Shadow in the North

Chapter Seventeen - A Mother's Love

Mr Thornton had left the house at Crampton in a daze. He could not think, but only feel, and he felt himself the victim of some violent beating. He turned an indolent smile as the doleful impression struck him, for it called to mind the riot of the previous day - the impetus for his calling round at Crampton that very morning - the inducement to speak his feelings and offer himself so openly; so unguardedly. His Isabel, was, to him, a fierce and passionate creature who staked her claim to independence of thought and action with the violence of any man, and yet he had seen in her a gentle, feminine timidity; a desire to care for and nurture, which had wrought in him - previous to his rejected proposal, a sensation of confounded emotion. For he knew - when first it had struck him that he loved her - that he might be spurned, and quite forcibly, and he had been afeared, but prepared to look her rebellion stoutly in the face. And yet her tenderness, and solicitous actions which were to him, so utterly feminine, had given him reason to hope.

He had set himself before her knowing - fearing - that he would find elation or despair, and that even if the worst should come, he would have a foundation upon which to move forwards; loving her silently, without hope, and with a certain bitterness he knew he would not be unable to feel, or proudly crushing her to his breast and clinging to her as a warrior does his prize. And yet there had been no acceptance of his hand, nor the tigerish rebuke he had thought to hear upon failing to win her as his wife. Instead, she had cried those womanly tears and clung to his hand like a weeping goddess. The gentleness was there, laced with such unrivalled sorrow that he had been at first disconcerted, and then disordered in his thoughts. He had thought her aggrieved by his solicitations, and had recoiled with mortified pride, only to find himself in raptures the next; that dainty hand pressing its small and muscled fingers into his own great, calloused hand, and it had warmed him; warmed his skin and warmed his heart. He thought he had stopped breathing; stood there awaiting a reply.

The words came then, and were so thoroughly unwelcome, when she had scolded him for avowing his love for her, that he had felt himself smitten down for the second time in one passing of the sun. And yet, so abruptly, his spirit had lifted, with her imploring explanation, that she thought him compelled to speak only through duty. He saw the truth of it in her look, and he had allowed himself to hope again. The hope that he might have her good opinion - that his words many not be unwelcome - had prompted him to speak freely - to scold her for her reckless protection of him and his Irish during the riot, and then came the passion - the flagrant castigation as she attested herself to be a free and thinking being, rightfully able to impose her own will, and unwilling to yield to another.

It was clear to him in that moment, that she had not wholly understood him, but how could she? for she failed to apprehend the true depth of his love. She saw not that he loved her despite - because of - her brave and passionate mind. She so clearly felt he meant to crush her - to depress her freedom of spirit by exerting upon her, his own free will, and yet he never would; not his treasured love! He had told her such, and he knew she sensed it in him, and yet still she would not have him. He thought her regard for him too weak - not a great enough inducement, but she had claimed to love him! The very words which had filled his dreams and set his soul alight! That declaration ought to have secured his future happiness, but no! she refused him. She spoke to him in riddles, until he could not even venture a sure attempt at understanding her.

She says she loves no other! he told himself, as he walked briskly through those crowded Milton streets. How can it be; that she could love me, and only me, but will not allow our happiness? And he thought on her audacious supposition that he would love another; that he would one day thank her for rejecting him. The very notion was offensive to him. He felt a violent surge of injustice swell within his breast, as his heart thundered in distortion; so wholly shaken was his own body. She claims to love me! cried he to himself, but she knows nothing of love. To say that I shall love another, to claim Miss Hale a great beauty who could usurp her in my affections; she must think me weak! She must think me so fickle of heart that I could love another; be swayed but such an inconsequential thing as physical beauty!