The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume I Part 59

I a.s.sented; and the king continued his relation, which she listened to with a look of some interest; but when he told her some particulars of my secrecy, she again spoke to me.

"But! your sister was your confidant, was she not?"

"Yes, ma'am."

My sisters, I might have said, but I was always glad to have done.

"Oh, yes!" cried the king, laughing, "but I a.s.sure you she is of Baretti's opinion herself; for I asked her if she thought it was her sister or her brother that betrayed her to her father?--and she says her sister, she thinks."

Poor Esther!--but I shall make her amends by what follows; for the queen, again addressing me, said--

"But to betray to a father is no crime-don't you think so?"

I agreed; and plainly saw she thought Esther, if Esther it was, had only done right.

The king then went on, and when he had finished his narration the queen took her seat. She made Mrs. Delany sit next her, and Miss Port brought her some tea.

"MISS BURNEY PLAYS--BUT NOT TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT."

The king, meanwhile, came to me again, and said,--"Are you musical?"

"Not a performer, sir."

Then, going from me to the queen, he cried,--"She does not play." I did not hear what the queen answered---she spoke in a low voice, and seemed much out of spirits.

They now talked together a little while, about the Princess Elizabeth, and the king mentioned having had a very promising account from her physician, Sir George Baker and the queen soon brightened up.

The king then returned to me and said,--

"Are you sure you never play?--never touch the keys at all."

"Never to acknowledge it, sir."

"Oh! that's it!" cried he; and flying to the queen, cried, "She does play--but not to acknowledge it!"

I was now in a most horrible panic once more; pushed so very home, I could answer no other than I did, for these categorical questions almost constrain categorical answers; and here, at Windsor, it seems an absolute point that whatever they ask must be told, and whatever they desire must be done. Think but, then, of my consternation, in expecting their commands to perform! My dear father, pity me!

The eager air with which he returned to me fully explained what was to follow. I hastily, therefore, spoke first, in order to stop him, crying--"I never, sir, played to anybody but myself!--never!"

"No?" cried he, looking incredulous; "what, not to--

"Not even to me, sir!" cried my kind Mrs. Delany, who saw what was threatening me.

"No?--are you sure?" cried he, disappointed; "but--but you'll--"

"I have never, sir," cried I, very earnestly, "played in my life, but when I could hear n.o.body else--quite alone, and from a mere love of any musical sounds."

He repeated all this to the queen, whose answers I never heard; but when he once more came back, with a face that looked unwilling to give it up, in my fright I had recourse to dumb show, and raised my hands in a supplicating fold, with a most begging countenance to be excused. This, luckily, succeeded; he understood me very readily, and laughed a little, but made a sort of desisting, or rather complying, little bow, and said no more about it.

I felt very much obliged to him, for I saw his curiosity was all alive, I wished I could have kissed his hand. He still, however, kept me in talk, and still upon music.

"To me," said he, "it appears quite as strange to meet with people who have no ear for music, and cannot distinguish one air from another, as to meet with people who are dumb. Lady Bell Finch once told me that she had heard there was some difference between a psalm, a minuet, and a country dance, but she declared they all sounded alike to her! There are people who have no eye for difference of colour. The Duke of Marlborough actually cannot tell scarlet from green!"

He then told me an anecdote of his mistaking one of those colours for another, which was very laughable, but I do not remember it clearly enough to write it. How unfortunate for true virtuosi that such an eye should possess objects worthy the most discerning--the treasures of Blenheim! "I do not find, though," added his majesty, "that this defect runs in his family, for Lady Di Beauclerk, draws very finely."

He then went to Mr. Bernard Dewes.

Almost instantly upon his leaving me, a very gentle voice called out--"Miss Burney!"

It was the queen's. I walked a little nearer her, and a gracious inclination of her head made me go quite up to her.

"You have been," she said, "at Mrs. Walsingham's?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"She has a pretty place, I believe?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Were you ever there before?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Oh, shocking! shocking! thought I; what will Mrs. Delany say to all these monosyllables?

"Has not she lately made some improvements?"

"Yes, ma'am; she has built a conservatory."

Then followed some questions about its situation, during which the king came up to us; and she then, ceasing to address me in particular, began a general sort of conversation, with a spirit and animation that I had not at all expected, and which seemed the result of the great and benevolent pleasure she took in giving entertainment to Mrs. Delany.

A DRAWING-ROOM DURING A FOG.

The subject was the last Drawing-room, which she had been in town to keep on Thursday, during the dense fog.

"I a.s.sure you, ma'am," cried she to Mrs. Delany, "it was so dark, there was no seeing anything, and no knowing any body. And Lady Harcourt could be of no help to tell me who people were, for when it was light, she can't see and now it was dark, I could not see myself. So it was in vain for me to go on in that manner, without knowing which I had spoken to, and which was waiting for me; so I said to Lady Harcourt, 'We had better stop, and stand quite still, for I don't know anybody, no more than you do. But if we stand still, they will all come up in the end, and we must ask them who they are, and if I have spoken to them yet, or not: for it is very odd to do it, but what else can we manage?'"

Her accent is a little foreign, and very prettily so; and her emphasis has that sort of changeability, which gives an interest to everything she utters. But her language is rather peculiar than foreign.

"'Besides,"' added she, with a very significant look, "'if we go on here in the dark, maybe I shall push against somebody, or somebody will push against me--which is the more likely to happen.'"

She then gave an account of some circ.u.mstances which attended the darkness, in a manner not only extremely lively, but mixed, at times, with an archness and humour that made it very entertaining. She chiefly addressed herself to Mrs. Delany; and to me, certainly, she would not, separately, have been so communicative; but she contrived, with great delicacy, to include me in the little party, by frequently looking at me, and always with an expression that invited my partic.i.p.ation in the conversation. And, indeed, though I did not join in words, I shared very openly in the pleasure of her recital.