“It was maladroitly done indeed. What had he to say to you when he got you there, I wonder?”
“He had nothing to say to me except that his uncles were second in all the virtues and all the talents to no man in town, and that his aunts and cousins—but he did not get so far in his praise of his aunts and cousins; I fled. Oh, did you see him cut slices off the ham?”
Fanny laughed quite pleasantly, with a consciousness of having at her command the material on which to found a scene that would set her sisters shrieking.
“Oh, if Mr. Garrick had but seen him carve that ham!” she cried.
“I wish that Mr. Garrick would give all his attention to his own affairs and leave us to manage ours in our own way,” said Mrs. Burney.
“What? Why, what had Mr. Garrick to do with our visit to—”
“’Twas Mr. Garrick who continued his fooling of Mr. Kendal, sending him all over the town trying to make matches. He believes that he is under a debt of gratitude to Mr. Garrick and your father for the happiness he enjoys with his bride.”
“And he suggested that a match might be made between someone in St. Martin’s Street and someone in the Poultry? But how does Mr. Kendal come to be acquainted with the Barlowes?”
“His wife was a Johnson before she married her first husband, and the Johnsons are closely connected with the Barlowes.”
“Young Mr. Barlowe was just coming to the family history of the Johnsons when I interrupted him.”
“Was he coming to any other matter that concerned you more closely, think you?”
Fanny laughed again, only much longer this time than before. She had to wipe her eyes before she could answer.
“Dear mamma,” she said, “you would laugh as heartily if you had seen him when he suddenly recollected that in his eagerness to make me acquainted with the glories of the Kensits and the abilities of the Johnsons, he had neglected the object of his excursion to that room with my poor self, until it was too late.”
“I doubt it,” said Mrs. Burney. “I do not laugh at incidents of that sort. I lose patience when I hear of a young man neglecting his chances when they are offered to him. But had he ever a chance with you, Fanny?”
“Not the remotest, dear mamma. If he had remembered to speak in time, and if he had spoken with all the eloquence of his admirable uncle, the Alderman, he would not have succeeded. If Thomas Barlowe were the last man in the world I should e’en die an old maid.”
“That is a foolish thing for you to say. You may die an old maid for that. But indeed when I saw young Mr. Barlowe in his home, I perceived that he was not for you. I could not see you a member of that family, worthy though they may be.”
“I think if a girl loves a young man with all her heart she will agree to marry him, however worthy may be his family,” said Fanny. “But I am not that girl, and young Mr. Barlowe is not that man.”
“I daresay that is how you feel,” said the elder lady. “But you must not forget, Fanny, that you are no longer a girl; it is quite time that you had a house of your own.”
“That is true, dear mamma, but for the present I am happy in living in your house, and I ask for nothing better than to be allowed to stay in your service.”
“That is all very well, but—”
“Ah, do not introduce that ‘but’—life would bethoroughly happy if it were not for its ‘buts.’ Here we are in Leicester Fields. I feel as if I should like a roast apple for supper, to put a pleasant taste in my mouth at the close of the longest day I can remember.”
They entered the parlour on the ground floor, and found Lottie and Susy roasting apples on the hearth, while Dr. Burney sat in his chair reading.
“I did not expect you back so soon,” said Mrs. Burney to her husband.
“I did not mean to return for another hour,” said he, “but Sir Joshua left early and brought me with him in his coach. He cut his evening short in order to get back to a book which he affirms is the best he has read since Fielding.”
“It would have to be a good book to take the attention of Sir Joshua,” said Mrs. Burney. “Did you hear what was its name?”
“It is called ‘Evelina,’ I believe,” replied Dr. Burney.
“A novel, of course. I remember hearing the name some time ago,” said his wife. “‘Evelina’; yes, it has a familiar sound. I cannot recollect at this moment who it was that mentioned it to me. I believe I told you of it at the time, Fanny.”
“I do not remember your telling me that anyone had mentioned it to you; but I am nearly sure that that was the name of the novel advertised in theChronicle—you read out all about it after breakfast one morning,” said Fanny.
“You are quite right—that was how I got the name in my mind. Now you can have your roasted apple, child. But if you are hungry you have only yourself to thank for it. Don’t bend so over the fire, Susy; your face is frightfully red—so, for that matter, is Lottie’s. No, thanks, you need not roast one for me.”
Some weeks had passed since Cousin Edward had brought his exhilarating news that the book was being asked for at the libraries, and during this interval, Fanny had heard nothing of its progress. She had applied in the name of Mr. Grafton for a copy to be addressed to the Orange Coffee House, but Mr. Lowndes had paid no attention to her request, Edward found out on going to the Coffee House, so it seemed plain to Fanny that the book was not making the stir in the world that her cousin’s report from the libraries had attributed to it. But here was a distinct proof that it had at last reached their own circle, and somehow Fanny and her sisters felt that this meant fame. Somehow they had come to think of the readers of the book as being very remote from them—people whom they were never likely to meet; they had never thought of the possibility of its being named under their own roof by anyone not in the secret of its authorship. But now the strange thing had come to pass: it was not only named by their father, but named with the most extraordinary recommendation that it could receive!
What! Sir Joshua was not only reading it, but he had curtailed his stay at the club in order to get home to continue it! Sir Joshua had actually been content to forsake the society of his brilliant friends, every one of them more or less notable in the world, in order that he might read the story which Fanny Burney had written all out of her own head!
The idea was simply astounding to the girls and to Fanny herself as well. It meant fame, they were assured, and they were right. It took such a hold upon Susy and Lottie as prevented them from giving any attention to Fanny’s amusing account of the evening at the Barlowes’; and the fun she made—modelled on Mr. Garrick’s best nursery style—of the Alderman and Mrs. Alderman, with the speeches of the one and the St. Giles’s curtsies of the other, went for quite as little as did her imitation of the bobbing of the crown feathers of the aunts and the rustling of their dresses, the material of which was too expensive to be manageable: the thick silk was, Fanny said, like a valuable horse, impatient of control. She showed how it stood round them in massive folds when they curtsied, refusing to respond to the many kicks they dealt it to keep it in its place.
From the recalcitrant silks—with illustrations—Fanny had gone to the slicing of the ham, the hacking at the great sirloin, the clatter of the teacups, and the never-ending passing of plates and pickles, of mustard and pepper and salt—the things were moving round the table as the planets were shown circling round the sun in the clever invention called the Orrery, after one of the titles of the Earl of Cork—only the noise made by the perpetual handing on of the things did not suggest the music of the spheres, Fanny said.
Her descriptions, bright though they were and full of apt metaphors, went for nothing. Her sisters were too full of that wonderful thing which had happened—the great Sir Joshua Reynolds, President of the Royal Academy, the painter of all the most beautiful duchesses that were in the world, to say nothing of beautiful ladies of less exalted rank—this great man, who was so busy conferring immortality upon duchesses that he was compelledto keep in his painting-room on Sundays as well as every other day, and who had never been known to suspend his work except upon the occasion of the death of his dear friend Dr. Goldsmith—this man was actually at that very moment sitting in his arm-chair eagerly reading the words which their sister Fanny had written!
The thought was too wonderful for them. The effect that it had on them was to make them feel that they had two sisters in Fanny, the one a pleasant, homely, hem-stitching girl, who could dance the Nancy Dawson jig for them and take off all the people whom she met and thought worth taking off; the other a grave authoress, capable of writing books that great men forsook the society of other great men to read!
They looked on her now with something of awe in their eyes, and it was this lens of awe which, while magnifying her work as a writer where it came into their focus, made them fail to appreciate her fun, for they saw it, as it were, through the edges of the lens and not through the centre.
She quickly perceived the lack of sympathy of her audience.
“What is the matter with you both to-night?” she cried—they were now upstairs in her room, and she knew that at the same moment Mrs. Burney was giving her husband an account of the party. “What is the matter with you both? Has anything happened when I was away to put you out? Why don’t you laugh as usual? I am sure I never told you anything half so funny as this, and I was thinking all the way coming home that it would make you roar, and now you sit gravely looking at me and not taking in half I say. Pray, what is the matter?”
“Nothing is the matter, dear,” said Lottie. “Nothing—onlyI can’t help thinking that Sir Joshua is at this moment sitting eagerly reading the book that you wrote—you, sister Fanny, that no one who comes to us notices particularly. I can hardly bring myself to believe that there is only one Fanny.”
Fanny looked at her strangely for some moments, and then said:
“I do not blame you, dear; for I am myself of the same way of thinking: I cannot realize what the padre told us. I cannot think of myself as the Fanny Burney whose book is keeping Sir Joshua out of his bed. That is why I kept on harping like a fool on the single string of that odious party. I feel that I must keep on talking, lest my poor brain should give way when I sit down to think if I am really Fanny Burney, who was ever happiest sitting unnoticed in a corner when people came to this house, or laughing with you all up here. I cannot think how it would be possible for me to write a book that could be read by such as Sir Joshua.”
“Better think nothing more about it,” said Susy, who fancied she saw a strange look in Fanny’s eyes. “What’s the good of brooding over the matter? There’s nothing strange about Sir Joshua’s reading the book: I read it and I told you that it was so lovely everybody would want to read it. Besides, Sir Joshua may only have mentioned it for want of a better excuse to leave the club early; so you may not be so famous after all, Fanny.”
Susy’s well-meant attempt to restore her threatened equilibrium was too much for Fanny. But there was a considerable interval before her laughter came. She put an arm about Susy, saying:
“You have spoken the truth, my dear sister. I have no right to give myself airs until we find out exactlyhow we stand. But if Fanny Burney, the dunce, should find out to-morrow that Sir Joshua has not really been kept out of his bed in order to read ‘Evelina’ by Fanny Burney, the writer, the first Fanny will feel dreadfully mortified.”
“One thing I can promise you,” said Susy, “and this is that Susannah Burney will not be kept out of her bed any longer talking to Fanny Burney about Fanny Burney’s novel, whether Fanny Burney be mortified or not. We shall know all about the matter when we go to the Reynolds’s to-morrow. In the meantime, I hope to have some hours of sleep, though I daresay that Fanny Burney will lie awake as a proper authoress should do, thinking over the exciting party in the Poultry and wondering how she will work in a description of it in her next novel. Good-night, and pleasant dreams! Come along, Lottie.”
And Fanny Burney did just what her sister had predicted she would do. She recalled some of the incidents of the tea-party in the Poultry, having before her, not as she had in the hackney coach, the possibility of describing them in a letter to Mr. Crisp, but of introducing them into a new book.
Before she slept she had made up her mind to begin a new book; for she now found it comparatively easy to believe that Sir Joshua was reading “Evelina” with great interest. At any rate, she would hear the next day when she should go to the Reynolds’s, whether Sir Joshua had read it, or whether he had only made it an excuse for getting home early in the night, so that he might arise early and refreshed to resume his painting of the duchesses.
But the next evening, when, with her sisters and their stepmother she tripped along the hundred yards or so ofLeicester Fields that lay between their house and that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, all thoughts of the book which she had written and of the book which she meant to write, vanished the moment that she was close enough to Sir Joshua’s to hear, with any measure of clearness, the nature of the singing, the sound of which fell gently upon her ears.
“H’sh!” said Mrs. Burney, stopping a few feet from the door. “H’sh! some one is singing. I did not know that it was to be a musical party.”
“It is Signor Rauzzini,” said Lottie. “I would know his voice anywhere. We are lucky. There is no one who can sing like Signor Rauzzini.”
“We should have come earlier,” said Mrs. Burney. “But when Miss Reynolds asked us she did not say a word about Rauzzini. And now we cannot ring the bell, lest we should interrupt his song.”
She stood there with the three girls, under the lighted windows of the house, listening to the silvery notes of the young Roman that floated over their heads, as if an angel were hovering there, filling their ears with celestial music. (The simile was Susy’s.) The music sounded celestial to the ears of at least another of the group besides Susy; and that one thought:
“How can anyone trouble oneself with such insignificant matters as the writing of books or the reading of books, when such a voice as that is within hearing?”
And then, all at once, she was conscious of the merging of the two Fanny Burneys into one, and of the existence of a new Fanny Burney altogether—the Fanny Burney who was beloved by the celestial singer, and this was certainly the most wonderful of the three.
The thought thrilled her, and she knew that with it the truth of life had come to her: there was nothingworth anything in the world save only loving and being loved.
And this truth remained with her when the song had come to an end, soaring to a high note and dwelling on it for an enraptured space and then dying away, so gradually that a listener scarcely knew when it had ceased.
Fanny’s imagination enabled her to hear, at the close, the drawing-in of the breath of the people in the room where the song had been sung: she knew that up to this point they had been listening breathlessly to every note. She could hear the same soft inspiration—it sounded like a sigh—by her sisters and their stepmother. A dozen wayfarers through Leicester Fields had been attracted to the house by the sound of the singing, and now stood timidly about the doorway. They also had been breathless. One woman murmured “Beautiful!” Fanny could understand how the word had sprung to her lips, but what could the man mean, who, almost at the same moment, said:
“Oh, my God! how could I have been so great a fool?”
She was startled, and glanced at him. He was a young man, shabbily dressed, and on his face there were signs of dissipation. He was unconscious of her glance for some moments, then with a slight start he seemed to recover himself. He took off his hat with a respectful bow, and then hurried away. But Fanny saw him turn when he had gone about a dozen yards into the roadway, and take off his hat once more, with his eyes looking up to the lighted windows of the house. He was saluting the singer whom he had not seen, and to Fanny the act, following the words which he had unwittingly uttered, was infinitely pathetic.
It appeared that Mrs. Burney herself received the same impression. Fanny was surprised to hear her say:
“Poor fellow! he was once a gentleman!”
Then they entered Sir Joshua’s house and were shown upstairs to the great painting-room where Sir Joshua and his sister Frances were receiving their guests.
It was quite a small party—not more than a score of people altogether, and all seemed to be acquainted with one another. Fanny knew several of them; one girl, however, she had never seen before, but she knew who she was in a moment. She was standing at one end of the room chatting to Mrs. Sheridan and on the wall just above her there hung the picture of a girl in oriental costume and wearing a turban. Fanny Burney had often looked at it in admiration, and Sir Joshua had encouraged her, affirming that it was the best picture he had ever painted and that it would remain in his painting-room until the day of his death. She looked at it now with renewed interest, for the original was the girl standing beneath it—the beautiful Miss Horneck whom Oliver Goldsmith had called the Jessamy Bride. Several years had passed since Sir Joshua had painted that portrait, from which Miss Burney had recognized the original; and fifty years later another lady recognized the same face, still beautiful in old age, from having seen merely a print of the same picture.
When Fanny turned her eyes from the portrait it was to admire the features of Mrs. Sheridan. Mrs. Sheridan was gazing somewhat pensively at the picture of St. Cecilia which was hanging a little way from that of Miss Horneck, and Fanny was near enough to her to perceive how her expression grew into that of the face in the picture. At first sight, it did not appear to Fanny that the two faces were the same, and it seemed as if Mrs. Sheridan perceived this, and determined to vindicate Sir Joshua’s skill by assuming the pose of the picture. ButMiss Burney knew that the beautiful lady had done it unconsciously—that it was simply because she was recalling the days when she had sat for the painter, and had obeyed his injunction to lose herself among the simple chords of the aria that was sacred to her since her sister died with the strain upon her lips—“I know that my Redeemer liveth.”
Fanny gazed at the exquisite face, illuminated with what seemed to her to be a divine light, and for the first time she knew something of what it was to be a great painter. After “St. Cecilia” the other portraits on the walls seemed paltry. There was no divine light in the faces of the duchesses. There was life in them; they breathed and smiled and posed and looked gracious, but looking at them one remained on earth and among mortals. But St. Cecilia carried one into the glorious company of the immortals. “She drew an angel down,” was the line that flashed through Miss Burney’s mind at that moment. An angel? A whole celestial company.
“You are looking at her—I, too, have been looking at her; she is divine,” came a voice beside her. She did not need to turn to see the speaker. She had been longing for the sound of his voice for many days. She had not even a chance of hearing him sing before this evening.
“She is St. Cecilia herself,” said she. “You have seen Sir Joshua’s picture?”
“My countryman, Piozzi, pointed it out to me,” he replied. “I was enraptured with the picture. But when the living St. Cecilia entered the room and I heard her story, I felt ready to throw myself at her feet and implore her as the guardian of poor singers to take me to her care. Her face has on it the bloom of a flower dropped fresh from the garden of God—angelic beyond the voice of man to describe.”
He spoke, as usual, in French to Fanny, but he had greeted Mrs. Burney in English, and he tried to translate his last phrase to her into the same language. He failed after the first word or two, and begged Miss Burney to complete his task for him. She did so, and her stepmother smiled and nodded in appreciation of his comment.
“She is indeed a beautiful creature,” said Mrs. Burney. “I heard her sing more than once at Bath. People went mad about her beauty and her singing, and truly I never heard any singing that so affected me. It was said that she hated to let her voice be heard inpublic. Her father, Mr. Linley, made her sing: she was a gold mine to Mr. Linley and he knew it.”
Signor Rauzzini had listened attentively and picked up all that she had said without the aid of a word from Fanny.
“But now she will never be heard again no more,” said he in English. “And she is right in making such a resolution, and her husband is a noble man to agree with her in this,” he continued, but in French to Fanny. “Picture that lovely creature placing herself on the level of such a one as the Agujari! sordid—vulgar—worldly! quarrelling daily with theimpresarioon some miserable question of precedence—holding out for the largest salary—turning a gift which should be divine into gold! Oh; she was right.”
“Signor Rauzzini no doubt thinks it a pity that such a voice should cease to give pleasure to the thousands it enchanted,” said Mrs. Burney, not being able to follow him in French.
“Oh, no, no; just the opposite,” cried Fanny. “He says he admires her the more for her resolution.”
“I am so glad. Pray tell him that I agree with him,” said Mrs. Burney. “A good woman will avoid publicity. Her home should be sufficient for her.”
Fanny did not need to translate the words, he grasped their meaning at once.
“I agree with all of my heart, madame,” he cried. “I would not wish my mother or my sister to have their names spoken with freedom by everyone who paid a coin to hear them sing. I should think it—come si chiamo?—Ah! forgive my poor English.” He went off into French once more—“Pray tell madame that I think it would be odious to hear the name of my mother or my sister tossed from man to man as they toss the name of awoman who comes before the public. I think the woman who would hide herself from all eyes as a violet hides itself under a leaf is the true woman. The shy, timid, retiring one—I know her—I esteem her. I could love no other. I have a deep respect for the woman of the Orient who would die sooner than let her face be seen by a man.”
“What does he say—I like his eagerness?” asked Mrs. Burney.
Fanny translated some of his phrases, and Mrs. Burney nodded and smiled her approval.
“The bloom on the wing of a butterfly is a very tender thing,” resumed the Roman; “the breath of a man is sufficient to remove it—a single breath—and when the bloom has gone the charm of the beautiful creature has gone also.”
“I am not sure that I like the comparison to the butterfly,” said Fanny, smiling. “The butterfly is the emblem of all that is fickle—all that is idle except for its yielding to its fickleness. It is beautiful, but nothing else.”
He laughed.
“I am rebuked,” he said. “But with us the butterfly is the symbol of the life—of the soul. Assume that and you will, I think, see that I meant not to hint at the beauty of the frivolity, but at the beauty of the soul. I feel that a woman’s life has on it the bloom of a butterfly’s wing, and if that is once breathed on, its beauty is gone for ever—the woman’s life is never again what it was—what it was meant to be. But if you wish, I will not go beyond the violet as my emblem of the best woman—my woman.”
“I thank heaven that I have no voice,” said Fanny gently, after a pause. Young Mr. Northcote, SirJoshua’s pupil, had approached Mrs. Burney—his eye was on Susy—in order to tell her that tea was being served in the drawing-room.
Mrs. Burney thanked him and took the arm that he offered.
“We shall all go in together,” said Mrs. Burney, with a sign to Fanny.
But Rauzzini contrived to evade her eye by renewing his admiration of the “St. Cecilia.”
“If I could but reproduce in song the effect that flows from her face I should be the greatest singer in the world,” said he.
“You need not envy her,” said Fanny. “Do you remember Mr. Handel’s setting of ‘Alexander’s Feast’?”
“Only an aria or two.”
“One of the lines came into my mind just now when I looked at that picture. ‘She drew an angel down.’”
“And it was very apt. She would draw an angel down.”
“Yes; but the poet has another line before that one—it refers to a singer—‘He raised a mortal to the skies.’ That was the line which came to my mind when I heard you sing. You raise mortals to the skies. Your power is equal to that of St. Cecilia.”
“Nay, nay; that is what you have done. I have been uplifted to the highest heaven by you. When you are near me I cannot see anything of the world. Why have we not met more frequently? Ah, I forgot—I am always forgetting that the months you spoke of have not yet run out. But I am not impatient, knowing that the prize will come to me in good time. I have been away at the Bath and Salisbury and Bristol and I know not where, singing, singing, singing, and now I go to Paris and Lyon for a few months, but you may be certain thatI shall return to England—then the separating months shall have passed and you will welcome me—is not that so?”
“I think I can promise you—every day seems to make it more certain that I shall welcome you.”
“My angel—my dream!—”
He said the words—both long-drawn monosyllables in French—in a whisper that gave them the full force of passionate expression. He had need to whisper, for several people were in the room, and Mr. Boswell was among the number, and everyone knew that Mr. Boswell, as a gossip-monger, had no equal in town. He was always pimping and prying—nosing out germs of scandal—ever ready to make mischief by telling people all the nasty things other people had said of them. Mr. Boswell had his eye on them—and his ear. In addition, Mrs. Thrale, who had arrived late, had no idea of allowing the handsome Roman singer to waste himself with a nonentity like Miss Burney, and she was now perilously close to him whom she came to rescue.
But the whisper and the expression imparted to it were enough for Fanny Burney. He might have talked for hours in his impassioned way without achieving the effect of his whispered exclamations.
Then Mrs. Thrale hastened up to his side full of her resolution to rescue him from the conversation with the insignificant person whom his good nature suffered to engage his attention.
“Why, what is this?” cried the little lady who regarded herself with complacency as the soul of tact. “Have you explained to Signor Rauzzini that you are the unmusical member of the family, Miss Burney?”
“I believe that he is aware of that fact already, madam,” replied Fanny.
“And yet he is in close converse with you? He is the most good-natured man in town,” said Mrs. Thrale. “Does he hope to interest you when your father failed?”
“He has never ceased to interest me, madam,” said Fanny.
“Then he did not talk about music?”
“Oh, yes; I think he said something about music.”
“Yes, touching a note here and there, as one might in passing a harpsichord. Of course you could not have lived in Dr. Burney’s house without being able to understand something of music. But we must not trespass upon Signor Rauzzini’s courtesy, Miss Burney. Everyone is talking of him in the drawing-room—he must gratify the company by mingling with them.”
Then she addressed Rauzzini in French.
“I promised to go in search of you, signor,” she said. “Madame Reynolds is distracted. I came on my mission famished—I had vowed, as the crusaders did, not to taste food or drink until I had succeeded in my emprise. May I ask you to have pity on me now and lead me to the tea-table?”
He turned to ask Fanny to accompany them, but he found that she had slipped quietly away. She was already at the door.
“My duty was to Miss Burney, madame, but she has been frightened away,” said he.
“Oh, she is the shy one of the family, I believe,” said Mrs. Thrale. “I am sure that all the time you were so good-natured as to talk to her she was wishing that the floor would open and allow her to sink out of sight. She would have thought it much more good-natured on your part if you had taken no notice of her. I have scarcely spoken to her half a dozen times myself, though I have frequently been to her father’s house. I cannot rack mybrain to discover a congenial topic with such young people. Were you successful, do you think?”
He made a gesture with his hands that might mean anything. Mrs. Thrale assumed that it meant nothing—that he felt he was not greatly concerned whether he had been successful in finding a congenial topic of converse with Miss Burney or not.
She laughed.
“Poor girl!” she said. “She may have her dreams like other girls.”
“I believe she has—poor girl!” said he. “But I know that in her knowledge of music she goes deeper—soars higher than most young ladies who have submitted to lessons from amaestro—nay, higher than themaestrohimself.”
Mrs. Thrale looked doubtfully at him.
“Is it possible that we are talking of two different people?” said she.
“Ah, that is quite possible,” said he.
“I was referring to Miss Burney, the one of the family who does nothing except sew—her mother commends her sewing very highly. I fear that you actually believed that you were in converse with one of her sisters.”
“Madame,” said he, “it is my belief that the one who sews in a family is far more interesting than the one who sings. But Miss Burney need not, in my eyes, be any more than Miss Burney to be interesting, though she has taught me more of music than I ever learned before.”
“Is’t possible? Oh, yes: I should remember that her father told me that she was his amanuensis—she made a neat copy of all his notes for the ‘History of Music.’ It is no wonder that she knows something about it. Such a good daughter! And the father took no trouble about her education. She did not know her letters till she waseight or nine, I believe—perhaps twelve. I don’t believe that I ever exchanged half a dozen words with her before this evening; and as for men—you are the first man I ever saw taking any notice of her.”
His face lit up strangely, Mrs. Thrale thought, at this revelation. He gave a laugh.
“So much the better for her—so much the worse for the men,” said he. “And now, madame, if the tea has not become too strong, and if your hunger has not made you too weak to walk to the table, I should esteem it an honour to conduct you thither.”
Mrs. Thrale smiled her acquiescence, and she entered the drawing-room on the arm of the singer. Nothing could have convinced her that he did not feel grateful to her for rescuing him from the position in which his good nature had placed him—by the side of the most insignificant young woman among all Sir Joshua’s guests.
She believed that she was increasing his debt of gratitude to her by keeping him with her for the next half-hour. Her sense of protecting him gave her naturally a sense of patronage, which was quite pleasant for her to experience, especially when she glanced round the room and saw several ladies of higher rank than she could pretend to, frowning in her direction. She knew how Signor Rauzzini was pestered by the attentions of such as these, and she could almost hear the well-bred sneers of her friends as they glanced at her and wondered if she never meant to release the unfortunate young man—she knew just what they would say, and she accepted their imaginary words as a real compliment to her protective powers. Her smile down the table was one of great complacency.
She also noticed that the insignificant Miss Burney was glowing as she had never seen her glow before. Herface was rosy and her eyes were actually sparkling. Mrs. Thrale had never imagined that such eyes as Miss Burney’s could sparkle, no matter what their provocation might be.
“Poor girl! Poor child! Her head is turned, as I feared it would be when I saw the Rauzzini with her. She is the unhappy victim of his good nature.”
This was the conclusion come to by the little lady whose ability to pronounce an opinion on such a matter was widely acknowledged; and coming to such a conclusion, she naturally commended all the more heartily the step which she had taken for separating the foolish girl and the fascinating young man.
She would have waved aside any suggestion that might be made to her to the effect that the increase in Miss Burney’s colouring and the light in her eyes was due to Miss Burney’s overhearing the conversation between her mother and Sir Joshua respecting a book which he had stayed up all night to read and which he had just finished in time to receive his guests.
The name of the book was “Evelina; or, a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World,” he said, and he was urging Mrs. Burney to follow his example and read it without further delay.
Fanny was at her stepmother’s elbow while Sir Joshua gave her a full account of how he had been induced to send to Lowndes for this wonderful book on the recommendation of Mrs. Damer, whose portrait he was painting. Mrs. Damer had excused her unpunctuality at one of her sittings on the ground that she had become so interested in the fortunes of “Evelina” that she could not put the book down.
“Get it for yourself, sir,” she had said, “and you will quickly acknowledge that my excuse is valid.”
“Of course I did not get it then,” said Sir Joshua. “I find it impossible to keep pace with the useful books that are printed in these days, and I have long ago given up novels. But when, the next day, Mrs. Damer came to sit to me with a woebegone countenance and the traces of tears on her cheeks, so that I could only paint her draping, and that, too, had a woeful droop in its folds—for let me tell you, madam, that a woman’s dress is usually in sympathy with the mood of the wearer—when, I say, the lady entered my painting-room in this guise, I ventured to inquire if she was serious in her wish that I should depict her in the character of Niobe. ‘Oh, sir,’ she cried, ‘’tis all due to that horrid Branghton—he it is that has brought me to this.’ ‘The wretch!’ said I. ‘Have you no friend who will run him through the vitals? Where is he to be found, that I may arrange for his destruction?’ ‘He is the persecutor of my beloved Evelina,’ she replied, ‘and heaven only knows what is to become of the poor girl.’
“Now, madam, when I had thus brought before me the effect that the book had produced upon so natural a lady as Mrs. Damer, what was left for me but to buy it? And now you see the effect that it has had upon me,” continued Sir Joshua, “so you must e’en buy it also.”
“Nay, Sir Joshua,” said Mrs. Burney, “your case has furnished me with the strongest of reasons for not buying it. I would not allow a book into my house that would so turn me aside from my ordinary life and my daily business. What, sir, would you have me stay out of my comfortable bed for hours, in order that I might make myself more uncomfortable still by reading of the imaginary woes of a young woman who is nothing to me but a shadow?”
“Oh, I promise you that you will find Evelina far from being a shadow,” said Sir Joshua. “She is a creature of flesh and blood, with a heart that beats so that you find your own heart keeping time with it, whether it pulsates slowly or fast. In short, Evelina lives. I have no patience with those attenuated figures that dance on the stage of so many of our new novel writers: I can see the stuffing of straw when their constant gyrating has worked a rip in their seamy side; creatures of rag and wire—they never deceive one for a moment—why, their very gyrations are not true to life. But Evelina lives. Some of the characters in the book are distasteful—some of them are vulgar, but the world is made up of distasteful and vulgar people, and a novel should be true to the world in which the characters are placed. Oh, that was where the greatness of poor Dr. Goldsmith was to be found. He would abate nothing of the vulgarity of the vulgar characters in his plays, because he meant them to live. The people hissed his vulgar bailiffs in hisGood-Natured Man, and when Colmancut them out he himself restored them when Shuter played the piece for his benefit the following year, and everyone saw that they were true to life. The vulgarity of Tony Lumpkin and the Three Pigeons made Walpole shudder, but there they remain in the best comedy of our time, and there they will remain for ever. Oh, yes; the author of ‘Evelina’ knows what life is, and so his book will live.”
“And who is the author of this surprising book?” asked Mrs. Burney.
“That is a mystery,” replied Reynolds. “I sent to Lowndes, the bookseller, to inquire, and he pretended that he did not know. He could only say that he was a gentleman of note living in Westminster.”
“Ah, that is one of the booksellers’ tricks to make their wares seem more attractive,” said she. “They know that a man in a mask awakens curiosity.”
“That is so; but ‘Evelina’ stands in need of no advertisement of such a nature. It would attract attention even though the name of Mr. Kenrick were attached to it. But everyone is dying to find out the name of the author; Mrs. Damer believes it to have been written by Horace Walpole, but only because ‘The Castle of Otranto’ was published without his name being on the title page.”
“Not a very cogent line of argument, it seems to me,” said Mrs. Burney. “Well, Sir Joshua, I hope you will enjoy a comfortable sleep to-night, now that you have the fortunes of that young lady off your mind.”
“Oh, my dear madam, I do assure you that my mind is not yet free from the effects of reading that book,” cried Reynolds. “I am more faithful to my friends in some books than to forget all about them when I lay them on the shelf. If they live, be assured that I live with them,and the thought of them is to me at times as pleasant as the thought of the best friends I have met in my daily life. I have laid ‘Evelina’ on a shelf in my memory—not one of the back shelves, but one that is near to me, so that I can console myself with her companionship when I am lonely.”
“I have never heard you praise a book so heartily, sir,” said Mrs. Burney. “But I will beg of you not to mention it to any of my family, for if it has so unhinged you, what would it not do to those poor girls?”
He did not catch all she had said, for she spoke in a voice which she did not mean to travel to Fanny or Susy, who were chatting to Miss Theophila Palmer, Sir Joshua’s niece.
“You may depend on my telling them all I find out in regard to the author,” said he in a tone of assent.
“No, no,” she cried, getting nearer to the bell of his trumpet. “No, no; I want you to refrain from mentioning the book to them. I discourage all novel reading, excepting, of course, the works of Mr. Richardson, and perhaps one or two of Fielding, with some of the pages gummed together to prevent them from being read.”
“Nay, to tempt people to read them,” said Reynolds. “What were we saying about the attractions of a mask? Well, my word for it, the attractions of a book without a name are as nothing compared with the attraction of gummed pages. But you will let them read ‘Evelina,’ and you will, moreover, read it yourself—yes, and you will all be the better and not the worse for doing so.”
Mrs. Burney shook her head.
It was no wonder that Mrs. Thrale thought that Miss Burney looked flushed at this time, or that there was an unwonted sparkle in her eyes; for she had heard nearlyevery word that Sir Joshua had said, and she could scarcely contain herself for delight. For all her primness, she was at heart a merry schoolgirl, ready to break into a dance at good news, and to shout for joy when things had advanced as she had hoped they would. She felt that it was very hard on her that she could not throw her hat up to the ceiling of the room, as she had heard of Dr. Goldsmith’s doing with his wig in the exuberance of his spirits in this same room—when Miss Reynolds was in her bed upstairs. It was very hard on her to be compelled to restrain her feelings; she was unconscious of the sparkle in her eyes, or of the pæony flush of her cheeks that Mrs. Thrale had noticed and was still noticing.
She had never felt so happy in all her life. A short time before she had felt that everything in the world was insignificant in comparison with love; but now she realized that there was another joy worthy of recognition. She was not wise enough to perceive that the two emotions sprang from the same source—that the foundation of love is the impulse to create, and that the foundation of an artist’s joy in fame is the knowledge that what he has created is recognized by the world. She was (fortunately) not wise enough to be able to analyse her feelings—to be wise enough to analyse one’s feelings is to be incapable of feeling. All that she was conscious of at that moment was that all worth having in the world was hers—the instinct to create, which men call Love, the joy of obtaining recognition for the thing created, which men call Fame.
It was no wonder that Mrs. Thrale saw that light in her face and in her eyes; nor was it strange that the same observant lady should attribute that illumination to the touch of the fire of the sacred torch. She lookedat the handsome face of the Roman youth, with its expression of frankness, and at his eyes, full of the generous warmth of the South, and once more she glanced at Miss Burney, and saw in her face the reflection of the southern sunny glow.
“Poor girl—poor girl!” were the words that sprung to her lips. “Only a moment’s attention from him—only a word—nay, a glance from those eyes would have been enough—and she is at his feet. Poor girl! Knowing nothing of the world—incapable of understanding anything of life—having no gift to attract attention—”
“Dear Mrs. Thrale, I have come to you for help. You are sure to have read this book that everyone is talking about—this ‘Evelina’—and you can, I am certain, tell us who is the author. Pray let us know if your friend Dr. Johnson had a finger in it—I have heard that some of the writing is in the style of Dr. Johnson—or was it Mr. Anstey—they say that some chapters could only have come from the author of ‘The Bath Guide.’”
It was Lady Hales who had hurried up with her inquiries. She seemed to be the representative of a group with whom she had been standing, several ladies and two or three men.
It so happened, however, that Mrs. Thrale had not yet read the book around which discussion had been buzzing; but she had no intention of acknowledging that, with her literary tastes and with her friendship for Dr. Johnson, she was behind the times. Two or three people had within the week made remarks about “Evelina” in her presence, but she had no idea that it was to become a topic of society.
She smiled enigmatically, to give herself time to make up her mind what her reply should be—whatever itmight be, it certainly would not be a confession of ignorance. She came to the conclusion that on the whole she could not do better than mould her answer so as to heighten the mystery of the authorship.
“Is it possible that none of our friends have discovered the author?” she asked, still smiling shrewdly, so as to suggest that she herself had long ago been let into the secret.
“We have had many conjectures,” said Lady Hales. “And let me whisper in your ear—there is one among us who is ready to affirm that the address of the author is Thrale Hall, Streatham.”
“I vow that I am overwhelmed,” cried the little lady. “The compliment is one that any writer might envy. Pray how could it enter the mind of any of our friends to connect me with the authorship of such a book?”
“There are some touches of your style in many of the letters of Evelina,” replied Lady Hales. “And some have said that only you could have had the varied experiences described so vividly.”
“A marvellous book, truly, this ‘Evelina,’” cried Mrs. Thrale. “Some people, you say, recognize the hand of Dr. Johnson in its pages, others the pen that wrote ‘The Bath Guide,’ and now it is suggested that the whole was the work of a humble scribbler named Mrs. Thrale—a person who has surely little in common with the two writers you have named.”
She took care that her affectation of surprise had an artificial note about it. There was no knowing how things might turn out. Mrs. Thrale had no objection in the world to have her name associated with the authorship of a book about which it was clear a good many people would be talking for some months to come.
“May I not be entrusted with something moredefinite?” asked Lady Hales in a low voice. “If it is a secret for the present—well, you know that I am one to be trusted.”
“I can assure you definitely that the book was not written by Dr. Johnson,” replied Mrs. Thrale, with a smile. “He has not for a single week during the past year failed to visit us at Streatham for at least four days at a time. He reads to me all that he writes—it is not much—and I can give you an assurance that the name of Evelina has not once appeared in his manuscript. I may also say that if you take my advice you will not be in too great haste to attribute the book to Mr. Anstey.”
This was not mystification, it sounded much more like revelation, Lady Hales thought.
“I dare not press you further, madam,” she said. “Believe me, I can appreciate your reticence, if—”
“Nay, now you suggest that I have told you a secret that I have concealed from everyone else, and that is going too far,” cried Mrs. Thrale. “Now, dear madam, cannot you see that even if I were in the secret of the authorship, I should be guilty of a great breach of courtesy were I to reveal it to anyone? If an author choose to remain anonymous, is it not discourteous to try to snatch away his—or her—veil of anonymity?”
“I can but assent,” said Lady Hales. “I do not doubt that this view of the matter is the correct one. At any rate, you may depend on my acting in accordance with it. I shall make no further attempt to pry into the secret, and I shall think it right to dissuade my friends from the quest.”
“In that I am sure you will be acting in accordance with the author’s wishes,” said Mrs. Thrale, smiling knowingly.
So they parted; and Lady Hales hastened back to her friends to whisper in their ears that the mystery was as good as solved: Mrs. Thrale had as much as acknowledged that she was the author of “Evelina,” but she hoped that, as she had written the book without the knowledge of her husband, her friends would respect her desire to remain anonymous.
“Mr. Thrale, being a Member of Parliament, would not like to have the name of his wife bandied about among ordinary people as that of the writer of a novel,” Lady Hales explained, though really no explanation was needed of a fact that could be appreciated by every sensible person aware of the contemptible character of the novels of the day. “Only Dr. Johnson is in the secret,” she continued. “Dr. Johnson, as we all know, lives at Thrale Hall for five days out of every week, finding the table provided by Mrs. Thrale to suit his palate very much better than that controlled by poor blind Mrs. Williams at Bolt Court.”
“That may account for some of the touches in the book in the style of Dr. Johnson,” said one of the ladies. “You may be sure that no book could be written under the same roof as Dr. Johnson without his having something to say to it.”
“I never could understand how so fastidious a lady as Mrs. Thrale could tolerate the company of Dr. Johnson at her table, but now the secret is out—this secret and t’other,” said one of the gentlemen. “Dr. Johnson is not seen at his best at the dinner-table.”
“So far as that goes, neither is Mr. Thrale himself,” said another. “He has a huge appetite.”
“I had an inkling all along that Mrs. Thrale wrote the book,” said a lady with a huge hat. “I actually remarked to my sister, while I was reading it, ‘if this story is not written by Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Thrale is the one who would like to have written it.’”
“But mind, not a word must be breathed that would hint that she acknowledged it to me by direct word of mouth,” cried Lady Hales, beginning to have some qualms. “No; you must understand clearly that she did not say in so many words that she wrote it. Indeed, her last words to me were, that anyone who should name in public the author of a book published anonymously would be guilty of a great discourtesy.”
“She is perfectly right: to do so would be to exhibit very bad taste truly,” came more than one acquiescent voice.
And the result of their complete agreement on this point was the immediate dissemination of the report that Mrs. Thrale was indeed the writer of “Evelina.”
But that clever little lady, on getting rid of the questioner, found that Signor Rauzzini had slipped away from her side and was now making his adieux to Mrs. Burney and her stepdaughters. She noticed that the light had gone out of Fanny Burney’s eyes as the young singer bent over her hand, and once again she shook her head. She had given more attention to Miss Burney during the previous hour than during all the years she had visited at St. Martin’s Street. She thought that it might be her duty to say a word of warning to the young woman, who could not possibly know anything about the world or the deceitfulness of Italian vocalists.
Meantime, however, she ordered one of her three footmento tell the coachman to drive to the shop of Lowndes, the bookseller, and there she purchased a bound copy of “Evelina,” at nine shillings.
Mrs. Thrale was, of course, well known to Mr. Lowndes, and seeing her, through the window of his office, enter his shop, he put his quill behind his ear and emerged, bowing and smiling.
“How was it that you failed to apprise me that you had printed ‘Evelina’?” she inquired.
“Is’t possible that you did not receive my advertisement, madam?” he cried. “Why, I posted it to you with my own hands even before the book had left the press, the truth being that I was anxious to get your opinion respecting it.”
“I never had any advertisement from you about it,” she replied.
“Oh, I was to blame for not underlining the announcement, madam,” said he. “I ask your pardon. How were you to know that it was not one of the usual novels of the season?—I do not venture to recommend such to the attention of ladies of superior tastes like yourself, madam. I shall not forgive myself, rest assured. But I am punished, in that I have been unable to sell a second edition by telling my customers how highly it was esteemed by Mrs. Thrale.”
“You assume that it would be highly esteemed by me, Mr. Lowndes; but I am not quite sure that you do not flatter yourself in believing that my judgment would be the same as that of the public. The poor public! How can they possibly know whether a book is good or bad?”
“They cannot, madam; that is why we poor booksellers must only trust to sell our books on the recommendation of ladies of taste and judgment. May Ibeg, madam, that you will favour me with your opinion respecting the merits of ‘Evelina’?”
“It has been so great a success that I fear I shall not think highly of it. Pray, who is your modest author?”
“Positively, madam, I am unable to tell you. The MS. was brought to me with a letter purporting to come from a Mr. Grafton at the Orange Coffee House, near the Haymarket, and he desired the secret of its authorship to be kept close.”
“Ah, yes; to be sure—kept close from the vulgar public; but he could never think that you were violating his confidence by telling me his name.”
“He could not be so unreasonable, madam—nay, rather would he kneel to you—for he could scarce fail to understand the value that we set on—”
“I am not convinced either that he would benefit from the exchange of confidence or that I should; but prithee, sir, what is his name?”
“’Fore heaven, madam, I have told you so much as is known by me respecting the gentleman. Never before have I been placed in so remarkable a position. My fault, Mrs. Thrale, no doubt: I should have taken precautions against being thus surprised into publishing a book without knowing the name of the author. But although my judgment enabled me to perceive that the work was out of the common, yet I never counted on its merits being recognized so speedily. May I beg of you to favour me with your opinion as to who the writer may be, madam—that is, when you have read it, unless, indeed—” he glanced at her shrewdly with a little knowing smile—“unless, indeed, you could so favour meinstanter.”
“Nay, Mr. Lowndes, how would it be possible for me to give you an opinion as to the authorship of a book which I have not yet read? I am not one of those astute critics who, they say, can tell you all there is to be known about a book without cutting the leaves, or even—if you slip a guinea into their hand—without opening the covers.”
“I thought that perhaps you might be one of those who have been let into the secret, madam. I trust that Dr. Johnson’s health has not been so bad as to prevent him from doing any literary work. Ah, what does not that great man—nay, what does not the world owe to you, Mrs. Thrale?”
“If you would suggest, Mr. Lowndes, that the book about which we have been conversing was written, even in part, by Dr. Johnson, I can give you an assurance that such is not the case. He is in no way inclined to engage in any form of literary labour. He grudges his friends even a note.”
“There are some gentlemen who come hither and honour me by conversing on the subject of letters, and more than one of them has pointed out passages in ‘Evelina’ that show signs of the great Doctor’s pen; but for that matter—”
“I agree with you, sir; every scribbler in Grub Street apes the style of Dr. Johnson, but only to reveal the ape in himself. Now, Mr. Lowndes, if you really are in earnest in saying that you are unaware who is the author of your book, I have done you some service in curtailing by one the list of authors to whom it might possibly be attributed. You may strike out the name of Johnson, sir, on my authority.”
“I shall certainly do so, madam—not that I, for myown part, was ever foolish enough to fancy that he had written more of it than a page or two. I am indebted to you, Mrs. Thrale.”
“Then if you would wish to pay off the debt, you can do so by informing me of your success in discovering the writer. ’Tis quite impossible to conceive of the man’s remaining unrevealed for any length of time, and I confess that I am anxious to know if he is among my acquaintance.”
“You assume the sex, madam.”
“What, have you a doubt of it?”
“There are so many literary ladies nowadays, Mrs. Thrale.”
“But you surely saw the handwriting of the script?”
“That is just the point. My printers have examined it and say that it is a lady’s caligraphy only disguised to look like a man’s. In my own judgment they are right. It is an upright hand, neat and clear—not in the least like that of an author. Still, that counts but little, seeing that the writer of the book would be pretty certain to have a clear copy made of his script by someone else. I have had a suspicion, from the mystery insisted on by this Mr. Grafton, that he is none other than the author of the ‘Castle of Otranto.’”
“What, Mr. Walpole?”
“Even so. You recollect how delighted he was to conceal the hand he had in that book—going much farther than I thought any gentleman would in honour go, to make people believe it was what it pretended to be?”
“Mr. Lowndes, I know not what your experience has been; but mine is that when a gentleman becomes an author he lays aside whatever sense of honour he possesses as a gentleman.”
“I have had little to do with gentlemen authors, madam. Most of my writers are simply authors.”
“And Mr. Walpole very properly put himself in line with them, and so had no hesitation in carrying out his fraud in ‘Otranto.’ Well, if it be so, you may count on his revealing himself now that the book has become a success. In any case, you will not forget to keep me informed, and I shall esteem it a favour, Mr. Lowndes.”
Mr. Lowndes renewed his promise and bowed the lady to the door. The three volumes of “Evelina” had been brought out to the chariot by one of the footmen, a second following in his footsteps to see that he deposited them fairly upon one of the cushions, and a third standing by the open door in case of the breakdown of either of the others.
Mrs. Thrale got into the splendid machine, the three lackeys swung themselves up on their platform behind, and clung on to the heavy straps, looking, in their brilliant livery, as the chariot lurched away over the uneven cobble-stones, like mighty butterflies of a tropical forest swaying together on the rim of a gigantic flower.