The Diary of Miss Elizabeth Mary Pineghast

May 16th, 1816

After an arduous journey, we’ll at last be arriving in Liscannor.  What with the restless seas and the constant rain, there were times—I must admit—that I nearly doubted we would reach our destination.  Frederick will be even more pleased than I; he is anxious that I return to a life of routine, whatever that might be.  He said as much as we travelled from London to Holyhead.  I didn’t listen very well; I was too busy taking in the smell of salt and the rough cries of fishermen.  Neither of us listens very well to the other.  It’s terribly hard when you’re in love with someone to focus on anything but your lover’s eyes. 

It’s hard to imagine now that I was once so afraid to admit my feelings to Frederick.  I suppose there was a great deal that could have gone wrong had he denied me; I might have been transferred to another doctor, and have never seen him again.  But he returned my affections, and I think it’s thanks to this that I’m so much better than before.  I owe my recovery not to the Retreat, and the dull, mindless routine of gardening, walking, talking for hours on end.  I owe it to Frederick, as my lover and not my doctor.  It’s love that made him consent to my plan to return to Ireland, and this, I know, will truly cure me.

Of course, Frederick still holds faith in the novel practices of the Retreat, so I won’t tell him how little help they’ve been.  I hate for us to ever disagree—I’ve done everything in my power to avoid it.  So I would never say that my desire to return to Liscannor was born partly out of a need to escapethe routine he so values.  I just can’t abide by rehabilitation; it makes being healthy seem so dull.  My normality is not that—it’s the rough sea, steady in its tumultuousness.  I missed the sea a great deal.  Oh, I know it’s inconvenient—certainly for travelers such as ourselves—but all wild and lovely things are.  I think I may love the Cliffs of Moher—those high, imposing shores of Ireland—as I’ve never loved another place.  With the mere imprint of them, I’m drawn back and into childhood, memories I would be more than glad to swim in forever, the good and the bad.  It’s positively dreadful, this passage of time—arduous, in fact.

Perhaps these gray-cloaked Irish skies draw in melancholy with nostalgia.  I’m thinking on all that’s to come, when I wish to revel in what’s been.  Actually meeting my family, I can already tell, will be a trial, one that I must face gladly if I am to accomplish my goal.  I suppose I’m just anxious, for I don’t at all doubt their amiability.  I’m just concerned that I won’t be what they wanted.  That I’ll be a disappointment, as I certainly am to everyone else.  Everyone except for Frederick, of course.  Somehow, he knows every part of me and still thinks I’m worth keeping.

I have found that it’s knowledge that’s the key to love.  Once I know who my mother was, I can’t help but imagine my melancholy will just fly away like air.  Frederick doesn’t believe that I should dwell in the past, but I can’t just ignore it.  It’s the only thing that will make me the way I once was, when I wasn’t alone with all these dark thoughts and feelings. 

Now I have a reason to be well, an important one, for once I’ve recovered, Frederick will propose.  We’ll have to elope, of course, but that won’t matter.  Because then, the past will not be a chain, but a ribbon; I will stride forward at last.