Page 6 of Cinders and Smoke

“Or have you tried to find a way to uphold your principles—and I know them to be upright, for if they were otherwise, you could not work with Mr. Bell and Reverend Hale—to improve the lives of all in Milton?

“Have you been a good steward of your wealth or simply used it to pursue your own pleasure?”

∞∞∞

Thornton heard out Higgins while unsuccessfully seeking to ignore thoughts of the injured woman downstairs. But Margaret Hale, even unconscious, would not allow him that luxury. He listened with new clarity, and Thornton was ashamed of himself.

He had drunk deeply from the gospel, bruited about by self-righteous rectors nurtured by the ruling classes. These men of God were imbued not with the Holy Spirit but with the lust for mammon that echoed that of their well-heeled masters.

For the first time, Thornton understood Mr. Hale’s rejection of his cleric’s living.

In his rush to eradicate his incipient shame, Thornton had lost his way. The path leading him from his father’s study on that awful day was bending back around to deposit him in that bloodstained seat with the muzzle planted against his temple.

He had become like Hamper and the others, marking his success not in the bridges he had built but by the number of digits in his bank account. Thornton was treading the trail of moneyed men like Marley and Scrooge. His end could be as dire.[4]

He had seen his past. He knew his present. He was terrified of the future.

Before him stood an opportunity to alter what he feared might otherwise become a foregone conclusion.

He whispered, “What must I do?”

Higgins replied softly, “Exagoras Agapis.”[5]

Thornton squared on Higgins and stared, shocked that this rough-edged man knew Greek, let alone Greek that he, Thornton, was only beginning to learn in Hale’s book room. “What did you say?”

Higgins suppressed a smile, secretly enjoying the young man's discomfiture, so full of himself as was the nature of men without snow in their hair. “I said Exagoras Agapis. That is, sir, the love that causes us to redeem ourselves, to become the best version of who we are. ’Tis something I heard the Countess of Matlock say when I was with my uncle, the old Bosun, over at Selkirk Castle.

“I know something about you, Master Thornton. You have never dealt unfairly with any man, neither another master nor a workingman like me. If you can be accused of pride, ’twould be over this. You always believe you treat everyone decently, as you would expect to be treated.

“After all, would you not hold yourself in disdain if you complained at your lot or blamed others for your situation? You measure every man with the same stick.

“And the difficulty lies in the fact that not all men can meet your standards. Your pride thus becomes something worse: a prideful nature that leads you to scorn those who may not have your drive.

“You need to find your way back to that caring man with justifiable pride in his accomplishments and one more tolerant of his lessers. You have lost your way and come off as a proud man who cares only for himself and his reputation.

“You will have to find the right trail, or you will never convince Miss Hale that you are the type of man who has a place in her future.

“You must redeem yourself and become the good man I know you can be.”

Higgins’s fatherly advice sent Thornton back into a deep study. Nicholas left him in peace.

Then a sensation, unnoticed in its absence, asserted itself. This was the constant of every textile mill: something that had been missing at Marlborough for several days.

Machinery’s vibrations tremored through the floorboards.

Higgins noticed that Thornton snapped into his professional guise as the building shivered. The master first leaned against the windows overlooking the files of looms lining the floor below. Then he released a latch and swung the frame inward.

The roar of wheels and pulleys drowned out the clicking of shuttles flying between strands of wool and cotton.

Higgins acknowledged his look and slipped back into a deep Darkshire cant, returning to his current station. “Buh-leve me, I am nay scab, but it seemed foolhardy to hae ye paying all these men and feedin’ their women an’ bairns in the bargain—and hon’r’ble man ye are, ye be payin’ ’em a full wage—an’ not hae them do naught to earn their own bread.

“Ye hae a fact’ry full o’ yarn, an’ attic full o’ workers, an’ a desk full o’ orders. I foun’ their lead man an’, once’t I were sure ’e’d not break th’ mill, tol’ ’im ta git ta work. Th’ machines were still set up from when th’ boys turned out.

“Think o’ this as a one-time-only situation, an act o’ mercy. They be runnin’ only what wuz al’rdy goin’. Should be ’nuff ta cover their keep for a few days ’til we git this sorted.

“Our argument is with ye, nae with them. They be ’ere because they be starvin’ o’er their looms by Dublin Castle. Me da and uncle wouldn’a allowed that. They’d be o’ th’ mind that food was part o’ th’ answer, but men need ta work, too.

“The ol’ Bosun would’ve talked with ’is betters up at Selkirk and down at Netherfield, the May-zon the Rochets call it—the earls and countesses wouldn’a ’lowed any ta starve.