AN UN-COURTLY VISITOR.
Miss Planta and myself, by the queen’s direction, went in a chaise to see Tewkesbury. We were carried to several very beautiful points of view, all terminating with the noble hills of Malvern; and we visited the cathedral.... The pews seem the most unsafe, strange, and irregular that were ever constructed; they are mounted up, story after story, without any order, now large, now small, now projecting out wide, now almost indented in back, nearly to the very roof of the building. They look as if, ready-made, they had been thrown up, and stuck wherever they could, entirely by chance.
We returned home just in time to be hastily dressed before the royals came back. I was a little, however, distressed on being told, as I descended to dinner, that Mr. Richard Burney[288] was in my parlour. The strict discipline observed here, in receiving no visits, made this a very awkward circumstance, for I as much feared hurting him by such a hint, as concurring in an impropriety by detaining him. Miss Planta suffers not a soul to approach her to this house; and Lady Harcourt has herself told me she thinks it would be wrong to receive even her sisters, Miss Vernons, so much all-together is now the house and household!
My difficulty was still increased, when, upon entering the parlour, I found him in boots, a riding dress, and hair wholly without curl or dressing. Innocently, and very naturally, he had called upon me in his travelling garb, never suspecting that in visiting me he was at all in danger of seeing or being seen by any one else. Had that indeed been the case, I should have been very glad to see him; but I knew, now, his appearance must prove every way to his disadvantage, and I felt an added anxiety to acquaint him with my situation.
Miss Planta looked all amazement; but he was himself all ease and sprightly unconsciousness.
We were obliged to sit down to dinner; he had dined. I was quite in a panic the whole time, lest any of the royals should come in before I could speak—but, after he had partaken of our dessert, as much en badinage as I could, I asked him if he felt stout enough to meet the king? and then explained to him, as concisely as I had power, that I had here no room whatsoever at my own disposal, in such a manner as to enable my having the happiness to receive any of my private friends even Miss Port, though known to all the royal family, I could never venture to invite, except when they were abroad: such being, at present, the universal practice and forbearance of all the attendants in this tour.
He heard me with much surprise, and much laughter at his own elegant equipment for such encounters as those to which he now found himself liable; but he immediately proposed decamping, and I could not object, Yet, to soften this disagreeable explanation, I kept him a few minutes longer, settling concerning our further meeting at the concerts at Worcester, and, in this little interval, we were startled by a rap at my door. He laughed, and started back; and I, alarmed, also retreated. Miss Planta opened the door, and called out “‘Tis Mr. Fairly.”
I saw him in amaze at sight of a gentleman; and he was himself immediately retiring, concluding, I suppose, that nothing less than business very urgent could have induced me to break through rules so rigidly observed by himself and all others. I would not, however, let him go, but as I continued talking with Richard about the music meeting and my cousins, he walked up to the window with Miss Planta. I now kept Richard as long as I well could, to help off his own embarrassment at this interruption; at length he went.