A DINNER DIFFICULTY.
The clock had struck four some time, and Madame de la Fite said she feared they kept me from dinner. I knew it must soon be ready, and therefore made but a slight negative. She then, with an anxious look at her watch, said she feared she was already too late for her own little dinner. I was shocked at a hint I had no power to notice, and heard it in silence—silence unrepressing! for she presently added, “You dine alone, don't you?”
“Y-e-s,—if Mrs. Schwellenberg is not well enough to come down stairs to dinner.”
“And can you dine, ma chere mademoiselle—can you dine at that great table alone?”
“I must!—the table is not mine.”
“Yes, in Mrs. Schwellenberg's absence it is.”
“It has never been made over to me, and I take no power that is not given to me.”
“But the queen, my dearest ma'am—the queen, if she knew such a person as Madame de la Roche was here.”
She stopped, and I was quite disconcerted. An attack so explicit, and in presence of Madame de la Roche, was beyond all my expectations. She then went to the window, and exclaimed, “It rains!—Mon Dieu! que ferons-nous?—My poor littel dinner!—it will be all spoilt!—La pauvre Madame de la Roche! une telle femme!”
I was now really distressed, and wished much to invite them both to stay; but I was totally helpless; and could only look, as I felt, in the utmost embarrassment.
The rain continued. Madame de la Roche could understand but imperfectly what passed, and waited its result with an air of smiling patience. I endeavoured to talk of other things—-but Madame de la Fite was restless in returning to this charge. She had several times given me very open hints of her desire to dine at Mrs. Schwellenberg's table; but I had hitherto appeared not to comprehend them: she was now determined to come home to the point; and the more I saw her determination, the less liable I became to being overpowered by it. At length John came to announce dinner.
Madame de la Fite looked at me in a most expressive manner, as she rose and walked towards the window, exclaiming that the rain would not cease; and Madame de la Roche cast upon me a most tender smile, while she lamented that some accident must have prevented her carriage from coming for her. I felt excessively ashamed, and could only beg them not to be in haste, faithfully assuring them I was by no means disposed for eating.
Poor Madame de la Fite now lost all command of herself, and desiring to speak to me in my own room, said, pretty explicitly, that certainly I might keep anybody to dinner, at so great a table, and all alone, if I wished it.
I was obliged to be equally frank. I acknowledged that I had reason to believe I might have had that power, from the custom of my predecessor, Mrs. Haggerdorn, upon my first succeeding to her; but that I was then too uncertain of any of my privileges to assume a single one of them unauthorised by the queen. Madame de la Fite was not at all satisfied, and significantly said,
“But you have sometimes Miss Planta?”
“And M. de Luc, too,—he may dine with you
“He also comes to Mrs. Schwellenberg. Mrs. Delany alone, and her niece, come to me; and they have had the sanction of the queen's own desire.”
“Mais, enfin, ma chere Miss Burney,—when it rains,—and when it is so late,—and when it is for such a woman as Madame de la Roche!”
So hard pressed, I was quite shocked to resist her; but I assured her that when my own sisters, Phillips and Francis, came to Windsor purposely to see me, they had never dined at the Lodge but by the express invitation of Mrs. Schwellenberg; and that when my father himself was here, I had not ventured to ask him. This, though it surprised, somewhat appeased her; and we were called into the other room to Miss Planta, who was to dine with me, and who, unluckily, said the dinner would be quite cold.
They begged us both to go, and leave them till the rain was over, or till Madame de la Roche's carriage arrived. I could not bear to do this, but entreated Miss Planta, who was in haste, to go and dine by herself. This, at last, was agreed to, and I tried once again to enter into discourse upon other matters. But how greatly did my disturbance at all this urgency increase, when Madame de la Fite said she was so hungry she must beg a bit of bread and a glass of water!
I was now, indeed, upon the point of giving way; but when I considered, while I hesitated, what must follow—my own necessary apology, which would involve Madame de la Fite in much blame, or my own concealing silence, which would reverse all my plans of openness with the queen, and acquiesced with my own situation—I grew firm again, and having assured her a thousand times of my concern for my little power, I went into the next room: but I sent her the roll and water by John; I was too much ashamed to carry them.
When I returned to them again, Madame de la Fite requested me to go at once to the queen, and tell her the case. Ah, poor Madame de la Fite, to see so little a way for herself, and to suppose me also so every way short-sighted! I informed her that I never entered the presence of the queen unsummoned....
Again she desired to speak to me in my own room; and then she told me that Madame de la Roche had a most earnest wish, to see all the royal family; she hoped, therefore, the queen would go to early prayers at the chapel, where, at least she might be beheld: but she gave me sundry hints, not to be misunderstood, that she thought I might so represent the merits of Madame de la Roche as to induce the honour of a private audience.
I could give her no hope of this, as I had none to give for I well knew that the queen has a settled aversion to almost all novels, and something very near it to almost all novel-writers.
She then told me she had herself requested an interview for her with the princess royal, and had told her that if it was too much to grant it in the royal apartments, at least it might take place in Miss Burney's room! Her royal highness coldly answered that she saw nobody without the queen's commands....
In the end, the carriage of Madame de la Roche arrived, about tea-time, and Madame de la Fite finished with making me promise to relate my difficulties to the queen, that she might give me such orders as to enable me to keep them any other time. To give you the result at once, Miss Planta, of her own accord, briefly related the affair to the queen, dwelling upon my extreme embarrassment, with the most good-natured applause of its motives. The queen graciously joined in commendation of my steadiness, expressed her disapprobation of the indelicacy of poor Madame de la Fite, and added that if I had been overcome, it would have been an encouragement to her to bring foreigners for ever to the Lodge, wholly contrary to the pleasure of the king.