Wednesday 24th December 1834

No diary entry for this day

[up at] 8 1/2
[to bed at] 1 1/4

fine soft morning – jumped up at 8 1/2 on Mariana’s coming to call me; and we sat talking in my dressing room 3/4 hour – downstairs at 10 – sat talking over breakfast – had in the housekeeper Mrs. Duff – I asked her opinion of Martha Booth – seemed delicate in giving it, but said she would rather give her a trial – I said if she (Martha) left here, she had nothing more to expect from me – I was much disappointed about her – want of carefulness and deceit were 2 bad faults – Mariana and I then sat talking in her sitting room till 1 – Luncheon with Charles – Letter 3 pages and 1st page crossed (nice, kind, chit-chat letter) from Adney – her aunt all kindness – but nothing transpired about the contents of her sister’s letter – my aunt not so well as when I left her – if worse would write by the next post – if no letter here, wishes me to call, en passant, at the post office at Manchester – Mariana and I came and sat talking in my dressing room till 2 – she asked to look at the handwriting and I read her the letter she looking over me   she said it was a nice simple minded letter   she was better satisfied to have seen it  Mariana and I went out at 2 – to see poor old Molly Owen at the Lodge – round by the Red Bull and by Grantham’s Lodge and then walked about home till 4 3/4 – much talk about Mr. Crewe to whom for short I gave the name of Short   spoke of Micklestone  pronounced Muckstone and her living there and our all meeting she said we should be an odd quartette  but seemed in tolerable spirits   saying she should now try to turn her thoughts that way   glad to have seen me for till she saw me could scarce believe things really as they are    she wondered if she could ever love him   perhaps it woul[d] come but thought she should feel as if she was breaking the seventh commandment    very well satisfied with A- [Adney] should like her all the daytime but could not bear her at night  could not bear to see her go off to bed with me   I kindly parried all this    she said if she had not seen me now perhaps we might not have met again    owned it was much better to have met   I told her and explained quietly that it was all her own doing   that no human influence could have done it but her own   spoke highly of A’s- [Adney’s] high principle and honorable feeling   and that even in any case   if it cost me life itself I would not willingly give her uneasiness     she trusted me and she was right   if I could do so much in this case what could I not have done in another   but she π [Mariana] had never understood me   I was never half as bad as she thought me – home at 4 3/4 and sat talking in my dressing room till 5 1/2 – on the reverend Mr. Wood’s bigotry – why one should thank heaven for one’s creation as well as preservation etc. Mr. Crewe never can do this   (that he plays but at her request not on a Sunday  she told me this morning)   I became animated and π [Mariana] flattered me  by tracing all superiority of mind that she ever felt to me and she had told Mr. C- [Crewe] so – she had often thought she had known me too soon or too late   had she been another year with me her mind would have been above minding all she heard against me   but before my first visit there her father had said I should not enter the house till she cried and made herself ill   a separate bed was then made up for me   but Eliza listened to hear if I went to her   π [Mariana] felt that I should have made her happier than anyone else could   Told Mariana servants would always be left in the house at Shibden – if ever she wanted a place to go to, the house would always be at her service – but said gently I would rather she was there alone supposing I was absent – she said she should take Louisa or Ann – said, I had never liked her family and was sorry for it, but somehow I never could get over my feeling of dislike – I certainly owed them nothing – and she said she certainly owed them nothing – dressed – dinner at 6 20/.. having waited for a Mr. Manwairing – Mr. Ford, the Rector of Lawton, dined here – made himself pleasant enough today, but a thorn in their sides, in general – On our leaving the dining room Mariana and I soon came to my dressing room she being so low she could not stand it   drank cold water sobbed and was almost in hysterics   then asked if I loved her    yes said I you know I do   we then kissed our lips seeming glewed together and somehow tongues meeting   she sobbed and said it is hard very hard to be a friend for one who has been a wife   I was atten[d]rie   we both cried our eyes nearly when we were obliged to go down to tea after nine – she came for a few minutes on going but was quite upset   I had to go for Watson to call Eugenie   and saw π [Mariana] almost undressed   I just kiss[ed] the back of her neck and came away for she seemed worse seeing me again   it occurs to me that I inadvertently kissed her rather too warmly just after dinner   was it this that upset her for the night?   it is very sad    I am very sorry but my own indifference makes me safer than she thinks    I advised her this morning not to meet Mr. C- [Crewe] at Geneva    better go with A- [Adney] and me than anyone    I had thought of taking Mr. Brown for A-‘s [Adney’s] drawing  if so π [Mariana] might return with him  but what I could do very uncertain  fine, soft, mild day – a little light rain about noon – till 12 50/.. wrote all the above of today –

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale SH:7/ML/E/17/0128 & SH:7/ML/E/17/0129