Chapter 9
Nine
Alasdair spent four very hard days and nights in the mail coach hurtling towards Edinburgh and the home of Dr. Murray.
This was the home where Alasdair had first been allowed to eat all he wanted, where he had been encouraged to string more than two or three words together, and where he had sat up late at night, poring over his books, and, at one point, learning the calculus that had so endeared him to Harry in her first months at Sommerleigh.
“Dr. Murray,” he said to the old man whose breath was laboring, who could not speak. He dropped his doctor’s bag and pushed past the nurse and pulled the man upright by his arms so he was sitting perfectly straight.
“Pillows,” he said peremptorily, holding Dr. Murray up with one arm and snapping his fingers. He was handed two pillows. “More!’ he roared, and the nurse went to get more.
After a half dozen pillows had been stuffed behind Dr. Murray’s back and he was able to sit precisely perpendicular to the bed and yet still be supported, the aged man’s breath slowed.
Alasdair looked at his mentor’s swollen, weeping legs.
Dropsy. He did not need to press on the limbs to know his finger would leave a lasting impression in the edema.
He laid his ear on Dr. Murray’s chest and heard sopping-wet crackles in the upper lung fields and no sound whatsoever at the bases of the lungs.
The heart had a high-pitched murmur, easily heard over Dr. Murray’s noisy breathing.
The second heart sound could not be heard.
And the carotid pulse was weak. And delayed.
He knew that if Dr. Murray were to die in this moment and have a post-mortem examination, his lungs would be found to be filled with a clear fluid, close to water, and the left lower chamber of the heart would be thick with muscle, leaving scant room for blood to collect in order to be pumped out.
And the valve that lay between that chamber and the rest of the body would be small and narrow.
“Diagnosis, Dr. Andrews?” Dr. Murray gasped out.
“Diagnosis: once a teacher, always a teacher.”
“I have,” Dr. Murray wheezed, “been taking digitalis,” wheeze, “but the efficacy,” wheeze, “isnae what it once was.”
“I might, with yer permission, drain the fluid from yer lungs.”
“Nae,” the man gasped.
“He has refused drainage from the finest physicians in Edinburgh, Doctor,” the nurse said.
“If I were to have it done,” wheeze, “I would have ye do it,” wheeze, “but the fluid will only reaccumulate.”
“Aye,” said Alasdair. “But it will give ye some time. Some easier breathing. Ye willnae tire so soon.”
“I am ready,” wheeze, “to see my wife.” Here, Dr. Murray pointed a finger up at the ceiling. His wife had died fifteen years earlier when Alasdair was still in school, and Dr. Murray had often said since then how much he looked forward to joining his wife in heaven.
“I was only waiting for ye,” wheeze, “dear boy.”
“Well, I am here.” Alasdair worked very hard to keep his voice steady. His grief would not ease Dr. Murray’s passage. “Would ye like some laudanum?”
“Nae.” Gasp, wheeze.
“Please give me some sign when ye want some. And I have plain morphia as well.”
“Aye.” Wheeze. “Have ye married?”
Alasdair shook his head.
Dr. Murray pushed himself up even straighter with his arms. “Ye must!”
“Calm yerself, Dr. Murray. I will.”
“When?” Dr. Murray beetled his eyebrows and tried to look fierce despite his panting.
“When I meet the right woman.”
Dr. Murray labored for a minute and then said, “Ye have already met her.”
How did he know? “Perhaps.”
Gasp. “P’raps be damned!”
“I met a woman, once, years ago. But I hesitated. I didnae pursue her, and she ran away.”
“Then ye must find her.”
Alasdair had been awake for three days when Dr. Murray died. The man had not wanted any drugs for sedation or pain until the very end. He was ready to die, but he had not wanted to be unconscious until it was inevitable.
Eased by morphia, Dr. Murray’s rattling and gasping at last went silent.
Alasdair walked through a door and into Dr. Murray’s wife’s former bedchamber, took off his boots and laid down on a chaise in his shirt, waistcoat, trousers and went unconscious for twenty-two hours.
He only woke because of a knock.
“Dr. Andrews?”
It was Dr. Murray’s butler, the one who had let him in four days ago and directed him to Dr. Murray’s bedside.
“There is a letter for ye.”
Alasdair sat up and took the letter.
“Shall I bring ye some tea?”
Alasdair peered at the front of the letter. “Aye, please.”
It was addressed to him in Harry’s poor handwriting.
The letter was quite fat. He broke the seal and another letter, a smaller one, folded and sealed, fell out of the now-loose pages.
The loose pages were addressed to him and dated just three days ago.
This letter must have come by some kind of exceedingly rapid express rider.
He must make sure Dr. Murray’s butler was not out money for the letter’s delivery.
Dear Alasdair, the letter ran. I hope this letter finds you et cetera. Tommy tells me your mentor is ill. Well, if anyone can make him well, it would be you. I am hoping when your teacher recovers, I could trouble you to deliver a letter to my sister for me.
Upon reading the words my sister, a cold sweat covered his skin. He picked up the sealed letter, which had fallen out of the loose pages.
Miss Arabella Lovelock.
And The School for Girls was written underneath.
And then Dunburn.
She was not in the New World. She was in Dunburn. And he knew Dunburn. Dunburn was not six or seven miles from Bailebrae, where his uncle’s farm had been. Where he had grown up until his aunt and uncle had died of typhus within a week of each other.
He had told Arabella—he knew he had—that he had grown up in Bailebrae. Had she remembered and gone there?
No, that was madness.
The miracle that she was here in Scotland must be enough for him. And her own sister had addressed a letter to her as Miss Lovelock. She was not married. And he had a reason to seek her out. Harry had given him a reason. To deliver a letter.
He went back to his own letter from Harry.
Given my impending confinement and the difficulty of my pregnancy, I very much want both my own physician and my own sister with me.
You must deliver the letter yourself and place it in her hand.
And you must make her feel the import of my situation and my request. She will not say no to you, I assure you.
You will also impress upon her that she must not make any important decisions, any binding decisions, before leaving Scotland.
She should abandon everything immediately and come south with you.
Please engage a private carriage and driver at Tommy’s expense.
However, once you begin your journey with my sister, there is no reason to hurry, and I hope you will stop and see some sights before making your way to Sommerleigh.
Alasdair thought this was beyond the normal limits of Harry’s eccentricity. First, she wanted Arabella to rush away and then for her to take a leisurely pleasure trip through Scotland and England with him. With him. The whole plan was madness. And highly improper.
Highly. Improper.
Was that why his mouth was so dry? No, surely that was from sleeping with his mouth open.
And why was his heart racing? And why did he have the feeling in his clenching stomach that he might regurgitate even though he had not eaten in two days?
And damn his nuisance of an engorgement at the thought of seeing Arabella.
He had plans to make.
The butler came in with tea. Alasdair, clutching his precious letters, jumped up from the chaise.
“I need to hire a coach. A coach to go into the Highlands. To Caithness.”
The butler looked askance at him.
“Now!” Alasdair barked, and the butler jumped and spilled the tea.