“Poor Fanny! she will have to tell the Padre to-morrow and ask his leave to—to do what she has already done without it. Poor Fanny!”
CHAPTER XVI
A FEW days later Dr. Burney was at the point of setting out for Chessington to share Mr. Crisp's hermitage until the end of the week. He had already said good-bye to the household; but Fanny accompanied him to the door. It was her last chance, she knew. She had long ago made up her mind that one of her secrets must be told to him, and she had more than once, since the printed sheets had been brought to her, tried to screw up her courage to the point of telling him, but she had not yet succeeded. And now he was going to Chessington for four days, and in the meantime the book should be returned to the printer. It was the last chance she would have of discharging the duty which was incumbent on her. She had been hovering around him in the hall, shaking out his gloves for him, polishing the gold knob of his cane, picking a scrap of dust from the collar of his travelling-cloak. In another minute he would be gone—her opportunity would be gone.
And then came the relieving thought of further procrastination:
“I shall write to him at Chessington and confess all.”
It seemed as though she had uttered her thought aloud, for he turned to her with his hand on the latch of the hall door, saying:
“You will write to Chessington to-morrow or the day after, my dear. It is no trouble to you to write. You enjoy it, do you not?”
“Oh, it is my chief enjoyment. That is why I have been practising it so much, just as the others have been practising their music. I have no music in my soul, so I—I have been writing. Of course, it is not to be expected that I could do more than write some nonsense—my equivalent to the strumming of the scales.”