Reeducating Mr Thornton
Evy Journey
“But, surely, if the mind is too long directed to one object only, it will get stiff and rigid, and unable to take in many interests.” - Chapter XV, North and South
“Cádiz.” Peering into a telescope on the deck of the pilot house, the ship captain announced, at the top of his voice, the pending arrival of the steamship at its destination. It was carrying passengers from Paris to Cádiz.
On the promenade, John Thornton straightened his tall, lean figure and, with his arm around her back, pulled Margaret closer.
He could now claim her as his own. They had married six weeks ago.
He squinted at the assault of light and wind and strained to catch a glimpse of land in the distance.
The strip he saw was awash in white, emerging like an apparition from the cobalt blue Mediterranean.
Mr. Thornton did not have any expectations of what he would find in Cádiz. Nor did he care much to know what the city was like. He was going there to please Margaret, who had not seen her brother Frederick since their mother passed away.
Margaret could not wait to be with Frederick and to meet Dolores, his new wife.
She was also anxious for her brother and her husband to get to know each other.
When Mr. Thornton and Margaret decided to go to the continent for their honeymoon, a month in Paris and another in Cádiz were their inevitable destination choices.
As the steamship’s propellers brought it closer to land, the apparition Mr. Thornton had been watching began to take shape.
He spotted two towers and, next to them, a golden dome.
They rose above a mass of white buildings topped by turrets and belvederes.
He had seen such structures in some English homes, but they were not ubiquitous like they seemed to be in Cádiz.
Fascinated, he scanned the scenery. The golden dome seemed the only colored structure against the blue skyline.
But a moment later, splashes of bright colors broke the monotony of white buildings.
Flowers, he marveled. Red and orange and yellow flowers one rarely saw in the persistently gray and gloomy days in Milton. And it was only mid-June.
His gaze swept back toward the golden dome soaring like a beacon over the luminous city. “Dramatic,” he muttered.
“Moorish,” Margaret said. “The first mosque, known as Dome of the Rock, has a golden dome.”
Surprised she heard him, he smiled down at her.
Moorish—that was to be expected. Bewildering Cádiz was, after all, a very old city in Spain, once a rich and powerful empire that had established territories in North Africa since the Middle Ages.
The Moors, in turn, had occupied what was now Andalucia in southern Spain.
The idea of travelling had intrigued him as a young man.
Educated young Englishmen of means usually embarked on a grand tour of France and Italy for culture and further education.
He dreamt of going on that tour. Fate, however, did not will it so.
He had to leave school and work to support his mother and his sister.
Swindled by a business partner, his father had lost everything he owned and, driven by disgrace, killed himself.
Mr. Thornton let out a long breath as he tucked away the painful memories.
He had worked hard to succeed in his trade so he could provide his mother and his sister the good life they deserved.
All those years of working had made him a practical man, but he feared that, along the way, he had also outgrown the desire to experience the mystique of a city like Cádiz.
He was reasonably content with his lot, at least until he met Margaret.
He put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. Margaret held onto her hat and raised her face. Her lips quivered into a smile.
Margaret had taken more care than usual dressing that morning, and he gazed with pleasure at her large expressive eyes and soft generous lips.
She always took his breath away. He brushed his lips against her temple and gave her shoulder a tender reassuring squeeze.
“You’re looking fresh and lovely, Mrs. Thornton. ”
“These trade winds help,” she said. “I am nervous, but I wanted to appear calm and cool, which is rather a challenge when one wears layers of clothing in this heat.”
They were waiting for the ship captain to announce that they could board one of the small boats taking passengers to shore. “This is what you’ve been waiting for. I think your brother will only be too happy to see you.”
The night before, she talked about the letters Frederick had written from Cádiz.
After he met Dolores, his letters gushed about her mesmerizing midnight blue eyes which he could not turn away from, long thick black hair he could get lost in, and her mix of appealing naiveté and insatiable curiosity that kept them talking.
In ending his letters with hopes that his sister and his wife would like each other, Margaret became equally anxious that they should.
Mr. Thornton had his apprehensions about meeting Frederick—apprehensions that kept him fidgeting in bed for the past couple of nights.
He had heard enough of Margaret’s stories to conjure an image of Frederick as a paragon of a brother.
Frederick let her win their games when they were growing up and listened to all her childhood cares.
As a young man, he went to sea, driven by dreams of being captain of his own ship.
After Mr. Thornton and Margaret found each other again, she told him that, years ago, Frederick was among those accused of leading an alleged mutiny against a tyrannical ship captain. The crime was punishable by death, and Frederick had no choice but to be exiled forever from England.
Despite this, it seemed life had been kind to Frederick, now an ardent husband and lover of most things Spanish. A year ago, he found his redemption—Frederick’s word—when he met Dolores. Since then, he had been carving a niche for himself in his new country.
Mr. Thornton and Fredrick might not be that different.
They both had lofty dreams as well as troubles, despair, and redemption.
However, much of what Margaret knew about her brother was from a relatively distant past. And there was that night at the Milton train station when he and Frederick stared at each other, both scowling in unguarded animosity.
Would Frederick remember? He himself had been stung with jealousy.
He did not know then who Frederick was. How much had Frederick changed?
Changes were inevitable, especially when one had been forcibly uprooted and was now living in Cádiz.
An hour later, the boat that ferried them from the steamship docked by an opening through the ramparts protecting the city.
Mr. Thornton could sense Margaret’s impatience to disembark onto the stairs leading to the quay.
He grasped her arm and kept a steady grip until they reached the quay, where Customs employees directed them toward the Customs House.
Before they could reach Customs, Margaret raised her arm and waved. She turned to him, her eyes shining. “Frederick. Do you see him?”
Mr. Thornton looked toward where Margaret waved. He had no trouble spotting a young man who stood a head taller than most of the crowd and whose hair shone like polished copper in a sea of dark hair. A pretty petite woman clung to his arm.
He surveyed the crowd waiting to welcome the arrivals, frowning at seeing jacket-less men out in public. But the sight of so many women wearing skirts strewn with bright colors wiped away his frown and brought a small smile to his lips.
How, he wondered, did they weave large red and pink roses or, maybe, peonies into textiles?
Had the Spaniards outdone the English? Had they invented new techniques that made such designs on textiles possible?
It was so new, unusual, and attractive that it seemed to have become the current fashion, along with the black lace veils adorning the heads of some women.
He doubted, however, that veils were of much use in windy, sunny Cádiz.
He had only been married six weeks and, already, he was paying more attention to women’s fashion.
Margaret tugged at his arm and repeated, “Do you see him?”
“Oh. Frederick. Yes, I do. In this crowd, he does stand out. I only caught a glimpse of him in a dark train station, so I might not recognize him in a crowd back home. Here in this bright Mediterranean light, he’s unmistakably English. That must be his wife clinging to him.”
“Yes. Dolores. Isn’t she beautiful?”
“A real exotic beauty. I expected nothing less after what you told me about her,” he said, his eyes crinkling in amusement. He grasped her hand and kissed it. “But for me, no one can compare to you, my love.”
Her palm brushed soft and warm against his cheek, and she gazed into his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.
He kissed her hand once more before he tucked it into his arm. They joined the group from their ship going into the Customs House.
Once inside, they both stood gaping at a crowd that seemed to have taken on every possible shade and color—from black and brown Africans to ruddy English sailors and pale-skinned European aristocrats.
They surveyed the motley crowd for a couple of minutes before making their way to the line of arriving passengers going through inspection.
More than a half hour later, they emerged from the stifling Customs House. Relieved to be out among the throng who were free to move about in the salty air and intense light of the harbor, Mr. Thornton said, “The whole world must be represented in there.”
Margaret smiled, her eyes round with wonder. “Quite a sight, wasn’t it? Do you suppose it’s this way every day?”