Outcasts (6 page)

Mary entered her parlor, which was also her work-room. As much as she would have liked to settle in with a book or to write in her journal, there were too many pressing duties. And she had too much to think about to write, anyway. Better, she thought, to occupy her hands, do something useful.

She took out a basket and cleared her work-table. Carefully she laid its contents on the table. Then she sighed and straightened, pressing her hands against her back. She let out a deep sigh. Rubbing her eyes with her hands, she looked down at her handiwork. Spread across the cheap deal table was a collection of scraps of bleached muslin, some lace and some ribbon snipped from an old dress. Somehow, she would contrive to assemble these into a new dress.

She glanced critically at the issue of the women's magazine lying open at one edge of the table. The dress portrayed in it had too many ruffles for her taste, and a ridiculously restricted hemline that made the term “walking dress” a joke. But she could adapt it. She hummed to herself, working out seams and sleeve attachments, pondering the placement of lace. She picked up half the
bodice, which she had just finished piecing, and held it up to her chest. Turning, she assessed the affect in the full length mirror behind her.

She would have to adjust the bust line, that was immediately apparent. Since William's birth, she had been slow to regain the slender figure Shelley had loved at first sight. One of the reasons she was making a new dress was that she could no longer let out her older dresses. Besides, those girlish fashions, so reminiscent of the schoolroom, no longer fitted her self-image of motherhood. Her gaze met her own hazel eyes in the mirror as she thought about her future.

Would Shelley leave her? It was the fear always at the back of her mind, so devastating that she dare not give it voice lest that give it reality. He had left his wife for her. He had left his children for her. Would he leave her? Would he leave William? She despised herself for this fear. She was her mother's daughter. She was not a slave to be bound to some man. She had thought that she could make her own living somehow, as her mother had done, but now with the care of an infant, she was not so sure. The nagging doubts about the purity of her mother's motives dissolved as she recognized that, having once experienced the difficulty of raising a daughter on her own, Mary Wollstonecraft had opted for compromise when she realized she was pregnant again. She had married William Godwin as soon as she learned she was pregnant with Mary.

Mary looked at her reflection. How far could she compromise? What future did she have, if Shelley left her? She could not return to Skinner Street, to the father who rejected her, to the stepmother who despised her. She thought about being under Mrs. Godwin's rule again. She shivered. Laying aside the fabric, she took up her shawl. Immediately, its comfort calmed her.

She had never known her mother, the famous writer who had died mere days after her birth. On nights when her stepmother raged and Claire quarreled, Mary could wrap herself in the soft cashmere and imagine her mother's arms around her. Her mother had worn it when the portrait of her that hung over
her father's desk had been painted. She had worn it the night she had birthed Mary. She had worn it as she died. Her grieving father, who worshiped the memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, had wrapped his infant daughter in her dead mother's shawl.

Mary remembered one year, the anniversary of her mother's death, when her father had brought her into his study and opened the locked drawer of his desk. With her mother looking down on them, he had laid the shawl in her hands, saying nothing. Mary knew whose it was, even if she had not seen the tracks of the tears on Godwin's face. And when she left her father's house, she had taken the shawl with her, sole memento of her mother.

Mary sighed again, contemplating the varied scraps and bits of muslin scattered across the table. Perhaps she should piece them together, she thought. Too bad one cannot patch together a life. How could she stitch herself back to her father? How long would she and Shelley be joined? Forever? Or until tomorrow? He loved her, she was sure of that. But he had loved Harriet, his wife, too. Though he professed to love her no longer, Shelley had written to Harriet, urging her to come join him, Mary, and Claire in Europe. We should all live together, children, dogs, everyone, thought Mary. It would be like Byron's menagerie of animals and birds, an ill-assorted lot that traveled around with him. Oh, how she longed for a home, Mary thought suddenly.

She remembered her father's household on Skinner Street: two adults and five children, where no two children had the same parents. Like her basket of scraps, she thought, stitched clumsily together into a family. And that fabric tore so very easily. In fact, she had been able to unstitch herself from her stepmother, but only at the cost of bringing along Claire.

Sadly, she remembered that though Claire's mother wrote to her, Mary still had heard not one word from her father.

“There you are!” Claire came in, her hair mussed. “Cook has quit.”

“What? Why? When?” Mary pulled her shawl tighter.

“Just this minute. Cook told Elise and Elise came to me.”

“Elise should have come to me. She knows I have worked in here every afternoon for the past three days.”

Claire scowled. “Why should she not come to me? No one said you were the head of this household. She has as much reason to tell me of household affairs as—”

“Oh, let us not quarrel,” Mary said suddenly. She sat down abruptly on a stool, clutching the shawl around her shoulders. “What was Cook's reason?”

“Oh, as you would imagine—sheer laziness. She says she cannot cook to please so many demands.”

Mary closed her eyes. “Demands. Yes, I can see that. Shelley is a vegetarian, yet Dr. Polidori will insist on meat at every meal.”

“Usually the most expensive cuts,” Claire sneered. “But what angered Cook was when I told her that Byron would only eat potatoes with salt and vinegar. He told me yesterday that he is on a reducing diet again. Although truly, I think he looks just as—”

“I must go down and speak to her,” Mary said, standing up again. She felt tired, bone-weary, not so much with physical fatigue but with a deep, sad longing inside her, which drained off her vivacity and energy. She unwound the shawl and dropped it on the table.

“I do not think it will do any good,” Claire said. “Cook has already left.”

“I thought you said this has just happened.”

“I heard her slam the door of the pantry as she left. It took Elise a few minutes to find me, and I couldn't find you for fully a quarter of an hour. By now, Cook is halfway to Geneva.”

Mary took a deep breath. “Well, we must contrive. Perhaps we can order a cold collation?” She glanced at the window. “It's light yet. I will send Shelley to order—”

“Shelley is still on his walk,” Claire said, avoiding Mary's eyes. Their morning quarrel, unspoken but still felt, simmered between them. Both women refused to acknowledge it. “I do not think he will be back very soon.”

Knowing Shelley's ways, Mary agreed. “What's to be done?” she asked of no one in particular. She ran down possibilities in
her mind. Borrow from a neighbor? They all shunned her and her family. Cook it herself? On such short notice, not knowing what was in her own larder, it seemed impossible. Finally, she said reluctantly, “There is no recourse. We must cry off.”

Claire looked shocked. “Dis-invite Byron? He would be mortally offended.”

Mary's mouth set in a firm line. “It seems uncommon easy to offend his mighty lordship.”

“Oh, come now. That's too strong, Mary. He is a good friend to all of us, if a mite touchy. He feels things, you know.”

Remembering his casual dismissal of Claire's declaration of love only an hour past, Mary's mouth quirked up. “And we do not? No, we mere mortals must acknowledge his superior status as well as his superior sensibility. No, no, do not argue, Claire. You are correct, he will find it offensive, but there is no choice, really. In this calamity, even the lord of Picadilly must bow to the inevitable. Shall you walk over with a note?”

To her surprise, Claire looked away. “No. No, I … I fear I have some other … I … no.”

“I will send Elise,” Mary said. “And we must ask her if she knows someone who can take Cook's place. Although from what I have seen of the peasants in this neighborhood,” she said bitterly. “We will be fortunate not to be fed solely on black bread and cheese for the rest of our stay here. And whatever excuse I shall make to his lordship, I have no concept.”

Claire shrugged, looking sullen. She rubbed her cheeks with her hands. “Tell him … Oh, say what you will.” She turned away and stared out of the window, towards the Villa Diodati.

Mary started to turn to her, to comfort her, but Claire's rigid back and stiff shoulders told Mary that comfort would not be welcome. “I'll be back directly, then.” She walked out, composing a note in her head. Perhaps a touch of humor …

Mary was halfway to the cellar, still searching for her errant servant, when someone knocked at the front door.

“Elise!” Mary called.

The knocking again. Exasperated, Mary opened the front
door herself. Lord Byron's manservant, Fletcher, stood stolidly on the threshold. Beefy, with a shock of receding red hair, he was England incarnate in this foreign land. Valet, servant and baby-sitter, he had been with Byron all of Byron's adult life. Now he extended his hand; it held a note. “From his lordship,” the man said dryly.

Mary stepped back, inviting him in. Fletcher shook his head and took one step back. “Thankee, miss, but I'm to go back anon, with an answer.”

The note was addressed to her, in Byron's crabbed handwriting:
Come to supper at the ungodly hour of eight.

She glanced up at Fletcher. “When did he write this?”

The man shrugged. “About an hour ago,” he said.

“How did he know our Cook had left us?” Mary demanded.

“Our Lucille, what does the chamber for us, she seen Cook going down the road and ran out to speak to her. His lordship swore and says as how his friend Shelley should not dine on barley-water tonight.”

Mary felt heat shimmer over her, shame and humiliation mixed with relief. She drew herself up with dignity. “My compliments to his lordship, and thank him for his kind invitation. We shall surely be there.”

Fletcher nodded, touched his forehead, and shambled away. Mary closed the door, feeling a cold wind on her face.

Hearing steps behind her, Mary turned. “Well, we shall not go hungry tonight,” she said as Claire came down the stairs. “Lord Byron has invited us to dinner. Is that my mother's shawl you are wearing?”

Claire went pale. “Albé has invited us to dine? Today? I must change.” She turned, one hand on the banister.

“Not to dinner, to supper. At eight. And that is my mother's shawl, Jane! Give it back.”

Claire stared at her, a storm in her eyes. “You will not lend me one moment's comfort? Not one moment's warmth?” Her pale fingers clutched the shawl around her. “Oh, cruel, Sister!”

From the nursery above, a fretful wail started. Mary felt the
tingling in her breasts, the milk letting down in automatic response. Anxiety prickled her all over.

“Jane. Claire, rather. Please, I cannot manage this now. William needs me—”

“Yes,” Claire sneered. “William needs you. Shelley needs you. Even Byron needs you. But I, I am supposed to need nobody. I mean nothing to anyone. Not to you, to Shelley, to Albé.” She turned suddenly and fled up the stairs.

At that moment, Elise opened the door at the far end of the hall, leading to the kitchen. “Madame, the baker's boy is here. What shall I tell him?”

The wail from upstairs arced across Mary's nerves. The pressure in her breasts increased, and she felt the sudden wet surge of milk. She suddenly felt very young, very unsure of herself. No cook, Claire in one of her moods, and now William waked early from his nap. “Tell him I will come directly,” Mary said. Elise ducked back into the kitchen.

Mary ran lightly up the stairs to the second floor nursery. William lay in his cot, cheeks red and wet, sobbing. Mary lifted him quickly in one arm, unfastening her dress with the other. The child's mouth was open, pink and howling; she lifted him to her left breast and he immediately latched on. The silence was broken only by the sounds of contented suckling. Mary sagged as the feeling of peace and love flowed over her, the feeling that always infused her when nursing little William. How could anyone not love this, she thought. She lowered herself into the flowered chair next to the cot.

Rocking back and forth, she hummed a little tune. William's baby fist curled around a lock of her hair. Eyes closed, he tugged on it, and she smiled.

Shouting from below stairs, a crash of crockery. Claire no doubt taking command of the kitchen, Mary thought. She imagined the angry baker's boy, the insulted Elise, the sulks and sullens that would pervade the atmosphere of the house. She should go down and sort it all out, as she always did, in her quiet, calm way. But who, she wondered, would be quiet and calm for her?

She looked down at her son, now drowsy and content. Here in this cocoon of mother and son she was safe, she was able to love and give love without distress or restraint. This was how it should be, she thought. She herself had never known her mother's breast, had never known the soft comfort of a mother's arms. She ached within, eager to be to William what no one had been to her—a source of love and care.

And then she thought of Claire, pleading with Byron in the garden only an hour ago, and she clutched her son more tightly to her bosom. And Byron's cruel words:
a mistress never is nor can be a friend.

Not true, she thought. Shelley was her dearest friend, and she was his. “And in any event,” she said, gazing down at her son. “I refuse the title of mistress. Companion. Yes, I will be friend and companion.”