The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume I Part 68

I started and looked at her; but finding her a perfect stranger to me, I only said "Ma'am!"--and my accent of surprise made her beg my pardon and walk on. I was too much in haste to desire any explanation, and was only quickening my pace, when I was again stopped by a gentleman with a star and red ribbon, who, bowing very civilly, said "Miss Burney, I presume?"

"Sir!--" was again all my answer and again, like the lady, he begged my pardon, and retreated and I was too seriously earnest to pursue my business to dare lose a moment. On, therefore, I again hurried; but, at the very door of my room, which is three steps down and three up place out of the even line of the gallery, I was once more stopped, by a very fat lady: who, coming up to me, also said "Miss Burney, I believe?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"We have just," cried she, "been to wait upon you,--but I could find n.o.body to introduce me; I believe I must introduce myself,--Lady Effingham."

I thanked her for the honour she did me,--but when she proposed returning with me to my room, in order to finish her visit, I was quite disconcerted; and hesitated so much that she said "Perhaps it is not convenient to you?--"

"Ma'am--I--I was just going to dress--" cried I; I meant to add, and ought to have added, to "wait upon the queen," but I was so unused to such a plea, that it sounded as a liberty to my mind's voice, and I could not get it out.

She desired she might be no impediment to me,--and we parted I was forced to let her go and to run into my own room, and fly--to my toilette Not quite the sort of flight I have been used to making.

However, all is so new here that it makes but a part in the general change of system.

The lady who had met me first was her daughter, Lady Frances Howard; and the gentleman, her second husband, Sir George Howard.

I afterwards saw her ladyship in the queen's dressing-room, where her majesty sent for her as soon as she was dressed, and very graciously kept me some time, addressing me frequently while I stayed, in the conversation that took place, as if with a sweet view to point out to this first lady of her bedchamber I have yet seen, the favourable light in which she considers me.

MAJOR PRICE AND COLONEL POLIER.

The Duke de Saxe-Gotha, first cousin to the king, came to Windsor to-day, to spend some time. Major Price, who had the honours to do to his chief attendant, Baron ----, missed us therefore at coffee; but at tea we had them both, and my dear Mrs. Delany, as well as the jovial gourmand colonel, with whom I became prodigiously well acquainted, by making him 'teach me a few German phrases, which he always contrives, let me ask what question I may, to turn into some expression relating to eating and drinking.

When all were gone, except the Duke de Saxe-Gotha's baron and Major Price, I had a very long conversation with the major, while Mrs.

Schwellenberg was entertaining the baron in German. I find, my dearest Susan, he has seen you often at Lady Clarges's; Sir Thomas[204] was his first cousin. He knows my dearest Mrs. Locke, also, by another cousin, Lady Templetown; and he knows me my own self by my cousins of Worcester.

These mutual acquaintances have brought us into almost an intimacy at once, and I was quite glad of this opportunity of a little easy and natural conversation.

_Sunday, July 23_--Charles Wesley played the organ; and after the service was over he performed six or seven pieces by the king's order.

They were all of Handel, and so well suited to the organ, and so well performed on a remarkably good instrument, that it was a great regale to me to hear them. The pleasure I received from the performance led me into being too late for the queen. I found I had already been enquired for to attend at the queen's toilette.

When I came back the tea-party were all a.s.sembled in the eating-parlour.

Colonel Polier was in the highest spirits: the king had just bestowed some appointment upon him in Hanover. He was as happy as if just casting his eyes upon pine-apple, melon, and grapes. I made Mrs. Schwellenberg teach me how to wish him joy in German: which is the only phrase I have yet got that has no reference to eating or drinking.

MISS BURNEY'S DAILY ROUTINE AT WINDSOR.

_Monday, July 24_--Having now journalized for one complete week, let me endeavour to give you, more connectedly, a concise abstract of the general method of pa.s.sing the day, that then I may only write what varies, and occurs occasionally.

I rise at six o'clock, dress in a morning gown and cap, and wait my first summons, which is at all times from seven to near eight, but commonly in the exact half hour between them.

The queen never sends for me till her hair is dressed. This, in a morning, is always done by her wardrobe-woman, Mrs. Thielky, a German, but who speaks English perfectly well.

Mrs. Schwellenberg, since the first week, has never come down in a morning at all. The queen's dress is finished by Mrs. Thielky and myself. No maid ever enters the room while the queen is in it. Mrs.

Thielky hands the things to me, and I put them on. 'Tis fortunate for me I have not the handing them! I should never know which to take first, embarra.s.sed as I am, and should run a prodigious risk of giving the gown before the hoop, and the fan before the neckkerchief.

By eight o'clock, or a little after, for she is extremely expeditious, she is dressed. She then goes out to join the king, and be joined by the princesses, and they all proceed to the king's chapel in the Castle, to prayers, attended by the governesses of the princesses, and the king's equerry. Various others at times attend, but only these indispensably.

I then return to my own room to breakfast. I make this meal the most pleasant part of the day; I have a book for my companion, and I allow myself an hour for it. At nine O'clock I send off my breakfast things, and relinquish my book, to make a serious and steady examination of everything I have upon my hands in the way of business--in which preparations for dress are always included, not for the present day alone, but for the Court-days, which require a particular dress; for the next arriving birthday of any of the royal family, every one of which requires new apparel; for Kew, where the dress is plainest; and for going on here, where the dress very pleasant to me, requiring no shew nor finery, but merely to be neat, not inelegant, and moderately fashionable.

That over, I have my time at my own disposal till a quarter before twelve, except on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days, when I have it only to a quarter before eleven. My rummages and business sometimes occupy me uninterruptedly to those hours. When they do not, I give till ten to necessary letters of duty, ceremony, or long arrears;--and now, from ten to the times I have mentioned, I devote to walking. These times mentioned call me to the irksome and quick-returning labours of the toilette. The hour advanced on the Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days is for curling and c.r.a.ping the hair, which it now requires twice a week.

A quarter before one is the usual time for the queen to begin dressing for the day. Mrs. Schwellenberg then constantly attends; so do I; Mrs.

Thielky, of course, at all times. We help her off with her gown, and on with her powdering things, and then the hair-dresser is admitted. She generally reads the newspaper during that operation.

When she observes that I have run to her but half dressed, she constantly gives me leave to return and finish--as soon as she is seated. If she is grave, and reads steadily on, she dismisses me, whether I am dressed or not; but at all times she never forgets to send me away while she is powdering, with a consideration not to spoil my clothes, that one would not expect belonged to her high station. Neither does she ever detain me without making a point of reading here and there some little paragraph aloud.

When I return, I finish, if anything is undone, my dress, and then take Baretti's "Dialogues," my dearest Fredy's "Tablet of Memory," or some such disjointed matter, for the few minutes that elapse ere I am again summoned.

I find her then always removed to her state dressing-room. If any room in this private mansion can have the epithet of state. There, in a very short time, her dress is finished. She then says she won't detain me, and I hear and see no more of her till bed-time.

It is commonly three o'clock when I am thus set at large. And I have then two hours quite at my disposal: but, in the natural course of things, not a moment after! These dear and quiet two hours, my only quite sure and undisturbed time in the whole day, after breakfast is over, I shall henceforth devote to thus talking with my beloved Susan, my Fredy, and my other sisters, my dear father, or Miss Cambridge; with my brothers, cousins, Mrs. Ord, and other friends, in such terms as these two hours will occasionally allow me. Henceforward, I say; for hitherto dejection of spirits, with uncertainty how long my time might last, have made me waste moment after moment as sadly as unprofitably.

At five, we have dinner. Mrs. Schwellenberg and I meet in the eating-room. We are commonly tete-a-tete: when there is anybody added, it is from her invitation only. Whatever right my place might afford me of also inviting my friends to the table I have now totally lost, by want of courage and spirits to claim it originally.

When we have dined, we go upstairs to her apartment, which is directly over mine. Here we have coffee till the "terracing" is over: this is at about eight o'clock. Our tete-a-tete then finishes, and we come down again to the eating-room. There the equerry, whoever he is, comes to tea constantly, and with him any gentleman that the king or queen may have invited for the evening; and when tea is over, he conducts them, and goes himself, to the concert-room. This is commonly about nine o'clock.

From that time, if Mrs. Schwellenberg is alone, I never quit her for a minute, till I come to my little supper at near eleven. Between eleven and twelve my last summons usually takes place, earlier and later occasionally. Twenty minutes is the customary time then spent with the queen: half an hour, I believe, is seldom exceeded.

I then come back, and after doing whatever I can to forward _my_ dress for the next morning, I go to bed-and to sleep, too, believe me: the early rising, and a long day's attention to new affairs and occupations, cause a fatigue so bodily, that nothing mental stands against it, and to sleep I fall the moment I have put out my candle and laid down my head.

Such is the day to your F. B. in her new situation at Windsor; such, I mean, is its usual destination, and its intended course. I make it take now and then another channel, but never stray far enough not to return to the original stream after a little meandering about and about it.

I think now you will be able to see and to follow me pretty closely.

With regard to those summonses I speak of, I will now explain myself. My summons, upon all regular occasions--that is, morning, noon, and night toilets--is neither more nor less than a bell. Upon extra occasions a page is commonly sent. At first, I felt inexpressibly discomfited by this mode of call. A bell!--it seemed so mortifying a mark of servitude, I always felt myself blush, though alone, with conscious shame at my own strange degradation. But I have philosophized myself now into some reconcilement with this manner of summons, by reflecting that to have some person always sent would be often very inconvenient, and that this method is certainly less an interruption to any occupation I may be employed in, than the entrance of messengers so many times in the day.

It is, besides, less liable to mistakes. So I have made up my mind to it as well as I can; and now I only feel that proud blush when somebody is by to revive my original dislike of it.

THE PRINCESS ROYAL.

_Tuesday, July 25._--I now begin my second week, with a scene a little, not much, different. We were now to go to Kew, there to remain till Friday.

I had this morning, early, for the first time, a little visit from one of the princesses. I was preparing for my journey, when a little rap at my room-door made me call out "Come in," and who should enter but the princess royal!

I apologised for my familiar admittance, by my little expectation of such an hon_our_. She told me she had brought the queen's snuff-box, to be filled with some snuff which I had been directed to prepare. It is a very fine-scented and mild snuff, but requires being moistened from time to time, to revive its smell. The princess, with a very sweet smile, insisted upon holding the box while I filled it; and told me she had seen Mrs. Delany at the chapel, and that she was very well; and then she talked on about her, with a visible pleasure in having a subject so interesting to me to open upon.

When the little commission was executed, she took her leave with an elegant civility of manner as if parting with another king's daughter.

I am quite charmed with the princess royal unaffected condescension and native dignity are so happily blended in her whole deportment.

She had left me but a short time before she again returned. "Miss Burney," cried she, smiling with a look of congratulation, "Mamma says the snuff is extremely well mixed; and she has sent another box to be filled."