Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“It is just the same with me, dear,” said Lottie. “I feel as if I were suddenly cut off from some great interest in life—as if I had gone downstairs one morning and found that someone had stolen the piano. I wonder if it was Hetty who told the padre.”

“Make haste and we shall soon learn all,” said Susy.

Before they had finished dinner they learned from their father how he had got to the bottom of the secret that they had so cherished.

He had gone as usual to give a music lesson to Queenie Thrale, and when partaking of some refreshment before setting out for London, Mrs. Thrale had talked to him in terms of the highest praise of “Evelina.” She had read the book twice over, she told him, and had lent it to Dr. Johnson, who could talk of nothing else. Then Mrs. Cholmondeley had arrived on a visit to Thrale Hall, and she, too, was full of praise of the book. She, too, had lent her copy to someone else—to no less important a person than Mr. Edmund Burke, and he had declared himself as greatly captivated by it as his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds had been. Everybody was talking about it, and the question of the authorship had been as widely discussed as before; Mrs. Cholmondeley had declared that she would give twenty guineas to find out for certain who it was that had written the book.

Mrs. Thrale had thereupon suggested that Dr. Burney was in a better position than most people for solving the mystery, going about as he was from one part of the town to another and being in close touch with all manner of people.

“But I had not, as you know, so much as read the book for myself—I seemed to be the only one in town who had not done so—and on getting home I sent William post haste to Mr. Lowndes to purchase a set. This done, I sat down to peruse the first volume. The page opened on the Ode; it lay beneath my eyes, and I tell you truly that I did not seem to read it: I seemed to hear Fanny's voice reading the verses in my ear, and the truth came upon me in a flash—incredible though it appeared, I knew that it was she who had written the book. Hetty came in before my eyes were dry—she saw the volume in my hand, and she understood all. 'You know,' was all that she said. I think that the greatest marvel was the keeping of the secret of the book! To think of its being known to four girls and never becoming too great for them to bear!”

He was appealing to his wife, but she only nodded a cold acquiescence in his surprise. She remained silent, however, and this was something to be grateful for, the girls thought: they knew just what she was thinking, and they also knew that if they had some little trouble in keeping their secret, she had very much more in restraining herself from uttering some comment upon their reticence—their culpable reticence, she would think it. They could see that she was greatly displeased at having been excluded from their secret, since such an exclusion had forced her into a false position more than once—notably in the presence of Mr. Crisp, when she had become the assailant of novels and novel reading generally, and also when she had scolded them on their return in the chaise. But they were good girls, and they were ready to allow that they were in the wrong, even though they did not think so: that is what really good girls do in their desire for peace in their homes. And Lottie and Susy made up their minds that should their stepmother tax them with double-dealing and deceit, they would not try to defend themselves. The reflection that they had kept their sister's secret would more than compensate them for any possible humiliation they might suffer at Mrs. Burney's hands.

All that Mrs. Burney said at the conclusion of her husband's further rhapsody about the marvel of Fanny's achievement, considering how she had been generally thought the dunce of the family, was comprised in a few phrases uttered in a hurt tone:

“While no one is more pleased than myself to witness her success, I cannot but feel that she would have shown herself possessed of a higher sense of her duty as a daughter if she had consulted her father or his wife in the matter,” she said.

“That may be true enough,” said Dr. Burney; “but if she had done so, would she have achieved her purpose any more fully than she has, I ask you? No, my dear, I do not feel, with any measure of certainty, that I would have gone far in my encouragement of her efforts, nor do I think that you would have felt it consistent with your principles to do so.”