That last summer at Twyford, how fresh it comes back to me! My father was of course away. We lived entirely with my Mother, Harriet, Bessy Maling, Aunt Mary, Cousin James, and Annie Grant. Harriet was not a demonstrative person, but she had a warm Scotch heart beneath her cool manner. She was very kind to us, and amused us often when we should otherwise have been in the way. She made us half a dozen ladies and gentlemen of pasteboard, whose arms and legs were all made in separate joints, just held together by a stitch of silk—through the bodies was passed a stronger thread, one end of which was pinned to the carpet, the other was held in the hand and jerked up and down in time to musick, when the loose limbed figure capered like the wildest opera dancer. They were refined Souple Tams.11 Harriet painted their faces, we helping to mix the colours, my first lesson in tinting, compounding etc. Annie dressed them in bits of finery brought from Albemarle Street, and what shouts of merry laughter accompanied the pianoforte which set our corps de ballet dancing!
We were sometimes troublesome, however, in spite of all the pains taken to amuse us. I remember Jane and Mary persisting in standing by the table where Cousin James was drawing, and Aunt Mary patching—two arts we never tired of watching; no delicate hints sufficing to remove them, when my Mother at last bid them go off and gather their Aunt Mary some green frogs. Aunt Mary was always a nervous person so much so as to be constantly called both affected and fine, and above every other antipathy of the many she indulged in, was her utter horrour of frogs. She never strolled out on moonlight evenings for fear of seeing these harmless creatures nor set her foot upon the soft grass of a meadow for fear of them jumping over it. Pleasant was the laugh, therefore, with which the unconscious children were dismissed, none of the party being more amused than Aunt Mary. She very soon, however, changed to a scream, gave an appalling shriek, for back came Jane and Mary, their little pinafores held well up in hand and Mary, advancing first, opened her burden upon Aunt Mary’s knee—a dozen of little green frogs! ‘Dere Aunt Mamy, plenty flogs!’ It banished her from the drawing room for the evening—the Aunt, not the child; no one could persuade her those odious animals had not hidden under all the chairs—poor little Mary, next came a sobbing scene.
We dined with my Mother, early for her, but late enough for us, and following up the wise discipline to which we had been accustomed, whatever dainties might adorn the table, our plain dishes were always there. One day at the bottom was placed boiled mutton, to which William, Jane, and I were helped. At the top was a roast goose, extremely savoury with its stuffing and rich gravy and apple sauce. It was a favourite dish with the whole Houghton connexion, and as tastes descend by inheritance, little Mary quite naturally affected the goose. She declined the offered mutton. ‘What’s the matter, little Mary? not hungry, my dear? she looks very red!’ etc. No answer. There she sat, flushed certainly, but not otherwise remarkable, except for her empty plate. At last the truth dawned upon my Mother, who rose from her seat and, seizing the poor child, she began to box the tiny ears, first the one and then the other, calling names between the slaps ’till her own face became scarlet and her eyes flashed. These scenes always made me shiver whether I were victim or spectator; they deranged me for the day, yet it was the ordinary routine of education in all nurseries then, and still retains its place in our schools. Mary cried, but never spoke. She went without her dinner, and she passed an hour or two in our usual place of punishment, our condemned cell—the large dutch tiled fire place in the entrance hall—but she never gave up her secret, except to Annie Grant, who after a little tender coaxing, learned that ‘I wanted duck.’ Annie could make any of us do or not do anything—she never tried any other form but that of gentleness.
The entrance hall was a large, low, square dark room panelled in dark oak; floor the same, in a diced pattern bright rubbed, with an old fashioned fire place that my father had left untouched. It had a hanging chimney, a small settle within on each side of the hearth; two dogs with Antelopes heads on the ends of them—the Raper crest—the whole lined with clean blue dutch tiles representing Bible history, especially the Apocrypha for there was Tobit and his dog and the whole story of his blindness and its cure, and a great deal more that much amused the culprits placed on the settle of repentance. My Mother sometimes dined in this hall when the dinner was early in the very height of summer, for the eating room looked to the south, and in spite of closed Venetians was often very oppressively over heated. The grape parlour was cool too, but the narrow windows very high on the wall made it dreary, so we used to bear the sun in the dining room and the drawing room which was over it, rather than the gloom of the north aspect. The prettiest room in the house was my mother’s bedroom looking on the orchard. It had three windows in a bow, and on one side at either hand of the fire place were the two light closets in two turrets, one she used as her washing closet, the other was neatly fitted up for reading in. No wonder she ever after regretted the comforts of Twyford.
1. Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (1757–1831); his ‘Celebrated Concertante’ was a demanding test piece.
2. He shared this love for Corelli with Neil Gow, who played the Italian’s sonatas at home.
3. This was in 1802; in the close defeat in Morayshire in 1807 only 11 constituents voted.
4. A Series of Letters between Mrs Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot for the years 1741-1770 (London, 1808).
5. Sir John Beaumont (1583–1627): his collected works, Bosworth Field, with a Taste of the Variety of Other Poems, were published by his son in 1629.
6. Lord Francis Jeffrey: the Edinburgh Review ‘under his rule became indisputably the leading organ of public opinion and the most dreaded of critical censors’ (D.N.B.). He was a close friend of the family.
7. See The Receipt Book of Elizabeth Raper and Portion of her Cypher Journal edited by Bank Grant (1924), and illustrated by Bloomsbury luminary Duncan Grant.
8. He was (as Lady Strachey pointed out) the Admiral himself, Lord Howe (1726-99). When informed of the then Captain Richard Howe’s marriage, the Journal’s entry for 15.2.1758 reads: ‘Heard… Dick was married… thought I should have died. Cried heartily, damned him as heartily and walked about loose with neither life nor soul.’
9. Samuel Horsley (1733–1806), an eccentric polemical career clergyman later to become Bishop of St. Asaph, seemed to find Elizabeth Raper’s father’s offer of only £200 a year the main stumbling block to marriage; she condemns him as acting ‘villainously, mercenarily and so very prudently’.
10. Her first impressions: ‘He had the appearance of a clergyman about 50, was a Scotchman by his tongue, seemed to have seen a great deal of the world and by his behaviour to have been used to the best of company.’
11. Jointed wooden toy figure, which is manipulated by pushing a string so that it seems to dance (S.N.D.).
CHAPTER FIVE
1807–1809
EARLY in November 1807 we removed to town and before the end of the month my brother John was born, the youngest, and most talented of us all.1 He was a small, thin, ugly baby, and he remained a plain child, little of his age for many years, no way remarkable nor ever much noticed except by my Mother. In the spring of 1808 William was sent to Eton, not ten, poor child, very unfit for the buffetings of that large publick school, where the little boys were utterly neglected by the Masters, and made mere slaves and drudges by the elder boys, many of whom used their fags unmercifully. William was fortunate in this respect, his first master was the present Duke of Leinster, a very good natured lad; his dame, too, Mrs Denton, was kind to all her boys in a sort of way; but poor William was far from happy, he told us in confidence at mid summer, though it would have been incorrect to allow this publickly. We were proud of having a brother at Eton then. Now I look back with horrour on that school of corruption, which the strongest minded could not enter without being polluted and where weaker characters made shipwreck of all worth.
We passed a very happy winter. My Mother was more out in society than usual, having Harriet
to introduce into it. We had hardly any lessons except such as we chose to do for our masters, Mr Beekvelt, Mr Thompson, and Mr Jones, which very often was little enough. We were a great deal in Brunswick Square with Uncle and Aunt Frere, we had the two babies to play with, John Frere and our own Johnny, and we had now a large acquaintance in the Square. We had great games of ‘Tommy Tickler,’‘Thread the needle,’ ‘Follow the Leader,’ ‘Hen and Chickens,’ and many more, our merry laughter ringing round the gardens, where we were so safe, so uncontrouled, and so happy, though we were not among the élite of our little world. An elder set kept itself quite distinct from the younger ones, and a grander set walked in stately pride apart from either. Sir John Nicholls’ daughters and Mr Spencer Percival’s2 never turned their exclusive looks upon meaner neighbours, while Justice Park’s, with Daniels, Scarletts, Bennets, and others growing up, would only smile upon the children they passed occasionally. We, all unknowing and equally uncaring, romped merrily on in our gleesome play hours, Tyndales, Hultons, Grants, Williams, Vivians. Besides, we had a grade or two below ourselves with which on no account were we to commingle; some coarse shoed, cotton gloved children, and a set who entered with borrowed keys, and certainly appeared out of their proper place. Home was quite as pleasant as the Square, the baby made us so merry. I worked for him too; this employment was quite a passion with me; from very early days down to this very hour generations of little people might have thanked my busy needle for their outfit. My box of baby clothing has never been empty to my knowledge since I first began to dress my doll. Many a weary hour has been beguiled by this useful plain work, for there are times when reading, writing, or more active employments only irritate, and when needlework is really soothing, particularly when there is an object in the labour. It used as a child to give me a glow of delight to see the work of my fingers on my sisters and brothers, and on the Rothiemurchus babies; for it was only for our own poor that I busied myself, every body giving me scraps for this purpose, and sometimes help and patterns, my sisters requiring none as they never worked from choice; they much preferred to the quiet occupations, the famous romps in Brunswick Square, where, Aunt Lissy having no nerves, her tall brothers in law, who were all uncle Freres to us, made perfect bedlam in her drawing room, and after dinner made for us rabbits of the doileys, cut apples into swans and wells, their pips into mice and oranges into no matter what.
Uncle John, the ambassador,3 was rather stately; but Uncle Bartle, his Secretary, was our grand ally; William, the serjeant, came next in our esteem; Edward was quieter; the two younger, Hatley and Temple, were all we could wish. The two sisters we hardly knew, Lady Ord was in the country, and Miss Frere, my Aunt’s friend Susan, was generally ill. There was a friend, however, Sir Robert Ainslie, whom we thought charming, and a Lady Laurie and her brother. Captain Hatley, who were very likeable. We were pretty well off for friends at home; Captain Stephenson and his brother Colonel Barnes were famous playfellows, and our cousin Harry Raper, and the old set besides. Also we helped to dress my Mother and Harriet for their parties, and had once great fun preparing them for a masquerade, when, with the assistance of some friends, they all went as the country party in the Journey to London, my Mother being such a pretty Miss Jenny,4 Another time Harriet went as a highland girl, in some fantastick guise of Miss Steuart’s invention, and meeting with a kilted, belted, well plumed Highlander, had fun enough to address him in gaelick, and he, not understanding one word of what should have been his native tongue, retreated confounded, she following, till he turned and fled!, to the delight of the lookers on who somehow always seem to enjoy the discomfiture of a fellow creature. It was Harriet’s last exploit in London. She went north to some of her highland aunts, in company with her brother Patrick the Laird this spring; her sister Anne remaining with her far away cousin, Mrs Peter Grant, at Ramsgate. Anne was a stiff, formal, reserved girl, goodnatured enough, yet not a favourite with any of us. I remember admiring the beauty of her needlework. She generally brought little presents of embroidery for my Mother, dolls’ clothes for us, and a pincushion or penwiper for the study table when she came to visit us but she gave them all so coldly we hardly cared for them. Mrs Peter Grant was a great amusement to us, a very pretty, obliging little woman, dissolved in excess of feeling. The Malings were soft and gentle and sighing and sentimental, but she was sentiment run mad. Her widowed griefs were perpetually paraded, she nursed her sorrows and got fat on them, for she was quite a comfortable round about body, and both astonished and diverted us by this habit she had got into,—it did not seem much more. And we, who were brought up to annoy no one, to put self out of the way, to keep our own feelings to our own selves, to sacrifice them if necessary, could not understand this perpetual whining over the memory of a scape grace of a cousin whom we had never known. She was a good creature after all, worth a thousand of her impossible pupil.
Early in the summer of 1808, we all started together for the highlands. The greater part of the furniture had been sent from Twyford to the Doune, where, truth to say, it was very much wanted. The servants all went north with it by sea, excepting those in immediate attendance on ourselves. A new barouche landau was started this season, which served us for many a year, and was a great improvement upon either the old heavy close coach or the leather curtained sociable. Four bays in hand conducted us to Houghton, where after a visit of a few days my father proceeded on his Circuit, and my Mother removed with the children to Seaham, a little bathing hamlet on the Coast of Durham, hardly six miles from Houghton. She had often passed an autumn there when a child, with some of her numerous brothers and sisters, and she said it made her feel young again to find herself there once more, wandering over all the ground she knew so well. She was indeed in charming spirits during the whole of our sojourn at this pretty place. We lived entirely with her, she bathed with us, walked with us, we gladly drove in turn with her. We took our meals with her, and she taught us how to make necklaces of the sea weed and the small shells we found, and how to clean and polish the large shells for fancy works she had done in her own childhood, when she, our grave, distant mother, had run about and laughed like us. How very happy parents have it in their power to make their children. We grew fat and rosy, required no punishments, hardly even needed a reprimand; but then Mrs Millar had left us, she had gone on a visit to her friends at Stockton, taking the baby with her, for as far as care of him was concerned she was quite to be trusted.
We lived in a little publick house, the only inn in the place. We entered at once into the kitchen, bright and clean, and full of cottage valuables; a bright ‘sea-coal’ fire burned always cheerily in the grate, and on the settle at one side generally sat the old grandfather of the family, with his pipe, or an old well worn newspaper, or a friend. The daughter, who was mistress of the house, kept bustling about in the back kitchen where all the business went on, which was quite as clean, though not so handsomely furnished, as the one where the old man sat. There was a scullery besides for dirty work, such as baking, brewing, washing, and preparing the cookery. A yard behind held a large water butt and several outhouses; a neatly kept flower garden, a mere strip, lay beneath the windows in the front, opening into a large kitchen garden on one side. The sea, though not distant, could only be seen from the upper windows; for this and other reasons we generally sat upstairs. Roses and woodbine clustered round the lattices, the sun shone in, the scent of the flowers, and the hum of the bees and the chirp of the birds, all entered the open casements freely; and the polished floors and furniture, and the clean white dimity hangings, added to the cheerfulness of our suite of small atticks. The parlour below was dull by comparison. It could only be reached through the front kitchen; tall shrubs overshadowed the window, it had green walls, hair bottomed chairs set all round by them. One round table in the middle of the room oiled till it was nearly black, and rubbed till it shone like a mirrour; a patch of carpet was spread beneath this table, and a paper net for catching flies hung from the ceiling over it. A corner cu
pboard full of tall glasses and real old china teacups, and a large china punch bowl on the top, and a cornerset arm chair with a patch work cover on the cushion, are all the extras I remember. We were very little in this ‘guest-chamber,’ only at our We were for ever on the beach, strolling along the sands, which were beautiful; sitting on the rocks or in the caves, penetrating as far into them as we dared. When we bathed we undressed in a cave and then walked into the sea, generally hand in hand, my mother heading us. How we used to laugh and dance, and splash, and push, anything but dip, we avoided that as much as possible; then in consideration of our cold bath we had a warm tea breakfast and felt so light. It was a very happy time at Seaham. Some of the Houghton cousins were often with us, Kate and Eliza constantly. We had all straw bonnets alike, coarse dunstables lined and trimmed with green, with deep curtains on the neck, pink gingham frocks and holland pinafores, baskets in our hands, and gloves in our pockets. We did enjoy the seashore scrambles. On Sundays we were what we thought very fine, white frocks all of us; the cousins had white cambrick bonnets and tippets, and long kid gloves to meet the short sleeves. We had fine straw bonnets trimmed with white, and lilack silk spencers. My Mother wore gypsey hats, in which she looked beautiful; they were tied on with half handkerchiefs of various colours, and had a single sprig of artificial flowers inside over one eye. We went to church either at Seaham or Houghton, the four bays carrying us quickly to my Uncle Ironside’s, when we spent the remainder of the day there always, our own feet bearing us to the little church on the cliff when it suited my mother to stay at home.
Memoirs of a Highland Lady Page 11
