Dahlia's Music

by Caitlyn Quirk

  The young figure in the massive marriage bed had her face turned away. Anna came and sat on the edge of the bed. Her slight figure could hardly jar the mattress but she sat quite gingerly anyway.

  “Dahlia?”

  The young woman gulped and Anna realized she was fighting not to cry. Alarmed she was in pain, Anna jumped back up and put a tentative hand out toward the bottle of laudanum on the nightstand. “Are you in pain? Can I get you your medicine?”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Kent,” sobbed the girl. “Matty was helping me to make myself presentable to you and she wouldn’t give me the mirror. I know it must be bad if she wouldn’t let me see my reflection. I must look frightful!”

  “There, there love,” crooned Anna. “I have two boys and countless nephews who are always coming home with bruises. I never thought them less handsome for it. Do not trouble yourself over that, my dear.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to Dahlia, who patted her cheeks gently with it.

  Dahlia finally looked up at Anna. “I so wanted to make a good impression on you and here I am blubbering away. I’m not as vain as all that, truly,” she pleaded.

  Anna laughed. “I did not take you so, and seeing your lovely green eyes my son has admired so, I can see you are beautiful.”

  The green eyes in question widened as a new look of horror came over Dahlia’s face. “Oh, Lord! Matty let James see me this way!” Dahlia closed her eyes as if she could thus block out this new embarrassment.

  Anna smiled, touched that the girl would be so upset by the reality of her appearance to her new husband. “From everything James has written about you over the years, and everything he has told me since he arrived, I assure you he sees nothing to mar your beauty.” This obviously pleased the girl, who was desperately trying to get past the situation. Thinking the only thing to end her present discomfort would be to see what everyone else saw, Anna got up and brought her the hand mirror from the dresser.

  “I will let you see but,” she said, pulling the mirror back out of Dahlia’s reach. “You must promise me that you will not let my son or Matilda know. They have taken great pains to ensure that you are comfortable and at ease so you recuperate well.”

  “I promise,” Dahlia said, taking a deep breath. She took the proffered mirror and slowly brought it up to her face. “Oh!” she gasped, closing her eyes against the dreadful reflection. Slowly, she opened her eyes again and took stock of what she saw. One eye was still too swollen to open completely. Varied shades of purple, brown, green and even blue colored the area of her eyes and made her look like a rainbow-colored raccoon. Although closed, her bottom lip had an angry purple line where it had been split. A two-inch scab had formed on her forehead by her hairline. She lowered the mirror and stared at empty space. A hand picked up the mirror and she looked up at Anna as if she had forgotten she was in the room.

  “It looks like someone beat me up!”

  Anna turned around sharply, wondering if the girl had remembered what happened to her, but Dahlia gave a chortle.

  “Just like the Smythe twins when they came to blows after realizing they were both after the same girl!” She smiled, then rolled her eyes. “I’ve never fallen off a horse and landed on my face before!”

  Convinced Dahlia remembered nothing of what actually happened, Anna sat back down on the bed. “Nothing that will not heal,” she reassured the girl.

  “Did James tell you that I, well, that I don’t remember anything just prior to the fall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he very hurt that I don’t remember the wedding?”

  “No,” Anna answered confidently. “Not at all. His only concern is for your well-being. He’s actually looking forward to doing it again here!”

  “Mrs. Kent,” Dahlia started, but Anna interrupted her.

  “Please, call me Anna.”

  “Anna,” Dahlia tested the use of the woman’s given name, feeling uncomfortable. She had never gotten used to calling Miss McElroy ‘Josephine’ and had never called Lady Sweet ‘Sharon.’ How would she get used to calling her mother-in-law ‘Anna’? “I cannot guarantee what I cannot remember, but from what Matty assured me and what I know of myself, I want you to know that I do not think I did anything to…bring about…a hasty wedding to your son.”

  “Of course you didn’t, my dear. I never thought that.”

  Her warm smile and manner of speaking convinced Dahlia that she meant what she said. In the first ten minutes of their meeting, Anna had shown Dahlia the truth of her physical state and Dahlia had voiced the truth of her marital status to the best of her knowledge. It was a good foundation for an open and trusting friendship, and the two women continued their talk for several hours more before Anna retired to let Dahlia rest.

  -----

  While Dahlia tried to defend herself against the possible misapprehension of her mother-in-law upstairs, Matty was defending her downstairs against the definite false impressions of the castle’s servants. She had joined the other maids to do laundry, who chatted amiably amongst themselves. They didn’t exclude Matty from the conversation, but they did little to draw her into it. Like Dahlia, she was considered an outlander. Of their party that had arrived in the middle of the night, only James was welcomed without reservation.

  Presently, he entered the washroom from an exterior door. Snowflakes stuck to his hair and he shook his head like a dog. All the maids looked up at him and conversation stopped.

  “Master Jamie,” exclaimed Grace. She was several years older than Matty and already had her own brood of young children. “Ye should know not to go out without a cap,” she said teasingly. Matty tried not to smile. She was still trying to get used to the Highland accent, and the way Grace said ‘out’ sounded much like ‘oot’.

  “It only started snowing on my way back from the stables.”

  “Ye’ve forgotten how quickly the weather changes up ‘ere,” said one of the younger maids, making eyes at him.

  “How should he remember, Mary, if he hasn’t been here past harvest time in more than a handful of years,” said Grace. “High time you came home, lad.”

  “You’ll be staying for good now, won’t you, Master Jamie?” said a third girl, Maggie.

  “At least as long as it takes to put the keep back together,” James replied. He noticed Matty for the first time as he crossed the room towards the interior of the castle. “Matty, how are you?”

  “I’m well, thank you.”

  “How is Dahlia?”

  “She’s with your mother. I thought I’d give them a bit of privacy to talk.” She leaned towards James and lowered her voice. “She wanted a mirror this morning.” The smile vanished from James’ face. “I refused, but we can’t for long. You know she’ll keep asking now.”

  James nodded and sighed. “I know. Thank you, Matty.” He continued on his way, but at the door turned and waved. “Good day, ladies!” he called, then was gone.

  The maids began their comments immediately. “Lord, but he is wicked handsome,” said Mary.

  “If I were only younger,” laughed Grace.

  “And not married to Jacob!”

  “Well, aye, there’s that, too. Jacob’s a good man, but not half so handsome as that!”

  “Not many are,” sighed another.

  “And of course there is the matter that James is now married,” put in Matty.

  The maids looked up at her as if they had forgotten she was there.

  “Aye, so he is,” Grace acknowledged. “And we are eager to meet the young Mrs. Kent. Today she has her first visitor, I gather.”

  “Yes.”

  “Very unfortunate, this fall of hers.”

  “Yes, indeed,” replied Matty. “For she is quite a good rider.”

  “How did she and Master Jamie meet?”

  The question was innocent enough, but it put Matty on guard. No doubt they wanted to know how long they had known each other, expecting, perhaps, that it was not a long engagement given her yo
ung age. “They met in London following a concert,” Matty said, not bothering to mention that it was Dahlia who gave the concert. “That was several years ago. They were reacquainted at a ball given by the Earl of Bathurst, a friend of her family and of James’ uncle.” Let them know Dahlia was acquainted with an Earl! “He then became friends with her brothers and they saw each other frequently over the years.”

  “And when did they start courting?”

  “Oh,” Matty thought furiously – what could she say? “I think we all knew there was a special attraction when James brought her French lace gloves with a pattern of dahlias on them upon his return from Paris.” She was pleased with her answer, especially since this seemed to end the topic. No one asked her anything further about Dahlia or James by the time she left the laundry room.

  The minute she left, however, the conversation started again in earnest.

  “She’s very familiar with both of them,” sneered Mary. “Calling them both by their Christian names.”

  “Aye,” agreed Maggie. “She thinks herself quite above the rest of us, and we’ve known Master Jamie most of his life!”

  “Nay,” said the temperate Grace. “We knew Master Jamie when he was a boy. We’re just being introduced to the man he has become.”

  “Oh, I’m very keen on getting to know that man better!” Mary said, winking at the other girls.

  Chapter 65

  That evening, Dahlia was asleep by the time James returned to the room, and he left the next morning before she awoke. Matty brought her tea a while later and Dahlia told her all about her visit with Mrs. Kent. “She promised to stop by again today,” Dahlia said animatedly. “Will you do something with my hair?” She tried to sit up straighter and gasped in pain.

  “Not so quickly!” Matty hurried over to assist Dahlia, propping more pillows behind her. “You are starting to heal, but those ribs will not give you peace for at least a month! When my brother fell off the barn roof and cracked his ribs, he couldn’t laugh without hurting for two months together! You have bumps and bruises and cracks from head to toe, and you won’t take the medicine during the day! You’ll not be up to your normal activities for quite a while.”

  “I just wanted to sit up, not go dancing!” Dahlia pouted. “And you needn’t remind me of all the bumps and bruises!”

  “No,” Matty said more gently. “I don’t suppose I do. I worry about you is all. And so does James.” She started to brush her hair and pin it up.

  “How is he?”

  “You can ask him yourself later.”

  “He doesn’t return to the room until very late. Does he seem happy to be back here?”

  “He is so busy running around the castle noting what needs to be fixed! I think he is happy to be useful to his family. There!” Matty finished her hair and stepped back, admiring her work. Dahlia smiled perfunctorily, then looked away. Matty immediately regretted drawing attention to the hairdo, thinking it would prompt Dahlia to ask for the mirror again. Gratefully, she did not. “Shall I bring you a book? Some cross-stitching?”

  “No, thank you, Matty. I’ll just rest for a while.”

  Matty left her alone and went downstairs to see if she could find a book for Dahlia in any event. Each day, she would get a little better, but still be abed for at least another week – if not two. She would need to find distractions for her. Her first inclination was a musical instrument, but Matty thought that would just cause Dahlia more pain – of a less physical nature. She headed for the library and set about trying to find a book to keep her attention.

  The castle’s library was impressive. All the walls were filled from ceiling to floor and there were various rows of tall bookcases in the middle of the room as well. Overstuffed chairs dotted the room, inviting visitors to stay awhile. There were tomes of all shapes and sizes. Some were so old that Matty was afraid the pages would crack if she touched them. There were books in French, Spanish, German, Greek, and even Gaelic. She rounded a bookcase twice her height, running her fingers over the bindings. She found a book on Ireland and started to thumb through it. The beautiful pictures made her smile – and feel homesick. She backed up to a chair she thought she saw in her peripheral vision, her eyes glued to the beautiful plates of her homeland. She sat down, finding the chair surprisingly uncomfortable.

  “Hello, lass,” said the chair.

  Matty screamed and jumped up, turning around and dropping the book. There was a man in the chair where she had sat. “I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t see you there.”

  The man laughed, bending over to pick up the fallen book. “I’m disappointed that was merely an accident. Been a while since a pretty girl sat on my lap.”

  Matty blushed and stepped backwards, trying to escape her own embarrassment. Sitting on a stranger was bad enough, but this one in particular was worse. He had intense brown eyes set in a face that remained boyishly handsome despite the lines beginning to form around the eyes and mouth. The smile that formed deep grooves to the sides of the mouth flashed brilliantly straight teeth. Between the dark, penetrating eyes and that quick smile, Matty had the immediate impression that he spent as much time brooding as he did laughing.

  The man waited until the book-laden wall stopped her retreat. Then he stood up and extended a hand. “I think two people who have been as close as we have should be introduced.” That devilish smile again. “I’m Trevor MacTavish.”

  “Matty. Er, Matilda. Kincaid.” She put her hand in his and felt the warmth and strength of it. The skin was smooth where it touched her palm. An educated man, then. No callouses from manual labor. The hand pulled hers gently as he offered her his vacated chair.

  “Please, do make yourself comfortable.”

  She sat, feeling energized and dumbstruck at the same time. He handed her the book as she glanced up at him. “Feeling a wee bit homesick for the Emerald Isle?” His Scottish brogue was thick.

  “Yes.”

  “Just wait until spring. The hills and valleys around the loch are as verdant as any back home. We’ll make a Highlander out of you yet.”

  “How do you know I’ll be staying?” Matty countered, collecting herself slightly.

  “You’ve come with Jamie and his new wife. I assumed they’d stay, and therefore so would you.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Tis a very small community here in Tarbet, and I know everyone who lives here and halfway down Loch Lomond. You’re the only new face I’ve seen recently, and as the young Mrs. Kent still stays to her bed, you must be her ‘Irish maid and companion’ they talk about.”

  The man was obviously well informed, but she had not heard anyone speak of him by name. “I am. And who would you be to the MacFarlains, Mr. MacTavish?”

  “Just a neighbor.”

  “A neighbor who just lurks about in the castle’s library.”

  “Aye, well, for the books.”

  “The books?”

  “Exactly. I did, after all, supply many of them. Brought them from far and wide. You’ll note that many of them are foreign.”

  “I have, yes. Did you bring this one?” Matty asked, indicating the book she held.

  “Aye.”

  “Are you a book dealer then, Mr. MacTavish?”

  “No. I am a book lover.”

  “Then why don’t you read in your own library?” teased Matty.

  “’Cause there’s no chance a lass as pretty as yourself would fall into my lap there.”

  Matty blushed again, not because of his compliment, but because of how pleased she felt at hearing there was no Mrs. MacTavish. “I’m actually here to find a book for Miss Dahlia,” she went on.

  “The young Mrs. Kent?”

  “Yes.”

  “What sort of books does she like to read?”

  “Oh, all sorts. And she reads in French and Spanish, too! Her father had quite a nice library – though not as grand as this one. I was trying to find something she may not have read yet. Have you any suggestions? Somet
hing unique you may have brought back from ‘far and wide?’”

  Mr. MacTavish smiled. “Something unique in English, French or Spanish. That narrows the choices down only slightly. She is newly wed, so she has no need for a romance. A comedy perhaps?”

  Matty thought of Dahlia’s ribs and shook her head. “Mythology? She did love my stories of Irish folklore.”

  “A good storyteller are you?” MacTavish asked with interest.

  “A bit, yes. The Talbots thought so. Dahlia liked the ones with winged horses and sprites, and the boys would harangue me nightly for tales of monsters and gremlins. The gorier the better with that lot!” Thinking of Tom, Michael and Steven, Matty realized how much she missed them. Remembering herself, and her modesty, she added, “Anyhow, any storyteller is likely perceived as better when the stories are new to the listener!”

  MacTavish nodded slowly, his intense gaze scrutinizing her anew. “Aye. You’re right at that.” Then, he snapped his fingers and moved off down the row of bookshelves. “I think I know just the book that both of you will enjoy.”

  Matty noted for the first time that he had a slight limp when he walked. She wanted to ask him about it, but decency kept her tongue. Instead, she followed him to where he was scanning a particular section of tomes. He tapped the binding of one and pulled it from the shelf. “Here ‘tis. The Kelpie Queen. You’ll know about kelpies, now, wouldn’t you? The Scots and the Irish share much of the same mythology. This book gives a decidedly Scottish slant to the mythical creatures as this one falls in love with a Highlander – an easy thing to do.” He looked straight into Matty’s eyes, making her feel uncomfortable until his mouth slid into a smile.

  Matty rolled her eyes and grabbed the book. “I hope your books love you back, booklover, ‘cause no decent woman would put up with your ego.” With that she strode out of the library, her ire rising as his only response was a deep, mellifluous laugh.

  Angry at herself for falling for his dark looks, Matty berated herself under her breath as she stormed through the hallway towards the staircase. She collided with James, who was likewise hurrying about his business. The book dropped to the floor with a slam and they both voiced apologies to one another. James picked up the book for her, stealing a peak at the title as he did.