The clock had struck four some time, and Madame de la Fite said she
feared they kept me from dinner. I knew it must soon be ready, and
therefore made but a slight negative. She then, with an anxious look at
her watch, said she feared she was already too late for her own little
dinner. I was shocked at a hint I had no power to notice, and heard it
in silence--silence unrepressing! for she presently added, “You dine
alone, don't you?”
“Y-e-s,--if Mrs. Schwellenberg is not well enough to come down stairs to
dinner.”
“And can you dine, ma chere mademoiselle--can you dine at that great
table alone?”
“I must!--the table is not mine.”
“Yes, in Mrs. Schwellenberg's absence it is.”
“It has never been made over to me, and I take no power that is not
given to me.”
“But the queen, my dearest ma'am--the queen, if she knew such a person
as Madame de la Roche was here.”
She stopped, and I was quite disconcerted. An attack so explicit, and in
presence of Madame de la Roche, was beyond all my expectations. She
then went to the window, and exclaimed, “It rains!--Mon Dieu! que
ferons-nous?--My poor littel dinner!--it will be all spoilt!--La pauvre
Madame de la Roche! une telle femme!”
I was now really distressed, and wished much to invite them both to
stay; but I was totally helpless; and could only look, as I felt, in the
utmost embarrassment.
The rain continued. Madame de la Roche could understand but imperfectly
what passed, and waited its result with an air of smiling patience. I
endeavoured to talk of other things---but Madame de la Fite was restless
in returning to this charge. She had several times given me very open
hints of her desire to dine at Mrs. Schwellenberg's table; but I had
hitherto appeared not to comprehend them: she was now determined to come
home to the point; and the more I saw her determination, the less liable
I became to being overpowered by it. At length John came to announce
dinner.
Madame de la Fite looked at me in a most expressive manner, as she rose
and walked towards the window, exclaiming that the rain would not cease;
and Madame de la Roche cast upon me a most tender smile, while she
lamented that some accident must have prevented her carriage from coming
for her. I felt excessively ashamed, and could only beg them not to
be in haste, faithfully assuring them I was by no means disposed for
eating.
Poor Madame de la Fite now lost all command of herself, and desiring to
speak to me in my own room, said, pretty explicitly, that certainly I
might keep anybody to dinner, at so great a table, and all alone, if I
wished it.
I was obliged to be equally frank. I acknowledged that I had reason to
believe I might have had that power, from the custom of my predecessor,
Mrs. Haggerdorn, upon my first succeeding to her; but that I was then
too uncertain of any of my privileges to assume a single one of them
unauthorised by the queen. Madame de la Fite was not at all satisfied,
and significantly said,
“But you have sometimes Miss Planta?”
“And M. de Luc, too,--he may dine with you
“He also comes to Mrs. Schwellenberg. Mrs. Delany alone, and her niece,
come to me; and they have had the sanction of the queen's own desire.”
“Mais, enfin, ma chere Miss Burney,--when it rains,--and when it is so
late,--and when it is for such a woman as Madame de la Roche!”
So hard pressed, I was quite shocked to resist her; but I assured
her that when my own sisters, Phillips and Francis, came to Windsor
purposely to see me, they had never dined at the Lodge but by the
express invitation of Mrs. Schwellenberg; and that when my father
himself was here, I had not ventured to ask him. This, though it
surprised, somewhat appeased her; and we were called into the other room
to Miss Planta, who was to dine with me, and who, unluckily, said the
dinner would be quite cold.
They begged us both to go, and leave them till the rain was over, or
till Madame de la Roche's carriage arrived. I could not bear to do this,
but entreated Miss Planta, who was in haste, to go and dine by herself.
This, at last, was agreed to, and I tried once again to enter into
discourse upon other matters. But how greatly did my disturbance at all
this urgency increase, when Madame de la Fite said she was so hungry she
must beg a bit of bread and a glass of water!
I was now, indeed, upon the point of giving way; but when I considered,
while I hesitated, what must follow--my own necessary apology, which
would involve Madame de la Fite in much blame, or my own concealing
silence, which would reverse all my plans of openness with the queen,
and acquiesced with my own situation--I grew firm again, and having
assured her a thousand times of my concern for my little power, I went
into the next room: but I sent her the roll and water by John; I was too
much ashamed to carry them.
When I returned to them again, Madame de la Fite requested me to go at
once to the queen, and tell her the case. Ah, poor Madame de la Fite,
to see so little a way for herself, and to suppose me also so every way
short-sighted! I informed her that I never entered the presence of the
queen unsummoned....
Again she desired to speak to me in my own room; and then she told me
that Madame de la Roche had a most earnest wish, to see all the royal
family; she hoped, therefore, the queen would go to early prayers at
the chapel, where, at least she might be beheld: but she gave me sundry
hints, not to be misunderstood, that she thought I might so represent
the merits of Madame de la Roche as to induce the honour of a private
audience.
I could give her no hope of this, as I had none to give for I well
knew that the queen has a settled aversion to almost all novels, and
something very near it to almost all novel-writers.
She then told me she had herself requested an interview for her with the
princess royal, and had told her that if it was too much to grant it
in the royal apartments, at least it might take place in Miss Burney's
room! Her royal highness coldly answered that she saw nobody without the
queen's commands....
In the end, the carriage of Madame de la Roche arrived, about tea-time,
and Madame de la Fite finished with making me promise to relate my
difficulties to the queen, that she might give me such orders as to
enable me to keep them any other time. To give you the result at once,
Miss Planta, of her own accord, briefly related the affair to the queen,
dwelling upon my extreme embarrassment, with the most good-natured
applause of its motives. The queen graciously joined in commendation of
my steadiness, expressed her disapprobation of the indelicacy of poor
Madame de la Fite, and added that if I had been overcome, it would have
been an encouragement to her to bring foreigners for ever to the Lodge,
wholly contrary to the pleasure of the king.