“Nay, now you suggest that I have told you a secret that I have concealed from everyone else, and that is going too far,” cried Mrs. Thrale. “Now, dear madam, cannot you see that even if I were in the secret of the authorship, I should be guilty of a great breach of courtesy were I to reveal it to anyone? If an author choose to remain anonymous, is it not discourteous to try to snatch away his—or her—veil of anonymity?”
“I can but assent,” said Lady Hales. “I do not doubt that this view of the matter is the correct one. At any rate, you may depend on my acting in accordance with it. I shall make no further attempt to pry into the secret, and I shall think it right to dissuade my friends from the quest.”
“In that I am sure you will be acting in accordance with the author's wishes,” said Mrs. Thrale, smiling knowingly.
CHAPTER XXVII
SO they parted; and Lady Hales hastened back to her friends to whisper in their ears that the mystery was as good as solved: Mrs. Thrale had as much as acknowledged that she was the author of “Evelina,” but she hoped that, as she had written the book without the knowledge of her husband, her friends would respect her desire to remain anonymous.
“Mr. Thrale, being a Member of Parliament, would not like to have the name of his wife bandied about among ordinary people as that of the writer of a novel,” Lady Hales explained, though really no explanation was needed of a fact that could be appreciated by every sensible person aware of the contemptible character of the novels of the day. “Only Dr. Johnson is in the secret,” she continued. “Dr. Johnson, as we all know, lives at Thrale Hall for five days out of every week, finding the table provided by Mrs. Thrale to suit his palate very much better than that controlled by poor blind Mrs. Williams at Bolt Court.”
“That may account for some of the touches in the book in the style of Dr. Johnson,” said one of the ladies. “You may be sure that no book could be written under the same roof as Dr. Johnson without his having something to say to it.”
“I never could understand how so fastidious a lady as Mrs. Thrale could tolerate the company of Dr. Johnson at her table, but now the secret is out—this secret and t'other,” said one of the gentlemen. “Dr. Johnson is not seen at his best at the dinner-table.”