Jamie Peffer and Marjorie Fletcher sat with their backs to a tall chimney stack. Through the crenellated parapet University spires shone in the setting sun. Originally clad in copper, paintings of them gleaming in bright sunshine could be found in various galleries. Oxidation had long since turned the copper a pale jade color. In the distance an airship puffed small clouds of steam as it floated towards the sky-pier which dominated the landscape of New Edinburgh.
“Maybe that’s what we should do,” said Marjorie.
“What?”
She pointed to the airship. “Catch one of those. Run away together.”
“And go where?”
“Anywhere. Anywhere your father wont interfere.”
Jamie reached over and clasped her hand tightly. “He's just trying to look after me.”
“No, Jamie, he’s not. He’s looking after his precious family name. He doesn’t want the future Earl of Strathpeffer linked to an English woman.”
“Come on Marjorie. It’s eighteen-sixty-seven. No-one cares about that.”
“Really? Because your father made it perfectly clear to me that he does. For him the alphabet is the only place England’s E comes before Scotland’s S.” She snatched her hand away and crossed her arms over her chest, shivering despite the heat.
Jamie turned to her. The daughter of the English ambassador to Caledonia, the Royal Scottish Colony in Central America, he had been smitten from the moment she took her seat in the lecture hall. Her auburn hair and deep, chocolate brown, eyes were a draw almost as great as her sharp wit. He pursued her with the single-mindedness of ardent youth.
Now their exams were over and life outside the bubble of learning loomed large.
“What if I work the year with my father?” asked Jamie. “It might not even be a year. He’ll pack me off to some outpost of the Peffer trading empire to learn the ropes. He wont care who I’m with.”
Marjorie shook her head. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes. For someone so clever, so bright, he really was very naive.
“Just a year,” her voice was dull, flat. ”A year in Scotland, in Edinburgh, where you’ll go to all the big events. Every time you turn round another flame-haired, green-eyed beauty will be introduced to you. They’ll hang on your every word, demand you attend their soirées. You’ll take them rowing on Prince’s Street Lake, show them sunrise on Calton Hill.” She stifled a sob. “All the things we’re meant to do together.”
“I love you!” he protested, and moved to embrace her.
A small electro-skiff appeared above the parapet, its energy skeins crackling loudly.
“Master Jamie. The Earl requires you join him aboard.”
Jamie looked up at the bosun from his fathers airship. “We’re coming,” he said. He stood, pulling Marjorie up with him.
“The Earl instructed it’s to be you only, Master Peffer.”
The skiffs electrical field hummed and fizzed. A sound Jamie would forever associate with making a choice.
Text by stuartcturnbull, art by Roses_Street via Pixabay