The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  Captain Austen interrupted. “One is not blind to the world of feeling,” he said, “but surely Reason must rule the passions, else even a good heart can be led astray.”

  “I can’t agree,” Bysshe said. “Surely it is Reason that has led us to the world of law, and property, and equity, and kingship—and all the hypocrisy that comes with upholding these artificial formations, and denying our true nature, all that deprives us of life, of true and natural goodness.”

  “Absolutely!” said Claire.

  “It is Reason,” Mary said, “which makes you deny the evidence of my senses. I saw your emotion, gentlemen, when you discussed your dead comrades. And I applaud it.”

  “It does you credit,” Bysshe added.

  “Do you claim not to feel anything in battle?” Mary demanded. “Nothing at all?”

  George paused a moment, then answered seriously. “My concentration is very great. It is an elevated sort of apprehension, very intent. I must be aware of so much, you see—I can’t afford to miss a thing. My analytical faculty is always in play.”

  “And that’s all?” cried Mary.

  That condescending half-smile returned. “There isnae time for else, lass.”

  “At the height of a charge? In the midst of an engagement?”

  “Then especially. An instant’s break in my concentration and all could be lost.”

  “Lord Newstead,” Mary said, “I cannot credit this.”

  George only maintained his slight smile, knowing and superior. Mary wanted to wipe it from his face, and considered reminding him of his fractious conduct over the pistols. How’s that for control and discipline, she thought.

  But no, she decided, it would be a long, unpleasant ride to Brussels if she upset George again.

  Against her inclinations, she concluded to be English, and hypocritical, and say nothing.

  * * *

  Bysshe found neither wife nor money in Brussels, and George arranged lodgings for them that they couldn’t afford. The only option Mary could think of was to make their way to a channel port, then somehow try to talk their way to England with promise of payment once Bysshe had access to funds in London.

  It was something for which she held little hope.

  They couldn’t afford any local diversions, and so spent their days in a graveyard, companionably reading.

  And then, one morning two days after their arrival in Brussels, as Mary lay ill in their bed, Bysshe returned from an errand with money, coins clanking in a bag. “We’re saved!” he said, and emptied the bag into her lap.

  Mary looked at the silver lying on the comforter and felt her anxiety ease. They were old Spanish coins with the head of George III stamped over their original design, but they were real for all that. “A draft from Har … from your wife?” she said.

  “No.” Bysshe sat on the bed, frowned. “It’s a loan from Byron—Lord Newstead, I mean.”

  “Bysshe!” Mary sat up and set bedclothes and silver flying. “You took money from that man? Why?”

  He put a paternal hand on hers. “Lord Newstead convinced me it would be in your interest, and Claire’s. To see you safely to England.”

  “We’ll do well enough without his money! It’s not even his to give away, it’s his wife’s.”

  Bysshe seemed hurt. “It’s a loan,” he said. “I’ll pay it back once I’m in London.” He gave a little laugh. “I’m certain he doesn’t expect repayment. He thinks we’re vagabonds.”

  “He thinks worse of us than that.” A wave of nausea took her and she doubled up with a little cry. She rolled away from him. Coins rang on the floor. Bysshe put a hand on her shoulder, stroked her back.

  “Poor Pecksie,” he said. “Some English cooking will do you good.”

  “Why don’t you believe me?” Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m with child, Bysshe!”

  He stroked her. “Perhaps. In a week or two we’ll know for certain.” His tone lightened. “He invited us to a ball tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “Newstead. The ball’s in his honor, he can invite whomever he pleases. The Prince of Orange will be there, and the English ambassador.”

  Mary had no inclination to be the subject of one of George’s freaks. “We have no clothes fit for a ball,” she said, “and I don’t wish to go in any case.”

  “We have money now. We can buy clothes.” He smiled. “And Lord Newstead said he would loan you and Claire some jewels.”

  “Lady Newstead’s jewels,” Mary reminded.

  “All those powerful people! Imagine it! Perhaps we can affect a conversion.”

  Mary glared at him over her shoulder. “That money is for our passage to England. George wants only to display us, his tame Radicals, like his tame monkey or his tame panther. We’re just a caprice of his—he doesn’t take either us or our arguments seriously.”

  “That doesn’t invalidate our arguments. We can still make them.” Cheerfully. “Claire and I will go, then. She’s quite set on it, and I hate to disappoint her.”

  “I think it will do us no good to be in his company for an instant longer. I think he is…” She reached behind her back, took his hand, touched it. “Perhaps he is a little mad,” she said.

  “Byron? Really? He’s wrong, of course, but…”

  Nausea twisted her insides. Mary spoke rapidly, desperate to convince Bysshe of her opinions. “He so craves glory and fame, Bysshe. The war gave expression to his passions, gave him the achievement he desired—but now the war’s over and he can’t have the worship he needs. That’s why he’s taken up with us—he wants even our admiration. There’s no future for him now—he could follow Wellington into politics but he’d be in Wellington’s shadow forever that way. He’s got nowhere to go.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “I see you’ve been giving him much thought,” Bysshe said finally.

  “His marriage is a failure—he can’t go back to England. His relations with women will be irregular, and—”

  “Our relations are irregular, Maie. And it’s the better for it.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant he cannot love. It’s worship he wants, not love. And those pretty young men he travels with—there’s something peculiar in that. Something unhealthy.”

  “Captain Austen is neither pretty nor young.”

  “He’s along only by accident. Another of George’s freaks.”

  “And if you think he’s a paederast, well—we should be tolerant. Plato believed it a virtue. And George always asks after you.”

  “I do not wish to be in his thoughts.”

  “He is in yours.” His voice was gentle. “And that is all right. You are free.”

  Mary’s heart sank. “It is your child I have, Bysshe,” she said.

  Bysshe didn’t answer. Torcere, she thought. Attorcere, rattorcere.

  * * *

  Claire’s face glowed as she modelled her new ball gown, circling on the parlor carpet of the lodgings George had acquired for Bysshe’s party. Lady Newstead’s jewels glittered from Claire’s fingers and throat. Bysshe, in a new coat, boots, and pantaloons, smiled approvingly from the corner.

  “Very lovely, Miss Clairmont,” George approved.

  George was in full uniform, scarlet coat, blue facings, gold braid, and byrons laced tight. His cocked hat was laid carelessly on the mantel. George’s eyes turned to Mary.

  “I’m sorry you are ill, Miss Godwin,” he said. “I wish you were able to accompany us.”

  Bysshe, Mary presumed, had told him this. Mary found no reason why she should support the lie.

  “I’m not ill,” she said mildly. “I simply do not wish to go—I have some pages I wish to finish. A story called Hate.”

  George and Bysshe flushed alike. Mary, smiling, approached Claire, took her hand, admired gown and gems. She was surprised by the affect: the jewels, designed for an older woman, gave Claire a surprisingly mature look, older and more experienced than her sixteen years. Mary found herself growing uneasy.

&nbs
p; “The seamstress was shocked when she was told I needed it tonight,” Claire said. “She had to call in extra help to finish in time.” She laughed. “But money mended everything!”

  “For which we may thank Lord Newstead,” Mary said, “and Lady Newstead to thank for the jewels.” She looked up at George, who was still smouldering from her earlier shot. “I’m surprised, my lord, that she allows them to travel without her.”

  “Annabella has her own jewels,” George said. “These are mine. I travel often without her, and as I move in the highest circles, I want to make certain that any lady who finds herself in my company can glitter with the best of them.”

  “How chivalrous.” George cocked his head, trying to decide whether or not this was irony. Mary decided to let him wonder. She folded her hands and smiled sweetly.

  “I believe it’s time to leave,” she said. “You don’t want to keep his highness of Orange waiting.”

  Cloaks and hats were snatched; goodbyes were said. Mary managed to whisper to Claire as she helped with her cloak.

  “Be careful, Jane,” she said.

  Resentment glittered in Claire’s black eyes. “You have a man,” she said.

  Mary looked at her. “So does Lady Newstead.”

  Claire glared hatred and swept out, fastening bonnet-strings. Bysshe kissed Mary’s lips, George her hand. Mary prepared to settle by the fire with pen and manuscript, but before she could sit, there was a knock on the door and George rushed in.

  “Forgot me hat,” he said. But instead of taking it from the mantel, he walked to where Mary stood by her chair and simply looked at her. Mary’s heart lurched at the intensity of his gaze.

  “Your hat awaits you, my lord,” she said.

  “I hope you will reconsider,” said George.

  Mary merely looked at him, forced him to state his business. He took her hand in both of his, and she clenched her fist as his fingers touched hers.

  “I ask you, Miss Godwin, to reconsider my offer to take you under my protection,” George said.

  Mary clenched her teeth. Her heart hammered. “I am perfectly safe with Mr. Shelley,” she said.

  “Perhaps not as safe as you think.” She glared at him. George’s eyes bored into hers. “I gave him money,” he said, “and he told me you were free. Is that the act of a protector?”

  Rage flamed through Mary. She snatched her hand back and came within an inch of slapping George’s face.

  “Do you think he’s sold me to you?” she cried.

  “I can conceive no other explanation,” George said.

  “You are mistaken and a fool.” She turned away, trembling in anger, and leaned against the wall.

  “I understand this may be a shock. To have trusted such a man, and then discovered—”

  The wallpaper had little bees on it, Napoleon’s emblem. “Can’t you understand that Bysshe was perfectly literal!” she shouted. “I am free, he is free, Claire is free—free to go, or free to stay.” She straightened her back, clenched her fists. “I will stay. Goodbye, Lord Newstead.”

  “I fear for you.”

  “Go away,” she said, speaking to the wallpaper; and after a moment’s silence she heard George turn, and take his hat from the mantel, and leave the building.

  Mary collapsed into her chair. The only thing she could think was, Poor Claire.

  2

  Mary was pregnant again. She folded her hands over her belly, stood on the end of the dock, and gazed up at the Alps.

  Clouds sat low on the mountains, growling. The passes were closed with avalanche and unseasonal snow, the vaudaire storm wind tore white from the steep waves of the gray lake, and Ariel pitched madly at its buoy by the waterfront, its mast-tip tracing wild figures against the sky.

  The vaudaire had caused a “seiche”—the whole mass of the lake had shifted toward Montreux, and water levels had gone up six feet. The strange freshwater tide had cast up a line of dead fish and dead birds along the stony waterfront, all staring at Mary with brittle glass eyes.

  “It doesn’t look as if we’ll be leaving tomorrow,” Bysshe said. He and Mary stood by the waterfront, cloaked and sheltered by an umbrella. Water broke on the shore, leaped through the air, reaching for her, for Bysshe.… It spattered at her feet.

  She thought of Harriet, Bysshe’s wife, hair drifting, clothes floating like seaweed. Staring eyes like dark glass. Her hands reaching for her husband from the water.

  She had been missing for weeks before her drowned body was finally found.

  The vaudaire was supposed to be a warm wind from Italy, but its warmth was lost on Mary. It felt like the burning touch of a glacier.

  “Let’s go back to the hotel,” Mary said. “I’m feeling a little weak.”

  She would deliver around the New Year unless the baby was again premature.

  A distant boom reached her, was echoed, again and again, by mountains. Another avalanche. She hoped it hadn’t fallen on any of the brave Swiss who were trying to clear the roads.

  She and Bysshe returned to the hotel through darkening streets. It was a fine place, rather expensive, though they could afford it now. Their circumstances had improved in the last year, though at cost.

  Old Sir Bysshe had died, and left Bysshe a thousand pounds per year. Harriet Shelley had drowned, bricks in her pockets. Mary had given birth to a premature daughter who had lived only two weeks. She wondered about the child she carried—she had an intuition all was not well. Death, perhaps, was stalking her baby, was stalking them all.

  In payment for what? Mary wondered. What sin had they committed?

  She walked through Montreux’s wet streets and thought of dead glass eyes, and grasping hands, and hair streaming like seaweed. Her daughter dying alone in her cradle at night, convulsing, twitching, eyes open and tiny red face torn with mortal terror.

  When Mary had come to the cradle later to nurse the baby, she had thought it in an unusually deep sleep. She hadn’t realized that death had come until after dawn, when the little corpse turned cold.

  Death. She and Bysshe had kissed and coupled on her mother’s grave, had shivered together at the gothic delights of Vathek, had whispered ghost stories to one another in the dead of night till Claire screamed with hysteria. Somehow death had not really touched her before. She and Bysshe had crossed war-scarred France two years ago, sleeping in homes abandoned for fear of Cossacks, and somehow death had not intruded into their lives.

  “Winter is coming,” Bysshe said. “Do we wish to spend it in Geneva? I’d rather push on to Italy and be a happy salamander in the sun.”

  “I’ve had another letter from Mrs. Godwin.”

  Bysshe sighed. “England, then.”

  She sought his hand and squeezed it. Bysshe wanted the sun of Italy, but Bysshe was her sun, the blaze that kept her warm, kept her from despair. Death had not touched him. He flamed with life, with joy, with optimism.

  She tried to stay in his radiance. Where his light banished the creeping shadows that followed her.

  As they entered their hotel room they heard the wailing of an infant and found Claire trying to comfort her daughter Alba. “Where have you been?” Claire demanded. There were tears on her cheeks. “I fell asleep and dreamed you’d abandoned me! And then I cried out and woke the baby.”

  Bysshe moved to comfort her. Mary settled herself heavily onto a sofa.

  In the small room in Montreux, with dark shadows creeping in the corners and the vaudaire driving against the shutters, Mary put her arms around her unborn child and willed the shade of death to keep away.

  * * *

  Bysshe stopped short in the midst of his afternoon promenade. “Great heavens,” he said. His tone implied only mild surprise—he was so filled with life and certitude that he took most of life’s shocks purely in stride.

  When Mary looked up, she gasped and her heart gave a crash.

  It was a barouche—the barouche. Vermilion wheels, liveried postboys wearing muddy slickers, armorial bearings on t
he door, the bulletproof top raised to keep out the storm. Baggage piled on platforms fore and aft.

  Rolling past as Mary and Bysshe stood on the tidy Swiss sidewalk and stared.

  CREDE BYRON, Mary thought viciously. As soon credit Lucifer.

  The gray sky lowered as they watched the barouche grind past, steel-rimmed wheels thundering on the cobbles. And then a window dropped on its leather strap, and someone shouted something to the postboys. The words were lost in the vaudaire, but the postboys pulled the horses to a stop. The door opened and George appeared, jamming a round hat down over his auburn hair. His jacket was a little tight, and he appeared to have gained a stone or more since Mary had last seen him. He walked toward Bysshe and Mary, and Mary tried not to stiffen with fury at the sight of him.

  “Mr. Omnibus! Tí kánete?”

  “Very well, thank you.”

  “Miss Godwin.” George bowed, clasped Mary’s hand. She closed her fist, reminded herself that she hated him.

  “I’m Mrs. Shelley now.”

  “My felicitations,” George said.

  George turned to Bysshe. “Are the roads clear to the west?” he asked. “I and my companion must push on to Geneva on a matter of urgency.”

  “The roads have been closed for three days,” Bysshe said. “There have been both rockslides and avalanches near Chexbres.”

  “That’s what they told me in Vevey. There was no lodging there, so I came here, even though it’s out of our way.” George pressed his lips together, a pale line. He looked over his shoulder at the coach, at the mountainside, at the dangerous weather. “We’ll have to try to force our way through tomorrow,” he said. “Though it will be damned hard.”

  “It shouldn’t,” Bysshe said. “Not in a heavy coach like that.”

  George looked grim. “It was unaccountably dangerous just getting here,” he said.

  “Stay till the weather is better,” Bysshe said, smiling. “You can’t be blamed if the weather holds you up.”

  Mary hated Bysshe for that smile, even though she knew he had reasons to be obliging.

  Just as she had reasons for hating.

  “Nay.” George shook his head, and a little Scots fell out. “I cannae bide.”