The Magnificent Montez | Page 5

country indefinitely, Lola's step-father, after much anxious consideration, decided that, since she was running wild and getting into mischief, the best thing to do with her would be to have her brought up by his relatives in Scotland. A suitable escort having been found and a passage engaged, in the autumn of 1826 she was sent to Montrose, where his own father, a "venerable man occupying the position of provost, and sisters were living."
From India to Scotland was a considerable change. Not a change for the better, in the opinion of the new arrival there. The Montrose household, ruled by Captain Craigie's elderly sisters, was a dour and strict one, informed by an atmosphere of bleak and chill Calvinism. All enjoyment was frowned upon; pleasure was "worldly" and had to be severely suppressed. No more petting and spoiling for the little girl. Instead, a regime of porridge and prayers and unending lessons. As a result the child was so wretched that, convinced her mother would prove unsympathetic, she wrote to her step-father, begging to be sent back to him. This, of course, was impossible. Still, when the letter, blotted with tears, reached him in Calcutta, Captain Craigie's heart was touched. If she was unhappy among his kinsfolk at Montrose, he would send her somewhere else. But where? That was the question.
As luck would have it, by the same mail a second letter, offering a solution of the problem, arrived from an Anglo-Indian friend. This was Sir Jasper Nicolls, K.C.B., a veteran of Assaye and Bhurtpore, who had settled down in England and wanted a young girl as companion for, and to be brought up with, his own motherless daughter. The two got into correspondence; and, the necessary arrangements having been completed, little Lola Gilbert, beside herself with delight, was in the summer of 1830 packed off to Sir Jasper's house at Bath.
"Are you sorry to leave us?" enquired the eldest Miss Craigie.
"Not a bit," was the candid response.
"Mark my words, Miss, you'll come to a bad ending," predicted the other sourly.
III
But if Bath was to be a "bad ending," it was certainly to be a good beginning. There, instead of bleakness and constant reproof, Lola found herself wrapped in an atmosphere of warmth and friendliness. Sir Jasper was kindness itself; and his daughter Fanny made the newcomer welcome. The two girls took to one another from the first, sharing each other's pleasures as they shared each other's studies. Thus, they blushed and gushed when required; sewed samplers and copied texts; learned a little French and drawing; grappled with Miss Mangnall's Questions for the Use of Young People; practised duets and ballads; touched the strings of the harp; wept over the poems of "L.E.L."; read Byron surreptitiously, and the newly published Sketches by Boz openly; admired the "Books of Beauty" and sumptuously bound "Keepsake Annuals," edited by the Countess of Blessington and the Hon. Mrs. Norton; laughed demurely at the antics of that elderly figure-of-fun, "Romeo" Coates, when he took the air in the Quadrant; wondered why that distinguished veteran, Sir Charles Napier, made a point of cutting Sir Jasper Nicolls; curtsied to the little Princess Victoria, then staying at the York Hotel, and turned discreetly aside when the Duchess de Berri happened to pass; and (since they were not entirely cloistered) attended, under the watchful eye of a governess, "select" concerts in the Assembly Rooms (with Catalini and Garsia in the programmes) and an occasional play at the Theatre Royal, where from time to time they had a glimpse of Fanny Kemble and Kean and Macready; and, in short, followed the approved curriculum of young ladies of their position in the far off-days when William IV was King.
Although Sir Jasper had a hearty and John Bullish contempt for foreigners--and especially for the "Froggies" he had helped to drub at Waterloo--he felt that they, none the less, had their points; and that they were born on the wrong side of the Channel was their misfortune, rather than their fault. Accordingly, there was an interval in Paris, where the two girls were sent to learn French. There, in addition to a knowledge of the language, Lola acquired a technique that was afterwards to prove valuable amid other and very different surroundings. If de Mirecourt (a far from reliable authority) is to be believed, she was also, during this period, presented to King Charles X by the British Ambassador. On the evidence of dates, however, this could not have been the case, for Charles had relinquished his sceptre and fled to England long before Lola arrived in the country.
After an interval, Sir Jasper felt that he ought to slip across to Paris himself, if only to make sure that his daughter and ward were "not getting into mischief, or having their heads filled