"I would not presume to counsel, Miss Burney, but if you so crave for your
family and friends, were it not well to seek their healing company? None
can doubt that your health suffers under the restraints of court life, and
Miss Burney's is a health valuable to the world at large."
I ever found that a little well-turned compliment softened her sense of
injury. She smiled gratefully upon me and was silent; then softly pressed
my hand.
I related this little scene to the tender-hearted Princess Royal who took
the pains to make an opportunity with Miss Burney, when we were in
attendance for that walk on the Windsor Terrace which so often presented
the Royal Family to the view of a delighted people. The procession was not
yet formed, Their Majesties not having appeared. She detached herself from
her group of sweet sisters, holding the little darling Princess Amelia by
the hand, and said:--
"Are you fit for the walk, Miss Burney? You appear tired and unwell.
Permit me to make your excuses to the Queen."
She paused, and Miss Burney warmly thanked her and said tremblingly that
she believed she could support herself through the walk.
"But why?" exclaimed Her Royal Highness. "Indeed, we are not such tyrants,
and allow me to say, my dear Miss Burney, that if you should feel--should
think you need a long rest--_a releasing_ rest, there need be no
hesitation in mentioning it to the Queen."
She repeated this with emphasis and glided away. I saw Miss Burney's eyes
moisten as she turned and retreated.
Events now succeeded each other slowly but surely. The Queen had with
reluctance accepted her resignation, the successor had been found, and the
time drew near for departure when, most unexpectedly, my whole view was
changed with regard to Miss Burney's feelings.
We were walking in the Park on a fine sunny day, having chosen the Long
Walk which leads to the eminence and its noble prospect of the Castle,
though scarcely with hope of reaching it so slow were our footsteps. I had
led the talk to her writings and she gave me some interesting particulars
of the praise "Evelina" had received from such judges as Mrs Delany and
the Duchess of Portland, who agreed in thinking it a book likely to do
more good than any other ever published, from its high principles wrapped
in a glitter of entertainment. This was a subject on which she never
wearied, and I was pressing for its continuance, when we beheld a lady
approaching, leaning on a gentleman's arm--a handsome woman in a rich
pelerine and jewellery--and with a start my companion caught my arm,
crying softly: "Mrs Thrale--Mrs Piozzi. Good heavens! For years we have
not met. Oh, could we escape."
I was no stranger to the fact that they had been the closest friends and
that Mrs Thrale's most injudicious marriage with a Roman Catholic and a
foreigner had ruptured the friendship on Miss Burney's very proper
objection to such an alliance. It is known how society, how even the
papers, rung with the scandal of a lady of birth and fortune thus
forgetting what was due to herself and others. And a fresh blaze had
lately been kindled by the publication of Dr Johnson's Letters and many
anecdotes relative to the life at L>treatham, all of which Miss Burney
had entirely disapproved. I could not sympathise with Mrs
Thrale-Piozzi--impossible that any right-minded person should, but I
own to the deepest curiosity to see her, and above all to witness her
meeting with this discarded friend, having understood from my own
friends that feeling run very high between them. Consequently I did
not hurry my steps.
"For Heaven's sake, hasten!" cried Miss Burney. "'T is Mr Piozzi himself.
Was ever anything so mortifying!"
Unfortunately Mrs Piozzi heard these words and recognised the speaker.
"Mortify not yourself, Miss Burney, I entreat. Mr Piozzi is obliged to
hasten into Windsor to bespeak apartments at the White Hart. Delay not,
Piozzi. I will follow. Do I see my Burney in good health?"
I was never so affrighted in my life. The lady, though short, had such an
air of resolution and her eyes shot such lively sparks of anger hid under
a show of good humour that I looked to see Miss Burney sink at my feet.
She also was in a horrid fright if panting breath and fading cheeks may be
trusted. I would now have fled but she detained me by the hand and
presented me to a sweeping curtsey from Mrs Piozzi. Doubtless she thought
my presence would confine the meeting to the forms of politeness.
Accustomed to courts, I could not consider the lady high-bred, but her
energy and intelligence were overpowering.
"I have not seen you since my return, dear Burney," says she, "but am glad
of this favourable opportunity to ask if what I have been told is
true--that Baretti was inspired and abetted in his attack on my marriage by
friends I could the least suspect. Pray emulate my candour. An open enemy
is preferable to a stabbing friend."
"Surely, Madam, before a third person--" began Miss Burney, but was
interrupted:--
"I have learnt to know a witness is very valuable on occasion. All I
require is a plain 'Yes' or 'No.'"
"Then 'No'--a thousand times 'No,'" cried Miss Burney with immense spirit.
"I know nothing of Baretti--would know nothing--a violent unprincipled
man, that frightened myself. That I disapproved your marriage is known--"
"And on what impertinent grounds!" Mrs Piozzi was now trembling with
rage--and as pale as Miss Burney. "Let me tell you, Madam, that a
gentleman of good birth is not to be despised, and his means of L1200
per annum, though not splendour in comparison with my own revenue, set
him above all mercenary imputation!"
'T was with the greatest effort my companion now clung to her cautious
decorum, for she was palpitating violently as she held to my arm.
"Madam, money was not in question. A woman who will marry a foreigner and
a Roman Catholic, in both respects her country's foe, must expect--"
I looked for an explosion but, as happens when women quarrel, Mrs Piozzi's
humour took the most unexpected turn. She laughed:--
"Ah, Fanny, Fanny, that was the world's voice. Time was you loved me
kindly; but the world you always did and will love reverentially.
Well--continue!--'t is worth it. The world has its prizes to give and I
have none now. I did not even provide a husband for my friend, and your
Royals have not been more successful--I know not why. The day may come
when you yourself may fall back on a foreigner and Roman Catholic, and,
if so, may he be as good as mine and may you live as happy with him!"
She curtseyed and made to move on. I thought of this later when Miss
Burney married M. D'Arblay, a Frenchman and Roman Catholic. I wondered
then if she recalled this scene and her own strictures. She bridled with
dignity.
"I can scarce imagine Dr Burney's daughter doing the like, Madam. My
tastes are all English. But is it well to prolong this talk? Our ways of
life are now so different--"
"Truly all is changed--and you with it. But I was ever a prophet, Fanny,
and I venture to tell you that you have so overloaded your heart and your
wits with caution and fear of the world's opinion that when you take pen
in hand once more you 'll find it clogged and heavy. 'T will move on
stilts instead of the light heels that danced 'Evelina,' and the
ungrateful world will say, 'There goes a woman that if she had shut her
eyes on forms and opened them on nature had been the glory of her age.'
You are too fearful of the world, Fanny. I flew in its face and found its
bark worse than its bite, and that if you kicked it, it crawled to kiss
your feet. And so now good-bye."
They both curtseyed angrily, and Mrs Piozzi proceeded quickly down the
drive, then suddenly turned and ran back, both hands outstretched:--
"Fanny, Fanny, I can't--" she panted. "It all so rose on me with the sight
of you. My master at the table, and Johnson in his chair booming out his
wisdoms, and Burke, and poor Goldie--Oh, the poor dead days--the sad dead
days--and you a part of them all; and could I say a word to wound you, no
matter what you did to me! You that were a part of it all--I felt as if I
would kill it outright if I left you in anger. Can one kill ghosts?--they
are but ghosts, and yet--Oh, Fanny!"
She held out her shaking hands. I knew this shockingly disordered Miss
Burney's notions of propriety and that a lady out of favour with the great
world should be seen by me thus familiar with her, and she at Court. She
barely touched the hand.
"It was to the memory of those days your friends looked to keep you in a
becoming path," said she. "Indeed I share your affection for them, but to
remember them thus--"
"Do you so?" says the other a little wildly, and drawing back to dash the
tears from her eyes. "Then remember them your way and I 'll remember them
mine, and so our paths go east and west: (then turning to me,) I'm sure I
ask your pardon, Ma'am, for what must appear so declamatory and
high-flown. We Welsh folk, like all the other poor Celts, are allowed
romantic flights sometimes to make sport for the sober English. Farewell,
Miss Burney. My! best compliments and respects attend your father."
She ran off again very quick and tripping. We stood looking after her till
Miss Burney spoke:--
"The tenderness I had and have for her is not to be expressed nor compared
save with the love of David for Jonathan. How have I been wounded!
Yourself, my dear Miss P., is a witness to her ungoverned passions. Your
delicacy will not prefer to entail the misery of explanation on me."
I hurriedly disclaimed any wish to pursue the subject, and she was silent
as if revolving the scene. But why should I now hesitate to own that
though all the propriety of speech and silence had been on Miss Burney's
side, my own sympathies were engaged with the poor lady. I thought a heart
that less weighed opinion must have melted at her appeal to fond memories,
gushing warm from a sensibility that she could not control. Since that
interview, when I have heard Mrs. Piozzi censured I could comprehend the
high romantic notion with which she had entered on her marriage, and the
more so, since I had been credibly informed that Mr Piozzi was in all
respects admirable could he but have had the blessing to be born an
Englishman and Protestant.
"Dear Miss P., I trust to you to keep this painful meeting a secret," said
my companion. "I know your serious and respectable character too well to
doubt you will draw the veil over the wild ungoverned temper of one once
so honoured."
I promised and reserved my thoughts and we turned back to the Castle. But
the events of this astonishing walk were not yet at an end. We were
nearing the gates of the gardens, when we saw Colonel and Mrs Digby
beneath the trees on the further side. They were not conversing and the
whole width of the path was between them. It gave rightly or wrongly an
air of dissatisfaction, of weariness in each other's company, that struck
me as instantly as it did my companion, though of course it could be no
surprise to see them where all the Household took their airings when they
would. She drew me sharply behind a tree.
"Miss P.," she said in breathless agitation, "it is not the least of my
sufferings here that I know it is supposed they are caused by this
marriage. I beg you would not deny it (for I would have spoken)--it is
too palpable that this is believed. Yet you are wrong--completely wrong.
Those who have ceased to give us pleasure very soon lose the power to give
us pain; and I view his marriage with an indifference that wishes him
neither well nor ill. My heart was never engaged. I will not deny that he
risked it and all my peace with it, but he succeeded not. I do not form
one wish to be in her place whom we have just seen. They will have what
happiness they deserve and, if I am not mistaken, I think it will be
little indeed."
She turned and gazed after them with an expression of bitterness the most
concentrated. Never again did I doubt that it was not wounded love but
wounded pride which was driving her from Court into the retirement of her
home. Let others more capable than myself judge which is the severer pang!
She had never regarded him further than as he had flattered her vanity as
woman and genius, and a burning resentment at the public slight was all
that needed commiseration.