The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Ii Part 57

I believe he wished to discover if she had heard of his learned ladies!

THE KING's ARRIVAL.

Dinner went on, and still no king. We now began to grow very anxious, when Miss Planta exclaimed that she thought she heard a carriage. We all listened. "I hope!" I cried. "I see you do!"

cried he, "you have a very face of hope at this moment!"--and it was not disappointed. The sound came nearer, and presently a carriage drove into the front court. I could see nothing, it was so dark; but I presently heard the much-respected voice of the dear unhappy king, speaking rapidly to the porter, as he alighted from the coach. Mr. Fairly flew instantly upstairs, to acquaint the queen with the welcome tidings.

The poor king had been prevailed upon to quit Windsor with the utmost difficulty: he was accompanied by General Harcourt, his aide-de-camp, and Colonels Goldsworthy and Wellbred--no one else!

He had pa.s.sed all the rest with apparent composure, to come to his carriage, for they lined the pa.s.sage, eager to see him once more! and almost all Windsor was collected round the rails, etc.

to witness the mournful spectacle of his departure, which left them in the deepest despondence, with scarce a ray of hope ever to see him again.

Page 269

The bribery, however, which brought, was denied him!--he was by no means to see the queen

When I went to her at night, she was all graciousness, and kept me till very late. I had not seen her alone so long, except for a few minutes in the morning, that I had a thousand things I wished to say to her. You may be sure they were all, as far as they went, consolatory.

Princess Augusta had a small tent-bed put up in the queen's bed-chamber: I called her royal highness when the queen dismissed me. She undressed in an adjoining apartment.

THE ARRANGEMENTS AT KEW PALACE.

I must now tell you how the house is disposed. The whole of the ground-floor that looks towards the 'garden is appropriated to the king, though he is not indulged with its range. In the side wing is a room for the physicians, destined to their consultations; adjoining to that is the equerry's dining-room.

Mrs. Schwellenberg's parlours, which are in the front of the house, one for dining, the other for coffee and tea, are still allowed us. The other front rooms below are for the pages to dine, and the rest of the more detached buildings are for the servants of various sorts.

All the rooms immediately over those which are actually occupied by the king are locked up; her majesty relinquishes them, that he may never be tantalized by footsteps overhead. She has retained only the bed-room, the drawing-room, which joins to it, and the gallery, in which she eats. Beyond this gallery are the apartments of the three elder princesses, in one .of which rooms Miss Planta sleeps. There is nothing more on the first floor.

On the second a very large room for Mrs. Schwellenberg, and a very pleasant one for myself, are over the queen's rooms.

Farther on are three bed-rooms, one for the surgeon or apothecary in waiting, the next for the equerry, and the third, lately mine, for the queen's lady--all written thus with chalk by the prince.

Then follows a very long dark pa.s.sage, with little bed-rooms on each side, for the maids, and one of the pages. These look like so many little cells of a convent.

Mrs. Sandys has a room nearer the queen's, and Goter has one nearer to mine. At the end of this pa.s.sage there is a larger room, formerly appropriated to Mr. de Luc, but now

Page 270

chalked "The physicians'." One physician, one equerry, and one surgeon or apothecary, are regularly to sleep in the house. This is the general arrangement.

The prince very properly has also ordered that one of his majesty's grooms of' the bedchamber should be in constant waiting; he is to reside in the prince's house, over the way, which is also fitting up for some others. This gentleman is to receive all inquiries about the king's health. The same regulation had taken place at Windsor, in the Castle, where the gentlemen waited in turn. Though, as the physicians send their account to St. James's, this is now become an almost useless ceremony, for everybody goes thither to read the bulletin.

The three young princesses are to be in a house belonging to the king on Kew green, commonly called Princess Elizabeth's, as her royal highness has long inhabited it in her illness. There will lodge Miss Goldsworthy, Mlle. Montmoulin, and Miss Gomme. Lady Charlotte Finch is to be at the Prince of Wales's.

I could not sleep all night----I thought I heard the poor king.

He was under the same range of apartments, though far distant, but his indignant disappointment haunted me. The queen, too, was very angry at having promises made in her name which could not be kept. What a day altogether was this!

A REGENCY HINTED AT.

Sunday, Nov. 30.-Here, in all its dread colours, dark as its darkest prognostics, began the Kew campaign. I went to my poor queen at seven o'clock: the Princess Augusta arose and went away to dress, and I received her majesty's commands to go down for inquiries. She had herself pa.s.sed a wretched night, and already lamented leaving Windsor.

I waited very long in the cold dark pa.s.sages below, before I could find any one of whom to ask intelligence. The parlours were without fires, and washing. I gave directions afterwards, to have a fire in one of them by seven o'clock every morning.

At length I procured the speech of one of the pages, and heard that the night had been the most violently bad of any yet pa.s.sed!--and no wonder!

I hardly knew how to creep upstairs, frozen both within and without, to tell such news; but it was not received as if unexpected, and I omitted whatever was not essential to be known.

Page 271

Afterwards arrived Mrs: Schwellenberg, so oppressed between her spasms and the house's horrors, that the oppression she inflicted ought perhaps to be pardoned. It was, however, difficult enough to bear! Harshness, tyranny, dissension, and even insult, seemed personified. I cut short details upon this subject-they would but make you sick. . . .

My dear Miss Cambridge sent to me immediately. I saw she had a secret hope she might come and sit with me now and then in this confinement. It would have been my greatest possible solace in this dreary abode: but I hastened to acquaint her of the absolute seclusion, and even to beg she would not send her servant to the house - for I found it was much desired to keep off all who might carry away any intelligence.

She is ever most reasonable, and never thenceforward hinted upon the subject. But she wrote continually long letters, and filled with news and anecdotes of much interest, relating to anything she could gather of "out-house proceedings," which now became very important--the length of the malady threatening a regency!-- a Word which I have not yet been able to articulate.

MR. FAIRLY'S KIND OFFICES.

Kew, Monday, Dec. 1.-Mournful was the opening of the month! My account of the night from Gezewell, the page, was very alarming, and my poor royal mistress began to sink more than I had ever yet seen. No wonder; the length of the malady so uncertain, the steps which seemed now requisite so shocking: for new advice, and such as suited only disorders that physicians in general relinquish, was now proposed, and compliance or refusal were almost equally tremendous.

In sadness I returned from her, and, moping and unoccupied, I was walking up and down my room, when Columb came to say Mr. Fairly desired to know if I could see him.

Certainly, I said, I would come to him in the parlour. He was not at all well, nor did he seem at all comfortable. He had undertaken, by his own desire, to purchase small carpets for the princesses, for the house is in a state of cold and discomfort past all imagination. It has never been a winter residence, and there was nothing prepared for its becoming one.

He could not, he told me, look at the rooms of their royal highnesses without shuddering for them; and he longed, he said, to cover all the naked, cold boards, to render them

Page 272

more habitable. He had obtained permission to execute this as a commission: for so miserable is the house at present that no general orders to the proper people are either given Or thought about; and every one is so absorbed in the general calamity, that they would individually sooner perish than offer up complaint or pet.i.tion. I Should never end were I to explain the reasons there are for both.

What he must next, he said, effect, was supplying them with sand-bags for windows and doors, which he intended to fill and to place himself. The wind which blew in upon those lovely princesses, he declared, was enough to destroy them.

When he had informed me of these kind offices, he began an inquiry into how I was lodged. Well enough, I said; but he would not accept so general an answer. He insisted upon knowing what was my furniture, and in particular if I had any carpet; and when I owned I had none, he smiled, and said he would bring six, though his commission only extended to three.

He did not at all like the parlour, which, indeed, is wretchedly cold and miserable: he wished to bring it a carpet, and new fit it up with warm winter accommodations. He reminded me of my dearest Fredy, when she brought me a decanter of barley-water and a bright tin saucepan, under her hoop. I Could not tell him that history in detail, but I rewarded his good-nature by hinting at the resemblance it bore, in its active zeal, to my sweet Mrs.

Locke. . . .

The queen afterwards presented me with a very pretty little new carpet; only a bed-side slip, but very warm. She knew not how much I was acquainted with its history, but I found she had settled for them all six. She gave another to Mrs.

Schwellenberg.

MRS. SCHWELLENBERG'S PARLOUR.

Dec. 3.-Worse again to-day was the poor king: the little fair gleam, how soon did it pa.s.s away!

I was beginning to grow ill myself, from the added fatigue of disturbance in the night, unavoidably occasioned by the neighbourhood to an invalid who summoned her maids at all hours; and my royal mistress issued orders for a removal to take place.

My new apartment is at the end of the long dark pa.s.sage mentioned, with bed-room cells on each side it. It is a

Page 273