Chapter 10 #2
Arabella was aided in hiding from her family by a freckled thirteen-year-old boy from Dunburn who could not seem to settle to anything.
Ewen MacEwen’s stepmother and his two younger half sisters took in washing.
His father was dead. For a fee, Ewen would carry a parcel of the students’ embroidery and Arabella’s letters down to Inverness and came back with money and letters addressed to her.
Ewen MacEwen never asked why she did not trust her letters to the mail coach. He had a wry intelligence, but he also had a conspicuous lack of curiosity about Arabella. In that way, he reminded her of her sister Harry.
Ewen was interested in Arabella’s books, however, and told her he would do her errands if he could only borrow her books.
Nonsense, she said. He could borrow her books, one at a time, but she would pay him for his three days away from home.
And she would arrange for him to have a book of his own from the bookseller’s shop when he went down to Inverness.
The minister Boyd Cormack did not like this arrangement. “Ye will put him above his station, Miss Lovelock, encouraging Ewen’s laziness this way. He should be an apprentice or working on a farm or on a boat. Nae off to Inverness, nae with his nose in a book.”
“I am a teacher, Mr. Cormack. It is my job to put people above their stations. But if you like, I’ll speak to Ewen about his prospects and his plans.”
She tried, but Ewen laughed and said, “Miss Lovelock, people like me dinnae have prospects. We make prospects. Dinnae worry about me. Now, can I borrow the second volume of the book about the Roman Empire?”
Arabella had shaken her head and handed the boy the Gibbons. And she had reported to Mr. Cormack that Ewen MacEwen had a mind of his own and something great was sure to come of it, but she didn’t know what.
And now Mr. Cormack had asked her to marry him.
It had been more than a month since his proposal.
The second day of Christmastide, she had invited Mr. Cormack to dine at her cottage after hearing that his housekeeper was away and he would be eating cold food.
After all, she had Maggie and a warm cottage and a roast chicken and neeps and tatties.
He should come and eat. Maggie would be there throughout, so there would be no loss of propriety.
After dinner, when Maggie had shooed both of them out the kitchen and he and she had been sitting in front of the fire, he made his proposal.
“Would ye be my wife, Miss Lovelock?”
She was startled. She looked at him for the first time as a man.
He had red hair, as many did in these parts, but his was light, almost blond.
Not auburn. His skin was pale now, but in the summer, he was often sunburnt.
She supposed he was not as tall as most Highlanders, but, of course, he was much taller than she.
He had a handsome face and was kind, if somewhat humorless.
And he had beautiful hands. Hands that made her think of another redheaded man.
She told the truth. “I had not thought to marry.”
He turned his head on its side and examined her. “I cannae think why ye widnae.”
She evaded the implied question. “I did not know you wished to marry, Mr. Cormack.”
“All men do.” He paused. “I should nae say that. I dinnae ken what all men wish. And, indeed, before ye came to Dunburn, I didnae wish for marriage myself.”
She still did not know what to say, so she fell back on the rote answer she had given half a dozen suitors when she still lived in London. Before Giles. Before her disgrace and self-imposed exile.
“I am very flattered. You must allow me some time to consider your proposal.”
Boyd laughed briefly. She had never heard him laugh before. It was a quiet laugh, but it was pleasant, like a gentle tickle. Perhaps he was not as humorless as she had thought.
“Ye say that very well. I see I have surprised ye. I didnae ken how to make my interest apparent to ye. Of course, ye are very bonny. But many lasses are bonny.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is true.”
This was unlike any other proposal she had ever had.
“And a minister should nae marry a bonny woman. So that is a mark against ye. That it pleases me so much to look on ye.”
She did not know what to say to that, either.
“And ye are English. An oddity. Some say the enemy. But ye have settled very well here.”
“I hope so.”
He looked away from her and at the fire. “And I admire what ye have done here. I ken ye must have been raised as a fine lady, for such were yer clothes when ye first came here. But ye work like ye came from a farm. Sun up to sun down. With purpose.”
“My mother came from farm people.”
“Well, a minister is in need of such a wife.”
“I see.”
The fire crackled.
“Mr. Cormack,” she said. “I meant what I said. I will consider your proposal.”
And she did. Just after Hogmanay, she asked him to join her in the churchyard, ostensibly to talk to him about some plantings she hoped to make, months from now, when the ground was not frozen.
“I needed to speak to you privately, Mr. Cormack, and wanted to make sure there would be no impropriety in our meeting. So we are out of doors in the cold wind, I’m afraid.”
She smiled nervously, shivering.
There was disappointment in his eyes. “Ye want nae impropriety because ye have decided to refuse me.”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, I have not decided. But there is something I feel you should know. It may change what you want from me, and you may wish to withdraw your offer. I am not . . . unspoiled. Before I came here, I gave myself to a man. A man I cared for. Or thought I cared for. Who was married. I did not know, at the time. But still. There was no child. No one here knows of it. But it is well-known in London. I was publicly shamed, and it is why I left England and came here.”
“I see.”
She could not read his expression.
“Now I must be the one to ask for time to consider.” He turned and walked away.
She looked after him as he went into the church. She felt no relief from telling him, only a horrible churning feeling in her stomach. What did she hope for now? She didn’t know.
Three days later, he fell into step beside her as she walked to buy some flour for Maggie to make a cake.
“I have searched my heart. I hold to my proposal. I would still like ye to be my wife.”
She felt he was waiting for her to thank him or to make some other expression of gratitude. Perhaps he thought she would fall into his arms and accept him at this moment.
She bit her lip. The angry part of her, the part that felt she had unfairly been made to suffer for her desire, bubbled up. She had to push her temper down and control her voice to answer him.
“Then I will turn my mind again to your proposal and find an answer for you.”
That had been three weeks ago. She must make a decision.
Mr. Cormack 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, letting them know the facts on both sides of the issue.
Perhaps, without meaning to, 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—might not understand Arabella’s predicament.
It was too soon to expect return letters from them, but she would still 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.