LITMIR.BIZ

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dusk and by candlelight, and in some cases, let them see only her hands in the gloom?

      When Moore first arrived in Beirut, he had anticipated a cordial summons to the Chouf mountains. He was even disposed to do what he could to assist her with the horrible state of her financial affairs. Indeed, he opened the first letter from her with something approaching elation. Instead, he was stung by her reply, for she treated him like a peon. Her pension – granted by the King himself for her services to the country – was to be confiscated in order to pay her debts, a move that would render her worse than penniless.

      Her defiant letters – one to Lord Palmerston, another to the Duke of Wellington, and the last to Queen Victoria herself – were published in The Times. The latter was generally held to be, as one wag observed, ‘the letter to a Queen from a Queen’.

      But the Queen had other matters on her mind, including her own coronation. War appeared inevitable, with campaigns in both Afghanistan and China, and then there was the looming Eastern Question. She had no wish to indulge an old relic who had been a favourite of her grandfather’s and certainly not one who had made the mistake of addressing her with such familiarity.

      Many in England were sympathetic, especially those who had come to think rather fondly of Lady Hester as something of an institution, but mostly because her well-publicized exploits and grandiose foibles had never failed to provide amusement over the decades. Mothers would warn their daughters they must not be too headstrong or they too might end up as unfortunate a creature as Lady Hester Stanhope. She hardly set a proper example, even for young women wishing to broaden their horizons through travel. She was altogether an exotic from the Romantic era, which to current taste was overblown, dissolute and even vulgar. Simply put, for the Victorians, she was out of fashion.

      As they approached, Moore and Thomson were taken aback by the imposing appearance of the house. Two gateways with heavy wooden doors were flanked by high walls which encircled a residence of seemingly indeterminate size. There seemed no way to make their presence known, aside from hammering their fists first against one door, then the other. ‘No one met them: a profound silence was all over the place; they lighted their own lamps in the outer court.’² It seemed to the men that passages branched off in all directions. They had the sense of becoming trapped in a maze. As they went on there were glimpses of other inner courts and pavilions linked by vaulted arcades, as well as those along the route they took. One seemed particularly grand, sheltering a liwan, a hall open to the sky, lofty and gracious with rows of cushioned divans and a trellis of climbing roses and jasmine. Although this house was not as grand as the grandest Damascus mansion, it was something else entirely: whoever had created it had the soul of a magician. They also began to be aware of large numbers of restless cats beneath their feet, curling around their ankles and clinging to their boots. A young African woman appeared in the passageway, and made a gesture towards a thick red door.

      In a room with green walls, stripped of all furnishings, they found the body of Lady Hester.

      Moore was slight and handsome with a moustache and sidewhiskers which he kept neatly clipped, but which nonetheless he worried at constantly with his fingers when under strain, as he did now. For this event, he had been careful to wear a black armband and dress in sombre colours with a high stiff collar. ‘It was an intensely hot Sabbath,’ Thomson would record. The idea of a woman’s corpse lying here for over a day in such unbearable warmth made him nauseous. Sweat dripped from his temples and soaked his jacket. He did not wish to investigate further.

      Behind the men, a small tribe of servants had assembled. Decisive action was required. There had been thirty-seven servants in the fortress in the morning. They had watched ‘every motion of her eye’ until she died. Most had taken what they could and fled. Now, some ten or so remained. Moore noticed that many of the servants seemed to be wearing what he surmised to be cast-off robes and hats from the wardrobe of their mistress. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw that their ragged clothes were incongruously matched with brilliant velvet and brocade cloaks, red turbans, silk stockings and carpet slippers.

      By midnight the men had ascertained several facts. Although she had left no written instructions, it was clear that Lady Hester had managed to convey how she wished to be buried. At least five of her servants professed to be expert on the subject, and one in particular had apparently been entrusted with duties he had sworn on his life to carry out. This was her most trusted servant, Almaz – her dragoman – who combined the roles of translator, secretary, gardener and general factotum.

      They decided to do as she had apparently asked. Lady Hester was to be buried in a grave at a specified place in her garden, which already contained a vault, along with the bones of a Frenchman by the name of Loustaunau, who had been buried there before. ‘The vault in the garden was hastily opened and the bones of General Loustaneau [sic], or of his son, I forget which – a Frenchman who died here … were taken out’ and readied for burial.³ How he had died and why Her Ladyship commanded this posthumous mingling, which Moore regarded as immoral, it was difficult to say. Such an indelicate request on the part of this spinster might be best left out of his report.⁴ He would have to decide whether or not it would be necessary to mention this detail when he informed the ladyship’s younger brother. A more chaste companion had been intended for the burial ceremony: the jaunty square of the Union Jack flag which he had brought for the purpose, folded away in his saddlebag. A roll of white muslin would do as a shroud. The vault would be opened and its contents were to be arranged according to Lady Hester’s instructions. Reverend Thomson would perform the Church of England service.⁵

      Despite the heat and disrepair, the garden impressed the men. Thomson would later describe it as ‘a wilderness of shady avenues, and a paradise of sweet flowers … I have rarely seen a more beautiful place’. They left the dragoman to open the vault and arrange its contents according to the instructions Lady Hester had given him and returned to supervise the removal of the body into its waiting shroud, and its placement into the plain wooden coffin they had brought with them from Djoun. The carved staff was clasped between her hands. After draping the Union Jack over the open coffin, they followed the procession of her servants bearing her aloft, threading their way through the passageways and out to the garden. Thomson wrote of the macabre sight awaiting them: ‘When at length I enterered the arbour, the first thing I saw were the bones of the general, in a ghastly heap, with the head on top, having a lighted taper stuck in either eye-socket – a hideous, grinning spectacle.’⁶ The servants were clearly no less taken aback. They stood aside, respectfully, as though this arrangement had a dignity of its own. Moore stared in shock at the open vault for some moments. There was nothing to be done except to conduct the funeral as rapidly as possible.

      The next morning, after a rough night, overhearing shouting between the squabbling servants, who were anxious about their unpaid wages, the men went around the premises to make an inventory of Lady Hester’s assets. They had not been the first to inspect her Djoun fortress, for as soon as news of her death had reached Sidon, the British consul there, a wealthy Maltese Jew by the name of Joseph Abela, had immediately hurried up in order to prevent her house from being ransacked. Abela had ordered the more valuable-looking furniture and possessions to be piled up together in rooms which he had sealed up.

      They counted thirty-five rooms, not including the cellars or the stables. Thick curtains were draped across the windows, but the light was just bright enough to see tables, chairs and chests, all inlaid with mother of pearl; cushions in Aleppo silk and bright woven carpets; bolts of calico, brocade and linen; large brass lanterns, damascene glass and brassware; and carved, painted wooden doors off their hinges, rich in geometric star patterns. There were stained-glass windows, blue and white Mameluke jars, and large circular pewter trays. One room contained countless letters, some filed, some heaped at random, and papers of esoterica scrawled with strange diagrams and notes in a language Moore surmised to be Hebraic, as well as boxes of books. Another was filled with more than forty oil jars, but they were all empty, and spiders nested between them; in

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