T. Boyle - Water Music

Mungo’s letter reached Selkirk on the twenty-ninth of December. Ailie was not there to receive it. She was in Kelso, in a brick house just outside of town, sitting before the fire and scrutinizing her emotions as closely as she’d ever scrutinized hydra or Paramecium beneath the ground and polished lens of her microscope. The brick house belonged to Dr. Dinwoodie. She could think of no one else to turn to. Her father, the relations, Katlin — even Zander was against her in this. Dinwoodie was bald, semi-invalid, sixty-three years old. His hobby was taxidermy. I dunna understand it, he said when he answered the door, ye’re a wild and wicked gull. But of course ye can stay with me. Of course ye can. Glad for the company.

On Christmas night she sent a message to her father via Dugald Struthers, who was riding into Selkirk to be with his mother for the holidays . Dear father, she wrote, don’t worry yourself. I’m at Dr. Dinwoodie’s, sorting things out. I just couldn’t go through with it, I hope you’ll understand. Won’t you?

The following morning, 6:00 a.m., the old man was beating at Dinwoodie’s door. With his shoe. A frozen rain was falling, gray as a dead lake, starlings stirred in the hedge, the world was sunk in glass. “Dinwoodie!” the old man thundered. “Open this door, be gad, open it this minute or I’ll put me shoulder to it!”

Ailie was upstairs in the guest room. She’d spent a sleepless night, racked with guilt and uncertainty. Staring up at the rafters, listening to the drum of the ice pellets on the roof as the snow turned to sleet, sick at heart over the absence of Mungo and the unforgivable thing she’d done to Georgie Gleg and her family. One minute she would think that she’d run back and marry him despite herself, the next she would know it was impossible. And at dawn, just before she dozed off, she knew, in a sudden flash of intuition, that waiting for Mungo was equally impossible. He was lost. She would never see him again.

The sound of her father’s voice startled her. She sat up in bed and listened to him storming around downstairs. “Where is she, the jezebel?” he shouted. “Be gad I’ll drag her back by the nape of her neck, spank her disrespectful bottom till it blisters, horsewhip her if need be!” And then the calm soothing tones of Dr. Dinwoodie, offering a cup of tea with a bit of brandy, going on about things psychological, the effect that Mungo’s loss has had on her, the need for time to heal the wounds. “Surely you don’t want to force the gull into marriage, Jamie.”

“Force her? She give her word. Give her word, Donald. It gars me greet to think on it. An Anderson, and she broke her solemn vow. Ye should hear the gossip—”

Then Dinwoodie, mumbling something about the new generation.

“New generation, my arse!” Her father’s voice shot back like a rally in a tennis match. “She’s twenty-three years of age. A growed woman. And she maun get married. Get her down here, the hussy — get her down here before I lose me self-control and thrash her out of bed before me oldest friend’s eyes.”

“Jamie, get a hold on yourself—“

“The devil with gettin’ a hold on — this is a time for action:”

There was the sound of a scuffle, crockery shattering, Dinwoodie’s voice, louder now, angrier, but with an edge of resignation to it: “All right, all right, keep your sark on — I’ll fetch her.” And then the scrape of the old doctor’s footsteps on the stairs.

Ten minutes later she was standing before the fire in the parlor, wincing down at the cup of tea Dinwoodie had brewed her, weathering her father’s tirade. Behind her on the mantel was one of the old doctor’s taxidermic triumphs: a badger and two stoats, erect, dressed in kilt and tarn o’shanter, playing at viol and fife. She transferred her gaze to the grinning badger as her father raged and spat round the room. The old man had a magnificent pair of lungs, but eventually he had to pause for breath.

“Are you done?” she asked, and before he could start up again she cut him off. “Because whether you are or not it’s time I had my say. Georgie Gleg is odious to me. He always has been. For all his good heart he’s a coof and a simp. There’s no magic between us, and I’ll not have him now nor ever.”

Her father’s mouth dropped. “Not have him—? But ye give your word, gull.”

“You’ll see me in the nunnery first.”

“All right!” the old man bellowed. “All right then — suit yourself,” slapping his hand down on the table. “I’ll bring the cart round and drag ye to the Abbey meself.” He fumbled angrily into his coat and slammed out the door, muttering “no daughter of mine,” over and over, as if he were rehearsing it.

That was on the twenty-sixth. Three days later he was back, vaulting the picket fence on his winded mare, plowing through evergreens and dormant flowerbeds, galloping right on up to the doorstep, and all the while sputtering through a bugle like some kind of madman. Ailie had heard the sound of the horn in the far distance and had come to the window, puzzled. Dinwoodie was in the midst of stuffing a pair of hedgehogs, which he’d dressed to resemble the parson and his wife, when he heard the commotion and thought for one wild moment that they were under attack. The confusion was short-lived. The next instant Ailie’s father was careening through the door, no time to knock, bellowing at the top of his lungs. “He’s alive, lassie,” the old man was shouting as he bounded up the stairs. It took a moment for his words to sink in — was it possible? — then she was up and out the door, rushing down the hallway to meet him. He swooped her up in his arms, whiskery and red-faced, rabid with the news, a letter flapping loose in his hand. “He’s done it lass. He’s back. Your mon’s come home!”

After that it was easy. The years of waiting, the trouble about the wedding, breaking her vow: it was all forgiven her. People began to talk about premonition, clairvoyance, a sign that had come to her at the last minute. How had she known? They came from miles around to congratulate her, to look at her, touch her, hear the sound of her voice. It’s a miracle, is what it is, they said. A love made in heaven. Ailie was vindicated. She felt as if she’d just won the lottery, restored Bonnie Prince Charlie to the throne, taken her seat at the right hand of God.

But now, back in Selkirk, the walls have come tumbling down again. A month passes, and no further word from Mungo. He’s alive, thank God, she’ll always have that — and yet where is he? The coach takes four days from London, five ownin’ for bad weather, her father says. Where is he then? Where is this boy that’s so hot to see his betrothed, eh? Where is he? Talk starts up again. He’s back, all right, but he’s deserted her — just as she had deserted Gleg. Serves her right. It goes on like this, worse each day, until finally, on the day after the anniversary of their engagement, the second letter comes.

The George & Blue Boar, Holborn

29 January, 1798

My Dearest Ailie:

I am unavoidably delayed in London over the issue of preparing a shortened account of my travels for dissemination to members and subscribers of the African Association. With the aid of Mr. Bryan Edwards, Secretary of the Association, I expect Ishould have it completed in a few months’ time — after which I shall fly to your arms. Think of it, my dearest friend and wife-to-be: once this minor impediment is out of the way, we shall be together always. At least while I’m at Fowlshiels working on the manuscript of my book, to be called “Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, 1795-97.” Isn’t that exciting? Too, too much? I’m to be a literary man!

But of course, I languish till I feel your touch.