Chapter 20

Here the inquiry dropped; but I was very uneasy to relate it to Mr. Fairly, that the sacrifice I knew he meant to make of another day might not lose all its grace by wanting to be properly revealed.

MR. FAIRLY MORALIZES.

Our journey back to Cheltenham was much more quiet than it had been to Worcester, for the royal party too], another route to see Malvern hills, and we went straight forward.

Miss Planta having now caught the influenza, suffered very much all the way, and I persuaded her immediately to lie down when we got to Fauconberg Hall. She could not come down to dinner, which I had alone. The Princess Elizabeth came to me after it, with her majesty's permission that I might go to the play with my usual party ; but I declined it, that I might make some tea for poor Miss Planta, as she had no maid, nor any creature to help her. The princess told me they were all going first upon the walks, to promener till the play time.

I sat down to make my solitary tea, and had just sent up a basin to Miss Planta, when, to my equal surprise and pleasure, Mr. Fairly entered the room. "I come now," he said, "to take my leave."

They were all, he added, gone to the walks, whither he must

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in a few minutes follow them, and thence attend to the play, and the next morning, by five o'clock, be ready for his post-chaise. Seeing me, however, already making tea, with his Usual and invariable sociability he said he would venture to stay and partake, though he was only come, he gravely repeated, to take his leave.

"And I must not say," cried I, "that I am sorry you are going, because I know so well you wish to be gone that it makes me wish it for you myself."

"No," answered he, "you must not be sorry; when our friends are going to any joy. We must think of them, and be glad to part with them."

Readily entering the same tone, with similar plainness of truth I answered, No, I will not be sorry you go, though miss you at Cheltenham I certainly must."

"Yes," was his unreserved assent, "you will miss me here, because I have spent my evenings with you; but You Will not long remain at Cheltenham."

Oim`e!" thought I, you little think how much Worse will be the quitting it. He owned that the bustle and fatigue of this life was too much both for his health and his spirits.

I told him I Wished it might be a gratification to him, in his toils, to hear how the queen always spoke of him; With what evident and constant complacency and distinction. "And you may credit her sincerity," I added, "Since it is to so little a person as me she does this, and when no one else is present."

He was not insensible to this, though he passed it over without much answer. He showed me a letter from his second son, very affectionate and natural. I congratulated him, most sincerely, on his approaching happiness in collecting them all together. "Yes he answered, "my group will increase, like a snow-ball, as I roll along, and they will soon all four be as happy as four little things know how to be."

This drew him on into some reflections upon affection and upon happiness. "There is no happiness," he said, "without participation; no participation without affection. There is, indeed, in affection a charm that leaves all things behind it, and renders even every calamity that does not interfere with it inconsequential and there is no difficulty, no toil, no labour, no exertion, that will not be endured where there is a view of reaping it."

He ruminated some time, and then told me of a sermon he had heard preached some months ago, sensibly demonstrating

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the total vanity and insufficiency, even for this world, of all our best affections, and proving their fallibility from our most infirm humanity.

My concurrence did not here continue: I cannot hold this doctrine to be right, and I am most sure it is not desirable. our best affections, I must and do believe, were given us for the best purposes, for every stimulation to good, and every solace in evil.

But this was not a time for argument. I said nothing, while he, melancholy and moralizing, continued in this style as long as he could venture to stay. He then rose and took his hat, saying, " Well, so much for the day; what may come to-morrow I know not; but, be it what it may, I stand prepared."

I hoped, I told him, that his little snowball would be all he could wish it, and I was heartily glad he would so soon collect it.

"We will say," cried he, "nothing of any regrets," and bowed, and was hastening off.

The "we," however, had an openness and simplicity that drew from me an equally open and simple reply. "No," I cried, "but I will say-for that you will have pleasure in hearing that you have lightened my time here in a manner that no one else could have done, of this party."

To be sure this was rather a circumscribed compliment, those he left considered - but it was strict and exact truth, and therefore like his own dealing. He said not a word of answer, but bowed, and went away, leaving me firmly impressed with a belief that I shall find in him a true, an honourable, and even an affectionate friend, for life.

MAJOR PRICE IS TIRED OF RETIREMENT.

Sunday, Aug. 10.-Major Price was of the breakfast party this morning, to my great contentment. I heartily wish he was again in the king's household, he is so truly attached to his majesty, and he so earnestly himself wishes for a restoration, not to the equerryship, which is too laborious an office, but to any attendance upon the king's person of less fatigue.

He opened to me very much upon his situation and wishes. he has settled himself in a small farm near the house of his eldest brother, but I could see too plainly he has not found there the contentment that satisfies him. He sighs for society ; he owns books are insufficient for everything, and his evenings

Page 204 begin already to grow wearisome. He does not wish it to be talked of publicly, but he is solicitous to return to the king, in any place attached to his person, of but mild duty. Not only the king, he said, he loved, but all his society, and the way of life in general; and he had no tie whatsoever to Herefordshire that would make him hesitate a moment in quitting it, if another place could be made adequate to his fortune. His income was quite too small for any absence from his home of more than a few weeks, in its present plight; and therefore it could alone be by some post under government that he must flatter himself with ever returning to the scenes he had left.

How rarely does a plan of retirement answer the expectations upon which it is raised! He fears having this suspected, and therefore keeps the matter to himself; but I believe he so much opened it to me, in the hope I might have an opportunity to make it known where it might be efficacious; for he told me, at the same time, he apprehended his majesty had a notion his fondness for Herefordshire, not his inability to continue equerry, had occasioned his resignation.

I shall certainly make it my business to hint this to the queen. So faithful and attached a servant ought not to be thrown aside, and, after nine years' service, left unrewarded, and seem considered as if superannuated.

MR. FAIRLY'S LITTLE NOTE.

When I came from her majesty, just before she went down to dinner, I was met by a servant who delivered me a letter, which he told me was just come by express. I took it in some alarm, fearing that ill news alone could bring it by such haste, but, before I could open it, he said, "'Tis from Mr. Fairly, ma'am."

I hastened to read, and will now copy it:-

"Northleach, Aug. 10, 1788. "Her majesty may possibly not have heard that Mr. Edmund Waller died on Thursday night. He was master of St. Catherine's, which is in her majesty's gift. It may be useful to her to have this early intelligence of this circumstance, and you will have the goodness to mention it to her. Mr. W. was at a house upon his own estate within a mile and a half of this place, Very truly and sincerely yours, "S. Fairly." "Miss Burney, Fauconberg Hall."

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How to communicate this news, however, was a real distress to me. I know her majesty is rather scrupulous that all messages immediately to herself should be conveyed by the highest channels, and I feared she would think this ought to have been sent through her lady then in waiting, Lady Harcourt. Mr. Fairly, too, however superior to such small matters for himself, is most punctiliously attentive to them for her. I could attribute this only to haste. But my difficulty was not alone to have received the intelligence-the conclusion of the note I was sure would surprise her. The rest, as a message to herself, being without any beginning, would not strike her; but the words "very truly and sincerely yours," come out with such an abrupt plainness, and to her, who knows not with what intimacy of intercourse we have lived together so much during this last month, I felt quite ashamed to show them.

While wavering how to manage, a fortunate circumstance seemed to come to my relief; the Princess Elizabeth ran up hastily to her room, which is just opposite to mine, before she followed the queen down to dinner; I flew after her, and told her I had just heard of the death of Mr. Waller, the Master of St. Catherine's, and I begged her to communicate it to her majesty.

She undertook it, with her usual readiness to oblige, and I was quite delighted to have been so speedy without producing my note, which I determined now not even to mention unless called upon, and even then not to produce; for now, as I should not have the first telling, it might easily be evaded by not having it in my pocket.

The moment, however, that the dinner was over, Princess Elizabeth came to summon me to the queen. This was very unexpected, as I thought I should not see her till night; but I locked up my note and followed.

She was only with the princesses. I found the place was of importance, by the interest she took about it. She asked me several questions relative to Mr. Waller. I answered her all I could collect from my note, for further never did I hear; but the moment I was obliged to stop she said, "Pray have you known him long?"

"I never knew him at all, ma'am."

"No? Why, then, how came you to receive the news about his death?"

Was not this agreeable? I was forced to say, "I heard of it only from Mr. Fairly, ma'am."

Page 206 Nothing Could exceed the surprise with which she now lifted up her eyes to look at me. "From Mr. Fairly?--Why did he not tell it me?"

O, worse and worse! I was now compelled to answer, "He did not know It when he was here, ma'am; he heard it at Northleach, and, thinking it might be of use to your majesty to have the account immediately, he sent it over express."

A dead silence so uncomfortable ensued, that I thought it best presently to go on further, though unasked. "Mr. Fairly, ma'am, wrote the news to me, on such small paper, and in such haste, that it is hardly fit to he shown to your majesty; but I have the note upstairs."

No answer; again all silent; and then Princess Augusta said, "Mamma, Miss Burney says she has the note upstairs."

"If your majesty pleases to see it"--

She looked up again, much more pleasantly, and said, "I shall be glad to see it," with a little bow.

Out I went for it, half regretting I had not burned it, to make the producing it impossible. When I brought it to her, she received it with the most gracious smile, and immediately read it aloud, with great complacency, till she came to the end and then, with a lowered and somewhat altered tone, the "very truly and sincerely yours," which she seemed to look at for a moment with some doubt if it were not a mistake, but in returning it she bowed again, and simply said, "I am very much obliged to Mr. Fairly."

You will be sure how much I was pleased during this last week to hear that the place of the Master of St. Catherine's was given by her majesty to Mr. Fairly. It is reckoned the best in her gift, as a sinecure. What is the income I know not: reports differ from 400 to 500 per annum.

THE RETURN TO WINDSOR.

Saturday, Aug. 16.-We left Cheltenham early this morning. Major Price breakfasted with us, and was so melancholy at the king's departure he could hardly speak a word. All Cheltenham was drawn out into the High-street, the gentles on one side and the commons on the other, and a band, and "God save the king," playing and singing.

My dear Port, with all her friends, was there for a last look, and a sorrowful one we interchanged; Mr. Seward also, whom again I am not likely to meet for another two years at least.

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The journey was quite without accident or adventure.

And thus ends the Cheltenham episode. May I not justly call it so, different as it is to all the mode of life I have hitherto lived here, or alas I am in a way to live henceforward?

melancholy--most melancholy-was the return to Windsor destitute of all that could solace, compose, or delight ; replete with whatever could fatigue, harass, and depress! Ease, leisure, elegant society, and interesting communication, were now to give place to arrogant manners, contentious disputation, and arbitrary ignorance! Oh, heaven! my dearest friends, what scales could have held and have weighed the heart of your F.B. as she drove past the door of her revered, lost comforter, to enter the apartment inhabited by such qualities!

But before I quit this journey let me tell one very pleasant anecdote. When we stopped to change horses at Burford I alighted and went into the inn, to meet Mrs. Gast, to whom I had sent by Mrs. Frodsham a request to be there as we passed through the town. I rejoiced indeed to see again the sister of our first and wisest friend. My Susanna, who knows her too enthusiastic character, will easily suppose my reception. I was folded in her arms, and bathed in her tears all my little stay, and my own, from reflected tenderness for her ever-honoured, loved, and lamented brother, would not be kept quite back; 'twas a species of sorrowful joy--painful, yet pleasing--that seemed like a fresh tribute to his memory and my affection, and made the meeting excite an emotion that occupied my mind and reflections almost all the rest of my journey.

She inquired most kindly after my dear father and my Susanna, and separately and with interest of all the rest of the family; but her surprise to see me now, by this most un expected journey, when she had concluded me inevitably shut up from her sight for the remainder of her life, joined to the natural warmth of her disposition, seemed almost to suffocate her. I was very sorry to leave her, but my time was unavoidably short and hurried. I inquired after Chesington, and heard very good accounts.

AT WINDSOR AGAIN THE CANON AND MRS. SCHWELLENBERG. Windsor, Sunday, Aug. 17.-This day, after our arrival, began precisely the same as every day preceding our journey. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood could not awake more completely to the same scene; yet I neither have been asleep, nor Page 208

am quite a beauty! O! I wish I were as near to the latter as the former at this minute!

We had all the set assembled to congratulate his majesty on his return--generals and colonels without end. I was very glad while the large party lasted, its diminution into a solitary pair ending in worse than piquet--a tête-à-tête!--and such a one, too! after being so spoiled!

Monday, Aug. 18.-Well, now I have a new personage to introduce to you, and no small one; ask else the stars, moon and planets! While I was surrounded with bandboxes, and unpacking, Dr. Shepherd was announced. Eager to make his compliments on the safe return, he forced a passage through the back avenues and stairs, for he told me he did not like being seen coming to me at the front door, as it might create some jealousies amongst the other canons! A very commendable circumspection! but whether for my sake or his own he did not particularize.

M. de Lalande, he said, the famous astronomer,(290) was just arrived in England, and now at Windsor, and he had expressed a desire to be introduced to me.

Well, while he was talking this over, and I was wondering and evading, entered Mr. Turbulent. What a surprise at sight of the reverend canon! The reverend canon, also, was interrupted and confused, fearing, possibly, the high honour he did me might now transpire amongst his brethren, notwithstanding his generous efforts to spare them its knowledge.

Mr. Turbulent, who looked big with heroics, was quite provoked to see he had no chance of giving them vent. They each outstayed the patience of the other, and at last both went off together.

Some hours after, however, while I was dressing, the canon returned. I could not admit him, and bid Goter tell him at the door I was not visible. He desired he might wait till I was ready, as he had business of importance. I would not let him into the next room, but said he might stay in the eating-parlour.

When I was dressed I sent Goter to bring him in. She came back, grinning and colouring,; she had not found him, she said, but only Mrs. Schwellenberg, who was there alone, and had

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called her in to know what she wanted. She answered she came to seek for a gentleman.

"There's no gentleman," she cried, "to come into my parlour. it is not permit. When he comes I will have it locked up."

O, ho, my poor careful canon! thought I. However, soon after a tap again at my door introduced him. He said he had been waiting below in the passage, as he saw Madame Schwellenberg in the parlour, and did not care to have her know him; but his business was to settle bringing M. de Lalande to see me in the evening. I told him I was much honoured, and so forth, but that I received no evening company, as I was officially engaged.

He had made the appointment, he said, and could not break it without affronting him; besides, he gave me to understand it would be an honour to me for ever to be visited by so great an astronomer. I agreed as to that, and was forced, moreover, to agree to all the rest, no resource remaining

I mentioned to her majesty the state of the case. She thought the canon very officious, and disapproved the arrangement, but saw it was unavoidable.

But when the dinner came I was asked by the présidente, "What for send you gentlemen to my parlour?"

" I was dressing, ma'am, and could not possibly receive company in mine, and thought the other empty."

"Empty or full is the same! I won't have it. I will lock up the room when it is done so. No, no, I won't have no gentlemen here; it is not permit, perticklere when they Nvon't not speak to me!"

I then heard that "a large man, what you call," had entered that sacred domain, and seeing there a lady, had quitted it "bob short!"

I immediately explained all that had passed, for I had no other way to save myself from an imputation of favouring the visits and indiscretion of this most gallant canon.

"Vell, when he comes so often he might like you. For what won't you not marry him?"

This was coming to the point, and so seriously, I found myself obliged to be serious in answer, to avoid misconstruction, and to assure her, that were he Archbishop of Canterbury, and actually at my feet, I would not become archbishopess.

"Vell, you been right when you don't not like him; I don't not like the men neither: not one from them!"

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So this settled us very amicably till tea-time, and in the midst of that, with a room full of people, I was called out by Westerhaults to Dr. Shepherd!

Mrs. Schwellenberg herself actually te-he'd at this, and I could not possibly help laughing myself, but I hurried into the next room, where I found him with his friend, M. de Lalande. What a reception awaited me! how unexpected a one from a famed and great astronomer.

COMPLIMENTS FROM A FAMOUS FOREIGN ASTRONOMER. M. de Lalande advanced to meet me---I will not be quite positive it was on tiptoe, but certainly with a mixture of jerk and strut that could not be quite flat-footed. He kissed my hand with the air of a petit-maître, and then broke forth into such an harangue of éloges, so solemn with regard to its own weight and importance, and so fade(291) with respect to the little personage addressed, that I could not help thinking it lucky for the planets, stars, and sun, they were not bound to hear his comments, though obliged to undergo his calculations.

On my part sundry profound reverences, with now and then an "O, monsieur!" or "c'est trop d'honneur," acquitted me so well, that the first harangue being finished, on the score of general and grand reputation, éloge the second began, on the excellency with which "cette célèbre demoiselle" spoke French!

This may surprise you, my dear friends; but You must consider M. de Lalande is a great discoverer.

Well, but had you seen Dr. Shepherd! he looked lost in sleek delight and wonder, that a person to whom he had introduced M. de Lalande should be an object for such fine speeches.

This gentleman's figure, meanwhile, corresponds no better with his discourse than his scientific profession, for he is an ugly little wrinkled old man, with a fine showy waistcoat, rich lace ruffles, and the grimaces of a dentist. I believe he chose to display that a Frenchman of science could be also a man of gallantry.

I was seated between them, but the good doctor made no greater interruption to the florid professor than I did myself; he only grinned applause, with placid, but ineffable satisfaction.

Nothing therefore intervening, éloge the third followed, after a pause no longer than might be necessary for due admiration

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of éloge the second. This had for sujet the fair female sex; how the ladies were now all improved; how they could write, and read, and spell; how a man now-a-days might talk with them and be understood, and how delightful it was to see such pretty creatures turned rational!

And all this, of course, interspersed with particular observations and most pointed applications; nor was there in the whole string of compliments which made up the three bouquets, one single one amongst them that might have disgraced any petit maître to utter, or any petite maîtresse to hear.

The third being ended, a rather longer pause ensued. I believe he was dry, but I offered him no tea. I would not voluntarily be accessory to detaining such great personages from higher avocations. I wished him next to go and study the stars: from the moon he seemed so lately arrived there was little occasion for another journey.

I flatter myself he was of the same opinion, for the fourth éloge was all upon his unhappiness in tearing himself away from so much merit, and ended in as many bows as had accompanied his entrance.

I suppose, in going, he said, with a shrug, to the canon, "M. le docteur, c'est bien gênant, mais il faut dire des jolies choses aux dames!"(293)

He was going the next day to see Dr. Maskelyne's observatory. Well! I have had him first in mine!

I was obliged on my return to the tea-room to undergo much dull raillery from my fair companion, and Much of wonder that "since the canon had such good preferment" I did not "marry him at once," for he "would not come so often if he did not want it."

THE PRINCE EYES MISS BURNEY CURIOUSLY.

Tuesday, Aug. 18.--The Duke of York's birthday was kept this day, instead of Saturday, that Sunday morning might not interfere with the ball.

The Prince of Wales arrived early, while I was yet with the queen. He kissed her hand, and she sent for the princesses. Only Princess Elizabeth and Princess Sophia were dressed. Her majesty went into the next room with Mrs. Sandys, to have her shoes put on, with which she always finishes. The prince and princesses then chatted away most fluently. Page 212