Chapter 25
Elizabeth
Ireland was as delightful as William had promised.
Elizabeth had assumed that the description of Ireland as being very, very green might have been exaggerated—but her first views of the Wicklow Mountain region had confirmed that there was something very special, very vibrant, in the lush green scenery.
She particularly loved Glendalough, which they were able to visit during a day trip from Fraoch Hall.
There was so much vivid emerald-coloured grass—so much rolling green—that the touches of gold in the trees dotted here and there, and the rust-coloured patches of bog, just made the green shades seem even more intense.
Of course, Glendalough’s lovely autumnal colour palette was not its main attraction.
The monastic ruins were as fascinating as any antiquity could be.
The round tower, the roofless, partially collapsed cathedral and churches, the many Celtic crosses in the graveyard—all the crumbling stone erected and carved by humans—seemed such a contrast to the vigour of the vegetation.
Moss abounded in cracks and epitaphs, ferns sprung out from crannies in the ancient walls, a few stunted ash trees took root on one deteriorating wall, nettles and brambles choked the interior of the cathedral, and ivy seemed to have almost entirely consumed one church.
The shrouded appearance of the ruins was magnified by the fact that there was a creeping fog in the lowest-lying areas, and the gravestones, ringed crosses, walls, and ferns seemed to spring up from the mysterious white shroud.
Walking through the ruins was quite like being in a Gothic novel, Elizabeth thought.
She breathed deeply, smelling the damp, sensing the complex odours of mouldering vegetation, wet stone, and earth.
“Lovely. Mystical. I doubted the place could live up to the descriptions I had heard, but it is rather like Stonehenge—one cannot truly understand the atmosphere until one stands in the place, smells and feels it as well as sees it, absorbs the spirit of the place.”
“You look a bit like a spirit yourself, here,” William said.
His appreciative gaze made her wonder what he saw.
She was wearing a muslin gown whose bottom dozen inches, at least, had become quite damp, and her bonnet was hanging from her arm rather than perching properly on her coiffure—because it had thrice been pulled away by brambles when she had poked her head through empty windows and doors.
Admittedly, a truly well-mannered lady would not be thrusting herself so decidedly into every architectural aperture… .
“Should I say thank you, sir?” she asked. “Or perhaps hurry to remedy the state of my attire?”
“You should definitely say thank you, but first let me be more clear: you always look beautiful, but today, here in this place where ravage and ruin meets new life, you look otherworldly in your beauty. You know I always appreciate you in a state of dishabille.”
Elizabeth especially loved the roguish grin that best displayed William’s dimples, and that was the smile he gifted her at that moment. “Thank you, my love,” she said, and she was thanking him for the smile even more than the compliment.
He said, “You look very much like the Maiden of the Mist. There are even minuscule droplets in your hair.”
“You know better than anyone that I am no longer a maiden, sir. You are the one who has made it so!”
“Ah, but I only said you look like a maiden. Surprisingly, at age eighteen, you still manage to look blossoming rather than matronly.”
“Hmm…” Elizabeth had to laugh. William seemed so fundamentally reticent in many situations, but he could be downright effusive when alone with her. She said, “I suppose I should keep you around. It turns out that you are quite capable of exaggerating any good qualities I possess.”
“You would be hard pressed to get rid of me now, madam, so it is well that you can manage to tolerate me.”
A single chaste kiss made the moment sweeter, and as they wandered through ancient monuments to the past, Elizabeth felt delightfully enmeshed in the present, and all anticipation for the future.
Other parts of their Irish tour were almost as wonderful.
William asked if she had heard about the Giant’s Causeway scientific controversy—the Vulcanists versus the Neptunists—and they reviewed what they remembered from their reading, and debated the opposing theories.
It was the kind of entertainment that Elizabeth’s youngest sisters would have shaken their heads over, bewildered how she could enjoy such topics when there were soldiers and ribbons in the world.
They walked from the end of the road to the Causeway, and by the time they reached the basaltic columns—and the locals who offered to show them around, for a coin—Elizabeth had thanked her husband three times for putting in a special order for bespoke sturdy boots.
“This place would have torn my old boots asunder, Will—you were so correct to ignore my entreaties not to ‘waste’ money on my footwear!”
“I have to admit, the walk was a bit longer than I remembered,” William said. “Not too far for you, of course—I have it on good authority that you are an excellent walker! Still, I did remember the rugged rocks one must traverse.”
They reached the causeway and began a smoother walk across the perfect hexagonal “tiles” that were the tops of the columns. Elizabeth gasped, “It is hard to believe that such perfect shapes were somehow created by natural means!”
“If you think about it,” William said, “many minerals exhibit particular crystal shapes that arise naturally.”
“Are you attempting to tell me, William, that crystals are built from identical, repeating molecules stacked in a lattice?”
“Ahhh, you know René Just Haüy. And still you find crystalline forms hard to believe?”
“If scientific explanation should cancel wonder and awe, I would be very sad.”
“No, you are correct. I echo your sentiments, Elizabeth.”
They enjoyed the Giant’s Causeway as much as the other stand-out sights they had seen on the trip, and Elizabeth now had a nine-way tie for her favourite spots on earth.
Still, she was eager for their next sea crossing. This time it would be Donaghadee, Ireland, to Portpatrick, Scotland.
“It is called the Short Sea Crossing because it only takes a few hours,” William explained.
“But we will not be sitting below decks in cork lifejackets?”
“We will not,” he promised.
Donaghadee was not very impressive, and as the ship pulled away from the coast, Elizabeth only saw a decrepit looking stone pier and a cluster of low buildings.
But she was not disappointed, because she soon saw three islands, and a bit of the Scottish coastline was even visible—barely, but visible.
The Copeland islands were swarming with birds and a surprising number of sheep and cattle.
Stone cottages and an old, square-towered lighthouse could be seen.
She stood at the railing and drank in her fill of the sights as they passed, and then she finally moved to the front to watch the rugged Scottish cliffs grow taller and ever more rugged.
“Oh, Dunskey Castle!” Elizabeth said, pointing to the derelict edifice perched on the very brink of the cliffs.
William’s face flickered. “I am not certain I know it,” he admitted.
“Wait, is Portpatrick completely unknown to you?” Elizabeth asked.
“I have never been there before.”
“Well, I have heard that Dunskey Castle is haunted, and that it may have been the inspiration for a fictional castle in one of Ann Radcliffe’s novels. And Francis Grose—”
“Oh! The Antiquities of Scotland!” William said. “I admit, I had read about the castle, but I had forgotten the name.”
“Does not Grose claim an evil spirit troubling the ruins?”
Speaking rather repressively, he replied, “I believe he just collected and reported the stories and oral traditions.”
“Thus preserving and spreading the beliefs.”
“Perhaps.” He looked briefly concerned. “Do you actually believe…?”
“I believe that many people are thrilled with such stories and either wish they could give credence to them or deliberately choose to trust the stories. I also believe we should build a brand new ruin on the grounds of Pemberley, claim that it is haunted, and sit back and watch our popularity rise.”
William gave a surprised laugh. “I rarely know what you will say, Elizabeth. It is one of the most captivating things about you.”
Elizabeth just smiled and continued to watch Scotland’s aspect grow.
Loch Katrine and the Trossachs were everything they should be: wild, rugged, picturesque, seemingly untouched.
The lake’s deep waters often looked dark, though sunlight glinted off their moving surface.
The vibrant autumn colours of trees in the northernmost reaches of the Trossachs had become russet and brown in the trees at the range’s southern edge.
Islands bristled with trees and undergrowth, and though there were some beaches, some sandy but most pebbled, most of the lakeshore was richly forested right up to the water’s edge.
Elizabeth and William rambled around the area every day during their stay.
William had hired a Highlander to paddle them to several different spots one day.
The man was able to sit in his boat and read Marmion and The Cottagers of Glenburnie, two famous books by Scottish writers that William had brought on their tour, until Elizabeth and William returned, ready to be paddled to another area.
They stayed at the inn in Callander two nights and one night in one of the rustic huts with bracken roofs that Lady Drummond provided to travellers.
The huts were right on the shore of the lake, partially surrounded by the Trossachs woods.
Elizabeth felt so much joy at the particulars of this accommodation—all the light and heat they needed from a fire, the rudimentary chimney creating a pleasant sound as smoke escaped into the chilly air, and the varnished rafters and beams of the hut shining in the flickering light.
William had taken the extraordinary step of placing a loaded gun and rifle near the door before he sent the servants back to the inn.
“This is, frankly, a little bit alarming to me to keep you so far from any help we might need. But there are no worrisome animals, and Hopkins will return for us if it rains.”
“As I believe I have said before, dearest, there is no guarantee of safety anywhere, and I love the idea of the two of us being here for a night. Not for a month! But yes, for a night—what a delight!”
“And we are more alone than we have ever been in our marriage, so far.” William smiled that way he sometimes smiled, and Elizabeth realised just how lovely such solitude might be.
They were sitting on the floor, near the fire, and she shifted a bit to be closer to him. “I suppose you are correct!” she murmured.
He pulled her even closer.