Hamilton's 'party' may not be gifted, but it is well dressed. My hope
is that some of our future hostesses will be looking from the
second-story front windows. If they are, I can assure them in advance
that I shall be a national advertisement."
It is needless to remark that as it began to rain heavily as she was
leaving the house, she was obliged to send back the open carriage, and
order, to save time, one of the public cabs from the stand in the
Terrace.
"Would you mind having the lamiter, being first in line?" asked
Susanna of Salemina, who had transmitted the command.
When Salemina fails to understand anything, the world is kept in
complete ignorance,--least of all would she stoop to ask a humble maid
servant to translate the vernacular of the country; so she replied
affably, "Certainly, Susanna, that is the kind we always prefer. I
suppose it is covered?"
Francesca did not notice, until her coachman alighted to deliver the
first letter and cards, that he had one club foot and one wooden leg;
it was then that the full significance of "lamiter" came to her. He
was covered, however, as Salemina had supposed, and the occurrence
gave us a precious opportunity of chaffing that dungeon of learning.
He was tolerably alert and vigorous, too, although he certainly did
not impart elegance to a vehicle, and he knew every street in the
court end of Edinburgh, and every close and wynd in the Old Town. On
this our first meeting with him, he faltered only when Francesca asked
him last of all to drive to "Kildonan House, Helmsdale;" supposing,
not unnaturally, that it was as well known an address as Morningside
House, Tipperlinn, whence she had just come. The lamiter had never
heard of Kildonan House nor of Helmsdale, and he had driven in the
streets of Auld Reekie for thirty years. None of the drivers whom he
consulted could supply any information; Susanna Crum couldna say that
she had ever heard of it, nor could Mrs. M'Collop nor Miss
Diggity-Dalgety. It was reserved for Lady Baird to explain that
Helmsdale was two hundred and eighty miles north, and that Kildonan
House was ten miles from the Helmsdale railway station, so that the
poor lamiter would have had a weary drive even had he known the way.
The friends who had given us letters to Mr. and Mrs. Jameson-Inglis
(Jimmyson-Ingals) must have expected us either to visit John o'
Groats on the northern border, and drop in on Kildonan House _en
route_, or to send our note of introduction by post and await an
invitation to pass the summer. At all events, the anecdote proved very
pleasing to our Edinburgh acquaintances. I hardly know whether, if
they should visit America, they would enjoy tales of their own
stupidity as hugely as they did the tales of ours, but they really
were very appreciative in this particular, and it is but justice to
ourselves to say that we gave them every opportunity for enjoyment.
But I must go back to our first grand dinner in Scotland. We were
dressed at quarter past seven, when, in looking at the invitation
again, we discovered that the dinner-hour was eight o'clock, not
seven-thirty. Susanna did not happen to know the exact or approximate
distance to Fotheringay Crescent, but the maiden Boots affirmed that
it was only two minutes' drive, so we sat down in front of the fire to
chat.
It was Lady Baird's birthday feast to which we had been bidden, and we
had done our best to honor the occasion. We had prepared a large
bouquet tied with the Maclean tartan (Lady Baird is a Maclean), and
had printed in gold letters on one of the ribbons, "Another for
Hector," the battle-cry of the clan. We each wore a sprig of holly,
because it is the badge of the family, while I added a girdle and
shoulder-knot of tartan velvet to my pale green gown, and borrowed
Francesca's emerald necklace, persuading her that she was too young to
wear such jewels in the old country.
Francesca was miserably envious that she had not thought of tartans
first. "You may consider yourself 'gey an' fine,' all covered over
with Scotch plaid, but I wouldn't be so 'kenspeckle' for worlds!" she
said, using expressions borrowed from Mrs. M'Collop; "and as for
disguising your nationality, do not flatter yourself that you look
like anything but an American. I forgot to tell you the conversation I
overheard in the tram this morning, between a mother and daughter, who
were talking about us, I dare say. 'Have they any proper frocks for so
large a party, Bella?' asked the mother.
"'I thought I explained in the beginning, mamma, that they are
Americans.'
"'Still, you know they are only traveling,--just passing through, as
it were; they may not be familiar with our customs, and we do want our
party to be a smart one.'
"'Wait until you see them, mamma, and you will probably feel like
hiding your diminished head! It is my belief that if an American lady
takes a half-hour journey in a tram she carries full evening dress and
a diamond necklace, in case anything should happen on the way. I am
not in the least nervous about their appearance. I only hope that they
will not be too exuberant; American girls are so frightfully vivacious
and informal, I always feel as if I were being taken by the throat!'"
"A picturesque, though rather vigorous expression; however, it does no
harm to be perfectly dressed," said Salemina consciously, putting a
steel embroidered slipper on the fender and settling the holly in the
silver folds of her gown; "then when they discover that we are all
well bred, and that one of us is intelligent, it will be the more
credit to the country that gave us birth."
"Of course it is impossible to tell what country did give _you_
birth," retorted Francesca, "but that will only be to your
advantage--away from home!"
Francesca is inflexibly, almost aggressively American, but Salemina is
a citizen of the world. If the United States should be involved in a
war, I am confident that Salemina would be in front with the other
Gatling guns, for in that case a principle would be at stake; but in
all lesser matters she is extremely unprejudiced. She prefers German
music, Italian climate, French dressmakers, English tailors, Japanese
manners, and American--American something,--I have forgotten just
what; it is either the ice-cream soda or the form of government,--I
can't remember which.
"I wonder why they named it 'Fotheringay' Crescent," mused Francesca.
"Some association with Mary Stuart, of course. Poor, poor, pretty
lady! A free queen only six years, and think of the number of beds she
slept in, and the number of trees she planted; we have already seen, I
am afraid to say how many. When did she govern, when did she scheme,
above all when did she flirt, with all this racing and chasing over
the country? Mrs. M'Collop calls Anne of Denmark a 'sad scattercash'
and Mary an 'awfu' gadabout,' and I am inclined to agree with her. By
the way, when she was making my bed this morning, she told me that her
mother claimed descent from the Stewarts of Appin, whoever they may
be. She apologized for Queen Mary's defects as if she were a distant
family connection. If so, then the famous Stuart charm has been lost
somewhere, for Mrs. M'Collop certainly possesses no alluring curves of
temperament."
"I am going to select some distinguished ancestors this very minute,
before I go to my first Edinburgh dinner," said I decidedly. "It seems
hard that ancestors should have everything to do with settling our
nationality and our position in life, and we not have a word to say.
How nice it would be to select one's own after one had arrived at
years of discretion, or to adopt different ones according to the
country one chanced to be visiting! I am going to do it; it is
unusual, but there must be a pioneer in every good movement. Let me
think: do help me, Salemina! I am a Hamilton to begin with; I might be
descended from the logical Sir William himself, and thus become the
idol of the university set!"
"He died only about thirty years ago, and you would have to be his
daughter: that would never do," said Salemina. "Why don't you take
Thomas Hamilton, Earl of Melrose and Haddington? He was Secretary of
State, King's Advocate, Lord President of the Court of Sessions, and
all sorts of fine things. He was the one King James used to call 'Tam
o' the Cowgate.'"
"Perfectly delightful! I don't care so much about his other titles,
but 'Tam o' the Cowgate' is irresistible. I will take him. He was
my--what was he?"
"He was at least your great-great-great-great-grandfather; that is a
safe distance. Then there's that famous Jenny Geddes, who flung her
fauld-stule at the Dean in St. Giles's,--she was a Hamilton, too, if
you fancy her!"
"Yes, I'll take her with pleasure," I responded thankfully. "Of course
I don't know why she flung the stool,--it may have been very
reprehensible; but there is always good stuff in stool-flingers; it's
the sort of spirit one likes to inherit in diluted form. Now whom will
you take?"
"I haven't even a peg on which to hang a Scottish ancestor," said
Salemina disconsolately.
"Oh, nonsense! think harder. Anybody will do as a starting-point; only
you must be honorable and really show relationship, as I did with
Jenny and Tam."
"My aunt Mary-Emma married a Lindsay," ventured Salemina hesitatingly.
"That will do," I answered delightedly.
"'The Gordons gay in English blude
They wat their hose and shoon;
The Lindsays flew like fire aboot
Till a' the fray was dune.'
You can play that you are one of the famous 'licht Lindsays,' and you
can look up the particular ancestor in your big book. Now, Francesca,
it's your turn!"
"I am American to the backbone," she declared, with insufferable
dignity. "I do not desire any foreign ancestors."
"Francesca!" I expostulated. "Do you mean to tell me that you can dine
with a lineal descendant of Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, Baronet, of
Duart and Morven, and not make any effort to trace your genealogy back
further than your parents?"
"If you goad me to desperation," she answered, "I will wear an
American flag in my hair, declare that my father is a Red Indian, or a
pork-packer, and talk about the superiority of our checking system and
hotels all the evening. I don't want to go, anyway. It is sure to be
stiff and ceremonious, and the man who takes me in will ask me the
population of Chicago and the amount of wheat we exported last
year,--he always does."
"I can't see why he should," said I. "I am sure you don't look as if
you knew."
"My looks have thus far proved no protection," she replied sadly.
"Salemina is so flexible, and you are so dramatic, that you enter into
all these experiences with zest. You already more than half believe in
that Tam o' the Cowgate story. But there'll be nothing for me in
Edinburgh society; it will be all clergymen"--
"Ministers," interjected Salemina.
--"all ministers and professors. My Redfern gown will be
unappreciated, and my Worth evening frocks worse than wasted!"
"There are a few thousand medical students," I said encouragingly,
"and all the young advocates, and a sprinkling of military men,--they
know Worth frocks."
"And," continued Salemina bitingly, "there will always be, even in an
intellectual city like Edinburgh, a few men who continue to escape all
the developing influences about them, and remain commonplace,
conventional manikins, devoted to dancing and flirting. Never fear,
they will find you!"
This sounds harsh, but nobody minds Salemina, least of all Francesca,
who well knows she is the apple of that spinster's eye. But at this
moment Susanna opens the door (timorously, as if there might be a
panther behind it) and announces the cab (in the same tone in which
she would announce the beast); we pick up our draperies, and are
whirled off by the lamiter to dine with the Scottish nobility.
VI
It was the Princess Dashkoff who said, in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, that of all the societies of men of talent she had
met with in her travels, Edinburgh's was the first in point of
abilities.
One might make the same remark to-day, perhaps, and not depart widely
from the truth. One does not find, however, as many noted names as are
associated with the annals of the Cape and Poker Clubs or the
Crochallan Fencibles, those famous groups of famous men who met for
relaxation (and intoxication, I should think) at the old Isle of Man
Arms or in Dawney's Tavern in the Anchor Close. These groups included
such shining lights as Robert Fergusson the poet, and Adam Ferguson
the historian and philosopher, Gavin Wilson, Sir Henry Raeburn, David
Hume, Erskine, Lords Newton, Gillies, Monboddo, Hailes, Kames, Henry
Mackenzie, and the Ploughman Poet himself, who has kept alive the
memory of the Crochallans in many a jovial verse like that in which he
describes Smellie, the eccentric philosopher and printer:--
"Shrewd Willie Smellie to Crochallan came,
The old cocked hat, the grey surtout the same,
His bristling beard just rising in its might;
'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night;"
or in the characteristic picture of William Dunbar, a wit of the time,
and the merriest of the Fencibles:--
"As I cam by Crochallan
I cannily keekit ben;
Rattlin', roarin' Willie
Was sitting at yon boord en';
Sitting at yon boord en',
And amang guid companie!
Rattlin', roarin' Willie,
Ye're welcome hame to me!"
or in the verses on Creech, Burns's publisher, who left Edinburgh for
a time in 1789. The "Willies," by the way, seem to be especially
inspiring to the Scottish balladists.
"Oh, Willie was a witty wight,
And had o' things an unco slight!
Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight
And trig and braw;
But now they'll busk her like a fright--
Willie's awa'!"
I think perhaps the gatherings of the present time are neither quite
as gay nor quite as brilliant as those of Burns's day, when
"Willie brewed a peck o' maut,
An' Rob an' Allan cam to pree;"
but the ideal standard of those meetings seems to be voiced in the
lines:--
"Wha last beside his chair shall fa',
He is the king amang us three!"
As they sit in their chairs nowadays to the very end of the feast,
there is doubtless joined with modern sobriety a _soupcon_ of modern
dullness and discretion.
To an American the great charm of Edinburgh is its leisurely
atmosphere: "not the leisure of a village arising from the deficiency
of ideas and motives, but the leisure of a city reposing grandly on
tradition and history; which has done its work, and does not require
to weave its own clothing, to dig its own coals, or smelt its own
iron."
We were reminded of this more than once, and it never failed to
depress us properly. If one had ever lived in Pittsburg, Fall River,
or Kansas City, I should think it would be almost impossible to
maintain self-respect in a place like Edinburgh, where the citizens
"are released from the vulgarizing dominion of the hour." Whenever one
of Auld Reekie's great men took this tone with me, I always felt as
though I were the germ in a half-hatched egg, and he were an aged and
lordly cock gazing at me pityingly through my shell. He, lucky
creature, had lived through all the struggles which I was to undergo;
he, indeed, was released from "the vulgarizing dominion of the hour;"
but I, poor thing, must grow and grow, and keep pecking at my shell,
in order to achieve existence.
Sydney Smith says in one of his letters, "Never shall I forget the
happy days passed there [in Edinburgh], amidst odious smells,
barbarous sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts, and the most
enlightened and cultivated understandings." His only criticism of the
conversation of that day (1797-1802) concerned itself with the
prevalence of that form of Scotch humor which was called _wut_, and
with the disputations and dialectics. We were more fortunate than
Sydney Smith, because Edinburgh has outgrown its odious smells,
barbarous sounds, and bad suppers, and, wonderful to relate, has kept
its excellent hearts and its enlightened and cultivated
understandings. As for mingled _wut_ and dialectics, where can one
find a better foundation for dinner-table conversation?
The hospitable board itself presents no striking differences from our
own, save the customs of serving sweets in soup-plates with
dessert-spoons, of a smaller number of forks on parade, of the
invariable fish-knife at each plate, of the prevalent "savory" and
"cold shape," and the unusual grace and skill with which the hostess
carves. Even at very large dinners one occasionally sees a lady of
high degree severing the joints of chickens and birds most daintily,
while her lord looks on in happy idleness, thinking, perhaps, how
greatly times have changed for the better since the ages of strife and
bloodshed, when Scottish nobles
"Carved at the meal with gloves of steel,
And drank their wine through helmets barred."
The Scotch butler is not in the least like an English one. No man
could be as respectable as he looks, not even an elder of the kirk,
whom he resembles closely. He hands your plate as if it were a
contribution-box, and in his moments of ease, when he stands behind
the "maister," I am always expecting him to pronounce a benediction.
The English butler, when he wishes to avoid the appearance of
listening to the conversation, gazes with level eye into vacancy; the
Scotch butler looks distinctly heavenward, as if he were brooding on
the principle of coordinate jurisdiction with mutual subordination. It
would be impossible for me to deny the key of the wine-cellar to a
being so steeped in sanctity, but it has been done, I am told, in
certain rare and isolated cases.
As for toilets, the men dress like all other men (alas, and alas, that
we should say it, for we were continually hoping for a kilt!), though
there seems to be no survival of the finical Lord Napier's spirit.
Perhaps you remember that Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk
in Lanarkshire with the intention of staying a week, but announced
next morning that a circumstance had occurred which rendered it
indispensable to return without delay to their seat in Selkirkshire.
This was the only explanation given, but it was afterwards discovered
that Lord Napier's valet had committed the grievous mistake of packing
up a set of neck-cloths which did not correspond _in point of date_
with the shirts they accompanied!
The ladies of the "smart set" in Edinburgh wear French fripperies and
_chiffons_, as do their sisters everywhere, but the other women of
society dress a trifle more staidly than their cousins in London,
Paris, or New York. The sobriety of taste and severity of style that
characterize Scotswomen may be due, like Susanna Crum's dubieties, to
the _haar_, to the shorter catechism, or perhaps in some degree to the
presence of three branches of the Presbyterian church among them; the
society that bears in its bosom three separate and antagonistic kinds
of Presbyterianism at the same time must have its chilly moments.
In Lord Cockburn's time the "dames of high and aristocratic breed"
must have been sufficiently awake to feminine frivolities to be both
gorgeously and extravagantly arrayed. I do not know in all literature
a more delicious and lifelike word-portrait than Lord Cockburn gives
of Mrs. Rochead, the Lady of Inverleith, in the Memorials. It is quite
worthy to hang beside a Raeburn canvas; one can scarce say more.
"Except Mrs. Siddons in some of her displays of magnificent royalty,
nobody could sit down like the Lady of Inverleith. She would sail like
a ship from Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling silk, done up in
all the accompaniments of fans, ear-rings and finger-rings, falling
sleeves, scent-bottle, embroidered bag, hoop, and train; managing all
this seemingly heavy rigging with as much ease as a full-blown swan
does its plumage. She would take possession of the centre of a large
sofa, and at the same moment, without the slightest visible exertion,
cover the whole of it with her bravery, the graceful folds seeming to
lay themselves over it, like summer waves. The descent from her
carriage, too, where she sat like a nautilus in its shell, was a
display which no one in these days could accomplish or even fancy. The
mulberry-colored coach, apparently not too large for what it
contained, though she alone was in it; the handsome, jolly coachman
and his splendid hammer-cloth loaded with lace; the two respectful
liveried footmen, one on each side of the richly carpeted step,--these
were lost sight of amidst the slow majesty with which the Lady of
Inverleith came down and touched the earth."
My right-hand neighbor at Lady Baird's dinner was surprised at my
quoting Lord Cockburn. One's attendant squires here always seem
surprised when one knows anything; but they are always delighted, too,
so that the amazement is less trying. True, I had read the Memorials
only the week before, and had never heard of them previous to that
time; but that detail, according to my theories, makes no real
difference. The woman who knows how and when to "read up," who reads
because she wants to be in sympathy with a new environment; the woman
who has wit and perspective enough to be stimulated by novel
conditions and kindled by fresh influences, who is susceptible to the
vibrations of other people's history, is safe to be fairly intelligent
and extremely agreeable, if only she is sufficiently modest. I think
my neighbor found me thoroughly delightful after he discovered my
point of view. He was an earl; and it always takes an earl a certain
length of time to understand me. I scarcely know why, for I certainly
should not think it courteous to interpose any real barriers between
the nobility and that portion of the "masses" represented in my humble
person.
It seemed to me at first that the earl did not apply himself to the
study of my national peculiarities with much assiduity, but wasted
considerable time in gazing at Francesca, who was opposite. She is
certainly very handsome, and I never saw her lovelier than at that
dinner; her eyes were like stars, and her cheeks and lips a splendid
crimson, for she was quarreling with her attendant cavalier about the
relative merits of Scotland and America, and they apparently ceased to
speak to each other after the salad.
When the earl had sufficiently piqued me by his devotion to his dinner
and his glances at Francesca, I began a systematic attempt to achieve
his (transient) subjugation. Of course I am ardently attached to
Willie Beresford and prefer him to any earl in Britain, but one's
self-respect demands something in the way of food. I could see
Salemina at the far end of the table radiant with success, the W. S.
at her side bending ever and anon to catch the (artificial) pearls of
thought that dropped from her lips. "Miss Hamilton appears simple" (I
thought I heard her say); "but in reality she is as deep as the Currie
Brig!" Now where did she get that allusion? And again, when the W. S.
asked her whither she was going when she left Edinburgh, "I hardly
know," she replied pensively. "I am waiting for the shade of Montrose
to direct me, as the Viscount Dundee said to your Duke of Gordon." The
entranced Scotsman little knew that she had perfected this style of
conversation by long experience with the Q. C.'s of England. Talk
about my being as deep as the Currie Brig (whatever it may be);
Salemina is deeper than the Atlantic Ocean! I shall take pains to
inform her Writer to the Signet, after dinner, that she eats sugar on
her porridge every morning; that will show him her nationality
conclusively.
The earl took the greatest interest in my new ancestors, and approved
thoroughly of my choice. He thinks I must have been named for Lady
Penelope Belhaven, who lived in Leven Lodge, one of the country villas
of the Earls of Leven, from whom he himself is descended. "Does that
make us relatives?" I asked. "Relatives, most assuredly," he replied,
"but not too near to destroy the charm of friendship."