Hester Stanhope

“ On another occasion, one of the Emir Beshýr’s people came on some message to her, but, before he entered her room, laid by his pistols and his sabre, which in Turkey these myrmidons always wear on their persons. Lady Hester’s maid whispered to her what the man was doing, when her ladyship, calling him in, bade him gird on his arms again. “Don’t think I am afraid of you or your master,” she said; “you may tell him I don’t care a fig for his poisons—I know not what fear is. It is for him, and those who serve him, to tremble. ”

“ Bankes’s writing to me a request that, in case of going to England, I would take charge of a tin box containing some of his drawings and his fresco paintings, both which were still at Mar Elias, Lady Hester advised me to have nothing to do with them, but to transmit them to him, which I did, with an excuse on the score that the trust was too great.
[98] Lady Hester Stanhope, under precisely the same circumstances, contrived to effect her entry. These difficulties were never raised against common persons. ”

“ Lady Hester Stanhope, daughter of Charles, third Earl Stanhope, granddaughter of the great Earl of Chatham, and niece of William Pitt, was a woman of unbounded vanity, arrogance, and ill-temper. A technical termagant she could not be, for she was never married, and that was perhaps a better fate which met General Sir John Moore at Corunna than would have been his had he survived his disastrous retreat, and returned to England. For Hester Stanhope was his fiancée; and if he had married her, she could not have failed of keeping him in a life-long subjection. ”

“ It is incredible how Lady Hester Stanhope used to torment herself about trifles. People, who never happened to meet with a person of her peculiar character, would be amazed at the precision with which she set about everything she undertook. The most trivial and fugitive affairs were transacted with quite as much pains and exactitude as she brought to bear upon the most important plans. ”

“ She, moreover, was accustomed to mark, not merely the day, but the precise hour, that persons coming to visit her were to present themselves. She would do so with Duke Maximilian, or with Matteo Lunardi. On the morning to which I have referred, Lady Hester was in bed. “What do you want?” said she, in rather an angry tone. I replied that I had brought her a cut-glass cup and stand for her sherbet and lemonade, as hers was so common that it gave me pain to see her use it. “No, doctor,” she said, “I am much obliged to you, but you must send it away again. ”

“ She has ever been a benefactress to me, and, if I die with a little property, it is from her generosity. You will here promise me never to urge the claim against her; for I have received double and treble its amount at her hands.” They made solemn asseverations, and, after his death, the eldest son went to Dar Jôon, and informed Lady Hester Stanhope of their father’s dying injunctions: often did the widow, too, repeat to her how sacred she held them. ”

“ But, if such excessive requisition was ever pardonable in anybody, it was in Lady Hester Stanhope; for her vast talents seemed to lay claim to submission from all inferior beings, and even to exact it as a matter of justice. It was always customary with her (as it generally is with people who overwork their servants) to appeal first to one and then to another, whether anybody could give less trouble than she did. ”

“ He revived my spirits by assuring me I need be under no alarm. “All of them are known,” said he, “and have their families and relations hereabouts: that one circumstance must always be a check upon them. If they 297 were not natives of the province, then I should say you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester, you know her determined character—if she is resolved to keep them, you cannot help it. There is one,” added he, “whom I could wish not to be here; I thought him gone a year ago:” this was the one whom Lady Hester relied on for sending a bullet through the consul’s body. ”

“ Why won’t you let him be introduced to you?’—‘Because I don’t like people whose face is all oily, like a soap-ball,’ answered I. Now, doctor, upon my word, I no more knew he had made his fortune by oil, than I do what was the colour of the paper in your saloon at Nice; and when his friend said, ‘You are too bad, Lady Hester,’ I did not understand what he meant. However, they told me there would be all the royalties there, and so I consented.
“I have had an instinct all my life that never deceived me, about people who were thorough-bred or not ”

“ She did not feel sure of the good conduct of one single maid-servant. As long as Miss Williams was alive, the awe they all stood in of her made things go on with propriety; but, after her death, all these disorders crept in. One of the very European men-servants whom Lady Hester kept as a check on the people of the country, set them a profligate example himself, and then sought a pretext for leaving her service. In another instance, a black slave was found to have formed an illicit connection with a black man. Lady Hester Stanhope obliged the man to marry her, and gave them both their freedom. ”

“ 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 197 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. ”

“ Even the Emir [Beshýr] wonders, and is astonished; for he was not aware of this extraordinary gift formerly: but yet, all say—I mean enemies—that I am worse than a lion when in a passion, and that they cannot deny I have justice on my side.
Write whenever you please; do not expect me to write, as it hurts my eyes too much, and I have no one to assist me.
[Signed] H. L. S.
This summons from Lady Hester Stanhope took me a little unexpectedly. I had not much faith in a story like that on which she built her hopes of paying her debts ”

“ He was entrusted with a mission to explore Syria, to learn Arabic, and, at a fit opportunity, to penetrate into Arabia and describe that country. On that occasion he made the acquaintance of Pitt’s niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, subsequently crowned Queen of Palmyra by the Bedouins in 1821. He met from her with a most honourable reception, and, proud of her powerful protection, he was on the point of succeeding in his enterprise, when he was assassinated in the neighbourhood of Damascus by the Arabs, who sought to rob him of a bag of coins which he had in his possession. ”

“ Pitt used to say to me, ‘Hester, what sort of a being are you? We shall see, some day, wings spring out of your shoulders; for there are moments when you hardly seem to walk the earth.’ There was a man who had known me well for fifteen years, and he told me, one day, that he had tried a long time to make me out, but he did not know whether I was a devil or an angel. ”

“ 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 194 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. ”

“ The French agent, with whom I had been on terms of acquaintance for some years, during my previous residence in Syria, well aware of our dispute with Lady Hester Stanhope, prudently resolved to pay his court to her by not being very courteous to us. All the Frank families imitated his example, and, instead of receiving ten or fifteen visits, which we should otherwise have expected, not one single person called upon us. So much for friendships in the Levant. ”

“ I know I shall have a great liking for Mrs. Moore, if ever I see her: is she so very handsome as they say? When you go to Beyrout, you must tell her that I consider it a duty to like her: she does not know why, no more do you.”
Lady Hester Stanhope to Colonel Campbell.
Jôon, February 4, 1838. ”

“ March the 29th, Lady Hester mounted her horse, and went to see the ruins. She knew the report that was current of her being in search after treasures, and took an ingenious mode of curing the shaykh of the village of such a belief. She told him she would have him go with her; and she, being on horseback, led him, who was on foot, such a round, that the poor man, little curious about places in which he had lived all his life, begged her at last to excuse him, as he could walk no farther. ”

“ When I saw Lady Hester a day or two afterwards, she never alluded to the bells, nor did I; and nothing was ever mentioned about them for two or three months, 39 until, one day, she, being in a good humour, said, “Doctor, it was I who ordered Osman to take away the bells. The people in this country must never suppose there is any one connected with my establishment who puts himself on an equality with me, no matter in what. The Turks know of only one Pasha in a district; the person next to him is a nobody in his presence, not daring even to sit down or to speak, unless told to do so. ”

“ Lady Hester continued: “As I grew up, Lady Stanhope used to chuck me under the chin, and cry, ‘Why the kurl (girl) is like a soap ball; one can’t pinch her cheek:’ and I really used to think there was something very strange about me. Soon after Horne Tooke took notice of me, and pronounced flatteringly on my talents. And when Mr. Pitt followed, and kindly said, ‘Why I believe there is nothing to find 14 fault with, either in her looks or her understanding,’ I began to know myself. Mr. Elliott, (who married Miss Pitt) used to say to me, dear man! ”

“ I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady Hester’s request, I had ridden over to Mar Elias to see General Loustaunau, the decayed French officer, who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more than twenty years. And although, from being of a choleric and violent temper, he had, on more than one occasion, embroiled himself with her, yet the only difference it made in her treatment towards him was merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but she had never, for one day, ceased to occupy herself with his wants and to provide for his comforts. ”

“ Lady Hester Stanhope, noble by birth and haughty by nature, had carried out from England all the habits of her order: but a prolonged residence in the East amongst the Turks induced her to reflect on the different customs of those around her, and she adopted by degrees all such as she thought had good sense for their basis. ”

“ Meshmûshy is by nature so inaccessible, that no person, from mere idle curiosity, would think of ascending to it. There, her society was literally confined to myself; for the priests were too unmannered to gain access to her presence, and the shaykh of the village was a farmer, without any other knowledge than that required for his agricultural occupations.
That Lady Hester had no thoughts at this time of going to Europe, much less of returning to England, is pretty evident. ”

“ A Jew, in a street in Turkey, and a Christian likewise, is sure to answer the most simple question by an “I don’t know”—“I have not heard”—“I have not seen;” for he fears what that question may lead to, and that, if he knows a little, a bastinadoing may be resorted to to make him know more: so I afterwards asked Lady Hester. “Oh!” replied she, “I’ll tell you how those stakes came there: I had forgotten all about them. One day, at the time they were robbing me right and left, I ordered the carpenter to make two stakes, such as people are impaled upon, and to erect them in the back yard. ”

“ It is impossible to say what was not projected; but her faithful Miss Williams still rose uppermost in her mind, and her first care was to see the last duties, yet remaining, paid to her memory.
As that excellent person occupied an important position in Lady Hester Stanhope’s house and affairs, I will here make room for the following account of her sickness and death, as it was given me by Um 134 Ayôob, a respectable widow of Jôon. This woman was in the habit of doing needlework at Lady Hester’s, when she would pass whole days together at the house. ”

“ November 19.—I had taken to my house to read the book that Sir Gore Ouseley had sent Lady Hester Stanhope, and I related to her the anecdote of the old woman and the copper dish. [12] This threw a gleam of satisfaction over her countenance. “Ah!” said she, and she made a sigh of pleasurable feeling, “these are the people I like; that’s my sort: but the people 117 now-a-days, who call themselves gentlemen, and don’t know how to blow their nose!—when the first peer of the realm will go about bragging what a trick he has played some poor woman whom he has seduced! ”

“ To finish what remains to be said of this once shining character, but now the pensioner of an English woman, he had resided for the last ten years at a distance from Lady Hester Stanhope’s residence, and they had not even seen each other for five or six years. “I have been obliged to keep him at a distance,” said her ladyship, “for the last ten years, in order that people might not think I had taken care of him to make him trumpet my greatness: for you don’t know what harm that man has done me. ”