When the hour came for the evening walk on the Terrace, Dr. Burney
took the arm of Dr. Lind; and Mrs. Delany consigned his daughter to
the charge of Lady Louisa Clayton, a sister of Lady Charlotte Finch,
Governess of the Princesses.
All the Royal Family were already on the Terrace. The King and Queen,
and the Prince of Mecklenburgh, her Majesty’s brother, walked together;
followed by a procession of the six lovely young Princesses, and some
of the Princes; exhibiting a gay and striking appearance of one of the
finest families in the world. Everywhere as they advanced, the crowd
drew back against the walls on each side, making a double hedge for
their passage: after which, the mass re-united behind, to follow.
When the King and Queen approached towards the party of Lady Louisa
Clayton, her ladyship most kindly placed by her own side the
Memorialist; without which attention she had been certainly unnoticed;
for the moment their Majesties were in sight, she instinctively looked
down, and drew her hat over her face. The courage with which their
graciousness had invested her in the interviews at Mrs. Delany’s,
where she was seen by them through their own courtesy, and at their
own desire, all failed her here; where she came with personal, or,
rather, filial views, and felt terrified lest they might appear to be
presumptuous.
The Doctor was annoyed by the same feeling; and looked so conscious
and embarrassed, that though he attained the honour of a bow from the
King, and a curtsey from the Queen, every time they passed him, he
involuntarily hung back, without the smallest attempt at even looking
for further notice. Thus, and almost laughably, each of them, after
coming so far merely with the hope of being recognized, might have
gone back to their cells, without raising a surmise that they had ever
quitted them, but for the considerate kindness of Lady Louisa Clayton;
who, in taking under her own wing the Memorialist, gave her a post of
honour too conspicuous to be unremarked.
And, as soon as the Queen had stopped, and spoken to Lady Louisa in
general terms, her Majesty, in a whisper, demanded, “Who is with you,
Lady Louisa?” And when Lady Louisa answered: “Miss Burney, Ma’am;”
her Majesty smilingly stepped nearer, with gentle and condescending
inquiries.
The King, then, having finished his discourse with some other party,
repeated the same question to Lady Louisa; and, having received the
same answer, immediately addressed himself to the Memorialist, to ask
whether she were come to Windsor to make any stay?
“No, Sir; not now.”
“I was sure,” cried the Queen, “she was not come to stay, by seeing her
father, who has so little time.”
“And when shall you come again,” said the King, “to Windsor?”
“Very soon—I hope, Sir!”
“And—and—and—” added he, half-laughing, and hesitating significantly,
while he flourished his hand and fingers as if wielding a pen; “pray—how
goes on—the Muse?”
To this she only answered by laughing also; but he would not be so
evaded, and repeated the interrogatory. She then replied, “Not at all,
Sir!”
“No?—but why?—why not?”
“I am—afraid, Sir!” she stammered.
“And why?” repeated he, surprised: “Of what are you afraid?—of what?—”
Ashamed, however gratified, at the implied civility of this surprise,
she answered something so hesitatingly and indistinctly, that he could
not hear—or, at least, understand her; though he had bent his head to
a level with her hat from the beginning of the little conference; and
after another such question or two, with no greater satisfaction of
reply—for she knew not how to treat so personal a subject in such full
Congress—he smiled very good-humouredly, as if suddenly recollecting
her father’s account of the shyness of her Muse, and walked on: the
Queen, wearing a smile of the same expression, by his side.
This exceeding condescension was truly reviving to Dr. Burney; but
it was all of good that repaid his journey and his effort. The place
which he sought with so many motives to expect, and for which his rank
in his profession so conclusively entitled him, he was informed, a
few days afterwards, had been given away instantly upon the death of
Mr. Stanley, without any consultation with his Majesty; and, it was
generally surmised, much to his Majesty’s displeasure.