Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Fanny laughed.

“You are silly little geese,” she cried. “Could you not see that she would not mention it lest it should reach our ears and we should be filled with an irresistible desire to possess it—it—a modern novel! Think of it! Oh, my dears, you are too unreasonable, Mamma knows her duty too well to allow even the name of a novel to pass her lips and maybe reach the ears of such a group of fly-away young things as ourselves! She understands the extent of her responsibilities. Go to your beds and be thankful that you have so excellent a guardian.”

“But when we were prepared——” began one of them, when Fanny interrupted her.

“You may conserve your preparations—you will hear her say the name soon enough—you may depend upon that,” she said. “You may prepare to hear yourselves summoned into her presence to give a full and true account of your complicity in the thing which was perpetrated under this sacred roof—nay, in the very room where the great philosopher Newton wrote his thesis! A novel written in the room in which the divine 'Principia' was produced! Why, 'twere as bad in mamma's eyes as acting one of Mr. Foote's farces in St. Paul's Cathedral. Oh, yes, you'll have to face her soon enough, and after that you'll never wish to hear the name Evelina again. Now, good-night, and thank heaven for your respite.”

They left her, glum and dissatisfied. It was plain to her that they were disappointed at not being given the opportunity of showing how admirably they had themselves under control in regard to the secret—of showing Fanny how they could hear Mrs. Burney talk at length about “Evelina,” while neither of them gave the least sign of ever having heard the name before. It was indeed disappointing that all their studied immobility should go for nothing.

But Fanny knew that their secret could not possibly remain hidden for many more days. If the book was going into everybody's hands, her father would be certain to have it, and then—would he not know? Would not she be summoned into his presence and that of his wife—the lady of many responsibilities—and required to defend herself?...

She fell asleep before she had come to any conclusion as to the line of defence that she should adopt.

And in spite of the readiness of her sisters for any inquisition to which they might be summoned, they were startled—as was also Fanny herself—when, immediately after a rather silent and portentous breakfast, Mrs. Burney said:

“Susy and Lottie, you may go to your duties. You, Fanny, will remain, as your father wishes to speak to you on a matter of some gravity.”

So the long-expected hour had come, the three girls thought. By some accident unknown to them their secret was exposed, and Fanny was about to be called upon to explain, if she could, to the satisfaction of her father and her stepmother, how it came that she so far forgot the precepts of her upbringing as to write a novel quite in the modern spirit, though adopting a form which the master-touch of Mr. Samuel Richardson had hallowed.