January 25.—Although suffering in a manner that 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. I have packed up a few coloured glass ornaments to stick up in his cupboards, and some preserves and sweetmeats to treat his old messmates with, who would eat him out of house and home, I believe, if I did not take care of him. Only think, too, how he beat his breast and cried, and what signs of sorrow he showed at my illness, the last time I saw him!
“I must have that stupid fellow, Osman, in, to talk to him about new roofing the dairy, but I shall stick him behind the curtain. Poor man, his mother is very ill, and I think I must let him go to Sayda. He, Mahjoob, and Seyd Ahmed, may have asses when they go to town, but all those other lazy fellows shall walk: I won’t have one of them ride, unless they have more than eight or ten rotoles in weight to bring back, idle beasts as they are!”
Now Osman’s mother might be ill, and no doubt she was; the dairy, too, might be the ostensible cause of his being called in; but it is also more than probable that, besides all this, she wanted Osman for other purposes. The truth was, he was no stupid fellow, but a wily knave and a clever spy, and Lady Hester was often in the habit of employing him on secret missions—to find out the reason of any movement of the pasha’s troops for instance, or to get a clue to some intrigue of the Emir Beshýr’s. But she would say, “Osman is gone to town to see his sick mother;” and nobody dared to say otherwise.
January 27.—To-day the secretary requested me to acquaint Lady Hester that he wished to see her on important business. He was admitted, and showed a letter from his father, the English consular agent at Sayda,[19] signifying that, in the course of the day, he should be the bearer of a letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, which had been sent by Mr. Moore, Her Britannic Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, which he was charged to deliver into her ladyship’s own hands himself. I had retired when the secretary entered; but, when he was gone, Lady Hester sent for me, and I found her in a violent passion. “There is that man, the old Maltese,” said she, “coming to pester me with his impertinence, but I have sent off his son to meet him on the road, and drive him back. If anything in the shape of a consul sets his foot within my doors, I’ll have him shot; and, if nobody else will do it, I’ll do it myself. See that he sets off this very instant, and tell him to return with the letter, without stopping.”
I did so, and returned to Lady Hester. Conceiving that this letter was an answer she was expecting to one she had written to Sir Francis Burdett, about the property supposed to have been left her, her agitation and impatience rose to such a degree, that I thought she would have gone frantic, or that her violence would have ended in suffocation. She complained she could not breathe. “It’s here, it’s here,” she cried in extreme agitation, taking me by the throat to show me where, and giving me such a squeeze, that now, when I am writing, twenty-four hours after, I feel it still. I tried in vain to calm her impatience. I sent off a servant on horseback to hurry the secretary back, but he did not appear, and the day, until about four o’clock, was passed in this manner.
To account for this extraordinary agitation, it must again be observed that, at the recurrence of the period of each steamboat’s arrival at Beyrout, Lady Hester anxiously expected an answer to her letter to Sir Francis Burdett; for it was on the strength of this property supposed to have been left her that she had intimated to some of her creditors her expectation of being soon enabled to satisfy all their demands. It was in reliance on this, too, that she had invited me to come over. And not doubting in the least the truth of the information secretly conveyed to her by some one of her friends, it may be supposed that a packet to be delivered into nobody’s hands but her own was readily conjectured to relate to this business.
About four o’clock, Mr. Abella, the English agent, his son, and the servant, made their appearance. The secretary was called in. “Tell your father I shall not see him; and, doctor, go and take the letter, and bring it to me,” was Lady Hester’s exclamation. I went to Mr. Abella, but found him determined not to part with it, unless he gave it into Lady Hester’s own hand. I urged upon him the impossibility of his doing so, as she had seen nobody for some weeks; at last, on his still persisting, we became somewhat warm on the matter. This was better than going to Lady Hester to ask her what was to be done; for her answer probably would have been to desire two of her stoutest Turks to go with sticks, and take it from him by force. At last, Mr. Abella gave up his trust, upon condition that I would write a paper representing that he had done it forcibly; in such a fright was he lest Mr. Moore should turn him out of his place.
Instead of being an answer from Sir Francis Burdett, the letter was from Colonel Campbell, signifying that, in consequence of an application made to the English government, by Mâalem Homsy, one of Lady Hester Stanhope’s creditors, an order had come from Lord Palmerston to stop her pension, unless the debt was paid.
It might have been supposed that the double disappointment of not hearing from Sir Francis Burdett and of receiving such a missive from Colonel Campbell would have considerably increased her anger: but, on the contrary, she grew apparently quite calm, gently placed the letter on the bed, and read the contents:—
Colonel P. Campbell, Her Majesty’s Consul-general for
Egypt and Syria, to Lady Hester Stanhope.