Shadow in the North

Chapter Forty-Three - Where there's Smoke, there's Fire

The following week - some two days before Isabel's first dinner party as Mrs John Thornton - Isabel came in from the mill infirmary, to find a pot of tea and plate of sandwiches waiting for her. She sighed with satisfaction, and looked longingly towards the sofa, where she wished that she might sit and enjoy a light meal, but Mrs Thornton had laid out upon the dining table, a collection of place cards and glassware, along with an assortment of linens.

'If you will take your tea at the table, Isabel, I will show you through our glassware, and you might choose which cut you would prefer,' offered Mrs Thornton, for she felt keenly, that she ought to allow the young wife to make her own decisions, and yet, she did not quite trust her new daughter's judgement.

'Oh, I hardly have a preference. They all look very fine,' replied Isabel, seating herself upon that firm, hard-backed chair. 'Which you do usually use?'

'These ones,' said Mrs Thornton, handing to her, the most ostentatious glass upon the table. It was not to Isabel's tastes, but her tastes were not to Milton standards, and so she felt her dislike of the glass a fair indication that is was just the very set to suit their purpose.

'I agree,' smiled Isabel, gratefully drinking her tea. Mrs Thornton watched the young wife's eyes close, and her lips curl with satisfaction, as she sipped at her black tea. Mrs Thornton thought she had never seen Isabel look so comely and gentle, as she did in that fleeting moment of calm and simple domesticity.

Mrs Thornton had surprised herself with her feelings for her son's wife. She had thought to hate the girl; to merely tolerate her with a cold ambivalence for the sake of her son, but Isabel had made him so very happy, that her frostiness had thawed, until she had been forced to tolerate the girl with equanimity. Those early weeks - or months - of marriage, had been trying for the matriarch, for she so often saw Isabel do something vexatious, and the maternal core of her person, wished to chide and rebuke until the girl quelled, but Mrs Thornton had never done so. Such a deed was her son's responsibility, and for all that Mrs Thornton had been irritated by cushions and wasted candles, wifely-baking and fraternisation with the working poor, she would not have so openly insulted her son by speaking against his wife. Where once she had imposed herself with her iron will, and stood against a wilful suitor, she now faced a wife - ordained by God and law - and there could be no denial of the woman's rights.

Thus, Mrs Thornton had held her tongue, and suffered the little inconveniences and mortifications of taste and feeling, as she had watched her son's wife coddle him, and slowly, unobtrusively, bring changes to their home and habits. She could not precisely identify when the change had come, but come it had, for over time those little impositions - the early candles, the trips to the kitchen, and the clutter of books about the drawing room - had become to Mrs Thornton, less irksome, until the point where she would have felt their absence as a trifling loss.

She attributed her change in sentiment to her son, and told herself that it was only justified that she should find some small satisfaction in the changes about the house, because they pleased her son so greatly, as he was first in all that she thought and did. But in truth, Mrs Thornton had come to quite like her new daughter. She thought her bold and daring, in a hearty, hale way, and took pride in having such a fearless daughter-in-law. She felt keenly, the staunch loyalty of Isabel, whenever she spoke in defence of husband or mother (which was sadly required often, for Fanny was a fool, and prone to idle, careless speech, which was distasteful to one so loyal and protective, as was Isabel).

And even towards Fanny, Isabel showed a caring friendship. True, Mrs Thornton saw that her son's wife found amusement in her daughter - and not always in the kindest way - but she had affected to diagnose Fanny with severe migraines, and had told Mr Watson, that Fanny ought not be approached more than once a week, unless by invitation. Isabel was, thought Mrs Thornton, a fine wife, but one in need of constant improvement, for she was shockingly ill at needlework, and appeared to know nothing about making soaps or posies, about music or dancing; to such an extent, that Mrs Thornton suspected Isabel had been raised as a boy, rather than a girl!