In January, 1886, just as she was leaving London, she received a telegram from her husband saying that there was cholera at Gibraltar, and she could get no quarantine there, and would not be allowed to land. But she was not a woman to be stopped; so she at once telegraphed to Sir John Ayde, who was then commanding Gibraltar, and asked if he would allow a Government boat to take her off the P. & O. and put her straight on the Morocco boat. He telegraphed back, “Yes,” whereat she rejoiced greatly, as she wanted especially to reach her husband in time for them to celebrate their Silver Wedding together. When she arrived at Gibraltar, Burton, who was staying there, came off in a boat to meet her, and they called together on Sir John Ayde to thank him for his kindness. A few days later the news came to them that the Government had at last recognized Burton’s public services. It came in the form of a telegram addressed to “Sir Richard Burton.” Isabel says: “He tossed it over to me, and said, ‘Some fellow is playing me a practical joke, or else it is not for me. I shall not open it, so you may as well ring the bell and give it back again.’” His wife said, “Oh no; I shall open it if you don’t.” So it was opened. It was from Lord Salisbury, conveying in the kindest terms that the Queen, at his recommendation, had made him K.C.M.G. in reward for his services. He looked very serious and quite uncomfortable, and said, “Oh, I shall not accept it.” She said, “You had better accept it, Jemmy, because it is a certain sign that they are going to give you the place—Tangiers, Morocco.”
There is only one thing to be said about this honour—it came too late. Too late for him, because he had never at any time cared much for these things. “Honour, not honours” was his motto; and now the recognition of his services, which might have been a great encouragement ten or fifteen years earlier, and have spurred him on to fresh efforts, found him broken by sickness, and with life’s zest to a great extent gone. Too late for her, because her only pleasure in these things was that they reflected credit upon her husband; and if he did not appreciate them, she did not care. Yet of course she was glad that at last there had come some return for her unceasing efforts, and some admission, though tardy, of the services which her husband had rendered. It was a sign too that the prejudice against him in certain quarters was at last lived down. She wrote to a friend[35]:
“You will have seen from the papers, and I know what pleasure it will give you, that the Conservatives on going out made Dick Sir Richard Burton, K.C.M.G.... The Queen’s recognition of Dick’s forty-four years of service was sweetly done at last, sent for our Silver Wedding, and she told a friend of mine that she was pleased to confer something that would include both husband and wife.”
The Burtons crossed over to Morocco from Gibraltar in a flat-bottomed cattle-tug, only fit for a river; and as the sea was exceedingly heavy, and the machinery had stopped, the sailors said for want of oil, the seas washed right over the boat, and the passage was prolonged from two hours to five. They made many excursions round about Tangiers; but on the whole they were disappointed with Morocco. They disliked Tangiers itself, and the Consulate seemed to them a miserable little house after their palazzo at Trieste. Lady Burton had expected to find Tangiers a second Damascus; but in this she was sorely disappointed. She wrote to a friend from there, “Trieste will seem like Paris after it. It has none of the romance or barbaric splendour of Damascus. Nevertheless,” she says, “I would willingly have lived there, and put out all my best capabilities, if my husband could have got the place he wanted, and for which I had employed every bit of interest on his side and mine to obtain.” They received a great deal of hospitality in Tangiers, and inspected the place and the natives thoroughly. Most of the people looked forward to welcoming them.
On their departure they went to Genoa, which they reached after a rough voyage, and thence they proceeded by easy stages to Trieste. Lady Burton arrived home alone at ten o’clock in the evening; and as she was accustomed to be met by a crowd of friends on her return, she was surprised to find no one to meet her. When she got to the house, their absence was explained. Three telegrams were handed to her. The first was, “Father very ill; can you come?”; the second was, “Father died to-day”; the third, “Father buried to-day at Mortlake.” As her friends were unaware of her address the telegrams had not been forwarded, and they had kept away, so as not to intrude on her grief. The blow was not altogether unexpected, for Mr. Arundell had been ill for some time; but it was none the less severe, for she had always been devotedly attached to her father, and his house had been made a rallying-point for them when they were wont to return home.
They remained at Trieste three months, during which time the English colony presented them with a silver cup and congratulations on their hardly earned honours. Then, as Burton had to consult a particular manuscript which would supply two volumes of his “Supplemental” Arabian Nights, they left again for England. On their return to London they took up their work where they had left it a few months before. In July they had the mortification of finding that Lord Rosebery had given away the coveted post of Morocco, which had been as good as promised to them by Lord Salisbury, to some one else. It was during their few months’ absence from England that the change of Government had taken place, and Lord Salisbury’s brief-lived Administration of 1886 had yielded place to a Liberal Government. Such are the vicissitudes of official life. Had Lord Salisbury been in office, Sir Richard would probably have got Morocco. It was perhaps all for the best that he did not get the post, although it was a sore disappointment to them at the time. Even Lady Burton came to take this view. She writes: “I sometimes now think that it was better so, and that he would not have lived so long had he had it, for he was decidedly breaking up. The climate did not appear to be the one that suited him, and the anxiety and responsibilities of the post might have hurried on the catastrophe.... It was for the honour of the thing, and we saw for ourselves how uneasy a crown it would be.”
Perhaps there was another reason too, for when Lady Burton remonstrated a Minister wrote to her in friendly chaff: “We don’t want to annex Morocco, and we know that you two would be Emperor and Empress in about six months.” This was an evident allusion to the part which they had played during their brief reign at Damascus. At Trieste there was no room for the eagles to soar; their wings were clipped.
Seeing that the last hope was over, and the one post which Sir Richard Burton had coveted as the crown of his career was denied to him, his wife set to work to induce the Government to allow him to retire on his pension four years before his time. She had good grounds for making this request, for his health was breaking, and this last disappointment about Morocco seemed to have broken him even more. When he told her that it was given to another man, he said, “There is no room for me now, and I do not want anything; but I have worked forty-four years for nothing. I am breaking up, and I want to go free.” So she at once set to work to draw up what she called “The Last Appeal,” enumerating the services which her husband had rendered to his country, and canvassing her friends to obtain the pension. The petition was backed as usual by forty-seven or fifty big names, who actively exerted themselves in the matter. It was refused, notwithstanding that public feeling and the press seemed unanimously in favour of its being granted. The ground on which it was refused, apparently, was that it was contrary to precedent, and that it was not usual; but then the case was altogether an unusual one, and Sir Richard Burton was altogether an unusual man. Even supposing that there had been a difficulty about giving him the full Consular pension, it would have been easy for the Government, if they had been so minded, to have made up to him the sum—only a few hundred pounds a year—from the Civil List, on the ground of his literary and linguistic labours and services. It should be added that this petition was refused both by Liberal and Conservative Governments, for Lord Salisbury’s second Administration came into office before the Burtons left England. But there was this difference: whereas Lord Rosebery reprimanded Burton for his frequent absence from his post, Lord Salisbury was very indulgent in the matter of leave. He recognized that Burton’s was an exceptional case, and gave him exceptional privileges.
LADY BURTON IN 1887.