A great many parties were given in honour of the ship’s cargo of young pretty girls, and as I am writing of gaieties, I may mention what I had forgotten in its proper place—Mr Bouchier’s masquerade. He gave it before I married. He was the head of the post office, a fat, portly man, very good natured, very well off, and a bachelour.
It was great fun choosing our characters, the suitable dresses etc. Our host was the best himself; large, and fat, and fashionably attired, he represented a School mistress with a long sticked fan; his scholars were the tallest young Officers he could get—all in short frocks and red sashes—whom he watched most rigorously, interfering with their partners, gathering them round him and lecturing them on their behaviour by the help of the long sticked fan. The figure that made the most sensation was my Lady Bradford, she had insisted on going, the only time she was ever known to attend any assembly. She had no need for any fancy dress. Her usual attire was quite sufficiently out of the ordinary attire of her sex to pass for a fancy dress—a faded silk, very plain and very scanty gown, and the close cap, made her quite unlike any body else. No one knew her at first, she passed for Jane Shawe. There was the usual number of characters of all times, some very well supported: an Albanian whose beautiful costume was so becoming to handsome Mr Le Geyt that all fell in love with him. Mary was dressed after a print of Celia in ‘As you like it.’ I was a Hungarian lady of distinction with a wealth of jewels on me that would have frightened me had Mr Forbes told me their value when he sent them. He was the head of Sir Charles Forbes’s house at Bombay, a particularly nice person, and able to borrow any amount of jewellery from his native acquaintance. Large, well lighted rooms, the best musick and an excellent supper sent the whole queer looking crowd away happy.
Mr and Mrs Bax at this time made a party to Elephanta, a pretty wooded island about the middle of the Bay, remarkable among all the rest for a cave cut out of the solid rock—the general hindu custom. The supports were huge elephants, by no means coarsely carved. Four of them with arches between, formed the portico, an part of the rock, cut from it like the Temple within. A very large elephant was inside. I forget now if there was any thing else remarkable except the situation and the variety of beautiful flowers, mostly creepers which hung about the stones and the trees. It took us a couple of hours to reach this famous place, where luncheon was soon prepared—the same time to return. Our boat had a good awning, and yet we were all burned nearly black by the fierce sun.
And here I may mention what I had forgotten in its proper place, that on our way to Bombay from Poonah we had stopt to visit another more celebrated excavation, the Temple of Ellora. A wooded hill rises from the plain; at one end a little search reveals a door, not any way remarkable, except that one can’t but wonder what it does there. The priest in charge opens it, and reveals such a lovely little display of exquisite carving as is only equalled by Melrose or Roslin; but they were built, they and their pillars, and then ornamented by fine carving. Ellora was cut out of the solid rock, as we cut the props of our coal mines, and the carving was done at the same time with the forming. What a curious people—such patience, such industry and taste too, according to their rights. At Ellora the proportions were elegant, the dome was lofty, the pillars light, unlike Elephanta where all was cumbrous, heavy, suited to the huge animal it was supposed to shelter.
Our newly arrived cousins brought us many kind gifts from the dear ones at home. Jane never forgot us and my good little Aunt Frere well remembered me. She sent me a quantity of useful things, dear in India and sometimes not to be had. Jane had very pleasant news for us. She had become acquainted with the Duchess of Wellington soon after settling at Malshanger, which was not far from Stratfield Saye. I forget what brought them together, I think Colonel Pennington had served under the Duke for a term in India, and Lord Douro hunted with Mr Folyambe’s hunt. At any rate, they had grown very intimate, and Jane interested the Duchess so much about our fine young cousin William Ironside that he was invited to Stratfieldsaye and when Her Grace went to see some exhibition or other at Sandhurst, it was on his arm she walked about, fancy the pride of the Cadet. She got him his commission and put him into the Duke’s regiment, Jane was so delighted, much more so and more interested too in that fine young man than were his sisters, who took it all very coolly, as matters of course, when I went in great joy to tell them, and never thanked Jane then, nor for her after care of this their only brother, whom they lost so early.
I had one regret on leaving Bombay; my father’s unfortunate difference with the Governour. Whatever it had been in the beginning, the shutting up of the Courts had put him in the wrong at the end. In my opinion, there is a bee in the bonnet of all the Grants. As a race they are very clever, very clear headed and very hard working. Under rule and guidance, they do well, none better. Witness the numbers of the Clan who have made the name celebrated all over the world. When they make their own work, they make a mill of it—they can’t sit idle and they never appear to consider the consequences of their impulsive acts. My husband and I could have done nothing had we staid. It might have been arranged perhaps had my poor Mother been in better humour. This mischief with her was that she never let herself be natural; none of us could ever find out what she really felt or what she really wished. She brooded over every occurrence all by herself, and saw every thing through prejudices not to be got rid of, because they were never named. She had taken a dislike to the Governour and Sir John Malcolm was very intimate with my Colonel; he was most anxious to end this unhappy difference, he spoke both to him and to me, and empowered him to conciliate my father. He even wrote a note to be shewn to my father, which would have let him down easy and by the aid of ‘misapprehension,’ ‘hastiness of temper on both sides,’ ‘intermeddling,’ he tried to soften matters. It had a good effect this kind note and Colonel Smith assuring my father of what I am quite sure was true, that the great Sir John had a high value for the little one and believed him to have been influenced by his brother judges. All was in good train when my poor Mother interfered. She never knew but the one side of any thing. She burst in with ‘proper pride,’ ‘self respect,’ ‘high station of a King’s Judge’ on the one part and ever so many unpardonable ‘impertinences’ on the other, sparing neither my husband nor me for our uncalled for interference. So it became war to the knife instead of a reconciliation, a great pity.
She was irritated at our departure, which she considered unnecessary. She was good and affectionate, though she would not shew it, and she keenly felt the loss of the last of her children, the one who had stuck by her so long.
Mr Caw was much of the same style; he could not bear to lose any of us; his rudeness to Colonel Pennington was only equalled by his impertinence to Mr Gardiner, and surpassed by his spite to Colonel Smith, yet he would have laid down his life for my sisters and me, in fact, he was jealous of our husbands, he wanted no such fences between the old happy life in the old Country and himself. Never were such queer people as those people of the past age.
After several inquiries, visits to many vessels in harbour, and careful enquiries as to their commanders, we decided to sail in the Childe Harold, a new, swift ship, beautifully fitted up, commanded by Captain West, an old experienced lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was to make a coasting voyage home, which was particularly recommended for Colonel Smith.
This settled, we furnished one of the poop cabins without much cost, as my father made over to us a good deal of our former cabin furniture. The small cabin next us was taken for little Willy Anderson and his maid, who was to act as mine. The Colonel also engaged a native male attendant, as when the violent fit of asthma was on him he was totally helpless and my mother did not think I should continue throughout the voyage able to wait on him alone. The small cabin opposite was taken by Doctor Eckford, who, not feeling well, had resolved to pay a short visit to the Cape. Thus we had prepared for as much comfort as a homeward voyage admits of; it is never so pleasant as a voyage out, for health and spirits are wantin
g, in general, to those who are leaving their occupation behind them.
We had regrets too, but we left more anxiety than it was easy to bear. The last mail from home brought out the patent for investing Mr Dewar with a knighthood and the Chief Justiceship, he a young man might have been my father’s son, not clever, nor in any way qualified for such advancement save as a mark of displeasure with my poor father’s folly, Mr Dewar having been acting Advocate General at the beginning of the dispute and so engaged on the side of the local government. My father was lucky not to be required to resign his puisne judgeship; he owed this to Lord Brougham.
I liked David Dewar so well, that James Dewar came in for liking too, and he deserved it from all of us; nothing could be more delicate, more respectful, more considerate than his demeanour to my father during the time they remained so strangely situated on the Bench together. I always heard my father equally commended for bearing this heavy blow so philosophically, and he was wounded on many sides, for they caricatured him as a wild elephant between two tame ones, which was a mistake and they ridiculed him in some places, animadverted on him severely in others: all to a man so sensitive as he really was under that outward stoicism, very, very annoying. It therefore did not surprise us on reaching home to find he had resigned his Bombay judgeship, and had removed to Calcutta with the intention of practising there at the Bar.4
My last sight of him in the cabin of the Childe Harold, where he and my mother left me late on the evening of the 4th of November; he lingered behind her one moment to fold me to his heart again, neither of us speaking, and then he vanished from my sight for ever. Long I sat listening to the stroke of the oars which carried them back in the darkness to their desolate home. It was a dreary parting.
Mr Anderson had put his little boy to bed in the next cabin, the child being half suffocated with weeping. Oh these Indian scenes, a yearly death of the heart for every family. Poor little Willy was a great diversion to my sadness; he was going home under our care, and tho’ not an engaging child, he was tractable and a source of employment for I took real charge of him, and I think improved him. He was carefully educated afterwards and has turned out extremely well; the last we heard of him was his having got his troop and married his cousin Helen Grant.
1. The chief gold coin of British India.
2. Pratad Singh: descended from the great Sivaji, enthroned 1818; his rule over this small, semi-independent principality was little more than nominal.
3. There were ten brothers in this Dumfriesshire family, all of whom had to make their own way in the world. Sir Charles, the youngest, became Vice Admiral in Bombay, where his brother Sir John was Governor: another brother Sir Pulteney became an Admiral.
4. He resigned in September 1830 and practised at the Calcutta Bar for three years before being again appointed to a Puisne judgeship; he held this post until his resignation in 1848; he died at sea on his way home on 19 May 1848.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
1829-1830
We had a pleasant voyage to Colombo, down the coast the whole way, fine, cool weather, the next poop cabin empty, so Willy played there, and I often sat there late and early, our own cabin being disagreeable during the night arrangements. My Colonel slept in a hammock, a large one, which filled up nearly all our space. It was swung low, so after it was up and before it was down it was not easy to move about—it prevented the air circulating to my sofa, too, so that the empty cabin near us was a great comfort,
Doctor Eckford, always pleasant, was a nice, cheerful, clever companion; Captain West remarkably complaisant. The few other gentlemen passengers very inoffensive. There were no ladies; Captain, now Colonel Stalker and an invalid brother, Captain Bradbury, or some such name, a Widower with a little boy, a nice playfellow for Willie. Poor Archdeacon Hawtayne and his Willy, and a very foolish young man, a Mr Mills, whom we smuggled on board after leaving the harbour, or his numerous creditors would have detained him.
Captain West was going to Ceylon for cargo; coffee, spices, etc. He was also to take home invalids from thence, so expected to remain a week at Colombo. We really remained near three. The first day or two we staid in our Cabins, with most of the rest of the ship to ourselves, I sitting under the awning on the poop admiring the pretty Indian view, inhaling the really and truly fragrant air, and thinking over the 21 months that had passed in these strange lands since I had first sighted Ceylon. We then removed to the house of a merchant in the town, a friend of the Captain’s, whose immense warehouses, with all the business carried on in his large Court yard, furnished me with hourly amusement. Here we were discovered by an old Edinburgh friend of mine, Campbell Riddell, and carried off by him to his cool Bungalow on the Coast, where we remained during our stay. It was a charming place, his house hold very well appointed, and he with his Scotch welcome made us feel so quite at home. We spent our mornings in driving out, the sun never preventing exercise in Ceylon, our afternoons upon the beach where the air was delicious, our evenings in company, either at home or abroad. Sir Edward Barnes was the Governour, an old General, extremely fond of his bottle, who had married a young, very young and very handsome wife, and who idolised her and the two spoiled children she had brought him. It would be hard to say how the affairs of the island were carried on, the late supper parties affecting most heads next morning. The officials did sometimes appear in their offices before the clerks left them, and the troops were occasionally inspected, but it was perfectly evident that the aim and the end and the business of all the merry party at and about Government House was pleasure, and of a queer kind. A son of child’s play—all excepting the wine part, which indeed required all the strength of manly brains to bear up under, the Governour, who had made his head during a long course of campaigns, not comprehending how difficult some people found it to keep up to his high mark.
We were with their excellencies every evening except the two, when Campbell Riddell entertained them and others, himself. He was a great man, by the bye, sent out by the Home Government as Commissioner to inquire into local abuses, settle some disputed points, put much right that had gone wrong and no wonder, either! Whether he had talents for so grave a charge I should have doubted from early recollection of the rather wild young man who could never settle to business in his own country; but a conciliatory manner, with a most gentlemanly deportment and thorough honesty of purpose, he certainly did possess, and probably he carried out his instructions well, for he was afterwards sent on as Secretary to the Governour at Sydney. He and I were very happy to meet again I know, and soon becoming as intimate as in former days, he confided me his love for a very handsome girl, one of the Rodneys, whom but for her want of education, he would have married at once. The father, Mr Rodney, a man extremely well connected, had come out to Ceylon years before with a wife, who died, leaving him several children. He married again and the same events were repeated. He took a third wife who still lived, a Dutch woman that could scarcely read or write, and thought it needless to give more knowledge to her step children than she possessed herself. I think between her own and former broods, there were altogether 21 young Rodneys, at least they said so, and not a penny of any of them. Two girls, of batch the first, who had had some advantage, were happily disposed of. One had gone to Paris on a visit to her Grandmother, Lady Aldborough, where she captivated a Scotch nobleman, who had a little misgiving in marrying her, and standing somewhat in awe of a naval brother, sent out to the Station where the brother lay a sort of apologetick letter for so rash an act. The brother’s Station was Ceylon and he had just despatched to his elder brother such another missive as he had received to excuse his own engagement to the sister of the Paris bride. They were beautiful young women and amiable and both marriages as I have heard turned out well. It did not fare so well with batch the 2nd. Caroline Rodney, very ignorant, her temper very much chafed by her Dutch stepmother’s behaviour, brought a deal of ill humour as an accompaniment to her extreme loveliness to poor Campbell Riddell, his lessons in spelling and gramma
r and sums, in addition, she threw in his face, disobeying also in many ways so that for some years, at least, he had ‘to rue the day he sought her.’ Whether she got wiser after her children came I know not, but when I saw her it was in the wooing time, all sunshine on both parts.
I found another old friend in Ceylon, Mr Anderson Blair. What situation he filled I don’t remember; he lived handsomely and appeared to be happy, and to be liked, especially by the Governour, who found him only too ready to join in the call for another bottle—I remember this used to be said of him, tho’ my Mother would never believe it.
The doings of Government House were certainly extraordinary. One night there was a Ball, a supper, rather riotous, throwing about fruit at one another, making speeches, long, rambling and thick enough, more dancing, or pulling and pushing rather, from which we were glad to get away. Next night was a Play in the pretty private theatre, ‘The Honeymoon,’ Lady Barnes acting the heroine. Supper of course in the same style as before, the Governour looking on, A. de C.s applauding. We had then a fancy Ball very well done, Lady Barnes as Queen Elizabeth, beautifully got up and looking wonderfully handsome, her Governour rather old for Leicester. Many characters were well dressed, several well sustained, a few groups very grand. Colonel Churchill was a perfect Henri iv., his Wife such a pretty, impudent Rosalind, with a stupid Celia, but such a Touchstone! some clever young officer. So on of all the rest—rooms large, numerous, well lighted. A grand supper, speeches etc., great noise towards the end. These were all grand affairs; the intermediate evenings, the ladies and gentlemen romped about, playing petits jeux with strange forfeits, hide and seek, hunt the whistle, etc. It was all very unseemly, a perfect whirl of riotous folly, very unlike the propriety of a Government House, where there might be mirth and pleasure without such a compromise of respectability.
Memoirs of a Highland Lady Page 72