Look Back At Me
Chapter XXXI
"Miss Hale is about to leave to go back to her rooms in town, you should see her off." Mrs Thornton had directed her gaze back to the floor. John bent down to kiss his mother on the cheek and walked away quickly.
Margaret was putting on her bonnet, when John entered the hall of the house, his coat and hat in hand ready for use. "I will walk with you. It is getting late." The final statement was more of an excuse than a reason, but Margaret did not mind. She nodded and together they walked out.
"Did everything go well today?" John asked politely and while speaking he realised he had no idea what Margaret had actually been doing all day. He felt rather stupid and he had trouble hiding his guilt when he looked at her several times in a nervous manner.
"I think so," Margaret answered politely, "I will come back tomorrow, but first your mother and I must go to the dressmakers. I am sure she will take you too before the week is out." She laughed softly.
"The dressmakers? To get a wedding dress, I imagine. Do you know what you want?" Now here was a subject John knew nothing about, but on which he could be enlightened easily.
"Something simple, I suppose.." Margaret involuntarily began to walk a little slower while her eyes were roaming the horizon in a thoughtful manner. "I remember my cousin's wedding dress and it was beautiful on her, but I do not think such a style would suit me," she mused. John made a noise of inquiry. "Oh, she had lace, and ruffles, and puffed sleeves; but then she is much fairer than me." Margaret looked at John while she spoke most seriously.
John spoke bemused: "I have no knowledge of the fashion of ladies, but if fairness is the measurement for adornment, you should look like a Parisian pastry puff on your wedding day." Margaret stopped walking and held John in place by her soft grip on his arm. "You may laugh at me, John, but I am in earnest," she said looking up, "Milton will think I have finally gone insane when I appear in church looking more like a pastry than a bride."
They continued their walk and John let out a chuckle when the image of Margaret in an overly round dress covered in bows and lace trimmings too big for her small frame came to mind. He slowly became more serious again: "I shall marry you no matter what you decide to show yourself in."
It was Margaret's time to tease: "Ha, it is decided then! I shall come to church in my nightgown and we shall see who is still prepared to marry who." If their conversation had been less jovial, John might have felt more reserved before speaking next.
"If you do that, I shall feel obliged to sweep you from the church, for that is a sight reserved for my pleasure only."
There was no harm meant in the comment, but the implication was clear to Margaret despite her inexperience of what John had indirectly referred to. She continued walking with her arm in his, but her back stiffened ever so slightly and her gaze became fixed on an imaginary point directly in front of her.
Like an inebriated youngster who was suddenly awaked by a bucket of cold water in the face, John realised his error. He was unable to speak for fear of his own shame and ignorance.
With Mr Thornton being a man of at least thirty years of age and a great deal of experience in the mechanisms of low as well as high society, it follows that such a man would have firm ideas about the female sex. Mr Thornton had until Margaret Hale never truly tried his hand a courting a woman because she is admirable or even desirable. He had not been a man who had sought out the company of women, besides those in his own household, although it was generally known that he was sought after by many a young woman in search of a good match. Mr Thornton had not even been the sort of man who was found in the company of those women who made the lusts of men their business; not even to gain experience in what it must be like to hold a woman at night or to know what they were truly like underneath all those layers of petticoats and crinoline. It could have been easily done and no one would have remarked on it or even shamed him for it.
God knows how many times Mr Thornton had heard the fashionable and respectable men in his company speak of their dealings with ladies of the trade, and how he had to stand ground against their enticing and satirical remarks at his expense. But Mr Thornton's refusal to join in these ventures had a simple reason: he had seen what poverty could do to people and he had seen the utter despair that forces many women in such situations to sell their bodies, their dignity, and even their soul in order to survive. And he had seen his younger sister, as she sat on the stairs of their tenement building where he had shared a one room space with her and his mother. She looked at him with large, fearful, and hungry eyes. She was so small then that he feared she would never grow due to malnourishment.
When Mr Thornton was in his twenties, he had considered visiting a lady of the trade and he had even walked into the neighbourhood where they frequented, but as he saw the first of these women walk towards him with her dirty face, slovenly clothes, and empty eyes, all he could see was his sister. That woman could have been his sister. And so he had never again thought about what his gentlemen friends did frequently with those women and boasted about like cocks strutting their masculinity in order to abase one another.
The truth was that John Thornton was as inexperienced as he believed Margaret to be and he did not know whether that was good or bad. They had walked in silence a long time and so with great effort he forced an excuse from his lips: "I am sorry, Margaret." He wished to add more, on how he was a fool, on how his desire had run away with him, and how he had never meant to scare her, but he did not say it. Shame and modesty were restricting his throat.
Margaret gave him a quick, shy smile and continued walking. It made Margaret impossibly nervous to think about having intimate relations with a husband and to her distress was added the awareness of an almost complete lack of such dealings. Margaret remembered her cousin mentioning her nights with her husband soon after they were married. Edith had spoken with the experience of a wife and the naivety of a child; Margaret could hardly hide her blushes when Edith plainly spoke of the discomfort and pleasure that could be had both in such things. Luckily they were alone, for Margaret was certain Edith's mother would have chided her child and commanded her to bite her tongue. In between her blushes, Margaret was eager to know more but afraid to ask for it, and Edith took her silence for disinterest. In her mind, Margaret painted a rough picture that was failing and incomplete on all accounts, but it was more than her adolescent years were able to gather before, and it was an image that simultaneously frightened and fascinated her. Edith would stop abruptly and changed the subject, leaving Margaret bewildered and ashamed.
After walking in silence, Margaret and John decided to open their mouths at the same moment and their words being swallowed by each other, they ended in laughter. "You first." John said after the laugh had left his throat.
"I forgot what I wanted to say," Margaret blushed.
John laced his fingers through Margaret's, "I am truly glad you are here." He sighed contently. In answer, Margaret laid her head against his shoulder as they walked on.
When they reached the inn, a light was shining from Mr Bell's room indicating his presence and the couple said goodbye under a dim street lamp not far from the entrance. John Thornton handed Margaret a small package in brown paper taken from his pocket. Margaret could guess from the size at its content and her heart began a nervous patter, but she looked surprised all the same.
"What is this?" she asked politely.
John smiled, "Something I should have given you a long time ago." When Margaret made no attempt to open the package, her eyes still patiently resting on John, he added: "I bought it with you in mind; there are no family heirlooms to pass on because my mother sold everything after my father's death, but I hope this will do." He gestured for her to open it and held out his hands for her to deposit the paper onto. Inside was a small black box and when Margaret lifted the lid, she saw a golden ring set with a small emerald stone on top. A note with her name on it was folded many times and placed inside the lid, which fell into John's hands before Margaret could catch it. He handed her back the note and while still holding the box in one hand, she unfolded the note and read John Thornton's neat handwriting:
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
"Thank you, John, it is beautiful.." Margaret could hardly stop the tears from filling her eyes and blurring her vision.
John took the ring from its box and put it on her finger with trembling hands: "Good. I had Fanny there for size," he laughed softly. Then she kissed him, astonishing him with her briskness. It was a long kiss, full of gratitude and pleasure, stretching out from him to her and back again as neither wanted to end it. Eventually one of them did, immediately forgetting which of them had done it, and it ended in harmonious sighs.
Margaret rested her hand against the door, "Goodnight John."
"Goodnight Margaret," he waited till she had disappeared inside and another light could be seen in the room next to Mr Bell's before he retraced his steps back home to Marlborough Mills.