In Consequence: A Retelling of North and South (13 page)

“Even Hamper would’ve waited! Thornton makes no pretense to yield a jot, but rushes out to replace us with his Irish. No, Thornton is the hardest of the lot. And now, just when we need him to be hard, to hunt down men like Boucher — men who betrayed us — what does he do? He says he’s the injured party — he won’t press charges!” Nicholas ranted in frustration.

“But surely, Mr. Thornton is right,” Mr. Hale offered.

“
Yes, anything further would look like revenge,” Margaret added, mollified a little to find something of praise concerning the man she was to marry. Still, Nicholas’ virulent response upon hearing Mr. Thornton’s name frightened her. Her body tightened in nervous apprehension.

“There, you see. I believe Mr. Thornton is a reasonable man,” Mr. Hale urged Higgins to consider. “Why ... don’t you think that with Margaret’s influence his hardened ways might be softened?” the older man put forth.

Nicholas’ brow creased in confusion as Margaret shot her father a desperate look of warning.

“What do
yo’ mean?” Higgins asked the former parson, his face darkening with growing suspicion.

Mr. Hale looked to his daughter with confounded agitation, realizing at once that she had not yet informed her friend of her engagement.

Margaret gathered her courage, swallowing hard before she could force the words from her lips. “Mr. Thornton has asked for my hand, Nicholas,” she said quietly, her eyes cast to the floor.

“And
yo’ve accepted him?” he finished sharply as he bounded from his seat. The scraping of wood on stone punctuated his wounded anger.

“Yes,” she answered meekly, her eyes bravely flashing to his to observe his reaction.

“How could yo’ betray us ... everything we’ve worked for?” he spat wildly. “Yo’ call yourself a friend to my Bessy when yo’ve bound yourself to them’s that ‘ave sent her to her grave?” he demanded in disgust, the pain in his expression searing Margaret to her core.

“It is not like that — you do not understand!” Margaret desperately attempted to explain.

Mr. Hale looked on, horrified by the working man’s explosion of bitter virulence. “Mr. Higgins!” he cried out as he found his voice at last. “You are much distraught in your grief, but I beg of you, we mustn’t let hatred rule us,” he pleaded, endeavoring to calm the atmosphere of antagonism that had suddenly arisen.

Nicholas glanced at the old parson with a glimmer of contrition before returning his attention to Margaret, who he now recognized was shaking with hurt
and grief.  “I’ll not forget your kindness to the dead,” he admitted more softly as he stood looking down at her, “but I doubt as we need keep company with yo’ now that yo’ve put in to be leagued with the privileged set,” he announced flatly before sweeping his cap on his head. “I thank yo’ for your time,” he said to Mr. Hale with a polite nod and turned to depart.

“Nicholas!” Margaret called out after him, but he paid no heed and continued determinedly up the stairs.

Mr. Hale looked on in shocked dismay as his daughter drew herself up from her seat and brought a handkerchief to her eyes.

“I am sorry, Father,” she whispered in distress as she hastily fled up the stairs to go to her bedchamber.

*****

Mr. Williams stepped through the open doorway of the Master’s office sometime in the mid-afternoon. “The messenger insisted this was urgent,” the stocky overseer explained as he held out a letter for his employer. “It’s from the Hales,” he added with curiosity, wondering why the gentleman’s family from the South would be bothering the Master.

At the mention of this, Mr. Thornton’s head snapped up. He took the message from his employee’s hands with a swift nod of dismissal. A feeling of uneasy foreboding crept through his veins as he tore open the letter.

He quickly scanned Mrs. Hale’s delicate script, which politely rescinded his invitation to dinner that evening due to the untimely demise of Margaret’s working friend, Bessy Higgins.

The expectant joy that had buoyed him all day suddenly drained away. He would not see her today. He let out his breath slowly in bitter disappointment as he thought of the ring in his pocket. He sat motionless at his desk, holding the letter loosely in his grasp.

At this moment, his mother walked through the doorway.

Mrs. Thornton was accustomed to making the rounds at the mill on occasion to ensure that all was in order. Her intimidating, hawk-like watch was well known to the mill hands. No one quibbled or snickered at the presence of the Master’s mother on the factory floor.

She had come to see for herself how the workers were faring now that production at the mill had resumed, but one glance at her son told her that all was not well.

“What is it, John?” she demanded in some alarm, noting the hollow look of despair on his face.

He glanced up at her, startled out of the descending trail of his thoughts. “My dinner engagement this evening has been called off. Margaret’s friend, Bessy Higgins, died today,” he explained in even tones, though his thoughts were still distant as he considered the implications of this occurrence.

“She was one of ours, Mother. She worked in the carding room,” he told her, feeling an uncommon twinge of guilt. He had not known the girl had been his employee, having looked up her name only recently.

“Was she unwell?” his mother asked, curious to know if the girl’s death was unexpected.

“I believe so. According to the books, she stopped working a few weeks before the strike. She had worked here but a year,” he told her, hoping that Margaret would not lay this death to his charge. If
Bessy had died of some illness instigated by the harsh conditions of factory work, it was likely she had been ill before she had even come to Marlborough Mills.

Mrs. Thornton discerned his concern. “There are many ills which plague the working class, John. You have done what is in your power to ensure the health and safety of your workers. Surely, you cannot be blamed for this girl’s death,” she assured him.

He nodded his head faintly in acknowledgment of the logic of her words, although they did not assuage the gnawing anxiety that this event would throw him in an unfavorable light.

“Do you dine with them later this week?” his mother quietly asked.

He inhaled deeply. “I don’t know. The letter did not specify a date. I suppose it is uncertain when Margaret will be ready to entertain,” he answered sorrowfully. This declaration, however, began to change the tide of his thoughts. Chastising himself inwardly for thinking of his own displeasure, he now considered with a sharp pang of helplessness the sorrow in which Margaret was plunged.

“She is bereaved and friendless, Mother. Shall I go to her?” he asked with a searching gaze as a powerful yearning to comfort the woman he loved overwhelmed him.

Mrs. Thornton flinched at his inquiry, but her mother’s heart reached out to him when she saw in his eyes the intensity of his desire to offer his love. “I think it would be best to give her time alone to grieve,” she answered gently.

Her son dropped his gaze and nodded in reluctant acquiescence. Although everything within him burned to go to her — to gather her in a tight embrace and tell her that he understood her sorrow, he knew that she was not yet ready to find comfort in his arms.

Mrs. Thornton’s compassionate gaze roved over the dejected figure of her son. “Perhaps you will be called to dine tomorrow evening or the next,” she endeavored to cheer him, but her words met no response other than a faint nod.

“I will tell cook that you are joining us tonight,” she announced softly as she quietly retreated from the room and closed the door behind her.

Alone now in his office, Mr. Thornton slumped further over his desk, holding his head in his hands.

*****

During the next few hours, the Master was seen in every part of the large mill barking out instructions, examining work in progress, and following deliveries as he threw himself into his work in an endeavor to ignore his anxiety. When the whistle blew and the iron machinery slowed to a stop, he returned to his office and pored over his ledgers.

Finally, amid the silence of the room, he dropped his quill with an exasperated sigh. It was no use. He could not stop thinking of her. The image of her form — bowed in grief with tear-stained cheek — continuously appeared to him. His heart ached to think of her in distress, and his pulse quickened in mounting fear at the possibility of her resurgent antipathy for the cotton mills.

He passed his hand over his face in tired frustration. If only he could speak to her!

He rose from his chair and paced to the window to look dazedly out over the landscape of his desultory empire. The gray buildings and dusty yard had begun to fade into colorless shadow in the waning daylight. The brilliance and energy of industry and progress now seemed devoid of its luster. Only one light sparkled with luminescent radiance on his horizon — Margaret Hale.

*****

Mr. Thornton endured the sympathetic and curious glances of his mother and Fanny at dinner, and excused himself shortly afterward to retreat to his study. Surrounded by the silent company of the books he had amassed in the oak-paneled room, his eyes fell to the copy of Plato’s works laying open on his desk.

An anguished sigh escaped his lips as he thought of the brief note he had written to Mr. Hale, graciously bowing out of
even taking his lesson this evening in light of the circumstances. He had been sorely tempted to go despite the turn of events, but knew that it would be presumptuous to impose himself upon them at this time.

He walked to the window and back again to his desk, endeavoring to master the swell of agitation he felt at his helplessness. Denied the opportunity to assure her of his compassion, he worried that the unguarded accumulation of judgments against him might break the tenuous bond that had been formed between them.

He swore bitterly at the capricious twists of fate which would at one moment place within his grasp all that he should ever want, only to wrest it from him with the strike of inopportune death.

He felt acutely the sorrow that Margaret must feel in losing a friend so newly gained. He knew it had been a great struggle for her to come to this city where everything must seem harsh in comparison to the pleasant
, easy life she had had in the South. He admired the strength and resolution she had demonstrated in befriending a girl whom others would barely deem to acknowledge. He was glad she had made this fond connection to Milton, and was pained to think that this small comfort had been taken from her.

A stab of regret smote him as he recalled the cold words he had spoken at the dinner party and considered how little she must think of his capacity for compassion. She would think him unmoved by the loss of a mere factory girl. She saw him as an oppressor, just like all the other men at the table.

His ire rose against his fellow masters who indeed seemed to treat their workers with little regard for their humanity — who even snickered and laughed at their ignorance and declined to implement measures that might improve their health.

He was not like them — or was he? Returning again to the window, he halted and looked out. Everything he had striven to build was now encased in darkness. He struggled to recall anything he had said or done in recent weeks that would redeem him in her eyes. Was he so very different from the others in his relentless pursuit of success? He was not greedy for profit, but only desirous that his efforts should prove that progress was born of determination, wisdom, and efficiency. This is what had borne him through the desolate years when he had worked to give his family a worthy home and name. But was it enough?

The remembrance of how her eyes kindled with righteous compassion for the rioters gave him pause. His brow furrowed in contemplation of her power to dissuade him of his convictions. What was it she expected of him? He could scarcely afford to abandon the principles upon which his business was constructed and throw his efforts to charitable ends without a view to profit, he thought defensively.

But in the next moment he felt the tug of her judgments moving him to reexamine his purpose. His only aim at present was to gain her love and respect. He felt the part of the heartsick fool to acknowledge it, but he could not dismiss it. He wished to become the man she wanted him to be. He wanted her to look at him with unrestrained adoration and willingly welcome him into her arms.

He closed his eyes, and his body shuddered at the sublime thought of it.

He clenched his fists and strode across the room, the panic rising once again at the notion of losing her. If only he could make her understand a portion of the burning emotions that coursed through his veins!

As his eyes roved the room, they were drawn to the light of the solitary lantern on his desk. He suddenly realized what he must do. Swiftly, he sat down in the polished leather chair and picked up his quill.

*****

At evening’s end, Margaret sat stoically on her bed. Dinner with her parents had been painfully silent; her father’s attempts at conversation had thinly veiled the disconsolate mood of those gathered.

Dixon, too, had tried to cheer her with a fond remembrance as she had helped her prepare for bed. A faint smile had come upon Margaret’s lips as the family servant recalled how faithfully Margaret had tended a robin’s grave as a young girl. “You’ve a tender heart for all the weak and poor creatures on this earth, Miss Margaret. God bless you for it,” she had told her gently.