Hideous Love Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Jessica

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  I AM MARY

  MY MOTHER

  LONGING TO BE DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL

  MY STEPMOTHER

  OUR UNUSUAL HOUSEHOLD

  MY RETURN FROM DUNDEE, SCOTLAND

  MR. SHELLEY

  WHAT IF HE LIKES ME?

  HE COMES TO CALL

  LIKE MY FATHER

  WALKS IN THE PARK

  PAPER BOATS

  LOVE AFFAIR

  IS THERE ONLY ME?

  AT MY MOTHER’S GRAVE

  JANE

  FATHER FIGURE

  LAUDANUM

  WITHOUT ME

  ESCAPE

  A BOAT TO CALAIS

  A BRIGHT FUTURE

  RETRIEVING CLARA JANE

  NEVER ENOUGH MONEY

  FREEDOM

  TRAVELING TO SWITZERLAND

  THE TROUBLE WITH JANE

  HOMEWARD BOUND

  MY LOVE

  RETURN TO ENGLAND

  SUNDAY

  SISTERLY LOVE

  OUR CHILD TOGETHER

  OUR DAILY LIFE

  COMMUNE

  THE RETURN OF HOGG

  FREE LOVE

  SHELLEY AND CLAIRE

  MORE THAN AN ANNOYANCE

  BIRTH

  MARCH

  SALT HILL

  GOOD RIDDANCE

  TRUST

  OUR REGENERATION

  A HOME

  A MUSE

  VISITORS TO OUR HOME

  BISHOPSGATE

  WILLIAM SHELLEY

  THE INFAMOUS POET

  WHAT OF BYRON

  TRAVEL ABROAD

  GENEVA

  THE ARRIVAL OF THE GREAT POET

  OUR GROUP OF FIVE

  A STIRRING

  STORMS IN GENEVA

  VILLA DIODATI AND THE MAN-MONSTER

  POLLY DOLLY

  ROUTINE

  A WATCH FOR FANNY

  FLUTTER STORIES

  CREATIVE ENDEAVORS

  INSPIRATION

  WRITING

  A TRIP TO CHAMONIX

  HAUNTING SCENERY

  SHELLEY’S BIRTHDAY

  CLAIRE’S SECRET

  FRANKENSTEIN

  TO WRITE IS TO REVISE

  LEAVING GENEVA

  FANNY’S LETTER OF OCTOBER 9

  A GOTHIC TALE

  ACCOLADES AND CONTINUED ENDEAVORS

  HARRIET

  MARRIAGE

  MY ESCAPE

  TOGETHER

  ALBA

  PRETENSE

  DEVELOPING A STORY

  ALBION HOUSE

  CHILDREN

  MY BOOK

  THE END

  SUMMER

  A PUBLISHER

  ANOTHER BIRTH

  ANONYMITY

  BYRON’S REQUEST

  THE RELEASE OF FRANKENSTEIN

  RUMORS AND TRUTH

  HEAVEN OR HELL

  A LETTER FROM CLAIRE TO BYRON

  TRAVELING TO ITALY

  MEETING MARIA GISBORNE

  BAGNI DI LUCCA

  THIEF

  ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

  NEWS FROM BYRON

  TRAVELING TOWARD BYRON

  MELANCHOLIA

  DISTRACTION

  THEN THERE ARE DAYS

  THE BABY OF NAPLES

  SOMEONE ELSE’S BABY

  ROME

  WILLMOUSE

  MY SELFISH ILL HUMOR

  SOME SOLACE

  PERCY FLORENCE

  RADICAL LOVE

  PISA

  DISTRESSING NEWS

  WITH AND WITHOUT CLAIRE

  LEARNING TO SWIM

  CLAIRE IN FLORENCE

  CLAIRE FOR A MONTH

  RESEARCH

  JANE AND EDWARD

  INFLUENCE

  BYRON AND ALLEGRA

  SAN GIULIANO

  SAILING

  BYRON AND SHELLEY

  DOUBT

  A LETTER FROM MY SHELLEY

  JUGGLING MISTRESSES

  GATHERING A GROUP OF LIKE-MINDED MALE INDIVIDUALS

  MY FATHER’S PRAISE

  MORE SEPARATION

  DANCING AT A BALL

  JANE WILLIAMS

  A CATASTROPHE

  MY FAIR HAND

  ALLEGRA

  SYMPATHY

  THE RETURN OF CLAIRE

  MISCARRIAGE

  THE HARD DAYS

  THE HUNTS’ ARRIVAL

  NO GOOD NEWS FOR MARY

  THEN

  THE STORM

  THE MEN HAVE NOT RETURNED

  SHELLEY’S CALL

  A FUNERAL

  ELEGY FOR MY SHELLEY

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  A TIME LINE OF BOOKS BY MARY SHELLEY

  SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CREDITS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  I AM MARY

  I want to be beauty,

  but I am not.

  I want to be free,

  but I am not.

  I want to be equal,

  but I am not.

  I want to be favorite,

  but I am not.

  I want to be loved,

  and yet I am not.

  MY MOTHER

  I never knew my mother.

  She did not nurse me from her breast.

  She could not soothe my aches and tears.

  I learned to walk without her aid.

  I never knew my mother.

  She did not hold me in the dark.

  She could not sing away my fears.

  I learned to speak without her voice.

  I never knew my mother.

  She helped establish women’s rights.

  I wear her legacy like a pledge.

  I learned to think and fight reading her words.

  I never knew my mother

  for she died when I was eleven days old.

  LONGING TO BE DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL

  My father, William Godwin,

  is a political philosopher

  highly respected by his peers.

  He is progressive,

  teaching his daughters

  as if they are sons.

  When I stand in his presence

  I feel as though I must

  leap upon a chair

  just to meet his shoulders.

  My father, William Godwin,

  is a tower of light.

  MY STEPMOTHER

  She was spawned from creature,

  not man, and sends shivers

  up one’s arms.

  Under her hair must be horns.

  She is Medusa

  trying to turn me to stone

  in the eyes of my father.

  At times I swear

  she was born to torture me

  and for no other purpose.

  She needles me

  with her incessant blather.

  She prods me to misbehave

  when she stupidly

  misuses language

  and forgets facts.

  She picks on me

  for my impatience with others

  as she herself is small-minded.

  She criticizes me for not being

  as pretty as her daughter, Jane,

  despises me for not being Jane.

  She reflects no history,

  nothing of which to be proud.

  All she bears is the marital hand

  of my father which baffles me

  more than snow in July.

  She shuffles me away

  to Dundee, Scotland,

  when I am fourteen

  and for that I am grat
eful.

  OUR UNUSUAL HOUSEHOLD

  1814

  Fanny is the eldest,

  my half-sister, daughter of my mother

  and Gilbert Imlay, an American enterpriser.

  She never seeks trouble

  and is quiet and reserved.

  Her stated last name

  is the same as my father’s, Godwin.

  Charles Clairmont, the next eldest,

  is the son

  of my awful stepmother,

  Mary Jane Clairmont

  and Charles de Gaulis,

  who died when Charles was one.

  Charles is fair haired,

  and fortunate to be a boy.

  I am the third eldest

  and best bred.

  Learning comes easily to me,

  as does frustration.

  Clara Jane Clairmont (Jane)

  is nearly my age,

  the daughter of my stepmother

  and some unnamed suitor

  my stepmother calls Charles Clairmont,

  yet not the same man

  as was Charles’s father.

  We sometimes get on

  and at other times I wish

  to pull Jane by the roots of her hair.

  And then there is William,

  the youngest,

  the offspring of

  my stepmother and my father,

  doted on by my stepmother

  until it pains the eyes.

  None of us has the same parents.

  MY RETURN FROM DUNDEE, SCOTLAND

  Spring 1814

  At first I was afraid

  to leave my home,

  to leave my father’s care,

  knowing that my banishment

  to the Baxters

  meant to punish me.

  My arm of pustules and pain

  represented all the ways

  I could not be well and good

  in my own house.

  But I found a family in Scotland.

  A family like I had read about in books

  where the mother and father

  care for one another

  and all the children

  are their own.

  I found girl friends in Scotland,

  the two daughters of the Baxters,

  Isabella and Christina.

  We became as inseparable

  as words and letters.

  My arm healed

  and my temper soothed.

  My imagination awoke

  like a sleeping giant

  in that stark landscape,

  and I began to write stories.

  I return to my house

  of chaos, calmer

  and more assured.

  There is so much

  of the greater world

  I know now

  will be a part of me,

  and I am not afraid.

  MR. SHELLEY

  May 5, 1814

  He is the buzz

  of our Spinner Street home

  when at sixteen

  I return permanently from Dundee.

  No other topic passes between anyone’s lips.

  Jane declares that when Mr. Shelley

  falls silent

  the air ceases circulation,

  that when a smile flushes his countenance

  the room boils with laughter.

  And even quiet Fanny agrees.

  But I remembered Mr. Shelley

  from my visit home

  the year before

  as more buzzard than noteworthy,

  fairylike

  with the curly blond hair

  of a schoolgirl,

  his hands frail as silk stockings.

  I remember he stood beside

  his wife and I wondered

  who wore the dress?

  In a voice pert as a baby starling,

  he had proclaimed my father was a genius

  who deserved his financial support,

  and I admired Mr. Shelley for that.

  But the ceaseless obsession

  that my stepmother, the woman of scales and dread,

  my siblings, and even my father

  seem to have for Mr. Shelley is comedy.

  No man can live up to it.

  Jane smirks, “You’ll see,

  his noble birth, his high ideals—

  You’ll choke on your coal-stained doubts.”

  I roll my eyes at my stepsister,

  thump downstairs in my blue everyday frock,

  because why would I dress up

  to dine with some pansy of a man?

  Even his name sounds like a girl, Shelley.

  But when I slink

  into the parlor

  Mr. Percy Shelley

  traps his gaze

  upon my brow

  so tight

  I cannot inhale,

  and then he gasps

  as if I am a masterwork.

  I stand stunned.

  He genuflects before me.

  No one has ever looked

  at me, and certainly

  no one has ever looked at me

  like this,

  like I am anything sigh-worthy,

  something to hang diamonds on.

  This man who owns

  the breath of my father

  stares at me

  as though I am holy.

  When Mr. Shelley

  introduces himself to me

  this second time,

  I swear I smell rosehips

  and lavender on his palms.

  I glance around

  and smile

  to find that this evening

  his wife is not in attendance.

  WHAT IF HE LIKES ME?

  May 1814

  What if it was not only awe

  and admiration for my breeding,

  but something more that caught

  Mr. Shelley’s eye,

  something particular about me?

  What if he calls again,

  what shall I wear,

  how coy should I act,

  what exactly have I to say to him?

  What if he didn’t care

  for me at all and I imagined

  the moment happening between us?

  What if he never calls again

  and I am left to wonder

  what might have been?

  He is yet a stranger to me,

  and then somehow I feel

  as though I have known him

  for many years now,

  as though he may be the one

  I imagined would come

  and whisk me away

  like a valiant soldier

  rescuing me from the prison

  of my house.

  HE COMES TO CALL

  May 1814

  At first one can

  be certain whom

  Mr. Shelley intends

  to visit and that name

  begins not with an M.

  He and my father

  argue into the night

  about politics while

  Jane and I hide on the stairs

  catching phrases as if they sate,

  like they are crumbs for the starving.

  We listened to Mr. Coleridge’s poem

  The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

  when I was a little girl

  in much the same manner,

  hiding behind a chair.

  I saw nightmares because

  of it for a year.

  Now what I hear,

  the sweet tones of Father’s

  and Mr. Shelley’s sharp intellects,

  breeds dreams when I sleep.

  He glimpses me

  one night as I linger

  in the stairwell

  and the next day

  when Mr. Shelley calls

  he requests me,

  as well as Jane,

  whose attendance I hope

  is for nothing more

>   than to dissuade suspicion.

  When Mr. Shelley and I meet

  I will certainly stutter.

  I will fall down the stairs

  before I have a chance to speak.

  I must remember that everything

  I say reflects upon my brilliant parents.

  For once I wish to bite my tongue.

  LIKE MY FATHER

  May 1814

  Mr. Shelley does not dote

  on Jane. She is but

  furniture to him.

  “You are finer

  than your surroundings,”

  he says to me.

  “I see it in your

  broad forehead—

  intelligence, cleverness.”

  I blush until my cheeks

  become the color of my hair.

  He gestures to the portrait

  of my mother above

  the mantel. “I know

  the writings of your mother;

  have you read them?”

  I nod my head.

  I wish for words

  to pour from my mouth,

  as usual, but today

  I stand mute.

  “You too

  have great things to write.

  It is your lovely fate.

  And I believe I will

  be your guide.”

  His winsome eyes snare me.

  And somehow

  I feel in my heart

  that he may be right.

  WALKS IN THE PARK

  June 1814

  We see each other

  on the forested grounds

  of the Charterhouse school.

  Jane and I pretend

  to my stepmother

  that we are just out for a walk,

  but all my joy wraps

  inside those moments

  when Shelley

  joins us and then asks

  Jane to stand at a distance

  for he and I must speak

  of philosophical things.

  “What is the purpose of poetry?”

  Mr. Shelley asks me.

  Today I do not hesitate to say

  “To enlighten. To heighten

  one’s awareness of the world

  and one’s place therein.

  Or some might say

  to capture beauty at its

  most vulnerable core.”

  “What is beauty?” he demands.

  “An ideal.” I smile.

  “You jest, but nothing

  is too ideal

  that can be imagined.”

  He looks as though

  he might grasp my hand,

  but instead breaks off a branch.

  “Poetry is political.”

  He swirls the branch at me

  as if it were a sword.

  I feign as though

  I have been wounded.

  “I know.”

  PAPER BOATS

  Summer 1814

  Jane and I watch

  as Shelley folds the paper

  into triangles.

  He fans out the bottom

  so his creation

  resembles a little ship.

  “All you need now

  is a crew,” I say.

  He shakes his head.

  “I require another vessel.”

  He quickly transforms

  paper into boat

  and hands me one.

  “Shall we test their might?”

  I ask him, cradling his gift.

  “First we must christen them.

  I hereby name thee the Wollstonecraft,