When I paid my morning visit, Lady Hester held out her hand to me the moment I approached her bedside. “I said too much last night,” she observed; “think no more about it, doctor; but you know my irritability, and you must bear with it.” She was pale, languid, and extenuated: her hands and arms were jerked in convulsive flings. Strong electrical shocks could not have shaken her so much. Alas! I sympathised too deeply with her wrongs not to forget all her ebullitions of anger the moment they were over.
When she found herself a little easier, she asked me to explain to her Julius Cæsar’s calendar, which she had on some occasion lighted on in Ainsworth’s dictionary. “When I was a girl,” said she, “I knew all the constellations in the heavens, and was so quick at astronomy, that they took my books and maps away, fearing I should give myself up to it, to the neglect of my other studies. I had it all before my eyes, just like a pocket-handkerchief. What day are the ides of March?” I told her. “I think,” she continued, “the word Ides must be derived from âayd, [Arabic: عيد].” I guessed at once what was passing in her mind. It was an illusion with her that her destiny and Cæsar’s, or her character and his, had some resemblance: and, when she mentioned Brutus-wigs in her letter to Colonel Campbell, it had a reference to the stabs they were giving her from England in depriving her of her pension, and putting insults upon her.
She was deeply wounded in her pride by the treatment she had received from home. “The Queen,” she would say, “should have desired her ministers to write to me, and say, ‘It grieves me that you should have exceeded your income, and incurred debts, which you know, when complaints are made to me, I cannot countenance; endeavour to pay them by instalments, and all may yet be well,’ or something to that effect— * * * * * * But no! she shall have my pension, and, if they make me a bankrupt, why, let them pay the usurers themselves.”
February 9.—I did not see Lady Hester the whole of the preceding day: she had sent me a message to say she did not wish to trouble me. I attributed this to the state of the weather; for the wind was high, the atmosphere wet and cold, and everything about the residence uncomfortable. To go from my house to Lady Hester’s, I was obliged to wear high wooden clogs and a thick Greek capote with a hood to it. Umbrellas, from the gusts of wind, were out of the question. The ground was like soap. But it was not the weather that made her decline my visit: she had been closeted with a doctor of the country from Dayr el Kamar, the son of that Metta of whom mention has been made in a former part of these pages as having bequeathed his family as a legacy to her. He was come, as it was supposed, to give his opinion on her case. I took no umbrage at this. Lady Hester and I differed toto cœlo on medical points; and she told me very often, after discussions of this sort, that she had invited me to come this time, not as her physician, but as a friend; one in whom she had confidence to settle her debts.
The muleteers had been sent on the 7th of February to Mar Elias, to bring away the effects which had been lying there, rotting and spoiling, since Miss Williams’s death. I accompanied them to superintend the moving, as also to pay a visit to General Loustaunau. Heavens! what waste was I witness to! In one closet was a beautiful wax miniature of Mr. Pitt, a portrait of the Duke of York, some other pictures, stationery, glass, china, medicines, &c., enough for a family. In one room were carpets, cushions, counterpanes, mattresses, pillows, all completely destroyed by mould and damp. In a store-room were large japan canisters with tea, preserves, sugar, wine, lamps, &c. From another room, (the roof of which had fallen in at the time of the great earthquake,) had disappeared, according to Lady Hester’s account, 3 cwt. of copper utensils, in cauldrons, boilers, saucepans, kettles, round platters, called sennéyah, and many other things. A leather portmanteau lay with the lock cut out; a trunk had its hinges wrenched off; and both were emptied of their contents. Everywhere proofs of pillage were manifest, and the village of Abra was notoriously thriving by it. For ten years this plundering system had been going on, and yet what still remained would have almost filled a house. Among other things were papers and boxes of seeds, roots, dried plants, and a variety of such matters, which Lady Hester had collected: “for,” she would say, “the importance of people’s pursuits is judged in a different way by different individuals. For example, Sir Joseph Banks would think I had done wonders if I found a spider that had two more joints than another in his hind-leg; and Sir Abraham Hume would embrace me if I had got a coin not in his collection; but I have hoarded up something for everybody. And yet, whether I have done good for humanity or for science, those English give me credit for nothing, and never even once ask how I got into debt.”
February 10.—I spent four hours with Lady Hester Stanhope this evening. She was very ill, and greatly convulsed during the greater part of the time:—she moaned a good deal—yet, in the intervals of ease that she got, she had two baskets of good things packed up as a present to an old French widow, and two for an infirm old man, her pensioner, residing at Sayda.
Monday, February 13.—Lady Hester to-day dictated the following letter to Sir Edward Sugden:—
Lady Hester Stanhope to Sir Edward Sugden.
Jôon, February 12, 1838.
Sir,