Stealing Athena

by Karen Essex

  “Normal jitters for a first-time mother,” he replied. “Everyone says it is a frightening experience the first time, but if one comes through as you have, with a healthy baby and one’s own health undamaged, the next time will be much easier.”

  “Yes, of course you are right,” Mary said, wondering how her husband, or indeed any man not in the medical profession, might become an expert on childbirth.

  “King George and Queen Charlotte have fifteen living children, and if you ask His Majesty in private, he will confess that he still does not think one of them a suitable heir. No, Mary, a man can never be sure of these things. We must look to the future. As soon as you are healed, I hope to get you with child immediately.” Elgin was as confident and as formal as when he spoke to the Grand Vezir.

  “Immediately?”

  “Yes, of course. All practicality aside, motherhood has made you more luscious than ever.”

  “I do wonder whether we should have any more children in this city. Smallpox is rampant. Every time I look at our son, I worry that he will contract it.”

  “We shall keep him safe,” Elgin replied. He kissed her tenderly on the lips, took the emerald ring, and placed it on her finger. “You are the brightest star in the city of Constantinople. Everyone knows it and remarks on it. You light up both sides of the Bosphorus, both continents of Asia and Europe, with your luminosity. I love you, Mistress Poll.”

  “I love you too, Eggy,” she said, letting the topic she wished to explore rest, at least for the moment.

  Soon thereafter, a servant rushed into Mary’s study with the news that she’d tried to serve Dr. MacLean his meal in his room, as had become his habit. But when she took him his dinner, she found him lying dead in his chair.

  Mary would miss the man, though she recognized his shortcomings. If she had to give birth again in this strange land, she would not even have the good doctor upon whom to depend.

  In the summer of 1800

  MARY HAD NOT ALLOWED herself to admit how lonely she was for her family until she saw the faces of her mother and father as they arrived at the embassy. She had hoped to rush into their arms. After all, she was their only and beloved daughter. However, she quickly learned one of the universal realities of having had a child: the grandchild trumps the child. After perfunctory kisses to their daughter’s cheeks, the Nisbets whisked past Mary to witness little Lord Bruce in the arms of Calitza. Mrs. Nisbet hardly took a moment to coo over the baby before snatching him out of the poor nurse’s arms as if the woman had stolen him in the night. Mr. Nisbet kept slapping Elgin on the back, shouting, “Good job, lad,” as if Elgin had single-handedly produced the boy.

  Mary had done everything possible to ensure that her parents’ visit to Constantinople would be comfortable, interesting, and profitable. She had outfitted rooms for them, done as lavishly and tastefully as she knew their wealth and status demanded but their Scottish sensibilities would allow. She made sure all the right people entertained them—foreign diplomats, English dignitaries, and illustrious Turks. The Capitan Pasha invited them all to his home and, in the presence of both parents, took a giant amethyst out of his turban and presented it to Mary, to demonstrate to the Nisbets, he said, how much he had come to treasure the ambassadress. She spent an entire morning with her mother at the women’s market, where they bought embroidered shawls and fabrics, hair clasps of gold, buttons of ivory and pearl, exotic-colored threads, and cosmetics and creams that would be unknown on the Continent. Mrs. Nisbet was impressed with the way that Mary remained unfazed with the aggressive peddlers crowding the streets, and with her fierce bargaining techniques with the lady vendors who sold the majority of the goods at the women’s market.

  Mary had been heavily coached by Elgin before her parents’ arrival. He had a very specific agenda he wanted his wife to follow.

  “There is no room for failure or delay,” he had told her a few weeks before the Nisbets were to arrive. “The project in Athens grows more costly by the day. We have so many on our payroll. The Turkish officials in Athens are demanding larger and larger bribes and fees to allow access to the Acropolis. The Capitan Pasha tried to intercede on my behalf, but he was suddenly called away to Egypt.”

  “What has this to do with my parents?” Mary asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Mary, we need more funds.”

  “But we have already asked them for so much!” She had been working so hard in planning their visit, trying to strike just the right note between demonstrating how nicely she had set up the embassy and how thick she was with Turkish society, and showing that she did all she did with an eye toward economy. Mary dreaded any confrontation with her father over money. Mr. Nisbet allowed his wife and daughter the luxuries necessary to maintain their positions in society but, with his wealth, could have lavished thrice the luxuries upon them. “Comfortable, but sensible,” was his motto, and he had no patience for grand plans such as Elgin’s.

  “My father feels he has done enough. He thinks you spend too much. He won’t capitulate.”

  “Does he understand that every cent is put forth with the heart of a true patriot?” Elgin asked. “Does he know that most of our funds have gone to aid General Abercrombie in his military efforts against the Napoleonic menace?”

  It was true. Elgin had sent huge sums of money to Abercrombie in Egypt. The general had figured out that getting money out of the ambassador was easier than getting money out of the king. Elgin promised his bankers as well as Mary, who was nervous over doling out their private funds for a war effort, that the government would reimburse him. What with funding the war effort and funding the Athenian project and funding the embassy itself, the Elgins were constantly in need of cash. And only Mary had access to more.

  “Does your father understand that the British government treats me like a private purse it can tap at will?”

  Mary could not argue with Elgin. She thought the British treatment of her husband deplorable. Still, the man could not stop spending. Some of it was born out of his generous spirit, such as the recent gift of the enormous emerald he bought knowing that she had an affinity for the gem. She did; however, she did not require another one, especially at this delicate time in their financial lives. But what could one say to one’s bright-eyed husband as he proudly presented one with an extravagant gift? She continued to thank him profusely, while writing secret letters to jewelers in London asking what the jewel would fetch. She knew that she would have to sell it one day if she was to fund the rest of Elgin’s ambitions.

  She hid the emerald from sight when her parents arrived, and, affecting as troubled a face as she could muster, she took advantage of the first opportunity to speak with them about money.

  But Mr. Nisbet was well prepared for the discussion, and had come to Constantinople with concerns of his own.

  “I do not dispute that Lord Elgin acts out of patriotic leanings, Mary. It is his other expenditures that concern me,” her father said.

  Mary waited for him to continue, but her mother interrupted. “He might lose Broomhall!” she said.

  “What is this?” Mary asked. Elgin had mentioned no threat to his home—their home—in Scotland.

  “He and Mr. Harrison, the architect, went rather mad with their plans for the house,” Mrs. Nisbet said.

  “Grandiose. Use the proper word, my dear,” said Mr. Nisbet.

  “Yes, their grandiose plans are costing fortunes more than expected,” her mother continued. “His bankers are in receipt of the invoices, and they alerted us to the problem out of courtesy. If Lord Elgin does not take heed and curb his ambitions for his home, he may run out of funds before its completion and have to sell it at a loss.”

  “He would not be the first free-spending aristocrat to find himself in such a predicament,” Mr. Nisbet said. “Indeed, clever landowners in the area are waiting for the bankers to close in so that they may acquire the property at a price.”

  “Of course, we hear all the talk in the county, dear,” Mr
s. Nisbet added. “His poor mother writes to him constantly advising him to cut back on the expenses for that house, but he doesn’t listen.”

  “His banker sends Elgin letters of warning—which I take it he does not share with you, my dear?” Mr. Nisbet asked.

  Mary said nothing, revealing her ignorance of her husband’s affairs.

  Mr. Nisbet shook his head. “Just like the father, God rest his bankrupt soul.”

  “Surely you would not allow the worst to happen?” Mary asked. “To your own daughter and grandchild?” She’d fantasized every day about returning to Scotland and taking up residence at the baronial Broomhall. Why, she’d decorated every inch of it to her satisfaction in her mind. Some nights when she couldn’t sleep and felt empty inside thinking about home, she’d go over the rooms at Broomhall, matching the tremendous bolts of fabric she’d been collecting from Turkey and India to furniture, walls, and windows in her Scottish home-to-be. “Where on earth would we live?”

  “A man must be responsible for his wife and child,” Mr. Nisbet said. “If you recall, I did warn you.”

  Mary’s mother made an admonishing face at her husband. Mary guessed that her mother would never allow her father to sit by and watch Broomhall be taken away from the Elgins. But Mr. Nisbet had made his point.

  “I’ve got sixty Hottentots in this very embassy to feed every day, three meals each!” Mary let her parents see her exasperation. “You can’t know how hard I’ve worked to economize!”

  “I did hear that you let Lord Elgin’s chamber orchestra go,” her father said, rather snidely, Mary thought. Did he not understand that a man in Elgin’s position had to have such entertainments at his disposal? Everyone expected it, but the government would never pay for it. Mary herself had so enjoyed having musicians in the house. She shed tears when she had to dismiss them to save money.

  “I insulted scores of musicians in the interviews because I asked them if they would be willing to double as servants,” Mary said. It had been no small task finding good musicians who agreed to her terms. Even then, after six months, she had to admit defeat and send them back to England.

  “Lord Elgin has written to Mr. Harrison that he has his staff searching for immense cuts of marble from which he will have copies of the ancient columns made and sent to Scotland to be placed in Broomhall. Are such extravagances really necessary?” Mrs. Nisbet asked.

  “The shipping costs alone would be phenomenal,” Mr. Nisbet added. Mary did not know of these plans of her husband’s. “There is talk, my dear, that his purpose in making forms of the Greek architectural elements is to make Broomhall more ornate.”

  “That’s absurd,” Mary said. “Elgin’s ambitions in Athens are to raise the standards of the arts in the United Kingdom. That is all. It is a noble endeavor, and one that I stand behind. And my mother agrees with me,” she said. She turned toward Mrs. Nisbet. “Or have you changed your mind about the duties of a good and proper wife?”

  Mrs. Nisbet blushed. Obviously she remembered her advice to her daughter when the subject of the Athens project was first mentioned. The mother had surprised the daughter with her speech about supporting the ambitions of her husband. Her opinion had influenced Mary’s every decision since arriving at Constantinople. She would not allow her mother to back out of her position now that it was expensive and inconvenient.

  “I have not changed my thinking,” Mrs. Nisbet said. “A wife’s duty is to support her husband’s every ambition. But I had no idea how expensive that support might be.”

  “A wife’s duty is also to temper her husband’s excesses,” countered Mr. Nisbet.

  “Has my mother had to perform such a duty?” Mary asked.

  “It has not been necessary,” Mrs. Nisbet answered quickly, turning her eyes away.

  Mary wondered if she had not sensed a little regret joined with her mother’s pride at that statement.

  True, Mary would have to rein in Elgin’s spending. But was his extravagance not a sign of a man of passion, eager to have and consume the best of what life had to offer? Eager to make his mark by improving the larger world? Though Mrs. Nisbet could take comfort in her husband’s sensible nature, had she ever experienced the excitement that a man like Elgin offered a woman, both in the bedroom and in the public arena? Mary’s mother led an elegant existence, free of worries, largely because Mr. Nisbet had conducted their affairs with superb judgment and constant measure. But here was Mary, the toast of the Ottoman court, feted and spoiled by men of great power, living at the very center of historic events. No, she would not exchange a life such as the one she was living for one with fewer headaches and less excitement.

  THEY ARE TAKING HIM out of her arms, pulling his limp body from her, tearing away the small, hand-crocheted white lace blanket that her grandmother had sent as a christening gift, revealing the oozing sores that cover his porcelain skin. She is not strong enough to keep him, not strong enough to hold on to her firstborn. The man with the cart is bigger and more determined, his thick brown arms reaching out from his saffron robe, pulling the inert little boy from her. Mary wants to call out for Elgin, but she is afraid of letting him see that the boy is dead. She has failed the father and failed the son. She is weak, physically weak and mentally weak. She has allowed her lust for attention from men who are not her husband to cloud her judgment. She has remained here, taking their trinkets from big, open palms, wearing exquisite silks and hefty jewels, and being carried high above heads no better than hers, when she should have been forcing Elgin to take her and the baby home. She is pulling the baby so hard that she is afraid that she will tear off his flaccid little arm, knowing that her vanity—not the plague, not the poison coursing through the veins of half the city, but the way that she has indulged her pathetic female whims—has finally done her in, and her son with her. She fights with all her strength, but the man with the cart is stronger. She can no longer challenge his superior muscles nor the chilling look of blame in his eye. She lets go, shielding her eyes from the sight of her son falling upon the other dead children, but she neglects to cover her ears. She hears the dull thump as the baby’s body, the one that she had so recently protected in her womb, hits the bodies of the other dead children.

  SHE WOKE BEFORE DAWN, struggling with the heavy duvet on top of her and feeling the approach of a choking attack. She calmed herself, taking small gasps of air, which she prayed to the Lord that she would be able to expel. If she did not get too greedy on the intake, perhaps God would be more merciful this morning and make the garroted sensation inside her subside before a full-scale attack launched itself.

  Elgin was already awake, lying beside her on his back with his eyes open and his hands behind his head. “You’re fitful. Bad dream?”

  For reasons she could not explain, she did not want to reveal her dream to Elgin. Though her healthy son was in his crib, the guilt she’d felt in the dream carried over to her waking state.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  Luckily, the feared choking attack did not manifest, and she spoke. “Yes, bad dream. Something about the smallpox plague. I don’t quite remember the details.”

  “You worry too much about it,” he said. “No one in our embassy has had the slightest symptom.”

  “That is pure luck,” she replied.

  “Or Providence,” he answered. “Or perhaps, to the man of reason, merely superior medicine and cleaner conditions in which to live.”

  “The chief wife to the Grand Vezir has lost ten of her eleven children to smallpox. I do not believe that our living conditions are superior to those of Yusuf Pasha and his family, lavishly cared for though we are.”

  “Perhaps not, but as far as superior medicine and habits of hygiene go, the British take the day, my dear. I believe it would be uncontested in open court.”

  “Not in the Sultan’s court,” she replied.

  “Nonetheless, one mustn’t worry.”

  “Eggy, there is a new vaccine against the disease. Dr. Scott has been i
nforming me of it.”

  A most excellent and forward-thinking physician had replaced poor Dr. MacLean. Mary’s confidence in the new man, Dr. Scott, was growing with every conversation she held with him. Dr. Scott was a man of ideas; moreover, his hands did not shake when he administered medication.

  “The formula actually originated here with the doctors in Constantinople,” Mary continued, “but our own physicians and men of learning have been improving it in these last years. Though it’s still a bit controversial, Dr. Scott believes in its efficacy.”

  “We live in a time of magnificent scientific advancement, Mary, that is true.”

  “Do you ever consider that we might make a lasting imprint upon this city?”

  He laughed. “You mean above ensuring the radically new alliance between our nation and the Ottoman Empire? Beyond your being the first European female to visit the private harem of one of the highest men in the empire? And to have that man’s loyalty and devotion? I say, Mary, what ambitions might you hold beyond that?”

  Mary did not mean to imply that she held private ambitions that could compete with or reign supreme over Elgin’s. These days, he was easily upset. After a brief respite from disease after Bruce was born, Elgin now was rarely free of fevers or chills. His joints ached day and night. He suffered from the same mysterious chokings that from time to time attacked Mary. And the beautiful aquiline nose that Mary had so admired when they were courting was slowly disappearing, being eaten away by whatever disease had lodged itself in his body and was impervious to even the strongest and most advanced medicines of the day.

  “I was just thinking that I might use some of our influence to inform the Turks of the vaccine.”

  “Darling, you are playing a dangerous game,” Elgin said. “The vaccine is unproven. It might even turn out to be a danger to those who receive it. It is not based on sound medicine, if you ask me. Who ever heard of infecting the patient with the very disease that one wishes to prevent? If the vaccine is administered to those close to the Sultan and brings harm to the recipients, who knows how our relations will be affected? Who knows what blame will be slung and what punishment meted out? You let your guard down with these people, Poll, because you are a dear and tender creature, but I must caution you that, beneath the skin, they are crucially different from us. Lives are not valued. Heads are easily chopped off. Friends are thrown into the prisons at the slightest provocation and die there. Be cautious for once in your life.”