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NO. 736. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._]
MISS STIRLING GRAHAM.
Fifty years ago, or thereabouts, when by good fortune my brother and I
were permitted to make some advance towards an acquaintance with the
luminaries which at that time in a remarkable manner distinguished
society in the Scottish capital, we one evening, at the house of John
Archibald Murray—afterwards Lord Murray—enjoyed the satisfaction of
seeing a lady who some years previously had become locally famous.
She was a lively pleasant person, rather small in figure, unmarried,
and had seemingly reached middle age. From her manners she evidently
moved among people in the higher circles. As to her language there
was the marked peculiarity that, besides a Scottish intonation, there
was a pretty frequent use of the Scottish dialect—that which is best
exemplified in Burns; for as yet there were still a few northern ladies
of rank who in conversation did not disdain to employ incidentally
words in the national vernacular. They spoke as they had been taught
in early life, and as they were accustomed to speak among old and
familiar friends. There was nothing coarse or vulgar in their language;
the Scotch words gave an agreeable flavouring to their discourse. Lady
Anne Lindsay, the writer of _Auld Robin Gray_, was a good specimen of
this lingering class of high-born ladies, who understood and still
occasionally used a Scotch seasoning in their conversation. Lord
Cockburn has presented some charming reminiscences of this class of
ladies, and he wrote just at the time when they had very nearly died
out.
The lady who interested us on the present occasion was Miss Stirling
Graham of Duntrune. As we understood, she lived mostly at the family
estate in Forfarshire, with a mansion overlooking the estuary of the
Tay, and commanding a distant view of St Andrews. Usually she spent
her winters in Edinburgh, where she was immensely esteemed for her
geniality and accomplishments. My brother, who had already written much
about the disastrous troubles in Scotland in the seventeenth century,
felt a peculiar interest in Miss Stirling Graham, on account of her
connection by heritage with that historical personage, John Graham
of Claverhouse—the terrible Claverhouse described by Scott in _Old
Mortality_, for his persecution of the Covenanters, and who as Viscount
Dundee perished by a musket-shot at the battle of Killiecrankie, 1689.
Claverhouse was a Forfarshire man. Leaving no immediate heirs, his
estates devolved on a cousin, David Graham of Duntrune; this person was
succeeded by his last surviving son, on whose demise the property was
inherited equally by his four sisters; one of these sisters was the
mother of Clementina Stirling Graham, the lady to whose memory we have
devoted the present paper.
Moving about at evening parties among the literati and the more eminent
lawyers, Miss Stirling Graham, by her original humour and tact, may
be said to have kept the town in a pleasant kind of buzz. Nature
seemed to have designed her to be an actress. She possessed the power
of simulation to a degree almost unexampled; also the powers of an
improvisatrice which have been very rarely excelled. Her wit and her
personations, however, were always exclusively employed to promote
harmless mirth among her select acquaintances, and we know she would
have shrunk from anything like a public exhibition. She was great in
personifying and mimicking old Scottish ladies, or indeed Scottish
women in the humbler ranks of life, for which her acute observation
of character and her knowledge of the vernacular tongue particularly
qualified her. Her deceptions were numerous, but all of an innocent
kind. In her latter days, at the solicitation of friends, she gave an
account of her principal personations, which was printed for private
distribution, under the title of _Mystifications_. The book being much
sought after in this country and America, the authoress was prevailed
on to let it be published in the usual way (Edmonston and Douglas),
1865; yet, we doubt, after all, if this handsome volume, which was
edited by Dr John Brown, is so well known as it should be, and we
propose to give one or two alluring specimens of the contents.
The first Mystification in the book is that which signalised Miss
Stirling Graham’s success in deceiving Mr Jeffrey, the eminent
practising lawyer, and at the same time editor of the _Edinburgh
Review_. Jeffrey had been introduced to the lady, and had heard of
her cleverness in personation. Meeting her afterwards at the theatre,
he said he should like to see her _take in_ some one. A promise was
given that he should have that pleasure very soon. Likely enough,
the busy advocate thought nothing more of the matter. On the second
evening afterwards, accompanied by Miss Helen Carnegy of Craigo as
her daughter, Miss Stirling Graham, who at the time had been on a
visit to Lord Gillies, stopped at Mr Jeffrey’s door, 92 George Street,
between five and six o’clock, when she knew Mr Jeffrey was at home and
preparing for dinner. The two ladies were ushered into the parlour
appropriated for visitors. What follows we copy in a somewhat condensed
form from the account in _Mystifications_.
‘There was a blazing fire, and wax-lights on the table; he [Jeffrey]
had laid down his book, and seemed to be in the act of joining the
ladies in the drawing-room before dinner. The Lady Pitlyal was
announced, and he stepped forward a few paces to receive her. She was a
sedate-looking little woman of an inquisitive law-loving countenance;
a mouth in which [by an adroit management of the lips] not a vestige
of a tooth was to be seen, and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles on
her nose.... She was dressed in an Irish poplin of silver gray, a white
Cashmere shawl, a mob-cap with a band of thin muslin that fastened it
below the chin, and a small black silk bonnet that shaded her eyes
from any glare of light. Her right hand was supported by an antique
gold-headed cane, and she leant with the other on the arm of her
daughter.
‘Mr Jeffrey bowed, and handed the old lady to a _chaise longue_ on one
side of the fire, and sat himself down opposite to her on the other.
But in his desire to accommodate the old lady, and in his anxiety to
be informed of the purport of the visit, he forgot what was due to the
young one, and the heiress of the ancient House of Pitlyal was left
standing in the middle of the floor. She helped herself to a chair,
however, and sat down beside her mother. She had been educated in
somewhat of the severity of the old school, and during the whole of
the consultation she neither spoke nor moved a single muscle of her
countenance.
“_Well!_” said Mr Jeffrey as he looked at the old lady, in expectation
that she would open the subject that had procured him the honour of the
visit.
“Weel,” replied her Ladyship, “I am come to tak’ a word o’ the law frae
you.
“My husband, the late Ogilvy of Pitlyal, among other property which he
left to me, was a house and a yard at the town-end of Kirriemuir, also
a kiln and a malt-barn.
“The kiln and the barn were rented by a man they ca’d John Playfair,
and John Playfair subset them to anither man they ca’d Willy
Cruickshank, and Willy Cruickshank purchased a cargo of damaged lint,
and ye widna hinder Willy to dry the lint upon the kiln, and the lint
took low and kindled the cupples, and the slates flew aff, and a’ the
flooring was brunt to the ground, and naething left standin’ but the
bare wa’s.
“Now it wasna insured, and I want to ken wha’s to pay the damage, for
John Playfair says he has naething _ado wi’ it_, and Willy Cruickshank
says he has naething _to do it wi’_, and I am determined no to take it
off their hand the way it is.”
“Has it been in any of the Courts?”
“Ou ay; it has been in the Shirra Court of Forfar; and Shirra Duff was
a gude man, and he kent me, and would ha’ gien’t in my favour, but that
clattering creature Jamie L’Amy cam’ in, and he gave it against me.”
“I have no doubt Mr L’Amy would give a very fair decision.”
“It wasna a fair decision when he gae it against me.”
“That is what many people think in your circumstances.”
“The minister of Blairgowrie is but a fule body, and advised me no to
gae to the law.”
“I think he gave you a very sensible advice.”
“It was onything but that; and mind, if you dinna gie’t in my favour,
I’ll no be sair pleased.”
‘Mr Jeffrey smiled, and said he would not promise to do that, and then
inquired if she had any papers.
“Ou ay, I have a great bundle of papers, and I’ll come back at any hour
you please to appoint, and bring them wi’ me.”
“It will not be necessary for you to return yourself; you can send them
to me.”
“And wha would you recommend to me for an agent in the business?”
“That I cannot tell; it is not my province to recommend an agent.”
“Then how will Robert Smith of Balharry do?”
“Very well; very good man indeed; and you may bid him send me the
papers.”
‘Meantime her Ladyship drew from her pocket a large old-fashioned
leather pocket-book with silver clasps, out of which she presented
him a letter directed to himself. He did not look into it, but threw
it carelessly on the table. She now offered him a pinch of snuff from
a massive gold box, and then selected another folded paper from the
pocket-book, which she presented to him, saying: “Here is a prophecie
that I would like you to look at and explain to me.”
‘He begged to be excused, saying: “I believe your Ladyship will find me
more skilled in the _law_ than the _prophets_.”
‘She entreated him to look at it; and on glancing his eyes over it, he
remarked, “that from the words _Tory_ and _Whig_, it did not seem to be
a very ancient prophecy.”
“Maybe,” replied her Ladyship; “but it has been long in our family.
I copied these lines out of a muckle book entitled the _Prophecie of
Pitlyal_, just before I came to you, in order to have your opinion on
some of the obscure passages of it. And you will do me a great favour
if you will read it out loud, and I will tell you what I think of it as
you go on.”
‘Here, then, with a smile at the oddity of the request, and a mixture
of impatience in his manner, he read the following lines, while she
interrupted him occasionally to remark upon their meaning:
When the crown and the head shall disgrace ane anither,
And the Bishops on the Bench shall gae a’ wrang thegither;
When Tory or Whig,
Fills the judge’s wig;
When the Lint o’ the Miln
Shall reek on the kiln;
O’er the Light of the North,
When the Glamour breaks forth,
And its wild-fire so red
With the daylight is spread;
When woman shrinks not from the ordeal of tryal,
There is triumph and fame to the House of Pitlyal.
“We ha’e seen the crown and the head,” she said, “disgrace ane anither
no very lang syne, and ye may judge whether the bishops gaed right
or wrang on that occasion; and the _Tory_ and _Whig_ may no be very
ancient, and yet never be the less true. Then there is the Lint o’ the
Miln—we have witnessed that come to pass; but what the ‘Light of the
North’ can mean, and the ‘Glamour,’ I canna mak’ out. The twa hindmost
lines seem to me to point at Queen Caroline; and if it had pleased God
to spare my son, I might have guessed he would have made a figure on
her trial, and have brought ‘Triumph and fame to the House of Pitlyal.’
I begin, however, to think that the prophecie may be fulfilled in the
person of my daughter, for which reason I have brought her to Edinburgh
to see and get a gude match for her.”
‘Here Mr Jeffrey put on a smile, half serious half quizzical, and said:
“I suppose it would not be necessary for the gentleman to change his
name.”
“It would be weel worth his while, sir; she has a very gude estate,
and she’s a very bonny lassie, and she’s equally related baith to
Airlie and Strathmore; and a’body in our part of the warld ca’s her the
Rosebud of Pitlyal.”
‘Mr Jeffrey smiled as his eyes met the glance of the beautiful flower
that was so happily placed before him; but the Rosebud herself returned
no sign of intelligence.
‘A pause in the conversation now ensued, which was interrupted by her
Ladyship asking Mr Jeffrey to tell her where she could procure a set of
_fause teeth_.
“_Of what?_” said he, with an expression of astonishment, while the
whole frame of the young lady shook with some internal emotion.
“A set of fause teeth,” she repeated; and was again echoed by the
interrogation, “_What?_”
‘A third time she asked the question, and in a more audible key; when
he replied, with a kind of suppressed laugh: “There is Mr Nasmyth,
north corner of St Andrew Square, a very good dentist; and there is Mr
Hutchins, corner of Hanover and George Street.”
‘She requested he would give her their names on a slip of paper. He
rose and walked to the table, wrote down both the directions, which he
folded and presented to her.
‘She now rose to take leave. The bell was rung, and when the servant
entered, his master desired him to see if the Lady Pitlyal’s carriage
was at the door.
‘He returned to tell there was no carriage waiting, on which her
Ladyship remarked: “This comes of _fore-hand payments_—they make
_hint-hand wark_. I gae a hackney-coachman twa shillings to bring me
here, and he’s awa’ without me.”
‘There was not a coach within sight, and another had to be sent for
from a distant stand of coaches. It was by this time past the hour of
dinner, and there seemed no hope of being rid of his visitors.
‘Her Ladyship said she was in no hurry, as they had had tea, and were
going to the play, and hoped he would accompany them. He said he had
not yet had his dinner.
“What is the play to-night?” said she.
“It is the _Heart of Midlothian_ again, I believe.”
‘They then talked of the merits of the actors, and she took occasion to
tell him that she patronised the _Edinburgh Review_.
“We read your buke, sir!”
“I am certainly very much obliged to you.”
‘Still no carriage was heard. Another silence ensued, until it
bethought her Ladyship to amuse him with the politics of the country.
‘Here the coach was announced, and by the help of her daughter’s arm
and her gold-headed cane, she began to move, complaining loudly of a
_corny tae_. She was with difficulty got into the coach. The Rosebud
stepped lightly after her.
‘The door was closed, and the order given to drive to Gibb’s Hotel,
whence they hastened with all speed to Lord Gillies’s, where the party
waited dinner for them, and hailed the fulfilment of the “Prophecie of
Pitlyal.”
‘Mr Jeffrey, in the meantime, impatient for his dinner, joined the
ladies in the drawing-room.
“What in the world has detained you?” said Mrs Jeffrey.
“One of the most tiresome and oddest old women I ever met with. I
thought never to have got rid of her;” and beginning to relate some of
the conversation that had taken place, it flashed upon him at once that
he had been _taken in_.
‘He ran down-stairs for the letter, hoping it would throw some light
upon the subject, but it was only a blank sheet of paper, containing a
fee of three guineas.
‘They amused themselves with the relation; but it was not until the
day after that he found out who the ladies really were. He laughed
heartily, and promised to aid them in any other scene they liked to
devise.’ He returned the fee with an amusing characteristic letter,
in which he concluded with best wishes for the cure of her Ladyship’s
corns.
With similar dexterity, this marvellously clever lady figures on nearly
a dozen different occasions in town and country, sometimes in one guise
and sometimes in another, mystifying even the most incredulous by her
manœuvres.
About the best Mystification recorded is that in which as a daughter
of a poor man, Sandy Reid in the Canongate, the lady imposed on Sir
William Fettes, who had been Lord Provost in Edinburgh, and left a
fortune to endow a college which is now in successful operation. We let
Miss Stirling Graham relate the adventure.
‘I once got half-a-crown from Sir William Fettes when he was dining
with a few friends at his sister, Mrs Bruce’s. She and Lady Fettes put
it into my head to ask charity from him, in the character of a daughter
of an old companion of his, whose name was Sandy Reid. And whether
Sandy Reid ever had a daughter was nothing to the purpose. Sir William
had lost sight of the man, and I had no previous knowledge that ever
such a person was in existence. Dressed in a smart bonnet and shawl
belonging to Lord Gillies’s housekeeper, I boldly rang the door-bell,
and demanded of the servant if I could get a word of Sir William.
‘On the message being carried up-stairs, the ladies desired that the
person who wished to speak with Sir William might be shewn into Mrs
Bruce’s dressing-room, where behind the window-curtains were stationed
a merry party of some half-a-dozen listeners.
‘Enter Sir William. “Well, my good woman, what is your business
with me?” “To ask your help, sir, in behalf of the widow and the
fatherless.” “And pray who are you?”
“I am the daughter of ane Sandy Reid, who was weel kenned to your
honour; his father lived next door to your father in the Canongate.”
“Ay, are you the daughter of Sandy Reid?”
“I am proud to say sae.” “And what has reduced you to this plight, my
good woman?” “Just an ill marriage, Sir William.” “I am sorry for that;
but you say you are a widow.” “I am no’ just a widow; but my husband
has run aff wi’ another woman.” “That is very unfortunate; but what is
your husband?” “A soldier, sir.” “An officer of the soldiers you mean,
I suppose?”
“Na, na, Sir William; he is but a single soldier.” “And did Sandy
Reid’s daughter marry a single soldier?” (Weeping)—“It is o’er true,
Sir William; but he was a bonny man, and I ne’er thought he would
forsake me.” “And did your father consent to your marrying a single
soldier?” “Oh, no, Sir William; but it was ordained.”
“Have you any family, or any means of living?” “I have five boys; and
I wash and iron, and do all I can to get bread to them.” “Where do you
live?”
“In Elder Street.” “In Elder Street! that seems to me rather an
expensive part of the town for a person in your circumstances.”
“It is but a garret, sir, up four pair of stairs.”
“Are any of your children at school?” “No, sir; but the eldest is in
Provost Manderson’s [drug] shop, who has been very kind to him, and
ta’en him aff my hand. And the second is a prentice to a tobacconist;
and (here weeping bitterly) the rest are in the house, for I have
neither decent claes to put upon them, nor siller to send them to the
schule; and this is Saturday night, and no sae muckle meat within the
door as put by the Sabbath day.”
“I am sorry for you, and grieved to see Sandy Reid’s daughter come to
this; but you must be sensible, that for a person in your situation,
your present dress is rather too showy and extravagant.” “That’s true,
Sir William; but gentle servants are no’ civil to poor folk when they
come ill-dressed.”
“I believe, indeed, that is too true, but your dress is quite
unsuitable.” “Indeed, Sir William, I borrowed this bonnet and shawl
from a gentleman’s housekeeper, just for the purpose of waiting upon
you, for I am in great want.”
“Well, there is half-a-crown to help you in the meantime; and I will
inquire at Provost Manderson about you on Monday, and if you be
speaking the truth, I will see and get your children into some of the
Hospitals.”
‘Here the party broke out from behind the curtains’—and we may suppose
that Sir William was a good deal amazed as well as amused at the adroit
way he had been taken in.
* * * * *
Miss Stirling Graham long outlived the early friends whom she delighted
with her personations; but drawing out existence to an advanced age,
she still surrounded herself with an agreeable society, and was loved
by all whom she honoured with her acquaintance. She was a great
reader, and possessed good literary abilities, as is observable by her
_Mystifications_, and by the anecdotes which conclude the volume, also
by the following lines, addressed to those ‘Shadows of the Past’ whom
she held in remembrance:
Blessed shades of the past,
In the future I see ye, so fair!
Ties that were nearest,
Forms that were dearest,
The truest and fondest are there.
They are flowerets of earth,
That are blooming in heaven, so fair:
And the stately tree,
Spreading wide and free,
The sheaves that were ripened are there.
The tear-drop that trembled
In Pity’s meek eye; and the prayer,
Faith of the purest,
Hope that was surest,
The love all-enduring are there.
And the loved, the beloved,
Whose life made existence so fair!
The soft seraph voice
Bade the lowly rejoice,
Is heard in sweet harmony there.
This gifted and venerable lady died at her mansion at Duntrune on
the 23d August 1877, at the extreme age of ninety-five. Perhaps, the
present paper may help to make her _Mystifications_ more extensively
known than hitherto; this object, however, might be better served by a
cheap and popular edition of the work, amplified by explanatory notes.
The book, enriched by the tasteful preface of Dr John Brown, is a gem
which ought not to drop out of notice.
W. C.
HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.
CHAPTER VII.—A NEW FACE AT CARBERY.
‘She be coming for sure. Carriage, with second coachman, just getting
ready for a start to Dundleton, to meet the down train at 9.17,’ said
a pink-faced youth, whose stature and chest measurement would have
procured for him the interested admiration of a sergeant-major in Her
Majesty’s Brigade of Guards, but who was as yet but imperfect in his
domestic drill as third footman at Carbery Chase.
‘What’s 9.17?’ demanded the mature female addressed, with some
asperity, as she dredged flour over some cunningly compounded mess
simmering beside the fire in the back-kitchen. ‘Can’t you give a body
the time o’ the day? They didn’t cut it so fine when I was your age,
young chap!’
And indeed it is marvellous to note how the junior population
throughout Western Christendom appears to have learned to think and
speak by railway time, and to have been, as it were, inoculated by
Bradshaw.
‘Thought you knowed all that ’n, cook!’ half-sulkily, half-apologetically
rejoined the gigantic hobbledehoy, mindful of that functionary’s
empire over the roasts, subject of course to the high fiat of Monsieur
Cornichon, the white-capped and black-bearded _chef_.
‘Anyhow, this Miss Whatshername ’ll be here soon after eleven.’
‘Willis is her name, and she comes from the Ingees,’ put in a
tart young town-made house-maid. ‘I wonder if she’s black?’ This
quasi-witticism provoked a titter among the rest of the under-servants
there collected; for anything was welcome that could excuse a laugh;
and besides, a new recruit to the aristocracy of the waited-upon is
sure to be smartly criticised by the plebs of those who wait.
‘_I_ wonder,’ said the old sub-cook, stirring her saucepan, ‘if she’ll
be setting her cap at young Mr Jasper?’
‘The captain knows too well on which side his bread is buttered,’
pronounced the gaunt house-maid-in-chief, an invaluable female,
lynx-eyed for spiders’ webs, and vigilant as to the minutest details of
bedroom duty.
Opinions at Carbery Chase were very much divided as to the new-comer’s
exact status and claims to consideration. There were those who
invidiously described her as ‘Sir Sykes’s charity child,’ and appeared
to regard her as a species of genteel mendicant most foolishly invited
down to Devonshire. There were others who were not sorry for the
arrival of any one considered capable of lending animation to a house
where the regular routine of every-day life ran on with somewhat
sluggish flow. And there were a few philosophers in plush or white
aprons, much flouted by the rest, who held that Sir Sykes was himself
the best judge as to what guests, permanent or temporary, should be
allowed to share the shelter of his roof at Carbery.
That there was enough and to spare in that opulent mansion which
acknowledged Sir Sykes Denzil for its master, was patent to all.
Large as was Sir Sykes’s household and handsome his expenditure (for
how many baronets chronicled in the gilt-edged volumes of Messrs Dod
and Debrett, can afford themselves the luxury of a third and fourth
footman, a French _chef_ like high-salaried M. Cornichon, and a groom
of the chambers?), he was known to live within his income; and was
rumoured by his inferiors to be guilty of the offence, never mentioned
otherwise than with a resentful reverence, of ‘putting by.’ Sir Sykes’s
men and maids were probably not students of Dean Swift’s ironical
advice to their order; but we may rely on it that the servants of
Dives himself had strongly defined ideas as to the proportion of high
feasting that should accompany the purple and fine linen of their
patron.
Meanwhile, in spite of the early training which is supposed to make an
Englishman of Sir Sykes Denzil’s degree as outwardly impassive as a Red
Indian, no one at Carbery appeared to think so much about the arrival
of Miss Willis as did the baronet himself. Her coming did not now at
anyrate partake of the character of a surprise, for weeks had naturally
elapsed between the incoming of the late and that of the new mail, and
there had been time enough for preparations, if such were necessary.
Sir Sykes, however, on the morning of his ward’s arrival could not
avoid, not merely the being nervous and anxious, but the exhibiting to
all who cared to look of his inexplicable nervousness and unreasonable
anxiety. He went and came at frequent and irregular intervals between
his own traditional apartment the library, and that morning-room
where his daughters usually sat over their sketches and lacework and
china-painting, and all those laborious trifles on which young ladies
employ their taper fingers.
That their father was undignified in his apparently uncalled-for
agitation as to the Indian orphan’s arrival, was too evident not to be
recognised by even the most dutiful of daughters. But both Blanche and
Lucy willingly accounted for the baronet’s restlessness on the ground
of the revival of early associations, acting on the nerves of one whose
health was no longer robust.
‘Let her only come here and quietly drop into her place among us,’
said the elder sister to the younger; ‘and depend upon it, papa will
find her presence at Carbery as unexciting as though she were a
supplementary daughter returning “for good,” as the girls call it, from
a boarding-school.’
Jasper could, had it so pleased him, have considerably enlightened the
ignorance of his unsuspecting sisters. But the captain prudently said
nothing, and did not ostensibly keep watch upon his father’s actions,
or deviate much from his own habit of indolently hanging about the
stables, the kennels wherein sleek pointers and shaggy retrievers
howled and rattled their chains, the billiard-room, and other resorts
of ingenuous youth. The baronet’s nervousness was not in itself
surprising to him, in whose memory was fresh the conversation which
he had overheard while lurking in the mean garden of _The Traveller’s
Rest_; but he could only conjecture what might be the hidden springs
that prompted a course of conduct difficult to reconcile with a clean
conscience and a secure worldly position.
‘I never,’ said Jasper to himself musingly, as he knocked about the
balls on the billiard-table, ‘heard a word against the governor. He was
awfully needy and that sort of thing once, of course; but I never knew
there to be a whisper of any sharp practice either at écarté or with
the bones. Had there been such, some good-natured fellow or other about
the clubs would have let fall a hint of it before now in my hearing, or
some servant would have tattled, when I wore a jacket and was Master
Jasper. He’s not much liked, my father, but respected he is. I doubt
if many, who fluked by a lucky chance upon a great fortune, get so
civilly spoken of behind their backs.’
Jasper was not one to have cherished those tender recollections of
infantine joys and sorrows, which with some men remain green and fresh
to the last. He had, to use his own expression, to ‘hark back’ with
painful effort and purpose, ere he could reproduce before his mental
vision the long past of his early boyhood. ‘I have a vague notion,’
said he, after an interval of this appeal to memory, ‘that my mother
gave me more sweetmeats than were good for me, and that she, and I
too, seemed to stand in awe of my father. I’m sure I don’t know why,
unless it were because he was serious and silent—a grave Spanish Don,
as I used to think. But she said too that he had been of a livelier
mood once, and something about his high spirits having deserted him
just when the world began to smile. My old nurse—what was her name, I
wonder?—Wiggins, Priggins—all nurses are named something of the sort,
and all combine to dote over the little wretches that torment them—used
to talk about the governor’s sad looks dating from the loss of that
young sister of mine. She would have been younger than Lucy, older than
Blanche, I take it. But why, in the name of common-sense, a man of
the world should never forget the loss of a chit in the nursery—that
is, if it was all on the square—but then, again, the motive!’ And the
captain’s arching eyebrows and the compression of his thin lips were
very expressive of his readiness to believe the very worst that could
be believed as to his nearest and dearest, if only a plausible reason
for such villainy could be alleged. ‘If it had been myself now,’ he
muttered, as he sent the red ball, with a mechanical precision that
proved him a dexterous pool-player, into pocket after pocket of the
green table; ‘but even then the governor, who had Apollyon’s own
luck, did not need to cut off the entail by illegal methods. He’s no
life-tenant of Carbery, as he makes me feel whenever our views don’t
exactly coincide; could leave it to my sisters; or back again, if
he chose, to the De Vere lot; and so, what interest he could have
had in spiriting away little Mabel Denzil, is a question that I defy
Œdipus, or a modern racing prophet, to answer.’ Having said which, the
captain rang the bell for something to drink, drank that something,
and immersed his fine faculties in the delightful study of a sporting
newspaper.
Jasper had not had leisure to thread his way very far through the
labyrinth of darkling vaticinations, so dear to men who like himself
are of the horse, horsey, as to probable or certain winners of
important events to come off, or to discriminate with sufficient nicety
between the inherent truth or falsehood of the reports that made the
barometer of the betting world oscillate so wildly between panic
and exultation, before the grinding of wheels on the smooth gravel
announced the arrival of the carriage, and that Sir Sykes’s ward was at
the threshold of Carbery Court, her future home.
‘I’d give a trifle,’ thought Jasper, ‘to know how many throbs to the
minute the governor’s pulse is giving just now. I suppose, like a
pattern guardian, he will receive her in the hall. I’ll wait till the
first disjointed welcomes are over, and then drop in and inspect the
new importation. I wonder if she drinks rum, like her brother?’
The captain had drawn, mentally, a fancy portrait of Hold’s sister, and
had marvelled how Blanche and Lucy would be likely to get on with such
a one as she could scarcely fail to be. But at the very first glance
Jasper abandoned as untenable the conjecture that Miss Willis could
drink rum, and he owned to himself, with the candour which men of his
stamp exhibit in self-communing alone, how very wide of the mark was
the likeness which his imagination had traced.
Miss Willis was very short and slight, and the deep mourning which she
wore made her look even slighter and shorter than she really was. She
had jet black hair that curled naturally, which, as if in ignorance or
defiance of fashion, she wore in a crop, and which made the whiteness
of her skin seem more conspicuous than it would otherwise have done.
A pale little face, lit up by a pair of fine dark eyes, that drooped
modestly to the carpet, as suitable to her shy, timid air. Whether she
were pretty or the reverse, was not to be so summarily settled as is
the case with most of her sex.
It was the eyes, and the eyes alone, that lent a marked peculiarity to
the countenance of Sir Sykes’s ward. Look at them, and the verdict that
Miss Willis was charming would have been pronounced by many women and
most men. Confine the scrutiny to the other features, and the judgment
that the Indian orphan was a plain, pale little creature, would as
inevitably have resulted. She looked young, quite a girl. The delicate
smoothness of her cheek suggested that her age might be under twenty;
but there was a subdued thoughtfulness in her aspect that might have
harmonised well with her years, had she been older by a lustrum.
‘I was talking of Œdipus,’ such was Jasper’s soliloquy after a
half-hour spent in the new arrival’s company; ‘but here is the Sphynx
herself, by Jove!’
It was with an inexpressible sentiment of relief that the baronet saw
what style of person his ward appeared to be. Here were no solecisms
in breeding, no coarseness of tone, or affectations more painful than
honest roughness ever is, to wince at, to gloss over, to excuse on the
ground of a youth spent in a far country, and often in stations where
European society was scarce, and perhaps not always choice as regarded
its quality. Sir Sykes had reckoned, at best, on a probationary
period during which he should have had to play the irksome part of an
apologist for the shortcomings of her whom he had invited to be the
companion of his own daughters.
But Sir Sykes and Jasper, too, were forced to admit that Miss Willis
was either an actress of consummate address, or, what really seemed the
more probable, was merely appearing in her genuine character. Timid and
somewhat constrained, but not awkward, was her manner of responding
to the warm greeting of Sir Sykes’s two daughters and to the grave
urbanity of the baronet himself. She did not say much; but her voice
trembled when she thanked Sir Sykes for his ‘extreme kindness’ to a
stranger like herself. Then Blanche kissed her. She should not be a
stranger long, she said. And then the girl broke down, sobbing. ‘How
good you all are to me,’ she said. ‘I hope—I do hope not to be very
troublesome, not to’——
And then there were more tears and more kissing; and the Misses Denzil
took complete possession of their new friend, and bore her off to be
installed in her room, and to learn to be at home at Carbery. Nothing
could have gone off better than the orphan’s reception; and even Jasper
felt this, and forbore to sneer. His own heart was as hard as the
nether millstone; but he accepted the fact that his sisters possessed
organs of a different degree of sensibility, precisely as he owned that
roses had perfume, and that the thrushes and nightingales sang sweetly
in the garden.
‘She’s no more the sister of yonder pirate fellow,’ such was the
captain’s conclusion, ‘than the last Derby winner was a drayhorse. I
thought the rascal spoke mockingly of the relationship between her and
him. No; she’s not Hold’s sister. I wonder whether she is mine?’
In the course of the afternoon of that day, Lord Harrogate, who had
ridden over from High Tor, made his appearance. There was, as has been
mentioned, a frequent exchange of neighbourly communications between
the two great houses of the vicinity. The Earl, it is true, seldom
called upon Sir Sykes, and Sir Sykes as seldom on the Earl; but the
Countess was often at Carbery, and the young people of both families
were much in each other’s company. By the time of Lord Harrogate’s
visit, the girl from India had made considerable progress in winning
the good-will of the Misses Denzil, prepossessed in her favour from
the beginning. They had devoted the time since luncheon to shewing
her the lions of Carbery—the tapestry of the ‘Queen’s Chamber,’ faded
but sumptuous; the stained glass; the chapel; the pictures; the grand
conservatory, built by a former lord of Carbery, on a scale too
ambitious for the use of a private family, and which was kept up at a
cost which even Sir Sykes murmured at; and the other local curiosities.
The orphan had proved herself a patient and intelligent sight-seer,
willing to be pleased, thankful for the kind desire of her entertainers
that she should be pleased, and discriminating in her admiration. There
was still some constraint in her manner, and of herself and her former
life she scarcely spoke. Perhaps her loss was too recent for her to be
able to talk freely of India, while of the journey to England she said
little. ‘There were fellow-passengers who took much care of me,’ she
replied once, in answer to a question on Lucy’s part. ‘Indeed, I met
kindness on every hand. Perhaps my being alone, and my black frock’——
And then her eyes filled with tears and she turned her head away.
Lord Harrogate, when introduced to the baronet’s ward, experienced
one of the oddest sensations that he had ever felt, and akin to that
tantalising, nameless thrill with which we all sometimes fancy that we
have seen some place which we know ourselves to visit for the first
time, or witnessed some scene which never before met our eyes. He
had started, when first he saw Miss Willis, and had eyed her in the
inquiring fashion in which we scan a face familiar to us. But it was
evident that Miss Willis did not know him, as indeed it was impossible
that she, Indian born and bred, and now in England for the first
time, should know him. And yet, long after he had left Carbery, the
perplexing thought occurred to him again and again that he remembered
the face, which, as all could aver, he had beheld for the first time on
that day.
LIFE AT NATAL.
Lady Barker, to whom the public is indebted for the most practically
useful works on New Zealand which have been placed within the reach
of the intending emigrant, having now completed a year’s residence
in our South African colony, gives us, in _A Year’s Housekeeping in
South Africa_ (London: Macmillan & Co.), the benefit of her recent
experience in a volume equally useful and entertaining. As compared
with Christchurch, the capital of the province of Canterbury, in
New Zealand, Maritzburg, in ‘fair Natal,’ is a backward and sleepy
place. Recent events may have the effect of developing its ambition
and accelerating its speed. But here is Lady Barker’s description of
its actual condition: ‘Maritzburg consists of a few straight, wide,
grass-grown streets, which are only picturesque at a little distance
on account of their having trees on each side. On particularly dark
nights, a dozen oil-lamps, standing at long intervals apart, are
lighted; but when it is even moderate starlight, these aids to finding
one’s way about are prudently dispensed with. Only two buildings make
the least effect. One is the Government House, standing in a nice
garden, and boasting of a rather pretty porch, but otherwise reminding
one, except for the sentinel on duty, of a quiet country rectory.
The other is a small block comprising the public offices. A certain
air of quaint interest and life is given to the otherwise desolate
streets by the groups of Kaffirs, and the teams of wagons waiting
for their up-country loads. Twenty bullocks drag these ponderous
contrivances—bullocks so lean that one wonders how they have strength
to carry their wide-spreading horns aloft; bullocks of a stupidity
and obstinacy unparalleled in the natural history of horned beasts.’
These teams are called ‘spans;’ and when, on Sundays, the teams and
the wagons are ‘outspanned’ on the green slopes around Maritzburg, the
aspect of the place, generally dull and lifeless, becomes strikingly
picturesque.
The road to Maritzburg from Port Durban, at which travellers to
Maritzburg land from the steamer which conveys them to Cape Town, is
very tedious to travel by the government mule wagon, which bumps about
in ruts, and sticks in mud after a fashion that renders the prospect
of the railway now in course of construction very attractive to the
expectant colonists; but it is also very beautiful. ‘Curved green
hills, dotted with clusters of timber exactly like an English park,
and a background of distant ranges rising in softly rounded outlines,
with deep violet shadows in the clefts, and pale green lights on
the slopes,’ form its principal features. Nestling amid this rich
pasture-land are the kraals of a large Kaffir ‘location;’ and it is
satisfactory to learn that in our South African colony at least, the
native population has not been entirely sacrificed to the white man.
At Durban there is a funny little railway between the town and the
‘Point;’ ‘a railway,’ says Lady Barker, ‘so calm and stately in its
method of progression, that it is not at all unusual to see a passenger
step deliberately out when it is at its fullest speed of crawl, and
wave his hand to his companions as he disappears down the by-path
leading to his little home. The passengers are conveyed at a uniform
rate of sixpence a head, which sixpence is collected promiscuously by a
small boy at odd moments during the journey.’
A great, indeed an inexhaustible, charm of the country is the wonderful
profusion and variety of flowers which grow everywhere; precious
things only to be seen here in stately glass houses and per favour
of scientific head-gardeners, growing in wild abundance, hiding the
ugliness of buildings, delighting the eyes and cheering the heart
of the colonist. As the drawbacks to a residence in ‘fair Natal’
are numerous and undeniable, it is right to dwell a little upon the
exceeding beauty of floral nature there. If flowers could only be
eaten, what a prosperous place Natal would be, or if the soil would
only grow cereals as it grows flowers! To walk on the grassy downs
is to walk among beautiful lilies in scarlet and white clusters,
endless varieties of periwinkles, purple and white cinerarias, and
golden bushes of the Cape broom, which we all know here as so great
a beautifier of landscape. Tall arum lilies fill every water-washed
hollow in the _spriuts_ (or brooks), and ferns of all kinds abound.
If the Kaffirs would work with even moderate application, the formation
of a luxuriant garden of fruit, flowers, and vegetables would be easily
within the reach of any dweller on the soil. The grass is always
cleared away for a considerable distance round the house, because
snakes are unpleasantly numerous, and grass affords cover for them; in
the instances of fine gardens, a broad walk of a deep rich red colour
intervening between the house and the gardens, contrasts beautifully
with the flower-beds, which are as big as small fields.
The red soil is very destructive to clothing, but it adds to the beauty
of the landscape. ‘Green things,’ says the author, describing a Natal
garden, ‘which we are accustomed to see in England in small pots,
shoot up here to the height of laurel bushes. In shady places grow
many varieties of fern and blue hydrangea, and verbena of every shade
flourish. But the great feature of this garden is roses, of at least a
hundred different sorts, which grow untrained, unpruned, in enormous
bushes covered by magnificent blossoms; each bloom of which would win
the prize at a rose-show. Red roses, white roses, tea roses, blush
roses, moss roses, and the clear old-fashioned cabbage rose, sweetest
and most sturdy of all; there they are at every turn—hedges of them,
screens of them, and giant bushes of them on either hand.’ Add to
this a bright swift brook trickling through the garden, the constant
sweet song of the Cape canary, and crowds of large butterflies of ‘all
glorious hues,’ which are quite fearless and familiar, perching on the
flowers and on the walks, and one gets a delightful notion of a Natal
garden.
This is, however, the bright side of the picture of life in our South
African colony; its practical aspects are less enticing, though the
drawbacks are chiefly such as will be removed in most cases, and
modified in all, when railway traffic shall be established in the
country; a devoutly-to-be-wished consummation, not very distant.
At present, we are told, the necessaries of life are very expensive
and difficult to procure; the importation of English servants is
almost always a failure; and the Kaffirs, though they have many good
qualities, are difficult to teach, very lazy, and given to starting off
to their native kraals for an improvised holiday of uncertain duration,
without the smallest regard to domestic exigences or the convenience of
their employers.
The soil is wonderfully prolific but under-cultivated, and the cost of
transport is enormous. Here is a statement which will no doubt in a few
years be looked back upon with wonder by the author herself, and read
with self-gratulatory retrospective compassion by settlers in Natal
under the railway regime: ‘The country’ (between Maritzburg and Durban)
‘is beautiful; but except for a scattered homestead here and there, not
a sign of a human dwelling is there on its green and fertile slopes.
All along the road, shrill bugle-blasts warned the trailing ox-wagons,
with their naked “forelooper,” at their head, to creep aside out of the
way of the open brake in which we travelled. I counted one hundred and
twenty wagons that day on fifty miles of road. Now, if one considers
that each of these wagons is drawn by a span of thirty or forty oxen,
one has some faint idea of how such a method of transport must use up
the material of the country. Something like ten thousand oxen toil over
this one road summer and winter; and what wonder is it not only that
merchandise costs more to fetch up from Durban to Maritzburg than it
does to bring out from England, but that beef is dear and bad?
As transport pays better than farming, we hear on all sides of farms
thrown out of cultivation; and in the neighbourhood of Maritzburg it is
esteemed a favour to let you have either milk or butter at exorbitant
prices and of most inferior quality. When one looks round at these
countless acres of splendid grazing-land, making a sort of natural
park on either hand, it seems like a bad dream to know that we have
constantly to use preserved milk and potted meat, as being cheaper and
easier to procure than fresh.’
Durban is a picturesque town, but the sand and the dust are
overpowering. Fine timber abounds; the different kinds of wood having
the queerest of names. Three of the hardest and handsomest native woods
are called respectively stink-wood, breeze-wood, and sneeze-wood. In
Durban too, magnificent flowers are everywhere in the utmost profusion;
at the fête of ‘The First Sod’ the spot was beautifully decorated with
plants and blossoms which would have cost a large sum in England; but
these were cheaper than the nails and string used in their arrangement.
This fête of ‘The First Sod’ afforded a favourable opportunity for
seeing all classes of the population, colonists, Kaffirs, and coolies,
for they all flocked into Durban; and Lady Barker says a shrewd thing
in reference to the populace in general: ‘It was the most orderly and
respectable crowd which could possibly be seen. In fact, such a crowd
would be an impossibility in England or any higher civilised country.
There were no dodging vagrants, no slatternly women, no squalid,
starving babies. _In fact, our civilisation has not yet mounted to
effervescence, so we have no dregs._’
We have been told wonders of the salubrity and delightfulness of the
climate of Natal; but Lady Barker does not indorse the statements
in which we have hitherto placed confidence. The alternations of
heat and cold are very trying; the rains are sudden and violent; and
thunder-storms are of almost daily occurrence and great severity. After
one very grand storm she found a multitude of beautiful butterflies
dead on the garden paths; their plumage was not dimmed nor their wings
broken; they might have been ready prepared for a collection, quite
dead and stiff.