“It is open for you to tell them all that I have told you, my dear madam; and you may truthfully add that if the writing of the book will bring her into closer intimacy with Mrs. Thrale, the author will feel that it has not been written in vain.”
He made his lowest bow on rising from the table to receive his pupil, who entered the room at that moment.
He had confidence that he was right in his intuition that his patroness would act with good effect the rôle which he had relinquished in her favour, when her friends would arrive in another hour for their “collation;” and he was ready to allow that none could have played the part more neatly than she did when the time came to prove how much better-informed she was than the rest of the world. She might have been possessed of the knowledge that Miss Burney was the writer of “Evelina” from the first, from the easy and natural way in which she said:
“Pray do not trouble yourselves telling me what Mrs. Cholmondeley said to Mr. Lowndes, or what Mr. Lowndes said to someone else about the writer of the novel; for it happens that I know, and have known for—for some time the name of the author.”
There were a few little exclamations of surprise, and a very pretty uplifting of several pairs of jewelled hands at this calm announcement.
“Oh, yes,” she continued, “the writer is a friend of my own, and the daughter of one of my most valued friends, and if any people talk to you in future of 'Evelina' being the work of Mr. Walpole or Mr. Anstey or any man of letters, pay no attention to these astute investigators, but tell them that I said the book is the work of Miss Fanny Burney, one of the daughters of the celebrated Dr. Charles Burney, himself the author of a 'History of Music' that will live so long as the English language has a literature of its own.”
Mrs. Thrale did it all with amazing neatness, Dr. Burney thought; and the attempt that she made to conceal the expression of triumph in the glance that she gave to her guests let him know that his tact had been exercised in the right direction. Mrs. Thrale was not the woman to forget that he had given her such a chance of proving to her friends how intimate was her association with the literary history of the day. She had been for several years the patroness of Dr. Johnson, who had written the best dictionary, and now she was about to take under her protection Miss Burney, who had written the best novel. He knew that Mrs. Thrale was almost as glad to be able to reveal the secret of “Evelina” as if she had written the book herself.
And everyone else at the table felt that Mrs. Thrale was indeed an amazingly clever woman; and wondered how Mrs. Cholmondeley would feel when she had learned that she had been forestalled in her quest after the information on which she had placed a value of twenty guineas.