Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Miss Burney hoped that the feeling of relief of which she was conscious did not show itself on her face, when she expressed the hope that Mrs. Thrale would not think of her; she would be quite happy with the birds.

“And the comedy—do not forget the comedy.”

Miss Burney laughed, but before her hostess had reached the door leading off the terrace, she was once more immersed in that question:

“What does he mean by his change of attitude in regard to me?”

It was serious—so much she knew. He had heard something that had caused him to change. But what could he have heard? What manner of man was he that would allow himself to be so influenced by anything that he might hear against her, without first coming to her for an explanation?

Her mind went back to the evening when they had first met. It was in St. Martin's Street. He was there on the invitation of Dr. Burney: but it seemed that he had become conscious of a sympathy existing between her and himself, for he had remained by her side for a full hour while the others in the room were singing and playing on the piano, and he had held her hand at parting, expressing the hope, which his eyes confirmed, that they would soon meet again.

And they had met again and again until one evening they found themselves alone in an anteroom to the apartment where a musical programme was being performed at a great house. Then he had told her that his happiness depended on her returning the love which he bore her; and startled though she had been, yet when he took her hand all her shyness seemed to vanish and she confessed....

A sound behind her only served to make her memory seem more vivid, for it was his voice that reached her ear and it was singing the same aria that he had come from singing on that evening—the passionate “Lascia ch'io pianga” of Handel. Once more she was listening to the strains—they came from one of the rooms that opened upon the terrace—and now the chords of the accompaniment were struck with a vehemence that had been absent from her father's playing to Rauzzini's singing upon that occasion.

She listened as if in a dream while the noble, despairing strain went on to its close, and the melody sobbed itself into silence—a silence that the birds among the roses seemed unwilling to break, for only an occasional note of a thrush was in the air....

She heard the sound of the door opening a little way down the terrace—of a foot upon the flagged path. She did not raise her head, but she knew that he was there—only a few yards away from her.