The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Ii Part 8

"Why, ma'am, it was so big and so heavy, it was as much as I could do to lift it!"

"Well, that was nothing from me! when it was so heavy, you might let it alone!"

"But, ma'am, Colonel Wellbred said it was somewhat of yours."

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"Of mine?--O, ver well! Colonel Wellbred might not say such thing! I know nothing, Sir, from your leadder, nor from your bed, sir,--not I!"

"Well, ma'am, then your maid does. Colonel Wellbred says he supposes it was she."

"Upon my vord! Colonel Wellbred might not say such things from my maid! I won't not have it so!"

"O yes, ma'am; Colonel Wellbred says she often does SO. He says she's a very gay lady."

She was quite too much amazed to speak: one of her maids, Mrs.

Arline, is a poor humble thing, that would not venture to jest, I believe, with the kitchen maid, and the other has never before been at Windsor.

"But what was it?" cried Miss Port.

"Why, I tell you--a great, large lump of leather, with 'Madame Schwellenberg' wrote upon it. However, I've ordered it to be sold."

"To be sold? How will you have it sold, Sir? You might tell me that, when you please."

"Why, by auction, ma'am."

"By auction, Sir? What, when it had my name upon it? Upon my vord!--how come you to do dat, sir? Will you tell me, once?"

"Why, I did it for the benefit of my man, ma'am, that he might have the money."

"But for what is your man to have it, when it is mine?"

"Because, ma'am, it frightened him so."

"O, ver well! Do you rob, sir? Do you take what is not your own, but others', sir, because your man is frightened?"

"O yes, ma'am! We military men take all we can get!"

"What! in the king's house, Sir!"

"Why then, ma'am, what business had it in my bed? My room's my castle: n.o.body has a right there. My bed must be my treasury; and here they put me a thing into it big enough to be a bed itself."----

"O! vell! (much alarmed) it might be my bed-case, then!"

(Whenever Mrs. Schwellenberg travels, she carries her bed in a large black leather case, behind her servants' carriage.)

" Very likely, ma'am."

"Then, sir," very angrily, "how Come you by it?"

"Why, I'll tell you, ma'am. I was just going to bed; so MY servant took one candle, and I had the other. I had just had my hair done, and my curls were just rolled up, and he

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was going away; but I turned about, by accident, and I saw a great lump in my bed; so I thought it was my clothes.

'What do you put them there for?' says I. 'Sir,' says he, 'it looks as if there was a drunken man in the bed.' 'A drunken man?' says I; 'Take the poker, then, and knock him on the head!'"

"Knock him on the head?" interrupted Mrs. Schwellenberg, "What!

when it might be some innocent person? Fie! Colonel Manners. I thought you had been too good-natured for such thing--to poker the people in the king's house!"

"Then what business have they to get into my bed, ma'am? So then my man looked nearer, and he said, 'Sir, why, here's your night-cap and here's the pillow!--and here's a great, large lump of leather!' 'Shovel it all out!' says I. 'Sir,' says he, 'It's Madame Schwellenberg's! here's her name on it.' 'Well, then,'

says I, 'sell it, to-morrow, to the saddler.'"

"What! when you knew it was mine, sir? Upon my vord, you been ver good!" (bowing very low).

"Well, ma'am, it's all Colonel Wellbred, I dare say; so, suppose you and I were to take the law of him?"

"Not I, sir!" (Scornfully).

"Well, but let's write him a letter, then, and frighten him: let's tell him it's sold, and he must make it good. You and I'll do it together."

"No, sir; you might do it yourself. I am not so familiar to write to gentlemens."

"Why then, you shall only sign it, and I'll frank it."

Here the entrance of some new person stopped the discussion.

Happy in his success, he began, the next day, a new device: he made an attack in politics, and said, he did not doubt but Mr.

Hastings would come to be hanged; though, he a.s.sured us, afterwards, he was firmly his friend, and believed no such thing.(236)

Even with this not satisfied, he next told her that he had just heard Mr. Burke was in Windsor. Mr. Burke is the name

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in the world most obnoxious, both for his Reform bill,(237) which deeply affected all the household, and for his prosecution of Mr.

Hastings; she therefore declaimed against him very warmly.

"Should you like to know him, ma'am?" cried he.

"Me?--No; not I."

"Because, I dare say, ma'am, I have interest enough with him to procure you his acquaintance. Shall I bring him to the Lodge to see you?"

"When you please, sir, you might keep him to yourself!"

Well, then, he shall come and dine with me,'and after it drink tea with you."

"No, no, not I! You might have him all to yourself."

"but if he comes, you must make his tea."

"There is no such 'must,' sir! I do it for my pleasure--only when I please, sir!"