1778

Apr 23

What does the girl imagine? I have for so long occupied myself with how I might Fortify my positions, throw up a Redoubt, engineer a Breakwater, take possession of a forward Position, that I have hardly thought of what the Jewess is about when she is alone with her Thoughts. What pictures does she paint herself? What does she make of my Confession of love? What Future does she see? She must think my Intentions honourable (for she is not a slattern about the Taverns), but how does she explain to herself the Secrecy of our looks? Does she think I adopt this Duplicitous pose because I understand that her Father would never countenance a Gentile? And that the Ruse itself, which must be abhorrent to one of my principled Nature, is yet perversely a Testament to my passion that I am willing to so compromise my Virtue? Well enough. Plausible. But what then? Does the girl imagine life as a Noblewoman back in Devonshire! Lots of nigger servants about, and a Stallion out of the Studbook upon which to canter through the Vale at dusk! In short, does she think that I would marry a Colonial girl (a Jewess!), bring her home to my father Lord Stevens, and have her sit in the same room drinking tea with my Mother & Sisters? Can she be so innocent of the world, and of the Restrictions placed upon the Public behavior of someone of my Station? And of her own station of being a Jew?

Or does she fancy herself an Adventuress in a French novel? And our Passion an illicit yet chaste relation painted in oils by Fragonard!

But damn her and her eyes!

We are never alone and I have no opportunity to deploy the Feints & Ploys of the Book of Seduction. Her beauty! my inflamed Passions! And oh, my captured Heart!

(The island is lousy with 8000 troops. One may not piss without a Dozen eyes upon one! How to effect the final Assault?)

Apr 24

This day being Friday I endeavored to be free of any Duty in the afternoon so that I might station myself on lower Jews Street (and with such a fluttering heart: am I a girl?), where I thought she must surely pass on her way to the Synagoge from her house on the Wharf. And indeed in time I espied her, and with Phyllis accompanying. The hub-bub of the town is such all Sights are to be seen, yet I had some Trepidation, for I did not know how we could go about together, given her youth and beauty (however disguised!) and that business at Burgoyne’s Assembly linking our names. I made it so I was rounding a corner that it might appear we met by Chance. I even said something of the like, that we might keep a Pretense, even to ourselves. But she did not fall in, neither did she Scruple or play the coy Maiden, but rather looked me honestly in the eye, as if she meant to affix the Sanction of her will to whatever was to come.

We could not stay in the street, so she took me within, and made to show me about the Temple and how it served as a Hospital. We had then, with Phyllis attending, at least the Semblance of some especial Employment as I made it appear that I had been sent over on some Inspection business or other. The sick (for there were no injured) rallied at the sight of her, lifting their heads as best they could (for they are bedded inside the box Pews as if in rehearsal for their Coffins). Judith said to each she would attend them in time. She would continue with the next chapter of Humphry Clinker presently, but they must be patient while she showed the Major about. And could Phyllis get them anything? Again, I was struck by her Equanimity and altogether the Composure of her person, for she acted more the Matron than she did the Virgin. There was one Chasseur under the onslaught of fever, yet who roused himself in her presence and tried to pull his body upright on his tick. Not the only thing the German bastard wished upright, I’ll vow.

The whole time, of course, I was mad with the Desire to have her alone, and with the Impossibility of any such Opportunity. And mad further, for now I believed, as I had never allowed myself to believe before, that the girl wanted the same thing. The closeness of her, the little Accidental brushing of arm to arm, the rustling of her Skirts against my side, the fertile looks, the odor of the Essential oil I do believe she perfumes herself with, it was all almost more than I could stand. Truly, I think I have never felt (no, not in all such Exploits!) so overcome with the sheer, surging, violent, whelming Desire to have a woman. Even when the damned Surgeon-Major discovered me and of course must come over, I was trembling as if I would leap from inside my skin.

He dismissed Judith and had at me, honored and gratified he said that the General had sent someone from his Staff, had heeded his Pleas, and more of the like. He was a drunk Peacock and I could barely countenance his alternate Braggery and Sycophancy, his importuning for support, and Tonics, and divers other ingredients to make his especial Febrifuge. Jove, it was as tho’ I had stumbled unawares onto the stage of a damned Drury Lane farce!

When finally I rid myself of the fellow, telling him to write down everything he’d imparted to me and have a Courier deliver it, I went back through the Temple, making noise as I went that the girl might discover me, but she was nowhere about. Vexed to a Fury, I departed the front entrance, and oh! the clever thing was waiting for me under the Portico! We could do nothing but keep a Public pose, yet the look I had from her eyes and the brief touch of her hand! She asked did I want to meet her? Would I come to the Jewish Cemetery some night at dusk? It was the only place! she said. She would send word to me on a likely night. I told her I died for her.

The cemetery, damn my eyes! Perhaps the girl is a practiced Libertine!

Apr 25

I have had it out with Smithson. Or rather, he has had it out with me. He says he has learned that I am still calling on Da Silva and that I have been seen in the street with Judith. Says he has warned me against my continued Attentions to the Jewess. (Miss Da Silva, he calls her.) Says if he is not satisfied he will go to the Jew and tell him of me and my Character. Will go to Pigot and remind him of the Cambridge incident.

My Character, the presumptuous fellow!

I kept a rein on myself. Told him that he misunderstood me. That yes, the Jewess was a remarkable Beauty, what man could not see that, what man would not enjoy sitting in her presence (did the Jewess not have the most Magnificent bosom? I asked just to goad him while appearing to appease), but she was a mere child, a Colonial, unschooled, &c., and even the duplicitous, black-souled, cloven-hoofed Major Ballard would not stoop to that. It’s this damn inaction that sets us on edge, I told him, retreating a Knight. Be a good fellow, I told him, and I’ll break out a bottle I had from Da Silva. (Where does the damned smuggling Fellow get the stuff? I asked.) He turned me aside, said he did not believe me, said I was making light of it, that the Others may be, but that he was not my Dupe, &c., that he wanted me to swear upon my being a Gentleman, and upon my father’s Title (my father’s Title!), swear in the presence of the rest of the damned Officers quartered in this damned Quaker house that I would not Attempt the girl. No matter what Fit might come upon me, he said. At which I nearly blundered a Rook and told the damned Dwarf that I would do no such thing. That he had my word, and that would have to satisfy him.

No matter what Fit, the Fellow says! Does he intend then to use my Weakness against me, my Confiding in him?

But now, let me record this: I have had for this fortnight, ever since the Absurdity with the Engineer, the stirrings of a plan regarding Smithson. Yet I did not let myself fully entertain it for I account it an Extremity. I have only considered of it in the Hypothetical. That if one needed to, one might do this, and one might do that. So I have coldly thought it. Yet here’s the Insolent fellow! I will not have my Desires interfered with. Not when it comes to the Jewess! Nor will I have Smithson’s peasant’s mind be the Measure of what I may and may not do.

’Tis this: I was much taken by the story Da Silva told me of the Tidewaiter. How he brought the offending man into one of the low places that dot the Wharves, bought him a Rum, and mused about how did not the Tidewaiter think any one of these wharf Rats would do a foul deed for a few pounds, a handful of Doubloons?

Could not a British officer, in this time of War, go in amongst these colonial Rats and take a likely one aside and treat with him? Did not the War itself provide a Mask? Might it not be used to provide a False scent?

Doubling Point is a likely place. So was half my intention in hiking out there the other day. Could I not get Smithson, under the labor of an Apology on my part, to accompany me on a Shoot? Just he and I, good friends again. And the Rat waiting out there in the Wastes for us. It could not be more credibly done. And what a Garnish to walk up to Smithson when he lay Mortally wounded and say to the man: Check & Mate!

And as a kind of douceur: to be rid of the one Soul who knows of the damned Incident with the Razor!

Question: to dispose of the Rat afterwards? As a defensive move?

And my story: We were bird-hunting and we happened upon a Rebel party. There were shots exchanged, &c. I gave chase, but there was a boat, &c. And brave Smithson, &c.

Apr 28

Damn me to hell! I have had word from Judith but it is not the word I have been awaiting! Rather she is gone with her father into the Interior. ’Tis a Visit they have long been meaning to make, she writes, and no result of the Love (she uses the word!) between us being discovered. But she must visit her Step-Mother and her young Siblings. It will be ten days or a fortnight, she writes. Can I wait? she writes.

I do not know if Phyllis is gone with her, or who delivered the note. Or if Smithson knows.

May 4

The days pass and no word. I am in the foulest State. And a kind of Madness is come over me. I have taken to passing the Jewish Cemetery, twice, thrice a day, and at night going in amongst the slate stones as if I might find her there, waiting, undressed, ready for me. And in my Rage, I find some Wife’s stone, some Miriam or Esther or Rachel, and I undo my flies and work myself up and Defile the face of it, the name, the Hebrew writing! What is it in me?

The pages of this Volume are at an end. I will pack it up, along with its Brother, and send both tomorrow aboard the Lark back to England.

And with it, pray, all such Madness!