“Then I will turn my mind again to your proposal and find an answer for you, Mr. Cormack.”
That was three weeks ago. She must make a decision. He deserved that. But she was waiting for guidance. She had impulsively written letters to her sisters explaining her situation. The school. Boyd Cormack’s proposal of marriage. She had tried to be as evenhanded as possible in her letters. Letting them know the facts on both sides of the issue. Perhaps, without meaning too, she had hinted at her feelings. Or lack of them.
But her sisters—they who had love and desire and companionship all met together in their husbands—would they understand Arabella’s predicament? It was too soon to expect return letters from them, but still she would send Ewen MacEwen to Inverness in five days to retrieve any impossibly swift letters of reply. She would see if there were any answers to be had from England.
Eleven
There was some inevitable delay. Alasdair was the beneficiary of Dr. Murray’s will and the solicitor expected to meet with him. Suddenly, Alasdair had gone from being a rather modest country doctor mostly paid in chickens and apples and baby boys named Alasdair or Andrew to being rather well-off and the owner of a beautiful house in Edinburgh, to boot.
There was to be a funeral service at St. Cuthbert’s. It would be disrespectful not to stay for that. However, Alasdair thought it likely that if Dr. Murray were still alive, he would curse the notion of respect for the dead if it stood in the way of Alasdair’s courtship. Yes, Dr. Murray would have said “funeral be damned” and kicked Alasdair out of Edinburgh, immediately, and on his way north.
Alasdair saw many of his schoolmates and a few of his old professors at the funeral. Some of his fellow students had gone into the navy and army after their training and been surgeons on ships and battlefields. Just as he had. Some had not survived. Another reminder of the transitory nature of life. As if he were not already laden with awareness of it.
And yet, despite his knowledge of his own evanescence, he had delayed in the past, hadn’t he? And missed what might have been? And was he not procrastinating again?
A year from now, he resolved, he would not be cursing his dilatoriness. He would be brave, as he had been in the navy. He would live as he practiced medicine. With confidence. With wisdom. And with alacrity when it was necessary.
He engaged a coach, horses, and a large, taciturn driver named Paterson who was willing to take him north to Dunburn and then back south to England and Sommerleigh. He planned to leave the next morning. It would take two days to get to Dunburn. Perhaps if they left very early the next morning and drove very late, he might be there by midday of the second day. He collected some medical books and periodicals from Dr. Murray’s quite up-to-date library to distract him in the coach. Otherwise, he might go mad with the anticipation of seeing Arabella again.
The first person Alasdair saw in Dunburn was his second cousin. His mother’s mother’s sister’s grandson. Alasdair had just gotten out of the carriage and into a cold wind and was about to go into the public house to get rooms for himself and the coachman Paterson. He also meant to enquire in the public house about the School for Girls. A new institution, because surely it had not existed when he had been a boy.
But Boyd appeared in the street then. He was unmistakable. The same look about him as there had been when he was twelve. The pale-red hair. The stolid gaze. The rigid way he held his neck.
“Boyd Cormack,” Alasdair called out. “It’s Alasdair. Andrews.”
They met in the middle of the street and shook hands.
“Alasdair. I have not seen ye in twenty years.”
“Twenty-one.”
“Ye speak now.”
“Aye.” Alasdair grinned.
“I heard tell that ye became a physician.”
“Aye.”
“And ye were in the British navy?”
“Aye.”
Boyd nodded at the public house. “I see ye are going in. Let us get out of the cold and have some ale and ye can tell me of yer life and adventures.”
But Alasdair, mindful of his new resolve, did not want to engage in more delay. He ran his fingers through his hair and pushed the one lock that persisted in falling in front of his left eye out of the way.
“I am looking for the School for Girls. I must go there.”
Boyd suddenly examined him carefully. “What purpose do ye have there?”
“I have a letter to deliver to Miss Arabella Lovelock.”
Boyd’s face changed slightly. Hardened, perhaps. “Miss Lovelock?”
“Yes, I am acquainted with her sister. She entrusted me with a letter for Miss Lovelock.”
“I am a friend to Miss Lovelock. I will take it to her,” Boyd said and thrust his hand out.
