Lady Hester was surely one of the strangest and most remarkable people England had ever produced. After the death of her uncle, whose support, helper and hostess she had been for several years, followed by that of her betrothed, General Sir John Moore, killed fighting at Corunna, she would ordinarily have been relegated to a discreet retirement. But after queening it as a social and political hostess, Lady Hester, at thirty-four, was in no mind to resign herself to the narrow, stifling existence of an old maid in some English country house.
She had chosen instead a life of adventure and eighteen months before, on the eighteenth of February, 1810, to be precise, she had shaken the dust of her native land from her feet. With no great idea of ever returning she had taken ship at Portsmouth for the eastern lands which had always exercised a powerful fascination over her eager, imaginative mind. But she did not set out alone. With her on the frigate Jason, that old acquaintance of Marianne's, had gone such a retinue as might have accompanied a queen in exile.
After a voyage of several months, they had arrived at last at Constantinople, where the traveler had been settled for a year now, delighted by the charm of the city, receiving and received by the best society including the sultan himself, and living in considerable splendor on the remittances which her cher ami, Michael Bruce, received from his father: for Lady Hester, for all her expensive tastes, had little in the way of fortune. She was also planting a large thorn in the flesh of the British ambassador.
Canning, in fact, was soon of the opinion that Lady Hester was the eleventh plague of Egypt, while for her part the illustrious traveler did not trouble to conceal from the handsome diplomat that she classed him among the incorrigible spoilsports.
On the other hand, she had done her utmost ever since her arrival to obtain an introduction to the French ambassador. She had a strong desire to travel in France after completing her Oriental tour—a desire made all the stronger by the fact that this was something not allowed to English people at that time—and to see for herself the effects of imperial government on a country just emerging from a revolution the principal object of which had been the suppression of the monarchy. Considering that the French ambassador would be the best person to open to her the doors of this peculiar country, Lady Hester had been scheming for months to meet Latour-Maubourg, who had ended by shutting himself up at home in an effort to avoid her. He had hidden himself away in his onetime convent and went out no more than he could help.
His situation was quite difficult and complicated enough without making things even more difficult for himself and risking trouble with Napoleon by requesting a passport for the niece of the late Lord Chatham. It made his hair stand on end even to think of the imperial frown at such an untimely request.
At that moment the thorn in the ambassador's flesh was collecting a crowd almost as large as that gathered around the American brig, to which, in point of fact, she bore no small resemblance. She was very tall, even for an Englishwoman, and was dressed in a peculiar half-masculine, half-feminine attire, consisting of a black ferej lavishly trimmed with gold and swathing a figure which would have done credit to a Roman matron. But instead of enveloping herself completely in this garment, she wore it with the hood flung carelessly back over her shoulders, revealing a proud head with a finely chiseled profile, a haughty nose and sensuous red lips, and swathed in a voluminous white turban.
In this array, which borrowed those aspects of both male and female dress which suited her best, she was confronting a Greek sailor considerably smaller and more excitable than herself. From time to time she let fall on his hairy head a few cool words which seemed, nevertheless, to have the power to send the little man into a frenzy.
Marianne and Dr. Meryon, watching the scene in some amusement, saw the Greek cross himself frantically three or four times, calling heaven to be his witness with rolling eyes and waving arms, then tear off his cap and hurl it to the ground and jump on it, then pick it up again and put it back on his head liberally coated with dust. At last, quite suddenly, he seemed to calm down and something that was undoubtedly a gold coin gleamed in his grimy, outstretched hand.
"God help us!" Meryon groaned. "She's closed with that pirate—"
"Closed? What bargain is she striking? Why has she given him that gold piece?"
"Because we are leaving here, my lady, and for the ends of the earth, I think. Lady Hester has given up her idea of traveling in France but she is determined not to spend a second winter in Constantinople. She was too cold last year, she says, and so she means to go to Egypt. And she's not too nice about the means, as you can see. Finding no honest Christian vessel that would take her, she has turned to these God-forsaken pirates—"
"Oh, come, Doctor, surely not! The Greeks are as good Christians as you and me. Different, perhaps, but that is all."
"I don't care if they are. The fact is that I'm fated to die a thousand deaths on board the hideous discomfort of a polacca in midwinter. I'd prefer a Turkish xebec, even."
"Then you'd certainly be on a heathen ship, my doctor," Marianne observed, hiding her amusement at his tragic tone in the high fur collar of her wide moss-green cloak. But in another moment she was crying: "But my dear friend, are you going away and leaving me all alone? What will become of me without you to take care of me?"
"That is exactly what I have been trying to impress on Lady Hester! I have a great many friends and patients here who are going to miss me very much, for my own sake as well as for my professional services. I've a duty to remain until after your confinement. And I don't know what the noble Turkish dames will say to my sudden departure. I am thinking particularly of the Kapodan Pasha's lady—"
Marianne had been thinking of her also, and again she had to hide a smile, for rumor had it that Dr. Meryon's services to the Ottoman admiral's wife were somewhat more than purely medical. There were other Turkish ladies, too, who placed great confidence in the young English physician and he made no secret of his pleasure in the company of these silken, twittering birdlike creatures.
"And what did Lady Hester say?"
Meryon shrugged. "Nothing—or as good as. She won't listen because she wants to go to Egypt and nothing will do for her but to go at once."
"What? But I thought she was so anxious to meet Monsieur de Latour-Maubourg? Has she given up? I'd never have thought it of her."
The doctor coughed and glanced discreetly about him. "That's just it," he murmured. "She has seen him—"
"She has! Well, here's a piece of news! But where? When? Tell me quickly! The suspense is killing me!"
"Last week, at Bebek, on the shore of the Bosporus not far from where we were staying in a friend's yali.[5] Your ambassador agreed to a private meeting because Lady Hester had been threatening to call at the embassy openly, in broad daylight, and ring the bell until he let her in. Hush! Here she comes!"
Lady Hester was approaching them with the long, mannish stride that had prompted Lady Plymouth to remark that it was a pity women were not eligible for the Grenadier Guards. In another moment she had joined them and was sketching a slight, humorous bow, touching her fingers to her forehead, lips and breast.
"Salaam aleikum," she said. "Something tells me, Marianne dear, that my poor Charles has been pouring the tale of his wrongs into your sympathetic ears. You must pity him, I know."
"My pity is for myself, Hester, not for him. He tells me you mean to deprive me of my doctor and of my friend. I've a good mind to add my complaints to his."