A Call To Arms (4 page)

The mention of the post office engendered just the degree of sympathy necessary for Hervey to conclude that his declining would be an unkindness. ‘I am much obliged. I can answer for my sister since we have no fixed engagements. We shall come at nine.’

‘Good! So let us take a little more of this wine then – for our stomachs’ sake, as St Paul would have us believe.’

Hervey frowned, even though he surmised the show of scepticism was for his benefit. But he took another glass, and there they stayed a full hour speaking of Rome and her glories.

Later, in his lodgings in Via del Babuino,
il ghetto inglese
, Hervey reflected on the morning’s turn of events. He had befriended – was it not too strong a word? – an atheist, revolutionary and libertine. Elizabeth had lost no time in reminding him of the history of Mr Shelley and his elopements (half-remembered from Henrietta’s teasing accounts), and the rest he had pieced together for himself, recalling the usual tattlers during the years that his attention had
been distracted by those who would destroy the kingdom by the sword rather than by the pen. Shelley had by all accounts brought to bed two if not three or even four women – girls, indeed – so that there was issue out of wedlock, unacknowledged perhaps. And this the poet would defend as a right way of living – would propagate it, even! Who knew, therefore, what were Shelley’s arrangements at present, and what dissipation he – Hervey – and Elizabeth might soon be a prey to? He could only ponder on what a journey he had made these past months, from honourable rank in His Majesty’s light dragoons (some would say a primmish captain) to supper companion of a dangerous and amoral poetaster. Was he prepared to pay
any
price to put Elizabeth and himself an evening’s distance from painful memories? He shrugged. He wished he had at least read some of Shelley’s poetry. It would surely tell him more of the man than mere gossip could. But his own tastes in that direction had advanced only slowly, so that hitherto he had remained devoted above all to the Milton of his schoolroom. Through Henrietta he had read Coleridge, and with her Keats, but Shelley had not so far engaged him.

Elizabeth had not objected to suppering with the Shelleys, however. Elizabeth’s pleasure was her journal, and it had often been her lament that its pages were full of things that no one could have the least interest in but herself. Not that she harboured literary ambitions; rather was she occasionally in despair of being, at no longer five and twenty, without anything more to record than domestic trifles. If only she could write of her time at the workhouse, or in the hovels of Warminster Common, her memoir might stand as something of real consequence. But good works were one thing. To itemize the meanness and dissipation of rural life in a lady’s journal was quite another. Italy had seen her able to write infinitely more interesting pages already, but of the countryside and art; of people, her entries were as yet restricted. Save in the case of her brother, whose progress she noted with anxious attention – and of Henrietta, whom she missed so much more than any but her journal knew, sometimes through tear marks rather than ink.

At nine o’clock they took a carriage to Shelley’s lodgings, for although it was not far, Elizabeth had been at pains to dress and Hervey had no wish to take the edge off her success by chancing
to their feet. When they arrived at number 300 Via del Corso they found their host agitated. ‘I am very glad to meet you, Miss Hervey,’ Shelley replied, after Hervey’s introduction. ‘But my wife is unwell, I’m afraid, and makes her regrets. We shall go instead to Signora Dionigi’s. She holds a
conversazione
this evening. It will be very diverting.’

Now Hervey was troubled. ‘But we do not know Signora Dionigi.’

‘That will not matter in the least. The signora likes nothing more than to meet new people.’

Elizabeth, whose face was suffused by a colour far from her usual, assured their host that they would be delighted to go to the signora’s. ‘For in truth, Mr Shelley, we have not been much in company these past months.’

Hervey did not care for the idea of this
conversazione
, which sounded like nothing so much as the flummery of some ageing widow’s salon. Even the black humour which could descend on him of an evening might be preferable. But he could not deny his sister her diversion, even if he himself had no inclination for festive company.

Signora Marianna Dionigi was no dilettante, however. Ageing she might be, but she was also a painter of some distinction, an antiquary of impressive learning, and therefore unlikely to be seduced by worthless flattery. She was tall, upright. Her face, to Hervey’s mind, was a little too farded, but her features were very fine. Her dress was distinctly Italian rather than French. Above all she had kind eyes. She took Elizabeth’s arm and introduced her to the room, first in French, then in English. Elizabeth’s shot silk was perhaps a little out of place among the dresses of the foreign ladies, but it did not matter greatly, for Hervey observed that she was as handsome in essentials as any in the room, and with expert assistance might outshine at least half of them.

For a quarter of an hour before supper began, Shelley tried in vain to engage Hervey in conversation, to draw from him some response to a question of fact, or some opinion on this or that. Perhaps, he thought, it was that Hervey watched too keenly for his sister, or that the liveliness of the company made it difficult for him to be at ease. At any rate, Shelley saw enough not to persist,
and, with the utmost politeness, left him to himself as they made for the dining room. There, Hervey was relieved to find a table from which the guests helped themselves, so that he was able to slip unnoticed into the library. He had no appetite, and he could pass an hour or so pleasurably there now Elizabeth was at her ease and engaged in conversation.

But he was not long allowed his solitude, for Signora Dionigi was an attentive hostess, and she sought him out after a while. ‘May I bring you some wine, Mr Hervey?’ she asked, in French.

Hervey had in his hand a book of engravings of Roman antiquities. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, signora. I did not wish to appear—’

The signora smiled the more. ‘Mr Hervey, we do not follow a
formula
at these gatherings. I had rather you took your pleasure in a book if it were not to be had elsewhere.’

‘You are very kind, signora. I am not averse to company as a rule, but …’

‘It is your business alone, Mr Hervey. We Romans are not nearly so constrained by obligation.’

Now Hervey smiled, gratified by her discernment. ‘Thank you, signora. And yes, I should like a little wine, if I may.’

The signora despatched her attendant. ‘Have you known Mr Shelley long?’ she asked, now in English.

‘We met only this morning, signora.’

‘But you admire his poetry.’

He hesitated. ‘I am very much afraid that I have never read any of it.’

‘Would you like to?’

He had expected a tone of surprise, of disapproval even. The signora was indeed the most considerate of hostesses, as well as attentive. ‘I would of course, madam.’ So obliging had been her reply that he could not have said otherwise.

She took a small volume from the drawer of a writing desk. ‘Here, Mr Hervey. You will see what a great poet is our friend Mr Shelley. Do not hurry: he will repay proper study. Join us only if you feel inclined. That should be the way with
conversazione
.’

Hervey bowed in appreciation. He truly felt disinclined to the gaiety of the room next door, and the signora had sensed it. And he did wish to read a little of Shelley’s poetry, for he had a mind that it might tell him something of the man. Their time together
that morning, although short, had endeared the poet to him to an uncommon degree.

Half an hour passed, perhaps more, during which Hervey was interrupted only by a manservant bringing him champagne. And from the first moments with
Alastor
– ‘the demon spirit of solitude’ – he recognized that the poetry stood comparison to any he had read. Equal, certainly, to Coleridge and Keats in the pleasure the words themselves gave, and equal in some respects even to Milton in heroic invention. He did not know how much it truly told him of the man, however. It seemed, in fact, to speak most aptly to his own condition – and so well, that he found himself reading lines aloud, twice over:

‘… wildly he wandered on,

‘Day after day a weary waste of hours,

‘Bearing within his life the brooding care

‘That ever fed on its decaying flame.’

And he marvelled at the poet’s economy in describing what he himself could barely admit.

‘And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair

‘Sered by the autumn of strange suffering

‘Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand

‘Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;’

He shivered, almost, as he spoke this last.

‘Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone—’

But it was Shelley himself who spoke the culminating lines:

‘As in a furnace burning secretly,

‘From his dark eyes alone.’

Hervey looked up.

‘You approve of my philosophy, Captain Hervey?’ asked the poet, smiling with some pride.

‘I am no longer captain, as I explained this morning. And I should have to read much more before I were able to make any worthy remark.’ Even as he spoke, Hervey heard the stuffed shirt and inwardly he groaned.

But Shelley seemed only diverted by his reserve, and by what he
considered to be further evidence of sensibility. ‘Come with me tomorrow,’ he said, on an impulse. ‘To my favourite place in all of Rome.’

Hervey was intrigued. ‘Where?’

‘The place I hide from the world, and work.’

Shelley’s eagerness could compel. Indeed, Hervey did not imagine he had met a more compelling man. ‘I must make sure my sister will be content in my absence, but for myself I should say that I would deem it an honour.’

That compelling way also took Hervey into the music room, where he saw that Elizabeth was very agreeably engaged and smiling. And, he told himself, if Elizabeth could be so diverted, then perhaps his previous withdrawal was needless as well as selfish.

Next morning, Hervey left his lodgings in Via Babuino a little before a quarter to nine to walk by way of the Piazza di Spagna and Via Frattina to the Via del Corso. All along Frattina the sun was full in his eyes, and his progress was slow. As a rule he found Frattina an easier street to negotiate at this hour than Condotti or Borgognona, with their shops and stalls and hawkers; but even by this route he could advance but slowly this morning, so that he had to step out along the Corso to make his appointment on time. Only when he collided at full tilt with a ribbon-seller did it occur to him that he was not bound by any military obligation to be so exactly punctual. He caught but little of what the woman said, except that some of the ribbons, having fallen to the ground, were ruined. He stumbled in French and his few words of Italian to make amends, watched by a growing number of passers-by, and soon found himself with a good number of the fallen ribbons in exchange for more
scudi
than he supposed was strictly necessary. The immediate outcome was that he reached the Palazzo Verospi at ten minutes past nine, his hands and pockets full of brightly coloured streamers.

Shelley greeted him with an eager smile and an extravagant handshake. ‘I was afeard you would come very precisely on your hour as a military man and find me ill-prepared, for I could not lay hands on my notebook. But now I have it and we may leave at once. What do you intend with those ribbons?’

Hervey explained their provenance. ‘I thought I might take them for my sister. She was complaining of a want of colour in her wardrobe.’

‘How Italians do love ribbons!’ declared Shelley, taking a broad yellow and white one and draping it across his chest to resemble some papal order. ‘More so even than the French. I heard tell that Napoleon was a little too Italian in his love of them.’

‘Bonaparte?’ The imperial name was still unutterable to Hervey. ‘Perhaps; I could not safely say.’

‘I should not imagine
you
to be so easily seduced.’

Hervey frowned.

‘You were very dull last night. Not a word of Waterloo did you utter within my hearing. Shall you be dull again today?’

Hervey could not find it in him to bridle against the remark. ‘It is not my intention.’

‘Good. Then let us be away.’

‘Perhaps I may leave some of these for your wife?’ said Hervey, taking another handful of ribbons from a pocket.

Shelley seemed dismissive. ‘You may, but it will be some days before she is in humour to be gay.’

Hervey laid them on a table, without remark. He had not been so self-absorbed at the signora’s not to have heard the speculation there. The Shelleys had had a turbulent time in Naples, it seemed, and the precise status of their travelling companion was evidently of some moment. ‘Where do we go?’