Had it really been three weeks since she took leave of the children? That would mean that it had been eight weeks since she’d had her monthly. And that could mean only one thing. She pushed it to the back of her mind.
“Perhaps we should not cross the border into France,” she said. She did not care if she had to use war with Napoleon as an excuse to terminate this tour. She wanted to be in their garden at Broomhall with the children running about and her mother sitting beside her, knitting, in a wicker chair beneath one of the big oak trees. This was especially so if she was indeed pregnant again.
“I have diplomatic immunity, Mary,” Elgin said. “I have connections with Talleyrand.” He pronounced the name of the man known as the Prince of Diplomats with assurance. Talleyrand was France’s iconoclast—aristocrat, revolutionary, cripple, priest, and philosopher. He had miraculously survived the French Revolution to become Napoleon’s prime minister. “His office has assured me of our safety. What more security do we require? The French abide by the international rules of war. They are not barbarians.”
“But if all you and everyone else say about Napoleon’s fury that you ‘stole’ the treasures of the Parthenon out from under him is true, should we risk traveling through France in these delicate times?”
“Lord Whitworth, the current ambassador to France, is still in Paris, dining with Napoleon and Talleyrand, attending the opera and who knows what else. Cavorting with dancing girls, for all I know. As long as all of that is true, I do not see how we will meet harm on French soil.”
They arrived in Lyon on May 17 to find that the atmosphere had become thick with tension. The British refused to abandon their claim on Malta on the grounds that the French had not quit Germany and the Lowlands. Everyone believed that war was inevitable.
“We will shorten our stay in Paris,” Elgin said. At this point, all citizens of Great Britain traveling in France were under scrutiny. “We will not be allowed to turn around and go back to Italy. All we can do is persevere until we are home.”
They made their way to Paris as quickly as possible. Elgin had written ahead to Talleyrand to reconfirm his security, and Talleyrand had responded, assuring Elgin that they might remain in France as long as they pleased, and that their passports out of the country would be available to them at any time.
They rode into Paris, arriving utterly exhausted at the Hotel Richelieu, an elegant facility done up in red granite, and intending to rest for forty-eight hours before collecting their passports and leaving for Calais. When they arrived at the hotel, they were met by Mrs. Dundas, a Scottish woman whom Mary knew from Edinburgh.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” the woman said, seeing Mary and Elgin and kissing both of them on the cheeks. “I should be happy to see you, but how can that be so in light of what is happening?”
“What is happening?’ Elgin said.
The woman’s eyes grew wide and her voice low. “Lord Elgin, how is it that you have not heard? Bonaparte, the blackguard, has declared war.”
“Has he?” Elgin tried to sound calm.
“Yes. He yelled at Lord Whitworth! Called the English ambassador to France into his office, presumably on official matters, and yelled and screamed like a person who should be confined to an institution. Lord Whitworth stormed off. He’s left France! I heard it all from the American ambassador.”
“When did this occur?” Elgin asked.
“Just days ago,” she answered. She leaned close to the Elgins, whispering. “Bonaparte sold half a continent called Louisiana to the Americans and pocketed fifteen million. He’s going to use it to take us on again. The French have been gathering up all the English males between eighteen years of age and sixty. You are all to be détenus until Napoleon says otherwise. Oh, praise God that I am leaving town with the American ambassador!”
“Détenus?” Mary repeated. “Detainees?”
“One and the very same thing,” said Mrs. Dundas.
Elgin tried to collect himself. It would not do for an ambassador of the highest order to receive news secondhand through a civilian friend of the American ambassador. But they had been traveling in a cramped carriage for days and had heard nothing of war’s being declared. Mary clutched her husband’s sleeve, but he quickly patted her hand.
“I am sorry to hear of your English friends, Mrs. Dundas, but as an ambassador, I have diplomatic immunity. Now, if you will excuse me, I must find Lady Elgin’s rooms. She is exhausted from the long journey.”
As they followed the French porter to their rooms, Mary could not breathe. “Elgin, is it possible that we are to be kept here?”
“Nonsense, my dear. We have the word of Talleyrand himself. Next to Napoleon, he is the first man in France.”
Elgin’s unflinching calm—and her own exhaustion—helped Mary to spend a peaceful night in the big feathery bed in their suite. She knew that they would soon have to pick up again and travel, and no matter what happened at sunrise, she would be better able to face the situation if she had a good night’s sleep. She lay on her back next to Elgin. He dosed the both of them with laudanum, left with him by Dr. Scott, and he chased it with a large glass of French cognac. “May as well enjoy the local delights while we can,” he said.
They lay together in the darkness, their feet touching. They had slept this way since their wedding night, and to Mary it was more comforting than all the Janissaries or militiamen or armed guards in the world.
THEY HAD NOT DRAWN the curtains, and in the morning, the sun came creeping into the room much sooner than Mary would have liked. As she was adjusting to the wakened state, she heard a rap at the door. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. Elgin was already up and in his dressing gown. Before she could say a thing, he was out of the door to their bedroom. She got up quickly and stood at the door.
“What is it?’ she heard Elgin say.
She heard a male voice, official in tone, emotionless and clipped. She hoped that her French was rusty and that she was misinterpreting what the man said. She peeked out of the room. The messenger was not of the hotel; he was in military uniform. Elgin did not respond to anything that was said, but shut the door. He turned toward his wife. His face was haggard. He did not sleep with his nose mask, and his poor stump sat pitifully on his face. His lovely blue eyes were encircled with black rings.
“Orders from Bonaparte, Mary,” he said. “I must turn myself in today as a prisoner of war.”
MARY IMMEDIATELY WROTE TO her mother to explain that though Elgin was officially a prisonnier de guerre, and they were detained in Paris, he was not jailed. On the contrary, detention in Paris had taken on a social air, what with fourteen hundred Englishmen prohibited from leaving the country, and a substantial portion of those detained in Paris staying at the hotel. Their passports were confiscated, and Elgin was closely watched. The Hotel Richelieu had a lovely garden, which Elgin walked in every day. He was free to move about Paris, but could not leave the city.
But Elgin would not leave the garden. His spirits sank lower and lower as the weeks passed and no news was given them about when they might leave France.
“I am not a man to live in an indeterminate situation, Mary,” he said.
Their lives were full of uncertainty at present. The divers in Greece had been working since the spring, and it was difficult to get word on their progress. The French were patrolling Greece looking for Elgin’s treasures, while many of the large pieces still awaited shipment in Piraeus.
“If you are worried over transportation, shouldn’t you order Lusieri to stop excavating and collecting?” Mary asked. It was a matter of common sense to her. Why continue to collect if shipment was a problem? Now that England was engaged in full-scale war with France again, Lord Nelson would surely not allow even one warship to shirk its military duties in the service of Elgin’s obsession. How they would find transport for the rest of it, Mary did not know.
“You’ve never understood it, Mary! Never!”
He was short-tempered these days, especia
lly with her, but she made it a point not to respond to angry pronouncements of this sort. She had done so much to help him, and even to this day was financing the salvage effort. She had persuaded her father to pay the customs on the cargo when it entered England—a fortune by the standards of any man—in addition to her parents’ paying for the care of the three children. On June 14 she had received word from her mother that the children were safe in her care. Mary had parted with them in Naples in March, and it had been a torturous three months of worry over them.
“Mother says that your mother is so taken with the children that she has presented them to King George!” Mary said, waving the letter, trying to cheer her husband. “Even though she calls them ‘little Greek savages who do not know proper English,’ she is still the doting grandmother.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Elgin said. “Does her letter report anything on the arrival of the marbles? The entire collection could be in the hands of the French by now! It’s intolerable not to know.”
It was true that correspondence, never swift from country to country, was now blocked at every turn because of the war. The French officials opened correspondence that the Elgins tried to send, and also opened any letters they received. Mary had tried to send letters home with Lady Tweeddale, who had received rare permission to return home. But that good woman was stopped at the border and all her correspondence and papers confiscated before she was given permission to cross the Channel. Mrs. Dundas offered to carry letters back to England with her, but also cautioned that women travelers especially were searched for papers. Mary was despondent, yearning for news of the children. She kept the painting of them by the bedside and kissed it whenever she felt blue.
“They must think we abandoned them,” she said.
“Nonsense. They are sensible children,” Elgin said. “They are in good care. Neither your father nor Dr. Scott will allow them to harbor any such thoughts.”
Mary started to host teas, hoping that the flow of English and Scottish guests would bring Elgin out of his mood. But they only seemed to deepen his gloom. The weather in Paris was miserable, raining every afternoon and thundering so loudly that Mary had a daily headache. One day, along with rare shockingly sunny weather, they received a surprise visit from Count Sébastiani, Mary’s old admirer. Sébastiani had heard of their predicament and had come to offer his services.
“I will speak with Napoleon on your behalf, Lord Elgin,” Sébastiani promised. “He is against you, as you know, but I have influence with him.”
Elgin seemed happy to put aside his old rivalry with Sébastiani in order to gain his freedom. He even left Mary alone with the Frenchman while he took his garden stroll.
“I have dreamt of having you in Paris, Lady Elgin, but not under these circumstances. I am very sorry,” Sébastiani said when they were alone.
“We appreciate your assistance, Count Sébastiani,” Mary said as formally as possible, remembering their tawdry exchange in Constantinople, when he declared that she should become his mistress. He had not lost any of his good looks nor his charm. The man was dangerous.
“I have been filling the ears of Josephine with stories of your beauty and your intelligence. She is intrigued with you, Lady Elgin. I have been whispering these things to her so that she might speak with Napoleon about your husband.”
“We are most grateful,” Mary said, remembering how good he was at whispering in a woman’s ear.
“Some evening, you must go to the opera. Josephine will see you, and I will attempt an introduction. I am sure she will help you. She is tenderhearted, and she likes me.”
I’ll bet she does, Mary thought, looking at his winsome eyes. Oh, he knew just how to look at a woman to make her feel desired. Time was only serving to help him perfect his art. But he was a true gentleman. He did not attempt to use Mary’s situation to his advantage, but put himself entirely at her service, which made him all the more attractive.
Mary told Elgin of Sébastiani’s plan, but he refused to go out in the evenings. Unwilling to sit at home alone every night and mourn their situation, Mary invited the exiles and detainees to their rooms to play whist. Word of the card parties spread quickly through Paris. All the English who were stuck in the city—and soon the entire international diplomatic community—were angling for invitations to Lady Elgin’s card games. One night, a Scotsman who claimed to know Elgin from childhood showed up without invitation, carrying his own deck of cards.
“Lady Elgin’s reputation for the game precedes her,” he said as Elgin welcomed him. “I have brought my own deck for luck, hoping she doesn’t clean me out of cash and take the family lands with it.”
He turned to Mary, presenting her with the deck without introduction. She did not extend her hand—he was a Scot, after all, she knew by the unmistakable accent—but he reached for it and brought it to his lips. It did not seem an improper act, not coming from this man. She knew immediately that he was not being forward; rather, he appeared to be driven by an inner urgency. Elgin did not seem to like the gesture. “Too much time on the Continent, old boy,” he said.
“Au contraire, Elgin, not nearly enough.” He released Mary’s hand. “Robert Ferguson of Raith, Lady Elgin. It’s a miracle that this is the first time we have gazed upon each other. As a boy, I could have looked across the Firth from out of my windows at Raith and waved to you at Archerfield.”
“A pleasure, Mr. Ferguson,” she said. She knew the name, of course. “But I believe that you left Scotland when I was a girl.”
“True. I had no taste for lethargic country life. I am a geologist by profession and a man of cities and travel by passion.”
And a radical by reputation, she remembered from local gossip—always an embarrassment to his conservative father.
Robert Ferguson was tall, even taller than Elgin, and handsome, but not quite as handsome as Elgin had been before his disease ruined his looks. Ferguson’s features were strong. Though he looked youthful, his hair had receded. His clothes, however, were impeccable—not quite dandified, Mary thought, but selected with great care.
“Are you still fond of speaking out against the Crown, Mr. Ferguson?” Elgin asked. He was smiling, but Mary detected an edge to his voice. Elgin did not take kindly to antimonarchist sentiments.
“At every opportunity. I did so last evening in Madame de Staël’s parlor. Have you read her essays on the matter?” Robert too was smiling, but Mary thought he was matching Elgin’s edge.
Mary shook her head politely in the negative, but Elgin was more responsive, almost laughing. “Really, Ferguson, you do push the limits!”
“Have you never been invited to Germaine de Staël’s evenings?” Ferguson asked.
“Of course I was, as was every other bachelor in Paris, including, at one time, your Mr. Pitt,” Elgin said. Elgin, a Tory, was strictly against Prime Minister Pitt, a Whig, an adversary of King George and, Elgin always said, an appeaser.
“What the devil, Elgin. We are all allies here against the common enemy, are we not?” The two men shook hands, slapping each other on the back. Politics receded as they began to talk of home. Ferguson remained after the other guests had departed, and he had a glass of port with Elgin.
Soon Ferguson had Elgin out of his rooms and into the streets of Paris, haunting the city’s many dealers of fine arts and antiques. Within weeks, Elgin had accumulated a collection of fifty-four Old Masters paintings, along with furniture, chandeliers, candelabra, and urns and vases. He had also become acquainted with the wine merchants of the city, buying dozens of cases of their finest to bring home to the cellar at Broomhall. Pottery, porcelain, silver, and plate had all been accumulated in recent weeks.
“Mr. Ferguson has excellent taste,” Mary said to Elgin one day. “But he certainly is free with his money.” She was actually trying to caution Elgin about his own spending. Though they were not allowed to leave France, they were responsible for their own expenses while there. The hotel was very expensive, and Mary had p
roposed taking a house in Paris to try to cut costs. But now she worried that with all the sumptuous goods for sale in the city, no matter how much they saved, the costs of Elgin’s shopping would outweigh their savings.
“Mr. Ferguson is terribly rich, Mary. I cannot believe that a man of his wealth, who is going to inherit the vast estate of Raith, goes on about reforming the government and the economic system. He’s a gentleman, to be sure, but he is a bit unstable for a Scotsman, if you ask my opinion.”
Ferguson had become an object of fascination for the two of them. Without an embassy to run, and without children to look after, they had little to do but talk about their new acquaintances. “How has the man remained a confirmed bachelor?” Mary asked.
“Oh, there are rumors. He had a scandalous affair with a married German countess, on whom he sired a son. The lad is supposed to be in boarding school somewhere.”
“Is there no hope of them ever being together openly? Does the lady love her husband?” Mary asked.
“Not at all! But her father left his considerable fortune to her husband, so that she cannot leave him. She would be destitute, and she is not willing to be in that condition, though I daresay that Ferguson could provide for her.”
“How tragic!” Mary said. It was the stuff of a romance novel.
“Oh, Ferguson is always falling for one woman or another. And the women always seem to reciprocate.”
“He has a generous spirit,” Mary said. Ferguson had deciphered Mary’s tastes, and he had begun to bring her gifts—porcelain cups and other expensive trinkets, delightful French chocolates, and rocks of fascinating colors from his enormous collection of rare minerals. “And, for a political extremist, he has the ways of a gentleman.”
“But his odd democratic leanings and his detestation of societal conventions prevent him from settling down. He doesn’t want to live in Scotland and be ‘lord of a great estate,’” Elgin said, imitating Ferguson’s way of speaking. “Though what is wrong with that, I do not know. The mature man should wish for nothing else.”