FURTHER CONVERSATION WITH MR. WINDHAM.
We then went into various other particulars of the speech, till Mr. Windham observed that Mr. Hastings was looking up, and, after examining him some time, said he did not like his countenance. I could have told him that he is generally reckoned extremely like himself but after such an observation I would not venture, and only said, “Indeed, he is cruelly altered: it was not so he looked when I conceived for him that prepossession I have owned to you.”
“Altered, is he?” cried he, biting his lips and looking somewhat shocked.
“Yes, and who can wonder? Indeed, it is quite affecting to see him sit there to hear such things.”
“I did not see him,” cried he, eagerly “I did not think it right to look at him during the speech, nor from the committeebox; and, therefore, I constantly kept my eyes another way.”
I-had a great inclination to beg he would recommend a little of the same decency to some of his colleagues, among whom are three or four that even stand on the benches to examine him, during the severest strictures, with opera-glasses. Looking at him again now, myself, I could not see his pale face and haggard eye without fresh concern, nor forbear to exclaim, “Indeed, Mr. Windham, this is a dreadful business!” He seemed a little struck with this exclamation; and, lest it should offend him, I hastened to add, in apology, “You look so little like a bloody-minded prosecutor, that I forget I ought not to say these things to you.”
“Oh!” cried he, laughing, “we are only prosecutors there—(pointing to the committee-box), we are at play up here.” ...
I wished much to know when he was himself to speak, and made sundry inquiries relative to the progress of the several harangues, but all without being comprehended, till at length I cried, “In short, Mr. Windham, I want to know when everybody speaks.”
He started, and cried with precipitancy, “Do you mean me?”
“Yes.”
“No, I hope not; I hope you have no wants about my miserable speaking?”
I Only laughed, and we talked for some time of other things; and then, suddenly, he burst forth with, “But you have really made me a little uneasy by what you dropped just now.”
“And what was that?”
“Something like an intention of hearing me.”
“Oh, if that depended wholly on myself, I should certainly do it.”
“No, I hope not! I would not have you here on any account. If you have formed any expectations, it will give me great concern.”
“Pray don’t be uneasy about that; for whatever expectations I may have formed, I had much rather have them disappointed.”
“Ho! ho!—you come, then,” cried he, pointedly, “to hear me, by way of soft ground to rest upon, after the hard course you will have been run with these higher-spirited speakers?”... He desired me not to fail to come and hear Fox. My chances, I told him, were very uncertain, and Friday was the earliest of them. “He speaks on Thursday,” cried he, “and indeed you should hear him.”
“Thursday is my worst chance of all,” I answered, “for it is the Court-day.”
“And is there no dispensation?” cried he; and then, recollecting himself, and looking very archly at Mr. Fox, who was just below us, he added, “No,—true—not for him!”
“Not for anybody!” cried I; “on a Court-day my attendance is as necessary, and I am dressed out as fine, and almost as stiff, as those heralds are here.” I then told him what were my Windsor days, and begged he would not seize one of them to speak himself.
“By no means,” cried he, quite seriously, “would I have you here!—stay away, and only let me hope for your good wishes.”
“I shall be quite sincere,” cried I, laughing, “and own to you that stay away I shall not, if I can possibly come; but as to my good wishes, I have not, in this case, one to give you!”
He heard this with a start that was almost a jump. “What!” he exclaimed, “would you lay me under your judgment without your mercy?—Why this is heavier than any penal statute.”
He spoke this with an energy that made Mr. Fox look up, to see to whom he addressed his speech: but before I could answer it, poor James, tired of keeping his promised circumspection, advanced his head to join the conversation; and so much was I alarmed lest he should burst forth into some unguarded expression of his vehement hatred to the cause, which could not but have irritated its prosecutors, that the moment I perceived his motion and intention, I abruptly took my leave of Mr. Windham, and surprised poor James into a necessity of following me.
Indeed I was now most eager to depart, from a circumstance that made me feel infinitely awkward. Mr. Burke himself was just come forward, to speak to a lady a little below me; Mr. Windham had instantly turned towards me, with a look of congratulation that seemed rejoicing for me, that the orator of the day, and of the cause, was approaching, but I retreated involuntarily back, and shirked meeting his eyes. He perceived in an instant the mistake he was making, and went on with his discourse as if Mr. Burke was out of the Hall. In a minute, however, Mr. Burke himself saw me, and he bowed with the most marked civility of manner; my courtesy was the most ungrateful, distant, and cold; I could not do otherwise; so hurt I felt to see him the head of such a cause, so impossible I found it to titter one word of admiration for a performance whose nobleness was so disgraced by its tenour, and so conscious was I the whole time that at such a moment to say nothing must seem almost an affront, that I hardly knew which way to look, or what to do with myself.[267] In coming downstairs I met Lord Walsingham and Sir Lucas Pepys. “Well, Miss Burney,” cried the first, “what say you to a governor-general of India now?”
“Only this,” cried I, “that I do not dwell much upon any question till I have heard its answer!”
Sir Lucas then attacked me too. All the world against poor Mr. Hastings, though without yet knowing what his materials may be for clearing away these aspersions!