Mr. Fairly was here almost all the month previously to our departure. At first it was concluded he and Colonel Gwynn, the equerry in waiting, were to belong wholly to the same table with Miss Planta and me, and Mr. Fairly threatened repeatedly how well we should all know one another, and how well he would study and know us all au fond.
But before we set out the plan was all changed, for the king determined to throw aside all state, and make the two gentlemen dine at his own table. “We shall have, therefore,” said Mr. Fairly, with a very civil regret, “no tea-meetings at Cheltenham.”
This, however, was an opening to me of time and leisure such as I had never yet enjoyed.
Now, my dearest friends, I open an account which promises at least all the charms of novelty, and which, if it fulfils its promise, will make this month rather an episode than a continuation of my prosaic performance. So now for yesterday, Saturday, July 12.
We were all up at five o’clock; and the noise and confusion reigning through the house, and resounding all around it, from the quantities of people stirring, boxes nailing, horses neighing, and dogs barking, was tremendous.
I must now tell you the party:—Their majesties; the princesses Royal, Augusta, and Elizabeth; Lady Weymouth, Mr. Fairly, Colonel Gwynn, Miss Planta, and a person you have sometimes met; pages for king, queen, and princesses, ward- robe-women for ditto, and footmen for all. A smaller party for a royal excursion cannot well be imagined. How we shall all manage heaven knows. Miss Planta and myself are allowed no maid; the house would not hold one.
The royal party set off first, to stop and breakfast at Lord Harcourt’s at Nuneham. You will easily believe Miss Planta and myself were not much discomfited in having orders to proceed straight forward. You know we have been at Nuneham!
Mrs. Sandys, the queen’s wardrobe-woman, and Miss Macentomb, the princesses’, accompanied us. At Henley-on-Thames, at an inn beautifully situated, we stopped to breakfast, and at Oxford to take a sort of half dinner.