All this is over now. The few Grandees in our part of the country shut themselves rigorously up in their proud exclusiveness. Those who could have perpetuated a better tone in our small society are gone, their places know them no more. Our former wise occasional reunions are matters of history; each section appears now to keep apart, unnoticed by the class above, and in turn not noticing the class below. The change struck me much, made me melancholy, altered the whole condition of our once united district. The highlands is not the highlands now.
Lady Huntly did not do her part with all the charming kindness of her Lord. She kept up at the head of the room among her own Kinrara guests, laughing frequently and so long her fits were and so loud nothing could ever persuade the Laggan and Badenoch farmers that she was not ridiculing them. Her dancing did not quite redeem her character, though it was really good, in the old reel and strathspey style—the son of thing did not suit her. She was not fit for it with her formal ways and stiff manners, it was plain her being there at all was an effort. Her first appearance did not add to her popularity. The Lady Belleville was known of old to keep herself very distant, but she had been long enough among us to be valued for her kindness—besides she was a Southron, and little was expected from her. She sat up in her big red turban amid the great, and there as the fun encreased she, and such as she, were let to sit; all the rest of the room were in high glee, dancing, old and young, without a rest almost.
One of the ladies most in repute as a partner was an old, very old, Mrs McIntosh of Borlam, who lived in the village of Kingussie with her daughter, the Widow of a Major Macpherson, and a comely Widow too. The Leddy Borlam was said to be not far from ninety years of age, upright, active, slender, richly dressed for her station, and with a pleasant countenance. Her handsome silks caused many a sly remark. She was the widow of a celebrated freebooter whom Sir Thomas Lauder endeavoured to portray as Lochandhu.9 There are as many tales current of his doings in our part of the country as would fill more than one romance. A cave he hid his treasures in is still open on the hill at Belleville, for he did not deal in black cattle only; no traveller was safe when Borlam wanted. His wife and daughter were known to have been frequently occupied in picking out the marks in the fine ruffled hollands shirts it was his especial coxcombry always to appear in, and it was more than whispered that however he came by them he had given her ‘braws’ enough to last beyond a lifetime; seemingly a true suspicion, for the Lady Borlam’s silks would stand alone, and she had plenty of them. With them she wore the Highland mutch, the high clear cap of fine muslin, trimmed, in her case with Flanders lace, and then, calm as a princess, she moved about in her ill gotten gear, with the stateliness of a Chieftain’s Lady. She was a wonderful old woman, keen, merry, and kindly, and as ‘cute’ as an Irishwoman, never tripping in her talk, or giving the remotest hint of the true character of her lamented husband.
I found amongst the Kinrara guests at the Pitmain Tryst our old Arklow Place friend Colonel Thornton, he who had taught us all waltzing, and Mr Orby Hunter, and Mr Lane Fox, names afterwards brought more prominently before the public.
The Northern Meeting was to all of our degree as important a gathering as was the Badenoch Tryst to our humbler acquaintance. It had been set agoing soon after my birth by her who was the Life of all circles she entered, the Duchess of Gordon. She had persuaded all the northern Counties to come together once a year about the middle of October, and spend the better part of a week at Inverness. There were dinners and balls in the evenings; the mornings were devoted to visiting neighbouring friends and the beautiful scenery abounding on all sides. She had always taken a large party there herself, and done her utmost to induce her friends to do likewise—stray English being particularly acceptable, as supposed Admirers of our national beauties! while enacting the part of Lion themselves. No one with equal energy had replaced her; still, the annual meeting went on pleasantly enough bringing many together who otherwise might never have become acquainted, renewing old intimacies, and sometimes obliterating old grudges.
New dresses had come for my decoration, and beautiful flowers my father had brought me, chosen by dear Annie Grant, her last kind office for a while for any of us. There was white muslin with blue trimmings, shoes to match, and roses; white gauze, pink shoes and trimmings, and hyacinths; pearlgray gauze and pink, and a bacchus wreath of grapes and vine leaves, for we had three balls, dinners before the first two, and a supper after the last. With what delight I stept into the Barouche and four which was to carry us to this scene of pleasure. I had no fears about partners, Pitmain had set me quite at ease on that score. We went through the ford at Inverdruie, every one we met bidding us Godspeed, and looking after us affectionately, for it was an era in the annals of the family, this coming out of Miss Grant, and we stopt at Aviemore to have a few pleasant words with Mrs McKenzie. It had been a beautiful drive so far, all along by the banks of the Spey, under the shade of the graceful birch trees, the well wooded rock of Craigellachie rising high above us to the left after we had crossed the river. Just at the foot of this, our beacon hill, there lies, quite close to Aviemore, a little Loch shrouded in the wood, and full of small sweet trout, which during the earthquake at Lisbon10 was strangely agitated, sending up a column of water dashing about in its small basin in a way not soon to be forgotten. It is the last bit of beauty on the road for many a long mile. A bare moor, with little to mark on it or near it, leads on to the lonely inn at Freeburn, a desolate dirty inn, where never yet was found a fire, or any thing in any way comfortable. A short way from this abode of despair, a fine valley far below opens on the view, containing a lake of some extent, the banks artificially wooded, a good stretch of meadow land, and a very ugly box of a new house built by the Laird of McIntosh, the Chief of his Clan, ‘my uncle Sir Eneas.’ The planting was then so young and there was so little taste shewn in the laying out of the grounds that even in that wilderness this solitary tract of cultivation was hardly worthy of much praise, but when we passed it lately it was really a fine place—roads were made, and shrubberies and gardens, and the trees were grown to a goodly size, but the present McIntosh did not live there; he preferred Divie Castle near Inverness, and Moy, the ancient residence of his ancient family, was let to sportsmen.
From Freeburn the moor extends again, another dreary waste till we reached a wild scene I always admired. The Findhorn, an unsheltered, very rocky stream, rises some where beyond the ken of travellers here, and tumbles on through a gully whose high banks give only an occasional glimpse of fair plains far off. A new road had been engineered along the sides of this ‘pass of the wild boars,’ Slough Mouich, thought a wonder of skill when viewed beside the frightful narrow precipitous pathway tracked out by General Wade, up and down which one could scarcely be made to believe a carriage, with people sitting in it! had ever attempted to pass. My mother had always walked those two or three miles, or the greater pan of them, the new route not having been completed till some years after her marriage. A third we have just passed over puts to shame that much praised second, and the planting, and the cottages with gardens, and the roadside inns have all given a different character to this once bare region. There is no change, however, near Inverness; there could be no improvement. It breaks upon the eye weary of the monotony of the journey as a fairy scene on drawing up a curtain. On rising the hill at the Kirk of Divie, where the curious belfry is ever so far from this desolate looking place of worship, the whole of the Moray Firth, with the bounding Ross-shire hills, the great plain of Culloden, Loch Ness, the mountains beyond that fine sheet of water, the broad river, and one of the prettiest of towns scattered about its banks just as it meets the sea, open before wondering eyes. That vale of beauty must have been a surprise to the first discoverer—no Roman; their legions crept along the coast to reach their fort at Euchlass, they never tried the Grampians.
We put up at Mr Cooper’s good house in Church Street, where we were made very welcome and felt ourselves very comfortable; and being tired wi
th our day’s work, we much enjoyed a quiet evening with Mrs Cooper and her girls. We had come the day before the first ball purposely for the rest. Next morning I was sent up with some of the children to Castle Hill, a very pretty farm of Mr Cooper’s about three miles from Inverness where there were quantities of country matters to be looked at. We came back in time for me to get my toilette laid out ready, and my Mother’s too, with help, and to have my hair dressed by Mr Urquhart.
Probably all young persons have felt once in their lives, at least, as I felt on mounting the broad, handsome staircase of the Northern Meeting rooms on my father’s arm. The hall was well lit, the musick from above sounded joyously, and my heart beat so quick, so full, it might have been seen to palpitate. My Mother and I passed into a suite of waiting rooms, where poor Peggy Davidson’s Aunt attended to take care of wraps, then rejoining my father we entered, through the large folding doors, our really fine Assembly room. It was all noise and blaze and mob. I could neither hear nor see distinctly. A pleasant voice sounded near, it was Glenmoriston’s; he was there with his wife, and his sisters, and her sisters, and their husbands and Cousins, a whole generation of us. A little further on we encountered relations new to me, Colonel and Mrs Rose of Holm, just returned from India; she was a little, ugly, crooked woman over loaded with diamonds; he was delightful, although he introduced me to a very plain small, pock marked man, the Captain of the Indiaman who brought them home, Captain Simpson and with this remarkable partner I joined the long country dance then forming. My Captain danced well; he was very pleasant too, and much amused at all the shaking hands that took place between me and half the room. We were really acquainted with almost every body, and of kin to a great number.
Lord and Lady Huntly were there with a large party. Old Lady Saltoun11 ditto, dancing away in an open frock almost as lightly as her pretty daughter Eleanor, who afterwards married young Mr Donall Grant of Arndilly—and she near eighty. Charlotte Rose, now Lady Burgoyne,12 was very pretty then, danced beautifully, dressed her fine hair well. But the beauties of the room, I thought, were the two Miss Duffs of Muirtown—tall, graceful girls with a pensive air that made them very attractive. My next partner was Culduthel, poor Culduthel, fine, gay, good natured, rattling young man. Then Lord Huntly in a reel vis a vis to his wife, then Sir Francis McKenzie of Gairloch, then one or two of the Kinrara gentlemen, and all the rest of the evening Applecross—poor McKenzie of Applecross, the last of his clever line. He was the catch of the north country from the extent of his property, and though very plain, very sickly, and no great use as a dancing partner, he would have been, without a penny, a catch for any one worthy of him. Had he lived, he would have ably filled his position, but he and his only sister both died of consumption a few years after this, and before their parents and a Writer in Edinburgh, with a large family, succeeded to that fine Ross-shire property.13
Mr Cooper informed us next morning at breakfast that my début had been a most decided success. I was perfectly aware of it, and not one bit elated, though my Mother was, her maternal anxieties had gone further than mine; I had stopped at abundance of dancing. This evening’s ball was pleasanter than the first and the third and last, with the supper, was best of all, even in spite of a draw back. Every joy has its attendant sorrow, every rose its thorn, and I had the persevering assiduities of a very good natured and thoroughly vulgar Mr McIntosh of Fair quite unable to see that his company was disagreeable. In no way could I escape two or three dances with this forward young man, to my most extreme annoyance, and, as it seemed to me, the very unreasonable delight of my new friend, Mr McKenzie of Applecross.
The mornings had hung heavy to many, but not to me. Most people merely lounged about the narrow ill paved streets of Inverness, paid each other visits, or congregated in our northern emporium of fashion, Mr Urquhart the hairdresser’s shop. My father took my Mother, Mrs Cooper, one of her girls, and me charming drives in several directions; it was impossible to turn amiss, the whole surrounding scenery is so enchanting. The rapid change of air together with the pleasurable excitement freshened us up nicely for the evening. We had visitors too, people calling early, before luncheon; Mrs Rose of Kilravock, the Dowager, was one of them. An extraordinary woman, once a beauty and still a wit, who was now matronising two elderly young ladies, West Indians of large fortunes, and amusing them and every body else with their clever eccentricities and tales of her brilliant youth. She had been with Jacky Gordon, the particular friend of the Duchess, often at Kinrara in former days. It was indeed a happy week. I wonder whether other girls come out often under such pleasant auspices.
1. One of the covenanted European servants of the East
India Company, not in military employment.
2. The pattern of tartan associated with a particular clan.
3. A trunk, fitted on to the roof of the carriage,
4. Sir William Miller (1755−1846) who was a judge from 1795 to 1840 and was to be called upon to persuade E.G. to break off her engagement the following year.
5. Sir Adam Gordon thus describes the musical skills of his love, Elizabeth (the name of Huntly’s bride):
Her gift creative,
New measures adds to every air she wakes;
Varying and gracing it with liquid sweetness,
Like the wild modulations of the lark;
(Halidon Hill, Act II,ii)
6. Willow or osier bands.
7. Charles Grant of Glenelg (1778−1866) was M.P. for Inverness 1811−18 and Inverness-shire 1818−35; the source of his patronage at home came partly from his spell as President of the Board of Trade, whilst he was so influential in Indian matters because, as President of the Board of Control 1830−34, he had to organise a new charter for the East India Company.
8. Assistant Chairman at the lower end of the table.
9. In his first novel, published 1825.
10. The catastrophe of 1755 (which for Voltaire proved God did not exist).
11. Margery, daughter of another East India Company Director, Simon Fraser; she married the eighteenth Lord Saltoun of Abernethy.
12. She was the wife of General Sir John Burgoyne, cousin to the Field Marshal of the same name (1782−1811), and herself a cousin on the Grant side.
13. This was another Thomas McKenzie w.s. (1793−1856) who was to be M.P. for Ross and Cromartyshire between 1837 and 1847.
Contents
Chapter XVII. 1814−15
Chapter XVIII. 1815−16
Chapter XIX. 1816−17
Chapter XX. 1817−18
Chapter XXI. 1818−19
Chapter XXII. 1819
Chapter XXIII. 1819−20
Chapter XXIV. 1820−23
Chapter XXV. 1823−27
Chapter XXVI. 1827−28
Chapter XXVII. 1828−29
Chapter XXVIII. 1829
Chapter XXIX. 1829−30
Index
VOLUME TWO
Volume I of Elizabeth Grant’s Memoirs of a Highland Lady describes her recollections of early childhood in Rothiemurchus and London, painting a vivid picture of the life led by this landed highland family as her father’s political and legal ambitions carried them to Edinburgh, London and back to Speyside.
The first volume ends in 1814 with the move to Edinburgh where John Peter Grant of Rothiemurchus, after spending more money than was wise in becoming Member of Parliament for the ‘rotten borough’ of Great Grimsby, was required to resume his career as an Advocate at the Scottish Bar. And this was to be the appropriate setting for his daughter, the seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Grant, to enter society and, as she wrote, Commence life on her own account’.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1814−1815
I HAVE always looked on our appearance at this Inverness Meeting as the second great era in my life. Although it so closely followed the first remarkable change, it more completely changed me myself although at the time I was hardly aware of it, reflexion being no part of my character. Our removal to the highla
nds, our regular break-in under the governess, the partial opening of young minds, had all gone on in company with Jane, who was in many respects much more of a woman than I was, by three years her elder. I was now to be alone. From henceforward, my occupations, pursuits, habits, ideas were all to be perfectly different from, indeed repudiated by, the Schoolroom. Miss Elphick thought, and she was not wrong, that I was a year too young for the trials awaiting me, and for which I had been in no way prepared. She was annoyed too at not having been consulted on the fitness of her pupil for commencing life on her own account, and so, she would neither help my inexperience nor allow me to take shelter under my usual employments. A head filled with nonsense, dress balls, beaux, was very unfit to be trusted near the still innocent brains of my sister.
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