Looking to the Future #3
As she prepared to leave, Wallace entered the room, his face lined with grief and care. Margaret asked him what he would do now and received the reassuring news that he had a place with another Oxford don who had been friends with his master.
He lamented that so few people seemed to know Mr. Bell and that but a handful had visited him his last days. ‘But that was the way my master wanted it—he were very private. But there was that manufacturer from Milton who spent a day here.’
Margaret’s heart gave a leap. ‘A manufacturer?’
‘Yes, a great, tall fellow—the man who was Mr. Bell’s tenant.’
‘Mr. Thornton?’
‘Just so, miss.’
Margaret’s spirits fluttered—perhaps Mr. Bell had found a way to tell Mr. Thornton about Frederick!—but no. He was dying. It would have been the last thing upon his mind at such a time. There would have been no bedside revelations from Mr. Bell.
But, oh, how she honored Mr. Thornton for coming to the sick man in his hour of need! It revealed a firmness of purpose, a kind intent, and a nobleness of soul that made her glow with pleasure. She was ashamed anew for having judged him so harshly.
Captain Lennox fell asleep on the return journey, allowing Margaret the luxury of crying at leisure and reflecting upon this fatal year with all its accompanying woes.
She recalled similar times spent at train stations and in train compartments.
There was her melancholy first trip to Milton, leaving sunny Helstone for the dark mill town.
She only vaguely remembered the trip to London after her father’s death, so wrapped in misery that she had barely registered her surroundings.
And she thought of the fateful night at the Outwood Station with Frederick, when Mr. Thornton had spotted her in her brother’s embrace and thought the worst.
And why shouldn’t he, Margaret thought, swiping yet another tear from her cheek.
What have I done to make him think well of me?
She felt almost feverish in her desire for Mr. Thornton to know the truth, to wipe away the worst thoughts he held about her.
But with Mr. Bell gone, that would never occur.
She was ashamed that her grief for her friend was eclipsed by her grief that the Master of Marlborough Mills would never know she was not as depraved as he believed.
She found solace in Harley Street that night in the sight of the well-lit rooms that greeted them as they approached the house.
As she was engulfed in the tender ministrations of her aunt and Edith, with the weight and warmth of little Sholto on her lap, Margaret felt the heavy mantle of hopelessness slip from her shoulders, and began to feel that life held some hope of happiness.
She had Edith’s place on the sofa, and Sholto carried Margaret’s cup of tea carefully to her.
By the time she went up to dress, she was able to thank God for sparing her dear friend a painful illness.
When night came and the house was quiet, Margaret sat at her window gazing down at the silent streets and out upon the beauty of the night sky on a summer evening—the purplish light about the moon and the soft clouds floating in the clear moonlight.
Margaret’s room had been the nursery of her childhood, where she and Edith had taken their lessons.
As a child, she had read wondrously romantic stories and vowed to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine in her books.
How easy it had seemed! It was only upon adulthood that she realized how difficult it was. Trusting only in herself, she had stumbled and sinned—the concealment of her brother and subsequent lies told had culminated in the dreadful incident at the train station.
Moreover, she had learned how false her own ideals were.
Her childhood home in London had seemed idyllic.
Upon Edith’s marriage, she had returned to a Helstone dearer to her for all her longings and imaginings.
When she was uprooted to Milton, she had been filled with resentment and prepared to despise everything she found there.
But her memories had betrayed her. London now held little attraction for her with its glittering superficialities, and her golden memories of Helstone had proven to be dross during her visit.
Milton was where her thoughts flew now, to its noisy mills, busy streets, and industrious people. She missed Nicholas and Mary. She missed her ramblings above the town. She missed many things—and certain people.
She shifted on her seat, uncomfortable in these recollections and the melancholy that they aroused in her. The past was done and the future cloudy. She had only the present and must learn to live within that space.
Her suffering was just recompense for her sins, she believed, and the time to offer excuses to the person in whose opinion she had sunk the lowest had long passed.
She stood face to face at last with her sin.
Her anxiety to have her character excused in Mr. Thornton’s eyes was a petty consideration compared with the death of her friend.
She must accept the consequences of her actions.
She prayed fervently for the fortitude to speak truth and live honorably from that day forward.
Not long after Mr. Bell’s death, Edith began speculating upon whether Margaret might be his heiress.
To her knowledge, the old gentleman had no other family and, given his close relationship with Mr. Hale and his deep fondness for Margaret, it stood to reason (at least for Edith) that Margaret might inherit whatever constituted his estate.
Captain Lennox tamped down her high expectations, explaining that a Fellow from a small college at Oxford would not possess much of an estate to bequeath. Edith sighed, and her pretty dream of Margaret as a wealthy woman turned to ashes.
A week afterwards, however, she pounced upon her husband as he left his library.
‘It appears I am right after all! Margaret has had a letter from Mr. Bell’s lawyer, who writes that she is to receive legacies of two thousand pounds.
And the remainder is forty thousand or thereabouts, which is the present value of the old gentleman’s property in Milton. ’
Captain Lennox was astonished. ‘How did she react to this news?’
‘Oh, she knew she was his heiress but had no idea of the size of his estate. She says she’s afraid of it, but that’s nonsense. I left Mamma to console her.’
Aunt Shaw and Edith insisted that Margaret must have a legal adviser now, and they considered Mr. Lennox the logical choice.
She had no knowledge of business, and so she took the matter of her estate to him for his advice.
He selected an attorney and was happy to discuss the myriad mysteries of law, although her interest waned early on in such conversations.
It was apparent to her that Edith saw this as the first step to draw her under Henry’s protection.
While she had no intention of succumbing, she was too exhausted to correct this assumption.
Edith feared that Margaret’s inheritance would give her the means as well as the motive to travel to Cadiz, but Spain did not materialize for Margaret that autumn. Instead, she contented herself with time spent by the seaside at Cromer with her Aunt Shaw and the Lennox family.
They had all wished her to accompany them, and her present languid, depressed state did not offer another alternative to her. Perhaps, she thought, the seaside would provide the rest and return to health she so sorely needed.
Few hopes remained to her: her brother was far away and her friends in Milton lost to her, given the upper-class mindset of the Harley Street residents.
As for Mr. Thornton, he was lost to her as well.
A dozen times a day, her heart ached with longing for him to know the reason behind her rash actions at Outwood Station.
But this longing was in vain. She knew she must resolve to move ahead and make the best of her life.
At Cromer, she sat long hours upon the beach, gazing as the waves foamed on the pebbly shore, hypnotized by the roar and retreat of the sea.
She was soothed without knowing how or why.
She sat there, unmoving, while her Aunt Shaw shopped, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode in an open carriage about the countryside.
When the family gathered at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and absorbed that Edith declared that she was moped and lamented that they had not asked Henry to join them at the seashore in order to entertain Margaret.
However, this time of quiet and reflection helped Margaret frame her present circumstances and her future. The hours by the sea-side were not lost, and Mr. Henry Lennox noted the improvement upon their return to London.
‘The sea has done Miss Hale an immense deal of good,’ he confided to Edith. ‘She looks ten years younger than she did before.’
‘It is the bonnet I purchased for her!’ Edith exclaimed in triumph.
Mr. Lennox looked at her askance, a smile of faint amusement on his lips.
‘I believe I know the difference between the charms of a bonnet and those of a woman. No bonnet would make Miss Hale’s eyes so bright or give her face such color.
’ He paused before continuing in a quiet voice, ‘She looks more like the Margaret Hale I first knew.’
He was enthralled once more and determined to try his suit with her again.
He admired her beauty and believed that, in time, he could bend the strength of her mind to follow his own.
Her fortune was advantageous to his situation, but he would have taken her without it.
Having travelled to Milton to assess her property, he realized that it was of great value and would yearly accrue more in such a prosperous and growing town.
Surely their present relationship of client and legal adviser would gradually evolve into one of intimate intercourse, given her gentle manners and his ardour.