“The sloe berries and the honeybees and such?” Sukie offered, her coy half-smile adding a dimple to her cheek as she exchanged a glance with Daniel.
Lofthouse confirmed this was so, adding that he assisted in the management of goats and hens as well. “And the keeping of game.”
Daniel understood him to mean he oversaw the game-keeper and the other labourers who attended such matters. “You are his steward, then.”
Lofthouse looked quite relieved to have someone else speak the title. “Exactly so, yes.”
Whilst Lofthouse might be the sort of man to struggle in speech, and Daniel himself felt rather too nervous for much talk, Sukie remained both clever and curious and thus both inclined and able to keep up a light and merry string of conversation between the three of them. Thus she coaxed Lofthouse to divulge small details of his life after leaving Mr Grigsby’s employ—how he far preferred the countryside to the smog of London and how Butcher encouraged his pursuit of fine arts. She kept it up all through the afternoon, until the sunlight faded into sunset and Lofthouse packed up his kit and bid them good-night. He couldn’t stay, despite their invitation, as he was previously engaged to meet his employer for dinner, though he would see them again on the morrow.
What the deuce could bring an English gentleman farmer and his steward to Canada on undisclosed business, however, Daniel couldn’t begin to fathom.
~
Felix had vanished the previous spring.
Daniel felt half-glad of it despite himself. No longer need he dread the scene that would ensue in breaking off the engagement. Not that he thought Felix bore him any particular affection, but several of his fellow pupils would doubtless prove inconsolable, for they’d invested far more of their own emotionin the romance of Daniel’s engagement than either he or hisfiancécould possibly feel toward each other.
However, as Daniel had told Lofthouse when the clerk had arrived to make queer enquiries, a betrothal did a great deal to discourage other would-be suitors.
Daniel had considered breaking off the engagement before. When Felix’s majority began to draw near and the wretched wedding seemed imminent, Daniel had visited Mr Grigsby to make certain enquiries. The results of these enquiries seemed promising—until Daniel had returned to Mrs Bailiwick’s Academy and found Tolhurst far too attentive. He could imagine how much bolder Tolhurst might become if his nephew didn’t stand between them. And so Daniel decided to remain engaged to Felix as long as possible to ward off Tolhurst’s advances. Ideally, long enough to set up his own modest household in the countryside with Sukie. After all, a young heiress couldn’t live without a lady’s maid.
But then Felix had vanished.
And Tolhurst grew too bold by far.
It began in May. A certain spring entered Tolhurst’s step for reasons then unknown. Daniel noted a satisfied smile, like that of the cat who stole the cream, perpetually playing about Tolhurst’s thin lips in idle moments.
Daniel noted also how, whilst teaching the piano-forte, Tolhurst, who had never stood as far away as Daniel would’ve preferred, now hovered directly behind him, near enough for Daniel to feel the rank heat of him through the back of his gown, almost near enough for them to touch. Their hands did touch, Tolhurst laying his over Daniel’s to direct his fingers on the keys when before mere verbal instruction and visual demonstration had sufficed. Daniel felt compelled to scrub his hands thoroughly after each lesson.
This would all have been bad enough, but Tolhurst wasn’t sated with tormenting Daniel in music alone. He began attending dinner at the academy every night—much to Mrs Bailiwick’s delight, who took it as a compliment to her housekeeping. She didn’t notice, or chose not to notice, how Tolhurst ate but half his portion and spent the bulk of the meal stealing glances at Daniel with that smug little smile on his wretched mouth. Daniel returned not a one, but this did nothing to deter Tolhurst’s attentions.
Other lessons, too, became haunted by a certain hulking presence in the door-frame. Italian, French, and embroidery, none of any possible interest to Tolhurst, nevertheless drew him like a moth to a flame, and his towering shadow lurked over all, with his blazing blue eyes ever-fixed on Daniel. Daniel pretended very hard not to notice. This did nothing to dissuade Tolhurst.
Drawing lesson typically provided Daniel a welcome relief from the stuffy confines of an academy no better than a convent. Yet he began to feel watched even out in the garden. Glancing all ‘round for the source of this creeping sensation over his skin, he happened to track the flight of a swallow out of the hedge and wheeling up towards the eaves in the academy roof.
And there in the attic window stood the looming shadow of Tolhurst.
Daniel stared back in mute horror. Then he forced his gaze down to his sketchbook and did not raise it again for the remainder of the afternoon. Bad enough to be watched. Worse still to know how near to his own bedroom Tolhurst must venture in order to reach that vantage point.
All this continued throughout the month of May. At first Daniel didn’t understand what had changed to embolden Tolhurst.
Then came the interview.
On the first of June, Tolhurst asked Mrs Bailiwick if he might have a word in private with Daniel. Mrs Bailiwick, who adored Tolhurst for reasons Daniel couldn’t begin to fathom, of course agreed. Tolhurst asked Daniel to join him in the music room. Daniel, who bore no desire to go behind closed doors with his beloathed music master and without a chaperon, demurred, and suggested they meet out-of-doors in the garden. If worse came to worst, he supposed, a shout in the midst of Rochester’s quiet streets would summon rapid aid. Or he could try climbing over the hedge himself, his hampering skirts be damned.
No sooner had Tolhurst led him out to the garden than Daniel knew he’d made the right decision in insisting the interview be held out-of-doors. Tolhurst had the impudence to offer Daniel his arm. Daniel pretended he didn’t notice the gesture.
Then Tolhurst offered Daniel a seat on the stone bench. Daniel, having no wish to endure Tolhurst looming over him, declined.
And so Tolhurst stood beside him—again, near enough for Daniel to feel the rank heat coming off his bulk in waves—and began to whisper terrible things.
He had surmised for some time, so he said, how Daniel seemed somewhat less-than-eager at the prospect of marrying Felix. (Daniel felt rather surprised Tolhurst had gleaned even that much of his true feelings, as he remained so blind to every other one of Daniel’s truths.) If so, Tolhurst believed he had found a solution to that particular predicament. Would Daniel like to hear it?
Daniel said nothing.
Tolhurst spoke on anyway. He proclaimed, at first, a stalwart filial affection. Then, seeing Daniel unmoved, he grew more passionate in his speech. He stepped nearer as he declared his delight in all the feminine features Daniel despised in hisbetrayer body. He brought his lips almost near enough to touch Daniel’s ear as he told of his descent into madness and obsession—not his words, but unmistakably his meaning—over a figment of his imagination that he deluded himself into believing existed in the young man before him. Worse than his words were the pauses between them, when his ragged breath echoed in Daniel’s ear like that of some rutting beast given the power of language to abuse.
And then, to Daniel’s outrage, Tolhurst had the absolute gall to seize Daniel’s hand in his own and bend to kiss it.
