In their directly opposite opinion to one another my mother and I
continued a long time, and it was impossible to reconcile our
judgments; many disputes we had about it, but we could never either of
us yield our own, or bring over the other.
I insisted on my aversion to lying with my own brother, and she
insisted upon its being impossible to bring him to consent to my going
from him to England; and in this uncertainty we continued, not
differing so as to quarrel, or anything like it, but so as not to be
able to resolve what we should do to make up that terrible breach that
was before us.
At last I resolved on a desperate course, and told my mother my
resolution, viz. that, in short, I would tell him of it myself. My
mother was frighted to the last degree at the very thoughts of it; but
I bid her be easy, told her I would do it gradually and softly, and
with all the art and good-humour I was mistress of, and time it also as
well as I could, taking him in good-humour too. I told her I did not
question but, if I could be hypocrite enough to feign more affection to
him than I really had, I should succeed in all my design, and we might
part by consent, and with a good agreement, for I might live him well
enough for a brother, though I could not for a husband.
All this while he lay at my mother to find out, if possible, what was
the meaning of that dreadful expression of mine, as he called it, which
I mentioned before: namely, that I was not his lawful wife, nor my
children his legal children. My mother put him off, told him she could
bring me to no explanations, but found there was something that
disturbed me very much, and she hoped she should get it out of me in
time, and in the meantime recommended to him earnestly to use me more
tenderly, and win me with his usual good carriage; told him of his
terrifying and affrighting me with his threats of sending me to a
madhouse, and the like, and advised him not to make a woman desperate
on any account whatever.
He promised her to soften his behaviour, and bid her assure me that he
loved me as well as ever, and that he had so such design as that of
sending me to a madhouse, whatever he might say in his passion; also he
desired my mother to use the same persuasions to me too, that our
affections might be renewed, and we might lie together in a good
understanding as we used to do.