Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

  Every one was obliging except old Mr Churton, who had been the family’s hosier for years. My father sent me to him with the ready money order, a good large one, as some amends, the only one in his power at present, for old unpaid debts. He refused to have any dealings with it, caught up his long bills and a long story, and a grievance, with reflexions on my father’s conduct to him which it was not comfortable for his daughter to hear. I told the old cross crab what my father had told me, adding that this was sure money, and that we were going where he would soon save sufficient to pay all his creditors in full. He did not care, he wanted none of this money, nor any orders from the family, nor any speeches either; he wanted nothing but his rights. I had never met with such incivility, was quite unused to be so addressed. I got very faint and queer I fancy, for he seemed frightened and called his sister, who appeared distressed, told the ‘dear young lady’ not to mind and brought me a glass of wine. But I had recovered, and got grand, and would not touch it, swallowed my tears, and turning to the shopboy, desired him to call up Lord Glenelg’s carriage. I walked out à la Princesse, leaving the ill conditioned old man making humble apologies to the air. It was very cruel in him to taunt a young girl with her parents’ delinquencies.

  As soon as all was in train, all our assistants at work, little Christy and I went down by the coach to Basingstoke. There Jane met us driving her basket phaeton, old Goody herself, and on we went four miles to that most comfortable, thoroughly English place, Malshanger, pretty, in an uninteresting country, being well wooded, the ground undulating, and the neighbourhood thickly studded with gentlemen’s seats. It was a very good house, rather large indeed, well sized rooms, cheerful bedrooms, good garden, orchard, paddock, lawn, shrubbery. They made an extremely pretty flower garden afterwards, opening from a Conservatory they added to the Drawing room, and to the charming bow windowed study there was a Verandah covered with creepers. When the flower garden bloomed in front of it, the suite was indeed enjoyable. Jane was very well cared for and very happy. There was a stable full of horses, and servants in plenty. Our kitchen maid Nelly was the Cook, then and ever. The little sister Christy was lady’s maid; Robert Allan, Butler—all the old friends established there. We spent three most pleasant weeks at Malshanger. The Colonel seemed so glad to have us, and he was so good natured to us. He rode with me every second day all over those fine Hampshire downs, miles and miles away in every direction, he on his hunters in their turn, I on the ‘gentle Mortimer,’ which always carried his master to covert all through the hunting season. The intervening days Jane took me off in her basket.

  I had got quite out of health; I had been obliged to consult Doctor Wauchope in London, my father being a little uneasy about my altered looks. Little could be done till I got to the country—here I soon recovered and by strictly obeying a few simple rules I was ‘all right’ before I left these good quarters.

  The Colonel and Jane dined out frequently, taking Mary with them. Jane was always handsomely dressed, though she never all her life could put her clothes on neatly. Mary wore plain white muslin and natural flowers in her hair and really she looked beautiful. She was immensely admired, and had she remained longer in this well to do neighbourhood she need never have gone to India. My Mother had gone to Oxford to stay with Aunt Mary in her new home, a very wealthy one. Doctor Bourne, a clever and an amiable man, took good care of my mother, put her into better health, and kept her till William went to bring her up to London a few days before we started for Portsmouth, for the parting had to be borne—poor Jane. Before we left her, William gave us a Deed which Mary and I were to sign. A Deed most improperly asked for, for the true nature of which was not explained to us and which, had it not been for our dear Aunt Bourne, would have left us nigh penniless. It bound us as Securitors for a debt due to Lord Lauderdale, in case of there being no funds at my father’s death to acquit it, the interest in the mean while was provided for from the estate. I do not think either my father or Lord Lauderdale knew much about this transaction, it was arranged by the Trustees and the lawyers and William was charged to see the Deed executed—he trusted to Indian funds, and was thankful to get rid by any means of what might have put a stop to India. Debt, that fearful master, tyrant that one by one destroys all good principles, all good feelings, bending at the same time the victim in fetters the most galling—and all the misery caused, all the meanness engendered, all the sad retrospect, all the clouded future, it is the break up of happiness. How the £2,000 given by Government for the outfit (was spent) I cannot tell, about £400 passed through my hands and paid the Outfitters, the lodgings, the journeys and current expenses. The passage money was of course high, three of the best cabins, and the French expenses and William’s—it was little enough I believe. What little personal comforts Mary and I got were provided by good Mrs Sophy Williams. She presented us each with a few yards of lace neatly folded up, and on opening the little parcel, a £5 note was found pinned on the lace. The Freres gave us useful keepsakes and came to see us.

  We were filling our carpet bags ready for our early start next morning, when a noisy visitor ran quickly up the stairs, and in bounded William Clarke, just arrived from China. He had in his hand a small case containing a beautiful ivory fishwoman, on her tiny arm a basket full of fish: the old promised wife for our ivory fruiterer. He was in a great hurry to return to clear his ship, and that puts me in mind that among our Edinburgh baggage was a case of whiskey bitters made for the long sea voyage, and a few bottles of fine old Glenlivet; it was seized at the Custom house, and though General Need took a great deal of trouble to represent the peculiar circumstances, we never saw more of our precious contrabands. One of the Clerks told the General confidentially that his Chief considered them quite a prize. I would not carry back my pretty fishwoman to her native tropicks; I sent it and a Bombay work box Uncle Edward had sent me to Fountain Dale to dear Annie. William Clarke, who expected soon to be at Dalnavert, was loaded with messages to the Bellevilles and warmly thanked for his own kind remembrance of us. So he went away.

  We had finished all our business with fewer mistakes than could have been expected, considering all that had to be done and how little used to management were the doers, and at 5 o’clock next morning we were picked up by the Southampton Stage, with Lewis Grant in it as our escort. William had gone to France. Sir Charles Forbes, whose essential kindness was almost unexampled, for, without his head and without his purse, my father could never have escaped from some exasperated creditors, had sent one of his head clerks to attend my Mother on her journey. Lewis Grant of Kincorth and his twin brother had been wards of my father; there was an old connexion between us.

  Was it Southampton we sailed from, or Portsmouth. I think it must have been Portsmouth, at any rate, it was the same place at which I landed three years later, when my General brought me home.16 A small inn looking on the harbour—Mrs Gillio was already there with her daughter and her brother, Colonel Grant. He warned us that the Silver Arrow was out after my poor hunted father, scouring the sea and visiting the land. We saw some of the gentlemen bearing it, whom Lewis Grant told that Sir John Grant was not to join his family till the morrow, when they knew the Havre Steamer was expected and that the Mountstewart Elphinstone could not sail till the following day, the Captain said, as he was still loading. What should we have done without this friend, who to his sorrow had a part to play and well he played it, for to deception he was forced to stoop, mean deception, my Mother and Mary and I being deceived like the others. The Havre steamer came in, my father and brother not in her. My Mother’s anxiety was therefore genuine, we were all three amazed, not knowing what to make of it. Colonel Alexander Grant went about the town making cautious enquiries, Lewis Grant said openly he feared my father had gone up to London and been detained. In the evening he brought us word our ship had moved out to the roads, Spithead, and tho’ she would not sail till the following day, the passengers were ordered on board at once. Half bewildered we obeyed at once.

 
It was late in the September day—the 28th I remember it was, in the year 1827—nearly dark. We got into a good sailing boat and proceeded out to sea, Mrs Gillio, her brother, and Lewis Grant with us. In an hour we reached our huge ‘ocean home’; down came the chair, we were soon upon the deck, amid such confusion, all noise, all hubbub, all a dream, but not to last long, for the rumour grew in a moment that the wind had changed. The captain ordered the anchors up; our kind friends must go. Mrs Gillio parted with the last of her daughters, her youngest child, and with us whom she loved almost as well. Lewis Grant came up from the cabin, where he had been comforting my Mother. He took leave of my sister and me, a quiet leave. Had he not his romance at the bottom of his honest, warm highland heart. It had laid there, I believe, ever since that Inverness meeting and a little of it lurked there for many a day, at least. I thought so when he and I met again and talked of her ‘who had no parallel.’ He had mentioned to my mother all his clever arrangement with Captain Henning. She was therefore watching for my father. We stood out to sea and beat about till nearly 10 o’clock, when a Jersey boat sighted our peculiar light, came alongside, and my father and both my brothers came on deck; a few moments were allowed for a few words. My father shut himself up with my Mother; John remained beside Mary and me. William, in an agony of grief I never saw equalled in any man, burst out of our Cabin. We watched the sound of the oars of the Jersey boat as it bore him from us, and then said Mary, pale as a corpse, but without a tear, ‘We are done with home.’ We got under weigh directly, and favoured by the wind, long before we waked from heavy slumbers, were out of reach of any silver oars.

  1. Charles Edward Stuart’s mother was Maria Clementina Sobieska. John (c1795−1872) and Charles (c1799−1880) Sobieska claimed to be his legitimate heir.

  2. For this visit see Scott’s Letters, Vol. VIII, edited by Sir Herbert Grierson, p.278.

  3. Mrs Felicia Hemans, the poetess (1793−1835), visited Abbotsford July 1829.

  4. This novel, about one of the leaders of the Jacobite rising of 1715, was published in 1825.

  5. This was still her father’s privilege as M.P. for Tavistock.

  6. Richard Bourne (1761−1829) was Professor of Physic and then of Clinical Medicine at Oxford.

  7. Blackwood’s Magazine; Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country; The Inspector, a Weekly Dramatic Paper.

  8. Lord John Russell had represented Tavistock 1813−20 but it was his stepbrother Lord William who supplanted E.G.’s father in 1826.

  9. The eldest son (1778−1866) of the East India Company Director.

  10. Named after the elderly husband and young, frivolous wife in Sheridan’s School for Scandal (1777).

  11. G. F. Robson (1788−1833) was well known for his Scottish mountain scenes.

  12. Famous for its silver.

  13. Morris Birkbeck: his Notes on a Journey through France and Letters from Illinois were both published in 1818.

  14. Sir Charles Forbes (1774−1849), was a wealthy Bombay merchant and politician.

  15. Named after the Governor of Bombay,1819−27.

  16. Her husband was a Lieutenant Colonel down to his retiral in 1832; this promotion came in 1854, the year E.G. completed her Memoirs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  1827−1828

  I HAD £30 left of the money entrusted to me, this I handed over to poor William, who was to pay the Bill at the hotel out of it and keep the rest. It was not until long after that I heard Colonel Grant had paid the bill and would not accept repayment ‘till better days,’ which, alas! never in that good man’s lifetime came to poor William.

  William’s story from that period for the next four years would be a good foundation for a novel. His struggles were very hard—he had not learned wisdom. He bore his trials well, and was helped by many friends, proving that there were kind hearts in a world some of us have felt it is a mistake to call so hard as it is reputed. I may touch on his romance again; at present I proceed with my own.

  A long four months’ voyage in a narrow space amid a crowd of strangers. I could not avoid believing that some of them must have become acquainted with the humiliating circumstances attending our departure; they never showed this, and the Captain, who had been an actor in the miserable scene, was the most delicate of all, apparently ignorant of all; yet in odd ways Mary and I fancied he was more interested in us than in any of the rest of his passengers. We had taken a dislike to the good little man; we had met him at a tea party given by Mrs Gillio for the purpose of introducing him to us. A Captain Gordon was there and his sister in law, Mrs Gordon, a Widow afterwards Lady Stannus, and the manners of these three Indians were so unsatisfactory that our hearts sank at the prospect of Bombay society, they were not first class, certainly. On board his ship no man could be quieter or more agreeable than Captain Henning. My father and mother were the principal people; we had the best accommodation, and we formed a large party ourselves. My father and mother had one cabin, a poop cabin, Mary and I had the other, Isabella’s smaller one opened out of ours; opposite to hers was Mr Gardiner; the two deck cabins were occupied by my brother John and the captain. It was quite a home circle apart from every body else; they were all below on the main decks.

  Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs Morse were returning to India; a little girl with two brothers who had been at school in England, were going back to their parents in Ceylon; a young Cavalry Officer, a Doctor, and I don’t know how many cadets; altogether, with the three mates, between thirty and forty at the Cuddy table,1 not omitting Mr Caw, that clever, good hearted oddity, who was going with us to India in the hope of being provided for, as his long, unwearied services deserved.

  The first feeling that struck me was the absence of all fear; alone on those wide waters, with but a plank between our heads and death, the danger of our situation never occurred to me. There was such a sober certainty of life apparent in the regular routine observed: the early holy stoning, the early cleaning, manoeuvring, arranging, the regular bells, the busy crew, the busy cuddy servants, the regular meals, the walks upon the deck, the quiet preparation of all in the Cuddy, of all in our cabins, as if we were to go on thus for ever, as if we had gone on thus for years past; all looked so usual that the terrours which assail the spirits of those on shore who watch the sea never once entered the heads of the most cowardly amongst us. Storms, rocks, fogs without, fires, leaks, want of care within, all so readily arranged before the timid ashore, never once started up in a single mind at sea.

  On we sailed, those bright summer days, with hardly breeze enough to fill our sails, skimming leisurely over undulating rather than swelling waves, hardly aware that we were crossing the Bay of Biscay. With Fatima’s help our cabin was soon set in order. It was well filled; a sofa bed, a dressing table that closed over a washing apparatus, a writing table, a pianoforte, a bookcase, and a large trunk with trays in it, each tray containing a week’s supply of linen. In the locker was a good supply of extra stores, water well bottled, in particular. A swing tray and a swing lamp hung from the roof, and two small chairs filled corners; there was a pretty mat upon the floor, and no little room could look more comfortable. The whole locker end was one large window, closed till we left the colder latitudes, open ever after, and shaded by Venetians during the heat of the day. A small closet called a galley, in which Ayah kept her peculiar treasures, had a shower bath in it, readily filled by the sailors, and a most delightful and strengthening refreshment to us. Isabella, in her smaller way, was equally well lodged.

  We soon learned to employ our days regularly, taught by the regularity round us. The life we led was monotonous, but far from being disagreeable, indeed after the first week it was pleasant; the quiet, the repose, the freedom from care, the delicious air, and a large party all in spirits, aided the bright sun in diffusing universal cheerfulness. Few were ill after the first weeks, the soreness of parting was over, a prosperous career was before the young, a return to friends, to business, and to pay awaited the elder; and we had left misery
behind us and were entering on a new life free from trials that had been hard to bear.

  It was some little time before I was quite restored to strength—the nervous system had been overstrained as well as the body overfatigued. There was nothing now to disturb either. I occupied myself pretty much as at home, reading, writing, working, shading my charts, and making extracts from the books I read, a habit I had indulged for some years and found to be extremely useful, the memory was so strengthened by this means and the intellect expanded as thought always accompanied this exercise. We were all well supplied with books and lent them freely to one another. Captain Henning had a very good library, and with him and one or two others we could converse pleasantly. Mr Gardiner was very agreeable and soon became a favourite with my father and with Mary. He was a Civilian, not young; he had been ten years in India, and was returning there now after a two years’ leave at home. He was about thirty, had held a good appointment, and expected a better. The family was Irish; the father, Colonel Gardiner, had inherited money and made more, and on dying left £100,000 to his five children. A son died, a daughter married a very gallant soldier—Sir Edward Blakeney2 —two sisters remained unmarried and lived with an Aunt at Twickenham, a Miss Porter, also Irish, their mother’s sister. No difficulties could occur to render this intimacy undesirable, so while Isabella and I at the Cuddy door were warbling pretty Canzonettes to our light guitars, and listening in our turn to Mrs Morse, who often brought her harp upon deck in the evenings, Mr Gardiner and his lady love amused us all by the care they took never to be far asunder.