‘Concerning what?’
‘Concerning me, Sir,’ cried Mr Baretti defiantly and, quitting the room, slammed the door so violently behind him that smoke billowed out from the hearth.
Queeney followed. Her belly ached; she had been purged before breakfast. Had she stayed and run to comfort Mamma, as she wished, she might have faced rejection. Her mother was again expecting a child and was therefore unpredictable.
Johnson called out, ‘Sweeting,’ for he had noticed the girl’s bereft expression, but she did not hear him. Nor could he get a word out of Mrs Thrale as to the reason for Baretti’s anger; she sat bolt upright, a vacant look in her blue eyes, as of one whose gaze, too long fixed on the fires of Hell, was now burnt clean.
Observing her, he became anxious on his own account, for it was he who had introduced Dr Burney to the household and such an atmosphere of disorder would surely reflect badly on himself. The Doctor had come expecting intellectual harmony, not the settling of scores. Urging Miss Reynolds to attend to Mrs Thrale, Johnson went out on to the terrace with Langton and sought an explanation.
Langton’s version of events was puzzling. According to him, Baretti had accused Mrs Thrale of being the cause of young Harry’s death, from the too frequent administration of tin pills.
‘Tin pills!’ said Johnson. ‘Harry never suffered from worms in his life.’
‘I merely repeat what I heard,’ said Langton.
‘A monstrous calumny’, exploded Johnson, ‘and not the first to be spread abroad. Why, on the night in question, it was said that a clerk of the Brewery, after a visit to Drury Lane, had taken the boy to an alehouse and returned him home out of his senses.’
‘And was there truth in it?’ asked Langton.
‘Certainly not,’ Johnson exclaimed. ‘The clerk is a family man and one in whom Perkins had the utmost confidence.’ Agitated, he caught hold of a branch of lilac just then coming into bud beside the wall, and twisted it about so violently that it snapped off. His look of horror as he contemplated the broken wood in his grasp, and the groan that escaped his lips, followed by the words, ‘How simple it is to check growth,’ unnerved Langton, who blurted out, ‘My gardener is a great believer in the practice of pruning at this time of the year … now that there is no longer a danger of frost.’ He attempted to seize hold of the branch, for now Johnson had taken to whipping himself savagely about the legs, and failed. Anxious to distract him, Langton enquired if he believed the Reverend Dr Dodd would escape the hangman’s noose. ‘Your letter’, he flattered, ‘will surely count for something.’
‘Not so, Sir,’ Johnson said. ‘He is to be made an example of and there’s an end to it.’ Nor, said he, would the subscription raised by James Boswell and others, to secure a quick transportation of the body to the surgery of John Hunter, prove efficacious.
Langton disputed the point; he said that resuscitation had been successful some years before in the case of a felon – the name escaped him – hanged for sheep stealing.
‘The name is not on your lips’, Johnson countered, ‘because the sheep stealer was of no account, and for that reason the highway was empty of spectators when his friends bore him away. Time is of the essence if life is to be restored. When they cut Dodd down, the length of the route to Tyburn will be packed end to end with those who pretend an interest in him, thereby blocking his chance of a return.’
Studying the mutilated lilac branch, and finding it past mending, he tossed it over the wall. ‘Baretti’, he observed suddenly, craning forward to watch where it fell, ‘would do well to remember that second chances are hard to come by. Purging would perhaps do him good.’
‘Purging?’ echoed Langton.
‘We must consider the meaning of the word in the original sense – to expel impurities from the human body. The mind is subject to the same imperfections. For instance, ambition is a noble passion, and one requiring a certain degree of resentment towards those whose ambitions have already been fulfilled. But, as in the case of Baretti, when a man carries his ambition too far, we pity him … for he is no longer in control of his passions.’
‘Baretti is certainly colicky,’ said Langton.
‘Whereas you, my dear Lanky, have no such impurity—’
‘I am, I confess, singularly lacking in ambition,’ agreed Langton cheerfully, at which Johnson, spluttering with laughter, commented that such a lack was no doubt a consequence of inherited wealth. Still guffawing, he descended the steps into the garden and set off in the direction of the summerhouse, a rustic structure a generous Henry Thrale had built for his use some years before.
A genius, thought Langton, is one whose nervous power and sensitivity are largely in excess – and let him go. In London Samuel could not bear his friends out of his sight, but this, the Literary Club reasoned, was because Mrs Thrale was not of the company. The Sam of Streatham Park was a different being from the Samuel of Bolt Court and the taverns of Fleet Street. The latter was a personage who welcomed intellectual stimulation in the company of men who recognised his genius, and who, on rare occasions, could best him in combat; the former, one content to wallow in the capricious sunlight of a woman’s affections.
As Johnson receded unsteadily into the distance he still appeared shaken by mirth. At intervals the snort of swans alighting on the lake echoed his whoops of merriment.
For the remainder of the day Baretti kept to the schoolroom. Nor did he join the guests at dinner, and instead requested food be brought to his chamber, for which relief Mrs Thrale gave heartfelt thanks. It enabled her to pay proper attention to the discussion of a new work to be undertaken by Johnson, for which a committee of the most reputable booksellers in London were proposing to pay him two hundred pounds. The publication would consist of accounts of the lives of the English poets and criticism of their verse; Sam was honeyed enough to declare, in the presence of Dr Burney, who had been persuaded to stop the night, that he would appreciate her help. His exact words were, ‘Your judgement, my dear, is of value, for you are not burdened by excessive scholarship and your perception is fresh.’
Mrs Thrale immediately insisted on the inclusion of Milton and Gray, the one in parts a favourite of them both, the other, in her opinion, a poet vastly overrated, ‘The Prospect of Eton College’, in particular, suggesting nothing which every beholder was not capable of thinking or feeling for themselves. ‘Gray’s supplication to Father Thames’, she elaborated, ‘to divulge who drove the hoop or tossed the ball is useless and puerile.’
‘Well said, Madam,’ cried Johnson and patted her fondly on the head. Some weeks before, troubled with an infestation of the scalp, she had left off wearing her wig. Both he and Henry had applauded the change in her appearance and gone so far as to claim they saw moonbeams dancing in her hair.
She spent a disturbed night attending to her husband, for he spat out a tooth in the small hours. There and then she resolved as soon as possible to return with him to Brighthelmstone – sea bathing would possibly bring about a cure for his ills. She came down to breakfast nervous of encountering Baretti, having decided he must be left behind. He appeared half an hour later, and wished her good morning in so loud and defiant a tone of voice she was convinced he was about to insult her again. Sitting down, he asked if she did not think it was a pleasant day. Had she noticed the young leaves beginning to sprout on the chestnut trees in the avenue?
‘I have not yet been out, Sir,’ she said, and head lowered mashed away at the shell of her breakfast egg.
‘The whole garden’, said he, ‘is coming into life, as it should be at this time of the year, unless stricken by blight.’
He was smiling, but she detected a sinister undertone to his remark, and stared at him coldly; in her mind she recalled Hamlet’s judgement on the murderous Claudius – one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. Baretti looked startled and for a moment she imagined she saw hurt in his eyes; the next he put down his cup with a clatter and rising from the table went out into the hall. There – for
Mrs Thrale sent Queeney to spy on him – he picked up his hat and his stick and left the house. Miss Reynolds, hard on Queeney’s heels, reported seeing him striding away along the drive without a backward glance.
That mid-day Queeney walked to the ornamental gates of the Park and looked out into the lane, in case her teacher should come back. From the elm trees came the call of wood pigeons, and in their melancholy purring she heard Mr Baretti crooning to her in the school-room, the day the small Penelope got born, and died.
Weeks later, Mamma said Mr Boswell had told Mr Johnson that Baretti had informed him that he had been treated with such contempt in the presence of strangers – it was believed he meant Dr Burney – that he had had no other course than to leave Streatham Park for ever. Hatred one can bear, he had confided to Boswell, for it comes from the heart … contempt from the head.
When he sent for his clothes and his books, Mamma murmured, ‘Good riddance,’ though not entirely with conviction.
Johnson, for the third time in as many minutes, asked Mrs Desmoulins whether Frank Barber had polished his shoes. ‘If you are enquiring’, she replied tartly, ‘whether Frank has been told to clean them, the answer is yes. Has he done so?… No. They remain on the scullery table much bespattered with mud.’
‘Take no heed,’ cried Mrs Williams, ‘she is out to vex you. I felt them myself an hour ago and they were smooth to the touch.’
Mrs Desmoulins swept out of the parlour and tripped across the cat, who fled yowling; she was annoyed with herself for having been caught out. Samuel had been invited to a party at Dr Burney’s. Of late, he had taken to showing more concern for his appearance, at least when Mrs Thrale was to be present; when he went to the Literary Club he was not so fussy, but then, no one there looked lower than his mouth. By all accounts, Mrs Thrale was now firm friends with Dr Burney, who was teaching music to the indulged Queeney; a week before the spoilt girl had been bought a harpsichord.
Mrs Desmoulins went to her room and waited in the dark until she heard the thud of the front door. Then she scurried on to the landing and looked down into the Court to watch Sam depart. It was a bitterly cold night and as he walked his shoes crunched on cobblestones sharp with frost. How lightly he turned his back on his home! With what little feeling he strode away from those who held him dear!
Dr Burney lived in St Martin’s Street in a household of motherless daughters. The accommodation was not large and Burney had wisely decided the party could not be on the scale usual at Streatham Park. His principal guest, apart from Johnson, was to be his patron, the wealthy and highborn Fulke Greville, whose emaciated wife was the celebrated author of Prayers for Indifference and something of a bluestocking. Both Grevilles had long wished to meet Johnson. Seward, the anecdotist, an old friend of the Thrales, had also been asked. All the same, Dr Burney had not felt quite easy at the prospect of Greville encountering the tradesman Thrale and the sometimes irascible Johnson, and had taken the precaution of hiring an Italian contralto named Piozzi to entertain them should conversation begin to flag or else grow too heated.
The evening began well enough, though it was difficult to keep the drawing room warm due to the different times at which the guests arrived and the necessary opening of the front door. When at last everyone was assembled, Fanny, second daughter of Dr Burney, sensibly had an old carpet rolled up and placed at the foot of the door to combat draughts. Hot punch was served and a quantity of sweetmeats passed round on platters, one of which Henry Thrale mistakenly took to be for his sole use and whose entire contents he rapidly devoured.
The first harpsichord interruption was listened to quietly enough, save for an outbreak of coughing from Johnson. When it was over there was a mild clapping of hands, above which Mrs Thrale could be heard boasting of her recent visit to Court and of how the King had said she did not come often enough up to town. Mrs Greville held up her eye-glass and studied her quite openly.
Fanny Burney took an instant liking to Queeney, who, though only fourteen years of age to her twenty-five, appeared quite able to converse on equal terms. Fanny went so far as to confide that she was an inveterate scribbler, particularly of plays, to which Queeney replied that she herself lacked imagination and was thankful for it, but admired the quality in others.
Mrs Thrale, made uncomfortable by the stiff atmosphere – Mr Greville was too grand to start up a conversation and Samuel never one to initiate talk unless challenged – began to laugh a great deal without obvious cause. Mrs Greville went on studying her, which made matters worse, for she was as tall as Bennet Langton and twice as thin, and Mrs Thrale could not help noticing the skeleton outline of ribs beneath the expensive silk of her gown.
It was not, as she later told Henry, that she had found Dr Burney’s guest a figure of fun, merely that it had struck her as comical that it was herself, rather than Mrs Greville, who had become an object of scrutiny. Hence, she protested, she had been unable to stop tittering.
Dr Burney, alarmed, signalled to Piozzi to start singing. This time Johnson’s coughing got so out of hand that Mr Seward felt obliged to beat him repeatedly between the shoulder blades, provoking Mrs Thrale to laugh louder than ever. Worse, to divert the company, she suddenly began to mimic the singer, gobbling like a fish and gazing pop-eyed at the ceiling.
Outraged, Dr Burney shouted, ‘Madam, this is not polite behaviour,’ at which Johnson, scowling at Mr Greville, who had planted himself in front of the hearth, cutting off all heat except to his own backside, leapt to his feet and bellowed, ‘Sir, if it were not for depriving the ladies of the fire, I should like to stand at the hearth myself.’
Mr Piozzi, seemingly deaf to the uproar, continued to render ‘Sally in Our Alley’, a popular refrain from The Beggar’s Opera, and when finished turned to bow to his unruly audience. Mrs Thrale clapped louder than anyone else; Johnson thought she did so from guilt at being the instigator of the disturbance. Not so Queeney. Mrs Thrale’s expression had turned tender, lips parted as though to utter endearments. Piozzi was small in height, fair of complexion, and his eyes, light in colour, looked only at Mamma.
Soon, thought Queeney, she will want him to instruct me in singing.
To Madame d’Arblay,
54 rue Basse,
Passe,
France
August 4th, 1810
My dear Fanny,
I read your letter with amusement and not a little relief, for now that Miss Hawkins has turned her energies towards yourself I have every hope that she will leave me alone. She is, as you have already found to your cost, remarkably persistent.
Over the years her letters to me have rained down like autumn leaves, and neither evading her many questions, not a few of them of an impertinent nature, nor ignoring her correspondence has procured the desired result, namely that she let matters rest.
The letters still come, and I fear her enquiries as to the general order of things at Streatham Park stem more from a wish to settle old scores than from a genuine and creative impulse to add to the gaiety of nations. Mrs Piozzi’s published anecdotes concerning Dr Johnson and his circle cannot but have served to stoke the fire of Miss Hawkins’s anger, for Sir John was not treated kindly, and though it is generally agreed that my mother is a mistress of inaccuracy, her comments on his meanness undoubtedly touch the spot. There was the unfortunate matter of the missing watch and the removal of certain private papers belonging to Dr Johnson.
I beg you, my dear Fanny, to be cautious in your dealings with Miss Hawkins. You, who, when I was too young to know discretion, became the confidante of my childish fears, know full well that which I would prefer to remain hidden, not least the events of a morning in Paris when Dr Johnson and my mother rolled about the floor, and an earlier occasion in Lichfield when I spied him dragging my mother’s petticoat from her chamber.
At the time, you were steadfast in support of my mother, and for my own peace of mind urged that my imaginings should not be allowed to run away with me. I had, as you remember, boldl
y declared that I was lacking in imagination, and it was not until later, when my mother embarked on her final degrading and selfish course of action, that you took my side and confessed to a regrettable blindness.
In your letter you kindly ask after the well-being of my sister, Mrs Mostyn. Recently I had the pleasure of a visit from her. She is so changed, so plump, such a picture of robust health that you would not know her. She and I spent many a night talking until the sun came up, an indulgence my husband, Admiral Keith, took in good part. There is more virtue in my sister than could be expected from the strange education she got. We have agreed that we were both exposed to injuries from a quarter where it was least to be expected in the common course. She is convinced that our mother’s original and persevering dislike of her children arose from a hatred of our father, and certainly her general conduct to the whole family – when she received news that my sister Harriet was dying of the whooping cough she stayed on in Bath until the child expired – savours of that nature.
Forgive me, dear Madame d’Arblay, for dwelling on myself and not enquiring before now as to the health of your husband, the General, and your dear son, Alex. Had I been born into a family unacquainted with Dr Johnson, whose reputation as a man of letters appears to burn ever brighter, I would not be forever facing myself. The attention given to the numerous emendations to Mr Boswell’s Life, and the spate of reminiscences and contradictions trailing in its wake, constantly resurrect memories I would wish lost in the mists of time. For one so cold of temperament, an affliction my mother laments I inherit from my dead father, it is surprising how my emotions see-saw. I understood as a child that age brings forgetfulness, and am considerably inconvenienced to find that the multiplication of years renders the past more real than the present.
You mention your affection for Dr Johnson, and seem puzzled as to my own lack of engagement. It is not that I had no fondness for him, rather that I was wary of allowing my fondness to grow, a state of affairs much helped by his disgusting manners at table and the often strong odour about his person. That being said, I do know he was a man of rare sense and that his belief in God was genuine and free of cant. When I was but ten years old I asked him why, if God was so infinitely good, did He find it necessary to condemn human souls to the fires of Purgatory – I was thinking of the probable fate of my mother – to which he replied that God was infinitely good on the whole, but that for the good of the whole, some individuals had to suffer. Though now the logic of such a statement is open to question, at the time I took it to be a reasonable explanation and did not so often cry myself to sleep.
According to Queeney Page 17