Page 5 of Through Darkened Clouds

The tall manufacturer swept off his hat and nodded in some confusion at the lightness of the greeting, his own thoughts having been darkly consumed night and day with only one consideration. “How is she?” He spoke the words with measured earnestness, as though all the steadiness of his being did not rely upon the answer.

“Very poorly, I’m afraid,” Mr. Bell replied with a shake of his head. “She’s a hardy girl—I know. I’ve seen her strength. But she was unprepared for this sudden tragedy. We’ve sent for the doctor—”

“The doctor?” Mr. Thornton’s head snapped up in alarm, his eyes fastened on Mr. Bell’s.

“Yes, yes. She collapsed into an unresponsive state soon after I arrived,” he explained with a heavy sigh. “Heaven knows how much she’s had to suffer since coming to this place. You know, I regret I ever suggested that Hale come here to teach,” he confessed, staring solemnly at Hale’s collection of books, unaware of the consternation this roused in the visitor.

The room was silent for a few moments.

“I’m certain she’ll rally soon enough when her aunt arrives,” Mr. Bell posited upon looking up to see the deep furrow on Thornton’s brow.

“If there is anything I can do…” Mr. Thornton offered.

“No, I believe…say…I have just written a letter to the aunt. Would you be so kind as to post it?”

“Of course,” was the instant reply.

Closing the door on the quiet house of mourning, Mr. Thornton hurried down the steps and turned into the street with no sense of the commotion of humanity around him. His legs complied with the force of practiced will that moved him farther from the only place he longed to be. With every step, the feeling of his powerlessness seeped deeper into his frantic thoughts. What if her illness was more serious than they had imagined? Certainly, there must be something he could do.

He stopped in his tracks and almost turned around to go back. But the sight of a pile of ghastly hogsheads brought his teeming mind to the harsh reality he had met so many months before when he had fled this very place. Her words of rejection—her declaration that she would have done as much to save any man—cut him to the core again. He had no place in her heart, and no right to seek it.

He dropped the sealed letter into the metal post box as if it were a summons to seal his own fate. Soon, her London relations would come to claim her. She would leave Milton for more pleasant surroundings.

Would she regret having come here, to this dirty, crowded place? Mr. Bell’s words tore at his only remaining hope: that she would remember him—that she would not erase from her mind all that she had experienced here, tumultuous as those events were.

With a deepening frown, he noted the surrounding scenery: the blackened brick on all structures, the filth in the street, and the drab woolen garb of the people hurrying by.

Returning to the private sanctuary of his office, he sat in front of a pile of documents waiting for his authorization. But his mind would not concentrate as it ought. When at last the evening whistle blew, he made no motion to leave.

A rap on his door and the sound of a familiar voice broke his stupor.

Higgins! Mr. Thornton was relieved to welcome someone who would understand his grief. He felt shame, too, that he had not thought of seeking his friend to tell him the news.

“What is it? Have we lost another bid?” Higgins asked, sensing the state of gloom at one glance.

“Mr. Hale has died.” Mr. Thornton dropped his gaze to the floor, his voice barely above a whisper.

“No! Not the ol’ parson, Miss Margaret’s father?” he questioned, staving off the inevitable truth.

“The same. Died in his sleep while he was away at Oxford.”

“He were too kind for this hard world,” Higgins said, taking off his cap and shaking his head.

Mr. Thornton could only nod. He had not met a gentler soul in all of Milton.

“What o’ Miss Margaret?” Higgins asked in bewildered concern.

“She’s taken it very hard. She’s not well,” Mr. Thornton answered, the tremor of his anxious care rising with the words he spoke.

“She’s all alone now, the poor lass.”

“Yes.” He could not speak of it. The thought of her suffering in solitude overwhelmed him. ‘And so shall I ever be—alone,’ he thought.

A bitter April wind tugged Henry Lennox’s coat open as he turned the corner of Harley Street. He wrapped it more firmly around himself and picked up his pace as he headed toward his brother’s stately home for dinner.

Although Captain Lennox had a fine home and a beautiful, if insipid, wife, Henry was not jealous, for he had ambition to make a name for himself and to use his intelligence in the important affairs of men. He would not feel satisfied gliding into a gilded life as his brother had.

He enjoyed the elegance and privacy afforded at the Harley Street home. The conversation would inevitably be dull—for Sholto’s intellect did not far surpass his wife’s—but the food would be good. And all this comfort was at no cost.