by Donald Smith
That is why, before eight o’clock on a fine, fresh morning in May, only three years after Margaret’s marriage, I was standing outside the Black Bull, awaiting the departure of an Edinburgh coach. Was I in any way conscious that the fates were about to take a hand in my own future? I think not. I was excited at the prospect of Edinburgh, but oblivious to everything except my father’s clumsy farewells.
The stable boys were bringing out the horses when he remarked that apart from the young man standing in the inn doorway, there were no other passengers for that day. I glanced over and immediately recognised James McLehose. I said nothing as my father handed me into the empty coach and departed, relieved no doubt to fulfil his parental duties while avoiding the actual moment of leaving.
It was a ten-hour journey yet I can honestly say that, potholes notwithstanding, the time flew by. Mr McLehose was a reserved and rather formal young man. Though I had noticed him and I knew that he had noticed me, he had not presented himself at our house in the Saltmarket or sent cards and flowers like so many other venturesome gallants. But in order to have me to himself, he had ascertained the day of my journey to Edinburgh and booked all the other seats in the coach.
I flattered myself that on that journey he told me everything about himself. Beyond that, there were the dark eyes and fine features, the slender frame. I was much taken with James McLehose, gave him my confidence, and encouraged him to what end you, Sylvander, know well. But have you never yourself entered into an attachment, carried on the wings of instant attraction? And lived to rue the day. But again, I anticipate, for this is designed to be a narrative of my life in your style and manner.
The Misses MacRae maintained their finishing establishment on the south side of the town adjacent to the Meadows, a broad green sward which had been drained and laid out to gardens some years before. To the east were the old lands of Kirk O Field where Queen Mary’s Darnley met his murderous end; to the north was the University; to the west Heriot’s Hospital, and to the south the gently rising grounds of Sciennes and Marchmont. From this higher vantage, Arthur’s Seat was visible surveying all beneath.
We were sixteen young misses in total, and as high-spirited and bold a covey as ever hunter shook from the woodland branch. Yet the Misses MacRae managed, without tyrannical suppression, to take us through several course of improvement. We learned deportment and manners, conversation skills and the protocols of rank. I was unaccustomed to such solemn distinctions and saw little worth or purpose in them.
We also learned needlework, drawing, a little French and the art of composing letters or even a stanza of verse. I excelled in literary exercise, discovering for the first time something for which I had a special aptitude. The ladies had a good stock of poetic texts as well as new verse editions, which I was allowed to borrow and peruse at my leisure. We were also encouraged to keep commonplace books recording our favoured lines, observations and compositions. So began for me the custom of journal-keeping which has never left me, as well as a desire for correspondence of the intimate and confiding sort. As you yourself aver, what is the point of letters if we do not communicate our inner feelings, the true tenor of our souls? In that, Sylvander, I know I have your understanding and approbation.
But the great discovery of that second Edinburgh sojourn was the novel. These volumes were not displayed in the school’s modest library. But the younger Miss MacRae was an avid collector. When I had gained her confidence, she lent me one by one Pamela, Clarissa, Tom Jones – all with vigorous head shaking admonitions – Amelia, and your Mackenzie’s Man of Feeling.
O, the exquisite sensations of living through these crises and entanglements. The long exchange of letters, the swinging pendulum of honour and dishonourings, malevolent design overcoming or thwarted by determined virtue. And through all the sway of sentiment: lives lived for the fullness of the heart or its tragic folly. A new world was opened to me through these pages, yet it was also strangely familiar territory, as if this had always been my true inheritance. Here I chime, Sylvander, with all your early reading, and the birth therefrom of your sentient being. If only we had become acquainted at that time and had been able to share our tremulous explorations by letter and by conversation. We would have become our own novel creation!
Cultivation of heart and pen were the chief gains of my schooling. As to our social grooming, I remained indifferent; my attitudes to birth, rank and fortune were truly unfashionable. I despise people who pique themselves on either, but especially the former. Something should be allowed to bright talents or even external beauty since these belong to our selves; a mere accident of birth cannot confer essential merit. I would not then or now take anyone of a vulgar uncultivated mind to my bosom whatever their station. But someone possessed of natural genius and improved by diligent education is a welcome friend, however mean their extraction.
Are we not all the offspring of Adam? Have we not one God, one Saviour, one hope of immortality? I did not find anyone among my fellows who shared this philosophy – it was not accepted doctrine in the school of MacRae! On returning to Edinburgh, I do not find it any more in fashion now.
The time came for going home to Glasgow. I had received regular letters from Mr McLehose, short and sweet epistles, and whenever I was between terms we always contrived to meet. He was shy but intense in his feelings, and persistent. He became part of my inner private life, a badge of loyalty and an image of devotion. He asked me to marry him. I accepted.
My father’s habitual dullness sparked into angry life when I broached the subject of marriage. Was it not to avoid this very calamity that I had been banished to Edinburgh? He begged, instructed and even threatened that I should reconsider. So quitting the Misses MacRaes’ roof for the last time, I came home to reconsider. But my original conclusion was unmoved. James McLehose was the one I would marry.
It is true that James was only a law agent, yet his family were respectable and with application he would surely progress. So it was not an issue of social position that drove my father’s opposition. That I was too young was his constant theme, while all around me girls were marrying at sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. I was seventeen and maturely grown. I believe that my poor parent was animated by fear. Had marriage and childbearing not led to the death of his beloved spouse, and then of our dear Margaret? Would I also be subsumed in the grim shadow? As I said, my father was no Calvinist yet he began now to forebode some fateful predestination. I myself have not dealt in these dark tenets.
My will was adamantine and soon I stood beside my James, he two heads taller and elegant in black, as we made our vows and joined hands together. My father looked on helplessly, bent by the force of events. Should I have heeded his fears, or was this path of sorrows my true vocation? Only time, or perhaps somewhere beyond time, will reveal to us the whole circumstances of our heart’s inner motions.
What I have now to relate is painful in the extreme. Yet I cannot pass it over while remaining true to myself and to you. I trust entirely to your delicacy and discretion, since I wish to look this matter in the eye, or at least through the eyes of a caring and sympathetic friend. Many have heard a part of this story but few the whole, and if we are to correspond as between equals then I must count you in that select number. Forgive me, Sylvander, if anything in my account offends or repulses. I have already appointed you the inmost guardian of my honour, and if I have any fault it is that when I give, I give all without restraint.
The first months of married life are strange to both parties. However closely these two lives have moved, living together all of a sudden in the same cramped rooms comes as a surprise. I have already described James as shy and constrained, and I felt that in those first weeks he was only gradually becoming used to my presence. He was diffident yet considerate. I felt no qualms about the future of our union. Our first experiences of love were clumsy but comforting.
I must confess that my housekeeping may not have been of the highest standard. The contribution of the Misses Mac
Rae to domestic economy was limited to the correct manner of pouring tea or distributing cups. It was not therefore surprising that on occasion my young husband stayed later at some tavern to enjoy a solitary supper. At such times I was glad of my own company or the opportunity to visit friends.
However, this was to become the cause of a first rupture in my so far unbroken calm. I had been calling on some friends in the Trongate, and in the process of leaving was daffing with a couple of my old set at the stair-foot. Suddenly James appeared, striding along the road. On seeing us he came to an abrupt halt. A dark shadow crossed his features. Without a word of greeting or polite notice he broke into the circle, took me rudely by the arm, wheeled me out and hurried me homeward. I remonstrated with him but was ignored. On entering the house he launched into a tirade of abuse and blame. I remained silent, as if wary that any response on my part might lead to blows.
For two days I was in a state of paralysed fear. Nothing further was said. Then, as suddenly as the storm had appeared, it evaporated; the black cloud cleared from James’s brow and I breathed more easily.
I remember this nightmare episode as if it had occurred yesterday. Yet at the time I smoothed it over as an inexplicable outburst that had to be left to one side so that life could proceed as before. At this time I made the happy discovery that I was expecting a baby. James was delighted. All his kindness was renewed and I forgave and even forgot, cocooned in the prospect of motherhood.
Alas it was not to be. My first bairn, a little boy, was stillborn, and I had to be nursed gently back to health. My father’s old maid Bella came to look after me, though I was aware of James on the edge of things, helping where possible but withdrawing to his own devices. Total rest was meat and drink to my exhausted body and soul.
Gradually I picked up again where I had left off. Was there a change in my husband’s attitude to me, a subtle shift of mood? I cannot definitely say the change was not in me. Yet something felt different. There was a constant watchfulness in his demeanour. We went on much as before but his absences from home increased. Did he blame me in an obscure way for the loss of our baby?
Soon in God’s providence I was once again expecting a child. But this time there was no delight or tender solicitude from my husband. So one evening after supper I asked James if anything was troubling him or if I had displeased him in any way. This produced a second violent outburst. He accused me of neglecting our house in favour of flippant society. I was not prepared to accept this charge passively, since apart from visiting at the Saltmarket, my lonely days were bereft of society, flippant or otherwise.
I might have saved my breath. This attempt at justification only redoubled his fury. A spate of denigration combined with sexual innuendo overwhelmed my feeble defences. My family had always looked down on him, he said. From the beginning I had maintained a secret superiority. Did I think he was a fool, unable to detect the smug mockery that lay behind my words and actions? However submissive my posture at home, my heart was disobedient and wilfully contriving his humiliation.
I was so shocked, I was incapable of intelligent reply. I broke down in tears. Slamming the door behind him, he left me to my own devices.
That was the beginning of our married war. It lasted through two pregnancies and the births of my two lovely sons. At times the illusion of normal life spread over our little house and family. But the darkness always resurfaced. James would stay out late and then lie in bed, refusing company or nourishment. The husband whom I had pledged to love, honour and obey became for me a lord of doubleness, one day cheerful and kind, the next spitting blame and recrimination. The very sight of me at his bedside could provoke a spasm of disgust and hate.
I realised that the black moods were linked to James’ absences from home, a slurring of speech and the odours of the tavern. Yet to this day I believe drink was a symptom and not the cause of his malaise. He was trying to dampen his devils, not to raise them. They stared dully and malevolently from his eyes, daring my displeasure.
James seemed able to control his moods in the presence of others. We would visit his widowed mother or my father, and sometimes relatives would come to us after our first boy was safely born. On these days he would be genial and polite, even though I could see the huge effort of self-control this cost him. When our visitors had gone, he would find fault with my hospitality or bearing or conversation, whipping himself up till vent could be given to his suppressed anger and hatred.
I should not have argued back but I did. I was furious at his hypocritical determination to put me in the wrong and force my abject submission. What could I do but defend the little space of life still left to me and my child? It was as if his morbid shame needed to tear down my virtuous image and put a reflection of his own tormented self in its place. But when I fought back James relished my resistance, crushing me with contempt and an icy control more terrifying than his rages.
It was that presumption of moral and intellectual superiority, his threat to expose my supposed wrongdoing, that led me gradually to confide in others, particularly close female friends. By this time, apart from my father, I was jealously denied any male company. Yet by nature, Sylvander, I am an Amelia. I would rather tolerate the wandering of a Booth than cast a husband from my door. But I have not the spaniel in my being to suffer public humiliation, or allow who knows what sinister imputations on my reputation and character. It was too much. I spoke to my father of separation. He urged caution.
My waist was thickening with a new child. I feared for the health of this baby and insisted on withdrawal from those hated rooms at Townhead, in which the sordid drama of these last three years had been endured. Submission was no longer bearable.
Perceiving my husband’s disposition and temper to be so discordant as to permanently banish any hope of happiness, I made my plans. Our disagreements had risen to such a pitch that I feared for my safety. With the support of my remaining friends a separation finally took place and in December 1780 I returned to my family home.
For a moment an old life flickered and we lived like a family again and I was numb to outside society as I awaited the birth of my new baby. Then a lovely William was added to my Andrew. Bella took everything in hand, and even my mother’s shade seemed to summon up a pale smile.
We had heard little from my husband since the separation, but now his duplicitous talent was put grandly on display. Acting the aggrieved parent, he commanded that Andrew and even the babe at my breast be removed to his mother’s house for their proper upbringing. He had the power of law on his side and well he knew it. Simultaneously, he wrote begging me to return to our home and restore his happiness through the reunion of our family. Everything he did and said pretended sanctity while cruelly conniving to sunder a mother from her newborn infant. Worst of all, he believed in his own deceit. The sanctimonious prig was armoured against any dunt of self-reproach, while the drunk veered from depression to violent denunciation and back. This was – no, is – the husband to whom I have pledged myself body and soul till death.
Fortunately his mother, who was a kindly soul, held no grudge against me. She quietly ensured access to her house so that my bond with the two little ones was strained but not broken. She hoped always for the best from her son, only to have her expectations dashed. I was able to see at first hand that for James the maternal relation, like that of marriage, was as much honoured in the breach as the observance.
These strange weeks stretched into months and then into a year. My only consolation was the rediscovery of poetry. I read as I had never read before, mapping out the territories of natural beauty, of sentiment, of tender regret. My feelings were stretched taut and tuned like a Grecian lyre. Author after author was consumed in verse and prose: Thomson, Shenstone, Cowper, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne and many more of your own tutors. These were the makers of my landscape, the enclosures of my soul, and I began to relieve my pent-up feelings by composing my own fragments of verse.
It was at this period that my thoug
hts turned back to Edinburgh. Was it not the literary town, the centre of enlightenment, where I might recover my inner poise and explore the universes of feeling and thought? Perhaps this view of Edinburgh was coloured by my early experience of romance. Was it wrong to imagine a place more refined than Glasgow’s frank mercantile commerce – somewhere beckoning from my precious memories towards the future?
Did Edinburgh, Sylvander, live up to my expectations? Perhaps you can still help me solve that puzzle.
Whatever my perceptions, harsh circumstance took a sudden hold on my dreams. My father, who had for some months been ailing and unable to fulfil his duties, suddenly died. It was as if he had surrendered unintentionally and without warning to the unequal struggle of existence. We buried him in the Ramshorn kirkyard amidst an abundant congregation of colleagues and well wishers. I think now that I did not truly value his constancy and steadfastness; then I felt – and still feel – his absence keenly.
It quickly became apparent that my dear father’s illness and his benevolence over so many years had left him bereft of capital, material capital at least. After settlement of his debts there was barely fifty pounds of ready money but still in his possession were two tenement dwellings in the Saltmarket besides our own house, and sale of these secured me a meagre annuity of twenty pounds.
Meanwhile Mr McLehose had dispatched to London in search of better fortune. His rare letters home revolved around emigration to Jamaica. Prosperity was apparently assured in that colony, and he pressed his desire to be reunited with his ‘beloved’ wife and children. In reality not a penny trickled through to either party. Instead, reports of drunken debauch, gaming debts and despairing dissolution were relayed to Glasgow by reliable witnesses. Finally the McLehose family realised the hopelessness of their case and urged me to reclaim the care of my two dear sons.
