Outcasts (14 page)

Coming close, Shelley leaned down to rest his forehead against Mary's. “I am tired, love.”

“Dancing with lightning, how can you be?” she asked drily.

“Take me home. Take me to bed,” he murmured.

Mary glanced over to the fireplace. Byron stood staring at the fire, drinking. As she watched, Claire's hand crept into his. Byron did not shake her off.

“Yes,” Mary said. She straightened, her sturdy figure straight and strong in the dim light. “We will go home.”

They clasped hands and walked to the door, leaving Byron and Claire in their tableau by the fire.

Mary had no idea where Polidori had gone. She did not care.

Outside, Shelley absently offered her his arm. She took it gratefully, feeling the damp even through her slippers. Mary drew the edges of her cloak about her.

“Shelley,” she said in a low voice. “Polidori tried to kiss me tonight in a room upstairs in the villa.”

“Did he?” Shelley's voice held amusement. “And did you enjoy it?”

She shook her head. “He does not … appeal to me in that way.” She felt a hot flush along her cheeks as she remembered the
shock of Polidori's mouth on hers, her sudden and unprepared reaction.

“I would say he is handsome enough,” Shelley said, his voice tinged with that hint of distance he always got when speaking in abstracts. “Do you want to sleep with him? I can sleep in the boat, if you prefer. And as a medical man, he might even be able to introduce you to—”

“Will you be serious!?” Mary hissed furiously. “Do you not care that his … his approach was uninvited, unwanted?” She despised herself for wanting him to leap to her defense like some hero out of a novel by Walter Scott. He was a philosopher, not Lancelot, she told herself. “You would not care if I slept with him!”

“Why, no, Pecksie-girl,” he said, honestly surprised.

“Stop! Oh,
why
must you…?” She stopped looked down at her feet, struggling to control her breath.
Why can't he want me, just me?

As always, it was as if he read her thoughts. “You know my mind on this, love. I thought you shared it. Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed; such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry. You are free to act on your feelings, as I am. We are not chained by custom.”

She swallowed. Yes, of course. This was the creed she had heard all her life, first from Godwin and then from Shelley, her father's most ardent disciple. And in her mind, yes, she agreed. But in her heart, where the fear of abandonment lived, it was another story. “I choose to act on my feelings, then,” she said. “I … I do not care for Polidori in that way. I will not sleep with him.”

Shelley patted her hand where it lay on his arm. “Well, I applaud his taste, if not his—”

“Oh, do be serious,” she said, half laughing. The wind blew damp mist at them, curling over the path.

“But I am serious,” Shelley said. “We must not feel bound to one another, except by chains of love.”

Mary wanted to ask him what happened when those chains fell away, or held only one of a pair. Instead she took his arm and
walked with him through the floating fog towards the lights of their temporary home.

The house was warm and welcoming after the damp mists. “Have you seen my shawl?” Mary picked up a cushion from the divan, then looked under it.

A cry from the staircase, and then Elise was at the door with a wailing bundle in her arms.

Mary sat in the chair. “Bring him to me,” she said authoritatively. “You may come back in half an hour.”

The nursemaid curtsied and handed over the crying child. Mary unbuttoned her gown with practiced ease, ignoring her lover's bright gaze, and put the baby to her breast. Immediately he quieted, giving all his attention to his task. Shelley rolled over on his stomach, propping his chin on his hands and waving his feet in the air like an overgrown boy. “A feast for the gods,” he murmured.

Mary raised an eyebrow. “Which would make you … Father Zeus?”

At that moment, thunder growled distantly. Shelley grinned. “Behold my thunder!” he said.

William, preoccupied, said nothing. Quietly, the three sat before the flickering fire, hearing the thunder roll across the lake, seeing the flashes of lightning at the windows. Finally, Mary laid her son on her shoulder to settle him.

Shelley lay prone on the floor, head propped on his elbows, staring at his son. “He has grown. I vow he was half that size last week.”

Mary laughed. “If he takes after you, he will be taller than me in a month.” William burped, and then Mary set him down on the floor in front of his father. The two looked at one another curiously.

“Watch. He imitates me.” Shelley slowly rolled to his side. Baby William grunted, and then slowly rolled to his side as well. “Well done, little man.”

“I thought I was wearing that shawl this afternoon. I declare, things walk off by themselves,” Mary said irritably. Unable to find the shawl, she sat on the divan and watched her lover and son.

“Perhaps Elise took it,” Shelley said absently. He waggled his fingers at William. William blinked round eyes and drooled a bit. Shelley rolled onto his back, looking up at Mary. “Why are you all the way up there, Maie?” he said, using his favorite pet name for her.

As always when he was in this mood, Mary found hers matching his. She felt a giggle rising in her, and scrunched her skirt around her knees. She knelt next to Shelley, then stretched herself on her stomach. Baby William, confronted with two parents side by side, cooed.

“He is a very fine baby,” Shelley said soberly. “Almost as fine as I was.”

She looked at him critically until she caught the twinkle in his eye. “Oh, I have no doubt you were spoiled to an inch of your life,” she said. “Servants to wait hand and foot on Sir Timothy Shelley's heir. A different nurse for Sundays and regular days. A gold-mounted baby carriage.”

Shelley laughed, and baby William echoed him with a gurgle. “Not at all. But I did have a pony when I was three. Shall we get Will-mouse a pony, my love?”

“He's a trifle young.”

“He'll be a big boy, like me,” Shelley said. He rolled up into a sitting position, scooped up his son, and lifted the child over his head. William squealed in delight. “Won't you, my son? We shall teach you to ride a pony, and sail in boats, and—”

“And swim,” said Mary firmly. “And tie his own shoes, and read Greek and Latin.”

Shelley brought the child closer to his face and nuzzled him. “He's a little young yet for Catullus.”

“But not too young for a bedtime story.” She reached in vain for William, as his father swung him out of her reach.

“We shall be pirates!” Shelley cried to his son. “Adventurers! We shall sail the seven seas, my son and I! We shall climb all the Alps, and see every river's source. I will teach you chemistry, and we shall unlock every secret Nature hides!”

She laughed. “Will you make him a philosopher?”

“One of the Peripatetics! Like his father!” Shelley said, tossing his son in the air. The boy giggled as Shelley caught him again. “We shall go a-roving! We shall visit the Indies!”

“With tuppence in his pocket, like his mother and father,” Mary laughed. “How much did I have with me when I ran away from Skinner Street to be with you?”

Shelley smiled at her, his look warm. “My fearless Mary! I think you brought five pounds with you?”

“Not even so much,” she said. “I brought you only myself.”

“And Claire,” he reminded her.

“And Claire,” she said, making her voice neutral.

“When we get to Italy, we will buy a house with a sunny garden.” Shelley nuzzled his son. “Shall we live on the coast or in the countryside? No, Will-mouse, you bust dot pull by doze 'ike dat. Ow.”

She thought of the narrow, cramped house in Skinner Street in London where her father had moved the family when she was a child. She thought about the noise of the crowds a few streets over at the execution grounds, cheering the death agonies of the condemned. She thought about the stench of the nearby slaughterhouses, and how they had had to keep the windows tightly closed in a vain attempt to keep it out. She remembered the noise of carriages on the cobbles at all hours, keeping her awake.

“A house in the country,” she said. “With a window I can open.”

“It shall be a temple to the Lares and Penates,” he declared, tickling William. “They are innocent deities, and their worship neither sanguinary nor absurd. Their shrine shall be good wood fires, and a window frame entwined with creeping plants. Their hymns shall be the purring of kittens, the hissing of kettles, the long talks over the past and dead—no, William, ouch!” He disentangled William's small fist from his long locks. “We shall have the laughter of children, the warm wind of summer filling a quiet house—in Italy, perhaps? And the pelting storm of winter struggling in vain for entrance.”

Mary laughed, glancing at the window. “With that last, we have had too much experience of late!” She watched as Shelley cuddled the boy, head bent to head, the gold of William's hair contrasting with the sun-dappled brown of his father's. It was a fine picture he painted, but she remembered that they had lived in four different homes—or was it five?—since she had eloped with Shelley two years ago. “A home. Yes,” she said. But it came out in a whisper.

Shelley did not hear her, or perhaps did not want to. “Ho!” he addressed his son. “Shall we build a boat and set sail for the North Pole? Or we will sail to Virginia and look at the red men!”

Useless to dream of a fixed home, when Shelley embodied the very wind itself.

Elise, the nursemaid, appeared at the door, apparently unconcerned to see her employers romping on the floor like children. “Madame,” she reminded Mary in her heavily accented English. “Eet ees time for the boy to be in bed.”

Mary glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Yes, it is. Shelley, hand him over.”

“But we are going to sail to the Indies and sing under a hot sun!”

Mary took the baby from her lover. “He shall do all that tomorrow,” she said. “But now, he goes to bed.”

William protested, but Mary kissed his fat cheek and handed him to Elise. “I shall be up presently to sing to him.” Bobbing a curtsy, the young woman left, with William's cries floating behind.

Shelley lay face upwards on the carpet, hands behind his head. “My father never played with me.”

Mary plopped down beside him, spreading her skirts around her. “Mine, neither. Maybe you must be a boy as much as a man to do such a thing?” She leaned over and kissed his nose. He smiled. “You are an experiment in fatherhood.”

He raised an eyebrow and drew her down into a passionate kiss. His mouth was soft but demanding, and Mary felt the familiar warmth seeping through her that his kisses always brought. She brought her hands to his face, then slipped them into his hair,
so silken against her fingers. She felt his mouth smile under hers, and then he rolled, taking her with him, until he lay atop her on the hard wooden floor. His mouth left hers and traveled down her neck.

“Mary, Mary …” he murmured.

She pressed the back of his head, clasping him to her shoulder like William. She longed to shout, to scream, to tell the world of this man, this special and intoxicating man who saw into every corner of her soul. What she said was, “Shelley, Elise may be back at any moment….”

“I don't care,” he murmured. His fingers danced down her side. “How does this come off?”

“Shelley!” she protested, half laughing. “You are shameless!”

“With you, always,” he said, his voice filled with gloating. “My Pecksie girl …”

Half-laughing, half-protesting, she squirmed out from under him. “Shelley! At least wait until we are back in the bedroom!”

“Women.” He rolled onto his back again, sighing. “Byron does not hide his amours in his bedroom.”

Mary stood, smoothing her skirt. “Assuredly. Which is why he is the scandal of Europe.”

“But I'm a scandal too!” Shelley complained. “In my own minor way. Mary …”

She smiled and held out a hand. He got to his feet, clasping her hands in his. “My Mary …” He kissed each cheek softly. He twined his fingers in hers, tugging gently, and led her out the door. But instead of turning left to go to their bedroom, he turned right.

“Shelley?”

He shushed her with a finger to his lips, entering the short hallway. His greatcoat lay across the small receiving table; he caught it up and handed it to Mary. Still silent, he opened the front door and guided her through.

The night was overcast, with the smell of rain on the wind. The clouds scudded before gusts of wind, revealing and then concealing the dilapidated garden around them. It was not as cool as Mary had feared. Still, she shivered a little as she slung the coat
one-handed around her shoulders. It smelled of Shelley—sweat and crushed grass and shaving soap. She clutched it close around her as her lover led her down the short steps to the walkway and out towards the little dock where his boat was moored. Faintly, she heard the lapping of waves against the low retaining wall.

“Shelley, what are you doing?” she said, her voice low.

“We have had hardly any time alone,” he whispered back. “May I not have a moment with you, just us together?” His voice sounded a little plaintive.

She wanted to ask him why, if he wanted her to himself, he insisted on dragging Claire with them everywhere. What she said was, “You will catch a chill.”

“No, but thank you for reminding me.” He turned right, heading for the bottom of the little garden. “Ah.” Despite the dim light, he unerringly found the small box he had nailed to a tree near the waterline. He opened the hinged front of it.