Page 53 of One London Eve
But in between such quickening contemplations, the doleful image of Mrs. Boucher and her mewling baby haunted her, pulling her mouth into a frown.
“You’ll not accompany your mother with such a mournful look!” Dixon instructed Margaret some time later as she stood behind the somber-looking girl, training her curls into their proper place.
“No…no, of course not,” Margaret answered, trying on a smile. She would be careful to present herself content in her mother’s presence.
“That’s much better,” Dixon approved. “You know how the Missus has talked of naught else for weeks. She was meant to live where there was more society,” she added with a sad shake of her head.
Margaret kept silent after this remark. She knew well that her mother had longed for a different life—to be seen and known in a larger town, but she herself could never regret living in Helstone. The thought of Helstone brought a pang of longing, as it always did since she had moved here.
She endeavored to prevent herself from sliding into somberness. Searching for an uplifting thought, she grasped that perhaps her mother’s disappointment held a lesson: to find good in whatever place one is situated. How much of life was wasted yearning to be somewhere else?
This sudden insight helped calm her restlessness. There was suffering here, to be sure, but perhaps God had placed her in Milton for some good purpose.
She was contemplating this when the doorbell rang.
“Who is calling at this hour? It’s not time for the carriage to arrive!” Dixon muttered, securing the last pin in Margaret’s coiffure.
“I will get the door, Dixon. Go tend to mamma,” Margaret responded.
But Mr. Hale, passing through the hallway, called out that he would get the door, not wanting the ladies of the house to be interrupted at such a time.
“Papa,” Margaret called out to him as he descended the stairs, “it may be Bessy Higgins. She wished to see me in my dress.”
Indeed, it was Bessy and Nicholas. Margaret could hear her father welcoming them in kindly. She was glad it was her father who had received them, for Dixon would have been reluctant to allow factory workers through the front door as guests.
Mr. Hale invited the ailing girl to recline on the sofa and then excused himself to leave the room.
Bessy exhaled a long “Ooh,” transfixed with wonder as Margaret approached. The pale green satin dress fit Margaret snugly at the bodice, with a full skirt flowing to the floor. Her hair was piled on her head with pearl-tipped pins. The low neckline, adorned with satin rosettes, revealed an ample portion of her silky skin.
“You’re a vision from heaven! An angel. I’ve seen yo’ something like it in my dreams, I have. Mayhap I’m dreaming now,” Bessy said, reaching out her thin hand towards the dress to see if it was an apparition or not.
“I’ll not stay to hear of such talk,” Nicholas interjected, looking every bit uncomfortable to be standing in their pretty home with his dusty boots. “And I cannot abide to think on your grand party. If you care a whit for my Bess, you’ll give those masters an earful while you’re there. Tell Thornton to give us our five percent, and seven hundred workers will be at his machines by Monday morn. I’ll wait outside for Bess.”
“How did you come all this way?” Margaret asked her friend.
“Father borrowed a cart from a muffin seller to carry me. It were a bumpy ride and none too soft on my bones, but it were worth the trouble to come just to see yo’ like so.”
“I’m sorry for all your trouble to come, but I’m glad you approve,” Margaret answered with a smile.
Bessy’s eyes glowed with admiration as she kept staring at Margaret in her dress. “I wish I could be a specter hovering there tonight, to see how Thornton looks at yo’ in your finery.”
Margaret’s cheeks reddened. “I’m sure there will be many fine-looking ladies there.”
“But none will interest him but yo’, I’ll wager,” Bessy said with firm conviction. “I had my doubts before, with yo’ in your drab-colored calico. But look at yo’ now—as if yo’ never knew how to wear aught but fine satin!”
“I told you I lived in London for years. But I am pleased you have seen my transformation to a Milton lady,” Margaret teased.
Bessy smiled and sank back against the sofa pillows with a faraway look in her eyes. “I can see it all now. Mayhap yo’ve been sent by heaven to this place to help sort out this endless battling between the masters and men.”
“I don’t understand. How can I help? I’ve no power—“
“Don’t be daft now, you’ll have the Master’s ear when yo’re his wife.”
“Bessy, don’t talk such nonsense!”
“You can’t be such a fool not to know he fancies yo’,” Bessy said, shaking her head. “Why, he’s been courting yo’ hasn’t he?”
“He has not,” Margaret insisted.
