Two or three weeks passed without her hearing anything of the book, and
it seemed as if it had fallen, as she had at some moments hoped it would
fall, like a dull stone into the depths of the sea. She heard nothing of
it, and soon she perceived that her sisters felt grievously disappointed
at its failure to produce any impression upon the town. Even a dull
stone, if dropped into the deep, creates a little fuss on the surface
before it sinks out of sight; but Fanny’s book did not, so far as they
could see, produce even so superficial an impression. What they expected
of it they might have had some trouble explaining; but as it was, they
could not conceal their disappointment from Fanny; and they showed it
after a short time in a very delicate way: they never alluded to the book
in her presence. She perceived that what was in their minds was that it
would show very bad taste on their part to refer to it in any way. She
was grateful for their consideration; and she resolved to accept their
decision on this point as final; she would never allude to the horrid
thing in their hearing.
It so happened, however, that she was left alone with Susy in the
house one evening. Dr. Burney and his wife had gone to a concert at
Esther’s, and Lottie was staying for a day or two in the country. Susy
was practising her part of a new duet on the piano, and Fanny was at her
sewing. So far as conversation between the two sisters was concerned,
the evening had been a very silent one. Indeed, during the whole week a
constrained silence had marked the intercourse of the three girls.
Susy hammered away at the music for half an hour; then her playing became
more fitful, and at last it ceased altogether.
There was a long silence before Fanny heard a little sound that caused
her to raise her head. It was the sound of a sob, and when she looked up
she saw that Susy was leaning her forehead upon the bottom of the music
rest, weeping bitterly.
Fanny was by her side in a moment.
“Dearest Susy, what is the matter?” she said soothingly. “Tell me, dear;
has anything happened? Has anyone been unkind to you? Have I unwittingly
done or said anything that seemed to you unkind? Tell me all, Susy.”
But Susy continued crying with her face hidden, though she yielded one of
her hands to Fanny.
“Come, my dear, I have helped you before now, and I may be able to help
you now. Prithee, what is your trouble?” said Fanny, putting her arm
round the girl’s shoulders.
Still Susy remained silent, except for her sobs.
“Tell me,” said Fanny, in a whisper. “Is it that you think that I am
chagrined about—about—the book?”
In an instant Susy had whirled round on her seat and flung her arms round
her sister’s neck, laying her head on her shoulder.
“Oh, Fanny, Fanny, ’tis too cruel!” she sobbed. “We were sure that so
much would come of it—it seemed so splendid to read, even before it was
printed—so much better than any other story that ever came into our
hands—and you worked so hard at it—every spare moment when you might have
been enjoying yourself—in the cold of last winter up in that room—and at
Lynn too—and Chessington—and now, when we think that your cleverness,
your patience, your genius, is to be rewarded, nothing comes of it—all
your trouble has gone for nothing—all our secrecy! Oh, it is too cruel!”
“You dear child,” said Fanny. “It is only cruel if it sets you crying in
this way. What does it matter to anyone if the book has gone and nothing
has come of it? I have been thinking that writing a book and publishing
it is like throwing a stone into the sea. It may fall so that it sinks
down plumb, or it may fall so that it makes a splash for a while, but
it sinks to the bottom all the same. Success or failure is only the
difference between a splash and a ripple. We were fools to fancy that our
little stone would float.”
“But it was not a stone, it was full of life and it should have—it should
have—swum! Oh, the people who buy books are so stupid!”
“They are—that was the hope that I builded on. They are stupid, but not
stupid enough to buy my book.”
“Oh, Fanny!”
“That is really the frame of mind that I find myself in to-day. I tell
you truly, Susy, that after the first week, I schooled myself to think of
the business in this way; and I am certain that in another month I shall
even feel delighted that my little pebble made no splash. Look at the
matter philosophically, Susy.”
“Oh, philosophically!”
“Well, reasonably. Are we in a different position to-day from that we
were in before the book was published? We are not. We are just the same
as we were before. It has not injured us in any way. Nay, if you think of
it, we are—I, at least, am—all the better for having failed, for I have
learned my lesson. I was beginning to feel cleverer than I had any right
to think myself, and this has come as a chastening—to make me know my
right place. These rebukes do not come by chance, Susy. I know now that
I was inclined to hold my head too high. I don’t think that I will do so
again.”
“You never held your head too high—just the opposite. And I think it very
cruel that you should be rebuked for nothing. But I do not blame anyone
except the wretched people who refused to buy your nice book, but spent
their seven and sixpence at Vauxhall or Ranelagh—perhaps watching Mr.
Foote and his puppets at the Haymarket. Oh, I have no patience with them!
Why, it only needed a thousand people to buy the book and it would have
been accounted a success!”
“Then we shall put the blame on the shoulders of that thousand,
wheresoever they may be found, and for my part I shall not hold a second
thousand altogether blameless—my indignation may even extend to a third.
Now, that’s the last word I mean to speak about the book. It has by this
time reached the bottom of the sea on which I threw it; and there let it
lie!”
“You are an angel—I see that plainly now.”
“Ah, there you see, what I said was true: I am much better for the rebuke
I talked about; you never perceived before that I was an angel. Now
let that be the last word between us on the subject of my poor little
‘Evelina.’ Her entrance into the world has proved fatal. Oh, Susy, she
was stillborn, but her parent is making a rapid recovery.”
“That may be; but cannot you join with me in—”
“I will join with you in maintaining silence on the subject of the little
one. I cannot bear to hear her name mentioned. I refuse to say another
word about her or her fate. She must have been greatly beloved of the
gods to die so young. Let that be ‘Evelina’s’ epitaph. I will say nothing
more about her.”
It so happened, however, that she was compelled to say a good deal more
on the subject, for within half an hour Cousin Edward had called, and he
began to talk of “Evelina” at once.
“I went to Hill’s library in the Strand yesterday, to get a book for
mother, and there, sure enough, I saw your ‘Evelina,’” said he. “I asked
the man in charge what it was about, and he replied that he didn’t know;
it was bad enough, he thought, to be compelled to hand out books all day
to readers without being forced to read them for himself; but he supposed
that ‘Evelina’ was a novel of the usual sort.”
“That was not extravagant praise,” remarked Susy.
“He didn’t mean to praise it,” said Edward. “But when I asked him if
anyone who had read it had recommended it, he admitted that every one
of the five ladies who had read it was ready to speak well of it—one of
them had taken it away a second time; and—would you believe it?—while I
was standing at the counter a footman entered the shop with a demand for
‘Evelina,’ as he called it; and he carried off the copy that was already
on the desk.”
“For the delectation of the servants’ hall?” suggested Fanny.
“Not at all—it had been recommended to her ladyship, he said, and he
had been commanded on no account to return without it; her ladyship
was liberal; she would not mind paying sixpence for it, instead of the
ordinary fourpence.”
“That was more than liberal, it was generous to a degree,” said Fanny.
“Don’t interrupt him,” cried Susy. “Continue your narrative, Eddy. I am
dying to hear the rest.”
“I asked the library man if he knew who wrote the book, and he replied
that he had heard the name, but had forgotten it; so far as he remembered
the author was a peer of high rank but eccentric habits,” said Edward.
“The book represented his eccentric habits, I suppose,” remarked Fanny.
“I ran out of the place roaring,” said Edward. “‘A peer of high rank but
eccentric habits’—describes you to a T, doesn’t it, Cousin Fanny? Pray
what is your lordship’s next work to be, and when will it be given to an
eager world?”
“Is that all you have to tell?” asked Susy.
“By no means. When I heard that the book was thought well of in the
Strand, I thought I would try to get at the opinion of Stanhope
Street—you know Masterman’s circulating library there? Well, I boldly
entered, and there, sure enough, was a well-thumbed ‘Evelina’ in front of
the librarian. I asked for some book that no one had ever heard of, and
when the librarian had told me that he had never been asked for that book
before, I pointed to ‘Evelina,’ inquiring if it was any good. ‘I’m dead
tired on account of its goodness, for I was fool enough to take it to bed
with me last night, and I never closed my eyes in sleep,’ he replied. ‘I
had it praised to me by a lady of quality, and so too hastily concluded
that it would either send me asleep with its dullness, or shock me with
its ribaldry; but it did neither, unhappily.’ Just then a chariot stopped
at the door and another footman entered with the name ‘Evelina’ written
on a sheet of paper, and off he popped with the full three volumes under
his arm. I waited no longer; but hurried hither to give you my news. I
did not get so far, however, for I was unlucky enough to be overtaken by
that vile downpour of rain, and it did not blow over until your dinner
hour was at hand.”
“You are my good angel!” cried Fanny, her cheeks glowing. “We have heard
nothing of all this respecting the book, and, hearing nothing, we took it
for granted that it was dead—dead before it was ever alive. Oh, this is
good news you have brought us, Eddy!”
“The best news that has come to us for months!” said Susy. She had turned
her head away and was furtively wiping her eyes. The good news affected
the sympathetic Susy almost as deeply as her disappointment had done.
“But I have only told you of my adventures of yesterday,” said Edward.
“To-day I tried the booksellers, beginning with Mr. Davies and working
round to the Dillys in the Poultry—it cost me three shillings, for I
had to buy something that I did not particularly want in every shop to
excuse my inquiries—and I found ‘Evelina’ on every counter. I cannot
say that any customer came in to buy it while I was in any shop, but
you may be sure that the book would not be on the counter unless it was
highly thought of. Of course I had need to be very discreet among the
booksellers; I dared not ask who was the author, but I longed to do so,
if only to hear what new story had been made up about it.”
“You heard quite enough to make us glad,” cried Susy. “Oh, how foolish we
were to take it for granted that because we had no news of the book, it
was dead! It is alive—greatly alive, it would appear! How could any news
of it have come to us here? We should have gone forth in search of it.”
“I knew that we could depend on your discretion,” said Fanny, laying a
hand on each of his shoulders. “I do not think that I ever thanked you
as I should for the wise way in which you managed the business with Mr.
Lowndes, and now I must not neglect to do so for having acted the part of
a benevolent agent in bringing us such good news about the book.”
“Psha! there should be no talk of gratitude and the like between us,”
said he. “There are family ties—I think of the honour of our family.
People already talk of the clever Burneys, but they left you out of the
question, Cousin Fanny, since they only thought of music. But now that
you have shown what you can do in another direction, you must be reckoned
with alongside the others.”
“And what about the other branch of the clever Burneys?” said Fanny.
“Don’t you think that people will some of these days begin to ask if
Edward Burney, the great painter, is really a brother of the musical
Burneys? I hope they will, dear Edward; I hope that the fame of Edward
Burney, the painter, will go far beyond that of the musical Burneys, as
well as poor Fanny Burney, who once wrote a novel.”
The young man blushed as Fanny herself would certainly have done if
confronted with the least little compliment. But there was no false shame
about his acceptance of her suggestion.
“I mean to become as good a painter as I can, in order to be worthy of
the name of Burney,” said he. “I feel proud of being a Burney—more so
to-day than ever before, and I hope that the rest of the Burneys will
some day look on me as doing credit to our name.”
“I am sure that they will have every reason to do so,” said Fanny.
When he had gone, Susy gave way to her delight at the news which he had
brought. She was a good deal taller than Fanny, and catching her round
the waist after the manner of the Elizabethan dancer with his partner,
she danced round the table with her, lilting a somewhat breathless
pæan. Fanny herself needed no coaxing to be her partner in this revel.
In her jubilant moments she got rid of the primness which most people
associated with her. She had a wild jig known as “Nancy Dawson,” and
she had more than once found it necessary to get rid of her superfluous
spirits through this medium. She joined in her sister’s little whoop
at the completion of the third “lap” of the table, and they both threw
themselves breathless on the sofa.
“I knew it,” said Susy between her gasps. “I knew that I could not be
mistaken in believing ‘Evelina’ to be good—I knew that she would make
her way in the affections of her readers, and I was right—you see I was
right.”
“You were right, dear Susy—quite right,” said Fanny. “I do not like to be
too sanguine, but I do believe, from the reports Eddy brought us, that
the book will find plenty of readers. Now that we can think over the
matter in a reasonable way, we must see how foolish we were to expect
that the very day after the book was published people would crowd to buy
it; but now, after six weeks, when Eddy goes in search of news about
it, he brings back a report which is—we had best say for the present
no more than ‘quite satisfactory’—that was the bookseller’s report
about the sales of the first volume of the padre’s ‘History’—‘quite
satisfactory’—that should be quite satisfactory for the author of
‘Evelina’ and her sisters. There is nothing in the book to stir people
as it would if written by Mr. Wilkes, but in its humble way it will, I
am now persuaded, be pronounced ‘quite satisfactory.’ At any rate, there
goes my sewing for the evening.”
She rolled up the strip of linen into a ball and used her hand, after two
false starts, as a battledore, to send it flying across the room within
reach of Susy, who, being more adroit, was able at the first attempt to
return it with both force and precision. Once more Fanny struck it, and
her sister sent it back, but by this time the unequal ball had opened
out, so that it was only by her foot that Fanny could deal with it
effectively. Then, daintily holding up their petticoats, the author of
‘Evelina’ and Susy Burney played with the thing until once more they were
panting and laughing joyously.
Perhaps Fanny had a faint inkling of the symbolism implied by this
treatment of the discarded needlework.