Margaret of the North (29 page)

"I know.  I looked up the
house a couple of times and saw you.  You cannot imagine how much it gratified
me to see you up here.  It was exhilarating reopening the mill but, I realized
your presence here made it much more so and more completely satisfying.  I knew
I had to work towards getting my own mill again but there was not much joy for
me in that prospect before you came back to me."

She raised her head, pressing her
cheek against his, "I am so happy that everything went well.  You were so
excited and triumphant when you came in, you nearly brought tears to my
eyes."

He kissed her once more and
remarked, smiling, "My wife cries when she's sad and she cries when she's
happy and proud."  Then, nuzzling his face against her neck as if he was
trying to find some solace there, he continued wearily, "Yes, it has been
a happy event although at this moment, I am merely exhausted and in need of
your soothing embrace."

She held him closer, stroking his
cheeks and his hair.  She whispered, "I could ring for tea."

She felt his head shake lightly
against her neck and settle more snugly against it.  They held each other for
some time, wordless and nearly still until his fast, shallow breathing
gradually slowed down and deepened.  Much later, he muttered against her neck. 
"Will you promise to wait for me here in this room when I come home every
night?"

She nodded, kissed him, and laid
her cheek on his.

Since then, Margaret waited for
John in their bedroom, with a fire in the hearth and tea ready for him.  Almost
always after taking off his coat, he plopped himself into an armchair, stripped
himself of his vest and tie and pulled her onto his lap to cuddle up by the
fireplace before she served him tea.  They treasured this time together.  For John,
to hold Margaret in his arms and submit to her tender ministrations and
caresses was the sweetest way anyone could ever have of decompressing from the
noisy and often intense activities at the mill.  She soothed his nerves,
high-strung in the days during and right after the resumption of mill
operations, and she massaged his tense muscles when he complained of being
particularly tired.  By the time they descended to the dining room, he was
reenergized for the rest of the evening.

Margaret waited impatiently for
this time at dusk when the machines had stopped churning, all was tranquil and
she could finally claim her husband for herself after a day when he seemed to
belong to another world.  She understood its draw for him, this world of
machines and more modern ways of working, of intriguing new possibilities, of a
type of commerce that spurred but was also changed by new inventions, of new
industries that benefited many more than those engaged in actively pursuing
them.  Still, she could not help feeling that a world outside that of
machinery—the one she had been brought up in, of books and ideas, music and
art—was now even more important to hold on to.

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

Margaret got up and walked
towards the window to look down on the mill yard.  When she entered it for the
very first time, she could not believe that anyone would live next to the
incessant flurry of a mill.  But fate, ironic and obedient to no laws, played
its trick again, thrusting her, probably for life, into the midst of that
flurry.  It never even occurred to her that day at the train station that, in
coming home with John, it was this place she was returning to.  It had not
mattered to her then.  Now that she had lived in it for some time and
particularly after the sensation of being trapped when she was inside the mill
only half an hour ago, she found herself having trouble getting accustomed to
it. 

The mill seemed to her
all-encompassing in its reach, claiming body and mind of those involved in it. 
Those men and women moving in rhythm with the machines had blank unseeing
expressions on their faces as if they could do their work just as efficiently
with their eyes closed.  For the first time, she saw more fully its hold on
Mrs. Thornton who seemed to have forgotten her presence.

Margaret made a resolve that
day.  She could and would escape the confines of the mill, having been
persuaded early on that it was not necessary that they lived next to it.  With
a child coming and, probably more in the future, she knew without a doubt that
she wanted her children alive to all the possibilities that awaited them and
she worried that they might be constrained by growing up within the confines of
a mill courtyard.  There would not be other children to play with, no open
spaces to run on, no new and strange little nooks or objects to explore; in
fact, she thought the courtyard dangerous for little children.  For them more
than for herself, she wanted a life larger than what passed within the walls
and gates of Marlborough Mills.

She, herself, could not escape
nor did she want to, the fact that she chose to belong to a life that was tied
not only to Milton but also to the mill.  Indeed, she had learned to value the
making of cotton as an occupation as worthy as any other.  But she could not
see herself actively involved in its operation.  Not the way her mother-in-law
was.  Still, she did not believe she could remain detached from matters that
concerned the mill.  Her interest, however, was not in machines but in people
and, although it did not matter to her whether they worked in the mills or
elsewhere, she thought that if she were to be useful in Milton, it might as
well be among those who worked at the mill.  Marlborough Mills was not merely
machines and cotton but people, workers who, though they appeared to her as
extensions of the machines inside the mill, did have lives outside of it. 

With those agreeable thoughts,
Margaret began to feel more at ease with her ambivalence.  She turned away from
the window.  It was time to go down to the kitchen to see Dixon.  Perhaps, she
thought as she descended down the stairs, when he felt more confident about the
mill, John would come home occasionally for lunch, just as he did before the
mill reopened.

Winter descended upon Milton as
heavily as the summer did.  For the first few weeks, it dumped snow and hail
that once again forced people indoors.  Confined throughout the day within the
cold, gray rooms of the house and unable to go for her daily walks, Margaret was
restless, impatient for the day to end and for John to come home.  Her books
were not enough to provide her the escape she sought and she could only spend a
limited time a day on needlework before it bored her.  But Margaret's restive
mind often found some way to regain its equilibrium. 

One afternoon, she decided it was
time to rummage through the rest of her possessions that had been brought over
from London.  Stored in trunks still untouched since she and John returned from
Cadiz, they were items she could not part with although she did not have much
use for most of them.  Some articles belonged to her parents.  The rest were
mementos of her life in Helstone which she had been loath to throw out and
which she was now glad that she had not.  Among these was a covered basket
packed with sketchbooks, pieces of rag paper and linen, pencils, charcoal
sticks, colored chalks, cakes of watercolors, and brushes—precisely the items
she had hoped to find.  She also unpacked a few tubes of oil paint purchased in
Paris, nearly forgotten after being shoved in a drawer on their return to
Milton.

She took the basket and the oil
paints, placed these all on the floor by the window, walked around the room,
and collected a few objects that were interesting to her, either for their form
or color.  They included a vase, a bowl of fruit, some bottles from her
dresser, a colorful book, and a candlestick, all of which she deposited on the
table by the window.  She started doing sketches of each of these objects,
sometimes more than once, filling several pages of one sketchbook fairly
quickly.  So absorbed was she in drawing lines and using color to define their
forms that when Dixon came to light the oil lamps, she hardly took notice of
her. 

A little later, John opened the
door slowly so as not to disturb her if she was resting.  He saw her
silhouetted by the window, bent over a sketchbook, with pencils, chalks and
many other objects scattered on the table.  She had not heard him come in. John
approached her as noiselessly as he could so as not to startle her but Margaret
looked up at the very moment he stopped and stood next to her.  Her countenance
registered some surprise at seeing him. 

She turned towards the window and
at the darkness outside, "My goodness!  Is it that time already?"

He smiled indulgently at her,
"Yes, it is nearly eight and time for dinner.  Barely enough for you to
get those smudges off your face and hands and dress up."

She got up slowly, wiped her
cheeks with the back of her hand, shook her skirt of colored dust, and
exclaimed, laughing, "I have made a mess in here."  She glanced up at
him and added, "And you are late today so the tea must be cold."

John raised her face with his
hand and kissed her lightly on the lips.  "I know.  I am sorry.  I went to
meet with some new customers today.  In any case, you seem to have been too
busy to miss me this afternoon.  I see you found your pencils and
crayons."

She picked up a colored stick and
said, "In fact, this is a chalk and not a crayon since there is no oil in it,
mostly pigment.  I have nearly forgotten what a pleasure it is to color with
these chalks.  Just look at those vibrant colors."  She handed him the
sketch she just finished as she walked towards the bathroom to wash her hands.

"This is beautiful.  The colors
do make the apples and grapes so alive that you are tempted to reach into the
bowl and eat them.  We should frame this and hang it."

She came back into the room
wiping her face and hands with a towel.  "That is really just a study and
I did not mean for it to be framed.  But I am glad you like it because I intend
to do more.  Those Paris art shows have inspired me and since this weather is
not good for walking, I will have uninterrupted time to draw and even
paint."  She added, pouting a little, "But I do not have an easel. 
Do you know where I can get one?"

He hardly heard her question as
he casually leafed through a few more drawings and smiled warmly at her,
"I am happy to see your enthusiasm for drawing and painting.  I am not an
expert but what you have here look uncommonly good."

She wrinkled her nose at him,
gratified.  Then, forgetting about the easel, she turned around for his
inspection.  "This dress will have to do since I have no time to change. 
What do you think?"

"It seems fine to me.  Let's
go.  I am starved," he answered and grasped her hand, pulling her behind
him as he headed for the door.

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

Margaret's pregnancy had become
obvious by her first Christmas with John and Mrs. Thornton told her that it was
time to begin her confinement.  That meant that she could only attend family
get-togethers and not be seen in public.  Margaret was disappointed and thought
it a quaint practice that served her no purpose.  "Why should a woman hide
the fact that she is with child?"  She asked John irritably.

"No reason, my love."

"Do you think me ugly now
that my stomach comes out to here?"  She asked, holding her hands out in
front of her.

"Not at all.  Just as
beautiful as ever.  Sometimes, even more so."

"Will it embarrass you if
your friends and business associates see me like this in public?"

"No, not me.  It may
embarrass them but that is their problem."

Margaret had organized a small
celebration at the Dining Hall for Marlborough Mills children, those who worked
there or had parents who did, and it aggravated her that her condition
apparently precluded her from going to it.  At first, she thought of defying
convention and Mrs. Thornton.  But she reconsidered and decided it was probably
best to acquiesce and remain within Mrs. Thornton's good graces, this early in
her marriage.  She believed somebody from the family had to go, however, to
hand out the packages that had already been wrapped and labeled with the
children's names. 

She asked John if he would go in
her place.  “Mary could go and help you.”

He appeared to hesitate but
before he could reply, she said, "Perhaps, Hannah could do it,"
although she knew Mrs. Thornton would not agree. 

Margaret really thought it a good
idea if Mrs. Thornton went since there was a conceivable chance she might be
more sympathetic towards the children if she saw them in a different setting,
one associated with charity and sharing.  Perhaps, they might even tug at that
maternal spot in her heart.

"You know she would
not," John replied, scowling.  Then he grumbled, "Not exactly my job
but I will do it." 

Margaret had expected precisely
such an arrangement.

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

One Sunday morning a few weeks
after Christmas, John and Margaret lay lazily in bed, enjoying the luxury of
getting up as late as they wanted.  He was on his side facing his wife,
stroking her pregnant belly when Margaret brought up a subject she had been
mulling over for weeks.  She had rehearsed many times in her mind what she
would say to John but had put off talking about it until work at the mill had
reached some degree of stability.  Seeing him relaxed and refreshed from a good
night's sleep, she decided it was time to tell him what had been bothering her
since shortly after the mill reopened.

"Our child is coming in a
couple of months," she began, smiling, as she covered the hand he had on
her stomach with hers.  "Some things will change."

John, still stroking her belly,
looked at her expectantly and waited for her to say more.  She lifted his hand
and sat up.  For a few moments, uneasiness written in her eyes, she stared at
him and said nothing.