Mischances #5
She sniffled, choked back a sob, and angrily dashed a tear from her cheek. “Mr Thornton, if the honest carriage of your duty permits, if you ever considered my father a friend, do him this service. Please do nothing. Others have suffered in doing their duty—now I shall do mine.”
“Your father? What has he to do with this?” He shook his head. “I will not stand for it. You cannot throw yourself away on Hamper because of some misguided sense of loyalty. Let me help!”
Misguided? Had that word not slipped from his tongue and betrayed his true sentiments, Margaret might have found herself vulnerable to his pleas.
He thought her foolhardy—always had. And he could never understand, surely he could not, how vital was her resolve and her need to protect Frederick.
Weak, she was already. Beaten, and desperately in need of an ally.
But it could not be he…no matter how she might long for it.
“Mr Thornton,” she pronounced crisply, “if you would help, then do nothing. I will say no more on the matter.”
He released a long breath and turned to the door. “Then I suppose congratulations are in order, Miss Hale. Good day.”
“Ah, Thornton!” Hamper rose from his desk with a jerk of his shirt cuffs. “I was just about to stop by your office. I trust that business with the dead man is all settled.”
“Far from it,” John growled.
“What? You do not mean that it was anything but a coincidence!” Hamper laughed. “I told you how it all happened, Thornton. No one did more harm to Leonards than he himself did.”
“Leonards died of an internal haemorrhage brought on more by poor health than any blow,” John confirmed. “But you said he attacked Miss Hale. What did he do to her?”
Hamper tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat. “Well now, that was a slip of the tongue. The lady was not involved.”
“Hamper,” John warned, his voice dropping dangerously. “Was she forced to defend herself?”
“Oh, very well. I suppose you are hardly the man to gossip about a woman’s reputation and, if it helps the investigation, then so be it.
I saw the wretch trying to grasp her boot, and he pulled it from under her until she fell.
A shocking state she was in—I am sure I need not tell you what happens to a lady’s petticoats—”
“Hamper!”
“Oh, Thornton, stop being so righteous. She kicked Leonards in the face with her boot, and that was the end of it. I helped her to her feet and saw her home.”
“And what of this strange man Leonards attacked? You saw him, did you not?”
“Aye, everyone did. Young fellow—about six or seven and twenty, I should say. Handsome features, moderate build, not over-tall. Dressed like a gentleman. But from what everyone tells me, he did nothing more than break free of Leonards’ grip.
No one saw him strike in malice. Come, now, Thornton, do you mean to charge the man with murder or not? ”
John clenched his fist as he paced across Hamper’s office. “No. But I would know who he is. What do you know of him?”
“Oh! Some admirer, I suppose. Mr Hale knew all about the fellow, so I cannot think the young lady was doing anything unchaste.”
“Mr Hale knew?”
“Well, he seemed to. He fell very quiet when I recounted the evening and how I came to be engaged to his daughter. I asked the same as you, you know—politely, of course, as I assumed that any man betrothed to a daughter of the house ought to have the right to. He only said the youth was some old Hampshire neighbour who had come to pay his respects to Mrs Hale and could stay no longer. I supposed that to be a bit of a falsehood but, as Miss Hale seems to hold no expectation of his return, I shall merely presume that it was a passing attraction and is at an end now.”
“Miss Hale has not a capricious nature. You do the lady a disservice, Hamper.”
“Did I say she was capricious? But neither is she a fool. She knows well the advantages a steady, established husband could provide. Far better than an impoverished lover! Moreover, she needs someone to marry her after all the gossip, and who else would so readily overlook such a scandalous incident?”
“A man who thinks only of his own interests,” John sneered. “You are old enough to be her father. It is disgusting, Hamper.”
“Ah! And this, the fellow whose eighteen-year-old sister is presently receiving calls from Miles Watson? The man is forty-five if he is a day. Be careful you do not sound the hypocrite, Thornton.”
John ground his teeth. “Miss Hale is not my sister. Her interests, her motivations are not the same.”
Hamper permitted a curve to his lips. “Indeed! A ball of fire that one is. I shall have to check that tongue of hers—but you seem to know my future bride rather well, Thornton.”
But John would not rise to the provocation. “How did you threaten Miss Hale into an engagement? Do not persuade yourself that no one else will think the same as I. Miss Hale is Southern gentility and has no love for Milton manufacturers. Everyone knows it.”
“Well, I’d say that you certainly do, at least.”
“Her father is my friend.”
“Indeed, he is! And you must have spent many an hour taking tea with his wife and daughter. Quiet evenings round the family hearth? Perhaps it is I who ought to be asking you the nature of your relationship with Miss Hale! Do you fancy her, Thornton?”
“Do not change the subject, Hamper. What do you hope to gain?”
Hamper snorted. “What every man hopes to gain upon marriage. Do you begrudge me a handsome young wife? Do you know, I’d only a vague notion of ever marrying again but, after thinking on it some while, I am rather enamoured of the idea.
You ought to consider it for yourself, Thornton.
The winters are long and cold, but Miss Hale—why, that lass is a right inferno.
” He finished with a wink and a smirk—a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows and a low chuckle.
John felt ill. He stalked near and hissed into Hamper’s face—”You are indecent and vulgar, Hamper! No lady ought to be spoken of so crudely.”
“And most especially not Margaret Hale? Come, admit it, Thornton! For once, I have what you can only dream of gaining. I never thought the day could come.”
“You are mistaken. In fair and equal circumstances, Miss Hale would never have me, but even less would she have you. Were you not so conceited, you would see the injustice you do her by presuming an engagement.”
“Injustice! I am helping the lass!”
“And did you bother thinking of her? Do you think she will consider herself grateful for all your supposed pains on her account when she is bound to a man she hardly knows and cannot esteem?”
Hamper crossed his arms. “By Jove, I have finally done it.”
“Done what?” John spat.
“Found your weakness. There is no sense in denying it. By next week I will have broken you at last. Nay, I am not crowing my victory like a fool. We need each other, our mills do. We have always stuck together, have we not? But always, you had the upper hand and lorded it over us underlings. It is a curious feeling to have that reversed.”
John felt his shoulders heaving as he simply stared at Hamper. “Let her out of this sham of an engagement. Now, before more harm is done!”
“Let her out! Do you hear yourself, Thornton?
She has no choice, and it was not my doing.
What, do you mean to sweep in on your white charger?
Marry her yourself if I will but stand aside?
Not bloody likely. But I will tell you what I will do; I will keep matters quiet.
No public announcement yet, though I daresay every day that goes by casts more shame upon her.
However,if you have such qualms about my marriage to Miss Hale, perhaps I will give you a day or two more to accustom yourself to the idea.
‘Tis the least I can do for an old friend, eh?”
John glared at his counterpart—a man with whom he had shared whiskey and cigars, a man who had sided with him in every Union conflict and sent flowers to his mother when a distant relation had died. All this, and he barely knew the man. “What game are you playing, Hamper?”
“No game. But if it were a game, I should say that I just won.”
“Oh, it’s yo’, Miss.”
Margaret rose from the table where she had been helping Mary cut vegetables for the family’s supper. “Nicholas, how do you do this afternoon?”
He sagged into a chair and began to tug at his boots, disregarding Margaret’s quick and embarrassed turn of the head. “Wear’ from goin’ on tramp.”
“You still have not found work?”
“Nay, and it’s thine ould friend ‘hoo’s ter thank.”
Margaret’s ears heated. “Mr Thornton is hardly my friend.”
“Thornton! If ‘twere Thornton, I coul’ tell yo’ straight-like what I think on him, and he’d fight me like a man. But Hamper!”
She slowly resumed her seat, a pit forming in her stomach as the reality she had tried to ignore this last hour rose up to confront her. She had hoped Nicholas had not heard, but the man seemed to know every whisper in the whole city. And he was indignant.
He shook his head and his gaze hardened in glittering resentment. “Dinna think yo’d be like a’ the rest.”
“What can you mean by that?” she asked hoarsely.
Higgins snorted and ignored her. “Where’s my soup, Lass?” he demanded of Mary.
Mary hastened to bring her father something, and both pointedly looked away from Margaret. She felt her shoulders hunching consciously as she gazed between them. She had thought that here, at least, she might still be welcome, but…perhaps not. “Nicholas,” she mumbled, “It is not what it appears.”
“Oh! ‘Tisn’t, ‘tis it?”
Margaret caught his eye, then glanced at the Boucher children gathered at his feet. “Just as you have made choices to protect others and do as you felt was right, so must I.”
He snorted and shook his head. “So that’s how it’s to be! What did I say, Mary? I allus said yo’d one day set up for one o’ the masters, but Hamper? Yo’ve sold out, Miss, and I’ll n’a say ‘nother word on it.”