Prologue
Sir Walter was a high-energy, optimistic, kind, and friendly person from his youth. He had a great many friends and viewed his childhood, which could be interpreted a variety of ways, with a great deal of forgiveness and grace. Though he was respectful of the upper classes, he did not think they deserved any special treatment and did not feel their opinion mattered any more than that of ordinary folk. However, he maintained a great respect for the clan system and Scott of Harden, the head of his clan. Walter loved the outdoors, and from the time he was a young man, he would often walk for miles and miles at a time, letting his mind run wild with the stories that would become his legacy.
Walter claimed to have fallen in love with Williamina the first time he saw her on a rainy day at Greyfriars Kirk when he walked her home beneath his umbrella. Lady Belsches and Mrs. Anne Scott—formerly Anne Rutherford, the daughter of Dr. Rutherford as portrayed in this chapter—had been friends in their girlhood, which certainly recommended Walter’s character.
Because William Robertson was the minister of Old Greyfriars Kirk around the year 1790, and because there were two churches at this time, back to back—New Greyfriars and Old Greyfriars—and because my resources did not specify, I made the choice myself to have him be the leader of the congregation.
Calling Williamina “Mina” is my own choice because there were a lot of names in this story that started with a “W.”
Chapter One
That Walter and Mina saw one another in the winter of 1795 after months apart is relayed in journals and biographies—that it would have been at a ball is my own conjecture. This period of time in Scotland was called the Scottish Enlightenment, or the Scottish Renaissance, and is marked by an increase of intellectual and cultural pursuits as well as the melding of culture between Scotland and England. This melding smoothed some of the more rustic manners of the Scots, but never completely turned Scottish society British.
Williamina’s father, Sir John Belsches of the Tofts, inherited from his maternal uncle the Baronetcy of Stuart of Castlemilk, high stewards of Scotland, sometime around 1795. As the Stuart was a higher title, and because Sir John had political aspirations that he felt would be helped with a better status, he legally changed his family name of Belsches to Stuart. The names were used interchangeably in the research materials I studied, but from here forward I will refer to the family as Stuart.
Sir John’s former title could only be inherited by a direct male heir, which he did not have, thus the Belsches title would go dormant upon his death. The Stuart title, on the other hand, could pass to male heirs through maternal lines, therefore assuming this title was a resurrection of nobility for generations to come.
The infantile paralysis Walter experienced—likely polio—resulted in his being sent to live with his paternal grandfather on a farm in Sandyknowe, near Kelso in Roxburghshire. The country was the perfect place for young Walter to convalesce, and in time he regained full use of his leg. The growth of that leg, however, was stunted, and though he worked hard to develop his physical strength by walking and riding and exploring the countryside, dancing was something he was never able to pursue.
We do not know when or how William Forbes and Mina met, only that they did sometime between Mina’s letter of affection to Walter in the summer of 1795 and William visiting her in Fettercairn the next summer. Forbes was a friend of Walter’s and probably aware of Walter’s feelings for Mina, but the interactions between Mina and William in this novel are of my own imagination.
Sir John’s prejudice against Walter is of my own creation. There is inference that Sir John objected to William Forbes in the beginning as well, but as I had no solid proof I chose to ignore that for the sake of the story.
Mina and Walter’s parting kiss in the spring of 1795 is of my own conjecture.
We know very little about Mina other than what is provided in Scott’s biographical works and the portrayals that continued through his writing. What we are left with is a rather unformed vision of a confident, beautiful, poised, and pampered young woman. Much of her personality I pieced together from her position in society—which was relatively high—and from her situation as the only child of wealthy parents with high expectations.
I believe Mina cared for Walter and have tried to show that in her chapters despite some scholarly speculation that she was taunting him all along. Despite his romantic nature, I can’t see Walter as being so foolhardy as to invest his heart so deeply in a woman he did not truly believe to be devoted in return.
There was an exchange of letters in the summer of 1795 that gave Walter reason to hope that he and Mina were growing closer. Though she continued to ask that Walter not be too vocal about their connection, it seems that most of Walter’s friends and family knew how strongly he felt toward her. Those letters themselves are lost.
Walter did let a friend read one letter from Mina, and said in reply: “It gave me the highest satisfaction to find . . . that you have formed precisely the same opinion with me, both with regard to the interpretation of [her] letter as highly flattering and favorable, and to the mode of conduct I ought to pursue—for, after all, what she has pointed out is the most prudent line of conduct for us both, at least till better days, which, I think myself now entitled to suppose she, as well as myself, will look forward to with pleasure. . . . I read over her epistle about ten times a day, and always with new admiration of her generosity and ardor.”
Chapter Two
There are multiple interpretations of Charlotte’s family situation and why she came to England. In some accounts, both of her parents die in France; in another, the children are spirited away from the war-torn country and the parents die afterward. In yet another—which I reflected to a degree here—Charlotte’s mother, Élie Charlotte Volére, leaves the family to elope with her lover and Charlotte’s father has no interest in raising Élie’s children.
In that version, Charlotte’s mother is later reunited with her children under Lord Downshire’s protection until his marriage in 1786, after which Élie is moved out from under his roof and given an allowance. Whether Lord Downshire’s protection for Élie stemmed from compassion or something else is only speculation.
I chose a hybrid history that would help explain Charlotte’s isolated situation and lack of acceptance in London but not include too much scandalous conjecture. Charlotte spoke with a slight accent all of her life, using a d for the th sound and dropping her h’s.
Lord Downshire was a friend of Charlotte’s father, John Francis Charpentier, and he became the children’s guardian in the mid-1770s. His main estate and title was in Northern Ireland, but he was very active in London and the military. There is no evidence that Charlotte ever lived in Ireland.
At some point after coming to England, Charlotte and her brother changed their last names to Carpenter. They were baptized at St. George’s Hanover Square in 1787, probably at the new Lady Downshire’s insistence. In 1786, being Catholic was almost as bad as being French, but one aspect could be changed and one could not.
Lord Downshire took responsibility for the children’s education and, after Charlotte’s time in the French convent, retained the services of Miss Jane Nicholson, daughter of the late Dean of Exeter, as a tutor. When Charlotte’s education was over, he kept Jane on as Charlotte’s companion.
Charlotte had a love of entertainment, including the theater, though the level of excitement reflected here is of my own creation in an attempt to supply a connection between Charlotte and Walter, who was a great lover of the stage. During their marriage, they went to the theater often and became financial supporters of Theater Royal in Edinburgh. Walter’s own plays would be credited with a rise in theater attendance when they took the stage in the 1830s and beyond.
Chapter Four
This chapter is pure speculation on my part since Charlotte’s life at this time was unknown. It is strongly suspected that L
ady Downshire was not pleased with her husband’s ongoing responsibilities to the Carpenter children, and since Charlotte was no longer a child, I imagined that irritation was quite high at this point.
Though Lord Downshire and Charlotte were not terribly close, when Charlotte and Walter decided to marry, she insisted that Walter get Lord Downshire’s blessing, which shows to me that they were close enough for her to both want the support of her guardian and to show him the respect he deserved due to his position.
Chapters Five and Six
Other than knowing Mina and Walter were in Edinburgh through December 1795, and that they saw each other a handful of times, these chapters are of my own making since we have little record of specific interactions.
Anne, Walter’s older sister, suffered from what we today would term anxiety and probably post-traumatic stress disorder. It was thought to have been brought on by a series of childhood accidents, including having her hand crushed in a door, nearly drowning in a pond, and having her dress catch fire—which left her with physical, and emotional, scars.
She and Walter do not seem to have become very close until Walter married Charlotte, who then became a dear friend to Anne—perhaps one of Anne’s only friends. Anne never overcame her difficulties and died at the age of thirty. John, Walter’s older brother, was a captain in the military but maintained his parents’ home as his residence when he was on leave.
In 1794, Walter attended a play at the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh. When the national anthem was sung, a group of young men refused to stand as a protest against the government. Walter’s patriotism would not allow such disrespect, and his objections, as well as those from many other equally zealous young men, resulted in a riot in which he was an eager participant. Years later, Walter’s own plays would be performed on that same stage.
The houses on George Street were part of “New Town”—a neighborhood built for professional working families like the Scotts.
Chapters Seven and Eight
We know very little about Charlotte’s life prior to her meeting Walter, so these sections regarding Mr. Roundy are fiction. Her relationship with Lord Downshire is something I wanted to create from what we do know—the sense of responsibility on his part, the discontent of Lady Downshire, and Charlotte’s continued respect for him.
Chapter Nine
That Mina and William Forbes would have met in this setting is of my own creation, but they were acquainted with one another in Edinburgh. Their families were of similar position, their fathers would have served together in the Scottish Parliament, and their title estates were located in the same county, though there were seventy miles between them. Forbes had been a friend of Walter’s for many years, though not an especially close one.
The typical Scottish meal of this time featured a great deal of meat—Fish, Fowl, and Flesh—whereas English meals were not so heavy and more formal in regard to courses and presentation.
Chapters Ten and Eleven
The Stuarts left Edinburgh sometime in the spring of 1796 for Fettercairn, and at some point before Walter went north, his father sent Sir John Stuart a letter, warning him that he suspected their children had made a secret arrangement and that he felt it was his duty to make Sir John aware of it. He stated that he did not expect to pursue it should Sir John think the family would press for a match.
We do not have a good sense of what Sir John thought of the warning, whether he was against the match or not, but I have used it as a plot point for the story. We also have no reason to believe that Mina would have found this letter, though Walter knew of the letter as he included it in his biography.
In the spring of 1796, Walter traveled north, first with friends through the Torssachs—a collection of glens and lakes that would later feature in Scott’s ballad The Lady of the Lake—then alone through several other areas until he ended up in Aberdeenshire for matters of business. One account says that he extended his stay with an aunt specifically in hopes that he would be invited to Fettercairn, which he eventually was. Another account has him scouting around some ruins in the county.
The verse included in Walter’s letter is part of a poem he wrote to Mina in 1796.
Chapters Thirteen through Fifteen
Miss Cranston was a friend of Walter’s from youth, and though they remained so throughout their lives, there was never any romance between them. Her gift of a copy of Lenore had the opposite effect she intended; Walter himself recorded the reception of the translation as awkward. The details about Lady Stuart’s disapproval and the return of the book are of my own creation.
Walter stayed at Fettercairn for a few days in the spring of 1796. At some point during his stay, they traveled to St. Andrew’s Monastery, and Walter carved Mina’s name into the ground at the base of a wall. Because St. Andrew’s is fifty miles from Fettercairn—more than a single day’s journey—I chose a fictional monastery so that Walter still could carve Mina’s name in the ground there without interfering with the timeline of the story.
Walter left Fettercairn feeling as though things were good between Mina and himself, but shortly after this visit, he learned of William Forbes’s interest in Mina. I chose to have this visit plant the first seeds of his discouragement.
That Mina did not like to ride is of my own creation; I found nothing in my resources that said anything about her desire either way.
Chapters Sixteen through Eighteen
Sometime during the summer of 1796, William Forbes was invited to Fettercairn, and it was during this time that Mina’s heart turned toward him. We don’t know the specifics of their courtship other than they spent a great deal of time together and became engaged sometime between then and September.
Chapters Nineteen through Twenty-Four
The circumstances under which Walter returned to Fettercairn are vague. He would have had to have been invited, and yet we know that Mina was already in an understanding with William at this time so the invitation likely did not come from her. I chose to have the invitation come from Sir John.
At some point—publicly, according to one source—Walter learned how official things were between Mina and William and fell victim to his temper. He supposedly told her that he would marry before she did and then stormed away. The specifics relayed here are my fictional suppositions. He left Fettercairn and took a few days to ride the countryside by himself, where he certainly mourned Mina and all that she represented in his life.
From every account I read, Walter never saw Mina again and for years would not mention her by name in letters or conversation.
Chapters Twenty-Five through Twenty-Eight
In fall of 1797, Walter went to northern England with his older brother, John, and his friend Adam Ferguson. The three men ended up in the resort town of Gilsland. Walter first saw Charlotte when she was out for a morning ride alone.
Rather than forcing an introduction while she was unattended, the men met up with her at the dance later that night. Adam and John both stood up with her, but Walter took her in to supper.
There were recorded visits to Hadrian’s Wall, which is a point of interest for Gilsland, and to a Roman fountain around which the town was centered. The fountain would later play a part in Scott’s work St. Ronan’s Well.
Charlotte and Walter spent a great deal of time in one another’s company while in Gilsland, leaving much of the specifics in these chapters vulnerable to my own fictional license to imagine how they would have interacted with one another. We know that during this time Charlotte was told of Mina and it gave her some hesitation even as Walter’s interest in her increased.
The idea of Charlotte working toward her own independence is my own creation; there are no details regarding her future plans or of her relationship with Jane.
Chapters Twenty-Nine and Thirty
The Dress Act prohibited public display of tartans after the Jacobite uprising of 1745 for fear tha
t the clan system was undermining Scotland’s connection to England. The act was repealed in 1782, but by that time the citizens were used to not wearing the Highland dress. Kilts eventually became the official symbolic national dress of Scotland. Walter wore a Campbell plaid kilt to welcome King Edward when the monarch visited in 1822. It was the first visit to Scotland by English royalty in 171 years.
It was traditional for each Scottish citizen to have their own plaid, woven from Scottish wool, that they would take with them when they traveled. It was a practical item as well as a connection to their heritage. Since Walter and his siblings were connected to both the MacDougall and Campbell clans, I guessed that the MacDougall was on the Scott side and that tartan would be the pattern of plaid he would travel with.
Though I reflect the connection of tartans to specific clans in this story, the clan connection was not officially established until the mid-nineteenth century. Before then, the tartans were associated with specific regions of the country rather than actual clans. I reflected our current association between clans and tartans in this story as a way to show the importance of heritage, something that has never faded from the Scottish people.
Chapters Thirty-One through Thirty-Three
When Charlotte left for Carlisle, she told Walter not to follow her and insinuated that it was because he was still in love with Mina and that they had no future together. A few days later, Walter went to Carlisle anyway and John and Adam went on to Windemere. That the men parted ways due to a disagreement regarding Walter following Charlotte is of my own creation, but the argument is based on objections raised by several members of Walter’s family—his father, especially—after Walter announced his engagement to Charlotte.
Walter being encouraged by anything other than his own romantic nature, which had been invigorated by Charlotte, though she did not have a similar nature, is of my own creation. In letters, she chided him from time to time about being overly dramatic in his analogies and encouraged him to calm down when his thoughts ran wild.
The Lady of the Lakes Page 28