Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Another uncle only remained to be presented; he turned out to be Mr. Jonathan Barlowe, and he was, Thomas whispered half audibly to Fanny, in trade in the Indies.

It was all over, curtsies and bows and exclamations—echoes of the world of fashion and elsewhere—she had been presented to every member of the row and they had resumed their seats, while she hastened to the side of her stepmother, hot and breathless. She had never before been subjected to such an ordeal. She had gladly agreed to accompany her stepmother to this house, for she hoped thereby to increase her observation of a class of people who repaid her study of them; but she had no notion that she should have to vacate her place as an Observer and take up that of a Participator. She was to pay dearly for her experience.

She was burning, her stepmother could see; and she believed that this was due to her mortification on noticing that the dress of the ladies was infinitely more expensive than hers. That would be enough to make any young woman with ordinary susceptibilities indignant, she felt; and she herself, having had an opportunity of giving some attention to the expensive silks—she could appraise their value to a penny—was conscious of some chagrin on this account. She was almost out of patience with her old friend, Martha Barlowe, for making all this parade. The foolish woman had done so, she knew, in order to impress Miss Burney and to give her to understand that she was becoming associated with no ordinary family. But Mrs. Burney had seen enough since she had left Lynn for London to know that Fanny would not be the least impressed except in the direction of boredom by such an excess of ceremony in the house of a tradesman. She had heard Fanny's comment upon the gorgeous chariot which Sir Joshua Reynolds had set up, and she could not doubt what Fanny's opinion would be regarding this simple tea to which she had consented to go at the Barlowes' house.

Fanny had hurried to her side as soon as she had passed the row of uncles and aunts. She thought that the girl seemed overcome by the tedium of the formalities; but in a few minutes she saw that Fanny was on the verge of laughter.

Mrs. Burney could not say whether she would rather that her charge became moody or hilarious.

“Eight separate curtsies,” murmured Fanny. “If there are to be the same number going away we should begin at once.”

Mrs. Burney thought it better not to reprove her for her flippancy just at that moment. She condoned it with a smile.

Only a minute were the Burneys left to themselves. Mr. Barlowe, the elder, walked solemnly up to them.

“Going on nicely, eh?” he said in a confidential way to Mrs. Burney. “Everything being done decently and in order, madam. There has been no cause of offence up to the present, though there are three persons in that row who are as ready to see an offence where none is meant as a bunch of flax to break into flame when a spark falls on it. The young lady is discreet; if she had spoken to any one of them and not to the others, there would have been a flare-up. The touchy ones belong to my wife's family. She was a Kensit, you know.”

He made this explanation behind his hand and in a whisper; he saw that his wife and son had been in earnest consultation together over some vexed question, and now they were hovering about, waiting to catch his eye.