THE GOUT AND THE LOVE LETTERS, AGAIN.
Saturday, July 26.—The royal party were to be Out the whole day, and I had her majesty’s permission to go to the play at night with Miss Port and her friends, and to introduce MISS Planta to them for the same purpose. The breakfast was at seven o’clock; we were all up at half after five. How sorry was I to see Colonel Gwynn enter alone, and to hear that Mr. Fairly was again ill.
Soon after the king came into the room and said, “So, no Mr. Fairly again?”
“No, sir; he’s very bad this morning.”
“What’s the matter? His face?”
“No, sir; he has got the gout. These waters., he thinks, have brought it on.”
“What, in his foot?”
“Yes, sir; he is quite lame, his foot is swelled prodigiously." “So he’s quite knocked up! Can’t he come out?”
“No, sir; he’s obliged to order a gouty shoe and stay at home and nurse.”
The king declared the Cheltenham waters were admirable friends to the constitution, by bringing disorders out of the habit. Mr. Fairly, he said, had not been well some time, and a smart fit of the gout might set him all to rights again. Alas, thought I, a smart fit of the gout in a lonely lodging at a water-drinking place!
They all presently set off; and so fatigued was my poor little frame, I was glad to go and lie down; but I never can sleep when I try for it in the daytime; the moment I cease all employment, my thoughts take such an ascendance over my morphetic faculty, that the attempt always ends in a deep and most Wakeful meditation.
About twelve o’clock I was reading In my private loan book, when, hearing the step of Miss Planta on the stairs, I put it back in my work-box, and Was just taking thence some other employment, when her voice struck my ear almost in a scream “Is it possible? Mr. Fairly!”
My own with difficulty refrained echoing it when I heard his voice answer her, and in a few minutes they parted, and he rapped at the door and entered my little parlour. He came in hobbling, leaning on a stick, and with a large cloth shoe over one of his feet, which was double the size of the other.
We sat down together, and he soon inquired what I had done with his little book. I had only, I answered, read two more letters.
“Have you read two?” he cried, in a voice rather disappointed; and I found he was actually come to devote the morning, which he knew to be unappropriated on my part, to reading it on to me himself. Then he took up the book and read on from the fifth letter. But he read at first with evident uneasiness, throwing down the book at every noise, and stopping to listen at every sound. At last he asked me if anybody was likely to come?
Not a soul, I said, that I knew or expected.
He laughed a little at his question and apparent anxiety but with an openness that singularly marks his character, he frankly added, “I must put the book away, pure as it is, if any one comes or, without knowing a word of the contents, they will run away with the title alone, exclaiming, ‘Mr. Fairly reading love letters to Miss Burney!’ A fine story that would make!”
‘Pon honour, thought I, I would not hear such a tale for the world. However, he now pursued his reading more at his ease.
I will not tell you what we said of them in talking them over. Our praise I have chiefly given—our criticism must wait till you have read them yourselves. They are well worth your seeking. I am greatly mistaken if you do not read them with delight.
In the course of the discussion he glided, I know not how, upon the writings of another person, saying he never yet had talked them over with me.
“It is much kinder not,” cried I hastily....
“Well, but,” cried he laughing, “may I find a fault? Will you hear a criticism, if nothing of another sort?” I was forced to accede to this.
He told me, then, there was one thing he wholly disallowed and wished to dispute, which was, Cecilia’s refusing to be married on account of the anonymous prohibition to the ceremony. He could not, he said, think such an implied distrust of Delvile, after consenting to be his, was fair or generous.
“To that,” cried I, “I cannot judge what a man may think, but I will own it is what most precisely and indubitably I could not have resisted doing myself. An interruption so mysterious and so shocking I could never have had the courage to pass over.”
This answer rather silenced him from politeness than convinced him from reason, for I found he thought the woman who had given her promise was already married, and ought to run every risk rather than show the smallest want of confidence in the man of her choice.
Columb now soon came in to inquire what time I should dine, but a ghost could not have made him stare more than Mr. Fairly, whose confinement with the gout had been spread all over the house by Colonel Gwynn.
“I ordered an early dinner on account of the play.”
“Will you invite me,” cried Mr. Fairly, laughing, “to dine with you?”
“Oh yes!” I cried, “with the greatest pleasure.” and he said he would go to his home and dress, and return to my hour.