Chapter 2 Passages in Time #9
Her voice went away. He put the phone down and turned his attention to Miss Hale.
What had Miss Higgins said? Loosen her clothing.
He knelt at her side and undid the top two buttons on the blouse she was wearing, telling himself it was necessary.
He also undid the button on her trousers and pulled the blouse free from the waist band.
Finally, he gently moved her on to her side as Bessy had suggested.
“Please open your eyes, Margaret, so that I may know you are recovering. I don’t know what I would do if anything should happen to you.
You have become very dear to me,” he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his cheek.
“I know that you cannot come back with me when the passage opens, any more than I can stay here with you. Oh, but if it were possible – my dear Margaret! – I would call on you and ask permission to court you, and later I would ask you to spend the rest of your life with me as long as we both shall live.”
He turned her hand over and placed a kiss to her palm. “Please wake up, my angel.”
MJ stirred. Someone was speaking to her.
She was sure it was Mr. Thornton, but something puzzled her – he kept calling her ‘Margaret’ and, if she was not mistaken, he had just called her ‘my angel.’ Surely he’d never do that.
What had happened? She was so very cold, her whole body felt heavy, and her heartbeat seemed slow and laboured.
Had she fainted? She felt the touch of someone’s hand brushing her hair from her face.
She knew she must open her eyes, but everything was an effort and it was several minutes before her eyes fluttered open.
At first, her vision was blurred, but slowly what she saw came into focus. Mr. Thornton was knelt at her side, her hand clasped in his. His face was a study in deep concern – lines etched his features and his eyes were dark and pensive, staring off into the distance.
“Mr. Thornton?”
His hand tightened around hers and his gaze returned to her face. “Thank God, thank God,” he whispered, kissing her hand before he remembered where he was and who she was. He reluctantly released it and placed it at her side.
“What happened?” MJ asked, trying to sit up.
“Stay still, help is on the way – you collapsed. I thought I’d lost you,” he said gently.
His face was so close to hers that MJ could feel his breath when he spoke, and his lips were close enough that with the slightest movement he could place them against hers in a kiss.
Kissing Mr. Thornton – where had that thought come from?
To kiss him, even in gratitude, would be foolish.
If his learning about the future was dangerous, then it was reasonable to believe that kissing somebody from the future would be equally as dangerous.
But, when did reason ever triumph over emotion?
She wasn’t sure who moved first, but one or both of them did.
The kiss was soft – reverent almost – the lightest of touches, and she gently parted her lips on a sigh of pleasure.
From the first touch, MJ felt warmth flood her frozen body.
The leaden weight that had crushed her body moments before lifted and her heartbeat increased.
The power of his touch scared her, not because she was frightened of him but because she was afraid of her body’s response to him.
It overwhelmed her as no other kiss had.
It was odd, but she could not shake the idea that he had just given her the kiss of life.
He pulled away slightly, as obviously affected by the kiss as she had been.
“Margaret, Miss Hale – we shouldn’t, I shouldn’t….”
“I think it is a little too late for that; we already have. Please don’t tell me you are sorry. I couldn’t bear to hear you apologise – let me keep the memory.”
“I couldn’t apologise. That would mean I have regrets, but I have none. However, it was probably not wise. If you were a Victorian lady, I would act on my feelings for you. But you are not, and much as I wish to kiss you again, I fear I should not.”
Before she could speak, her doorbell rang. Mr. Thornton stood up. “That will be either the ambulance or Miss Higgins,” he said.
MJ nodded. “I’m not sure, Mr. Thornton, if we have been interrupted by the bell or saved by it.”
Chapter Nine
MJ stared at Bessy Higgins in shock. They were in her bedroom.
The paramedics had left, satisfied that all she had suffered was a vasovagal episode.
Her observations, ECG, and blood sugar were all normal.
In other words, as MJ had told them, “I fainted.” They’d agreed that it seemed that way.
They would have taken her to the Accident and Emergency department, but she declined, saying she’d rest at home.
Mr. Thornton had carried her to her bedroom, lifting her as easily as if she were a feather. He had placed her on the bed and had disappeared to make some tea while Bessy helped her change into her pyjamas.
“Could you say that again?” MJ asked.
“You have to go back with Mr. Thornton,” Bessy announced again.
MJ sank back against the pillows on her bed, glad that she and Bessy were alone in her bedroom and that Mr. Thornton had not heard what Bessy had said. “Go back to the nineteenth century?”
“Yes.”
“Why do I have to do that?”
“Because if you don’t, you will cease to exist.”
MJ snorted. “Haven’t you just slipped into Back to the Future territory?”
“Most science fiction is based, at least to some degree, on fact. This attack you suffered – I believe it is a sign that your body is failing because of some major change in your personal timeline.”
“What change? I am still me.”
“Yes, you are, but you have met John Thornton, nineteenth-century mill owner. That is something that should not have happened. Tell me, have you been intimate with him?”
“What kind of a question is that? I would never compromise Miss Hale’s honour in such a way!” Mr. Thornton said, entering the room.
“A valid one, given that I suspect that you both have feelings for each other,” Bessy Higgins said, not cowed by Mr. Thornton’s tone.
“Do not deny it, Mr. Thornton – when you rang me, it was obvious that you cared for Miss Hale deeply. And MJ, when I asked that question about intimacy, you blushed.”
“You are both right,” MJ replied. “Mr. Thornton, you have not compromised me in any way and yes, Bessy, we have been intimate, but not in the way you imagine. We held hands when we walked up on the moors. We’ve shared meals and movies together.
We have spoken of our personal dreams and family.
Speaking for myself, I have grown to like Mr. Thornton and I find him very attractive.
Were he able to stay, I would hope we could spend more time together, and maybe – what is that old-fashioned word?
– court. But there has been no physical intimacy, apart from the most tender kiss he gave me when I came to from collapsing. ”
“Miss Hale, Margaret – you care for me?”
“I do, Mr. Thornton, but you must know it cannot be. You must go back and –”
“You must go with him,” Bessy Higgins said. “You will die if you do not. You almost have once. Tell me, MJ, do you recall what it was like collapsing? How did you feel?”
“I was cold – freezing, actually. I thought I’d never be warm again. My body was heavy and leaden. As I regained consciousness, I found it hard to move. I knew I was alive because I was aware of how slow my heartbeat was.”
“Then what happened?” Bessy asked.
“Mr. Thornton kissed me, or maybe I kissed him. Whichever it was, neither of us objected. When his lips touched mine, I was instantly warm and languid, and my heartbeat was normal. But Bessy, I am not Snow White or Sleeping Beauty who needs to be woken by a kiss from one who loves me. This isn’t a fairy tale. ”
“No, it isn’t. I have been reading some of Matthew’s journals and his theories about time travel.
He wrote a theory about what would happen if a person moved forward in time and in doing so missed doing something of great importance in her own time.
He called it the missing link paradox. He questioned what would happen. ”
“But even if Mr. Thornton has missed doing something in his own time, how does that affect me?” MJ asked.
“Do you remember discussing with me how you got interested in the nineteenth century and northern mills in particular?”
“Yes,” MJ replied, “I told you how my parents traced their family history and discovered several generations ago that my family had worked to help with social conditions in the mills.”
“Did any of the family have Margaret as a given name? Is much known about her? Did she marry, for example?”
“I don’t know, there was a thought that possibly my mother’s and father’s families several generations back were related because my mother’s maiden name was Hale as well.”
“What are you saying, Miss Higgins? That Miss Hale belongs in the nineteenth century? That the important thing I have missed is meeting her?” Mr. Thornton said.
“You are forgetting that I have come forward in time as well. I not only know you from 1851, but I remember other people from that time. Before I left Milton, a young woman moved there from the south with her family – her name was Margaret Hale. Do you not remember her, Mr. Thornton?”
“No, did I meet her?”
“Yes, I suppose the fire caused you to forget her.”
“Are you saying I have moved in time?” MJ said
“I don’t know, really. Is it possible for you to exist in two places at once?
Matthew had all sorts of theories. What I am saying is that I believe Mr. Thornton was destined to meet you in the nineteenth century, but he has come here instead.
As a result, that meeting has not taken place, causing your family line to vanish.
I would lay odds on your family tree missing names here and there, MJ,” Bessy said.
“So she belongs here and there?” Mr Thornton said.