He asked my mother, when they were alone, Whether she had yet seen Miss B or Mrs Jefferis (for he knew her by no other name) and what she had to say for herself? My mother told him, he had better not touch upon that string. I will be hanged, replied Sir George, if the artful young baggage has not imposed upon you. My mother, who is always angry at having her sagacity called in question, told Sir George he was rude, and she should give him no satisfaction on that head. My brother answered, as it was now of no consequence, what the wench affirmed or denied, he had no farther curiosity about her. My mother called him a bear, and so the enquiry ended.
December 20
I congratulate you, my sister, my friend, my ever beloved Cecilia. Happy! happy may you be in your nuptials! but in the midst of my joy for your being so nobly and worthily bestowed, self-love forces a sigh from me. I have lost the pleasing hope of seeing you, at the time fixed for your return. The station your husband holds at the court of Vienna, will, I fear, long detain my beloved in a foreign land. But you are not amongst strangers; a husband, a brother, and tender parent, must make every part of the globe equally your home. I will therefore seek for my contentment in your’s, and rest satisfied with believing that you will always continue to love me.
January 10, 1703–4
I begin to find my thoughts so dissipated, that I am angry with myself; Mr Arnold’s excessive indulgence will spoil me; he is always contriving new scenes of pleasure, and hurries me from one to the other. I do not wish to be perpetually fluttering about. The calm domestic life you know was always my choice; but I will not oppose my kind Mr Arnold in his fond desire of pleasing me: besides, I find that by his constantly gallanting me to public places, he begins himself to acquire a sort of relish for them, which he did not use to have; at least his prudence made him so to conform to the necessity of his circumstances, while his fortune was small, that he never indulged himself in any of the fashionable expensive amusements; nor does he now in any, but such as I partake of with him. I find he is by nature open and liberal to excess. I must take care, without his being conscious of it, to be a gentle check upon his bounteous spirit; I mean only so far as it regards myself: indeed this is the most material point, for in every other instance his generosity is regulated by prudence. I am every hour more obliged to him, and should hate myself if I did not find that he had an intire possession of my love.
Sir George hardly ever comes near us but by formal invitation, and then his behaviour to Mr Arnold is so very civil, and so very distant, that it mortifies me exceedingly. Mr Arnold cannot but perceive it; but either his tenderness for me makes him take no notice of it, or else, not being well enough acquainted with my brother to know his disposition, he may impute his coldness to his natural temper.
My mother says, he never names Mr Faulkland or Miss Burchell to her. I wish Sir George could entirely forget that unhappy affair.
February 1
There is a story propagated by the widow Arnold, about the meeting between her and her husband; the circumstances of which are as follows: She says, she had dined one day in the city, and was returning home to her lodgings in York-buildings in a hackney coach; that the driver, by his carelessness in coming along the Strand, had one of his fore wheels taken off by a Waggon, which accident obliged her to alight: the footboy, who was behind the coach, had by the jolt been thrown off, and received a hurt, which made it necessary to have him carried into a shop for assistance. That the lady herself, being no otherwise injured than by a little fright, found that she was so near home, that she did not think it worth while to wait for another carriage, but pursued her way on foot. It was a fine dry evening, about nine o’clock; and though there was no light but what the lamps afforded, yet as the streets were full of people, she had no apprehensions of danger.
In this situation she was accosted by two gentlemen, who, seeing a lady well dressed and alone, insisted on seeing her safe to her lodgings. However disagreeable such an encounter was, she said she did not give herself much concern about it, as she was so near home, and expected to shake off her new acquaintance at the door of the house where she lodged; and accordingly, when she got there, she told them she was at home, and wished them a good night; but the impertinents were not so easily to be put off. The door having been opened by the maid of the house, they both rushed in; her landlady, a single woman, happened to be abroad and there was no man in the house.