The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Ii Part 43

in a few minutes follow them, and thence attend to the play, and the next morning, by five o'clock, be ready for his post-chaise.

Seeing me, however, already making tea, with his Usual and invariable sociability he said he would venture to stay and partake, though he was only come, he gravely repeated, to take his leave.

"And I must not say," cried I, "that I am sorry you are going, because I know so well you wish to be gone that it makes me wish it for you myself."

"No," answered he, "you must not be sorry; when our friends are going to any joy. We must think of them, and be glad to part with them."

Readily entering the same tone, with similar plainness of truth I answered, No, I will not be sorry you go, though miss you at Cheltenham I certainly must."

"Yes," was his unreserved a.s.sent, "you will miss me here, because I have spent my evenings with you; but You Will not long remain at Cheltenham."

Oim'e!" thought I, you little think how much Worse will be the quitting it. He owned that the bustle and fatigue of this life was too much both for his health and his spirits.

I told him I Wished it might be a gratification to him, in his toils, to hear how the queen always spoke of him; With what evident and constant complacency and distinction. "And you may credit her sincerity," I added, "Since it is to so little a person as me she does this, and when no one else is present."

He was not insensible to this, though he pa.s.sed it over without much answer. He showed me a letter from his second son, very affectionate and natural. I congratulated him, most sincerely, on his approaching happiness in collecting them all together.

"Yes he answered, "my group will increase, like a snow-ball, as I roll along, and they will soon all four be as happy as four little things know how to be."

This drew him on into some reflections upon affection and upon happiness. "There is no happiness," he said, "without partic.i.p.ation; no partic.i.p.ation without affection. There is, indeed, in affection a charm that leaves all things behind it, and renders even every calamity that does not interfere with it inconsequential and there is no difficulty, no toil, no labour, no exertion, that will not be endured where there is a view of reaping it."

He ruminated some time, and then told me of a sermon he had heard preached some months ago, sensibly demonstrating

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the total vanity and insufficiency, even for this world, of all our best affections, and proving their fallibility from our most infirm humanity.

My concurrence did not here continue: I cannot hold this doctrine to be right, and I am most sure it is not desirable. our best affections, I must and do believe, were given us for the best purposes, for every stimulation to good, and every solace in evil.

But this was not a time for argument. I said nothing, while he, melancholy and moralizing, continued in this style as long as he could venture to stay. He then rose and took his hat, saying, "

Well, so much for the day; what may come to-morrow I know not; but, be it what it may, I stand prepared."

I hoped, I told him, that his little s...o...b..ll would be all he could wish it, and I was heartily glad he would so soon collect it.

"We will say," cried he, "nothing of any regrets," and bowed, and was hastening off.

The "we," however, had an openness and simplicity that drew from me an equally open and simple reply. "No," I cried, "but I will say-for that you will have pleasure in hearing that you have lightened my time here in a manner that no one else could have done, of this party."

To be sure this was rather a circ.u.mscribed compliment, those he left considered - but it was strict and exact truth, and therefore like his own dealing. He said not a word of answer, but bowed, and went away, leaving me firmly impressed with a belief that I shall find in him a true, an honourable, and even an affectionate friend, for life.

MAJOR PRICE IS TIRED OF RETIREMENT.

Sunday, Aug. 10.-Major Price was of the breakfast party this morning, to my great contentment. I heartily wish he was again in the king's household, he is so truly attached to his majesty, and he so earnestly himself wishes for a restoration, not to the equerrys.h.i.+p, which is too laborious an office, but to any attendance upon the king's person of less fatigue.

He opened to me very much upon his situation and wishes. he has settled himself in a small farm near the house of his eldest brother, but I could see too plainly he has not found there the contentment that satisfies him. He sighs for society ; he owns books are insufficient for everything, and his evenings

Page 204 begin already to grow wearisome. He does not wish it to be talked of publicly, but he is solicitous to return to the king, in any place attached to his person, of but mild duty. Not only the king, he said, he loved, but all his society, and the way of life in general; and he had no tie whatsoever to Herefords.h.i.+re that would make him hesitate a moment in quitting it, if another place could be made adequate to his fortune. His income was quite too small for any absence from his home of more than a few weeks, in its present plight; and therefore it could alone be by some post under government that he must flatter himself with ever returning to the scenes he had left.

How rarely does a plan of retirement answer the expectations upon which it is raised! He fears having this suspected, and therefore keeps the matter to himself; but I believe he so much opened it to me, in the hope I might have an opportunity to make it known where it might be efficacious; for he told me, at the same time, he apprehended his majesty had a notion his fondness for Herefords.h.i.+re, not his inability to continue equerry, had occasioned his resignation.

I shall certainly make it my business to hint this to the queen.

So faithful and attached a servant ought not to be thrown aside, and, after nine years' service, left unrewarded, and seem considered as if superannuated.

MR. FAIRLY'S LITTLE NOTE.

When I came from her majesty, just before she went down to dinner, I was met by a servant who delivered me a letter, which he told me was just come by express. I took it in some alarm, fearing that ill news alone could bring it by such haste, but, before I could open it, he said, "'Tis from Mr. Fairly, ma'am."

I hastened to read, and will now copy it:-

"Northleach, Aug. 10, 1788.

"Her majesty may possibly not have heard that Mr. Edmund Waller died on Thursday night. He was master of St. Catherine's, which is in her majesty's gift. It may be useful to her to have this early intelligence of this circ.u.mstance, and you will have the goodness to mention it to her. Mr. W. was at a house upon his own estate within a mile and a half of this place, Very truly and sincerely yours, "S. Fairly."

"Miss Burney, Fauconberg Hall."

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How to communicate this news, however, was a real distress to me.

I know her majesty is rather scrupulous that all messages immediately to herself should be conveyed by the highest channels, and I feared she would think this ought to have been sent through her lady then in waiting, Lady Harcourt. Mr.

Fairly, too, however superior to such small matters for himself, is most punctiliously attentive to them for her. I could attribute this only to haste. But my difficulty was not alone to have received the intelligence-the conclusion of the note I was sure would surprise her. The rest, as a message to herself, being without any beginning, would not strike her; but the words "very truly and sincerely yours," come out with such an abrupt plainness, and to her, who knows not with what intimacy of intercourse we have lived together so much during this last month, I felt quite ashamed to show them.

While wavering how to manage, a fortunate circ.u.mstance seemed to come to my relief; the Princess Elizabeth ran up hastily to her room, which is just opposite to mine, before she followed the queen down to dinner; I flew after her, and told her I had just heard of the death of Mr. Waller, the Master of St. Catherine's, and I begged her to communicate it to her majesty.

She undertook it, with her usual readiness to oblige, and I was quite delighted to have been so speedy without producing my note, which I determined now not even to mention unless called upon, and even then not to produce; for now, as I should not have the first telling, it might easily be evaded by not having it in my pocket.

The moment, however, that the dinner was over, Princess Elizabeth came to summon me to the queen. This was very unexpected, as I thought I should not see her till night; but I locked up my note and followed.

She was only with the princesses. I found the place was of importance, by the interest she took about it. She asked me several questions relative to Mr. Waller. I answered her all I could collect from my note, for further never did I hear; but the moment I was obliged to stop she said, "Pray have you known him long?"

"I never knew him at all, ma'am."

"No? Why, then, how came you to receive the news about his death?"

Was not this agreeable? I was forced to say, "I heard of it only from Mr. Fairly, ma'am."

Page 206 Nothing Could exceed the surprise with which she now lifted up her eyes to look at me. "From Mr. Fairly?--Why did he not tell it me?"

O, worse and worse! I was now compelled to answer, "He did not know It when he was here, ma'am; he heard it at Northleach, and, thinking it might be of use to your majesty to have the account immediately, he sent it over express."

A dead silence so uncomfortable ensued, that I thought it best presently to go on further, though unasked.

"Mr. Fairly, ma'am, wrote the news to me, on such small paper, and in such haste, that it is hardly fit to he shown to your majesty; but I have the note upstairs."

No answer; again all silent; and then Princess Augusta said, "Mamma, Miss Burney says she has the note upstairs."

"If your majesty pleases to see it"--

She looked up again, much more pleasantly, and said, "I shall be glad to see it," with a little bow.

Out I went for it, half regretting I had not burned it, to make the producing it impossible. When I brought it to her, she received it with the most gracious smile, and immediately read it aloud, with great complacency, till she came to the end and then, with a lowered and somewhat altered tone, the "very truly and sincerely yours," which she seemed to look at for a moment with some doubt if it were not a mistake, but in returning it she bowed again, and simply said, "I am very much obliged to Mr.

Fairly."