Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives (23 page)

Laon and Cythna
tells the story of a brother and sister who rise up against the forces of oppression to lead a brief moment of revolutionary success. It draws on eighteenth-century narratives of secular and political progress, notably Volney’s
Ruins of Empire
, but its brilliance lies in the multiplicity of its engagements: in it Classical and Renaissance epic combine with French and English history and politics in poetry of extraordinary allusive depth. It is also an autobiographical poem in which Shelley addresses his indebtedness to Godwin and his relationship with Mary, who, in the Dedication, is celebrated for her idealised ancestry (‘They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth/ Of glorious parents’, ‘thou Child of love and light’) and for her friendship and wisdom. Recalling her declaration of love for him, he hymned the effect on him of her companionship:

No more alone through the world’s wilderness,

Although I trod the paths of high intent,

I journeyed now: no more companionless
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Laon and Cythna
is a celebration of the transformative power of companionship: just as Shelley in the dedication finds inspiration in the life he and Mary have built together (‘friends’ and ‘two gentle babes’ who ‘fill our home with smiles’ are the ‘parents’ of his poem), so do Laon and Cythna find an escape from tyranny in their love for each other. In his long Preface, which focused on the history of the French Revolution, Shelley was unambiguous about the sexual nature of the relationship between brother and sister:

In the personal conduct of my Hero and Heroine, there is one circumstance which was intended to startle the reader from the trance of ordinary life. It was my object to break through the crust of outworn opinions on which established institutions depend. I have appealed therefore to the most universal of all feelings, and have endeavoured to strengthen the moral sense, by forbidding it to waste its energies in seeking to avoid actions which are only crimes of convention. It is because there is so great a multitude of artificial vices, that there are so few real virtues. Those feelings alone which are benevolent or malevolent, are essentially good or bad. The circumstance of which I speak, was introduced, however, merely to accustom men to that charity and toleration which the exhibition of a practice widely differing from their own, has a tendency to promote.
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This passage had a note appended: ‘the sentiments connected with and characteristic of this circumstance, have no personal reference to the writer.’ Given the nature of Shelley’s household, with its motley collection of children, friends, wives, and sisters, this sop to social convention was highly necessary. And while there is no suggestion that his relationship with Claire was anything other than fraternal in the summer of 1817, it is certainly the case that he wrote his celebration of incest in a community which included both Claire and Bess, two sisters whose ambivalent position in their respective households was intellectually tantalising and sexually suggestive.  

The unconventional nature of the Albion House collective did not go unnoticed, and by mid-summer Shelley was viewed by his Marlow neighbours as thoroughly eccentric. Blankets and poor relief might be welcomed; the lessons he taught the village girl Polly Rose were more worrying. Horace Smith, who spent a few days at Albion House, remembered him hurling the full force of his reason at urchins throwing stones at a squirrel, until they ‘threw down their missiles and slunk away’. He also recalled how the Marlow woods excited Shelley to great heights of oratory: ‘becoming gradually excited as he gave way to his sentiments, his eyes kindled, he strode forwards more rapidly, swinging his arms to and fro, and spoke with a vehemence and a rapidity which rendered it difficult to collect his opinions on particular points.’
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Smith’s description is undoubtedly that of a man who might have scandalised the Marlow locals, but it is also a portrait of Shelley at his most alert to his surroundings and to the productive influence of his friends.

It is not quite clear at what point Horace Smith visited Marlow, but, for the peace of Albion House, one is inclined to hope that his arrival post-dated the Hunts’ departure in June. Horace Smith was a peaceable, generous man, but his patience was badly tried by Hunt that spring. In an attempt to alleviate Hunt’s permanent financial distress, Smith asked him to edit a manuscript he was preparing for publication.  Smith was eager to draw on Hunt’s experience and to present his work to a bookseller in as polished a form as possible, and he offered Hunt £100 for his services. Hunt took the manuscript and then promptly forgot about it. ‘I need not remind you how many enquiries I made’, Smith remonstrated: ‘how many assurances I got that it was in hand and nearly completed, – how many
months
elapsed, (great part of which you were in perfect leisure at Marlow), and finally with what trouble I extracted it from your hands after being told that it was, you believed, left behind, or in a Table Drawer, or in short you knew not where.’
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Smith wrote this in response to a request from Hunt, made at the end of 1817, for a loan of £200 and his frustration with his friend spilled into a letter which nevertheless remained measured and fair. ‘True friendship, you will perhaps again say, would overlook these offences; to which I reply that true friendship would not commit them. You have met more friends than any man I know or have even heard of, but you may depend on it Hunt that such a system of utter negligence will finally alienate them all.’

Smith was not the only one among Hunt’s friends to feel that his prolonged stay with Shelley was making him neglect his duties. By June, John Hunt too had tired of his brother’s prolonged absence, and he suspected that Shelley was a bad influence on his erratic sibling. He turned his attention to finding a house to which Leigh and Marianne could return and wrote with mounting irritation of the problems with
The
Examiner
, and the ‘continued depression’ of its sales. John Hunt’s prescription was clear. Leigh needed to return to London and resume his theatrical column (‘that would be two guineas a week saved at once’) and to cease writing inflammatory, Shelley-influenced columns about religion which alienated their readership.
³³
Hunt and Marianne returned to London, leaving Bess and the children in Marlow while they established themselves in new lodgings.

By the end of August the peace and productivity of the first part of the summer had given way to renewed anxiety about the future. In September Mary gave birth to a baby girl, named Clara to please Claire.  Despite this affectionate gesture, Clara’s birth disrupted a temporary period of calm in Mary and Claire’s relationship, as, each with a baby to care for, their visions of a happy future diverged sharply. Claire wanted little more than to stay with Alba, and was worried about the prospect of parting with her. It seemed inevitable that Alba would have to live with her father, and Claire’s uncertainty about Byron’s plans made her irritable and difficult to live with. Meanwhile, Mary’s mood appears to have dipped after she gave birth, and she became concerned about the need to secure her family against gossip and innuendo. More than ever, she wanted a home which was free of interloping sisters.

For this reason, Clara’s birth also complicated Mary’s relationship with Shelley. The tensions between them were exposed, appropriately enough, by descriptions of the children. Shelley told Byron that ‘Little Alba & William who are fast friends, & amuse themselves with talking a most unintelligible language together, are dreadfully puzzled by the stranger [Clara], whom they consider very stupid for not coming to play with them on the floor’,
³⁴
but Mary reported to Shelley (during one of his autumn absences in London) that William preferred his own sister to Alba. ‘He will not go near Alba and if she approaches him he utters a fretful cry until she is removed – but he kisses Clara – strokes her arms & feet and laughs to find them so soft and pretty.’
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Mary’s remarks might appear to be rather childishly territorial, but as the autumn progressed and she was left in a chilly house with only Claire for company (and Claire was ‘unhappy and consequently cross’)
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Alba came to represent much more than a focus for petty maternal jealousy. She became a symbol for all Mary’s worries about an existence in England which seemed uncertain and provisional.

By October, Albion House bore little resemblance to the happy, productive place it had been in the spring. Damp set in, covering the books in the library with mildew. The Hunts, who had settled into new lodgings in Paddington, arrived back in Marlow in September and stayed for a few days while Shelley was in London, but this time they made Mary cross by staying in bed late and then slipping off for walks by themselves, leaving her to make her first expeditions since Clara’s birth alone. Such a ‘contrary fit’ from the normally friendly Hunt suggests that both he and Marianne were finding their hostess rather difficult.
³⁷
Peacock was a further source of irritation, arriving every day ‘uninvited to drink his bottle’. Mary told Shelley that she did not see him, since ‘he morally disgusts me and Marianne says that he is very ill tempered’, and if, as this suggests, the Hunts were left to entertain Shelley’s friends while Mary hid upstairs, it is quite understandable that their visit lasted only a few days.
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Shelley spent September and October shuttling between London and Marlow.  He found a publisher for
Frankenstein
, Lackington and Co., a firm specialising in inexpensive novels, and he simultaneously oversaw the production of Mary’s proofs and made plans for the printing of
Laon and Cythna
with his publisher, Charles Ollier.  Like Mary he was concerned about Alba, and his concern was in no way lessened when a letter finally arrived from Byron, indicating that he would like his daughter to be brought to him at a convenient moment. Perhaps the child could be sent out under the care of a courier? Unlike Byron, both Shelley and Mary were alert to the difficulty of despatching a nine month old baby across Europe and to Claire’s likely reaction to the suggestion that Alba should travel to her father in the care of strangers.

It seemed as if the best way to get Alba to Italy would be for the Shelleys and Claire to take her to Byron themselves. With Alba settled with her father it might be possible to address the question of Claire’s future properly, and a journey to Italy would also provide a welcome escape from the dreariness of an English winter. Albion House could be given up, and Shelley felt his health would benefit from the Mediterranean climate. But throughout the autumn they vacillated between one plan and another. Byron’s request was ignored and Mary’s letters became petulant in their anxiety. ‘Alba’s departure ought certainly not to be delayed’, she told Shelley at the end of September. ‘You do not seem enough to feel the absolute necessity there is that she should join her father with every possible speed.’
³⁹

Mary sent many letters like this to Shelley during the autumn of 1817 and they make difficult reading for her admirers. She had much to say about the problem of Alba and Claire, but her letters were also full of domestic demands  – for flannel for baby Clara, and a sealskin fur hat for William in ‘a fashionable round shape
for a boy
. . . let it be rather too large than too small – but exactly the thing would be best.’ Later in the same letter she changed her mind: ‘perhaps you had better not get William’s hat as it may not fit him or please me.’
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She complained constantly about Claire, who was ‘forever wearying with her idle & childish complaints’.
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Such missives made Shelley uncommunicative, in part because of their tone and in part because he was much less interested than his wife in resolving the question of Claire’s long-term living arrangements.

Mary’s tone was attributable to several factors apart from her continued anxiety about Claire. She had only recently given birth, her house was becoming uninhabitable, and it was evident that another disruptive move would need to be arranged. Shelley’s health was suffering from the damp autumn and from the strain of finishing
Laon and Cythna
. In the years following her elopement in 1814 Mary was forced to grow up very quickly and now, aged just twenty, she stood on the brink of professional authorship, was the mistress of a large house and several servants, and had two small children in her care. But even at her most irritable, she held fast to a vision of a life in which she and Shelley could live with their children in uncomplicated peace. Every letter she wrote to Shelley during that difficult autumn contained expressions of love and news of the children. ‘Willy is just going to bed – When I ask him where you are he makes me a long speech that I do not understand’ – ‘Clara is well and gets very pretty. How happy I shall be when my own dear love comes again to kiss me and my babes’ –  ‘Clara already replies to her nurse’s caresses by smiles – and Willy kisses her with great tenderness.’
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But with Shelley away and Claire too absorbed in Alba and her own worries to pay much attention to the pressures on her stepsister, it was almost impossible for Mary to remain optimistic about the likelihood of an undisturbed future.