Truly when this terror was walking by night Fanny Burney's stipend was well earned. But worse was in store for her when it was decided that the King should be removed to Kew Palace, which he detested and which was certainly the most miserable of all the miserable dwelling-places of the Royal Family. It seemed to be nobody's business to make any preparation for the reception of the Queen and her entourage. The rooms were dirty and unwarmed, and the corridors were freezing. And to the horrors of this damp, unsavoury barrack was added Mrs. Schwellenberg, the German she-dragon who had done her best to make Fanny Burney's life unendurable during the previous three years. Formerly Fanny had dwelt upon the ill-treatment she had received at the hands of this old harridan; but now she only refers to her as an additional element of casual discomfort. The odious creature is “so oppressed between her spasms and the house's horrors, that the oppression she inflicted ought perhaps to be pardoned. It was, however, difficult enough to bear,” she adds. “Harshness, tyranny, dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I cut short details upon this subject—they would but make you sick.”
Truly little Miss Burney earned her wages at this time. The dilapidated palace was only rendered habitable by the importation of a cartload of sandbags, which were as strategically distributed for the exclusion of the draughts as if they were the usual defensive supply of a siege. But even this ingenious device failed to neutralise the Arctic rigours of the place. The providing of carpets for some of the bare floors of the bedrooms and passages was a startling innovation; but eventually it was carried out. An occasional set of curtains also was smuggled into this frozen fairy palace, and a sofa came now and again.
But in spite of all these auxiliaries to luxury—in spite, too, of Mrs. Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any one to disturb her—the dreariness and desolation of the December at Kew must have caused Miss Burney to think with longing of the comforts of her father's home in St. Martin's Street and of the congenial atmosphere which she breathed during her numerous visits to the Thrales' solid mansion at Streatham.
The condition of the King was becoming worse, and early whispers of the necessity for a Regency grew louder. It was understood that Mrs. Fitzherbert would be made a duchess! Everybody outside the palace sought to stand well in the estimation of the Prince of Wales, and Pitt was pointed out as a traitor to his country because he did his best to postpone the Comus orgy which every one knew would follow the establishing of a Regency. The appointment of the Doctors Willis was actually referred to as a shocking impiety, suggesting as it did a wicked rebellion against the decree of the Almighty, Who, according to Burke, had hurled the monarch from his throne. There were, however, some who did not regard Mr. Burke as an infallible judge on such a point, and no one was more indignant at the mouthings of the rhetorician than Miss Burney. But it seemed as if the approach of the Regency could no longer be retarded. The Willises were unable to certify to any improvement in the condition of the King during the month of January, 1789. It was really not until he had that chase after Fanny Burney in Kew Gardens that a change for the better came about.
Though she was greatly terrified by his affectionate salutation, she could not but have been surprised at the sanity displayed in the monologue that followed; for one of the first of his innumerable questions revealed to her the fact that he was perfectly well aware of what a trial to her patience was the odious Mrs. Schwellenberg. He asked how she was getting on with Mrs. Schwellenberg, and he did so with a laugh that showed her how well he appreciated her difficulties in this direction in the past. Before she could say a word he was making light of the Schwellenberg—adopting exactly the strain that he knew would be most effective with Miss Burney.
“Never mind her—never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your friend! Don't let her cast you down—I know that you have a hard time of it—but don't mind her!”
The advice and the tone in which it was given—with a pleasant laugh—did not seem very consistent with what she expected from a madman. Fanny Burney appears up to that moment to have been under the impression that the King and Queen had known nothing of the tyranny and the insults to which she had been subjected by Mrs. Schwellenberg. But now it was made plain to her that the eyes of the Royal couple had been open all the time. If Macaulay had noticed the passage touching upon this point he would have had still stronger grounds for his attack upon their Majesties for their want of consideration for the tire-woman who was supposed never to be tired.