ARIEL SET FREE
For a long time, Shelley had wished to bring out to Italy his friends
the Hunts, to whom their creditors and political enemies gave a hard
life in England. He offered to pay the journey, but he would not be
able, naturally, to support them and their seven children. He had talked
so much about this to Byron that he had obtained from him a promise to
found with Hunt a liberal newspaper to be published in Italy, and which
would enjoy copyright of all Byron’s works, a privilege sufficient in
itself to assure the success of the newspaper, and to make Hunt’s
fortune. It was a very generous offer on Byron’s part, who had nothing
to gain by the association with Hunt, but a good deal to lose. He did
more, however; he would allow the Hunts to occupy the ground floor of
the Palazzo Lanfranchi, which Shelley on his side undertook to furnish.
Everything being thus settled, the whole Hunt tribe set out.
After incredible difficulties and delays they arrived at Leghorn by the
end of June, 1822. Trelawny on the _Bolivar_ was waiting for them in the
harbour. Shelley and Williams arrived on the _Ariel_, scudding into port
in fine style. Shelley was inexpressibly delighted to see Hunt, and set
off with him and the tribe for Pisa. Williams remained at Leghorn to
await the return of his friend when they would sail home together.
Unfortunately Hunt’s immediate contact with Byron was far from pleasant.
Although Byron considered Hunt’s political ideas extreme, nevertheless
he had a sort of protective affection for him, considering him an honest
writer, a good father and husband, a decent sort of fellow. But he had
never been able to endure Hunt’s wife, whom he considered a dowdy and
disagreeable woman as impertinent as she was silly. Marianne Hunt was a
type of the equalitarian who can never for a moment forget inequalities.
To show that she was not impressed by Byron’s wealth and position, she
treated him with an insolence that a chimney-sweep would not have
tolerated. With the kind-hearted and charming Countess Guiccioli she put
on the airs and graces of an outraged British matron.
Byron remained courteous, but became glacial. At the end of twenty-four
hours he could endure no more. Seven disorderly children romped up and
down the Palazzo, spoiling everything. “A Kraal of Hottentots, dirtier
and more mischievous than Yahoos.” He looked with disgust on such human
vermin, and put his big bull-dog to guard the staircase: “Don’t let any
little cockneys pass our way!” he told him and patted his head.
Already he was sick of the newspaper.
Shelley, who should have left the same day, could not forsake Hunt
without having settled the business. He got round Byron, lectured
Marianne, consoled poor Hunt, and delayed his departure from day to day
until everything was arranged. His tenacity always triumphed over
Byron’s haughty lassitude.
He obtained the promise that the first number of the new paper should
have the copyright of _The Vision of Judgment_ which Byron had recently
finished. This would give Hunt a first-rate send-off.
Williams, waiting at Leghorn, grew impatient and testy. Never before, he
complained, had he been separated from his wife for so many days.
Shelley sent him letter after letter to explain the delay.
The July heat was suffocating; “_le soleil d’ltalie au rire
impitoyable_.” The peasants stopped working in the fields from ten to
five. There was a water shortage, and processions of priests carried
round miraculous statues and prayed for rain.
On the morning of the 8th, Trelawny and Shelley arrived from Pisa. They
went to Shelley’s bank, made purchases for the housekeeping at Casa
Magni, and then the two friends and Williams went down to the harbour.
Trelawny wanted to accompany the _Ariel_ on the _Bolivar_. The sky was
clouding over, and a light wind blowing in the direction of Lerici.
Captain Roberts predicted a storm. Williams, who was in a hurry to be
off, declared that in seven hours they would be at home.
At midday Shelley, Williams, and Charles Vivian were on board the
_Ariel_. Trelawny on the _Bolivar_ was getting ready too. The guard-boat
boarded them to overhaul their papers: “La barchetta _Don Juan_? Il
capitano Percy Shelley? Va bene.”
Trelawny, who had not got his port-clearance, tried to brazen it out.
The officer of the Health Office threatened him with fourteen days’
quarantine. He proposed to go instantly and obtain the clearance papers,
but Williams, fretting and fuming, would not hear another word. There
was no more time to be lost. It was two o’clock already, and there was
so little wind they would have great difficulty in reaching home before
night.
Between two and three o’clock the _Ariel_ sailed out of harbour almost
at the same moment with two feluccas. Trelawny re-anchored sullenly,
furled his sails, and with the ship’s glass watched the progress of
their friends. His Genovese mate said to him, “They should have sailed
this morning at three or four a.m. instead of three p.m. She is standing
too much in-shore; the current will fix her there.”
Trelawny replied, “She will soon have the land-breeze.”
“Maybe she will soon have too much breeze,” remarked the mate. “That
gaff top-sail is foolish in a boat with no deck and no sailor on
board. . . . Look at those black lines and the dirty rags hanging on
them out of the sky, look at the smoke on the water! The Devil is
brewing mischief.”
Standing on the end of the mole Captain Roberts also kept the boat in
view. When he could see her no longer, he got leave to ascend the
lighthouse-tower whence he could again discern her about ten miles out
at sea. A storm was visibly coming from the Gulf, and he perceived that
the _Ariel_ was taking in her top-sail. Then the haze of the storm hid
her completely.
In the harbour it was oppressively sultry. The heaviness of the
atmosphere and an unwonted stillness benumbed the senses. Trelawny went
to his cabin and fell asleep in spite of himself. He was aroused by
noises overhead: the men were getting up a chain cable to let go another
anchor. There was a general stir amongst the shipping, getting-down
yards and masts, veering out cables, letting-go anchors. It was very
dark. The sea looked as solid and smooth as a sheet of lead and was
covered with an oily scum: gusts of wind swept over it without ruffling
it, and big drops of rain fell on its surface rebounding as if they
could not penetrate it. Fishing-craft under bare poles rushed by in
shoals running foul of the ships in the harbour. But the din and hubbub
made by men and their shrill pipings were suddenly silenced by the
crashing voice of a thunder-squall that burst right overhead.
When twenty minutes later the horizon was in some degree cleared,
Trelawny and Roberts looked anxiously seaward in the hopes of descrying
Shelley’s boat amongst the many small craft scattered about. No trace of
her was to be seen.
* * *
On the other side of the bay two women waited for news. Mary was uneasy
and depressed. The excessive heat of the summer frightened her. It was
during such a summer that little Willie had died, and she looked at the
baby in her arms with terror. He seemed certainly in the best of health,
nevertheless, standing on the terrace gazing on one of the most lovely
views in the world, she was oppressed with wretchedness. Her eyes kept
filling with tears she knew not why. “Yet,” thought she, “when he, when
my Shelley returns, I shall be happy—he will comfort me; if my boy be
ill, he will restore him and encourage me.”
On the Monday, Jane had a letter from her husband dated Saturday. He
said that Shelley was still detained at Pisa, “but if he should not come
by Monday, I will come in a felucca, and you may expect me on Thursday
evening at furthest.” This Monday was the fatal Monday, the day of the
storm.
But Mary and Jane never imagined for a moment that the _Ariel_ could
have put to sea in such weather. On Tuesday it rained all day, and the
sea was calm. On Wednesday the wind was fair from Leghorn, and several
feluccas arrived thence. The skipper of one of these said that the
_Ariel_ had sailed on the Monday, but neither Jane nor Mary believed
him. Thursday was another day of fair wind, and the two women kept
continuous watch from the terrace. Every instant they hoped to see the
tall sails of the little boat double the promontory. At midnight they
were still watching and still without any sight of the boat, and they
began to fear—not the truth—but that some illness, some disagreeable
occurrence, had detained their husbands in Leghorn. As the hours went
on, Jane became so miserable that she determined to hire a boat next day
and go to Leghorn herself. But next day brought with it a heavy sea and
a contrary wind. No boatman would venture out.
At midday came letters. There was one from Hunt for Shelley. Mary opened
it trembling all over. Hunt said: “Pray write to tell us how you got
home, for they say that you had bad weather after you sailed on Monday,
and we are anxious.”
The letter fell from her hands. Jane picked it up, read it, and said,
“Then it is all over!”
“No, my dear Jane, it is not all over, but this suspense is dreadful!
Come with me—we will go to Leghorn. We will post to be swift and learn
our fate.”
The road from Lerici to Leghorn passes by Pisa. They stopped at Lord
Byron’s house to see if there was any news. They knocked at the door,
and some one called out “Chi è?” for it was already late in the evening.
It was the Guiccioli’s maid. Lord Byron was in bed, but the Countess,
all smiles, came down to meet them. On seeing the terrifying aspect of
Mary’s face, very white, looking like marble, she stopped astonished.
“Where is he? Sapete alcuna cosa di Shelley?” said Mary. Byron who
followed his _dama_ knew nothing more than that Shelley had left Pisa
the preceding Sunday, and had sailed on Monday in bad weather.
It was now midnight, but refusing to rest the two women went on to
Leghorn, which they reached at two o’clock in the morning. Their
coachman took them to the wrong inn where they found neither Trelawny
nor Captain Roberts. They threw themselves dressed on their beds and
waited for daylight. At six o’clock they visited all the inns of the
town one after the other, and at the _Globe_ Roberts came down to them
with a face which told them that the worst was true. They learned from
him all that occurred during that agonizing week.
Yet hope was not entirely extinct. The _Ariel_ might have been blown to
Corsica, or Elba, or even farther. They sent a courier from tower to
tower along the coast as far as Nice to know if anything had been seen
or found, and at 9 a.m. they quitted Leghorn for Casa Magni. Trelawny
went with them. At Via Reggio they were told that a punt, a water-keg,
and some bottles had been cast up on the beach. Trelawny went to look at
them and recognized the little skiff of the _Ariel_. But there was the
possibility that, finding it cumbersome in bad weather, they had thrown
it overboard.
When Jane and Mary reached home, the village was holding high festival.
The noise of dancing, laughing and singing kept them awake the whole
night through.
* * *
Five or six days later Trelawny, who had promised a reward to any of the
coastguard who should send him news, was called to Via Reggio where a
body had been washed up by the sea. It was a corpse terrible to look
upon, for the face and hands and those parts of the body not protected
by the clothes had been eaten away by the fish. But the tall slight
figure, the jacket, the volume of Sophocles in one pocket and Keats’
poems in the other, doubled back as if the reader, in the act of
reading, had hastily thrust it away, were all too familiar to Trelawny
to leave a doubt on his mind that this mutilated body was any other than
Shelley’s. Almost at the same time the corpse of Williams was found not
far off, more mutilated still, and three weeks later a third body was
found, that of Charles Vivian, the sailor boy, about four miles from the
other two. It was a mere skeleton.
Trelawny had the remains buried temporarily in the sand to preserve them
from the sea, and galloped off towards Casa Magni.
At the threshold of the house he stopped. There was no one to be seen
. . . a lamp burned in the big room . . . perhaps the two widows were
suggesting to one another new grounds for hope. . . . Trelawny thought
of his last visit there. Then the two families had all been on the
terrace overhanging a sea so calm and clear that every star was
reflected in the waters. Williams had cried “Buona notte!” and Trelawny
had rowed himself on board the _Bolivar_ at anchor in the bay. From afar
he had listened to Jane singing some merry tune to the accompaniment of
her guitar. Shelley’s shrill laugh had pierced the quiet night, and
Trelawny had looked back with regret on a set of human beings who had
seemed to him the happiest and most united in the whole world.
His reverie was broken by a shriek from the nurse Caterina, as crossing
the hall she saw him in the doorway. He went upstairs and unannounced
entered the room where Mary and Jane sat waiting. He could not speak a
word. Mary Shelley’s hazel eyes fixed themselves on his with a terrible
intensity. She cried out: “Is there no hope?” Trelawny, without
answering, left the room, and told the servant to take the children to
the two poor mothers.