Angelmonster (2 page)

I did not reply. Neither did I lower my eyes. I looked at her fearlessly, my heart gripped by dislike so profound it gave me courage.

“I expect more ladylike conduct in future,” she continued. “I do not expect to be embarrassed by a young person in whose upbringing I have invested such unstinting effort. If you end in ruin, you silly girl, it will be by your own hand. And you will
not
take my daughter down with you.”

I awoke in darkness. I was screaming. Unaware of the darkness, unaware of my surroundings, unaware of myself, still in my dream, I sat up, rocking an invisible baby in my arms. “Mama! Mama! Dear God, I have killed her!”

Jane was there. She must have left her own bed when she heard my cries. I could feel her beside me, a shawl flung over her nightdress, her hands searching in the dark, her voice whispering. “It’s only a dream, Mary dear. Let me stay with you until you go back to sleep.”

Taking me by the shoulders, she lowered me to the pillow and climbed into the bed beside me. I swallowed the next scream, shivering in the warm bed, my body tense, my brain active with silent words I had not the breath to utter. Mama, Mama … forgive me. Because I was born you died. But I never meant to be born, or for you to die. What manner of ungodly baby kills its own creator? A vile, pitiless creature, with no regard for life’s beauty or meaning. A monster-baby. A freak
.

I listened to the rhythm of Jane’s breathing. My nightmares had become routine to her. Now that she had silenced me, and the rest of the household could resume their slumbers, she would soon be asleep. I found her hand and tightened my fingers around hers
.

“Mama, forgive me,” I said silently. “Your earthly nightmares were real enough, but now you are free of them. Will I ever be set free, and allowed to sleep in peace?”

SECOND-BEST BLUE SILK

O
ur family business was a bookshop. It stood in a row of other shops, in a part of London which Papa said was good for business because it was always crowded. But it was noisy and dirty too. We lived above the shop, our drawing-room window overlooking the street. Mama’s sofa, strewn with cushions which Fanny had embroidered with peacocks, was positioned by the window so she could see who came and went while screened from view by lace curtains.

Neither Jane nor I, nor Fanny, were allowed to sit on Mama’s sofa, but we preferred the window-seat anyway. It was just big enough for two children or very young girls. I used to sit there for hours, writing and reading and dreaming, while Mama was about her housekeeping business, or unwell and keeping to her room, or out paying calls and gossiping about her wayward daughters. Her dear Fanny was the only sensible one, she would declare. Jane and I were “miss-ish”, she had decided. Our heads were full of “notions”, as she called them.

Notions they may have been, but I preferred to think of whatever was in my own head as dreams. I dreamed of travelling, far beyond the confines of London and England, to the other side of the world. I dreamed about heroes and heroines of stories I had read, and imagined my own hero. Often I wrote stories of my own. My first effort, written to amuse Jane when we were nine years old, was the tale of a maiden whose foolishness led to her being eaten by a bear. Later I began several romantic novels, influenced greatly by those of more experienced authors. But I did not show them to anyone except Papa, who, being a writer himself, understood the desire for self-expression that burned within his daughter.

“Your dear mother would have been happy to see you take up the pen, Mary,” he told me. “And, I must confess, so am I.”

Aside from my writing about bears or betrayals, Jane and I wrote down our dreams. Do all girls do this when they are growing up? Jane and I turned it into a game. We would each take a piece of paper from Mama’s writing desk and write at the top, “The man I marry will…” Then a good many silent minutes would pass while we made our lists, sharing the inkstand like good girls working for their governess. Not that we ever had a governess.

Jane and I knew there was a world beyond marriage. It was the world envisaged by my mother when she had written about women’s freedom. But we also knew that marriage was the only means by which we could escape from the narrow house above the bookshop and truly begin to live.

My list always began with “swear utter fidelity”. I liked to picture whoever-he-was kneeling before me, his hand on the breast of his fashionable coat, bowing low enough for me to inspect the elegance of his long, curly hair, telling me in a breaking voice that he had forsaken all others and wanted only me. Me, me,
me
, for ever.

Jane’s beginnings varied. She liked “buy me a great house in the country, where I can give parties and eat ice cream” when she was younger, but by the time she was fifteen this had changed to either “adore babies” or “keep a carriage and six”.

Further down my own list came “be clever”, though I was vague as to how this cleverness would show itself. A banker, or a lawyer? A mine or factory owner? A publisher? Journalist? Or a political philosopher like Papa, thinking, writing, being toasted at dinners and celebrated in society? A musician or a painter, sought by every salon hostess in London? Perhaps even … no, a romantic poet was merely a joke between Jane and myself.

The shop was dark and low-ceilinged. The day after my wet dress escapade, when I had been instructed by my loving mama not to venture outside as I would catch my death, I sought my father there.

“Papa, I am so bored upstairs,” I pleaded. “Mama will not let me go out.”

“Quite right.”

He emerged from between the bookshelves with a pile of books, smiling his serious smile. The sharp nose I had inherited looked sharper than usual. “But since you are here, you may make yourself useful. If you please, my dear, would you put these back on the top shelf? You are more agile than I.”

“Of course, Papa.”

He hesitated before he gave me the books. “And about last night’s performance…”

“You forgive me, do you not, Papa?”

He nodded, more with relief than condescension. “You are your mother’s daughter, Mary, in more than name. A wild spirit. But I know you are a good girl.”

I sighed. I
was
a good girl. I spent my entire time trying to please unpleasable people, it seemed. I took the books and, lifting the hem of my skirt, made a shaky ascent of the ladder. When the books were safely on the shelf I gathered the skirt around my knees and prepared to go down.

The bell on the door clanged as a customer came in. I stayed where I was, perched on the top rung of the ladder, obscured by the darkness. I often hid in the shadowy shop like this. I liked to watch my father being a Great Mind, encouraging those with money to part with it and those without to share as much philosophical discussion as time and idleness would allow.

I shifted my position to obtain a better view of the visitor. The light from the front window revealed a tall, slightly-built man, still wearing his hat. He was young, no more than twenty or so, with a blue jacket, tan breeches, a badly tied tie and an armful of books. He put the books down and said cheerfully to Papa, “Good afternoon, sir. What chance a sovereign for these?”

His voice was measured, yet at the same time urgent, as if the simple words had important meaning. Curiosity crept over me. Was this young man a regular customer, known to Papa?

My father began to inspect the books. While he did so, the young man removed his hat, leant on the door frame and gazed around the shop. I saw that his face was well shaped, with a high brow and clean-shaven chin. He had extraordinary eyes – large, and expressive even at a distance – and light, curly hair.

Curly hair!

I lifted my skirt a little higher. Happily I was wearing my second-best dress, a blue silk. It was fine stuff, trimmed with recently replaced lace. And my hair, washed for the party last night, had been curled again this morning. I looked as well as I ever
could
look.

“Papa!” I called boldly. “Would you hold the ladder? I fear it is a little unsteady.”

The customer looked up when he heard my voice. “Er… Miss? If you please … may
I
assist you?”

Peering into the recesses of the shop, he located first my boots, then my stockings, then my skirt, then my face at the top of the ladder. He placed his foot sturdily on the bottom rung. His upturned face showed amusement, but no mockery. “My apologies,” he said. “Are you this gentleman’s daughter?”

I began, slowly, to descend. “Yes, sir.”

My father could not allow himself to be excluded. He advanced and made a small bow. “She is my middle daughter, sir. Her name is—”

“Mary,” interrupted the gentleman. “You see, I know it. By repute, all your daughters are charming.”

Papa bowed lower. As I gained the lowest rung, and the young man had to remove his foot to make way for mine, I felt the blood rise to my face.

“I see repute is not mistaken,” he said.

It was gallantry, but I was flattered. Although in my mother’s philosophy women were equal with men, and curtsying was reserved for servants and sycophants, I performed a low curtsy. Very prettily, I thought.

The man bowed. “Shelley,” he said.

“Mr Shelley is a poet, my dear,” added my father proudly.

I could not prevent myself from blushing. The rules of flirtation I had recited to Jane last night deserted me. This man had been plucked from romantic fantasy and placed here before me. In the blue-coated figure I saw my dreams and excitement beyond any “sport” my sister and I had ever concocted. I managed to say “How do you do?”, but so quietly he could not have heard.

“I believe I dined in your company some years ago, when you were a little girl,” he said.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, raking my brain for the memory of this occasion. Suddenly it was there: pink ribbons in Jane’s hair, flowers on the table, a young man laughing with my father and drinking a lot of wine. “Oh, was that
you
?”

“Mr Shelley will be a great poet one day,” observed Papa.

“Sir, you flatter me,” said Shelley, bowing.

As I watched him, another memory came to mind. A few weeks ago Papa had shown Mama something in the newspaper, shaking his finger at it excitedly and telling her that this poet, a man of his acquaintance, was on the verge of success. Jane and I had taken no notice. We had assumed that the poet, like the rest of Papa’s acquaintance, would be middle-aged, tedious and less talented than he supposed.

Papa recollected that he was in the middle of a business transaction. He went to the desk. “I can offer you fifteen shillings, Mr Shelley.”

“You are kind, sir, but eighteen would be the least I could accept.”

“Sixteen shillings and sixpence.”

Shelley nodded, replaced his hat and touched the brim in my direction. He pocketed the coins gravely. “My thanks, sir. Good day.”

The door clanged. Papa and I exchanged a look. Then the door clanged again.

“Will you allow me to call?” Shelley asked my father.

“Certainly.”

He bowed, and was gone.

I no longer had to worry my father for useful employment. Hitching the second-best blue silk dress above my knees I bounded up the stairs two at a time, in a fashion long since banned by my stepmother, laughed at by Papa, imitated by Jane and disapproved of by Fanny. All the way up I called, “Jane! Jane!”

But it was Fanny who came out of the drawing-room, sewing in hand. “What are you doing?” she asked sharply. “Mama and I wondered what the noise could be.”

Fanny was barely four years older than Jane and me, but she seemed ancient. Even Papa, with his habits of pursuing famous people and drinking more than was good for him, seemed younger. She was wearing an ill-fitting afternoon dress, and her hair was in its usual severe braids, with no softening curls at the temples such as Jane and I wore.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I am looking for Jane.”

“You are always looking for Jane,” said Fanny, and went back into the drawing-room. “She is in her room.”

Climbing the next flight of stairs no less noisily, I opened Jane’s door without knocking. “Guess who has just come into the shop!”

Jane was lying on her bed reading a novel. When I entered she put the book down, puckering her eyebrows. “The King? The Duke of Wellington? Napoleon himself?”

“I am in earnest.” I sat on the bed. “Do you remember when we were about twelve, a man coming to dinner whom Papa said was going to be a poet?”

Her eyes took on a faraway look. “Do you mean Mr Coleridge, who recited that dreadfully long poem about an albatross?”

“No, that was much longer ago. I was only six then, and you were asleep, and you only know the story of
The
Ancient Mariner
because I told you afterwards, so do not show off, please. This is a Mr Shelley. Papa says he is an aristocrat – the son of an earl, or something, though he does not use his title. He came into the shop today and sold Papa some books, and spoke to me and said he remembered me.”