A few weeks earlier, the Memorialist had passed a nearly similar scene
with Dr. Johnson. Not, however, she believes, from the same formidable
species of surmise; but from the wounds inflicted upon his injured
sensibility, through the palpably altered looks, tone, and deportment,
of the bewildered lady of the mansion; who, cruelly aware what would be
his wrath, and how overwhelming his reproaches against her projected
union, wished to break up their residing under the same roof before it
should be proclaimed.
This gave to her whole behaviour towards Dr. Johnson, a sort of
restless petulancy, of which she was sometimes hardly conscious; at
others, nearly reckless; but which hurt him far more than she purposed,
though short of the point at which she aimed, of precipitating a change
of dwelling that would elude its being cast, either by himself or the
world, upon a passion that her understanding blushed to own; even
while she was sacrificing to it all of inborn dignity that she had been
bred to hold most sacred.
Dr. Johnson, while still uninformed of an entanglement it was
impossible he should conjecture, attributed her varying humours to the
effect of wayward health meeting a sort of sudden wayward power: and
imagined that caprices, which he judged to be partly feminine, and
partly wealthy, would soberize themselves away in being unnoticed.
He adhered, therefore, to what he thought his post, in being the
ostensible guardian protector of the relict and progeny of the late
chief of the house; taking no open or visible notice of the alteration
in the successor—save only at times, and when they were _tête à
tête_, to this Memorialist; to whom he frequently murmured portentous
observations on the woeful, nay alarming deterioration in health and
disposition of her whom, so lately, he had signalized as the gay
mistress of Streatham.
But at length, as she became more and more dissatisfied with her
own situation, and impatient for its relief, she grew less and less
scrupulous with regard to her celebrated guest: she slighted his
counsel; did not heed his remonstrances; avoided his society; was
ready at a moment’s hint to lend him her carriage when he wished to
return to Bolt Court; but awaited a formal request to accord it for
bringing him back.
The Doctor then began to be stung; his own aspect became altered; and
depression, with indignant uneasiness, sat upon his venerable front.
It was at this moment that, finding the Memorialist was going one
morning to St. Martin’s-Street, he desired a cast thither in the
carriage, and then to be set down at Bolt Court.
Aware of his disturbance, and far too well aware how short it was
of what it would become when the cause of all that passed should be
detected, it was in trembling that the Memorialist accompanied him
to the coach, filled with dread of offending him by any reserve,
should he force upon her any inquiry; and yet impressed with the utter
impossibility of betraying a trusted secret.
His look was stern, though dejected, as he followed her into the
vehicle; but when his eye, which, however short sighted, was quick to
mental perception, saw how ill at ease appeared his companion, all
sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest
emotion, that seemed to claim her sympathy, though to revolt from
her compassion; while, with a shaking hand, and pointing finger, he
directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and,
when they faced it from the coach window, as they turned into Streatham
Common, tremulously exclaiming: “That house ... is lost to _me_—for
ever!”
During a moment he then fixed upon her an interrogative eye,
that impetuously demanded: “Do you not perceive the change I am
experiencing?”
A sorrowing sigh was her only answer.
Pride and delicacy then united to make him leave her to her taciturnity.
He was too deeply, however, disturbed to start or to bear any other
subject; and neither of them uttered a single word till the coach stopt
in St. Martin’s-street, and the house and the carriage door were opened
for their separation! He then suddenly and expressively looked at her,
abruptly grasped her hand, and, with an air of affection, though in a
low, husky voice, murmured rather than said: “Good morning, dear lady!”
but turned his head quickly away, to avoid any species of answer.
She was deeply touched by so gentle an acquiescence in her declining
the confidential discourse upon which he had indubitably meant to
open, relative to this mysterious alienation. But she had the comfort
to be satisfied, that he saw and believed in her sincere participation
in his feelings; while he allowed for the grateful attachment that
bound her to a friend so loved; who, to her at least, still manifested
a fervour of regard that resisted all change; alike from this new
partiality, and from the undisguised, and even strenuous opposition of
the Memorialist to its indulgence.
The “Adieu, Streatham!” that had been uttered figuratively by Dr.
Burney, without any knowledge of its nearness to reality, was now fast
approaching to becoming a mere matter of fact; for, to the almost equal
grief, however far from equal loss, of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Burney,
Streatham, a short time afterwards, though not publicly relinquished,
was quitted by Mrs. Thrale and her family.
Both friends rejoiced, however, that the library and the pictures,
at least, on this first breaking up, fell into the hands of so
able an appreciator of literature and of painting, as the Earl of
Shelburne.[44]
Mrs. Thrale removed first to Brighton, and next repaired to pass a
winter in Argyll Street, previously to fixing her ultimate proceedings.