For some time did Lady Hester remain in Montague Square: but her brother and General Moore, having fallen at the battle of Corunna, I believe she grew entirely disgusted with London; and, breaking up her little establishment, she went down into Wales, and resided in a small cottage at Builth, somewhere near Brecon, in a room not more than a dozen feet square. Here she amused herself in curing the poor, in her dairy, and in other rustic occupations: until, not finding herself so far removed from her English acquaintances but that they were always coming across her and breaking-in upon her solitude, she resolved on going abroad, up the Mediterranean.
Arrived at Gibraltar, she was lodged at the governor’s, in the convent, where she remained some time; and then embarked for Malta in the Cerberus, Captain Whitby, who afterwards distinguished himself in Captain Hoste’s victory up the Adriatic. At Malta, she lived, at first, in the house of Mr. Fernandez: afterwards, General Oakes offered Lady Hester the palace of St. Antonio, where we resided during the remainder of her stay.
We departed for Zante in the month of June or July, 1810. From Zante, we passed over to Patras, where she bade adieu to English customs for the rest of our pilgrimage. Traversing Greece, we visited Constantinople, and, from Constantinople, sailed for Egypt. At Rhodes we were shipwrecked, and I there lost my journals, among which were many curious anecdotes that would have thrown much light on her ladyship’s life. I shall relate what I have since gathered, without observing any order, but always, as far as I could recollect, using her very expressions; and, in many instances, there will be found whole conversations, where her manner would be recognized by those who were acquainted with it. I shall sometimes preface them with observations of my own.
Speaking of her sisters, Lady Hester would say: “My sister Lucy was prettier than I was, and Griselda more clever; but I had, from childhood, a cheerfulness and sense of feeling that always made me a favourite with my father. She exemplified this by an anecdote of the second Lady Stanhope, her stepmother, referring to the time when her father, in one of his republican fits, put down his carriages and horses.
“Poor Lady Stanhope,” she said, “was quite unhappy about it; but, when the whole family was looking glum and sulky, I thought of a way to set all right again. I got myself a pair of stilts, and out I stumped down a dirty lane, where my father, who was always spying about through his glass, could see me. So, when I came home, he said to me, ‘Why, little girl, what have you been about? Where was it I saw you going upon a pair of—the devil knows what?—eh, girl?’—‘Oh! papa, I thought, as you had laid down your horses, I would take a walk through the mud on stilts; for you know, papa, I don’t mind mud or anything—’tis poor Lady Stanhope who feels these things; for she has always been accustomed to her carriage, and her health is not very good.’—‘What’s that you say, little girl?’ said my father, turning his eyes away from me; and, after a pause, ‘Well, little girl, what would you say if I bought a carriage again for Lady Stanhope?’—‘Why, papa, I would say it was very kind of you.’—‘Well, well,’ he observed, ‘we will see; but, damn it! no armorial bearings.’ So, some time afterwards, down came a new carriage and new horses from London; and thus, by a little innocent frolic, I made all parties happy again?”[1]
Lady Hester continued. “Lucy’s disposition was sweet, and her temper excellent: she was like a Madonna. Griselda was otherwise, and always for making her authority felt. But I, even when I was only a girl, obtained and exercised, I can’t tell how, a sort of command over them. They never came to me, when I was in my room, without sending first to know whether I would see them.
“Mr. Pitt never liked Griselda; and, when he found she was jealous of me, he disliked her still more. She stood no better in the opinion of my father, who bore with Lucy—ah! just in this way—he would say to her, to get rid of her, ‘Now papa is going to study, so you may go to your room:’ then, when the door was shut, he would turn to me, ‘Now, we must talk a little philosophy;’ and then, with his two legs stuck upon the sides of the grate, he would begin—‘Well, well,’ he would cry, after I had talked a little, ‘that is not bad reasoning, but the basis is bad.’
“My father always checked any propensity to finery in dress. If any of us happened to look better than usual in a particular hat or frock, he was sure to have it put away the next day, and to have something coarse substituted in its place.
“When I was young, I was always the first to promote my sister’s enjoyments. Whether in dancing, or in riding on horseback, or at a feast, or in anything that was to make them happy, I always had something to do or propose that increased their pleasure. In like manner, afterwards, in guiding them in politics, in giving them advice for their conduct in private life, in forwarding them in the world, I was a means of much good to them. It was always Hester, and Hester, and Hester; in short, I appeared to be the favourite of them all; and yet now, see how they treat me!
“I was always, as I am now, full of activity, from my infancy. At two years old, I made a little hat. You know there was a kind of straw hat with the crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was put in, all puffed up. Well! I made myself a hat like that; and it was thought such a thing for a child of two years old to do, that my grandpapa had a little paper box made for it, and had it ticketed with the day of the month and my age.