Chapter Text
January, 1854
Harley Street, London
Margaret Hale signed her name at the bottom of the contract, neatly stacked the pile of papers before her, and then slid the pile in front of Henry Lennox, her solicitor.
“Thank you, Henry,” she said, politely. “And you are certain that he will not realize I am the owner?”
Henry gathered the papers up and slid them into a portfolio, shaking his head decisively. “No, unless he really put some work into it, which I very much doubt anyone would.” He leaned forward in his chair and gave Margaret an expectant look. “Will there be anything else?”
Margaret knew what Henry was thinking. He had already said it to her twice already throughout this scheme of hers, and she could read it all over his face.
‘Why are you doing this?’
She had told him the same thing she was telling herself, but he did not seem to believe it as readily. What she had told him, twice now, was that Mr Thornton was a dear friend of Papa’s when Papa needed a friend, and very kind to Mama during her illness, and Papa would approve of this. It was not charity, after all. She served to make money from the arrangement.
Then Henry had asked why she did not simply propose the arrangement up front and honestly. And this question she could not give an honest answer to—not to Henry. For to Henry she could not explain the complexities and layered minutia that defined her relationship with Milton’s youngest mill master, John Thornton.
What was she to say? That he had offered for her, and she had refused in the rudest way possible, then spent the better part of the last year and a half sorely regretting that decision? That she could not bear it if he refused the option, which he very likely would, knowing it came from her? That openly entering into a business arrangement such as this would only increase the likelihood that she see him again, and she was not sure she could stand seeing him and knowing how low she had fallen in his eyes?
No, that would not do. So in that regard, she had dissembled. Or, partly. She told Henry that she thought Mr Thornton would be too proud to allow a woman to be his savior, and worse, that his mother might persuade him to refuse. After all, she suspected that both of those assumptions were true. They just were not the defining reason for her subterfuge.
It had been Margaret’s idea three weeks ago, but Henry made it possible. First, the business. He had set up a business in Margaret’s name and to it, transferred the ownership of all of the properties that Adam Bell had bequeathed her upon his death.
By all appearances, it appeared that Margaret Hale had simply sold off her inheritance and cut all ties with Milton.
This, though—this contract—was the final step. By way of Henry acting as her solicitor, she had anonymously arranged to invest sixteen thousand pounds into Marlborough Mills through her newly-formed business.
It seemed a great, frightening sum, though Margaret had enough income from it, and other investments, to live on comfortably. And she had already put a portion of her inheritance towards her own personal projects in London—the charity school for factory worker’s children, for example. But both her financial advisor and Henry had done their research, and both agreed the arrangement was sound.
To John Thornton’s knowledge, Marlborough Mills had a new landlord—one who had taken a vested interest in the success of their tenant—and that was that.
Margaret did not wish to see him. She did not wish to hear him condescend to thanking her for her help, and she was doubly happy she had not had to bear witness to the decline of his business. This was her own quiet way of telling him just how sorry she was.
Henry cleared his throat, pulling her back to the present. “Margaret? All set, then?”
Margaret blinked up at her cousin’s brother-in-law. Slowly, she nodded.
“All set.”