At night, on returning to the Dar, I was much surprised to see the same pauper sitting on the mustaby in front of the porter’s lodge. Logmagi was smoking his narkeely, and, seeing me stare at the man, observed, with a quiet air—“Here is a pretty fellow! come to offer himself as a cook; but I think he would hardly make a scullion: however, I suppose I must mention it to her felicity the Syt.” I immediately guessed the matter; he had been sent as a spy to the camp. This was Lady Hester’s way.
Her ladyship had now made up her mind to execute her threat of walling up her gateway. “You can be no longer of any use to me,” said she to me, “and therefore had better go as soon as you can, before the bad weather comes on. As for my health, I am as well, I dare say, as I shall be, and nothing that I can take of you European doctors will make me better; so don’t fidget yourself on my account. All that remains to do now is to fill up the few days you have left in doing some necessary things for me. Let me see—I must write to the Duke Maximilian, to Count Wilsensheim (and you too had better write to him, or to the baron, that they may not think you left me unprotected; for you know how apt people are to put bad constructions on everything)—and then there must be a letter to Prince Pückler Muskau, and one to Sir Francis Burdett, besides a short one to Mr. Moore. And then you must pay the servants, and send them away: but that we will talk about afterwards. I shall keep none but the two boys, a man to fetch water, the gardener, and the girls. But you had better go to Sayda, and see about a vessel for carrying you to Cyprus. I should not like you to sail from Beyrout; for those people will be only bothering you about my debts, and at present there is nothing to be said but what has been said already. You must send, too, for a mason to come and wall up the gateway.”
Tuesday, July 10.—I did not go to Sayda to see about a boat, for I was resolved not to leave Lady Hester unless she insisted on it. The morning was employed in writing the following letter to the Duke Maximilian:—
Jôon, July 10, 1838.
My Lord Duke,
As the period of my sufferings and humiliation is not yet over, it would be unseemly in me to draw upon myself such an honour as you intend me in sending your royal highness’s portrait. If it is a proof of your friendship for me, as I flatter myself in believing it to be, allow me, by the same title, to ask a favour of you, which I hope you will not consider too bold.
At no distant time the world will be convulsed with extraordinary phenomena and horrible scourges, which will bring about changes in everything: it is then that I ask permission to address your royal highness with that freedom I am known for, without fear of displeasing you. Ideas bought by painful experience, and knowledge picked up on a path covered with thorns, may perhaps, at a crisis which will be without example, prove useful to your royal highness.
I will not recall the painful recollection of a moment when a high fever obliged me to sacrifice the honour and pleasure of making your personal acquaintance.
Be pleased, my lord duke, to accept the assurance of my highest consideration and esteem, and my prayers that your royal highness will soon be restored to the bosom of your family.
Hester Lucy Stanhope.