In Consequence: A Retelling of North and South (59 page)

Margaret swallowed her sobs and took a long breath to make some reply. The sight of the neatly stacked gifts had reminded her of her mother’s smiling image outside the church only days ago. “She was so happy,” she endeavored to explain.

“At our wedding?” he guessed. She nodded.

“She was … was it not right that she should be?” he asked, softly imploring.

“Yes,” she answered.

“I am sorry. Can you ever think of it with some measure of content —knowing she was happy in those last days?”

“Yes, but it is so hard.…”

“I know, I know,” he soothed, caressing her back with his hands.

“And father…” she began.

“You a
re troubled to leave him alone,” he responded. “He must come live here … with us.”

She raised astonished eyes to his. “Are you in earnest?” she breathed, incredulous that he should propose a solution she had scarcely dared to divine herself. “Your mother….” She shook her head in doubt.

“My mother will accommodate my wishes. It is my …
our
house. We are free to choose the occupants. There are several empty rooms. He may have a study as well to keep his privacy and to meet with pupils.”

The oppressive weight of silent anxiety lifted at his words. He
was
in earnest, and had thought it all through! Fresh tears formed in her eyes as her heart swelled with love for the man she had married. She relaxed further in his hold even as doubts began to gather again in her mind. “He will not wish to be an inconvenience.…”

“Do you think I have befriended your father this long and do not yet know him?” he returned with a cajoling smile. “I will convince him that he does us a great kindness to come here. I shall enjoy taking up the classics with him — every night, if we so choose. And you shall not need to divide your time between your former home and Marlborough Mills. It will be a great comfort to have him near, will it not?”

“Yes … yes, of course,” she replied with brightening face.

“It is settled, then. Will you trust me to talk to him about it?” he asked, a wavering uncertainty remaining in his voice.

She nodded, assuring him with a smile, as she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck and rest her head against him in gratitude and relief. He clasped her close.

The brief moment of conjugal felicity, a ray of sunshine in the gloom, was interrupted by a steady voice.

“You must excuse my intrusion, but there is a police-inspector come to the house who asks for John,” Hannah Thornton announced summarily as she stood in the open doorway. Her eyes flickered with caution to her son.

John’s muscles froze as he recalled the night of Frederick’s harrowing escape.

He loosened his grasp around his wife’s waist. “I am called as magistrate. I will return as soon as I am able,” he explained to her with forced calm. He let his hand drop at her acquiescence and turned to go.

He moved swiftly through the house. His pulse beat a tempo of warning as a frantic chain of questions chased through his thoughts. Had
Leonards spoken the fugitive’s name? Had Frederick been somehow apprehended? Mr. Thornton struggled to conquer his rising panic and resolved to meet any circumstance with firm trust that the highest justice would prevail.

He stepped outside the main doors to find a small man in police uniform who had once been a packer in his warehouse.

“I’m sorry to bother you at such a time …” the waiting visitor began.

“Matson, isn’t it? How can I help you?” Mr. Thornton interrupted, taking command of the situation at once.

“I would have come another time, but I need a statement from you to close a case. You see, it involves the death of a man, and I must be careful to know all,” Matson confided to the Milton magistrate who had first commended him to police work.

An electric tingle of fear charged th
rough Mr. Thornton’s every nerve at the annunciation of death. Cold, stabbing terror demanded he know what had happened. “Who is dead?” he asked, his breath quickening in impatience.

“The railway porter that you reported to the station-master on the night of the fourth — the name is
Leonards,” Matson responded, consulting his notes.

Mr. Thornton let out a breath of relief that Frederick was unnamed, but felt prickles of remorse that he should have caused the death of any man. “I saw him move … I did not think him hurt so badly….”

“Indeed, the station-manager says he got up and clamored in some drunken rampage for money to catch another train. He was sent away by all, of course. He was found, badly ailing, along a footpath the next day and was carried to the infirmary where he died shortly thereafter,” the police-inspector explained.

“Did he say anything? I don’t understand…
.Was there an autopsy?” the Master questioned, straining to keep his voice from betraying the anxious confusion that roiled beneath his outward calm.

“He spoke incoherently of Navy ships and men from his past — the unintelligible mutterings of the dying, I suppose. The coroner found a liver ailment — in an advanced stage that would have taken him ere long. But the fall he took hastened his death. This is why, you understand, I had to come and get your account of the incident. You saw him take the fall?”

Mr. Thornton took a long breath and cast his gaze downward as he solemnly concentrated on the facts he should reveal. “I accompanied an associate, a stranger to Milton, to the station that night. I directed him to wait at the platform while I procured his ticket. When I had done so, I turned to see this Leonards assailing my friend. I was, naturally, very alarmed. I ran to stop this attack, pushing the porter away from my friend. I did so with some force. Leonards staggered back and lost his footing. He fell off the platform onto the cinder path below, opposite the arriving train. I hastened my friend to his train as it was the last of the evening, I believe. When he had safely gone, I looked to see if the porter was injured. He appeared to be recovering. I did not think him badly hurt, so I told the station-master of his errant employee and made my way home.”

“His fall was an accident, then, sustained from your attempt to ward him off as an attacker.”

“Yes,” the Master hasted to confirm, his nerves tensing as his eye caught the movement of a figure crossing the empty mill yard. His breath released at the recognition of one of his clerks. The mill owner nodded briefly at the passing employee.

“By all other accounts, he was drunk and looking for money. Was this your impression also?” Matson inquired.

“Yes. There is no doubt he had been drinking,” Mr. Thornton confirmed.

Matson looked up to the Milton magistrate. “Thank you for your time, Sir. I consider this case closed. It was an unfortunate incident for all concerned. I hope your friend was not troubled too greatly. Once again, I’m sorry to have interrupted you at such a time….”

“Not at all, it was your duty,” Mr. Thornton returned, feeling the tension relax in his shoulders.

The uniformed man’s mouth curved into an admiring smile. “May I wish you congratulations on your marriage, Sir? I wish you very happy … despite the lady’s recent sorrows,” Matson added with a measure of solemnity.

“Thank you,” the newly married man answered with a softening smile that swept away the crease on his brow.

Mr. Thornton had kept silent concerning Frederick’s narrow escape from the train station. Margaret carried enough burdens of sorrow and worry. He would not add to her store. She was told only that the police had come in connection with the death of Jane’s betrothed, which accounted for the servant’s pitiful wailing in the upper chambers.

Margaret brushed the waves of her long chestnut hair in the lamp-lit quiet of the great bedroom that evening as the Master prepared for bed. The weight of tension and grief lifted with the unfastening and removal of the binding clothes that defined him to the world beyond these walls. His heart beat strongly in anticipation of doffing all pretense of unyielding power and confidence to meet his wife under the bedcovers simply as a man in need of the love that seemed to pour forth from her gentle being.

Only a handful of nights, each one of them unspeakably precious, had passed wherein they had shared a bed as husband and wife.
Tonight, after such trying ordeals as this day had brought, he would find peaceful bliss merely to hold her body close to his.

She shed no tears this time as she nestled her head to his chest, finding her rightful resting place in the safety of his embrace. He stroked her hair and let his lips caress its silken softness. He did not know who derived the greater comfort from this loving contact: the mourner or the comforter. But he knew without a doubt that he would endure any hardship, suffer any agony of tribulation required to hold her in his arms at the close of every day.

*****

The first pink glow of the coming dawn began to lift the night shadows from the empty mill yard outside the Master’s bedchamber. The faint sound of clanking metal and hissing steam from the distant engine room penetrated the sleeping bride’s dreams as the solid form she was nestled against began to stir at the call of duty.

“Don’t,” Margaret called out in hazy desperation, clutching at her husband’s nightshirt to keep him close. “Stay with me a little longer,” she whispered softly into his chest, feeling a twinge of shame for her outburst. She could not bear his withdrawal yet from this perfect haven of peace. The wakening dread of another grieving day loomed ahead of her. The impending loneliness of the hours without him caused her to cling to him.

She was weary of the heaviness in her heart; she wished to stay in the safe comfort of his arms forever. Margaret traced her fingertips over the thin-clad chest in front of her, in fresh wonder of her privilege to touch him in such a way. The exuberance of their newly wedded bliss had been marred by tragedy, the natural joy of such an occasion cut short by affliction. He deserved so much more.

He had patiently borne the vicissitudes of this trial and had offered gentle comfort at every turn. A surge of profound love filled every fiber of her being and flowed out through her fingers as they continued their hesitant exploration of his strong form. She wished to give him all her tender affection.

His slowed breathing and perfect stillness gave her courage to touch the bare skin exposed below his neck. Then, with daring purpose, she stretched her neck to place two feather-light kisses along his throat.

The tightening grip at her back sent a sensual thrill coursing though every nerve. She ceased her gentle assault with pounding heart, the blush of sudden shame stilling her hands and keeping her eyes closed. 

Seconds passed until he moved to bring his face to hers. She felt the touch of his lips and moved her own in loving accord.

The gentle fervency of his hesitant kisses turned every tired fiber in her body to tingling energy. She slid her arm around his neck and kissed him with more abandon to let him know she was in no fragile, untenable state. She wished to lose herself in the exaltation of love, to cast aside the shroud of mourning to know and feel what it was to be alive.

He groaned at her inviting response and rolled to trap her beneath him, kissing her with matching ardor until he remembered that only yesterday her mother had been put to her final rest. He tore his mouth from hers. “Are you certain this is what you wish?” he rasped, hovering over her with trembling longing to love her as he had not done in days, starved for that intimate bond of affection only so recently gained.

The light of love in her eyes took his breath away as she reached up to smooth his roughened jaw and curl a small hand possessively about his neck. She nodded almost imperceptibly, her eyes locked with his.

He let out a ragged breath before swooping down to crush his mouth to hers.

*****

The Master of Marlborough Mills strode through his factory with bristling energy. The muscles of his long legs slackened to be released from hours of
desk-work. Now free from ledgers and accounts, his mind returned to those rapturous moments of fervent fusion in the day’s first light.

A pulsating thrill coursed through his veins as he remembered how she had clung to him, pulling him ever closer with
a desperation for his touch that had torn at his heartstrings and urged him on to a feverous pitch of tender passion. He had loved her without restraint, and she had wanted him —
needed
him — to take her to that place where only they two existed and the world was set right.

The knowledge that it was he, and he alone, that could give her such comfort gripped his heart with a fervor of wild emotion that blazed through every portion of his being, leaving him stunned at the notion that he should be what she was to him: the reason for everything he did. For now, every task he performed, every decision he made — small or great — and every endeavor for the future rebounded to her safekeeping and comfort. That he should be her happiness….

The image of her face, glowing with peaceful contentment in the aftermath of their ardent lovemaking, sent tremors of feeling to his very depths. In the midst of all her distress, he had been able to erase every trace of sorrow, if only for a moment. The way her eyes lit with tender adoration would be seared in his memory forever.