Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

  My father actually got a Cadetship for George McIntosh after this, and sent him to India.

  1. Two near contemporaries who led the way were the future Prime Ministers, Lord Palmerston (1800−03) and Lord John Russell (1809−12), who lodged with Professor Playfair.

  2. Burns’ poem written about this tributary of the river Garry in 1787, took the form of a plea to the Duke of Athole for just this son of development:

  Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,

  My lowly banks o’erspread …

  Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest,

  My craggy cliffs adorn,

  (‘The Humble Petition of Bruar Water’).

  3. Pack or baggage horse.

  4. An ‘old man’ or a ‘hobgoblin’.

  5. Thomas McKenzie of Applecross was M.P. for Ross-shire, 1818−22.

  6. One of the best-known of the prophesies of Coinneach Odhar, the seventeenth century ‘Brahan Seer’ from Lewis.

  7. The twenty-first Caber Feidh (the hereditary chief of the Clan McKenzie) had four sons, the last of whom died in 1814; the chief died of a broken heart the following year. The title went to Mackenzie of Allengrange and the estates to his eldest daughter, who had married Admiral Sir Samuel Hood.

  8. Lady Augusta (1760−1831) married Colonel Henry Clavering; she was the sister of the sixth Duke.

  9. Anglo-Indian for Chief or Supreme.

  10. See II, pp. 175−7.

  11. Jebediah Strutt and Need had a successful partnership joined by Richard Arkwright in 1768; their development of his water-frame played an important pan in the Industrial Revolution.

  12. Henry Mackenzie (1745−1831) whose Man of Feeling was published in 1771; for Scott he was the ‘Northern Addison’.

  13. An insensitive youth in Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1773).

  14. He published in 1812 Essays towards illustrating some Elementary Principles relating to Wealth and Currency.

  15. It was her second daughter, Madelina, who married twice and the eldest, Charlotte, who married Charles, the fourth Duke of Richmond and Lennox (it was she who gave the Ball before Waterloo—‘There was a sound of revelry by night,’ Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, III, xxi).

  16. See1, pp. 233−4.

  17. Bell (1770−1843) was six years later appointed to the Chair of Scots Law in Edinburgh.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  1816−1817

  IN November 1816 we travelled back to Edinburgh to take possession of Sir John Hay’s house in George Street, an infinitely more agreeable winter residence than Lady Augusta Clavering’s very gloomy old barrack in Queen Street, It was an excellent family house, warm, cheerful, aery, with abundant accommodation for a larger party than ours; but there was the same fault of but one drawing room and a small study off of it. Perhaps my father wanted no space for a Ball. The town was much fuller than it had been before, of course gayer, many very pleasant people were added to our society. War was over. All its anxieties, all its sorrows had passed away, and though there must have been many sad homes made for ever, in a degree, desolate, these individual griefs did not affect the surface of our cheerful world. The bitterness of party still prevailed too much in the town, estranging many who would have been improved by mixing more with one another. Also it was a bad system that divided us all into small côteries; the bounds were not strictly defined, and far from strictly kept; still, the various little sections were all there, apart, each small set overvaluing itself and undervaluing its neighbours.

  There was the fashionable set, headed by Lady Gray of Kinfauns, Lady Moles worth unwillingly admitted, her sister Mrs Munro, and several other regular party giving women, seeming to live for crowds at home and abroad. Lady Molesworth, the fast daughter of a managing manoeuvring mother, very clever, no longer young, ran off with a boy at College of old Cornish family and large fortune, and made him an admirable wife—for he was little beyond a fool—and gave him a clever son, the present Sir William Molesworth.1 Within, or beyond this, was an exclusive set, the McLeods of McLeod, Gumming Gordons, Shaw Steuarts, Murrays of Ochtertyre, etc. Then there was a card playing set, of which old Mrs Oliphant of Rossie was the principal support, assisted by her daughters Mrs Grant of Kilgraston and Mrs Veitch, Mr and Mrs Massie, Mr and Mrs Richmond, she was sister to Sir Thomas Liddell, Lord Ravensworth, Miss Sinclair of Murkle the Duchess of Gordon’s first cousin and the image of her, though a plain likeness, Sam Anderson and others. By the bye, Mrs Richmond was the heroine of the queer story in Mr Ward’s Tremaine,2 and she actually did wear the breeches. And there was a quiet country gentleman set, Lord and Lady Wemyss, all the Campbells, Lord and Lady Murray, Sir James and Lady Helen Hall, Sir John and Lady Steuart, Graemes, Hays, and so forth. A literary set, including College professors, Authours, and others pleased thus to represent themselves. A clever set with Mrs Fletcher. The law set. Strangers, and inferiours. All shook up together they would have done very well. Even when partially mingled they were very agreeable. When primmed up, each phalanx apart, on two sides of the turbulent stream of politicks, arrayed as if for battle, there was really some fear of a clash at times. We were so fortunate as to skim the cream, I think, off all varieties; though my father publickly was violent enough in his Whiggism he never let it interfere with the amenities of private life, and my Mother kept herself quite aloof from all party work.

  The Lord Provost of Edinburgh was seldom in any of these sets; he was generally a tradesman of repute among his equals, and in their society he was content to abide. This winter the choice happened to fall on a little man of good family, highly connected in the mercantile world, married to an Inverness Alves, and much liked. I don’t remember what his pursuit was, whether he was a Banker, or Agent for the great Madras house his brother George was the head of,3 but he was a kind hospitable man, his wife Mrs Arbuthnot very Highland, and though neither the one nor the other had the least pretensions to good manners, they were general favourites. He was chosen provost again when his three years were out, so he received the king, George IV., on his memorable visit, and was made a Baronet.4 Just before him we had had Sir John Marjoribanks of Lees, mercantile too.5 After him, the town Council went back to their own degree. The name amongst us for Sir William Arbuthnot, I call him by the name we knew him best by, was Dicky Gossip, and richly he deserved it, for he knew all that was doing every where to every body, all that was pleasant to know; a bit of illnature or a bit of ill news he never uttered. After a visit from him and his excellent wife, they were fond of going about together, a deal of what was going on seemed to have suddenly enlightened their listeners, and most agreeably. A tale of scandal never spread from them, nor yet a sarcasm. They, from their situation, saw a great deal of company, and no parties could be pleasanter than those they gave. They were much enlivened this year by the arrival of a sister from Spain, the Widow of Sir John Hunter, the late Consul general at Madrid. Lady Hunter, still in weeds, she did not shew herself; her two very nice daughters appeared at home, though they went out only to small gatherings of relations till the spring. They were just sufficiently foreign to be the more interesting, and they were so ladylike we took greatly to them, became quite intimate, and never were estranged although widely separated. Jane Hunter and Jane Grant more particularly remained faithful to their early friendship even after their names were changed, even to this day.

  Locality has a good deal to do with intimacies. In Heriot Row and in Queen Street we had no acquaintance very near us. In Heriot Row the Cathcarts were next door, and Lord Alloway, who was a Widower, seemed anxious that his daughters should be a good deal with us; they were,—but that was all, for Agnes was merely gentle and pleasing, Mary very pretty, the brothers quite cloddish, so that we never got on very far, although we were much together. In George Street we were in the midst of agreeable neighbours. Near the Arbuthnots in Charlotte Square were the Gumming Gordons, the old Lady and her four unmarried daughters, Charles, and Sir William and his Bride on a visit to them. Young Lady G
ordon Cumming, as she called herself for distinction, was not handsome, very tall—five feet ten and a half—thin, not well made, neither were her features good, yet all together, when well dressed, I have seen her look magnificent. The whole connexion was in a dream of joy at Sir Willie’s wife being the daughter of Lady Charlotte Campbell, niece to the Duke of Argylle. It was Eliza here, and Eliza there, and Eliza only; they were awakened by and bye, and rather rudely, but this winter it was all an intoxication of happiness. Old Lady Gumming never went out, but every evening, when the rest of the family were in, the shutters were left open to shew the drawing rooms lighted up, and a general invitation was given to certain familiar friends on such occasions to enter if agreeable. There was a card table, always musick, for Sophy Gumming played delightfully, Charles very well on the violincello, Sir James Riddell, my friend Campbell’s elder brother, equally well on the violin; there was a flute too sometimes, and in the flute’s absence, a man whose name I can’t remember whistled like a sweet double flageolet. When Sophy was out of the way I have taken the pianoforte for her—a very miserable substitute. Young Lady Gumming sang ballads neatly, all she had voice for. One of the married daughters, Mrs John Forbes, was observed by the old Lady to shirk these pleasant evenings rather, so the four sisters remonstrated. Mrs Forbes frankly acknowledged that she had not time, a houseful of children and an advocate’s income left her little leisure for gadding; the sisters begged however she would come, as their mother liked to have as many of her family as she could gather round her, and they told her to bring her work, that would prevent her loss of time. So she did; I saw her there busy with a pair of coarse sheets, seaming down the long seam with a long thread, stitching and stretching, dragging this web bit by bit out of a great canvas bag as she wanted it; and yet she did not look unladylike. All the Cummings were queer, queerer than one ever sees people now, but the good blood kept order to a certain degree.

  Lady Charlotte Bury, she had become, passed a few days in Edinburgh this season without the husband; her second daughter Eleanor, afterwards Lady Uxbridge, was with her, a pretty creature, the image of me! It was really curious the extraordinary likeness to us that ran through this whole Campbell connexion, and no relationship between us. Some two hundred years back or more an Argylle Campbell had married a Grant of Grant, and her daughter had married a Grant of Rothiemurchus, but that was too remote descent; besides, ’twas in the Gunning and the Ironside the likeness lay. My mother was so like Lady Wemyss they were frequently mistaken. Uncle Ralph and Walter Campbell the Uncle, the sailor, were like as two brothers. Lady Eleanor Charteris—afterwards Campbell, for she married her cousin Walter—was asked to dance for me, and I was congratulated on my approaching marriage for her. Lady Uxbridge and I were more alike. Even Charlotte Clavering, Lady Augusta’s daughter, had a look of me after she dressed quietly as the wife of Miles Fletcher. Emma Campbell could hardly be known from my sister Mary, William and Walter Campbell ditto, Johnny and Johnny Campbell; and Mary and I were both so like the Miss Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and Argylle, that they used at Altyre to dress us up and set us underneath her picture as a show and Mary certainly was as beautiful. After all, perhaps the surprise is that with so few features to work with nature is able to vary us all so much; that really is more wonderful than that some few of us should be alike. Where there is such near resemblance, character must have something to do with it.

  Lady Ashburton’s was another pleasant house; she was a Cuninghame of Lainshaw, niece to Lord Cranstoun6 and to Dugald Stewart, one of the College professors.7 He took pupils, and had among them this very eccentric son of the Speaker, Mr Dunning, Lord Ashburton,8 he was ungainly in person, disagreeable in habits, some years younger than Miss Cuninghame, who would have him, despight both uncles; Lord Cranston felt it was a throwing away of a fine girl, Dugald Stewart took it a reflexion on himself that in his house, while under his care, a very wealthy nobleman should be while so young engaged to his niece. The niece did not care; she was cold and she was ambitious, so she married her Lord, and they had a fine country house and a beautiful town house—two houses thrown into one, which gave her a splendid suite of apartments for the grave style of receiving company that suited her taste; a dinner party every week, and in the evening her rooms thrown open to an assemblage that filled them. Her intimate acquaintance had cards for the season. Others she asked when she liked—there was no amusement provided, neither dancing nor musick nor cards, and yet it was always agreeable. In one of the many rooms was a counter spread with a variety of refreshments. In another were a number of small round tables where groups of any desired size were served with tea. Lord Ashburton delighted in company, and in people that were fat; like Julius Caesar he objected to all who had a lean and hungry look! He went about smiling, though saying little except to himself; he had a trick of soliloquising, so very oddly. We dined there one day, and it so happened that I sat next to him; he looked at me, after a while he looked again: ‘That’s a pretty girl—Miss Grant, I fancy; not fat enough. I must ask her to take wine.’ All this was to himself, then aloud: ‘Miss Grant, a glass of wine with me? It was the fashion then to pay this civility to all ladies, who could not have got any otherwise, and who, some of them, liked a good deal. ‘It’s a pity she’s so thin. What shall I say next to her?’ He could not talk, converse, I mean, merely start out a few words thus, always however to the purpose. One of Lady Ashburton’s sisters was married to McLeod of Cadboll, a Ross-shire laird, and an aunt was the Baroness Purgstall in Germany. This German aunt had given to two of her country men letters of introduction to her old friends in Edinburgh. Lady Ashburton presented them to my Mother. My Mother, who always liked foreigners, paid them a great deal of attention. The Styrian Baron Gudenus and the Saxon Chevalier Thinnfeldt were soon made free of our house, and very much indeed they enlivened it. They were well bred, well educated, sensible young men, great additions to our society. The Baron, the only son of an old Gratz family, was travelling for pleasure, or perhaps for health—he looked sickly. The Chevalier had a large property in mines, and came to our country to get some insight into a better method of working them.

  There were very few large balls given this winter. Lady Gray, Mrs Grant of Kilgraston, Mrs McLeod, and a few others retained this old method of entertaining. A much pleasanter style of smaller parties had come into fashion with the new style of dancing. It was the first season of quadrilles, against the introduction of which there had been a great stand made by old fashioned respectables. Many resisted the new french figures altogether, and it was a pity so entirely to give up the merry country dance, in which the warfare between the two opinions resulted; but we were all the young people bit by the quadrille mania, and I was one of the set that brought them first into notice. We practised privately by the aid of a very much better master than Mr Smart. Finlay Dunn had been abroad, imported all the most graceful steps from Paris; and having kept our secret well, we burst upon the world at a select reunion at the White Melvilles’, the Spectators standing up the chairs and sofas to admire us. People danced in those days; we did not merely stand and talk, look about bewildered for our vis a vis, return to our partners either too soon or too late, without any regard to the completion of the figure, the conclusion of the measure, or the step belonging to it; we attended to our business, we moved in cadence, easily and quietly, embarrassing no one and appearing to considerable advantage ourselves. We were only eight; Mr White Melville and Nancy McLeod opposite to Charles Cochrane and me, Johnny Melville and Charles McLeod with Fanny Hall and Miss Melville. So well did we all perform, that our Exhibition was called for and repeated several times in the course of the evening. We had no trouble in enlisting cooperators, the rage for Cotillons9 spreads the dancing master was in every house, and every other style discarded. Room being required for the display, much smaller numbers were invited to the quadrille parties. Two, or at the most three, instruments sufficed for band, refreshments suited us better than suppers, an economy that enabled the In
viters to give three or four of these little sociable dances at less cost than one ball; it was every way an improvement. My Mother gave several of these little parties so well suited to the accommodations of our house, and at no cost to my father, Uncle Edward having sent her for the purpose of being spent in any way she liked upon her daughter, a hundred pounds.

  Of our first Edinburgh quadrille who are left. The White Melvilles were a family of two bachelour brothers and two unmarried sisters, protected by a married sister and her handsome Irish husband, Mr Jackson. Of the women I have never heard more; they were plain, well brought up, and had good fortunes. Robert the laird was a man of large property and very likeable, but he died, and Johnny, his brother, a very nice person, little thought of by the managing Committees, and small and plain, grew wonderfully in all ways on becoming great. But he remembered his younger brother days, and sought his Bride from afar; he married Lady Catherine Osborne, sister, half-sister rather, to the present Duke of Leeds; both are dead, and their children are married. Charles Cochrane, very handsome, a most perfect dancer, and always a great friend of mine, for I like all sailors, is still living, I think. He has been a great traveller, walking all over the world, is an authour,10 a philanthropist, eccentrick but kindly. All the Cochranes are maddish, Charles had a brother Andrew, madly in love with one of the Ladies Charteris. He disguised himself first as a lamp lighter that he might look on her as she sat at dinner, and then as a gardener that he might watch her in her walks, Lord Wemyss having a large garden belonging to his house in Queen Street. Charles McLeod was brother to Harris, no way nearly related to Nancy. She was sister to the McLeod, as plain a man as she was a handsome girl; her brother’s wife was a very underbred woman, City reared, daughter of a merchant, and sister to the Banker Stephenson, almost another Fauntleroy. Nancy McLeod married Spencer Percival, an old Italian love.11 I met her afterwards at Cheltenham with nine not pretty daughters and two sons. I liked her much.