# Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope/Volume 2/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII.
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 Abercom—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 bedroom, 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 washhouse 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 ccasion, a powerful Turk, a man about forty, of great muscular strenght, 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 pigoen-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 Abercom’s going over to Addington, and saying I would give it to him for it, when Lord Abercom 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 un¬ dertaking 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, 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 Britannie 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 Bur​dett, 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 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 bad 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 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 aifairs: 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: andI (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! 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, he 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 crew 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 aerial 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 ta 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 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."
* ↑ 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?
* ↑ 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."
* ↑ Lady Hester means George III.
* ↑ 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."—Dairies 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.
* ↑ To avanize is the expression used throughout the Levant to signify oppressive and forcible exactions of money from individuals, without right or claim.