Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (12 page)

to fit my plot.

Victor wants to bestow

animation upon lifeless matter

like a god, and he learns

the limitations of such an endeavor

when he finds his creation to be hideous

and out of his control.

Does not an author

wish to do the same

with her pen?

We may think ourselves

gods of creation

from time to time,

but are we not merely

humble scholars

of the word?

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TO WRITE IS TO REVISE

Summer 1816

“Writing is a calling

ordained

by the gods

of literature,

no less holy

than the martyrdom

of the saints

no less sinful

than the transgressions

of the fallen.”

Shelley examines

my latest manuscript pages,

offering small corrections

in the margins,

suggesting new words

for my text.

“I am learning that

writing requires

diligence and patience,

as well as passion,

my love.”

I marvel at the improvements

Shelley makes to my story

and at how easily

he edits my work.

“How can you see

so quickly where

to improve my language?”

“When the story shines

in so many places,

the few spots without glimmer

require little genius

to gloss,” he says.

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LEAVING GENEVA

September 1816

I have remained enchanted

these last three months,

lost in a landscape

of mountains, thunder,

ice, and wondrous writing.

Now we voyage back to England

to Bath, where Claire and I shall

live so she might reside

in fashionable seclusion,

as Claire feels entitled

to such an existence

after her affair with Byron.

But it must be a residence

where we know not a soul

for Claire shows her pregnancy

like an inflating balloon.

I take art lessons

and attend scientific lectures,

but I miss Shelley terribly

as he attends to his financial matters

in London. I contemplate

turning my story of Frankenstein

into a novel

and read the epistolary works

of Samuel Richardson

for inspiration and direction.

I also read Lady Caroline Lamb’s

book about Byron for fun.

It is rife with scandal.

Finally Shelley entreats

me to come to Marlow to see him

and stay at Thomas Peacock’s family home.

I might be reluctant to go

as Thomas has always championed

Harriet’s cause.

I fear I may be stepping

onto unstable footing

like one on the ledge

of a rocky incline.

But I miss my Shelley so.

Claire takes charge of baby William

for a few days.

I will be free of her whining,

like a child who stubbed her toe,

about Byron and his refusal

to answer her letters.

Marlow is rural and lovely,

but Peacock acts a bit chilly

to me until we discuss politics.

England is in the midst

of the Corn Laws

and quiet revolution tints the sky.

The price of bread soars

and the poor cannot but eat cake.

Thomas mocks the situation,

but Shelley and I

feel the possibility for real change.

Shelley writes to Byron

when we return to Bath together.

He describes our life here as alluring

and content. I think Shelley

exaggerates a bit, but I am so glad

to have him beside me,

I will always applaud his notions.

We tell my family

that Claire and I live in Bath

for Claire’s health,

obviously omitting the pregnancy.

Fanny, my eldest and half-sister,

quiet and melancholy,

writes to us asking for Shelley

to give my father more money

even though they know full well

that we have not straightened out

our own financial situation.

She also informs us that her aunts

have left for Dublin without her.

She will have no employment with them.

Further Fanny writes that Stepmother

has never spread scandal about us,

which I know to be false.

I find this part of Fanny’s letter

to be frivolous, and not

expressive of her honest feelings,

and it upsets me.

Shelley and I resume

our schedule of reading

and writing,

with the fervor of evangelicals.

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FANNY’S LETTER OF OCTOBER 9

October 1816

A very alarming letter arrives

from Fanny, and Shelley

departs immediately for Bristol

to look for her. Claire and I

wait up until two in the morning

pacing the rug anxious to hear news.

At first Shelley

cannot find Fanny and has no

information. Then we learn

that Fanny has died.

I feel as though

there must be a terrible mistake

and refuse to accept it.

Fanny checked into a seaside

hotel at Swansea and took

an overdose of laudanum.

She left a note on the table

next to her body which in part reads,

“I have long determined that

the best thing I could do was to put an end

to the existence of a being

whose birth was unfortunate

and whose life has only been a series of pain

to those persons who hurt their health

in endeavoring to promote her welfare.

Perhaps to hear of my death

will give you pain, but you will soon

have the blessing of forgetting

that such a creature ever existed as …”

The note was torn off there

so as to obscure the author.

Left beside the body was

the gold watch that Shelley

and I brought Fanny from Geneva.

There can be no mistake.

Why exactly Fanny did this

we will never know.

It may be partially because

our aunts retracted their offer

for Fanny to live with them.

Or perhaps our mother made suicide

seem a legitimate option for one so lost.

I break down to my core.

I fall limp as though

my bones have been removed

from my body.

I should have invited Fanny to come

visit us and provided her more family.

I should have guessed at her distress.

Shelley equally feels my pain.

Father does something I do not

understand. He finally writes to me,

but it is to ask me to hide the fact

that Fanny has committed suicide.

He bids me not to go to Swansea

and “disturb the silent dead.”

He believes Fanny wanted

to die in obscurity so we are

to leave her to be buried

in an unmarked grave.

He does not intend to inform

my brother Charles Clairmont

of her death for many months.

To avoid scandal

he will tell others later

that Fanny died a natural death,

from a fever on the way to Dublin.

I’m not sure that it is right,

but I do as Father bids.

Claire sheds not a tear for Fanny.

It is as though Fanny

were a stranger to her.

I wear clothes of mourning.

Without my Shelley

Fanny’s fate might well

have been mine.

I find some solace

in my reading and writing,

but such a kind creature

as Fanny there will never be again.

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A GOTHIC TALE

Fall 1816

The monster in my book

feeling alone and unloved

enacts vengeance

on his creator by murdering

Victor’s family.

Victor’s young innocent brother

and his wife

lose their lives at the hands

of cruel fate.

I know all too well

the horror that it is to lose

one’s sibling and one’s child.

One may become

mad at the world

and the injustice of it all,

rage with fists and fury.

But eventually you must

face your own contributions

to their sad ends.

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ACCOLADES AND CONTINUED ENDEAVORS

December 1, 1816

Leigh Hunt, the editor of
The Examiner
,

a London newspaper, publishes

an article called “Young Poets”

where he names Keats, Reynolds,

and my own Shelley as resurrecting

English poetry to the heights

of Milton and Spenser.