Chapter II: Mediterranean Yachting

ON a beautiful spring morning a frigate cast anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar. Lady Hester disembarked with a young lady companion, Miss Williams, who had been a long time in the service of the family, an English lady's-maid, Anne Fry, a German cook and innumerable trunks. Everyone was lodged, including the brother, at the Convent, the residence of the Governor, Lieutenant-General Campbell. Mr. Sutton and the doctor were obliged to find lodgings elsewhere.

Spain was then almost entirely in the hands of the French, and it was by no means prudent to go far from the fort. Rides on horseback could not be indulged in except on the narrow isthmus which connected the fort with the shore, sandy ground, which was, besides, excellent for a gallop. The travellers also visited the fortifications. The most content in the matter was Dr. Meryon. Consider, then, the weather was fine, the weather was warm, the trees were green and the flowers in bud, and one was able to bathe every day in the tepid sea, which, for an Englishman, is important. And it was only by the merest chance that he had not remained in England! In truth--if the weather had not been icy-cold; if he had not missed the coach; if he had not run along the Oxford road to overtake it; if he had not mounted the coach heated from his exertions; if he had not caught cold; if he had not returned to London; if Cline, the surgeon's son, had not come to see him; if he had not spoken to him of the proposal of Lady Hester Stanhope, who was in search of a doctor, he would be at that moment in the damp meadows of Oxford, coughing and growing musty! You see how destiny is sometimes affected by a few glasses of ale! And the doctor, who was a philosopher, took bathe upon bathe with delight. There were some slight inconveniences in living on this isolated rock: the meat was tough and bony, and vegetables were lacking. On the other hand, there was plenty of wine, but it was bad, which did not prevent the servants from being always drunk.

Lady Hester did she regard this halt as a pilgrimage? In Spanish soil slept her brother, Major Charles Stanhope, and her friend, General Sir John Moore, killed scarcely a year earlier, in that terrible battle of Coruña. General Moore was one of those fine types of officer which fascinate energetic and enterprising women, combining in some fashion their dream of heroism and virility. Very handsome in his person, tall and admirably made, the features of the face attaining a perfection which had nothing of insipidity about them, he had fulfilled the promises which he gave at the age of thirteen, when his father wrote:

"He is truly a handsome boy; he dances, rides on horseback, fences with extraordinary skill. He draws capably, speaks and writes French very well and has serious notions of geography, arithmetic and geometry.... He is continually showing me how Geneva can be taken."

The Moores were then at Geneva, which the young man was soon to leave to travel in France, Germany and Italy. He continued to perfect his education; the first part permitted him to render himself agreeable to women, the second aided him in his career as an officer, at any rate it is to be hoped that it did. The knowledge of French was useful to both. The profession of arms was at that time a very attractive one, for England was in the midst of the American War, while the more serious wars of the Revolution and Empire were to follow. There was promotion to be won and no time to stagnate in garrison towns. Young Ensign Moore took part in all the fêtes and journeyed across the world. For an intelligent lad to see the country is never a disagreeable thing. We find him at Minorca in 1776, then in America in 1779. He takes part in the famous Corsican expedition by the side of Paoli. He is sent to San Lucia, commands a brigade at the Helder under the orders of Abercromby, returns to Minorca, goes to Malta, takes part in the Egyptian campaign, is very nearly going to the Indies and in 1808 is finally appointed commander-in-chief of the troops in Spain. Accidents by the way were not lacking. He was wounded so often that his friends surnamed him the "unlucky one."

In his last campaign it seems that ill-luck, indeed, pursued him. Moore relied confidently on the resistance of the Spaniards in Madrid and was in entire ignorance of the negotiations of Prince Castelfranco and Don Thomas Morla to surrender the town. The admirable English army, 29,000 strong, was concentrated at Toro and the infantry was within two hours' march of the French, when a letter, intercepted by chance, suddenly informed him that Napoleon had made his entry into Madrid no less than three weeks earlier. Then began that magnificent retreat, in the depth of winter, over 250 miles of difficult and hilly country. Hard pressed by the enemy, the exhausted English army reached Coruña on January 16. The embarkation was hurried on, but the enemy was already descending from the heights in serried columns. Lord Bentinck's brigade sustained the shock. Moore was justly applauding an heroic charge of the 50th, under the orders of Majors Napier and Stanhope, when a bullet struck him and shattered his shoulder. He lived until the evening. His soldiers buried him as dawn was breaking, on a gloomy January day, and while they were digging the grave with their bayonets the enemy's cannon began to growl again, as if to render funeral honours to the dead.

Moore was certainly not an ordinary officer. "His abilities and his coolness," said Napoleon of him, "alone saved the English army of Spain from destruction. He was a brave soldier, an excellent officer and a man of valour. He committed some faults which were no doubt inseparable from the difficulties in the midst of which he was struggling and occasioned perhaps by the mistakes of his intelligence service." In the mouth of Napoleon, rather sparing of praise, is not this the finest military eulogium?

What Lady Hester did not perhaps know is that her hero, during a mission in Sicily, had nearly married Miss Caroline Fox, the daughter of General Henry Edward Fox. He had been prevented by a chivalrous sentiment in thinking of the difference of age which existed between the young girl and himself. And also, to be candid, by the fear of being indebted to his high position for a heart which he aspired to owe only to himself. Singular scruple when we reflect that the general was then forty-five years old!

Would Lady Hester have continued to wear the miniature of the brilliant officer and to drag it with her in her peregrinations across the Orient, if she had been acquainted with this trifling detail? It is probable that she did not lack kind lady friends too happy to furnish her with abundant information on this subject. But General Moore was dead, and survivors have a tendency to idealise those who are no longer there to contradict them....

Soon Captain Stanhope received orders to rejoin his regiment. Mr. Sutton left for Minorca, whither his affairs called him. Lady Hester, tired of garrison life, took advantage of the offer which was made her by Captain Whitby, commander of the _Cerberus_, to convey her to Malta. Her departure took place on April 7.

A fortnight later Lady Hester disembarked at Valetta. She was expected at Malta, and several notabilities solicited the honour of entertaining her. She chose the house of Mr. Fernandez, the commissary-general. The town presented an agreeable prospect with its wide streets intersecting one another at right angles and the low houses with their flat roofs.

The doctor found life good; well lodged, well fed, he appreciated the daily fare. Meals allowed three complete services and five to ten different wines, and were followed by coffee and liqueurs, as in France.

He wandered, amused, across Valetta, followed by a troupe of naked and dusty children, jostled by the Maltese, whose woolly hair, olive skin and flat noses caused him to dream already of barbarian countries, passing the women with their shawls of black silk placed on the head, descending in graceful folds, which enveloped the body and half-veiled the face. Little, at least they appeared so to him, for daily life with Lady Hester was obliged to distort a little the accurate computation of figures, their feet and hands admirable, he compared them _in petto_, in taking away their necklaces, bracelets and chains with which they were overloaded, to little English serving-maids, without any offensive intention on his part, but because he could not find, in his national pride, a better comparison to express the admiration with which their plump arms and their full figures inspired him.

He walked also in the magnificent Cathedral of San Giovanni, whose pavement in mosaics of glistening colours gave him the illusion of walking on the pictures from the gallery of the Louvre taken from their frames and sewn together. And then what fêtes! So long as Lord Bute was Governor of the island the doctor had to stand aside. Constantly Lady Hester said to him: "Doctor, I am dining this evening with Lord Bute; you are not invited, but do not regret that, for he is a haughty man who does not like doctors and tutors to open their mouths before he addresses them. Also take advantage of my absence to invite whomever you like to dine with you; I have given orders to Franz (the German cook)."

At the end of May, this Governor who had such bad taste was recalled, and General Oakes, who succeeded him, was a very worthy gentleman. Never will the doctor see again such brilliant receptions.... Malta was then the fashion; the Neapolitan nobility, which had refused to recognise the usurper Murat, had flowed back there _en masse_, and the English, always travelling, and to whom the Continental blockade, in closing Europe to them, had given a revival of restlessness, had no choice and preferred still the mild climate of Valetta to the London fog so much vaunted.

There were every day dinners of sixty covers at the Governor's palace. The thousands of candles which the silver cressets and the chased candelabra supported did not succeed in lighting the monumental staircase; they illuminated the line of salons, plunged into the depths of the hall, lingered over the faded brocades and the old tapestries, glided over the waves of the mural frescoes representing a naval combat between the Christian Knights and the Moors, caressed the dark tresses of the beautiful Neapolitan ladies, flashed on the laced uniforms of the English officers of the garrison, played on the gala costumes, magnificent and strange, of the Greek and Levantine Navy, to glitter finally on the blonde hair of Lady Hester Stanhope, whose haughty head dominated this picturesque medley of races. At the supper which followed the ball, a table was arranged on a dais, which reminded the doctor of Oxford University.... But what a difference! One evening did he not accompany a lady of high and authentic rank, and, sitting by her, did he not find himself separated from the Governor, who was flanked on the right by the Duchesse of Pienna and on the left by Lady Hester, by the width of the table, not by the length--the width you must clearly understand? And with a score of lords, dukes, marquises and counts all around!

The summer came. Lady Hester accepted the kind offer of General Oakes, who placed at her disposal the Palazzo San Antonio, a few miles from Valetta. The palace was a large building, flanked by a tower simulating a belfry. The interior was spacious and well ventilated, but the total absence of rugs and carpets, in order to keep it cool, gave the doctor the impression of being always on the floor of the kitchen.

What was wonderful there were the gardens. The place recalled that of the Orangery at Versailles, but never will the most assiduous care be able, in the French climate, to obtain orange-trees, lemon-trees and pomegranate-trees so vigorous and so beautiful. What magnificent shooting of the sap towards the sun, expanding in domes of glistening leaves, in flowers of purple, in fruits of gold! Double oleanders, of the shape of hazel-trees, diffused their bitter and sharp odour. Hedges of myrtle ten feet high separated thickets of giant roses and bound a terrace, forming a colonnade where the vine suspended itself in arches and mingled its ripe grapes with the green branches.

Many foreigners and English people touched at Malta; amongst them Mr. Michael Bruce, the bold Colonel Bruce who, with the assistance of Sir Robert Wilson and Mr. Hutchinson, had succeeded in contriving the escape of Lavalette, on the eve of his execution, and in enabling him to cross the frontier. Learning that Lady Stanhope's brother had been recalled by his military duties, he resolved to take his place near her and to accompany her throughout the perilous journey which she had resolved to undertake across European and Asiatic Turkey. Sweet solicitude!

Soon the heat became infernal. They were in the month of August, and the thermometer registered 85 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. Lady Hester, who had lost appetite and suffered from acute indigestion, decided to go to Constantinople, the only corner of Europe accessible to the English. Sicily, which had for a moment attracted her, was threatened by an invasion of Murat.

Not being able to obtain a King's ship, an American brig, the _Belle-Poule_, was hired to cross the Ionian Sea. Miss Williams remained at Malta with her sister, who was married to a commissariat officer.

The travellers touched at the Isle of Zante, the flower of the Levant, the golden isle, which the English had conquered the previous year at the same time as Ithaca, Cerigo and Cephalonia. What an enchanting vision greeted them on entering the harbour! On the right, at the foot of a wooded mountain, lay the white houses of a delicious little town hidden in the olive woods of a light and vaporish grey; and tall and sombre cypress-trees climbed across the fields of wild vine to the assault of the citadel which dominated and completed this dream landscape. It was the time of the raisin harvest, and women with faces much painted, a layer of white about their lips, were drying the grapes in the warm sun of the Orient which blackens the skins, swollen with juice, in a few days.

One ought not to remain too long in too beautiful countries. Their complete perfection produces insensibly an ennui which paralyses and a depression of the mind which leads too quickly to yawning admiration, then to torpor. It is perhaps for that reason that the great artists, the great workers, those who produce and struggle, avoid the enchanted lands of the South, where beauty is an easy conquest within the reach of all. Lady Hester, who cared only for action, stayed a fortnight at Zante; and on August 23 a felucca brought her to Patras. There she was rejoined by the Marquis of Sligo, whose yacht was wandering across the Mediterranean. The marquis joined himself as well to the expedition. Yet a new bodyguard!

At Corinth, Lady Stanhope received a visit from the Bey's harem. The interpreter begged the men to retire, but Lord Sligo, Bruce and the doctor thought that now or never was their opportunity to admire the Turkish beauties to the life. A bey, whose will was law throughout the province, ought not to choose ugly women to beguile his hours of leisure. They concealed themselves, therefore, behind a wainscot whose kind crevices permitted them to see without being seen.

The women, placed at their ease by Lady Hester's kind reception, began soon to unveil and to throw off their ferigees. Some were pretty and stretched themselves on the sofa in studied attitudes. They communicated with Lady Hester by signs and gestures. Intrigued by her strange garments, they began to discuss in detail the different parts of her costume and to compare them with their own, curious to understand European lingerie. Unaware that they were spied upon by the men's eyes, they uncovered their feet bare to the heel, reddened by henna, and their white bosoms which the Turkish robes, loose at the neck and shoulder, allowed one to see. They quickly became familiar, their gestures, in default of words, were more expressive. Lady Stanhope was very embarrassed at the disagreeable situation in which the curiosity of her friends had placed her. To extricate her in time from this difficulty and judging that they had seen enough, they gave vent to stifled laughter. Instantly, as though struck by an electric shock, the young women resumed their veils over their ferigees, their gaiety fled away and they imperiously demanded, by signs, the explanation of these mysterious sounds. This time it was the position of Sligo, Bruce and Meryon which was critical; if the bey came to learn of the adventure, his vengeance would not tarry. Lady Hester, with great sang-froid, reassured the women and succeeded in pacifying them; but, soon afterwards, they rose to depart, thinking, without any doubt, that it was better to be silent and not to draw upon themselves the suspicion of their lord and master, jealous like every self-respecting Turk.

Having passed the Isthmus of Corinth on horseback, Lady Hester and her suite, which amounted to twenty-five persons--Lord Sligo having for his share: a Tartar, two Albanians, with their yataghans by their sides, a dragoman, a Turkish cook, an artist to sketch picturesque scenery and costumes (the photographer of the time), and three English servants in livery and one without livery!--embarked at Kenkri for Athens.

The French consul at Janina, François Pouqueville, was looking forward to Lady Hester's visit.

"Greece is therefore now the country whither the English flock to cure the spleen," he writes on October 8, 1810. "One sees only mylords, princes, but what one would never have expected there is the '_mi-carême_,' yes, the '_mi-carême_.' She is a great lady of forty years and more, relative or aunt of Mr. Pitt, attacked by the twofold malady of antiquity and celebrity, who has appeared on the horizon. The said lady, guarded by a doctor and two lackeys, has debouched in the Morea. We are assured that she intends to make the pilgrimage to Thyrinth, where was that fountain into which Juno, the '_mi-carême_' of Olympus, used to descend every year to bathe and from which she used to emerge a maiden. From the lustral waters, our traveller will visit Thermopylæ, will make a survey of Pharsalia, where her great-grandfather beat Pompey, and will come like 'my aunt Aurore' to sentimentalise under the arbours of Tempea. I await her on the shores of Acherusia.[1] We shall see this Fate."

The gallant consul lost his time and money the "_mi-carême_" did not come to Janina.

On their arrival at the Piræus, the travellers saw a man who was flinging himself from the great mole into the sea. The exploits of Byron repeating Leander's achievement and crossing the Hellespont by swimming, had already come to their ears. Lord Sligo felt sure that he recognised him in this bold diver and hailed him. Byron, for it was indeed he, dressed in haste and soon came to join them. He even lent his horses to go to Athens to find means of transport in order to fetch Lady Hester and his numerous trunks.

Having nothing to do, Bruce and the doctor tried to enter into relations with a band of young veiled Turkish girls seated on the beach. The latter, scared, took to flight, and Bruce, who had not learned enough from his recent experience, made many signs to them to induce them to remain. Some Turks who were lounging about the jetty muttered threats against this enterprising Frank. He narrowly escaped getting into mischief.

At Athens, Lady Hester, who was an excellent organiser of comfort, transformed in a few hours her temporary house into a pleasant home, where every evening an agreeable little company assembled.

Byron, who had been at college with Sligo and Bruce, was amongst the number; but finding the manners of the hostess too despotic, he soon grew tired. He pleaded urgent business in the Morea and did not reappear until a few days before his departure. It is always disagreeable for those who have fled from their country to meet their compatriots again. It diminishes the consideration of the inhabitants, above all when these new-comers possess illustrious rank, originality and eccentricity. Lady Hester and Byron could compete on these three points, and this accidental occurrence of what an Englishman hates the most in the world, to be acquainted with another travelling Englishman, was not calculated to establish a sympathetic intercourse.

On Byron's side, the affair was complicated by wounded masculine vanity. Anxious to excess concerning its beauty and its harmony, he suffered enormously from his constant lameness. And now chance was giving him as a rival a woman redoubtable, astonishingly attractive, notwithstanding that she had a figure like a grenadier, and possessing two feet superbly arched and of equal size, which did not allow themselves to be easily forgotten! Men have never cared to meet superior women, even in the size of their shoes.

Lady Hester, who prided herself upon being a physiognomist, considered his eyes defective; the only thing that pleased her was the ringlet on his forehead. For Byron, accustomed to other conquests, this was indeed little. As for the poet, "it is easy enough to write verses," confided he to the doctor, "and as to the matter of ideas, God knows where you find them! You pick up some old books which no one knows and borrow what is inside." The man of the world and the man of letters having been united in a general reprobation, Byron made the best of the situation: that is to say, by separating without delay from this Britannic Juno.

The doctor less stern, saw Byron more often. He remarked his singular manner of entering a drawing-room, making skilful détours from chair to chair, so far as that which he had chosen, anxious to conceal his lameness, which this manœuvre, after all, made the more apparent. Byron exploited this admiration in persuading the doctor to attend a young Greek girl in whom he was greatly interested.

[Footnote 1: Ancient name of the Lake of Janina.]