My next attack was from Miss Planta. She expressed herself in the deepest concern at my retiring, though she not only acknowledged its necessity, but confessed she had not thought I could have performed my official duty even one year! She broke from me while we talked, leaving me abruptly in a violent passion of tears.
MISS BURNEY’S SUCCESSOR. A PENSION FROM THE QUEEN.
I had soon the pleasure to receive Mlle. Jacobi.[343] She brought with her a young German, as her maid, who proved to be her niece, but so poor she could not live when her aunt left Germany! Mr. Best, a messenger of the king’s, brought her to Windsor, and Mrs. Best, his wife, accompanied him.
I was extremely pleased with Mlle. Jacobi, who is tall, well made, and nearly handsome, and of a humour so gay, an understanding so lively, and manners so frank and ingenuous, that I felt an immediate regard for her, and we grew mutual good friends. She is the daughter of a dignified clergyman of Hanover, high in theological fame.
They all dined with me, and, indeed, Mlle. Jacobi, wanting a thousand informations in her new situation, which I was most happy to give her, seldom quitted me an instant.
Tuesday morning I had a conversation, very long and very affecting to me, with her majesty. I cannot pretend to detail it. I will only tell you she began by speaking of Mlle. Jacobi, whom I had the satisfaction to praise, as far as had appeared, very warmly and then she led me to talk at large upon the nature and requisites and circumstances of the situation I was leaving. I said whatever I could suggest that would tend to render my Successor more comfortable, and had the great happiness to represent with success the consolation and very innocent pleasure she might reap from the society of the young relation she had brought over, if she might be permitted to treat her at once as a companion, and not as a servant. This was heard with the most humane complacency, and I had leave given me to forward the plan in various ways. She then conversed upon sundry Subjects, all of them confidential in their nature, for near an hour; and then, after a pause, said, “Do I owe you anything, my dear Miss Burney?”
I acquainted her with a debt or two amounting to near seventy pounds. She said she would settle it in the afternoon, and then paused again, after which, with a look full of benignity, she very expressively said, “As I don’t know your plan, or what you propose, I cannot tell what would make you comfortable, but you know the size of my family.”
I comprehended her, and was immediately interrupting her with assurances of my freedom from all expectation or claim; but she stopped me, saying, “You know what you now have from me:—the half of that I mean to continue.”