LIFE IN ENGLAND.
On leaving the vessel at Gravesend, they engaged a boatman to take
them up the Thames to Blackwall, where they had to take a coach, and
the boatman with them, to drive about London in search of money to pay
him. There was none at Shelley's banker, nor elsewhere, so he had to
go to Harriet, who had drawn every pound out of the bank. He was
detained two hours, the ladies having to remain under the care of the
boatman till his return with money, when they bade the boatman a
friendly farewell and proceeded to an hotel in Oxford Street.
With Shelley and Mary's return to England their troubles naturally
were not at an end. Instead of money and security, debts and overdue
bills assailed Shelley on all sides; so much so, that he dared not
remain with Mary at this critical moment of their existence, when she,
unable to return to her justly indignant father, had to stay in
obscure lodgings with Claire, while Shelley, from some other retreat,
ransacked London for money from attorneys and on post obits at
gigantic interest. We have now letters which passed between Mary and
Shelley at this time; also Mary's diary, which recounts many of their
misadventures.
Day after day we have such phrases as (October 22) "Shelley goes with
Peacock to the lawyers, but nothing is done," till on December 21 we
find that an agreement is entered into to repay by three thousand
pounds a loan of one thousand. Godwin, even if he would have helped,
could not have done so, as his own affairs were now in their perennial
state of distress; and before long, one of Shelley's chief anxieties
was to raise two hundred pounds to save Mary's father from bankruptcy,
although apparently they only communicated through a lawyer. It is
curious to note how Mary complains of the selfishness of Harriet; poor
Harriet who, according to Mrs. Godwin, still hoped for the return of
her husband's affection to herself, and who sent for Shelley, after
passing a night of danger, some time before her confinement. At one
time Mary entertained an idea, rightly or wrongly conceived, that
Harriet had a plan for ruining her father by dissuading Hookham from
bailing him out from a menaced arrest. And so we find, in the extracts
from the joint diary of Mary and Shelley, Harriet written of as
selfish, as indulging in strange behaviour, and even, when she sends
her creditors to Shelley, as the nasty woman who compels them to
change their lodgings.
Before this entry of January 2, 1815, Harriet had given birth
(November 30) to a second child, a son and heir, which fact Mary notes
a week later as having been communicated to them in a letter from a
_deserted_ wife. What recriminations and heart-burnings, neglect
felt on one side and "insulting selfishness" on the other! In April,
Mary writes, "Shelley passes the morning with Harriet, who is in a
surprisingly good humour;" and then we hear how Shelley went to
Harriet to procure his son who is to appear in one of the courts; and
yet once more Mary writes, "Shelley goes to Harriet about his son,
returns at four; he has been much teased by Harriet"; and then a blank
as to Harriet, for the diary is lost from May 1815 to July 1816.
In the meantime we see in the diary how Mary, far from well at times,
is happy in her love of Shelley--how they enjoy intellectual pleasures
together. They fortunately were satisfied with each other's company,
as most of their few friends fell from them, Mrs. Boinville writing a
"cold and even sarcastic letter;" the Newtons were considered to hold
aloof; and Mrs. Turner, whom they saw a little, told Shelley her
brother considered "you've been playing a German tragedy." Shelley
replied, "Very severe, but very true." About this time Hogg renewed
his acquaintance with Shelley and made that of Mary, though at first
his answer to Shelley's letter was far from sympathetic. On his first
visit they also were disappointed with him; but a little later
(November 14) Hogg called at his friend's lodging in Nelson Square,
when he made a more favourable impression on Shelley by being himself
pleased with Mary. She in return found him amusing when he jested, but
far astray in his opinions when discussing serious matters--in fact,
on a later visit of his, she finds Hogg makes a sad bungle, quite
muddled on the point when in an argument on virtue. In spite of being
shocked by Hogg in matters of philosophy and ethics, she gets to like
him better daily, and he helps them to pass the long November and
December evenings with his lively talk. On one occasion he would
describe an apparition of a lady whom he had loved, and who, he
averred, visited him frequently after her death. They were all much
interested, but annoyed by the interruption of Claire's childish
superstitions. In fact, Hogg glides back to the old friendship of the
university days, and his witticisms must have beguiled many a leisure
hour, while he would also help Mary with her Latin studies now
commenced. Claire frequently accompanied Shelley in his walks to the
lawyers and other business engagements, as Mary's health not
infrequently prevented her taking long walks, and Claire stated later
that Shelley had a positive fear of being alone in London, as he was
haunted by the fear of an attack from Leeson, the supposed Tanyrallt
assassin.
Claire's cleverness and liveliness made her a pleasant companion at
times for Shelley and Mary; but even had they been sisters--and they
had been brought up together as such--Mary might have found her
constant presence in confined lodgings irksome, especially as Claire
tormented herself with superstitious alarms which at times, even in
reading Shakespeare, quite overcame her. Her fanciful imagination also
conjured up causes of offence where none were intended, and magnified
slight changes of mood on Shelley's or Mary's part into intentional
affronts, when she ought rather to have taken Mary's delicate health
and difficult position into consideration. Mary, by all accounts,
seems naturally to have had a sweet and unselfish disposition,
although she had sufficient character to be self-absorbed in her work,
without which no work is worth doing. It is true that her friend
Trelawny later appeared to consider her somewhat selfishly indifferent
to some of Shelley's caprices or whims; but this was with the
pardonable weakness of a man who, although he liked character in a
woman, still considered it was her first duty to indulge her husband
in all his freaks. However this may be, we have constantly recurring
such entries in the joint diary as:--"Nov. 9.--Jane gloomy; she is
very sullen with Shelley. Well, never mind, my love, we are happy.
Nov. 10.--Jane is not well, and does not speak the whole day.... Go to
bed early; Shelley and Jane sit up till twelve talking; Shelley talks
her into good humour." Then--"Shelley explains with Clara."
Again--"Shelley and Clara explain as usual."
Mary writes--"Nov. 26.--Work, &c. &c. Clara in ill humour. She reads
_The Italian_. Shelley sits up and talks her into humour." Dec.
19.--A discussion concerning female character. Clara imagines that I
treat her unkindly. Mary consoles her with her all-powerful
benevolence. "I rise (having already gone to bed) and speak with Clara.
She was very unhappy; I leave her tranquil." Clara herself writes as
early as October--"Mary says things which I construe into unkindness.
I was wrong. We soon became friends; but I felt deeply the imaginary
cruelties I conjured up."
It is clear that where such constant explaining is necessary there
could not be much satisfaction in perpetual intimacy.
Mary is amused at the way Shelley and Claire sit up and "frighten
themselves" by different reasons or forms of superstition, and on one
occasion we have their two accounts of the miraculous removal of a
pillow in Claire's room, Claire avowing it had moved while she did not
see it; and Shelley attesting the miracle because the pillow was on a
chair, much as Victor Hugo describes the peasants of Brittany
declaring that "the frog _must_ have talked on the stone because
there was the stone it talked upon." The result might certainly have
been injurious to Mary, who was awakened by the excited entrance of
Claire into her room. Shelley had to interpose and get her into the
next room, where he informed Claire that Mary was not in a state of
health to be suddenly alarmed. They talked all night, till the dawn,
showing Shelley in a very haggard aspect to Claire's excited
imagination (Shelley had been quite ill the previous day, as noted by
Mary). She excited herself into strong convulsions, and Mary had
finally to be called up to quiet her. The same effect tried a little
later fortunately fell flat; but there seemed no end to the vagaries
of Claire's "unsettled mind" as Shelley calls it, for she takes to
walking in her sleep and groaning horribly, Shelley watching for two
hours, finally having to take her to Mary. Certainly philosophy did
not seem to have a calming effect on Claire Claremont's nature, and
often must Shelley and Mary have bemoaned the fatal step of letting
her leave her home with them. It was more difficult to induce her to
return, if indeed it was possible for her to do so, with the remaining
sister, Fanny, still under Godwin's roof. Fanny's reputation was
jealously looked after by her aunts Everina and Eliza, who
contemplated her succeeding in a school they had embarked in in
Ireland. But it is not to be wondered at that the excitable, lively
Clara should have groaned and bemoaned her fate when transferred from
the exhilaration of travel and the beauties of the Rhine and
Switzerland to the monotony of London life in her anomalous position;
and although both Mary and Shelley evidently wished to be kind to her,
she felt more her own wants than their kindness. Want of occupation
and any settled purpose in life caused pillows and fire-boards to walk
in poor Claire's room, much as other uninteresting objects have to
assume a fictitious interest in the houses and lives of many
fashionably unoccupied ladies of the present day, who divide their
interest between a twanging voice or a damp hand and the last poem of
the last fashionable poet. Shelley is not the only imaginative and
simple-minded poet who could apparently believe in such a phenomenon
as a faded but supernatural flower slipped under his hand in the dark,
other people in whom he has faith being present, and perchance helping
in the performance. Genius is often very confiding.
Peacock was perhaps the one other friend who, during these sombre, if
not altogether unhappy, days of Mary, visited them in their lodgings.
Shelley, through him, hears of some of the movements of his family,
and at one time Mary enters with delight into the romantic idea of
carrying off two heiresses (Shelley's sisters) to the west coast of
Ireland. This idea occupies them for some days through many delightful
walks and talks with Hogg. Peacock also frequently accompanied Shelley
to a pond touching Primrose Hill, where the poet would take a fleet of
paper boats, prepared for him by Mary, to sail in the pond, or he
would twist paper up to serve the purpose--it must have been a
relaxation from his projects of Reform.
We must not leave this delightfully unhappy time without making
reference to the series of letters exchanged between Mary and Shelley
during an enforced separation. Unseen meetings had to be arranged to
avoid encounters with bailiffs, at a time when the landlady refused to
send them up dinner, as she wanted her money, and Shelley, after a
hopeless search for money, could only return home--with cake. During
this time some of their most precious letters were written to each
other. We cannot refrain from quoting some touching passages after
Mary had received letters from Shelley expressing the greatest
impatience and grief at his separation from her, appointing vague
meeting-places where she had to walk backwards and forwards from
street to street, in the hopes of a meeting, and fearful animosity
against the whole race of lawyers, money-lenders, &c., though all his
hopes depended on them at the time. The London Coffee House seemed to
be the safest meeting-place.
Mary, not very clear about business matters at the time, felt most the
separation from her husband: the dangers that surrounded them she only
felt in a reflected way through him. They must have confidence in each
other, she thinks, and their troubles cannot but pass, for there is
certainly money which must come to them!
She thus writes (October 25):
For what a minute did I see you yesterday! Is this the way, my
beloved, we are to live till the 6th? In the morning when I wake, I
turn to look for you. Dearest Shelley, you are solitary and
uncomfortable. Why cannot I be with you, to cheer you and press you to
my heart? Ah! my love, you have no friends. Why then should you be
torn from the only one who has affection for you? But I shall see you
to-night, and this is the hope that I shall live on through the day.
Be happy, dear Shelley, and think of me! Why do I say this, dearest
and only one? I know how tenderly you love me, and how you repine at
your absence from me. When shall we be free from fear of treachery? I
send you the letter I told you of from Harriet, and a letter we
received yesterday from Fanny (this letter made an appointment for a
meeting between Fanny and Clara); the history of this interview I will
tell you when I come, but, perhaps as it is so rainy a day, Fanny will
not be allowed to come at all. I was so dreadfully tired yesterday
that I was obliged to take a coach home. Forgive this extravagance;
but I am so very weak at present, and I had been so agitated through
the day, that I was not able to stand; a morning's rest, however, will
set me quite right again; I shall be well when I meet you this
evening. Will you be at the door of the coffee-house at five o'clock,
as it is disagreeable to go into such places? I shall be there exactly
at that time, and we can go into St. Paul's, where we can sit down.
I send you "Diogenes," as you have no books; Hookham was so
ill-tempered as not to send the book I asked for.
Two more distracted letters from Shelley follow, showing how he had
been in desperation trying to get money from Harriet; how pistols and
microscope were taken to a pawnshop; Davidson, Hookham, and others are
the most hopeless villains, but must be propitiated. Trying letters
also arrive from Mrs. Godwin, who was naturally much incensed with
Mary, and of whom Mary expresses her detestation in writing to
Shelley. One more short letter:
October 27.
MY OWN LOVE,
I do not know by what compulsion I am to answer you, but your letter
says I must; so I do.
By a miracle I saved your £5, and I will bring it. I hope, indeed, oh,
my loved Shelley, we shall indeed be happy. I meet you at three, and
bring heaps of Skinner St. news.
Heaven bless my love and take care of him.
HIS OWN MARY.
As many as three and four letters in a day pass between Shelley and
Mary at this time. Another tender, loving letter on October 28, and
then they decide on the experiment of remaining together one night.
Warned by Hookham, who regained thus his character for feeling, they
dared not return to the London Tavern, but took up their abode for a
night or two at a tavern in St. John Street. Soon the master of this
inn also became suspicious of the young people, and refused to give
more food till he received money for that already given; and again
they had to satisfy their hunger with cakes, which Shelley obtained
money from Peacock to purchase. Another day in the lodgings where the
landlady won't serve dinner, cakes again supplying the deficiency.
Still separation, Shelley seeking refuge at Peacock's. Fresh letters
of despair and love, Godwin's affairs causing great anxiety and
efforts on Shelley's part to extricate him. A Sussex farmer gives
fresh hope. On November 3 Mary writes very dejectedly. She had been
_nearly_ two days without a letter from Shelley, that is, she had
received one of November 2 early in the morning, and that of November
3 late in the evening. That day had also brought Mary a letter from
her old friends the Baxters, or rather from Mr. David Booth, to whom
her friend Isabel Baxter was engaged, desiring no further
communication with her. This was a great blow to Mary, as, Isabel
having been a great admirer of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary had hoped she
would remain her friend. Mary writes:--"She adores the shade of my
mother. But then a married man! It is impossible to knock into some
people's heads that Harriet is selfish and unfeeling, and that my
father might be happy if he chose. By that cant of selling his
daughter, I should half suspect that there has been some communication
between the Skinner Street folks and them."
But now the separation was approaching its end, and the danger of
being arrested past, they move from their lodgings in Church Terrace,
St. Pancras, to Nelson Square, where we have already seen Hogg in
their company and heard of the sulks, fears, and bemoanings of poor
Claire.
Mary Shelley's novel of _Lodore_ gives a good account of the
sufferings of this time, as referred to later. The great resource of
intellectual power is manifested during all this period. During a time
of ill-health, anxieties of all kinds, constant moves from lodgings
where landladies refused to send up dinner, while she was discarded by
all her friends, while she had to walk weary distances, dodging
creditors, to get a sight from time to time of her loved Shelley,
while Claire bemoaned her fate and seems to have done her best to have
the lion's share of Shelley's intellectual attention (for she partook
in all the studies, was able to take walks, and kept him up half the
night "explaining"), Mary indefatigably kept to her studies, read
endless books, and made progress with Latin, Greek, and Italian. In
fact, she was educating herself in a way to subsist unaided hereafter,
to bring up her son, and to fit him for any position that might come
to him in this world of changing fortunes. Whatever faults Mary may
have had, it is not the depraved who prepare themselves for, and
honestly fight out, the battle of life as she did.