MR. WINDHAM IS CONGRATULATED ON HIS SILENCE.
When he came down-stairs into the large waiting-hall, Mr. de Luc went in search of William and chairs. Sally then immediately discerned Mr. Windham with some ladies. He looked at me without at first knowing me.... Sarah whispered me Mr. Windham was looking harder and harder; and presently he came up to me, and in a tone of very deep concern, and with a look that fully concurred with ‘it, he said, “Do I see Miss Burney?”
I could not but feel the extent of the interrogation, and my assent acknowledged my comprehension.
“Indeed,” he cried, “I was going to make a speech—not Very gallant!” , “But it is what I should like better,” I cried, “for it is kind if you were going to say I look miserably ill, as that is but a necessary consequence of feeling so,—and miserably ill enough I have felt this long time past.”
He would not allow quite that, he said; but I flew from the subject, to tell him I had been made very happy by him. HE gave me one of his starts,—but immediately concluded it was by no good, and therefore would not speak in inquiry.
“Why, I did not see you in the box,” I cried, “and I had been very much afraid I should have seen you there. But now my fears are completely over, and you have made me completely happy!”
He protested, with a comic but reproachful smile, he knew not how to be glad, if it was still only in the support of a bad cause, and if still I really supported it. And then he added he had gone amongst the House of Commons instead of joining the managers, because that enabled him to give his place to a friend, who was not a member.
“You must be sure,” said I, “you would see me here to-day.”
I had always threatened him with giving fairest play to the defence, and always owned I had been most afraid Of his harangue; therefore to find the charges end without his making it saved me certainly a shake,—either for Mr. Hastings or himself,—for one of them must thenceforth have fallen in my estimation. I believe, however, this was a rather delicate point, as he made me no answer, but a grave smile; but I am sure he instantly understood his relinquishing his intended charge was my subject of exultation. And, to make it plainer, I then added, “I am really very generous to be thus made happy, considering how great has been my curiosity.”
“But, to have gratified that curiosity,” cried he, “would have been no very particular inducement with me; though I have no right to take it for a compliment, as there are two species of curiosity,—yours, therefore, you leave wholly ambiguous.”
“O, I am content with that,” cried I, “so long as I am gratified, I give you leave to take it which way you please.”
He murmured something I could not distinctly hear, of concern at my continued opinion upon this subject; but I do not think, by his manner, it much surprised him.
“You know,” cried I, “why, as well as what, I feared—that fatal candour, of which so long ago you warned me to beware to the very last moment. And, indeed, I was kept in alarm, for at every figure I saw start up, just now,—Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. Grey,—I concluded yours would be the next.”
“You were prepared, then,” cried he, with no little malice, “for a voice issuing from a distant pew."[340]
Miss BURNEY MAKES HER REPORT.
When we came home I was immediately summoned to her majesty, to whom I gave a full and fair account of all I had heard of the defence; and it drew tears from her expressive eyes as I repeated Mr. Hastings’s own words, upon the hardship and injustice of the treatment he had sustained.
Afterwards, at night, the king called upon me to repeat my account and I was equally faithful, sparing nothing of what had dropped from the persecuted defendant relative to his majesty’s ministers. I thought official accounts might be less detailed there than against the managers, who, as open enemies, excite not so much my “high displeasure” as the friends of government, who so insidiously elected and panegyrised him while they wanted his assistance, and betrayed and deserted him when he was no longer in a capacity to serve them. Such, at least, is the light in which the defence places them.
The king listened with much earnestness and a marked compassion. He had already read the account sent him officially, but he was as eager to hear all I could recollect, as if still uninformed of what had passed. The words may be given to the eye, but the impression they make can only be conveyed by the ear; and I came back so eagerly interested, that my memory was not more stored with the very words than my voice with the intonations of all that had passed.
With regard to My bearing this sole unofficial exertion since my illness, I can only say the fatigue I felt bore not any parallel with that of every Drawing—room day, because I was seated.