In the course of the morning Esther, the married daughter of the Burney
family, called at the house in St. Martin’s Street. Esther, or as she was
usually alluded to by her sisters, Hetty or Hettina, was handsome and
accomplished. She had been married for some years to her cousin, Charles
Rousseau Burney, who was a musician, and they lived and enjoyed living in
an atmosphere of music. Her father took care that she was never likely to
be asphyxiated; their atmosphere would never become attenuated so long
as they lived, as they did, close to St. Martin’s Street. He was well
aware of the fact that his Hetty’s duets with her husband—“matrimonial
duets” they were called by Fanny in some of her letters—and also with
her sister Charlotte, served to attract many distinguished visitors and
profitable patrons to his house; he never forgot that profitable patrons
and patronesses are always attracted by distinguished visitors. When one
finds oneself in the company of distinguished people, one naturally feels
a distinguished person also.
Moreover, Dr. Burney knew perfectly well that when ambitious patrons
and patronesses were made aware of the success which he had achieved
in respect of his daughters, they were all ready to implore of him to
spare some of his valuable time to give lessons to themselves, seeing
no reason why, with his assistance, they should not reach the level of
his two musical daughters. He conducted his teaching on the principle
which brings fortunes to the Parisian modiste, who takes good care that
her mannequins are good-looking and of a fine figure, knowing that the
visitors to the showrooms have no doubt, no matter how little Nature
has done for their own features or figures, that in the robes of the
mannequins they will appear equally fascinating.
The adoption of this system in the Burney household operated extremely
well, and Dr. Burney had for several years enjoyed the proceeds of his
cultivation of the musical tastes of the most influential clientèle in
London. In addition, the greatest singers in Europe, knowing that there
was always an influential _assistance_ to be found at Dr. Burney’s little
concerts in St. Martin’s Street, were greatly pleased to contribute to
the entertainment, for love, what they were in the habit of receiving
large sums for from an impresario. Those Italian operatic artists most
notorious for the extravagance of their demands when appearing in
public, were pushing each other aside, so to speak, to be allowed to
sing at Dr. Burney’s, and really upon more than one occasion the contest
between the generosity of a pair of the most distinguished of these
singers must have been somewhat embarrassing to Dr. Burney. They were
clearly singing against each other; and one of them, who invariably
received fifty guineas for every contribution she made to a programme
in public, insisted on singing no fewer than five songs, “all for love”
(and to prove her superiority to her rival), upon a certain occasion at
the Burneys’; so that really the little company ran a chance of being
suffocated beneath the burden of flowers, as it were—the never-ending
_fioriture_ of these generous artists—and Dr. Burney found himself in the
position of the lion-tamer who runs a chance of being overwhelmed by the
caresses of the carnivora who rush to lick his hands.
The result of all this was extremely gratifying, and eminently
profitable. Had Dr. Burney not been a great musician and shown by the
publication of the first volume of the greatest History of Music the
world had yet received, that he was worthy of being placed in the
foremost ranks of scientific musicians, he would have run a chance of
being placed only a little higher than the musical Cornelys of Soho
Square, who gave their concerts, and entertained their friends, and made
quite a reputation for some years before bankruptcy overtook them and the
precincts of the Fleet became their headquarters.
And now the beautiful Esther Burney was toying with the contents of her
sister Fanny’s work-basket, talking about her husband and his prospects,
and inquiring what Mr. Garrick and James had to talk about in the room
downstairs.
“Pray speak in French to Fanny,” said Mrs. Burney. “I cannot get Lottie
and Susan to do so as frequently as I could wish. You must remember that
poor Fanny has had none of your advantages, and I do not want her to be
talked of as the dunce of the family. She really is not a dunce, you
know; in spite of her bad sight she really has done some very pretty
sewing.”
“I have seen it,” said Esther. “She works very neatly—more neatly than
any of us.”
Fanny blushed and smiled her thanks to her sister for the compliment.
“What else is there left for me to do but to give all my attention to
my needle?” she said. “I constantly feel that I am the dunce of the
family—you are all so clever.”
“It is well for many families that they include one useful member,”
said her stepmother in a way that suggested her complete agreement
with the girl’s confession that she was the dunce of the family. A
mother’s acknowledgment that a girl is either useful or good-natured is
practically an announcement that she is neither pretty nor accomplished.
“And Fanny has many friends,” continued Mrs. Burney indulgently.
“Which shows how kind people are, even to a dunce,” said Fanny, not
bitterly, but quite good-humouredly.
“But I am not sure that she should spend so much of her time writing to
Mr. Crisp,” said the elder Mrs. Burney to the younger.
“Oh, poor Daddy Crisp!” cried Fanny. “Pray, mother, do not cut him off
from his weekly budget of news. If I fail to send him a letter he is
really disconsolate. ’Tis my letters that keep him still in touch with
the life of the town.”
“Well, well, my dear Fanny, I shall not deprive you of your Daddy Crisp,”
said her stepmother. “Poor Mr. Crisp must not be left to the tender
mercies of Susan or Lottie. He is most hospitable, and his house at
Chessington makes a pleasant change for us now and again, and he took a
great fancy to you from the first.”
“Daddy Crisp was always Fanny’s special friend,” said Esther. “And I am
sure that it is good practice for Fanny to write to him.”
“Oh, she has long ago given up that childish nonsense,” cried the mother.
“Poor Fanny made a pretty bonfire of her scribblings, and she has shown
no weakness in that way since she took my advice in regard to them.”
Fanny was blushing furiously and giving all her attention to her work.
“She has still a sense of the guilt that attaches to the writing of
stories, though I am sure that no one in this house remembers it against
her,” said Esther with a laugh, as Fanny’s blushes increased. “But
indeed I had not in my mind Mr. Crisp’s advantage to her in this way,
but only in regard to her correspondence. She has become quite an expert
letter-writer since he induced her to send him her budget, and indeed I
think that good letter-writing is as much of an accomplishment in these
careless days as good singing—that is ordinary good singing—the good
singing that we hear from some of father’s pupils—Queenie Thrale, _par
exemple_!”
“Your father is a good teacher, but the best teacher in the world cannot
endow with a good singing-voice anyone who has not been so gifted by
Nature,” said the elder lady. “’Tis somewhat different, to be sure, in
regard to correspondence, and I do not doubt that Fanny’s practice in
writing to good Mr. Crisp will one day cause her to be regarded as one
of the best letter-writers in the family, and that is something. It is
a ladylike accomplishment, and one that is worth excelling in; it gives
innocent pleasure to so many of her friends who live at a distance; and
your father can always obtain plenty of franks, Mr. Charmier and Mr.
Thrale are very obliging.”
Fanny was a little fidgety while her eldest sister and her stepmother
were discussing her in a tone of indulgence which was more humiliating
than open reprobation would have been. But she knew that the truth
was, that from her earliest years she was looked on as the dunce of
the family, and she was so morbidly self-conscious that she was quite
ready to accept their estimate of her. The silent member of a musical
family soon finds out how she is looked on by the others; not with
unkindness—quite the contrary—but only as if she were to be slightly
pitied for her deficiency. But she had a secret or two, the treasuring of
which in her heart prevented her from having any feeling of humiliation
in the presence of her splendid sister, whom all the world sought to
attract to their houses, especially when there were guests anxious to be
entertained by the sweet singing of a handsome young woman with a very
presentable young husband. Fanny had her secrets and cherished them with
a fearful joy, for she knew that any day might remove either or both
of them, and then there would be nothing left for her in the household
but to put her heart into her needlework. But one cannot do needlework
without needles, and if she were to put her heart into her work, and if
every needle had a point, the result would, she knew, be a good many
prickings.
She trusted that she might never be condemned to put her heart into her
needlework.