Mrs Gossipp was full of fun, and to please her a party was made, including the handsome Miss Buckleys to attend a ball at Margate, at that time the summer retreat of the City of London, and held more wealth than any place out of it. Miss Louisa Buckley was quite wrong in carrying her pink cotton satin, tho’ covered by muslin of her own embroidering, to such an assemblage as she found there. Lace dresses and lace flounces of fabulous value fluttered all round the room. Velvets and satins, feathers and jewels! such jewels as would have shamed the Queen’s Drawing room were in profusion there. Large, fat, Dowager Aldermanesses, with a fortune in Mechlin11 and diamonds on them, sat playing cards with tumblers of brandy and water beside them; the language used possessed a grammar of its own; the dancing was equally original, a Miss St George, the Belle of the ball and six feet high, cutting capers up to the moon. The extravagances of this ‘fashionable’ resort formed one of the sights to be seen from aristocratick Ramsgate. How different now. That race of civick dignitaries sleeps with their fathers. It would be hard to know the Tradesman from the noble now, at a glance at any rate. My father said the finery of the Margate ladies had excited my Mother’s envy, for she set about smuggling vigorously at this time, very much to his annoyance; bargain making and smuggling were his aversion.12 He always said, ‘What is wanted, get, of the best quality, at the best place, and take care of it. What is not wanted, don’t get, however cheap; it is wasting money, in fact real extravagance; and have nothing to do with rogues, eh.’ Wise preaching—’tis so easy for the man who lavishes thousands on his whistle, to lift his eyebrows at the cost of his Wife’s. My dear mother found it hard to resist those melodramatick sailors with their straw hats smartly bound with a ribbon, the long curled love lock then generally worn by the more dashing among the seamen, the rough, ready, obligingly awkward manner, and all their silks, laces, gloves and other beautiful French goods so immeasurably superiour to any in those days fabricated at home. She was not to be deterred by the seizures now and then made of all these treasures, miles and miles away; carriages stopt and emptied, ladies insulted, fined, and so on, as really frequently happened when their transactions had been too daring. She could not resist a few purchases, though half believing my father’s assertion that the smugglers were all in league with the Custom House, themselves giving information of any considerable purchaser. However, her doings were never thus brought to light.
Meanwhile, we had our occupations, we young people. The Duchess of Sussex, to amuse herself, got up the Tragedy of Macbeth. She was a Scotchwoman, one of the Dunmore Murrays, and very national; she was, besides, intellectual and intelligent, as all her pursuits evidenced, and she was very proud of the beauty of her daughter. It was all to be amongst ourselves, we four, the little Princess, and two quiet little girls sometimes our companions, whose father lived in Ramsgate and was the Duchess’s man of business. We all therefore ‘played many parts,’ which necessity we considered a pleasure, as it kept us in one character or another constantly upon the Stage. During the preparations we were incessantly rehearsing either at one house or the other, each, for the benefit of the rest, learning the whole play; thus impressing on our young memories, never to be effaced, some of the finest poetry in the language; the sentiments actually became endeared to us, wise trains of reflection following the pains of learning those favourite passages by heart. Jane was Macbeth and a second Roscius, my father, who had a good idea of acting, having been taught to read by Stephen Kemble,13 taking great pains with her. Lady Macbeth was ranted a little by the Princess, yet she looked the part well; I was a shocking stick in Banquo, but a first rate witch, a capital Hecate. The Duchess painted one Scene for us, which did for all—a bit of an old tower and some trees—and Deddy, as we called Mrs Deadman, superintended the dresses. My father was the prompter, the Library was the theatre, and a very respectable audience of dowager peeresses and other visitors and residents applauded every speech we made. The musick master played martial airs on an old wretched pianoforte between the acts, and there was a grand supper, followed by a good merry dance at the end, all having gone off well. Yet that crowning night was nothing near as pleasant as all the busy hours we had preparing for it. ‘Dreamer, dream not that fruition,’ etc., as the wise of all ages have repeated, none of them in prettier lines than these, written by my father to ‘Rousseau’s dream,’ composed as he was walking round the Ord Bàn many a day after this.14
This was the year of the great Comet;15 night after night we watched it rising over the town of Ramsgate, spreading its glorious train as it rose, and thus passing slowly on, the wonder of all, and terrour of some, a grand sight only equalled by the northern lights as we used to see them in the highland winters. And this was the season of the return of the China fleet, single merchantmen not daring in those war times to venture out to sea as in these happier, peaceful times. The east India shipping therefore made sail together under the convoy of a couple of frigates, an imposing evidence of the strength and wealth of the country, which had the most beautiful effect on the wide sea view they entirely filled that ever could have been gazed at from any shore. The Downs, always beautiful because never deserted, and often very crowded, were on this occasion close packed with huge Indiamen, their tall masts seeming to rake the skies; and when the anchors were weighed, and the dark mass moved out to sea, each vessel carrying all her canvas to meet the breeze, all distinctly seen from the balcony of our house, I don’t think a grander sight ever met wondering eyes. The frigates, much smarter looking ships, kept outside as Convoy, and on they moved like some fine pageant in a scene, till, hours after we had seen them leave the roads at Deal, the last of the long line was lost to us behind the North Foreland, or the South I fancy it must have been as nearer to us, although it was the lesser projection of the two.
Soon after the passing of the China fleet we left our pretty lodgings on the Cliff and moved into an excellent house on a less exposed situation, one of a row on the other, the town side of our friend the Duchess’s garden. Our only acquaintance in it was Mr Vince the Astronomer, a kind old man, who often let us look through his large telescope by day, and watch the moon through a smaller by night.16
About the middle of November we returned to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and then Annie Grant and Jane and I set to work in earnest with all our old masters, and this winter really made good progress. As for Mary, there seemed to be no use in trying to teach her any thing, for she would not learn, not even to read; she was therefore, by the advice of old Dr Saunders, a friend of my grandfather Grant’s, left to amuse herself as she liked with our baby brother Johnny, and they were generally kept out in the Square all the fine hours of the day. Our cousins Eliza and Edmund were a good deal with us. The winter before, when Aunt Leitch was with him, Uncle Ralph had a very good house in Somerset Street, Portman Square. This year, Aunt Leitch having left him, he took a very pretty house, an old fashioned half cottage, half villa, with a charming garden, out at Turnham Green, where we spent many a happy day. Edmund was at school in the neighbourhood; Eliza had a governess sometimes, and sometimes masters, and once she also went to school, but that whim did not last long. She was very quick, and learned what she had a fancy to without trouble, excelling in musick, that is playing, from infancy. She had no head to understand thoroughly any thing. We were very often in Brunswick Square, oftener than formerly, because Annie could go with us there through the quiet of those lawyer streets, crossing Holborn being our only difficulty. Mrs Charles Ironside’s handsome sister, a widow, Mrs Lernault, married this year Mr Robert Calvert, the very rich Brewer; and our very handsome Cousin, Ursula Launder, married William Norton, the natural son of Lord Grantley, a mere boy to her, for he was not more than two and twenty and she was at least twice his age. Her large fortune was her charm, but her young husband treated her with marked attention during her whole life, long after every vestige of her remarkable beauty had left her. Aunt Mary was one of the Bridesmaids, Lord Dursley the Bridegroomsman, and soon came on the great Berkele
y case, which was decided by stripping him of name and fame and giving that old title to a third brother.17 Uncle Frere was the Solicitor employed to get up the case for the Defendant, and so over worked was he by it, between fatigue and anxiety, that he took a fever before it was over, and frightened us all seriously. It was a brain fever, and in his delerium he kept calling for little Eli to sing him Crochallan, so I was sent to him, to sit by his bedside and ‘gently breathe’ all the plaintive Scotch and gaelick airs I could remember, no small stock into his ‘vexed’ ear, thus soothing him when most excited. He would insist on sending messengers here, and there, on writing letters, and consulting on law points with me and the bed clothes, and I was never to thwart him, but to pretend to second all his whims and then to sing in a low murmuring tone the airs I found he liked best. At last he fell asleep one day to Crochallan, the oft repeated ‘Hanour ma vourgne’ having quite composed him.18 My Aunt, who was always watching us, sat down and wept. ‘Even little children can be of use,’ said she as she kissed me, though I was no child, but very near fifteen. Too old, my Mother thought, to be again exhibited in Macbeth, which, having succeeded so well at Ramsgate, the Duchess was determined to get up again in Arklow Place.
Jane and I were very much with our young friend the Princess. Her mother’s very handsome house looking into the Park near Cumberland gate was a very agreeable change to us, and we were so at home there we were quite at ease among all the family circle. Jane was still the favourite, the one most paraded, most spoke of, but I was the one applied to when help was wanted, in fact, the real A. No. I whatever they pretended and feeling my growing importance, a very comfortable position, visiting there was much pleasanter to me than formerly. Prince Augustus was with his regiment in Jersey, from whence he had sent a box of little French curiosities to his mother, two of the toys marked for Jane and me, so goodnaturedly. Jane’s was an ivory knife grinder, mine a frenchwoman in a high cap, spinning—it is at the Doune yet and instead of him we had our friend Lord Archibald Hamilton, who spent most of his time with his cousin ‘Augusta,’ and his son Henry Hamilton, a fine boy then, tho’ ‘accidental.’ There was scandal going about the extreme attachment of the Duchess to this handsome lad and I remember my father, long after this, telling my Mother what that old gossip Lord Lauderdale1 had told him. Lord Archibald, one day talking of this dearly loved son of his, consulting Lord Lauderdale19 about his destination and thinking himself but coldly listened to, said rather testily as an addition to whatever argument he was using ‘I can assure you he has in his veins by both sides some of the best blood in Europe.’ ‘I never heard it doubted,’ replied Lord Lauderdale gravely and with a low voice. The blood of ‘Princely Hamilton’ we all know sufficiently to value. The Murray blood of that one family is purer still, more ancient and more of royalty in it. Henry was very like the race. ‘Deddy’ was particularly fond of him, [young Henry], he could do any thing with her, when any of us offended her, we always deputed him to make the peace and never unsuccessfully. She was certainly a curious kind of old nurse body for a fine lady to keep as her only personal attendant and her influence was great even to our young apprehensions. Lord Lauderdale might have liked cross questioning some of us on these subjects. I must in fairness add that the pair whose intimacy was so commented on were first cousins and had been very much brought up together and that very little sets people a talking sometimes.
Well, the Play went on without me. I was only dresser and prompter. Lucy Drew replaced me as Banquo, and Georgie Drew as Hecate; the other characters remained the same. Our scenery was borrowed from the theatre, our dresses were very superiour, as was our Orchestra, and our audience was half the peerage! Jane outdid herself, but William’s Macduff outdid her Macbeth, it was really fine acting. We waited for the Easter holidays in order to secure him. I remember that old Lady Dunmore, who had, like a frenchwoman, taken to religion in her old age by way of expiating the sins of her youth, would not attend our play in publick—her principles condemned the theatre—but she saw it in private nevertheless. We all went to her small house in Baker Street dressed, and acted before her, and a capital good dinner she gave us afterwards, all her plate out, and lots of fruit. She must have been very beautiful in her day; quite a picture she was now, in a high cap like that in the prints of the Duchess of Argyle, the Irish beauty. Lucy and Georgina Drew were the grand daughters of Lady Dunmore, and lived with her, brought up by Lady Virginia their Aunt, their Mother Lady Susan having on her third marriage made them over to this maiden sister. Lady Susan’s first husband was a very rich West Indian, Mr Thorpe, by whom she had one son, an idiot. Who Mr Drew was I really do not know. The third husband was Mr Douglas, the Revd. Archibald Douglas, brother to Lord Miltown’s mother, Lady Cloncurry. We often saw him in Connaught Place. He was much taken with Jane, as every one else was; but in after days, when we met here in Ireland, he insisted it was me that had so attracted him ‘as a lovely intelligent girl’—I, at that time extremely plain, and so shy I never spoke to strangers. He was a remarkably handsome man then as now, and quite a crack preacher, all London flocking round any pulpit he consented to mount. Lady Virginia Murray had the ugliest face I ever looked on, seamed, scarred with the small pox, her figure perfect, and her general kindness unfailing. Lady Susan was scorbutick, but might have been handsome once. Lord Dunmore was very nice, and his wife too—a Hamilton, a cousin; Fincastle and Charley Murray charming boys. Many others there were whom I forget. I just remember Lady Georgina Montague being there one day—a handsome, very dark, and very thin girl in a black frock, put on for the first time for her Grandmother the Duchess of Gordon, whose funeral procession had that morning left London for the highlands. My Mother would hardly believe that the child could have been allowed to go out to spend a merry day with young companions at such a time, and attributed it to the ignorance of the governess who had charge of this poor deserted family. The Duke of Manchester was repairing his fortunes as Governor of Jamaica; the Duchess had left home years before with one of her footmen. Both my father and Mother grieved sincerely for the death of their old friend and neighbour with whom they had spent so many happy hours. Indeed, the whole of the highlands mourned for her, as with all her oddities she was the soul of our northern society.
The remaining events of this, our last season in London, come but hazily back to me. We acted our Macbeth in Brunswick Square, I taking Lady Macbeth’s part badly enough, I should think, on this mere family occasion. And Duncan McIntosh, the Rothiemurchus forester, came to town on some of my father’s lawsuits, and was a perfect delight to every body, with his shrewdness, his simplicity, his real astonishment, and the highland idea of good breeding which precluded the expression of wonder at any novelty. Aunt Leitch, who was on a visit with us, seized on him as her beau, and treated him and herself to the play two or three times a week, for it was the last appearance of Mrs Siddons; she went through all her great parts, and took her leave of the Stage as Lady Macbeth. Uncle Ralph ventured to Covent Garden that night; he did get in, but soon came out, returning to us nearly exhausted, his hat crushed, his coat and shirt torn, his face so pale that he quite frightened us. Never had there been such a crush at the doors of the pit; it had so overcome even his strength, that he was unable to endure the heat of the closely packed house. We heard next day that the Audience would listen to no other performer. When she was on the stage a pin could have been heard to fall; when she was off, all was uproar, Kemble even himself unattended to, and when she walked away at the last from her Doctor and the waiting gentlewoman, they would bear no more; all rose, waving hats and handkerchieves, shouting, applauding, making such a din as might have brought the house down, never was there such a scene before.20 All passionless as was that great actress’s private nature, she was overcome. Uncle Ralph ever regretted being unable to remain to see the last of fine acting. She has had no successor. I am quite sure that we, we young people I mean, owed more to Co vent Garden than to any other of our teachers. We not only learned Shakespe
are by heart, thus filling our heads with wisdom, our fancy with the most lovely imagery, and warming our hearts from out that rich store of good, but we fixed, as it were, all these impressions; John Kemble and Mrs Siddons embodying all great qualities, becoming to us the images of the qualities we admired. An excuse this for the statues and pictures in the churches of infant times.
In May or June poor Mr Perceval was shot, our neighbour in the Square, whose three daughters, disdaining other associates, only walked with the three Miss Nicholls, Sir John Nicholls’ equally exclusive ladies.21 Lady Wilson ran in to tell my Mother, she having just had an express from Sir Giffin, who was in Westminster Hall. It was a great shock to every one, though he had been an unpopular man; the suddenness of the blow and the insufficiency of the cause making the deed the more afflicting. It set all the politicians to work again, but nothing came of all the commotion. The Prince Regent went on with the same Tory party amongst whom he had thrown himself as soon as he had became head of the government. One place was easily supplied; his former friends were just as far from power as before. They might and did abuse him, and the man deserved abuse, whatever the regent did. Moore enchanted the town with his witty newspaper squibs, looked for as regularly every morning as the breakfast was.22 Whigs blamed and Torys could not praise, but they all ate their leek thankfully, and on went the world with its generalities and individualities, its Buonaparte and its Wellington, ‘the most profligate Ministry that ever existed,’ holding the whiphand over at least, an equally profligate Opposition. Whatever sins were going, we three little girls had worn mourning for all. While we were at Ramsgate the old king’s delirium had become so alarmingly violent it was supposed his bodily strength must give way under the continual paroxisms; his death was therefore daily expected. So my ‘careful’ Mother, fearing black would rise, bought up at a sale there a quantity of bombazeen.23 The King calmed, recovered his strength, but his mind was hopelessly gone, in which state properly attended to he might live for years. What was to be done with all the bombazeen? We just had to wear it, and trimmed plentifully with crimson it really looked very well.
Memoirs of a Highland Lady Page 23