E.B.B. to R.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, September 14, 1846.]
My own beloved, if ever you should have reason to complain of me in things voluntary and possible, all other women would have a right to tread me underfoot, I should be so vile and utterly unworthy. There is my answer to what you wrote yesterday of wishing to be better to me ... you! What could be better than lifting me from the ground and carrying me into life and the sunshine? I was yours rather by right than by gift (yet by gift also, my beloved!); for what you have saved and renewed is surely yours. All that I am, I owe you—if I enjoy anything now and henceforth, it is through you. You know this well. Even as I, from the beginning, knew that I had no power against you, ... or that, if I had, it was for your sake.
Dearest, in the emotion and confusion of yesterday morning, there was yet room in me for one thought which was not a feeling—for I thought that, of the many, many women who have stood where I stood, and to the same end, not one of them all perhaps, not one perhaps, since that building was a church, has had reasons strong as mine, for an absolute trust and devotion towards the man she married,——not one! And then I both thought and felt, that it was only just, for them, ... those women who were less happy, ... to have that affectionate sympathy and support and presence of their nearest relations, parent or sister ... which failed to me, ... needing it less through being happier!
All my brothers have been here this morning, laughing and talking, and discussing this matter of the leaving town,—and in the room, at the same time, were two or three female friends of ours, from Herefordshire—and I did not dare to cry out against the noise, though my head seemed splitting in two (one half for each shoulder), I had such a morbid fear of exciting a suspicion. Treppy too being one of them, I promised to go to see her to-morrow and dine in her drawing-room if she would give me, for dinner, some bread and butter. It was like having a sort of fever. And all in the midst, the bells began to ring. ‘What bells are those?’ asked one of the provincials. ‘Marylebone Church bells’ said Henrietta, standing behind my chair.
And now ... while I write, having escaped from the great din, and sit here quietly,—comes ... who do you think?—Mr. Kenyon.
He came with his spectacles, looking as if his eyes reached to their rim all the way round; and one of the first words was, ‘When did you see Browning?’ And I think I shall make a pretension to presence of mind henceforward; for, though certainly I changed colour and he saw it, I yet answered with a tolerably quick evasion, ... ‘He was here on Friday’—and leapt straight into another subject, and left him gazing fixedly on my face. Dearest, he saw something, but not all. So we talked, talked. He told me that the ‘Fawn of Sertorius,’ (which I refused to cut open the other day,) was ascribed to Landor—and he told me that he meant to leave town again on Wednesday, and would see me once before then. On rising to go away, he mentioned your name a second time ... ‘When do you see Browning again?’ To which I answered that I did not know.
Is not that pleasant? The worst is that all these combinations of things make me feel so bewildered that I cannot make the necessary arrangements, as far as the letters go. But I must break from the dream-stupor which falls on me when left to myself a little, and set about what remains to be done.
A house near Watford is thought of now—but, as none is concluded on, the removal is not likely to take place in the middle of the week even, perhaps.
I sit in a dream, when left to myself. I cannot believe, or understand. Oh! but in all this difficult, embarrassing and painful situation, I look over the palms to Troy—I feel happy and exulting to belong to you, past every opposition, out of sight of every will of man—none can put us asunder, now, at least. I have a right now openly to love you, and to hear other people call it a duty, when I do, ... knowing that if it were a sin, it would be done equally. Ah—I shall not be first to leave off that—see if I shall! May God bless you, ever and ever dearest! Beseech for me the indulgence of your father and mother, and ask your sister to love me. I feel so as if I had slipped down over the wall into somebody’s garden—I feel ashamed. To be grateful and affectionate to them all, while I live, is all that I can do, and it is too much a matter of course to need to be promised. Promise it however for your very own Ba whom you made so happy with the dear letter last night. But say in the next how you are—and how your mother is.