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

by Mary S. Lovell

  A clap of thunder would have startled me less. I sat glacée, and passed a most wretched night awaking with a fever in my veins and a throbbing head. In the afternoon I rode Eydah to the garden but felt reluctant to build, and repented ever having bought it. Oh, for Medjuel’s speedy return to clear up the mystery.

  Jane obviously called on Yusuf herself, for in her notebook she wrote down what he told her, ‘Yusuf Redouan says she was at their house, and that Nehabi brought her to ours.’23 For once Medjuel timed his return well, and only two days later the matter was resolved to Jane’s satisfaction.

  Saturday 22nd. Happiness inexpressible, and unknown but to those who are condemned to possess my ardent, ungovernable feelings; unchilled, untamed, unsubdued by age, experience of the world, [or] change of any kind! Dear Medjuel returned and in a long and serious conversation with Mr Lucas, in the presence of his wife, [and] Nehabi and myself, solemnly denied his having any other wife but me, since the day I married him up to the present time. Now twelve years ago! Oh, how time flies! It appears but the other day I gave Medjuel both heart and hand. The origin of all these evil and tormenting reports is the base jealousy and envy of Cheikh Faris el Meziad, who first spread the report six years ago, and his sister, Faddah, has since tried to make it true with her various intrigues – thank God, in vain!

  There were more conversations with Mr Lucas, who promised ‘for Medjuel’s sake as much as my own’ to try to trace the origin of the rumours and quash them. A week later Jane was able to record that Yusuf had confessed to Mr Lucas that ‘the whole story was a fabrication of his and Faris el Meziad. What barefaced liars!’24

  What Yusuf told Mr Lucas on this occasion may well have been the truth. But within a short time the rumours would start again from a different source; and from Medjuel, this time, there would come no comforting denial.

  21

  Challenge by Ouadjid

  1867–1869

  In August 1867 Jane received news of Steely’s death. The influence Steely had in Jane’s life was incalculable and Jane mourned her almost as deeply as she had mourned her mother; ‘my firm, sincere and most devoted friend since I was 10 years of age,’ she wrote, and indeed Steely had seen her through many a crisis that must have been abhorrent to her and her sister.1

  As she recovered from this shock, Schebibb, her good-natured and intelligent stepson, came in from the desert ill. At first Jane was not unduly concerned; Medjuel often took such fevers in heavy hot weather. She nursed Schebibb, breakfasting with him each morning before she went off to oversee the building work. The new house had now risen almost to window height and she felt that the builders needed her guidance at every step. She also made a point of calling on several harems with whom she had developed a friendship. With her work in her tiny garden, and exercising and grooming the horses, her days were full. But she became uneasy when Schebibb made no progress, and she sent for Medjuel, who arrived home towards the end of September.

  It was difficult to say what was wrong with the young man, for with the fever gone he should have started to gain in health, but rather he seemed to be wasting away.

  Sunday, September 22nd. I passed the whole day reading … poor Schebibb’s state is sad. He does not improve in strength as I would wish, and the poor fellow’s patience under his confinement and enforced solitude is really edifying …

  Wednesday 25th. A day of solemn event and awful trial. Poor Schebibb breathed his last this morning, a little after sunrise. I shall not easily forget the scene. After a short struggle … his young spirit fled in a gentle sigh.

  Oh God have mercy upon him … and his dear Father, and to myself who was never before present at a death …

  The day passed in various sad, very sad, offices; many of a superstitious and Bedouiny kind. In the afternoon I walked with Khadiqsh to the poor, dear boy’s grave. It is now 12 years I have watched him growing into manhood, and at the early age of 20, full of hope and promise to his father, he sinks into the tomb …

  Friday 27th. I rode again with dear Medjuel to the sealing of the tomb, that is putting the final headstone. The last token of love and honour was paid to poor Schebibb, a sheep sacrificed and given to the poor. The old Sheikhs chanted and read to his memory for the last time. All is over.

  Jane had to go to Damascus a month later but did not press Medjuel, heartsick at the loss of his son, to accompany her. Instead he went into the desert promising he would not follow the tribe beyond Tadmor. He joined her in Damascus in February and in his company the depression she had felt since Schebibb’s death lifted. All winter she had visited old friends and given dinners and attended weddings as guest of honour. She had plenty of occupation and did not lack for company, and she obtained much pleasure from her affectionate relationship with her animals, but it was only in Medjuel’s company that she could enjoy life to the full. In writing to her brother she attributed her rising spirits to the season.

  I cannot understand how and why, at each return of spring my whole being rises buoyantly and enjoying it, as though all the events which ought to crush me to dust have never been. I do so enjoy this beautiful world …

  You may have heard from Theresa and Ed that we are thinking of changing our town residence to near Homs (the ancient Emesa) on the borders of the desert leading to Palmyra, on account of the Sheikh’s business with the tribes, and more facility with his brothers. But even if this house is sold we intend making a pied-à-terre here of the stables, as a winter residence for 2 or 3 months. I have [now] very little enjoyment of the place when it is in its beauty in spring and summer, and have only the expense of keeping it up. The Sheikh has already a house outside the walls of Horns, with a garden he bought for the enormous sum of 5,000 piastres (£650), and that he intends making our domicile when not in the desert.2

  Kenelm sent news of his children: Henry, whose career in the navy Jane had done much to promote, was touring Mexico on horseback, inspecting silver-mines; Willy in the Australian outback had bought land cheaply and was taming it into a ranch; Charlie, an Oxford graduate, was tutor to the children of the poet Tennyson in the Isle of Wight, and Emmie and Carrie, Kenelm’s two elder girls, were both happily married with families. There was news, too, that King Ludwig had died at Nice in February. Poor Basily, Jane mourned. Lola Montez, in whom he believed he had found the all-encompassing love for which he had always longed, had wielded her power wilfully; through his loyal support of her, Ludwig lost his throne and, subsequently, Lola too. He spent the last years of his life wandering about the watering-spots of Europe in the way of deposed royalty, like a favourite old uncle.

  Charles Venningen met his former king in November 1865 and wrote to tell Jane that Ludwig had asked after her: ‘He is almost 80, but he remains as alert as ever. When we spoke of you he said he has always regretted what happened. “What a pity! What a shame!” he cried … but he takes comfort in thinking perhaps you were a little mad …!’3 Excepting only Medjuel and her father, Jane regarded Basily as the kindest man she had known. Every other man she had loved had eventually betrayed her, but those three had never let her down.

  Friday 3rd April 1868. My 61st birthday! An awful age … fast approaching that usually assigned to man as his span here, and yet here I am still wedded to life, and full of plans and projects, and hopes of enjoyment.

  After another month of socialising in Damascus, which had apparently recovered all its joie-de-vivre despite the massacre eight years earlier, Jane returned to Horns. Medjuel had already returned to the tents, for ebn Merschid, allied with Hassan Bey, was attacking the summer encampments and plundering them. She seemed quite content working at the new house, trying to create a garden of sorts in the courtyard, though without the advantages of a direct feed of water as she had at Damascus. When the town was attacked by Hassan Bey and cannon and musketry were employed in its defence, she found the excitement enjoyable rather than frightening.

  In October, Jane’s life suddenly came off its tracks. Several things happened. Firs
t, Eugénie returned to Athens. She had been living at Jane’s house for a year overseeing things as a friend, though latterly not as an employee. What happened to end the arrangement is not clear. Jane did not write of it and it would be five years before the two again made contact. In those five years Jane never even mentioned Eugénie’s name in her diary. The large villa in Damascus was sold, although Jane retained the stable block and a plot of land upon which she planned to build a ‘compact, new house’.

  Jane was in Damascus, packing to move, when she heard – yet again – that Medjuel had another wife. Though she had never taken the stories of other women lightly (she cared for Medjuel too passionately to be complacent about any threat to their relationship), her first inclination was to place the latest rumours in the same category as the previous ones spread by Medjuel’s enemies. But this time it was members of the tribe who reported to their Sitt with obvious reluctance that Medjuel had married another woman.

  The woman was Ouadjid, they said, and she was twenty years younger than Medjuel. That made her forty years younger than Jane. ‘A lifetime!’ If what she was told were true, Jane agonised, this girl possessed all the things she could never bring to Medjuel: the freshness of youth, that inexplicable allure no mature women could manufacture no matter how beautiful or well preserved. A dusky beauty, of Medjuel’s own culture and religions, Ouadjid undoubtedly knew all the womanly things that a bedouin wife should know. She could cook the foods that Medjuel liked, while she, Jane, did not care for cooking or housekeeping and whenever she could paid others to do such chores for her. But even worse was the thought that Ouadjid could bear Medjuel another son to take the place of Schebibb.

  Nevertheless Jane could not wholly believe that Medjuel had broken his promises to her and betrayed the love he had not only professed but demonstrated in so many ways. When Medjuel returned, she told herself, he would answer in his gentle and serious manner that there had been no infidelity, no other marriage. She was sure of it. But still she was anxious and wrote, asking him to come to her at Damascus as soon as he could.

  Wednesday 2nd December 1868.… On my return to the stable Beschir [a man from the tribe who looked after the horses] stopped me and said with an ominous and sepulchral voice that he wished to speak to me privately. I thought it was to beg some money, or some clothes and said ‘Hakke’ [certainly].

  Oh, that he had asked half my fortune! But no, it was to comfort me for Medjuel’s dreadful, unheard of treachery!! Not one wife shares his couch and heart, but Mascha – the dead Mascha – still lives, has borne him two children since I married him, now fourteen years ago. Fourteen long, long years he has deceived me but to rob me according to Beschir. And now, now that he is rich, now that he no longer wants me he is ready to spurn me from him like a squeezed lemon!

  It was the worst possible disaster that Jane could envisage happening to her. Could she believe Beschir? Yet why should he lie? But surely Medjuel would never deceive her; and Schebibb himself had told her of his mother’s death many years ago. During the suspenseful wait she poured into her journal all the misery of suspicion and jealousy.

  When Medjuel arrived he told her, with the honesty she had always admired in him, that Beschir’s gossip about Mascha was not correct, but that it was true she was alive. The reports of her death were erroneous and when he had heard that Mascha still lived he and his sons decided to remain silent for Jane’s peace of mind. But Mascha was married to someone in another tribe; he had not seen her in years and she had had no further children by him.4

  However, it was true that he had married Ouadjid, though his involvement with this young woman, he stressed, had no bearing on his love for Jane. She was the daughter of Ali Ressoul, who had a garden in Homs where Faris el Meziad often stayed. Medjuel was unable to keep the lift out of his voice when he spoke of Ouadjid. Jane heard and felt it as a splinter of ice to the heart: ‘the agony of hearing of his intense and passionate love for another! He, habitually so reserved in manner and speech. And all the world laughing at me for a miserable dupe! Oh, the unbearable agony.’5

  They quarrelled bitterly; it was inevitable. Medjuel said he could not understand her distress; Ouadjid would never replace Jane – she was a passing desire and unimportant. In her anguish Jane said things that she later regretted, but she meant it when she said that she would not accept another wife. She would leave him and Syria unless he divorced Ouadjid.

  Medjuel did not even unpack but left for Homs immediately, leaving Jane to torment herself with the belief that she had driven him back to Ouadjid. During the following days she suffered a turmoil of emotional stress. She could not sleep, could not eat, could not ride, could not read. She thought she would die of misery. She even wished to die, for Medjuel, she said, was her entire reason for living.

  What I suffer … no words express! I know all, and I love him still. Wildly, madly, hopelessly!…

  Project after project [to win him back] course each other through my brain in rapid succession. He promised to come and spend Ramadan with me, and now, still I cling to the wild hope that he will divorce her! The abhorred one. Ouadjid!! Oh God!6

  On the last day of the year, Medjuel returned as he had promised. Jane rode out to meet him, leading a fresh horse. ‘Oh, that meeting!’ she wrote, recalling the overwhelming moment when he came up to her with his eyes wary and full of hurt. All the love she had ever felt for him, all the passion and tenderness she had ever experienced, were still there. ‘Why does my heart still beat with the feelings of youth when my head is tinged with the snows of age?’7

  In the three weeks that he had been away from her she had considered the matter endlessly; she was prepared to listen to what he had to say. And Medjuel too had considered the matter. His culture allowed him to take Ouadjid as his wife with no disrespect to Jane; perhaps he thought he could keep his second marriage secret from her indefinitely. But now his new love for a young and beautiful girl put at risk his love for an older, also beautiful, woman whose wisdom and friendship had sustained him for nearly fourteen turbulent years. As before, when he had to choose, he decided in Jane’s favour.

  Sunday February 7th, 1869. I passed the day in deep and earnest conversation with dearest Medjuel, and in [his brother] Assaad’s presence he promised to divorce Ouadjid on my arrival [at the tents]; and not to sec her, or go to her tent till we go there together, and to cut out all the roots … and await my arrival at Horns.

  Sunday 28th. Oh, morning never, never, to be forgotten! No, not if I live for a thousand years. I felt very unwell in the morning and could not get up. Dear Medjuel went and breakfasted alone, and then returned taking off his clothes again, and remained with me until dinner time! Can these delicious days, truly ‘love’s delight’, last?

  March 8th. I rode with Medjuel to el Khasseur and after receiving renewed promises of meeting again shortly, we parted. He again promised to divorce her, said he no longer loves her, that she is cold and avaricious etc., and that he would not see her again until I came to the tents.

  For three weeks, until she was due to leave, Jane fretted that Medjuel would renege on his decision and send word telling her not to come to him. Meanwhile she packed all their possessions to send to Horns.

  She had no qualms at leaving the house and garden in which she had invested so many years of hard work. With Fidayah her maid, little Fatmah her new slave, and her brother-in-law Redjib as guard, she set off for Homs via the desert and Baalbek, so that she could visit the ruins and do some sketching.

  Monday 28th March. Baalbek. With what different feelings I was there 16 years ago after my journey to Palmyra, and on my return to Greece previous to my journey to Bagdad. The road led through the domain of Emir Solyman. We slept at his home, the country lovely in parts and so we went on in peace until we came to the village of Khasseur.

  Thursday April 1st. Slept at Khasseur where I was horribly annoyed by the village Moslems asserting in the strongest manner that Medjuel was really married to ‘Ressoul’s girl�
��, but that ‘perhaps he has divorced her after three days?’ What I suffer in addition to all the rest!

  Friday 2nd April. I arrived in Homs and the first person who came to salute me was ‘Bint Ressoul’!! Ouadjid! I treated her as she merited!

  She was irritated by Ouadjid’s impudent greeting, until its significance burst into her consciousness like a sunbeam through clouds. It meant Medjuel had kept his promise. He was in the desert without Ouadjid.

  Saturday April 3rd. My birthday. Sixty-two years of age and an impetuous, romantic girl of 17 cannot exceed me in ardent and passionate feelings. I spent a week at Homs and left for Hamah on Thursday 8th.

  At Hamah her stepson, Afet, whom she had coveted as a baby, came to meet her, accompanied by others from the tribe to escort her formally to the tents. Medjuel and another of his brothers, Telgarr, rode out to meet her as she arrived. As she dismounted, her stepdaughter Aafteh welcomed her warmly, and behind her the other women of the tribe stood in silent sympathy. When at last they were alone together, Medjuel once again promised to divorce Ouadjid. he said, however, that he was prevented from effecting it immediately because Arab law demanded that her father or brother be present at such a ceremony.

  There was great fighting in the desert that year as the government attempted to confine the tribes to defined areas and thus keep them apart. Medjuel was badly wounded in a skirmish and therefore nothing could be done about the divorce. Then the Ressoul men could not get to them, it being too dangerous for them to travel. Consequently, it was September before Jane’s purgatory was to end. That whole summer she spent at the tents, waiting. She could not bear to think that, even though Medjuel had no contact with Ouadjid, the girl was legally his wife. Many members of the tribe supported Jane, in particular her eldest brother-in-law, Sheikh Mohammed, who was concerned that Jane might seek a divorce. She had, after all, done a great deal for the tribe. But among all the flattery and sympathy there was gossip and innuendo, until she thought she would go mad.