Lochlann received a letter from the teaching hospital in Boston to say his application had arrived two days too late, making him ineligible for enrolment until the following year. There was no system for redress as all places had been filled.
Damn. Damn and blast.
Niamh had sent her application in on the same day, so she would have missed out as well.
He should have learnt his lesson about the consequences of late applications the time he arrived back from a holiday in Italy. By a week he missed enrolling at Earlsfort Terrace where all his friends had gone, and had to settle for the Royal College where he knew nobody.
What to do?
He and Niamh had talked about working in Africa as volunteers with the Medical Missionaries and delaying their further training in Boston for a year. The nun they had spoken to about it said they couldn’t work in the same mission unless they were married, to prevent giving scandal to the pagans the Church was trying to convert. Seeing they intended to marry in a year’s time anyway, they didn’t see that as an obstacle. In fact, it gave the option an added appeal.
They could take up that alternative now. In Niamh’s absence, knowing her as well as he did and assuming she would agree, Lochlann took it upon himself to inform the Mother Superior that they would travel to Africa and would be married before they left. He then wrote to Niamh telling her what he had done, sending the letter poste restante, hoping it wouldn’t arrive too late for her to collect it. He would like to have included a description of the erotic dream he’d had about her on the night of their final exams, but it was too intimate to commit to paper, so he only hinted at it and said he would describe it to her in detail when she returned. He had wanted to tell her about it the morning after the celebrations, but by the time he went to seek her out, she had left the townhouse and he hadn’t seen her since. How he’d ended up in Charlotte’s bed he had no idea, but presumed it was habit that had propelled him there when he needed to sleep. It was with relief he had seen he was alone in the bed when he awoke in the late morning.
His arms felt superfluous without Niamh enclosed in them. Four more weeks until her return. Their wedding night couldn’t come soon enough as far as he was concerned.