Outcasts (3 page)

Claire stretched forth a hand. “Oh, let me see! Let me see!”

Polidori bowed slightly as he handed it over. “You are an admirer of Mr. Coleridge's?”

“She's an admirer of anything that gives her a good scare,” said Byron. “It gets her juices flowing nicely. Read her ten lines of
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
and she'll swive for hours.”

Polidori frowned. “Oh, come now—”

Claire waved a hand. “Oh, I pay no attention to you when you are in this teasing mood, my lord,” she said, scanning the paper. “You would insult your own mamma when you are out of sorts.” Byron looked startled but said nothing.

Polidori handed the remainder of the mail to Mary. She shuffled quickly through it, pausing at one letter with hope in her eyes. But it was a letter from Fanny, her half-sister. She felt a moment of something like panic, and then straightened. She kept Fanny's letter and handed the rest back to the doctor.

“I am afraid I saw nothing from your father,” he said quietly. His sympathetic smile animated his face. “I know you are looking for a letter from him.”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said, masking her disappointment. She reached for the bell. “Will you have tea?”

“Ah, tea,” breathed Shelley, his head thrown back on the love seat. “Where small talk dies in agonies.”

“Quite,” said Byron. “So let us have large talk. Polly, you told a good story the other night, about some doctor you'd been chatting with. Let's hear it again.”

Polidori looked puzzled, then flushed. “Oh, no, really, I don't think so. Not quite the thing with ladies present.”

“On the contrary,” Byron said. “Exactly the thing when these particular ladies are present, and we need not pretend to be cotton-mouthed. Ah, here we are!” He smiled as the maid entered, bearing a tea tray. She put it down on the low table, ducked a curtsy at his lordship and her mistress, and shuffled out. Byron's speculative gaze lingered on her.

Mary picked up the teapot and poured a cup for Shelley. She passed it to him, saying to Byron, “Don't make poor Polly blush on our behalf, my lord.”

Shelley took the cup and saucer from her and leaned back again, his long legs in front of him. “Oh, by all means, do,” he said, his eyes mischievous over the rim of the cup. “I haven't blushed in at least a week. I am overdue.”

Byron took his cup from Mary and stood frowning down at the tray. “No sugar again?”

Claire sidled up next to him. “Oh, my dear, you know we don't use sugar, for political reasons.”

“Political reasons? The worst reason in the world,” his lordship said. “Sugar don't vote!”

“No, but it's produced on slave plantations,” said Mary calmly. “Therefore we abjure it. May I offer you some honey?”

“And the honey bee is clinging / To the buds; and birds are winging / Their way, pair by pair—yes, I'll take some. Damn, but this is inconvenient.”

“At least we are spared the nuisance of having to take it up with the fingers,” said Polidori. “I had to do so at Madame Einard's a couple of weeks ago. Nasty mess it made.” No one responded to him, and he looked down into his teacup.

“It is surely absurd even for you, Shelley, to allow the contents of your larder to be dictated by events half a world away,” Byron said testily. “This is taking things to an extreme.”

Shelley smiled. “My dear Byron, if one is to hold a principle, one must hold it all the way. Where would you have me halt my opposition to slavery? Where should I draw a line?”

“At his lordship's inconvenience?” murmured Polidori. Catching Mary's look, he flushed and looked away.

“Of course, if at any time your lordship is desirous of sponsoring a bill in Parliament, banning the importation of slave sugar …” Shelley's eyes twinkled at his friend.

Byron bowed over the cup. “No, thank you, unless I am allowed to do it by post. I would prefer never to set foot in England again.”

Claire touched his arm. “Oh, but how will you ever see your dear little girl again? Do you mean to abandon her?”

This produced a strained silence. Everyone looked everywhere except at Byron's face, which first flushed and then paled. Abruptly, Byron turned his head away from Claire and looked at Polidori, who was effacing himself against a wall. “Come, Polly. You have a story for us?”

“Yes, Doctor, let us have something amusing. And naughty!” Claire folded the newspaper and placed it on the table. Shelley immediately picked it up, opened a page, and sank into intense study.

Mary stirred her tea, looking from Claire's smiling face to Byron's frowning one. She wondered when Claire would tell him about the baby. She did not think Byron would welcome the news.

Byron sipped tea and made a face. “Well, Doctor?”

Polidori shifted his feet, glanced out the window, and then looked into his teacup again. He cleared his throat. “It was more in the nature of a medical discussion,” he said diffidently. “I cannot conceive that it would be of any interest whatever—”

“Polly talked to some local sawbones about priapism,” Byron cut in, a sardonic grin on his face. “His proposed ‘cure' for it was something like ‘more of the same'. Doctrine of signatures, I imagine, or at least of amanuensis.” His laugh held a bitter edge.

Polidori looked up, surprised. “More of the same? Not at all, at least—”

“But what is this ‘prepism'?” Claire asked.

“An uncontrollable erection,” Byron said. “A perpetual salute. A morning glory in eternal bloom. A manly swelling that will not subside. In short, an alarm cock.” Delighted with his own humor, he glanced meaningfully at Mary.

Mary raised one eyebrow but said nothing. She had long since concluded that the only way to quell his lordship's freakish sense of humor was to ignore it.

Claire giggled. “Oh, that does sound … interesting. Do tell us, Doctor! What cure did your medical friend prescribe?”

“Yes, come, Polidori. In round, solid medical terms, tell us your friend's remedy,” Byron said.

Polidori placed his teacup carefully on a sideboard, not looking at anyone. “He suggested the, ah, exertion of rhythmic manual pressure on the organ until tumescence subsided.”

Byron laughed out loud, rocking back on his heel. “Rhythmic manual pressure! Oh, famous! And who, exactly, is to provide this hand-gallop? Shall I someday be obliged to pay a doctor to deflate my favorite weapon? Or shall I have Claire here
trained in the art? Perhaps you could oblige with a lesson, dear Polly-Dolly?”

“You are offensive, sir!” said Polidori, his face first white, then red. “That is an outrageous—”

Claire laughed him to silence. “Oh, he is a rogue, and a damned rogue, is he not?” She jumped up and put her hand on Lord Byron's sleeve. “Come, my lord, let us be more sedate, or Polly will go off in a fit!”

“I doubt that Polly can ‘go off' save in the presence of some light-skirt,” sneered Byron. “He spends most of his time in the back streets when we go to Geneva.” Claire giggled and he laughed with her, pleased.

Polidori stood rigid. “I protest! You know I am hunting through the bookshops!”

“Yes, but only through the naughty ones,” said Byron. He turned to Claire. “He is obsessed with finding out just how vulgar and offensive the books of Europe can be. He will not rest until he has plumbed the very depths of their depravity. Why, only the other day, he dropped a book of erotic pictures on the head of an inoffensive shop girl.”

“That was an accident!”

“No doubt you were distracted by the fullness of her bosom,” drawled Byron. “Or were you contemplating a close examination, doctor?”

Polidori opened his mouth to retort, but catching the dangerous gleam in his employer's eye, closed it again. He turned his attention to a minute examination of an imaginary speck on his sleeve.

Byron turned to Mary. “How now, my Mary? Are you not shocked? Or were your Pantisocratic principles engaged at all?”

“Not my principles,” she said coolly. “But perhaps my aesthetics. I find your laughter in rather poor taste.”

The smile died on Byron's lips and his back stiffened. “Alas, I had thought you were beyond such common hypocrisy. Or am I to suppose that, having abandoned convention, you now espouse chivalry?”

“What has taste to do with either?” she said.

Polidori coughed, not meeting his employer's eyes. “Perhaps Mrs. Shelley finds it in poor taste to laugh at the deformities of others.”

Byron's face hardened and his eyes narrowed to a squint. “Indeed,” he snapped.

Claire stamped her foot. “Stop this! You're baiting him, Polly! And only because you have no sense of humor!” She turned to Byron, tugging at his arm. “Come, let us go play chess. Leave him to his spite!” She stomped out of the room; Byron, his eyes ablaze, bowed stiffly to Mary and hobbled after Claire, his limp more pronounced than ever.

Polidori immediately came to sit down in the chair facing Mary. “My profound apologies, Mrs. Shelley,” he said. “I never know how to turn off his lordship's freaks without making them worse. I thought it were better to accede to his request, knowing that your mind is too strong to take greater offense than there was in the story itself.”

Mary nodded, amused. “Well done, Polly. You apologize very nicely.”

Polidori grinned, a dimple appearing in each cheek. “Thank you, ma'am. The company of his lordship affords me many opportunities for practice.”

“Your dimples are quite nice,” Mary said, making an effort to be friendly. She rather pitied Polidori, who often reminded her of her awkward younger brother. “They make you look rather cherubic. You should cultivate them. Do the ladies at M. Odier's appreciate them?”

Polidori blinked. “Ah. They do not have much opportunity to see them.”

“Oh, for shame, doctor. You should smile more. Do you dance the waltz at M. Odier's? Do you like it?”

“I like it, Mrs. Shelley, but I am a trifle … constrained in that company. I never know what to expect. Everyone is so informal. And yet more formal.”

Mary poured herself more tea, offered the pot to Polidori, and
was declined. “Every land seems to have its own peculiar manners. Here, we live so quietly, I have no knowledge of, of fine society.” She sipped, and said more darkly. “Indeed, I have no knowledge of any society.” She looked up at him frankly, and met his open gaze. “You know how we are pariahs wherever we go. At least, wherever there are Englishmen abroad.”

Polidori nodded. “I … I have been privy to some talk. People do not always know that I am associated with you. And of course,” he said bitterly, “everyone wants to talk of Byron, Byron, Byron. I have written a play. I am a published writer. Yet I am nothing, not even a name to them. I am a star in the halo of the moon.”

Mary looked pensively at the door through which her sister and her lover had disappeared. “Why is he so anxious to reinforce every prejudice the world has against him?”

Polidori shrugged. “He is a pariah, and he is proud. How else would he behave? Can you imagine him groveling for the good opinion of the world?”

Mary smiled. “I would never grovel for his, nor wish him to grovel for mine.”

Polidori smiled. “And that is precisely, ma'am, why he cares for your good opinion of him, and why he so fears your censure that he anticipates it. It lets him feel as if he is in control of his reputation.”

“Even if it is an evil one,” she sighed.

“Very true,” Polidori said. He reached for a sandwich. “Are these cucumber? How did you get them? Our cook swears they are not to be had.”

Shelley threw down the paper and yawned. “Is there any toast? Where is Byron? What have you been talking about?”

Mary handed him a plate with two pieces of buttered toast. “We are discussing Albé's good opinion of me.”

“He should have a good opinion of you.” Shelley bit into the toast, scattering crumbs across his waistcoat. “I do, and I am not a fool.”

“Has he really heard nothing of our conversation?” wondered Polidori, nodding towards Shelley.

“Oh, when Shelley is absorbed in something, you could fire cannons over his head and he would not pay you the smallest heed,” said Mary. She picked up another piece of toast and began to butter it.

Shelley munched happily, sticking his hands in his pockets and sliding down to sit on his spine. “Very true. Once, in order to test my concentration, Mary stripped herself bare and—”

“Shelley!” Half-laughing, half-serious, Mary thrust the toast at her beloved. He opened his mouth like a child being fed, and bit off a piece. “I declare, you're as shameless as Byron,” she said. “Without, of course, half his wit.”

Shelley waggled his eyebrows at her, making her laugh, and Polidori smiled. “You two are well suited,” he said, a little wistfully.

“Thank you,” Mary said. “What news in the paper, my love?”

Shelley picked up the
Examiner
. “An excellent poem by a youngster named Keats. Hear:

… the sweet converse of an innocent mind

Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,

Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be

Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,

Is that not wonderful? A very promising work.”

“I think I have heard that name,” Polidori said. He reached for the toast, but Mary drew it out of his reach and handed it to Shelley. “I think he is a medical student or some such. I fancy I may have met him at a lecture in London.”

“There seems to be a very host of hybridized poets these days,” Shelley murmured. “I look forward to the dawn of a new age. Chemist-playwrights writing dramas about sulfur. Musician-philosophers writing songs in the key of electricity. Oh, Mary, I am reminded: in Geneva I fell into conversation with a most interesting gentleman in a bookstore, who is an experimental philosopher. His English was very bad, and my German is, as you know, nonexistent. But we contrived, and he sold me a glass Leyden jar! I put it in the entry way.”