by Susan Nagel
The political situation between England and France worsened, and on September 27, Elgin was arrested and forcibly sent to Melun. The last time Elgin had been incarcerated, Mary had remained in Paris, where she felt she could not only pursue her husband’s best interests but also be close to him. Mary hoped that once again she could effect Elgin’s release if she were allowed to meet with Talleyrand. This time Elgin overruled his wife, listening instead to the voice in his head that was his mother’s, and he ordered her home. Out of pity for the young mother who had lost her son, Napoleon and Talleyrand complied and issued her a passport on the spot. She argued bitterly with Elgin, pouring forth all of her grief in anger.
Entering the third trimester of her pregnancy, Mary tearfully left Paris on October 9, in absolute disagreement with her husband. She refused to believe that Elgin had sent her home for her own good. She wondered if he still loved her, and this time it was she who hurled accusations. The bumpy ride in her cabriolet caused the baby to drop, and she dispatched passionate and poignant letters to Elgin, claiming she longed for him and she loathed him at the same time. She was heartbroken that he had sent her away. On October 13, she wrote from Brieux:
How does my Beloved Elgin do? Does he think of his Mary? Does he say God Bless her? Does he regret her absence? I should like to know all that … and my imagination is not the most tranquile in the world—If I thought you could forget me for one moment Elgin—What would become of me?
She truly believed that he had once again wrongly and ill-advisedly listened to other people’s opinions regarding her fate, and she was very hurt. She could most definitely remain on her own and wait for his release, as she had proved in the past, and she did not need “protection.” She was determined to return to France as soon as she had the baby, and she wanted no interference with that plan: “I trust you will not write to my people to prevent my returning—write me what you please but if you do anything under hand in the true Scotch stile depend upon it, it will not do for some how or another if I live, I will get away.” On the fifteenth, she was in Morlaix and chided him: “You allowed yourself to be directed.”
Mary’s overwrought emotional landscape mirrored the storms that raged across the Channel delaying her homecoming. She remained in Morlaix in great discomfort and she accused Elgin of ruining her health. On the seventeenth she wrote to him: “I am in a great deal of pain … I have sacrificed every thing—others have decided my fate, not myself. It was impossible to stand such a journey—I knew it before I set off.” Hurling all her fury at him, she warned that “one can hardly expect the child to live,” but “if it prevents my having any more Babs I shall bless the day all my life.” She stated that she had another one of her “presentiments” that if she were to have the baby in England without him, “we never were to meet more.” “Why marry, if one is to separate upon the first appearance of difficulty—I never was frightened when I was with you.” She unburdened her heart, telling him that she simultaneously hated every fiber of his being and still loved him. “I drank my beloved Elgin’s health. May God Bless him.”
Lingering at a small inn with only her servant, Gosling, to assist her, she was relieved to sell her carriage for two hundred francs before sailing, and although she was pleased with the transaction, she remained dispirited. Her usually chatty, witty, and entertaining letters became diatribes, and at one point she ordered her husband to tear them up. She was going to make him suffer with every moment of her own unhappiness. “I am in very great pain, I can hardly walk from one room to another”; yet she longed for him. “Oh how I wish myself with you!” On the eighteenth, still in Morlaix, she wrote:
I feel dreadfully low today my Elgin. I can think of nothing but our Angel Willy—pray God we may join him hereafter what can ever make up his loss dear dear Creature. I trust Elgin the Almighty will pardon our faults and that we shall be joined to our William never more to part—what would life be without that hope? How I doated on that child and how he was snatched from us…. God Bless you my Beloved Elgin, never did you do so wrong as making me leave you, for my mind and heart are quite horrified.
Their marriage had not been the fairy tale she had expected—”we have been so unhappy for a long time”—and all of her insecurities surfaced. She wondered if he had married her for her money, as other people had, but she had dismissed that idea, “for I did think you liked me for myself.” She spitefully reported that her traveling companion “is a fine old man, you need not be jealous Elgin.” On Monday, October 21, the night before she was to board the ship for England, unbeknownst to Mary or Elgin, their old friend Admiral Nelson was mortally wounded at the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain; it was a bittersweet victory for the English. Mary, too, felt at war writing to Elgin—”you have destroyed me.” At the same time she pleaded for him to send her a lock of his hair for her ring, she burst forth with all of the violence of a gale, her most hateful and most pathetic censure: she accused him of infidelity. She ranted and seethed yet swore that she would love him until the day she died.
I am convinced you have had any pretty girl … sometimes I think you wished me away on purpose … fifty times I have thought you had people when I was away last time … but say you love me and that you will love me all my life…. Are you not sorry I am away from you? I declare I do not believe you are … you write very well but you do not act as if you cared for me; for what obliged us to part—Nothing earthly!
She fumed that she would not live one moment longer than necessary without him and commanded him to obtain a passport for her immediate return. “If you do not I shall come over by some means or another.” At one o’clock in the morning, seven hours before her scheduled departure on October 22, she wrote, “I wish I knew what you are doing Dear Elgin have you got any body with you, or are you all alone?”
The next morning, the weather had not improved and she remained in Morlaix. “I think this is the unhappiest day of my life dear Elgin … today I feel as if my existance was over…. When shall we meet again my Elgin? I dare not give way to my presentiments—I feel very ill … my heart is broken.” She tried to make him feel guilty. “May God Almighty Bless you, my Beloved Elgin, if any thing happens to me those will be my last words—my attachment to you is sincere and unchangeable…. Elgin your heart would bleed did you know what I have suffered in mind and body. This journey not only risks my life but another being’s.” She declared her eternal love before boarding the ship—”be for Ever assured of your Mary’s Love”—yet she was truly horrified at his lack of compassion for her feelings and admonished, “Elgin you don’t know me yet.”
Finally, on October 23, Mary boarded the Elizabeth. The following day she reached the shores of Plymouth after having lived six years abroad. When she had left England in 1799, she was an excited and nervous young bride, wildly in love with her husband and expecting their first child. She had been accompanied by an entourage of minions to serve her every need. Wherever she disembarked there were panoplies of fireworks and gun salutes. In 1805, she returned to England, an internationally celebrated woman, pregnant with her fifth child, yet to Mary these blessings were eclipsed by weariness. The newspapers announced her arrival, alerting friends and relatives. Lady Robert, Aunt Bluey, and Uncle George Manners were at Bloxholm and scrambled to greet her in London, but she simply could not face them immediately. Besides, she was “hardly able to beat the motion of a Carriage,” so she proceeded slowly. She stayed in Plymouth for three days and then traveled to Bath, where bells pealed for an entire morning to welcome her. In London on October 31, the first social obligation she fulfilled was a much dreaded dinner with her mother-in-law. The following day, Lady Robert arrived at Grosvenor Square, which filled Mary with more mixed emotions; Lady Robert had grown frailer, and Mary blamed herself for causing her grandmother to worry. For the past six years, as Mary’s universe had expanded with the vitality of being around her children, Lady Robert had grown old. On November 10, Mary wrote to Elgin that her father and mo
ther also “have been much shook by age and illness since I last saw them: and I fear that an absence … and the apprehension of never seeing me more have added to their sufferings.”
Mary did not have the heart to put her parents through further anxiety, and she made the controversial decision to find her own house in London. She felt it would be horrible for her parents to suffer alongside her when she went into labor that winter. She most certainly did want them to be near their grandchildren, so she spent her first two weeks in London scouring the Portman Square vicinity and found a pleasant place at 60 Baker Street just nearby. When she offered the excuse that the children’s boisterousness would tax their patience, her parents argued with her. The truth was that she wanted to regain control of her children’s care, and as she had been maîtresse de maison of her own homes for six years, she did not want to resume the role as daughter in someone else’s house. She wanted to come and go as she pleased, and she knew that if she were going to campaign for Elgin’s release, it would take quite a bit of traffic.
On November 26, Mrs. Nisbet and the children arrived in London. Mary awaited their arrival with mixed feelings. She wrote to Elgin, “My mother with the Bratts leaves Biel today, so I may hope to have them in my arms next Saturday.—Dear Elgin, what a painful meeting to me, how it will recall my beloved William to my mind; but indeed he is never out of it.” It had been two and a half years since she had seen Bruce, now five and a half, his sister Mary, now four, and Harriet, the infant she had placed aboard the Diana, now three. When they arrived, she marveled at them, gaining back her strength. “They took so violently to me from the very instant they saw me, it was wonderful.”
Laughter rang in Mary’s heart once again. She wrote to Elgin that little Harriet had sat upon her grandfather’s knee and the two of them sang “God Save the King” together. Bruce was the image of his father, “the finest manly, healthy Boy I ever saw, tall uncommonly well made, excessively active climbing up everything”; Mary was “as elegant a little thing as you can see”; and Harriet, “a perfect beauty, and so engaging a quiet mild manner she is irresistible; she is precisely what our William was, sometimes I can hardly look at her, only he had Bruce’s Eyes instead of Harriet’s.” She sweetly assured Elgin that all of his children prayed for his return.
Mary’s letters resumed a cheerful tone, full of sparkle and mischief. The future earl was a little hellion, she reported. One day at Broomhall, when his grandfather was in the cellar gathering some wine, little Bruce ran amok, screaming at the top of his lungs, “All this is mine!” Grandfather Nisbet scolded the obstreperous boy, but Bruce continued his “hollowing.” Mr. Nisbet, who didn’t appreciate the boy’s arrogance, whacked him on his bottom. Bruce lowered his pants, flashing his bottom at his grandfather, and shouted, “You may kiss my backside! That is mine, too!” Mary howled with delight. “What say you to that specimen of elegance?—really I never saw a finer boy than he is, what unspeakable delight you would have with them.”
William’s death had caused a void that would never be filled and had increased Elgin’s anxiety about the health of his children. Mary assured and reassured him in every letter that these children were robust and perfect.
Oh yes my Elgin, our beloved William is eternally happy; if one had not that feel what would become of us? But nothing in this world can ever make up his loss, dreadfully I feel it when I see the others. But indeed it is impossible to see more lovely children than those we have left—pray God Bless them to us.
As for Bruce, he will be your favorite, he is so wonderfully active & wellmade … he can place the map of Europe perfectly … he knows all the countries thoroughly, & many of the principal rivers.
Mary is certainly uncommonly clever, tall & remarkably elegant, her head is beautifully shaped … dear things they have excellent hearts … it is quite astonishing the violent attachment Bruce & Mary have for one another … Harriet is the mildest little beauty I ever beheld … she told me what one of my old friends said to her at Biel, “Oh you bonny Creature you are like your Mother.”
Mary filled her moments with her children but still felt the pangs of “the dear dear Angel we have lost.” She attended dinner parties and went to the opera with family members. Elgin’s former attaché, William Hamilton, was now an undersecretary at the Foreign Office, and he was working with Mary to facilitate Elgin’s release. Alexander Straton, Elgin’s former embassy secretary, was also writing letters pleading Elgin’s case. Mary had a very easy time attracting other people to meet her as well.
While she had been abroad, London had been agog with stories of her adventures. Gossip about her husband’s collection, her visits to the Seraglio, and their romantic travels had filled drawing rooms around Britain, and now that she was home, everyone wanted to talk with her. As always, she enjoyed the attention and wrote to Elgin that as usual she was the much-sought-after object of curiosity. Once again, Elgin wrote of his displeasure with her behavior. He thought it unseemly that she was not under her father’s roof. It was the Dowager Lady Elgin who had incited his ire, and Mary resented her mother-in-law’s meddling.
I will tell you how I manage—I seldom get out of my bed till between 11 and 12. at one I go to Portman Square & lunch whilst the Children Dine I remain there to Dinner tea & Supper! And have a regular whist party every evening as I had at Paris—so you see my visitors I receive at my Father’s—I really think what several Women have told me since I have been here—”That you are extremely Jealous.” … What say you?—was it your idea, or your Mama’s? … if at 27 one does not know how to act, it is all over, watched or not.—Do you know my Mother gave me the front room below stairs to receive my Company in, separate from her!—so you see she has more confidence in her Mary, than you have in your Wife. Nothing provokes me in your Letters but your astonishment at my liking a house to myself—I am sure some of your people must have put that idea into your head Elgin.
“I most willingly will pay it out of my own money,” she wrote, and reminded him that once again, he misconstrued her actions. “I have worked like a slave for you ever since I have been here—there is nothing I would not do.” She repeatedly told him that the minute the baby was born, she would head back to France to be with him, but she had little faith that he was of the same mind, and she persisted in worrying that he was being unfaithful in her absence. “Have you ever enquired about my getting back again. I dare say not.”
In the meantime, as she prepared for the baby’s delivery, she turned her attention to another crucial matter. Try as they did, the trustees of Broomhall, including Mr. Nisbet, had not been able to rectify the earl’s financial situation. Broomhall’s lime and coal works had brought in money, but as Elgin had encumbered the property in the past, there were loans to be paid. Try as she did, Mary could not stop her husband’s reckless spending. She was grateful that her parents had assumed all responsibility for the children’s expenses, but she knew that radical measures had to be taken if Broomhall were to survive. Mary boldly decided that once again, she could do the job if she put her mind to it. “Will you appoint me your Man of Business?” she wrote Elgin. “I am upon a grand Plan of settling my accounts as well as yours.”
Chapter 20
DROWNING IN DEBT
The cash is going to the Dogs” Mary wrote to Elgin on December 3, 1805. The cash meant his cash, as her own fortune remained intact; her Scottish holdings would, upon her father’s death, yield her over £18,000 a year, and Aunt Bluey would leave her Bloxholm Hall in Lincolnshire, adding another considerable fortune to that. Elgin’s own annual income for 1806, Mary reported, after his debts were paid, would leave them a paltry £500 to live on. To be considered a gentleman, a man living in the United Kingdom in the early nineteenth century needed, among other attributes, to possess an annual income of at least £150. The sum of £500 per annum was not at all paltry to most of the world, but to a girl of Mary’s background it was frighteningly low. She warned him, “Dear Elgin beware of buying—little do yo
u know all the trouble and anxiety I have had about your accounts…. Bills which were really disgraceful … you have really nothing to live upon this year.”
Considering the fact that Mary was among the richest girls in the world, that statement seemed a paradox. From the time of her marriage, however, she monitored the family finances, learning very early on that her husband was a spontaneous spendthrift who could not live on any semblance of a budget. The Elgins’ first Christmas in Constantinople, which was Mary’s first Christmas away from her parents, was when she received the emerald the size of an egg on a tray from her husband. She also received some presents and a letter from her parents. It was her mother and not her husband who jolted Mary into the reality of her husband’s precarious finances. She inferred from her mother’s comments that all was not well at Broomhall. Mrs. Nisbet, a very wise woman, let Mary know, in case her son-in-law had not, that Mr. Nisbet and Mr. Oswald, two of Elgin’s trustees for Broomhall, had been writing to Elgin with gloomy news. As Mrs. Nisbet had suspected, Elgin had not forwarded this bad news to his young bride, nor did he impart the constant warnings from his own mother that he needed to cut back on his expenses if he were going to keep Broomhall. Elgin ignored them all and spent lavishly.
It was clear, however, that Mary, while maintaining her customary humorous tone, understood the gravity of her mother’s news. She sprinkled her notes with messages revealing her anxiety about the serious spending going on; serious money was needed to feed sixty for dinner every night and all those “Hottentots.” Elgin’s salary from the British Parliament was somewhere in the £6,000 range, £1,000 of that subsidized by the Levant Company to further its interests. In 1800, the embassy costs totaled more than £8,472. In 1801, Mary reduced their expenses to £4,847. She worked at cutting back on some of Elgin’s extravagances, for example, by dispensing with his chamber orchestra, although its leader, Belotti, was allowed to stay on without pay but with food. Mary knew that what she didn’t say (or what her parents would read between the lines when she told them she was economizing) would result in their sending her money.
