There was no hesitation on her part about her choice to go home to Helstone for the summer. Nothing could prevail upon her to give up her one chance of living the idyl of beauty and freedom for a season. The longing to roam the shaded forest paths and pass through sunny, open fields of endless greencalled to the inmost chambers of her soul with a power she could scarcely explain to a city-dweller.
She would not miss attending any forthcoming balls—except for the possibility of encountering once more the tall, sympathetic man from the North.
The flitting image of him distracted her train of thought as she remembered the pleasing elements of the previous evening’s last dance.
There was no one of particular interest in attendance. A secretive smile slowly curved on Margaret’s lips as she recalled Edith’s casual summary. Her cousin’s commendations and attention to personages were often as whimsical as her loyalty to a new dress. Wealth, display, social charm, and privilege seemed the high marks of her cousin’s standard. She could hardly be expected to note the stranger of no consequence who had garnered Margaret’s attention.
It was a singular happenstance to have taken such a curious interest in someone whom she would likely never meet again. Margaret relished the lingering pleasant remembrance of the chance exchange but knew it would serve no purpose to dwell upon it for any length of time.
She shook her head at the uselessness of all Edith’s social contrivances. Margaret considered herself a practical girl, and held no grand illusions concerning the ways in which men and women sought and selected their life-match. However much Edith might wrap herself in the tangled web of eligibility and aggrandized hopes for finding a perfect husband, Margaret brushed aside such belabored designs and set her faith on God’s ways.
Her aunt’s marriage to the aging but wealthy General Shaw had been carefully arranged and could not be counted in any way an affair of the heart, but it had bestowed upon her aunt the life of luxury and ease she and her daughter now took for granted.
Margaret much preferred to trust Providence to secure circumstances leading to the sacred bond of marriage. As she turned her gaze to a twittering pair of wrens perched outside her window, she thought of her parents’ unlikely match.
As the young new Helstone vicar, her father had traveled north to Rutlandshire to bolster a fellow Oxford scholar in his new capacity as curate of Oakham. Seldom away from his beloved country parish before or since, her father had taken this opportunity to aid a friend and see more of the English countryside.
Returning home on foot from a spring picnic, her mother had stopped to rest upon a low stone wall while the remainder of her company had flocked to admire a blossoming garden nearby. Set apart from the rest and looking the very picture of delicate feminine beauty—so her father had always said—the young Maria Beresford had attracted the attention of the handsome Rev. Hale, who had been enjoying a solitary walk through the verdant grounds near the Oakham church.
Thinking her quite abandoned, her father had approached the lone girl to inquire if she was well, and offered her water from his canteen upon hearing her reply that she was weary.
It was the kindness in his eyes and the warmth of his honest smile, her mother had told her, that had won the belle of Rutlandshire’s affection from the start. That warm June afternoon, the pair had fallen into pleasant conversation for a short time until Miss Beresford was reclaimed by her parting company. Rev. Hale had found himself invited to dinner at Sir John Bereford’s estate before the week had passed, and the destiny of the couple had been thereby sealed.
The memory of a particular smile stole again into Margaret’s mind with a glowing trace of renewed pleasure. This morning, she felt she could better comprehend her mother’s attraction to such a simple gesture. Surely it is possible, Margaret believed,to discern the essence of a person’s character in a matter of moments from the internal light (or darkness) emanating from his or her nature.
She knew it must have been so in her parents’ case, although she was certain no further parallels could be drawn between her mother’s history and the incidental encounter she had experienced at last night’s ball. The brief exchange with the kind gentleman from the North merely proved to her that hearts and minds of a similar bend would naturally illuminate with revitalizing and comforting joy upon recognizing a fellow soul among the countless earthly wanderers.
The cherished story of how her own parents met reinvigorated her belief that love found its own way to proper ends, and this naturally instilled a lingering, childlike faith for her own future.
The sunlight that now bathed the room further encouraged her cheerful and calm mood. She set her quill to paper to begin her task, with the glad recognition that her days in the city were numbered.
The hum of machinery could be heard through the open windows of the drawing room overlooking Milton’s largest cotton mill. Hannah Thornton plied her nimble fingers to her embroidery as she waited for her son’s expected return from London. The rhythmic drone of the looms that supported her present lofty position of stature and comfort was a melodious refrain to her son’s character and power. The consistent bursts of sound from work being accomplished across the yard only served to swell her heart with a fierce pride in remembrance of all the years of hardship and unremitting toil and discipline John had endured to earn his success.
She glanced across the room to where her well-attired daughter picked at her own sewing with less finesse and devotion to detail. No such similar strains of thinking were employing Fanny’s mind.
“This summer heat is so detestable when we are forced to open our windows and listen to such noise all the day long,” Fanny wailed. “I don’t understand why we could not find a more suitable house—far from this dirty and noisy mill.”
Mrs. Thornton opened her mouth to make some kind of reply, but stopped as her ears caught the first familiar sound of footsteps climbing the stairs. Her face softened, and her eyes lit with proud affection as her son walked through the doorway.
“You’re home early,” she remarked, lifting her face to better receive his welcoming kiss.
“My business was conducted swiftly enough,” he answered as he took a comfortable seat.
“You obtained a contract from Millard’s?” she asked but saw at once the answer in his expression. “The terms are agreeable?”
“Very agreeable. The mill will run at full capacity for many months. I find it well worth the trouble of my time to engage with these men of business myself instead of hiring an agent. Even if it is at some inconvenience to my regular schedule.” He paused before continuing.
“I must thank you, Mother, for ensuring that my traveling wardrobe included my coattails. I was compelled to attend a ball last evening, which I believe helped secure the contract I desired.”
“Such a hardship, to be certain, to be forced to attend a London ball,” Fanny remarked, mocking his choice of words. “Was there anyone of significance in attendance?” she asked, looking to her brother eagerly for a morsel of social consequence from the center of the English universe.
“I believe you know I am not predisposed to take notice of such things, Fanny,” he answered drily.
“I’m glad to see you acknowledge the merit in learning the social graces that will uphold your position in society. Your lessons in dancing were not wasted, then,” his mother remarked.
Fanny let out a huff of incredulity. “He can’t even tell us who was there. I’d say his dancing lessons were of no use at all! Why, he probably only danced with the wives of his boring business contacts and a few desperately plain merchant’s daughters.”
Mr. Thornton cast an irritated glance toward his sister. “Not all I danced with were of such kind. There was a girl…” he answered somewhat absently as the whole tenor of his countenance seemed to shift into light.
