Buoyancy of Lady Hester Stanhope’s spirits――Death of Miss Williams――
Mrs. ――――’s first visit to Lady Hester――The Author is summoned to
Damascus to attend Hassan Effendi: declines going――Discussions between
Lady Hester and Mrs. ―――― thereupon――Lady Hester’s hatred of
women――She sends her maid to revile Mrs. ―――― ――The Author resolves to
return to England――Alarm from soldiers on their march――Lady Hester
assists Abdallah Pasha in laying out his garden――Anecdotes of the
first Lord Chatham――Fresh discourses about the Journey to Damascus――
Anecdotes of Mr. Pitt――His attachment to Miss E.――His admiration of
women――His indulgence towards other people’s failings――Lady Hester and
the fair Ellen――Strange history――Mr. Pitt’s attention to the comfort
of his guests, and of his servants――Strange rise of one of them――Lady
Hester’s pathos――Paolo Perini’s expected post of artilleryman.
Her ladyship, in several conversations, took great pains in acquainting
me with all the material events that had occurred during my absence in
Europe, and in what relation she stood with the pashas and governors
of the neighbouring towns and provinces, proceeding, in succession,
from occurrences relating to the most exalted individuals, to those
connected with the lowest persons that surrounded her. She talked
of her debts, her illnesses, her trials and sufferings, and never
finished a day without picturing to herself a brighter futurity, when
her worth would be more appreciated, when the clouds that overspread
her existence would be dissipated, and when the neglect in which she
was left by her friends would meet with its just punishment, and her
magnificent star rise again, with renewed splendour, to gladden the
world, and those, more particularly, who had been faithful to her
cause. This buoyancy of spirits saved her from the despondency which
others, in her deserted state, must inevitably have felt. The work
of years to come was chalked out in her active imagination; plans
were sketched; new channels of correspondence were to be opened; her
household was to be remodelled; fresh buildings were to be raised;
learned researches were to be made: valuable manuscripts were to be
procured. It is impossible to say what was not projected; but her
faithful Miss Williams still rose uppermost in her mind, and her first
care was to see the last duties, yet remaining, paid to her memory.
As that excellent person occupied an important position in Lady Hester
Stanhope’s house and affairs, I will here make room for the following
account of her sickness and death, as it was given me by _Um Ayôob_,
a respectable widow of Jôon. This woman was in the habit of doing
needlework at Lady Hester’s, when she would pass whole days together
at the house. One day, as she and Miss W. were sitting in the same
room sewing (it was on a Friday), Miss W. said to her, “Dear me, how
cold I am――I am all in a shiver!” The season (it being autumn) was
very sickly, and many of the servants were lying ill, one being at the
very time dangerously so with continued bilious fever. The shivering,
however, passed over. Um Ayôob went home at night, and the following
day returned to her work. Miss W. was on her legs again. The day after
she had an attack of intermittent fever. This was Sunday, and on Monday
she was pretty well again. Expecting the return of the fit on Tuesday,
the good widow asked Miss W. whether she should remain with her; but
Miss W. said “No: your daughter has got an ague as well as myself; so
go, and attend upon her――she may want you in the night; and come to
me on Thursday, as to-morrow I shall not require your services, for I
intend to remain quiet all the day.” So, on Wednesday, Um Ayôob did
not go. On Thursday she was baking, when a servant came to her, and
said, “Make haste, for God’s sake! you are wanted to attend on Miss
W.” As the old lady’s bread was just baked, she thought she would
take a couple of hot cakes in a clean towel, with the idea that Miss
W. might like them buttered for her breakfast. “So,” said Um Ayôob,
when she told me the melancholy story, “as I was hastening along the
bottom which divides the village from the Dar, I was met by little
_Gayby_, crying, ‘Oh, come, come――run, run!’――‘What’s the matter?’ I
asked.――‘Oh, oh! she’s dead! she’s dead!’ sobbed Gayby.――‘Who’s dead?’
cried I, terrified out of my senses.――‘Miss Williams,’ answered she. I
was struck with horror, and, quickening my pace as fast as I could, I
arrived out of breath, and found the tale but too true――Miss Williams
had breathed her last.”
It appeared that, on Wednesday morning, Lady Hester, who was herself
ill in bed, had given orders to the little girl, Gayby, to prepare,
from the medicine-chest, a dose of salts and senna, she being too
ill to see to it herself. This dose, according to the assertion
of _Nasara_, one of the maids, who waited on Miss W., produced an
extraordinary effect through the day and night, and Miss W. was not
free from its action until she expired. Besides the black dose, she
took also three pills, but of what nature I could not learn. The
persons who attended on her were Nasara, Gayby, and Fatôom, the Fatôom
so often named in these pages, who was at that time eleven or twelve
years old. Um Ayôob, who loved and regretted Miss Williams (as indeed
did almost everybody), sat by her corpse the remainder of the day. In
the course of the afternoon, she was surprised to find that the body,
so far from becoming cold, retained almost its natural living heat.
There happened to arrive at Lady Hester’s the preceding day a doctor of
the country, who had been sent for to attend on Moosa, the man-servant,
then lying dangerously ill, and who died two days after Miss W. Um
Ayôob called him into the room, and begged him to feel the body, and
say whether there was not yet life in it. He was equally of opinion
with the widow that the appearances were very surprising, and the more
especially as the cheeks retained some colour, and (according to Um
Ayôob’s expression), as something kept continually bubbling inside of
her like boiling water. The doctor went to Lady Hester and told her
what he had seen, and asked her permission to open a vein. Lady Hester,
who was overwhelmed with affliction at the loss of a person so dear
to her, said, “Do what you please.” He accordingly opened a vein in
the foot, and the blood spirted out, said Um Ayôob, as from a living
person. After having taken what he thought a sufficient quantity, he
bound up the incision; but life never returned, and on Sunday she was
buried in the burying-ground of the monastery of Dayr el Mkhallas, the
coffin being followed by the French vice-consul and some merchants of
Sayda.
I must here observe that the letting of blood was an ill-judged
expedient for restoring the living action, because it only completed
the exhaustion already carried to its utmost point by the previous
depletion of the bowels. The case is not the same as when, after a fall
or an attack of apoplexy, the opening of a vein may give an impulse
to the suspended circulation, just as a touch of the finger to the
balance of a watch will set it going when it has stopped. But here the
vital warmth should have been nourished and promoted by every available
means, and nature should have been left to husband her internal
resources until reanimation had been effected.
In company with my family, I visited Miss Williams’s grave, and could
not forbear shedding tears over it; for I had known her many years. She
was a creature of remarkable singleness of mind, of unstained purity,
and so universally beloved that the people of the neighbourhood and the
peasantry talk of her to this day as a model of virtue and goodness.
The only monument raised over her grave was a rude, oval-shaped wall,
topped with thorny shrubs, to keep the jackalls from scratching for her
corpse.
In the register of the monastery, they have (as I was told) put her
down as a Catholic, and had spread a report that she had died in that
faith, in order that popular prejudice might raise no objection to
her lying in Catholic ground. Over the tomb a tamarisk-tree, with
its delicate, evergreen, feathery branches, waves in the wind. A few
tombs of venerable bishops, devout merchants, and holy monks, stand in
relief from the rocky barrenness of the spot, with Arabic inscriptions
commemorative of their piety and virtues. It is only to be regretted
that some similar memorial has not been raised to Miss Williams.
Miss Williams had now been dead more than two years, and the room in
which she died had never been entered, from the hour that her corpse
was carried out of it. The door had been barred up by cross laths
nailed over it; and, from the circumstance of Lady Hester Stanhope’s
having repeatedly declared she never could pass by the door again,
a sort of dread had crept over the maids and slaves, akin to that
which is common in England when a chamber of some house is reported
to be haunted. A breathless silence, and expectation of something
supernatural, accordingly reigned in the quadrangle, when the carpenter
proceeded to knock away the laths, and, through cobwebs and dust, I
introduced, with some difficulty, the rusty key into the keyhole, and,
with considerable effort, forced open the door. The floor was covered
with dust, and thick, long cobwebs hung across from wall to wall: on
the floor lay scattered in confusion a few books, a hair-brush, and
various papers. A sort of disorder was apparent in the furniture, such
as would arise in a room hastily left. A box of papers, containing a
list of Lady Hester Stanhope’s debts and memoranda relating to them,
lay open in a recess, and seemed the last thing that had occupied Miss
W.’s attention; for, alas! the increasing embarrassment of Lady’s
Hester’s money concerns might naturally be supposed to harass her mind,
seeing that, at one time, her noble patroness, bred in the lap of
luxury, had been reduced to the necessity of selling for their weight
(since they would not pass current), forty English guineas, given to
her by her brother James when they parted, and saved when she was
ship-wrecked, not knowing, when they were gone, where to look for a
penny. An empty work-basket lay turned upside down on the floor; and
an air of desolation and disorder in the room and closets showed that
whatever had been worth pilfering had been carried off by the wicked
servants during the time which elapsed between her death and burial.
“Poor Miss Williams!” thought I; “what must have been your sufferings
at that sad hour, with no one of your own country to close your eyes,
and surrounded by slaves and peasant women, who robbed you instead
of attending to your wants! Yet, with what fidelity and attachment
did you not follow your benefactress from a comfortable home, where
a happy circle regretted you, to endure the numberless privations
which constant confinement, want of society, and a residence in an
uncivilized country, necessarily bring with them! Even I, had my
earlier arrival not been retarded, might have contributed to soothe
your last moments, if not to save your life!”
On opening the closets that were locked, her linen, her writing-desk,
her paint-box, and sundry other articles were seen neatly arranged,
as one would suppose an English woman would place them. I unlocked
the desk, removed the papers, which her relatives had written for, as
well as some others that Lady Hester thought I should find there; and,
shutting the closet again, withdrew with melancholy thoughts on the
uncertainty of human hopes, resolved to defer until another day the
inventory of her goods and effects.
The next day, I remained with Lady Hester Stanhope from eleven in the
morning until ten at night, the greater part of the time being employed
in looking over Miss W.’s papers, which consisted principally of rough
copies of letters dictated by her ladyship.
When I and my family were comfortably settled in our little cottage in
the village, Lady Hester appointed a morning to receive Mrs. ――――, on
the occasion of her first visit. On reaching the house, I conducted
her to the saloon, where, after introducing her, and sitting a little
while, I retired, in compliance with Lady Hester’s usual custom of
never liking to have more than one person with her at a time. Here
Mrs. ―――― remained about three hours, and then took her leave; and I,
having sent her home under the care of a servant, presented myself to
hear Lady Hester’s opinion about her, a necessary consequence that
always followed when any person quitted her whom she had seen for the
first time. Our conference lasted until past midnight. The night proved
very tempestuous: the wind howled, the thunder rolled, the rain beat
against the shutters; and, when I returned to the village, wet through,
I found Mrs. ―――― sitting disconsolate, and terrified at the war of
the elements, alone, as it were, in the midst of the horrors of the
night, and unable to make herself understood by the slaves, who knew no
language but Arabic.
Next morning, at breakfast, we talked over the conversation that had
passed between her and Lady Hester Stanhope. Lady Hester had used the
kindest expressions; and, at the close of her visit, getting up and
ringing for a handsome Turkish spencer in gold brocade, had put it
on her with her own hands, and had wound on her head a beautifully
embroidered muslin turban. Mrs. ――――, not understanding Lady Hester’s
humours, who had in all this imitated the Eastern manner of robing
people when they go away, had taken them both off and left them on the
table, so that they were sent home the next day. This, I knew, would be
a grievous offence in Lady Hester’s eyes.
Things, however, went on satisfactorily until the 25th of January, when
a messenger came from Damascus, sent by a person of an ancient and
noble family, named Ahmed Bey, beyt Admy,[41] with a letter to Lady
Hester Stanhope, saying that, “her physician’s arrival from England
having been reported to the Pasha, he, Ahmed Bey, had been solicited by
his highness to write to her, and request she would spare the doctor,
a short time, to cure a complaint with which a friend of the Pasha’s,
called Hassan Effendi, Tâat ed Dyn, was afflicted in the roof of his
mouth, which was peculiarly painful to him, and a source of deep
regret to the faithful, in consequence of his being one of the most
distinguished chanters of the Koran.”
This Ahmed Bey was a very old friend of Lady Hester Stanhope’s, and a
nobleman who had honoured me with his particular notice some years
before, during our stay at Damascus; she, therefore, laid great stress
on my going, and wished me to prepare immediately for my departure.
As I did not think it right to leave my family for three weeks or a
month alone in a cottage, where no human being could understand them,
I suggested to Lady Hester the propriety of writing a polite excuse
to Ahmed Bey, expressing my inability to comply with his wishes for
the present. But she had my compliance so much at heart, that it was
agreed she should see Mrs. ―――― herself, and endeavour to remove her
scruples, flattering her she could contrive, with her accustomed
fertility in expedients for all difficulties, some means to reconcile
her to my departure, and show her the groundlessness of her fears.
Mrs. ―――― accordingly paid a second visit to Lady Hester, who began by
endeavouring to act on her pride, by telling her my reputation would
be ruined among all the Pashas, if I refused to go to a great man,
like Hassan Effendi, and that her own consequence would be lessened;
moreover, that our ambassador at Constantinople would hear of it, and
take it ill, with many arguments of the like sort. Finding this mode
of reasoning had no effect, she tried to frighten her, by assuring
her very gravely that there were dervises, who, interested in the
well-being of holy men, and especially of a chanter of the word of
the Prophet, would, by unknown charms, inflict all sorts of evils upon
her, make hair grow on her face, bring out blotches on her body, &c.
The reader will be surprised, when he is told that Lady Hester Stanhope
affected to believe all this. Mrs. ―――― lent a civil but incredulous
ear. Her ladyship then endeavoured to engage her consent by holding
out the benefits that would accrue to me in a pecuniary light, and
the shawls and brocades that I probably should bring back to her as
presents from such grand folks. But the foretaste of solitude in a
village during winter, which the many lonely evenings already passed
there had given her, was too strongly impressed on her mind, and she
respectfully but firmly answered, that, if I chose to go, of course she
could not help it, but that it never could be without rendering her
miserable: upon which they parted, with no good will on her ladyship’s
side; and from that hour began a system of hospitality to Mrs. ――――,
which never ceased until our departure.
This leads me to say a word on the extraordinary hatred that Lady
Hester Stanhope bore to her own sex, although from what cause I do not
know: but during her travels and her residence on Mount Lebanon, in
all the visits she received from persons of whatever condition, their
wives, if travelling with them, seldom or never obtained access. She
professed a general dislike to women, and said she had never known
but three, among the hundreds she had been acquainted with, of whom
she could speak with unreserved admiration. Hence it was that she
considered married men as necessarily miserable, and how often did she
quote Sir ―――― ――――’s case to illustrate her views. That same evening
she reproached me for yielding to the idle fears of a woman, and
painted very ridiculous and amusing pictures of the henpecked husbands
she had known in her time, of whom the most prominent was Lord ――――,
and the most suffering, the baronet alluded to above. In conclusion,
she told me she should write an answer to Ahmed Bey, telling him I was
governed by my wife, and could not come.
It was customary for her to send over to the village every morning
a servant and horse to fetch me; but on the 26th, 27th, and 28th of
January he did not come; and I very well knew that some explosion of
anger would take place on her part: it being an unpardonable thing in
her eyes for any living being to oppose her purposes, and much more
for a woman to do so. In the evening of the 28th, her factotum, the
bailiff, came with a message, requesting to know whether I had overcome
Mrs. ――――’s scruples, and, if not, desiring I would certify it in
writing. Accordingly, I wrote a letter, in which I justified my own
refusal to go to Damascus, on the ground that Mrs. ―――― was totally new
to the country; had no soul to talk to; had, in compliance with Lady
Hester’s wishes, brought no maid-servant who could understand her; and
that I could not find it right to leave her, much as I regretted the
disappointment and vexation that such a step caused her ladyship, and
her friend and mine, Ahmed Bey.
February 3, 1831.――I heard no more of Lady Hester until this day, when
the horse was sent, and, on entering her saloon, a stormy altercation
took place between us, in the presence of her secretary. The final
result was, that I signified my wish, as soon as I had done what I
could for her, to take my family back again to Europe, regretting I had
come so far to so little purpose. “I have given,” said she, “a good
deal of advice to many persons in whom I have taken an interest, and
you are the last of my disciples whom I thought I could make something
of: but it is like cutting the hair off the legs of half-bred horses;
it grows again, and you may often get a kick in the face for your
pains. You know what a good opinion they had of you in this country,
which I kept up; but your conduct now has spoiled all: for when a man
gives his beard to a woman it is all over with him. Remember my words,
and write them down.”
But she was not to be so easily foiled. She returned to the charge,
and again urged me to undertake the journey to Damascus. She called
my attention to the words of Ahmed Bey’s letter, describing Hassan
Effendi’s malady: “His chest is without pain, and so is his throat,
and the complaint seems to be in his mouth.” These expressions she
interpreted as a clear indication that this great man was somebody who
had a communication to make to her, which was of too much importance
to be trusted to a letter, and that that was what was meant by the
“complaint in the mouth.” Anxious, therefore, to know what this secret
business was, she thought neither of the state of the weather (for the
snow was lying deep on the upper chain of Mount Lebanon, over which
the road to Damascus lay), nor of the complete loneliness in which
my family would be left. It is true that, in another cottage in the
village, Mr. Chasseaud and his wife lived, and they had shown every
disposition in their power to enliven Mrs. ――――’s solitude; but this
was the rainy season, and there were days when it was impossible to get
from house to house, owing to the violence of the wind and the torrents
of water that fell from the heavens: and, when the rain abated, the
mud, mixed with dung of cattle, so completely filled the paths, that it
was impossible to walk five steps.
That there was cause for apprehension, when left alone, may be seen
from what had occurred on the 24th of January. It rained heavily, and I
was sitting writing in the evening, when the black slave told me that
about two hundred soldiers had halted for the night in the village, on
their way to join Abdallah, Pasha of Acre, who was besieging the castle
of Nablôos, where the inhabitants were in a state of insurrection,
brought on by the arbitrary exactions of the local government. In
those days, soldiers in villages often committed many excesses. We
had no bolt to our front door, nor any fastening but a hook to the
window-shutters. About nine in the evening, the following note was
brought me by Mr. Chasseaud’s servant:
“Dear Dr. ――――,
“We have a great many troops this evening in the village,
and some of them very cut-throat-looking fellows. I am well
armed, and do not care for them. You would not do wrong to
be also on your guard.
“Yours truly,
“J. CHASSEAUD.”
But I had no arms, excepting my fowling-piece, which was nailed down in
a case that I had not yet had time to open; so, putting my reliance on
the respect which the name of Lady Hester Stanhope obtained for those
belonging to her establishment, and on the heavy rains, I wrote on,
not altogether free from alarm, when, sometimes, the blasts of wind
shook the door and window-shutters, and made me uncertain whether the
noise I heard was that of the elements or of man.
A truce seemed now to have been concluded between Lady Hester and
ourselves, by a suspension of hostilities, but it was only to mature
a fresh attack. Abdallah Pasha had been busied for some months in
making a European garden in the environs of Acre, as a place of
recreation for himself and his harým, and Lady Hester had given him
many useful instructions in the laying of it out, and had from time
to time sent her Italian servant, Paolo Perini, to lend a helping
hand. The following day, therefore, was spent in writing a letter
about the building of a pavilion, which was dictated in French, and
then translated into Arabic by her Arabian secretary, Khalyl Mansôor,
who, being a shopkeeper at Sayda, was sent for whenever there were
Arabic letters to write. Much amusement arose about the construction
of a phrase, in which pillars of the Ionic order were named. Mansôor
hinted that the word Ionique had a signification in Arabic which
rendered it impossible to use it. I had made a drawing of the five
orders of architecture, and what was to be written was an explanation
of their differences, so that a full hour was spent in getting over
the difficulty.[42] Then a letter was written to Abd el Rahmàn Berber,
a Turkish merchant, with a remittance of five hundred dollars, due
for interest on money lent; and, as he was about setting off on his
pilgrimage to Mecca, the remittance was accompanied with a supply of
medicines and small stores for his journey, such as tea, chocolate,
syrups, &c.
February 4.――This day was passed in writing letters of advice and bills
of exchange on London, and a letter to the Emir Hyder, of Shumbalàn;
also in arranging Miss W.’s papers. In addressing the bills of exchange
to the house of Messrs. Coutts and Co., Lady Hester’s recollections
were carried back to that opulent banker’s times. “One day,” said she,
“on calling on Mr. Coutts, the old man happened to be very gay, and, on
my entering his room, he addressed me thus:――‘I consider myself one of
the most enviable of men: let me see――I have had the visit of one, two,
three, four, five, six, and you make the seventh, of the handsomest
women in London.’ The Miss Gubbinses had just been there――they went out
as I entered; they were beautiful, doctor! On another occasion, old
Coutts put his hands on each side of my face, and kissed me on the
forehead, with an exclamation of ‘Good God! how like my old friend,
your grandfather! You must forgive an old man, if he can’t refrain
from almost embracing you――it is the exact sound of his voice. Ah!’ he
continued, ‘I think I see him now, seated in that chair; and, after I
had been explaining my views in politics, or on anything else, cutting
them all up at once by something that was indisputable.’ That is,
doctor, just as if a person had been going on explaining their views
respecting a child, and another should say, ‘that’s all useless――the
child is dead.’ My grandfather dived into futurity, as I do. Mr. Pitt,
too, would often tell me how much I was like Lord Chatham, my
grandfather. Sometimes, when I was speaking, he would exclaim, ‘Good
God! if I were to shut my eyes, I should think it was my father! and,
how odd! I heard him say almost those very words forty years ago.’ My
grandfather, doctor,” said Lady Hester, going on, “had gray eyes like
mine, and yet, by candlelight, from the expression that was in them,
one would have thought them black. When he was angry, or speaking very
much in earnest, nobody could look him in the face. His memory on
things even of a common nature, and his observations, were striking.
On passing a place where he had been ten years before, he would
observe, that there used to be a tree, or a stone, or a something,
that was gone, and on inquiry it always proved to be so; yet he
travelled always with four horses, at a great rate.”
February 5.――The whole day was taken up in making a drawing to explain
the nature of a forcing-pump, or engine, for watering the shrubs and
flowers in Abdallah Pasha’s garden.
February 6.――From one in the afternoon until ten at night, not
excepting the time we were at dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope talked of
the Damascus affair, endeavouring to prove to me that my refusal would
endanger my life, and embroil the government of Damascus with Mr.
Farren, the new consul-general, who was expected from England; showing
that, in her situation, where her consideration among the natives
depended entirely on opinion, Mrs. ――――’s opposition to her will, if
not effectually put down, would be subversive of all her authority,
and make it be supposed she was not the great personage she was held
to be; inasmuch as, among Eastern nations, in all clans, communities,
and separate governments, there was, and ought to be, but one will,
which was that of the head. I admitted all this to be true; but told
her, there seemed to be no other way of settling the affair than by
our withdrawing at once to Europe. She gave me to understand we might
certainly go if we liked, but that we should find it more difficult
than I suspected. This was no idle threat of hers, and I knew it; for
not a peasant would dare to let out his camels, mules, or asses, to one
who was known to have incurred her displeasure; and to send to Sayda to
hire them was equally impossible, seeing that no one would go willingly
on such an errand; or, if he did, her influence extended far enough to
frighten camel-drivers and muleteers from their engagement. The close
of the conversation was a separation far from amicable; so that on the
8th, 9th, and 10th of February, I did not see her.
February 11, 1831.――My horse was sent over, and I remained from noon
until my dinner-time. All was gentleness and urbanity. The conversation
turned on Mr. Pitt, her father, and her brothers; on Tom Paine, Mr.
Way, Mrs. Nash, and others. She seemed to be disposed to resort to her
customary tactics, which were to make attacks at intervals, and then to
wait a day or two, to see if they had taken effect. I will relate some
of her anecdotes.
“Mr. Pitt loved ardently Lord A*******’s daughter,”[43] said Lady
Hester Stanhope; “she was the only woman I could have wished him to
marry. I had never seen her; and, as she frequented Beckenham church,
I went on a visit to Mr. Grote’s, the banker, to get a sight of her. I
went to church with Mr. Long’s brother, dean of somewhere, I forget
now, a monstrous handsome man. As soon as we appeared in the pew, she
knew who I was, and her whole body became of one deep red. A paleness
followed; she drooped her head, put her hand to her face, and bent
over her book, as if praying. When the service was over, I considered
that the meeting with her was not a scene fit for the church-porch,
but I was resolved to have a close look at her. As we approached her,
she pretended to be talking in an animated manner with some of her
party, but her attention was evidently turned towards me. When we
saluted, I saw she was beautiful――very beautiful, doctor.
“Next day rat-tat-tat came a carriage and four to Mr. Grote’s door. ‘My
dear Mr. Grote, we have long been neighbours, but I don’t know how it
is, we have not seen so much of each other as we ought to have done.’
This was Lord A. and the mother. The young lady was more collected by
this time, and the conversation went on very well. On the following
day, Mr. Grote and I called at Lord A.’s; but, the porter not having
received his instructions, we were rudely sent away. The carriage had
hardly got twenty yards, when out came my lord, and a whole posse of
them, with a thousand apologies for the blunders of servants; and we
returned, and went in. She had been walking out, drawing, or something;
and when she pushed up her bonnet, and turned her hair aside, oh,
doctor, what a forehead was there!
“Poor Mr. Pitt almost broke his heart when he gave her up. But he
considered that she was not a woman to be left at will when business
might require it, and he sacrificed his feelings to his sense of public
duty. Yet Mr. Pitt was a man just made for domestic life, who would
have enjoyed retirement, digging his own garden, and doing it cleverly
too. But it was God’s will it should be otherwise. I never saw her
afterwards but once, when she was Lady B**************. Oh dear! how
she was changed! I remember, it was at Lady Chatham’s. When I first
knew her, she had a mouth no bigger than an eye. Well! on entering the
room at Lady Chatham’s where she was, some years after her marriage,
I recognized her no more than if I had never seen her. She saw it,
and began speaking of persons with whom I was acquainted. This made
me think the more who she could be; when, observing my embarrassment,
she said, ‘I see, Lady Hester, you have forgotten me.’ Well, doctor,
her mouth was grown quite large and ugly, and I have observed that it
does, as people grow older;――I don’t know why: but look at mine, and
you’ll see just the same thing.
“‘There were also other reasons,’ Mr. Pitt would say; ‘there is her
mother, such a chatterer!――and then the family intrigues. I can’t keep
them out of my house; and, for my king’s and country’s sake, I must
remain a single man.’”[44]
Lady Hester said it was fine fun to see these match-making mothers
bring their daughters down to Walmer to try to get Mr. P. into a
scrape, and the extraordinary distance at which he contrived to keep
them. Sometimes, if they approached him, or wanted to plant their
daughters too near him, it was the fire was too warm, or the air from
the window, or some excuse for removing his chair to a distance from
them.
I observed, “it was not to be supposed that a man, buried in state
affairs, could give a thought to the tender passion.”
“I beg your pardon,” she replied; “I have heard him talk in raptures
of some women. He used to say, he considered no man ought to marry who
could not give a proper share of his time to his wife; for, how would
it be if he was always at the House, or in business, and she always at
the opera, or whirling about in her carriage?”
“People thought Mr. Pitt did not care about women, and knew nothing
about them; but they were very much mistaken. Mrs. B――――s, of
Devonshire, when she was Miss W――――, was so pretty, that Mr. Pitt drank
out of her shoe. Nobody understood shape, and beauty, and dress, better
than he did; with a glance of his eye he saw it all at once. But the
world was ignorant of much respecting him. Who ever thought that there
was not a better judge of women in London than he? and not only of
women as they present themselves to the eye, but that his knowledge
was so critical that he could analyze their features and persons in a
most masterly way. Not a defect, not a blemish, escaped him: he would
detect a shoulder too high, a limp in the gait, where nobody else would
have seen it; and his beauties were real, natural, beauties. In dress,
too, his taste was equally refined. I never shall forget, when I had
arranged the folds and drapery of a beautiful dress which I wore one
evening, how he said to me, ‘Really, Hester, you are bent on conquest
to-night: but would it be too bold in me, if I were to suggest that
that particular fold’――and he pointed to a triangular fall which I had
given to one part――‘were looped up so?’ and, would you believe it?――it
was exactly what was wanting to complete the classical form of my
dress. He was so in everything.
“Mr. Pitt used to say, when I went out in my habit and a sort of furred
jacket, that women, when they rode out, generally looked such figures;
but that I contrived to make a very handsome costume of it.
“He had so much urbanity, too! I recollect returning late from a ball,
when he was gone to bed fatigued: there were others besides myself, and
we made a good deal of noise. I said to him next morning, ‘I am afraid
we disturbed you last night.’ ‘Not at all,’ he replied; ‘I was dreaming
of the Mask of Comus, Hester, and, when I heard you all so gay, it
seemed a pleasant reality.’
“To show you what an excellent heart Mr. Pitt had, and how full of
sympathy he was for people whom others spurned, I’ll tell you what
happened one day, when we were at Walmer. I said to him, ‘Who do you
think is coming down to dinner to-night?’ ‘I don’t know, Hester: tell
me.’ ‘Why,’ said I, ‘H**** D*****’s mistress:――oh! but I’ll pretty
soon look her out of countenance.’ I was only in joke, doctor. H. D.,
who was by the same mother as Lord D., but born before the mother was
married, had for his mistress a very excellent woman, whose meritorious
conduct every body spoke of: so I thought I would have a little fun
about her, and told Mr. Pitt that H. D. was going to bring her with
him. ‘My dear Hester,’ cried Mr. Pitt, ‘for God’s sake, don’t distress
the poor woman, if she is coming――now, pray, don’t!’ ‘Oh! yes, I will,
I will,’ I replied. ‘Now, I entreat you,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘Here she
comes,’ cried I; and a post-chaise drove past us, near the drawbridge.
Mr. Pitt turned his head towards me as it passed, pretending to be
talking to me, ‘She is very pretty,’ said I. ‘Well,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘I
must go and give some orders about her room;’ and he was actually going
to put her in the best room in the house, and to desire some other
persons who were expected to be sent to the village, when I told him it
was all a joke; for it was only H. D.’s post-chaise, with his man in
it, come down before his master.”
Here Lady Hester Stanhope paused for a little time, as if musing;
and, at length, led away by her reflections, when she resumed the
conversation, she uttered certain sentiments, which, however startling
in comparison with the mere conventional morality of society, I am
emboldened to transcribe. “Doctor,” she said, in an impressive tone,
“I saw in the newspapers an account of a poor creature found on the
step of a door in some street in Westminster. She was named the Fair
Ellen――a wretched outcast from society――and was in the last stage of
starvation. A poor forlorn woman, like herself, found her there, took
her home, sold her petticoat to relieve her, and, probably from her
over-anxiety to give her something good for her weak stomach, fed her
more than she was able to bear, and the Fair Ellen died. Now, doctor,
let the friend of the fair Ellen come to me, and I will receive her
to my bosom, and she shall be my friend; for such sentiments as hers
will I honour and respect wherever I find them.” She went on: “How
strange it is that immorality, in England, is met in some persons by
such severity――much too great; and, in others, escapes animadversion! *
* * * * The poor are spurned for errors not half so gross as what the
wealthy my lords do in the open face of day, and set people at defiance
to boot.”
She went on: “To get inmates for brothels, and mistresses for the rich,
fancy a procuress to some great my lord, who sets off for Wales, or
for some distant province of England. Down she goes, accompanied by a
sort of confidential servant, whom she affects to retain from the great
attachment that her poor dear husband had for him; and she places
herself in handsome lodgings in a town, or in some pretty cottage in a
village. There she visits the poor and the sick, or does some act of
charity to make herself talked about, and, in the mean time, looks out
for some handsome girl. When she has found one that she thinks will
suit her purpose, she first takes her as her maid, treats her with
great kindness, and, when the girl has conceived a liking for her, she
all of a sudden pretends she has received news from London of the death
of a brother, or the sickness of a dear friend, and says she must set
off directly. The poor girl, whom she has fed with hopes of what she
may become some day, by telling her that she has no relations that she
cares for and perhaps may leave her something when she dies, desires to
be taken with her; and the procuress, with a show of generous feeling
for her, says she will not let her go, unless she can ensure her
bettering herself, and begs that her parents will have a paper drawn
up, that she is to remain five or seven years with her, or else she,
the lady, is to give her fifty pounds. The parents, delighted with
the disinterested offer of their child’s mistress, get the agreement
legally drawn up, sign it, and sign their daughter’s ruin.
“As soon as they are in London, dress, pleasure, and other allurements,
are offered her. She forgets her humble home, and becomes the dupe of
her artful seducer. If any inquiry is made after her, perhaps the fifty
pounds are paid; and the very agreement that was to secure her safety
becomes the bond of her destruction.
“Lady Hamilton was brought from Wales in this manner, a fine,
rosy-faced, and rather blowsy country girl. A set of virtuosoes wanted
a model for a Venus, and some of them, who knew Lady H., fixed on her;
but Sir W. H. took her out of their hands, and carried her to Naples.
Yet how did she end?――with not money enough to bury her; and so did
Mrs. Jordan.”[45]
February 12 to 18.――It rained so hard, that, for a week, we were almost
confined to the house. Our good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Chasseaud, when
it was possible, either came and passed the evening with us, or we went
to their cottage. On awaking, on the morning of the 16th, we found
the bed-room and the counterpane of our bed wet with the rain, which
had penetrated the roof in every part, excepting, luckily, over the
children’s bed. The bedding and carpets were obliged to be removed into
another room. The day proved very stormy; and, for two or three days
more, we were compelled to live and sleep in the same room, being the
only one that was waterproof. The occasional squalls were so violent,
that a gust of wind would whirl a large copper ewer to the distance of
a yard. All the trelliscourt of our terrace was blown away, like chaff
before the whirlwind.
February 21.――Nine hours were spent to-day in conversation with Lady
Hester, from three in the afternoon until midnight. She spoke of Lord
Stewart de Rothsay, of the Duke of Sussex, of Mr. Pitt, and many other
persons. The weather was beautiful; and, although the sides of Mount
Lebanon, only a few miles off, were covered with snow, we sat until
sunset with the windows open. The climate of Syria is, probably, one of
the most pure and balmy in the world.
Lady Hester, from one thing to another, returned to the subject of
Mr. Pitt’s amiable disposition. “It is wonderful,” said she, “what a
man Mr. Pitt was. Nobody would have suspected how much feeling he had
for people’s comforts, who came to see him. Sometimes he would say to
me, ‘Hester, you know we have got such a one coming down. I believe
his wound is hardly well yet, and I heard him say, that he felt much
relieved by fomentations of such an herb: perhaps you will see that he
finds in his chamber all that he wants.’ Of another, he would say――‘I
think he drinks ass’s milk; I should like him to have his morning’s
draught.’ And I, who was born with such sensibility, that I must
fidget myself about everybody, no matter whom, was always sure to
exceed his wishes.
“Would you believe, doctor, that, in the last weeks of his last
illness, he found time to think about his groom, in a way that
nobody would have suspected in him? He had four grooms, who died
of consumption, from being obliged to ride so hard after him; for
they drank and caught cold, and so ruined their constitutions. This
one I am speaking of, when first attacked in the lungs, was placed
at Knightsbridge, and then sent to the seaside. One day, Mr. Pitt,
speaking of him, said to me――‘The poor fellow, I am afraid, is very
bad: I have been thinking of a way to give him a little consolation.
I suspect he is in love with Mary, the housemaid; for, one morning,
early, I found them talking closely together, and she was covered with
blushes. Couldn’t you contrive, without hurting his feelings, to get
her to attend on him in his illness?’
“Accordingly, soon after, when he was about to set off for Hastings, I
went to see him. ‘Have you nobody,’ I asked him, ‘whom you would like
to go to the sea-side with you?――your sister or your mother?’ ‘No,
thank you, lady.’ ‘There is the still-room maid, would you like her?’
‘Ah, my lady, she has a great deal to do, and is always wanted.’ From
one to another, I, at last, mentioned Mary, and I saw I had hit on the
right person; but, however, he only observed, he should like to see
her before he went. Mary was, therefore, sent to him; and the result
of their conversation was, that he told her he would marry her if he
recovered, or leave her all he had if he died――which he did.
“Mr. Pitt once obtained a servant in a very odd way. Riding on the
moors with a friend, they came to one of those flocks of geese, which,
picked of their feathers, are driven about by a boy, with a bit of red
rag at the end of a long stick. ‘We must ride round,’ said Mr. Pitt;
‘we shall never get through this immense flock.’ ‘Yes, but you may,’
cried a sharp-looking boy, who had heard him, ‘if you will only keep
your horses quiet. Sh――sh――ee――ee――ayi――ayi!’ and the boy waved his
stick here and there, and in a minute or two the flock opened, and,
wheeling to the left and right in regular columns, made a passage,
through which they rode. ‘That must be a clever lad,’ observed Mr.
Pitt; ‘he manœuvres his little army in a wonderful manner――a general
could not do it better;’ and he ordered the groom to inquire to whom
he belonged. A day or two afterwards he was sent for, and put into the
stables. Next, he was made an undergroom; then taken to town to wait
on the upper servants, and afterwards made a footman; until, one day,
Mr. Pitt, going down to Hollwood with Mr. Dundas, and three or four
friends, to talk about some parliamentary business (a custom he had,
when he wanted to discuss any particular plan in quiet), lo and behold!
the cook fell down in an apoplectic fit, and died; and the butler, who
saw it, was so affected that he was seized with a fit of the gout. This
butler was also Mr. Pitt’s valet, on such occasions as when he was out
of town for a day. Mr. Pitt was in a sad fidget about the dinner: but
the young man in question said, ‘Don’t, sir, send off any express for a
cook: if you think proper, the maid shall dress the dinner. These are
all your intimate friends, and will take no notice: their servants as
yet know nothing of the matter; for I thought they might be frightened
to be where there is a dead man. Let me manage, and all will go well,
without any alarm being spread.’ He, accordingly, dressed Mr. Pitt, saw
to everything, and acquitted himself so well, that Mr. Pitt was more
than satisfied with him, and soon afterwards made him his valet; but
he did not live long enough to have his services recompensed. He died
quite young, at twenty-seven. He was a man all fire and activity. Mr.
Pitt would say to him, ‘You must go down to-day to such a place, and
I shall be there the day after to-morrow.’ ‘You will excuse me, sir,’
the man would reply, ‘but I sha’n’t go; for, if I do, who will attend
to you when you take your physic to-morrow? You will be busy, and put
it off; and nobody knows how to give it but myself.’ ‘Well, well,’ Mr.
Pitt would answer, ‘do so then;’ and would excuse him by an――‘Ah! he is
very anxious about me――I must let him have his own way.’”
It was a remarkable proof of Lady Hester Stanhope’s memory, that,
whatever subject she stumbled on, she had an inexhaustible fund of
anecdotes ready; and, having got into the servants’ hall, she seemed
as much at home there as in the drawing-room. She told me a pathetic
history of a faithful servant, who, in the pecuniary distresses of his
master, served him for several years with the purest disinterestedness.
I was so touched by her eloquent and forcible manner of relating the
story, and with the self-application that I made of it to my own
tardiness in going to her in her distress, together with my present
intention of leaving her, owing to our recent differences, that I burst
into tears, and wept, as the expression is, bitterly. She soothed my
feelings, endeavoured to calm my emotions, and disclaimed all intention
of conveying any allusion to me. This led her to say, how little malice
she ever entertained against any one, even towards those who had done
her injury, much less against me, who had always shown my attachment to
her: and she said that, even now, although she was going to lose me,
still her thoughts did not run on her own situation so much as on what
would become of me: and I firmly believed her.
February 23 to 26, 1831.――Another fresh trouble now harassed Lady
Hester. Paolo, her Italian servant, who had been sent to Acre to
assist in laying out the Pasha’s garden, made or received offers
there to fill a good post in the Artillery, he having served as a
soldier during Buonaparte’s campaigns. He, therefore, came back to her
ladyship’s, to signify his intention of leaving his place, hoping she
would, in consideration of his services, give him a character to the
Pasha. There had been some shuffling in the business on Paolo’s part,
so Lady Hester was determined to play him a trick, as he had tricked
her. Instead, therefore, of a written good character, she put a blank
sheet, undercover, to the Pasha; and, causing it to be directed with
the customary titles and superscription to his highness, she gave
it to Paolo, paid him his wages, and sent him off, exulting in the
prospect of the lucrative post he was about to be promoted to. When he
had obtained admittance to the Pasha, he presented his letter, and,
the seal being broken, a blank sheet was all that the cover contained.
Another letter to the Pasha, explaining what had been done, had been
despatched by a special messenger, in which Lady Hester Stanhope
showed Paolo’s unfitness for a gunner, and urged him not to expose
his men to the chance of being blown to pieces at the cannon’s mouth
by the ignorance of a man who would make a decent valet, but a very
bad artilleryman. The Pasha took the hint, and sent Paolo about his
business, who hastened back to Beyrout, and retreated, crestfallen, to
Europe.
Nothing farther was said about the Damascus affair. A long letter,
on the organization of a body of regular troops, was drawn up, and
sent to Abdallah Pasha. This, with the trouble of translating it into
Arabic, occupied three or four days. Letters were written to Dr. Dusap,
of Cairo, relative to the purchase of some black slaves, to Lord
Ebrington, and to some other persons, which filled up the time until
March 7. The intervals of writing were devoted to conversations on the
coming of the Murdah, or new Messiah, and Lady Hester laboured hard to
make me a convert to her doctrines. She expressed her regret that the
result of the fulfilment of her predictions would be for strangers, and
not for her friends.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] There is a history of the origin of the Admy family
in the London and Paris Observer of June 30, 1839.
Persons who doubt about the existence of hereditary
nobility in Turkey will do well to read it. The Sultan
creates Pashas, as the sovereign here makes Lord As
and Lord Bs, but it is some time before they obtain
the level of old families, except in their official
capacities.
[42] Captain Meadows Taylor does not appear to have been
quite so scrupulous in his “Confessions of a Thug,”
where the following passage occurs:――“She falls at his
feet; she is captivated; she conquers, and the _nika_
is performed.” How harmless is the sound of words when
not understood!
[43] “Report, but I do not give it as at all authentic,
says that Pitt is to marry Eleanor Eden.”――_Diaries
and Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury_, v. iii.
p. 370.――_Letter to Sir G. Elliott, Dec. 18, 1790._
[44] In 1837, when I visited Lady Hester Stanhope again, I
was reading Wraxall’s Memoirs, where he says, “There
was something about Mr. E***, that one could not
feel confidence in him;” and Lady Hester Stanhope
interrupted me by saying, “That was the reason that
Mr. Pitt would not marry his daughter. She was unlike
all the other sisters. The mother, like a hen with her
chickens, would sit sometimes at a party, and almost
devour a peer, to see if she could get him for one of
them. There they were, all open-mouthed, ready to eat
him up.”
[45] With respect to Mrs. Jordan, I believe Lady Hester
Stanhope to have been mistaken.