Frank Frankfort Moore

“ Garrick,” said Mrs. Burney. “He is as happy when he has made a gruesome face and frightened a maid with a mop at the doorstep, as when he has stricken us with awe when the ghost enters in Hamlet, or when Macbeth declaims of the horror of the curse of sleeplessness that has been cast on him. That is why I said before he arrived that I was not sure that his influence upon you all is for good. He makes one lose one's sense of the right proportions and realities of life. Now is not that so, Hetty? I make no appeal to Fanny, for I know that she has ever been devoted to Mr. Garrick. ”

“ Good sense and good nature go hand in hand in plain grey taffeta, not down the primrose paths of life, but along the King's highway of every day, where they run no chance of jostling the simple foot-passengers or exciting the envy of any by the flaunting of feathers in their face. Good sense and good nature are best satisfied when they attract no attention, but pass on to obscurity, smiling at the struggle of others to be accounted persons of importance.”
“Then you have indeed made up your mind to marry Mr. Barlowe?” cried Esther.
Fanny laughed enigmatically. ”

“ Surely 'Tis not cold, mamma,” she said.
“Not so very cold; but when there is a fire in the work-room it should not be wasted,” said Mrs. Burney. “But to say the truth you do not look as if you were cold; your face is quite flushed, child. I hope you do not feel that you are on the brink of a sickness, my dear.”
“Dear mamma, I never felt stronger in my life,” cried Fanny with a laugh.
“I am glad to hear that. I was saying to Lottie just now that for some days past you have had alternately a worried look and the look of one whose brain is over-excited. Is anything the matter, my child?” ”

“ That was all she longed for at first—to be recognized as “the one who writes,” as people recognized “the one who plays.” But since Signor Rauzzini had come upon the scene her ambitions had widened. She dreamt not merely of recognition, but of distinction, so that he might be proud of her, and that she might not merely be spoken of as the wife of the Roman singer. That dream of hers had invariably been followed by a feeling of depression as she reflected upon the improbability of its ever being realized, and if it should not be realized, all hope of happiness would pass from her life. ”

“ Ah, who is it that remembers an opera from one year to another? No one, except the impresario who has lost his good money, or somebody's else's money, over its production. Enough, the cantatrice has given us of her best, and is there now any reason why we should remain dumb? The great charm of the singing of these brilliant artistes of last year's operas is that when they have sung, they have sung—they leave one nothing to think about afterward. Is not that so, mademoiselle?”
“They leave one nothing to think about—except their singing,” said Fanny. ”

“ The truth that had been revealed to her among Sir Joshua Reynolds' superb canvases, that love was more than all else that the world could give her, remained before her, as a luminous fixed star, to be a guide to her life; and the happiness that she now felt was due to the thought that she could go to the man whom she loved, without a misgiving, without fearing that he would hear those dreaded voices of the world saying that he had been a fool to ally himself with a nonentity, or that she would hear the whispers of those who might suggest that she had done very well for herself. ”

“ I feel that a woman's life has on it the bloom of a butterfly's wing, and if that is once breathed on, its beauty is gone for ever—the woman's life is never again what it was—what it was meant to be. But if you wish, I will not go beyond the violet as my emblem of the best woman—my woman.”
“I thank heaven that I have no voice,” said Fanny gently, after a pause. Young Mr. North-cote, Sir Joshua's pupil, had approached Mrs. Burney—his eye was on Susy—in order to tell her that tea was being served in the drawing-room. ”

“ She stood at the inner side of the closed door and listened to the rattling of the wheels of the chaise over the cobble-stones.
So the ordeal that she dreaded had been faced, and how simple a thing it had turned out after all! Her father had treated the idea which she had submitted to him as if it were nothing beyond the thought of a simpleton—a foolish, simple girl who knew nothing of the world of business and booksellers, and who fancied that a bookseller would print everything that was sent to him. ”

“ Burney, without seeing him, knew that, as he himself would phrase it, he had tipped Fanny a wink. She turned quickly round upon him, and if she had previously any doubt on this point, it was at once dispelled by the solemnity of his face.
Dr. Burney gave a laugh.
“The influence of Mr. Garrick is like that of the air we breathe,” said he. “It is not to be resisted by the age we live in, leaving family matters out of the question altogether: the Burney family must inhale as much of the spirit of Mr. Garrick as the rest of the town-they cannot help themselves, ces pauvres Burneys! ”

“ And then, all at once, she was conscious of the merging of the two Fanny Burneys into one, and of the existence of a new Fanny Burney altogether—the Fanny Burney who was beloved by the celestial singer, and this was certainly the most wonderful of the three.
The thought thrilled her, and she knew that with it the truth of life had come to her: there was nothing worth anything in the world save only loving and being loved. ”

“ You are you—you yourself quite apart from the book. Whatever the book may be, you will still remain Fanny Burney, the best daughter and the best sister in the world. What does it matter if people—foolish people who know nothing about it—laugh at it or say nasty things about it? Do you think that that will make any of us like you the less?”
She put her arm about Fanny and kissed her on the cheek, and Fanny's tears began to fall. The young man standing by felt more uneasy than he had ever felt in his life. ”

“ There was a pause before the elder sister said quite pathetically:
“My poor Fanny! I wonder if you have not been treated shabbily among us.”
“Not. I, my Hettina. I have always been treated fairly. I have had as many treats as any of you; when you were learning so much in Paris I have been learning quite a number of things at home. And one of the most important things I learned was that so brilliant a person as Signor Rauzzini could never be happy if married to so insignificant a person as Fanny Burney.” ”

“ Fanny gazed at the exquisite face, illuminated with what seemed to her to be a divine light, and for the first time she knew something of what it was to be a great painter. After “St. Cecilia” the other portraits on the walls seemed paltry. There was no divine light in the faces of the duchesses. There was life in them; they breathed and smiled and posed and looked gracious, but looking at them one remained on earth and among mortals. ”

“ As for Miss Burney herself, she was, quite apart from her housewifely qualities, a most estimable young lady—modest and retiring, as a young woman should be, and very beautiful. To be sure, he had often heard that beauty was only skin deep, but even assuming that it did not go any deeper, it had always been highly esteemed by men—none of them seemed to wish it to be of any greater depth; and it was certain that a man with a handsome wife was greatly envied—more so even than a man who was married to a plain woman but a good housewife. ”

“ Ah, sir, is there not a poet who says that every man that lives has a good angel and a bad one contending for dominion over him? That is the truth, Mr. Kendal, and I see that your good angel is none other than the lady whose name I reckon too sacred to pass our lips at such a time as this. Ah, sir, think of her, and let your mind go back to the days of your happy boyhood, and say if the mother at whose knees you knelt did not resemble her. The affection of a son for his mother—let that plead for the lady who esteems you with more than a mother's love. ”

“ Her heart, which had begun to beat quickly when Hetty had told her how the divine Rauzzini had spoken of her, sank within her as she seemed to hear a voice asking who was she that she should hope to reach by the publication of that story which she had been writing by stealth and at odd times during the past three years, even the smallest measure of fame that would compare with that of Signor Rauzzini? What fame attached to the writing of a novel in comparison with that achieved by the enchantment of a singer who had power to move the hearts of men and women as it pleased him? ”

“ The idea of thinking that any young woman would go to the trouble of writing a book when she can reach the heart of mankind so much more easily by blushing over the breast of a shirt! Continue stitching and doing your own blushing, dear children, and you will never give anyone cause to blush for you.”
He bowed elaborately to each of them in turn and afterward to Mrs. Burney, and made a most effective exit. He always knew when he should go, and never failed to leave a few fragrant phrases behind him, as though he had dropped a bunch of roses for the girls to cherish. ”

“ You are not angry with us, I know, but it was so indeed.”
“Why should I feel angry with you for feeling just what I do myself, only more intensely,” said Fanny. “Tis one of the greatest mysteries of life—the only mystery of life that I have yet faced—why a man who is as handsome as an archangel, and who possesses a voice that an archangel might envy, should so much as glance at an insignificant young woman like myself! ”

“ From the shrubberies around the house came the liquid notes of countless blackbirds and thrushes, and above the trees of the park the cawing of the rooks as they wheeled above their nests and settled upon the branches.
“We shall sit on the terrace for half an hour, if you have a mind to,” said Mrs. Thrale, taking Fanny through the drawing-room into a smaller room that opened upon a long terrace above the beds of the flower-garden. ”

“ Dear soul! he has made our hearts beat at times beyond all computation of time and space.”
“You will herring-bone the edges neatly, Fanny: I noticed some lack of neatness in the last of the napery that left your hand, my dear,” said Mrs. Burney, bending over her stepdaughter at her work-basket; and, indeed, it seemed that the caution was not unnecessary, for Fanny's eyes were gleaming and she was handling her work with as great indifference (for the moment) as though she esteemed plain sewing something of drudgery rather than a delight. ”

“ Goldsmith—this man was actually at that very moment sitting in his arm-chair eagerly reading the words which their sister Fanny had written!
The thought was too wonderful for them. The effect that it had on them was to make them feel that they had two sisters in Fanny, the one a pleasant, homely, hem-stitching girl, who could dance the Nancy Dawson jig for them and take off all the people whom she met and thought worth taking off; the other a grave authoress, capable of writing books that great men forsook the society of other great men to read! ”

“ Thomas felt that no ordinary person could be accounted absolutely safe in a company that included a tall, able-bodied young naval man who had begun his education under a murderer and had gone to complete it among the cannibals of the South Seas; and, in addition, an elderly gentleman who fancied that he could bring any sound out of a trumpet by pressing it to his ear instead of his lips, and had shown himself ready to extol the scholarship of any man who had been hanged.
But then Thomas looked at Fanny, and she pleased him more than ever. ”

“ He felt sure that Miss Burney would understand what he meant, though he knew that he would have difficulty in expressing it all to her in words; for the effect of the music was to make him feel that he could put so much feeling into a look, into a squeeze of the hand, as would touch the heart of any young woman and cause her to be certain that she might trust him though all other help might fail her. ”

“ Fanny had turned the handle. She re-entered the dining-room, and the moment that she appeared silence fell upon the company, and once again she was conscious of many eyes gazing at her and of horrid smiles and a smirk. That was another ordeal for the shy little Miss Burney—it was an evening of ordeals.
She walked straight across the room to her stepmother.
“I am ready to go away now,” she said. “We have never stayed at any house so long when we only came for tea. I am tired to death.” ”

“ Barlowe?” she cried.
Esther looked puzzled: she was puzzled, and that was just what Fanny meant her to be.
But then she looked piqued, as elder sisters do when puzzled by the words or the acts of the younger. What business have younger sisters puzzling their elders? Their doing so suggests pertness when the elders are unmarried, but sheer insubordination when they are married; and Esther was by no means willing at any time to abrogate the privileges of her position as a married woman. ”