Bysshe leapt gracefully aft and released the mainsheet. The sail boomed out with a crash that rattled Mary’s bones and the boat righted itself. Bysshe took the tiller from Mary, sheeted in, leaned out into the wind as the boat picked up speed. There was a grin on his face.
“Sorry!” he said. “I should have let the sheet go before we set out.”
Bysshe tacked and brought Ariel into the wind near the jetty. The sail boomed like thunder as it spilled wind. Waves slammed the boat into the jetty. The mast swayed wildly. The stone jetty was at least four feet taller than the boat’s deck. Mary helped Claire with the luggage—gold clanked heavily in one bag—then took Alba while Bysshe assisted Claire into the boat.
“It’s wet,” Claire said when she saw the cuddy.
“Take your heavy cloak out of your bags and sit on it,” Mary said.
“This is terrible,” Claire said, and lowered herself carefully into the cuddy.
“Go forrard,” Bysshe said to Mary, “and push off from the jetty as hard as you can.”
Forrard. Bysshe so enjoyed being nautical. Clumsy in skirts and pregnancy, Mary climbed atop the cuddy and did as she was asked. The booming sail filled, Mary snatched at the shrouds for balance, and Ariel leaped from the jetty like a stone from a child’s catapult. Mary made her way across the tilting deck to the cockpit. Bysshe was leaning out to weather, his big hands controlling the tiller easily, his long fair hair streaming in the wind.
“I won’t ask you to do that again,” he said. “George should help from this point.”
George and his lady would join the boat at another jetty—there was less chance that the authorities would intervene if they weren’t seen where another Englishman was readying his boat.
Ariel raced across the waterfront, foam boiling under its counter. The second jetty—a wooden one—approached swiftly, with cloaked figures upon it. Bysshe rounded into the wind, canvas thundering, and brought Ariel neatly to the dock. George’s men seized shrouds and a mooring line and held the boat in its place.
George’s round hat was jammed down over his brows and the collar of his cloak was turned up, but any attempt at anonymity was wrecked by his famous laced boots. He seized a shroud and leaped easily into the boat, then turned to help his lady.
She had stepped back, frightened by the gunshot cracks of the luffing sail, the wild swings of the boom. Dressed in a blue silk dress, broad-brimmed bonnet, and heavy cloak, she frowned with her haughty lower lip, looking disdainfully at the little boat and its odd collection of passengers.
George reassured his companion. He and one of his men, the swordmaster Pásmány, helped her into the boat, held her arm as she ducked under the boom.
George grabbed the brim of his hat to keep the wind from carrying it away and performed hasty introductions. “Mr. and Mrs. Shelley. The Comtesse Laufenburg.”
Mary strained her memory, trying to remember if she’d ever heard the name before. The comtesse smiled a superior smile and tried to be pleasant. “Enchanted to make cognizance of you,” she said in French.
A baby wailed over the sound of flogging canvas. George straightened, his eyes a little wild.
“Claire is here?” he asked.
“She did not desire to be abandoned in Montreux,” Mary said, trying to stress the word abandoned.
“My God!” George said. “I wish you had greater consideration of the … realities.”
“Claire is free and may do as she wishes,” Mary said.
George clenched his teeth. He took the comtesse by her arm and drew her toward the cuddy.
“The boat will be better balanced,” Bysshe called after, “if the comtesse will sit on the weather side.” And perhaps, Mary thought, we won’t capsize.
George gave Bysshe a blank look. “The larboard side,” Bysshe said helpfully. Another blank look.
“Hang it! The left.”
“Very well.”
George and the comtesse ducked down the hatchway. Mary would have liked to have eavesdropped on the comtesse’s introduction to Claire, but the furious rattling sail obscured the phrases, if any. George came up, looking grim, and Pásmány began tossing luggage toward him. Other than a pair of valises, most of it was military: a familiar-looking pistol case, a pair of sabers, a brace of carbines. George stowed it all in the cuddy. Then Pásmány himself leaped into the boat, and George signaled all was ready. Bysshe placed George by the weather rail, and Pásmány squatted on the weather foredeck.
“If you gentlemen would push us off?” Bysshe said.
The sail filled and Ariel began to move fast, rising at each wave and thudding into the troughs. Spray rose at each impact. Bysshe trimmed the sail, the luff trembling just a little, the rest full and taut, then cleated the mainsheet down.
“A long reach down the length of the lake,” Bysshe said with a smile. “Easy enough sailing, if a little hard on the ladies.”
George peered out over the cuddy, his eyes searching the bank. The old castle of Chillon bulked ominously on the shore, just south of Montreux.
“When do we cross the border into Geneva?” George asked.
“Why does it matter?” Bysshe said. “Geneva joined the Swiss Confederation last year.”
“But the administrations are not yet united. And the more jurisdictions that lie between the comtesse and her pursuers, the happier I will be.”
George cast an uncomfortable look astern. With spray dotting his cloak, his hat clamped down on his head, his body disposed awkwardly on the weather side of the boat, George seemed thoroughly miserable—and in an overwhelming flood of sudden understanding, Mary suddenly knew why. It was over for him. His noble birth, his fame, his entire life to this point—all was as naught. Passion had claimed him for its own. His career had ended: there was no place for him in the army, in diplomatic circles, even in polite society. He’d thrown it all away in this mad impulse of passion.
He was an exile now, and the only people whom he could expect to associate with him were other exiles.
Like the exiles aboard Ariel.
Perhaps, Mary thought, he was only now realizing it. Poor George. She actually felt sorry for him.
The castle of Chillon fell astern, like a grand symbol of George’s hopes, a world of possibility not realized.
“Beg pardon, my lord,” she said, “but where do you intend to go?”
George frowned. “France, perhaps,” he said. “The comtesse has … some friends … in France. England, if France won’t suit, but we won’t be able to stay there long. America, if necessary.”
“Can the Prince Regent intervene on your behalf?”
George’s smile was grim. “If he wishes. But he’s subject to strange fits of morality, particularly if the sins in question remind him of his own. Prinny will not wish to be reminded of Mrs. Fitzherbert and Lady Hertford. He does wish to look upright in the eyes of the nation. And he has no loyalty to his friends, none at all.” He gave a poised, slow-motion shrug. “Perhaps he will help, if the fit is on him. But I think not.” He reached inside his greatcoat, patted an inside pocket. “Do you think I can light a cigar in this wind? If so, I hope it will not discomfort you, Mrs. Shelley.”
He managed a spark in his strike-a-light, puffed madly till the tinder caught, then ignited his cigar and turned to Bysshe. “I found your poems, Mr. Omnibus. Your Queen Mab and Alastor. The latter of which I liked better, though I liked both well enough.”
Bysshe looked at him in surprise. Wind whistled through the shrouds. “How did you find Mab? There were only seventy copies, and I’m certain I can account for each one.”
George seemed pleased with himself. “There are few doors closed to me.” Darkness clouded his face. “Or rather, were.” With a sigh. He wiped spray from his ear with the back of his hand.
“I’m surprised that you liked Mab at all,” Bysshe said quickly, “as its ideas are so contrary to your own.”
“You expressed them well enough. As a verse treatise of Mr. Godwin’s politica
l thought, I believed it done soundly—as soundly as such a thing can be done. And I think you can have it published properly now—it’s hardly a threat to public order, Godwin’s thought being so out of fashion even among radicals.” He drew deliberately on his cigar, then waved it. The wind tore the cigar smoke from his mouth in little wisps. “Alastor, though better poetry, seemed in contrast to have little thought behind it. I never understood what that fellow was doing on the boat—was it a metaphor for life? I kept waiting for something to happen.”
Mary bristled at George’s condescension. What are you doing on this little boat? she wanted to ask.
Bysshe, however, looked apologetic. “I’m writing better things now.”
“He’s writing wonderful things now,” Mary said. “An ode to Mont Blanc. An essay on Christianity. A hymn to intellectual beauty.”
George gave her an amused look. “Mrs. Shelley’s tone implies that, to me, intellectual beauty is entirely a stranger, but she misunderstands my point. I found it remarkable that the same pen could produce both Queen Mab and Alastor, and have no doubt that so various a talent will produce very good work in the poetry line—provided,” nodding to Bysshe, “that Mr. Shelley continues in it, and doesn’t take up engineering again, or chemistry.” He grinned. “Or become a sea captain.”
“He is and remains a poet,” Mary said firmly. She used a corner of her shawl to wipe spray from her cheek.
“Who else do you like, my lord?” Bysshe asked.
“Poets, you mean? Scott, above all. Shakespeare, who is sound on political matters as well as having a magnificent … shall I call it a stride? Burns, the great poet of my country. And our Laureate.”
“Mr. Southey was kind to me when we met,” Bysshe said. “And Mrs. Southey made wonderful tea-cakes. But I wish I admired his work more.” He looked up. “What do you think of Milton? The Maie and I read him constantly.”
George shrugged. “Dour Puritan fellow. I’m surprised you can stand him at all.”
“His verse is glorious. And he wasn’t a Puritan, but an Independent, like Cromwell—his philosophy was quite unorthodox. He believed, for example, in plural marriage.”
George’s eyes glittered. “Did he now.”
“Ay. And his Satan is a magnificent creation, far more interesting than any of his angels or his simpering pedantic Christ. That long, raging fall from grace, into darkness visible.”
George’s brows knit. Perhaps he was contemplating his own long fall from the Heaven of polite society. His eyes turned to Mary.
“And how is the originator of Mr. Shelley’s political thought? How does your father, Mrs. Shelley?”
“He is working on a novel. An important work.”
“I am pleased to hear it. Does he progress?”
Mary was going to answer simply “Very well,” but Bysshe’s answer came first. “Plagued by lack of money,” he said. “We will be going to England to succor him after this, ah, errand is completed.”
“Your generosity does you credit,” George said, and then resentment entered his eyes and his lip curled. “Of course, you will be able to better afford it, now.”
Bysshe’s answer was mild. “Mr. Godwin lives partly with our support, but he will not speak to us since I eloped with his daughter. You will not acknowledge Alba, but at least you’ve been … persuaded … to do well by her.”
George preferred not to rise to this, settled instead for clarification. “You support a man who won’t acknowledge you?”
“It is not my father-in-law I support, but rather the author of Political Justice.”
“A nice discernment,” George observed. “Perhaps over-nice.”
“One does what goodness one can. And one hopes people will respond.” Looking at George, who smiled cynically around his cigar.
“Your charity speaks well for you. But perhaps Mr. Godwin would have greater cause to finish his book if poverty were not being made so convenient for him.”
Mary felt herself flushing red. But Bysshe’s reply again was mild. “It isn’t that simple. Mr. Godwin has dependents, and the public that once celebrated his thought has, alas, forgotten him. His novel may retrieve matters. But a fine thing such as this work cannot be rushed—not if it is to have the impact it deserves.”
“I will bow to your expertise in matters of literary production. But still … to support someone who will not even speak to you—that is charity indeed. And it does not speak well for Mr. Godwin’s gratitude.”
“My father is a great man!” Mary knew she was speaking hotly, and she bit back on her anger. “But he judges by a … a very high standard of morality. He will accept support from a sincere admirer, but he has not yet understood the depth of sentiment between Bysshe and myself, and believes that Bysshe has done my reputation harm—not,” flaring again, “that I would care if he had.”
Ariel thudded into a wave trough, and George winced at the impact. He adjusted his seat on the rail and nodded. “Mr. Godwin will accept money from an admirer, but not letters from an in-law. And Mr. Shelley will support the author of Political Justice, but not his in-laws.”
“And you,” Mary said, “will support a blackmailer, but not a daughter.”
George’s eyes turned to stone. Mary realized she had gone too far for this small boat and close company.
“Gentlemen, it’s cold,” she announced. “I will withdraw.”
She made her way carefully into the cuddy. The tall comtesse was disposed uncomfortably, on wet cushions, by the hatch, the overhead planking brushing the top of her bonnet. Her gaze was mild, but her lip was haughty. There was a careful three inches between her and Claire, who was nursing Alba and, clearly enough, a grudge.
Mary walked past them to the peak, sat carefully on a wet cushion near Claire. Their knees collided every time Ariel fell down a wave. The cuddy smelled of wet stuffing and stale water. There was still water sluicing about on the bottom.
Mary looked at Claire’s baby and felt sadness like an ache in her breast.
Claire regarded her resentfully. “The French bitch hates us,” she whispered urgently. “Look at her expression.”
Mary wished Claire had kept her voice down. Mary leaned out to look at the comtesse, managed a smile. “Vous parlez anglais?” she asked.
“Non. Je regrette. Parles-tu français?” The comtesse had a peculiar accent. As, with a name like Laufenburg, one might expect.
Pleasant of her, though, to use the intimate tu. “Je comprends un peu.” Claire’s French was much better than hers, but Claire clearly had no interest in conversation.
The comtesse looked at the nursing baby. A shadow flitted across her face. “My own child,” in French, “I was forced to leave behind.”
“I’m sorry.” For a moment Mary hated the comtesse for having a child to leave, that and for the abandonment itself.
No. Bysshe, she remembered, had left his own children. It did not make one unnatural. Sometimes there were circumstances.
Speech languished after this unpromising beginning. Mary leaned her head against the planking and tried to sleep, sadly aware of the cold seep of water up her skirts. The boat’s movement was too violent to be restful, but she composed herself deliberately for sleep. Images floated through her mind: the great crumbling keep of Chillon, standing above the surging gray water like the setting of one of “Monk” Lewis’s novels; a gray cat eating a blushing rose; a figure, massive and threatening, somehow both George and her father Godwin, flinging back the bed-curtains to reveal, in the bright light of morning, the comtesse Laufenburg’s placid blonde face with its outthrust, Habsburg lip.
Habsburg. Mary sat up with a cry and banged her skull on the deckhead.
She cast a wild look at Claire and the comtesse, saw them both drowsing, Alba asleep in Claire’s lap. The boat was rolling madly in a freshening breeze: there were ominous, threatening little shrieks of wind in the rigging. The cuddy stank badly.
Mary made her way out of the cuddy, clinging to the sides
of the hatch as the boat sought to pitch her out. Bysshe was holding grimly to the tiller with one big hand, controlling the sheet with the other while spray soaked his coat; George and Pásmány were hanging to the shrouds to keep from sliding down the tilted deck.
Astern was Lausanne, north of the lake, and the Cornettes to the south; and Mont Billiat, looming over the valley of the Dranse to the south, was right abeam: they were smack in the middle of the lake, with the vaudaire wind funneling down the valley, stronger than ever with the mountain boundary out of the way.
Mary seized the rail, hauled herself up the tilting deck toward George. “I know your secret,” she said. “I know who your woman is.”
George’s face ran with spray; his auburn hair was plastered to the back of his neck. He fixed her with eyes colder than the glaciers of Mont Blanc. “Indeed,” he said.
“Marie-Louise of the house of Habsburg.” Hot anger pulsed through her, burned against the cold spindrift on her face. “Former Empress of the French!”
Restlessly, George turned his eyes away. “Indeed,” he said again.
Mary seized a shroud and dragged herself to the rail next to him. Bysshe watched in shock as Mary shouted into the wind. “Her husband abroad! Abroad, forsooth—all the way to St. Helena! Forced to leave her child behind, because her father would never let Napoleon’s son out of his control for an instant. Even a Habsburg lip—my God!”
“Very clever, Miss Godwin. But I believe you have divined my sentiments on the subject of clever women.” George gazed ahead, toward Geneva. “Now you see why I wish to be away.”
“I see only vanity!” Mary raged. “Colossal vanity! You can’t stop fighting Napoleon even now! Even when the battlefield is only a bed!”
George glared at her. “Is it my damned fault that Napoleon could never keep his women?”
“It’s your damned fault that you keep her!”
George opened his mouth to spit out a reply and then the vaudaire, like a giant hand, took Ariel’s mast in its grasp and slammed the frail boat over. Bysshe cried out and hauled the tiller to his chest and let the mainsheet go, all far too late. The deck pitched out from under Mary’s heels and she clung to the shroud for dear life. Pásmány shouted in Hungarian. There was a roar as the sail hit the water. The lake foamed over the lee rail and the wind tore Mary’s breath away. There were screams from the cuddy as water poured into the little cabin.
The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993 Page 96
