Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

  The first disappointment in this dream of pleasure was the conveyance we travelled in. Accustomed to the Barouche and four, the liveried servants, and all the stir of such an equipage, my father’s plain post chaise, a pair of horses, and one only man outside, made no sensation along the road, neither at the inns nor in the villages. No one stared at so plain a carriage, nor was there any bustle in the inn yards on our changing horses. The landladies were all very kind to the dear young lady but no one seemed to be surprised that she was journeying. Arrived in London, the large empty house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was intolerable, not a creature there but the housemaid in charge of all the displaced furniture, so that I wandered from one bare melancholy room to another in very tearful mood. In the Square it was no better, few of our young companions having remained in town—none that I at all cared for. Aunt Lissy was in Norfolk, my father occupied the whole day, so that except at meals I never saw him. There were plenty of books, however, and the pianoforte, and I had always work with me, but it was very lonely. One new delight reconciled me in some measure to this dull week of nearly solitude. My Mother had trusted me to buy myself shoes, gloves, ribbons, etc., required as additions to my moderate equipment, and I had the satisfaction of purchasing these supplies myself, entering the shops in Fleet Street, in great state, in front of my attendant the housemaid, asking for what I wanted, choosing and paying like a grown up young lady. I was thirteen, Annie’s present age,14 but how far behind what she is, so ignorant of all useful things, so childish, so affected in many ways, so bewildered at having to act for myself; all our wants having been hitherto supplied without any trouble to us. Aunt Leitch had made me a present of a pound note to spend as I liked without question. I parted with it for a parasol with a plated stick and a carved ivory handle and a pagoda summit, of a pea green silk with a dazzling fringe, all together big enough to have acted as an umbrella, and under this canopy I strutted away with the dignity of a peacock, to the amusement, I should suppose, of every one that passed me.

  I and my Chinese parasol were one morning in the Square, figuring before the nursery maids, when an unusual sound yelled up from a corner of the gardens,—the Searle Street corner,—and a mob of dirty looking men tumbled in over one another to the amount of hundreds, nay I believe thousands. They had hardly rushed on as far as Lord Kenyon’s high house, when from the Long acre corner a troop of dragoons rattled in, all haste, advancing towards the surgeons’ hall, with gleaming sabres. The mob retreated, steadily enough and slowly and unwillingly, but the horses moving on in their peculiar way, turning their hind legs to the multitude occasionally, made good their determined pressure on the crowd, amid yells and shouts and many hisses. But the dragoons prevailed as the imposing cavalry advanced so did the great unwashed15 retire, and soon the whole pageant vanished, the noise even, gradually dying away in the distance. As quickly as we could recover our composure, all who had been sauntering in the Square regained their houses. At the corner gate I flew to, I and my precious parasol, I found my fathers man, Mr Sims, waiting to escort me home. All the windows of the two lower storeys of all the houses in the Square were immediately closed, and the housemaid and I had to mount up to the very top of ours, to the barred windows of the nursery, to study the horsetailed helmets of our patrol. Early next morning I was taken to Sandy Grant’s chambers in Sergeant’s Inn, the iron gates of which retirement were kept fast closed till Sir Francis Burdett had left the Tower, for he had been the cause of all this commotion.16 He was then the perfect idol of the people, their ideal of an English country gentleman. He supported this character in breeches and topboots, and having a fair handsome person and goodhumoured manners, he remained for many a year the King of the fiddlers. What his crime had been on this occasion, I forget, some disrespect to the House of Commons, I think, for they ordered him into custody, and sent him to the Tower, by water, to avoid ill consequences, his friends being above all things excitable. On the day of his release they had him to themselves, and had all their own way, filling the streets from end to end.17 Never was there such a pack of heads wedged close together, like Sir Walter Scott’s description of the Porteous mob.18 Every window of the long, tall row of houses on either side was filled with women waving handkerchiefs and dark blue flags, the Burdett colour. The roar of voices and the tread of so many feet sounded awful even in the enclosed Court; it penetrated to the back room where Mrs Sandy Grant and I were sitting.

  She was a good natured woman, lame from a short leg with a club foot, which prevented her moving much. Though she had a very handsome face, it was supposed her husband had married her for her money, as she had not been well educated, and so not suited for the companion of a clever man. He was hardly kind to her, though he did not positively ill use her. She was very good natured to me, doing her best to amuse me while I remained her guest. She had a friend on a visit with her, a young lady deficient in the number of her fingers; on neither hand had she more than the thumb and the index, concealing this difformity by always wearing gloves, the empty fingers of which were well stuffed. Thus defective, and thus shackled, she wrote, drew well, embroidered beautifully, and cut paper with minikin scissors, as if determined to show what could be done under difficulties; I often thought of her dexterity and perhaps all unconsciously laid the lesson to heart.

  I was to travel to Oxford with two friends of my Uncle Griffith, Dr and Miss Williams. They accordingly called for me in a hack post chaise, the first I had ever entered, and when I found myself seated within it, bodkin, my feet on straw, my little trunk corded on outside, the lining dirty, the windows rattling, the whole machine so rickety, and began to jolt along the paved streets with these very uninviting strangers, I could not help having rather melancholy regrets for Grosvenor Lodge, sunny as it was, my brothers and sisters and their merry spirits, the open landau and four skimming over the roads, my Mother’s silk dresses, the well bred servants, the polished luxury of home. I was indeed subdued, I sat quietly and silent, looking vacantly out at all the ugliness we travelled through. Dr Williams was reading a pamphlet, I am sure I wondered how he could keep his eyes steady on the lines; he made notes from time to time with a pencil on the pages of a pocket book he kept open on his knee, then he would lay back as if in deep thought, and begin to read and write again. That was my left hand. Miss Williams had a squeaky voice, quite an irritant to a sensitive ear. She did not speak much, which was well, but what she did say was very kindly meant; I daresay I was a great bore to her and all her bags and parcels; that was my right. Straight before was an Humphrey Clinker19 whipping on two much abused horses, very very unlike the four bays. At last we stopt at a pretty country inn near a wood, where we had luncheon, and then we all went out to gather wild flowers, for Dr Williams was a Botanist and had gone this, not the usual, road for the purpose of collecting ‘specimens.’ We grew much more companionable; when he took my nosegay from me he seemed much pleased, he told me a great deal that I never forgot, shewing me the form and the beauty of the simple flower and telling me what valuable qualities it sometimes lost when cultivation rendered it more lovely to the eye. He pressed among the leaves of a thick packet of blotting paper such flowers as he had selected from our gatherings, and then we resumed our journey in, I thought, a very much more comfortable chaise; the Doctor read less, the sister, though she still squeaked, talked more, and I chattered away very merrily. The latter part of the journey therefore passed pleasantly to me, while both answering and asking questions. A little packet of change with a memorandum of my share of the expenses was put into my hands as we were about entering Oxford, and in a few minutes, late in the evening, we stopt at my Uncle’s door.

  Not the grand door opening on one of the quadrangles, approached by broad steps up to great gates kept by a porter in his lodge, all grand as a College should be. But a back door in a narrow lane, letting me in to the kitchen passage, up a stair to the hall, and so to the kindest welcome from both Aunt and Uncle who were standing there to receive me. I was just in
time, they said, the house was to be full of company in a day or two, when the little housekeeper would find herself extremely useful. In the mean while I was introduced to all the apartments, made acquaintance with the different closets and their various keys, and was established myself in my Aunt’s dressingroom with a sofa bed to sleep on, and two drawers in her chest and my own trunk for my clothes, she taking charge of my balance of cash, remarking that it was very shabby of Dr Williams to have charged me with any expenses, as he must have had the chaise for himself and his sister at any rate, and he might have treated me to my luncheon, just eighteen pence, without any violent liberality. My highland pride preferred having paid my share, but I said nothing. I was silent about the balance too, which I knew my father had intended I should have kept in my own pocket; not that I wanted money, we had never been used to have any.

  The Master’s Lodgings at University College formed two sides of a quadrangle—no, not quite, one side and the half of another. The other half of the second side and the third were occupied as Students’ rooms; the fourth was the high wall of my Uncle’s garden. It was a large house containing a great many rooms of a good size, but inconveniently planned, several of them opening one out of another with no separate entrances and not proportioned properly, the whole of the one long side being wedge shaped, the space twenty feet wide at the street end, and only ten at the garden end, the outer wall humouring the lane, instead of the lane having been made to follow the wall. The private apartments were on this side and very comfortable, though oddly shaped. There were on the other side two spare bedrooms with dressing rooms for company, and at the head of the front staircase a nice cheerful room which was afterwards mine, but wanted at this time for Sir William Scott. Besides this great man a cousin Horseman arrived, and Aunt Leitch and Uncle Ralph and Aunt Judy. Both ladies had been dressed by Miss Steuart for the occasion. Aunt Leitch always wore black, a Scotch fashion when a widow is no longer young; besides, it suited her figure, which had got large, and her rather high colour. She had good taste so looked extremely well, never wearing what did not become her, choosing always what was plain and rich and fresh and well fitting. A white chip bonnet and feathers made a great impression on me just now, so did a straw coloured silk of my aunt Judy’s, as she altered it to please herself. It was to be worn with handsomely embroidered white muslin gowns and a small cloke of like material trimmed with lace, and all the broad hem round, lined with straw coloured satin ribbon; the shape of the bonnet was such as was worn at the time, rather a close cottage, if I remember, with a long feather laid across it very prettily. My Uncle had chosen the whole dress and spared no expense to have his oddity of a little wife made to look somewhat like other people. The first day it was all very well, but the second no one would have known her; both cloke and bonnet were so disfigured by the changes she had made in them, that their singularity and her high heeled shoes—for she had never yet been persuaded to lay her stilts aside—really made us all feel for my Uncle, who was certainly very angry, though he was prepared for the exhibition, she never having then nor since received any article of any description from any person, however celebrated, without altering it, if it could be done; her own taste being, according to her, unimpeachable, and all these lower natures requiring the finishing touch of her refinement to make her the most perfect object that ever vexed a sensitive husband.

  I have a much more distinct recollection of this affair, of nipping the sugar, setting out the desserts, giving out the linen, running all the messages, than I have of all the Classick gaieties of the week, though I was kindly taken to all of them. In fact I fancy they had disappointed me, read me another lesson, for, as far as I remember, hope never intoxicated me again; I never felt again as I had felt at Grosvenor Lodge, on the day of receiving my Aunt’s invitation. The Theatre, for one thing, had been a shock, where I had expected to be charmed with a play, instead of being nearly set to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit. There was some purple and some gold, some robes and some wigs, a great crowd and some stir at times, when a deal of hum drum speaking and dumbshow was followed by the very noisy demonstrations of the students as they applauded or condemned the honours bestowed; but in the main I tired of the heat and the mob, and the worry of these mornings, and so, depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat up in his chair of State among the dignitaries, like the Grand Lama in his temple guarded by his priests. The Concerts, though, were delightful. There, for the first and only time in my life, I heard Catalani. I don’t think her singing, her ‘Rule Britannia,’ above all her ‘Got safe the King,’ will ever go out of my head. She was the first Italian woman I had noticed, and much her large, peculiarly set eyes, her open forehead, pale dark complexion and vivacity of countenance struck me, She was very handsome. We had Braham, too, with his unequalled voice and fine bravura style, and my old acquaintance from the Hanover Square Rooms; Mrs Bianchi indeed always went about with Catalani to teach her her songs, the great singer not knowing a note of musick; indeed her ear was defective, it was a chance her gaining the pitch of the accompaniment; if she did, all was right, for she kept on as she set out, so it was generally sounded for her by her friend, and then off she went like nobody else that ever succeeded her.20

  Well, all this over, the Company gone, the actors and the spectators departed, the term over, Oxford deserted, my regular life there began. In the morning I read both in French and in English to my Aunt, took one walk a day with old Anne, who dressed herself in a black mode cloke that had arm holes to let the arms through, and a small black bonnet, to attend upon me. I gave out the good things from the store room, sometimes naughtily helping myself, played in the garden at walking like a lady with a phantom companion, to whom I addressed some very brilliant observations, went visiting sometimes with my Aunt, and helped her to patch, for that favourite work still continued although the whole house was decorated with her labours. Borders of patchwork went round all the sofa and chair covers, and my room went by the name of the patchwork room because the bed and the window curtains were all trimmed with this bordering. My Aunt kept her house very neat and very clean, as it deserved to be kept, for my Uncle and the College together had fitted it up handsomely. The woodwork was all dark oak highly polished and carved. The chimney pieces were of stone, of antique form, suited to a College of Alfred’s? days, and then with his ingenious turn for nicknacketies of his own production it was filled with ornamental trifles, all in keeping with the grave air of his College residence. The walls of some rooms were hung with his ‘poker paintings,’ pictures burned on wood by hot irons; others had his drawings framed; the plants were in pots painted Etruscan; some windows screened by transparencies. He was never idle, sketching or finishing his sketches filling up any unoccupied time. They had three old servants, a man and two maids, who did all the work of that large house. William and old Anne had lived with my uncle at his Living at Whitchurch in his bachelour days. Nanny was added on his marriage, and the three remained with him till his death, when William was made Porter of the College, and Anne and Nanny accompanied my Aunt to her small house in Holywell.

  I was beginning to tire of being ‘burd alane,’ kind and indulgent as my Uncle and Aunt were to me, when a letter arrived from my Mother that caused a number of mysterious consultations. Though I was never admitted to the secret tribunal in the Study, I heard afterwards up in my Aunt’s boudoir most of all that had been there discussed. The question at this moment was concerning a proposition made by my Mother to this effect, that instead of reclaiming me, my sister Jane should be sent to bear me company. My father found it necessary to proceed immediately to the highlands, and not intending to remain there long, it being now late in the season, he did not wish to encumber his party with all his children and a governess, for we elder ones could not well be let to run wild any longer; and if our Uncle Griffith would let us stay with him and my Aunt would take the trouble to look a little after us, and choose us good masters, we were anxious enough to learn to ensure our
making good profit of such instruction. A delay of two or three days resulted in an answer such as was expected. I had a peep of father, Mother, brothers, and little sister, for William’s holidays enabled him to travel with them, and then Jane and I were left by ourselves to make the best of it.

  1. The Smith family returned to Ireland in the summer of 1845; Baltiboys was her husband’s estate; Janie Gardiner was her niece.

  2. A New System of Domestic Cookery (1807) by Maria Eliza Rundell.

  3. Sandy Grant was her father’s Agent in the successfully fought election for Great Grimsby in 1812.

  4. It is likely that this was the Sir Henry Ward (1797–1860) who was Governor of the Ionian Islands and later Ceylon.

  5. John Peter Saloman (1745–1815) was the brilliant violinist and impresario whose concerts in Hanover Square Rooms, for example, had premiered Haydn’s London symphonies. The most interesting of his talented singers were Mrs Billington (see over) and Michael Kelly, the famous Irish tenor who worked with Mozart.

  6. Aria from L’Allegro il Penserosa ed il Moderato (1740), Handel’s setting of Milton’s poems.