The following evening I first saw the newly-arrived equerry, Colonel
Goldsworthy. Mrs. Schwellenberg was ill, and sent for Mr. de Luc,
and told me to go into the eating-room, and make the tea for her. I
instantly wrote to Miss Port, to beg she would come to assist me: she
did, and Mrs. Schwellenberg, changing her plan, came downstairs at the
same time. The party was Major Price, General Bude, Mr. Fisher, and the
colonel. Major Price immediately presented us to each other.
“Upon my word!” cried Mrs. Schwellenberg, “you do the honour here in my
room!--you might leave that to me, Major Price!”
“What! my brother equerry?” cried he; “No, ma'am, I think I have a right
there.”
Colonel Goldsworthy's character stands very high for worth and honour,
and he is warmly attached to the king, both for his own sake, and from
the tie that binds him to all the royal family, of regard for a sister
extremely dear to him, Miss Goldsworthy, whose residence here brings him
frequently to the palace. He seems to me a man of but little cultivation
or literature, but delighting in a species of dry humour, in which he
shines most successfully, in giving up himself for its favourite butt.
He brought me a great many compliments, he said, from Dr. Warton, of
Winchester, where he had lately been quartered with his regiment. He
rattled away very amusingly upon the balls and the belles he had seen
there, laughing at his own gallantry, and pitying and praising himself
alternately for venturing to exert it.
CUSTODIAN OF THE QUEEN'S JEWEL Box.
_Oct. 2_--The next day we were all to go to Kew: but Mrs. Schwellenberg
was taken ill, and went by herself to town.
The queen sent for me after breakfast, and delivered to me a long box,
called here the jewel box, in which her jewels are carried to and from
town that are worn on the Drawing-room days. The great bulk of them
remain in town all the winter, and remove to Windsor for all the summer,
with the rest of the family. She told me, as she delivered the key into
my hands, that as there was always much more room in the box than her
travelling jewels occupied, I might make what use I pleased of the
remaining part; adding, with a very expressive smile, “I dare say you
have books and letters that you may be glad to carry backwards and
forwards with you.”
I owned that nothing was more true, and thankfully accepted the offer.
It has proved to me since a comfort of the first magnitude, in conveying
all my choice papers and letters safely in the carriage with me, as well
as books in present reading, and numerous odd things....
_Friday, Oct. 6._--We returned to Windsor without Mrs. Schwellenberg,
who stayed in town for her physician's advice. The queen went
immediately to Mrs. Delany, and the princess royal came into my room.
“I beg pardon,” she cried, “for what I am going to say: I hope you will
excuse my taking such a liberty with you--but, has nobody told you
that the queen is always used to have the jewel-box carried into her
bedroom?”
“No, ma'am, nobody mentioned it to me. I brought it here because I have
other things in it.”
“I thought, when I did not see it in mamma's room,” cried she, “that
nobody had told you of that custom, and so I thought I would come to you
myself: I hope you will excuse it?”
You may believe how I thanked her, while I promised to take out my
own goods and chattels, and have it conveyed to its proper place
immediately. I saw that she imagined the queen might be displeased; and
though I could never myself imagine that, for an omission of ignorance,
I felt the benevolence of her intention, and received it with great
gratitude.
“My dear ma'am,” cried she, “I am sure I should be most happy to do
anything for you that should be in my power, always; and really Mrs.
Schwellenberg ought to have told you this.”
Afterwards I happened to be alone with this charming princess, and her
sister Elizabeth, in the queen's dressing-room. She then came up to me
and said,
“Now will you excuse me, Miss Burney, if I ask you the truth of
something I have heard about you?”
“Certainly, ma'am.”
“It's such an odd thing, I don't know how to mention it; but I have
wished to ask you about it this great while. Pray is it really true
that, in your illness last year, you coughed so violently that you broke
the whalebone of your stays in two?”
“As nearly true as possible, ma'am; it actually split with the force of
the almost convulsive motion of a cough that seemed loud and powerful
enough for a giant. I could hardly myself believe it was little I that
made so formidable a noise.”
“Well, I could not have given credit to it if I had not heard it from
yourself! I wanted so much to know the truth, that I determined, at
last, to take courage and ask you.”
“And pray, Miss Burney,” cried the Princess Elizabeth, “had you not a
blister that gave you great torture?”
“Yes, ma'am,--in another illness.”
“O!--I know how to pity you!--I have one on at this moment!”
“And pray, Miss Burney,” cried the princess royal, “were not you carried
out of town, when you were in such a weak condition that you could not
walk?”
“Where could your royal highness hear all this?”
“And were you not almost starved by Sir Richard Jebb?” cried Princess
Elizabeth.
“And did you not receive great benefit from asses' milk?” exclaimed the
princess royal.
Again I begged to know their means of hearing all this; but the queen's
entrance silenced us all.