The Heir of Douglas

by Lillian de la Torre

  EARLY BIRD BOOKS

  FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

  LOVE TO READ?

  LOVE GREAT SALES?

  GET FANTASTIC DEALS ON BESTSELLING EBOOKS

  DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY DAY!

  The Web’s Creepiest Newsletter

  Delivered to Your Inbox

  Get chilling stories of

  true crime, mystery, horror,

  and the paranormal,

  twice a week.

  The Heir of Douglas

  Lillian de la Torre

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  DEDICATION

  TO

  Dr. Frederick A. Pottle

  My dear Sir:

  Every liberal motive that can actuate an Authour in the dedication of his labours concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the following Work should be inscribed.

  If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity, not altogether inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation gratify those feelings?

  If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have this opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank you for the many happy and profitable hours which I owe to your kindness.

  If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject of it, the story of the Douglas Cause is, with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Dr. Frederick Pottle. You know best the man who best enjoyed the Cause, the inimitable James Boswell. To your deep learning and humane understanding the dramatis personæ are friends and the setting is home, and through your eyes I have learned to see both more clearly.

  Pray be assured that this story is all true. Even the words the people speak are not invented, but faithfully reproduced from the record. I have spared no pains, during six years of research and six thousand miles of travel, to uncover the facts and arrive at the truth. If it were not so, I should think my book unworthy to be offered to you.

  For all which reasons it is fitting that this new solution of the mystery that fascinated James Boswell, the mystery of the heir of Douglas, be addressed to you by

  My dear Sir,

  Your much obliged friend

  And faithful humble servant,

  LILLIAN DE LA TORRE

  “Sir, I think such a publication does good, as it does good to show us the possibilities of human life. And, Sir, you will not say that the Douglas Cause was a cause of easy decision, when it divided your court as much as it could do.… No, Sir, a more dubious determination of any question cannot be imagined”

  (JOHNSON TO BOSWELL, APRIL 27, 1773)

  List of Illustrations

  LADY JANE DOUGLAS

  (from a portrait at Mains)

  COLONEL JOHN STEUART

  (from a portrait at Mains)

  ELIZABETH GUNNING, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON

  (from a portrait by Gavin Hamilton in the National Galleries of Scotland, by courtesy of the Board of Trustees)

  ANDREW STUART, W.S.

  (from a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the possession of his collateral descendant, Mrs. Stuart-Stevenson)

  THE FOURTH “LA MARR” LETTER

  (from the facsimile in the Douglas Proof)

  PEGGY DOUGLAS, DUCHESS OF DOUGLAS

  (from a portrait at Mains)

  ARCHIBALD DOUGLAS OF DOUGLAS, ESQ:

  (from a portrait attributed to G. Willison, in the possession of the Duke of Hamilton)

  PART ONE

  Lady Jane Douglas

  And if she was not the mother, she was strenuously playing a part.

  (OATH BY THE LANDLADY OF THE HÔTEL D’ANJOU)

  Chapter I

  The heir of Douglas was born at Paris in the early summer of 1748. So much is certain. But under what roof he first saw the light, by means of what midwife, and even of what mother, has been matter for hot dispute ever since.

  The debate centered about the lady whom the claimant called Mother. Friend and foe wondered unceasingly in what secret place she bore him, or from what street corner she stole him. She figured alternately in their briefs as a martyred saint or as a Machiavelli of duplicity. The case was tried in three countries over a period of seven years, and her character was made the decisive issue in the end.

  In July 1748, at the Hôtel d’Anjou in the faubourg Saint-Germain, the heir of Douglas made his first undisputed appearance. His advent caused an agreeable bustle in the modest lodging-house.

  The widow-woman from the provinces, sitting in her second-floor chamber with the door open lest she miss anything, saw it all.

  First came a distinguished foreign gentleman to inquire after lodgings. He was a prodigious fine figure of a man; tall, strong, soldierly, and well made, his handsome form set off by a chestnut-coloured coat with gold buttons. He wore a round yellowish wig with a black silk bag behind. His laughing, open countenance had the ruddy glow of a boy’s, although he must have been sixty years old or more. The widow-woman took to him at once.

  He got on well with the landlady—and indeed with all ladies then, before, and after—though he had to ask her a delicate question:

  “Are there any bugs in the house?”

  “Nobody,” replied the hostess without taking umbrage, “has complained of bugs here.”

  Satisfied on that point, the attractive stranger chose two rooms and a dressing-room, and took himself off. He made no down payment. This was as characteristic of him as his charming open smile. The widow-woman felt pleased at the transaction, and opened her door wider. The rooms he had chosen were right opposite.

  The gentleman in the chestnut-coloured coat returned that evening in a coach. He had two ladies with him, muffled to their noses in their cloaks. The maid ushered them up to their suite. When she came down, she duly entered his name and nation in the register. Though the drink had brought her low from her erstwhile post as a school-teacher, she could still write a better hand than anybody else at the inn.

  There was a bit of unpleasantness the next morning. The ladies, sleeping together in the best bed, had bagged a brace of bugs. They confronted the landlady with them. She shrugged them off; her house was not infested. And indeed she was right; they never again had cause to complain. The offending pair of pests had clearly come with them.

  The widow-woman studied the trio with consuming interest. In the first place they were Britishers, a race with whom the French had until these few weeks past been at war. The handsome gentleman spoke French freely, in a reckless, captivating, incorrect sort of style. He did most of the conversing for the party. One of his ladies spoke and understood a little, diffidently. The other spoke no more French than the parlour table. It was understood at the inn that the gentleman was a Scotchman. Nobody could pronounce his barbarous name, even if they knew it. They took to calling him “Milord of England” or “Monsieur the Englishman.”

  Milord’s wife was a pale, melancholy lady of great beauty, tall and thin, with a smooth white skin, hair of rich deep auburn, and true violet eyes. She carried her slim body proudly, like a girl. They supposed her to be about thirty-five. She was in fact fifty years old. She wore a gown of blue-and-white-striped taffety, and covered her shoulders with a large lawn fichu. Her lovely hair was dressed round and flat, not built high; like an invalid, the widow-woman thought. The more sophisticated landlady recognized it for the English manner.

  Milady’s attendant was of quite another breed. The landlady thought she had the air of a man in disguise (which she was not). She was very strong made, tall as Milady, but much thicker, plainly dressed in a brown gown.

  This interesting trio had hardly got settled in their new lodgings when th
ey sent for the landlady. That worthy woman rather hoped for a trifle on account, but it was not forthcoming.

  “Do not be uneasy for your money,” said Milord in his rough-and-tumble French, “though we take coach in the morning. We are not leaving you; but we set out early to go for our child, who is at nurse on the side of Paris towards Saint-Germain.”

  This sounded reasonable enough. At Saint-Germain-en-Laye was the little imitation Royal Court of Bonnie Prince Charlie, where he bided his time since his disastrous defeat at Culloden two years before. A knot of exiled Scots clustered about him. Saint-Germain-en-Laye was a likely place for a Scottish child. The landlady made no difficulty.

  “In that,” said she, “you may do as you please.”

  Accordingly, the next morning between six and seven, the Scottish party mounted into a hired coach and drove away.

  They returned in the evening with the heir of Douglas. He arrived yelling the roof down. The old inn resounded with his unceasing outcries. The widow-woman shook her head as she listened, and wondered what the crazy English people were doing to him to make him howl so.

  Suddenly the opposite door opened, and Milord the Englishman came forth in agitation. He came straight to her.

  “Pray, Madame, come to my lodging and look at my child, and tell me what ails him.”

  The widow-woman was delighted to follow him. She found in the gentleman’s lodging the howling child, hovered over by the anxious wife, her stolid companion, and a sullen, ill-clad, dirty peasant woman of meagre aspect. The beautiful lady in her blue gown advanced courteously toward the newcomer, took her by the hand, and with winning charm begged her to examine the child, for he would not take the breast of the bedraggled wet-nurse, but cried continuously.

  Center of attention, the widow-woman sat herself upon the floor and undressed the child, noting the fineness of the English lace and the strange style of the swaddling-clothes.

  The heir of Douglas was a large, strong-built child. The widow-woman judged him to be three or four weeks old, but meagre and miserable from some cause she could not find. He seemed a handsome child, with eyes of grey or blue, she hardly noticed which, and a fine white skin. The red colour that children have when they are born was quite gone off.

  The widow-woman could find nothing wrong with him. She turned her attention to the wet-nurse, and found the explanation of the little mystery. The woman had no milk. The widow-woman was further mystified to notice, when she took her aside to strip and examine her, that on her back she bore the King of France’s mark; she had been branded as a thief. The widow hurried the discredited wet-nurse back before her employers, and bade them turn her off for a fraud.

  “Wretch!” cried the gentleman, falling into transports of anger and lifting his eyes to heaven. “Wretch! You know not whom you are dealing with; that child is of greater importance than you imagine!”

  The thin lady, imperfect in French, demanded an explanation. When she caught the drift of the matter, she threw herself into the arm-chair near the window and fainted away. The burly attendant ran with a glass of water; but the distracted lady rejected it, and fell a-weeping. The child howled on.

  “Call the landlady,” advised the widow at this crisis, “and get rid of this useless nurse.”

  On this the dirty little woman threw herself upon her knees before Milord in supplication.

  “I pity you,” cried Milord loftily, “for an unhappy wretch; for we would have carried you with us to our own country, and made your fortune.”

  “Alas,” cried the little woman, wringing her hands, “have mercy upon me, for it is ten o’clock at night, and past, and I have not a penny in my pocket.”

  “Give her something,” advised the widow-woman, “give her something in charity.”

  Milord gave her a couple of louis, and the fraudulent wet-nurse scuttled off hastily.

  The landlady of the Hôtel d’Anjou was glad to assist the distressed Scotch family in this crisis. She hastened to summon her neighbour the joiner’s wife, whose own child was ready to be weaned. The joiner’s wife readily undertook to nourish the howling child, and soon his howls were stilled. Peace settled down upon the Hôtel d’Anjou.

  Everyone who had beheld the little scene was much touched by Milady’s great sensibility and affection for her child. They were equally enchanted by Milady’s charm and condescension. Surely, they thought, she must be a person of consequence in her own country.

  This night a DOUGLAS your protection claims

  A Wife! A Mother! Pity’s softest names:

  The story of her woes indulgent hear,

  And grant your suppliant all she begs, a tear.

  (PROLOGUE TO HOME’S Douglas)

  Chapter II

  Lady Jane Douglas was indeed a person of consequence in her own country. She was the only sister and presumptive heir of the richest nobleman in Scotland, and queen of many hearts in her own right.

  First among her subjects were her companions at the Hôtel d’Anjou, her confidential woman, Helen Hewit, and her adoring husband, Colonel John Steuart.

  Square, blunt, silent Mrs. Hewit had been her companion from birth, following her like a shadow and protecting her like a bodyguard. Even a husband could not separate them, nor oust Mrs. Hewit from her half of my Lady’s bed.

  John Steuart had admired my Lady from afar for many years, but only recently had he won her. When Lady Jane was a young red-headed beauty at the Court of King George I, the toast of the courtiers as a great character of a woman, Colonel John Steuart was already a ruined man. In the rising of the ’15 he had drawn claymore under the blue-and-gold banner of the Old Pretender, charged at Sheriffmuir, and fled for his life when the rebellion failed. For a while his star continued high. Like many another exiled Scot, he had one thing only to sell, his sword; but he carried it to the best market, and made a good bargain. He became a Colonel on the staff of Charles XII of Sweden. He was ideally fitted for a soldier. He was thought one of the handsomest men of his age, with his regular features, ruddy complexion, and merry insinuating glance. He stood six feet high without shoes, which was very tall indeed in an age when the norm ran a good six inches shorter than it does today. An athlete, he was good at games, bold at the gambling table and tricky over the chess-board. He had a quick resolution, fertile resource, and elastic principles. He despised hardship, and neither illness nor age, grief nor loss, imprisonment nor exile, ever served for a minute to dim the gaiety of his wit and the charm of his gallantry. Men liked him, and women loved him. He must have found soldiering much to his taste.

  However, prudent folk at home thought differently. Over-persuaded by family and friends, in the remote hope of heiring a wealthy cousin, John Steuart left the field to take the royal clemency and return to Scotland. It was a fatal mistake. His father, a Scottish judge, was a man who could beget children two at a time, and John was the fourth-begotten. The cousin’s entailed estate finally descended as far as his elder brother, and there it stuck, with not the smallest trickle left over for him. For the rest of his life John Steuart’s story was of mean lodgings abroad and duns at home, and his art was the devious art of living on his charm without work and without money. If in his difficulties he spared a thought to the radiant violet-eyed beauty so far above him, it was only because gossip about her affairs was rife.

  He must have heard the romantic tale of the blow that broke her heart and set her mind against marriage. As the gossips told it, it would have served for a romance by Mistress Eliza Haywood. The Douglas beauty, the story ran, having promised her heart and her hand to Buccleuch’s heir, was proceeding in her brocades to the ball, when she met with a messenger who stopped her sedan chair to hand in a billet. It was from her fiancé and it informed her that he loved another.

  The letter, they added, was a forgery. Gossips named the forger: Duchess Kitty of Queensberry, already one of the most promising eccentrics of the age, who in fact forthwith matched the vacillating youth with a lady of her own choice.

&
nbsp; Lady Jane, her proud and tender heart cut to the quick, did not wait to investigate the letter or recapture the errant lover. She disguised her slim form in man’s attire and slipped off to France, intent on hiding her heart-break and chagrin in a Roman Catholic convent. Her family fetched her back, and her brother brought the recreant suitor to account at the sword’s point. The duel was bloodless. Buccleuch might better have fallen. All too soon he lost his wife, his equilibrium, and his dignity, till among the hackney-coachmen and washer-women of his private half-world it is said his contemporaries could scarcely recognize his face.

  Lady Jane never forgot him, and she never forgave him. When at last, for reasons of her own, she gave her hand to the Colonel, the thought of Buccleuch was still in her mind. “Your ladyship may very justly say,” she wrote to a noble kinswoman, announcing her marriage, “since I so well knew my brother’s intention not to change his state, why I delayed so long making that step? The reason I could easily give; and if it please God I shall be so happy as to see you again, I shall fully instruct you in that matter, but at present it is a subject too tedious for a letter, besides, that account would reflect so much upon the character of a certain noble Lord, that I formerly honoured with my esteem, and would paint him out so very great a fool and villain, and he being lately in a miserable enough situation and in danger of losing his life, I shall therefore at this time spare his reputation too.”

  The scandals of the house of Douglas were not over when Lady Jane lost Buccleuch. Mistress Eliza Haywood began circulating in one of her scurrilous chronicles an ill-natured caricature of Lady Jane, whom she represented as painting abominably and wearing false hips, and throwing herself thus equipped at men’s heads. While tongues were clacking over that, a major sensation burst, this time centering about the muddled head of Duke Archibald.