Margaret of the North (41 page)

She smiled her sweetest at him as
she answered saucily, "Is that all you wanted to tell me?  If what you say
is true, then he should have noticed how often I gazed at you adoringly."

He laughed and drew her closer,
his hand caressing the nape of her neck.  He was aware that Dr. Hartley was
watching when he gave his wife a long deep kiss.  She laid her head briefly on
his shoulder and clung to him, murmuring with some amusement, "Was there a
message in that little show we just put on?"

He grinned impishly and answered,
his lips delicately nibbling at her cheek.  "Of course.  I am not above
making sure every earnest young or old man realizes you are off limits.  There
is something of the ape in us men.  We send out signals that we protect our
territory when challenged."

"And there is something of
the vamp in us women."  With that remark, she clasped his face with both
hands and kissed him passionately.  Then, she turned around abruptly and walked
away, leaving him behind, his mouth slightly open as his bemused eyes followed
her receding figure.

Mrs. Thornton decided to join
Fanny and Watson in London as soon as she could.  The afternoon before she
left, she descended from her bedroom to talk to Margaret and attempt some
semblance of a reconciliation.  She told herself that proper decorum compelled
her to do so since she was going away for some time.  She agonized for many
days over when and how to do it and chose a time when Margaret was in the room
adjacent to the kitchen.  Jane had told her that Margaret had gradually turned
it into a painting studio and Mrs. Thornton was curious to see what Margaret
did there.  She had never been in it and could not imagine why anyone would
bother to have a separate room to paint in.

Most afternoons after Elise
started her nap, Margaret spent a few hours sketching or painting in the
studio, emerging from it usually by late afternoon.  On warm sunny days, she
often came out earlier to take Elise, by then up from her nap, to play in the
garden or to promenade out in a pram with Mary.  Margaret relished her solitary
afternoons, usually also a time she had alone with her thoughts.  The act of
creating—her mind and hands thoroughly engaged in committing observations and
imagination on a blank canvas—helped her think more clearly and reassess
incidents or matters she might not initially comprehend.  She often reached a
point, through this means, when matters eventually fell into some perspective,
if not resolution.  When she was particularly distressed, the confusion of
thoughts and emotions poured out of her through the motions and energy of
applying pencil or brush to paper or canvas and she produced colors and lines
that did not often take on recognizable shapes.  She made them anyway. 
Somehow, those spontaneous gestures released tensions she had bottled up.

More often than not, she passed
her days in relative ease and commonplace concerns and the marks she made were
more controlled and purposeful.  She could, thus, focus better on painting
specific forms and colors, paying more attention to technique and envisioning
the finished painting clearly.  On the day Mrs. Thornton came, Margaret was
painting a portrait of John and Elise together.

When Mrs. Thornton knocked on her
door, Margaret was transferring one of her many sketches of the portrait on a
canvas, in preparation for painting it.  Her sketches were all strewn on a
long, old kitchen table discarded from the renovation.  She did not get up to
open the door at the knock, expecting either Dixon, who might need to see her
about some household decision that could not be made without her, or Mary, who
might want instructions on Elise's care.  Apart from those two, John was the only
other person who ventured into the room when Margaret painted but he hardly
ever knocked.  He walked in quietly, touched her gently, or kissed her softly
on the nape of her neck if she was painting or sketching, careful not to
startle her out of her concentration.

Margaret called out.  "The
door is unlocked.  Come in please."

Margaret was in the midst of
sketching in some details and did not look up when the door opened.  "I
will be with you in a minute."  But she stopped and turned her head when
she heard the rustle of stiff crinoline.  "Mrs. Thornton, what a pleasant
surprise."

Margaret was indeed surprised to
see the person she least expected but she convinced neither herself nor Mrs.
Thornton that she actually found the interruption pleasant.  After their last
acrimonious private encounter, they tried to be civil to each other.  But
conversations of any real substance were nearly nonexistent and they studiously
kept out of each other's way until dinner when John's presence eased tensions
somewhat.  Margaret surmised that she owed this unusual visit to Mrs.
Thornton's acute sense of propriety which dictated that, since she was going
away—although only temporarily—she must part with her daughter-in-law as
amicably as she could.

Mrs. Thornton, with an almost
imperceptible smile, nodded her head but said nothing; her direct and frank
manner made her incapable of casual pleasantries.  She surveyed the room
quickly until her attention was arrested by the sketches on the table.  She
examined what she could see without picking up any of them for a closer
scrutiny. 

With unalloyed but restrained
admiration, she remarked, "You have gotten a good likeness.  You have
captured the expression in John's eyes in most of these."

Margaret smiled, amused by the
observation but gratified by the implied compliment.  "I do see those eyes
every day."

The older woman did not answer
but looked around once more, her manner unhurried, reverting to its cold
formality.  She pointed at a divan by the window.  "May I sit down?"

"Of course.  Please come
around this way,"  Margaret replied, getting up. 

She led Mrs. Thornton around the
long table of sketches that stood between her and the divan.  With her request
to take a seat, Margaret suspected that Mrs. Thornton had come for a weightier
reason than just to say goodbye.  But Margaret was wary of encouraging anything
beyond a superficial exchange and was not about to inquire into the reason for
the visit.  She stood awkwardly by, picked up a towel off the table, busied
herself with wiping the charcoal off her hands, and waited for her
mother-in-law to say something.

Mrs. Thornton sat quietly and
frowned, watching Margaret with some annoyance.  She wanted to tell her to sit
down but she held her tongue. 

After some minutes, Mrs. Thornton
said in as steady a voice as she could muster, "I will be away for a few
months and I did not want to leave with"—she paused, groping for the right
word—"misunderstandings between us."

Margaret stopped wiping her hands
and turned her head to stare at Mrs. Thornton who, for an instant, averted her
eyes downward, her composure unsettled by the directness in Margaret's gaze. 
Margaret could not believe that this proud, aloof woman was actually going to
apologize to her.  And yet, Mrs. Thornton's grave manner and the anxiety in her
eyes showed that she intended to do so and that she was about to say something
which caused her a great deal of discomfort, if not outright pain.  Margaret
pulled the chair from in front of her easel and sat down, a few paces away from
the divan.  She gripped the soiled towel in her hand, rested her hands on her
lap and waited—but a very short moment—for Mrs. Thornton to speak.  Margaret
listened, the calm, casual expression she had put on to mask her uneasiness
gradually giving way to astonishment.

Mrs. Thornton spoke deliberately
and clearly, anxious to be understood.  "All the things I said to you when
we last talked in the drawing room were uncalled for.  They were hurtful and
unfair.  I am well aware that my son has been happy with you.  I am grateful
for that and for the fact that he was spared from the struggle and humiliation
of starting all over again.  It is as if his financial collapse never
happened."

Margaret frowned and could not
help retorting, "I did not marry John to rescue him from his financial
troubles."

Mrs. Thornton shook her head,
annoyed at being interrupted.  "I did not mean it that way.  I saw his
despair when the mill closed.  It seemed no man could be anymore despondent
than he was then.  It broke my heart and I was angry at a world that was so
unjust to one so good and generous, one who had toiled earnestly and
honestly."

She paused and gritted her teeth,
oppressed by a turmoil of emotions.  She flashed narrowed eyes at Margaret that
were averted just as swiftly when she resumed.  "Then he brought you home
with him, you who once rejected him and hurt him so deeply."  She turned
her face away before continuing.  "He was different, I saw that right
away.  He seemed happy, changed from the last time he confided in me, his
despair gone." 

She paused again and looked away
for a long moment.  Then, in a quieter voice, she said, "I should have
been thankful."

Mrs. Thornton directed her eyes
back at Margaret.  "But somehow, it did not seem fair.  I could not do
anything about his despair, I who had stood by him all his life, made him who
he is.  And you—you change your mind about him, come back, profess your love
for him—suddenly, everything is right once again for him." 

Her voice broke when she finished
and, though she kept her chin thrust upward, her eyelids dropped and she took a
long deep breath, relieved, exhausted, angry, defeated.  Mrs. Thornton had
already gone through an intense struggle in her room just before this meeting. 
Her proud unyielding nature revolted against having to admit her mistakes to
someone she still hated.  But she thought she needed to be fair and admit the
unjustness and hurtfulness of her accusations; in fact, she also feared
alienating her son completely if she persisted in openly antagonizing his
wife.  She knew it was not right to hate her but she could not help it.  At
first, she merely felt that Margaret, unwelcome and a foreigner could not be
trusted.  But what Mrs. Thornton feared most happened: Margaret not only
claimed John for herself.  She also changed him materially and, in doing so,
turned Mrs. Thornton's own well-ordered existence upside down:  The mill was
now lost to her, as well.  Margaret had taken away the last thing that was
precious to Mrs. Thornton.

Margaret’s reaction to this
confrontation with Mrs. Thornton was no less complex, stirring painful emotions
that she would rather have kept dormant.  She felt some remorse on being
reminded of having hurt John with her rejection; sad and sorry about Mrs.
Thornton's profound suffering at losing her self-imposed role in the mill; and
hurt by insinuations—implied in what she thought Mrs. Thornton left unsaid—that
she was, a part of a world that had been unjust to her son and to Mrs. Thornton
herself.  Inevitably, however, what astounded Margaret was Mrs. Thornton's
confession.  She could not fully comprehend it. 

Mrs. Thornton admitted having
wrongly uttered hurtful words and, more amazing to Margaret, she acknowledged
her resentment.  And yet, she did not actually apologize, never said she was
sorry.  Margaret was not surprised; she doubted that proud, unbending Mrs.
Thornton ever repented anything she did.  Did she ever let go of her resentment
and if she did, how long could she sustain it?  Still, Mrs. Thornton did admit she
had been wrong, a gesture extremely difficult for her.  Margaret could only
imagine the agony it took for her to go through with it.

Margaret glanced surreptitiously
at Mrs. Thornton who sat very still and had turned her head towards the
window.  Margaret fidgeted in her seat, wondering what to do next but could not
think of how to reply; indeed, Mrs. Thornton did not seem to need nor expect a
reply.  She glanced furtively once again at the older woman who sat as if she
had hardly moved a muscle.  In fact, she was now scowling at something outside
the window.  They stayed rooted in their seats, for a long while.

A sudden urge seized Margaret to
get up and run out into the garden for some fresh air.  It would have been very
easy to do—only a few paces separated her from the garden through the door she
always left open to air out her studio.  But she kept to her seat, reluctant to
disturb Mrs. Thornton's restless repose.  And yet, she must say something;
perhaps, Mrs. Thornton was waiting for her to do so before she felt she could
leave.  Margaret gripped the towel tighter in her hand, still at a loss about
what to say but conscious that every minute that passed while she sat saying
nothing became increasingly oppressive. 

She forced herself to open her
mouth, to form some words.  What came out was polite but impersonal. 
"Thank you, Mrs. Thornton, for being very frank with me."

Mrs. Thornton turned towards her,
forced a smile, and nodded.  Indeed, in her mind, nothing more needed to be
said and she could get up, leave the room, and go back to the sanctuary of her
own bedroom.  But she could not shake off a heaviness in her bosom that she
could not define and she remained in her seat.  Margaret waited.  It seemed to
her that Mrs. Thornton had clammed up so she got up and started to walk towards
the door to the garden.  She cast a swift glance at her mother-in-law and
something in her expression made Margaret stop.  She had initially intended to
bid Mrs. Thornton a polite "good afternoon" as she walked by but, passing
that close, Margaret saw melancholy and weariness in the older woman's eyes
that softened the usually stern expression of her compressed lips and resolute
jaw.  Margaret had seen Mrs. Thornton worried and angry before, inevitably out
of concern for John, but a deep and weary sadness had seemed alien to her.