We remained at Oxford until the spring of 1811. My father and mother had left the highlands before Christmas, intending to proceed to London, whither they had sent on most of the servants, with the heavy luggage, by sea. They were delayed, however, in Edinburgh by either business or pleasure, perhaps a mixture of both, so it was in the month of March they called for us. A young friend, Mary Balfour, was with them; a nice, kind, very accomplished, though exceedingly plain girl. She was going on a visit to some friends in London, and took advantage of a spare seat in their carriage. There was no one in it but my father, my mother, the two children Mary and Johnny, and Miss Balfour. Mary Creake, the maid, and the footman were outside. Whether my father travelled with his own horses this time I forget. I daresay he did, and had kept them all four and the Coachman all this time at the hotel in Edinburgh. He did not hurry away as was his usual habit every where, he stayed a few days in order to shew the beauties of Oxford to Miss Balfour. Amongst other sights they went to see Great Tom, which I had no mind to do; hearing him every night booming so grandly over the quiet around quite satisfied me, for the sound was very fine, coming in too just after the little ‘merry, merry Christ Church bells.’ Jane, who was of a very inquisitive turn, decided upon mounting up all those long stairs in order to understand the real size of this wonder. Once up, she would go in and under it, and remain within it just to hear one toll. Poor child! she dropt as if shot, was carried out into the air, brought home, laid in bed still senseless, Dr Williams sent for, the whole house in despair. She lay as one dead, only she breathed very lightly. Dr Williams recommended her being left to nature, he apprehended no danger; the nerves had received a shock and they must be left to recover, and they did recover. She wakened up next morning as if she had merely had a good night’s sleep, recollecting nothing, however, beyond her last expressed wish to see the great tongue moved by the men who pulled it with a rope, so very differently from the way of ringing other bells. This little agitating scene so well over, we fell to our packings, assisted by Mary Creake, who had a way of getting very quickly through this and every other kind of work.
We were sorry to leave our kind Aunt and Uncle, but we were not sorry to resume the freedom of our home life, after the restraints in fashion at University. We found the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in great order, which was strange, considering that the servants had had nothing to do but to clean it for months back. We liked all our London masters and were glad to meet our young acquaintance, and then we had our happy days in Brunswick Square, and were to see our brother William at the Easter holidays. Besides, a great pleasure was preparing for us. Annie Grant came to live with us, and as the changes consequent upon this agreeable addition to our home party had much influence over the well being of we the younger members of the family, I will make a pause here in this particular era of my career—draw one of the long strokes between this and more trifling days, and begin again after this resting point.
1. The gothic centrepiece in the Front Quad was designed by E.G.’S uncle when Master; for Pevsner it is ‘somewhat barbaric in detail’.
2. Pevsner attributes it to the seventeenth-century Spanish artist Valdés Leal.
3. Percy Bysshe Shelley spent the two winter terms of 1810–11 at University College; the D.N.B. believed he arrived with ‘the passion for research into whatever the university did not desire him to learn’—his ‘spirit of aggressive propaganda’ was best shown by this pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism.
4. Hugh Moises, later Headmaster of Newcastle Grammar School.
5. D.N.B. quotes Eldon’s maxim that a lawyer should live like a hermit and work like a horse. He eloped with the heiress Elizabeth Surtees in 1772; they got married at Blackshiels near Edinburgh.
CHAPTER NINE
1811–1812
ANNIE GRANT was the ‘accidental’ daughter—to use a very delicate expression a very refined lady once used to me, when compelled to employ some term of this sort—the ‘accidental daughter’ of old Colonel William Grant with the long queue, my father’s half great Uncle, my great grand Uncle, who had long lived at the Croft. The first time my Mother ever saw her she was herding some cows in the Lochan Mor, a boggy swamp, afterwards drained by Mr Cameron, standing beneath the shelter of a high bank of hanging birch, no shoes upon her feet nor hat upon her head, her knitting in her hands, her short dark petticoat, white jacket, and braided snooded1 hair combining to present a perfect model of highland beauty. I wonder if Mrs General Need when the great lady at Cawnpore, the most favoured guest at Newstead Abbey, the honoured of Kensington Palace, where more than once she dined with the Duke of Sussex—did she ever wander back in thought to the days of her simple youth. In those early days she was not taught to expect much notice, neither did she receive much; her mother was her father’s housekeeper, and she brought her children, Annie and brother Peter, up in her own station, sending them to the parish School, and never obtruding them or herself on any of the ‘family,’ After the old Colonel’s death she, still a very beautiful woman, married his Grieve, and went to settle in another part of the country. The Colonel had been married in middle life to an Irishwoman, a Mrs Dashwood; they had never had any children, so he left his savings, these highlanders have always savings, to Annie and her brother, some £2000 or better. My father as head of the house was their guardian. Peter was sent off to a better school. Annie was taken by Captain Lewis Grant and his odd wife to keep the keys of their small establishment, an office regularly filled in every household then by such stray maidens of the race as were in want of a home. When Mrs Grant died the Lady Logie took charge of Annie, who seemed never to be lost sight of among her kith and kin, however irregularly she arrived among them. The Lady Logie ‘had her to school’ at Forres, where she received a good plain education, and as much instruction in musick as, assisted by the ear of her race, enabled her to play the airs of her own country, grave or lively, with an expression very delightful. Lady Logie, my father’s aunt, dying, it was determined the poor girl should earn a home for herself. She was accordingly brought to London to our house, and after being a few weeks with us she was bound apprentice to the Miss Steuarts, the celebrated dressmakers. May be, in their work room, she well remembered her free hours in the Lochan Mor. For her own happiness, herself and her little fortune would probably have been better bestowed on some young farmer in her native north, but this was an age of unnatural notions; accomplished girls, portionless and homeless, were made into governesses, and for the less instructed there was nothing dreamed of but the dress making, a trade never overstocked, its victims dying off quite as quickly as the vacant places were demanded. For some years all went smoothly. Annie was a favourite, and never overworked except at extra busy times. Every Sunday while we were in town she spent with us, often coming to us on a Saturday. Every summer she had her holiday, which all of us enjoyed as much as she did, for not only we, but every one who came to our house, were fond of her. At length came the time when the two old Miss Steuarts were to resign the business, as had been agreed on, to Annie Grant and Jessie Steuart, on terms which had been previously agreed on. A word of dissatisfaction had never been uttered on their part, till out came the astounding fact that they had sold their house and business more advantageously. Jessie Steuart had no refuge but the arms of a lover, to whom through many years of poverty she made the most exemplary wife, bearing severe trials with patience and afterwards an exalted position meekly. Her husband has long been a leading man, living in the best society. Annie Grant was received by my father and Mother, I may say, gladly, for they had begun to grudge her to the needle and thread. Very early for her one morning my Mother drove to Albemarle Street, and brought a great blessing to our home back.
Without, as far as we knew, any regular arrangement, Annie Grant slid somehow into the charge of us. She took lessons with us from all our masters, was so attentive while with them, so diligent in working for them, so anxious to improve, that we caught her spirit. There was no more idling in our
dining room; when the prescribed lessons were over other occupations started up; she and I read history together daily, Goldsmith, Robertson, Rollin.2 We also had Shakespeare given to us, and some good novels, all Miss Edgeworth’s fashionable tales,3 and we walked a great deal, sometimes taking the carriage to the Green park or Kensington gardens, and taking a turn there. We were really busy, and so happy, for Annie’s gentle, steady rule was just what we all wanted; she soothed me, encouraged Jane, coaxed Mary. Her great art was removing from us all that was irritating; we had no occasion to set up our backs. We actually forgot to feel angry. Upon the phrenological system of influences, could we have been under better—had she been carefully trained in physiological principles she could not have acted more wisely than her mere kindly nature prompted. In the matter of our breakfast she gained for us quite a victory, persuading my Mother that, now she had no cow in the stable, weak tea was cheaper than milk, a small bit of butter good for the chest, so that we began our day so pleasantly all went smoothly on. In the evenings we reeled away for an hour to her spirited Strathspeys, the big people often joining the little, and turning with us to magick musick and other games we had before confined to our own more peculiar sphere. Every body seemed happier since Annie lived with us. She made extraordinary progress with the masters, particularly with Mr Nattes, who taught us drawing. He said she would be an artist if she chose. She more than overtook us in a very few weeks, a fact that first set me thinking about the folly of making children study while very young, that is, of giving them expensive masters for pursuits beyond their ability in general. Plenty of occupation better suited to their ordinary capabilities can be found which would give present employment, and prepare the way for future success in higher things at a more profitable age.
Mr Nattes had another pupil in whom he was much interested. He said she would never draw much nor be first rate in any art, but she was so excellent a person that he had recommended her as Governess to a family in which he taught. This was our old friend Miss Ramsay, who had come up to London to improve herself. She often came to see us both before and after she went to live with a rich Mrs Smith, sister to the Marchioness of Northampton, with whom and her very nice daughters she lived for many years, in fact till she died, tended by them in all her failing health with all the affectionate care her good conduct merited. Mr Nattes was a handsome Italian, elderly, most agreeable, who had been a Jesuit, it was said, and did give the idea of not being just what he seemed. He was married, and in some repute as an artist, though never high up among his brethren; he had been sketching in the highlands when my father fell in with him and brought him to Doune, where he filled a portfolio with beautifully executed sketches most accurately drawn. Some of these he reproduced in water colour, and we framed them and hung them up, and they were pretty enough, but no more like the scenes they were meant to represent than if they had been taken from any other place on the artist’s tour; they were, indeed, mere fancy pieces with names below them fully as much travestied as the scenery.4 He taught well so far, made us handle our pencils neatly, and gave us a most thorough knowledge of perspective. We drew according to rule from models, attending accurately to position and to light and shade, and soon sketched quickly and truthfully from Nature. It was a great pity I had so little application, wearied so soon of any work I set about, idled my time away laughing and chattering. Easy come, easy go is a very wise proverb, and then I was in character fully half a dozen years younger than my age, and nobody considered this. People did not consider much in those days. Jane, on the contrary, had the sense of a much older girl. She was so conscientious, too, that she would not have neglected her duty for any consideration. She was naturally very slow in acquiring, and most particularly awkward in executing any one thing in the world to be done by the fingers; her sketches were all crooked, her shading was all blurred, her needle work was abominable, her playing dreadful, her writing was wretched, her figures could not be read; and yet in time she overcame most of these difficulties, for her industry was unfailing. It was almost a pity so much time passed so painfully with her, yet she was a happy child, and she was none the worse in after life for this discipline. They could not discipline me; binding the wind would have been about as easy. My spirits were at times quite flighty, nothing ever sobered them down to usefulness except the kind reproving look of dear Annie Grant. She, however, failed with Mary; the indomitable stupidity of that strange heavy child had hitherto rendered every attempt to rouse her vain. She was eight years old, and she could not read, hardly even knew her letters, count she never would try, writing she did on a slate her own way, but not the least in Mr Thompson’s. She even romped listlessly, would not dance at all, liked sitting quiet with her doll cutting up cakes and apples into dinners for it. When she washed the old block of wood without arms or legs which she preferred to any wax baby, she seldom dried and never dressed it, but called to me to render her these services; and if I were out of the way would roll a pinafore round the beauty and be content. She was tall and large, and fair, as big nearly as Jane, and looked as old. I was excessively fond of her; so was my Mother. I believe every one else thought the poor child deficient.
My Mother was very ill again this spring, confined for many weeks to her room, and then ordered off to the seaside as soon as she had recovered strength enough for the long journey to the Coast. Those were not railroad days. To prepare her for her travels she took constant evening drives with us, getting out beyond Southwark, beyond the parks, towards Epping, etc., occasionally making a day of it to Kew, Richmond, and even Windsor. I had been once at Windsor before to see William, as I have, I think, mentioned, when we went to Eton Chapel, and afterwards met the King and Queen and the Band of the Blues upon the Terrace. We did some of this again, and went to the King’s private Chapel and saw him say his prayers in his little bobwig, his short wife in a black silk cloke and plain straw bonnet beside him. We also this time saw the Castle thoroughly, private apartments and all, for the Queen and the Princesses had gone for the day to Frogmore. My father’s tenant at Thorley Hall was a Mr John Vowles, who had a brother William a corn factor at Windsor; they were of German extraction, in some way connected with some of the personal attendants of the Queen. Mrs William Vowles, indeed, was a German born, and had been brought up by her parents in the palace; she had been educated and portioned by her Majesty, and not thrown off upon her marriage. She it was who took us up the back stairs and shewed us through most of the rooms in common use by the family, when for the first time my mind wakened up to the knowledge that real Kings and Queens were not like the royalties of fairy tales, always seated upon thrones receiving homage and dispensing life and death, but quiet, simple, actively industrious human beings. I could have made myself very comfortable in Queen Charlotte’s bedroom, and should have felt entirely at home in the business like morning room occupied by herself and her daughters. Books, musick, painting, works plain and fine, each with a small table beside it; these were for Mr and Mrs Guelph, as they called themselves in the happy privacy of their family.
Another time that we were at Windsor we dined early with Mr and Mrs Vowles, and went over to Frogmore in the evening—the Queen’s hobby, her garden house. It was a pretty villa in pretty grounds, too low for health, I should say, were people to have lived there, at least till the mere or pond was drained, but it did perfectly for the royal amusement by day. The walls of one room were painted by one Princess; all the tables and cabinets of another were japanned by a second; carpets, stools, and rugs were the work of a third; while the knitting, and knotting, and netting and patching of the old Queen, if she did it all herself, must have ensured her a busy lifetime. And it was well that she had these domestick habits, for long years of anxiety were before her. The king had been taken seriously ill shortly before this second visit of ours to Windsor, or rather his madness had become too confirmed, too violent in its outbreaks to be any longer concealed.5 There was no old man to be seen now at Chapel in the mornings with a rolled curl ab
ove each ear, the ornaments of his bob wig, or on the terrace with his gold headed cane in the evenings, his odd little Queen by his side and the long train of their handsome children with quantities of attendants behind. His wing of the Castle was shut up, his windows barred and darkened, no one suffered to walk on the terrace, a gloom pervaded even the town—never was a place more changed, yet we were merry enough at the Star Inn where William met us with one or two of his particular friends. Much as the vice now known to reign there makes me at this present time abhor the name of Eton, it brought then most pleasant memories—the grounds belonging to the School were so spacious and so pretty, the old College, its chapel, the quadrangle, the noble river and that grand Windsor Castle behind all together formed a beautiful scene to find a dear brother in.
By the middle of July my Mother was able to be removed to Ramsgate, where she very soon recovered her looks and strength; she was always fond of the sea, and throve near it. Mrs Peter Grant had taken a house for us on the East Cliff, a very fine situation with a splendid sea view. We were at some distance from the town, a sort of Common all round us, and one house only near; it was indeed attached to ours, the two stood together alone, out of the way of all the rest of Ramsgate. Our neighbour was Lady Augusta Murray, called by her friends the Duchess of Sussex,6 although her marriage to the Duke, which really did take place abroad, was null in this country. She had been created Baroness D’Ameland, and had a pension settled on her of £3000 a year, on which to bring up her two children, a boy and girl, fine, large, handsome young people, unduly imbued with the grandeur of their birth. She never committed herself by calling herself or them by any title: ‘My boy, my girl,’ she always said in speaking of or to them. The Servants, however, mentioned them as the Prince and Princess, as did all the acquaintances who visited at the house. Prince Augustus was about 17, extremely good looking, though rather inclined to be stout; very good natured he was too, amiable and devoted to his mother. He was going into the army under the name of D’Este, a bitter pill to the Duchess, although it was one of the royal surnames, and had been chosen for his son by the Duke himself. Princess Augusta was some years younger than her brother though she looked nearly as old. She was but 12, and particularly handsome on a large scale, a fine figure, and fine features, with a charming expression of countenance. The Duchess’s house was small, though larger than ours, for she had turned the whole ground floor into one room, a library, and built a large dining room out behind. The drawing room floor was her own apartment, containing bedroom, sitting room, and her maid’s room; the floor above was equally divided between her son and daughter. She kept no horses, for she never drove out. She passed most of her time in a very large garden, well walled in, which covered a couple of acres or more, and extended all down the slope of the cliff to the town. Our two families soon became intimate, the younger ones especially passing the greater part of the day together, a friendship beginning then which never entirely ceased while opportunity served to bring any of us together. The advances, however, were amusing. The Duchess, as a royal personage, must be waited on. My Mother, who was very retiring, would not take such a step forward as the leaving her name at the great lady’s door. My father, who had bowed, and been spoken to when gallantly opening gates, could do no more without his wife; so all came to a full stop. Meanwhile, Jane and I, who had made acquaintance out on the free Common of the downs with the little Princess, untroubled by any notions of etiquette, enjoyed our intercourse with our new acquaintance amazingly; Jane and she soon becoming fast friends. One evening she approached the paling which separated our two small gardens just as my Mother was stepping over the gravel towards the carriage to take her airing. I shall never forget the picture; she leaned on the top rail, her large leaved Tuscan hat thrown back off her dark close cropped hair, and her fine countenance brightened by the blush of girlish modesty, while she held up a small basket full of fine peaches, an offering from her mother. A visit of thanks was of course necessary, and found agreeable. A few days after the Duchess bade Jane tell her Mama that she had returned her call when her Mama was unluckily out, and that she hoped they would be good neighbours. On this hint we all acted. We never expected H.R.H. to call nor even believed in the reported first call. My Mother occasionally went in there with some of us. My father constantly, indeed he soon became her confidential adviser in many of her difficulties, trying to get her through some of the troubles which harrassed her existence. We were all made very happy by this addition to our Ramsgate pleasures; we liked the place itself and our life there, and above all we liked our neighbours.
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