"very soon after I had an obliging message from Lady Jean telling me that, very soon after my leaving Scotland, she came to know she had done me an injustice, but she would acknowledge it publicly if I chose. Enfin, I was allowed to visit her as formerly, and in about three months after she honoured me with her hand."
Was ever wooing and winning so strange, so inexplicable? After refusing some of the greatest alliances in the land, after turning her back on at least half-a-dozen coronets, this wilful and wayward woman gives her hand to the least desirable of all her legion of suitors—a man broken in fortune and of notorious ill-fame: swashbuckler, gambler and defaulter; a man, moreover, who was on the verge of old-age, for he would never see his sixtieth birthday again. The Colonel's motive is manifest. He had much to gain and nothing to lose by this incongruous union. But what could have been Lady Jean's motive; and does the sequel furnish a clue to it? She was deeply in debt, thanks to her long career of extravagance; and, to crown her misfortune, her brother threatened to withdraw her annuity. But on the other hand she was still, although nearly fifty, a good-looking woman, "appearing," we are told, "at least fifteen years younger than she really was"; and thus might well have looked for a eligible suitor; while her marriage to a pauper could but add to her financial embarrassment. There remained the prospect of her brother's estates, which would almost surely fall to her children if she had any, if only to keep them out of the hands of the Hamiltons, whom the Duke detested. And this consideration may have determined her in favour of this eleventh hour marriage, with its possibilities, however small, of thus qualifying for a great inheritance.
Thus it was, whatever may be the solution of the mystery, that, one August day in 1746, Lady Jean was led to the altar by her aged pauper lover, and a few days later the happy pair landed at Rotterdam, with a retinue consisting of a Mrs Hewit (Lady Jean's maid) and a couple of female servants, leaving her ladyship's creditors to wrangle over the belongings she had left behind at Edinburgh.
From Rheims, to which town the wedding party journeyed, Lady Jean wrote to her man of business, Mr Haldane:—
"It is mighty certain that my anticipations were never in the marrying way; and had I not at last been absolutely certain that my brother was resolved never to marry, I never should have once thought of doing it; but since this was his determined, unalterable resolution, I judged it fit to overcome a natural disinclination and backwardness, and to put myself in the way of doing something for a family not the worst in Scotland; and, therefore, gave my hand to Mr Stewart, the consequence of which has proved more happy than I could well have expected."
Such was the unenthusiastic letter Lady Jean wrote on her honeymoon, assigning as her motive for the marriage a wish "to do something for her family," which could scarcely be other than to provide heirs to the Douglas lands—an ambition which to the most sanguine lady of her age must have seemed sufficiently doubtful of realisation.
Then began a wandering life for the grotesque pair. Rheims, Utrecht, Geneva, Aix-la-Chapelle, Liège, and many another Continental town appear in turn on their erratic itinerary, the Colonel travelling as Lady Jean's maitre d'hotel, and never avowed by her as her husband; and at every place of halting my lady finds fresh victims for her clever tongue and ingratiating charm of manner, who, in return for her smiles and flatteries, keep her purse supplied. Now it is young Lord Blantyre who succumbs to her wiles, and follows her from place to place like a shadow, drawing large sums from his mother to "lend to my Lady Jean, who is at a loss by not receiving letters which were to bring her remittances." Now it is Mr Hay, Mr Dalrymple, or some other susceptible admirer who obliges her by a temporary loan, and is amply rewarded by learning from her lips that he is "the man alive I would choose to be most obliged by." Thus, by a system of adroit flatteries, Lady Jean keeps the family exchequer so well replenished that she is able to take about with her a retinue consisting of two maids and a man-cook, in addition to the indispensable Mrs Hewit; and to ride in her carriage, while her husband stakes his golden louis on the green cloth and drinks costly wines.
Even such an astute man of the world as Lord Crawford she makes her devoted slave, ready at any moment to place his purse and services at her disposal, to the extent of breaking the news of her marriage to the Duke, her brother, and begging for his approval and favour; a task which must have gone considerably against the grain with the proud Scotsman.
"I can assure your Grace," his lordship writes, "she does great honour to the family wherever she appears, and is respected and beloved by all that have the honour of her acquaintance. She certainly merits all the affectionate marks of an only brother to an only sister."
This appeal, eloquent as it was, only seemed to fan the anger of the Duke, who, as he read it, declared to the Parish minister who was present: "Why, the woman is mad.... I once thought, if there was a virtuous woman in the world, my sister Jeanie was one; but now I am going to say a thing that I should not say of my own sister—I believe she is no better than ...; and that I believe there is not a virtuous woman in the world."