When I told her of all this, and suggested that it would be better to give them to her poor pensioners, she said—“Such things never cause me a moment’s thought: I would rather they should have been used to some good purpose; but, if I have got such rascals about me, why, let the things all rot, sooner than that they should profit by them. Money can replace all that; and, if God sends me money, I will do so; if he does not, he knows best what should be: and it would not give me a moment’s sorrow to lie down in a cottage with only rags enough to keep me warm. I would not, even then, change places with Lord Grosvenor, the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Buckingham, or any of them: they can’t do what I can; so of what use are all their riches? I have seen some of them make such a fuss about the loss of a ten guinea ring or some such bauble:—not that they cared for it, but they could not bear to lose it. But if I want to know what is passing at Constantinople, or London, or anywhere, I have nothing to do but to turn my thoughts that way, and in a quarter of an hour I have it all before me, just as it is; so true, doctor, that if it is not actually passing, it will be in a month, in three months—so true: isn’t it extraordinary?”...

Upon some occasions, her munificence wore the appearance of ostentation. She would bestow on strangers, like dervises, sheykhs, and fakyrs, large sums of money, and yet drive hard bargains with those about her neighbourhood; and would sometimes make presents, apparently not so much to comfort those who received them as to display her own superiority and greatness over others.

I have said, in a preceding chapter, that she used to give new suits of clothes to her people on Byràm day, and at Easter, according to their religion: but it should be mentioned that, on those days, every servant was called in, and received forty piasters; and one thousand piasters were divided by Logmagi among the persons in Sayda who in any way were occasionally useful to her or her people. These were the porter of the French khan and the janissary there; the porters of the town-gate; the harbour-master; the gardener who supplied vegetables; the fisherman who sent her choice fish, &c. Two hundred piasters were paid annually to old Jacob, a tailor; fifty here and there to the imàms of particular mosques; as much to the mistress of the bath to which she sent her maids to be washed. Mr. Loustaunau generally had about five hundred piasters a quarter. Of many of her benefactions I never knew anything. Had I kept a list of the sums which, besides these customary donations, she gave to the distressed, few would wonder that she was so beloved and so generally lamented. Thus, when the ferdy and miri, two onerous taxes, fell due, she commonly paid them for such of her servants as were burdened with families, or whose means were scanty: she did the same when unusual contributions were levied, as during the conscription. On the 8th of December, I find a note that I gave fifty piasters and a counterpane to a poor shepherd boy, labouring under anasarca from an indurated spleen, a most common complaint in the country, the effect of protracted agues; and eighty to an old man, who had some years before been her asackjee. To Logmagi mostly fell the distribution of all these sums, and it was only occasionally that I was the almoner to this truly noble and disinterested woman; else I should have been able to have cited more examples.

January 31.—Being Wednesday, it was a rule with Lady Hester Stanhope to shut herself up from Tuesday at sunset until the sunset of Wednesday, during which time she saw nobody, if she could avoid it, did no business, and always enjoined me to meddle in no affairs of hers during these twenty-four hours. Wednesday was an unlucky day with her, a dies nefastus. After sunset, I waited on her, and found her languid, moaning, and still visibly suffering from her yesterday’s exertion; for it appeared, although I had not seen her, that she had walked about her garden, forcing her strength so far as to deceive the gardeners, who had given out that she would soon be as well as ever; and this was what, no doubt, she aimed at, for the purpose of confounding the secretary.

Reminding her of the wish she had expressed to have Mrs. M.’s company, I now proposed that she, my daughter, and the governess, should sit with her by turns, suggesting that, by this means, much of the disagreeable service of the maids, whom she constantly complained of, might be dispensed with. But to this she answered, “No, doctor, it will not do: you must tell them how very much obliged to them I am for their kind offers and intentions, but that their presence will only be an embarrassment to me. You don’t consider the matter in its true point of view, as you never do anything. In the first place, it kills me to talk; I can’t fatigue myself by giving them information about the country, and be a Pococke: and, as for giving them good advice, the world is so turned topsy-turvy, that everything one says is lost on everybody. Then, as for being of any use to me, they could be of none: if I wanted anything, they don’t know where it is; and how are they to tell the nasty wretches, who only speak Arabic? Besides, I am not sure their nijems would suit me; and then they would do me more harm than good. Poor little Eugenia! I had thought that I might derive some consolation from looking on her innocent face whilst she sat working at my bedside; but some one told me her star perhaps would not agree with mine: is it so, doctor? I am like Mr. Pitt: he used to say, ‘I hear that man’s footsteps in the passage—I can’t bear it; do send him away to town, or to Putney:’ so it is with me. There was my grandfather, too—how he felt the effect of the peculiar star of those people who did not suit him!—he could bear nobody near him, when he was ill, but Lady Chatham, and an old woman who had been a sort of woman of the town: he sent all his children to Lyme Regis; and even his tutor, Mr. Wilson, he could not bear. I know the reason of it now, from my recollection of them, but I did not at the time. My grandfather was born under Mars and Venus; Lady Chatham was born under Venus, and so was the old woman, but both in different burges [houses]: and that is why their sympathies were the same.”

FOOTNOTES:

[19] The English consular agent at this time was Signor Abella, whose father was a Maltese: hence Mr. Abella was known as El Malty. The noble family of Testaferrata and Abella is the stock from which Signor Abella is descended; but in Turkey, Stemmata quid faciunt?

[20] At the word “again,” Lady Hester made the following remarks:—“He never addressed me on the subject, neither has any one else. Nearly two years ago, there was a report in the Bazar that my debts had been spoken of to the King; that my pension was to be seized; that I was to be put under consular jurisdiction; and a set of extravagant things that nobody ever heard the like; and certainly those who had ventured to charge themselves with such a message would have found that I was a cousin of Lord Camelford’s.

“Another version was, that the King talked very good sense upon the subject, and had taken my part, and had been much surprised that I had been so neglected by my family, to whom he said some sharp and unpleasant things. There the matter rested, and I heard no more of it, until Colonel Campbell’s letter.”

[21] Lady Hester means George III.