“Are you sure you never play?--never touch the keys at all.”
“Never to acknowledge it, sir.”
“Oh! that's it!” cried he; and flying to the queen, cried, “She does
play--but not to acknowledge it!”
I was now in a most horrible panic once more; pushed so very home, I
could answer no other than I did, for these categorical questions
almost constrain categorical answers; and here, at Windsor, it seems an
absolute point that whatever they ask must be told, and whatever they
desire must be done. Think but, then, of my consternation, in expecting
their commands to perform! My dear father, pity me!
The eager air with which he returned to me fully explained what was
to follow. I hastily, therefore, spoke first, in order to stop him,
crying--“I never, sir, played to anybody but myself!--never!”
“No?” cried he, looking incredulous; “what, not to--
“Not even to me, sir!” cried my kind Mrs. Delany, who saw what was
threatening me.
“No?--are you sure?” cried he, disappointed; “but--but you'll--”
“I have never, sir,” cried I, very earnestly, “played in my life, but
when I could hear nobody else--quite alone, and from a mere love of any
musical sounds.”
He repeated all this to the queen, whose answers I never heard; but when
he once more came back, with a face that looked unwilling to give it
up, in my fright I had recourse to dumb show, and raised my hands in a
supplicating fold, with a most begging countenance to be excused. This,
luckily, succeeded; he understood me very readily, and laughed a little,
but made a sort of desisting, or rather complying, little bow, and said
no more about it.
I felt very much obliged to him, for I saw his curiosity was all alive,
I wished I could have kissed his hand. He still, however, kept me in
talk, and still upon music.
“To me,” said he, “it appears quite as strange to meet with people who
have no ear for music, and cannot distinguish one air from another, as
to meet with people who are dumb. Lady Bell Finch once told me that she
had heard there was some difference between a psalm, a minuet, and a
country dance, but she declared they all sounded alike to her! There are
people who have no eye for difference of colour. The Duke of Marlborough
actually cannot tell scarlet from green!”
He then told me an anecdote of his mistaking one of those colours for
another, which was very laughable, but I do not remember it clearly
enough to write it. How unfortunate for true virtuosi that such an eye
should possess objects worthy the most discerning--the treasures of
Blenheim! “I do not find, though,” added his majesty, “that this defect
runs in his family, for Lady Di Beauclerk, draws very finely.”
He then went to Mr. Bernard Dewes.
Almost instantly upon his leaving me, a very gentle voice called
out--“Miss Burney!”
It was the queen's. I walked a little nearer her, and a gracious
inclination of her head made me go quite up to her.
“You have been,” she said, “at Mrs. Walsingham's?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“She has a pretty place, I believe?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Were you ever there before?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Oh, shocking! shocking! thought I; what will Mrs. Delany say to all
these monosyllables?
“Has not she lately made some improvements?”
“Yes, ma'am; she has built a conservatory.”
Then followed some questions about its situation, during which the king
came up to us; and she then, ceasing to address me in particular, began
a general sort of conversation, with a spirit and animation that I
had not at all expected, and which seemed the result of the great and
benevolent pleasure she took in giving entertainment to Mrs. Delany.