December 20, 1774
Christmastide is but a few days away. I fear that Norville, Father, and I shall have little chance to observe it. The shop has been doing poorly as of late. Father has been ill, so responsibility rests with Norville and me. I try not to make my contributions to the matter too noticeable, for I believe Father is ashamed of my working for anything beyond our little house above the store. I do not wish his concern to ail him further, but I do wish he would realize that one person could not manage the shop on his own. It is our business, not our home, which needs effort as of late. Father does not see that.
He is still seeking a suitor for me, but his illness has prevented him from searching too much. After the failure of the attempts I mentioned last summer, I am rather apprehensive at the thought of any other potential husbands crossing our threshold. I suppose it is my duty to marry eventually, but few men are truly interested in one who spends more time in study than in housework. Why must a woman's hand fit a needle better than a quill?
And yet through all of this I find I have a growing respect for Norville. He is not quite the same incompetent boy he was a year ago. And he does not think me at all strange for reading so much. I was rather surprised when I came to this conclusion, for he himself reads next to nothing at all. Yet it is he who supplies me with those newspaper articles, the ones which tell of the impending conflict. Some speculate that perhaps there will even be warfare between the colonies and England. I suspect Norville obtains these newspapers from Father, for one they have been declining since he began to ail, and two I often receive them after Norville and Father hold those conversations behind closed doors, the doors I listen at to absorb every last word the men say. Unfortunately, little can be heard from the door to Father's bedroom, the location of the majority of such talks as of late. If only Father could more often leave his sickbed! Yet the more I do manage to learn from my eavesdropping, the more depressed I feel at how ignorant Father expects me to be. It is rather painful, really, and were it not for Norville and Daphina I fear I might have gone mad by now.
Alas, I must admit I find a guilty comfort when asked to comfort. Daphina is currently facing a predicament quite opposite of my own: Where I have no suitor and a father who wants us wed, she has a suitor and a father who has yet to grant permission for their marriage. Today my friend jokingly confided that perhaps by the time her father permitted her union, she would be an old maid undesirable to Frederick. Of course the both of us knew that was untrue, as Frederick is so determinedly in love with Daphina he would marry her were she eighty years old. Hopefully, Mr. Harriot will not take so long in deciding. Were it not for my understanding of my friends' character, I would begin to wonder at what point they might simply elope.
The strange part of it is that I feel I can deduce more from Daphina's description of the situation than she can from the experience. Either that or my friend does not wish to tell me everything, which I find quite unlikely. I believe that Mr. Harriot's refusal thus far is rooted not in fear that Frederick will be unfaithful, or that he will treat Daphina cruelly, or that he is unable to properly provide for a wife, or that his character is in any way flawed; but rather his refusal is rooted in politics. Mr. Harriot is undoubtedly a Tory; if I am not mistaken he served in the British army in his youth. I am inclined to believe, however, that Frederick is a Patriot, from what little conversation I have with him. In some strange way, for reasons I can ground in very little, I almost wonder if I would not serve in the Patriot army were I a man.
Perhaps it is because I understand very much the feeling of being dominated by a force in which I have no say, of being considered inferior, of having every peaceful attempt at requesting my rights dismissed as being the words of the ignorant.
I am a woman, am I not?