A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby (Text only)

by Mary S. Lovell

  One domestic problem after another conspired to prevent Jane rejoining Medjuel. She fretted when she did not hear from him but there seemed so much to do. A heavy fall of snow had broken many plants and she wished to oversee the work. In the evenings she took up her Arabic studies again, under instruction from a young Arab who had renounced his Christian belief during the massacre. She also finished some paintings and received a parcel of useful and warm dresses from her mother. Almost before she knew it, it was spring. On 21 March 1861 she wrote to Kenelm:

  There is not much news here beyond what you learn from the papers. Syria is in an awful state of misrule, and if stronger, prudent measures are not soon taken to put things on a better footing, the pent up volcano may soon break out again. Fuad Pacha, from weakness, or Turkish policy, had not touched the Kurds, who were by far the worst at Damascus, whatever the Druses may have been in the mountains. These Kurds carried off the women, burned, killed and plundered, and now they are untouched and enrolled by the government into an irregular corps. They are ruining the villages wherever they go and it is hardly safe, even, to ride out …

  [I have written to Miss Jane for] a list of common, easy growing, showy flowers and bulbs for my garden. I have no gardener but myself and books, nothing but a native man, who – when I attempt a rockery, or rootery, and have toiled all day scratching my hands to pieces – goes and throws it all down calling it rubbish! … We intend shortly, returning to the desert for a couple of months although the weather now is getting very warm.24

  There is no mention in this letter of the fears she was beginning to hint at in her diary that started with a chance remark of Mrs Tappenden’s when Jane wondered aloud why she had not heard from her husband in some weeks. The servant had merely been repeating gossip among the European community that Medjuel had been ‘cheating her in love’. Jane was ‘sad and low’ as she wrote her diary, feeling the ‘cold thrill of jealousy … at the thought that he might be unfaithful, as well as anxiety that he might be ill or hurt and therefore not able to communicate’.

  Medjuel was, in fact, busy trying to extract compensation from Sheikh Beteyen ebn Merschid of the Hessienne tribe. Some months earlier he had purchased from the sheikh a large flock of sheep on the understanding that Merschid would over-winter them with his own flocks in the desert. When Medjuel attempted to collect his flock he was told that they had perished during the severe winter. He wrote to Jane to explain this but it took a month for his letter to reach Damascus. Meanwhile, a visitor called on Jane, an aide of Sheikh Fares of Tadmor. Jane was obliged to offer him hospitality though she did not enjoy the company of men of his ilk. She was an easy target for mischief and was predictably upset when he told her that it was common knowledge in the desert that Medjuel no longer loved her and was indifferent to her. However, said her informant, she need not worry, for Sheikh Fares had long wished to marry her.

  Most of the sheikhs in the desert would have married Jane like a shot, even had she not been a still lovely woman with a reputation in her own right. Her wealth alone, which had brought prestige to the Mezrabs in terms of herds of animals, slaves, weapons and ammunition, was sufficient to attract the attention of men who believed that any woman would be flattered by their attentions. But this woman, who owned and rode the fleetest horse and who could doctor and deliver a mare, who could spend days travelling and living as did the men of the tribe – she was something to be prized. Jane was appalled; the very thought of the dirty ruffian fellah sheikh made her cringe.25

  She decided to return at once to Homs and if necessary travel into the desert to find Medjuel and put an end to her anxiety. Two Arabs told her they had heard that Medjuel had married another wife, but next day others told her that her informants were Hessienne, and their gossip petty spite. It is surprising that over the years Jane did not realise how often the ‘news’ she was given by fellow travellers and callers was incorrect.

  At Homs she had word that Medjuel was safe and well, and within a day he had ridden into town. Her delight in their loving reunion was tempered by tidings that he was obliged to spend the summer months with the tribe and attempt to recover the sheep from the Hessienne. Jane could accompany him or return to Damascus to wait for him. She chose to go with her husband.

  It was that summer that the tribe accepted her as one of themselves, and bestowed upon her the name ‘Umm el Laban’ – literally ‘Mother of milk’, which has hitherto been accepted as a reference to her milky complexion; however, a contemporary who wrote to Edward Digby after his sister’s death explained that it actually meant ‘our gracious lady’.26

  19

  Visitors from England

  1862–1863

  At first Jane’s acceptance by the tribe as first lady stemmed out of respect for Medjuel, and Jane’s wealth. Her generosity became the talk of the desert,1 enhancing Medjuel’s reputation as an active and fair-minded heir to the leadership of the tribe.

  In an environment where guns were still the exception rather than the rule, the Mezrabs became armed with the latest weapons from Europe and so could increasingly protect themselves against attack. Their flocks of sheep and strings of camels were among the best in the desert. The mares that Medjuel and Jane rode had the most sought-after breeding-lines. This policy of improved stocks by selective breeding Jane learned at her grandfather Coke’s knee, and she needed no urging to bestow good beasts upon Medjuel and his family.

  By 1862 the tribe had freely adopted Jane as a sort of matriarch, and she found herself increasingly called upon to adjudicate in squabbles, counsel the sick and bereaved, and comfort divorced wives. Members of the tribe would even ride to Damascus to ask her opinion, and she was highly regarded as both doctor and vet. To all these roles she brought a grace and leadership that came not only from her upbringing, but from her natural intelligence. People sought her help, knowing that she was trustworthy; women who had a grievance against their husbands went to her knowing that she would listen with sympathy, and that if she believed them she would place the matter directly before Mohammed, which they would not dare to do. She was generous to the poorer members of the tribe, but they accepted her now for herself and not just her riches. She milked the camels and goat-like sheep, cared for her husband’s mares, washed his hair, bathed his feet and anointed his sores as any caring wife did.2 She often walked behind the caravan with the other women collecting dried camel droppings for use as fuel.

  Yet she ignored the custom that decreed she should wait in her tent for her husband’s return after a fight. A returning warrior would customarily be greeted by everyone in the camp before he went to the privacy of his tent and the company of his wife. The Sitt (the Lady) not only disregarded this custom but had even been known to mount one of Medjuel’s mares and ride out to meet him. Wullah! It was unheard of. But for all that she was a good wife to the sheikh and brought honour to the Mezrab tribe.3

  In addition, she had many contacts outside normal bedouin connections – with the British consul, for example, and the Emir el Khader; and she was on calling terms with the governor-general and his harem and anyone of rank in Damascus, for she was arguably the most important European citizen in Syria.4 She needed all these contacts, for in the early 1860s every kind of trouble visited Jane and Medjuel, and 1862 in particular brought many irritations.

  In his attempts to recover some of his lost and stolen property through the traditional methods of divan and, ultimately, ghazou, Medjuel fell foul of the authorities. The warlike Faris el Meziad managed to persuade the Governor of Homs that Medjuel was causing trouble in the desert, and in January 1862 Medjuel was captured and thrown into prison. After strong representations of the new British consul, Richard Rogers, he was released on a bond pending trial. Jane’s ability to obtain powerful assistance further enhanced her reputation in the desert. In March she recorded that ‘After much hesitation and indecision, and with the prospect of a long Turkish imprisonment before him, [Medjuel] left at half an hour’s notice for the desert on N
ourah, to insist upon (what ought to have been done last year) Ebn Merschid’s settling and finishing this dreadful Hessienne affair.’5 But Jane’s troubles were not limited to Medjuel. A caravan she had personally commissioned was long overdue arriving in Damascus from Baghdad; it had been attacked by the notorious Sheikh ebn Dukhi.6

  During these turbulent months, her time was divided between the desert and Damascus; letters from home seemed almost to hail from another age. When Jane heard that Kenelm’s daughter Emmie was to be married to Edward Buxton and that their honeymoon was to be spent in Egypt and possibly the Lebanon, she wrote at once:

  I rejoice most sincerely in her happy prospects and I smiled within myself as I pictured the happy Wedding gathering at quiet Tittleshall. I have written her a line ‘Post Restante Cairo’… whether there be any hopes of their coming to Damascus and when? Even were I in the desert … an express would soon bring me striding back on my swift dromedary.

  By this post also goes a letter to my friend Admiral Drummond on the subject of your son, Henry. I have not heard from him since I was last in England in ’57, still, I think he would be ready to oblige me if possible, and as soon as I hear from him, I will be sure to let you know the result. I envy Henry his travels amongst the Chinese and Pacific people. What variety he must see, and still so young.

  I intend writing soon to Edward and Theresa. I hear they have been enlarging dear old Minterne of my early days, but how could he cut down that fine old cedar on the drawing room lawn, that it takes years and years to replace!!? Holkham too, with its new and magnificent flower gardens and coloured spar paved walks. How unknown all this is to us Easterns who in our gardens in winter move about on high kabkabs [strap-on platforms in iron or wood] to be out of the greasy slippery clay.

  Damascus since the insurrection is duller than dull, and we have had the misfortune to lose Fuad Pacha, a thorough gentleman and really patriotic; in short a rara avis here. Lord Dufferin’s proposal of making Syria a hereditary vice-royalty with him for viceroy might have been the salvation of Syria, but he is gone and we are falling back into the old system of bribing etc, the road insecure …

  The Beyrout French road too, does not promise, as the winters in Mount Lebanon are so severe they break down the constructions; but we have a wire telegraph which is little used. I was shocked at the unexpected news of poor Prince Albert’s death. What a break up of the Queen’s private happiness for they were, it seemed, a model ménage … I hear the Prince of Wales is still to go up the Nile and come here for April, perhaps he may go to Tadmor if there is time.7

  Possibly it never occurred to Jane that her descriptions of the conditions of the roads and the dangers might give her brother and sister-in-law qualms at the thought of their newly married daughter visiting there. Deep in problems of her own, such dangers probably seemed insignificant. When she wrote, Medjuel was still in serious trouble with the Governor of Horns, due, Jane suspected, to bribes given by his enemies.

  Jane began a campaign to obtain British protection for Medjuel, to which she claimed he was entitled on account of his marriage to an Englishwoman. She also lobbied the pasha and the Turkish government representatives, using every contact she could, including Cabouly Effendi, whom she had met through the Duchesse de Plaisance in Athens, and who came to visit the pasha in April 1862. Jane wrung from the pasha, with Cabouly’s help, a promise that he would ensure Medjuel came to no harm.8

  From Tittleshall, Kenelm’s wife Caroline wrote that Emmie and her husband fully intended to visit Damascus; indeed, she had heard that day from the couple in Cairo. Caroline told Jane, ‘She can hardly believe it is in the same world as Tittleshall, everything so different, so new, so strange. She is horrified at the dirt of the Arabs … she says it is so hot she can only bear the lightest apparel. She delights in the donkeys, what will she say to your camels and dromedaries?’9 In April the newly weds arrived in Damascus. Their visit coincided with that of Edward, Prince of Wales, upon whose birth in 1841 Jane’s father had ordered a naval salute and the mainbrace spliced. Prince Edward, whose trip to Palestine and the Near East had been planned by Prince Albert before his death as a means of completing his son’s education, was twenty years old. The royal party had come to Damascus and pitched their tents, Arab-fashion, on a large piece of land next to Jane’s house.

  Emmie was unwell when she arrived, and Jane put her to bed for a day in her own cool high boudoir with windows on three sides to catch every breeze. Jane liked her niece on sight, and the two women passed the first day together quietly and pleasantly. Emmie was ‘unaffected and a perfect lady in manner and mind’, Jane wrote in her diary.

  On the afternoon of 29 April the Prince of Wales visited Jane, informally and ‘with no great show’. Jane could not think why he called on her. ‘Mere curiosity I suppose,’ she concluded in her diary. Without fuss, she showed the prince and his entourage over the house – one of the sights of Damascus for any British visitor of rank – and obliged them by exhibiting her paintings of Palmyra. The menagerie of animals and birds was ‘much appreciated’ by the royal party. Afterwards they looked at the horses, especially her latest and favourite mare, Hadibah. In her diary Jane wrote that the prince admired all he was shown and was gracious and polite, thanking her and apologising for the intrusion as he said goodbye. In his own diary the prince noted that Jane ‘was once very handsome, & is still very good looking tho’ more than 50. Her house is charmingly arranged in true oriental style, as is her garden, which is full of roses.’10

  When Emmie and her husband left, Jane wrote in her diary, ‘I rode with them to the top of the mountain at Salhiyeh.’ She was anxious that they should see Damascus as she had first seen it, and how – despite the damage caused during the massacre – it could still look from a distance. The dazzling white minarets still tapered into the flawless blue of the sky, the gold and white domes of palaces still shimmered under the sun; it was still the Pearl of the Desert. ‘Sixteen worlds full of gardens rolled out flat,’ wrote the painter Edward Lear at the time, ‘with a river and a glittering city in the middle.’11

  Emmie sketched Damascus from the vantage point, as Jane had done several times, and the party enjoyed a picnic lunch before it was, at last, time for the travellers to go. ‘I felt inexpressibly sad as I gazed at her, and after them,’Jane wrote in her diary on 1st May 1862; reflecting that once, long ago, she too had been an innocent and trusting young bride, before her passionate obsession for Felix Schwarzenberg had turned her life upside down and ‘cast a poisonous shade’ upon the lives of her family.

  When she wrote to Emmie’s parents on the 10th May to tell them about ‘the very pleasant but too short visit’ of the newly married couple, there was a veiled hint to Emmie’s mother of an interesting condition that would later prove to be accurate:

  the sight of them has indeed been a treat to me. We were acquainted in a moment, and seeing her sweet, youthful, happy countenance I felt myself wafted back to her age, and it seemed as though all sad experiences and troubles were blown away in her society … she charmed everyone who saw her, native or European, Christian or Moslem, and they seem to be setting out in life with as fair a hope of happiness as any I ever saw …

  … Of course I saw that the fatigue of Palmyra was at this moment out of the question, and only showed her my drawings, without much comment not to tantalise … She was very well in health. The day of, and day after, her arrival a little tired and sick, but one day’s perfect rest set her all right again, and I hope she enjoyed her three days rambling in the bazaars etc.

  On the Tuesday, the Prince of Wales … told Mr Buxton he would like to call here, which he did, and was very affable and pleasant. I heard afterwards from the Consul that he (the Prince) had asked many questions about my Sheikh and what part he took in the insurrection, and seemed very pleased with what he heard. His visit may perhaps be … conducive to Medjuel’s obtaining English Protection later …

  They [the Buxtons] are on their way home via C
onstantinople and my great regret is that they have not seen the Sheikh, nor he them. I think he is the sort of man Mr Buxton would like, making of course due allowance for differences of custom and race.

  Jane left the next day for Horns, where she expected to meet Medjuel, who was still evading arrest, having technically jumped bail so to speak. Her diary reveals that she was anxious for Medjuel’s safety, and concerned about her finances. During the previous winter she had commissioned at a cost of some £3,000 – virtually a year’s income – a caravan to Baghdad. She had personally selected the forty ayghals and camel drivers who made up the heavily armed party. Their mission was to buy good camels, a stock of the warm and light cashmere abbas manufactured only in Baghdad, and other goods that had been in short supply in Damascus since the massacre. The few caravans that had ventured through the shortest desert route via Palmyra had been preyed upon by Sheikh Mohammed ebn Dukhi. Jane detested him as a person but had forced herself to be polite to him for Medjuel’s sake; he had even been a guest in her home. In February, as Jane’s caravan was returning to Damascus, it was attacked viciously by ebn Dukhi’s men. Jane immediately complained formally to the British consul, who reported to the Foreign Office in London ‘the pillage of a caravan of 250 camels while crossing the desert between Bagdad and Damascus’.

  This caravan was attended by 40 armed men, inclusive of camel drivers, and were within two days journey of this city when it was set upon by a large body of Anazeh Arabs who succeeded in capturing about half of the camels. Several men were killed and others wounded. Goods to the value of £2,000 were stolen … This is only one raid of many, but it is likely to be the death blow of trade between Bagdad and Damascus worth £160,000 per annum.12