Day: July 22, 2018

[Postmark: July 22, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

I did not go out yesterday, and was very glad not to
have a command laid on me to go out, the wind blew so
full of damp and dreariness. Then it was pleasanter to lie
on the sofa and think of you, which I did, till at last I
actually dreamed of you, falling asleep for that purpose.
As to Flush, he came upstairs with a good deal of shame
in the bearing of his ears, and straight to me — no indeed !
I would not speak to him — then he went up to Arabel . .
‘ naughty Flush, go away ‘ . . and Wilson, . . who had
whipped him before, ‘ because it was right,’ she said . . in a
fit of poetical justice, . . did not give him any consolation.
So he lay down on the floor at my feet looking from under
his eyebrows at me. I did not forgive him till nearly
eight o’clock however. And I have not yet given him your
cakes. Almost I am inclined to think now that he has not
a soul. To behave so to you ! It is nearly as bad as if
I had thrown the coffee-cup ! Wicked Flush ! — Do you
imagine that I scolded Wilson when she confessed to having
whipped him ? I did not. It was done with her hand, and
not very hardly perhaps, though ‘he cried,’ she averred to
me — and if people, like Flush, choose to behave like dogs
savagely, they must take the consequences indeed, as dogs
usually do ! And you, so good and gentle to him ! Anyone
but you, would have said ‘ hasty words ‘ at least. I
think I shall have a muzzle for him, to make him harmless
while he learns to know you. Would it not be a good
plan ?

But nobody heard yesterday of either your visit or of
Flush’s misdoings . . so Wilson was discreet, I suppose, as
she usually is, by the instinct of her vocation. Of all the
persons who are not in our confidence, she has the most
certain knowledge of the truth. Dearest, we shall be able
to have Saturday. There will be no danger in it.

Perhaps in the days to come we shall look back on these
days as covetable things. Will you do so, because you
were loved in them as a beginning, or because you were
free ? (Am I not as bad as Flush, to ask such questions ?)
I shall look back on these days gratefully and gladly, because
the good in them has overcome the evil, for the first time in
days of mine. Yet my position is worse than yours on some
accounts — now. Henrietta has had a letter from Capt.
Surtees Cook who says in it, she says, . . ‘ I hope that poor
Ba will have courage to the end.’ There’s a generous sympathy !
Tell me that there is none in the world !

Will you let me know how you are ? Such a letter
you wrote to me on Sunday ! Ah ! — to be anything to
you . . . what is the colour of ambition afterwards ? When
I look forwards I can see no work and no rest, but what is
for you and in you. Even Duty seems to concentrate
itself into one Debt — Dearest !

Yet it will be a little otherwise perhaps ! — not that ever
I shall love you otherwise or less — No.

You shall see some day at Pisa what I will not show you
now. Does not Solomon say that ‘ there is a time to read
what is written.’ If he doesn’t, he ought.

Your very own BA.

[Postmark: July 22, 1846]

Tuesday.

How I long, my sweetest Ba, to know whether any heavy
price is to be paid for our three hours yesterday, — if your
Aunt knew or has discovered since ? I shall not murmur in
any case, I hope . . they are too delicious, these three-hour
visits — and if I could pay for them by myself, Ba, — what
would I not pay ?

Will you let me write something, and forgive me ?
Because it is, I know, quite unnecessary to be written, and,
beside, may almost seem an interference with your own
delicacy, — teaching it its duty ! However, I will venture
to go on, with your hand before my two eyes. Then, — you
remember what we were speaking of yesterday, — house-rents
and styles of living ? You will never overlook, through its
very obviousness, that to consult my feelings on the only point
in which they are sensitive to the world you must endeavour
to live as simply and cheaply as possible, down to my own
habitual simplicity and cheapness, — so that you shall come
and live with me, in a sense, rather than I with Miss
Campbell ! You see, Ba, if you have more money than you
want, you shall save it or spend it in pictures or parrots or
what you please . . you avoid all offence to me who never
either saved money nor spent it — but the large house, I
should be forced to stay in, — the carriage, to enter, I suppose.
And you see too, Ba, that the one point on which I desire
the world to be informed concerning our future life, will be
that it is ordered so — I wish they could hear we lived in one
room like George Sand in ‘ that happy year — ‘

No, there I have put down an absurdity — because, I
shall have to confess a weakness, at some time or other,
which is hardly reconcilable to that method of being happy
— why may I not tell you now, my adored Ba, to whom I
tell everything as it rises to me ? Now put the hand on my
eyes again — now that I have kissed it. I shall begin by
begging a separate room from yours — I could never brush
my hair and wash my face, I do think, before my own
father — I could not, I am sure, take off my coat before you
now — why should I ever ? The kitchen is an unknown
horror to me, — I come to the dining-room for whatever
repast there may be, — nor willingly stay too long there,
— and on the day on which poor Countess Peppa taught me
how maccaroni is made, — then began a quiet revolution,
(indeed a rapid one) against ‘ tagliolini,’ ‘ fettucce,’ ‘ lasagne,’
etc., etc., etc. – typical, typical !

What foolishness . . spare me, my own Ba, and don’t
answer one word, — do not even laugh, — for I know the
exceeding unnecessary foolishness of it !

Chorley has just sent me a note which I will send you
because it is most graceful in its modesty — but you must
not, if you please, return it to me in an envelope that ought
only to hold your own writing, — and so make my heart beat
at first, and my brows knit at last ! (Toss it into ‘ my room,’
at Pisa ! !)

Thus it is to be made happy and unwise ! Never mind
— make me happier still by telling me you are well and have
been out, and where, and when, and how — the footsteps of
you, Ba, should be kissed if I could follow them.

Bless you, ever dearest, dearest, as yesterday, and always
you bless me — I love you with all my heart and soul — yes
Ba!

Your own, very own.