Wednesday, December 21, 1831

 

1831 December

Wednesday 21

10

2

Bowels pretty well lately till yesterday and all wrong this morning.

Rainy morning – F 58 1/2° in my room at 9 1/2 and 48 1/2° at 11 10/.. in the balcony –Down at 11 1/4 – Breakfast in 1/2 hour –

Miss Hobart had had a letter from Mr. Stuart saying he would be here for one day by the mail – that Miss H- expects him this afternoon at 4 –  Read her what I had written for her, and at her request, sat downstairs while she copied it out making some few alterations and leaving out a little. Her manner is not always the most pleasant when one does anything for her, but it was better today and very well for her.  She is no great hand at figures. Could not multiply the sixteen years of interest by sixteen unless doing it by eight and two the other way.  Did not understand putting the units under ditto and tens under tens –

Read the newspaper – came upstairs at 2 30/.. wrote the above of today – I hope I shall do my own business next and care little enough about Miss H to be at ease –

Went out with Miss H- at 3 1/4 – Went to 2 or 3 shops – and to Wooll’s to order a pamphlet history of the House of Commons published by Ridgeway – Home at 4 – left Miss H- at the door and walked thro’ the square past the parsonage – took a turn or 2 on the hill, then walked several times round the Square (Wellington Square) gardens and came in at 5 – Mr. Stuart not arrived – came upstairs – dressed – read from page 44 to 140, volume 2, Lavallette’s Memoirs, till 7 5/.. –

In my walk after leaving her said perpetually, zam her. Her manner had made me impatient tho she could not see it.  Perhaps a trifle does it now, but still, her heartless observations forever annoy me. Well, I do begin to see I could not be happy with her and that it is a mercy she does as she does, to save me from all ‘unaccountable phrensy’ –

Miss H- while out left her card (without asking to be admitted) at Hill house for the viscountess Bury, niece to Mrs. Steen of Place de Louis XV, Paris – Wrote the last 10 lines and went downstairs at 7 1/4 – No Mr. Stuart – Dinner not till 7 3/4 in 3/4 hour – Hardly any music – Coffee at 9 – No Gibbon – Had not got another volume – Lady Ann Scott having lent us the last quarterly, read aloud here and there of  the article on the cholera sufficiently proving its contagiousness –

Meant to have come to bed at 11 but sat up talking till 12 10/.. – Miss H- not well – No relish for her dinner – pale – her bowels rather out of order – complained a little of pain or almost pain – a feeling of weakness in her knees and limbs – had not slept well of several nights – Threatened to send for Mr. Duke – Oh! no – he could do her no good – No expectoration – no fever –

My mind turned to thinking of her again. Got into an indirect explanation begun by reminding her she had given me back my promise last night, which she acknowledged as if with regret. Whatever she had said, she never meant me to remember so long.  She still persisted in thinking my behaviour an improvement, yet dwelt on it so as to make me hear it with less annoyance than I ever did before.  I gently wrapt up the truth of my improving in the beau milieu, then gently hinted that perhaps devotion, however little desired, might after all in some characters be less agreeably succeeded by the beau milieu than might have been expected before trial.

She thought it a pity two such extremes should meet but why should I have treated her so much more a child than anybody else.  I should not do the same to anyone else. I said I should not have felt the same to anyone else but at least it was not that I had felt towards as if she was a child. Complimented her on being right, only wished I had been wiser.  Owned our being in extremes and incompatible persons.  I could not be impromptu when I might neither look, speak, or act as I liked. Perhaps I might meet with someone else opposed, and after all be happier than I deserved. 

This, however neatly wrapped up, had, as I saw, a deep effect and was perhaps more than she expected and much more perhaps than she wished.  She said she ought to be flattered with the motives.  It was not the reality, but the appearance she disliked, all owing that had this been different she should have felt much more regard.  On my looking and saying that was saying much, she then put in, perhaps she might have etc. etc., but she feared she had lost much. Nothing, I assured her, that she would wish to keep or that was worth keeping. It was but the dross. Be where I might or when or how, she might always count on my doing anything in the world to serve or give her pleasure.  Ah, said she, you do not think it dross that I have lost.

In fact, I begin to see that she liked me after all, and perhaps regretted more than she wished the gentle, yet not to be mistaken way in which she found me bent on trying to make another choice.

On coming upstairs, was a moment in her room.  Hoped I had said much to do her good.  Oh yes, I always did. I hoped she would sleep well tonight, for I should. Yes, I deserved it, but she should not.  Well, said I, but you will have our Charles in the morning.  I don’t want him, said she faintly. Don’t say that, I answered, and came away. 

The tears had trickled down several times tonight and they did in her room, when I begged her forgiveness for all my folly and hoped she would have the charity to accept a thousand apologies. The fact is, she likes me, and if I chose to take the trouble of being romantically distantly attentive, I might make all necessary impression. I think she cannot quite bear the thought of losing me or even my devotion, when it comes to the point.

Had just written the last 30 lines at 1 1/2 – Rainy morning with some intervals till between 1 and 2 – Afterwards fine day and evening.  F 63° at 12 3/4 in my room and 41° now at 1 1/2 in the balcony –

 

WYAS Finding Number  SH:7/ML/E/14/0167