Angelmonster (11 page)

“Let the dog kiss his mistress!” exclaimed George, and before Claire knew what was happening he had pulled her down on her back, put one leg over both hers, wet breeches and all, and bestowed a passionate kiss on her lips. Understandably, as soon as she could breathe she began to scream.

If I picture George now as he was when I first saw him, my impression is of something not entirely human. Not devilish, exactly, but otherworldly, as if he were merely borrowing time on earth, and must return to some immortal abode. Physically, he was tall like Shelley, but burlier, and older than I had expected. He had a slight limp from a malformed foot, but his air of eager charm was so engaging, this deficiency went almost unnoticed. He might have been eighteen, like Claire and me.

The pretty Swiss nursemaid we had engaged came out of the house, shading her eyes against the lowering sun.

“Elise!” I called, and she approached, holding out her arms for the child. “Will you take William to bed?”

George had got up. “My dear Mrs Shelley, what a delightful domestic scene!”

He looked very tall, with the evening light stretching his shadow along the beach. Hauling Claire to her feet, he advanced towards me with one arm around her shoulders and the other in a mock salute. “And Master Shelley too!” he exclaimed. “I am a mightily privileged fellow, am I not, to be welcomed by such famous personages!”

I was amused at the heavy-handed irony of “Mrs Shelley”. He knew very well I was not married. “But surely
you
are the personage whose reputation goes before him, Lord Byron,” I said.

He let Claire go and bent towards Elise and me in an elegant bow. William reached out his dimpled fist and made an exploration of George’s dark, damp hair. As I pulled the child’s hand away, George took my own and kissed it. “I wish I could believe so, madam,” he said gravely. “But Shelley’s star is rising faster than mine.”

Hearing his name, Shelley made his way up the beach. He was no longer laughing, but his face had the abandoned expression it wore when he was at his most delighted with life. I gave William to Elise, who held him up for his father’s kiss. As she took the child into the house, I entwined my arm with Shelley’s, and he rested his cheek against my temple. He smelt as salty and sweaty as, in Claire’s words, a common oarsman.

“I love you,” I said to him matter-of-factly, as if I were indeed addressing a servant. “Never forget how much I love you, whatever happens to us.”

He raised his head and looked down at me. A dazed look came into his beautiful eyes. “But you like George too, do you not?” he asked.

It was still dark. No brilliant Swiss morning outlined the black of the shutters. Even without feeling the mattress beside me I knew I was alone
.

“Where are you?” I called
.

A candle flickered in the passageway. Shelley stood in the doorway, his gigantic shadow leaping onto the wall. The flame was weak, and threw only enough light under his chin to reveal his neck and shoulders. He looked unearthly, like a being who had rejected life and welcomed the grave. He seemed halfway between here and heaven. His eyes were in shadow; I could not see their expression
.

“Are you ill?” I asked, fighting panic
.

“No, only sleepless. Go back to sleep.”

“Have you taken anything?” I persisted. He had, I knew
.

“No. Do not alarm yourself. I will come back to bed soon. Now leave me alone.”

He reached for the door handle. As he lunged forward I saw his shirt billow in the candlelight, like a sail, his thin body the mast. Then he closed the door, and the room was in darkness once more
.

IN THE COMPANY OF SPIRITS

W
e found that George’s guest was his friend Polidori, a young part-Italian doctor who innocently admired everything he saw, and never succeeded in working out my relationship to either Shelley or Claire. He immediately conceived an infatuation with me, a situation which George found hilarious and did his best to encourage.

The two men, surrounded by luxury and pampered by George’s huge staff, seemed bent on spending as much money as possible in the shortest time possible during their stay. In my heart I disapproved, but the beauty of our surroundings seduced us all.

By day or night, the sky, the lake and the mountains presented an array of changing colours and textures. The air was sweet, the prospect delightful, the company congenial. We went to the Villa Diodati every day, formally dressed at first, then gradually less and less so, bearing picnic baskets and fishing-rods and the box containing William’s clothes and toys. It was pleasant to idle away the time on or off shore, playing and sleeping, drinking from George’s inexhaustible wine cellar, and talking, always talking.

George’s mental facility was extraordinary. I could see why Shelley admired him so. It was his ability to dash from one complex subject to another, without apparently needing time to breathe, which gave the impression of sprite-like powers. His listeners’ ears were bombarded with wit, while their eyes devoured a countenance not quite angelic – that description must always be reserved for Shelley – but certainly heavenly in some more mysterious way.

He and Shelley shared many things. They were both publicly recognized poets, though George’s fame was the greater. Both had incurred the disapproval of their noble families and retreated to Europe to escape scandal. George’s passion for wild mountain scenery was as great as Shelley’s. And it had been clear from their first meeting that boating would become their favourite occupation.

Shelley had often professed to crave the wildness of the sea, but in landlocked Switzerland he seemed willing to forgo it in favour of rowing or sailing up and down Lake Geneva in all weathers. Neither he nor George ever having received much instruction in the art of sailing, they spent many hours adrift, the sails furled, the oars idle, writing, laughing, talking, and talking more.

And during that summer, as we walked and talked and ate and drank together, we discovered another, perhaps less worthy, mutual passion. When Shelley and I told George of our encounter with the story of the mad alchemist, he stopped in the act of trying to get William to swallow a tumbler of wine and stared at us with saucer eyes and an open mouth.

“Madness! Bloody murder! Lonely castles!” he cried. “In my opinion, all novels should contain nothing else!”

“Oh, George, how right you are!” replied Claire, hanging on his arm. “And how I long for a new horror story! I have read
The Castle of Otranto
five times.” She turned to the company. “Do you think writers are truly aware of the public’s demand for murder and revenge? And abduction? Abduction is my favourite!”

“Of course they are, but they cannot supply such novels quickly enough to satisfy the readers’ bloodlust,” observed Shelley “My dear Claire, why not write one yourself?”

A gleam came into her eyes. She was seeing herself at her writing-desk, a light shawl draped around her shoulders, frowning daintily in concentration over her masterpiece. “I may well do that, Shelley, so do not jest!” she said.

George, whose absorbent brain and tireless enthusiasm were well suited to such ideas, offered his own accounts of experiments he had read of. Shelley, tormented as ever by the question of God’s monopoly on life-creation, sat up late, scribbling remnants of their conversations down so that he could use them in future defence of his atheism.

“George calls the creation of life ‘the place where science meets the supernatural’,” he told me, impressed. “I wish I had thought of such an apt phrase.”

For my part, I was not so much frightened by the alchemist’s ambition as interested. I did not tell Shelley and George about the lonely, feverish dawn I had spent before my daughter’s birth, when the scientific and moral implications of tampering with death had played so forcibly on my mind. But I joined their discussions of the subject very readily. If base metal could be turned to gold – and who was to say the secret of alchemy would never be discovered – why could mankind not dream of restoring a lifeless corpse to animation?

Switzerland’s summer displayed dramatic elements that year. There were many sunny, calm days, but we also saw rain, strong winds, racing skies and shafts of sunlight piercing the grey clouds, glancing off the waters of the lake like daggers. There were beautiful rainbows. Then more rain, more thunder, more electricity in the sky. My letters to Fanny described ferocious storms that whipped the waters of Lake Geneva into fury, blackening the sky and patterning it with lightning bolts.

One June evening Shelley, Claire and I left William with Elise and set out on our customary after-dinner walk along the shore to the Villa Diodati. It had been a hot, airless day. Claire and I wore no shawls.

“We shall have a mighty storm tonight,” predicted Shelley.

“Good!” Claire was always enthusiastic about storms.

“You only hope for a storm because it will provide you with an excuse to stay the night with George,” I remarked.

“My dear sister, you are mistaken,” said Claire coldly, though we both knew I was not.

“I wonder how Mr Polidori’s ankle fares,” I said.

Three days ago George had encouraged his friend to make the reckless leap from the balcony of the Villa Diodati in order to help me, the object of his unspoken desire, up the steep path to the door.

“I wish it better,” said Shelley. “Temporary insanity must have caused him to sprain his ankle in such circumstances.”

“I have heard
love
called temporary insanity,” said Claire, with a meaningful look at me.

George and Polidori, who had evidently enjoyed a hearty dinner and a great deal of wine, were sitting in the drawing-room, smoking and attempting to play cards when we arrived. George rose to greet us, but Polidori remained sitting by the empty grate, his heavily bandaged foot propped up on a footstool.

“My friend’s injury still prevents him from walking, as you see,” explained George. “We are prisoners in our castle.” He grasped our hands as warmly as if he had not seen us for years. “I cannot tell you how welcome you all are!”

He patted Polidori on the shoulder. “Come on, man!” he encouraged. “Tell the ladies how your foot is going on. Ladies like nothing better than to hear of ailments.”

Shelley commandeered the cards and dealt anew. Claire and I sat down. The room was shady and very still. A bashful Polidori told, haltingly, of how he could still put no weight on the sprain, and of George’s insistence that they call for a physician the next day.

I hardly listened. The air oppressed me; the perspiration on my skin would not evaporate; my hair stuck to my scalp. I wished I was safe at home with William and Elise. I did not want to walk back through the rain, but nor did I want to spend the night in this palatial but cheerless house. I wished we had not come.

“How dark it gets!” observed Polidori, glad to steer the subject away from his embarrassing ankle. His large, rather feminine eyes alighted on me. “But do not fear, ladies, the gentlemen will not allow any harm to come to you.”

“Pray, Mr Polidori, what good are men against such whims of nature?” asked Claire briskly. “If the storm wishes to blow the house down it will do so without intervention from anybody.”

“Who else is playing cards?” asked Shelley. “Claire?”

“I do not think so.” She went to the long windows, which overlooked the lake. “I feel out of sorts tonight.”

I did not sit down at the card table either. I had no wish to talk to Polidori, so I joined Claire at the window. I put my arm around her shoulders. Her bare upper arm felt sticky with the heat. Side by side, separated by our thoughts, we regarded the prospect from the window.

The lake reflected the setting sun’s last rays as keenly as a sword flashing in the sunlight. Watching the water, I was struck again by the strength of the light from heaven. Far, far brighter than any light man could produce, the power it contained was truly unassailable. What might happen if such power should ever come into the hands of men?