The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay
Chapter 83 : How intolerable an impertinence in John!--it was really no wonder the poor colonel was

How intolerable an impertinence in John!--it was really no wonder the poor colonel was so glum.

Again I repeated my ignorance of this step; and he then said "Why, ma'am, he comes to us regularly every afternoon, and says his lady is waiting; and we are very glad to come, poor souls that we are, with no rest all the livelong day but what we get in this good room!--but then--to come, and see ourselves only intruders--and to find you going out, after sending for us!"

I could scarce find words to express my amazement at this communication.

I cleared myself instantly from having any the smallest knowledge of John's proceedings, and Colonel Goldsworthy soon recovered all his spirits and good humour, when he was satisfied he had not designedly been treated with such strange and unmeaning inconsistency. He rejoiced exceedingly that he had spoke out, and I thanked him for his frankness, and the evening concluded very amicably....

The evening after, I invited Miss Port, determined to spend it entirely with my beaus, in order to wholly explain away this impertinence.

Colonel Goldsworthy now made me a thousand apologies for having named the matter to me at all. I a.s.sured him I was extremely glad he had afforded me an opportunity of clearing it. In the course of the discussion, I mentioned the constant summons brought me by John every afternoon. He lifted up his hands and eyes, and protested most solemnly he had never sent a single one.

"I vow, ma'am," cried the colonel, "I would not have taken such a liberty on any account; though all the comfort of my life in this house, is one half-hour in a day spent in this room. After all one's labours, riding, and walking, and standing, and bowing--what a life it is! Well!

it's honour! that's one comfort; it's all honour! royal honour!--one has the honour to stand till one has not a foot left; and to ride till one's stiff, and to walk till one's ready to drop,--and then one makes one's lowest bow, d'ye see, and blesses one's self with joy for the honour!"

AN EQUERRY'S DUTIES AND DISCOMFORTS.

His account of his own hards.h.i.+ps and sufferings here, in the discharge of his duty, is truly comic. "How do you like it, ma'am?" he says to me, "though it's hardly fair to ask you yet, because you know almost nothing of the joys of this sort of life. But wait till November and December, and then you'll get a pretty taste of them! Running along in these cold pa.s.sages, then bursting into rooms fit to bake you, then back again into all these agreeable puffs!--Bless us! I believe in my heart there's wind enough in these pa.s.sages to carry a man of war! And there you'll have your share, ma'am, I promise you that! you'll get knocked up in three days, take my word for that."

I begged him not to prognosticate so much evil for me.

"O ma'am, there's no help for it!" cried he; "you won't have the hunting, to be sure, nor amusing yourself with wading a foot and a-half through the dirt, by way of a little pleasant walk, as we poor equerries do! It's a wonder to me we outlive the first month. But the agreeable puffs of the pa.s.sages you will have just as completely as any of us.

Let's see, how many blasts must you have every time you go to the queen?

First, one upon your opening your door; then another, as you get down the three steps from it, which are exposed to the wind from the garden door downstairs; then a third, as you turn the corner to enter the pa.s.sage; then you come plump upon another from the hall door; then comes another, fit to knock you down, as you turn to the upper pa.s.sage; then, just as you turn towards the queen's room, comes another; and last, a whiff from the king's stairs, enough to blow you half a mile off!"

"Mere healthy breezes," I cried, and a.s.sured him I did not fear them.

"Stay till Christmas," cried he, with a threatening air, "only stay till then, and let's see what you'll say to them; you'll be laid up as sure as fate! you may take my word for that. One thing, however, pray let me caution you about--don't go to early prayers in November; if you do, that will completely kill you! Oh, ma'am, you know nothing yet of all these matters! only pray, joking apart, let me have the honour just to advise you this one thing, or else it's all over with you, I do a.s.sure you!"

It was in vain I begged him to be more merciful in his prophecies; he failed not, every night, to administer to me the same pleasant antic.i.p.ations.

"Why the princesses," cried he, "used to it as they are, get regularly knocked up before this business is over; off they drop, one by one:--first the queen deserts us; then Princess Elizabeth is done for; then princess royal begins coughing; then Princess Augusta gets the snuffles; and all the poor attendants, my poor sister at their head, drop off, one after another, like so many snuffs of candles: till at last, dwindle, dwindle, dwindle--not a soul goes to the chapel but the king, the parson, and myself; and there we three freeze it out together!"

One evening, when he had been out very late hunting with the king, he a.s.sumed so doleful an air of weariness, that had not Miss Port exerted her utmost powers to revive him, he would not have uttered a word the whole night; but when once brought forward, he gave us more entertainment than ever, by relating his hards.h.i.+ps.

"After all the labours," cried he, "of the chase, all the riding, the trotting, the galloping, the leaping, the--with your favour, ladies, I beg pardon, I was going to say a strange word, but the--the perspiration--and--and all that--after being wet through over head, and soused through under feet, and popped into ditches, and jerked over gates, what lives we do lead! Well, it's all honour! that's my only comfort! Well, after all this, f.a.gging away like mad from eight in the morning to five or six in the afternoon, home we come, looking like so many drowned rats, with not a dry thread about us, nor a morsel within us--sore to the very bone, and forced to smile all the time! and then after all this what do you think follows?--'Here, Goldsworthy,' cries his majesty: so up I comes to him, bowing profoundly, and my hair dripping down to my shoes; 'Goldsworthy,' cries his majesty. 'Sir,' says I, smiling agreeably, with the rheumatism just creeping all over me!

but still, expecting something a little comfortable, I wait patiently to know his gracious pleasure, and then, 'Here, Goldsworthy, say!' he cries, 'will you have a little barley water?' Barley water in such a plight as that! Fine compensation for a wet jacket, truly!--barley water! I never heard of such a thing in my life! barley water after a whole day's hard hunting!"

"And pray did you drink it?"

"I drink it?--Drink barley water? no, no; not come to that neither. But there it was, sure enough!--in a jug fit for a sick room, just such a thing as you put upon a hob in a chimney, for some poor miserable soul that keeps his bed! just such a thing as that!--And, 'Here, Goldsworthy,' says his majesty, 'here's the barley water.'"

"And did the king drink it himself?"

"Yes, G.o.d bless his majesty! but I was too humble a subject to do the same as the king!--Barley water, quoth I!--Ha! ha!--a fine treat truly!

Heaven defend me! I'm not come to that, neither!--bad enough too, but not so bad as that."

ROYAL CAUTIONS AND CONFIDENCES.

_Nov. 1._--We began this month by steadily settling ourselves at Kew. A very pleasant circ.u.mstance happened to me on this day, in venturing to present the pet.i.tion of an unfortunate man who had been s.h.i.+pwrecked; whose pet.i.tion was graciously attended to,'and the money he solicited was granted him. I had taken a great interest in the poor man, from the simplicity and distress of his narration, and took him into one of the parlours to a.s.sist him in drawing up his memorial.

The queen, when, with equal sweetness and humanity, she had delivered the sum to one of her pages to give to him, said to me, "Now, though your account of this poor man makes him seem to be a real object, I must give you one caution: there are so many impostors about, who will try to speak to you, that, if you are not upon your guard, you may be robbed yourself before you can get any help: I think, therefore, you had better never trust yourself in a room alone with anybody you don't know."

I thanked her for her gracious counsel, and promised, for the future, to have my man always at hand.

I was afterwards much touched with a sort of unconscious confidence with which she relieved her mind. She asked me my opinion of a paper in the "Tatler," which I did not recollect; and when she was dressed, and seated in her sitting-room, she made me give her the book, and read to me this paper. It is an account of a young man of a good heart and sweet disposition, who is allured by pleasure into a libertine life, which he pursues by habit, but with constant remorse, and ceaseless shame and unhappiness. It was impossible for me to miss her object: all the mother was in her voice while she read it, and her glistening eyes told the application made throughout.[223] My mind sympathised sincerely, though my tongue did not dare allude to her feelings. She looked pensively down when she had finished it, and before she broke silence, a page came to announce the d.u.c.h.ess of Ancaster.

THE QUEEN TIRED OF HER GEWGAWS.

_Nov. 3._--In the morning I had the honour of a conversation with the queen, the most delightful, on her part, I had ever yet been indulged with. It was all upon dress, and she said so nearly what I had just imputed to her in my little stanzas, that I could scarce refrain producing them; yet could not muster courage. She told me, with the sweetest grace imaginable, how well she had liked at first her jewels and ornaments as queen,--"But how soon," cried she, "was that over!

Believe me, Miss Burney, it is a pleasure of a week,--a fortnight, at most,--and to return no more! I thought, at first, I should always choose to wear them, but the fatigue, and trouble of putting them on, and the care they required, and the fear of losing them,--believe me, ma'am, in a fortnight's time I longed again for my own earlier dress, and wished never to see them more!"

She then still more opened her opinions and feelings. She told me she had never, in her most juvenile years, loved dress and shew, nor received the smallest pleasure from any thing in her external appearance beyond neatness and comfort: yet did not disavow that the first week or fortnight of being a queen, when only in her seventeenth year, she thought splendour sufficiently becoming her station to believe she should thenceforth choose constantly to support it. But her eyes alone were dazzled, not her mind; and therefore the delusion speedily vanished, and her understanding was too strong to give it any chance of returning,

A HOLIDAY AT LAST.

_Nov 4._--This morning, when I attended the queen, she asked me if I should like to go and see my father at Chesington? and then gave orders immediately for a chaise to be ready without delay--"And there is no need you should hurry yourself," she added, "for it will do perfectly well if you are back to dinner; when I dress, I will send for Miss Planta."

I thanked her very much, and she seemed quite delighted to give me this gratification. "The first thing I thought of this morning, when I woke,"

said she, "and when I saw the sun s.h.i.+ning in upon the bed, was that this would be a fine morning for Miss Burney to go and see her father."

And soon after, to make me yet more comfortable she found a deputy for my man as well as for myself, condescending to give orders herself that another person might lay the cloth, lest I should be hurried home on that account.

I need not tell my two dear readers how sensibly I felt her goodness, when I acquaint them of its effect upon me; which was no less than to induce, to impel me to trust her with my performance of her request.

just as she was quitting her dressing-room, I got behind her, and suddenly blurted out--

"Your majesty's goodness to me, ma'am, makes me venture to own that there is a command which I received some time ago, and which I have made some attempt to execute."

She turned round with great quickness,--"The great coat?" she cried, "is it that?"

I was glad to be so soon understood, and took it from my pocket book--but holding it a little back, as she offered to take it.

"For your majesty alone," I cried; "I must entreat that it may meet no other eyes, and I hope it will not be looked at when any one else is even in sight!"

She gave me a ready promise, and took it with an alacrity and walked off with a vivacity that a.s.sured me she would not be very long before she examined it; though, when I added another little request, almost a condition, that it might not be read till I was far away, she put it into her pocket unopened, and, wis.h.i.+ng me a pleasant ride, and that I might find my father well, she proceeded towards the breakfast parlour.