Reeducating Mr Thornton #4
Frederick chuckled. “I do believe you would have. You’ve been good for her. She has a radiance I’ve never seen before. And I’m extremely glad you’re both here now. I can’t thank you enough for coming to visit.”
Mr. Thornton went to bed that night trying to recall a Spanish tune Frederick was humming as he poured sherry at the end of dinner.
When Margaret joined him in bed, all he said about her attire was “You looked so alluring, my love, that I wanted to take you in my arms and kiss you right then and there, in front of Fred and Dolores.”
“Why didn’t you? But I’m glad you didn’t mind my dress. I worried you might not approve.”
He enclosed her in his arms and kissed her. “I was dismayed—for an instant. Anyway, it’s how everybody dresses in Cádiz.”
In summer, the Cádiz sun was at its zenith at mid-day, and local people preferred the comfort of indoor spaces.
So the city broke for lunch. Frequently heavier than dinner, it could last two hours and was usually followed by a siesta.
Were Frederick not on vacation, he would have returned to his office after siesta and worked from about 5 p.m. to past 8 p.m. in the evening.
Margaret remembered siesta from Frederick’s letters and was not surprised at the practice. Faithful to the custom, Frederick and Dolores treated the hour or two of repose as a necessary indulgence which they spent in their bedroom, leaving Mr. Thornton and Margaret to entertain themselves.
Accustomed to a schedule of continuous work during the day, Mr. Thornton found it perplexing and could not see himself doing nothing, much less dozing off, in the middle of the day.
He thought it yet another quaint Gaditano custom that would not suit Milton.
He could never adopt the practice at home.
Earlier he had felt uncomfortable at the casual, demonstrative manner of his hosts. At home, Frederick and Dolores touched, embraced, and kissed each other with unabashed playfulness. He and Margaret felt free to express their affection only in the privacy of their bedroom.
Alone at siesta time on the third day, Mr. Thornton persuaded Margaret to visit the cathedral they had seen on the day they arrived.
Inclined to go along with the local customs, she balked at first but relented.
He was restless, and she was convinced a brisk walk to Plaza de la Catedral might calm him.
Besides, she was eager to see a cathedral that her brother had said was neoclassical while also adapting features of Moorish, rococo, and baroque architecture across the more than a century it had taken to finish it.
The sun sparkled, and the heat hovered just below searing level. By the time they reached the cathedral, their clothes stuck to their skin and their faces were flushed and moist. Mr. Thornton pushed the massive door into the cathedral. But it did not budge.
He said, “I’m sorry to have dragged you on that miserable walk to this cathedral. It seemed so grand, I thought we should see it.”
“Oh, no,” Margaret said. “I was hoping to sit inside for a while and cool off a bit.”
“I was quite impressed with the light in this lively and colorful city. But I must admit that, right now, I’m wishing I was back to the dreary but cool atmosphere of Milton.”
Margaret shrugged and said nothing. She stepped into the narrow strip of shade cast by the cathedral.
“Now I understand why they have siestas in the afternoon, but how terribly inconvenient for visitors like us.” Mr. Thornton was annoyed. He waved his hand at the sun. “I suppose, in this part of the world, there’s nothing much you could do about something you can’t control.”
Margaret pulled Mr. Thornton toward her. “Oh, John. Relax here for a moment, will you? Cool down a little. Then we’ll go back to the house so I can shed off these petticoats and we can have large glasses of pomegranate juice.”
The next day, Margaret declared that, for the rest of their stay in Cádiz, she would devote the siesta hour to reading.
She picked a book from her brother’s library, the first volume of a series titled The Whale by Herman Melville, a writer unfamiliar to her.
She returned to their bedroom, where Mr. Thornton was looking out the window.
She said, “How about reading with me? I can read this aloud—it sounds fascinating—or you can pick another. I know you prefer nonfiction. Fred seems to have quite a collection of books, some of which came from Father’s library.”
He turned toward Margaret and, leaning against the window sill, he said, “I can’t sit still.”
Looking sympathetic, she approached him and kissed him. “I’m sorry, John,” she said before sitting on the couch at the foot of the bed. She swung her legs up on it and opened her book.
Mr. Thornton resigned himself to staying indoors like everyone else.
In Milton, the machines would be running, and he would not have to find something to do.
He paced around the bedroom until Margaret looked up from her book.
She raised an eyebrow at him, and he walked out of the room to wander around the house and the garden.
Wherever he found breezy shaded nooks, he lingered a while.
When he had gone through every space he could explore, he returned to the bedroom and, gently laying a hand on Margaret’s shoulder, he said, “Come with me to the verandah. It’s cooler there. You get the ocean breeze.”
Margaret closed her book and rose from her chair. “Let’s not waste another minute here, then. I am getting a bit too warm, even in these lighter clothes.”
In the verandah, she paused for a moment, her gaze darting from the chair to the bed, back to the chair. “How about the bed? Those tiny holes in the cane should keep us cool.”
Mr. Thornton shook his head and scowled. “Lie in bed in the middle of the afternoon?”
Margaret shrugged. “Take the chair if relaxing bothers you. The bed beckons to me. It’s big enough for two in case you change your mind.”
Mr. Thornton chose the chair closest to Margaret and resolved to be content reading the newspaper he picked up in the living room.
The paper was in English, although it had come from America, not England.
He spent the next half hour reading it with great interest. His familiarity with America had been limited to the textile trade, particularly cotton.
The paper, however, had articles on other products like tobacco, sugar cane, silver from the Spanish colony of Mexico, and one product that Cádiz direly needed: ice.
After perusing these articles, he folded the newspaper and tossed it on the table. He watched Margaret. She had fallen asleep with her open book perched upside down on her stomach, one hand on top of it. She looked so peaceful that he was tempted to join her on the bed. Still, he hesitated.
Napping in mid-day had never ever occurred to him.
He had been quite content being busy at the mill and rarely did anything unrelated to it until he met Margaret’s father, Mr. Hale, who inspired him to continue his interrupted education.
And pleasure? To him, that meant an efficient mill that brought profits healthy enough to make life much better for his mother and his sister Fanny.
Margaret changed him, and not only because he fell in love with her.
Her influence became clearer to him in Paris, where they had honeymooned before coming to Cádiz.
She dragged him to museums and art galleries, cafés, and theaters—places he would not have visited alone.
Though this was also her first Paris visit, she had read books and heard stories from one of her father’s friends, Monsieur Fleury, a Frenchman.
She recognized art pieces and lingered before them, ogling them with a child-like wonder that beguiled him.
She was ambivalent about the structural changes Paris was undergoing.
To him, those changes were exciting. They were necessary.
Modernization was good. Then, he saw Margaret bite her lower lip, her eyes pooling with tears as she witnessed neighborhoods once teeming with life being destroyed.
He placed an arm around her waist. He could sympathize.
Through her eyes and her translations from French to English, he saw a culture immersed in arts and pleasure and the pursuit of both.
But that land of Diderot and Voltaire was also progressive.
The city was rebuilding boulevards and neighborhoods and revitalizing ancient buildings.
While the French dealt squarely with serious and important matters, Parisian society and culture also knew the value of “appearances” and frivolities—delightful though not essential to survival or comfort—and indulged in them.
Yes, art fed his soul, promenades on the Tuileries relaxed him, and spirited discussions in cafés fired up his imagination.
Cádiz, though, was not like Paris.
He rose from his chair and sat on the opposite side of the bed from where Margaret lay.
How he loved her—so much that sometimes he ached from it.
He stared, mesmerized by the book rising up and down with her breathing, and he felt the urge to rest his head on her stomach.
But he did not want to disturb her. With utmost care, he extricated the book from under her hand and placed it on the table.
He lay down beside her. She stirred, opened her eyes, and gave him a small, dreamy smile before drifting back to sleep. He turned on his side, gently placed his arm on her waist, and pressed a soft kiss on the side of her neck. Before long, he descended into slumber, his face buried in her hair.