CUSTODIAN OF THE QUEEN'S JEWEL Box.
Oct. 2—The next day we were all to go to Kew: but Mrs. Schwellenberg was taken ill, and went by herself to town.
The queen sent for me after breakfast, and delivered to me a long box, called here the jewel box, in which her jewels are carried to and from town that are worn on the Drawing-room days. The great bulk of them remain in town all the winter, and remove to Windsor for all the summer, with the rest of the family. She told me, as she delivered the key into my hands, that as there was always much more room in the box than her travelling jewels occupied, I might make what use I pleased of the remaining part; adding, with a very expressive smile, “I dare say you have books and letters that you may be glad to carry backwards and forwards with you.”
I owned that nothing was more true, and thankfully accepted the offer. It has proved to me since a comfort of the first magnitude, in conveying all my choice papers and letters safely in the carriage with me, as well as books in present reading, and numerous odd things....
Friday, Oct. 6.—We returned to Windsor without Mrs. Schwellenberg, who stayed in town for her physician's advice. The queen went immediately to Mrs. Delany, and the princess royal came into my room.
“I beg pardon,” she cried, “for what I am going to say: I hope you will excuse my taking such a liberty with you—but, has nobody told you that the queen is always used to have the jewel-box carried into her bedroom?”
“No, ma'am, nobody mentioned it to me. I brought it here because I have other things in it.”
“I thought, when I did not see it in mamma's room,” cried she, “that nobody had told you of that custom, and so I thought I would come to you myself: I hope you will excuse it?”
You may believe how I thanked her, while I promised to take out my own goods and chattels, and have it conveyed to its proper place immediately. I saw that she imagined the queen might be displeased; and though I could never myself imagine that, for an omission of ignorance, I felt the benevolence of her intention, and received it with great gratitude.
“My dear ma'am,” cried she, “I am sure I should be most happy to do anything for you that should be in my power, always; and really Mrs. Schwellenberg ought to have told you this.”
Afterwards I happened to be alone with this charming princess, and her sister Elizabeth, in the queen's dressing-room. She then came up to me and said,
“Now will you excuse me, Miss Burney, if I ask you the truth of something I have heard about you?”
“Certainly, ma'am.”
“It's such an odd thing, I don't know how to mention it; but I have wished to ask you about it this great while. Pray is it really true that, in your illness last year, you coughed so violently that you broke the whalebone of your stays in two?”
“As nearly true as possible, ma'am; it actually split with the force of the almost convulsive motion of a cough that seemed loud and powerful enough for a giant. I could hardly myself believe it was little I that made so formidable a noise.”
“Well, I could not have given credit to it if I had not heard it from yourself! I wanted so much to know the truth, that I determined, at last, to take courage and ask you.”
“And pray, Miss Burney,” cried the Princess Elizabeth, “had you not a blister that gave you great torture?”
“Yes, ma'am,—in another illness.”
“O!—I know how to pity you!—I have one on at this moment!”
“And pray, Miss Burney,” cried the princess royal, “were not you carried out of town, when you were in such a weak condition that you could not walk?”
“Where could your royal highness hear all this?”
“And were you not almost starved by Sir Richard Jebb?” cried Princess Elizabeth.
“And did you not receive great benefit from asses' milk?” exclaimed the princess royal.
Again I begged to know their means of hearing all this; but the queen's entrance silenced us all.