Day: September 5, 2018

[Postmark: September 5, 1846]

Saturday Morning.

Dearest, I write just a few lines that you may know me for thinking of you to-morrow. Flush has not come and I am going on a voyage of discovery myself, – Henry being far too lukewarm. He says I may be robbed and murdered before the time for coming back, in which case remember that it is not my fault that I do not go with you to Pisa.

Just now came a kind little note from dear Mr. Kenyon, who will not come, he says, Flush being away, and has set out on his travels, meaning not to come back for a week. So I might have seen you after all, to-day ! My comfort is, that it is good for you, beloved, to be quiet, and that coming through the sun might have made your head suffer. How my thoughts are with you – how all day they never fall from you ! I shall have my letter to-night through your dear goodness, which is a lamp hung up for me to look towards. Aladdin’s, did you say ? Yes, Aladdin’s.

As to being afraid of you ever – once, do you know, I was quite afraid . . in a peculiar sense – as when it thunders, I am afraid . . or a little different from that even – or, oh yes, very different from that. Now it is changed . . the feeling is – and I am not afraid even so – except sometimes of losing your affection by some fault of my own – I am not afraid that it would be a fault of yours, remember. I trust you for goodness to the uttermost – and I know perfectly that if you did not love me (supposing it) you are one who would be ashamed for a woman to fear you, as some women fear some men. For me, I could not, you know – I knew you too well and love you too perfectly, and everybody can tell what perfect love casts out.

So you need not have done with me for that reason ! Understand it.

And if I shall not be slain by the ‘ society,’ you shall be written to again to-night. Ah – say in the letter I am to have, that you are better ! And you are to come on Monday – dear, dearest ! mind that !

Your Ba.

Come back safe, but without Flush – I am to have him to-night though.

[Postmark: September 5, 1846]

Saturday.

Dearest Ba, I feel your perfect goodness at my heart – I can say nothing.

Nor write very much more : my head still teazes, rather than pains me. Don’t lay more of it to the dinner than necessary : I got my sister to write a letter deprecatory of all pressing to eat and drink and such mistaken hospitality – to the end that I might sit unpitied, uncondoled with, and be an eyesore to nobody – which succeeded so well that I eat some mutton and drank wine and water without let or molestation. Our party was reduced to three, by a couple of defections – but there was an immense talking and I dare say this continuance of my ailment is partly attributable to it. I shall be quiet now. I tell you the simple truth, that you may believe – and this also believe, that it would have done me great good to go to you this morning, – if I could lean my head on your neck, what could pain it, dear dear Ba ?

I am sorry poor Flush is not back again – very sorry. But no one would hurt him, be quite sure . . his mere value prevents that.

Shall I see you on Monday then? This is the first time since we met at the beginning, that a whole week, from a Sunday to a Saturday, has gone by without a day for us. Well – I trust you are constant . . nay you are constant to your purpose of leaving at the end of this month. When we meet next, let us talk of our business, like the grave man and woman we are going to become. Mr. K. will be away – how fortunate this is ! We need implicate nobody. And in the end the reasonableness of what we do will be apparent to everybody – if I can show you well and happy, – which God send !

Kiss me as I kiss you, my own Ba. I am all one wide wonder at your loving nature : I can only give it the like love in return, and as much limited as I am limited. But I seem really to grow under you, – my faculties extend toward yours.

May God bless you, and enable me to make you as happy as your dear generous heart will be contented to be made. I am your own R.

[Postmark: September 5, 1846]

Friday.

You best ! Was ever any in the world, in any possible world, so perfectly good and dear to another as you are to me ! Ah ! if you could know how I feel to you, when you write such words as came to me this morning – Dearest ! It ends in that, all I can say. And yet I must say besides that the idea of ‘ crossness,’ of hardness, never came to me, for one moment, from the previous letter. I just shook my head and thought how you would not act it out, if you had a Flush. Upon which I could not follow out my argument to myself, through thinking that you were ill.

You are better now, Robert, and you promise to take care of the dinner, where you should not go if I were near you. I should be ‘ afraid of you ‘ far too much to let you, indeed ! Such a wrong thing that dinner is . . as wrong as any dogstealer in his way . . drawing you out just when you ought to be at home and quiet, if not ‘abstinent.’ When did I ever tell you to be abstinent, pray ? You are too much so, it seems to me, in general : and to pass the whole of that day without eating ! How unwell you must have been, dearest ! How I long to see you and ascertain that you look tolerably well ! How very, very happy I should be, to be able to look at you to-morrow. But no, no ! Mr. Kenyon does not come, and we must be wise, I suppose, and wait till the ground is clear of him, which will not be till Monday. Probably he will visit me on Sunday – but the chance of Saturday is like the hat on a pole in gardens, set there to frighten away the birds. Still they may sing on the other side of the wall, not to be too far from the cherries and the hope of them. Monday surely will be a clear day. Unless Mr. Kenyon shall put off his journey just to despite us – who shall say ?

I have not Flush yet. I am to have him to-morrow morning.

And for the Flush-argument, dear dearest, I hold that your theory is entirely good and undeniable. I agree with you throughout it, praising Mahomet, praising Hampden, and classing the Taylors, Gregorys, and Spanish banditti all together. Also I hope I should try, at least, to resist with you their various iniquities – and, for instance, I do not think that any Gregory in the world would draw a shilling from me, by a threat against my own character. I should dare that, oh, I am confident I should – the indignation would be far the stronger, where I myself only was involved. And even in the imaginary Chiappino-case, the selfish and dastardly threat would fall from me like a child’s arrow from steel. I believe so.

But Flush, poor Flush, Flush who has loved me so faithfully ; have I a right to sacrifice him in his innocence, for the sake of any Mr. Taylor’s guilt in the world ? Does not Flush’s condition assimilate to my own among the banditti ? for you agree that you would not, after all, leave me to the banditti – and I, exactly on the same ground, will not leave Flush. It seems to me that you and I are at one upon the whole question, – only that I am your Flush, and he is mine. You, if you were ‘ consistent ‘ . . dearest ! . . would not redeem me on any account. You do ever so much harm by it, observe – you produce catastrophe on catastrophe, just for the sake of my two ears without earrings ! Oh, I entirely agree with your principle. Evil should be resisted that it may fly from you.

But Flush is not to be sacrificed – nor even is Ba, it appears. So our two weaknesses may pardon one another, yours and mine !

Some dog, shut up in a mews somewhere behind this house, has been yelling and moaning to-day and yesterday. How he has made me think of my poor poor Flush, I cannot tell you – ‘ Think of Flush ‘ he seemed to say.

Yes ! – A blow in the street ! I wish somebody would propose such a thing to me, in exchange ! I would have thanked Mr. Taylor himself for striking me down in the street, if the stroke had been offered as an alternative for the loss of Flush. You may think it absurd – but when my dinner is brought to me, I feel as if I could not (scarcely) touch it – the thought of poor Flush’s golden eyes is too strong in me.

Not a word of your mother. She is better, I trust ! And you . . may God keep you better, beloved ! To be parted from you so long, teaches me the necessity of your presence – I am your very, very own.

I was out to-day – driving along the Hampstead Road. What weather !