Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (22 page)

in a duel over his daughter.

Claire gives up her crazy

ideas of freeing Allegra,

but fears that her daughter ails.

In April, we find out

that Allegra has died from typhus.

She is only five years old.

Teresa breaks the news

to Byron, who at first

is devastated and cannot

be moved from his chair,

but then never wishes

Allegra’s name to be mentioned

to him again.

I fear Claire’s reaction.

She overhears us discuss

the convent and guesses

that something is wrong with Allegra.

On April 30 we inform her

that her dear daughter has died.

Shelley worries Claire will

go mad from grief,

but she remains solid

as an iceberg. Of course,

we cannot see

all that floats beneath

the surface.

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SYMPATHY

Spring 1822

We share more than

the loss of a childhood home now,

Claire and me.

We both know

that sorrow cannot be measured

by the size of a little one’s shoe.

A part of you

buries under the earth

never to be retrieved,

a sound without an echo.

I hold my sister’s hand,

wordless,

but our grasp understands.

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THE RETURN OF CLAIRE

May 1822

Claire comes to Pisa

unannounced on May 21.

She becomes another

member of our group

of exiles, though

she refuses to visit Byron.

She has become calmer

than I have seen her in years,

as though in some ways

the finality of Allegra’s death

removes her from the purgatory

in which she suffered.

Shelley and Edward’s boat

arrives mid-May and they

delight in

everything about the
Don Juan

except its name.

Shelley calls it
Ariel
.

I suffer from this pregnancy.

I fear trauma.

Claire allows me some relief

and helps with Percy.

Yet the only time I am truly

happy and feel well

is when aboard the boat
Ariel

I lie down with my head

on Shelley’s knee.

There I can close my eyes

and allow the wind

and the swift motion

of the boat alone

to soothe me.

I am not sure that

I could handle

even a thimble’s worth

of grief right now.

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MISCARRIAGE

June 16, 1822

I hemorrhage blood

and slip in and out

of consciousness.

Jane and Claire

send for a doctor

and ice to stop

the incessant bleeding.

The ice arrives before

the doctor. No one

will say it aloud,

but I have lost so much blood

we all fear that I am going to die,

as my mother did with me.

Shelley forces me

into an ice bath

which stems the flow of blood

until the doctor arrives.

The doctor swears

Shelley saved my life.

For days I can do little more

than crawl from my bed

to the balcony I am so weak.

My dream of a new family

is dead.

There was a kicking,

a beat inside my self,

yet beyond me,

a voice that was squelched out.

And I ask only why?

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THE HARD DAYS

June 1822

I know there are times

when I must be difficult

to bear, when sorrow

strips away my smile

and remorse cripples my limbs.

I know I can be cold

and distant as the moon,

dependent upon and awaiting

light from another.

I close myself off

like an eyelid,

protect myself from

viewing certain horrors,

but obscure myself

from witnessing joy as well.

Still I struggle like a tree

in a tornado

to be good and rooted

for those

who love me most.

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THE HUNTS’ ARRIVAL

June–July 1822

The Hunts and their six children

finally land in Italy at Genoa

on the twentieth of June.

Shelley rejoices

that they are finally here

and he and Edward

make plans to sail

to meet them in Genoa.

Marianne Hunt is very ill,

but so too am I,

and I entreat Shelley

please not to go.

But my pleas

are as cries to the deaf,

seen but not heard.

The Hunts change their plans

and decide they will go to Livorno,

so Shelley, Edward, Captain Roberts,

and Charles Vivian, their

one-boy crew,

will sail to meet them there.

I beg Shelley not to go again,

but he refuses me

as though I am but a nagging fly

in this oppressive summer heat.

Before he leaves,

Shelley promises me he will

look for new lodging for us

at Pugnano for the rest of the summer.

This calms me a little

like a handkerchief

offered to the mourning.

Still I have a mind to pack up

Percy and head to Pisa myself.

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NO GOOD NEWS FOR MARY

July 1822

On July fourth a most upsetting

letter arrives from Shelley

that he will not in fact

look for a new house at Pugnano

and he cannot say when he will return.

He wishes that I stay in Lerici

where I am in such agony

under the scorching sun

and without him.

He tells me he and Hunt

had a joyous reunion

in Livorno after not seeing

each other for four years.

They then traveled to Pisa,

where the Hunts were installed

in the apartments set aside

for them in Byron’s palazzo.

Marianne is said to be in grave

health and all are concerned

for her, the travel has made

her so very weak.

I understand how she feels.

Also the Hunts

are destitute and fully dependent

on the idea of living off the profits

from this new journal Hunt

is to edit with Byron.

Byron tires of the idea

of the journal

before it is even begun.

Byron contemplates leaving

Tuscany altogether, because

Teresa and her family

face trouble here

after the whole Masi affair.

Shelley mends the broken

bond over the journal,

like a tailor stitching up

a tattered suit,

and Byron agrees to stay in Pisa.

But my Shelley maneuvers

much negotiation on Hunt’s behalf.

Edward wishes to return to Jane

here in Lerici, as would be

expected of a husband.

I send the saddest of letters

to my Shelley in his absence.

Shelley writes letters to Jane

worried about how she handles

her solitary and melancholy,

but he directs

no sympathy to me.

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THEN

July 1822

I lie back against

my mother’s gravestone,

and Shelley runs

his fingers through

my fine red hair.

The limbs of the willow

embrace us

with their verdant arms.

His wild eyes

blaze with a passion

I have never known

like a thousand

acres aflame.

I want to say something,

but Shelley

seals my lips.

“All words fail

this moment,”

he says.

I fervently nod my head.

I hear a small whimper

like the wind’s whistling cry.

“Mama.”

I push the covers

from my bed.

I was reveling

in a lovely dream.

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THE STORM

July 8, 1822

The
Ariel
sets sail from Livorno

to come back to Lerici.

The only people aboard

are Shelley, Williams,

and the crew boy, Charles Vivian.