I stared, and drew back, with a look so undisguised of wonder and displeasure at this extraordinary speech, that I saw it was understood, and she then thought it time, therefore, to name her authority, which with great emphasis, she did thus: “The queen will give you a gown! The queen says you are not rich,” etc.
There was something in the manner of this quite intolerable to me, and I hastily interrupted her with saying, “I have two new gowns by me, and therefore do not require another.”
Perhaps a proposed present from her majesty was never so received before; but the grossness of the manner of the messenger swallowed up the graciousness of the design in the principal: and I had not even a wish to conceal how little it was to my taste.
The highest surprise sat upon her brow; she had imagined that a gown—that any present—would have been caught at with obsequious avidity,—but indeed she was mistaken.
Seeing the wonder and displeasure now hers, I calmly added, “The queen is very good, and I am very sensible of her majesty's graciousness; but there is not, in this instance, the least occasion for it.”
“Miss Bernar,” cried she, quite angrily, “I tell you once, when the queen will give you a gown, you must be humble, thankful, when you are Duchess of Ancaster.”
She then enumerated various ladies to whom her majesty had made the same present, many of them of the first distinction, and all, she said, great secrets. Still I only repeated again the same speech.
I can bear to be checked and curbed in discourse, and would rather be subdued into silence—and even, if that proves a gratification that secures peace and gives pleasure, into apparent insensibility; but to receive a favour through the vehicle of insolent ostentation—no! no! To submit to ill humour rather than argue and dispute I think an exercise of patience, and I encourage myself all I can to practice it: but to accept even a shadow of an obligation upon such terms I should think mean and unworthy; and therefore I mean always, in a Court as I would elsewhere, to be open and fearless in declining such subjection.
When she had finished her list of secret ladies, I told her I must beg to speak to the queen, and make my own acknowledgments for her gracious intention.
This she positively forbid; and said it must only pass through her hands. “When I give you the gown,” she added, “I will tell you when you may make your curtsey.”