CHAPTER XIX

It was on one of the last mornings in January that Mrs. Burney was reading out of the newly-arrived London Chronicle such paragraphs as she thought would appeal to the varied interests of the breakfast-table. There were a few announcements of marriages about to take place between people whose names they knew, the amount of the bride’s dowry being stated in each in plain figures, though Mrs. Burney took it upon her to affirm in one or two cases that the sum was exaggerated, or to suggest that if the father of the bride were just enough to pay his debts first, the portion of his daughter would be considerably reduced. In the case of one of the gentlemen, who was marrying thirty thousand pounds, she ventured to express the hope that he would now pay at least some of his creditors.

These were, of course, the most interesting items of news, though their attractiveness was not greatly superior to that of the gossip respecting Mr. F——, who had been noticed in high dudgeon because of Lady P——’s dancing three times with Sir Julian Y——; or that which suggested that a reconcilement must have taken place between the beautiful Mrs. G—— and her husband, for they had been seen taking the air together in the Park.

It was also pleasant to learn that His Majesty had given great encouragement to Mrs. Delany in the production of her ingenious mosaic flowers, in which she was so skilled as to excite the wonder of several critics in the Royal circle; and also that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had been graciously pleased to say in public that he had always admired the Perdita of the beautiful Mrs. Robinson, though he considered Mrs. Abington, on the whole, the most tasteful dresser in the Drury Lane company.

It was only when Mrs. Burney had folded the newspaper and was about to put it away, that a few lines of an advertisement caught her eye—she commented before she read, as though she had been a fully qualified critic:

“More novels! More stuff for the circulating libraries! Enough to make poor Mr. Richardson feel uncomfortable in his grave! Could he but have known that he was turning all England into novel readers he would never have put pen to paper. Here is another imitator in the field. ‘Evelina; or, a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World,’ published to-day by Mr. Lowndes—three volumes, seven and sixpence sewed, nine shillings in covers. ‘Evelina,’ a distant cousin to ‘Clarissa’ and ‘Pamela’ I doubt not. I hope your father will not bring anyone here to dinner to-day. Hashed mutton is a wholesome dish, to be sure, but some visitors are fastidious. He may bring as many as he pleases to-morrow, for Mr. Greville’s gift of pheasants will be on the table. Why are you staring so at your sister, Lottie?”

Lottie was becoming a hardened dissembler: she scarcely started when asked to interpret certain furtive glances she cast at Fanny.

“I was wondering if Fanny would make a face; she never was fond of hashed mutton,” said Lottie glibly. “If she had gone to school in France she would soon have got a liking for it, cooked as it is there.”

“I am not partial to French kickshaws,” said Mrs. Burney. “There’s nothing like good English fare. To my thinking, the principle of making food tasty when in ordinary circumstances it should not be so, is a bad one. Hash of mutton is wholesome food, and it should be eaten as such without further question. If Providence had meant it to be tasty as well, He would have made His intentions as plain as in the case of roast pheasant.”

“Lottie will tell you that I made no face at the mention of hash of mutton,” said Fanny. “What does it signify whether one sits down to a simple platter of mutton hash or a great dinner such as father gets at Mr. Thrale’s? A pair of geese, a leg of mutton, a tongue, a rib of roast beef and a brace of pheasants, with two or three dishes of fish, and for Dr. Johnson a veal pie or a piece of pork—those were on the table at one time. What is the benefit of such abundance, when all that one can eat is a single slice of beef?”

She spoke rapidly, for she, too, had been a great dissembler. She meant to take away her stepmother’s attention from those questionable glances which she had exchanged with Lottie; and she succeeded very well.

“It would make no difference to us whether we had one dish or ten; but it makes all the difference in the world to Mr. Thrale. They say he has a prodigious appetite, and eats of at least six heavy dishes of meat at dinner.”

“Mr. Baretti affirms that some day he will not awake from the stupor into which he falls after one of his heavy meals,” said Susy.

“And all the time Mrs. Thrale is entreating him to be more moderate,” cried Lottie.

“A humiliating duty for such as Mrs. Thrale,” said her mother. “That shows how true is all that Fanny has remarked: a simple dish should be enough for any reasonable person. I have often wondered how the converse at the Streatham table could be so wise and witty if the master of the house eats like a hog, and Dr. Johnson, suffering from ill-health, expends so much energy over his pork that the veins stand out on his forehead and his face is bathed in perspiration.”

“I am sure that Mrs. Thrale has wit and liveliness enough to serve for the whole company,” said Fanny.

“She is chatty enough, I doubt not,” replied Mrs. Burney. “There are those who think she talks over-much for a woman.”

“Not for a woman of fashion,” suggested Lottie with some pertness, when their stepmother had left the room. “It is long since Mrs. Thrale has invited mother to one of the Streatham dinners,” she added under her breath.

And then the three fell upon the Chronicle for the announcement of the book.

They read it in whispers, each following the other, as though it were the piano part of a catch or a glee, and glancing fearfully toward the door now and again, lest it should open and Mrs. Burney reappear.

“How amazing it is!” said Susy. “This is the announcement of the birth of a baby—and such a baby!”

“The birth and the christening and all,” said Lottie. “Oh, Fanny, I had no idea that it would be in the papers—I forgot that it would be advertised; and when mamma read this out I thought I should sink through the floor. So did you, I know.”

“I only wish that it had been possible,” said Fanny. “I could feel myself getting hot all over my body. And then you gave me that look, Lottie!”

“Could I help it?” asked Lottie. “You cannot blame me. I really thought that it was you who gave me a look, as much as to say: ‘If you let the cat out of the bag I will never forgive you—no, never!’”

“Never mind! Among us we managed to get out of the difficulty very well, I think. Were we not clever, guiding the conversation away from Mr. Lowndes’s shop on to the high road to Streatham?” cried Susy.

“’Twas the hash that saved us,” said Lottie. “Have you not heard dear Jim applying the sailors’ expression, to make a hash of something? But we didn’t make a hash of our matter, did we, Fanny?” said Susan.

“We have become adroit dissemblers, and I am growing more ashamed of it every day,” cried Fanny. “I have reached the condition of a man of whom I read in a volume of history: he had committed a crime, and the effort that it cost him to keep it hidden so preyed upon his mind that he could stand the strain no longer, so he confessed it and was relieved.”

“But he could not have been really happy until they hanged him,” said Susy. “And do you intend to confess and be hanged, Fanny? Please do not. I think it is the most exciting thing in the world to share a secret like this. I would not have missed the enjoyment for anything. Think, Fan, if you were to confess, you would draw us into it too—you would make us out to be as guilty as yourself.”

“I will not confess,” said Fanny. “No; it would not be honourable of me. But I do feel that the secret is having a bad effect upon us all. It has made us all such—such—dissemblers.”

“Psha!” said Lottie with a sniff. “That’s only another way of saying that we are ladies of quality at an early age.”

Fanny shook her head. She thought that if any proof were needed of the ill effects of their treasuring their secret from their parents, this cynical pertness of Lottie supplied it. She shook her head.

“I should like ‘Evelina’ to come into mamma’s hands,” continued Lottie. “She will go through the three volumes at a hand gallop, even though she did take it upon her to condemn it as being on a level with the odious stuff that comes to us nowadays.”

“And if she condemns it so heartily before she has read it, what will she say about it when she has finished the last chapter?” asked Fanny.

“She will say that it is the prettiest story that has been written since her dear Mr. Richardson died,” said Susy.

“I doubt it, my dear,” said Fanny.

“Well, let the worst come, she will never guess that you wrote it,” laughed Lottie.

“It is the padre whom I fear,” said Fanny. “Surely he will not need to go beyond the Ode on the first leaf to know that it is he himself whom I address.”

“And if he should—smoke it?” asked Susy, lapsing into slang which she had acquired from her sailor brother, who was in no sense a purist.

“If he should—well, either of two things will happen,” replied the authoress. “He will either think me the most double-dealing wretch in the world or the most dutiful of daughters.”

“And which will be right?” asked Lottie.

“Both views will be right,” said Fanny. “Although I meant every word of the Ode, I really think now that the idea of writing it before the dedication came to me only when I felt that I had behaved badly in sending the book to the printer without his consent.”

“You wished the Ode to be a sort of peace-offering?” said Susy. “You hoped that when he read it he would forget to be angry? Well, that was cunning of you, Fanny!”

“I tell you that the whole affair has had a bad effect upon us all,” said Fanny gently.

Once again she was conscious of someone telling her that there was no use crying over spilt milk, and this impression was followed by one that took the form of a resolution to be more careful in future. If she had spilt some milk once, that was no reason why she should not, by exercising proper forethought, refrain from doing so again.

But the book was now given to the world, if the world would have it, but as yet a copy had not come into her hand. She wondered if she would have to spend seven and sixpence in buying a copy. Seven shillings and sixpence, sewed. It was a great deal of money. Was it possible that there were five hundred people in the world ready to pay seven and sixpence for a novel with the name of no author on the title page? (She thought it best to leave out of her consideration altogether the possible purchasers of the nine shilling set of bound volumes.)

Who were the people that ever laid out so much money upon books which could be read through between the rising and the setting of the sun? She had never met such liberal enthusiasts. Of course, it was only reasonable that so splendid a work as the “History of Music” should be in the library of every house wherein people of taste resided, but that was not a book to be galloped through; some people might not be able to read it within a month. Besides, it bore the honoured name of Dr. Burney on the title page, and the fame of Dr. Burney was great. But as for that poor little seven-and-sixpenny sewed “Evelina,” how should anyone take an interest in her without reading her story? How would anyone read her story without feeling afterwards that seven-and-sixpence (leaving the nine shilling expenditure out of the question) was a ridiculous price to pay for such an entertainment?

She felt that people would come to look on her as the instigator of a fraud if they paid their money and read the book and then found out that she had written it. The wisdom of concealing her name even from the bookseller was now more apparent to her than it had ever been. She had visions of indignant purchasers railing against Mr. Lowndes, and Mr. Lowndes searching for her, so that he might rail against her; and so her speculations ended in laughter; but even her laughter grated upon her sensitive ears: she felt that it was the malicious jeering of a clever cheat at the thought of having got the better of a worthy man.

Her precious “Evelina” was leading her a pretty dance. If it had not been able to do so it would have been a paltry sort of book and she would have been a paltry sort of author.