Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

  Besides these various arrangements Major Wilson helped me in a more elegant employment, the making the entrance Verandah into a perfect greenhouse, in a very short time too; plants grow so quickly in that climate.

  When we first reached the Station we were very gay. Mrs Robertson gave us a grand state dinner and a Ball. Major Wilson gave us a dinner, and the Regiments gave us a Ball, which I opened with Captain Soppitt to ‘St Patrick’s day in the morning.’ We danced in the Mess tent, which was very prettily decorated. For this very grand occasion I destined my hat and feathers; being in mourning I could only dress in white muslin, so I thought this handsome hat, which had been considered, when tried on, most particularly becoming, would elevate the plainer part of the attire, and add quite an air of dignity to the Commandant’s Wife. It was a chapeau de paille shape, of crêpe lisse, and really in good taste, but the Colonel was terrified. Such a headgear had never been seen in those regions; plain Mrs Robertson and pretty Mrs Soppitt had never either of them attempted such an outrageous adornment and for his Wife to originate such a singularity, he could never stand it; he never had seen ladies wear hats except riding. It was no use talking to him of fashion, beauty, pictures, artists, and so forth; he really was in an agony. So there was nothing for it but to replace my mother’s present in its tin case, braid up my long hair in its own peculiar fashion with a pearl comb at the back and a bunch of white roses at one ear, and look girlish instead of matronly. Frequently afterwards his extraordinary dislike to any change in dress he had not been used to obliged me to appear very unlike the times, and look dowdy enough for many a year. Latterly, his eye became more accustomed to all the vagaries of fashion and so he bore his whims with greater patience—to my great comfort for it did annoy me more than it ought perhaps, to wear thin arms when other women cased their in balloons, a low head beside their towers, and other such peculiarities. The fate of the hat made me so nervous about a cap in the shape of a butterfly with spread wings, which had accompanied the last dresses from London, that I never produced it before any eyes but Mrs Young’s, who was poor and fond of finery, and accepted it with gratitude. It suited her so well, she looked almost handsome in it, as Colonel Smith remarked in chorus among other voices, wondering where she could have got so pretty a headdress! These were light troubles, after all. The only visitors we had were Major Jameson and a King’s Officer, I think named Bonamy, Captain Bonamy. They came together, staid a week, causing a round of dinners much enlivened by them. I liked the Robertson children, poor Tilly and Elphie, ugly little things but very intelligent. Elphinstone is now a fine young man out somewhere in India, Matilda in her Satara grave, her mother, unable to part with her only daughter, kept her on year after year in that dangerous climate to infancy, and she died of liver at 9 years old. After we left, mercifully; they had, then, besides four boys at home.

  In the month of October, asthma, to which for many years my Colonel had been subject, attacked him very seriously. Night after night he spent in an easy chair smoking stramonium and appearing to suffer painfully. It is probably a disease worse to witness than to bear, the breathlessness seeming to be so distressing. As the fit became worse instead of better, Doctor Bird, who had returned to his duties, advised change of air, not to Poonah but to Bombay, to leave the high ground at once and descend to the Coast for a while, but not remain there. He told me privately the stomach and liver were quite deranged from long residence in a tropical climate and that our best plan would be to return home. This neither of us wished, and we suggested the Neilgherries; he said they were only a make shift, present ease, but no remedy. He advised a consultation on reaching Bombay, after watching the effect of the journey.

  As, at any rate, we were not to return to Satara, the new arrangements being to take place after Xmas, we made such preparations as were fitting for the break up there. Discharged the Parsee and all the servants but our personal attendants, packed what furniture we meant to keep in such a way as would render it easy of moving, and all perishable and unnecessary articles were left to be sold. My Grand pianoforte went back to my mother, and with all the quantity of an Indian travelling equipage surrounding us, with the addition of many extras, boxes, cases, horses, gig, servants, etc., we left my first married home, where indeed I had been very happy. Spite of some trials thro’ which I think I may say I came well, for I had made a promise to myself to be patient, forbearing, accommodating wherever principle was not concerned, and even then to oppose with gentleness.

  I regretted the Robertsons very much, and I regretted a promised visit from the Rajah.2 The little fat man was coming in state on his elephant with his body guard and a whole long train of attendants to pay a visit of ceremony to the Commandant’s wife, and he was bringing shawls, muslins, tissues and pearls to lay at her feet, all which would have been very acceptable; altho’ in general the presents thus made are of a very inferiour description. The military are allowed on particular occasions to receive such gifts, the Civilians never; so the Rajah gained by our departure whatever I lost, for he kept his presents. This poor little man was either a most consummate hypocrite, or he was most shamefully illused by those who succeeded General Robertson. On account of political intrigues said to be brought to light, implicating his veracity, indeed his honour, on all points, he was deprived of his dominions, banished to Bengal on a small annuity and overwhelmed with indignities. In our time he was considered perfectly harmless; he had taught himself English, read the newspapers, after a fashion, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which he had bought from the Colonel in 40 volumes, assisted by some interpreter probably little better versed in our language than himself. His principal aim seemed to be to imitate the brilliant style of representation habitual to the French. He had his Champ de mars, literally called so, and there he manoeuvred his troops to his own delight, and mine, for they were dressed in every variety of uniform he had been able to pick up at sales of old clothing, horse, foot, artillery of all ages, for he had some Hanoverian Jack boots and feather fringed cocked hats much admired by his Officers, who looked in them, their slight frames swallowed up inside these monstrous habiliments, like so many Tom Thumbs in pewter pots. He was too fat for horseback, he therefore directed operations from his elephant, which was very grandly painted, and hung about with brocade and tassels and gold and silver. He was improving his town too, and had his garden of roses around his palace, neatly kept.

  I cannot but think he was honest, for a native, then. We must not judge of them by our standard; truth Is not in them; it would be called folly. Their wisdom is cunning, underhand measures are their skill, deceiving is their sagacity; they deal with us as they deal with each other; so the poor Rajah, deprived of his true friend Colonel Robertson, with his shield of integrity, may have fallen into the tricks of his race, or may have been the victim of the intrigues of his brother and successor who bore a very bad character. I have always been sorry for our Rajah.

  We required no escort on our return to Poonah, being so large a party. We made out our two days’ journey well, and established ourselves in a pavilion in Henry Robertson’s compound, where we only slept for we took all our meals with them. He had married, a year before, Jemima Dunlop, a remarkably pretty young woman, Scotch, niece to Mrs Glasgow, well known to my people, as was all her family. She had been a little spoiled and on coming out to India had announced the most high sounding matrimonial intentions; the handsomest, the cleverest, the best born, the best bred man alone was worthy of her name and beauty. So a year passed over, another, and a third. So, dropping a requisite each season, she contented herself with abilities, sinking the other three or outweighing them with worth, which she got into the bargain and had forgotten in her catalogue. She was a very curious woman, exceedingly disagreeable to me, so self opinionated, stingy, dirty and silly, I thought. There was one little baby, a frightful thing kept rolled up in flannel, was four months old and had never been dressed or washed, it looked like, for she did not shine in the washing way. I remember years a
fter when they came to visit us at Baltiboys with the only two children they had left of seven, he bathed both boy and girl in a Tub every morning, and the youngest of the two was ten years old.

  They were very kind to us at Poonah, gave a dinner party in our honour. We dined out too, at the Wards, and somewhere else, I forget the name. The Wards were living in Wogan Browne’s house, a very pretty one, and Fanny had it so beautifully furnished, herself and children so beautifully dressed, and Mr Ward, who managed the Bazaar affairs, kept so good a table, it was quite a pleasure to visit them.

  Poonah is a nice place, no beauty of scenery, a wide plain, a wandering town and straggling always full of people, always full of gaiety, and a delightful dry climate, the very air for me, but not fit for my asthmatick husband; so we determined to move on after a sort of military display was over which was to take place on the following evening, before all the beauty and fashion of Poonah. There was to be a preparatory series of exercises in the morning, to which the Colonel wished to go, and to take me with him, and as my horse was an old trooper bought from Captain Graham of the 4th Dragoons—Sir James ‘brother—I felt not a bit afraid of either trumpets or firing. It was a very pretty sight; the lines were just forming in the gray half light of the Indian very short dawn. We rode along them in the midst of a party of friends all in high spirits, to take up a good station off the field. When lo! the first bugle call. Hotspur pricked up his ears, seemed every inch of him to grow alive. The second call. Off he set, and scouring the whole plain, planted himself and me in the ranks of his old regiment. I never was so bewildered in my life, fairly dazed, and so unequal to resume the reins I had let fall to grasp the crutch that Major Willoughby dismounted, stept forward, took me off my excited steed and led me to somebody’s carriage, where I felt much more comfortable than at the head of that troop of cavalry, altho’ my abominable Colonel came up in fits of laughing to condole with me, echoed by his merry companions, none of whom were Civilians to a certainty. I don’t suppose riding on horseback was my forte, for I was always meeting with disasters, from the day Paddle gave me a bath in the Druie, to Donegal’s capers in the Paddy fields, and this pleasant Exhibition at Poonah.

  As I was not quite sure what son of figure I had cut in my habit and hat, and Major Willoughby’s arms, I resolved to efface any disadvantageous impression made in the morning by an extraordinary display of feminine loveliness at the Review in the evening, and for this purpose I repaired rather early after luncheon to our summer house, and ordering a tin case to be opened, dived down for the box which held the fine hat and feathers. The box was there—but within it! a riddle of what had been crape and catgut that fell to dust on being raised, and some remains of feathers amid a swarm of heaven knows what kind of creepers; the Ayah must have left the case open at some time and so let these destructive insects in. I was wise enough to hold my tongue, the Poonah world never knew how much elegance it had lost the sight of; neither did my Colonel till long after. May be the insects saved us a scene for he might have forbidden the contemplated display—he had very backward notions about dress in those days. The only smart head tire I had with me was a cottage bonnet of white net, with a bunch of roses, It very likely suited me and the Review better than did the hat and feathers.

  We went on in the evening to Dapourie, with Sir Charles and Lady Malcolm, who were staying there in the Governour’s absence, to a late dinner. I rather think they were honeymooning it, at any rate they had been but a short time married. She was a very pretty, little, dark, Jewess looking woman, a Miss Shawe, and he a good sort of rough seaman. He had not done as much for himself as the other clever brothers had done for themselves.3 He had the courage, the daring of the borderer tribe without much abilities. We staid a couple of days in this pleasant spot, a large cool house in pretty grounds, and then we proceeded on our journey to Bombay, where we took up our residence with my father and mother.

  Colonel Smith felt better for a day or two, and then he got ill again. Doctor Eckford said he must really do as Doctor Bird had advised, go for 6 months to the Neilgherries; he however recommended a consultation, so Dr Me Adam and Dr Penny were called in, and they decided for a voyage home. Whether they were right or wrong, who can say, but they were so uneasy about him that they asked for a private audience of me, and told me he was in serious ill health, had been too long in that climate, that another season could not but go very hard with him, that the Neilgherries was only a palliative, not a cure, and that, in short, were he not to sail for England they could not answer for the consequences.

  My father was very unwilling to lose us from India, and gave his voice for the Neilgherry plan; to satisfy me he went again to Doctor McAdam, and on returning told me there was nothing for it but the voyage home. I must own I was very sorry. We had made up our minds to remain 3 years longer, and this sudden retirement from place and pay was a disappointment.

  The close of the rains being a very unhealthy time on the Coast we all moved up to Khandalla for ten days, we pitching our tents directly over the deep ravine, my father and mother occupying the bungalow. Here the bracing mountain air, and the fine breeze, tempered by the near neighbourhood of the sea, made the heat of the day quite bearable and the cool nights very enjoyable. We breakfasted at home, spent the mornings as we liked, always dined with my father, and played whist in the evenings. Several travellers paid us visits in passing, all doors being open to all comers in India, which chance meetings made a pleasant variety, and when the stray guest could play whist I was not sorry to resign my hand to him, for these were in my early gambling days, and I fancy I was not the best of partners, for my husband and myself managed between us to lose as much to our more fortunate parents as paid their boat hire on our return; a piece of luck my father particularly enjoyed the mention of and made a boast of for many a day. He translated two odes of Horace during this visit to the Ghauts, my Mother darning table linen beside him as he wrote. We were by no means so refined in our employments in our tents as were the burra sahibs in the bungalow. Doctor Eckford joined us, and we played backgammon etc. And talked and laughed by the hour.

  One night we had all gone early to bed; it was calm and dark, no moon, no sound, the sentries being either asleep, or as quiet as if they had been. Suddenly a roar like the roar at Lanowlie broke the stillness, roused us all—it was frightful, such a vicious tone, so near. It came again, and then thro’ the ravine came the shriek of a buffalo. The guard stept up to the curtain of the tent and called the Colonel; he valiantly seized a pistol and, wrapping his gown round him, ventured out, to meet Doctor Eckford in similar guise. How I shook within. They soon satisfied themselves that we were in no danger. Our acquaintance the tiger was engaged in deadly conflict with a buffalo, too busy a great deal in the bottom of the dell to have any thoughts of ascending to our height. The poor buffalo had no chance; his moans were soon hushed, and we hoped the horrid scene was over, but another actor had arrived, some other ferocious beast, who set upon the tiger, and really the fearful yells they uttered were terrifying. For a full half hour the battle raged; then all was still. How the combatants had settled matters, which was worsted, or what each suffered, we never knew. In the morning part of the carcase of the buffalo remained on the field, but no other trace of the affray.

  My mother at a greater distance had heard none of the outcries. She did not, however, admire such neighbours, and as we had a good many arrangements to make for our voyage, and the cold weather was beginning, we seconded her proposal to return to the Retreat, where I at least had a busy time.

  Our preparations for the voyage home were interrupted by the arrival of the two last of the Ironside cousins, Annie and Julia, who had been living since their mother’s death with their guardian. Uncle Ralph, at Rothesay, whither he had betaken himself after the sale of Tennochside. This step had been necessitated by the complete derangement of his affairs, into which he had never looked for years. His agent, Crooky Shortridge, so called from his hump back, received his rents and
answered his calls for money, never intimating that the accounts, which were never looked at, had been very greatly overdrawn, Edmund had larger debts; it had cost much to get him into Mr Kinderley’s office, where his foolish and extravagant conduct prevented his remaining. It cost more again to equip him for India, my father having got him a Cavalry Cadetship for Bengal. And lastly, my Uncle had gone security with three others for what had been required to finish the education and provide the equipment of his brother Edward. The necessary funds were furnished by the advice of my father, who was one of the Securities and was never repaid. The other two were James Grant, Corrimo, James Grant, Duke Street, having died bankrupt, and my father’s part being in the hands of his Trustees, those from whom the £2,000 had been borrowed came down upon poor Uncle Ralph. The sale paid all debts and left a surplus. It had always been said that there was coal on the estate; this my uncle disbelieved, and took no trouble about it. The Glasgow merchant who bought Tennochside had capital and energy; found the coal, worked the mines, and realised a very handsome income out of them.

  My Uncle bore his misfortunes well; he was easy under great trials, like many others; but his temper, never good, became very irritable. He and his wife had never agreed and he and his niece Anne were at open war. She was a saucy, ill bred girl and resented the greater favour shewn to Julia, who was quiet in manner and modest and very handsome. The one most to be pitied of this ill assorted party was my Aunt Judith. All had been hers, and most certainly she had spent none of it; frugality could not have been carried further than by her in every department. What she felt no one ever knew. She went on exactly as usual, silent, grave, stolid, unimpressible, apparently never provoked, and most surely never pleased; the poor Houghton girls were very miserable in a home so unlike their own. We liked them very much but thought Anne the better looking, she had an intelligent countenance and a fine figure, while Julia was dull and fat.