All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography. Barr Amelia E.
to them. “You will have to be contented with the married women, now, Milly, and I think the girls are glad of your absence.” That was all his comment, and he did not seem to think it a matter of any importance.
Now I had always held my own with the girls – with the married women it was different. I thought them cold and critical, and, unfortunately, I gave them plenty of opportunities for criticism. I was ignorant of many things that were only to be learned by years of social experience, unless one was to the manner born. My dress, though handsome and becoming, was not like unto theirs, and I was innocently, but constantly, offending some national feeling or tradition. Thus, when I went to Campbleton to pay a week’s visit to my sister-in-law, I wore at a special entertainment a satin gown of the Royal Stuart tartan. I thought I was paying Scotland a compliment, but I could hardly have done anything more offensive to every Campbell in Campbleton. They could not believe any one was so densely ignorant, as not to know that the Campbells hated the Stuarts. To the local dominie I was an ignoramus, because I was not familiar with the smallest fact regarding the Great Disruption, and the founding of the Free Kirk. He wondered where I had been born, “not to have heard of Chalmers and Guthrie and the Highland Host they led to a great spiritual victory.” Yet, honestly, never even in Dr. Farrar’s, where embryo clergy congregated, had I heard of the Scottish Disruption. And this ignorance was astounding to them, if it was real, and impertinence, if it was only pretended.
I dislike to make the acknowledgment, but even Mrs. Semple was changed. She was offended because she was not asked to be present at our wedding. I explained to her the circumstances making her visit impossible – the smallness of my father’s house, and the likelihood of sickness at any hour, and she appeared quite satisfied at the time; but, when Robert brought his sister and brother-in-law to Kendal, she thought she ought to have been included in his party. I think she ought, and I would have been glad of her presence. There was somehow a mistake, and the fault was said to be mine; and I saw that Robert would be annoyed if I made a question about it, so I accepted the wrong and the blame.
Three months after my marriage I should have been quite disheartened but for the kindness of two admirable women, who had the intelligence to divine the whole situation. They were Marion, the wife of Walter Blackie, and her sister, Isabel Brodie. John Blackie, the father of Walter Blackie, had been the guardian of my husband, and the publishers of my husband’s father’s books, consequently there was an old tie of friendship between the families. But, in spite of this, Marion Blackie warmly and openly stood my friend. She advised me in private, and defended me in public. Indeed, she told my critics that they and herself, also, must appear as peculiar to me as I did to them. “Of course,” she continued, “the Barr women don’t like her. She has not a feeling in common with them, and how can she defend herself against innuendoes? I only hope they will not sneer and shrug her husband’s love away.” Only these two women remain in my memory to sweeten the story of my three years’ residence in Glasgow, as a wife and mother.
These were the social conditions in which I found myself, and I did not long struggle against them. Those who should have been kind to me were irreconcilable enemies; and they were old leaders of public opinion, and understood thoroughly the people with whom they lived. I felt that my case was hopeless, because victory in it might bring defeat in a nearer and dearer relation; for Robert would have certainly stood by me, if my attitude demanded his support; but I was sure I could not prevent a sense of anger and injury, if his interference was called for. It was not worth while provoking such a danger; I resolved to retire and make myself happy in other ways. I had a very handsome home to care for, and in it there was a library of about two hundred of the latest books in fiction, poetry, and travel. I began to use my needle, and grew expert in embroidery. I ran down to Kendal now and then for a day, and Father paid me one visit, and Mother several. In two or three months I had forgotten society, and it held its regular sessions without remembering me.
But the time passed happily – long sweet days in which I thought as I sewed, or read, or sang, or sometimes took a walk up to the old cathedral, or even through the busy thoroughfares of Argyle and Buchanan Streets. In the evenings I read aloud to Robert, or he taught me how to sing the Scotch songs he loved. We had a copy of Hamilton’s large edition of them, and I began with the initial lyric of “Braw Braw Lads of Gala Water,” and then went straight through the book, which took us about a month. Then we began it over again, and I do not remember wearying, at least not of the older songs, for they were never written: they sprung from the heart and went direct to the heart.
Sometimes we walked quietly to Glover’s Theatre, especially if there was a play like “Rob Roy,” with the great Mackay in the title rôle. I shall never forget the night I saw this play. The theatre was decorated with Rob Roy tartan, and every woman wore conspicuously some ornament of Rob Roy ribbon – a large bow, long streamers from her fan, or a handsome satin scarf of the red and black checks, and I think there was not a man present without a Rob Roy rosette on the lapel of his coat. If there was, he must have been some benighted Englishman who had no acquaintance with Walter Scott and his famous robber hero. The human stir and enthusiasm was wonderful; the players moved and spoke as if they were enchanted, and they carried every soul in the theatre with them. It was good to feel, if only for a couple of hours, something of the intense emotion of which the soul is capable. No wonder the Scotch are so Scotch; they nurse their patriotism continually, feed it with song and story, music and dancing, and the drama, and they regard the Sabbath Day as peculiarly a Scottish institution. Surely all this was better than exchanging suspicious courtesies with critical acquaintances.
As the days lengthened and grew warmer, we went at the week ends to Bute, or Arran, or Stirling, and very often to Edinburgh; for, at the latter place, we always heard a fine sermon at the old Greyfriar’s Kirk. The first anniversary of our marriage we spent in Kendal and Windermere, and somehow, after that event, there was a shadow I could feel, but could not see or define. Things appeared to go on as usual, but a singular sense of uncertainty troubled them; and, though I have said, “things went on as usual,” they did not quite do so. There was one change – it was in Robert’s movements. A few months previously he had gone into partnership with a man in Huddersfield, who had large woolen mills, and he left his business in Glasgow for two days every two weeks to go to Huddersfield. At first he always returned buoyant, and apparently well contented. I supposed, therefore, the woolen mill was doing well; but, true to his Scotch instincts, natural and educated, he had never explained anything about the transaction to me. It was, of course, necessary to say why he took this regular journey to England, but, beyond that information, the subject was not named, and I do not know unto this day, what kind of woolen goods were made in the Huddersfield mills.
This reticence about their business, is, I think, a Scotch trait of the most pronounced kind. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, that no Scotchman ever tells his wife the truth, and the whole truth, about his affairs. Robert in this respect only followed out his strongest inherited instincts, the example set before him on every hand, and the precepts inculcated by parents and guardians. When we were first married, I tried to win his confidence and share his hopes and plans, and I was kindly but decisively made to understand that I was going beyond my sphere. And, as I write, and remember the position occupied by English and Scotch wives of sixty years ago, my heart burns with indignation, and I wonder not at any means they now take to emancipate themselves. I knew women at this time who spent weeks and months in fears and anxieties, that could have been dispelled by one word plainly and honestly spoken. But, when a husband says only, “Yesterday I was rich, today I am poor; you must do as well as you can,” his silence about his position has been not only cruel, but humiliating. He might make just such a speech to an affectionate and faithful dog. This is a digression, but it will not be lost, if it makes one man reflect, or one woman resolve.
As for myself, I was not destitute of rebellious thoughts. Once Robert had brought his Huddersfield partner home with him to dinner, and I had carefully scrutinized the man, and his speech, and manner. After he had left, Robert, in a kind of incidental way, as if it was a matter of no consequence, asked me what I thought of Mr. P.
“Do you wish me to tell you the truth, Robert,” I answered, “or shall I only say pleasant words?”
“Tell the truth, Milly, by all means,” he replied, “though I suppose you are going to say unpleasant words.”
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