SECTION 17. (1790-1) MISS BURNEY RESIGNS HER PLACE AT COURT.
[The following section concludes the story of Fanny’s life at Court. Her entire unfitness for the position which she there occupied had been, from the commencement, no secret to herself; but her tenderness for her father had determined her to endure to the utmost before resigning a place to which her appointment had been to him, in his short-sighted folly, a source of such extreme gratification. But now she could endure no longer. The occasional relief which she had found in the society of Mrs. Delany and Colonel Digby had been brought to an end by the death of the one and the marriage of the other; her spirits were broken, her state of health was becoming daily more alarming and she at last summoned up courage to consult her father on the subject, and to make known to him her desire of resigning. Blind as he had shown himself to the true interests of his daughter, Dr. Burney was still the most affectionate of parents. He heard Fanny’s complaint with grief and disappointment, but with instant acquiescence in her wishes. His consent to her plan being obtained, Fanny for some months took no further steps in the matter. She was willing to remain at her post so long as she was capable, with whatever difficulty, of supporting its fatigues. But her health failed more and more, and the memorial was at last (December, 1790) presented to the queen. Even yet the day of release was far distant. The “sweet queen” was in no hurry to part with so faithful a servant, and although she had accepted the resignation, she did not conceal her displeasure at being reminded of it. Meanwhile the unfortunate victim of royal selfishness was growing daily weaker. Her friends were seriously alarmed: even her fellow-slaves at Court commiserated her, and urged her retirement. A successor was at length appointed, and on the 7th of July, 1791, Fanny found herself once more free. During the interval which elapsed between the consultation with Dr. Burney and the presentation of the memorial, an incident occurred which occasioned to Fanny much distress and not a little annoyance. Her own narrative of the affair we have not thought it necessary to include in our selection from the “Diary,” but here a few words on the subject may be not unacceptable. Fanny’s man-servant, a Swiss named Jacob Columb, had fallen dangerously ill in the summer of 1790, and was sent, in August, to St. George’s Hospital. He was much attached to his mistress, who, he said, had treated him with greater kindness than father, mother, or any of his relatives, and on leaving Windsor he begged her to hold in trust for him the little money in his possession, amounting to ten guineas. She offered him a receipt for the money, but he refused it, and when she insisted, exclaimed, “No, ma’am, I won’t take it! You know what it is, and I know what it is; and if I live I’m sure you won’t wrong me: and if I don’t, nobody else sha’n’t have it!” Moved to tears by the poor fellow’s earnestness, Fanny complied with his request. In the following month he died at the hospital, desiring, in his last moments, to leave everything to his sisters in Switzerland. “He certainly meant,” writes Fanny, “everything of his wearing apparel, watches, etc., for what money he had left in my hands he would never tell anybody.” She was preparing, accordingly, to transmit Columb’s effects, including, of course, the ten guineas, to Switzerland, when a claimant appeared in the person of Peter Bayond, a countryman of the deceased. This man produced a will, purporting to be Columb’s, by which the property was left to be divided between Bayond himself and James Columb, a cousin of the pretended testator, then in service with Horace Walpole. Fanny’s instant conviction was that the will was a forgery, and the appearance and behaviour of Bayond confirmed her in this belief. James Columb, moreover, concurred in her opinion, and she had decided to ignore this new claim, when she received an attorney’s letter, desiring her to pay to Bayond the sum in her hands of the late Jacob Columb. She then wrote to Walpole, who offered her his assistance, with many expressions of warm regard. But finally, after much trouble, and threats of a lawsuit, she was advised that her best plan would be to let the will take its course, and to pay over to the claimant the sum in question; and thus the matter was settled, “in a manner,” she writes, “the most mortifying to Mr. Walpole and myself."-ED.]