In Consequence

In Consequence - Prologue

Margaret studied her reflection impassively as the family maid swept her auburn hair up into thick coils upon her head. Her usually expressive blue-gray eyes were placid as she regarded the generous scoop of her neckline, which made her look much older than her nineteen years.

The last time she had worn the pale green gown, she had been eminently pleased with how it had snugly fit her form and fell in easy elegance to the floor. Edith had enthused over it so that she had felt almost as beautiful as her glamorous cousin when they had appeared at a London soiree over a year ago.

It would be her first formal occasion since moving to this rough industrial city in the North, but she could not muster any enthusiasm for dressing in such finery tonight. Not when she had heard and seen the suffering and struggle she had witnessed this week. She could not forget the gaunt figure of her new friend Bessy, who was fast succumbing to the disease sapping her strength, caused by years of breathing in cotton fibers that lingered in the air of the mills where she had worked.

Bessy had never participated in grand dinners or balls in her short life. Margaret had been pleased to observe her friend rally this afternoon as the pale girl had eagerly admired the dress that Margaret intended to wear to the Thornton dinner party.

Dixon teased the last strands of her mistress’ hair into place and gave an exasperated sigh as a few errant curls escaped their bounds to teasingly fall at her temple and at the back of her neck. Margaret smiled faintly in approval at the sight.

“Come now,” the rounded woman urged as she laid the brush and pins down, “let’s show your mother how you’ve turned out,” she directed, shuffling the young miss towards her mother’s sitting room.

“Miss Margaret looks well - doesn’t she, ma’am? I’m sure they’ll not be a finer young lady in attendance,” Dixon declared as they entered the room where her mother was sitting.

Too ill lately to attend any social outing herself, Mrs. Hale was pleased to see her daughter go to this formal affair. “Oh, Margaret, how I should have liked to take you to some grand assembly as my mother, Lady Beresford, used to take me,” she lamented with a smile of approval for her daughter’s becoming attire.

Margaret bent to kiss her mother for her proud maternal instinct, and managed a sympathetic smile. “I would rather stay home with you - much rather, mamma,” she answered. As her friend Bessy had often reminded her, it was an honor to be invited to the annual dinner at the wealthy cotton manufacturer’s house. Still, Margaret had a mind to avoid the loquacious talk, vain posturing, and glittering display of these affairs. She found them abhorrent to her more thoughtful, simpler nature.

“Oh nonsense, darling! Be sure you notice the dinner well. I should like to know how they manage these things in Milton,” her mother admonished lightly. Born to a well-bred family in the South, Mrs. Hale was curious as to how cultured or resplendent a dinner party could be in a city so filled with toil, filth, and unpolished manners.

*****

Margaret kept up with her father’s quick steps as they walked the quieted streets of the city in the last hour of daylight. She did not mind in the least that they would not arrive by carriage. Since renouncing his position as a country vicar, the family had had to manage their money very wisely. Margaret admired her father for his intellectual fervor as well as for his kind-hearted ways, and although she was not pleased that his religious doubts had pressed him to give up the cloth, she respected his decision to take up work as a private teacher in this bustling new place.

She knew his swift pace was congruent with his eager honor to have been invited as a friend of Mr. Thornton’s. The powerful cotton mill master had been her father’s first pupil, and the elder gentleman had grown to respect and admire the stern-looking manufacturer for his intellect and forthright reasoning. Mr. Thornton’s lessons often exceeded the allotted time, the conversations between them extending beyond the realm of literary themes and philosophy. Margaret was pleased that her father had found a friend amongst the strangers of their new hometown, although she was not as readily able to sing his praises.