And yesterday I was not tired to signify. I shall not be ill, my beloved,—I think I shall not. I am as perfectly well now in all respects (except that I have not strength for much exercise and noise and confusion, ...) as it is possible to be. So do not be anxious about me—rather spend your dear thoughts of me in loving me, ... dear, dearest!
You breakfast with Mrs. Jameson, and I shall remember not to long too much for the eight o’clock letter at night. Remember you, not to be hurried as to the writing of it.
Oh! I had a letter from my particular Bennet this morning, ... and my Georgiana desires me instantly to say why I presumed not to write to her before. I am commanded out of all further delays. ‘Did I receive her letter,’ she wonders!!!! Georgiana is imperative.
May God bless you, you who bless me!
I am wholly your own.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 12, 1846.]
I must write very little to-day, dearest, because Mr. Kenyon, as a note from him just tells me, comes at half past two for me, and in the meantime I am expecting a visit from my uncle Hedley, who arrived yesterday while we were together. Scarcely could Henrietta keep him, she says, from coming up-stairs ‘to see Ba!’ We just escaped, therefore. I have been thinking that having the barbarians down on us may be at least a means of preserving us from going into the wilderness ourselves ... myself ... if I were taken away, as I told you, to Tunbridge, Dover, or other provinces of Siberia. How should I bear, do you think, to be taken away from you? Very badly!—though you will not hear of my being able to love you as I ought——when that is precisely the only thing I can do, it seems to me, at all worthily of you.
Ora pro me in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage to-day—I am getting so nervous and frightened! I shall feel all the while as if set on a vane on the top of St. Paul’s ... can you fancy the feeling? I do wish I were safe at home again, reading your letter ... which will come to-night—will ... shall ... must ... according to the letter and spirit of the Law.
You made the proposal to me about New Cross, yesterday, out of consideration and kindness to me! I understand it so, thanking you. For the rest, I need not, I am certain, assure you that it would be the greatest pain to me at any time, to be wanting in even the forms of respect and affection towards your family—and that I would not, from a mere motive of shyness, hazard a fault against them—you will believe this of me. But the usual worldly form (if the world is to give the measure) would be against my paying such a visit—and under ordinary circumstances it never is paid—not so. Therefore the not paying it is not an omission of an ordinary form of attention—that is what I mean to say. And to keep all dear to you quite safe and away from all splashing of the mud which we cannot ourselves hope to escape, is the great object,—it does seem to me. Your father and mother would be blamed (in this house, I know, if not in others) for not apprizing my father of what they knew. As it is, there is evil enough—though there is a way of escaping that evil.