Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 99

Fanny Burney to Mr. Crisp

April 12, 1783.

My dearest—dearest daddy,

I am more grieved at the long and most disappointing continuation of your illness than I know how to tell you; and though my last account, I thank heaven, is better, I find you still suffer so much, that my congratulations in my letter to Susan, upon what I thought your recovery, must have appeared quite crazy, if you did not know me as well as you do, and were not sure what affliction the discovery of my mistake would bring to myself. I think I never yet so much wished to be at Chesington, as at this time, that I might see how you go on, and not be kept in such painful suspense from post to post.

Why did you tell me of the Deladys, Portlands, Cambridges, etc., as if any of them came into competition with yourself? When you are better, I shall send you a most fierce and sharp remonstrance upon this subject. At present I must be content with saying, I will undoubtedly accept your most kind invitation as soon as I possibly can. Meantime, if my letters will give you any amusement, I will write oftener than ever, and supply you with all the prog I get myself.

Susan, who is my reader, must be your writer, and let me know if such tittle-tattle as I can collect serves to divert some of those many moments of languor and weariness that creep between pain and ease, and that call more for mental food than for bodily medicine. Your love to your Fannikin, I well know, makes all trash interesting to you that seems to concern her; and I have no greater pleasure, when absent, than in letting you and my dear Susan be acquainted with my proceedings. I don’t mean by this to exclude the rest of the dear Chesington set—far from it—but a sister and a daddy must come first.

God bless and restore you, my most dear daddy! You know not how kindly I take your thinking of me, and inquiring about me, in an illness that might so well make you forget us all; but Susan assures me your heart is as affectionate as ever to your ever and ever faithful and loving child, F. B.

(Mr. Crisp’s illness became so alarming, that Miss Burney hastened to Chesington, where she had been only a few days when her valued friend breathed his last. In reply to a letter, in which she had given Dr. Burney an account of Mr. Crisp’s increasing sufferings, the doctor wrote:

“Ah! my dear Fanny, your last letter has broke all our hearts! your former accounts kept off despair; but this brings it back in all its horrors. I wish, if it were possible, that you would let him know how much I loved him, and how heavily I shall feel his loss when all this hurry subsides, and lets me have time to brood over my sorrows. I have always thought that, in many particulars, his equal was not to be found. His wit, learning, taste, penetration, and, when well, his conviviality, pleasantry, and kindness of heart to me and mine, will ever be thought of with the most profound and desponding regret.”

After the last mournful duties had been performed at Chesington,¹⁴⁶ Miss Burney returned to her father’s house in St. Martin’s-street; but some time elapsed ere she recovered composure sufficient to resume her journal.)