Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Through the silence there came the cawing of rooks far away among the trees of the park.

Then all at once she heard his sudden exclamation of surprise. He had not seen her at first; he saw her now.

“Dio mio! ella è qui!”

Still she did not turn her head toward him. More than a minute had passed before she heard his slow steps as he approached her. He was beside her for quite as long before he spoke.

“I did not know that you were here,” he said in a low voice. “But I am glad. It is but right that I should say good-bye to you alone.”

Then she looked up.

“Why—why—why?” she cried almost piteously. “Why should you say good-bye? What has made the change in you?”

“It is not I who have changed: it is you,” said he. “I loved the sweet, modest, untarnished jewel of a girl—a pearl hidden away from the sight of men in a dim sea-cave—a violet—ah, I told you how I loved the violet that hides itself from every eye—that was what you were when I loved you, and I hoped to return to your side and find you the same. Well, I return and—ah, where is the exquisite shrinking one that I looked for? Gone—gone—gone for ever, and in her place I find one whose name is in every mouth—not a soft, gentle girl, but a woman who has put her heart into a book—Dio mio! A woman who puts her heart into a book is like a woman who disrobes in a public place—worse—worse—she exposes a heart that should be sacred—feelings that it would be a gross indelicacy to exhibit to the eyes of man!”

“And that is how you think of me on account of what I have done?” said she.

“How can I think anything else?” he cried. “I told you that I loved you because you were so unlike others—because you were like a child for timidity and innocence of the world. I told you on that last evening we were together how greatly I admired the act of Miss Linley in turning her back upon the platform where she had sung and vowing never to return to it—that was what I told you I loved—I who have seen how the nature—the womanly charm of every woman suffers by reason of her appealing to the public for money—for applause. That beautiful creature forsook the platform before it was too late—before the evil influence could work her ruin. But you—what do I hear the day I return to England?—you have put your heart—your soul, into a book that causes your name to be tossed about from mouth to mouth—Fanny Burney—Fanny Burney—Fanny Burney—I hear that name, which I regarded as sacred, spoken as freely as men speak the name of their Kitty Fisher—their Polly Kennedy—their Fanny Abington! These are public characters—so are you—oh, my God! so are you. You should have heard how you were discussed in that room behind us before you arrived to-day—that gross man Johnson—he called you by a dozen pet names as if he had a right—'Fan'—'Fannikin'—I know not what—' a shy rogue '—that was another! They laughed! They did not see the degradation of it. You were a toy of the public—the vulgar crowd! Ah, you saw how that gross man, who fed himself as a wolf, tucked you under his arm and the others only smiled! Oh, I was shocked—shocked!”