Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

  My father had pleasant lodgings in Duke Street, where I went when he wished me to see some of his own friends. He took me to the Mackintosh’s, where I dined. Sir James was not at home; Lady Mackintosh was kind and agreeable, her daughter Fanny was a nice girl, and Mrs Rich, Sir James’s daughter by his first wife, both pleasant and clever. One subject we avoided all allusion to, unfortunate Lady Wiseman, whom we had known so well. Fanny Mackintosh spent most of her time at Holland House with Mary Fox, who was her particular friend; an intimacy my mother would have disapproved of.20 My father took me also to the Vines; he was a rich merchant, very underbred I thought; she, a quiet little woman, very kind to me. She took me to the grand Review at Hounslow, where we went in Sir Willoughby Gordon’s carriage. He was Quarter Master General, and very intimate with Mr and Mrs Vine; they were his neighbours in the Isle of Wight. Of course we were well placed, in the reserve space for the great next to the Duchess of Kent, a plain, colourless woman, ill dressed, whose little shabby daughter, wrapped in a shawl, gave no promise of turning out our pretty queen. Lady Gordon was not with us. She was keeping herself and her young daughters quiet, as they were engaged to a children’s ball in the evening at Carleton house, for these were the days of the regency. She was so obliging as to offer me a ticket for Almack’s,21 which Mrs Vine accepted for me, as she said her sister, Lady Bury, would have great pleasure in being my chaperon; but I had no mind to go. I did not like putting my father to the expense of the dress, and I should have known no body, so the matter was not thought more of, and my little cousins played with the ticket.

  My time for leaving these kind relations was drawing near. I had not learned much in that sleepy house, although one way or another I had seen a good deal, and my Uncle had been so good as to take me into his Latin Class with the little boys, whose lessons I was thus able to help. I liked this much, and afterwards found my Latin very useful. George and Willy did not think so.

  The Eton holidays were at hand. John Frere and my brother John were to spend them at the Doune. They were to travel with my father and me. How happy they were. We started by coach again, I was getting quite used to this vulgarity, passed through Oxford and thought of my Aunt Mary. On to Liverpool to a good hotel, in the yard of which the boys, to their great delight, discovered a tank full of live turtle; a disgusting sight I thought it, such hideous, apathetick creatures. We walked a good deal about the town; the new streets are handsome, the villas in the neighbourhood very pretty, well kept grounds to most of them. There was no Birkenhead then, but the higher part of the town was sufficient at that time for the retreat of the busy inhabitants. The quays and the squalid lanes in the lower part of the town were as dirty as Glasgow, Bristol or Dublin.

  Next day we went on board the steamer for Glasgow.

  1. These meticulous plans are in the possession of the present generation of the Grant family.

  2. Mrs Jane Marcet (1769−1858) wrote for the young; one of her most recent works had been Conversations on Chemistry, intended more specifically for the Female Sex (1816).

  3. Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785−1868) was to become Director of Kew Gardens in 1841.

  4. When George IV became King in June 1820, he was determined to exclude his wife, Caroline of Brunswick-Wolf enbättel (whom he had bigamously married 25 years before) from the throne. Unsavoury parliamentary inquiries were accordingly held, and for many Whigs Caroline was seen as a symbol of resistance to tyranny. Conveniently for the King, she died a month after his coronation, in August 1821.

  5. See 11, p.78.

  6. General Sir William Green (1725−1811), the engineer.

  7. Mary and Jane Grant wrote a series of letters back to E.G. describing their experiences during this memorable visit. These were collected and privately printed in Dublin, presumably by E.G. after her marriage. They are an entertaining description of the King (Mary ‘only saw a pair of thick lips, and a grave respectful-looking face bending towards me’) and all the occasions he was publicly fêted.

  8. In a letter to Rothiemurchus (11.8.1822), E.G.‘s father also criticised ’the ludicrous state of bustle and expectation of the sedate and sober citizens of the Scottish Metropolis—and the whimsical affectation of a sort of highland costume, with about as much propriety in the conception and execution as if it had taken place in Paris or Brussels’.

  9. An extended leave. Born in 1780, the second son of a Co. Wicklow landowner, Henry Smith had been admitted to King’s Inn, after which he enrolled as a Cadet in the East India Company Cavalry. He was promoted Major in 1820 and was to be Lieutenant Colonel four years later.

  10. John Lemprière (1765?−1824) published his Bibliotheca Classica in 1788.

  11. This historic partnership, 1771 to 1782, developed the water frame that powered the early Industrial Revolution.

  12. Light tops, spun with the fingers, originally a toy.

  13. Sir Richard Arkwright had died in 1792; this was his son (1755−1843), who was reported to be the richest commoner in England.

  14. Byron sold his family home to Colonel Thomas Wildman, a Harrow contemporary, for £94,500 in December 1817. E.G.’s sister Mary was much impressed by her visit shortly afterwards.

  15. Rt. Hon. J. H. Frere p.c. (1769−1846) (the recently appointed Madrid Ambassador) used every method in his power to persuade Moore to advance from his 1808 winter quarters to attack the French; Sir Charles Oman’s A History of the Peninsular War argues that Frere was correct in his judgement but his ‘uncontrolled expressions showed he was entirely unfit for a diplomatic post’.

  16. These were amongst the most celebrated contemporary singers of Italian opera, especially Rossini; Giuditta Pasta (1797−1865) was ‘the greatest soprano in Europe for more than a decade,’ while Giovanni Velluti (1781−1861) was ‘the last of the great castrati singers’ (Groves).

  17. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772− 1834) had been a confirmed opium addict by this time for twenty years; in any case his method of conducting a conversation led Mme. de Stael to comment he was great in monologue but bad in dialogue

  18. Joanna Baillie (1762−1851), a prolific Scottish authoress, made her home in Hampstead from 1806 the centre of her literary circle.

  19. Edward Irving (1792−1834), was a hugely successful popular preacher. His handsome features may have been marred by ‘a slight obliquity of vigor’ … but ‘frivolous society in London was provided with a new sensation’, (D.N.B.) E.G.’s mention of his attempted translations of the unknown tongues refers to his belief that the obscure mouthings of a girl, Mary Campbell from Gairlochhead in his native Scotland, revealed the second advent.

  20. The Hon. Mary Fox (1806−91) was related to Charles James Fox, who kept the Whig interest alive in these years of Tory domination.

  21. Almack’s Assembly Rooms was a fashionable meeting place in St James London; it was celebrated because of an occasion when the Duke of Wellington was refused entry for failing to wear the obligatory knee breeches and white cravat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  1823−1827

  MY Mother and my sisters left the highlands soon after Christmas, and had been ever since staying with poor Aunt Leitch, who was dying. My mother never left her, but she let my sisters visit about among the many friends and relations, Charlotte Ironside with them, and a very pleasant time they spent. Mary Ironside had gone to India with her sister Eliza, 2 step on her part Mrs Leitch never forgave. Uncle Ralph was at that time living at Tennochside; he used to come in once a week at least to cheer my mother. My father staid only two days in Glasgow. My sister Mary and I and the two boys accompanied him home, leaving Jane as a help to my mother and Charlotte. We went by a fast Coach that beautiful road past Stirling, Crieff, and Blair Drummond to Perth, where we got into the Caledonian Coach, and so on by the old familiar road to our own gate, where a cart was waiting for our luggage. We walked the mile down the heathery brae to the boat at the Doune, and crossed our own clear, rapid Spey at our own ferry.

  I was very glad
to get home; I was ill, quite exhausted by the life at Hampstead. I had left the forest perfectly well. Week by week, I lost strength while with the Freres; so little sleep, so much worry without much pleasure. My mother was shocked at my appearance. Dr Smith and the highland air and the quiet life soon restored me. Of course during my Mother’s absence for such a cause we saw no company beyond the Bellevilles or a stray traveller; but while the boys were with us we were very happy, fishing, shooting, boating, riding, out of doors all day, and I had my flowers to set in order. Mary regretted Glasgow. It was a life of variety much more to her mind than that we led at home. She regretted her young friends too. Still she managed to amuse herself. I forget exactly when my Mother and Jane returned to us, not before winter, I think. There were many things for her and uncle Ralph to settle after poor Mrs Leitch’s death. Charlotte was the heiress. She went to Houghton immediately, leaving Mr Shortridge to sell the house and furniture. Some legacies were left very wisely to the younger Houghton nieces, at least the interest of a certain sum, which on their marriage or death was to revert to their brother William, and so ended the year 1824.

  The year 1825 was spent very happily at the Doune in the usual way, William busy, John a season at College in Edinburgh boarded with the Espinasses, and then off to Hartford or Haileybury, I forget which, the Indian College for Civil appointments, where he made a great name. Robert Grant got him the appointment, and there was no demur about it this time. We three girls were a great deal in Moray shire paying long visits, two of us at a time, to our many friends there. We were at Altyre, Relugas, Burgie, Forres House, etc. Altyre was very pleasant, so very easy. It was impossible not to like Lady Cumming, equally impossible not to disapprove of her conduct. She spent her days gardening and fishing—no man could play or land a salmon more dexterously. She was always surrounded by a suite of young men, devoted admirers, some of whose hearts she nearly broke, Sir William looking apparently satisfied. He gave us a Ball, which was extremely well managed, for they had very amusing people staying with them, and they invited all the neighbourhood besides. Poor Rawdon Clavering was there, so much in love with Jenny Dunbar. They married afterwards on nothing, went to the West Indies, lost their health, and she died. And we had those strange brothers whose real name I can’t remember, but they one day announced that they were Steuarts, lineally descended from Prince Charles, out of respect to whose wife, who never had a child, the elder brother assumed the name of John Sobieski,1 the younger brother was Charles. Nobody was more astonished at this assumption than their own father, a decent man who held some small situation in the Tower of London. The mother was Scotch in some way; her people had been in the service of the unfortunate Steuarts in Italy, and who can tell that she had not some right to call herself connected with them. Her two sons were very handsome men, particularly John Sobieski, who, however, had not a trace of the Steuart in his far finer face. They always wore the Highland dress, kilt and belted plaid, looked melancholy, spoke at times mysteriously. The effect their pantomime produced was astonishing; they were fêted to their heart’s content; half the Clans in the Highlands believed in them; for several years they actually reigned in the north country. At last they made a mistake which finished the farce. Lovat, Fraser of Lovat, had taken them up enthusiastically, built them a villa on an island in the Beauly firth, in the pretty garden of which was a small waterfall. Here Mrs Charles Steuart sat and played the harp like Flora MacIvor, and crowds went to visit them. They turned Roman Catholicks to please their benefactor I suppose, and so lost caste with the publick. Poor Mrs Charles was a meek little woman, a widow with a small jointure whom the Prince, her husband, had met in Ireland. I don’t know what took him there, for nobody ever knew what his employment had originally been. Prince Sobieski had been a coach painter, not the panel painter, the Heraldick painter, and most beautifully he finished the coat of arms.

  Jane paid a very long visit to Relugas, lovely little place on a wooded bank between the Divie and the Findhorn, and then Sir Thomas and Lady Lauder, who were going to Edinburgh to a grand musical Festival, took her with them, afterwards they went a tour along the Borders, a new country to Jane. One visit they paid was to Abbotsford. Jane was in an extasy the whole time. Sir Walter Scott took to her, as who would not; they rode together all day on two rough ponies with the Ettrick Shepherd and all the dogs. Sir Walter gave her all the border legends, and she corrected his mistakes about the highlands.2 At parting he hoped she would come again, and he gave her a small ring he had picked up among. the ruins of Iona, with a device on it no one ever could make out. Mrs Hemans was at Abbotsford, a nice, quiet, little woman, her two sons with her, fine little boys, quite surprised to find there was another lion in the world beside their mother.3

  The Lauders brought Jane home in great glee and staid a week or more, during which time they held mysterious conferences and went rambles alone, and went on very queerly. I was sure that some secret business was in train, but could not make it out, as I was evidently not to be let into it. At last the discovery came—Sir Thomas was writing his first novel.4 The hero was McIntosh of Borlam, and the scenes of his exploits were most of them laid in the woods of Rothiemurchus and the plains of Badenoch. ‘Lochandhu’ really was not bad; there were pretty bits of writing in it, but it was just an imitation of Walter Scott. I believe the book sold, and it certainly made the Authour and his wife completely happy during its composition. Lord Jeffrey, his wife, and Charlotte all came to see us, and Lord Moncrieff, who won my heart, charming little old man. Lord Gillies and Mrs Gillies always came for a few days, and Jane and Emilia Cumming, and the Lady Logie and May Anne and many more, for those two summers were gay. We all went to the Northern Meeting, all five of us; but without my father and mother. Glenmoriston took charge of us and his sister Harriet Fraser, and we went in a very fast style, escorted by Duncan Davidson, who unexpectedly arrived for the purpose. Mary was the beauty of the Meeting. She had grown up very handsome, and never lost her looks; she had become lively, and, to the amazement of the family, outshone us all. She was in fact a genius and a fine creature—poor Mary.

  In the autumn of 1826, besides our usual visitors, we had Alexander Cumming to bid us good bye before returning to India, a fine, very handsome man, who on account of the Entail it was intended to marry to Mary, but they did not take to one another, and the Espinasses came, she very absurd, he a clever Frenchman; and Lord Macdonald, 6 feet 4; and then Annie Need. What a happy summer we spent with her, and all the people so delighted to see the Colonel’s daughter. Later came her husband the General, and his friend Colonel Pennington, who had been to India and back since he and I parted in Sherwood Forest. He was a very clever man, and a very good man and very agreeable, but old and ugly. How could a young, brilliant creature like my sister Jane, so formed to be a first rate young man’s pride, fall to be this old man’s darling. But so it was; she did it of her own free will, and I don’t believe she ever regretted the step she was determined to take. It was an utterly unsuitable marriage, distasteful to all of us, yet it turned out well; she was content.

  The Needs left us in October 1825 taking Mary with them, who was to spend the winter at Fountain Dale. They originally intended to steam from Inverness to Glasgow and Liverpool; luckily this plan was given up. The Steamer was wrecked and nearly all on board were drowned. I don’t remember any cabin passenger saved except John Peter Grant of Laggan, the only remaining child of nineteen born to the minister and his celebrated wife, and young Glengarry. Among the lost was one of the pretty Miss Duffs of Muirtown, just married to her handsome soldier husband, and on their way to join his regiment; their bodies were found clasped together, poor things, beside many others unknown. Colonel Pennington had outstaid his friends; he and Jane wandered all over Rothiemurchus, apparently delighted with each other. At last he went, leaving us to prepare for his return at Christmas.

  I am not quite sure that my recollections of these two years are quite correct, writing at this distance of time without
any notes to guide me; I don’t think I have forgotten any thing of consequence, but the dates of these family events are confused. It must have been in September 1825 that the Needs and Colonel Pennington left us. Johnny had gone back to Haileybury, and our diminished party felt dull enough; a weight was over all our minds. We were sitting at dinner on a chill Autumn evening, enlivened by a bright wood fire, and some of the cheerful sallies of poor William, who ever did his best to keep the ball up. The post came in; I gave the key; Robert Allan opened the bag and proceeded to distribute its contents, dropping first one thick double letter into a silver flagon on the sideboard, as William’s quick eye noted, though he said nothing. When we all seemed occupied with our own peculiar despatches he carried this hidden treasure to Jane. It was the proposal from her Colonel. She expected it, turned very pale, but kept her secret for two days, even from me, who shared her room, She then mentioned her engagement to my father first, my mother next, and left it to them to inform William and me. There never was such astonishment. I could not believe it; William laughed; my father made no objection. My mother would not listen to the subject. More letters arrived, to Jane daily, to William and me full of kind expressions, to my father and mother, hoping for their consent. My father replied for all; my mother would not write; William and I put it off. Annie Need wrote to dissuade Jane, Lord Jeffrey and Miss Clerk to approve, the lover to announce his preparations. My father and William proceeded to Edinburgh to draw up the Settlements. It was found that the fortune was very much smaller than had been expected, and from another source we heard my father would have been glad to have offended the bridegroom, but he was not to be offended; his firm intention was to secure his wife, and he would have thought the world well lost to gain her. Her interests were well cared for. Why not. If old men will marry young women, young widows should be left quite independant as some return for the sacrifice, the full extent of which they are not aware of till too late. Well! the Settlements were made by Sir James Gibson Craig, who well knew how to second my father in arranging them. After all, the young Couple were not badly off—the retiring pay of a full Colonel with the off reckonings, £25,000 in the Indian funds, and a prospect! of Deccan prize-money—some few hundred pounds which he did not get till the year before he died. My Mother wrote many letters to Edinburgh; she certainly did not wish to forward matters, but this spirited pair wanted no help. The Bride asked whether she could be provided with some additions to a rather scanty wardrobe, the best things belonging to Mother and daughter having been settled up for May for her English visit, or whether she should apply to her intended. The Bridegroom set out for the Highlands and had the banns published in Edinburgh on his way; a mistake of his man of business which was very annoying to all and caused a good deal of irritation—however, all got right. Jane was determined. She had argued the point in her own strong mind, decided it, and it was to be. Perhaps she was not wrong; the circumstances of the family were deplorable, there did not appear to be any hope of better days, for the girls at any rate, and we were no longer very young. So a very handsome trousseau was ordered, our great Uncle the Captain, kind old man, having left each of us £100 for the purpose, spent long before, I suppose, but Jane said she was entitled to it and so she got more than the worth of it, it added but a small sum to the vast amount of debt.