Stealing Athena

  “You are not pleased?” I said, and heard my voice tremble.

  “Of course I am pleased, Aspasia. It is a gift from the gods.”

  “Then why are you not rushing to hold me?” I cried out.

  I couldn’t move. I was hurt by his lack of emotion and his immobility at this holiest of times.

  “You have shocked me, that is all. It is my second shock today.”

  I did not care if he was shocked. I wanted to hurt him back. “If it is a girl, should we keep it or should we expose it?”

  “Are you out of your mind, Aspasia? Why did you say such a thing?”

  “Because the fate of illegitimate girls is too grim! Because I do not want to put love and tenderness and care into a creature who could be turned out of her father’s house and sent into a brothel!” I started to cry, at first softly, and then in great heaving sobs.

  Perikles put his arms around me. “Would I allow that to happen to my own daughter?”

  “No, not while you are alive, but if something happens to you, there is little recourse for either the child or me.”

  He led me to our private dining room, where he put me on the couch and covered me with a blanket, and sat with me for a long time, soothing me by patting my head as if I were a child. “I will not allow anything such as what worries you to happen either to you or to our child. Now, that is just silly, Aspasia, and not worthy of a rational thinker such as yourself.”

  “I am more human than rational,” I said. But I was embarrassed over my outburst. Just as I was collecting myself, however, I remembered that I, a mother-to-be, was also going to be tried before a jury—an Athenian jury that already would have made its mind up about me, a concubine and a foreigner.

  “We will find our way out of this, Aspasia. If my enemies think that they can hurt me by hurting you, they are mistaken.”

  “But you are sending Pheidias away!” I said. “What if they convict me, and you have to send me away?”

  “If any attempt is made to separate us, I will play Achilles. I will let it be known that if the Spartans attack, I will sit in my tent until my woman is restored to me.”

  In the countries of France and England, 1805–1806

  YOU ARE MY DEAREST angel, and I beg your forgiveness,” Elgin said when Mary met him at Pau with the baby. He took his son into his arms and gave him a kiss on each cheek and one on the forehead. “Robert Ferguson is the most loyal friend a man could hope to have. I must write to him and thank him for his kindnesses to you. I will do anything in my power to make up for my harsh judgments against you.”

  “You wounded me most severely,” she said. “I had naught on my mind but obtaining your freedom.”

  “You cannot imagine the immense cruelty I was made to suffer, Mary. The French interrogators tried every trick to make me confess that I had come to France as a spy for the English.” The lack of sleep for weeks at a time, the frigid conditions in the prison, the absence of medical care for his various ailments, and the horrible letters from his mother and the English gossips prying into their lives and reporting on Mary’s social appearances in Paris in the company of other men—free men, handsome men, men who could care for her—had all conspired to make him lash out at his precious wife. “I was not in my right mind, Mary. I hope you will acknowledge that and forgive me.”

  Mary was touched by his suffering and by the withdrawal of his recriminations against her. She tried to remember all of the things that she loved and admired in Elgin, but it was not easy for her to rekindle her affection. She could forgive his accusations, now that she knew the extent of the physical and emotional pain he had endured, but still, his angry words written in the long letters delivered for her to digest still rang in her head. In addition, he was simply not the same man. His health had deteriorated in prison, and his condition was worse than at any time before. Mary remembered reading the historian Thucydides’ harrowing description of the symptoms of plague and she wondered if Elgin had contracted it at Lourdes. The signs were frighteningly similar: fever, thirst, bile, blisters, ulcerations, vile breath, and the stench of the sufferer unbearable. Along with these, heat in the head, inflammation of the eyes, coughing, spasms, pustules, and intense prickling sensations on the skin such that the sufferer cannot tolerate the feel of his own clothes or his bedsheets. Elgin had all the symptoms. Ashamed of her own suspicions, she asked the doctor if it was possible that Elgin had contracted plague. The doctor assured her that, though her husband was a very sick man, his illness had other causes.

  His horrible physical condition repulsed her, but it also drew her sympathy. Away from his captors, Elgin resumed his gentlemanly behavior. They returned to Pau, where the healing waters had helped him so much in the past, and again he grew healthy. Despite his appearance, which was only one part of a man, she reminded herself, she let him into her bed again. It was not his fault that he suffered a disease that had left him disfigured. The man had been tortured, at least mentally tortured, by his captors, yet he had remained a true patriot. When Mary felt appalled by his appearance, she reminded herself of his noble character, and it made her feel more affectionate toward him.

  It was a quiet time in their lives. Mary found herself feeling utterly domesticated. She learned how to embroider to keep herself occupied when William was napping. Otherwise, she was wrapped up in the baby’s care. Though he was not yet one year old, she was convinced that he understood how to play poker. Thanks to her constant efforts to teach him the use of utensils, he could hold his own spoon. He had tipped over more than one bowl of soup in the learning, but Mary did not care. His every advance in development delighted her. But nothing was more pleasing to her than the private times between them, when she held him to her breast and watched him nourish himself. Why did women deny themselves this pleasure? Why must this intimacy between mother and child be given up to nurses, who may or may not give a fig about the welfare of the babies? If she had known how delightful it was to care for one’s own baby in this way, she would have nursed every one of her children.

  William seemed smarter than the others for all the attention she gave him. Well before he was a year old, he could toddle around the room and clap his hands to a song. His first word was not “Momma” or “Dada,” but “Hark!” which he said with one finger up in the air like a statue.

  “Watch this!” Mary said to Elgin one day when he came home from taking the waters.

  William was sitting in his high chair with pieces of apple in front of him. Mary leaned over and looked her son in the eyes. “Embrassez-moi, monsieur,” she said. And in answer to her request, he pursed his little red lips for her to kiss.

  “Is he not perfection?” she asked Elgin.

  “If he were not my own son, I would be jealous of his ability to captivate the attentions of his mother!”

  Elgin began to open the letters that had come that morning in the post. “Look at this, Mary,” he said. “Oh my, he’s already had his stationary redone!”

  Elgin showed Mary the letter from the office of Napoleon, which now carried the stamp of a good-sized crown and read, “From the Emperor.” Months earlier, Bonaparte—formerly a man of the Revolution—had conferred the title upon himself.

  “I suppose that declaring himself Imperial Highness has made him feel more magnanimous,” Elgin said. “He’s finally given me permission to reenter Paris.”

  “Do you think this might be a step toward allowing us to go home?” She did not want to become excited, for Napoleon had disappointed them before. But the thought of being home was intoxicating. “Think on it, Elgin. Our Turks will be united with our frog!”

  “It is too soon to tell whether he will give us back our passports. But it would be a brilliant time for us to return. The first shipment of marbles has arrived at the East India docks in London. I’ve written to my mother repeatedly about trying to stage an exhibition, which she seems to think would be a ‘vulgar undertaking.’ I must go take care of these things myself.”

 
“Perhaps she is merely overwhelmed at the enormity of the undertaking,” Mary said. She had no desire to defend her mother-in-law after the trouble that woman had caused between Elgin and herself by her letters full of vile gossip, but she also knew firsthand how overwhelming responsibility for Elgin’s collection could be. “She is, after all, getting on in years.”

  “Yes, precisely. Another reason to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity Bonaparte has thrown our way and pack at once, before His Imperial Highness changes his whimsical mind.”

  IT DID NOT TAKE Mary long to close up the house at Pau. On William’s first birthday, they were well on their way to Paris, traveling through Toulouse, Montpelier, and Nîmes. They arrived in the city on April 1. As soon as they got there, the baby developed a fever. Mary did not panic; William had had terrible fevers when he was cutting his teeth, worse than any of her other children, and he’d recovered. She nursed him carefully for a week, with an attending physician who never left their side. She thought he was improving, but one night he started to convulse, and suddenly he stopped breathing. Nothing that she or the doctor did could make him breathe again. It was midnight. She would always remember hearing the chimes from the cathedral as she held the still baby in her arms.

  William—tiny, delicate, beautiful William—was gone, taken from her forever.

  It had all happened so quickly. The sudden reversal of fortune had descended with such alacrity and fury, taking the only thing in the world that mattered. Everyone suffered heartache in this life, but why must one have so much of it at once, as if God were in a hurry to cram all the worst pains one is meant to suffer into as brief a period as possible? She was separated from her home, her beloved parents, and her other children, and now, this dear one was dead.

  With William’s life went Mary’s will to live. “My soul doted on him from the moment he was born,” she said to Elgin. “Why did he go away and leave me here?”

  Elgin could do little to console her. He was wrapped in his own grief.

  “I believe that bastard Napoleon had not yet done with heaping suffering upon me, Mary,” Elgin said. “He has denied my request to go to Scotland to bury our boy. And yet he has granted permission for you to go.” Elgin looked at her suspiciously. “Why would he give permission to you and not to me? Is he trying to put a rift between us?”

  “Oh, dear God, are you accusing me of being in love with Napoleon?” she asked incredulously.

  He did not answer, but squinted his eyes.

  “Or him with me?”

  “No, Mary, of course not,” he said softly. “It’s just that at this time, I do not think we should be separated.”

  “But who will see to William’s funeral? Who will bring him home? Surely you do not want to bury our son in France?”

  “Of course not. But I cannot leave, and I do not believe that I shall survive if we are separated,” he said.

  “What are we to do?” She could feel herself growing hysterical. She would not be able to go on if she could not take her baby home and bury him properly.

  “We have just received a letter of condolence from Robert Ferguson,” Elgin said. “He is here in Paris on personal business, Mary, and he is offering to help us in any way that he can.”

  Robert arrived at their temporary quarters not an hour after she and Elgin had sent him a note. Solemn and full of compassion, he offered to escort their child’s body back to Scotland, where he would see to his burial in the Elgin family crypt.

  Mary bought a little navy blue suit with woolen breeches for William to wear, embroidering his initials on the jacket herself. Why she was driven to do this, she did not know, but it seemed a task of the utmost importance. She let the Parisian officials prepare the small body, but she insisted on wrapping William in a blanket that her favorite aunt had given her as a gift when she was a child. Then she placed him carefully with her loving mother’s arms in the tiny oak coffin in which he would be transported home. When Mary saw the private carriage that Robert had leased to take them to Morlaix, she panicked.

  “He cannot be carried atop like cargo!” she said to Robert. Elgin tried to calm her, but it was no use. She sobbed until Robert spoke with the driver, arranging for the body to ride inside the carriage all the way to the ferry that would take them to Southampton. From there, Robert would travel with William’s body by land to Edinburgh.

  “I shall care for him as if he were my own son,” Robert said to Mary. “I shall guard him with my life, and lay him safely to rest. You needn’t worry over a thing.”

  NOT LONG AFTER MARY had to say goodbye to her baby, she discovered that she was pregnant again. She was numb to the news, barely reacting, whereas Elgin was joyful, trying to console her for the loss of William with the fact that they could produce more children. Mary did not say anything, but secretly she hoped that with the delivery of the next child, she would die.

  Eight months into this unwanted pregnancy, relations between France and England deteriorated, and Napoleon once again ordered Elgin arrested and sent to prison.

  Mary, frantic and vulnerable, assured Elgin that she would meet with Talleyrand again and beg for his release, but the night before he was taken away, he gave her the most surprising reply to her desire to be near him and to try, once again, to see him free.

  “No, Mary, I have told you before, though last time you managed to elude me and remain on your own. You shall not wander about Paris again and say it is on my behalf. It is unseemly. Once again, you are obviously with child and belong in seclusion, not meeting with strange men, or allowing the same to escort you to theatrical presentations like some debutante!”

  Mary was stunned to hear him bring up the old accusations. She had worked hard to wipe his unnecessary cruelty out of her mind so that she might love him again. If he started the same treatment now, she might not ever recover her feelings.

  “We have been through all of this, Elgin. Why do you not believe that all I have done, I did for you, and do for you?”

  “Be that as it may, Mary, I won’t let things get out of hand again. Your behavior sets every tongue from Paris to London wagging. I cannot have it. This time, I am petitioning Napoleon and Talleyrand to issue a passport to you. You are going home at once.”

  “Elgin, look at me. You know what happens to me in these last weeks of my term. I cannot travel over the Channel in the winter weather. There will be storms. I will be so ill!”

  “I have said the last I am going to say upon this issue,” he replied. “You shall do as I say. I know what is best for you. Did you not beg me to let you return home when you were pregnant with William? You would be at home right now if Bonaparte had not denied you a passport.”

  She winced at the mention of her dead baby’s name. How dare he invoke that angel to manipulate her emotions?

  “I believe that you wanted to have the baby with your mother and Dr. Scott attending? Do you recall that?”

  She glared at him. How would she control herself? How would she prevent her hands from reaching out and clawing his eyes? Whatever strange disease he contracted had taken his nose; she was in the mood to destroy the rest of his face.

  “Now you shall have that wish,” he went on. “After you have the baby, you can help my mother receive the cargo that is arriving at the docks. Someone must do an inventory. I think that you are the most appropriate person to complete this, don’t you?”

  Prior to this moment, she had been feeling a fury rising deep from within, a fury that she knew could kill or maim if she released it. But suddenly, it dissipated, and she felt utterly calm. This must be what it is like to be dead, she thought. Dead, and beyond care for the living.

  “Whatever you say, Elgin. Though one can hardly expect this unborn child to survive the journey. But if it dies, so be it, as long as it prevents me from having more of your children.”

  STORMS BATTERED THE inn at Morlaix where Mary stayed for three days waiting for the skies to relent so that the Elizabeth could embark for Englan
d. She had never been so miserable. With nothing else to do, she spent the interminable hours writing letters to Elgin. She did not care what happened to him when he read them. The last time he was incarcerated, she suppressed any fears or unpleasantries in all of her missives to spare his feelings. She’d been so careful to sound cheery so that any good humor he had might be preserved in his difficult circumstances. Now she did not care about his state of mind. She wanted to make him as unhappy as he had made her. She was alone, and yet not at all in control of her circumstances. Others were charting the course of her existence, determining her destiny, regardless of her wishes, her feelings, her health, even her very life.

  She was in hell.

  But by the time the boat docked in England, the sun was breaking through the gray skies. It had been six years since she had touched British soil. Being tossed about on the boat without relief for a full twenty-four hours had left her exhausted. Yet when she walked off the boat she realized that she was neither angry nor numb, but anxious to move in whatever direction she would now take. She had exorcized her madness and left it somewhere in the stormy waters of the English Channel. She still had three living children and was expecting another child. There was ample reason to live, whatever Elgin decided to do; ample reason to live even if he died in prison.

  She heard horses’ hooves upon the brick road that ran alongside the quay. The sound, coupled with the idea of immediate further travel, made her nauseous.

  “I cannot possibly bear the motion of a carriage,” she said to Miss Gosling, the lone servant traveling with her. “Find us nice rooms in Portsmouth. I shall rest a day or two before moving on to London.”

  It would take weeks for her mother and father to arrive in London with the children. She should recuperate slowly from the trip. She wanted to be vibrant when she saw them, not the sallow and sickly feeble thing she felt right now. She sat on a bench waiting for Miss Gosling to return with news of lodging. Though it was late in October, England was breaking its own tradition of perpetual gloom and letting in the sunshine. She heard the carriage drivers shouting at the porters who were weighing down their vehicles with luggage. Girls hawked flowers, pigeon eggs, warm buns, chestnuts, and other items to passengers who were waiting to take the next boat. After so many years in foreign lands, Mary was startled to hear, ubiquitous, the sound of her native tongue. A man next to her inquired about a schedule, and apparently not receiving the answer he wanted, he sighed heavily and sat down next to her.