Whatever It Takes: Day 13

 Word Count: 78,022

Summary of Events:

Josiah went to Glasgow for the celebration of Radcliff's betrothal, where he discovered that Mr. Allaway, a man he knew from church in Linlithgow, was, in fact, Evangelina's uncle, being the oldest brother of her late mother. During the ball Josiah noticed Mr. Allaway quite a bit, and was eventually taken aside by Mr. Allaway, who grilled Josiah about whether he was going to tell Evangelina his mother wanted him to go to China, or tell his mother he was going to be going to the Navigator Islands per Evangelina's call . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“I’ll tell Mother,” Josiah replied.

“When?” Mr. Allaway contended. “If the two of you are officially courting the truth is going to come out before you know it.”

“I’m not sure,” Josiah replied.

Mr. Allaway shook his head. “This is what I’m talking about, you have all the wit, charm, looks, and language to make a woman as clay in your hands, but time and again you show yourself an effeminate coward whom the same can trod upon and manipulate with equivalent ease!”

“I am not!” Josiah shouted, inflamed. “I am not effeminate! How can a medical student be effeminate? There is a reason women aren’t predisposed to medical work! And I am no coward either! What are you smiling about? And no one walks on me or manipulates me either! You know nothing! You’ve only ever seen me once a week at best in church, and even then you’ve never talked to me! You can’t possibly know anything about me other than what comes to your ears by hearsay! Would you stop laughing at me!?”

Seizing Mr. Allaway’s shoulder in one hand, Josiah drew back his other hand in a fist to hit Mr. Allaway, who reached out his hand and covered over Josiah’s curled and cocked fist, still smiling and chuckling.

“I knew you had it in you,” Mr. Allaway said with a smile. “You are a MacEachern after all.”

The rolling boil of Josiah’s rage faded to a high simmer as confusion stirred within him.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“I’ve yet to meet a MacEachern without a backbone,” Mr. Allaway replied. “Some of them have a spot too much of it, but there is none completely lacking in one. If they don’t make regular use of them then they collect dust from disuse, but they never discard them.”

“You’re still making no sense,” Josiah snapped.

“I’ve also never met a Buchanan without a backbone, even if sometimes they deploy them wrongly,” Mr. Allaway said. “But I would pick a MacEachern to win over a Buchanan any time they were put in a battle of wits. The only reason you come up short against your mother is because you didn’t have your father to show you how to handle her, but I know you can, and this has proved that the MacEachern blood is still in your veins.”

A stronger bemusement came over Josiah, removing his rage from the fire.

“You mean you incited me?” Josiah asked. “Deliberately? To see if I could get mad?”

“I did,” Mr. Allaway replied.

Josiah felt disturbed. Maybe he could be manipulated just as Mr. Allaway had said.

“Somebody had to light the fire under the kettle before all the coals died,” Mr. Allaway said. “Somebody had to prove to you that you can withstand what your mother throws at you time and again.”