Outcasts (27 page)

Shelley chuckled and patted her hand where it lay on his knee. “Oh, now, really, Claire! Is that something to get upset about?”

Men would never understand, Mary thought. It just was not in Shelley's nature to lay claim to another, but women, who had the care and feeding of the young, formed stronger attachments. She was sure of it.

“How can you say that! She's … she's old!” Claire's eyes were alive with anger, her cheeks pink. “She must be thirty if she's a day!”

Mary smiled bitterly. “A veritable ancient,” she said quietly. “Why, his lordship himself is a dotard of eight and twenty!”

Claire jumped to her feet. “You are merely jealous!” she cried. “You care nothing for how he rends my heart!”

“But if that is so, why do you pursue him?” Shelley asked, puzzled. “Are you not in agreement with Godwin's teachings? That two persons should not remain together out of stale custom or habit, but only in mutual love?”

“But he does love me, I know it!” Claire said defiantly. “It is only that he cannot bring himself to say it!”

“Which is why, naturally, he takes his servant to bed and denies you the very door,” Mary said dryly. “I fear there is a flaw in your argument.”

Claire burst into tears. “You wretch. You have everything, I have nothing, and yet you mock me! How can you? Oh, how can you? I want to die!”

“No, you merely want to wake the neighbors with one of your exhibitions,” Mary snapped. “Next time, hire a brass band so that they may hear you across the lake!”

“Mary!” said Shelley, shocked. He started to rise, but in that moment, a white-faced Claire snatched a vase of flowers from the bedside table and hurled it at Mary. Only the dim light and Claire's agitation saved Mary, as the pot flew wide and shattered on the wall behind her.

Mary sat without moving, her gaze fixed on the other woman. “Violence is the last resort of fools,” she said.

Shelley stepped between them. “No, no, we must not have this. Come, Claire, dry your eyes. I am sure Byron will love you just as much in the morning. You must resist this possessive streak. I tell you, it is only the custom of corrupt society that makes you feel this way.”

Mary bit her lips to keep back her retort. Shelley was right in most things, but he had a perennial blind spot where Claire was concerned.

Sobbing, Claire clutched at Shelley's shirt. “Oh, Shelley. Oh Shelley, if only you would … Oh, Shelley.”

Shelley smiled and patted her fondly. “I think it would be best if you went to bed.”

Claire looked up at him, awash. “Oh, Shelley, will you not—”

“No, he will not,” Mary said strongly. “Claire, you are perfectly capable of coming down from your high state all by yourself. Shelley has better things to do.”

Shelley frowned at Mary, but Claire pulled away from him. “Oh, I think you are horrid! Both of you! Neither of you cares if I die!” She turned and flung herself face down on the bed.

Mary stepped out onto the landing, gesturing for Shelley to follow. Shelley thrust his hands under his arms, hugging himself. “I don't understand your attitude. How—”

“Oh, be silent!” The words hissed out of her. “How can you stand her posturings, her temper? How can you be so kind to someone so thoughtless of others?”

In moments of emotional crisis, Shelley became quiet and
very honest. “Because she is like me,” he said. “Because I recognize the restless soul in her.”

“So you, you love her? You would want a … three to a bed as well?” Mary's cheeks were hot, her words more so. She hated herself for saying these things, words that gave the lie to what she believed. Or thought she believed. “You would want a ménage, like Polidori says?”

Shelley shrugged. “Why not? You know we should not confine ourselves to one partner, if we so desire. My only objection to Claire is that she is being unfair to Albé. He is acting in accord with his nature. If he were to truly practice fidelity, would he not go back to his wife?”

“That's not what I meant! Oh, why don't you understand me?”

He looked at her, and in the half-light from the candles, his eyes were dark, the dark blue of the lake under a midnight sun. “I do understand you, Mary. Better than you think.” He held out a hand. “Come. Let us go back to our room.”

He reached into the room to close the door, but Claire rose from the bed and flung herself at Shelley, weeping. “No, no you cannot! You cannot leave me like this?”

Shelley, helpless, had one arm around Mary and the other around Claire. “My dear, what can I do? I cannot make Byron, or any man, love you. I cannot make anyone love anyone else.”

Claire, clutching her middle, sank down on her bed, then cast herself upon it. Shelley leaned forward as if to lay a comforting hand on her, but Mary stepped away. He hesitated, then followed her back to their bedroom.

Long after Shelley had fallen asleep with one bare arm across her, Mary heard Claire weeping.

I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly, that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment: dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space, were now become a hell to me.

—Frankenstein,
Volume III, Chapter VIV

M
ary woke
suddenly, with the impression of a fading shriek in her ears. Had she heard someone screaming? Light flared fitfully at the window as the storm approached from across the lake. She rolled to her side, feeling for Shelley, but she was alone in the bed.

“Shelley?” she whispered.

“I'm here,” he said hoarsely. He had pulled on his pantaloons but had not buttoned the fall; dark hair arrowed downward from his stomach. He stood silhouetted against the window, his pistols in his hands. “I hear them. They are outside the door.”

They
. Mary felt a chill go over her skin, even though she was cocooned in warm sheets. “It is only the storm. I am sure of—”

A thump against the door. Mary clutched the sheets to her chin. She heard the ominous click of the pistol cocking. Could it be? Had footpads, agents of the Tory government entered the house?

Another thump, and a dragging sound. A whimper.

“It's Claire,” Mary said with relief.

Shelley pointed his pistols at the ceiling and eased the hammers down. “Go to her.” His voice was calm.

Mary dragged her feet out from under the covers. The floor was cold under her bare soles. Hurriedly slipping her night rail over her head, she took the duvet off the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. She glanced at Shelley, and at that moment
lightning flared behind him. She saw his face, serene, his torso bare in the moonlight. She smiled inwardly and opened the door.

Facing her, her eyes distant and vacant, stood Claire. She was completely naked, her long dark hair falling over her breast. Mary almost cried out in alarm at the blank and empty look on her features. It was like looking at a ghost. “Claire?”

Her stepsister made no sound, but turned slowly and walked towards the stairs. She heard the cold sound of metal on wood as Shelley tossed his pistols onto the bedside table.

“She will do herself an injury!” Shelley hissed, and strode past her. “Claire! Stop!”

Claire showed no sign of hearing him, but continued slowly to the head of the stairs. In complete silence, she began descending. Shelley was close behind her, hovering. He glanced back at Mary. “Bring a robe for her.”

Mary pulled the duvet tighter around herself. “Perhaps if you woke her…?”

“No. It would be futile, perhaps dangerous.” Notwithstanding, Shelley laid a hand on Claire's shoulder. She paid no attention, but walked out from under it, still descending.

Mary started down the stairs as well. “She can hear us, can she not? Claire!” she called sharply.

“Don't!”

“But she has never done this before,” Mary said.

“It must be the shock of seeing Albé with that other woman,” Shelley said. He glanced up at Mary; they were nearly to the bottom of the staircase, with the naked and oblivious Claire leading them. “Could it be her … her condition?” he asked helplessly.

“Pregnancy has never affected me thus,” said Mary. “Perhaps we should consult Polidori.”

Shelley grimaced. “I doubt he knows anything of use. Look, she is headed for the door! Some strange power moves her!”

Mary doubted it. Claire seemed to have no trouble negotiating a house in complete darkness that she had only lived in for a couple of weeks. She suspected this was some charade on her step-sister's part, but to what end? Was she really that desperate
for attention? For Shelley's attention? And yet, if that was her aim, Mary had to admit it was working. Shelley followed her down the stairs like a shadow.

Undeterred by the conversation around her, Claire walked calmly towards the front door. Passing under the central chandelier, she carefully unbolted the door and opened it. Cold air gusted in; her hair fanned out behind her.

“Shelley, she will catch the grippe!” Mary hurried forward, unwinding the duvet from about her shoulders. “We must keep her inside!”

“It is useless,” Shelley said, following her out.

Unhappily, Mary followed both of them into the lower terrace in front of the house. Above, clouds hid the moon, and fog shrouded the shore of the lake below. The cold sound of water sloshing on the shore reached her ears, along with the soft sound of leafy branches tossed by the wind. Rain gusted against her face, then stopped. Shelley's white torso was her only guide; she followed him carefully down the cobbled path. Fog closed in behind her; she hurried so as not to lose sight of him.

“Where is she?”

“Here,” came his voice. Shelley had come to a stop. Claire stood before him, teetering on the breakfront wall. Her hair blew in the wind, but she seemed calm, her skin white in the darkness, her form seeming to shimmer and waver as fog drifted past.

“The water is directly below her,” Shelley whispered. “Give me the blanket. I will attempt to catch her. I do not want to startle her, lest she fall. She may cry out; be prepared.” Mary unwound herself from the duvet and handed it to him. Cold licked her skin. He stepped forward softly.

Mary huddled herself, arms clasped, watching. Claire stood unmoving. Just as Shelley reached her, his foot slipped on a wet stone and made a soft sound. Claire's head jerked, then she caught herself and returned her head swiftly to its former position. The gesture was almost too quick to see, but it was enough to tell Mary that Claire was wide awake, alert to Shelley's movements. This was just another of her attention-seeking hoaxes.

Then Shelley darted forward with the duvet in his hands. Swiftly he caught her up in it, winding it around her. She shrieked and thrashed, then subsided as if fainting. Shelley caught her up easily into his arms and turned back towards the house. Claire's head hung down over his arm, her hair trailing in the wind.

“She wakened, but fainted,” Shelley said. “Much as I have done in the past. Let us pray the shock has not been too great for her nerves.” He turned and walked back up the path. Mary followed him, her feet numb and slipping on the stones.

Inside the house, Shelley mounted the stairs two at a time. Mary hurried after him, and arrived in time to see him tucking Claire into the center of their bed. “You get in on that side,” he was saying. “I will get in on this. We must warm her up.”

“We should build a fire,” she began.

Shelley shook his head. “No time. The chill may have settled in her bones. It is imperative that the vital force be recalled to her, and she must be warm.”

“We should send word to Byron,” Mary said.

“I think it would be most unwise to disturb him at this hour.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw a brief twitch in Claire's hand where it lay on the cover. Once again, proof that Claire could hear and understand every word. Mary felt irritation at this childish pretense.

“My goodness, her sleep is deep,” she said. “Perhaps we should prick her with a needle, to see if she wakes from her faint.”

Shelley, who had turned his back to slide out of his pantaloons again, now turned a scowling face to her. “Come, Mary. This is tiresome of you. Your sister needs help, not pinpricks.” He climbed into the bed on the other side of Claire, naked against her.

Reluctantly, Mary lifted the covers and slid in. Her sister's flesh was cold as marble. Still, there was a tension in Claire's body that told Mary, veteran of many nights wedged into a narrow bed with her sister, that Claire was awake and shamming.

The bed creaked under Shelley's weight as he climbed in on the other side. He cast an arm across the blankets covering Claire and put her head against his chest. “She will be all right in the
morning,” he said confidently.

“Why has she done this?” Mary was speaking as much to her conscious sister as to Shelley. “Why now?”

“I spotted laudanum on the table beside her bed as I came past the door,” Shelley said. “No doubt she hoped it would help her sleep. This business with Albé, it is distressing to her.”

“I would never have called her weak-minded,” Mary said. “I have never known her to take laudanum to sleep.”

Shelley wrapped both arms around Claire and shifted in the bed, so that the young woman was wedged between himself and Mary. “Many things are changing,” he murmured. “Anything is possible.”

Soon, Mary felt Claire's breathing change, and felt her body relax in sleep. On the other side of her, Shelley's heavy breathing changed to light snores.

Mary lay awake, unable to sleep, watching the moonlight creep through the shutters before the overcast shrouded it into a dim memory. She remembered her home in London, on Skinner Street near Clerkenwell. She thought of her father's library, with her mother's portrait over the desk. Her thoughts became darker as she remembered coming into the room one afternoon to find her father rigid and unresponsive, in one of his first fits of catalepsy. She thought of Claire's blank expression as she walked down the stairs. Was it possible Claire had somehow developed the same cataleptic disorder as William Godwin? But how could that be, when Claire was not even related to him by blood? From this question, Mary's thoughts drifted to questions about inheritance, and how much children took from their fathers.