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

by Mary S. Lovell

  They set off next day for Paris on one of the first major railways in France, a novel experience marred only by the attentions of a young officer, Major Campbell, who had made a nuisance of himself on the ship. Finding Jane on the train to Paris he took the same compartment. Fortunately, his behaviour stopped at flirting, but she resented his attentions.

  In Paris she stayed at a small and gloomy hotel and spent a few days shopping. Eugénie went to meet her former lover, the father of her daughter, who was recently widowed. Eugénie was now a middle-aged woman of some substance, for she had saved and invested well, and clearly hoped for marriage. Torn between her own needs and Eugénie’s wildest hopes, Jane wrote, ‘I think she may … attain the summit of her ambitions. Poor thing!… she has waited long and patiently enough.’ But the longed-for meeting was unsuccessful and Eugénie returned downcast.

  Friday 19th. We left Boulogne at 12 o’clock and embarked for England. England! I in England in about three hours. A good passage. I was landed at Folkestone and warmly, how warmly greeted by my excellent and never failing friend, Miss Jane. My long and wearisome journey is over … I passed a most pleasant and cheerful evening by a blazing fire and felt a foretaste of the pleasures that await me when I join dear Madre. This day 3 years ago I set off for Bagdad.

  In a way this visit to Europe was to be a test of her true commitment to her life in the East. A period of living with her loving family, in the manner to which she had been raised, would make it difficult to contemplate returning to life as a desert nomad unless her heart was in it. The comfortable life of a modern Victorian house equipped with cooking ranges, gas lighting, bathrooms and running water, and staffed by attentive and efficient servants, might make Damascus appear undesirable for all its exotic appeal. And there was always the possibility, as she went about discreetly with her family, that among people of her own kind she might meet a man who could offer a more congenial life.

  Equally important, Medjuel’s love for Jane was on test during the long separation. He was a young and virile man in the prime of manhood. In all probability he would be subjected to more temptation than she. There would be young, dusky and beautiful binaat around him in the desert, only too eager to shake their long silken hair at the handsome young sheikh during the dance of the maidens: women of his own race and creed, who would willingly accept the status of a second wife, and who could give him sons. Would he think of his ‘Frangya’ then, she wondered.21 She put these fears out of her mind, and only at her lowest ebb did she allow them to creep out to haunt her.

  16

  Return to England

  1856–1858

  That Christmas in England, her last visit there, was happier than she had dared hope. On her arrival at Ernstein Villa, Tunbridge Wells (‘a nice cheerful house’), where Lady Andover now lived with the two Steele sisters, Jane was relieved to find her mother ‘little changed’. Lady Andover and the Steele sisters were no doubt equally relieved to see Jane wearing the latest in fashionable gowns from Paris; there were no visible traces, outwardly at least, of her exotic life.

  Christmas Day with its traditions brought echoes of her childhood, including the walk to church before breakfast across a frost-covered Rustall Common.1 ‘Oh, how ever far one may wander,’ she wrote, ‘there is a spell in one’s native country that speaks to one’s heart and calls to memory long forgotten and early ties.’2 On the last day of the year, however, it was to her ties in Syria that Jane’s thoughts turned and when she went to church with Miss Jane it was for Medjuel she prayed. Already she had begun to long for her return, realising that no matter how strong the pull of her roots England was no place for her now.

  Her brother Edward and his wife Theresa came to visit for several days. Estranged from Jane since she left Charles Venningen, Edward had hardened his attitude when the Theotoky marriage failed and he believed his sister incapable of constancy. But recent letters from Jane to his wife Theresa had healed the breach and he greeted her affectionately. Jane’s stories of her more amusing or exciting experiences were listened to with interest but she noticed that whenever she mentioned Medjuel the subject was changed, as though her family were pretending he did not exist. Then she learned that they believed her disgrace to be the reason behind Edward’s being disinherited, and she was mortified at ‘the grief I have brought upon others, upon my dear kind parent, by my fatal misconduct’.3

  On 22 January 1857 she received word from the general that Eirini had died the day after Jane left Athens. This depressed her and recalled the death of ‘my own Leonidas’. By coincidence she received on the following day a disturbing letter from her daughter Bertha. She was deeply unhappy with her father, Bertha wrote; she begged her mother to allow her to come and live with her in Damascus. The ranting tone seemed reminiscent of Jane’s hated former mother-in-law’s ‘strange and wrong ideas’ and Jane had known for some time that Bertha was mentally unstable. Occasional letters from the Baron revealed that the beautiful girl was becoming increasingly difficult to handle and he blamed his mother’s influence, until he eventually accepted that Bertha’s behaviour was more than mere adolescent rebellion. Jane replied to her daughter that she had remarried, and that the East was no place for her. She sent Bertha’s letter to Charles, suggesting he bring the girl to England to stay with her family and consult specialists in mental illness. She wrote that she would gladly help with the arrangements and cost.

  Eugénie became ill with a fever, and when she recovered she told Jane she must resign her service, for she could not face a further spell in Syria. As if this were not enough, there was no letter from Medjuel when the monthly ‘Indian Mail’ arrived in January. A letter from Monsieur Le Roy came from Damascus in February, passing on local gossip, but it did not ease her mind, for he told her that Medjuel had gone ‘to join his brothers in the midst of malady and war. A sort of cholera has broken out among them.’

  It was not until 10 March that she heard from Medjuel. His letter informing her he was well and looking forward to her return was enclosed and translated by Monsieur Le Roy. A covering note told her in glowing terms of Medjuel’s part in the fighting which was ‘the talk of Damascus’, but all Jane cared for was that her ‘dear, dear Medjuel’ was safe and well. She attempted to share her news but Steely cut her off, and left Jane in no uncertainty about her continuing disapproval of her marriage. Jane heard the reproof in silence, wanting to defend her husband but unwilling to cause wounds that she knew would remain unhealed long after her departure.

  Kenelm came from Norfolk to see her and asked her about her husband. He did not condemn her marriage, perhaps recognising that for his three-times-divorced sister the ‘heathen’ ceremony she had undergone meant far more than a conventional marriage service in a cathedral. It is obvious from his letters to Jane over the next quarter of a century that Kenelm found his métier when he became a clergyman. His caring nature made him ideal in the role, for he was always the healer, always the comforter, yet despite his deep and patient faith he was never piously ‘holy’. He enjoyed his life and was amusing and bright; his faith was a happy thing and he must have been literally a godsend to his congregation. It was said by his family, generally known for their good looks, that he was a physically ugly man, and this together with his lack of expectations may account, in part, for the extraordinary beauty of his nature.

  He offered to meet Jane in town and take her to the Crystal Palace exhibition. In London Jane stayed at the old house in Harley Street, but she only hinted at bygone memories in her diary, dwelling instead on her father’s rooms, ‘his old stuffed birds and many things reminding me of him’.4

  She went shopping in Baker Street bazaar for fabrics, and on a special errand to purchase guns and ammunition for the tribe. Except in America, where a small new industry was just developing, firearms in those days were not mass-produced but hand-made. The notes on her shopping list, written first in Arabic by Medjuel and then in English by Jane, were specific: ‘Adam’s registered Wadded bullets
for revolvers, rifles, Carbines etc. 50 conical, 54 bore. Ely Brothers Manufacturers, London.’

  Another errand was a visit with Kenelm to the College of Arms. As children of a baron, Kenelm and Jane were entitled to the prefix ‘the Honorable’, but as this was not effected prior to their father’s death they needed to establish their claim for approval by the Queen. More important, Jane needed a family tree to send to Charles Venningen. Heribert’s cousins had told the baron that unless Heribert could prove his parentage they would contest his inheritance in the event of his father’s death; and the records of his birth, as Jane was only too aware, were obscure.

  Brother and sister visited the fabulous Crystal Palace, originally built in Hyde Park to house Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition of 1851. Designed to marry art with engineering skill, the astonishing building was 95 per cent glass, the remainder being thin iron frames. Two years before Jane’s visit the breathtaking structure had been dismantled and re-erected in South London to provide half as much space again. Inside were ‘100,000 objects of beauty, interest and craft’, reflecting the wealth and diversity of Queen Victoria’s vast empire, but also demonstrating the skills and cultures of other nations. ‘Wonderful, beautiful, beyond description,’ Jane wrote in her diary and, perhaps predictably, ‘but I overdid it and returned home dead tired.’

  Despite the ‘retired life’ she was leading, the house in Harley Street was busy with callers. Her cousin and friend from the Holkham schoolroom, ‘dear, kind’ Fanny Anson, now Mrs Isted, dropped by to pass on ‘a perfect avalanche of news’. Friends from Jane’s ‘palmy days’ at Almack’s, such as Lord Londonderry and Lady Roseby, mingled with others whom she had come to know since. One day ‘unexpectedly walked in Sir Henry Rawlinson [lately HBM Consul in Baghdad] and I spent a pleasant hour with him talking over old friends in the East. He told me that the Governor of Buschin’s wife was in town, a Bagdad grande-dame, and a great friend of mine.’ Next day Jane set out to visit her friend, delighted to be able to speak in Arabic and talk of Medjuel to someone who appreciated his fine qualities.

  Rawlinson, with whom Jane had been corresponding on the subject of ancient desert ruins, called again and advised on the legality of her marriage, instructing her to register the Muslim ceremony formally with the British consul in Damascus, and to obtain two copies of the certificate from the consul and send them home to her family.

  Jane returned to Tunbridge Wells for the last days of her visit. She dreaded the final parting from her mother and the Steele sisters, but ached to return to Medjuel, on whom her thoughts constantly centred. On 3 April 1857 she wrote in her diary: ‘My Birthday! Fifty!… all the romance and poetry of life ought to be long since past and over, and here I am still with a beating and burning heart.’ Three days later Jane left England. The parting from her mother was as sad as she anticipated, both knowing that they would probably never see each other again.

  In Paris, Jane ‘ran about like a wild thing’ in search of furniture, mirrors, crystal, books. Her leather-bound pocketbook was filled with lists of things she needed in Damascus: fine table- and bedlinen (she was particularly eager to purchase supplies of yellow table-linen that would complement her porcelain dinner service); towels and toiletries such as perfumed soap and cold-cream; supplies of eye ointment and drops, quinine, iodine, various oils for rheumatism, cough linctus and toothache tincture, in such quantities that it is clear she intended to treat the entire tribe; parasols; sketching materials; shoes; and undergarments.

  She called at a gunsmith to collect a matched pair of silver-chased pistols she had commissioned for Medjuel three months earlier. And she bought a piano, having desired one since she left Athens. She had no great confidence that it would arrive in Damascus intact but believed it worth the effort, for when Medjuel was away she would find it soothing to have an instrument to play upon, and she thought that Medjuel would find her playing and singing an enjoyable novelty.

  The frantic shopping continued in Marseille, she and Eugénie ‘worn to death’ after almost a week of ceaseless spending on items that they could not easily buy outside Europe. At Marseille, Jane had hoped to recruit several French servants; but she was disappointed in the applicants, and Eugénie loyally agreed to accompany her to Beirut.

  On 16 April the two set off for Alexandria on an old steamer, La Tamise. It was a miserable trip, the ship rolled badly and Eugénie hardly moved from her bunk. At Malta all the shops were closed and there was little to see. Alexandria too was a disappointment. Jane took a carriage to see Pompey’s Pillar and Cleopatra’s Needle, ordered some plants to be sent on to her and interviewed a maid, whom she had almost engaged when she found her ‘fighting with the Arab porters on the shore!’

  Eugénie was still ill when they arrived at Beirut. There was the usual period of quarantine to endure, but Jane managed to fill it by checking on her packing-cases and arranging for their transport with her agent with whom she communicated through an open window. A message from Medjuel that all was well had been waiting for her, and she telegraphed confirmation of her safe arrival through the British consul. She could hardly contain her anxiety to get to him and when released from quarantine on I May she did not waste an hour before setting off for Damascus. Eugénie remained at the coast to recover in the cool air, still undecided whether to rejoin Jane’s household or to return to Greece.

  With a single guard and spare horses, Jane set off for Damascus in oppressive heat; her luggage would follow on behind her. She travelled impatiently, stopping only twice to snatch a nap of several hours. The next day she ‘slept at Mejdel for 4 hours and rode all night.’ Early on 3 May she passed through Doumah, expecting at every step to see Medjuel or one of her servants coming to greet her, never considering the possibility that they might not expect her for at least another day. When she arrived at the house, Medjuel was not there, nor did the surprised servants know when he might return. Jane was utterly exhausted, having accomplished a three-day journey in two. She sank on to her bed wondering how she could get a message to Medjuel when there was a tap at the door. It was Medjuel, as tender and loving as in the first days of their marriage, ‘and in the happiness of that moment I forgot all else’.

  Monday 4th. We passed the day in talking over our affairs. Great have been his losses … but he does not seem to have acted wrongly in all this winter of war and troubles, and has but defended his rights.

  One of Medjuel’s problems appeared to be that others now believed they too should be allowed to provide escort for European travellers to Palmyra. In Jane’s wake had come the more adventurous – not many, but in a steady trickle of twos and threes. Without exception they clamoured to be taken to the fabled ruins at Palmyra. If Medjuel refused them, there was virtually no price they would not offer to an alternative guide. Others coveted this lucrative new business.

  The weeks that followed Jane’s return to Syria were pleasantly domesticated. Barrels of plants arrived and Jane threw herself with renewed enthusiasm into work on her garden. ‘I sowed many of Carters fine seeds in hot beds and elsewhere … one of the apricot trees fell down because of too much water … the turkey hen began sitting upon the Cochin China and Persian eggs, I also have a sitting canary.’ And, despite their great love, she and Medjuel, like any married couple, had occasional disagreements.

  June. Monday 8th. My bad temper and bad humour got the better of me and I picked a quarrel with dear Medjuel who was really hurt, and offended by my unreasonableness. A sweet reconciliation afterwards took place between us, but I must not trifle thus with his character.

  Two days later, Medjuel went off to the desert to join his brothers for two weeks. Jane tried to fill her time as she had done before he went away, gardening and exercising the horses, but whereas her daily rides with Medjuel had been so pleasurable now they were a bore and ‘the young horses are odious … house, garden, all lose their charm when the heart is lonely.’ One evening she re-read her diaries from start to finish. From the security of her loving rel
ationship with Medjuel she could hardly credit what she read. ‘[I had] a strong inclination to put them on the fire.’

  To her delight, Medjuel returned a day early. ‘[He] brought me the account of the two Frenchmen being arrested by Manah. How I wish this affair of the road to Palmyra was arranged properly in favour of Medjuel without all these disagreeable altercations every moment!’

  She commissioned masons to build new stables and an extension to her boudoir, ‘the whole to be finished in 30 days for 9,000 piastres without boiserie’. Meanwhile packing-cases began to arrive with the results of her shopping trips. The piano arrived mercifully intact but badly in need of tuning. And a French couple appeared as housekeeper and gardener. In July she wrote to Kenelm in good spirits:

  Since my return, my time has been engrossed in putting this straggling house in order … everything having been put away in odd corners … then come tiresome visits of congratulation as if I had come from an unknown land, and now I have workmen in the house repairing and building. I hope tho’ this year to finish all there is to do inside the garden wall, for these same arab workmen steal my fruit, and break the young trees etc. which ruffles my temper not a little. Eugénie too is returning to Athens, and as yet I have no replacement, which is a terrible bore to me as I must turn housekeeper myself, which is not my line.

  The Sheikh was delighted with the sporting prints [you sent him]; but the fox not being [included in the picture] he has decided that such leaps and scampcrings must be after human enemies and not for ‘Kayf’ [enjoyment] only. The prints of our Queen receiving the troops at Aldershot, which I thought rather a good [illustration of] the prerogatives of women in the West, is thought here rather an effrontée thing … presenting herself unveiled before so many men!!!!