Margaret of the North (23 page)

"But it is good news, is it
not?"  She replied, her eyes fixed on his.

He nodded and smiled but he did
not answer.

"You're smiling but you
don't seem too happy."

"I am glad and greatly
relieved that this affliction is of harmless consequence; indeed it is a happy
one although"—he hesitated, gazing lovingly at her face—"truth be
told, I wanted to have you all to myself a while longer, a year at least,
anyway."

"Well, silly, what did you
expect, making love to me as much as you have?"  She laughed, kissed him
lightly, and stroked his hair, pushing a stray lock off his forehead.

"Yes, silly me," he
answered as he buried his face on her neck and, feeling the pulse beneath her
soft warm flesh, he was gratified and reassured.  The fear and apprehension
that had taken hold of him had drained him and he rested his head briefly on
her shoulder.

"Dixon is coming with
breakfast, as the doctor ordered.  How would you like to be found in such a
compromising position?"

"I am making love to my wife
in my own bedroom.  She could have nothing to say about that."

She smiled, "No, nothing.  I
know her to be discreet and she has grown quite protective of me.  I was
teasing."  She pressed her cheek on the back of his bowed head and they
were silent for some minutes.  Then, gently clasping his face, she raised it
slowly to force him to look at her, "Don't you want to have
children?"

"I do, of course, a couple
of little Margarets and two sons perhaps."

She laughed again, "that
many?"

"Why not?  It's just
that—you and I alone together—I never imagined I could be this happy.  I wanted
it to last longer this way.  I would have preferred to start a family, perhaps,
two years from now."

"Sincerely?   So would I but
it seems we are being given one and I am actually happy about it.  It is, after
all, a new life you and I nurtured together."

"Yes, I see, a new life that
affirms what you and I are to each other."  He smiled, "I like that
way of looking at it very much but I still wonder how a child will change our
lives."

"Well, it will be different,
I am sure.  This gift, this new creation—yours and mine—" she paused to
give themselves more time to relish the thought.  "We must take
responsibility for it, for quite a few years.  But I hope we will always have a
place like this of our own, a sanctuary of sorts, for just you and me."

"I would like that very
much.  I know that you will be devoting much time to our child."  He
smiled and corrected himself, "our children.  But I want a time and place
alone with you."

"Well, you will be out at
the mill working much of the day and we will each have our own routines that
would have to accommodate a child sooner than we expected.  But evenings and
early mornings will be ours alone in here as they have been the last few
weeks."

"Has it only been that
long?"  He exclaimed rhetorically and then added.  "It's true I am
eager to start work on reopening the mill."

"I know you are.  It has
been more than three months and you have probably never been away from it
longer than a few days."

"True.  And yet, I waited so
long for you, for wonderful moments like these with you and I want to delay
changing things as they are now."

"They will not change right
away, not for seven or eight months, for me, anyway.  You will probably open
the mill before that."

"I am hoping around
November, before the holidays."

"Is there much more to be
done?"

"There is but if I devote
several hours everyday to all that must be done, I am confident I can do it. 
The debt to the bank has been settled and I am now working on rehiring workers
and getting the machinery in good running order.  Higgins will be coming any
day now to help."

Margaret nodded but swayed
towards him, feeling somewhat faint as fatigue and hunger returned.  He looked
at her pale face and gathered her in his arms, listening closely to her
breathing, watching for signs that she might faint again.  She leaned against
him heavily and he could feel her bosom heaving against his chest, steadily,
regularly, and in rhythm with his own breathing.  He began to relax.  Not long
after, Dixon arrived, carrying a tray with breakfast for both of them.  She
seemed very pleased, her cheeks plumped up in a huge smile.

Later, somewhat revived but still
weak, Margaret snuggled back into John's embrace and whispered, "The past
months will always be a part of us even as we settle into a routine or go
through other changes, don't you think?"

"Yes," he replied
simply, his voice somewhat muffled against her hair.

"I am certain of it.  I have
left Helstone behind but I know that it will forever be with me.  It was, to
me, the best place on earth, nurturing my early years with simple pleasures,
and my memories of it helped me endure the move to this city that was very
different, that was at first quite strange to me."

He raised his head, tilted hers
up to face him and, gazing into her eyes again, asked softly but eagerly,
needing reassurance that she was happy.  "Is Milton still so
strange?"

"I have adapted to
Milton."

Still anxious, he asked,
"But are you happy here?"

"I have returned once to
Helstone since I left it and I realized then that, happy as I was there, I have
changed and couldn't really go back."  She gazed at him and stroked his
cheeks lovingly.  "Am I happy here?  How could I not be when you are
here?  My life is with you now and it happens to be in Milton.  This is where
our first child will be born," and with an arched eyebrow and eyes
twinkling impishly at him, she ended, "as will the other three who will follow."

John smiled tenderly back at her,
grasped her hands, pressed each one to his cheeks and then to his lips.

Margaret asked, "Do you
suppose the household has been told the good news?"

"Do you doubt it?  Did you
see the big smile on Dixon's face?"

The household was told.  Dixon
was indeed discreet when she needed to be but the arrival of a new addition to
her mistress' family was an occasion to celebrate and, in her mind,
celebrations were to be shared.  A child borne to her mistress had another
special significance for her.  It meant that she and Margaret, who were still
foreigners to some members of the household, were there to stay.  Although her
mistress never said anything, Dixon was aware that Mrs. Thornton had not
exactly given Margaret a warm welcome and she had remained persistently cold. 
Her attitude towards her son's wife was not lost on the servants and it rubbed
off on a few of them, Jane, in particular.  A child provided reassurance, in
Dixon's mind, and she grew more confident of her place in the household.

Dixon promptly demonstrated her
sense of an enduring, perhaps even elevated, status in the household by taking
over the kitchen and supervising the preparation of a dinner more elaborate
than the servants were used to in order to celebrate the coming of her young
mistress's first child.  Margaret's inheritance had an unexpectedly humbling
effect on Dixon.  In serving a mistress who actually owned much wealth and
knowing that—with a generous pension accumulating and waiting for her—she,
herself, no longer needed to struggle, Dixon began to feel that it was of no
great consequence how she was perceived by her peers, that having others
observe her "position" as lady's maid no longer mattered.  In this
vein, she planned to produce a feast for every member of the household to
share, masters as well as servants.

The servants grumbled at having
to do things differently from what they were used to but Jane, who ordinarily
supervised the cooking, did not mind Dixon taking over.  She never liked this
part of her duties but had to take it on in order to work for the Thorntons. 
Mrs. Thornton, who thought their tastes in food simple, took pride in
purchasing the best meats and produce available but never saw the need to
employ a cook and only used to hire one for short periods when she had her
annual parties.  In any case, Jane thought that Dixon had already interfered a
few times in the kitchen to cook her mistress's favored dishes.  The grumbling
servants learned soon enough that Dixon was preparing her festive dishes not
only for the master and mistress but also for the household staff to partake. 
The promise of a feast was inducement enough and they followed her instructions
with alacrity.  From then on, none of the servants complained when Dixon took
over the kitchen.

Some semblance of a routine
slowly took hold once again of the day-to-day life at the Thornton household. 
Margaret's pregnancy inevitably changed some of the habits she and John had
begun to fall into in the first three months of married life.  Dixon understood
Dr. Donaldson's advice on preventing Margaret's nausea and fainting as a sacred
standing order.  For a few more weeks at least, she was to bring her mistress a
breakfast of tea and toast to their bedroom every morning.  She did exactly
that after asking Margaret what time she wanted it served.

On the first two mornings, John
kept Margaret company as she sipped her tea and nibbled on her toast.  As they
talked, she offered him tea from her cup which he accepted without much
hesitation.  On the second morning, after he went to have a full breakfast in
the dining room and Dixon returned to the bedroom to take away the tray and
dirty dishes, Margaret asked for another cup and more tea to be brought in for
John on subsequent mornings.  A few days later, John sighed and bemoaned that
breakfast was too lonely to have in the dining room all by himself.  Margaret
immediately rang for Dixon to bring toast, eggs and sausages for him.  From
that time, breakfast in bed and a pleasant morning tête-à-tête became a ritual
that started the day for them before John went to work at the mill.

The routine Margaret followed
varied from day to day and depended partly on how bothersome her morning
sickness was.  She devoted nearly half the day to the numerous tasks of running
the household smoothly although it ran well enough without much direction from
her:  Dixon had fallen back into the role she first assumed with Mrs. Hale of
being head housekeeper, making many little decisions on her own and not
bothering her mistress about them.  Dixon prided herself in knowing her
mistress very well.  For the most part, her decisions were the same Margaret
would have made so Margaret thought it only natural for Dixon to take over most
minute responsibilities Mrs. Thornton had discharged herself. 

Before Dixon took over those
responsibilities, Margaret felt she spent more time than she cared on household
chores and, yet, once freed up from many of them, she worried about being an
indifferent mistress and about Mrs. Thornton's disapproval.  She did not dwell
too long on these worries, however—at least while Mrs. Thornton was away—as
long as the house was maintained in as orderly a fashion as before.  The other
servants initially heeded Dixon with much resentment or some resistance until
the unflappable Dixon reminded them that she took her directions directly from
Mrs. Margaret, an assertion not exactly true.

Margaret resumed her daily walk
the day after her fainting spell.  The doctor assured her that not only was it
safe, it was good for her and might actually facilitate childbirth.  These
days, in her condition, John tried to take the time from his often solitary
work at the mill to go with Margaret on her walk, usually in late afternoon,
and when he could not, he insisted on having someone accompany her.  At first,
Dixon went in John's place but Margaret found her too slow and unable to go the
distance she usually walked.  She tried to convince John that she could go on
her own but he was too anxious, concerned that she could faint again or be
stricken some other way while she was out alone.

One afternoon, seated in his
office for a short break from contacting and rehiring workers with Nicholas
Higgins using the list Higgins had given him when the mill closed, John
happened upon a solution.  When he and Nicholas reconvened, he asked,
"Would Mary be interested in assisting Dixon at our house?  Dixon has
taken over the management of the kitchen and needs assistance with meal
preparation and attending to Margaret's personal needs."

Nicholas replied with some
amusement.  "I will talk to Mary.  She will be happy to do it and would
likely prefer it to working in the dining hall.  But I would never have
thought, from what Mary told me of her previous time working for the Hales,
that Mrs. Margaret needed any kind of assistance."

John smiled and it seemed to
Nicholas that his eyes, which lighted up every time they talked about Margaret,
had an added glitter.  "We are expecting a baby and I want someone to go
with her on her walks.  You know my wife, Higgins.  Those walks are nearly a
necessity to her."

Nicholas grinned, "A child! 
A Thornton heir or heiress, maybe.  What good news!  I will tell Mary to go and
see Mrs. Margaret tomorrow.  I am sure she will prefer working for her than
cooking in the hall.  Actually, it seems an ideal set-up for Mary."

Margaret thought that it was
likewise an ideal set-up for her because she already knew Mary's character and
what she was capable of.  Two days after John talked to Nicholas, Mary Higgins
started working in the Thornton household.  She became Margaret's companion on
her walk, an arrangement which proved satisfactory to Dixon who was
increasingly involved in managing the whole house.

Although attending to her responsibilities
and taking her daily walk occupied the greater part of her day, Margaret made
certain to devote some time for reading, anticipating the end of the day when
John came home.  She had purchased some books in Paris—many of them literary
works in French by the well-known writers Honoré de Balzac and George Sand—that
she had been devouring since their return to Milton.