“Much recollection of the many messages of business which had passed between us, while unknown, during the printing of that long work, made me smile also at his name, and we easily made acquaintance.”
Fanny received news about this time that her sister Susan might possibly come over from Ireland, to pay a short visit to her family. The unsettled state of that country had long been causing them great anxiety on her behalf, and the joy of this intelligence was so overpowering “that I appeared,” writes Fanny, “to my poor Alex, in deep grief from a powerful emotion of surprise and joy, which forced its way down my cheeks.
“The little creature, who was playing on the sofa, set up a loud cry, and instantly, with a desperate impulse, ran to me, darted up his little hands before I could imagine his design, and seized the letter with such violence that I must have torn it to have prevented him; then he flew with it to the sofa, and rumpling it up in his little hands, poked it under the cushions, and then resolutely sat down upon it . . . . He could not express himself better in words than by merely saying, ‘I don’t ‘ike ‘ou to ‘ead a letter, mamma!’ He had never happened to see me in tears before. Happy boy! - and oh, happy mother!”
* * *
And now, my beloved Susan,” continues the writer, “I will sketch my last Court history of this year.
“The Princess Amelia, who had been extremely ill . . . of some complaint in her knee . . . was now returning from her sea-bathing at Worthing, and I heard from all around the neighbourhood that her Royal Highness was to rest and stop one night at Juniper Hall [Hill], whither she was to be attended by Mr. Keate the surgeon, and by Sir Lucas Pepys, who was her physician at Worthing.”
The word “Hall” in the above letter is evidently a misprint. Juniper Hill was the house recently taken by Sir Lucas Pepys and his wife, Lady Rothes. It stands upon the slope of a hill, its grounds stretching down to Mickleham Church. Madame d’Arblay, in one of her letters, contrasts its prominent position in the landscape with that of the house formerly occupied by M. de Narbonne and his friends, which was sometimes, she says, called Juniper Hole from its standing in a hollow of the hills.
“I could not hear of the Princess approaching so near our habitation,” continues Fanny, “and sleeping within sight of us, and be contented without an effort to see her . . . . So infinitely sweet that young love of a Princess always is to me, that I gathered courage to address a petition to her Majesty herself, through the medium of Miss Planta, for leave to pay my homage.” A ready consent having been given a note was next despatched to Lady Rothes for her leave to pay the visit. “I intimated also,” continues the writer, “my wish to bring my boy, not to be presented unless demanded, but to be put into some closet where he might be at hand in case of that honour.”
JUNIPER HILL
Little Alex had already been presented to the Princess Amelia, as well as to the other members of the Royal family, when taken by his mother to the “Queen’s house” in town. The child had been rather awed by the unusual surroundings of a palace, but his heart had gone out instantly to the sweet-looking young girl who had taken him in her arms and played with him, making him forget all his shyness.
“It was the 1st of December,” writes Madame d’Arblay, “but a beautifully clear and fine day. I borrowed Mr. Lock’s carriage. Sir Lucas came to us immediately, and ushered us to the breakfast-parlour, giving me the most cheering accounts of the recovery of the Princess. Here I was received by Lady Rothes.”
In former times the approach to Juniper Hill was on what is now the garden side of the house. There, upon a broad terrace overlooking a wide view, stands a porch of classic design, supported by fluted columns and reached by a double flight of curving stone steps, once the main entrance. Here Fanny and her little son must have alighted.
After she had had some pleasant chat with former colleagues of the Court, who were now in attendance on the Princess Amelia, “Lady Albinia,” she writes, “retired. But in a very few minutes returned and said, ‘Her Royal Highness desires to see Madame d’Arblay and her little boy.’
“The Princess was seated on a sofa, in a French-grey riding-dress with pink lapels, her beautiful shining fair locks unornamented. Her breakfast was still before her and Mrs. Cheveley in waiting, She received me with the brightest smile, calling me up to her, and stopping my profound reverence by pouting out her sweet ruby lips for me to kiss.”
We have sat in the very parlour where this meeting must have taken place. The room, with its delicate Adam decorations, its carved chimney-piece of coloured and white marble, and its tall arched and recessed windows, is unchanged by the passing of a century; and as there happened to be in this parlour a large old-fashioned leather-covered sofa, the whole scene rose before our eyes, and we seemed to see the girlish figure of the Princess, then just turned fifteen, seated upon it in her graceful riding attire.
“She desired me to come and sit by her,” continues Fanny, “but I seemed not to hear her, and drew a chair at a little distance. ‘No, no,’ she cried, nodding, ‘come here; come and sit by me here, my dear Madame d’Arblay!’ [so] I seated myself on her sofa . . .
“Her attention was now turned to my Alex, who required not quite so much solicitation to take his part of the sofa. He came jumping and skipping up to her . . . with such gay and merry antics that it was impossible not to be diverted with so sudden a change from his composed and quiet behaviour in the other room. He seemed enchanted to see her again, and I was only alarmed lest he should skip upon her poor knee in his caressing agility.
“. . . Lady Albinia soon after left the room, and the Princess, then, turning hastily and eagerly to me said: ‘Now we are alone, do let me ask you one question, Madame d’Arblay. Are you - are you - [looking with strong expression to discover her answer] - writing anything?’
“I could not help laughing, but replied in the negative.
“‘Upon your honour?’ she cried earnestly, and looking disappointed. This was too hard an interrogatory for evasion, and I was forced to say - the truth - that I was about nothing I had yet fixed if or not I should ever finish, but that I was rarely without some project. This seemed to satisfy and please her.”
Soon afterwards Madame d’Arblay and her little son withdrew.
‘Camilla Cottage was being furnished by degrees and with as little expense as possible. Dr. Burney had offered to provide a carpet for the best parlour, and Fanny writes to him on September 1 (1801):
“The carpet! how kind a thought! Goodness me! as Lady Hales used to say, I don’t know what for to do more and more! But a carpet we have - though not yet spread, as the chimney is unfinished, and room incomplete. Charles brought us the tapis - so that, in fact, we have yet bought nothing for our best room, and meant - for our own share - to buy a table . . . and if my dearest father will be so good - and so naughty at once, as to crown our salle d’audience with a gift we shall prize beyond all others, we can think only of a table. Not a dining one, but a sort of table for a little work and a few books en gala, without which a room looks always forlorn.”
The Doctor now offered to present two small tables to the cottage. There is an unpublished letter from Fanny, preserved in the Burney family, respecting this gift, which we give here. It is dated West Humble, September 6, 1801:
“Magnificent, my dearest padre, quite magnificent, will be the two noble card-tables! I remember them perfectly . . . . They will do a thousand times better than any Tavolina . . . so if my beloved father can spare them, I know not any furniture I should like so well. We have two exact places for them - ‘as natral as if they were alive’ - on the two sides of our fine room; and if you will come and use them - not at whist though - what a pleasure to us! I think no room looks really comfortable, or even quite furnished, without two tables - one to keep the wall and take upon itself the dignity of a little tidyness, the other to stand here, there, and everywhere, and hold letters and make the agreeable.
“Last week we had a long and very social visit from
the two Miss Berrys and their father, brought to us by Mr. and Mrs. William Lock. They were very lively, very cordial, and very agreeable, and renewed our former acquaintance with an earnestness of cultivating it in future that was flattering in the highest degree; pressing to see us both at Twickenham and in town, and obviating all maternal objections by assurances they had a bed just fitted for Alex.
“They inquired much after you and were very pleasant. I could not but recollect Lord Orford’s speech when he first presented us to each other, which was at Lady Hesketh’s: ‘There!’ said he, having named us, ‘now I have put you together you can’t help getting on.’”
CHAPTER XXVI. FAREWELL
ONCE more we are standing in the valley of Mickleham. It is early autumn. The corn been gathered in and the Norbury woods are already tinged with gold. We watch the low rays of the afternoon sun as they touch field and meadow and stately tree, and sparkle on the Mole as it emerges from its dark archway of spreading boughs.
Our “book is completed and closed like the day,” for the story of Juniper Hall and of the various events that came to pass from the meetings of French and English within its walls has been told. The opening of the nineteenth century is destined to bring about many changes to the persons with whom we have been holding converse in these pages, and with its arrival our Mickleham episode comes to a close.
But ere we part from those persons we would make the circuit of the valley and look once more on the places where “wingéd Fancy” has brought them before us so often.
There, behind its grand spreading cedars, stands Juniper Hall, the arched windows of its sculptured drawing-room lighted up by the setting sun. We pass on our way, catching a glimpse of Juniper Hill on its terrace above the tree-tops, and so, following the road as it descends abruptly, we reach the village church - the church where the d’Arblays were married, and where the squire’s pew still stands in which the Locks used to sit, and and where a tablet records their honoured names. Passing down the village street we come to a certain cottage “at the foot of Norbury Park” - the home of Mrs. Phillips; and almost fancy we can hear the voice of little Norbury at play in the garden. Then, entering the park, we climb a long steep hill, passing on our way the footpath to Bookham, till we reach the wide platform upon which stands Norbury House. Surely, if we entered its “Picture-room,” we should find our friends assembled there! Leaving the terrace and its grand view behind us, we enter the solemn shade of the Druids’ Walk, and, pursuing our way through the wood, come out upon the open country where stands Camilla Cottage, the heights of Ranmore rising beyond it. Some one is working in the meadow. Can it be General d’Arblay, with his sword for a pruning-hook? As the evening closes in we turn away, and, casting a last look at our loved valley, we bid it and all its associations “Farewell.”
[Medallion. A Mural Decoration in Juniper Hall, and also in Norbury Park]
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Robert E. Howard
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Stendhal
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Zane Grey
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Algernon Blackwood
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Charles Darwin
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Edward Gibbon
E. F. Benson
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Friedrich Nietzsche
George Bernard Shaw
George MacDonald
Hilaire Belloc
John Bunyan
John Webster
Margaret Oliphant
Maxim Gorky
Oliver Goldsmith
Radclyffe Hall
Robert W. Chambers
Samuel Butler
Samuel Richardson
Sir Thomas Malory
Thomas Carlyle
William Harrison Ainsworth
William Dean Howells
William Morris
Series Six
Anthony Hope
Aphra Behn
Arthur Morrison
Baroness Emma Orczy
Captain Mayne Reid
Charlotte M. Yonge
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E. W. Hornung
Ellen Wood
Frances Burney
Frank Norris
Frank R. Stockton
Hall Caine
Horace Walpole
One Thousand and One Nights
R. Austin Freeman
Rafael Sabatini
Saki
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Stanley J. Weyman
Thomas De Quincey
Thomas Middleton
Voltaire
William Hazlitt
William Hope Hodgson
Ancient Classics
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Delphi Poets Series
A. E. Housman
Alexander Pope
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 726