Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 130

Sunday, May 21, 1786.—I have now quite a new business to write upon. Late on Saturday night news reached my father of the death of the worthy Mr. Stanley, who has been long in a declining state of health. His place of master of the king’s band my dear father had been promised formerly.

Now he was once more to apply for it; and early on Sunday morning he went to Mr. Smelt, to beg his advice what way to proceed.

Just as I was at the door, and going to church, my father returned, and desired me to come back, as he had something to communicate to me. Mr. Smelt, he then told me, had counselled him to go instantly to Windsor, not to address the king, but to be seen by him. “Take your daughter,” he said, “in your hand, and walk upon the Terrace. The king’s seeing you at this time he will understand, and he is more likely to be touched by a hint of that delicate sort than by any direct application.”

My father determined implicitly to follow this advice. But let me not omit a singular little circumstance, which much enlivened and encouraged our expedition. While I was changing my dress for the journey, I received a letter from Miss Port, which was sent by a private hand, and ought to have arrived sooner, and which pressed my visit to my dear Mrs. Delany very warmly, and told me it was by the queen’s express wish. This gave me great spirits for my dear father’s enterprise, and I was able to help him on the road, from so favourable a symptom.

When we got to Windsor, my father saw me safe to Mrs. Delany’s, and then went himself to Dr. Lind’s. With what joy did I fly into the dear, open arms of this most venerable of women! Her reception had all the warm liveliness of pleasant surprise, added to its unfailing kindness.

Miss Port, with her usual partiality, was in high glee from the surprise. I dined and drank tea with them. Mrs. Delany related to me the most flattering speech made to her by the queen, about my coming to her as “the friend best suited to solace her in her disturbances,” and assured me she had quite interested herself in pressing Mrs. Delany to hasten me.

’Tis very extraordinary what a gracious disposition towards me this sweet queen always manifests, and what peculiar elegance there is in the expressions she makes use of in my favour. They were now particularly well-timed, and gave me most pleasant hopes for my dear father. He came to tea at Mrs. Delany’s, and, at the proper hour, went to the Terrace, with the good-natured Dr. Lind, who is always ready to oblige. I waited to go with a female party, which was arranged for me by Mrs. Delany, and soon followed.

All the royal family were already on the Terrace before we arrived. The king and queen, and the Prince of Mecklenburg, and her majesty’s mother—walked together. Next them the princesses and their ladies, and the young princesses, making a very gay and pleasing procession, of one of the finest families in the world. Every way they moved, the crowd retired to stand up against the wall as they passed, and then closed in to follow. When they approached towards us, and we were retreating, Lady Louisa Clayton placed me next herself, making her daughters stand below—a politeness and attention without which I had certainly not been seen; for the moment their majesties advanced, I involuntarily looked down, and drew my hat over my face. I could not endure to stare at them, and, full of our real errand, I felt ashamed, even of being seen by them. The very idea of a design, however far from illaudable is always distressing and uncomfortable. Consequently, I should have stood in the herd, and unregarded; but Lady Louisa’s kindness and good breeding put me in a place too conspicuous to pass unnoticed. The moment the queen had spoken to her, which she stopped to do as soon as she came up to her, she inquired, in a whisper, who was with her; as I know by hearing my own name given for the answer. The queen then instantly stepped nearer me, and asked me how I did; and then the king came forward, and, as soon as he had repeated the same question, said, “Are you come to stay?”

“No, sir, not now.”

“No; but how long shall you stay?”

“I go to-night, sir.”

“I was sure,” cried the queen, “she was not come to stay, by seeing her father.”

I was glad by this to know my father had been observed.

“And when did you come?” cried the king.

“About two hours ago, sir.”

“And when do you return again to Windsor?”

“Very soon, I hope, sir.”

“And—and—and—” cried he, half laughing, and hesitating, significantly, “pray, how goes on the Muse?”

At first I only laughed, too; but he repeated the inquiry, and then I answered, “Not at all, sir.”

“No? But why?—why not?”

“I—I—I am afraid sir,” stammered I, and true enough, I am sure.

“And why?” repeated he, “of what?”

I spoke something,—I hardly know what myself,—so indistinctly, that he could not hear me, though he had put his head quite under my hat, from the beginning of the little conference and, after another such question or two, and no greater satisfaction in the answer, he smiled very good humouredly, and walked on, his charming queen by his side. His condescension confuses, though it delights me.

We stayed some time longer on the Terrace, and my poor father occasionally joined me; but he looked so conscious and depressed, that it pained me to see him. There is nothing that I know so very dejecting, as solicitation. I am sure I could never, I believe, go through a task of that sort. My dear father was not spoken to, though he had a bow every time the king passed him, and a curtsey from the queen. But it hurt him, and he thought it a very bad prognostic; and all there was at all to build upon was the graciousness shewn to me, which, indeed, in the manner I was accosted, was very flattering, and, except to high rank, I am told, very rare.

We stayed but a very short time with my sweet Mrs. Delany, whose best wishes you are sure were ours. I told her our plan, and our full conviction that she could not assist in it; as the obligations she herself owes are so great and so weighty, that any request from her would be encroaching and improper.

We did not get home till past eleven o’clock. We were then informed that Lord Brudenel had called to say Mr. Parsons had a promise of the place from the lord chamberlain. This was not very exhilarating.