Outcasts

by Sarah Stegall

  Mary’s mouth set in a firm line. “It seems uncommon easy to offend his mighty lordship.”

  “Oh, come now. That’s too strong, Mary. He is a good friend to all of us, if a mite touchy. He feels things, you know.”

  Remembering his casual dismissal of Claire’s declaration of love only an hour past, Mary’s mouth quirked up. “And we do not? No, we mere mortals must acknowledge his superior status as well as his superior sensibility. No, no, do not argue, Claire. You are correct, he will find it offensive, but there is no choice, really. In this calamity, even the lord of Picadilly must bow to the inevitable. Shall you walk over with a note?”

  To her surprise, Claire looked away. “No. No, I … I fear I have some other … I … no.”

  “I will send Elise,” Mary said. “And we must ask her if she knows someone who can take Cook’s place. Although from what I have seen of the peasants in this neighborhood,” she said bitterly. “We will be fortunate not to be fed solely on black bread and cheese for the rest of our stay here. And whatever excuse I shall make to his lordship, I have no concept.”

  Claire shrugged, looking sullen. She rubbed her cheeks with her hands. “Tell him … Oh, say what you will.” She turned away and stared out of the window, towards the Villa Diodati.

  Mary started to turn to her, to comfort her, but Claire’s rigid back and stiff shoulders told Mary that comfort would not be welcome. “I’ll be back directly, then.” She walked out, composing a note in her head. Perhaps a touch of humor …

  Mary was halfway to the cellar, still searching for her errant servant, when someone knocked at the front door.

  “Elise!” Mary called.

  The knocking again. Exasperated, Mary opened the front door herself. Lord Byron’s manservant, Fletcher, stood stolidly on the threshold. Beefy, with a shock of receding red hair, he was England incarnate in this foreign land. Valet, servant and baby-sitter, he had been with Byron all of Byron’s adult life. Now he extended his hand; it held a note. “From his lordship,” the man said dryly.

  Mary stepped back, inviting him in. Fletcher shook his head and took one step back. “Thankee, miss, but I’m to go back anon, with an answer.”

  The note was addressed to her, in Byron’s crabbed handwriting: Come to supper at the ungodly hour of eight.

  She glanced up at Fletcher. “When did he write this?”

  The man shrugged. “About an hour ago,” he said.

  “How did he know our Cook had left us?” Mary demanded.

  “Our Lucille, what does the chamber for us, she seen Cook going down the road and ran out to speak to her. His lordship swore and says as how his friend Shelley should not dine on barley-water tonight.”

  Mary felt heat shimmer over her, shame and humiliation mixed with relief. She drew herself up with dignity. “My compliments to his lordship, and thank him for his kind invitation. We shall surely be there.”

  Fletcher nodded, touched his forehead, and shambled away. Mary closed the door, feeling a cold wind on her face.

  Hearing steps behind her, Mary turned. “Well, we shall not go hungry tonight,” she said as Claire came down the stairs. “Lord Byron has invited us to dinner. Is that my mother’s shawl you are wearing?”

  Claire went pale. “Albé has invited us to dine? Today? I must change.” She turned, one hand on the banister.

  “Not to dinner, to supper. At eight. And that is my mother’s shawl, Jane! Give it back.”

  Claire stared at her, a storm in her eyes. “You will not lend me one moment’s comfort? Not one moment’s warmth?” Her pale fingers clutched the shawl around her. “Oh, cruel, Sister!”

  From the nursery above, a fretful wail started. Mary felt the tingling in her breasts, the milk letting down in automatic response. Anxiety prickled her all over.

  “Jane. Claire, rather. Please, I cannot manage this now. William needs me—”

  “Yes,” Claire sneered. “William needs you. Shelley needs you. Even Byron needs you. But I, I am supposed to need nobody. I mean nothing to anyone. Not to you, to Shelley, to Albé.” She turned suddenly and fled up the stairs.

  At that moment, Elise opened the door at the far end of the hall, leading to the kitchen. “Madame, the baker’s boy is here. What shall I tell him?”

  The wail from upstairs arced across Mary’s nerves. The pressure in her breasts increased, and she felt the sudden wet surge of milk. She suddenly felt very young, very unsure of herself. No cook, Claire in one of her moods, and now William waked early from his nap. “Tell him I will come directly,” Mary said. Elise ducked back into the kitchen.

  Mary ran lightly up the stairs to the second floor nursery. William lay in his cot, cheeks red and wet, sobbing. Mary lifted him quickly in one arm, unfastening her dress with the other. The child’s mouth was open, pink and howling; she lifted him to her left breast and he immediately latched on. The silence was broken only by the sounds of contented suckling. Mary sagged as the feeling of peace and love flowed over her, the feeling that always infused her when nursing little William. How could anyone not love this, she thought. She lowered herself into the flowered chair next to the cot.

  Rocking back and forth, she hummed a little tune. William’s baby fist curled around a lock of her hair. Eyes closed, he tugged on it, and she smiled.

  Shouting from below stairs, a crash of crockery. Claire no doubt taking command of the kitchen, Mary thought. She imagined the angry baker’s boy, the insulted Elise, the sulks and sullens that would pervade the atmosphere of the house. She should go down and sort it all out, as she always did, in her quiet, calm way. But who, she wondered, would be quiet and calm for her?

  She looked down at her son, now drowsy and content. Here in this cocoon of mother and son she was safe, she was able to love and give love without distress or restraint. This was how it should be, she thought. She herself had never known her mother’s breast, had never known the soft comfort of a mother’s arms. She ached within, eager to be to William what no one had been to her—a source of love and care.

  And then she thought of Claire, pleading with Byron in the garden only an hour ago, and she clutched her son more tightly to her bosom. And Byron’s cruel words: a mistress never is nor can be a friend.

  Not true, she thought. Shelley was her dearest friend, and she was his. “And in any event,” she said, gazing down at her son. “I refuse the title of mistress. Companion. Yes, I will be friend and companion.”

  She thought of Claire, of the child growing inside her. Mary remembered Shelley’s joy and delight on learning of her pregnancy. She did not think Byron would react the same way to Claire’s news.

  Mary hugged her son more tightly to her, rocking, thinking.

  Chapter VI - Mary Writes to Her Father

  I waited for my letters with feverish impatience: if they were delayed, I was miserable, and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived, and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to read and ascertain my fate.

  —Frankenstein, Volume I, Chapter II

  Once again Mary sat at the writing table, but this time the ink dried on the quill as she nervously picked at the paper. She had intended to write in her journal, to settle her thoughts with an essay on the spectacular scenery or her thoughts on the republican politics of Switzerland. Instead, she found herself obssessed with the same question: why would Godwin refuse to read her letters? Always, he had read every word she had written, praised and supported her, encouraged her in every way to become a woman of letters like her mother. And now, when she lived most like her mother, this stifling silence. For him, of all people, to shun her was the worst of all.

  She should write to him. But nagging doubt paralyzed her fingers, stifled her mind. It had always been the same way with him: the cold silence, the distance, the back turned in contempt when he wanted to punish her. Then the slow thaw, like glaciers reluctantly melting. He would look out of those pale blue eyes, always calm, always composed and serene, and he woul
d shake his head slowly, and then would come the words. He was good with words, better than most men, and for him they were toys and weapons and friends and tools all in one. He would begin to build a vindication, slow argument after argument, breaking down every opposing view, ruthlessly destroying any of her assertions or feelings.

  In the end she would be crying and begging for his forgiveness, promising never, ever, ever to do it again, whatever it was. Her friends thought her family was progressive and strange because her father never beat her or her siblings. What they didn’t know was that William Godwin’s silences were worse than any beating, and his “discussions” were worse than any scolding. They were as cold and solid as stones, and more inert. Tears would not move them or wear them away.

  Now she sat, bewildered and confused as she had been since the first time they returned, she and Shelley and Claire, from their elopement two summers ago. Elated by her adventures, flushed with pride that she had finally stepped into her mother’s footsteps and dared to live as she believed, as Godwin had taught, she had returned to Skinner Street only to find the door barred and The Silence in place. Godwin would not hear her, would not see them. He refused her letters and wrote only to Shelley, and then only to demand money.

  Because the money must continue. That was a separate consideration. At first she had taken that for granted, as she had taken it all her life. It was part of his creed: that money belonged to whoever needed it most. It was revolutionary, dangerous, exciting. It changed everything, that creed. It meant that Godwin had every right to ask a rich man like Shelley to support him, only because philosophers needed to be supported in order to contribute to the betterment of mankind. Naturally, since Godwin was the chief progressive philosopher of his age, he deserved to be supported. Naturally, Shelley was to provide that support.

  She took up her pen, dipped it in the inkwell, scratched a few times on the blotter. Finally, she began.

  My dear Father,

  I cannot understand how all this time you have continued to shun me for that which you yourself taught

  She scratched furiously at the paper, blotting over her line. No, that would not do. She knew what happened if anyone presumed to question or reprimand William Godwin. Perhaps he would respond to a reminder of her love for him, of her devotion to his fame and principles.

  My dear Father,

  I do not understand why you have turned your back on us. I have named my son for you, your own grandson. Will you not see him? He is the sweetest child

  Again she scratched out what she had written. An appeal to sentiment was the last thing Godwin would pay attention to.

  My dearest Papa

  We are now well situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, across from dark frowning Jura, behind whose range we every evening see the sun sink, and darkness approaches our valley from behind the Alps, which are then tinged by that glowing rose-like hue which is observed in England.

  Yes, she thought with satisfaction. That was the tone to take with her father: distant, formal, objective, logical. Appeal to his reason; unlike Shelley, the last approach that would gain his attention would be an emotional one. She set out to remind her father of how alike they were, how much they shared—that she could write as well as he, tell a story as well as he, make words a powerful weapon as well as he. In this, she knew her father saw her lost mother in her. In this, she excelled over all the other children of that household. Let her only remind him of her mother, and his heart might soften.

  There is more equality of classes here than in England. This occasions a greater freedom and refinement of manners among the lower orders than we meet with in our own country. I fancy the haughty English ladies are greatly disgusted with this consequence of republican institutions, for the Genovese servants complain very much of their scolding, an exercise of the tongue, I believe, perfectly unknown here. The peasants of Switzerland may not however emulate the vivacity and grace of the French. They are more cleanly, but they are slow and inapt. I know a girl of twenty, who although she had lived all her life among vineyards, could not inform me during what month the vintage took place, and I discovered she was utterly ignorant of the order in which the months succeed each other. She would not have been surprised if I had talked of the burning sun and delicious fruits of December, or of the frosts of July. Yet she was by no means deficient in understanding.

  Mary dipped her pen in the inkwell and sat thinking. How to word the next part? By now her father would be, perhaps, nodding in unconscious agreement, imagining her among the benighted peasants of the Alps, painting pictures in his head of their household. How to draw in his sympathy?

  My only fear is that my William, who of course is named for you, should feel the neglect of education which is so pervasive here.

  Ah, yes, that was it. A discussion of the education of the young would always catch her father’s eye.

  You know how strongly I adhere to your principles of education, and how important it is that a young mind be formed quickly in life, and directed into the proper paths. For his education, I could ask no better teacher than you yourself, and I look forward to the day when you may meet your grandson, and see that he is like you in so many ways. Not least of these is his mind, which is already bright and alert. You will see in him perhaps my mother’s round face, and in his eagerness for learning an echo of his mother. How sad it would be if, through discord between us, a discord that lies primarily in my adherence to the principles you yourself taught me, he should lose the opportunity to live and learn in England, rather than in foreign lands.

  There, she thought. That ought to strike home. Her father held foreigners, save for a few French revolutionaries, in contempt. Having traveled Europe far more than William Godwin, she now knew how narrow and unreasonable his prejudices were, but this was not the time to argue them. Having now gained her father’s full attention, she advanced to her final plea.

  I do not understand this shadow that lies between us, nor whence it comes. My mother’s shade, were it here, would stand beside me in mute astonishment. Did she not love you as I love my Shelley? Did she not scorn the world’s opinion as I do? Did she not bear me in disdain of common prejudice? She thrust away the chains of tradition, eschewing the enforced prostitution of marriage for most of her life. You celebrated her life to the world, yet when I betake the same path, for the same reasons, I am cast forth. I entreat you to reconsider your position, both for my sake and the sake of your grandson, who will need your firm hand and seasoned wisdom as he grows up. Write to me, father, and tell me that you embrace me once again, that you hug your Mary to your bosom as of old. Do not let me languish out here in the outer darkness, alone and bereft of my only parent, my only father. You created me, and you answer me now with only silence. Fanny writes to me. Mrs. G writes to Jane. You write to Shelley, but never to me. Why? Write me, and tell me that I may always be Your Mary.

  By the time she had finished, the paper was dotted with tears and inkblots. She considered rewriting it in her best hand, and then decided to let the honesty of those tears speak for her as eloquently as her words. She folded the letter and was addressing it when Shelley strode in, his greatcoat flaring behind him.

  “That was a capital walk, along the lake side to the east. That country is all Rousseau. Have you seen my copy of The New Heloise?” he said. “I was sure I had it with me in the—here it is, on the table.” He picked up the book, glancing at Mary. “Here, now! Are you crying?” He knelt beside her, as Mary furiously dashed tears from her eyes and cheeks.

  “It is nothing, sweetest. I was writing to Godwin.”

  Shelley’s hand squeezed her knee. “You have heard from him?”

  Mary shook her head, unable to speak. She held the unsealed letter out to him, trembling. He took it from her slowly, his eyes on her face. Tenderly, he stroked her cheek, leaned forward to kiss it. “You wish me to post it, my dear?”

  She nodded. “If you would … seal it up in a letter of yours. Then he will be sure to
see it. And once he has it in his hand, and sees it is open, he will read it … oh, I cannot bear it, Shelley! To be cast out—” She flung her arms around his neck, and his arms came around her, guarding and enfolding her.

  “Mary, my Mary,” he murmured into her hair. She felt his hand between them, heard the rustle of paper as he thrust the paper into his greatcoat pocket. “My own, we do not need him, do we? Do we not have one another? Do we not have love, sacred love, to hold us to one another more surely than any other tie?”

  She nodded, sniffling into his shoulder. “But he is my father!”

  She felt him nod against her hair, and tuck her head under his chin. She knew he liked her to nestle against him like that, contrasting her petite form with his long and lanky one. His Dormouse, he called her. Now she folded up gratefully against him, knowing he would not find an excuse to shut her out or walk away, but would stay. “Mary, Mary,” he crooned, rocking a little. “So fair, so young.”

  “I do not understand it,” she said, sniffling. “Why, why does he not follow the obvious bent of his affection and be reconciled to us? Oh, I know what it is. It is that woman, my stepmother—I will not, will not call her Mamma ever more! She plagues my father out of his mind, all for spite against me. Oh, if only I could see him, talk to him….”

  “But am I not enough, my Dormouse?” He drew back, kissing her forehead. “And our Will-mouse? Need we the approval of anyone other than ourselves? Are we not following the obvious bent of our affections? And how other should real people act, if they are ever to act in accord with their true natures?”

  She laughed. “Only you, Percy Shelley, would read a weeping woman a lecture in philosophy!”

  “Ah, but the reason I love you, Mary Maie, is that you listen to, and understand, my lectures in philosophy.” He kissed her.

  “Oh, Shelley, am I greedy?” she sighed when he released her. “I want my father’s love. I want your love. I want William to love us as well. I even, sometimes, want Jane’s—Claire’s love.”