could reap as much earthly separation as any illness. Yet, there was still the looming promise of reunion to bolster their hope and keep them buoyant. Then there was the mutiny and he was forever cut off, separated from their physical presence. The gentle tenterhooks of his letters were all they could hope for. Now, this. The last and final stroke.
Would she have preferred the quick and jarring? A shipwreck, a battle wound, a bout of typhoid? Then her brother could die in glory. She read of mutineers who, once captured, tied a noose around their own necks long before they faced the court martial. She could not say which manner of end, which opportunity for parting, which manifestation of death would be easier to bear.
It seemed wrong to mourn a man still living. As long as he woke another day, there must be hope, or so her deceptive heart cried. Yet, what a foolish hope! Bessy had reminded her again and again of the promise of future resurrection and reunion and that ought to give her hope, but in this moment, she struggled to feel it. It was too much loss, too quickly, and she was too overwhelmed with the weight of it to see the glimmer of silver of eternity through the oppressive grey clouds of mortality. She waited the end, the final stroke, and then she knew she would grieve his loss all over again.
Until then, she must wait. She despised waiting. These terrible hours perched delicately on the edge of a guillotine. She could see the sunrise glint off the sharpened edge, know well the blade would come for them, but she did not know when. How could she carry on, as if all was normal, as if all was commonplace, when she knew it was not. Yet, what other choice did she have? She could not remain in her bed from morning till night and abandon her father to carry his grief alone. Even Mr. Bell and Dixon needed her, in their own ways. She must force herself into a composure she did not feel and make herself available to those who needed her.
She forced herself to finish dressing and tentatively made her way downstairs.
Quiet voices met her in the drawing room. These halted as soon as she pushed the door open. Mr. Bell sat with Henry Lennox, though both rose when they saw her appear. With stilted, well-intentioned overtures, they both inquired after her, bade her to sit, and stumbled over each other to see food brought before her. By the redness of her eyes and the late hour of the morning, they must know how ill she spent her night. Rather than comment on her appearance, they showed their concern by insisting on meeting whatever momentary needs they could manage. Their previous conversation remained abandoned, interrupted by her presence, and neither gentleman felt compelled to notice the other man while Margaret remained in the room. She appreciated their attentiveness, their attempts at kindness, but she would have much rather been a third party to their company, not required to speak or direct or request, but only to listen from the quietude of her own silence. Their conversation would have proved more welcome than their attempts to draw her out, but they insisted on answering each of her weary, short replies with further attention.
"How is Papa?" She inquired, once she had finished her meal.
Mr. Bell sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "He slept well, but he has hardly left his room today. I sat with him a better part of the morning, but he did not speak more than three sentences together."
"I will go to him," she said, standing to her feet and casting each man an apologetic, grateful smile in farewell. She knew they would far prefer to dote upon her longer, make themselves of use to her, but she could not bear it. She would rather throw herself into the exertions of caring for another than endure any more sympathies cast upon her.
True to his word, Margaret found her father much as Mr. Bell described. While his eyes were open, he did not seem to notice much of what passed around him. For all the time she sat beside him, his hand in hers, reading aloud from the Psalms, Mr. Hale hardly spoke – other than to greet her and let her know he was glad for her presence. His words were few, but they were enough to warm Margaret's heart with a deep, stabbing affection.
It was all the more cruel- comparing this reticent, careworn man with the father in her dreams the night before. They could hardly be called the same man, yet which was the shade and which the incarnate man was a point she did not wish to dwell upon.
As she watched her father drift off to sleep late that afternoon, her own heart clenched with a new fear, a new dread. His face looked so wan, so pale. He had aged decades in a matter of weeks and she prayed with all her strength he would rally. What if this next blow proved too much? How could Margaret carry on without him? The very idea that her father would wish to join her mother and brother and leave her behind nearly stunned her with foreboding.
For a moment, the pain in her heart was more than she could bear and she lay her heavy head against her father's chest, listening to the rise and fall of his breath, the steady beating of his heart.
Thud, thump. Thud, thump.
It was a beautiful sound. Today, her father remained with her. They were together and that must be enough. She could do very little for the morrow.
How precious, how fragile each day had become! If she had known how few days were left… before… well, she thought of the Bard's words:
"For it falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours."
How true those words rang to her now! As far as she was from Helstone and those she held dear, she treasured them more now in their loss than she ever had in their possession. For today, she would cherish another precious moment by her father's side.
Margaret was roused from her place by a quiet knock on the door and Dixon's tear-stained face in the doorway.
"Miss, there's a visitor for you," she sniffed, as if it had been a great condescension to bring such a message to her mistress.
Curious, Margaret quietly released her sleeping father's hand and followed Dixon down the stairs. It could not be Mr. Bell nor Mr. Lennox, for they were guests of the house and would not require such ceremony. She thought it could be either of the Higginses and this gave her cheer. Then, she remembered it could just as easily be one of the Thorntons. This thought, too, gave her greater comfort than she would have imagined only a few days before. Mrs. Thornton, she found, had layers of down beneath her rigid exterior of steel and the matron had been an invaluable source of support and true comfort in the preceding days. Margaret found she far preferred Mrs. Thornton to offer a crutch than a rod of discipline, though she was equally adept wielding both. In her time of need, Margaret was grateful to count Mrs. Thornton as a friend.
But what if it was Mr. Thornton, come to call? Her rebellious heart whispered and then turned unladylike somersaults within her breast. The thought of his emotive, expressive eyes, the warmth of his voice, the grandeur of his presence in the armchair nearby her – even if all he spoke of was the weather or the colour of fruit- was enough to make her forget to breathe.
What was it of grief that made everything so much more acute? A single day might as well have been a year and each twist and turn of emotion she felt more keenly, as if the pencil sketch of her life had suddenly been splashed with vibrant oil paints, casting each expression in colour stronger than she had ever seen. In a single instant, she was moved from heart-rending sorrow to a sense of nearly overpowering… What? How could she characterize such an influx of emotion? Anticipation… hope… joy… delicious fear… terrible longing… all from merely the thought that Mr. Thornton might soon be in the same room as her, breathe the same air, choose to notice her existence. Was it not the height of impropriety to have such a response or permit such ill-timed hopes? No, it was not proper.
Yet, what acute delight she felt each time she felt his presence nearby, as if suddenly conscious of his every movement, every shift of shadow across his face… and had he always been so handsome? Or was her notice of his appearance, even now, heightened by the increase in perception such a week's events thrust upon her? In the same way she heard the chimes of a clock with heightened dread and listened to the song of a robin with an appreciation she had never quite taken before, so she noted the features of his face as if to imprint a mold in the plaster of her mind, to keep with her always in memory. As if, he, too, was temporary and would soon be gone. As if taking in the last of a pleasure that she could not keep as her own and would soon be denied.
Was it not only a few days ago that he had cast her off, informed her of his relinquishment of affection…and even friendship… for her. She had mourned him, then, feeling the value she had not fully placed on him before. Then, the news of Frederick had changed everything- as if turning back the hands of time, he had returned to her. No, not her, to her father, she tried to remind herself, tried to keep herself from further sorrow, further vain hopes.
Yet, the memories of his constant presence during this trying week kindled a flame of hope in her heart, as sore and tried as it was, that she was incapable of stifling. Surely, he was more than an indifferent acquaintance. Who that had ever seen the weight of his gaze fixed upon her could call him unfeeling? Had he not spent as much time at her side as her father's? Oh, she dared not bolster her fragile heart with such notions! But, she could not deny that only the thought of him coming to call made her fly down the stairs with a sudden spring in her step.
Only to face disappointment when it was not Mr. Thornton waiting her in the drawing room. Her guess was proved partially accurate for it was a member of the Thornton family waiting to call on her. However, it was the sole member of said family she least expected- or wished- to see.
Miss Thornton sat upright, delicately balanced against the oversized chair, her billowing folds of pink and yellow silk burying the chair like a froth of foam from an overfilled milk bucket. Next to her, Miss Thornton presided over two baskets: one filled with fruit, a side of ham, and bottles of wine, by the looks of it, and the second with piles of books and fashion plates. Miss Thornton was speaking in animated conversation with Mr. Bell and Mr. Lennox, her eyes bright as she inquired into the affairs in Oxford and London and whether they had seen any great theatrical productions or musical concerts lately. The men answered her in polite, nearly patronizing, tones and they eagerly welcomed Margaret's entrance into the room.
"Miss Hale!" Miss Thornton proclaimed, when she caught sight of Margaret. She rose to her feet in a noisy swish and slide of layers of skirts clambering against each other.
"Miss Thornton, so good of you to call," Margaret said, not quite sure whether she spoke truthfully or politely. Miss Thornton held out her hand and eagerly grasped Margaret's in her own before settling back into her chosen chair. Margaret sat beside her on the nearby settee and looked inquiringly at her guest.
"Mama sent me to sit with you this afternoon. She must tend to some affairs at the house and, besides, a companion your own age to converse with is far better, anyhow. Now, I have a basket of goods Mama sent for the benefit of your father, for she said he needs something to strengthen him. Then, I have stopped by the booksellers on my way," she said and she motioned to the baskets on the floors with all the beneficence as if they were full of the crown jewels rather than novels and grapes and sides of ham.
Margaret Hale bit back a smile and tried to thank her guest as genuinely as she could muster. She passed the basket of foodstuff to Dixon before inquiring into the affairs of Marlborough House and Miss Thornton's progress practicing her music. Miss Thornton chatted amiably, going so far as to discuss the possibility of rain that morning and a house party at the Watsons the night before.
After some time, Mr. Bell rose and gave the room-at-large an ostentatious bow. "I am afraid I must beg you both to excuse me. It will do no one any good to deprive Mr. Hale of a companion simply so I may indulge myself in the companionship of two such models of feminine charm," he said, his eyes twinkling with far too much mirth for him to be taken entirely seriously. Henry, too, bid the ladies a good afternoon and declared his intention to take care of some business affairs before returning that evening.
The sudden absence of the men made the drawing room feel empty, forcing an uncomfortable, novel intimacy between Margaret and her guest. Margaret had never spent so many minutes in conversation with Fanny Thornton and certainly not alone. She was unsure what to expect, how best to keep her guest entertained, or how long she planned to stay. She was about to open her mouth to inquire into some trifling bit of news or another when Miss Thornton leaned back in her chair in an easy, familiar way and cast a glance about the room.
"I told him these would suit better," she said, quite smugly, in a tone that assumed Margaret knew precisely what Miss Thornton was referring to.
"I beg your pardon?" Margaret asked, her eyes following Miss Thornton's sweep of the room.
"The papers on the wall. The previous ones were well enough for a stodgy old widow but I told John these would do far better."
"I do not understand."
"Oh, never you mind," Miss Thornton said, her hand flitting across her face as if to brush away her previous thought like cobwebs in a doorway. She reached forward into her remaining basket and pulled out a large stack of books. Then, she turned to Margaret with a wide grin. "I can never have enough of reading. Mama said I could buy whatever books I saw fit to bring you cheer. It is no small task, especially given the manner of books that are popular now, but I did my best. They were all stories on men chasing whales or slaves seeking freedom or unrequited lovers who make everyone around them as miserable as themselves. That would not do. I could not decide on one so I bought all the books I found of interest."
To bring you cheer.
It was the closest Miss Thornton had come to referring to the unfortunate circumstances the Hale family found themselves in… and Margaret was unsure whether she found the reprieve of mundane chatter a relief or a jarring omission. Every other visitor to the house entered with somber faces, dark brows, and a multitude of platitudes and grave condolences. There was question after question into her well-being and the affairs of her family. The tragedy of the moment cut through layers of social niceties and prompted an intimacy of speech and directness of familiarity which Margaret found refreshingly honest.
And yet… and yet… Miss Thornton was the first to approach Margaret as if simply on a social call and not as if she were a wounded animal in need of resuscitation. Perhaps, Margaret ought to feel offended that Miss Thornton did not inquire further into the true state-of-affairs or acknowledge her impending grief. Miss Thornton must know the particulars, as intimate as the other Thorntons were with the affairs of the last few days, and yet she acted as if all was well, other than the Hales requiring "cheer." It was such a flat, trite expression. As if "cheer" were a few handfuls of confectioner's sugar she could scatter about the house that could cure all.
And, perhaps it was so simple after all. Margaret couldn't help the relief she felt in simply discussing the weather and the probability of frost rather than dredging up all the misery she had stockpiled within her for another audience to see. News of social gatherings, of life continuing on in the outside world, untouched by mutinies and court martials, was a breath of fresh air. Thus, despite her initial misgivings, Margaret brought her workbox over and settled herself on her settee. Then, she nodded at Miss Thornton.
"You choose which book you wish to read," Margaret said.
It took far longer than Margaret anticipated. Miss Thornton carefully thumbed through book after book, her face shifting from various grimaces and grins as she did. Then, she settled on one and flipped through it once more. "This one is a tale of German stories for children. The bookseller assured me it ought to be fanciful and diverting," she said.
"Go ahead," Margaret said, beginning to thread her needle.
Miss Thornton cleared her throat and began, "In the old times, when it was still of some use to wish for the thing one wanted, there lived a King whose daughters were all handsome, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun himself, who has seen so much, wondered each time he shone over her because of her beauty…"
She read about the king disguised as a frog and the princess who broke the enchantment and went on to marry the king. On and on it continued, stories of happy lives intermixed with gruesome ends. She read about the cat who stole the pot of fat from his companion mouse, before eating the mouse and the king who cut off the heads of his own children and the woman with the long hair whose love was cast from the window of a tower to wander the earth blind. Finally, Miss Thornton came to a story about a rose and Margaret tried her hardest to attend. However, the more she read, the more Margaret frowned.
"There was once a poor woman who had two children. The youngest had to go every day into the forest to fetch wood. Once when she had gone a long way to seek it, a little child, who was quite strong, came and helped her industriously to pick up the wood and carry it home, and then before a moment had passed the strange child disappeared. The child told her mother this, but at first she would not believe it. At length she brought a rose home, and told her mother that the beautiful child had given her this rose, and had told her that when it was in full bloom, he would return. The mother put the rose in water. One morning her child could not get out of bed, the mother went to the bed and found her dead, but she lay looking very happy. On the same morning, the rose was in full bloom."
"Merciful heavens, Miss Thornton! Please, no more!" Margaret cried, her eyes bright with her pleading and her hand across her mouth. "Why is it that in these stories everyone must die and in such gruesome, terrible ways! No more books, I beg you!"
Fanny cast the book away from her as if it was made of coals rather than paper and she grimaced. "The bookseller assured me this was a book appropriate for children, meant to cheer and guide and instruct. I do not agree. I beg your pardon, Miss Hale, I did not mean to upset you!"
"I do not think I will ever get the image of the poor scalding mouse or the walking sausage out of my head," Margaret said, her tone stretched between humor and disgust.
Fanny made a face. "What of the stepsisters cutting off their own feet to fit into a shoe and the birds pecking out their eyes?"
At this, both women looked at each other for a solemn moment. Then they burst into giggles- hesitant at first and then growing with momentum until tears rolled down Margaret's cheeks. It was strange to feel tears of mirth rather than grief... and she wondered how long it had been since she last laughed.
Not since Frederick's visit, at least. She mused.
"Let us write our own endings, then," Miss Thornton suggested. "I will give you the first paragraph or two and you give and ending you find fitting."
"A worthy exercise- but for another day," Margaret said. "I do not think I could bear thinking on Hansel and Gretel further. What of your fashion plates?" While discussing fashion with a woman in mourning was a strange notion to Margaret it was far preferable to listening to any more tales of wolves devouring children.
Miss Thornton's smile grew, and she eagerly moved to sit alongside Margaret on the settee. "An excellent suggestion!" She said, withdrawing her collection from her basket. "What think you of this one?"
For some time, the women glanced over colored dresses of elegant women, commenting on the combination of colors, the manner of bonnet, or the type of lace employed. After a time, there was a subtle shift, and the fashion plates were no longer as attractive but became so elaborate that they bordered on obscene. The colors were brash, the patterns unwieldy. Still, Miss Thornton eagerly asked her opinion, watching her intently for her response. For a time, Margaret attempted to answer politely, not wishing to offend her visitor. However, when Miss Thornton pointed to a particularly ostentatious gown and suggested it would suit Margaret best if it were made in orange, Margaret could hardly hold her composure.
The gaudy piece of flounced lace and bustles would have been unsuitable on Margaret's frame even in a suitable colour, but there was no gown in orange which would suit Margaret's fair complexion. She was musing over how to appropriately respond to Miss Thornton when she caught the subtle twinkle in Fanny's eye and her attempts to hide her smile - as if she were telling a joke and only waiting Margaret to catch on. It made her pause.
Was this a game? Was Miss Thornton serious at all?
"Perhaps with larger sleeves, and more lace," Margaret added tentatively, testing her companion's reaction with the suggestion. "Orange always suits me so well."
Miss Thornton positively beamed. "Excellent! Perhaps in plaid, then! With green trim!"
It was such an absurd image that Margaret could not suppress the chuckle that burst forth. "Lots of green trim," she agreed. Miss Thornton looked well-pleased with herself and brought out the next plate.
So that was it, then. To take an already gaudy garment and come up with all the ways to make in unbearably worse. This was a game even Margaret could enjoy - made all the better when Margaret brought out her pencils and attempted to sketch their "improvements." Soon the tables and chairs in the room were scattered with sketches. Both women were flushed with their mirth and sat next to each other in easy familiarity, Fanny watching as Margaret sketched their next creation, adding in her own suggestions to Margaret's strokes.
"There. It is bright enough to be noticed," Fanny mused, when Margaret had done.
"Do you choose your books with the same taste as your fashion plates?" Margaret asked, casting a wry glance at her companion.
Fanny grinned and held up the book she had read earlier. "Even worse, apparently. You shall never trust my taste in books again, I fear."
Both women burst into laughter again. "I love books which take me to other places," Fanny confessed, as if a great secret. "I've always wished to see the world… but, well, this is Milton. Through the pages of books, I can explore all of the Alhambra and the French country sides and colonies in the Americas. It is as if I have been there and I am no longer bound to the smoky, dirty streets of Milton. I can live the lives of so many other people – men and women, old and young, wealthy and poor. I can pretend, for a while, that I have been where they have been and seen what they have seen."
Margaret nodded, considering. "Your mother has never wished to leave Milton?"
Fanny shrugged. "Has not wished to leave or had no capacity to leave? I daresay, she's never even considered traveling anymore than she has wearing a color other than black.
"I have never liked black. There is too much in my house. Mama, John, the servants- everyone is always wearing black. It is too somber, too grave. I wish to add a bit of color, where I may." Fanny's blue eyes sparkled with a vibrancy, a deep well of mischief so absent from the rest of her family. "I wish to live!" She declared firmly. "All John and Mama can see is work and the mill and Milton. Day and night, night and day. I daresay the only thing John's ever done apart from work is his lessons with your father. Yet, even then he spent all his time reading the words of dead men from years long past. That's all good and well, but what of life here and now and beyond us?"
Margaret gave a fond, slightly saddened smile. "You sound like Frederick now- my brother, that is. He always wished to see the world… that is why he ran off to sea to be a sailor. He always writes the most interesting letters – of the places he's gone and all he's seen. It was as if I could see a bit of the world through his eyes."
"If I were a man, I would have gone to sea," Fanny said, quite in earnest. "Imagine, sailing the world! I keep begging John to bring me with him when he travels to London or Le Havre or even Liverpool."
"Yet, it has not ended well for Fred," Margaret whispered, finally approaching the subject heretofore unspoken between them.
"No, I suppose not... but there were years before, were there not? One's full of life and adventure?" At Margaret's nod, Fanny grew pensive. "I wonder- is it better to live a very long dull life or a very full short one? I cannot say, but then I am not so very brave and I find my adventures in a book- before going for tea in the dining room."
Margaret did not know how to answer. Of course, she wished her brother to live a long life - but enough to have kept him from going to sea? He dearly loved his life as a sailor. She did not know.
Margaret's eyes returned to the stack of books on the table and she thought over stories she had read, the lives of characters she would never meet. "Is it very faint-hearted- to wish to read only the stories which end well? Which are not so full of death and evil?" She asked.
Fanny shrugged. She did not offer any further explanation or answer. She simply sat, her layers of silk crushed against the side of the settee, and her face pursed into as serious an expression as she could muster.
"Let us read that other book," Margaret said, as if steeling herself. "The one about the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts."
Fanny gave her a dubious arch of her eyebrow and reached for the book. "Are you certain? I hear it is quite the scandalous story of a fallen woman who does not show nearly enough shame."
"All the better," Margaret answered, reaching out to take up her sewing again. "It cannot be any worse than those children's tales."
Thus, Fanny Thornton began to read aloud again about the discovery of the embroidered letter in the Salem attic and the story of Hester Prynne.
"The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison...
"But on one side of the [prison door, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.
"This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history... Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.…."
Author's Notes:
Shakespeare quote from Much Ado About Nothing.
Grimm's Fairy Tales (originally called "Children and Household Tales") was a collection of German folk tales, published in 1812 to preserve them for future generations of scholarship. I cite "The Frog King or Iron Henry," "The Rose," and make allusions to many others.
The Scarlett Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was first published in 1850.
Many thanks to DarkshireLass (Ao3) for the very helpful discussions on Victorian novels and burial traditions and cemeteries in Manchester! You are invaluable! :)