At our little parties Jane came out amazingly; she was never shy, always natural and gay and clever, and though not strictly handsome, she looked so bright, so well, with her fine eyes and her rosy mouth, she was in extreme request with all our Beaux. To the old set of the two former winters I had added considerably during the course of this more sociable one, and Jane went shares whenever she was seen. She carried one altogether away from me, the celebrated Basil Hall. He had just this very year returned from Loo Choo, had published his book,12 brought home flat needles, and cloth made from wood, and a funny cap which he put on very good humouredly, and chop sticks which he ate with very obligingly; in short, he did the polite voyager to no end. Jane was quite taken with him, so was Jane Hunter; Margaret Hunter13 and I used to be quite amused with them and him, and wonder how they could wait on the Lion so perseveringly. He was the second son of Sir James Hall, a man not actually crazy, but not far from it; so given up to scientifick pursuits as to be incapable of attending to his private affairs. They were in consequence much disordered, and they would have been entirely deranged but for the care of his wife, Lady Helen. Sir James had very lately published a truly ingenious work,14 an attempt to deduce go thick architecture from the original wigwams made of reeds. The drawings were beautifully executed, not by himself, I fancy, and by them he clearly shewed the fluted pillars of stone copied from faggots of osier, groined arches from the slender shoots bent over and tyed together, buds originating ornaments; a fanciful theory may be, yet with some shew of reason in it. Lady Helen, a great friend of my Mother’s, was sister to the Lord Selkirk15 who went to colonise in America. How could the children of such a pair escape. Their eldest son was a fool merely; Basil, flighty, and his end miserable; a third, Jamie, used to cry unless Jane or I danced with him—nobody else would. Three or four beautiful girls died of consumption, Fanny among them, two were idiots out at nurse some where in the country, and one had neither hands nor feet, only stumps. I used to wonder how Lady Helen16 kept her senses; calm she always looked, very kind, she always was, wrapt up her affections were in Basil and the two daughters who lived and married—Magdalen, first Lady de Lancey and then Mrs Harvey, and Emily, the wife of an English clergyman. The eldest son married too, Julia Walker, Dr Hope’s niece and heiress.
Dr Hope was the Professor of chemistry,17 an old Admirer, nay I believe more, of my Aunt Mary’s, and still the flutterer round every new beauty that appeared. I preferred him to Professor Leslie18 because he was clean, but not to Professor Playfair; he, old, and ugly, and absent, was charming, fond of the young who none of them feared him, glad to be drawn away from his mathematical difficulties to laugh over a tea table with such as Jane and me. We were favourites too with Dr Brewster, who was particularly agreeable, and with John Clerk, who called Jane, Euphrosyne, and with Mr Jeffrey with whom we gradually came to spend a great deal of our time,19 I had Lord Buchan all to myself though, he cared for no one else in the house. He lived very near us, and came in most mornings in his shepherd’s plaid, with his long white hair flowing over his shoulders, to give me lessons in behaviour. He was particularly uneasy at my biting my nails, rated me well, examined the fingers and would give a smart rap where necessary. If he were pleased he would bring out some curiosity from his pockets—a tooth of Queen Mary’s, a bone of James the 5th, imaginary relicks he set great store by. How many flighty people there were in Scotland—neither of his extraordinary brothers quite escaped the taint. Lord Erskine and Harry Erskine20 were both of them at times excited. At a certain point judgment seems to desert genius. Another friend I made this year who remembered to ask about me very lately, Adam Hay, now Sir Adam. He was Sir John Hay’s third son when I knew him. John died, Robert the very handsome sailor was drowned, so the Baronetcy fell to Adam. Are not the Memoirs of the old a catalogue of the deaths of all who were young with them. Adam Hay tried to shake my integrity; he advocated, as he thought, the cause of his dearest friend, whose mother, dear excellent woman, having died, their sophistry persuaded them so had my promise. We had many grave conversations on a sad subject, while people thought we were arranging our matrimonial excursion.21 He told me I was blamed, and I told him I must bear it; I did add one day, it was no easy burden, he should not seek to make it heavier. His own sister, some time after this, succeeded to my place; lovely and most loveable she was, and truly loved I do believe. Adam Hay told me of it when he first knew it, long afterwards, and I said, so best; yet the end was not yet. I had never female friends, I don’t know why; I never took to them unless they were quite elderly. I had only Jane, but she was a host.
Poor Jane—this very spring she sprained her ankle, that very ankle that never strengthened again. My Uncle William suddenly arrived from Houghton, and all of us running quickly down to welcome him, Jane slipt her left foot, turned it under her, and fell from the pain, tumbling on over the whole flight of the stairs. All that was proper was done for it, and we thought lightly of the accident, as she was only laid up three weeks or so. She felt it better not to use it much, and so for the present the matter rested. Our Uncle remained with us a few days only; he had come to consult my father on some business, and my Mother on an invitation he had received for his eldest daughter Kate to join Uncle Edward and his lately married wife in India. Soon after he went Aunt Leitch arrived—not to us. She liked being independant. She had taken lodgings at Leith for the purpose of sea bathing for Mary and Charlotte, two other daughters of Uncle William’s, who had lived with her for some years. Charlotte had not been well and had been ordered to the sea, so on our account my Aunt thought she would try the East coast. Every second day they dined with us, at least, walking up that mile long Leith Walk22 and our long street, and back again in the cool April evenings; fatigue enough to do away with all the good of the sea bathing. Charlotte was a mere rather pretty girl, nothing particular; Mary was most extremely beautiful. What a fate was hers! but I must not anticipate.
Aunt Leitch told us of Durham cousins living, poor people, very near us, within the rules of the Abbey,23 on account of debt. Misfortunes had overtaken some of the husbands of the nine Miss Neshams. The Goodchilds were bankrupt, as were such of the connexions who had been engaged in business with them. Mr Carr, the husband of the eldest sister, had lost all; they had to fly with a very small portion of their personal property from their comfortable house at Stockton, and take refuge in a very sorry lodging inside the kennel at Holyrood. We found them out immediately, and from that time forward very much lightened their banishment. At first there were only the poor silly old man and his wife, and two Stockton maidservants, not yet done with untiring efforts to clean up indifferent furniture. By and bye came George, their youngest son, not long from School, clever enough and the best of good creatures, but so unmitigably vulgar his company was frequently distressing. My Mother was quite disturbed by his conduct, and the roars of laughter it elicited from my father. They generally dined with us on Sunday, the only day the old man could go out, the carriage going for them and taking them home, George calling out ‘my eye’ and making faces at the coachman. He was a fit beau for a belle lately arrived amongst us.
Mrs Gillio, once Miss Peggy Grant of Craggan, niece to the old General and to Peter the Pensioner, had settled at Bath after her visit to the highlands. She intended leaving her youngest daughter and her son at good schools in England, and was preparing to return to Bombay with her two eldest girls when she heard of her husband’s death. Her circumstances being much changed by this calamity, she thought of Edinburgh as uniting many advantages for all her children at a cheaper rate than she could procure them else where. We took lodgings for them which, by the bye, they changed; the boy was to attend the high School, the two younger girls the classes, and the elder ones to go a little out if they made desirable acquaintance. Amelia Gillio, with her brilliant eyes, was not a plain girl; she was worse, she was an impudent one, and many and many a time I should liked to have shipped her off to the antipodes for the annoyance she caused us. After a w
alk with Nancy McLeod, or a visit to Agnes Cathcart, or the Hunters, how this fourth rate young lady’s tones grated rather on the ears all unaccustomed to them. It was the time of short waists and short petticoats, and the Bath, or Miss Amelia’s, fashions were so extra short at both extremities, we were really ashamed of being seen with her; the black frock reached very little below the knee—she had certainly irreproachable feet and ankles. George Carr attracted equal attention by wearing his hat on the back of his head, never having a glove on, and besides talking very loudly, he snatched up all the notices of sales and such like carried about the streets by hawkers, and stuffed them with a meaning laugh into his pockets, saying they would do for ‘summat,’ he was very intolerable.
We had a visitor this spring of a different grade, Colonel d’Este, whom we had not seen since the old Prince Augustus days. He was just as natural as ever, asked himself to dinner, and talked of Ramsgate. He had not then given up his claim to Royalty,24 therefore there was a little skilful arrangement on his part to avoid either assumption or renunciation. He entered unannounced, my father meeting him at the door and ushering him into the room, my mother, and all the ladies on her hint, rising till he begged them to be seated and on going to dinner he bowed all out, remaining beside my Mother as her escort. Other wise he conformed to common usage, let the servants wait on him, and perhaps did not observe that we had no finger glasses; which reminds me that a year or two after when Prince Leopold was at Kinrara, Lord Huntly, precise as he was, had forgotten to mention to his servants that nobody ever washed before royalty, and from the moment this omission struck him, he sat in such an agony as to be incapable of his usual happy knack of keeping the ball going. Very luckily some of the Prince’s attendants had an eye to all, and stopt the offending chrystals on their way. I don’t know what brought Colonel D’Este to Scotland at that season of year, he was probably going to some of his Mother’s relations in the West.25 I remember Lord Abercromby being asked to meet him, and after accepting, he sent an apology; ‘an unavoidable accident which happily would never be repeated’ set us all off on a train of conjectures wide of the truth, the newspapers next day announcing the marriage of this grave elderly friend of my father’s.
We left Sir John Hay’s house in May; he was coming to live in it himself with his pretty daughters; and we went for three months to the house of Mr Allan the Banker, in Charlotte Square, just while we should be considering where to fix for a permanency. Mrs Allan was ill, and was going to some watering place, and they were glad to have their house occupied. Before we moved we paid two country visits, my father, my mother and I.
Our first visit was to Dunbar, Lord Lauderdale’s,26 a mere family party, to last the two or three days my Lord and my father were arranging some political matters. They were always brimfull of party mysteries, having a constant correspondence on these subjects. My mother had so lectured me on the necessity of being any thing but myself on this startling occasion that in spite of all my experience a fit of Kinrara feel came over me for the first evening. I was so busy with the proper way to sit, and the proper mode to speak the few words I was to be allowed to say, and the attention I was to pay to all the nods and winks she was to give me, that a fit of shyness actually came on, and my spirits were quite crushed by these preliminaries and the curious state of household we fell upon. In the very large drawing room the family sat in there was plenty of comfortable furniture, including an abundance of easy chairs set in a wide circle around the fire. Before each easy chair was placed a stool rather higher than would have been agreeable for feet to rest on, but quite suited to the purpose it was prepared for—the kennel of a dog. I don’t know how many of these pets the Ladies Maitland and their mother were provided with, but a black nose peeped out of an opening in the side of every stool immediately on the entrance of a visitor, and the barking was incessant. At this time four daughters were at home unmarried, and two or three sons. One daughter was dead, and one had disposed of herself some years before by running away with poor, very silly, and not wealthy Fraser of Torbreck, then quartered at Dunbar with the regiment of Militia in which he was a Captain. This proceeding of the Lady Anne quite changed the face of affairs in her father’s family. Lord Lauderdale had rather late in his man of fashion life married the only child of one Mr Antony Tod, Citizen of London.27 Pretty she had been never; she was a mere little painted doll when we knew her, a cypher as to intellect, but her fortune had been very large, and she was amiable and obedient, and her Lord, they said, really became fond of her and of all the many children she brought him. He was not vain, however, either of her or of them, he had no reason; so he kept them all greatly living in great retirement at Dunbar, never taking any of them with him to town, nor allowing them to visit either in Edinburgh or in their own neighbourhood, till the elopement of Lady Anne, the only beauty. From that sore time Lady Lauderdale and her remaining daughters lived much more in society. They had begun too to feel their own importance, and to venture on opposing my Lord, for Mr Tod was dead, and had left to each of his grandchildren, sons and daughters alike, £15,000. The rest to his daughter for her life, with remainder to her eldest son, Lord Maitland. To his son in law the Earl Mr Tod left nothing. Here was power to the weaker side, exerted, it was said, occasionally, but they were an united happy family, fondly attached to each other.28
The square Maitland face was not improved by the Tod connexion, though the family finances so greatly benefited by it. Sons and daughters of the house were alike plain in face and short in person, even Lady Anne, with her really lovely countenance, was a dwarf in size and ill proportioned; but there was a very redeeming expression generally thrown over the flat features, and they had all pleasant manners. The second day went off much more agreeably than the first, although I had to bear some quizzing on my horrour of gambling. In the morning the young people drove, or rode, and walked; before dinner the ladies worked a little, netting purses and knotting bags; the gentlemen played with the dogs. All the evenings were spent at cards, and such high play, Brag and Loo29 unlimited. It was nothing for fifty or an hundred pounds to change hands among them. I was quite terrified. My few shillings, the first I had called my own for ages, given me for the occasion in a new purse bought to hold them, were soon gone at Brag, under the management of Captain Antony Maitland, R.N. He had undertaken to teach me the game, of which I had acknowledged I knew nothing, for we never saw cards at home except when a whist table was made up for Belleville; and as the eternal cry ‘Anty Anty’ did not repair my losses, and I sturdily refused to borrow, declining therefore to play, and composing myself gravely to look on, they could hardly keep their countenances; my whole poor fortune was such a trifle to them. It was not however my loss so much as what my Mother would say to it that disturbed me. She was very economical in those little ways, and her unwonted liberality upon this occasion would, I knew, be referred to ever after as a bar to any further supplies, the sum now given having been so squandered. I sought her in her room before we went to bed to make the confession, fully believing it had been a crime. The thoughts of the whole scene make me laugh now, though I certainly slept all the better then on being graciously forgiven ‘under the circumstances.’
There was no company, only Sir Philip Dirom, arranging his marriage settlements with Lord Lauderdale, the guardian of the Bride, the heiress Miss Henderson. He was a handsome man, gentlemanly, and rather agreeable, not clever in the least, and very vain. He had won honours in his profession, the navy, and his latest acquisition, a diamond star of some order, was the single object of his thoughts, after Miss Henderson’s acres. Lord Lauderdale laid a bet that Sir Philip would not be two hours in the house without producing it; nor was he. In the middle of dinner, having dexterously turned the conversation on the orders of knighthood, he sent his servant for it, sure, he said, that some of the ladies would like to see the pretty bauble—one of the principal insignia of the Bath I suppose it was. Lord Maitland received and handed the little red case round with a mock gravi
ty that nearly overset the decorum of the company. How little, when laughing at these foibles, did we foresee that the vain knight’s great niece was to be my cousin Edmund’s wife, or fancy that he would be so kind, so generous, to that thoughtless pair.
The other visit was only for the day. We did not even sleep from home, but returned very late at night, for Almondell was twelve miles good from Edinburgh. Henry Erskine had added to a small cottage prettily situated on the river from which he named his retirement, and there, tired of politicks, he wore away time that I believed sometimes lagged with him, in such country pursuits as he could follow on an income that gave him little beyond the necessaries of life. He and Mrs Erskine had no greater pleasure than to receive a few friends to an early dinner; they had a large connexion, a choice acquaintance, and were in themselves so particularly agreeable that, company or no, a few hours passed with them were always a treat. Each had been twice married; his first wife I never heard more of than that she had left him children, two sons no way worthy of him, Mrs Callander, and another married daughter. The last wife had no children, either Erskines or Turnbulls, and her father, Mr Munro, a merchant in Glasgow, having failed, her youth was a struggling one. She had even had to draw patterns for tambour work for her bread. Her sister Meg Munro, afterwards Mrs Harley Drummond, was a much more conspicuous person than Mrs Erskine. Their brothers were Sir Thomas Munro and Mr Alexander Munro, the husband of Lady Molesworth’s handsome sister. Mrs Gumming and Grace Baillie had an old intimacy with these Munros; they were all from Ayrshire, and that is a bond in Scotland.
Memoirs of a Highland Lady Page 46