George, she noted, ate only a little, despite the grumblings of his stomach.
“Is it not to your taste, my lord?” she asked.
“My appetite is off.” Shortly.
“That light cavalry figure don’t come without sacrifice,” said Smith. “I’m an infantryman, though,” brandishing knife and fork, “and can tuck in to my vittles.”
George gave him an irritated glance and sipped at his hock. “Cavalry, infantry, Senior Service, staff,” he said, pointing at himself, Smith, Austen, and Somerset with his fork. The fork swung to Bysshe. “Do you, sir, have an occupation? Besides being atheistical, I mean.”
Bysshe put down his knife and fork and answered deliberately. “I have been a scientist, and a reformer, and a sort of an engineer. I have now taken up poetry.”
“I didn’t know it was something to be taken up,” said George.
“Captain Austen’s sister does something in the literary line, I believe,” Harry Smith said.
Austen gave a little shake of his head. “Please, Harry. Not here.”
“I know she publishes anonymously, but—”
“She doesn’t want it known,” firmly, “and I prefer her wishes be respected.”
Smith gave Austen an apologetic look. “Sorry, Frank.”
Mary watched Austen’s distress with amusement. Austen had a spinster sister, she supposed—she could just imagine the type—who probably wrote ripe horrid Gothic novels, all terror and dark battlements and cloaked sensuality, all to the constant mortification of the family.
Well, Mary thought. She should be charitable. Perhaps they were good.
She and Bysshe liked a good gothic, when they were in the mood. Bysshe had even written a couple, when he was fifteen or so.
George turned to Bysshe. “That was your own verse you quoted?”
“Yes.”
“I thought perhaps it was, as I hadn’t recognized it.”
“Queen Mab,” said Claire. “It’s very good.” She gave Bysshe a look of adoration that sent a weary despairing cry through Mary’s nerves. “It’s got all Bysshe’s ideas in it,” she said.
“And the publisher?”
“I published it myself,” Bysshe said, “in an edition of seventy copies.”
George raised an eyebrow. “A self-published phenomenon, forsooth. But why so few?”
“The poem is a political statement in accordance with Mr. Godwin’s Political Justice. Were it widely circulated, the government might act to suppress it, and to prosecute the publisher.” He gave a shudder. “With people like Lord Ellenborough in office, I think it best to take no chances.”
“Lord Ellenborough is a great man,” said Captain Austen firmly. Mary was surprised at his emphatic tone. “He led for Mr. Warren Hastings, do you know, during his trial, and that trial lasted seven years or more and ended in acquittal. Governor Hastings did me many a good turn in India—he was the making of me. I’m sure I owe Lord Ellenborough my purest gratitude.”
Bysshe gave Austen a serious look. “Lord Ellenborough sent Daniel Eaton to prison for publishing Thomas Paine,” he said. “And he sent Leigh Hunt to prison for publishing the truth about the Prince Regent.”
“One an atheist,” Austen scowled, “the other a pamphleteer.”
“Why, so am I both,” said Bysshe sweetly, and, smiling, sipped his spring water. Mary wanted to clap aloud.
“It is the duty of the Lord Chief Justice to guard the realm from subversion,” said Somerset. “We were at war, you know.”
“We are no longer at war,” said Bysshe, “and Lord Ellenborough still sends good folk to prison.”
“At least,” said Mary, “he can no longer accuse reformers of being Jacobins. Not with France under the Bourbons again.”
“Of course he can,” Bysshe said. “Reform is an idea, and Jacobinism is an idea, and Ellenborough conceives them the same.”
“But are they not?” George said.
Mary’s temper flared. “Are you serious? Comparing those who seek to correct injustice with those who—”
“Who cut the heads off everyone with whom they disagreed?” George interrupted. “I’m perfectly serious. Robespierre was the very type of reformer—virtuous, sober, sedate, educated, a spotless private life. And how many thousands did he murder?” He jabbed his fork at Bysshe again, and Mary restrained the impulse to slap it out of his hand. “You may not like Ellenborough’s sentencing, but a few hours in the pillory or a few months in prison ain’t the same as beheading. And that’s what reform in England would come to in the end—mobs and demagogues heaping up death, and then a dictator like Cromwell, or worse luck Bonaparte, to end liberty for a whole generation.”
“I do not look to the French for a model,” said Bysshe, “but rather to America.”
“So did the French,” said George, “and look what they got.”
“If France had not desperately needed reform,” Bysshe said, “there would have been nothing so violent as their revolution. If England reforms itself, there need be no violence.”
“Ah. So if the government simply resigns, and frame-breakers and agitators and democratic philosophers and wandering poets take their place, then things shall be well in England.”
“Things will be better in any case,” Bysshe said quietly, “than they are now.”
“Exactly!” Claire said.
George gave his companions a knowing look. See how I humor this vagabond? Mary read. Loathing stirred her heart.
Bysshe could read a look as well as Mary. His face darkened. “Please understand me,” he said. “I do not look for immediate change, nor do I preach violent revolution. Mr. Godwin has corrected that error in my thought. There will be little amendment for years to come. But Ellenborough is old, and the King is old and mad, and the Regent and his loathsome brothers are not young…” He smiled. “I will outlive them, will I not?”
George looked at him. “Will you outlive me, sir? I am not yet thirty.”
“I am three-and-twenty.” Mildly. “I believe the odds favor me.”
Bysshe and the others laughed, while George looked cynical and dyspeptic. Used to being the young cavalier, Mary thought. He’s not so young any longer—how much longer will that pretty face last?
“And of course advance of science may turn this debate irrelevant,” Bysshe went on. “Mr. Godwin calculates that with the use of mechanical aids, people may reduce their daily labor to an hour or two, to the general benefit of all.”
“But you oppose such machines, don’t ye?” George said. “You support the Luddites, I assume?”
“Ay, but—”
“And the frame-breakers are destroying the machines that have taken their livelihood, aren’t they? So where is your general benefit, then?”
Mary couldn’t hold it in any longer. She slapped her hand down on the table, and George and Bysshe started. “The riots occur because the profits of the looms were not used to benefit the weavers, but to enrich the mill owners! Were the owners to share their profits with the weavers, there would have been no disorder.”
George gave her a civil bow. “Your view of human nature is generous,” he said, “if you expect a mill owner to support the families of those who are not even his employees.”
“It would be for the good of all, wouldn’t it?” Bysshe said. “If he does not want his mills threatened and frames broken.”
“It sounds like extortion wrapped in pretty philosophy.”
“The mill owners will pay one way or another,” Mary pointed out. “They can pay taxes to the government to suppress the Luddites with militia and dragoons, or they can have the goodwill of the people, and let the swords and muskets rust.”
“They will buy the swords every time,” George said. “They are useful in ways other than suppressing disorder, such as securing trade routes and the safety of the nation.” He put on a benevolent face. “You must forgive me, but your view of humanity is too benign. You do not account for the violence and passion that are
in the very heart of man, and which institutions such as law and religion are intended to help control. And when science serves the passions, only tragedy can result—when I think of science, I think of the science of Dr. Guillotin.”
“We are fallen,” said Captain Austen. “Eden will never be within our grasp.”
“The passions are a problem, but I think they can be turned to good,” said Bysshe. “That is—” He gave an apologetic smile. “That is the aim of my current work. To use the means of poetry to channel the passions to a humane and beneficent aim.”
“I offer you my very best wishes,” condescendingly, “but I fear mankind will disappoint you. Passions are—” George gave Mary an insolent, knowing smile. “—are the downfall of many a fine young virtue.”
Mary considered hitting him in the face. Bysshe seemed not to have noticed George’s look, nor Mary’s reaction. “Mr. Godwin ventured the thought that dreams are the source of many irrational passions,” he mused. “He believes that should we ever find a way of doing without sleep, the passions would fall away.”
“Ay!” barked George. “Through enervation, if nothing else.”
The others laughed. Mary decided she had had enough, and rose.
“I shall withdraw,” she said. “The journey has been fatiguing.”
The gentlemen, Bysshe excepted, rose to their feet. “Good night, Maie,” he said. “I will stay for a while, I think.”
“As you like, Bysshe.” Mary looked at her sister. “Jane? I mean Claire? Will you come with me?”
“Oh, no.” Quickly. “I’m not at all tired.”
Annoyance stiffened Mary’s spine. “As you like,” she said.
George bowed toward her, picked a candle off the table, and offered her an arm. “May I light you up the stair? I should like to apologize for my temerity in contradicting such a charming lady.” He offered his brightest smile. “I think my poor virtue will extend that far, yes?”
She looked at him coldly—she couldn’t think it customary, even in George’s circles, to escort a woman to her bedroom.
Damn it anyway. “My lord,” she said, and put her arm through his.
Jerome Bonaparte made a flying leap from the table and landed on George’s shoulder. It clung to his long auburn hair, screamed, and made a face, and the others laughed. Mary considered the thought of being escorted up to bed by a lord and a monkey, and it improved her humor.
“Goodnight, gentlemen,” Mary said. “Claire.”
The gentlemen reseated themselves and George took Mary up the stairs. They were so narrow and steep that they couldn’t go up abreast; George, with the candle, went first, and Mary, holding his hand, came up behind. Her door was the first up the stairs; she put her hand on the wooden door handle and turned to face her escort. The monkey leered at her from his shoulder.
“I thank you for your company, my lord,” she said. “I fear your journey was a little short.”
“I wished a word with you,” softly, “a little apart from the others.”
Mary stiffened. To her annoyance her heart gave a lurch. “What word is that?” she asked.
His expression was all affability. “I am sensible to the difficulties that you and your sister must be having. Without money in a foreign country, and with your only protector a man—” He hesitated. Jerome Bonaparte, jealous for his attention, tugged at his hair. “A charming man of noble ideals, surely, but without money.”
“I thank you for your concern, but it is misplaced,” Mary said. “Claire and I are perfectly well.”
“Your health ain’t my worry,” he said. Was he deliberately misunderstanding? Mary wondered in fury. “I worry for your future—you are on an adventure with a man who cannot support you, cannot see you safe home, cannot marry you.”
“Bysshe and I do not wish to marry.” The words caught at her heart. “We are free.”
“And the damage to your reputation in society—” he began, and came up short when she burst into laughter. He looked severe, while the monkey mocked him from his shoulder. “You may laugh now, Miss Godwin, but there are those who will use this adventure against you. Political enemies of your father at the very least.”
“That isn’t why I was laughing. I am the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft—I have no reputation! It’s like being the natural daughter of Lucifer and the Scarlet Woman of Babylon. Nothing is expected of us, nothing at all. Society has given us license to do as we please. We were dead to them from birth.”
He gave her a narrow look. “But you have at least a little concern for the proprieties—why else travel pseudonymously?”
Mary looked at him in surprise. “What d’you mean?”
He smiled. “Give me a little credit, Miss Godwin. When you call your sister Jane half the time, and your protector calls you May…”
Mary laughed again. “The Maie—Maie for short—is one of Bysshe’s pet names for me. The other is Pecksie.”
“Oh.”
“And Jane is my sister’s given name, which she has always hated. Last year she decided to call herself Clara or Claire—this week it is Claire.”
Jerome Bonaparte began to yank at George’s ear, and George made a face, pulled the monkey from his shoulder, and shook it with mock ferocity. Again he spoke in the cracked Scots dowager’s voice. “Are ye sae donsie wicked, creeture? Tae Elba w’ye!”
Mary burst into laughter again. George gave her a careless grin, then returned the monkey to his shoulder. It sat and regarded Mary with bright, wise eyes.
“Miss Godwin, I am truly concerned for you, believe else of me what you will.”
Mary’s laughter died away. She took the candle from his hand. “Please, my lord. My sister and I are perfectly safe in Mr. Shelley’s company.”
“You will not accept my protection? I will freely give it.”
“We do not need it. I thank you.”
“Will you not take a loan, then? To see you safe across the Channel? Mr. Shelley may pay me back if he is ever in funds.”
Mary shook her head.
A little of the old insolence returned to George’s expression. “Well. I have done what I could.”
“Good night, Lord Newstead.”
“Good night.”
Mary readied herself for bed and climbed atop the soft mattress. She tried to read her Italian grammar, but the sounds coming up the stairway were a distraction. There was loud conversation, and singing, and then Claire’s fine voice, unaccompanied, rising clear and sweet up the narrow stair.
Torcere, Mary thought, looking fiercely at her book, attorcere, rattorcere, scontorcere, torcere.
Twist. Twist, twist, twist, twist.
Claire finished, and there was loud applause. Bysshe came in shortly afterwards. His eyes sparkled and his color was high. “We were singing,” he said.
“I heard.”
“I hope we didn’t disturb you.” He began to undress.
Mary frowned at her book. “You did.”
“And I argued some more with Byron.” He looked at her and smiled. “Imagine it—if we could convert Byron! Bring one of the most famous men in the world to our views.”
She gave him a look. “I can think of nothing more disastrous to our cause than to have him lead it.”
“Byron’s famous. And he’s a splendid man.” He looked at her with a self-conscious grin. “I have a pair of byrons, you know, back home. I think I have a good turn of ankle, but the things are the very devil to lace. You really need servants for it.”
“He’s Newstead now. Not Byron. I wonder if they’ll have to change the name of the boot?”
“Why would he change his name, d’you suppose? After he’d become famous with it.”
“Wellington became famous as Wellesley.”
“Wellington had to change his name. His brother was already Lord Wellesley.” He approached the bed and smiled down at her. “He likes you.”
“He likes any woman who crosses his path. Or so I understand.”
Mary gave him an irritated look. “I don’t wish to be with Byron. I want to be with you.”
“But you may,” whispering, the hand stroking her belly, “be with Byron if you want.”
Temper flared through Mary. “I don’t want Byron!” she said. “And I don’t want Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg, or any of your other friends!”
He seemed a little hurt. “Hogg’s a splendid fellow.”
“Hogg tried to seduce your wife, and he’s tried to seduce me. And I don’t understand how he remains your best friend.”
“Because we agree on everything, and I hold him no malice where his intent was not malicious.” Bysshe gave her a searching look. “I only want you to be free. If we’re not free, our love is chained, chained absolutely, and all ruined. I can’t live that way—I found that out with Harriet.”
She sighed, put her arm around him, drew her fingers through his tangled hair. He rested his head on her shoulder and looked up into her eyes. “I want to be free to be with you,” Mary told him. “Why will that not suit?”
“It suits.” He kissed her cheek. “It suits very well.” He looked up at her happily. “And if Harriet joins us in Brussels, with a little money, then all shall be perfect.”
Mary gazed at him, utterly unable to understand how he could think his wife would join them, or why, for that matter, he thought it a good idea.
He misses his little boy, she thought. He wants to be with him.
The thought rang hollow in her mind.
The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993 Page 91
