In fact, old Pierre was a regular spy, who, residing at Dayr el Kamar, was sent for from time to time to give an account of the visits of travellers to the Emir, of their reception, and what they talked about. He was not intentionally a spy; but, from his natural garrulity, he always recounted what he had heard, merely to please her ladyship, whom he knew to be very fond of such gossip.

Lady Hester pursued her discourse, and asked me if all the people now wore white gloves as the prince did. “It must be,” she observed, “very expensive: they can’t do with less than two pair a-day, which, at half-a-crown a pair, is about £70 a-year. I calculate it thus:—7s. 6d. in three days, 15s. in six, or one week, and 60s. in a month:—that, with the odd days left out in each week, will make about £70.[17]

“It is very odd,” she observed after a pause, “that all those who write books say that I shake hands with them: now, you know very well that I never do, and that it is quite contrary to my manner—what can be the reason of their saying so?” “But the Americans,” I rejoined. “Oh!” cried she, “as for the Americans, it was quite ridiculous. When the whole posse of sixteen came with Commodore ——, I thought they would have torn my arm off: not a simple shake, but” (and here she imitated their rough way of doing it) “such as draymen would give. There were the Commodore’s daughters too—rather pretty girls, but ill dressed—something like Miss Williams; one with a beautiful set of teeth, which she showed, gums and all: but their clothes hung about them—you know how I mean. They wanted to appear rather clever, talking about the Sultan and his favourite, and having all the Turkish names at their tongues’ ends. I don’t know whether he talked to them, but I think he did: just, you know, speaking to the father, and then saying, ‘Are these your daughters?’—in that way. As for the Sultan’s favourite, he is a man to talk to anybody, and laugh in his sleeve.”

Logmagi had come up, his new house being finished, which Lady Hester had partly built, and nearly furnished at her expense. “Now,” she said, “I shall send him a voyage to sea, that he may do something for himself—perhaps to Constantinople.” In my own mind I conceived this to be some plan she had in contemplation for getting news from that city, or to send persons there, or to get somebody back—God knows what! All that could be conjectured on such occasions was, that there was something in the wind; but foolish was he who troubled himself in divining what it was; he was sure to be wide of the mark. Mystery and secresy were ever necessary to her nature. Her plans were generally executed in the cause of humanity, and with the most disinterested feelings: sometimes they were political, and then might be viewed in different lights, according to the party or school in which men had been bred; but her tendency for masking the most simple actions ran into excess. All the common events of Beyrout must be related to her with a mysterious air, as if nobody else was privy to them. Had I never seen anybody from day to day but her ladyship, I might have remained for months in ignorance of what was the town talk. If a dispute had happened among the military, if a governor had been deposed, if the Pasha had arrived, if a consul had died, all the every-day chat which, in other houses, is as common as the tea and coffee on the table—not one word of all this would you ever hear from her lips: she made a disguise for things which everybody must have known quite as well as herself.

Lady Hester told me the cats had eaten up her dinner. This reminds me that I have said nothing of the prodigious number of these animals, which had the run of her house and courtyards. I have counted as many as thirty old cats and kittens, without including those that haunted the store-rooms, the granaries, the outhouses, and the gardens. It was forbidden to molest them; and the consequence was, that neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, could be left for a moment on a table or a shelf, but half-a-dozen cats would be gnawing it or carrying it off. This was a trifling nuisance, however, in comparison with their caterwauling during their disputes, day and night, which was at once most overpowering and most ludicrous.

Lady Hester, before I left her, said, “You must write a letter to M. Guys, and tell him the Prince sent three times to the Emir Beshýr to say he was coming, and three times put it off again. The Emir will lay it upon me:—but you will see he will be as humble to the Prince; so humble! for I think the Prince has been instructed by Mahomet Ali to treat him like a dog.” She seemed to be reflecting a little while, and then resumed: “I don’t think Mahomet Ali is coming here, as the Prince told you he was: perhaps he has given out so, and will send that man, who, you know, resembles him so much; a figure he keeps to send out here and there, just to make his appearance and go again, to frighten people at certain places. He is so artful, doctor! he has tried to make savants of some of his women; he wanted some Madame de Staëls. There is no saying what pains he has taken to effect his purpose: I believe he would have been glad to have had me. But, as I said to the Prince, when he told me I ought to be on the throne of England, I would not be queen of England, nor of twenty Englands, if you could place me there:—all that is too low for me. I prefer my corner of the earth, with my own wild ideas, to being a shackled sovereign, with a pack of fools about me; and you may think it an odd speech to make, but such is the case,—I am now above mortification and above ambition. Those who have thought to mortify me have been much mistaken: have you ever seen me mortified?” To this question I was silent, at the time not distinguishing in my mind the difference between the indignation I had seen her manifest at the neglect and baseness of some persons and the assumption of some supposed superiority, which is quite a separate ebullition of feeling. “If you have,” she repeated, “say so:” then, reverting to Mahomet Ali, she went on: “The viceroy is such a sharp man, doctor. Once he wanted to find out how the women in his harým conducted themselves, and he used to dress himself as a common soldier, and, going to some of the tiptop pimps of Cairo, he would say to them, ‘I should like to get into such a house,’ naming some merchant or aga’s; ‘I am but a common man, but I have had the luck to find a treasure, and can pay you well for your pains. Here is a large gold coin for you; it’s ancient, and will not pass—but you can get it melted down. I have many like it, and you shan’t want cash, if you will but introduce me into one or two houses that I shall point out.’ By degrees, he would talk of the viceroy’s harým, and so at last he would obtain information, and find out who were the faithless and intriguing ones among his own women. What he did with them I don’t know, but he had twelve of the pimps thrown into the Nile.

“But now, doctor, I see you are drowsy, so go to bed and sleep, and then get up, and eat, and walk, and ride, if those are the great pursuits of life. If I die, I die; and if I live (as I think I shall yet), and even if I am reduced to walk about in an old sack, so that God but gives me strength enough to wear it, I shall be perfectly contented. You have not profited by my advice; but at least I have done my duty; so, good night.”

After that she, as usual, resumed the conversation for an hour: but who could write down all she said? nay, it were better, perhaps, that even the little I have recorded should have died with her, and have never met the public eye: for, in endeavouring to rescue her memory from the many unjust imputations cast upon her actions during life, I may unwittingly have entailed much odium, trouble, and reproach upon myself.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] All these are one and the same day in the corresponding months of the Syrian, Christian, Turkish, and European calendars.