Margaret of the North (38 page)

"I prefer to stand." 
Mrs. Thornton's voice was both tense and icy.

Margaret remained standing and,
bracing herself for a contentious encounter, she resolved to remain calm,
reasonable, and patient.  But she was totally unprepared for what came next.

Mrs. Thornton, eyes narrowed and
gritting her teeth, unleashed the resentments she had been nurturing for a long
time, "I never liked you with your airs and southern graces.  I find them
pretentious and annoying.  I never understood what my son saw in you."

Margaret was too stunned to
answer and Mrs. Thornton continued, "You have changed him and he has lost
his focus.  I do not recognize him much anymore.  A Milton girl would have
known better than to interfere as you have.  You……"

Margaret, regaining her
composure, interrupted in a strong, cold voice.  "Mrs. Thornton, please
take heed of what you are saying.  John is still the John you knew, doing what
he believes the best way he can.  If you want to credit me for something, I
would own up to nurturing his compassion but he has always had that.  It is
what has made him fair to his workers and conscientious about keeping the mill
productive.  His workers depend on it, you depend on it."

"And you do not?"

"On the mill?  No, not in
the way you do.  It is important to me because it is a significant part of
John's life.  It is what you taught him and what fate threw in his path.  If he
was doing something else, he would still mean the whole world to me."

"Fancy words.  You did not
even know what he was when you rejected him.  Now, you speak as if you know him
better than me.  You have seduced him with words like those but you cannot do
that to me.  The truth is he would not have turned against me but for
you."

"He has not turned against
you.  He did only what he thought was in the best interests of the mill.  It
agonized him deeply that he made you very unhappy in doing so but he believed
you were strong, resilient and would overcome this as you have other
adversities before it.  You told me yourself that you have faced setbacks, defeat,
even tragedy—and he watched you ride them all."

"I have always done what was
best for him at the expense of my comfort, my own needs and wishes.  He knows
that and would never intentionally do anything to hurt me."

"Yes, he does know that and,
no, he would never hurt you on purpose.  But you also taught him the mill is
everything and he made a decision, as painful as it was, that he believed was
best for it."

"He knows!  He knows!  Of
course, he knows!  But you, what do you know?  You are merely an ignorant
upstart from the south with pretensions of book knowledge and aristocratic
ideas and now, you think you know him better than I do."

Mrs. Thornton was desperate. 
Margaret countered her attacks with an equanimity and forcefulness that she had
not expected.  All those solitary days in her room, Mrs. Thornton had nursed
the pain of what, to her, was the ultimate proof of her son's rejection when he
sided with the workers demand for her to stop going to the mill.  It was the
negation of what she had given of herself, the nullifying, it seemed, of what
her life meant.  She saw all those in her last conversation with her son and it
devastated her.  The pain of it all percolated in her breast until she feared
it would burst out and destroy her unless she did something about it.

She had felt betrayed by her son
but she threw the blame for that betrayal on someone else.  That person was in
front of her now and Mrs. Thornton, disconcerted by Margaret's composure, felt
she had no choice but to savagely perform an exorcism.  "Get out of our
lives!  You do not belong here.  Get out of our lives!  I want my son
back."  Her voice cracked and by the time she had flung her final insult
at Margaret, her anger had drained her energy.

"Mrs. Thornton, please, do
not say anything more that you might regret.  Like it or not, I am your son's
wife and I have every intention of remaining so."  Margaret's eyes were on
fire and her tone grew from emphatic to challenging.

Mrs. Thornton advanced towards
her and retorted scornfully but her voice was now subdued, quivering, spent. 
"You are only his wife.  I am his mother.  Blood is thicker than
water."

Margaret lifted her chin high and
declared, with blazing undaunted eyes directed at Mrs. Thornton, "We
should end this conversation right now.  You have made your sentiments towards
me very clear and I can say no more that will make my intentions equally
clear."  She turned around and sailed out of the room, her jaw clenched
and her eyes welling up with tears.

When certain that she was no longer
within sight of Mrs. Thornton, she ran up the stairs to her bedroom, locked the
door and sat by the window.  She dropped her face on her hands and she trembled
from a chaos of emotions.  Her shoulders heaved and shook but except for a few
gasps of air, no other sounds came out of her struggle.  She was enraged, that
much she could tell.  It was always her first response to the perception of
being attacked.  But stronger feelings that she could not grasp had also taken
hold of her, a mix of sadness and desolation, of perplexity and even fear—of
what, she could not identify.  Mrs. Thornton declared she was not a Milton girl
and she knew she was not a London girl and certainly no longer was she Margaret
Hale of Helstone.  What was she and did it matter where she belonged?

It was a long time before she
felt calmer and her body stopped shaking.  She got up, walked into the sitting
room towards the window, stared blankly out at the garden for a few more
minutes—her body motionless but far from tranquil and her mind still in turmoil
over the encounter with Mrs. Thornton.  She wondered if she should say anything
at all about it to John.  He knew, as she did, that his mother did not like her
so she reasoned that that fact did not bear repeating.  And although the violence
of Mrs. Thornton's declarations and accusations that morning troubled her
deeply, Margaret tried to imagine what Mrs. Thornton had gone through the last
few days when the remaining focus of her life was taken away from her. 

Margaret wanted to excuse the
older woman's behavior but her heart rebelled.  It cried out as one would at
the injustice of being found guilty without a trial.  She clenched her jaw to
control her mounting anger.  At that moment, Mary, with Elise in her arms,
walked out into the garden, humming a nursery song.  Mary sat on a bench and,
cradling Elise on her lap, took the child's hands and guided them to clap and
sway as she sang to her.  Margaret watched them for some time, walked back
towards the bedroom and checked herself on the mirror.  She headed for the
garden, resolved to make the day go as it always had and to say nothing to John
about what passed.

**************

Mrs. Thornton came down for
dinner that evening.  She had taken extra care about her appearance, adorning
her hair with a pearl comb and her front bodice with lace she wore only on
friendly social visits.  She walked into the room with her head held high and
her manner more formal than usual.  She greeted them with a faint thrust of her
chin and sat down at her usual place.

John made a motion to assist her
but she had sat down before he could reach her.  "Good evening mother. 
You look very nice this evening."  He was quite relieved to have her
finally rejoin them for dinner and to see her looking well.

"Good evening, Mrs.
Thornton," Margaret said simply, suppressing an impulse to flee.

Conversation at dinner was hushed
and strained.  Margaret hardly said anything except to nod and occasionally
make a very brief response to John who was keenly aware that the conversation
had practically turned into his performing a monologue.  He persisted, however,
rambling about the weather, the delicious dishes, Elise's antics and everything
else that did not pertain to the mill.

For a while, a modicum of the old
routines and habits returned to the household although when John was at the
mill, Mrs. Thornton kept to her room more than she had before.  She got up for
breakfast earlier than she used to and always seemed to just be finishing as
John entered the room.  She was ready to leave by the time he started his. 
They had barely enough time together to interact beyond the usual morning
greetings.  Still, she made it a point to remain until John came down to
breakfast so they saw each other every morning.  Margaret, who fed and cared
for Elise before breakfast, only saw her at dinner, an arrangement that suited
both women.

John assumed that his mother was
probably still hurt and angry with him but that, when she was ready, she would
resume her old habits.  Breakfast had been their time alone together and
Margaret, sensitive to what it meant for mother and son, used to join them just
when Mrs. Thornton was finishing her last cup of tea.  John intended to wait
patiently for his mother to start talking to him the way she used to.  But weeks
passed and John could wait no longer.

One morning, as he was entering
the breakfast room, he said, "Mother, please stay and talk to me while I
am having breakfast, like you used to do You seem to be always leaving just as
I start."

"But I have finished and
have things to attend to every morning."

"I am sure those things can
wait a few minutes.  Mother, I beg you."

"What do you want from
me?"  She asked with some vehemence.

"Nothing in particular,
merely to talk to you.  It was always a nice start to my day."

"Well, things cannot be as
they had been.  You have a wife now.  Talk to her.  I am at last free to spend
my day as I choose to and I like it that way.  I prefer to go back to my room
right now."  With this declaration, she stood up and hurried out of the
room.  John was dumbfounded and could only watch her receding back unhappily.

When Margaret came in for
breakfast, he related to her what transpired, adding, "The situation with
my mother is getting unbearable.  I can understand her anger at me but how long
can she ignore us and go about her day as if we did not exist."

"A long time," Margaret
replied, affecting nonchalance.  "She has treated me as if I was just a
visitor here since I came back to Milton with you.  It did not change even
after we got married.  I was upset at first and sometimes I still am but I am
learning to ignore it.  But, she is not my mother and we have never developed a
close relationship.  I am sure it must be much more upsetting for you."

"Have I failed her?"

"I do not think she believes
that and she probably blames you much less than you think.  She loves you and
that will finally prevail, I am sure of it."  Margaret bit her upper lip
and looked away.  She had found it more of a struggle than she had thought to
forget, much less excuse or justify Mrs. Thornton's angry and bitter reproach
at their last acrimonious encounter.  It pained her to be in the older woman's
presence and dinner had become, for her, a punishment to be endured.  She
longed to unburden herself to someone.  Although it was often John she shared
her deepest thoughts with, this time she knew she needed someone else to talk
to.  But who?  Not Edith who disliked conflict and, anyway, she was too far
away.  This was confidence better shared face-to-face.  Not Aunt Shaw, for the
same reasons as Edith.  She had to admit, finally, that she had no one in
Milton she could turn to on matters about which she could not talk to John.

"Margaret, my love, is
anything the matter?"  John's anxious voice jolted her out of her thoughts. 
Only then did she realize that she had lapsed into a silence so long that he
expressed some concern.

She looked at him, absentmindedly
at first and then thoughtfully.  She came very close to yielding to the
temptation of telling him about the bitter accusations his mother leveled at
her but eventually, she blurted out, instead, "Perhaps, I should go for a
visit to London for a while.  That may give you a better chance to mend your
relationship with your mother."

As soon as she said this,
Margaret regretted it.  She did not know what came over her except that she had
the urge to run away from wherever Mrs. Thornton was.

He shook his head vigorously. 
The idea was inconceivable to him and this was one of those instances,
heretofore rare, when he did not hesitate asserting his authority as her
husband.  "I doubt that that will help.  Besides I need you here so I
prefer that you stay."

"I am sorry.  I do not know
why I even suggested it."

They finished breakfast in
silence.  Margaret stared thoughtfully at the milky dark brew in her cup,
sipping it slowly.  It reminded her of teatime in Helstone when, as a child,
she used to sit silently with her cup of very milky tea, next to her mother as
she entertained visitors or friends.  She liked those social visits because the
ladies would remark how proud her mother was to have a daughter who behaved so
much like a little lady.  How she longed to be back in Helstone!  Back in that
parish house parlor where she could look up from reading a book or drawing and
see the large bush profuse with yellow roses in late May through June; back
where she never had to wonder whether her parents and her brother cared for her
because it was something she took for granted.