32 The Park, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

3rd June 1858

My dear Mrs Gale

The first birthday of your son must be approaching, for which joyous occasion I wish both he and his Mama many happy returns.

This is to tell you that I have for some time been considering a new life for myself in Australia. A former colleague – a physician I much admire – has opened a practice at Melbourne and writes to suggest I join him. There are great opportunities for the advancement of medicine in that land, opportunities which life here, however congenial, cannot afford. The good denizens of Gloucestershire are traditionalists, but as you will recall from our many stimulating conversations over the course of our acquaintanceship, I am much interested in new ideas. I entered my profession in the hope of improving the lives of my patients and it seems to me that I would better be placed to fulfil this hope elsewhere.

My obligations here continue for a month or two more and I plan to sail in early September. It will be high summer, I think, before I arrive at my destination – to quit one summer only to arrive, at the close of a long sea passage, in the midst of another will be a curious thing. My friend tells me there are all sorts of oddities over there – flora and fauna very much unlike our own – so it may be that the inverted climes will be the least of it.

I hope that we shall have the pleasure of meeting before my time in Cheltenham comes to an end. Please let me know if you plan to come to town, or if I may call on you.

I remain your devoted servant

Edward Nolan

Alice did not at once reply, for she did not wish to displease William. Of Mrs Lockwood she had seen nothing since the troubling events of the previous winter, nor even heard her name spoken. It seemed that William had heeded his sister after all, and abjured the widow’s company. Between husband and wife there was now a certain accord: there were no flares of temper on either side, but neither was there the closeness they had once enjoyed. William had gone to sleep in his dressing room when the baby had still been nursing at night and had not since returned to the marriage bed. Delicacy forbade that Alice should question this arrangement outright, but on several occasions she had gone to him and put an affectionate hand on his shoulder, or leant against him as they walked around the walled garden; by these signs she hoped to make known to him that no door would be shut against his return. In a further measure of propitiation, she had tried to temper her views and now kept her own counsel on political matters of the day, where previously she would have shared them with her husband.