Shadow in the North

Chapter Forty-One - Home Truths

Mr Thornton stood - arms folded defiantly across his broad chest - as he stared down at his wife; seated at the table like an errant schoolgirl. His chest dilated with vexatious passion, and his nostrils flared with the effort of restraining his temper. His jaw was set - the muscles flexing and twitching - as his darkened, piercing eyes bore into hers.

'Well?' asked Isabel, when still he did not speak. Her tone of voice was challenging, and showed him well, that she did not quake under his dark looks or harsh tone. Not even his rough handling of her, appeared to have caused her a moment of disquietude.

Indeed, as Isabel sat looking up at him - defiantly, he thought - he saw in her look, the audacity of her own flared temper. His eyes narrowed as he looked on her with rising irritation. He determine in that instant - as their eyes met and she scolded him with a single, withering look - that he would play the heavy-handed husband; that she would know her place, so that she might learn what was expected of her, and might feel the value of the freedom he had tried to give her, without carelessly throwing his trust back in his face.

'Well!' scoffed Mr Thornton; his eyebrow arching at her impudence. He shook his head, and smiled to himself, but there was no mirth in that look; only a scolding incredulity. 'Who do you think you are, Isabel?' asked Mr Thornton, softly; that voice low and quiet - threatening in its very gentleness.

'Excuse me?' frowned Isabel, in confusion.

'I asked who you think you are.' His voice now rising. 'Answer, if you will!'

'I do not understand you, John,' replied Isabel, hesitantly.

'Indeed; you do not!' And in an instant, Mr Thornton had lunged forward, bracing himself against the table with his strong arms, and he loomed over her small form; his great shadow drowning her petite frame. 'I asked you who think you are. The answer is my wife!' His teeth were clenched and his cheeks darkened, as his chest rapidly expanded with suppressed excitement. 'You will behave as my wife! Isabel. I do not ask it of you; I demand it.'

'I am not a good wife to you?' asked Isabel, indignantly, with a look that could have shamed him, had he not been so imperiously angry.

'I do not think you truly know what a wife is, Isabel!' replied Mr Thornton, carelessly pushing away from the table and turning his back on her, as a puff of air fell humourlessly from his lips. 'You think an hour in the kitchen - your company at night - is enough to make a wife?'

'Oh! Is that all I do for you; all that I am to you? A kitchen hand and a bedfellow?' And here, Mr Thornton spun on his heel and gave Isabel such as look as to smite her down.

'No!' cried he. 'You are my wife. I expect more from you; I had hoped for more! You claim an equality with me Isabel; then let me speak plainly - as I would to any man. You have no rights. You are mine to make demands of as I see fit. If I do not wish for you to call in by Francis Street, by God, you will not! If I do not wish for you to spend hours of every day, working in the mill infirmary, I shall lock it up and hide away the key. If I wish for you to call on my colleague's wives, you will do it, and with good will! You did not wish for that to be your lot; you wanted your independence, and I gave it to you, but it has done you no good; done us no good.'

'John! Whatever do you mean? I cannot understand you?' chocked Isabel; her voice now thick with emotion.

'I mean that you do not know your place; that you disappoint me,' said he, in that quiet, final way of his. Here, her eyes widened in sad surprise, but he ignored the look of hurt, for softness would do her no good; had done them no good. 'I tried to give you your freedom; to treat you as my equal by letting you take a role in my work, in trusting your judgement to do what was right by Robert Harris and the mill infirmary - despite my own misgivings - but you fail, Isabel. You think yourself so strong and capable. You claim the rights and independence of a man, but you are a woman, and I often think, a fragile one, at that!'