by M C Beaton
Gradually her father stopped talking, his eyes bright with dreams of gaining a fortune at cards. Lady Grant stitched while she plotted and planned ways—although without any deep worry or anguish—to save them from debtors’ prison, and Fiona gazed into the flickering flames of the peat fire and wondered who she would marry.
At last Sir Edward roused himself from his reverie and sent Fiona off to bed. But Fiona only went to her room to change into her riding habit before going round to the stables. She felt too excited to sleep. The crisp snow crunched under her pony’s hooves and the mountains stood out sharp against the pale blue winter sky. When she was married—if she married—she might return one day. She must return one day to this, her beloved home. No thoughts of love or romance entered Fiona’s practical mind. Her duty lay in seeing that her father retained Strathglass House and his lands. That he might easily have done so had he been a more sensible manager of his estates and less addicted to gambling did not occur to Fiona. She could well understand the lure of the tables, and farming was a treacherous business at the best of times.
A pair of golden eagles sailed high above. Fiona reined in her horse and watched them for a long time until her eyes blurred with tears and she could no longer see them. She was only dimly aware that she had been as free as the eagles and London was about to throw conventional chains around her from which she might never escape.
The harsh northern winter still held its grip on the land as the Grants set out on their journey to London three months later to arrive in time for the start of the Season in April.
A thin sleety drizzle was blowing across the moors as Fiona said farewell to her home. Many of the tenants and servants were openly crying while the cumbersome traveling carriage was harnessed to four powerful horses and laden with imperials, hatboxes, and a great hair trunk that had reminded Fiona when she was very little of the pictures of the American buffalo she had in her schoolbooks. Fiona and her parents and Christine, some other “accident” of the Grant family who had been elected lady’s maid, were to travel together. A heavy post-chariot behind carried two maids and two footmen, a hamper of food, a spirit stove, and an entire tea service in case the Grants felt like refreshing themselves between posting houses and relatives’ homes. Outside were the postilions, very fine in green jackets and jockey caps, riding the family horses; Fiona’s pony, Blackie, was tied behind her father’s horse.
Angus, the piper, waited sulkily in the courtyard. He was to send them off and then ride after to join the party, for Sir Edward never went anywhere without his piper. Angus felt he should have been allowed to travel in the post-chariot and was grumbling openly about the damage the sleety weather might do to his hands.
But as the coachman cracked his whip, Angus tuned his pipes and began to play “Farewell to the North,” a heartbreaking melody that reduced everyone to tears.
There must be Scottish lords in London, thought Fiona, miserably drying her eyes. “A husband who would love this place as much as I do would be worth all my devotion, all my loyalty,” but she privately thought that such a man only existed in dreams.
It took them three days to reach Perth, where they stayed with her father’s only surviving uncle, an Episcopal minister, Ian Grant. They traveled only thirty miles a day, stopping at inns on the road, going to bed early and rising late. Then they continued south until they got to the ferry at Inverkeithing. The short crossing to Queensferry took three hours; the sailing boat being a dirty, ugly, miserable vessel. When they reached Edinburgh, Fiona still saw the city with a jaundiced eye, seeing not the splendor of the buildings of the New Town but only the unsightly parks abandoned to squabbling washerwomen. She was glad that their stay—with another relative—was confined to a mere two days.
The later stops on the road to London became jumbled together, a relative’s house here, a posting house there. Fiona had not realized she had quite so many relatives. Some lived in great comfort and some in little more than cottages. Then there was a week’s stop at Scarborough, Sir Edward becoming convinced that Lady Grant was in need of sea bathing. Although sea bathing was approved of, Fiona found the English did not believe in baths, although quite a number of Scottish relatives had fallen under what was called “the French influence” and were even known to take baths twice a day. Fiona was astounded by the immensity of the sea at Scarborough and enjoyed wandering on the beach and exploring the caves. But all too soon it was time to leave. More posting houses, more inns, and London drawing ever nearer.
At her father’s command, one evening on April 2, the carriage stopped at the top of Highgate Hill and they all got out to have a look at London.
It lay spread out below them, houses and churches lying crouched and threatening under a pall of smoke.
Fiona’s heart sank. She climbed back into the carriage and tried not to cry. A wave of homesickness, so strong and so piercing, made her feel almost ill.
“I saw two magpies,” said Sir Edward cheerfully as he climbed in after Fiona. “I am going to be lucky, I know it.”
Lady Grant gave him a wan smile and Fiona sat very still, white and tense, thinking of that smoky, gloomy city below that was shortly about to swallow her up.
TWO
Lady Grant, who had enjoyed good health for some time, despite her husband’s worries about her in Scarborough, fell victim to a bout of influenza as soon as they were settled in London. Instead of taking rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which would have suited both his purse and his profession, Sir Edward rented a large house facing Rotten Row in Hyde Park.
At first he seemed determined to lead a sober life and traveled to the law courts each day to study and made no mention of gambling. With Lady Grant confined to bed, Fiona found herself leading a life oddly similar to her Highland one. She rode her pony, Blackie, in the Park, accompanied by the piper, Angus Robertson, who liked to appear beside her on one of her father’s best horses, saying that since he had no opportunity to play the pipes, he may as well take his exercise. They made an odd couple, the lanky Highlander on the tall rawboned horse and pretty Fiona on her shaggy little pony. Many members of the Quality stopped to stare, but Fiona saw nothing odd in this, considering it a rather rude London fashion. Various relatives turned up to see Lady Grant, who was fast recovering, and the household had that odd, easygoing Highland atmosphere where the servants gossiped freely to their masters and often joined in games of charades in the evening or discussed the latest plays or books, all the Scottish servants having been well educated at the parish school. Although they had brought few servants with them, there had been no need to hire English ones. Word had got about that the Grants were in Town and Highlanders who had recently left the navy or army turned up on their doorstep looking for employment.
After a few weeks of this pleasant undemanding life, an old friend of Lady Grant, the Duchess of Gordonstoun, came to call. She was a tough energetic Scottish lady who had successfully married off two daughters. Fiona was paraded in front of her, rather like a horse, and the little duchess poked her and prodded her and scrutinized her and did everything but look at her teeth.
After her examination of Fiona, the duchess turned to Lady Grant, who was lying on a chaise longue in their shabby drawing room. The house had been previously tenanted by Lord Ecclesham, who had a large brood of children, and so all the furniture was kicked and scarred. “You had better puff her off soon, Annie,” said the duchess, Annie being Lady Grant’s first name, “or everyone will be stealing a march on you. Can she dance?”
“I…” began Fiona, but the duchess raised an imperious hand to silence her.
“I was addressing your mother, child,” she said.
“She has been well taught by Mr. Forsyth of Inverness,” said Lady Grant.
“Be sure she knows the English way of dancing,” said the duchess, “and don’t have her leaping about the ballroom like a savage. Have you ordered her wardrobe?”
“I haven’t been well enough to do anything, Betty,” said Lady Gra
nt, one of the few people allowed to address the duchess on familiar terms. “We have someone, a sort of relative, who is apprenticed to the Misses Hatton of South Molton Street—Lizzie Grant.”
“Then we must send for her right away. Goodness, when I think of the eligibles in Town, and a beauty like this being hidden away! Get your bonnet, child. We may as well start by visiting the shops. Don’t send for this Lizzie. I shall take Fiona to South Molton Street myself.”
Once in the carriage with the Duchess of Gordonstoun, Fiona tried to make conversation but found all her sallies rudely snubbed. The duchess often said she never wasted her time talking or listening to any female under thirty years because they had heads filled with rubbish.
Fiona was too excited to be out and about to be offended. Their first call was at Green’s, the glovers, in Little Newport Street. Fiona’s whole attention, however, was caught by the shop next door to the glovers which sold nothing but dolls. A special clockwork device had been placed in the window to rock a doll backward and forward, showing that its eyes could open and shut. Fiona stood openmouthed, watching this miracle, until the duchess testily told her not to behave like a rustic and dragged her into the glovers. After having purchased calico gloves and kid gloves for Fiona and having charged them to Lady Grant, the duchess then swept her off to Rundell & Bridge, the jewelers, where the duchess had left a necklace to be cleaned. At first sight, Fiona could not believe this was the most famous jewelers in the world because the outside was disgracefully shabby and dirty. But inside it was like a fairy palace with necklaces, tiaras, parures, and brooches sending flashing prisms of light stabbing through the gloom of the shop. A man was filling a scoop with small brown-looking stones. Fiona asked him what he was doing and he said he was “shoveling in rubies.” Fiona caught her breath in delight.
Then to the Misses Hatton in South Molton Street. It was the day before one of the court days at the Queen’s House and room after room was filled with great whalebone hoops, as the simple high-waisted fashions of the Regency were still forbidden at royal receptions. The hoops were great circles of whalebone, covered with silk and then with lace and net and hung about with festoons of lace and beads, garlands of artificial flowers, and furbelows of all sorts. Then there were the headdresses to go with these magnificent “bodies,” some of them consisting of as many as twelve feathers, standing bolt upright, and forming a forest of plumage. The train that went with these court gowns was very narrow, more like a prolonged sash than a garment. Fiona was studying the hoops and wondering how anyone could possibly move in such a tenue when one of the Miss Hattons summoned her to their saloon for tea and cakes and flattery. Fiona felt she had been silent for so long that when she spoke her voice would come out cracked and squeaky and was therefore relieved to find herself boldly asking after Lizzie Grant.
Lizzie was summoned. Fiona looked at her Grant relative curiously. She was not at all like a Grant in appearance. She was small and plump and dainty and had a rather disconcerting way of never meeting your eyes direct, but always looking at some point just to the side of your face. With her usual open friendliness, Fiona started to address Lizzie in Gaelic, but Lizzie did not, or pretended not, to understand, but the duchess most certainly did, and reprimanded Fiona sternly for speaking in a “foreign tongue,” as if Gaelic were the language of some country other than her own. While the duchess was berating her, Fiona had an uneasy feeling that Lizzie was enjoying the tirade, although she stood there meekly with her hands folded. “You could learn some manners from Lizzie here,” ended the duchess. “She is always prettily behaved.”
The measuring and fittings began. All Fiona’s clothes were chosen by Lizzie, who appeared to be a great favorite, not only with her employers, but also with the Duchess of Gordonstoun.
Fiona found she herself was becoming prey to an alarming wish to sulk. But she could find no fault in the fashions Lizzie chose for her. The colors were flattering and the styles were simple and elegant.
Not used to disliking people, Fiona found she was beginning to detest Lizzie although, she did not know quite why, and was relieved when the visit was at last over. Then they went to Churton’s for stockings and on to Ross to buy wigs for the duchess. Every woman past the first bloom of youth wore an expensive wig instead of her own hair. Fiona was beginning to be heartily tired of shopping, but a visit to Lowe for shoes was still to be endured—and then came the highlight of the outing. The duchess ordered her carriage to drive them to St. Paul’s Churchyard to look at books, and Fiona spent a happy hour rummaging among the bookstalls.
For a few days afterward, life sank back to its quiet rhythm, but Lady Grant, fully recovered and determined to do her duty by her daughter, began to “nurse the ground”—as the entertaining of the parents of eligible young men was called.
There seemed to be endless calls and card leavings and endless tea parties. Again, as with the duchess, Fiona found she was expected to sit quietly and listen while she and her marriage prospects were discussed. Fiona’s only comfort was that her mother appeared to worry that Sir Edward no longer went to the law courts but had had himself elected to Brooks’s in St. James’s where he went nightly, and came home at dawn, sometimes hysterically elated, sometimes gray and drawn.
Her new wardrobe was delivered and completed. Fiona hoped not to see Lizzie Grant for some time, but the Duchess of Gordonstoun arrived one afternoon to say she had a mind to take “little Fiona” to one of the Hanover Square Concerts, and that she had invited Lizzie Grant as well because it was a shame such a pretty biddable girl should spend all her days slaving in a workroom. Fiona herself thought it unfair, too, that Lizzie, because of an accident of birth, should be condemned to earn her bread, but she could not help wishing the duchess had not invited her as well.
Lizzie was shy and deferential and polite to Fiona as they set out and Fiona heartily wished she could find it in her to like this relative.
The Hanover Square Concerts were famous. They boasted all the best singers: Bartleman, Braham, Kelly, the Knyvetts, Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan, Mrs. Bianchi, and Mrs. Billington.
It was when Mrs. Billington, accompanied on the violin by the great Salomon, sang Handel’s “Sweet Bird that Shunn’st the Noise of Folly,” that Fiona disgraced herself. For in London, to show any excess of emotion was a disgrace. But she had never heard sounds so sweet or so heart-wrenching. A picture of her Highland home rose in her mind’s eye and her eyes filled with tears. The duchess was sitting between Lizzie and Fiona, and Fiona’s emotion might have passed unobserved, had not Lizzie, who had been leaning forward a little with her chin on her hand, given Fiona one of her sideways glances and then whispered to the duchess, “Your grace, I fear Miss Grant is overcome.”
“Behave yourself this minute,” hissed the duchess angrily to Fiona.
Fiona glanced about the room, looking for something to take her mind away from the beauty of the performance.
And then she found it.
A tall man was leaning against one of the pillars with his arms folded. He had a harsh, strong, handsome face, and thick black hair. He had a most odd color of eyes, thought Fiona, agate-colored, almost yellow, like a hawk, or like the eyes of those golden eagles at Strathglass. They wore a clouded, hooded, brooding expression as he listened to the music, and then, as if aware of her glance, the heavy lids raised and he stared at her. At first the glance was hard and predatory, and then a smile lifted the corners of his firm mouth and his eyes gleamed with humor.
Fiona blushed furiously for the first time in her life and looked down at her hands, determined all at once to appear as meek and biddable as Lizzie.
But the duchess, who only attended the concerts because they were fashionable and was quite tone deaf, had not been caught up in the music and noticed the exchange of glances.
Nothing at all was said. Lizzie was taken back to South Molton Street, and then Fiona was taken home. She had quite recovered and did not find the duchess’s silence odd since the duchess usual
ly barely spoke to her anyway. But once they had reached the Grants’ house, the Duchess of Gordonstoun announced her intention of going inside to speak to Lady Grant.
It was unfortunate for Fiona that her father had arrived home early after having lost heavily at the tables and was on hand to hear the Duchess of Gordonstoun complaining that Fiona was already losing her chances of making a rich marriage by showing emotion and locking glances with some gentleman. “So,” finished the duchess, pausing to take a pinch of snuff, “I suggest you take that nice Lizzie Grant out of South Molton Street and make her a companion to your daughter.”
Oh, no you don’t, thought Fiona confidently. She knew she could protest and that her parents would listen. Sir Edward and Lady Grant had seen to it that Fiona was reared very strictly until her sixteenth birthday. After that, they considered her an adult and allowed her all the freedom she had so long craved.
“Papa,” said Fiona with a smile, “I have no need of a companion. The music was so very beautiful that I was temporarily overset. It will not happen again. I looked at the gentleman by accident when I was trying to compose myself. A trifling mistake. There is, furthermore, something about Lizzie I cannot like…”
