A Distant Shore (13 page)

Margaret, dear Margaret… She would never get this letter, he thought. Never even know what happened to him or his ship.

Swallowing hard, he shook his head and returned his resolute gaze to the map before him. There had to be some solution. Some way forward. He just had to find it.

Boston, 1838

“Ian, what is troubling you?”

Ian looked up from his mostly untouched meal to smile ruefully at his wife. Caroline gazed at him, a frown between her fine brows. “I apologize. I’m not very good company tonight.”

“You are brooding,” she told him. She neatly forked a sliver of lamb and gave him a look of both reproof and concern. “What is wrong?”

He sighed, not wanting to trouble Caroline with his worries, but also reluctant to alienate her further by refusing to discuss his work. The last few weeks they had called a silent, uneasy truce, not speaking of his research with Mr. Wells on the use of ether as an anesthetic. Ian’s happy news that the Chief of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital was willing to allow an experimental surgery in the revered Bulfinch operating theatre had been overshadowed by Caroline’s distress that he was still unwilling to use her uncle’s money to fund his work. She had congratulation him when he’d told her, of course, and kissed his cheek, but Ian had felt her emotional withdrawal. Seen how quickly she’d slipped from his arms and walked from the room.

“Ian?” she prompted now. “Will you tell me?”

He heard a trembling thread of uncertainty in her voice and guilt and regret both assailed him once more. He couldn’t stand this distance between them, and keeping his concerns from her would surely only make it worse. Trying to smile, he met her troubled gaze. “Of course, my dear. I’m only thinking of the surgery Mr. Wells is to perform next month. It is so important that it is successful.”

She cocked her head, her thoughtful gaze sweeping over him. “So what is your concern?”

Ian shrugged. “There is simply so much depending on it. If it does not go well, the work shall be set back indefinitely, perhaps forever. We will surely not be afforded another opportunity such as this.” He knew he sounded melodramatic, but he could not shake the feeling that if he and Mr. Wells suffered a public failure and humiliation in the hospital’s operating theatre, no one would ever take ether, or even him, seriously again. Both his research and his career were under threat.

Caroline took a sip of her wine, her fine eyebrows drawn together. “But there is no reason to think it will fail, is there? Your experiments in Hartford have been overwhelmingly successful. You have told me so yourself. You operated on Mr. Wells’s arm and he didn’t feel a thing, even though he needed stitches!”

“So I did,” Ian agreed with a smile. He felt a welcome surge of love and admiration for his wife. Despite their disagreement over the use of Riddell’s money, she still supported and believed in him. Her confidence was a much-needed balm. He also knew her determination now to remain even-tempered and solicitous was an effort to restore harmony to their marriage, and one he greatly appreciated.

“And yet you are worried,” Caroline said softly, and after a pause he gave a brief nod.

“I… I fear Mr. Wells has not quite been himself the last few times I visited.”

Caroline stared at him, frowning. “Not himself? Do you mean he is unwell?”

“I believe so,” Ian said cautiously, for he was reluctant to admit even to himself the probable cause of his colleague’s ill health.

“I fear you are not being honest with me,” Caroline said, “or perhaps even with yourself, Ian. There is no shame in being ill, yet you are looking as if you are ashamed on Mr. Wells’s account.”

Ian gave her a small smile. “You know me too well, my love. It is true, I am worried and even ashamed on Mr. Wells’s behalf, for I fear his ill health is indeed shameful.” He took a deep breath. “He has been forgetful, disorganized, and his hands tremble—”

“What,” Caroline asked, “is the shame in that?”

“None, if you take each symptom by itself. But as a whole...” He trailed off, shaking his head, and Caroline simply waited. “They are all symptoms of addiction to ether,” Ian confessed quietly. “The substance we have been using for our operations.”

“Addiction...” Caroline paled, and Ian regretted mentioning such a thing. It was surely no topic for conversation with a lady over the dinner table, or even at all.

“I’m sorry, Caroline. I should not have spoken of it.”

“Nonsense, Ian. I may be a gentlewoman, but I am no wilting lily! It is simply a terrible thing to consider.” She paused, frowning in thought. “I had no idea it was something to which you could become addicted.”

“Sadly, yes. It is a powerful drug, and when used for ill…” He toyed with the food on his plate. “Even the medical students I studied with sometimes indulged in it. ‘Ether frolics’, they called it.”

Caroline stared at him in surprise. “But I thought it rendered you unconscious!”

“When the proper dose is administered,” Ian explained. “But if you inhale just a little, it makes you feel… well, inebriated, I suppose. Or similar.”

“And you think Mr. Wells is using the stuff for this purpose?”

“I could not say for certain, but he was certainly not the man I first met all those years ago, the last time I saw him,” Ian answered heavily. “Besides his hands trembling, he seemed almost… wild. As if he were not in control of his emotions, or even his faculties.”

“And you think this is because of the ether?”

“Because of the addiction. An addict will experience withdrawal symptoms if he does not have the stuff regularly, and that is what I fear was happening to Mr. Wells when I visited.”

Caroline shook her head slowly. “How dreadful.”

“Indeed. I should not have mentioned it.”

“And yet I am glad you did! I want you to share your concerns with me, Ian.” Caroline’s face softened for a moment before determination hardened her features. “But Ian, if Mr. Wells is addicted to this substance as you suspect, he surely cannot be trusted to perform the operation.”

“Yet it is the culmination of his life’s work.” Even though he had to agree with his wife, Ian could not imagine Wells stepping aside for any reason.

“And yours as well,” Caroline reminded him. “If Mr. Wells cannot perform the surgery, Ian, the solution is obvious.” She smiled at him, her eyes shining. “You must do it.”

Chapter Seven

Prince Edward Island, 1838

High summer was always one of the busiest times in a farmer’s life, and this summer was no exception for the MacDougalls. Harriet found she missed Maggie’s help with the household chores and the management of the kitchen garden, but even more so she longed for her daughter’s sunny presence and cheerful chatter. Her fourteen-year-old son George worked in the fields with Allan, and quiet, serious ten-year-old Anna helped Harriet, but she knew her youngest child missed Maggie as well. They had never been apart before.

One afternoon a fortnight after Maggie had left on the ship Harriet stood out on the front porch, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the glare of the noonday sun. She could see Allan in the potato field, bent over the tender new plants as he and George weeded. There was so much work to be done, Harriet thought with a sigh, with the weeding and watering, the care of the animals, the ceaseless toil for both the land and the living. Allan was only forty-six years old but from a distance she saw how tired he looked stooped over in the field, how
old
, and the realization gave her a little pang of sorrow—and worry. How quickly the years slipped away, and yet surely God would grant them many more together.

“Mam?” Anna stood in the kitchen doorway. “The raspberry jam is ready to be set.”

“Good lass.” Harriet turned away from the sight of the fields, and her husband still stooped over. She pushed aside the worry and sorrow as she smiled at her daughter. There was work to be done.

Yet that evening, after the children had gone to bed and she and Allan sat in their usual chairs with the night falling softly all around, Harriet felt the worry pick at her again. Allan’s dark hair was liberally streaked with gray, and a life out of doors had given him deep creases by his eyes and from his nose to his mouth. He squinted in the light of the oil lamp as he bent his head to the bridle he was mending, and Harriet felt that twist of anxiety inside. She must have made some sound, for Allan glanced up, the creases by his eyes deepening as he smiled at her.

“Now what was that sigh for,
mo leannan
?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Harriet admitted. “It’s only there is so much work to be done.”

Allan lifted one powerful shoulder in a shrug. “No more than there ever is this time of year.”

“I’m not the lass I once was,” Harriet said, and Allan frowned.

“I should have considered, with Maggie gone, that more work would fall to you. We can hire a girl—”

“No, no,” Harriet said quickly. “There’s no need for that.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, I’m certain.” She paused, threading her needle carefully before she spoke again. “If we were to hire anyone, I think a man to help you with the harvest would be best.”

“A man? I’m not in need of any help. I’ve got George, after all.”

Harriet glanced up from her darning. “It’s a good deal of work for just one man and a boy,” she said. “You’ve hired men before—”

“For a season,” Allan allowed. “When I was tending my father’s land as well as our own. But there’s no need of that since we sold his acreage.”

“Even so,” Harriet murmured.

“What are you about, Harriet?” Allan asked mildly enough, although she recognized that thread of steel in his voice. “What’s got you in such a fash?”

“Neither of us are getting any younger, Allan.”

“You think I’m too old for this?” he demanded, and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or amused. Knowing Allan, probably both.

“No, but I know your father worked himself to death on this land and I don’t want to see the same happen to you. I love you too much for that, Allan MacDougall.”

Allan smiled, his eyes crinkling. “My father was far older than I am when he breathed his last. And in truth he died the way any farmer or man for that matter would hope to—strong until the very end.” He leaned forward and covered Harriet’s hand with his own work-roughened one. “I know having Maggie leave us has cost you, whether you’ll admit it or not. And I feel my years more keenly when I see what a grown up young woman our Maggie is. But I don’t need a man to help me now, and hiring one won’t keep me alive any longer than Providence allows.” He gave her a rueful smile. “God surely ordains all our days, my love. I trusted that when I sailed away from you all those years ago, and I trust it now.”