CHAPTER XX

THE PARIAHS

On arriving in London, Shelley could not pay the cab fare, so with Mary, Jane, and the trunks, he drove round to his bankers, merely to learn that Harriet had withdrawn the entire balance to his credit. At this news the two girls were highly indignant. The only way to get out of the scrape, and avoid the police-station, was to go and see Harriet herself. Shelley had her address, and thither they now drove. Harriet thought at first that her husband had come back to her, and was very indignant, in her turn, when she knew that her rival was waiting below at the door. However, she lent Shelley a few pounds, which enabled the three wanderers to take furnished lodgings in a mean street.

Things looked black. Godwin absolutely refused to see them. Shelley pleaded that he had given a practical application to the principles of _Political Justice_, but this merely exasperated the author of the treatise still more. _Political Justice_ was in his eyes a theoretical work, the principles of which might be excellent in some Utopia—although it was also very long since he had written it—but in London in the midst of a pitiless society, in his own house, to expose Godwin and his only daughter to the scorn of his friends, thus to pervert his teaching . . . No, he would never forgive them.

When he mentioned the adventure it was in the most severe terms. Writing to a Mr. John Taylor of Norwich, he said:

“I have a story to tell you of the deepest melancholy. . . . You are already acquainted with the name of Shelley. . . . Not to keep you longer in suspense, he, a married man, has run away with my daughter. I cannot conceive of an event of more accumulated horror.

“Mary, my only daughter, was absent in Scotland for her health, and returned to me on the 30th of March last. Shelley came to London on the 18th June and I invited him to take his meals at my house. On Sunday, June 26th, he accompanied Mary and her sister, Jane Clairmont, to the tomb of Mary’s mother, and there it seems the impious idea first occurred to him of seducing her. . . . He had the madness to disclose his plans to me and to ask my consent. I expostulated with him with all the energy of which I was master. . . . I seemed to have succeeded, but in the night of the 27th July, Mary and her sister Jane escaped from my house, and the next morning when I rose I found a letter on my dressing table informing me what they had done.”

He begs Taylor to preserve the utmost secrecy about the affair, so that no stigma may be attached to the names of these unfortunate girls, and goes on: “When I use the word stigma I am sure it is wholly unnecessary to say that I apply it in a very different sense to the two girls. Jane has been guilty of an indiscretion only . . . Mary has been guilty of a crime.”

Yet Shelley, in former days, had borrowed large sums to lend to Mary’s father, and on this account the bailiffs, so soon as they heard of his return, had begun to dun him. Godwin not only was unable to repay Shelley, but had fresh need of money himself, and it was these financial questions which compelled him, most reluctantly, to continue a correspondence with a depraved and perfidious young man. His conscience suffered greatly . . . or at least he said it did in every letter.

So much hypocrisy in a man they had so venerated, was grievous to Mary and Shelley. “Oh, philosophy!” they said, and sighed. As to Mrs. Godwin, she reproached them above all with corrupting her daughter, and she forbade the gentle Fanny to visit them. She herself went to see Jane once, but meeting Shelley on the stairs she turned away her head.

Their intercourse with Harriet was sometimes easy, sometimes difficult, according to her changes of mood. She wanted for nothing, having still some of Shelley’s money, besides receiving an allowance from the old tavern-keeper, but she was with child and very unhappy. She passed her days in telling her story to the gossips of the neighbourhood, or in writing in pathetic phrases to her friend Catherine Nugent, the Dublin dressmaker:

“Every age has its cares. God knows I have mine. Dear Ianthe is quite well. She is fourteen months old and has six teeth. What I should have done without this dear babe and my sister I know not. This world is a scene of heavy trials to us all. I little expected ever to go thro’ what I have. But time heals the deepest wounds, and for the sake of that sweet infant I hope to live many years. Write to me often. . . . Tell me how you are in health. Do not despond, though I see nothing to hope for when all that was virtuous becomes vicious and depraved. So it is—nothing is certain in this world. I suppose there is another, where those that have suffered keenly here will be happy. Tell me what you think of this. My sister is with me. I wish you knew her as well as I do. She is worthy of your love. Adieu, dear friend, may you still be happy is the first wish of your ever-faithful friend,

“H. SHELLEY.

“Ianthe is well and very engaging.”

Sometimes she was full of hope. Her friends told her that love affairs of this sort were short-lived and that her husband would come back to her. Then she felt gay and wrote Shelley friendly letters. She was sure that it was Mary who had made all the mischief: that she had seduced Percy by telling him extravagant tales: that in reality he was good, that he would never desert her and his two children.

At other times she had fits of depression and rage. Then she did all she knew to make the life of the hated couple more difficult still. She ran into debt, and sent the creditors to Shelley. She declared that he was living in promiscuity with two of Godwin’s daughters. She found out Godwin’s creditors in order to urge them to be pitiless, and Mary, who had never seen her, would say with a sigh: “That frightful woman!”

One day in November, Harriet was in a state of discomfort and pain, and imagined herself very ill. Her first thought at such moments was always to call her husband. She sent for Shelley during the night and he came at once. Without again becoming the lover, he would have liked to remain her most devoted friend. But, not understanding the shade of difference, the moment he showed attention, she grew fond. Then he checked her with gentle firmness.

At the end of November, she gave birth to a boy, an eight-months’ child. It brought about no reconciliation. Shelley doubted if the child was his.

With Mary, in spite of their misfortunes, he was deliciously happy. They shared the same tastes, and both looked upon Life as an opportunity for learning prolonged into old age. They read the same books and often aloud. She went with him in his visits to his lawyers, or the sheriff’s officers. When he amused himself by the Serpentine, just as he used to do at Oxford, in launching a paper flotilla, Mary, sitting beside him, fashioned the boats with tireless fingers.

Under his direction, she set herself to learn Latin and even Greek. More cultured than Harriet, she did not see in these studies, as did the first Mrs. Shelley, a rather boring game, but an extension of her enjoyment. The greatest charm of literary culture is that it humanizes love. Catullus, Theocritus, and Petrarch united to render more exquisite our lovers’ kisses. Shelley, watching his new companion at work, was filled with admiration for her strength of character, and was delighted to consider her as much superior to himself.

The only shadow, and that a light one, was the presence of Jane, or rather of Claire, for, having decided that her name was ugly, she had changed it for another which was more to her taste. A brilliant and beautiful girl, she suffered from nerves and was terribly susceptible. Nothing was worse for her than to live in close contact with an amorous young couple. She had a passionate admiration for Percy, and showed it a little too plainly. Mary complained, but Shelley could not agree that there was anything in the sentiment either disagreeable or shocking.

He hated being alone, so when Mary, who was expecting a child, had to give up walks and late hours he took Claire with him to the lawyers, the bailiffs, and the banks of the Serpentine, and every day he begged her to pass the evening with him. He talked to her of Harriet, of Miss Hitchener, and of his sisters. He had always loved confidential talks, and long analyses of thought; sincerity appeared to him easy with Claire because she was not his mistress. But Mary could not conceal her impatience, and Claire, vexed by her sister’s reproaches, remained silent and gloomy a whole day through.

In the evening when Mary had gone to bed, Shelley undertook to pacify Claire. Cleverly and patiently he explained until midnight the somewhat complicated sentiments of their little group. Such was his gentle kindness that Claire ceased to sulk.

“But I’ve suffered so much!” she said.

“Imaginary sufferings, my dear Claire! You misunderstand words and gestures to which Mary attaches no importance whatever.”

“All the same, I have really suffered, but how I like good, kind, explaining people!”

Shelley went up to repeat the conversation to Mary. In the room overhead they heard Claire talking and walking in her sleep. Presently she came down, she was feeling terribly nervous, and could not remain alone. Mary took her into her own bed, and Shelley went to sleep upstairs.

This little scene with slight variations was often repeated. Claire’s nervousness was communicated to Shelley. Having talked of ghosts and hobgoblins the greater part of the night, they ended by frightening each other.

“What is the matter with you, Claire? You’re deathly pale. . . . Your eyes . . . No! Don’t look at me like that!”

“You, too, Percy, you look strange . . . the air is heavy, full of monsters . . . don’t let us stay here any longer!”

They said good night and went to their rooms, but almost immediately after, Shelley and Mary heard a loud cry; somebody tumbled down the stairs, and Claire, with disordered features, came to relate that her pillow had been pulled from under her head by an invisible hand.

Shelley listened to the tale with terrified interest, but Mary shrugged her shoulders. If only this crazy girl would take herself off!

* * *

The outcasts saw few friends. The Boinville-Newton set, despite their broad-minded French philosophy, had turned a cold shoulder when they were told by Shelley of his new life. With them, as with Godwin, actions did not run on all fours with speech, and indulgence in theory allied itself for some mysterious reason with inclemency in practice. On the other hand, it was the sceptical Hogg and Peacock who came at the first call. They believed in the innocence of Harriet, and did not approve of Shelley’s conduct, but they were full of human interest, and looked upon the passion of love as a somewhat comic disease.

Shelley had invited Hogg with misgivings. He was afraid such a cynic would not please the two girls. Nor was Mary’s first impression favourable. “He’s amusing enough when he jokes,” she said, “but the moment he treats of a serious subject, one sees that his point of view is altogether wrong.”

Hogg, in fact, became every day more British and conservative, singing the praises of tradition, sport, Public Schools, and naming the best port-wine years. But finding Mary very pretty and intelligent, he told Shelley so, who repeated it to her. On Hogg’s next visit she thought him much more sympathetic. No doubt he spoke of virtue as a blind man does of colours; in this family of enthusiastic “souls” he was the “hardened sinner”; but his charm was acknowledged. Mary thought his coldness a cloak, and that he was better than he appeared. He was afraid to be sincere with himself or to delve deep, which would have driven him to forgo so many things that he liked, but he was really too intelligent not to feel the weakness of his position.

Being both good-natured and cultivated, he was ready to give a helping hand to Mary and Claire in translating Ovid or Anacreon, when their usual master had mysteriously vanished. He also accompanied the ladies to their bonnet-maker without grumbling, for they, too, visited bonnet-shops just like poor Harriet, although they went in quite another frame of mind. If she bought bonnets with rapture, Mary bought them with a lofty condescension, so that Shelley did not even have to excuse in her a concession to fashion which she herself was the first to deplore.