Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

  The excessive cleanliness was almost more to be admired than all else; it pervaded the habits of the nation throughout. The streets were daily swept, the pavements daily washed, the railings daily wiped, the windows daily rubbed, the brasses daily brightened. Within it was the same; no corner left unvisited by the busy maid, the very door keys were polished, like the small bunches we keep in our pockets, cupboards, closets, shelves, not only spotless but neatly ornamental; white paper with a cut fringe, or white linen frilled, laid along under the shining wares they were appropriated to hold. Yet nobody seemed overworked. In the afternoons all the women were spinning or knitting, as beautifully tidy in their own persons as was all the property around them. There were no dirty children, even no beggars. They are all early risers, and very active in their movements—regardless of consequences too! In our before breakfast walks we often got more from the whirl of the mop than we liked, while the regular splashing and dashing was going on during the hour all the houses were having their faces washed. A girl with long gold ear rings dangling, would be out in the street with her pail, too intent on the freshening up of her master’s dwelling to think of the passers by. In Ireland here we can’t get our maids to wash our doorsteps—must not propose such an indignity—some of the very particular ones object to kneel to wash the kitchen flags; and as for dusting, or bright rubbing! alas! damp as is our climate we must put up not only with rusty keys, but rusty fire irons, for a generation or two yet. Our lady wives not thinking the care of their families a duty, as does the comfortable Dutch vrow. The damp in Holland was the original cause of all this care, destruction would have followed carelessness, and does follow it here. The hotel was just as admirably kept as any private house. We had no sitting room, but the bedrooms were very large, and we took our meals in the saloon, breakfast at a small table at our own hour, dinner at the table d’hôte. The eating was very good, abundance of it, nice fruit, wine, beer, and most delicious tea; never before nor since nor any where else did I ever drink any equal to it. The coffee was very strong of chicorée, but well made, and I believe the bitter made it more wholesome. The bread was either too heavy or too spongy for our taste.

  The table d’hôte was very pleasant; many of the townspeople seemed to dine there, bachelours mostly, without homes, and travellers, all of whom spoke to those they happened to sit next, charitably acting to one another as if there were no convicts in the company. The Dutch are called a silent people, yet some of them at least had plenty to say, French being our medium of conversation—a foreign language both to them and us. We found the low Dutch commonly spoken by no means hard to learn a little of. Jane and I were very soon able to carry on all the business of our travelling party so as to be perfectly understood by servants and tradespeople. We were bargaining at the door steps with a flower girl, when a very smart English group, new arrivals, elbowed their way past us. Some of the faces were familiar to us, and a lady’s loud, shrill, very English voice gave me quite a start I remembered it so well, but where, I could not puzzle out. When we were assembled at three o’clock to dinner a door opened and the party entered, the ladies in great dress, all in rich silks, one with a bare neck, all with the smartest heads, a turban, a blonde cap with flowers, ribbons, trinkets—making themselves in every way so conspicuous that we really felt ashamed of our compatriots. Imagine the feelings then with which I received the most gracious of bows from the turban, and heard the sharp provincial voice pronounce my name, adding that the owner of these two properties could give me a better than ordinary report of my ‘poor dear Uncle at Oxford.’ It was the President of Trinity and Mrs Lee! her sister and a soldier husband. Captain English by name, and two or three other Ipswich friends who had made a run across the Channel to see some of the wonders of Holland. Introductions all round followed of course as soon as we rose from the table, and we agreed to take tea together in one of our bedrooms. Very obliging they all were, and Mrs Lee did give my mother a more comfortable account of Dr Griffith’s health than my Aunt Mary had latterly been able to send us. Still the case looked melancholy enough, and this kind hearted woman seemed to feel it so sincerely that even William forgave the midday turban. They were going on to Antwerp next day, so that we were saved another full dress daylight dinner. My father, who extremely enjoyed my Mother’s discomfiture on this rather startling occasion, had behaved very ill by drawing Mrs English out, as he called it, and so he was banished after their departure to take a walk till his extraordinary paroxisms of laughter were over. I went with him along the Bompjes under the trees by the side of the water, and reaching the part at which the Harwich packet landed the passengers, who should step ashore but Mr Canning—the only time I ever saw him. He and my father seemed glad to meet,3 and while they were conversing I had an opportunity of correcting all my imaginary impressions of the great man. He was not so tall and much more slender than I expected. His countenance was pale, anxious almost, and certainly no longer handsome; the high, well developed forehead alone reminded me of the prints of him. He was travelling with his sick son, a boy of seventeen or so, a cripple confined to a Merlin chair, and supported in that by many cushions. An elderly, very attentive servant never left the invalid’s side, while another looked after the luggage and a carriage fitted up with a sort of sofa bed. They did not come to the Badthouse, so we saw no more of them; but I could not forget them, and often after, when the world was ringing with Mr Canning’s fame, this scene of his private life returned to me, for he lost the son. It was Mr Burke and his son over again4 as to many of the circumstances, only Mr Canning had another son, and one daughter whose marriage to Lord Clanricarde helped to kill him. Mrs Canning, the wife, was sister to the Duchess of Portland and the Countess of Moray. They were co-heiresses with very large fortunes. something like a hundred thousand pounds apiece; indeed I believe the eldest sister had more. It was all made by whist, their father, General Scott, being the most accomplished player of his day. He pursued it as a business, ate an early dinner of mutton or chicken with a glass of wine, no more, and then encountered any body, every body, full or fasting, taking good care however of who was his partner. He was never accused of the slightest approach to any incorrect practices, he merely took the advantage of a sober man over those who had dined well; it was not called dishonourable, this!, his opponents were free Agents. He left a curious will. He ordered his daughters to marry into the peerage under the penalty of forfeiting all share of their inheritance should any of them give herself to a Commoner. How absurd are these meddlers with the future. Mrs Canning, of course, lost her fortune, but her ennobled sisters each presented her with fifty thousand pounds as a wedding present.

  We remained above a week in Rotterdam. Besides that this first specimen of foreign lands extremely interested us, we had made acquaintance with a very agreeable family long residents in the town, Mr Ferrier’s our consul, a native of Brechin, not then knighted, to whom Lord Gillies had given us an introduction. They had been schoolfellows and friends; for the civilities we received could hardly, at first at least, have been paid us on our own account. The handsomest house on the Bompjes was Sir Alexander Ferrier’s; it was quite a palace, far too splendid for a private family, having belonged to some great functionary during the reign of Louis Buonaparte.5 The principal Staircase and the pavement of the hall and the door steps were of polished marble. One room was of such large dimensions it had never been furnished by Lady Ferrier; it occupied the height of two storeys, and was opened only on occasion of the Consul’s annual ball. Even the dining room was much larger than any room at Russborough,6 the daily parties of fourteen, sixteen, or so, were lost in it. They dined late for Holland, six o’clock, and had musick and dancing among a large society of young people every evening. The daughters of the house were of all ages, and all of them were handsome, Amelia the eldest perhaps the least so; neither was she clever; she was amiable, gentle, and most obliging in manner to every one, and soon became quite a favourite with us. We suspected her of a little tender inter
est in the handsome son of her father’s Dutch partner, young Mr Blankenhelm, for she certainly looked grave when he chose any other lady to drive out with him in his pea green gig on either of the only two roads available for carriage exercise, the one to Don and the one to the Hague. The second sister was in School in England, quite a beauty, young enough, yet old enough to be in love too, and engaged to Sir James Turing, a very old Aberdeenshire Baronet, whose father while a Cadet had settled in Holland. The third and fourth, very pretty girls, afterwards married well among their father’s mercantile friends. One of them, Eliza, was the mother of Mrs George Lauder! There were only two sons, John, married to a tiresome lit tie heiress who had been a ward of his father’s, a Walter Scott story, I am afraid,7 and little Alex, who with a little Georgy still younger, two beautiful children, was in the nursery. Sir James, or Sir Robert Turing, I believe he was, had a brother, a very small little man; he arrived with a ship full of valuables from Batavia while we were in Rotterdam. Much of the Merchandise had been a venture of Mr Ferrier’s. We saw it arrive, enter the great gates, be unloaded from the trucks. Some of it was arranged in the extensive surrounding warerooms on the ground floor; some of it raised by the crane into the upper storeys, and one small bale left at the Counting house door. We saw all this from Amelia’s apartments high up at the back of the house overlooking the yard. She had a bedroom and sitting room to herself beautifully furnished. ‘Come,’ said she, ‘now’s our time for the Indian curiosities,’ and she led the way running lightly downstairs. The unpacking of the cases in the Office had begun. There were China crapes, and China silks, and India muslins, ivory, Japan, Bombay pretty things, preserved fruits, an infinite variety. Some of these were commissions and would be sold well; some were for the general market, and some for presents. My share was a box of dates, and the black lacquer fan I gave to you, Annie, dear. Mrs Ferrier had pieces of damask for new drawing room curtains. We highly approved of the generosity of the Mercantile profession, though Mr Blankenhelm took care to repeat more than once that his partner was not usually so liberal; his heart had evidently warmed to his country folk.

  Sir James Gambier was another visitor. He was the Consul General for the Netherlands, a very fine looking, most agreeable man, though the father of a grown up family. He lived at the Hague, but had business at Rotterdam during our stay which kept him with us almost the whole time. Mr Blankenhelm said these affairs were of that mysterious nature no one could form the least idea of them. He was a busy body evidently, that tall, slender, handsome, gentlemanly Dutchman. The father and mother were formed after the old squat type, as were one or two other native heads of firms; the ladies belonging to them we did not see; they were either at Schevening bathing, or at their pleasure houses in the country. We had Mr Anderson Blair however for a couple of days. He was on his road to the German Spas and wanted to engage us to extend our travels so far. He liked every thing and every body at Rotterdam, except the pea green gig and Mr Blankenhelm; however sunny were our morning drives, clouds obscured our return from that quarter.

  At last we were to move, the quicker because the low fever common to the place had seized on me and change of air was the cure, assisted by a glass every morning of gin bitters the first thing, ordered peremptorily by Mr Ferrier, and sent in in a dumpy bottle bulging out on either side from a long neck, sometimes ages ago seen of alike shape and larger size in our own country, and called a tappit hen. How they were to get on without us, without Jane’s highland fling and my rebel songs, they were afraid to think of in that palace house. We were quite grieved ourselves to leave them, they had made us so very happy. We settled to return and embark for home from thence, and that during the time we were at Brussels Mr Ferrier should bring Amelia to us and leave her there for the few weeks we intended remaining, and so bidding farewell overnight, we set out early next morning for the Hague, twelve miles only along a paved road by the side of the Canal. It was the same neatness, the same cleanliness, the same flatness and the same baby house prettiness of scenery the whole way. We were in two carriages: a large, long caravan sort of concern for ourselves; the servants, the luggage and Dowran in a smaller queer shaped machine behind us. Dowran, disliking his position cooped up at Ward’s feet, took an opportunity to jump out, against all rules, no dogs allowed to be at large during the hot months. A frightful hubbub ensued. Men running, yelling, screaming, brandishing sticks, throwing stones. The terrified animal flying over the burning pavement, till with one thing and another he was very nearly driven mad. William, jumping from the carriage, had just time to save his favourite from an uplifted club, but in what a condition was the poor creature! A respectable bystander advised his being plunged and replunged into the canal till he was nearly insensible; he was then replaced at Ward’s feet, and she and the courier turning round, retraced the road to Rotterdam, my father giving them a few pencil lines to deliver with the Dog to Mr Ferrier, So long as the poor beast lived we were content, for that he had not gone really mad we were certain. We reached the Hague in good time to order dinner in a private room, and to invite Sir James Gambier to partake of it.

  The Hague is a beautiful town, a perfect contrast to Rotterdam, built on a plain of course, scattered over it, space being every where; large squares, wide streets, even gardens, and very little water. There were buildings to see, of course, of which I only remember the Stadt house, left with all its splendid furniture as Louis and Hortense8 had lived in it. It contains one hall of Audience, said to be the largest room ever a flat roof had been ventured to be stretched over. The present King and Queen, though bound to live occasionally in Holland, were supposed by the jealous Dutch to prefer Flanders, and when they did come to their ancient dominions they preferred the privacy of the House in the Wood to the grander Stadt house in the ‘village.’ We went out to see the House in the Wood, an extremely pretty, country gentleman’s residence, interesting to us on account of our own Queen Mary, who lived there so long with her cross but adored Prince William in days when the Stadtholder was not allowed to affect much splendour. They could hardly have had a simpler household than the King William of this age. The apartments were all comfortable, but none of them too fine for daily use; there was quite an air of domestick repose about them. The little Princess Marianne’s cribbed, poor thing, stood beside her mother’s, and little chairs and little tables suited to her childish size were in the business like sitting room the queen always lived in. There were good paintings in both these Royal residences, and a great many valuable curiosities scattered about. An ormolu clock in every room, abundance of chandeliers and sconces, and the beds were all set upon platforms, raised a step, or even two, from the floor, it had a good effect—imposing.

  Amsterdam, twenty miles on, was a regular town again, none of the free, villa like look of the Hague; high houses with quaint gable ends, narrow streets and canals through them, bridges innumerable, ships and bustle. Plenty of sights for travellers, just the very things I care least to see. A fine picture, a few fine pictures, I can enjoy, give me time to study them one by one when I’m in the humour to look at them, but a Collection of pictures weighs me down with the headache, and to run about from one gallery of paintings to another, then to a Museum, after that to a church or two to see monuments here and carvings there, is all, to my peculiar feelings, utterly wearisome. I would walk about all day with pleasure in a strange country, keep my senses awake, and take my leisure to examine any object that interested me as it met me; but to run about looking for lions was to me intolerable. I had, however, in general to follow the lead, and so have a confused idea of a Statue to Erasmus, a pulpit and skreen, perfect marvels of carving, a whole string of ships commemorating Van Tromp, no broom though, some fine marble momuments to the murdered Prince of Orange, and what remains with me beyond them all, the painting of the death of Abel in the Museum of Amsterdam.

  Far more than all this sightseeing I enjoyed an excursion to North Holland across the Zuyder Zee. We went to see Brock and Saardam, and on the
way, as there was nothing very remarkable in the surrounding scenery, my attention was drawn to some of the passengers in the boat; they were of all degrees, market people, traders, pleasure seekers and travellers, and less noise I suppose was never made by any such number of persons who had nothing else to do but talk and smoke. The smoking was incessant, but as for talking, a word was hardly spoken by any but ourselves.

  Another of my peculiarities being the total want of discernment of any brilliant qualities in that lunatick barbarian Peter the Great, Saardam with his little hut, still existing, made small impression. Brock was enchanting, a perfect curiosity, really the fit capital of a Lilliputian fairy tale. It seemed unnatural to see human beings of the usual dimensions moving about this toy of a village. No carriage was allowed to pass through its tiny streets; indeed there would hardly have been room for any much wider than a wheelbarrow. The roads or paths rather, were all paved with coloured stones in patterns. No one ever entered the little, baby houses by the front door but a Bride, or left them thro ‘this honoured entrance till a corpse; the family only made use of the back door, opening on a little yard as scrupulously clean as our best kept kitchens. We were permitted to enter several of the houses; the people seemed to be accustomed to shew them, and to have the greatest pride in the display of their quantities of heavy handsome furniture, polished up by hard labour to rival the best French varnish. The parlours were never lived in, that was plain, and that any family labours ever went on in the kitchen almost seemed impossible; one could hardly fancy slop pails, dirty dishes, rubbers, brick bats and scrubbing brushes could have profaned for a moment precincts apparently just burnished up for an Exhibition. The inhabitants, though too big for their dwellings, were all as spotlessly clean. Whether any dirt ever made its way to Holland looked problematical. Cooking with stoves is certainly a means of cleanliness, pipkins9 can be used instead of black pots, and there is no burning to coat the outsides of them with soot.