A Distant Shore (31 page)

“And so you can no longer be associated with this hospital.” Warren spoke with an ominous tone of finality. “I will give you a reference. That is, I am afraid, as much as you can hope for.”

Fifteen minutes later Ian stood out on Fruit Street in front of the iconic Bulfinch Dome where Wells had performed his attempted surgery a few short months ago.

On that fated morning Ian had been full of both hope and fear, yet still believing the best was yet to come. Needing to believe it—and now what did he have? He was without a position, a purpose, and he could not bear to return to his home at such an early hour and confess to Caroline the extent of his shame.

Over the weeks of his recovery they’d drawn closer, but Ian still chafed at the thought of revealing to her how low he had now fallen. The issue of whether he used her uncle’s money for research had become moot, ridiculous—who would take him, a disgraced doctor without position, seriously?

The spring morning was fine and balmy, and Ian found himself wandering the streets of the city he had come to call home, recalling those first years as a fearful boy under Henry Moore’s protection, and then as a young medical student full of daring and ambition—and finally a young man, swept away by Caroline Campbell’s fresh beauty.

He ended up in Boston Common, recalling how cows had once grazed where society matrons now walked, their full skirts brushing beds of tulips. How changed the world was, and yet still not changed enough. Some things, he thought desolately, would never change, for he was still as without resources or hope as he had been as a boy, having gambled away his family’s farm and future on a reckless act of what he’d thought had been manly authority.

He’d been a fool then, and he was a fool now. What hope did he have, what hope at all? Ian lowered his head, closing his eyes against the tidal wave of despair that threatened to crash over him.

“Ian?” Ian tensed, then glanced up to see Caroline coming towards him, her face drawn in a frown of confusion. “I just came out to take some air. What are you doing here?”

“I…” Words failed him.

She held her gloved hands out to him, her expression now one of concern. “You look deathly pale. Are you ill? Is your wound bothering you?”

He almost wanted to say yes, to dissemble and pretend that his injury was all that bothered him. Yet as she came towards him, her hands still outstretched, he remembered the look of tender concern and love on her face when she had confessed how afraid she’d been for his life… and how much she loved him.

No matter what he had lost, he still had that, and surely Caroline’s love was the most precious thing he had ever possessed.

“Caroline…” He grasped her hands. “I’ve been asked—forced—to resign my position.”

Her fingers slackened on his and she stared at him in confusion. “Resign? But why?”

“Because of the business with Wells. Warren doesn’t want any scandal brought to the hospital’s doorstep, and I suppose I can understand that.”

“But Wells attacked you! You were innocent of any—”

“He wouldn’t have attacked me if he had not known me,” Ian explained wearily. He could hardly credit he was defending Warren’s position, yet even in his disappointment and shame he recognized the truth of it. “I worked with him, Caroline. For years.”

“And he was clearly mad,” she answered stoutly. She shook her head and squeezed his hands. “There is no justice in this world, is there?”

“There is some, I hope.”

“I am sorry for you, Ian. It seems most unfair—and I know how you love your work.”

“I am sorry for you,” he answered grimly. “You are the wife of a man without position or resource.”

“Without resource?” Her mouth curved in a surprising smile. “Do you really think so little of yourself? As for position… surely that is only temporary.”

“I do not know.” He let go of her hands to rake his own through his hair. “This city is closed to me, of that I am sure.”

He expected her to blanch at least, but she simply shrugged. “There are other cities.”

“I do not know how far the talk and rumor might have spread…”

“You are not a man to be stopped by such things, Ian,” Caroline said gently, and reached for his hands again. “But I don’t think you would be happiest chasing opportunities in Philadelphia or New York.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled sadly. “For twenty years or more you’ve been dogged—no,
tormented
by the past and the mistakes you feel you made. Would not now, perhaps, be the time to finally set them aright?”

He stared at her in bewilderment. “I do not know how I would do such a thing.”

“I do,” Caroline answered and drew closer to kiss him, even thought they were here for all to see in Boston Common.

“Caroline—”

“Return,” she whispered against his mouth. “Let us return to Achlic.”

Moulmein, Burma, 1839

Isobel was in love. It was a new feeling, heady and strange, exciting and yet also fearful. She had been in Moulmein for nearly a month, and just as Jack had suggested and even promised, she had got to know him… and he to know her.

It was both wonderful and frightening, to be known. To have her opinions asked and listened to, and even more alarmingly, her hopes and dreams and fears. And to ask his in return… Isobel’s heart seemed to flip right over at the thought. After so many years alone, considered by all as a permanent spinster, this new intimacy was both unfamiliar and yet so very welcome—and precious.

John had made it their custom to take the hour after the evening meal to chat together in the little front parlor, and the Judsons discreetly left them alone for that sweet time. At first Isobel had been anxious as to how to fill an entire hour, and whether they would, in the end, have anything to talk about.

Yet soon enough she found the minutes flying by, and that one short turn of the clock’s hands became the highlight of her day. John was sober-minded when it came to missions, but he had a wry sense of humor and a lightness of speaking that warmed Isobel’s long-frozen heart.

And yet she did not fear he was shallow or capricious, for he’d talked honestly and painfully of his dead wife, and how much he had loved her.

“And yet,” Isobel had been emboldened to ask one evening, as the cicadas chirruped outside and a bird gave its lonely, mournful evening cry, “you believe you could… love again?” She blushed beet-red at the impudence of the question, but Jack’s expression only became thoughtful as he cocked his head to one side and considered the question.

“I believe I could,” he finally said quietly, his gaze meeting hers with unflinching implication, and Isobel thrilled to the words.

Now Jack had asked her to go for a walk through their neighborhood, and while Isobel had been out in the streets of Moulmein before, she had never been so alone with Jack, without the Judsons nearby acting as chaperones.

For the last few weeks she’d occupied herself by helping Emily Judson with her children and occasionally entertaining local children who wandered by the house or came to the zayat Adoniram Judson had built for church services.

The air was sultry as she now stepped out into a hazy afternoon with Jack by her side. She tried to armor herself with an air of insouciance, but Isobel knew she had never been one for affecting airs and she felt a pulse of relief when John smiled ruefully at her and said,

“I confess, I am a bit nervous.”

“As am I,” Isobel answered. “Although I don’t know why.”

He took her elbow as he guided her towards the dusty street. “We’ve been courting, for want of another term, for the better part of a month. I am conscious, Miss Moore, of your timely concerns.”

Her age, Isobel thought, glancing away. A Burmese man was herding a donkey along, switching its tail as flies buzzed around it. “Yes…” she murmured, moistening her lips, for despite the humidity her mouth suddenly felt remarkably dry.

“Not,” John continued, “that they are my concerns. But I hope I am sensitive to your own needs.”

“I’m sure you are.” They walked towards the mission’s zayat, Isobel barely conscious of what she was saying. Her brain seemed to be filled with a sudden buzzing, her senses overwhelmed by a heightened awareness of Jack walking so solidly next to her, the serviceable cloth of his frock coat, the dark hair curling behind his ears and on his neck.

He didn’t speak for a moment, simply guided her through the busy press of donkeys and pushcarts, raggedy children following in their wake. “I wonder, Miss Moore,” he finally inquired, “if you could see yourself in a place such as this for most nearly the rest of your life?”

“A place such as this?” Isobel repeated. She pulled the hem of her skirt away from a muddy puddle, her mind still buzzing.

“In Burma. Indeed, I don’t know what the Lord holds for my future, but I have felt called to serve here for as long as He allows me to do so.”

“I know that well,” Isobel murmured. Jack had made no secret of his devotion to the work in this country.

“And so I wonder,” he resumed, stopping to clear his throat, “if you could see yourself in a similar place? I know you did not come to Burma with the missionary calling that I experienced.”

“No, I did not,” Isobel said slowly. Her mind still buzzed but even so a clearer picture of what Jack was asking had emerged from the confusion and nervousness. If she married him, she would stay in Burma perhaps forever. She would never see her family again, or at least no more than once or twice. As for children… the Judsons had buried three children already, and Jack one. Would her own children, if she were so blessed, share such a terrible fate?

She’d thought of such things before, but it had been in a distant way, no more than a remote possibility, with marriage to a man she hadn’t even met. Now it was real and present. And now that she knew Jack and loved him, she saw more clearly what marriage to him would entail.

To live and die among a people she did not know nor even understand… to combat the heat, the disease, the mosquitoes even… to sacrifice all she had known and risk everything she stood to gain…

For the first time Isobel truly wondered if she possessed the stamina and courage to live such a life, and that to the glory of God.

“Isobel?” Jack asked gently. He looked sad, as if he sensed the nature of her thoughts.

They had come to stand in front of the Judsons’ zayat, with its bamboo walls and thatched roof. Isobel gave him a rather shaky smile.

“You are right to ask me,” she said quietly. “It is a fearsome thing to consider.”

“Indeed.”

“And despite having travelled this far, and that no easy feat, I had not considered the matter as properly as I should have.”

Jack nodded. “Such a thing is, of course, understandable.”

“You are wise.” She reached for his hands, her own gloved ones cold despite the muggy heat. “And I confess my heart trembles at the thought of what might lie ahead, what suffering and hardship and even what unfamiliarity I may encounter. I am a stranger here, more than you are certainly, and perhaps more than you ever were or felt.”