Penelope\'s Experiences in Scotland
K >>
Kate Douglas Wiggin >> Penelope\'s Experiences in Scotland
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 Penelope's Experiences in Scotland
being extracts from the commonplace book of Penelope Hamilton
To G.C.R.
Contents.
Part First--In Town.
I. A Triangular Alliance.
II. Edina, Scotia's Darling Seat.
III. A Vision in Princes Street.
IV. Susanna Crum cudna say.
V. We emulate the Jackdaw.
VI. Edinburgh society, past and present.
VII. Francesca meets th' unconquer'd Scot.
VIII. `What made th' Assembly shine?'.
IX. Omnia presbyteria est divisa in partes tres.
X. Mrs. M'Collop as a sermon-taster.
XI. Holyrood awakens.
XII. Farewell to Edinburgh.
XIII. The spell of Scotland.
Part Second--In the Country.
XIV. The wee theekit hoosie in the loaning.
XV. Jane Grieve and her grievances.
XVI. The path that led to Crummylowe.
XVII. Playing `Sir Patrick Spens.'
XVIII. Paris comes to Pettybaw.
XIX. Fowk o' Fife.
XX. A Fifeshire tea-party.
XXI. International bickering.
XXII. Francesca entertains the green-eyed monster.
XXIII. Ballad revels at Rowardennan.
XXIV. Old songs and modern instances.
XXV. A treaty between nations.
XXVI. `Scotland's burning! Look out!.'
XXVII. Three magpies and a marriage.
Chapter I. A Triangular Alliance.
`Edina, Scotia's Darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and towers!'
Edinburgh, April 189-.
22 Breadalbane Terrace.
We have travelled together before, Salemina, Francesca, and I, and
we know the very worst there is to know about one another. After
this point has been reached, it is as if a triangular marriage had
taken place, and, with the honeymoon comfortably over, we slip along
in thoroughly friendly fashion. I use no warmer word than`friendly'
because, in the first place, the highest tides of feeling do not
visit the coasts of triangular alliances; and because, in the second
place, `friendly' is a word capable of putting to the blush many a
more passionate and endearing one.
Every one knows of our experiences in England, for we wrote volumes
of letters concerning them, the which were widely circulated among
our friends at the time, and read aloud under the evening lamps in
the several cities of our residence.
Since then few striking changes have taken place in our history.
Salemina returned to Boston for the winter, to find, to her
amazement, that for forty odd years she had been rather
overestimating it.
On arriving in New York, Francesca discovered that the young lawyer
whom for six months she had been advising to marry somebody more
worthy than herself was at last about to do it. This was somewhat
in the nature of a shock, for Francesca had been in the habit, ever
since she was seventeen, of giving her lovers similar advice, and up
to this time no one of them has ever taken it. She therefore has
had the not unnatural hope, I think, of organising at one time or
another all these disappointed and faithful swains into a celibate
brotherhood; and perhaps of driving by the interesting monastery
with her husband and calling his attention modestly to the fact that
these poor monks were filling their barren lives with deeds of
piety, trying to remember their Creator with such assiduity that
they might, in time, forget Her.
Her chagrin was all the keener at losing this last aspirant to her
hand in that she had almost persuaded herself that she was as fond
of him as she was likely to be of anybody, and that on the whole she
had better marry him and save his life and reason.
Fortunately she had not communicated this gleam of hope by letter,
feeling, I suppose, that she would like to see for herself the light
of joy breaking over his pale cheek. The scene would have been
rather pretty and touching, but meantime the Worm had turned and
despatched a letter to the Majestic at the quarantine station,
telling her that he had found a less reluctant bride in the person
of her intimate friend Miss Rosa Van Brunt; and so Francesca's dream
of duty and sacrifice was over.
Salemina says she was somewhat constrained for a week and a trifle
cynical for a fortnight, but that afterwards her spirits mounted on
ever ascending spirals to impossible heights, where they have since
remained. It appears from all this that although she was piqued at
being taken at her word, her heart was not in the least damaged. It
never was one of those fragile things which have to be wrapped in
cotton, and preserved from the slightest blow--Francesca's heart.
It is made of excellent stout, durable material, and I often tell
her with the care she takes of it, and the moderate strain to which
it is subjected, it ought to be as good as new a hundred years
hence.
As for me, the scene of my own love-story is laid in America and
England, and has nought to do with Edinburgh. It is far from
finished; indeed, I hope it will be the longest serial on record,
one of those charming tales that grow in interest as chapter after
chapter unfolds, until at the end we feel as if we could never part
with the delightful people.
I should be, at this very moment, Mrs. William Beresford, a highly
respectable young matron who painted rather good pictures in her
spinster days, when she was Penelope Hamilton of the great American
working-class, Unlimited; but first Mrs. Beresford's dangerous
illness and then her death, have kept my dear boy a willing prisoner
in Cannes, his heart sadly torn betwixt his love and duty to his
mother and his desire to be with me. The separation is virtually
over now, and we two, alas! have ne'er a mother or a father between
us, so we shall not wait many months before beginning to comfort
each other in good earnest.
Meantime Salemina and Francesca have persuaded me to join their
forces, and Mr. Beresford will follow us to Scotland in a few short
weeks, when we shall have established ourselves in the country.
We are overjoyed at being together again, we three women folk. As I
said before, we know the worst of one another, and the future has no
terrors. We have learned, for example, that--
Francesca does not like an early morning start. Salemina refuses to
arrive late anywhere. Penelope prefers to stay behind and follow
next day.
Francesca scorns to travel third class. So does Salemina, but she
will if urged.
Penelope hates a four-wheeler. Salemina is nervous in a hansom.
Francesca prefers a barouche or a landau.
Salemina likes a steady fire in the grate. Penelope opens a window
and fans herself.
Salemina inclines to instructive and profitable expeditions.
Francesca loves processions and sightseeing. Penelope abhors all of
these equally.
Salemina likes history. Francesca loves fiction. Penelope adores
poetry and detests facts.
Penelope likes substantial breakfasts. Francesca dislikes the sight
of food in the morning.
In the matter of breakfasts, when we have leisure to assert our
individual tastes, Salemina prefers tea, Francesca cocoa, and I,
coffee. We can never, therefore, be served with a large comfortable
pot of anything, but are confronted instead with a caravan of silver
jugs, china jugs, bowls of hard and soft sugar, hot milk, cold milk,
hot water, and cream, while each in her secret heart wishes that the
other two were less exigeante in the matter of diet and beverages.
This does not sound promising, but it works perfectly well in
practice by the exercise of a little flexibility.
As we left dear old Dovermarle Street and Smith's Private Hotel
behind, and drove to the station to take the Flying Scotsman, we
indulged in floods of reminiscence over the joys of travel we had
tasted together in the past, and talked with lively anticipation of
the new experiences awaiting us in the land of heather.
While Salemina went to purchase the three first-class tickets, I
superintended the porters as they disposed our luggage in the van,
and in so doing my eye lighted upon a third-class carriage which
was, for a wonder, clean, comfortable, and vacant. Comparing it
hastily with the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I
found that it differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a
smaller number of buttons in the upholstering. This was really
heartrending when the difference in fare for three persons would be
at least twenty dollars. What a delightful sum to put aside for a
rainy day!--that is, be it understood, what a delightful sum to put
aside and spend on the first rainy day! for that is the way we
always interpret the expression.
When Salemina returned with the tickets, she found me, as usual,
bewailing our extravagance.
Francesca descended suddenly from her post, and, wresting the
tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the
country, and I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the
Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six
months of last year we discussed travelling third class and
continued to travel first. Get into that clean hard-seated, ill-
upholstered third-class carriage immediately, both of you; save room
enough for a mother with two babies, and man carrying a basket of
fish, and an old woman with five pieces of hand-luggage and a dog;
meanwhile I will exchange the tickets."
So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng of passengers,
guards, porters, newspaper boys, golfers with bags of clubs, young
ladies with bicycles, and old ladies with tin hat-boxes.
"What decision, what swiftness of judgment, what courage and
energy!" murmured Salemina. "Isn't she wonderfully improved since
that unexpected turning of the Worm?"
Francesca rejoined us just as the guard was about to lock us in, and
flung herself down, quite breathless from her unusual exertion.
"Well, we are travelling third for once, and the money is saved, or
at least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The
man didn't wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never
done. I told him they were bought by a very inexperienced American
lady (that is you, Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the
distinctions between first and third class, and naturally took the
best, believing it to be none too good for a citizen of the greatest
republic on the face of the earth. He said the tickets had been
stamped on. I said so should I be if I returned without exchanging
them. He was a very dense person, and didn't see my joke at all,
but then, it is true, there were thirteen men in line behind me,
with the train starting in three minutes, and there is nothing so
debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humour as selling tickets
behind a grating, so I am not really vexed with him. There! we are
quite comfortable, pending the arrival of the babies, the dog, and
the fish, and certainly no vendor of periodic literature will dare
approach us while we keep these books in evidence."
She had Laurence Hutton's Literary Landmarks and Royal Edinburgh, by
Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time; and
somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a work
on `Scotias's darling seat,' in three huge volumes. When all this
printed matter was heaped on the top of Salemina's hold-all on the
platform, the guard had asked, "Do you belong to these books,
ma'am?"
"We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to Edinburgh
in a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to
this," said Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at
random when the train started.
"'The Edinburgh and London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th
October 1712. All that desire ... let them repair to the Coach and
Horses at the head of the Canongate every Saturday, or the Black
Swan in Holborn every other Monday, at both of which places they may
be received in a coach which performs the whole journey in thirteen
days without any stoppage (if God permits) having eighty able
horses. Each passenger paying 4 pounds, 10 shillings for the whole
journey, allowing each 20 lbs. weight and all above to pay 6 pence
per lb. The coach sets off at six in the morning' (you could never
have caught it, Francesca!), `and is performed by Henry Harrison.'
And here is a `modern improvement,' forty-two years later. In July
1754, the Edinburgh Courant advertises the stage-coach drawn by six
horses, with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a `new, genteel,
two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light and
easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers
to pay as usual. Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful
servant, Hosea Eastgate. CARE IS TAKEN OF SMALL PARCELS ACCORDING TO
THEIR VALUE.'"
"It would have been a long, wearisome journey," said I
contemplatively; "but, nevertheless, I wish we were making it in
1712 instead of a century and three-quarters later."
"What would have been happening, Salemina?" asked Francesca
politely, but with no real desire to know.
"The Union had been already established five years," began Salemina
intelligently.
"Which Union?"
"Whose Union?"
Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy
on our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of
such complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the
brighter.
"Anne was on the throne," she went on, with serene dignity.
"What Anne?"
"I know all about Anne!" exclaimed Francesca. "She came from the
Midnight Sun country, or up that way. She was very extravagant, and
had something to do with Jingling Geordie in The Fortunes of Nigel.
It is marvellous how one's history comes back to one!"
"Quite marvellous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in
which it comes back is marvellous. I am not a stickler for dates,
as you know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in
your minds, girls, just in a general way, you would not be so
shamefully befogged. Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife
of James VI. of Scotland, who was James I. of England, and she died
a hundred years before the Anne I mean,--the last of the Stuarts,
you know. My Anne came after William and Mary, and before the
Georges."
"Which William and Mary?"
"What Georges?"
But this was too much even for Salemina's equanimity, and she
retired behind her book in dignified displeasure, while Francesca
and I meekly looked up the Annes in a genealogical table, and tried
to decide whether `b.1665' meant born or beheaded.
Chapter II. Edina, Scotia's Darling Seat.
The weather that greeted us on our unheralded arrival in Scotland
was of the precise sort offered by Edinburgh to her unfortunate
queen, when,
`After a youth by woes o'ercast,
After a thousand sorrows past,
The lovely Mary once again
Set foot upon her native plain.'
John Knox records of those memorable days: `The very face of heaven
did manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this country with
hir--to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety--for in the
memorie of man never was seen a more dolorous face of the heavens
than was seen at her arryvall . . . the myst was so thick that
skairse micht onie man espy another; and the sun was not seyn to
shyne two days befoir nor two days after.'
We could not see Edina's famous palaces and towers because of the
haar, that damp, chilling, drizzling, dripping fog or mist which the
east wind summons from the sea; but we knew that they were there,
shrouded in the heart of that opaque, mysterious greyness, and that
before many hours our eyes would feast upon their beauty.
Perhaps it was the weather, but I could think of nothing but poor
Queen Mary! She had drifted into my imagination with the haar, so
that I could fancy her homesick gaze across the water as she
murmured, `Adieu, ma chere France! Je ne vous verray jamais plus!'-
-could fancy her saying as in Allan Cunningham's verse:-
`The sun rises bright in France,
And fair sets he;
But he hath tint the blithe blink he had
In my ain countree.'
And then I recalled Mary's first good-night in Edinburgh: that
`serenade of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks'; that
singing, `in bad accord,' of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd
beneath the palace windows, while the fires on Arthur's Seat shot
flickering gleams of welcome through the dreary fog. What a lullaby
for poor Mary, half Frenchwoman and all Papist!
It is but just to remember the `indefatigable and undissuadable'
John Knox's statement, `the melody lyked her weill, and she willed
the same to be continewed some nightis after.' For my part,
however, I distrust John Knox's musical feeling, and incline
sympathetically to the Sieur de Brantome's account, with its `vile
fiddles' and `discordant psalms,' although his judgment was
doubtless a good deal depressed by what he called the si grand
brouillard that so dampened the spirits of Mary's French retinue.
Ah well, I was obliged to remember, in order to be reasonably happy
myself, that Mary had a gay heart, after all; that she was but
nineteen; that, though already a widow, she did not mourn her young
husband as one who could not be comforted; and that she must soon
have been furnished with merrier music than the psalms, for another
of the sour comments of the time is, `Our Queen weareth the dule
[weeds], but she can dance daily, dule and all!'
These were my thoughts as we drove through invisible streets in the
Edinburgh haar, turned into what proved next day to be a Crescent,
and drew up to an invisible house with a visible number 22 gleaming
over a door which gaslight transformed into a probability. We
alighted, and though we could scarcely see the driver's outstretched
hand, he was quite able to discern a half-crown, and demanded three
shillings.
The noise of our cab had brought Mrs. M'Collop to the door,--good
(or at least pretty good) Mrs. M'Collop, to whose apartments we had
been commended by English friends who had never occupied them.
Dreary as it was without, all was comfortable within-doors, and a
cheery (one-and-sixpenny) fire crackled in the grate. Our private
drawing-room was charmingly furnished, and so large that,
notwithstanding the presence of a piano, two sofas, five small
tables, cabinets, desks, and chairs,--not forgetting a dainty five-
o'clock tea equipage,--we might have given a party in the remaining
space.
"If this is a typical Scotch lodging, I like it; and if it is Scotch
hospitality to lay the cloth and make the fire before it is asked
for, then I call it simply Arabian in character!" and Salemina drew
off her damp gloves, and extended her hands to the blaze.
"And isn't it delightful that the bill doesn't come in for a whole
week?" asked Francesca. "We have only our English experiences on
which to found our knowledge, and all is delicious mystery. The tea
may be a present from Mrs. M'Collop, and the sugar may not be an
extra; the fire may be included in the rent of the apartment, and
the piano may not be taken away to-morrow to enhance the attractions
of the dining-room floor." (It was Francesca, you remember, who had
`warstled' with the itemised accounts at Smith's Private Hotel in
London, and she who was always obliged to turn pounds, shillings,
and pence into dollars and cents before she could add or subtract.)
"Come and look at the flowers in my bedroom," I called, "four great
boxes full! Mr. Beresford must have ordered the carnations, because
he always does; but where did the roses come from, I wonder?"
I rang the bell, and a neat white-aproned maid appeared.
"Who brought these flowers, please?"
"I cudna say, mam."
"Thank you; will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M'Collop?"
In a moment she returned with the message, "There will be a letter
in the box, mam."
"It seems to me the letter should be in the box now, if it is ever
to be," I thought, and I presently drew this card from among the
fragrant buds:-
`Lady Baird sends these Scotch roses as a small return for the
pleasure she has received from Miss Hamilton's pictures. Lady Baird
will give herself the pleasure of calling to-morrow; meantime she
hopes that Miss Hamilton and her party will dine with her some
evening this week.'
"How nice!" exclaimed Salemina.
"The celebrated Miss Hamilton's undistinguished party presents its
humble compliments to Lady Baird," chanted Francesca, "and having no
engagements whatever, and small hope of any, will dine with her on
any and every evening she may name. Miss Hamilton's party will wear
its best clothes, polish its mental jewels, and endeavour in every
possible way not to injure the gifted Miss Hamilton's reputation
among the Scottish nobility."
I wrote a hasty note of thanks to Lady Baird, and rang the bell.
"Can I send a message, please?" I asked the maid.
"I cudna say, mam."
"Will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M'Collop, please?"
Interval; then:-
"The Boots will tak' it at seeven o'clock, mam."
"Thank you; is Fotheringay Crescent near here?"
"I cudna say, mam."
"Thank you; what is your name, please?"
I waited in well-grounded anxiety, for I had no idea that she knew
her name, or that if she had ever heard it, she could say it; but,
to my surprise, she answered almost immediately, "Susanna Crum,
mam!"
What a joy it is in a vexatious world, where things `gang aft
agley,' to find something absolutely right.
If I had devoted years to the subject, having the body of Susanna
Crum before my eyes every minute of the time for inspiration,
Susanna Crum is what I should have named that maid. Not a vowel
could be added, not a consonant omitted. I said so when first I saw
her, and weeks of intimate acquaintance only deepened my reverence
for the parental genius that had so described her to the world.
Chapter III. A vision in Princes Street.
When we awoke next morning the sun had forgotten itself and was
shining in at Mrs. M'Collop's back windows.
We should have arisen at once to burn sacrifices and offer
oblations, but we had seen the sun frequently in America, and had no
idea (poor fools!) that it was anything to be grateful for, so we
accepted it, almost without comment, as one of the perennial
providences of life.
When I speak of Edinburgh sunshine I do not mean, of course, any
such burning, whole-souled, ardent warmth of beam as one finds in
countries where they make a specialty of climate. It is, generally
speaking, a half-hearted, uncertain ray, as pale and transitory as a
martyr's smile; but its faintest gleam, or its most puerile attempt
to gleam, is admired and recorded by its well-disciplined
constituency. Not only that, but at the first timid blink of the
sun the true Scotsman remarks smilingly, `I think now we shall be
having settled weather!' It is a pathetic optimism, beautiful but
quite groundless, and leads one to believe in the story that when
Father Noah refused to take Sandy into the ark, he sat down
philosophically outside, saying, with a glance at the clouds,
`Aweel! the day's just aboot the ord'nar', an' I wouldna won'er if
we saw the sun afore nicht!'
But what loyal son of Edina cares for these transatlantic gibes, and
where is the dweller within her royal gates who fails to succumb to
the sombre beauty of that old grey town of the North? `Grey! why,
it is grey or grey and gold, or grey and gold and blue, or grey and
gold and blue and green, or grey and gold and blue and green and
purple, according as the heaven pleases and you choose your ground!
But take it when it is most sombrely grey, where is another such
grey city?'
So says one of her lovers, and so the great army of lovers would
say, had they the same gift of language; for
`Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be, . . .
Yea, an imperial city that might hold
Five time a hundred noble towns in fee. . . .
Thus should her towers be raised; with vicinage
Of clear bold hills, that curve her very streets,
As if to indicate, `mid choicest seats
Of Art, abiding Nature's majesty.'
We ate a hasty breakfast that first morning, and prepared to go out
for a walk into the great unknown, perhaps the most pleasurable
sensation in the world. Francesca was ready first, and, having
mentioned the fact several times ostentatiously, she went into the
drawing-room to wait and read the Scotsman. When we went thither a
few minutes later we found that she had disappeared.
"She is below, of course," said Salemina. "She fancies that we
shall feel more ashamed at our tardiness if we find her sitting on
the hall bench in silent martyrdom."
There was no one in the hall, however, save Susanna, who inquired if
we would see the cook before going out.
"We have no time now, Susanna," I remarked. "We are anxious to have
a walk before the weather changes, if possible, but we shall be out
for luncheon and in for dinner, and Mrs. M'Collop may give us
anything she pleases. Do you know where Miss Francesca is?"
"I cudna s---"
"Certainly, of course you couldn't; but I wonder if Mrs. M'Collop
saw her?"
Mrs. M'Collop appeared from the basement, and vouchsafed the
information that she had seen `the young leddy rinnin' after the
regiment.'
"Running after the regiment!" repeated Salemina automatically.
"What a reversal of the laws of nature? Why, in Berlin, it was
always the regiment that used to run after her!"
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14