Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (17 page)

the god in her life.

But she must accompany

him on his trip.

Claire and Shelley

depart on the seventeenth

for the Hoppners’ to assess

Allegra’s condition.

I write to the Gisbornes

to beg them come and visit

as I will be desolate here

without my Shelley

with just the servants and children.

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TRAVELING TOWARD BYRON

August 1818

Shelley writes that Allegra

remains as beautiful as ever

only taller and more pale,

but in all ways fine like porcelain.

Consul Hoppner advises Shelley

not to tell Byron

that Claire stays in Venice

as Byron often expresses

his extreme terror

of meeting her again.

For seeing Claire

might send Byron

into convulsions and panic

as though Byron suffered heart pains.

Shelley alone visits Byron

at three in the afternoon

as Byron should have risen by then.

Shelley shudders and shocks

that Byron looks older and fatter

and that he is involved in all

forms of debauchery.

This explains why

Byron does not want to see

old friends or former lovers.

Still Byron and Shelley

get on famously, riding

along the beach discussing

literature and life.

Shelley lies and says

that Claire and the children

and I are all in Padua.

Byron then invites us

to stay in Este at his summer home.

Shelley desires that I bring

the children and his servant, Paolo,

to Este in a grueling manner

and make the trip in only five days.

The visiting Gisbornes see that

Clara suffers from the heat

and is not well enough to make

the journey right now.

Only one, she cuts

her teeth with the turmoil

of one growing a horn

out of her head.

Still, we do as my Shelley bids.

The day after my twenty-first birthday

we set out for Este.

Clara never ceases crying,

and she contracts dysentery.

When we arrive in Este,

she spasms and convulses

like the monster

awaking in my book.

Claire is also mysteriously

unwell, and Shelley seems

more concerned about Claire

than his daughter. He tells

me to take Clara to Claire’s

doctor’s appointment in Padua

and he returns to Venice.

We set out at half

past three in the morning,

Shelley meets us in Padua

and finally recognizes how

ill little Clara has become.

He rushes Clara and me

back to Venice and leaves

us at an inn while he searches

out a good doctor. The baby

shakes and cries in my arms.

She boils with a temperature

hotter than the molten core of the earth.

I can do nothing to calm her

until she finally calms herself

and breathes no more.

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MELANCHOLIA

Autumn 1818

Sadness a chokehold

around the throat,

everything fails,

tastes bitter.

I try to dismiss the blame

I feel well up inside of me,

but sometimes

I am a pot of anger

boiling over the rim.

Mostly I feel tired.

I have not the energy

to smile or frown or speak.

I bury my head in books

but want little to do

with company.

I sometimes even despair

staying too close to my son,

that he too, might be snatched

soon from me.

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DISTRACTION

Autumn 1818

Lord Byron gives me

some of his poems to transcribe.

He attempts to take

my mind off the loss

of my daughter.

Mrs. Hoppner and I

visit the library

and an art gallery and go shopping.

Shelley begins a new

poetic drama,
Prometheus Unbound
.

I find little distraction

in every day; even my reading

suffers attention.

I watch Claire delight

in Allegra these two months

in Este, and my heart

aches for my baby Clara

like a thousand knives

have been thrust upon me.

I cannot be intimate

with Shelley right now,

but then fear he seeks out Claire.

I do not know where

to shelter my grief.

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THEN THERE ARE DAYS

Autumn 1818

A glance from Shelley

across the supper table

expresses not only concern,

but adoration—

a cherished look I remember

from our first meeting.

Claire, William, and I

collect flowers in the garden

and I witness my child’s

simple amazement at

simple color and fragrance.

And there is the sustenance

of my books

and my journals

and my letters to friends,

the warm candlelight

of these witching hours.

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THE BABY OF NAPLES

November 1818–February 1819

We decide to travel

to Naples by way of Rome.

Claire, Shelley, William,

Elise our nursemaid, another nanny,

and Paolo, Shelley’s manservant,

and I reach Rome on November 21.

We find the city casual

and under excavation,

still it enchants us

like a love story.

Shelley travels ahead of us

through the dangerous Appian Way

so that he can locate a house

for us in Naples on the Riviera di Chiaia,

the most expensive street of villas

in all of Europe.

We manage a frightful crossing,

but arrive in Naples safely.

I fill with excitement

for Naples is the home of Virgil,

and the birthplace of Latin literature.

We luxuriate in Naples,

a city of Goodness

until we find out

that Paolo has been

cheating us out of money

and impregnated Elise,

our nursemaid.

They get married

and are dismissed

from our service.

The drama leaves me sleepless

and angry as a tiger

with a toothache.

Then to add to the madness,

Shelley presents me

with a two-month-old child

named Elena Adelaide

whom we must register

as being born to me and him

on December 27 of last year.

I have never seen nor heard

a whimper from this baby’s mouth.

Percy brought me this baby

as a replacement

for my dear Clara Everina

saying that Elena was a foundling

that he wanted to adopt.

But I somehow wonder

if perhaps Elena is not

really Shelley’s child

by another woman.

Either way, she cannot

replace my little girl.

We leave tomorrow for Rome,

and I insist that we leave

baby Elena behind

in the care of foster parents.

I will not replace

my child like

she is a lost garment.

I cannot easily be warmed

by a newfound fur.

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SOMEONE ELSE’S BABY

February 1819

Sometimes I wonder

if Shelley would not

like to father the world.

His spirit is so generous

and all-encompassing.

I have lost two little girls

of my own, the weight

of those losses heavier

than Atlas shouldering the earth.

We see many things

at eye level, Shelley and me,

but a new baby not our own

I cannot bear.

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ROME

March 1819

It is difficult to capture

the exact beauty

and the rich history

of this place, Rome.

It is, as Shelley says,

“a city of palaces and temples

more glorious than those which

any other city contains, and that of

ruins more glorious than they.”

Shelley invites both Hunt and Peacock

to join us in Italy as he is like a knight

without his steed, so very lonesome

for his friends.

I am gladly pregnant

again and due in November.

I take drawing lessons

and write. I practice