Chapter 11
Eleven
There was some inevitable delay in Edinburgh.
Alasdair was the beneficiary of Dr. Murray’s will, and the solicitor expected to meet with him.
Suddenly, Alasdair had gone from being an ordinary country doctor, often 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.
He must stay for that. However, Alasdair thought if Dr. Murray were still alive, the man would curse the notion of respect for the dead at the expense of the desires of the living.
Dr. Murray would have shouted Funeral be damned!
and shoved Alasdair out of Edinburgh, immediately, and on his way north.
At the funeral, Alasdair saw many of his schoolmates and a few of his old professors.
Some of his schoolmates had also joined the navy or the army after their training and been surgeons on ships and battlefields.
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 postponed and 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 cowardice. He would be brave as he had been in the navy. He would live as he practiced medicine—with confidence, wisdom, and haste when 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.
It would take two days to get to Dunburn.
Perhaps if they left very early in the 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 himself in the coach. Otherwise, he might go mad with the anticipation of seeing Arabella again.
The first person he 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.
It must be a new institution because it had not existed when he had been a boy.
And there was Boyd, in the street. He was unmistakable. The same look about him as when he was twelve. The pale-red hair. The stolid gaze. The rigid way he held his neck.
“Boyd Cormack,” Alasdair called out. “’Tis Alasdair. Andrews.”
They met in the middle of the street and shook hands.
“Alasdair. I have nae seen ye in twenty years.”
“One and twenty.”
“Ye speak now.”
“Aye.” Alasdair grinned.
“I heard tell 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 back the one lock that persisted in falling in front of his left eye.
“I am looking for the School for Girls. Can ye direct me to it?”
Boyd 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?”
“Aye, 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.
Involuntarily, Alasdair took a step back. “Nae,” he said. “Nae, I must . . . I must deliver it to her myself. Her sister asked me to.”
Boyd’s face became stone. “I will take ye to her then. Her teaching for the day is over.”
“She’s a teacher?”
“Aye.”
Alasdair stopped to tell Paterson to stable the horses and arrange for rooms in the public house. Then he walked up the street with Boyd, away from the sea and the mouth of the river and out of the village. The way was uphill, but it was a gentle slope.
“I am the minister of the kirk here,” Boyd said.
“I see,” Alasdair said.
“Miss Lovelock is the teacher at the school. She is the founder, too.”
“Well, she is . . . her whole family is quite remarkable.”
“I have asked her to be my wife.”
Alasdair kept walking although his legs suddenly felt like lead as did his heart, which plummeted deep into his gut.
She was to be Boyd’s wife. His second cousin’s wife. He was too late. Again.
In just a few minutes, they came upon two sandstone cottages.
Alasdair briefly considered passing the cottages and continuing to walk up the rolling hill and over the prow and on until he crossed Caithness and reached the mountains in Sutherland where he might find a cave and live the rest of his days alone, a miserable hermit.
Boyd walked up to the door of the smaller of the two cottages and waited for him.
Alasdair would face Arabella. He would deliver his letter. He was a servant to duty, above all else. And he longed to lay eyes on her again, one more time.
He followed Boyd and stood behind him as he knocked on the door.