She did not share how she felt about Mr. Kent to her acquaintances, but tried to ask questions of the Gaggle while circumventing the source of her inquiries. They appeared quite adamant in their stand to keep their husbands and lovers at a distance regarding their most intimate feelings, and indignant at her questions.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Adelaide on one occasion at the assembly hall. “Why on earth would I share such a confidence with Worthington?” She was recently betrothed to one Robert Worthington, and as such, her status in the Gaggle had leapfrogged her over the lead position of Victoria, who was not taking her diminished role very gracefully. While Victoria’s beau was worth a considerable sum more than Adelaide’s, Mr. Worthington had succeeded in engaging her first. This had led to some disparaging comments by Victoria regarding her Mr. Morshead, including her referring to him as ‘Sheepshead.’ Dahlia was quite sure that as soon as Morshead made the correct move to ask for her hand in marriage, all would be forgiven and Victoria would tout his three thousand pounds a year over all – most especially Adelaide.
Dahlia was unmoved by their attitudes. She would return home after her encounters with the Gaggle, happy with her secret of having found a friend and beau in one gloriously handsome person. It was evident from their comments that the group thought Mr. Kent quite far and away the most handsome gentlemen of their acquaintance, but he was acknowledged to be precarious in his ability to secure his uncle’s wealth and title, and therefore little better than a pauper in their estimation.
Michael, too, was making plans for the future. He had declared his intent to become a physician, and Peter secured a tutor of medical sciences to come to the estate for several months to better prepare his son for his university studies in this area. Peter was also letting his son Tom take on more of the business side of the farm, while he focused on his international investments. Dahlia didn’t know exactly what these were, but she was glad as he agreed to accompany her to London before the holidays to meet with his solicitor and business partners. She hoped all was well. Recently, he had taken to spending hours in in study alone. He seemed more quiet and withdrawn since Lady Sweet’s death. Dahlia thought perhaps it had brought back very painful memories of losing her mother, and she was reminded that she was not the only one affected by her friend’s death.
As the annual harvest festival drew near, Tom came home to announce a most curious happening. He had been out riding the fences of the estate to make repairs. On the eastern border with the Standford estate, he noticed that there was no livestock anywhere in site. Every beast that he used to be able to see grazing on the Standford lands was gone.
“Gone?” His father looked up sharply from his meal.
“Completely. I could not see one animal, anywhere. Do you think he sold them?” Everyone looked at Peter, expecting him to have an answer.
“Humph,” was his only response. He had met a drover at the mill earlier that week, but had not inquired as to the man’s purpose in the county. Perhaps things had deteriorated for Standford and he had been forced to sell all the livestock. Peter did not wish anyone ill, but Standford had never been cut out to be a farmer. The livestock he kept were not well-tended and would fare better elsewhere. If Standford had sold the lot, he was certain that he would have received higher offers had he looked after them better. One bad business led to another.
Chapter 56
Close to All Hallows Eve, Dahlia stood at the top of the ravine, remembering her walks here with Lady Sweet. The melancholy of losing her washed over her anew as it had not done in weeks. She knelt by the rock cairn where the flowers lay from her last trip here. The wind, always excited here at the top of the cliff, had a chill to it despite the sun at her back. It howled subtly, and sounded to Dahlia like a tentative blow of air over a flute’s mouthpiece. Her mother’s violins joined the sound in a long, low note. Slowly, softly, there were undertones of Lady Sweet’s harpsichord and spinet gently skipping over the extended note like dry leaves on an air current. The melody was delicately mournful, the contradictory sounds of the harpsichord and spinet mocking the sadness with memories so sweet they were painful to remember. Tears welled in Dahlia’s eyes and for once she did not look around to see if any of her brothers or father was watching. Her vision across the ravine blurred and she blinked to regain her focus through the tears.
She looked down at the flowers, fingering them gently. Suddenly, a shadow fell over her, the flowers, and the cairn, and the music in her head blew away with the howling wind. The shadow had the form of a man, and she quickly brought her hands up to her face to wipe away any trace of tears. Her father would not like to see her crying.
“Miss Dahlia,” said a voice that was not her father’s. She twisted around and saw Mr. Standford. He moved so that the sun hit her straight in the face and she was momentarily blinded. She raised her hand up to shield her eyes, her pupils trying desperately to readjust.
He moved around her and placed a boot on the top of the stacked rocks. Dahlia grimaced at the disrespect, but it got worse. Mr. Standford gave a shove of his boot and toppled the rocks. Some of them landed on the flowers, crushing them.
“Have you no respect!” She shouted, immediately moving to replace the stones.
“I might ask the same of you, Miss Dahlia,” growled Mr. Standford, stepping on the rock that Dahlia was going to pick up. “Why, when I and my son have paid you every respect, have you felt it necessary to disrespect us?” His words were menacing, and Dahlia’s mind conjured a staccato picking of a fiddle that sounded like nervous fear.
“You strut around on your priceless horses, race around the countryside with gypsies, and taunt every man in the county with your siren voice like a common strumpet. I daresay you think you are quite above the rest of us, Miss Dahlia, but you are not. Your father is deep in debt,” he lied. “And you will be lucky if he still owns his land by the end of the year. From what I hear,” he went on, placing his own story on her father’s situation. “The bank will soon replace your father as the Southwestern Quartermaster and all of you will be thrown out of Talbot Hall.”
Dahlia stared at him. ‘This couldn’t be true,’ was her first thought. But then she recalled bits and pieces of memories that could, in fact, support her father having financial troubles. They had received only one horse for training over the summer, he had made the unusual winter trip to London, and the fact that he had not bought any horses from the Roma this year. Did it all mean that perhaps he was having financial difficulties?
Mr. Standford saw the doubt creep into Dahlia’s eyes. “I have tried to help him, to help you, by offering to buy tracks of his land. But your father’s pride wouldn’t let him do that and he refused my offer.” Dahlia remembered her father arguing with Mr. Standford in the spring when the Roma were here. She turned her head away from the man, not wanting to hear more. But he continued.
“I offer to marry my only son to you, a penniless country singer without a dowry, in hopes that the joining of our families could ease your father’s financial indiscretions that got him into this situation. But again, he refused my offer.”
Dahlia looked up at him. There was offer of marriage to her? Why had her father not told her? Even if he had, what would she have done? Could she have given up her dreams of marrying James to save her beloved farm? Could she have really accepted Edward the bully? She hated him! Shame filled her as she questioned whether or not she could have made that sacrifice.
“I had no knowledge of a proposal, nor the impetus behind it, sir,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“Well, you do now,” Mr. Standford pressed on, knowing he was gaining the advantage of her discomfort at these revelations. “And I’m quite sure you will come to a more satisfactory conclusion than your father. You’re a bright girl, Dahlia. Too bright for most men of decent society. You do realize that? My son has no more love for you than you do for him, but he was willing to do what was needed to assist your family in this time of dire need.”
> Now anger flared its tentacles in the sea of emotions Dahlia was experiencing. “I doubt your son would make such a sacrifice. More like you were willing to sacrifice him,” she said with venom before she could stop herself.
Quicker than her eyes could track, a gloved hand grabbed her chin and raised her face to his. “You are as recalcitrant as your mother,” he hissed.
Dahlia did not follow this line of conversation any more than her sight could keep up with Mr. Standford’s quick movements. The pressure of his gloved fingers was hurting her chin. What did her mother have to do with any of this?
“You can remedy a good deal of this situation by agreeing to marry Edward,” he said, with his face but inches from hers. She tried to pull back, but his grip would not let her.
She needed to talk to her father immediately. “Mr. Standford, please, let go.”
“Give me your word,” he demanded, increasing the pressure. She put her hand on his wrist, trying to push his hand away. He would not release her. “Say you’ll marry Edward!”
The wind grew stronger and brought with it a host of notes so out of place that it was as if she were reading scraps of music blown about in a maelstrom. The effect on her mind of trying to sort out the notes, to sort out her conversation with Mr. Standford, and to sort out the discomforting news of her family’s financial troubles, was disorienting. She reached out her free hand to steady herself and felt one of the cairn stones. She picked it up and instinctively brought it against Mr. Standford’s hand holding her chin. He cursed, but the pressure was gone and she fell to one side.
‘Get away!’ said a voice in her head. She scrambled to get up, conscious of how close she was to the ravine. She just had to get home, to her father. Together, they would sort everything out. She was on her feet and turning to flee, when a gloved hand grasped her wrist and jerked her backwards. Another hand intercepted her other arm as she swung it at him.
“Your family has a long history of refusing me, and it never ends well for you. Your mother refused me, too, and look what happened to her!” The fight went out of Dahlia as the shock of what he had said to her sunk into her brain.
“My mother? She died of a fever,” said Dahlia.
“So your father’s story goes. Your mother’s body was found at the bottom of that ravine,” he said maliciously, dragging her closer to the edge of the cliff. She stared down the immense height and the rocky bottom sent a chill through her entire body.
“No,” she said. Then, with less confidence, “No.”
“Oh yes. Your mother was as much a coquette as you are. She hid it with nice manners and the respectability of having a squire as a husband, but I saw her for what she was. She was a shameless flirt!” Dahlia saw a touch of madness in his eyes when he spoke of her mother. This scared her even more than his unyielding grip on her wrists and their proximity to the ravine.
“When I confronted her, right here, and asked her to make good on her flirtatious advances that she knew no decent man in society would call her on, she refused me! I taught her a lesson she had been due for some time! She actually tried to fight me, as you are, and over the cliff she went!” He laughed an eerie, mad laugh.
The horror of what Dahlia was hearing was too much for her. It was all lies. “You’re lying! My mother died of a fever! My father would have told us if she had fallen to her death!”
“Would he?” Standford taunted. “A proud man like Peter Talbot? Admitting his wife was mad enough to throw herself over a cliff, or careless enough to fall into a ravine on his land?”
“But you murdered her!”
“Did I? Or did she jump?” He laughed again. “Will you jump to save yourself from a marriage to my son?” He saw a flash in her eyes that must have showed that she thought she just might. Marrying into this family, living under the same roof as this mad man would force any woman to consider an unpleasant alternative.
“Yes, you would, wouldn’t you?” He laughed again. “Not this time!” He pulled her back from the edge of the cliff. “This time, I’ll have my way, Penny!” Calling her by her mother’s name convinced Dahlia of this man’s insanity and she started to fight to pull away from him in earnest. “I’ll have my way with you and you’ll have to marry Edward because no other man will take your soiled goods!”
“Help!” yelled Dahlia, but the wind betrayed her and carried her voice away from the Talbot property, across the ravine. She kicked Standford hard in the shin and he did let go of one of her wrists, only to bring his free hand in the form of a fist across her cheekbone. The blow made her see stars and the sound of the gloved fist against her face sounded like a trombone being thrown against a wall. She could hear the ringing of the metal in her ears. Standford threw her to the ground, where she landed on one of the cairn stones. She heard a crunch like a guitar being smashed over a chair, and she felt a searing pain in her side that took her breath away. She rolled off the stone, only to feel a boot kick her in the back, repeatedly. He was yelling at her, but she couldn’t make out the words through the sound of a hammer banging on the strings of a piano with every kicking blow she received. Her head reverberated with the cacophony of instrument after instrument being demolished as if a drunken symphony of players started a brawl and were battering each other with the only weapons at their disposal.
Somewhere in her mind, amidst the chaos, she knew she had to do something. She couldn’t move, however. Pain and a thick, gray fog enveloped her – so thick she felt like she was swimming in pudding. Her mind told her limbs to move, but they wouldn’t respond. She distantly heard her father’s voice saying what a strong girl she was. Her strength was nothing against Standford’s, however. Standford, the name crept back into her consciousness and she remembered him hitting her. Why was he hitting her?
‘Get away!’ cried a voice in her mind, and it seemed to be an echo of a previous thought. Dahlia tried to see through the fog. A sliver of vision came into focus and she raised her head trying to bring the vision closer to her. A man was kneeling over her, his crazed eyes only inches from hers. That wasn’t right. Nothing was right – from his position to hers. Why were her limbs not responding? Why was the unnatural fog descending around her? The questions flitted through her mind but the answers could not be found. There was too much noise. The drunken symphony of players beating each other with their instruments…the cliff…the howling wind…Standford yelling at her.
Standford. ‘Oh god,’ she thought in panic as the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together again. She raised her head again and forced herself to open her eyes. She could only manage one, and what she saw turned her blood to ice.
‘Get away!’ Screamed her inner voice. A hand clamped over her mouth and slammed her head against the ground. The gray pudding fog overtook her vision and silence enveloped her mind, all the instruments having been dashed to pieces with no music left to offer.
-----
It was Tom who found her at twilight. When Dahlia didn’t show up for dinner, her brothers and father spread out in all directions to search for her. He might have missed her had it not been for a ripped piece of lace from her dress caught by the wind that waved eerily. He dismounted and walked towards it. Within a few paces, he saw his sister and ran to her side. He would never forget the sight that met him as he knelt down beside Dahlia. Her face was already discolored from dark bruising starting from her left temple and reaching her nose. Bruises marked either side of her mouth and chin and dried blood covered her nose and the corner of her mouth. One eye was swollen so badly he knew it would be shut for days. Her hair was torn out of its careful coif. Her dress had been ripped in so many places he couldn’t figure out what had torn it. His first thought was of wolves, but he didn’t see any evidence beyond the torn clothing that such an animal could have been the culprit. One of her legs was bent in an awkward position and both wrists were bruised and swollen. She didn’t respond to his panicked pleas. He wanted to shake her awake but was too afraid to touch her except for two fingers o
n one of her battered wrists to check for a pulse. With a sigh of relief at finding one, he quickly got up and hurried to his horse. He detached a hunt horn and an unlit torch. He rammed the end of the torch into the ground, then lit it. It would be easily visible here on the cliff. He sounded the horn three times. Knowing the others would soon be there, he returned to Dahlia’s side.
Michael arrived next. One look at Dahlia’s inert body and he shouted at Tom to ride back to get the carriage and have the doctor sent for. He was by far the faster rider and he sped off towards the house. He met his father on the way back and paused only long enough to blurt out his tasks, then he sped off again. Peter galloped his horse up the hill towards the torchlight on the cliff. He stood over his daughter’s body, his jaws clenched against one another. He looked from her to the ravine and back again. He heard his son say something about wolves, but he knew better. The bruises on his daughter were made by human hands, including the ones on her face. He took in the state of her shredded dress and felt anger and despair all at once. The sensation was that of getting kicked in the groin and he literally doubled over and sank to his knees next to his daughter. He gently smoothed a hand over her hair. He took off his coat and laid it over her.
“Father,” said Michael tentatively. “How could anyone do this – and to Dahlia, of all people?”
A loathing so fierce welled up in Peter that everything he saw in the diminishing light was tinged in red. “Only a mad man would do this,” he said through clenched teeth, his eyes darting around the area as if the culprit would be so mad as to appear and own his hideous deed.
Half an hour later, the carriage brought Dahlia’s unconscious body to the front entrance. By the time her father carried her to the top of the steps, Dr. Chase arrived on horseback beside Tom. Both horses were blowing hard and their necks were lathered with foamy sweat. The house was alight and bustling with activity. Glenda was carrying a pot of boiled water up to Dahlia’s room, followed by Matilda with a stack of clean towels and bandages. Peter took his daughter’s body up the stairs and laid her on her bed. He then stepped back, knowing there was nothing more he could do for her. Dr. Chase immediately went to work performing a visual assessment of her injuries. He picked up bits of her torn clothes and put them back. He looked across the bed at Matilda.
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