Outcasts Page 14

  “Plague take you!” Byron snapped at Polidori.

  “Plague, your lordship says? Indeed, does not the plague take the innocent with the just? Where is your sublime Nature then, my lord? When the infant dies at the breast, where is your sublime Nature?”

  Unbidden, the image of her dead daughter flashed into Mary’s brain. She turned her face away from the others, felt Shelley’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Doctor!” Shelley said sharply.

  “I … I beg your pardon,” stammered Polidori, glancing white-faced at Mary.

  “Row, damn you!” growled Byron.

  “I will not,” Polidori said defiantly. “The oars roughen my hands, which should remain soft for my examinations. Would you have a calloused surgeon, my lord?”

  “Your callouses are elsewhere, whelp,” Byron said. “Mostly on your social graces. Fletcher, take the oars.”

  The boat rocked as the big Englishman exchanged places with the doctor. Mary, her eyes closed, rested a hand on her belly. It was empty now, but she remembered her daughter kicking, the quickening of life, a life that had died so quickly, so quietly, despite all her care. Was it a judgement? Perhaps the doctor was right; Nature had taken her child, so how could it be noble?

  “Perhaps it is in the nature of Nature to be neutral,” Shelley said. “Man in his original state knew nothing of good or evil. Therefore he had to learn to do evil—”

  “Or good,” growled Byron.

  “And who taught him?” Claire retorted to Shelley. “Who taught him good from evil?”

  “Nature alone,” he responded. “Only Nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves, so Nature teaches justice.”

  “’Twas Eve,” said Byron mischievously, looking over the rim of his glass at Polidori. “Did she not eat of the apple, and thus bring sex into the world? And if that is not the root of all evil, what is?”

  “Pride,” said Polidori dryly.

  “Nay, ’tis custom and tyranny alone at the source of evil,” said Shelley with some heat. “Were it not for the custom of the world, that decrees that most men live under the boot heels of others, then were we all equal, in good and evil alike!”

  Byron laughed. “But no, we are not so equally disposed, my Shelley. You, perhaps, are all good, and I all evil. Thus are we well balanced, yet neither of us is whole!” He swung the bottle, coming dangerously close to Polidori, who ducked.

  “You flatter me,” said Shelley, smiling. “I am not the being you describe.”

  “Are you not?” Byron upended the bottle; finding it empty, he flung it over his shoulder to land with a splash in the water. “Are you not, my Shelley? Yet you would teach all mankind your philosophy. You would have us all live in Nature, and reason together, and eat only vegetables. Come, come, admit it. You would be our newest savior!”

  “Our savior, if we need one, will come from just such a background as you describe,” Shelley said seriously. “A natural man, one raised far from cities and the corrupting influence of the world.”

  “A saint! I do declare it, a saint and a savior! What think you of that, my Polly?”

  “My lord!” protested Polidori.

  “Ah, we have offended his Catholic majesty,” sneered Byron. A sudden breeze whipped the waves, and the vessel lurched. Claire and Mary clutched for the gunwales and Byron struggled up to grasp a line.

  “Hah!” he cried. “See how the gods reward philosophy! When we drink, when we whore, when we sing, the winds smile upon us. But let us discuss the perfectibility of man, and the storm draws near. Help me tie these sheets, Shiloh!”

  Mary watched as the two men, moving almost as one, raised the sails. They expertly caught the wind, and soon Fletcher had shipped the oars while Shelley took the tiller. Pushed by the wind, the boat made good time across the water. The wind was loud enough to suppress further discussion of philosophy, and Mary had to hold her hat onto her head with one hand.

  Byron returned to his sulk and his brandy. Claire sat next to him, leaning into his shoulder, her curls whipped by the wind to mingle briefly with his. She curled one hand into his lordship’s elbow. Byron said nothing, not protesting, and stared off across the water, drinking.

  Over the whistle of the water and the wind, Mary caught a faint melody: Claire was singing softly to Byron. As the boat raced across the lake, Mary sat and wondered what he would say when he learned of Claire’s babe.

  She feared the worst; Byron was deep in despair and grief over his recent scandal, his separation from his daughter, his self-imposed exile from England.

  He will reject her, thought Mary. His own babe, and the woman who bears it. Perhaps Polidori is right: he is a monster.

  Chapter XVII - Polly Buys a Watch

  … the strange system of human society was explained to me. I heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty; of rank, descent, and noble blood.

  —Frankenstein, Volume III, Chapter V

  Shelley handed Mary over the gunwale onto the dock, then turned and held out a hand for Claire. “Come, child,” he said. But Claire hung back, looking to Byron, obviously hoping he would be her escort. Byron ignored her, climbing out with a clumsy, lurching movement that set the boat rocking. Claire stumbled, righted herself, and finally accepted Shelley’s hand up.

  “Where shall we start?” inquired Byron, shrugging himself into his blue coat. “The tailor? The wine seller?”

  “The chandler’s,” said Mary firmly. “We are running low on candles.”

  Shelley grinned down at her. “Because we sit up until dawn every night?”

  “But how else?” Byron said. “We are creatures of darkness, it is affirmed on every side, is’t not, Polidori?”

  The doctor, climbing out of the boat by himself, scowled. “’Tis said of yourself, certes.”

  Byron snarled and started off up the slope of the cobbled street towards the city gate, his lameness offset by the cane he carried. Claire hurried after him and, catching up, slipped her hand through his arm. His only reaction was a slightly stiffer back. Mary took Shelley’s arm and they started up the hill.

  “I have been thinking, my love,” said Shelley. “Poor Fanny is left alone in England, without our company or our conversation. May we not remember your sister with some small gift?”

  “A generous thought,” Mary said. “But there is the matter of the candles, and the new sheets for our bed, and William needs a new shirt. I had hoped to visit a fabric seller’s—”

  “What? You will not even give passing glance to a book store?” cried her lover. He grinned down at her. “I know you need more ink, and I a new pen knife. We must stop at a bookseller’s.”

  Mary smiled, but it was a thin, tight smile. She didn’t want to go into a bookstore. It would remind her too much of Skinner Street, and her father’s distant smile, and her step-mother’s harried contempt. Mrs. Godwin had once fancied herself on the lower rungs of society; now she waited behind a counter on women who had once invited her to tea, and knew herself to be beneath their state. Even Mary, raised on egalitarian principles, had felt her self-loathing and contempt, so that the very air of the bookstore had been bitter and poisonous. She had no desire to remember it in any further detail. Still, it was useless to argue with Shelley.

  Polidori puffed up the street behind them. “His lordship said he was looking for a new watch today,” he offered. “A shop in the Rue de Rive caught his eye two days ago. It had a handsome astrolabe in the front window, and a fine collection of timepieces.”

  “I declare I do not know why Albé needs a timepiece,” Mary murmured to Shelley. “He gets up after noon, goes where he pleases when he pleases, and dines at his own hour. Indeed, he has no use for anyone else’s time but his own, so what schedule need he keep?”

  Shelley only chuckled and patted her hand. He looked over her head at Polidori. “An astrolabe, you say?”

  It was not far from the jetty where they had tied the boat (with a g
enerous tip to the guard, to see that it was there when they returned), to the lower part of the city proper. They walked up the gentle slope of the cobbled lane, with huge warehouses lining the way. Passing them, their high walls shut out the sun, and a chill passed over Mary. She wondered again where her shawl had disappeared to, and calculated the cost of a new one. She felt sad, knowing that the finest shawl in the world could not match the value of her lost mother’s only physical legacy to her. She and Fanny had shared it, and now she had lost it, and Mary wondered if Fanny would ever forgive her.

  Shrill cries met their ears as they emerged into a common plaza. Street vendors hawking sausages on a stick, beer and bread converged on the party as they left the narrow street. Shelley laughed to see them, the joy of life that always bubbled just under the surface of him freed by the attentions of the peddlers. Ahead, Mary saw Claire tugging Byron towards a dressmaker’s, and flushed. Was Claire really going to dun her lover for clothes, like a common mistress? Was Claire really so ignorant of how Byron would regard this? She pulled at Shelley. “Come, let us catch up to them.”

  Shelley, tossing a coin to a vendor, bit into an apple absently and nodded his agreement. They pushed their way through a crowd hot with bargaining shoppers, dodged a horse-drawn cart full of cabbages lurching through the square, and emerged onto the paved sidewalk before a row of shops. Claire and Byron stood side by side, not touching, looking in the window. Mary and Shelley stopped beside them.

  “Just a small one,” Claire was saying. She pointed to a golden locket in the front of the display. “Only large enough to keep a lock of your hair in, B.”

  Byron shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. “’Tis an awfully vulgar design, sweet.”

  Mary felt her face go hot again. Was Claire really begging for trinkets, like some prostitute? “Claire,” she hissed, and grabbed her arm. “May I speak to you?”

  Claire stepped away with her, and Byron took the opportunity to duck into the shop. Polidori followed him, but Shelley stayed looking in the window, musing. Mary pulled her step-sister into a doorway. “Must you be so common?” she whispered fiercely. “To ask Albé for a locket, it’s as if you were a … a woman of the street.”

  Claire tossed her head. “Why Mary, how very vulgar of you. Does money not belong to whoever can use it best? Are we to be bound by the artificial rules set out by the very society we despise? I am surprised at you.”

  “Do not attempt to read my father’s work back at me,” Mary blazed. “You know his strictures on money apply to those who are benefiting mankind. How would a gold locket benefit mankind? You demand it only to feed your vanity. Indeed, it is in the nature of a trophy, I believe!”

  “No more a trophy than Shelley’s son is to you!” Claire hissed back at her.

  Shocked, Mary blinked. “A trophy? You see William as a … a prize? You cannot be so cold!”

  “Cold? I am cold? When you flaunt your victories at me at every turn! Shelley in your bed, your son in your arms! And what am I left with? Only what I can grab!” Claire’s voice rose to a shrill descant.

  A shadow fell across them, and a large man in an apron appeared in the doorway. “Qu’est-ce qu’elle a?” he said, frowning at them.

  Shelley was at Mary’s elbow, reaching for Claire. “Come, let’s go into the watch shop. I was thinking of buying a trinket for Fanny.”

  Claire, still glaring at Mary, ostentatiously grabbed for Shelley’s arm. The two of them preceded Mary into the shop.

  Inside, the smell of wax and metal and oil mixed with the scent of tobacco from Byron and cabbage soup from the back of the shop. A small, wizened man with a tasseled cap was showing a large gold watch to Polidori. Their conversation, in halting French, occupied them while Byron strolled around the shop, tapping his cane restlessly and glancing up at the wall of clocks. Shelley, fascinated, stopped in front of an orrery. The earth, her continents outlined in red, spun freely on an assembly of gears. Shelley turned a wheel, and a golden ball representing the sun twirled. Around it spun two inner planets like marbles, and a tiny moon circled the Earth.

  “A scholar’s toy,” murmured Byron, looking not at the machine but at his friend. “For this, Bruno was burned at the stake. Surely an object lesson for every free-thinker,” he said.

  Shelley was not listening, but carefully turned the model, observing how the moon kept pace with the turn of the Earth. “See how you can line up the Earth and moon with the sun,” he said. “But I do not see how an eclipse can be produced. Ah, I see. Let us turn it towards the light, thus, yes. Now see? In London, there is an eclipse of the sun, but in Switzerland, not.” He demonstrated, turning the tiny jeweled planets on their rings until he achieved the line-up he desired.

  Byron clapped his friend affectionately on the back. “Oh, but here we would not know it if the sun were eclipsed every day,” he said. “This accursed weather blocks all sight of it from noon onward.” He turned, seeing Polidori pointing at another watch. “Oh, do make haste, Polly,” he said irritably. “We do not have all day. I, for one, do not care to be rowing back across the lake in a downpour.”

  Polidori glanced up. “’Twill not be your lordship rowing, I vow,” he murmured. He held up a gold watch the size of his palm to his ear, shook his head. He said something in French to the shopkeeper, who frowned and burst out in furious French.

  “What says the man?” said Byron impatiently. “Claire! See if you can make out what his trouble is!”

  Behind him, the shop door opened and an older, well dressed couple entered.

  Claire, still clinging to Shelley, pouted a bit. “I do not know.”

  Byron frowned. “Damn your impudence! You know my French is worse than my Italian.”

  Polidori glanced over his shoulder. “That is very difficult to believe, my lord,” he said mockingly. “As your Italian is virtually non-existent. He demands forty guineas for the watch.”

  Claire and Mary both gasped at this enormous sum. Shelley drifted over to the counter. “Forty guineas? My word! It must surely be the finest watch in Switzerland.”

  “No doubt it calculates the date of Easter for the next hundred years,” Byron said dryly. “But in any case, it is above your touch, Polly.”

  The young man looked away. Mary caught his look—cold, angry. Why must Byron constantly humiliate the boy by reminding him of his “inferior” station? “A doctor should have a good watch,” she said, not quite sure why she was defending this callow young man. Obscurely, she felt a certain maternal instinct towards him. “Does he not regularly take your pulse, my lord? You would surely want him to use a watch suitable for the ‘station’ of his patient?”

  Shelley looked sharply at her, then smiled. Her dig at Byron’s vanity amused him. “Assuredly,” he said. “Nothing less than a forty guinea watch for the personal physician of the famous Lord Byron.”

  The older couple’s heads swung round at the sound of his name. Mary felt that sinking feeling in her stomach she always got when public censure reared its head. Shelley, oblivious, drifted fingers along a counter filled with lockets, and Byron glared at Polidori. But Mary saw the woman turn to her companion and whisper. The man frowned at Byron.

  Byron leaned on his cane. “Damn the both of you. Very well, Polidori, buy the cursed watch. If you wish to pass yourself off as a gentleman, good luck to you.”

  Polidori set the watch carefully down. “I … I cannot afford it, my lord,” he said.

  Mary winced. She knew the embarrassment of low funds; she and Shelley lived with it constantly. Shelley never seemed to care that they were at the parish door every quarter. “Perhaps my lord’s consequence extends to a subsidy,” she said.

  Claire tossed her curls. “Surely Godwinian principles apply here,” she said to Mary. “A doctor in need of a watch is surely a benefit to mankind. Give him the money, Byron.”

  Polidori, momentarily nonplussed, looked from Shelley to Byron. He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out.


  Byron thrust his hand into his pocket, looking harassed. “A watch does not make him a better doctor,” he declared.

  “But it may make him a better friend,” Shelley said, amused.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw the older couple edging closer, curious to see the infamous English poet. Their eager curiosity, so easily dissolving into censure, irritated her. She stepped closer to Shelley to block their view of Byron.

  “Friend? Polly?” Byron sounded genuinely surprised.

  “No need to strain yourself,” Polidori said. His voice was high, strained. His fist opened and closed, opened and closed. “His lordship’s good opinion can neither be bought nor sold.”

  At this, Byron glared at his physician, then drew out his purse and tossed it on the counter contemptuously. “Buy the watch.”

  “No—” Polidori said.

  Shelley put a hand on Polidori’s. “Allow his lordship to be useful,” he said. Ignoring Byron’s black look, he went on. “Be generous. Let Byron contribute something truly good to the world. Even if it be only enough to make up the difference between your purse and the shopkeeper’s price.”

  The shopkeeper, who had been avidly glancing from face to face, apparently understood a sale was imminent. He took up the watch and a cloth, and began polishing it meticulously. He said something in French, and this time Claire tilted her head.

  “He says he can let the watch go for thirty five guineas,” she said. “Perhaps I can get him to agree to half?”

  Byron angrily picked up his purse and poured coins out onto the counter top. They bounced and rang, some of them falling to the floor. “Make you free of it, madame,” he said venomously. “And you, doctor. If you come back without the finest watch in Switzerland in your pocket, I shall hold myself insulted.” Thrusting the purse back into his waistcoat pocket, he turned and thrust past Shelley. The older couple scampered out of his way, scandalized to be so close to the English devil incarnate. Ignoring them, Byron banged out of the shop. Shelley shot Mary a mute look of appeal.