Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay)

What did follow has been told and retold, and much of it belongs to history. But Miss Burney’s Diary reveals the domestic details of the story as it is not recorded in the periods of the politician, or in the professional evidence of the doctors She depicts the wearing suspense of the household, the confusion and clash of conjectures, the grief and agony of the Queen, the waiting rooms and passages filled with silent pages and attendants, the thick, depressing November fog, the hoarse voice of the King, talking, talking, talking incessantly, – but still breathing nothing but consideration for those about him.66 Then comes, by order of the physicians, to whom a third has now been added, the separation of the wife and husband. This was on the 6th. On the morning of the next day Miss Burney hears the Prince of Wales tell the Queen what had happened the night before. The King had got up, and insisted upon going into the next room, which to his amazement, he found crowded with members of the household ranged in dead silence around it on chairs and sofas. He inquired what they did there, spoke fondly of his favourite son, the Duke of York (then present, but not seen) and finally penned Sir George Baker [the Queen’s physician] into a corner, calling him an old woman, who did not understand his complaint, which was only nervous. During all this, no one dared approach him. At last Colonel Digby (who, in his own family, had some experience of demented persons) took him by the arm, and begged him to go back to bed. The King refused, and asked him who he was. “I am Colonel Digby, Sir” – he answered – “and your Majesty has been very good to me often, and now I am going to be very good to you, for you must come to bed, Sir, it is necessary to your life.” The King was so surprised that he let himself be drawn away like a child.

In the fortnight that followed, things passed from bad to worse for the dwellers in the Upper Lodge. To add to the general disquiet and apprehension, Mrs. Schwellenberg arrived from Weymouth “all spasm and horror.” Then, by order of the Prince of Wales, intercourse with the outer world was practically suspended. As the King’s condition did not alter, the physicians told Mr. Pitt plainly that his ailment was lunacy; and on the 28th it was decided that he should be transferred to Kew, a place he detested, but where it was possible for him to take exercise without observation. Accordingly, on that day, the Queen and Princesses made precipitate and miserable exodus to Kew, amid the tears of the sorrowing household, – even the sentinels crying bitterly as they looked on. Then came the difficult task of persuading the King to follow, which he eventually did, being induced thereto by the promise that he should see the Queen, – a promise which was not kept, with the result that the night which ensued was one of the most violently bad of any yet passed. And so, “in all its dark colours, dark as its darkest prognostics,” began the “Kew campaign” from which, as usual, Mrs. Schwellenberg was not absent.

To recapitulate the discomforts of the cold and carpetless building at Kew, never intended for a winter residence, and lacking sadly both in space and accommodation, is here needless. But, notwithstanding Miss Burney’s “darkest prognostics,” a brighter day was happily dawning. New doctors were added to the old; and the new were better. Dr. Francis Willis and his son, both of whom had special experience in mental disease, henceforth, and much to the satisfaction of the household, took practical charge of the case. Honest, open, cheerful and high-minded, their moral influence over their patient, in combination with a gentler and more humane method of treatment, was not slow to produce its effect. The King began to walk regularly in the gardens; and hopes of his recovery fitfully revived. But while his health vacillated, the world outside was agitating for a Regency. The Willises – of whom there were now three – persevered no less with their regimen. And so, – omitting many immaterial things, – we come to the 2nd February, a day memorable in Fanny’s annals. For the sake of her health, she had been advised to walk daily either at Richmond or at Kew, according to the report she received of the King’s whereabouts. On this particular day, she had been told that His Majesty would walk in Richmond Park, and she therefore directed her steps to Kew Gardens. It had been arranged that if, on any occasion, the King chanced to see her, she was to be allowed to run off. By some misapprehension, he was in the Gardens, and at once detected her presence. What was worse, she soon heard him hurrying after her, calling hoarsely “Miss Burney! Miss Burney!” Terrified beyond measure, she continued to run until she was peremptorily bidden to stop by the Willises, as His Majesty was doing himself harm. “When they were within a few yards of me,” she writes, “the King called out, ‘Why did you run away?’ ” Making a violent effort to regain her composure, she turned to meet him, when to her astonishment, the poor invalid, with “all his wonted benignity,” despite the wildness still in his eyes, put both his hands round her shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek, going on to exhibit such delight at seeing her again, that she straightway lost all her fear. A long, disconnected conversation ensued. He rallied her about Mrs. Schwellenberg. She was not to mind: he (King George) was her friend. He talked about the pages; about her father; about Handel, some passages of whose Oratorios he tried to sing – hoarsely. He spoke also, with tears in his eyes, of Mrs. Delany. At length, after repeated injunctions on the part of his medical attendants, he let her go – his last words being to reassure her upon the subject of Mrs. Schwellenberg. All this – some of the Schwellenberg part excepted – Fanny recounted faithfully to the Queen on her return.

Not long after, the King’s state began to amend, greatly to the dismay of the advocates of the Regency Bill. Before that measure could be read a third time, he was almost himself again; and at the end of February was able personally to assure Miss Burney of his convalescent condition. She found him in the Queen’s dressing room, where he had waited on purpose to see her. “I am quite well now” – he said; “I was nearly so when I saw you before – but I could overtake you better now.” Ten days later, at the time of the general rejoicing, when the Queen had had a special transparency painted for Kew Palace by her favourite Biagio Rebecca, the little Princess Amelia led her father to the front window to see the illuminations, dropping first upon her knees with a copy of congratulatory verses, which had been expressly composed for the occasion by the Junior Keeper of Robes. Miss Burney was as “ill at these numbers” as most manufacturers of metrical loyalty; but her postscript

“The little bearer begs a kissFrom dear Papa, for bringing this” —

was naturally not spoken in vain. On the next day the King, reinstated in all his dignities, received, in person, the Address of the Lords and Commons upon his restoration to health.

Over the further progress of that restoration we may pass rapidly. By this date, March 11th, 1789, Miss Burney had been more than two years and a half in the Queen’s service, and her stay was to be prolonged for two years more. But it is needless to pursue its story with equal detail. After the Royal Family quitted Kew, they went to Weymouth, their progress to that watering-place being one continued scene of loyal and very genuine rejoicing. At Weymouth, where they were domiciled in Gloucester House, Miss Burney renewed her acquaintance with Mrs. Siddons, whom she saw as Rosalind, but considered “too large for that shepherd’s dress,” and as Lady Townly in the Provoked Husband which she had read at Windsor. Fanny thought her gaiety was only gravity disguised, and though she praises her as Cibber’s heroine, evidently preferred the “great Sarah” of the Georgian Era in tragedy. She also, and for the first time, beheld Mr. Pitt; but did not admire his appearance, which she affirms was neither noble nor expressive. She spent much of her time with the beautiful “Jessamy Bride,” Mrs. Gwyn; and among other places, visited the Plymouth Dockyard, describing the forging of an anchor there with something of that later fine writing which was so effectually to ruin her style. “While we were seeing the anchor business, which seemed performed by Vulcanic demons, so black they looked, so savage was their howl in striking the red-hot iron, and so coarse and slight their attire” – is quite in the perverse manner of the coming Memoirs of Dr. Burney. In returning from Weymouth, the Royal party stopped at Longleat, which gives her an opportunity of moralising, – in Bishop Ken’s bed-room, – upon the cruelty of Longleat’s former tenant, “Granville the polite,” in forcing her old friend Mrs. Delany, to marry en premières noces, that extremely undesirable suitor, Mr. Pendarves of Roscrow. And so, by Tottenham Park, where the Earl of Aylesbury had put up a new bed for the King and Queen which cost him £900, they got back to Windsor in September. By this time the King had completely lost all traces of his indisposition.

Once again at Windsor, the Court sank back into its old jog-trot tedium, and with it sank Fanny’s heart. There was now no Mrs. Delany to sympathise when Schwellenbergism reached a more acute stage than usual; and there was shortly to be no Colonel Digby with whom to deplore the vicissitudes of a vale of tears, or to discuss, “in his genteel roundabout way,” the improving Night Thoughts of Dr. Young. Colonel Digby, who, from time to time, had renewed at Windsor the old readings, tea-drinkings, and semi-confidential conversations, had not taken a very prominent part in the Weymouth expedition. But he had apparently been permitting himself other distractions; and about November his connection with the Court was interrupted by his approaching marriage to Miss Gunning, with whom – and even by the King during his insanity – his name, as we have said, had already been associated. There is no doubt that Miss Burney had been impressed by him, if only as the most refined and amiable of her colleagues; and there can also be no doubt that on his part he must have found her sympathy and companionship especially grateful in his newly bereaved condition. However this may be – and Miss Burney could not have behaved better if she had been Cecilia herself – this last event manifestly added its quota to the growing burden of her life; and it was not in her nature to conceal her discomforts, either mental or physical. Her health declined visibly; the Schwellenberg card-table grew more wearisome than ever; and her condition began to cause anxiety to her friends. At last she took advantage of an accident to speak frankly to her father. She told him plainly that, kind and considerate as were the King and Queen, the situation had grown insupportable; and that she “could never, in any part of the live-long day, command liberty, or social intercourse, or repose.”67 Dr. Burney himself had for some time not been wholly happy about her position; and he of course opened his arms to her return. But he was not rich, and he was manifestly so much upset at the thought of her retirement that, for the moment, the matter was allowed to drop.

Meanwhile the months once more rolled on monotonously. To divert her thoughts, she took up a tragedy which she had begun during the King’s illness; and the rumour that she had again her pen in hand – upon a satirical novel, as it was supposed – sent a flutter of apprehension through the Windsor dove-cotes. Her friends continued to carry dismal accounts to London of her failing condition, and loudly exclaimed against Dr. Burney’s irresolution. Walpole asked whether her talents were given to be buried in obscurity. Windham, whom she saw occasionally during the further dilatory progress of the Hastings trial, threatened to set the Literary Club on her father, who was a member of that community. Busybody Boswell – another member – also interested himself (not perhaps without ulterior views of his own as regards her Johnson material) in her behalf. “We shall address Dr. Burney in a body,” he said; and then he asked her to give him some of Dr. Johnson’s “choice little notes,” – a request she with difficulty evaded. At last a joint Memorial was drawn up by Dr. Burney and his daughter, praying that she might be permitted to resign, and it was arranged to put it forward on the most favourable opportunity. But the opportunity did not arise, and still time went on. She grew worse, having constantly, in the course of the obnoxious card parties, to crawl to her room for hartshorn and a few moments of rest. By and by the presentation of the memorial grew imperative. To the horror of Mrs. Schwellenberg, for whom such a proceeding was sheer self-destruction, it was hesitatingly handed in. The Queen, to whom it is difficult to believe that the matter was wholly unexpected, was visibly surprised and disturbed. She, however, expressed the hope that a long holiday might set Miss Burney right. But with this Miss Burney’s father – now thoroughly alive to the exigencies of the case, – could not agree; and to Her Majesty’s disappointment, and the unconcealed disgust of Mrs. Schwellenberg, it was decided she must go. When her departure was definitely settled, a Martin’s summer seems to have followed, in which even “Cerbera” softened somewhat – admitting, in her favourite phrase, that “The Bernan bin reely agribble.” Fanny had a short illness, which helped to strengthen her case; and then, in July, 1791, five years after she had entered the Upper Lodge, she quitted the Court for ever, being too much affected to bid her royal Master a final farewell.

Much ink has been expended on that portion of Fanny Burney’s career which forms the subject of this chapter. Exceptionally clever and gifted she was, without doubt; but with all her abilities, it must be admitted that, neither by her antecedents nor her experiences, was she suited for the post she was called upon to fill. The merely mechanical part of it she might perhaps have acquired, – though it seems she never did. Etiquette and formality she heartily detested; she was unmethodical; she was negligent in her dress; she was not always (in the presentation of petitions and the like) entirely judicious and tactful. Nevertheless, there is nothing to show that, save for the death of Mrs. Delany, the terrible tension of the King’s illness, the defection of Colonel Digby, and, above all, the unrelieved infliction of Mrs. Schwellenberg’s company and caprices, – the “one flaw” in her lot, she calls it, – she might not gradually have grown reconciled to her court life. If she were not (and it was no shame to her!) as good a Queen’s Dresser as Mrs. Haggerdorn, she was certainly – although, perhaps from her weak voice and short sight, she practically failed as a reader – an infinitely better “Confidential Companion.” The “Oyster” would have been utterly incompetent to report the Hastings trial, or to scribble a royal copy of verses to the Master of the Horse, or to delight the Queen by a circumstantial and picturesque account of the interview with the King in the gardens at Kew. And whatever Miss Burney’s dislike may have been to one or two of her colleagues, her own personal good qualities and intellectual capacity were always cordially recognised by all the Royal Family.68 As to the enforced suspension of her literary labours, not only is that a grievance which she herself never felt or advanced; but when she came to Windsor in 1786, she had absolutely written nothing for four years. Nor were there any indications that she was likely to write anything. Her most stimulating friend and critic, “Daddy” Crisp, was dead; and she professed, or affected to profess (like a greater writer after The Newcomes),69 that her vein had run dry with her latest book. Moreover, we now know what her first critics did not know, namely, that so far from receiving two thousand pounds for Cecilia, she had only – after more than a year’s hard work – received two hundred and fifty pounds. The deserts of genius are not easily assessed; but looking to all the circumstances, those who, in this particular instance, regarded two hundred a year for life, with accommodation and other advantages, as an offer worth considering by a diffident and delicate woman of four and thirty, whose entire gains by two popular novels, making eight volumes, had not exceeded two hundred and eighty pounds – can scarcely be said to have been wholly unwise in their generation. That there would be compensating drawbacks of tedium and restraint, they no doubt expected; but that the accidents of the employment would make the post untenable, was a result they could not possibly foresee.

CHAPTER VII

HALF A LIFETIME

Whatever view may be taken of the effect of Miss Burney’s life at Court upon her literary prospects, it was allowed by King George that she had sacrificed something. “It is but her due,” said that amiable monarch, referring to the Queen’s intention of granting her late Keeper of Robes a retiring allowance. “She has given up five years of her pen.” A hundred pounds per annum may not, it is true, seem much; but considering the amount of Miss Burney’s salary, and the brief duration of her service, it was not illiberal. And it came out of the Queen’s pocket. “It is solely from me to you,” – Her Majesty told her, adding other friendly expressions of farewell. This pension, or retiring allowance, – as far as we know, – Miss Burney continued to receive for the greater part of her life, which lasted forty-eight years more. That this is also the period comprised in the present chapter, may appear – at first sight – to suggest a certain hurry at the close. But the fault lies with the material, not with the limits of the volume. After Miss Burney’s resignation, and her marriage two years later, the events of her career, as well as the record of them, grow less interesting. She wrote tragedies, one of which was produced, and failed. She wrote a comedy, which was never produced at all. She wrote – mainly for money – two novels, which were commercial successes but added nothing to her reputation. Finally, in extreme old age, she wrote Memoirs of her father, which have been over-abused, but which cannot conscientiously be praised. Such are the leading facts of her literary life from the 7th July, 1791, – the day she quitted St. James’s Palace, – to her death in 1840.

For a week or two she remained at home, – home being now Chelsea College, where her father was domiciled. Then her kind friend, Mrs. Ord, carried her off on a four months’ tour to recruit. “She rambled” – in Macaulay’s picturesque phrases – “by easy journeys from cathedral to cathedral, and from watering-place to watering-place. She crossed the New Forest, and visited Stonehenge and Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed by Powderham Castle, and by the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, to Bath, and from Bath, when the winter was approaching, returned well and cheerful to London.”70 By this time it was the middle of October. Her father had anxiously awaited her coming, not without hope that she would forthwith resume her literary pursuits. Resume them indeed she did, but fitfully, working chiefly at tragedies, two of which she had roughly sketched at Windsor. To these she now added a third. “I go on with various writings,” she says at the close of 1791, “at different times, and just as the humour strikes. I have promised my dear father a Christmas Box, and a New Year’s gift upon my return from Norbury Park, and therefore he now kindly leaves me to my own devices.” But social functions, as in the post-Cecilian days, began to exercise their old attraction; and, in her Diary, we frequently trace her at places which were not those haunts of study and imagination, the great and little “Grubberies” at Chelsea. She visits poor Sir Joshua, now nearly blind, with bandaged and green-shaded eyes, and fast nearing his end.71 “ ‘I am very glad,’ he said, in a meek voice and dejected accent, ‘to see you again, and I wish I could see you better! but I have only one eye now – and hardly that.’ ” She visits Buckingham House periodically, and even looks in upon “Cerbera,” who is unexpectedly cordial, though she has evidently not forgiven her old colleague for declining to die at her post. During the temporary lameness of her successor, Mlle. Jacobi, Miss Burney goes so far as to resume her attendance for two days, only to be amply assured, by that brief experience, of the peril she has escaped. “Indeed,” – she says, – “I was half dead with only two days’ and nights’ exertion.” She goes again to the ever-during Hastings trial,72 renewing her relations with Windham; she goes to a public breakfast at Mrs. Montagu’s in Portman Square, and sees the Feather Room, referred to in chapter iv. “It was like a full Ranelagh by daylight,” she writes; and among other guests she meets Sophy Streatfield, no longer the peerless “S.S.” of yore, but faded, and sad, and changed. Another visit she mentions is to Mrs. Crewe at Hampstead. Mrs. Crewe, it will be remembered, was the daughter of Fanny’s godmother, Mrs. Greville. Here she listens to Burke’s praise of her dead friend, Mrs. Delany, whom he affirms to have been “a real fine lady” – “the model of an accomplished woman of former times”; and she reads with her hostess the newly published Pleasures of Memory of Mr. Samuel Rogers.

The close of 1792 was saddened by the sudden death of Miss Burney’s brother-in-law, Mr. Francis of Aylsham, – an event which detained her for some time in Norfolk. It is about this time, too, that we begin to hear of the French refugees whose arrival in this country, previous to the execution of Louis the Sixteenth, was to exercise so important an influence upon Fanny’s fortunes. The letters of Mrs. Phillips from Mickleham are much occupied with these illustrious exiles. There is the Duc de Liancourt, who has escaped to England in a small boat covered with faggots; there is Mme. de Broglie, who has taken a little cottage hard by in the hamlet of West Humble. There is a group who have clubbed to rent Juniper Hall – a delightful and still existent house on the road between Mickleham and Burford Bridge. This group, or syndicate, consists of Count Louis de Narbonne, ex-Minister of War; of the Marquise de la Châtre and her son; of M. de Montmorency, “a ci-devant Duc”; of M. de Jaucourt; and afterwards of Mme. de Staël, and M. Ch. Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, late Bishop of Autun, – not yet the terrible old man of Maclise’s sketch and Rossetti’s scathing description,73 but a dignified personage of eight-and-thirty. Finally there was M. de Narbonne’s friend, M. Alexandre D’Arblay, an artillery officer, maréchal de camp and former adjutant-general to La Fayette. On the night of the flight to Varennes he had been on guard at the Tuileries. With all these pathetic figures of exile, the waif and stray of a fallen Constitution, Mrs. Phillips, with her French traditions and education, was delighted; but particularly with the last. “He seems to me” – she writes to Fanny in November – “a true militaire, franc et loyal– open as the day – warmly affectionate to his friends – intelligent, ready, and amusing in conversation, with a great share of gaieté de cœur, and at the same time, of naïveté and bonne foi.” Further, he was announced to be about forty, tall, with a good figure, and a frank and manly countenance. Like his friend, Narbonne, he had lost almost everything, but what Narbonne had left they were to share. “Quoique ce soit, nous le partagerons ensemble,” he said. “Je ne m’en fais pas le moindre scrupule, puisque nous n’avons eu qu’un intérêt commun, et nous nous sommes toujours aimés comme frères.”

Early in January, having duly presented herself at Buckingham House on the Queen’s Birthday, Fanny set out for Norbury Park, arriving just after the news of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth, an event which of course overwhelmed her. With her quick sympathies, she was soon absorbed by the interesting tenants of Junipère, as they called it; and they, on their side, were equally interested in the author of Cecilia.74 Mme. de Staël, who was now at the head of the little French colony, was especially amiable to the lady whom she designates “la première femme d’Angleterre”; and Fanny seems to have been delighted from the first with Narbonne and his friend. M. D’Arblay – she tells her father – “is one of the most delightful characters I have ever met, for openness, probity, intellectual knowledge, and unhackneyed manners.” Very soon she is being pressed by Mme. de Staël – who is as ardent as Mrs. Thrale – to come and stay at Juniper. Concurrently, M. D’Arblay, who, in addition to his other good qualities, turns out to be “passionately fond of literature, a most delicate critic in his own language, well versed in both Italian and German, and a very elegant poet,”75 undertakes to teach her French in return for lessons in English. Dr. Burney, who received these confidences (per favour of M. de Talleyrand en route to his too expensive lodgings in Woodstock Street), and no doubt recollected the similar relations of Sir Charles Grandison and Clementina, must have foreseen the result – not without misgiving. He did not like Talleyrand; there was gossip afloat about Narbonne and Mme. de Staël; and at length, when “this enchanting M. D’Arblay” (as Fanny calls him to Mrs. Locke) openly expressed what was no doubt a genuine affection for his daughter, he was naturally averse from a match which promised so little, as the gentleman had no prospect of regaining his lost fortune, and Fanny had only her pension and her pen. But romance, and the world, were, as usual, against common sense; and after retreating for a little “maiden meditation” to Chessington, whither she was promptly followed by her lover, Fanny was eventually married to M. D’Arblay at Mickleham Church on the 31st July, 1793, Captain Burney, in the absence of his father, giving her away. Owing to the bridegroom’s being a Roman Catholic, the ceremony was, on the following day, repeated at the chapel of the Sardinian Ambassador in London – the object being that, if by any chance M. D’Arblay came to his own again, his wife might not be debarred from participation. Their means for the present were limited to Fanny’s pension, which, it had been feared, might be withdrawn. This fear, however, must have been removed. Mr. Locke gave them a site for a cottage in Norbury Park, adding cheerfully that after all, £100 per annum was but the income of many curates. But the view of the outsiders is expressed by Miss Maria Josepha Holroyd in a letter to her friend Miss Firth. “I must desire you” – she writes – “to wonder at Miss Burney’s marriage if I have not mentioned it before. She met with Monsieur D’Arblay at Mr. Locke’s, therefore probably Mme. de Staël was in the secret.”.. “He [M. D’Arblay] is even worse off than many other Emigrants, who have at least a futurity of Order in France to look forward to. But this man is disinherited by his father, for the part he took in politics, having followed LaFayette on his Étât Major. Miss Burney has nothing but the 100l from the Queen. Should you not have formed a better opinion of the author of Cecilia?”76