Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham――Her recollections of
Chevening――Her definition of insults――Her deliberate affronts――Her
warlike propensities――Earl C―――― Marquis of Abercorn――Logmagi――Osman
Chaôosh――Letter from Colonel Campbell――George the Third’s flattering
compliment to Lady Hester――Her Majesty Queen Victoria――Lord
M.――Prophecy of a _welly_――Lady Hester’s poignant affliction――Her
intractability――Her noble and disinterested benevolence.
December 21, 1837.――I had sat up until two in the morning, despatching
letters to Europe, which I had written by Lady Hester’s dictation,
through the channel of M. Guys, the French consul at Beyrout, who,
alone, among the Europeans there, had contrived to remain on friendly
terms with her. In my letter to him, Lady Hester required that I
should tell him she was in a state of convalescence. Alas! she was far
from being so; for, on going to her, I found her labouring under many
bad symptoms, against which she contended with a spirit that seemed to
brook no control――not even from nature herself. As she could not talk,
I read to her, out of the Speaker, a character of the first Lord
Chatham. She recognized, and so did I, so many points of resemblance
between herself and her grandfather, that she said, more than once,
“That’s me.” At the words, “He reigned with unbounded control over the
wilderness of free minds,” I observed that there was something
contradictory in control and freedom. “No, there is not,” said she.
“If you are walking on the road, and you inquire the way of some
person you meet, he tells you the best road is in such a direction,
and then takes his leave; you turn round, every now and then, as long
as the person is in sight, to look at him to see if he points to you
that you are going right; but you are free to go which way you will.”
December 31.――I saw Lady Hester in the morning, after which I took a
walk with my family: on my return, I went again to inquire how she
was. One of her maids told me that, soon after I had left her, she
suddenly burst into tears, and cried a great deal, they could not tell
why; that she had called for Zezefôon to dress her, had, in a manner,
rushed out of her bed-room, and had gone to the saloon, where, in
consequence of her long confinement, she found all the sofa cushions
piled up, and the sofa mattresses removed, so that she had not a place
to sit down on; that then she had left the saloon abruptly, on seeing
the state it was in, and returned to her bed-room, where she gave a
loose to her sorrow.
My presence being announced, I was admitted. “Doctor,” said she,
“to-night in my father’s house there used to be a hundred tenants and
servants sitting down to a good dinner, and dancing and making merry.
I see their happy faces now before my eyes: and, when I think of that
and how I am surrounded here, it is too much for me. When you left me
this morning, things of former times came over my mind, and I could
not bear to sit here, so I went out to break the chain of my thoughts.
I would have gone into the garden, if it had not rained.”
I endeavoured to say something consolatory to her. “Everybody,” she
continued, “is unkind to me. I have sought to do good to everybody,
either by relieving their distresses or purifying their morals, and I
get no thanks for my pains. I sometimes make reproaches to myself for
having spent my money on worthless beings, and think it might have
been better otherwise; but God knows best. I had hoped to find some
persons whose minds might have been enlightened, and who would have
felt the importance of what I tell them. But you even, of whom I had
some hope, are as bad as the rest; and, if you assent to the truth of
what I say, you make so many hums and hahs that I don’t believe you
care a farthing about it. I want nobody that has no conviction.”
“I should think it a sin if I saw people acting foolishly, not to tell
them of it. It does not signify who it is, you or the stable-boy; if I
can make them aware of their folly, I have done my duty. Why do I
scold you so much, but because I wish you to prepare yourself for the
convulsions that will shortly take place. I always acknowledge your
spotless integrity, and thank you for the care you bestow on my
affairs, and in keeping things a little in order; but, in these times,
something more is wanting: a man must be active, and prepared for
great events. People are teaching their children to read and write,
when they should be teaching them to drive a mule: for of what use are
your reading men, who sit poring for hours over books without an
object? I have a thorough contempt for them, and for all your
merchants, and your merchants’ clerks, who spend their time between
the counting-house and the brothel.”
Lady Hester reverted again to Chevening, and spoke at great length of
her grandmother Stanhope’s excellent management of the house, when she
(Lady Hester) was a child. At all the accustomed festivals, plum
puddings, that required two men to carry them, with large barons of
beef, were dressed, &c., &c. All the footmen were like gentlemen
ushers, all the masters and mistresses like so many ambassadors and
ambassadresses, such form and etiquette were preserved in all the
routine of visits and parties. Every person kept his station, and
precise rules were laid down for each inmate of the family. Thus, the
lady’s maid was not allowed to wear white, nor curls, nor heels to her
shoes, beyond a certain height; and Lady Stanhope had in her room a
set of instruments and implements of punishment to enforce her orders
on all occasions. There were scissors to cut off fine curls, a rod to
whip with, &c., &c.
No poor woman lay-in in the neighbourhood, but two guineas in money,
baby linen, a blanket, some posset, two bottles of wine, and other
necessaries, were sent to her. If any one among the servants was sick,
the housekeeper, with the still-room maid behind her, was seen
carrying the barley-water, the gruel, the medicine, &c., to administer
to the patient, according to the doctor’s orders. In the hopping time,
all the vagrants and Irish hoppers were locked up every night in a
barn by themselves, and suffered to have no communication with the
household. A thousand pieces of dirty linen were washed every week,
and the wash-house had four different stone troughs, from which the
linen was handed, piece by piece, by the washerwomen from the scalder
down to the rinser. In the laundry a false ceiling, let down and
raised by pulleys, served to air the linen after it was ironed. There
was a mangle to get up the table-linen, towels, &c., and three stoves
for drying on wet days. The tablecloths were of the finest damask,
covered with patterns of exquisite workmanship. At set periods of the
year, pedlars and merchants from Glasgow, from Dunstable, and other
places, passed with their goods. The housekeeper’s room was surrounded
with presses and closets, where were arranged stores and linen in the
nicest order. An ox was killed every week, and a sheep every day, &c.,
&c. In the relation of these details, which I spare the reader, as
being, probably, what he has observed in many other families, Lady
Hester by degrees recovered her self-possession, whilst they only
served to impress more forcibly on my mind the sad contrast which
reigned in everything about her between her former and her present
condition.
January 10-15, 1838.――The cough continued, attended by spasms in the
limbs. Yet, although she was thus exhausted and harassed by continued
suffering, the elasticity of mind she exhibited in the few intervals
of ease she enjoyed was astonishing. The moment she had a respite from
actual pain, she immediately set about some labour for the benefit of
others; and the room was again strewed over with bundles and boxes.
But, in spite of these delusive appearances, I could not conceal from
myself that a hectic spot occasionally marked the inroads which
disease was now making on her lungs.
January 17, 1838.――What a day of anxiety and sorrow for me, and of
anguish for Lady Hester! From morning until midnight to see a
melancholy picture of a never-dying spirit, in an exhausted frame,
wrestling with its enemy, and daring even to set the heaviest
infirmities of nature at defiance. Yet, who does not bend under the
power of disease? Lady Hester held out as long as a human being could
do; but at last her anguish showed that, like Prometheus bound, she
was compelled to acknowledge the weight of a superior hand, and that
resistance was vain.
The reflections she made on her abandoned situation, neglected by her
friends and left to die without one relation near her, were full of
the bitterness of grief. In these moments, as if the excess of her
indignation must have some object to waste itself upon, she would
launch out into the most fierce invectives against me, and tell me I
was a cannibal and a vulture that tore her heart by my insensibility.
A day or two before, in defending myself against the accusation of
coldness and want of feeling, I had inadvertently said that it was an
insult to a person, whose intentions she could not but know were well
meaning, to heap so much abuse on him. To this her ladyship said
nothing at the time; but to-day, being in a state of excitement, the
word _insult_ recurred to her recollection. “Do you not know,” she
asked, “that people of my rank and spirit are incapable of insults
towards their friends: it is only the vulgar who are always fancying
themselves insulted. If a man treads on another’s toe in good society,
do you think it is taken as an insult? It is only people like ―――― and
―――― who take such things into their heads. I never have hurt a
person’s feelings in my life intentionally, except, perhaps, by my
wit. But if people expect that I should not tell them the truth to
their face, they are much mistaken; and if you or anybody else act
like a fool, I must say so. Such people as Lord Melville and Mr. Pitt
would stop, perhaps, until a person was gone out of the room to say,
‘That man is the most egregious ass I ever saw;’ but I, were he a
king, must say it to his face. I might, if I chose, flatter and
deceive you and a hundred others. There is no one whom I could not
lead by the nose, if I chose to do it; I know every man’s price, and
how to buy him: but I will not stoop to the baseness of making you run
your head through a wall, even though I saw some advantage for myself
on the other side. As for your saying, that’s your character, and that
you can’t bear to be spoken to as I speak to you, what do you talk to
me of character for? Everybody has a character, and so they have a
behind: but they don’t go about showing the one any more than the
other. Fools are always crying out, ‘That’s my disposition;’ but
what’s their disposition to other people more than their anything
else?
“Let us have no more of that stuff; for, though not a man, I shall no
more put up with it than if I were; and I warn you that, if you repeat
that word, you stand a chance of having something at your head.”
Let not the reader imagine that this was all, or even one half of what
her ladyship said on this occasion: it is only a tissue of the most
striking sentences. Never had I seen her so irritated as that one
expression of mine had made her. She went on in this merciless way for
four hours; and, although I frequently attempted to soothe her by
assurances and explanations, she continued in the same strain until
evening, when she subsided into a gentler tone. Being now restored to
a calmer temper, she seemed desirous to atone by kindness for the
wound she had inflicted on my feelings, and wanted, amongst other
things, to get ponies for my children to ride. The generosity of her
nature was obvious in all this, and I resolved, whatever language she
might make use of in future, never to take the slightest notice of it.
This haughty assumption of superiority over others on almost all
occasions was a salient feature in her character. It must have created
her a host of enemies, during the period when she exercised so much
power in Mr. Pitt’s time; and probably those persons were not sorry
afterwards to witness her humiliation and downfall.
Once, at Walmer Castle, the colonel of the regiment stationed there
thought himself privileged to take his wife occasionally to walk on
the ramparts of the castle. I do not know the localities, and am
ignorant how far, in so doing, these two persons might infringe on the
privacy of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester Stanhope: but, without intimating
by a note or a message that such a thing was disagreeable, she gave
orders to the sentry to stop them when they came, and tell them they
were not to walk there. Let any one put himself in the place of
Colonel W., and fancy how such an affront must have wounded his pride.
Mr. B., a Frenchman, who for many years had been her secretary, and
who afterwards held the post of French vice-consul at Damascus, paid
her a visit at Jôon, and, in the leisure of the morning, took his gun
and went out partridge-shooting. On his return to the house, he gave
the birds he had shot to the cook, desiring they might be dressed for
Lady Hester’s dinner; but, when they were served up, to his
astonishment, she ordered them to be thrown out of the window;
observing that it was strange he should presume to do that in Syria
which he would not dare to do in his native country; for she thought
that, at the restoration of the Bourbons, all the ancient game-laws
were revived. She had a secretary afterwards who was an Englishman,
who also went out shooting, and to whom she expressed her notions in
much the same way, and wondered where he got his licence to carry a
gun. Yet in Syria, every person, from the European stranger to the
lowest Mahometan slave, is at liberty to go after the game wherever he
likes.
If any one expected from her the common courtesies of life, as they
are generally understood, he would be greatly disappointed. In her own
way, she would show them, that is, mixed up with so many humiliations,
and with such an assumption of personal and mental superiority in
herself, that much was to be borne from her, if one wished to live
amicably with her. Her delight was to tutor others until she could
bring them to think that nobody was worthy of any favour but by her
sufferance. Where she had the means, she would assume the authority of
controlling even thought. Her daily question to her dependants
was――“What business have you to suppose? what right have you to think?
I pay people for their hands, and not their stupid ideas.” She would
say――“What business have people to introduce their surmises, and their
‘probably this,’ and ‘probably that,’ and ‘Lady Hester Stanhope, no
doubt, in so doing,’ and ‘the Pasha, as I conjecture, had this in
view?’ how do they know what I intended, or what the Pasha thought? I
know that newspapers every day take such liberties, and give their
opinions on what ministers and kings intend to do; but nobody shall
take such a liberty with me without my calling them out. My name is
everything to me, and nobody shall say he presumes this was what I had
in my mind, or that was what I intended to do. At least, if people
must pick pockets, let them pick it of a clean pocket-handkerchief,
and not of a dirty one. Others are not to be made responsible for
their dirty opinions.”
From her manner towards people, it would have seemed that she was the
only person in creation privileged to abuse and to command: others had
nothing else to do but to obey, and not to think. She was haughty and
overbearing, impatient of control, born to rule, and more at her ease
when she had a hundred persons to govern than when she had only ten.
She would often mention Mr. Pitt’s opinion of her fitness for military
command. Had she been a man and a soldier, she would have been what
the French call a _sabreur_; for never was any one so fond of wielding
weapons, and of boasting of her capability of using them upon a fit
occasion, as she was. In her bed-room, or on her _divàn_, she always
had a mace, which was spiked round the head, a steel battle-axe, and a
dagger; but her favourite weapon was the mace. When she took it up,
which sometimes was the case if vociferating to the men-servants, I
have seen them flinch and draw back to be out of the reach of her arm;
and, on one occasion, a powerful Turk, a man about forty, of great
muscular strength, and with a remarkable black beard, on her making a
gesture as if to strike him, flew back so suddenly that he knocked
down another who was behind him, and fell himself. But, though
fearless and unruffled in every danger, Lady Hester Stanhope was
magnanimous, gentle to an enemy in her power, and ever mindful of
those who had done her any service. Her martial spirit would have made
a hero, and she had all the materials of one in her composition.
Two more anecdotes may serve to show how she sometimes rendered
herself disliked. Once, at a cabinet dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope
entered the room in a way so as to pass the Earl C. who was ushered in
just at the same moment; and, as she did not bow or speak to him, Mr.
Pitt said, “Hester, don’t you see Lord C.?” Lady Hester replied, “No,
I saw a great chameleon as I came in, all in pigeon-breasted colours,
if that was Lord C;” this was because he was dressed in a
pigeon-breasted coloured court-dress. “And,” she added, as she related
the story, “I gave it him prettily once: I said his red face came from
the reflection of red boxes; for, when at breakfast and dinner, he was
always calling for his despatch-boxes, and pretending mysterious
political affairs, although they were no more than an invitation to a
party, or a present of a little Tokay, or something equally trivial.
Lord C. had learned his manners, I suppose, from Lord Chesterfield, or
some book or another. He attempted being pompous with his large
stomach, and his garter on a bad leg, and his great whiskers sticking
out as far as this,” (here Lady Hester put her fore-fingers indexwise
to her cheeks to show how far) “and a forehead quite flat like the
Bourbons. He would talk very loud in the lobby as he came in, or
contrive to have his red box brought to him, as if he had papers of
great importance in it.”
“One day, at court,” continued Lady Hester, “I was talking to the Duke
of Cumberland of Lord Abercorn’s going over to Addington, and saying I
would give it to him for it, when Lord Abercorn happened to approach
us. The prince, who dearly enjoyed such things, immediately cried
out――‘Now, little bulldog, have at him.’ This was uttered at the
moment I advanced towards him. You know, doctor, he had asked for the
Garter just before Mr. Pitt went out, and, not having obtained it, had
toadied Addington, and got it. I thought it so mean of him, after the
numberless favours he had received from Mr. Pitt, to go over to
Addington, that I was determined to pay him off. So, when I was close
to him, looking down at the garter round his leg, I said――‘What’s that
you have got there, my lord?’ and before he could answer, I
continued――‘I suppose it’s a bandage for your broken legs:’ for Lord
Abercorn had once had both his legs broken, and the remark applied
doubly, inasmuch as it hit hard on Addington’s father’s profession.
Lord Abercorn never forgot this: he and I had been very great friends;
but he never liked me afterwards.”
Tuesday, January 23, 1838.――I found Lady Hester to-day out of bed,
seated on the ottoman. She wished me to talk or to read to her, so
that she might not be forced to speak herself; but her cough, which
was incessant, precluded the possibility of doing either. The
accumulation of phlegm in her chest made her restless to a painful
degree. Shortly afterwards, her spasms began, which caused her arms
and sometimes her head to be thrown from side to side with jerks. Her
irritability was excessive. Without consulting me, she had been bled
the preceding night by a Turkish barber. Her conversation the day
before had turned in a general manner on bleeding; and having
ascertained my opinion that bleeding would not be proper for her, she
said no more, but took the opposite course.
The fear of remaining in a recumbent posture made her get up from her
bed, and her figure, as she stalked about the room in a flannel dress,
having thrown off her pelisse and abah, was strange and singular, but
curiously characteristic of her independence.
The only newspaper she received was “Galignani’s Messenger,” which,
whether I was in Syria or in Europe, I had for some years caused to be
sent to her from Marseilles, and a file generally came by every
merchant-vessel that sailed for Beyrout, which, on an average, was
about once a month. Sometimes there was much irregularity in the
departure of vessels, as in the winter season, and then, in the
solitude of Mount Lebanon, one might remain ignorant of every event in
Europe for six weeks and even two months together.
She had latterly shown a particular desire to have those passages read
to her which related to the Queen, either as describing her court, her
rides, or any other circumstance, however trivial, of a personal
nature.
Wednesday, January 24.――Lady Hester sent to me to say that she could
see nobody, and requested that I would do nothing, as the day was an
unlucky one.
January 25.――Although suffering in a manner that would have
incapacitated any other person from undertaking any occupation, Lady
Hester was busily employed in making up a mule-load of presents for
Logmagi. “You see, doctor,” said she, “how I act towards those who
serve me: this man neglects his business in town for me, and I, in
return, try to make him comfortable. I have packed up a few coloured
glass ornaments to stick up in his cupboards, and some preserves and
sweetmeats to treat his old messmates with, who would eat him out of
house and home, I believe, if I did not take care of him. Only think,
too, how he beat his breast and cried, and what signs of sorrow he
showed at my illness, the last time I saw him!
“I must have that stupid fellow, Osman, in, to talk to him about new
roofing the dairy, but I shall stick him behind the curtain. Poor man,
his mother is very ill, and I think I must let him go to Sayda. He,
Mahjoob, and Seyd Ahmed, may have asses when they go to town, but all
those other lazy fellows shall walk: I won’t have one of them ride,
unless they have more than eight or ten rotoles in weight to bring
back, idle beasts as they are!”
Now Osman’s mother might be ill, and no doubt she was; the dairy, too,
might be the ostensible cause of his being called in; but it is also
more than probable that, besides all this, she wanted Osman for other
purposes. The truth was, he was no stupid fellow, but a wily knave and
a clever spy, and Lady Hester was often in the habit of employing him
on secret missions――to find out the reason of any movement of the
pasha’s troops for instance, or to get a clue to some intrigue of the
Emir Beshýr’s. But she would say, “Osman is gone to town to see his
sick mother;” and nobody dared to say otherwise.
January 27.――To-day the secretary requested me to acquaint Lady Hester
that he wished to see her on important business. He was admitted, and
showed a letter from his father, the English consular agent at
Sayda,[19] signifying that, in the course of the day, he should be the
bearer of a letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, which had been sent by Mr.
Moore, Her Britannic Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, which he was charged
to deliver into her ladyship’s own hands himself. I had retired when
the secretary entered; but, when he was gone, Lady Hester sent for me,
and I found her in a violent passion. “There is that man, the old
Maltese,” said she, “coming to pester me with his impertinence, but I
have sent off his son to meet him on the road, and drive him back. If
anything in the shape of a consul sets his foot within my doors, I’ll
have him shot; and, if nobody else will do it, I’ll do it myself. See
that he sets off this very instant, and tell him to return with the
letter, without stopping.”
I did so, and returned to Lady Hester. Conceiving that this letter was
an answer she was expecting to one she had written to Sir Francis
Burdett, about the property supposed to have been left her, her
agitation and impatience rose to such a degree, that I thought she
would have gone frantic, or that her violence would have ended in
suffocation. She complained she could not breathe. “It’s here, it’s
here,” she cried in extreme agitation, taking me by the throat to show
me where, and giving me such a squeeze, that now, when I am writing,
twenty-four hours after, I feel it still. I tried in vain to calm her
impatience. I sent off a servant on horseback to hurry the secretary
back, but he did not appear, and the day, until about four o’clock,
was passed in this manner.
To account for this extraordinary agitation, it must again be observed
that, at the recurrence of the period of each steamboat’s arrival at
Beyrout, Lady Hester anxiously expected an answer to her letter to Sir
Francis Burdett; for it was on the strength of this property supposed
to have been left her that she had intimated to some of her creditors
her expectation of being soon enabled to satisfy all their demands. It
was in reliance on this, too, that she had invited me to come over.
And not doubting in the least the truth of the information secretly
conveyed to her by some one of her friends, it may be supposed that a
packet to be delivered into nobody’s hands but her own was readily
conjectured to relate to this business.
About four o’clock, Mr. Abella, the English agent, his son, and the
servant, made their appearance. The secretary was called in. “Tell
your father I shall not see him; and, doctor, go and take the letter,
and bring it to me,” was Lady Hester’s exclamation. I went to Mr.
Abella, but found him determined not to part with it, unless he gave
it into Lady Hester’s own hand. I urged upon him the impossibility of
his doing so, as she had seen nobody for some weeks; at last, on his
still persisting, we became somewhat warm on the matter. This was
better than going to Lady Hester to ask her what was to be done; for
her answer probably would have been to desire two of her stoutest
Turks to go with sticks, and take it from him by force. At last, Mr.
Abella gave up his trust, upon condition that I would write a paper
representing that he had done it forcibly; in such a fright was he
lest Mr. Moore should turn him out of his place.
Instead of being an answer from Sir Francis Burdett, the letter was
from Colonel Campbell, signifying that, in consequence of an
application made to the English government, by Mâalem Homsy, one of
Lady Hester Stanhope’s creditors, an order had come from Lord
Palmerston to stop her pension, unless the debt was paid.
It might have been supposed that the double disappointment of not
hearing from Sir Francis Burdett and of receiving such a missive from
Colonel Campbell would have considerably increased her anger: but, on
the contrary, she grew apparently quite calm, gently placed the letter
on the bed, and read the contents:――
_Colonel P. Campbell, Her Majesty’s Consul-general for
Egypt and Syria, to Lady Hester Stanhope._
Cairo, Jan. 10, 1838.
Madam,
I trust that your ladyship will believe my sincerity,
when I assure you with how much reluctance and pain it
is that I feel myself again[20] imperatively called upon to
address you upon the subject of the debt so long due by you
to Mr. Homsy.
The Government of the Viceroy has addressed that of Her
Majesty upon the subject, and, by a despatch which I
have received from Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, I am led to believe that a
confidential friend of your ladyship will have already
written to you to entreat you to settle this affair.
Your ladyship must be aware that, in order to procure your
pension from Her Majesty’s Government, it is necessary to
sign a declaration, and to have the consular certificate,
at the expiration of each quarter.
I know that this certificate has hitherto been signed by M.
Guys, the consul of France at Beyrout; but, in strict
legality, it ought to be certified by the British, and not
by any foreign consul; and, should your ladyship absolutely
refuse the payment of this just claim, I should feel myself,
however deeply I may regret it, forced to take measures to
prevent the signature of the French, or any other consul but
the British, being considered as valid, and consequently
your bill for your pension will not be paid at home. I shall
communicate this, if your ladyship’s conduct shall oblige me
so to do, to M. Guys and the other foreign consuls of
Beyrout, in order that your certificate may not be
signed――and also send this under flying seal to Mr. Moore,
Her Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, in order that he may take
the necessary steps to make this known to those consuls, if
your ladyship should call on them to sign the quarterly
certificate for your pension.
I trust your ladyship will be pleased to favour me with a
reply, informing me of your intentions, and which reply will
be forwarded to me by Mr. Moore.
I beg your ladyship will be assured of the pain which I
experience in being obliged to discharge this truly
unpleasant duty, as well as of the respect with which I have
the honour to remain, your ladyship’s most obedient humble
servant,
P. CAMPBELL,
Her Majesty’s Agent for Egypt and Syria.
* * * * *
When she had finished, she began to reason on the enormity of the
Queen’s and her Minister’s conduct. “My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,”
said she, “did something, I think, to keep the Brunswick family on the
throne, and yet the grand-daughter of the old king, without hearing
the circumstances of my getting into debt, or whether the story is
true (for it might be false), sends to deprive me of my pension in a
foreign country, where I may remain and starve. If it had not been for
my brother Charles and General Barnard, the only two who knew what
they were about when the mutiny took place against the Duke of Kent at
Gibraltar, she would not be where she is now; for her father would
have been killed to a certainty.”
She mused for some time, and then went on. “Perhaps it is better for
me that this should have happened: it brings me at once before the
world, and let them judge the matter. It would have looked too much
like _shucklabán_” (the Arabic for charlatanism――and Lady Hester was
accustomed now to interlard her conversation with many Arabic words)
“if I had to go and tell everybody my own story, without a reason for
it: but now, since they have chosen to make a bankrupt of me, I shall
out with a few things that will make them ashamed. The old king[21]
wrote down on the paper, ‘Let her have the greatest pension that can
be granted to a woman:’――if he were to rise from his grave, and see me
now!”
“Did I ever tell you what he said to Mr. Pitt one day, on Windsor
Terrace? The king and all the princes and princesses were walking, and
he turned round to him――‘Pitt,’ says he, ‘I have got a new minister in
your room.’ Mr. Pitt immediately replied――‘At your majesty’s pleasure;
and I shall be happy that your majesty has found one to relieve me
from the burden of affairs: a little retirement and fresh air will do
me good.’ The king went on, as if finishing his sentence, and without
heeding what Mr. Pitt had said――‘a minister better than yourself.’ Mr.
Pitt rejoined――‘your majesty’s choice cannot be but a wise one.’ The
king resumed――‘I tell you, Pitt, I shall have a better minister than
you, and, moreover, I shall have a good general.’ The raillery began
to grow puzzling, and Mr. Pitt, with all his courtly manners, was at a
loss to know what it meant. So he said, ‘Do, pray, condescend to tell
me who this unknown and remarkable person is, that I may pay him the
respect due to his great talents and your majesty’s choice.’ The king
relieved him from his embarrassment: ‘_There_ is my new minister,’
said he, pointing to me, whom Mr. Pitt had under his arm. ‘There is
not a man in my kingdom who is a better politician than Lady Hester:
and’ (assuming an air of seriousness, which his manner made quite
touching) ‘I have great pleasure in saying, too, there is not a woman
who adorns her sex more than she does. And, let me say, Mr. Pitt, you
have not reason to be proud that you are a minister, for there have
been many before you, and will be many after you; but you have reason
to be proud of her, who unites everything that is great in man and
woman.’ Doctor, the tears came in Mr. Pitt’s eyes, and how the court
ladies did bite their lips!
“The _what what what?_ certainly did the old king harm, in point of
dignity, when no subject of conversation interested him; but he
sometimes was more serious, and could assume a manner and a tone
befitting a king. A peer, who had never known the Duke of Cambridge,
told me that, on the return of the Duke from the continent, the king
presented him to H.R.H. with this short but fine compliment――‘This is
my son, my lord, who has his first fault to commit.’ How fond the king
was of him and the Duke of York![22] He was a fine man, and with a
person so strong, that I don’t think there was another like him in
England.
“The king liked me personally. I recollect once, at court, when we
were standing, as he passed round the circle, he stopped at Harriet
E., my cousin, and said to her something about her dress; and then,
coming to me, he remarked how well I dressed myself, and told me to
teach H. E. a little. She was so vexed that she cried: but it was her
own fault; for, with a good person, good fortune, and fine dresses,
she never could get a husband.
“I suppose the Queen is a good-natured German girl. Did you ever see
Lord M――――? he has got fine eyes; and, if he is fattened out, with a
sleek skin and good complexion, he may be a man like Sir Gilbert, and
about his age: such men are sometimes still loveable. He used to be a
prodigious favourite with some of the handsomest women in London: so
that his friends used to say, when he married Lady M., though she was
not a bad-looking woman――‘Poor fellow! what will he do? you know he
can’t like her long?’ I recollect seeing her and Lady ―――― sitting at
a party on the top of the stairs, like two figures in a pocket-book――
both little creatures; those that you call delicate.
“Lord M. is a very handsome man. His eyes are beautiful, and he has
spent forty years of his life in endeavouring to please the women. I
recollect, the last time I saw him, he was behind Sir G. H., as they
came into Lord Stafford’s. I had dined there, _en famille_, and there
was a party in the evening. I was in the second room, and the Prince
was standing by the fire, showing his behind, as usual, to everybody,
and there was Lord M., always looking about after somebody whom he did
not find perhaps for three or four hours. They say he is filled out:
he was slim when I knew him. Doctor, he is a very handsome man; but he
must be sixty, or more.”
Ever and anon, Lady Hester Stanhope would revert to Colonel Campbell’s
letter. “Yes,” she said; “if he feels regret at being obliged to write
it, I will say to him, ‘No doubt, he feels pain at having to do with
one of the most blackguard transactions I ever knew;’ but I dare say
he feels nothing of the sort.” Then, after a pause, she added, “I
think I shall take the bull by the horns, and send a letter to the
Queen. If getting into debt is such a crime, I should like to know how
the Duchess of K―――― got into debt.
“Doctor, would you believe it? a _welly_” (in Arabic, a sort of
soothsayer) “foretold what has happened to me now so exactly, that I
must relate the story to you. He was sitting in a coffee-house one
day, with one of my people, and had taken from the waiter a cup of
coffee; but, in carrying it to his mouth, to drink it, his hand
stopped midway, and his eyes were fixed for some time on the surface
of the liquor in silence. ‘Your coffee will get cold,’ said my
servant:――the _welly_ heaved a deep sigh. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘I was
reading on the surface of that cup of coffee the fate of your lady,
the _meleky_. There will rise up evil tongues against her, and a
sovereign will try to put her down; but the voice of the people will
cry aloud, and nations will assemble to protect her.’ Now, doctor,”
said Lady Hester, “does not that mean just what has happened? Is not
the Queen trying to put me down, and going to deprive me of my
pension?――and you will see, when I have written my letter, how many
persons will turn on my side. But isn’t it very extraordinary how that
man in a coffee-house knew what was going to happen?――yet so it is:
they have secret communications with spirits. A glass, or something,
is held before their eyes, which nobody else can see; and, whether
they can read and write or not, they see future events painted on it.”
January 30, 1838.――Lady Hester was still very ill; the convulsive
attacks returning now regularly every day. She began to be sensible
that fits of passion, however slight, did her injury, and she was more
calm for a continuation than I had ever known her to remain since I
had been here. But a fresh occurrence, trifling in its nature,
although she gave much importance to it, excited her anger
considerably to-day, and did her mischief in proportion. She had
reason to suspect that her secretary had been endeavouring to
ascertain whether she was consumptive, and how long she was likely to
live. To dispel such a suspicion, she made a great effort, got up, and
went and sat in the garden. Before she left her room, her wailings
were for some moments heart-rending. “Oh, God, have mercy! oh, God,
have mercy!” she cried; “only keep those beasts away: who is to take
care of me, surrounded as I am with those horrible servants?――only
take care they don’t rob me.”
While she remained in the garden, her chamber was put to rights (a
process which it much required, in consequence of her long
confinement); and, at her earnest request, I superintended the
performance. “Overlook them,” she said, “or they will rob me.” But oh!
what a sight!――such dust, such confusion, such cobwebs! Never was a
lady’s room seen before in such a condition: bundles, phials, linen,
calico, silk, gallipots, clothes, étuis, papers, were all lying about
on the floor, and in the corners, and behind and under the scanty
furniture; for all this while she had been afraid to get the chamber
put into order, lest her servants should take advantage of the
opportunity to plunder her.
When she returned to her room from the garden, she was raving. “You
had better leave me to die,” she cried, “if I am to die; and, if I am
not, oh! God, only let me crawl to my own country” (by her own country
she meant Arabia, among the Koreýsh), “and there, with not a rag on
me, I may be fed by some good-natured soul, and not such cannibals as
these servants! What are they good for? I will be obeyed; and you are
not a man, to see me treated in this manner.”
Thus she went on, walking up and down her room, until she worked
herself up into a state of madness. I was afraid she would rupture a
blood-vessel. All my attempts to pacify her were in vain――indeed they
only excited her the more. Seeing her in this way, I left the room,
and sent Fatôom to her; but, before Fatôom could get there, she rang
her bell violently, and I heard her say, “Where’s the doctor?――where’s
the doctor?” so I returned again to her. “Don’t leave me;” she cried;
and she expressed her sorrow for the excess of her passion. “I am much
obliged to you, very much obliged to you, for the trouble you take on
my account; but you must not be angry with me. Perhaps, if I get
worse, I shall ask you to let Mrs. M. come and sit with me.” Soon
after, as if her very violence had relieved her, she grew calmer.
Up to this time she had never seen my wife, since her second visit to
Syria; nor my daughter nor the governess at all. I had, since her
illness, said more than once that they would be happy to come and sit
with her by day or by night, to relieve the tedium of her solitary
situation. But her dismantled room, her ragged clothes, her altered
appearance――and, above all, her pride, compromised as it was by these
unfortunate circumstances――always made her turn off the subject,
although her secret feelings must have often prompted her to avail
herself of the solace thus frankly and cordially offered to her. The
exclamation by which she usually evaded the proposal was, “Oh! how I
hate everything Frankified! how I hate everything Frankified!” or, “I
must not see them until I get into my saloon.” After about half an
hour I left her. “I must see nobody this evening,” she added; “so good
bye!”
I went home, and, for the first time, told my family how ill Lady
Hester was. Alas! I had not dared to do so before: she had enjoined me
not. “To say I am ill,” she would observe, “would be bringing a host
of creditors upon me, and I should not be able to get food to eat.”
Consequently, I had kept them and everybody, as much as I could, in
ignorance of the real state of her health; indeed, there was too much
truth in what she said not to make me see the mischief such a
disclosure would entail. She had now only twenty pounds left in the
house to provide for the consumption of two months; and, as her
pension was stopped, there was every probability she would be left
penniless, with the exception of a few dollars which I had by me. Yet,
in spite of all this, she commissioned me, a day or two before, to
give 150 piasters to a leper, 150 to a distressed shopkeeper, and some
other small benefactions to other pensioners on her inexhaustible
bounty.
It may be said that any one, like myself, might have represented, from
time to time, the necessity of a little more economy――I did so once:
but I received such a peremptory injunction never to give my advice on
that subject again, that I took good care how I committed myself a
second time. She fired up, and said, “You will give me leave to judge
what I ought to do with my own money. There are various ways of
spending: you may think it best to be just before being generous; but
I, with my character and views, must be even munificent, and trust to
God, as I have hitherto done, for helping me on in my difficulties.
Never touch on that subject again: I will have no human being
interfere with me as to what I am to do with my money.”
All I can say is that, like her grandfather, she was so intractable,
that I never yet saw the mortal who could turn her an inch from her
determinations. It was easy to lead the current of her bounty into
one’s own pocket; for I believe any person who knew her foibles might
have kept it flowing in that direction until he had enriched himself.
It was only necessary to encourage her dreams of future greatness, to
say the world was talking of her, to consider her as the associate of
the _Mahedi_, the Messiah of nations, to profess a belief in visions,
in aërial beings, in astrology, in witchcraft, and to bear witness to
apparitions in which her coming grandeur was prognosticated, and then
she would refuse nothing: but that was not my forte, and I never did
so. I went to her with a small patrimony; was with her, off and on,
for thirty years; and left her somewhat poorer than I went.
But it is not to be supposed that knaves, such as some I have alluded
to above, were the only objects of her bounty. No; the widow, the
orphan, the aged, the proscribed, the sick, the wounded, and the
houseless, were those she sought out in preference: and time will
show, when gratitude can speak out, the immeasurable benevolence of
her nature.
It may not be useless to observe here that many stories have been
circulated of Lady Hester’s harshness to petitioners who presented
themselves at her door, which, if explained, would wear a very
different aspect. Sometimes a suppliant, apparently unworthy of her
commiseration, would gain admittance to her presence, and be dismissed
with a handful of piasters; and sometimes another, known to be a fit
object of benevolence, would receive nothing but a rude repulse. Lady
Hester said to me, “Do you suppose, doctor, I don’t know that many
people think I fool away my money in giving it to adventurers? that
others say I am capricious? that some call me mad? Why, let them: I am
not bound to give reasons for what I do to anybody. The good I do,
first of all, I don’t wish to be known: and, again, many times the
publicity of an act of charity would be injurious to him it was
intended to serve. I’ll give you an instance. There was a merchant at
Acre, who was _avanized_[23] by Abdallah Pasha, to whom he was
obnoxious, until all his property was squeezed out of him, and nothing
was left but a house, of which he was not generally known to be the
proprietor――for, had it been known that the house was his, the Pasha,
who fancied he had reduced him to beggary, would have persecuted him
until he had got that also. The man wished to sell his house, and then
to retire into Egypt; he therefore came to me, and told me his story,
begging my assistance. As I was obliged to use an interpreter, who, I
feared, would talk of any act of kindness of mine for the man, it
appeared to me that the best thing I could do was to turn the
applicant roughly out of doors, which I did at once, bawling out as he
went, that I did not want to be pestered with beggars. Well, my
strange harshness, of course, was talked of, and of course was
repeated to the Pasha, who, thinking the object of his oppression was
now an object of contempt also, was perfectly satisfied, and left the
man, as he supposed, to utter ruin and degradation. But, after a few
days, I privately sent to the poor distressed merchant, provided a
purchaser for his house, smoothed the difficulties in the way of the
sale, and, furnishing him from my own purse with a sum of money
sufficient to begin the world with again, I shipped him off with his
family to Egypt.”
Lady Hester was indeed generous and charitable, giving with a large
hand, as Eastern kings are represented to have given. She would send
whole suits of clothes, furnish rooms, order camels and mules to
convey two or three quarters of wheat at a time to a necessitous
family, and pay carpenters and masons to build a poor man’s house: she
had a munificence about her that would have required the revenue of a
kingdom to gratify. Hence, too, sprung that insatiable disposition to
hoard――not money, but what money could buy: she seemed to wish to have
stores of whatever articles were necessary for the apparel, food, and
convenience of man. Beds, counterpanes, cushions, carpets, and such
like furniture, lay rotting in her store-rooms. Utensils grew rusty,
wine spoiled; reams of paper were eaten by the mice, or mildewed by
the damp; carpenters’ work lay unserviceable from an over-supply; mats
rotted; candles, almonds, raisins, dried figs, cocoa, honey,
cheese――no matter what――all was laid by in destructive profusion; and
every year half was consumed by rats, ants, and other vermin, or
otherwise spoiled. One store-room, which was filled with locked-up
trunks, full of what was most valuable, had not been entered for three
years: and, oh! what ruin and waste did I not discover!
When I told her of all this, and suggested that it would be better to
give them to her poor pensioners, she said――“Such things never cause
me a moment’s thought: I would rather they should have been used to
some good purpose; but, if I have got such rascals about me, why, let
the things all rot, sooner than that they should profit by them. Money
can replace all that; and, if God sends me money, I will do so; if he
does not, he knows best what should be: and it would not give me a
moment’s sorrow to lie down in a cottage with only rags enough to keep
me warm. I would not, even then, change places with Lord Grosvenor,
the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Buckingham, or any of them: they
can’t do what I can; so of what use are all their riches? I have seen
some of them make such a fuss about the loss of a ten guinea ring or
some such bauble:――not that they cared for it, but they could not bear
to lose it. But if I want to know what is passing at Constantinople,
or London, or anywhere, I have nothing to do but to turn my thoughts
that way, and in a quarter of an hour I have it all before me, just as
it is; so true, doctor, that if it is not actually passing, it will be
in a month, in three months――so true: isn’t it extraordinary?”...
Upon some occasions, her munificence wore the appearance of
ostentation. She would bestow on strangers, like dervises, sheykhs,
and fakyrs, large sums of money, and yet drive hard bargains with
those about her neighbourhood; and would sometimes make presents,
apparently not so much to comfort those who received them as to
display her own superiority and greatness over others.
I have said, in a preceding chapter, that she used to give new suits
of clothes to her people on Byràm day, and at Easter, according to
their religion: but it should be mentioned that, on those days, every
servant was called in, and received forty piasters; and one thousand
piasters were divided by Logmagi among the persons in Sayda who in any
way were occasionally useful to her or her people. These were the
porter of the French khan and the janissary there; the porters of the
town-gate; the harbour-master; the gardener who supplied vegetables;
the fisherman who sent her choice fish, &c. Two hundred piasters were
paid annually to old Jacob, a tailor; fifty here and there to the
imàms of particular mosques; as much to the mistress of the bath to
which she sent her maids to be washed. Mr. Loustaunau generally had
about five hundred piasters a quarter. Of many of her benefactions I
never knew anything. Had I kept a list of the sums which, besides
these customary donations, she gave to the distressed, few would
wonder that she was so beloved and so generally lamented. Thus, when
the _ferdy_ and _miri_, two onerous taxes, fell due, she commonly paid
them for such of her servants as were burdened with families, or whose
means were scanty: she did the same when unusual contributions were
levied, as during the conscription. On the 8th of December, I find a
note that I gave fifty piasters and a counterpane to a poor shepherd
boy, labouring under anasarca from an indurated spleen, a most common
complaint in the country, the effect of protracted agues; and eighty
to an old man, who had some years before been her _asackjee_. To
Logmagi mostly fell the distribution of all these sums, and it was
only occasionally that I was the almoner to this truly noble and
disinterested woman; else I should have been able to have cited more
examples.
January 31.――Being Wednesday, it was a rule with Lady Hester Stanhope
to shut herself up from Tuesday at sunset until the sunset of
Wednesday, during which time she saw nobody, if she could avoid it,
did no business, and always enjoined me to meddle in no affairs of
hers during these twenty-four hours. Wednesday was an unlucky day with
her, a _dies nefastus_. After sunset, I waited on her, and found her
languid, moaning, and still visibly suffering from her yesterday’s
exertion; for it appeared, although I had not seen her, that she had
walked about her garden, forcing her strength so far as to deceive the
gardeners, who had given out that she would soon be as well as ever;
and this was what, no doubt, she aimed at, for the purpose of
confounding the secretary.
Reminding her of the wish she had expressed to have Mrs. M.’s company,
I now proposed that she, my daughter, and the governess, should sit
with her by turns, suggesting that, by this means, much of the
disagreeable service of the maids, whom she constantly complained of,
might be dispensed with. But to this she answered, “No, doctor, it
will not do: you must tell them how very much obliged to them I am for
their kind offers and intentions, but that their presence will only be
an embarrassment to me. You don’t consider the matter in its true
point of view, as you never do anything. In the first place, it kills
me to talk; I can’t fatigue myself by giving them information about
the country, and be a Pococke: and, as for giving them good advice,
the world is so turned topsy-turvy, that everything one says is lost
on everybody. Then, as for being of any use to me, they could be of
none: if I wanted anything, they don’t know where it is; and how are
they to tell the nasty wretches, who only speak Arabic? Besides, I am
not sure their _nijems_ would suit me; and then they would do me more
harm than good. Poor little Eugenia! I had thought that I might derive
some consolation from looking on her innocent face whilst she sat
working at my bedside; but some one told me her star perhaps would not
agree with mine: is it so, doctor? I am like Mr. Pitt: he used to say,
‘I hear that man’s footsteps in the passage――I can’t bear it; do send
him away to town, or to Putney:’ so it is with me. There was my
grandfather, too――how he felt the effect of the peculiar star of those
people who did not suit him!――he could bear nobody near him, when he
was ill, but Lady Chatham, and an old woman who had been a sort of
woman of the town: he sent all his children to Lyme Regis; and even
his tutor, Mr. Wilson, he could not bear. I know the reason of it now,
from my recollection of them, but I did not at the time. My
grandfather was born under Mars and Venus; Lady Chatham was born under
Venus, and so was the old woman, but both in different _burges_
[houses]: and that is why their sympathies were the same.”
FOOTNOTES:
[19] The English consular agent at this time was Signor
Abella, whose father was a Maltese: hence Mr.
Abella was known as El Malty. The noble family of
Testaferrata and Abella is the stock from which Signor
Abella is descended; but in Turkey, _Stemmata quid
faciunt_?
[20] At the word “again,” Lady Hester made the following
remarks:――“He never addressed me on the subject,
neither has any one else. Nearly two years ago,
there was a report in the Bazar that my debts had
been spoken of to the King; that my pension was
to be seized; that I was to be put under consular
jurisdiction; and a set of extravagant things that
nobody ever heard the like; and certainly those
who had ventured to charge themselves with such a
message would have found that I was a cousin of Lord
Camelford’s.
“Another version was, that the King talked very good
sense upon the subject, and had taken my part, and had
been much surprised that I had been so neglected by my
family, to whom he said some sharp and unpleasant
things. There the matter rested, and I heard no more of
it, until Colonel Campbell’s letter.”
[21] Lady Hester means George III.
[22] The Duke of York’s behaviour is incomparable; he
is their great and only comfort and support at the
Queen’s house, and without his manly mind and advice
neither the Queen nor Princesses would be able to
bear up under their present distress.――_Diaries and
Correspondence_, p. 20, v. 4.
It is pleasing to find in persons so entirely different
in every respect a corresponding testimony to the
merits of an excellent prince.
[23] To _avanize_ is the expression used throughout the
Levant to signify oppressive and forcible exactions of
money from individuals, without right or claim.