He laughed. “Yes, you are greedy, my tyrant.” He leaned backwards, and she gave a little squeak as he pulled her with him, and then he was rolling over on the floor with her, his big boots tangled in her muslin skirts. “See how I pay tribute to my little empress,” he laughed. She laughed back at him, her tears forgotten.
He kissed her smile, and then kissed her again, and the kiss went deeper and then her hands were in his hair and his hands were all over her, and before long Mary had lost all thought of her father, or her letter, or any other thing than the man in her arms and the sound of rain against the window.
Chapter VII - Shelley Learns the Truth
God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid from its very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.
—Frankenstein, Volume III, Chapter VII
An hour later, Shelley, disheveled and half-dressed, drowsed next to her on the carpet. She did not want to get up and attend to chores, or even to little William. She wanted to laze away the day with her lover, reading and making love and talking about the perfectibility of man.
What she did was get to her feet and adjust her gown. “Come, dearest, it is the afternoon. We must not idle away the day.”
“Why not?” he said, smiling. He reached a hand up to her but she evaded him. “Oh, come, my love. ‘Let us not to the marriage of true minds make impediment’.”
Shaking her head, Mary backed away. Shelley groaned and got up, looking like a heron unfolding its long legs. He picked up the greatcoat where he had discarded it and shoved Mary’s letter into the pocket. Mary fussed with her bits and pieces of dressmaking, a smile on her face.
“Where is Claire?” Shelley said, yawning.
“I believe she is changing,” Mary said. She told him what had happened with the cook.
Shelley only shrugged. “Ah, well, I leave it in your good hands, my dear. Would you wish me to speak to Byron about a new cook?”
“Why do you imagine he would take an interest? Or be able to assist us?” Mary asked. It peeved her a little that Shelley was so unworldly about domestic matters. Doubtless, she thought, it came of being raised as the heir to a title, with servants to worry about such mundane things. Shelley may have thrown off his family, but he would never be able to throw off his upbringing.
Shelley picked up two of her cut pieces and held them up to the light. “How do these go together? I cannot figure it. Why, Byron has several servants, perhaps he has a spare cook he can lend us. In any event, as long as we have bread in the house we shall sup. We do have bread?” he said hopefully.
“It is of no consequence at the moment,” Mary said, taking back the pieces. She told him of Byron’s dinner invitation.
“Very good,” Shelley said absently. He stood at the window, gazing out over the lake. “The clouds are building up. It may be quite rainy in the evening. You must take your shawl.”
Mary did not answer. A thought had occurred to her: after the passage between Claire and Byron, and knowing as she did now about Claire’s pregnancy, the potential for disaster in the coming evening loomed large. Should she wait for Claire to make the announcement to Shelley?
And a little, dark voice in her wondered if Shelley would be surprised, if Shelley would claim it as his own?
Since when has Claire ever waited on my convenience? Mary asked herself. She drew a deep breath. “Sweet Elf,” she said, using her nickname for Shelley. “I have something important to tell you.”
Shelley turned, and the light behind his head turned his hair into a nimbus of glowing chestnut.
“Claire is with child,” Mary said.
He looked at her blankly a moment. “Claire? Our Claire?”
His stunned surprised made Mary’s heart rise. He could not be so amazed if he’d had congress with her step-sister, she thought. “None other,” she said calmly.
“By whom? Or does she know?”
“Byron, of course. You know that they have been sleeping together—”
“When we arrived here—”
“Since March,” Mary said.
“But that was but a few days,” Shelley said.
“We conceived the very first time we made love, if you recall.”
“Ah, my Maisie-girl. Yes, that sublime and wonderful night.” He strode forward, grasped her hands and kissed them. “You made me so happy. I have since that day thought of it as my true birthday, the day I was reborn in love, all due to you.” He bent and kissed her passionately.
Mary almost forgot her topic, until he pulled away. “Oh. About Claire. Dearest Shelley, what shall be done?”
Still holding her hands, Shelley said, “Byron will not be gladdened by this.”
“Quite an understatement, my love. He has only two months since left behind his child and wife. He will be angry.”
“We must make him see reason.”
“Pray, how?”
“I am sure he cannot be so unfeeling as to turn away from her, with Claire right here in from of him,” Shelley said confidently.
“You sound so certain. What would you have Byron do?” Mary said.
“He must provide for Claire, as well as the babe.”
“And raise it?” Mary said, growing irritated by his breezy nonchalance. “I cannot see Lord Byron as the doting parent. Nor, judging by his actions, does he.”
Shelley scratched his head. “Will you suggest to him that Lady Byron take it in? And perhaps take Claire as well?”
Mary looked at him skeptically. “You cannot be serious. Albé is not of our persuasion in such matters. He adheres to custom, at least, he claims to, whatever his actual conduct.”
Shelley looked puzzled. “But he has room enough, and money enough, to support Claire and the babe. Why would he not?”
“Why would he? I have known Byron only a short time, and I respect him in many ways, but Shelley, he is as untamable as a waterfall or avalanche. He will never be domesticated.”
Shelley stuck his hands in his pockets and strode up and down the room, thinking. “He will support it. I will persuade him. And Claire must raise it, of course. She is part of our family.”
Mary felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. If she did not head Shelley off, Claire would be stitched to them forever. “Is that in her best interests, though? You will recall that she was living an independent existence when she met with Byron. If he will not live with her, perhaps he can set her up in some house, her and the child.”
“Well, of course, if he does not want to live with her,” Shelley said firmly, “he is not obliged to do so, you know.”
“Perhaps not for Claire’s sake, but what about the child? Will you let him abandon her and it as well?”
“No, no, no. You know me better than that. If necessary, we can adopt it.”
“Adopt it?” Mary put down her scissors. “You will let the world think that Claire’s child is yours?”
His blue eyes were wide, innocent. “What do we care what they think?”
I care, Mary thought, but refused to admit it aloud.
He looked away from her. “I can make provision for it,” he said. “For Claire and the child, both.”
Mary felt her fingers grow cold. “You mean in your will,” she said. She hated his mention of this document. Shelley had already altered it to provide for herself and William. “But in order for Claire to receive this money, you would have to die,” she said. She felt a sudden constriction in her chest as she said this, as if a hand had squeezed her heart. “No one wishes that.”
Shelley made a slow fist, staring at it. “The damned entailment. My father will not see reason.”
Mary nodded. Shelley’s father, Sir Timothy, had refused Shelley’s proposal to break the entail on some of the property he had inherited from his grandfather, and settle it on his female relatives. Sir Timothy’s outrage had extended to cutting off his son a
nd heir from all but a pitiful stipend. “A terrible waste, to be sure. Godwin would have railed against it.”
“He is correct, of course. Money should belong to those who can use it to forward the bettering of society,” Shelley declared passionately. “And what better use to make of it than the education and upbringing of children? Let them only be brought up in Godwin’s principles of justice and fairness, with love and care, and the world will be changed in a generation!”
“We have, I fear, strayed from the difficulty,” Mary said. She was all too familiar with her father’s philosophy of utilitarianism, having been raised in it. “What shall we do about Claire?”
“I take it she has said nothing to Byron?”
“No, I do not believe she has. We must wait until she does so. Pray do not tell her that you know. We must see how matters go forward at dinner. Perhaps she will tell him tonight.”
“In any case, we must be sure that Claire is provided for, one way or the other,” Shelley said firmly.
Mary fought down a spurt of anger. “Must we? Is Claire really our responsibility?”
Shelley turned and their eyes met. In that candid blue gaze, as always, Mary could detect no hint of subterfuge. Would she never stop worrying about his ties to her, to their child? “You speak of responsibility,” Shelley said. “Will you not speak of love? Do we not love Claire, our sister?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “One thing must be clear: Godwin cannot know of this.”
“Why not? We have made no secret of our situation, of our son.”
Mary nodded. “No, we have not. And I am at home with that position, and all the infamy that it brings us. No, you must, you really must admit that our liaison has brought us nothing but condemnation.”
Shelley stared down at the table, one finger pushing at a heap of fabric until it fell over, unraveling across the floor. “No, you are correct, dear Mary. But why would we care? Indeed, I vow that Claire herself is more in favor of our principles than we are!”
“You are right,” Mary said. “And for that reason, she must be protected. She does not reason, she does not understand what will happen to her, without a protector.”
“She should not need one!” Shelley declared forcefully. “It is a damned outrage that a woman cannot live her life as she pleases.”
“You know that my sentiments match yours in this, dearest, but that is not to the point. Claire will have to live in this world. She will be judged on appearances; no one will care for who she is on the inside.”
He sighed and came forward. Stooping, he laid his forehead against Mary’s. “I will speak to Byron, when the time comes. There must be some way to persuade him. Until then, I shall keep silent about Claire’s condition. Should we ask Doctor Polidori to examine her?”
Mary shook her head. “No. He would tell Byron, and such news should come to him from … someone he respects.”
Shelley chuckled. “And who might that be, Mary?”
She smiled a tight smile. “A conundrum, to be sure.”
Mary backed away and began gathering her sewing together and putting it in its box. “It is getting late, Shelley. If we are to make it to Byron’s at a reasonable time, we had better change.”
Shelley looked at one of his coat cuffs, then the other. Both had been made by a famous tailor in London; all of Shelley’s clothes were of the finest materials, the best workmanship. He took it as his due that he should be well dressed, as a gentleman. Mary had never bothered to point out to him the incongruity of his fashionable wardrobe in contrast to his egalitarian principles. At least he made up for it, she thought, by the way he dressed so casually, so carelessly in those fine clothes. “Must I really change into a claw hammer coat and breeches?” he mused. “Byron does not even wear a cravat.”
“He out-Brummels the Beau himself,” Mary said. She came forward, flicking pine needles off the shoulder of his coat. “Come upstairs and I will have Elise brush your coat. And pray remember, do not let on to Claire that I have told you her news.”
He dropped a kiss on her head and drew her hand into the crook of his arm. Mary glanced around and said, “What has become of my shawl?”
But Shelley tugged at her, and she gathered her skirt and went out with him into the hallway. Time enough to find her mother’s shawl later.
Chapter VIII - Dinner at Byron’s
My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite. Acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My appetite shall be of the same nature as myself and will be content with the same fate.
—Frankenstein, Volume II, Chapter IX
Rain clouds were smothering the sun when Fletcher opened the front door of the Villa Diodati to Mary, Shelley and Claire. The stolid servant accepted Shelley’s great-coat and flung Mary’s cloak over one arm. “His lordship be in the parlor, sir,” he said. Fletcher always preferred to address Shelley, and avoiding speaking to the women when he could. “Dinner will be served forthwith.”
Mary wondered, a little fearfully, what manner of collation an eccentric like Byron would serve them on short notice.
Byron stood in front of the parlor fire, jabbing at it with a poker. He wore a dark blue coat of superfine, cream colored buckskins, and well-polished Hessians. As always, his shirt lay open at the collar, revealing his strong neck and giving him an air of studied simplicity. Carefully disordered, his curls fell over his forehead in the manner he had made fashionable two years before. He frowned at the fireplace. “I cannot get this cursed chimney to draw properly. Is there no one in Switzerland who can build a reliable chimney? Shelley, good Shelley, come and fix my fire.”
With a nod, Shelley strode over and seized the tongs next to the fireplace, while Mary sought out an armchair and collapsed into it, without waiting for an invitation. Even a few days in his lordship’s company had taught her that Byron’s manners were as informal as his dress.
Claire strode quickly over to Byron and took his arm. He frowned, and for a moment Mary thought he would cast her arm from his. Then he sighed as she laid her head to his chest. He murmured something and a half-smile appeared on his handsome face. Perhaps they will come to agreement, Mary thought. Her heart misdoubted her.
John Polidori strode into the room, formally dressed as always. His cravat was neatly and modestly tied, his broadcloth coat well cut, his waistcoat a sober burgundy with a single watch chain. His high collar was well starched, rigid and immaculately white. He suddenly turned his head and his eyes met hers: dark, so different from her Shelley’s sky-blue, open gaze. She felt a slow flush of embarrassment climbing her cheeks, at the same time that she realized that it was more than just embarrassment. Young Polidori was a very handsome man.
Then Polidori stopped next to Byron, and it was as though the sun had gone into eclipse. Against the classic features, lively eyes and carefully disordered nonchalance of his lordship, the young doctor almost disappeared. There were few men on earth who could hold a woman’s gaze when Lord Byron was in the room, Mary thought.
The flame in the fireplace roared to life, and Claire clapped her hands. Shelley smiled absently, replaced the fire tongs, and bowed to Byron.
“Thank you, Shelley. You have saved my life. I was perishing of damp,” Byron said.
Shelley nodded absently, his eye having been caught by a new book lying on the mantel.
Polidori bowed to Mary and Claire, and said to Byron, “I am told there is no meat at dinner tonight.”
“With three guests at my table who abjure it, it would be an unfriendly act to offer it,” Byron said. “And you know I eat it only rarely myself.”
“It is most unwise of your lordship. You have favored me with the guardianship of your health. I must insist—”
“No, you must not insist. I beg of you, no arguments tonight, Polly. The thunder alone is enough to induce the headache.”
Fletcher appeared at the door and bowed. “My lord.”
“It appears dinner has bee
n laid,” Byron said jovially. “Naturally, since you have just got the fire going so splendidly, we will leave this room and dine in a colder one. Shall we?”
Claire laughed. “Oh, let us be mad, and eat in here. Can the table not be moved into this room, and dinner laid?”
“Rather unusual,” Polidori said stiffly. “But if it means there will be meat—”
“Most unusual,” Shelley said, laughing. “Rather, let us eat on the terrace!”
“In the rain?” Claire said, eyes dancing.
“If we eat on the terrace, half of Geneva will take to the water to watch the most notorious Englishmen on the continent eat beets,” Byron said. “No, we shall be only slightly unconventional tonight. Come.”
Shelley helped Mary to rise, but carried the mantel book in one hand. Claire clung to Byron’s arm, glowing, a half-smile on her face. Polidori followed, alone and aloof.
“You will appreciate this, Shelley, my democratic friend,” Byron said as he led the way into the dining room. “Behold, a Table Round, suitable for an Arthur or a Lancelot.”
And indeed, the heavy rectangular table of yesterday had been replaced by a round one, now bearing soup tureens, platters and a central candelabra.
“But where shall we sit?” Claire said. “Where do you sit if there is no head of the table?”
Byron strode to a high backed chair and flung out an arm dramatically. “Sit where you like. This is an exercise in democracy, no, anarchy. Call it an expression of utilitarian principle!”
With a quick, light laugh, Claire said, “Wherever you sit, Albé, I shall sit at your right hand.”
“What, so conventional?” Byron cried. “No, no. In this brave new world of social anarchy, I must have my philosophical guide at my right hand. Shelley, if you will.” Byron indicated a chair facing the window. Fletcher nodded to a footman, who stepped forward and pulled out the chair. Shelley bowed but stepped to hand Mary into the chair to Byron’s left. Only then did he allow himself to be seated. Fletcher held the chair for his master. This left Polidori and Claire standing rather awkwardly, until Claire put her hand on the chair next to Shelley.
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