The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Ii Part 31

"That's a very good idea, but I do not like to realize it ; I do not like to think of you and fatigue together. Is it so? Do you really want rest?"

"O, no."

"O, I am well aware yours is not a mind to turn complainer but yet I fear, and not for your rest only, but your time. How is that; have you it, as you Ought, at your own disposal?"

"Why not quite," cried I, laughing. Good heaven! what a question, in a situation like mine!

"Well, that is a thing I cannot bear to think of--that you should want time."

"But the queen," cried I, is so kind."

"That may be," interrupted he, "and I am very glad of it but still, time--and to you!"

"Yet, after all, in the whole, I have a good deal, though always Uncertain. for, if sometimes I have not two minutes when I expect two hours, at other times I have two hours where I expected only two minutes."

"All that is nothing, if you have them not with certainty. Two hours are of no more value than two minutes, if you have them not at undoubted command."

Again I answered, "The queen is so kind;" determined to sound that sentence well and audibly into republican ears.

"Well, well," cried he, "that may be some compensation to you, but to us, to all others, what compensation is there for depriving you of time?"

"Mrs. Locke, here," cried I, "always wishes time could be bought, because there are so many who have more than they know what to do with, that those who have less might be supplied very reasonably."

"'Tis an exceeding good idea," cried he, "and I am sure, if it could be purchased, it ought to be given to YOU by act of parliament, as a public donation and tribute." There was a fine flouris.h.!.+

PERSONAL RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN WINDHAM AND HASTINGS.

A little after, while we were observing Mr. Hastings, Mr. Windham exclaimed, "He's looking up; I believe he is looking for you."

I turned hastily away, fairly saying, "I hope not."

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"Yes, he is; he seems as if he wanted to bow to you." I shrank back. "No, he looks off; he thinks you in too bad company!"

"Ah, Mr. Windham," cried I, "you should not be so hardhearted towards him, whoever else may; and I could tell you, and I will tell you if you please, a very forcible reason." He a.s.sented. "You must know, then, that people there are in this world who scruple not to a.s.sert that there is a very strong personal resemblance between Mr. Windham and Mr. Hastings; nay, in the profile, I see it myself at this moment and therefore ought not you to be a little softer than the rest, if merely in sympathy?"

He laughed very heartily; and owned he had heard of the resemblance before.

"I could take him extremely well," I cried, "for your uncle."

"No, no; if he looks like my elder brother, I aspire at no more."

"No, no; he is more like your uncle; he has just that air; he seems just of that time of life. Can You then be so unnatural as to prosecute him with this eagerness?"

And then, once again, I ventured to give him a little touch of Moliere's old woman, lest he should forget that good and honest dame; and I told him there was one thing she particularly objected to in all the speeches that had yet been made, and hoped his speech would be exempt from.

He inquired what that was.

"Why, she says she does not like to hear every orator compliment another; every fresh speaker say, he leaves to the superior ability of his successor the prosecution of the business."

"O, no," cried he, very readily, "I detest all that sort of adulation. I hold it in the utmost contempt."

"And, indeed, it will be time to avoid it when your turn comes, for I have heard it in no less than four speeches already."

And then he offered his a.s.sistance about servants and carriages, and we all came away, our different routes; but my Fredy and Susan must remember my meeting with Mr. Hastings in coming out, and his calling after me, and saying, with a very comic sort of politeness, "I must come here to have the pleasure of seeing Miss Burney, for I see her nowhere else."

What a strange incident would have been formed had this rencontre happened thus if I had accepted Mr. Windham's offered services !

I am most glad I had not ; I should have felt myself a conspirator, to have been so met by Mr. Hastings.

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DEATH OF YOUNG LADY MULGRAVE.

May.-On the 17th of this month Miss Port bade her sad reluctant adieu to London. I gave what time I could command from Miss Port's departure to my excellent and maternal Mrs. Ord, who supported herself with unabating fort.i.tude and resignation. But a new calamity affected her much, and affected me greatly also, though neither she nor I were more than distant spectators in comparison with the nearer mourners; the amiable and lovely Lady Mulgrave gave a child to her lord, and died, in the first dawn of youthful beauty and sweetness, exactly a year after she became his wife. 'Twas, indeed, a tremendous blow. It was all our wonder that Lord Mulgrave kept his senses, as he had not been famed for patience or piety; but I believe he was benignly inspired with both, from his deep admiration of their excellence in his lovely wife.

AGAIN AT WINDSOR.

I must mention a laughable enough circ.u.mstance. Her majesty inquired of me if I had ever met with- Lady Hawke? "Oh yes," I cried, "and Lady Say and Sele too." " She has just desired permission to send me a novel of her own Writing," answered her majesty.

"I hope," cried I, "'tis not the 'Mausoleum of Julia!'"

But yes, it proved no less ! and this she has now published and sends about. You must remember Lady Say and Sele's quotation from it.(275) Her majesty was so gracious as to lend it me, for I had some curiosity to read it. It is all of a piece: all love, love, love, unmixed and unadulterated with any more worldly materials.

I read also the second volume of the "Paston Letters," and found their character the same as in the first, and therefore read them with curiosity and entertainment.

The greater part of the month was spent, alas! at Windsor, with what a dreary vacuity of heart and of pleasure I need not say.

The only period of it in which my spirits could be commanded to revive was during two of the excursions in which Mr. Fairly was of the party; and the sight of him, calm, mild, nay cheerful, under such superior sorrows-- --struck me with that sort of edifying admiration that led me, perforce, to the best

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exertion in my power for the conquest of my deep depression. If I did this from conscience in private, from a sense of obligation to him in public I reiterated my efforts, as I received from him all the condoling softness and attention he could possibly have bestowed upon me had my affliction been equal or even greater than his own.

ANOTHER MEETING WITH MR. CRUTCHLEY.

On one of the Egham race days the queen sent Miss Planta and me on the course, in one of the royal coaches, with Lord Templeton and Mr. Charles Fairly,(276) for our beaux. Lady Templeton was then at the Lodge, and I had the honour of two or three conferences with er during her stay. On the course, we were espied by Mr. Crutchley, who instantly devoted himself to my service for the morning--taking care of our places, naming jockeys, horses, bets, plates, etc., and talking between times of Streatham and all the Streathamites. We were both, I believe, very glad of this discourse. He pointed out to me where his house stood, in a fine park, within sight of the race-ground, and proposed introducing me to his sister, who was his housekeeper, and asking me if, through her invitation, I would come to Sunning Hill park. I a.s.sured him I lived so completely in a monastery that I could make no new acquaintance. He then said he expected soon Susan and Sophy Thrale on a visit to his sister, and he presumed I would not refuse coming to see them. I truly answered I should rejoice to do it if in my power, but that most probably I must content myself with meeting them on the Terrace. He promised to bring them there with his sister, though he had given up that walk these five years.

It will give me indeed great pleasure to see them again.

MR. TURBULENT'S TROUBLESOME PLEASANTRIES.

My two young beaux Stayed dinner with us, and I afterwards strolled upon the lawn with them till tea-time. I could not go on the Terrace, nor persuade them to go on by themselves. We backed as the royal party returned home; and when they had all entered the house, Colonel Wellbred, who had stood aloof, quitted the train to join our little society. "Miss

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Burney," he cried, "I think I know which horse you betted upon!

Cordelia!"

"For the name's sake you think it," I cried; and he began some questions and comments upon the races, when suddenly the window of the tea-room opened, and the voice of Mr. Turbulent, with a most sarcastic tone, called out, "I hope Miss Burney and Colonel Wellbred are well!"