_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 27, 1845.]
You will think me the most changeable of all the changeable; but
indeed it is _not_ my fault that I cannot, as I wished, receive you on
Wednesday. There was a letter this morning; and our friends not only
come to London but come to this house on Tuesday (to-morrow) to pass
two or three days, until they settle in an hotel for the rest of the
season. Therefore you see, it is doubtful whether the two days may not
be three, and the three days four; but if they go away in time, and
if Saturday should suit you, I will let you know by a word; and you
can answer by a yea or nay. While they are in the house, I must give
them what time I can--and indeed, it is something to dread altogether.
Tuesday.
I send you the note I had begun before receiving yours of last night,
and also a fragment[1] from Mrs. Hedley's herein enclosed, a full and
complete certificate, ... that you may know ... quite _know_, ... what
the real and only reason of the obstacle to Wednesday is. On Saturday
perhaps, or on Monday more certainly, there is likely to be no
opposition, ... at least not on the 'côté gauche' (_my_ side!) to our
meeting--but I will let you know more.
For the rest, we have both been a little unlucky, there's no denying,
in overcoming the embarrassments of a first acquaintance--but suffer
me to say as one other last word, (and _quite, quite the last this
time_!) in case there should have been anything approaching, however
remotely, to a distrustful or unkind tone in what I wrote on Sunday,
(and I have a sort of consciousness that in the process of my
self-scorning I was not in the most sabbatical of moods perhaps--)
that I do recall and abjure it, and from my heart entreat your pardon
for it, and profess, notwithstanding it, neither to 'choose' nor 'to
be able' to think otherwise of you than I have done, ... as of one
_most_ generous and _most_ loyal; for that if I chose, I could not;
and that if I could, I should not choose.
Ever and gratefully your friend,