At the second toilette to-day, Mrs. Schwellenberg, who left the
dressing-room before me, called out at the door, “Miss Bernar, when you
have done from the queen, come to my room.”
There was something rather more peremptory in the order than was
quite pleasant to me, and I rather drily answered, “Very well, Mrs.
Schwellenberg.”
The queen was even uncommonly sweet and gracious in her manner after
this lady's departure, and kept me with her some time after she was
dressed. I never go from her presence till I am dismissed; no one does,
not even when they come in only with a hurried message,--except the
pages, who enter merely as messengers, and Mrs. Schwellenberg, whose
place and illness together have given her that privilege.
The general form of the dismission, which you may perhaps be curious
to hear, is in these words, “Now I will let you go,” which the queen
manages to speak with a grace that takes from them all air of authority.
At first, I must confess, there was something inexpressibly awkward to
me, in waiting to be told to go, instead of watching an opportunity, as
elsewhere, for taking leave before I thought myself de trop: but I
have since found that this is, to me, a mark of honour; as it is
the established custom to people of the first rank, the princesses
themselves included, and only not used to the pages and the
wardrobe-women, who are supposed only to enter for actual business, and
therefore to retire when it is finished, without expectation of being
detained to converse, or beyond absolute necessity.
I give you all these little details of interior royalty, because they
are curious, from opening a new scene of life, and can only be really
known by interior residence.
When I went to Mrs. Schwellenberg, she said, “You might know I had
something to say to you, by my calling you before the queen.” She then
proceeded to a long prelude, which I could but ill comprehend, save that
it conveyed much of obligation on my part, and favour on hers; and then
ended with, “I might tell you now, the queen is going to Oxford, and you
might go with her; it is a secret--you might not tell it nobody. But I
tell you once, I shall do for you what I can; you are to have a gown.”
I stared, and drew back, with a look so undisguised of wonder and
displeasure at this extraordinary speech, that I saw it was understood,
and she then thought it time, therefore, to name her authority, which
with great emphasis, she did thus: “The queen will give you a gown! The
queen says you are not rich,” etc.
There was something in the manner of this quite intolerable to me, and
I hastily interrupted her with saying, “I have two new gowns by me, and
therefore do not require another.”
Perhaps a proposed present from her majesty was never so received
before; but the grossness of the manner of the messenger swallowed up
the graciousness of the design in the principal: and I had not even a
wish to conceal how little it was to my taste.
The highest surprise sat upon her brow; she had imagined that a
gown--that any present--would have been caught at with obsequious
avidity,--but indeed she was mistaken.
Seeing the wonder and displeasure now hers, I calmly added, “The queen
is very good, and I am very sensible of her majesty's graciousness; but
there is not, in this instance, the least occasion for it.”
“Miss Bernar,” cried she, quite angrily, “I tell you once, when the
queen will give you a gown, you must be humble, thankful, when you are
Duchess of Ancaster.”
She then enumerated various ladies to whom her majesty had made the same
present, many of them of the first distinction, and all, she said, great
secrets. Still I only repeated again the same speech.
I can bear to be checked and curbed in discourse, and would rather be
subdued into silence--and even, if that proves a gratification that
secures peace and gives pleasure, into apparent insensibility; but to
receive a favour through the vehicle of insolent ostentation--no! no! To
submit to ill humour rather than argue and dispute I think an exercise
of patience, and I encourage myself all I can to practice it: but to
accept even a shadow of an obligation upon such terms I should think
mean and unworthy; and therefore I mean always, in a Court as I would
elsewhere, to be open and fearless in declining such subjection.
When she had finished her list of secret ladies, I told her I must beg
to speak to the queen, and make my own acknowledgments for her gracious
intention.
This she positively forbid; and said it must only pass through her
hands. “When I give you the gown,” she added, “I will tell you when you
may make your curtsey.”
I was not vexed at this prohibition, not knowing what etiquette I might
offend by breaking it; and the conversation concluded with nothing being
settled.
How little did the sweet queen imagine that this her first mark of
favour should so be offered me as to raise in me my first spirit of
resistance! How differently would she have executed her own commission
herself! To avoid exciting jealousy was, I doubt not, her motive for
employing another.