Fate & Circumstance - A North & South Continuation

CHAPTER THREE - TENTATIVE APPROACHES

CHAPTER THREE - TENTATIVE APPROACHES

The moment he entered the room he was aware of her presence. Deliberately he did not look directly at her, fearing still his own passionate proclivity to rush to her side and instead, adhering to the control he had steadfastly exercised all his life, allowed himself to become immersed in the immediate and perfunctory matter of greeting Mrs Shaw, who received him with civility enough to put him at ease, before being introduced to Captain Lennox and his young wife. 

Captain Lennox, with his easy manner of speaking to those whom he had never met before, turned to John with a look of pleasant curiosity. "My brother tells me that you have travelled all the way from the North - from Milton, I believe, Mr Thornton?" he said, his tone convivial. "That is quite a distance, to be sure!" 

John inclined his head, acknowledging Captain Lennox's words. "It is, yes, but I had an urgent matter of business to attend to which required my presence here in London so was compelled to make the journey." As he spoke he glimpsed obliquely across at Margaret, framed in silhouette before the window, the light from beyond streaming in through the fragile lace of the curtains, seemingly lost in the privacy of her own thoughts. It was as though she had not even been aware of his coming into the drawing room just a few moments before, even though he knew that she must have been, for she would certainly have heard Henry Lennox's booming announcement.  

"Yes, of course," Captain Lennox was saying, his voice pulling John from his contemplation of Margaret. "Did you not find the journey tedious though?"

"Having only recently journeyed to Milton myself, Maxwell, I will say that it is not so bad a journey as you might perceive,"  Henry Lennox said. "Indeed, a train carriage is infinitely preferable to being tossed about in a coach for hours on end, where every ruck in the road is an endless source of irritation. Do you not agree, Mr Thornton?"

"I cannot disagree with you, Mr Lennox. It is certainly true that travelling by train is faster and more comfortable."

Maxwell, seeming quite taken by his brother's eloquent assessment and John's own endorsement, turned to his wife who stood daintily beside him, clinging to his arm in engaging possession. "Perhaps we should take a trip somewhere, Edith? Perhaps to Scotland to see my sister?  How would you like that, my dear?"

Whatever her reply was to her husband's suggestion, John did not hear it, for he was more immediately conscious of Henry Lennox excusing himself quietly from their company to cross the room to speak with Margaret as she stood before the window, the ungovernable flames of jealousy leaping quick and ferocious beneath the insouciant mask that he wore.  He did not turn to look at the pair of them but he heard her soft laughter echo through his head in welcome of Mr Lennox's attentions and there reared within him the kindling anew of those feelings of inadequacy that had always haunted him in regard to Margaret - that he himself was not good enough for her, could never be good enough for her.  And yet, the way she had looked at him at the station...He had felt a new hope flourishing deep inside him at the sight of her, its very birth nourished by the aching wistfulness in her eyes.

“I understand that you know my cousin, Mr Thornton?” Mrs Lennox enquired.

John, at liberty now to formally turn his full attention upon Margaret, looked across at her openly for the first time.  She stood framed in silhouette before the window, the light from beyond cascading through the delicate lace curtains. Her beauty had not diminished in the time he had been apart from her. To be sure, it tugged at his heart now with an aching profundity which he knew would never diminish, for all her obvious enjoyment of Mr Lennox's company. She looked very well in her silken gown, its golden sheen seeming to make her skin glow with a more luminous warmth, even as the delicate blossoms of pomegranate that decorated her hair appeared to spark like a multitude of tiny scarlet flames. Only she and she alone, he thought ruefully. No woman would ever come close to equalling her in his eyes. 

“We were acquainted through my connection with her father,” John told Mrs Lennox by way of explanation, stirring himself adequately from his brief preoccupations to respond to the question asked of him.

“Oh yes, my poor uncle! How sudden his death was! It quite tore Margaret apart!” Mrs Lennox replied, her gaze falling sympathetically upon Margaret before a blithe little smile of satisfaction pulled at her lips. “I think we have managed to cheer her spirits though. Mr Lennox has been very attentive.”

John stiffened involuntarily, his senses bristling anew as a raw sense of foreboding crept through him. Attentive? In what way attentive? The muscles around his mouth grew tenser as images he had no wish to think about crawled insidiously into his mind, taunting him, mocking him once more for being the rough, unrefined manufacturer that he was. 

“I think she is far better suited to London than Milton,” Edith went on, her head tipping to one side thoughtfully, her affection and claim upon Margaret clearly evident. “She was so pale when Mamma brought her home. I scarcely recognised her.” 

“I think that’s just a slight exaggeration, my dear,” Mrs Shaw said with gentle reproof to her daughter upon overhearing the conversation, as if she were conscious of the fact that Edith’s words may be inappropriate in his company.

“Well, maybe a little,” Edith conceded with a slight pout, looking somewhat embarrassed at being corrected by her mother. “But she wasn’t herself, Mamma.”

Her words, John knew, had been inoffensively meant, borne of her ignorance concerning his true feelings for her cousin, but still they had the effect of bruising him with the poignancy of their deliverance.  It had been just the day before that, needing to be close to the memory of her, he had made his lonely visit to Helstone. He remembered clearly how he had walked into the heart of the village, his body bathed in brilliant sunlight, where the pretty church she would have attended every Sunday to hear her father’s sermons presided with grace and unequalled harmony over the green, a few cottages, bedecked with rambling roses, sitting with such bucolic charm in its benevolent shadow. In Margaret now he saw that unique and perfect beauty mirrored.

“I am glad she is feeling better,” John said, his attention coming to rest upon the pretty face of Mrs Lennox, even though every word threatened to stick in his throat. He could barely endure the torturous prospect of having to listen to Mrs Lennox expound the merits of Henry Lennox as a possible suitor for her cousin and sought to extricate himself from her presence before she could begin, his heart all the while straining towards the one place in the room where he longed to be. “I should go and speak to Miss Hale. I have some news of her friends in Milton which Mr Lennox has told me she would be interested in. Would you excuse me?”