3819. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 9–10.
[London]
Thursday [?17] [July 1856] [1]
Where do you suppose I am, my dearest Henrietta? In Wimpole Street, sitting at Arabel’s table while she goes down to see Trippy in the diningroom– So I take her pen, & ask you to keep me company, & prevent my poor heart leaping when the door opens, listening for every sound– Dearest Henrietta, where ends the impudence of impudent women? Peni (who was naughty this morning at his lessons) told me he “never knew such a truel woman as I was” .. & you’ll say I’m as impudent as cruel– To save myself in your opinion, I must add that I came here very unwillingly today because Arabella Gosset & Louisa Carmichael are coming & I hate crossing anybody in this house– But Arabel made me—made me– Perhaps when you read first that I was in Wimpole Street, you may have concluded that using your suggestion, I had proposed myself to Papa as a visitor, (me & Peni) & that he had said, ‘Pray come’, ordering dinner,—fatted calf roast [2] & boiled, top & bottom; with side-dishes in mince & patties .. ever calf & calf. But no—I did’nt move upon it– I did’nt catch at the bright idea– My dearest Henrietta, were you writing after dinner? [3]
Well—I had your letter, & I have been turning it over & over ever since, just as I have turned over & over the thought of you, ever since I came. Dear, we must see one another’s faces—that is quite, quite sure—at whatever cost, to me at least– But I do want you to come here, that Arabel you & I may be together—dear, dear, you must try– I press it that you may come to be our guests, Robert’s & mine—for though we cant dare to offer you rooms in Devonshire Place, we might lodge you in a house near, & you would pass the days with us & doing the eating & drinking at our table. Thus you wd have simply the expense of the journey .. you, baby, & Altham—oh, Altham cant be done without,—observe—it is not possible– Now let this petition lie at dear Surtees’s best foot– I entreat his affectionate attention towards it. Consider it both of you, for love’s sake! I dont press the execution instantly, seeing that I am in an agony of business just now, about the poem which is only nearly ready for the press .. writing for hours everyday .. & though I am nearly at the end of transcription, there will be much besides to see to. But soon .. there will be less to do—also London engagements wont be dragging one on all sides so hard– See you I must & will, Henrietta–
Oh—think of my forgetting to send you a very little trifling pair of net sleeves I brought from Paris, by aunt Jane. I missed Ibbit, & I forgot by aunt Jane– Come & get them–
Arabella & Louisa (& little Mary Clarke) [4] have interrupted all this– Trippy has been here too .. but I was invisible to her–
Altham improves so in writing—& Arabel shrieks out I shall be too late–
Your ever affecte Ba
Publication: Huxley, p. 251 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. This letter falls between letters 3814 and 3829; we place it closer to the former.
2. From the parable of the prodigal son; cf. Luke 15:23, 27, and 30.
3. In Henrietta’s most recent letter to EBB, she had evidently proposed a plan for visiting her father at 50 Wimpole Street; see SD1944.
4. Mary Frances Graham-Clarke (afterwards Wilmer, 1845–1923), only child of Leonard Graham-Clarke and his wife, Isabella Horatia (née Butler).
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