Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 158

After tea, one of Mrs. Schwellenberg’s domestics called me out of the room. John waited to speak to me in the gallery. “What time, ma’am,” cried he, “shall you have your Supper?”

“What supper?” cried I. “I only eat fruit, as usual.”

“Have not you ordered supper, ma’am, for to-night?

“No.”

“There is one cooking for you—a fowl and peas.”

“It’s some great mistake; run down and tell them so.”

I returned to the company, and would have related the adventure, had I been in spirits; but voluntary speech escaped me not. Where I am not happy, or forced to it, it never does. Presently I was called out again.

“Ma’am,” cried John, “the supper is ordered in your name. I saw the order—the clerk of the kitchen gave it in.”

This was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I desired him to run down forthwith, and inquire by whose directions all this was done. He came back, and said, “By Sir Francis Drake’s.” Sir Francis Drake is, I think, steward of the household. I then desired John to interfere no more, but let the matter be pursued in their own way.

As soon as the company was gone, all but a Miss Mawer, who is on a visit to Mrs. Schwellenberg, I told my tale. Mrs. Schwellenberg said the orders had been hers, that a hot supper belonged to my establishment, and that sometimes she might come and eat it with me.

I had now not a word to add. At ten o’clock both she and Miss Mawer accompanied me to my room. Miss Mawer is an old maid; tall, thin, sharp-featured, hurrying and disagreeable in her manner, but, I believe, good-natured and good-hearted, from all I have observed in her. The smell of the meat soon grew offensive to Mrs. Schwellenberg, who left me with Miss Mawer. As I never eat any myself at night, all I could devise to make the perfume tolerable was to consider it as an opportunity for a lesson in carving: so I went to work straightforward to mangle my unbidden guest, for the use and service of Miss Mawer.

Soon after, I was delighted and surprised by the entrance of Mrs. Delany, ushered to my room by Major Price. The concert being over, and the royal family retired to supper, she would not go away without seeing me. I thanked the major for bringing me so sweet a guest, but I almost fear he expected to be invited in with her. I am sure I could have had nothing but pleasure from his joining us; but I had made a rule, on my thus first setting up for myself, to invite no man whatsoever, young, old, married, single, acquaintance or stranger, till I knew precisely the nature of my own situation: for I had been warned by an excellent friend, Mrs. de Luc, on my first entrance into office that there was no drawing back in a place such as this; and that therefore I ought studiously to keep back, till I felt my way, and knew, experimentally, what I could do, and what I should wish to leave alone. This advice has been of singular use to me, in a thousand particulars, from the very first to the present day of my abode in this Lodge.