Angelmonster (7 page)

Breathing in little gasps, she hung not only on his arm, but also his words. As the tale progressed to its gory climax, she began to protest prettily, with fluttering hands and brimming eyes.

“Stop! Stop!” she begged. “I am too weak for this. Forgive me!”

Shelley went to shut the book, but Jane’s hand darted out to prevent him. “Oh, but I wish to hear the end of the story!”

She was playing on Shelley’s conviction that she was a fool. She was begging him to forgive her susceptibility to nervous hysteria while encouraging him to continue with the very thing that caused it. It was a perfect example of the helpless idiocy which he found so attractive.

But she was
not
a fool. I myself had schooled her for years in impressing her beauty and charm upon men. How could I be surprised that Shelley had become the focus of everything she had learned? Or that she had assumed the role of concubine, hoping he would soon lose interest in the loyal, less alluring “wife” who was carrying his child?

My elopement with Shelley lives in my memory as a summer studded with brilliant sights and experiences, and hour upon hour of happiness. But equally vivid is the mistrust which tugged pitilessly at my heart. Dear God, how I regretted the generosity of spirit I had shown in pressing my sister to accompany us!

I went to bed that night consumed with indignation. I could not frame the words to confront Shelley with my feelings. But a few hours later I discovered that Jane had further ammunition in her campaign to capture him.

It was after midnight when we were woken by the door of our chamber being flung open. Jane tumbled into the room, gibbering like a madwoman.

“The furniture in my bedroom is moving!” she announced. “Every time I lie down it takes one more pace towards me, as if it would crush me!”

I was unimpressed by this display of feigned insanity. “You have taken too much wine,” I declared. “Go back to bed.”

But she would not be turned away. “Mary!” she begged, plucking at our blankets. “Have you no pity? I cannot sleep in that room. I shall have to sleep in here!”

And before either of us could stop her, she threw back the covers on Shelley’s side and joined us in the bed.

But Shelley was equally unimpressed. Solemnly he climbed over me and got out of my side of the bed.

“Mary, I am going to sleep in Jane’s room,” he informed me.

“You are not afraid of living furniture, then?” I asked dryly.

“I am anxious only for sleep.” He padded across the room. “And for pity’s sake, keep your sister in here.”

“Shelley!” shrieked Jane as the door closed behind him. “Shelley, do not leave me!”

“Quiet!” I commanded. “I have endured enough of your histrionics.”

By this time my vision had become accustomed to the darkness and I could see her eyes glittering in the pale glow of moonlight. She could see me too. I could imagine the picture I presented: my hair hung in strands around my face, and I was wearing an old chemise as a nightdress. But every fibre of my body was roused to the fight.

“Your pursuit of a man who is in love with someone else is pitiful!” I told her.

“Witch!” she hissed. “How can you think he loves
you
?”

“I
know
he loves me! The greater question is, how can you think he wants
you
?”

“Because he said so!” she blurted.

I stared at her in horror. The only thing that had preserved my sanity during these last weeks had been the sight of Shelley responding to her onslaughts with derision or bewilderment, if he responded at all. But when I was not looking, had he truly confessed his desire for her?

“There!” she declared triumphantly. “Put that in your witch’s cauldron and stir it!”

“Tell me his words!” I demanded. “If this is true, tell me exactly what he said, and I will challenge him!”

“Oh, Mary!” She fell back onto the pillow, her hands pressed to her temples. “Is it not you who has always said, ‘A man needs no words to describe desire’? It is so obvious he prefers me, a child could see it!”

My alarm subsided. She was lying, then. If he really
had
spoken, she would be carrying the words engraved on her memory.

“Jane, your immorality knows no bounds,” I told her. I took her tightly by the shoulders. “Are you listening to me?”

She yelped with affected pain. “Leave me alone!”

“Gladly, but not until I have said this.” I gripped her tighter; I think I probably
was
hurting her. “I wish you had never come with us. I wish Shelley had never bothered to rescue you from Mama in Calais, and that she had taken you home and locked you in your room, like the child you are.”

She was crying now, as noisily as any child.

“Your lies about Shelley are ridiculous. How Shelley will laugh when I tell him!”

Her wails stopped. It was her turn to look horrified.

“Yes, I will tell him!” I assured her.

“Oh, Mary, you are cruel!”

I let go of her shoulders. I felt not a shred of sympathy for her tears.

“Now, stop this performance and go to sleep,” I said firmly. “Shelley will not be back tonight.”

He, at least, got some sleep. I got none. Jane inflicted her disappointment on me all night, alternately sobbing and snoring and almost suffocating me every time she rolled over.

THE SPARK OF BEING

L
ack of funds soon meant we had to forgo our hired carriage and travel by cheaper means. I was too tired to walk far. Shelley’s boots had holes in them. Jane, out of spirits and no longer flirting with Shelley, complained endlessly. Eventually we realized that we could not drift about Europe for ever, pursued by scandal and beset by poverty. We would have to go home.

Shelley proposed to take us back to England by riverboat, sailing up the Rhine to Holland, and from there across the Channel. But for me, with nausea a daily burden, even the prospect of travelling by river – I could not contemplate the sea – was unattractive.

“I will not go,” I declared.

He and I were dining at yet another inn, on food as ill-cooked as we had come to expect. Jane had not appeared at the table. I was feeling low and could not eat.

“But Mary, my dear,” protested Shelley. “Do you not want to feel the fresh air on your face, and see beautiful scenery?”

“No,” I told him.

“Then consider this,” he persisted, taking my hand: “we shall be sailing towards the sea. I am done with Switzerland, notwithstanding the wondrous Alps, because the sea is so far away, and sailing is such a pleasure!”

I regarded him doubtfully.

“The wildness of the sea is in an Englishman’s blood,” he continued, patting my hand enthusiastically. “The River Rhine, majestic though it may be, provides no competition for the thunderous music of the waves.”

I pondered. “We three – you, Jane and I – are like the sea, do you not think? We have no beginning and no end. We come from nowhere and are going nowhere. We are vagabonds. We are outcasts.”

Shelley always grew impatient when I spoke of my feelings of exile. He dropped my hand. “We are
not
. When we arrive in England, our families –”

“Our families have already disowned us.”

“Do not say that! Your father will welcome his child’s safe return, as any decent man would.” He saw my sadness, and softened his voice. “I promise you, my love, that the outdoor life will agree with you. Nature always compensates for the miseries of mankind.”

The next day we boarded the passenger vessel that was to take us to Holland. The weather was indeed kind, and soon the loveliness of the Rhineland and the revival of spirits offered by mild air and daily exercise restored me. I began once more to drown in love.

Shelley appeared to be drowning too; he did not let his enthusiasm for river traffic and ruined castles distract his attention from me. We spent many hours strolling up and down the deck, his arm around my waist, talking of plans for the birth of our child and our future life together.

And what of Jane? She remained the same sister I had grown up with: pert yet artless, knowing yet naïve, trustworthy yet treacherous. Forced into the role of unpaid companion to a pregnant sister and a man who would not take his attraction further than flirtation, she had to retreat. Much of the time she stayed below in her cabin, shunning the sunlight, nursing schemes which only God was privy to. I was not sorry.

The Rhine cuts a deep chasm through wooded hills. As our vessel meandered its way northwards, we glimpsed great houses between the trees. Tiny villages and larger towns lined the cliff-tops, spilling like foam to the water’s edge. Every few miles we would pass below a castle on a rocky promontory, sometimes inhabited, but more often the ruined relic of medieval wars.

One evening, near sunset, the boat moored beneath a spectacular castle. Most of the passengers came out on deck to look at it, several sitting down to sketch it. Jane stayed below, saying she had some letters to write.

Warmed by the dying sunlight, I fell asleep in a chair on deck. When I awoke Shelley was admiring the sketch an elderly German man was making. Shelley spoke little German, but the man seemed to have fluent English.

“This castle is very interesting, my dear sir,” he told Shelley.

The castle looked very romantic, with the late sun gilding its towers. Surrounded by heavily wooded countryside, it looked a perfect medieval fortress. But, like most of the others, it was a ruin.

“The man who lived there was an alchemist,” the elderly gentleman was saying.

I sat up. Who could not be fascinated by the idea of alchemy, the power to turn base metal into gold? The search for its secret had occupied men for centuries, and continued to do so. “What happened to him, sir?” I asked.

“Oh, you are awake!” exclaimed Shelley affectionately. “This is Herr Keffner, my dear.”

The man bowed and addressed me politely, taking me for Shelley’s wife.

“Please,” I repeated, “tell us about the alchemist.”

Herr Keffner looked into my face with watery blue eyes. He was perhaps seventy years old, but as trim and well worn as his walking-stick. “More than an alchemist,” he said. “A scientist, and a … what is the English word? A lunatic?”

“That word will do,” agreed Shelley, with a glance at me. “For poets as much as for scientists!”

“He lived more than a hundred years ago. In those days people truly believed in alchemy, but this man also had another, more deranged idea. He believed that if you took the body parts of dead people, and joined them together, you could bring the resulting creation to life.”

We were silent. At my shoulder I sensed Shelley’s tightening attention. “Jane would love to hear this,” I whispered to him. “The bloodier the better.”

I again addressed Herr Keffner. “Sir, if you please, did this gentleman ever succeed in carrying out his gory experiment?”

“Yes, indeed. He robbed graves for the materials, and if he could not find human remains he used the bones of animals.”

I asked the questions I could not contain. “How did he propose to bring them to life? And how did he justify his actions, morally? Can it be right to bestow the spark of being on matter which God has deemed should die?”

Herr Keffner gave Shelley an amused glance. “I see your wife is a philosopher,” he said. “It is unusual to hear a lady speak of such things.”

“That may be true in Germany,” replied Shelley, “but in England we have many women of fine intelligence who question the judgement of men. I am proud to hear my wife speak so.”

The German bowed his head politely. “The alchemist sought to inject the flesh with a potion, made with blood and other substances,” he explained. “I need not tell you that he did not succeed, and died raving.”

“Poor man,” I observed. “To have such a dream, and be disappointed.”

“Indeed,” agreed Herr Keffner.

He fell silent, and continued with his drawing. Shelley and I rose. “Thank you, sir,” said Shelley. “May we see your sketch when it is finished?”

Herr Keffner touched his hat. “Of course. Farewell.”

We parted from him and set off along the deck, submerged in our separate thoughts. But when we reached the bow, and turned to go back, I laid my hand on Shelley’s arm. “What are you thinking about?”

He drew my hand through the crook of his elbow. “Why, I am thinking about the same things as you. Experiments, noxious potions, a man driven by insanity to desperate actions. How amazed Jane will be when we tell her! Do you think the furniture in her cabin will move, or is furniture on boats nailed to the floor?”

I laughed. “I believe it is. But I was thinking about something quite different. Did you not notice that you referred to me as ‘my wife’, and did not even remember you were telling an untruth?”

The river breeze lifted the brim of my bonnet and made Shelley’s hair flap into his eyes. He pushed it away so that he could look at me. “To me it is not an untruth,” he said simply. “You
are
my wife.”

I was alone in our cabin. For a long time after the candle burnt itself out I had lain sleepless, watching daylight creep around the edges of the tiny, shuttered window. Shelley, as restless as I was, had gone for a walk on the deck
.