Polidori reached for the salt cellar and calmly sprinkled his potatoes. “I would not have credited your lordship with so much sensibility,” he said. “I would rather have thought your heart hardened against the wailing of women.”
Byron’s head shot up, his eyes blazing. “Call me cold-hearted?! Me, insensible! As well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!”
Polidori merely shrugged as he held his employer’s gaze. “And yet, despite all this attachment, you deserted Lady Caroline as soon as your liaison became public.” He forked his potatoes. “I daresay the lady would characterize your heart in terms more like to marble or brass than brittle glass.”
“How dare you!” Byron shot to his feet, fists on the table. “How dare you, sir!”
Claire also rose, and tugged at his arm until he turned to face her. “Dearest, be calm. Don’t let him goad you. Come, sit down.” She glared at Polidori. “And you! You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Mary had said nothing during this scene, only noting a slight tremor in Polidori’s hand as he took up a fork. Perhaps only she noted the pale cast to his skin, the tightening of the skin around the young man’s mouth. Though he appeared calm, she sensed an inner turmoil. When he caught her looking at him, he locked his gaze to hers; in his expressive dark eyes she read misery and frustration.
I rejected him, and Byron insulted him. Now he takes it out on the man who makes him miserable, she thought. What wayward, hurting creatures we are.
Byron sat glaring at his physician. Shelley cleared his throat, eyes darting between his friend and Polidori. “I regret that I chose a book that offends you,” he said quietly. “I had no notion, of course.”
“You called it ‘extraordinary’,” Byron said in a low voice.
Shelley nodded sagely. “And so it is, but not for its portrait of you. Perhaps for its wild expressiveness, its use of—”
“Shelley, I think this is not the time for a literary critique,” Mary said abruptly.
Claire took Byron’s fist between her hands tenderly; he did not seem aware of it, but his hand opened slowly.
“Of course,” Shelley said. He sent a sympathetic look Byron’s way.
“A portrait,” Byron growled. “It might have been more like if I had given her more sittings.” He turned his head away from the others, even as Claire laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Women condemn men who ‘kiss and tell’,” he said. “What of those women who fuck and publish?”
Mary caught Shelley’s eye. “Perhaps it would be best if we returned home soon,” she said. “I must get back and feed William. He will be fretting.”
He reached across and took her hand. “Of course.”
“Call Fletcher and tell him to ready the boat,” Byron said. Wordlessly, Polidori rose and bowed and exited the room. Claire helped Byron to his feet; the poet looked stooped, older.
As he turned to leave, with Claire still on his arm, Mary stepped in front of him. She laid a hand on his chest and looked up into his eyes. She had noticed before how changeable they were, like her own hazel eyes changing in color with his mood. Now they were brown, his expression hard and yet wounded. “Byron,” she said softly. He looked down at her, as if from a great distance.
“Yes?”
She wanted to ask was there a child between him and this Lady Caroline, but what she said was, “Do not be careless with love.”
The famous curl of the lip was her only answer. He passed by her without a word, limping out of the room and into the great room of the inn, a storm in his face.
Chapter XIX - God and Man
I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound, which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.
—Frankenstein, Volume III, Chapter VIII
Despite the building clouds over Jura, the day was windless. Shelley, Fletcher and Polidori took turns rowing, but Byron sat staring out over the gunwale at the blue water. At one point he shifted, raising his half-empty brandy bottle to his lips. Mary heard him mutter, “I have created a monster,” and knew he referred to his mad ex-lover. She felt every sympathy for him, knowing that, even if as a male he was granted more freedom by society, he still suffered the exiled state she and Shelley endured. Aristocrat he might be, and far more conservative than Shelley might believe, but he was still a man beset by doubt and grief.
Beside him, Claire sat in uncharacteristic silence, watching the waves lapping against the boat. Now and then her hand rested on her belly.
Shelley, breathless with exertion, called, “Doctor, I believe it is your turn.”
Polidori had followed them silently from the hotel to the dock, and had sat with his back turned during the entire trip. Now he nodded sullenly and stood to exchange places with Shelley. As Shelley passed him the oars, one of them slipped from Polidori’s hand and rapped Byron sharply on the knee.
Mary saw him wince, saw him turn away to hide the pain. Polidori took his seat and Shelley settled in next to Mary. He folded her hand into his warm ones; she leaned back into him.
Byron turned back around to address Polidori, who was now pulling steadily at the oars. “Be so kind, Polidori, another time, to take more care, for you hurt me very much.”
“I am glad of it,” said the young doctor. “I am glad to see that you can suffer pain.”
Mary winced at the callousness of this speech, and braced herself for another display of Byron’s temper. But the poet remained calm, merely saying, “Let me advise you, Polidori, when you, another time, hurt any one, not to express your satisfaction. People don’t like to be told that those who give them pain are glad of it; and they cannot always command their anger. It was with some difficulty that I refrained from throwing you into the water; and, but for Mrs. Shelley’s presence, I should probably have done some such rash thing.”
Polidori said nothing, but the muscle in his jaw clenched.
“He would antagonize B at such a moment,” Shelley murmured.
“He has no common sense at all,” Mary agreed.
Shelley dipped a hand into the pocket of his greatcoat and drew out something shining. “I forgot to tell you about this, dearest.” He dropped something round and glittering into her hand: a watch.
“Oh.” Mary felt her face warm. So this was the lady’s watch Polidori had spoken of. “Thank—”
“I was thinking about your letter from your sister, Fanny,” Shelley said, leaning close to whisper in her ear. “She seemed so disconsolate. I thought perhaps she would appreciate a trinket.”
Mary turned away from him to get a better look at the watch. It was small, feminine, exquisite. Shelley had never given her anything like it. For one tiny moment, Mary had the wild impulse to throw it overboard. But she turned back to Shelley, smiled and handed him the watch. “She will be overjoyed,” Mary said. “Do you know, we were so busy in our travels last month I neglected to buy her a birthday present. Thank you, my love.”
Shelley kissed her cheek and replaced the watch in his pocket. “We shall bring it back with us when we return. In the meantime, this journey has turned into a row with Charon on the Styx. If we do not jolly Byron out of his mood, we shall be eating stale bread at our own table tonight.”
He rose and stepped to the other side of the craft, which wobbled under him. Polidori grunted as he corrected the boat’s path.
Sitting by Byron, Shelley stretched out his long legs, until his feet nearly lay in Mary’s lap.
Most opinion’s the same, with the difference of word,
Some get a good name by the voice of the crowd,
Whilst to poor humble merit small praise is allowed.
Byron stirred. His hunched shoulders relaxed as he looked around at his friend. “What in God’s name is that?”
Shelley grinned. “From a poem I wrote to a pretty girl, a long time ago.”
“And I am the poor humble to whom small praise is allowed?” Byron grunted. “You are a comfort, indeed, Shiloh.”
Shelley leaned back against the gunwale on his elbows; the wind threw his hair into his face and blew it out again, teasingly. “You are surely not concerned with the voice of the crowd,” he said. “I am indifferent to it, myself.”
“Because it has never roared for you,” Mary said. “His lordship is accustomed to being the object of adoration.” Her bonnet ribbons, whipped by the wind, threatened to come undone and she retied them.
“Adoration,” Byron said. “And excoriation. This—” He waved a hand in Shelley’s direction. “This screed of Caro’s will damn me forever.”
“And your separation from your wife will not?” Shelley was curious.
“Ah, to be divided from a termagant to which one was leg-shackled in a moment of madness? The dream of every man in England, if not the world. They will envy me that, whatever they say publicly,” Byron said grimly. “But to have one’s dalliances, heretofore winked at, made the common gossip of the world, that is quite another thing.”
“She thinks you heartless,” Claire said suddenly.
“I did not know you were listening,” Byron said.
“I hear everything you say,” she said. “I looked at that book. If that is supposed to be you, a portrait of Byron, all I can say is that it is not the man I know.”
For a moment, Byron looked blank. Then a curiously innocent look stole across his face. “You … you move me, my dear.”
Claire reached out, and he took her hand and bowed over it from a sitting position.
Polidori pulled on his oars, his eyes on his employer. “Heartless, she says.” He pulled again. “I can speak to his lordship’s heart. It beats quite regularly, as regularly as my new watch. Unlike the watch, I cannot verify its contents, however.”
“No, I have given it away so often, it must be missing altogether,” Byron said, still looking into Claire’s eyes.
“Missing?” Shelley said in mock surprise. “Why, Doctor, how is it you have not noted its absence?”
“From never having expected to find it at all,” Polidori said. “His lordship has been careful to tell the world he is without that organ.”
“But I know better,” Claire said.
Byron shook his head, dropped her hand, and the mask of the satyr descended again. “I should require you, Polly-Dolly, to locate my heart forthwith. I should not want it stolen.”
“Perhaps we should return to the watchmaker,” Polidori replied. “Let your lordship commission him to create a replacement.”
“Capital!” Shelley clapped his hands together. “A clockwork heart! Always in time, always beating to the same measure.”
“The notion appeals to me,” Byron said. “A heart that would never speed up with passion, nor slow down with age. What say you, Polidori? Can a clockwork heart be made? How about a clockwork brain or liver? I shall have to have Fletcher wind me every morning, like the grandfather clock in the hallway.”
Claire said, “And would you want to be a machine? To feel nothing?”
“Yes!” he said strongly. His fist clenched on his knee, then relaxed. “And no. Of course, no. The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.”
“Perhaps you could build an animated machine that would feel no pain,” Shelley said, musing. “Then Doctor Polidori could smack his knee all day long, with no ill effects.”
Mary smiled inwardly. Give Shelley even the hint of a scientific oddity, and he was on it like a hawk on a hare.
“To feel pain, one must be a living thing,” she said. “Tell me, Doctor, could you create a living thing? A man? And make him immune to pain?”
Polidori stopped rowing. He took a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his forehead with it. “To do so would be to usurp the handiwork of God,” he said.
“Or to improve upon it,” Mary said. “Shelley is subject to colds. I suffer from the catarrh now and then. How would it be if such a creature were to be free of disease? Or age? Even death might not touch it.”
Byron looked down at his foot, now encased in boot leather, but Mary knew he saw its twisted flesh and distorted bone. “Perhaps you could make a man with replaceable parts.” He grunted, then leered at Claire. “Some parts wear out more quickly than others, due to rapid and repeated usage.”
Claire giggled, gripping his hand tightly. Byron suffered her to hold it, but looked at Shelley. “What part of you would you have replaced? Heart? Brain? Or something more vulgar?”
Shelley cast his head on one side. “Without my heart, I cannot write poetry. Without my brain, I cannot understand philosophy. And without my more vulgar parts, I cannot appreciate women.”
Byron smiled slightly. “We must build you carefully, then. A creature with a heart and a brain, one that can live forever, like yourself, on roots and berries. Immortal, perhaps.”
“Oh, one hopes not,” Polidori said. “Imagine a world full of immortal beings. They would soon fill the earth with their progeny.”
“You have been reading Mr. Malthus,” Shelley said.
“To be sure,” he said tartly. “Only a fool would argue with his contention: that the population would increase by exponents, while food supply would only double. In a few generations, the population would outstrip the food supply, and all would starve.”
Mary looked at him stonily. Shelley laughed. Claire shook her head in disgust.
“A fool, eh?” Byron looked skyward at the gathering clouds. Polidori, do you ever read anything other than medical books?”
Polidori had returned to rowing, and now puffed at every pull on the oars. “To be … sure, I have…. In fact, I have even read Childe Harold.”
Shelley laughed. “A touch, Albé.”
Byron scowled at Polidori. “But you have never apparently read the debates on population put forth between Mr. Malthus and his foremost critic.”
“No, I cannot … say I have,” Polidori replied. “Nor would I wish to.”
“A pity,” Mary said coolly. She and Claire both stared at him coldly. “Mr. Malthus’ foremost critic is my father.”
“Oh.” Polidori stared, then slowly reddened. “I … apologize, Mrs…. Shelley … I was … not aware …”
Shelley leaned over. “The doctor is going to keel over and expire if not relieved. Here, Byron, take the oars.”
Instead, his lordship roared, “Fletcher!”
Byron’s servant, who had been dozing near the stern, blinked awake. “Sir?”
“Row, damn you,” his lordship said. “Else we shall not reach the shore within the decade. The rain is almost upon us.”
As Polidori and Fletcher scrambled to change places, Byron put his face in his palms. Claire, her hand released, placed it on her abdomen. “And so you do not believe you have a heart?” she said softly.
“Broken, bruised, patched together perhaps,” Byron said. “Would that Polly-Dolly could make a new one. Even if it defied his God.”
“Only God can truly create life,” Polidori said stoutly. “In medical school, I attended any number of dissections. I have witnessed the galvanization of corpses, such as Mr. Shelley produced during the storm. I have never seen the vital spark restored to a dead heart.” He mopped his brow with his shirt sleeve. “Man is more than a mere machine, to be started and stopped like a clock.”
“And in all these researches and dissections, Doctor, did you ever come across the elixir of life? Or some vital principle that could be called into play by the will of Man?”
“I did not.”
Shelley winked at Byron. “Then you have surely denied the existence of the soul, have you not? I was under the impression that you are a Catholic, sir.”
“I do not mistake the elixir of life with an insubstantial soul,” Polidori said defensively.
“So God may grant life wit
hout a soul?”
“No, that is not what I meant,” Polidori said. “You are confusing me, sir.”
Byron reached for the half-empty brandy bottle. “Mr. Shelley is a confusing man,” he said. “Come, Shiloh, don’t tease our pet Papist. He is not accustomed to atheists.”
Polidori ran a finger under his tightly tied cravat. “I will confess Mr. Shelley’s works confuse me. I have read your notes on Queen Mab. I perceive that you are opposed to religion. But yet you speak of a divine principle. Is it not the same as God?”
“Not at all,” Shelley said, eager to defend his principle. “That God you refer to, I vow is an invention of priests and other impostors. But the divine Nature you see about you, that is what really brings life into the world, really creates life. That is my religion.”
Polidori shook his head. “Such a ‘religion’ has no moral center.”
Byron laughed. “Then I must convert to it straightaway. Because I have yet to see that avowing a religion, be it Christianity or the Turk, provides men with a moral center.” He swigged brandy. “Perhaps, Polly, you should construct a man with a moral center. Can you do that with clockwork?”
Mary had been staring off across the water at the mountains. She thought about Rousseau, and his man of nature. “Perhaps a constructed man would be stronger,” she mused. “Perhaps a clockwork man could be useful. Think of the work he could do, in all weathers, without being made sick or tired.”
Byron snorted. “You would create a race of mechanical servants, then? Brava, Mary. A fine opinion from a woman who will not serve sugar because it is grown by slaves.”
Claire laid her head on the gunwale. “’The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive’,” she said. “Have you not read Rousseau, B? We can hardly argue for the rights of the natural man, and at the same time partake in that which oppresses him.”
“Then it makes even less sense for Mary to want to create a race of slaves,” Byron said. He lifted his head to shade his eyes. “And as for the rights of the natural man, I have been called the most unnatural man in Britain.” He stared gloomily out across the water again.
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