Mistress of the Elgin Marbles Read online

  All through these battles of nerves, Mary, Countess of Elgin, remained steady. She continued to perform her duties with unflagging cheer and charm. Lord Elgin learned that his original hunch was right: his wife had become a star. Mary, Countess of Elgin, became her husband’s toughest, staunchest ally, indeed, his partner, and by doing so became his most competent and most powerful weapon. Instead of shutting their doors on the Elgins, which was what their enemies had hoped for, the Captain Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and the sultan extended even more frequent invitations to the Seraglio. Although they were enraged at the British government, this powerful troika had no intention of depriving themselves of the pleasure of Mary Elgin’s company—and it was due to his special affection for Mary that the Captain Pasha formed a singular and special alliance with another member of the Elgin clan.

  Chapter 7

  MOTHERHOOD: MARY’S NORTH STAR

  My most esteemed friend. As the friendship and intimacy subsisting between us is altogether extraordinary, and not to be in comparison with what is the case with others, … I sincerely wish you may be blessed with the enjoyment of a long life…. I beg you will make my compliments acceptable first to our much respected friend My Lady—and then to the most honoured Ambassador our friend.

  —CAPTAIN PASHA IN AUGUST 1800

  TO FOUR-MONTH-OLD LORD BRUCE

  The tenderness between “Eggy” and “Poll” grew into deep devotion as the couple celebrated their first anniversary. He called her his “little Dot” and was extremely proud of her. In one letter to her mother, she told of this, claiming that she had comported herself well, with great sang-froid despite her fear, earning her husband’s admiration:

  E is all amazement at my courage for he says I never take fright at any thing, but on I go; the only time I really felt alarmed was at a violent skirmish that took place at the Seraglio when the Kaftans (a sort of Pelisse) were distributed to the Servants & Greeks; a Turkish riot I did not feel up to, & they pressed on me so dreadfully had E & some of the Gentlemen not caught hold of me & helped me up on a high stand behind E’s chair, I should immediately have been suffocated: even then I was complimented on my good behavior, as I only turned pale said nothing.

  Each genuinely suffered for the other whenever the other was ill. She was particularly upset about Elgin’s migraine headaches caused by stress, what she perceived to be his excessive intake of alcohol, and the ongoing use of leeches and mercury, which began to inflate and irritate his nose. Elgin, in turn, expressed true helplessness and heartache whenever Mary suffered her “choakings.” When George Charles Constantine, Lord Bruce, was born at two-thirty in the morning on April 5, 1800, after an excruciatingly difficult delivery, Elgin wrote home to his mother that his “beloved Mary was safely delivered” and that “Mary suffered a good deal after the birth” and was given laudanum for days. He couldn’t bear having his Mary in such pain. He marveled at the sight of them together only a few minutes after the boy’s birth, “with her little boy, nicely dressed laying by her—Her look on the occasion, was a kind of thing I could not have conceived.”

  The new parents were ecstatic. Elgin described his son as “the finest” ever born. “There never was a finer fellow,” he declared, and instructed his mother to tell everyone in London the news, providing her with a list of people she should tell. The original name for the baby, Charles, after Elgin’s father, was changed after some discussion with Mary. The couple decided on George for the king, Charles for the previous Lord Elgin, and Constantine in honor of his birthplace. They were going to ask the king and queen to be godparents. Quite a few letters went off to his mother discussing the christening. As they were in a foreign country where no one was Protestant, what was her opinion on persons not in the Anglican Church standing in for the king and queen at the christening? Elgin consulted with Reverend Hunt, and his mother consulted with the bishop of London. All of the Elgin children would have both a christening very soon after birth and a baptism a few months later, two separate ceremonies wherein they were given names, anointed with holy water, and declared Christ’s own.

  A few weeks after the birth, Elgin assured his mother that Mary had forgotten her pain, “lost in delight of her little brat.” His letters to his mother were usually dry, boring notes about her health, his health, and discussions about doctors. The Dowager Lady Elgin received uncharacteristically effusive letters filled with almost a tipsy giddiness, a joyful silliness, when Elgin wrote that his newborn son, Lord Bruce, was the center of everyone’s attention.

  You cannot conceive the cares which children bring along with them—I have now had this boy above three weeks and what with the variety of opinions, all equally respectable, on the fashionableness of his frocks, caps—the deliberations on the colour of his shirts—little flatulences—the expence of washing 27 cloths a day, in short, You can have no idea of the worry I am kept in—The fellow himself seems to leave all to the Old Gentleman; & cares for nothing, but eating and sleeping.

  Mary, despite Elgin’s comments to the contrary, had not forgotten her pains and was terribly ill after the delivery; nonetheless she declared, “I am the happiest of Creatures.” She had been extremely anxious at the time of Lord Bruce’s birth because she had no idea where in the world her parents were. In a very frail condition and with no Mrs. Nisbet in sight to take charge of the “Bab’s Bab,” Mary hired an experienced Greek baby nurse—a “paramanna”—to look after little Bruce. Lord Bruce was but thirteen days old when Mary turned twenty-two and she wrote to her mother-in-law, clearly smitten with her son and his very romantic father:

  By the bye I must not forget to tell You a very pretty galanterie of my Son’s! on the 18th of April he came into my room with a little Note in his hand which he gave me, on opening it I found a beautiful Emerald Ring, & this written, “My Dear Mama, Pray accept this ring from your affectionate Bab.—A Green Stone, in a ring, is an Emblam, that my Hopes can have no end, as long as your hand supports me.” (Signed) Little Bab

  What do you say of your Grandson? Is he not a dashing little Fellow?

  In the middle of May, Lord and Lady Elgin and their brand-new “young Turk” or “Kutchuk,” as she delightedly called him, left Pera for the summer. (The term kuçuk, which actually means “little,” was often used by Mary in a joking way to mean “bigwig.”) The Elgins traveled to the Belgrade forest area, where they planned to summer at Büyük Déré, a resort about fifteen miles from Constantinople. Lady Wortley Montagu had summered there as well, comparing it to paradise in a letter dated June 17, 1717.

  I am … in the middle of a wood consisting chiefly of fruit trees, watered by a vast number of fountains famous for the excellence of their water, and divided into many shaded walks with short grass—the pure work of nature—within view of the Black Sea from which we perpetually enjoy the refreshment of cool breezes which make us insensible to the heat of summer…. The Village is only inhabited by the richest amongst the Christians, who meet every night at a fountain,—forty paces from my house—to sing and dance. The beauty and dress of the women exactly resemble the ideas of the ancient nymphs, as they are given us by the representations of the poets and painters.

  Elgin began a romance with the caïque, a long, multioared sailing vessel that navigated the upper shores of the European side of the Bosporus past the yalis, the seaside palaces, with ease. On the Asian side of the Bosporus, he could see the Anadolu Hisari—the old Castle of Asia—and the Valida Sultana’s fountain in the Meadow of the Sweet Waters of Asia. Describing it in a letter to his mother as “a pinnacle of oriental design,” he brought one back to Fife. Mary, as usual, was thinking more practically—she could cut back on her entertaining expenses—adieu Hottentots—and spend extended time with her baby. Her summer of 1800 was, in fact, the closest to perfect happiness she had ever known. She also expressed relief that this summer in the country would keep Lord Bruce away from city-bred disease. Still anxiously awaiting her parents’ arrival, she left a letter in town for them:
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  I had almost forgot to ask you to be civil to the Turk, the bearer of this. After a long conversation with me, he said you were the Grand Signior’s guests, and that he was told to look upon you as such, and that his head was to be answerable if any accident happened to you. Don’t you think they would be a long time sawing it off?? It would at last hang by a string!—

  “Oh! Fye Mary. You make me shudder.”

  “Oh dear Mama, I am so accustomed to taking off heads that I think nothing of it.”—

  And he also said that if he came to any difficult pass, he would carry you on his turban. How I laughed. I can just figure to myself, You, seated on his head.

  Farewell, my dear dear Mother. Kiss Dad, and Love Me.

  Your own Poll, the Ambassadress

  VERY EXTRAORDINARY!

  She longed to have her parents at Lord Bruce’s christening but felt she could not postpone her duty, so on May 30, little Lord Bruce was christened. Mary sent details to her mother-in-law and wrote that she found it hilarious that locals had begun to copy her English riding outfits. At the beginning of June, in a very frail state, she hosted a celebration in honor of the king’s birthday with a grand fete and, once again, performed her duties beyond reproach. She described her own party to the Dowager Countess Elgin:

  We put up a large Canvas room in the Garden covered the walls with bows of Oak & wild Roses we had down the middle of the Table a bow with orchids of which was hid with moss full of Roses Carnations & c.: and you can have no idea what a good effect it had; we had exactly 100 people at dinner the King’s health was drank with three times three, our Battery fired 21 rounds & then our Band play’d save the King: after dinner we came into the House & had a regular Concert & incomparably our Musicians play’d such music was never before heard here; when the Concert was done we had fireworks and then a Ball which I pique myself upon having kept up in a capital stile for when I once begin I believe I can tire most people & they had never capered so fast in their lives I danced every dance & what is more I taught them Reels, every body seemed pleased & contented.

  On July 7 at seven o’clock in the morning, Mr. and Mrs. Nisbet finally arrived in Belgrade. It was nearly a year since they had left their daughter in London, at that time a very young new bride. When they greeted her in Turkey, she had blossomed into an internationally admired figure and one who was experiencing the bliss of having her firstborn child.

  An extraordinary letter addressed to the infant Lord Bruce—as opposed to his cross-dressing mother—and dated August 15 arrived in Belgrade and was treasured by Mary and her parents. The Captain Pasha expressed his delight at the little boy’s arrival and apprised the baby of the latest political developments so that he might pass the news along to his father, the ambassador. “Here, Here; here is a letter come to me from the Capitan Pasha, who is so fond of me.” The entire family was overjoyed with the new baby, and Mary was positively giddy, describing her mind as having “bees” flying inside. She wrote to her mother-in-law: “It is not only my blind partiality that admires him, for even my Mother says she never saw so fine a Child, tho I was much prettier, I think I have heard you say Elgin was ye ugliest Baby ever seen,” she teased.

  Mr. and Mrs. Nisbet adored being with their only child and grandson, and they also received many privileges and courtesies because their daughter was so admired. That summer, they attended balls at the Russian Embassy, and they, too, were invited to the home of the Captain Pasha and were received by his sister, Hanum. That, again, was a distinct honor. There they saw bestowed upon their little girl the “Chilinque Amathist,” the massive jewel worn in the center of a turban at the front of one’s head. Perhaps the most spectacular experience for the Nisbets was their invitation to accompany Mary to the summer apartments and gardens of the sultan and his sultana on August 13.

  If anyone in London had believed Spencer Smith’s stories that Lord and Lady Elgin were inept at or incapable of representing the king properly in Turkey—Mary wrote to her mother-in-law, “I suppose they wish to find fault in anything (he) does”—then the Nisbets could now return to refute any accusation. Their children were esteemed, welcomed everywhere, and Lord Elgin was particularly hardworking. Mary wrote to the Dowager Lady Elgin that her own son

  Kutchuk shall not be a Diplomattic for I think of all the drudgeries it is the worst; you cannot imagine what a Slave E is and the immense quantity of business he has to transact is beyond belief … when I dare say You Englishers thought he had nothing to do but to receive Diamond Snuff Boxes, & from the Grand Signior; there was he poor Mortte setting at his writing Desk all day, & sometimes all night.

  She wasn’t complaining very seriously about diplomacy, as she also wrote to her mother-in-law that she hoped her little “Kutchuk” would be made the first English Knight of Malta. In a jolly mood, Mrs. Nisbet invested him for carrying in his tiny hands the letter to his father, ambassador extraordinaire, which brought the news of an English victory on that small but geographically strategic island.

  The next few months brought great happiness for Mary and her parents as they shared the growth and progress of the little boy and many pleasant excursions. On August 26, they went to the top of Gants Mountain. They received an exclusive invitation to dine with the sultan’s fifth wife on Monday, September 1. In November, Lord Bruce was baptized, and Mary hosted a magnificent ball and supper in honor of the occasion. Mary noted in her diary that on December 23, “Mrs HN Kutchuk and I went to the Captain Pasha’s…. The Pasha gave Kutchuk the Diamond flower 23rd.” Mary had begun to use the term “Kutchuk” to tease just about everyone, and the Nisbets, thanks to the absolute and unwavering admiration for their daughter, brought home an astonishing cache of presents themselves.

  The Nisbets remained in Pera through the winter, but the following spring, on April 23, it was time to go home. “Oh, what I felt when I fairly lost sight of your ship round the Saraglio point; I really was very ill,” Mary wrote on May 10, 1801. She reacted psychologically with another asthma attack, but there was more—they were leaving her and she was pregnant once again.

  Their son-in-law had encouraged his in-laws to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and visit the sites of ancient Greece and Turkey. Most Europeans never ventured to see the classical sites. Despite admiration for the achievements of ancient Greece, and fascination with the barbaric Turks, the region was not included on the Grand Tour agenda.

  The reason: the prevalence of smallpox. The death toll was staggering, and it was common practice to detain and quarantine ships returning to England in Malta or Gibraltar to prevent seamen from transmitting disease back home. Long before Dr. Edward Jenner’s 1796 discovery of the cowpox vaccine, Lady Wortley Montagu had reported home in a letter dated April 1, 1717, to Miss Sarah Chiswell that the Turks had a method of inoculation that addressed the awful disease:

  The small-pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it…. People send one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox; they make great parties for this purpose, and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together), the old woman comes with a nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what veins you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of the needle, and after binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell…. I am very well satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son. I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England; and I should not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it.

  When she returned to England in 1720, Lady Wortley Montagu did exactly that and opened up a significant dialogue among the doctors in the West.

  The idea of inoculation, however, was quite new, and it was fortuna
te that the Nisbets and the Elgins were very up-to-date in their thinking; surrounded by progressive doctors at the University of Edinburgh who were in favor of inoculation, Mary’s parents routinely consulted some of the best doctors in England and Scotland. It was the Dowager Lady Elgin, however, who galvanized them all. As Dr. Jenner’s father was Martha’s own chaplain, she took a proprietary interest in the brand-new smallpox vaccine. She was convinced of the vaccination’s effectiveness and dispatched a Dr. Scott, who brought vials of the vaccine with him to Turkey. When Sir Sidney Smith anchored in Constantinople, Dr. Wittman used this serum to inoculate the captain. Wittman praised the Elgins for their role in popularizing inoculation and, as a result, saving many lives. An additional source for the vaccine was made available to Mary when, on the way to Constantinople, the Nisbets met a Dr. De Carro in Vienna who offered to send their daughter vials of the vaccine. Mary proceeded to have her household staff inoculated, and in order to ensure her own son’s safety had the little Lord Bruce vaccinated three times in October.

  The Dowager Lady Elgin, intent on having her new grandson inoculated, wanted an immediate account that the little boy had received his vaccinations and upbraided her daughter-in-law for lack of communication. The criticism really irritated Mary, and she got quite defensive. As she was in the early stages of her second pregnancy and not feeling very well, she was quite unpleasant to her mother-in-law in a letter dated February 7, 1801: “I think you are very unfair imagining for one instant I had not written about the innoculation, since I left England I have hardly missed an opportunity of writing either to you or to Grosvenor Square; as you may see by the number: This is my nineteenth to you (I have only received eight from you).” In fact, Mary was meticulous about recording every tooth the little boy cut and sending her mother-in-law reports on his progress. As her mother-in-law had taken it upon herself to meddle and dispatch Dr. Scott with quantities of the vaccine, Mary was annoyed and lashed out: