And so, at last, I come to the final chapter of my very own adventure, just as I have set it down here. My journal is nearly as long as a novel now, but it is not at all like the one I expected to write. I have the ruined towers and the wild cliffs, but they are peopled by characters who now seem far more sensible and likable than any I encountered in The Black Abbott or the other tales I read. Funnier, too. How I wish I might have seen Rosalind in Mrs. MacCrory’s old hat, helping her prophesy in the village alehouse. Of course, she is desolate she didn’t see me dancing with Alice at the wedding. Alan and Philip think us half demented when we look at one another and suddenly begin to giggle. We are not telling them about our penchant for disguise. At least, not yet.
Everything is settled between Alan and me. He left today to look over his house and decide what work must be done before he is married. I miss him dreadfully, but we will meet again in London soon, where I shall have my Season and all the parties and plays I have always longed for. Shakespeare, too! Alan has promised to show me whatever I want to see! I have not finished the list I am making. What will he say when he receives it, I wonder?
And then, at the end of the Season, we shall be married and go to live in Hertfordshire. Rosalind approves, and she is writing Mama. Just think, if I had gone to Rome, I never would have met Alan or helped capture a band of smugglers. I shall never complain again when I cannot go just where I please, for I see now that adventures are not found where you expect them. Just the opposite. And they are much more nasty and unpleasant than I realized, and far more wonderful.
Alan is the sort of man who has adventures. Perhaps that is what I love most about him. He says he will never have another, but I don’t believe him. It’s not so easy to change. Besides, how very flat life would be without an adventure—just a small one!—now and then. I’m sure Alan will come to agree, once he has recovered a little from seeing the lid pop off that crate.