It did not prove so to this lady, who presently followed her to the next picture, and, sitting as close as she could to where Mrs. Crewe stood, began singing various quick pa.s.sages, without words or connexion. I saw Mrs. Crewe much alarmed, and advanced to stand by her, meaning to whisper her that we had better leave the room; and this idea was not checked by seeing that the flowers were artificial. By the looks we interchanged we soon mutually said, "This is a mad woman." We feared irritating her by a sudden flight, but gently retreated, and soon got quietly into the large room when she bounced up with a great noise, and, throwing the veil of her bonnet violently back, as if fighting it, she looked after us, pointing at Mrs. Crewe.
Seriously frightened, Mrs. Crewe seized my father"s arm, and hurried up two or three steps into a small apartment. Here Mrs.
Crewe, addressing herself to an elderly gentleman, asked if he could inform the people below that a mad woman was terrifying the company ; and while he was receiving her commission with the most profound respect, and with an evident air of admiring astonishment at her beauty, we heard a rustling, and, looking round, saw the same figure hastily striding after us, and in an instant at our elbows.
Mrs. Crewe turned quite pale ; it was palpable she was the object pursued, and she most civilly and meekly articulated, "I beg your pardon, ma"am," as she hastily pa.s.sed her, and hurried down the steps. We were going to run for our lives,
Page 466 when Miss Townshend whispered Mrs. Crewe it was Only Mrs. Wells the actress, and said she was certainly Only performing vagaries to try effect, which she was quite famous for doing.
It would have been food for a painter to have seen Mrs. Crewe during this explanation. All her terror instantly gave way to indignation; and scarcely any pencil could equal the high vivid glow of her cheeks. To find herself made the object of game to the burlesque humour of a bold player, was an indignity she could not brook, and her mind was immediately at work how to a.s.sist herself against such unprovoked and unauthorized effrontery.
The elderly gentleman who, with great eagerness, had followed Mrs. Crewe, accompanied by a young man who was of his party, requested more particularly her commands ; but before Mrs.
Crewe"s astonishment and resentment found words, Mrs. Wells, singing, and throwing herself into extravagant att.i.tudes, again rushed down the steps, and fixed her eyes on Mrs. Crewe. This, however, no longer served her purpose. Mrs. Crewe fixed her in return, and with a firm, composed, commanding air and look that, though it did not make this strange creature retreat, somewhat disconcerted her for a few minutes. She then presently affected a violent coughing such a one as almost shook the room; though such a forced and unnatural noise as rather resembled howling than a cold.
This over, and perceiving Mrs, Crewe still steadily keeping her ground, she had the courage to come up to us, and, with a flippant air, said to the elderly gentleman, "Pray, sir, will you tell me what it is o"clock?"
He looked vexed to be called a moment from looking at Mrs. Crewe, and, with a forbidding gravity, answered her, "About two."
"No offence, I hope, sir?" cried she, seeing him turn eagerly from her. He bowed without looking at her, and she strutted away, still, however, keeping in sight, and playing various tricks, her eyes perpetually turned towards Mrs. Crewe, who as regularly, met them, with an expression such as might have turned a softer culprit to stone.
Our cabal was again renewed, and Mrs. Crewe again told this gentleman to make known to the proprietors of the gallery that this person was a nuisance to the company, when, suddenly re-approaching as, she called out, "Sir! sir!" to the younger of our new protectors.
He coloured, and looked much alarmed, but only bowed.
Page 467
"Pray, sir," cried she, "what"s o"clock?"
He looked at his watch, and answered.
"You don"t take it ill, I hope, sir?" she cried.
He only bowed.
"I do no harm, sir," said she; "I never bite."
The poor young man looked aghast, and bowed lower; but Mrs.
Crewe, addressing herself to the elder, said aloud, "I beg you, sir, to go to Mr. Boydell; you may name me to him--Mrs. Crewe."
Mrs. Wells at this walked away, yet still in sight.
"You may tell him what has happened, sir, in all our names. You may tell him Miss Burney--"
"O no!" cried I, in a horrid fright, "I beseech I may not be named! And, indeed, ma"am, it may be better to let it all alone.
It will do no good; and it may all get into the newspapers."
"And if it does," cried Mrs. Crewe, "what is it to us? We have done nothing; we have given no offence, and made no disturbance.
This person has frightened us all wilfully, and Utterly without provocation; and now she can frighten us no longer, she would brave us. Let her tell her own story, and how will it harm us?"
"Still," cried I, "I must always fear being brought into any newspaper cabals. Let the fact be ever so much against her, she will think the circ.u.mstances all to her honour if a paragraph comes out beginning "Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Wells.""
Mrs. Crewe liked this sound as little as I should have liked it in placing my own name where I put hers. She hesitated a little what to do, and we all walked down-stairs, where instantly this bold woman followed us, paraded Up and down the long shop with a dramatic air while our group was in conference, and then, sitting down at the clerk"s desk, and calling in a footman, she desired him to wait while she wrote a note.
She scribbled a few lines, and read aloud her direction, "To Mr.
Topham;" and giving the note to the man, said, "Tell your master that is something to make him laugh. Bid him not send to the press till I see him."
Now as Mr. Topham is the editor of "The World," and notoriously her protector, as her having his footman acknowledged, this looked rather serious, and Mrs. Crewe began to partake of my alarm. She therefore, to my infinite satisfaction, told her new friend that she desired he would name no names, but merely mention that some ladies had been frightened. . . .
Page 468
We then got into Mrs. Crewe"s carriage, and not till then would this facetious Mrs. Wells quit the shop. And she walked in sight, dodging us, and playing antics of a tragic sort of gesture, till we drove out of her power to keep up with us. What a strange creature!
AN INVITATION FROM ARTHUR YOUNG.
(Mr. Arthur Young to f.a.n.n.y Burney.) Bradfield Farm, June 18, 1792.
WHAT a plaguy business "tis to take up one"s pen to write to a person who is constantly moving in a vortex of pleasure, brilliancy, and wit,--whose movements and connections are, as it were, in another world! One knows not how to manage the matter with such folks, till you find by a little approximation and friction of tempers and things that they are mortal, and no more than good sort of people in the main, only garnished with something we do not possess ourselves. Now then, the consequence.
Only three pages to write, and one lost in introduction! To the matter at last.
It seemeth that you make a journey to Norfolk. Now do ye see, if you do not give a call on the farmer, and examine his ram (an old acquaintance), his bull, his lambs, calves, and crops, he will say but one thing of you--that you are fit for a court, but not for a farm; and there is more happiness to be found among my rooks than in the midst of all the princes and princesses of Golconda. I would give an hundred pound to see you married to a farmer that never saw London, with plenty of poultry ranging in a few green fields, and flowers and shrubs disposed where they should be, around a cottage, and not around a breakfast-room in Portman-square, fading in eyes that know not to admire them. In honest truth now, let me request your company here. It will give us all infinite pleasure. You are habituated to admiration, but you shall have here what is much better--the friendship of those who loved you long before the world admired you. Come, and make old friends happy!
(346) The flight of the king and his family from Paris, on the night of June 20-21. They reached Varennes in safety the following night, but were there recognised and stopped, and the next day escorted back to Paris.-ED.
(347) The reader will find in Green"s "History of the English People," a widely different view of" the character of Dunstan.
But f.a.n.n.y knew only the old stories, and had, moreover, written a tragedy, "Edwy and Elgiva," in which Dunstan, in accordance with those old stories, appears as the villain.-ED.
(348) Author of the "New Bath Guide."-ED.
(349) Henrietta Frances, second daughter of John, first Earl Spencer, and younger sister of Georgiana, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, married Viscount Duncannon in 1780. She died in 1821.-ED.
(350) Gibbon had good reason for his opinion of the power of Lady Elizabeth"s charms. In 1787, he met her at Lausanne, a young widow of twenty-eight, and found her allurements so irresistible that he proposed marriage to her, and was rejected.-ED.
(351) Mrs. Ord was a yet more violent Tory than f.a.n.n.y herself, and would believe no good of the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, the queen of the Whigs.-ED.
(352) In the "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," f.a.n.n.y writes in more detail of this her last visit to Sir Joshua. "He was still more deeply depressed; though Miss Palmer good-humouredly drew a smile from him, by gaily exclaiming, "Do, pray, now, uncle, ask Miss Burney to write another book directly! for we have almost finished Cecilia again--and this is our sixth reading of it!""
"The little occupation, Miss Palmer said, of which Sir joshua was then capable, was carefully dusting the paintings in his picture gallery, and placing them in different points of view.
"This pa.s.sed at the conclusion Of 1791; on the February of the following year, this friend, equally amiable and eminent, was no more! (Memoirs, vol. iii. P. 144).-ED.
(353) The wife of Sir Lucas Pepys.-ED.
(354) Afterwards Lord Ellenborough: the leading counsel for Hastings.-ED.