A second lesson was on this wise. We had a party of rather noted people coming to dine with us. William Cameron, after his good father’s death, and Mr Cooper arrived on some business in town. In Highland fashion they announced having merely ordered beds at an hotel, sure of a welcome at all meals with us. My mother wanted to tell them we had company and the table full; my father said no; he would hurt no one’s feelings, they were fully entitled to a place at his board, let who would be invited to it. So a leaf was added; they were made extremely happy by eating on terms of equality with men whose names were before the world, and the celebrated guests were so charmed with new listeners to their witticisms that their conversation sparkled with unusual brilliancy. No dinner ever went off better, and though Mr Cooper added no lustre to the company, Mr Cameron in spectacles looked the quiet country gentleman to perfection. My Mother was perfectly satisfied.
The last large party of the season was given by Grace Baillie in her carious apartment on the ground floor of an old fashioned corner house in Queen Street, The rooms being small and ill furnished, she hit upon a curious way of arranging them. All the doors were taken away, all the movables carried off, the walls were covered with evergreens, through the leaves of which peeped the light of coloured lamps festooned about with garlands of coarse paper flowers. Her passages, parlours, bedrooms, closets, were all adorned en suite, and in odd corners were various surprises intended for the amusement of the visitors; a cage of birds here, a stuffed figure in a bower there, water trickling over messy stones into an ivy covered basin, a shepherdess, in white muslin, a wreath of roses and a crook, offering ices, a highland laddie well-kilted presenting lemonade, a cupid with cake, a gypsey with fruit, intricacies purposefully contrived that no one might easily find a way through them, while a french horn, or a flute, or a harp at intervals from different directions served rather to delude than to guide the steps ‘in wandering mazes lost.’3 It was extremely ridiculous, and yet the effect was pretty, and the town so amused by the affair that the wits did it all into rhyme, and half a dozen poems were made upon this Arcadian entertainment, describing the scene and the Actors in it in every variety of style. Sir Alexander Boswell’s production was the cleverest, because so very neatly sarcastick. My brother’s most particular friend wrote the prettiest. In all, we beauties were enumerated with most flattering commendation, but in the friend’s the encomium on me was so marked that it drew the attention of all our acquaintance, and most unluckily for me opened my Mother’s eyes.
She knew enough of my father’s embarrassments to feel that my ‘early establishment,’ as the cant phrase went, was of importance to the future well being of the rest of us. She was not sure of the Bar and the House of Commons answering together. She feared another winter in Edinburgh might not come, or might not be a gay one, newer faces might supersede old favourites, a second season be less glorious than the first. She had been quite delighted with the crowd of admirers, but she had begun to be annoyed at no serious result following all these attentions. She counted the lovers, there was no scarcity of them, there were eligibies among them, some of whom she had believed prepared. How had it come that they had all slipt away. Poor dear mother, while you were straining your eyes abroad, it never struck you to use them at home. While you slept so quietly in the mornings you were unaware that others were broad awake. While you dreamed of Sheffield gold, and Perthshire acres, and Ross-shire principalities, my father and Miss Elphick both away, the daughter you intended disposing of for the benefit of the family had been left to enter upon a series of sorrows she never during the whole of her after life recovered from the effects of.
It is with pain, the most extreme pain, that I even now in my old age revert to this unhappy passage of my youth. I was wrong; my own version of my tale will prove my errours; but at the same time I was wronged—ay, and more sinned against than sinning. I would pass the matter over if I could, but unless I related it you would hardly understand my altered character; you would see no reason for my doing and not doing much that had been better either undone or done differently. You would wonder without comprehending, accuse without excusing; in short, you would know me not. Therefore, with as much fairness as can be expected from feelings deeply wounded and ill understood, I will recall the short romance which changed all things in life to me.
The first year my brother was at College he made acquaintance with a young man a few years older than himself, the son of one of the Professors. His friend was tall, dark, handsome, very engaging in his manners, very agreeable in his conversation, and considered by all who had been employed in his education to possess abilities quite worthy of the talented race he belonged to. The Bar was to be his profession, more by way of occupation for him in the meanwhile than for any need he would ever have to practise Law for a livelihood. He was an only son. His father was rich, his mother had been an heiress, and he was the heir of an old, nearly bedrid bachelour Uncle who possessed a very large landed property on the banks of the Tweed. Was it fair, when a marriage was impossible, to let two young people as him and me pass day after day for months familiarly together. My brother, introduced by his friend to the Professor’s family during the first year he was at College, soon became extremely intimate in the house. The father was very attentive to him, the mother particularly liked him, the three sisters, none of them quite young, all treated him as a new found relation. William wrote constantly about them, and talked so much of them when at home at the Doune for the summer vacation that we rallied him perpetually on his excessive partiality, my mother frequently joining in our good humoured quizzing. It never struck us that on these occasions my father never by any chance entered into our pleasantry.
When we all removed to Edinburgh William lost no time in introducing his friend to us; all took to him amazingly; he was my constant partner, joined us in our walks, sat with us every morning, was invited frequently as company and was several times asked to stay and partake of the family dinner. It never entered my head that his serious attentions would be disagreeable, nor my Mother’s, I really believe, that such would ever grow out of our brother and sister intimacy. I made acquaintance with the sisters at the houses of mutual friends. We visited and exchanged calls as young ladies did then in Edinburgh; and then I first thought it odd that the seniors of each family, so particularly obliging as they were to the junior members of each other’s households, made no move towards an acquaintance on their own parts. The gentlemen, as much occupied with their affairs, were excusable, but the ladies, what could prevent the common forms of civility passing between them. I had by this time become shy of making any remarks on them, but Jane, who had marvelled too, one day asked my mother why she did not cultivate the society of such agreeable persons. My Mothers answer was quite satisfactory. She was the last comer, it was not her place to call first on old residents. I had no way of arriving at the reasons of the other side, but the fact of the non intercourse, the avoidance of intercourse, annoyed me, and frequently caused me a few minutes more of thought than I had ever before been conscious of indulging in.
Then came Miss Baillie’s fête, and the poem in which I figured so gracefully. It was in every mouth, for in itself it was a gem, and I was so completely the genius of it, none but a lover could have mingled so much tenderness with, his admiration. On the poet’s next visit my Mother received him very coldly. At our next meeting she declined his now regular attendance. At the next party she forbade my dancing with him: after the indelicate manner in which he had brought my name before the publick in connexion with his own, it was necessary to meet so much forwardness by a reserve that would keep such presumption at a proper distance. I listened in silence, utterly amazed, and might in such perfectly submissive habits of obedience had we been brought up, have submitted sorrowfully and patiently, but she went too far. She added that she was not asking much of me, for this disagreeable young man had no attaching qualities; he was neither good looking, nor well bred, nor clever, nor much considered by persons of jud
gment, and certainly by birth no way the equal of a Grant of Rothiemurchus.
I left the room, flew to my own little attick, what a comfort that corner all to myself was then and often afterwards to me. I laid my head upon my bed, and covering my face with my hands, vainly trying to keep back the tears. The words darted through my brain, ‘all false, quite false—what can it be, what will become of us,’ for I had reached that turning point, though till this bitter moment unconsciously. Long I staid there, half thinking, half dreaming, till a new turn took me, the turn of unmitigated anger. Were we puppets, to be moved about with strings. Were we supposed to have neither sense nor feeling. Was I so poor in heart as to be able to like today, and loathe tomorrow, so deficient in understanding as to be incapable of seeing with my eyes, hearing with my ears, judging with my own perceptions. This long familiar intimacy permitted, then suddenly broken upon false pretences. They don’t know me, thought I; alas, I did not know myself. To my mother throughout that memorable day I never articulated one syllable. My father was in London.
My first determination was to see my poet and inquire of him whether he were aware of any private enmity between our houses. Fortunately he also had determined on seeking an interview with me in order to find out what it was my mother had so suddenly taken amiss in him. Both so resolved, we made our Meeting out, and a pretty Romeo and Juliet business it ended in. There was an ancient feud, a College quarrel between our fathers which neither of them had ever made a movement to forgive. It was more guessed at from some words his mother had dropt than clearly ascertained, but so much he had too late discovered, that a more intimate connexion would be as distasteful to the one side as the other.
We were very young, we were very much in love, we were very hopeful. Life looked so fair, it had been latterly so happy. We could conceive of no old resentments between parents that would not yield to the welfare of their children. He remembered that his father’s own marriage was an elopement followed by forgiveness and a long lifetime of perfect conjugal felicity. I recollected my mother telling me of the Montague and Capulet feud between the Neshams and the Ironsides, how my grandfather had sped so ill for years in his wooing, and how my grandmother’s constancy had carried the day, and how all parties had ‘as usual’ been reconciled. Also when my father had been reading some of the old comedies to us, and hit upon the Clandestine marriage,4 though he affected to reprobate the conduct of Miss Fanny, his whole sympathy was with her and her friend Lord Ogleby, so that he leaned very lightly on her errour. He would laugh so merrily too at the old ballads, Whistle and I’ll come to ye, my lad, Low down in the broom,5 and the girl who sent her love away deceived by a blink of the morn etc. These lessons had made quite as much impression as more moral ones. So, reassured by these arguments, we agreed to wait, to keep up our spirits, to give time to be true and faithful to each other, and to trust to the Chapter of accidents.
In all this there was nothing wrong, but a secret correspondence in which we indulged ourselves was a step into the wrong, certainly. We knew we should seldom meet, never without witnesses, and I had not the resolution to refuse the only method left us of softening our separation. One of these stray notes from him to me was intercepted by my mother, and some of the expressions employed were so startling to her that in a country like Scotland, where so little constitutes a marriage, she almost feared we had bound ourselves by ties sufficiently binding to cause considerable annoyance, to say the least of it. She therefore consulted Lord Gillies as her confidential adviser, and he had a conference with Lord Glenlee, the trusted lawyer on the other side, and then the young people were spoken to, to very little purpose.
What passed in the other house I could only guess at from after circumstances. In ours, Lord Gillies was left by my Mother in the room with me; he was always gruff, cold, short in manner, the reverse of agreeable and no favourite with me, he was ill selected therefore for the task of inducing a young lady to give up her lover. I heard him, of course, respectfully, the more so as he avoided all blame of either of us, neither did he attempt to approve of the conduct of our seniors; he restricted his arguments to the inexperience of youth, the unsurmountable aversion of the two fathers, the cruelty of separating family ties, dividing those hitherto living lovingly together, the indecorum of a woman entering a family which not only would not welcome her, but the head of which repudiated her. He counselled me, by every consideration of propriety, affection, and duty, to give ‘this foolish matter up.’ Ah, Lord Gillies, thought I, did you give up Elizabeth Carnegie? did she give up you. When you dared not meet openly, what friend, abetted you secretly. I wish I had had the courage to say this, but I was so nervous at his knowing my story, so abashed at our conversation that words would not come, and I was silent. To my mother I found courage to say that I had yet heard no reasons which would move me to break the word solemnly given, the troth plighted, and could only repeat what I had said at the beginning that we were resigned to wait.
Lord Glenlee had made as little progress; he had had more of a storm to encounter, indignation having produced a flow of eloquence. Affairs therefore remained at a stand still. The fathers kept aloof—mine indeed was still in London; but the mothers agreed to meet and see what could be managed through their agency. Nothing very satisfactory. I would promise nothing, sign nothing, change nothing, without an interview with my betrothed to hear from his own lips his wishes. As if my mind had flown to meet his, he made exactly the same reply to similar importunities. No interview would be granted, so there we stopt again. A growing fancy early perceived might have been easily diverted. It was a matter of more difficulty to tear asunder two hearts too long united.
At length his mother proposed to come and see me, and to bring with her a letter from him, which I was to burn in her presence after reading, and might answer, and she would carry the answer back on the same terms. I knew her well, for she had been always kind to me and had encouraged my intimacy with her daughters; she knew nothing of my more intimate relations with her son. The letter was very lover like, very tender to me, very indignant with every one else, very undutiful and very devoted, less patient than we had agreed on being, more audacious than I dared to be. I read it in much agitation—read it, and then laid it on the fire. ‘and now before you answer it, my poor dear child,’ said this most excellent and most sensible woman, ‘listen to the very words I must say to you,’ and then in the gentlest manner, as a tender surgeon might cautiously touch a wound, rationally and truthfully, she laid all the circumstances of our unhappy case before me, and bade me judge for my self on what was fitting for me to do. She indeed altered all my high resolves, annihilated all my hopes, yet she soothed while she probed, she roused while seeming to crush and she called forth feelings of duty, of self respect, of proper self sacrifice, in the place of the mere passion that had hitherto governed me. She told me that although she considered my education to have been in many respects faulty, the life I led frivolous and that there was much in my own unformed character to condemn, she would have taken me to her heart as her daughter, for the pure, simple nature that shone through all imperfections, and for the true love I bore her son. She knew there was a noble disposition beneath the little follies, but her husband she said would never think so, never ever endure an alliance with my father’s child. They had been friends, intimate friends, in their School and College days; they quarrelled, on what grounds neither of them ever had been known to give to any human being the most distant hint, but in proportion to their former affection was the inveteracy of their after dislike. All communication was over between them, they met as strangers, and were never known to allude to each other, nor to name either fine old name. My father had written to my mother that he would rather see me in the grave than the wife of that man’s son. Her husband had said to her that if that marriage took place he would never speak to his son again, never notice him, nor allow of his being noticed by the family. She told me her husband had a vindictive as well as a violent and a positive temper
, and that she suspected there must be a touch of the same evil dispositions in my father, or so determined an enmity could not have existed; they were, she thought, aware of what might be the consequences of such unchristian feelings, for they had swore never to have any intercourse and they felt that they were wrong, as was evidenced by the extra attention each had paid the other’s children. At their age she feared there was no cure. She plainly shewed she had no hope of shaking any of the resolve in her house. She came then she added, to confide in me, to tell me the whole truth, as it would be safe with me, to shew me that, with such feelings active against us, nothing but serious unhappiness lay before us, in which distress all connexions must expect to share. She said we had been cruelly used, most undesignedly; she blamed neither so far, but she had satisfied her judgment that the peculiar’ situation of the families now demanded from me this sacrifice; I must set free her son, he could not give me up honourably. She added very, very kindly that great trials produced great characters, that fine natures rose up above difficulties, that few women, or men either, wedded their first love, that these disappointments were salutary. She said what she liked, for I seldom answered her; my doom was sealed; I was not going to bring misery in my train to any family, to divide it and humiliate myself, destroy perhaps the future of the man I loved, rather than give him or myself some present pain. The picture of the old gentleman too was far from pleasing, and perhaps affected, though unconsciously, the very timid nature that was now so crushed.
Memoirs of a Highland Lady Page 42