In the register of the monastery, they have (as I was told) put her down as a Catholic, and had spread a report that she had died in that faith, in order that popular prejudice might raise no objection to her lying in Catholic ground. Over the tomb a tamarisk-tree, with its delicate, evergreen, feathery branches, waves in the wind. A few tombs of venerable bishops, devout merchants, and holy monks, stand in relief from the rocky barrenness of the spot, with Arabic inscriptions commemorative of their piety and virtues. It is only to be regretted that some similar memorial has not been raised to Miss Williams.
Miss Williams had now been dead more than two years, and the room in which she died had never been entered, from the hour that her corpse was carried out of it. The door had been barred up by cross laths nailed over it; and, from the circumstance of Lady Hester Stanhope’s having repeatedly declared she never could pass by the door again, a sort of dread had crept over the maids and slaves, akin to that which is common in England when a chamber of some house is reported to be haunted. A breathless silence, and expectation of something supernatural, accordingly reigned in the quadrangle, when the carpenter proceeded to knock away the laths, and, through cobwebs and dust, I introduced, with some difficulty, the rusty key into the keyhole, and, with considerable effort, forced open the door. The floor was covered with dust, and thick, long cobwebs hung across from wall to wall: on the floor lay scattered in confusion a few books, a hair-brush, and various papers. A sort of disorder was apparent in the furniture, such as would arise in a room hastily left. A box of papers, containing a list of Lady Hester Stanhope’s debts and memoranda relating to them, lay open in a recess, and seemed the last thing that had occupied Miss W.’s attention; for, alas! the increasing embarrassment of Lady’s Hester’s money concerns might naturally be supposed to harass her mind, seeing that, at one time, her noble patroness, bred in the lap of luxury, had been reduced to the necessity of selling for their weight (since they would not pass current), forty English guineas, given to her by her brother James when they parted, and saved when she was ship-wrecked, not knowing, when they were gone, where to look for a penny. An empty work-basket lay turned upside down on the floor; and an air of desolation and disorder in the room and closets showed that whatever had been worth pilfering had been carried off by the wicked servants during the time which elapsed between her death and burial.
“Poor Miss Williams!” thought I; “what must have been your sufferings at that sad hour, with no one of your own country to close your eyes, and surrounded by slaves and peasant women, who robbed you instead of attending to your wants! Yet, with what fidelity and attachment did you not follow your benefactress from a comfortable home, where a happy circle regretted you, to endure the numberless privations which constant confinement, want of society, and a residence in an uncivilized country, necessarily bring with them! Even I, had my earlier arrival not been retarded, might have contributed to soothe your last moments, if not to save your life!”
On opening the closets that were locked, her linen, her writing-desk, her paint-box, and sundry other articles were seen neatly arranged, as one would suppose an English woman would place them. I unlocked the desk, removed the papers, which her relatives had written for, as well as some others that Lady Hester thought I should find there; and, shutting the closet again, withdrew with melancholy thoughts on the uncertainty of human hopes, resolved to defer until another day the inventory of her goods and effects.
The next day, I remained with Lady Hester Stanhope from eleven in the morning until ten at night, the greater part of the time being employed in looking over Miss W.’s papers, which consisted principally of rough copies of letters dictated by her ladyship.
When I and my family were comfortably settled in our little cottage in the village, Lady Hester appointed a morning to receive Mrs. ——, on the occasion of her first visit. On reaching the house, I conducted her to the saloon, where, after introducing her, and sitting a little while, I retired, in compliance with Lady Hester’s usual custom of never liking to have more than one person with her at a time. Here Mrs. —— remained about three hours, and then took her leave; and I, having sent her home under the care of a servant, presented myself to hear Lady Hester’s opinion about her, a necessary consequence that always followed when any person quitted her whom she had seen for the first time. Our conference lasted until past midnight. The night proved very tempestuous: the wind howled, the thunder rolled, the rain beat against the shutters; and, when I returned to the village, wet through, I found Mrs. —— sitting disconsolate, and terrified at the war of the elements, alone, as it were, in the midst of the horrors of the night, and unable to make herself understood by the slaves, who knew no language but Arabic.
Next morning, at breakfast, we talked over the conversation that had passed between her and Lady Hester Stanhope. Lady Hester had used the kindest expressions; and, at the close of her visit, getting up and ringing for a handsome Turkish spencer in gold brocade, had put it on her with her own hands, and had wound on her head a beautifully embroidered muslin turban. Mrs. ——, not understanding Lady Hester’s humours, who had in all this imitated the Eastern manner of robing people when they go away, had taken them both off and left them on the table, so that they were sent home the next day. This, I knew, would be a grievous offence in Lady Hester’s eyes.
Things, however, went on satisfactorily until the 25th of January, when a messenger came from Damascus, sent by a person of an ancient and noble family, named Ahmed Bey, beyt Admy,[41] with a letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, saying that, “her physician’s arrival from England having been reported to the Pasha, he, Ahmed Bey, had been solicited by his highness to write to her, and request she would spare the doctor, a short time, to cure a complaint with which a friend of the Pasha’s, called Hassan Effendi, Tâat ed Dyn, was afflicted in the roof of his mouth, which was peculiarly painful to him, and a source of deep regret to the faithful, in consequence of his being one of the most distinguished chanters of the Koran.”
This Ahmed Bey was a very old friend of Lady Hester Stanhope’s, and a nobleman who had honoured me with his particular notice some years before, during our stay at Damascus; she, therefore, laid great stress on my going, and wished me to prepare immediately for my departure.
As I did not think it right to leave my family for three weeks or a month alone in a cottage, where no human being could understand them, I suggested to Lady Hester the propriety of writing a polite excuse to Ahmed Bey, expressing my inability to comply with his wishes for the present. But she had my compliance so much at heart, that it was agreed she should see Mrs. —— herself, and endeavour to remove her scruples, flattering her she could contrive, with her accustomed fertility in expedients for all difficulties, some means to reconcile her to my departure, and show her the groundlessness of her fears. Mrs. —— accordingly paid a second visit to Lady Hester, who began by endeavouring to act on her pride, by telling her my reputation would be ruined among all the Pashas, if I refused to go to a great man, like Hassan Effendi, and that her own consequence would be lessened; moreover, that our ambassador at Constantinople would hear of it, and take it ill, with many arguments of the like sort. Finding this mode of reasoning had no effect, she tried to frighten her, by assuring her very gravely that there were dervises, who, interested in the well-being of holy men, and especially of a chanter of the word of the Prophet, would, by unknown charms, inflict all sorts of evils upon her, make hair grow on her face, bring out blotches on her body, &c. The reader will be surprised, when he is told that Lady Hester Stanhope affected to believe all this. Mrs. —— lent a civil but incredulous ear. Her ladyship then endeavoured to engage her consent by holding out the benefits that would accrue to me in a pecuniary light, and the shawls and brocades that I probably should bring back to her as presents from such grand folks. But the foretaste of solitude in a village during winter, which the many lonely evenings already passed there had given her, was too strongly impressed on her mind, and she respectfully but firmly answered, that, if I chose to go, of course she could not help it, but that it never could be without rendering her miserable: upon which they parted, with no good will on her ladyship’s side; and from that hour began a system of hospitality to Mrs. ——, which never ceased until our departure.