by Liz Lochhead
MARY. God help me, I am the author of her death!
Oh yes, this scandal never left us. Even when we were married and respectable. Respectable! With Harriet dead? The world blamed Shelley. Blamed us both.
Nothing for it, we were hounded back to Italy.
Pursued, we moved on. Shelley, me, our little William, our new little baby Clara, Claire and her little Allegra, with dark curls like her daddy’s. One year, two years. My book was finished and forgotten, published in England. We moved on. Lucca, Livorno, marble piazzas, broken columns, sunshine, sewers… and no place we could call our home.
It was not my idea to send Claire’s little Allegra to her father. Claire wanted to! She knew it was for the best, the best thing for the child…
Lights change. Back to somewhere in Italy, another new villa, around 1819.
Initial focus is on SHELLEY with CLAIRE, whispering together. MARY elsewhere (near the desk), unpacking a box or crate, but she’s hearing – and ignoring – them.
SHELLEY. I will tell her. I’ll tell her today. Hush!
CLAIRE. You promised!
She exits.
SHELLEY goes to MARY. She looks up then continues her task.
SHELLEY. Don’t sulk, it isn’t like you.
MARY. I’m not sulking, I’m unpacking. For about the twentieth time in five years.
SHELLEY. Not like my best, Mary…
MARY. You encourage her!
SHELLEY. Mary…
MARY. You do! It’s pitiful. You heard her: ‘Surely Byron will love me again’ – it’s degrading! After all this time? I’m afraid for her, she has less and less contact with reality.
SHELLEY. Reality? And what’s so wonderful about reality?
MARY. It’s not healthy!
Shelley, it tugs at my heart to see Claire grieve for her little girl… but, Shelley, who else was ever going to want Claire?
SHELLEY. Oh! – ‘With Byron’s little bastard brat hanging like a millstone round her neck?’
MARY. That is what the world is like, Shelley!
SHELLEY. A child is born with its own legacy of love. For fathers and mothers it can justly look to the whole human race.
MARY. In an ideal world, Shelley. Do you want Claire to live alone? For the rest of her life, with no one to love her?
SHELLEY. She has us.
Enter CLAIRE with a packet.
CLAIRE. A letter from Albé, look! I have a letter from him at last!
She tears it open, shakes out a single curl.
Empty. Empty. Empty except for a single dark curl. The lock of hair I begged him of Allegra’s. But there’s not a single word of her! Why doesn’t he tell me she is well? My baby, I shouldn’t have let her go!
MARY. Shelley had a letter too.
CLAIRE. Show it to me! Let me see it!
SHELLEY. Allegra is fine, Claire. Everything is well.
CLAIRE. What does he say about me?
SHELLEY. Nothing, Claire…
MARY. He says: ‘Don’t bring that damnable bitch, Madame Claire, near me. I promise to quit within the hour any town that have her in it.’
SHELLEY. Mary!
MARY. You have to be cruel to be kind, Shelley.
SHELLEY. Wrong, Mary! You have to be kind to be kind.
CLAIRE. Byron will love me again, when he sees how merry I am, and how slender I am, and how like that first summer, and how little Allegra needs her mother! Shelley says he’ll take me to him. Didn’t you, Shelley? You promised.
MARY. Did you? Did you promise to take her and leave me here?
MARY doesn’t believe it. Then the dawning horror. SHELLEY is squirming. SHELLEY’s eyes signal to CLAIRE to leave. She goes.
SHELLEY. Just till she sets her mind at rest Allegra is safe and well. You can come too, Mary. I’m sure we can find a villa near where Byron has the child. You know you don’t like it here. Bagni di Lucca is so damp and gloomy, the whole town’s a dull little fever-trap this season. Once you’ve had time to pack and settle everything, you should follow after with the children…
He puts his arm around MARY. She flinches.
MARY. Leave me!
SHELLEY takes his arm away.
SHELLEY. You can follow, soon. With the children.
Exit SHELLEY.
Lights change. Back to widow MARY again.
MARY. Oh, Shelley! How could you leave us like that?
Teething. I was convinced she was only teething.
Poor little Clara.
William was suffering from the heat too. I thought: ‘Go to Shelley, go to Shelley and to Claire…’
When I got to the ferry at Fusina, she seemed much worse. I summoned a doctor. Poor little innocent, she seemed to recover. There was a mix-up with the passports, they tried to delay us. Press on, to Shelley and Claire. I honestly thought the best thing to do was to press on. Once I reached there… I thought… She was only teething, there was no reason to suppose… there seemed no good reason not to travel.
Oh, Clara, oh, my baby girl…
MARY weeps, the shadows stir, someone’s there.
CREATURE’S VOICE. This killed the child. His name was William.
The name echoes.
MARY. William!
My dearest little Willmouse! How could you die and leave me still alive? When my Clara died, I thought it was the worst pain I ever had to bear. They said to me: ‘You still have William, love your little boy.’ Oh, William…
While I still grieved for my baby girl, I had to watch you sicken, some fever, no one knew the cause of it. I had to watch you burn and freeze and die in my arms, only nine months after Clara! Once I was a mother. Now I was a mother no more.
Lights change. Italy, another villa, the nursery. MARY is packing a box again. CLAIRE comes.
CLAIRE. What are you doing, Mary?
MARY. I am packing up William’s clothes and toys. The nuns at the convent orphanage can perhaps make some use –
CLAIRE. Oh, Mary, my dear…!
ELISE comes.
Elise –
ELISE. Madame, let me help you.
MARY (coldly). I meant exactly what I said.
ELISE (surprised). Yes, madame.
MARY. You have until tomorrow morning to pack up your belongings.
ELISE (sharply). It won’t take me that long, madame.
But then ELISE sees what MARY is doing, is moved to pity.
Oh, Mrs Shelley, it’s not good for you to do such a sad task alone, let me help you, please.
MARY. I don’t need your help, Elise.
ELISE. I’m grieving for him too! I’ve been with you since he was six months old. I loved your little Willmouse. I loved Baby Clara, and I loved Willmouse. Mr Shelley, he weeps in one room and you here all alone in another. It’s not good for you to be alone with such dark thoughts. You should go to him.
MARY. By tomorrow morning, please. Go.
ELISE exits.
CLAIRE. Oh, Mary, is it true then?
MARY. Yes.
CLAIRE. It’s Paolo’s, I suppose?
MARY. So it would appear. Why?
CLAIRE. A maidservant lies down in the dark with a coachman with a twinkle in his eye. I don’t know I can find it in my heart to blame her. Would you condemn your sister to banishment and poverty, and all for conceiving a child out of wedlock? It’s only nature, Mary.
MARY. It’s for her own good, Claire. They must marry at once, and we must leave this place; it has too many unhappy memories. Now that the summer is coming we need… Florence perhaps, or Genoa. But Elise must stay here and marry her coachman, we can’t afford any more gossip.
CLAIRE. Put yourself in her place, Mary.
ELISE marches back on.
MARY. I didn’t call you, Elise.
ELISE. No, madame, I came to take my leave. I think you are a cruel and heartless woman!
MARY. How dare you?
ELISE. Easily. Now that to tell the truth costs me nothing.
MARY. Elise!
ELISE. Yes, madame. And irresponsible, and a hypocrite too!
MARY. That’s enough! Go, both of you, Paolo is waiting. You’ll thank me some day.
ELISE. Thank you? For what?
MARY. A child needs a father. How can you, a servant of no fortune, manage to support a child?
ELISE. So free love is not to be afforded to the working classes?
MARY. Love is never free to any woman, Elise!
ELISE. How can you be her daughter and say that?
MARY. Because I am her daughter I must say that.
ELISE. Well, I read the book too! You were always encouraging me to improve my mind, even though I was only a maidservant! Indeed, I understand it very well; The Rights of Woman! The marvellous Mary Wollstonecraft was very keen on freedom for woman with six hundred a year, and a mill-owning husband to support her, and a bevy of maidservants sweeping and starching and giving suck to her squalling infants, not to speak of her rutting husband!
MARY slaps her hard.
Don’t you think we are sisters? Are we not somewhat alike?
Enter SHELLEY.
SHELLEY. Mary, Elise, what’s happening?
MARY. Go with Paolo! He is your husband. He is responsible.
ELISE looks straight at SHELLEY.
ELISE. Oh yes! He is responsible. (Laughs.)
ELISE exits.
SHELLEY. Mary, Mary…
MARY. He must marry her. She said so herself, he is the father!
SHELLEY. Of course he is, only…
MARY. Only what?
SHELLEY. The father! Father right and paternity have been used to enslave woman since time began.
MARY. Oh, Shelley…
SHELLEY. Elise is a brave girl.
CLAIRE. And a strong one.
MARY. – And I want her to survive.
SHELLEY. But to condemn any creature to a loveless marriage! All our recent suffering mustn’t be allowed to make us hard.
MARY. Hard? It has turned my heart to ice!
Lights change. Widow MARY.
Oh yes. None may know the icy region this poor heart has encircled.
Once I was a mother. Now I was a mother no more.
Percy Florence, you will never know how much you mean to me.
CREATURE’S VOICE. Frankenstein, this must love!
MARY. Today the news came.
The worst.
I think before I tore open the letter, I knew it. Anxiety. Prognostications of evil. All week I’ve felt it approaching. Now here it is, this is what it was.
Lord Byron is dead.
Is it possible? The only one who had the courage to bring me the news I needed from that hellish day.
BYRON appears, ghostly.
BYRON. Yes, we burned him. The sublime Shelley. On the beach where he was washed up. Poured quicklime on and whoosh! Trelawney snatched his heart from the funeral pyre where it was not consumed, and put it in this leather pouch for you, Mrs Shelley.
MARY. Had it always, his heart…
BYRON. I loved him. We burned him. Then I couldn’t wait to tear off my clothes and swim for miles and miles like a mad thing, wash the stench of burning flesh from off my skin and out of my hair. Couldn’t wait to plunge myself in the Contessa.
BYRON disappears.
MARY. And now you’re dead.
Dead at Missolonghi, Byron, gone to fight – why? – in someone else’s war. Dead fighting for Greek independence.
I think of my last dead, my dear drowned Shelley, my own.
I think of my first dead, my mother I never knew.
I think of my little firstborn, in Poland Street, Shelley’s lodgings, when I was scarce more than a child myself.
I think of Italy, Baby Clara, our own beloved Willmouse… There seemed no good reason not to travel…
They died, all my babies, and left Shelley and me all alone again.
Except for Claire.
Lights change. Italy. CLAIRE is hectic, manic, rather than truly happy.
CLAIRE. Didn’t Shelley tell you?
MARY. Tell me?
CLAIRE. I’m going away, Mary. To Russia!
MARY. Russia! But, Claire, that’s…
CLAIRE. Can’t you see me? Queen of a Moscow schoolroom, mother hen to a brood of little princes and princesses? Isn’t it so? Every other person in Russia seems to be royal nobility. It’s Princess Irina this and Prince Misha, Prince Kolya that…
MARY. But it’s so far away!
CLAIRE. Exactly. So the cold wind can sweep off the Steppes and blow the last tatters of my scarlet past away. Where, in all of Italy – or all of Europe – can I find one family that’s not afraid to have the infamous Claire Clairmont teach its daughters?
MARY. Oh, Claire, you don’t have to leave us.
CLAIRE. I must. No, Mary, I’ve been your millstone sister long enough.
MARY. And Allegra?
CLAIRE. She’s with her father. And his whore Contessa! She’s safe, she’s well, and she has every luxury money can buy. It is time. I will go to Russia.
MARY. Oh, Claire! (Hugs her.)
CLAIRE. My best Mary too! Oh, Mary, how can you forgive me?
MARY. Ssh… Don’t –
CLAIRE. But all the things I’ve said, when we’ve quarrelled! Too much love.
MARY. Too much alike, perhaps.
CLAIRE. I could cut my tongue out afterwards. Too passionate for my own good, your papa always said so…
Oh, Mary, when I said you were glad when Harriet died and you could be the respectable Mrs Shelley, I didn’t mean it, you know that.
MARY. When do you leave?
CLAIRE. On the first of next month.
MARY. Go to Shelley, sing to him.
CLAIRE. Mary, promise me you won’t sit here and get gloomy amongst all these shadows!
Lights change. Back to widow MARY.
MARY. Lies! Lies and malice!
That maid Elise made up a lot of silly stories and blabbed them to some incredulous English expatriates we had been friendly with once. Of course, they were only too happy to believe them and tell the world!
But Byron should have defended us!
When the gossips talked, he should have told them it was not true. Oh, Byron, you should have been our friend.
Lights change. Back in Italy. BYRON comes.
BYRON. Where is Shiloh? Where is my old friend, the Snake?
MARY. Not here. He won’t speak to you, Byron, and you know very well why!
BYRON. Do I?
MARY. Why, when we have never showed you anything but kindness and affection, how can you return this by –
BYRON. Telling the truth? Allowing the truth to be told? Mary Shelley, such hypocrisy from you, I should never have expected it.
Well, Mrs Shelley, I can guess why you’ve sent for me. You want to beg my daughter back. The answer is… no. The nuns will bring her up good and God-fearing.
MARY. Byron, listen to me, I must…
BYRON. I asked myself, reasonably enough I should have thought, whether Mademoiselle Claire Clairmont was the right person to bring up Allegra. Does a mother know best? Not, I suggest, if that mama is Claire. You see, fair Claire is most keen that Allegra be at once our little secret, and at the same time, bruited abroad as the dazzling daughter, albeit wrong side of the blanket, of a Peer of the Realm.
An impossible desire, you might think; but then, Claire Clairmont was never one to let impossibility stand in the way of her desires.
MARY. Byron, I must tell you –
BYRON. Yes, Claire does take mange-ing her gateau and having it to some ridiculous extremes.
MARY. You should have let us take Allegra, we would have loved her like one of our own.
BYRON. Oh yes, like one of your own!
MARY. Another slander! I heard what you said, the Hoppners told me!
‘Have the Shelleys raised one? I do not want Allegra to die of starvation and green fruit and to be brought up to believe there is no Deity.’
You said
that! How could you?
BYRON. So the gossipy Hoppners carried tittle-tattle! Well, I cannot eat my words, would that I could swallow them unsaid. And I should never have said them to your face, Mary, I would not have looked in your eyes and wanted to wound you.
I think you know how I grieved for you, little William too.
And your baby.
But think on it, Mary.
When our… mutual friends the Hoppners parroted out my gaudy scrap of cruel wit, who or what exactly did they wish to wound? My reputation in your eyes? Or did they wish to wound you, Mary Shelley? Ask yourself.
MARY. Shelley does not love Claire.
BYRON. Love Claire? Of course Shelley does not love Claire, even Claire has a hard job of it, loving Claire. I never pretended to love her, but if a girl of eighteen will come prancing to a man at all hours, then there is but one way!
MARY. And did you defend us? When the Hoppners wrote you that… unspeakable rumour, did you tell them it was all a lie?
BYRON. Unspeakable? Unspeakable? Don’t be mim-mouthed, Mary, speak it out. If it is a lie, then look it in the face.
If you must know, Mrs Shelley, I told the Hoppners: ‘Don’t believe everything you hear from a dismissed servant – and if Elise says Claire Clairmont, not content with being the mother of Byron’s brat, had to whelp herself on Shelley too, and was delivered of his sickly little scrap in the springtime, then I am sure it just a venomous lie, even though it would have been nine months or so from the time Shelley and Claire spent alone at my villa in Este…’
‘Why, Mrs Hoppner,’ I said, ‘Shelley only accompanied Claire to prevail with me on her behalf.’
I said, ‘Mrs Hoppner, can you believe that a man of Shelley’s burning idealism could enter into a love affair with his wife’s own sister – half sister, whatever – while his wife struggled alone across Europe with an ailing infant?’ I said, ‘There is not a word of truth in it, I swear on the head of my own Allegra.’
MARY. Well, she is dead! Your own Allegra!
BYRON reels in shock and grief and gasps.
The nuns wrote to us… to Claire, we’ve sent for her, to come home. No one could trace you, you were…
BYRON. Gadding about some spa with the Contessa. And my Allegra is dead. (Sobs.)
MARY. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. There has been an epidemic, it swept through the convent. Your little love child was among the first –
She goes to reach out. He shakes her off with hatred.
