The call was returned, and then came an invitation to an Evening party; neither Mary nor I inclined to go, nor Amelia Ferrier, most luckily as the affair turned out. The rest accepted this civility, and Jane gave us the following account of the entertainment. In a very handsome room, scantily furnished, about twenty of the British inhabitants of Brussels were assembled, tea and cakes and lemonade were the refreshments, cards the amusement—a whist table, and a party at Stop Commerce. Every one who played Commerce had a franc in the Pool. Jane won, and was preparing to receive from George Conyngham the contents of the Cup, when the large hand of Mr Pryse Gordon arrested the movement. ‘Pardon me, my dear young lady, I thought I had mentioned it; in this house we always play for the poor.’ So saying, he poured the money, fifteen or sixteen francs, into a bag he took from a table drawer. We commented among ourselves upon this charitable transaction, and our eyes opening wider by the help of Ward, who got her knowledge from the Courier, we began to make out the true character of our new acquaintance; the depth to which had fallen a man equal by birth and education to the best of the society into which he had been early introduced. We did not find out his whole delinquencies, her history, till we were on the point of leaving Brussels. John Ferrier and his young wife, who had been travelling on the Rhine, came to pick up his sister Amelia and carry her home; and he told my brother William that Mrs Gordon had more than one jointure although she had never been a wife before, and that Mr Gordon went twice a year to England to receive for her these different annuities. Fancy the family horrour. ‘Such an ugly creature too,’ said my Mother, It was a most disagreeable adventure, though in reality no harm came of it. It was worth something in the way of experience, teaching a prudent caution as to the admittance of our travelling compatriots to intimacy.
A much pleasanter visit was paid by us to the country house of our Landlord. We did not all go, being now, with the John Ferriers, a large party; but I was one of the selected, having become through the medium of our housekeeping transactions quite on the most friendly terms with our Landlady. Monsieur frequently remained in town a week or more at a time, when business was lively. Madame seldom staid above a day or two at a time, much preferring her very pretty house at the Factory, where we were very kindly pressed to pass a day. I was in hopes we should have gone out early enough to have had time to go all over the Mills, where the whole process of cotton cleaning, spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing, was carried on by the largest number of hands employed in one concern in Belgium. However, we were only ready for the early dinner, the Master keeping the Workmen’s hours as he superintended all matters himself. The family consisted of the round headed, plain mannered, thoroughly business like father; a mother infinitely more alive—a good, homely, managing housewife too, yet seeing beyond the cotton; a quiet, pretty, married daughter, with two fat children and a silent husband, the Manager of the Factory; two unmarried daughters likely to turn out as well as their elder sister; and one son, College bred, a little inclined to keep the spinning jennies out of sight while making abundant use of their produce. He was particularly well dressed, spoke French well, aped the Frenchman indeed, and not badly at all, which ‘youthful extravagances’ the good mother smiled, assuring mine that this would all subside by and bye, and that he would become reasonable as years passed, and become as respectable a manufacturer as his ancestors; for the Mill had been for some generations the patrimony of the family. She was a dear sensible old lady, looked up to by her whole household. The dinner she gave us was quite in the old Fleming style, very long, oddly served, dish by dish, not in the order we are accustomed to; soup first, some sweet things, the bouilli, different dressed meats, fish, more sweets, game and larks, and other little birds—mere mouthfuls, some no bigger than a walnut—fruit and cheese together, plenty of beer and wine handed round, and coffee directly after in another room. A walk in the pleasure grounds, and then the drive home before dark, in full time for our own tea. Next morning Madame came in with her husband in his gig, to make her marketings while he loaded waggons with bales of his finished goods, a good store of which he always kept steady in the spacious warerooms round the yard. I quite liked these good people and they were so obliging. I found her recommendations to tradespeople much more effective than Mr Gordon’s. Her silk mercer gave us infinitely better bargains than were offered us by his. My father gave us each a silk dress to remember Brussels by, and my Mother got three, all of them neatly made up by a French mantua maker, and exceedingly admired after our return home, though really I could not see that they were any way superiour either in make or fabrick to what we could have procured in Edinburgh. They were certainly cheaper though.
One of the pleasures of Brussels was walking about the pretty, clean town. Besides the shopping, there was a great deal to see in the old low town, ancient buildings and other monuments, numerous fountains in open areas amongst the rest, always surrounded by amusing groups, for there was no supply of water through pipes to every house. Perhaps this was one cause of the indelicate manners of the people; nothing near so bad as the Dutch in this respect, who are positively indecent, openly so, unpleasantly so to strangers unaccustomed to the simplicity or the coarseness of such habits. The Flemings are a degree or two more refined, still there is room for great improvement. One fountain I never could pass in any comfort; it really was only fit for playing at a Hindu festival, and strange to say, Hindostanée virtues were ascribed to the use of it. A turn on the Ramparts of a fine afternoon was delightful. Any day, rain or no rain, we could stroll in the parc, the gravel there being kept in exact order. There we constantly met the two nice little boys of the Prince of Orange, who played out half the day with their balls and hoops and bats, etc., attended by a single footman in livery. The children were plainly dressed in nankin trowsers, round blue jackets, and white hats, and they kept quite aloof from the servant, though he managed to have them always in his eye. The Abbé Sieyès, too, walked regularly in these gardens, a small, thin, thoughtful man with gray hair, a grave smile, and courteous manner; he reminded us of Belleville, wearing his stick in the same style, held out from his hands crossed behind him.4 Another ‘silent Monitor,’ as some one calls these marked objects on the stream of time, was the balcony before the windows of the Hôtel de Ville whence the Duke of Alva leaned to witness his massacres of the Huguenots.5 We are better than our fathers. Somewhat less cruel at any rate.
We had a pleasant drive one morning to Louvaine, where the sight lovers inspected the curious Hotel de Ville. I forget how many storeys of atticks it has in its steep roof, rows of storm windows one over the other. And then we went to Lacken, the country palace of the King, only a few miles out of town and hardly a very healthy situation, lying low, a great deal of water and too much wood near the house, but very pretty and very enjoyable as a private residence, every thing that is most agreeable to rural life being in profusion—gardens, a farm, a park, a lake, and a most convenient abode fitted up with taste quite unostentatiously. The Palace in the Place Royale, on the contrary, was furnished magnificently. If I remember right, felt slippers were put on over our shoes before any of us, ladies or gentlemen, were allowed to step over the highly polished inlaid floors, and where our eyes were quite dazzled with gold, silver, chrystal, velvet, and bijouterie.
And then we went to Waterloo. Oh, will there ever be another war! At first sight there was nothing, as it seemed, to look at, A wide plain under crop, a few rising grounds wooded, a hamlet or two, and the forest of Soigny. An old man of the name of Lacoste—an old cheat, I believe—in a blouse, striped night cap, and immense shoes, came up as a guide to all the different points of interest, and did his pan well, although his pretension to having been the attendant of Buonaparte during the Battle and his director in his flight was a fable. He took us up to the ruins of Houguemont, to La Haie Sainte, to the hollow with the paved road in the bottom of it where the Guards felt themselves so at home, to the wide mound raised by the heaps of the slain, to the truncated column of black m
arble erected to the memory of an hero. At this distance of time I do not remember all we saw, and I did not attend to all he told, mistrusting his veracity. The scene was impressive enough gazed on silently; and then to think of the terrour in Brussels, of the despair in the neighbouring villages, of the two armies individually and collectively, of the two Commanders and all that hung upon the strife so lately ended! This was but the fourth year after the victory, the world was still full of the theme, but there was little trace of the struggle left upon the ground it had been fought on. Fine crops of corn had been this very Autumn waving there, though the plough still turned up relicks of the eventful day. Monsieur Lacoste had a sack full of trophies he said had been found upon the field.6 The feeling of the people most certainly did not go with the victors. They hated the Union with the Dutch, they hated the Dutch King ruling over them; the habits and manners of the two ill cemented nations were totally dissimilar, and with the French they amalgamated readily. The Emperour really lived in their hearts, spite of the Conscription, spite of his defeat, spite of his crimes, as we may call the consequences of his ambition.
One day my father and I, walking out a good mile into the country, we came to a tidy looking farmhouse, which, as we stopt to examine, the owner of civilly asked us to enter. We crossed a yard and were ushered at once into the Cow stable, where at the Upper end, in a space separated by a latticed-partition from the long row of milch cattle, the family lived. The place was clean, all the dairy utensils hanging round the walls were bright, and the cows were very comfortably stalled, a neat pavement running up the whole length of the building with a drain between it and the animals. After we had made what observations we chose here, the farmer opened a door into the best room, where, French fashion, was a bed with a canopy over it and all the good furniture: massive, highly polished and well carved presses, chests, chairs and tables. In one corner was the treasure of the family, a crucifix as large as life, the figure glaringly painted, always a distressing object to me and a son of shock when represented thus coarsely. On the wall close to this hung not a bad print of Napoleon. I don’t know which the old Fleming regarded with most veneration.
A Flemish farm is small generally, the fields small, dull looking from the absence of living beings, the cattle being mostly kept in the house. Their agriculture rather disappointed my father. A great many mouths are certainly fed for the acres, but no fortunes are made by the farmers, who are all mere peasants living in the most homely way on the produce of their industry, providing themselves with all necessaries as in more primitive times, going to market with what they can spare, giving a fixed proportion of the profits to the Landlord when the cultivators do not themselves own their little domains, and buying nothing that can by any possibility be made at home. They all seemed contented; there were few poor, no beggars, no rags. Notwithstanding the under current of discontent, the surface betrayed no approaching danger; it would have been difficult to suppose another revolution so near at hand as it proved to be. Very likely the priests had something to do with the deposition of the Presbyterian House of Orange.7 The Flemings are much attached to their own superstitions. Little Virgins and other saints in Boxes stand in many conspicuous places; the Altars in all the churches were gaily decorated and seldom without kneeling figures round them; and shows went about of Mount Calvary and the holy family and the martyrs, etc., all figures on stages, as large as life, dressed up in real garments, before which unpleasant appearances crowds kneeled in mute devotion. There were quantities of images in the Churches, all very fine, silks, velvets, jewels, and some in wigs truly ridiculous. The worshippers as much in earnest as the Hindùs with their horrible figures. More so than many of us who from the heights of our spiritual simplicity pity what we think a mockery, and what is certainly a strange remains of barbarity to linger on for eighteen centuries after the truth was preached.
We were very sorry to leave Brussels. We had passed a very pleasant month there one way or another but the Autumn was advancing and we had the sea to cross and so we must begin our journey home. We returned by Valenciennes and Malines and gloomy Ghent, where of course we were shewn the house of Philip von Artevelde.8 Other Friesland heroes were recalled many a time during our pleasant journey and then we rested a few days at Antwerp, John Ferrier having business there, and we besides the publick sight seeing, having a whole morning’s work in viewing a private collection of paintings belonging to a Banker or a Merchant, who had spent a life time and a fortune very happily in forming this gallery. Mr Steuart had got tickets of admission for us, the chapeau de paille being the attraction, but many fine pictures deserved as much notice to the full. A few years after the Banker died, the Collection was dispersed, sold, and we saw the fair third wife of Rubens in a small room in Pall Mall, by herself, just before she became the property of Sir Robert Peel.9
Antwerp might be a noble town, perhaps it was once. Now, the wide streets are empty, the destruction of its harbour put an end to its commerce. All the fine buildings looked deserted, no new houses were rising anywhere. Very few vessels were in the river and those were of a small size. Buonaparte filled up the bed of the Scheldt in order to ruin the City and yet they like his memory. The docks are splendid but empty. It really was a melancholy place, although still there is a great deal to be seen in it. Pictures of course in plenty—the Descent from the Cross, with its two accessary wings over the high altar in the Cathedral being the gem. The Magdalen kneeling quite in front, her back to the Spectator, her long fair hair streaming down upon a peculiar coloured leghorn tinted gown,10 was like a regality. Some where I saw a Madre dolorosa, whether it was here or not I cannot say. She was seated on the ground, with her son’s body on her knees, there were no other figures in the picture.11 I could have worshipped her myself, almost, her expression forbade piety. No wonder these creations added to the imposing effect of ceremonial processions and other means of exciting the imagination, take such hold of the feelings of sensitive and ignorant people, whose reasoning powers are of the weakest.
At the hotel at Antwerp, an exceedingly comfortable one, we were waited on entirely by men. They called us in the mornings, entered our bedrooms with the jugs of hot water etc., made the beds even. We saw no maid servants—in any department. We went to Vespers in the Cathedral on the Sunday Evening, quite an Opera. An orchestra of all instruments and excellent choir, and next morning resumed our journey and soon found ourselves in an open boat on Holland’s deep with a cold gale blowing and a good stiff shower meeting us when halfway over, We passed Dort, sawpiles of common crockery ware in stalls, on the pavements, in barges, and gladly resumed our pleasant quarters in the Badthouse at Rotterdam. Here we had a great deal to do. Every evening was spent at the Ferriers. All the mornings my father was packing his old China, quantities of which he had picked up here and there in the course of our wanderings, always despatching his purchases to Rotterdam to await our arrival. So heavy was then the duty upon foreign porcelaine, it would have cost a fortune to have sent all this Collection home through the Custom House—it was therefore to reach us by degrees, a barrel of butter or herring or such commodities as these plates and dishes could be packed amongst was to be entrusted to our old friend the skipper of the Van Egmont every return journey he made, and positively most of these treasures in time reached us, the skipper not always taking the trouble to put them up as directed. There were private holes and corners in the Van Egmont, as the Master and Mate well knew, the mate too well knew, for on occasion of a quarrel between the two, the little merry mate who had been quite a favourite with us, imparted the secrets of the old tub to the Leith Custom house Officers and so half ruined his Captain. Dowran had been returned home in the same way. Mr Ferrier kept the unhappy creature till the moment for embarking, when he was taken on board in a sack and tied upon deck during the first part of his voyage. On his release he took possession of William’s old bed and kept his chamber till he landed!
It was a sad leavetaking when we parted from the Ferriers
. We embarked from their house for Harwich, not in the regular packet but in one which on this occasion carried the Mail. We had a stormy passage, a pitchy sea, the result of a storm just lulling, with a wind ahead. Even I who never suffer at sea. was ill enough for an hour or two. There were few passengers, only one at all remarkable, a little old Jew, very much frightened at the heaving of the troubled waters. He was a queer son of dealer in odd knick knacks, pulling out quantities of valuable old fashioned jewellery from every part of his dress, for he had tucked it all away, here and there about his clothing, much after the fashion of Filch.12 We could not help suspecting that, squally as it was, he had more to do than the wind with the difficulty of our little packet making the proper harbour. Instead of landing at Harwich, we were put ashore some few miles up the coast at a small village, where the Custom House Officer seldom expecting strangers, was certainly far from vigilant. Our inn was village like—clean beds its greatest luxury. After the palace hotels we had been accustomed to of late, the little ill furnished parlours, the closet bedrooms, and the inferiour style of establishment altogether in these English Country inns, made an unfavourable first impression. The hack post chaises were no worse than our cabriolets, and the horses were better, but then they were not open—there was the want of air. We saved the trouble of changing much luggage by having sent all we could spare by the Van Egmont.
Memoirs of a Highland Lady Page 56