As to my headache, you might as well enquire about Troy—Fait. It was the air, perhaps—the heat or the cold ... the causes are forgotten with the effects. And, since I began this letter, I have been out with my aunt and Henrietta, the former having visits to pay in all the noisiest streets of the town, as appeared to me. The stone pavements seemed to accumulate on all sides to run to meet us, and I was stunned and giddy, and am so tired that I shall finish my letter in a hurry, looking to to-morrow. We were out nearly three hours. Think of travelling three hours in a ‘Diligence,’ with a Clap of Thunder! It may be something like that! And as we were coming homeward ... there was Mr. Kenyon! He shook hands through the window and declared that he was on the point of paying a visit to me, holding up as witness, his lump of sugar for Flush ... which Flush leapt from the other side of the carriage to accept, ore rotundo. Then the next word was ... ‘Did you see our friend B.’ ... (pronounced Bee) ... ‘on Saturday.?’ ‘No,’ said I ... saying no for yes in the confusion ... ‘but I shall to-morrow.’ ‘He dined with me,’ continued Mr. Kenyon. The sound of which struck me into a fit of clairvoyance and I had to unsay myself with an ‘Oh yes—I did see him on Saturday.’ Mr. Kenyon must have thought me purely stupid or foolish or something of the sort—and really I agree with him. To imagine my telling in that unsolicited way, too, both to my aunt and himself, that you were coming here to-morrow! So provoking! Well—it can’t be helped. He won’t come to-morrow in any case.
And you will! Dearest, how glad I am that you are coming!
Being your own
Ba.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 29, 1846.]
Dearest, as I lost nearly an hour of you to-day, I make amends to myself by beginning to write to you as if I had not seen you at all. A large sheet of paper, too, has flown into my hands—the Fates giving ample room and verge enough, my characters ... not ‘of Hell’ ... to trace, as I am not going to swear at Mr. Kenyon, whatever the provocation! Dear Mr. Kenyon!
It appears that he talked to my sisters some time before he let himself be announced to me—he said to them ‘I want to talk to you ... sit down by me and listen.’ Then he began to tell them of Mrs. Jameson, repeating what you told me, of her desire to take me to Italy, ... and of her earnestness about it. To which, he added, he had replied by every representation likely to defeat those thoughts—that only a relative would be a fit companion for me, and that no person out of my family could be justified in accepting such a responsibility, on other grounds, entering on the occurrences of last year, and reasoning on from them to the possibility that if I offended by an act of disobedience, I might be ‘cast off’ as for a crime. Oh—poor Papa was not spared at all—not to Mrs. Jameson, not to my sisters. Mr. Kenyon said ... ‘It is painful to you perhaps to hear me talk so, but it is a sore subject with me, and I cannot restrain the expression of my opinions.’ He ‘had told Mrs. Jameson everything—it was due to her to have a full knowledge, he thought ... and he had tried to set before her the impossibility she was under, of doing any good.’ Then he asked my sisters ... if I ever spoke of Italy ... if they thought I dwelt on the idea of it. ‘Yes,’ they answered ‘in their opinion, I had made up my mind to go.’ ‘But how? what is the practical side of the question? She can’t go alone—and which of you will go with her? You know, last year, she properly rejected the means which involved you in danger.’ Henrietta advised that nothing should be said or done. ‘Ba must do everything for herself. Her friends cannot help her. She must help herself.’ ‘But she must not go to Italy by herself. Then, how?’ ‘She has determination of character,’ continued Henrietta—‘She will surprise everybody some day.’
‘But how?’—Mr. Kenyon repeated ... looking uneasy. (And how imprudent of Henrietta to say that! I have been scolding her a little.)
The discussion ended by his instructing them to tell me of Mrs. Jameson’s proposal; ‘because it was only right that I should have the knowledge of her generous kindness, though for his part, he did not like to agitate me by conversing on the subject.’