Chapter 39

It was for the next day, and I sent John to him immediately; rather awkward, though, to send my compliments to a man I had never seen, and invite him to dine with me. But there was no other mode--I could not name the queen. I knew Miss Port would be happy to make us a trio, and I begged her not to fail me.

But alas!--If awkwardness was removed, something worse was substituted in its place; my presidency was abolished on the very day it was to be declared, by the sudden return of its rightful superseder. I acquainted her with the invitation I had been desired to send, and I told her I had also engaged Miss Port. I told of both as humbly as possible, that I might raise no alarms of any intention of rivalry in power.

Mr. Mithoff was not yet come when dinner was announced, nor yet Miss Port; we sat down tete-a-tete, myself in some pain for my invitations, my companion well content to shew she would wait for none of my making.

At length came Miss Port, and presently after a tall German clergyman entered the room. I was a little confused by his immediately making up to me, and thanking me in the strongest terms for the honour of my invitation, and assuring me it was the most flattering one he had ever received.

I answered as short as I could, for I was quite confounded by the looks of Mrs. Schwellenberg. Towards me they were directed with reproach, and towards the poor visitor with astonishment: why I could not imagine, as I had frequently heard her speak of M. Mithoff with praise.

Finding nothing was said to him, I was obliged to ask him to take a place at the table myself, which he did; still, and with great glee of manner, addressing himself wholly to me, and never finishing his warm expressions of gratitude for my invitation. I quite longed to tell him I had her majesty's orders for what I had done, that he might cease his most unmerited acknowledgments; but I could not at that time. The dinner went off very ill. Nobody said a word but this gentleman, and he spoke only to do himself mischief.

When we all adjourned to Mrs. Schwellenberg's room upstairs, for coffee, my new guest again poured forth such a torrent of thanks, that I could not resist taking the first opportunity to inform him he owed me no such strong obligation, as I had simply obeyed the commands of the queen.

“The queen!” he exclaimed, with yet greater enchantment; “then I am very happy indeed, madam; I had been afraid at first there was some mistake in the honour you did me.”

“It might have seemed a mistake indeed, sir,” cried I, “if you supposed I had taken the liberty of making you such an invitation, without the pleasure of knowing you myself.”

Mrs. Schwellenberg, just after, calling me aside, said, “For what have you brought me this man?”

I could make no answer, lest he should hear me, for I saw him look uneasily towards us; and therefore, to end such interrogations, I turned to him, and asked how many days he should continue at Windsor. He looked surprised, and said he had no thought of leaving it.

It was my turn to look surprised now; I had heard he only came upon her majesty's commands, and was to stay but a day or two. I now began to suspect some mistake, and that my message had gone to a wrong person. I hastened, therefore, to pronounce the name of Mithoff, and my suspicion was changed into certainty, by his telling me, with a stare, that it was not his.

Imagine but my confusion at this information!--the queen's commission so ill executed, M. Mithoff neglected, and some one else invited whose very name I knew not!--nor did he, though my mistake now was visible, tell it me. Yet he looked so much disappointed, that I thought it incumbent upon me, since the blunder must have been my servant's, to do what I could to comfort him. I therefore forced myself forward to talk to him, and pass over the embarrassment but he was modest, and consequently overset, and soon after took his leave.

I then cleared myself to Mrs. Schwellenberg of any voluntary deed in “bringing her this man,” and inquired of John how it happened. He told me he had forgot the gentleman's name, but as I had said he was a German clergyman, he had asked for him as such, and thought this must be the right person. I heard afterwards that this is a M. Schrawder, one of the masters of the German language to the princesses. I gave all the apologies in my power to him for the error....

The queen, at night, with great good humour, laughed at the mistake, and only desired it might be rectified for the next day. Accordingly it was; and M. Mithoff had an invitation for the next day, in proper order: that is, from Mrs. Schwellenberg.

THE PRINCESS ROYAL's BIRTHDAY.

_Friday, Sept. 29_--This day the princess royal entered her twenty-first year. I had the pleasure of being in the room with the queen when she sent for her, early in the morning. Her majesty bid me stop, while she went into another apartment to fetch her birthday gifts. The charming princess entered with so modest, so composed an air, that it seemed as if the day, with all its preparations for splendour, was rather solemn than elevating to her. I had no difficulty, thus alone with her, in offering my best wishes to her. She received them most gracefully, and told me, with the most sensible pleasure, that the King had just been with her, and presented to her a magnificent diamond necklace.

The queen then returned, holding in her hands two very pretty portfolios for her drawings, and a very fine gold etui. The princess, in receiving them with the lowest curtsey, kissed her hand repeatedly, while the queen gave back her kisses upon her cheeks.

The king came in soon after, and the three youngest princesses. They all flew to kiss the princess royal, who is affectionately fond of them all. Princess Amelia shewed how fine she was, and made the queen admire her new coat and frock; she then examined all the new dresses of her sisters, and then looking towards me with some surprise, exclaimed, “And won't Miss Burney be fine, too?”

I shall not easily forget this little innocent lesson. It seems all the household dress twice on these birthdays--for their first appearance, and for dinner--and always in something distinguished. I knew it not, and had simply prepared for my second attire only, wearing in the morning my usual white dimity great coat. I was a little out of countenance; and the queen, probably perceiving it, said--

“Come hither, Amelia; who do you think is here--in Miss Burney's room?”

“Lany,” answered the quick little creature; for so she calls Mrs. Delany, who had already exerted herself to come to the Lodge with her congratulations.

The king, taking the hand of the little princess, said they would go and see her; and turning to the queen as they left the room, called out,

“What shall we do with Mrs. Delany?”

“What the king pleases,” was her answer.

I followed them to my room, where his majesty stayed some time, giving that dear old lady a history of the concert of the preceding evening, and that he had ordered for this day for the princess royal. It is rather unfortunate her royal highness should have her birth-day celebrated by an art which she even professes to have no taste for, and to hear almost with pain.

The king took Mrs. Delany to breakfast with himself and family.

I wore my memorable present-gown this day in honour of the princess royal. It is a lilac tabby. I saw the king for a minute at night, as he returned from the Castle, and he graciously admired it, calling out “Emily should see Miss Burney's gown now, and she would think her fine enough.”

ARRIVAL OF A NEW EQUERRY.

The following evening I first saw the newly-arrived equerry, Colonel Goldsworthy. Mrs. Schwellenberg was ill, and sent for Mr. de Luc, and told me to go into the eating-room, and make the tea for her. I instantly wrote to Miss Port, to beg she would come to assist me: she did, and Mrs. Schwellenberg, changing her plan, came downstairs at the same time. The party was Major Price, General Bude, Mr. Fisher, and the colonel. Major Price immediately presented us to each other.

“Upon my word!” cried Mrs. Schwellenberg, “you do the honour here in my room!--you might leave that to me, Major Price!”

“What! my brother equerry?” cried he; “No, ma'am, I think I have a right there.”

Colonel Goldsworthy's character stands very high for worth and honour, and he is warmly attached to the king, both for his own sake, and from the tie that binds him to all the royal family, of regard for a sister extremely dear to him, Miss Goldsworthy, whose residence here brings him frequently to the palace. He seems to me a man of but little cultivation or literature, but delighting in a species of dry humour, in which he shines most successfully, in giving up himself for its favourite butt.

He brought me a great many compliments, he said, from Dr. Warton, of Winchester, where he had lately been quartered with his regiment. He rattled away very amusingly upon the balls and the belles he had seen there, laughing at his own gallantry, and pitying and praising himself alternately for venturing to exert it.

CUSTODIAN OF THE QUEEN'S JEWEL Box.

_Oct. 2_--The next day we were all to go to Kew: but Mrs. Schwellenberg was taken ill, and went by herself to town.

The queen sent for me after breakfast, and delivered to me a long box, called here the jewel box, in which her jewels are carried to and from town that are worn on the Drawing-room days. The great bulk of them remain in town all the winter, and remove to Windsor for all the summer, with the rest of the family. She told me, as she delivered the key into my hands, that as there was always much more room in the box than her travelling jewels occupied, I might make what use I pleased of the remaining part; adding, with a very expressive smile, “I dare say you have books and letters that you may be glad to carry backwards and forwards with you.”

I owned that nothing was more true, and thankfully accepted the offer. It has proved to me since a comfort of the first magnitude, in conveying all my choice papers and letters safely in the carriage with me, as well as books in present reading, and numerous odd things....

_Friday, Oct. 6._--We returned to Windsor without Mrs. Schwellenberg, who stayed in town for her physician's advice. The queen went immediately to Mrs. Delany, and the princess royal came into my room.

“I beg pardon,” she cried, “for what I am going to say: I hope you will excuse my taking such a liberty with you--but, has nobody told you that the queen is always used to have the jewel-box carried into her bedroom?”

“No, ma'am, nobody mentioned it to me. I brought it here because I have other things in it.”

“I thought, when I did not see it in mamma's room,” cried she, “that nobody had told you of that custom, and so I thought I would come to you myself: I hope you will excuse it?”

You may believe how I thanked her, while I promised to take out my own goods and chattels, and have it conveyed to its proper place immediately. I saw that she imagined the queen might be displeased; and though I could never myself imagine that, for an omission of ignorance, I felt the benevolence of her intention, and received it with great gratitude.

“My dear ma'am,” cried she, “I am sure I should be most happy to do anything for you that should be in my power, always; and really Mrs. Schwellenberg ought to have told you this.”

Afterwards I happened to be alone with this charming princess, and her sister Elizabeth, in the queen's dressing-room. She then came up to me and said,

“Now will you excuse me, Miss Burney, if I ask you the truth of something I have heard about you?”

“Certainly, ma'am.”

“It's such an odd thing, I don't know how to mention it; but I have wished to ask you about it this great while. Pray is it really true that, in your illness last year, you coughed so violently that you broke the whalebone of your stays in two?”

“As nearly true as possible, ma'am; it actually split with the force of the almost convulsive motion of a cough that seemed loud and powerful enough for a giant. I could hardly myself believe it was little I that made so formidable a noise.”

“Well, I could not have given credit to it if I had not heard it from yourself! I wanted so much to know the truth, that I determined, at last, to take courage and ask you.”

“And pray, Miss Burney,” cried the Princess Elizabeth, “had you not a blister that gave you great torture?”

“Yes, ma'am,--in another illness.”

“O!--I know how to pity you!--I have one on at this moment!”

“And pray, Miss Burney,” cried the princess royal, “were not you carried out of town, when you were in such a weak condition that you could not walk?”

“Where could your royal highness hear all this?”

“And were you not almost starved by Sir Richard Jebb?” cried Princess Elizabeth.

“And did you not receive great benefit from asses' milk?” exclaimed the princess royal.

Again I begged to know their means of hearing all this; but the queen's entrance silenced us all.

A LAUDATORY ESTIMATE OF THE QUEEN.

The queen was unremittingly sweet and gracious, never making me sensible of any insufficiency from my single attendance; which, to me, was an opportunity the most favourable in the world for becoming more intimately acquainted with her mind and understanding. For the excellency of her mind I was fully prepared; the testimony of the nation at large could not be unfaithful; but the depth and soundness of her understanding surprised me: good sense I expected--to that alone she could owe the even tenor of her conduct, universally approved, though examined and judged by the watchful eye of multitudes. But I had not imagined that, shut up in the confined limits of a Court, she could have acquired any but the most superficial knowledge of the world, and the most partial insight into character. But I find, now, I have only done justice to her disposition, not to her parts, which are truly of that superior order that makes sagacity intuitively supply the place of experience. In the course of this month I spent much time quite alone with her, and never once quitted her presence without fresh admiration of her talents.

There are few points I have observed with more pleasure in her than all that concerns the office which brings me to her in this private and confidential manner. All that breaks from her, in our tete-a-tetes, upon the subject of dress, is both edifying and amiable. She equips herself for the drawing-room with all the attention in her power; she neglects nothing that she thinks becoming to her appearance upon those occasions, and is sensibly conscious that her high station makes her attire in public a matter of business. As such, she submits to it without murmuring; but a yet stronger consciousness of the real futility of such mere outward grandeur bursts from her, involuntarily, the moment the sacrifice is paid, and she can never refuse herself the satisfaction of expressing her contentment to put on a quiet undress. The great coats are so highly in her favour, from the quickness with which they enable her to finish her toilette, that she sings their praise with fresh warmth every time she is allowed to wear them, archly saying to me, with most expressive eyes, “If I could write--if I could but write!--how I would compose upon a great coat! I wish I were a poetess, that I might make a song upon it--I do think something very pretty might be said about it.”

These hints she has given me continually; but the Muse was not so kind as ever to make me think of the matter again when out of her sight-till, at last, she one day, in putting on this favourite dress, half gravely, said, “I really take it a little ill you won't write something upon these great coats!”

I only laughed, yet, when I left her, I scribbled a few stanzas, copied them very fairly, and took them, as soon as they were finished, into her room; and there kept them safely in my pocket-book, for I knew not how to produce them, and she, by odd accident, forbore from that time to ask for them, though her repeated suggestion had, at last, conquered my literary indolence.[221]

I cannot here help mentioning a very interesting little scene at which I was present, about this time. The queen had nobody but myself with her, one morning, when the king hastily entered the room, with some letters in his hand, and addressing her in German, which he spoke very fast, and with much apparent interest in what he said, he brought the letters up to her, and put them into her hand. She received them with much agitation, but evidently of a much pleased sort, and endeavoured to kiss his hand as he held them. He would not let her, but made an effort, with a countenance of the highest satisfaction, to kiss hers. I saw instantly in her eyes a forgetfulness, at the moment, that any one was present, while, drawing away her hand, she presented him her cheek. He accepted her kindness with the same frank affection that she offered it; and the next moment they both spoke English, and talked upon common and general subjects.

What they said I am far enough from knowing; but the whole was too rapid to give me time to quit the room; and I could not but see with pleasure that the queen had received some favour with which she was sensibly delighted, and that the king, in her acknowledgments, was happily and amply paid.

TABLE DIFFICULTIES.

No sooner did I find that my coadjutrix ceased to speak of returning to Windsor,[222] and that I became, by that means, the presidentess of the dinner and tea-table, than I formed a grand design--no other than to obtain to my own use the disposal of my evenings.

From the time of my entrance into this Court, to that of which I am writing, I had never been informed that it was incumbent upon me to receive the king's equerries at the teatable; yet I observed that they always came to Mrs. Schwellenberg, and that she expected them so entirely as never to make tea till their arrival. Nevertheless, nothing of that sort had ever been intimated to me, and I saw no necessity of falling into all her ways, without commands to that purpose: nor could I conclude that the king's gentlemen would expect from me either the same confinement, or readiness of reception, as had belonged to two invalid old ladies, glad of company, and without a single connection to draw them from home....

I could not, however, but be struck with a circumstance that shewed me, in a rather singular manner, my tea-making seemed at once to be regarded as indispensable: this was no other than a constant summons, which John regularly brought me every evening, from these gentlemen, to acquaint me they were come upstairs to the tea-room, and waiting for me.

I determined not to notice this: and consequently, the first time Mrs. Delany was not well enough to give me her valuable society at the Lodge, I went to her house, and spent the evening there; without sending any message to the equerries, as any apology must imply a right on their part that must involve me in future confinement.

This I did three or four times, always with so much success as to gain my point for the moment, but never with such happy consequences as to ensure it me for the time to come; since every next meeting shewed an air of pique, and since every evening had still, unremittingly, the same message for John.

I concluded this would wear away by use, and therefore resolved to give it that chance. One evening, however, when, being quite alone, I was going to my loved resource, John, ere I could get out, hurried to me, “Ma'am, the gentlemen are come up, and they send their compliments, and they wait tea for you.”

“Very well,” was my answer to this rather cavalier summons, which I did not wholly admire; and I put on my hat and cloak, when I was called to the queen. She asked me whether I thought Mrs. Delany could come to her, as she wished to see her? I offered to go instantly, and inquire.

“But don't tell her I sent you,” cried the most considerate queen, “lest that should make her come when it may hurt her: find out how she is, before you mention me.”

As I now knew I must return myself, at any rate, I slipped into the tea-room before I set off. I found there Colonel Goldsworthy, looking quite glum, General Bude, Mr. Fisher, Mr.-- Fisher, his brother, and Mr. Blomberg, chaplain to the Prince of Wales.

The moment I opened the door, General Bude presented Mr. Blomberg to me, and Mr. Fisher his brother; I told them, hastily, that I was running away to Mrs. Delany, but meant to return in a quarter of an hour, when I should be happy to have their company, if they could wait so long; but if they were hurried, my man should bring their tea.

They all turned to Colonel Goldsworthy, who, as equerry in waiting, was considered as head of the party; but he seemed so choked with surprise and displeasure, that he could only mutter something too indistinct to be heard, and bowed low and distantly.

“If Colonel Goldsworthy can command his time, ma'am,” cried Mr. Fisher, “we shall be most happy to wait yours.”

General Bude said the same: the colonel again silently and solemnly bowed, and I curtsied in the same manner, and hurried away.

Mrs. Delany was not well; and I would not vex her with the queen's kind wish for her. I returned, and sent in, by the page in waiting, my account: for the queen was in the concert-room, and I could not go to her. Neither would I seduce away Miss Port from her duty; I came back, therefore, alone, and was fain to make my part as good as I was able among my beaus.

I found them all waiting. Colonel Goldsworthy received me with the same stately bow, and a look so glum and disconcerted, that I instantly turned from him to meet the soft countenance of the good Mr. Fisher, who took a chair next mine, and entered into conversation with his usual intelligence and mildness. General Bude was chatty and well bred, and the two strangers wholly silent.

I could not, however, but see that Colonel Goldsworthy grew less and less pleased. Yet what had I done?--I had never been commanded to devote my evenings to him, and, if excused officially, surely there could be no private claim from either his situation or mine. His displeasure therefore appeared to me so unjust, that I resolved to take not the smallest notice of it. He never once opened his mouth, neither to me nor to any one else. In this strange manner we drank our tea. When it was over, he still sat dumb--and still I conversed with Mr. Fisher and General Bude.

At length a prodigious hemming showed a preparation in the colonel for a speech: it came forth with great difficulty, and most considerable hesitation.

“I am afraid, ma'am,--I am afraid you--you--that is--that we are intruders upon you.”

“N-o,” answered I, faintly, “why so?”

“I am sure, ma'am, if we are--if you think--if we take too much liberty--I am sure I would not for the world!--I only--your commands--nothing else--”

“Sir!” cried I, not understanding a word.

“I see, ma'am, we only intrude upon you: however, you must excuse my just saying we would not for the world have taken such a liberty, though very sensible of the happiness of being allowed to come in for half an hour,--which is the best half-hour of the whole day; but yet, if it was not for your own commands--”

“What commands, sir?”

He grew still more perplexed, and made at least a dozen speeches to the same no purpose, before I could draw from him anything explicit; all of them listening silently the whole time, and myself invariably staring. At last, a few words escaped him more intelligible.

“Your messages, ma'am, were what encouraged us to come.”

“And pray, sir, do tell me what messages?--I am very happy to see you, but I never sent any messages at all?”