Outcasts (33 page)

He grabbed her shoulders and spun her to face himself. “He lived by the same principles as she! Would you have had him honor the woman he loved—such a superb woman as she was—by abandoning those principles?”

Mary looked into his eyes. “My mother's first care would have been for her children. Not her principles.” She stepped back, and he released her shoulders, staring at her. “My mother would never, never have abandoned me as he has.”

“So because he rejects you, you reject his principles? I am distressed.”

“We spoke of the principle of life, did we not? We spoke in terms of chemistry and animation, of electricity and subtle fluids. We did not speak of the real principle of life, Shelley. We did not speak of love.”

He shot both hands through his hair, causing it to stand up on end, like the halo around an earthly angel. “But we speak of nothing but love, sweetest.”

“No, you mean something else when you speak of love. The sympathy for a human being, a child, that is what I mean by the world. Oh, will you men never understand true parenthood, true creation? We are more than mere objects of enquiry! What forms us, what makes us what we truly are, is not atoms and parts and
medullary particles, not principle and idea and belief, but connection.”

“Of course, but—”

“Not ‘of course'! You perceive it, blindly, with open heart and wild verse. But Godwin, Godwin never perceived it at all. To him, I was a philosophical experiment, nothing more.”

“No, Mary, no. He loves you, I know it.”

“But he has cast me off. I, his creation—he formed my mind as well as my body—he rejects and ignores. I am adrift, like some ice floe on an Arctic ocean.”

“What would you then, my Mary?”

“I would be free of him. He will never change. He will never love. Oh, you have shown me what true love is, what true sympathy of mind is, what true equality can be. But he is so inward, so self-regarding, why he makes Byron look generous!”

“But that is exactly how his own
Political Justice
describes the superior man!”

“His superior man is inadequate. He lacks a heart. He was formed without one. He lacks even the imagination to know he lacks it. He raised me with his ideas, never imagining that the world outweighs him, and that what the world will tolerate in a man it will not tolerate in a woman.”

“I will never cast you away.” Shelley said this in a low, quiet voice, fervent and calm.

Beset by sudden tears, Mary stepped close to him. He wrapped his long arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She smelled rain and sweat and the lavender she had folded into his shirts the day before. “Must I rely on your will alone?” she said, her voice muffled. “Because without you, I am nothing, have nothing in the world. May I not be alone, myself, free and independent?”

“Declare your independence, then, my dearest.”

“Shall I write a new
Political Justice?”

“Or a poem. Or a story. Meet Godwin in his own arena.”

“A story—about abandonment?”

“And love.” He caressed her hair.

“Or its absence—and principles. And the obsession with them.”

“And love.” He kissed the top of her head.

“And consequences. The earnest philosopher, blind with ambition, ruins his life and the lives of everyone around him, because he has not the gift of empathy.”

“Or love. Come inside, my dearest, and we will go to bed.”

… I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.

—Frankenstein,
1831 Introduction

I
t started as
a familiar dream, the churchyard at Saint Pancras. Here under the willow stretched the gray stone, the faded grass. Her dream-self knelt, tracing over the letters of the name that was hers, that was her mother's, that linked them beyond death: MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN. Over and over her fingers traced, and behind her she heard her father's voice, telling her about her mother, teaching her the alphabet from this, her mother's own grave. Her name. Her mother's name. Letters on a grave.

The voice behind her changed, and it was no longer Godwin but Shelley, his cracked soprano whispering words of love, drawing her away from her dead mother and father and the legacy of early death and lasting notoriety. She turned, seeking him, and saw that he was far away, standing with her father, fading. The sound of thunder, faint under their voices, rose and drowned them out, until the crashing roar shook the very ground. She rose, reaching out to Shelley, to her father, but they faded and she was left in the downpour, the sickly yellow light peeping under the edges of the black cloud above her. A shadow fell across her, and she looked, and there beside the grave of her mother knelt a man who was Shelley, who was Godwin, who was neither and both. He looked down, and from the flattened sod a form rose, pressing upward through the soil—her mother. And her. The faces were the same. Lightning blazed, and the eyes of the corpse opened. The creator and his creature stared at one another, and then both turned their
faces, and looked at Mary—

Mary swam to the surface of the dream, gasping. She sat up in the bed; night enclosed her. Was the nightmare gone? Or was this part of it, still? She didn't have to look, she knew Shelley was gone. No whisper of sleepy breath beside her, only wind moaning outside the shutters, and the creak of the house resisting it. Groping towards the bedside table, her hand fell on cold steel—Shelley's pistol. Her fingers found, and passed over, the cool cylinder of Shelley's microscope, a flutter of papers, the ruffle of a quill pen. Finally, the rough surface of the tinderbox. She clutched it, feeling her heart pound in her chest, almost afraid of what light might reveal.

An abrasive scratch and spark, and the candle caught. The timid flame wavered, danced, tried to die. She pinched away some wax, oblivious to the scorch of the flame. The room looked back at her blankly, emptily. No fright stood above her bed, no corpse looked at her with a question in its dead eyes.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “Just a dream.” And yet still the echo of terror in her trembling fingers, which made the candle dance and dip.

She looked at the empty bed beside her. Where was Shelley? Here, in the clarity of the deep of night, her mind pictured several answers—writing by a single flame downstairs, or arguing with Byron, or putting a loaded pistol to his head. Or the picture she did not want to imagine, despite all her father's philosophy, despite all her long-held convictions—Shelley in bed with Claire, coupling with her with the same passion, the same energy that broke through her reserve, that revealed to him and to her everything she hid. No, it cannot be. It must not be.

Mary climbed out of the bed, her small feet flinching as they touched the chilled floor. Summer, indeed, she thought to herself. She'd known warmer winters in London. At the foot of the bed lay a blanket; she snatched it around her shoulders, clutching the ends together as she picked up the candle with the other hand. She thrust her feet into slippers, struggling with the recalcitrant heel of one until it finally straightened. She opened the door.

The hallway was not entirely dark; light seeped out from under a door. Polidori? But then the architecture of the house rearranged itself in her head, and she realized it was Byron's door. From behind it came a rhythmic wooden creaking and a masculine grunt. Which proved only that Albé was having sex, but not with whom. Mary glanced down the entry to the gallery, and saw only darkness; Polidori, at least, was asleep.

Noise from downstairs; Mary's hand shook and the flame cast lunatic shadows across the floor. Outside, the wind gusted, then fell ominously silent. It was the dying hour of the world, she thought, when men draw their last breaths and women pray, weeping. The cold seeped through her like water infusing a sponge. The noise downstairs—Shelley at work? She came to the head of the stairs. It was like standing at the brink of an abyss; the circle of damp light emanating from the lamp in her hand died halfway down the stairs. They looked as if they led downward forever. Mary gathered up her nightdress gingerly and stepped carefully down the first few risers. Ahead of her, the circle of light showed her the sharp-limned edges of the staircase, threw ghastly shadows against the walls through the balustrade. Portraits of strangers glared down at her, as if roused unhappily from sleep by her intrusion. Too many ghost stories swirled through her head, a dozen remembered scenes of Bluebeards and monsters and vampire frights.

At the bottom of the stairs, she stood listening. The dining room lay to the left, to the right the drawing room where they had sat up telling stories. A rustling sound came from the dim room, and Mary's heart did a slow roll over in her chest. She took a deep breath, strode resolutely to the doorway, and froze.

Two ghost-green eyes looked back at her from the darkness, shining with cold malevolence. Her hand flew to her mouth. The blanket fell to the ground, and the eyes flickered, following the movement.

“Felix! Oh, for heaven's sake!” The gray kitten pounced forward, tiny claws scrabbling. “How did you get in?”

A cool breeze against her face answered her; the French door
stood slightly ajar. Hastily, Mary transferred her naked candle flame to a lamp, lowering the protective glass shield. She turned up the flame, and the room emerged from darkness. A fallen decanter on the sideboard dripped the dregs of its contents onto the carpet. Papers lay in wind-scattered confusion across the carpet. Mary detoured around an overturned chair. Ahead of her, the glass of the French door reflected her lamp again and again. She halted, but the reflections continued to move.

Mary realized she was seeing not the reflection of her lamp, but lights beyond the window, lights moving in the darkness. She thought of ghosts, perhaps the ghost of her mother, of her daughter. Ghosts that walked without heads, ghosts that killed their own children, ghosts that drank blood. She froze, unable to move, seeing the lights move and bob eerily. The French door swung gently open.

The idea so possessed my mind that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunted me.

—Frankenstein,
1831 Introduction

F
rom the darkness
beyond the glass, a familiar voice: “I arise from dreams of thee / In the first sweet sleep of night, / When the winds are breathing low, / And the stars are shining bright….”

Shelley …

Dizzy with relief, Mary felt her heart grow light. She ran to the window, heedless of her thin nightdress, the flaring lantern, her unbound hair. The night air flung the smell of rain in her face, and thunder muttered along the edges of the world, but it was not actually raining as she dashed out of the French doors and down the steps.

The voice continued, “I arise from dreams of thee / And a spirit in my feet / Has led me—who knows how?—/ To thy chamber-window, sweet!”

Down the slippery cobbles of the walkway, across the wet grass she ran. The lamplight skipped and leaped around her, finding a sudden rosebush, a stone in her path. She danced around all of them, hearing the rich voice in the darkness ahead of her. The waves lapped more loudly along the shore as she approached.

“Shelley!” she called breathlessly.

A figure ahead of her moved, turned, straightened. “Mary!” Two long strides of those heron legs, and he was before her, taking the lamp from her hand and wrapping her close to him with the other. She smelled brandy and candle wax and the green scent of lake water. His shirt was soaked through, but his chest
was warm against her cheek. His greatcoat folded around her like great wings.

“I had a dream,” she murmured into his chest.

“I also,” he said simply. He rocked back and forth a little with her, his heart beating steadily under her ear. “I dreamed of water, and light, and thee.” His mouth whispered over her hair.

Now was the time to tell him how much she loved him, how much she needed him for a guide and mentor, how she had gladly left home and father and all behind. What she said was, “Dearest, you are soaked!”

He chuckled. “Indeed, I am fair drowned, my Pecksie girl.”

A shiver went over her, and briefly she felt a dim echo of grief and loss. “You know how easily you catch a chill, my love.”

He kissed the top of her head and stepped back. The sheltered cove protected them from the force of the wind, yet a stray breeze caught his coat and flared it around him like a cape. For one moment the lamplight caught him as if in a portrait—the curly hair standing out from his head in a chestnut halo, the thin cheeks, aristocratic mouth and ready smile, the lucid blue eyes, the broad shoulders, the soft collar of his white shirt falling wide. He turned, holding the lamp higher. “I am glad you brought the light. I have been making boats, but my candle blew out.”

So simple, so child-like. Mary wondered, not for the first time, if her gangling lover would ever become the serious and sober philosopher her father wanted him to be. She devoutly hoped not.

Shelley hummed a moment, smiled down at her, and sang quietly:

The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream,

The incense odors fall

Like sweet thoughts in a dream …

“No, no, ‘incense' won't do. Not exotic enough. Hmm.”