19. Bad Second Impression
Chapter 19
Bad Second Impression
“ S o,” I began as Margaret and I walked along, “how does your mother and Dixon do? Are they still angry at the world?”
“I love mother and Dixon, but they are still grumbling. Yet, I understand mama’s reaction to things. She has reached that part of her life where she cannot adjust to this new environment.”
“This does seem like a town for a person who was taught to have energy.”
“Precisely. Do you have time to come and see our new home on Crampton?”
“You all really did choose that place?”
“Yes, despite the bad memories that it brings up. I swear, I never wish to see that Mr. Thornton again in the whole course of my life.”
We talked about my day, and my experiences so far, the entire way to Canute Street, Crampton. When we got there, we entered her new home and Margaret called out through the house.
“Father, Mother and Dixon!” Margaret called as we began to remove our coats, placing them on the coatrack. “Elizabeth has come to visit, but she can’t stay long.”
“Oh, Margaret!” Mr. Hale’s voice called. “In here. Bring Elizabeth with you.”
He had been calling us from a parlor on the left.
We had removed our hats and entered the study. When we did, Mr. Hale was standing by his desk, and I saw how the room had been fitted properly to his taste. But he was not alone. There was a man sitting opposite him and his back was to us.
“Elizabeth,” Mr. Hale greeted me warmly, “welcome to our new home. Margaret, I am very excited to introduce you to my friend and first proper pupil.”
The man stood up and turned to us. When seeing him, Margaret and I were both alarmed and I sensed our jaws dropping rather than them actually doing so.
“This is Mr. John Thornton,” Mr. Hale introduced, his voice still animated.
There, before us, was Mr. John Thornton, Master of Marlborough Mills, the man who ordered us out of his factory when we saw him abusing his past employee.
When he had first stood up to see us, Mr. Thornton’s face was casual, complacent, and even pleasant. But when he began to recognize us and took in the lack of our enthusiasm when seeing him, his face changed to one of silent resignation.
“Mr. Thornton,” Mr. Hale continued, “this is my daughter, Margaret, and her friend, Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Actually,” Mr. Thornton replied, diplomatically, “your daughter, her friend, and I have already become acquainted.”
“Yes,” Margaret responded, her tone severe, “we have.”
Mr. Thornton leaned forward, his eye keen as he felt her quiet disdain.
“I can imagine that I did not offer the best first impression,” Mr. Thornton explained, “but you came upon me when I had to dismiss one of my workers.”
“Did you have to dismiss him in such a violent way?” Margaret questioned. “What was the meaning for casting blows on such a weaker character than yourself?”
“Yes,” I supported, “sir, that is a frightening tendency of yours. Do you have a temper?”
“Ladies…” Mr. Hale interrupted, unsettled to see us berate Mr. Thornton, even if our questions were just and calmly spoken.
“I do not deny, Mr. Hale,” Mr. Thornton acknowledged, “that your daughter and Miss Bennet are somewhat correct. I do, indeed, have a temper. Yet, it was provoked by a worker who earned his dismissal, as well as my anger.”
“Your anger?” Margaret echoed.
“Yes, Miss Hale, my anger.”
“What excuse are you about to give?”
“Margaret!” Mr. Hale reprimanded, but Mr. Thornton rolled on past him.
“The excuse of an employer who gave the worker three warnings, and he wasted all of them for frivolous and dangerous purposes. The worker had been warned for when he smoked in the sorting room, which could have led to fire and the costing of many innocent lives and machinery, and twice he was negligent at the spinning and weaving, and he could have broken the machines that he was employed to treat with care. From my income to my fellow workers, I have their care to consider, and when they are ever endangered by the actions of one, I will remove that one, by ANY means necessary. I gave him his chance, and he failed to do the correct thing repeatedly.”
Margaret and I were silenced by this, but not out of blind obedience. It is merely that whenever you hear another perspective, you must consider it. Yet, neither she nor I were ready to be submissive, for we did not forget how he spoke to us, when his temper was flared.
“I should go,” Mr. Thornton said abruptly, seeing that his visit was better to end. He put on his hat and turned to Mr. Hale. “I shall have my mother and sister call on you.”
“My wife would look forward to their visit,” Mr. Hale assured Thornton. “And by all means, we look forward to any visit of yours. Don’t we, Margaret?”
We all turned to Margaret. However kindred our spirits were in this case, I was not a resident, so she couldn’t rely upon me to speak. It was not my place.
Margaret managed to raise her eyes to Mr. Thornton, who returned her gaze with a fierce look of his own.
“My father looks forward to your visit,” she allowed, “therefore, it is a pleasure to become acquainted with your family. And I am happy to see that he has made friends.”
Mr. Thornton blinked, a little uncertain of how to receive her last response. Then Margaret continued.
“I do not agree with your methods,” she uttered, “and perhaps I never will. But your story is your own. That I will acknowledge. But my views are mine as well.”
“I get the feeling that we shall be at odds very often,” Mr. Thornton predetermined.
“Time will tell,” Margaret finalized.
He bowed to us both.
“Miss Hale, Miss Bennet. And Mr. Hale.”
Mr. Hale saw his new friend out. Margaret and I stood there.
“I cannot like him, Elizabeth,” Margaret whispered to me. “I cannot.”
Soon, we were joined by Mr. Hale.
“Margaret?” Mr. Hale questioned. “I am happy that you did your best to be kinder by the end, but I do believe that you could have been gentler in your tone.”
“I am sorry, Father. I did not mean to offend your friend. However, you weren’t there when Lizzy and I first met him. You didn’t see the side of him that we saw. You don’t know what he’s like.”
“He explained himself.”
“I saw. But I also know what I know.” Seeing that Margaret had quite made up her mind, Mr. Hale turned to me.
“How was your day, Miss Bennet?”
“Well, thank you,” I said. “Nothing of note, but it was altogether, a good day.”
He smiled gently at me.
“And how is your day?” I asked. “I see that you have a new student."
"More than one," Mr. Hale furthered. “I have spent the day meeting with several pupils. They came to me recommended by Mr. Bell, but tomorrow, I shall meet more, that are even more the immediate influence of Mr. Thornton. He has recommended me to certain young boys. They are mostly of the age when many boys would be still at school, but, according to the prevalent, and apparently well-founded notions of Milton, to make a lad into a good tradesman he must be caught young, and acclimated to the life of the mill, or office, or warehouse. According to Mr. Bell, if a boy were sent to even the Scotch Universities, he came back unsettled for commercial pursuits.”
“How much more so if he went to Oxford or Cambridge, where he could not be entered till he was eighteen?” I asked.
“Very good, yes. So, according to Thornton, most of the manufacturers placed their sons in sucking situations of fourteen or fifteen years of age, unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or high mental cultivation. They do this in hopes of throwing the whole strength and vigor of the plant into commerce. Yet still there are some wiser parents, and some young men, who have sense enough to perceive their own deficiencies, and strive to remedy them.”
“I noticed this when I was taking notes at Granger Hall. Some men do know to better themselves here.”
“A natural inclination.”
“That I will note and appreciate,” Margaret added. “If men in the prime of life, who have the stern wisdom to acknowledge their own ignorance, and to learn late what they should have learnt early, then so much the better.”
“Precisely!” Mr. Hale confirmed. “To learn when you are still a boy, is natural. But to be a grown man and willing to learn something new takes great strength. It goes to show that there will always be exceptions to those who feel that an old dog cannot learn new tricks. So far, Mr. Thornton is my oldest pupil to hand, and I cannot help but like him enormously, Margaret.”
“Like I said, I am happy that you have made a new friend, Father. But I still will think of him as I did before. Now, I should tell mama to expect Mrs. Thornton’s visit. Come, Elizabeth.”
I mentioned Mr. Hale’s new position to Granger Hall, complimented him on it, then followed Margaret to her mother’s room.
“Well, so ends my desire to have shielded my father from the truth,” Margaret uttered to me.
“You had no choice. He was perhaps going to learn it anyway. Besides, it has not shaken his friendship with Mr. Thornton, so your actions have done no harm.”
We knocked on the bedroom door and it was answered by Dixon.
“This dirty air in this awful place has made your mother sick at last!” Dixon groaned when we entered. Mrs. Hale was resting in her bed, but she was awake and happy to see us.
“How are you, Dixon?” I asked.
“Sick as well! This time of the year is already trying to anyone, but now this place may be the death of me!”
“I do not think so,” I replied, amused. “You are Stonehenge.”
“Oh, I better be,” Dixon replied.
“Dixon, sit down and rest yourself,” Mrs. Hale said to her. “Margaret is here, and I am well. Go and rest, so that you may recover.”
“I’d feel terrible leaving you alone.”
“I do not want you to work yourself to death.”
“I probably will, seeing as how I have no help to speak of. I have to do everything.”
“We are having a hard time finding another servant to assist Dixon,” Margaret explained as she pulled up chairs for us to sit by Mrs. Hale. “Every time that we interview someone, she shows herself to be unsuitable.”
“Or uncouth,” Dixon added. “Most of these girls are crude anyway, and I wouldn’t let them in the house for my life.”
“I have come to a decision,” Margaret said, “Dixon, I will help you with the household duties.”
“You, Miss?”
“Yes. I’ll help you clean, iron and tend to everything.”
“You shouldn’t be doing that, Margaret,” Mrs. Hale objected.
“I must. Very soon, we will have company. I came to tell you about a visit.” Margaret turned to Dixon. “Dixon, like mama said, go and rest. You need to recover to save your strength.”
“Right, miss.”
Dixon left us alone.
“What is this talk about a visit?” Mrs. Hale asked.
“One of father’s friends, a Mr. Thornton, has a mother and sister. I don’t know the precise day, but over the course of the next two weeks, they will call on us.”
“I cannot entertain guests in a house such as this.”
“We have gotten better wallpaper, didn’t we?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t change the fact that this house is most unsuitable for entertaining. And you, Margaret? To be tending to housework!”
“It cannot be helped,” Margaret said, “and hopefully, it will not be so terrible. We have to assist where we may. Besides, it is not as if I shall remain a maid all day.” She chuckled. “I shall not always be Peggy the laundry-maid, but will always turn into Margaret Hale, the Lady, afterwards.”
This was a joke, and Margaret had meant for it to be so. However, Mrs. Hale did not regard it as such, and actually took the comment seriously.
“Yes.”
Mrs. Hale then looked at me, forlorn.
“If anyone had told me when I was Miss Beresford, and one of the belles of the county, that a child of mine would have to stand half a day, in a little poky kitchen, working away like any servant, that we might prepare properly for the reception of a tradesman, and that this tradesman would be the only…”
“Oh, Mama,” Margaret objected, “I don’t mind ironing, or any kind of work for you and Papa. I am myself a born and bred lady through it all, even though it comes to scouring a floor, or washing dishes.”
“I know, and that is why you are so much a godsend,” Mrs. Hale assured her, tapping Margaret’s hand. “But still, Miss Bennet, this is not what my life was supposed to be like at this point. I would never have seen my daughter having to be this way.”
“I suppose, if my mother were here, she would say precisely the same,” I empathized.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Hale said, her eyes widening, “your mother. To see you reduced to this?” Mrs. Hale looked on us both. “Both of us would feel so disappointed in ourselves. This would not be what any mother would want for her child, to see her reduced to a situation that was lesser than what she was born into. We are supposed to end our lives seeing you greater than ourselves, not lesser.”
“Mama,” Margaret assured her, “do not look on it that way.”
“You do the best that you can,” I said, “but life will sometimes get in the way. My mother knew that no matter how hard she tried to have us escape that fate.”
“As any mother should. As any mother should .”
Mrs. Hale closed her eyes.
“You both can enjoy yourselves. I am getting sleepy.”
We left her alone.
“Hopefully one day she will grow to get used to living in Milton,” I said to Margaret as we walked to her bedroom.
“I hope so, but Lizzy, I am not sure. She never fully accustomed herself to living in Helstone, and that was such a beautiful place. If she could not get used to that beauty, then she might not get used to all this smoke. I think it’s change that is hard on her.”
“Yes, not everyone is used to adapting. But we must.”
“Yes, we must. Elizabeth, I still miss Helstone! I miss it so much!”
Sitting down next to her on her bed, I held her hands.
“And I miss Hertfordshire,” I empathized. “I miss Longbourn.”
“How will we make it?”
“We just have to. And we will.”
“Yes,” she said, tapping my hand. “We just have to. And I will. I will.”
“You already are.”
She smoothed out her dress, went to the window and looked out of it.
I was used to this habit of hers. Whenever she had an emotion that she needed to suppress, or to resolve within herself, she would take a moment to reflect.
It was never for very long, so I was prepared for her to rally, two minutes later.
“Oh,” she said at last, turning back to me, “and I forgot. Edith says hullo.”
“She wrote to you?”
“Yes, she did.” Margaret went to her chest and pulled out a letter from the top of it. “She writes of ideal married life and seeing as how Captain Lennox is always a jovial man, I can very well believe that he is a great husband.”
She handed me the letter.
“That I can attest to,” I said, taking the paper from her. “Captain Lennox has taught me, in life, that sometimes a person can either be intelligent, or they could be pleasant. He chose to be pleasant. Maybe those are the best sort to marry.”
Looking over the letter, I smiled. There was always something about Edith. Her personality was so vibrant that you saw her within her words.
Edith and Captain Lennox had gone to Corfu for their honeymoon. She wrote of the novelty of it, their voyage along the Mediterranean—their music, and dancing aboard the ship. She easily and artlessly unfolded the gay new life opening upon her, her house with its trellised balcony, and its views over white cliffs and the deep blue sea. Edith wrote fluently and well. She did mention me and wondered how I would enjoy this all. But she knew that I did. She even wondered if Captain Lennox’s regiment stopped another year at Corfu, that maybe we could come out and visit her there.
At last, I lowered the letter.
“She writes fluently and well.”
“She does. Edith’s life seems like the deep vault of blue sky above her—free.”
“Utterly free from fleck and cloud.”
“If the regiment does stay at Corfu for another year, would you go?” Margaret asked me.
“Of course. If my work allowed me to.”
“That’s the problem. Our lives won’t let us have that time away.”
“No, it won’t. In this moment, more than any other, I do understand why your father did leave the church. There is something to be said for being able to control one’s life.”
“Yes. I always saw that about the reasons behind his change. However, I just wish that it didn’t have to take us far away. To a whole other world, where we have to fight our way through crowds, learn to make new acquaintances from people with different customs, face the gray of everything, and have to mingle with the likes of Mr. Thornton.”
“How do you feel that that man might very well become Mr. Hale’s close friend? Because it does tend to be going in that direction.”
“I saw that as well,” she replied, putting the letter away. “I think my father was really taken with Mr. Thornton. I saw such admiration in his eyes. But Lizzy, you and I saw what we saw.”
“His fiery temper. His violent temper.”
“Yes. Even if that man, Custer, was in the wrong, that behavior was too harsh. And the way that he spoke to us was like I was looking into the eyes of a demon. After all, if he behaved that way to ladies, how would he behave toward others? That is the dilemma!”
“After all,” I said, “it is only a matter of time before he acts that way again,” I observed.
“Precisely. I will accept and try and be polite to him, for Father’s sake. I am happy that he has found a friend. But as for the rest, I am determined to think of him as I did before. I cannot ever see myself liking Mr. Thornton.”
Since Frances Street was not too far from Crampton, I preferred to walk rather than take the omnibus. The sun was setting and so was the clarity of traveling in such a way.
An intense fog swept over Milton and sometimes you could not see more than four feet in front of you. As such, people would sometimes not appear to you until very suddenly.
Other times, you saw a face here, an arm there, and you would knock into someone by sheer accident. Despite the large number of people on the street, implying that all was safe, you did feel that we were shadows, waifs, or ghosts who were moving amongst each other, not fully knowing or caring of each other’s existence.