Outcasts (19 page)

Claire tossed her head. “Why Mary, how very vulgar of you. Does money not belong to whoever can use it best? Are we to be bound by the artificial rules set out by the very society we despise? I am surprised at you.”

“Do not attempt to read my father's work back at me,” Mary blazed. “You know his strictures on money apply to those who are
benefiting mankind. How would a gold locket benefit mankind? You demand it only to feed your vanity. Indeed, it is in the nature of a trophy, I believe!”

“No more a trophy than Shelley's son is to you!” Claire hissed back at her.

Shocked, Mary blinked. “A trophy? You see William as a … a prize? You cannot be so cold!”

“Cold? I am cold? When you flaunt your victories at me at every turn! Shelley in your bed, your son in your arms! And what am I left with? Only what I can grab!” Claire's voice rose to a shrill descant.

A shadow fell across them, and a large man in an apron appeared in the doorway. “Qu'est-ce qu'elle a?” he said, frowning at them.

Shelley was at Mary's elbow, reaching for Claire. “Come, let's go into the watch shop. I was thinking of buying a trinket for Fanny.”

Claire, still glaring at Mary, ostentatiously grabbed for Shelley's arm. The two of them preceded Mary into the shop.

Inside, the smell of wax and metal and oil mixed with the scent of tobacco from Byron and cabbage soup from the back of the shop. A small, wizened man with a tasseled cap was showing a large gold watch to Polidori. Their conversation, in halting French, occupied them while Byron strolled around the shop, tapping his cane restlessly and glancing up at the wall of clocks. Shelley, fascinated, stopped in front of an orrery. The earth, her continents outlined in red, spun freely on an assembly of gears. Shelley turned a wheel, and a golden ball representing the sun twirled. Around it spun two inner planets like marbles, and a tiny moon circled the Earth.

“A scholar's toy,” murmured Byron, looking not at the machine but at his friend. “For this, Bruno was burned at the stake. Surely an object lesson for every free-thinker,” he said.

Shelley was not listening, but carefully turned the model, observing how the moon kept pace with the turn of the Earth. “See how you can line up the Earth and moon with the sun,” he said.
“But I do not see how an eclipse can be produced. Ah, I see. Let us turn it towards the light, thus, yes. Now see? In London, there is an eclipse of the sun, but in Switzerland, not.” He demonstrated, turning the tiny jeweled planets on their rings until he achieved the line-up he desired.

Byron clapped his friend affectionately on the back. “Oh, but here we would not know it if the sun were eclipsed every day,” he said. “This accursed weather blocks all sight of it from noon onward.” He turned, seeing Polidori pointing at another watch. “Oh, do make haste, Polly,” he said irritably. “We do not have all day. I, for one, do not care to be rowing back across the lake in a downpour.”

Polidori glanced up. “'Twill not be your lordship rowing, I vow,” he murmured. He held up a gold watch the size of his palm to his ear, shook his head. He said something in French to the shopkeeper, who frowned and burst out in furious French.

“What says the man?” said Byron impatiently. “Claire! See if you can make out what his trouble is!”

Behind him, the shop door opened and an older, well dressed couple entered.

Claire, still clinging to Shelley, pouted a bit. “I do not know.”

Byron frowned. “Damn your impudence! You know my French is worse than my Italian.”

Polidori glanced over his shoulder. “That is very difficult to believe, my lord,” he said mockingly. “As your Italian is virtually non-existent. He demands forty guineas for the watch.”

Claire and Mary both gasped at this enormous sum. Shelley drifted over to the counter. “Forty guineas? My word! It must surely be the finest watch in Switzerland.”

“No doubt it calculates the date of Easter for the next hundred years,” Byron said dryly. “But in any case, it is above your touch, Polly.”

The young man looked away. Mary caught his look—cold, angry. Why must Byron constantly humiliate the boy by reminding him of his “inferior” station? “A doctor should have a good watch,” she said, not quite sure why she was defending this callow
young man. Obscurely, she felt a certain maternal instinct towards him. “Does he not regularly take your pulse, my lord? You would surely want him to use a watch suitable for the ‘station' of his patient?”

Shelley looked sharply at her, then smiled. Her dig at Byron's vanity amused him. “Assuredly,” he said. “Nothing less than a forty guinea watch for the personal physician of the famous Lord Byron.”

The older couple's heads swung round at the sound of his name. Mary felt that sinking feeling in her stomach she always got when public censure reared its head. Shelley, oblivious, drifted fingers along a counter filled with lockets, and Byron glared at Polidori. But Mary saw the woman turn to her companion and whisper. The man frowned at Byron.

Byron leaned on his cane. “Damn the both of you. Very well, Polidori, buy the cursed watch. If you wish to pass yourself off as a gentleman, good luck to you.”

Polidori set the watch carefully down. “I … I cannot afford it, my lord,” he said.

Mary winced. She knew the embarrassment of low funds; she and Shelley lived with it constantly. Shelley never seemed to care that they were at the parish door every quarter. “Perhaps my lord's consequence extends to a subsidy,” she said.

Claire tossed her curls. “Surely Godwinian principles apply here,” she said to Mary. “A doctor in need of a watch is surely a benefit to mankind. Give him the money, Byron.”

Polidori, momentarily nonplussed, looked from Shelley to Byron. He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out.

Byron thrust his hand into his pocket, looking harassed. “A watch does not make him a better doctor,” he declared.

“But it may make him a better friend,” Shelley said, amused.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw the older couple edging closer, curious to see the infamous English poet. Their eager curiosity, so easily dissolving into censure, irritated her. She stepped closer to Shelley to block their view of Byron.

“Friend? Polly?” Byron sounded genuinely surprised.

“No need to strain yourself,” Polidori said. His voice was high, strained. His fist opened and closed, opened and closed. “His lordship's good opinion can neither be bought nor sold.”

At this, Byron glared at his physician, then drew out his purse and tossed it on the counter contemptuously. “Buy the watch.”

“No—” Polidori said.

Shelley put a hand on Polidori's. “Allow his lordship to be useful,” he said. Ignoring Byron's black look, he went on. “Be generous. Let Byron contribute something truly good to the world. Even if it be only enough to make up the difference between your purse and the shopkeeper's price.”

The shopkeeper, who had been avidly glancing from face to face, apparently understood a sale was imminent. He took up the watch and a cloth, and began polishing it meticulously. He said something in French, and this time Claire tilted her head.

“He says he can let the watch go for thirty five guineas,” she said. “Perhaps I can get him to agree to half?”

Byron angrily picked up his purse and poured coins out onto the counter top. They bounced and rang, some of them falling to the floor. “Make you free of it, madame,” he said venomously. “And you, doctor. If you come back without the finest watch in Switzerland in your pocket, I shall hold myself insulted.” Thrusting the purse back into his waistcoat pocket, he turned and thrust past Shelley. The older couple scampered out of his way, scandalized to be so close to the English devil incarnate. Ignoring them, Byron banged out of the shop. Shelley shot Mary a mute look of appeal.

Mary gathered her skirts and ran out after Byron. The day had turned grey and cold, and the shouts of men and the cries of animals seemed louder. It was all so foreign, so strange. Disoriented, she almost lost sight of the blue coat, the head of chestnut curls.

“Byron!” she called. One or two heads turned at the name, but she pressed on. She caught up with Byron as he hobbled across a gutter between streets and crossed into a quieter lane. “Wait!”

Breathing hard, he stopped, leaning on his cane. When she came up, he looked away. Were those tears on his cheeks? “Leave
me alone, I pray you,” he said as she came to a stop beside him.

She put a hand on his arm; he tensed as if to throw it off, but let it remain. “Byron … B. Do not be angry, I pray. Shelley meant no harm to you, you know that. He is your friend.”

His shoulders hunched under the broadcloth; under her fingers his arm trembled. “He mocks me. Is that a friend?”

“Mock you? No. You have not sailed with him, dined with him, talked to him all these weeks, and not yet seen how he is with money? How we all are?”

“He is freer with my purse than my wife was!”

“He is as free with his own,” Mary said. “You know how he is. Have you not seen him give literally his last penny to a beggar on the street? Money is only a thing to him. It is not important.”

“Oh, aye, not important! Because he was born into it, raised with it, will inherit thousands of pounds! Those of us not so fortunate have something of a different attitude! Do you know what it is to be poor, and mocked?” Byron said in a low voice. He glanced up at her, his changeable, beautiful eyes dark with emotion. “Do you know how it is to be ‘Lord Byron', and unable to live up to it? To own the home of your dreams, and stable cows in it because you cannot repair the roof? Do you know what it is to have to sell the one place on Earth where you are happy? Because of money. Damned money!”

Mary thought of her feckless father, forever going over the bills, calmly writing letters to complete strangers asking, no demanding, money to pay his debts. “Yes,” she said. “I know what it is to be poor. And to be in debt. And for that very reason …” She turned to face him, forcing him to look at her. “For that very reason, my friend, I refuse to sacrifice friendship on its altar.”

His mouth trembled. Mary found herself wanting to put her arms around him, to comfort him as she would William. But here, in this very public place, she could not. “My friend,” she said. “Were he down to his last shirt, my Shelley would never ask you for money for himself. I have seen him ask a friend for money, only to turn around and give it away to a ragged urchin
in a gutter. He would give you his very heart. For him, money is only a means to an end. He has no … pride wrapped up in it.”

Byron was silent a moment. “Pride.” He sighed. “Yes, a besetting sin of the Byrons.” He bent his head, looking at his feet, his black boots polished to a high sheen by Fletcher. “Never quote me on that, my dear.” He looked up, and a tremulous smile played across that mobile mouth. “I will deny all. We are damned, we Byrons, by money. My father married for money twice, and killed himself when he ran out. My great-uncle spent every groat he could, for sheer spite because he was angry at his heir. They both died and left me nothing but debts and a name of infamy, so yes, pride is my inheritance. Pride and penury.”

Mary could think of nothing to say, so she patted his hand that gripped his cane. Lord Byron looked at her kindly. “I am going to the Hotel,” he said, giving her its direction. “Tell them to meet me there, and we will have a nuncheon. At my expense, of course,” he said, faintly mocking.

“Thank you,” she said. His mercurial temperament had swung through black anger to bitter humor again. She wondered how he could live so volatile a life. “We shall be there at one.”

Byron leaned over and kissed her cheek, surprising her. His lips were soft on her skin. He murmured. “Tell that bastard Polidori that, having acquired a new watch, he is not allowed to be late. And tell Percy Shelley he is the luckiest man alive.”

Before she could reply, he had swung around and stumped off across the lane, ignoring a carriage which was forced to pull up short. As the driver shouted at his indifferent back, Mary watched him go, and thought that possibly Lord Byron was the loneliest man on earth.

I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind?

—Frankenstein,
Volume III,
Chapter VIII

C
laire and Mary
were walking a little ahead of Shelley and Polidori, searching for a chandler's shop. “Must Polly follow us everywhere?” Claire complained. “We cannot have a moment to ourselves.”

Since this thought so perfectly mirrored her own opinion of her step-sister, Mary kept her remarks to herself. The sky was beginning to cloud over, and she worried that their trip back might be conducted in the midst of a storm. Yet Claire dawdled along the lanes, looking in all the shops. A music store caught her eye, and with a cry of delight she dashed inside. “Claire, no—” But it was useless. Shelley strolled in after her without a glance at Mary.

Polidori stopped beside her and offered her his arm. “Are you fatigued in this sun?” he asked.

Mary shook her head. “If I follow them into the shop, we will be there all day. If I stay here, Shelley will eventually come out looking for me, and Claire will inevitably follow.” Even she could hear the bitter note in her voice.

Polidori nodded towards a bench set under an overhanging sign. “We may at least take our ease, out of the traffic.” He led her to the bench and stood beside her as she sat gratefully on the hard bench. He seemed less stiff and formal than he had been that morning, apologizing. Mary felt herself unexpectedly at ease with him. She noted several approving female glances cast his way, and smiled at his utter obliviousness.

He took out his new watch and opened it, then glanced up at a clock on the church tower at the end of the street. “I declare, their clock is a minute slow,” he said.