Memoirs of a Highland Lady

by Elizabeth Grant

  Campbell Riddell’s two quiet dinner parties were really like a return to rational society after a turmoil of disreputables. At the first of these entertainments I was taken to dinner by a grave, particularly gentlemanly man in a General’s uniform, whose conversation was as agreeable as his manner. He had been over half the world, knew all celebrities, and contrived, without display, to say a great deal one was most willing to hear. About the middle of dinner Sir Edward Barnes called out ‘Sir Hudson Lowe, a glass of wine with you’1 —people did such barbarisms then—to which my companion bowed assent. Years before, with our Whig principles and prejudices, we had cultivated in our highland retirement a perfect horrour of the great, or the little! Napoleon’s gaoler. The cry of party, the feeling for the prisoner, the book of Surgeon O’Meara, the voice from St Helena,2 had all worked the woman’s heart to such a pitch of indignation, that this maligned name was an offence to all of us. We were to hold the owner of it in abhorrence, speak to him! never! Look at him, sit in the same room with him, never! Colcraft the Executioner would have been preferred as a companion. None were louder than I, more vehement; and here I was most comfortably beside my bugbear, and perfectly satisfied with the position too. It was a good lesson. They had sent the poor man to Ceylon because he was so miserable at home, the world judging him as we had done, tabooed him remorselessly. He was so truly sent to Coventry that he once thanked Colonel Pennington in a Coffee House for the common civility of handing over a newspaper, saying that any civility was now so new to him he must be excused for gratefully acknowledging it. The opinion of less partial times had judged more fairly of Sir Hudson, his captive, and the Surgeon. Timidity and anxiety made Sir Hudson unnecessarily vexatious, Buonaparte was not in a mood or of a mood to be placable, and Mr O’Meara wanted money and notoriety, which he gained at no expense, not having had much character to begin with, another Colonel Wardle Business. 3

  Our drives about Colombo were merely agreeable; there was no fine scenery, the sea, some wooding and fields, amongst which the frail cabins of the Cingalese were scattered. A country house of the Governour’s on a rock starting out of the sea, was cool and pretty. I wondered they did not live there rather than in the dusty town; it would not have been so gay for my lady. It was odd to see the huge elephants working like smaller beasts of burden; they were employed to draw waggons, Artillery guns, etc., and seemed to be quite tractable. The climate was very enjoyable, air so balmy; altogether I know I left Ceylon with regret. And our Childe Harold was irksome for a day or two. Neither was it improved by the additions to its cargo; bales of cotton, coffee, spices, crowded the deck, making our walk there very confined. The invalid soldiers hung about in idle groups, and the wives and children encreased the confusion. The officers returning in charge of them were very disagreeable, Captain Floyd fine, Mr Bell fault finding; the surgeon, a boy, mischief making; and I lost my spare cabin. It was taken by Mrs Churchill and her little daughter Louisa, on whose account the mother was going home—not that the child’s health required Europe, but her education could not be carried on in Ceylon with such parents, in such society, I should think not. It was impossible not to like Mrs Churchill. She was very good natured, quite unaffected, without guile, and so very handsome; but she was all wrong, poor woman, under educated, no principles, idle, frivolous, and had from her birth to the present moment been exposed to the evil influence of bad example. Her father, an Irish judge by name Finucane, had to divorce her mother on account of his own nephew. The mother always denied her guilt, but she lost her cause and her husband would never acknowledge Mrs Churchill, who was born after the separation and brought up under this cloud. When very young, and very beautiful, and very giddy, she was so much distinguished by Colonel Churchill that her character would certainly have suffered had he not married her; this extreme step he showed no intention of taking, but marched off with his regiment from whatever watering place the flirtation had been carried on at. The mother was shrewd enough; she wrote to her five Irish sons stating all circumstances. The brothers en masse appeared one morning pistol cases in hand, at Colonel Churchill’s new quarters, and introducing themselves, begged to ask him whether he had forgot nothing at his former station.

  ‘Gad,’ said he, ‘I believe I have forgotten your sister,’ upon which there was a grand shaking of hands.

  The marriage, thus settled, was soon concluded and then came the question how were the young and very handsome couple to live. Colonel Churchill was of the Marlborough family, his mother a Walpole, little money and less worth on either side. He lived luxuriously on such credit as he could get, helped now and then out of scrapes by various relations. Nobody, however, came forward at this time save Mrs Finucane, who gave sufficient for a fair start, and so the Bride and bridegroom began with rather a flourish at Knights-bridge. They gave the prettiest little dinners ever ordered from the French cook’s shop at the corner, good wine, pleasant company, and he was the luckiest dog in the world to have found such a Wife, with such a fortune, as he gave out accompanied her. They were asked out a great deal among the ‘first circles,’ his connections being all in the red book. 4 She had the good sense to dress simply and to resist a hired carriage, tho’ she told me in her natural way that it required all the admiration she received to the full to bear with the straw in the hackney coach, on which she set her dainty feet while bowing Adieux to the noble partners who handed her into such a vehicle. Of course this could not last, and he was fortunately ordered off to Courtray with a draft of men to encrease the Army of occupation, 5 and there he raised the wind in a way he had tried to practise on a smaller scale at Knightsbridge. The little dinners were changed to suppers, play introduced, the Wife’s part being to set her bright eyes on the younger men, whom she fascinated readily, without poor thing, I do believe knowing one bit what she was doing. And so, at last some money falling to him, and some arrangement being made about it so as to assure the clearance of his debts in time, family interest got him the appointment of Secretary to the military part of the Government of Ceylon. He had grown a careless husband and she a very indifferent wife by the time we made their acquaintance. Yet they cared for one another in a way. Colonel Churchill made her over to my Colonel’s care, who promised, on her landing, to deliver her safe to old Mrs Churchill in London, while I undertook friendly offices on board. Little did either of us know the charge she was to be.

  The first annoyance was to Doctor Eckford. His cabin was next to hers; part of the partition was movable, a mirrour that slipt down on a spring being touched, and so opened a communication between. Little Miss Louisa soon made this discovery, used, and abused it, bursting forth on the little Doctor at inconvenient moments, so that he never felt secure of privacy; the mother, too, soon began to follow the child, tapping first before shewing herself, but not giving much time between the tap and the apparition. I am quite sure this was all idleness, our medical friend being never attractive and at this moment livid in complexion from liver. He, however, chose to flatter himself with the idea that he was pursued, had captivated! and his serious complaints both to the Colonel and me were sufficient to overset all gravity.

  She next tried my Colonel, merely a bestowal of her tedium on any one, but it was disagreeable. Dr Eckford took me every day 3 walks; so many turns upon the deck each time, for the good of my health, hereafter. The first walk was after breakfast always, while the Colonel was shaving, which he had not time for earlier in the morning. A tap at the door one day announced Mrs Churchill, who came to amuse him during the operations. She must have thought she succeeded, for next day she came again, and again, and again. ‘Upon my soul,’ said the Colonel, ‘this is getting too bad, the woman, pretty as she is, is quite a nuisance, a man can’t shave for her; Mrs Smith, you must give up your walk and stay and guard your husband.’ Not a grateful office to act both guard and spy, but there was no help for it.

  So after a few more days she gave up this diversion and took to one less harmless—a regular serious flirtation wit
h Captain Floyd, whom she very nearly distracted spite of his long experience! Dr Eckford informed us he rejoiced in this for his own case but was sorry for the poor wumman so exposing herself. Morning, noon, and evening the pair sat close together on the poop, in the Cuddy, or at the Cuddy door, little Louisa always with them, but busy with her doll and books. What they could find to say we used to wonder for neither shone in conversation with others. She spoke little ever and he was a real goose, only good looking. Now and then she would come and sit with me, complain of the long day, the dull voyage, the stupid life, and so on; while we three, the Colonel, the Doctor and 1, were quite content, busy and happy, eyes and ears open, and inclined to be pleased, with the weather beautiful.

  At length on Xmas morning we came in sight of the Isle of France,6 and before dinner time we were at anchor in the harbour of port Louis. It was a pretty scene, plenty of shipping on the sea, plenty of wood on the shore, hills in the distance, and a long straggling town lying along the water’s edge.

  The sailors were all agog to bathe till the captain checked their ardour by the short word ‘sharks,’ which abounded all about the island; indeed, a poor fellow from a vessel alongside of us had been cut in two that very morning by one of these monsters, which actually bolted the lower part of his body while they were drawing the head and shoulders up on the deck. We saw them playing about in shoals.

  The Captain having a good deal of business here we were all to go on shore for a fortnight, which, as before at Ceylon, stretched to a month. These delays must have been very inconvenient to young men with empty purses. Some of them, therefore, had to remain to live on board, merely taking a day’s pleasure on land now and then, and the Captain had to provide for them as usual, which he did but scurvily they said, which affair so discontented both parties that there never was any cordial feeling between them again, and this made the remainder of our voyage extremely unpleasant. The idle soldiers got into mischief; the wives took to quarrelling; the two officers could not leave their men, even had they been invited ashore, which they were not, and the surgeon, Mr Mills, and one or two more nursed up such a crop of illhumour that it lasted them all the rest of the way home.

  Mrs Churchill had a special invitation to the Governour, Sir Charles Colville, who sent a carriage for her next day in which she and Louisa and the penniless Mr Mills set off to his country house up among the woods, about 6 miles from the town. Captain West, who was intimately acquainted with the Secretary to the Government—now also at his country house—got the loan of his empty town house for himself and us and Dr Eckford, and this was our principal residence while we remained on the island, altho‘ we paid two visits, each of some days’ duration, one to the Governour, and one to the Secretary, our Landlord, Mr Telfer.

  We enjoyed this month extremely. It was hot sometimes at night in the town, but the breeze which came up with the tide always, refreshed the air again and the house was large and roomy, standing back from the street in a courtyard of good size, and with corridors running thro’ it, which kept it as cool as could be managed without Verandahs, which luxury and ornament cannot be indulged in here on account of the hurricanes. No year passes without two or three of these destructive storms. The winds are so big, so eccentrick is their course, so overpowering that they sweep off a great deal of property, in spite of every precaution. All buildings are low, there are no projections, nothing that can be caught at, and yet no place quite escapes damage at one time or another.

  The scenery is more pretty and quiet and interesting than fine. A plain of fertility beyond the town, bordered by the sea and rising to the mountains, which are some of them picturesquely peaked. ‘Peter Botte’ very conspicuous. The nutmeg wood belonging to Government, and beautifully kept, is one of the most interesting spots to drive thro’ from the beauty of the trees; large, tall, forest trees, they are full of branches and dark leaves, so very fragrant, and the spice in all its stages bursting all around. The nutmeg, quite red when growing, peeps out from its covering of green mace, quite like a flower. The Cinnamon bushes were the underwood, their buds—the cassia buds of commerce—scenting the air. Parrot looking birds were among the branches, and monkeys skipping from tree to tree.

  We often drove there, passing on our way by a good house in a large garden, called Madame La Tour’s, as unlike as possible to the humble cabins of St Pierre, where stands a monument to Paul et Virginie7 on the spot where her body was washed ashore! underneath which I think they said the lovers were buried! To doubt their existence in the Isle of France would be something too scandalous.

  In the evenings we drove in the Champs de Mars, a rather larger space than the Rajah’s, but quite as amusingly filled. All here is French, or, more properly speaking, the remains of French.

  The Colonists able to remain here with their families—the climate permitting their absolute location—seldom visited the mother country, unless the men found it necessary in the way of business, or an ambitious Mama sent her children for a few years to Paris to acquire higher accomplishments. The inhabitants are therefore essentially French in race, name, language, and habits. We had had the island too short a time to make much change in it. Our few merchants and officials are just a small set of persons unlike the rest, yet all agree comfortably, all being freemen except the servants, who are slaves. Here, again, old prejudices proved deceptive. So happy a set of creatures as these same slaves never did I see in any rank in any country. From morning to night they lightened labour with their songs. I got all the airs in the Dame Blanche8 by heart, hearing them one after the other during all the working hours chorussed out by the dark porters who were busy in a neighbouring store heaving up and down hogsheads of sugar. Every enquiry we made convinced us that unkind masters were rare. Out in the sugar plantations, or in the spice groves, or the Coffee grounds, in the warerooms, in the yards, house or field labour, the powers of the merry slaves were never overtaxed. They were well lodged, well fed, well cared for in sickness and old age, and had plenty to buy dress with, of which they are extravagantly fond, and make a wonderful display of on their numerous holidays. We constantly met or overtook waggon loads of dark beaux and belles dressed up like actors radiant with mirth, going off a pleasuring to some Guinguette,9 where dancing would conclude the festivities, and every evening crowds of them paraded in the Champs de Mars, the men sometimes in sailor guise with long curls under the jauntily set straw hat, or in more exquisite costume, chains and eye glasses much in fashion, attending their ladies in full ball dress, flowers, feathers, flounces, pink crape, blue crape, fans, etc., all in the day light, and all so happy, only—there is a but every where—trowsers and petticoats were invariably long enough to touch the ground, for though the slaves may do with his, or her, head what best pleases, neither shoe nor stocking can case the feet; they must be bare, it is the mark of caste, and they feel it, happy as their condition is made; childish and ignorant as they are, they strive to hide the naked feet. Yet they could not exist in freedom—not the old slaves, used to have all provided for them,

  Sir Charles Colville told us of a slave he had freed, and made, as he thought, comfortable, with house, and field, and work as a gardener, begging to be made a slave again; he had not the energy to manage his own living. So, as in other cases, we must begin with the young, let the old generations just die away as they are.

  The black fashionables were not the only amusing frequenters of the evening promenade. The French, not very particular at home as to their equipages, had certainly not improved their taste in carriage in their colony. Such gigs and phaetons, and post waggons, and extraordinary vehicles of every description, with cracked leather unoiled for years, panels over which the paintbrush could almost never have gone, harness! horses! all so very tatterdemalion! and within, such pretty looking women in such tasteful half dress, so simple, so fresh; hair in such order! it really was a contrast. The men were not so nice: the old ones little and punchy; the younger little and dandified. We visited in one or two merchant fam
ilies; a call in the evening, a cup of coffee, or fruit, and musick, queer singing, but good playing. In the gay season plays, operas, concerts and balls, publick and private, enliven the cold weather—just now every one that could was getting thro’ the heat in the country.

  We lived very comfortably in Mr Telfer’s house, my black maid and the Colonel’s black man to wait on us; both of whom looked down with pity on the two good humoured slaves left in charge of the premises, an old Véronique very fond of a bit of finery, and a Gaspar who slept half his time away. Our breakfasts were very easily managed. Our dinners, wines and all, came from a traiteur’s in true French style—little nice dishes admirably cooked, dressed vegetables, plats sucrés, and crisp biscuits. It was all so good that I wrote to my father, who was miserable with the Portuguese messes, to advise him to send to the Isle of France for a cook. Mrs Telfer was so good as to consent to assist in the business, and the Traiteur promised to choose a garçon accompli, who would expatriate himself for a bribe.

  The scheme was approved and carried into effect, the cook becoming so at home in Calcutta, and I believe so truly attached to my father, and the profits of his kitchen, that he lived with him till his death, when his place was supplied by a confrère.