Memoirs of a Highland Lady: Life in India and Another Sister Wed

Feb20

The large house of Camballa, which [my uncle] had hired to receive us in, was of the usual Indian Construction, the large, long centre hall with broad verandahs round it; but such a hall, 80 feet long, 80 feet wide, Verandahs 20 feet wide. It stood on a platform in the middle of the descent of a rocky hill, round which swept the sea, with a plain of rice fields, and a tank, a handsome tank, between the foot of it and the Breach Candi road along the beach. From the hill end of the hall rose a wide staircase in stages; each stage led off on either hand to a terrace, each terrace on the one hand was a flower garden, on the other a covered gallery leading to offices. Top of all, and very high it was, the Terraces were covered in as bedrooms, catching all the air that blew and commanding from their latticed balconies such a view as was alone worth almost the voyage from Europe.

Dinner was served in one of the Verandahs to the great hall with such a display of plate, so brilliant a light, and such an array of attendants as were startling after our Cuddy reminiscences. I thought of the Arabian nights. The scenes there depicted were realized with a charm belonging to them quite beyond any description to paint and which now at this distance of time rouses the fancy again, and gives them back to memory with a freshness never to be impaired. There was light, vastness, beauty, regal pomp, and true affection. All was not gold, however; a better acquaintance with our palace disturbed much of our admiration. Our bedrooms were really merely barns, no ceilings, the bare rafters, bare walls, no fastenings to the doors, the bathrooms very like sculleries, the flowery terraces suspected of concealing snakes, and most certainly harbouring myriads of insects most supremely troublesome, and the tank a nuisance. Very beautiful as it seemed, with its graduated sides descending to the water, interesting, from the groups of native women resorting there at all hours with those pyramids of Etruscan shaped pots upon their heads, and their draperied clothing, and winging on with such a graceful step, the tank at night became a nuisance from the multitude of frogs—the large bull frog with such a dreadful croak as deafened us. Still these were minor evils. It was all a stage play life, and we were enchanted with it.

Mary’s Marriage to Mr. Gardiner

Mr Gardiner [also a passenger on the Mountstewart Elphinstone] 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.

My sister’s marriage was a grand affair. I don’t remember how many people my Aunt thought it necessary to invite to the breakfast; there were above 20 present at the Ceremony in the Cathedral. We had such a Cousinhood at the Presidency, and Mr Gardiner and Uncle Edward had so many friends, and there were my father’s brother judges, etc. Good Mr Carr, now the Bishop, married them.

For so very pretty a girl as Mary then was, so beautiful a woman as she became, there never was a less interesting, I was going to say a plainer, Bride. Her dress was heavy and unbecoming, and a very large veil, the gift of Mr Norris, hid all of her face except the large nose, the feature that had been best concealed. She was perfectly silent before the ceremony and equally silent after it, self possessed all through. She bowed without smiling when her health was drank and she went off with her husband in her new carriage to Salsette as if she had been going out just to take a drive with me.

I never pretended to understand Mary; what she felt, or whether she felt, nobody ever knew when she did not choose to tell them. Like Jane, and I believe like myself, what she determined on doing she did, and well, without fuss, after conviction of its propriety. One thing is certain, she married a most estimable man; and she made a most happy marriage, and whatever she felt towards him the day she became his Wife, she was afterwards truly attached to him and she valued him to the end of her days as he deserved.

We had had plenty to do, she and I, preparing for this event, for Mary, not content with her outfit, ordered considerable additions to her wardrobe, such things as she and our Aunt Caroline considered indispensible in her new position—near $100 my father had to pay. Then there were toilette requisites, a carriage, liveries, horses, servants, linen etc., on Mr Gardiner’s part, all to be chosen by her. A friend, Mr Elliot, lent them or rented to him his furnished house at Bycullah, which saved them both trouble and expense, he Mr Elliot being ill and ordered to the Neilgherries*; still there were many little matters to settle, and we had no help from my father and mother. They were completely absorbed in the same sort of affairs of their own. Really it was amusing to see persons of their age, who had kept house for so many years, and had full experience of such business, so completely occupied with every the minutest detail of their Bombay establishment. Their house, its situation, furniture, number of servants, etc., one could understand would require attention; but the shape of the turbans, the colour of the cumberbands, their width, the length of the robes of the Chobdars**, all these minutiae received the greatest consideration.

A short honeymoon satisfied our lovers; they returned after a retirement of 10 days, and then began a round of entertainments to the newly married pair. Every incident was seized on by the community to give excuse for party giving. There was so little to interest any one going forward at any time, the mails being infrequent then, that we all gladly turned our attention to the trifles which filled up our lives for want of better things. An Indian life is very eventless; very dull it was to me after Mary married and John left us. Uncle Edward continued so unwell after losing the gout that he was recommended to try a year at the Neilgherries; John went there with them, proceeding afterwards from there by Bangalore to Madras and so to Calcutta, his nomination being to Bengal.

A Single Lady

…[O]ld as I was, I was quite in fashion—a second season of celebrity, a coming out again! Like my father, I have all my life looked 10 years younger than my age; nobody guessed me at 30, and beng handsome, lively, obliging and a great man’s daughter, I reigned in good earnest over many a better queen! than myself. Of course every eligible was to be married to me, not only that but everybody was busy marrying me. ‘Now, don’t mind them, Eliza, my dear,’ said uncle Edward very early in my Indian career; ‘don’t fix yet, wait for Smith, my friend Smith; he’ll be sure to be down here next season, and he’s just the very man I have fixed on for yu.’ Then my Aunt, ‘I don’t mind your not liking old so and so and that tiresome this, and that ill humoured that, I had rather you married Colonel Smith than any body.’ Then my cousins, ‘Oh you will so like Colonel Smith, Eliza, everyone likes Colonel Smith, he will make such a kind husband, he is so kind to his horses.’ ‘My goodness, Miss Grant,’ said Mrs Norris, ‘is it possible you have refused—the best match in the Presidency—will certainly be in Council. Who do you mean to marry, pray.’ (Every body must marry, they can’t help it here.) ‘I am waiting,’ said I, ‘for Colonel Smith.” Great laughing this caused, of course, none laughing more than the intending Bride, to whom this Colonel Smith was no more than a bit of fun, just as likely to be her husband as her most particular admirer, a great fat Parsee.

One morning I was sitting at work; the cooler weather had restored us our needles and I was employing mine for Mary’s expected baby, early in November, my Mother lying on the sofa reading, when the Chobdar in waiting announced Colonel Smith. It is customary for all new arrivals to call on the Burra Sahibs. He entered, and in spite of all the nonsense we had amused ourselves with, we liked him. ‘Well,’ said Mary, on hearing who had called, ‘will he do?’ ‘Better than any of your upsetting Civilians,’ answered I, ‘a million of times, I never liked the Military at home and here I don’t like the Civilians. Colonel Smith is the most gentlemanly man I have seen in India.’ Mary and Mr Gardiner laughed and neither they nor I thought more about him.

Next Week: Colonel Henry Smith

*This photograph of a waterfall in the Nilgiri Hills was taken by an unknown photographer in the 1860s as part of an album entitled ‘Photographs of India and Overland Route’. The British established resort towns in the Nilgiri Hills during the nineteenth century where they could retreat from the harsh Indian summers. These hill stations suited the Victorian taste for the ‘picturesque’. This notion was so ingrained in the Victorian imagination that it was imperative for a successful landscape photographer to capture the right elements. This included any view endowed with scenic charm and normally meant strategically framed views of rugged mountain scenery, forests, rivers, lakes and rural dwellings.

**Chob-dar or mace bearer, in livery decorated with gold lace, holding a mace of gold or silver. Handcoloured copperplate engraving by an unknown artist from “Asiatic Costumes,” Ackermann, London, 1828.

Memoirs of a Highland Lady

‘I was born on the 7th May 1797 of a Sunday evening at No. 5 N. side of Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, in my father’s own lately built house and I am the eldest of five children he and my mother raised to maturity.’ Thus opens one of the most famous set of memoirs ever written. Since its first bowdlerised edition in 1898, they have been consistently in print. This is the first ever complete text. Written between 1845 and 1854 the memoirs were originally intended simply for Elizabeth’s family, but these vivid and inimitable records of life in the early 19th century, and above all on the great Rothiemurchus estate, full of sharp observation and wit, form an unforgettable picture of her time. The story ends with the thirty-three-year-old Elizabeth finding her own future happiness in marriage to an Irish landowner, Colonel Smith of Baltiboys. ‘A masterpiece of historical and personal recall.’ Scotsman

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Memoirs of a Highland Lady

Memoirs of a Highland Lady: Further Hardships and Preparing for a Voyage

Feb9

Jane’s marriage to Colonel Pennington, a much older man:

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.

After Jane’s marriage, the Grants’ economic difficulties worsened. When their father lost his seat in Parliament to the Duke of Bedford’s son (according to Elizabeth Grant), he left Scotland to go to London and then abroad, with his son John.

Then came the news of his appointment to a judgeship in India—Bombay; Charles Grant, now Lord Glenelg, had done it, and we were desired to proceed to London immediately to prepare for the voyage. It was a blessing, and a shock—to me at least; every one else was rejoicing. Letters of congratulation came by every post. My poor mother smiled once more, and set about her preparations for removal with an alacrity that surprised us.

Preparing for a Voyage

There was a good deal to be done, for the house was to be left in a proper state to be let furnished with the shootings, a new and very profitable scheme for making money out of bare moors in the highlands. We were to take nothing with us but our wardrobes, all else was to be left for sale, and lists of the property left had to be made to prepare the way for the Auction. The stock and crop at the farm, the wine, the plate, the linen, the books, there was the rub, all and everything that was not furniture was to go, even what belonged to my sister and me, except a few pet treasures…

It was in August, early in the month; the weather was beautiful, the country looked lovely, the Spey sparkled under the sunshine, the wooded hills on either side stood as they stand now, and we watched the sun setting behind the Tor Alvie on that last day, without a tear. Mary and I had determined to be brave.

Rothiemurchus

…

My father had been knighted, and was safe in France, with John. William had been in London and Edinburgh and I know not where else, and had returned to take charge of us.

…

We entered the carriage, never once looked back, never shed a tear, though the eyes sometimes filled, very gravely we made out those eight miles among those hills and woods, and heaths and lakes, and the dear Spey, all of which we had loved from childhood and which never again could be the same to any of us.

…

We travelled on thro’ the bleak hill road, and posting all the way reached Perth to dinner.

Here an unexpected difficulty met us. A coachmaker, not paid for some repairs done to the carriage at various times, seized it for a debt of £40… We were in despair, feeling how very little would upset our poor mother—it was the last straw… [A]fter a good night’s sleep we entered our redeemed carriage and drove on to Edinburgh. There the carriage was seized again and allowed to go; we wanted it no longer. We were much annoyed my brother and I by hosts of unpaid tradesmen, whom it was agreed that I should see, as they were likely to be more considerate with me—I, who could do nothing. William kept out of the way and we would not allow my Mother to be worried…

…

We were two beautiful days and two calm nights at sea; I recollect the voyage as agreeable…

…

We reached London, or rather Blackwall, in the afternoon, engaged two hackney coaches for ourselves and our luggage… and on we went to Dover Street, Piccadilly, where lodgings had been taken for us… Our imprudent father could not keep quiet; he was so well known he was followed once or twice, and being so short sighted he might have been seized but for the cleverness of the shop people. So it was resolved therefore to send him away, and on Sunday he and John steamed from the Tower stairs to Boulogne… I got on quickly with the necessary preparations. Most of those I had to deal with were so kind, and when Mrs Need had to go home good Mrs Gillio came daily to me; her daughter Isabella was going to Bombay under my mother’s care, so that our business was the same. She went with me to the docks to see the ships and arrange the cabins… The cabins were furnished, and all the linen of our wardrobes, gentlemen and ladies, supplied by an Outfitter in the Strand, and even our ordinary dresses the few that we required. I had only to get besides, shoes, stockings, gloves, books, stationery, all the little necessaries our toilettes and our occupations needed.

…

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… 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.

…

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… 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 has changed. The captain ordered the anchors up… 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 equaled 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.

Memoirs of a Highland Lady

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Memoirs of a Highland Lady: Rotterdam and Mr. George Canning

Jan8

Travels on the Continent

I cannot recollect much else that is worthy of note before our little tour upon the Continent. We set out in August, and were two months a half away. My father was not inclined for such a movement at all, it was probably very inconvenient to the treasury, but my mother had so set her heart upon it, he, as usual, good naturedly gave way. Johnny was to spend his holidays with the Freres. Miss Elphick went to the Kirkman Finlays, her parting was quite a dreadful scene, screams, convulsions, sobs, hystericks. The poor woman was attached to some of us, and had of late been much more agreeable to the rest; but she was a plague in the house, did a deal of mischief, and was no guide, no help. She had been seven years with us, so there was a chain of habit to loosen at any rate.

…

In the month of August, then, of this year 1819 we set out on our foreign travels, my father, my Mother, William, Jane, Mary and I; rather too large a party as we found when we had more experience, particularly as we were attended by a man, a maid, and a dog. The maid, a thoroughly stupid creature, and the dog, poor Dowran, went with us; the man, a black, and a deal too clever, joined us in Holland, for to the Netherlands we were bound. My father had always had a passion for Dutch and Flemish paintings, farming, buildings, and politicks; besides, he was so very kind as to wish to take me to the waters at Aix la Chapelle. I had been attacked in the Spring with the same sort of strange suffering that has fallen upon me several times since, at intervals, after any disturbance of mind, a failure as it seemed of all powers of body, the whole system paralysed, as it were, without any apparent cause other than that reserve of disposition inherited from my Mother, which threw all grief back inwardly while the outward manner was unchanged.

We embarked at Leith in a common trading vessel, a tub, with but moderate accommodation, the Van Egmont, bound for Rotterdom. Its very slow rate of sailing kept us nine days at sea; luckily the weather the whole time was beautiful… We all did our best to make them pass cheerfully. We watched the land, the sea, the sky, the day’s work. Our skipper was extremely civil; his mate, a merry scapegrace, inventing all sorts of fun to amuse every body; the fare was good, the Cabin clean, and living out on deck in the open air even I regained an appetite.

Rotterdam

We arrived in the very midst of the Kermess, the annual fair, the most favourable of all times for the visit of strangers. The wares of all the world were exposed for sale in the streets of booths tastefully decorated, lighted up brilliant at night, and crowded at all hours by purchasers from every province in the two united kingdoms, all in their best and very handsome and perfectly distinct attire. Like Venice, Rotterdam is built in the water, long canals intersect it in every direction, on which the traffic is constant; there are mere footpaths on either side, with quantities of narrow bridges for the convenience of crossing. The tall houses forming the street must have been goomy abodes, just looking over the narrow stream to one another. Outside they were gay enough from the excessive cleanliness observed, and the bright paint, and the shining brass knockers, and the old fashioned solidity of the building.

Rotterdam, 1857, by Rouargue

…

The excessive cleanliness was almost more to be admired than all else; it pervaded the habits of the nation throughout. The streets were daily swept, the pavements daily washed, the windows daily rubbed, the brasses daily brightened. Within it was the same; no corner left unvisited by the busy maid, the very door keys were polished, like the small bunches we keep in our pockets, cupboards, closets, shelves, not only spotless but neatly ornamental; white paper with a cut fringe, or white linen frilled, laid along under the shining wares they were appropriated to hold. Yet nobody seemed overworked. In the afternoons all the women were spinning or knitting, as beautifully tidy in their own persons as was all the property around them. There were no dirty children, even no beggars.

…

[The father]* left a curious will. He ordered his daughters to marry into the peerage under the penalty of forfeiting all share of their inheritance should any of them give herself to a Commoner. How absurd are these meddlers with the future.

George Canning by Richard Evans

I went with [my father] along the Bompjes [waterfront] under the trees by the side of the water, and reaching the part at which the Harwich packet landed the passengers, who should step ashore but Mr Canning—the only time I ever saw him. He and my father seemed glad to meet, and while they were conversing of I had an opportunity of correcting all my imaginary impressions of the great man. He was not so tall and much more slender than I expected. His countenance was pale, anxious almost, and certainly no longer handsome; the high, well developed forehead alone reminded me of the prints of him. He was travelling with his sick son, a boy of seventeen or so, a cripple confined to a Merlin chair, and supported in that by many cushions. An elderly, very attentive servant never left the invalid’s side, while another looked after the luggage and a carriage fitted up with a sort of sofa bed. They did not come to Badthouse, so we saw no more of them; but I could not forget them, and often after, when the world was ringing with Mr Canning’s fame, this scene of his private life returned to me, for he lost the son… Mrs Canning, the wife, was sister to the Duchess of Portland and the Countess of Moray. They were co-heiresses with very large fortunes, something like a hundred thousand pounds apiece; indeed I believe the eldest sister had more… [The father]* left a curious will. He ordered his daughters to marry into the peerage under the penalty of forfeiting all share of their inheritance should any of them give herself to a Commoner. How absurd are these meddlers with the future. Mrs Canning, of course, lost her fortune, but her ennobled sisters each presented her with fifty thousand pounds as a wedding present.

*Major-general John Scott, British army officer and Scottish politician, reportedly won a million dollars at whist at White’s.