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 occasion, a powerful Turk, a man about forty, of great muscular strength, 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 pigeon-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 Abercorn’s going over to Addington, and saying I would give it to him for it, when Lord Abercorn 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.