The subject was the last Drawing-room, which she had been in town to
keep on Thursday, during the dense fog.
“I assure you, ma'am,” cried she to Mrs. Delany, “it was so dark, there
was no seeing anything, and no knowing any body. And Lady Harcourt could
be of no help to tell me who people were, for when it was light, she
can't see and now it was dark, I could not see myself. So it was in vain
for me to go on in that manner, without knowing which I had spoken to,
and which was waiting for me; so I said to Lady Harcourt, 'We had better
stop, and stand quite still, for I don't know anybody, no more than you
do. But if we stand still, they will all come up in the end, and we must
ask them who they are, and if I have spoken to them yet, or not: for it
is very odd to do it, but what else can we manage?'”
Her accent is a little foreign, and very prettily so; and her emphasis
has that sort of changeability, which gives an interest to everything
she utters. But her language is rather peculiar than foreign.
“'Besides,”' added she, with a very significant look, “'if we go on here
in the dark, maybe I shall push against somebody, or somebody will push
against me--which is the more likely to happen.'”
She then gave an account of some circumstances which attended the
darkness, in a manner not only extremely lively, but mixed, at times,
with an archness and humour that made it very entertaining. She chiefly
addressed herself to Mrs. Delany; and to me, certainly, she would not,
separately, have been so communicative; but she contrived, with great
delicacy, to include me in the little party, by frequently looking at
me, and always with an expression that invited my participation in the
conversation. And, indeed, though I did not join in words, I shared very
openly in the pleasure of her recital.
“Well,” she continued, “so there was standing by me a man that I could
not see in the face; but I saw the twisting of his bow; and I said
to Lady Harcourt, 'I am sure that must be nobody but the Duke of
Dorset.'--'Dear,' she says, 'how can you tell that?'--'Only ask,' said
I; and so it proved he.”
“Yes,” cried the king, “he is pretty well again; he can smile again,
now!”
It seems his features had appeared to be fixed, or stiffened. It is
said, he has been obliged to hold his hand to his mouth, to hide it,
ever since his stroke,--which he refuses to acknowledge was paralytic.
The queen looked as if some comic notion had struck her, and, after
smiling a little while to herself, said, with a sort of innocent
archness, very pleasing,
“To be sure, it is very wrong to laugh at such things,--I know that; but
yet, I could not help thinking, when his mouth was in that way, that it
was very lucky people's happiness did not depend upon his smiles!”
Afterwards, she named other persons, whose behaviour and manners pointed
them out to her, in defiance of obscurity.
“A lady,” said she, “came up to me, that I could not see, so I was
forced to ask who she was; and immediately she burst into a laugh. 'O,'
says I, 'that can be only Mrs. De Rolles!'--and so it proved.”
Methinks, by this trait, she should be a near relation to my Miss
Larolles![195]