Chapter Text
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.
-- “Jenny kiss’d me”, Leigh Hunt
***
It was a thing, a precious thing, that more than ten years after John had first met Margaret Hale, he still turned when he heard her Christian name. It never was her, of course, she had vanished too completely for that, but yet, he once had loved a woman worth loving, and it had made him a better man. He turned to look.
And it was her, bent over a desk in the little post office, writing a telegram slip. John froze: the carriage of the head, the graceful motion of hand and round wrist and fine taper fingers were all as he recalled. There was a hidden serenity to her face that had not existed in the hasty botched up years when he had known her, and he was glad of it. He kept still, breath caught, a small smile curling his lips, afraid that if he moved or spoke the illusion would disappear like fairy gold. It did break—she looked up, a bright friendly smile growing on her face, before she looked down in confusion, closing the inadvertently extended hand, a blush spreading over damask cheeks. He waited until she had raised her eyes again, then brought his heels together and swept off his hat in his most formal bow. She coloured again—but the moment was broken—he was now at the front of the queue and a massive dowager bedecked in layers of bombazine was coughing meaningfully in a hint that he should transact his business and go.
He loitered outside the post office, admiring the break of the waves near the esplanade of the little seaside town he was visiting. “Time, you thief,” John said to himself roundly, feeling smug. After all these years, she was pleased to see him. In a shorter time than was reasonable, the door burst open and out flew the remarkable Miss Hale, turning her head wildly.
“Miss Hale.”
“It is you,” she said, her face changing colour from red to white and back again. “Mr Thornton. I hope you are—I hope you are well, sir.”
“I am very well, Miss Hale,” he said gravely.
“Oh,” she said, her colour settling on bright red. “It is Dickinson now.”
“Of course,” Thornton replied, with an awkward toss of his head. “Mr Dickinson, I must presume?” he nodded to the fine gentleman who had subsequently emerged from the post office and possessively claimed Margaret’s hand on his arm.
“No, I am a widow now,” Margaret went on, her voice husky, her eyes downcast. “This is Mr Henry Lennox, who is my cousin-in-law. Henry was so kind as to escort us out to Holbourne today. He will be travelling home to London, on the evening train. Henry, this is Mr Thornton of Milton. He was papa’s great friend, and very kind to us when we lived there.”
“I believe we have corresponded, in fact,” Lennox said urbanely, with a weak Southerner’s handshake. “Some years ago, when you were winding up your business. Perhaps you may recall it. Or perhaps not.”
“I do, in fact,” Thornton said, amused. He had a sudden thought and glanced sharply at the lady, who was very much embarrassed.
“Perhaps, Henry,” Mrs Dickinson told her cousin, “as you have some more commissions to make, Mr Thornton would escort me to the hotel?”
“Why, certainly,” Thornton said, extending his arm, taking possession. “I would be glad to.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes, with fresh salt spray blowing against their faces. John blinked at the feel of water against his eyes. At last: “Mrs Dickinson, who was so understanding about ending the lease?”
Margaret—Mrs Dickinson—blushed again. “It was nothing. A very little thing. I never imagined that Mr Bell would—it was the least I could do.”
“My thanks,” John told her, “but mostly that I am annoyed with myself. I looked everywhere I could think of for you, back then—it never occurred to me that you might have married. In my head, the obliging Mrs Dickinson was some aged aunt…”
She shook her head, looking down, a familiar abjection from their time of quarrelling. “I was very much trying not to be found, just then. Too many things happening, all at once, and a desperate need to lick my wounds in peace. I am very sorry,” she said humbly, “I should have written to say I was well; I owed you that.”
“It’s alright,” John told her. It wasn’t, but he could pretend. He changed the subject. “The Higginses are well. Nick is a grandad now, and very pleased with himself. Young Tom Boucher is rising in his profession, and helping with his brothers’ education. He had his eye on a young lady when last I saw him—”
“Reader, she married him,” Margaret interjected with a smile. “I went to Milton last year, when first we came home. They all said you’d gone South. Mary came through her time safely, a little girl, very sweet and tender.”
“I’m glad,” he said. The ground had shifted—they could choose to step away from that old flare of passion and jealousy, and simply be old friends who had loved ones in common, with news to share. “Where have you been all this time? Surely not London.”
Mrs Dickinson shook her head. “Oh, Spain. Cadiz.”
“Really?” He was intensely interested. “What took you there?”
“Family.” Her mouth quirked in pretended, amused, chagrin. “Frederick is in trade. A partner in the House of Barbour. It was a good place to be, until I grew too homesick.”
“They’re a reputable firm.” John nodded. “Sound in their finance and their ethics.”
“You’ve done business with Barbour?”
“One of my colleagues does. I’m back to being a draper’s boy,” John said with a smile. Margaret raised her eyebrows, inspecting him. His light grey sack suit was of good cloth and clearly had been made for him. “I’m a buyer now, at one of the new department stores. The Paradise?”
Margaret nodded.
“I should warn you, Mrs Dickinson, that I lead a devastatingly middle-class life now.”
He had scared a true smile out of her. “Oh good. So do I. It’s so much more comfortable, isn’t it? Are you well? Really?”
John doffed his hat and rubbed his head briefly. He bent down so she could see the thick scar tissue—people always asked. And—his doctor, nine years ago, had said that Miss Hale’s careful nursing might very well have made the difference in his survival, in those first few desperate weeks. She deserved to see. “A headache from time to time, but yes, I’m very well. I stopped my business, madam, it didn’t fail, all debts were paid. It meant a lot to me, at the time.” She nodded seriously. “But… I’d lost my ambition, and my head for figures when I came back to myself. It’s better this way: I can keep my mother in tolerable comfort, and take walks in the evening. Plenty of time to read. I always did like the fabrics, you know.”
“How much did you lose?”
John shrugged. “About six months. Some before the accident, more after. I understand I was a very dull conversationalist for a while. Gladly, I do not recall it.”
She turned her head, hand still lightly on his arm. “And you are happy?”
He reassured her. “More than most.”
They had rounded the headland, well away from the cluster of hostelry and shops bedecked for tourists, what faced them now was a little private hotel, set well away from the town, with plenty of privacy for those who cared to pay for it. “I am so sorry, Mr Thornton,” Mrs Dickinson apologised. “I’ve taken you a very long way out of your way.”
“Not at all,” John said easily. “Mother and I are staying here as well.”
“Oh?” Margaret said, her voice high and breathy, as if she had just fallen from a great height. “What an—what an astonishing coincidence.”
***
In the lobby, there was another ghost from his past. Dixon was fat and rather greyer, her chins wobbling as she hurried to her mistress. “She must have slipped past me!” the maid said urgently, clutching the hands of Mrs Dickinson. “I told her and told her that we’d take a walk as soon as I’d had my nap—but she wouldn’t wait—"
Margaret blanched and hurried out the front doors, down the white marble steps and across the road to the entrance of the private beach, her hat clasped to her head, looking about wildly. Coming up from the beach was John’s mother, who halted in front of the younger woman in surprise. Hannah was holding hands with a young girl, with jet black hair and a decided chin, bright blue eyes sparking in the brisk air. Margaret turned on the girl roundly. “Elizabeth! You promised. You worried me and worse you worried Dixon—”
“Oh, but mamma…!” the girl complained.
“Mother,” John said in a low voice. “You remember Miss Hale, of course. She’s Mrs Dickinson now, and staying in the same hotel.”
“I do remember,” Hannah Thornton said, inspecting the pair before her. Mrs Dickinson caught the gaze and straightened, her face turning redder and redder and redder. “I remember you well, Miss Hale. What a remarkable coincidence, meeting you here.”
“Mrs Thornton.” Margaret bowed civilly, and lifted her chin high. “Please will you excuse me, I must see to my daughter.”
“Do go on,” Mrs Thornton waved her off. “It’s been a most educational chat I’ve had with Miss Elizabeth.”
Mrs Dickinson gathered her child to her, and disappeared into the bowels of the hotel.
“Well!” John said, turning to his mother. “A mystery solved at last! Miss Hale must have run off with her lover, this Dickinson fellow. I suppose it was disobliging to the families. I must say I’m relieved it wasn’t something worse than that. It’s a great weight off me. Good God, I’m glad to know.”
“Hmm,” said Hannah Thornton.