After the death of Lord Lovat, there arose some demur about his lady’s jointure, which was only £190 per annum. It was not paid to her for several years, during which, being destitute of other resources, she lived with one of her sisters. Some of her numerous friends—among the rest, Lord Strichen—offered her the loan of money to purchase a house and suffice for present maintenance. But she did not choose to encumber herself with debts which she had no certain prospect of repaying. At length the dispute about her jointure was settled in a favourable manner, and her ladyship received in a lump the amount of past dues, out of which she expended £500 in purchasing a house at the head of Blackfriars Wynd,[199] and a further sum upon a suite of plain substantial furniture.
It would surprise a modern dowager to know how much good Lady Lovat contrived to do amongst her fellow-creatures with this small allowance. It is said that the succeeding Lady of Lovat, with a jointure of £4000, was less distinguished for her benefactions. In Lady Lovat’s dusky mansion, with a waiting-maid, cook, and footboy, she not only maintained herself in the style of a gentlewoman, but could welcome every kind of Highland cousin to a plain but hospitable board, and even afford permanent shelter to several unfortunate friends. A certain Lady Dorothy Primrose, who was her niece, lived with her for several years, using the best portion of her house, namely, the rooms fronting the High Street, while she herself was contented with the duller apartments towards the wynd. There was another desolate old person, styled Mistress of Elphinstone, whom Lady Lovat supported as a friend and equal for many years. Not by habit a card-player herself, she would make up a whist-party every week for the benefit of the Mistress. At length the poor Mistress came to a sad fate. A wicked, perhaps half-crazy boy, grandson to her ladyship, having taken an antipathy to his venerable relative, put poison into the oatmeal porridge which she was accustomed to take at supper. Feeling unwell that night, she did not eat any, and the Mistress took the porridge instead, of which she died. The boy was sent away, and died in obscurity.
An unostentatious but sincere piety marked the character of Lady Lovat. Perhaps her notions of Providence were carried to the verge of a kind of fatalism; for not merely did she receive all crosses and troubles as trials arranged for her benefit by a Higher Hand, but when a neighbouring house on one occasion took fire, she sat unmoved in her own mansion, notwithstanding the entreaties of the magistrates, who ordered a sedan to be brought for her removal. She said if her hour was come, it would be vain to try to elude her fate; and if it was not come, she would be safe where she was. She had a conscientiousness almost ludicrously nice. If detained from church on any occasion, she always doubled her usual oblation at the plate next time. When her chimney took fire, she sent her fine to the Town-guard before they knew the circumstance. Even the tax-collector experienced her ultra-rectitude. When he came to examine her windows, she took him to a closet lighted by a single pane, looking into a narrow passage between two houses. He hesitated about charging for such a small modicum of light, but her ladyship insisted on his taking note of it.[200]
Lady Lovat was of small stature, had been thought a beauty, and retained in advanced old age much of her youthful delicacy of features and complexion. Her countenance bore a remarkably sweet and pleasing expression. When at home, her dress was a red silk gown, with ruffled cuffs, and sleeves puckered like a man’s shirt; a fly-cap, encircling the head, with a mob-cap laid across it, falling down over the cheeks, and tied under the chin; her hair dressed and powdered; a double muslin handkerchief round the neck and bosom; lammer-beads; a white lawn apron, edged with lace; black stockings with red gushets; high-heeled shoes.[201] She usually went abroad in a chair, as I have been informed by the daughter of a lady who was one of the first inhabitants of the New Town, and whom Lady Lovat regularly visited there once every three months. As her chair emerged from the head of Blackfriars Wynd, any one who saw her sitting in it, so neat and fresh and clean, would have taken her for a queen in waxwork, pasted up in a glass-case.
Lady Lovat was intimate with Lady Jane Douglas; and one of the strongest evidences in favour of Lord Douglas being the son of that lady[202] was the following remarkable circumstance: Lady Lovat, passing by a house in the High Street, saw a child at a window, and remarked to a friend who was with her: ‘If I thought Lady Jane Douglas could be in Edinburgh, I would say that was her child—he is so like her!’ Upon returning home, she found a note from Lady Jane, informing her that she had just arrived in Edinburgh, and had taken lodgings in —— Land, which proved to be the house in which Lady Lovat had observed the child, and that child was young Archibald Douglas. Lady Lovat was a person of such strict integrity that no consideration could have tempted her to say what she did not think; and at the time she saw the child, she had no reason to suppose that Lady Jane was in Scotland.
Such was the generosity of her disposition that when her grandson Simon was studying law, she at various times presented him with £50, and when he was to pass as an advocate she sent him £100. It was wonderful how she could spare such sums from her small jointure. Whole tribes of grand-nephews and grand-nieces experienced the goodness of her heart, and loved her with almost filial affection. She frequently spoke to them of her misfortunes, and was accustomed to say: ‘I dare say, bairns, the events of my life would make a good novelle; but they have been of so strange a nature that nobody would believe them’—meaning that they wanted the vraisemblance necessary in fiction. She contemplated the approach of death with fortitude, and in anticipation of her obsequies, had her grave-clothes ready and the stair whitewashed. Yet the disposal of her poor remains little troubled her. When asked by her son if she wished to be placed in the burial-vault at Beaufort, she said: ‘’Deed, Archie, ye needna put yoursel’ to ony fash about me, for I dinna care though ye lay me aneath that hearthstane!’ After all, it chanced, from some misarrangements, that her funeral was not very promptly executed; whereupon a Miss Hepburn of Humbie, living in a floor above, remarked, ’she wondered what they were keeping her sae lang for—stinkin’ a’ the stair.’ This gives some idea of circumstances connected with Old Town life.
The conduct of her ladyship’s son in life was distinguished by a degree of eccentricity which, in connection with that of his son already stated, tends to raise a question as to the character of Lord Lovat, and make us suspect that wickedness so great as his could only result from a certain unsoundness of mind. It is admitted, however, that the eldest son, Simon, who rose to be a major-general in the army, was a man of respectable character. He retained nothing of his father but a genius for making fine speeches.[203] The late Mrs Murray of Henderland told me she was present at a supper-party given by some gentleman in the Horse Wynd, where General Fraser, eating his egg, said to the hostess: ‘Mrs ——, other people’s eggs overflow with milk; but yours run over with cream!’