Lady Hester

“ Such, at least, became the feeling of Lady Hester as she witnessed those travesties of grandeur, the originals of which had left her awe-stricken and amazed.
Shorn of fortune, deprived of all the illusions which her newly adopted creed had thrown around her, uncheered by that crowd of flatterers which used to form her circle, is it any wonder if her spirits and her temper gave way, and that she fancied herself the very type of misery and desertion? The last solace of such minds is in the pity they bestow upon themselves ”

“ Pitt’s niece and companion, Lady Hester, endowed with a finer discrimination of character than her uncle, and enabled from her position as a bystander to take a just measure of the abilities and motives of those who seemed to be acting with him, could scarcely bear with the stupidity of some, the duplicity of others, and the baseness of almost all. ”

“ The inhabitants had resolved on welcoming Lady Hester in the best manner they could, and had gone out in a body to meet her. There might be altogether fifty men on foot, who, naked down to the waist, without shoes or stockings, and covered with a sort of antique petticoat, ran by the side of as many horsemen, galloping in all directions, with rude kettle-drums beating and colours flying. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the most common concerns, Lady Hester’s servants made much bustle and did little. They ran in different directions, jostled and crossed each other half a dozen at a time for the same thing, entirely reversing one of her favourite maxims, that everything in a great person’s house should be done as if by magic, and nobody should know who it was set it a going. ”

“ I have told you, I think, that Lady Hester could deal fiercely with those she hated. One man above all others (he is now uprooted from society, and cast away for ever) she blasted with her wrath. You would have thought that in the scornfulness of her nature she must have sprung upon her foe with more of fierceness than of skill ”

“ Once more the ladies were left in doubt and anxiety. Mabel could not hope much from Lady Hester’s manner. Mrs Barbara, who had seen her before, argued favourably. Lady Hester was some time absent.
At length the door opened, and she returned, followed by a slightly-built gentleman, scarcely yet of middle age, whose bright eye and broad forehead betokened intellect of no ordinary kind. His manner was somewhat stiff and formal as, bowing to the ladies, who had risen at the entrance of Lady Hester, he took his seat near them. ”

“ There were good-natured people who said that Lady Hester's admiration had another source, and that, as a somewhat passee beauty, she knew the full value of a younger and handsomer woman in attracting to her circle and society all that was distinguished by rank or station. ”

“ The genius and originality of Lady Hester made her an especial favorite with her uncle. She presided at his table, and he evinced his respect for her abilities, by employing her, after his retirement from office, as his secretary. Though to the multitude this great statesman appeared cold and unbending, with his intimates, and those whom he received into his private friendship, he was cheerful and affable; to women he was polite in the extreme, and, in the midst of his gravest avocations, would rise to pick up his secretary’s fallen handkerchief. ”

“ Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my house in the morning to go to Lady Hester’s, I found that all her people were full of an extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a man with a white beard, who had conducted her among the ravines of Mount Lebanon to a place, where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a trance, and had told her to lead them away to her residence. She attempted to raise them, and at the same moment the earth opened, and she awoke. ”

“ In choosing a solitary life in the wilderness, far removed from all the comforts and pleasures of civilisation, Lady Hester seems to have been actuated by her craving for absolute power, which could not be gratified in any European community. ”

“ If she could but fancy that, at some future time, such graceful elegance should be her own, that gentle languor, that chastened quietude of Sydney, or that sparkling lightness of Lady Hester herself!
“What time de horses, saar?” said the courier, popping his head into the room.
“I scarcely know what do you say, Lady Hester?”
“I 'm quite ready this instant if you like indeed, I 'm always the first,” said she, gayly; “nobody travels with less preparation than I do. There, see all I want!” ”

“ On her return home from this visit, her janissary, Hadj Mohammed el Ludkány, whilst standing before her to receive her orders for the morrow, said, “Your ladyship’s reception was very grand;” and upon her replying, “Yes, but this is all vanity,” he remarked, “Oh! khanum” (or my lady) , “you carry the splendour [13] of royalty on your forehead, with the humility of a dervise at your heart.”
Lady Hester scarcely found time to write to her friends an account of her adventures; but we may extract from a letter, already published in a periodical work, a few anecdotes, as related in her own words. ”

“ Lady Hester said, “Mr. Pitt pronounced in his fine mellow tone of voice, and this was the last speech I heard him make in that voice; 75 for, on his return from Bath, it was cracked for ever.” Then she observed, “My own opinion of the duke is, that he is a blunt soldier, who pleases women because he is gallant and has some remains of beauty: but,” she added, “he has none of the dignity of courts about him.” ”

“ Various and opposing motives have been assigned for the unusual conduct of Lady Hester: we think, however, its explanation is to be found in an eccentric imagination, a turn for adventure, and that love of power which is inherent in the human breast. We can hardly consider it more extraordinary that one English lady should be found willing to accept a government under the sunny skies of Syria, than that so many English officers should seek for sway on the burning shores of Africa and the East Indies. ”

“ Whilst melting the wax in the candle, Lady Hester went on:—“Doctor, you never now can seal a letter decently: you once used to do it tolerably well, but now you have lost your memory and all your faculties, from talking nothing but rubbish and empty nonsense to those nasty women; and that’s the reason why you never listen to anything one says, and answer ‘yes,’ and ‘no,’ without knowing to what.” ”

“ I found Lady Hester in good health and excellent spirits, and looking much the same as when I left her some years before. She received me with great apparent pleasure, kissing me on each cheek, ordering sherbet, the pipe, coffee, and a finjàn [27] of orange-flower water; all which civilities, at meeting, are regarded in the East as marks of the most cordial and distinguished regard. I myself was truly astonished at all this, but more especially at her salutation on the cheeks after the Oriental fashion ”

“ There was something in the cold and steady gaze he bestowed upon her that abashed, if not actually alarmed, Lady Hester. She had seen the same look once or twice before, and always as the prelude to some terrible evidence of his temper.
“Lady Hester,” said he, in a low, distinct, and very slow voice, as though he would not have her lose a word he spoke, “the explanation which a man would ask for at the peril of his life ought not, in common justice, to be quite costless to a lady. It is perfectly possible that you may not care for the price, be it so ”

“ During my absence in Egypt, Lady Hester had been visited by M. Otto de Richter, an enterprising Russian, who was travelling through Syria: he afterwards died at or near Ephesus.
Mrs. Fry, Lady Hester’s maid, fell ill of an ague. On the 6th of November, there arrived at Meshmûshy two Bedouins of the tribe of Mahannah, sent by him with a letter to Lady Hester, which contained much complimentary language and inquiries after her welfare. Their real object was to get money, which the emir, always needy, was always using shifts to obtain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He received his orders from Lady Hester herself to this effect. “Osman, you will say to each horse, before you shoot him, putting your mouth close to his ear, ‘You have now worked enough on the earth; your mistress fears you might fall, in your old age, into the hands of cruel men, and she, therefore, dismisses you from her service.’” This order, strange as it may appear, was actually executed to the letter, with imperturbable gravity. ”

“ There is also an icicle from Lady Hester herself,99 which embodies the decorous expression of what a young lady of the middle eighteenth century allowed herself to feel when she was going to be married. Even this act of politeness was inspired by William. 'I have writ this night to my poor sister Ann. She is not well enough to return to England this winter. Whenever your excessive goodness will honour her with a letter it will be a comfort to her. If you please to commit it to me I will forward it to her, and bless you a million of times.' [83]
Bath. ”

“ When the time came to quit Acre, I was curious to observe whether the subtraction of the numerous suite and the loss of tents, palanquins, and other emblems of greatness, would affect Lady Hester’s looks or spirits. But neither was there to be observed mortification nor melancholy, and she rode out of the city gates with as much serenity as any human countenance could put on. Being now reduced to eight or ten persons, we encamped in a field close by the Nakûra; and, on the following morning, resumed our march for Tyre. From Tyre we departed the next day for Abra. ”

“ Solitude is no disagreeable thing with a good library: rather otherwise; but books were not to be procured; Lady Hester never had any, and I had lost mine in the shipwreck.
Endowed with a very active mind, and convinced that neglect alone of many common precautions against the introduction of the plague caused the loss of a great number of lives, her ladyship bethought herself of writing to the Emir Beshýr, to advise him how to guard against its encroachments. ”

“ Everybody who has visited Lady Hester Stanhope in her retirement will bear witness to her unexampled colloquial powers; to her profound knowledge of character; to her inexhaustible fund of anecdotes; to her talents for mimicry; to her modes of narration, as various as the subjects she talked about; to the lofty inspirations and sublimity of her language, when the subject required it; and to her pathos and feeling, whenever she wished to excite the emotions of her hearers. There was no secret of the human heart, however studiously concealed, that she could not discover ”

“ Lady Hester resumed. “When Mr. Pitt was at Walmer, he recovered his health prodigiously. He used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay and corn were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up there with a table and two or three chairs, where he used to write sometimes, and a tidy woman to dress him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread and butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of bread and cheese big enough for a ploughman! He used to say that, whenever he could retire from public life, he would have a good English woman cook. ”

“ The whole of her life seemed to be traceable; besides, there was something about Hester that forbade all suspicion of her being a conscious impostor. Whether she would be able to prove herself my father's daughter was another more doubtful point. That, however, made no difference, except as to her own rank and fortune. If the first wife were proved to have been alive till 1836, then little Alured was the only true heir to the title and estate, and, next after him, stood Hester Lea and her son. ”

“ Adults and children, Turks and Christians, all were actuated by the same spirit of curiosity to behold the woman who could stir up a whole province to take revenge upon the Ansárys for the death of a Frank.
Lady Hester’s acts of beneficence to a number of individuals, coupled with this last generous and disinterested labour for M. Boutin, had caused her name to spread very widely through the country, and herself to be regarded as the protectress of the unfortunate and the almoner of the poor. ”

“ However, to finish what I have to say of this man, when Lady Hester returned from Antioch, she found [316] it impossible to keep him. I took him, therefore, before the cadi of Sayda, to whom I made known the kindnesses which had been wasted on this ungrateful fellow. I dwelt particularly on his habits of drunkenness, which were hardly pardonable in any one, more especially in a Mahometan; and I then begged, in Lady Hester’s name, that he might be shipped off to Egypt, his own country, by the first opportunity. ”